Temporary Address

Temporary Address

Friday, September 30, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.



Chapter XXXVII pgs. 245-246


At first Johanna’s dream came in flashes appearing and vanishing like movie teasers. Then the impressions slowed and gelled into a dreamscape below a blood-red sky: Cauldrons reeked and smoked, while horned creatures - almost human - chanted, and writhed and screamed and groaned till Johanna thought her soul would burst.


The smoke snaked outwards - calling, enticing. Street gangs were the first humans to respond and gather – Bloods, and Crypts, Skinheads, and Arian nations, their tattoos and bandanas defining allegiances. Knives flashed. Shots rang. Some shrieked and fell. Still, their numbers grew.

Others arrived. An army gathered - some in tatters, some in business suites, and some in death-white hoods. They marched through time as well as space, some swathed in robes and tunics, others in uniforms, their medals and sabers glowing bright. Some could barely stand; others strutted power. Some wore armor; others were clad in priests’ robes. Some wore street clothes, and some were merely naked.

From man to man to woman to child they passed a smoking torch, that carried no earthly fire, but rather that spirit of hatred residing in the hidden reaches of the soul where most humans dare not look. And they passed it along, one to another, and it seemed the passing would not stop.

The devil laughed – large and black with a drowning roar.

Johanna saw anger, a smoke- brown flame, flashing in gun muzzles and mirrored in the eyes of both victim and oppressor. Fear was there on icy tendrils. And pride - steel gray - it rode as a knight on stallion, and, with a mighty belch, transformed the noble into manure.

The devil’s laughter bellowed inside of her. He’d won the world. He’d won the souls of all - victims and conquerors alike. Some souls, he torched with hate; others he drowned in fear, or poisoned by pride, or froze in despair. It didn’t matter how they died. The devil had them. His rumbling laughter shook Johanna’s stomach and in her dream she cringed from fright.

From one to the next, they passed the torch. Those humans, they were merely carriers, serving the devil as his jeeps and horses.

Johanna watched the furies uniting, like winds twisting into a tornado while she stood naked before the devil’s armies.

And hate filled her heart too. She reached for the words, but shuddering anger appeared instead. And she wanted to destroy the fire and every being that had helped to create it.

But he stepped forward. Johanna thought it was her father at first, but no. He was Jesus, the Good Shepherd, healing and forgiving. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he said, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

And he was Jesus the rebel, overturning tables in the temple where greedy men used God’s name to turn a profit.

And he was Jesus the man, kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane, “If it be possible, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will but your will be done.”

And he was Jesus the Divine King, a soul in agony condemned to death on a cross, then rising from that cross into glory… And then he was gone.

“I choose love,” Johanna said.

Rumbling laughter shook her like palm branches in a hurricane. “Join us and live,” the evil one roared. “Save yourself from torment. I am stronger than you.”

“I choose love.” Standing alone - so small, so weak - she waited to perish.

“And I choose love,” said a nameless voice behind her.

“And I,” said another.

“Christ’s blessings.”

“Shalom.”

“Allah be praised.”

The chorus swelled from six to thousands, to legions upon legions - the soldiers, the street gangs, the children and beggars and kings - a living hymn to God. And in their midst a voice rang out: “Come! All who are thirsty, let them come. Let them take the free gift of the water of life.” It was the image of Christ pouring water from an urn. Johanna stooped under it and drank and was washed clean. The water filled her spirit and quenched her thirst and dried every tear.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.



Chapter XXXVII pgs. 244-245

Jasper and Dakota were tired. Delivering the body for cremation and picking up a package for Dr. Heckleweit were their last tasks for the day. After that, it was beer, pool, and, if they were lucky, company for the night. Jasper pulled a fat ring of keys from his pocket, and jingled them looking for the one belonging to the lock on the shed’s door. Meanwhile, Dakota rolled a dolly from the truck bed onto a hydraulic lift gate, then lowered it to the uneven crushed-rock path. “Come on, already. It’s way past quitting time, and I’m starving.”

“Don’t stroke out, man,” Jasper answered. “I’ve just about got it.”

From inside the box, Johanna heard the door creak open. The squeaking was loud, like a peacock’s cry, and Johanna startled from the sound. “Help! Help! I’m in here.” She thought she was screaming, but no sound came out. She thought the words, but could not make the sounds. A noise, she thought. Any noise. Her left hand rested on the bottom of the casket, and she scratched the cardboard with her nails. Her hands were weak, as weak as her voice. She scratched again.

“Do you hear anything?” Dakota shivered. He didn’t like being around cadavers.

“Probably mice.”

“Let’s just get out of here.”

“No,” Johanna’s mind yelled, but her mouth stayed quiet. It was too hard, too foggy. She tried to move her arm, but it stayed limp. She heard the men shuffling about the shed, and she heard the locker door click open. With all the strength in her body, she willed her hand to scratch the cardboard. She opened her mouth to scream. A groan, almost silent, finally escaped her throat.

Dakota jumped. “We’re out of here – right now.”

Without bothering to load up the dolly, they picked up the coffin that Maria had left in the meat locker and hauled it out to the waiting truck. Johanna heard the sound of the door pushed shut, and the noise of the lock clicking into place. “Please, help me. Help me.” Her mind thought the words, but her throat stayed silent. She heard the motor grumble to a start, then the sound of tires spraying gravel. And the sound grew smaller and stiller as the truck drove into the distance. And then there was nothing - the inside of a box and nothing else.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXVII pgs. 242-244


The hand quivered. It was just a reflex and meant nothing. Maria knew this from her training. But she felt for a pulse nevertheless, and she found it beating stronger than it had back at the hospital room. She touched Johanna’s nose and felt a slow steady stream of air. She shook Johanna, but Johanna remained unresponsive.


“Get up. Wake up. If you want to live, get up.” Maria prodded and jostled and screamed at Johanna, but Johanna remained still. “I need your help. I can’t get you out of here by myself.” She dragged the box out of the locker and scooted it towards the padlocked door. She examined the walls looking for sheets of metal that could be peeled back. She looked up at the window through which she had crawled, so high off the ground. Maria tugged at the box, sliding it toward the window, all the time doubting she’d be able to get Johanna out. And she propped up the box containing Johanna’s limp body and pushed it towards the window’s opening, grateful that Johanna couldn’t feel what Maria was doing to her. She got Johanna’s body halfway out the window, then realized that what she was planning was impossible. She might be able to get Johanna out through the window, hopefully without major injury, but she could never carry Johanna the mile or so back to her car. Johanna’s body only weighed about ninety pounds, but it was still more than Maria could manage by herself, even if Johanna came to and could stumble. And if anyone caught her walking with Johanna… Maria didn’t even want to think of the consequences. She needed a way to get Johanna out through the window. She needed to think.

So Maria dragged the box back towards the shelves where the other crematory boxes were stored, and pushed it against the wall below the bottom shelf. Then she chose another box and moved it to the spot in the locker where Johanna had originally been placed. She loaded the box with four pork loins, hoping that their weight was close enough to that of Johanna’s body. Then she climbed out the window and jogged back to the parking lot at the institute where she’d left her car. Had it only been that morning? It seemed like an entire lifetime had passed in the course of that day.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

Maria kept walking towards the institute until the two orderlies were out of sight, then turned back towards the shed at a brisk trot. The sun hung low on the horizon, and the sky burst into pink and orange and red flames. As she jogged down the path, thankful that her uniform included sensible nurses’ shoes, she thought about all the things she had seen at the institute. Something was very wrong. Certainly their methods differed from what she had been taught in nursing school. Even criminals were treated with more dignity than Johanna had been.


And why, if Johanna were Muslim, did she talk about God and not Allah? That didn’t make sense. Of course she could have been hiding her religion, but, as drugged as she was, she couldn’t have kept up the pretext of Christianity for long.

Maria was scared. She didn’t know everything.

And who had called the orderlies? Maria was the only one who could have known that Johanna had died.

The door to the building was padlocked. She examined the lock and checked the door for gaps or weak spots. She examined the windows. Maria was reluctant to break the glass, but she finally managed to pry one of the windows open, squeeze herself inside, and get the light turned on. Fearfully, she opened the door to the metal closet. A blast of cold made her shiver. Slabs of beef and pork hung in a row speared on thick hooks. So it was a meat locker.

Maria knelt next to the box on the dirty floor of the shack. It was mostly an act of respect - a wish to commend Johanna’s soul to God, with some final act of reverence.



The jostling motion nudged Johanna, continuing the dream:

Inside the burning room, Johanna sat, stubborn, unforgiving – with both her body and the doctor’s twisted in pain. And the hose lay just outside the door.

“You let me down, Lord. You abandoned me. You asked me to hang the sign, then set me down in the middle of hell on earth and I called you, and you did not answer.”

“I was there.”

“But I didn’t see. I didn’t know. And I was scared and hurting and I called you and asked you to help me, and you didn’t. And I never did anything to deserve all the pain.”

“Johanna.”

“And now you want me to forgive.”

“Johanna!”

Reluctantly she rose and quenched the flames with water, water that laughed as a children running through lawn sprinklers in August. And, through the splashing water, she saw the doctor’s face, shining golden, all but hidden by black, oily smoke. Before, all she’d seen was the smoke. But now, shining through all that, Johanna caught a glimpse of what she’d never seen before – the soul – pure essence – the part of him that God loved. Like the part of her that God had loved and had forgiven all those years ago.

And through the same smoke she saw the rest of them, the nameless faces who had sacrificed her country and her freedom for their greed.

The smoke was there. Corruption, lies, murder. All there. But, shining through it all, God’s divine spark and the souls that God so loved. Amazed and humbled, Johanna found that she could love them too.



Maria looked at the coffin. It seemed such a pathetic end. “Dear God in Heaven.” Shivering, Maria sat down on the floor of the meat locker and made the sign of the cross. “I offer prayers for the soul of Johanna Jacobson. Grant her an entrance into your land of light and life. Please, Lord, I don’t know what she’s done or how she came to be here, but she’s suffered so much. May she find your love and your peace at the end of it all. Then, Maria was weeping, strangely caring about this person whom she barely knew, whom she’d never seen except in a deeply drugged state. And she opened the box to hold Johanna’s hand one last time.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

The building seemed to be a back-of-the-lot storage area housing a metal closet resembling a meat locker. Row upon row of shelves lined the walls, holding medical and mechanical odds and ends – plastic and metal tubing, switches, old smocks and blankets, and various strange metallic gadgets unknown to Maria. A stack of cardboard boxes, each about three feet wide, seven feet in length and two feet tall were stacked against the far wall, and Maria shivered, realizing that the boxes were coffin-sized. Without ceremony or deference, the men dumped Johanna’s body into one of the boxes and lugged it inside of the metal closet and slammed the heavy door shut.


“May I stay with her a minute?” asked Maria.

“Better not,” said Vince. “We’re really not supposed to bring people out here.”

So Maria prayed a quick prayer, and left with the men.

Outside, Maria paused. Vince locked the shed, checking the lock, and the two men waited for her to get into the van, Vince stamping his foot impatiently. “I’d rather walk back,” she said, turning her steps toward the institute.

“Suit yourself,” Stanley huffed.

“We really shouldn’t let her…” Vince started to say.

“What’s she going to do? Steal the body? Just get in the van.” A minute later, Stanley gunned the engine, and the Maria watched the van passing her on the dusty road.

Johanna’s mind burst out of its oblivion as a new hallucination followed:

The house was old with many rooms and Johanna wandered through them unafraid, opening doors and peering into cupboards.


The boards on the steps creaked under her feet, and an icy chill flew up the stairway as she climbed it. She shivered as wind brushed her soaked skin, and she considered turning back but knew that she had to go on. In the attic, a canopy of oak branches formed the ceiling, and shaggy, moss -covered rock hugged the wall. And Johanna sat on a rock not wanting to get up ever. But she had to. She had to see what was below, and so she descended, dreading the rooms in the basement.


There was only one door and it had a smiley face next to it, and Johanna felt revulsion touching the knob, but went inside. It was that office, with bare cement blocks replacing the chair and couch. And she stared at Dr. Heckleweit but couldn’t see his face – only shadow.


He spoke with a Middle Eastern accent, and the words blurred like runny Jell-O. “In here, Johanna, you’ll find that God is dead.” Johanna’s mind exploded with impressions of burning pain. The cement melted into oily pools. And she stared. One of the pools caught fire. A hose lay just outside the door. And she stared as paper and drapes jumped alive with orange flame, and now she saw his face clearly. The blaze caught at the fringe of his coat, and still she sat watching. The sound of running water jingled just outside the door.

Flames caught her gown. She felt the heat and the burn, and still she sat not moving, willing them both to be consumed. Fire burning around the two of them, consuming both, the doctor and Johanna, and she couldn’t make a move towards the water.


And God said, “Johanna, get the water.”


And she heard and sat, stubborn, wallowing in the pain that was now more her own creation than his.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVI

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVII




Maria couldn’t stop praying – as if the thoughts in her head had a will of their own. She finished her chores as quickly as possible, then ran back to Johanna’s room to peek in through the doorway to see how she was doing. Maria didn’t dare actually walk in – in case Dr. Heckleweit was there. She’d been told to stay away. Disobeying orders, thought Maria. Guilt came easily to her. She slowed to a walk and softly pushed at Johanna’s door. Maria practiced what she’d say to the doctor. “I’m so sorry, Doctor. I think I might have left an earring in here.” She wasn’t good at telling effective fibs. But Dr. Heckleweit was no longer in the room. Maria looked at Johanna’s monitor. So little movement! Only a few shallow blips to show that any life remained. Why wasn’t someone here? Where was the doctor? He said he was going to stay with Johanna. Terrified, she reached for the button to call Code Blue – a patient in crisis, but she held back. She wasn’t supposed to be in the room.

Just then, two men in smocks opened the door startling Maria. She wheeled around. The larger man spoke. “We understood that the patient in this room has passed.” And they entered with a stretcher to take the remains.

“But…” Maria wasn’t sure what to do. “But she’s not dead.”

The man grabbed Johanna’s wrist and felt for a pulse. “Close enough for government work,” he said, and he elbowed Maria out of the way and unhooked the I. V. drip and monitors.

Maria felt so very small and inadequate. “Into your hands, oh Lord, I commend her spirit,” she said, then made the sign of the cross over Johanna. She watched the men roll Johanna’s body onto a stretcher. “What will you do with her,” Maria asked softly.

“According to Dr. Heckleweit, she doesn’t have any family so the institute will dispose of the body. There’s a small crematorium about thirty miles away from here.” He nodded towards his partner. “We’ll take the body as far as our morgue. As soon as someone has to drive into town, they’ll take the body the rest of the way.”

“May I come with you?” She asked. “Johanna was my first patient here.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m Stanley. My partner here is Vince.”

They wheeled Johanna’s body into a waiting van, and drove about a mile down an overgrown path to a metal Quonset hut about thirty feet in length. The men had to pull hard to get the door to open, and, when it did, the creaking groan made Maria jump. Inside, dust, spider webs, and mouse droppings littered the floor. Maria’s eyes adjusted slowly. The only light came from two tiny windows on the right wall. Here and there a Styrofoam cup or a candy wrapper gave evidence that humans had also used the shed. Then she blinked as Vince flipped a switch to turn on a naked light bulb that dangled in the center of the shed.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVI

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXVI pg. 237



Doctor Heckleweit checked Johanna’s pulse. Twenty-five beats per minute. He’d hoped that it would drop faster. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Johanna’s room when she actually died. A few minutes later, he checked it again. Twenty-three. Then twenty. He entered Maria’s code into the monitoring equipment, increased the speed of the drip, and disconnected the audible alarm. Then he left the room, planning to wait another few minutes before calling the orderlies to remove the body. Johanna could do nothing but dream.


Underneath the suffocating blanket of mud, Johanna flailed her arms around. She drew a breath, inhaling slime. Her throat choked. She tried to cough, and her lungs just shut down. Her hand, thrashing in panic, bore down on a hard object. She felt something claw-like - and then a slender curved shape, like a string of beads. And then she felt fire all through her arm as the scorpion bore down on her fingers with the tip of his tail. She was dying. Johanna knew that. Her last act would be one of kindness. She reached for him, and holding his stinger pinched between her hands, she thrust upward toward air and life. I wonder if he made it, she thought, and then there was only blackness.



Friday, September 23, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVI pgs.  235-236


Even though Dr. Heckleweit had said he’d stay with Johanna, Maria worried about her. Johanna’s vitals were so low! Maria had known that there was something dangerously wrong. She should have said something different to the doctor. All she’d told him was that the dose seemed too high. If she’d actually told him that she was administering two milligrams, he’d have corrected her right there, and Johanna wouldn’t be near death. I didn’t deserve this job,’ she thought. ‘I am not worthy.’




Johanna’s dream shifted, and now, a marshy coolness replaced the sand and the heat devils. Johanna followed the scorpion, her stick poised to hurt. And as she ran, Johanna shrank to the same smallness as the scorpion.

Now the sun was shadowed by a canopy of mossy branches cooling the chase below – the hapless scorpion and the girl with the stick. The ground was damp and clammy. Putrid whiffs of rotting carcasses filled the air: to the left, a crushed snake, his fangs shooting forward in final defiance, and to the right a bloated boar’s carcass, stuck in a pond of oozing mud.

Ignoring the death stench, Johanna prodded the scorpion, holding the stick like a lance, pushing him ever closer to the muddy pond. And now Johanna backed the scorpion into the ooze. His motion slowed and his legs kicked helplessly as thick mud coated his armored limbs. Johanna followed, plodding through the goo, pushing the scorpion farther into the middle of the pool, ignoring the slime creeping up around her ankles.

Finally the scorpion’s body broke the plane of liquid and sank beneath the ooze. Johanna followed after, stepping high as the mud came up to her hips, and it sucked at her legs with each step pulling her off balance. Had he died? He must have. Johanna had finally defeated the playground bully, the bossy five-year-old with the freckles and grimace. But she didn’t feel victorious, only small and vindictive. He was only a kid ,she thought, doing the kind of dumb thing kids do.

But scorpions are hardy. Maybe he wasn’t dead yet. She poked her stick into the ooze at the place where the scorpion had sunk, pushing upwards this time, trying to lift the body. She kept scooping at the mud with her twig, trying to scoop up its body. Probably too late. She should give up. And even if she could fish him back out, how was she going to clean the mud off to let him breathe? With another thrust of the stick, she stepped forward. There was nothing solid beneath her feet. She sank to her armpits, then took a breath as mud and death closed over her head.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVI pgs. 233-235


“Yes, Doctor.” Maria started the saline and glucose drip, shaken and embarrassed, but grateful that the error had been discovered in time.


“Maria,”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”

After Maria had gone, Dr. Heckleweit removed a syringe from his jacket pocket and injected its contents into Johanna’s IV line. Several minutes later, he checked Johanna’s pulse. Thirty-eight beats per minute. He checked it again five minutes later. Thirty-five. Then thirty-two. Then twenty-eight. He dropped Johanna’s arm wishing he’d used a stronger dose and settled into a chair to wait.

Johanna had only the faintest sensation of her arm being dropped, but she missed the warmth of his hand on her wrist. She felt so cold - as if her body were packed in ice. Johanna would have shivered, but she lacked the strength.

She tried moving an arm, a foot, a finger. Nothing worked. Have I died, she wondered. When she found the strength to squint open her eyes, Johanna had the sense of peering out unfocused from inside her body, so she was probably still mortal, her soul still attached to her body. And such a heavy body it was! She tried to move her arm again, but she might as well have tried to move a boulder. Johanna remembered once, as a child, trying to pull her Daddy out of bed. Try as she might, she had not been able to budge him. That’s what her body felt like.

How about now, she wondered. Am I dying now? Will I be dead by tomorrow? It seems sort of pathetic that my life is almost over, and I accomplished so little. But I did try to walk with you. And, in the big picture, God, I wonder how I rate. I know that life’s not supposed to be a contest – to see who dies with the fewest sins and the most good deeds. But I still wonder… I did the best I could, or at least I did what I did and some of it was good, and some was shameful and in the end I’ll come to you with my bag of sins and my bag of virtues, and we’ll sit down and talk. And her mind floated off to sleep.

She saw herself in a field of feathery greens and the wind seemed to chant the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The image of Alex came back into her mind. He was five years old. She remembered the set of his jaw, his lower teeth protruding like a bulldog’s. And she remembered the fight in the play yard. The gagging sense of dirt in the back of her throat came back as vividly as if it had just happened. Her arms and legs stung as they had when she’d been pushed down into the carrot patch all those years ago, and, along with it came the stifling sense of shame, violation, and betrayal as when Alex had told his story, and the teacher had believed him. More than the physical pain, the humiliation stung with fire. And just as it had all those years ago, fury in her heart burned strong. “Please, God, don’t ask me to forgive him, because I can’t. I want to…but I just can’t”

In her mind, she saw the five-year-old: she saw the freckles peppered over his face and his eyes, squinting tightly with anger. He towered over her as massive as a giant. She bit down on his fingers as she had all those years ago, and when she released it, his shape seemed to shift from boy to bear, and then it shrank to that of a scorpion.

Johanna snarled and stamped her foot, and the scorpion ran from her across a patch of hot white sand, his stinger curled safely under his tail. Seeking shade and moisture, he scuttled under a dried-up branch. Johanna picked up the branch. A twig broke off and with it she poked at the scorpion, prodding its claws, and watching it fend off her thrusts like a miniature boxer, whipping its tail forward into empty air all the while.

Just a bully, thought Johanna, while jabbing his middle with the stick, just a pathetic, impotent bully! And the twig glanced off of his hard shell with a “thunk”. Another poke and another prod. Now Johanna was herding the scorpion away from the dead branch’s cooling shade and back towards the hot sand. He veered away. And his legs, skittering along the sand, made chuck-chuck sounds with each step as the sand grains tumbled against each other.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXVI

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Vivian heard the shouting from the other room and pretended to be asleep. Lately Alex’s behavior frightened her. He hardly slept at all. And when he did nod off, he always woke up screaming or shaking in terror.


She’d tried talking to him, but Alex wouldn’t tell her any of this. She just chalked it up to the weight of leadership, and figured it was the sacrifice that Alex made to keep his country free.



Chapter XXXVI



Dr. Heckleweit had increased Johanna’s medication. Her pulse was weak, her breathing almost non-existent. But inside of her motionless body, Johanna’s dreams were vivid, full of the life that her body lacked. “We’ll save them all, me and my Daddy. We’ll save the all.” The dream came back from childhood.

“Here I am, your servant, she said in her dream. What should I do?” Her mind stilled, waiting for an answer. She had so few options, so little opportunity to serve. She was like someone in a nursing home, like someone confined to a wheelchair with nothing to do but pray morning and night. “Okay, so I’ll pray,” Johanna said in her dream.

When Maria walked in Johanna was scarcely breathing. Alarmed by Johanna’s weak vital signs, Maria popped a capsule of smelling salts under her nose. Johanna reacted with a faint sputter.

With Johanna mumbling, Maria put in a call to Dr. Heckleweit. “She almost died,” said Maria. The dosage is too high.”

“I told you when I hired you, never question your orders. She looks placid enough while she’s medicated, but Johanna’s a serious danger to our country. Her conversations with me leave no doubt that, given the opportunity, she’d blow us all up for fun. And she’s an accomplished con artist. Don’t let her fool you.”

“But her vitals are so low! She’s barely conscious. Can you at least look in on her?”

“Fine.” Dr. Heckleweit dropped his voice to a reassuring murmur. “Keep monitoring her vitals and I’ll take a look at her before I leave tonight.”

Johanna felt like she was under water. Nothing made sense. She shivered with cold, and with the sensation of something sinister and slimy crawling along her back. “Please, God, help me. Come back to me. Don’t leave me.” She thrashed and muttered. Most of the words were unintelligible, but Maria could make out “God,” and “leave.” So Maria did the only thing she could think of. “Mary, Mother of God, have mercy on your servant Johanna. Protect her, and save her soul. This I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.” It felt unsettling praying for a Muslim. But if Johanna were indeed a Muslim, why did she call on God and not Allah?

Two hours later, Johanna dropped into an uneasy sleep. “God … mercy,” she mumbled. With some misgiving, Maria took a final check of Johanna’s pulse and breathing, and left to catch up on her other duties.



Dr. Heckleweit pulled Johanna’s chart, and wherever his hand-written directions had said two milligrams he inserted a decimal point in front of the two. When he was certain that he’d made every change – caught every two – he walked down the hallway into Johanna’s room and checked her vitals. Instantly, he punched the button summoning Johanna’s nurse.

“Maria, what’s going on here? How much sedative have you administered to this patient?”

“”Two milligrams,” she answered.

“Read the orders. Does that look like two milligrams?”

“Maria’s heart stopped then and there. “Two tenths of a milligram, Doctor.” She looked up confused. For certain there had been no decimal there before. She’d checked the orders a dozen times, making sure she had it right, puzzled because the dose was so high. But there it was. “I’d read it as two milligrams,” she said, not even considering the possibility of questioning a doctor’s orders. The mistake had to be hers, although logic told her that she couldn’t have read and reread the orders as often and as carefully as she had and still gotten them wrong. “I thought it seemed high.”

“Start a new IV with saline, and… here give me that.” He grabbed the chart out of Maria’s hands and began scribbling a long list of medications, then scratched through it. “Never mind, just give her saline and glucose tonight. I’ll stay with her a while until her vitals grow stronger. And Maria…”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“If she dies you’ll be brought up on charges. Consider yourself extremely lucky that I caught this when I did.”

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXV

To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXV pgs. 229-231


At three twenty-five a.m. Alex screamed and sat bolt upright in bed, but he didn’t wake up. Vivian debated whether to wake him up or not. He’d been having nightmares for quite some time now. A few times when she’d wakened him up, he had just shivered and refused to tell her anything. Then he’d been afraid to go back to sleep, only to waken screaming all over again. Well, no wonder with all the pressure he was under. He thrashed in his sleep, and Vivian wrapped a robe around herself and, feeling a little guilty for leaving Alex, went to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms. It seemed that neither one of them was getting much sleep lately. She wished Alex would tell her what was so wrong, but he’d fly into a rage whenever she asked.




In Alex’s dream he stood at the top of the Houston conference center like a god, watching the world crawl beneath him. The building melted, and he sat astride a breeze as he would a cushion. He stretched his arms up, then sideways and found he could glide carried on the wind. The sensation of soaring was pleasant, thrilling, and he gloried in rising on an updraft, then swooping down towards the earth below, seeing how low he could get before he arched his head up to rise again.

Higher and higher he climbed, then jackknifed into what was almost a free fall. Faster and faster, the earth rose to meet him, lush, soft, and tropical with vines and ferns. Faster still, wind rushed into his face. But suddenly below him were soldiers, and a screaming woman. Alex arched his back upward willing himself away from the frenzy. He hit an updraft. Higher and higher, he shot upwards, until the battleground below was less than a speck. He turned down towards the ground now, but he was too high. Faster and faster he hurtled towards the earth, then pulled out of his descent and found himself higher than before. Too high! Again he tried to soar downwards toward safety, but currents kept lifting him higher and higher. Thrill turned to fear. He was high enough now that he could see oceans with their coastlines snaking under cloud cover. Again, he tried to soar downwards. He picked up speed, arched upward, and plummeted, tumbling head over heels in uncontrolled free fall.

Then he woke up.

It took him a few seconds to realize that this was only a dream and that it was over. Indeed sometimes he wondered what was real and what was dreaming – the nightmares or his daytime life. He reached over, but Vivian was no longer with him. And he was so tired…

He sat astride the bull that no one could ride. The chute opened and Alex spurred the animal into a bucking frenzy. Two seconds into the arena, and Alex knew that the beast was his. The beast would serve him, and he, Alex, savored his power over the animal. Elated, he jabbed his heels into the creature’s side. The bull’s hide was tough, but Alex jabbed harder, harder still, until frothy blood flowed, red-black down the creature’s side. With that, the creature reared as a horse would do, then spun, first left then right, in tighter and tighter circles. Alex hung on. But underneath, the ground gave way. A pit of hissing sidewinders replaced the sand and sawdust. Alex hung on. Now the bull was twisting and weaving from left to right, and circling fast and hard.



Alex woke up in a cold sweat, wondering at first what brought on this panic. And then he remembered. His soul was dead. He hadn’t meant to sell his soul. Was he really doomed? The devil didn’t play fair. Maybe there was a way out. “Is there a way out?” Alex shouted at the walls. He pounded his pillow like a crazy man.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXV

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXV pgs. 227-229

He watched her reactions, and he watched the monitor. He tapped the syringe again, and waited, and then tapped it one more time. Johanna began to stir. He got up and moved behind her head so that she couldn’t see him.


“Johanna.” He spoke slowly, his voice deep and low.

She barely blinked in answer.

“Johanna.”

Johanna said nothing.

“Johanna, I love you,” he said.

She didn’t acknowledge.

“I love you and I’ll always be with you.”

Johanna stirred.

“I’ll always be with you.” While the lines on the monitors rose and fell in rhythm, Dr. Heckleweit repeated the words “I love you. I’ll always be with you.”

Through the fog, Johanna heard a man’s voice. Soothing, caring, the sound caressed her, melting the pain away. Johanna smiled. Dr. Heckleweit periodically tapped the syringe, and as he did so, Johanna saw flashes of her life play out like scenes from a movie.

“Do you know who I am?”

Johanna just smiled.

“I’m God, Johanna.”

“No.”

Dr. Heckleweit thought for a minute. “I’m your Daddy.”

“Don’t leave me.” In her mind she saw her father, and she felt his arm around her shoulders, holding her the way he had so very long ago. She remembered the sensation of snuggling against his chest while he had read marvelous stories of princes and pipers, and tigers melting into butter. It felt real, as though she were reliving a night with her father.

“I’ll always be with you,” he said. And he stroked her cheek gently, saying nothing. Her breathing steadied and her hands released their hold on the sheets.

“Tell me about your friends, Johanna.” The ones who told you security secrets.” Every few seconds he tapped the syringe.

“No one,” said Johanna. “No one told me.” She felt strong now. God on her right, Daddy on her left. She snuggled against the pillow, which, in her mind, became her father’s arm.

“Anthrax. FBI,” said the doctor.

“Gary Brown,” said Johanna. She saw the class as clearly as on the day that it happened.

Dr. Heckleweit was astounded. A name - an informant’s name. “How did you meet Gary Brown?” He reached forward and injected the remaining stimulant into her vein.

Johanna’s words became more distinct and her train of thought followed a logical sequence. “He taught a class on terrorism – way back before anyone ever thought of flying a plane into the World Trade Center.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Terrorists control by fear. And our military has more chemical weapons than anyone else. And it’s not that easy to use a chemical as a weapon. And, it’s not that easy to build a nuclear bomb.”

Johanna rubbed her face against her pillow. “So, when all’s said and done, our leaders did all the controlling and all the benefitting. And two of the targets were Tom Daschel and Pat Leahy, outspoken, overachieving political opponents. And does anyone really believe Sadaam Hussein building a nuclear bomb – oh, please!”

Dr. Heckleweit breathed a sigh of relief. “Go to sleep now,” he said and administered a sedative.

Back in Washington, waiting for the phone call, Alex could barely sit still. He reread his notes, and listened to Johanna’s tapes, drumming his fingers on his desk all the while.

“She learned all that from terrorism 1A?” Alex was stunned. He wrote a memo to himself – investigate Gary Brown.

“So it appears.”

“You know what this means?”

“We can’t let her live.”

“Keep her sedated for, say, three more days, just to make sure we haven’t missed anything. If you don’t hear from me by Thursday, get rid of her. I’ll make sure that there’s no autopsy.”

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXV

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXV




They kept Johanna sedated for the flight back to the states. They rushed her to McLenco and bundled her, still strapped down, into a hospital bed. She tried to roll over into fetal position, but the straps prevented her from rolling all the way on to her side, so she hunched her body into a bean shape with her arms straining against the tie-downs instinctively trying to protect her midsection. Dr. Heckleweit had seen this before – the classic pose of someone who had been spiritually broken. It was unlikely, he thought, that Johanna was withholding any information. She pulled at the restraints, mumbling all the while. Dr. Heckleweit listened, but, except for an occasional “God” and “help” he couldn’t make out any words.

While Johanna mumbled incoherently, Dr. Heckleweit checked Johanna’s pupils, her breathing, and her heart beat and strapped her to several monitors. Then he laid out a series of syringes on a tray next to her bed. After staring at the monitoring screens for a minute he proceeded to inject the contents of the first syringe into a vein on the inside of her right arm. As her breathing grew stronger, her eyes fluttered and finally stayed open. He picked up a handful of dirt mixed with carrot greens and shoved it into her mouth. She gagged and spit. 

He laughed. “Who gave you the lame brain idea that the anthrax scare was a ploy to get America into a war?”

“No one,” she said fighting for breath.

“Tell me.”

“No one.”

After several similar attempts, Dr. Heckleweit shot a strong sedative into Johanna’s vein and she drifted into unconsciousness. “So much for the carrots,” he mumbled to himself, and he left the room shaking his head in frustration.

When he returned several hours later, Johanna was mumbling something, but Dr. Heckleweit couldn’t understand it.

“What was that, Johanna? Did you say ‘help me’? Come on, Johanna, let’s hear you grovel to God. You’re in prison, you know. Only it’s a prison for the insane. And if God doesn’t save you, you’ll spend the whole rest of your life in restraints.” He prodded her chest, her stomach, and then her eyes, and she closed her lids trying to protect them.

“What’s wrong? No God coming to save you? You must not be praying very hard. Or maybe…maybe he doesn’t want to save you because you’re not worth saving.”

He stopped his taunting for a few minutes giving the words a chance to sink in. “And speaking of help, where are your friends? You’d think they’d have come for you by now. You’re trying to be so brave and loyal, and it’s all for nothing. It doesn’t look like they care much about you. So, go ahead and say their names.”

“Now, Johanna.” His voice mellowed. “The ones who told you security secrets. Believe me, they’re not patriots; they’re traitors.”

This part was critical. He’d broken her down. Now he had to build her trust. “I won’t tell a soul. Promise. I can get you out of here; I’m the only one who can. Just a few names.” He waited. “Tell me, Johanna. The ones from Washington who talked to you.”

He stroked her hair ever so gently. “You can trust me.”

And Johanna broke down. With tears and sobs and wails, she loosed the floodgate of all the misery she’d been carrying by herself. She was too doped up to care who heard her. “Don’t leave me,” she begged.

His voice was soothing. “I won’t leave. I promise.”

“Not you,” she said.

Back to square one, thought the doctor.

“What was that? You don’t want me to leave you? Or was it God you were talking to? It looks like He already has. Too bad! The Almighty has flown to the Bahamas for a vacation leaving you standing up to your eyeteeth in quicksand. In here I am the only god you have to please.” And he stopped - teasing her mind with the silence. Then his voice gentled again. “Give me some names? You have my word. I won’t tell a soul.”

Johanna cried till she was too tired to cry any more, her hands clenched around the sheets that covered her. “Pray hard, Johanna, pray very hard. If you want God to hear you, you must pray very hard.” And Dr. Heckleweit injected more sedative.

Again he let her sleep, monitoring her vitals all the while. Even in sleep her body lay tense. And as Johanna slept he reread the transcripts of her interrogation in Syria, looking for phrases that Johanna had used. These were words that would pierce into her heart. And finally he roused her again with an injection, but this time he barely tapped the syringe, injecting only a few drops of the liquid into her vein.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIV

To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXIV pgs. 222-224

The next morning, he read the transcripts of Johanna’s interrogations over and over, but nothing popped out at him. Maybe the video tapes would reveal something - some quirk, some pause or some exclamation, to indicate what Johanna was hiding, a way to get into her mind.


With a shudder he pulled out a file of tapes with Johanna’s name on them and dates of interrogation. For some reason he felt repulsed rather than excited at the prospect of listening to them. Then, after fitting a set of headphones over his ears, he loaded the first one into his recorder, pressed “play,” and closed his eyes to better concentrate on the sounds.

A sharp cracking sound. Johanna’s scream. Another crack. Another scream. Then a voice heavy with accent. “You must tell me names. Who talked to you? Who told you secrets?”

“No one. I told you, no one.” There was a note of hysteria in her voice.

The tape went on in the same vein. Not very efficient, thought Alex. For a while the sound of water rushing, as if from a hose, drowned out the words. “Please don’t. No more.”

“The name of your friend in the government.”

“I don’t know.” Her voice broke and stuttered. She was probably shivering.

More water sounded in the background, then coughing and choking. He’d probably poured it down her nose.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I will leave you to remember. Guard, tighten the thongs please.”

“No!”

“The one on her left leg is still loose, no? Tighter. Yes. I think that is good. And more water.”

Metal clanged and a door opened and closed. Footsteps became faint. Then there was only the sound of raspy breathing – probably Johanna’s. He listened for about two minutes to silence broken only by coughing, wheezing and sobs.

In all probability, there were no government informants who had talked to Johanna. Alex should just have here killed and be done with it. He knew that. But in his whole life, he’d never had to admit to being wrong – even to himself. Surely he wasn’t wrong this time. And if there was someone in the CIA or Homeland willing to talk, Alex had to know who it was.

And then, just as Alex was about to turn off the tape recorder, Johanna began to speak.

The words came softly. Even after he’d turned the volume way up, Alex had to strain to hear them.

“Well, God,” she said. “I’m probably going to die soon. So, if you have any compassion let me die – take me as quickly as you can. I can’t be of much use to you stuck like meat tied up for roasting.”

The voice stopped and there was only breathing - a quivering sound as if she were sobbing with each breath. Alex kept the tape recording going. There was something about that voice.

“You forsook Jesus, and now you’re forsaking me. I don’t understand your plan. I don’t know why I’m here. If you won’t get me out of here, at least help me to bear this. Please give me something to hang on to, to keep me from complete despair.”

That’s it, thought Alex. He stopped the tape recorder and smiled. Johanna Jacobson. She was the stupid little girl he had beaten up in kindergarten. How on earth had he forgotten? Alex thought back to the day, trying to remember details. She’d been talking to God, and he’d shoved dirt in her mouth. And she’d bitten him and he’d told her that God didn’t exist, and she’d gone berserk.

He pushed some buttons on his phone. “Ernie? Alex. Arrange for Johanna to get flown back to Heckleweit’s. I know how we can break her.”

`



Friday, September 16, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIV

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXIV pgs. 220-222

The room chilled. Alex’s heart all but stopped, and his shoulders slumped, aching, crushed by an unseen burden. Alex stared at the place on the wall where Hitler’s portrait had hung. Where did that word come from? In his mind, Alex had said, “devil”. He didn’t really believe in the devil - any more than he believed in God. He, Alexander Lidecker, was god. That was what he believed. That, and the word Remordia. But it was only a good-luck thing – like a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover. He’d never actually done anything superhuman. He hadn’t meant to…


Alex began to tremble, chilled as he had been that night years ago sitting beside Puddin’ Creek. He remembered hugging the book, next to his body, its pages musty with age. What was its name, he wondered. Something with a “C” – “Chesterville’s! “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” On an impulse, Alex pulled up the Internet on his computer, and typed “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” He stared at the screen for a full minute before pressing enter. Nothing came up. Next he typed in antique books and bookstores. Three hours later, he had located a shop in New Jersey whose owner claimed to carry a copy of “Chesterville’s”. With a sinking feeling, Alex reached for his car keys, and, driving as if in a trance, he headed for the New Jersey Turnpike and Ye Olde Biblioteque, a modest antiquarian bookstore in Trenton. Then, with the precious book wrapped in brown paper and tucked away safely in the trunk of his car, Alex sped south towards the White House.

“I’ll be home late again,” he told Vivian. He needed to examine the book in privacy.

“I’m not superstitious, just curious,” Alex said to himself as pulled out “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” He opened the package. The musty odor inside reminded him of attics and old trunks, and historical ghosts. Carefully, he leafed through the pages. Most were a dull tan, the color of autumn leaves gone to dead brown just before winter’s blanket of snow. He handled the pages gingerly. And just like dead leaves, they crackled and flaked away in his fingers. Alex tried to remember that Halloween night. “Lying spells.” “The craft to convince.”

Hell was supposed to be hot but Alex was chilled throughout as if suspended in ice. He found the lying spell, and skipped to the bottom of the page. “…for a price. Thy essence consumed with lye. Shackled to spiked wheels. Dragged by wild oxen through rasping rocky pits. Flesh rotting from thy writhing body.” There was more. “Agony not of flesh but of mind and soul.” “Chill not of body but of spirit.” “For Hell and damnation lie not in chasms of flames but in the human heart.”

Alex saw himself a small maggot in the center of an unidentifiable rotting carcass. And he was afraid. Icy fingers tore at his heart and choked his breathing.

“Snap out of it,” he whispered to himself, but his body shook. “You don’t believe in any of this. And anyway it’s too late. So schedule a massage, enjoy your empire, and stop all this shit.” And like the maggot in the rotting carcass, he slunk back to his desk. Slowly, like someone drugged he turned back to his notes on Johanna. It was hard to concentrate. His mind was playing rhythms that he couldn’t control. Taps, The Lord is My Shepherd. And Taps, over and over. He poured brandy – glass after glass – amazed that he wasn’t drunk. Finally he threw up, and that cleared his head. He went over the notes one last time, then gave task up and went home.



Thursday, September 15, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIV

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXIV pgs.291-220

Johanna was unconscious throughout her plane ride, and was only dimly aware of being hoisted into a cart with metal bars – much like a home-made extra-large sized dog kennel. As the ride in the cart wore on, she found she was hot, then cold, but mostly hot. And she was aware of a blazing, bright sun that hurt her eyes and made her skin burn. The ride was long. Her skin blistered and her mind cleared. But it seemed incredible that the cage and the sky were reality and not some drug-induced hallucination. Halfway through the trip she was given water, then some flat bread with a gruel folded inside it.


The afternoon wore on in a confusion of light, heat, and nausea. Her head pounded and her arms and legs cramped. Occasionally a rock sailed into her cage, sharp as a bee sting, biting her legs or arms or belly or face, but she hadn’t the wherewithal to register where the rock came from.

And finally, she was pushed into a metal cell the size of a closet, and tied lying down between two stakes jutting up from a hard cement floor. The small cell was dank and drafty. Johanna craned her neck trying to see around her. The room was dark but not black.

“Please, God, somehow, someway, help me to bear this. Because I’m disheartened and terrified, and all I want is to die.”

“In here, Johanna, you’ll find that God is deaf.” The voice, a horrific roar, came from a black-robed figure that reminded Johanna of a sixteenth century executioner. He slammed the door loudly as he left. A draft blew in from under the door. But it didn’t chill her. Lying as she was, it brushed past her cheek, bringing home the memory of a soft breeze that had brushed her cheek many years ago.



Every now and again, Alex would think about the day in church when all those people had made their confessions. He could remember the sense of longing. It was like seeing something out of the corner of his eye, then turning to look at it, and finding it no longer there. And his soul desired it as children long for Christmas.

In his office, pretending to listen to CIA tapes, Alex stared at the space where Churchill’s portrait had hung. He tried to remember what Churchill’s face looked like, but all he could see in his mind was Hitler’s eyes staring at him, as if penetrating his thoughts. Where was that giddy sense of victory? He was still the king, the emperor, the god. Why wasn’t it sweet anymore? And he could remember power filling him until he thought he’d burst with the joy, and it was all he could do to keep from bouncing around like a two-year-old. Where had it all gone? Why the depression? Maybe, like Alexander the Great, he cried because he had no more worlds to conquer. No. He still had work to do. Iraq was far from won. The newspapers would have to be fed. There were still dollars to be made. Gas was only $2.00 per gallon. The western fields of Iraq had not yet produced their tribute. Iran had not been invaded yet. Indeed, there were many more worlds to conquer, but the battle was no longer joyous. Why?

A wafting sense of peace touched him, followed by a piercing ache. He remembered that day in church. What had it felt like? He tried to reproduce the sensation, but could only feel pain.

“For a price.” Where did those words come from? And why was he thinking them? “For a price.” A price for what?

Suddenly Alex remembered. He closed his eyes. He was eleven years old again, and alone sitting beside Puddin’ Creek. It was dark, and he was shivering and wondering how to get out of a whipping. “For a price.” That’s what the book had said. He remembered squinting to read the words in the dark. And was the price indeed his soul? Well, Remordia had certainly kept its side of the bargain. Was that the devil? Had he agreed to sell his soul to the devil?

‘But that wasn’t fair,’ he thought. ‘I was just a scared little boy back then. You can’t hold me responsible for a dumb kid’s prank. And all the times after that – well, that was just habit.’ He’d always looked to the word to get himself out of trouble. But it wasn’t as if he’d consciously said he wanted to sell his soul in exchange for favors. He’d never thought of it as making a pact with the devil. It wasn’t fair. But then, the devil didn’t play fair.

The devil?

Remordia.

The devil!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIV

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXIV




The following morning, Alex walked into his office trying to think up a way to charm Isabella. Maybe he’d fly her somewhere out of the country for lunch and a romantic interlude. That usually impressed his interns. There was just something about being the only two passengers on a private jet.

But the moment he opened his office, he knew an intruder had been there. At first it was just an impression. Frantically, he looked around the room, and noticed smudges on the bookcase behind his desk. Someone had been there. A break-in! In panic, he began to search his desk, then his bookshelf. Top secret information was everywhere. He poured over all the scraps on his desk, mentally categorizing all the letters, faxes, CDs, and post-its that could have been stolen. But the theft was big and obvious. He hadn’t wanted to face it, to admit to himself that something he loved had been stolen. Someone had taken his painting of Winston Churchill and replaced it with one of Adolph Hitler.

It took Alex a second to register what had happened and another to pick up the phone.

“Security here…”

Alex hesitated. The intruder was probably Isabella, and she could do so much worse than steal his picture.

“Forget it.” He slammed the receiver. Damn! He loved that picture - much more than he loved Isabella.

Alex stared up at Hitler’s portrait, wondering. “Your eyes are dead black,” he said to the picture. “Animal droppings have more character. And with that thin, shoe-polish-black hair and that silly mustache, what did Germany ever see in you? You were like the bubonic plague. But they loved you and they feared you, and they sacrificed ethics and reason to follow you. And they feared the Jews so much that they could kill babies without shame. How did you ever pull it off?” Alex stared at the picture as if Hitler could talk.

“Oh,” said Alex finally. “You understood the secret. Remordia!”

He pulled at the picture till it tore free of the wall leaving two gashes behind where nails had been. He looked around for a place to stow it, then dropped it face down on the floor in a corner.

Turning his mind away from the portrait, he began his workday, pulling memos he’d written out of the IN basket on his desk. Most of his memos were cryptic - less chance for a dangerous slip that way. He reread the notes and transcripts concerning Johanna, and decided it was time for a call to Dr. Heckleweit.

“I haven’t been able to get anything out of her,” said the doctor. “At least not any names or contacts, or even any groups other than the web site where you found her. The only useful thing she’s offered is that she thinks she’s talking to God. If you need to discredit her, you can use that. But as far as her knowing anyone or anything, there’s nothing.”

“Damn, damn!” This day, sure as hell stunk. He looked across the room at the overturned portrait of Hitler. “Damn it, Heckleweit, she can’t have just plucked all that information out of the nether ether. Someone’s must have slipped it to her.”

“Well, I sure as hell can’t find out who. Do you have any history on her? Some memorable childhood trauma or event? That might help me break her - if she truly is hiding anything, that is.”

“You have to know that we’ve sent it all to you. There isn’t anything else.”

“Well then, there’s not much more I can do.”

“Damn.” Alex needed to hit someone - to hurt someone badly. “Heckleweit, if you can’t do the job, I’ll get someone else who can. Keep her drugged. There’ll be a plane for her tomorrow night. We’ll try something else.” Again, he slammed the receiver, his mind and adrenaline rushing fast. And he placed a call to his favorite henchman.

“Ernie? Get the Mohawk Cruiser jet ready. We’re flying that Jacobson woman out to our friends in Syria. She’s not talking. So we’re going to try some old fashioned ways to persuade her.”

“But she’ll be the only woman out there.”

Alex grinned. “I know. Poor girl!”

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIII pg. 216


After church, Alex took Vivian out to brunch at The Captain’s Table. In spite of the nautical theme – the décor was comprised mostly of driftwood and fisherman’s netting - it was a posh establishment, and, more importantly, it was a place where Alex had never taken any of his mistresses. The service was particularly slow that day, and, while they waited, Alex poked at his napkin and his silverware in frustration. In fact, he all but got up and paced the floor with impatience, and several times he barked at the waiter. “Are we ever getting served?”


Vivian put a hand on his shoulder. “Is anything wrong?” Then she wished she hadn’t asked. Alex had been angry and distracted for quite some time. The moods seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was getting harder and harder to coax Alex back to normal. In fact, a couple of times, he’d slapped Vivian so hard that he’d left welts on her face.

“It’s frustrating to be served by a gang of idiots who can’t pour water let alone produce a decent meal in under a week. I can’t stand incompetence.” He pushed his fork into the salt shaker, which fell over against his water glass with a clang that echoed across the room. Several other guests looked over at them. Vivian turned away and kept silent until the waiter brought their food.



Saturday, September 10, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXIII pgs. 213-315

But in those moments before Alex reached the aisle, his father’s image flashed in his mind. And he could feel the words inside his bones. “I’m very disappointed in you.” Alex paused. Remordia, he thought. He wanted God’s peace, and he needed his father’s respect – that and the demi-god life he’d built. Save me from this craziness, he thought. He was Alex Lidecker. He could have anything he wanted. Well, he wanted it all.


Now several more people had gathered at the altar, and Alex recognized the one who was speaking. “The doctors say I have cancer, and I don’t want to die with these sins on my chest.” The man who spoke was Mathew Wisecraven, and he had worked with Alex. What’s more, he worked for Homeland Security. “They did a biopsy, and I go in for surgery next week. Doc says my chances are pretty good, but he says it’s in my liver, and he says that it probably started somewhere else.”

Alex wished for a curare dart and blowgun, or at least a cyanide bullet. Anything to shut Matthew’s mouth quietly and permanently. This was no time to be unburdening. This was a time that cried for secrecy, conspiracy. Alex had just survived a narrow brush with religiosity, and now this! So much was riding on discretion.

He hadn’t realized that Matthew was sick. Matthew was just a very average, graying guy with a small paunch, a small moustache, and a larger than average Adam’s apple. Alex scrutinized him for signs of illness, but there were none - or maybe just a hint of weariness around Matthew Wisecraven’s eyes. What sort of cowardice was this?

Frantically Alex thought about the secrets that Matthew had been privy to, hoping that he was only going to confess something about sex or drugs or swearing at his father. Surely anyone who worked for Homeland knew enough to keep silent.

“We made up the connection between Sadaam and Al Qaida. They hate each other. And we made up Iraq’s nuclear threat. The uranium deal – all faked. As if someone could build a nuclear bomb unnoticed by all the United Nations inspectors and all the American spy planes.” Mathew was pouring out secrets as if his very soul depended on them. Fortunately he was babbling so badly that no one in the congregation took anything he said seriously. At least Alex hoped that no one understood any of it.

“The threat to the bridges on the West Coast - we made that up too.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. “And they’re torturing the prisoners at Guantanamo, and I knew and never did anything about it.”

Alex breathed easier. It was old news. No one cared about nuclear bombs and bridges. And no one would believe that the United States could torture prisoners. Still, from here on in, Alex would have to make sure that Matthew didn’t get any sensitive information. Anyway, depending on what the doctors found, Matthew might not be coming back to Homeland ever.

The sense of God’s spirit was now a memory. Had it really happened? Was this some trick, some mass hallucination? He watched the people around him and considered himself an island of sanity amid a sea of hysteria. And he sat back down, realizing as he did so, that he wanted his demi-god’s life more than he wanted God’s peace. So be it.

But what about the others? In a panic, Alex looked around to see who else was in church. Who else might hear the sermon and get gabby? Ernie was there, but he had enough sense not to fall sway to that confess and repent routine. Alex was smarter and braver than God and he had a stronger will. No surprise here.

But then Alex realized that even the most loyal follower could turn coward when old age and death breathed into his nostrils. Someone about to die might get superstitious and need this mumbo jumbo to face up to the old grim reaper in the clouds. No more sensitive jobs to people over sixty-five, thought Alex, or to anyone with serious health problems. He might have to figure out a way to change the laws on age discrimination, but he probably wouldn’t have to go to too much trouble. No one was about to accuse this administration of prejudice – not this administration.

Finally it was all over, and people left in a long line, stopping to shake the pastor’s hand on the way out.

“Great sermon, moving.” But Alex said the words mechanically. Actually, he wanted to flog the reverend with a bullwhip. Unconsciously he made a fist and pictured it beating the man’s face into bleeding meat. Alex could almost feel the pastor’s teeth cracking from the power of his imagined blows. He wanted to curse, to will pain, suffering, on the man. And you call yourself a Christian, he thought, a Christian and a patriot. How dare you! If Alex had had the power to damn to hell, the pastor would have been struck down right there on the Church steps. Alex realized that he’d have to be more careful about what was preached in places of worship.

So much to hold down! So much to control! Was anyone else at Homeland or in the White House dying? This was no time for deathbed confessions! Medical records were hard to obtain, but not impossible. In fact, nothing was impossible to obtain in the name of national security. Strange, death used to be Alex’s friend – not just a tool, but more like a comrade working by his side, helping to fulfill Alex’s new American dream. He’d never considered death a problem before.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXIII pgs. 211-213

Like the fires of Pentecost, God’s spirit shook Holy Final Words Church. You could feel it - driving hard as a blast of sleet, but also gentle like a lover’s kiss, or a baby’s soft skin. Power, but so much more! God’s love, and with it healing and redemption. And as the prodigal walked back to his seat, he stood a little taller, and marched with stronger step. And, his face, oh his face! You couldn’t exactly say what it was that had changed. The features were the same; the lines were still there. But it shone with God’s mercy and there wasn’t a soul in the church that didn’t see Christ in the man’s eyes.


Alex saw it too, and was shaken. The urge to stand grew stronger now - like a flying cannonball - and he was holding it back with just his little finger. To do this thing, Alex would have to sacrifice his whole life. Not only his house and money and friends - and Vivian. But he would have to destroy his very essence, and, woven into this essence, was pride. Without it he was nothing. Mighty, God-like, victorious, and proud, the son his father always wanted – this was Alex Lidecker. Alex slumped in his seat, unable to destroy the colossus.

Next to come up was a woman in her twenties. Her platinum-streaked hair was curled in wide ringlets that bounced around her shoulders as she walked, and she wore a beige suit smartly trimmed with a camel’s hair collar and cuffs. A topaz poodle brooch sat on her right lapel.

“I’ve slept with eleven different men during the last year,” she said, “while Eugene was stationed in Baghdad. I tried to be faithful to him. I waited. Occupied myself with everything I could think of. But months went by, and well…. I’d look at myself in the mirror, and I’d brush my hair, and do my make up… all the while asking myself just who was I trying to please. What was the use? My man should be in my bed next to me, not playing soldier some thousands of miles away. I know it’s not his fault that he’s over there, and I’m over here. But there wasn’t anyone else to blame. And I did blame him. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I were the one over there.”

She tried to go on, but the words stuck in her throat, and tears threatened just behind the long, black lashes. As if protecting herself, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, and dropped her gaze to the floor. “I could stay busy during the day and it was okay. But then night came, and that empty nothing just crashed all around me. It’s funny how nothing sometimes seems more powerful that all the woes on earth. Anyway, I tried to ignore the quiet, and the aching, but in the end, I couldn’t stand it. It was going to be just a drink with an old friend, someone to talk to – to laugh with, to commiserate with. But in the end, he was in my bed, and when the sun came up I said it was over, and that I’d never do it again. But the nights after that were still too quiet, and - I don’t know what it is about getting into a bed by myself - but I hate doing it. And sometimes, when it was just too quiet, I’d go down to this hang-out a few blocks away, just for a drink and someone to laugh with, and sometimes it would be just that, but also sometimes I’d end up with someone sleeping with me. Each time I told myself that this was the last time.

“So today, I had to do this. And now, after my confession, I need forgiveness, but mostly I need strength, because Eugene’s not back yet, and there are going to be a lot of cold and lonely nights between now and when he comes home. And I don’t know if I have the strength to make it through them, but I’ve got to try to be faithful. If he can go over there and risk his life, I can stay true to him. Or at least I have to try.”

She began to shake and sob. “And I hope Eugene can forgive me, but first I have to forgive myself.” Her sobbing grew harder. The preacher held her shoulders between his hands, then, laying both his hands on her forehead, he prayed with closed eyes. Alex couldn’t hear the words, but he witnessed the power; he felt spirit in the air as the preacher whispered.

Hearing the story, Alex felt pierced as if by shards of glass. He’d slept with her once. He thought her name was Crystal. And he hadn’t connected with her in her bed the way he did now, twenty feet away from her, as she spoke and cried. God stabbed him. Alex saw. Life was meant to feel like this.

Alex Lidecker, the political savant, dressed in Armani, but underneath it, the real Alex, the man, wore the tattered mantle of a penitent sinner. Without noticing it, he rose from his seat preparing to discard his riches like rotting trash. He’d risk it all - respect, wealth, power, and that wild giddiness – flying on meth-like enthusiasm, he called it – that comes from cheating and winning. And now he was about to sacrifice everything in exchange for the peace that comes from an honest relationship with God and man.

But in those moments before Alex reached the aisle, his father’s image flashed in his mind. And he could feel the words inside his bones. “I’m very disappointed in you.” Alex paused. Remordia, he thought. He wanted God’s peace, and he needed his father’s respect – that and the demi-god life he’d built. Save me from this craziness, he thought. He was Alex Lidecker. He could have anything he wanted. Well, he wanted it all.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIII

To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXIII




Alex had managed to stay away from church for three months, but on this particular Sunday, Vivian was insistent. And she was probably right. He had to make an appearance. This was a godly crew that Alex worked with, and Alex had better walk the godly walk.

The gospel reading that day was the story of the prodigal son. Alex’s mind drifted and he wondered what Isabella was doing and if she’d be free later that evening, and how he was going to get her mind off of politics and on to sex.

But Pastor Woodrow’s voice was loud, and broke in on Alex’s reveries. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.” Loser, thought Alex. Like all those stupid, poor folk, squandering money and then coming crawling to their father, or to their Uncle Sam, as it were, sniveling with their hands out for welfare. Alex saw himself as the older son. With seven billion dollars and his Halliburton stock shooting its way through the roof, he needed a full-time accountant just to invest and re-invest his capital. As the preacher talked, Alex mentally counted his assets, and included Isabella and the very nice asset she sat on.

Pastor Woodrow seemed particularly passionate about this story. He all but shouted the sermon, and his words kept interrupting Alex’s daydreaming. “The prodigal is right here among us.” No doubt about it - the preacher was in rare form. “It’s not about squandering money. It’s about sin and disrespecting God, our Father.”

As Pastor Woodrow continued Alex fantasized about re-decorating his office with gilt accessories to accent his picture of Winston Churchill.

“…coming back to God. For us, it’s not a matter of walking miles wearing rags, but a matter of confession and repentance…”

And here the pastor paused. When he continued, his words rang out like explosions - burning with divine fire, as if God Himself were speaking and Pastor Woodrow was merely the vessel. “…a matter of our souls, on a spiritual plane, trekking their way back to God.

“In the early church, the congregation would make public testimony, each member confessing out loud to his brethren any egregious sins that he’d committed.” Silence enveloped the congregation.

I’d like to hear that, thought Alex. Reality TV in church - what a show! Public humiliation! “The Apprentice,” only with God playing Donald Trump!

“I invite anyone who feels that he’s transgressed to come forward, and to ask forgiveness before God and His people. God offers His peace in exchange for your sins.”

Fantastic, thought Alex. This service was getting better and better. All he needed was a tent, and a fountain of holy water. Would some dumb asses really come up and publicly confess to whatever? What a side show! Somebody, do it, he thought. Somebody spill and make my day.

The congregation sat still and expectant, each person searching his soul, and the silence was charged as if it were a living creature.

From the back of the church, a man leaning over his cane began to shuffle forward. The skin on his face hung in deep pouches exposing blood-filled sacs below his eyes. The man walked slowly, and it seemed as if the whole church froze in time as he made his way up to the front.

Suddenly an unreasonable urge grabbed Alex, like his father’s strong arm, propelling him toward the altar. Do it now. Tell it all - the lies, the schemes, the secrets - your secrets, your sins, and all your mayhem. The urge to confess pulled Alex hard. Resisting it all but ripped him in two. He needed to stand, to shout. “We’re murdering thousands of Iraqi innocents, and I am responsible. I – Alex Lidecker, not the Taliban, not Saddam Hussein. I am the terrorist. I planted the anthrax. I made up the nuclear weapons scare and spread the rumors of Saddam’s undiscovered arsenals.”

The words screamed and exploded inside of his head, demanding to be heard, and Alex had to look around. Had he actually said them out loud, or had he just imagined this mad unreasonable impulse? No, the church was quiet, all eyes turned towards the old prodigal wending his long way to the front, and now mounting the steps up to the altar.

“I spent ‘bout fourteen years worshipping alcohol. Lost my job, my wife, my kids.” He whispered the words, but the sound carried through the stillness, and he stared at the floor while he talked, as if unworthy to lift his face. “Always told myself that I wasn’t as bad off as the other guy. Said it wasn’t my fault. Told myself - anyone who’d been through my life, seen what I’d seen, would’ve done the same. And maybe he would have. But that don’t matter none. What matters is what I’ve done. And I’m ashamed. And I feel burdened with the sin of it. See, I know the prodigal ‘cause he’s me, and I’m here to ask God to forgive me and to lift the burden off of my shoulders, because it’s mighty heavy, and I can’t carry it no more.”

Like the fires of Pentecost, God’s spirit shook Holy Final Words Church. You could feel it - driving hard as a blast of sleet, but also gentle like a lover’s kiss, or a baby’s soft skin. Power, but so much more! God’s love, and with it healing and redemption. And as the prodigal walked back to his seat, he stood a little taller, and marched with stronger step. And, his face, oh his face! You couldn’t exactly say what it was that had changed. The features were the same; the lines were still there. But it shone with God’s mercy and there wasn’t a soul in the church that didn’t see Christ in the man’s eyes.

Alex saw it too, and was shaken. The urge to stand grew stronger now - like a flying cannonball - and he was holding it back with just his little finger.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Great Expectations Chapter XXXII



This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
 



Chapter XXXII




The next day, Alex entered the White House feeling like a sac of cement being dragged behind a truck. He’d hardly slept, but more than that, he felt as if something strong and evil held him in its grasp, choking off his air. He took a ragged breath, sighed and tried to shake off the feeling but couldn’t.

Inside his office, he found Isabella waiting for him with two mugs of steaming coffee and a basket of sweet rolls on his desk.

“Where were you? I tried to call,” he said, flopping into his chair underneath the painting of Winston Churchill. An accusing pout played across his face.

“I made a date with some friends. I didn’t expect you back from Bar Harbor that soon. Would you like a cup of coffee? You don’t look so good,” she said.

He nodded and she brought over one of the mugs, smiling and kissing his cheek as she did so. He pointed at the basket, and Isabella brought it over as well, letting him pick out a pastry.

For a while they ate and drank, neither one breaking the comforting silence with words. But Isabella wasn’t comfortable. “Alex,” she asked, “how many people have died in Iraq so far?”

The words startled Alex. He didn’t want to think about death today. “Only about a thousand. One thousand two hundred and twenty one American and allied casualties according to last night’s news cast. I can get a more accurate count with a phone call.”

“But that’s only our soldiers; it doesn’t count Iraqis. And that’s the only answer they’ll ever give on the news. It’s like we’re over there shooting but no one ever gets shot. How many Iraqis were killed?”

“To quote General Tommy Franks, ‘we don’t do body counts.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means we don’t count dead bodies. It’s cleaner that way.”

“I’ve been surfing the net. According to the Iraq Body Count, there are between fourteen thousand and seventeen thousand civilians killed so far. That doesn’t count Iraqi soldiers, and it doesn’t count anyone who got buried in a mass grave or anybody buried without the authorities being notified – which happens a lot since Moslems have to bury their dead within twenty-four hours. Also they don’t count any men of military age, because they might be soldiers.”

“You’ve been very busy,” said Alex, but his voice sounded as if researching were a shameful thing to do. “Leave the politics to the ones who’ve studied all of this for years. They’re trained to understand all of this.” He tapped his chin with his finger and smiled a lopsided grin. It was charming and boyish, and quite disarming. “Now, what I want to know is – how do you manage to look so sexy when you bring the muffins?”

“And according to ‘The Lancet’, the body count is closer to a hundred thousand, and that doesn’t include everyone who died on account of clinics and utilities being bombed and being unable to get decent medical help or clean water. And ‘The Lancet’ is a medical magazine, with no political agenda.”

Christ, thought Alex, how do you explain Arabian politics to a sexy little plaything? “Attitudes in the Middle East are different from those in America. Remember, these people are used to Sadaam Hussein’s rule. They understand threats and a heavy hand. Over there, killing a hundred of their people for every one of ours is the sign of a strong and efficient leader.”

Brown eyes wide and fearful, Isabella’s face took on the expression of a wounded animal. She didn’t say anything.

How could he make Isabella understand? Alex tried, but he knew it was futile. “They don’t understand anything else. If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill our people. As we stand here talking, more and more Arabs are joining Al Qaida. We need to keep peace with a very heavy hand or they’ll walk all over us. Kill them before they kill us. This is the Middle East, not downtown New York.”

“It’s like Harlem,” said Isabella. “When in doubt, shoot - preferably with a semi-automatic. And the biggest thug gets the most respect.”

“Well, yes.” Alex wanted to be positive, but he was not sure if he liked the analogy.

“Like the kid who brings a gun to school for protection.”

Instead of continuing the conversation, which could only get ugly, Alex took a quick peek to make sure that the door was closed; then wrapped an arm around Isabella’s tiny waste. He always loved the feel of her delicate body against his arms.

“You pig,” she said, wiggled out of his arms, and left the room.

Christ, thought Alex. He shrugged. She’ll come around, he figured. He controlled the whole goddamn United States. Surely he could control one dewy-eyed intern.





Chapter XXXIII



Alex had managed to stay away from church for three months, but on this particular Sunday, Vivian was insistent. And she was probably right. He had to make an appearance. This was a godly crew that Alex worked with, and Alex had better walk the godly walk.

The gospel reading that day was the story of the prodigal son. Alex’s mind drifted and he wondered what Isabella was doing and if she’d be free later that evening, and how he was going to get her mind off of politics and on to sex.

But Pastor Woodrow’s voice was loud, and broke in on Alex’s reveries. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.” Loser, thought Alex. Like all those stupid, poor folk, squandering money and then coming crawling to their father, or to their Uncle Sam, as it were, sniveling with their hands out for welfare. Alex saw himself as the older son. With seven billion dollars and his Halliburton stock shooting its way through the roof, he needed a full-time accountant just to invest and re-invest his capital. As the preacher talked, Alex mentally counted his assets, and included Isabella and the very nice asset she sat on.

Pastor Woodrow seemed particularly passionate about this story. He all but shouted the sermon, and his words kept interrupting Alex’s daydreaming. “The prodigal is right here among us.” No doubt about it - the preacher was in rare form. “It’s not about squandering money. It’s about sin and disrespecting God, our Father.”

As Pastor Woodrow continued Alex fantasized about re-decorating his office with gilt accessories to accent his picture of Winston Churchill.

“…coming back to God. For us, it’s not a matter of walking miles wearing rags, but a matter of confession and repentance…”

And here the pastor paused. When he continued, his words rang out like explosions - burning with divine fire, as if God Himself were speaking and Pastor Woodrow was merely the vessel. “…a matter of our souls, on a spiritual plane, trekking their way back to God.

“In the early church, the congregation would make public testimony, each member confessing out loud to his brethren any egregious sins that he’d committed.” Silence enveloped the congregation.

I’d like to hear that, thought Alex. Reality TV in church - what a show! Public humiliation! “The Apprentice,” only with God playing Donald Trump!

“I invite anyone who feels that he’s transgressed to come forward, and to ask forgiveness before God and His people. God offers His peace in exchange for your sins.”

Fantastic, thought Alex. This service was getting better and better. All he needed was a tent, and a fountain of holy water. Would some dumb asses really come up and publicly confess to whatever? What a side show! Somebody, do it, he thought. Somebody spill and make my day.

The congregation sat still and expectant, each person searching his soul, and the silence was charged as if it were a living creature.

From the back of the church, a man leaning over his cane began to shuffle forward. The skin on his face hung in deep pouches exposing blood-filled sacs below his eyes. The man walked slowly, and it seemed as if the whole church froze in time as he made his way up to the front.

Suddenly an unreasonable urge grabbed Alex, like his father’s strong arm, propelling him toward the altar. Do it now. Tell it all - the lies, the schemes, the secrets - your secrets, your sins, and all your mayhem. The urge to confess pulled Alex hard. Resisting it all but ripped him in two. He needed to stand, to shout. “We’re murdering thousands of Iraqi innocents, and I am responsible. I – Alex Lidecker, not the Taliban, not Saddam Hussein. I am the terrorist. I planted the anthrax. I made up the nuclear weapons scare and spread the rumors of Saddam’s undiscovered arsenals.”

The words screamed and exploded inside of his head, demanding to be heard, and Alex had to look around. Had he actually said them out loud, or had he just imagined this mad unreasonable impulse? No, the church was quiet, all eyes turned towards the old prodigal wending his long way to the front, and now mounting the steps up to the altar.

“I spent ‘bout fourteen years worshipping alcohol. Lost my job, my wife, my kids.” He whispered the words, but the sound carried through the stillness, and he stared at the floor while he talked, as if unworthy to lift his face. “Always told myself that I wasn’t as bad off as the other guy. Said it wasn’t my fault. Told myself - anyone who’d been through my life, seen what I’d seen, would’ve done the same. And maybe he would have. But that don’t matter none. What matters is what I’ve done. And I’m ashamed. And I feel burdened with the sin of it. See, I know the prodigal ‘cause he’s me, and I’m here to ask God to forgive me and to lift the burden off of my shoulders, because it’s mighty heavy, and I can’t carry it no more.”

Like the fires of Pentecost, God’s spirit shook Holy Final Words Church. You could feel it - driving hard as a blast of sleet, but also gentle like a lover’s kiss, or a baby’s soft skin. Power, but so much more! God’s love, and with it healing and redemption. And as the prodigal walked back to his seat, he stood a little taller, and marched with stronger step. And, his face, oh his face! You couldn’t exactly say what it was that had changed. The features were the same; the lines were still there. But it shone with God’s mercy and there wasn’t a soul in the church that didn’t see Christ in the man’s eyes.

Alex saw it too, and was shaken. The urge to stand grew stronger now - like a flying cannonball - and he was holding it back with just his little finger. To do this thing, Alex would have to sacrifice his whole life. Not only his house and money and friends - and Vivian. But he would have to destroy his very essence, and, woven into this essence, was pride. Without it he was nothing. Mighty, God-like, victorious, and proud, the son his father always wanted – this was Alex Lidecker. Alex slumped in his seat, unable to destroy the colossus.

Next to come up was a woman in her twenties. Her platinum-streaked hair was curled in wide ringlets that bounced around her shoulders as she walked, and she wore a beige suit smartly trimmed with a camel’s hair collar and cuffs. A topaz poodle brooch sat on her right lapel.

“I’ve slept with eleven different men during the last year,” she said, “while Eugene was stationed in Baghdad. I tried to be faithful to him. I waited. Occupied myself with everything I could think of. But months went by, and well…. I’d look at myself in the mirror, and I’d brush my hair, and do my make up… all the while asking myself just who was I trying to please. What was the use? My man should be in my bed next to me, not playing soldier some thousands of miles away. I know it’s not his fault that he’s over there, and I’m over here. But there wasn’t anyone else to blame. And I did blame him. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I were the one over there.”

She tried to go on, but the words stuck in her throat, and tears threatened just behind the long, black lashes. As if protecting herself, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, and dropped her gaze to the floor. “I could stay busy during the day and it was okay. But then night came, and that empty nothing just crashed all around me. It’s funny how nothing sometimes seems more powerful that all the woes on earth. Anyway, I tried to ignore the quiet, and the aching, but in the end, I couldn’t stand it. It was going to be just a drink with an old friend, someone to talk to – to laugh with, to commiserate with. But in the end, he was in my bed, and when the sun came up I said it was over, and that I’d never do it again. But the nights after that were still too quiet, and - I don’t know what it is about getting into a bed by myself - but I hate doing it. And sometimes, when it was just too quiet, I’d go down to this hang-out a few blocks away, just for a drink and someone to laugh with, and sometimes it would be just that, but also sometimes I’d end up with someone sleeping with me. Each time I told myself that this was the last time.

“So today, I had to do this. And now, after my confession, I need forgiveness, but mostly I need strength, because Eugene’s not back yet, and there are going to be a lot of cold and lonely nights between now and when he comes home. And I don’t know if I have the strength to make it through them, but I’ve got to try to be faithful. If he can go over there and risk his life, I can stay true to him. Or at least I have to try.”

She began to shake and sob. “And I hope Eugene can forgive me, but first I have to forgive myself.” Her sobbing grew harder. The preacher held her shoulders between his hands, then, laying both his hands on her forehead, he prayed with closed eyes. Alex couldn’t hear the words, but he witnessed the power; he felt spirit in the air as the preacher whispered.

Hearing the story, Alex felt pierced as if by shards of glass. He’d slept with her once. He thought her name was Crystal. And he hadn’t connected with her in her bed the way he did now, twenty feet away from her, as she spoke and cried. God stabbed him. Alex saw. Life was meant to feel like this.

Alex Lidecker, the political savant, dressed in Armani, but underneath it, the real Alex, the man, wore the tattered mantle of a penitent sinner. Without noticing it, he rose from his seat preparing to discard his riches like rotting trash. He’d risk it all - respect, wealth, power, and that wild giddiness – flying on meth-like enthusiasm, he called it – that comes from cheating and winning. And now he was about to sacrifice everything in exchange for the peace that comes from an honest relationship with God and man.

But in those moments before Alex reached the aisle, his father’s image flashed in his mind. And he could feel the words inside his bones. “I’m very disappointed in you.” Alex paused. Remordia, he thought. He wanted God’s peace, and he needed his father’s respect – that and the demi-god life he’d built. Save me from this craziness, he thought. He was Alex Lidecker. He could have anything he wanted. Well, he wanted it all.

Now several more people had gathered at the altar, and Alex recognized the one who was speaking. “The doctors say I have cancer, and I don’t want to die with these sins on my chest.” The man who spoke was Mathew Wisecraven, and he had worked with Alex. What’s more, he worked for Homeland Security. “They did a biopsy, and I go in for surgery next week. Doc says my chances are pretty good, but he says it’s in my liver, and he says that it probably started somewhere else.”

Alex wished for a curare dart and blowgun, or at least a cyanide bullet. Anything to shut Matthew’s mouth quietly and permanently. This was no time to be unburdening. This was a time that cried for secrecy, conspiracy. Alex had just survived a narrow brush with religiosity, and now this! So much was riding on discretion.

He hadn’t realized that Matthew was sick. Matthew was just a very average, graying guy with a small paunch, a small moustache, and a larger than average Adam’s apple. Alex scrutinized him for signs of illness, but there were none - or maybe just a hint of weariness around Matthew Wisecraven’s eyes. What sort of cowardice was this?

Frantically Alex thought about the secrets that Matthew had been privy to, hoping that he was only going to confess something about sex or drugs or swearing at his father. Surely anyone who worked for Homeland knew enough to keep silent.

“We made up the connection between Sadaam and Al Qaida. They hate each other. And we made up Iraq’s nuclear threat. The uranium deal – all faked. As if someone could build a nuclear bomb unnoticed by all the United Nations inspectors and all the American spy planes.” Mathew was pouring out secrets as if his very soul depended on them. Fortunately he was babbling so badly that no one in the congregation took anything he said seriously. At least Alex hoped that no one understood any of it.

“The threat to the bridges on the West Coast - we made that up too.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. “And they’re torturing the prisoners at Guantanamo, and I knew and never did anything about it.”

Alex breathed easier. It was old news. No one cared about nuclear bombs and bridges. And no one would believe that the United States could torture prisoners. Still, from here on in, Alex would have to make sure that Matthew didn’t get any sensitive information. Anyway, depending on what the doctors found, Matthew might not be coming back to Homeland ever.

The sense of God’s spirit was now a memory. Had it really happened? Was this some trick, some mass hallucination? He watched the people around him and considered himself an island of sanity amid a sea of hysteria. And he sat back down, realizing as he did so, that he wanted his demi-god’s life more than he wanted God’s peace. So be it.

But what about the others? In a panic, Alex looked around to see who else was in church. Who else might hear the sermon and get gabby? Ernie was there, but he had enough sense not to fall sway to that confess and repent routine. Alex was smarter and braver than God and he had a stronger will. No surprise here.

But then Alex realized that even the most loyal follower could turn coward when old age and death breathed into his nostrils. Someone about to die might get superstitious and need this mumbo jumbo to face up to the old grim reaper in the clouds. No more sensitive jobs to people over sixty-five, thought Alex, or to anyone with serious health problems. He might have to figure out a way to change the laws on age discrimination, but he probably wouldn’t have to go to too much trouble. No one was about to accuse this administration of prejudice – not this administration.

Finally it was all over, and people left in a long line, stopping to shake the pastor’s hand on the way out.

“Great sermon, moving.” But Alex said the words mechanically. Actually, he wanted to flog the reverend with a bullwhip. Unconsciously he made a fist and pictured it beating the man’s face into bleeding meat. Alex could almost feel the pastor’s teeth cracking from the power of his imagined blows. He wanted to curse, to will pain, suffering, on the man. And you call yourself a Christian, he thought, a Christian and a patriot. How dare you! If Alex had had the power to damn to hell, the pastor would have been struck down right there on the Church steps. Alex realized that he’d have to be more careful about what was preached in places of worship.

So much to hold down! So much to control! Was anyone else at Homeland or in the White House dying? This was no time for deathbed confessions! Medical records were hard to obtain, but not impossible. In fact, nothing was impossible to obtain in the name of national security. Strange, death used to be Alex’s friend – not just a tool, but more like a comrade working by his side, helping to fulfill Alex’s new American dream. He’d never considered death a problem before.



After church, Alex took Vivian out to brunch at The Captain’s Table. In spite of the nautical theme – the décor was comprised mostly of driftwood and fisherman’s netting - it was a posh establishment, and, more importantly, it was a place where Alex had never taken any of his mistresses. The service was particularly slow that day, and, while they waited, Alex poked at his napkin and his silverware in frustration. In fact, he all but got up and paced the floor with impatience, and several times he barked at the waiter. “Are we ever getting served?”

Vivian put a hand on his shoulder. “Is anything wrong?” Then she wished she hadn’t asked. Alex had been angry and distracted for quite some time. The moods seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was getting harder and harder to coax Alex back to normal. In fact, a couple of times, he’d slapped Vivian so hard that he’d left welts on her face.

“It’s frustrating to be served by a gang of idiots who can’t pour water let alone produce a decent meal in under a week. I can’t stand incompetence.” He pushed his fork into the salt shaker, which fell over against his water glass with a clang that echoed across the room. Several other guests looked over at them. Vivian turned away and kept silent until the waiter brought their food.



Chapter XXXIV



The following morning, Alex walked into his office trying to think up a way to charm Isabella. Maybe he’d fly her somewhere out of the country for lunch and a romantic interlude. That usually impressed his interns. There was just something about being the only two passengers on a private jet.

But the moment he opened his office, he knew an intruder had been there. At first it was just an impression. Frantically, he looked around the room, and noticed smudges on the bookcase behind his desk. Someone had been there. A break-in! In panic, he began to search his desk, then his bookshelf. Top secret information was everywhere. He poured over all the scraps on his desk, mentally categorizing all the letters, faxes, CDs, and post-its that could have been stolen. But the theft was big and obvious. He hadn’t wanted to face it, to admit to himself that something he loved had been stolen. Someone had taken his painting of Winston Churchill and replaced it with one of Adolph Hitler.

It took Alex a second to register what had happened and another to pick up the phone.

“Security here…”

Alex hesitated. The intruder was probably Isabella, and she could do so much worse than steal his picture.

“Forget it.” He slammed the receiver. Damn! He loved that picture - much more than he loved Isabella.

Alex stared up at Hitler’s portrait, wondering. “Your eyes are dead black,” he said to the picture. “Animal droppings have more character. And with that thin, shoe-polish-black hair and that silly mustache, what did Germany ever see in you? You were like the bubonic plague. But they loved you and they feared you, and they sacrificed ethics and reason to follow you. And they feared the Jews so much that they could kill babies without shame. How did you ever pull it off?” Alex stared at the picture as if Hitler could talk.

“Oh,” said Alex finally. “You understood the secret. Remordia!”

He pulled at the picture till it tore free of the wall leaving two gashes behind where nails had been. He looked around for a place to stow it, then dropped it face down on the floor in a corner.

Turning his mind away from the portrait, he began his workday, pulling memos he’d written out of the IN basket on his desk. Most of his memos were cryptic - less chance for a dangerous slip that way. He reread the notes and transcripts concerning Johanna, and decided it was time for a call to Dr. Heckleweit.

“I haven’t been able to get anything out of her,” said the doctor. “At least not any names or contacts, or even any groups other than the web site where you found her. The only useful thing she’s offered is that she thinks she’s talking to God. If you need to discredit her, you can use that. But as far as her knowing anyone or anything, there’s nothing.”

“Damn, damn!” This day, sure as hell stunk. He looked across the room at the overturned portrait of Hitler. “Damn it, Heckleweit, she can’t have just plucked all that information out of the nether ether. Someone’s must have slipped it to her.”

“Well, I sure as hell can’t find out who. Do you have any history on her? Some memorable childhood trauma or event? That might help me break her - if she truly is hiding anything, that is.”

“You have to know that we’ve sent it all to you. There isn’t anything else.”

“Well then, there’s not much more I can do.”

“Damn.” Alex needed to hit someone - to hurt someone badly. “Heckleweit, if you can’t do the job, I’ll get someone else who can. Keep her drugged. There’ll be a plane for her tomorrow night. We’ll try something else.” Again, he slammed the receiver, his mind and adrenaline rushing fast. And he placed a call to his favorite henchman.

“Ernie? Get the Mohawk Cruiser jet ready. We’re flying that Jacobson woman out to our friends in Syria. She’s not talking. So we’re going to try some old fashioned ways to persuade her.”

“But she’ll be the only woman out there.”

Alex grinned. “I know. Poor girl!”



Johanna was unconscious throughout her plane ride, and was only dimly aware of being hoisted into a cart with metal bars – much like a home-made extra-large sized dog kennel. As the ride in the cart wore on, she found she was hot, then cold, but mostly hot. And she was aware of a blazing, bright sun that hurt her eyes and made her skin burn. The ride was long. Her skin blistered and her mind cleared. But it seemed incredible that the cage and the sky were reality and not some drug-induced hallucination. Halfway through the trip she was given water, then some flat bread with a gruel folded inside it.

The afternoon wore on in a confusion of light, heat, and nausea. Her head pounded and her arms and legs cramped. Occasionally a rock sailed into her cage, sharp as a bee sting, biting her legs or arms or belly or face, but she hadn’t the wherewithal to register where the rock came from.

And finally, she was pushed into a metal cell the size of a closet, and tied lying down between two stakes jutting up from a hard cement floor. The small cell was dank and drafty. Johanna craned her neck trying to see around her. The room was dark but not black.

“Please, God, somehow, someway, help me to bear this. Because I’m disheartened and terrified, and all I want is to die.”

“In here, Johanna, you’ll find that God is deaf.” The voice, a horrific roar, came from a black-robed figure that reminded Johanna of a sixteenth century executioner. He slammed the door loudly as he left. A draft blew in from under the door. But it didn’t chill her. Lying as she was, it brushed past her cheek, bringing home the memory of a soft breeze that had brushed her cheek many years ago.



Every now and again, Alex would think about the day in church when all those people had made their confessions. He could remember the sense of longing. It was like seeing something out of the corner of his eye, then turning to look at it, and finding it no longer there. And his soul desired it as children long for Christmas.

In his office, pretending to listen to CIA tapes, Alex stared at the space where Churchill’s portrait had hung. He tried to remember what Churchill’s face looked like, but all he could see in his mind was Hitler’s eyes staring at him, as if penetrating his thoughts. Where was that giddy sense of victory? He was still the king, the emperor, the god. Why wasn’t it sweet anymore? And he could remember power filling him until he thought he’d burst with the joy, and it was all he could do to keep from bouncing around like a two-year-old. Where had it all gone? Why the depression? Maybe, like Alexander the Great, he cried because he had no more worlds to conquer. No. He still had work to do. Iraq was far from won. The newspapers would have to be fed. There were still dollars to be made. Gas was only $2.00 per gallon. The western fields of Iraq had not yet produced their tribute. Iran had not been invaded yet. Indeed, there were many more worlds to conquer, but the battle was no longer joyous. Why?

A wafting sense of peace touched him, followed by a piercing ache. He remembered that day in church. What had it felt like? He tried to reproduce the sensation, but could only feel pain.

“For a price.” Where did those words come from? And why was he thinking them? “For a price.” A price for what?

Suddenly Alex remembered. He closed his eyes. He was eleven years old again, and alone sitting beside Puddin’ Creek. It was dark, and he was shivering and wondering how to get out of a whipping. “For a price.” That’s what the book had said. He remembered squinting to read the words in the dark. And was the price indeed his soul? Well, Remordia had certainly kept its side of the bargain. Was that the devil? Had he agreed to sell his soul to the devil?

‘But that wasn’t fair,’ he thought. ‘I was just a scared little boy back then. You can’t hold me responsible for a dumb kid’s prank. And all the times after that – well, that was just habit.’ He’d always looked to the word to get himself out of trouble. But it wasn’t as if he’d consciously said he wanted to sell his soul in exchange for favors. He’d never thought of it as making a pact with the devil. It wasn’t fair. But then, the devil didn’t play fair.

The devil?

Remordia.

The devil!

The room chilled. Alex’s heart all but stopped, and his shoulders slumped, aching, crushed by an unseen burden. Alex stared at the place on the wall where Hitler’s portrait had hung. Where did that word come from? In his mind, Alex had said, “devil”. He didn’t really believe in the devil - any more than he believed in God. He, Alexander Lidecker, was god. That was what he believed. That, and the word Remordia. But it was only a good-luck thing – like a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover. He’d never actually done anything superhuman. He hadn’t meant to…

Alex began to tremble, chilled as he had been that night years ago sitting beside Puddin’ Creek. He remembered hugging the book, next to his body, its pages musty with age. What was its name, he wondered. Something with a “C” – “Chesterville’s! “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” On an impulse, Alex pulled up the Internet on his computer, and typed “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” He stared at the screen for a full minute before pressing enter. Nothing came up. Next he typed in antique books and bookstores. Three hours later, he had located a shop in New Jersey whose owner claimed to carry a copy of “Chesterville’s”. With a sinking feeling, Alex reached for his car keys, and, driving as if in a trance, he headed for the New Jersey Turnpike and Ye Olde Biblioteque, a modest antiquarian bookstore in Trenton. Then, with the precious book wrapped in brown paper and tucked away safely in the trunk of his car, Alex sped south towards the White House.

“I’ll be home late again,” he told Vivian. He needed to examine the book in privacy.

“I’m not superstitious, just curious,” Alex said to himself as pulled out “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” He opened the package. The musty odor inside reminded him of attics and old trunks, and historical ghosts. Carefully, he leafed through the pages. Most were a dull tan, the color of autumn leaves gone to dead brown just before winter’s blanket of snow. He handled the pages gingerly. And just like dead leaves, they crackled and flaked away in his fingers. Alex tried to remember that Halloween night. “Lying spells.” “The craft to convince.”

Hell was supposed to be hot but Alex was chilled throughout as if suspended in ice. He found the lying spell, and skipped to the bottom of the page. “…for a price. Thy essence consumed with lye. Shackled to spiked wheels. Dragged by wild oxen through rasping rocky pits. Flesh rotting from thy writhing body.” There was more. “Agony not of flesh but of mind and soul.” “Chill not of body but of spirit.” “For Hell and damnation lie not in chasms of flames but in the human heart.”

Alex saw himself a small maggot in the center of an unidentifiable rotting carcass. And he was afraid. Icy fingers tore at his heart and choked his breathing.

“Snap out of it,” he whispered to himself, but his body shook. “You don’t believe in any of this. And anyway it’s too late. So schedule a massage, enjoy your empire, and stop all this shit.” And like the maggot in the rotting carcass, he slunk back to his desk. Slowly, like someone drugged he turned back to his notes on Johanna. It was hard to concentrate. His mind was playing rhythms that he couldn’t control. Taps, The Lord is My Shepherd. And Taps, over and over. He poured brandy – glass after glass – amazed that he wasn’t drunk. Finally he threw up, and that cleared his head. He went over the notes one last time, then gave task up and went home.



The next morning, he read the transcripts of Johanna’s interrogations over and over, but nothing popped out at him. Maybe the video tapes would reveal something - some quirk, some pause or some exclamation, to indicate what Johanna was hiding, a way to get into her mind.

With a shudder he pulled out a file of tapes with Johanna’s name on them and dates of interrogation. For some reason he felt repulsed rather than excited at the prospect of listening to them. Then, after fitting a set of headphones over his ears, he loaded the first one into his recorder, pressed “play,” and closed his eyes to better concentrate on the sounds.

A sharp cracking sound. Johanna’s scream. Another crack. Another scream. Then a voice heavy with accent. “You must tell me names. Who talked to you? Who told you secrets?”

“No one. I told you, no one.” There was a note of hysteria in her voice.

The tape went on in the same vein. Not very efficient, thought Alex. For a while the sound of water rushing, as if from a hose, drowned out the words. “Please don’t. No more.”

“The name of your friend in the government.”

“I don’t know.” Her voice broke and stuttered. She was probably shivering.

More water sounded in the background, then coughing and choking. He’d probably poured it down her nose.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I will leave you to remember. Guard, tighten the thongs please.”

“No!”

“The one on her left leg is still loose, no? Tighter. Yes. I think that is good. And more water.”

Metal clanged and a door opened and closed. Footsteps became faint. Then there was only the sound of raspy breathing – probably Johanna’s. He listened for about two minutes to silence broken only by coughing, wheezing and sobs.

In all probability, there were no government informants who had talked to Johanna. Alex should just have here killed and be done with it. He knew that. But in his whole life, he’d never had to admit to being wrong – even to himself. Surely he wasn’t wrong this time. And if there was someone in the CIA or Homeland willing to talk, Alex had to know who it was.

And then, just as Alex was about to turn off the tape recorder, Johanna began to speak.

The words came softly. Even after he’d turned the volume way up, Alex had to strain to hear them.

“Well, God,” she said. “I’m probably going to die soon. So, if you have any compassion let me die – take me as quickly as you can. I can’t be of much use to you stuck like meat tied up for roasting.”

The voice stopped and there was only breathing - a quivering sound as if she were sobbing with each breath. Alex kept the tape recording going. There was something about that voice.

“You forsook Jesus, and now you’re forsaking me. I don’t understand your plan. I don’t know why I’m here. If you won’t get me out of here, at least help me to bear this. Please give me something to hang on to, to keep me from complete despair.”

That’s it, thought Alex. He stopped the tape recorder and smiled. Johanna Jacobson. She was the stupid little girl he had beaten up in kindergarten. How on earth had he forgotten? Alex thought back to the day, trying to remember details. She’d been talking to God, and he’d shoved dirt in her mouth. And she’d bitten him and he’d told her that God didn’t exist, and she’d gone berserk.

He pushed some buttons on his phone. “Ernie? Alex. Arrange for Johanna to get flown back to Heckleweit’s. I know how we can break her.”

`



Chapter XXXV



They kept Johanna sedated for the flight back to the states. They rushed her to McLenco and bundled her, still strapped down, into a hospital bed. She tried to roll over into fetal position, but the straps prevented her from rolling all the way on to her side, so she hunched her body into a bean shape with her arms straining against the tie-downs instinctively trying to protect her midsection. Dr. Heckleweit had seen this before – the classic pose of someone who had been spiritually broken. It was unlikely, he thought, that Johanna was withholding any information. She pulled at the restraints, mumbling all the while. Dr. Heckleweit listened, but, except for an occasional “God” and “help” he couldn’t make out any words.

While Johanna mumbled incoherently, Dr. Heckleweit checked Johanna’s pupils, her breathing, and her heart beat and strapped her to several monitors. Then he laid out a series of syringes on a tray next to her bed. After staring at the monitoring screens for a minute he proceeded to inject the contents of the first syringe into a vein on the inside of her right arm. As her breathing grew stronger, her eyes fluttered and finally stayed open. He picked up a handful of dirt mixed with carrot greens and shoved it into her mouth. She gagged and spit.

He laughed. “Who gave you the lame brain idea that the anthrax scare was a ploy to get America into a war?”

“No one,” she said fighting for breath.

“Tell me.”

“No one.”

After several similar attempts, Dr. Heckleweit shot a strong sedative into Johanna’s vein and she drifted into unconsciousness. “So much for the carrots,” he mumbled to himself, and he left the room shaking his head in frustration.

When he returned several hours later, Johanna was mumbling something, but Dr. Heckleweit couldn’t understand it.

“What was that, Johanna? Did you say ‘help me’? Come on, Johanna, let’s hear you grovel to God. You’re in prison, you know. Only it’s a prison for the insane. And if God doesn’t save you, you’ll spend the whole rest of your life in restraints.” He prodded her chest, her stomach, and then her eyes, and she closed her lids trying to protect them.

“What’s wrong? No God coming to save you? You must not be praying very hard. Or maybe…maybe he doesn’t want to save you because you’re not worth saving.”

He stopped his taunting for a few minutes giving the words a chance to sink in. “And speaking of help, where are your friends? You’d think they’d have come for you by now. You’re trying to be so brave and loyal, and it’s all for nothing. It doesn’t look like they care much about you. So, go ahead and say their names.”

“Now, Johanna.” His voice mellowed. “The ones who told you security secrets. Believe me, they’re not patriots; they’re traitors.”

This part was critical. He’d broken her down. Now he had to build her trust. “I won’t tell a soul. Promise. I can get you out of here; I’m the only one who can. Just a few names.” He waited. “Tell me, Johanna. The ones from Washington who talked to you.”

He stroked her hair ever so gently. “You can trust me.”

And Johanna broke down. With tears and sobs and wails, she loosed the floodgate of all the misery she’d been carrying by herself. She was too doped up to care who heard her. “Don’t leave me,” she begged.

His voice was soothing. “I won’t leave. I promise.”

“Not you,” she said.

Back to square one, thought the doctor.

“What was that? You don’t want me to leave you? Or was it God you were talking to? It looks like He already has. Too bad! The Almighty has flown to the Bahamas for a vacation leaving you standing up to your eyeteeth in quicksand. In here I am the only god you have to please.” And he stopped - teasing her mind with the silence. Then his voice gentled again. “Give me some names? You have my word. I won’t tell a soul.”

Johanna cried till she was too tired to cry any more, her hands clenched around the sheets that covered her. “Pray hard, Johanna, pray very hard. If you want God to hear you, you must pray very hard.” And Dr. Heckleweit injected more sedative.

Again he let her sleep, monitoring her vitals all the while. Even in sleep her body lay tense. And as Johanna slept he reread the transcripts of her interrogation in Syria, looking for phrases that Johanna had used. These were words that would pierce into her heart. And finally he roused her again with an injection, but this time he barely tapped the syringe, injecting only a few drops of the liquid into her vein. He watched her reactions, and he watched the monitor. He tapped the syringe again, and waited, and then tapped it one more time. Johanna began to stir. He got up and moved behind her head so that she couldn’t see him.

“Johanna.” He spoke slowly, his voice deep and low.

She barely blinked in answer.

“Johanna.”

Johanna said nothing.

“Johanna, I love you,” he said.

She didn’t acknowledge.

“I love you and I’ll always be with you.”

Johanna stirred.

“I’ll always be with you.” While the lines on the monitors rose and fell in rhythm, Dr. Heckleweit repeated the words “I love you. I’ll always be with you.”

Through the fog, Johanna heard a man’s voice. Soothing, caring, the sound caressed her, melting the pain away. Johanna smiled. Dr. Heckleweit periodically tapped the syringe, and as he did so, Johanna saw flashes of her life play out like scenes from a movie.

“Do you know who I am?”

Johanna just smiled.

“I’m God, Johanna.”

“No.”

Dr. Heckleweit thought for a minute. “I’m your Daddy.”

“Don’t leave me.” In her mind she saw her father, and she felt his arm around her shoulders, holding her the way he had so very long ago. She remembered the sensation of snuggling against his chest while he had read marvelous stories of princes and pipers, and tigers melting into butter. It felt real, as though she were reliving a night with her father.

“I’ll always be with you,” he said. And he stroked her cheek gently, saying nothing. Her breathing steadied and her hands released their hold on the sheets.

“Tell me about your friends, Johanna.” The ones who told you security secrets.” Every few seconds he tapped the syringe.

“No one,” said Johanna. “No one told me.” She felt strong now. God on her right, Daddy on her left. She snuggled against the pillow, which, in her mind, became her father’s arm.

“Anthrax. FBI,” said the doctor.

“Gary Brown,” said Johanna. She saw the class as clearly as on the day that it happened.

Dr. Heckleweit was astounded. A name - an informant’s name. “How did you meet Gary Brown?” He reached forward and injected the remaining stimulant into her vein.

Johanna’s words became more distinct and her train of thought followed a logical sequence. “He taught a class on terrorism – way back before anyone ever thought of flying a plane into the World Trade Center.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Terrorists control by fear. And our military has more chemical weapons than anyone else. And it’s not that easy to use a chemical as a weapon. And, it’s not that easy to build a nuclear bomb.”

Johanna rubbed her face against her pillow. “So, when all’s said and done, our leaders did all the controlling and all the benefitting. And two of the targets were Tom Daschel and Pat Leahy, outspoken, overachieving political opponents. And does anyone really believe Sadaam Hussein building a nuclear bomb – oh, please!”

Dr. Heckleweit breathed a sigh of relief. “Go to sleep now,” he said and administered a sedative.

Back in Washington, waiting for the phone call, Alex could barely sit still. He reread his notes, and listened to Johanna’s tapes, drumming his fingers on his desk all the while.

“She learned all that from terrorism 1A?” Alex was stunned. He wrote a memo to himself – investigate Gary Brown.

“So it appears.”

“You know what this means?”

“We can’t let her live.”

“Keep her sedated for, say, three more days, just to make sure we haven’t missed anything. If you don’t hear from me by Thursday, get rid of her. I’ll make sure that there’s no autopsy.”



At three twenty-five a.m. Alex screamed and sat bolt upright in bed, but he didn’t wake up. Vivian debated whether to wake him up or not. He’d been having nightmares for quite some time now. A few times when she’d wakened him up, he had just shivered and refused to tell her anything. Then he’d been afraid to go back to sleep, only to waken screaming all over again. Well, no wonder with all the pressure he was under. He thrashed in his sleep, and Vivian wrapped a robe around herself and, feeling a little guilty for leaving Alex, went to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms. It seemed that neither one of them was getting much sleep lately. She wished Alex would tell her what was so wrong, but he’d fly into a rage whenever she asked.



In Alex’s dream he stood at the top of the Houston conference center like a god, watching the world crawl beneath him. The building melted, and he sat astride a breeze as he would a cushion. He stretched his arms up, then sideways and found he could glide carried on the wind. The sensation of soaring was pleasant, thrilling, and he gloried in rising on an updraft, then swooping down towards the earth below, seeing how low he could get before he arched his head up to rise again.

Higher and higher he climbed, then jackknifed into what was almost a free fall. Faster and faster, the earth rose to meet him, lush, soft, and tropical with vines and ferns. Faster still, wind rushed into his face. But suddenly below him were soldiers, and a screaming woman. Alex arched his back upward willing himself away from the frenzy. He hit an updraft. Higher and higher, he shot upwards, until the battleground below was less than a speck. He turned down towards the ground now, but he was too high. Faster and faster he hurtled towards the earth, then pulled out of his descent and found himself higher than before. Too high! Again he tried to soar downwards toward safety, but currents kept lifting him higher and higher. Thrill turned to fear. He was high enough now that he could see oceans with their coastlines snaking under cloud cover. Again, he tried to soar downwards. He picked up speed, arched upward, and plummeted, tumbling head over heels in uncontrolled free fall.

Then he woke up.

It took him a few seconds to realize that this was only a dream and that it was over. Indeed sometimes he wondered what was real and what was dreaming – the nightmares or his daytime life. He reached over, but Vivian was no longer with him. And he was so tired…

He sat astride the bull that no one could ride. The chute opened and Alex spurred the animal into a bucking frenzy. Two seconds into the arena, and Alex knew that the beast was his. The beast would serve him, and he, Alex, savored his power over the animal. Elated, he jabbed his heels into the creature’s side. The bull’s hide was tough, but Alex jabbed harder, harder still, until frothy blood flowed, red-black down the creature’s side. With that, the creature reared as a horse would do, then spun, first left then right, in tighter and tighter circles. Alex hung on. But underneath, the ground gave way. A pit of hissing sidewinders replaced the sand and sawdust. Alex hung on. Now the bull was twisting and weaving from left to right, and circling fast and hard.



Alex woke up in a cold sweat, wondering at first what brought on this panic. And then he remembered. His soul was dead. He hadn’t meant to sell his soul. Was he really doomed? The devil didn’t play fair. Maybe there was a way out. “Is there a way out?” Alex shouted at the walls. He pounded his pillow like a crazy man.

Vivian heard the shouting from the other room and pretended to be asleep. Lately Alex’s behavior frightened her. He hardly slept at all. And when he did nod off, he always woke up screaming or shaking in terror.

She’d tried talking to him, but Alex wouldn’t tell her any of this. She just chalked it up to the weight of leadership, and figured it was the sacrifice that Alex made to keep his country free.



Chapter XXXVI



Dr. Heckleweit had increased Johanna’s medication. Her pulse was weak, her breathing almost non-existent. But inside of her motionless body, Johanna’s dreams were vivid, full of the life that her body lacked. “We’ll save them all, me and my Daddy. We’ll save the all.” The dream came back from childhood.

“Here I am, your servant, she said in her dream. What should I do?” Her mind stilled, waiting for an answer. She had so few options, so little opportunity to serve. She was like someone in a nursing home, like someone confined to a wheelchair with nothing to do but pray morning and night. “Okay, so I’ll pray,” Johanna said in her dream.

When Maria walked in Johanna was scarcely breathing. Alarmed by Johanna’s weak vital signs, Maria popped a capsule of smelling salts under her nose. Johanna reacted with a faint sputter.

With Johanna mumbling, Maria put in a call to Dr. Heckleweit. “She almost died,” said Maria. The dosage is too high.”

“I told you when I hired you, never question your orders. She looks placid enough while she’s medicated, but Johanna’s a serious danger to our country. Her conversations with me leave no doubt that, given the opportunity, she’d blow us all up for fun. And she’s an accomplished con artist. Don’t let her fool you.”

“But her vitals are so low! She’s barely conscious. Can you at least look in on her?”

“Fine.” Dr. Heckleweit dropped his voice to a reassuring murmur. “Keep monitoring her vitals and I’ll take a look at her before I leave tonight.”

Johanna felt like she was under water. Nothing made sense. She shivered with cold, and with the sensation of something sinister and slimy crawling along her back. “Please, God, help me. Come back to me. Don’t leave me.” She thrashed and muttered. Most of the words were unintelligible, but Maria could make out “God,” and “leave.” So Maria did the only thing she could think of. “Mary, Mother of God, have mercy on your servant Johanna. Protect her, and save her soul. This I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.” It felt unsettling praying for a Muslim. But if Johanna were indeed a Muslim, why did she call on God and not Allah?

Two hours later, Johanna dropped into an uneasy sleep. “God … mercy,” she mumbled. With some misgiving, Maria took a final check of Johanna’s pulse and breathing, and left to catch up on her other duties.



Dr. Heckleweit pulled Johanna’s chart, and wherever his hand-written directions had said two milligrams he inserted a decimal point in front of the two. When he was certain that he’d made every change – caught every two – he walked down the hallway into Johanna’s room and checked her vitals. Instantly, he punched the button summoning Johanna’s nurse.

“Maria, what’s going on here? How much sedative have you administered to this patient?”

“”Two milligrams,” she answered.

“Read the orders. Does that look like two milligrams?”

“Maria’s heart stopped then and there. “Two tenths of a milligram, Doctor.” She looked up confused. For certain there had been no decimal there before. She’d checked the orders a dozen times, making sure she had it right, puzzled because the dose was so high. But there it was. “I’d read it as two milligrams,” she said, not even considering the possibility of questioning a doctor’s orders. The mistake had to be hers, although logic told her that she couldn’t have read and reread the orders as often and as carefully as she had and still gotten them wrong. “I thought it seemed high.”

“Start a new IV with saline, and… here give me that.” He grabbed the chart out of Maria’s hands and began scribbling a long list of medications, then scratched through it. “Never mind, just give her saline and glucose tonight. I’ll stay with her a while until her vitals grow stronger. And Maria…”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“If she dies you’ll be brought up on charges. Consider yourself extremely lucky that I caught this when I did.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Maria started the saline and glucose drip, shaken and embarrassed, but grateful that the error had been discovered in time.

“Maria,”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”

After Maria had gone, Dr. Heckleweit removed a syringe from his jacket pocket and injected its contents into Johanna’s IV line. Several minutes later, he checked Johanna’s pulse. Thirty-eight beats per minute. He checked it again five minutes later. Thirty-five. Then thirty-two. Then twenty-eight. He dropped Johanna’s arm wishing he’d used a stronger dose and settled into a chair to wait.

Johanna had only the faintest sensation of her arm being dropped, but she missed the warmth of his hand on her wrist. She felt so cold - as if her body were packed in ice. Johanna would have shivered, but she lacked the strength.

She tried moving an arm, a foot, a finger. Nothing worked. Have I died, she wondered. When she found the strength to squint open her eyes, Johanna had the sense of peering out unfocused from inside her body, so she was probably still mortal, her soul still attached to her body. And such a heavy body it was! She tried to move her arm again, but she might as well have tried to move a boulder. Johanna remembered once, as a child, trying to pull her Daddy out of bed. Try as she might, she had not been able to budge him. That’s what her body felt like.

How about now, she wondered. Am I dying now? Will I be dead by tomorrow? It seems sort of pathetic that my life is almost over, and I accomplished so little. But I did try to walk with you. And, in the big picture, God, I wonder how I rate. I know that life’s not supposed to be a contest – to see who dies with the fewest sins and the most good deeds. But I still wonder… I did the best I could, or at least I did what I did and some of it was good, and some was shameful and in the end I’ll come to you with my bag of sins and my bag of virtues, and we’ll sit down and talk. And her mind floated off to sleep.

She saw herself in a field of feathery greens and the wind seemed to chant the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The image of Alex came back into her mind. He was five years old. She remembered the set of his jaw, his lower teeth protruding like a bulldog’s. And she remembered the fight in the play yard. The gagging sense of dirt in the back of her throat came back as vividly as if it had just happened. Her arms and legs stung as they had when she’d been pushed down into the carrot patch all those years ago, and, along with it came the stifling sense of shame, violation, and betrayal as when Alex had told his story, and the teacher had believed him. More than the physical pain, the humiliation stung with fire. And just as it had all those years ago, fury in her heart burned strong. “Please, God, don’t ask me to forgive him, because I can’t. I want to…but I just can’t”

In her mind, she saw the five-year-old: she saw the freckles peppered over his face and his eyes, squinting tightly with anger. He towered over her as massive as a giant. She bit down on his fingers as she had all those years ago, and when she released it, his shape seemed to shift from boy to bear, and then it shrank to that of a scorpion.

Johanna snarled and stamped her foot, and the scorpion ran from her across a patch of hot white sand, his stinger curled safely under his tail. Seeking shade and moisture, he scuttled under a dried-up branch. Johanna picked up the branch. A twig broke off and with it she poked at the scorpion, prodding its claws, and watching it fend off her thrusts like a miniature boxer, whipping its tail forward into empty air all the while.

Just a bully, thought Johanna, while jabbing his middle with the stick, just a pathetic, impotent bully! And the twig glanced off of his hard shell with a “thunk”. Another poke and another prod. Now Johanna was herding the scorpion away from the dead branch’s cooling shade and back towards the hot sand. He veered away. And his legs, skittering along the sand, made chuck-chuck sounds with each step as the sand grains tumbled against each other.



Even though Dr. Heckleweit had said he’d stay with Johanna, Maria worried about her. Johanna’s vitals were so low! Maria had known that there was something dangerously wrong. She should have said something different to the doctor. All she’d told him was that the dose seemed too high. If she’d actually told him that she was administering two milligrams, he’d have corrected her right there, and Johanna wouldn’t be near death. I didn’t deserve this job,’ she thought. ‘I am not worthy.’



Johanna’s dream shifted, and now, a marshy coolness replaced the sand and the heat devils. Johanna followed the scorpion, her stick poised to hurt. And as she ran, Johanna shrank to the same smallness as the scorpion.

Now the sun was shadowed by a canopy of mossy branches cooling the chase below – the hapless scorpion and the girl with the stick. The ground was damp and clammy. Putrid whiffs of rotting carcasses filled the air: to the left, a crushed snake, his fangs shooting forward in final defiance, and to the right a bloated boar’s carcass, stuck in a pond of oozing mud.

Ignoring the death stench, Johanna prodded the scorpion, holding the stick like a lance, pushing him ever closer to the muddy pond. And now Johanna backed the scorpion into the ooze. His motion slowed and his legs kicked helplessly as thick mud coated his armored limbs. Johanna followed, plodding through the goo, pushing the scorpion farther into the middle of the pool, ignoring the slime creeping up around her ankles.

Finally the scorpion’s body broke the plane of liquid and sank beneath the ooze. Johanna followed after, stepping high as the mud came up to her hips, and it sucked at her legs with each step pulling her off balance. Had he died? He must have. Johanna had finally defeated the playground bully, the bossy five-year-old with the freckles and grimace. But she didn’t feel victorious, only small and vindictive. He was only a kid ,she thought, doing the kind of dumb thing kids do.

But scorpions are hardy. Maybe he wasn’t dead yet. She poked her stick into the ooze at the place where the scorpion had sunk, pushing upwards this time, trying to lift the body. She kept scooping at the mud with her twig, trying to scoop up its body. Probably too late. She should give up. And even if she could fish him back out, how was she going to clean the mud off to let him breathe? With another thrust of the stick, she stepped forward. There was nothing solid beneath her feet. She sank to her armpits, then took a breath as mud and death closed over her head.

Doctor Heckleweit checked Johanna’s pulse. Twenty-five beats per minute. He’d hoped that it would drop faster. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Johanna’s room when she actually died. A few minutes later, he checked it again. Twenty-three. Then twenty. He entered Maria’s code into the monitoring equipment, increased the speed of the drip, and disconnected the audible alarm. Then he left the room, planning to wait another few minutes before calling the orderlies to remove the body.

Underneath the suffocating blanket of mud, Johanna flailed her arms around. She drew a breath, inhaling slime. Her throat choked. She tried to cough, and her lungs just shut down. Her hand, thrashing in panic, bore down on a hard object. She felt something claw-like - and then a slender curved shape, like a string of beads. And then she felt fire all through her arm as the scorpion bore down on her fingers with the tip of his tail. She was dying. Johanna knew that. Her last act would be one of kindness. She reached for him, and holding his stinger pinched between her hands, she thrust upward toward air and life. I wonder if he made it, she thought, and then there was only blackness.



Chapter XXXVII



Maria couldn’t stop praying – as if the thoughts in her head had a will of their own. She finished her chores as quickly as possible, then ran back to Johanna’s room to peek in through the doorway to see how she was doing. Maria didn’t dare actually walk in – in case Dr. Heckleweit was there. She’d been told to stay away. Disobeying orders, thought Maria. Guilt came easily to her. She slowed to a walk and softly pushed at Johanna’s door. Maria practiced what she’d say to the doctor. “I’m so sorry, Doctor. I think I might have left an earring in here.” She wasn’t good at telling effective fibs. But Dr. Heckleweit was no longer in the room. Maria looked at Johanna’s monitor. So little movement! Only a few shallow blips to show that any life remained. Why wasn’t someone here? Where was the doctor? He said he was going to stay with Johanna. Terrified, she reached for the button to call Code Blue – a patient in crisis, but she held back. She wasn’t supposed to be in the room.

Just then, two men in smocks opened the door startling Maria. She wheeled around. The larger man spoke. “We understood that the patient in this room has passed.” And they entered with a stretcher to take the remains.

“But…” Maria wasn’t sure what to do. “But she’s not dead.”

The man grabbed Johanna’s wrist and felt for a pulse. “Close enough for government work,” he said, and he elbowed Maria out of the way and unhooked the I. V. drip and monitors.

Maria felt so very small and inadequate. “Into your hands, oh Lord, I commend her spirit,” she said, then made the sign of the cross over Johanna. She watched the men roll Johanna’s body onto a stretcher. “What will you do with her,” Maria asked softly.

“According to Dr. Heckleweit, she doesn’t have any family so the institute will dispose of the body. There’s a small crematorium about thirty miles away from here.” He nodded towards his partner. “We’ll take the body as far as our morgue. As soon as someone has to drive into town, they’ll take the body the rest of the way.”

“May I come with you?” She asked. “Johanna was my first patient here.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m Stanley. My partner here is Vince.”

They wheeled Johanna’s body into a waiting van, and drove about a mile down an overgrown path to a metal Quonset hut about thirty feet in length. The men had to pull hard to get the door to open, and, when it did, the creaking groan made Maria jump. Inside, dust, spider webs, and mouse droppings littered the floor. Maria’s eyes adjusted slowly. The only light came from two tiny windows on the right wall. Here and there a Styrofoam cup or a candy wrapper gave evidence that humans had also used the shed. Then she blinked as Vince flipped a switch to turn on a naked light bulb that dangled in the center of the shed.

The building seemed to be a back-of-the-lot storage area housing a metal closet resembling a meat locker. Row upon row of shelves lined the walls, holding medical and mechanical odds and ends – plastic and metal tubing, switches, old smocks and blankets, and various strange metallic gadgets unknown to Maria. A stack of cardboard boxes, each about three feet wide, seven feet in length and two feet tall were stacked against the far wall, and Maria shivered, realizing that the boxes were coffin-sized. Without ceremony or deference, the men dumped Johanna’s body into one of the boxes and lugged it inside of the metal closet and slammed the heavy door shut.

“May I stay with her a minute?” asked Maria.

“Better not,” said Vince. “We’re really not supposed to bring people out here.”

So Maria prayed a quick prayer, and left with the men.

Outside, Maria paused. Vince locked the shed, checking the lock, and the two men waited for her to get into the van, Vince stamping his foot impatiently. “I’d rather walk back,” she said, turning her steps toward the institute.

“Suit yourself,” Stanley huffed.

“We really shouldn’t let her…” Vince started to say.

“What’s she going to do? Steal the body? Just get in the van.” A minute later, Stanley gunned the engine, and the Maria watched the van passing her on the dusty road.



Johanna’s mind burst out of its oblivion as a new hallucination followed:

The house was old with many rooms and Johanna wandered through them unafraid, opening doors and peering into cupboards.

The boards on the steps creaked under her feet, and an icy chill flew up the stairway as she climbed it. She shivered as wind brushed her soaked skin, and she considered turning back but knew that she had to go on. In the attic, a canopy of oak branches formed the ceiling, and shaggy, moss -covered rock hugged the wall. And Johanna sat on a rock not wanting to get up ever. But she had to. She had to see what was below, and so she descended, dreading the rooms in the basement.

There was only one door and it had a smiley face next to it, and Johanna felt revulsion touching the knob, but went inside. It was that office, with bare cement blocks replacing the chair and couch. And she stared at Dr. Heckleweit but couldn’t see his face – only shadow.

He spoke with a Middle Eastern accent, and the words blurred like runny Jell-O. “In here, Johanna, you’ll find that God is dead.” Johanna’s mind exploded with impressions of burning pain. The cement melted into oily pools. And she stared. One of the pools caught fire. A hose lay just outside the door. And she stared as paper and drapes jumped alive with orange flame, and now she saw his face clearly. The blaze caught at the fringe of his coat, and still she sat watching. The sound of running water jingled just outside the door.

Flames caught her gown. She felt the heat and the burn, and still she sat not moving, willing them both to be consumed. Fire burning around the two of them, consuming both, the doctor and Johanna, and she couldn’t make a move towards the water.

And God said, “Johanna, get the water.”

And she heard and sat, stubborn, wallowing in the pain that was now more her own creation than his.



Maria kept walking towards the institute until the two orderlies were out of sight, then turned back towards the shed at a brisk trot. The sun hung low on the horizon, and the sky burst into pink and orange and red flames. As she jogged down the path, thankful that her uniform included sensible nurses’ shoes, she thought about all the things she had seen at the institute. Something was very wrong. Certainly their methods differed from what she had been taught in nursing school. Even criminals were treated with more dignity than Johanna had been.

And why, if Johanna were Muslim, did she talk about God and not Allah? That didn’t make sense. Of course she could have been hiding her religion, but, as drugged as she was, she couldn’t have kept up the pretext of Christianity for long.

Maria was scared. She didn’t know everything.

And who had called the orderlies? Maria was the only one who could have known that Johanna had died.

The door to the building was padlocked. She examined the lock and checked the door for gaps or weak spots. She examined the windows. Maria was reluctant to break the glass, but she finally managed to pry one of the windows open, squeeze herself inside, and get the light turned on. Fearfully, she opened the door to the metal closet. A blast of cold made her shiver. Slabs of beef and pork hung in a row speared on thick hooks. So it was a meat locker.

Maria knelt next to the box on the dirty floor of the shack. It was mostly an act of respect - a wish to commend Johanna’s soul to God, with some final act of reverence.



The jostling motion nudged Johanna, continuing the dream:

Inside the burning room, Johanna sat, stubborn, unforgiving – with both her body and the doctor’s twisted in pain. And the hose lay just outside the door.

“You let me down, Lord. You abandoned me. You asked me to hang the sign, then set me down in the middle of hell on earth and I called you, and you did not answer.”

“I was there.”

“But I didn’t see. I didn’t know. And I was scared and hurting and I called you and asked you to help me, and you didn’t. And I never did anything to deserve all the pain.”

“Johanna.”

“And now you want me to forgive.”

“Johanna!”

Reluctantly she rose and quenched the flames with water, water that laughed as a children running through lawn sprinklers in August. And, through the splashing water, she saw the doctor’s face, shining golden, all but hidden by black, oily smoke. Before, all she’d seen was the smoke. But now, shining through all that, Johanna caught a glimpse of what she’d never seen before – the soul – pure essence – the part of him that God loved. Like the part of her that God had loved and had forgiven all those years ago.

And through the same smoke she saw the rest of them, the nameless faces who had sacrificed her country and her freedom for their greed.

The smoke was there. Corruption, lies, murder. All there. But, shining through it all, God’s divine spark and the souls that God so loved. Amazed and humbled, Johanna found that she could love them too.



Maria looked at the coffin. It seemed such a pathetic end. “Dear God in Heaven.” Shivering, Maria sat down on the floor of the meat locker and made the sign of the cross. “I offer prayers for the soul of Johanna Jacobson. Grant her an entrance into your land of light and life. Please, Lord, I don’t know what she’s done or how she came to be here, but she’s suffered so much. May she find your love and your peace at the end of it all. Then, Maria was weeping, strangely caring about this person whom she barely knew, whom she’d never seen except in a deeply drugged state. And she opened the box to hold Johanna’s hand one last time.

The hand quivered. It was just a reflex and meant nothing. Maria knew this from her training. But she felt for a pulse nevertheless, and she found it beating stronger than it had back at the hospital room. She touched Johanna’s nose and felt a slow steady stream of air. She shook Johanna, but Johanna remained unresponsive.

“Get up. Wake up. If you want to live, get up.” Maria prodded and jostled and screamed at Johanna, but Johanna remained still. “I need your help. I can’t get you out of here by myself.” She dragged the box out of the locker and scooted it towards the padlocked door. She examined the walls looking for sheets of metal that could be peeled back. She looked up at the window through which she had crawled, so high off the ground. Maria tugged at the box, sliding it toward the window, all the time doubting she’d be able to get Johanna out. And she propped up the box containing Johanna’s limp body and pushed it towards the window’s opening, grateful that Johanna couldn’t feel what Maria was doing to her. She got Johanna’s body halfway out the window, then realized that what she was planning was impossible. She might be able to get Johanna out through the window, hopefully without major injury, but she could never carry Johanna the mile or so back to her car. Johanna’s body only weighed about ninety pounds, but it was still more than Maria could manage by herself, even if Johanna came to and could stumble. And if anyone caught her walking with Johanna… Maria didn’t even want to think of the consequences. She needed a way to get Johanna out through the window. She needed to think.

So Maria dragged the box back towards the shelves where the other crematory boxes were stored, and pushed it against the wall below the bottom shelf. Then she chose another box and moved it to the spot in the locker where Johanna had originally been placed. She loaded the box with four pork loins, hoping that their weight was close enough to that of Johanna’s body. Then she climbed out the window and jogged back to the parking lot at the institute where she’d left her car. Had it only been that morning? It seemed like an entire lifetime had passed in the course of that day.



Jasper and Dakota were tired. Delivering the body for cremation and picking up a package for Dr. Heckleweit were their last tasks for the day. After that, it was beer, pool, and, if they were lucky, company for the night. Jasper pulled a fat ring of keys from his pocket, and jingled them looking for the one belonging to the lock on the shed’s door. Meanwhile, Dakota rolled a dolly from the truck bed onto a hydraulic lift gate, then lowered it to the uneven crushed-rock path. “Come on, already. It’s way past quitting time, and I’m starving.”

“Don’t stroke out, man,” Jasper answered. “I’ve just about got it.”

From inside the box, Johanna heard the door creak open. The squeaking was loud, like a peacock’s cry, and Johanna startled from the sound. “Help! Help! I’m in here.” She thought she was screaming, but no sound came out. She thought the words, but could not make the sounds. A noise, she thought. Any noise. Her left hand rested on the bottom of the casket, and she scratched the cardboard with her nails. Her hands were weak, as weak as her voice. She scratched again.

“Do you hear anything?” Dakota shivered. He didn’t like being around cadavers.

“Probably mice.”

“Let’s just get out of here.”

“No,” Johanna’s mind yelled, but her mouth stayed quiet. It was too hard, too foggy. She tried to move her arm, but it stayed limp. She heard the men shuffling about the shed, and she heard the locker door click open. With all the strength in her body, she willed her hand to scratch the cardboard. She opened her mouth to scream. A groan, almost silent, finally escaped her throat.

Dakota jumped. “We’re out of here – right now.”

Without bothering to load up the dolly, they picked up the coffin that Maria had left in the meat locker and hauled it out to the waiting truck. Johanna heard the sound of the door pushed shut, and the noise of the lock clicking into place. “Please, help me. Help me.” Her mind thought the words, but her throat stayed silent. She heard the motor grumble to a start, then the sound of tires spraying gravel. And the sound grew smaller and stiller as the truck drove into the distance. And then there was nothing - the inside of a box and nothing else.

At first Johanna’s dream came in flashes appearing and vanishing like movie teasers. Then the impressions slowed and gelled into a dreamscape below a blood-red sky: Cauldrons reeked and smoked, while horned creatures - almost human - chanted, and writhed and screamed and groaned till Johanna thought her soul would burst.

The smoke snaked outwards - calling, enticing. Street gangs were the first humans to respond and gather – Bloods, and Crypts, Skinheads, and Arian nations, their tattoos and bandanas defining allegiances. Knives flashed. Shots rang. Some shrieked and fell. Still, their numbers grew.

Others arrived. An army gathered - some in tatters, some in business suites, and some in death-white hoods. They marched through time as well as space, some swathed in robes and tunics, others in uniforms, their medals and sabers glowing bright. Some could barely stand; others strutted power. Some wore armor; others were clad in priests’ robes. Some wore street clothes, and some were merely naked.

From man to man to woman to child they passed a smoking torch, that carried no earthly fire, but rather that spirit of hatred residing in the hidden reaches of the soul where most humans dare not look. And they passed it along, one to another, and it seemed the passing would not stop.

The devil laughed – large and black with a drowning roar.

Johanna saw anger, a smoke- brown flame, flashing in gun muzzles and mirrored in the eyes of both victim and oppressor. Fear was there on icy tendrils. And pride - steel gray - it rode as a knight on stallion, and, with a mighty belch, transformed the noble into manure.

The devil’s laughter bellowed inside of her. He’d won the world. He’d won the souls of all - victims and conquerors alike. Some souls, he torched with hate; others he drowned in fear, or poisoned by pride, or froze in despair. It didn’t matter how they died. The devil had them. His rumbling laughter shook Johanna’s stomach and in her dream she cringed from fright.

From one to the next, they passed the torch. Those humans, they were merely carriers, serving the devil as his jeeps and horses.

Johanna watched the furies uniting, like winds twisting into a tornado while she stood naked before the devil’s armies.

And hate filled her heart too. She reached for the words, but shuddering anger appeared instead. And she wanted to destroy the fire and every being that had helped to create it.

But he stepped forward. Johanna thought it was her father at first, but no. He was Jesus, the Good Shepherd, healing and forgiving. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he said, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

And he was Jesus the rebel, overturning tables in the temple where greedy men used God’s name to turn a profit.

And he was Jesus the man, kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane, “If it be possible, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will but your will be done.”

And he was Jesus the Divine King, a soul in agony condemned to death on a cross, then rising from that cross into glory… And then he was gone.

“I choose love,” Johanna said.

Rumbling laughter shook her like palm branches in a hurricane. “Join us and live,” the evil one roared. “Save yourself from torment. I am stronger than you.”

“I choose love.” Standing alone - so small, so weak - she waited to perish.

“And I choose love,” said a nameless voice behind her.

“And I,” said another.

“Christ’s blessings.”

“Shalom.”

“Allah be praised.”

The chorus swelled from six to thousands, to legions upon legions - the soldiers, the street gangs, the children and beggars and kings - a living hymn to God. And in their midst a voice rang out: “Come! All who are thirsty, let them come. Let them take the free gift of the water of life.” It was the image of Christ pouring water from an urn. Johanna stooped under it and drank and was washed clean. The water filled her spirit and quenched her thirst and dried every tear.



It was almost dark when Maria returned in her car. She pushed the window open and began to crawl into the warehouse, trying in vain to see inside. She clambered back out, turned on the car’s engine, and pointed the headlights towards the shed, and again pushed her head through the window. Afraid of what she’d find inside, Maria hesitated on the sill, then jumped down and made her way, stumbling, towards the light switch.

She searched out the shelves where the cardboard coffins were kept, then dragged out the one on the floor, thankful that it was heavy. At least the body was still inside. Hopefully, it was still alive.

Maria was trembling now, afraid of being alone, afraid of someone discovering her, afraid that Johanna was already dead, afraid of ghosts, afraid that Johanna would pull out a gun and shoot her, and afraid of so many other things. But she opened the lid, and gingerly reached inside and touched Johanna’s cheek. Then she felt under her nose for the warm air that would indicate breathing. Johanna did not move. Her skin was cool, and there was no breath coming from her nostrils.

No, Maria thought. She began to rub Johanna’s cheek, gently at first, then harder. She wanted to shove the box back under the shelf and run. “Please,” she said out loud. “Johanna, you have to wake up. She pulled Johanna’s arm, and found it pliable, not rigid. Again she felt for breath under Johanna’s nostrils, and was rewarded with a faint puff of air. She felt at Johanna’s neck for a pulse, and found a slight thumping – weak and very slow, but also regular.

Maria cried.

She breathed into Johanna’s mouth – two breaths. “You just cannot die now, Miss Johanna, not after all of this. You made it this far and against so much. Please, stay alive just a little longer.”

Panicking all the while, she pulled at Johanna’s arms to get her upright, but the body was limp and uncooperative. With frenzied, jerks Maria tried to boost Johanna up towards the window, but the body always ended up back in the box on the floor, and Maria despaired of ever getting her out of the warehouse.

And finally her nurse’s training took over. If there’s one thing they taught us, thought Maria, it was how to move a limp body. And she breathed slowly and deeply to calm herself. Maria rolled Johanna from the box to the floor and onto her side, and slung Johanna’s upper torso across her back - the fireman’s carry. Using her legs and back, Maria staggered upright, then made her way towards the window, and leaned Johanna over the sill with Johanna’s head lolling outside. “I’m sorry, Miss Johanna. This will probably hurt you, but I don’t know how else to do it.” She climbed outside, squeezing her own body through the window past Johanna’s limp form, and bloodying her shins as she scrambled over the sill. I must open the car’s back door first, she thought. Then she knelt on the hood of her car and, pulling on Johanna’s arms, scraped her over the sill. Johanna’s body thudded headfirst onto the hood where Maria caught Johanna’s arms. Squatting next to the car, Maria was able to sling Johanna across her shoulders, and stagger around to the open door and drop her inside. Johanna ended up flopped on the floor, and Maria gunned the engine and drove away praying that she wouldn’t be stopped at the gate.



She questioned the wisdom of bringing Johanna home with her. What if Johanna awoke and became violent! Or suppose a neighbor came by and saw her, and called the police! But Maria couldn’t think of any safer place to leave Johanna, and so, with much misgiving, she drove home thankful that night had fallen, and that she’d probably be able to get her into the house without attracting any attention.

Maria’s home was a converted army barrack, which she shared with her father, mother, and two younger brothers. Her father hauled debris and did what odd jobs he could find. Her mother cleaned houses and baby-sat. They had all made sacrifices to send Maria to nursing school in the hope that she would make good - would raise herself and her family out of poverty. Well, thought Maria, that dream is over. And, she cried bitterly for losing the American dream, and for shaming and disappointing her parents. And she cried because she was so frightened of what could happen next.

Ordinarily she shouted a greeting to her parents when she entered the house. This time, Maria entered silently. And she laid Johanna on her own bed, limp and unresponsive, but with a slightly stronger breath and pulse.

What have I done, Maria asked herself staring at Johanna’s limp body. What, in God’s name am I doing now? Maria had never bent rules before. She’d never questioned superiors. And now - and now she’d flagrantly disobeyed orders and ignored the ones in authority. She felt trapped as if walls of water were about to drown her.

Someone else had done this, someone reckless, foolish, someone in Maria’s body who was not Maria, and now she, Maria, was left to deal with the consequences. For Maria was sure that sooner or later she would be caught, and maybe jailed as a traitor. And what if Johanna were to die in her apartment? This was more than she could deal with.

Maria bent over Johanna’s body checking her pulse one more time. It seemed the only thing she was capable of doing. Why had she done it? Johanna was in all likelihood a terrorist, a cruel and dangerous person, and an enemy of the United States of America. And she, Maria, had let her loose to prey on innocents, to wreck havoc.

Maria shuddered thinking about the country she had just betrayed. She remembered swearing her allegiance to the United States. She thought about everything that this country had given her – an education, an opportunity for her family to have a comfortable life, a life that she couldn’t have aspired to in the Philippines. She remembered how large and brilliant the flag had seemed the day she pledged her loyalty to the United States of America. And now, now she’d thrown it all away. And for what?

Gently she passed her hands over the welts and bruises on Johanna’s body. A few places were still infected. Some scars ran deep – great ropes of reddish, thickened skin knotted over her stomach and the insides of her arms and legs – the sensitive, tender parts of her body. And Maria understood - the country to which she pledged her loyalty would not allow this to happen. The United States that she loved, that she had promised to defend, was a country that did not condone torture. Whatever Johanna did, she was not entitled to such treatment. And whoever did this, whoever condoned this, was an enemy of the United States.

Maria startled as her mother entered her room. She wiped at her tears. Her mother tipped her face quizzically. “What happened?”

“She has been hurt. Maybe killed. I didn’t know what to do.” Maria’s mother left the room. Quietly she came back with a small bottle of antiseptic. And she kissed her daughter.

“I have been…fired,” said Maria.

“We will make do.” She handed the antiseptic to Maria. “You were kind, and honorable. Hold your head high.”

Maria swabbed the weeping sores with antiseptic and covered them loosely with bandages. She had one small bag of saline solution, which she injected into Johanna’s vein a small dose at a time. She hoped it would help displace some of the poison from her body. She gave Johanna the best of her nurses training. And tending Johanna, for the first time that day, she felt herself a patriot.