Authors: Rowan Speedwell
“What?” Randy had followed him. “Do you know who he is?”
“Zach? Is that you?” Rogers asked the kid again. “Zach Tyler?”
The kid… barked. “Fuck,” Rogers said. “It is. Zach Tyler.”
“Holy shit,” Randy said. “Tyler Technologies? But Tyler’s kid got kidnapped from fucking Costa Rica. We’re in eastern Venezuela—a couple thousand miles from there!”
“So tangos can’t travel?” Rogers asked sarcastically. “But it’s him. I remember the description, the pictures—hell, it was all over the TV, particularly after they paid the ransom and didn’t get him back. Five years. Shit.”
Zach whined. Rogers looked down at him and released his chin. “You said it, kid. You said a fucking mouthful.”
I
HAVE
forgotten what kindness is. I keep waiting for something to happen, for me to wake up from this oh-so-pleasant dream, but I don’t wake up. It can’t be reality; I know reality—it’s a cage, and table scraps and beatings and pain and rape and hunger. For so long I’ve known exactly what to expect; I’ve kept my sanity by being hard inside, meeting cruelty with indifference when I can, and hatred when I can’t. I haven’t had a lot to be proud of, but every day I was still alive after five years of Esteban gave me a kind of strength to keep going. Hate can make you strong; I know it did me.
But people who give me food and water, who are gentle when they put clothes on me and lift me and carry me to sit in a cushioned chair and even buckle me into my seat confuse me, and I don’t know how to deal with them. This is not reality. It scares me, even if it’s kind of nice.
When they first put the sweats on me, I finger the fabric endlessly, and rub my cheek on my knee. It’s so soft, and clean. It smells as good as it feels.
I don’t like the helicopter ride. I don’t like the noise, or the vibrations, or the way it lurches in the air. It scares me, and I haven’t been scared for a really long time. I’m out of practice. There are other people on the helicopter ride, the other freed hostages and the soldiers to protect them, but they’re mostly excited and happy. I don’t know what to think about them. They don’t know what to think about me, either. A couple of them stare, like they think I’m some kind of animal. I lift my lip and snarl at them softly, just to let them know they’re right.
It seems like I’m scared forever, but finally the helicopter touches down at an airport, then there’s more noise and confusion, but there’s also more of the unexpected gentleness, and pretty soon I’m sitting in the cabin of an airplane.
Again, I’m scared—not because I’m afraid to fly, I’ve been in planes lots before, but all I can remember is that last terrible flight to Costa Rica, landing and walking off the plane and looking for the driver my aunt would have sent to meet me and then nothing until I wake up in the jungle and Esteban is looking at me. I break out in a cold sweat and one of the soldiers nearby asks if I’m okay. I don’t answer him, of course.
I shouldn’t be feeling this way, shouldn’t be remembering like this, because I’m in an Army troop transport, not first class in a luxury jet. The other hostages aren’t on this plane. Just me and a bunch of soldiers; not the same ones as before except the lieutenant who cut the dog collar off back in the compound. He’s standing up near the front of the plane, talking to one of the pilots.
My legs hurt, and my back. I rub my thighs through the grey sweats. It hurts, and I try to hold back a whimper. I’ve had lots of practice at keeping quiet, but for some reason this time I don’t succeed.
“Hey, lieutenant,” the guy who’d asked if I was okay calls. “Your passenger here’s upset about something.”
The lieutenant turns and comes back down the aisle. He smiles at me. “Hey, you doin’ okay, Zach?” He hesitates a little before he says my name, like he’s not sure if it’s right. I’m not quite sure, either.
I rub my thighs again. He frowns, and then says, “You aren’t comfortable in the seat, are you, kid?” He’s more comfortable with “kid.” “Bet your muscles are all wonky from that cage.” He straightens, glances around, then goes in the back of the plane where I can’t see him. A minute later, he comes back and unbuckles me. “It ain’t exactly protocol, but I think you’ll feel better here,” he says, and lifts me out of my seat. “Damn, kid, you can’t weigh a hundred pounds soakin’ wet.” He carries me back a few rows to where he’s folded up some seats on the half-empty transport and put the cushions on the floor. He sets me down on the cushions. “There you are. Is that better?”
I look up at him, meet his eyes for the first time. They’re brown. I feel my lips move, twist, and realize I’m smiling. I don’t think it’s a snarl because he grins back at me.
I curl up on the cushions, so soft and comfortable, and sleep for the rest of the trip. When I open my eyes again, it’s to the lieutenant shaking my shoulder. “We’re about to land, kid, and you gotta be buckled in for that. Sorry.”
I experiment with that smile again and lift my arms for him to pick me up. He does so, laughing. “I got a little nephew does that, but he’s three. What’s your excuse?”
I rest my head on his shoulder. He’s kind, and he smells good. I don’t even mind him waking me from the first good sleep I’ve had in years. I didn’t even know you could sleep in dreams.
He buckles me in and I wait for the plane to land, and stop, and for him to come and fetch me again. This time he only carries me to the front of the plane, where a couple of men in white are waiting with a stretcher. They put me on the stretcher, but when they start to move away, I reach out and grab his sleeve, and whine. He pats my shoulder and says, “I’ll see you at the hospital, kid. Don’t worry.”
His smile is warm and makes me want to trust him. He’s the only one so far, but I trust him. I let the stretcher men carry me away to the waiting ambulance, but now I’m scared again. I don’t know what’s waiting anymore. I knew, with Esteban, what was waiting, but I don’t anymore, and I’m scared. I remember a saying: “Better the devil you know….” but Esteban wasn’t better. Just… familiar.
Nothing is familiar anymore, and I’m scared.
R
ICHARD
T
YLER
picked up the ringing phone on the desk in his cubicle. The number on the phone’s screen was the receptionist’s. “Tyler,” he said absently, his attention on the computer in front of him.
“Rich, there are a couple of people here from the State Department,” Abby said. Her voice trembled.
Richard’s stomach dropped. This was it: the news he’d been expecting since the ten-million dollar ransom had vanished into the jungles of Central America five years ago. Numbly he replied, “Put them in the small conference room. I’ll be right there.” He set down the phone and stared at it a moment.
It could be just another one of the interminable interviews that he’d sat through off and on throughout the last half-decade, State Department suits looking for things that might lead to capture of the terrorists that had kidnapped Zach from the airport in Costa Rica, supposedly one of the safest spots in Central America. The abduction had shaken the business world and tightened up security in the little tourist-friendly country, but it had come too late for Zachary. Richard rubbed his forehead and took a deep breath. This time, though, it felt different, and Richard suspected he knew why. This was it. The end of the waiting. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t expected it. Best to get it over with. He closed down the program he was working on and left his cubicle.
Barry Genelli, his vice president in charge of research and development, was in the cubicle next to him—everyone worked on the floor; no corner offices in this company, one of the largest in revenue in the world, but one of the smallest in terms of officer perks—and he looked up as Richard went by. “What’s up, Rich?”
“Another visit by State—probably on the Zach thing,” Richard said dully.
“Maybe not: maybe they’re looking for something like the locator chip Davey designed that that Dutch company bought. Gotta be at least thirty thousand State Department employees abroad; be a hell of a sale.”
“Except that Dutch company bought the manufacturing rights, Barry. They’ll have to deal with them.”
Barry shrugged. “We still own the patents. We’d still make a killing in royalties.”
“Yeah.” Richard nodded disinterestedly. He raked his hand through his graying hair and walked through the maze of cubicles to the reception area and conference rooms.
The pair of men that waited for him weren’t the usual suits. One of them was, with the obligatory briefcase, but the other was a man in an Army uniform with captain’s insignia. Richard stopped in the doorway, his gut hurting. This was it. “Gentlemen,” he said, and closed the door behind him, then leaned on it, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.
“Mr. Richard Tyler?”
“That’s me. What can I do for you?”
“It’s regarding your son Zachary.”
“Yeah. I kind of figured.” Richard walked across the room to the floor-to-ceiling windows. They framed a spectacular view of the Colorado Rockies in the distance. “You found him, didn’t you.”
In the window, he saw the reflection of the two men as they glanced at each other. The suit said, “Yes, sir. You may have heard about the joint American-Dutch rescue of ten hostages from a Venezuelan paramilitary group last week?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Is that where he ended up? Venezuela?”
“Yes, sir.”
Richard let out a breath. He could not deal with this, not now. He’d thought he could, but no. Curtly he said, “I suppose he’s been positively identified?”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said. “You had registered his fingerprints with that child-protection database some years ago….”
“Jesus,” Richard said over his shoulder. “There was enough left after five years to match fingerprints? No”—he held up his hand to forestall an answer—“I can’t deal with the details right now. Just tell me—when can we bring him home?” He didn’t say “the remains” though that was what he was thinking. But it was Zachary. His pride, his brilliant boy, his loving child. Not some grisly “remains.”
The captain said, “Well, there are health issues that need to be dealt with, both physical and emotional. You’ll need to get a good physical therapist for him, and….”
Richard whipped around, staring at the captain. “Physi… are you saying Zach’s
alive
?”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said in surprise. “We found him in Venezuela, a prisoner of the same paramilitary group that kidnapped the group from Suriname…. Sir…?”
Richard bent over the conference table, his hands flat on the surface to support him. He fought to keep his breath even, to stop the hyperventilating that had become a regular occurrence in the last five years. But this time—this really
was
it. The real end of the nightmare. “Oh, my God,” he said, weeping, and drew his hands across his face to wipe away the tears. “My Zachary—my boy….”
“Sir, please sit down,” the suit said. “Can I get you a drink of water?”
“No, no, thank you,” Richard said. He wiped his face again. “God. I’ve got to tell his mother…. Is he all right? You said physical therapy—was he hurt?” His eyes went from the suit’s face to the captain’s. They were holding out on him….
“He walked out of the camp on his own two feet,” the captain said, “but I won’t blow smoke up your skirt and tell you he’s fine. He’s in rough shape, Mr. Tyler. I saw the conditions he was in and they weren’t pretty, plus he sustained some injuries that have healed kind of badly.”
Richard sat down. “What kind of injuries?”
“I think you’ll be better off talking directly with the attending doctor. I don’t know all the details. Zach’s at the civilian hospital in Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg. He’s still undergoing tests; we want to make sure he’s not hiding any bug we haven’t dealt with before. After all, he’s been in the jungle for five years in poor conditions, prime breeding grounds for all kinds of disease. There are psychologists working with him too; he’s been through a lot.” The captain drew a breath. “My name’s John Rogers; I was the commanding officer of the joint American-Dutch task force that went in to rescue the hostages. My men were the ones who found Zach.”
“Captain Rogers,” the suit said, “recognized your son and had him sent directly to Fort Bragg, where he was positively identified by the database we mentioned earlier. Since then, his passport and personal identification were found in the files that were removed from the site. The Venezuelan government, although not on particularly good terms with the U.S. at this point in time, has nevertheless been very helpful in assisting us in tracking down the kidnappers….”
“But ironically enough, the real help was that one of the Dutch businessmen who was taken was implanted with that GPS locator you designed,” Captain Rogers said.
“I didn’t design it,” Richard said shakily. “That was David Evans—my housekeeper’s kid. He was working for us when Zach was taken. He did it for Zach, worked on it the whole summer after…. He was obsessed with it. Said if Zach had had something like this….” He stopped. David. After everything, it had been David who’d made the difference. “He did save him. David. David saved Zach.”
“I’d say so,” Captain Rogers agreed. “Or at least made it possible for us to. We were damned lucky this mission.”
“Captain,” Richard breathed, “I hope to God you’re always so lucky.”
“M
R
.
AND
M
RS
. T
YLER
?
I’m Dr. Duffey.”
The man held out his hand to Richard; he shook it, as did Jane a moment later. Duffey seemed competent; a man of small stature with a shock of brown hair standing up on his head, too thick to lie flat. “I’ve been working with Zach since his arrival five days ago. Most of that was just trying to get him to relax a little; he spent the first two days in the fetal position, terrified out of his wits. But he’s shown vast improvement in the last couple of days.”
“You’re the psychologist?”
“Psychiatrist, yes. I specialize in trauma victims. Dr. McKinnon is the doctor handling Zach’s physical condition. Zach’s in poor shape, but it’s mostly a matter of severe malnutrition. We’re more concerned at this point with his psychological state. You’ll meet Dr. McKinnon later this afternoon.”