by Greg Dragon
Angel sniffed. “I still have my little laptop. The webcam sucks, but I suppose it’ll do.”
“That won’t be necessary. I asked my people to bring another camera. I want to get pro footage of this.”
“So, you’re not planning on leaving.”
He sighed and finally turned toward the window. She could see his reflection in it, faint and pale, the thin line of his lips. “No, but we still need to deal with the boys. They’re playing a dangerous game.”
“They’re kids.”
“I know, which is why I think their little Lord of the Flies operation here will crumble in the face of a more . . . determined force.”
“Force?”
“I have a friend on the mainland, a guy in Beijing. He’s former CAPF, but now runs a private security firm. Hires out off-duty police. I told him we needed some bodies. Just enough to scare the boys off, let us do our jobs.”
Angel nodded and felt herself relaxing.
“They’re very likely orphans,” he quietly told her. “I imagine they must be in some sort of shock. PTSD or something. They certainly aren’t acting like you’d expect.”
“Shock, yes. They should be in the hospital. They’re sick and need to be treated.”
“And they will be, hopefully soon. But that’s not what we’re here for. There’s a bigger story just begging to be told. I’ve no idea what it is, but we need to figure it out.”
She coughed, shifted slightly. Her cheeks felt warm, though not because of his proximity. She hated feeling helpless, looking weak and dependent, but that’s exactly the position she was in right now. And she could tell by the look in his eyes that he considered it his obligation to protect her simply because he was a man and she a woman. Well, she’d always managed well enough on her own, and in worse situations.
He turned away from her, perhaps sensing her annoyance, and crossed the room. She could hear him tinkering around in the bathroom, checking switches. There was no electricity, and after reappearing he reaffirmed that there was no water, either.
“Dinner’s going to be a little light tonight,” he said, smiling wryly. They’d brought a case of emergency rations on the boat, but had left it at the dock. “I’ve got a bag of airline peanuts and a granola bar. I’m willing to go halvesies on them both for a share of your water.”
* * *
Sleep was long in coming that night. The world outside seemed unnaturally dark and still. There was no wind to speak of, and the shore was too far away to hear the ocean breaking upon it. Angel lay in her mummy bag beneath a layer of moldy-smelling blankets and breathed a ghostly fog into the cold and silence of the room. She wondered if she was the only one still awake, and whether the boys in the hallway outside and DeBryan in the adjacent room had managed to escape their own private insomnias.
The two of them had spent the afternoon reviewing their strategy for the following day, comparing theories as to the reasons why the PRC government had kept the disaster to itself, and why it had essentially abandoned the island’s survivors to succumb to sickness and starvation. But the subject soon exhausted itself and so the conversation inevitably shifted, as it always will do when two strangers are left alone together for any length of time.
DeBryan remained until darkness stole the last of the light away, when it became painfully clear that they’d finally run out of things to say to each other and had no more desire for small talk. Although, to be fair, it was mostly him carrying the conversation by then. She had never been good at social intercourse, even with the people she felt closest to, which lately numbered very few. She had little tolerance for chitchat, especially with strangers, and had zoned out much of what he told her. Later, lying awake and staring at the ceiling, she could only remember bits and pieces.
He’d told her about some of the places he’d been to on assignment, the things he’d seen. He said his first job was as a college student covering the hurricane in New Orleans, and how, because of the people he’d met, he had felt obligated to tell victims’ stories through pictures. He was an only child, and his parents still lived in a tiny mobile home in Palm Springs. “Dad golfs three times a week, and Mom goes to the malls.” This last bit brought an awkward chuckle out of him, as if the admission were shameful, though she couldn’t understand why it would be. It sounded like a nice way to retire.
Then he had to go and ask her about her family, and what could she say? Only an idiot would have missed the gracelessness with which she bumbled the answer, muttering something only half intelligible before hurriedly changing the subject. Thankfully, he followed her lead with the tact of a gentleman, valiantly filling in the spaces she left empty by her stubborn silence with aimless mentions of this or that. But after a while her reticence wore at him, and he excused himself and returned to his own room, gently shutting the shared door behind him but not latching it. She knew he had done it on purpose, just as she knew it wasn’t an invitation of any kind.
He was very professional, almost fatherly. There was none of the tension that sometimes came with working with men who spent months at a time in the field, often in utter solitude, who seemed to carry on in the belief that their female counterparts shared the same carnal needs as they and a willingness to satisfy them at any opportunity. There had been a few times when she might have been tempted, though she never did. Did that make her frigid?
She knew from what DeBryan told her that he wasn’t married, and the absence of a ring on his finger supported this claim. There wasn’t even the telltale groove or pale band of skin signifying a wedding ring had ever occupied a place there. In the end, however, it didn’t really matter. The tragedy outside and the frustration of their confinement simply loomed too large on their minds for there to be room for anything else.
She unzipped her bag and crawled out of it, naked save for a pair of plain black panties and bra. The chill bit at her skin, and the carpeted floor seemed to draw the heat out of her through her feet. But she felt little of this. She went and stood over at the window, her arms crossed over her breasts and her hands absently rubbing the gooseflesh on her elbows, and gazed out into the darkness.
It was a moonless night, clear but for a few wispy clouds. The stars cast their delicate glow upon the island, turning the dew-crusted buildings into shapeless husks. She could almost feel their emptiness. In the distance, the tiny orange glow of a campfire was the only other proof that they weren’t alone.
It was the question about her family which had caused her such distress and kept her from submitting to her exhaustion. She fully acknowledged that, and reluctantly she let the memories of her childhood in Lyon seep back into her consciousness. Experience told her that refusing to do so never ended well. It was best to let the haunting memories come, to let them possess her for a while so that they would return to the catacombs of her mind satisfied, there to quietly molder until circumstance ushered them forth again.
Her father’s stern face floated before her outside the window, like a spirit risen from the grave. At first it was just his visage. Then came the drowning sound of his voice in her ears. The feel of his hard, cold fingers on her young, bony limbs. The strict lessons. The dark bruises. But most of all, the pain.
She wasn’t aware of her body sinking to the floor. Her eyes were blind to the physical world by then, her ears deaf to all, even to the anguished moans which slipped through her lips. The dream-memory took ownership of her and held her captive for the balance of the breathless night, and the world remained innocent as ever of the torment she privately suffered.
When she woke the next morning, as the first tendrils of gray pre-dawn light stole into the room, she found herself quivering in a far corner, a blanket which she had no memory of grabbing slipping off her shoulders, and her skin blue and cold as ice.
Chapter Three
Angel heard the footsteps outside and knew from the scuffling sounds and the angry shouts that the boys left behind to guard them were being forcibly removed. But by whom? Had DeBryan’s
friend shown up with his security team? How did they know where to find them?
She was already dressed, so she quickly threw her laptop into her pack and zipped it shut just as the door burst open, splintering the frame. Three men stepped inside, and their insignia marked them as soldiers of the PRC. They held their rifles out before them, ready to use. Blue surgical masks hid the bottom halves of their faces, and their hands were covered in matching latex gloves. Their eyes were cold and hard, and not just from the brisk air.
“Thanks for knocking,” she snapped at them.
If they understood, they didn’t show it.
There was a thud on the door to DeBryan’s room. People were shouting in Chinese, and she tensed up. It didn’t sound good. These weren’t his friend’s people. Angel straightened up, expecting to be grabbed and dragged out of the room. But the soldiers just stood there glaring at her and waited.
They were soon joined by four more uniformed men, who shoved the photog into the room. Somehow, he managed to stay on his feet. He’d been in the process of shaving, and the electric razor was still in his hand, forgotten. One of the soldiers snatched it away and threw it hard to the floor, where it buzzed until it was crushed into silence beneath the heel of a black leather boot.
Nobody spoke for several long seconds. DeBryan gave her a questioning look, asking her if she was all right. She returned it with a quick nod and turned her attention back to the soldiers.
A moment later, an eighth man stepped in. He wore dark slacks and a tan woolen overcoat, but no mask. His hands were tucked inside the coat’s deep pockets. Finally, the interrogation began, though not by him. He stood back against the wall, away from everyone else, and watched and listened.
The soldier’s English wasn’t very good, and his inability to communicate effectively coupled with their own inadequate responses seemed to quickly frustrate him. Angel got the impression it was all a part of some script, but to what end, she wasn’t sure. She kept her eyes on the man in the back to see how he reacted. When she showed the soldier her passport, he snatched it from her hand and handed it to the soldier standing beside him. She quickly lost track of it as it made its way around the room.
“And you?” he snapped at DeBryan. “Where identification?”
“Next door, in my room. My pack’s under the bed.”
One of the soldiers disappeared for a moment, then reappeared with the photog’s backpack, which the interrogator began to sift through.
“Front pocket,” DeBryan offered. “Here, let me help—”
“Stand back!” He was shoved in the chest with the flat side of the stock of the soldier’s rifle.
The passport was located and it, too, was passed around.
“Huangxia evacuated,” the interrogator finally said. “You leave now.”
“You can’t do that!” Angel protested. “Your own government granted the visa.”
“Government say when okay and when not okay. Now not okay.”
“Why? What’s changed? I demand you tell me what’s going on here!”
But the soldier signaled the others to begin gathering up her belongings. Angel tried to stop them and received a push for her efforts. The soldiers weren’t terribly rough with her, not like the boys had been, but they were firm, all business. She quickly gave up and returned to the leader.
“I demand to know why we’re being shut out!” She grabbed his arm and he gave her a dark look before shaking her off. He offered no further explanation.
Throughout the entire interrogation, the man standing in the back had not moved or spoken a word. His face hadn’t changed at all. But now he stepped forward, and the soldiers moved aside for him, making a wide aisle as if they were afraid to touch him. “Thank you, Chief Sergeant Zhang,” he said, addressing the soldier-interrogator. He turned to Angel. “What is going on here, Miss de l’Enfantine, is that—”
“Missus.”
He tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment. “I beg your pardon.” Though he appeared to be Chinese, he spoke without a trace of accent. “My dossier indicates that you were divorced from your husband.”
“Separated,” she corrected, before she could stop herself. She felt her face grow red. “What dossier? Why are you checking up on me? And who are you?”
“All will be known in due time.” There was a twinkle of amusement in the man’s eyes. “But for what it’s worth, my name is Cheong. You may call me Alvin.”
“Never heard of you.”
“I’m not surprised. In the grand scheme of things, I’m a nobody.” He shrugged. “Nobody important, anyway.”
“I doubt that.”
“I can assure you, Missus de l’Enfantine, that in the long run, it won’t matter who I am. The more immediate concern is actually who you are.”
“A reporter. Investigative reporter. And we are here by the graces of the UN and the World Health Organization to find out what the hell is going on here!”
“Well, yes, and in that regard, I can also assure you that Huangxia will be unable to provide you with answers to your questions.”
“I’ll decide what questions to ask and whether they’ve been answered.”
He sighed. “These soldiers don’t want to have to force you to leave, but they will if it comes down to it.”
“Under whose orders? Yours?”
He looked genuinely surprised at this, actually let out a startled laugh. “Me? No.”
“What are they hiding here?” She glared at a couple of the soldiers in turn, and they shifted uncomfortably, but they refused to avert their eyes.
“I can understand the optics. It appears that something is being concealed here, and maybe it is, but it isn’t what you think.”
“What exactly do we think?” DeBryan challenged. “The Chinese government is—”
Cheong waved his hand dismissively. “You have only just arrived yesterday, Mister DeBryan. I, on the other hand, have been following the situation here for weeks, and I can assure you that these men here aren’t hiding some government secret.”
“This isn’t right!” Angel cried. “The media has a right to be informed.”
Cheong exhaled noisily and frowned at her, cutting her off. “Until we fully understand exactly what it is we’re dealing with, the media—”
“The media’s job is to investigate and report!” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Seems simple enough to me. There was a natural disaster, an earthquake followed by a tsunami. Other islands in the region were affected, and rescue and recovery efforts have been ongoing elsewhere. But not here. Why not? From what I saw, thousands have been killed or died afterward, their bodies left to rot in the streets, in the rubble. There has been no attempt to—”
“Missus de l’Enfantine, I can assure you that there has been a response.”
“Not that I can see! No restoration of power and water, no relief. We were supposed to rendezvous with an International Red Cross team.”
“Which was pulled back.”
“What the hell for? The few survivors left here are suffering terribly. I saw them. Cholera is a very real threat. You don’t need a medical degree or tests to know that dysentery, dehydration, and starvation are all spreading like wildfire among those who managed to avoid drowning. Hundreds have died in the past three weeks, people who survived the wave. These deaths were preventable!”
Mister Cheong raised his eyebrows at her. “They were already dead.”
“Liar!”
He shrugged. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind about it. If that’s the case, then what more do you need? Go and report your conclusions, just as you have described. Let the world condemn the PRC government for their failure. But if you do so, the truth will never be known.”
She opened her mouth in surprise, then shut it again.
“You seem convinced that you know better,” DeBryan said. “What is the truth, then?”
“I can’t answer the what,” the man replied. “Not just yet. But I c
an tell you the where. And it’s not here. You’ll have to travel to the mainland to find answers.”
Angel narrowed her eyes. She thought she understood what he was implying. The truth would be found not in the starving, diseased faces of the casualties here. Rather, he was encouraging her to go to Beijing, to the seat of the government, where she would undoubtedly get lost in a sea of paperwork, tangled up in bureaucratic red tape, and blinded by misdirection. Did he think she was so stupid? But she wouldn’t fall for it. She was a field reporter, and she wasn’t going to leave until she was satisfied she had first exhausted all she could here.
Cheong checked his watch. “It’s time to leave.”
“Those boys,” she said, trying again, “they took our cell phones and my partner’s camera.”
“They will be returned. But I’m afraid these soldiers will have to erase any pictures you may have taken.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry, but those are the rules. I have no say in the matter.”
“If you’re not with the army, who are you with?”
He hesitated only slightly before answering. “A group called 6X. We’re private. So, like you, I am here by the government’s good graces. But also like you, they chose to cut short my stay here. It’s only because I promised to collect you two that they granted my request for an extension.”
“Well, I’m sorry to have to make you break your promise to the government.”
He smiled, as if he’d expected her to say exactly that.
“Those boys out there need medicine,” she said, still stalling. “They’re sick.”
“We find them,” Sergeant Zhang snapped. “We take care of them. You no worry.”
But there was something in the way he said it, something in his eyes and the tone of his voice, that Angel didn’t like. “How will you take care of them?” she asked.
“You no worry,” he repeated.
Mister Cheong stepped forward and faced the soldier. “Give them a few minutes to gather their belongings. Then we’ll caravan back to the dock.”
