“She’s a waitin’. You’ll see. She’s just ’roun’ the bend up here. When this here bus stops, you’ll see. She’ll be a standin’ right there at the station.”
Leaning behind him, Cade half-mouthed, “What the hell is he talking about?” but Jana held up her hand.
“Tell me about Darlene, Rupert,” Jana said.
“See, there was a mistake, see,” his speech slurred. “I had done lost a set of dog tags durin’ a firefight, and see, sumhow somebuddy foun’ them dog tags and thought I was dead, an’, an’, an’, they sent a chaplain to tell Darlene, an’, an’, an’ she thought I was dead. Truth be tolt, I thot I was dead a time er two muhself. And whut, with Jimmy Joe dyin’ right in front a me and that, that dollar bill a his.” He was still in his own world but focused on Jana now. “Jimmy Joe had this dollar bill in his pockit,” his inflection flared, “and when that grenade went off, well, Jimmy Joe was . . . was . . . all a mess.” Rupert burst into tears and leaned into Jana’s shoulder.
Words choked out of him. “He was all blowed up. He was all over me. And that dollar bill a his . . . it . . . it was stuck to my leg. Just stuck there like sumbuddy done painted it on me. It’s stuck on me, an’ I kent git it off.”
Rupert began clawing at his left thigh at a dollar bill that existed only in his mind.
“It won’t come offn’ me! I kin never git it offn’ me! Help me git it off!”
Jana reached out to steady his hand, but it was futile against his drunken strength.
Jana said, “Rupert! Rupert. Now you stop that. You just stop that.” Her voice was strong and firm.
He looked up at her again as a slight glaze of terror melted from his eyes. Jana nodded to Cade and pointed to the laptop; she had Johnston distracted, and the twenty-five-minute timer was running.
“You remind me of my Darlene,” Johnston said, the stony façade flaking away. “She was purty. I got a pitcher of us when I was jus’ shippin’ out. We was standin’ there at the bus stop when I was leaving. She looked jes like you.” Rupert’s eyes wandered far away, and he said, “That picture I got. It’s like, like you kin just see it. In our eyes, ya see. Like we was the only two people in the whole world. Two people who got the resta their lives in front of ’em.” Heavy tears rolled off his face and landed on his lap.
Cade was making progress on the laptop. He looked at Jana and mouthed “almost there.”
Jana looked back at Rupert and saw the shell of a man who looked like he had lost himself down a dark rabbit hole and found his way back up, but when he got there, the world had changed.
“Rupert, it’s all over now,” she said. “It’s all going to be okay. Everything that’s been going on here. You don’t have to do it anymore. It’s over now.” She was stabbing in the dark, unsure of his reaction.
Tightened muscular ropes that streaked across Rupert’s forehead loosened.
Jana continued, “I want you to come out with us now. It’s time to walk away from all of this. It’s time to tell the truth and just walk away.” She stole a secretive glance at her watch.
Johnston leaned in toward Jana’s ear. His whispering voice was almost childlike. “The doll’r bill, is it gone now?”
The dollar bill symbolized terror experienced in Vietnam. But now, it symbolized the terror of a CIA investigation that had gone wrong.
“It’s gone now,” she said. “And if you come out with us now, it will be gone forever.”
The room went deathly quiet. Jana glanced at Cade, who flashed thumbs-up, nodded his head, then said, “It’s done, I’ve got everything we need.”
Jana said, “Rupert, I want you to stand up now. You come with us now.”
A breeze of calm soberness drifted across Johnston as the tension in his shoulders eased.
“It ain’t that simple no more. Nothin’s that simple no more.” He looked into Jana’s eyes as if talking straight to her soul. “There ain’t no way outta here for me. You don’ understan’. If’n they find out, God knows what’ll happen. I can’t git out.”
“Rupert, we can protect you. You’ll be safe. Come out with us.”
“It ain’ my safety I’m talkin’ ’bout. You don’ understand. If I stop—if they find out I’m tryin’ to git out—they’ll do somepin.” He looked far off. “Somepin terrible. No, no. I can’t go nowhere . . . I’m all used up.”
Jana sat up in fear of the words coming out of Johnston’s mouth and what they might mean. She was afraid to ask, but had to.
“Rupert? What do you mean something terrible?”
Rupert gazed at his own reflection in the darkened window. “I’ve never been so ashamed in all my life. It jes, it, it jes got away from me. I thought we was doin’ something good. But it jes . . . got away from me. And by then, it wus too late. Too late. I didn’t know they was gonna do all that . . .”
“What is it they’re going to do, Rupert?” But he wasn’t really hearing her.
Johnston looked at Jana. “It’s all in them papers, Darlene. Go on, you go on, Darlene. Y’all git outta here and take them papers with ya.”
Cade was up and looked at his watch, then mouthed, “It’s time to go.”
Jana pleaded, “Rupert, please. Please come with us. Do as Darlene says and come with me now.”
Rupert watched tears drop onto his trousers. “Yer wrong, little lady. Dead wrong,” he said. “It ain’t gone. It ain’t never gonna be gone. That doll’r bill, it’s still stuck right there where it’s always been. I kin only think of one way it’s ever gonna be gone.”
Cade entered the early stages of panic and moved behind Rupert, grabbing Jana by the arm. He pulled her up and noticed the pursing and quivering of her lips, her eyes tight and fighting back tears of their own. He looked at his watch again. Cade knew it was too late for Rupert; the two of them had to go—and go right now.
Jana yanked against him as he tugged her out of the office. “No, wait. Look at his eyes,” she whispered. “This is really wrong. He’s going to do something crazy.”
Rupert stood up and a mechanical blankness washed his face. It was as if all the emotion in the world had drained away. He bent down and reached underneath the desk. A tearing sound was audible as Rupert yanked open a Velcro strap, releasing a hidden handgun from its holster. Cade pulled against Jana. “Oh shit!”
But Jana yanked back again, ripping her arm free. “No, dammit. He’s not going to hurt us, he’s going to hurt himself!” She screamed, “Rupert! No!”
But Rupert pushed past them like a robot, never feeling their weight. The large .45 caliber handgun pointed forward as he stormed past and headed for the door to the security desk . . .
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You’ve just read an excerpt from The Fourteenth Protocol.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, incidents, characters, and all contents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any relation or resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, agencies, government entities, or locales is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 2017 Nathan A. Goodman
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ISBN: 978-1542478274
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t Thought Reach Press printing March, 2017
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