The Loss of What We Never Had

by Carolyn Thorman

Panting, Tony pushed through the crowd. “I took the stairs down. He’s not here. The place is on lockdown, and every guard has his knickers in a twist.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Steady on, Paige. It’s simple. Zak saw the cock-up in here and took the baby into town, that’s all.”

  I choked down a wave of panic. “I’ve got to—”

  “He’s not your kid,” Tony snapped.

  “Will you stop saying that?”

  In a softer voice, Tony said, “Look, we’ll get my car and drive to the square where we saw Zak earlier.”

  If Tony’s matter-of-fact tone was intended to trump my anxiety, it didn’t work. “If we can’t find him straight off,” he said, “we’ll leave a note on his windshield and say where we’ll be waiting. What’s he drive?”

  “Porsche.”

  “Let’s get cracking.”

  The downpour had settled into a pesky drizzle. Tony stopped, took off his waterproof Red Cross jacket, and draped it over my shoulders. “Oh, please,” I said feeling like a shit after the way I’d lit into him. “You need it.”

  “A thank you, will do nicely.”

  “Thank you.”

  Halfway down the road, a deafening overhead clackety-clack was followed by a cyclone of wind tossing the tops of the pines. Gulls veered off course. Tony and I stopped in our tracks. The helicopter came in low: the gold on the Vatican’s coat of arms on the aircraft shone through the rain The wind from the whirling blades stirred the trees. A paper cup tumbled from an overflowing trash can and rolled across the cement. The big bird roosted on the hospital’s landing pad.

  A roar of diesel engines and I watched a convoy of Ford 250s swarm the parking lot. Brandishing rifles, Jihadis jumped from the beds and ran in all directions. Some wore turbans; others, khaki berets. The rag-tag army was in sweats, track suits, and jeans. The cry, “Allahu Akhbar,” rang through the trees.

  Tony spun around. “Quick, back to the ambulance.”

  “The hospitals safer,” I shouted, trying to keep up with him.

  “They’ll go for the Pope on the roof.” He paused, panting. “A vehicle might get us out of here.”

  The ambulance was where we left it. Tony swung open the rear doors and boosted me inside a minute before the first grenade hit the building. The ambulance rocked, then regained balance, as if righting itself after a blow.

  I crawled inside the ambulance’s hold. A metal shelf was bolted to one panel. “Get underneath,” Tony ordered. His head low, he made his way through the narrow opening between the rear and the driver’s seat and slid behind the wheel. He slapped the dashboard. “Fuck it all. No keys. Soon as this shit lets up, we’ll make a run for my car.”

  I lay on my side, facing the swing-away cot. The shelf six inches over my head sagged from the weight of the bins of supplies. The sharp whine of a rocket, the rumble of man-made thunder and the crash of stone on stone. My brain went numb. No thought, no reason, just a darkness too thick to think through.

  “They sound like M-67s,” Tony said.

  My teeth chattered, and I took deep breaths until my head spun from hyperventilating. Each blast set our vehicle wobbling on its tires. Flashing red balls bounced off the oxygen tanks, during a lull, I raised my head to see through the windshield, my vision partially blocked by the back of the front seats. The sky was on fire. A flurry of spinning sticks sailed over the pines as the tail of the helicopter vanished into the fog.

  “So much for the papal visit,” Tony said. “The bird never landed.”

  “Can you make out where the jihadists are?” I asked.

  “Damn window won’t come down without keys,” Tony opened the door and stood on the running board. “They’re holding our police at gunpoint. The rest of the bastards are getting in the trucks.”

  “Where’re the Knights?”

  “Who cares?”

  “Zak might be with them.”

  “Get ready to make a dash.” After a minute he said, “All clear. Give it a few seconds to be sure. Funny, the Vatican motor entourage pulled under the palms. Look near the fence.”

  “I can’t see anything.”

  “Oh, right. Ready?”

  I jumped from the back and stared at the hospital through the phlegmy mist. The exterior walls on three sides of a wing were gone revealing a stage-set of a nurses’ station. The counter, torn from its anchor, upside-down gurneys, chairs, and carts every-which-way. Staff must have rescued the patients before the bombs hit.

  “Are you coming?” Tony called.

  The road we were on intersected with the main drag that led to the entrance of the grounds. The intersection was blocked. The entire area around the brick guardhouse was cordoned off with yellow tape stretched between stanchions. A virtual barrier, not a real one; the tape only about four feet from the ground But I knew the well-disciplined Spaniards would never challenge a boundary. Policia National paced the inside perimeter, their long black rain-capes shone like patent leather through the fog. An officer trotted up to us, shouting. Perez, the name on his shield.

  “We’re going for our car,” Tony said.

  Perez eyed Tony’s Medicine Sin Frontera tee-shirt. “No Francoise.” he said.

  “English?” I asked.

  Perez unclipped a phone from his belt and spoke in heated, fierce Spanish with frequent gestures to the Vatican’s entourage. He closed the phone and pointed to the sedans flanking the Vatican’s limo.

  We hiked the two hundred yards or so to the lead car. The back door opened, and a man in a gray suit clambered out. Tall and burly, the elegant-looking guy had brown eyes and a black beard. The mist brightened his hair and darkened his jacket of raw silk. The ID on the lanyard around his neck identified him as ‘Simon Cerrone,’ followed by an impressive line of credentials in Italian. “I’m with the Papal Delegation,” he said. “Public relations, the backup crew.”

  “The Pope’s gone,” I said. “Who’s in the limousine?”

  “Archbishop DeAlba, along with the rest of the support team,” he said. “Now, it’s the drive back to Cadiz. Hope the rain slacks off for good.”

  “You sound American,” Tony said.

  “The seminary sent me to Catholic University. Georgetown, Blues Alley...”

  “Seminary?” I said. “We should call you Father Cerrone?”

  “Nope. A Marist Brother.” He nodded to the cop watching us. “The Policia said you needed an English-speaker.”

  “It’s our car, we’ll be needing,” Tony said. “We’re doctors and—

  Two shots came from the guardhouse.

  “Dear God,” Cerrone said and took off toward the barrier with Tony and me at his heels.

  Cerrone and Perez yelled to each other over the yellow tape. Cerrone translated. “A sniper, a fanatic cop who wasn’t supposed to shoot fired into the guard-house.”

  “Can’t they stop him?” I asked.

  Cerrone shrugged. “Maybe they don’t want to. One way to solve the problem.”

  Tony tipped his head and said, “Sorry?”

  “You don’t know what’s going on?” Cerrone asked.

  “We just came from the hospital,” I said.

  “A Spaniard whacko barricaded himself in the guard-house. He has a baby, can you believe? Won’t come out until we—we meaning the church—agrees to take in the kid. Says he won’t come out until then.”

  I swallowed hard. “Have a name?”

  “Something like De Leon.”

  An aneurysm of panic flooded my brain. My head throbbed. Everything around me lost definition, Tony, trees, the stanchions, a blur.

 
; I hardly heard Tony shout, “Look.”

  In a daze, I watched the green Mercedes followed by its cadre of white SUVs pull up a short distance from the Vatican’s limo. I looked back toward the guardhouse, but a group of Polica blocked my view.

  Cerrone patted his inside jacket pocket. “Forgot my phone. I gotta’ get back. “When he turned to leave, Perez immediately raised the tape and stepped under it to our side and blocked Cerrone’s path. “Guess I’ll wait here,” Cerrone said. “Spanish Gestapo,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Who’s that getting out of the car?” Tony asked.

  A Moroccan in a white robe emerged from the Mercedes at the same time a priest emerged from the limo. They shook hands. “The one in the collar’s Father Roberto,” Cerrone said. “Our hostage negotiator. The Arab, I’m not sure. Probably someone to collect their kid.”

  “Please, Mister Cerrone,” I said. “Tell your folks to take in the baby and let DeLeon go.”

  “Obviously you don’t know the whole story,” Cerrone said.

  I wanted to hear his version. “So, tell me.”

  “The Knights kidnapped the kid,” Cerrone said, “promising to give him back. They reneged.

  How does he know these things? I wondered. Then recalled the relationship between the Archbishop and Zak.

  “The jihadists got wind of the betrayal,” Cerrone continued. “Even before the betrayal had time to happen.” Cerrone glanced at the demolished hospital. “They took it to heart. The Pope ordered the Archbishop to intervene. To apologize, say the church had no intention of not keeping its word. Of course, they’d return the child, and the jihadists could come get him.”

  Everything Cerrone said boiled down to one fact. The church. My church, I thought with a sickening feeling. The church Zak was willing to risk his life for, threw him under the bus.

  I glimpsed Father Roberto advancing toward the guardhouse. He lifted a megaphone to his lips. “Senor DeLeon,” Father shouted.

  I zipped up my jacket and tried to put the situation into some sort of order.

  Zak betrayed the Muslims. The church betrayed Zak. Which was worse? Which side was I on? Zak broke a promise, sure. But to whom? To animals. Look at the hospital.

  I drew the hood of the jacket over my head and tightened the drawstring.

  On the other hand, the church broke its promise to Zak. Worse, its moral obligation to Hamid—now Michael—a new life baptized in the faith. The Archbishop’s betrayal was a failure of loyalty to his own. The under-rated virtue of loyalty, I thought. The unsung virtue that brought order and peace. I pictured my father’s disloyalty to his own child, and at that moment I knew why the world was in chaos.

  Father Roberto’s pleas carried through the palms. I still couldn’t discern the words. What were the textbook techniques of hostage negotiation? I recalled Zak’s pig-headedness, his one-track mind, and his conviction he had all the answers. Maybe he did. At any rate, he had the courage to hold out. Alone.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I lifted the barrier and called to Tony, “Zak’s by himself. I’m going out there to be with them.”

  Tony grabbed my elbow. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  I yanked my arm away.

  “Cuidado, Seňora.” Perez raised his rifle.

  I backed off.

  Cerrone paced, now and then stopping to watch the policia watch the guardhouse. I walked over and looked up into his eyes. “You tell DeAlba to stop screwing around.”

  “No one tells the Archbishop anything.”

  “He’s a coward.” Anger bordering on fury drove my words. “The Pope’s ‘yes’ man.”

  “Now, really, Doctor—”

  “Cool it, Paige,” Tony said.

  “Mister Cerrone—” I checked his name-tag. “Simon. You’re not stupid. This baby’s a line in the sand.” Words that made no sense, but I went on. “The Muslims are bombing our cathedrals, our art, our lives, Bach, Rembrandt, Louis Pasteur...” Stumped for more examples, I added, “Next it will be Disney.”

  Cerrone smiled slightly. “Don’t think I don’t disagree.” Spoken like the Vatican bureaucrat he was.

  Shots came from the guardhouse. “Can you see who fired?” Tony asked Cerrone.

  He craned his neck, “The sniper’s on the roof. In a Guardia Civil uniform.”

  Standing on tip-toe, I saw a soldier atop the guardhouse.

  Three quick shots. “Are they coming from Zak?” I asked. A wisp of gauzy smoke curled into the fog. “Can you see?” I asked Tony.

  “Better not look, love.”

  The universe fell eerie, quiet.

  After a few minutes, Tony said, “They seem to be packing it up.”

  I heard the click of weapons being fastened back onto slings. The guards spoke softly as one by one, they drifted from the restricted area and joined their captain. I now had a clear view.

  Zak lay on the grass. The turf gradually darkened as it absorbed blood from his chest. The Guardia soldier who had been on the roof emerged from the guardhouse holding something against his shoulder. An unmistakable howl—

  “Hamid.” I shouted lunging toward the tape.

  “Stay back,” Tony ordered.

  The soldier carrying Hamid kicked Zak’s ankle as he passed.

  “Look. Something’s happening over there.” Tony pointed to the far side of the roped-off area, where a Guardia Civil officer was dragging away a stanchion. The green Mercedes turned onto the wet lawn, churned through the opening in the tape, and skidded to a stop near the kiosk. Three men jumped from the rear seat. The tallest wore a white robe and white skullcap. The other two, bodyguards I assumed, were in black leather jackets.

  The Guardia Civil officer walked over to his colleague carrying Hamid, and both of them headed toward the Mercedes. The soldier carrying Hamid approached the guy in the white robe, and ceremoniously handed the baby over. Hamid screamed, his hands flailed. The white-robed jihadist tightened the blanket, binding Hamid’s arms. The howls escalated. The guy gripped the back of Hamid’s neck and shook him.

  “Stop it,” I shouted.

  Tony put his arm around me. “Steady on.”

  The guy in white nodded at one of the bodyguards who took Hamid and carried him into the car.

  “He’s mine,” I shouted. I yanked the tape, tore it loose and dashed into the clearing, Tony behind me.

  “Mine,” I repeated. Tony grabbed my shoulders and held me tightly against him as the Mercedes bounced across the rough terrain.

  Hamid was lost.

  Gone to where he would learn rage, anger, and violence. Learn enough hate to blow up a city, to desecrate tombs and to decapitate a mother for committing an act of love.

  I pressed my forehead against Tony’s chest.

  “You did your best,” he said.

  I raised my head. “And lost him anyway.”

  “He was never yours to lose,” Tony said.

  I drew back and looked out at the road where Guardia Civil soldiers were clearing rubble from the road.

  “We’re getting wet,” Tony said.

  Yet my heart was arid, parched. How it was possible that the absence of pain could hurt so much?

  I felt abandoned, lost. And I wondered if somewhere out there in this vast and lonely world—that wherever he was—Hamid felt it too.

  Fine mist bled from the gray sky. Drops slid along the branches of the oaks and dripped into cups formed by the leaves. Tony lifted a strand of wet hair from my temple, tucked it behind my ear, and reached for my hand.

  Note from
the Author

  Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review online—anywhere you are able. Even if it’s just a sentence or two. It would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated.

  Thanks!

  Carolyn

  About the Author

  Carolyn Thorman is the author of the novel Holy Orders. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, and she was prior nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She’s also received three Works-in-Progress grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the State’s Literary Fellowship. She holds degrees in Law and Anthropology, and divides her time between Houston, Texas and Malaga, Spain.

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