by P. W. Child
They retreated to the nearby hill where their captain was waiting with the dog handlers. He had been watching the whole thing through his binoculars from higher ground, under cover of an overhanging cliff face which averted the worst of the wetness and wind.
“That’s just great,” one of the two men said as they reached the makeshift base in the excavated rock. “Mueller has him now.”
“It does not matter,” the captain replied, “because the journalist is either dead or badly injured. The camera could have fallen by the wayside and Mueller would not care to look for anything in the vicinity when he collects the man in this weather.”
“So I suppose we are staying here for the night?” the other rider sighed.
“Yes!” the captain seethed, infuriated not only by the inconvenience of having to use his precious time to chase after an escaped captive, but also at the insolence of a spoiled mercenary. “We are staying here overnight. As soon as those lights return to Mueller’s house we are going back there to search for the camera. If we do not find it, Mueller and his family will come to an unfortunate end in a house fire tonight!” He lunged at the whining soldier, “And in the meantime we are staying in this cold dark cave and we are not going to make any noise or make a fire, do you understand? This is not a paid vacation; it is a mission, princess!”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied almost inaudibly with all his colleagues’ eyes on him in quiet reprimand. When the captain got pissed, they’d all be in for the high jump and they knew it. They did not need the captain to get his temper challenged in these circumstances. Since the archaeologist party found their hiding place everything just went downhill. According to the plans they were supposed to be long gone by now – the treasures catalogued, the area combed for any other ruins that might contain any relics pertaining to their scavenger hunt and a quiet and smooth retreat back across the border.
They watched from their vantage point as the beams of hunting lights bobbed up and over the bumps of the countless of small hunting paths between the border fence and Mueller’s large farm house, enclosed by tall trees and thick brush. As soon as Mueller’s party disappeared under cover of the trees in the yard, the mercenaries grouped and stole down to the open patch of land where the journalist fell from his horse.
For a long while the six scouts and shooters scanned the long growing weeds in the downpour that just would not subside. Cursing and coughing, sniffling and speculating, they crawled in the clearing, looking for the camera but they found nothing at all. He must have had it on him, tied to him, the assumed, and that meant nothing good for Mueller or Sam Cleave.
Cha pter 6 - Convergence
Radu was infatuated with his loot. Hours later, after the dust had settled, the young boy sat down at one of the park ponds under a massive tree that concealed him from anyone walking by. He was small enough, but he made sure he would not be discovered easily by checking the area like a proper thief. He could feel his mother’s presence around him, but he brushed it off for now. Again he looked at the macabre playing card that was bewitching his senses and he suddenly felt a strange familiarity with it. He assumed it was because the boy on the painting was about his age, but he related to it in some hidden way.
He heard voices approaching and jumped, thrusting the card under his leg where he was sitting. Even though he was certain he had effectively fled from the people he robbed, he still felt as if he was being watched. He did not like the distinct apprehension he felt all the time since burdening himself with the possession of the card, yet he could not imagine getting rid of it. It gave off the air of something really precious, like a king’s scepter or a queen’s crown, and he knew that, if he held on to it for long enough he would find someone who would appreciate such a piece enough to buy it from him.
A couple passed him, two people so deeply in love and engorged in one another’s company that they did not pay attention to the homeless boy’s nervous demeanor. They looked at him sitting at the pond, casting stones into the water, and promptly returned their attention and affection to each other. Again Radu pulled the card out and stared at the details. Was it shimmering just a little? He blinked hard a few times to make sure the stress of running away did not fatigue him so much that he was seeing things. God knows he had seen things before, things he could never tell anyone. What he had seen since he was very small had at first troubled him, but after the death of his mother he had not really had any of those episodes again. Until now.
His hand began to shake, his fingers sweating at the touch of the magical card. At once young Radu felt his mother’s spirit vividly, more vividly than ever. His little heart pounded his chest at the foreboding feeling he was suddenly immersed in. It was almost dark and he had to find a place to sleep, yet the spell persisted and he closed his eyes to find his mother standing before him in the dark. Radu’s bottom lip quivered at the vision and he had to wipe off the saliva that was leaking from the corner of his mouth.
She just stood there in the clothing she had died in – a pink skirt down to her ankles, bare feet with a delicate golden chain hanging loosely around her ankle and a lace-up white blouse that truly stood out under her mahogany locks falling down to her waist.
“Mama,” Radu wept. He missed her so much. Until this moment he had thought that he was perfectly alright with being an independent little rebel in the steps of his father. But now that she stood before him, her throat slit and leaking onto her ample bosom just like she looked the last time he saw her, he felt shattered.
“Listen, Radu,” she said through her bruised lips, still shaped as beautifully as he recalled, “you have to get rid of that card, my son. I beg you!”
He could not believe he was hearing her sweet voice again. A smile tugged at his foaming mouth while he was shivering on the ground under the tree, still clutching the card. The fact that he was so well out of sight behind the huge tree made it virtually impossible for anyone to find him in the midst of his apparent seizure.
“Mama, I can sell this card for lots of food! Don’t you see? Look, it is a special card, you see?” he smiled and held the card up to her, but her face fell at the sight of it. Her features aged rapidly and her hair grew grey, falling out in front of his eyes as she started moaning, crying, reaching to him with old woman’s hands. Her fingers grew sharp at the ends from her nails growing and she screamed in agony. Radu started to panic, his eyes filled with tears at disappointing his mother and making her a monster. He blamed himself for it. Now there was an abundance of dread where he had had hope. Still he could not open his eyes, for the incomplete vision that had to play itself out before his mind would be released. Weeping bitterly, grasping the unholy card that disconcerted his beloved mother so, he watched her change from an old woman into a younger lady. This lady did not have his mother’s face, nor did she wear her clothing. She had similar dark tresses just past her shoulders, large dark eyes much like his mother’s and just as small, but she was clearly someone else.
“Who are you?” he asked in a quivering voice that sounded like the desperate bleat of a lamb just before slaughter. The woman just stood there, seemingly oblivious to his presence. There was a tattoo on her arm on what looked like an arrow pointing upward and in her hand she held a peculiar object, almost like a shiny stone. It was polished, terracotta in color and when she held it out in the light he could see the tiny thin lines running across it.
“Is that a tiger’s eye?” Radu asked, wiping his eyes, but the woman did not reply. “Is that a tiger’s eye?” he asked louder, almost shouting. “It looks like a tiger’s eye that got the wrong color,” he noted out loud to sound smart for her, but his voice fell in echoes that did not reach the woman with the pretty face.
Radu felt his eyes unwillingly fall shut. There was nothing but darkness and silence for a second. His mother and the lady had vanished, but he could hear a woman’s voice creep from far away, closer to him so that finally he could hear what she was yelling.
“Help! Somebody!
What is the number for emergency in this country, for Christ’s sake?” she was almost screaming at the top of her lungs. Radu could not open his eyes properly as the spasms took him, distorting his innocent young face into awful expressions of agony.
“He is having an epileptic fit, goddammit!” the blond student cried out to her friend who was on her cell phone, trying to get connected to the authorities. The two twenty year old girls spoke like tourists, he noted through his trauma.
I think they are Australians, he said to himself while his mind hid him from the intense convulsions of his body’s seizure.
“Oh crikey, he is going to bite his fucking tongue off! Jules! Jules, come help me keep his mouth open!”
And that was the last Radu heard or saw through the slits of his aching eyes. It was the last perception he suffered in the park while the clouds churned above him and he was unsure if they were another vision, a harbinger of a tempest to come, or simply the cooling of the day.
When he woke from his dreamless oblivion, he could hear so many voices surrounding him. Men and woman, all speculating on his condition and his identity. A strong smell permeated through the place, a hideous clinical smell that made Radu feel like his throat was swelling up to engulf his tongue. He coughed; his body desperate to expel the wicked visions and esoteric curse that had seeped into him. Nothing came out. Only his air grunted through his windpipe and chafed his voice so that he felt as if he had swallowed razors.
Radu’s small body was promptly caught in the arms of two women, nurses, and he could hear their hearts beating as they pressed him tightly between them to help him compose himself before inducing another seizure. They did not speak Romanian; neither did any of the visitors and other staff they encountered. Radu frowned. His mother had taught him to read, so he knew that his language was nowhere to be seen, not on the pamphlets, or clipboards or any of the plaques on the walls of the corridor that he could see from his bed.
“Er spricht Englisch,” he heard one of them say about him.
“Oh, hel-lo. Do you speak...English?” the plump nurse tried, but she was very unsure, basically choking on her words.
“Yeh, my motha taught me,” Radu said in a heavy Romanian accent. The two nurses nodded at one another, delighted that they could now somehow communicate with the strange young boy, brought in by the tourists who had since left him in their care.
“That is gut,” the other one replied. “Your name is?”
“Radu. Radu Costita,” he nodded.
“Gut, gut,” they smiled. “You have been sleeping for long time, Schatz. Almost four Tag-tag...days,” the less eloquent of the two reported. Her English was not as well developed as her colleague’s. She was a country girl and preferred to speak German, solely for comfort, but she would never admit it.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“In Weimar,” the other answered, as she wrapped the cuff around his upper arm to check his blood pressure. She could hear that the boy had difficulty speaking, so she tried to tell him as much as she could without forcing him to have to ask. “You were brought to the clinic by your mother’s step-sister and her husband. And they offered to help you get back home again as soon as you are well again. But for now you can stay a while so that doctor can see if he can give you some medicine, so we can stop those terrible seizures, ja?” She was very friendly and Radu had to admit that he did enjoy being fed and served while lying in a warm bed, but his mother had no step-sister or any other family for that matter.
The fact that he was in a strange country without any credentials, brought here by someone who lied about their relation to him made him feel a little worried. He was very young, but he was no fool. After three years on the streets he had learned quite a bit about human nature by now and when someone said they were someone else, it usually meant trouble.
He dosed off blissfully, enjoying his first experience of a warm, soft bed in years.
When young Radu woke, it was evening already. It was amazing how time flew since he had stolen the German lady’s bag. It was uncanny. He remembered at once where he was and again came the whole affair of his rescuers, resurfacing in his speculation. But he thought to find out from the friendly nurse who worked the morning shift. For now, however, he was clever enough to not rock the boat until he knew a little more. It scared him that he was not in Romania anymore.
From inside his heart he could hear his mother’s voice of warning. Then it hit him.
The card! Where is the card?, his inner voice prompted urgently. It was his only leverage, but he dared not ask for it, lest they find out he had something this precious – and stolen no less. He was sure the woman he robbed would have reported the items in her purse by now and the authorities would be looking for it in Cluj and the rest of Romania, probably.
Radu surreptitiously looked around for his clothing.
He had been carrying the big card in his pocket with the odd key, but he could not have replaced it after showing it to his mother during the vision. It must have fallen when he collapsed. Radu felt the despair of his loss overtake him. Somewhere in his conscience he heard his mother echo, “See? Now you get to feel the loss you caused for the lady you stole it from. See how it works, my son?”
His eyes filled with tears as he slipped out of the hospital bed to check the bedside locker for his clothes. Filled with dread, he found his pockets empty and his heart started pounding painfully again from the disappointment he felt.
“What are you looking for, laddie?” a voice spoke from behind him.
The teary eyed boy turned quickly, fearing that he had been discovered. He could not help but reveal that he was being nervous and jumpy. Guilt would do that to a little thief. Behind him stood a tall and attractive man with ruffled wild dark hair and eyes. He reminded Radu of a pirate on a rum bottle without all the trappings. Around his shoulder and arm there was a thick white bandage with a seeping stain straining through the fabric and his shirtless torso was impressively chiseled. The hospital had given him loose fitting pajama pants that looked quite comical and the distraught boy wondered who he was.
“I am just...” Radu had to choose his words carefully in front of the stranger. Adults had a way of talking to one another and he had no idea if he could trust this man. “...looking for something I had with me before I got sick.”
“What does it look like? Maybe I can help you look for it?” the stranger offered, already running his eyes over the cupboards and under the bed as he spoke. His voice was kind, sort of optimistic, as if he was approachable and playful. Radu liked him, but he did not trust him. Radu trusted nobody, no matter how nice they came across. Too many times he had learned his lesson with those.
“Um, it’s just a picture.”
“A photograph?” the man asked.
“No,” Radu hesitated. He looked around for eavesdroppers and then raised his big innocent eyes to the man, “it’s a card. Like a playing card without the numbers and hearts and stuff.”
“Oh! Okay, just one?” the stranger asked, and laboriously crouched down to help Radu look for his card.
“Yes, just the one. It is just a picture and it is a bit bigger than other cards,” the boy replied, now joining the stranger in his search.
“Mr. Cleave, please return to your bed! You are not well enough to get out of bed yet!” the doctor said in a mild German accent. She was stern and old, but easily amused. Arms folded across her chest, she stood watching her two patients scurrying about the smooth polished floor and she had to smile.
“I am really alright, doctor. Not using my arm, as you see, I should be okay,” he responded. Radu memorized his name. It was a trait he had taught himself over the years in order to sound more educated. Besides, name dropping was an important part of his cons.
“I will tell you when you are well enough to get out of bed, Herr Cleave. Back to bed with you. Now!” she ordered and clutched his other arm to pull him up. “Do not make me administer a valium drip on you,” she jested and Sa
m chuckled. He stood up and looked down at the small lady doctor, “That does not sound half bad, doc.”
He limped back to his bed by the window and Radu was delighted to see that his new friend was sleeping in the same ward room as he. He looked up at the doctor. She was smiling and she held out his hand to help him up.
“It is bedtime, Herr Costita,” she winked.
“I am looking for my card,” the boy protested with worry in his face. His eyes were wet and red from his crying before and she gestured for him to get up from the floor. From the pocket of her white coat she pulled the card, holding it lightly between her two fingers.
“This card?” she smiled.
Radu was ecstatic. His face lit up and he reached for the item, but the doctor held it back, motioning with her head for him to return to bed first. The young boy leapt into bed eagerly and she came to stand by his side.
“Now, if I give this back to you, you promise to go to sleep?” she asked.
“Yes, doctor! I promise,” Radu smiled. He was clearly overly zealous to have his hand on that card. It woke an inkling of concern in the doctor that the child was so infatuated with the object. Reluctantly, she held it out to the child and he snatched it from her hand with a beaming smile and slipped it under his pillow, with his hand on top of it as to make certain nobody took it from him.
It was odd. She shot a glance to Sam Cleave, who was back in bed, watching the whole scene. He raised an eyebrow in agreement to her shaking her head. The boy seemed obsessed with the card. Almost instantly the child drifted off to sleep in the pale light of the hospital room, completely content. The doctor switched off the small wall light above his bed and joined Sam, taking his vital signs for the evening.