Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  “I always have.” He traced her hair with his fingertips. “Through all time. I’ve loved you all my life.”

  He kissed her forehead softly as she exhaled one final time.

  Terry sighed, and set her head down. He rose, and limped over to Olympia.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Now. I think. Your friends … they did this? They saved us?”

  “Wasn’t the plan,” Mark said, and he glared at Terry. “But … I was just being neighborly.”

  She threw her arms around Mark’s thick neck and kissed him gently. “Thank you. So very much.”

  “Pleasure was mine,” he said.

  Olympia peeled herself away, and her family snared her in a group hug. “Nicki. Hani. What happened? Do I even want to know?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed Hannibal tightly. “Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

  The group hug broke.

  “What do we do now?” Terry asked.

  “I thought maybe a trip to the library,” Mark said.

  And despite his pain, and the carnage that surrounded them all, Terry managed to laugh.

  * * *

  Later that night, there was a terrible fire in the Salvation Sanctuary. And by the time the engines and firemen arrived, the entire facility was deserted, but for the charred and broken bodies of the dead.

  CHAPTER 51

  In the final analysis, the most pressing questions would probably never be answered. Burned bodies were recovered from the smoking wreckage and autopsied, conjectures had been made, and theories proposed.

  The deaths of seventy-two famous and infamous men and women around the world had been attributed to a variety of causes. There were still questions about whether the thousands promised had actually perished. There were rumors, and assumptions, but in the end no one actually knew.

  Why the bizarre string of deaths had ended no one could say. Both intelligence agencies and megachurches claimed responsibility, but whether prayer or spy craft had brought the world back from the edge of disaster was a matter that might never be resolved.

  The answer whispered most frequently among those who knew of the events at the Salvation Sanctuary? The Israelis, who had lost their minister of defense. The destruction had been too clean, too complete, too ruthless for anyone else.

  Don’t mess with Mossad, it was said, although Tel Aviv disavowed all knowledge of any deadly actions in the Georgia mountains. Right, the world winked. And they don’t have nukes, either.

  Slowly, the world’s financial markets tiptoed back from the abyss. Fortunes had been made and lost, and the existence of odd sell or buy orders, however many tens of millions of dollars they represented, or how slender the margins on which they had been purchased, were simply additional mysteries, topics of backroom conversations on Wall Street and little more. Forensic accounting would be unwinding the threads for years. It was possible that conclusions would never be reached at all.

  Life went on.

  CHAPTER 52

  NEW YEAR’S DAY

  Dobbins Air Reserve Base was located north of Atlanta off U.S. 41, acres of low buildings and concrete landing strips surrounded by commercial and residential districts.

  The front gate slid open, and a three-vehicle convoy exited. A Humvee, a three-ton truck, and a bulky green jeep. They merged onto Route 41, picked up speed, and disappeared into the flow. Then … police cars closed in from multiple sides, lights flashing, halting traffic. Blue windbreakers emblazoned with various white letters swooped in behind the body-armored police. Hands were in the air, then on the hoods and sides of the vehicles.

  Two men were watching the convoy from a rooftop a half-mile away as all within were arrested. One man had been at the wheel of a specially configured, wheelchair-accessible SUV, and the other beside him had plastic casts on his left arm and leg and walked with crutches

  Father Geek sighed, lowering his binoculars. “It would have worked,” he said.

  Mark nodded, and lit a thin black Cuban cigar. It had gone out again. Damn it, the things just wouldn’t stay lit.

  “Yep,” he said. “Sure would. Pity someone dropped a dime.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” Geek asked. They maintained straight faces for a moment, and then dissolved in deep laughter. Geek had made sure plenty of information, much of it classified, ended up at a half-dozen different agencies. O’Shay hadn’t stopped being a shitbird after Fallujah. All it took was someone to put it together and wrap it up with a big anonymous bow.

  “So … what do we do now?”

  “I hear Mexico’s nice this time of year.”

  CHAPTER 53

  On New Year’s Day President Correll addressed a joint session of Congress, her first since sequestering herself. She seemed gaunt but determined, optimistic and simultaneously cautious, asking that the world pull together, as it had through so many previous emergencies, and asking that political rivals across the aisle work together for the common good. Her words were greeted by thunderous applause. The scene dissolved into hand-shaking and back-slapping, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

  Both MSNBC and Fox promised to strive to be more fair and balanced in the coming year, and that behavior lasted almost exactly a month, when new tax proposals hit the Senate floor, and Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity sharpened their knives.

  Human beings are resilient, if nothing else.

  CHAPTER 54

  SANTA TIA, EASTERN COASTAL MOUNTAINS, CENTRAL AMERICA

  The surf had been warm in Santa Tia, and the children who lived in this village nestled between the warm ocean and the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental spent their days helping their fathers with the fishing boats, or the farming, or the gathering, or their mothers with the thousand small tasks of mending, sorting, cleaning, and gathering that comprised life in Santa Tia.

  There was electricity in Santa Tia between the hours of one and ten in the evening, but no cellular or phone service. No paved roads within fifty miles.

  But it was known for its unspoiled beauty, and the fishing, of course! The bountiful catches of dorado, Spanish mackerel, roosterfish, red snapper, and Crevalle jacks were known all along the coast. Sometimes, but not often, tourists braved the rutted roads, or came in motorboats to fish here, and the people were polite, and friendly, happy to take their money, but happier still to see the norteamericano tourists return to their own homes.

  The village was some miles south of the place rumored to be built around the grave of the first Spanish soldiers to have been killed by Aztecs. There was an old and honored tradition of repelling outsiders here, and although the fires no longer burned so brightly, the ashes were not yet cool.

  Whatever storms of change had engulfed the surrounding world had not touched Santa Tia. In fact the inhabitants had been unaware that any such chaos had ever existed at all, no aspect of it influencing the life that had been very much the same as their ancestors had faced, until a jeep containing a man, a woman, two children, and a large spotted dog had pushed through the jungle almost a year before.

  They had asked few questions about the newcomers, one of whom had been known to them almost six years earlier, during an action where guerrillas loyal to a local warlord had been overcome by gringo soldiers, one of whom had sullied the dignity of the daughter of the head of a neighboring village. It was whispered that the norteamericano had been a man of honor, and had delivered the transgressor to the villagers for justice. The people of Santa Tia remembered that story, and appreciated what it meant about the character of the man who now came to them for shelter.

  Whether that concerned the tall, cool-eyed black man who was welcomed into the village, none of the children could say. They could say that the daughter, Nee-kee, was good at games and with the enormous dog they called Pax, and that the boy, Hhan-ee-bhal, spoke little but ran and swam and jumped with a joy and facility they had rarely seen. They called him “Little Sunshine” for his smile, a name that seemed to thrill him.


  The woman called “Oh” became a schoolteacher in the village, and was excellent, and kind, and became a favorite of the other women, who in time wove for her a marriage dress, and celebrated and sang all night the evening she and the man exchanged vows at the water’s edge.

  The man had many skills related to hunting and fishing, and joined in the affairs of the village with great enthusiasm. The days were for adult work and children’s play, the nights for children’s rest and adult conversation … and love.

  The man was strong, stronger than any man any of them had ever seen. He worked with the other men in the fields, and sometimes went out on the fishing boats, where he pulled nets or rigged sail tirelessly. He mentored the village boys, teaching them wrestling and stick-fighting, and could beat any three of the village men without harming them, such that all laughed when the scrambling and tumbling and thumping was concluded.

  In time, the village elders brought him into their circle, into the huts where there was talking until late, to the smell of tobacco and other smoke, and he told them of wars and death and absent friends, and sometimes wept, but more often smiled, as if in the midst of a great cleansing.

  The family smiled much, and seemed to love each other even more, and for the people of Santa Tia, that was all they needed to know.

  * * *

  In October an eighty-foot sailboat pulled up next to the dock built below the house, crewed by four and containing three passengers: two white men, one in a wheelchair, and the other upon crutches, and a round brown woman with warm eyes who pushed the man in the wheelchair and touched him constantly. They were friendly, and gave candy to children, and were welcomed by the family.

  * * *

  They stood together on the deck of the yacht, which had been rather cheekily renamed the Sanctuary.

  Terry had never thought to see his friends again. It seemed that life had not yielded up its complete supply of delights. “Why aren’t you dead?” he said. “You’ve been dying for four years. I’d have thought you’d do the decent thing and croak.”

  “I’m trying my best, asshole,” Mark said. “The doctors keep telling me to say good-bye. I’m getting tired of taking bows. If I’m immortal, I’m asking for my money back.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Carl,” Terry said, and they laughed and laughed, as if they had been saving that mirth for years.

  And then finally they quieted, and watched the surf together. “So you found me,” Terry said, taking a deep, slow toke on a slender, pungent black cigar before flipping it out into the ocean.

  “You ain’t all that clever,” Mark said. “The main reason you haven’t been found is that no one is looking for your dumb ass.” He flicked his cigar over the rail. Terry watched it spiral down into the deep.

  Father Geek was on the beach, surrounded by a raft of children, doing magic tricks. He was good. Better than good, as if some spot of light had emerged from him, sparking a level of theatrical pizzazz he’d never had before. In a different world, he might have performed at Hollywood’s Magic Castle.

  In this world, he couldn’t. On the other hand, Terry reflected, in this world, he could buy the Magic Castle.

  “Eight point six million dollars?”

  “That’s your cut,” Mark said. “After we sold the books, it came to forty-three million dollars. Five ways.”

  “What about Lee and Pat?”

  Mark sighed. “Next of kin. But we have to figure out the right way to do it. There are officials who would look askance at that kind of money popping up, no matter how it happens. Softly, softly catchee monkey.”

  Almost nine million dollars? What in the hell would he even do with it down here that wouldn’t put him on the wrong radar? “I don’t really want the money,” Terry said. “I just want to raise my family.”

  “Well, it’s in the traditional numbered Bahamian account, gathering interest until the day you regain your sanity.” Mark laughed and shook his head. “Your family.” Mark laughed again. “Sure never saw this coming.”

  “Who could have?” Terry asked.

  * * *

  Olympia and Terry walked barefoot along the edge of the sand, holding hands. The warm water lapped at their toes, and overhead, gulls swooped and glided, screeching their ancient mating calls.

  Hannibal floated in the surf, playing with three other boys his age, and they felt no worry. The water here was shallow for almost an eighth of a mile out, then dropped off slowly, and Hannibal was a dolphin in the water. Their son waved to them, then splashed his friends.

  His friends.

  Hannibal had friends.

  It was what photographers called the “magic hour,” Olympia thought, and it was the perfect term.

  “What are you thinking?” Terry asked, perhaps noticing that she had been quiet a long time.

  The breeze shifted, bringing with it the smell of roasting fish, and the sound of laughter from the village. Mark and Geek were, not surprisingly, making friends quickly. She rather hoped they would decide to stay.

  It was a good life here, and there was a loneliness about those men, a yearning for a real home.

  That could be Santa Tia. For all of the lost norteamericanos.

  Olympia’s mouth watered as she suddenly realized she was ravenously hungry. There had been a lot of that lately. She had rediscovered many appetites. “About Madame Gupta,” she said. “Do you ever think about her?”

  He nodded, and squeezed her hand.

  “Me, too. I was thinking about something she said at the end.”

  “What was that?”

  “She said, ‘You are his mother, the woman the man I had chosen chose, and placed above me. You are a family. You have this thing called ‘love.’ Show me that you are worthy of his choice, their love.’ And then she slapped me. She told me everything I needed to figure out what was going on, and then she gave me her blood.”

  “With a slap.”

  Olympia turned to face him. “You knew her. I think that at the end you knew her better than anyone.”

  “That’s possible. And very sad.”

  “Then tell me,” she asked, searching for the right way to phrase her question. “Was there good left inside her? She gave you a chance to survive. Did she give me one? Was there a part of her that knew she was wrong?”

  Could that strange, twisted woman have seen something, learned something at the end? Olympia had learned, changed, grown. Remade her entire life into something close to a paradise she had never dared dream of, filled with love and adventure and a family healthier than any she had known. All it had taken was the courage to accept the destruction of all that had come before.

  And willingness to adopt a dog named Pax.

  And to admit that she was totally in love with a man who needed her heart like roses need rain.

  Terry had been considering. “I remember a DVD she gave me. This man Savagi told a story about exactly what she was doing. I think she was dying for someone to know her, to see her.”

  “And join her?”

  “Or stop her. Or both. I think there was a part of her that wanted to be loved so much it drove her insane. I think that as much as she was capable, she … loved me. And when people love … anything is possible. I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I like to think that everyone deserves a little hope.” She kissed him. “Me, I’m hoping you’re in a frisky mood tonight.”

  “You have strange and mysterious powers of perception,” he said, and kissed her back. Thoroughly.

  CHAPTER 55

  Water warm. Sky dark. Life good.

  Hannibal floated on a wave that rolled up beneath him, embracing, tied to every other ocean in the world. The oceans warmed by a distant sun, the sun created by the cloud that birthed the universe.

  This moment, this eddy, tied to every other part of the universe, as it should be.

  All was well. His loving Nicki was well, and already sparking with a tall brown boy named Boruca. Boruca’s smile was beautiful, and he made Ni
cki laugh and glow, and that was all Hannibal needed to know, that his wonderful Nicki was happy.

  Mommy was happier than he had ever seen her, and it was Daddy Terry, and the new life, that made her smile. She deserved this, and much more. Terry was all Hannibal had known him to be, from the first moment. A good man, a strong man, the only one he wanted as a father. He knew this even before Madame Gupta had opened his eyes.

  Even at the beginning, he knew these two needed to be together, and he hoped he could be forgiven for arranging a few things. Their meeting at the swimming pool, when he had bounced off Terry’s leg. He’d just known Terry was fast enough to snatch him out of the air. And that that would force Mommy to stop pretending she didn’t notice him. And that maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to stop pretending his other daddy, the weak one, was dead.

  Pax ran through the surf, jumping up and snatching the stick from the air when Hannibal threw it. He liked that, and liked the fact that Pax had woods to run in, and rabbits to chase. And sometimes catch!

  Hannibal liked playing and being safe so that everyone didn’t have to worry about him all the time. That they knew he didn’t need to be watched at every minute. He was trying to speak more, and said “Buen perro!”: Good dog when Pax returned the stick to him. Speaking was good, at times. His friends liked him to talk, and were teaching him Spanish. Somehow, speaking in the new language was more fun than talking in English, and fun was good.

  Pax didn’t speak, and everyone loved her. Why was it that if he, Hannibal, didn’t speak they got so worried?

  It wasn’t fair. The inside of his head was so much more interesting than the outside world. So he just brought the threads together and let them play out, and all had concluded as he wished.

  Life was good.

  He did not know what would become of him. He was losing his memory of what had happened with Madame Gupta. What he had done to the others who had hurt his family. But she was the one who’d opened the door of the cage. And on the other side, well …