On Hurricane Island

by Ellen Meeropol

  She can’t stand this anymore. Over and over the same questions. The aching cold. She feels the sobs building in her belly, her empty, shriveled belly. She will not give in to it; she refuses to cry. She doesn’t want to die here, in this awful room. If only she had opened her heart more to Jess, if only she had agreed to marriage, maybe she would not now feel so profoundly alone. She stares at Ferret and uncrosses her arms, leaving her chest exposed. It is possible he has a heart, or a conscience, despite evidence so far to the contrary. It is possible she can access something human in the man; that is what Jess would advise.

  “Please,” she says. “I have told you everything I know. Or do not know, to be more accurate. How else can I help you?”

  “Good. I’m glad you asked that. Finally, a little cooperation.” He smiles and Gandalf flinches. His smile might not be a good thing.

  But it is. He waves his hand in Austin’s direction. “Give her the blanket and tea.” Austin removes the waist restraint, and Gandalf leans forward, ripping the skin of her buttocks from its metal bond, so that Austin can wrap the blanket around her. Sitting on the scratchy wool is heavenly. She holds the warm mug in both hands, close to her chest.

  Ferret opens the briefcase at his feet and pulls out a laptop computer. Her laptop.

  “There’s still time for you to help us. If we know what the terrorists are planning, we can stop them, even at the last moment.”

  The lukewarm liquid caresses her mouth, her tongue. She swishes it against the inside of her cheeks, then swallows and lets it slide into her throat, down her esophagus, into her stomach. Oh, warm, and sweet. Sugar. She could weep for the sugar. Caffeine and sugar will jump-start her brain. She will be able to think more clearly, figure out what to do. She takes a second gulp before looking at Ferret.

  “What would I have to do?”

  “Just email Ahmed Makhdoom.”

  “But what do I say?”

  “The truth. That you’re being interrogated by the U.S. government. That you’re in grave danger because of your friendship with him. That if he doesn’t help us identify and stop the attack planned on your country, you will be held responsible. Bad things will happen to you, and to Sandra too. Beg him. Say, ‘Please, Ahmed. Help me.’”

  This doesn’t make sense. Even if Ahmed were a terrorist, which she doesn’t believe for an instant, pleas from an academic colleague certainly would not deter his plans. And why do they need her for this plan, when they have her computer?

  “I don’t understand. Why don’t you just send the email?”

  Ferret’s mouth tightens. “We may not be fancy professors, but we’re not stupid. Ahmed will suspect we have taken your computer. He won’t trust the message unless it contains some secret fact, a nugget of past history that only you and he could know. To prove that it’s you. Like a place you once ate raw oysters when you were in grad school. The nickname you gave some dumb shit who flunked out of your grad school class.”

  “I despise raw oysters,” Gandalf says half under her breath. Ferret has been watching too many Cold War spy movies. She drains the cup of tea and rolls the slightly warm mug against her neck. It is humiliating to be so tempted by his words. She wishes Norah were here to help her figure this out, to identify the flaw in his plan, to argue with whatever twisted logic she is missing.

  But perhaps she is approaching this all wrong. She is a scientist, trained to keep an open mind and investigate all possibilities. Maybe she should try to see things from the government’s point of view, because Ferret seems to believe Ahmed is a plausible suspect. How well does she really know Ahmed; he could be a terrorist. Ferret’s people must have some credible evidence against him, to go to these lengths to contact the guy.

  “And if I do this, if I email Ahmed?”

  “Then you can go home to Jess.” He pulls her phone from his pocket and holds it up. “I’ll even let you call her after you send the email. But you must do it now.”

  Jess! She touches the wizard charm against her chest. Why not? What harm can a begging email from an old friend do? All right, briefly more than a friend but that is buried in history and totally irrelevant to Ferret’s questions. Ahmed probably will be suspicious and ignore such a message, like those Nigerian prince scams with their bank accounts. He certainly won’t do something drastic just because a colleague, an old friend, asks him to save her. Would he? How can she balance that slim possibility against her need to talk to Jess, to hear her voice and tell her she is okay?

  “Did you hear me? This must happen right now.”

  “I don’t know,” Gandalf says. “I am considering it.”

  Something makes her look at Austin. A small noise, perhaps just an intake of breath. Austin is backed up against the wall, her expression surprised, shocked even. As if she is appalled that Gandalf would think about cooperating. Ferret follows her glance.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ferret jabs his finger at the girl. “You got a problem? Your job is to watch and learn something. I’m the only one in this place who can teach you interrogation skills. Don’t bother waiting for Henry because I told you about him. He’s finished here. Kaput. I’m the boss now, in charge of the whole operation. Things are going to be done right in the future, the very near future. If you know what’s good for you, sweetheart, you’ll stick with me.”

  Gandalf trembles. There is something ugly, something rancid, in the way he looks at Austin. Gandalf wants to put her own miserable body between the two of them, to protect the girl. How weird is that? Austin is a guard, not a friend. The girl has made that perfectly clear.

  Ferret turns back to Gandalf. “Am I making you nervous? Perhaps you feel maternal towards this young woman. Maybe she’s the daughter you never had? Never could have, really, because you’re a lezzie.”

  Gandalf looks away. The guy is revolting but he is good at his job, the way he rummages around her brain and ferrets out secrets that only she and Jess know. Those have been their fiercest quarrels, really the only angry fights they ever have. Gandalf wants a daughter, and she wants to name her Penelope. She and Jess have discussed the various options for years: adopting, foreign kids, fostering. “We’re too old,” Jess says. “We are not,” Gandalf insists. “You just don’t care as much as me, because you have David, you’ve had a child.” Then Jess: “That’s how I know we’re too old.”

  Gandalf glances at Austin. She and Jess would never let their daughter take a job like this, no matter how much she needed the money. She blinks back tears, because if they had a daughter, this situation would be that much worse.

  Ferret intertwines his fingers behind his neck, leans way back in his chair, and looks back and forth from Gandalf to Austin. His smirk grows into a wide grin.

  “Now I get it. So that’s how it is. Come here,” he orders Austin.

  Austin doesn’t move.

  “I said, come here.” He unclasps his hands and points to the ground at his feet.

  Gandalf tries to catch Austin’s eyes, but the young woman will not look at her. Instead, Austin pushes away from the wall and walks slowly to Ferret’s side. Seated, his eyes are at the level of Austin’s chest; he stares at the buttons on her uniform shirt, at her nametag pinned slightly crooked over her left breast pocket.

  Without warning, he grabs both of Austin’s wrists. With one hand he pins them behind her back. With his other hand he begins unbuttoning her uniform shirt. Slowly, one button and then another, down the row.

  He looks at Gandalf. “Guess you don’t like it when I touch your new girlfriend, do you?”

  He has Austin’s shirt totally unbuttoned now. He unhooks the front closure of her bra and cups her right breast in his hand. Gandalf bites her lip. The man is unhinged and this is her fault; he must still be reeling from the fright of her own lopsided bosom. He buries his face between Austin’s breasts, then takes her left nipple in his teeth, all the while smiling at Gandalf. Then he stands up, reaches for Austin’s belt and unbuckles it.

  Austin thrashes,
whipping her shoulders back and forth to free her hands. She lifts her knee towards his groin, but he blocks the move and swings the back of his hand across her mouth. Austin gasps and stops struggling. Ferret grins, then slowly unzips her trousers.

  Gandalf is responsible for this and cannot allow it to go any further.

  “Stop,” she says. “I’ll do it.”

  32. AUSTIN, 9:49 A.M.

  “I’ll do it,” Gandalf says. “I’ll send the email.”

  Austin’s tongue explores the gash inside her lip and recoils from the metal taste of blood. She isn’t sure if she’s relieved or disappointed at Gandalf’s surrender. Mostly she’s still scared and still furious, because even when Gandalf caves in, agrees to his demands, Tobias doesn’t let go of her wrists.

  She ignores the throbbing of her mouth and stares at the brass doorknob. It’s important to have a small thing to concentrate on, especially operating on almost no sleep. Her friend who got pregnant in high school swears she got through thirty-six hours of labor by focusing on a photograph of two pears and a pineapple on the hospital wall. It’s the mental discipline that does it, that makes you feel strong in a situation where you have no power. The night her college boyfriend came to her dorm room stinking of beer and itching to fight, she stared at the framed garden print hung over her desk. Stared until she felt the warm Italian sun on her arms and smelled the lilac bloom. Until he smashed her face.

  Finally, Tobias lets go and pushes her away. Heart pounding, she faces the wall to button her uniform shirt and tuck it in, and fasten her trousers. When she resumes her position leaning against the wall, she watches Gandalf’s face and the back of Tobias’s head. He points at something on the laptop, then gives it back to Gandalf and begins dictating the wording of the email message.

  Gandalf glances up, and meets her gaze. How can the woman justify contacting her old friend? Doesn’t she get it that she might be putting him in danger, whether or not he has any ties to terrorists? Suddenly Austin understands why Gandalf agreed to contact Ahmed—she’s doing it to make Tobias stop assaulting her. To protect her. How astounding that the professor would do that, for a stranger, for a prison guard she hardly knows.

  Her anger smolders, then flares. It changes directions and turns towards Tobias. Austin feels herself moving, being pushed—no, pushing herself—over a line, a chasm really, a deep dividing place in her life. Because she doesn’t believe any more that doing the job is important, not if it feels this wrong. She doesn’t want to be on Tobias’s side any longer.

  She stares at the back of Tobias’s head where a cowlick forms a spiraling bulls-eye. She wishes she had her gun, but it’s only issued to her for certain assignments. Besides, who’s she fooling? She could never shoot someone, not even Tobias. Before the training for this job, she never even held a gun. Pops wouldn’t have one in the house, not after ’Nam. Nettie argued with him, said her brothers all hunted, and nothing bad ever happened, but Pops was adamant.

  The room is quiet as Gandalf types, but outside the storm sounds brutal. The thunder is so frequent it blends into an endless explosion of sound. Austin imagines the accompanying lightning. Maybe it will hit them, and end this mess.

  “Done,” Gandalf says. She hands Tobias the computer.

  Tobias reads the screen. “Who’s Cassidy?”

  “His cat,” Gandalf says. “In graduate school, Ahmed and I adopted kittens from the same litter. We named them Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. Ahmed loved that film. He spent the two months before graduation researching international pet travel restrictions and quarantine policies in Pakistan so that he could bring Cassidy home with him.” She paused. “I do not think many people know about Cassidy.”

  Tobias nods. “Perfect.” He pushes Send, watches the screen, and then looks up. “On its way.”

  What will he do to them now? Austin must act, and soon. In spite of exhaustion, in spite of not knowing exactly what to do, in spite of all the reasons to do nothing, she must stop this man. Now. She looks around for something to hit him with, but the room is bare of potential weapons.

  Except for Tobias’s holstered handgun. He isn’t expecting any reaction from her, any fighting, but he’ll be charged up and quick to respond. First, she has to get his gun. There’s only one way she can think of to distract him, and that might not even work. But she bets Tobias thinks so highly of himself that it wouldn’t occur to him to question a woman’s motives, not when she’s coming on to him. Like her jerk of an ex-boyfriend, Tobias probably thinks a smack is foreplay.

  The thought of touching him makes her gag. I’m crossing the line, she thinks. Once I break these rules, I can never go back.

  She looks again at Gandalf, shivering and blue-lipped despite the blanket. She thinks of Margaret, breaking the rules about who to love and then leaving her family, her daughter. She thinks about the packet of letters in her trouser pocket. Letters she can’t wait to finish reading.

  She steps forward and puts her arms around Tobias.

  “You did it,” she whispers. “That was so cool.”

  She nibbles his neck. Licks his ear. She reaches for his pistol, and her hand freezes. She can’t do it! There’s no way she can shoot him, but maybe the butt of the gun will do the job. How much force does it take to knock out a man?

  He turns to find her mouth and kisses her hard. She wants to bite off his tongue, but instead forces herself to move one hand to his waist, slide it under his belt and his shirt. Her other hand touches the pistol and slips it from the holster. For a split-second, she is undone by the bumps on the grip—so much like the rough bumps on the chunk of granite in her pocket—and a blast of doubt makes her hesitate. This is something she can never undo. Then Tobias grabs her breast and squeezes, hard.

  Austin grabs onto the barrel end of the pistol and pulls away from his embrace. She brings her arm back and swings with all her strength, aiming for the cowlick.

  33. HENRY, 12:10 P.M.

  Returning from checking the generator, about which he knows next to nothing, Henry feels lucky to make it back to his office. He can’t remember ever feeling this dismal. Between the malevolent power of the storm, the disgust on Cat’s face last night when she pushed him away, and the withering dismissal in Tobias’s voice when he made that comment about joining the 21st century, he can’t imagine a good outcome to any of this. So his unlocked office door is puzzling, but it hardly registers on the wretchedness scale as he towels off his wet face and hair.

  The urgent alert light is still winking on his computer and now there are two red priority messages from the Regional Chief. The first is just what he expected: JR demands results. Henry sends off a quick reply that interrogation is progressing but significant yield is unlikely. He doesn’t bother adding his opinion that the Cohen woman almost certainly knows nothing about terrorism.

  The Chief’s second message was sent just a few minutes ago. Henry has to read the first paragraph twice. We have been concerned about your leadership for some time. We now have a major crisis under your command. You are relieved of your duties. Do not leave the facility.

  Crisis? What crisis is that? Does the Bureau have him under surveillance? And not leave the facility: does that mean he’s under arrest? Calm down, he tells himself. It isn’t as if he can go anywhere right now. He rubs his sternum and returns to the message.

  Until further notification, Tobias Sampson is in charge of the facility.

  Ah. So that’s it. Tobias. He must have contacted the Regional Chief. Henry glances down at his bottom desk drawer. It gapes open. He doesn’t have to look to know the black slip will be missing. And he did remember to lock his office door, but Tobias has been here.

  It isn’t ordinary defiance then. And after everything Henry has done for the man’s career, even signing off on those nut-case classes Tobias keeps taking, courses titled Advanced Surveillance Systems and The Psychology of Counter-Terrorism. But really, deep down Tobias isn’t an evil person. In their early years together at the
Bangor field office, they both wanted to protect citizens from the bad guys, and neither one of them believed that the ends justified the means.

  Where is Tobias, anyway? That’s another thing to worry about. Or maybe not: You are relieved of your duties. That means it isn’t his problem anymore.

  The ache in his chest deepens. It spreads outward from his breastbone, creeps along his ribs and around to meet at his spine, squeezing and gnawing, somehow rumbling in tune with the constant thunder shaking the building. Henry rummages in the top desk drawer for the antacid bottle. He tosses six tablets into his mouth and chews. Returning the bottle to the drawer, he notices his gun box and holster. He hates the thing and rarely wears it, but these events might demand a drastic response. He fumbles putting on the shoulder holster, zips his sweatshirt over the bulge.

  It might not officially be his problem now, but he still feels responsible. He needs to find out what’s going on with Dr. Cohen, and he doesn’t have the stomach to check it out in person. He scoots his desk chair to the metal cupboard next to the window. The view is totally obscured by wind-driven rain. It probably isn’t so smart to be standing next to the window with trees crashing down outside, or even using electricity for that matter.

  Just for a minute.

  He spins the dial to unlock the heavy-duty padlock on the cabinet and turns on the closed-circuit surveillance of the interrogation rooms he had installed four months earlier, because who knows, given the way the cowboys in Washington are acting, he might need to defend himself at the Hague some day. This old-fashioned, off-the-grid system is definitely a Luddite solution, but it’s the only way he could think of to circumvent Tobias’s retinal scan scrutiny. He rewinds, then presses Play.

  The interrogation room image is distorted by static and the sound even more so. Interference from the storm, or maybe Tobias has installed some kind of jamming software. Dr. Cohen is strapped into the metal chair, with a line across her face that looks like blood. The woman’s left breast is missing. Damn. Tobias can’t have—no, that’s a healed surgical scar. That must be what Austin meant on the boat, about the woman’s operation. Even Tobias wouldn’t use sexual humiliation techniques with a woman who had a mastectomy. Would he?