From the Widow’s Walk-2
1937 Words
We took lemonade and iced tea in the porch, which sounds pretty civilized, and was about the limit of civilization that day. While I made do with shorts and T-shirt, he was glammed out with a fine suit, black polished shoes, light blue shirt and red necktie with tiny blue dots.
“Good to see you moving,” he said dryly.
“Considering how close I came to losing both of my legs, I’m happy, too.”
Then, having gotten the pleasantries apparently out of the way, he got right to it.
“Tell me again how you located your husband,” he started.
“I’m sure you already know the exact details.”
Some sort of movement upon the tight polished skin of his head that might have been a smile, if one was feeling particularly generous.
I wasn’t, though.
He said, “In my field of business, we like to examine all types of information streams. It helps us in... evaluating the basic truth of a situation.”
“And if I say no?”
Good to see you moving,” he said dryly. “Considering how close I came to losing both of my legs, I’m happy, too.”
Another flicker of movement of his face. “Maine can be so very, very cold in winter.”
“So it can.”
I waited, thinking of how often over the years in my line of work I had gotten into fights with similar men—and a few women—who had been spun from this very same cloth, but getting into a fight wasn’t in the cards today.
My legs ached so.
I said, “My husband was dispatched to a location in North Africa. He promised to contact me within three weeks. After four weeks of not hearing from him, I knew something was wrong. No matter where he’s gone and what he’s done for you, he’s never broken a promise like that. I went to find him, by using contacts and sources from my own work.”
His face looked so very smug. “Ah, yes. Your work. So very precious.”
“Yeah, precious enough that it’s first in line in the Bill of Rights.”
Smug look continued. “Go on.’
Throb, throb, throb. Damn my legs hurt so much.
“I flew to Paris, and from there, to Algiers. Then I went from Algiers to a rural landing spot somewhere in the vicinity of the border between Mali and Algeria. There I hooked up to a UN survey team, spent long days and nights in the desert... before I found out what I did, and I went to your secret base.”
“We don’t have a base there, secret or otherwise.”
“I saw it with my own eyes.” “Do you have any photos? Drawings? Recordings?” “No, I don’t. And you know why.”
“Because you have no evidence.”
“But there’s still a base there.”
A brief shake of his head. “No, there isn’t. What you might have seen there was an outpost run by a security consulting firm. One that may or not be under contract to the federal government and the agency I represent.”
“Is this the same security consulting firm that my husband was working for?” He smirked. “I would think he would have shared that with you.”
“We had separate careers. We didn’t try to spend a lot of time discussing our work.”
“I imagine you saw a lot of his work when you got there.”
A deep breath.
Throb, throb, throb.
“When I got to the base,” I said, voice sharp, “I saw a group of dedicated men and women, trying to set up a rescue mission for my husband and his crew. The base was a platform for classified drone flights covering the Tigharghar Mountains and surrounding areas. My husband... he and two others were trying to set up a satellite relay station on one of the peaks when they were ambushed by a desert tribe allied with al-Qaeda. And when they called for help... they were abandoned.”
“Strong word, abandoned.”
“Truth hurts, don’t it?”
“Go on, then.”
Took another deep breath. “Abandoned. Calls to help to various consulates and military bases in North Africa or the Mediterranean were ignored, or if the calls were acknowledged, they were told, time after time, that help would eventually get there maybe in a day or three... when I got to the airbase, those contractors were getting ready to roll in whatever they had. Pickup trucks... Land Cruisers... nothing armored or suited for a rescue mission.”
“You went along, then.”
“Stupid question.”
“And how did the rescue effort fare?”
“You know exactly how it fared. We got close enough to the mountain peak that we could actually see them... and then we were ambushed. Gunfire, RPGs, a couple of IEDs. It was a massacre.”
“Did you see your husband?”
“Close enough to wave at him.”
“Did he wave back?”
Memory shouldered its way in, of early morning cold light in the mountains, smoke, gunfire, seeing him trotting down a trail, flash and boom and smoke and...
“I don’t remember.”
He reached up and flicked something off his coat lapel. Out on the eternal Atlantic, the ocean lived and breathed and boats moved along, and seagulls dove and flew and hovered.
“What I need to know... what we all need to know... is what record exists of your travels. Did you make any satellite phone calls while you there? Text messages? E-mail?”
“Based on who you are and who you work for, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that. Those kinds of electronic records surely exist out there.”
Another flick of the finger. “Humor me.”
I shook my head. “Nothing was transmitted. There was no time. No time at all.”
“And photographs and recordings of what you saw at the base, and at the ambush site?”
“You know exactly how I was rescued. There was just me. No gear, no cameras, no laptops, no pads. Just me and a lot of blood.”
“Where do you think your gear is now?”
“Covered with dirt, flies and camel dung, probably.”
He examined a fingertip, like he was trying to see if his cold lizard blood was trying to ooze out. “Good answer. I’ll be back in a while. And then we’ll resolve your final status.”
“Answer a question?” “Perhaps.”
I looked down at my battered legs. “My husband and his squad were abandoned. When we got there, we were ambushed and also abandoned. Yet... there was a rescue effort. I was found and recovered. How did that happen? Why did you finally send in a response?”
He stood up, now brushed at his pant legs. “We didn’t. A helicopter leased to Sonatrach, the national Algerian energy company, got lost on its way to a refueling station in southern Algeria, saw the smoke, saw the burning vehicles, eventually found you.”
He lowered his head a bit. “According to everything official in this part of the world, you, your husband, his comrades and that base never existed.”
He paused on his way out of the porch. “Never.”
At night alone in my bedroom. No television, no phone, no computer, no cellphone. Just old paperback books with the scent of mildew and stale air in them piled high on a dusty bureau. The window overlooked the near lawn, where I’m sure the very thorough landscapers were keeping view on slugs and other night creatures. Elayne helped me into bed and as before, she says, “Sleep well, and take it easy.”
“You got it,” I said.
When the door shut behind her, I read quietly for an hour—James Michener’s “Space”—and then I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, pushing myself. Raising my legs up and down, up and down, until I was gritting my teeth and sweat was trickling down my back.
My legs ached so when I was done, but I was so happy I could still sleep relatively well.
Lunch the next day had a simple garden salad made—or so I was told by Paul, in a very heavy French accent—from local Maine greens, with candied pecan pieces, sliced apple and cooked chunks of bacon. Along with the salad was fresh-made lobster ravioli in a cream sauce, and I drank lemonade and Elayne drank iced tea, and we ate well out on the porch overlooking the ocean.
When Paul came in to clear our dishes, I told him, “Tres bien, Paul. Truly a spectacular meal.”
He nodded. “Bon. I’m glad.”
As he balanced our plates with both arms, I asked him another question. “Alors, vous servir dans la Légion étrangère française, mon ami?”
Paul’s face turned scarlet but he didn’t say anything. I added, “Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas? Chat vous avez votre langue?”
This time, he just looked to Elayne and said, “I’ll be back later for your dinner order, mademoiselle.”
Elayne gave me a sharp glance when Paul left. “What was that all about?” “I just wanted to ask him a few questions,” I said.
“What did you say?”
“Elayne, I’m surprised, a young lady as attractive and as smart as you don’t know French, the language of love.”
She smiled slightly. “Spent my time learning other things.”
“Oh,” I said, hearing Paul rattle around in the kitchen, singing a song in French. “I asked our dear cook if he had been in la Légion étrangère française, also known as the French Foreign Legion. And when he didn’t answer, I asked him if a cat had gotten his tongue.”
“He said no, then.”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t answer the question.” I paused, wiped my fingers again on the large white linen napkin. “And speaking of questions, Elayne, where did you hang your hat before you came here? Hurlburt Field, home of Air Force Special Ops? Fort Bragg? Ramstein in Germany? That’s where I ended up after being rescued. What’s your secrets?”
Elayne looked to her watch. “Time to change your bandages.”
A while later I was in my bedroom, lying on my back on a crisp white sheet, while Elayne bustled around and worked on changing the bandage on my right leg. She had a collapsible pulley system to lift up my leg using Velcro straps about my ankle, and this time, I managed to get through the bandage removal without shrieking.
“Elayne, I’m surprised, a young lady as attractive and as smart as you don’t know French, the language of love.”
Guess that was progress.
Elayne had on a light blue pair of latex gloves, and she gently examined the sutures, abrasions and bruises on the right leg, which had been chewed up more than it’s left side partner back there in North Africa.
“Coming along nicely,” she said. “Sutures might be ready to come out in a few days... but there’s something odd here.”
A little tickle at the back of my throat. “Odd in what way?”
She shrugged. “It’s just that one of your wounds here... the suturing was done differently. Like you had two different techs working on you.”
“Could have been. Sorry, I don’t remember.”
Her hands fluttered gently along my wounds. “And these shrapnel wounds... different from what I’ve seen before.”
“And where was that?”
Another shrug. “The sandbox. Where else.”
“Ah, so some secrets are revealed,” I pointed out.
“Right. Secrets.”
I went on. “Surprised you didn’t see these types of wounds, though.” Elayne picked up a bandage roll. “Really?”
I thought for a moment, decided to go all out. “Because I wasn’t wounded by shrapnel.”
“You weren’t? What happened then?”
Another pause on my end. “I had joined up with this ad-hoc rescue mission, trying to reach my husband and his squad, in North Africa. The rescue mission was ambushed. We were in a little depressed area off a dirt road. Rocks, brush, sand. Then I saw my husband... racing down a trail... ahead of his two buds. They were so very very close...”
Elayne kept quiet, the bandage now gently going around my right leg. My voice faltered. “He was so very very close. I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to show him I was there, waiting for him. I stood up. I was exposed. I screamed his name, waved with both arms...”
- Writer
