Sara lifts her hand to feel the pages tucked safely into the front of her shirt, and feels her heart pumping beneath them, racing with each excited breath. She reaches for the folding camp shovel on the floorboard and when she exits the truck she closes the door carefully so it makes only a faint click. There is not a single person near enough to hear but an interloper’s guilt has settled around her like a shroud, with it a demand for silence.
She starts toward the perimeter of the Marine base which is guarded by a barbed wire fence. She carries nothing to light her way. In this flat terrain even the tiny glow of a flashlight can be seen from miles away, so ambient moonlight must suffice. She can’t clearly make out the details of the ground at her feet so she moves in a shuffle. When she does see a patch of ground clear of obstacles, she strides forward.
The hum of a mosquito invades her ear, loud as a violin’s cry, then a sting on her cheek. She doesn’t bother to squash the thing. Mosquitos don’t usually favor her tough skin or her blood. Here in the desert there are worse predators to fear or kill.
She reaches the wire fence. Inspecting it as best she can, she decides there is no hope of going over it. It is six feet high and at the top there are five extra rows of barbed wire leaning outward. Aided by dim lights spilling from the base itself, she searches the fence for what she fears – a fine wire running along it to electrify it or some object that could be a motion detector or a camera. Her search reveals none.
She checks right and left for the guards who patrol the perimeter in their low-profile Hum-Vees. None in sight. The only movements that catch her eyes are those of a few figures far away inside the base near the buildings.
Pausing for a few seconds, she tells herself that a person who won’t risk her life for a cause she believes in doesn’t belong on God’s good earth. Then she unfolds her compact camp shovel and begins to dig. The soil is hard, dry, and rocky. It takes a long time to dig a furrow long and deep enough to belly-crawl through. When the digging is done she reminds herself to be thankful she is short and slender. She kneels and for a split second she feels the sanctifying significance of her position.
Then she sprawls down full length. The soil still retains the heat of the desert sun. It is hot against her bare arms and legs. She ducks under the lowest wire of the fence and squirms forward, ignoring the scraping of rocks against her knees and the bruising hardness against the heels of her hands and her fingers. Almost through, she feels a tug on the back of her shirt. Caught! No, just one of the wickedly sharp barbs catching at her. She wiggles back an inch, tugs down the tail of her shirt and manages to free herself without ripping the cloth. Another few seconds of determined crawling and she’s through.
She stands quickly and brushes the dirt from the front of her black cotton t-shirt and black shorts. She feels blood trickling down to her wrist. It is a puncture wound on her inner forearm. From a barbed wire spike, she thinks. She wipes it with her palm then swipes her palm against her shorts.
She looks around to orient herself, and decides the heart of the base is straight ahead and the main gate far to her left. In any case, she can’t remain here in the shadows. She must move into the lighted areas to locate her targets. She squares her shoulders and hopes she appears confident and normal as she begins to strides forward. Soon her foot strikes a large rock and she stumbles, catching herself before she falls. Then a tree root trips her and she goes down on her hands and knees. There are many such unseen obstacles in the un-landscaped verge. She thinks, This ground was designed to trip me up, but I won’t let it.
She is relieved when her foot makes contact with asphalt – a road. Sure-footed now, she walks briskly toward the heart of the base, passing buildings where uniformed men and women and some in civilian clothes enter and exit, going about their private business.
There is scant traffic on the road, and little noise. Sounds of an occasional shouted greeting from people entering or leaving a building and muffled words of a friendly argument rise and fade in the distance. The quiet and order is not what she expected. Shouldn’t there be marching, or people with big guns over their shoulders?
Never mind, she says to herself, I have a purpose here. They think they’re fighters, like superman, ‘for truth, justice and the American way.’ But they’re only pawns destined for destruction. She turns left onto another street she believes will take her to the fighter jet at the main gate of the base.
As she walks, strangely, her thoughts turn to Ruth, memories of Ruth as a baby, then vivid mental pictures of her daughter as a plump toddler with a cap of unruly red curls, a rowdy middle-school child with freckles, a spirited teenager, then grown-up too soon. The baritone voice of her companion cuts through the images.
“She’s gone.”
Michael! She looks around quickly, searching for him but he’s nowhere in sight. A chill erupts from the base of her spine and rushes upward, prickling her scalp. Why can’t I see him? Where is he? What is happening here?
Less confident, she continues to walk and then she is in a neighborhood of modest, ranch-style homes with children’s Big Wheels and tricycles parked on parched lawns, and garbage cans on curbs waiting for pick up. Why…what is this place? Families here? Could my Ruth could have been here? She could have married the one who stole her away. She could have had children by now…my grandchildren. The thought is deeply disorienting. The voice comes again. “You know she’s gone.” This time, the voice is different. It makes her want to drop to her knees and pray to it, although it’s meaning is clear. Ruth is gone. It’s as if she never existed. Ruth does not exist.
Tears roll down her cheeks, unchecked. Her mind begins to race, but she tells herself she is in control of it, repeats the word control…I control it, gonna roll with it, get that jet, you bet… And then she realizes she is walking away from main gate, and she turns around and walks back toward it.
The lighting along the road is stronger here. She starts to pass a woman coming from the opposite direction, a woman who might be her Ruth. She looks into the face, but the not-Ruth looks back at her with a strangeness on her not-Ruth face.
Now there are more people passing her, looking into her face…why are they doing that? Who do they think I am? I am, wham, bam, wham, I am, I am, I can, I can. She asks herself, what am I doing here? What is this place? No answer comes, but the chanting in her head won’t stop, not tell, very well, hell, hell, smell hell. She turns to her companion, who should be here but he’s not here. Where, not there? She is alone, alone, deserted, bereft. She doesn’t know she is sobbing.
People are all around her now. Do they expect her to help them, to save them? Do they know why she is here? A young woman in a loose cotton dress and flip-flop sandals touches her arm. “Can I help you?” she asks, in a strange voice that doesn’t sound like a human voice should. Fear stabs her. The hand is hot, like some wild creature’s paw. Sara shakes loose and runs.
Out of breath and more confused, she can bear it no longer. She stops and holds out her arms, palms upward in a plea for understanding. Her body is shaking. She screams, “Are you blind? Are you deaf? The smell. Don’t you smell it? It’s the stink of corruption. Lies, lies, everyone dies!”
Then two men, then three of them, talking to her but she doesn’t understand what they are saying because they are not real. They are the Ken-dolls. They pretend to talk but out of their mouths comes the roaring of lions and the growls of tigers. Then she realizes. They are gathering to destroy her! She runs.
A man grabs her arm. “Listen to me!” she screams. She reaches into her shirt to pull out her plea for peace. “Read this, read this, then you’ll understand!” Before she can finish pulling out her poem, a hand grabs her wrist, forcing it open. The pages are flung to the ground. She reaches to retrieve them, and sees a booted foot step on one.
She strikes out, kicking and punching. She hears nothing but the distant sound of incoherent screams and muffled grunts when blows land on flesh. Her glasses get knocked from her face, fall
to the sidewalk. A booted foot crunches them. Now everything she sees is as blurry as the thoughts in her mind. Then she sees the guns, guns on the bodies around her, more kill-weapons, earth’s destruction. She reaches to grab one and throw it away, and then she isn’t there anymore, anywhere anymore at all.
• • •
Chapter Twenty
Sara wakes because her bladder is pressing for relief. She is lying on her back. She hates lying on her back; she never lies on her back. No spread-eagle, crucify me, have your way with me position – in bed or out! She begins to rise but something jerks at her arms and legs, pulls her back down.
Her vision is blurry; she is not wearing her glasses but she can see her wrists and feet are strapped with leather restraints attached to a metal bar. She moves her arms and legs and feels the inside of the leather cuffs chafe her ankles and wrists. She’s lying on a bed with white sheets. Soft, white cotton clothes her body. A hotel? She turns to see metal bars run the length of both sides of the bed. Not a hotel. A hospital.
A distant memory of another time and place of innocent white fabric and wicked leather restraints threatens her. It came soon after her Ruth ran away, a time of fear and anger, bewilderment, voices, devils screaming their accusations and hatred at her, threatening her. She doesn’t remember how she got to that hospital, but she remembers the injections and the endless talks with people who told her to trust them because they knew what was real and she didn’t.
Panic rises from her gut trying to constrict her throat but she disciplines her mind and defeats it. She focuses on her body, assessing her condition. She feels the sting and throb of scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs but mostly her body is telling her she needs the bathroom and she knows that is real.
“Hey,” she says in a normal voice, hoping her companion is nearby. No answer. “Hey,” she yells. “What happened? Let me up.” No answer. Louder, she says, “I have to use the bathroom,” and jerks her arms and legs against the restraints to punctuate her demand.
Two people enter the room. Only then does she crane her neck to look around and inspect her surroundings more closely. The room has only one door and beside it a large window. She can see nothing at all through the window. The walls are painted a pale, sickly green. The room contains nothing else but her and her bed, and now these two people she has never seen before, a woman wearing green nurses’ scrubs and a man in uniform. The uniform. A Marine! Now she remembers. The base. She stares at the gun on his hip.
“Are you going to shoot me because I need to pee?”
The woman in scrubs answers. “Of course not. I’ll bring a pan.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t need a pan. I need to pee.”
“We can’t get you up yet.”
“Unstrap me from this bed and I’ll get myself up. And bring me my glasses. I need them.”
“We can’t do that.” She and the man stand just looking at Sara. She sees their eyes, too curious and too knowing. She thinks, It’s as if their eyes are trying to drain my soul when it’s my bladder needs to be drained.
Her head falls back against the pillow again. She looks away and tests the integrity of the straps in earnest, using all the strength in her wiry arms and legs. It hurts, chaffs the skin of her wrists and ankles but accomplishes nothing else. She inspects the restraints more closely to see if she might be able to slip out of the loops and when she is sure she is too firmly bound, she screams for her companion, “Michael! Michael!” He always comes when I need him. “Michael! Where are you? Michael!”
A man wearing a white cotton medic’s coat comes through the door. The other two stand back. The man in white grabs her arm and jabs her with a needle. Nothing.
• • •
She is not sure when it happens, but someone is unstrapping both her wrists and ankles and helping her get out of the bed, into a bathroom with a white toilet, so clean and cold but nice to sit on both for elimination and to let her head stop spinning. Later, a woman in scrubs brings food. She is fearful of poison but one bite reveals a flavor she can’t resist. Her right wrist is unstrapped and she is given a tray with the food and a plastic fork they take back the second she is through.
People come and go, but Michael, her companion, doesn’t come. Her mind feels strange. Her thoughts won’t come, or they come slowly, with effort, as if she has to pry each one from her brain, where they are stuck, clogged with fear. What am I doing here? Why are they taking care of me if they’re going to kill me?
A man comes, another uniformed man, to ask her questions. Then another day and another man who wears a business suit, an older man with deep-set eyes and a gentle manner. What does he want? It seems all he wants is to listen to her. She talks about herself and about her poems, about her mission to save them all from destruction. But the other person she talks about, Ruth, doesn’t seem very real any more. Ruth is gone.
Now she isn’t sure whether this is a hospital or a jail. The woman she saw earlier – a day ago, two or three days ago? The one in nurses’ scrubs is gone. Now a very big man with dark skin, also in scrubs, comes to unstrap her arms so she can eat and takes her to the bathroom, standing with his back to her while she uses the toilet or while she showers. There is no mirror in the bathroom, and no cabinet or towel rack and towels. The man hands her a towel and when she’s finished he takes it and leaves with it.
After these rituals have been performed in virtual silence many times she asks him, “What’s your name?”
“Bruce.”
“Why are you pretending to be a nurse?”
“I am a nurse.”
“But I’m not sick.”
“Would you like something to read? I can bring you something.”
“No!” When he leaves, she mutters, “Not without my glasses, you dope!” She begins to talk to Michael again, this time in a whisper because when she yells, they come in and strap her down again or give her a shot. “Michael! We have work to do, and we can’t do it in here. These are the ones! These are the ones we have to stop.”
Just then the man who questioned her before, the one in a business suit, opens the door to come in. As before, he is carrying a plain wooden chair to sit on while he talks to her, and then he will take it with him when he leaves. She remembers, This is the nice one, the one who listens to me. He’s not one of them.
The man is short and solidly built, with grey hair and deep-set brown eyes with lower lids that sag a bit. They ask and ask but tell nothing. She can’t understand what lies behind them. Then she decides, That’s okay because there’s nothing at all that’s evil behind them.
“Who were you talking to just now, Sara?”
“No one.”
“His name is Michael.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Suddenly she has the strangest feeling of unreality. They think I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. People used to say I was crazy, but that was years ago, and I’m fine. I only want to help people. Don’t they know that? They took my poems. If they read them they’ll know.
The man is looking at her closely. “Sara, my name is Doctor David Sirota.”
“I told the other man I’m not sick so I don’t need a doctor. And don’t try to give me a shot. I don’t need anyone trying to control me or my thoughts.”
“I’m going to ask you again, as I’m sure the officer did – are you any relation to a woman named Cynthia Cameron?”
The name brings no memories, no hint of recognition. “No, and why are you asking me? Cameron is a very common name. How do you know my name, anyway?”
“The MPs found a car registration in your vehicle – a very old car registration from Oklahoma with that name on it. Are you Sara Cameron?”
“Of course I am. Who else would I be?”
He hesitates. “Would you like to get out of here?” he asks.
“Out of where? Where am I? You tell me – and why I’m here in the first place.”
“You’ve been here three . . . three a
nd a half days. This is the Marine Corps Air Station sick bay. We have to go to a meeting now, then we’ll decide,” he says, but he doesn’t move. Bruce comes in and he is carrying her clothes. They are folded in a bundle and wrapped in clear plastic but she recognizes them immediately. A pair of glasses tops the package. She starts to grab for them, but remembers her manners and holds out her hands. He gives them to her without comment. They aren’t her old glasses, but when she puts them on she can see smaller objects clearly again. “Thank you.”
He nods and hands her the package of clothing.
She hurries to the bathroom to change. Minutes later with her clothes on again she feels better, calmer, as if these familiar garments hold a protective power. There, my own clothes, mine, myself. She says her name out loud, “Sara” and feels as if a friend has just greeted her.
Doctor Sirota and Bruce are waiting for her. The doctor takes her elbow gently and escorts her out the door with Bruce close behind. Sara turns quickly to take in her surroundings but sees only the corridor and at its end part of a room and one chair. Before she can assimilate other details of her surroundings they enter a much bigger room. It contains little except a large oblong table with many chairs and a flag standing in the corner. The room is carpeted in a dark blue, flat-pile carpet like the ones in public places, the kind of carpet that wears well. The seats of the office chairs are the same color. There are pictures of men in uniform on the walls. She instantly recognizes one – President Eisenhower.
Doctor Sirota pulls out a chair for her, and then sits next to her. Bruce stands on her other side. Three men are already seated around the table, one of them leaning into the back of his office chair that gives enough for a shallow recline.
Fatal Refuge: a Mystery/Thriller (The Arizona Thriller Trilogy Book 2) Page 11
