Gather the Sentient

by Amalie Jahn

  “It’s a girl’s life on the line, Dad.” She didn’t love playing this card with him, but sadly, it was all she had.

  He shooed her off with both hands, ushering her back down the hall in the direction she’d come. “I said no promises.”

  An hour later, she and Jack were sharing a foot-long turkey melt and a bag of chips when her father appeared in the doorway. His expression spoke volumes.

  “So it’s a no,” she offered before giving him a chance to speak.

  “I’m sorry, Mia. Fields has him on felony charges. If it had been a misdemeanor, maybe I could have pulled some strings. But I can’t let this go. I’m sorry, but you’re just going to need to find this guy another way.” When she and Jack didn’t respond, he apologized again and walked away.

  A moment later, without a word to Jack, she picked up her cell to place a call.

  “Hey, Jose,” she said. “This is Officer Rosetti. You ready for your 15 minutes of fame?”

  CHAPTER

  35

  JOSE

  Monday, October 3

  Baltimore

  The makeup artist from WJZ’s crew would not leave him alone. Just when he thought she was finished with the powder and the hair gel, she returned, her fingernails manicured into severely lacquered points. He hoped she wouldn’t somehow lacerate him with them, and was relieved when the show’s producer, Frank, appeared to escort him to the sound stage.

  “How’s it going this morning?” he asked.

  “I’m a little nervous,” he replied honestly.

  “First time on TV, huh? It gets to the best of us,” Frank said, draping an unwelcome arm across Jose’s shoulders. “Just do your best out there, and Denise will do the rest. She’s the best.”

  He had no doubt the seasoned anchorwoman would paint him in the very best light, commanding the screen with all the talent he lacked, however, he didn’t need her to win an Emmy. He just needed her to put the word out that he was looking for Andrea. And then he needed Alejandro to take the bait.

  As the weather segment ended and the crew took a commercial break, he was whisked into an upholstered armchair toward the edge of the stage. A moment later, Denise arrived, looking much fresher than she should have for the early hour of the day. She greeted him warmly and within seconds the lights came up as the crew counted down to the on-air cue.

  “This morning I have Jose Torres here with me with an appeal to the people of Baltimore. He’s looking for his friend, Andrea Morillo, who disappeared unexpectedly from her home in Phoenix earlier this month, and now his search has led him here. Good morning, Jose.”

  “Good morning,” he replied, as if they hadn’t just greeted one another seconds before.

  “What can you tell us about Andrea’s disappearance?”

  A recent photograph of Andrea, taken from her own phone, flashed across the screen behind them, and Jose attempted to slow his breathing as he recalled the words he and Mia had rehearsed the day before. “Andrea and I are good friends,” he began, reassured by how steady his voice sounded despite the queasiness in his gut. “We had plans together and when she didn’t show up, I went to her house, in Phoenix. Her keys were there, her purse… everything. I kept calling her cell, hoping she would pick up, you know? But she never answered.” He tried to look convincingly distraught as he recounted the fabricated events. “Finally, last week, I got a strange call from a number with a 410 area code. Nobody said anything. There was just breathing and crying.”

  The anchorwoman nodded sympathetically. “Can you share with us why it’s important for the people of Baltimore to be on the lookout for her?”

  Mia had stressed the importance of not mentioning Alejandro in the interview. The last thing they wanted was to spook him. “She’s been known to self-mutilate, inflicting pain to punish herself. She’s been suicidal. In fact, she recently ran her car into another car, on purpose, in what I think was an attempt to kill herself. If she’s here in Baltimore and she’s still alive, I need to find her.”

  “Do you know why she’d come to Baltimore? Does she have friends or family here she might reach out to?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I know of. The only other clue that brought me here, besides the phone call, was a paper she’d printed off the internet I found at her place back in Phoenix. It was for Absolute Tattoo in Dundalk. I already went there and she hasn’t been by yet, but I’m not giving up hope. I’ve been looking around that area for her.”

  The stage assistant gave the signal that it was time to wrap up the piece and Denise immediately cut in, turning away from him to speak directly into the camera. “Let’s take one more look at this picture of Andrea Morillo. Again, if you see or hear anything regarding her whereabouts or well-being, you’re encouraged to call our tip line here at the station. The number at the bottom of your screen is 888-555-TIPS.” She turned back to him, extending her hand in a gesture of consolation. “Hopefully we’ll find her,” she said sincerely.

  The WJZ theme song began and Denise stood, unclipping her microphone from her lapel. “You did so well, Jose,” she said. “Much better than my first time on air.” She turned then to Mia, who’d appeared unnoticed off-stage during the interview and was looking expectantly, hands on her hips. “You think that’ll do the trick?” Denise asked her.

  Mia shrugged, acknowledging Jose with a small wave. “It’s really the best we can do. We’ve given him a place to look for her. Now we just have to hope he sees the interview and decides to check it out for himself.” She paused then, looking to him. “We have an unmarked unit posted there already. If he shows up, we’ll get him.”

  He and Mia thanked the WJZ crew and walked to the parking lot together. It struck him then, as Mia clicked her key fob to unlock a Honda Civic halfway down the lot that she was alone, without her partner, and also wasn’t dressed in her uniform. “Are you on duty?” he asked.

  “I worked overnight,” she said. “Got off at six and came straight here.”

  It seemed strange to him, that someone would go so far above and beyond what was considered reasonable to assist Andrea in her situation. Most people, he found, did only what was required. Nothing more. And yet here was this cop, who could have easily brushed their case aside as a lost cause, sending them on their way back to Phoenix to fend for themselves, but hadn’t. She’d already done more than he’d ever expected the police to do for them, and now here she was, taking her off-duty time to check in on his interview.

  “How’re you getting back to the motel?” she asked.

  “I Ubered,” he explained, pulling out his phone.

  “You want a ride back? It’s not too far out of my way, and I’d actually like to talk to Andrea about a few things.”

  Sliding his phone back into his pocket, he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something important he was missing about her. Something he should have known but didn’t. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to spend a few more minutes getting to know her, so he accepted her offer, saying, “Sounds good. As long as you’re sure it’s not out of the way.”

  “Not at all,” she replied, smiling. “I’d do the same for a friend.”

  CHAPTER

  36

  SALOMON

  Monday, October 3

  Democratic Republic of Congo

  Salomon took the bandana out of his back pocket, wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked up from his trenching to survey his fellow field workers. Their backs bore the brunt of the late afternoon sun, hunched over their various tasks for the day. While many worked, as he did, to plant rows of cassava and maize, others strung twine in straight rows further down the field to help assure proper placement of the seeds.

  In a region where drought was rare and land was prevalent, it seemed counterintuitive that such a large percentage of Congolese died from starvation each year, but it was most certainly the case for his fellow countrymen. However, thanks to his university training and partnership with the World Vision organization, he’d begun teachi
ng farmers in his home village of Buganga to replace their common practice of scattering seeds randomly with the simple act of planting in well-spaced rows. Unbelievably, in less than two years, the families working under his tutelage had seen a 750% increase in their crop production, and had gone from being unable to sustain their own nutritional needs to producing enough surplus to share with others.

  Now his village was getting ready to partner with yet another surplus producing group as part of a farming collective. Together, they would be able to pool resources for storage facilities and have greater bargaining power with seed and equipment suppliers. They would also get better prices for their surplus by selling directly with one another in nearby towns like Minova and even Goma, only a couple of hours' drive on a bumpy road that twisted and turned around Lake Kivu. Looking at his friends and family now, working not just to survive, but to thrive, gave him great joy.

  And yet, he still couldn’t help but doubt the longevity of his accomplishments, especially given the country’s history of political and military unrest. Born in the final years of Mobutu Sese Soko’s presidency, he grew up in the aftermath of the archetypal African dictator’s reign - a world of great famine, tenuous alliances between warring factions, and death. Along with the other members of his village, he had never known peace.

  As a small boy, he’d been fascinated by the elders’ stories of the Belgian rule, occurring long before his grandparents’ birth. They’d spoken of great atrocities. Of how their numbers had been reduced by several million over the course of King Leopold’s reign, a man some of the tribe’s wisest leaders felt certain was part of a great prophecy predicting the end of days. So strong were the stories’ impressions on him, that when government scouts selected him for studies at the University of Kamina in Katanga, the genocide and the prophecy were the first things he researched at his arrival.

  The moment he held the photographs procured from the university library of the disfigured Congolese in his hands, he’d been able to see his actual ancestors as if they were standing before him. He could hear their anguish. Feel their desperation. As horrifying as it was, he wasn’t surprised to encounter visions similar to the one he’d experienced upon finding an inscription in a cave as a small boy. Touching those engravings had shown him images of ancient tribesmen fearful of the world to come.

  Transferring knowledge from an object's history simply by touching it was a gift he could neither understand nor explain.

  All he knew was that he saw what he saw.

  The images of his mutilated, handless ancestors haunted him even still, but unfortunately he’d discovered very little at the university about the prophecy of which the elders spoke.

  “Salomon!” his sister Manu called to him from the village edge beyond the wide expanse of dirt. “Come quickly. Marceau is here to see you.”

  On his way across the field, he offered water from his canteen to several of his fellow laborers, and as he drew closer to the collection of huts, he could smell prepared cassava roasting on the fire. Manu stood beside a bed of hot coals, tending to her pots.

  “Are we meeting all together as a village or will it just be the two of you tonight?” she asked him as he approached, her pride in him unmistakable.

  “I expect he’s here to help negotiate our agreement with the village in Minova, so he might just meet with me this time.”

  “We’re so blessed to have you, brother,” she said, leaving her post at the cooker to walk with him to where the familiar World Vision truck awaited. “Without your influence in Katanga, Marceau would have never come to our village.”

  “It was pure luck I was chosen for university. Nothing more. Remember that.” He looked at her sternly. “There’s nothing special about me. It could have just as easily been Niyonkuru or Rochi or even Bamboula who was selected.”

  “It wasn’t though,” she said, wrapping her arms around his rib cage, “it was you.”

  “Well, maybe next time the university comes looking for students, they’ll choose you.”

  “They won’t take a woman,” she scoffed.

  “You never know, right, Marceau?” he said to the World Vision volunteer who was rummaging through the bed of his 4x4.

  “Mais oui,” he replied, slipping a laptop and a manila envelope under his arm. “In fact, some of what I have to discuss with all of you today pertains to women’s rights.”

  “How so?” Manu asked.

  “Well, like this, for example,” he said, producing a sheet from his folder depicting a cumbersome looking piece of machinery.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a cassava slicer. It can slice up to fifteen tons an hour.”

  “Can you imagine, no more slicing with a knife?” she said, still staring at the paper. “It would free up so much time to do other things.”

  “Exactly,” Marceau said as he walked with them to the largest of the village’s communal huts. “Perhaps you’d be interested in using some of that free time to take a few classes on community leadership.”

  She bowed her head. “Those classes are not for me.”

  “Of course they are.” He smiled. “Women are valuable assets, and it’s time you start garnering the respect you deserve.”

  Salomon had already tried convincing his sister to enroll in the Women for Women International Program after she was held at gun point and forcibly raped while he was away at the university. That he wasn’t there to protect all of his sisters from the daily threat of violence weighed heavily on his conscience, and that he hadn’t made it home in time to prevent Manu’s assault still caused him many sleepless nights. Nonetheless, he’d witnessed the success of the program, visible in the women who thrived in the city of Katanga - earning increased wages, influencing decisions at home and in their communities, and making their health and well-being a priority. It was no surprise he had chosen his own wife, Keicha, from among the program’s graduates, but unfortunately, Manu still struggled to see her own value.

  He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder now, a gesture of encouragement. “Perhaps it’s time to reconsider.”

  She shook her head. “What about the babies?”

  “Keicha and I can look after your children.”

  Of his five sisters, Manu was his favorite, partially because they were the closest of the siblings in age, born only eleven months apart, but mostly because she’d saved his life when they were children. Delirious with fever, the result of an infected laceration on his leg, he could still remember six-year-old Manu sitting by his bedside for several weeks, forcing drops of water down his throat and working tirelessly to refresh the wet sarong she draped across his chest. While the rest of his family worked in the fields and beside the coals to ensure their survival, Manu had tended to Salomon. And miraculously, he had recovered.

  It was just after his brush with death that he’d experienced his first hallucination at the cave. When he placed his hands on the ancient inscription carved into the rock wall, he’d immediately seen the faces of those who had carved it, felt the truth of the prediction in which they believed. However, having experienced similar visions with the fever, he dismissed the images, convinced death was coming for him once again.

  When the visions continued even as his health improved, he was forced to acknowledge something unusual was happening. In the years since, he’d discovered his visions only came when he touched objects of importance, and they usually correlated with significant historical events. Sometimes the event would pertain specifically to himself or his family, but more often than not, they connected him to the world outside Buganga.

  “Just take what we discuss tonight with the other female villagers into consideration,” Marceau encouraged her as they ducked into the hut. “It’s never too late to make a change.”

  As twilight fell across the community, dozens of men and women trudged out of the fields, wilted from the day’s labor, their faces and hands caked in the dark volcanic soil. They were joined by the other villagers for t
he evening meal, and as they ate, Marceau shared news from the city about their inclusion in the co-op. He also encouraged the women to consider signing up for the year-long workforce training, and as he spoke, Manu refused to make eye contact with Salomon.

  Frustrated by her willfulness, he wandered from the group to the hut he shared with fifteen of his closest family members on the far side of the village. It was abandoned, as his wife, Keicha, and the rest of his extended family remained with the others to clean up from supper and prepare the fires for the following morning. Alone for the first time in days, he took the opportunity to log onto his university account with his tablet, using the Wi-Fi transmitted by the satellite server in Marceau’s truck. Typically, he received only work related messages to his email account, so he was taken aback when at the top of his inbox was a personal communication.

  All the way from China.

  CHAPTER

  37

  MIA

  Wednesday, October 5

  Baltimore

  It had been two days since Jose’s television interview and even though she hadn’t expected for Alejandro to show his face, she was disappointed that even his associates hadn’t made an appearance. The longer they went without a lead, the more her frustration grew.

  “He’s onto us,” she told Jack on the way to their weekly staff meeting.

  “I doubt that,” he said. “Let’s not jump to the worst conclusion. Maybe he just didn’t see the clip.”

  They slipped through the door, and she took her seat in the back corner of the conference room just as things were getting started. “Someone saw the clip,” she whispered. “He has to know.”

  One of the senior detectives, Bob Stoecker, began the meeting by reminding everyone about a mandatory weapons refresher class the city was requiring every officer to attend the following week. He shared the mugshot of a perp who they believed was running heroin into Prince George’s county, gave an update on a kidnapping the unit was following, and passed out overnight assignments which needed to be filled. Just before the meeting was adjourned, he opened the floor to the others. Mia sprang out of her chair.