Taz, page 9
“Actually, Sammie and Lindsey aren’t speaking.”
I did a double take on that one. “Why not?”
Slate shrugged and got up from the chair. “Because Lindsey’s fairly pissed at me for recruiting you for that assignment in the first place. You’re with the BAU now, and this was sort of…a special assignment that I requested. You could’ve turned it down, but you didn’t because of shit—I don’t know! Probably because you’re just that good of an agent—and you’re that good of a friend, Taz.”
I studied him for a moment and it didn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that this guy was carrying a shitload of guilt at the moment.
“Tell me this Slate—did we get the goods on this operation with Talia and the rest?”
He sighed heavily. “I’ll be honest, Taz. Talia slipped away that night, but we did get the connection that was waiting for the cargo at the old deserted factory, and that is significant as far as following the money, and gaining Intel on the operation. We have the State Department looking into the pharmaceutical operation in Nicaragua as we speak, which is promising. We also uncovered the additional drug that was being injected into you, and the preliminary lab analysis should be final within a day or two, so we’ll at least know something about the powdered substance we confiscated in your truck…and that could be huge. Some of the players have already been cross-checked against Homeland Security lists and identified. We have about eighty percent of the puzzle pieces in front of us, and I can honestly say that what you did for the Bureau—and for this country, is a huge step in connecting this cartel with a domestic terrorist cell that’s been operating for several years.”
I allowed what he’d just shared with me to sink in and then my mind once again returned to my wife and a marriage I couldn’t remember at the moment. “I have one more question for you Slate, and I need the fucking truth.”
“Yeah?”
“Did the Trace Matthews you knew put his marriage and family ahead of his career?”
He didn’t pause to consider the question; he didn’t even take a second to blink before he answered me.
“I’m sure that he felt he did, but it’s not always possible to balance the two when you consider what we’re up against. It’s no win at times, Taz,” he replied.
Lindsey
My mind was wandering again. It seemed as if that’s all it ever did these days. The days since Trace came back. Only now it was worse. Maybe it was because of the blow up I’d had the day before in our session with Dr. Ralston. I hadn’t meant to go off like that, but the doctor had continued to press and press with asinine questions that he expected me to answer. I had no clue how they were supposed to help. Finally, I couldn’t contain my anger or frustration any longer.
I thought about how Trace had looked after my tirade. He had not tried to mask the concern that washed over him and had come immediately to my side, trying his best to comfort me. It had been soothing.
Until he referred to me as ‘baby girl.’
I just lost it.
Once Trace left the room, and I had finally broken down and shared the videos with Dr. Ralston, I had felt some relief. At the very least, I believed Dr. Ralston now understood why, for all intents and purposes, our marriage was beyond repair.
I hadn’t said as much to him, but I was pretty sure he got the message. It was a matter of trust, and that had been destroyed as far as I was concerned.
Irreparably.
“Another glass of wine, Lindsey?” Liam’s voice interrupted my wandering thoughts.
Shit!
I needed to focus here if I wanted the rest of Liam’s business. This dinner meeting I’d agreed to was not one of my finest moments; that much I knew.
“I’m sorry, Liam,” I said. “Yes, please.”
If I let the alcohol seep into my senses, maybe it would help ease the pain and loneliness.
Liam ordered another glass of wine for me as I continued picking at my Chicken Alfredo.
“Lindsey, is there something bothering you? I mean, I know you’ve had a rough few weeks, but has something turned for the worse?”
I glanced up at him and tried to appear normal. Whatever the fuck that was these days. “I’m really sorry, Liam. I apologize for not being able to focus on this next unit. It’s just some…personal issues that have arisen recently.”
“There’s absolutely no need for apologies. My concern at the moment is your well-being. How can I help?”
I sat back and sighed, wiping my mouth with the linen napkin. His country club was probably one of the most exclusive clubs I’d ever been in. Growing up, Daddy had always seen to it that we had belonged to the prominent Indianapolis Country Club, but this one? It was far more exclusive than the club in Indy.
“I appreciate your concern, Liam, I really do. But there’s nothing anyone can do right now.”
“I presume this is about your husband’s…condition?”
I nodded. I wasn’t one to share such personal information with friends, let alone a business client, but he appeared genuinely concerned. “It’s just that…well, Trace’s memory isn’t coming back as quickly as the doctors expected.”
He leaned in and placed his hand over mine on the table, his gray eyes showed compassion, and I realized that he actually seemed to care about me and about my family. “I’m so sorry, Lindsey, but you know, if he suffered a major head trauma as you described, I don’t know that it’s an exact science. I wouldn’t be discouraged. From articles that I’ve read, the brain is a very dynamic organ, with a mind of its own, pardon the pun, but that doesn’t mean his overall prognosis has changed. It simply means it may take a bit longer than what you would like.”
I smiled. “I know you’re right. That’s exactly what his doctor said,” I lied. “Thanks for caring.”
He pulled back as our server approached, setting my fresh glass of wine down on the table. “Of course I care,” he replied once she’d left. “I’ve been there before.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a sip of the wine.
“As far as having a loved one that, for whatever reason, you feel you’ve lost, I can relate, though the specifics are different. Still, I understand the helplessness, confusion and uncertainty you must be feeling. It’s the ‘not-knowing’—the if or the when that tied me up in knots. Still does for that matter.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he replied, his British accent coming across stronger with his emotion. “I don’t want to depress you further with my story of woe.”
“No—it’s fine,” I insisted. “To tell you the truth? I’d appreciate anything that can distract me from…well, from my situation.”
He took a sip of his brandy. “This happened back in 1990—well it started then I should say. I was just nineteen years old—yes, I’m forty-three now and that’s privileged information,” he said with a grin.
“At any rate, I was with the Royal Air Force out of Great Britain, and my unit was sent over along with the initial U.S. Forces for Operation Desert Shield, which Americans refer to as ‘Desert Storm.’ In Britain, it’s known as ‘Operation Granby.’ It was a well-executed, dual effort campaign and was expected to end within sixty days of initiation. That didn’t happen. I spent the next year-and-a-half stationed with the Royal Saudi Air Force in Dhahran, working together to locate independent Iraqi cells and wiping them out.”
“I guess I don’t have any recollection of that,” I admitted, “I was born in 1991.”
“Don’t rub it in,” he teased. “I know I’m an old man.”
“You’re not,” I insisted, feeling as if I’d offended him. “I’m sorry, please go on.”
He pushed his plate away and took another sip of his drink. “Well, you have to understand the whole significance of that operation from a global perspective. I’m sure even though you weren’t born yet that you learned about it during American History, right?”
I nodded.
“Well you learn that from the U.S. perspective, and I’m not for one minute insinuating that it’s inaccurate, but it likely doesn’t tell the whole story as far as the other countries that participated in that operation. At any rate, during my tenure in that mission, I met a beautiful Saudi Arabian girl. She was just sixteen. Her father had fled with his family from Iraq so that he could join up with the Saudi Royal Army and get away from Saddam’s regime. Her name was Renya and we became…close.”
“Close?” I asked tentatively.
He smiled, taking another sip of his drink. “Eventually lovers,” he clarified. “I was her first. We fell in love actually, which is pretty much taboo due to our cultural differences.”
He had my attention. I guess I was a sucker for romance stories, and hoped his had a happily ever after, but I doubted very much that it did.
“At any rate, to make a long story short, when I received my orders to return to my home base in the U.K., I begged Renya to come with me. By this time, she was seventeen, but she refused to go against Muslim tradition and bring disgrace upon her family. She promised she would stay in touch with me, and when she turned eighteen and her schooling was completed, she would face her parents with the truth and come to me. I returned to England and waited anxiously to hear from her.”
“And did you?”
“Not for a long time. It was more than a year later when she sent me a letter with a picture of our seven-month-old daughter. She’d named her Nadia. My daughter was beautiful beyond belief. She told me that she could have no further contact with me because her parents had arranged for her to be married. I felt totally helpless. I begged her not to do that, but she said it was too late. She was to be married the following month. He was a member of the Republican Guard—Saddam’s own elite army. She was taking our child to Baghdad to live.”
“Oh my God,” I replied.
“Understand, it is their culture,” Liam said. “To her family there was more dignity for Renya and the child to be among Sunnis than to denounce Muhammad as the final prophet.”
“So, you never saw her again?” I asked.
“No. But I did hear from her again. She had contacted the British Embassy in Baghdad in February of 2003. By that time, I was no longer in the military, but they were able to locate me through the base where I’d been stationed. It was right around the time that American troops were assembled in Kuwait in preparation for the invasion of Baghdad. She knew what was coming and her husband was steadfast in protecting Saddam’s palaces. She wanted me to come and collect Nadia. She was terrified. She said she wanted her safe, and she said it was the only way.”
“What did you do?”
“I used my wealth, along with my military contacts to go there. It wasn’t easy, and it took more time than I had anticipated. I was there just prior to the invasion that March, but the British Embassy had already closed and the evacuation had begun. It was the worst chaos that I’d ever seen. The only contact I had was a name of someone at that embassy that knew how to contact Renya. Without that, there was no possible way that I could locate her. I still hold out hope that she and Nadia are both safe and will surface eventually. If not, then those responsible will be brought to justice.”
“But…it’s been so long,” I commented.
“Yes, it has. But if you love, you learn to be patient. I believe that everything happens for a reason and, in good time, all wrongs will be righted and all things will be as they should. It’s the karma factor, I guess.”
“I hope you’re right,” I replied, giving him a meek smile. “But you may be more optimistic than I feel at the moment.”
“Just be patient, Lindsey, and believe that eventually all things will come to fruition. What you thought was a disaster, might just be a new door opening for you.”
I looked at him, a bit curiously. I almost felt what he’d just said might have some underlying meaning. I hoped to hell he wasn’t speaking to me on some personal level. I certainly wasn’t in the market to establish a new relationship—with him or anyone for that matter.
“Thanks for sharing that with me, Liam,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to get home. Can we schedule another meeting to go over the contracts? I’m afraid I just can’t focus at the moment.”
“Of course,” he replied, signaling for our server. “I totally understand.”
The car ride to the home I didn’t remember took place in complete silence. Lindsey had picked me up after Dr. Ralston had phoned her and explained that I was being released to her care.
I glanced over at her and wondered if she did care.
At all.
She had agreed to continue the counseling sessions, both joint sessions with me and solo ones for her in an effort to expedite the process as Dr. Ralston had put it. I had started a new medication in the hospital.
The good news—if one could call it that—was that the preliminary lab analysis conducted on the contraband pharmaceuticals I’d been hauling turned out to be some complex type of enzyme disrupter. Apparently, it served to disrupt a human enzyme called PKMzeta, which is critical in synthesizing the appropriate brain neurons that store memories. The lab was doing further testing on the powdered substance.
The fact that mine had been disrupted by those injections Talia had given me was confirmed once the chromatolysis results came in from the lumbar puncture they’d conducted. Time alone wouldn’t restore my declarative memory. The drugs I was being prescribed were designed to ‘kick-start’ production of the PKMzeta enzyme, and gradually restore those synthesized neurons.
There was no guarantee; no projected time frame. It was still one day at a time. Dr. Ralston felt that being around people and surroundings that should be familiar, could only help accelerate the recovery process.
We would see.
“So,” I said, glancing over at my wife, “Are the kids anxious to see me?”
“They’re staying with Easton and Darcy for a couple of days. It will give me a chance to get you settled in comfortably. I’m sure you need your rest. Dr. Ralston mentioned that this new medication you’re taking has some potential side effects, one of them being fatigue at the start, so let’s play it by ear,” she said, looking over at me.
“Yes, let’s,” I replied, giving her a cock-eyed smile. She looked away quickly.
I was sitting on the double bed that was made up with a flowered bedspread in what I could only presume was the guest room in the house that purportedly belonged to Lindsey and me.
She had shown me to it once we’d made it to the second floor of the house during the nickel tour she’d given me. We had passed by a set of closed french doors at the top of the stairs, which I presumed was the master suite.
“I’ve moved your things in here,” she explained. “You’ll find your clothes and shoes in the closet,” she said as she nodded toward the closet door, “And the rest of your things are in the dresser over there.”
“I guess we won’t be sharing the marital bed anytime soon, then?” I had asked, quirking a brow as she turned from me to open the mini blinds on the single window in the room.
“Uh…well, I think we both need to agree that baby steps will be necessary…” she stammered, unable to finish that thought.
“How many baby steps are there from here to the bed we used to share?” I asked, not caring how it sounded.
Fuck it. She is my wife!
“Things have changed, Trace. You know that. Remember what Dr. Ralston said—one day at a time?”
I closed the short distance between us in the tiny-ass bedroom I’d been banished to by my wife. “You’re never going to let me off the hook, are you Lindsey?”
“Let’s save these kinds of discussions for when we’re in counseling, please? I don’t want to get into it with you here.”
“Why not here?” I demanded, my voice was raised just a bit.
“Because I don’t!” she snapped. “You’ve got a long road ahead of you for recovery. Let’s focus on that.”
“Sure, babe. Whatever the fuck you say.”
She had turned and exited the room, closing the door behind her firmly.
I got up and checked out the closet. Yep, it was full of clothes I didn’t recognize. Same story when I opened the dresser drawers. I decided to take a shower and get into a pair of jeans and a tee shirt.
Afterwards, as I rummaged through the shaving kit Lindsey had left in the bathroom down the hall, and lathered up my beard, I suddenly stopped. I grabbed a hand towel and wiped the shaving cream off of my face.
Fuck it. If she wanted to treat me like some stranger, then maybe I’d just remain one. I kind of liked the rugged look I had with the short beard and moustache going on. Maybe I’d just keep it for now.
I pulled some manicure scissors out of the kit and trimmed it up a bit. My dark brown hair was starting to grow out some. I’d be damn glad when it got to where it had been previous to the buzz cut I’d been given.
When I got back to my room, I saw that Lindsey had obviously made a pit stop to drop off more photo albums for me to study.
I arranged all of the bed pillows on top of one another, and then reclined back against them, pulling the top album in the stack onto my lap.
Our Wedding
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Two ‘more-of-the-same’ days later, I was still half asleep when I was startled awake by the feeling that someone was watching me. I slept on my stomach—always had, so I opened one eye to see that was exactly what was going on. That’s when I saw him.
The little boy was standing a foot away from the edge of the bed, dressed in his pj’s with one thumb in his mouth, his other arm clutching a somewhat tattered brown teddy bear, and his green eyes wide with curiosity.
“Hey buddy,” I said, lifting my head from the mattress and noticing my pillow had fallen to the floor. I guess I was a restless sleeper. The medication I was on sure as hell was making me sleep more than ten hours a night. “Who’s that?” I asked, nodding towards the stuffed bear he was holding.
