Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  The roads leading to the Sanctuary. The van’s windows had been tinted, but she could see a bit at the edges, when the light was just right. For instance, she had known when they drove through the town of Dahlonega. A central traffic circle had been circumnavigated, sending them along a smaller road and eventually to the route leading to the Sanctuary, the parking lot, and helipad.

  The doorbell rang. The map she had been constructing in her mind fell to pieces. Olympia steadied herself, and answered the door. She would play the game of pretending to give them permission to enter. It seemed to pacify them. And she desperately needed her captors to remain calm.

  The guards entered, pretending to be concierges. They were Abbott-and-Costello types, except Costello was thick with muscle rather than chubby, and Abbot was black, with an English accent. “We came to see if you needed anything.”

  “Is there a menu?” she asked with studied and deliberate naiveté. “Or can we get you to shop for us? Can I make a run to the store?” She seemed both friendly and plausible.

  Costello wagged his head. “No, we’ll be happy to do that for you.”

  She sighed with what she hoped sounded like relief. “I’m so grateful. I really want to just concentrate on helping Hannibal. Can I have my cell phone? I need to call the office, let them know I’m taking Christmas vacation.”

  Abbott smiled this time. “I’m sorry, we’ve found that it is best not to allow guests access to their usual communications channels. This is a very delicate process. I hope you can understand.”

  She hoped her expression would be considered bright and chipper. “Sort of like an intervention?”

  The security man seemed pleasantly surprised. Almost as if others had not understood. “Yes. Just like that. You have to understand that your relationship with your husband was part of the dynamic that created Hannibal’s prison. We can’t allow you to have your usual activities. It’s all for Hannibal.”

  Her relationship with her husband. They knew. Of course they did. How long had she been under observation? She felt raw, violated. They had been in her home. Olympia Dorsey had never been a violent woman, but at that moment, she could gladly have committed murder.

  “It’s hard,” she said earnestly. “But I’d do anything for my boy.”

  “Good,” he said. “So. Would we like something to eat?”

  “A couple grilled cheese sandwiches?” she said, thinking to herself that a food server might be the perfect person to ambush, yes indeedy.

  After they left, she visualized the steps from the elevator to the door. Another piece. The security at the front door.

  Who was at the door? How much security? What did they know about what was really going on here? Were they at fault, or innocent dupes? Victims themselves? And in the final analysis … did it matter?

  Her lips curled in a hard frown. “No, it doesn’t matter at all,” she said, tiptoeing into the apartment’s family room.

  There, Hannibal watched television, as he had since he first stopped shrieking at the corners of the room. He seemed lost in the chaotic cartoon images, thank God.

  She prayed that he was unaware of the extent of their peril. Prayed that he could find mental and emotional sanctuary in his painfully narrow and brittle focus.

  It was the first time she had ever been grateful for that terrible gift.

  A single tear rolled down her cheek, unobserved by neither of the two people she loved most in all the world.

  CHAPTER 39

  “What are we going to do?” Nicki asked, her breath fogging the glass. She gazed out of the passenger window as the station wagon slid past manger displays and dancing neon reindeer. Behind her, Pax panted humidly against the back of her neck.

  “We have to find help.”

  To either side, threads of smoke rose from the woods and rows of houses, wafting to the dark, cold clouds above them. Sirens wreathed the air, so constant that she barely noticed them anymore. “Everything is coming apart, isn’t it?”

  “It seems like that. Do you have any relatives here in Atlanta? Close friends of your mom?”

  “No.” She stared at him. “She had her job. That was about it.” She changed the subject clumsily. “The cops in the diner. How in the world did you do what you did?”

  “Someone gave me a gift,” he said.

  “That Madame Gupta person?”

  “Yes.”

  Nicki was quiet for a while. “Mom said she was a miracle.”

  “Sure seemed that way to me.”

  By now, Nicki was near tears. “Do you think she could help us? Would help me?” Her voice cracked. Nicki realized her lower lip was trembling. She could not let that fear and frustration out. If she started crying, she’d be unable to stop.

  Terry considered. “I’m not sure. What I’m pretty sure of is that you’d be safe there. And she can help me understand what is going on in my head.”

  “Mom said they were going up there, but I didn’t get a chance to ask her about it. I hope it was wonderful.” She shifted in her seat. “Do you think Madame Gupta would take me in? Is she nice?”

  He smiled, warmed by the memory. “She’s a lot more than that.”

  “Would you take me there?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do we find her?”

  His fingers hugged the wheel in a white-knuckled death grip. “We’ll find her.”

  * * *

  Terry pulled off the freeway at a spot he chose more by instinct than logic, and cruised darkened streets. Few stores were open. Many looked as if they had been closed for days. Signs on windows: THE END IS COMING. And LAST CHRISTMAS SALE.

  “Holy shit,” Nicki said.

  “Sounds just about right.”

  An entire block of businesses were blacked out. The residential neighborhoods they passed seemed darker than any other Christmas he could remember, scant on holiday cheer. Doubt had begun to devil him and then he found something … the long, beige, two-story silhouette of a vacation-emptied high school. Dark windows.

  “Here,” Terry said. He pulled into the abandoned parking lot and parked in a shadowed enclave between two aluminum sheds. Studied the main building. “Let’s go,” he said finally.

  “You’re going to break in?”

  “Yep.”

  Terry walked around the periphery, every sense alive. He chose a window, worked the point of his belt knife under the window, and slid it up. “Not exactly Fort Knox.”

  He climbed up over the sill, and helped her up behind him. He pulled a narrow black Maglite from his pocket and pushed the recessed button, casting a pale saucer of light around the room.

  “What are we looking for?” Nicki asked.

  “The library, I think.”

  He used the light to navigate through the halls. Nicki followed, creeped out by the darkness, the interplay of light and shadow, even the abandoned Christmas decorations. On the walls: MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAVE FUN!

  Nicki stared at it as if contemplating her own tombstone.

  “Do you think they could be right?” she whispered.

  “Right about what?”

  “About this being the last Christmas.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t believe it.”

  She walked closer to him. “You’re a nice man. I’m sorry about how I treated you.”

  Terry grinned. “Oh, I’m an asshole. I’m just not the kind of asshole you thought I was.”

  “Thank God.”

  “No,” he said. “The other guy.”

  They reached the library. “See if the Internet is on,” he said.

  “Over here,” she said, waving him to a row of Macs. She finally seemed perky, as if a ray of optimism had pierced the fog.

  “Good. Leave the lights off.”

  He sat down and booted up. Went to Google, and entered “Madame Gupta.”

  Information scrolled. “Okay. Let’s see. We have a small Wikipedia article. Hmm. Indra Gupta. Born 1952. A question mark. Came to United States in … al
l right. Ah! Her American residence is in the retreat known as the Salvation Sanctuary in the Georgia mountains. No link.”

  He typed in “Salvation Sanctuary.” And a few moments later Google provided a list of possibilities. He put quotes around it, added “Georgia” and received a much smaller list.

  “I’m not seeing much,” he said, focus pushing back the disappointment. “Place is secretive. I’m guessing they have some kind of Web scrub.”

  Nicki leaned into the screen’s pale light. “Look. These are big sites. Articles by reporters, and all they say is ‘somewhere in the Georgia mountains.’ You believe they didn’t actually go there?”

  He liked the way she was thinking. “No. A couple of them describe it. What are you saying?”

  “They’re reporters. They were asked not to say more.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. What do we do?”

  “Think like reporters,” she said. “Look for smaller sites. Look for followers talking to their friends.”

  He ruffled her hair. “You … are a clever girl.”

  He scrolled down to a spiritual blog on Huffington Post. “And … here we go. The town of Dahlonega, lovely little bed-and-breakfast named … Long Mountain Lodge. Close enough to hike to the sanctuary. What’s hiking distance for you?”

  “Five miles or less?”

  “Lady gets a prize.”

  He typed “Dahlonega, Georgia” into Google, and received a map in return. Studied it. “Seventy miles from here. Still want to go?”

  “You really think Madame Gupta can help us?” she asked.

  “She wanted to see me. She wanted to help your brother. She may be the most remarkable person I’ve ever met. I think she may be exactly what we need.”

  “Then hell to the yes.”

  CHAPTER 40

  The doorbell rang again.

  Olympia steeled herself, then donned a happy mask. “That’s the door,” she said sweetly. “Just a minute! Come on, Hannibal.”

  “Food!” Hani screamed.

  She went into the bathroom. Looked around for something she’d seen earlier: a bottle of Listerine mouthwash on the sink. She wondered what her captors were more concerned about: gingivitis or bad breath? She poured a stream of astringent amber fluid into a glass, and drank. She answered the door.

  The waiter was a fine-looking young man who looked like a church choir’s lead tenor. “Dinnertime. Hungry, I hope.”

  She smiled, then as he closed the door behind him, Olympia spit the mouthful of Listerine into his face. He screamed, clawing at his eyes, and she smashed him in the face with a lamp.

  He collapsed to the ground, moaning, and rubbing at his face and head.

  She had watched the entire act of violence without feeling the civilized guilt and regret she would have expected. Damn, but that felt good.

  She grabbed Hannibal, who had been watching without comment or change of expression. “Come ON!”

  She snatched the key card from the guy’s neck and slid it through the slot on the side of the doorknob. The little light on the plate switched from red to green, and the lock clicked. Holding her breath, Olympia twisted the knob and opened the door, very gingerly sticking her head out. The hall was empty. She went to the elevator, pushing the wheeled meal cart in front of her, almost as if she thought she’d be able to use it as camouflage. Pushed the button. “Come on, come on, come on…”

  Ding! A guard exited and she abandoned her intended soft-shoe and rammed the meal cart into him. As he lurched against the wall she snatched the Mace from his belt and sprayed a stream of white foam into his eyes and up his nose. He screamed, gobbling inarticulately, rolling on the ground, consumed by a world of pain. Adrenaline numbed panic or concern for his injuries, and she hit the ground-floor button.

  “Damn you!” he shrieked. “Oh, shit! Eyes! My eyes!”

  “Don’t look, Hannibal,” she said.

  She needn’t have said a word. Hannibal was almost like a sack of potatoes, dissociated, not engaging at all. The Hani she had known just last week, with her once again. A sob caught in her throat.

  The door opened, but this new guy was a normal Yellow Robe, not a gold or blue security guy, and he was willowy and innocent, his eyes wide.

  “I’m sorry,” she babbled. “I’m sorry. Help me. We have to get out of here.”

  His wide-eyed confusion seemed genuine. “You … want to leave? No one is forcing you to stay.”

  She thought fast. “That’s not true. Someone is disobeying Madame Gupta. It’s … the security men. It’s Tony.”

  “Security?” His eyes sharpened.

  Pay dirt. Perhaps she could exploit the tensions she’d detected between the security guards and the followers. Wheels turned, and her mind whizzed. “You know they’re not like us. Like you. Or me. Or Hannibal.” Create rapport. Get him thinking “us.” “You have to get us out of here. It’s what she would want. Can you get us out?”

  “Security,” he said, lips twisting in a kind of triumph. “I knew there was something wrong with them! They were so mean when they rushed the rest of us out of here.”

  “Out?”

  “Yes. They’re bussing us to a facility in North Carolina. Something about a gas leak. Bastards!” He seemed to remember there was a child. “I’m sorry!”

  “Bad word,” Hannibal said, not meeting their eyes.

  “What’s your name?” Olympia asked.

  “Torrence.”

  “Can you help us?”

  “Come on,” Torrence said.

  Relief and gratitude flooded her veins. Finally, someone she could trust. Torrence knew his way around, might know his way out. This could be … the answer to her prayers.

  Torrence led them through the building to an employee parking lot. It was a ghost town, only three cars in a garage built for thirty. “I’ll drive you out. There has been some pretty strange shit going on here. I don’t know what to think about it, but I can promise you that we aren’t like that. It isn’t what we’re about.” He directed her to the backseat of a battered blue station wagon.

  “I know,” she said. “Please. Hurry.”

  He backed out in a squeal of wheels, almost hitting a yellow concrete pillar, then spun the wheel and left the underground parking garage, driving along the concrete lip outside the main fence as if heading clockwise to the helipad. “They’ve canceled the tours, even for the devout. Locking things down, furloughing out the aspirants.”

  They rolled up the underground parking lot to the gate. Two men met them there. The taller one smiled. Oh God, she thought. It’s Tony Killinger, a step ahead of them. “Hello, Torrence. Where are you going?” Olympia noticed that his right hand was behind him.

  “I’m leaving,” Torrence said, gritting his teeth as he did.

  Killinger looked at the woman and boy huddled in the back. “These are our guests.”

  “They’d like to leave.”

  “Well, now … that’s not possible right now.” Tony scratched his head, an oddly disturbing aw shucks gesture. Was he putting on an act for the acolyte? His faux folksiness made him feel more dangerous. Olympia’s heart, strangely calm before, thumped back to life. “Some … things have been stolen, and we need to question her.”

  Torrence put on his stubborn voice. “I’ll take her to the sheriff’s station.”

  “No, we’d prefer to handle it right here.” Tony sighed. Then his hand came out from behind his back—holding an automatic pistol which made a phutt sound as he fired a single round into Torrence’s face. Olympia screamed as his brains splashed into the backseat next to Hannibal. She pulled a frozen Hani against her, turning his head away. The security man pushed the corpse over, and nudged himself in behind the wheel.

  He smiled at Olympia, who sat with arms wrapped desperately around her shrieking child.

  “Now ain’t that a shame, darlin’?” Tony said. “See what you made me do?”

  CHAPTER 41

  Oh beloved, put your attention not o
n pleasure or pain, but between these.

  —Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

  The interrogation room was sterile, all white walls and shelves and knife-edged incandescent shadows. In the middle of the room, anchored to the floor, was a single chair that reclined to a table. Olympia was forced down and strapped in. An overhead light glared down on her like a blind, unblinking eye.

  Two people entered the room, wheeling a table carrying a beige rectangular container of dimpled plastic. They parked it next to her.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  They said nothing. One removed the top from the container, and she glimpsed various glittering implements of intimidating design. The men reclined her, and she felt the contents of her stomach pushing their way up into her throat as if she was being squeezed by a giant hand. Her head spun, and it was all she could do not to scream.

  “What are you doing?”

  They continued reclining her until her head was lower than her feet. Then they draped a cloth over her nose and mouth and eyes. It smelled like Febreze.

  “Wait! Wait! What do you want to know—?” The words were interrupted by a gush of water over her face. She bucked and writhed, screaming and choking.

  Drowning! I’m drowning! All the tissues of her throat and sinuses contracted and clogged, everything in her brain screaming drowning! And panic, raw primal survival fear such as she had never known seized her entire body like a wet fist. Shook her until all thought and emotion save terror simply tumbled out of her head and heart. Then not even terror, just a mute scream of survival as she strained against the bonds convulsively, bucking and twisting and pulling, vomiting and choking on water at the same hideous instant.

  They pulled the cloth away, and looked at their watches, counting seconds.

  Olympia sucked in a mouthful of air, gobbling incoherently. “Wait. Please. There’s been some kind of mistake—”

  The cloth was slapped back over her face, and watery hell descended with it.