by Cole Alpaugh
As Chase had anticipated, the disguised dictator turned left toward the master bedroom, his aching feet now bare on the hardwood floor. Chase let him get two full strides beyond the stairs before stepping out of the powder room darkness, making his move. But Noriega had left his shoes behind, with their various straps and tangled laces, and just as Chase reached out, he tripped on the shoes and fell to his knees.
Noriega screamed, fired three shots blindly over his left shoulder and ran into the master bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
“Dammit,” Chase hissed, getting to his feet, ears ringing from the shots. He was more angry than frightened. Chase glared at the door. Noriega had no exit, but had at least two or three remaining rounds, depending on the make of the revolver and whether he’d tucked away additional bullets in his bra. Deciding to stay on the offensive, Chase did what he imagined Stoney would have done. He strode up to the bedroom door and kicked it in. The intricately detailed knob and bolt action exploded into brass shards and loose screws, as the wood splintered easily. The door slammed open, exposing Noriega standing on top of the king-size bed across the room, his back against the wall for support as he took aim.
Blam! Blam! Click. Click. Click. Click.
His two remaining bullets nearly parted Chase’s hair, harmlessly smacking gaping holes into a door at the far end of the upstairs hall.
Noriega wound up like a baseball pitcher on top of the bed and hurled the small gun, but was low and outside for a ball. His tight-fitting house dress was bunched up high on his chubby thighs, exposing olive drab underwear.
I see London, I see France, I see a crazy dictator’s underpants! Chase’s thoughts raced.
Noriega stood with legs spread for balance on the soft bed, his wild wig askew and his bright red lipstick smeared into an ugly clown face. He feinted right, then jumped off the left side of the bed, running directly at Chase as he tore off the wig and tried to jam it in his face as he lumbered by. Chase ducked the fistful of hair and tripped the president as he passed. Noriega dove headfirst into the door jam, like a base runner trying to bowl over the catcher during a close play at the plate.
Again Noriega screamed out, this time in pain, as his right shoulder connected with the door frame, but he was immediately back up and scrambling into the hall. Chase was right on his heels.
“Hola, Señor Presidente.” Chase kicked Noriega’s ankles out from under him before he could get to the stairs. His body took a mid-air spin, thudding to the floor.
“Por favor, no más,” Noriega cried, face down on the floor, trying to cover his head with his arms. “Soy dolido, soy dolido. I am hurt.”
“Fight me and you die, entiende?” Chase ordered, putting a knee in the small of his back as he imagined Stoney would have done. He reached for one of the discarded shoes, untangled a long strap, and ripped it free. Chase cinched Noriega’s wrists behind his back.
“Soy dolido,” Noriega whimpered.
“I’m not going to fuck around with you.” Chase’s voice was clear, business-like, and he spoke directly into the man’s ear. “I’m taking you downstairs and I’m making a phone call.”
“Your family is dead.” Noriega’s voice was a growl, his cheek pressed into the wood floor.
“Get up.”
“There’s money in the bed.” Noriega’s tone had changed to sleazy businessman and it pissed Chase off. He’d threatened his family and then shifted his tactics so easily to offering a bribe. Chase grabbed Noriega by the collar of the dress and slammed his head into the floor.
“Ouch! You fucker!”
“How much you got?” Chase had the man with both hands around his neck. Could he kill someone without getting all crazy? He was starting to think it would be pretty easy.
“I’ll have their heads cut off.”
“Ten thousand? Twenty? How much money to let you walk out of here and start cutting off people’s heads?”
“Two million dollars.”
“Bullshit.” Chase began to squeeze.
“The money is all right there,” Noriega croaked, jerking his chin toward the bedroom despite being choked. Chase turned to his right, loosened his hands.
“You take half and we both win,” said the dictator.
Chase stood up, spun the little man around on his belly, and dragged him by the dress collar back into the bedroom. Noriega yelped as his body bounced over the slightly raised threshold.
“Donde?” Chase demanded, and Noriega motioned with his chin at the heavy wood frame of the right side of the bed. “There’s a compartment?”
“We have a deal,” Noriega said from the floor.
“I don’t need money.” Chase was intent on finding the secret latch to open the hidden compartment in the side of the bed. He fished in the darkness, running his hands all along the dark wood, aware that there might be a booby trap, but Noriega didn’t seem to be cowering away, so he figured it was safe.
“Everyone needs money.”
Chase’s fingers found the latch and a three foot section of bed frame came open in his hands. He brought one of the small bedside lamps down and ripped a pillow case off to smother most of the light as he twisted the switch. Inside the compartment were a metal briefcase and an interesting looking antique box. It had a small, inscribed plate on top that read “Adolph Hitler, Walther PPK.”
“No fucking way.” Chase turned to ask Noriega if it was real, but the floor was deserted. “Shit!” Chase closed the wood hatch and scrambled for the door.
Noriega was mincing barefooted, midway down the stairs, hands still bound behind his back, his dress fully up to his hips. “Stop!” Chase shouted and Noriega took a great misstep, tumbling forward, head over heels down the tall staircase. The president made at least five full forward revolutions, his head finally breaking his momentum against a large terra-cotta pot at the base of the stairs, creating a zigzag lightning bolt crack down one side of the planter.
Just as the unconscious dictator came to a sprawling rest, the front entryway became awash in bright headlights of what might have been a U.S. military Humvee just outside the front gate. A soldier jumped out of the passenger side door carrying long handled bolt cutters. While his silhouette worked the chained gate in front of Chase, his enormous shadow worked behind him on the wall.
“Shit.” Chase gathered Noriega over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry and headed away from the front door. He considered a rear-exit escape, but if it was the Rangers, they’d definitely have that side covered. Were they back on the reports of shots fired or just to re-sweep the house? Losing Noriega to the Rangers would be the second screw-up in two missions.
Chase jogged the dictator into the kitchen and did one quick rotation. The oven? The dishwasher? Then he spied the swinging doors to the pantry and banged through them, using Noriega’s ass for a battering ram. After scooping out a bunch of bags of Birdseye frozen vegetables, Chase dumped Noriega’s warm body into the nearest freezer. It was a tight squeeze, but Chase got the lid closed and turned the tiny silver key in the lock.
As an afterthought, he reached back and kicked the plug out of the wall for both freezers. The low drone went silent. How long would Noriega have before hypothermia killed him? Before lack of air suffocated him?
Chase ran back through the kitchen and out to the foyer, then took the stairs four at a time. After reaching down to toss Noriega’s shoes into the powder room, he sprinted into the master bedroom.
He lay back on the wonderfully soft duvet, letting his respiration settle, taking deep, even breaths, knowing this was going to be impossible to explain. How long did Noriega have? Thirty minutes? Twenty?
A single Humvee rumbled down the short drive, shifting into park with its lights still on, just outside the front door. The heavy idle was menacing and the house was almost in daylight from the bank of spotlights high over the windshield. Chase couldn’t make out what they were saying over the engine noise, but the language was English and not Spanish—a comforting fact. Definite
ly a U.S. Humvee.
When the front door was shaken and not kicked in Chase knew there was hope, that it was probably just a quick perimeter check and not an investigation of shots fired. Besides, shots fired at one of Noriega’s compounds would surely have brought out half the Army.
Moments later, the soldiers jumped back in the truck and the driver revved the engine and spun the tires. Chase crept off the bed and out the door for a look. The soldiers had apparently decided the coast was clear and it was time for some off-roading in the president’s yard. There was yahooing and yeehawing as the Humvee spun doughnuts on the manicured lawn. The engine got loud, then quiet, then loud again. They seemed intent on leaving no blade of grass unscathed.
Chase lost sight of the headlights and the engine sound changed as the powerful Humvee sped around the side of the house. The motor revved as they made the turn, entering the backyard at what sounded like a pretty good rate of speed. And then worn brakes squealed too late as a series of metal on concrete cracking noises went off like shotgun shells. One water fountain after another was mowed down and the hullabaloo ended with one great gong, which had to be the Humvee bumper striking the naked bronze nymphs.
The engine died and the headlights were extinguished.
Chase edged down the hall to the nearest window.
“We’re in some serious shit, Larry.”
“Fuck if we ain’t.”
“Try and turn it over but don’t give her too much gas.”
The dead starter clicked and clicked, but stayed dead. There was the noise of a popped hood.
“Fucking starter’s fried. It ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Got any ideas?”
“We gotta report it was stolen.”
“And having our ride hijacked will save our asses in what way?”
There was the sound of concrete being moved, grunts from heavy lifting.
“Both front tires are flat.”
“What is all this shit, anyway? Come check this out. Looks like you ran over a nekked broad.”
“It’s some kinda statue.”
“Well, no shit. Hit the lights and help me pull her out.”
There were grunts and low cussing as they worked under Chase’s window. Chase had expected the police to investigate the backyard crash, but they might have been told to stand down from their regular duties during the manhunt.
“You think she’s gold?”
“Do I look like I’d know if she’s gold?”
“You’re in a shit mood.”
“We just totaled our ride. What kind of fucking mood should I be in?”
“Look, maybe we say we had a runner. You ordered him to stop, but he took off around the house and we followed. Then, bam, this shit was all over the place.”
“What about all them doughnuts you done on the front lawn? How we gonna explain that? Was the guy runnin’ in circles when we chased him?”
“Fuck me.”
“I ain’t takin’ the heat for this, no way. We gotta report it stolen. Ain’t no other way.”
“Okay, grab the weapons and my sunglasses from the ashtray. And come help me with this nekked broad. I’ll get her by the legs.”
“You really think she’s gold?”
Chase slipped away from the window as the soldiers banged through the back servant gate. The sky had turned purple as Chase grabbed his camera bag from the powder room and went for the secret compartment in the bed. He pulled out the cash-filled briefcase and box containing Hitler’s gun. In the kitchen, he twisted the oven broiler to high and spilled the cash onto the top rack. The electric elements glowed orange.
Chase set the antique box on the granite counter and went to fetch Noriega, who was nearly white from the cold, lips an astonishing shade of blue. But he was still alive and shivering like a wind-up toy. He let Chase smooth out his dress and lead him back out into the kitchen, where he sat in a chair with his hands still tied behind him. Noriega’s makeup was a total mess and a big purple knot from cracking the terra-cotta planter was blooming on his forehead.
With the smell of burning money filling the first floor, Chase used the phone on a small table in the front hallway to call his CIA contact to come pick up the target. The agent’s excited tone was instantly muted when Chase identified himself as DB6 instead of CIA. A lowly part-timer had nabbed the bad guy.
“You would have been rich and I could have been free.” Noriega spoke slowly, his teeth chattering. He was watching the fire behind the glass oven door.
“There are more important things than money.”
Noriega’s eyes were closed and his head lolled from side to side. “Like what?”
“Like climbing to the top of a cliff,” Chase said, searching the mess in the great room next to the kitchen. He picked through broken picture frames that had been ripped down from a wall filled with tiny nails. “And then diving head first.”
“Suicide?”
“You could never understand.” Chase dumped broken glass from the picture he’d hoped to find—one that Noriega claimed in interviews to have a hundred copies of. It was of a younger Noriega seated on a couch next to the current U.S. President. Everyone was smiling for the Newsweek photographer. At the time the photo was taken, George Bush had been the Director of the CIA and integral in recruiting and training Noriega for covert work on America’s behalf. Chase propped the photo in Noriega’s lap and went to his camera bag. He wondered what kind of rating Limp would give his idea. Was the shot of a drug trafficking dictator nabbed in a dress already a three? Would the irony of the added picture of Noriega’s one-time CIA boss register with readers?
Noriega leaned forward to look at the picture displayed against his belly and shook his head. “Times change.”
Chase’s flash lit up the messy kitchen.
Chapter 12
It was the same airport in the same city. Again it was late when Chase stepped out to the curb and climbed inside a yellow taxi. He needed to sleep, but couldn’t remember his address. He’d have to point the way once they got close. Or was this the same driver who might remember?
It was Friday night and the pizza joint was still delivering. Chase wandered the apartment, tried ignoring the new envelope. A baseball game on TV had gone into the ninth.
Chase wanted to call someone else. That his mom and dad were asleep was just an excuse. His dad would wake up and talk. Would ask him what the hell he was thinking when he quit school. Lying would just make him feel worse.
Would Stoney even be coherent at this hour? It would have been a good three hours of drinking and bong hits. And what if Stoney was honest? What if Stoney asked what kind of friend up and bolts like that?
Maybe he could handle that later. Right now he was too tired, too close to the edge. There’d been no fifteen minutes of fame on this trip, even though it had gone better than any of his bosses could have imagined. No credit lines, just a nod from a couple of CIA guys in expensive suits and dark sunglasses. They’d flashed their IDs and carted off the prisoner.
Chase pulled the wood display box containing Hitler’s gun out of his backpack. Christ, had he just flown through two airports armed? He supposed he would have thought fast. He would’ve said how embarrassed he was, admitted what a dumb thing he had done. He’d found the counterfeit gun in a small shop, paid forty bucks, or something. It was a novelty and he should have declared it, or done whatever you do when travelling with such an item. He was just a journalist, after all, the type of person who avoids any type of real gun.
Chase broke open the case and felt the weapon’s weight, pointed it at the television then out the window. The side of the short barrel was marked Walther Model PPK 7.65mm. The grip was rough plastic. It wasn’t much heavier than a water pistol, but it had changed the world, or at least deprived it of satisfaction when Hitler put it to his head and pulled the trigger in the Berlin bunker.
Chase held the gun to his temple, closed his eyes and tried imagining how it must feel. But instead of Hitler, Chas
e was flooded with visions of his sister that night in his bed. He began to squeeze the trigger, but then wondered if it was loaded. Chase dropped the gun on the couch next to the pizza box and went to find the new envelope.
Chapter 13
A narrow, winding road led onto the school grounds. Small palm trees leaned inward, their heavy leaves brushing the dirt as a slight breeze stirred the heat. The sinuous lane was meant for bicycles and motor bikes, and for people in no great hurry. A few shacks lined the road. Burned garbage smoldered in piles where you might find mail boxes in a different country. A naked, mud-caked child poked a short stick at one mound, trying to stir up the flames.
Thailand was a land of kings and queens, of ghosts and monks, in which a young woman from Massachusetts had apparently come to spread peace but had gotten mixed up in something bad.
Chase’s assignment was to write and photograph a general interest Peace Corps feature story for the Associated Press to be distributed among all member papers. For DB6, he was only provided a cryptic mention of a mysterious “Bat Girl” in the envelope left on his kitchen counter. It told him to secure her, but he didn’t know what that meant. Protect her? Could it have meant to kill her?
Beth Flanagan didn’t just shake Chase’s hand when her principal introduced him as the American journalist who had traveled so far. She shook his whole body in a giant bear-hug, and he could no longer imagine a possible scenario in which he’d have to kill her, if indeed she was the Bat Girl and it turned out she’d somehow gotten on the wrong side of the CIA.
Beth was tall and confident and her gentle touch seemed all over you, if you were anywhere near her. Chase later discovered this might be the Thai children’s influence on her, since they bonded so immediately with light-skinned people from the West. Being light skinned meant you didn’t toil in hard-labor, you must be wealthy. Beth wore no makeup and just a simple green dress, a gift from a student’s parent. Her pale skin and piercing blue eyes were framed by a long shock of messy, sandy blonde hair. Chase came to find that when she wasn’t laughing, she was either just smiling really big, or pretending to be disappointed in a misbehaving student.