‘Yes sir, it’s a Daniel…’
THE ONE WITH GLIMPSES OF PAST
DANIEL XAVIER’S HOUSE- ELEVEN DAYS POST THE JUDGMENT DAY
ONCE THEY COLLECTED all the necessary properties for their expedition, Daniel and Cynthia grabbed the car’s keys and got into the car. Cynthia obliged to drive, which Daniel agreed happily. He wanted sometime to go through the diary, in which Daniel had noted some important stuff. Cynthia ignited the engine and turned onto the road.
‘So, who’s first?’ she asked.
‘Well, Xavier listed a Wilson Zyb Wilkins as the primary source. So, we will visit him first.’
‘The address?’ she asked, stealing a look into the paper slip.
Daniel observed that and it terrified him. ‘Why don’t you concentrate on the road and take care not to hit a military truck, while I look into the diary and find the address?’ he said, waving the diary.
With some effort, he was able to find the address listed under Wilson’s name in a bookmarked page. A small description read- A RETIRED ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER. COMPLETELY HONEST AND TRUTHFUL. THE MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR FOR MY MISSION. He recited the address and asked for her phone. She slipped a 5-inch iPhone into his hand, which he ended up examining.
‘What kind of an iPhone is this?’ he asked.
‘It’s 6S. Haven’t you seen it?’ she asked, eyeing him as if he was an illiterate asking about a complicated formula.
‘Leave it,’ he said, not in the mood to argue about upgraded technology.
He dialed the landline number from her mobile and got the answering machine. ‘It’s your Wilson. If you are hearing this, it means I am not here. So, leave a message.’ He did not leave a message and ended the call. There was no other number to contact. He dropped the idea of contacting him and handed her back her mobile. He opened the diary and went through details of the other sources. Xavier had listed six other names under secondary sources, of which some had their addresses and descriptions written down. One of the secondary sources was a “Mr. Lang”, whose address and contact number were missing, except for a small description, which read-CALLS ME FROM DIFFERENT NUMBERS AND ONLY DURING THE NIGHT. USES CODE AND LIMITS CONVERSATIONS TO PRECISION. DON’T BELIEVE LANG IS HIS REAL NAME. MET HIM ONLY ONCE, A COMPLETE SPECTER.
Turning the pages, he failed to find anything of interest for him. He closed the diary and relaxed in his seat. He turned to Cynthia, who was concentrating on the road.
‘So, do you know anything about this “Operation Rochen Fort”?’ he asked.
She took a moment before answering. ‘I first heard about it some years ago. My father used to mention it during his conversations on the phone with his friends. I believe that it has something to do with the blasts of 1991.’
‘The blasts of 1991?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, haven’t you heard of them? They call them the “Rochen Fort Blasts”,’ she said. His expression made it clear that he hadn’t the slightest idea. ‘OK, in 1991, when the then-government run by Fremian National Party built the Rochen Fort to serve as the Parliament of the country, after destroying the ancient fort existing there, the Fremian Democrats Party was opposed to it. The Fremian Democrats Party served as the major opposition party in the parliament for 10 years from 1979-1989. Before the 1989 elections, Fremian Democratic Party announced that they were no longer going to contest the elections and that they wanted to act as the public’s voice whenever something wrong happened from the government’s side.
‘In December of 1990, Jonathan Lyn Kruger, chairman of FDP, was murdered under mysterious circumstances after opposing a major decision by the government, which was evidently not in the best interests of the people. So the members of Fremian Democrats Party blamed the government for his murder and issued threats against the government. On the day of inauguration of the Rochen Fort, before Prime Minister Godwin and his cabinet members were due to attend the inauguration, a car bomb exploded outside the building, followed by an explosion in the building, which ended up claiming many lives. When they investigated the blasts, it was evident that a scientist called Ross Jankis, who also happened to be an active member of Fremian Democrats Party, was the manufacturer of the explosive and the owner of the exploded car. So, he was convicted, which remained as a deep scar on the name of Fremian Democrats Party. Eventually, Fremian Democrats Party got corrupted under the corrupted leaders who followed and emerged as The Invincible Army.’
She completed with a sigh of relief. Daniel felt it too much for a short question. Yet, he lingered around his father’s precise connection with the matter, except his friendship with Ross.
‘But, how do you know that his connection with Operation Rochen Fort cost him his life?’ he asked.
‘Because, his murderer said, “Remember that your involvement with Operation Rochen Fort has brought about this fate”, before shooting him,’ she said, wiping off tears.
He sensed that he had pushed the issue too deep. So, he thought of diverting the matter instead of asking if they caught the murderer. ‘So, do you know how Donald Miller died?’ he asked, remembering his guilt.
She threw him a glance, which said, “How can you change the topic so quick?” and turned away. His sense of guilt increased with that look, which silenced him from pressing any further. She stopped the car at a signal and turned to him.
‘Daniel, I think you have some problem with emotions, besides a flawed memory. You better watch out.’
Usually, the statement would have played with his temper. However, he had too much on his plate to flame a feud with her. He turned his face away from her and found a big man, with a pierced left eyebrow, in the adjacent SUV, gazing at him. When their eyes met, he shifted his gaze to the road and began whistling. If not for the whistling, Daniel would have considered him a regular person. But his instincts told him otherwise. Daniel made a mental sketch of the SUV and the person in his mind and turned away.
When the signal turned green, Cynthia put the car in gear and resumed the quest. An air of dead-silence clouded the car since her statement. On the way, he saw that the entrance to S&C Park had its gates closed shut. The S&C Park brought him back memories of his time there with Margaret. The aroma of the Magnolia garden in the park did not fail to find a way into the closed car. They had met there on numerous occasions during the evenings, when they could savor beautiful sunset from the Swelter’s Tip.
THE MEMOiR
I was striding the path leading to the Swelter’s Tip, when I spotted her standing against the railing of Swelter’s Tip. It was around 5.30 in the evening, when we usually met, so that we could savor the scenery of the sunset. There was a difference in Margaret’s position, which was usually on the bench facing the path. In that occasion, she was standing against the railing with her back to me. I had a sense of understanding. As I neared her, the sense of uneasiness escalated.
After I crossed the benches, I called out her name. She straightened up and said, ‘Daniel,’ and turned her head slightly sideways. Her long hair, flowing with the wind, obscured the view of her face. ‘Long time, no see, Daniel,’ she said, turning back to the scenery. The sarcasm in her tone was obvious, which she did not mind hiding.
‘I am sorry for being late,’ I said, at a deficit of words.
‘You were late for two whole years. These fifteen minutes aren’t a big matter.’
The punishment of hearing only her voice annoyed me. ‘Margaret, it’s been a long time since I have seen you. Why don’t you turn around and speak?’
‘You are annoyed that I haven’t turned around to speak to you. Can’t you imagine my annoyance at being left alone by my boyfriend for two years? In these two years, haven’t you thought of me at least once?’
The sound of the wind, which muffled her voice, aggravated my annoyance. I thought of the best way to explain her. ‘Margaret, please understand me. I wanted to explain you everything before I left. But I knew that there was no way to convince you to accept my decision. I-’
‘Stop Daniel,’ she yelled. She was weeping, which was evident from her tone. ‘Are you seeing someone else, Daniel?’
BACK FROM THE PAST
The question seemed to strike his head sharp against something. As he came back to his senses, he realized that it was not the question, which provoked his physical pain, but his head banging against the windshield that inflicted it. Cynthia had stopped the car at a traffic light, which jolted him forwards, despite the seatbelt. His memory struck him weird, since he felt helpless when he endeavored to recollect what followed next. Unlike the previous ones, which felt familiar, the memory and the circumstances in it had an air of unfamiliarity. As he thought harder, it made sense. It was one of those fragments of his memory, which went missing after his trauma. He was sure that in all those years they were together, they had never been separate for even two months, let alone two years. He tried harder to make sense of the emotions, which it had evoked. The memory had remained suppressed, lying in his sub-conscious, until the sight of the park and the aroma of the magnolia provoked it. It was a phenomenon called the “Spontaneous Recovery”. The idea of spontaneous recovery raised his hopes of recovering all those memories, which were temporarily lost. The happiness improved his mode and he turned his attention back to Cynthia, who had confined herself behind the restraints of anger. He thought of letting her be for the moment.
His thoughts lingered around the reasons, which led him to abandon her for two years. He remembered isolating himself from others, including Margaret, since his mother’s demise. During that period, Margaret seemed worried about his isolation and had even had a quarrel with him about his behavior during the return trip from Mercupo. He feared it was the reason he had abandoned her for so long. The events following the quarrel seemed accessible, yet he felt helpless in his efforts to recollect them. The idea of Margaret’s capture by the military crossed his mind. There was a lot on his plate, and grieving the past did not seem the best thing to add to that list. He kept his emotions at bay and closed his eyes to clear his mind of any residual emotions before the big task.
He knew that they had reached their destination only when the car stopped hard against the gravel and Daniel was jolted forward in his seat again. He realized that he had dozed off and his neck ached from the sudden jerk. He held the back of his neck and cried out in pain. Cynthia grinned at his exasperation and got out of the car. He unbuckled the seatbelt and followed her to the front door. The name on the door matched with that in the diary. Daniel pressed the doorbell, half-expecting a response. When they met with silence after the third time, Daniel questioned his pessimism and looked at Cynthia for a response. She was ready with her hairpin in her hand.
‘Wait a sec,’ Daniel said and tried the door. To his surprise, it gave way. He let Cynthia in and followed her in. They found themselves in the living room, which looked like any other living room with a TV, a couch and the other usual stuff. The strange thing about the room was the strong aroma of iron, which reminded Daniel of blood. He attributed his hunch to his profession and reached a table for some preliminary inspection, while Cynthia moved from one room to another, looking for some presence. The magazine on the table lay topped with a thin layer of dust. With the kind of traffic the road experienced daily, it would have taken more than a week of negligence for it to settle.
‘I have checked the drawers and shelves in the house. There was nothing of significance. So, what do we do now?’ Cynthia asked, reaching his side.
‘I think we better go for the next address and try our luck there.’
She nodded her head in agreement and walked to the door. He gave a final look around the house and followed her outside. She reached the car and readied the car for his arrival. As he reached for the door handle, he heard a car siren behind him. He turned around to find a police car stop a few yards behind their car, and a beefy cop unstuffed himself from the passenger seat, followed by an assistant. He flashed his badge, as a mere formality, before pressing an arrest warrant in Daniel’s face. Daniel caught sight of his name in the warrant before the cop pocketed it again. Daniel was about to question when the assistant reached out for Daniel’s hands and cuffed them behind his back, while the beefy cop began reciting his rights for an inattentive audience.
Amidst all the drama, Daniel caught sight of Cynthia, who looked over the scene standing beside the car. The cop car sped off in the opposite direction as Daniel busied himself in deciphering her face, which seemed to be a mixture of many emotions.
THE COUNTRY OF CHAOS
IN A CAB- ELEVEN DAYS POST THE JUDGMENT DAY
LIFE HAD ALWAYS been this stressful for Daniel Ryu Xavier; encountering trouble had become an integral part of his daily routine. Being an investigative journalist had never been an easy task for him. There were many instances, which drove him towards quitting the job. However, the only thing that kept him going was his right to vengeance and the people’s right to truth. The act of spending the night at the hospital to take treatment for his diarrhea not only weakened him physically, but also mentally. He had discovered his missing blazer and backpack the previous evening. He complained about it to the hospital authorities, who had no witness as to who robbed him. The absence of CC cameras in the hospital made him even more helpless. Despite many complaints about the unavailability of proper resources and equipment at the Kraminko General Hospital, the Health Minister turned a blind eye to the development of the hospital, which indirectly explained his affiliations with the owners of Multi-National Hospitals. Daniel intended to investigate the cause behind the dreadful state of the hospital once he was done with uncovering the mystery behind the Rochen Fort Blasts.
He was not expecting any big blow apart from the robbery of his backpack, when he reached the parking lot that morning. His car was missing, which was unthought-of. He cursed himself for his negligence of the detail that his keys had been missing along with the blazer and wallet. The parking lot, too, was devoid of any CC cameras, which added even more to his helplessness. Despite doubting a full-fledged attention and a reasonable response amidst the chaos, he filed a complaint at the police station on his way and hoped for the best. However, he knew perfectly that the cops were busy in cleaning up the way for the military and would not give attention to a missing car. Fortunately, he had about a thousand bucks in his jeans, which helped him pay the hospital bills and the cab-drive home.
When the cab turned around the corner of his street, he spotted his car in front of his house. Its sight aroused his spirits, which dropped at the sight of the black SUV and the beefy guy beside it. He asked the cabdriver to drive past the SUV so that he could have a clear look at the man’s face. When he studied the beefy guy’s face, he was not much surprised. It was the same man with the pierced eyebrow, whom his friend Kevin had warned him on the phone about an hour ago. Kevin had explained him about his features and that the man was looking for him. He also explained him as “suspicious and frightening”. Daniel suspected some threat and asked the driver to park the cab a few buildings further down the street, where he could have a clear sight of the man and his house. The wait tested his patience, yet he made himself comfortable in the backseat and waited.
The wait ended when a woman opened the door and made it to the car, followed by a man. The bushes made it difficult for him to see their faces. Once the car was on the road and sped away, the big man got into his SUV and followed. Until that moment, Xavier believed that the beefy man had come for him. But his tailing them pushed his theories into jeopardy. He put his mind to validate his options. After giving some thought, Xavier decided to get back home. He paid the cabdriver and the extra fare for his wait, and walked to his front door. He was cautious enough to put a spare key in the cup, which enveloped the light bulb beside the front door. He retrieved the key and opened the door.
He first checked the rooms for any other human presence and then observed the house carefully. Mostly everything was in the same place in the living room. However, the surprise awaited h
im in the bedroom. The clippings, which he pinned to the bulletin board, remained misplaced, along with some important clippings missing. His impatience shot up, when he discovered that his diary, which contained the addresses and contact details of his sources, was missing. Studying the missing contents made one thing evident to him. They were after his research into “Operation Rochen Fort”. But he was all question marks as to what their link with the matter was.
He thought of letting a clue to the cops about the status of his car, which could eventually help him claim his properties back. When he patted his pockets for his phone, he discovered that he had lost his mobile in the cab amidst all the tensions. For the second time within the last few minutes, he cursed himself for his negligence. He resolved to make the call from the neighbors’. As he walked to the front door, the fear of his document crept up into his mind. He cursed his negligence for the third time and ran into the kitchen.
He climbed up into the attic hastily and reached for the heavy cardboard box, which lodged his heavy collection of novels that had found no accommodation in any of the rooms below. He opened the box and carefully pulled apart the two layers of one of walls of the box. He let out a sigh of relief at the sight of the document. Holding his confidence in his hiding place, he secured the gap between the two layers with two-sided tape and exited the attic. As he walked over to the door, he witnessed the silhouette of a heavy man through the glass of the front door. He panicked at the presence outside the door and ran to the window to see who it was. When he peeped out through the gap between the drapes, it was not the same beefy guy from the SUV, but yet another beefy guy, who stood at the front door gazing at the knob. Daniel thought he was going to force himself in. When the beefy guy turned towards the window, Daniel withdrew into the living room. He settled himself lightly against the door, holding his racing heart. He remembered Kevin’s insistence on taking a gun to defend himself, if need be. At that moment, he wished he had.
The Memoir Page 8