Transition

by Henry Charles Mishkoff

  But Sammy still hesitates, and Sunshine suspects that if he rejects her once more, it will be all over. So she reaches out and takes Sammy’s hand, gently, and places it lightly on her breast. Moving his hand in small circles, she feels her nipple harden beneath the thin fabric.

  Sammy jerks his hand away sharply, as if he had accidentally set it on a hot stove. He backs away, bumping into the bed and nearly falling backward onto it. Even in the dim candlelight, Sunshine can see that he’s blushing.

  Well, now I’ve blown it, she thinks. I almost had him, but I overdid it. I guess it’s just as well, I was so uncomfortable trying to deceive him like that. He’s really a pretty good kid. But now he’s going to take poor Jill… Oh, well. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not responsible for her, anyway. Isn’t that what Nathan would say? I gave it my best shot.

  “If Akaso says he doesn’t want you,” Sammy finally says, “I’m going to have to bring you back here and take her instead, alright? And you’re not going to argue with me or anything, right?”

  “Of course not.” Wounded.

  “I mean, if Akaso gets pissed off at me and you stand there arguing with me, it’s going to make me look really bad.”

  “I understand, Sammy.”

  “You promise? You promise that you won’t make me look bad in front of Akaso?”

  “Sammy, you know I’d never do anything like that.”

  “Promise me,” Sammy insists. “Promise me you won’t make a fool of me in front of Akaso.”

  “I promise.” Why does that make a difference? she wonders. If he thinks I’m lying to him, what does he think is so magical about a promise that it would make me tell the truth?

  “Well…”

  “Let’s go,” Sunshine says, just as she had when Sammy first entered the room.

  But this time, when she turns and walks away, Sammy takes one long deep breath, shakes his head just once, mutters something under his breath, and follows her out the door.

  5.2.12: Aqevina

  They walk down a long, dark hallway. Sunshine trails her hand along a wall both to help orient herself while her eyes adjust to the darkness and to steady herself as she totters along in heels for the first time in her life.

  The hall opens into a large rectangular room with a high, arched ceiling. Sunshine can barely discern the outline of an enormous chandelier that hangs over the center of the room. A stray beam of light – from a candle somewhere? – shines through one of the hundreds of hanging crystal prisms, creating flickering rainbows that dance on the sheets that cover the various pieces of furniture scattered around the room, like shrouds. On one wall, what might have been a picture window – or, perhaps, an arrangement of smaller windows – is heavily boarded over.

  This must be the living room, Sunshine thinks. I’ll bet it was beautiful.

  Navigating effortlessly in the near-total darkness, Sammy guides Sunshine through the room and down another long hallway, lined with perhaps half a dozen doors. She tries to peer into the few doors that are ajar, but the rooms are cloaked in darkness.

  The hallway makes a ninety-degree turn and widens into a small foyer. In the dim light of a candle that sits on a glass table, Sunshine can see a solitary guard sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a set of double doors, cradling a rifle loosely in his hands. The guard looks up lazily as they approach. His gaze sharpens as he takes in Sunshine’s provocative garb. Sunshine feels herself start to blush.

  Maybe the light’s not good enough for him to notice, she hopes.

  The guard rises to his feet slowly, his eyes devouring Sunshine hungrily. She tries to smile, but without noticeable success. Her knees began to shake. With a conscious effort of will, she brings them back under control.

  I wonder what they’re talking about, Sunshine thinks, as Sammy and the guard launch into what appears to be a heated discussion. About me, I suppose. I guess Sammy’s trying to explain why he brought the wrong girl.

  Finally, the guard opens one of the doors and motions for Sammy to follow him inside.

  “I’m going in to talk to Akaso,” Sammy says. “You wait here.”

  To Sunshine’s surprise, the guard follows Sammy into the room and closes the door behind him, leaving her alone in the foyer.

  But before she can even begin to consider the ramifications of the situation, the door quickly opens and Sammy’s head pops out. “It won’t do you any good to try to escape, you know,” he points out. “There’s only two ways to get out of here, and they’re both guarded. If you try to escape, all you’ll do is get me in trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t try to escape,” Sunshine says, trying to sound hurt that Sammy would even suggest such a thing. “I want to meet Akaso, remember? Make sure you explain that to him, okay?”

  Sammy scowls. Apparently he’s having second thoughts about having to explain anything to Akaso. “You just wait here,” he says. “This could take a little while.” And he withdraws his head and closes the door, leaving Sunshine alone in the foyer once again.

  And Sunshine has every intention of waiting right where she stands until Sammy comes back to get her.

  But then the voices begin to drift down the hall, and at first she thinks they’re coming from beyond the double doors, but the voices are speaking English. Akaso and Sammy wouldn’t be talking about me in English, would they? But no, the voices, indistinct as they are, are definitely coming from down the hall. And it is English, she decides, even though she can’t quite make out the words.

  And she actually takes a step down the hall toward the voices… but then she stops and shakes her head. No, she thinks, I told Sammy I’d wait right here, and that’s just what I’m going to do.

  But finally, her curiosity gets the better of her.

  It can’t be too far, she rationalizes. It’s probably just a couple of doors down. There aren’t very many doors in the hall. I’ll just sneak a quick peek. I’ll be back here before Sammy knows I’m gone. He did say he’d be a little while.

  And indeed, as she creeps down the hall, the voices do seem to be nearby. There, that door is open just a hair, and there’s some light leaking out… I’m sure there wasn’t anybody in there when we walked by a minute ago.

  Even when she’s standing right next to the door, she still isn’t quite able to make out the words of the conversation. If I stand back here in the darkness, she thinks, and if I push the door open just a tiny bit more, really slowly, they probably won’t notice anything. They won’t be able to see me, and I won’t have to open it much to be able to hear them better. And maybe I’ll even be able to see them.

  Slowly, cautiously, and as quietly as possible, Sunshine widens the narrow opening of the door until it’s just barely wide enough for her to look into the room.

  She takes a step back. The conversation in the room continues, unabated. They hadn’t noticed the door moving.

  Now, she thinks, if I slide around here, I’ll be able to see in, but they won’t be able to see me.

  Pressing her back to the opposite wall, she slides carefully to one side until she can look clearly through the narrow opening and into the room.

  And it’s at that exact moment that Sunshine’s world is completely, irreparably, shattered.

  5.2.13: Tanami

  “I assure you, Mr. Kendal, we are doing everything within our power to locate your daughter.”

  G.W. scowls. “Damn it, officer, you’re about the tenth…”

  “Commander.”

  G.W. is momentarily nonplused. “Say what?”

  “Commander. You called me ‘officer.’ I am Tanaqo Karnaga, Commander of the Home Guard. And as I say…”

  “I don’t really give a flying fuck if you’re the goddamn king of this two-bit excuse for a country,” G.W. says, through clenched teeth. “And I’m sick and tired of y’all patting me on the head and telling me how much you’re doing. I want to know what you’re doing. I want some specifics. And all I’m getting is the goddamn run-around. And I
don’t mind telling you, buddy, that my patience is wearing thin.”

  Karnaga forces a thin smile. “My concern is with the safety of your daughter, not with the extent of your patience,” he says, with a dismissive wave. “Or perhaps you would rather that I call off the search and devote my time to explaining the situation to you?”

  “Who the hell do you think…”

  “If you wish to remain here,” Karnaga says, evenly, “you will confine yourself to the briefing room to which you were escorted earlier. You will be provided with all of the information that is available, as soon as it becomes available. If you emerge from that room and bother my men one more time, I will have you thrown out of the building, where you may wait with the press for the tidbits of information that we occasionally toss in their direction. The choice is yours.”

  G.W.’s face grows bright red with anger. He swallows hard and chokes back a response. Calm down, he thinks. This guy means business. And it sounds like he might know what he’s doing.

  He takes a deep breath and stares down the long, windowless, steel-gray hallway. Men in uniform scurry past, some of them deep in conversation with each other, some talking animatedly on their phones, some doing both at the same time. “It seems that I owe you an apology, Commander,” G.W. finally says. “I’m sure you understand that I’m extremely upset, but that’s no excuse for my behavior.”

  “No excuse is necessary, Mr. Kendal. But I must insist that you allow me to escort you back to the briefing room so that I may return to my duties.”

  “Of course, Commander,” G.W. says, as Karnaga leads him briskly through a maze of corridors. “I promise to stay put wherever you tell me to. And if you do learn something…”

  “You will be the first to know, Mr. Kendal, I assure you,” Karnaga says, as he opens the briefing room door. “And I see you have some company,” he adds. “Perhaps that will make the time go faster for you.”

  And G.W. is pleased to see that Jago Danziger has returned from his fact-finding mission.

  But when Jago has brought him up to speed on what he has learned, G.W. flings open the door of the briefing room and bursts furiously out into the halls of Home Guard Headquarters, breaking the promise that he had made to Commander Tanaqo Karnaga not five minutes earlier.

  5.2.14: Tanami

  “G.W.,” Jago implores, tugging on his arm. “G.W., that’s him.”

  “Where?” G.W. whirls around just in time to spot Karnaga leading a wizened old man into the room that he and Jago have just vacated. “Great. Who’s the other guy?” he asks. He reverses direction and strides purposefully back down the hall, leaving Jago to scamper after him in his wake. “Is that your friend, coach what’s-his-name? I pictured him much younger.”

  Jago is puzzled. “The other… Why, that is the officer we just spoke with. Karnaga, I believe, was his name.”

  “What the hell…” G.W. is confused. “I thought we were talking about Karnaga.”

  “No, I was pointing out the man with Karnaga. He is Petronovich, the one I was telling you about.”

  “Hot damn,” G.W. says. “They’ve nabbed him. Maybe these cops aren’t as dumb as they look.”

  As G.W. and Jago round the corner into the doorway of the briefing room, they run into Karnaga, who is on his way back out. The collision nearly knocks Karnaga, the smallest of the three men, off his feet. As soon as he recovers his dignity, he’s livid. “You promised me that you would remain here,” he says, scornfully. “And I was naive enough to take you at your word.”

  “Now don’t get your balls all in an uproar, Commander,” G.W. says, taking pains to use Karnaga’s correct title. “I was just looking for you is all. I have some important information for you. But I see,” he adds, nodding at Petronovich, who sits slouched in a chair at the far end of a large table, puffing on a cigar, “that you’ve already caught him. Good work, Commander.”

  G.W glares at the older man through hooded eyes. Petronovich stares back quizzically. Karnaga seems confused as he looks back and forth between the two men. “Then, the two of you are acquainted with each other?” he asks.

  “I’ve never met the son-of-a-bitch personally, if that’s what you mean,” G.W. snarls. “But I’d be happy to take him out back and shoot him when you’re finished with him.”

  Petronovich rises sharply to his feet, leaning on his cane for support. “Who is this person?” he demands angrily, his hoarse voice surprisingly strong. “And how dare you allow him to threaten me like this.”

  “I’ll tell you who I am,” G.W. shouts. He takes a step toward Petronovich, brushing away Jago’s restraining hand. “I’m the father of the girl that you had kidnapped, that’s who the fuck I am. And so help me, if your people harm so much as one hair on her head, I’m gonna skin you alive and feed your carcass to the buzzards, as God is my witness.”

  Petronovich’s mouth drops wide open, but he quickly recovers his composure. He draws himself up to his full height, his eyes never leaving G.W.’s, “Commander,” he says, “this man is obviously insane. Remove him from my presence at once.”

  “Mr. Kendal,” Karnaga says, as he signals into the hallway behind him. “Please remember that you are a guest here, as is Dr. Petronovich. I expect you to conduct yourself accordingly.”

  “Guest?” G.W. halts his advance on Petronovich and whirls to face Karnaga. “You call this slimeball your guest? Don’t you know what he did?”

  “Commander,” Petronovich says, “I will not stay here and be insulted.” But he does not actually move at all, perhaps because the narrow room is crowded with furniture, and any attempt to navigate his way out would take him perilously close to the crazed American.

  “Dr. Petronovich has come here for information about the kidnapping,” Karnaga explains. “Just as you have. As you may know, a Russian athlete was severely wounded in the same incident in which your daughter and her companion were taken. In fact, he was wounded in an attempt to prevent their kidnapping. Frankly, Mr. Kendal, I am at a complete loss to understand your bizarre behavior.” A group of as many as a dozen uniformed men has gathered in the doorway behind Karnaga, who restrains them with a casual wave of a hand.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” G.W. explodes. “He’s the guy who planned the kidnapping,” he says, waving an accusing finger at Petronovich. “He’s the brains behind the whole operation.”

  “You accuse me of planning the kidnapping?” Petronovich’s face turns purple. His mouth begins to twitch. He actually advances a step toward G.W., but then stops as he apparently thinks better of it. “One of our best athletes, the flower of Russian youth, a lad who is as dear to me as my own son, lies bleeding and unconscious in a hospital bed because of his heroic attempt to foil this atrocity, and you have the audacity…”

  In mid-sentence, Petronovich seems to notice Jago for the first time. “Now I understand,” he says, nodding, his voice still quaking with anger. “It is the traitor who fills your ears with this monstrous lie.” He raises his cane and points it at Jago. “And in your grief, you suspend your reason and believe him.”

  “Traitor?” Now it’s Jago’s turn to be upset. “You dare to call me a traitor? It is you who are the traitor, you demented old scoundrel. It is you who betrays all of the athletes of the entire world with your wicked schemes. It is you who orders terrorist acts against your competitors in a pathetic attempt to ensure victory for your own athletes.”

  “Danziger,” Petronovich snarls, as if it were some kind of curse. “You were a failure in Czechoslovakia, and you will always be a failure. You are not clever enough to recognize your limitations. You persist in blaming your shortcomings on others, as you have always done.”

  “Why, you…” Now it’s Jago who advances toward the old man, who stubbornly holds his ground.

  “You are so predictable, Danziger,” Petronovich chides. “You have such a simple mind. In your twisted brain, you blame me for your lack of success in your own country. And now, at the first opportunity,
you take advantage of this tragedy to smear my good name with your pathetic lies.”

  “Your name has been a synonym for evil for too many years, old man,” Jago shouts back. “I will not rest until I see you exposed for the vile, vermin-infested mongrel that you are.”

  “Enough!” Karnaga shouts, pounding a fist on the desk. “Enough!” He begins to pace back and force in the small room, his face screwed into a deep frown.

  “Commander Karnaga,” Petronovich begins, angrily, “I demand…”

  “Silence!” Karnaga growls. “I am the only one who demands anything in this building.”

  “Make him tell you where the girls are,” G.W. demands. “He set the whole thing up. He knows where they are. He may be our only chance to find them. You’ve got to…”

  “Nobody tells me what I have to do.” Karnaga turns to face G.W., his eyes burning like coals. “You are in my country, in my city, in my building.” For emphasis, he jabs G.W. in the chest with each my. “And here I tell you what to do. And now I am telling you to shut your mouth and allow me to think.”

  “What the fuck is there to think about?” At Karnaga’s poking, G.W.’s hands ball into fists, but, with obvious effort, he doesn’t raise them. Sweat drips from his forehead. “While you’re ‘thinking,’” he says, derisively, “the goddamn terrorists are out there somewhere doing God-knows-what to my daughter. While the son-of-a-bitch who planned the whole thing is standing right there in front of you, laughing at you. He’s making a fool out of you!”

  Surprisingly, Karnaga does not reprimand G.W. for his outburst. Instead, he strokes his chin and regards G.W. thoughtfully. “Have you any proof that Dr. Petronovich is involved in this incident?” he asks. “Or are your charges merely speculation?”

  “Proof?” Petronovich is outraged. “Of course he has no proof. His ridiculous charges are the product of a deranged mind. You do me a great disservice by even asking such a question, Commander.”