Discovering Normal (15 page)

“Goodnight, George.” Beth watched his form disappear down the stairs.

Deej had crossed his arms over his thick abdomen when Beth looked back to him.

“What exactly is going on with you two, Bethie?”
            Beth ground out her second cigarette and stood up. “It’s inconsequential right now.”

Deej smiled in that charming, mischievous way. “Honey, I thought you would’ve learned long ago that nothing is inconsequential.”

“He’s in love with me--has been since forever. He’s not a reason for the deterioration of my marriage, but I will admit it was easier to leave knowing I had someone to cushion the blow. Is that selfish?”

Deej nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

Beth slid her hands into the pockets of her khakis and stared out into the night and the vastness of the sea. “I know.”

“Do you love him?”

Beth shrugged. “I don’t know, Deej. Not like I loved Chris--that I’m sure of.”

Deej laughed then--hearty and true. “That would be pretty easy to determine. I never saw people more crazy about each other than you guys were. How many places did I catch you two?”

Beth turned to face him and felt the unmistakable blush fill her cheeks even though it was dark and even though it was only him and it shouldn’t matter. “We were young and I’m afraid now that we mistook attraction for love.”

Deej was shaking his head before she even finished. “No, that wasn’t it.”

“I mean all due respect here, sir, but how do you know?”
            ”Because I
saw
you--both of you. I’d worked with Chris for four years before you came along. I don’t have to tell you that he was a good-looking guy. Women were everywhere--always had been. And Chris was moderately interested, but never for long and never by much. Then he saw you. Damn.”

Beth turned to him and saw his smirk.

“I looked at him that day just to see. I’d been laughing for weeks because I’d seen you, and I knew what he was going to think the second you walked in. He’d been so pissed about having a little ivy-league grad assigned to him--he said every word I’d ever heard and some new ones I think he invented--but then you walked in and nothing was ever the same again. That cockiness was gone and something finally mattered.”

Deej reached out and tucked a piece of Beth’s hair that’d escaped her crude bun behind her ear. “I always thought you two would see it through.”

Beth turned back to the water. “I just want to get to him and then I want to go home to my kids.”

“I know.” Deej leaned on the railing and they stood there quiet and still for long minutes until he finally spoke. “We’re going to wait until close to d
ark to infiltrate. You’ll go in
in full Flora-Sky garb so they won’t attempt to dress you. You’ll be bugged and armed, though only with a stealth pistol that ideally you won’t need. We think we can gain entry in a few other points that our leak recommended.”

“How much backing?”

“Just you
,
George and
myself
at first. We’re hoping this doesn’t turn into Jaelyn, Beth. We aren’t equipped for that right now and in order to keep this under wraps, we couldn’t send out the cattle call. There
is
backing available and they’ll be nearby, but not a lot. We’re hoping that the crew Holden’s amassed is ignorant and ill trained. You do the shtick, pretend you believe you’re Farley-Fauna and the kidnapping of your husband served as a sign.”

“Do you think Holden knows that we were separated?”

“Probably, but he’s so full of himself he’ll believe that it enabled you to see the light. I don’t think he has any idea that we’ve gotten wind of it. That’s our hope.”

“How do I get to Chris?”
             
Deej looked up into the inky sky. “Our source hasn’t been able to determine with absolute certainty that Chris is even there. You’re going to have to gain the trust of Holden, or at the very least Joanna King who seems to be the closest to him. She’ll be skeptical at first--she’s in love with the guy--but you won over Gloria Tweed who was younger, more naïve and present in the sick world a lot longer. I believe you can do it.”

“And then?”

“And then you find Chris, signal us and we come in. Hopefully we’ll have gotten lucky and located the weapons by then. Then we come home to ticker tape.”

“And Chris?”

“Deprogramming most likely. But he’ll be okay, Bethie. He’ll be alive thanks to you.”

Beth pursed her lips and nodded. “Though I know the answer to this, I need to ask anyway. Why can’t the Bureau just sweep in, get him and arrest Holden on kidnapping and weapons charges?”

“Because this has
been deemed the best way
. This
needs to end. The
kid is unbalanced. He’s linked to all sorts of shit that we can’t even fathom.”

“He’s twenty-four years old. How has he had the time?”

Deej faced her. “You’d broken down the evil empire by the time you were twenty-four, Bethie.”

“I became a mother at twenty-four. My days of heroics were already through.”

Deej slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Beth rested her head against his stu
rdy frame. “Twelfth hour, Beth
. We’re almost home.”

And she nodded because it had to be true.
             

Chapter 17

Chris spit out the thick chowder
that
the girl they called Chanta-Clara poured down his throat while the one called Dara-Dawn held his mouth open.

“You must eat, Manish-Mannen. You will perish too soon otherwise.”

There was so little left inside to fight with. He knew who he was--that was still clear--but the rest he couldn’t figure out. He knew he didn’t necessarily want to be here, but he couldn’t recall where he’d go if given the chance. He remembered children that he thought he may have fathered, but the horrible images he was shown daily made him wonder if there were even children at all anymore.

And the woman he’d loved…what had happened to her? The photos showed her with another--holding her tight, stroking her hair, covering her mouth. Had she always belonged to this other man or had she only run to him when he--Chris he sometimes remembered, or this
Manish-Mannen
everyone else referred to him as--had disappeared?

In the images this woman he’d loved sometimes appeared to be hanging and cold. Other photos showed her happy with this new man in this other life and it was beyond
difficult
to solve the mystery of what was real or if he was even real.

“Please eat, Manish-Mannen, and embrace your life with The Most Masterful.”

“Why?”

Both girls looked at him, surprise on their delicate faces. He hadn’t uttered a word in so long. Dara-Dawn stroked his brow gently. “You have a child to wait for--a child that will be delivered from Chanta-Clara into the world of the Flora-Sky in eight months time. You must not perish.”

A child?

Chris allowed his eyes to slip closed.

It was the only time he found peace.

             
             
             
             
             
***

             
The steel of the tiny gun was cold against her stomach. Beth adjusted the piece, but
the female agent sent to assist
shook her head. “You have to leave it there. It’ll show otherwise.”

             
“All right,” Beth said as the woman tugged one last time and then let go of the white silky wrap and allowed it to fall freely. Beth glanced in the mirror and shuddered. A brief and hazy vision of herself flashed and then mercifully disappeared. Thankfully a knock came to the door and Deej peeked around the corner. “All ready?”
             
Beth smoothed the fabric. “Ready.”

             
“Remember, Beth, you’re not vulnerable anymore. Their tactics won’t work. Just keep telling yourself that.”

             
Beth looked back to the mirror and nodded. “I know.”

             
“It’s time then. It’s just about dusk.”

             
And Beth followed
the man who
used to be her boss out the door.

***

             
George tapped the tiny microphone that ran across Beth’s chest. “It’s working.” He met her eyes and looked almost sexy in his black ski cap, shirt and tight pants. He turned down the volume. “If you need
anything
,
use this. Do you understand?”

             
Beth nodded. Her hair had been pulled back
with
a satin ribbon and she felt like decadent icing on a cake. “I understand.”

             
“Be in as constant communication as you can, but don’t be foolish or take a risk. We’ll be listening and if we lose you, we move closer. We’re here.”

             
“I know.” And because she had to, Beth leaned up and covered George’s mouth with hers. “Thank you.”
             
Deej crossed from the other side of the military van and extended a photo
“It’s time, sweetie. Our guy is using the name,
Tomma-Tofa
. His real name is Andy Marsh--r
eddish hair, green eyes, real Irish boy.”

             
Beth nodded and sucked in a breath. She turned to George, squeezed his hand one last time and gave Deej a quick hug before she climbed out of the vehicle onto a dusty path. She could hear waves of the Baltic fiercely slapping in the distance.

             
The door slid closed and the vehicle moved on down the road, leaving Beth alone on a deserted
path
. The fortress walls rose in the distance. The vehicle had disappeared now in its own dust and Beth began her journey up the walk
which
led to the gate a mile away.

             
The sun had nearly disappeared and bats swooped overhead. She shuddered, but continued up the path, shivering at the eerie wind and the sound of the sea.

             
She didn’t think as she walked
; couldn’t
think of Noah and Audrey, safe at home in the house she’d grown in--probably missing their parents but equally excited about Halloween. She
navigated through
brambles and
around
the occasional booby trap of spiky wire and twine. She’d been alerted to its presence and calculated that every ten feet another appeared. Beth hoisted her wrap from the ground and trudged on.

             
The microphone vibrated against her breast. “Yes?” she whispered as she moved.

             
“How are you?”

             
“I’m close. I can see the walls.”

             
“All right.” And it was quiet again.

             
The sun dropped to no more than a line in the west beyond her and the illumination of a sole light shown from a stone window in the enormous stockade. Beth continued on, taking care not to stumble until she finally
reached
the barricaded gate.

             
“Hello!” she called out to no answer.
             
“Hello!” she said again into the descending night.

             
“Tell them who you are,” Deej breathed into the microphone.

             
“It is I, Farley-Fauna, returning to this place which is to be my home.”

             
“Good,” Deej breathed.

             
Beth squinted to see, but there was nothing. No movement, no sound, just quiet.

“Hello!” she called again.
             
”Go!” came a voice into the night.

Beth’s heart rammed against her chest, but she remained glued to her spot. “It is I. It is I.”

A man appeared, wearing what looked to be colonial military garb, but holding a pretty impressive M-4 carbine.
“Who are you who dares disturb us?”

“It is I, Farley-Fauna the Divine.”

The man raised the weapon and studied her briefly before he turned and ran toward the fortress behind him.

Beth folded her hands in front of her because it seemed like something a submissive deity would do, and waited with her heart still thundering. She swallowed and seconds later at least twenty men appeared holding guns and s
urveying
her.