Gabriel's Stand

by Jay B. Gaskill

  “I am so tired,” she said. “God, I so hate the bus.”

  “I should have asked—What are you running from?”

  ——

  Five minutes later, they were in Roberto’s car and he was dialing home. “Hi,” he said. “How would you like to feed me and one renegade radical activist?” Listening with his earpiece, he winked broadly at Snowfeather. “Canned chili and iced tea?” he asked her. Snowfeather nodded vigorously. “Sounds like a hit,” Roberto said to the phone. “See you in ten.”

  “Your wife?” she asked.

  “No. Deborah died of cancer four years ago,” he said. “That was my son, Isaac. I’m home-schooling him for one more year.”

  “Home-schooling without being home?”

  “It’s quite a trick. I have access to the entire University library online. I just assign Isaac homework, he does it, usually on time and I grade it, usually fairly. The kid is smart.”

  “Like his dad.”

  “Like his mom. Look, I am not going to pry. You obviously need refuge. We have a guest room with its own bath. I work long hours at my two jobs, and you will have the place to yourself pretty much because Isaac studies in his bedroom when he’s not out with his friends. So if you have no other plans…”

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

  ——

  At 1:00 A.M., A limousine left downtown Seattle carrying a man with a missing hand, and a storm swept through Vancouver, Canada, bringing tree-snapping wind and horizontal rain.

  At 4:22 A.M., on a narrow tree-lined avenue in Vancouver, water was still cascading from the roofs of the old craftsman homes, turning street gutters into creeks. The windshield of the limousine was sheeted with running water, the lights at the approaching intersection only dimly visible. Tree branches littered the pavement and the old style street lamps were shrouded in fog.

  In the back seat, a bandaged and half-conscious man stirred. “Where am I?” Dr. John Owen asked.

  While Ken Wang drove, Colonel Dornan twisted to face the rear. “It’s me, John.” He peered down at Owen. “It’s Bill. Can you see me?”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “John, you passed out on the street in Seattle. You’d lost a lot of blood. Ken found you in a hospital. Hang in there, buddy. We’re almost to a safe place, your townhouse in Vancouver.”

  “Good.”

  “We’re close, John. Real close. How you doin’?” There was a long silence. Dornan peered into the darkness. “John?”

  “Elisabeth. Gotta protect Elisabeth.”

  Dornan turned to the front and looked at Ken. “He’s right,” he whispered. “They’ll be after her, too.”

  “I warned her, but I will follow up,” Ken said. “As soon as we get where we’re going.”

  “Is that you, Ken?” John’s voice was weakening.

  “Yes, sir.” Another silence.

  “Won’t be long now, John, about one more block,” Dornan said, leaning over the back seat again. He felt John’s forehead, then turned back to face the front. “Take it very slow through here, Ken, until we can see our people out in front of the place.” In the driver’s seat, Ken Wang complied, squinting through the rippling windshield. “Use the brights,” Dornan said. Ken complied again. “Do you see them?”

  “Not yet,” Ken muttered. “That van is in the way.”

  “Two of them should be outside by now,” Dornan said, wiping the fogging glass with a tissue. “There.”

  Between the van parked at the curb and the doorway to Owen’s townhouse a figure in a trench coat stood out in the middle of the street and began waving.

  “All right,” Ken said, stepping on the gas.

  “No. Wait!” Dornan said abruptly, his hand on Ken’s arm. “The van doesn’t look right… Shit! Not ours!”

  “Whoops,” Ken said, already braking and shifting. Thirty feet away, the van’s doors opened and six dark figures leapt out, moving smoothly. Their shapes were suddenly lost in the flare of muzzle flashes.

  Ken had thrown the limousine into reverse and was accelerating, the sound of its tires squealing overmatched by the piercing, percussive volley of high velocity automatic weapons’ fire. Forty-five bullets pelted the car like hail, denting the armor and turning the reinforced windshield into a maze of cracks. One bullet got through, shattering the rear mirror and lodging in the headliner over the back seat. Dornan reached over Ken and killed the headlights. As the rearward careening limousine reached the corner intersection, Bill shouted, “Keep backing up! On my signal, prepare to turn the steering wheel anti-clockwise for a right turn…NOW!” And before Ken could execute, Dornan yanked the steering wheel sharply left. The limousine screeched around the corner in reverse. “Brake now!” Dornan shouted. The rear bumper crunched the side of a parked Mercedes. “Good. Now forward! Go! Go! Go!”

  Ken gunned the engine and the car roared across the intersection, taking another two slugs in the left side as it crossed the line of fire. “Where?” Ken shouted. But Dornan was reaching over the back seat trying to get John to keep his head down.

  “Just GO!” Dornan shouted back. Seconds later he slid back into the passenger seat, just as the limousine sped through a red light. Dornan peered at the auto-map screen in the console, punching keys. “Okay, okay. We have some options. Aha. Turn right at the next intersection. I’ll call ahead.” Dornan pulled out his cellphone and keyed a speed-dial number. “This is Bill. We need emergency shelter. Big time. Yes. No bull.” He peered out the window. “Make that five minutes. A black limo… with fresh bullet holes. Thanks.”

  “What now?” Ken asked.

  “Left at the next intersection. Three miles, then a right. Try not to be too conspicuous.”

  “But keep my lights off and hurry, right?”

  “I didn’t say it was easy.”

  They drove in silence for a while. Dornan turned. “Stay down, John. You doin’ okay?”

  “Been better.”

  “Hold on, buddy. Won’t be long now.”

  “Bleeding again.”

  Dornan muttered an inaudible curse. The car droned on through empty streets. Finally, “Here,” he said to Ken, pointing ahead to the right. “That driveway.”

  Ken turned into a garage that was a truck repair service housed in a sooty cement block building with four large steel doors. “Pull slowly towards the second bay.” Dornan rolled down the passenger window and looked up and down the deserted street. “Clear,” he said. “Flash your light three times and wait for the door to open.”

  Ken flashed the lights. Nothing happened immediately. He glanced nervously out the side window. “Okay,” Dornan said as the door began rising. “Use the parking lights and roll forward.” The limo glided inside. “Stop,” Dornan said. The door began grinding shut. “Lights out.” Ken killed the power. Silence.

  A moment of total darkness followed. Only human breathing, the patter of rain outside and the ping of cooling metal could be heard. Then a small light came on inside the shop, emanating from a distant corner, casting large shadows. Seconds later, the overhead fluorescent lamps began to flicker. The lights revealed a huge enclosure. The four bays faced an open area filled with three large trucks in various states of disassembly, surrounded by repair consoles, tools, overhead cables and pipes.

  Dornan exited with a flashlight in hand. “Harry,” he called out, “all lights out please.”

  “Got it,” a male voice replied. A second later the inside of the limo was an oasis of dim illumination, and Dornan’s flashlight was casting a moving puddle of light on the oil stained floor. Sirens erupted in the distance, while in the back seat of the car John Owen was trying to release his shoulder harness. John fumbled with his remaining hand while trying to keep his right wrist elevated. His face was ash white and the bandages were seeping fresh blood. Ken stepped over and released the catch on the belt.

  “Harry!” Dornan shouted, “We’ll be needing that couch in your office right away. And I need you to ca
ll Dr. Shor. Have him bring a company nurse, an IV, whatever else he needs. John has lost a hand.”

  “Crap,” Harry said from the office doorway. “I’m on it.” He turned on the office desk lamp on, creating a second oasis of light twenty feet away.

  Ken followed Harry’s silhouette moving inside the office. He could make out a middle-aged black man dressed in a yellow rain slicker, phone in hand.

  “Ken,” Dornan said, “you take John’s left side and I’ll take the right. John? We’ve got to walk you about twenty feet.”

  “I’m okay,” John said dully, trying to stand. “You take care of Elisabeth.” Ken was gripping John’s left elbow. “Ken, promise me. Nothing happens to her or the baby.”

  “I promise, sir.”

  John’s knees buckled and the two men strained to hold him up. “I’m okay,” he rasped.

  “Sure you are, my friend.” Dornan said, gently supporting John’s right shoulder. “Sure you are.”

  Chapter 29

  The next day at noon, Roberto came home to find Isaac and Snowfeather in the kitchen. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” Snowfeather and Isaac said together.

  “What’s up?”

  “Canned chili and iced tea,” Snowfeather said, smiling.

  “Perfect,” Roberto said. “You look rested. I don’t think I’ve seen you since lunch yesterday.”

  “You haven’t. I think I slept for twenty hours straight.”

  At the lunch table, Isaac was beaming. “She’s on the run from terrorists, Dad. Is this not cool?”

  Roberto raised an eyebrow, but kept on eating.

  “It’s true,” she said. “I think.”

  “Your father made an impressive speech on the Senate floor yesterday about the Treaty,” Roberto said. “We discussed the issue in class today. Senator Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom, one of this generation’s greatest orators.”

  “He is. But you must never, never tell Dad that. He wants to be a movie star. He’s hoping they will revive the Western. So what did he say?”

  “Among other things he revealed that the Senate didn’t have the full treaty text before it voted, especially the protocol that sets out the composition of the Commission.”

  “When was this speech?”

  “Caught it on television at five yesterday, so I assume it was prime time in DC when he gave it.” He put his fork down. “So what are you running from?”

  “I think some of the Gaia people I was involved with have committed a murder.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I’m afraid to call Dad. To call anyone.”

  Roberto looked up, studying Snowfeather’s expression. “If you’re worried about this place, don’t be. You are very safe with us.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled warmly. “I keep saying that. But I am so grateful, Roberto.”

  “It was a mitzvah, Snowfeather. And no trouble at all. Roberto sipped his tea thoughtfully. “So who exactly are you running from?”

  “Earth’s Sisters.”

  Roberto placed his napkin on the table nodding resolutely. “I repeat. You are safe here. Right, Isaac?”

  “Sure. Running from terrorists. That’s so cool.”

  “Take your time,” Kahn said. “I’m going to Shabbat services this evening. You are welcome to come with Isaac or stick around the house. Do you have a key?”

  “That’s too much…”

  “No, not at all. You’ll need one. Isaac, you take of that. I’ve got to go to Temple early this time.” Roberto got up. “Isaac, your paper is due Sunday at noon.”

  “How about five?”

  “How about noon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I love it when he says that.”

  ——

  That evening Roberto arrived home with Isaac to find Snowfeather writing a goodbye note, her bag packed, her bed neatly made. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Roberto, you and Isaac have been wonderful, but I feel like I am intruding. And I know I could bring you trouble. It’s been great, really, but…”

  “Isaac, please go and get to work on that paper.” When his son left, Kahn sat next to Snowfeather on the Sofa.

  “I am Roberto Kahn, your lawyer.” He held out his hand, smiling. “Everybody in trouble needs one of Moses’ people armed with a law degree.” She chuckled involuntarily, and shook his offered hand. “Now,” his tone was suddenly formal, “what you tell me, and my assistant, Isaac, is fully protected by the attorney-client privilege. What you tell me alone is also protected by the penitent privilege, which is, in my case, a two-for-one protection.”

  “I thought you weren’t a rabbi.”

  “Just a technicality. Moreover,” he said raising his bushy eyebrows, “I have a notoriously selective memory, especially under torture.” He smiled. “So I need to know a few simple things, in exchange for my hospitality. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s yes, Roberto. I am your friendly lawyer.”

  “Yes, Roberto.”

  “That’s better. Let’s start with what you were doing on Shaw Island that day…”

  An hour later, Roberto got up to pour coffee. “You know what the problem is, from my point of view? The problem with worshipping Gaia?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It is idolatry. The most ignored Commandment of our age,” Roberto said, walking into the kitchen. He returned with two cups. “Even my Jewish atheist friends agree.”

  “Really?”

  “If there is a God, there is only one.”

  “Good one.”

  “Snowfeather, I hope you will agree to stay with us at least until Tuesday. Can you do that?”

  “You win,” she said. “But I need to be useful.”

  “Win? This is not a contest. Useful? I’m doing a Mitzvah. You wouldn’t want to interfere.”

  “Not with that.”

  “For that matter, you can stay until summer vacation or until the Messiah comes, whichever. But I have someone you should meet as soon as we can arrange it.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Fred Loud Owl. He is a Navajo Spirit Guide. One of my clients and a friend of your father’s if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Loud Owl? You know Loud Owl? You are kidding.”

  “I don’t kid about a Spirit Guide. I have met the man. I knew his connection with your father, Snowfeather. I hope you don’t mind. I felt that Fred Loud Owl could be totally trusted. So I located him today. We talked. And he wants to take you on a secret journey.”

  Chapter 30

  The Arizona sky was electric blue when Roberto got back in his car, after leaving Snowfeather with Fred Loud Owl. “You will bring her back?” he said from his car window.

  “You may never see this particular woman again,” Loud Owl said, winking broadly. Fred was a lean figure, with short, black and gray hair, an ageless face, piercing dark eyes and a raptor’s nose. He was dressed in a loose-fitting earth colored tunic and jeans. “I know your mother and father,” he said. “I was in Sandpoint, a few years ago.”

  “I remember. You were the one who took Dad to that sweat lodge session.”

  “That was me. You look a lot like your mother at that age.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling. “Before we start, do you know of a safe phone?”

  “I have one of those at home. It’s never bit anyone that I know of.”

  “I mean, I need to call my father and mother.”

  “You’ll need an encrypted line for that. I can arrange it. But we might have to wait a while. Meantime, I know how to get word to them that you’re safe. Good enough?”

  “Good enough.”

  Loud Owl kicked the dry dirt with a sandal. “But enough small talk. You have a journey to make.”

  ——

  A week after his arrival in Canada, John Owen had been moved to a new safe house north of Vancouver. He watched the streaking raindrops in the street lamp across the empty reside
ntial street. I swear the rain is denser here, somehow, John thought, the drops are different. He sat in a wheelchair near the fireplace, looking through a crack in the curtains. Flames snapped and wood hissed behind him. He could feel the warmth against his right leg. His right wrist was in its travel sling, a faux cast hiding the missing hand. A black raincoat was draped over his shoulders, dragging on the floor behind the wheels. Ten minutes left. Almost time to go, he thought. And I’m a brand new grandfather. The news of Elisabeth’s new baby had just reached him.

  “God, I love this country,” he said out loud, letting the curtains fall back in place.

  “It is pretty, here,” Dornan said from the doorway.

  “Hello, Bill.” John turned to look at his old friend. “Sorry, I meant my home country.”

  “Oh. I’m sure we’ll go back.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “To this country of ours.”

  “The people got very, very scared and they let their leaders sell out the country.”

  “They’ve been scared before.”

  “Different circumstances now, John. It is more confusing. No clear enemy. And there are clever people who are very skilled in exploiting the situation. It’s happened before…to the Germans, the Russians. Remember the Islamist fanatics?”

  “But this is the United States of America. The land of the free.” Dr. Owen glared across the room at his old friend, his eyes burning. “I’m supposed to be one of the good guys. I’m not supposed to be a damn fugitive.”

  “We’ll get everything back.”

  “Right,” John said. “Starting with the constitution…eventually, if we fight hard and long and catch some breaks. But we won’t get back all the people they kill in the meantime.” His face was a subtle battleground between fatigue, grief and anger. After a minute, his internal struggle subsided. “How long were you standing there waiting for me?”

  “Here? Not long. Hey, don’t worry about it, John. It is time to leave town, but the company pilot works for you, remember?”

  “When did you check on Elisabeth and little Josh last?”

  “A few minutes ago. Your new grandson is big, healthy and in very good hands. Your daughter is doing brilliantly. And Ken Wang is with them all the time now.”