Mercado Lane looked completely different. The markets were gone and so were the shop owners and the passersby. What was left were the regiment soldiers with their humvees and cargo trucks trailing up and down the streets in and out of town. As our truck cruised down South Broadway, we spotted a crowd of journalists gathering in front of the postal office. It appeared damaged in a way, like it took a few good mortar strikes to its facade.
"Lord," I fretted, "have mercy."
Our OEC truck halted at the front of the postal office. As Joseph and I hopped down, the regiment soldiers parted the crowd and ushered us into the building. At that point, even Pope's militiamen left the AO, so the postal office was solely under the control of the Fort Lee and Teaneck regiments. Rockland County's emergency administrator's last duty was the declaration of the press zone in Nyack before leaving. I figured the Hexagon did a number on the town judging from the damage we saw throughout the streets.
HOR-integrated Postal Services had come to an end. There was no more direct contact with Congress other than the monthly cash drops for military funding, which doubled now that the two regiments merged into a brigade under General Vergs' command.
All I could say to that is "Pope did right by us".
The public affairs office was in the county executive's former office at the top of the steps. There was this long line that ended at the bottom of the staircase where journalists would wait to get their documents verified before anything else.
As Joseph claimed his spot in line, he pulled me aside and asked me, "So you have business here?"
"I do."
"And I reckon it's somewhat different from mine?"
It took me a second to reply. "I suppose."
Joseph told me, "Why don't you whoever it is you're looking for? I'll wait in line."
"Joseph—"
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
Just like that, I left the postal office, but not before telling Joseph that I'd get back to him after I spoke with some folk. I didn't need to hide like I did when I came from Catskill—not even as Joseph's "research assistant". The guards recognized my face, even the Teaneck soldiers. They didn't try to restrain me or alert any of the patrol guards. They simply stepped out of my way, clueless with what to do with me. I suppose they didn't have any protocols when it came to my return. They probably doubted that I'd return at all.
Main Street was where the brigade stored their armored cars. Once again, the Gloria-08, in its menacing nature, was stationed at the end of the street, guarded by soldiers who wore teal armbands instead of orange ones—O-Peck's color. I walked until North Broadway then took a left on Ackerman Place, each step becoming faster and heavier the closer I approached the Vergs residence.
#36 Ackerman Place.
In the driveway was the SUV which Anais used to drive around, though its front-left tire was blown out and there appeared to be a large crack on the windshield. I crept closer to examine the damaged vehicle. When I peered through the driver-side door, I saw splotches of blood all over the dash and the seat. I ruled out that the crack on the window, after further inspection, came from a single bullet—the crack's center had a bull's-eye pattern. My stomach dropped as I ran my fingers across the glass. I asked myself: "did something happen to that girl?"
Just as I was about to knock on the front door, I retracted my hand and tucked it behind my back. For some reason, I became indecisive. My mind was telling me to knock, then to run, then to knock again. I physically couldn't move. Eventually, I snapped out of that short trance and knocked on the door anyway, holding my breath out of nervousness. I was surprised to see Everett answer the door, and he was just as surprised to see me.
"Lisa?" he said in utter disbelief.
"Hello, Joshua," I said in return.
Assuming I was there to visit the doctor, which I was, the CS invited me inside. The kitchen was a complete mess. On the dining table were maps which had big, red circles on them with arrows and scribbles and question marks all over the place. A radio was placed on the maps as a paperweight and beside it was a Xemperil carton.
"It's really good to see you again, Joshua."
"It's really good to see you too, Lisa."
Joshua, in an uneasy manner, swarmed the clutter of maps in his grasp and haphazardly folded them together, placing them inside the utility room and shutting the door. I didn't get a good peak, but I assumed it was important—maybe an unfinished battle tactic of some sort.
"Dr. Agatha—she'll be pleased to see you."
"And I'll be pleased to see her," I smiled.
The CS looked bothered. His face was pale, his blonde hair was gray, and his blue eyes shined with tears. He looked broken.
"Joshua," I said solemnly, "what happened?"
He didn't say anything to me. The CS walked over and held me on the shoulders, wagging his head ever so slowly. First, I thought that they had done it—they had finally disposed of St. Vier. But the longer I thought about it, maybe not. After everything she had done for us, General Vergs wouldn't just pull a move like that.
Then, I thought that maybe the CS got court martialed for failing to keep me in Catskill. However, I didn't think that a court martial would break him that much—the man looked devastated. And judging from the fact that he was at the Vergs residence, he was probably appointed as Dr. Agatha's guardian, especially that she and the general were at odds.
Joshua retracted his hands from my shoulders and stepped to the side, directing me to the stairs as he said, "I think it's best you hear it from her."
The top of the staircase never looked so dark. As I ambled to the top of the steps, I looked over at the CS one more time.
I asked him, "Did you know? Did you know from the start?"
He looked me in the eyes, his back as straight as it could be. "I did. I'm sorry."
Nothing—I said nothing to him. I gave him a gentle nod and proceeded upstairs. The door to my right which led into the master bedroom was partially opened. I silently gripped onto the edge of the door and pushed it inwards, peeping my head through the gap as I entered.
"Oh, God," I gasped.
There she was, all skin and bones. The doctor looked like she hadn't left her bed in ages. She stared lifelessly into the ceiling, her hands locked together like couplers. I could barely tell if she was breathing for her chest sunk so deep that you'd hardly see it pump. There was a whistle every time she exhaled—it was excruciating to hear. Lastly, she had lost all of her hair at that point. She wore a shawl around her head in a similar way I wore mine back then, but it slipped in areas that revealed her scalp.
I hovered over her, and with my hand, gently stroked her face.
"Dr. Agatha…"
Tears filled the woman's eyes—bittersweet tears that said "I knew you'd come back".
"Oh, Lisa," she cried, "how I've missed you."
She was strong enough to sit up from the bed. I insisted that she lay down once more, but the doctor was stubborn. As she reeled me in for an embrace, I caught a glimpse of her nightstand. Old boxes of Xemperil were replaced by a leather bible. It was sad to think of it, but it seemed to me that Dr. Agatha was "coming to terms" with it.
"What made you want to come back to this?"
"I wanted to see you," I said with my mouth pressed up against her shoulder. "I was worried sick."
"Oh, sweetheart, you had us worried sick, too."
"I'm sorry—"
She sounded like my mother when she told me, "Don't be sorry, sweetie. Don't you ever be sorry about any of this. You did what you had to do when we kept the world from you. We should be sorry, and we are. I'm sorry."
"It's not that," I whimpered.
"Then what is it, Lisa?"
Honestly, it never felt so good to cry into Dr. Agatha's shoulder. I needed that release. It was a kind of release I was never going to find in Montreal or anywhere else for that matter. Even in sickness, her magic worked just fine, and it managed to break down whatever walls I had left up.
"It's all me. It's all my fault. The gunship, the bombs, the—"
"Hey now," she chimed in my ear. "None of this is your fault, sweetie. You know it and I know it. You are a woman of God, and what you've made—what you've spent years of your life working on—is special."
"I've hurt people."
She laughed softly, "You've hurt no one."
My cries chopped up my words as I said to her, "That car bomb was meant for me. Lieutenant Miller died because of me."
"No, sweetheart—"
I pulled away. "Ms. Matsumoto is gone, too."
"I… I know. Pope wrote to me." She held me close a second time. "But that doesn't mean it happened because of you, alright? It's not your fault, Lisa. None of this is, and none of this will ever be." Dr. Agatha then told me, "You didn't do this to them, sweetie. The world did this to you. It's a scary world, and God, I've seen it tear people apart. But you're here now, and it matters to me that you learn to forgive yourself and that you learn to be strong. It's not a lie when I say that Tommy didn't want you to drown in grief. He didn't want you to eat yourself up. He wanted you to live. If you saw yourself through his lens, you'd love yourself so much—you'd want to live."
"How do I know I'm not living for nothing?"
"Just remember what I told you." She pointed at my chest. "The heart tells us where to go and the brain tells us how to get there."
Dr. Agatha clutched me in her arms for another minute which I spent balling into her shirt. After, she propped up her pillow against the headrest and laid back, catching her breath as if she had run a marathon. I offered to fetch her a glass of water, though she declined. All she asked was for me to stay with her in the room until she'd fall asleep and to have the door partially opened if I were to leave.
While she was laying there, fighting for a breath, I asked her, "How's Anais? I saw the car outside, and it made me worry. I just wanted to know if she's alright."
Judging from the way Dr. Agatha spoke to me, it didn't seem like anything bad had happened to the girl at all. Dr. Agatha would've been inconsolable if something were to happen to the little huntress. She would've lost her mind. But then again, what if something had already happened months or weeks ago and she was past the grieving stage? What if she had already been coping with something? That was beginning to be the case.
"Doctor?"
A silence filled the room, the kind that crept up your back if you were looking the other way. Something was wrong. It turned out that Dr. Agatha was actually putting up an act, not with the things she told me, but with the way she presented herself, as if everything was okay, when in reality, she was bursting at the seams. The doctor covered her mouth like she was concealing a cough, fat tears rolling down her boney cheeks.
"Doctor…" I fell to my knees and crawled my way to her side of the bed, desperate to hear what she had to say. "What is it? What— What happened?"
"She's gone, Lisa," she answered me. "Anais is gone."
I was in complete and utter disbelief. "Gone? What do you mean 'gone'?"
Twisting the sheets in a mild rage, Dr. Agatha told me, "There was a bad scuffle at the Rip Van Winkle Checkpoint just last week. French forces ambushed the guards from the river and climbed up the slope. They captured two of our own—Anais and Lieutenant Yemelyanova."
"Dear God," I exclaimed. "Where could they have possibly taken them?"
"A Master Camp," Dr. Agatha said with her face buried in her palms. "Anais could still be out there. The French could've taken her in for questioning or… or have her plant in the fields for all I know. But she is out there. She has to be. If she's not—if she's gone—I don't know what I'd do. Lisa, I don't know what to do."
Dr. Agatha broke down the way I did just minutes ago. That time, I was the one consoling her. I had to tell her that everything was going to be alright even though I had just gotten there and had no clue if the little huntress was still alive. If I didn't tell her that, she would've died from sheer distress.
"Where's General Vergs?"
"I don't know. Out drinking for all I care." That response told me everything I needed to know about their relationship and how the general was "handling" things. "There's a bar not far from the checkpoint. He's currently investigating the scene with the O-Peck captain. Joshua can take you if you want to go see them."
"I can go another time. I just want to stay here a little longer."
"Okay."
I kicked my boots off and sat on the general's side of the bed, cradling Dr. Agatha in my arms. I barely felt her weight press up against me. She was light as a feather.
Then, she said to me, "You know… Mitchell and I tried really hard. We did everything we could, but it just couldn't happen. There were nights where I'd pray in my sleep, hoping that, one day, she'd be there in the kitchen or outside in the garden."
"She'll be alright–"
"It was always only a dream—to see the girl who had my nose, Mitchell's eyes, our temperament all mish-mashed together. And I still dream about that. I dream about it every single day."
My ears twitched from her remark. "Doctor?"
Dr. Agatha looked into my eyes like she always did. "I couldn't bring a life into this world… no matter how much I wanted to. I guess that's why I took a liking toward you. I saw myself in you. And the kind of struggle you had with Tommy was the kind of struggle which haunted me my entire life."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. No wonder she read me like an open book—we shared the same pain.
"You know, Anais will never be mine. But she is all I have. She is all I could have."
The thought of Anais rotting away somewhere in a Master Camp was absolutely sickening. I couldn't stomach the thought of it—not one bit. I remember the look on Dr. Agatha's face after she told me that—the way her eyes grew dull and lifeless. She couldn't fully come to terms with her illness without seeing that girl's face at least one more time. She needed an answer, and I knew the kind of gut-wrenching pain that came with. That was my life for a while—it didn't need to be hers.
"Where's this bar you mentioned?"
Colewood Avenue, Catskill.
There was a rundown bar near the Rip Van Winkle Checkpoint called "Sam's". It was actually out of business, but the soldiers used it as an outpost ever since the Hexagon ambushed the collapsed bridge. Joshua drove me. I asked if Joseph could've brought me there instead, but the CS told me that, not only was Joseph restricted from entering Catskill, but the regiment wasn't going to go out of its way to protect him outside of a press zone.
Before I entered the bar, I perched my hand on the driver-side door of Joshua's car—it was the same one used for the cash drops. I asked him, "You should get back. Dr. Agatha'll be needing your company."
"Don't worry," he replied. "I'll head back down as soon as I can."
Just before he rolled up his window, I followed up with a question. "How's St. Vier by the way?"
"Renata?" There was a long pause. "She's good. She's been eating."
"That's good to hear." He didn't need to say more. "She's turning out alright."
"She is. You take care now, Lisa."
As the car zipped past my eyes, it revealed O-Peck's minivan parked outside the bar. That let me know that Captain Mapleman was around. I wondered how he was, given that his second-in-commad was also missing. You could see checkpoint guards coming in and out of the small bar, all shaken to the core. The O-Peck captain must've been the same.
"We've got a body!"
A guard yelled from the bridge, and all the soldiers and even Captain Mapleman exited the rundown bar and walked up to the checkpoint in their winter coats over their olive fatigues.
"Oh, shit. Who is it?!" the captain yelled back.
I followed as his men marched up to the edge of the collapsed bridge. There, checkpoint guards lowered a wire to reel in whatever or whoever was in the freezing waters below. I couldn't get a good look of what was going on since the soldiers at the checkpoint were all huddled together, some at the edge, others around the wire. Then, I heard something that sent chills down my spine.
The guards yelled, "Fuck! It's Yemelyanova!"
Crank, crank, splash!
The wire was lowered, and some of the guards jumped into the water to retrieve Lieutenant Yemelyanova's body. I slipped past the crowd of soldiers and found myself at the edge alongside Captain Mapleman who was too distraught to look anywhere else but down at the river fog. The guards to my right began turning the crank, fishing the body out of the cold water as the men in the river cleared distance to examine the state of it, and God, I still see it in my sleep sometimes.
"Motherfucker," Captain Mapleman said under his breath.
Lieutenant Yemelyanova's body emerged from the river with a faint yet unpleasant odor, reeking of rotten plants and decaying fish. Her face had been bashed in with a blunt object, or perhaps, punched or kicked in to the point that you could no longer recognize her. The only thing that stood out was the thin, metal rod from her headgear, spanning across her busted lips. She was stripped from the waist down, with the word "salope" carved into her abdomen.
"Dear God," I said.
It sounds kinda funny, but a small part of me wished I never went back after witnessing that. I looked over to Captain Mapleman. He couldn't suppress his anger any longer. He ripped his radio off his belt and began screaming into it.
"Rip Van Winkle to central dispatch, over! We have a KIA—it's Yemelyanova! Fuck! Requesting an immediate forensics team, over!" He closed his eyes for a brief second, jaw tight, before launching his radio into the river, yelling, "Fuck you, you French motherfuckers!"
When he caught his breath, he turned to his right to give orders only to find me with my mouth still agape at the lieutenant's corpse. He looked shocked, then confused… then enraged. The captain grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the edge of the bridge, glowering at the other side of the river, afraid that my presence could draw in a sniper glare.
"What the hell are you doing back here, Baby?!" He wasn't too happy to see me. "Of all the places you could return to, you choose Catskill?!
"I came from Mercado Lane," I told him.
"Well, you're in luck. I'd prefer you stay down there."
"Not until I have a word with the general. Dr. Agatha told me he'd be here."
"Then you head inside this instant," he said as he continued to drag me around. "It's not safe to stay outside."
Captain Mapleman ordered his men to vacate the bar along Colewood Avenue and brought me inside, closing the door and ensuring it was locked. He walked over to the old bartop and hunched down, causing a ruckus behind the counter as he browsed the whiskey selection.
"What do you fancy?" he asked.
"I don't drink."
"You don't drink?"
"No, I don't."
He retrieved a bottle of 1976 Pale Man's Bourbon, and for me, a glass of cold tap.
"You know, this tap is gonna taste like copper," the captain said to me. "If you're gonna drink something that tastes like shit, it might as well be something that'll take the edge off."
The O-Peck captain presented me with both the bourbon and the glass of tap, asking me to pick one. I hesitated for a second. I didn't mind the water tasting like coins—it tasted like that all around—but I also wanted to try something new. I remember taking a sip from the general's flask. It tasted rancid, but I charged it to experience. I didn't mind charging it again.
"I guess I could give it a try," I told him.
"There you go."
Captain Mapleman poured two glasses of bourbon and set them down on the counter, calling me over to share a drink. He lost his gaze to the glass, possibly recalling Lieutenant Yemelyanova's body at the bridge. I couldn't purge the thought from my head either. I didn't know Lieutenant Yemelyanova all that well, but she didn't deserve any of that. What disturbed me most was what the French could've possibly done to her when she was still alive—that must've been a nightmare.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Captain."
He wagged his head with a grimace on his face. "Don't be sorry. Shit like this happens. Why be sorry for the shit you didn't do? Doesn't make sense why I'd take an apology from you and not from them. I think that's just plain stupid, don't you think?"
"In a way," I said to him.
He downed his bourbon and I started sipping mine. I found it unpleasant in the tongue and throat, but the sizzle it left in my belly felt quite nice. My body released tension and I was actually able to catch a breath without looking over my shoulder. I had to slow down a bit as I didn't want to lose my self-preservation instincts.
"So, why are we here?"
Captain Mapleman said to me, "You wanted to have a word with the general, right? He's coming back from a trip. He'll be here in a bit." He poured himself another glass of bourbon. "Listen, on behalf of the Teaneck regiment, I'd like to apologize for keeping you 'in the dark'. I reckon that wasn't the right thing to do."
"You were just following orders. I understand."
"You do?" He then told me, "Well, with that said, you are one of the most stubborn SOBs I've ever met in my entire life."
That insult came out of nowhere.
"I'm sorry," I replied. "Where is this coming from?"
"You heard what was on those voice recorders, right?"
"Yes," I answered.
"And you saw what was on that tape?"
"Regretably, yes," I answered again.
"Then you should know by now the danger your sheer presence brings, not only onto yourself, but everyone around you. Of all the places you decide to be poking your head, you do it in Catskill? We just had an ambush a week ago. Our checkpoint head and our marksman are lost to the French. Mrs. Baby, Catskill is not the place to be in."
He made me frustrated. "Even now, you and I are gonna go 'round about this? It's been three months, Captain. I was hoping we'd be having a different discussion by now."
"Yeah? The stakes are still the same, you know. The only difference is that you actually know them now."
Although he was getting hot in the head, he still offered to pour me another glass of bourbon. I didn't realize until he presented the bottle to me that I had already finished my glass. That time, I kindly declined his offer. I had nothing against the man, but I didn't enjoy his company. He was a short-tempered soldier with a textbook kind of attitude that made him a buzzkill, like if you decided to place a shock collar on Lieutenant Miller and deprived him of his cigarettes. No one could've replaced that "belligerent extremist". Not even the O-Peck captain who had a similar temper.
He downed his second glass and put the bottle of bourbon back under the counter. "You know, O-Peck was formed for a reason."
"I reckon it wasn't just to guard the bridge at Teaneck Creek?"
"It wasn't for that at all." He made his way around the bartop and sat next to me. "When you agreed to come down to Big Indian, General Vergs contacted me to form a six-man unit—now four—designated to bring you out of the AO in the event of another Hexagon siege. Fort Lee's 'ambassador' to the Teaneck regiment was none other than Lieutenant Miller himself. He never warmed up to the idea since his wife was O-Peck's secretary, but he knew it was necessary."
"Why did General Vergs have to form the unit outside of Fort Lee?"
"Because Eyes and Ears knew everything about them, and they didn't know jack shit about us. If they caught wind of O-Peck transporting you up to an OEC, you would've already been in Canada at that point. But we never had to, and since your guys stopped the dinghies at the creek, we had to step in and assist you in your operation."
O-Peck's internal code name used between General Vergs and the unit itself was the "Lisa Squad", and they only ever used it up until I got to Big Indian. I now understood why Lieutenant Miller treated me the way he did and why he desperately wanted Ms. Matsumoto to stay away other than the reasons he said before.
"You heard about Ms. Matsumoto?" I asked him.
Captain Mapleman tucked his lips then nodded his head before returning to the other side of the counter. Once more, he reached for the bourbon and grabbed his glass from the sink. He let out a resounding sigh and reluctantly poured himself yet another glass.
"Yes," he answered. "I'm sorry."
Before he could fling the bourbon down his throat, I stood up, placed my hand over the glass, and gently set it back down on the countertop. When he glanced at me, I wagged my head and told him that he had enough. Right then, I saw just how sad the O-Peck captain truly was behind all that posturing. He was broken just like the rest, just like Everett and Dr. Agatha.
"General Vergs resorted to drinking his problems away," I said to him. "That doesn't need to be the case with you. And if he were here right now, I'd be saying the same thing to him." I leaned on the bartop and told him, "This drinking thing—it doesn't solve anything. It harms people. It makes them feel good about themselves, and then the next thing you know, they're in shambles."
The O-Peck captain fiddled with the glass a bit before dunking the booze into the sink. He let out another deep sigh when he did and even jerked his neck to give it a good crack. He seemed alright after that.
"Anyway, that's why you should always keep your head down. The Hexagon knows exactly who you are and who you're affiliated with. And if you care about these people, then you gotta look after yourself. No one else is gonna do that for you."
Beep.
It'd been a while since I heard those beeps and boops—I actually missed them quite a lot. For me, it was like whoever was on the other end of the call was also in the room with us.
"Mapleman, we're on our way back to Catskill. You said something about a KIA? Lieutenant Yemelyanova?"
Captain Mapleman rushed out of the bar and into the street. He signaled the O-Peck guys to follow him on foot as he marched further down Colewood Avenue with his radio up to his mouth and a pistol in his free hand. The O-Peck guys formed two lines—three and two—brandishing their rifles across their chests as they awaited the general's arrival. I clung onto the side of the door and watched from the bar.
"This is Captain Mapleman. Yemelyanova's body is being examined at the Rip Van Winkle Checkpoint. A forensic team is currently on-route from Mercado lane."
"Jesus, Mapleman. Alright, I'm on my way."
Not long after, a convoy emerged from High Street, drawing black smoke from the back and the sides. The humvees were dented badly and were riddled with bullets, some with punctured tires blowing air all over. The O-Peck squad rushed to the head of the convoy and surrounded the driver-side door as General Vergs hopped down, dressed in his brown corduroy jacket. They collectively returned to the collapsed bridge where they met with the forensic team stationed in Mercado Lane. Their gray, box type sedan was parked just before the Rip Van Winkle Checkpoint.
Lieutenant Yemelyanova's body, covered with a blanket from the waist down, was laid on the ground for the general and the captain to examine. She appeared to have been garroted, indicated by the lacerations around her neck—maybe with a steel wire. Another thing to note was that it was only when her body had been laid on the pavement that the forensic team identified that both her femur bones had been shattered.
"Sweet Jesus…"
General Vergs was horrified by the site. He knelt by the body and slowly ran his two fingers down the lieutenant's face, shutting her eyes for good. There was no time for eulogies or anything like that. After the general was done wiping his eyes with his sleeve, he retrieved his handkerchief and cleaned his fingers. The forensic team lifted the sheet and pulled it over Lieutenant Yemelyanova's face, concealing her completely. That was the last I saw of her, but most certainly, she was up there with that car bomb—those two things haunted me for a long time after.
I imagined it got to the general mentally, not only from having witnessed the doggish display of the lieutenant's body, but with what the French could have possibly done to Anais, as well. He didn't really show any sign of affection toward the little huntress—not as much as Dr. Agatha at least—and I've never heard him speak about her in a fatherly tone, but I knew, just from looking at him, that he was in a panic.
He and the O-Peck captain, both visibly shaken from the scene, left the bridge and walked up to the bar in which I greeted them at the door. Captain Mapleman, briefly nodding in response, ducked his head and slipped past me to enter the establishment, leaving the general in my sights.
"Lisa?"
The Fort Lee general looked like he had seen a ghost, like he put one in the grave and their soul came back to haunt him. He almost looked afraid of me, and that said a lot, considering that I never saw him cower—not even once—in my months of serving in the regiment.
"Lisa," he uttered my name a second time. "What are you… What are you doing here? The ambush, the body…," he said while pointing at the Rip Van Winkle Checkpoint. "It's a mess down here."
So was he. General Vergs looked even more disheveled than when I first met him in Big Indian. His eyes were red and droopy, he spoke with a faint slur, and the stench he had on him was something no amount of the winter cold could cover up. He was falling apart right before my very eyes.
Some would say that "he deserved it", others would say "he had it coming", but I really had no spite toward him. The things he did—things he had to do—were done because it was in Congress' best interests. I knew him. He loved his regiment, and judging from how shattered he was when I saw him at the rundown bar, he loved that girl just as much as Dr. Agatha did.
Anais was very much loved.
"I heard about the Hudson," I answered him, "This mess—it's because of me. The least I can do is lend a hand."
"It's not your fault, Lisa. Never was."
I was told the same thing every time: "it's not your fault, Lisa", though it meant something else coming from the general. He was always torn between trusting me and keeping me at arm's length. It was the same thing with Tommy. General Vergs never fully trusted him, especially after his stunt with the patents. But he changed. I'd say he was different after I had uncovered the truth. From then on, there was nothing else to hide, and with that, he showed me who he really was.
General Vergs was the most broken man in all of the East Coast.
* * *
Then, there were three—General Vergs, Captain Mapleman, and me. We sat at a roundtable inside the bar where the general told us about his trip to the Master Camp. He was so distraught that he didn't even fold for a drink. He declined the offer when the O-Peck captain reached for that bourbon. All the general could do was stare into the grain of the table as he discussed the attack in full detail.
"They had an outpost in Hobart. It caught us off-guard, but we managed to slip through. Though, once we got down to Bovina, it rained mortar shells all over. The shelling lasted for about a minute. We had to pull out when the tail of our convoy got blown to bits. They kept firing at us as we retreated."
"Shit. There was never an outpost in Hobart," said the O-Peck captain. "The French only ever huddled up in Bovina. You think they'd have the gull to branch out their forces?"
"It's been a while since we've set foot in that region, Mapleman," General Vergs answered him. "The last we did was when Finer conducted that interdiction operation at Lake Delaware last September. A lot can change in that time frame."
"You didn't see the camp?"
"No," the general said in a low tone. "But it's still there—I'm sure of it. Why else would they set up an outpost in Hobart? And why the hell would they have that kind of artillery on-hand?"
"Shit. What a mess this is."
I had yet to learn completely about Anais' disappearance. The SUV told a portion of it, Dr. Agatha told even more, but I needed to hear the rest from the general. I needed to know what happened to that poor girl and why they were so certain that she was brought to a Master Camp and not rotting at the bottom of the river, waiting to be fished up like Lieutenant Yemelyanova.
"What exactly happened at the checkpoint, General?" My question silenced the table.
Neither the general nor the captain wanted to explain it to me. They looked defeated and ashamed, and they looked like they were trying to hide that. But there was nowhere to hide. The state of the collapsed bridge, the state of the humvees, and the state of both the general and the doctor spoke louder than any alibi they could've come up with.
General Vergs toughened up as he said to me, "The Hexagon ambushed the Rip Van Winkle Checkpoint last week. It was dark and the guards were doing their details. The checkpoint head—Lieutenant Yemelyanova—was patrolling the bridge, and Anais had just gotten there in her car."
He drew an imaginary map on the table with his pointer finger. His right hand was the lieutenant. His left, positioned all the way across on my side, was Anais.
"There was only ever one shot, and it was directed at the windshield of Anais' SUV," said the general as he pressed his left pointer finger hard against the wood. "She was hit. We couldn't tell where, but there was blood. The shot was fired from the east side of the river."
"Eyes and Ears," I murmured.
The general nodded. "Could be." He repositioned his left hand even closer to my edge of the table then said, "When our men positioned to fend off against the opposite shore, an enemy convoy came in from Route 23 and captured Anais."
My voice trembled as I asked, "They… They came from our side?"
"From the Master Camp, yes." He lifted both his hands off the table. "At the bridge, Yemelyanova was nowhere to be found. The last thing the guards heard in the night was the sounds of dinghies zipping past, and that was it. They were in and out just like that."
"Oh, my God." I pressed my back against the rest, trying to rid the chills in my spine. "Anais… Why would they want Anais?" I uttered, "She's just a kid."
The general told me as if I should've known the answer already, "To them, she's the 'devil child'. Why else would they want her?" Slowly, his posture began failing on him, and before I knew it, he had his chest over the tabletop. "But you're right—she's just a kid. She's my kid."
Oh, how I wished Dr. Agatha got to hear him say that. It would've meant so much to her to hear those words come out of him. That alone would've started bridging the gap. But alas, he was drinking in Catskill, and she was bedridden in Mercado Lane.
He began to stare blankly into the table, and when he did, I kindly gestured at the O-Peck captain to step outside of the bar for a minute while I had my word with the general. Captain Mapleman gave me a nod and left the two of us at the roundtable, closing the door on his way out. I sat there a good two minutes before the general began speaking again.
General Vergs said with his eyes, "You know, I did this to us." As a way to calm himself down, he reached into his breast pocket and retrieved the white gold ring which he always had on him. "Sometimes, I forget what I'm fighting for. I'm a soldier. Jesus, I'm an American. I love my country so damn much… but this country wouldn't even love its toughest soldiers. Congress would never beg me to stay alive the way Emily did. They won't miss me when I'm gone."
"Sir?"
"What have I done?" He shook his head and took in the surroundings in a how-did-I-get-here kind of way. "I wanted the rest of our lives. God, I wanted to have that kid as bad as she did, but…" I saw the first ever tear drip down his otherwise stoic face. "But I slipped away. I was consumed by this. I was obsessed with it. With Edgewater, with Fort Lee, with all of it."
"Sir…"
I had finally seen who Mitchell Agustus Vergs was under that thick, military hard shell. He wasn't the general I knew and respected—maybe somewhat despised at times. He was a man learning to grasp with his faults and cope with the repercussions, and those were two things that France's de facto minister of defense and all his doggish minions could never do.
General Bernard was a monster, and General Vergs, despite the ups and downs he and I had gone through, was something far more human.
"Sir." That time, I got his attention. "I think you should go see her."
"It's not that easy, Lisa."
"You'd rather attack the Master Camp without a full-fledged plan than go see Dr. Agatha? Sir, she's sick, and I don't want to use the word, but she's dying." He wouldn't budge. "Look, you did whatever you had to do to keep her close. You wanted her that badly, and she wanted you, too. When Anais stepped into the picture, you two did the same thing for her. You do these things because you love them, and sometimes, it's the hard things you need to be doing just to keep them close."
That was what Dr. Agatha told me before the failed pier job when we were kicking our feet up in a man-made creek on the other side of the river. General Vergs' eyes lit up for a moment. They almost looked as lively as they did in Dr. Agartha's locket.
With a smirk on his face, General Vergs shifted in his seat and said, "It was never a lie when I told you that you and Thomas were a gift. I had my reasons to question the man, and I had my reasons to question you, too, but that didn't change the fact that you're something special."
"He was a friend of the world," I replied, "I just try to be the same."