Crystal Ice

by Warren Miner-Williams

  ***

  When Ngaire Rakena awoke she was still drowsy from the anaesthetic and felt as if she was going to puke. It took her a little time to focus her attention on where she was and who the fuck was squeezing the shit out of her hand.

  “Ngaire, you OK? You look like shit, but you’re still here in the land of the living.”

  Silhouetted against the light was a familiar voice but she couldn’t see who it was. When she tried to focus, she found that her eyes hurt like hell and everything was just a blur.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Ngaire croaked.

  “It’s me, Janet. I came in yesterday but you were on a different planet, rambling on about some bitch called Henare, then passing out every few minutes. You’ve really been fucked over by someone, was it Sonny and his band of fucking cut-throats?”

  “What did they do to me?”

  “Do you want the full list, or just the short version?”

  “Janet, stop fucking about and tell me.”

  “Well, your face is smashed up, your hands are the same and you’ve had your left kneecap broken. They say you will be able to get a plastic kneecap, that’ll help you to walk again, but…”

  “Shut the fuck up, I don’t want to know anymore.”

  “Yeh, OK. You’re in Greenlane hospital so you’re not too far away. I’ll bring the kids in when you’re face improves; I don’t think they’d recognise you at the moment. And you’d probably terrify the youngest…”

  “Janet!”

  “Sorry, yes, I’ll shut up. But you’ll get lots of support now, everyone will see how shit for brains Sonny Rewaka is a cruel bastard and that he was responsible for the deaths of…”

  “Fuck off Janet, you’re doin’ my head in. I don’t want to know jack shit about Rewaka, and in any case if he killed Danny, why didn’t he kill me?”

  “That’s just his ploy, to shift blame onto someone else. When you get a bit better, we’ll put him in hospital with worser injuries.”

  “Janet, you fuckin’ moron, I think there’s possibly a message in these broken bones, “the don’t fuck with me” message, and funnily enough,” hissed Ngaire, “I seem to have got it.”

  “But Ngaire, babe, we mustn’t let the bastard get away with this.”

  “If you were lying in this bed, I wonder if you’d be so fuckin’ brave. Get me a drink, will you?” Janet held a sipper cup to Ngaire’s chapped lips and gave her a few mouthfuls of the sweetest tasting water she had ever had.

  “Look, I still hate the bastard and still want to fry his balls, but one thing he said to me as he was about to hit me was, “If you step out of line again, you’ll be visiting Danny.” Then he said, “you might like to consider your children’s future too.” He meant it too, he’ll kill them as well.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, would he?”

  “Well, he convinced me. Where are the Rupene brothers?”

  “Oh, those stupid fuckers, Brian is in the Auckland Hospital and Pete is in Rotorua Hospital, whoever dumped you outside the ‘emergency’ entrance here, must have dumped them outside the other hospitals. Seems strange to me, why not dump you all off at the same place?”

  “Perhaps that would have been, a little too suspicious.” Hissed Ngaire.

  “OK, OK, keep your hair on, I was just saying that’s all.”

  “Well don’t. Sonny’s too strong, I just want to forget it all now, I can’t go through this again and I don’t want my kids to either, so forget Sonny. Now, pass me that water again.”

  “You’re wrong Ngaire, we need to tough this out. And we can do it too. You’ll feel different when you’re a little better just you wa...”

  If Ngaire had got the mobility she would have slapped Janet. Instead, she shouted, “JANET, SHUT THE FUCK UP.”

  Part II

  America

  21. Air Fresheners

  For Lieutenant Colonel Mike Morrison M.D., mornings were a battle of wills as his twin boys seemingly made getting ready for school as hard as possible. The boys, Alistair and Andrew, were students at Fredrick High School, a large coeducational school that has a proud history; as can be appreciated from the school motto – “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve.” Though the current buildings dated from 1939, the school is the oldest in Fredrick County, first opened in 1891. Situated on Carroll Parkway, it overlooks the tranquil beauty of the City of Frederick’s, Baker Park. Alistair and Andrew were bright boys and had advanced to a class above their chronological age. They loved school; they just didn’t like the process of getting there on time.

  “Mum, I can’t find my calculus homework, I left it on the breakfast table last night”

  “It’s on the kitchen counter somewhere Andrew, look for it.”

  “Do we have to have salami on our sandwiches again?”

  “Yes Alistair, because you chose the meat for lunches this week.

  “Dad, can you pick me up from school and get me to baseball for 4 o’clock?”

  “You’ll have to give me more notice than five minutes before your bus leaves, I can’t rearrange my schedule at the drop of a hat.”

  “Can’t find my baseball glove Mum, do you know where it is?”

  “In the pantry, where you left it.”

  “Dad I need 20 bucks to renew my locker lease.”

  “I haven’t got $20 in notes, you’ll have to get change from the drawer in the kitchen.”

  “I can’t turn up with $20 in change, I’d be the laughing stock of the school. Besides, do you know how much that number of coins weigh?”

  “Change is all we’ve got.”

  “Mum have you got any notes?”

  “Just $5, Alistair took the last of my money for the same reason.”

  “Alistair, why didn’t you remind me? Let’s share the notes and make up the rest with coins.”

  “No, you forgot, you pay the consequence.”

  “Al, come on.”

  “Nyet, nada, no way Hosea.”

  A horn sounded from the street, calling the students from their homes. There was a frantic scramble to get all they needed for the day. Intelligent students they might be, but they could never organise themselves enough the night before or get out of bed fast enough to prevent the mad dash for the school bus every morning.

  “Bye guys, love you, see you later.”

  “Thanks for all your help Dad, not!”

  And with that the two boys scuttled out the front door, leaving a trail of devastation behind them. Bang! The front door slammed with enough violence to take it off its hinges. Mike collected the breakfast crockery and loaded the dishwasher, put the OJ back in the fridge, the honey back in the pantry, wiped the kitchen bench, then sat down for his breakfast coffee; strong and black.

  Suddenly his wife emerged from the downstairs bathroom, still trying to apply her mascara, using the minute mirror from her make-up bag.

  “Shoes, where are my shoes? I’m convinced those boys hide them every morning. Is that my toast? Do I look all right? See you darling, give me a kiss. See you tonight. Bye.”

  Like a whirling dervish, Eleanor Morrison gathered her things and disappeared in a whoosh. The front door slammed shut again, almost shattering the frosted glass panel that Mike had had to replace on two other mornings similar to this one. He waited for a second, trying to hear if she had started her car successfully.

  “Hi honey, got the wrong keys. See you.”

  Bang! The door slammed for a third time that morning. Then a splutter and coughing of Eleanor’s car signalled that she was on her way, at last.

  Mike pondered for a moment, wondering if other people lived like this – disorganised and chaotic. Surely not?

  Eleanor was an ER nurse at the Barquist Health Care Facility. They had been married twenty years this coming year. She was tall blonde and very thin. With ice blue eyes and a captivating smile Mike loved her now just as must as he did twenty years since. Coincidentally, Mike was currently working in Building 1425, which had been the original Health C
are Centre before it was taken over by USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, as their new laboratories. Mike was nearly 2.2 metres tall, with a wiry frame that hid the power and fitness of a man who regularly competed in the US Army Iron Man competition. His face was thin and oval shaped, sporting an ever-present five o’clock shadow. Like most army personnel Mike had a very close haircut that in his case helped to disguise his premature balding. His eyebrows were black and bushy and were the reason for his nickname, ‘Bush’. The Morrisons lived just 10 blocks from Fredrick High School, but work for both of them was much further away. In the rush hour it would take them almost forty minutes before they arrived, tired and stressed from their commute. Both Mike and Eleanor loved their jobs and although they both worked long hours, they wouldn’t change them for a ‘king’s ransom.’

  Mike Morrison graduated as an M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore before he began to specialise in virology. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins was the first research university in the United States, a new concept in higher education that emphasised both learning and research. However, it was in viral epidemiology, at the Walter Reed Institute of Research in Washington D.C., that Mike gained prominence amongst the world’s virologists, it was his research in gene sequencing and antigenic variation of influenza viruses that elevated him in status to the rank of world expert.

  Mike finished his coffee and ensured that the downstairs was tidy before he locked up, put the alarm on and left home via the garage. It was 0800 and he had a meeting at 0900. Although he was confident that he was perfectly prepared, his hands started to sweat as he remembered who exactly would be at the meeting – two congressmen from the commission on Bioterrorism and their advisors, the commander of USAMRIID, Colonel Charles Fox PhD and several of his peers. Mike had to give his lecture on the problems of proving the difference between a natural epidemic and a bioterrorist attack. He needed to convey the basic epidemiological principles of biological agents used as weapons and yet he didn’t really know the expertise of the congressmen or their advisors. Having spoken to Charles Fox, he had developed a PowerPoint presentation that he hoped would fit the bill. One of his colleagues, Terry Bowen PhD, was due to speak after him on the development of a Bioterrorism and Epidemic Outbreak Response Model, (BERM), that could be used to assist emergency response planners understand the logistics of a bioterrorist attack. Mike didn’t know who had drawn the short straw, as both talks could easily tie their layman audience into scientific knots.

  ***

  In 1887 Curtis Cooper purchased a cabinet making business in Silver Ridge Wisconsin and developed Cooper’s Patented Furniture Polish. His first-year profits were a little more than $220. Now, 120 years later, C & W Cooper employs more than 13 000 people in over 72 countries. For five generations the company has remained a family business priding itself on innovation and quality. C & W Cooper are one of America’s cleanest and greenest, demonstrating how environmental responsibility and profit are not mutually exclusive. The Meadowvale plant in Silver Ridge, Wisconsin, is the company’s main manufacturing base for aerosols, and it was to this centre that the five 210 litre steel drums containing the lavender oil were delivered. Not being required immediately, they remained in storage for over a month before eventually being used. Then hundreds of thousands of aerosol cans were all charged with a small percentage of the aromatic, yet deadly, essential oil. Each can had its own bar code that could reveal where and when it was manufactured, and when cross-referenced with company records, would show the origin of its key ingredients, including the lavender oil. The cans of Meadowsweet air freshener were then boxed and distributed to wholesalers before they ultimately arrived on supermarket shelves all across the US. The first contaminated can was bought ten weeks after the lavender oil had reached the states.

  ***

  Lynda Debernardin was a hard-working mother of two who had dedicated her life to the care of the elderly. At 1.55 metres tall, heavy hipped and with a large bust, she was a pocket rocket. Her speed around the Alexander Nursing Home on Booth Street, Salisbury, for a woman of her girth was almost miraculous. Kind and caring to her patients, she loved them as if they were all relatives. No job, no matter how unsavoury, could put her off. She had worked tirelessly at the home for over ten years and had been rewarded for her service on many occasions. However, this was no day to celebrate because old Mr Appleby had died that morning. Lynda had looked after him for over two years and although his death was expected, it was no less shocking when she found him that morning. The dear old guy had thankfully passed away painlessly in his sleep. Mr Appleby had terminal bowel cancer and even though he was on a morphine drip he had suffered terribly.

  With tears in her eyes Lynda cleared his bed and wiped down the mattress with disinfectant. It was not unusual for Lynda to cry when one of her patients died and this time was no exception. Mr Appleby was an exceptional man, personable and funny, with a razor-sharp wit right to the end. He was well liked by both patients and staff. Lynda’s tears ran freely down her face while she tried desperately to keep her mind on the cleaning. Everywhere she looked she was reminded of Mr Appleby, his chair by the window where he watched the sparrows eat the breadcrumbs he had left, the photographs of his beloved daughter and her three children who he had hugged only the night before. There was even a photo on his bedside table of him kissing her under the mistletoe the previous Christmas. Only yesterday he had joked with her that he expected a better kiss this Christmas. Finally, Lynda gave up and sat down, her handkerchief held tightly in her hand to mop up any stray tears. Lynda had been told on many occasions that getting too involved with the patients was unhealthy, but she couldn’t care for them without loving them. They were still valuable living beings, they had feelings, opinions, likes and dislikes and above all they were friends. She missed them all when their time passed.

  Tonight, she would say a prayer for Mr Appleby and light a candle for him. His daughter was coming in this afternoon to pick his things up. Clearing out his locker, folding his spare pyjamas and his woollen cardigan was hard; packing away his more personal items was almost impossible.

  “Are you OK, Lynda?”

  It was Glenys Sebring, another of her patients.

  “Yes, my love I’m, OK. I just feel sad that Colin has passed away. I always find it hard. Do you need anything Glenys?”

  “No just off to the bathroom that’s all.”

  “Well don’t run the bath before I get there, I don’t want you falling over again, OK love?”

  “Loud and clear, Captain.”

  Captain was Lynda’s nickname. Although she was a little unclear as to why the patients had used that name, she hoped it was because she ran a tight ship rather than behaving like some militaristic dictator.

  Lynda finished putting Colin Appleby’s things away and gave the room a quick spray with air freshener before following Glenys to oversee her bath time. “Aaah...” she thought aloud. She loved the smell of lavender.

  ***

  The town of Ripon (pop. 7,500) sits on the western edge of the Fox River Valley, Wisconsin, and is the location of Ripon College, an Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). The college claims to run one of the best leadership training courses in the country which is a major part of the college curriculum. During leadership training young men and women learn what it takes to lead and motivate others in combat situations as an officer in the US Army. After graduation from the college students start their military career as a Second Lieutenant. In Mapes Hall, opened in 1961, as “a residence hall for upper class men and women,” Rufus (Roof) Stevens was late for class because it was his turn to clean the third-floor communal bathroom. As Roof slopped the wet mop across the last portion of unclean floor, he was already thinking what excuse he could use for his tardiness.