Agent out of Time (The Agents for Good) (13 page)

“Nothing to indicate any cranial damage. Deep bruising on her face, but no broken bones. She’s been choked multiple times given the bruising on her neck, but other than bruising and some inflammation everything seems unobstructed air passage wise.”

His stoic resolve broke up some, as he moved to her chest. He looked away for a moment and then back.

“Bites look infected. We should clean them out and stitch them. Did you bring antibiotic shots?”

I nodded woodenly.

“We’ll administer them, after she gets more fluid in her.”

His hands moved down to her rib cage, which was one mottled mass of purple bruised skin. Sweat was rolling off Trent, as his fingers firmly felt along her ribs. She stirred and moaned slightly.

“Should we give her a sedative?” I asked quickly.

He shook his head no, “She’s too weak for that now, maybe later. She has multiple fractures, but nothing out of place. We’ll wrap her tight to help with the pain.”

His fingers pressed into her, as he felt her organs. “Her livers inflamed, but that could be from infections.”

“Is she bleeding inside?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He responded in no more than a whisper.

He felt at her arms and hands. Her wrists were raw and bloody from the manacles, “She has two broken fingers that will need reset and taped together. Several others are pulled out of joint.”

He spread her legs a little and choked out, “Did you bring vinegar?”

I nodded and said, “I’ll take care of it.”

He nodded and moved on. Her knees were skinned up bad and her legs were bruised, but that was it.

It was enough.

“We’ll wash her front and then do the work that’s needed. We’ll administer the shots and the sedative and then roll her over and wash her other side and deal with the cuts on her back.”

I nodded in agreement.

I watched Trent’s big fingers move with an unbelievable precision and dexterity for their size as he painstakingly stitched away at the deeper slices left on Deshavi’s back by the whip. We had been at this for almost four hours now. Deshavi was covered with blankets everywhere except for the area that Trent was working on.

Deshavi’s face was to the side and it appeared that she was looking stronger thanks in large part to the IV fluid most likely. I glanced back at Trent’s work. He was stitching cuts I might not of bothered with and I asked as much, why he was bothering.

He paused for a moment before answering, “I don’t know much about women, but I do know this. What they see when they look in the mirror at themselves is what they judge themselves by. Every scar, wrinkle, extra bit of flesh is seen as a statement against themselves. It’s not right, but that’s how they’re hardwired. When Deshavi looks at herself in the mirror I want her to see, as little as possible, of anything to remind her of what happened to her and by which she can judge herself by.” He tied off the stitch.

“Thank you for coming Trent. I couldn’t have pulled all this off if it wasn’t for you. Deshavi could never ask for anybody better in life than someone like you! No woman could!” I finished with emphasis.

He looked down and I could tell that he was gripped by some powerful emotion.

“Trent what is it?”

He looked up, his eyes were sheer misery, as tears spilled down his face, “I can’t but help think that I’m the cause for all this! If only I hadn’t left! I……”

I reached across and gripped him by the shoulders and shook him hard, “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this! None of this is your fault! If there’s any blame to be had on anyone it would fall on Deshavi, not you! You had no part in her past misdeeds of thievery that opened the door to this happening to her!”

He nodded, but I could tell that he wasn’t convinced and that he might always carry some guilt over this. I prayed that it would not be so.

We wrapped Deshavi up and I made a stretcher out of the old carry bag and within an hour’s time we were moving off through the forest with Deshavi stretched out between us. That night we gave her another IV bag solution. She hadn’t woken up even once. We hadn’t given her any sedatives either.

We started out again before it was light outside. Glancing back once, as the sun rose into the sky, I saw her eyes open. She saw me looking at her and she pointedly looked elsewhere and I sighed remorsefully inside. I had been expecting this depressed despondency, but it made it no easier in bearing it. She was like a wounded animal still on the mend and her attitude would be aggressive. This phase would be hardest on Trent, for it would appear that she felt no love for anyone, most of all him.

Chapter Twelve

Veiled Evil

The two businessmen sipped at their tea, as they sat in an amicable silence in the elegant sitting room. One of the men finally broke the silence, “I see no need to continue a manhunt that may arouse the suspicions of various officials not to mention the world at large. If they get through no one will believe them. The facility is completely destroyed, along with all those that could have squealed on us. I say stop risking the future for one mishap in the past.”

The other man just shook his head at his companion, “You have much to learn Alex. For starters we provide a service that we charge rather handsomely for. If our clients were to find out about our incompetency in this matter we would lose all of our business. Not only that, but our rates would be severed in half, in order to make up for lost business, and to instill faith once again. No they must be tracked down and destroyed!”

The other man sighed and took another sip of his tea, “I suppose you’re right Kent. This man you brought in, Chatta, is he any good?”

“The man’s part wolf on a scent, when the money’s right. Winter is coming fast to Siberia as it always does this time of year. If the winter isn’t enough to bring them down, then Chatta will.”

Alex nodded taking another sip of his tea.

Kent spoke up, “How is the new facility coming along?”

Alex smiled, “Already up and running. We received our first two patrons yesterday.”

Kent smiled in return and raised his tea cup in a mock toast, “Here’s to making their stay with us a memorable one.”

Both men laughed at their jest.

The mahogany panel doors slid open and a little girl peered inside.

“Aye Natasha come in my dear!” Alex said.

The little red haired girl stepped into the room and quickly made her way across it to her father. In a precocious two year old’s voice she said, “Mama said not to disturb you, if you were busy.”

Alex laughed, “Oh it’s nothing dear, your uncle and I were just discussing a little business, but that’s all settled now. Tell me what do you want of me?”

“Ice cream!” The girl answered back without reserve.

Both men laughed at her request.

“Ice cream it is then. To the kitchens with us, where you shall have all the ice cream you can hold.” Alex said good-naturedly.

In a conspiratorial tone the little girl whispered, “Mommy can’t know about this or she’ll be mad!”

Alex leaned down to his daughter, after first winking at Kent, “Leave it to us Natasha. We’re good at keeping secrets. No one will ever know.”

Chapter Thirteen

Big Storm

Four days had passed by and Deshavi was now walking on her own. She had been nothing, but a hassle! She wouldn’t talk and at first she had refused to eat, that is until Trent had threatened to hold her down and force feed her. From then on she had eaten regularly enough.

We weren’t the men, who had raped and mistreated her, but she treated us as such. Her treatment of me, however was mild in comparison to how she treated Trent. She wouldn’t let him within 10 feet of her. My patience was beginning to fray with her, but I continued to preach loving self reserve to myself, in my actions toward her.

Trent had withdrawn into a depressed reclusive state and he kept off to himself. I was the only one, who daily sought to engage either of them, often to no avail. As best as I could tell Deshavi was mending up well. She wouldn’t let me close enough to check on anything. Her fever seemed to be gone and that was what I took the most comfort in from a distance.

No fever meant no infections, at least on the surface. Inside she was a different story. As of yet she hadn’t proven suicidal, but I knew that she was contemplating it. I knew I would have been in her place, if I’d suffered what she had.

She’d only been walking for two days now and we had taken our trek south at a slower pace. Going slower had helped me have the time to augment our dwindling food supply along the way. It hadn’t been much. Some nuts and late-season berries was about it. I’d been lucky knocking a few squirrels loose from their perches with well thrown rocks. While I didn’t feel any pursuit of us was close at hand, I still wasn’t going to risk a rifle shot at any of the larger prey that we had seen, such as red deer or wild boar. The echo of a shot can carry a long distance. It would have been a different story, if I still had my pistol with the silencer on the end, but I had lost it in the escape, as Trent had his. All we had were our rifles, some grenades, and our knives. One thing was for sure, we were ill-prepared to spend the winter in Siberia.

I had already made up my mind that we were pressing on through. We might have to fight our way through some early snows, but there was no way we were going to stay held up here and outlast a long cold Russian winter.

I glanced up at the ominous cloudy sky. The problem in the whole situation though was that we might not have a choice in the matter. I quickened the pace, as I began to look for better shelter for the coming nightfall and what it might bring with it.

Chatta drew up and whistled for his fellow trackers to pull back in.

The hired guns looked among themselves uncertainly, “Why are we stopping? There are still several hours of daylight yet?”

Chatta’s stoic features took in the men assigned to him for the hunt, as he barely concealed his disgust for them. They had lived here in Siberia all of their lives and yet they were still unable to read the signs of nature or the story to be told in the clouds.

“Shelter is good here. We wait for big snow here.”

Dumbly the men looked up seeming to take in the serious turbulent war clouds overhead for the first time.

Chatta turned away and gazed off down the trail. The snow would wipe out what little trail the two men and the woman had left. He would have to track them with signs that couldn’t be seen from here on out. He would have to read the mind of the leader of the small band that they were chasing.

The man ahead of him intrigued him as few men did. To Chatta most men were an open book, but the man he had tracked for days had layers of depth to him. Chatta already keenly respected the skill with which his adversary had chosen his route and managed their retreat. Taking out the dogs and their handlers had been an act of carefully planned genius.

No doubt more such surprises existed within the mind of his adversary. He would have to be careful, even as he savored the chase of his adversary, in this game of death. Hard to kill men, who were knowledgeable of the ways of the land, were hard to find anymore. If he could arrange it, he would challenge this strange warrior and claim his strength, in a battle that he would win.

It was Trent that found the opening of the cave in the gathering darkness. Quickly we moved inside for shelter from the freezing wind that had begun to blow across the land outside. My hands guided by long practice soon had a fire made out of the fluffy punk of a rotted pine tree. I added wood to the little blaze and the cave lightened up.

There was an enraged squeal from further back in the cave. With a shriek Deshavi flattened back against the cave wall, as a full-grown boar hog along with her swine offspring came charging into the firelight.

The young pigs streaked past us out into the open, but the mother boar was having none of it. This was her cave and she was going to defend it as such. She came at me swinging her head left and right trying to gore me with her sharpened tusks, as her enraged squeals echoed deafeningly throughout the cave. Trent dove in and swiped her up along one flank with his hunting knife. Far from injuring her it only seemed to enrage her further. She turned on Trent with murder glaring balefully in her beady eyes and I saw my opportunity and took it.

I ducked in toward her and grabbed both back hind legs and hoisted her up so that it looked like I had a wheelbarrow. She was now helpless to defend against our advances and Trent quickly moved in with the killing swipe of his knife.

The hunger brought on by our rationing of our food would be ended tonight. This impromptu hunt, while it had been a dangerous experience, had been an extremely fortunate one for us.

With Trent’s help I pulled the boar outside and began to butcher it. So much of surviving in the wilderness was just the constant daily struggle to feed oneself. In modern societies it had been forgotten largely, as to what a struggle it could be, simply to eke out enough food to keep on going. Even the homeless in cities had soup kitchens and charities that they could go to. The vast stretches of Siberian wilderness knew nothing of soup kitchens and much less of any form of charity.

The world at large seemed to be unraveling so fast from its carefully constructed order these days. What would happen to the tens of millions of people unused to the rigors of simply surviving day-to-day on what food one could find, when their easy sources of food were taken away from them? It would be a catastrophe that few would emerge from unscathed and yet it seemed, because of the actions of a few the world was fast approaching such an outcome.

Later with a full belly I forced myself to get up, in order to investigate what other hidden dangers the cave may hold, before retiring for the night. Deshavi had eaten well despite herself and was already fast asleep. Trent looked sleepy, but resolutely he sat up awake with a rifle cradled in his arms, as he was on watch duty.

I pulled a burning torch out of the fire and headed off deeper into the cave. My sleepiness soon faded away as I took in the discovery of days gone by. There were cave drawings everywhere!