by J C Ryan
James smiled, “You will have to talk me through that again sometime. It sounds a lot like psychological mumbo-jumbo to me.”
“So what’s your take on this strange behavior of the wolves?” James continued, trying to divert their minds away from his sudden urgency to get back home.
“It’s difficult to describe it, Jim. Sometimes I just stand in awe; sometimes I attempt to figure it out, but most of the time I am frustrated with my inability to communicate with them or understand what they are trying to tell me. Humans have shared the planet with animals for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. We’re supposed to be the advanced ones, yet we haven’t even begun to understand them. In fact, I am convinced they comprehend us much better than we do them.”
Ahote nodded. “I can tell you Jim, animals are far more intelligent than we have ever given them credit for.”
While they were talking, they had covered the last few miles to the homestead, and James left them to unsaddle the horses while he went straight to the study and connected his satellite phone to the secure line, which A-Echelon had installed for Carter and Mackenzie when they became part of the team.
As Carter and Ahote cared for the horses, they exchanged their thoughts and feelings about the events of the past hour.
James waited impatiently for the phone to connect and once he was sure it was safe to make the call, he punched in Ben Friedman’s speed dial number. It was 6:00 pm in Tel Aviv, seven hours ahead.
Ben answered almost immediately.
“Ben, sorry to trouble you after hours,” James teased. “I know you work regular office hours these days and don’t like to be disturbed after five, but I have an extremely urgent request for you.”
“James, you know in our line of work there is no such thing as regular office hours. What’s the urgency, my friend?”
James explained what he wanted Ben to do for him and Ben told him to keep his phone with him. He would call him back within the hour.
When the call ended, James looked at his watch. An hour can be a very long time when you have to sit and watch every second tick by. He collected his laptop from his bedroom and connected it to the second secure line to check his work email. At the 60-minute mark, he looked at his watch for the hundredth time, groaned, and got up to make himself a coffee. Carter and Ahote were sitting outside on the deck and didn’t notice him enter the kitchen. Good. I’m not ready to answer questions yet.
He had just returned from the kitchen with the mug of coffee in his hand when his satellite phone started ringing. It was Ben. James’ voice was quivering with anticipation when he answered.
“Ben, are you absolutely sure? Have you personally checked and double-checked this? There can be no mistakes, Ben. You know what the impact of that would be to my friend. He had to go through it once; it was hell, and it is not over yet. I just can’t put him through it again.”
James listened and asked a few more questions. He was trying to write something down on the piece of paper in front of him, but his hand was shaking so much he dropped the pen, so he decided to leave it where it was and just listen.
“Okay, Ben. Thank you very much. I can’t begin to thank you for all your help with this.”
They said their goodbyes and James got up, paced the room for a few minutes to regain his composure, and walked out to the deck where Carter and Ahote were waiting for him.
“Ahote, can we go over to your place? Bly will want to hear what I have to say too.”
Bly was surprised when she saw the men coming back from fishing so early. She was even more surprised when she realized they weren’t carrying any fish, and they were coming straight to the house. Carter and Ahote both looked puzzled, but James’s face wore an expression she couldn’t read, and she felt her stomach clench with anxiety. When they entered the kitchen, she invited them to sit at the table and took a seat next to her husband.
James shook his head slightly, wondering where to begin. He realized he had kept everyone in suspense for long enough. But where to start? At the beginning was not the right approach in these circumstances.
He took a deep breath, focused his eyes directly on Carter alone, and said, “I have good reason to believe that Mackenzie and Liam are still alive.”
Bly jumped up shouting, “I knew it! I knew it! That’s what Loki and Keeva were telling us! I knew it!” Then she started crying.
Ahote was on his feet trying to calm his wife down, but then James’ statement struck him like a ten-pound hammer right between the eyes and he slumped back into his chair and started laughing. “Mackie! Liam! You’re coming back. Oh my God. You’re coming back. You’re alive!”
All of a sudden the two of them stopped and looked at Carter. He looked as if he had seen a ghost. He was motionless, staring into nothingness. Then they saw a tear slowly dribbling down his cheek. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. His mouth closed again.
James and the other two waited for Carter to speak.
Finally, his voice tight with emotion, he said one word, “How?”
“Okay Carter, I have to start at the beginning, and I hope you won’t despise me for what you are about to hear. I’ve had my doubts about their death from the very first day. Even before I arrived back in Israel. Don’t ask me why; there is no rhyme or reason to it. It was just this deep-seated, gut feeling that they weren’t dead." He stopped and drew breath, "Maybe I was on the same wavelength as Keeva and Loki, I don’t know." He stopped again, shook his head and continued, “I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking. If I were wrong, I would put you through the terrible sorrow of the death of your loved ones twice, and I just wouldn’t do that to you.”
Carter kept his dark eyes on James and remained silent.
“Right from the beginning I had my doubts about this being just a random attack, I couldn’t believe that either you or Mackenzie had been compromised, but it had to stay up on the board as a possibility. Both of you were working on some highly important stuff, and yours more dangerous than anything we have ever worked on. I had to consider, right from the beginning, that you might have been the target of the attack, but now I am convinced both you and Mackenzie were the targets. That’s why I arranged guards to be placed outside your door at the hospital.
“In the days that followed, as people were recovering from their wounds and others came forward, statements were collected, and a picture slowly unfolded. One of the descriptions that was of particular interest to me was by a woman who said she’d seen a white van with tinted windows draw up at the restaurant and pull away again just before the explosion. She had no other information and was the only one out of more than fifty witnesses who saw that van.
“Then the forensic results came in, showing that none of the DNA results matched Mackenzie or Liam. With those results, the only logical conclusion was to assume that the two of them were vaporized in the explosion.”
Carter was slowly recovering from the shock of the news, “Go on.”
“A very fragile, old man in his 80’s who survived his injuries in the blast only to sustain a stroke a day later was in critical condition for a long time, but he did recover enough to give a statement about a week ago. In his statement, he told the investigators he’d seen the white van too. He was just steps away when he saw it pull up in front of the restaurant, three men jumped out, grabbed two people and put black bags over their heads and pushed them into the van before it drove off again. Seconds later a gray van drove into the restaurant, and the bomb exploded. As you already know, everyone thinks it’s a miracle that you came out alive while everyone else inside perished.”
James stopped to draw breath, "What my contact told me about the old man’s statement, had me in a heat of excitement, and then the depths of complete despair. The old man said that one of the people they captured had long blond hair. Well, that ruled out Mackenzie with her red hair. I thought that was conclusive evidence that Mackenzie and Liam were dead.”
“The m
an is old and fragile, and Yiddish is his mother tongue. His Hebrew apparently was not that good. However, my contact assured me that the investigator was confident that the old man’s mind was lucid and that he understood him well enough during the questioning.”
“Okay, so something has now changed. What is it?” Carter prodded.
“The story that you and Ahote told me about the wolves triggered it, Carter. While I was listening to you and Ahote, I looked at those two wolves sitting there, and I had the strangest feeling they were listening and understood every word we said. Then I recalled the telephone conversation I had with my contact in Israel and remembered the old man’s statement. That’s when I realized no one had shown that old man a photo of Mackenzie and Liam.”
Carter had paled, and his eyes had turned almost black with the intensity of emotion he was feeling.
“Those phone calls I just had in your study were with my contact in Israel. He personally went to see the old man who is still in the hospital and showed him photos of Mackenzie and Liam. The old man was unable to explain why his statement said the woman pushed into the van had blond hair. He was sure he said red hair. When he was shown Mackenzie’s photo, he was absolutely positive that was the woman he saw before they put a bag over her head and she was pushed into the van along with someone else. He didn't recognize Liam from the photo he was shown, and that remains consistent with his previous statement. He said he couldn’t see what the second person looked like.” James fell silent.
Bly spoke first. “They are alive somewhere out there Jim, and we must find them.”
Carter nodded but didn’t say a word.
Ahote got up, took four bottles of cold beer out of the fridge, and placed a bottle in front of everyone. He was still shaking his head. “Mackie and Liam are alive,” he kept on mumbling.
Bly was still struggling to contain her tears of joy. “Thank you Keeva and Loki. You did it. You finally got through to our stupid brains.”
Carter turned to James again. “You’ve been to hell and back haven’t you Jim? Here I was thinking I was the only one suffering, apart from Mary, Steven, and Ray. I’m so sorry.”
“No apologies required my friend. None at all.”
Carter nodded. “Thank you, Jim. I will never forget this as long as I live. Oh, and forget about what I told you yesterday. I’ve changed my mind; I’m back on board with A-Echelon.”
James leaned over and shook Carter’s hand. “Thank you, my friend; I’m glad to have you back.”
Carter smiled. “So, where do we start?”
Chapter 21 -
I was captured
Mackenzie put her pen down and stared at the words they'd sent her from her unknown translator. She frowned in frustration. Not all of the translation was clear, a lot of it wasn’t making any sense, and without the person sitting next to her for on-the-spot interaction, it was turning into a very long, tedious, and aggravating task.
These were the moments she longed for Liu and Harry. She missed them, and not only their expertise but also their friendship.
That Nasser would not allow her to work directly with the translator was more than just irritating, it was infuriating. She was sure he knew it was more than just an inconvenience; it made the situation much harder and, consequently it slowed down progress. She was equally sure he understood that, in the end, unless he capitulated and brought the translator to work with her, he would be the loser since there was nothing more she could do to make things move faster.
The three stooges were worse than useless. Unless she practically stood over them, guiding their work, they could be considered a hindrance. She frequently had to stop what she was doing to go over and recheck something that was done incorrectly because one or the other of them had become lazy or negligent.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes; I’ll need glasses next; she thought as she stood and stretched. She smiled as she ran her hands over the small bump that had grown a bit since its discovery.
Just then the door opened and Nasser entered, indicating he wanted a word with her, so she joined him in another part of the room away from the three stooges, as was their custom. She had pondered at how insignificant they’d become since her arrival and wondered at the mystery that none of them had attempted to poison her coffee.
“How is the work progressing, Mackenzie?” he had dropped the Dr. Devereux name over the preceding weeks since he’d heard of the baby and was almost paternal with her. She wasn’t quite sure how to treat this change but decided it had to be to her advantage, so she played along. Maybe he feels he will be a surrogate grandfather, she thought and then added, especially if it’s a boy.
“It’s not coming along well at all. There is so little I can do since I have to wait for translations only to find they are not adequate, and I have to send them back and wait again for another report. We are wasting needless time this way, and I’m sure you know it.”
He nodded, accepting her irritation, “Yes, you are right; so I have decided, against my better judgment, to bring the translator here to work with you. However, there will be rules you will both have to abide by.”
Mackenzie wasn’t sure what she had put herself into with her determination to get him to relent about the translator, “I’m sure both of us can manage whatever rules you wish to impose, Nasser, after all, it’s the work that concerns me, not needless chatter.” She was admonishing him and recognized it. Still he continued to stay calm.
“The translator will arrive this afternoon. Let me make this abundantly clear: neither of you will discuss anything outside the work you will be doing together. If there is even a hint of unrelated topics, we will return the translator, and you will lose your son. Have I made myself clear?”
“Translucent as always, Nasser.” They stared hard at each other for a moment; he might have the upper hand about Liam, but she had the upper hand about her research, so, in fact, they were on par, each of them trying to unbalance the other just to score points.
He swept out of the room, and she returned to her desk, picked up her pen and began again.
Later that afternoon she was interrupted again and this time it was Seema bringing the welcome assistance of the new translator. As the person was dressed all in black like herself, Mackenzie recognized immediately that although this person was a stranger to her, she was another woman.
Mackenzie stood up to greet her, “Hello, I’m Doctor Devereux,” she said extending her arm to shake hands with the other woman.
“I know who you are, Doctor Devereux.” The voice was familiar, but it took Mackenzie a moment to realize whose it was, and when she did, she nearly fainted from shock. Liu Cheun!
“Liu, is that you?” Mackenzie asked.
“It is I, Mackenzie; it’s nice to see you again.”
Aware that Seema was watching, Mackenzie stepped forward to hug Liu. “You a traitor?” Mackenzie whispered as they gave each other a hug.
“No,” Liu whispered savagely, “I’m not.”
They stepped back each staring into the other’s eyes as Nasser appeared in the doorway.
“I see you ladies have been reunited. Now, it’s back to work. You both know the rules and the consequences for breaking them. Do not break them,” and with that, he was gone.
Mackenzie gathered her wits after such a shock and guided Liu to her desk. Seema stood in the background as their guard. Regardless of how friendly they’d become; Mackenzie knew without a doubt that Seema would report anything either she or Liu said that was out of line. More than that, Mackenzie had slowly come to realize that Nasser had a hold over Seema too, although she never spoke of it.
Liu pulled up a chair and joined Mackenzie at the computer screen where the recent translations were waiting. Each of them was edgy, unsure of their situation with the other. Mackenzie was shocked to her core that Liu was here, and couldn’t believe it wasn’t of her own volition. Her trust in her friend was severely rattled.
Liu was tongue tied, reduced to silence
with shock. She’d been through so much, and to find it was Mackenzie she had been translating for reduced her to a heap of emotions impossible to express. The last thing she’d heard was that her friend and the little boy had both been killed in that terrible explosion. Silently tears ran down her cheeks, and she was thankful for the niqab that hid them from everyone. She longed to be able to explain to Mackenzie that she’d been captured and brought here against her will, but that was impossible given the rules they had to abide by. She could feel Mackenzie’s antagonism toward her, and it was breaking her heart.
“Okay then, I suppose we’d better make a start.” Mackenzie’s voice was business-like and hard.
Liu quelled under its impact. She drew a deep breath, "yes, okay, what do you need, I’m here for you Mackenzie, let’s make this work.” She hoped Mackenzie would recognize the secondary meaning her words carried.
She said she’s not a traitor, and now she’s telling me she’s here for me? Is this true? Is she a prisoner as well? Mackenzie’s doubts about Liu’s voluntary involvement caused her to relax just a bit. Maybe, over the months ahead we can get some sort of communication going, Mackenzie thought.
Liu sensed the lessening of tension, and so they got down to business, trying to pretend all was well. Thoughts similar to those of Mackenzie’s were going through Liu’s mind, neither of us is slow, or lacking in ingenuity, we’ll find a way to talk that they won’t know about.
By the following morning, Liu had a plan. It entailed using their translations to pass messages to each other. It might take a little while for Mackenzie to catch on, but Liu knew she would in the end.
The day began just as every other one did. Both women were in the laboratory, the three men on Mackenzie’s team were in place, and Seema has already taken a seat not far from them. Liu looked around a second time, took a deep breath, and went to work putting her plan from the night before into action.
