The Keeper

by George C. Chesbro

  “It’s what I call the Tailhook Syndrome. Most of the fliers who were at that convention are decent officers. They detest the acts that were committed, and they may very well detest the men who committed them. But there’s something they detest even more, and that’s the notion of turning in the men responsible. It’s like one big fraternity of arrested adolescents. They can’t abide the thought of being labeled an informer by their fellow officers. That’s why he wouldn’t help me.”

  “So this guy is willing to abide your being murdered just so he won’t be called a rat?”

  “I think so, yes. He’d rather die himself. He just can’t bring himself to betray his fraternity brothers.”

  “Which irritates you just a little bit. In fact, you’re damn well pissed at him. Hey, I can understand that.”

  “I was terribly hurt, Roy. I worked for this man for almost twenty years. He was my mentor. He taught me things that saved my life, and when there was something I needed that he couldn’t teach me, he sent me to people who could, like the SEALs. I was proud of myself, and this man was proud of me. For my entire career I assumed this man looked on me as a fellow officer and comrade-in-arms who deserved his respect and loyalty, and his help if I ever got into trouble. That didn’t happen today. Rather than jeopardize his relationship with his fraternity brothers, he chose to betray me, and he made that choice because I’m a woman. He made me feel small and helpless inside, like a little girl whose father had unfairly taken sides with her brothers, punishing her instead of them. He wouldn’t betray them, but he had no qualms about betraying me. I was certainly closer to this man than to my own father, and this feeling of being a child who was being pushed aside just hurt so much.”

  Roy smiled in the darkness as he stroked Jade’s hair. “Have you been abusing my poor, old body to reaffirm your value and pride in being a woman?”

  “Ah, you’ve found me out. There’s that, and salving the pain, but there’s also the fact that I’ve been mulling over the thought of jumping your bones ever since the day you walked up and huffed and puffed at me on the dock.”

  Roy laughed. “You’re a mysterious woman, Jahli Aden.”

  “Not really,” Jade said with a sigh as she pressed her lips to Roy’s chest. “I’ve just got a few things on my mind, some secrets to keep, and a lot of business to take care of. That’s why I seem mysterious to you.”

  “I think not. I know a lot of people with things on their minds, secrets, and unfinished business, and they’re not particularly mysterious.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Your work for the Navy was very dangerous?”

  “Mmm. About one percent of the time it was terrifying—when people I was watching caught on and came after me, and especially on the three occasions when I was actually captured. The rest of the time it was mostly unpleasant but exciting, and sometimes it was downright disgusting.”

  “Disgusting?”

  “I really don’t care to talk about it, Roy. Good-looking women operatives aren’t sent to work in monasteries and convents.”

  Roy thought about it, and then said, “Oh, Jesus. Did your husband know?”

  “Of course he knew. We were both professionals. It never occurred to him to take what I sometimes had to do personally.”

  Roy found himself breathing harder as he stared at the dark ceiling. Without realizing it, he had taken his hands from Jade’s body. “If you were my wife, I don’t think I could ever let you do that.”

  Jade’s manner abruptly changed. “My hero,” she said curtly, and then rolled away from him, got out of bed and walked into the adjoining bathroom.

  Roy, his heart beating rapidly, felt thoroughly confused as he continued to lie in the darkness. He also felt a sudden profound and inexplicable sense of loss. He waited until he heard the shower running, then got up, slipped on a robe, took a large bath towel out of a linen closet and went into the bathroom. He hesitated, then slid open the glass door of the shower stall a few inches. Jade was standing under a steaming spray of water, her forehead resting against the tiled wall under the showerhead, her face hidden by her hair.

  Roy cleared his throat, then said loudly enough to be heard over the hissing water, “I’ve offended you.”

  Jade shook her head. “No.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult your husband.”

  “I know that, Roy. When an otherwise smart and sensitive person says something stupid out of ignorance, it’s not an occasion to take offense.”

  Roy wiped condensed steam and spray off his face. “I’m stupid and ignorant because I said I might be a little upset if my wife’s work involved sleeping with other men?”

  “And the occasional woman,” Jade replied evenly as she brushed her hair back from her face and turned to look at him. “Ever see a baby whose lungs have been burned out by mustard gas or the corpse of somebody who’s died from nerve gas?”

  The question startled Roy, and he took a step backward. “No. I’ve seen some bad things, but not that.”

  Jade put her face back into the steaming shower spray for a few moments, then turned again to Roy. “I’ve seen whole villages of Kurds destroyed in poison gas attacks, streets and fields littered with bloated, blackened, twisted corpses, and it’s not something I’ll ever forget. Because of information I gathered, however I gathered it, I was able to save hundreds of lives on a number of different occasions. I’ve had the populations of entire villages moved to safety in a single night, Roy, so the people weren’t there when the planes with the gas canisters came the next day. In fact, for ten months one of my best and most consistent sources of information about upcoming poison gas attacks was a truly loopy guy by the name of Saddam Hussein. Doing what I had to do to save babies from having their lungs burned out seemed a good bargain. I was proud of the results of my work, and so was Max.”

  Roy felt as if he’d been hit in the heart by a steel fist, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe. His hand trembled slightly as he hung the clean bath towel on a hook by the shower stall. He closed the sliding glass door, and then retreated to the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed, folding his hands in his lap. He felt numb, out of his depth.

  Jade, toweled off, came into the room. She combed her hair, and then began to dress.

  “Jade, I’m sorry,” Roy said.

  “Don’t be. What I told you isn’t the kind of thing you hear every day.”

  “I just didn’t think. I’ve ruined things, haven’t I?”

  Jade had put on her jeans and sneakers, and now she pulled a sweater over her head and brushed back her hair. “Certainly not for me.” She paused, turned and winked at him. “Do you find me less mysterious now?”

  “No,” Roy replied in a low voice. He looked at Jade, and his heart ached. “If anything, you’re even more so. I can’t tell you how much respect I have for you and your husband.”

  Jade nodded. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

  Roy grinned nervously as he pointed to his lap, where his new erection had formed a tent in the folds of his robe. “Will you look at this thing? It has a life of its own, and this on a middle-aged man. I think you’ve permanently disabled me; whenever you come into sight, I can’t walk straight.”

  “Lucky me,” Jade said with a laugh. “I like your disability just fine.”

  “Then come back to bed and enjoy it with me some more.”

  Jade shook her head. “I have to go. Jade’s eighty-seventh rule of survival is to always leave yourself something to look forward to. I’ll look forward to dealing with your wonderful disability at some future date.”

  “Will I have to wait for you to have another bad day?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What’s Jade’s number one rule of survival?”

  “Avoid fools—not always the easiest thing to do.”

  Roy smiled. “You’ve got that right.”

  “I’ve got something else on my mind,” Jade said, sitting on the bed next to Roy and taking his hand in
hers. “Since you seem to have become my confidante, I want to share it with you. I’ve decided to put Max Jr. in a special school, where he’ll be protected. There’s a private school for kids with his kind of disability up near Newburgh. It has a good reputation, and I’m going to check it out tomorrow.”

  Roy stiffened. “That’s a mistake, Jade,” he said tersely.

  “I wasn’t asking for your opinion. It’s not your decision to make.”

  “It’s a mistake, no matter who makes the decision. Success in life doesn’t necessarily have a whole hell of a lot to do with success in school. For a lot of kids, school is just something they have to survive before they can start their lives. Max Jr. can survive Cairn High School. You won’t be doing him any favors by putting him in a special, protective school unless you can guarantee him some kind of special, protected life. He’s got a social problem; let him work through it. He can hang out with me until you’ve solved your problem with Henry Bolo. If we can work together on flushing Bolo, then we can work together to help Max Jr. I’m not using your son to try to insinuate myself into your life; I just happen to like the kid.”

  “It’s not just the threat posed by Bolo, Roy. You’ve seen the bruises on Max Jr.’s body. The other kids use him as a punching bag, and he won’t fight back.”

  “It will stop, Jade. I’ll teach Max Jr. how to make it stop.”

  “I’ve tried that.”

  “He’ll accept certain things from me that he won’t accept from you. You’re his mother, for Christ’s sake, and it embarrasses him to have you try to teach him how to fight. Sometimes a boy needs a man around. Let me spend some time with him. I hasten to add that I’m not trying to do either of you any favors. The two of you are a gift to me; I’m learning things about myself I kind of like, things I would have thought I was too old to learn. I want to keep learning.”

  Jade slowly, firmly, shook her head. Tears misted her eyes when she looked into Roy’s face, but she did not cry. “It’s all too complicated, Roy,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Right now I need simple. I’m hoping Bolo won’t specifically target my children unless they’re in my immediate vicinity, like they were the other night, but I can’t be certain. Right now Fatima is living in a religious community while she waits for the head honcho there to sprout wings or something. She may be surrounded by lunatics, but I figure she’ll be safe where she is, and I think Max Jr. will be safe at this school.”

  “You told me you wanted your life back. How can you get that if you give your children away?”

  “I’m not giving them away, Roy. I’m making sure they’re safe. I need the time and freedom from worry to track down Bolo. Jack has given me leave.”

  “And so you’ll wrap Max Jr. up in a cocoon for your own convenience. I told you he can stay with me.”

  Jade again shook her head. “It’s not just that I don’t want to be distracted by worrying about him. I don’t want him to be hurt any more, and I don’t want his spirit broken any more than it has been.”

  “His spirit isn’t broken., Jade. He just has to find out who he is.”

  “Thanks for the offer, Roy. And thanks for keeping an eye on him.”

  “Jade, stay here with me. I have another extra bedroom. The cops who are keeping an eye on your house are way out of their league when it comes to protecting you from Henry Bolo. The next time he comes after you with a grenade launcher, he may not go to the trouble of coming ashore. If Bolo does come after you again, I don’t think any Cairn cop is going to stop him.”

  “He’ll want the satisfaction of looking into my face when he kills me,” Jade said, rising from the bed. “That’s my edge. Alone and with no other responsibilities, I’ll be ready for him. If he does come here, it will save me the trouble of tracking down the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “But-”

  “Goodnight, Roy,” Jade said as she kissed him on the lips and then walked quickly from the room.

  Chapter Eleven

  i

  Jade tried to ease her pervasive and lingering sadness with the thought that the Bolton School, upon inspection, seemed even better than its description in the brochures she had studied. During her tour of Bolton, which was situated on two hundred acres of wooded grounds a few miles south of Newburgh, she had noted with approval its attractive dormitory living quarters, with a resident counselor for every twenty students. The food she had sampled at lunchtime had been appetizing and seemed plentiful. There were athletic fields, a swimming pool, and an integrated academic and residential program with structured activities throughout the day and evening. The teachers in the classrooms she had visited seemed competent and involved, and every faculty member was certified in Special Education. The classes she had seen were orderly, and the students, all of whom had learning disabilities of one kind or another, seemed spirited, cooperative, and happy.

  Even before her two o’clock appointment with the principal, Jade had decided that she was going to send Max Jr. here. At the Bolton School he would be free of the academic, physical and psychological pressures he constantly faced at Cairn High School. His tuition would cost her more than half her yearly salary as riverkeeper, but she knew she could live off her two pensions; if those were taken away as a result of her most recent actions, then she would find a second job and a cheaper place to live.

  She had not yet discussed her decision with her son, and the next step would be to bring him to the school and gauge his reaction. The Bolton School was close enough to Cairn so that she could visit him on weekends, and she hoped he would approve of her plan. She desperately wanted him to be happy as well as safe from the haunts of her past that had reared up in the present to threaten them all.

  Jade knew she was going to miss Max Jr. terribly. Her home would be empty as she continued her hunt for Henry Bolo, but only for the rest of this seemingly endless and mournful day would she tolerate the self-pity that was causing a perpetual lump in her throat and making her eyes fill with tears. She had dangerous business to take care of, she would be living under the constant threat of attack, and the enrollment of her son in this school was essential to her long-term emotional well being as well as his immediate physical safety. She kept reminding herself of this, and yet the tears flowed again after she left the principal’s office.

  She wanted to bring her emotions under control and center herself before she went back to Roy’s home to talk to Max Jr., and she stepped off the sidewalk leading to the visitors’ parking lot and headed across the campus toward the large building housing the school’s gymnasium and swimming pool. She needed a distraction to help her calm her nerves, and she thought she might find it at the gym; posters around the campus had announced an exhibition by West Point martial arts instructors that had begun at 2:30, fifteen minutes earlier.

  She went in the main entrance to the building and headed down a corridor to her left, following painted signs with arrows leading to the gym. Jade had decided she would watch the exhibition for a half hour or so; she would practice deep breathing to halt the flow of tears and dissolve the lump in her throat, and then she would go back to Cairn. Max Jr. must not sense any sadness or misgivings in her when she presented her plan to him.

  She went into the gym through the first entrance she came to, a side door, and found herself in a narrow corridor between banks of retractable bleacher seats that rose on either side of her. She could hear the sound of a body hitting a mat somewhere out on the gym floor, and the students and adults in the seats around her cheered and clapped. She walked between the bleachers to the edge of the gym floor, and as she looked across the polished hardwood she suddenly felt her heart begin to pound as a flood of adrenalin surged through her body.

  There were four men dressed in heavy white cotton jis with black belts out on the floor standing on a long, rectangular blue mat. One of the men was about Jade’s height, with close-cut hair and a scar running down his left cheek, and the last time she had seen him he had been staring blankly at her, sitting silent and unmov
ing despite the pain in his groin, in his jail cell along with the two other assassins who had attacked her out on the river.

  As Jade watched, the man with the scar was thrown to the mat by his sparring partner. He absorbed the shock of the fall by slapping his hands on the mat, instantly kipped up to his feet—and his eyes met Jade’s. The blood drained from the man’s face, and he took a step backward. Then he suddenly flushed with rage, clenched his fists and stepped off the mat onto the gleaming floor and started toward her.

  Jade dropped her purse and kicked off her heels, then reached down to her ankles and tore her pantyhose in order to free her legs and bare her feet. Then she stepped out onto the floor, hiked her skirt above her knees and crouched in a combat stance, one hand drawn back to her waist and the other slowly sweeping back and forth in front of her.

  The scar-faced man was barely ten feet away from her when he abruptly stopped advancing and looked around him. There were scattered chuckles and uncertain laughter as some people in the audience reacted to what they seemed to think was comic relief in the exhibition, one of the West Point warriors taking on some woman who was perhaps a mother of one of the students. Jade saw fury, frustration and uncertainty swimming in the scar-faced man’s muddy eyes as he tried to decide how to proceed in front of the few hundred students and adults who were watching his every move. Behind him, the three other instructors stood with their hands at their sides, looking thoroughly bewildered.

  Still weaving her right hand back and forth in front of her, Jade fixed her gaze on the scar-faced man’s jugular, her initial point of attack, and began to advance on him. She didn’t care about the people watching; she fully intended to take this man, crippling him if need be but not killing him, for she needed him alive to tell her where to go next. This time she would make certain that she interrogated him before the police arrived, and with no more than the nail clipper and pointed file in her purse she knew she would require no more than five minutes to get the answers she needed.

  But the man suddenly seemed to realize the hopelessness of his situation, and he spun around and bolted toward an exit at the rear of the gym. Jade, accompanied by appreciative laughter and applause from the audience, sprinted after him, bounding across the mat and past the three other instructors who were staring at her with their mouths open.