by Jack July
Doc shook his head. “No, that’s okay. Apparently you read the Bible.”
Amy’s look changed to one of confidence and pride. “Read it, study it, live by it.”
“What about the ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ part?”
Amy shook her head, thought a moment then asked, “Are you a Christian?”
“This isn’t really about me.”
“It is now. That doctor-patient thing stopped when you questioned my morality. Now I will ask you again; are you a Christian?”
Dr. Earle paused. He couldn’t remember ever having this conversation with another patient. “Okay, fine. I was. I was a Roman Catholic.”
“Then you have read the Bible.”
“Parts of it.”
“Then you know that God has used his children to defeat evil on many occasions. Many Christians and heathens alike have the same issue. You have to read the whole book, not just the parts that fit your needs.”
Dr. Earle nodded, starting to realize that maybe this conversation wasn’t a good one to have.
“You’re not Roman Catholic anymore?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Truth is, I’m angry at God for not protecting my wife and child.”
“That’s right, you said she was pregnant.” Dr. Earle nodded. “Interesting you should call it a child.”
He sighed. “Touché.” After a few uncomfortable moments, he smiled at her. “Shall we continue?”
“Sure.” Amy thought for a moment. “Ya know, if you have no need for an ‘ultimate causal power’, maybe you can believe in Doctor Suess.”
Dr. Earle had a look of confusion. “Doctor Suess?”
“Oh yeah, do you? Do you believe in Doctor Suess?”
“I suppose so. He is a writer with wisdom.”
Amy leaned in to the table, smiled and tilted her head. With slow and soft annunciation she said, “A person is a person, no matter how small.”
Doc let go of a little tension with a quick amused laugh.
“Know you are not the first to lose their religion. You’ll be back. He’s still in your heart, I can tell.”
“Thanks. Now let’s get busy.”
They moved back to the living room and sat down. Doc Earle picked up his pad. “So, you handed Cindy over to the FBI?”
“We sat up most of the night and talked about babies. Then she fell asleep. It was a peaceful, sound sleep, the sleep of the rescued. Cindy’s bodyguard stuck his head in the room and waved me out. He had a message from Sonda: ‘FOUND ’EM. PICK YOU UP AT NINE.’”
Odetta was all business as she climbed into the taxi. “Let’s take a trip to the airport first; I need to get some supplies.”
“You got it.” Sonda drove toward the highway occasionally glancing over at Odetta who was quiet, cold and very deep in thought. “What are you thinking about?”
“Weapons. What I might need.”
“Okay. How is Cindy?”
“Pregnant.”
“Oh, no.”
“She’s happy, believes it was a gift from Mia, her, um, partner.”
“Well then, I think that’s a good thing for her.”
Sonda showed her ID to security, drove between two hangers and parked. Amy got out.
“Hey, can I see it?” asked Sonda.
“What?”
“Your plane.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
Cobber was losing his paycheck, playing cards with the maintenance guys as Amy walked into the hanger. “Cobber, drop the stairs.”
He got up and lowered the stairs. Sonda followed her up into the plane. She mumbled something in Romanian. Her hand ran across the soft leather of the white seats. “What is it like to live like this?”
Amy shrugged. “It’s not what you think. But yeah, it’s nice. My husband’s plane makes this look like a bus.”
Amy snapped on her twin shoulder holsters, checked her weapons, grabbed some magazines, dropped some pre made C4 bombs into her purse and put on her Kevlar jacket. “Sonda, how many magazines do you have for the MP5s?”
“Twelve.”
“That’ll do it. Let’s go.”
Minutes later they were on highway E81, heading away from Bucharest. “Amy, what you are going to see may be difficult to look at. I just want to prepare you.”
“I’ve seen it all before.”
Sonda shook her head. “Not like this.”
Chapter 20
Joseph stared hard at the phone then looked back up to the office door, praying to Jesus that she would walk in. He knew once he made this call, everyone’s world would change. He had only heard rumors about his Uncle Jack. If half of them were true, the door to hell would be cracked open. He dialed. “Uncle Jack?”
“Joe?”
“Is Aunt Carla Jo there?”
Five long seconds of uncomfortable silence were followed by a voice that came from somewhere not of this earth: “She had better be with you.”
“No sir, she left the hospital three hours ago. No one has seen her since.”
Jack knew of the situation at the company, but he stayed out of it. He only knew one way to do things. It usually involved a stack of corpses. Not since Amy went MIA in Afghanistan had Jack felt the white-hot lightning bolt of fear that crashed through his chest. “Joe, you get every God damn thing you own on every road that connects that hospital with the company. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find her.”
Joseph heard the click and jumped from the chair, shouting, “PARKER!”
Jack hung up the phone and called the Sheriff. He explained the situation and while they were talking, Gene put out a BOLO on her car. Every local and state patrol car in the area went on one mission. Gene hung up the phone and turned to the man handcuffed to the chair next to his desk. Sitzberger looked pale, then his face twisted in terror as the six-foot-seven, three hundred and fifty-pound sheriff with a face full of rage stood and leaned over him. “Boy, you cannot comprehend what you have done. You have unlocked the cage that holds Satan himself. Now I’m gonna ask you one time. Where is Carla Jo Brown?”
Jack‘s mind raced as he began to prioritize. He needed manpower, smart, unlimited manpower. He dialed another number. “Bogus, it’s Jack.”
With an upbeat, personable tone, Bogus replied, “Uncle Jack, how are you on this lovely day?”
“Where you at?”
“Rock Creek Regional getting ready to fly to Houston.”
“Carla Jo is missing.”
“Missing? Do you suspect foul play?”
“Yep. She’s in the middle of that union bullshit going down at Joe’s company. They went violent, beat up one of Joe’s employees. Now she’s missing.”
“Are you at home?”
“Yeah.”
“My people will be there in moments. Share all your information with them. I will be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
Bogus stood at the top of the stairs of his G5. His regular pilot, Garrett, had taken Micky and friends to Hawaii in the new company G650, so he had former Naval Aviator, Lee ‘Smiley’ Mahaffey. “Please shut it down; we will not be traveling today.”
Bogus scampered down the stairs, dialing. “Tigger, we have an emergency. Spin up the 429 and prep for search and rescue. We will be going to the Brown residence.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before Jack could put together another cogent thought, Patsy Kline started barking and Luther was knocking on the front door.
Sitzberger knew he had only one way out. Deny any knowledge of what happened to Carla Jo and pray they didn’t find her before he could be released on bail. He looked out the window and saw the sun was setting. He was sure they wouldn’t find her in the dark. Sheriff Carter’s best interrogators were on him hard. He refused any comment other than, “I don’t know.”
Sheriff Carter sat next to his wife in dispatch as the coordinated search continued. The front doors of the office bur
st open as a brash attorney with a thousand dollar suit and a briefcase began to shout at the officer minding the front desk. “I want to speak to the Sheriff and I want to speak to him now!”
Sheriff Carter walked into the lobby. “I’m Sheriff Carter. Now you’ve already made a mistake by raising your voice to one of my deputies. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.”
Michael Felton, Teamsters’ attorney, looked up at the Sheriff and thought it wise to moderate his tone. He put out his hand to shake the Sheriff’s. Sherriff Carter did not reciprocate. “Yes, well, I am here to see to the release of my client.”
“Mr. Sitzberger?”
“Yes.”
“He has been implicated in an assault against a citizen of Jackson County.”
“I would like to pay his bail and have him released immediately.”
“Well, there’s a little problem with that. Judge Martin is somewhere in the woods of Sibley County huntin’. We don’t know what that bail is. ’Sides if you’re half the lawyer I think you are, you know we’re gonna hold him for twenty-four hours regardless of what the judge says.”
“I’d like to speak to him.”
“And that is your right. This way.”
Sheriff Carter led him to a jail cell, where Sitzberger was eating what looked like a meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of green beans and a biscuit. Attorney Felton walked in sat on the cot next to him. Sitzberger whispered, “Get me outta here, now.”
“They can hold you for twenty-four hours. Have you been beaten?”
“No.”
“Food looks good.”
“Dammit Felton, we have to get out of here.”
“It’s an assault charge. It’ll be dismissed.” Then Felton’s attorney sense kicked in. “There’s something else, right? What else happened?”
Sitzberger thought about telling him, but if he could get out before they found her, it wouldn’t matter. “Nothing, nothing, um, it’s okay.”
Felton shook his head. “If you lie to me, I can’t help you.”
“No, just get me outta here.”
Dr. Earle gave Amy the ‘eyes over the top of the reading glasses’ quizzical look she was getting used to. “So you’re driving to what you assume will be some kind of orphanage. What are you thinking?”
“I was thinking about a movie I saw in high school. Coach Traicoff had shown it in my current events class. There was no sound but it was black and white footage of this Eastern Block, um, ‘institute’ they called it. It was full of children, mentally and physically disabled children. I got very emotional. It was high school, so I tried to hide it.”
“How did that you make you feel?”
“Very angry, tears-in-my-eyes angry. I remember one of the kids in my classroom laughing because this toddler had an insane look on its face and was rocking back and forth, holding the bars, like a monkey in a zoo.”
“How did you react to that?”
“I told him to shut his mouth or I’d shut it for him.”
“So you have always defaulted to violence?”
“No, that was the threat of violence. I don’t understand this line of questions. What are you looking for?”
“Triggers.”
“Triggers?”
“Yep, what pushes you beyond your rational mind. If you’ve ever really had a rational mind, which is something I’m beginning to doubt.”
“So I’m irrational?”
“There is no perfect ration, if you will. Rational behavior is another one of those ‘eye of the beholder’ social constructs.”
“Sooo, what’s your point?”
“Let’s say you had a fear of spiders. You saw a big, hairy one in your house. The rational person would buy bug killer or call an exterminator. You, on the other hand, would burn down the house.”
“Sooo, what’s your point?”
“You operate like this 24/7, you’re gonna make some mistakes. Big ones.”
“You think I’m losing it as a covert operative?”
“No, you’re the perfect covert operative. You lost it as a human being. I thought Fenian was not your natural state, Amy was. Turns out, Fenian is your natural state, Amy is a construct.”
“No, that’s not right. I’ve spent years cultivating Fenian. Style, movement, speech, everything. I made that all up.”
“Really? Do you remember an operation called Golden Angel?”
“Yeah.”
“You shot a man in the face at point blank range before you ever knew what a Fenian was.”
“There were four of them. They were going to attack us.”
“I know. I read the report. Amy, your average person cannot do that.”
“I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
Dr. Earle sat back in his chair. “Have you ever heard those stories where people decide to keep a tiger or some sort of large predator as a pet?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t end well.”
“Exactly. Tell me why?”
“Humans anthropomorphize them because of their beauty and grace. They want to be close to ‘em, forgetting it’s a wild animal. Make one wrong move and the human is dispatched.”
Doc Earle nodded. “Yes, but why? I mean, the human feeds them, gives them love. How can a small thing, like, for example, true story, forgetting a big cat’s vitamins and reaching for the bowl to take it back, earn the human a death sentence?”
“Because its base instincts control everything. It has no conscience.”
“Yes, do you see it now?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. It was the day the warmth left your body. You felt it leave.”
Amy sat back incredulous. “Are you saying I have no conscience?”
“When did it leave your body?”
Amy whispered under her breath, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“When did it turn off? When your mother died? Your brother? When those boys beat and sodomized you?”
She began to physically change. Her body became tense and coiled, her eyes flashed and her voice changed. “You need to stop, you are going to a place… you, you need to stop.”
“Maybe it was when they took turns sticking their dicks in your mouth.”
She was on him in one fluid movement. His upper body wrapped up and pinned tightly to the chair, the tip of the #2 pencil pressed against his larynx. He smiled at her while speaking softly in her ear. “And there you are. Fenian is not the construct. Your conscience is the construct. You built it with the Bible and cues from family, friends and the very few people you trust. Your problem isn’t turning Fenian off. Your problem is keeping Amy and your conscience turned on. I think we are finished for the day.”
She let out an angry sound, somewhere between a grunt and a scream, and slowly pulled the pencil from his throat She stood up, took the quilt Granny Patches made her and walked out to the back porch. Doc Earle took a couple of deep breaths and headed for the cabinet with the shot glass and the Irish whisky.
Chapter 21
Tigger was full throttle on the way to Jack’s house. Twilight was deepening as he landed in Jack’s front yard. The door was flung open, and Luther, Athos and Jack leaped aboard. They were airborne in seconds. Jack was clearly distressed. Bogus gave him a headset and they did a quick radio check. Moments later they reached Braxton trucking and hovered 200 feet above the ground. Bogus keyed his headset. “Jack, tell Tigger which road she took.”
Jack responded, “Take a right turn out of the lot. Two miles up is a stop light; take a left and follow it to the Hospital, ’bout twenty-four miles.”
Tigger replied, “Roger that,” pitched the craft nose-down and headed off. Jack slid the door open and looked out. Bogus keyed his mic and said, “Jack, shut the door.”
“I can’t see anything, I CAN’T FUCKING SEE ANYTHING! SLOW THIS FUCKING THING DOWN, TURN ON YOUR SPOTLIGHT!”
Bogus reached over and unplugged Jack’s headset. Jack gave Bogus a h
ard look and motioned him close. “Jack, please to listen to me. Tigger is a former Marine Search and Rescue pilot. He knows exactly what he is doing. Let him do his job.”
What Jack didn’t know was the Bell 429 was outfitted with Forward Looking InfraRed, FLIR. The woods were thick on the sides of the road and it would be easier to pick up heat signatures from a car or a person using FLIR than it would to see with a bright spotlight. Tigger also had other hazards to negotiate, like power lines and terrain changes. He didn’t need anyone barking in his ear.
Bogus plugged in Jack’s headset. Tigger did a running commentary, like he was talking himself through the mission. “A lot of cars this evening. A few people walking in groups.”
Jack sat with his fists clenched, his mind racing. They’re looking for her, Jesus, give me this one, please give me this one, she’s all I got. Ten minutes later, Jack felt the helicopter flare and come to a hover. It turned ninety degrees to the left. Jack looked out the window and could see a bridge beneath the blinking red lights. The helo made another ninety degree turn. Tigger keyed the mic. “Boss, I got something. I’m turning off the FLIR and turning on the spot.” The Thommen 1600-watt searchlight lit up the bridge like the sun. “I got a car, upside down half under the bridge.”
Jack bellowed, “THAT’S IT, THAT’S IT! THAT’S HER CAR!”
Bogus shook his head. It didn’t look good. “Tigger, set us down.”
“There’s not much room.”
“Make room.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tigger climbed 300 feet and circled, looking for anything that might contact the rotor blades. The only place to land was the center of the bridge. He gingerly set it down. The doors flew open and Athos and Luther sprinted to the end of the bridge and down the side of the hill. Jack started to follow but hesitated, seeming unsure. Bogus grabbed him by the arm. “Jack, let them do it. There are some things you may not want to see.”
