THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  Jesse responded first. He sprang into the grave and yelled at the top of his voice, “Someone call an ambulance!”

  Abn looked around and saw several people reaching for their phones. “Mum! Are you okay?” he called.

  “No, she’s not goddam okay,” Jesse yelled back.

  Abn tried to get a better look at her, but this proved difficult. Jesse crowded her within the tight confines of the grave. “Can you get her out?” he asked.

  “Goddamn it, boy! I can’t move her. She may have broken her neck,” Jesse yelled.

  All Abn could do was look on. As he did so, he had a rising feeling that his fragile new world had run its course. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was convinced of this.

  * * * * *

  Abn really didn’t think that he would have been back inside of a hospital so soon. But here he was. Only, this time, things had changed. This time, a loving mother no longer awaited him at home. This time, his only company was her father.

  Jesse sat beside him, waiting. They hadn’t said a word to each other since arriving. Before that, a string of goddamns had been the grand total of Jesse’s vocabulary during the drive.

  Although Jesse had stopped speaking now, his silence said so much more to Abn than any words could. His silence hung in the air like a thick syrup of hatred. And Abn felt certain that the hatred would fall if given the slightest provocation.

  When the doctor approached them, Abn already knew what he would say. The expression said it all. Even a master of lies couldn’t hide such truth.

  “Goddamn it! I flew eighteen hours for this?” Jesse burst.

  “She was your daughter,” Abn said.

  “She’s dead. She ain’t my goddamn daughter anymore, thanks to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah you. If it weren’t for you, then she and Ron would have been living in a first world country with a proper medical system. They’d both be alive right now.”

  “That is not true,” he said, feeling his skin crawl as his new reality further took hold.

  “Yeah, it is. And now look what I’m left with. I ain’t nothin’ but the legal guardian of a juvenile sand monkey…”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You goddamn heard me.”

  “I have to go,” he said, suddenly feeling certain that he had to be anywhere else but here.

  “Didn’t you hear me? I’m your legal guardian. You ain’t going anywhere if it ain’t with me.”

  He ignored the pledge. If he were now legally under Jesse’s care, then he would rather live on the street. The man had shown his cards. Abn wasn’t going to play. He headed for the exit, hearing a string of abuse coming from Jesse in his wake.

  As he made it to the elevator, he took some solace in the fact that Jesse didn’t follow him.

  Familiar senses kicked in from inside of him as the elevator descended. Old powers that he’d not accessed for years surfaced. His new world was now complete. Only, it wasn’t new. This was a world he understood well, a world of chaos, a world of uncertainty, a world which he could control. Challenges in this world were second nature to him.

  As the elevator doors opened and he stepped into the hallway, the first obstacles in this revisited labyrinth presented themselves.

  “Abn Morrison?” said one of two suited men.

  He looked up at the man who’d spoken. He recognized him. He and the other man had been at the funeral. “Yes,” he said.

  The larger of the two men spoke with unsurmountable authority. “I’m Agent White and this is Agent Mains. We’re FBI, working in collaboration with the Iraqi Federal Police. You’re under arrest, Son.”

  * * * * *

  As Jesse paced back and forth in the holding room, Abn watched in silence and waited. They’d maintained this routine for almost half an hour. Jesse hadn’t paused during that time. The more he paced, the more he reminded Abn of a caged feral cat he’d once seen. He tried to imagine what was going through Jesse’s mind. They were strangers to one another, yet somehow, he’d landed in the man’s legal custody. The very thought of this seemed like madness to him. It just made no sense. But this was happening and for the moment there was nothing he could do about it.

  The only way out he could see was the agents who’d arrested him. This prospect seemed grim, but in comparison to remaining with Jesse, it felt as though it may be a blessing. He would rather go to prison than remain in Jesse’s custody.

  As the surrounding tension stretched to breaking point, the door to the room opened and a man walked in. Abn looked up at the man in surprise. It was the last person he was expecting. The suit said money, power, confidence, control. The expression said the end of the world.

  “Abn… I’m Bryan Gilroy. I met you once at Michael’s house. Do you remember? I’m Michael’s father’s lawyer. Jesse called me in to help…” said the man.

  “…I bumped into Michael at the hospital, just after you were nabbed by the Feds. He was lookin’ for ya. When I told him where you were, he gave me Bryan’s number,” Jesse said.

  Abn’s surprise mounted. Maybe Jesse wasn’t quite as tyrannical he made himself out to be. “Okay,” he managed.

  “I’ll go,” Jesse said.

  “It would be better that you stay,” Bryan urged.

  “Like Hell. I’m leaving,” Jesse said.

  Abn watched in silence as Jesse left. The tension in the room immediately eased. “I do not know why I am here,” he said, as he turned back to find Bryan taking a seat.

  “I’m not going to lie to you. You’re in serious trouble. You’ve been marked for deportation,” Bryan said.

  “What?”

  “Deportation… You’re being extradited and they’re not dragging their heels on this.”

  “Dragging heels? What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re being flown out of the country,” Bryan said.

  “Flown out? When?”

  “Today.”

  “To where?”

  “…Okay, so here’s what I know. From what I understand, you’re the prime suspect in a series of murders in Iraq. The FBI has cut some kind of a deal with the Iraqi Federal Police to get you back to Baghdad for trial. Under normal circumstances, you would be protected by your New Zealand citizenship. But as I understand, you’re not yet a naturalized citizen of New Zealand. You’re still under refugee status. And this detail makes it much more difficult for us to protect you,” Bryan said.

  “I do not understand. Murders? What murders? I have never murdered anyone.”

  “I’m not certain of the details. All I can say for sure is that indisputable evidence has surfaced.”

  “That is impossible,” Abn said as a heavy sense of both exasperation and fear now threatened to overwhelm him. Sweat accumulated on his brow and his mouth suddenly felt as dry as the Sahara.

  “I’m afraid it’s a fact. And there is nothing I can do about it,” Bryan said.

  “So why are you here?”

  “Michael insisted that I come to see you and do what I can. You wouldn’t believe what I had to do just to gain access today.”

  Abn was about to press Bryan for further information, but he was interrupted as the door to the room opened again. This time, the two FBI agents entered.

  “Your time’s up,” one of the agents said.

  Abn watched as Bryan stood and shook his head, looking deftly helpless, a look that suited him about as much as a powerlifter wearing a tutu.

  The fragile world that had sustained Abn since coming to New Zealand was sliding from beneath him. He could feel that slide gathering pace by the second. “Please, say thank you to Michael,” he said.

  “I will,” Bryan agreed as he glanced nervously at the agents and then back to Abn. “I have to go.”

  Abn could only watch as Bryan left. As the door closed, an emptiness descended upon the room. The FBI agents remained, but he couldn’t feel their presence in the least. It felt to him as if their suits were hollow, held up by some m
agical force. They may as well have been soulless vessels, drones and nothing more.

  “In a few minutes we will leave this place and head to the airport where you will be flown back to Iraq for trial,” Agent White said.

  “I still do not know why. I have not murdered anyone.”

  White looked sideways at his partner and back at Abn before he opened a laptop and placed it on the table. Abn noticed that White’s eyes remained dead as he carried out this action.

  What came into view on the computer screen soon commanded the entirety of Abn’s attention. The video showed the inside of an aircraft hangar. However, there were no aircraft inside of this hangar. Instead, dotted over the floor were dozens upon dozens of makeshift beds with patients atop of them. He could see they were patients because the bed closest to the camera clearly showed the condition of the man lying on it. This man had a missing leg from the knee down, the stump covered with a blood-soaked bandage. The man twisted and turned on the bed, as if he were trying but failing to acquire a comfortable position.

  Something in the scene felt familiar to Abn. It was as if it prompted memories from a past life. He dug deep to try further clarify this memory but he failed to uncover anything. A shiver ran up his back as the video continued to play.

  Aside from the patients, the hangar appeared devoid of activity. But after a while, he noticed movement far off at the back. He focused on this movement, not really knowing for sure what he was looking at. The movement passed from bed to bed, at first appearing as nothing more than a blur in the video screen. Then, after several minutes, the blur began to take form. And as this materializing form moved, he soon realized he was looking at a person examining each of the patients. This action was systematically carried out. The person worked from the left of the hangar and then to the right, before moving to the next row of beds. Each row bought the person a little closer to the camera. He could soon see that this person was someone short, someone young. But it wasn’t until this person came within two rows of the camera that the reality became clear.

  Long dormant memories struggled to surface in his strained mind. The aircraft hangar suddenly took on a new familiarity. He knew that place. To the left were offices. He had slept there along with the doctor and a handful of nurses.

  “Scio Locum,” Abn said.

  “What?” asked agent White.

  “It’s Latin. He said, he knows that place,” Agent Mains said.

  Latin, Abn thought. That’s it. The doctor had taught him Latin in that hangar. They’d been there for months. He remembered the countless nights sitting with the old man with nothing else to do but learn. And as the form of the boy in the video screen moved to the side of the man with the bandaged leg, he remembered.

  The boy on the screen wiped something down with a rag in his hand, taking time and care to do so. All the while, he appeared to be talking. The patient visibly calmed in the boy’s presence. Then the boy raised what he’d been wiping to the patient’s temple before giving a sharp thrust. The patient went still.

  Abn knew at that moment that he and the boy on the screen were one and the same. It was as if someone had flicked on a light in a darkened corner of his mind, he remembered it all. He remembered everything.

  CHAPTER 28

  The thirty hours of travel back to Iraq wasn’t something Abn was used to. The fatigue that came with the experience, he could handle. The rising anxiety of what awaited him at the end of the journey troubled him most. This emotion reassembled trying on an old set of pants that you’d grown out of. But these pants were now on fire.

  Agent White and Agent Mains stayed with him the entire way. He’d not even been allowed to go to the bathroom on his own. And now, as they walked him out through the exit of Baghdad International Airport, they flanked him either side. He’d long since realized that these men didn’t leave anything to chance.

  The cool December twilight air assaulted his senses as they stepped into the open. While they stood there waiting, he closed his eyes and took a moment to indulge in the pleasure of fresh oxygen. It felt wonderful after enduring more than a day of air conditioning.

  The moment of reprieve was cut short as he felt the cuffs attaching him to Agent White being removed. He opened his eyes just in time to see a car pulling up to the curb, embossed with Iraqi Federal Police insignia. The two men who got out of the car were not suited civilians. These men wore military uniforms and both were well armed.

  The handover ceremony, although brief, seemed very thorough to him. Identification was presented, paperwork was signed and his cuffs were re-secured onto one of the Iraqis. He was then placed onto the back seat of the car before being un-cuffed. Having his hands free again surprised him somewhat. Apparently, these men were confident that he wouldn’t attempt an escape.

  Soon enough, they were speeding east from the airport in the direction of the city. The men didn’t speak to him. They tended to their duty in absolute silence. He wanted to ask questions. More than once, he attempted to make eye contact in the rearview mirror with the driver. The look he saw in the eyes staring back at him warned him to remain silent. He didn’t test that warning. He instead busied himself with the familiar landscape as they sped along Airport Street. Something in the view gave him comfort. The buildings he knew. The trees he knew. Even the color of the sky felt welcoming.

  As they turned onto Jadriya Bridge and made their way east, the Tigris River flashed into view beneath them. The familiar sight brightened his mood further. He’d often spent time on the same river near Mosul. It had been a place where he’d always found a degree of peace amidst the eternal chaos. The river had a special place in his heart. It had been the avenue of escape for him and for Jane when they’d first met. The thought of her threatened to unsettle him again. He forced her memory from his mind and instead tried to keep his focus on the familiar feelings of home.

  They made another turn left and were soon driving through a fairly affluent neighborhood that appeared untouched by conflict. Three story residences crested each side of a finely paved, broad avenue. The well irrigated green of the many trees and gardens stood in stark contrast to the desert colored architecture. The sight might have been pleasing to your average onlooker, but to him something seemed to be missing.

  As they entered a retail section of the area, they neared a boy dressed in rags who looked to be roughly his own age. The boy sat on the sidewalk with a handkerchief spread out on the concrete before him. As they drove closer, Abn could see that the boy’s begging had procured a respectable pile of coins. The boy’s bones stuck out though his clothing in stark reminder of his own past. He knew that boy. He’d been him. He’d lived that life.

  In that same moment, Abn understood what was wrong.

  Aside from the boy, he couldn’t see one other person in any direction he looked. He found his body tensing as this realization took hold. A second later, the world around him exploded.

  There was no time to react, no time to feel shock. One second they were driving along and the next, the car was in the air, tumbling and turning. He somehow stayed conscious this entire time. He somehow remained calm, as if he were experiencing the event on the silver screen, as if none of what was happening were real.

  But reality returned with a shock as gravity had its way. They smashed, hood-first, back onto the road. His seatbelt stretched into his torso as the car bounced back onto its wheels. His ears rang with pain and he saw nothing but red before him as the car settled.

  As the magnitude of what had just happened came into focus, so did the realization of why he was seeing red. The security window between him and the front of the car had acted as a shield, protecting him from the worst of the blast. The agents hadn’t been so lucky. Blood, vesturing the plexiglass told him that their ability to continue with their duty had been bought to an end.

  Smoke filled the cabin surrounding him. He gasped for fresh air. He found none. Rolling to one side, he tried for the door handle but failed. He soon discovered t
he reason for this. The door had been torn free in the explosion and was no longer there.

  Seconds later, he rolled out of the car and scrambled a few feet before tripping over something. Squinting through the smoke, his burning eyes found the mangled body of the beggar. Clearly, the boy had taken the brunt of the blast, just as the agents had. Much of his face had been torn away and blood poured from a wound in his torso. The boy would never have to beg again.

  A random idea sprang into Abn’s mind as he knelt there, looking at the beggar’s body. Mustering his strength, he dragged the body back to the car and shoved it onto the backseat as best as he could. But he didn’t tarry long. With his legs trembling, he turned and moved away as fast as he could manage. The effort of his haste wasn’t wasted. A second explosion hit and threw him back down to the ground only moments later.

  He lay there looking at the dull light of the sky, the wind blown from his lungs. He lost track of time and reality. His head pounded with pain unlike anything he’d felt before. He didn’t know how much time passed before his shock and pain dissipated enough to move again. When he did make it back onto his feet, he found the car engulfed in flames.

  “What happened?” said a voice.

  He turned to find a man wearing civilian clothing, standing next to him, staring wide-eyed at the wreck. He caught his tongue just in time to switch to Arabic as he answered, “I do not know… I was walking… There was an explosion…”

  “Are you hurt?” asked the man looking around.

  He looked down at his body and found that everything appeared to be where it was supposed to be. “I am okay,” he said.

  “Your pants are of fire,” said the man.

  Abn looked again. He could see no flames. “Where?” he asked.

  “There, the back of your leg,” said the man.

  Abn twisted and found a small flame licking at the back of his jeans, near an ankle. He patted it out with the brush of a hand.