Girl Stalks the Ruins

by Jacques Antoine

  He glanced back at the kids, who hardly noticed they were no longer sitting nearby, and stepped up his pace, to catch her up before she did anything rash, though he could hardly imagine what that might be. What he could picture was a stern conversation from the evening before, when the Landespolizei met them in the lobby of their hotel, formal and rigid, determined to isolate a disruptive element in their city. A familiar face had appeared in the lobby after a few minutes.

  “Once again, we find you in the middle of a disturbance, Captain Tenno.” The sound of Dieter’s voice had been a relief and an annoyance at the same time. He flashed a BFV identity card for the benefit of the local police, and had a quiet word with the ranking officer. “Can I assure the Oberkommissar that you will be leaving Trier soon?”

  Perry recalled staring wide-eyed at him, until Emily responded. “Yes. We are taking the morning train to Paris.”

  “Your passport gives you limited immunity from prosecution. But you can still be detained prior to deportation if the Landespolizei determines that you represent a threat to public safety. However, since the video of this afternoon’s incident suggests you were merely defending yourself, Herr Bergmann is willing to forego this formality on your assurance…”

  “We have reservations on the 08:15 train,” Emily said, forestalling Dieter’s explanation. Herr Bergman nodded to an assistant who made a phone call. “It looks like you found your Neo-Nazis,” she continued. “Unless, you were merely following us again.”

  “The activities of the DVU in the Rhineland-Palatinate are known to us,” Herr Bergmann said, in heavily accented English. “I did not realize the United States had taken an interest in our difficulties… along with the BFV.”

  Dieter offered some sort of explanation, which seemed to satisfy Herr Bergmann, and he rounded up his team and left the hotel. Dieter remained behind long enough to give Emily the bad news.

  “As a matter of routine, your passport has been placed on the Interpol watch list, Captain Tenno. After two incidents in two days, my hands were tied.”

  “Two incidents,” Perry remembered roaring at him, his fists clenched and ready to act on the same impulse he’d experienced the night before. “One incident only happened because of your reckless behavior, and today, what was she supposed to do?”

  “… and what, pray tell, am I being watched for?” Emily asked.

  Dieter retreated toward the exit. “As I said, my hands were tied.”

  As Perry followed her down the length of the platform, he wondered if she was about to stumble into a third ‘incident.’ He didn’t want to run to catch up, for fear of drawing anyone else’s attention, or perhaps he really feared drawing Emily’s attention. Whichever one it might have been, the man in the uniform turned to see her following, and the expression on his face confirmed for Perry exactly who he was. He tried to walk faster, and even to run, but his leg hindered him, and turning to look over his shoulder in horror, he stumbled into a stack of empty crates by the snack stand and fell.

  Emily was on top of him in a flash, and Perry was prepared to sprint the remaining few yards to intervene, in case she meant to hurt him. How strange that this is what he thought her capable of – at least for an instant.

  “Tun sie mir nicht weh… bitte… Fräulein.”

  The man cringed as he pleaded with her, but something in her eyes must have spoken to him, and he recovered himself. When she helped him up and dusted him off, Perry tried to shrink back, though it was too late, since she’d already glimpsed him out of the corner of an eye.

  “This hurts?” she asked, pointing to his shoulder, and the man nodded. Before he – or Perry – realized what she had in mind to do, Emily poked him with two fingers in several spots under the collarbone and along his arm. When she seized his wrist and rotated the arm up, it made a popping sound, and the man looked at first horrified, and then relieved. He raised his arm above his head, and smiled faintly.

  “Besser, Fräulein,” he mumbled, cowed by the entire encounter “… vielen Dank.”

  He moved so as to get away from this angel of pain and healing, before she changed her mind – that’s what Perry saw in his face – but Emily blocked him and pointed to his leg.

  “This hurts, too?”

  He nodded gingerly, and she held four fingers out, and before he could react, she jabbed them into the flesh just below the hip, and then crouched to squeeze the thigh muscle above his knee. Finally, with both hands, she wrenched his leg out, as if to rotate it within the hip socket. The man shrieked for an instant, and then looked down at his leg, and when he extended it, a broad grin spread across his face.

  “Mein Gott, es ist viel besser, Fräulein … vielen Dank.”

  Emily nodded, and reached out to touch his hand. “You’re welcome.” Then she turned to walk away. Perry, who had been backpedaling down the platform, but not quickly enough, stopped to face her. What else was there to do?

  “What were you up to over there?”

  “Changing hearts and minds,” she replied. “Isn’t that the mantra at Bagram… or do they only say that at the FOBs?” She looked him up and down, and then smiled. “Why? What’d you think I was gonna do… kick his ass, again?”

  She was right to mock him, of course. He knew it, but then she kissed him and walked back to the bench where the kids were sitting, Stone trying out his new pen and Li Li tidying up the gifts. He hadn’t trusted her enough… and yet, she still appreciated his having her back. A moment might come when she’d need him to have her back again, and he hoped he’d be ready.

  “C’mon, Emmy,” Li Li called out. “Open your gift.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m coming. Open it for me.”

  Li Li held up an oddly shaped little plate. “What’s it for, Emmy?”

  Perry couldn’t help laughing. “It’s one of those egg plates… like the one you were showing me.”

  “It’s for soft boiled eggs,” Emily said, now sitting next to Li Li. “The egg goes here, and the toast strips go here.”

  “That old guy remembered.”

  Later, after they’d changed trains at Saarbrucken, a French couple with two young children took seats across the aisle, practically the only other passengers in the first class carriage. After a few minutes, the train pulled into a siding near the border, outside Metz, and all four kids found seats facing each other around a table.

  “Votre fille est belle, et votre fils est…” the wife said to Emily, before the door at the end of the carriage rattled open.

  A uniformed official entered, followed by two men in military gear carrying automatic weapons.

  “Passeports, s’il vous plâit,” he said, in the practiced tones of someone who’d been trained to use his voice to enforce quiet compliance. Emily fished a packet of papers out of her bag for herself and the kids, and Perry held his out. The man glanced at the passports, and at the kids, matching faces to photos. “What is the purpose of your visit, Captain Tenno?”

  “Family vacation,” she replied, with the practiced grunt of someone who knew how to give the minimum required information to an official inquiry.

  “How long do you stay in France?”

  “One week.” She produced dated reservation receipts for their departure from Fiumicino Airport in Rome.

  Once the border control team had passed from the carriage, they all sat in silence for a moment, until Perry broke the spell.

  “Heavily armed. I wonder if that’s normal.”

  “I suppose you have an opinion about their arms?” Emily cocked an eyebrow, but smiled a moment later, as if to give him permission.

  “Well, now that you mention it, those Ruger Mini-14s were pretty low-profile, I thought. You know, with the wooden stock instead of black resin. Makes it look like a hunting rifle. I’d heard something about the Gendarmes switching over to those. I think it’s a proprietary design, not available to anyone else.”

  “Vous êtes Americains,” the woman seated across the aisle said, then blushed for an
instant. “I’m sorry… I meant to say, you are Americans?”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “On holiday.”

  “I think our little girls have taken to your daughter.” Sure enough, two seats down, Li Li was having her hair done in a ‘French braid’ by one of the girls, who looked to be ten years old or so, and the smaller one was fussing over a drawing in Stone’s pad. “She is so patient with them. I hope they’re not a nuisance.”

  Emily glanced at Li Li, who made a face. “No, I’m sure it’s okay. Li Li is good with children.”

  “She is very… how do you say… pretty. Her hair is so fine.”

  Stone leaned out of his seat to reach his pad forward, and grunted. Emily looked it over and showed it to Perry. He’d drawn Chinese characters in a very fine hand with his new pen: 我不能忍受德国. She turned the paper so Li Li could see.

  “Wǒ bùnéng rěnshòu déguó. Shouldn’t it say ‘zài déguó’ at the end? Doesn’t it need a zài?”

  Li Li laughed. “No, Emmy. Don’t be silly. That would be totally awkward. No one talks like that.”

  “What’s it mean?” Perry asked.

  “He wrote, ‘I don’t like it in Germany’.” The French woman stole a peek at the characters on the pad. “He’s practicing his calligraphy,” Emily added for her benefit.

  “I don’t blame him,” she whispered. “I don’t care for Germans either.”

  A couple hours later, the train pulled into Gare de l’Est in Paris, and after rounding up kids and bags, they waded through the crowd on the platform to find two tall and welcome figures waiting – CJ Tanahill and Zaki Talib. Of course, CJ couldn’t resist making perhaps a little too much of Li Li, and a teenager has to bristle at all the attention, even though secretly she’d miss it if it weren’t available. In Zaki, Stone had finally met an adult built on a scale to make him seem like a little kid… well, other than Ethan.

  Chapter 6

  Paris By Night

  “I know a good place for Moroccan food,” Zaki said. “But we’ll have to take a train.”

  “Is this the place out by Saint Denis your cousin was telling us about?” CJ asked. “Because I’ve heard some things about that area.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, it’s in La Courneuve, right? Isn’t that the place people are calling a no-go zone for the police?”

  “My cousin says that’s all a lot of right wing propaganda. The police do regular patrols there, no one’s instituting shariah. It’s a French neighborhood, ethnically diverse, and maybe a little gritty, but everyone you meet on the street speaks French. Plus, the food is really great.”

  “I say we go,” Emily said.

  “… and it’s only one train from the Jardin de Luxembourg stop, which is right around the corner.”

  “It’s okay,” CJ said. “You already sold me.”

  “It’ll be safe.”

  CJ looked up into Zaki’s face – and that was saying something since she was quite tall herself, her straight, blond hair making a sharp contrast with his close-cropped black hair. She touched her nose to his, and snaked a hand around his elbow. “There is no place on this earth I wouldn’t feel safe on this arm.”

  Emily hooked him from the other side. “Have you stepped up the workouts, big guy? Because these guns seem to have grown since last spring.”

  Perry followed after the trio, happy to bear a distant witness to Zaki’s discomfiture at the subtle sarcasm of the women. “Better him than me,” he thought.

  They’d just spent a couple hours relaxing in the famous gardens, watching Stone sail a toy boat in the fountain alongside a few of the local kids. For much of the time, Li Li tried to look bored to conceal her envy. Eventually, Emily dangled a sketchpad on the edge of Stone’s peripheral vision, and Li Li got her turn. The park was two short blocks from the hotel Michael had arranged, and once the sun had set, the kids were sent packing, to dine in with Andie and Yuki, and give the grown ups some space. The remainder of their night promised to be free and clear, and CJ spoke French well enough to navigate their little party through the ‘City of Lights.’

  The early evening crowds had already thinned out by the time they entered the metro station, and Perry spotted a half-empty car toward the front of the first train. Emily followed, distracted by a conversation from earlier in the day with Andie and Yuki. When she told them of the incident in Trier, Andie had blanched at even her muted description.

  “Are you okay?” Yuki had asked, and turned over Emily’s hands looking for scars.

  “I’m fine, Mom. I can take care of myself. That’s not what worries me.”

  “They touched Li Li?” Andie repeated this question for the third time. Emily checked the door to the adjoining room.

  “But Stone defended her,” Yuki said. “Isn’t that the important thing?”

  “It’s what worries me,” Emily had said.

  “He thinks of her as sister. Of course he’s going to protect her.”

  Andie nodded her head. “He’s devoted to her.” Her eyes scanned the room anxiously, looking for some kind of reassurance in the impersonal hotel décor. If only there had been enough for Emily’s next words.

  “If Perry hadn’t gotten him away from there, he might have killed someone.”

  These words hung heavy in the air. Here were three women who’d taken on the care of the boy Emily rescued from a North Korean prison camp nearly a decade earlier, and they each tried to take its measure. If he had actually killed one of the Neo-Nazis, the cascade of consequences for all of them, but especially Stone, might have been overwhelming.

  This line of thought had a special resonance for Emily, since she’d met Stone’s ‘big brother,’ the clone Ba We, and saw first hand the immense reservoirs of energy his violent impulses could tap into. But she also knew he’d died trying to shield her from gunfire. With each passing year, Stone seemed to accelerate down that same paradoxical path.

  For different reasons, neither of the women she called ‘mom’ would be able to appreciate the dark destiny she saw beckoning to him. His abiding love for Li Li would not cancel out the ferocity he shared with Ba We. If only he could slow his progress toward his own doom.

  The car bucked to one side, and the other passengers swayed along with it. Emily jostled against Zaki, and CJ’s voice came into focus.

  “On a watchlist?” CJ turned, wide-eyed, to Emily, once she’d gotten her attention. “What on earth for?”

  “It’s nothing really. It’s not like they’re going to keep me from traveling. The Geneva Convention requires them to let me pass.”

  “Does that even still apply, now that you’ve left that post… and outside of China?” Zaki asked.

  “The Convention applies everywhere, or what good would it be? Otherwise, third party nations would be able to disrupt diplomacy in which they were not directly involved.”

  “She was supposed to turn the passport in to the State Department last month,” Perry observed, and Emily glowered at him.

  “They didn’t give me a deadline.”

  “But what was it about?” CJ asked, again.

  “I stumbled into the middle of an op their federal police were running.”

  “… and put the fear of God into one of their spec-ops units,” Perry added.

  “That practically goes without saying,” Zaki said.

  “But it was different this time.”

  Emily’s eyes turned even darker than usual. “Guys, do we have to?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Em,” CJ cooed into her ear, and placed a hand on the back of her neck. “Let us make much of you… for just a minute. It’s one of the rites of friendship.”

  “Okay, fine. Tell ’em whatever you think was so different this time.”

  Perry cleared his throat to get ready for what he hoped would be a thrilling account. “You know how these encounters usually go? A punch or two, maybe a kick, a bit of grappling and some poor schlep gets to eat pavement?

  “That sounds about right,�
� Zaki said.

  “Well, this wasn’t like that at all. I mean, sure, a couple guys hit the deck hard, but mainly it was these little touches. She poked a guy with two fingers in a couple of spots and his arm goes numb and his knee collapses under him.”

  “That sounds like pressure-point stuff,” Zaki said. “I’ve read about that. In India, I hear they even made it into a healing art.”

  “You mean like accu-pressure?” CJ asked.

  “Yeah, sort of… and there’s this whole theology behind it.”

  Perry began to grow impatient with this distraction from his story. “But the best part is the next day, when she’s facing a couple dozen Neo-Nazis in this town square.”

  “Neo-Nazis?” CJ’s face had gone pale on hearing of this development.

  “Neo-Nazis?” Zaki echoed her surprise.

  Emily frowned at him, but Perry forged ahead anyway, since the best part of the story had yet to be told. “It was a political rally… which we might have avoided if either of us could read German, because there were posters everywhere. But, whatever… the kids got engulfed by the crowd…”

  Emily cleared her throat and gave him a significant look at this point in the narrative.

  “…and she had to do something. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we’re running down this alley back to our hotel, and she turns to face this mob, you know, to keep them from following…”

  “They weren’t really that tough,” Emily said.

  “… and she throws the first few around, which has the effect you’d expect, of cowing the others, until this huge guy steps through the crowd, and he’s big.” Perry glanced at Zaki. “Not as tall as you, but with some serious upper body development.”

  “So I let him swing his arms until he got tired…”

  Zaki snorted on hearing this.

  Now it was Perry’s turn to frown, and take back control of the story. “At one point, she’s got this joint-lock going, and he’s twisted down into the pavement… and I swear it sounded like he was crying from the pain… but she releases him, and he grabs her shoulder and is ready to swing at her some more, and then she jams a thumb under his chin, and suddenly he’s helpless, like she’s found this magical spot and he can’t even raise his arms.”