Transition

by Henry Charles Mishkoff

  “Yeah, well, that’s great…” – what a flake this kid is, Jillian thinks, shaking her head – “…but right now we’ve got more important things to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, where the fuck are we?”

  In the spreading haze of dusk, Old Sataru is taking on an aspect that is vaguely unsettling and more than a little threatening. They seem to be in a residential neighborhood now. Barefoot children play in the dusty streets. Men and women sit on wooden steps, staring blankly back at them.

  Jillian approaches a small group of youths who lounge lazily against the wall of a wooden shack, talking and laughing, cigarettes dangling animatedly from their lips.

  “Do any of you speak English?” she asks hopefully.

  No answer. The youths, three boys and a girl, appear to be teenagers, just a few years younger than she is. They stare back at her with wary eyes and expressionless faces.

  “Please,” she tries again. “We’re in danger. My friend and me. We need help. Do any of you speak English? Do you have a phone I could use?”

  “What you want, momma?” one of the boys sneers. “You come here look for real man, maybe?” The others hoot at this – either they all speak a little English, or they’re impressed by their friend’s bravado.

  “Oh, please,” Jillian says, tiredly. “Look, some men are chasing us, and we…”

  “You too skinny,” he continues, as if she hasn’t spoken. “But maybe I fuck you if you pay me. Hundred dollar?” He snickers, and translates his witticism for his friends, who laugh uproariously.

  Well, hell, Jillian thinks, as she turns away. So much for the legendary helpfulness of the people of Qen Phon.

  “What wrong, momma?” the youth calls after her. “Hundred dollar too little? Maybe you pay me two hundred dollar?” Again, he translates for his companions, who howl with appreciative laughter.

  Now where the hell is Sunshine? Holy shit, if that little twit ran off on me…

  “Jill?” Sunshine runs up out of the shadows. “Jill, c’mere. I found a woman who speaks English. She says she’ll help us.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  But when they approach the woman in question, indeterminately old and nearly toothless, sitting alone on a wooden step in front of a dilapidated shack, Jillian isn’t so sure that the woman is willing to help after all.

  “You go,” she says, waving them away as they approach. “Not good you be here. You go now.”

  “But you said you’d help us.” Sunshine is stunned.

  “No help. You go. No good.”

  “She did say she’d help us, Jill,” Sunshine insists. “I know she did.”

  “Do you have a phone we could use?” Jillian asks. The woman stares back without comprehension. “You know,” Jillian explains, “a telephone?” She holds one hand to her ear, then holds it out in front of her and punches a phone number in the air.

  The woman looks back at her as if she were crazy.

  And I am crazy, Jillian thinks, for believing that there was any chance that this hag would even know what a telephone was.

  “No phone,” the woman finally says. “Go away.”

  “Look,” Jillian says, exasperated, “can you just tell us how to get out of this place? Can you give us directions back to that gate? You know – that big stone gate? Draw us a map, or something?”

  “No phone,” the woman repeats. “Now,” she says, with finality. “Now, you go.” She stands up and begins to walk into the shack behind her…

  “What about the temple?” Jillian calls after her. “Can you tell us how to get to the temple? Sunshine, you could get us outta here from the temple, couldn’t you? I mean, you still have those directions, don’t you? We could just trace them backwards…”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve still got them…”

  “You know temple?” The woman has paused in the doorway of her hovel, and now she turns back to face them. “You know Ananda Karma?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sunshine agrees, emphatically. “In fact, that’s the whole reason we came here, to see the temple, and then some men attacked us, but we got away, but they chased us, and we ran and ran and ran and we got completely lost, and… and here we are. We want to go to the temple,” she adds, nodding vehemently. “And then we want to go home.”

  The woman seems to weigh this new information carefully, and then she nods slowly. “You come in,” she says. “I go get help.”

  “Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” Jillian says. “That’s very kind of you, but if you’ll just tell us how to get out of here…”

  The woman shakes her head. “You come in,” she repeats firmly. “I go get help.”

  “But…”

  “Is danger for you,” the woman says. “Is danger out. You come in. You safe. I go get help.”

  “Jill,” Sunshine says, “maybe we oughta do as she says.”

  Jillian sighs. The woman is right, it probably is dangerous for them to be walking around these streets. And it’ll be dark soon, and doubly dangerous.

  Managing a small smile, Jillian nods. “You’re right,” she says to the woman. “It would be a good idea for us to wait inside.” But how am I going to be able to stand being cooped up in that hole…

  The woman waves them in, then turns and walks off without a word.

  Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Jillian surveys her surroundings. It’s even worse than I imagined, she thinks. How can anybody live like this?

  The house consists of one small room with a dirt floor. A round, black stove in the center fills an appreciable portion of the floor space. A small straw mattress in one corner is the only other furnishing. Several cardboard boxes filled with vague shapes are scattered throughout the room. A solitary rooster eyes them suspiciously for a moment, squawks speculatively, then resumes pecking at the insects and scattered remains of various foodstuffs that litter the floor.

  “Oh, gag,” Jillian says. The stench of this place is overwhelming, she thinks. I wonder if I can hold my breath until the hag gets back?

  “Oh, come on, Jill,” Sunshine says cheerfully. “Try to think of it as an adventure. I mean, here we are in some foreign country, and some bandits try to kidnap us, but we get away, and then a total stranger invites us into her home…”

  If I have to listen to this much longer, Jillian thinks, I just might be tempted to take my chances out there in the streets.

  “Come sit with me,” Sunshine beckons. Settling down on the straw mattress, she assumes a cross-legged position and pats a spot on the mattress next to her in invitation. “Let’s talk.”

  “I’m not going to sit on that filthy piece of shit,” Jillian says in disgust. “I’d rather sit on the ground than sit on that pathetic excuse for a mattress. On second thought,” she reconsiders, surveying the assorted vermin crawling in the dirt at her feet, “I think I’ll just stand.”

  But after a few minutes of pacing, Jillian does, with resignation, gingerly join Sunshine on the mattress. They sat and talk in the dying light that filters into the windowless room through the many holes and cracks in the walls. They talk about the attempted kidnapping and about Leida getting shot right before their eyes. They talk about triathlons and Olympics and about the big race, now just two days away. They talk about the fire and how lucky they are to be alive. (There’s no such thing as luck, Sunshine explains. We were meant to survive the fire.) They talk about the unexpected development of the Russian triathletes, and they speculate on just how good the Russians might be.

  And they’re still sitting and talking ten minutes later when the sound of footsteps and an incomprehensible chattering indicates that their benefactress is finally returning, with help.

  “Thank God,” Jillian says, jumping to her feet, brushing pieces of loose straw from her shorts and legs. “I thought they’d never get here.”

  But when the old woman re-enters the room, it’s immediately apparent that the men who accompany her are not there to assist Jillian and Sunshin
e in their escape.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” Jillian explodes.

  “Oh, no!” Sunshine echoes.

  And Zolat and Harakeem, looking eminently pleased with themselves, grin at the American women with amused twinkles in their eyes.

  Jillian makes a dash for the door, but Zolat easily blocks her way. At one point in the brief but intense struggle that follows, Jillian thinks that she might actually escape – when she slams her foot down on the gunman’s instep as hard as she can, she hears him gasp and his grip weakens for a moment. But then he spins her around and holds her firmly in a chokehold, her back to him, her struggling body pressed firmly against his.

  And then she feels something cool and wet pressing tightly against her face, something that smells awful, like ammonia, and she tries to keep struggling but it’s getting harder and harder to fight, it’s getting harder and harder to move, it’s getting harder and harder to think…

  And the last thing she sees is Akaso Siko, standing just outside the door, staring in at her, his arms folded, his expression obscured by his dark glasses, his pistol stuck jauntily in his belt.

  And then the room is spinning, and she claws at the hand that’s pressed to her face, but her struggles are growing weaker and weaker, and the room is growing dimmer and dimmer and dimmer …

  5.1.15: Old Sataru

  Crouching in the shadows, Karl Malenko thinks that he has never been so frustrated in his entire life.

  He hears the sounds of struggle coming from the shack. He watches the gunmen drag the limp forms of Jillian and Sunshine out the door and over to the waiting van. He sees them toss the women into the back of the van as if they were no more than two slabs of meat.

  And he can do nothing. He is helpless.

  Even if there weren’t such intense pain shooting through his shoulder and arm at irregular intervals, there probably would be nothing that he could do. Yes, I am strong, he thinks, but what can I do against three men? With guns? True, I have the element of surprise on my side. But they have numerical superiority. No, I must resist the temptation to play the hero and charge in like a blind fool. Instead, I must follow them. I must learn where they go. That is the best way I can help them.

  And so, as the van’s engine sputters to life once more, Karl mounts his purloined bicycle, winces as a jagged bolt of pain tears down his arm to his fingertips, grits his teeth with determination, and begins to discreetly follow the van and its curious cargo as it resumes its tortuous journey through the narrow, twisting lanes of Old Sataru.

  Transition

  Book 5: Struggle

  Part 2:

  The Plan

  5.2.1: Tanami

  “Sir!”

  The sergeant snaps to attention with a crisp salute and stands like a statue as he waits to be recognized.

  “Speak.” Tanaqo Karnaga, Commander of the Home Guard, First Division, doesn’t bother to look up. What is it this time? he wonders idly as he scans the pages of the latest of the security reports that he has been receiving hourly, like clockwork, since a month before the start of the Olympics. Soon, he thinks, the Olympics will be over and life will return to normal. Soon, I can escape these damned reports that have kept me chained to my desk.

  “Sir, we have a report of a kidnapping. There is not much information yet, but I thought that you would want to…”

  “A kidnapping?” Karnaga looks up in surprise. Is it possible? With the closing ceremonies less than forty-eight hours away? And everything has been going so smoothly.

  He stands and walks around to the front of his desk. Lean but powerfully built, Karnaga exudes an underlying energy that boils just below his deceptively placid features, a restlessness that always seems to be in danger of bursting through his carefully nurtured outward calm and scalding his subordinates. He had been named Tanaqo in honor of the sacred volcano on whose slopes he had been born, but people tend to assume that the appellation is a nickname, a recognition of the explosively volcanic turbulence that rumbles dangerously beneath his calm facade.

  “Who has been kidnapped, sergeant?” he demands. “A citizen? A tourist? An athlete?”

  “The report was vague, Commander.” The sergeant is obviously uncomfortable. Reporting to the Commander with incomplete information is a risky proposition, but he had to weigh that risk against the danger of not relaying important news. “Indications are that the victims may have been athletes. And one report…”

  “Athletes? Plural?”

  “Yes, sir. And one report indicates that there may have been other associated violence. There has been a call for an ambulance. That has been confirmed. Several people appear to have been shot.”

  “And where is this purported incident supposed to have occurred, sergeant?”

  “In Sataru, sir.” He speaks carefully, as if the wrong answer could somehow lead to his being held responsible for the incident.

  “Sataru? The new village, I assume?”

  “No, sir. The old village.”

  “The old village?” Karnanga’s eyes narrow. The sergeant winces. “Correct me if I am mistaken, sergeant, but I seem to recall that Old Sataru was a ‘discouraged’ zone.”

  “You are correct, Commander.”

  “Get Lieutenant Lasawieh on the phone at once.” Karnaga walks to the window and stares out into the street. Soon, he thinks, the crowds will be gone and the attention of the world will be focused elsewhere. Soon we can return to doing things the way they should be done, the way we used to do them before we were placed under this infernal microscope.

  The sergeant hesitates. “Sir?” he says warily. “Captain Farasi is in charge of that district. Do you not want me to…”

  “It was the responsibility of Captain Farasi to ensure that no athletes ventured into Old Sataru. If your report is accurate, Captain Farasi will be unable to be of assistance to me because he will be under arrest. Please relay that information to Lieutenant Lasawieh. At once.”

  A kidnapping, Karnaga muses, as the sergeant beats a hasty retreat. And General Tanami was so certain that there would be no trouble. Fortunately for me, I told him repeatedly that there would be some kind of mischief. He cannot say that he has not been warned.

  If anything, he thinks, it is surprising that we have gone for so long with so little trouble. It has been so very quiet.

  Too quiet.

  I hope that this is not some kind of false alarm, he thinks, as a familiar surge of excitement begins to mount within him.

  It will be good to get out from behind this cursed desk and do some real police work for a change.

  5.2.2: Tanami

  “It did rather look as though the Tongan gentleman left the starting blocks early,” J. Stanton Kennedy concedes. “However, we no longer rely on human senses to ascertain whether a start is fair. We now use incredibly sophisticated electronic equipment that can detect if a runner’s foot leaves the starting block even a thousandth of a second early.” Having recently learned this information from a magazine article, Kennedy is pleased to have so quickly been presented with an opportunity to impress someone with it.

  But Lady Smoot does not seem to be impressed. “I’m sure that electronic gadgetry is fine – in its place,” she sniffs. “And perhaps I am rather old fashioned. But I fail to see how this – Tongan did you say? – how this Tongan could possibly have bested Geoffrey Dent without the benefit of an early start. You probably think that I’m terribly chauvinistic…”

  “Oh, no, not at all,” Kennedy assures her, soothingly.

  “…but I have seen Geoffrey race too many times to believe that he could be fairly beaten by an unknown runner from some obscure country.”

  Lord Smoot lowers his binoculars and leans forward in his seat. “My wife,” he notes, dryly, “firmly believes that there is a direct relationship between the stature of a nation and the athletic ability of its inhabitants.” He smiles at his own wit, even as his wife frowns. “A quaint and outdated notion, to be sure, but terribly endearing just the s
ame.”

  Momentarily uncertain of how to respond, Kennedy manages a non-committal half-smile that he hopes neither Lord nor Lady Smoot will find terribly offensive. And he’s still fine-tuning his smile, aiming for that perfect look that will tell Lord Smoot that he shares his amusement and yet convey to Lady Smoot that he’s merely humoring her husband, when he notices the brightly uniformed page edging down the row of seats toward him. And then he notices that several other similarly attired pages are delivering messages elsewhere in the stands. There, in the Russian delegation. And over there, where Andres Lavidad and Gunar Pandat, Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the IOC, sit with their entourages. And even up there, in the plush box where the stern General Tanami sits with his retinue.

  Something is up.

  Lord Smoot has noticed it too. In fact, as the page approaches, the lord, assuming that the message is for him, turns his head and prepares to listen, But the page excuses himself, edges carefully past each of the Smoots in turn, and whispers a terse message into Kennedy’s ear.

  “My God, man,” Lord Smoot says, clearly piqued that an important message has been delivered to someone other than himself. “What is it?”

  “Oh, heavens.” Lady Smoot’s hand flies to her chest as she notices that Kennedy has turned as pale as a ghost. “Mr. Kennedy, are you quite alright?”

  “I must go,” Kennedy says. He rises unsteadily to his feet. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to excuse me.”

  The page starts to lead Kennedy back down the row of seats, but Lord Smoot rises and blocks the way. “See here, man,” he says testily. “You can’t keep us in the dark. You must tell us what is going on.”

  “Yes, please do,” Lady Smoot says, full of concern. “We would so much like to be of help.”

  This is not something that everyone should know, Kennedy thinks, and he starts to shake his head and make an excuse. But then he realizes that the message is starting to spread through the crowd anyway, and that Lord Smoot will hear the news from someone else soon enough. He might as well hear it from me.