by Cara Charles
‘What will work out?’ she thought in her dream. ‘Losing you and my family will never workout, Daddy? What are you saying?’
Elise was floating, watching them look over her. The little black and white dog ran to someone who had entered the room, as they stood over a little girl, sleeping.
Her dream changed.
Elise was a sea gull racing the ferry into the Port. She flew onto the railing to watch the people offload. They walked up the gangplank to their waiting families. She watched the humans hug each other. They were happy. The dream reminded her she was not happy.
One thing haunted her. What she had told Daddy the day he left her in the Desert.
‘No. Daddy. It will not work out. Not now. Not ever.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN — GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
JACQUELINE BOUVIER KENNEDY ONASSIS HALL
PROFESSOR SHANTI LARSEN, Professor of Ancient Middle Eastern History was in her Faculty In-Residence suite in the Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall, on the corner of I Street and 23rd Street on the GWU campus, grading stacks of finals when her winded, second assistant Patrick knocked heavily on her door.
“A package and urgent message for you, Dr. Larsen. Kinda weird too,” he said through her door.
“Coming,” Shanti came to the door. She opened and Patrick handed it to her.
Looking at the message Patrick said, “I had the woman on the phone spell it to me, letter by letter.”
Shanti took the message. And read it. “Thanks Patrick. Help Brian correct the finals, please. I’ve just gotten an urgent appointment.”
“Sure thing Dr. Larsen.” Patrick left.
Closing the door, Shanti re-read the message in Ge’ez the dead Southern Semitic language, as a scholar she read well. The note meant one thing. ‘Run.’
She opened the package. It was a new silver blackberry. There was a phone number she was to put in her new phone, then text her reply to that number in Ge’ez.
‘A god could hardly love and be wise,’ Shanti texted back.
‘Leave now for THE WHITE HOUSE. Arrangements have been made. Text us upon arrival.’
‘Yes. I will,’ she answered.
Shanti texted her T.A. Brian from her own phone. ‘You and Patrick please finish grading the finals. I’ve got an urgent appointment then, I’m going to the doctor. I feel a high fever coming on, maybe from the plane,’ she sent, hoping he’d believe her. But he was sharp. She was never sick. He’d never corrected essay questions before.
‘I’ll do my best. Get better soon. Brian.’
Shanti grabbed her heavy backpack, left her room, watching the shadows, and hurried to the faculty parking lot, rummaging in her big bag for the keys to her Green Prius.
SHANTI NOTICED the White Escalade with Connecticut plates parked a few stalls from her car. It was out of character with the lot full of environmentally conscious faculty cars.
She didn’t see the four young men sit up after she had gotten into her car. She felt them. Shanti threw her briefcase in the back seat, plopped her heavy purse and backpack in the seat next to her, took off her jacket, and backed out of the parking lot.
The White Escalade waited until she left before starting their engine.
In her mirrors, she saw a Gun Metal Escalade pull out, too.
‘They were too big to follow her easily.’
True. They were doing their best to stay up with her.
Shanti kept an eye out for more pursuit vehicles from side streets.
Behind them, came another tail, a big black SUV w tinted windows.
SHE RETRIEVED her F6 out of her bag, checked her backpack for extra clips, and laid it on her lap. She unclipped her seat belt, checked her secret compartment under the dash glove box for her other F6, and shoved it in the small of her back. She was ready with the F6 vest piercing guns. She grabbed her vest from the passenger floorboard and wiggled into it.
She had about 5-6 minutes to get to her appointment. She got into her FBI training head, accelerating through the streets. One car was trying to get next to her. She maneuvered.
They swerved, sideswiping cars, missing pedestrians. The drivers were young men in hoodies and dark glasses.
Shanti swung into a large parking lot, purposefully entering the wrong way.
They followed.
Shanti unshouldered her belt and floored it. She rolled down her window, and came around face to face with the gray second Escalade.
It had followed the first white one in.
She threw her car into park, kneeled behind the driver’s door then through the open window, shot out the two front tires, shot out the back tires of the retreating Escalade, and pointed the gun at the driver of car two.
The young men inside were shouting, “Gun, gun!”
“Get out of the car with your hands up, Clayton Emery. Face in the concrete! Spread eagle! You stupid boy! This isn’t Grand Theft Auto! The rest of you! Out!”
Clayton Emery IV got out of his car. His preppy friends followed, eating asphalt.
“Geezus, Professor! We’re just having fun. You pissed me off giving me a D on my midterm. You know I’m trying to get into Yale Law.”
The black SUV she’d seen far behind her slowed down, and circled the block. Trevor flashed her with his small flashlight. ‘Friend’ the signal light flashed in Morse Code.
Shanti sighed and nodded at Trevor.
Trevor called Desiree. “She’s got some kids spread eagle in a lot.”
“She OK?” Desiree asked.
“We’ve ID’d the plates. Privileged kids from school. She’s got it.”
“Stay close,” Desiree said, sighing. “Make sure she gets to our friend.”
“Will do. Out.” Trevor and team watched Shanti kick open a kid’s legs.
“Clayton? I don’t scare, you future corrupt corporate lawyer you. Now I’m having fun. Give me your keys, phones, and everything out of your pockets. You’d be dead right now, if I hadn’t shown restraint. Good thing you didn’t run me off the road! You’d all be dying, ugly!”
“Nice play, Clay. You dumb ass.”
The boys tried to get up.
“Hey! Keep those faces in the dirt, where they belong.”
The boys emptied their pockets.
Shanti got a cloth bag from her car, and collected their stuff. A stunned crowd backed out of the line of fire.
Shanti flashed the badge around her neck,“It’s all right folks, just a traffic stop. Go on about your business. Thank you.”
“Geez, Professor. You’re so hot! I didn’t know you were undercover?”
“Clayton! Be quiet! If I hear one parental complaint, you’re all toast. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now walk your smart asses back to your dorms. Every one of you will be repeating my class if I don’t have a 25 page paper on my desk in two days 5 p.m. deadline in my in-box and I’ll be checking your papers for plagiarism, so beware! I’ll have a big talk with your parents, the Provost and the Dean, if you don’t. I was going to shoot the drivers. Chew on that for a while, boys. And for God’s sake! Pull up your pants! I don’t want to see any part of your asses or underwear. If I do I’ll change my mind.”
The six little punks tightened their belts and walked out of the parking lot, cursing and punching each other.
The crowd laughed, applauded her then returned to their lives.
Clayton looked back at Shanti, who was locking their cars. Their eyes met as she showed him the keys, and put them in her pocket. He nodded.
The next time he looked back, she’d already disappeared. Most kept walking, but Clayton and Troop headed back to their car.
A car honked. Shanti got out.
“Boy? My God! You are thick! I’ve got your ‘key safes’ too. Now it’s two 25 page papers due in two days! Grow up! Now, git.”
“Sorry, Professor. Fuck me!” Clayton said as they turned and caught up with the other boys.
“Clay, you’re suc
k a dumb fuck!” His bros said.
SHANTI LOOKED at her watch and had to speed through traffic.
They’d found her. METAPHOR had little Elise, long since a woman.
At a traffic light, Shanti opened her phone and Googled Elise’s name. There was the news about the massive and deadly avalanche in California’s Mammoth Mountain Resort.
A car honked. The light had turned Green.
Shanti was stunned. She pulled over in the next lot. Elise was safe with METAPHOR. Shanti felt like getting back on a plane to Ethiopia. Elise’s sacrifice to protect her was too much to endure.
Trevor pulled beside her. He rolled down the window. “Doctor? METAPHOR here. Continue to your destination. Do not miss your window to get to your sanctuary! Understood?”
“I want to go to her.”
“I’m sorry ma’am. But, no. One team wasn’t enough to protect them from a mountain of snow. We need to get you to sanctuary, now. Please. We’re exposed here. Ma’am? Please. Move! Right now!”
“Yes, alright.”
Shanti’s hands were shaking as she drove on.
The danger felt like she and Elise were back in the Outback running to hide from the helicopters. Elise was so dehydrated she was hallucinating. Skills Shanti remembered long ago saved them.
Up ahead, Shanti saw the sign for the airport.
‘Where was the breach?’
AS SHE WOVE her way through traffic, Shanti was back in the Outback’s orange desert, carrying Elise on her back, dragging her, pleading with her, forcing her to run. Elise heard the rifle repeat a long way off, then another. Elise knew it could only mean her parents had been found. If Shanti had been a half second later, the rage and anguish erupting from twelve-year old Elise would have given them away. She had had to smother Elise to get her to listen to her. She calmed down because she was hungry for air.
“Hunters, my darling. It is only Kangaroo hunters,” Shanti told her over and over, as she rocked her and kept her hand over her mouth, Elise fighting for air like Shanti’s other children had had to, eons ago. Like her children, Elise stopped struggling, and accepted Shanti’s hand would control her air.
When the reality of losing her Dad and Mother rose in her again, she’d pull Shanti’s hand tight over her mouth. She’d be allowed to scream out in her rage and fear, into Shanti’s hand. Shanti’s arms would be wrapped tightly around her when the nightmares came night after night, for weeks. Elise had been her child, since that day.
Even now nearly her lifetime later, Elise was still her child. They would be together when this mess was once again contained. Elise was all Shanti had in the world to call family now. Except for one she had denied herself. They both had no one. Shanti pulled to the side of the road and wept.
Trevor pulled in behind her. ‘She pulled off. The tragic news is getting to her,’ Trevor texted Dez.
‘Get her there, T!’ Dez was about to call Shanti herself.
‘Yes ma’am.’ Trevor laid on the horn.
Seconds later, Shanti drove on. In her mind, she was still in the Outback.
THE HELICOPTERS SEARCHED for them for weeks.
Shanti made sure their footprints disappeared into thin air and made tracks in the sand to resemble the helicopter skids, making the pursuers think they’d been rescued.
She’d seen signs of the Gagudju people. When they’d be back was something she couldn’t determine. Their prints looked days old. The ground was crusty from the rain of a week ago.
They’d lived off lizards and their own urine. Elise and Shanti were so dehydrated Shanti could no longer spit into her mouth.
THE GAGUDJU finally found them after weeks of using her ancient skills of foraging. The Gagudju fed and re-hydrated them.
Shanti and Elise lived with the Gagudju for six months.
The Russian hunters, eventually found the Gagudju, too. The Gagudju convinced these Russians and the American authorities they had not seen any trace of them. The Russians thought the Americans had found them. The Americans thought the Russians got them.
Shanti finally agreed with the elders, Shanti should disappear to get Elise to want to go home to Sam. So Shanti left the village one night. She could hear Elise calling for her. It broke her heart.
The Gagudju dropped Elise off outside a ranch. She didn’t want to leave them. Elise was returned to the American Embassy and to her brother Sam, barely twenty-two at the time.
SHANTI HAD STAYED with the tribe for another six months while they saved enough money for an airline ticket for her. She entered Canada and then, the U.S., through the San Juan Islands at night, crossing in a boat and resumed her teaching schedule.
Shanti had driven by their Montecito home many times, seeing Elise riding her horse at the stables, happy and free of her and her terrible memories of the Desert.
Shanti resumed her life on the University circuit, sadly free. She’d kept to the timetable, God knows why, hoping one day to reconnect with Elise in 2016. Shanti had followed their lives.
Shanti was a guest lecturer when Sam was at USC Law School and they’d spoken several times. He didn’t remember her as Elise’s tutor. He’d shared his little sister’s extraordinary story. That’s how she kept in touch with Elise’s life.
Shanti attended Sam’s graduation to get a look at Elise, she appeared happy.
She attended Elise’s graduations, award ceremonies, wedding, and press conferences, that lone face in the crowd.
SHANTI TURNED into the White House drive.
Trevor and his team drove by, and flashed their lights at her.
She flashed her brake lights back at them. Shanti hoped after this was over and they were safe once again, she could be reunited with Elise.
IN THE SECRET SERVICE office at the White House, the security clearance fax beeped on the computer. The new computer fax authorized a new security pass.
The Homeland Security Desk called to verify the origin of the computer fax. When it verified, he called the White House’s front gate.
Shanti in her Green Prius waited at the gate of the White House.
“You’re late, Professor Larsen, ma’am,” the guard at the gate said.
“I know. Something came up at the last minute, that needed my….”
Interrupting the guard said, “I’m sorry, but I doubt they’ll let you in, having missed your window.”
The White House guard disappeared into the shack, called the security office to confirm Dr. Shanti Larsen’s name was on the list. He was replying, nodding, arguing.
“It’s your lucky day,” he smiled, knowing he’d made her pause.
“You have no idea how true that is. Thank you.”
“Next time, ma’am? You might not be so lucky. Rules are rules.”
“Yes. You’re right. I promise there will not be a next time.”
“Have a nice day at the White House ma’am.” The guard opened the gate.
Shanti drove to the White House Visitor Parking Area.
An agent wearing an Uzi with a bomb-sniffing, giant Belgian Malinois, German Shepherd approached.
Shanti told the agent she had two guns.
He took them. The agent ordered the dog to search. The dog went around the car twice and sniffed inside. The Shepherd received a pat as his reward. Another team with mirrors, looked under the frame, inside and out, and under the hood. All clear.
A Town Car pulled up behind her. They took Shanti to the security office to photograph, fingerprint, and iris print her.
White House Secret Service ran Shanti’s prints through the DOJ computer. She was given a bar-coded, access limited, laminated neck lanyard with embedded GPS, photo, and thumb printed ID. They put a flag pin in her lapel, which was another GPS. And inserted a half rice kernel sized GPS under her forearm skin. It read ‘active.’
Two agents escorted her inside and upstairs to the Residence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT -- NO ONE IS HOME
THEY KNOCKED on Joseph’s door.
Joseph ans
wered. He blinked hard, quite stunned then smiled a huge smile.
“Hello dear! At long last!”
Shanti kissed his cheek and entered his room.
Joseph stepped out to speak to the agents,“Thank you for delivering my niece.”
They nodded and left, notifying the office through their wrist-walkies. Joseph closed the door and just stood there looking at her.
Shanti lowered her head, stepped toward him, and began to cry.
Joseph leapt forward and took her in his arms.
Together they wept too choked up to speak. After they’d stopped weeping, his smile turned hurt and a bit angry.
“All this time? You've spent alone. When you could have had a life with me?”
“Dear, dear, sweet, unrealistic, Joe! How would you have explained this?” She gestured to her perfect ageless face. “I thought it was for the best, back then. Now I’m not sure. Let’s agree to live in the present and not spoil our reunion.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. You’re amazing. You haven’t aged a day. Not a single blessed day.”
Tears ran down his face as he held her hands looking into her eyes. He took her face in his hands, kissed her cheeks gently, then her mouth. Here stood their miracle, neither of them knowing it was his long lost love METAPHOR had finally persuaded him and his President to protect.
‘Had METAPHOR known about their love affair fifty years ago?’ Not possible, he reminded himself.
“It is my curse,” Shanti said. “I’ve brought such pain and death to the ones I love. I wish I had disappeared after I left you and Mrs. Roosevelt. I will forever regret not following my instincts.”
“Don’t ever say that. You are a miracle. My miracle, our miracle and you’re here.”
“Have you heard what has happened? I have to make it right. Hold me Joe. Never let me go again. No matter what I say.”
Joseph sat them down on his bed, and soothed her wrinkled brow. She pulled him toward her and broke down, sobbing.
Her scent, the feel of her in his arms, he’d never forgotten. She pulled him down onto the bed and they cried in each others arms.
A few minutes later, Joseph IM’d the President and Dr. Richards, ‘my niece has arrived.’