Chapter 39
I wore my second best new suit to the formal turkey dinner and sat next to Felice. China with gold accents, sterling silverware, linen napkins and tablecloths, the table was a work of art and the Chef had gone all out with the menu. Roast turkey stuffed with cornmeal and chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied carrots and yams, green beans, green beans Almandine, potato soufflé, acorn squash with maple syrup and pecans. Enough food for an Army. Jake, Mitchell and several of the President’s favorites were seated with us, along with Dad and Ms. Penny. They bowed their heads and said grace which surprised me, I hadn’t thought any of Felice’s family were that religious. My Dad proposed a toast. After that, he congratulated me on my engagement and said he was thankful for good friends and my safe return, was excited to see what the New Year would bring.
They went round the table and came back to me. I sat there with my fork in my lap, my eyes down, feeling that sucking well of despair take hold of my ankles and pull. Felt Felice reach under the table and put her hand on my belly, the lowest part of me that I could still feel human touch as both a warning and comfort. Those things I wanted to say that I would’ve been more thankful had I died than be in this chair, that I was sick of someone having to do things for me, that I hated the stares of pity from people who knew me, that the thought of 50+ more years in this chair terrified me. That I was even more scared of how the world would treat me if they knew what my mind could do.
Instead, I said, “I’m grateful I can eat a lot.” Everyone laughed and I shoveled in the food, so I didn’t have to talk; I could ignore the conversation that went on around me until I caught the tail end of Agent Gaines words. “What?” I froze with my knife up halfway through buttering a flaky homemade croissant. “What about Colonel Pierce?”
“CIA found traces of him in South America. São Paulo,” he answered.
“He’s out of the country? Good.” I put down the pastry. “He can’t do much harm, then.”
“Don’t be so sure, Danny,” he chided. “He was head of the NSA, he’ll have contacts and Black op operatives everywhere. Informants and mercenaries he can hire. Slush funds he has access to.”
“Slush funds?” I asked.
“Black Market accounts for clandestine operations,” Dad answered. “Millions. He can operate for years on what he stockpiled. And if he follows true, he’ll have his own offshore accounts.”
“So I have to spend the rest of my life hiding?” I was bitter.
“No. Too many people know who you are now, Danny. The boy who saved the President and bank hostages. You’re famous. Be a lot harder to steal and hide you.”
“No one knows how I did it, right? Knows about the dog and cat thing?”
“No. Just us here,” Dad and the President said at the same time.
“What kind of engagement ring are you going to give Felice?” Dad asked into the sudden quiet.
I flushed. I hadn’t even asked her yet but then, the way she fit into my thoughts, there wasn’t any need to ask. “A blue sapphire or an emerald like her eyes,” I said, knowing that she wanted either or, instead of a diamond.
“Are you sure, Felice?” Her mom asked and she turned those blazing green eyes on her.
“More than I’ve ever been sure of anything in my life,” Felice returned with total conviction. The wait staff came in, began to remove our empty plates and Chef Proust himself pushed in the dessert tray. I had eyes only for the Black Forest cake. Although I managed a piece of chocolate pecan pie and pumpkin. The world might end, but my stomach wouldn’t care. After dessert, the men who were men retired to the den to watch the game. Felice and I went to the library. Everyone was somewhere else, the public part of the joint was closed because of the holidays. Senate and Congress were on hiatus till after New Year’s.
“Danny, about the engagement and the ring,” Felice started, and I pulled her down to kiss her.
“I know your mind,” I whispered. “Like my own. I would’ve gotten around to asking. I love you. I’m a very grown up fourteen, you know.”
She giggled at that. “What was my mom thinking to set you off the other night?”
“You don’t want to know, Lisi.”
“Can you afford a ring, Danny?”
“I think so. I don’t know if I was paid when I was Daniel, but I’m sure I had a savings account.” I seemed to remember a few stock options I had capitalized on.
“Well, when are you taking me to look?”
I almost asked her why we didn’t go online or have her pick one out herself, but throwing my courage to the wind, I said, “pick a day and I’ll go with you.”
“Really? Really, you’ll go out? To the city?”
“Wherever you want, Felice,” I swallowed. “The Mall will be fine, Felice.” Although thought of crowds of strangers made my heart race and my hands break out in a cold sweat.
“A smaller place, like the Galleria?”
“Whatever you want,” I repeated and dropped my head. She raised it by a finger under my chin.
“I know this is hard for you, Danny. I know how much you’ve given and lost. Your legs aren’t what made you 10 feet tall or why I love you.”
I buried my head into her stomach and held her around the waist, sniffling back the tears and letting her feel what I lived with, letting her in so she could heal me. I felt it again, that thin edge of menace that tickled my thoughts.
I felt myself spiraling out as I eagerly searched for him, leap frogging from Vange to Sassy, to an eagle high above the Potomac looking for fish, a buck standing in the woods near the Beltway and finally a dog hunched under a desk in a sleazy motel off the Interstate. I couldn’t see the dog’s owner, but I could see the tall brick floors of the building outside the room’s windows. Recognized it as a hospital I had been in and saw the man’s hand reach down to pat the dog. Heard him say, “Jellybean, shall we go play with our little hero?”
The dog, a black and white Border collie stood up and stared towards his face, so I could see who it was. The voice wasn’t the Colonel’s or Doctor Cohen’s replacement. It was no one’s voice I knew. Long legs in jeans, wide hands with hair on the knuckles, dark reddish skin. A belt made of wide leather with a silver and turquoise buckle, ordinary dress shirt with the cuffs folded back, slim waist and broad shoulders. The coldest eyes I’d ever seen. I took a step backwards. He was dark haired and black-eyed like either a Mexican or Native American. I delicately extended a probe into his thoughts, and found a lazy swirl of inanities as he stared at the black and white Border collie.
“Well, hello, little hero,” he smiled and I froze. How the hell did he know I was in the dog? I willed myself back out, but something held me inside with a grip I couldn’t break. Twisting and turning, I pushed, but nothing worked. I could hold him out of my mind, but I couldn’t get loose from him. His hand came up and in it was a gun, huge black automatic, a forty caliber twenty shot Glock. The end of the barrel was huge.
“Colonel says hi, Danny,” he smiled and shot. I felt the dog die, her death throes were brief as the heavy bullet smashed her head into pieces. Heard myself scream and fall out of the chair, yet my mind, my essence was ripped free from my body to snap into a formless darkness.