by Julian Folk
Ayelet watches the woman make a call, probably to 911.
“Do we have a pen and paper, like, to exchange information?” he asks.
“Shut up and switch seats, or we’re naming the baby Eric Rice Jr.”
Connor unhooks his belt and contorts his body in an accidental yoga posture to avoid Ayelet’s huge belly. She slides under him, wincing as the gear shift pokes her ass. Baby kicks in response to the unusual lateral movement.
Ayelet ignores him.
“Ready?” she asks Connor, who fumbles fastening the seatbelt.
The rear-ended woman, about fifteen feet ahead of them, steps out of the car. Ayelet guesses the woman relayed the Camry’s license plate number to the 911 dispatcher. She turns the key, shifts into drive and guns it.
The woman freaks out. Ayelet worries the right tires might steamroll her toes. But they don’t.
We’re clear.
“We’ll be arrested,” Connor says.
He breathes shallow.
“Bullshit,” Ayelet says.
She exits right, off the parkway, and stops in an empty Unitarian Universalist parking lot. She selects a good screwdriver from the toolbox and changes the plates to the Vermont ones Robert provided.
Baby presses the inside of her tummy. Not violently. Little guy knows who’s in charge, she thinks. He’s proud of his mommy.
The Camry crosses state lines.
Ayelet expects, at any moment, to be plowed by a truck, or obliterated by a drone strike. Connor sleeps. Thanks to his deviated septum, he sleeps loudly. Ayelet keeps it ten mph above the speed limit.
Four hours later, they approach their destination. The cabin appears weather-resistant. The kind of place that might keep you alive in Alaska, if you’ve got wood for the furnace. She recalls a disturbing saying about Vermont winters: it’s too cold for snow, at least until El Nino conditions materialize.
Then the barrel of a gun presses against her head. A fist grabs her hair. The aggressor wears black. Smoking hot, young, Japanese, dead serious: she popped the door in a split-second.
“Hey Hot Stuff,” Ayelet says.
“Shut up,” Hot Stuff says.
Ayelet didn’t see her or perceive Hot Stuff’s proximity.
Has she been driving for four hours with her door unlocked?
“On your knees,” Hot Stuff says.
Baby kicks.
Mommy complies.
The woman thumps her weapon against the roof.
Connor awakens, groggy and dumb.
“Hey, Tulip,” Hot Stuff says, “party’s out here.”
Chapter 13
Springfield, Massachusetts
The effects of asphyxiation, stress, and drugs—copious drugs—produce a lucid dream. Trippy, but not mad. Strange, but not meaningless. Robert embraces his layover in the dream world. Refuses any attempt to wake up. This sleep restores him. His body heals. The drugs sugarcoat it.
Christmas. The house in Prince William County. He and Melody purchased a farm, razed the existing structures and erected a modern Victorian joint, high ceilings and all. Of course, Robert regrets the five-and-a-half-hour drive from Mom and Dad on Long Island, especially considering Mom’s health, but life happens…
A nor’easter is pummeling the D.C. region. Wild whiteout blizzard. The boys invited friends to play in the snow. They terrorize one another.
Melody looks outside. Suddenly, no children. She slips boots on, bundles in a parka and trudges up the driveway. No one anywhere. Eight boys, disappeared. She panics. Calls Robert. He runs out in loafers and a Grinch-colored Christmas sweater. She follows. From the driveway, they call the names. No response. Robert traverses the yard calling: “Tyler, Ash Greyson…” And the boys POP out of the snow, startle the old folks, laugh at them.
Ha ha not funny…
Inside, Connor and Ayelet idle in separate rooms, about to tie the knot.
Connor rocks a blue tux. Ayelet rocks a red gown. Their unborn son serves as ring bearer. Their unconceived daughter serves as flower girl.
Ceremony in the living room.
The ghost of Eric Rice officiates. He rakes his molten sneer across the assembled family and friends. Those eyes, big and brown, magnified by thick-lensed glasses, they’re supernovae of hatred. Eric’s hatred is for human inadequacy. All he thinks of is human inadequacy and how it might be eradicated.
Bride and Groom ride in on the backs of African forest elephants. E.J., Connor’s old friend from high school, supervises the jungle animals. E.J.’s Facebook page says he decamped to Gabon to save the doomed beasts. Now he puts them to work.
Ayelet rides the cow.
Connor rides the bull.
The bull stands thirteen feet tall. Thank God Melody chose the house with the high ceilings. The pointed tips of the bull’s tusks shred the carpet as the beast transports Connor toward the fireplace. Bride and Groom dismount. E.J. leads the elephants away. They impale the walls, smash the cabinets, raid the food and wine, shit buckets and escape.
Nobody cares.
Mom and Dad stand with Melody on Connor’s side. Mom rests her hand on her bum heart. Dad flinches thanks to phantom pains in his missing fingers.
Cydney, Ayelet’s girlfriend/Maid-of-Honor/ex-lover, stands at Ayelet’s side. The bride’s parents ditched the festivities. Why?
Robert finds himself beating on a punching bag. He wears a sweat-stained tanktop and gym shorts. He throws hooks, crosses and uppercuts. He drops the gloves and dries his perspiring forehead.
I smell worse than the forest elephants.
He takes his place beside Connor as Best Man.
The ghost of Eric Rice begins:
“I’m going to register my objection at the outset.”
“Hell no you won’t,” Cydney says. She rocks a man’s suit. The sides of her head are shaved. Her dreads fall to her waist. “I’ll set you all straight: My girl Ayelet is gay as the day is long and hard. This wedding defines the word ‘absurd.’ ”
Other than Eric and Robert, nobody hears Cydney.
The crowd, including Bride and Groom, stares straight ahead.
Robert’s turn. A swipe of his hand dismisses Cydney’s objections as nothing. “Hold on,” Robert says. “Look at my little brother. He’s been in school since he was four. He hasn’t paid rent. The man’s ignorant of Adult Life. This is puppy love. Ayelet, let him go. Let him live his life.”
Now only Eric and Cydney hear.
The others stare straight ahead.
No one wants to listen.
Eric’s ghost butts in. His objection will not be denied:
“Connor has failed to earn the balls he was born with. He has failed to even try. Connor built a career on my back, destroying my good name, because I tried to help him become a Man.”
Only Robert hears him.
“And you, Robert…” the ghost says, his molten sneer hot enough to dissolve bone. “Your instinct is to protect your brother from the consequences of his actions. It should be. I respect that. But it’s still the wrong thing to do. Protect Connor’s life, and pay with yours, Brother. There’s nobody to come to your rescue. Is there?”
Eric’s ghost isn’t done:
“I’ll seduce Melody and knock her up, just like I seduced Ayelet and knocked her up. Your boys will call me Daddy. Forfeit your life, Robert, and I will live it. Watch me take on your responsibilities. And excel where you haven’t.”
“You’re a dead geek,” Robert says.
“Dead, reborn and transformed,” Eric’s ghost says.
Having rampaged and circled back, the elephants trumpet. The bull carries E.J.’s body on its tusks. Poachers shot him but missed the elephants.
The Bride, Groom and guests unfreeze. The ceremony concludes. Eric’s ghost curses Connor and Ayelet and marries them.
“Back off,” the ghost warns Robert. “Or Connor’s consequences transfer unto you.”
Robert laughs at the use of the word “unto” and wakes up.
Big
Bro felt healthier in his dream.
The brightness of the hospital light oppresses him.
Sweat pours down the sides of his convex forehead. Deep breaths tax his windpipe and lungs. The contents of the dream fade away. But the message lingers: Eric Rice still exists, somewhere, underground, possibly on the Dark Web, either as a person, inspiration or spirit. Rice connected with powerful people. They weaponized his pathology.
A nurse pulls the curtain to the side.
What the?
Nurse’s blurry face.
Robert sits up. His neck squeezes. Like it’s asphyxiating itself. He falls back.
“I’m fine,” Robert says.
“You’re stable, Agent Yard, but—”
He scans the tubes and wires attached to his body, above the belly button, afraid to look for a catheter.
“Get this shit outta me,” he says. “I’m withdrawing my consent for… whatever.”
He phases out.
He phases in.
Doped up and dopier.
Demands food.
Eats chicken parmesan on spaghetti.
Demands coffee, drinks Sanka.
Announces plans to leave.
Cleans his tray and phases out.
Robert wakes up still tangled in tubes and wires. They got him again. Those attempted breakouts were premature. This time he needs to pee.
He rips everything out. Praise the Lord no catheter. Stands on his own two legs, leaning this way and that, extends his arms to balance himself. New strength chases out old weakness. Narcotics mute the screaming pain of his neck and throat.
Barefoot, gown untied and muscular bubble butt exposed, Robert winds up nose-to-nose with his boss, O’Neil, a fiftysomething throwback who wears a cop ’stache.
“Piss with me,” Robert says.
O’Neil looks askance at Robert’s bare feet on the bathroom floor.
“You’re not concerned about germs?” O’Neil says.
“Not at the moment,” Robert says.
“Risk of plantar warts,” O’Neil says.
“Talk about the case.”
“Cops stopped in at your folks’. No sign of ’em. They’re combin’ North Berkshire for your brother and his wife. Same thing.”
“Perfect.”
“Meeting of National Security hotshots in Honolulu. NSA complex. Old style, cold war bunker. That creep Jasper asked for me. But the Director likes me here, so I could fuck his wife. I offered you, if you’re cleared to fly. Jasper said no but I told them I need to keep you out of the field, and you’ve been a team player, so he stopped arguing.”
“Fuck you.”
“Take good notes, Robert. Use your thermometer. Especially on the Jasper guy.”
Jasper. He interviewed Big Bro so long ago. Never said what agency he represented.
“Jasper’s still alive?” Robert asks.
“Still working a full day. I seen him walk home from Whole Foods in Georgetown. Unassisted. Canvass bag in each hand.”
“What agency?”
“No idea.”
“Let me get dressed.”
O’Neil washes his hands.
Robert shakes the dregs out and triggers the automatic flush. He sees a pink swirl in the basin. Bloody urine.
Other than the physical altercation, the cause could be one of ten different things. I’m not at my best. But the job calls. What Robert needs to know to protect his family, he’ll learn in Honolulu. He’ll bring it back home and go vigilante on their asses.
Rules are made for ordinary circumstances.
Not extraordinary ones.
Chapter 14
Northeast Kingdom
Connor and Ayelet kneel on the dirt path.
“What happened to the front end?” Nikki asks.
The dent concerns her. She doubts Robert handed them the car in that condition. Imperfections draw attention.
“Minor collision,” Ayelet says. “I switched plates.”
Nikki shines her pocket flashlight and searches the exterior. Finds nothing clunky like a GPS tracker. She examines their phones. Scrambled burners like the one Robert uses for the affair.
Little Brother and his wife may have lured police or been tracked by hackers. Nothing to do but wait. And fight, if it comes to that.
“You were there,” Nikki says. “Tell me what they did to Robert. Your own words.”
Connor, scatterbrained because he just slept, botches the account.
Ayelet tells it straight and adds:
“Connor behaved bravely. He hit the door like a bowling ball. Loosened it.”
Nikki wants to laugh at Connor’s bravery, but her eyes well up. She lowers the gun, shakes her head, paces, mutters to herself, appeals to the stars. Even though leafy tree branches hinder the view.
“We’re capable people,” Ayelet says.
Connor blushes.
“What about the attacker?” Nikki asks.
“They shot at him but he hopped the fence,” Connor says. “Likely lost him in the woods.”
Nikki dumps the contents of their bags onto the trunk and sifts. Nothing that transmits a signal. She fills the bags back up.
“One of you gather the stuff strewn inside the car,” Nikki says.
Connor nominates himself.
Funny, Nikki thinks. Little Bro has the polish of a rich kid. But his family is working class. Robert still has a veneer of roughness.
“Carry your stuff to the cabin,” Nikki says. “Go around back. Front door stays shut. You’ll find a pleasant surprise inside. I’ll stash your car at the base of the tree near mine.”
She nods toward hers, tucked under the 120 foot tall eastern cottonwood’s majestic crown spread. You could fit a Walgreen’s parking lot under this tree. An adjacent tree shelters the cabin, grants them immunity to aerial surveillance.
But not for long. The leaves will turn soon. And fall. In clumps.
Robert asked Nikki the favor, sharing few details but emphasizing the importance to his family.
Weeks after the affair began, Robert brought Nikki to a hotel in D.C. for a threesome with Melody. The ladies loved it. Robert wanted to make it a regular thing. His ultimate goal was to build an extension on the house and keep both women under one roof. But Melody balked. “I’m not ready to do Big Love yet,” she said. And she expressed skepticism that the FBI would tolerate the arrangement.
Melody permitted him to continue the affair. She accepted her husband’s animal nature. Robert reconsidered the FBI’s history as a prude institution and insisted on keeping the affair secret—when they found out, coworkers and superiors would never believe it was conducted with Melody’s permission. So Nikki and Robert did it in the shadows.
That was four years ago.
At her boyfriend’s request, Nikki took leave today and drove to New York. Stuck in traffic on the Belt Parkway, she heard the news about the North Berkshire killings on 1010 WINS and Robert’s name on NPR.
The danger of the case repulses Nikki as much as it rivets her. She cursed Robert for not assigning her more vital duties. After all, her day job is to crack down on interstate stalking. It’s been her only job at the Bureau.
And Robert excluded her from this.
Kidnapping his parents and taking them north, she felt criminal. When she opened the door to the cabin, where Robert typically kept minimal necessities, she found non-perishable food and supplies stacked to the ceiling. Her task is to babysit his loved ones. His task is to eliminate the threat.
But why do it off-book?
Because the Digital Siege might be an inside job.
That makes her fear for everyone’s safety, especially Robert’s.
She walks to the cabin in pitch darkness, indifferent to the distant coyote howls and nearby insect songs, missing Robert, afraid he’ll do something stupid now, worried about where her sex is supposed to come from.
She sees nothing, hears nothing of the reunion inside. Robert hung the best blackout shades. You wouldn’t sus
pect anyone was home. In the dark, you wouldn’t suspect a cabin was even here. She turns the corner.
Connor and Ayelet loiter at the door like indecisive teenagers.
“I told you to go in,” Nikki says.
“Why don’t you show us the way?” Ayelet asks.
Nikki’s bad attitude waxes:
“Okay…”
She steps toward the door. Ayelet lunges. A rock in her hand. She brings it down fast but Nikki swivels, clamps Ayelet’s fist and cups her throat. Nikki could’ve sidestepped the pregnant woman and allowed her to smack against the cabin. But that might’ve harmed the baby or induced premature labor. Either outcome would have ruined Robert’s plan.
The rock clunks on the earth. Nikki’s throat hold weakens Ayelet’s resistance. Connor gapes.
Nikki knocks and lets the incompetent rebellion go.
Jan answers, a hand on her heart.
“Hey guys,” she says.
Connor melts.
“They attacked Robert, Mom,” he says, crying monsoon tears. “Xavier hired me, and they shot him two feet in front of us.”
“Robert drove from D.C. to North Berkshire,” Ayelet says, her own monsoon tears triggered.
“Almost seven hours—” Connor says.
“Four people got shot at our house, while we were on TV,” Ayelet says.
“We saw the news, hon,” Jan says. “I feel so sorry for the families.”
“Robert came in after the police,” Ayelet says.
“He stuffed envelopes in our pockets and headed to the bathroom,” Connor says.
“A guy jumped through the window and strangled him,” Ayelet says.
“We have to find out how Robert is,” Jan says, looking at Nikki.
Nikki shakes her head: “No chance.”
“He’ll live,” Connor says. “He’s strong, so strong.”
“How’s the baby?” Jan asks.
They bunch on the couch and sob as a family. Nikki opens a bottle of red. She permits a tear to run down her cheek, past her nose and then wipes it away. She’s an expert compartmentalizer: That was my cry for the day.