Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

  Madame Gupta motioned for Maureen to leave the room. Olympia sat with Hannibal at the drawing.

  “Hani,” Olympia said. “Let’s just pretend the rest of these people aren’t here.”

  “Not here.”

  “It’s just us,” she said.

  “Where is Nicki?” he asked. “They said she didn’t want to come.”

  What should she say? Agree? Hope that her girl would avoid this terrible place? Or did she want Nicki’s presence, thinking that at least then she would know her girl-child was still alive?

  She didn’t have time to answer. “Nicki will be here,” Madame Gupta said, and then repeated: “She will be here.”

  “Really?” Hannibal said, not looking at either of them. His intonation was odd. Almost a dare.

  “I think so,” Gupta said. “But if she decides not to come, we’ll have fun anyway, won’t we?”

  “Nicki wants to be with me,” he said coldly, as if talking to the paper.

  “Sometimes big sisters have other plans.”

  “Nicki wants to be with me,” he insisted.

  “Perhaps—”

  Hannibal cut her off. “Do you know what a liar is? The other woman was a liar and you made her leave. Do liars have to leave?”

  Madame Gupta recoiled, taken aback. Olympia was almost as startled: she had never heard Hannibal say so much at any one time.

  Gupta gathered herself quickly, the moment of imbalance swiftly remedied. “You should talk to your mommy, Hannibal,” she said. “You need to cooperate with us, or we won’t be having much fun.”

  She looked at Olympia and narrowed her eyes. “In fact, I can promise you that if we don’t have cooperation, you and Hannibal will have no fun at all.”

  Olympia kept her face neutral. Something about Hannibal’s answer heartened her, but this was not the moment to reveal it. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell him to do as we ask,” she said. “We’ll play some games, and then you’ll all go home. And he will be healed. Can’t you tell the difference already? My commitment is to his growth. The world needs children like Hannibal, and I’ve dedicated my life to their development.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Hannibal chanted.

  Her smile remained in place, but her face tightened. “Talk to him. For your own sake.” Olympia noticed something else, for the first time: Madame Gupta was wearing thin, transparent plastic gloves. In fact, everyone in the room was. Had they worn them on the previous visit? She didn’t think so, but couldn’t be sure. But the question was: was this something important? Were they afraid he had something infectious?

  “And Nicki?”

  “She’ll be here,” Gupta said. “One way or another.”

  She shut her heart to the thrust of sudden, maternal terror. There was a child right here, right here, who needed her. Here, now, she could do nothing to help Nicki except pray. Pray that she didn’t fall into this evil woman’s hands, that somehow disasters global or intimate would pass over her child, leave her baby unscathed. Or that there was some way, by some miracle, that whatever terrible fate might await them, her children could survive and only she, Olympia, would suffer the consequences. Please. There had to be some way out of this.

  But … didn’t she have to understand a trap to figure a way out of it? And she understood almost nothing about any of this.

  “Are you all right, honey?” she asked.

  He didn’t look at her, lost in his drawing again. He glanced around, transfixed by a pen in a technician’s vest pocket. “Pen!” he cried, pointing. “Give me pen!”

  The tech looked from Gupta to Hani and back again. Gupta nodded, and he gave Hannibal a retractable ballpoint. Hani clicked its button a half-dozen times, and then concentrated on the picture again. Progress with the pen was faster and cleaner than the crayons. A house was taking shape. “Missed you,” he said. “Miss Nicki. Want to go home.”

  She sat beside him, sighing. She felt unutterably weary, as if she was filled with a thousand pounds of wet cement. “We can’t do that, not yet. I want you to do what they want you to do.”

  “I can play the game,” Hannibal said. “Yes.”

  She felt a small, happy, evil laugh. All right, you bastards. You want to play? Let’s play. Who was that voice? She didn’t recognize it, or have any real idea why it was happy. But she knew something: they were cautious of Hani. Perhaps even … afraid of him. Could that be possible? What in the hell was going on? “All right. Then we’re going to play.”

  She turned to the guards.

  “All right. We’ll play their game, and then we’ll go home.”

  They seemed uneasy. She didn’t know why, but realized that they didn’t want her to know. And that she could use that fact.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Hannibal said.

  “You’re right,” she said quietly. “You’re always right. We’ll play their games. And then Mommy promises to do everything she can to get us home. Will you play?”

  “Hani will play.”

  Olympia had never loved him more than at that moment. Instinct told her that she had something. Some kind of leverage, if only she could see it, damn it. Figure out what the hell it was. She drew herself up, and stood as tall as she could to deliberately look down on Madame Gupta. “What do you want from him?”

  The little woman smiled placidly. “Nothing more than what he has already done. We are engaged in great research. One that will benefit the entire world.”

  Olympia wanted to spit. “So you kidnapped us out of a love for humanity?”

  “No,” Gupta said, almost sad. Almost. “No. I forced your hand because your son is a prince, and you let your fear stop him from ascending his throne.”

  Olympia watched Gupta’s brown face, looking for the lie. “What happened to Maria Cortez?”

  A moment’s confused hesitation, and then: “The woman who transgressed upon our property?”

  “Did you kill her?”

  Gupta’s eyes widened, innocent. “She is dead? I was unaware. I assure you it had nothing to do with us. What happened?”

  Olympia forced calm into her voice and face. “Nothing. You only want to help Hannibal.”

  She could feel the truth within Gupta’s lie. There was something honest here, but also a grave falsehood. And she knew that hope killed. That it was hope that Madame Gupta was extending to her, and that she must not sample the tainted goods.

  “Very good,” Gupta said. “Begin.”

  Hannibal positioned himself in front of a screen.

  “Hannibal. My little prince. Now, the last time you were here, you concentrated on a picture of a soccer ball…”

  “It was Serge!” Hannibal cried, delighted. His mood had shifted suddenly, totally.

  The techs look at each other, as uncomfortable as Hannibal was delighted. What the hell?

  Even Olympia was confused. “I saw the image, and it was a soccer ball, hon.”

  “Serge,” he said petulantly.

  Madame Gupta’s face tightened in frustration. Her technicians selected another image for the screen. Daisies this time.

  “Do you like this picture?” the tech said.

  “Doggy,” Hani said. Her heart hammered. Something floated up close to the surface of Olympia’s understanding, and then sank again.

  “And what about this one?”

  Mike changed the image. Mickey Mouse.

  “A man. Mommy! We saw him on TV!”

  Something cold and feral squatted in the pit of Olympia’s stomach. Again, her heart glimpsed the shape of something her mind could not hold. What the hell was going on?

  “It’s all right to pretend, Hannibal,” Mike said. “Let’s just look at the mountain, please.”

  “Please, Hani,” Olympia said. “Do what the man said.”

  He paused, his little face screwed up tightly as if trying to think. But again, for some odd reason she couldn’t put her finger on, she had the
sense that Hani had already made up his mind.

  CHAPTER 35

  Terry’s van pulled off the freeway into a Denny’s parking lot. “We’re in Fulton County,” he said. “Should be far enough. I don’t know what is going on…”

  “I told you. I told you,” Nicki said. “Mom was working on that story about the Cobb County cops shaking down drug dealers.”

  “All right,” Terry said. “We’ll deal with this.”

  They left Pax in the van and walked into the diner. He scanned the room, picking up information from everyone in sight, an unfiltered flood, just unfocusing his gaze a bit to receive a riot of twisting, intertwined snakes of personal history, drawn from some unconscious sorting of their bodies, postures, interactions, voices, and dining preferences. It reminded him of the series of labels illustrating Sherlock Holmes’ deductive prowess on the BBC series, only there was no language involved. It was all visual … auditory … and tactile, as if their nervous systems were joined.

  He knew these men. Had always known them.

  “These are good cops,” Terry said confidently.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know things,” he said.

  They sat down at a side booth. He counted eight uniformed officers at multiple tables. Terry observed them. Their fitness, focus, interactions. Everything seemed fine.

  “Can I get you something?” the waitress asked.

  He inhaled. Among the myriad smells of fried fat and artificial flavorings, he could detect the oily citrus smell of fresh-cut citrus peel. “Just orange juice,” Terry said. “You, Nicki?”

  “I’m not hungry, thank you.” He didn’t blame her. She had to be wondering about her mother. Dealing with the shock and disorientation of an attempted kidnapping. If O had researched or run a story on drug dealers, and been targeted for revenge, this was deeper than anything he could imagine. If on the other hand she was safe, and the dealers (bad cops?) had tried to grab Nicki to gain revenge, or leverage … this situation might be resolvable, if they could find allies. If he could find someone to hand her over to, someone willing to protect her.

  “Maybe something to drink?” the waitress persisted. She looked more concerned than irritated.

  “Is the orange juice fresh?” Good girl. She smelled it, too.

  “Yes, it is.” The waitress smiled. “We’re kinda famous for our fresh-squeezed.”

  “Please.”

  * * *

  Father Geek had spent the last six hours breathing increasingly stale warehouse air, burrowing into his computer. Mark sat drinking beer and trying to drown out the voices that said he would have to kill his friend. The others glowered or stalked in circles or drank beer, radiating anger, nursing their various contusions and abrasions.

  “This had better work,” Mark said. If he could find Terry, maybe they could talk. Work things out. Before Ronnell did something that couldn’t be reversed.

  “It will,” Geek said. “The trick is that you have to start high enough in the chain and go downward. I have a hole in Homeland Security. A couple of years back I was part of a team sprucing up their cyber defenses, and let’s just say I stole the keys on the way out the door.”

  That was Geek, all right. Good man.

  The screen capture was an image of Terry, wanted in connection with the public threat to the president, assumed to be armed and exceedingly dangerous.

  Ronnell grinned. “Something like this could get a guy killed.” He laughed. None of the others laughed with him.

  “He was a friend, Pat,” Lee said.

  The smaller man’s smile chilled unpleasantly. “Choose more carefully next time.”

  And that, to a T, was Pat.

  The others looked to Mark, seeking leadership. Shit. He had to step up, whether he wanted to or not. “I agree that we can’t take a risk. He’s going to talk. Somebody took him to Jesus. We’ve got to either find and neutralize him … or have someone else do it. We’ve broken no laws as of yet, so if he talks before the first, we pick up O’Shay and his people later.”

  “Unless he talks about the flight itself,” Geek said.

  “That’s possible. And if that happens we’re dead in the water. We haven’t received any stolen property. I doubt anyone could make a conspiracy charge stick at this point, and that’s important to remember.”

  “Let’s do it.” Father Geek pushed the button.

  “And if the gendarmes take him out?” Lee asked. “Folks are a little nervous.”

  Mark sighed. “Then I’ll get fucking drunk.”

  “I’m buying.” Ronnell grinned.

  * * *

  Terry and Nicki approached the table with the four cops. One was eating a chicken pot pie that looked homemade and smelled delicious.

  These are not Smyrna PD. They are good cops.

  “Excuse me, please, officers,” he said, hands relaxed and in plain sight. “This young lady has something to say to you.”

  “Yes? Can we help you?” the first officer said. Then he raised his hand. “Just a second.”

  He cupped his ear. The officers looked very tired. Terry wondered if the call had something to do with him, and tensed.

  “What have we got?” the second guy said.

  “Another fire on the south side,” the first guy said, and sighed. “Shit. It’s coming apart, man. I’m sorry.” It’s coming apart. That seemed to have become a catchphrase. He’d heard it a dozen times in the last day.

  The cop looked more than merely tired. “Tired” was a distant blip in his rearview mirror. This man was so exhausted the skin on his face seemed bleached gray.

  One of the others tried to smile. “What can we do for you, young lady?”

  That was odd. Something fluttered around the edge of Terry’s visual field when the officer spoke. He hadn’t noticed it until that moment, but there was a darkness around these men, as if he was viewing them through muddied water. But the instant this officer had spoken to Nicki, the “mud” thinned. There was more light. As if he was looking into the heart of a good man, mired in his own fears and anxieties, who had made a genuine effort to lift himself up and be of service to a young girl.

  A good man. A genuine peace officer. What was it he had just seen, or sensed? Was it something visual at all, or was his mind playing with him again? Was this what people referred to when they spoke of “auras”?

  “My mother is an employee at CNS,” Nicki said. “She’s been working on a story about police corruption in Cobb County.”

  They bristled: cop pride. “Yes?”

  “I think they took her.”

  One glanced to the other. “Took your mother?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you report it?”

  Nicki was losing patience. “Didn’t you hear me? My mom was writing an article about crooked cops. What’s wrong with you—”

  Terry shushed and maneuvered her back behind him. “Officers, it’s true that there were men in her house.”

  They seemed a little more interested, the fatigue beaten back by professional curiosity. “You were there? Excuse me, sir. Who are you?”

  “My name is Terry Nicolas. An hour ago this child was Tased unconscious by men who then attempted to abduct her.”

  The cop’s eyebrows beetled together. Instant focus. The two of them had just dropped into another category. A crime had been committed, by someone, the instant he said those words. “And you are related to this young lady exactly how?”

  “I’m a neighbor.”

  A couple of the other officers were starting to pay more attention.

  “A neighbor,” the cop said. His badge said OFFICER MITCH BASKINS. “I see. And what exactly did you witness?”

  Terry was aware of the flush of focused interest, a shift from clear to rusty red in that odd visual field distortion. Threat assessment? Good cop tactics. He deepened his breathing, as if telling himself to stay calm.

  “I was in my apartment. I saw the girl come home. She was dropped off by a car
.”

  Mitch the cop smiled thinly. “Do you normally pay such close attention to your teenaged neighbors?”

  Terry felt something growl inside him, but tamped it down. “I’m … friends with her mother. It’s a community, and we watch out for each other.”

  “Takes a village.” A thin smile. “So what happened?”

  “A few minutes later two men approached the door.”

  “Cops,” Nicki said. “They said they were cops.”

  “Were they wearing uniforms?”

  “No, they were out of costume…” Nicki said.

  “Plainclothes,” Terry said.

  “Did they show identification?”

  “Yes. At least I think they did. Badges in black folding cases.”

  The cops exchanged glances. “Go on.” The officer was fully engaged now.

  “I saw them push her, and enter the house.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  Terry hesitated. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Terry said. “Can’t say. I just acted.”

  The cops looked at each other. One said: “Were you in the military?”

  “Afghanistan, Iraq. Other fun places.”

  “First Marine Expeditionary Force,” the cop said.

  “Out of Pendleton?”

  “The very same. Oorah.”

  “Hooah,” Terry replied, the army equivalent. They laughed.

  “All right,” the cop said. “So what happened?” The others at the table seemed to relax a bit, approving, or at least understanding. Band of Brothers.

  “I watched the house from my kitchen window. After a while, the garage door opened. One of the men came out and moved his vehicle into the garage.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “I thought that they might be trying to move Nicki out of the house without anyone seeing.”

  The cop squinted, seemed dubious. “Bit of a leap, wasn’t that?”

  “Possibly,” Terry admitted. “But I was correct. I crossed the street, and slipped into the garage before the door came down.”

  Now, finally, he had their full attention. “I … heard them say to bring the girl out, and I … intervened.”