The Canary List: A Novel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Crockett gave it more thought, eyes closed.

  The man in a cassock had a stun gun for a weapon. What did Crockett have? Only the fact that he was conscious without the man’s awareness. And, perhaps, surprise.

  Not the surprise of lunging out of bed and trying to overpower the man. That would be anticipated. No. The surprise of the unanticipated.

  Crockett tried to focus on what might be unanticipated. This was difficult. Each waking moment hammered to him how thirsty he was.

  Anticipated: Opening his eyes, rolling over, and asking where he was and what the guy was doing there. Anticipated: Crockett jumping toward his guard. Anything opposite, then, would be unanticipated.

  Crockett rolled his head away from the direction of his guard. A waking man, especially in a strange situation, would immediate roll it back to survey his room. If his movement had caught the attention of the guard in a cassock, rolling his head back would be anticipated too.

  So Crockett simply left his head turned sideways and opened his eyes, seeing a sliding glass door that led to a balcony outside the room, seeing his clothes on a chair at the door, listening for movement behind him.

  Nothing. Maybe the guard was watching. Maybe not. Either way, Crockett still had only one pitiful weapon. Surprise.

  Fifty-Four

  aimie and Dr. Mackenzie sat in the stone courtyard of a big house, nestled between rolling hills. For Jaimie, the scenery looked similar to the familiar hills of southern California, but she could still feel how far away from her normal life she was.

  “Whoever owns this has a lot of money.” Jaimie didn’t like letting people know when she was impressed, but there was no getting around it here. She’d passed big mansions in Hollywood and guessed this is what those mansions looked like on the inside.

  “It’s a summer residence,” Dr. Mackenzie said. “For Cardinal Ricci. You’ll meet him soon enough. How are you feeling?”

  “Okay,” Jaimie said. “Except about Mr. G. Why can’t he be here with us?”

  “It’s better for Mr. G not to know why we are here,” Dr. Mackenzie said. “He’s in a hotel. Father O’Hare is going to explain a few things to him. But not everything.”

  “When this is over,” Jaimie said, “will Mr. G know what it was about?”

  “Best if he didn’t,” Dr. Mackenzie said. “We both agree, don’t we, that it’s going to be something you need to keep to yourself?”

  For the next thirty seconds, still listening for the scrape of a chair that might indicate his guard had stood, Crockett played it out in his mind, tried to calculate his odds. The upside of his plan. The downside.

  Odds, maybe fifty-fifty. The latch on the closed sliding door was in the upward position. Chances were that meant the door was open. With the element of surprise, he should be able to get there before the guard and stun gun.

  The downside of an unsuccessful attempt didn’t seem horrible. Stun gun, not pistol. They were only trying to contain him, not hurt him. If he didn’t make it to the chair with his clothes in time, at worst, he’d be stun gunned, maybe bound and gagged to stop him from trying something else.

  The upside was it was unpredictable. From his limited view, he saw that natural light was coming in through opened curtains at a sliding door. He saw the balcony behind the glass sliding doors, a matched set of chairs and table on the balcony, another good indication this was a hotel on the upscale side. He didn’t see branches, so his best guess said his room was at least three stories above the ground. He had no idea what was beyond the balcony. On the other hand, he did know what was inside the room. Somebody in a cassock armed with a stun gun.

  Crockett went with the odds.

  Hoping his guard was still immersed in reading, Crockett flipped out of the sheets toward the balcony. He didn’t look back.

  Two steps, he was there, pulling on the door, grateful it wasn’t locked. As it slid open, he grabbed the chair with his clothes and moved it onto the balcony. Then he slid the glass door shut.

  Only then did he glance inward.

  Stun gun in hand, the man inside was rushing toward the balcony.

  Crockett managed to slide the glass door shut before the guard made it. Now Crockett was in a good position, he thought.

  It didn’t matter that he had no way of locking the door. He put his full weight on the edge of the sliding door, at the center. The man inside could only pull futilely on the handle. Not enough leverage.

  This was delicious irony. They were separated only by a quarter inch of clear glass. Their faces were barely a foot apart, with his guard’s face clearly stricken by anger and frustration. A pistol could have obliterated the barrier, but the stun gun was useless. Something about the guy’s face. Familiar. Next step. No time to think about it.

  Shoulder holding the sliding door closed, Crockett reached with his outward hand for the chair he’d pulled outside. He maneuvered it to put one of the square legs at the base of the closed glass door, and quickly shifted the weight from his shoulder to both hands on the chair. Now he was pushing the door shut with the entire chair.

  Inside, the man in the cassock had dropped the stun gun and was trying to pull the door open with both hands.

  James Bond would have continued with the element of surprise, pulled the door open, reached around, punched the man in the face, grabbed the stun gun, and slid the door shut again, but Crockett was no 007. The man on the other side had considerable bulk. Even after a good night’s sleep, Crockett had doubts he’d be able to win a fight. Weakened by whatever drug had been pumped into his body, Crockett had no chance.

  Instead, he tilted the chair back, keeping the leg in place and wedging the back of the chair against the opposite edge of the casement.

  Exactly how he’d visualized it thirty seconds earlier. The chair was a wedge, making it impossible to open the sliding door from inside. Short of breaking the glass, cassock man couldn’t get at Crockett.

  Which meant Crockett had purchased some time. And a chance to learn more. At worst, if there was nothing further he could do to help his situation, he’d have to sheepishly open the door and accept the consequences of his failed attempt.

  From the bed, he had hoped for more than that, however, like a minute or two to stand there and shout for help. Maybe other hotel guests had open balcony windows and would come out and give him a chance to explain he’d been abducted.

  In bed, he even considered throwing the balcony table and chairs over the railing to attract attention.

  Inside, the man in the cassock was speaking into a walkie-talkie. Calling reinforcements. Okay, that would cut down on the time that Crockett had out on the balcony. Crockett threw on his shirt.

  Crockett scooped up his jeans and slid one leg, then the other into his pants. As he hopped to dress himself, he glanced over the balcony. Six, maybe seven stories high. Overlooking a fenced pool, with an array of lounge chairs, and beyond the fence, tile-roofed homes, and beyond the homes, a valley with cultivated green fields. A vague Californian look.

  Crockett’s best guess was that this was a small hotel, but he’d have to lean over the balcony and look both ways to assess that.

  Crockett hated heights. He already felt nauseous as it was.

  Then, idiotic as it seemed, he screamed as loud as he could. “Help! Kidnapped! Send police to this room!”

  Maybe a dozen people down below. Three, maybe four elderly women in bathing suits. Husbands to match. A young couple with kids. Two girls swimming. He saw their heads turn upward.

  “Send help!”

  Crockett glanced inside. The man in the cassock had clearly heard him.

  He saw the man’s face tighten with determination, then he retreated.

  “Police!” Crockett shouted. “Police!”

  People below simply stared. No movement that Crockett could see. Nobody lifting a cell phone to their heads.

  Another glance inside. He saw that cassock man had grabbed his chair from the doorway. Didn’t take rocket s
cience to figure out what was coming next.

  “Come on, people!” Crockett screamed. “Do something!”

  Now Cassock man was back at the glass door, raising his chair. About to slam it into the window.

  Crockett scrambled to stand on the balcony railing. He cursed about his hatred of heights.

  “Clear the pool!” he screamed. “Now!”

  He launched himself forward.

  Fifty-Five

  umping from the balcony had not been one of the options that Crockett had considered from the safety of his bed. But because he acted without thinking, the adrenaline and urgency overwhelmed any conscious deliberation that would have paralyzed him.

  He found himself flailing through the air, trying to pedal an invisible bicycle. Had he been going headfirst, the impact probably would have snapped his neck.

  Instead, the terror-inflicted bicycling action saved him from serious injury, as his feet broke through the surface tension of the water in two simultaneous spots. His clothes prevented the water from smacking bare skin, and the worst of the damage he suffered was banging his feet against the bottom of the pool. He’d been prepared for this, trying to roll sideways at impact.

  In a burst of bubbles, he tried to orient himself, then pushed off the bottom of the pool to break the surface and gasp for air.

  Briefly, he dog paddled, looking upward.

  He saw the priest staring down. Crockett grinned, purely from the exhilaration of survival.

  The priest disappeared from view, which reminded Crockett that he was far from safe.

  He splashed to the edge of the pool and clambered up. The two girls who’d been swimming were still paddling, well clear of where he’d landed. Their faces still registered shock. As did the faces of the elderly couples.

  “Police,” Crockett said. “Get police! Don’t any of you speak English?”

  He was met with silence, until one elderly man spoke in heavily accented English.

  “Drunk American! Have you no shame or public decency? Go home. Stay there. And tell your friends not to visit.”

  It was a clear message that he would have to do all of this himself. But not in bare feet.

  He saw a pair of sandals beside one of the men. He jumped out of the pool, dripping water, and grabbed the sandals.

  “Pay you later,” Crockett said, hoping the man didn’t chase after him.

  The man waved him away, apparently scared of a madman.

  Crockett ran toward the gate that led outside the pool area. His jeans and shirt dripped water.

  He didn’t know where he was going, just that it was best to be gone.

  Fifty-Six

  rockett sprinted from the back of the hotel, down an alley, to a main road that paralleled the beach of a small lake. His best guess was that the lake was only about a couple of miles across, small enough that he could see it was circular, surrounded by hills. A volcanic crater lake?

  He saw Old World piers and Old World wooden fishing boats. Light traffic. Cars like Renaults. Couple of Fiats. But no big Chevys or Fords. The surreal feeling that surrounded him since opening the door to Jaimie settled on him once again when he saw the street sign in front of him.

  Via Spiaggia del Lago.

  He was in Europe. The vaguely Californian look was in reality the Mediterranean look of the same latitude, different longitudes. Crockett knew he should have felt something—amazement, disbelief—any reaction. People don’t just get parachuted into foreign countries without some kind of reaction. But most, if not all, of his emotional currency was spent. He’d been swept into this flood of events and, exhausted, was simply trying to keep his head above water.

  Italy? Spain?

  No. Italy.

  With all the links between Jaimie and Madelyne Mackenzie and the Catholic Church, he had to be in Italy.

  He didn’t have much time to consider why he was there. His first priority was to put distance between himself and the hotel.

  Only trouble was, it didn’t look like any of the side streets led anywhere. This lake was in such a steep bowl, it was obvious that the main road followed the shore line and circled the lake, with the side streets ending barely hundreds of yards up the hills.

  He squinted ahead at a larger sign. SP140 Roma, with an arrow pointing at an exit. Another arrow pointed straight ahead. Castel Gondolfo.

  Roma. Yes, he was in Italy. And it was obvious by the rise and broadness of SP140 that the road would take him out of this lake bowl.

  He took a couple of steps, then told himself that’s what his pursuers would expect him to do.

  So Crockett moved off the road and found a thick set of bushes to hide in.

  He checked the ground for a colony of bugs or excess debris, and then he stretched out, glad for the warmth of the sun.

  Give it a couple hours, he thought. Then it would be safer to try to thumb a ride away from the lake.

  He was on his back, staring at the leaves above him, when he remembered what was significant about Castel Gondolfo.

  Crockett recalled reading that in ancient times wherever three roads came together, notices would be posted everywhere, because this was where the highest amount of traffic would see the postings. The word trivia came from the Latin words for “three” and “road.”

  That in itself was proof he had a memory for trivia. Including the recollection that Catfish had mentioned Castel Gondolfo somewhere in passing, during all that talk about the Catholic Church.

  Castel Gondolfo was the pope’s summer residence.

  Fifty-Seven

  n Crockett’s understanding of the world, most women had a reason to be wary of strange men. And the more attractive the woman, the higher the level of wariness. Men always wanted something. Crockett knew his face still bore bruises, and that would only add to the level of suspicion, especially because he was a man without money and a man who could speak only English in a country of Italians.

  Yet there were two simple words that could instantly diminish the wariness altogether.

  At the counter of the Internet cafe he’d hitched a ride to, after establishing that the young, attractive woman behind the counter spoke English, he began the story that he’d prepared with those two words.

  “My wife,” he started, smiling appropriately apologetic, “went for a drive with our rental car before I could get my wallet and phone from the trunk. It’s the best place for valuables, they say.”

  He touched his face and gave a dramatic wince. “Especially after what happened in Rome last week. Some men tried to steal my wallet then, and I made the mistake of saying ‘no.’ I kept my wallet, but paid the price. Gypsies, the police said. They told me next time … not to risk my life. I told them I wasn’t protecting my wallet, but my wife.”

  He watched the girl relax. A man who immediately establishes he is married is likely not on the prowl. And a tourist who fought off gypsies, especially to protect his wife—didn’t he deserve some sympathy?

  She shook her head in dismay at his predicament. “Your wife is a fortunate woman to have someone like you. My boyfriend …”

  She let her voice trail off as she shrugged.

  Crockett kept his hands below the level of the counter. He didn’t have a ring on his left hand. It might be morally wrong to deceive a college-aged girl so callously, but he wasn’t going to spend any time second-guessing himself or regretting it.

  “I’d like to send an e-mail to her smart phone to return with my wallet,” Crockett continued. “Could I leave my watch as a deposit for coffee and lunch and some time on a computer?”

  He put his watch on the counter.

  She barely glanced at it. “Soup? Sandwich? I’ll bring them to your table.”

  She pointed at an open table with computer screen and keyboard and slipped him a piece of paper with the necessary login information.

  “Thank you,” Crockett said. He smiled and pushed the watch toward her. She pushed it back at him.

  “Some places in Italy are f
riendlier than others.”

  No wonder people lied, Crockett thought. The rewards were great.

  Crockett gulped his coffee. It had been served in a small, bone-white cup. Espresso. Not big steaming cups like at Denny’s where the refills were fast and frequent.

  He didn’t dare immediately go back for more. Instead, he rubbed his eyes, waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

  On an intellectual level, he recognized he was halfway across the world, without money or identification. In a cafe with college kids with backpacks. Fighting jet lag and drug residue, he worried that at any second an avenging priest might burst through the door. Not to mention he was wanted for arrest in the United States and had broken all bail and bond conditions—involuntarily or not. That made him a fugitive, and it would be unwise to turn to the local authorities for help.

  On an emotional level, however, it was simply a new time bubble, a new reality. And a person could only live in the present. Crockett was beginning to feel like the dazed survivor of a car wreck, limping down the highway in search of help. A walking wounded on autopilot.

  Maybe it was like this for, say, soldiers new to combat. Ripped away from home and all the comforts of routine and familiar surroundings, looking through gun sights to fire at other soldiers who were buzzing bullets over their heads. You just accepted what it was, and did the best you could.

  A new reality. One you accepted and endured to the best of your ability until you could go back to the old reality.

  But could Crockett even return to his old reality? Chances were it was as gone as the marriage he knew he’d never recover.

  He logged on to his server, noticing that his fingers trembled on the keyboard. As much as he wanted to compartmentalize it philosophically, here was evidence that he wasn’t adjusting as well as he wanted to this new reality. But all it took was one image in his mind to steady himself. Mickey.