“What about the guys who did this to me? Did they get medals too?”
Errol wasn’t sure what to say. In the two days since Joanie had been awake she’d seemed like a completely different person. It was understandable, but he wondered if the old Joanie would ever come out of that coma. “They’re all dead, hon. Every last man. Got lit up by insurgents who thought your can was a weapons store. The way they were guarding it; I guess that’s what it looked like. They took ‘em all out and then when they found you inside, they locked the doors and bugged out. Probably figured you were already dead.”
“Who rescued me then?”
“A few hajjis scavenging for leftovers. Luckiest thing that could’ve happened, actually. They’d pulled you out of the literal middle of nowhere.”
“Lucky me.” Joanie rolled over onto her side and wept for the revenge she’d never have.
#
21 December 2011 –– 1650 hrs –– Washington D.C.
Joanie fiddled in her lap with the copy of the Stars and Stripes newspaper that recounted her ordeal while The DeepWater Corporation’s lawyer reread the settlement agreement. She’d carried the paper with her for the last twenty-eight months as a sort of talisman during the litigation process. Now it was almost over. She intended to burn it as soon as the check cleared.
The lawyer made slight grunts and hums of assent as he went through the meaningless process of reviewing a document that he’d badgered them into revising and revising again for the last five weeks. “Fine,” he said, sliding it across the oak conference desk. “If Miss Myers will sign it, we can get on with this.”
“Sergeant. Sergeant Myer.”
“My apologies.” The piece of shit in the three thousand dollar suit licked his lips while Joanie did her best to eye-fuck him to death. He wasn’t dying, but she felt like she was. Just looking at him made her want to crawl into a deep black pit and pull dirt in on top of herself.
She looked at the lawyer she’d hired to represent her in the civil suit against the military contractor company. Since her torturers had all been killed in an insurgent ambush she had to name their estates in her lawsuit. As soon as the papers were filed she started receiving the angry phone calls, death threats, and once, a dummy grenade thrown through her apartment window. She was impressed with the ferocity demonstrated by orphans and widows fighting for the memory of rapist mercenaries. At the deposition, Joanie’s lawyer presented the DeepWater attorney cell phone text message transcripts from two of the men describing the shipping can as “Uday’s Room.” Is that a reference to the ‘rape room’ found at Saddam Hussein’s presidential estate? he asked. I’m sure I don’t know, was the reply. Is it a reference to this? He pushed an eight by ten photograph taken of the inside of the can across the table. He’d placed yellow sticky notes with arrows pointing to the places where Joanie’s blood had pooled and permanently stained the wooden floor. Twenty-four hours later they received their first settlement offer. Six months after that, they received one large enough to accept. Large enough for her to retire. And disappear.
All it would cost her was silence.
After everything else they took, she had plenty of that.
From the conference room window inside the Washington D.C. office building, she looked at the view of the Capitol building rising over a line of bare cherry trees across the Potomac. There was no snow. Just grey. Just cold. She wanted to find a place with her own view, but not of a city river or a grand monument to bad decision making. Joanie craved a mountain view. Something with a lush evergreen forest that never ever, during any part of the year, resembled a desert. “Nice view,” she said.
“Well, it’s not the G.W. Parkway,” the DeepWater attorney replied, referring to her lawyer’s conference room overlooking the highway. She imagined the back of the old man’s wrinkled head blowing out and coating the glass wall behind him like a bloody zit popped on a bathroom mirror. It wasn’t the first time she’d imagined executing a civilian.
“Merry Christmas,” the lawyer said, handing over the check.
It was the closest she ever got to an apology.
#
3 April 2012, 1111 hrs –– Jasper’s Fork, Idaho
Another meeting with lawyers; Joanie hoped that this one would be her last. She signed the papers finalizing the cash sale of the property on Idaho State Highway 1A. Her closing attorney wrote a series of checks and passed them across the table. The seller smiled. Everyone shook hands and walked away from the table in the Boundary County Recording Office happy to be done. Joanie’s first duty station had been at Mountain Home AFB in southern Idaho. She liked the isolation of the sparsely populated state, but nothing in that direction suited her. Not until she found the place up in the panhandle. It had cost her more than she wanted to pay, after a bidding war with another buyer, but eventually she won (her attorney told the seller she was a veteran paying cash and could close in three weeks) and the house in the middle of nowhere was hers.
She walked into the bright spring sunlight, nearly running into a giant of a man who was standing outside having a cigarette. “Excuse me,” she said. “So sorry.”
“No problem, darlin’. You Joan Mayor?”
“Joanie Myer,” she replied, elongating the aye sound in her last name. “Do I know you?”
“Nope. But we’re about to be neighbors.” He spat a brown line of viscous tobacco saliva on the ground between boots that elevated him to something like six foot four or five. “Name’s Adam Bischoff. You bought the house I was bidding on. Paid a lot more than it’s worth in my opinion––not that you asked for my opinion.”
She took a step back. “You’re right. I didn’t ask.”
“Tell you what. I’ll offer you what you paid, plus another ten percent to turn right around and sell it to me. Easy peasy, Japanesey.”
“No thanks. I’m planning on living in my mountain home, not flipping it.”
“Mountain home. I like that. I have people from down there.”
“That’s nice,” she said, turning to leave.
“Maybe you’ll get to meet them when we have the grand opening.” She stopped, his comment about being neighbors finally sinking in.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, darlin’, see, you outbid me on the house which I meant to turn into a rustic little bed and breakfast with all that frilly shit inside––something the wife wants to play with. But I still got the lot across the highway. Got it for a song, without the adjacent plot, mind you. Bet you didn’t know that was even for sale, didja? Well, I was going to make that part a scenic overlook for my B and B guests and passers through, you know. A place to stop on the way. But a pull-over gawk spot won’t make me money. Not like a cozy little roadside hotel. Now, I think I’ll build me a restaurant. A little diner, like. I can call it… ‘Your Mountain Home Kitchen.’ Tell you what,” he said reaching into his pocket. “I’ll even give you two hundred dollars for the name.” He smiled, exposing brown-stained teeth that somehow seemed to go perfectly with his Marlboro Man big-as-a-billboard appearance. Tobacco saliva danced at the edge of his lip and he spit again. “Or, you can take my offer for closing price plus ten percent. If you don’t think I’m serious, you just march your ass back in that public records office and look up Bischoff Enterprises. That’s the name of the holding company my other restaurant properties are registered under. I’ll wait.”
She stared hard at the man, trying to judge whether he was really telling her that he intended to build a restaurant an hour’s drive from the nearest town, just because she’d outbid him on a house he never intended to live in. The smile and wandering eyes told her all she needed to know: he was completely serious. For a second she thought about going inside and telling her lawyer to draft up a new Purchase and Sale Agreement. Then she thought about everything she’d gone through to get the money for her home. The beatings and rapes, the humiliation of reliving it all during a deposition surrounded by men in suits who’d never once feared for their liv
es, the non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements that meant she couldn’t tell her story and hold DeepWater publicly accountable.
I’ve outlived everyone who ever tried to take me down. I can outlast you, too.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” She called his bluff. “If you serve liquor, then I won’t have to get a room in town if I want to get drunk.”
She got to live almost a full year in her house in peace before they broke ground.
Chapter Five: Leaving Home
14 July 2013 –– 1730 hrs
No one spoke after Bryce finished explaining his thoughts regarding escape. Lyn felt the pit in her stomach grow larger and heavier. She thought his plan was unimaginative and dangerous; they’d already tried something like it, and Neil was bleeding to death because of it. But she couldn’t think of a better idea. Bryce still hadn’t mentioned the explosives in the propane shed to the people she was beginning to prematurely think of as ‘the survivors.’
Beau sat against the door to the office holding a compress to the gash in his aching head. Since waking up he’d asked three times, Why are we sitting in the back of the restaurant? Yet he seemed to be following along on some level. “There’s no way I’m doing it,” he offered.
“No one’s asking you to. I don’t think you’re up to it, anyway,” Bryce said. “But I can’t get close without someone’s help.”
“No, I said.” He pointed at Neil, still resting against the wall with his son. “When he asked me to do the same thing I knew he was trying to kill me, but at least I didn’t think he wanted me dead. You’d think you two geniuses could come up with something that doesn’t involve someone getting blown away.”
Hunter leaned forward, and said, “No one’s asking you to do a thing, you dick.” He looked up at the policeman. “He can’t be trusted to do what you want anyway. Beau’s a coward. All he had to do before was stand up for a second so my dad wouldn’t get shot and instead he hid behind the counter like a… like a…” Hunter struggled with the words he wanted to say, but couldn’t utter in front of his father.
“I stayed behind cover. It was the smart thing to do. I didn’t see you jumping out to help your old man.” While his memory seemed to be improving, his attitude remained bleak.
Lyn put a hand on Hunter’s shoulder to calm him. “You’re right, sweetie, but it’s all academic anyway. Sure, Beau can’t be trusted, but he can’t stand up on his own either. He’s out.” Beau tried to stare her down, but Lyn held his gaze, attempting to burn his eyes out. He dropped his head into his hands acting as if the pounding in his skull was why he looked away and not that The New Lyn frightened him more than Joanie. “I do want you dead, by the way. If I could tie you to the front of that dumpster back there and wheel you out like a bull’s-eye I’d fuckin’ do it. You and Adam are the reason we’re trapped in here. You’re the reason all those other people out front are dead.” Lyn hardened her gaze and Beau shrunk back. “I’m starting to think you should go out front with Bryce, if for no other reason than that I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
Daniel stepped forward and put himself in between Lyn and Beau. “Give him a break, Lyn. None of us wants to get shot.” She locked eyes with the boy, forcing him into his girlfriend’s arms. “I d-don’t see why any of us should go anywhere. You said you sent texts to people telling them to call the cops. They’ll get here and we’ll be okay. We just have to wait.”
Lyn glanced at Bryce, asking him silently for permission to tell. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s not an option,” she said.
“Why not?” Daniel asked.
“Look, we need to stay calm if we want to stay alive,” Bryce said.
“Spit it out! What the hell are you holding back?” Beau’s face was so red it was almost purple.
Leonard stepped forward. “He’s not telling you that Joanie put a bomb in the shed. She’s got this place rigged to blow.”
“Bullshit, Chief! Nobody can get into that shed without––”
“Don’t call me ‘Chief,’” Leonard whispered.
Bryce put a hand on his arm. “Leonard’s telling the truth. We both saw the black box shoved under the fuel tank in there.”
“How do you know it’s a bomb?” Beau asked. “Is there an alarm clock taped to it?”
“Close enough. It’s wired to a radio with an antenna and a green light and looks big enough to have a shit load of C4, or whatever inside,” Leonard added.
“C4?”
“Whatever’s inside the box, I’m betting it sure as shit ain’t Silly Putty,” Bryce said. “My guess is that she’s feeling fine shooting for as long as she has a target and no opposition, but the minute help arrives she’ll play her endgame and push the button. Nobody here is getting out alive as long as we follow Joanie’s lead.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Beau lashed backward with an elbow, punching a hole through the hollow plywood door. He squinted his eyes shut and seemed to swoon a little. His jaw flexed as he loudly ground his teeth without a toothpick to take the pressure.
“Feel better now?” Bryce asked.
“Fuck no, I’m not ‘feeling better.’ One of us is supposed to follow you on a suicide mission out the front while the rest of these losers climb down the mountain––which we’ve already seen is wired with explosives, too. And then when reinforcements get here, Myers drops the big one and well…”
“You need to take it easy, Beau,” Neil said. “You need to calm down.”
“Fuck you!”
“I suppose you can think of something better,” Leonard said.
“Yeah. You go wait in the parking lot, chief. I’ll use the dyke’s phone and call my buddy in the Air National Guard and they can napalm that cunt’s place!”
“That hit on the head has really pulled back the curtain,” Lyn said. “What are you trying to prove, Beau? That you’re as big an asshole as Joanie?”
“I don’t think I could strip you of that title.”
“I’ve had it with this grade school shit,” Bryce interrupted. “Lyn, you go stand over there by Neil and Hunter. Beau, if you want to live through this, you are going to have to trust me. You’re going to climb down the rock slide with Lyn and the others. Daniel is going to run interference for me and draw her attention.”
“Why me?” Daniel asked.
“I’ve seen you play football,” Bryce said. “You’re a fast runner. You’ve got the best chance of getting behind cover once you catch her eye.”
“I can’t out run bullets or bombs, man!”
“All I need is her looking one way while I go the other. If I can get across the highway, well, maybe nothing will blow up.”
Daniel folded his arms so no one could see his hands shaking. “You’ll have to knock me out and drag me out there. I’m not doing it. I’m staying with Raylynne.”
“I’ll do it.” Carol stood up, wiping her face although her tears had dried long ago.
“Are you sure?” Lyn asked.
“I’ve got nothing left to lose.”
“How come nobody asked me if I was sure?” Beau said.
“If what they said about you and the guy who owns this place is true, then you’re the reason Syl is dead!” Carol shouted. “I’d help Lyn tie you to that god damned dumpster!”
“But she sent that picture of––”
Carol held up her phone for Beau to see. “And since she did I’ve gotten a dozen messages from people who’ve been calling the police to come help us. I have friends in Europe who’ve been on the phone to the cops here. What have you done to get us out of this?”
“What have I done? You’ve been catatonic since I dragged your ass behind the lunch counter!”
Lyn lurched at Beau, raising a bandaged fist for another shot at his nose, hoping to break it this time. “I helped her behind the counter, you bastard!” Bryce caught her arm and held her back. “Since this whole thing started you’ve only been interested in saving your own
ass,” she shouted. “You deserve to look like a boxer, not me!”
“None of this is helping us get out of here,” Bryce said, dragging Lyn toward the hallway.
“I’m not helping him out of here. Fuck him.” Bryce gripped her face with his good hand and gave it a shake. She thrust her knee into his balls and shoved him away. The cop stumbled back coughing, cupping his groin, looking like he might be sick. “And fuck you too if you think you’re going to knock me around like he did.”
“I just wanted your attention,” he gasped.
“My name is Lynnea Lowry, god damn it. And I’m nobody’s punching bag. Hear that everyone? If you want something from me, you say my name and ask me, pretty fucking please.”
“Please, Lyn. Help us,” Neil said. “Help all of us,”
“Yeah, Lyn. Please,” Leonard added.
For the first time since she started working at the restaurant, people looked at her with something approaching actual respect. She wasn’t sure what to think. She felt changed. Maybe they saw it, too. Maybe they just wanted to be on the side of the crazy woman with the gun––the other crazy woman with the gun. Shoving past Bryce, she shot another poison look at Beau and said, “I’ll help. Everyone.” A day ago she’d never have kicked a cop in the balls, and if she had, she’d be crying and begging for his forgiveness. He should feel lucky I didn’t crush his nuts a second time. And I like Bryce.
#
While the others bickered over who was leading the group down the mountain and who was following, Carol slipped into the dining room. She pushed through the swinging doors and crept onto the killing floor. She found her purse where Lyn had left it with all of her things strewn around. Silently collecting them, she placed each of her possessions carefully back into the bag. None were things she needed anymore, but she felt like she should gather them up all the same.
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