by Cole Alpaugh
“Hotel security was dispatched to the subjects’ Fiesta Americana Villas room just after midnight on Christmas Eve in response to guest complaints of loud music, people urinating from the balcony, and thick smoke described as smelling like burning hair. The encounter resulted in the six subjects being ordered to immediately vacate the premises. One security guard reported being assaulted with an object described as a plastic penis pump, which subsequently required twenty seven stitches to the guard’s head. Subjects’ rental car was found overturned and abandoned on the fourth fairway of the Club de Golf, east of the hotel on Costera Miguel Aleman. Acapulco Police located the vehicle following the resident groundskeeper’s complaint of a gang of banditos burying a body on the front nine. Upon further investigation, police determined from the pattern of divots and the collection of fishing gear left behind in the car that the shovels the men were seen carrying had been used to dig for night crawlers. Subjects contacted a taxi company to pick them up on the fairway, but instead agreed to meet in the parking lot next to the club swimming pool. The cab dispatcher described the caller as drunk and belligerent, and that only his unusual accent made him conclude he was not American. Police arrived at the golf course minutes after subjects escaped in the taxi. Police reported the locked pool gate had been pried open with a shovel, as had a liquor storage cabinet behind a pool-side bar. An unknown quantity of bottles was missing, although several were recovered empty from the pool’s shallow end. Subjects were taken eight kilometers across town after demanding to witness the famed La Quebrada Cliff Divers. When the driver suggested three a.m. was much too late for the show, one subject brandished a garden shovel. The driver, fearful that his poor English had caused the upset, delivered the subjects to their last known whereabouts. Two additional empty bottles of locally produced tequila, one empty salt shaker with cocaine residue, and six pairs of men’s shoes were found atop the unlit, forty-meter cliff-diving platform. Acapulco Police have left the case open until bodies are recovered.”
Chase and Mitra also disappeared, buying a small chalet-style home in the Pocono Mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania. The move was only three hours from the apartment, but night and day when it came to the congestion of traffic and people. Chase didn’t ask permission from DB6, mostly because he wasn’t sure how. He responded to an earlier incoming email that he had a new address and was leaving the key on top of the television set, like you might do at a hotel. The email bounced and they finished packing.
Mitra had left her science lab to work as the director of a small community library tucked inside a former church parsonage, while Chase wrote newspaper feature stories for a weekly and skied most winter days. His DB6 email account remained empty.
On New Year’s Day, Chase dug the vibrating phone from his Spyder jacket. He’d just hopped on the North Face chairlift at Montage Mountain, a dilapidated ski resort overlooking Scranton-area rooftops. Despite the natural beauty of the Northern Poconos—and the Endless Mountain Range just to the north—Scranton had long been the butt of snobby jokes having to do with its proliferation of the bowling alley industry. When Hollywood arrived in Scranton to shoot on location, it was a good bet that beer and bowling were key elements of the storyline.
“I think it’s time.” Mitra’s voice was breathless at the other end. She was back at their new home, a half hour from the ski hill parking lot. Chase had left her on her own after she’d promised not to have the baby while he was off skiing.
“Time for what?” He reached forward to loosen his boot buckles. The Phoebe Snow lift ran up the steeper North Face slopes and was painfully slow at the poorly funded county-owned resort. Montage’s unusual layout was split in two: the easier slopes at the top and the more difficult black diamonds at the bottom. The vast gravel parking lot was in the middle plateau, right where the Phoebe Snow lift deposited skiers. Getting off the lift, you either turned right, left, or went to your car.
“The baby is coming,” Mitra answered, and Chase dropped his phone thirty or so feet, just where the snowmaking runoff created frozen waterfalls over the terraced boulders below. The phone shattered amid the litter of chewing tobacco tins and lone gloves.
“Uh, hey, excuse me?” Chase leaned forward against the retention bar to face his fellow passenger, a guy with high-end gear he remembered zipping past on the diamonds. “Do you have a cellphone?”
The man looked down between his expensive Volkl skis in the general vicinity of where Chase’s phone lay shattered.
“Not one with a parachute.”
“I’m having a baby,” Chase pleaded.
“No you’re not.”
“My wife is having a baby at this very moment.”
“And you’re off skiing?”
“The baby is early,” Chase lied. The baby was right on time, but the man didn’t need to know that. Mitra had promised to wait. He was only going to be gone for two hours, maybe three. A few quick runs and right back to her side, ready for fatherhood.
“There’s a payphone in the lodge.” The man pulled up the collar on his shiny Obermeyer one-piece ski suit for privacy.
Chase hummed nervously, pulling off his glove to check his watch as the lift stopped three excruciating times, the minutes trudging by.
“You really having a baby?” The man handed over his phone.
***
Tylea Rain Allen was born the next morning, weighing in at six-pounds, one ounce. She was seventeen inches long.
“Is there always so much blood?” Chase had asked the nurse, who assured him everything was fine. “Why does she look purple? What’s all the crusty stuff? Do other babies cry like that?”
“She doesn’t look purple.”
“What if she stops breathing?”
The hospital sent mother and child home a day and a half later despite Chase’s concerns.
“It’s seems too soon,” Chase told Mitra, who appeared confident in the belief that all this stuff was natural. Nothing got to her and it was frustrating. It didn’t make sense. Having a seed planted inside her, then having it grow to the size of a melon, didn’t begin to faze his wife. Having it turn out to be a human whose care you would be in charge of for decades to follow, after painfully squeezing it out a too-small opening was something she seemed to relish. And what if the child turned out more like him than her? There was no re-do in childbirth, according to the pamphlets Chase read.
Doctor Bam’s Toyota sat idling in their driveway, tinny stereo speakers blasting an AC/DC tune, his round head bobbing in heavy-metal fashion. Chase pulled past his truck and up to the house with their brand new family.
“Please check if she’s breathing,” Chase begged Mitra. Nothing was moving in the baby carrier over his shoulder. Dead silence, just a still pile of fuzzy pink and blue blankets, surely now just a cold mass of sorrow and tragedy. And they’d even given her a name! No matter what the books promised, he could not trust Tylea to breathe without being watched. He knew life was filled with regrets because you let your guard down in one of its fleeting moments. Every second, every breath, had become an opportunity for catastrophe. Fatherhood was already overwhelming.
“The new baby girl!” Doctor Bam hooted, flinging open the rear car door to examine his granddaughter up close, while also grabbing Mitra to give her a kiss. Chase opened the door on his side and slid over to try and figure out the seat belt and how it was connected to this thing. He knew he was useless, that the carrier was now permanently attached.
“What do you think, Dad?” Mitra carefully rearranged the soft cotton hat on the baby’s miniature head. Chase had read details regarding the soft spot under those little caps and still could not fathom why they weren’t made of metal, like helmets. There must be an enormous untapped market for Kevlar bonnets.
With three adults hovering, Tylea opened her mouth into a great, straining oval, either yawning or making a silent cry for help. She reminded Chase of a hungry baby bird whose mother had returned to the nest, ready to regurgitate berries and worms
.
“I think she looks like a scientist.” Doctor Bam spoke in a low, almost reverent voice. “Young man, after you bring in the baby, there are toys in the back of my truck.”
Tylea Rain Allen’s first toy was a pickled fetal pig.
Chapter 19
While government intelligence agencies around the world looked to shore up likely marks, terrorists and rogue nations searched for soft targets.
Ali Saleh had never wanted to kill anyone. All the shouting about death to Americans, infidels, and Jews from his young friends hurt his ears. Why the al Qaeda elders had chosen him to leave his mother for strange lands was far beyond his comprehension. Ali wanted quiet peace and for Layla to allow him to touch her bare hand. Killing was for soldiers and people who believed in change. Ali just wanted to make chicken mansaf and baba ghanouj because he knew Layla loved eggplant and the smell of toasted almonds. In the kitchen Ali would be a warrior!
Except now he was supposed to kill himself. Al Qaeda had intended to use the world stage of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics to blow up a medal ceremony with heavily favored American Bode Miller standing on the podium. Miller had been a favorite to medal in all five disciplines, giving a Saudi terrorist plenty of opportunities.
Early on in his assignment, Ali had tried to be a cheerful helper in the wax room and sponsor offices. He’d been a gofer all his life, in fact, doing a similar job at his hometown mosque in Madinah, where he’d mopped down the prayer halls and kept the foot bath water fresh. But Ali, the soon–to-be martyr, was instructed to stick close to Miller whenever possible. It meant that after a ten hour day of picking up granola bar wrappers these people couldn’t manage to put in the trash bin, he had to squeeze into the shadows of hellish bars and nightclubs until all hours of the morning.
Ali missed prayer at least three times a day and almost never knew the direction of Mecca.
What was an Italian nightclub like for a meek servant of Allah? A boy who simply wanted to close his eyes and blow up an infidel as quickly as possible to collect his ticket to Paradise for seventy-two black-eyed virgins? Almost exactly like the time a bomb factory accidentally blew up in his old neighborhood. The noise was similar, as were all the flashing lights and screaming people. He truly needed to get to Paradise fast. Or home to Layla and her lovely soft hands.
A roaming bar girl was shouting foreign words, an inquisition, at the humble Ali. He was cowering in a corner of the club, where he’d followed the famous Bode Miller and his entourage. Ali had done his best to tolerate all the frightening women on the streets exposing themselves to the sea of lecherous men. The elders would condemn such female exhibitionists as disloyal to Allah, ignorant of the Legends of Punishment. They’d order them put to death and then shrouded in the very burkas they ignored. Ali suffered terrible nightmares in which he was ordered to slaughter these women. Two razor-sharp shafra daggers would grow from his fists, glimmering metal extensions of his own body. He would slash his way down busy sidewalks, forced to mete out justice on these shameless women while offering tearful apologies.
Ali would awaken and switch on his hotplate. He’d stir a cube of chicken bouillon into a cup of water, a pathetic substitute for a true kitchen warrior.
In the chaotic, Zionist hellhole, Ali was trapped against one wall by a set of gigantic breasts. Herded like the sheep he’d become, afraid of moving. He shaded his eyes from the flashing lights, a hand over one ear to protect it from the buffeting music. The bar girl was making demands he could not understand. Lips and eyes painted unnatural colors, she towered over him even though he was standing. Ali could see glimpses of her pink tongue behind white teeth, but his eyes were drawn downward. Her breasts were less than a meter from his face, encased in pink triangles of glistening material. There were strings holding the material in place and he recognized that one tug might unleash her bosom like a collapsed dam.
“Please, Allah, please go away.” Ali shook, his words in useless Arabic, as he tried dissolving into the pulsating wall behind, unable to take his eyes off her chest, knowing Allah was surely going to punish him for his weakness. He was also dimly aware that he’d lost track of the infidel he was told not to lose track of.
More words and impatient gestures from the bar girl’s free hand; the other held a tray of drinks she could easily convert to a weapon.
All the basic Italian phrases Ali had learned—such as, which way to the toilet—had vaporized. He suddenly feared she might have discovered his mission and was demanding his papers. The al Qaeda elders would have him skinned alive and then stoned. Ali’s mind raced with all the worst thoughts of a failed mission. Never again would he see Layla’s bare hand, her long, delicate fingers. With panic setting in, it was fortunate for everyone inside the club he wasn’t wearing his suicide vest. He had started to dig through his shirt for the detonator, mumbling “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.” Allah is great.
Ali’s inquisitor tapped her foot while balancing the tray near her shoulder, Ali furiously patting himself down while trying to dissolve into the wall behind. She was surely aware he hadn’t taken his eyes off her chest for a second, but it didn’t seem to affect her in the least. She thrust them out farther, as though they were weapons. Yes, Ali almost cried, they are weapons. They are dangerous, dangerous weapons and I submit. Please, take them away and leave me alone. Layla, forgive my sins!
Ali was sick to his stomach, the soft fleshy cushions of motherhood willing themselves closer, growing rounder and fatter with each breath sucked through her red lips. “I beg you, please,” Ali whimpered in Arabic.
The woman uttered a few short words and snapped her chewing gum. She abandoned her interrogation, turned and stalked away, tray held high as if making an offering to whatever god she might have. Ali watched the material covering the round lumps of her buttocks and nearly collapsed with relief. When he felt he could walk, he ran out of the bar.
It would only get worse for Ali.
Each failed race during the day had Bode Miller spending even more time in these churning pits. Ali drifted into a deep depression, losing faith that his mission would succeed. It had started well enough, with the famous American skier just a tiny fraction of a second off the podium in the first event. But the next race was a heartbreaker for Bode and the would-be martyr. Bode had led the first portion of the race by nearly a third of a second and was the hands-down favorite going into what were called slalom runs. But Ali, who watched the races on a huge projection screen near the finish line, heard the cries of disappointment as Bode’s skis straddled a gate and he was disqualified.
That night, the martyr broke Shariah law and sipped from an abandoned glass of alcohol left on a cluttered table next to the dance floor. He told himself it was to aid his mission by dulling some of the pain caused by this pounding music and bomb-flash lighting. Across the frightful, exploding room, he watched the infidel tossing back colorful shots while crowded by a herd of half-naked females. Ali began emptying more leftover glasses. The pain was too deep.
Over the next days and nights, Ali’s depression blossomed and he was tired beyond belief. How did this infidel expect to compete in a ski race if Ali could hardly push a broom down a hallway without rushing for a toilet? Ali could barely guide the wash bucket down a flat corridor, so how could the American expect to stay upright and make proper turns around such skinny poles?
An event called the Super G was another disaster. Ali had snuck away from his duties to watch him cross the finish line in first place. Something bad had happened up on the mountain and the famous racer never even made it to the bottom. And two days later, Bode finished sixth in an event called the giant slalom—another total failure for all radical Muslims across the world. All the talk around the wax room was that Bode had no chance in hell of finishing the two-run slalom race scheduled in five days—also his last event—and Ali’s gloom grew blacker.
Following Bode into a nightclub on the eve of the final event, Ali had strapped on his bomb vest. It appeared ther
e would be no world stage under the glare of international television cameras, so he was contemplating a preemptive strike. How many black-eyed virgins he’d receive for killing a hundred or so infidels outside of the spotlight, he didn’t know. But since he himself was a virgin, he would praise Allah and be happy to have just one, even if it couldn’t be his dear Layla. The virgin didn’t even have to be very pretty. And he decided he could live with the fact that she wasn’t even a virgin.
Ali was considering all his options when one of the young females who swarmed Bode insect-like grabbed his arm, pulling him over to join them for tiny glasses of orange alcohol. Ali raised the glass shoved in his hand as the American racer seemed to be thanking the Italians for their hospitality. Ali raised another when Bode seemed to thank the Italians for producing such beautiful women, touching the front of the females’ shirts as if he were their husband. The wobbling Saudi terrorist cheered an agreement in Arabic, and everyone laughed as another round was poured. Drunk as a jihadist skunk, the humble martyr was now searching the room for those two big boobies from the other night, even though they’d been in some other bar. Females were touching his shoulders and hands, and he felt the serpent in his pants again turn to stone and point upward accusingly. Allah’s mighty dagger, he’d heard the old men from his mosque call it. Was it pointing at him? Ali tossed back another glass of stinging liquid and the room began to spin out of control as his mission’s last thread unraveled.
The heat from the mass of gyrating bodies—and all the packs of explosives duct-taped to his sweating belly—was too much. Ali clawed through the revelers, trying to find the exit, screaming in Arabic as the panic tightened its grip. He ripped at his clothes as he pushed wide-eyed people out onto the street in front of him, then fumbled at the detonator button to end his misery.