The Executioner: Part One

by Ana Calin

  The news hit me hard. “What?”

  “I’m saying that your father rented a booth at the club and paid for anonymity. I’m saying he’s working for the same criminals as Damian Novac, and that he’s having an affair with Svetlana Slavic.”

  “My Dad is the mobster she danced for?”

  “The mobster thing was just speculation, cheap gossip. But Novac – I’ll have to stop here, you’re in no condition to hear this.

  “My condition didn’t stop you before. Go on.”

  Hector gritted his teeth. “You know how I received the assignment to get close to Damian Novac, Alice? The Executioner file, archived with the R.I.S., disappeared six years ago. Disappeared, you understand? No one can make that happen unless they’re the K.G.B., F.B.I., fucking David Copperfield or a nasty monster with friends in high places, like the organization he’s working with. That’s how the Intelligence Service got me on the job. After six years of rubbing shoulders with him, I still don’t have evidence against Novac, I don’t. But I’m positive as hell he’s a villain.”

  The room spun with me. This isn’t happening was back in the charts.

  “So help me.” Hector lowered his voice even more, taking my hand in both of his. They pressed on my bandaged fingers, reminding me of how my nails had come off. The pain helped revive awareness that I was still in the real world.

  “What did your father and Novac talk about?”

  He put slightly too much emphasis on this last question. My thoughts suddenly fit together like puzzle pieces, leaving no room for doubt – he’d come to see me as an investigator, yet he’d done as good as all the talking, telling me horror stories about a Machiavellian Damian and a father I refused to recognize. All of this even despite the hospital bed and IV lines snaking around my arms. “Everything hurts, no matter what.”

  It dawned on me. The son of a bitch tried to manipulate me into betraying my own father, and Dad had known it. Maybe what he said was true, but this was my father he was talking about. I turned my head to the narrow window, letting the gray daylight flood my eyes, as stinging as it was.

  “I wouldn’t know, Agent Varlam. I wasn’t yet awake.”

  “Yes, you were,” he insisted. “Your mother told me you were.”

  “She was wrong.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “It’s the simple truth. Now if you don’t mind, I’m tired. Everything hurts.”

  Hector tensed, I felt it in his grip on my hand and the intensifying pain in my fingers.

  “I really hope you’re not covering anything, Miss Preda,” he stressed. “More shit will happen if I don’t lock up Damian Novac soon.”

  “And who else would you have locked up, Agent Varlam?” My own father, right?

  “Whoever aids him in his endeavors, directly or indirectly,” he spat.

  As soon as Hector was out the door Mom rushed in and kissed my forehead, again and again, smothering me.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  She gazed lovingly into my eyes, tears sparkling among her lashes as she stroked my hair. “I love you so much, baby.”

  A wave of guilt washed over me. With a weak hand, I reached for hers. “I love you too, mom. It’s just that –” How do I put this? “Dad has answers.”

  “Answers?”

  “For Varlam,” I lied. It was easier. “Please, Mom, where is he?”

  She frowned, searching my face unconvinced.

  “Your dad had urgent business back in Constanța, and was forced to return on a short notice.”

  I frowned. “That’s weird. He seemed vehement to remain by my side when Agent Varlam came in.”

  “Well, he said the business was related to the case at hand.” She stroked my forehead.

  Slim and graceful, Mom reminded me of a swan with her perfect blond-and-white chignon and elegant suits. She seemed a Royal. I wished I’d inherited more of her looks than I had of Dad’s.

  “Where are we, by the way?” I said, looking around.

  “The General Hospital in Brașov.”

  A white-lit place it was, but depressing as hell. I got to explore its corridors while searching for Leona as soon as I could walk, which didn’t happen until the following day. Considering the great blood values I was supposed to have according to Dad, the weakness and vertigo that made me throw up were unexplainable. Didn’t dare talk to Mom about it, though. It was hard to even look her in the face, knowing what I knew now – that Dad had been sleeping with a girl my age, a girl I knew.

  But I couldn’t walk without help, so I had to live with the crushing guilt as we strolled through the hospital. To top the whole thing, I had this ever-present sensation that I saw Damian everywhere, unyielding and unnerving that I almost choked on it.

  “Is it just me, or you’re in love with this boy?” Mom said with a patient smile as we walked down the hospital hallways to Leona’s room.

  “I am.” The truth tumbled like a rock off my chest.

  “He must be very fond of you, too. He spent hours by your bed.”

  My heart jumped. “He did?”

  She nodded. “Didn’t take his eyes off your face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was hypnotized, standing there like a statue.”

  I don’t think a bungee leap could’ve been more exhilarating than the feeling that coursed through me at those words.

  “When your father and I arrived, he was already with you. God, sweetheart, never put us through this again.” She paused, swallowing the panic down her thin, dry-skinned throat as she skipped to a part that seemed to comfort her. “That boy was always there as doctors swarmed around you, and he stayed after they stabilized you, too. I didn’t have the heart to ask him for privacy.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “He’s remarkably handsome, if I may say,” Mom continued with another conspirator smile.

  “That he is,” I whispered.

  Only after we finally found Leona’s room in the east wing – as dark and humid as any old building that rarely saw an investment – did the bitterness succumb, replaced by a flood of sadness at the sight of my friend lying on that piece of metal with a flimsy mattress, her chocolate eyes drooping and lips drawn downward from crying.

  We exchanged no words. Just that locking of the eyes. I dropped by her side and squeezed her in my arms as hard as my tired muscles allowed. She was softer than usual, her flesh felt like warm polenta. And tears flowed, wordless, both of us shaking with them, our fingers hooking like claws in each other’s hair, tugging as memories drained from us. We cried and leaned on each other like exhausted boxers until there was no drop of rage left, just sighs and lunatic laughs.

  Although Leona was perfectly healthy too, as her blood tests showed, the hospital wasn’t cleared to let her go. The police had ordered that none of the survivors were to leave the premises until specifically permitted to do so.

  “This is more of a prison than a hospital,” Leona said as we sat on the empty bed opposite from hers, looking out the cracked window into a sad, grey park.

  “A situation I’m sure Hector has manipulated using his badge,” I retorted.

  Indeed. Clearance came in about twenty-four hours. Every survivor was allowed to leave, no one had serious physical injuries, but mentally we were all wrecks.

  We drove with Mom at the wheel for four hours to Constanța in silence. George was sensitive to sound, he covered his ears, and his face would twist in a grotesque mask if any of us dared to utter a word.

  “He killed a man with his own hands, the trauma was most severe for him,” his doctor had explained. “He remembers every detail of it vividly, which gives him terrible headaches. Don’t leave him alone, for whatever reason, except maybe when you’re sure he’s asleep. He might do something reckless to punish himself.”

  The street to my parents’ house revealed itself on a last turn, cobbled and ghostly in our headlights. The barking from neighboring yards and the crisp sea air were the first to greet us, followe
d by the screech of our old iron gate and the warm darkness of our living room. I think that was my first real experience of synesthesia, I could almost feel the massive oak bookcase through my skin, the homely upholstered couch, Dad’s favorite armchair.

  George didn’t wait for an invitation to throw himself face-down on the sofa in the small antechamber that opened into my room, which I used to call my “boudoir” back in high school. Leona and I shared my bed.

  Mom turned on the lamp outside, the thick skeleton of our old apple tree bathing in its mild light. We kept the curtains open so we could face it from the bed, my old guardian from childhood days. It felt safe, but I still couldn’t close my eyes until the early morning hours. Something was missing, something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t home. It only hit me when my eyes snapped open at midday, my brain refreshed: Where was Dad?

  I threw the blanket aside, squirmed out of bed – squashing Leona in the process, and provoking a sleepy grunt – and rushed to the master bedroom.

  The curtains hung open, making way for the pale winter light through the overlarge window. The bed was made – of course. Mom must’ve been up for hours, if she’d slept at all, considering the circumstances. Having left my parental home a few years ago to live with Leona in the suburbs, most of my parents’ habits had moved to the back of my brain, only to resurface when exposed to them again. As they did now.

  I went to the kitchen to find Mom sitting at the table, her thin fingers slowly stroking a coffee mug smeared with souvenir photos of San Francisco – one of the few items that still bound her to her own home. Her stare was lost over the black liquid that didn’t give out steam, which meant she must’ve been staring blankly at it for some time now. Her hair, blond and crisscrossed by gray strands, fell rumpled to her slim shoulders. A fluffy white nightgown clad her thin body.

  The sight was disconcerting, considering her usual innate urge of always looking flawless and making an impression of aristocracy on all eyes that fell on her, including the cleaning lady’s. Now the absence of an elegant and shiny chignon and the uncovered wrinkles on her meager face in the presence of a stranger were another definite sign something was wrong.

  A heavy winter coat hung negligently on the rest of his chair, his chubby hands cupping a coffee mug like pillows of flesh emerging from under thick sweater sleeves. His mien was grave as he set small brown eyes on me.

  After a few moments of puzzling silence he stood up, gathered his coat and turned to the door that led directly to the back garden. With a hand on the handle and the coat on the other arm, he turned once more to Mom.

  “You know where to find me.”

  She nodded, and he left.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I walked slowly to the table, and sat down in the man’s place.

  Mom didn’t raise her head. On the contrary, she seemed to sink it even closer to the mug, a hunch forming on her slim back that was otherwise as straight as a wood plank. Hadn’t it been for the thick bathrobe, I would’ve seen the skin stretch over her ribs. The truth of the man’s visit must’ve been a burden not much different from an affair. Could it be?

  “So?” I breathed.

  Her fingers still stroked the mug with slow, even moves. “We’ll be under police surveillance. I don’t know for how long.”

  Police surveillance?

  “Why?”

  “You and your friends. The –” She chewed on her lower lip, probably to keep back what looked like a nervous breakdown. Her cheek twitched. “Those people from the mountains. BioDhrome, they told me.”

  Panic shot to the tips of my toes. “BioDhrome’s our priority now, Tiberius. They won’t stop here.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  Mom looked me in the eyes, searching for a way to put it, no doubt.

  “No, God, please no!”

  Mom’s expression grew alert, the way it had been at the hospital. She touched my wrist, voice soft and soothing. “No, baby, no. He’s all right, safe and sound.”

  “Where is he then?”

  This was the news she’d been nervous about, I could tell by the pause. “He’s been extracted.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Extracted? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Another nervous chew on her lip. “This BioDhrome thing, it’s – Alice, this must stay between us. Tell no one, not Leona, not anyone.”

  “Just tell me, Mom!”

  “Give me your word first. For your own safety, not my comfort.”

  “I’m your daughter, you think I’d betray your secrets?” Her words hurt. I went for one of the oath formulations I’d learned from the gypsies as a child. “All right, may I die in chains, if a word on this leaves my mouth.”

  Mom shuddered. “Not like that, please. Your promise suffices. Keep this all to yourself, for your own good.”

  “No need to elaborate on that. Elaborate on extracted.”

  She took a deep breath, steeling her nerves. “I’ll start with the beginning so you understand.”

  “Please do.”

  “For many years, your father has been working with an international organization whose name he never told me. He’s been analyzing blood and tissue samples they delivered him. The results baffled your father, which filled him with enthusiasm in the beginning. After a while he withdrew into his work like a turtle to its shell. At the time I wondered if his work was claiming his mental sanity. Eventually it took its toll on our relationship. We had midnight fights more often than naught.” Her voice trailed off, lost in painful memory.

  “Tell me about it,” I whispered. All those late nights when Dad had tiptoed to the master bedroom, the quarrels they thought I hadn’t heard—they played like a movie in my head.

  “I pressured him to quit. I imagine that’s why his heart grew cold, and he found comfort elsewhere. Oh, dear baby, I haven’t asked – some coffee? Tea?”

  With the premiere of her confession on my shoulders I nodded, and Mom put a kettle on the stove. I let her decide on whether coffee or tea, and moved a few inches in to let her sit by me and slide a loving arm around my back, as if to support me through what she’d say next.

  “Your father is a BioDhrome target, they tell me, because he works with their direct enemy – an organization that calls itself ‘the good guy’ in comparison, but I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that they’re so powerful they could order the R.I.S. to take your father in while we were still at the hospital in Brașov, and that kind of power is dubious. To be honest, I’m no less wary of them than I am of BioDhrome. However, what matters now is that your father is safe with the R.I.S.”

  “How can you be sure?” Worry broke through my voice, no matter how hard I tried to keep it chained.

  “Because there’s nothing safer than their protection in this country.”

  “The few words I exchanged with him back at the hospital, he didn’t seem anxious about his life. He wanted to stay here, with us.”

  “Two of his colleagues and their families have been assassinated, Alice. Those men worked for the same organization, in matters related to genetic research. The R.I.S. are certain BioDhrome is responsible for the murders…and back in the mountains it’s suspected that they meant to murder you baby, in the same horrendous way—to teach your father a lesson before killing him, as well. Tiberius is a risk factor in this house. Without him we’re safer, but still. Officer Sorescu, the man you saw in here . . .” – even more careful now – “he’s around with his colleagues, just in case. Leona and George will be staying with us, too.”

  “Does this mean we’re confined to these walls?”

  “No. The R.I.S. agree that resuming a normal life is a must. Public places and crowds will be safest. You’ll be under surveillance.”

  Mom was right, BioDhrome wouldn’t risk taking action in public. They’d try to get me alone, in secluded places or even at home. So surveillance and protection made sense.

  But the feeling that Dad had been extracted a
gainst his will nagged at me. He’d been adamant at the hospital, his tone had left no room for doubt—he could protect us, especially by being present.

  “What if I want to talk to him? Is there some number we can call? Some place we can go?”

  “We can contact Agent Varlam.”

  “I see.” So Hector was forcing my cooperation by using Dad as leverage. On a second thought, what if extraction was no more than a gross lie? What if he’d thrown Dad in a nasty cell to get information on Damian Novac out of him? I jumped to my feet, bumping into the table edge. My ears whistled in tune with the kettle on the stove.

  “Well, I’d like a word with him right now,” I spat.

  Mom stood up too, hand on my cheek to calm me down, blue eyes identical to mine wide and worried. Standing half a head taller though, she made me feel like a kid again.

  “Alice, honey, the whole idea behind this was to keep out of touch. Why bother organizing an extraction, if family stops by at the hideout to say hello anytime they please?”

  “And you accept this so easily?” I snapped, and brushed her hand off. “Are you really not worried about him, not one bit? His absence doesn’t bother you in the least?”

  Now it was Mom’s turn to frown and apply a hard edge to her voice. “It’s not much difference to the past years, is it?”

  “But this is different, Mom! BioDhrome is serious trouble that not even the R.I.S. might be able to protect him from.”

  “I am worried about your father, Alice, believe me, but yes, I admit, I’m more worried about you. And if his presence puts you in danger, then I don’t need or want to see him again until the afterlife.”

  Her words stabbed at me, but I kept my anger behind tightened lips. Dad had been cheating on her for a long time, and she knew it. Indeed, why should she give a shit? I tried for a peace-making tone.