Cursed Days

by J. M. LeDuc

  Stepping in a bit closer to her, Brent said “What’s there not to get? You were there. You were an eye witness. You were by my side when the Pope asked me to go and recover the Ark of the Covenant. You heard what dire consequences could occur if it fell into the wrong hands. What is there not to get?”

  Chloe stopped pacing and stood face to face with Brent, chilling him with an icy stare. Brent’s eyes locked onto hers. A lump formed in his throat and his heart skipped a beat. “You’re damn right I was there, Colonel Venturi! I was there in the tunnel when we found out you would have to endure unforetold suffering. I was there in the church when The Butcher sank nine inches of steel into your chest.” Chloe’s anger peaked as her pent up emotions erupted from her mouth, like heat from a volcano. “I was there,” she yelled, “holding you as the life drained from your body. As your hot, sticky blood poured onto my hands, soaked through my clothing and onto my skin. I was there when the paramedics pronounced you DEAD.”

  Stepping even closer, Brent could now feel the indignation coming from her lips every time she spit out a word. Chloe poked a well manicured finger in Brent’s chest, directly over his still fresh wound, as she continued to speak in a curt, clipped manner. The indignation had grown to a more venomous shrill. “I was there when you died, not once, but three times in that bunker. I was there when the doctor shocked your heart back into rhythm time after time after time. . . ” Pounding her fist on his chest, she continued to scream, “I was there!”

  Brent was at a loss. His entire life, his adult life anyway, had been dedicated to the service. He did what he had to do and never worried about how it affected others. During the time he dated Chloe, he had been estranged from the Phantom Squad, so ‘business’ was never an issue. Over the past year, reunited with both the squad and Chloe, she had always been involved with their missions. This was virgin territory.

  He wrapped his arms around his wife, trying, hoping to calm her down. Softly he said, “What do you want me to do?”

  Her face flushed, Chloe looked up at him. “I want you to say no. I want you to stay here with me and our unborn child. I want you to be the husband and the father I know you to be. That’s what I want you to do.”

  Brent squeezed her tight, knowing that his next words might be his last in a long time. “You know how I feel about you. There should be no doubt in your mind. As far as our child is concerned, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I would lay down my life for either of you and you know that.” He could hear Chloe begin to sob on his shoulder as he spoke. “But,” Brent sighed, “you knew what you were getting yourself into before we married. We spent hours, days talking about the fact that Brent Venturi no longer exists. I gave up that right when I accepted my position as the leader of the Phantom Squad. I am first and foremost a child of God, but secondly,” he said before Chloe could butt in, “I belong to the squad. My life belongs to the four members under my command and it is my duty, my responsibility to go where and when I am called.”

  His last words made Chloe’s emotions percolate. Her anger bubbled deep within until it had nowhere to go but out. She pushed him away from her. Words exploding from her mouth. “What part of this don’t you get? This is not squad business. That’s what I have been trying to get through that thick skull of yours. This is some favor for the Pope. My God, you’re not even Catholic.”

  Standing at arm’s length so he could look into her eyes, Brent’s look grew dark. Chloe felt as if she was looking at someone she didn’t know. “This is Endowment business,” Brent said, waving his arms around like a crazy Italian, “and if I do what I have been asked, I can keep this from becoming squad business. Do you think I want some religious terrorist coming to Palm Cove to try to find the first two Arks?” Raising his voice for the first time, he continued. “That’s when I would be putting your life, the life of our child and the lives of everyone else, including the squad, the SIA and ultimately the entire town at risk. I am not willing to take that chance. That’s why I have to go.”

  Without thinking, Chloe slapped him across the face. “You selfish bastard. Who do you think you are? Who said that it had to be you who had to save the world? Who said that it had to be you?”

  Lowering both his eyes and his voice, Brent said, “I’m not trying to save the world, I’m just trying to do what God asks of me, that’s all.” With those final words Brent pulled on his shirt and walked out of their bedroom. “I need to take a walk.” The bedroom door slammed behind him.

  From their side of the townhome, Brent’s mother, Lucille and his step-father, Joseph had heard the entire argument. Before he could make it to the front door, Brent was stopped by his parents. “Those were some pretty harsh words spoken in there, are you sure you want to walk out?” Joseph asked.

  Brent just shrugged his shoulders, “I need some air, that’s all.”

  “Honey, don’t take it to heart,” his mother said. “Chloe is under a lot of stress. With her pregnancy and the happenings of the past weeks, her emotions are just getting the best of her.” Brent brought his hand to where Chloe slapped him. He opened his mouth to speak, but lowered his hand and opened the door to leave. Thinking more about it, he turned back to his parents and said, “The last time I saw her like this, she walked out of my life for seven months. How long it will be this time?”

  Chloe had been listening from inside the bedroom. Brent’s final words cut deep into her heart. She wanted to run after him, tell him that she understood, but she couldn’t, she didn’t. She just slid down the wall and slunk to the floor. “Wha . . . what am I supposed to do, Lord,” she sobbed. “I don’t want our child raised by his grandfather, like Brent was. I don’t want The Endowment to tear our family apart like it did his. I can’t make it alone.” Rubbing her stomach, she cried, “I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to raise our child alone if he doesn’t make it home.”

  As she sat there crying, there was a knock on the door. “Honey, may I come in?”

  Chloe wiped a tear from her lips. “Please, not now, Mom.”

  In a stern voice, Lucille said, “Yes now, this is not something that can wait. Not if you love your husband.”

  Reluctantly, Chloe stood up and opened the door. Putting her hands in her hips and cocking one out to the side, she made herself look as indignant as possible. Lucille stood in front of her daughter-n-law. Chloe brought her arms up and folded them across her chest, “I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

  Seeing her defensive stance, Lucille just smiled and calmly asked her to have a seat on the bed. When she didn’t react, Lucille sat down and gently pulled Chloe down beside her. Before she could begin to speak, Chloe said, “I’m not wrong, mom. I’m not going to give in just to make this decision easier. He’s bull headed and stubborn. If he says no to the Pope, someone else will be chosen to go on this. . . this. . . treasure hunt.”

  Taking Chloe’s hand in hers, Lucille said, “I’m not here to dissuade you of your convictions. I know that your reasoning is valid.” Nudging her with her shoulder, Lucille said, “I especially liked that, ‘you’re not even Catholic’ comment. That one got him.”

  Lucille’s words broke the tension.

  “You think that got to him, do you?”

  “Oh, yeah. When he walked into the den, his face was ashen and his jaw just hung open.” Lucille made a face trying to mimic what Brent looked like. Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. “For a second,” Lucille said, “I thought I was going to have to pick his tongue up off the floor so he wouldn’t trip over it.”

  Chloe’s smile slowly faded as Brent’s last words reverberated in her mind, “Mom, do you understand what I was saying and why I don’t think he should go? Maybe if it was another time. His wounds have barely healed.” Touching her stomach, she continued, “Maybe if we didn’t have a child on the way.” Looking into her mother’s eyes, she repeated, “Do you understand?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, you
have no idea how much I understand. I had this same argument with Jake, Brent’s father, more times than I can count. In the end, all it did was tear us apart, bit by bit. When he was killed and Joseph became the Ambassador, I swore that I would not make that same mistake again and I didn’t, not for a long time anyway.” A large crocodile tear emerged at the corner of Lucille’s eye and slowly slide down her cheek.

  Seeing this, Chloe dried Lucille’s face with the sleeve of her nightgown and with great concern, whispered, “What happened?”

  “On the night that Joseph was to go and meet Donavan Ferric at the diner to exchange information, I asked him, no, I begged him not to go alone. He insisted that it was just a quick bite between friendly adversaries and a transfer of information and then the evening would be done. As he was leaving, I said some things that I will always regret.”

  Lucille’s emotions had broken down and by now that she was resting her head on Chloe’s shoulder. “What did you say to him?” Chloe asked as she ran her hands through her mother’s hair.

  “I told him, screamed at him, that he was no longer the man I thought he once was. I yelled that the Joseph Conklin I knew would have always called in for backup. I screamed, you’re not God and God will spite you for thinking you are.

  “Joseph looked back at me from the door of our home and said, ‘You just don’t understand. Lucille, please look at me.’

  “But I wouldn’t, I just turned the other way and stood my ground. His last words to me that night were, ‘I love you’, but I never answered back. An hour later I thought he was dead. Every night, for over a year, I cried myself to sleep because I was too stubborn to say, I love you back to him. Two weeks ago when I discovered he was still alive, it was still hard to look into his eyes, because of the guilt I felt.” She wiped her eyes and looked directly into Chloe’s. “Don’t make the same mistake I made. Find Brent and talk to him. Make this thing work for both of you.”

  Chloe kissed her mother on the cheek and hugged her tight. “Thank you, mom.”

  Chloe threw on a pair of jeans and a white tee shirt, grabbed her car keys and ran out the door.

  “That was interesting,” Joseph said as Lucille came back into the great room. “I don’t remember any of that story.”

  “If you tell it to anyone,” Lucille said with a smile, “I’ll be the one to kill you next. A mother has to do what a mother has to do.”

  CHAPTER 4

  By the time Brent made the beach run to The Loft, the all night coffee shop, it was a little after three in the morning. The creaking of the old wooden steps announced his welcome long before he ever made it to the third story employee entrance. “Ay, my friend,” Benito said in a heavy Italian accent, “whata brings you here in the middle of the night? I haven’t seen your face here at this time of night since your lady love returned and made you an honest man.”

  Looking at the guilt laden, furrowed brow on Brent’s face, Bennie said “Hey, you no look so honest now, what’s up?”

  “Enough of the interrogation, Bennie, I just needed some air, that’s all.”

  “Oh, like you need some fresh air at three twenty in the morning, eh? Don’t take me for such a fool. Go sit down and I bring us both a Cappuccino, then we talk, capisci?”

  Knowing it’s not possible to win an argument with Bennie, Brent smiled, nodded and said, “Yeah, I understand.”

  Benito Scarlucci, affectionately known as Bennie, had become a close friend of Brent’s over the past four years or so, since he had been back in Palm Cove. More than that he had become a member of The Endowment’s inner circle due to his help with Ferric’s henchmen, not to mention being present at the Phantom Squad’s reunion. His insight and uncluttered way of seeing things had become a valuable tool, not only to Brent, but also to Maddie, the Director of the SIA.

  Brent gave Bennie an overview of his argument with Chloe and then sat back and hoped to hear words of wisdom from the lips of his friend. Benito just shook his head from side to side, not saying or offering any help at all. “Something, Bennie, say something. Am I wrong? Do you think I’m abandoning my family?”

  “I cannot be the one who tells you these things. These things come from in here,” Bennie said, putting his hand over his heart, “not from Benito. Why don’t you think about it while I go check on the customers downstairs?”

  Brent took a sip of his cappuccino and then ran his hand through his long dark hair. This shouldn’t be so hard, he thought. Chloe knows how I feel about her. She knows that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her, but she also knows who I am. She’s asking me to be someone I’m not. Taking another sip, he thought, or maybe, she’s right. Maybe I do think I’m someone or something I’m not. “Damn, it shouldn’t be this hard,” he thought out loud.

  The clinking sound of a coin bouncing off the tile covered table made Brent open his eyes.

  “A penny for your thoughts?”

  Brent looked up to see his wife standing at the door to the kitchen. In a simple pair of jeans and a white tee shirt, she still took his breath away. “My God, you’re beautiful,” he said.

  “Oh, so we’re going to try lying, is that it?”

  Smiling, Brent said, “You’re such a wise ass, Ms. Adler.”

  “Hey, that’s Mrs. Venturi to you, and that’s one of my most redeeming qualities and one of the reasons you married me, Mr. Venturi.”

  “That’s Colonel Venturi to you, Mrs. Venturi. Now have a seat.”

  “Said one wise ass to the other,” Chloe said as she sat.

  Taking each other’s hands, the words, “I’m sorry,” rolled off their tongues in unison.

  “I really am sorry for what I said back at the house,” Chloe said. “I’m just so confused over this mission. Please tell me why you feel the need to go. Help me understand.”

  Brent squeezed her hands tighter and waited for the words to come. Just as the silence was becoming uncomfortable, Bennie broke the tension. “Now my simple restaurant is a much more beautiful. Even at three thirty in the morning you sparkle,” he said as he kissed Chloe on both cheeks. “I will the server bring you your favorite, a hazelnut cappuccino and chocolate biscotti. Now, you talk and I’ll be back later.”

  Chloe smiled and thanked Bennie for his generosity. He just gave a loving nod in return.

  “Now,” Chloe said, turning her attention back to Brent, “where were we?”

  “I was just about to put my foot in my mouth,” Brent said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Seriously, Babe, tell me why you feel the need to go on this—quest?”

  “I don’t know if I can put it into words,” Brent said. “When I pray and ask God to help me decide what I should do, the answer comes back that it has to be me leading this expedition. If I close my eyes, I can visualize being in the Israel. When I visualize not going, I see danger and unnecessary death, death that I could have prevented if I had agreed to go.”

  Chloe closed her eyes for a moment, to help gather her thoughts. When she opened them, she said, “Will you try an experiment for me?”

  “Anything, what would you like me to do.”

  “I want you to close your eyes and visualize, me, here, alone and tell me what you see.”

  Brent closed his eyes and looked into the darkness of his mind. He looked past the blackness, until he reached a place where God seemed to speak to him. Ever since his enlightenment in ‘God’s Place’, in the tunnel, it seemed when he could mentally and emotionally get to this place, he could hear God’s words clearly.

  Keeping his eyes closed, Brent said, “I see you frightened. You are not scared for yourself, but for me. I see you being comforted by Mom and Joseph.” Smiling, eyes still closed, Brent continued, “I see us together again, and I see me swearing to you that I will not leave your side again, at least not until our child is born.” Opening his eyes, he said, “That’s what I see.”r />
  “Do you swear to God that is what you see?”

  “I swear,” Brent said, lightly stroking Chloe’s hands.

  “When would you have to leave, and who is going with you?”

  Without any hesitation, Brent said, “If we leave within the next day or two, I’ll be back before Christmas.”

  “What if you don’t find the Ark in time?”

  “We will, but if we don’t, I’ll abandon the search. I will be home for Christmas, I promise.”

  “And a man never forgets his promise,” Chloe said with a smile.

  “Great, now you’re quoting my mother. Talk about guilt.”

  Laughing, Chloe said, “I’ve learned from the best.” Regaining her composure, she added, “You never answered the other half of my question. Who will be going with you?”

  “I plan on asking Seven and Bishop Jessup to come with me.”

  “Not Joseph. He’ll be disappointed.”

  “I know, but it’s too soon for him to leave Lucille and I think he will be of more help here.”

  “How so?” Chloe asked.

  “According to the Pope, if the other party searching for the Ark gets to it before we do, they will try and find the other two. That means that they will be heading to Palm Cove.”

  “But how would they know to come here?”

  “That, I don’t know, but if they do, I’ll want Joseph here helping Maddie and the rest of the Phantom Squad.”

  Thinking for a moment, Chloe asked, “Let’s say that they do figure out where to go and they do arrive in Palm Cove, is there any chance that they will find the other two Arks?”

  “Nobody knows where they are except me, and even I would need a miracle to get to them, so no, there isn’t much chance.”

  Chloe sat back and took a sip of her cappuccino while she thought about their conversation. Leaning over the table, she kissed Brent lightly on the lips and whispered, “Let’s go home. We have a lot to do before you leave.”