Addicted to the Light

by S. E. Amadis

  I swung my head, overcome by dizziness, and tried to pull my wits together to figure out my next move. But by the time my head stopped swimming and my vision cleared, he was gone.

  And Lindsay with him.

  I tried to pull myself up, ended up dragging myself to the door on all fours.

  “Bogdan,” I tried to scream, but the only sound that came out was an inarticulate croak. “Bogdan, he’s getting away with Lindsay.”

  I peered around the corner and through the door.

  Bogdan was lying out flat cold in the middle of the hard concrete floor.

  Chapter 31

  I crawled to his side, digging in with my elbows for all I was worth. Not because I cared anything about him, I admit, but because he was my only hope for getting Lindsay back. When I reached him I began to shake him with about as much resolution as anyone can while still lying helplessly on the ground themselves.

  “Bogdan,” I whimpered.

  I heard someone shaking behind the bed, banging stiff limbs against the walls and clackety shoe soles on the ground, and glanced up. Maisie was cowering there, fists stuffed in her mouth.

  “Maisie,” I whispered. “Maisie, I need your help. We have to get Bogdan up...”

  At that moment I felt Bogdan’s rigid grip about my wrist. I could scarcely believe he could still possess so much strength after receiving such a forceful blow.

  “Traitor.” He raised his head and growled at me, with the loudest voice he could muster. “You called him here, didn’t you? You told him where to find Lindsay.”

  I could only gape at him in a stupor.

  “Me? Call him? After I paid you half a fortune to get Lindsay out?”

  I tried to swipe at him. I swore I would’ve banged his head and knocked him out myself at that moment if I’d possessed enough strength and the North African hadn’t beaten me to it.

  “You fucking bastard, I never heard anyone say anything more dumb-ass in my life.”

  Bogdan opened his hands and turned them palm up towards the sky.

  “Well, if it wasn’t you, then who told him where Lindsay was? No one else knows.”

  I shrugged. It was the only thing I was strong enough to do.

  We both turned to Maisie in unison. But she started shaking her head so hard I was afraid she’d have a panic attack.

  “No! I’d never,” she pulled her fists out of her mouth long enough to cry out. “I’m loyal to you, Bogdan. You know that. I’ve worked for you for three years. You know you can trust me.”

  We stared at each other, the three of us at a total and complete loss. Suddenly Bogdan leapt to his feet, as hearty and hale as if he’d just sprung up from a sound nap in his bed.

  He seized me brusquely by the front of my coat, rolled me onto my back and yanked my coat off my shoulder. Before I could gather my wits together to figure out what he was up to, he’d snatched an army knife from his pocket and was slashing it through the fabric of my blouse, near my shoulder.

  “This where he stabbed you?” He grunted, jabbing the tip of his knife at the scar on my arm.

  I glanced down at the slight blemish.

  “It’s already healed, you brute,” I exclaimed, indignant. “You can see, even the scar is almost gone. What the hell?”

  “Hold on, Annasuya. This is going to hurt,” was his only reply.

  A minute later, searing pain flashed through my arm as he plunged his knife in through the tender scar tissue. I gritted my teeth, fought the almost irresistible urge to kick him a sharp one in the stomach with the heels of my leather boots. He dragged the tip of his knife out dripping with blood a minute later. There was something solid and round glittering on the blade.

  Both Maisie and I gawked at him, too stunned to move.

  “What is that?” Maisie finally gathered her senses together enough to stammer out.

  Bogdan nudged at it bluntly with the tip of his finger.

  “A microchip.” He looked at me. “Remember? I told you there was something fishy about that wound. I’m sure that’s how they tracked you here and found out where Lindsay was.”

  I felt like I’d somehow fallen into an episode of Star Trek or Star Wars or any other show that began with the word “star”.

  “They barely even know how to use the most basic technology, like computers or landline phones. How would they possibly know how to track a microchip?”

  Bogdan smiled, cynically, and held up one finger.

  “What you mean is, the average lowly member, like Lindsay, for example, is not allowed to have access to even the most basic technology. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have knowledge of how to use advanced and complex devices. Remember, they all led normal lives before they entered the sect.”

  He turned me over and pressed the sleeve of my coat over the wound in my arm, then clasped me protectively about the shoulders.

  “But in this case, I doubt any lowly member would have access to this kind of technology. Or have knowledge of any of these goings-on, for that matter. I’m sure only the highest members, such as your Elder Brooks there, would be privy to such information and such dangerous technology. Probably even powers higher up than Elder Brooks.”

  He clamped his fist down hard over my arm to staunch the blood flow. I felt the blood seeping into the fleece of my coat.

  “Elder Brooks might seem like the biggest fish in town on that little range. But compared to the big ones, the powers higher up over there, he’s probably nothing but small fry. Someone they can easily push around and manipulate. And I’m sure they are the ones who ordered Elder Brooks to implant this device in you, Annasuya. Who demanded to have you tracked down, and Lindsay abducted from right under our noses.”

  The three of us stared at each other, helplessly.

  “So, what do we do now, Bogdan?” I asked at last.

  Bogdan clenched his lips together grimly.

  “We get her back,” he said.

  PART III

  Chapter 32

  Bogdan waited two months before making his next move. I bristled and demanded to know why the long delay.

  “Obviously, they’ll have Lindsay under lock and key for the next fifty years,” he explained. “So we want to lay low during this time. Not arouse any suspicions at all, that sort of thing.”

  For the rest, he kept pretty mum about it all and refused to answer any more of my questions.

  “I’ll let you know when we plan to go in,” he informed me at last. “That’s all I can tell you. I promised we would get her out, and her safe recovery and complete deprogramming would be a part of our services, and I won’t let this case go until I’ve accomplished that.”

  He smiled wryly.

  “I know what you might be thinking, but I’m not a scam artist. I do plan to keep up my end of the deal... since you’ve paid me, of course.”

  He lifted his chin.

  “I have my honour and my reputation to uphold, after all.”

  During this time I tried to lead a normal life as cheerily as I possibly could.

  I grew my business, added one glowing testimonial after another to my website and framed the testimonials up on my office walls as well. Calvin, Romeo and I dropped by the park frequently to build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other.

  Bogdan chose Christmas Eve for his day of action. I was baffled by this choice.

  “Do you know how many of your men you’ll be dragging away from cuddling up with their wives and kids? Men who won’t get a chance to watch their little ones hang up stockings? Or spend a peaceful night all alone with their ladies?”

  We sat stirring coffee in the same café where we had met the first time.

  Bogdan grimaced.

  “I choose my men carefully for being individuals with no personal lives,” he said. “My men have no families to worry about. The cults we raid could wish to retaliate, and I don’t want people working for me, who could be putting their families in jeopardy with their livelihood.”

  “Soun
ds like spy work or military work,” I commented.

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  Bogdan beamed his wry smile at me, leaned back in his chair and stuck his feet out in front of him under the table.

  “You could say I do have a military background,” he hinted enigmatically.

  I looked at him questioningly, but he didn’t volunteer any more information.

  “Why Christmas Eve?” I wouldn’t let the subject go. “You know they follow the traditions of the original Hebrew followers of Christ, and those people didn’t have Christmas in those times. It would be just another day for them.”

  “Yes, but they know — they do know — that for us it’s Christmas. And they won’t be expecting us to make a move on such an important occasion.”

  As we were finishing up our coffees, all of a sudden I shot out, “I want to be in on it this time.”

  Bogdan was lifting his mug towards his lips. His hand stopped in mid-air and hung there, as if electrified.

  “Pardon me?” he replied at last, coldly, then brought his mug to his lips. “I must be hearing things.”

  I shook my head insistently. “No, you heard right. I want to be involved this time.”

  Bogdan returned his mug to the table with forced calmness.

  “You do know this is dangerous, don’t you? And the fact that you paid for this task to be carried out and hired me to do it doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to do it. That is my prerogative. It’s my area of expertise.” He thumbed his lips. “And I say, no way.”

  I traced my fingertip absently along the rim of my mug.

  “But I am precisely the one who has paid you for this. And there’s a saying — I’m sure you must have heard it before: the customer is king? Right?”

  I eyed Bogdan with distrust.

  “So I think that does give me the right to have a say in how this is done.”

  I glanced down at the table.

  “Look, I’m not saying I’m going to tell you how to do your job,” I hastened to add. “I won’t argue with things I know nothing about, such as your planning. I just want to be a part of this. I won’t interfere, and I’ll do everything you tell me.”

  I thudded my mug down hard on the table.

  “But I insist on being there this time, if only to watch you in action and to be the first to greet Lindsay when you get her out.”

  “You have no training whatsoever in this.”

  “No, I don’t. I agree about that. But I won’t actually do anything. I won’t get in the way.” I paused, spread my hands on the table. “I just want to be there. For Lindsay. You know I’m the one she’d look to first,” I added.

  He studied me, then lowered his hands with a sigh of resignation.

  “What will your lover-boy say?” he asked at last. “I imagine it won’t please him to have to spend Christmas Eve alone.”

  My stomach quaked. But I hardened my expression.

  “What Calvin thinks doesn’t matter. This is something that’s just between you, and me.”

  Bogdan agreed to allow me to tag along in the van in the end.

  *

  Calvin and I had been together for a year, and we celebrated our first anniversary — going-out anniversary, not wedding anniversary, of course — with a candlelit dinner in a romantic restaurant. Wine, champagne, violins crooning out sentimental melodies. In other words, the works.

  We devoted the entire evening all to ourselves, leaving Romeo with a brand new babysitter. Even though he had pleaded that at age eleven he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

  We arrived home after midnight to the spectacle of a wide-awake Romeo downing the last portion of a chocolate cake he had been busy hatching up with the new babysitter, Brenda. We smiled at Brenda through clenched teeth.

  “It’s a little past his bedtime, don’t you think?” I remarked.

  The teenaged girl, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen herself, smiled ingeniously at us and offered us a plate full of crumbs.

  “Sorry, Ms Adler. We meant to save you a piece.” She cuddled Romeo’s hair fondly. “Since it was your anniversary. It’s just... we got carried away.” She giggled.

  She busied herself donning winter coat, scarf and fleece-lined boots, and adjusting a beret over her deliberately windblown blond waves. Calvin offered her a ride home on his motorcycle.

  She smiled at him seductively, carefully revealing a broken tooth through her winsome expression. I decided next time we would call a cronish grandmother to look after Romeo.

  “Don’t worry, Mr Henry. I only live a couple of blocks away. I’m perfectly capable of walking.” She beamed even harder at him. “After all, I walk to school every day anyway.”

  As she was waltzing out the door, with Calvin’s hand lingering perhaps just a little too close to her waist as he steered her towards the stairwell, she gasped and pointed at an envelope tossed haphazardly on the dining table.

  “Oh, almost forgot. Someone came by and left this for you,” she said. “A schoolkid, said he was just a messenger and he didn’t know you. He said it was supposed to be a surprise.”

  After she left, Calvin and I gazed at the non-descript envelop in bemusement.

  “Who’d want to leave us a surprise greeting?” Calvin wondered. “How many people know it’s our anniversary anyway? We did keep a low profile about this.”

  “Probably your boss,” I quipped with a laugh.

  We certainly wouldn’t deny Jim Daniels was famous for his wry sense of humour.

  “Well, enough suspense.” I seized the envelop in my fist. “Let’s find out who it is for ourselves.”

  I snagged open the envelop with the first knife I happened upon in the knife rack and we slid out a mushy Hallmark affair with lopsided balloons and melting cakes painted all over it. I cracked it open.

  “Whore!” I read. I shrieked and nearly dropped the card. But then I steeled myself and continued. “How does it feel when you’re in his arms, bitch? Snuggling underneath the covers with a man you’re not even married to. Doing fuck knows what with him in front of your innocent child. No wonder you were raped.”

  I screamed again and this time I did hurl the card away from me as hard as I could. Since it was a thin sheet of cardboard, it didn’t fly very far. Calvin bent and picked it up from the kitchen floor.

  “Hugh again,” he said emphatically. “This has got to stop. I’m taking this to the police.”

  I gaped at him.

  “What would that do? It’s not a crime to send an obscene card.”

  Calvin waved the card in exasperation.

  “It’s not a crime. It’s not a crime,” he cried. “That’s what you always say. So according to you it wasn’t a crime when Bruno raped you. It wasn’t a crime when he tossed that dead dongledy-dorp in through your window. And kidnapping Romeo definitely wasn’t a crime.” He bit on the edge of the card with impatience. “What do you have against reporting things to the police, anyway?”

  I fanned myself with my hand.

  “I dunno, Cal. I guess I just don’t want to bother them.”

  Calvin leaned forward and grabbed my wrist.

  “Well, sweetheart, you know, if only you’d gone to the bother of bothering them when Romeo was kidnapped, you wouldn’t have nearly died. You could’ve been spared all this.”

  He pushed up my sleeve and fingered the faint line of one of the scars Bruno had left me, which was taking a bit more time to fade away. I pulled away from him angrily.

  “Well, maybe I’m just allergic to the police. Leave me alone, will you.”

  I turned away. Calvin glared at me for a moment, then tossed the card into a rubbish bin.

  “Okay. There. You satisfied?”

  He stomped towards the bedroom as Romeo stared at him wide-eyed.

  “Or maybe, the reason you’re so loath to have anything to do with the police is all the semi-illegal activities you’ve been carrying out lately yourself with that so-ca
lled deprogrammer?”

  I gawked at him.

  “How do you know what he does?” I stammered out at last.

  “You don’t tell me much, but I know what you’re up to,” he continued. “I know what that bonzo does to get Lindsay out. Hypnotizing her and all that shit isn’t legal. So maybe that’s why you’d prefer to steer clear of the coppers?”

  I glared at him in outrage, then shook my head.

  “And I’m not finished,” he went on, his voice rising. “To boot, you’re going to spend Christmas Eve with him instead of here, at home, with your son and boyfriend, where you belong.”

  My mouth opened.

  “That’s the date he chose,” I protested at last. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Calvin chomped his jaw up and down.

  “Okay, maybe, no. But you didn’t have to just fucking go and make up your fucking mind to go with him. He himself said you shouldn’t go along. But no! You’re so bloody muleheaded, you just have to do whatever the hell you want whenever you damn well feel like it, and what the rest of us wants means shit to you.”

  I glanced up at him with what I hoped looked like a pained expression.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “I do care what the rest of you wants. But this is just so important to me, Cals. Lindsay is that important to me.” I paused and looked at him entreatingly. “Don’t you understand?”

  “What the hell!”

  Calvin kicked and battered at the rubbish bin a few times, until the apartment floor was covered with filth, then stormed towards the door and snatched his coat from the rack.

  “Lovely dinner tonight. I’ll never forget it. Hope Romeo enjoys spending Christmas alone.”

  He slammed the door open, banging it as hard as he could against the wall behind it, then stomped out. I could only watch him helplessly. But I was determined not to let anything change my mind.

  When Christmas Eve swung around, Calvin still hadn’t made a reappearance. I called Jim Daniels up discreetly to make sure nothing had happened to him.