by A D Seeley
He could have hit Tracker back, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned his face back to the kid and said, “Stop acting like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum.”
This time, when Tracker swung at him, he was ready to grab the kid’s fist in mid-air. Once he had it, he twisted it so that it was toward Tracker’s back. He then, ever so gently, began to apply pressure as Tracker called out in agony. Inac could easily break his arm, but he didn’t want the kid to win any pity points with Hara.
“Are you going to stop acting like a child so we can have an adult conversation?” Inac asked as he put a touch more pressure to Tracker’s arm.
“Yes!” Tracker squealed.
Inac let go. Tracker then turned around to face him, such hate emanating from his eyes as he rubbed his arm.
“Okay,” Inac said. “So why are you acting like such a baby? I know you’re in love with her, but take it like a man.”
“You broke our deal,” Tracker accused.
“No I didn’t. Our deal is completely intact.”
“So you’re gonna take me on your honeymoon?”
“I don’t plan on even making it to the wedding.”
Tracker looked surprised, but that also seemed to calm him down. “Then why propose?”
“If she feels like this is going somewhere, then maybe she’ll let me go somewhere she’s afraid to go.”
“She won’t ever have sex with you. She’s a nice girl; very old-fashioned.”
Inac felt like angering Tracker all over again so he said, “We’ll see. She’s already let me feel her up…and while you were only a few feet away too.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said through his teeth.
Inac shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”
That’s when Tracker finally broke down and started crying. “Why? Why is she so willingly giving herself to you?”
“Because I actually know how to play this game. I’ve lived long enough to know how to play dirty while sticking to the rules. I know exactly what to do and say to manipulate Hara into feeling exactly what I want her to feel. You hear of Casanova? He’s way below my skill level. Plus, it’s never hurt me any to look the way that I do.”
“But looks aren’t everything. And soon she’ll figure out how fake you are.”
Inac shrugged. “By that time, she’ll be dead.”
“Not if you stick to the deal. Remember? If she stays good, then you leave her alone.”
“Aye. But we never defined ‘good,’ now did we?”
Tracker spluttered, obviously at a loss for words.
Smiling as he turned back toward where they had entered the forest, Inac said, “Now come on. Let’s get back to Hara so that you can congratulate her on our engagement.”
“You won’t win,” Tracker’s voice said quietly from behind. “Hara’s too good.”
All Inac said as he began walking was, “We’ll see.”
***
Hara paced around the campsite. Her tears had dried up, but she was still worried about Tracker. What on Earth was wrong with him? Why was he so upset? She looked toward Crystal and Ji sitting on a log by the fire, wishing that one of them would have the answers. But they were both silently watching the dancing flames that Ji had tried so hard to make; they’d given up trying to console her.
Just when she was beginning to get herself worked up all over again from her thoughts, she heard a crunch in the distance. Her tears freezing, she turned and stared at the road, hoping that it was her two men returning to camp—she’d been jumping at every sound, but so far it had only been crickets and other campers, and not her men. Soon, a tall figure with broad shoulders and a self-assured gait was outlined followed by another, much shorter and less sure one. Inac was back, and he’d found Tracker. She rushed up to her old friend, giving Inac a grateful smile as she passed him.
“Track! I was worried. Are you okay?” she asked as she took him into her arms, which wasn’t difficult since he was an inch shy of six feet, just like her. “What’s wrong? Why’d you run away?”
She was a bawling mess, but that didn’t matter. Tracker was okay. He hadn’t been eaten by a bear.
Tracker didn’t embrace her back. Instead, he shook her off like a duck did to water and stalked past her, saying, “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She stood there, too shocked to cry from the knife she felt in her heart. Luckily, Inac walked over and pulled her into his arms.
“Oh, Hara…don’t cry.” He sounded solemn and a bit guilty, as though he was blaming himself for her tears.
“Why? What did I do to make him hate me?” she blubbered into Inac’s chest. Now that he was holding her, all the tears she had left spilled.
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s just upset.”
She pulled back to look him in the eye, sniffling the snot back into her nose so she wouldn’t disgust him. They weren’t married yet so he could easily call off the wedding when he saw what a blubbering mess she really was. “Why?”
“He didn’t say, but…I think he feels like he’s losing his best friend. The more serious we become, the more he feels like he’s losing you.”
“But that’s ridiculous. He won’t ever lose me. He’s too important to me.”
“Maybe I should give you some space so you can spend more time with him. That way, he won’t feel like he’s being tossed aside,” he said, his eyes full of concern.
“But I don’t want space, Inac.”
“And I don’t want to give it to you. But I also don’t want you to lose a friendship that’s so important to you.”
“Screw him. If he’s going to be a baby, then let him.”
“Hara, I know you’re upset right now, but you don’t really mean that.”
“Yes I do.” Though she already felt guilty for even saying such a thing. That was the first curse word she had ever said. She’d thought them before—especially the S-L-U-T word lately—but she’d never said one out loud.
“No, you don’t. Look, give him his space tonight, and maybe even tomorrow. But once we get home, the two of you are going to make plans for some one-on-one time. Okay?”
She sighed, resting her cheek back on his chest. He was just so good to her. He always knew what was best for her. No wonder she fell so hard so fast….
“Okay. Thanks,” she said into his shirt, letting his musk calm her.
“For what?”
“For being so wonderful.”
“I just want you happy. It’s completely selfish.”
She giggled, looking up at him. “How could that be selfish?”
“Because I like it when you’re happy. You have a beautiful smile,” he said, lightly chucking her under her chin.
She gave him her biggest one before they sat down near the fire—which Inac fixed until it was huge and toasty, cutting the chill from the night air. They ended up visiting with Crystal and Ji until she fell asleep in Inac’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-Three
***
The drive home was uneventful; mostly because Tracker wouldn’t speak to any of them. Hara wanted to work things out, but she didn’t understand his attitude in the first place. She contemplated it the whole ride home until she fell asleep. When she woke up in her own bed the next morning with a single scarlet rose on her nightstand—one that suspiciously looked just like the ones on the landlord’s prized rose bushes—she knew that Inac had put her there.
Inac…her fiancé. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was. It wasn’t until she read the note accompanying the rose that her heart sank.
Hara, it said. I’m sorry, but I got called away for business. I shouldn’t be more than a week or so. I’ll call you the first chance I get. Use this time to make up with Tracker. Also, in case I’m not back in time, good luck with school. I love you. Inac
She walked out to the kitchen to put the rose in water. Surprisingly enough, she found Crystal in there.
“You’re u
p early,” she said to her roommate, who was not only awake, but dressed in jeans and a sexy tank top. Strange. She was never up before noon.
“Yeah. I have to go try to change one of my classes before school starts next week.”
Hara nodded as she located a small vase from the cheapo, dark particle board cupboards.
“That from Inac?” Crystal asked, gesturing at the rose as she shoveled cereal into her mouth.
“Yeah,” she pouted. “He left it with a note saying that he was sorry but he had to go out of town.”
“I know. He got the call as we were pulling off the freeway. He was really mad. It was kind of scary, actually.”
Hara felt her eyes widen in surprise. “What did he say?”
“Well…at first he was just like, ‘You can’t be serious!’ Then he said something in another language…it sounded like he was cussing or something.”
“And then what?”
“He asked who else knew.”
“Who else knew what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever the other person was telling him, I guess,” she said as she poured more cereal into her bowl, her dark hair falling into her eyes. “But Tracker was listening pretty intently and Inac kept glancing at you like he didn’t want you to hear what he was saying.”
“Did he say anything else?” What was Inac hiding?
“Just to ready the team so they could do what they should’ve done the last time. Then he yelled at whoever he was talking to for not knowing about ‘It before it got this far.’ It sounded like a threat.”
None of this made any sense. Inac threatening somebody? He was too gentle to hurt a soul. Sure, she’d seen glimmers of something frightening barely suppressed in him, but whatever it was always disappeared before she could figure it out. And that had always been when talking about his past. Now that she knew he’d been a soldier, it made sense….
“He must’ve meant that he was firing the guy,” she explained, though she didn’t believe her own words.
“Yeah…I don’t know. Like I said, he was scary. Besides, we know he’s killed before.”
“As a soldier! It wasn’t murder!”
A lightbulb went off in Crystal’s eyes as she peered out from under her bangs. “Oh my gosh!” she cried, not taking the Lord’s name in vain because Hara hated that most of all the cusswords. “I figured it out!”
“What?”
“He’s like CIA or something. That’s gotta be it! You saw how good at all that ‘survival in the wilderness’ crap he was, and you told me that he flew the helicopter.”
Hara thought about it. She was probably partly right. The way he talked about the Mokolios sounded like they owned governments. In that case, Crystal couldn’t be far off.
“You know, I think you’re right,” she said as she pulled a bowl out to pour some of the cinnamon and sugar cereal for herself.
“It would explain all his secrets.”
“Yeah…it would. Look, don’t tell anybody. Okay?”
“You have my word.” After a moment, Crystal yelled, “I can’t believe you’re engaged to a secret agent! That is so cool!”
“Yeah, it is….”
Hara waited all that day for him to call. And then the next and the next. She started worrying when it had been almost a week. A week where Tracker and Inac had both fallen off the face of the planet. Where were they?
***
“I’ll ask you again, Aviv,” Inac said in perfect Hebrew. People who believed it to be the divine language would be proud at Cain muttering it. Really, the language of God was dead to man. At least to every man but him. Parts of it had found its way into every other language, but Sumerian and Sanskrit were the closest to it of all; their most ancient forms held roots of the Divine Tongue. “Who is this reporter you’ve been talking to? Who else knows my real name?”
Aviv laughed, spitting blood out with each trill. He was surprisingly tough for a politician. Most were shallow enough to spill everything with just the threat of marring their looks, whether or not they were good-looking in the first place.
“I won’t tell you,” he spat as blood dripped into his beard, giving it more of a red tint than it had had before. The blood dropped to the cement floor of the slaughter house, mingling with the ancient blood of animals—Inac wasn’t about to ruin the floor in one of his beautiful homes. And he wasn’t about to do the clichéd thing Americans watched mobsters do in movies by putting their victims over a plastic sheet. That was just so tacky.
Inac nodded at Santoni, telling him with it to bring in a member of the prime minister’s family. He hated that they were forced to do this, but Aviv had told somebody everything. How he had even learned all of the information had Inac wondering whether or not he had a traitor in his midst. That, or Aviv had been talking to The Order. But The Order was spineless, so it couldn’t be Them. If They had wanted to expose him, They would have done so centuries ago.
A seven-year-old boy with large, innocent eyes was brought in. Up to this point, Inac hadn’t yet killed any of the prime minister’s family. It had taken his men a week just to find Aviv, and his family had been even more difficult to locate.
Aviv’s blue eyes opened wide. He had obviously thought his family had been safe where he’d hidden them. He should know better than that. Nobody could stay hidden from Inac for long if he was actively searching for them. The only reason Hara had evaded him as long as she had was because he’d thought himself to already be rid of her.
“Aviv, you have a chance to save your grandson. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, you’ll be forced to watch him die,” Inac said, his nose centimeters from the Jewish man’s broken one. What had once been a strong, proud, Jewish nose now resembled a gnarled old branch.
Aviv spat on Inac’s cheek. “You’ll never get me to tell!” Suddenly, he started laughing as Inac wiped the blood-riddled spit onto his shirt. The minister was beginning to crack; he had broken the man more than he’d thought he had. “Your girlfriend will know everything,” he said when he finally calmed somewhat.
Inac stilled, asking, “Girlfriend?”
“The pretty one with the fair hair. She’ll know who you really are.”
“For the sake of your family,” Inac hissed, “I certainly hope you’re wrong. I have no qualms about killing each and every one of them.”
Inac then went over to the boy, taking the gun from Santoni and putting it to the back of the boy’s head. He didn’t want to be a monster, so he would have each family member quickly executed; a bullet to their brain stem. Then they at least wouldn’t have to suffer for Aviv’s crimes.
“The name, Aviv, or your grandson dies.”
The little boy began crying, shivering as he looked at his grandfather, making Aviv cry as well. Finally, Inac was hitting the correct nerve. They shouldn’t have wasted their time with torturing him.
Inac lowered the tip of the gun and moved it along the child, letting it tickle the kid’s torso and shoulders, then his cheek and mouth. It was almost like a lover’s caress he was so gentle. He knew that would be what would scare Aviv the most; Inac’s calm demeanor. As Inac did so, the child repeatedly cried out for his grandfather, begging for him not to let him die.
“Okay!” Aviv yelled. “I don’t know the name, but I can tell you how to get in touch with him.”
Inac pulled the gun away and sat down, a smile on his lips. “Tell me….”
***
The doorbell buzzed. Hara was home alone so she walked down the hall, rubbing the tearstains off her cheeks. She was so worried about Inac and Tracker that she couldn’t stop crying.
When she opened the door, Tracker stood there, looking down at his scuffed up old white tennis shoes that were falling apart at the seams—he really needed to get some new shoes.
“Track!” she yelled as she jumped forward, throwing her arms around him. “I’ve been so worried about you. Where have you been?!”
He gently put his arms around her. “Sorry. I just
had to think about some things. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Well you did. I’ve been calling you and calling you.” Suddenly, the fact that he was fine angered her so much that she pulled away. “Where were you?!” she demanded, not even needing to attempt to look upset.
“At home.”
“So you heard me knocking all those times and just left me out there thinking you were dead?!”
“I’m sorry, Hara….”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “Oh, you’re sorry.”
“Hara….”
“No, Tracker! No, ‘I’m sorry, Hara’ is gonna work this time! You can’t just come here and think that would magically make everything okay!” She knew that she was getting out of control, her voice to a decibel it had never been to before, but she didn’t care. “Go away, Tracker! Get out of my face!”
She then whirled and slammed the door in his face.
***
“Sir, it checks out,” Santoni said. “The reporter squawked like a parrot. We found out everything he knew and there’s nothing left. All the information’s destroyed, and his body will take a while to be found.”
“And the man Aviv said is the source?” Aviv had squawked, too. He’d told them exactly where he had gotten all the information from—which was much more than the little bit he’d known before. He’d told them not only who he’d given that info to, but also where he claimed he’d gotten it from.
“He was telling the truth. The Vatican thought that by sharing the information, you’d come back up on the grid.”
