by Fiona Quinn
I looked at my watch. Time had flown. I thought Prescott and I had been talking for just a minute or two. If the week flew by like this, it meant bad things for the possibility of saving Kaylie. “I have to go as soon as she gets that vial up. I have an appointment.”
“You can’t tell Mrs. Foley why you want her blood, but can you tell me?”
“It’s a long shot.”
“Better than no shot,” Prescott said.
“Last December, you got pulled into a case with Dr. Zoe Kealoha. Do you remember that case?”
“Hard to forget. A couple of men try to kidnap her from her apartment. She texts me an SOS from under her bed. Your guy in Panther Force, Gage Harrison, kills them with his bare hands. What could that possibly have to do with this?”
“Zoe’s research project, BIOMIST.”
“Blood markers?”
“Familial blood markers. In the absence of Kaylie’s blood, we can use Mrs. Foley’s. Unless of course you somehow have a sample of her blood that isn’t just a DNA code.”
“It was never relevant for me to look for one,” he said. “As I remember it, Zoe’s BIOMIST project was based on her research that blood had certain biomarkers. These biomarkers could indicate close genetic ties like DNA, but it was much quicker and less costly, though it wasn’t permissible in court.”
“BIOMIST is interesting here because there are two points at which we can try to tell if Kaylie survived. One from Nigeria and two from the Middle East. The photo isn’t great. Honestly, all it did was get our noses in the air to sniff. Other than boots on the ground, it’s meaningless.”
Prescott nodded.
“But stick with me here. We recently solved a case with the help of Zoe’s BIOMIST data. Panther Force had a woman with a brain injury and consequent memory loss. We put her blood sample into the BIOMIST system, and it identified two women who had moved through refugee check points from Syria as they relocated. Our operatives knocked on the women’s doors in Europe and got a confirmation of the unknown subject’s identity.”
He tapped his index finger against the tabletop like he was trying to scroll quickly down a page and read further into the story. “Kaylie isn’t to the refugee camp yet.”
“Here’s why I think we might possibly luck out. When the United States wanted to collect blood samples from everyone in the Middle East, in order to have a reference data base to identify possible terrorists or the remains of individuals, they sent out those medical units to go village to village and tribe to tribe in Iraq doing basic health assessments, right? Each man, woman, and child who went through these assessments had their data—name, age, gender, and basic health picture collected along with their biomarkers. As the war expanded, so did the collection effort. Afghanistan was included and when the people started to flee across the borders, the medical teams set up at the asylum and refugee camps. My thought here being if Kaylie has been in the Middle East for a while, it’s possible that she moved through the medical check and has her blood markers on file in the BIOMIST system.”
“And we’d know she was alive at some point past the Nigerian case.” Damian’s focus went inward as he processed this line of thought. “We’d have a date and location. But we’d need to access that data, and it’s known to few people. I can’t just ask for it, or even subpoena it. It’s top secret for a reason. If that information became public, the whole program shuts down.”
“And if the data base has been rendered inaccessible to protect its integrity, it’s not useful either. Look, I can’t promise anything. But Zoe was willing to help us before. It might be that she’d do it again.” I looked at my watch. “I need to scoot soon. My appointment is on that side of town. I’m going to head to our infirmary.” I glanced at the picture of Kaylie squatting in the dirt that rested on the table. “I can take the sample with me in a cooler and stop by to pay Zoe a visit.” I shifted my focus to the door. “I guess I should have asked if Mrs. Foley and Kaylie are genetically connected. Maybe they were adopted, and this would be a meaningless exercise.” I looked back to Prescott. “Are they biological sisters?”
“I’ll verify that,” he said, adding another note to his list. “For now, let’s assume so. If Zoe will allow it, the BIOMIST system is worth a try. But if Kaylie were my hostage, I wouldn’t let her get anywhere near an American aid worker.”
“Right, I wouldn’t either. The only reason why I feel hopeful is that the tribal leaders were often offered presents if everyone participated, an envelope with Viagra, for example. The tribal leader might have had her go through, but perhaps they threatened her somehow to keep her from talking or calling attention to herself. If she was wearing a veil or a burka, it wouldn’t be hard to disguise her. Perhaps they let her go through and get her medical checks and if necessary, any medicines because they wanted her to be healthy… Granted this is a shot in the dark. Other than someone tapping on that refugee woman’s shoulder or our finding her blood markers in the BIOMIST system, I think we’ve hit a brick wall and there is no moving forward. Right now, I can’t think of a single other way to save her.”
Chapter Five
I sat in the waiting room outside my psychiatrist’s office for my appointment with a vial of Mrs. Foley’s blood in a cooled biohazard box in my bag. I let the Kaylie Street case paint across my thoughts.
When I had looked at the image collected by NSA laying next to the last known image of Kaylie in Nigeria, I didn’t see much of a resemblance, but that wasn’t a reason to give up. People change physically, emotionally, mentally with time.
Just a few years ago, I had what I called my “fluffy bunny” look. It was my go-to disguise—a cute girl who thought that international news was what she read in Cosmo about the Paris fashion houses’ new fall color palette. It was a great disguise. Looking cute and powerless allowed me to go in places and do things that normally would raise red flags.
But life had thrown me some curve balls in the last few years. I’d seen too many things, been through too many things, to be able to pull on my bunny mask at will. To me, I looked about the same as I always had when I examined my reflection in the mirror, but I knew that the cute girl-next-door role I had played was no longer available to me. I had too much history in my eyes and in the way I held my muscles. A heightened startle effect.
That could be the case for Kaylie, time and experience might have changed her face to where she was only recognized to a 67% chance of accuracy through an AI software algorithm.
She was seven years older than the picture of her in Nigeria, wearing the shorts and squatting beside the child. She’d be in her mid-thirties now. She would have lived through the night when her colleagues did not. She would have been kept, possibly…probably against her will in a foreign country without any outside communication.
Boom. I caught myself making a presumption.
Assumptions often led to wrong conclusions, so says my mentor Spyder McGraw.
I’d look through the file and see if Kaylie had a religious or political affiliation.
My phone buzzed with a text from Zoe:
Yeah, come by after you’ve done your appointment with Dr. Limb. I told security, and they have your visitor tag ready for you. I was going to call you later anyway, I need to talk to you, too. Running a quick errand. If I’m not back, it won’t be but a few minutes.
Great. Zoe was expecting me. She was a smart cookie; she’d know I wanted to swing by for an ask. I didn’t want to wear out my welcome or get her into any conflict of interest or security issues with DARPA or the CIA. But I’d leave it up to Zoe to tell me if this was problematic. Zoe had no issue whatsoever about being abundantly honest and blunt. These were traits I appreciated. I never had to think about what was going on behind my back. She wouldn’t be bitching about me to someone else, she’d just come right out and say her truth. Though, I couldn’t imagine Zoe bitching about anyone.
She was a unique woman, and I liked her a lot.
The door opened and a man passed
into the hall and walked toward the elevators. My psychiatrist, Avril Limb, looked down at me and hooked her hand to wave me into her office. “I’m ready for you.” She smiled.
I moved into the room, familiar after a year of being her patient. Client. She didn’t like to refer to those who sought help as patients. She thought it made us sound ill.
I was ill. Why not sound that way? I was recovering from a couple of traumatic brain injuries and some life-threatening experiences. To me the brain was like any other part of the body. If it gets damaged, you treat it. I thought that Avril using the word “client” sanitized things in a way that I didn’t particularly appreciate. I wasn’t her typical client, though. Her expertise was brain injuries suffered on the battlefield. I got on her roster because she was supposedly the best of the best, so having her as my psychiatrist was a big deal to my fiancé Striker Rheas.
It was the least I could do, showing up here at Avril’s office each week. Striker had been through enough these past few years with me and my crises.
I wasn’t an easy person to be in love with.
But since he did love me, and I loved him back, having Avril say “client” wasn’t a big deal.
I settled onto the couch and curled up comfortably.
Avril took a seat in her brown leather captain’s chair with its high back. She rested her hands in her lap, the way she always did, with her palms open and facing up, showing me through her body posture that she was open and receptive to what I had to say today.
“You look distracted. New case?”
I nodded.
“Let’s put that to the side for now and focus on you. What’s been on your mind this week?”
It was her usual opener. It put us squarely in line with our relationship. I would talk, she would listen. Possibly, she’d ask me some clarifying questions. She’d repeat things back to me so I could hear my own words with a different inflection.
I wasn’t an open-kimono kind of girl. I didn’t like to share personal things. I came here because—besides loving Striker and wanting to put him at ease—my job required me to. I needed her stamp of “still not certifiably crazy” so I could continue with my work.
Since I started coming here, I haven’t seen a big change in my issues; nightmares still attacked me every night.
That was uncharitable.
I had found some relief moving through the grieving process from our sessions. Well, I found relief in understanding that sometimes grief was complicated. At least Avril could let me know that what I was experiencing, the survivor guilt and the thought intrusions, weren’t out of line. Since both were getting worse for me lately, I decided to make that our topic.
“I think my husband went to Hell. And I think he wants me to save him,” I started.
Avril weighed my words.
She settled her elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her chin in her fist, her index finger curling over her upper lip. Her brain whirred behind intense brown eyes. “We’re approaching the second anniversary of Angel’s death,” she said, tipping her head the other way and pushing her finger contemplatively into her chin. “It would make sense that you’re thinking about Angel and considering what happens after one dies.”
My gaze travelled around her office. There were no windows. Just cream walls with Avril’s medical and psychiatry diplomas, a couple Rorschach-like art pieces, and a plant that could use more light.
“You have more experience with death than most,” she said in her professionally detached tone. “You remember your experience of dying and being brought back to life with consistent and vivid details. I want to talk about your death experience, and then circle that back to your thoughts about Angel and why you feel like you have to save him from Hell.”
“All right,” I said, lacing my fingers and placing them on my lap.
“Pick a point and go from there.”
I took in a breath and let my eyes lose their focus, settling my gaze on the corner where her bookcase angled against the flat industrial grey carpeting. “I was sitting in the pilot seat of the plane when I died. I’d dragged myself there because of the vultures circling over my head outside of the plane. I’d set out three signal fires, to try to get help. The smoke filling the air around me billowed in thick acrid clouds. It kept the birds at bay. But eventually, the fires would die. I thought, if someone were to find me before I decomposed—if the birds had already pecked out my eyeballs—it might be a pretty traumatic visual. I wanted to save them from that.”
“To protect the rescue crew, you got back into the plane. That was a valiant last act.” She uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way, shifting around in her seat.
“I don’t know.” I pushed my lips to the side as I considered whether my intention had been valiant or not. “That was the surface thought that I remember. I probably had some self-preservation in there somewhere. Not that I’d know or care, after I was dead, what happened to my body. Bird’s chewing on my eyeballs or what have you. But still…”
Avril didn’t like to talk about eyeballs apparently. She was a little green around the gills at the visual I’d painted. “You died. At the moment of your death, what happened next?”
“Yes, well…what I thought would happen didn’t. I was out there all by myself. I was in terrible pain—both physical and mental…spiritual—I knew that my death was imminent, and I felt abandoned.”
“By…?”
“My parents. By Angel. My parents and my husband having died before me, I would have thought that they would have been there to guide me to the light.” I looked Avril in the eye and gave a shrug. “But no one showed up. And there was no light.”
“Do you think that’s because it wasn’t your time to die?” She pulled her brows together. “Permanently die, I mean.”
I shrugged again.
“Your team found you and had the equipment that saved you. Did you feel angry with Angel’s memory once you came back to consciousness?”
“No.” My voice was soft. “I’m not really sure why I thought that anyone would show up. That’s not in my day-to-day belief system. It was in my last-gasp belief system.”
“What do you believe now that you’ve experienced your own death?”
My gaze found a resting spot where the ceiling and wall made their crease. I struggled to find a way to put my beliefs into words. “I think that it depends on the person. Though a white light and loved ones welcoming me wasn’t my experience. Maybe it was…” I stopped talking.
A long moment passed in silence.
“Go on. I’d like to understand.” Avril gave me a smile of encouragement, leaning forward.
“I believe that the pain of this lifetime stays in this body at death.” I rubbed my hands down my torso. Under my turtleneck, I was covered in scars from the times I’d been attacked by a killer, Travis Wilson. Two attacks. I’d survived when the other women he targeted had not. It had made me think that there was a reason I needed to stay here on Earth. So far, I hadn’t figured out the why. But it must be something. “I’ve lost count of the numbers of times Death and I have brushed past each other. When we finally meet, it will be as old acquaintances.”
Avril nodded, not in agreement but to keep me talking.
“During our lives, each of us has a concept for what happens next. A lot of people construct their ideas about what happens once the body dies based on their religious background. Nirvana, Heaven, or maybe if you’re agnostic or atheist then nothingness. My way of processing it is this—after a body is no longer needed, we call that death. The soul is then shuffled into a belief box that is held in a larger system. That system is the truth for everyone, though everyone has their own belief box.”
“I’m not following.”
“I think that when our souls leave our bodies at death, it’s a shock. Our soul kind of gentles us through that process by constructing our personal pictures of what “next” looks like. It’s individualized. Everyone can pull up whatever they’d like w
hether it’s good or bad. If you think you’re going to Hell, for example, your afterlife will be hellish until your soul’s ready for the next step.”
Avril didn’t say a word.
“If you believe in a Heaven of Pearly Gates and St. Peter with his list, then that’s where you’ll go. If you believe that you’ll join your ancestors in a circle of wisdom, then that’s what happens. This explains why there are a variety of experiences that people tell others when they’ve had a death event like I’ve had, and they come back and talk about it.”
“And you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you said that in death, even if it didn’t line up with your conscious belief system, that you thought there would be a white light and loved ones to guide you and welcome you. I’d like to know about your belief systems when you aren’t on the cusp.”
“I think I’ll go to a floaty place, beautiful and peaceful. There, I’d eventually get acclimated and go to the next level—the larger system that is the truth for all souls, once they’ve calmed down enough to accept the change from corporeal life to spirit life.”
“Any ideas about what that would look like?”
“It’s unknowable. But if I were to guess? Oh…maybe a great hall of records where I’d go to hang out with the souls in my learning circle, and we’d plan what we wanted to experience and learn next.” I offered up a smile. “I like my theory because it makes everyone’s belief in the afterlife true. Everyone is right about what happens once their body is dead. Well, in the first step of the journey.”
Avril gave me a nod.
“Like I was saying, I thought I would experience pure love, float weightlessly in beauty. But no. There I was, strapped into the pilot’s seat, wondering why my loved ones had abandoned me. No bliss waited for me.” I focused on my lap.
“And why do you think that is?”
“My soul didn’t detach. I wasn’t supposed to die.”
“What were you supposed to do?”