Reunion

by J. S. Frankel

  “For someone who isn’t into doing the group-support thing, you’re doing this a lot,” he said and added, “I wonder why?”

  “Let’s figure that out another time,” Overton cut in as he mopped sweat and blood off his face. “I haven’t had a chance to take a head count, but I’m guessing we lost a lot of good people today.”

  His statement took some of the elation away. Allenby’s created thugs had been very thorough. He’d been able to send them anywhere, and he’d sent them where they’d sown the most discord and terror. How he’d been able to create them so fast and from which location wasn’t so important.

  “What is important,” Overton continued, looking at Harry, “is getting you and Pavel out of here. Once you get to Russia, you’re on your own. Jason and Maze found a power spike. It’s in Oymyakon. That’s all they could tell me.”

  “They’re getting desperate,” Harry said, half to himself and half to the group.

  “Desperate like hell,” Anastasia growled as she held their daughter. “They were after my baby.”

  Harry got a mite offended and asked, “Since when is she your baby? Didn’t I help?”

  “Ours, okay?”

  Linda waved her hands for silence. “Uh, guys, can we tone down the domestic quarrels a bit? I heard enough of that from my folks. I don’t want a repeat.”

  Getting up from the couch, she walked over to the window. “My gang and I are going to find a place to sit this one out, if you two are going on vacation.” She nodded at Harry and Pavel. “I’ve got your scent. We’ll be in touch.”

  She turned to leave, but Overton’s voice stopped her. “Thanks for doing what you did. You might not like us... but you’ve got my respect, if that means anything.”

  A certain light, perhaps of rapprochement, shone in her eyes. “It means a lot. See you around.”

  With a sudden beating of her wings, she was gone.

  “Let’s get you to the airport,” Overton said. “We’ll worry about the logistics of meeting her later.”

  In the lobby, as they gazed at the ruins of FBI headquarters, the immediacy of the situation hit Harry like a sledgehammer. It had been trashed yet again, and the paramedics, service personnel and surviving agents were busy picking up the wounded and depositing the dead in the ambulances that lined the streets. New York’s finest were also busy in keeping the crowds of reporters and curious onlookers away from the entrance.

  About thirty people had joined together, some of them holding up signs that read Transgenics out! No room here! Other people, fewer in number, perhaps ten or so, held up signs reading Rights for all or rights for none.

  Both sides hurled invectives at each other, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine another riot breaking out. Naturally, the press was doing its best to snap the best pics around, and they yelled out questions over the din.

  Sighing, Harry turned away. While picking his way past the dead and the dying, he reviewed his options. There weren’t many. Allenby had once more brought the fight to them. Waiting proved to be a false hope, and Chief Tolliver hadn’t put in an appearance yet. He would, though, and he’d probably dump this mess into the lap of the transgenics.

  Taking the blame was something Harry had done in the past. He wouldn’t do it again, though, not anymore. It was time for making decisions finally.

  Overton broke off from the mini-group. “I’m going to get my car. I’ll meet you out front.”

  As they moved on out the door, Harry felt his wife’s hand on his shoulder. Turning his head, he saw their daughter was sleeping and good thing, too. She’d be spared the sight of this horrible tableau. Her little features were so pretty, so pure, Harry’s heart almost broke. He’d have to leave her once more, and he didn’t know if he’d return. Gently stroking the side of his daughter’s face, he looked at his wife. “You know I have to go.”

  “I know.”

  Anastasia reached up to kiss him. He returned the kiss fondly and took one last look at his daughter. Sara Emily, be strong. I’ll come back to you.

  On the steps, they found Tolliver standing with a few of his men. The chief’s face wore a look of absolute fury as he surveyed the scene, and it intensified once Harry came within range. “After what happened back at your cabin, Goldman, I was almost ready to trust you.” He reached for his revolver. “Now, after this, you and your kind are going to be hemmed in, and I will...”

  He never got out another word as Harry launched a shot to his jaw. The impact catapulted the police chief ten feet away and he landed flat on his back.

  Immediately, the police reached for their pistols, but then a black woman, wearing a faded print dress, old and blind and gripping a cane, broke off from the pro-transgenic group and shuffled over to where Harry stood.

  The talk on both sides also quieted down, the reporters stopped asking questions, and everyone stared at the woman as she tapped her way across the pavement. Another policeman raised his fist and called out, “Hold your fire.”

  As the woman made her way over, Harry waited, relaxed now, knowing who she was. She stopped six inches away from him, and he gazed into the sightless eyes of Josephine Hutchison, a friend who’d hidden him and Anastasia months before at the risk of her personal safety.

  Now, she was doing it again. She’d come unbidden to offer her support, and it gave him a sense of hope that not all people were bad. Simplistic as that might have sounded to anyone else, he knew it to be true. “Hi Josephine,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

  “Hello Harry.” In spite of her age—she was way past eighty—she had a youthful voice and reached up to stroke the side of his face with her hand. It was quite a contrast, an old lady touching the fur of someone totally different and treating him as she’d treat her own child. “Is your wife here?”

  “Right here, Josephine,” Anastasia responded as she walked over. “I have a little present.”

  Cautioning her that she was about to hold a new life, Anastasia placed the baby in Josephine’s arms. Immediately, a look of delight lit up the old woman’s face. “Now this is a precious child,” she murmured and gently touched the baby’s face. “Oh, no fur... she’s—”

  “Adorable,” Anastasia put in.

  A wise smile crossed Josephine’s lips as she ran her fingers over the baby’s face in a series of light movements, as if filing away each feature in her memory. “Yes, she most certainly is.”

  For her part, Sara Emily continued to sleep through it all. Josephine rocked her gently, and after handing the baby back to her mother, she whispered to Harry, “You know I went blind a few months ago. I can’t see, but I can still listen to the news reports. They said you’d probably come to this place, so I got my son to drive me down here.”

  Not a smart move, thought Harry. “Weren’t you worried about getting hurt?” he asked. “Those other transgenics, they—”

  “They weren’t after me,” she interrupted. A shadow of doubt, or perhaps fear, flitted across her face, and she lifted her face to lock her sightless gaze to his sighted one. “They were after you. You have to leave soon, don’t you?”

  How to tell her the truth? There was no need, really. Josephine always knew these things, for some reason. A sudden blare from a car horn broke the relative silence. “Harry, over here,” Overton’s voice called.

  Say hello to their transportation. “Yeah, as in right now,” Anastasia cut in. “But I’ll be around. Harry has to—” her voice caught—“he has to go.”

  “Then go and come back to this precious baby,” Josephine said in the kindest of ways. “I’ll be here.”

  Leaning down to kiss her aged yet barely lined cheek, Harry felt he had one more reason to make it back safely. “I’ll see you soon. When this is over, Anastasia and I will bring the baby over for a visit.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Harry, come on!” Overton called out again in a most urgent tone from the passenger’s side with another agent driving.

  Reluctantly, Harry took off
in the direction of the car. Pavel, who’d been standing off to the side, head bowed respectfully, followed close behind, and hopped in along with Anastasia.

  They took off at high speed. Along the way Pavel grunted, “That some punch you give police officer, Goldman. You get into trouble for this, yes?”

  “When haven’t I been in trouble?”

  The answer caused Pavel to break up in laughter. Everyone else soon joined in. Stressful as the situation was, right now the tension had been broken. It would return later, but a respite was always welcomed.

  Chapter Eleven: Frog Hop

  “You remember what Holliman said,” Overton informed them as they made their way to the airport. “The authorities won’t let you land in Moscow. You’re going in legally, but once you’re there, you’re on your own. Russia is going to disavow all knowledge of this should anything happen.”

  “Thanks for the boost of confidence,” Harry said. Stealing a look at his wife, he saw her face was taut with the tension from the events of the past few minutes, but she said nothing. Their daughter did what all babies did. She slept through it.

  Overton continued, giving him the itinerary and cautioning him to be careful. “So here’s how it’s going to go down. You’ll have to land near Moscow and make your way from there.”

  “Leave to me,” Pavel said. “Once we get on airplane, all I need is radio when we get near homeland. After that, we are in.”

  “Fine, it’s your call.”

  Forty minutes later they arrived at the airport and found the hangar. A mechanic was servicing the jet, and another agent stood guard.

  Right away, Pavel slipped out and boarded the airplane, while Overton got out and walked off to a discreet distance, waving the mechanic off and guard away. Harry remained in the car with his wife, silence between them, only broken by the sighs of their daughter as she shifted around in the hunt for a new and more comfortable position.

  Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer. “I, uh, I’ll come back.” It wasn’t the deepest line he could think of. He had the ability to compute the most difficult mathematical and chemical equations in his head, knew more about DNA than ninety-nine percent of the world’s population, but right then he couldn’t dredge up one simple phrase to give any sort of assurance to his wife.

  “I mean,” he continued, “you’ve always been with me. In the sewers, on the run, you’ve never left me. I won’t leave you, either. I’ll come back.”

  “You’ll come back,” she echoed. “Take a look at this baby, take a longer look at me and tell me you won’t be back.”

  Suddenly, she hugged him—gently—and then let him go. “I love you, husband. Just don’t forget where your heart lies.”

  Harry’s own heart almost broke at her words. “I know where it lies.” Bestowing a kiss on her lips, he whispered, “It lies with you and always has. See you soon.”

  He then bent over and kissed his daughter’s forehead. She stirred, but didn’t wake, so he slipped out of the car and gently closed the door. Overton made his way over. “I’ll take care of her,” he said. “There are other safe houses. With what you’ve given me concerning Ulbricht, he won’t dare touch them.”

  “You sent the information to Washington?”

  He nodded. “I had Jason send it earlier. Trust me when I say Ulbricht isn’t going to like it.”

  A second later he trotted down the steps and over to his car. Driving away, Harry caught sight of his wife waving goodbye and vowed to return. He had two lives to worry about now, and he wasn’t going to give up on either of them.

  Harry walked into the hangar and boarded. The pilot, a tall, spare and unsmiling man, gave everyone a brief look before heading for the cockpit. Once in the air, he asked for directions. “We go to this place,” Pavel said and gave him the coordinates.

  The pilot—his nametag read Belton—glanced at him with a skeptical look. “That’s outside Moscow. There’s no airport there.”

  “Is training ground,” Pavel insisted. “You go there. There is runway. I will have friend meet us there. He take us to where we have to go. Is just short way. You say frog hop.” He imitated the jumping of a frog which was both enlightening as well as ridiculous.

  Silently, the pilot fixed the plane’s course and they winged their way over the ocean and into foreign airspace. A brief stop in London to refuel, and then it was off again. When they entered enemy territory, it was a given Allenby would be waiting for them, but there was no choice. Harry sat in his seat, thinking about the two special people in his life. Pavel tapped him on the shoulder. “We will make it, Goldman. No worry. We will make it.”

  He said nothing else until the pilot called back that they were over Russian airspace. Night had fallen, and Pavel excused himself and went forward to the cockpit. Following him, Harry overheard rapid-fire Russian being spoken, and then the connection was broken. Pavel nodded toward the cabin area. “Who did you speak to?”

  “Old friend in Spetznatz,” Pavel replied after seating himself. “He is no longer with army. He is pilot now. He quit army and go into business for himself. He will fly us to where we need to go.”

  “Nice having friends in high places,” Harry commented without a trace of irony.

  “Is always good to know people.”

  The flight continued until they reached their destination. It was hard to see, given the darkness, but the pilot touched down on a recently cleared runway. It was short and bumpy, but serviceable, and another small single-engine plane sat at the end of the runway. “You’d better leave,” Harry said at the exit.

  “I’m supposed to wait for you here,” Belton said, surprised. “Those were my orders—”

  Harry waved off his objection. “Orders change. It’s dangerous for you to wait. I’ll find my own way back.”

  With a look of regret on his face, Belton nodded. “Good luck.”

  Outside, it was cool with a slight drizzle from above. Overall, it was infinitely preferable to the cold. “Is nice weather right now,” Pavel said as he waved to the man at the end of the runway. “This is Russian summer.”

  Glancing around, Harry noticed they’d landed in the middle of a field. In the distance he saw mountains covered in snow at their peaks. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “This is countryside near Ural Mountains. Is big area, like you see, no? We take plane from here and go to another location. Is night time now and not good for flying, but is better for us. No radar. We fly under it and go to meeting place. My friends will be there. Trust me.”

  Having no choice, he followed Pavel to the plane. Clambering aboard, he found it a patchwork job, broken floorboards covered in cardboard, boxes of who-knew-what crammed in the hold... it was a mess. “Is no beautiful plane like FBI has,” Pavel laughed from the front seat, “but she flies.”

  The pilot said something in Russian and the two men laughed. Thanks for leaving me out of it. Harry wedged himself against the wall and tried to relax as the plane bumped down the runway, but found it impossible. Although his skin had toughened considerably, the metal spurs and wooden splinters from his surroundings jabbed his back and butt.

  “What’s in here?” Harry called out.

  Pavel translated and the pilot answered him, laughing all the while. “Is what you call black-market goods,” he replied. “Caviar, vodka... DVD’s... other things you no need know about.”

  Presumably, this man was also into dealing drugs. But at that point in time, what happened in Russia’s black-market stayed there. Harry knew it wasn’t anyone’s business, least of all his. He needed a ride, plain and simple, there and back. The in-between stuff, he’d take care of on his own.

  They soared into the clouds, which weren’t white and fluffy. People often had the romantic presupposition that clouds were cute, almost anthropomorphic things, but in reality they were gray and ugly. They whipped by in a blur, obscuring the view, and Harry noticed a light speckling of water on the plastic window. It would have to rain.

 
In addition, the coldness of the cabin, the discomfort, and the lack of pressurization caused his ears to tighten painfully. And he was about to go up against a monster who had no soul, no feelings... could things get any worse?

  A crackle of thunder followed by a sheet of lightning caused him to sit up. “What was that?”

  “Rainstorm,” Pavel said. “There is no need you worry.”

  Fine... and Harry settled back, feeling the cabin start to move under him. A small hole a few feet away caused a sudden panic, and sliding a crate over it, he closed it off. The plane continued to buck as the rain continued to fall, and the wind, formerly fairly soft, started to howl. “Do we have anything to worry about now?” he called out.

  “No, please stop worrying.”

  Settling back, Harry drew his legs up and hugged his knees, trying to keep calm. Then a sudden dip in the plane caused him to start. “Uh, I know I’m being too nosy, but do we have a problem?”

  A moment of silence ensued, and then Pavel shouted back, “Now is good time to worry.”

  Oh hell...

  “What’s wrong, bad weather?”

  “No, is problem with engine.”

  Oh yes, the idea of things going from bad to worse was definitely coming back to bite. Karma was indeed a rotten thing. “What’s the problem?”

  “Is not working.”

  The plane did another dip, leveled off, and the pilot attempted to muscle it into a horizontal position. It didn’t want to cooperate, and Pavel came back to squeeze his body between two crates. “We are going down,” he offered with a glum look. “If we no make it, it was nice knowing you.”

  Harry blinked. How should a person respond in this situation? “Uh, yeah, same here.”

  What else could he say? There was no point in praying to the gods of aviation, no way to call for help, no parachutes... nothing. The image of his wife flashed across his mind, that of her and his daughter. If he didn’t make it, would they remember him, who would take care of them? He had no answer.