The Flaming Tiger
By
Edita A. Petrick
(c) Copyright June 2008, Edita A. Petrick
Cover art Alex DeShanks, (c) Copyright June 2008
Published by New Concepts Published
Smashwords Edition
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidental.
Chapter One
May 1982, Red Rock Canyon State Park,
Ricardo, California
Seabring sat on something hard and low to the ground.
"Sea, I want Mommy. I want to go home." Andy pushed against her so hard she fell over and hit her head. The pain forced tears into her eyes. Holding onto him with one hand, she raised the other to touch the duct tape they'd used to tape her mouth and eyes.
"Don't touch your eyes," a voice warned grittily. "Just sit there and don't move. And don't let your brother move either, or...."
"Idiot!" Another voice sounded. "Can't you see she's fallen over? Go pick her up. Make sure neither falls down again. Then get over here. I need you to monitor the tower communications."
She felt herself dragged by her shoulders then pushed down hard.
Andy whimpered again. "Sea, I want to go home. I want my Mommy."
"Shut up, kid, or I'll tape your mouth again, along with your nose. See how you like that," the gritty voice said.
Andy started to cry.
"Fuck this ...!"
The second voice interrupted. "Get over here. They must have switched frequency. I can't get anything but static. It's almost noon. There ought to be a flurry of activity if they're ready to roll tomorrow."
She held onto Andy, trying to swallow tears because the tape wouldn't let them flow down her cheeks. She breathed through her nose, but her throat felt hot, scratchy.
"I'm going to take the tape off your mouth," a voice sounded. It wasn't the one who’d sworn. It was the one who’d spoken with what Dad called ‘calm authority’ when he coached her how to deliver her part of the Gettysburg Address in Ms. Johnson's first grade annual pageant. "Keep quiet, hold onto your brother, and everything will be all right. Do you understand?"
She nodded.
It hurt when he peeled the tape off her mouth, but the freedom to be able to take a deep breath helped her to stay quiet and not scream.
"Now, I'm going to peel the tape off your eyes and replace it with a bandanna," he said.
"What the fuck are you doing, man? One kid's already seen us, and now she'll see us, too," the gritty voice shouted.
The calm voice ignored him. "Keep your eyes shut after I take the tape off, all right?"
It hurt to speak, but she whispered, "I’ll keep my eyes shut."
She didn't feel the pain when he peeled the tape off her eyes because her throat burned and she felt nauseous.
She kept her eyes shut and her head very still as he tied the bandanna, knotting it tightly in the back of her head.
"That's a good girl," he said. "Now sit here, both of you, and don't make a sound."
Just then, Andy whimpered.
"Be quiet," she hissed, feeling with her hands for his head and shoulders to pull him closer to her. "Just be quiet and they won't hurt us."
"That's right," the calm voice said with a chuckle, and she felt a hand settle on her head and deliver a pat.
* * * *
Andy fell asleep in her lap. She knew it from his breathing. Now and then he sighed and wailed for Mom. He was only four years old but Mom called him ‘my big boy’. He was heavy, and she couldn't hold onto him. Her back hurt. She leaned over a little, and kept leaning until she fell backwards and hit her head again. This time it hurt so much she almost cried out.
"Leave them," the calm voice commanded. "They might as well sleep on the floor. One of you should go out and get some food. There's a roadside diner just outside of Ricardo, butte-something or other. We don't want to starve the kids. We're just babysitting them until their father complies."
She hugged Andy tighter. It made her warm. The place was dusty because every breath scratched her throat, but it was also cold. They had to be in the desert. It felt as cold as the time when Dad had taken them camping in Sequoia Park. He'd brought down-filled sleeping bags and let her and Andy climb in with him. He'd used all three sleeping bags to make a big, warm pile. These men were not going to give her and Andy a sleeping bag.
She wanted to ask the calm voice for a glass of water. But he thought they were sleeping and if that's what he thought, he might talk, say things about Dad and whatever it was they wanted him to do.
She buried her face in Andy's shoulder and listened.
"I think we gave Roberts too much time," the gritty voice said.
"I'm not paying you to think. You're paid to baby-sit, and monitor Center’s communications," the calm voice said.
"A month ago, I ran into Mick Hilroy at Pancho's. It's an officer's lounge at Muroc's Clu...."
"Spare me the tour guide crap. I've lived at Edwards for three months. Get to the point."
"Hilroy's on the developmental test team. Their function calls for interaction with the contractor team. I don't get to talk to contractor's staff because I'm operations."
"You're serving a two-week suspension for drunken and disorderly conduct. Any other lawyer would have buckled under Wilton's prosecution, and you'd be staring now at a dishonorable discharge. Be precise. Then again, I'm no longer required to listen to your grievance bullshit. Get to the point."
"Hilroy said the Fitz & Wynd engineers aren't sure that all risks have been identified. Roberts got into an argument with one of their design guys. He said his engine prototype's ready to conquer the sky."
"I'm sure that by tomorrow night, Mr. Roberts will feel otherwise. Who knows, he probably already does. However, if all the risks have been identified and eliminated, then the new engine would be going to production, not to make noise over Nevada. That's the purpose of the test flight they're running tomorrow, you moron."
Then a new voice sounded. It was worried because it shook a little. "Cal's right. We gave Roberts too much time. Sending those lizard cards wasn't such a great idea. Maybe one or two, but nine...he's had two weeks to think about it. He wouldn't go to see Greggson. He doesn't get along with him, and he won't talk to the base intelligence, but he'll bring in the FBI. He's got friends...."
"So do I," the calm voice interrupted. "In fact, General Greggson’s my golf partner, whenever I visit his base. Everything's on schedule, everything's just the way it should be."
The gritty voice announced, "I'm going out to get some food. It'll give me a chance to look around, see if there's any unusual activity around Edwards."
"It's not what the plan calls for," the calm voice said. "I'll have to check with the Soobrian dispatch."
"So the lizards pull your strings, eh?" the gritty voice said and laughed.
There was silence for a long time, and then the calm voice said, "Fine. Do it carefully and don't screw up. Remember, you're under suspension. That's just a step away from house arrest. And get me a couple of jars of olives at the convenience store—the green ones, medium, not large, and some crusty bread and cheese."
She must have fallen asleep because when she woke up the dust smelled different—moist. She knew it was morning. Andy stirred in her arms and whimpered. She whispered to him to keep quiet. He started to cry. He'd peed in his shorts. That's where the moisture smell came from.
She was about to ask to let them go to the washroom, when the gritty voice sounded.
"I stayed outside the house for a while. There were no cops, local or military. I didn't see the wife. Roberts went to Edwards and came back. He stayed a couple of hours and left again. He's moving too much. I don't like it."
She realized he was giving a report to the calm voice.
"He has to move, you idiot. He can't leave the wife home alone for long, and he has to show up at work. The test's still scheduled for fifteen-hundred ...?"
"Yes. Confirmed."
"Well then, he's carried out the Salamander Protocol." The calm voice sounded cheerful now.
"But what if he was caught and told them about the Salamander ... showed them the cards, instructions ...." The worried voice trailed off.
"Then they'd have cancelled the test, you moron," the calm voice said.
She heard footsteps then a door banged. Someone must have left but not all of them because she felt a presence approach. He stuck two fingers underneath her blindfold and tested.
The fingers smelled bad, oily. It made her gag. She heard him chewing, swallowing. He didn't say anything but before he walked away, she heard him spit noisily. Something landed in the dust with a soft splat. She played with Andy's fingers, tickled him a little. He leaned against her and a few minutes later, she heard his soft snoring. His face, where it touched her chin, felt hot. It scared her. Andy was sick. There wasn't anyone to help. She tightened her mouth to stop it from quivering. She mustn't cry. They'd come and hurt her, hurt Andy.
She must have fallen asleep, too, because the voice sounded as if the speaker stood far away.
"He's done it. We can read about it in the papers tomorrow. The contract's definitely finished. So is Roberts. I doubt anyone will be able to find the Fitz & Wynd business listed in the Yellow Pages again. Soobrian will be delighted to hear that the bidding's once again open to all interested parties."
She held her breath. That name again. She heard it before. Fitz & Wynd. Dad worked for the Air Force and Fitz & Wynd worked for the Air Force. Now both were finished. How?
She held onto Andy, trying not to breathe noisily. She heard them moving away, their voices fading until there was silence, and only then whispered to Andy that it was going to be okay. Dad would come soon. He was finished.
Andy struggled to sit up and fell back down into her arms. She heard a door creak, a long silence, and then the calm voice said, "You idiot! You were followed...!"
Suddenly, Andy's body jerked in her arms. "Daddy! Daddy!" he screamed and pushed her away as she struggled to hold onto him.
"Daddy, daddy, daddy," Andy chanted.
"Baby...!" Dad's voice came, just as high-pitched as Andy's. She heard feet rushing, kicking, stomping. Andy screamed. She heard a hard smack and Dad cried out. Someone smashed something against the wall. Dad grunted.
She held her breath. Andy wasn't crying anymore. Did they hit him? Did he fall? She heard Dad groan then something smashed.
"Daddy...!" she finally screamed. It hurt so much she started to cough. She clawed at her blindfold ... and stopped. They said not to take it off. They were still shouting. Dad kept repeating Andy's name. She struggled to rise on her knees and was about to pull herself up all the way when the shots came.
Two quick pops … one after another. She froze in mid-crouch, trembling from the effort. Dad groaned. Three more shots sounded, deafening this time.
She screamed, tears choking her, eyes burning. Her throat was on fire, but she kept on screaming until her voice gave out. The silence hurt as much as it hurt to scream.
She rose and stood there, shaking. Her knees buckled and she fell down again. With one hand she touched the wall while pulling off the blindfold with the other. When it was around her neck she used both hands along the wall to get up. When the fireflies stopped dancing in her eyes she took a step, stumbled, then another step.
Finally, her eyes adjusted to the murky light of the cabin.
"Daddy?" she whispered when she saw her father's body lying on the floor. He didn't move. Was he so tired he went to sleep, she wondered?
She knelt beside him, her hands settling into the dust, fingers raking it softly. There were pebbles in the dust, sharp, hard. She started to pick them up, one by one, and stuffed them in her pocket. She did this whenever Dad fell asleep in a chair in the backyard and she played jacks beside him. He slept now. His blue work shirt was covered with mud. Mom would have to use a lot of bleach to get it clean.
"Daddy," she called softly and touched his hand. It was closed into a fist. She pushed and pried with her fingers until her hand slid into his. Her fingers felt objects, took hold and drew out. She looked at what it was then put two gold trinkets into her pocket. That's what she did with everything she picked up. Mom called her a ‘magpie’. She wondered what a mad pie looked like or even if a pie could get mad.
Dad was asleep. She had to get Mom. Or maybe send Andy. That's what she did when Dad fell asleep in the backyard ....
Slowly, she turned her head. Andy was asleep, too, on the floor beside the fireplace. His head rested on the stone lip. He was muddied, too. Must have gotten dirty from Dad. Well, she'd have to go get Mom herself.
"I'll be back," she whispered. She rose and shuffled for the door. Just before she pulled it open, she turned and said, "You shouldn't sleep on the floor. Mom said that's how you get sick."
She walked through the desert, avoiding darker spots and shadows. The rocks scared her because they crackled, though she heard whispers, too. It had to be ghosts, hiding behind the upstanding formations. It was a clear night. The moon was out. She felt cold and shivered.
"It's not scary in the dark," she said out loud. "The sky has its lights on." But the shadows moved, and the desert was noisy. Her heart started to pound. She shuffled her feet faster on the parched ground until her flight turned blind. The shadows were chasing her. The creaking, chirping and rustling noise swelled until it sounded like the time when Dad took her to the zoo. There were wolves and bears and tigers ... run, Sea, run ...!
* * * *
Jim Tarrymack reached for his CB radio. It was eleven o'clock. Instead of trying to make the stretch of 395 from Bishop all the way to Highway 14, he should have swung east and stopped at a trucker's stop just outside of Ridgecrest, and caught a shuteye in the cab, except he was behind schedule. He had to ride the 14 down to its Mojave junction with 58, swing northwest for Tehachapi and knock off another hundred miles before taking a nap in Bakersfield. The headlights of the big transport truck kept carving strong wedges of light across the road. A new sign announcing that he had just crossed the boundary line of Red Rock Canyon State Park flashed by. It hadn’t been there last month when he’d driven down 14, though he heard talk when he stopped at Milly's ‘Butte-rest’ in Ricardo for a bowl of home-made chili that the parks people were drafting something called ‘1982 General Plan’ to bring out early next year. Milly liked to attend all public meetings that dealt with such stuff. She liked to yell and scream at the government people.
Well, to him the place always felt like a page from an old book, filled with history and traditions—of people and critters. It was a clear night, good visibility. He hoped the Park's wildlife would stay in their lairs and not dart across the road. It was the main reason why he didn't like doing 14 at night. He shrugged to loosen his neck muscles. He would make it to Bakersfield by midnight, or a tad later, but not all the way to Fresno. Just as he was about to click his CB, his eyes shot a message to his foot to stomp hard on the airbrakes.
"Jeeee...sus!" he shouted, fighting to keep the steering wheel from spinning out of control. "...Christ!" He finished explosively when the truck's grille came to a bone-chilling, screeching stop a few feet away from the pint-sized apparition that had bolted out of the roadside shadows and ran right onto the highway.
"Jesus, Maria, and all saints," he murmured again, swiping cold sweat from his forehead. "A kid ... what's a kid doing out here ...? Jesus, Maria ...." He climbed down, jumped off the last step and ran to see whether he had grazed the child. "What the hell ...?" He stopped. The girl was out of breath and shaking.
"It's all right, honey. It's all right." He softened his voice. "You okay there? Someone chasing you...?"
The girl didn't speak or nod. She just stood there, shaking. He saw her wide opened eyes and knew silent terror drove her flight. He approached as close as he dared, making soft, comforting sounds until his hands settled on the girl's shoulders. He meant to stop her tremors. However, the moment he put his hands on the little shoulders, the girl collapsed.
Chapter Two
October 1994, University of California,
Berkeley Campus, San Francisco
The nameplate beside the brown, wood-laminate door said: Dr. William P. Chalmers, Graduate School of Journalism. Seabring raised her fist, aiming to smash the plate, and reconsidered. Had he left it open on purpose? Probably not, since he was occupied with the phone call blackmailing the party on the other end.
She dropped her hand, walked backwards far enough to make sure he'd not hear her steps, then turned and ran down the corridor. Five hours ago in class she had handed in her mid-term paper.
"Come by my office at six-thirty," Chalmers said. "I want to make sure your bibliography and references are correctly formatted."
She stared at the lock of light brown hair falling across his forehead and smiled. The gray around his temples made him look distinguished, respectable--handsome. She would have liked to have kept staring at him until the class emptied, until she could walk around and face him, reach up and put her hands around his neck, draw his head down for a kiss ....
The fantasy had to wait until tonight.
"Bring all your drafts too, and the diskettes," he said, smiling.
"I've left all the drafts in your office with the rest of the research material."
"Just diskettes then. If we have to change something."
"No problem," she said, also smiling. The sound of that ‘we’ made her shiver with pleasure—and pride. She had confidence in her investigative work. Besides, she'd spent days in libraries all over San Francisco, researching news clippings and magazines for just the right topic for her mid-term paper. She settled on Dave Whaarkonen, a billionaire developer in the Calistoga-Clear Lake area. He had made a land deal with the local authorities that would see all the small businesses in the area prosper for a long time. The Prudhome Point Village would bring not only tourism, but also new enterprise. Everyone with any say in the matter was in favor—except Brad Marshall. He was a retired Air Force colonel, living in the area for the last twenty years. He also suffered from Alzheimer's, therefore his warnings about the land parcel slated for Prudhome Point couldn't be given a serious consideration.
She had interviewed Marshall. He couldn't remember her name five minutes post introduction but something about his recollections gave them credibility. She went back to the library, this time focusing on news and reports dating back to the sixties, the pre-Vietnam era. She discovered that an area in the Coast Ranges, located five miles from the land parcel Whaarkonen wanted to develop, served as a disposal grounds for highly toxic chemicals and by-products the Air Force wasn't allowed to store in an inhabited areas. In those days, burial of encapsulated waste and dangerous material in remote areas, mostly in Nevada but sometimes in the Coast Ranges, was an acceptable practice. This particular site appeared to have been forgotten in the subsequent cleanup during the eighties.
Marshall was right, but no one wanted to listen to him. The locals wanted to bring new business to their community. Whaarkonen wanted to make money. Both parties were guilty.
"Don't be ambiguous," Chalmers told her during one of their frequent conferences. "Be thorough, document everything, be professional, especially your references. Include the names of the Air Force staff you called in the process of gathering information. Whaarkonen sources ... you may want to leave out Marshall. If necessary, you can include his name later on. But Whaarkonen-Trimartin Developments is your focus."
Bill Chalmers was her mentor. He had earned his word-wings as a Washington journalist in 1972, during the Watergate, and became one of the most sought-after lecturers on the post-Watergate circuit. He'd spent two years in South Africa, gathering material for series of brilliant articles on the apartheid. He normally taught graduate courses. This year, he had agreed to teach a first-year course for a colleague who went on sabbatical. She was the only freshman in his class he noticed—and chose to mentor.
She came ten minutes early. He'd be happy to see her. She felt light-headed, victorious—entranced. That's why she approached his office on tiptoes. She was walking on air.
His door was cracked open. He was on the phone, talking. She heard the name. Whaarkonen—and then the rest. He was blackmailing someone in the Whaarkonen ranks with knowledge of what rested beneath the barren, rocky ground of Prudhome Point.
She listened and felt everything around her turning cold. This is how encroaching death must feel, she thought. This is the numbness, shame and rage that come when a great statue topples off its pedestal.
She raised her fist—and didn't deliver the blow. Instead, she ran out of the building, tears streaming down her cheeks. They were cold, tasteless.
* * * *
Revenge. The word flashed through her head. How could I have been so stupid, so naïve ... I'm almost twenty years old! Revenge. Punishment. How could I have been so gullible ...?
Searing pain shot through her knee. She cried out, arms stretching to steady herself. "Whoa there ...." Hands caught her before she slid to the ground.
"Where am I?" She turned her head, shaking from pain ravaging her knee, and trying to get her bearings. A few seconds later she realized that she'd left the grass field and must have been heading for the Telegraph Avenue when she ran into a sidewalk fire hydrant.
"Are you all right?" A husky voice vibrated with concern.
"Yes, no. My knee ...." She moved her head and ended up pressing it against his chest because the pain shot through her knee again, this time so sharp it made her nauseous.
"I'm going to put you in my truck," he said.
When he lowered her down on the front seat she was finally able to raise her head and look at him.
"I know you," she said and hissed with pain when his hands probed her knee.
He looked up. "It’s just badly bruised. The kneecap's all right. I'm in your journalism class, Nick Anderson. You like to sit in the front row. I'm usually way back, out of harm's way."
She stared at him, noticing a worry groove that formed on the bridge of his nose as he kept tightening his forehead. She thought he was a football player, one of those guys on full athletic scholarship who'd take a writing course because they figured it would get them an easy ‘B’.
"I'm Seabring Roberts. Thanks for your help. I wasn't looking ... sort of upset so I didn't see the fire hydrant."
"I looked up just in time to see you roaring across the grass strip, like a charging train."
She grimaced. "Well, something slowed me down. Just as well." She stared at him, an idea forming in her head. "Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked.
He leaned back, his gray eyes opening wide.
"Well, are you in a serious relationship?"
"I'm ... I mean, no." He sounded confused.
"Good." She nodded briskly.
He cleared his throat a couple of times and asked, "What did you have in mind?"
"I'd like you to spend a night with me, in a motel. I'll pay for the room," she said as casually as if she was offering him a coin for the newspaper box.
He swallowed twice, started to say something, reconsidered then swallowed some more. Finally, he managed, "Tell you what, Miss Roberts. Let's go for a cup of coffee, and maybe then we can figure out what exactly it is you need ... or want."
"I'm doing research," she said coolly when the waitress brought them steaming cafe-au-lait with cinnamon sticks.
"What kind of research?" he grumbled.
"The necessary kind. Yes or no?"
His nose quivered so he had to be trying to hold onto his neutral expression.
"You're serious, aren't you?" he asked for the third time since they ordered.
"Very," she said and reached for her purse.
"Why? I mean, why would you want to, need to ... do it that way ...? I mean it's insane even by Berkeley standards."
"Nothing's insane by Berkeley standards. I made you a business offer, even though I didn't offer you money. However, if you don't want to ... thanks for the coffee," she said rising.
He almost took the tabletop with him as he jumped up and gripped her elbow. He pointed his other hand at her, tried to say something and just shook his head. Momentarily he closed his eyes, grunted so deeply it had to come from his diaphragm then took out a couple of bills. He threw them down on the table and marched her outside.
When he pointed at the truck her stomach tightened. He must have seen a flash of worry on her face because he sneered at her. She pressed her chin down and heard him mumble something.
"I can't get in. My knee still hurts," she said. He picked her up as if she was a briefcase, carried her to the truck's passenger side and dropped her on the seat. For some reason he chose to climb over her lap to get to the driver's side.
"I'm going to save you money for the motel room," he said grittily.
He drove with a determined expression that gave her no clue as to what he was thinking. For two hours she sat beside him in silence. He had to be taking Chalmer's course as an option. No one who aspired to be a journalist would be able to sit so long in stony silence. Reporters were chatty people. They had to be. Talk was their job. Once or twice she looked at his profile, and saw it was hard, set. His head was bullishly thrust forward and his shoulders bulged with muscles underneath the long-sleeved khaki shirt. He had to be a jock. He had flat cheeks and she wondered whether they'd ripple if he smiled, and would that be something she wanted to see? His eyes narrowed when he was frustrated. She observed it often enough in the cafe. But there was also something decisive and controlling about him. It's what scared her the most.
Suddenly she felt the truck slowing down until it came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. She turned around and saw lights flickering in the hills. Ahead lay darkness. She realized they had come to the seashore.
"Grab hold," she heard his terse order.
She looked at the dashboard. "Where?"
"Up." He wasn't going to give her a volume of instructions.
She looked up and saw a metal roll bar. It ran the entire length of the truck's roof. She grabbed it even as the truck's nose pointed down.
The Ford pickup bounced and swayed on the pitted dirt road all the way down to the shore. It was the roughest ride she's ever had. Even with the windows rolled up, she heard the ocean. Carefully, she turned her head to look out the side window and saw a long row of lights, well above, outlining the road that had to have quite a few expensive seacoast villas.
"It's October," she said, wondering whether she should talk at all.
"Correct. So what of it?"
"It's cold on the seashore."
"It's not expected to go below sixty-five tonight. Worried?"
"I said a motel room."
"And I said I'd save you the money. You still don't know how much I'm going to ask you to pay me for this service."
She gripped the door handle, threw the door open and jumped out. She managed to take two steps when he caught her again or she'd have collapsed. The pain in her knee was just as sharp as when she ran into the fire hydrant.
"You're quick," she mumbled, gasping hard because the pain was coursing down her calf.
"When required, I am. Changed your mind?" This time she heard his sarcasm clearly.
"No." She leaned to a side, testing how much weight her knee could take. When she straightened up, his face was so close she knew he was going to kiss her. When his lips brushed hers, fear tightened her stomach. Relax, she told herself. He's the chosen tool of your destruction ... revenge, punishment. He's nothing else.
He pressed her body against him, his lips doing the same. Suddenly, wherever his body touched hers, she felt heat. It's good to feel warm in October on the seashore, she thought.
He gave her a moment to catch her breath and kissed her again. She felt twinges all over, strange pulsing sensation she had never felt before. She wasn't comfortable keeping her hands trapped against his chest. They wanted to move and settle around his neck and hold. It seemed to be a natural thing to do under the circumstances.
The sand was wet and the moisture started to soak through her sneakers.
"The sand's cold," she murmured. She expected him to murmur back that it didn't matter to him. She was doing research. She asked for service and he'd deliver it wherever he damn well pleased.
He surprised her. He planted a playful kiss on her nose, picked her up and she thought he'd carry her to the cab, but no. He walked around to the back and lifted her over the truck's tailgate. A moment later, he landed beside her, softly like a panther.
"A friend asked me to move his camping gear," he said, opening the rolled bales and taking out blankets. "I never imagined it might come in handy."
She liked his enterprising solution and carefully, so the pain wouldn't flare again, she squatted beside him, helping to spread the bags and blankets. It kept her busy because suddenly, she didn't want to think why she was here and what she planned to let him do.
She felt him grow still beside her then his hands settled around her shoulders and drew her close. She noticed he did it with a lot more hesitation than before.
He pressed his forehead against hers and she heard him swallow hard, as if he wanted to drown his words.
"Nick," she whispered and couldn't continue.
"Are you sure about this?"
Suddenly, he sounded as confused and as uncomfortable as she was. She moved her head against his in a way she knew he wouldn't be able to interpret, and wrapped her hands around his neck. They settled down on the blankets, lips seeking each other in the dark with frantic urgency.
This time his kiss was rough, demanding. It scared her because there was nothing controlled about it, nothing calculated that would affirm to her that it was a service she asked for. She buried her face in his neck. It gave him permission to plant kisses wherever his mouth wanted to roam. She liked his odd, pinecone smell given off as body heat. It seemed to characterize him better than his face or fingerprints. She was always sensitive to smells, human and otherwise. It stemmed from that horrible incident when she had lived in total darkness, behind a blindfold, and fingers that reeked of oil kept testing the integrity of her bandanna.
"Nick!"
"Changed your mind?"
"No." She wondered whether he expected to hear something else and what he would do if she changed her mind. She felt his hand slide up and under her shirt, bunching up then drawing the fabric down again. He undressed her in stages. With each, she felt more and more revealed, as if he'd been peeling off layers of her identity. He took off his clothes a lot faster than he undressed her. When his hands settled on her bare breasts, she felt as if his touch had transferred ancient genetic memory, and her body knew what to do.
"Seahhh...." He stretched her name as she never heard it breathed before. “Are you sure...?"
She waited for her body to give a sign that it was rejecting this stranger. When it didn't come, she whispered, "Make love to me, please." She wondered whether he felt that her experience in this category was lacking. She had hardly let even those few boys she had dated in high school touch her. Mother had never re-connected with life after Dad and Andy's death, and the psychologists who wreathed her life while growing up were not inclined to discuss sexual anything. They wanted to ‘purge’ her psyche of ‘events that transpired’ in a desert cabin, a remnant of the 1890s mining operations. They wanted to know who said what and whether she ‘imaged’ her captors behind her blindfold, so the FBI artists could produce a composite sketch of the kidnappers.
She was sure there was no turning back for her.
"Jesus, I'm not even sure whether I could stop if you wanted me to," he groaned and kissed her. She felt his hands gripping her hips, his body adjusting for what came next.
He didn't enter her on the first try. He was still being tentative about it. She realized that he was trying to be gentle. He murmured softly against her cheek, "Relax. It's okay. It's okay. Stop me if it hurts."
She moved against him in a way that left him no choice but to try again. It was painful. She tensed up but forced her hips upward, in a message that he was not to stop this time.
"Jesus, how could you even ...?"
"Shut up," she panted and moved her hips up and down, pumping as much as the pain permitted. It wasn't punishment, or humiliation or revenge of any kind and that scared her. His tender passion forced her to tune into his rhythm, to revel in it to a degree where even the pain faded. It wasn't a service for him and that scared her even more. He didn't let go of her body, but leaned to a side and gathered her deeper into his embrace, his lips resting against her temple. As her first experience, it was so memorable she feared it might be used as a defining template for all those future lovemaking sessions.
She traced his back muscles and moved her fingers all the way up to his chin. He lowered his head and kissed them. She shivered in his arms. He grabbed a sleeping bag then draped it over their bodies.
"Why?" She heard his husky whisper, a little strangled.
Suddenly, she wanted to tell him, except she didn't know what to say, how to start and how to avoid telling him that he was supposed to be her revenge tool.
What am I going to do, she agonized when three days later she rode with him for the seashore again? They were better equipped this time. They'd pitch a tent in the back of the truck. Hardly a week had passed and she already knew that Nick Anderson couldn't be banished into the anonymity of a stranger she'd picked up on the street.
I can't let myself get involved she lectured herself. I can't let him get close to me. I can't ... what am I going to do? I want him ... what a scary thought!
On their fifth night together, she told him about Chalmers. They didn't go to the seashore. The warm spell had passed and it was getting colder. She no longer sat in the front row in Chalmers' class. Nick had picked a new spot for them, off to the side and half way up the rows. She wouldn't look at Chalmers and kept busy, taking notes and hiding her smile when Nick's hand passed over her notebook, leaving behind a foil-wrapped chocolate kiss.
Their nights turned into adventure, a reward to their bodies after a hectic, stressful day. She felt herself slipping into a state where she couldn't imagine what life would be like without Nick. It must have cracked the door of her childhood memories.
The nightmares came again.
She'd wake up, disoriented and shivering, drenched in cold sweat. The first time it happened, Nick held her until she calmed down and fell asleep again. Then he started to ask questions and make suggestions about therapy and psychologists. She refused to discuss the subject. Nick persisted in daytime, when she was in control. She didn't know how to tell him that she wanted to confront her fears in the darkness, because that's how she spent two days in the cabin, blindfolded. She couldn't explain and knew he couldn't read her mind. Nick, however, wouldn't give up a single opportunity to get her to face her nighttimes’ furies. It's what made her suspicious.
She analyzed the ‘timely’ component of her accident with the fire hydrant. How was it she'd noticed him around the campus but didn't know his name? Was he following her? Was his help more than just coincidence?
Who was Nick Anderson?
He said his home was in Savannah, Georgia, but he didn't have a Georgia drawl. He was eight years older than she was—a mature student. Wasn't it a bit strange for a man to enroll in college at the age of twenty-eight? He was an excellent student and hardly had to work on any subject. She asked him where he spent his time since high school. He said he worked in a family business. She wondered whether his family wouldn't have first insisted on a college degree, before joining the family business.
Nick was good at avoiding questions. He also knew better than her hacker-roommate how to use computer or link-up with a far-away mainframe.
He liked to sneak up behind her when she was playing on the Internet in chat rooms."Seah, either fire off that Soobrian inquiry or cancel it and get off. You're paying for the Net connection by the minute. You're wasting money sitting in front of that monitor, hypnotizing it," she'd hear his deep rumble and reach for the power cord, yanking it out of the outlet.
"You're going to ruin your computer if you don't shut it down properly," he'd remark dryly and head for the kitchen where her Texan roommate and three other friends were sampling his phenomenal chili.
He found her battered brown suitcase once when she didn't push it far enough under her bed and took it out. He saw the old red and white stickers with the University of Oklahoma logo and lifted his head, giving her the v-notched look.
"It was my father's," she explained unwillingly.
"If it's a family heirloom store it properly," he suggested.
It was an heirloom but not the kind he thought. She'd used Dad's old college suitcase to hide all the research she had compiled on the Soobrian Standards Corporation and the Salamander Protocol. Her extensive research on U.S. companies, forced into bankruptcy under suspicious circumstances for the last ten years, formed part of that investigative portfolio. She kept lists of Soobrian subsidiaries that won tenders when their competition was either absorbed, or went bankrupt. She didn't show him what was inside the suitcase, but she made sure he never saw it again.
Who are you, Nick, she whispered at night inside her anguished world, when he slept beside her, breathing deeply and with such regularity it was too convincing?
The day after they wrote their last exam, she sat down at the kitchen table and said, "Sex is good, Nick, but I want to learn more about human relationships, experience diversity."
He dropped the cast iron pan on the counter and went to the washroom.
She knew that when he came out, she’d be already gone.
* * * *
He sat down on the chair that was still warm from her presence and spread his hands on the table, pressing down. He had known this moment would come and feared it. He had always fringed the rules when on assignment, but this time he had broken them. She was worth it.
He wondered if she felt he was crack close to telling her that he was in love with her and wanted to stay and be a part of her life on any terms she chose, and that's why she left.
She was right about sex. It was better than good. It was hotter than his homemade chili. The physical side of their relationship didn't care about the complex lives and lies of the individuals. It didn't care about her nightmares, her childhood traumas or her deep-seated guilt. It didn't care about her need to punish herself, somehow, anyhow. It didn't care about his assignment, about the broken rules or identity. It kept carving a path uniquely its own.
But the hammer fell anyway. Or was it the other shoe that dropped …?
The ugly day would be stamped into his memory forever. It signaled his slide into the abyss. He didn't want to think what it heralded for her—continued emotional turmoil and struggle with her past. She wouldn't deal with her nightmares. And he never had a chance to tell her that he loved her, because he was recalled. Bolton made sure that the only way for him to move was backwards. His assignment was terminated, and he had to go face an inquiry panel for an old grievance that he had thought long resolved—or forgotten.
As far as he was concerned, his spiritual death came three weeks before his twenty-ninth birthday. Hers, he knew, came when she was seven years old.
Chapter Three
July 2007, San Francisco
It was a rainy night in San Francisco, the kind that started with a heavy fog in the evening and slowly changed into a drizzle. Though it was only July, by nine o'clock when Seabring looked out the living room window, the Fulton Street below was deserted. Especially Wednesday evening, whenever she'd look out the window, there would be a jogger, elbows winged, struggling to make it uphill along the north sidewalk. The south sidewalk was for descent, elbows swinging effortlessly back and forth. In three years since she's lived on Fulton, she'd never seen any jogger break this peculiar protocol—north sidewalk to climb, south to descend. Tonight even the hardiest of joggers had called it quits. When she looked out the window, the northwest corner of the city appeared to have been erased. The fog sat there like a heavy fungus growth, thickening as the night fell.
I'm drowning in dust again, she thought, feeling as if the oppressive weight of the fog pushed her head down, forced her eyes close. She finalized the piece on the Marcheson Pharmaceutical Corporation. Six months of investigative journalism compacted into a two-page story it took her an hour to write. When she finished, she spent another fifteen minutes writing an executive summary for Barbara. It further compacted six months of exhausting work into half a page of key points, because her editor was a busy woman.
She only had time to read executive summaries. That's what the San Francisco Daily Chapter would run, as well, key points, a cautious story to see what reaction it might draw. Later on, if no one threatened to file a lawsuit, a longer story would appear and only then would come a bulk of a reporter's work, as serialized installment of articles.
Marcheson had subsidiaries in Canada, Bermuda, Singapore and Hong Kong. It had also changed hands three times in about eighteen months. The last such change of ownership made Barbara Ferguson, the Chief Editor of the San Francisco Daily Chapter, suggest an investigation.
Seabring smiled. It was all Barbara needed to see. Six months later, she gave her boss the final draft of an executive summary.
"Vietnamese Mafia," she'd said in the morning, when she walked into Barbara's office for a scheduled appointment with her editor.
"Are you sure?"
"The Vietnamese gangs are moving down here from Vancouver. Three confirmed crossings in the last five months. I'm sure. My contacts at Marcheson are reliable and scared to death. They're placed high enough to know what's going on, but they're not staying under the new management. They want to leave alive."
"If the Chapter runs the story it might bring on an investigation. Not just by local politicians but the police," Barbara said candidly.
"If I'm invited to go on a talk show as a result of the story, it will for sure," she agreed.
"You're that certain?"
"Absolutely."
"You can't reveal your sources."
"Of course not. I want to see them leave Marcheson alive."
"Won't it become somewhat obvious when the sources leave the company?" "Marcheson has seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty four employees, world wide. Two thousand are stationed here, at the San Francisco headquarters. Six hundred and five are eligible for early retirement. All will avail themselves of this opportunity."
"They're being forced out," Barbara supplied knowledgeably, "to make room for hand-picked replacements, staff who'll understand the new way of doing business."
"Of course. However, those leaving won't do so with bad feelings. The compensation package offered is very generous. My contacts won't be compromised. More than one hundred managers and executives are retiring."
"We'll run the story, front page."
When Barbara took less than five minutes to decide, it meant she trusted the source of information. Seabring knew she should be pleased. Then why did her throat feel scratchy, hot? Why did her eyes burn as if full of dust?
Once her colleagues heard that Barbara had Okayed the story, she spent the rest of the day with a crowd around her work-station.
Rita came to sit down on her desk and with exaggerated precision put her story on Chinatown toxic fish into the wastebasket.
"I gather it's a ceremonial gesture." She shook her head at her friend.
"Yeah, well, so it is." Rita sighed and bent down to retrieve her work.
"Your stories made front page before, and will again."
Rita shook the handful of pages. "Not the toxic fish. I've run out of synonyms for toxic. The word doesn't shock anymore. Everything's full of toxins these days."
"Then use the word 'poison'."
"We'd get sued. The Chinatown fish didn't kill anyone yet."
"My story's next to make the front page." Sanjay stopped by with the announcement.
"Only if you use the word 'paranormal' as the cause of the crash, Sanj," Rita said and grimaced at him.
He reached down, picked up a sheet of paper from Seabring's desk then viciously crumpled it, and held it out to Rita. "Sabotage. How's what for front page material?"
"Is that what you discovered when you penetrated the great military fort?" Rita laughed, fanning her story in his face.
"Their intelligence team's still collecting evidence from the F-16 crash. My contact called and ...."
Rita interrupted him. "Called? You're doing field investigation by phone calls? How original! Weren't you supposed to take a tour of Edwards Base, dressed in blue coveralls, carrying a wrench so you could knock on things, push buttons, and work undercover ...? When are you flying down to L.A.?" she mocked.
He looked at her as if he suddenly contracted food poisoning and walked away.
"He's so full of himself," Rita mumbled. "Air Force crashes planes all the time."
"Not all the time. Just every twenty-three years," Seabring murmured.
"Like I said, all the time." Rita laughed. "I'd be the first one to slap his shoulder if his story made front page, but he's so arrogant when he's working on a story. It's as if once he gets his assignment, everyone else's just doesn't exist. I mean it was a test flight, hello ...? The key word here is 'test,' right ...? So anything can happen during a test and a month ago, it did. The plane crashed, two pilots died. It's tragic, but they were soldiers, and soldiers die for their country all the time."
"Not all the time, Rita, just when there's a war. We're not at war in California. At least those test pilots from Edwards weren't. They were testing a new prototype engine. From what Sanjay told me, lot of operations and design people at Edwards were very excited about the engine going into production soon after the tests were completed."
"He talks to you about his assignments?" Rita leaned back, frowning. "He never talks to me about his work. He hides his stuff when I'm around."
"I wonder why?" Seabring remarked, hiding laughter.
Rita left and Brad took up her spot on the desk. Then Keith and Jill and the rest of her colleagues, all came to congratulate her for making the front page.
The only one who didn't come to congratulate her was Sam. He was out on an assignment, doing fieldwork, at the Rafael Trailer Park, somewhere north of Brisbane.
Their relationship was two years old. Sometimes, after a cold night dreaming she was once again wandering through the desert with dust choking her, she'd wake up shivering, drenched in sweat and feel that everything and everyone in her life was hundreds of years old, and that nothing had changed.
By morning she'd feel guilty. She loved Sam. He had come to the Daily Chapter a week after she set an electrical fire in her flat. She'd yanked her computer power plug out of the wall so hard, a chunk of plaster came out with the wire box. She used the fire extinguisher in time to stop the sparks and crackle from burning down the upper floor, but the landlord lived on the main floor and must have smelled smoke. He came running upstairs. It cost her a thousand dollars to make repairs to the electrical wiring.
"Use the power bar, Ms. Roberts," the landlord told her, frowning. "At least that way, when your temper acts out, you won't set a fire. You'll just ruin a plastic strip plug."
She promised to buy a power bar and plug not just her computer, but also all the rest of the freestanding electrical appliances into it. The next day, she bought five power bars. She'd spent more than eight years pulling plugs out of the wall to shut off her computer when dust started to choke her, even as she typed her message inquiry.
"I need any information available on the Soobrian Standards Corporation, particularly its practices as reflected by the Salamander Protocol. Thanks. Annie."
She couldn't count how many times she typed that message, but she knew exactly how many times she had sent it—zero.
Sam had come to the Daily Chapter from the New York Times.
"I've leaped across the continent," he’d said cheerfully, studying the large white patch in her wall, where the landlord had replaced the burned portion. "I love the coast, love the sea, love the air and especially, I love the food in San Francisco." He turned and smiled at her in a way that silenced whatever she wanted to say.
A month later, he rolled on his back and just before he went to sleep beside her, he whispered into her ear, "It's true what they say, love grows. It's also contagious, you know, because now I love you, too."
He was a good lover. She was still shivering from the tail end of her climax and not ready for conversation. When she heard him breathe in that deep, relaxed way, she realized that he probably didn't want to hear her answer or anything else tonight. It was what came to bother her as their relationship moved on.
An hour or two after they made love, he'd wake up, give her a playful smack on the ass or hip, then leave. The next day in the office, he would pre-empt her questions with bustling cheer, snapping his fingers to the rhythm of imaginary beat, talking about his assignment, a new Japanese restaurant he discovered, a movie about to premier, everything but what she wanted to talk about. If he planned to do field work that day, he'd come to her flat by eleven o'clock, give her a smack on the cheek, then push-spin her ahead of him for the bedroom. He'd go through his routine of using his hands and mouth to bring her near climax, then casually insert his penis and finish the job in the regular manner. Now and then, he would brush his lips against hers before taking his two-hour nap, but it was a rare occasion.
She was too tired to get angry. Besides, what was there to be angry about? Her body liked what his hands did to it. Sam always made her climax, always.
What's bothering me about Sam, she wondered? He phones to let me know when he's coming. He brings dinner more often than I offer to cook it for him. He doesn't drink or smoke and he asks me to proofread his stories. What more do I want?
Nothing. Everything.
It bothered her that Sam never stayed the night. She'd seen many sunsets with him by her side, standing by the living room window, staring across the Mountain Lake Park, but never a sunrise. Sam also made it very clear that since he shared his apartment with a gay married couple, a female partner overnight was not welcome. She had visited him a couple of times, but ten minutes after she arrived, they were heading out for dinner.
I love him, she thought when they made love and he rolled on his back and with a sleepy smile murmured, I love you, sweets, then blinked out, indeed as if someone flicked a switch. But I'm still going to wake up in the morning alone, she thought. There won't even be a cold imprint of your body beside me. What am I doing? What's Sam doing? What's this relationship about?
You like wearing a blindfold, a voice whispered. When a hand pushes you down, you sit. When it pats your head, you keep quiet. Why didn't you ask Andy what they looked like? He wasn't blindfolded and even a four-year old could answer simple questions.
The phone rang. Its clear sound was so harsh she swayed as if it indeed someone hit her, pushed her.
Christ! She shook her head to banish the past because ringing phone meant she had to deal with the present.
It was dark now. The fog must have obliterated not just the street lights, but the city. She hadn't turned on the table lamp. The living room was pitch-black. The phone kept ringing.
She stretched her hands and shuffled out of the living room until she touched the handset she'd left on the kitchen counter.
"Hello."
"Are you okay, sweets?" It was Sam.
"It's foggy outside," she said and knew it sounded incongruous, as if the fog should be blamed for her state of mind.
He chuckled. "It's raining, too, so it's a perfect night to spend huddling under the covers. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"It's not cold outside."
"That's not why I want to huddle under the covers, hon."
"The Marcheson story's going front page."
"I've heard. I hung up on Rita because I didn't know how else to shut her up. I feared there wouldn't be much to tell tonight if I let Rita ... are you hungry?"
"No, yes ... I guess."
"I'll bring Chinese. You can tell me all about your victory."
Half an hour later, she heard him whistle as he ran up the stairs, then his key made a lot of noise in the lock. She was about to open the door when he unlocked it. He stuck out his cheek for a kiss. She obliged and relieved him of the food bags.
"I'm a galloping spirit." He whistled again and danced into the kitchen. "Let's eat in the living room. I'll get the dishes. You bring the food."
She turned and went to put the paper bags on the coffee table then went to the fridge to get pop.
She put a nest of rice noodles on her plate and some vegetables, and left the rest to him. He ate like he did everything else, with enthusiasm, chopsticks flashing between the paper containers and the plate—a morsel of beef, a chunk of fish, a frayed squid and a slice of pepper. They talked about her Marcheson story and what it would mean for her to have a story on the front page. He never stopped eating, somehow managing to speak between bites.
"How's your story going?" she asked when most of the food disappeared into his stomach.