Chapter 12
The desert stretched all around us, an endless vista of sand dunes, Cholla cactus and Saguaro. There were tents set up here and there; under them, was a makeshift camp of soldiers resting out of the heat and digging holes. I could see part of a downed aircraft, just a piece of the tail, but knew it was a jet and that it was in many pieces.
"Unload him under the tent," he ordered and I was carried o ut like a mail parcel and dumped on a cot near the entrance where the sun came in baking that corner. Sweat poured out of me in sheets and instantly dried. I tried wiggling and got a slap on the ass for it.
"Don't move."
Several grunts came over to eyeball me. "Report, Capt. Jeffers?" The Colonel demanded.
"Peterson, make sure the Senator and Mr. Andrews are taken to the air-conditioned tent."
"Yes, sir," one of the guards saluted and led the two wilting suits away.
"No sign of the pilots‘ bodies or ordinance, Sir," the young grunt said eyes riveted on me.
"Six days and no one can find them? Two Stinger missiles, four Tomahawks and two men with parachutes. Oh well, time to pull out my little project." He cut something at the back of my head, and a rubber gag popped out of my mouth. "Don't say a word or the gag goes back in," he threatened.
I swallowed my mouth full of drool and the taste of rubber. "This is how this works. You find some things for me and I let you live without leg chains and cuffs. Curse again, or bring up that fireworks show, you'll get tasered and gagged. Understand?"
I nodded. "Understood. What is it you want me to find?"
"You know what a cruise missile is?" Now, everyone within earshot perked up and studied me. "Yeah."
"Find it. Find them, four of them."
"And the pilots?"
"Them, too."
"I need something of theirs."
"Like what? Clothing, photo?"
"Anything they've touched in the last few days." He pointed to the tail of the plane. I touched it, untangled the thousands of strings to pull out the ones he wanted and followed them out into the brutal sunshine, heading in the opposite direction than where everyone else was searching.
"There's 100 miles of nothing but sand that way. Are you sure? We would have spotted wreckage on the salt flats. How far out?"
"Too far to walk," I muttered. So they rounded up dune buggies and followed my directions. What looked like a flat sand was in reality, ravines and gullies hidden by dunes and mirages. I made them stop after an hour, got off the buggy and walked into a draw concealed by an outcropping of sandstone. There was the first pilot's body, bloated and covered with flies already nearly skeletonized. There wasn't much smell left; the heat had parched all the fluids out.
Two hours to the west, I found the other. It was sundown before I reach the last missile and I was exhausted, dehydrated and ready to collapse. No one had thought to give me any water and from the way they were eying me, I was lucky not to be strung up in stocks. They thought I was some kind of which. Even the smart mouthed Colonel was silent. He pulled me over to the nearest sand buggy and got on the radio, reported the GPS locations and handed me a bottle of water. I drank it gratefully in three swallows and looked for more. "Not too fast," he cautioned.
"You'll vomit."
I sat down in the closest shade, closed my eyes and went away for a while.
*****
The hand that shook me awake wasn't the Colonel's or one of the bigwigs, but one of the grunts who'd been shoveling aimlessly near the tail section. He was only a few years older than me, pretty enough to be a Justin Bieber look-alike but more buffed and with a dark tan and wrinkles from the sun. His eyes were pale blue under the sunglasses he wore on his forehead. He held out a bottle of ice water. "What's your name, kid?" He asked and my lips twisted in amusement. I felt a hundred years older than he did.
"Jade. Jadewyn James. You?" I allowed him the luxury of introducing himself even though he wore his name on his breast pocket. He was an airman first class.
"Pete Janssen." He waited, as if I should know it.
"Hi."
"My sister –" he paused, rubbed his neck, which was his brown as a butternut. "My sister is Kassie Lyn Janssen. Older sister. She disappeared eight years ago. In Florida, from her art literature class. The police think she was kidnapped and murdered."
"I'm sorry." I took the water and drank it.
"Will you look for her? I'll pay you. Eight years I‘ve been waiting for my sister to come home, my parents have beggared themselves both mentally and financially looking for her. I can't sleep at night for nightmares, she calls me, tells me she wants to come home. Sometimes, I see her walking down the street, at the Mall and when I touch them, it's only a stranger. Please, can you bring Kassie home?"
I heaved a sigh, picked up his hand, searched for the flavor of his sister‘s string, and found it, wafting gently in the air. Its end was torn and frayed, ghostly after eight years and broken in a particularly heinous way. I got the image of 55-gallon drums stored in a locker, one of those You Rent All places. The horrible thing was, there were 20 or more of them stacked neatly inside a Pod.
"St. Louis, Missouri. Unit 257, under the name Axelrod," I told him he sobbed out a thank you. "She's in the 12th drum," I added wearily.
"12! How many are there?"
"20 or more. He's been doing it for a long time."
"Who? Who did it?" Now he was flushed with anger, but I wouldn't walk down that string nor taste the flavor of it. I'd eaten enough shit these last few weeks.
"No more, please," I covered my eyes. "You won‘t get anyone to open the locker up without a warrant and they won't give you one without probable cause."
He laughed harshly. "I'll find a way to get in there, don't worry." He pressed my hands, got up and walked over to his captain who was deep in conversation with him.
The Colonel came over, and stood over me. He spoke finally, "you can return to your room, Jade. Sorry, but the handcuffs and ankle chains have to go back on."
"Where can I go? You think I can whistle up a dragon down here, fly me off? Or an invisible jet? Or teleport myself? I'm stuck here until you drag me out." I held out my wrists, he wrapped his fingers around them, and pulled me to my feet.
"Get in the back of the Humvee, and don't say a word," he ordered and I followed him, sat between two armed guards. We caravanned between the flatbed with the wreckage, and the loaded bodies. Others would return in the morrow for the lost ordinance.