by Arno Joubert
Alexa peered over her shoulder as a fire truck came wailing up to the entrance of the inn, then jumped up and waved one of the officers over. “We need to get her to the clinic,” she shouted.
The man nodded as he jogged forward, talking into his two way radio and directing the other men around him.
Two minutes later, an ambulance arrived. Thank goodness it was a small town. The paramedics loaded Missy onto a gurney. Alexa followed them to the ambulance, Missy clutching her hand as they went. The older woman opened her eyes and smiled weakly. “Thank you, miss. Thank you so much,” she said and gave her hand a squeeze. “God sent me an angel tonight.”
Alexa watched as the paramedics slammed the ambulance doors shut behind them and the vehicle lurched away, sirens blaring noisily.
“I’m no angel, Missy,” she muttered as she turned around and headed back to the blazing building.
Alexa shivered as the cool breeze bit through her jersey. An orange tinge in the starless morning sky hinted at the imminence of dawn. Bruce had arrived shortly after the fire, and he was now standing, leaning against a tree, studying her pensively. He hadn’t offered any advice or encouragement. He just stood there, doing nothing.
She was kept busy, directing the troops and helping the firemen extinguish the last of the smoking embers. She made sure Voelkner accompanied Missy to Saint Josephine’s, then checked in every half an hour to find out if she was doing okay. And Bruce had just leaned against the tree, his hands in his pockets, studying her.
When she finally plopped down on the lawn, spent, he walked to her and stuck out his hand. “You done?”
She nodded and he helped her up.
“Let’s talk,” he said. She looked back over her shoulder as he led her away from the chaotic scene and the strobing lights and the smoke. Away from all the action where she was dearly needed.
“But wait, I need to…” she protested.
He held her hand firmly. “Let’s talk.”
He led her to a private bench at the far end of the garden.
He sat down and pulled her down beside him, then pulled her head to his chest. She remonstrated, she didn’t want to be physically close to anyone at all. He calmed her down and held her tight. “Hush, Alexa,” he said and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her gently back and forth.
Like he used to do when she was a kid. Before the army, before she had become a killer. He hummed a tune, a song she remembered, something about a guy drinking beers for breakfast and dessert. And the song transported her back to the days when she was safe at home with Bruce and her mom, where she was at peace with the world and with herself.
Her emotions came bubbling out, and she talked about her bitter disappointment at losing Neil and the hatred she felt toward Fitch and how she was going to torture and kill him. How she wished this was all a bad dream and that Neil would come back, simply re-appear. How much she loved him and that everything felt like a nightmare and that she wished she could snap her fingers and wake up.
Bruce just sat there listening, nodding, encouraging her to talk.
“I feel dirty, dad,” she sobbed. “As if I somehow deserved what had happened to me.” She glanced up at him. “All the killing I’ve done.”
Bruce hugged her tight. “Alexa, Andy Fitch is a bad, bad man,” he said and brushed her hair out of her face. ”What he did was the vilest and most despicable act of human nature, not even animals behave that way.”
Alexa clutched his neck and wept. It felt like she couldn’t breathe, her chest convulsing as she sobbed. “Oh shit, daddy, he hurt me, he hurt me real bad. I keep seeing his face, smelling his breath on me.” She shivered.
Bruce clenched his jaw. “Compartmentalize it, Alexa. Don’t rationalize. No-one deserves what he did to you.” He gently kissed her forehead, then lifted her chin. “No-one,” he said firmly.
She blinked and wiped away a tear, then nodded her head.
“Give it time,” Bruce sighed.
The birds started chirping in the trees. She nodded, although she knew that the emotional pain and bad memories would never go away.
They looked up as a fireman marched their way, carrying Mary-Lou in his arms. He nodded a greeting to Bruce and directed his attention to Alexa. “Captain, she fell asleep in the truck. What should we do with her?”
Alexa stood up and held out her arms. “I’ll take care of her until Missy is okay.”
The man smiled, looking relieved. Mary-Lou yawned as the man gently lowered the girl into Alexa's arms. “I’m tired.”
Bruce drove them back to camp Prairie while Alexa made a final call to Voelkner on her cell. She disconnected the call and smiled at Bruce. “She’s fine. The doctor said she’ll be dismissed by tomorrow afternoon.”
Bruce nodded thoughtfully as he pulled up in front of the camp, then bid her a good night.
Alexa tried to clean Mary-Lou as well as she could with a bucket of warm water and a bar of army-issued glycerine soap. She pulled a white army T-shirt over the small girl’s head and made a bed for her next to her own.
“Sleep tight, now,” Alexa said as she tucked her in. “See you tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Mary-Lou said and jumped out of bed. She knelt next to it and folded her hands. “Pray first.”
Alexa smiled and kneeled next to her.
“Dear Heavenly Father up above, look down on Mary-Lou and the pretty lady and grandma Missy and uncle Neil with love,” she glanced up at Alexa and squinted through her eyes. Alexa smiled and nodded.
“Please keep us in your care and tonight hear our prayer. Amen,” she rambled off the last sentence, then hopped into bed.
Alexa smiled and said Amen. “Now sleep tight.” She kissed the girl on the forehead and tucked her in.
Alexa walked out of the tent and crouched next to the tent pole, holding onto it for balance. A weariness had crept into her bones. She shivered. “Oh dear God, help me get through this…” She prayed and swallowed hard. “Neil, I needed you so much today.”
Neil was falling, his arms and legs flailing in the air. He shouted something at her, something familiar…
Alexa woke up with a scream. The tangled sheets were damp around her shivering body. The dream had been vivid. Neil falling and shouting something to her at the top of his lungs, something important, his eyes wide and afraid. She tried to focus on the words, but she couldn’t make them out.
She swung her legs over the gurney as someone pulled the tent zip up and down twice, a military knock. “In,” she called.
Forrester stuck his head through the opening. “Everything OK, Captain?” He looked apologetic. “I heard a noise.”
She stood up and wrapped the sheets around her. “I’m fine, thank you Sergeant.” She pulled on her pants beneath the sheet. Five years in the Foreign Legion with a hundred male recruits in close proximity had made her quite a pro at getting dressed behind a sheet or towel. “I need to see his body.”
Forrester though for a moment, then nodded. “Follow me.”
Grabbing a jersey from the back of a chair, she followed him outside. A cool breeze moaned and plucked at the tent ropes, leaves rustling in the trees. She greeted the two guards shivering opposite her tent.
The camp was brightly lit, and she could hear the murmured tones of conversation from the mess tent and the soft hum of the generators.
She followed Forrester to the back of the camp. He stopped in front of a tent, flicked a switch and held open the flap for her. A fluorescent tube flickered to life and bathed the tent in a harsh light. She pulled the jersey over her head and pulled her hair out of the collar as she followed Forrester inside.
He said, “Interpol will be sending a medical examiner tomorrow morning.” They walked to a ten-foot chest freezer and he opened the lid. “I’m sorry, but we’ve had to improvise. This is all that we could find in town on such short notice.”
Alexa touched her throat and closed her eyes. “Please leave.”
Sergeant Andrew Forrester
smiled awkwardly. Alexa didn’t know if it was meant to imply empathy, or whether he was embarrassed at Neil’s humble final resting place. He ambled out, and she heard him zip the flaps behind her. He stood outside for a while, then exhaled deeply. Finally his footsteps crunched away.
The light flickered for a moment, then came back on. Alexa touched the black body bag, tracing her finger up the zipper to where the Mossad’s symbolic Star of David was printed on top. Neil’s name and military tag number were scribbled beneath the symbol with a white felt tip pen.
She unzipped it slowly, took a deep breath and pulled it open. A grotesque skull looked up at her, what remained of the lips were parted an inch, the tongue blue and swollen. Two new Israeli Shekel coins were placed over the empty eye sockets. She turned away, unable to hold back the tears. She couldn’t believe that he was gone. He always seemed so…indestructible.
Alexa pursed her lips, averting her eyes from the face and zipped the bag, unable to stomach anymore. What had she expected, some cathartic experience by having her own pathetic remembrance ceremony? This wasn’t doing her any good. She folded her arms and scanned the room. On top of a metal table lay a transparent ziplock bag containing some of his possessions, his clothes were neatly folded and placed beside it. Someone had put his GLD on top of the clothes.
Alexa picked it up and pressed the play button. Neil had started the recording a moment before he dropped it, she could hear him call out desperately for her to give him her free hand. She heard him grunt and then the soft thrumming of wind for a couple of seconds. A loud whack as the GLD smacked onto the rocks and a soft plop as it buried into the mud or sand. And then nothing.
She chastised herself for not trying harder to save Neil, for not flinging her body in front of the bullet. She had simply stood there, unable to react. Unable to save someone she cared for dearly, whom she probably loved, from his gruesome fate.
Suddenly she heard a crash and scraping sounds emit from the GLD, like metal being torn, then a loud explosion. This was new. She rewound the recording and listened intently. It was definitely a car crashing down into the valley. She wondered if Neil somehow managed to…she shook her head, unable to follow her train of thought. Neil was dead, she saw him being shot, the blood flow from his mouth. No-one would have survived that.
Suddenly, she heard a loud scream from the tiny speaker in the GLD and something thump into the sand. Someone grunted and moaned. Then a male voice whispered urgently. “Help, help me, I’m still alive. Oh, Dear Lord have mercy.”
The desperate whispers became softer and died down, and then the man took a deep breath and shouted as loud as he could. “Fuck you, Neil Allen, I’ll see you in hell.” She heard a couple of raspy breaths, and then a final moan and then nothing, except for crows squawking in the background.
What the hell? How did Neil kill someone if he had already been dead? Alexa spun around and marched to Neil’s bag of possessions, then ripped it open without thinking twice. She unfolded the muddy shirt and pants, then tipped the bag and emptied the contents on the ground.
Nothing belonged to Neil. The body wasn’t Neil’s. She strode to the fridge and ripped it open, unzipped the bag and lifted the man’s shoulder and unceremoniously tipped him over. She examined his buttocks. There were no distinguishing marks. There wasn’t a mole on his bottom like Neil had.
She swallowed and shook her head, trying to straighten her jumbled thoughts, confusion and relief and hope and then excitement. She slammed the freezer door closed and bolted toward the exit. “Dad, Neil’s still alive,” she shouted as she ducked outside.
Alexa tossed Missy’s overnight bag onto the back seat of the car and supported her as she painfully shifted into the passenger seat. She closed the door and slid in behind the wheel.
As she cranked the engine, the older woman touched her arm and smiled gratefully. “Thank you for everything you have done for me and my baby.”
Alexa reversed and put the car into gear. “We were lucky. I was at the right place at the right time. Who do you think was responsible for the fire?” she asked as she veered onto Main Road and headed toward the camp.
Missy tugged at the bandage on her arm. “Could only have been Fitch. Or Fitch junior, Chris. Anderson never does his own dirty work.”
“Why?”
The older woman stared out of the window, then sighed. “That is a long story, my dear. One that I want to tell, but only when everyone is present.”
Alexa turned into camp Prairie’s parking lot and stopped in front of the mess tent. She pulled Missy’s bag from the back seat and showed her to her tent. They both turned around as Bruce sauntered their way. “I need to talk to you guys.”
Alexa touched his hand. “Okay, give us a couple of minutes, I want to check Missy’s dressing.”
Five minutes later, they joined Bruce in the mess tent. Doctor Ryan was there, munching on a chocolate chip cookie, and Colonel Sal Frydman’s magnified face was visible on the white screen set up in front of the tent. Lucy Friedman sat in a corner glancing around the room, frightened and confused and seemingly out of place.
Bruce sauntered to the front of the tent and scanned the faces in front of him. “G’day, ladies and gentlemen. The moment of reckoning has arrived.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to face Missy. “Is there anything you’d like to tell us, ma’am?”
She hesitated, looking around nervously, then down at her lap.
Bruce’s face flushed, a look Alexa new well. “Look lady, I represent a very powerful organization and your fate lies with what I decide to do with you, here, today. Now either you start telling me what the hell is going on in this upside-down, gold-plated backwater town of yours or I make sure you get locked away and your body gets dug up by archeologists once the next ice age is over.”
Ryan put his hand up. “I’ve told you everything I know,” he said, chewing his cookie.
Bruce turned to the doctor and stuck out a finger. “I’ll get to you later.”
“Did you know that Patsy had a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering?” Alexa asked, trying to diffuse the situation.
Ryan nodded. “Yes, she was doing some developmental work and research for Fitch.” He waved a dismissive hand. “But that was twenty years ago. It had nothing to do with what’s happening here today.”
Missy sighed and shook her head. “You’re wrong, Ryan. I think it has everything to do with today.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow at Missy. “What do you mean?”
Missy looked at him for a while, pursed her lips then faced Bruce. “My name is Doctor Pauline Coulson. Patricia and I were recruited by Anderson Fitch twenty years ago.” She nervously straightened a crease on her skirt. “I worked on a project that would enable refineries to process Brent Crude into its various sub-components in a single process.”
She kept quiet for a moment, licking her lips.
“Go on,” Bruce said.
She looked up and straightened her shoulders, a ‘here goes nothing’ gesture. “Our work was kept secret. We were the first refinery in the world that could separate the various fuels from Brent crude in a single process.”
“How?” Alexa asked.
“Okay, Brent is heated and then starts separating into various compounds, like diesel fuel, different gases, Naphtha and Benzene,” Missy said, counting them off on her fingers. “It used to be a manual process, heating the Brent and getting a by-product, then reworking that by-product in a separate process to get something else.” She looked at Ryan for support, but he only waved impatiently.
“Go on,” Alexa said.
Missy nodded. “Okay, I managed to build a single tower that did all the work at once, saving roughly two days of production time and millions in refinery cost.” Licking her lips, she straightened her dress as she gathered her thoughts. “I changed the refining process from a bunch of separate endothermic chemical reactions to a singular exothermic one.”
Alexa nodded, wishing Missy would get to
the point. “Why did you stop working there?”
Dress straightening, lick lipping and then a shrug. “I built the silo, and documented the process. After that I became worthless to Fitch.”
“What about Patsy?” Bruce asked.
She fiddled with her hands in her lap. “Patsy and Fitch had an affair, and she became pregnant with his kid, Chris.” Missy looked up, and shook her head. “After the birth, Andy took the boy away from her, he said he didn’t want an outsider raising his kid.” Missy pursed her lips. “He paid her a lot of money to keep quiet about the boy and the technology she had developed for him.”
“What technology?” Bruce and Alexa asked in unison.
“The cellular remote monitoring and management units.”
Ryan snorted. “What do the CRMM’s have to do with this?”
Missy followed the same procedure, lips, dress, shrug. “Doctor Ryan and Patricia developed the CRMM’s as a way to monitor the refinery as well as manage the shutdown process remotely. More than eighty percent of the refineries in America use their technology.”
Ryan’s eyes widened as if realizing something important. “Do you think Fitch will shut down the other refineries on purpose?”
Missy nodded.
“What does that mean?” Alexa asked.
Ryan pushed his glasses up his noses, then started explaining excitedly. “If Fitch were to shut down the refineries in an uncontrolled fashion, they could blow.”
“Causing a nationwide oil shortage,” Lucy Beck chimed in.
Alexa tapped her lip with a finger. “And Fitch’s underground oil would become the most valuable asset in the USA.” She turned to Lucy. “The day David was arrested, when we met with him in his jail cell.”
Lucy Beck nodded uncertainly. “Yes?”
“What did he mean when he said that it was in the color of the water?”
Lucy shrugged. “The ground water gets a yellow tinge to it when shale oil mixes with it.”
“And that’s how he found out about the underground oil?” Alexa asked.