“Will the Israelis cooperate?”
“They might. It’s worth
a try.”
“
You doing
anything tonight?”
“No plans.”
“How about dinner and jazz in
the Village?” Peka inquired.
“Who’s paying?”
“I am.”
“Is this a date?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“I’ll be there.” Natasha said
flashing him a teasing smile, getting up to gather her things. She put on
her coat and bent to kiss him on the cheek, before she left.
Peka would be left with her
lunch bill as well.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Jack woke up in a room that
seemed empty.
He was on his back; his left leg
bandaged and
raised,
an IV needle in his left
arm. He had no idea how long he had been under but realized he survived
the general anesthetic.
There was a faint light just
above his head, which illuminated his bed but he could not make out what the
rest of the room looked like. Beyond his bed was very quiet and pitch
dark. He tried to say something but managed a strange howl that echoed in
the room.
He had a headache and felt
sick. There was a soggy smell to the place, like in a basement. When he
tried to shut his eyes, the world swirled and it felt as if he was going to
puke.
Having no idea what time of
day it was or when he would be tended to, he lay there helpless and wondered
whether he needed to apply some of the methods that kept him sound while in
solitary confinement.
After a while the knee area
began to ache,
then
it pained him, then began to
throb. There was nothing he could do but endure it quietly.
Sometime later a door opened,
and light suddenly burst in, blinding him. The door closed again and he
could hear someone shuffle around. Then a fluorescent lamp lit up and
Jack could finally make sense of where he was.
The room was rectangular, long
and empty with a low ceiling. It did not seem like a hospital room but
for the two occupied beds with IV and monitoring equipment surrounding them.
The place indeed looked like a basement.
A male nurse was tending to
the patient occupying the second bed on the far side corner of the room.
Several minutes passed and the nurse turned to Jack.
He spoke good English.
“I see you are alive, Mr.
Jack.”
Jack could only nod.
“I’m Zaki,” the nurse
introduced himself then proceeded to tend to Jack’s bandages and IV. He
peeled off the dressing allowing Jack to see his knee. The operated area
was sewn in a zipper-like fashion. A strip of stitches adorned the inside
part of the knee with traces of blood around it. Nurse Zaki carefully
cleaned the area, then applied some ointment and re-bandaged the knee.
“It hurts,” Jack managed to
whisper as the nurse put his head closer.
“The doctor will be here soon
and will give you some pain killers,” he offered. "Your knee will be put
in a cast when the swelling goes down." He then replaced the IV
bottle and left the room, killing the bright fluorescent light.
Silence returned but now Jack
was aware of the other patient’s presence. He assumed it was a man,
knowing the Egyptians would never mix genders, and though the patient did not
move much, Jack could hear him shift under his sheets.
The doctor’s entourage appeared
sometime later. Jack could feel his pulse throbbing around the
knee. They tended to the roommate first taking their time then finally
approached Jack.
Once again Zaki peeled off the
bandages allowing the doctor to examine the knee. Pressuring here and
there, he caused Jack great pain but seemed to be quite satisfied with the job.
“How much does it hurt?” he
asked.
“A
lot!”
Jack growled.
He gave instructions to his
entourage in Arabic and left the room.
Nurse Zaki remained to
re-bandage while another male nurse applied a syringe to the IV bottle
explaining that it was morphine that would gradually relieve the pain.
Nurse Zaki informed Jack that
dinner would be served in an hour thus orienting his sense of time. When
the two left the room, shutting off the lights, Jack noticed his roommate’s bed
lamp alight. As he half turned to get a better look, he was surprised to
see the man propped up on his pillow, staring at him.
His features were anything but
Middle-Eastern. He looked European and was totally bald. Most of his face
was shadowed but as he looked up, Jack noticed a deathly thin face, the skin
wrinkled, eyes deep in their sockets.
“You American?” the man asked
in a hoarse voice. Jack could not distinguish the accent. He nodded and
tried to twist back to get a better look.
“Name’s Rooney,” the man said.
“Jack,” Jack managed to growl.
“You a prisoner?” the man
asked.
“You
American?”
Jack retorted, ignoring the question.
“Born
there.”
“What’s the accent?”
“Grew
up in Africa.”
“You
from New York?”
Rooney asked.
Jack nodded again, turning
away, his body aching from the cumbersome position. The man troubled him.
He looked like a ghost but
spoke resolutely. There was no point denying his prisoner status.
The man seemed quite sharp and well versed.
“Been locked up for ten
years,” he said.
Jack turned to look at him
again.
“What the hell for?”
“Long story, but I’m
gettin
’
outta
here.”
“Where
to?”
“Heaven or hell; take your
pick.
Probably hell.”
Jack looked confused.
The man flashed a crooked smile. Most of his teeth were missing.
“I’m
gettin
'
outta
here in a box, my friend. Liver’s
shot. Kidneys are gone.”
“What are the doctors telling
you?” Jack asked.
“Surprised I’m still
breathin’. I’m here because I’m
dyin
’.
Otherwise I’d be back in the cell.”
Jack took a minute to digest
the information.
“You in for life?” he finally
asked.
“That and then some,” Rooney
sighed. “I, my friend, do not exist.”
“What did you do?” Jack
could not help himself figuring he’ll probably never know.
“I jeopardized an
organization. They couldn’t afford to let me loose. What’d they do
to you? Break your leg?”
“No. I hurt it trying to
escape from them.”
“You
CIA?”
Rooney asked recklessly.
“Not even close,” Jack
replied, wondering how he should respond. He figured Rooney would quickly
find out the truth if he ever made it out of their room. But at the
moment, there was no way he would know. Partial truth might be better.
“They pinned an attempted
kidnapping charge on me,” Jack finally said. “I was hired by a divorced
mother to track her kid over here. When I found him, they stuck me with
the charge. I tried to disappear, but they caught me.”
Jack noticed Rooney’s face
darken. His demeanor seemed to shrink all of a sudden and his mouth
quivered.
“You OK?” he
asked,
concern in his voice.
Rooney took a moment to gather
himself
.
“Acid stomach,” he complained
shifting positions uncomfortably. “Filters ain’t working’.”
He slid on his back and
remained silent for a while, eyes shut. Jack could see his body
convulsing. Then he suddenly turned and heaved on the floor, a mixture of
vomit and blood, just as nurse Zaki entered the room with dinner. He
thrust the tray on Jack’s bed, produced a pair of surgical gloves and hurried
to aid Rooney who was choking on his bile. He must have pressed an
emergency button because several more people in white hurried in to assist.
Rooney was soon cleaned up and connected to an oxygen source. They
alerted the doctor who rushed in and examined him thoroughly.
“Not much we can do,” Jack
heard him say in Arabic. He gave further instructions to his crew and
left without looking at Jack.
Zaki remained with him for a
while, then removed the oxygen mask, replaced the IV bottle, and prepared to
leave.
“Are you planning to eat?” he
asked, pointing to the tray on Jack’s bed.
Jack had no appetite to begin
with and even less so looking at Rooney. He kept the water bottle and
passed on everything else.
He dozed for a while, slipping
in and out of consciousness as the night progressed. The morphine did its
job and alleviated some of the pain. At one point someone came in to
replace his IV bottle.
He woke up with a start in the
midst of a terrible nightmare. Something terrified him. The place felt
like a morgue, pitch dark, yet someone was talking to him. Dazed, he
thought he was hearing voices, then realized it was his roommate, his voice
hoarser than before, yet comprehensible.
“…need to confess,” Rooney was
saying. “I did a terrible thing. Need to tell someone before I
die.”
“I’m here,” Jack whispered.
“Go on, tell me.”
“It won’t be long now,” Rooney
kept muttering. “The Lord is coming for me. I’ll pay for my sins.”
He suddenly went quiet and
Jack thought he was gone but he began speaking again.
“Are you listening to me?” he
suddenly cried out. “Can you handle me?”
“Go on, spill it out,” Jack
encouraged him, hoping to relieve the dying man’s pain.
“They were right, lockin’ me
up, I deserve it!” he gushed. “I deserve the punishment for the
killin
’.”
“Who are they?” Jack
asked.
“The
Organization.
The conspiracy.
They trained me, they sent me and I let them down raping and killing that
woman.”
Rooney’s speech was suddenly
interrupted as his body convulsed and he fought to keep from vomiting.
Jack heard him choke and gulp.
“We
stood before him in awe and pointed to the crib on the floor,” Rooney continued
hallucinating. “Remember, Ramone? The man didn’t flinch, just
stared at us with those pale blue eyes, real angry. ‘Why’d you do it?’ he asked.
We swallowed our tongues, man. ‘Why’d you kill her?’ he kept asking, raisin’
his voice at us, treatin’ us like scum.
"We
didn’t know his name. Ramone, he started apologizin’ saying we went crazy
seein’ her naked and all. The man, he was disgusted - ordered us to leave
and turned his back.”
“What
did you do?” Jack asked, a shocking suspicion building up inside him.
“We
were trained to conquer America. It’s the Organization. They
trained us. Those bastards...”
“Who’s
the Organization?”
“It’s
a scheme by the League to destroy America. That’s why they took me and
Ramone, and all those little kids so they can send us back with their American
passports…”
“The
Arab League trained you?”
“It’s
their followers over in Beirut. That’s where they bring the kids and
train them to spy on America. Ramone and me, we got the kid there but
they punished us for killing the woman.
Didn’t even try
us.
Stuck us in the cell for life, said we don’t exist.”
A cold
chill ran up Jack’s spine and the blood froze in his veins. For the first
time since he awoke from his operation he was thankful for the dark. The
knee was suddenly forgotten.
It was
inconceivable that he would find himself in a room with Michelle’s murderer and
Little Sammy’s kidnapper. Yet the man was describing identical circumstances.
“When
did this happen?” he asked, heart pounding.
“More
than ten years ago man, but I see the woman every night, and the kid. She
talks to me…”
“Where
was she from?” Jack persisted, straining to keep a cool head.