“So...so what next?”
Rudiger pulls out a small roll of bills and drops a twenty on the table. “Figured on goin’ to my car.”
Outside, cold night air stings Rudiger’s face, making him even more alert. Michael follows behind him. Well-trained dog. He pictures Michael as a boss of many during the day, a powerful man. By night, his weakness builds by the hour, straining for release. Dog needs to shed his collar.
Rudiger leads him to a white van, front windows dirty and back windows non-existent. Michael hesitates. Rudiger smiles and nods. It’ll be okay, the smile says. It’s all good.
Get in
. Michael smiles back after a bit then climbs in the passenger seat, his movements delicate, a cat walking around puddles. Inside Michael fidgets. Doesn’t know what to do next.
“Buckle up,” Rudiger says. He presses a button and both doors lock. Michael slowly pulls the strap across his chest and clicks the belt into place.
“Where are we going?”
“’Bout twenty miles from here.” Hesitation. “Is that where you live?”
“No.” Rudiger leans down and picks up the bottle of ether on the floorboard. He unscrews the cap and dabs the top of the bottle against a black piece of cloth until it’s saturated. The smell is strong, so he cracks just his window a few inches. Screws the cap back on. Bottle falls to the floor. “Not close to anything, that’s the whole point there, Mike. Only thing waitin’ out there is a big cross I built. That’s where we’re goin’.”
It takes a few seconds, which is about five minutes longer than logic says it should have taken. The fear hits Michael. Rudiger glances sideways at him and sees in one second a lifetime worth of second-guessing on his face. All those times before. All those strangers. Never had a problem, though it was always a chance, wasn’t it? Always a risk. But the reward was worth it, each and every time. Probably swore to never do it again. But couldn’t. Just couldn’t stop. Now he’ll never do it again, but not by his own choosing.
Michael’s frantic fingers scramble for the release button on his seat belt. Rudiger begins to hum. Scraps of something he heard on the radio, little bit of country.
Michael can’t find the button because there isn’t one. Seatbelt locked tight, strap holding him down like he’s on a roller coaster.
Rudiger lunges, his speed preternatural, a monster attacking in a child’s night terror. His hand with the rag covers Michael’s mouth and nose while his other hand squeezes his throat. Just enough pressure. Michael shouts but his voice is muffled and weak. He thrashes but it doesn’t mean anything. Not a thing. Rudiger stops humming.
“You’re not dyin’,” he says, for no real reason. Not to placate. He doesn’t care about what Michael thinks or about his feelings. “Need to stay alive a little longer. Can’t be dead when we start. Doesn’t work that way.”
Michael’s body begins to go limp. Rudiger barely feels warm from the struggle, but he knows the real work is just ahead of him. It’ll take all his strength to drag Michael far from the road and lift the cross with the man’s body nailed to it. He’s never done it with a real person before, though he practiced three days earlier with a two-hundred pound dummy.
Took him nearly an hour.
And the dummy hadn’t been screaming.
WASHINGTON D.C. APRIL 3
WHY DON’T
you feel anything?
Her words came back to him with the unpleasant certitude of an alarm clock reveille. Jonas downshifted, much to his Audi’s protests, and deftly maneuvered around the minivan in front of him. The speedometer told him he was going almost eighty, but Jonas had a bad habit of ignoring things that tried to slow him down. Besides, it was the Beltway. It would slow down soon enough.
True to his thoughts, a sea of red lights illuminated before him, causing him to brake hard. Again his Audi protested. Jonas and his decade-old car had a love-hate relationship. He loved to drive it hard. The Audi hated him for it. He swerved behind a Fiat
(who the hell drives a Fiat?)
and hoped for a faster current in the swirling river of D.C. traffic.
Jonas cursed under his breath. There were directions for his anger to fly. Juliette, for one. She was beautiful, intelligent, and had the sexiest accent he’d ever heard. For almost six months, she had also been his.
Until this morning.
The Fiat slowed. Jonas cursed. The lane to his right was packed. The shoulder was to his left, and he had just enough respect for the law not to drive on it. Nowhere to go. Goddamn Juliette. Bad enough she dumped him, but why the hell did she have to live so far away? Now Jonas was going to be late to work. The traffic growled around him. He was trapped.
Trapped.
Trapped? Juliette had asked this morning. How the hell do you feel trapped? You have all the freedoms of the world. I don’t ask you for hardly anything. What the hell do you mean trapped?
Bored was more like it. But how could he be bored with such a beautiful and intelligent woman? How is that even possible?
Jonas gritted his teeth, wanting to gnash out around him. But all he could do was seethe and let the frustration of another failed relationship wash over him. Why couldn’t he ever feel satisfied?
He checked his rearview. What was it women saw in those eyes that convinced them Jonas was
the one
? Were they trusting eyes? Eyes that bespoke long-term commitment and a deep desire to procreate? Or were they just pretty blue eyes that God shoved inside the skull of a heartless bastard?
He rammed the shift hard against the gearbox and made the Audi growl. It wouldn’t get him where he was going any faster, but it made him feel good.
Then he saw the problem. Stalled Jeep, two vehicles up from him. No emergency vehicles on the scene yet.
Traffic wasn’t moving. Horns started. Everyone trying to maneuver around the stall, pressing on.
The Jeep’s driver—older man, maybe sixty—had gotten out of his car and was rummaging under the hood.
Not smart, thought Jonas. Too many impatient drivers out here. Wandering around on foot’s going to get you killed.
The Fiat managed to get around the Jeep and Jonas crawled behind the stall. He turned on his hazards and studied the man for a few seconds. After that time, Jonas made his assessment. The guy had no clue what he was doing.
Jonas ignored the honking behind him and climbed out of the Audi.
The frosty morning air smelled like exhaust. Jonas paused, thinking he should put on his coat. Decided against it.
“I’m fine,” the man said, waving Jonas off without a hello. “Tow truck’s on the way.”
“Then why are you still looking under the hood?”
“Thought maybe I’d find the problem.”
“And?”
The man stared at him. “Not finding anything.”
“Not safe out here, sir. I can help you push it to the shoulder. Let’s clear this lane, then you should sit in your vehicle and wait for help.”
Jonas saw the man’s reaction to his advice. He was going to obey, Jonas knew. Civilians always did. They could see the military infused in Jonas’s posture and his attitude, and, though he no longer wore a uniform, people always did what he said.
Almost always.
Chrissakes, Juliette, just stay so we can talk, will you?
“All right,” the man said.
The Jeep inched forward after an initial effort. Jonas heaved against the back of the car, and then immediately realized how much dirt transferred from the vehicle to his suit.
Goddamnit
.
The man shook Jonas’s hand and thanked him for his help, though he didn’t seem thankful in the least. Then he got in the driver’s seat, turned on the hazards, and waited.
Jonas looked at his watch.
Shit.
He was supposed to meet with the Senator in twenty minutes. He’d never make it. He wondered if this day was supposed to be shitty or if it just decided to turn that way, suddenly and on a whim.
He didn’t wonder for more than a flashing moment. The next three seconds lasted just long enough for him to assess the situation and see he was fucked.
He reacted calmly and objectively to the sight of the Ford F150 smashing into the back of his parked Audi. His mind even wandered enough to consider it was probably a good thing—the Audi was released of its misery and would no longer be subjected to his daily torture. He considered the distance between his legs and the front of his car. Years of military and physical training even allowed him the reaction time to jump high enough to clear the top of the hood as the Audi careened beneath him.
He offered his shoulder to the windshield rather than his head or back. Absorbed the impact perfectly, just as his body had been trained to do.
As the impact propelled him into the next lane of traffic, Jonas then knew his luck had run out. Yes, he would try to do something about it. Maybe he could roll out of the way before a car crushed him. But, statistically speaking, he would most likely die. He accepted it. It did not anger him. It was just math.
He fell hard onto the concrete. He had a moment to look up.
Jonas saw the odds had caught up to him. Then he saw nothing.
RED DUST
caked Jonas’s lips.
He was face down, his body armor pressing painfully against his torso. He lifted his head, aware his helmet was long gone. He squinted and tried to focus, succeeding after a few seconds. Pain rifled through his core, the kind that came not from the clean wound of a bullet but from the crushing blow of a three-story fall. He remembered it all—the little girl, that fucking Army grunt Sonman, the grenade... The concussive force of the blast had blown him out the window, and he remembered thinking it would have been more desirable to die from the grenade rather than from the impact of a spine-shattering fall. But the corrugated tin awning had softened the blow. By the time he rolled off and onto the empty Mogadishu street, he still had a chance of survival.
He tried to push himself up but couldn’t. Searing pain. If the sniper was still anywhere in the area, he could place as many rounds into Jonas’s back as he wanted.
Silence.
Jonas turned his head to the left and saw the dead U.N. soldiers twenty feet away. Looking forward he saw what he hoped for—a platoon of U.S. soldiers double-timing it toward his position. He had seen them out the window of the building, just before falling to the ground.
Jonas felt a sudden and inescapable desire to close his eyes as he waited the final seconds to be either rescued by his brothers or shot by the sniper. He turned his head once more and placed his left cheek down on the warm dust of the street. As he started to close his eyes, and as the sounds of the city began trickling back in through his overwhelmed eardrums, Jonas saw the little black arm next to him. Palm faced upward. Intact fingers spread wide and bent to the sky, as if holding a gift, an offering, that no longer existed...
• • •
Jonas opened his eyes expecting Somali dirt, not a hospital room. He was alone, though in the distance he heard the muted sounds of administration. Someone paging a doctor. Creaky wheels squeaking on a linoleum floor. A rasping cough.
Jonas had been dreaming. Had to be, because his mind simply could not grasp the reality of where he was. It was too unfamiliar.
In his dream, he had been back in the Mog. The images so long ago repressed came back to him in a grainy but pure reality.
A nurse walked by his open door. She was heavyset with a slight limp, her body bowed heavily to the left side as she shuffled. She glanced into Jonas’s room and he stared at her.
She stared back and stopped walking.
“Oh my,” she said. She shuffled into the room, walking with more purpose now. “You’re awake.”
Jonas tried to nod but couldn’t. It was then he realized he had no power over his muscles. A massive thirst struck him.
“Let me get the doctor.”
• • •
“It’s a cliché, but you’re lucky to be alive.” The doctor spoke with a thick Indian accent and his smooth brown complexion was marred only by dark streaks under his eyes. Jonas guessed him in his late thirties—like himself—though hints of gray were already dotting his thick black hair. The doctor had introduced himself but the name had already flown from Jonas’s memory.
“In fact,” the doctor continued, “it’s amazing there isn’t more damage done.”
“What...” Jonas murmured.
“Car accident,” the doctor interrupted. “And don’t strain yourself trying to talk. You are going to be here for at least another day, so you’ll have plenty of time to ask questions.” The doctor looked down at the chart in his hand. “Long story short—you had a one-on-one with a Chevy Impala. You lost. Somehow you came out of it with a broken wrist, a concussion, and a canvas full of bruises. How you didn’t die, I can only attribute to you being a tough son of a bitch. Or just plain lucky.”
Jonas felt the words coming easier. “Army Rangers...don’t break,” he rasped. “Only dent.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I heard you were a Ranger in a former life. Well, maybe that’s the reason.” He paused. “Or maybe the Impala is just a real piece of shit car.”