Final Crossing: A Novel of Suspense

by Carter Wilson

  The man gripped Jonas as if he was the singular rope thrown to a dozen drowning people. “You hear me, boy?” he said, his voice a hiss. “I don’t know where I am.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  Jonas patted the top of the man’s hand. “No, I guess you didn’t. I have to go now.”

  “Go where?”

  “To see my father.”

  “He in here too?”

  “North unit.”

  “Ooh. That’s the—”

  “Bad place. Yeah, I know.”

  The man’s lips drew in a circle of surprise. “You know, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  The man suddenly yanked on Jonas’s hand, pulling him toward the door. Jonas couldn’t believe the strength the man still had despite the toll age and disease had taken on him. Jonas could have pulled back, but he let the man do what he wanted, because he knew that, even if just for a fleeting moment, the act gave some degree of satisfaction to him.

  The smell of the man’s dinner came from his mouth in a tangy wind.

  “You...don’t...know...anything.”

  That was when Jonas forced his hand free and walked away, leaving the old man in his room, where he repeated those same words, over and over, until Jonas was finally out of earshot.

  Jonas was thankful when he finally reached the north unit.

  He let the wedge of light from the open door guide him inside his father’s room. The Captain was sleeping in his bed, a twin Jonas had bought when his father first moved into Jefferson. Jonas hadn’t wanted his dad sleeping in some old mattress that God-knows-who had excreted Godknows-what onto. The Captain was sleeping soundly, as was his roommate, a seventy-something Wisconsin native named

  Paul who shouted birdcalls whenever the mood struck him, which was just about always.

  His father’s breathing was slow and steady, and he slept flat on his back, his nostrils flaring with every exhalation. Jonas immediately felt a sense of relief. Whatever his father was dreaming, at least he was asleep. To Jonas, that made things easier.

  He leaned over and kissed the Captain on his forehead. “Hi, Dad,” he whispered, hoping for a second to see his father’s bright eyes but then happy not to have woken him. Paul stirred a moment in the bed on the other side of the room and then fell back into silence.

  Tonight Jonas didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to be close, and that would be enough. He pulled over a plastic chair and sat next to the bed. Jonas removed his laptop from his leather messenger bag, then powered it up to check the latest AP wire stories before his morning flight. He positioned himself so he was able to browse the Internet with his left hand while using his right to hold his father’s hand. The Captain’s fingers were cold. Jonas stroked the back of his dad’s bony hand with his thumb.

  The glow of the laptop ghosted the small room as Jonas read a dozen articles about the upcoming Peace Accords. Security would be huge. Lots of protests expected. The President continued to press his message of cautious optimism, while the Israeli and Palestinian leaders seemed content to let the American President speak for everyone. For now.

  It’s either going to be a success or a failure, Jonas thought. He believed it because that’s how the President and the Senator wanted it. There would be no middling compromise, no empty handshakes. There would be no status quo after the Accords, despite history’s overwhelming forces that push everything from all sides at the same time, making peace progress an almost immovable object. There would be shouting, threats, delegations walking out of meetings, walking back in, and then walking back out again. But, with luck, nerves will be just raw enough to actually allow for progress. The idea of a Palestinian state had been debated for decades, but they were closer now than ever to it becoming a reality. If the Accords succeeded, there could be a recognized state in a year, with its official capital in East Jerusalem. If the Accords failed, the Jewish settlers would continue to build in the territories while the Palestinians continued to do everything they could to stop them.

  Jonas squeezed his eyes shut and wondered if there was any real possibility for sleep that night. He didn’t think so, but the morning was still far enough away to make the prospect of staying awake for the rest of the night a daunting task.

  Then he got an idea.

  Thinking of his recent conversation with Anne, he Googled the word anagram. The first entry was for an anagram server, allowing him to type in any words he wanted to see what anagrams could be made from them.

  He started with his name. Jonas Osbourne.

  There were almost two-thousand responses. The first one almost made him laugh out loud.

  Onerous banjos.

  Jesus, Jonas thought. Does Rudiger’s brain really work like this? It didn’t seem possible any human mind could calculate the hundreds or thousands of word combinations one could make from rearranging the letters of other words.

  He scanned the first hundred entries on his own name and found nothing biblically significant about any of them, though his knowledge of the Bible left a lot of room for error. Then he typed in Anne’s name. Only fifty-nine results, the most interesting one being a need uneven.

  The Captain wheezed, coughed, and gave Jonas’s hand a squeeze. The grip tightened, making Jonas think of his earlier interaction.

  that’s the bad place

  Jonas held on tight and typed another name into the anagram server.

  Robert Sidams.

  Nearly 20,000 results. Jonas scanned the most relevant. Broader Mists was an interesting result, but not biblical. Still, if Rudiger was going to the Peace Accords for his next victim, there had to be a significance to it. The biggest name associated with the Accords was President Calder, but Jonas highly doubted Calder would be a target—that just seemed too unlikely given the impossibility of the task. Sidams was another big name, as was Jonas himself. But no anagram made sense, if in fact that was what was necessary to Rudiger for him to select a victim. Maybe the target was someone with one of the foreign delegations?

  He tried a few more names and phrases until the words on the screen did nothing but sting his eyes. The FBI had a lot of people working on the case—Jonas knew his futile latenight efforts would do nothing to help. He put the laptop to sleep and wished he could do the same for himself.

  The door opened and a nurse walked in. Monique. The hallway light silhouetted the Haitian’s kinked hair, which sprung from the top of her head in tight coils. She startled when she saw Jonas.

  “Oh, Mr. Osbourne,” she whispered in a thick French accent. “You scared me.”

  Jonas stood and walked toward her. “Sorry, Monique. Just came here to see Dad.”

  “At midnight?”

  Jonas shrugged. “I was missing him.”

  She nodded and smiled. “You are a good son.” Jonas remained silent.

  She leaned into him. “He ate very much today. All his dinner.”

  “Good,” Jonas said. The Captain finishing an entire meal was a rare event. “Maybe he’ll sleep all night.”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely.” Monique slid past him and briefly checked on Paul. She went to the Captain’s bed and looked down at him before straightening the pillow beneath his head. The Captain didn’t stir.

  “You look like him,” she whispered. “Same pretty eyes.”

  “Osbourne eyes,” Jonas replied. “My grandfather had the same color.”

  Monique turned to him and gazed into his eyes, as if searching for an answer. Her proximity startled Jonas, but he didn’t step away.

  “Maybe,” she wondered. “Maybe you have same soul, too.”

  “Soul?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Same spirit.”

  Jonas didn’t understand what that was supposed to mean. “Maybe,” he replied.

  “You are a fighter. From war, no?”

  Jonas shook his head. “I was in the Army. I wasn’t really in a war. And that was a long time ago.”

  She di
smissed his answer with a shake of her head. “You are a fighter. Your father. He is a fighter, too. Very, very strong.”

  “Yes. He is.”

  “Same soul,” she said. She seemed suddenly certain in the assessment. “Same soul.”

  “Then I’m a lucky man.”

  She leaned in one last time, this time so close he thought she was going to kiss him.

  “Yes,” she said. “You are.”

  What the hell is going on here tonight? Jonas wondered. First the resident telling him the north unit was a gateway to hell or something, and now Monique proclaiming that Jonas and his father have some kind of mind meld. Jonas wondered if the horsemen of the apocalypse were going to ride in any second.

  Monique pulled away from Jonas. “You stay long tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” Jonas said. “I think maybe so.”

  “Can I get you something?”

  He thought for a moment. “If I fall asleep, don’t let me sleep past six in the morning. I’ve got a flight to catch.”

  “OK, Mr. Osbourne. Six o’clock. Good night.”

  “’night, Monique.”

  She shuffled past him and left the room, the door softly clicking in place behind her. The room was lost in darkness, and Jonas returned to his chair. The courtyard lights from outside the bedroom window were enough for him to see traces of his father, the outline of his nose, the sweep of his forehead. The darkness suddenly overwhelmed Jonas. Maybe darkness was all he needed. Maybe that was enough for him to shut off his mind for awhile, to drift off, to be at peace in the middle of an Alzheimer’s facility.

  What a crazy fucking world, he thought.

  Cradling that as his last memory of the night, Jonas leaned forward in his chair, closed his eyes, and rested his head on his father’s chest, wishing he could be a little boy all over again.

  38

  DENVER, COLORADO JULY 25

  THE SUN baked the streets and Jonas wondered why he assumed it was always snowing in Denver. He could see the mountains in the far distance, but downtown the scorching dry heat reminded him of Fresno. The delegations from the

  Middle East must find the weather very accommodating, he thought.

  He walked into the lobby of the downtown Hyatt and the air conditioning washed over him. Day One of the Accords was almost over, and, so far, nothing disastrous had occurred.

  There was still plenty of time for that.

  He passed the lobby bar. Even though it was only four in the afternoon, the bar was bustling. The bar would be the place most, if any, progress would be made by unofficial spokespeople speaking on the condition of anonymity. Whatever was said publicly would be stretched and pulled and dissected by faceless staffers with American beers clutched in their fists. Even some of the Muslims would be drinking.

  “Jonas.”

  Jonas peered into the lounge and saw William Stages, the

  U.N. Ambassador. Stages waved him over. “Bill, how’s it going?”

  “Fine, Jonas.” Stages gestured to a hawkish man in his mid-forties standing next to him. “Jonas, this is Eli Chazon. Eli’s a Knesset member on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.”

  Jonas reached out his hand. “Of course. I know you by reputation, Mr. Chazon. Welcome to the United States.”

  “It’s Eli, and thank you.” Chazon offered his hand. “I know of you as well. You’ve been instrumental in setting up this conference. I hope it turns out to be fruitful.”

  “As we all do,” Jonas said.

  Stages squinted his eyes at Jonas. “Eli and I have been discussing Sidams’s plan.” He paused for a moment, giving Jonas the second he needed to process the magnitude of what Stages just revealed. Sidams’s plan wasn’t supposed to be unveiled until tomorrow.

  “Have you?”

  Chazon leaned toward Jonas. “It’s about what we expected, but not what we hoped for.”

  Jonas met his gaze and could tell the comment was official. A necessary salvo.

  “Unfortunately the process will not be an easy one for any side,” Jonas said.

  “This is true.” Chazon raised a beer to his lips. Fat Tire, Jonas noted. Local Colorado brew. “But one of my jobs is to ensure that whatever is decided will be in Israel’s best interest.”

  “I would think peace would be in your best interest.” Chazon smiled. “Jonas, I truly hope you are not that naïve. Peace is something that does not exist in the world. What you call peace is merely moments of tense silence inbetween wars.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t really matter what you call it,” Jonas replied. “As long as it’s anything but war.”

  “L’Chayim.” Chazon raised his glass.

  Jonas looked at his empty hands. “Looks like I need to be drinking with you gentlemen.”

  Stages revealed a tightly controlled smile. “You read my mind.”

  • • •

  Four hours, five drinks and one very expensive dinner later, Jonas called it quits, knowing he’d had too much to drink considering the work he still needed to do before he even got the idea about sleeping, which probably wasn’t going to happen anyway.

  Eli Chazon was his new best friend, and Stages had been brilliant by leaking the Senator’s peace plan to the Israeli a day early. It was an important gesture—it allowed the Israeli delegation time to formulate a calculated response. And since Israel was really being asked to concede more than the Palestinians—at least in terms of real estate—the gesture could prove an important one in reaching an agreement.

  On the way to his room on the seventeenth floor, Jonas checked in with the Senator. Sidams was on the thirty-forth floor, and Jonas found it easier to phone. He briefed the Senator on the meeting with Chazon, and Jonas knew Sidams was happy about the situation.

  All in all, not a bad day, Jonas thought.

  He got off the elevator and walked past his room. He knocked on the door three down from his own.

  Anne opened it.

  “Hey, baby,” Jonas said. “I wasn’t sure if you would be here or not. Do you have to work tonight?”

  They had seen little of each other since landing in

  Denver.

  She leaned in and kissed him, though it was a hurried kiss. She’s distracted, Jonas thought.

  “Of course,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t stopped working since we got here.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  He walked in and took off his jacket. “I still have a lot to do tonight.” He looked around her room and saw one bed still unmade, the other piled with notebooks and binders. “Making any progress?”

  “Hard to say,” she replied. “Nothing going on. No sign of him anywhere. No indication he’s even in the area.”

  He noted the doubt in her voice. “But...”

  She looked at him. “He’s here, Jonas. I know it. He’s here and he’s close.”

  “You’re sensing it?” He didn’t add that she didn’t have the same feeling the night Rudiger killed Rose.

  She hesitated for only a moment. “No, I don’t so much sense it as I know it makes sense.”

  “What do you think he’s going to do?”

  She looked at him and started to answer, but held back. There was a glisten in her eyes.

  “What?”

  “Just...” She grabbed his hand. “Be careful.”

  “You think he’s here for me?”

  “I...like I said. I’m only going off what seems to make sense.”

  “I haven’t seen anything unusual.”

  “That’s good. And, we have people watching you.”

  “How closely?”

  “You had chicken piccata for dinner.”

  “That’s close.” He wondered who’d been watching him that closely in the lobby bar. “Are they monitoring conversations? There’s some sensitive issues being discussed and the Senator wouldn’t want to find out the FBI is listening in on his chief of staff.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said.

  “That doesn’t
answer my question.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Are they watching anyone else?”

  “Jonas, I can’t really discuss this much more.”

  Jonas stepped closer to her until her breasts touched his chest.

  “Are they watching right now?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “No. But they might be listening.”

  “Good,” he said. “Let’s give them something to listen to.”

  39

  AT FOUR in the morning, Jonas finally put his head on the pillow in his own room. The curtains were still open and he could see the three-quarters moon beginning its descent over the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Sunlight was only a couple hours away, and the day would be hot and chaotic.

  He reached over and rang the front desk, asking for a six o’clock wake-up call. It would be a long day, but he was capable of complete functionality on two hours of sleep. As long as he didn’t sustain that for too long.

  Jonas picked up his BlackBerry and set its alarm as well, just to be safe. Then he texted Anne.

  You sleeping?

  He waited a minute. No answer. Then he texted again.

  Night, sexy. See you tomorrow.

  He pictured her sound asleep, her hair spilled out over her pillow. He could hear her small, shallow breaths, her occasional murmur. He could see the side of her face, the moonlight on her mocha skin, the outline of her aquiline nose.

  Jesus, he thought. What is this woman doing to me? The answer came just as he drifted off to sleep.

  Does it matter?

  • • •

  Protesters swarmed as close as they could to the entrance of the hotel. Jonas walked outside and slipped on his sunglasses. It was only nine in the morning but the sun was already intense, and the noise from the crowds just made everything feel hotter. He scanned the area and saw more pro-Israel than pro-Palestine signs, and an equally divided amount expressing hate against both sides. Then there were the groups who didn’t care at all about peace—they just knew a lot of cameras would be there so free publicity was available for the taking. Tea Party demonstrators rallied against the oppressive U.S. tax code. The pro-lifers and the pro-choicers squared off across the street, and anti-war protestors were shouting something that was lost in the din. Jonas spied a little girl dressed in pink with her long hair split into pigtails. She wore a summer dress and a blank expression, and in her little hands she hoisted a sign that read God Hates Fags. She was probably eight years old.