Borne Darkly

by Lee Perry

  “Yes, as soon as they return to the house they’ll arrest Alex there and after they leave with her Special Agent Sharon Miller will bring Cameron to the plane, okay?” She sat down in the chair across from her; she wanted to ease Cathy’s fears, but understood that only being on the plane with her son was going to ease the worry lines etched beneath her eyes.

  “Why not arrest Alex at the cemetery?” she signed anxiously, “Wouldn’t it be better to arrest her there?”

  “Maybe,” she conceded, “but we’d rather not do it in a public setting. We want to control the story that’s going to break on the news as much as we possibly can.”

  “Will they believe it?”

  “You mean the public, or Anthony Rossi?”

  “Both.”

  “Oh yes,” she assured her, “once it becomes public that Alex is in our custody and we let slip that we hope she’ll cooperate with us cuz’ she’s suspected of collusion in this case… Trust me, her relationship with Anthony Rossi will be over and she won’t have any choice but to get with the program… you’ll see.” Cathy only nodded tensely in response and motioned to the paperwork she held in her hand. “These,” she said, grateful for the momentary change in subject, “are name change forms; you and Cameron will need new identities going into this program, so you’ll need to pick new names. From these we can create all the other documents you’ll eventually need; birth certificates, social security cards, a driver’s license for you, et cetera….” she handed over the forms and pen.

  Cathy wore a black turtleneck and blue jeans, and as she rose gracefully from the overstuffed chair, she absently tugged at the bottom of the sweater with her free hand, crossing the room to sit at the dining table. Jordan pulled her eyes from her and turned back to gaze out the window. Not much of a view… she thought, looking through the sheer curtains that offered a shrouded view of an ordinary-looking residential neighborhood in an appropriately anonymous suburb. She sat quietly, listening to the sound of pen on paper and let her thoughts drift to the lightstation where she would be spending the next few weeks, I wonder if she likes fishing…

  Jordan jumped at the light tap on her shoulder and turned to look up at Cathy who stood over her holding out the completed forms. Thanking her, she took the forms and pen and leaned back in her seat as Cathy returned to the overstuffed chair, sitting with a leg tucked under. From the corner of her eye, Jordan noted how she held her hands twisted tightly together in her lap. Just give it one more hour or so, she pleaded silently, it’s going to get better real soon, I promise. “So,” she said, still looking at the forms, “You are now Catherine Bernard and your son is now Cameron Matthew Bernard?”

  Cathy looked away from the opaque view and nodded.

  Jordan looked briefly into unreadable eyes, “No middle name?”

  “No.”

  “Bernard is your maiden name, isn’t it?”

  “Is that okay?”

  “Well, we don’t recommend it, but if you’re sure, then…”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay.” Jordan quickly assented. Using her knee as a desk, she signed both forms, saying, “It’s official. Both you and your son now have new identities, congratulations, Cathy.”

  “My name is Catherine.”

  “Oh…” Jordan paused, nodding awkwardly, convinced by the attitude of her signs that she had insulted her somehow, “uh, okay, Catherine...” She was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Yes?”

  An agent popped his head in, “There’s a call for you out here.”

  Jordan’s brow furrowed, “I’ll be right back.” she excused herself and hurried into the hallway, closing the door quietly. Catherine watched her go then turned her attention back to the window.

  I began life in this world as Catherine Hope Bernard, and I grew up to become Cathy Sparrow, but I don’t need that name anymore… she thought sadly. Back to who I am… back to my self. She twisted her hands together in her lap, pausing only to scratch absently at the gauze that covered the incisions on her throat. She now had two scars; the large scar on the side of her neck, in the shape of a bent crescent moon, and the smaller, horizontal slit in the hollow of her throat that had provided an airway in the federal courthouse building. Fingering the gauze there, she numbly remembered the fragments she retained from that day; struggling to breathe, the look of pure hatred on Alex’s face… and her words… her horrible words, “Is that what you want?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the memory. As horrible as that day had been, in a strange way that day in the courthouse and the nightmarish weeks leading up to it, It feels like that happened a hundred years ago... she mused wonderingly. Catherine pulled the neck of her sweater back over the gauze pads, leaving her hand to rest on her chest, her fingers resting lightly on the fabric covering her throat. From beneath her palm, she could feel her heart beating, Why does it have to keep beating like that? She wondered at the rhythmic thump-thump, Why doesn’t it just stop? Why doesn’t it all just stop?

  Because Cameron needs you, a tiny voice scolded her, if you could have saved Chelsea, you would have. So stop it because your son needs you! Tears filled her eyes and she furiously blinked them away. Not now! she scolded sternly; You can’t do this now… Cam needs you. She sat up straighter in the chair and inhaled, taking care not to breathe in too deeply and set off a fit of coughing. Since her second surgery, racking, coughing spells had shown Catherine a completely new level of discomfort and she was now careful to avoid them.

  She checked her watch; It must be time to go... she thought distractedly and stood, pausing briefly to stretch then made her way to the door, intending to move the process along herself and insist they leave for the airstrip now. She grasped the door handle when it suddenly burst open, slamming hard into her hand. She snatched it away and jumped back, suddenly face to face with Jordan who grabbed her by the arm, and she noted as terror filled her, that all the color had drained from the taller woman’s face.

  “I’m sorry, Catherine,” Jordan apologized, “but we need to leave right now.”

  Sudden nausea and lightheadedness seem to make the floor tilt at a sickening angle and she sagged briefly in her grasp, “What?” she futilely tried to sign, but another agent appeared to grab her by the other arm and both were now propelling her down the hallway.

  “STOP!” she signed, pointlessly trying to also scream the word aloud, but only succeeded in producing a sharp pain in her throat. She doubled over and Jordan yelled for the other agent to stop. As soon as the one agent let go Catherine wrenched herself away from Jordan and forced herself to pull her hands from the searing sensation in her throat. Her hands shook violently as she struggled to form the words,

  “What is wrong? What happened?”

  Jordan held up her hands in surrender, more in an attempt to calm herself than anything else, “There’s been an incident at your house; there are dead agents at the scene. Apparently some members of the Rossi family showed up...” Her eyes locked on Catherine’s, now wide with fear, and carefully enunciated what she had to say next, “The Rossi family has taken Alex and Cameron. We can only presume they’ve taken them both underground.”

  PART 2

  Lost

  Point Sur, CA

  Dark… dark… and more dark, Jordan thought as she stared numbly out the window of the SUV. In just a few seconds, her perfect itinerary had turned into a horrible nightmare. In the time it had taken the Rossi family members to empty assault weapons into five agents, Jordan’s plan to take down the Rossi family had also been blown away; As dead as… She closed her eyes and drew in a deep careful breath. Special Agents Sharon Miller, Bobby Suttler, Candace Lawson... Jerry Wilson and… She clenched her teeth behind tightly pursed lips, her throat constricted and she swallowed convulsively, silently ordering her eyes to stop producing the tears that slipped steadily down her face, and Don…

  She swiped angrily at the tears and shook her head as if to clear it before turning to look down at her singu
lar charge curled on the reclined seat next to her. There were no lights on this part of Highway 1 and the dash lights didn’t reach back far enough to illuminate Catherine Bernard’s face but Jordan didn’t need the light; she knew even asleep her features would appear pale and drawn. After telling her the awful news at the safe house, she seemed to collapse, not from an inability to breathe, although the coughing and gasping sounds she made were more than enough to terrify Jordan. Her eyes wide with terror, she seemed to collapse more from shock than anything else, and Jordan had scooped up her petite form in her arms, running with her out to the car that waited to take them to the national air guard’s airstrip. She had called for some military medics to meet them, and after the senior medic determined Catherine’s throat was not in immediate danger of swelling shut, Jordan decided to continue on to the light station, watching worriedly over her charge as she slept fitfully for most of the trip. She held the back of her fingers close to Catherine’s lips and holding her breath, felt the soft exhalations against her skin.

  She hadn’t heard from Stewart yet, but Jordan didn’t need an update to know what was going on in Marlboro, New Jersey. From behind closed eyes, she could easily envision the secured compound the Sparrow residence had turned into when the small government-owned jet lifted from the restricted airstrip: hundreds of yards of yellow crime scene tape would encircle the entire property of house, garage, barn and outbuildings. The local police and sheriff departments would need to keep all the major news agencies at bay; dozens of federal agents would be rushed in to secure the scene, and the SUV’s in the driveway would be shrouded in tarps, shielding the dead from view until their discrete removal.

  From the few, scanty details Jordan had gleaned from Stewart; calls had come pouring into the 911-dispatch center in Marlboro from Cathy and Alex’s neighbors reporting what all the callers described as sounding like machinegun fire. Assault weapons… Jordan pressed the tips of her fingers against her closed eyes. They unloaded fucking assault weapons on them when they exited the vehicles and tore them to pieces… All the agents were wearing Kevlar vests under their agency windbreakers, so the hit squad shot them first in the legs then simply sprayed them with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, taking care to shoot each of the five in the head before grabbing Alex and Cameron as they left. Evidently, Alex’s parents were in the kitchen and Norman Sparrow hit the floor, dragging his wife with him when the shooting began. Those two don’t know how lucky they are… It wasn’t until one of the neighbors ventured outside and saw bodies in the Sparrow’s driveway that the noise disturbance calls became a report of a mass shooting.

  If none of the neighbors saw anything we’ll have to wait for ballistics’ analysis before we can even know how many shooters from the Rossi family were present. Jordan sighed heavily, Whatever it is Anthony Rossi wants Alex to do for him… it must be big to have killed so many. She shook her head again, Jesus, if we thought the Rossi’s were deep underground before… She looked down at Catherine’s small, sleeping form, It’s entirely possible that Rossi has seen too many movies and has some fantasy-plan to skim billions using the Internet. I’ll bet it didn’t take much for him to be taken in by the sales pitch of the beautiful, cocksure Alexandra Sparrow... she thought dryly, closing her eyes. It probably gives him a tingle in his pants having someone like her on the payroll. But whatever his scheme for digital theft may be… I doubt Alex has the brains to create it for him.

  Minutes passed in darkness as they drove down the dark highway before Jordan opened her eyes again, What a nightmare, she stared at the dark ceiling of the car, what a fucking dog and pony show this turned out to be. The local and national news would be covering the story now and the manhunt for Alex and Cameron Sparrow would be on, but when Anthony Rossi went underground last year, he stayed there, and Jordan shook her head while she considered the enormity of the bureau’s new task; finding the Sparrows and the Rossi’s. He killed five federal agents, The Rossi family’ll go so deep now we’ll never… She pressed her lips together and shook her head; Don’t even start… she thought angrily and sat straighter in her seat, We’ll find them … She cleared her throat determinedly; we will…

  “Hey...”

  Jordan heard a soft voice and peered at the agent in the passenger seat in front of her, “Yeah?”

  “We’re almost there, we’re gonna’ go off the highway now so hang on.”

  “Okay.” Jordan responded softly, bracing herself as the vehicle slowed, making a wide turn from the highway and onto the road leading to Point Sur Light Station.

  Special Agents Tappert and Rhodri, designated by Jordan as Team 2, picked them up at the Monterey International Airport. They rode in one of two white park ranger SUVs on loan from the parks department and Jordan watched silently as Agent Rhodri, or as she herself pronounced it, Rhodie, (the younger agent had shrugged, “It is easier to say it that way…”) jumped out to unlock and open the gate. When the light station was open to tourists during the warmer months, park docents collected visitors at the gate then walked in. Jordan read the state park’s sign about the light station mounted next to the gate, grateful Point Sur was closed for the season and no hearty, camera-toting hikers would be making a three-hour expedition to Point Sur during their stay. Tappert pulled the vehicle through and Rhodie closed and locked the gate behind them. When she got back in the car, they continued on a hard-packed road built on a sandbar; built in the 1930’s, it extended in a straight line for three-quarters of a mile to the enormous rock on which Point Sur Light Station perched.

  Jordan squinted, staring out the windshield, but the high beams only revealed the road and the fence designed to block blowing sands, “How do you know where you’re going?” she asked, genuinely lost.

  Both agents chuckled but it was Tappert who responded, “We’ve been out here for a while helping to get the place ready for you. You’ll both be staying in the head keeper’s house and we’ll be close by in the triplex…”

  “Okay…” Jordan muttered and he continued,

  “There’s a cell tower built into the water tower so we have real nice wireless set up for thermal and infrared cameras outside and down the road and all the doors and windows are wired…” he shrugged one-sidedly, “not that we’ll need that out here.”

  Jordan shifted in her seat, looking down at the dark form huddled next to her, “Anything that provides extra security at this point is more than welcome.”

  “Yeah,” the agent agreed sadly, “I guess so.” He made another wide turn with the vehicle, “Okay, we’ll be going uphill now… just a few more minutes.”

  Jordan clasped Catherine’s small shoulder and squeezed gently, “Cathy?” She shook her head, “I mean, Catherine?” she amended, “We’re almost there.” Catherine uncurled on the seat, sitting upright. “We just need to get to the top of this rock and we’ll be there.” Jordan could feel her smooth her hands over her hair and straighten her clothes.

  She had taken care to keep her touching of Catherine Sparrow to a minimum but it had occurred to Jordan, if distantly, that she had touched this woman more in the last forty-eight hours than in the weeks since the first time she entered her hospital room in the intensive care unit.

  Tappert arched in his seat to peer at Catherine in his rear view mirror, although Jordan doubted he could see anything, “Should we have stopped to see Doctor Woolley tonight?”

  Jordan felt Catherine shake her head no, “No,” she said for her, “given where he lives, as long as Catherine feels up to it I think she can wait till her appointment day after tomorrow.” She felt Catherine nod and both turned to look at the lighted buildings as the vehicle made a sharp right turn and the narrow road looped back across the top of the large volcanic rock, three hundred and sixty feet above the surf that crashed into its three sides below.

  Built in the late 1800’s, Point Sur Light Station became fully automated in 1972, eliminating the need for on-site ‘keepers’ and the Coast Guard officially turned over the light stat
ion to the state’s parks division in 2004. The small rock island was powered by electricity, had running water and under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, nearly all of the light station’s nine buildings had been restored. Jordan had seen pictures of the buildings and beautiful aerial photos, but her eyes opened wide when the vehicle’s headlights further illuminated the fog-enshrouded Tudor-style stone buildings.

  “Wow,” she exclaimed quietly, “they sure did a beautiful job restoring this place.”

  “Considering they were built over a hundred years ago and designed, back then, to withstand sixty-five mile an hour winds…” Tappert nodded, “they are impressive.”

  He pulled up to the arched doorway of the head keeper’s house and Jordan opened the door, “Hey,” she greeted the agents that waited at the entrance and helped Catherine from the car, “Catherine Bernard this is Team 1, Special Agents Wallace…” He stepped forward and shook her hand, “and Turner.” The second agent stepped forward and gently shook Catherine’s hand,

  “I’m so sorry for the day you’ve had…” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Jordan agreed, wrapping an arm around the small shoulders, “and it’s been a really long one so…”

  “Come on inside,” Wallace led them into the building, “This is going to be your home for awhile and I have to say, it really is a beautiful one at that.”

  Jordan turned to retrieve their bags from the back but Rhodie waved her off, “We’ll bring them in,” she gave her arm a squeeze as she passed, “I’d say it’s been a pretty long and shitty day for all of us.” She gave her a sad, meaningful look as she and Tappert went around to the back of the vehicle.

  Jordan followed Catherine and Team 1 inside and Wallace gestured as he walked, “I’ll give you the tour… this house has just been restored so it’s completely livable… We were allowed to move all of those museum placards that were in here, like they have posted around the grounds, out to the barn so you won’t have that to contend with.” He showed them the rooms downstairs and then led them up the beautifully polished wooden staircase, “Your rooms are upstairs; Jordan’s is across the hall from yours…” He pointed out Catherine’s room and then Jordan’s and paused, “I don’t know if Tappert and Rhodie got the bags distributed right…”