by John R. Kess
“It’s getting worse.” Elly squeezed her head in her hands. “Laura is killing me with concerts, and my fans seem to be getting more fanatic.”
Kevin smiled. “It just means you’re getting better.”
Chapter 3
Jay grabbed his gear from the back of the pickup truck and waved to the driver. He paused to gaze at the mountains he’d missed so much. The beautiful western Montana horizon provided the perfect backdrop for Jay’s childhood home. The blond twenty-three-year-old hadn’t been home in two years, but it felt like a decade.
Everything here, the big oak tree, the chipped paint on the garage door, and the bent basketball rim, was exactly as he remembered. Jay smiled as even the squeak of the screen door welcomed him home.
Chris Pender walked out of the house and looked shocked as he stood on the concrete step looking at Jay. The two had been friends since first grade.
“Ha! Is that who I think it is?” Pender asked.
“Who do you think it is?” Jay asked.
“I think it’s the long-lost Marine back from kicking ass in Afghanistan,” Pender said as he flew down the steps and wrapped Jay in a bear hug. “It’s good to see you! I wasn’t expecting you for another week.”
Jay let his bags fall and hugged his old friend just as fiercely, clapping Pender on the back before pulling away. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Stepping inside the house, Jay raised an eyebrow at Pender. Junk mail covered the kitchen table, and four houseplants sat dead in the bay window. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“If I’d known you were coming so soon, I would have cleaned,” Pender said. He’d been house sitting while Jay was gone.
Jay found the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, and the smell of rotting tuna made him retreat.
He lugged his stuff to his bedroom and was greatly relieved to find it just the way he’d left it.
“Hey,” Pender called from the living room, “we’re going to Maddy’s to celebrate. Tonight, drinks are on me.”
Jay figured Pender’s beer gut fit in nicely with all the other loggers he worked with during the day and drank with at night at Maddy’s Bar and Pool Hall.
Jay walked back into the living room shaking his head. “Pender, I got discharged a little earlier than I planned. You’re the only one who knows I’m here. I didn’t even tell my sister.”
“You didn’t tell Sarah?” Pender asked. He gazed at Jay quizzically. “Why not?”
Jay tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“You’re not in trouble, are you?” Pender asked.
“No. I didn’t do anything to get myself discharged early, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jay knew what Pender was thinking. Ever since Jay’s niece Kelly was born, Sarah and Jay had grown close. After the accident that took their parents, they’d gotten even closer. Pender had told Jay on multiple occasions how cool it was that Jay got along so well with his sister.
Jay held up his hand and then let it fall. “Will you take me to the airport tomorrow morning? I’m going out to the hunting property. I need some time before I see Sarah and her family. I need a week. Alone. I just need some time. Do you understand?”
Pender nodded, but it was clear to Jay that he didn’t understand. Jay was happy he wasn’t asked to elaborate. He knew there was nothing he could say to help his friend understand what he was going through. He felt completely out of place coming home and needed time to distance himself from the war.
Jay’s family owned property in the mountains, and both Pender and Jay had made many trips out there when they were in high school.
“Man,” Pender said, leaning against the wall, “I haven’t been out there since Ben died.”
“That’s part of the reason I need to go. It’s been a long time, but still hasn’t sunk in.”
Several times, Jay had caught himself thinking about seeing Ben again when he came home from the war, but then he had to remind himself that it wasn’t possible.
“Your uncle took a look at the floatplane, right?” Jay asked.
Pender nodded. “Glen fired it up about two weeks ago. He said it’s ready to go.”
“Good. Can I get a ride from you tomorrow morning?”
“Sure, man, whatever you need.”
“Thanks, and please don’t tell anyone I’m here. I don’t know if Sarah would understand, and I don’t want to have to explain it to them.”
“I give you my word. I haven’t seen you.”
* * *
After Jay heard Pender leave for Maddy’s, he drove his parents’ old Jeep to a small cemetery. He walked to his parents’ graves. The last time he’d stood there had been when they were buried five years ago, just before Jay shipped out for basic training.
The image of the mangled mess that had once been his parents’ car flashed in Jay’s mind. His stomach tightened and his vision blurred, just like when he got the news they were dead.
His tired brain caused his memories to scramble together. He remembered the burning armored personnel carrier his unit had come upon in the Afghan desert a month ago. Black smoke reeking of burning oil and rubber rolled off the vehicle as his unit took enemy fire. Body parts littered the ground.
Standing in the cemetery, Jay again could feel the weight of the wounded Marine on his shoulders as he carried him to safety. The image of the little girl from the suspected Taliban hideout flashed in his mind as she screamed and covered her eyes to block the view of her dead family.
Jay stared at the grass in front of his parents’ headstones, unable to even make eye contact with their chiseled names. “Mom, Dad … I’ve done things I can’t make right. I don’t even know how many people I’ve killed.”
He remembered the sound of a gunman opening fire on his location and then an explosion, followed by intense silence. The Marine who’d been joking with him hours before, the one he’d been carrying, had died in his arms.
“I know you were trying to protect me from this. I know now that you were angry with me for enlisting because you loved me, not because you didn’t. I love you both.”
Jay was overwhelmed with loneliness, like a ghost left to wander the world of the living. He questioned, as he had so many times, why he had lived when so many others around him had died.
Near his parents’ was the other headstone Jay had come to see. Benjamin Chase 1981–1999. Ben had died a few weeks after Jay’s parents. A fake four-foot-tall potted fig tree stood next to the headstone. Jay assumed Ben’s mother had put it there, as it had once been in Ben’s bedroom. The tree brought back memories of Ben’s room with all the plastic models of World War II fighters and bombers hung from the ceiling.
Jay looked at his best friend’s grave, and a rush of guilt made it hard to speak.
He choked on his words as tears rolled down his face. “I’m sorry, Ben. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
* * *
Elly Wittenbel woke up with a yawn as the small twin-engine turboprop hit the runway with a jolt.
“Good morning,” Kevin said.
“What time is it?”
“A little before noon.”
Elly stretched her arms and then fell back into her seat. She took a sip of water, trying to quench the burning sensation in her throat. Contrary to her voice coach’s demand, there was no way she’d be able to conserve her voice surrounded by friends and family at her dad’s fiftieth birthday party.
Elly looked at her cell phone. “Oh, my God! How can I have thirty-seven messages? It’s only been two hours. Can’t these people just leave me alone for one day?”
One was a text message from Alex: Laura extended the tour 3 more shows in Europe-ahh! We need to stop that woman! Or hire an assassin!!
Elly knew Alex well enough to understand that his saying “we” meant “Elly.”
“Oh, great,” Kevin said, pointing out the window.
Screaming fans were jumping up and
down outside the chain-link fence on the edge of the tarmac. They waved signs saying “Welcome Home Elly” and “I Love You Elly.”
“How?” Elly sighed. “How do they always know?”
Kevin just shook his head.
Elly hated the dilemma that came with every crowd of fans. She could go meet them even though her voice was shot, or get in the car and disappoint all of them by leaving immediately.
Laura’s name popped up on Elly’s ringing phone. “Hello, Laura.”
“Elly, good news! The radio station called and you get to sing a song that will go on their sampler. It’s for charity, and it’s great publicity.”
“I’m not supposed to be singing, Laura! I’m not even supposed to be talking to you!”
“It’s just one song. You’ll be fine. They’ll record you at 2:00. Good luck!”
“2:00? I can’t wait that—”
The phone went dead, and Elly squeezed it in her hand as she considered throwing it. She found her small plastic bottle, then swallowed another pill for her new headache.
* * *
Back at the house, Jay poured a glass of orange juice and sat on the deck to watch the sun set over the mountains. In Afghanistan, he’d watched many sunsets over many mountains, but Jay didn’t have to worry about soldiers hiding in these peaks waiting to kill him.
Five years as a Marine had given him little control over his life. He’d dreamed of the day he could come home and leave the war behind him, but now that the dream had come true, he was left wondering what would be next. He knew the Marine Corps would continue to be part of his life, but at the moment he wanted nothing more than to go camping again, with Pender and Ben. Those were his demands. He just wanted things to be the way they had been the fall before their senior year of high school. Back then, Jay and Ben’s dads co-owned a plot of land north of Bitterroot National Forest that covered about ten square miles. Before Jay joined the Marines, Ben wanted to hire Jay and himself out as guides to hunters, but Jay had told Ben that he didn’t like the idea of bringing others onto their land. Ben kept trying to convince Jay, but that was Ben’s dream, not his. Jay remembered the day he’d told Ben he joined the Marines and how an angry Ben shouted that he’d start the guide business without him.
As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, it cast a chilly shadow on Jay, as if it were covering his own life. The idea of returning to the place Ben had died filled Jay with a cold numbness he hadn’t felt since he’d heard about Ben’s accident. He kept waiting for the wound caused by losing his friend to heal, but war had only opened it wider. Jay had sworn long ago he’d never go back to where Ben had died, but the Marines had taught him that sometimes you must fight a war to have peace.
Chapter 4
SUNDAY
Jay pulled the pin and threw the grenade at the entrance. Gunfire surrounded him as he dove for cover behind the large boulder. The blast that followed rained rocks over the valley. The sound of the explosion reverberated into the Afghanistan countryside. The cold silence that followed was broken only by a little girl’s scream deep inside the cave. Everything went black, and then Jay saw Ben lying on the forest floor in Montana clutching his bleeding stomach.
Jay awoke with a start. Sweat had beaded on his forehead. It took him a moment to remember he wasn’t in Afghanistan but instead was parked on a tarmac in Montana in his dad’s floatplane. He closed his eyes and thought how great it was to be home and then wished the other soldiers he’d left behind could come home, too. He wished they could all come home.
The airport was in west-central Montana, southeast of the Bitterroot National Forest. It had three hangars in varying stages of disrepair and a small one-story office that served as the control tower, not that the airport really needed one with so little air traffic. The rest of the airport was quiet. A blaze-orange windsock hung limply on its pole next to the newly paved long taxiway, which ended in the middle of the concrete runway, forming a giant T.
Pender had dropped Jay off early enough to make it to work on time, which meant it would be another forty-five minutes before the controller would show up and Jay could file his flight plan.
Sitting in his dad’s floatplane brought back so many memories. Jay remembered his excitement as he sat in the pilot seat for the first time with the instructor as they taxied for takeoff. Even the musty smell of the cockpit was the same as when he’d flown with his father years ago. Now he wanted to hear the engine roar down the runway again.
A fuel tanker truck drove into view and idled for a few minutes by one of the hangars, then Jay saw a twin-engine turboprop plane appear in the sky, lining itself up for a landing.
The turboprop was small, but Jay figured it could carry six to eight passengers. In all his years of coming to the airport with his father, Jay had never seen such a nice plane at this airport, and he wondered if it was a corporate turboprop. He wondered who was in it and why they’d chosen this airport as a place to land.
The turboprop touched down and slowed to a crawl. The two propellers whined as it turned down the taxiway and finally stopped in an open area of tarmac about fifty yards from the floatplane. The fuel tanker moved in and parked beside the turboprop as its propellers came to a stop.
* * *
Kevin glanced out his window at the fuel tanker and checked his notes. He and Elly had left Baltimore hours ago, but there were no refueling stops scheduled as they flew to Seattle for System Override’s next concert. Normally the information he received from the company that scheduled Elly’s flights was accurate. He was confused and annoyed that they had to stop for fuel. The pilot removed his headset, and Kevin asked, “Where are we?”
“Western Montana. I landed here last time on the way to Seattle. It’s a gem of an airport isn’t it?” The pilot smiled. “I swear they’d route us through the Arctic Circle if fuel was one cent a gallon cheaper up there.” He opened the door, which hinged at the bottom, and carefully lowered it down to the tarmac, then disappeared down the steps integrated into the back of the door.
Kevin saw the pilot talking with the fuel tanker driver as they hooked the fuel hose to the turboprop. He looked at Elly, who was sleeping, and thought about all the people employed because of her band. Everyone relied on her, and Elly relied on him, and that kind of responsibility is what had made him want to become a bodyguard.
It had been two years since Elly had hired him. At the time, Kevin thought the job would be easy, as Elly was fairly unknown in the music industry. Everything changed as Elly’s popularity soared. He remembered thinking she radiated a presence that made everyone around her feel like they were part of something special. Now he wondered if it had faded away for good. Physical changes were becoming more pronounced as the stress seemed to suck the life out of her. She had lost weight and complained of stomach pain. He wondered if both were due to her Vicodin addiction. It was a helpless feeling knowing he couldn’t protect her from any of it. He’d hoped her parents would see the changes in her, but nothing had been said. Kevin didn’t feel it was his place to interfere with her life, so he hadn’t brought it up with them. He wondered if he should have.
Kevin had always thought of musicians as having an easy life, but watching Nick, Elly’s twin brother, scream at her during their father’s birthday party the night before made it clear there were consequences. Nick made it known that the disruption in his life due to Elly’s rapidly rising popularity was unwelcome and he hated being treated differently because of his sister. Nick pulled no punches as he yelled at her and told her how she’d ruined his life.
Last night, Kevin watched over Elly as she cried herself to sleep. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so, and he figured it wouldn’t be the last. He knew Elly would be happier when she was back with “The Three Stooges” in Seattle.
In the same instant it took Kevin to register the click of a handgun being cocked, the pilot reappeared, pointing a gun at Kevin’s chest. “Hands up!”
Adrenaline rushed through Kevin as he ra
ised his hands.
“Move anything else and you’re dead,” the pilot said.
Another man, wearing a black hood and carrying a gun, appeared at the front of the turboprop. The pilot held a small radio to his mouth. “We’re clear.”
“Hey, wake up,” the pilot called to Elly. “Now you’re really going to be famous.”
* * *
Jay watched the tanker driver pull a black hood over his head and remove a pistol from his jacket. As the man ran up the stairs into the turboprop, Jay heard the engine of another vehicle. A white van screeched to a halt next to the turboprop. The first man out of the van also wore a hood and carried a small automatic weapon over his shoulder. He watched as the second man, the hooded van driver, bounded up the steps into the turboprop with his gun drawn. The man with the automatic weapon spun around in a circle to see if there was anyone in the area. He turned his gaze toward the floatplane. Jay ducked out of view as he scrambled to get his .338-caliber rifle from its case on the floor behind him. He tore into his bag to find shells. When Jay turned around, he saw the man with the automatic weapon now had his back to the floatplane.
A third hooded man exited the van with a video camera and a tripod, which he set up facing the turboprop. He returned to the van for a small generator and an air compressor, both of which he hauled under the steps leading into the turboprop.
“What is he doing?” Jay muttered to himself. He got his answer when the man’s final trip from the van revealed an air grinder. The morning sun glinted off the cutting wheel of the handheld power tool as the man approached the door. A shower of sparks poured from under the stairs as the man started cutting away the door hinges. The screeching noise from the grinder echoed off the nearby hangars.
