by Brad Murray
“Carpe diem I guess, huh?” said La’Roi, turning in his seat to face Andy.
“You bet your ass.”
Jimmy glanced at the clock on his cell phone. “Guys, it’s been almost ten minutes and Jenny’s not back.”
“Carpe diem,” Andy exhaled. “Let’s go get your mom.”
La’Roi and Jimmy locked eyes and grinned. “You bet your ass,” they said in unison.
27
Today - May 29, 2011
The three men huddled in a semi-circle in the darkness of the field. They argued in whispers. The storm had passed, saying its good-byes with deep-throated rumbles of thunder as it moved eastward to hunt new targets. Across the field, a light from a window in the Porters’ farmhouse beckoned, partially concealed by swaying tree limbs.
“No way,” whispered Jimmy. “I should go in alone. You guys should hang outside.”
“Out of the question, Bud. We’ve already settled on this. I’m not going to just stand out here and wonder what’s happening to you two inside that house. I’m coming too.”
Jimmy started to argue but was cut off by La’Roi.
“Doesn’t matter – moot point,” he exhorted. “Whoever’s waiting for you in that house is gonna know you didn’t get here on your own. They’ll know right away you didn’t drive – where’s your car? What are you gonna tell them - that you hitchhiked your way here? Besides, we flew right over top of the house – they had to hear us. They’ll know you were on that plane and you can’t try to pretend like you flew it here.”
Jimmy sighed, feeling foolish for not having thought it through.
“No,” continued La’Roi, “the best thing for us to do is stick together. Right?”
Jimmy and Andy nodded in unison. A sudden sharp cracking of a tree limb stole their attention. The men froze and halted their breathing, narrowing their focus on the dark void from which the noise had emanated.
Seconds passed with no signs of movement.
There was little light to aid them; the moon still cowered behind the thick storm clouds in the east. Finally, Jimmy broke the silence.
“Had to be Jenny, right?” he whispered.
“If it was Jenny, she’d keep walking out here to us,” reasoned La’Roi.
“Could have been a critter of some sort,” said Andy. “Or maybe a limb that gave way from the wind storm.”
“Yeah,” said La’Roi. But it was a “yeah” that said he wasn’t buying into the idea of a rogue raccoon making a racket in the woods.
“Let’s get a move on,” said La’Roi. He trudged away from the airplane in the direction of the farmhouse, keeping his head turned towards the row of trees. Andy and Jimmy followed suit, forming a single file line.
“So what do we do, just walk right up to the front door and ring the doorbell?” asked Jimmy.
“I’d be willing to bet they’ve got people outside waiting –“ started Andy. Andy had stopped mid-sentence, his full attention on La’Roi. La’Roi had come to a sharp halt, holding his hand up to signal Andy and Jimmy to do the same. His body was stiff, resembling a trained hunting dog. His full attention was on the tree row a hundred yards out.
“Someone’s coming,” he whispered.
Jimmy strained to see in the blackness of the night. He scanned the tree row from left to right but saw nothing. It was only when his focus shifted away from the trees and to the field in front of them that he saw it.
A figure was approaching. And approaching quickly.
“Is it Jenny?” Jimmy whispered, alarmed at how close it had come to them before La’Roi had noticed.
“No,” said La’Roi. “Too big.”
“Should we run?”
“What’s the point, Bud? We’re here to meet whoever has your mother. Might as well start now.”
As it advanced to within thirty feet of the men, the shadowy figure began to take shape. His features transitioned from black to grey; athletic shoulders and a slightly bow-legged gait conveyed a sense of strength and verve. And the manner in which he determinedly moved in their direction conveyed a sense of single-minded purpose.
He was not at all afraid of them.
Beams of moonlight began to peak through the clouds, partially illuminating one half of the stranger’s face. He looked to be in his early thirties. He had wide-set eyes with protruding cheek bones and an angular jawline that made him appear lion-like. He was holding something in his right hand; something that he was extending towards them.
A gun.
Intuitively, Jimmy took a step back and held up both hands.
“Oh shit,” breathed Jimmy, “he’s got a gun.”
Andy and La’Roi instinctively retreated a few steps as well.
“Woah! Hold on there, Chief,” pleaded La’Roi. “We’re unarmed.”
The stranger took another step before stopping in his tracks.
“Which of you is Porter?” the man asked in a thick Spanish accent.
Jimmy glanced in his father’s direction before answering.
“I’m Jimmy Porter. Who are you?”
Silver light of the moon illuminated one side of his face, and Jimmy noticed one corner of the man’s mouth turn up.
“You are fortunate to have landed the craft in such terrible weather,” he said, ignoring the question. “I would love to hear the details of your landing, but I am to bring you inside. I must ask you gentlemen to turn and walk towards Mr. Porter’s home.”
He waved his gun in the direction of the house, demonstrably motioning for the men to move. Andy started towards the house without hesitation. La’Roi followed suit, with Jimmy close behind, and the man with the gun bringing up the rear. As the group came to the end of the field and entered the grassy front lawn of the Porter’s home, La’Roi sighed audibly.
“You alright man?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
La’Roi turned his head, smiling at Jimmy over his shoulder. “But if we get out of this alive, remind me to stay the hell away from you.”
***
Emma could not calm herself, as hard as she tried. She sat chewing her fingers, mulling over every possible scenario in the fifteen minutes since the plane had buzzed over the house. Her captors seemed to believe Jimmy was aboard the plane, and whatever they wanted from him, she had concluded it wasn’t good.
Lars stood and began pacing about the room. He circled near the Sisters, who were bent over one of the pair of crippled bodies lying at the foot of the stairs.
“Sit up ye useless dick,” said one Sister, cackling.
“Aye, let us see yer ugly mug,” said the other.
One of the Sisters maliciously tugged the man they called Minkowski by his nose, while the other yanked him up from his shirt collar. Drops of dried crimson had coagulated near the top of his bald head, and a dark patch had settled on his cheek – the result of lying in a small pool of his own blood. As he sat up, he leaned against the base of the stair railing, wearily eying Emma with his one non-swollen eye. He seemed broken – not just physically but spiritually - and the pleading look in his eye seemed as if he were appealing for her to somehow put him out of his misery.
“What’s the story, Minkowski?” barked Lars tensely. “What do you know about the airplane?”
Minkowski meekly shrugged his shoulders. Lars looked down on him with disgust, turned, and paced away. One of the Sisters knelt down to Minkowski’s level and traced a line over the pool of caked blood on his cheek. She grinned and laughed hysterically; insanely.
“Ye better speak up, ye shitehead,” said one Sister.
“Unless ye want me and Sis te git fresh with ye some more,” said the other.
Lars’ white eyebrows and liver-spotted forehead curled up as he started to scold the Sisters, but he stopped abruptly, held his index finger to his earpiece, and walked away.
“Yes, I see,” said Lars. “Is it him? Yes, that would be fine. Excellent work, Malvado.”
Lars made eye contact with Letta.
&nb
sp; “You were correct, dear sister,” he said gravely. “We are indeed going to have visitors. Malvado is bringing in three men – apparently from the plane that landed in a field not far from here.”
“Fantastic,” said Letta. “Did he confirm that James Porter is one of the men?”
“He’s bringing them in now,” Lars said, nodding. “We’ll interrogate them here.”
“Fine,” said Letta. She motioned sternly towards the Sisters.
“Prepare yourselves, ladies.”
“Aye Mum,” said one Sister.
“Aye,” said the other.
The Sisters took their positions, one remaining near Minkowski and his blonde friend by the stairs, while the other stood post, adjacent to Lars and Letta in a far corner of the living room. Lars stood tall over his sister, one hand resting reassuringly on her shoulder. The aging duo eyed the front door with solemn, unblinking focus. Emma, sitting on the couch in the middle of the room, turned in her seat to see the door, not knowing exactly how to feel.
On one hand, she hoped Jimmy would walk through that door and alleviate her natural motherly fear that her son had been hurt. She hadn’t been able to get the picture of that crumpled white truck out of her head, nor could she get purge the vision of a wrecked airplane with Jimmy’s battered body inside. On the other hand, she hoped the three men who had walked out of that airplane and were about to walk through the front door were complete strangers – that none of them was Jimmy. Despite Lars’ and Letta’s declarations to the contrary, she couldn’t help but believe they had bad intentions.
The creak of the front porch made her heart skip a beat and shot a jolt of electricity coursing through her veins. That creak had become like a doorbell over the years; her ear was trained for it. The footsteps now were deep, and the porch complained noisily under the weight of several new visitors.
They were here.
Emma held her breath as the doorknob twisted. The door opened slowly – agonizingly slowly – taking its sweet time in revealing who stood behind it.
A young black man entered first. He wore an official uniform – dark pants and white shirt adorned with patches. At first Emma thought he was a police officer and her mind raced with the fantastic possibility that she was about to be rescued. But a closer inspection of one of his patches revealed he was a paramedic. A paramedic from a place called Parsons; a place Emma had never heard of. The man’s eyes bulged out their sockets and his mouth hung open as he slowly, cautiously entered. He apprehensively surveyed the living room and the seven occupants staring back at him. When his eyes came upon Minkowski and the blonde, it was as if the wind had been knocked out of him. His expression drooped; he shook his head as if annoyed and turned to the open doorway behind him.
“Dammit Jimmy,” the paramedic said, hands on hips, barking towards the front door. “They got people tied up and beat to shit in here!”
Emma’s heart both sank and jumped with joy at the same time. As the paramedic stepped inside and cleared the doorway, Emma saw her son. He shouldered past the paramedic and made a beeline towards her. He rounded the sofa in two giant strides and took a knee in front of his mother.
“Jimmy!” cried Emma. “I was so worried you were hurt.”
She enveloped her son in her arms, holding him just as she did when he was a boy. Jimmy squeezed her firmly, rubbing one hand up and down her back. She didn’t want to let go. In fact, she didn’t want to let Jimmy out of her sight ever again.
Jimmy pulled out of his mother’s hug and locked eyes with her. His expression was solemn.
“What is it?” she asked.
Jimmy glanced over her shoulder briefly before returning his gaze to hers. He was searching for the words, and Emma sensed the gravity of what he was about to tell her.
“Mom,” Jimmy started. His voice was almost a whisper and she could see his eyes glass over.
“What Jimmy? What is it?”
Jimmy pressed his lips together and nodded in the direction behind her.
“Mom,” he smiled. “He’s back.”
Emma searched Jimmy’s face for a trace of meaning before standing, spinning off of the sofa and whipping her head around behind her in one move.
There he was – the face she’d been searching for everyday for the last twelve years. He looked terrible. His face was devoid of color, other than the dark grey bags hanging under his eyes. He was thin and gaunt and his skin possessed such a pallor, that it appeared to Emma he must be ailing. But it was him. She couldn’t mistake those eyes.
Those blue eyes.
Those same blue eyes that had enraptured her some twenty-five years before.
How it could be?
Was it really him?
Her world began to spin and she became light headed as if she’d just jumped off a whirling carnival ride. She felt the strength in her legs wane and her knees buckle as she helplessly spiraled towards the edge of the sofa. Fortunately, the strong arms of her son were there to catch her just before she blacked out.
***
By the time his mother came to, his father had scooped her up and laid her on the sofa. Jimmy watched affectionately as his father carefully stroked her hair, head in his lap. It was strange to see them together again.
Wonderfully strange.
It was something he had long thought impossible. His father had been, for all intents and purposes, dead. And now here he was – alive and well – in their house, in their living room, once again holding his mother.
Emma slowly opened her eyes, blinked, and gazed up at Andy. She was in a dream-like trance; unable to look away for fear of Andy disappearing again if she did. She studied him, exploring every detail of his face. He had grown old beyond his years, the age lines obscuring the face of the man from her memories.
Andy did the same, absorbing every minute detail of his wife. He ran his fingers over her cheeks, across her forehead, and through her hair.
The scent of her hair.
That wonderful scent faintly teasing of strawberries and fresh cut flowers flowed over him, filling his brain with memories of their early days together. In all the time away from Emma, recalling the exact smell of her hair had never crossed his mind, yet more than a decade later the recollection was summoned up as familiar as if it were yesterday.
They were so thoroughly engrossed in each other that nothing else and no one else existed. The shock and numbness of it all were overwhelmed by raw emotion; by absolute, unfiltered, and inexorable emotion. Emma held her hand over her mouth in a feeble attempt to contain it. Her vision blurred from the swell of tears, her throat tightened and her entire body began to convulse in a fit of gasping sobs. The harder she tried to stop from weeping, the stronger it pushed to escape.
“I…I thought of holding you like this…just like this…every single day,” Andy breathed into Emma’s ear.
The words came out in fits and starts but Emma grasped their meaning and wrapped her heart around them. She clutched her husband even tighter. They might have stayed that way for hours had it not been for the old woman.
“So you are Emma Porter’s long lost husband,” Letta said brusquely. “Andrew Porter I presume?”
Andy reluctantly lifted his head to look at her; his arms remaining locked tightly around his wife. He nodded hesitantly, fearing what the confirmation of his identity might mean.
“And where have you been, Mr. Porter?”
Andy surveyed the room, eyeballing each of the strangers staring back inquisitively at him. He was unsure of what to say; uncertain whether the truth of his kidnapping and the mention of Brumeux’s name might bring harm to his family.
“Who are you?” Andy asked.
The old woman frowned and huffed.
“Forgive me,” she said politely, yet with a clear tone of impatience. “It appears in my thirst for answers I’ve forgotten proper decorum.”
Her forced grin faded, replaced by resolute sternness.
“I am Letta. And this is my brother Lars. W
e are here to help you.”
“Help me how?”
“To protect you and your family from Benoit Brumeux.”
Letta motioned towards the Sisters.
“And these young ladies work for us. You might think of them as enforcers in our fight against Brumeux and the Order. And you’ve already met our man, Malvado,” she said, nodding to the Spaniard who stood holding a gun at his side near the front door.
“Please Malvado, put the gun away,” said Lars, noticing the room’s fixation on it. “You see, we were not expecting you to arrive by airplane. We weren’t sure who you were. Malvado had no choice but to approach you with absolute caution. You understand I’m sure.”
Malvado holstered the weapon, though looked uncomfortable after doing so. He was a man on edge, peering regularly out the living room windows while fidgeting with his holster.
“So,” quipped Letta, “now that the pleasantries are out of the way, perhaps you can enlighten us with your story, Mr. Porter. Tell us, where have you been all these years?”
Andy felt the oxygen suck out of the room as a deep silence took hold. All eyes were upon him, and he could feel their collective heat. Emma broke from Andy’s grasp and sat up next to him on the sofa. Her hand softly grasped his, comforting him.
“Where were you?” she asked softly. “Tell me what happened.”
Andy was hesitant to begin. He felt crushed by the weight of guilt that had amassed over the course of twelve years; guilt for having missed so much of their lives. How could he explain everything that had happened? He cleared his throat and opened his mouth. But no words would come. Letta grunted impatiently. Jimmy kneeled down and placed one hand on his father’s shoulder.
“It’s okay Dad,” said Jimmy. “It’s not your fault.”
It’s not your fault.
Having Jimmy there for support gave him strength. Hearing his son acknowledge that he held his father without blame provided more than encouragement - it provided profound relief.
It’s not your fault.
“It was Ram,” breathed Andy. “Ram wasn’t who we thought he was. He was placed here to spy on us. His name wasn’t even Ramstein.”