by Don Hoesel
“Albert, if there’s anything you can do to help me find out where Ben is . . .”
Through the phone he heard what sounded like crying.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll make a call or two, alright?”
After several seconds of silence, Ruth thanked him, gave him a number where she could be reached, then said good-bye.
Albert hung up the phone and turned around to see Andrea staring at him.
“What was that about? Not another woman with her eye on my Albert, is it?”
He grinned. “So what if it is?”
They spent the rest of the afternoon addressing that question, and somewhere along the way, Albert forgot about Ben Robinski.
—
They were cleared to head home.
Maddy, her wound bandaged and her arm held in a sling to keep from aggravating the injury, hadn’t argued when Brent removed her luggage from her free hand and carried it along with his own to the chopper, where he helped her climb aboard.
Now they were waiting again, but rather than the single unit of marines surrounding the hospital, in the neighborhood of a thousand officers occupied the base, providing Brent and Maddy with what the professor thought was sufficient protection to guard against a second attack.
When they first arrived at the base, a doctor removed the bandages applied by their Afghan counterparts and gave the army captain a thorough examination, using equipment not available to indigenous medical personnel. According to Maddy, who relayed the results to Brent, the base doctors had conceded a grudging respect for the work of the locals.
They would take a military transport back to the States—an enormous Airbus that Brent could see through the windows of the waiting area. He hoped that he and Maddy wouldn’t be the only passengers.
Maddy, who seemed to have intuited Brent’s thoughts, said, “It may go back empty, but it’ll return fully loaded. It won’t be a wasted trip.”
Feeling fidgety over the events of the last twenty-four hours, Brent had taken to pacing the room. Now he stopped and glanced over at his traveling companion. The captain was sitting down with her head tilted back, eyes closed.
“You can stop doing that,” he said with mock gruffness. “The only one allowed inside my head is me.”
Maddy smiled but didn’t open her eyes.
“It takes you ten steps to cross the room,” she said. “And you’ve been pacing for so long that I’ve gotten used to the rhythm.” She opened her eyes and straightened her head. “Since you started, you’ve only stopped twice. The first time was at five steps, which would have put you right in front of the windows, at which point you said the same thing that everyone who sees an A400M for the first time says: ‘It’s big.’ Not very original.”
At Brent’s frown she offered a wink.
“The second time you stopped was just now, again at five steps, which means you were watching out the window again.”
Brent nodded in acknowledgment. Then he crossed his arms and said, “Okay, so you knew I was looking at the plane. How did you know I was thinking about what a waste it is to fly something that big across the ocean just for the two of us?”
Maddy gave the professor a smug look. “You drink a lot of soda, but I haven’t once seen you throw a can in the trash—always the recycle bin. I’ve seen you hold onto an empty can until you can find a bin to put it in. Then there’s your paper usage. You use almost all of it—even the margins once both sides are full.” She chuckled. “A guy who will carry around an empty Mountain Dew can with him for an hour would definitely have an issue with the amount of fuel it’s going to require to get us home.”
Brent had no response for several ticks of the loud clock hanging on the wall next to a battered vending machine. Then he released a genuine laugh and, once he was done, shook his head.
“The observational skills of a true scientist,” he said.
“No, the observational skills of a bored woman who is just a little buzzed on whatever painkiller they gave me before I left,” she answered.
Brent slipped into the seat next to her. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Pretty good, actually.”
For the last day—except for the time spent developing his new theory, sharing the details with Colonel Richards over the phone so his team could begin researching while they were in transit—Brent found himself thinking a lot about Amy Madigan. An experience like the firefight had a tendency to create an emotional bond where one might not have normally existed. Yet he believed it to be more than that. For some reason, the army captain was insinuating herself into his thoughts—and he didn’t know if he liked that or not.
She’d gone quiet, and Brent thought she might be falling asleep, so it surprised him when she spoke again.
“Why did you choose your father’s path instead of your mother’s?”
Brent didn’t understand the question right away and wondered if the medication Maddy mentioned might now be kicking in. Then it came to him, and when he understood what the question referred to, he fielded dueling responses: irritation, and gratitude that she cared enough to ask.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “Except that we both know the answer.”
When she returned a puzzled look, he explained.
“You’re a Christian because your parents were. It’s all you knew when you were a kid.”
It looked as if she was about to object, but Brent cut her off.
“Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why the odds that a person embraces Christianity depend almost entirely on where that person is born?” he asked. “If you’re born in Saudi Arabia, the chances of your embracing Christianity are next to none, but it’s pretty certain that you’ll practice Islam. It’s the same no matter where you go. That’s social dynamics. Religion is more cultural than mystical.”
He hadn’t meant for any of this to come out with the edge he suspected it had, and he gave Maddy an apologetic smile, even if he wasn’t sorry for his beliefs.
“It just seems pretty telling that all over the world people practice different religions, and all of those people think they have it right. It’s the height of arrogance to claim that your religion is the right one and everyone else is wrong.”
Maddy smiled. “You haven’t answered my question. Even if you’re right, and a person’s faith depends on where they were born and grew up, why did you pass on it?”
Brent had to concede that he hadn’t answered her question, even though he thought he’d made a pretty good argument for a logical dismissal of not just Christianity but any faith. He felt a wave of combativeness rising in him, the same as when one of his believing family members raised the topic. There hadn’t been a single instance in which he felt he’d lost a religious debate. But now, in a foreign country and in the company of Amy Madigan, he realized he didn’t want to have an argument. Instead, he wanted her to understand.
Just then a soldier entered the waiting area, and seeing a civilian and an officer from another branch of the military, he hesitated and then offered a cordial nod before slipping coins into the vending machine. A candy bar fell, was scooped up, and the man was gone.
In the intervening silence Brent looked over at Maddy, only to find that she’d again closed her eyes. He almost used that as a cue to let the matter drop, but he found that he didn’t want to do that.
“I think I was eight,” he said, glad to see Maddy’s eyes open when he spoke. “My father was watching a program on PBS—one of those where a cameraman and some guy who’s an expert in something spend a few weeks with a tribe native to somewhere that seems really far away when you’re in third grade.”
“I like those,” Maddy said with a nod.
“My dad did too,” Brent said, smiling at the memory. Then he frowned and looked her in the eye. “Did I tell you my father was a sociologist?”
She shook her head. “No, but it was in your file.”
Her response gave Brent pause as he wondered what else mig
ht be in that file, but he shook it off.
“I remember sitting down on the couch next to him and watching it for a while. And the thing I remember about the show was a ceremony the cameraman got to shoot. It was an elevation ritual. Normally it’s a pretty private affair, yet for some reason this tribe let this British team in and they taped the whole thing. There was some witch doctor guy with a very large knife, doing what, at eight years old, I couldn’t imagine a human being doing to another.”
He saw Maddy shiver at the thought.
“And when I glanced up at my father, he was looking at me, like he was waiting for the question.”
“What question?” Maddy prompted.
“Well,” Brent said, “nothing I’d heard in church prepared me for what I saw that day—what some guy with a bone necklace and scars down both cheeks did to a bunch of kids. And the thing I kept thinking was that the kids weren’t much older than I was.” The professor shook his head at the memory.
“So my dad explains what’s going on, how this is a ritual designed to appease whatever god these people worshiped, and for a kid raised in the Baptist church, let me tell you, it was quite an eye-opener. But do you know the most vivid memory I have from watching that program?”
Maddy did not and signified so with a single headshake.
“My father’s arm around me the whole time. The man loved me, I was certain of it. And once I realized that, it was like I had the green light to sift through things on my own.”
The professor might have said more, but his seat afforded him a view of the plane and he saw the propellers begin their spinning, which would carry him and Maddy over the ocean. Ten seconds later, a private entered the waiting area and signaled that it was time for them to board.
December 14, 2012, 9:33 A.M.
Alan Canfield knew all about lines. For years, as he’d navigated his way up the ladder at Van Camp Enterprises, he’d measured success by recognizing which lines he could cross and which ones he best respect and leave alone. Although the last few years had done much to blur his respect for lines, in each instance he’d justified his actions, resetting the lines with the authority granted him by his position. However, even he knew that what he’d set in motion crossed a line impossible to uncross, speaking some profound word of finality on the stakes of the project.
One did not murder an American military officer, and attempt the same on another, without repercussions. At this point he knew the cleanup operation in Balkh had failed, though he thought it might give the NIIU pause. And he also knew something he hadn’t before the attack, namely that only one of his targets was military. The other was a civilian consultant.
Nonetheless, the deeds were done, which meant that he had to intuit how things would unfold from that point onward. He harbored no delusions that the attacks would dissuade this team from their investigation. On the contrary, what he’d hoped to accomplish was the refocusing of their investigation on standard terrorist targets. All he needed was for them to remain occupied for eight more days. After that, they could navigate their investigation to the doorway of Van Camp Enterprises for all he cared. For if Canfield could pull it off, the CEO of the company, the one responsible for the entire operation, would be dead.
What he couldn’t do was continue his absence from the office for the intervening time period. To that point, he could chalk up his failure to return his boss’s calls to the extraordinary number of things on his plate, including his wife’s condition. Under normal circumstances few employers would begrudge a subordinate the time necessary to deal with such a grave family issue. However, Arthur Van Camp was not most men, and the duties assigned to Alan were of paramount importance.
Still, absolution was not what Canfield sought. Instead, he hoped for a general sense of disappointment from Van Camp. Disappointment was acceptable. It did not intimate suspicion.
The elevator deposited Canfield on the forty-third floor, where it was a short walk to his office. He failed to acknowledge his administrative assistant, who seemed surprised to see him but who quickly donned the proper sympathetic look in honor of Canfield’s wife. Once in his office he closed the door and set the file he was carrying on his desk. Before sitting, he went to a file cabinet, inserted a key, and found a bottle of bourbon secreted beneath a collection of old documents. Unlike Van Camp, who was allowed to keep his liquor in the open, Canfield had to partake on the sly. He uncapped the bottle and poured some into the ice-filled Styrofoam cup he’d brought with him. He took a long sip. Then he crossed to the window and looked down on the city below. While his office offered a magnificent view, Van Camp’s offered a much better one.
And the successful completion of Project: Night House was the key to that better office. With that thought in mind he left the window and went to his desk, sitting and opening the topmost file: a brief dossier with a photo attached.
Colonel Jameson Richards had a wife named Emily and a daughter who lived in Seattle. Her name was Molly.
In the next file, Captain Jim Rawlings. Divorced and with custody of a son, who was seven.
David Addison was married with no children, while Sylvester Bradford had five children with his wife—Connie was her name.
Captain Amy Madigan had a sister in Vegas. Other than her sibling, she had no immediate family that he’d unearthed, although she did visit a grandmother in a retirement home in Cleveland a few times a year.
Dr. Brent Michaels, the sociologist who was on the verge of bringing the whole operation down on Van Camp’s head, had no immediate family. In fact, beyond his university job, Michaels didn’t seem to have any attachments at all.
Canfield studied the rest of the names on the list, minus one Anton Petros. It was possible that what he’d done so far would buy him the time he needed, but he couldn’t count on that. He had to be prepared, which meant knowing the enemy. The problem with that was there were a growing number of people fitting that description. And he didn’t know if he could identify all of them.
He lifted the Styrofoam cup and took another drink.
—
A tranquil domestic household did much to make a man forget about life’s ills. Albert wasn’t sure where he’d heard that little nugget, but he couldn’t argue with it. He couldn’t remember a moment in the last twenty years in which he’d been more content than he was now. Who’d have thought it all came down to heat and a good woman? He said as much to Andrea as his newly awakened wife snuggled in the crook of his arm.
“It’s because people overthink things,” he explained. When relaxed, the South London accent—almost lost after so long living among Americans—really came out. “Keep it simple. That’s what I always say.”
Andrea tipped her head so she could see his face. “I love it when you let your accent have its way.”
He grinned at the mirroring of his own thoughts. It was true; were he to meet up with his mates, they would give him a brutal ribbing, tell him he’d been Americanized.
“I was thinking the same about you, love,” he said.
She snuggled in closer, and after a few minutes he thought she’d gone back to sleep. He tried to follow suit and had almost succeeded when her question brought him back.
“Who was the woman on the phone yesterday?” she asked.
Drowsy as he was, it took a moment for Albert to remember what his wife meant.
“Someone named Ruth. Said she was married to Ben—one of the men on the Antarctica job.”
“And . . . ?” Andrea pressed.
“And what?”
“Well, what did she want?”
“She said she hasn’t heard from him since he left for Antarctica. I guess she’s worried about him.”
“I don’t blame her,” Andrea said. “If you were gone for three months without a word, I’d be out of my mind with worry.”
“What makes you think you’re not already out of your mind?” he said, then kissed her on the top of her head.
“I’m in Arizona with a man who has thr
ee broken-down cars in the front yard. Of course I’m out of my mind.”
He laughed, closing his eyes to resume what he hoped would be a quick jaunt back to sleep.
“So are you going to call?”
His eyes popped open again. “Call who?”
“How would I know? I heard you tell this poor woman you were going to make a call or two.”
“Oh, that,” Albert said. “Alright then. I’ll do that later today.”
This time he didn’t close his eyes. Twenty years of marriage had granted him the ability to feel it in her body before the words left her mouth. Even so, she almost lulled him into a sense of complacency by holding it in for a half minute or so, until he began to think it might have been a false alarm.
“If I were that poor woman—”
“Alright,” he said. With a grunt he removed his arm from beneath her head and got out of bed, grumbling all the way to the kitchen. He had to wade through the mountain of papers, note pads, and various other items on the kitchen table before he found the address book.
In thirty minutes he’d ascertained quite a bit. One was that few people liked getting phone calls before ten in the morning. Another was that none of the real friends he’d had on the Antarctica job—no offense to Ben Robinski—had been heard from either. And a third was that regardless of the fact that he’d submitted a workman’s comp claim to the number he’d been given, he had yet to receive a red cent.
“What kind of operation do they have running here?” he asked himself as he sat on the wobbly chair between the table and the refrigerator.
—
Until that morning Brent had always thought of himself as a coffee snob. He usually bought the more expensive darker blends, and while he appreciated the drink’s ability to pick him up when he needed it, he was no addict. That morning, though, it performed only one function: fuel.
When the plane landed last night, he suffered through a mercifully short debriefing at the hands of the colonel and accepted a ride to his hotel, where he collapsed into a dreamless sleep until Richards called to wake him. Maddy, having been cleared by the base medical staff in Afghanistan, was able to fight off the colonel’s request that she be transported directly to the hospital and instead slept in her own bed.