Panacea

by Brad Murray

  Her mind was in overdrive with possibilities; every single one of them negative. She was prone to pessimistic thinking - for it was in her worrisome nature. Just as when Andy disappeared, and every imaginable terrible scenario crossed her mind, Emma was inclined to think the worst. The fact that Andy never returned – which, because she never gained closure, was a thousand times worse than any scenario she imagined - only reinforced the tendency. Her therapist told her it was a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – “a cognitive distortion that elicits catastrophic thinking.” She took a deep breath and “practiced mindfulness of thoughts” as the doctor had instructed.

  There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation, she reassured herself. Jimmy probably had a party…or maybe he had simply spent the last week living like a damn pig, the way twenty-something single men do.

  Still…it didn’t feel right.

  She began to dial her son on the cellphone, but was interrupted by a loud banging at the screen door, just a few inches behind where she stood. Startled, Emma let out a whimper and dropped her phone. She swung around defensively, turning to see who was behind her at the screen door.

  A young, red-haired girl in pigtails stood innocently on the porch. Her arms were draped behind her body and she rocked back and forth, heel-to-toe, while humming a tune. She smiled politely, a splash of freckles on her sprightly face.

  Emma cracked the screen door and leaned her head outside.

  “You scared the daylights out of me!” said Emma with a polite grin. “Sorry hun, I’m in a rush, so you’ll have to come back later with whatever you’re selling,” said Emma.

  The girl’s eyes narrowed and her warm smile morphed into a scowl. She balled her fists and placed them firmly on her hips. Her eyes were fixated on something behind Emma’s shoulder, inside the house.

  “These wankers are mental! Why tha’ fuck they always think I’m sellin’ somethin’ Sis?” she growled.

  22

  Today - May 29, 2011

  Jimmy must have tried his mother’s cell a dozen times on the walk between the conference room and the steel door that blocked the stairwell leading up to the hangar. Brumeux customarily led the way, the security doors bowing at his presence as he passed. Jenny, La’Roi, Andy, and Jimmy followed suit; Andy focusing intently on the high-tech phone his son was tinkering with. Stern had disappeared somewhere during the course of their walk, veering off silently down a dark hallway on some initiative of his own.

  “She was going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for the week, but she was coming back home today,” Jimmy told Andy.

  “Hopefully she hasn’t made it back,” said Andy. “With any luck, she hasn’t left their house yet. Why don’t you use your phone to call and see if she’s there.”

  “Already did. No answer. Gram and Gramps usually can’t hear the ring anyway. But since nobody answered, I bet Mom’s already left.”

  As the stairwell security door whooshed open, a blast of warm, summer air rushed over them. Andy filled his nostrils and closed his eyes, pausing at the bottom step of the airplane hangar to savor the first fresh air to enter his lungs in over a decade. His knees wobbled a bit as he ascended, but with each step the vague scents of cut grass and wheat dust seemed to bring him strength. With each step, he was closer to seeing the blueness of the sky, and to reveling in the warmth of the sunlight. With each step, he was further away from the dungeon in which he had subsisted for longer than he cared to think about. As they reached the top, Andy placed his hands behind his hips and sucked in the fresh air as he tried to catch his breath, his head spinning.

  “I’ll try Uncle Ram,” said Jimmy, staring down at his phone. “He can go over to the house and see if she’s there. I’ll have Ram take her somewhere safe.”

  Andy’s joy in being outside was but a fleeting moment.

  “Son, you need to understand a few things about Ram,” Andy said. “He’s not who you think he is.”

  Jimmy looked up from his phone and was struck by the foreboding look in his father’s eye.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jimmy.

  “He’s one of them.” Andy nodded towards Brumeux, who had stopped at the mention of Ram. Brumeux turned and faced them, his expression grave.

  “What?” said Jimmy, sneering at the impossible notion. His face scrunched up until there were a dozen wrinkles and creases about his forehead and eyes.

  “It’s true James,” said Brumeux. “Who you knew as Roger Ramstein was one of my field agents. My most trusted field agent to be exact. He had been tasked with the most important role of all – he was our watchtower and your safeguard. He kept a careful eye over you and your family, a role in which he took great honor. His real name was Traugott. He was the son of one of my closest colleagues. I trusted him as much as anyone, and there was no one else I would have assigned to watch over you from the farmhouse just down the road.”

  “Why are you talking about him in the past tense?” asked La’Roi.

  Brumeux sighed and looked down at the cement floor.

  “I’m afraid Traugott – or who you knew as Roger Ramstein – has died.”

  “What?” breathed Andy.

  “No way,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “You’re lying. I just talked to him last night.”

  “I’m afraid it is true James,” said Brumeux gloomily. “The motorcycle on the interstate this morning – the one you mentioned had the accident with the deer?”

  “Yeah, the big guy in all black who –“

  “That was him. He was tracking you on the road to help us keep you from reaching St. Louis. The contraption on his back was an oxygen tank, a precaution I put in place in case there was a mishap with the gas. But, alas, it wasn’t a cloud of poison that killed Traugott; it was fate. A harmless single deer that happened upon the road at just the wrong time.”

  Jimmy thought of the man on the motorcycle; the man who up until that point was faceless. Imagining Ram’s face inside that helmet, and revisiting the vision of Ram’s lifeless body strewn about the ditch in pieces - it was numbing. He stomach churned and he became dizzy. Andy grabbed his son by the shoulders to steady him. Jimmy’s strength failed, and he felt his knees buckle. La’Roi rushed in, grabbing a chair nearby, and helped Andy guide him down. He plopped onto the chair and buried his face in his hands; the memories of Ram flooding over him.

  There were so many.

  ***

  As a kid, he had always loved going to Ram’s house. On nights when his mother was working at the diner, he’d fall asleep on Ram’s sofa, alongside Cooper. He remembered the time they watched pro wrestling on Ram’s TV; the three of them emulating the wrestlers and laughing themselves silly. Jimmy remembered Ram getting a phone call that night from a woman, and how Ram had told her, “No, not tonight,” Ram winked at Jimmy. “I got my boys with me.”

  Jimmy grinned from ear to ear.

  ***

  Jimmy flashed to the Christmas when his mother and Cooper had long fallen asleep, and he and Ram stayed up til after midnight, eating fudge and telling jokes around the kitchen table. Jimmy recalled Ram becoming very serious all of the sudden, the smile-creases in his eyes fading. He fidgeted with the clasp on his wristwatch, taking off the silver piece, and held it out for Jimmy to see.

  “This is a man’s watch,” Ram said.

  Jimmy nodded.

  “A man’s watch. Can’t wear it unless you’re a man. That’s the rules.”

  Jimmy nodded again, unsure where this was going.

  “You’re fourteen, and the man of the house. Which means you can wear it now.”

  Jimmy eyes widened, his eyebrows raised.

  “I want you to have it. Merry Christmas, Jimbo.”

  Jimmy reluctantly reached for the silver watch. It was heavy. Sophisticated. Jimmy could feel the weight of its significance in his palm. He didn’t know what to say.

  “It was my dad’s before it was mine. And now it’s yours.”

  ***

  Jim
my gazed through the tears at the silver watch on his wrist. There wasn’t a day gone by since that Christmas night that Jimmy hadn’t worn the watch. He had to take a few links out of it at first - Ram’s wrists were thicker than Jimmy’s forearms at the time – but it was the best Christmas gift he’d ever received.

  His mind flickered to his last conversation with the man. The one in which he’d treated Ram like dirt. Said those horrible things. He didn’t mean any of them.

  Now he’d never be able to take them back.

  Jimmy broke down , and the tears flowed down his cheeks and dripped onto his legs. Andy did his best to console his son, but he too was dealing with the shock of it all. For, despite what had happened between the two so many years before, Andy ultimately came to realize that Ram had only been doing his job. The Roger Ramstein he knew and loved was the real deal. Ram had taken care of his boys. Protected Emma. And for that, Andy would be forever grateful.

  Jimmy’s traumatized mind shot from one memory of Ram to the next, a flurry of snapshots in time. He thought of the motorcycle this morning and cringed when his mind’s eye recalled the collision with the deer. Brumeux’s words bounced around in his head. Fate killed Ram, Brumeux had said.

  Jimmy lifted his head from his hands, wiping away the tears with the back of his hand.

  “It wasn’t fate that killed him,” said Jimmy, staring blankly at Brumeux. “It was you.”

  “Excuse me?” said Brumeux.

  “The reason the deer ran into the road, the reason all the animals were running was because of you. You sprayed that gas everywhere and caused them to go crazy. It’s your fault he’s dead!”

  Brumeux huffed. He had already accepted that Traugott’s blood was on his hands. He had learned to accept the blame for the deaths of so many others in the name of the cause. Beginning with that fateful night in 1970 when his decisions killed Benjamin Porges and his friends Traugott and Adler, and ending today with the death of Joerg Traugott, Brumeux had developed a means of acceptance. Each of those deaths carried with it an initial pain, grief, and guilt. But his mind had learned to wall it all off with impressive efficiency.

  “You are correct of course,” he said. “But he died conducting his mission to the best of his ability. He died protecting what he believed in – you.”

  Jimmy shook his head and rolled his eyes. He started to pull together a retort, but before he could open his mouth, his cell phone buzzed.

  “It’s Mom,” he said, looking at the screen through blurry eyes.

  “Mom?” said Jimmy, beyond relieved to get her call. He expected the soft, yet sturdy voice of his mother, but what he received instead was her polar opposite.

  “James Porter?” said a loud, sharp voice in a thickly Irish accent. The girl’s voice was high-pitched, young, sinister.

  “Listen sharply, ye fuckin’ wanker. We’ve got yer dear ol’ Mum here at yer shite smellin’ pad. If ye want to see ‘er again, yull get yer ass here right quick.”

  “Don’t hurt her!” Jimmy cried. “Let me talk to her, please!”

  “We’re the ones uh givin’ the orders ‘ere, Fuckstick. But since we’re in a good mood, I’ll put ‘er on fer ya.”

  Jimmy’s listened intently but could make out nothing but muffled voices and distorted background shuffling. Suddenly, his mother’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “James, it’s me. I’m fine. Listen to me, don’t come –“

  His mother was cut off with a resounding thud. She let out a muted cry of pain. She’d been struck by something - likely a fist.

  “Like I was sayin’,” said the Irish voice. “if ye want to see yer Mum again, get yer ass ‘ere pronto.”

  “I’m hundreds of miles away,” said Jimmy. He glanced at the airplanes in the hangar. “Listen, just give me a couple of hours to get there.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then Jimmy heard a flurry of hushed voices, barely audible in the background.

  “Where are yuh?”

  Jimmy’s mind frantically searched for a response. Instinctively, he didn’t want to admit he was at the Order-controlled Outpost. If what Brumeux said was true, admitting he was with the Order might bring more danger to his mother than there already was.

  “I’m in some little hospital somewhere,” said Jimmy. “There was an accident on the interstate and –“

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Yev got two hours to get ‘ere. And bring Brumeux with ye too.”

  “Who?”

  “Brumeux.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  A few seconds of long silence as the girl on the other end weighed the truth of his response.

  “The clock is tickin’, Jimmy Porter. And if ye bring any coppers, we’ll slit yer Mum’s throat on the spot and make ye watch ‘er bleed out.”

  The phone clicked and the call came to an end. All eyes in the hangar were on Jimmy.

  “They’ve got Mom at the farmhouse,” Jimmy said. “They said to be there in two hours, and no cops.”

  “Did she sound okay?” said Andy. His fists and jaw were clenched.

  “Yeah, she sounded fine,” Jimmy lied.

  “Did they say anything about the Order?” asked Brumeux.

  “They told me to bring you along. I said I’d never heard of you.”

  “Very wise my dear boy,” said Brumeux. “Very wise indeed.”

  Jimmy nodded towards the Learjet. “Let’s go, Brumeux. Get me to Springfield and have a car ready for me when we land so that I can get to the farm.”

  Brumeux scoffed disapprovingly. “Out of the question! Have you not listened to anything I’ve been telling you? It’s you they’re after, not your mother. If you show up there alone, you’ll be in the Alicante’s hands. Why, the entire world will be in great peril.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” said Jimmy. “They’re going to kill her. We have to do something.”

  “I’m sorry James. But I cannot take you.”

  Andy lurched forward and grabbed Brumeux by the collar. “You’ll instruct your men to fly us to Springfield or –“

  “Or what Andrew?” said Brumeux. “You’ll hurt me? Kill me? I would rather die than let James fall into the enemy’s hands. My people will not be the slightest bit phased by you holding me hostage either. They will not compromise.”

  “I’ll fly us,” Jenny blurted out. “I can’t fly the jet – I’m not rated on it. But I am certified on the twin engine Baron over there.”

  Brumeux’s expression dropped.

  “Miss Jordan! You will do nothing of the sort. Need I remind you that such dereliction of duty would forever mar your record. And needless to say, this defiance will result in you spending a long stint of time living in the very prison cells you have guarded for the past several years. If you –“

  “Shut up Brumeux,” barked Jenny. “I’ve heard enough bullshit from you to last me a lifetime.”

  Brumeux’s jaw dropped.

  “I can’t just sit by and let bad things happen to good people,” Jenny continued, looking at Andy. “I knew something wasn’t right. I knew you didn’t belong in that cell. But I didn’t do anything about it. Let me help you. I owe you that much.”

  Jimmy couldn’t help but admire Jenny as she defied Brumeux. In an instant, it had become clear she wasn’t one of his ilk after all. Those gorgeous blue eyes of hers suddenly seemed all the more stunning as she distanced herself from the Order and Brumeux. She took her pilots’ procedural walk-around of the twin engine piston plane, feverishly inspecting the landing gear, and checking the flaps. She had climbed into the pilot’s seat, began flipping switches, and motioned to Jimmy, Andy, and La’Roi.

  “Come on guys, let’s go.” Jenny’s voice was commanding. Her mind made up on the mission at hand, her training as an agent took over. Cool and confident, she told Jimmy to remove the pair of chocks that kept the wheels from rolling. Jimmy did as instructed and then jumped into the backseat.

  Brumeux continued to
hurl threats towards Jenny. Finally, when it became apparent that his threats were falling on deaf ears, Brumeux turned to Andy to appeal to his good judgment.

  “Andrew,” he said, “search your instincts. You know this is a terrible idea. All that I’ve told you today about the Alicante is true. Think of your son. Think of the world!”

  “But what about Emma?” asked Andy. “We can’t just let her be killed!”

  Brumeux’s expression hardened. “There are bigger concerns than Emma.”

  Andy saw red. He decked Brumeux across the jaw, sending the old man spilling to the floor.

  “There is no bigger concern than my family!” screamed Andy as he pointed his finger in Brumeux’s direction.

  Brumeux sat up and rubbed his jaw, watching helplessly as Andy and La’Roi boarded the plane. The engines roared to life – first one, then the other – and the little plane rolled steadily out of the hangar and onto the tarmac. Stern came sprinting up the stairs, two at time, and stooped at the old man’s side, offering a hand.

  “Are you alright sir?”

  “Yes, Stern. I’m fine.”

  Brumeux open and closed his jaw, ensuring it was still in proper working order.

  “Perhaps my body is more frail than I thought,” he said, standing up with Stern’s assistance. “Or perhaps Andrew is stronger than I gave him credit for.”

  The two watched as the Baron soared down the runway, lifting steadily into the blue Kansas sky.

  “Would you like me to get you a dose of serum?” asked Stern.

  “No, I had that one coming. I deserve to let the pain run its natural course.”

  “Understood sir.”

  Stern shifted in his stance uneasily. He turned to face Brumeux. “I just spoke with Command. They’re concerned about a storm cell that is beginning to build in eastern Kansas. There is a chance it could build directly in their path.”

  The blood drained from Brumeux’s face, his eyes filled with concern. “We have planned for nearly every possible scenario. Tried to control every possible outcome. But you cannot account for Mother Nature.”