Soul Identity

by batchelder, dennis

  When they left the house, I turned to Val. “I need to get some clothes. How’s Hyderabadi weather in August?”

  “As hot as Maryland. It’s the monsoon season, so it’s almost as humid.”

  I nodded. “Khakis and polo shirts for me. I’ll go pack.” I went into my bedroom and threw together some clothes.

  Val came in and closed the door. “We’ve got twenty-six minutes. That’s enough time for a shower, right? It was a long night in the limo.”

  I smiled. “Can I join you?”

  “Are you quick enough not to slow me down?”

  “Watch me,” I said. I tore off my clothes and hurried into the bathroom.

  Val came in. “How about a spare toothbrush and razor?” She had left her clothes back on my bed and was now standing in front of me.

  “Wow.” I shook my head. “I have no idea what you just asked me.”

  “Bad boy.” She smiled. “Extra toothbrush and razor.”

  “Under the sink.”

  While she bent over to look, I brushed up against her. “Did you find them?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “You sure they’re down here?”

  “Nope.”

  She stood up. “So where are they?”

  I grinned. “Behind the mirror. But boy, I was wishing they were down there.”

  She smiled and gave me a lingering kiss which weakened my knees so much that I had to step back to keep from falling over.

  I pulled away and stared into her eyes. “There’s something about danger that really gets me going,” I said.

  “Me too,” she replied. “I like how naughty you are.” She grabbed my spare toothbrush and razor and hopped in the shower.

  I handed her the toothpaste and joined her. “Twenty-three minutes,” I said. “Let’s use the time wisely.”

  nineteen

  I pointed at the clock. “In a little over a minute, Bob’s going to create a diversion.”

  Out the back window I could see that my parents had lowered the boat into the water and maneuvered alongside the dock. They held the boat steady by grabbing the large cleats bolted through the dock.

  Rose and Marie peeked out the front windows. “Here comes a dark green limo. That must be Bob,” Rose said.

  “He’s getting out. I see six, no seven, people watching him,” Marie said.

  “Where’s the eighth guy?” I asked.

  “He was up the road, waiting in his car…Okay, he just came over. They’re all talking to Bob.”

  Bob walked up to Berry’s door and knocked.

  “Everybody to the boat,” I ordered. “Quickly!”

  Madame Flora stepped outside with the twins. The rest of us followed. Half way down the lawn, Madame Flora slipped and caught herself by grabbing onto Rose’s arm. “My ankle,” she gasped, hopping on one foot.

  I looked back. One of the guys in the gray suits was watching us. I smiled and waved.

  We almost reached the dock when the guy let out a shout and pointed at us.

  We had twenty yards to go. “Time to run,” I said.

  Dad gunned the boat’s engine. The gray guys ran toward us. It was going to be close.

  I tossed my bag and laptop to Val and scooped Madame Flora into my arms. I carried her to the boat and eased her onto the deck. Everybody else clambered aboard.

  They gray suited guys reached the far end of the dock. “Go!” I hollered, and Dad pushed off from the cleat and shifted in gear. The boat pulled away.

  The suits ran down to the end of the dock. Two of them reached under their jackets and pulled out handguns.

  “Get down!” I yelled, ducking under the gunwale.

  Bam!

  I looked up. Berry stood at the back of the boat, his shotgun pointed toward the dock.

  “Jeez, Berry, don’t kill them,” I said.

  “I aimed high,” he said. “I had to give them some discouragement.” He grinned. “See how they run?”

  We watched the gray suits scramble off the dock and run back up the lawn. I saw Bob’s limo pull away.

  “Let’s hope they don’t have a boat,” Val said.

  “Where are we headed, anyway?” Dad asked.

  I pointed north. “Past the bridge and up the Patapsco. We’re meeting Bob behind the National Aquarium.”

  He nodded. “You all might as well get comfortable. It’ll take us over an hour to get there.”

  Madame Flora and Berry sat on the stern bench. The twins went below to explore. Val and I hung our feet off the sides at the bow.

  Val leaned her head against my shoulder. “I could get used to doing this every day,” she said.

  “Minus the shooting part.” I rubbed her back.

  “I thought for sure they’d catch us.” She shivered. “Especially after Madame Flora slipped.”

  We watched the waves sparkle in the morning sun. Then I thought that we should call Archie. I got up. “I’m calling Sterling—I’ll use Dad’s phone.”

  Archie seemed happy I called. I told him about the gray suited people snooping around, and how they had chased us to the boat.

  “Who do you think they are?” I asked.

  “Did you get any license plates?”

  And I call myself a security guy. “No, dammit, I guess I’m still not thinking straight after last night’s bombing.” I described Bob’s diversion to him. “We’re rendezvousing in an hour. Where should Bob deliver Berry, Madame Flora, and the twins?”

  “Take them to Ann Blake’s house,” he said. “I will make arrangements by the time they arrive this afternoon.”

  “Cool. Now what about Venice? Are George and Sue still going?”

  Archie chuckled. “They are already on the plane.”

  “They had their passports?”

  “George had them in his pocket.”

  I thought about my parents. Their car was left in front of my house. I didn’t want the gray suits tracking them down. “Archie, I am afraid I’ve dragged my parents into danger,” I said. “They can’t return to my place, nor can they go home.”

  “Would they be willing to take a vacation for a week?” he asked. “My treat.”

  “I’ll talk to them about it.” I hung up and sat back down with Val. “My parents need to disappear for a week. And we need to get to India. Do you know anybody in Baltimore who could help us with the tickets? I don’t want to use our credit cards.”

  She frowned. “There’s a large Russian community in Baltimore. Can I use the phone?”

  I handed her Dad’s cell. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and got up to talk to my parents.

  “So who’s this Val?” Mom asked when I reached the cockpit.

  “Soul Identity’s lead programmer,” I said.

  “Am I supposed to like her?”

  I grinned. “That’s entirely up to you, Mom. I know I do.”

  “We can tell,” Dad said.

  Mom frowned. “Isn’t she a Soul Identity wacko?”

  “She is. But they’re not so wacko to me anymore. They seem to help.”

  “As long as they don’t help get us killed,” Dad said. “How are we supposed to get the boat back to your place? Or pick up our car?”

  “That’s why I came over. Archie is willing to send you guys on a week’s vacation. Anywhere you’d like to go. But you have to leave today.”

  “Why would he do that?” Mom asked.

  “To protect us, dear.” Dad looked at me. “Your mother and I were thinking about going back and seeing more of Iceland.”

  “We were?” Mom asked.

  “Of course we were,” he said. “Remember?”

  “If you say so,” she said. “I did like it there. All the geysers and hot springs and mountains. Maybe we’ll be able to take a horseback ride this time.”

  I smiled. “I expected more of a struggle.”

  “We’re not stupid, son,” Dad said. “Those guys were shooting real bullets.” He shook his head. “Get your mess cleaned up quickly. We want to be safe just as m
uch as the next person.”

  I nodded. “We should have it figured out by next Friday.”

  “A week in Iceland—at least the weather will be cool,” Mom said.

  “How do we get the tickets?” Dad asked.

  “Val’s calling the Russian community for help.”

  Mom shook her head. “Weren’t the Russians our enemies?”

  “The wall came down twenty years ago,” Dad said. “Get with the program.”

  Apparently Mom wasn’t ready yet. “I remember doing air raid drills in school,” she said. “We wore dog tags so our bodies could be identified. We closed the blinds and crouched under our desks and waited for Armageddon. Now I may get a Russian daughter-in-law?”

  “Slow down,” I said. “I’m not that lucky yet.”

  “Who’s lucky?” Val asked, entering the cockpit.

  “Tell you later,” I said. “Hey, I remember seeing reports that you Russians waited in line all day long just to buy toilet paper. Is that true?”

  “Nobody ever bought toilet paper where I lived,” she said. “Even now my parents have a box of newspaper strips in the bathroom.” She pointed at me. “Our Soviet television showed Americans carrying guns and shooting at each other. Did that really happen?”

  “Today it did,” Dad said.

  “But not every day,” Mom said. “We’re good people.”

  Val smiled. “I know. I’ve been living here for eleven years, and I’ve found that we Russians and Americans have an awful lot in common.”

  “Like what?” Dad asked.

  “We both get teary-eyed when we see our flag and hear our national anthem,” she said. “We both believe in hard work and innovative thinking, and we both come from socially conservative societies.” She smiled at them. “Russian and American people get along better than almost any other two cultures. We won’t have any problems.”

  Val had cast a spell over my parents. They both wore huge smiles.

  “Scott, she’s a keeper,” Dad said.

  “Keeper?” Val asked me.

  “It’s a fishing thing. We keep only the big ones,” I said.

  She smiled. “Don’t throw me back.”

  Val and I went to the stern. Madame Flora had nodded off in her seat, and Berry looked back toward Kent Island’s shores. We sat down next to him.

  Berry turned to me. “You said that overseers are powerful.”

  I nodded.

  “How powerful?” he asked.

  “They run Soul Identity,” Val said. “Like bishops, only you have to be born into an overseer soul line.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Usually we have eight or nine,” she said. “But now there are only two.”

  “And I’m one of the two?”

  “It looks like it,” I said. “But there’s a fake one standing in your place—Andre Feret.”

  He nodded. “Are the gray suits working for this Feret?”

  I shrugged. “Either for him or for one of Soul Identity’s competitors—we don’t know yet.”

  He turned back to us, a fierce look on his face. “They probably are the ones who poked my eye out.” He tightened his hands on the stock of the shotgun.

  “Easy, Berry,” I said. “Careful where you’re pointing that.”

  Berry looked down and grimaced. “This has been the second time this week I wanted to kill somebody. Something about Soul Identity really stokes my fire.”

  “Give me the gun, then, before you burn out of control,” I said.

  He handed it to me, and I put it in a closet below decks.

  We sailed up the Patapsco and into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The National Aquarium was on the right and Dad angled us toward some tie-ups.

  I pointed. “I can see Bob over there.”

  He nodded. We docked next to the green limo. Val and I jumped off, tied up, and helped everybody climb on shore.

  Bob got out of the limo and walked over to Berry. “Mr. Berringer,” he said, “I want to tell you how sorry I am about not getting your reading done properly. I should have thought about asking for a photograph of your eyes.”

  “No harm done, son,” Berry said. “I’m sorry for chasing you off with my shotgun. I hear you’re going to be driving us north.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bob turned to me. “I got away before the gray cars could follow me.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Did you speak with Archie?”

  He nodded. “We’ll be heading straight to Ms. Blake’s house.”

  “Did you happen to get any of their license plates?” I asked.

  “Of course, Mr. Scott.” Bob smiled. “I’ve already passed them on to Mr. Morgan.”

  Then Bob handed me two large envelopes. “Mr. Morgan had me stop at the Baltimore depositary. This envelope contains cash for you and Val, and this other one is for your parents.”

  I took the envelopes. “Thanks. Drive safe, okay?”

  The five of them got into the limo and drove away.

  Dad turned to me. “We passed a few marinas around Fell’s Point. We can dock at one of them.”

  “Good idea.” I opened his envelope and thumbed through the hundred dollar bills. “Here’s your present from Soul Identity. There’s at least twenty grand here—don’t use your credit cards.”

  Dad took the envelope. “Thanks.”

  I looked around. “Where did Val go?” I asked.

  Mom pointed. Val stood at a pay phone a hundred yards away.

  “She must be calling the Russians,” I said.

  Val waved her arms and called me over. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “We have taxis coming, and they’ll bring the tickets. Where should they pick us up?”

  I pointed downstream. “At the first marina by Fell’s Point.”

  Val said something into the phone, listened, and then hung up. “Thirty minutes,” she said.

  “Good, let’s stash the boat.”

  The marina was happy to rent us a slip for a cash advance of twice the going rates. I turned to my parents. “Get in and get out of your house right away, okay? It won’t be long before those gray suited guys track you down.”

  Mom nudged Dad. “What are we bringing to Iceland, anyway?”

  “Passports, warm clothes, boots. We can rent fishing rods.”

  “The taxis are here,” said Val. She waved, and they pulled up.

  Two men got out of the taxis. “Zdrastvuite,” Val said to the closer man. “Valya.”

  “Ochen priyatno. Boris.” He nodded at the other driver. “Yuri.”

  “This is Boris and Yuri, and they’re happy to meet us,” Val said.

  Boris pulled two packets out of his pockets. “Your tickets.”

  I held out my hand, but he kept the packets out of my reach. “Four first class tickets,” he said. “Thirty-nine grand.”

  I opened my envelope from Archie and pulled out eight packets of bills. “Here’s forty. Is the extra grand enough to keep the cabs all day?”

  “Da.” Boris stuffed the money in his pocket. “Where you want to go?”

  I reviewed our plans. Yuri would drive my parents home. They would pick up their clothes and passports, find someplace safe to hang out, and then take the eight p.m. flight from BWI to Iceland.

  Meanwhile, Boris would drive Val and me to Val’s apartment, then on to the Indian embassy. If all went well, we’d fly out of Dulles by six.

  “Horosho,” Yuri said.

  I said goodbye to my parents and we headed our separate ways.

  twenty

  A flight attendant announced we’d be landing in Hyderabad in thirty minutes.

  Val’s blindfold had risen up off her eyes and sat on her forehead. Her orange earplugs balanced provocatively on her chest and rose and fell with each breath. Her blanket bunched around her waist and exposed her first class airline pajamas.

  I reached out and ran my fingers through her hair. She woke up and smiled at me.

  “Nice earplugs,” I said. “Even nicer loca
tion.”

  She looked down and smiled. “How’d they end up there?” She put the plugs and the blindfold on the armrest. “How long did I sleep?”

  “Another hour this time. But no more dozing, we’re landing soon.”

  “I’ll get dressed.” She retrieved her bag from the console next to her and headed to the lavatory.

  The eighteen hours of flying time had left me restless. I couldn’t wait to plant my feet on the ground.

  Val and I had figured out what we’d do in India. Sunday was time zone adjustment day. Monday we’d work at Hans Schmidt’s office and see if we could figure out who sabotaged the match code. Based on what we learned, we’d figure out how to use our time until we left for the airport late Wednesday night.

  Val came back to the seat and put her bag away. “Did your parents make it to Iceland?” she asked.

  “They did. Mom sent an email twenty minutes ago from their hotel room.” I turned my laptop toward her. “Take a look at her geyser and waterfall pictures.”

  She clicked through them. “I can see why they wanted to go back,” she said. She read what Mom had written, and then she smiled and passed the computer back to me.

  Mom had told me to say hi to Val, and then she said that I had better grab her, as she thought my luck wasn’t going to get any better.

  She gave me a quick kiss. “Good advice,” she said.

  The flight attendant came by and made me stow my laptop.

  “Are you excited?” Val asked me.

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “Have you worked with Indians before?”

  “It’s the computer field, right? We’re loaded with Indians, Chinese, and Eastern Europeans.” I stretched my legs out and flexed my toes. “I can’t wait until we can walk again.”

  “Me too,” she said. “But we won’t be walking much. I emailed Hans Schmidt, and he’s sending a driver to pick us up and bring us to the hotel.”

  “Can’t we just rent a car?” I asked.

  “You can’t drive here.”

  “I can drive anywhere.”

  She shook her head. “The rhythms are all wrong for us Westerners. You’ll see.”