Heartless A Shieldmaiden's Voice: A Covenant Keeper Novel

by S. R. Karfelt

  Dive. Carole obeyed the muted command, slipping beneath the surface of the still pool. Chlorine torched her skin, the pain fantastic. She welcomed it, now her skin felt like her heart. Momentum took her forward, then she drifted, a phantom suspended, before sinking slowly. The pressure helped, like her body might come into sync with her head again. Carole came to rest on the bottom of the pool, wishing it were deeper, that she could sink down further and further until the pressure on her body equaled that inside her heart too. Far off the voices spoke, but they were too far away and she couldn’t understand them. Hadn’t understood them since he’d left, it was almost pleasant—Every cloud has a silver lining—Sister Mary Josephine had used to say that in the orphanage—Ted had shattered her heart but dimmed the voices. His betrayal hit her physically there beneath the water. It felt like the time she had been shot in the back in Singapore, shoving her body against the rough bottom of the pool scratching her raw, salted, torn skin. Move. Carole obeyed again, shooting to the surface for a gasping breath. The voices’ keening took form faintly, just one word, a long drawn out sound, barely decipherable—Why? Ah, the same question she’d ask if he were there.

  THE SOUND AND shouts of masculine voices woke her, they were hard to decipher, as though traveling underwater. Carole lay on her cot, one arm flung over her eyes, protecting her from bright light streaming through the tiny window. Someone grabbed her arm, roughly tugging her onto her back. Blinking, she tried to identify the face, but nothing came to her. A garbled voice sounded from far away, but the mouth moved in a familiar pattern and she knew he’d asked, “Are you hurt, Private?”

  “Fine.” She struggled to sit up, but hands held her down. “I’m fine,” her voice sounded far off and garbled too.

  Hands moved over her, rubbing something painful against her skin. Identifying a doctor’s touch, Carole sat up, pushing his hands away. “I’m fine! Stop!” she shouted. It sounded dim, but he heard it and his hands withdrew. Blurry faces came into focus with the sound of indecipherable arguing. She studied their mouths for a clue, deciphering words.

  “…obviously not at death’s door, Captain…those dirty wounds need cleaned or she’ll be in trouble…coral reefs…look at her swimsuit….” Carole didn’t like the way the doctor was looking at her shredded swimsuit. Neither did the Captain, because he stepped between them, blocking the doctor’s view. Leaning, he peered at her legs and then her face. His dark eyes were familiar, and she recognized him from the team on the beach. He was the man who’d told her that Colonel White had left. He was also the man from last night. The man who’d dragged her from the water and wrapped her in plastic. Carole shuddered.

  “I’m sure it looked worse in the dark. A little blood goes a long way.” The doctor’s voice sounded slow and garbled, but she made it out.

  The Captain shook his head, still peering into Carole’s face, perplexed. “I know what I saw!” The dark eyes looked hurt. She watched his mouth move. “I searched for you all night, for your body.”

  “Can’t blame you for that.” Catching the undercurrent in the distorted words, Carole glanced towards the doctor. The Captain turned and said something she couldn’t hear. The doctor left. The Captain sat on the bed next to her with a wiry brush in his hand.

  “This won’t be pleasant.” Leaning forward he attempted to rub it against her leg, and Carole jerked away.

  “Private? You have dirt and sand embedded in those cuts. If they’re not cleaned, you’re going to be in trouble.” Again he reached towards her. Carole backed against the wall.

  “Go away.”

  “Don’t be stupid, you’ll get an infection. Look, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a nurse.” He looked like any of a thousand other young men on the island, young, thin, and sunburned. Only his eyes set him apart, dark and clear, with thick lashes and thicker brows. They were unusually kind eyes. Dipping his brush into a bowl of water, he squeezed a tube of soapy ointment over it. Then he looked at her, waiting for permission. What did it matter? What did anything matter? Plopping against her pillow, she put her arms over her eyes, blocking the sunlight, blocking everything. Focusing on the keening question of the voices, she barely felt the Captain scrubbing her wounds clean.

  “You need to eat.” His voice was loud, as though he knew he’d have to combat great distance between them. As though he knew the voices were keening and he was far away. “It’s past lunch but I can find something. Are you hungry?”

  Carole rolled onto her side, ignoring his protests as sheets wiped away freshly applied ointment. Go away, she thought, too tired to bother to vocalize it. Leave me alone. As though he heard her, the Captain finally left.

  THE CAPTAIN CAME and went. Sometimes he washed Carole’s arms, legs, and a spot on her chin, and rubbed salve into her wounds. The discomfort reminded her he was there. Other times he dumped trays of food in her room, where they stacked up, untouched. At first he didn’t say much, but after a couple of days he griped at her about not eating. He liked to lecture about nutrition and health and wasting good food. After a trip to the bathroom, Carole locked her door to prevent his next visit. Later that same day she sensed him in the hall outside her room. From far off she heard pounding and yelling. She ignored it. The next morning someone seemed to have provided the man with a key, because he showed up again. Grabbing her arm, he hauled her to her feet. Briefly she considered throwing him into the hall and blocking the door with her only chair. It seemed like too much effort.

  “You’re coming to the mess and eating something if I have to drag you there. I’ll give you two minutes to change or I’ll take you in that swimsuit—though it’s hardly a swimsuit anymore, so I wouldn’t recommend it. You might want to wash and brush your teeth too, you smell.” Releasing his grip, he moved away. Finding herself suddenly standing, Carole had to focus to keep her footing. Blinking she watched him head out the door to wait. He glanced back and caught her look. “Go ahead, but if you lock the door on me again, I will have the doctor take you in for psychiatric observation, Private. So you might want to rethink your plan.” He shut the door in her face, but she could sense him standing outside it.

  Thoughts seemed to move sluggishly through her brain, but she considered her options. Psychiatric observation probably wasn’t very peaceful. A crumpled pair of canvas pants and a dirty T-shirt sat on top the laundry bag. Carole nabbed them, pulling them over her decimated swimsuit. She didn’t care what she smelled like. Opening the door, the Captain scowled at her, dark brows joining over his nose.

  “Shoes?”

  Carole turned back into her room, and stuffed her feet into her boots, the ones that Ted had thrown into the pool. They were still wet. She crumpled to the floor, head on her knees, unable to move. The Captain came into the room and shut the door behind him, crouching beside her and putting an arm around her shoulders.

  “Hey,” his voice was soft. “He’s not worth it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean!” Carole lied. The arm tugged her closer in a half hug. The Captain pressed his forehead against the top of her head.

  “Don’t be stupid. I know what a broken heart looks like. Come on, you’re going to eat, Private. I meant what I said. I will have you sent for observation.” Carole moved then because there was little choice. Besides it was possible to live without a heart. Ted did.

  MOST OF WHAT the Captain said got lost in the underwater flood she now lived in. Everything seemed far away. The next day consisted of more pretending to sleep and after once again being forced to attend meals, eating whatever food she could manage in the mess hall. Carole reluctantly showered, but only because after refusing, the captain had ambushed her in the hallway and dragged her into a shower stall, both of them fully clothed. Standing beneath a stream of hot water, he’d blocked her exit. Again Carole didn’t care enough to fight the man. Maybe she wouldn’t have cared about the shower either, but something in her became mortified when he started to wash her face with a soapy cloth. He held onto the back of her head
as though she were a child, rubbing the rough cloth across her face, soap burning her eyes. She became aware then that he was whistling despite water running over his face and soaking his camouflage.

  “Please!” she begged, getting a mouthful of soap and a mental picture of her pathetic condition. “Go! I’ll do it.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll bring you clean clothes, and tonight you’ll do your laundry.”

  The pleasure of hot water—and clean skin—seemed like a distant memory, but Carole went through the motions. Life was inevitable. It didn’t care if she wanted to participate. She went to the mess by herself afterwards, and ate only what she knew the voices approved of, though they still weren’t talking. Afterwards she walked to the beach and looked at the water. The faint commands of Inhale, Dive, and Move still swirled through her mind, but she’d stopped obeying them. I’ve gone deeper into crazy, she thought. Why? Because it’s safe there, the answer popped into her head. A real voice sounded at her elbow, she’d barely noticed the Captain’s approach.

  “Don’t go into the water, Private. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Why was his voice so far away? He’s not far away, I am, Carole realized, shivering despite the heat of the day.

  “Look, I know it isn’t my business, but he’s famous for this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Don’t tell me this, Carole thought. Please, don’t. But she waited, watching the Captain’s lips so she could understand every word.

  “I don’t know what I’m talking about either. I’m repeating gossip because I have a feeling you should know. I don’t even know if it will help, but maybe if you’re mad—Colonel White has a reputation with the ladies.” Carole made a sound of protest, and the Captain held a hand up, stopping her. “Look, I saw your face the day he left, I’m not stupid. Don’t worry, no one else knows. Colonel White’s a great guy. He really is, at least if you’re a guy he is. Most of us want to be him, but I have a sister, Private, and maybe I see things differently. He’s famous for being a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy. I’m just sorry you didn’t know that. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you that himself, because he’s also known for being honest. He didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Maybe he thought you knew.”

  “No. He lied.”

  “Oh. I’m really sorry. You won’t go in the water just yet though, will you?” Carole looked at it, clear and beckoning. Escape.

  “No,” she promised. He was right. She wouldn’t come out again if she did. He nodded and turned to go, then looked back at her again.

  “You can do better.”

  Something twisted in Carole’s heart. No, she couldn’t do better. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t. She’d made her choice, no matter how foolish.

  “Not all men are liars,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. But they all leave, she thought. The Captain left her then, and Carole forced one foot in front of the other until she was running along the shore.

  PASSING NEAR THE helipad, a group of men watched her run. Pretending to turn a blind eye, Carole saw one of them motion to her. Reluctantly she stopped moving, making the man come to her to speak. He was a pilot, and looked about fifteen years old.

  “You’re my pick up, Private.” Her eyes flitted to his and he whispered, “Oatmeal,” and winked. For a moment she didn’t understand. Then she remembered the nasty closet of the CIA she now belonged to. It was the code word. Motioning with his eyes to a helicopter, he added, “Ten minutes. You’re going out with the mail.”

  Carole ducked into the trees and raced to her room. Banging the door open, she crossed the tiny space and grabbed her duffel, shoving dirty clothes into it. Dropping to her knees, she reached beneath her cot and pulled Ted’s dress shirt out. She held her breath, afraid to smell him on it, afraid it would be too much if she did. Jamming the khaki cloth into her duffel, she zipped it. Lumpy shapes rested in a low spot on her mattress. Green coconuts. Carole unzipped her bag and forced two of them into it. Jabbing her knife into each remaining drupe in turn, she drank the water as fast as she could. On the way out the door Carole reconsidered and returned to her empty cot. She dropped her military issue knife on the bed and several seashells she’d gathered to scoop gelatinous flesh from green coconuts. It was all she had to give. It occurred to Carole that she didn’t even know the Captain’s name and she’d never once thanked him for saving her life. All she knew about him was he had one fortunate sister.

  Twenty minutes later she sat on top sacks of mail in the back of the helicopter, on her way to her first official, or non-official, assignment as a NOC.

  IF IT WERE a closet it had been designed with Carole in mind. Moving across the globe, from assignment to assignment, without the need of paperwork or meetings provided purpose and enough isolation to disguise her peculiarities. Non-official cover suited Carole, and she wondered at times if she had been born to be a NOC. In South America Carole hiked through a rainforest for two days, with only a backpack, to deliver a map. A week spent crawling through a cave in Chile was a success when she emerged with some type of crystal that she couldn’t identify. She turned it over without a single question about its origin or why it was in that cave. The work provided her body activity and distraction. It soothed like swimming in deep water. Egypt proved harsh, the desert rough by night or day, but she hiked it for a month to deliver a long series of numbers that she’d memorized. It took her weeks with a scientist holed up in a tent, before he could finally memorize the code, and she could leave and claim a successful mission. Her contact left her at a camp in the southern end of the country, on the bank of the Nile. Carole slept a lot in the desert heat, and as always she dreamed of Ted, even though she tried not to. Every night for the past seven months he’d haunted her.

  “We’re going to take you off active duty for a bit. It’s time you had a break anyway. Where do you want to go?”

  Carole roused on her flimsy cot, sand gritting between her teeth. Rubbing her eyes, grains of it scratched against her eyelids. In this desert, every crevice of the human body became infiltrated by sand. A man dressed in the traditional cotton gown and turban of an Egyptian sat on the bunk across from her.

  “Why are you taking me off the active list?” She didn’t need or want a break. Activity helped her function. It helped her forget, at least during the daytime.

  Grinning through a full beard he motioned towards her prominent belly.

  “When are you due?”

  “December.” Carole rubbed a hand over the mound. It moved, visible beneath her tight olive T-shirt. “And that’s two months away,” she protested. This Egyptian was the first agent who’d acknowledged her belly as though it weren’t a disease. Once her stomach had become obvious, the only comments she’d garnered from those she worked with was encouragement to abort the inconvenience. It had started in late summer.

  DELIVERING A NOTE with detailed comings and goings of a local politician, she met an agent at a café in Ecuador. Usually her contacts barely made eye contact, passing her next assignment verbally and vanishing. In a crisp linen suit, Harry, as he’d introduced himself, pulled out a chair for her, insisting she join him for lunch. Unquestioningly Carole sat beneath a cheerful umbrella and took the proffered menu. Freshly roasted coffee wafted under her nose penetrating the distance to where she resided deep inside her own head. She squinted against blocks of bright sunshine striping the patio. A primal need for food roused her. The papaya juice looked promising, and some type of vegetable ceviche with corn and rice. A waiter passed with a tray of patacones, the refried plantains looked delicious. Could she possibly eat enough to satisfy her changing body? The agent offered to treat, and Carole ordered more food than the tiny table could comfortably hold.

  “We can get you stateside to take care of that, but we need you in Peru by the following Tuesday.”

  Rolling up a crumbling corn tortilla, and rubbing it through a dish of s
oft butter, Carole asked, “To take care of what?”

  Harry stared pointedly at the faint bulge of her belly. Carole folded the tortilla and jammed it into her mouth. It tasted clean, of local ground corn, delicious. She replied through the mouthful, “There’s no need, it’s healthy. We’re both healthy.” She swallowed. How she knew that, she couldn’t really say, but she wasn’t going to a doctor. She wasn’t sick and it seemed perfectly capable of taking care of itself.

  “For an abortion, woman. Not for your health!” Harry looked disgusted. Carole put a hand protectively over her stomach. Kill it?

  “Oh come on, do you want a baby? You’re not even married.” That appeared to disgust Harry that much more.

  Ignoring her pregnancy had been easy until this confrontation. If she was honest with herself, Carole did not want a baby. But what did that even matter? She was having one, and that was that, wasn’t it? For the first time in nearly five months, the voices had something audible to say. The keening stopped, and for a moment Carole looked around, attempting to place what had just happened. The long drawn out mantra of the word why had become white noise months ago. She barely noticed it any longer, but when it stopped she was momentarily disoriented. Then the voices started to talk again, loud and clear. “Life is sacred. You will not do this. Your will matters not.” She slapped a hand to her forehead. They were back with a vengeance. A lecture began to ticker tape through her head so fast it was hard to determine where one word ended and another began, as though every word from the past five months needed said right now. Carole squinted at the agent, trying to focus.

  “Tell me you don’t believe in abortion,” he smirked.

  “I don’t.” Apparently.