by Jeff Spence
What the hell is going on?
The man walked from Ben's office to the parking lot. He pulled out his mobile and called Leonard Kantor.
"It's done."
"He's no longer working for Bass?"
"No, he won't dare."
"You weren't rough with him, were you?"
"No, not rough."
"Is he afraid?"
"His type are always afraid."
"I wanted him persuaded, not frightened to the point of being no good to me either." Outside help was never as good as in-house. Kantor shook his head, but said no more; it would do no good. "Alright, what's done is done. He took the money?"
"Yes. Fifteen grand."
"Fine. Your payment is on the way."
Kantor hung up the phone. He rubbed his temples for a moment, wondering how best to spin this. He's scared, he thought, how do I fix that and still keep him away from Bass? He consulted his computer screen, turned his attention back to the phone and dialled.
Ben's office phone rang. He had calmed down a bit, enough to feel indignant that someone had told him to back off from a job that he had every right to take. He reminded himself that he had decided against it anyway, but it still bothered him. He felt like a coward. He let it ring a few more times, then "Hello, Ben Gela here."
"Hello Professor Gela," the accent was Israeli. Ben stiffened. He didn’t know why; the accent wasn’t an unusual one in his line of work. "Look, I wanted to call you. You might think this is crazy, just tell me if you think so, but I’ve learned that… well, I think you might be in some danger."
Ben said nothing.
"Hello? Are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here."
"I'm sorry to put it to you that way, but I have reason to believe that someone has ill intentions toward you. Does any of this make sense to you?"
"It might."
"Okay, I understand. Look, Professor, I happen to know that a man named Greg Bass is looking to hire an expert for an illegal antiquities acquisition — a theft — and I also know that there are other interested parties who don't want this to happen. These men can be very dangerous. There is a fight gearing up, and I'm afraid you might find yourself in the middle of it."
"So what would I do, if that were the case? How can you help me?"
"I'm not sure how much I can help you, except that I have some connections with the Israeli government, with the Israel Antiquities Agency, for example. Perhaps we could get you working on something officially, put you into the limelight as it were, make you too visible to be worth hurting…"
Worth hurting? Why would I be worth hurting? "And you think that would work?"
"It might. I think it might be the best chance you have. I am so sorry to say that, but you seem to have been chosen by Mr. Bass, and there are fewer good choices for you now. You can accept my help, or else I fear you will be torn up in a battle between very powerful men."
"If I were to accept this help, what would I do?"
"I have a representative already on his way from Indianapolis. Would you be able to meet with him when he arrives? We can work out the details then."
"I suppose it can't hurt to talk. I'm not committing to anything though, not right now."
"I understand, Professor, and I think you're being wise. If you decide to accept my help, I’ll let the IAA know to expect a call from you, and you can verify everything to your own satisfaction.”
Ben thought of the call to Columbia, of Bass’s false claims to be involved with them. “Yeah, okay.”
“Fine. My man will see you later today then, I'll text you the time."
"Alright. Um, sorry, but who am I talking to? I didn't catch your name."
"I am Leonard, Leonard Kantor."
In that place between the sleeping an waking mind, when the conscious mind moves at will against the backdrop of dreams, Marina lay and watched pictures and memories blend and flash. The images were of Trebxinje in the winter. The snow, so clean and untouched in the small hours of the morning, reflecting the light of the stars back and forth between the banks, showing each detail of the topography as a charcoaled shape against its whiteness. She watched her small form flit from one shadow to the next, just as Bratislav had taught her. She stayed low, like an animal. She was swift. She was sure in her movements — nothing hesitant or twitchy.
Smooth as shadow. Soft as night.
She moved to the corner of the old bakery, now a barracks of sorts for the mid-level officers. They could light the ovens, let the stones pull in the heat in the relative warmth of the day, then radiate it out through the night.
Warmth. Red light. Comfort.
Near the corner at the back of the place the door was nearly off its hinges, a result of the initial breaking, when the Serbs had made their move. She reached her thin arm through it and worked the loop of wire from the screw on the inside of the door. Unfastened, the door moved silently outward at her touch.
She moved in softly, walking on the balls of her feet, the heels of her thin shoes barely touching the floor. A few steps in and she reached what she had been looking for: rations. They were poor fare, by peace-time standards, but in the cold vice of winter they were better than gold. Better than bullets even. She reached out her little hand for the nearest packet.
"Zdravo, little one… how did you find your way in here?"
She turned to see and large man, pale faced and dark-eyed, standing between her and the passage to freedom. He wore a pistol on his hip. His expression, cautious and curious at first, registered what it was she was doing and the features hardened.
"Little bitch, come to take our food, have you? Well maybe you'll get more than you bargained for…"
He lunged for her, but she was too fast for him, too small a target. She ducked under his arm and grabbed a boning knife from a shelf below the countertop. With one fluid motion she swept it into her hand and drove it upward, into the man's inner thigh, even as she moved past him, putting herself between her attacker and the door to escape.
There are better places to strike than the heart, little one, especially for you. Just as serious, but much less protected. Soft places, but rich with blood…
Bratislava had shown her the location of the jugular, just under the corner of the jaw; the radial artery, alongside the bicep between the armpit and elbow; and the femoral artery, at the inner thigh. It was this last that she struck for, just below the level of her chest, small as she was.
The blade popped through the fabric, slid along the trouser leg and, for a heartbeat, she thought she had missed, but then she saw it, the sudden, unnatural gap in the clothing in the path of the blade. He saw too, even before he felt it, and his dark eyes widened as he clutched at the wound.
Marina reached out, yanked the pistol from his holster, and stepped back from him. He looked at her, on his knees and with disbelief still shining from his eyes, as she levelled the weapon to his forehead and backed slowly from the room. She stepped off of the final floorboard and heard the squeak of the snow beneath her shoes. Then she turned and ran, hearing the clear cry for help and alarm behind her.
She had spent the next hour darting from one shadow to the next, one hiding place to another, until she reached the back lot of Bratislav's little home. She took some steps toward the little stream that ran beyond his shed, then did her best to backtrack in her previous prints. The wind was blowing, obscuring the signs. It might be enough to hide her true direction. It would have to be; it was far too cold for her to stay out much longer. She needed the heat of a fire. She couldn’t wait.
When she was a good ten yards from the stream, she reached above her and grasped the low branch of an oak. She swung her legs up onto it, careful not to drop the gun, and then made her way gingerly up the ice-clad surface of the sloping branch. Onto the roof of the shed, along its apex, first scanning to ensure that no one was lurking about, searching for her still. From the shed to the eaves of the house and through the vent into her little attic nest.
There she curled up, like a hibernating squirrel, and gripped the weapon in both of her little hands. They might come for her, might come for Bratislav too — but she would not go with them. Nor would she let them take away the man she had come to… not "love," precisely. Not yet. But to need, to rely on… almost to worship. Everything she knew had been taken away from her in a single day. Bratislav was the proxy for parents, friends, school — everything known back then, before the world turned to whatever it had become. Her young mind had no words for it, nor had her adult mind taken the time to reflect on it, and to try to make sense of the senseless. Bratislav had the words, she was confident in that. He knew what to do. But he was not fashioned for peacetime. He was forged for a world of death and pain, for that middle world, for the needs of that bloodthirsty place.
She calmed her breathing. Calmed her mind. Fell asleep there, a nine year old girl with a semi-automatic in her arms, the cold metal cuddled like the soft fabric of a stuffed bear. She had made it away that time. She had do the same on many occasions after that, over the following six years. She would get away dozens of times.
She would get caught only once.
Marina opened her eyes. Commanded the memories to be silent. She was not frightened, but ill at ease. The semi-lucid daydreams were too common for the cobwebs of fear to linger long after they were over. Still, it left her with a feeling of imbalance, as if everywhere she went, any country in the world, chaos was just as far away as the next revolution. The floor of the world ever ready to tilt, and tumble everything into the darkness. Any confidence in the illusion of security had been stripped away, layer after cold and frightened layer.
She sat up, took two big steps to the bathroom. She ran a brush through her hair, washed the sleep and dreams from her face, and swished a liberal amount of Listerine Mint around her mossy cheeks and teeth. She pulled on her sweatpants and a teeshirt, grabbed a hoodie in case the wind got cold, and pointed her sandalled feet toward the university.
She had something she needed to do. Something to make sure of. Something to say to a man she didn't even know. But a man she had kissed on the dance floor… which had nearly gotten him killed. She prayed that he was alright, that she hadn't gotten him killed over some stupid romantic tiff in a relationship that she knew wasn’t going anywhere. That had nothing to do with the professor himself.
The day needed to start better than that. Today was her day to make a new beginning, to build a new kind of life.
The man on the other end of the phone was using a gentle tone, but the sharpness behind it couldn't completely be hidden. He was boiling inside. Ben continued.
"I'm sorry, that's all I have to say. You're not who you say you are, or at least you aren't affiliated with Columbia, and I'm not willing to work that way."
"Ben..."
"No, I've made my decision. There are other people you can call, but I'm out. Email me the numbers for an account and I'll return your money."
"Ben, you took the money, it's a done deal."
"I'm sorry, but you lied to me. I'm not responsible for a deal made in bad faith. I haven’t signed anything. I’m out. Goodbye.”
“You said you would do it. Backing out now is lying, Ben.”
“Well, then we’re even. Send me the account number.”
Ben hung up the phone. With a deep breath, he settled back into his chair. He didn't like it, didn't like any of it, but he had gone ahead and taken David's advice, Leonard Kantor's advice. He was out.
Now that he had done it, his nerves began to settle and he felt the weight fall from his mind. He was a professor, a teacher and a writer, and he didn't need the drama, or the danger, of what affiliation with Greg Bass might bring. Even the occasional footfalls outside of his door lost their sinister echoes. Students and staff coming and going about their daily business, that's all. He took a deep, settling breath, shifted in to his preparation; he had a lecture to teach in less than an hour.
Marina's hand had gone up to the door twice, but both times she had pulled back, hesitating. She may have known who Ben Gela was — had known who he was when she had kissed him in the lounge — but she knew he didn't know her.
When those men had taken Ben and Barry outside, when the other man had blocked people from following out the side door, she had been really frightened for both of them. Barry had been a jerk, and probably had it coming, but Ben was just out there having a good time, minding his own business. Even seemed like a nice guy.
She felt her chest. Her heart was pounding like it was trying to escape her body. She shook her head and turned back down the hallway. It was no good trying to talk to him when she was so turned around inside. She had a couple of things to do, then she had come back. It would be better then. She turned the corner, bought a sandwich from the kiosk, and sat on the plastic bench across from the main entrance. Her errands remained undone.
Despite the fact that she had been through the war back home, that she had learned to kick and scratch and even to use a gun before she had learned how to put on make-up, she knew that all of these types of situations were still dangerous. A screwed up boyfriend could get in a lucky punch — or an unexpected one. A bar fight could get out of control and lives could even be lost. A person can’t see as much death as she had seen and not understand the inherent frailty of the human body. They all hung on a thread. One small stab or blow in the wrong spot, and a life could be snuffed out, or damaged forever. Walking home in the dark, alone, even if she could handle herself, had been an unnecessary risk as well. Kissing strangers could lead to… well, a different kind of trouble. She knew that one well enough too.
She watched the new students moving in and out through the glass doors. So young. Until that spring she had been a student there, but even then she had been older than the rest by close to ten years. Internally, it was easy to justify it based on the late start she had had. There was no schooling for her back in Sarajevo, none of the kind that would prepare her for life in the States, anyhow, and so her first few years in Indiana had consisted of what basically amounted to kindergarten. She had to learn English. She had to learn the local customs. She had to learn not to strike first and ask questions later. That last one was difficult. She had had survival engraved into her very bones, and it was not easily covered over. Luckily, there had been an understanding cop or two, a juvenile court justice that understood a little of the place through which she had come. In time, she had adjusted sufficiently to function, to blend into her surroundings well enough to fool the untrained eye. But still, she never felt quite at home. Her sensations toggled between feeling like a rabbit in a field of wolves, and a tiger in a sheep pen. There had to be something normal in the middle, didn’t there? There had to be.
In the meantime, it was all about finding the path on which others had been walking since the age of four or five, and racing along it to catch up to some kind of normal life. She wasn’t quite there though, not yet. Her detour had cost her some years. Maybe five. Maybe ten. She should have known better, but instead she had over compensated, she supposed, acting more the young party girl than the young party girls did. It was a way to fit in, to keep the noise in her head at bay as she strove to pad it with something new. Something different. Safer. It had run its course though; that strategy was no longer effective. It was time for something else. Maybe, at long last, she was truly growing up.
Her program of study had finished — outward pursuits and adventure-based counselling — and she had begun looking for work. But her friends, such as they were, were still there at the university, for the most part. When she needed to blow off steam, or to fend off loneliness, that's where she went. "Used to go," she murmured.
She finished her sandwich without any enjoyment and considered a candy bar, but decided against it. Ageing brought with it maturity and better sense, but she needn't lose her figure. She looked down, checking for the slight bulge around the belt-line. It was there, but just a little. A normal amount? Yes, a normal amount.
Just a cute little tummy, sexy even, in the right dress. Any less and she had be a waif. No need to look like she was on the heroin diet. She stood, smoothed her blouse and skirt, and turned back toward Ben's office. Enough was enough, it was time to grow up and apologise for her foolishness. She walked a few paces in the direction of his office, took a deep breath, and turned the corner.
There was Ben, walking straight toward her. His eyes met hers and she noted a look of panic. She steeled herself and smiled at him.
"Hello Professor Gela, do you remember me?" She felt stupid the moment the words left her mouth.
"I'm sorry, I don’t. I can't talk right now, I'm sorry." He moved as if to step by her. She stepped in front of him, halting his progress.
"No, I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't know he had do that. If you could just give me a moment to explain, to apologise, then maybe I could make it up to you. I'm so glad you're alright. You're okay, right?"
"Nothing needs to be made up, I don't know you. Please, just let it be. I need to go."
"I know you don't really know me, but we can't pretend that nothing happened. The kiss was one thing, embarrassing enough, but the kiss and the fight… then you both disappeared… I didn't even know what happened to you! I still don't."
"Look, Now is not the time. Just go. Go." His eyes seemed to beg her.
"Lady," the voice came from the man standing calmly behind Ben Gela. It was deep. Flat. She had heard that kind of voice before, when she was young, and it gave her a punch of adrenaline. The other man smiled, and lifted his chin toward the near-empty hallway, "I don't know who you are, but you need to move on now."
She recognised him, from the lounge, one of the sport-jacket-wearing piles of muscle. The one who had taken Barry out through the side door, in fact.
"No," she said, steeling herself, "I'm not leaving until I-"