The Hound of Justice

by Claire O'Dell

  Micha left me to my own devices (so to speak) to fetch sandwiches and a couple shot bottles. I had explicit permission to write this entry. To get it out of my system, is how she phrased it.

  So, let’s make this good.

  Dear reader, a reader who will never see these words. I’m terrified. All this past week, I thought I was already afraid, but that was just a warm-up. Tomorrow, we cross into Tennessee. Tomorrow night, Micha tells me, we’ll meet up with certain friends, who will take us across the border into the New Confederacy.

  The same New Confederacy that hates me and mine, whether we’re talking about the color of my skin or the gender that I love.

  Oh, they claim they love all God’s children.

  They claim they love the sinner but hate the sin.

  But I’ve watched the news vids and listened to the deeper squirts. I’ve seen pictures of that strange fruit, which still hangs from trees, even though we elected a black man once. Maybe because we did.

  Black people still live over there. Most of them because they can’t move away. No money. No car. And it’s not like they can take the bus over the border. Same as with Katrina, they’re hoping to ride out the storm.

  And others . . . others don’t leave because whatever the government says, that land is still their home.

  17

  I was dreaming about Adanna Jones—an all-too-explicit dream—when our alarm clock burst into noise. I jolted awake and grabbed for the clock. My ghost hand plunged through the floor, with the rest of me following. I managed to break my fall with my right arm and landed on my shoulder with a muffled yelp.

  I rolled over, cradling my poor abused stump against my chest. I was in a dimly lit room that could’ve belonged to any run-down motel between Maine and Florida. Two single beds with metal frames. Cheap ugly carpet with stains I didn’t care to identify. The unmistakable aroma of chlorine and mold and fried food. Meanwhile the alarm continued to sing the song of its people.

  Micha swatted the alarm clock, which gave one last squawk before going silent. She coughed, a deep rasping smoker’s cough. “Good morning,” she wheezed. “Are we ready to rumble?”

  I levered myself up and leaned against the metal frame of the bed. Squinted at the clock. Six A.M. Not as early as I would have guessed. “Give me coffee, and I can do anything,” I croaked. “Maybe.”

  Micha laughed, then coughed again. “Let me take care of that. No, don’t you leave the room. Better if no one notices you and your shiny metal friend.”

  She staggered to her feet and into her clothes from the night before. Twenty minutes later, she returned with four large Styrofoam cups and a bag of hot biscuits with packets of honey. The tiny grocery store had delivered far beyond my expectations. I inhaled the first cup almost without thinking.

  Micha broke one of the biscuits in half and spread a honey packet over both pieces. She handed one to me. “First step, we cross into Tennessee. Let’s see how that goes and we’ll talk about what comes after that.”

  “Why not tell me now?”

  “Because our plans are not fixed.”

  I stuffed the biscuit into my mouth and chewed while I contemplated her words. “I think,” I said, once I’d swallowed, “that’s a fancy way of saying you don’t know what comes next.”

  Micha laughed. “You do catch on, girl. Go on and eat those biscuits. I want us across that border by noon.”

  She made another trip to the grocery store for a second round of coffee while I showered and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. By the time she returned, I had powdered my stump and reattached Lazarus.

  “Should I pack my device instead?” I asked.

  “No, no. We can’t risk them searching our bags and finding it. And while I have a few hidey holes around the truck, none of them are big enough. I do have a plan, however.”

  She produced an inflatable cast sleeve, extra large, that covered every inch from my fingers to my stump. Next came a spray can of temporary white hair coloring. For herself, she added clip-on hair extensions and a pair of Coke-bottle glasses. By the time she’d finished, we were two stocky gray-haired women, maybe fifty, maybe sixty years old, with clothes that had seen better days.

  We had new names, new IDs, too. She was Eveline and I was Danielle Jackson, two sisters, residents of Tennessee with work permits for Alabama as house cleaners. I recognized the photo as the one from my ID at the VA Medical Center, with the image modified to match my new gray hair.

  “Are you sure these IDs will pass?” I said.

  “You wound me with your doubt,” Micha said. “Behold the encrypted chip, and the watermark, which, by the way, was not as difficult to reproduce as our government agencies would like to believe. Now finish that coffee. We have a date with Tennessee.”

  Our next fifty miles would be federal highway. In the olden days, back in the early 2000s, the trip from Huntsville, Alabama, to Pulaski, Tennessee, would’ve taken an hour at the most. That was before our glorious New Civil War.

  After the first few terrorist attacks, the states themselves had set up checkpoints. Once the New Confederacy declared war, President Alida Sanches agreed to border checks in certain key states. Anyone crossing from Oklahoma into Tennessee, or Illinois into Ohio, had to produce one of the new federal IDs.

  Micha made one unexpected stop a few miles before the border. We pulled off the highway onto a dirt road and parked behind a water cistern. She unscrewed a panel from the driver’s-side door, to reveal two metal-lined compartments. My supplies for Lazarus went into the top compartment. A large square vinyl pouch containing cash, Micha’s cell, and what looked like another stack of documents and IDs went into the bottom one. A few quick twists of the screwdriver, and the door panel covered everything.

  “What if they have a scanner?” I asked.

  She grinned. “Special shielding, my friend. Though,” she added, “we’re obviously in trouble if they decide to dismantle the truck.”

  So, here we were, half a mile from the border at eleven A.M., and Micha wondering out loud if we should’ve stopped at that last exit for sandwiches. The air was thick with exhaust fumes, and a headache gripped my skull. I badly wanted another cup of coffee, or, failing that, a bottle of pop.

  “Maybe we should turn back. Get those sandwiches first,” I said as I rubbed my forehead.

  “Not a good idea. They notice things like that,” Micha replied mildly. “Don’t fret. I’m guessing we’ll get through in thirty, forty minutes. We’ll take the first exit with a diner. I promise.”

  Traffic inched forward, and I huddled in my seat, concentrating on the phrase thirty minutes. The truck had turned into an oven, hot and sticky and breathless. My scalp itched. My stump ached, as it had not for months, and tiny pinpricks traveled up and down the length of my arm, through flesh that no longer existed. I resisted the urge to tear off the cast.

  “Come,” Micha said softly. “We’re almost to our friendly border guards. Remember that we’re in the South. Look humble and cooperative.”

  The South, yes. I might have lost much of my accent, but I could never forget the South. Because the South was everywhere.

  A woman approached our truck, one hand on the Taser at her belt, the other pointing at the far end of rows of inspection stations. She wore the dark blue uniform of a border guard, with patches for rank, state, and the Federal flag. No name tag, of course, not for what had become the new TSA.

  “Last lane on the right,” she told us. “Number thirty-two.”

  Micha maneuvered the truck into lane thirty-two. Two fresh-faced young men approached, one on either side. Both of them carried rapid-fire guns.

  “Registration, insurance, and driver’s license,” said guard number one. “And we’ll need to see IDs for both of you.”

  Micha handed over the papers as requested, then waited with hands resting on the steering wheel. Even without prompting, I’d laid my hands on the dashboard. Slowly. No sudden movements.

  Guard number one leafed thr
ough our documents. He grunted, then nodded to his partner. “Step out of the car, please.”

  Why? We haven’t done anything wrong.

  Words I knew better than to speak out loud. Micha and I exited the truck. The inflatable cast made me awkward, and I stumbled, but no one offered to help, for which I was glad.

  They patted us down, swiftly and professionally. It could have been worse. No one ordered me to remove the cast. No one decided that pat down meant grab my breasts or between my legs. Even so, I had to swallow the rage I felt, when I saw other cars waved through with only a cursory glance at their IDs.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” my guard told me. “We had some reports about possible terrorist activity in the area. We’re just taking precautions.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I understand.” My voice had dropped into the soft drawl of my childhood, slow and careful.

  What I understood I couldn’t say out loud. Not unless I wanted trouble.

  So, I smiled when Guard #1 made a joke about sassy women, and I stood absolutely still while they searched my pockets. But I held my breath every time a hand brushed over my inflatable cast, or their gaze flicked toward the truck itself.

  Just when I thought we were done with humiliation, Guard #1 announced he needed to search the contents of the truck. He signaled for us to move over to the side of the road, where his partner stood ready with his weapon, while he unloaded both our bags onto the pavement.

  “Standard procedure,” the man said as he unzipped my duffel bag.

  They didn’t find anything, of course. Our bags held clothes, soap, shampoo, hair oil. One bottle of Advil, which Micha explained was for her sister’s injured wrist. Half a dozen bottle shots that Micha had bought at the liquor store back in Alabama.

  Guard #1 pocketed the bottle shots.

  Guard #2 picked up my damned notebook and leafed through it.

  I tried to pretend indifference. Failing that, I pretended exhaustion. The latter came more easily. Micha had ripped out the six pages of my own journal entries and soaked them in water until they were soft enough to tear into shreds and flush down the toilet. Then she dictated five new pages of text. One grocery list. A doctor’s phone number in Pulaski (which I had no doubt was genuine). A couple scribbled notes about insurance claims for my apparent injury during working hours.

  Would anything there withstand a closer look? Or did we just need to get through this next obstacle?

  Guard #2 handed the notebook back to me. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said in that toneless voice used by minions of the government.

  As if I had a choice. But I kept my expression humble and grateful. “Thank you, sir. Glad to be of help.”

  Both guards glanced over our tired, dusty truck. I had another tick of panic, before they ordered us to move on.

  ***

  Once we cleared the border, Micha made one of her signature quick stops, where she unscrewed the truck’s panels, changed one license plate for another, and retrieved her cell phone, before we hurried onward to Pulaski and a roadside shack advertising pork sandwiches. Micha ordered four sandwiches, a double order of fries, and two giant sodas. We sat in the truck in the parking lot to eat, while Micha—reluctantly, I thought—shared our next goal.

  “We made it here without any trouble,” she said. “That means they don’t have a warrant for two black women, no matter what they look like. I’m thinking we should cross over into Mississippi. There’s an abandoned logging trail that can take us through what used to be a national forest. We’ll meet up with some friends of mine there. They’ll handle getting us into the Confederacy.”

  “You make it sound easy,” I said as I licked the barbecue sauce from my fingers.

  She lit a cigarette. “Some days it is, other days, not so much. It’s really a matter of flexibility.”

  We drank our soda. I started on a second sandwich. Micha’s cell buzzed. She glanced at the incoming number and frowned before she thumbed off the lock.

  “Luciano’s Bakery,” she said. “Can I take your order?”

  Whoever it was, they had a lot to say. Ten minutes passed before Micha spoke again.

  “Double back,” she said in a flat clipped voice. “Use the gambit we talked about, but no tricks, no fancy stuff. If you have any trouble, make an exit. Don’t argue. Don’t delay. Once you hit ground, let me know. I’ll handle cleanup.”

  She thumbed the cell off and slid it back into her pocket.

  “What’s wrong?” I whispered.

  Micha barely glanced at me. “That was Isabelle. Your aunt called and left a voice message not half an hour ago. A stranger came around the farm early this morning, asking about you. Your aunt thought you might want to know.”

  Oh god.

  This had to be the government, come traipsing after my useless self.

  Or maybe someone worse.

  That was like choosing between a fox and wolf, both of them hungry. Whoever they were might decide my family made a good snack until they tracked me down.

  I had to swallow twice to wet my throat enough to speak.

  “What’s that gambit you were talking about?”

  “Better if you don’t know.” When I opened my mouth to argue, she held up a hand. “Let me rephrase that. It’s better for Isabelle if you don’t.”

  “What do we do?” I demanded. “Go home? Try another day?”

  “We don’t have another day,” Micha said, and for the first time, I heard the edge of desperation in her voice. “You might. You can step back into your ordinary world without any consequences. But Sara? She has a week before her mission fails.”

  “So, what do we do?” I repeated. “You and I?”

  “Oh, that.” Her mouth twitched into a bare smile. “We hurry, my friend.”

  ***

  Micha’s cell rang a second time, around three P.M., outside Savannah, Tennessee. She thumbed the cell to unlock it and listened. Ten minutes later, she thumbed the phone off and stuffed it into her pocket.

  “We have a problem,” she said. “A bigger one.”

  “What happened? What went wrong?”

  Micha flipped a hand. “Everything. That stranger who came sniffing after you? They showed up a second time with a government ID. They told your aunt you were a person of interest in certain mysterious deaths at Georgetown University Hospital.”

  Oh, dear god.

  “I thought Isabelle went to ground,” I whispered.

  “She did. This was my backup agent. She made a second sweep to clean up any loose ends. Tell me about those deaths, please. I need to know what we’re dealing with.”

  I shook my head. It made no sense. I had no clearance at GUH, nothing that would connect me with any patient, living or dead. But I told Micha about the M & M statistics and how the numbers for readmissions had spiked in the past two months.

  “I don’t understand,” I whispered. “I’ve nothing to do with the patients, and I won’t until the CMO grants me full-time status. Besides, we added more safety checks. The numbers went down this past month.”

  Micha shook her head. “Someone wants to discredit you. But why? Why you and why now?” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel for a few moments. “Tell me, how did you pass the evening, that last night in DC?”

  I said good-bye to Adanna Jones.

  “Oh, Christ,” I muttered.

  Micha came alert at once. “What did you do?”

  I asked her to remember me. I asked for a good word before I plunged into danger. Nothing more.

  But I refused to believe Adanna had betrayed me to anyone, even by accident.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Yes, I told a friend about this trip. I said I had family matters to look into. Nothing . . . nothing more.”

  Micha continued to stare at me, eyes narrowed.

  I glared right back. “Don’t you look at me that way. I told my CMO the same thing. Dammit, I told Southeast Airlines and the TSA as much.”

  She suck
ed her teeth, seemed to consider several different answers, then sighed. “So, so, so. Perhaps what you said or did made no difference. What does matter, my friend, is that we’ve lost our safe passage across the border. Someone has betrayed us. Someone has warned my colleagues away from any questionable activities. Which means someone knows, or has guessed, our plans. Let us drive a few miles in silence and consider a different tack.”

  We cruised along the state route, a careful five miles under the speed limit. Storm clouds had rolled in from the south, blotting out the sun and bringing an early eerie twilight to the afternoon. Micha was a silent shadow next to me. Faceless. Sexless. Only the red dot of her cigarette betrayed any movement as she took another drag, then blew out a cloud of smoke. We had rolled up the windows, leaving a crack for ventilation, and the wind of our passage whistled and roared, like that of a ship driving through high seas.

  I wanted to say, Who betrayed us?

  I wanted to ask, Will my family be safe?

  But I kept quiet and stared over the rain-drenched fields, until the storm passed, and a gold and crimson sunset lit the horizon ahead. Without taking her eyes off the road, Micha said, “What you say we get us a good meal up ahead?”

  Her voice had slipped into a drawl, slow and easy.

  “Sure sounds like a good idea,” I replied. I could almost feel my own throat and palate changing shape to match hers.

  Six P.M. Selmer, Tennessee. We were two hundred miles from DeWitt in Arkansas, and even longer from the Oklahoma border, but we’d already come across signs of the war. Memphis had been turned into rubble, during the last Confederacy offensive, and while Arkansas had declared for the Union, everyone knew the rebels controlled half the state.

  We stopped at the first Waffle House we found. Micha ordered a plate of chili cheese fries, then vanished into the parking lot for twenty minutes, while I picked at our food. She returned before I finished off that first batch, then ordered two hamburgers and another plate of fries. Once the waitress left with our new order, she leaned over the table.

  “I made a few calls, left a few messages,” she said. “We can slip across the Mississippi border tonight and into Arkansas. We’ll meet up with my friends farther down the road.”