Burning Man

by Alan Russell

  I thought I saw a little smile on her lips.

  “In fact some orders don’t even wear habits,” she said. “There are sisters that go out in the world and there are cloistered nuns. Is the candidate looking for a community of sisters that is evangelical, monastic, or apostolic? Many of the orders require a minimum of a high school education, as well as work experience. Young women are often surprised to learn that in many orders they have to be at least twenty years old before they can take their vows.”

  “Did that rule out this candidate?” I asked.

  Once again she chose to answer a question I didn’t ask. “It is one thing to be a potential postulant, but it is quite another to arise at four forty-five every morning. That is our daily routine here.”

  “Did the thought of those long working hours discourage this girl?”

  “What you need to understand, Detective, is that you don’t become a sister merely by knocking at the door of a monastery. There is a demanding system in place.”

  “And you need to understand, Reverend Mother, that as far as I know the rules of the confessional don’t apply here. Anything this girl might have said isn’t privileged.”

  “I imagine you are right about that.”

  “Did you talk to this girl?”

  A hardened criminal could have taken pointers from the reverend mother on how to avoid answering questions. “Did you know that last month I had my eighty-ninth birthday, Detective?”

  “Congratulations.”

  “I am getting worried about my memory. I have heard when you are as old as I am your memory plays tricks on you.”

  “I think it’s playing tricks on me.”

  With unruffled calm she asked, “Can I be of any other help?”

  There was no threat that would make her talk. My rules and laws didn’t concern her. Besides, I was keeping her from praying, and that was something the world could ill afford.

  “Apparently not in this matter,” I said.

  “Is there another matter you wish to discuss?”

  The day before, Dottie had told me the prioress experienced a miracle. Since that time I had been recollecting the media’s reporting on the story of the reverend mother’s miracle. At first her identity had been withheld; she had only been identified as a nun at the Monastery of Angels, but as the beatification process for Mother Serena ran its course, her name and position had been revealed by the press. According to the Vatican, the woman sitting across from me had experienced a miracle.

  “My inquiry isn’t a professional one, but I wanted to hear about your miracle.”

  With her great calm she asked, “What is it that you wish to know?”

  “I seem to remember that you were diagnosed with brain cancer, and that after you and the nuns in the monastery prayed to Mother Serena, you were cured.”

  “Your explanation is short on many details, but on the whole it is accurate.”

  “How do you know your disease just didn’t have some spontaneous remission?”

  “The disease had ravaged my body. I was blind and incontinent, and cranial nerve palsies and seizures had left me in a state where I could not leave my bed unassisted. I remember being frustrated by my inability to do the smallest tasks. I couldn’t even write a note. Muscle twitches and numbness made my handwriting completely illegible. As I understand it, most spontaneous remissions aren’t really spontaneous. They don’t happen all at once.”

  “But that’s what happened to you?”

  She nodded.

  “How long had you been diagnosed with brain cancer?”

  “For almost three years. The cancer had metastasized. All the specialists agreed on one thing: the cancer was terminal.”

  “And in one fell swoop you were better?”

  “I would call it the opposite of a fell swoop, wouldn’t you?”

  “How did the other sisters happen to pray to Mother Serena?”

  “She had passed away only days before.”

  “And you think her spirit healed you?”

  “As you see.”

  “Were you and the sisters praying for a miracle?”

  “No. We were asking for her blessing upon me.”

  “Tell me about the moment when you were cured.”

  “I felt the hand of God, and Mother Serena, wash over me.”

  “And it happened right after the sisters prayed for you?”

  She nodded.

  “Might your cure have been psychological?”

  The reverend mother smiled. “It seems that everyone wants to credit my mind and not my God. My medical records were scrutinized. Every blood test and every X-ray was studied. My disease was well documented.”

  “I understand your miracle was approved by the Vatican.”

  “The beatification process for Mother Serena is still going forward,” she said, “so it appears that is so.”

  Medical miracles approved by the Vatican had to be deemed sudden, conclusive and permanent, and inexplicable to medical authorities.

  “Have you ever wondered why God thought you were worthy of a miracle?”

  “I cannot pretend to be worthy; I can only think he decided my work here wasn’t done.”

  “But why would you be singled out?” I asked, not quite able to hide the frustration in my voice. “Is God running some kind of lottery and you just happened to hit the jackpot on a certain day and at a certain time?”

  With a calm I would never have, the reverend mother said, “I can’t tell you why things happened as they did, but I don’t think that God is running a lottery.”

  “I suppose He wouldn’t want to compete with Friday night bingo,” I said.

  The reverend mother actually smiled. You take small miracles whenever you can get them.

  “Thank you for your time,” I told her.

  “Go with God,” she said.

  I was grateful for her blessing but wished it came with directions.

  CHAPTER 13:

  DO NOT RESUSCITATE

  It was dark outside when I left the world of the cloistered and set out for the parking lot. Although it wasn’t even six o’clock, the night had fallen with a hard finality. The gloom seemed to extend to the heavens; the stars were hidden in murk and there wasn’t even a sighting of the moon to mitigate the night.

  Out of respect to the reverend mother I had set my cell phone to vibrate. I was at the far end of the meditation garden when my pocket started buzzing. As I accepted the call, I heard a whooshing sound. My hello was left hanging—much like I was. I was pulled backward by my neck, and my cell phone and bag of gift shop goodies went flying from my hand. I tried to cry “Shit!” but the tightening noose around my neck didn’t even leave me enough wind to curse.

  Denied air, I panicked and clawed desperately at the noose. My attackers expected that; loops closed around my wrists and took over the control of my arms. I felt like the steer in a team roping event. I was wrapped up so tight all I was missing was a bow on my head. No air was making it to my lungs. I frantically tried to reach for my gun but was pulled from so many angles I couldn’t even get close to it. The more I struggled, the more the loops dug into me.

  There were three of them. The working part of my mind realized I was being taken down with animal-control poles. The rudimentary part of my mind was screaming for flight or fight, but I couldn’t do either. I was in the grips of three animal-control poles, the kind of devices used on a Rottweiler or a pit bull. The poles had been designed to neutralize dogs with fierce teeth and big muscles. I was short those teeth and muscles; worse, I was snared in three places and becoming oxygen deprived. Animal-control poles are made from aircraft-grade aluminum; they resist bending or breaking even under extreme conditions, and the cables are designed to not twist. No hangman could have hoped for a better noose, or three better nooses. Still, I reacted as a panicked animal would, twisting and pulling and struggling.

  My attackers were on all sides of me. I tried to strike out at them, swinging with my ar
ms and kicking with my legs, but the poles were too long for me to get to them, and they worked as a team to control me. When I lunged in one direction, they yanked me in another. Time was on their side. Every moment brought me closer to unconsciousness.

  The sleeper hold is prohibited by the LAPD, but every officer on the force still knows how to apply it if needed. Get a neck in the crook of your elbow and compress the carotid arteries and jugular vein, and the flow of blood to the brain abruptly ceases. Usually it’s only a few seconds until lights out. Law enforcement describes the result as the “funky chicken” because victims often flop and shake almost like they are doing dance moves.

  I was getting close to the chicken dance. My ears felt like I was deep underwater with my ear drums at the point of bursting, and I wasn’t seeing so much as being an unwitting witness to a stream of black dots and silver lines swimming in front of my eyes. The only question was, which would come first: my blacking out from asphyxiation, or my brain becoming so blood starved that I’d start doing the funky chicken?

  The neck noose eased slightly, and the change in blood pressure almost made me black out. If I had not been snared on all sides, I would have fallen over. As it was, I dropped to my knees and tried to stay conscious while drawing labored breaths.

  My assailants had on the kinds of uniforms worn by animal control: olive pants, dark shirts with badges, and protection gloves. Their animal-control poles wouldn’t have looked out of place to a casual onlooker; they were the telescoping variety and would compact into a neat baton. The only thing different about their official-looking uniforms was their ski masks. It was probably an unnecessary precaution: the darkness was mask enough.

  “Steady him,” said the man with the noose around my neck.

  The men with the animal-control poles holding my arms did as ordered. It probably looked like they were doing a dance around the maypole; I was the maypole. The animal-control poles, I realized, probably weren’t just for me. They had prepared for Sirius as well. The grip around my neck loosened slightly, and I took in what air I could, sounding like someone in the midst of an asthma attack.

  “Make him assume the position.”

  My puppet masters evidently knew what the position was. With a few twists and turns, they manipulated my hands behind my back. I wanted to tell them they were making a huge mistake but didn’t have enough wind for my desperate lies.

  I had to do something, so I twisted and shook, but I wasn’t a fish on the line: I was a fish on several lines. My shaking wasn’t even a good delay tactic, but more a gesture as impotent as shaking a furious fist at a storming sky. That was all I could do, though.

  The man in charge dropped his pole and approached me. He leaned toward me, and I saw tattoos on the inside of both his arms. One looked like a red A and the other was circular with jagged, lightning-like lines. He ran his hands along my body and then relieved me of my Glock.

  “It is time to disabuse the world of the notion that good triumphs over evil, or that the concept of good or evil even exists. The new order is Ragnarok.”

  The philosophy behind the words—or lack of it—sounded familiar to me.

  The tattooed man continued with his rant: “It is time to lose the shackles of morality.”

  “Let’s take the prize and get out of here,” said one of the captors to my side.

  “The Prophet’s going to love this,” said the other.

  They sounded excited, like kids at a piñata party. It was a shame I was the piñata. All three of the men sounded young, probably early twenties.

  The tattooed man reached into his shirt and pulled out a nasty-looking knife. From behind his mask, his eyes were scrutinizing my face.

  “Hear no evil,” he said. “But what if we were to leave with another trophy besides his ear?”

  “You said that was how it’s done in a bullfight,” said one of his wingmen.

  The other added, “You said that would settle the score.”

  “Why settle the score when we can finish the battle? What better way to announce Götterdämmerung than by taking his beating heart?”

  “We can’t kill a cop,” said one of those holding my arm.

  The man with the knife said, “Why not?”

  My voice was raspy and raw and little more than a whisper: “Because you’ll be executed for the crime.”

  The leader didn’t acknowledge my words. “His death will show that no life is sacrosanct. In the twilight of the gods there are no rules. His spilt blood will avenge the Prophet.”

  “You don’t want to do this.” My voice was little more than a hiss. I directed my comments to the two men holding me. “You don’t want to be a party to murder.”

  “Hold him tight,” said the man with the knife.

  The rack ratcheted up another notch, and my arms were pulled taut. As I tried to come up with a last convincing argument, I heard a scream and the tension from the pole holding my left arm grew slack. To my left, a hundred pounds of fury were tearing into a man’s arm and shaking him savagely.

  My partner had arrived. If I’d been left with a voice, I would have screamed my enthusiasm, but I still might not have been heard. Sirius was an avenging fury. His target was screaming like someone being torn apart. Maybe he was being torn apart. He tried to fend off Sirius’s slashing teeth and in doing so dropped his hold on the control pole.

  The pole remained attached to my left wrist because the automatic locking mechanism had already been activated, but that was fine by me. I was now holding a combination of quarterstaff and nunchucks.

  I whipped the pole around and heard a satisfying crack, but the man on my right didn’t loosen his grip. The tattooed man lunged for my pole, but I swept my arm to the side and he missed. Unfortunately, he got a grip on the pole he’d abandoned, and the noose around my neck tightened.

  I tried swinging at him, but my range of motion was limited by the grip on my right wrist. Denied one target, I went after the other, hitting my hangman on the right once, twice, and then a third time. Cries came with every blow, but not my freedom. The SOB wouldn’t drop his pole or let go of his grip on my wrist. I was operating on fumes; no air was getting to my lungs.

  Starved for air, I changed tactics and instead of trying to resist, I ran in the direction I was being pulled. I slammed into the hangman, and as we fell to the ground I smashed his nose with a head butt, but the noose around my neck pulled me away from the fight and to my feet. As I tottered around, I swung the poles attached to my wrists like a drunken Edward Scissorhands.

  Desperately, I tried to find a way out of my hangman’s noose, seeking out the release knob of the control device that was choking me. During my time with K-9 we had worked with control poles, but never while being choked and shaken. Even as the fog grayed my mind, I recognized that my thumb was resting on a protrusion. I pulled the knob outward, my noose loosened, and I began sucking in air.

  Sirius had sensed my desperation and raced to my side. He stood in front of me, hackles raised and teeth bared, ready to attack any threat that came my way. I tried to speak, tried to tell him to attack the tattooed man, but it was all I could do to breathe.

  “Call him off or I’ll shoot you.” My own gun was aimed at me.

  “Steh noch!” I managed to say, and Sirius did as I asked: he stood still.

  Without lowering his gun, my assailant said, “We’re out of here.”

  The hangman that Sirius had chewed on was slow to get to his feet. He was bleeding all over and wasn’t able to move one of his arms.

  My partner and I weren’t part of the marching orders. Because I couldn’t chance speaking to Sirius, I surreptitiously signaled him. Instead of immediately obeying, he looked at me, hoping for a reprieve, but I signaled once more and this time he raced off.

  The tattooed man raised his gun and tried to track my partner, but he was too late. We watched as Sirius squeezed through shrubbery and was lost to sight.

  “The rat leaving the ship?” he asked, not r
ealizing I had sent Sirius off.

  “He’s watching you now in the darkness,” I whispered. “He’s waiting for his opportunity.”

  The gun was directed my way. “Throw us the poles.”

  I freed myself from the restraints. With each toss of a pole I took a step back and managed to put space between me and my assailants. The meditation garden wasn’t large, but I did manage about fifteen yards of separation.

  From the distance came the sound of sirens. I wasn’t sure if they were coming for me, but the Klaxon calls had their desired effect. The tattooed man knew there was no time to linger. He either had to shoot me or let me get away. Even though it was dark and he had a mask on, I could still read his eyes. Bullets from a Glock travel around nine hundred feet per second. I wasn’t going to out-quick a bullet. If he was going to shoot at me, I would have to make my move before he did.

  I watched his eyes and waited a long moment, and then another. And then I saw his eyes signal their intent. His mind was made up, and I knew what he was going to do.

  I threw myself at the only shelter that was available: the concrete foundation upon which the statuary of Saint Dominic and Mary rested. An instant later, Saint Dominic took two bullets for me, and the plaster shattered everywhere. Dominic bought me just enough time. The call of the sirens made the shooter decide they had to leave.

  “Hurry!” he called to the others.

  From behind Mary’s fissured robes I watched the pack disappear into the darkness.

  In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the impact of my near-death experience didn’t feel like mine but someone else’s. I felt disembodied, or at least I did until Sirius crawled up next to me and I threw my arms around him. From the ground I looked around and saw pieces of plaster all around me and made a vow to replace the statue of Saint Dominic and Mary. I took deep breaths of the suddenly sweet night air; short minutes later my brothers in blue arrived on the scene.

  Cops don’t like it when one of their own is attacked, and they had lots of questions for me. My injuries saved me from having to provide too many answers. Although I tried to demur, I was given no choice but to go and seek medical help. I refused the ambulance ride, though, and instead got an officer to agree to drive me in my vehicle to the nearest emergency room.