by Glen Carter
Sully took the measure of him. “Never let a drowning man get hold,” he said. “He’ll take everything you got. Even your boots.”
46
The coast guard crew had hands all over Abe. Ripping open his bloodied shirt, applying surgical bandages over the bullet hole in his shoulder. An oxygen mask was held in place, while a second set of hands got an IV running. Too many people were below deck, bumping, knocking things over while Sarah hovered nearby, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. A hand-held radio squawked that an ambulance was ready at the dock. A paramedic answered with Abe’s vitals and general state of health. Abe muttered something inside the mask that sounded like a threat.
Bolt watched through a porthole as Sully headed An Faoilean back to port, low in the water and chugging black smoke that floated lazily into a clear blue sky. Sully gave a couple of blasts of the horn, the same one they’d heard earlier through the fog. Sully had been at the helm, monitoring the coast guard chatter and chasing a blip on the radar. He’d come upon Bolt and the other one locked in combat at the back of Mystic Blue. Seen them go in with not a hope of coming back. The way Sully told it, he grabbed his own grappling hook, plunged it right to his shoulder, until he snagged Bolt and brought him up. Only Bolt, thank God. The other one was gone to the bottom with Bolt’s boots.
Satisfied that Abe wasn’t going to hurt the first responders, Bolt pulled himself topside for some fresh air. The coast guard Zodiac bobbed at Mystic Blue’s stern. The helicopter overhead was running a recovery mission and was joined by an armada of police craft and fishing boats. A pair of divers backflipped into the water from one of the vessels and vanished beneath the surface.
Sarah emerged from the hatch followed by one of the paramedics. “Your man won’t be moved,” he said. “You’re going to have to take us in.”
Bolt nodded, then punched the starter and got them moving. Sarah took a seat next to him at the wheel. She was quiet, and Bolt guessed she had a head full of conflicting emotions. Few of them black and white or remotely reconcilable. They were waiting on shore to hear everything. She’d talk until they had all they needed for the public record, which she would finally set straight. Sarah reached into her pocket and withdrew a small digital recorder, the same one from the night at Jürgen’s lighthouse. “You should listen to this again,” she said. “This time let it play till the end of the recording.”
Bolt stuffed it into his pocket and pulled her close. She placed her head on his shoulder and hummed softly, and for the first time there was quiet inside him. Maybe the buzzing had come from some repelling electrical charge, as if two wires were coming into contact. A universe out of balance with the collision of hostile forces and one now terminated at the bottom of the ocean. Had that been the point all along?
The humming stopped. Sarah began to weep. Her shoulders shook so hard Bolt had to steady himself against her. He was helpless to find words, tethered to her as he was, while she fought a swirling riptide of feelings. A moment later, Sarah’s quaking softened to sporadic tremors, and then she was still. Bolt inhaled deeply, hoping she would find footing on the landscape of her emotions. He had been the genesis for most of what she had discovered, though he knew she would push through. To again become the woman Kallum had cherished. And in an equal way, Bolt had found his own peace, for which he was exceedingly grateful. Bolt plucked at the echo of the voice that filled his head while he was drowning.
Kallum?
I am not.
Then who?
Bolt was puzzled still.
The energy of life has no time, no beginning or end.
Why me?
You’ll know.
Maybe he already knew. A soul had hungered for revenge. Olaf had spelled it out, made it plain to see. Though the voice beneath the waves was definitely not Kallum’s. If not, then what soul had driven him to set things right? And was there a more vital imperative that transcended a soldier’s need for revenge?
Madman of a harmless nature. In Rutter’s case, a dangerous madman.
Sarah gripped his hand, stirring in him an affection he had never felt before. “Kallum and I were planning to sail away,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “He’d say stormy seas be damned. Sunrises are new beginnings, which matter more than anything. I suppose it was a young man’s naive romantic sentiment.”
Maybe not so naive, Bolt thought, tightening his fingers within hers.
Epilogue
Sarah put the car in park.
“I could be a while,” Bolt said.
“I’ll be here,” she replied.
Bolt nodded, kissed her on the cheek, and got out.
He stood there in a sliver of shadow cast by the tall Cross. Nervously preparing himself. The phone call that brought him back was spoken in the hush of a confessional. Father Oscar had told him something was waiting. Something he had waited too long to see. Too long to know.
“There is a lot I have to say,” Oscar had said. “After the two of you have spent some time alone.”
The two of you?
Afterwards, Bolt had wired his casino winnings to the orphanage bank account, except for a tidy sum to a homeless mother. Susie would never have to celebrate another birthday in a shelter. Liz had called him a day ago. She was excited about her new job as the anchor for the network morning show. Would he be her first interview? There was so much he could say. So much she wanted to know. The Washington journos were feasting on the Rutter story, determined to cover all the angles. Had Rutter’s wife, the heiress Sarah Vanderson, been behind the leaking of the damning video, or was it Diana Doody, the mother of one of the dead Marines? Neither was speaking. Abe and Sully were being pursued as well, but Abe had told all of them to get lost. Besides, they were much too busy aboard a tour boat named Mystic Blue.
Bolt told Liz no thanks on the exclusive interview, and she had agreed to respect his privacy.
A day ago, there was a call from Ginny Dwyer, who was back on the Rutter story and getting lots of attention because it had been his yarn all along. He was in a limo, about to guest on some network news program.
“Hearing something, Bolt. Trying to chase it down before I go on-air.”
“Hearing what?” Bolt was sure he heard the tinkling of ice cubes against glass.
“They’re giving Kallum Doody his medal,” Dwyer said. “The Defense Secretary is going to Harbour Rock to apologize personally to Sarah and Diana. As a family friend, can you confirm?”
“No comment.”
“Jesus, Bolt. Throw me a bone. We were drinking buddies.”
“Have a good show, Ginny.” Bolt hung up. It wasn’t the Defense Secretary going to Harbour Rock. It was the president, on behalf of a grateful nation.
After a moment, Bolt got his feet moving. Saw the trepidation on his face reflected in the glass at the front of the orphanage. He was met at the door. The nun had a kind look, with chubby red cheeks and sparkling eyes.
“You are Samuel.”
He nodded and followed her in.
Her black habit swished across the floor as they walked, a sound that Bolt would never forget. At the end of a long corridor, they stopped at the door to a library. The nun pointed at a long table in the centre of the room. “It’s there. I’ll return for you. Father Oscar is waiting.”
Bolt thanked her and watched her walk away.
The library was a jumble of mismatched tables and chairs, suiting small children. Shelves lined the walls, stuffed with books. The carpet was worn, smelling faintly of small feet and old food. Bolt walked to the table and sat, and without waiting another second, he removed the lid from a small cardboard box that was set there. A large photograph was the first thing he saw. He simply stared. She was a young woman with large, kind eyes and softly contoured cheeks. A slender nose and full lips. She wore the wimple and scapular of the order. A large gold
Cross hung at her neck. She was beautiful. Her name was Jacqueline. She was nineteen years old and a bride of Christ. She had broken her vows of chastity and obedience and had fled the orphanage, pregnant and scared. Desperation brought her back, to her death, but to spare any shame, it was kept quiet. The poor girl was dead, with no relatives. Her baby would be taken care of. It was not Oscar’s decision, but he would never have challenged the archbishop’s decree. The sheriff was a good Catholic and a friend of the orphanage, so he had done his part.
Bolt flipped through a handful of French documents, the proclamations of the convent where she became a nun. The records of her education before that. There was her Bible, with many passages underlined in red ink. Then he pulled out a small bundle of letters tied with a yellow ribbon. He tossed guilt aside and began to read, picking his way through the tortured English. The sweet ramblings of her parents, forever missing her, always worried for their only child. He replaced the bundle and pulled two more documents from the box. He stared grimly at two death certificates, issued on the same date. Bolt imagined the phone call that had shattered Jacqueline’s life, and afterwards, how desperately alone she must have felt. With her parents dead. In a way, he had always suffered the same loneliness.
Bolt spent a long time with Jacqueline’s photo. She had been part of something she would never have understood. Something that began with Kallum Doody’s murder in the desert of Iraq. Bolt felt sorry for her. The shame she didn’t deserve, and not the way she had died. He swept fingertips across her face. Tears pooled in his eyes. His mother. Her son.
A moment later, a hand was laid on his shoulder, causing Bolt to jump. It was the nun who had brought him. “She was so beautiful,” she said, admiring the photograph. “I wish I’d known her.”
Me too, Bolt thought. Me too.
The nun walked him to Father Oscar’s office. She left him alone. Bolt knocked. A second later, the door swung open. Father Oscar stepped to one side, allowing Bolt to enter. He smelled of alcohol. There were two cups on the priest’s desk, an open bottle next to them.
“I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of a head start,” said Oscar. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Bolt simply nodded.
Father Oscar poured into both cups, handed one to Bolt, and asked him to listen carefully. The mirth was gone from Oscar’s face. Replaced by a sadness that Bolt found hard to look at. He gulped from the cup and waited for the priest to begin.
“Jacqueline Duvier was born in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,” he said. “It’s a tiny village on the Mediterranean coast of France.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Bolt said.
“Then you won’t know its history.”
“Not a thing.”
“Mary Magdalene and her sister. They fled there from the Holy Land after the crucifixion of Christ. Bones were unearthed which many believe belong to the two women. It’s a special place.”
Bolt listened carefully, with no idea what the priest was about to reveal.
“Jacqueline was only a child when something wonderful happened.”
“A teenage pregnancy?”
“No,” Father Oscar replied, curtly. “Long before. When she was only a toddler. A day on the water aboard her parents’ little sailboat. A wave swept her overboard. She was gone, Samuel. Lost to the depths. Her parents were frantic, of course. They searched and searched but eventually had no choice but to surrender to their loss. A fisherman found them and towed them ashore. Carried them to the doorstep of their little house so they could notify the authorities and settle in to their grief.”
Bolt had plunged toward his own watery fate. The voice inside his head. The grappling hook tugging him back to life.
Oscar continued, slowly, precisely. “When they stumbled into the child’s bedroom—” The priest crossed himself. “—she was there, Samuel.”
“My mother.”
“Yes. Little Jacqueline. Fast asleep in her bed. The pillow was still wet. The smell of salt and seaweed was all over her.”
What a fantastic story, Bolt thought. How much was myth, how much was fact? Had the passage of time and religious fervour blurred the line? He would not challenge what the priest was telling him. What right did he have? “This is a long way from France,” he said instead.
“A village for saints had one more miracle,” said Oscar. “Jacqueline had no wish to spend her life with pilgrims praying at her feet. Her parents were modest, private people. The incident was never revealed. The Vatican was not informed. After she gave her life to Christ, Jacqueline made her journey. To us. She was desperate to get away, as far as she could, and she dearly loved the children.” Oscar paused, studied his hands. He looked up with tears in his eyes, his lips a mere dash. “I brought her home. To bury her next to her parents.”
“The death certificates.”
“Both were killed in a car accident,” Oscar said bitterly. “Afterwards, Jacqueline questioned everything. Even her faith. She stopped praying, retreated within herself. It was if she was trying to punish God for what He had done to her family.”
Punished God by abandoning her vows. And in the process, she had gotten pregnant. There was one more question.
“Father?”
“Yes, Samuel.”
“Do you think God had a reason for saving my mother when she was swept overboard as a kid?”
Oscar thought a moment, sweeping fingers across his tired face. “I believe there was a bigger plan, yes,” he replied. “With events connected across space and time that you were part of.”
And not just me.
“There is so much more to tell you, Samuel. So much I hope you will understand and find it in your heart to forgive.”
As Father Oscar gathered himself, Bolt thought about the digital recorder in his pocket. The end of the recording from his session with Olaf. It was just a string of words that he’d had to listen to a dozen times before he finally understood. Olaf’s regression therapy had taken him deeply into a past life, and he had relived the horrible moment of Kallum Doody’s murder. Doody’s soul had been reborn at the base of a burning tree. A strike of lightning and a clap of thunder had proclaimed a new life and the sins of a man of God.
Jacqueline, his mother, was dead, and in Oscar’s arms, the bloodied newborn had absorbed the few words uttered by the sobbing priest. A lifetime later, while under Jürgen’s lighthouse hypnosis, Bolt had clearly repeated Father Oscar’s desperate repentance to heaven and earth.
A boy, my love. Our son. May God forgive us.
Acknowledgements
I’m kind of like Abe Power, one of the characters in this novel. I’m a believer in things. It’s my default position, unless they can be proven not to be. As humans, we are sadly limited in our understanding beyond the horizons of existence. Do I believe in reincarnation? Prove to me that it doesn’t exist.
Many deserve gratitude for the book you hold in your hands. I say thanks to the energetic and enthusiastic crew at Flanker Press. Garry and Jerry and Margo Cranford. Also, to my editor, the talented Donna Morrissey, for her keen eye and wise guidance. A special thank you to Corporal Jamie McWhirter (Afghanistan) for his review and blessing for the military elements of my manuscript, and to the other readers who have added thoughts and ideas along the way.
And finally, thanks to my wife, Mary Jane, for her loving patience.
Visit Flanker Press at:
www.flankerpress.com
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