by Fiona Quinn
Not surprising. “Is there another man who brings the prisoners now?”
“Oh, yes. When we left, yes. He was a terrible person. He beat the prisoners unmercifully. They would scream and scream. Elicia, she hated to work there, but there was no other work near our village. We needed the money to pay for Pablo’s doctor.”
“What’s the man’s name who is bringing the prisoners?”
“His name was Sr. Vega.”
Vega. I didn’t know that name. “And when you left, he was still bringing in new prisoners?”
“He is the one who brought all of the prisoners in on the plane.”
“Do you know anything else about him?” I asked hopefully.
“We all stayed far away from him. He was a devil.”
“Do you know Sr. Vega’s first name?”
“James,” Abuela said with an American pronunciation.
“Was he Latino?”
“No. He was from the US.”
“Thank you, Abuela. This has been helpful.”
I sat with my phone in my hand. Huh. Beth was Maria’s childhood friend. Maria’s uncle ran the prison. Maria tucked me away in that prison, either for herself or for someone else. It seemed to me that someone needed to talk to Tio Alejandro.
Striker watched me. When I looked up, I caught his steady gaze.
“I’ll get Deep to help me research that prison,” I said. “My guess is that no one knows it exists. Striker, all of those people, they were in such bad condition. They might have been normal people just like me.”
“You consider yourself normal?” he asked.
I squinted my eyes at him by way of reply. “Be serious.” This was definitely not time to play. “If they were kidnapped like me, we have to help them.”
Striker nodded grimly. “I’m on it. Looks like Axel’s heading back to Honduras,” he said. “I can’t spare Randy right now. I need his skills on a project we’re attached to.” He paused. “This isn’t reconnaissance; this is a full-blown mission. I’m not going to pull anyone from your detail other than Axel. We’ll need him down there for interrogations. I’ll get another team from Iniquus. Command’s going to have to work the diplomatic end.”
I sat there, thinking about all of those people down in the Honduran prison suffering in the sweltering heat with no relief. I felt overwhelming sadness welling up inside me. Emotions so big that I didn’t know how I could hold them inside of my skin. Before we left Texas, the doctor had suggested meds to try to “flatten my affect a bit.” I knew I had to keep handling this on my own. I relied on my feelings and instincts for survival and hearing about the vicious men attached to the Honduran prison threw me headlong into survival mode.
Twenty-Seven
Randy and Striker headed downrange the next day, somewhere in the Middle East. Classified. Don’t ask. No, they didn’t know when they’d be home, and even if they did, that’d be classified, too. I missed them—well, Striker, mostly. I worried.
Last night, I dreamed about IEDs again, like I did when Angel was over there, right before one killed him. Chris made me take medicine at night now. He said I kept screaming.
This morning, I was in my usual yoga pants and tank top, waiting for Laura to arrive at nine. I sipped my breakfast smoothie outside on the patio, where a fluffy white cloud masked the brightness of the morning sun. A nice breeze cooled the air and brought the smell of salt up from the water.
Beetle and Bella splashed around on the beach. Gater threw sticks for them to chase out into the waves, their barks joyously punctuating the air. It was the kind of day that made a great backdrop for fun summer adventures and good times with friends. Yet, I couldn’t quiet my humming nerves and tight stomach muscles as I thought about the guys down range. I would make a terrible SEAL. The men on my team had the clichéd nerves of steel; they thought this was fun and games. The whole team was envious that Command tagged Striker and Randy for duty. I sighed and projected good juju toward my guys out in the god-knows-where desert.
For me, today was more of the same with Laura in the gym. I kept my balance, standing like a flamingo on the BOSU ball. Well, I tried my best, at any rate. I moved against the current in the lap pool. I stretched and lifted.
After Laura put me on the treadmill, walking on an incline for an hour, I had a stitch in my side and a sweat-soaked shirt.
“Your weight isn’t moving up anymore,” Laura tapped her pen on her graph paper.
I looked down at my shirt. “I think I’m filling out.”
“What size bra were you before you lost all the weight?”
“32 D.”
Laura tilted her head to size up my chest. “You have a ways to go. Are you drinking the peanut butter shakes with your meals, like I asked?”
“They were good the first few hundred times. Six times a day is five times too many.”
“I have a few more recipes you could try; the peanut butter is the most caloric, though.”
I stuck out my tongue. She reached over and turned down the pace from snail speed to sloth speed so I could cool down. “I used to be worried about you staying out in this deserted place all by yourself when your nurses were off-duty, but apparently you have housemates.”
“Yes.” Uh oh.
“I saw two of them jogging up the drive yesterday as I was leaving. Very cute. Big!”
“Big, yes. Cute? Laura, I thought you had a new beau.”
“I do. It doesn’t change my eyesight. Are they military?”
“They were. They’re a group of ex-Marines who are developing some kind of project to reintegrate vets when they get back stateside.” I climbed down from the machine and stretched.
“That’s nice for you,” she said.
“How so?” I sent a curious glance her way.
Laura grinned broadly. “I wouldn’t mind being in a house of ex-military guys, especially when they look like that.”
“Yeah? I don’t see them very much. They stay in the east wing, doing their thing. I try to take advantage of the times they hang out in the great room in the evening. It’s helping my book. The military has their own vocabulary and cadence to their speech. I try to pick up phrases to color my writing — give my conversations a touch of realism. They’ll answer my questions about weapons and tactics. I try not to pester, though.”
She pushed the stop button on the treadmill and handed me a towel.
“Mostly, I talk to you, Chris, and Andy.” I patted the towel over my face and neck. “Other than that, it’s almost like living alone, which is great for me.” I stretched my back. “If I don’t hole myself away when I’m writing, everything and anything becomes a distraction. If you ever go to a writer’s house, look in their closets – they’re always clean.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, adjusting my stance and making the stretch I was doing a thousand percent more painful. Oof.
“Procrastination,” I grunted.
Laura nodded and patted the leather-covered massage table draped in a crisp white sheet. “Up you go.”
I lay on my stomach with the e-stim pads polka-dotted across my back. The tins unit zapped me while Laura knitted booties for her soon-to-be-born niece.
“How’s your book coming, Annie?” she asked.
“Fits and starts. I try to write two thousand words a day, even if it’s crap.”
“What do you write?”
“Thrillers. This one’s about a power grab plot from within the Pentagon. The military thinks that the three branches of government are too slow of a system. The brass wants all the power for themselves.”
“A military coup?”
“Sort of. The military is going to disrupt the government enough that it’s not functional, and they have to step in.” I was making this up on the spot, and hoped it came off as credible.
“How could they do that?”
“They explode the Capitol Building while the President is giving his State of the Union address. Everyone dies.” I thought I was probably telling the p
lot of a Tom Clancy novel.
“Supreme Court, Senate, House members, what a mess. But I thought the military showed up for that.” Laura picked a knot from her mint-green yarn.
“Some of those military leaders aren’t part of the coup plot, and need to be disposed of anyway. The others don’t show.”
“Wouldn’t that look weird? Maybe not at the time, but later, when they were figuring it all out.”
“Yeah. I’m still trying to find my way out of that box. Anyway, when the President is giving his speech, they always send a cabinet member into hiding. I’m sending the Secretary of Defense, but she’s actually in on the gig.”
“She? That makes a good twist.”
“Wish I knew where I was going with this. I had it all worked out in my head. Then my head got bashed in.”
“Are you having memory issues?” Laura stopped her needles and looked up. I saw concern in her brown eyes.
“More like creativity issues. I remember the gist of the story. Right now, all of my characters are cardboard cutouts. I can’t seem to breathe any life into them.”
“I bet that feels frustrating.”
“Like I said, I write my two thousand words a day. Then the next day, I delete most of the previous day’s work, and I plug on. You know what, Laura? I’m not feeling very well. I think I need to stop for today.”
Laura turned off the e-stim. “What’s going on?”
“I feel a migraine coming on. I’m starting to see auras.”
“Tell Andy to hook you up to the IV now before it gets a good hold and get some sleep. I’ll pack myself up and let myself out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
I slid off the table and delicately made my way back to the west wing. Andy caught my eye when I passed by the kitchen and followed me to my room. On silent feet and without a word, he set up the IV. With the infusion set taped to my arm and the meds flowing down the tubing, Andy shut the blackout screen on the French door and went out.
Hours later, I walked out into the great room. Chris and Andy were there, playing video games on their computers with earbud cords dangling down. Gater sat at the table doing paperwork, and Cookie moved around in the kitchen as quietly as possible. Everyone looked up when I shuffled in.
“I’m better. Thanks for the silence. I really appreciate it.”
“What’s your pain level?” Andy asked, walking towards me.
“Two? Pretty much no pain. A little double vision and a sticky tongue, probably the aftermath of your joy juice.”
I reached past Cookie to get a glass from the kitchen cupboard, and moved to set in on the counter. The glass crashed to the floor, splintering into a million pieces against the granite tiles. I had missed the surface by a good six inches. I stood there barefooted amongst the shards for a second, processing my mistake, then everything went black.
Twenty-Eight
It was a weird, weird, weird experience to be in one place and in one position, and then fast forward in time and become aware again in a completely different place and position. The last thing I remembered was the kitchen at the bay house. I was definitely in a hospital bed now.
I didn’t feel badly. I felt like I was waking up from a good night’s sleep after taking a Sominex – a little woozy, but otherwise normal. I pressed the call button and waited for a nurse and an explanation. The door opened, and a man came in dressed in mint-green scrubs. He was short, light on the balls of his feet, with a devilish goatee and a big grin. Lots of teeth.
“Surprise!” he said with jazz hands. His voice was sing-songy. “I’m Caleb. I’m your nurse on duty. You’re probably wondering where you are and what happened.”
I nodded my head.
“This is Siena Hospital. The ambulance brought you in yesterday afternoon after you passed out in your kitchen. Your boyfriend will be back in a minute. He’s in the cafeteria getting some breakfast.”
“Breakfast?”
Caleb looked at his watch. “It’s six A.M.”
I wondered who my boyfriend was. Striker should be out of the country. Unless I’ve completely scrambled my brains and I was remembering incorrectly, which was a very distinct possibility.
“Do you know why I blacked out?” I asked.
“I’ll let the doctor discuss it with you. Dr. Kloss has your case and is making rounds. He should be in soon.”
“What kind of doctor is Kloss?”
“Neurologist,” Caleb sort of half-smiled, half-grimaced. I wondered what that meant.
Gater walked in the door with a baseball cap pulled low, an oversized t-shirt that hid his muscles, and thick overnight stubble. I almost didn’t recognize him.
“Hi, honey,” I said.
“Babe,” Gater took my outstretched hand and gave me a big smacking kiss on my lips. “You okay?”
“I’m about to find out. Did the doctor say anything to you?”
“I’m not family until you agree to marry me.” He squeezed my hand affectionately. “I guess I’ll find out when you do. They’ve run a lot of tests, though. Laura came by last night to talk to them about your medical history, her work with you, and all.”
The door opened again. A bald and diminutive Dr. Kloss walked in with his arm stiffly extended in front of him. He shook my hand in an unnatural and practiced way that told me he didn’t like to deal with the whole bedside manner mess; he’d rather stick to the science. I didn’t expect warm and fuzzy from him.
He adjusted his glasses and spoke to my file rather than me. “How does your head feel this morning, Ms. Henderson?”
Ah, yes. I was Annie Henderson. “Like I’m a goldfish in a small bowl.”
“No pain?”
“None,” I said as Gater moved to slouch into a chair in the corner of the room. I wondered what I was supposed to be calling him.
“Good, good.” Dr. Kloss let his focus move to my knees. “So we ran some tests. We did an EEG and an MRI on you when you came in, I was concerned about swelling. Your test results indicate that you have a lot of fluid built up around your brain. That is probably what has been affecting your visual perception and causing your migraines. We have some forms for you to sign.” Kloss looked at Caleb, who handed me a clipboard and pen. “I want to do a spinal tap to run some tests, and as a side effect, it should relieve the pressure. After that, we’ll see how you’re doing. If you still have a buildup of fluids, I will want to put in a shunt. The fluid I pull out is sent to the laboratory to check to make sure it is clear.”
Caleb pointed at a line. “Can you see well enough to read this?”
I nodded, scanned down the page, and signed where Caleb had indicated.
“Good,” Dr. Kloss said. I found his robotic speech irritating. “I will be back after my rounds. We can do the procedure right here in your room.” With that, Kloss turned and left. Caleb gave me an apologetic smile and followed him out.
“Spinal tap. That sounds like fun.” Gater moved to the edge of my bed.
“Better than a final tap.” I attempted a smile. “This is the joy ride that never stops Hey, what’s your name?”
“Joe King.”
I stared at him wide eyed. “You’re joking.”
“Yeah, I’m Joe Mama.”
“Gater!” I swatted at him.
“Okay, for real, I’m Joe Campbell. See?” Gater reached in his pocket and showed me his Virginia state driver’s license.
“Huh. Thorough. Do I have one of those?”
Gater picked up a pocketbook I had never seen before. He pulled out a wallet and showed me that indeed I had a whole little life in there – credit cards, insurance cards, driver’s license, and a picture of me with Gater. “Where did you get this picture, Gater?”
“We have a stack of them that Deep Photoshopped, in case one of us had to take you in. It would verify that we had an attachment to you.”
Caleb came in with my breakfast tray. I wasn’t hungry. I pushed the scrambled eggs around on my plate. “I’m so sorry t
hat I put the bay house on the map.”
“How do you mean?” Gater watched me play with my food.
“You had to call 911 and have an ambulance sent out,” I said.
“No, we used the one in the garage. Chris and Andy pulled on their EMT jumpsuits, and I followed in the pickup truck.”
“Are you kidding me? Striker has a freaking rescue squad in his garage?”
“Iniquus has three of them. They make great cover. Real handy for going into situations and extracting our mark, especially if we have to drug them first.” He took a swig from his Styrofoam coffee cup. “Iniquus lent one to Striker in case something like this happened. We could move you, and keep your location undercover. We rented an apartment in the next city over so you have a local address and phone number.” Gater pulled out a driver’s license and handed it to me. I looked over the information, committed it to memory, and handed it back to him. “Thorough,” I said again.
“We try.” He turned to put the purse on the counter, then sat back on my bed.
“Nice kiss, by the way.”
“Line of duty, ma’am,” he winked and gave my leg a pat. “Maybe you should be eating some of that, not just pushing it around on your plate.”
“Hey, Joe?” I was interrupted by Caleb coming in with an instrument cart. The sight of the syringes spread across the table made me feel green.
“Whoa,” Gater said. “What are you going to do with those gonzo needles?”
Caleb picked up the syringe with a gloved hand. “Dr. Kloss is going to insert this into your lumbar spine, Ms. Henderson, and suction off the fluid. We expect to get several vials, but we only have to place the needle once. You’re going to lie on your side in the fetal position and be very still while we do the procedure.” Caleb looked over at Gater. “You won’t be allowed in here while the doctor is working, Mr. Campbell.”
I believed that I detected relief on Gater’s face.
Kloss came in, did his thing, and I was going to try to forget the whole experience. After the spinal tap, Kloss let me rest, but he told me I still had an arteriogram yet to go.
