Do-Gooder (18 page)

“Now let me see Isaiah.” Chuck’s voice was cold. If he felt any fear at facing armed mercenaries, I couldn’t tell. Of course, for all I knew, he was surrounded by Special Forces soldiers.

Someone pulled me roughly from the jeep and dragged me forward a few yards. I stumbled and the guard’s grip on my arm nearly wrenched my shoulder out of its socket, though it kept me from falling to the ground.

“Once we have verified the contents, you can take him with you.” Shorty barked orders to… somebody. Damn, I really wished I could see what was going on. I felt like I was standing in front of an old-fashioned firing squad. Waiting for a bullet to the brain.

Minutes dragged by as I stood there. My legs shook and sweat trickled down my face and neck. A hot breeze wafted over me, doing nothing to warm the cold chills racing through my veins.

Another minute passed.

Then another.

Finally, when I was sure I was going to pass out from the stress, Shorty ordered my release. The guard holding me pulled the blindfold off my face and pushed me forward. Sunlight blinded and burned my eyes as I stumbled forward. I couldn’t see where I was going, but that didn’t stop me from heading sightlessly toward my father’s voice. I tried to run, but my legs were too weak to do more than a shambling walk.

I didn’t even notice that I was crying until my foot caught on something and I crashed into the hard, sand-dusted ground. The wracking sobs made it impossible to stand up.

“Isaiah!” Gentle arms helped me sit up before I was pulled in a hard hug. I didn’t need Chuck’s repeated mutters of “I’ve got you” to know who held me. It was a bone-deep recognition. A remembrance of all the times he’d held me as a child.

I dropped my head onto my father’s shoulder as relief, fear, and desperation battled for an outlet. “Oh God, Dad. Henry. They’ve still got Henry.”

His arms tightened around me, and I let myself be comforted. Just for now. Just for a moment.

SHOCK LEFT
me nearly catatonic as plans were made and we were transported to an airfield nearby. Turned out Chuck had brought a couple of people with him. Not Special Forces, but someone to drive and help move crates of chemical weapons components. I didn’t even want to contemplate how or where he’d gotten his hands on them.

Chuck flew me to a hospital in Brussels. I didn’t remember much of the eight-hour flight. I’d come almost full circle. Less than two weeks and I was heading back to Western civilization. Finally. Only it didn’t happen quite the way I had hoped.

The plane we’d flown in was nothing like the one that brought me to Cameroon. It was smaller, private, and had enough room for my chair to recline almost completely. The minute my ass hit the seat, Chuck had me horizontal, and then he plugged an IV into my hand. A bag of saline dripped from a stand above me.

Chuck stayed by my side through the whole flight. Every now and then he’d try and talk to me. The first time he attempted conversation, I interrupted him. “Where’s Henry?”

His face had closed up, his lips compressed.

The next time he said something I pretended to be asleep. Tired as I was, the pretense led to the real thing.

When we reached the hospital, I was immediately admitted, and another bag of saline was hooked up, along with electrolytes and a round of antibiotics.

Chuck was in his element, ordering doctors and nursing staff alike around like they worked for him at the refugee camp. I wanted to tell him we weren’t in Cameroon anymore and his sphere of influence was a lot smaller here, but I wasn’t talking to him.

He’d ordered guards placed at my door. Like I hadn’t had enough armed men watching over me over the last several days. At least these guys were there to protect me, not imprison me. So there was that.

I woke up at one point during the night to the sound of someone crying. Not bawling or howling or anything. Just quiet sobs. I forced my eyes open. Chuck sat in the visitor’s chair, hands over his face, shoulders shaking. My breathing hitched in my throat, and he stilled at the soft sound. I snapped my eyes closed and evened out my breathing. I wasn’t able—okay,
willing
—to deal with that.

I willed myself back to sleep.

THE NEXT
morning Mom walked in.

I whipped back the thin blanket covering me and swung my legs over the side of the bed before she’d taken two steps into the room. “Mom!”

She looked… frazzled. Mom never looked less than perfect. Usually her dark hair wouldn’t dare to fall out of place, her wardrobe was impeccable, and her makeup tastefully done. But here she was, in jeans and a rumpled button-down shirt, and her chin-length hair looked like she’d stuck it out the plane’s window during her flight.

I teetered on unsteady legs and fell back onto the bed.

Chuck cleared his throat. He’d been sitting next to my bed with a tablet computer of some kind. I didn’t know what he’d been doing. I hadn’t asked. He stood and set the computer on the chair. “Hello, Julianne.”

“Charles.”

Wow, Mom used her lawyer voice. She must have been pissed. Like just-this-side-of-Armageddon pissed. Then again, I was pretty ticked at him too, but what reason would she have to… oh, yeah. She probably blamed him for me getting kidnapped.

Strange, as mad as I was at him, and for all the reasons I was mad at him, I hadn’t blamed him for the kidnapping.

“I’ll let you two get caught up.” Chuck picked up his computer and left the room, shutting the door behind him softly.

The second the door was closed, she rushed forward and pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. Her familiar scent and the desperate mom-hug cracked something inside of me. I buried my head into her shoulder and sobbed out all the anger, fear, and frustration I’d been holding on to.

SOMEHOW SHE
got me tucked back into the bed. She lay down next to me, rubbing my arm like she had when I was little and had been sick or scared. The whole story came pouring out, a jumble of words and emotions, mostly out of context and out of order.

“They just left him there, Mom. They left him. And Chuck gave them the chemicals and now people are going to die. And Henry’s going to die. He doesn’t have anyone left. They killed Mrs. Okono, and now he’s got no one. And Snake Eyes made him… to get my insulin… he had to—” The words broke off on a sob.

I scrubbed my face, trying to wipe away the tears and snot. “Mom? He’s probably going to die and he saved me.”

“I’m so thankful he was there for you. I owe that boy more than I can ever repay.”

“We have to help him.”

She didn’t say anything. I knew it was unreasonable to ask, to hope, but my whole life, there was nothing she couldn’t do.

“Please, Mom. He doesn’t have anyone.” My lids drooped, and I didn’t have the energy to fight them. “Please.”

Smoothing back the hair from my face, she kissed my forehead. “It sounds like he has you.” My mind started drifting into sleep when she said, “I’ll talk to your father.”

“JESUS, CHARLIE,
how could you let this happen?”

“You think I
let
it happen? I did everything I could think of to
keep it from
happening. I lost a good friend in all of this.”

“You nearly lost your son! You promised me you weren’t involved in this kind of thing anymore. I would never have sent him to you if I’d known.”

“I’m not involved anymore. I haven’t been in years.”

“Really? Then how exactly were you able to…
sarin gas
, Charlie. Sarin. How did you manage to…?”

“I still have contacts with the agency. They were able to get me what I needed.”

Mom sighed. I tried to keep my breathing steady during the whispered argument. I’m pretty sure the heart monitor blipped faster than normal, but my parents didn’t seem to notice. I wanted… no, I
needed
them to have this conversation. Clearly I was missing whole pieces of the story, and this was my first chance to figure out what was going on.

“And what about this other boy, this Henry? He saved Isaiah’s life, you know.”

This time Chuck sighed. “I suspected. Isaiah hasn’t been willing to talk to me about what happened, so I haven’t had the full story.”

“Is it true you left that other boy there, in the hands of
mercenaries
? The man I knew, the one I was married to, would never have left someone, especially not someone so young, in that situation.”

“I didn’t have a choice! Isaiah was so sick, and I knew I needed to get him out. If I’d had more time, I’d have done more for Henry.”

“He trusted you!” The words erupted out of me, echoing in the hospital room. “I didn’t need you anymore. I’d learned a long time ago that I could live without a father in my life, but to Henry you
were
a father. More than a father. He idolizes you. He defends you. Christ, he wants to
be
you! He trusted you when he didn’t have anyone else to trust, when he didn’t even trust himself. And you’re going to let him just rot there?”

My hands gripped the side rails of the hospital bed hard enough that the back of my hand throbbed where the IV was inserted. “There were two people in the world he trusted after his mom threw him away. You and Mrs. Okono. Then he finds out that your girlfriend drugged us and set us up, and then he had to watch her be killed. She was the fucking mother of his heart, and he had to watch her die. Then you… you get me out, and he’s still there. You may not have been much of a father for me, but Henry deserves more than that from you.”

The heart monitor was beeping fast now. A nurse poked her head in, took one look at the stiff family tableau we made, and, at a nod from Chuck, left without a word.

“Isaiah,” he said in his best soothing doctor voice, “you need to calm down. The stress isn’t good for you.”

“Fuck calm. Fuck stress. You don’t get to tell me what to do. You’re not my father. I don’t need you. Henry does.”

“Isaiah—”

I cut him off. “No. Until Henry is safe and well, I don’t want to see you. Not now. Not ever.” I looked at Mom. “When do I go home?”

Her arms were crossed at her waist. Lines creased her forehead and marred her cheeks. She looked older than she had two weeks ago. “I’ll check with the doctors.”

I closed my eyes until they’d both left the room. When I was alone I let the tears fall. I wasn’t dehydrated anymore, so there were enough tears for me and Henry, with a few left over for the future victims of a sarin gas attack. The ones who were sacrificed to save me.

HOSPITAL STAFF
delivered me dinner about the same time Mom left to check into a hotel. Not that she intended to sleep there, but there was nowhere in the hospital for her to shower and change. I really didn’t want anything to do with the chicken breast and steamed broccoli on my plate, but memories of a week of nothing but rice had me digging into the perfectly balanced meal. Chuck came back in before I’d finished the little cup of sugar-free strawberry gelatin. I dropped the spoon on the tray and picked up the carton of milk.

“Why are you here?” See? I could keep an even tone when I tried.

Chuck sat in the chair he’d abandoned earlier. Great. He intended to stay. My hand clenched around the milk, and I set it down before I squeezed the liquid onto my hospital gown.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me right now, but I need your help.”

I grabbed the remote for the television in the room. Everything on it might be in Flemish or French, but I could muddle through enough to ignore my father.

“
Henry
needs your help.”

I powered off the TV. “I’m listening.”

“There are some people who have been tracking the movement of weapons and mercenaries in the region. They’ve been trying to locate Averyanov’s base of operators for almost two years.”

“Avery-who?”

“Vadim Averyanov leads a band of mercenaries who have been working for one of the nastier rebel groups in the CAR, one with a lot of power and very deep pockets.”

“Oh, you mean Shorty.”

“Shorty? Averyanov is actually quite tall.”

“About six-two, built like a tank with dark, nearly black eyes? Shaved head. Russian accent. He traded me for nasty chemicals?”

At Chuck’s nod I continued, “Shorty. Compared to the goons he’s surrounded by, he’s short.”

“Can you describe the others?”

“They were creepy clones of each other. All built and bald. The only one who didn’t look like Mr. Clean was the scientist guy.”

“Scientist?”

“Yeah, the guy who is going to take whatever was in those damned canisters and turn it into weapons of mass destruction.”

Chuck leaned forward, his face suddenly intent. “What did he look like?”

I pushed the wheeled table back so it covered my feet instead of my lap. Now I could cross my arms over my chest. “What’s this got to do with Henry?”

A knock sounded at the door and two men in black suits walked in without waiting for permission to enter. Unless they were filming another
Men in Black
in Brussels, I thought I was about to meet Dad’s mysterious “Agency.”

Chuck jumped to his feet. “You said twenty minutes.” He stood toe-to-toe with one of the black suits.

“We changed our minds.” Suit #1 stepped over to one side of my bed so Suit #2 could move to the other side. I really wanted to stand up, or at least not be lying in a bed. Real clothes would have been nice too. The cops who interrogated me after the gun thing didn’t know squat about intimidation. These guys only had to stand there with their official-looking suits and serious expressions and I wanted to confess. I also had a slight urge to check under my bed for an alien.

“Who are you?” I asked.

They didn’t answer. I looked at Chuck. His neutral expression didn’t give anything away.

“We have some questions for you, about what happened while you were being held hostage.” Suit #2 stood with his feet shoulder width apart, military straight. He pulled a small notebook with a leather cover out of an inside pocket of his suit jacket. A glittering silver pen followed. In this world of impressive technological advances, he was using a pen and notebook?