Cesar slid behind the wheel and dug a key out of his pocket. Squinting at the dashboard as though puzzled by the layout, he fiddled with the ignition. At first nothing happened, and the temperature inside the cab quickly climbed twenty degrees. Finally, a series of clicks issued from under the hood, followed by a wheezing groan and a series of coughs, and then something caught, and the engine puttered to life.
“See? It’s like a Mercedes! I told you.”
“Very impressive,” she agreed.
He jammed the shifter into drive and goosed the gas, and the ancient truck lurched reluctantly forward.
“Sorry. No air-conditioning. Broke about ten years ago. But once we’re moving, the air from the windows will cool us.”
“I just hope we keep moving.”
They pulled onto the narrow street, and he eased the truck up the gentle incline to where rural Highway 9 connected to the main street. On the outskirts of town, they passed an old converted school bus heading into Guiria. It looked marginally more trustworthy than the Isuzu.
“That’s the Caracas bus,” Cesar said, gesturing with his head.
“Nice.”
The road meandered across the peninsula and back again, and they motored along at an average of twenty miles per hour. Jet didn’t know whether to be more annoyed or relieved that the driver was being cautious. She decided to be optimistic and closed her eyes, allowing the feeble cross-ventilation to provide scant relief from the mounting heat.
Four hours later, they rolled into Carupano and Jet had Cesar drop her off a block from the bus station. She walked over and checked the schedule and saw that there was a bus headed to Caracas that evening, and another in the morning. The prospect of traveling three hundred miles at night on dubious roads didn’t appeal to her, so she decided to get a room and do some clothes shopping – the peasant garb had been fine, but it had served its purpose, and she needed essentials that a town the size of Carupano was likely to have.
She found a serviceable hotel a block and a half off the beach. The room was clean and comfortable, with a reasonable bed and a mild breeze blowing off the Caribbean. After unpacking her few belongings, she went in search of stores, and several blocks away, she came across one that looked promising. Within a few minutes she found a pair of jeans and a top that would work – long-sleeved lightweight cotton in muted blue and green – and some running shorts and a T-shirt. Jet paid for her purchases and changed into the jeans and top at the store, stuffing her dress and blouse into the bag – then went in search of dinner.
She stumbled across a decent looking eatery on the malecón and took her time over her meal, but by the end of it, she realized she was exhausted. The night on the beach hadn’t been particularly restful, and she’d only been able to doze as the Isuzu had weaved through the jungle hills – she needed some solid hours of uninterrupted sleep.
The sun was setting as she exited the restaurant, the purple sky streaked with orange and pink, and the stream of beachgoers had dried up. Jet stuck to the main seafront road, in no hurry, and was looking forward to the inviting bed in her room, when she turned the corner that led to her hotel.
A blur of motion came at her as she passed a small alley, and she barely had time to register a twenty-something-year-old man in a stained soccer jersey approaching her holding a knife. She threw her clothes bag at his head and swiveled as she grabbed his knife arm, and then slammed the heel of her right hand into his face, catching him on the chin. He winced in pain from the blow, but he didn’t drop the knife, although he’d stopped his surge and was standing facing her, breathing heavily, a trickle of blood running down his chin. He spit a bloody gob of froth and a decayed tooth into the gutter, and glared at her. He was emaciated and smelled sour, with a junkie’s distinctive body tics.
A smaller man, older, with a face that resembled nothing so much as a rat, edged to the alley mouth, his eyes darting down the street to confirm there were no witnesses. He clutched a length of pipe and held it like he had used it before. The stink of sweat and tobacco wafted off him like a noxious fog.
Jet quickly sized them up. These were common muggers, thieves that plagued the more prosperous areas of most Venezuelan cities, on the prowl for easy targets of opportunity.
Tonight they’d picked the wrong victim.
She debated possible tactics as they moved slowly around her, circling, trying to get behind her. There was a small amount of primitive strategy to their movements – they stayed well separated so she could only focus on one at a time. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a good gambit.
She decided on subterfuge and misdirection as opposed to a frontal assault. Let them come to her.
Her eyes widened as she swung her head around in fright.
“Please. Don’t hurt me. I don’t have any money, and I…I know karate.” She sounded convincing. The tremor in her voice as she said ‘karate’ was particularly feeble.
The smaller man laughed, an evil, humorless bark, and without saying a word, stepped toward her and swung the pipe at her shoulder.
From there, everything happened fast.
Her kick caught him in the groin, arresting the swing as he let out a moan and doubled over. She kicked him one more time, this time in the head, and he sprawled onto the filthy pavement, the pipe banging against the surface before rolling from his grip.
The younger man rushed her, but she easily blocked the upward sweep of the knife and leveled a brutal strike to his throat with a closed fist. His free hand clutched at his windpipe as he fought for breath, and she slammed her good hand into his knife arm. He dropped the blade with a clatter and bent over, struggling for air.
She watched him gasping. She hadn’t landed a lethal blow, choosing to pull the strike at the last second, so he would eventually recover. Still, neither one of them would be mugging anyone in the near future.
“Pick up your buddy and get the hell out of here before I tear your arms off and beat you over the head with them,” she said in a low voice as she knelt and grabbed the knife, eyes on her incapacitated assailants.
The man on the ground groaned as the younger one staggered over to him.
There was nothing more to see. It would take them a few moments to collect themselves and be able to walk, by which time, she’d be long gone.
Jet scooped up the plastic bag with her clothes in it and backed out of the alley, watching the motley pair to ensure she wasn’t surprised by an unexpected burst of stamina from either man, then hurried up the block and entered her hotel. She was reassured to note that her respiration and heart rate were normal. This was the old Jet. The instincts that had served her so well had come back quickly.
Not all of them, though.
She hadn’t killed either mugger.
In the old days she wouldn’t have pulled the punch.
Jet stripped off her clothes and took another shower with cool water before throwing herself onto the bed. She groped for the bedside lamp and switched it off, plunging the room into darkness, the only sound an occasional car rumbling down the street to the beach.
She was out cold within sixty seconds.
Chapter 9
Two Years Ago, Trinidad
“My water broke.”
The nurse took Maya’s hand and led her to a seat. After a hurried discussion on the telephone, she turned to face Maya again.
“The doctor is on his way, darling. Just come lie over here, and we’ll get you ready. Don’t worry about anything,” the nurse cooed in a heavy island lilt, motioning at a gurney an orderly had pushed through the double steel doors of the emergency room.
With the nurse’s assistance, Maya did as instructed, and within a few minutes, she was wheeled into a private room. Another nurse took her vital signs and helped her into a hospital gown, hanging her clothes carefully in the small closet.
The contractions were coming more regularly, and when the doctor rushed in wearing street clothes, she
exhaled a sigh of relief. He performed a brief examination and listened to her stomach with a stethoscope, then told the nurse in a hushed voice to bring a portable ultrasound unit in immediately.
“What’s wrong, Doctor?” Maya asked.
“Probably nothing. Don’t worry. I just want to check something,” he said, but wouldn’t look her in the eyes.
The nurse returned with a cart, and the doctor quickly put gel on the probe and moved it slowly around her abdomen. His expression as he watched the monitor was strained. When he looked up at her, he was frowning.
“There’s a problem. The baby’s heart rate is in a critical zone. We’re going to have to do a C-section immediately.”
“No! I don’t want one. I told you I want to deliver naturally.”
“I’m afraid there’s no choice in the matter. I’m sorry. We don’t have any time to waste. Seconds count. Both you and the baby are in danger.” The doctor turned and issued a set of terse instructions to the nurse.
Maya processed his statement, sweat rolling down her face.
“Fine. Do what you have to do. Just make sure my baby is okay.”
He nodded at the nurse, who hurried out of the room, returning in a few moments with an orderly pushing another gurney – this one with an IV bag suspended from a hanger. Maya shifted onto it with the orderly and the doctor’s help, and then the nurse started an IV line and motioned to the doctor. He withdrew a syringe from his bag and approached her, fixing her with a caring gaze.
“We’re out of time. I’m going to give you the anesthesia and get you into surgery. The injection is much faster than gas. Are you ready?”
She grimaced. “Yes.”
He pulled the plastic cap off and then slipped the needle into the IV line.
“All right. Here we go…” He slowly depressed the plunger. “Just relax. It’s all going to be okay. This will be over in no…”
His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance as the room faded and everything went dark.
~ ~ ~
The first thing she registered when she came to was the smell. The distinctive antiseptic odor typical in hospitals everywhere in the world. The lights were low, the temperature moderate. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was.
In her hospital room. She was groggy and felt drugged. Everything was foggy and seemed muted, surreal, slower. It took almost superhuman effort for her to turn her head and look at the window. It was dark out. It had been light when she’d arrived.
Maya fumbled around until she found the call button. She pressed it after a few tries – her hands felt like someone else’s and seemed to lack the dexterity to operate the gizmo.
It was all she could do to keep her eyes open.
A nurse entered a few minutes later and moved to the side of the bed.
“Take it easy, now. You’ve been through a lot,” she said with a look of concern on her face. She looked at the monitor and adjusted the sensor on Maya’s finger, then turned the volume on the box down a little.
“I am taking it easy. I’m awake now. I want to see my baby. My daughter. Hannah.”
The nurse’s eyes darted to the side and she stepped away from the bed, suddenly all hurried efficiency.
“All right, then. Let me call the doctor. He’ll be in shortly,” she promised, offering a timid smile. The nurse patted her hand and eyed the IV before hurrying off, leaving Maya to the altered state that was a kind of chemical purgatory. She listened as the nurse’s footsteps echoed down the hallway outside of the door, then went back to drowsing uneasily, drifting in and out of consciousness.
She didn’t know how much time had elapsed when the doctor entered and approached the bed.
She looked up at him, her eyes struggling to stay focused. His face was impassive.
“I want to see my daughter, Doctor.”
“I can appreciate how you would.” He hesitated. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this…”
“What? What isn’t easy to say?” Her eyes got larger, and her vital signs spiked, her pulse and blood pressure increasing by twenty percent in seconds. She fought against the fog, forcing herself to clarity.
“You need to calm down. This isn’t good.” He picked up the phone on the side table and dialed an extension. “Nurse? This is Doctor Barsal. I’m in room eleven. Can you come here, please?”
Ten seconds later, a nurse stuck her head in.
The doctor moved to the door, and they had a hasty discussion before she left the room.
“What’s happened, Doctor?” Maya blinked, straining to shed the drug haze.
“I have bad news, I’m afraid,” he began. Her vitals continued to climb. He stopped talking as he watched the monitor.
“Bad news? What kind of bad news?”
He wouldn’t look at her.
The drugs made it so hard to concentrate. The doctor wasn’t making any sense. He had bad news. What bad news? Was her baby sick? Had she been injured during the procedure?
The nurse returned and quietly slipped the doctor a syringe. He moved to the IV and closed off the drip, then injected the contents into her line.
“This is just a sedative. It will help you relax. It’s for your own good.”
She felt instantly dreamier. Maybe he was right. It was good to relax. And he was helping her to do so…
Her vital signs normalized almost immediately as her heart and breathing slowed.
“That’s better. Now, as I was saying. I have some bad news. Your baby…there was a complication caused by the umbilical cord wrapping around her neck. I’m afraid we didn’t get to her in time. She…didn’t make it. We did everything we could, but it was too late. I’m so sorry…”
The walls seemed to close in as she listened to the impossible words. Her baby didn’t make it? That was crazy talk. What did that even mean, didn’t make it? Of course the baby made it. She didn’t understand.
Maya shook her head. “No. I don’t understand.”
The doctor frowned and took her limp hand in a caring gesture.
“I know it’s a shock. I’m so sorry. But your baby was pronounced dead half an hour after the attempted delivery. I signed the death certificate myself. We did everything possible, but sometimes…” He shrugged and frowned again. “Sometimes nature beats us no matter how hard we try. It’s one of the great frustrations of medicine. We can only do so much, and then it’s out of our hands.”
The words struck her like hammer blows, each one causing more damage than the last.
Her baby was dead.
Her daughter, Hannah, dead.
Maya’s tortured scream was audible all the way to the elevators at the end of the wing.
~ ~ ~
Maya stood by the side of the small plot as the tiny casket sank into the ground, the wind blowing huffs of salt air from the sea, carrying with it the smell of life. She hadn’t wanted anyone around – just her and her baby, her Hannah, gone forever before getting a chance to live.
Tears rolled down her face, shoulders shaking as she sobbed her grief into the blue absolute of the heavens, repeating the same unanswered question over and over again. Why? Why Hannah? What kind of God would do this?
The casket came to rest, and the two men who had lowered it into the grave removed the straps, pulling them free before the taller one looked at her.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Would you like to put in the first soil?”
Maya moved woodenly to the banked-up pile and grasped a fistful of moist loam, vision blurred, her breath rasping in harsh bursts as she struggled to retain her composure. She stood above her hopes and dreams, now dead as her soul, and paused to offer a blessing before relaxing her fingers and letting the cool earth fall from her hand.
She stood at the edge of the gravesite, crying, alone, as grieving mothers had cried at their children’s graves since time immemorial, her pain so visceral and intense she wanted to join her daughter in death’s in
different embrace. But that wasn’t to be. The unlucky suffered on in a hell of their own devising while innocents paid the ultimate price in homage to a frivolous universe.
~ ~ ~
Maya knelt at the small headstone, as she had every week for the last two years.
“Sweetheart, there isn’t a minute that goes by that I don’t think about you. I wanted you so much…”
Her voice cracked. She couldn’t go on. She fell forward and sobbed quietly, supporting herself with one hand clutching the grass that had grown on the small mound that was the barrow of her treasure.
Maya stayed in place, head bowed, her anguish a raw nerve, the most devastating blow of her existence nestled a few feet beneath her. For the umpteenth time, she railed at an uncaring deity for taking her baby instead of her. The rage came, as always, like a black tsunami; it was all she could do to fight it back and find the will to go on another day.
Eventually, she stood, streaks of sorrow traced upon her face.
“I’ll be back again next week, Hannah. I love you. Mommy loves you. Always.”
Chapter 10
Present Day, Moscow, Russia
“Is this some kind of joke? Are you testing my patience?”
Grigenko’s voice boomed off the walls of his penthouse office, the lights of Moscow spread out below him. He was screaming into the phone, incredulous.
“No, sir. I’m afraid it isn’t a joke. We lost everyone except for three men.” The voice on the phone was deadly earnest. Yuri Kevlev was a seasoned professional who had been operating a private army for years. He was without question the best.
Grigenko paced to the window, stupefied.
“One…girl…did this?” Grigenko pronounced the word like an expletive.
“She may have had help. We don’t know for sure. But yes, barring assistance we’re unaware of, she killed most of the group.”
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