The Phoenix Egg

by Richard Bamberg

  John nodded thoughtfully and wondered about Mr. Hosokawa.

  “The other message was a claim to something I have...and a warning. It warned that if I didn’t return it immediately, there would be dire consequences.”

  “Dire consequences?”

  “Yeah, that’s just what it said. Can you believe it?” She smiled humorously and gave a nervous little laugh. “Sounds like something out of a paperback novel.”

  He smiled with her. “Yeah, like a paperback ... or perhaps someone who learned English as a second language?”

  Her head cocked slightly to one side. It was a mannerism he remembered from the Canyon.

  “You know something?”

  “Yeah, a little.” He gave her a brief rundown of the day’s events. She nodded a few times, drank about half her wine, and allowed him to talk uninterrupted.

  When he finished, she didn’t say anything for nearly a full minute while she took nervous little sips of her wine.

  She licked her lips in a way that distracted him more than it should have.

  “It sounds like Mr. Hosokawa sent me the first message and if you’re right about the second language, then the Frenchman could have sent the second.”

  John nodded. “That’d be my guess. The Japanese are probably affiliated with JETRO, the Japanese External Trade Organization. They are responsible for most of their country’s industrial espionage. The Frenchman probably works for one of the subagencies under the DGRG, the Direction General des Renseignements Gereraux, most likely the Recherche.”

  “Recherche?”

  “Intelligence collection, it’s one of the four directions of the DGRG.”

  “Then what they’re after must be the same thing the killer’s after. It must be this file Scott sent me.”

  Again, he nodded. “Yeah, I suppose it must be.”

  “But what is the NCIX’s connection to this?”

  John could think of one thing, but he didn’t want to go into it until he knew for sure. “They’ve taken over all aspects of industrial espionage from the FBI and the CIA. I’d be surprised if they hadn’t shown an interest.”

  Caitlin sipped her wine. He could tell she was giving it some thought. “No, not Scott. He’s, he wasn’t the type.”

  He didn’t have to ask what type she was talking about? It was the same thought that had occurred to him when he heard about the file.

  “You knew him that well?”

  Her pupils dilated, and after a moment, she shook her head violently. “No, it’s not possible. For crying out loud, we were married for twelve years.”

  “People change.”

  She blinked, paused, and blinked again. He could see that her thoughts must have shifted to how much John had changed in the intervening years. Had he really changed that much? Sure he was more cynical, more paranoid, and perhaps colder, but down deep, where it really matter, he still believed in goodness, motherhood, apple pie, and all that rot he grew up with. Didn’t he? When was the last time he’d questioned his own values?

  Unconsciously, he found himself again stroking the scar.

  Yeah, he remembered.

  It was right after he’d received this testament to youth’s follies. He’d been doing what he thought was right and it nearly got him killed. He was in Haiti, part of the peacekeeper detachment overseeing another attempt at free elections and starting a democracy. The police had become a nonexistent entity, and they were filling in wherever they could.

  ***

  It had been a calm day, and he guessed he’d relaxed a little too much at the small bar that they’d adopted as their own. John decided to hoof it back over to the barracks, and he left alone, leaving his buds to finish drinking the night away.

  He was two blocks from the bar when he heard the woman screaming.

  John had always figured there were distinctive levels to screaming. On a scale from one to ten, a one can be compared to that of two-year-old opening presents at their birthday party. A ten is the scream that comes when the earth opens up beneath your feet, and you start that long plunge into hell.

  He gave this one at least a seven.

  John ran down a side alley, through an open doorway, and up the stairs into one of the many tenements that threatened to collapse into the town square.

  The scream came again as he reached the second-floor landing. He ran down a hallway that was empty of the riff-raff that normally slept inside when the rainy season was in full force.

  The third scream made his skin crawl, and he bumped it up to an eight as he slammed into the apartment door without pausing. He busted into the apartment in time to see a dreadlocked man with a meat cleaver going after a woman who had a kid clinging to each leg.

  John’s crashing through the door snapped the attacker’s attention away from his victims. He was as tall as John, but slender, the kind of slender that you equate with drug use or disease.

  Her attacker turned from her and came toward John with the cleaver. He was too close for John to unsnap the strap on his side arm. He should have already unsnapped, but peacekeepers weren’t supposed to shoot first.

  He swung at John with the cleaver and John sidestepped into the apartment, trying to place himself between the loony and the woman. Mr. Deadlocks anticipated John’s move and cut him off. John waited until the cleaver’s next swing and stepped inside after the blade passed. Before his hand could start back, John looped an arm over his and immobilized the cleaver. A swift chop of John’s free hand broke the man’s collarbone, and he dropped the cleaver.

  Without the cleaver, he wasn’t much of a threat. John took the wind out of his sails with a few punches to his belly, and then bounced him off the wall until he passed out.

  Luck.

  What was it that made some people luckily and some just dead?

  Luck made him turn in time to see the woman swinging the cleaver down toward his head.

  Only fast reflexes got his head off the chopping block.

  Almost.

  She didn’t split his skull, but she creased it from eyebrow to jaw.

  John staggered away from her as she drew back for another swing. He dropped low and swept her feet out from under her with his right foot. She fell hard.

  Before she recovered from the fall, he had snatched the cleaver out of her hand. He stood over her; the cleaver in his right hand, as blood from his face cascaded onto hers. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, and raised her hands to ward off what she thought was coming.

  John stared at her with his clear eye. She was young, perhaps even younger than he. A roaring filled his ears, and for an instant, he couldn’t place the sound. Then he noticed the screaming children huddled in the corner of the small apartment. They watched terrified as John tried to decide what to do with the cleaver.

  It didn’t take long him long to realize what a fool he’d been.

  He left the cleaver buried in the apartment’s doorjamb and went looking for the UN first aid station.

  He made it as far as the camp entrance before he started feeling lightheaded. The gate guard took one look at his blood-soaked uniform and radioed for an ambulance. John thanked him and sat down against the side of the guard shack to rest. The guard started asking him questions, and John tried to answer them, but he was getting sleepy. He didn’t remember the ambulance arriving.

  When he woke up, the Gunny was standing over him. John blinked his unbandaged eye and greeted Gunnery Sergeant Zim. “Morning, Gunny. What brings you out?”

  “Damn it, Lieutenant. Do I have to watch you twenty-four hours a day?”

  “Come on, Gunny, it could have happened to anyone.”

  The short gray hairs on the Gunny’s head glistened in the artificial light as his head shook sadly from side to side. “Lieutenant, it couldn’t have happened to anyone who followed SOP. It shouldn’t have happened to anyone that I’ve spent so much time training. What have I told you about being a hero?”

  “A hero? Gunny I wasn’t trying to be a hero, I w
as–”

  “Don’t give me that. I saw the gate SP’s report.”

  John tried to remember what he’d told the shore patrolman at the gate, but it wouldn’t come.

  “You were trying to save some woman, and she ended up trying to kill you. If you’d paid any attention to me over the last year, you would have called for assistance before you ever entered that building.”

  “Ah, Gunny, there wasn’t time. I’d have called if–”

  “Wrong answer, Lieutenant. There’s always time if you’re not trying to be a hero. The standard operating procedures insist that no one gets involved in local fighting without the commander’s authorization unless UN forces are under attack.”

  “Hell, I–”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re going to say, ‘There wasn’t time. It was a judgment call. You did what you felt you had to do.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Ah, do you think the Colonel will buy it?”

  The Gunny shook his head again. “No, I don’t think he’ll buy it, but for official purposes, he will. Hell, he may even give you a medal, but you aren’t fooling anyone.”

  “I don’t want a medal.”

  “I’ll tell him you said that, but the Colonel has to keep the politicos happy. If one of his men gets cut up saving a local, his hands are tied, even if both of us know you need your head examined more than you need a medal.”

  The door opened, and a nurse stepped inside. “Your time is up, Sergeant Zim. The Lieutenant needs his rest.”

  “I was just leaving.”

  The Gunny turned back to John, and for a moment, his face grew sad. “Look, Lieutenant, you were lucky this time, but it won’t last. You can’t save everybody who needs saving.”

  He hesitated. “John, even heroes die. Remember that anytime you want to rush into a fight. It’ll save your life.”

  ***

  Modern antibiotics kept the wound from festering, but soldiers don’t always have access to the plastic surgeons who could skillfully remove such a scar. Later, after he’d left the service of both the UN and the US, John found he didn’t want the scar removed.

  It was a good reminder of what happens when you let emotion overcome caution.

  Caitlin was staring at him when he came out of his flashback on ancient history.

  “What’s the matter? Is something stuck in my mustache?”

  She frowned in distaste and shook her head slightly. “No, I was just wondering what you were thinking about.”

  “Old memories.”

  “Anything you care to talk about?”

  He took a quick gulp of beer and shook his head. “No more than I’d like to suck this beer up my nose with a straw.”

  Again, she frowned. “Must you be so crude?”

  “Life’s crude,” he replied with a dismissing wave of his hand.

  “That may be, but nothing forces you to be the same.”

  He took another mouthful and let its cool bitterness slide across his tongue. She was right. The memory of Haiti had dragged an old crudeness from him. The scar wasn’t her fault. He had only himself to blame for it. Was his crudeness a simple attempt to shock her? Perhaps, but unnecessary crudeness wasn’t him. He just wanted her to realize he was no longer the kid who’d fallen so quickly for her in the Canyon.

  He set the glass down and gave her a half-hearted smile.

  “My apologies, Caitlin. You’re right. There’s no reason for the crudeness. It was just an old memory stirring forgotten emotions.”

  “Memory?”

  She repeated, and he saw her gaze move to encompass the scar. “Of how you got that?”

  “How very perceptive. Yeah, it was the scar.”

  “You could tell me about it,” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Her hand slide across the table and softly came to rest on the back of his. His eyes rose slowly to meet her gaze.

  “All right. Not that there’s much to tell, but if you’re sure you want to know?”

  She nodded.

  He gave her a brief playback of the memory. It didn’t take long.

  When he finished, her hand was still on his. The emotions playing across her face were too easy to read. He pulled free of her hand and downed the rest of his beer.

  “I don’t need your pity,” he said with unnecessary bitterness.

  She sat back and looked him in the eye. “It’s not pity I’m feeling. It’s understanding.”

  Was it? He wasn’t sure. He had been madly in love with her for a time, but so much had changed, at least for him. Could it be that he was afraid the spark still glowed? No, it wasn’t possible. Too much time had flowed through life’s canyon. But if he were so sure then what would it hurt?

  “All right, understanding then. Tell you what, from here on out, I’ll be honest with you and you with me.”

  “Deal. What now?” she asked with the first cheerful smile he’d seen on her face in nearly twelve years.

  The front door opened.

  “Now? Now we go see someone I know about a file.”

  A man came through the door. A man with a splint over his nose.

  “Oh, where –”

  John interrupted her. “Caitlin, I want you to go to the restroom. Stand up slowly and don’t turn around.”

  “What?”

  “I think your Mr. Holdren has put in an appearance.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Caitlin’s eyes widened, and fear shadowed her face. “Here? How did he find me here?”

  “This isn’t the time to be wondering. Just do what I said. He probably won’t notice you leaving the room, if he does, he’ll hopefully just think you’re on the way to the facilities. Go to the back door, but don’t open it until I get there.”

  “All right, but–”

  “Look, just do it all right?”

  Caitlin frowned but nodded. John watched Holdren as he walked slowly from table to table at the front of the bar. When he turned away from them, John nodded. “Now.”

  Caitlin stood and walked past him to the back hallway.

  It was one of those days you can’t get a break. Holdren turned back their way as Caitlin was leaving. He obviously saw something familiar in the way Caitlin walked for a second after she had disappeared through the back hallway, he went after her.

  Holdren looked to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties. He was about six feet tall, and his fine, graying hair was cut neatly away from his ears in a typical military cut. Not the severe cut of adrenaline pumped grunts, but the classic cut of the officer corps. His face was creased with wrinkles that made John think of worry lines rather than weathering. Thick eyebrows shaded his eyes, and his lips were curled in what looked like a permanent frown.

  Holdren raised his hand as he moved across the room and spoke into the cuff of his hound’s tooth jacket.

  John ducked his head so the brim of his hat would cover his face. With any luck at all, Holdren wouldn’t stop to wonder which table Caitlin had been occupying.

  Why was it that anything involving luck always seemed to be on the other guy’s side?

  As Holdren neared, John watched the man’s hands. When he was ten feet away, Holdren’s right hand went inside his jacket. John didn’t wait to see what it might emerge with. He scooped up the beer mug and flicked it backhanded at Holdren’s face.

  Holdren’s hand came out of his jacket with the silenced pistol Caitlin had described. Before he could level the gun, the glass mug caught him just above the right eye. It popped his head back, and the pistol made a soft coughing sound as it discharged into the ceiling.

  Holdren staggered. Blood seeped from the gash in his forehead. He caught his balance and lowered the gun. John was up and closing the distance between them. Holdren brought the gun down, and John stepped to the side.

  The little gun coughed again, and John felt a hot pain in his left shoulder.

  He seized Holdren’s outstretched wrist with both hands and pivoted.

  The gun co
ughed a third time. John leaned forward. His action pulled Holdren toward him then John slammed his elbow back toward the man’s chin.

  Holdren twisted away, and John’s blow glanced against his temple. John shifted one hand against the silencer and bent the gun back toward Holdren’s thumb. The rotation against the weakest link popped the weapon from Holdren’s hand.

  Holdren’s left arm snaked around John’s neck, and he pulled back against him in a chokehold.

  John dropped the gun to the floor. He bent his knees, transferring most of his weight to Holdren’s grip. Holdren braced himself and leaned in to support the additional weight. With a quick movement, John straightened, jumping backward against his opponent.

  The sudden shift swayed Holdren off balance. Together they fell toward the floor.

  John continued his leap. Tucking his legs in, he pivoted against Holdren’s grip, going upside down for a moment. John’s feet met the floor. In an instant, he released Holdren’s wrist, wrapped both hands around the man’s torso, and lifted him feet first into the air.

  John spun him halfway around and slung him down.

  As Holdren crashed against the wood, John’s weight slammed into the man’s back, driving the air from his lungs.

  Before Holdren could recover, John brought his right elbow down hard against the man’s neck.

  Holdren sagged into unconsciousness.

  John stood up, spotted the Holdren’s gun lying a few feet away, and scooped it up. He raised the barrel and sighted down it at Holdren’s head, but the man was unconscious.

  John hesitated, took a deep breath, and then noticed that the bar was silent. John raised his gaze to scope out the patrons. No one moved. The front door was still closed. Whatever backup Holdren had was still outside.

  John lowered the gun. Even if Holdren had killed the cab driver like Caitlin claimed, there was still the chance that he was a federal agent. Shooting a federal agent in front of witnesses would not be prudent.

  John retrieved his hat and settled it against his head with his left hand. His shoulder burned as he did. There were times that he just couldn’t believe his luck. Holdren’s shot had missed his vest. The damn little gun would hardly have left a bruise if it had hit him in the chest. No, the SOB had to plink him just outside the edge of his vest. John could feel a warmth trickling down his biceps.