Talion Justice

by Rick Bosworth

  Five minutes later, Nicole walked out of the heavy metal back door. It slammed closed behind her as she released it. She took one final draw of her cigarette and stubbed it against the side of the building. She blew the plume of smoke down at her feet, then looked up. I flashed the Ford’s lights and got her attention. She looked at me, squinted, then dropped her head and headed my way.

  Nicole grabbed the door handle once, then twice, then bent down to the side window and gave me a look. I had forgotten to unlock the car door. I slapped at my door’s side panel until I realized this rental did not have automatic doors or windows. Sighing, I reached over to open her door, only to be jerked back violently by my seat belt. This snapped me back into reality. I unbuckled myself and opened her door, cursing myself under my breath.

  Nicole got in and locked her door. She gave the parking lot a quick scan, then turned to face me.

  “Nice work, Romeo,” she said with a tight smile that did not reach her dark hazel eyes.

  “It’s a rental,” I said sheepishly. “I haven’t driven much lately.”

  We looked each other over in the half-light. She still looked the same. Beautiful, but not as bright and shiny as before. Her long blonde hair was pulled back, with wisps escaping to frame a face now fuller and sallow. She took me in. Her face showed shock, then disappointment. To her credit, she kept these thoughts to herself.

  Her silence hurt more than words. It hung in the air. My mind raced.

  “You smoke now,” I blurted out without thinking.

  “Yes, Frank,” Nicole deadpanned. “I do. I smoke now.” She turned away and stared out the windshield towards the dumpster.

  “I… I didn’t mean… I mean…”

  “Look, Frank,” she said as she spun to face me again. “I can’t stay long. My son’s upstairs being watched by my neighbor. I’m only here because Sarah asked me to. She’s helped keep a roof over Teddy’s head since you left. Without her help we’d be—homeless.”

  Nicole bit off that last word. It hit its intended target. I dropped my eyes.

  “Where the hell have you been, Frank?”

  I tried to respond, but the words didn’t come. Her eyes were afire now.

  “Just fucking disappeared? No nothing for five years? Not knowing if you were alive or dead?”

  Her eyes widened before she stuck me with a balled-up fist. I think she was aiming for my head, but I leaned away from her and the blow landed on my shoulder. She yelled and slapped at me some more. I took it as my due. After a while, she stopped, breathing heavily. I gave her time. She gathered herself, then tucked strands of tousled hair behind her ears.

  “This is my life, Frank!” Nicole said as she waved her hand across the windshield at the parking lot. “This is what it looks like.”

  I said I was sorry. And meant it. We sat in silence, both looking straight ahead.

  “Sarah said you had something important to tell me?” she said after a time.

  No other way than to just come out with it. So I told her. Told her about my hospital visit. How the doctors had found my leukemia. She was stunned, and we stumbled through all the questions one asks when you share this kind of news. She asked what type of leukemia it was, how I might have gotten it, what the symptoms were. All the while grappling with the news itself. I had the big C. Then came the serious talk.

  “How… serious is this?” Nicole asked, tentative with her words now. “I mean… how much time?”

  “They said it’s an acute cancer. The survival rate’s about twenty-five percent.”

  “So, how long?”

  “About five years.”

  Nicole’s eyes narrowed; her forehead wrinkled. “You’re gonna die, Frank?” Her voice broke. “You’re gonna die,” she repeated, this time a statement whispered to herself.

  She looked down, shook her head and began sobbing. It grew louder, and her whole body began to shake. I was surprised by this outpouring of emotion. Tragic news, sure, but I thought Nicole had already buried me and our marriage. I was touched, but unsure how to respond. I placed my hand on her leg and gently patted it a few times.

  “It’s okay, Nicole,” I offered. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  This seemed to make it worse. Nicole wept openly. This lasted three minutes by the dashboard clock. It felt much longer to me. She gathered herself, then wiped at her face with both hands. I remembered I had some fast food napkins in the glove box and reached across her to retrieve them. I offered her several. She took them with a flash of a smile, wiped her eyes and nose, pushed her hair back. I held my hand out, and she gave me the soggy brown napkins. I threw them back in the glove box and clicked it closed.

  “What happened to us, Frank? Our lives? What a fucking mess.” She began to sob once again.

  “It’s okay, Nicole. It’s—”

  “No, it’s not okay, Frank,” she said flatly. “You don’t understand. It’s not okay.”

  “What’s not—”

  “It’s been really hard,” she continued. “Getting good shifts at the bar. Finding a good man who’s willing to commit to raising another man’s child. Especially one like Teddy.”

  “What’s wrong with Teddy?” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth.

  Nicole’s eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing wrong with Teddy. He’s a beautiful boy. Very smart. But he’s a sensitive kid. Has a hard time making friends. His therapist says he has trust issues.” Nicole snorted. “Can’t say I blame him.”

  I asked her where the boy’s father was, meaning Dave, the guy with whom Nicole had had a six-month affair. The affair that was the final straw that pushed me out of our marriage and onto the streets.

  “He took off when he found out I was pregnant.”

  “Bastard,” I said.

  Nicole’s eyes welled up with tears. One, then another leaked from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She let them go. I watched them fall from her chin onto her blue cotton blouse. Her face contorted into an anguished mask. She raised her hand to her mouth and caught her breath.

  “Dave had a vasectomy. He knew Teddy was not his son.”

  I was about to ask who the father was when it hit me. Hit me so hard I gasped. My mouth dropped open.

  “You were the only other man I was having sex with, Frank,” she said softly. “I knew Teddy was yours. And when he was born, I was sure. He moves like you. And his laugh…” Nicole placed her hand on my shoulder. “He’s your son, Frank.”

  My field of vision narrowed. The world inside that car went into slow motion. The only thing I could compare it to was combat, when your eyes and ears send messages that your brain can’t reconcile.

  “No,” I said, leaning away from her. “No, this can’t be.”

  “You’re Teddy’s father, Frank.”

  I studied her face and realized it was true.

  All the air rushed out of me. My emotions hit me like a rolling tide. I began to tremble. I sat mute for a long time.

  “Does he know?” I finally whispered.

  “No,” Nicole said. “No one does. When I knew you weren’t coming back, I changed my name back to Phillips. That’s his legal name: Theodore Robert Phillips. There is no father listed on his birth certificate. I made it clear I wouldn’t discuss the topic of Teddy’s father. People suspected, I’m sure, but for Teddy’s sake we all agreed to move on. Teddy thinks his father is dead.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Nicole?” I said, my voice cracking. “I would’ve never left.”

  “You were already gone. You were the one who left, Frank. Remember?”

  “You could’ve somehow got word to me through Sarah.”

  “Yeah. Nice of you to stay in touch with my sister and not your wife, Frank,” she said with a snarl.

  I looked at my lap for a moment, and then back up at her. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I had no intention to,” Nicole said. “But with your… cancer, I think you have the right to know.” Nicole began to gather herself. She sa
t up in her seat, flipped down the passenger-side visor to check her face in the mirror.

  “Can I see him?”

  Nicole sighed, and her eyes softened. “Better if you don’t.”

  I dropped my chin to my chest. I just wanted to disappear.

  Nicole scrounged in her bag, pulled out her smart phone and tapped at the screen. She found what she was looking for and handed the phone to me.

  On the screen was a photo of a little boy who looked to be about five years old. His head was cocked to one side, his arms tucked against his side, feet together. The boy wore a melancholy expression. He had my green eyes and flat nose bridge. Nicole gave me a minute, then gently wrestled the phone from my hand.

  I turned to her, struggling against a tide of emotion. “Can I come up and see him?”

  “Better if you don’t,” she repeated.

  I looked away, out the front windshield. My eyes stopped on the dumpster.

  “I gotta go, Frank,” Nicole said. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I wished I had shaved off my bushy beard. “Take care.”

  She opened the door and stepped out; the little car shook as she closed the door after her. I shifted in my seat, my head bobbling on my neck. All my muscles had gone slack. I watched Nicole walk slowly back across the parking lot and out of my life. Her turn this time.

  I sat there for hours, staring at the dumpster, as day turned into night.

  Chapter Eleven

  August 28, 2016

  Prisha’s Townhouse

  Georgetown, WDC

  Meera Naqui Baari was not happy.

  She wore the perpetual scowl she did every time she visited her daughter Prisha in the Western world. Prisha imagined the scowl appeared as soon her mother hit U.S. airspace on her fourteen-hour direct flight from Riyadh. It certainly was firmly in place when Prisha picked her up at Dulles in her shiny Lexus. Driving an automobile was one of the many things Prisha would not be doing if she were still in the Kingdom and not among the infidels.

  Prisha sat across from her mother at her cafe table in her Georgetown townhouse. The old woman had aged hard. Her coarse, wiry hair was almost fully gray. She wore it long and pulled back into a braid that ran down the length of her back. Dark moles formed a constellation on her face. Meera’s body was short and thick, the opposite of her daughter’s. She wore her standard abaya, a long black cloak that covered all but her hands and face. She smelled of ammonia and cumin.

  Prisha tugged at the hijab she wore for her mother’s benefit. She never wore it otherwise, and only indoors on these visits. She wore it loosely, such that her ears and raven hair were visible. This was the only sartorial concession Prisha made for these maternal visits. A cashmere sweater and designer jeans and heels completed her look. Business on top, party on the bottom.

  Meera sipped her black tea, her eyes scanning her surroundings. High-end stainless appliance suite in the custom kitchen, digital music streaming through smart stereo speakers, a sixty-inch LCD television monitor mounted over the mantel of a gas fireplace. Meera flared her nostrils and curled her lip at these sights and sounds and smells of moral decay. She was a strict Wahhabi, and this was not her cup of tea. Not by a long shot.

  Prisha had always bucked Wahhabism, the ultraconservative Islamic fundamentalist movement that emphasizes the importance of avoiding non-Islamic cultural practices and non-Muslim friendships. Prisha hated it for its prohibition of many social practices widely enjoyed by the rest of the developed world. Saudi Arabia, her birthplace, had a long history of exporting Wahhabism, which in turn has been blamed for fueling extremism around the world. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers were Saudi citizens—a fact Meera Baari celebrated.

  In addition to being her mother, Meera was also the broker between Prisha and her benefactors back in Saudi, the group of rich and powerful men who funded and supported her ODYSSEUS ambitions. At least Prisha thought of these men as her benefactors; Meera called them her patrons. The United States government labeled them designated terrorists.

  As a broker, Meera visited her daughter three or four times a year for their information exchange. Meera passed instructions from the benefactors to Prisha, and Prisha provided her mother with ODYSSEUS updates and related intel for delivery back to the group. Prisha tolerated these meetings, but dreaded their arrival as one would a yeast infection, or perhaps food poisoning.

  “Turn this music off, Prisha,” Meera said.

  Prisha did as she was told and bid adieu to Norah Jones. She snickered at the thought of giving her mother a little hit of Beyoncé or Adele, but did not want the poor woman to go into cardiac arrest.

  “I worry, daughter,” Meera said. “Worry you have been poisoned here in the West. How much longer must you be here?”

  “As long as it takes to complete our mission, Mother.”

  “The patrons demand a time. When will your project be ready?”

  Prisha calculated her response. She had tasked Ahmad to have ODYSSEUS operational in six months. She had just struck a deal with President Udell for eighteen months. She split the difference.

  “Tell the benefactors ODYSSEUS will be ready in one year.”

  “Alhamdulillah,” Meera responded. Praise be to God.

  Prisha nodded and hid her smile behind her coffee cup.

  “You will return to the Kingdom in a year, then?”

  “Inshallah,” Prisha responded, knowing full well that Allah had no such plans for her.

  “It is well. I have arranged a good match for you. He is a good Muslim from a prominent family.”

  Prisha knew where this conversation was headed and steered her mother back to business. Her mother asked her ODYSSEUS questions, Prisha provided answers. Answers with just enough truth to placate her benefactors, and to obfuscate her true plan for ODYSSEUS. A plan that only Ahmad and Henrik Karlsson knew.

  Prisha had a little surprise in store for the benefactors as well. She would do her own bidding, not theirs. Until then she would enjoy the dance. The manipulation. The power. The danger. In the end, she knew her deceit would be a death sentence for her mother, even if she forsook Prisha as her father had done. No matter. In the afterlife, Allah would judge her mother pure. Prisha had no such concerns for herself. All she had to do was to continue to juggle her boss, POTUS, and her Saudi benefactors, and push Ahmad and her secret team to completion as planned. Once she had ODYSSEUS in her hands, it would be too late for anyone to stop her.

  Meera closed her small notebook, laid her pencil down next to it. “The patrons will be pleased, Prisha. I will tell them of your successes upon my return.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  Prisha looked into the eyes of this woman and felt… nothing. She wondered if she herself would have been any different, if she had had the same upbringing as her mother: raised in British East Punjab, a mere seven-year-old girl at the Great Indian Partition of 1947, when East Punjab turned Hindu and Sikh overnight and over half a million Muslims were murdered trying to flee to West Punjab, the new Muslim enclave now known as Pakistan.

  Prisha’s father’s family had also fled East Punjab during the partition, and the two had met in their early twenties in Pakistan. Her father’s business interests had taken them to Saudi Arabia, where he had been active in the formation of OPEC and the nationalization of its oil reserves. Her mother had gone into academia and taught history at university, where she had become the faculty leader of various Muslim Student Associations.

  Prisha, their only child, had been born in Saudi Arabia in 1975. She would never know when her parents had hatched their plot for her, but she chose to believe it wasn’t until 1990 when American boots hit the ground in Saudi Arabia for Desert Storm. Or maybe it hadn’t been her parents’ idea at all. Maybe they had been approached by the shadowy men who she came to call her benefactors. It hardly mattered now. What did matter was that at the age of fifteen, Prisha had been selected to be a deep-cover sleeper agent in the United States. That her fath
er had pimped out to an American GI to get her green card, and that her mother had been complicit in all of it.

  Prisha regarded her mother across the table as she droned on about infidels and apostates. Prisha luxuriated in the exquisite irony of the moment, then excused herself to pour another cup of coffee. She strolled into her gleaming kitchen, running a finger along the obsidian granite countertops. Prisha poured herself another cup, and with her back shielding her mother, threw in a healthy shot of Irish whiskey.

  What her mother did not know would not hurt her.

  Chapter Twelve

  August 28, 2016

  Frank’s Apartment

  Fort Totten, Upper NE WDC

  I now lived under an overpass in Upper NE DC. I’d done this before; four months in Albuquerque, I believe it was. But this was different. I had a roof over my head now, courtesy of Sarah’s rainy-day money. She’d wanted to put me up in Dupont Circle and take me on a shopping spree—the full makeover. But I’d refused her kindness and insisted on my spartan lifestyle. I still had a hard time with charity, and after five years of homelessness, anything nicer than this would have given me vertigo.

  The apartment building was six stories high and sat at the end of a stubby dead-end road. My one bedroom on the fifth floor faced the six-lane interstate that hovered over the building to the northwest. The steady flow of traffic hummed past my window, like bees at the hive—all except for the big trucks that rattled the windowpanes. My building was an unpainted wood structure that had faded to a dull gray patina. The antique wrought iron fire escapes that climbed up the side of the building hinted at its age. The architecture and ornate trim, albeit neglected, suggested this building, like the neighborhood, had mattered once. Not anymore, it didn’t. I wondered if any of the former residents had voiced their outrage as the city built an overpass that cast them in permanent shadow. If so, their voices had obviously gone unheard.