by Kimball Lee
*
After the test was done, Jude took Georgina and the baby home with him and Charlotte drove Bly back to Claridge’s. They went in the bar for a drink and it was Charlotte’s turn to be visibly agitated.
“Bly even if I have to hire a band of mercenaries I’m going to find Finn, and I’ll go with them and I’ll probably be killed or worse. I suppose I could make you my son’s legal guardian, you’d be happy then I guess.”
“Ah, Charlotte.” He sighed and she began to cry then, thinking of Finn saying those very words and now feeling completely helpless.
“I’ll do anything you want; I’ll leave him and come back to you, if that’s what it takes to save his life,” she wiped her tears on a napkin he offered and then she put her purse strap on her shoulder and started to leave.
“Don’t leave I’ll help you, of course I’ll fucking help you, I can’t stand to see you in this much pain, and don’t say such things. It’s so fucking obvious how you feel about him; I’d rather not be your consolation prize. Now tell me what you know, wait, let me call West, we’ll need him, too,” Bly said, running his hand through his hair, he wondered if there was anything he wouldn’t do for this woman and if he would ever stop loving her.
*
They met West in Bly’s suite, he was sitting with an attractive auburn haired young woman and he stood and said a curt ‘hello’.
The young woman stood up and gave Charlotte a genuine hug, “I wish he had been my nephew,” she said and led Charlotte to the sofa to sit.
“This is my sister Amanda,” Bly said, “Amanda, you know all about Charlotte already.”
“Ouch,” Charlotte said, “that didn’t sound very good for me.”
Amanda laughed, “Well, good for Charlotte, bad for Alex! He’s a big boy; he’ll get over you someday. He said your baby is very beautiful, by the way.”
“Alright, let’s get to this,” Bly said, “West, have you found anything to tell us where they might be?”
“Nothing, no one’s talking, it’s like they fell off the edge of the world. I don’t think it’s anything any of the governments are involved in, it has to be personal,” West said and the look he gave Bly chilled Charlotte’s heart.
“Huang?” Bly asked and West nodded his head.
“Oh my God, oh they’ll kill him and torture him first! You know they will,” she looked from Bly to West, “there was a girl in Monte Carlo when we were on our honeymoon, an Asian girl, she was probably twenty one or twenty two, she spoke to me and Finn knew we had to be careful. He stayed a few days after I flew back to London, she was with Jamey Huang’s father, his mistress, I think. Finn said it was all taken care of when he came home, but she blamed me I know, she asked me if I knew Jamey was dead,” the words spilled out of Charlotte in a rush.
Amanda handed her a glass of vodka and she took a drink and choked and coughed for a minute, then wiped her mouth and said, “This is all my fault, I had to make Huang Worldwide suffer just to prove I could. To make sure the great Alexander Bly and the entire legal world knew what an amazing attorney I was. I wanted to prove I was more than the naked girl on the cover of a magazine. Funny isn’t it, how life works? So many ‘ifs’ and ‘what ifs’, what if I hadn’t gone with Jorgen to the photo shoot that first day then I wouldn’t have met you and had the money to go law school and I wouldn’t have known Finn and JP, and if Finn had stopped doing his job when I begged him to…”
Bly pulled her against him and she rested her head against his chest, “Charlotte, you can’t think like that. Listen to all the variables you listed, it wasn’t just one single thing, let’s concentrate on finding them and bringing them both home.”
West said he had just talked to a former SEAL who’d worked with Finn and JP and he’d run into JP a couple of months before and something was mentioned about a private compound off the coast of China. “We may need entry and exit visas to travel in communist areas, how well do you know the American ambassador to Great Britain?”
Bly’s sister said she wished they had met under better circumstances and that Alex had nothing but good things to say about Charlotte, that perhaps in the future they could get to know one another.
“I live in New York mainly, but I come to Paris to stay with Mother at least one week each month and I always pop over to London for a day, so let’s have tea and go shopping,” Amanda told Charlotte as she left the suite with Bly.
“My sister doesn’t understand how upset you are Charlotte, you’ll have to excuse her, but she really would like to have you as a friend, I can tell.”
“That’s nice,” Charlotte said as the valet brought the Range Rover and before she got in Bly held her wrist lightly and she turned to face him.
“I’m not letting you drive Charlotte; you’re in bad shape right now. Stay here in the suite, or I’ll get you a room, please.”
“I have to get home to my son, he’s just getting used to taking a bottle and he’ll want to cuddle up,” she said and tears flowed down her cheeks.
Bly held her against him and she put her arms around him and cried into his shoulder as if it were the end of the world, “Shhh, it’s going to be fine. We’ll find his father; we’ll find Finn and bring him home.” He put her in the passenger side of her car then he got behind the wheel and drove her to the house in Hampstead Heath and to her son.
*
Bly drove back to Jude’s townhouse to pick Charlotte up the next morning. He rang the bell and she answered holding Atticus on her hip. She invited Bly in and handed him the baby while she went to get her purse and a light coat, she was wearing a new dress and heels. They were going to ask the American ambassador for help and she wanted to make a good impression.
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m not very good at this… in fact I’ve never held a baby,” Bly protested, but Atticus just reached for his face and smiled.
“What, you think I’d ever held a baby before he was born? You’re doing fine, look, he likes you and he’s a very good judge of character!” Charlotte said, then she smiled for the first time since he’d seen her and Georgina appeared and took the baby from his arms.
“I met the American ambassador when I arrived in London, we only spoke briefly but he’s a nice enough guy. We need these visas and any other help we can get, he’s from Louisiana I believe, maybe your southern charm will sway him in our favor,” Bly said, hoping to get a smile out of Charlotte.
“Surely he knows something and he must know Finn, we were married at the embassy,” Charlotte said and her voice had a desperate edge to it.
They were greeted by the ambassador’s personal assistant and ushered in to his office. They all shook hands and Bly explained the trouble they were having and that they required travel visas to China and any information as to JP or Finn’s last known location.
“I wish I could help you Alex, I really do, but my hands are tied with red tape, if you know what I mean. I’m more of a figurehead than anything, they don’t give me missile launch codes or anything important,” he laughed at that and so did Bly and Charlotte turned her face away from both of them. “Mrs. Hunter, Charlotte, is it? I understand your predicament more than you know, I lost a son in Iraq, if I could help I would.”
Charlotte turned to look at the ambassador and she wanted to reach across the desk and slap him for what he’d said. She couldn’t believe he assumed Finn was dead. “I’m sorry for your loss ambassador, truly and from my heart, I am sorry. My husband might still be alive; if there had been a chance for you to bring your son home alive, wouldn’t you have moved heaven and earth to do so?” Charlotte’s eyes were filled with tears as she looked at him and his were as well. She felt an odd tug of familiarity, his accent was Southern, maybe that was it, he reminded her of home. His hair was going grey mainly at the temples but she could see that it had once been dark, almost black, most likely. His eyes were his most striking feature, they were wide and merry and sapphire blue, goose bumps rose on her arms as she looked at the name plaque on
his desk. ‘Charles Tremont, Rep. Louisiana’ was embossed in black letters across the brass name plate.
“Is this your son? He looks just like you,” Charlotte said, picking up a framed photograph of a young man who looked enough like her to be her brother.
“I hear that a lot,” the ambassador said, dabbing his eyes with a tissue and smiling a small smile.
“Your only child?” she asked.
“I’m afraid so, we wanted more but it just didn’t happen. He’d be about your age.”
“I feel like I’ve seen him before, did he go to Ole Miss?” she asked.
“No, his mother wanted him close to home so he went to Tulane, then he was a pilot. A Naval Aviator, one of the best of the best.”
The ambassador walked Charlotte and Bly to her car and just before she put the Range Rover in gear she rolled down the window and he leaned in. She looked deep into his sapphire eyes and said, “So you’re from New Orleans then? Did you know a girl named Sally McCall?”
He was very quiet as he met her eyes, then she saw the realization begin to grow in them.
“I’m Sally’s daughter,” she said, and she drove away.
*
“So what now?” Charlotte asked as they walked in to the hotel and Bly’s phone rang.
“Yes, alright. I’m in the Davies Penthouse Suite, see you soon, thank you,” Bly said and ended the call. “The ambassador’s on his way with visas and information, it seems you made an impression.”
“Imagine that,” Charlotte said.
In the living room of Bly’s suite, Amanda was talking nonstop, showing off treasures she’d bought while shopping that morning, and having tea and finger sandwiches. “Really Charlotte, you are a stunning beauty, I mean Alex went on and on about you last Christmas, but who knew? Here, why don’t eat something, you look awfully pale.”
“She’s always pale,” Bly said, “but you really should eat, Charlotte. You’re getting thin again; you don’t want to get sick.”
Ambassador Tremont arrived and after saying hello to Bly he stood next to Charlotte who was staring out the penthouse window at the rooftops of London.
“Beautiful city isn’t it? A lot different than New Orleans and the South,” he said.
“I was just thinking, for a poor girl from the middle of nowhere Mississippi I’ve looked out on quite a few beautiful cities,” Charlotte said, then she lifted her sad blue eyes and looked into his.
“I didn’t know,” he said, “I had a wife and a baby and I was home from college. We met at her debutante ball…”
“I don’t want to hear it now; maybe when I get back,” she said and held her hand out, “I need those visas and whatever information you have.”
Before Ambassador Tremont walked out the door, he turned to Bly and said, “You might not need the visas but take them just in case, they’re in Taiwan, no one knows if… well, that’s all we know.”
CHAPTER SIX
After a lengthy argument and Charlotte’s refusal to get off the jet until they landed in Taiwan, Bly told the pilot to take off. Charlotte sat curled in one of the wide leather reclining chairs as the jet climbed into the sky and turned something over and over in her hands.
Bly sat in the seat next to her, “what do you have there, Charlotte, a lucky rabbits foot?”
“Hmm, when I was thirteen a toothless gypsy told me I was a ‘lucky, lucky girl’, so much for trusting gypsies,” she said and opened her hand to him.
He plucked the switchblade from her hand and weighed it in his own, “does this make you feel safer?”
“No, it makes me want to use it. When I find the person directly responsible for… whatever they’ve done to Finn, I’m going to hurt the bastard. Does that make sense, Bly? Have you ever loved someone so much that you could do unimaginable things?”
“Of course I have, like flying to a semi-communist country with a crazy woman holding an illegal knife,” he said and they both smiled. He closed the knife and pressed it into her hand, “think before you use it, unless someone’s hurting you, in that case do what you have to do. We’re going to agree on something now and if you start arguing I’m ordering the pilot to turn the jet around. We know where they are and West and I and his men are going to get them out as quickly as possible and you’re staying on the plane with the two pilots and whichever man West leaves to guard the jet. THE END, so just close your mouth now and we’ll get them back if they’re alive, I owe you that.”
“You owe me?” she asked.
“I should have come looking for you that day you were missing, before you left with Finn, so maybe I owe it to myself.”
“No ‘what ifs’ remember? What will be will be, right?” her eyes filled with tears and she quickly wiped them away and shook her head to clear all the unwanted thoughts. She would know soon if Finn and JP were alive, her mind had churned nonstop for the last three weeks conjuring horrible scenes of what might be happening to her husband and their friend. She would know in a few hours if they were coming home or if she was a widow, and she began to tremble with fear. “Why are they in Taiwan, who has them, do you know?” She asked Bly as he wrapped her in a soft cashmere blanket to stop her shivering.
“Huang,” he said, avoiding her eyes, “he has a compound near Beitou that he uses for vacations, it’s very private, that’s where we believe he’s holding them if they’re still...”
Charlotte could feel the jet beginning its descent and as Bly got up to prepare, she closed her eyes and prayed.
West had assembled a small army of men who looked like carbon copies of Finn and JP. They sat quietly, packing ammunition into belts and vests and jackets, and loading ominous looking handguns and assault rifles. They were a small army it seemed, with a large army’s worth of weaponry.
The men dressed in the vests and jackets and stashed the weapons in duffle bags and the jet barely rolled to a stop on the runway when they jumped out, followed by Bly and West. The door closed quickly and she moved from window to window and watched as they piled into waiting jeeps and rushed away.
The pilot steered the jet to a small paved area off to the side of the main runway, a handful of private jets and planes were scattered about in makeshift hangars. Thick fog hung in the air and swirled along the ground turning all that it touched a strange watery grey. There were no people in sight; no living thing moved other than the dense forest of trees that hid the small airfield from view.
“This must be a horrible place,” Charlotte said to no one in particular, “all that fog, and there’s a putrid smell.”
“It’s mist from the hot springs and the smell is sulphur. Some resort, huh? Seems more like hell,” the soldier who was standing guard said. He moved from window to window holding a rifle and he turned to Charlotte for only a second.
“Do you have an IPod or a playlist on your phone?” he asked.
She dug through her bag and handed him her IPod.
He popped it into a dock by her seat that she hadn’t noticed before, “just use these controls to play what you like, there’s a Sonos system on board but it won’t pick up a signal out here. Maybe you could play something soothing, we can all use it, no Metallica, please.” He smiled at her and she heard the pilot and copilot laugh nervously.
She scrolled through her list of artists, selected Van Morrison, and ‘Into the Mystic’ resonated throughout the cabin of the jet, a song of sad and beautiful longing. She loved the words, ‘we were born before the wind, also younger than the sun’ and she thought of Finn whispering them in her ear years before as his hands moved through her hair just before his lips met hers.
“That’s a good song, I love Van Morrison. I’m Kipling, by the way,” the soldier said, then turned back to the windows, ever watchful.
“You’re a mercenary, you and the other men, hired soldiers?” she asked and he turned from the windows to look at her.
“We work for a PMC, we’re private contractors you might say… and that’s all I’ll say,” he said and tu
rned back to his watch.
*
Hours and hours later while the pilots slept and Charlotte tried to and couldn’t, she and Billy Kipling began to talk to each other. He urged her to eat and then try to get some sleep and she fixed sandwiches in the galley and sat down and opened a coke for each of them and set a plate in front of him. He was getting nervous, she could tell, and they were both on edge, she’d watched out the windows opposite him all day and night and they were succumbing to cabin fever. To make matters worse the mist had seeped into the jet’s cabin and with it, the awful smell of sulphur. They had gone through the entire music library on her IPod and finally sat in silence.
“Get up now!” he shouted and the pilots woke and stumbled to the cockpit. He grabbed his rifle and opened the outside door and lowered the stairs, “get the engines going, we need to be in the air in two minutes! Charlotte get out of the way, go to the rear of the jet, quick!” he was shouting as he ran down the steps to help the other soldiers get on board.
Charlotte’s heart was going to explode; she could feel it hammering so hard she was dizzy and nauseous. She ran to the back of the jet and strained to see how many men were returning, the jet engines were deafening and all she could see out the window were empty jeeps. Suddenly all the men were on board and the jet was moving fast down the runway. She heard rapid gunfire and smelled smoke, she knew it must be from one of the engines but the jet began to rise and climb sharply. The cabin was full of men and she couldn’t count them all, she tried to push through them but the jet was in a steep climb and she fell back and hit her head.
She opened her eyes and JP was holding an ice pack to her head and one to his own eye.