A Girl Called Fearless

by Catherine Linka

  He and Luke went quiet when Maggie walked in. She clutched the ends of a makeshift banner, torn from a bedsheet.

  I SURRENDER.

  My eyes filled, but I blinked to make them stop.

  “Where’d you find the paint?” Barnabas said.

  “It’s beet juice. Nellie suggested it. You ready to film my testimony?”

  “No better time.”

  They sounded like an old married couple talking about a project in the garage. Yates shook his head. Don’t say anything.

  Maggie sat at the folding table and asked me to stand across from her and hold up the wall hanging so she could see it. Barnabas turned a camera on her and Maggie started her testimony.

  “I, Margaret Stanton, do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  Luke leaned against the wall with his head bowed. His eyes were closed, but he was listening hard.

  For the first time since we’d met, I believed everything Maggie said. She was a U.S. citizen. Georgetown Law grad. Clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg. Dozen years at a D.C. law firm. Six civil rights cases argued in front of the Supreme Court.

  “Five years ago,” Maggie said, “I began to suspect that there was a deliberate and organized effort to restrict the rights of women in the U.S. To investigate the possibility of such a conspiracy, I opened an escort service in Las Vegas, Nevada, catering to men in the highest ranks of government and industry.

  “I was present at meetings and informal gatherings in which government policies, laws, and practices were discussed. My testimony here provides reasons to conclude that a conspiracy exists to deny women and girls their civil rights.”

  She nodded to me to hold the hanging higher, then began to unravel the convoluted story. Names and dates. Deals and political favors. Players on five continents. Cash. Lines of credit. Multibillion-dollar loans.

  I flinched the first time I heard Hawkins’ name, but not all the times after that. Maggie had never met him, but he was friends with the key Paternalists, and they linked him to all kinds of political deals. Expose the Vice President, and Hawkins could be the next to fall.

  When Maggie was done, Barnabas shut down the camera. I watched Luke go over to Maggie and rest his hand beside hers on the table. Hug her! Say good-bye, I wanted to tell him, but something passed between them that I didn’t understand, and Luke walked out. Maggie stood up.

  “What about Sparrow’s last message?” I asked. “Was that in the testimony you just gave?”

  “No. Barnabas will put a copy on the thumb drive along with it.”

  Barnabas linked my phone to the computer and did the same with the camera. When the thumb drive was ready, he threaded it onto a chain, and I hung it around my neck, knowing I’d crossed a line I could never cross back over.

  “Hold up your shirt.” Maggie had folded the hanging into a narrow strip, and I chewed on my lip as she wound the silk around my waist.

  “You can do this,” she said, pinning the end. There wasn’t an ounce of pity in her eyes. She was Magda. Committed. Unyielding.

  Yates gave my arm a squeeze. “Yeah, she’s fearless.”

  No I’m not, I wanted to say, but I kept my mouth shut. If Maggie was going to walk out in front of the guns, I needed to suck it up.

  “You need a minute?” Barnabas said.

  “No,” I said, looking at Yates. “I think we’re ready.”

  88

  Down in the Bunker, the piled sacks of rice and beans had been moved away from the wall, revealing a small metal door with a handle at the bottom.

  People surrounded Yates and me as we neared the door, wishing us luck. Luke insisted on reviewing the route, and warning us about places to look out for where the snow might give way and throw us into a creek.

  He went to turn away, but I reached for his shoulder. I rose up on my tiptoes and left a kiss on his cheek. “Take care, okay?”

  He looked into my eyes, and I saw a flicker of what might have been if things had played out differently. “You take care,” he said.

  Keisha waited by the entrance, her cheeks slick with tears. I held her close. “I’ll see you again,” I said, “and we’ll go to Disney World and ride the teacups as many times as you want.”

  “And Dumbo, too,” she whispered.

  “Time to go,” Yates said, clicking on his headlamp.

  I pulled on my hat and gloves. Zipped my jacket.

  We bent over and stepped into the tunnel and the door shut behind us. Silence. Goose bumps ran up my arms, and I hugged my sleeping bag to my chest. The dirt walls were so close I could touch them with my elbows.

  Yates stretched his hand back. “Avie, where are you?”

  I took his hand. “I’m right here.”

  “Holy mother. I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, pulling me forward. “It smells like a grave.”

  We half ran, hunched over, the dark shapes of wood supports appearing and disappearing in our headlamp beams. I counted our steps. Beattie’s house was about a hundred and fifty feet from the church. It took us seconds to go the first fifty. At sixty-five, I squeezed Yates’ hand tighter. Eighty. We were right under the circle of agents.

  I heard the bullhorn call my name, but that was impossible.

  They can’t hear you. They can’t hear you or see you or shoot you so keep going.

  Yates sped up as the tunnel zigzagged around a boulder. Fifty feet to go.

  And then the tunnel ended. Overhead, we saw the trapdoor between two supports. “You’ve got the oil, right?” Yates was panting and his face was white, but I couldn’t tell if that was him or the headlamp.

  I pulled out the tiny can Barnabas gave me. “You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine once we get out of here.”

  I squirted the hinges and the springs on the sides.

  “This better work,” Yates said. “Any noise and we’ll have a dozen guns in our faces.” We braced ourselves and pushed, but the door didn’t move.

  Yates swore, and slammed it with his fist. “Come on. Open!”

  He was scaring me, banging around like that. I grabbed his arm. “Hey, take a breath. Maybe there’s a latch or something they didn’t tell us about.”

  We felt around with our fingers, but couldn’t find anything. “The damned thing’s probably rusted shut,” Yates said.

  “You want to try more oil?”

  “Go ahead. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  I soaked the hinges and springs until they dripped. We flattened our palms against the wood.

  “Now!”

  We pushed until I could feel the veins in my head. Then the door gave and the hinges made a loud, horrible screech.

  Yates’ headlamp glared in my face. “Son of a—”

  We waited, listening for boots on the porch or men wading through the snow.

  “Let’s try working it up and down,” Yates whispered.

  The metal gave little squeaks, but we could feel it give. “Okay, now.” Yates let go.

  Please, please, please don’t make a sound. I slid my fingers away, and the door eased up like Open Sesame.

  Yates hoisted himself up and then pulled me out. We lowered the door and crouched next to it. White walls of snow probably four feet deep surrounded us on three sides.

  “Look, there are the steps,” I whispered. We rolled our sleeping bags over to the side of the house we hoped was away from the church.

  Yates traced his headlamp beam along the edge of the porch. “We’ve got to get to the ridge by eight, but the feds could be standing right out there.”

  “Yeah, but maybe they didn’t hear anything, because of the snow.”

  We began to dig, scooping the icy snow with our hands, afraid that the sound of a shovel could give us away. My gloves froze, burning my skin, but I bit my lip and kept going.

  “Almost there,” Yates said.

  “Stop. Our headlamps.”

  I fiddled, trying to move the tiny switch, but I cou
ldn’t get it. Yates reached over and turned it off, then his lips reached for mine. We held each other in a long, deep, death-defying kiss.

  “I love you,” he said when we broke apart.

  My breath caught and my eyes filled. “I love you, too.” It sounded like we were saying good-bye.

  89

  We slithered on our stomachs, inching our sleeping bags in front of us. The silence amped up the noise my jacket made over the snow so it sounded in my head like ripping Velcro. Everything inside me wanted to get up and run.

  I couldn’t see Ramos’ house. Rogan had watched the agents take it over earlier in the afternoon. Half, he warned us, were probably inside catching some sleep, while the other ten were out here in the dark, listening, waiting.

  I kept my head up, but snow shimmied into my sleeves and up under my jacket. We crept toward the creek, and I listened for the sound of water, afraid I wouldn’t hear it until it was right under us.

  The moon wouldn’t be up for a while, but I could see the outline of the barn against the starry night. It wasn’t an impossible distance, but right now it felt like it. The fallen skeletons of windmills lay in our path. The snow had been torn up by the tractor treads and boots, and for once I felt like we’d caught a break.

  The church bells began to ring like Salvation was being called to celebrate Sunday service. Gong gong gong gong.

  I scrambled forward and tagged Yates on the leg. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. You think they’re trying to cover for us?”

  “Maybe.”

  We got to our feet, but before we took two steps the bells stopped. We froze. Yates clutched my hand, and I knew he was weighing the odds.

  Then the bells rang out again. Dong dong dong ding dong dong dong. I heard the faint sound of singing. Good King Wenceslas looked down.

  They were singing for a reason. To distract the agents? To hide the sound of our footsteps?

  Dong dong dong dong dong dong.

  “Listen to the beat,” I said. “It’s even—like footsteps.”

  We took off for the barn, the snow crunching under our weight. Brightly shone the moon that night though the frost was cruel.

  The words sang in my head as we bounded through the snow. Five verses carried us past chicken coops and empty houses, and at the last verse we climbed over the fence into the goat pen.

  The bug-out bags were supposed to be stashed under bales of hay on the north side. Yates took hold of the side door. “Remember. Get in and get out.”

  I braced myself for the frenzied bleating of forty hungry goats, and Yates pushed the door open. We leaped inside and it closed with barely a rattle.

  “We made it,” Yates said.

  I felt for him. “Something’s wrong.”

  The goats milled in their stalls, banging the wood walls like they were shoving each other. “The goats aren’t bleating.”

  Dong dong ding dong dong. Frosty the Snowman.

  Yates slid his headlamp off and swept the beam over the closest stall. The goats jerked their heads, their eyes wild. Each had a thick silver band fastened around its mouth.

  “What is that?” I said.

  “Duct tape.” Yates dug into his pocket. “Some psycho taped their mouths shut.”

  “They’ll starve.”

  “Hold this.” Yates shoved the headlamp into my hands and unfolded a knife.

  “Wait. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to cut the tape.” He threw a leg over the stall, and I grabbed hold of his sleeve.

  “You can’t. I hate it, too, but the agents will hear. We have to leave them like this.”

  Yates shook his head. “I hope hell reserves a seat for the guy who did this,” he said, folding his knife.

  90

  We unstacked the hay bales and found the bug-out bags. We tied sleeping bags to two of them, and Yates pulled on the one Barnabas was supposed to carry and helped me on with the other.

  I fastened the straps across my chest and the belt around my hips. It was so heavy I couldn’t stand up straight.

  “You okay?” Yates said. He pulled my straps tighter. “We can lighten your pack.”

  It was twenty pounds heavier than the one I was supposed to carry. “But we don’t know what we need. We could guess wrong.”

  And leave out the one thing that could save our lives.

  “There’s still room in mine.”

  Yates’ pack was stretched to breaking. “Let’s go,” I said. “Figure this out later.”

  I turned back toward the goats. I’m sorry.

  “Frosty the Snowman” was still going when we left the barn. We ducked behind the wood shop and over to Barnabas’ back porch.

  We dug in the snow by the top step, found the tips of the skis, and slid them out. The poles and a flour sack with boots inside came out along with them. Yates crept up on the porch and lifted a couple pairs of snowshoes off the hooks. We tied them to our packs and lashed our snow boots over them. When I slid on the frozen ski boots, my feet went numb. Yates swore under his breath.

  How the hell am I going to get up that mountain now, I thought, sagging under the pack. We shoved our feet into the clips.

  “Go ahead. Lead the way,” Yates whispered.

  I’d skied the valley two days before, but it was ten times harder carrying the pack. My skis didn’t glide. I had to push them forward with each step. Every move, every breath was a struggle and felt deafeningly loud. Behind us the bells pealed out “Joy to the World,” but all I felt was fear that any second one of those special ops guys would catch sight of us and cut us down.

  The land dipped a little toward the creek, pulling my skis along. I could hear Yates behind me. I’m not alone. Yates is here and we’re doing this together.

  I didn’t look around, because what was the point in looking to see if the agents were stalking us. All I could do was pray they hadn’t heard us, that they were guarding the church, amazed by the holiday concert of the bells.

  I fought my body to keep going. It’s flat now. What’s going to happen when you have to climb up that ridge?

  I kept my eyes targeted on the end of the valley and the mountain we were going to climb. The creek was off to my right, but from the sound, I wasn’t sure how close. We passed the silent cabins and trailers until we reached the last house. The mountain rose up right behind it.

  I turned to Yates over my shoulder. “We need to find the creek.” I lifted up each ski and moved sideways over the snow, planting my poles, afraid I’d slip on the bank and fall into the water.

  Then I saw a narrow gap in the snow.

  We followed the creek. There wasn’t a trail, but the trees were far enough apart that we picked a way up that looked like it might work. Luke had warned us to look out for rocky places where the snow might be a thin layer hiding a slick of ice.

  How were we supposed to see that in the dark?

  At first, the slope was gradual. I jogged from foot to foot, planting my weight so I didn’t slide back. A hundred meters later, I was bent over, winded.

  I was broiling in my jacket, and the hanging wrapped around my waist itched like mad. I tore at the snaps by my neck. “It feels like we’re trying to ski Mount Everest.”

  Yates went around me. “Let me cut the trail.”

  We started up again, stopping every couple hundred feet. My lungs burned and I felt like I had bags of clay tied to my feet.

  I couldn’t see Salvation through the trees, but I could hear the bells. “O Come All Ye Faithful.” I imagined families huddled together on the church floor in the dark, singing until their throats ached, trusting us to get them help.

  “What time is it?” I said.

  “Just after seven-thirty. We need to switch to snowshoes or we’ll never make it.”

  A half hour to get to the ridge or we wouldn’t catch the cell and bounce our distress call out of here. People would die.

  We unclipped our skis and my breath caught as I c
hanged boots. My feet curled up, because even thick socks couldn’t keep out this cold. I wiggled my boots into the snowshoe straps, and Yates crouched down to tighten them.

  I stumbled a few steps, the frame flapping at my heel. “I feel like I’m wearing clown shoes.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Walk like normal, but lift your knees high so you clear the snow.”

  Yates started between the trees and I climbed after him. With each step, the snow collapsed, and I sank up to my ankles. It was like trudging through sand. Then I tried walking in Yates’ footsteps, but his legs were so long I fell twice before I gave up.

  We crisscrossed our way slowly up the hill, nailing our poles into the snow. Step. Sink. Step. Sink. Breathe. My heartbeat pounded in my ears.

  Looking down, I saw our trail. We’d barely made any progress. “Why don’t we go straight up? This zigzagging is taking forever.”

  “Yeah, but there’s less chance we’ll slip and end up wrapped around a tree. It’s not that far. We’ll get there.”

  “If it was summer, I could run this easy.”

  “Yeah, and you’d totally beat my ass.”

  Step. Sink. Step. Sink. The cold made my forehead ache.

  I began to see faces in front of my eyes. Sarah with her angel-blue eyes. Dimpled Jemima. Keisha and her brilliant smile. Luke.

  I can’t fail. They’re depending on me.

  And then I remembered a scorching-hot day back when I was eight. A cancer fund-raising walk with Mom and Dad in Pasadena. Halfway down Colorado Boulevard, I told Mom I didn’t want to walk anymore. “You don’t have to,” she told me. “But see these names on my shirt? I have to keep going for them.”

  I didn’t understand then why those names scribbled on her shirt mattered so much, but now on this cold, dark mountainside I did. “I’m going to dedicate this walk to Salvation.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, every single step of it.” I stamped my foot in the snow. “This step is for Beattie.”

  “Beattie,” Yates echoed.

  “This one’s for Keisha.”

  “Keisha.”

  “Maggie.”