Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  The center of the room was unremarkable, especially in this light, except for a dark rectangle that at first looked like a shadow cast onto the floor, but revealed itself to be an open hatch leading to a stairway to a lower level. Brother Stephen gestured to the stairs with an open hand. Brother Zebediah led the way with his lantern held high. Ryan started to follow, but Brother Stephen’s heavy hand around his biceps pulled him to a stop. “You stay back with me, little man.”

  “Please don’t hurt him,” Christyne said.

  “I’m okay, Mom.” Ryan refused to flinch as Brother Stephen’s fingers dug deeply into his arm muscle. He watched as his mother disappeared into the space below. Then, when it was his turn, Ryan half expected Brother Stephen to heave him down like a human bowling ball.

  The stairway ended at what felt like a concrete floor covered with slime-green carpeting. A worn sofa dominated the back wall, upholstered in a fabric that resembled a moldy chocolate chip cookie. To the left of the sofa, a rectangle of mismatched brick marked the spot where Ryan figured there had once been a door.

  “Keep going,” Brother Stephen barked.

  “To where?” Christyne asked. There in fact seemed to be no place to go.

  Brother Zebediah said, “Just follow me.”

  He led the way across the room to the far wall, the one perpendicular to the back wall, where he stopped and lifted a heavy padlock on its hasp and inserted a key in the bottom. He removed the lock and pulled on the hasp to reveal a doorway that would have been all but invisible to anyone who was not looking for it. Handing his lantern to Christyne, Brother Zebediah said, “You first.”

  Brother Stephen’s grip closed even tighter around Ryan’s arm. “You’re last,” he said.

  As Christyne stepped across the threshold, the yellow light of her lantern revealed a squatty room with a ceiling that maybe rose six feet. From outside, Ryan could see furniture, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

  “There are candles and another lamp in the room,” Brother Zebediah said. “But be judicious in their use. They’re the only ones you have. When they’re gone, the nights will get especially dark for you.”

  Ryan’s stomach flipped. He’d never been a big fan of enclosed spaces.

  “Don’t be scared,” Christyne said, her voice trembling a little. “It’s not so bad. There are beds and a sofa. They even have books to read.”

  “Your turn,” Brother Stephen said to Ryan. He gave him a last shove as he crossed the threshold. The door slammed shut immediately. The lock slid into place with a heavy thock, and then the Nasbes were alone. It was cold in here-beyond cold, actually-and the stink of an old toilet bloomed strong in the air.

  “What the hell is happening, Mom?”

  “Watch your language,” Christyne said.

  Ryan gave her an empty stare. “That was a reflex, right?” he said.

  She smiled in spite of herself. “I don’t know what’s happening,” she confessed. She spread her arms for a hug. “At least we’re not hurt.”

  Ryan allowed himself to be embraced, and decided not to tell her just how hideously he expected all of this to turn out.

  In the process, he willed himself not to cry.

  The hug was an attempt to soothe his fears, but Ryan broke it off as soon as he could. He snatched the lantern out of her hand and turned a slow circle to reveal the details of their new home. In total, the space appeared to be about twelve feet square, and it was crammed with furniture. Immediately to the right of the door, four sagging twin beds had been shoved into the far corner, at what Christyne figured to be the front of the house, each separated from the adjacent bed by a gap of only a couple of inches. A carpet remnant of indeterminate color covered most of the concrete floor. The beds each had two pillows and a bedspread, and appeared to be fitted with sheets underneath.

  “Four beds,” Ryan said. “Do you think they’re expecting more?”

  She didn’t offer an answer because she knew he really wasn’t expecting one.

  The rest of the space was crammed with miscellaneous furniture. Moving around among the clutter was a challenge, but Ryan managed okay as he explored their prison.

  “Why is it so cold in here?” he mused aloud, zipping up his coat. He paused. “Oh, crap,” he said. “This is disgusting.” He turned back to face her. “I found our toilet.”

  Actually, it wasn’t a toilet at all. It was a chair with a hole cut in the seat and what looked to be a porcelain pot suspended underneath. “I think that’s called a chamber pot,” Christyne said. “It’s what they used in the days before indoor plumbing when you couldn’t make it to the outhouse, or just didn’t want to go outside.”

  “So the poop and pee just sit there?” Ryan asked. This, apparently, was far more horrifying to him than their overall predicament.

  “Somebody has to empty it,” Christyne explained.

  “Nose game,” Ryan said, and he quickly touched the tip of his nose with his forefinger. In Nasbe family parlance, the last person to touch their nose in the nose game was “it” and therefore had to perform whatever task was in play.

  Christyne let it go.

  This time when Ryan looked at her, his expression glowed with anger. “I told you not to pick her up,” he said.

  While Gail tended the pasta, Jonathan manned the bar. He made Gail’s cosmo first, pouring equal parts Grey Goose L’Orange, Cointreau, orange juice, and cranberry juice into a shaker and giving it a vigorous ride. He strained the pink concoction into her favorite martini glass and delivered it over her shoulder.

  “Your sissy drink,” he said. He kissed the nape of her neck and elicited the shiver he’d hoped for.

  Gail scrunched her shoulders and took the drink with both hands. “Sneak up on a girl, will you? That’s a good way to get shot.”

  “I don’t scare easy, Sheriff,” he said. He walked back to the bar to make a real martini for himself: two or three glugs of Beefeater and a drizzle of vermouth, definitely shaken (not stirred) with ice, then strained into whatever martini glass happened to be closest. Two olives later, he was done.

  He took a sip and became self-actualized. “God, I’m good,” he said. He rejoined Gail at the stove and lifted the lid on the marinara. “Smells great.”

  She hip-nudged him. “You’re in my way. Where do you keep your bay leaves?”

  “Um. In the bay?”

  She sighed. “Unbelievable. How can you have a kitchen this grand and not have bay leaves? How do you make marinara when I’m not here?”

  “I pretty much open a jar and call it spaghetti sauce.”

  Jonathan’s home, one block up from the water, started life as a firehouse. He’d bought it a few years ago after the town decided to relocate the fire trucks to newer digs out on the highway. Now he lived on the first two floors, and his company, Security Solutions, was on the third floor, accessible by a separate entrance. Thanks to money passed on to him from his father, who would never again see the outside of a supermax prison, Jonathan could afford the best of everything, from firepower to cooktops. He was even a pretty decent cook. Still, why work to improve a product that was damn near perfect out of the jar?

  But this was Gail’s treat to him, and he took his role as sous-chef seriously. He even hand-shredded the salad and hand-opened the bottle of Italian dressing. He also lit candles and dimmed the lights in the dining room where they gathered at one end of the table, close enough that their knees touched. Cocktails finished, he opened a favorite Lodali Barbera D’Alba.

  Jonathan and Gail’s relationship was a complicated one. That’s what happens when your first encounter includes a gunfight. She worked for him now as one of his best investigators. Once a member of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, she could thread a needle at fifty yards with just about any firearm, and if she was afraid of anything, he hadn’t yet seen her confronted by it. That was the good part.

  Unfortunately, her law degree had somehow melded the Constitution to her DNA, reducing her color
spectrum for right and wrong to only black and white: either something was legal or it wasn’t. By contrast, Jonathan’s color palette for justice was kaleidoscopic. If the ends were justified, the means for achieving them were limited only to the breadth of his imagination and the laws of physics of chemistry. It never occurred to him to question whether a strategy for rescuing a good guy from a batch of bad guys might violate a law or two.

  It was a rift that occasionally grew to a chasm.

  To give their relationship a chance to flourish, they’d banned work discussions during their off-hours together, adding strategy and tactics to religion and politics on the list of topics that were forbidden in polite company. It made sense in theory, but in practice, their brokered peace occasionally left them with long moments of silence. Tonight was an example.

  “So, how terrible was it?” Gail finally asked. “On the bridge, I mean.”

  Jonathan arched his eyebrows. “I was too caught up in the moment to notice details. A lot of shots fired, a lot of people killed.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”

  The gin was just beginning to find his bloodstream. He felt a little flushed as he tasted the wine. “I kept my head down,” he said. “The shooter’s the one who should be counting her blessings. She owes that fed a thank-you card.”

  “As you owe Wolverine,” Gail said. “In fact, you owe her a mention in your will.”

  Jonathan chuckled. The director of the FBI-Wolverine to Jonathan, thanks to some work he’d done for a Bureau a number of years ago-had covered his tracks on more than a few occasions. “I’m doing better than that,” he said. “I’m buying her breakfast tomorrow.”

  Gail took a sip of her wine. “This is good. Are you going to tell her everything?”

  “Lodali’s a small vineyard in Tuscany. Everything they touch is great.” Saying the words inspired him to take another taste. “I don’t see a reason to hold back. There’s nothing covert about my presence.”

  “In a perfect world, it would be nice not to have your name tied to a terrorist attack.”

  Jonathan recoiled. “Is that nervousness I hear?”

  “Of course it is. You tried to kill somebody who’d killed Lord knows how many people. I don’t think Fisherman’s Cove needs terrorists flooding in to settle the score.”

  He dismissed the point with a wave-not because it wasn’t valid, but because there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Wolverine’s always been able to keep me out of the news. No reason to think she’s lost her touch.”

  They fell quiet again.

  “You know what sort of baffles me about this evening?” Jonathan said to break the silence. “During the time that I was in custody, no one ever once asked me what I had seen out there on the bridge. They were so intent on me being the shooter that it apparently never occurred to them that I might have important details.”

  “Do you?” Gail asked.

  “Probably not. But you’d think they would have asked.”

  “Would you have answered?”

  Jonathan started to answer, then laughed. “Probably not. I was kinda pissed.” Another silence as they finished their pasta.

  As he refilled the wineglasses, he looked around. “Where’s JoeDog?” Normally, the energetic black lab was making her presence well known at this point in a meal.

  “I saw her heading off to Kramer’s earlier in the day,” Gail said. “Must be his turn.”

  Officially, JoeDog was a stray. She’d appeared at Jonathan’s door a few years ago, and while he was her nominal master, she wandered the town on her own, blessed with special dispensation from the leash laws. When she tired of the lazy life of the firehouse, she wandered to the police chief’s house-Doug Kramer’s house-to mooch off him for a while.

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” Jonathan said, rising from his chair and holding out his hand for Gail to join him.

  She stood and waited to be enlightened.

  Jonathan pulled her close and laced his fingers at the small of her back. “It means that we have the bed all to ourselves tonight.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  This year’s school bus driver, Mrs. Pantone, was an absolutist when it came to pickup times. Either you were at the corner at 7:21, or you weren’t. If she didn’t see you, she didn’t even slow down. Once, Aafia had been within twenty yards, running for all she was worth, when the old biddy just sped off without her. Her parents didn’t want to believe that such outrageous things could happen in middle school, but it was the truth.

  But not today.

  Today, Aafia missed the bus because she’d been lazy. She’d been up way too late studying for her science test, and that-let’s be honest-was because she’d spent way too much time chatting with her friends online. But given the news of the day, what choice did she have? Merilee Berdan had actually kissed Steve Bayne. On the lips! Sharee Northrup had seen it happen in the hallway between fourth and fifth period. They even did tongues!

  So now Maddy Carter was like all pissy because she really likes Steve and now is telling everybody that Merilee is just a slut. Merilee found out about that, and, well, it was hard to break away to study for the science test.

  Aafia grabbed a Pop-Tart out of the cupboard next to the fridge as she hurried to the kitchen door, beyond which her way-pissed dad was waiting with the engine already running. It was going to be a long ride to school, filled with lectures of how achievement in school is the only route to achievement in life. She’d hear all about how much her parents had suffered to carve a life for their family here in America, and how her sloth was an insult to Allah himself. Blah, blah, blah.

  Merilee and Steve had kissed!

  Aafia grabbed her coat but didn’t take the time to put it on as she rushed out to the carport and slammed the kitchen door behind her. She didn’t mean to slam it, but now her mom was going to be pissed that she had, and that was another special moment to look forward to on the far side of the day.

  Was it possible that middle school in Pakistan was that different from middle school in America? Or were her parents just too old to remember what was important when they were kids?

  As she’d expected, the atmosphere inside the minivan was even colder than the Michigan winter as she dumped her stuff on the floor of the front passenger seat and climbed in. She had barely pulled her door closed before they were backing down the driveway.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” she said in Urdu, hoping to strum a nostalgic string in him.

  “English, Aafia,” he snapped. “You are an American. Please do not mock me.”

  So much for nostalgia. In English: “I’m not mocking, Father. I was just… I don’t know.” Like so many others in their town, her father had lost his job at the auto factory almost two years ago, and hadn’t been able to get even an interview since. He had long been self-conscious of his accent, but in recent weeks, he’d come to believe that his accent and his dark features were roadblocks to his career. In Pakistan, he had been a supervisory engineer for the automobile company, and in the late 1990s had accepted a transfer here to Michigan to head up an even larger department. That was before Aafia or her brother had even been born.

  She didn’t understand the details, but after September 11, 2001, things changed for the family. Even though Pakistan was an ally, and even though Aafia and her family were Sufis, a sect of Islam that was far separated from the jihadists who committed those terrible crimes, many white-skinned neighbors either couldn’t tell the difference or wouldn’t acknowledge it.

  Her father told stories of slights and insults at work. For a long time, he tried to ignore them, but after several years-and after children started to arrive-he couldn’t take it anymore so he filed suit through the American courts to force people to stop saying those terrible things.

  Aafia remembered the day when he won the case in court. Money was paid-she didn’t know how much, but apparently it was a lot-and the company was told to mind its manners and make sure that the other wo
rkers did the same. On a day when she expected her parents to be happy because they’d won, they turned out to be sad instead. Her father had said then that nothing had really been fixed, and that he feared he might have just made it all worse.

  How could that be? Once the courts told people to behave, isn’t that what they had to do? Isn’t that why we have courts in the first place?

  About a year after that, everybody lost their jobs, and nothing had been right at home ever since. To keep busy, and to keep money coming in, her father had accepted a job as a taxicab driver, but that made him sad, even angry sometimes.

  “I am a mechanical engineer,” he’d said one night at the dinner table last week. “I am very talented at what I do, and now no one will let me do it. Now the only work I can find is to be a servant for strangers.” Then he’d started to cry.

  Aafia and her brother were sent away from the table at that point, but she believed that her father cried for a long time that night. He and her mother talked and talked and talked. They were still talking when Aafia had fallen asleep.

  Her father broke the uncomfortable silence in the car. “You disappoint me with your foolishness. What is happening to you, Aafia? You used to be responsible.”

  “I try, Father,” she said. “I really do. And I am, most of the time. I get all A’s.”

  He started to say something in an angry tone, but then he stopped himself. His features softened. “Yes, you do, don’t you? Yes, you do.” He looked at her, offered a smile and then returned his eyes to the road.

  Aafia didn’t know what to do. When you’re geared up for a stern lecture, kind words are sort of unnerving. Not wanting to risk undoing whatever good thing had just happened, she chose to remain silent.