[Whistleblower 01.0] Wounded Animals

by Jim Heskett

  “Why don’t you tell me what the right thing is,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “I can hear you getting a little upset. That’s no good. Maybe it would help if we were a bit more on personal terms. You can call me Mr. Thomason. We haven’t been introduced, but I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

  The driver moved closer to me, from behind. My fight or flight response triggered, and I had an urge to grab him and flip him over my shoulder. But I resisted. If these guys knew something, I was going to get the damn information.

  The passenger, AKA Thomason, finished his granola bar and tossed the wrapper in front of the bench. Littering, another one of my pet peeves. “Does the name Muhammed Qureshi mean anything to you? Sometimes, he goes by Kareem Haddadi. That’s the name he usually uses in this country, so I’d guess you’d know that one. Ring any bells?”

  My eyes shot wide open. Kareem, my mythical water-into-wine friend, the one who had begged me not to take the trip to Dallas. He’d barely entered my thoughts since finding the note on the back of the toilet, but it seemed natural that what Thomason and his people wanted somehow connected with Kareem. Or Muhammed Qureshi, or whatever his name was.

  “I can see that the name Kareem Haddadi does mean something to you,” Thomason said. “I’m not surprised.”

  Haddadi. Kareem Haddadi. Something about that last name seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

  “You want to tell me about Mr. Haddadi?” Thomason said.

  “No. I want you to tell me what’s going on here, who you people are, and what you want from me. I want to know where my wife is, and why there was a dead tech support trainee in my bathroom. If you know something, you need to tell me.”

  Thomason’s eyes narrowed. “You need to take that venom out of your tone right now, boy.”

  “You need to answer my damn questions. I’m tired of your games.”

  “When you’re ready to cooperate,” Thomason said, “we’ll talk. But not so long as you’re still doing silly things like calling the cops about your wife.”

  I felt the driver’s hand grip my shoulder, and I reacted. Grabbed his hand, dropped to one knee. Then I pulled with all my might so he flipped forward, landing on the ground in front of me. I straightened my fingers and stiffened my hand, then jabbed it into the driver’s throat.

  His hands rushed to his neck, gasping and coughing.

  I looked up as Thomason was digging in his inner coat pocket. He was only five feet away, so I rushed him, barreling into his chest and driving him toward a tree near the edge of the drop-off.

  He swiped at my back as I lifted him and a sharp blade sliced through my jacket. I felt something warm drip on my back.

  Legs churning and feet slipping on the hard-packed snow, I thrust his body against the tree. The force whiplashed his head backward, and I heard a crack as the back of his head smacked against the tree trunk.

  I leaped back and he slumped to the ground. Eyes closed.

  The air changed and I turned around just in time to dodge the driver as he swung a vicious right hook. He missed me by inches.

  I blinked, trying to get my bearings. I could feel the blood running down my back and collecting at the base of my spine. But my adrenaline had spiked and I had no sense of how deep the cut was.

  The driver put up his fists in front of his face, ring-boxing style. He wore brass knuckles on both of his hands, and a good swipe from either hand might break my jaw.

  But I could see from his stance and posture that he was nothing but a brawler. I knew what to do about that. Wait for him to get close, to get off balance. I’d sparred against these guys in judo many times before.

  He grinned as if he knew something I didn’t. Inched toward me. I stayed firm, not moving at all.

  He jabbed, and I took my chance. With his weight forward, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward me while I stepped out of his way. As he fell, I jabbed him in the ribs. When he hit the ground, I slammed a knee into his back. He cried out.

  I flipped him over, then grabbed his wrist and bent it backward. He screamed in pain as I pushed it within an inch of breaking. I moved closer to his face. “Where is my wife? What do you people want from me?”

  Driver said nothing, only grunted.

  I applied just a little more pressure to break his wrist, and he mewled, a screech worse than anything my cat had ever made. I let go and he turned on his side and morphed into the fetal position, cradling his broken wrist against his chest. He panted, gasping for air.

  Fifteen feet behind me, Thomason moaned and stirred. I took a figurative step back and thought about what was going on here. I had attacked these men, and now stood alone on a mountaintop. What was I going to do, kill them? I’d surprised them, but I couldn’t survive forever as one against two. No, I needed to get away.

  Inspiration struck and I dug a hand into the driver’s pocket. My finger felt the poking of car keys, and I yanked them free.

  I shoved the keys in my pocket as I started to race back down the trail. The inertia of energy carried me for the first ten minutes, never stopping, never thinking about anything more than getting back down to the car.

  Turn after turn, trying to hop over icy patches, keeping my feet on rocks that would give better footing.

  My ragged breathing caught up with me and I had to lean against a trail-side tree stump to catch my breath. Now I wished I’d kept that water bottle. Poison or not, I needed something to drink.

  I looked back up the trail, but there was no one above me.

  A minute went by, but I couldn’t get my heart rate under control. I was certain that my judo sensei would have been proud of the way I’d handled myself. But, on the other hand, I had beaten up and broken the bones of two men who were probably quite dangerous, so maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing, after all. Didn’t see that I’d had much choice; I reacted and events moved forward.

  Despite the panting, I made myself press on. Took me another ten minutes to get back down to the car, and I jumped in, and stole someone’s vehicle for the first time in my life.

  I had no answers, but plenty of new questions.

  I raced back through Eldorado Springs and along I-70 to the police station in Denver, and when I got out, I debated whether I should go in and report all of this to Detective Shelton. The whole story seemed so unbelievable, where would I even begin?

  Then a terrible thought occurred to me: what if, instead of them bugging my phone, Shelton had told these people that I was coming. That was just as likely as them listening in on my phone calls. Maybe that good comment back at my house was a reference to the fact that I didn’t say I knew the dead trainee. Maybe that was a test, to prove I could keep my mouth shut.

  No way could I trust the detective. My best option would be to get home and regroup.

  I hopped in my car and hit the highway. Turns out I missed the lunch rush traffic, so that was a small bonus amid all this chaos. Couldn’t believe these kinds of thoughts were even occurring to me at a time like this.

  I pulled into my neighborhood as a light snow began to fall. I had to slow going down the street, resisting the urge to floor it. Panic and confusion motivated me above all other forces.

  Then when I could see my house, my jaw dropped. My wife’s car was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  I STUMBLED OUT of the car and into the house.

  “Grace!”

  My lungs felt raw and used. I could barely breathe. Don’t know why I expected to find her inside, especially now her car was gone. Maybe I was clinging to change as something that could contain some hope, but that was about as likely as getting the house key in the door on the first try after a drunken evening out. Hope had deserted me, or at least that’s what the evidence suggested.

  In reply to my house-wide yelling, nothing but the gentle hum of the fridge came back. Silence, and then the padding of tiny cat feet down the stairs, and the vicious glare of a cat I’d forgotten to feed that morning before
I ran out to confront my wife’s boss for seemingly no good reason.

  “Aw, shit, Kitty, I’m so sorry. It’s been a really long day and it just slipped my mind.”

  My eyes misted as I opened the fridge and pulled out the aluminum foil-wrapped can of cat food. Went to the cupboard to get a bowl, then mixed a little water into the food and set it out for her. The mechanical movements calmed me a little, and I had prevented a round of tears, at least.

  Then as I bent to put the cat food back in the fridge, I felt the injury on my back. A searing burn just above my tailbone, like a massive paper cut.

  I lumbered upstairs into the bathroom to check it. Dead Paul’s burgundy blood had dried in splotches along the wall. They had cleaned most of it but left me some as a reminder that I had a part to play in this too. Or maybe I was acting paranoid by suspecting the hazmat cleanup crew of trying to teach me a sick lesson.

  Maybe not, though, because everyone else seemed to be against me.

  I unbuttoned my shirt and felt my skin tear. The blood had clotted and glued the shirt to my skin like a second layer. When I pulled it free, I twisted to catch the sight of a six-inch gash across my lower back, like a crooked smile. A semi-circle of angry red skin surrounded the wound. Possibly infected.

  Apply hydrogen peroxide. Bandage. Tape. Again, the movement of something ordinary brought me a small measure of peace. I found some antibiotics left over from the last time Grace had been sick, took one and shoved the bottle into my pocket. I might forget to take them if I didn’t keep them on me.

  There was a knock at the door, and I sauntered down the stairs, feeling a little woozy after the wound-cleaning ritual.

  Alan was peering through the window into the living room, so I unlocked the front door and let him in.

  “Hey neighbor,” he said. Gripping a bag of potato chips in one hand, with glazed eyes. Stoned. “Were you yelling just now? I may be crazy, but I could have sworn I heard you cutting loose over here and I wanted to make sure you were cool.”

  “You’re working from home today, right?” It was a safe guess based on the potato chips and the bathrobe hanging on his frame.

  “Sure, if you can call it working. They give me way too much freedom.”

  “So you’ve been home all day.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, what’s on your mind?”

  “Did you see Grace come home at some point today and take her car? Or maybe not her, maybe someone else came and took it?”

  He turned to look at my driveway as if he had to verify that her car wasn’t there. “Sorry, I haven’t seen anything today. I’ve mostly been working on my train sets in the garage. Music on, you know, zoning out and putting the rest of the world on mute.”

  I nodded. Of course, Alan had missed Grace coming home. Whenever any of our neighbors had public fights or something else strange happened, he was the first to text me with the newest neighborhood gossip. But with the one thing I needed him to pay attention to, he was totally oblivious and zero help.

  “Hey, what was up with all those cops out here last night? They weren’t at your house, were they?”

  I gestured him back onto the porch and grabbed the door. “We’ll talk about it later. See you,” I said as it closed.

  Maybe she hadn’t been kidnapped at all. When I’d questioned Thomason and the driver about it, he’d seemed genuine when he had no idea where she was. As strange as it seemed, maybe her disappearing had nothing to do with my kidnapping or the dead trainee.

  Maybe she ran away. Maybe she had left earlier in some kind of rush, and then come to her senses and realized she needed the car. If she’d intended to leave me for some hidden reason, doing so while I was out of town would be the perfect time.

  That would explain a lot.

  I grunted my way back up the stairs and checked in her closet for her suitcases. Still there. That didn’t mean she hadn’t run, but it would be strange for her to go somewhere without the suitcases, wouldn’t it?

  I called her, didn’t leave a voicemail. Sent her a text.

  Whatever it is, we can talk about it.

  I didn’t expect a reply, and nothing came back during the next two minutes as I stared at my phone. I waited for the little checkmark to indicate that she’d read the text message, but it didn’t materialize.

  I had been gone for only three hours or so. If she’d decided to leave, maybe for the airport to fly to Michigan to see her parents, there was still a chance I could catch her before she boarded a plane.

  I grabbed my keys and checked to make sure I still had Grace’s spare key, dry-swallowed another antibiotic pill, then jumped in my car.

  The Denver International airport, so far from the city of Denver they might as well call it the Eastern Colorado Airport, appeared like white needles piercing the sky in the distance as I turned onto Peña Boulevard. The needles were from the massive lighted cloth towers on top, which I assumed were supposed to look like mountains.

  As I neared the airport, I tried not to look at the horrendous statue of the electric blue horse with its glowing red eyes and hanging dong. The piece of “art” had always unnerved me, but I didn’t need that extra stress today. I threw up a hand to block it from my view as I passed, then I breathed a sigh of relief once it was in my rearview.

  Parking lots. I could choose between the east parking lot or west, and then choose between the economy lot and the garage in each. Grace would never park in the garage, as it cost twice as much. When I traveled for work, I always parked in the garage, because as long as they were paying, I appreciated the five minutes of time savings to get to the terminal. Life is better on someone else’s dime.

  So that left the economy lots, either east or west. I had a gut feeling I might find her car in the east one since Frontier was on that side, and she usually flew Frontier back to Michigan. I had to acknowledge that I was making a huge number of assumptions, most of them based on whims that passed through my head like wisps of cat hair in the breeze. But I had to start somewhere.

  So I pulled into the east economy lot, took my ticket at the gate, then found a place to park, near the middle outer section. The lot was always close to full. A flashing sign near the road through the lot blinked that sections 1 and 2 were full, and section 3 was near capacity.

  Out of the car, I surveyed the vast east parking lot before me. The prospect of searching all these cars seemed almost too daunting. Three major sections, with rows A through Z in each. I was currently in section 2 row F, so I made my way outward to section 3 row A, pressing the lock button on Grace’s key every few seconds, hoping I would hear that familiar chirp-chirp of her Subaru’s lock mechanism.

  Section 2, rows F back to A gave me no joy. I worked my way back toward section 1, thinking I needed a better game plan to tackle this massive lot.

  Clicking the remote. No sound. People around me, pulling rolling bags and carrying small children crabby and crying from travel. Businessmen squawking on Bluetooth devices, loosening their ties and clacking their wing-tipped shoes against the parking lot surface.

  A woman with a baby in some kind of sling around her belly started walking toward me. “Having trouble? I always get lost whenever I come here.”

  She stopped a few feet short of me, big worry on her face. Her baby pivoted in its sling, then looked up at me with wide brown eyes and a toothless grin on its little face.

  The woman stroked her baby’s thin hair as it cooed at me. “He likes you,” she said.

  I spread out a flat smile, unsure what to do next. Was I supposed to thank her, or ask to hold it, or say nothing? I was going to have one of these little creatures myself in less than three months, but I realized then that I hadn’t actually held one since my cousin had his kid, and that was almost a decade before.

  I stared at the baby, mesmerized. How alien these little humans looked. Like hairless cats, only helpless and entirely dependent on other humans for survival. The infant shoved a hand in his tiny mouth and started sucking away
at his fingers, a few strings of drool dribbling down his fat little chin.

  The woman shifted her weight away from me. “Well, good luck finding your car.”

  “Yeah, thank you,” I said, feeling like a creepy uncle.

  She disappeared between a truck and a smart car, and I went back to pressing the remote button and wandering up and down the rows of cars.

  By the time I’d returned to section 1 near the terminal, I had exhausted my optimism. I hadn’t pressed the button for a full minute, so I gave it one last try. Nothing.

  I sat down, head in my hands. Seemed like it was time to admit defeat, but what was I supposed to do next? Where the hell was my wife?

  “No way,” said a nearby familiar voice. “Is that you, Mr. Candle?”

  I squinted, the fading sun reflecting off a car window to obscure my vision. All I could see was the outline of a man. I held up my hand to block out the glare, then the figure in front of me came into focus. Darren, my bushy-eyebrowed trainee, the one that Kareem Haddadi had probably warned me about. The destroyer of worlds.

  “Of all the luck,” he said, a big grin on his face. “I’d say it’s a small world, but that doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  “Darren?”

  I’d last seen him the day before in Dallas, and now here he was, in Denver, standing before me in khakis and a pea coat, white earbuds dangling from his ears, dragging a rolling bag behind him. Maybe I should have been more surprised, but with all the crazy stuff going on over the last few days, I barely registered an increase in my heartbeat.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  He frowned, which made his eyebrows join together to form a massive structure across his forehead. He bent to one knee and took the earbuds out. “You don’t look so good, Mr. Candle. Are you okay?”