Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

The anguish continued endlessly, and all the while not a single question was asked, no requests or demands made.

  Then, when she was exhausted, hollowed out, too numb to do anything but accept death like a deer dazed and limp in the tiger’s jaws, she was allowed to rise to a sitting position. The cloth was peeled away from her face, and she was allowed to gasp a few breaths. Almost tenderly, they patted her face dry. And then the two torturers left.

  The room was empty and silent. Olympia heard nothing but her own breathing, felt nothing but her fevered heartbeat.

  Then … Madame Gupta entered the room, wearing a clinging silk cheongsam. Her face was smooth, unlined, suffused with compassion. Olympia wanted to kill her, but what was disturbing was that she felt a tickle of a terrible urge to beg forgiveness for her sins. “I am genuinely sorry that we had to do that to you. You seem a good woman, a good mother, a woman honestly concerned with the welfare of her children. There is no finer thing in life. My own mother would have understood you very well indeed. She died for her children. I hope you will not have to die for yours.” Gupta’s manner was sympathetic, plausible, seductive. No overt threat at all. It was obscene.

  “Why did you do this to me?” Olympia fought to control the sour tangle of fear and rage that tightened her voice.

  Be careful. Very, very careful. This woman is insane.

  Or worse.

  Gupta hung her head. “I am sorry, but it was necessary to convince you that we were serious. You would not want this happening again, would you?”

  “No … no…”

  Madame Gupta loomed over her. “And even more, you wouldn’t want such a thing happening to Hannibal.”

  Olympia’s world flashed red, then white, before her vision cleared again. “You wouldn’t.”

  Gupta’s long fingers twined together. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to believe it, but it is critically important that you believe that I am indeed most sincere. I will indeed do whatever is required to accomplish my aims. I will free Hannibal’s mind and spirit from its prison, and to do that I will need your full-hearted, enthusiastic cooperation. Or at the very least, a lack of obstruction. I can accomplish what I want even if you … or your daughter … are dead.”

  Another sledge blow to her heart. Help her son? Why? What was in it for Gupta? Why was it so important? She sensed that truth and lies were intermingled so closely that she needed to parse every word, search every phrase, if she was to find truth. “Leave Nicki alone, or…” She tried to be strong, to demand, to pretend indignation, but instead heard her voice collapse. “Please.”

  “The ‘please’ is nice.” Gupta smiled. “It is an acknowledgment of our relative status in this matter. And I appreciate that you have not blustered, or made demands. It suggests that you are intelligent enough to grasp your situation.”

  “What do you want?”

  Gupta smiled. A kind, wide smile. “We just want to help Hannibal reach his full potential. He is an extraordinary child. And with my help … he will become an extraordinary man. There is no telling what he might accomplish.”

  “Who are you?” Olympia asked. And what do you really want? A time would come for that question. But that time was not now.

  “The woman who is going to help your son reach his full potential.” Gupta leaned closer. “Whether you … or your daughter … will be alive to see it is totally up to you.”

  Or your daughter. Oh, God. “Where is she?”

  “We are locating her,” Gupta said. “You will be together soon.” That sounded like the truth … but not the whole truth. Irritation had tightened Gupta’s eyes. Had they tried to acquire Nicki? And failed somehow?

  “You are, I believe, a reporter. Who. What. Why. Where. When. How. In time, all will be revealed. Those are the questions, aren’t they? In the news business? Your business? You will want to know. The world will want to know, and in time, it may be revealed. It is possible. And if it is, you will be the one who was there. Would you like that?”

  The trap was almost complete. If they’d had Nicki, the jaws would have been closed. But with her daughter free … there was a prayer. Olympia was helpless, but not without hope. “Where is Hannibal? What are you doing to him?”

  “He is in another room. A much more … comfortable room. Watching cartoons, I believe, with our friend Maureen. He is a lovely child. A very unusual boy.” Damn it, if this bitch said that one more time, Olympia was going to try her best to strangle her, regardless of the consequences. “I will teach him, I think.”

  “Teach him what?”

  “What he needs in order to embrace his destiny.”

  “His … destiny?”

  “There is only one question you have to ask. And that question is: will you be there to see it? His destiny … my destiny … cannot be denied. There is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it. But you have a choice.”

  “What choice?”

  “To live or die. To be there for your son in the flesh, or to be only a dwindling memory, as he embraces a new life. A new mother. Children do that, you know. It is a survival trait. They … forget. Do you want him to forget you? Forget … his sister?

  “I lost my parents when I was young. Cannot remember their faces. Our family was scattered. I have, somewhere, a brother and a sister … if they survived. I have never been able to find them.”

  “No,” Olympia pled. “Not my daughter! Leave her out of this! She doesn’t know anything that can help you.”

  “Strange, isn’t it?” Gupta said, ignoring her. “Already you have forgotten your pain. But while the water was pouring you forgot about everything in the world but your next breath. Your desire for air.”

  “What do you want from us?” Olympia asked.

  “And now, minutes later, you are concerned only for your son. And your daughter.” Gupta’s smile was saintly. “You are a good mother.” The horror of it was the part of her psyche, growing in the back of her mind, that craved this harpy’s approval.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  “Your house is being watched. When she returns, we will know. What happens then is up to you. She can be brought here. Safe. She can be brought here, damaged. Or she can die there.”

  “What kind of sick bitch are you?”

  Gupta seemed to have too many teeth in her mouth. Sharp teeth. The Indian accent that normally was nothing more than a slight twinge at the edge of aural perception was more alive now. “The kind of sick bitch who accomplishes her goals.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I enjoy James Bond movies,” Gupta said. “The color. The adventure. The British Empire lives again! But I am not a villain in an imperialistic fantasy. You will know only what it is critical for you to know. And that is that you must answer this question, and answer it honestly.”

  “What question?”

  She leaned forward. Her breath was sharp with some spice Olympia did not recognize. Turmeric? “Are you a good mother? Will you put aside your personal feelings to provide nurturance to these young people who need you now more than ever?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Good.” She unclamped Olympia’s bonds, then turned and whispered into a handheld communicator. A black-handled knife glittered on the cart of torture implements, and Madame Gupta’s back was turned to it. Silently, Olympia’s hand stole toward the blade’s handle. But the moment her fingers brushed against it, Madame Gupta changed somehow. Her back to Olympia, something had shifted. Not anger. Not alertness. Almost relaxation, like someone anticipating pleasure.

  Olympia froze, then recoiled as if physically struck. Her heart trip-hammered.

  “Remember,” Gupta said. “Orphans I understand. I was an orphan. I might even prefer to deal with one. The choice is yours.”

  Olympia was so deeply afraid that she could not separate herself from the emotion enough to feel it.

  “But,” Gupta said, turning and plucking the knife from her nerveless hand. “Perhaps you do not comprehend the extent
of my determination. I think a demonstration may be in order.”

  She looked at the guards. “Tell them to kill the girl.”

  Olympia could not even speak. Gupta left the room, wheeling the cart out in front of her. The door closed.

  Olympia snapped out of her paralysis, sobbing, what fragile strength she had mustered collapsing into panic. And then she screamed. “No! No! I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Don’t hurt my baby!”

  * * *

  Out in the hall, Tony frowned. “‘Kill the girl.’” He seemed to roll the words around in his mouth. Taste them. “Are you serious?”

  “Perhaps.” Madame Gupta seemed deep in thought. “If we were to bring her here, and cut her throat in front of her mother and brother … I suspect resistance would cease.”

  “Maybe.” He looked at his employer, perhaps wondering how serious she was. “But … well, we don’t have her yet.”

  “Where are your men?”

  “They … haven’t reported back. There seems to have been a spot of difficulty.”

  Gupta’s face tightened, and then relaxed. “Secure her,” she said. “Bring her here. And then we will make our decisions.”

  CHAPTER 42

  After their last stop at a gas station, Terry drove on I-95 north for about seventy miles, through punishing bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way.

  “Is everyone leaving town?” Nicki asked.

  “I don’t know, Nicks-Nicks.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “I used to hate it when you called me that.”

  “And now?”

  “You’re just a minor annoyance.”

  He grunted. “Ouch. That’s harsh.”

  She grinned. “‘If I be waspish, best beware my sting.’”

  “Will you please cut that out?”

  * * *

  Caught in traffic, they inched along, then turned onto a smaller road and began to make better time. Passed between rows of trees, a four-lane highway headed up into the mountains. With slow-motion urgency, light snow flurries drifted toward the ground.

  He hadn’t many memories of snow. Most of his childhood had been spent on military bases in warm climates: Okinawa, Guam, Texas, California. Most of his adulthood in hot ones: the Middle East, Central America, Africa. “Merry Christmas,” Terry said.

  “What?”

  “Merry Christmas,” he said. “It’s snowing. Don’t you like snow?”

  “Nope.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “What kind of Georgia girl are you?”

  “There’s not that much snow around here. But anyway, I’m a Miami girl.”

  “Then why aren’t you in Florida?”

  “We left right after Dad … died,” she said. Her hands pressed at the soft ringlets of her hair, as if checking to see if they were in place.

  Holy crap, he thought. She doesn’t know I know.

  “And we’re stuck, because Mom can’t get a job in Florida as good as the one she has here.”

  “How old were you when you left?”

  A pause.

  “Ten.”

  Terry’s eyes widened. “Ten years old. Three years. Isn’t it time to be a Georgia girl?”

  “Kill me now.”

  “Do you have friends out here? Things you like to do?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then what’s so bad?”

  A faux English accent: “‘There’s small choice in rotten apples.’”

  Terry winced. “I’m dying here.”

  She smiled. In the backseat, Pax barked, communicating in a universal doggie language, tail wagging furiously. “Pax has to go,” she said.

  “My opinion, precisely.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Oh, you mean poop.” He nodded. “All right.”

  He spotted a sign directing them to a rest area just three miles ahead, and six minutes later, they pulled off to the right. An elderly white gent in a black Stetson leaned against a white-and-red camper shell, smoking an unfiltered cigarette. There was a Marlboro Man leanness about his chest and cheekbones. He looked more like he belonged out on the plains roping longhorns than anywhere near a city, but here he was.

  “Howdy.”

  “Howdy,” Terry replied.

  “Bad traffic.”

  “Yeah,” Terry said. Pax and Nicki were romping on the rectangle of manicured grass. Pax found a likely spot and squatted to release a steaming yellow stream.

  “Almost waited too long to get out,” the smoker said.

  “Out of Atlanta?”

  The Marlboro Man nodded and tapped his cigarette with his forefinger. Ash floated in the wind. “I don’t know if there is anywhere at all to go. Not anymore.”

  “You really think it’s that bad?”

  The man turned his head and hawked and spit. “Worse. Worse than anyone is saying. The ones in the news are just what’s leaking out. I’ve heard millions have died in India and China. Just … keeled over and went back to Buddha.”

  The cars honked at each other. From some distant place came the sound of metal cracking against metal. “What do you think it is? Some kind of natural thing? A weapon of some kind?”

  The man shook his head. “End times. Fags getting married. Muslim in the White House and Jews controlling our government. It’s all in the Book. Read the Book. ’Afore it’s too late.”

  He regarded Nicki with Pax. “Your girl?”

  “Watching her for her mom.”

  The man nodded. “Nice girl. I’d say be careful, but I’m not sure that matters. Not anymore.”

  He looked up into the sky. “It’s gonna open. A flaming sword. ‘So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.’”

  “And what is this ‘tree of life’ we’re going to be denied?”

  Marlboro Man gave him an owlish expression. “Life,” he said. “It’s all ending. And we ended it. And the angels will drive us all away.”

  Jesus Christ, Terry said to himself. This is the way the world ends.

  “It’ll be the last thing any of us see. The very last.” The smoker took a last drag of his cigarette, threw it to the ground, and ground it underfoot. Then lit another, the match briefly flaring to sharpen his profile. “What do you think? Would you rather see it, or just have it happen in your sleep?”

  “I guess I’m the kind who wants to see it.”

  “Me, too.” The old man grinned, a bitter expression Terry couldn’t decipher. “Well … you take care.”

  Terry managed a smile. “Thought you didn’t think it mattered.”

  Nicotine-stained teeth in a somber smile. “Might be wrong.”

  The cowboy got into the camper and pulled away. Pax’s nose was suddenly snuffling Terry’s leg. “Who was that?” Nicki asked.

  Terry watched the camper’s taillights disappear into the traffic stream. “He never said.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, they pulled onto a smaller road, toward a town that looked like a Fort Lauderdale tourist trap transplanted in the Georgia mountains. Their lane was slowing, but the opposite lane was speeding up. Not a good sign.

  When they got closer, they saw cars being turned around, heading back south toward Atlanta. An even worse signifier: the borders were being sealed. “Uh-oh…”

  “What do you think this is?” Nicki asked.

  “Trouble,” Terry said as they reached the barrier.

  CHAPTER 43

  It seemed to Olympia that all hope depended upon the significance of what had not been said. No one had said: “We saw you Mace our guard.” No. Security had discovered her, but up until the very last moment, it seemed that she had been a beat ahead of them. Improbable as it seemed, it was just possible that there was no surveillance of their room.

  And if that was true, if it was even possible that it was true, then it was worth trying again.

  She and Hannibal chewed at rare roast beef sandwiches with
a hint of horseradish in the mustard.

  Hannibal was very quiet. Not hysterical. Not crying. He had seen a man’s brains blown out of his head, and the sight had induced something akin to somnambulism. He seemed to have slid into some distant place inside his head, and she was afraid for her boy, didn’t know how to reach him.

  But where words would not suffice, perhaps actions would.

  For Hannibal’s sake she pretended to savor every bite, but tasted nothing. What had happened in that room, with the chair and the straps and the water and the soft words from the insane woman had burned away her taste buds, and it was entirely possible that the simple pleasure of food and drink might have been banished forever.

  She rose. “All right. They always give us ninety minutes before they come back. If we’re going to do this, we have to do it now.”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “You’re silly,” Hannibal said, without looking at her. “You are a very silly mommy.”

  She looked at him. Although he still declined eye contact, this was more than he had said for a very long time.

  “I wonder about you.”

  He giggled.

  The bedroom windows looked out on the maze and the interior of the clock-face underlying the entire Sanctuary’s design. Olympia pulled the blanket off the bed and stripped off the sheets. They were good, twelve hundred thread-count Westport sheets, but by stabbing a fork through the edge she was able to start a rip, and then tear the entire thing in two. She looked around the room and decided on the clock radio on the dresser next to the bed. The cord was attached to the wall, not plugged in. She wrapped the cord around her fist, set her foot against the wall, and pulled with all the strength in her good, long legs.

  Pulled until the bite from the cords against the flesh of her palms was so strong she thought she would have to quit. Then the cord came loose, and she stumbled back.

  Olympia wrapped the clock up in the half-sheet, then twisted and knotted the sheet until she had a flexible mace. The window wasn’t thick, but it was sealed. She looked out across the courtyard, out across the maze, and saw no one. She had to take the chance. She whirled the weighted sheet around her head and smashed it into the window once, twice. The third time the glass cracked, then spiderwebbed and shattered. She knocked the shards out and then leaned out herself to take a look.