The Diaries - 01 (39 page)

“You sure you’ll
be okay?”
 
There was concern on Kenny’s
face.

“Yeah.”

Kenny stood and
removed his reading glasses.
 
They shook
hands.
 
“De
Oppresso
…”

Gage looked
down.
 
He did not answer.

Kenny squeezed
Gage’s hand tighter.
 
“C’mon man, buck
up.
 
Say it.
 
De
Oppresso
…”

“Liber,” Gage said.
 
To free
the oppressed.
 
It was the Special Forces
motto that had been etched into every trainee’s brain and, in his haze, Gage
failed to recognize the parallel of the motto to his own predicament.

Once Kenny was
gone, he gorged himself on the food, finding hot sauce in the pantry and
covering the entire plate.
 
Few times in
his life had food tasted so good and, as he ate, he read the article Kenny had
pointed out.
 
If it was accurate—and the
police have been known to use the media to spread a bluff—Gage would be well
advised to continue to lay low for several more days.
 
Getting the diaries from Frankfurt would be a
bit more tedious, but as it was earlier, Gage’s mind was clouded and unable to
think that far ahead.

He rinsed his
plate, placing it in the dishwasher before stepping back into the den and
glancing around.
 
Kenny’s existence
wasn’t much different than his own, and only a few trinkets suggested a
steadier income than Gage’s.
 
As a career
Special Forces soldier, Kenny Mars was a nomad, forced to live that way by the
needs of a readjusted military doctrine.
 
Just enough items to get from day to day, and nothing he wouldn’t be
comfortable with a military moving company packing for him.
 
The career, especially after 9/11, demanded
its soldiers be flexible, always ready to move.
 
Gage caught his reflection in a decorative mirror, and that was when he
became aware of his need for a shower.
 
The old Army saying was:
if you
can smell yourself, everyone else could smell you two days before.
 
Had Gage felt like it, he might have smiled.

The shower was
steaming hot; Gage used copious amounts of shampoo and soap to wash himself,
allowing the heat and steam to work out knots in his muscles from the stress
and the long walk.
 
As he leaned against
the tile wall, the water cascading from his body, the emotional barrier that
hadn’t allowed him to process the other information showed itself.
 
It was sadness: an emotion not normally known
to Gage, a man who jealously protected himself from having to possess anything
worth being sad for.
 
It welled up from
deep inside him, concurrent with the tragic memory of his last shower: it had
been with Monika.
 
He remembered her
massaging his head as she kissed him, smiling at him, nibbling on his lower
lip.
 
They were going to leave, to create
a life.
 
They were so happy, so at
peace.
 

And then she was ripped
from him.

Gage Hartline
cried for the first time in twenty-five years.
 
The sorrow and despair over Monika’s murder mingled with the death of
the two children in Crete, wracking Gage’s body with tremors and loud sobs.
 
The horrible death of his parents and sister
reappeared, and it was as if the entire world rested on him.
 
Gage dropped to the floor of the shower,
curling into the fetal position and allowing his mind to go places it had never
been.

He stayed that way
for nearly two hours.
 
The water went ice
cold.

When Gage could
cry no more, he donned some of Kenny’s warm-ups and sat in the den, staring at
the pistol from Kenny’s chair.
 
He had
placed it before him on the coffee table.
 
It was loaded, cocked, locked.
 

Suicide.
 
Again.
 
He forced himself to
consider it as an option.

While he didn’t
think he could ever do it, he ran through the possibilities.
 
To do it in Kenny’s apartment would be
shallow and ungrateful.
 
Kenny didn’t
deserve that.
 
Gage could stick the
pistol into his pocket, walk back to the center of town.
 
The
Krankenhaus
was there, and at least a hospital had the
equipment for cleaning up blood and brains.
 
Maybe step out back and climb into a dumpster?
 
That would at least save some poor stiff from
having to scrub.
 
Just break out a hose
and wash the little flecks of bone and brain out with the rest of the refuse.

Maybe it would
solve his problems.
 
He could ask for
forgiveness before applying eight pounds of pressure to the oily little
trigger.
 
Death would follow in
nanoseconds.
 
Cool, comfortable death: a
place with no sorrows and no regrets.

There was no shame
in it.
 
They had been given pills, many
times.
 
Death pills.
 
Since the dawn of time, when warriors were
beaten, there was but one thing to do.
 

But was Gage Nils
Hartline, formerly Matthew
Schoenfeld
, truly beaten?

The thoughts that
had been below the odd sadness began to emerge.
 
Gage spun the pistol on the coffee table, remembering the rousing days
on Hunter’s team.
 
Small, adroit teams like
Hunter’s need doers: people who rectify problems the moment they arise.
 
Hunter preached it daily, at every morning
meeting before the sun was even close to rising.
 
“Identify the problem, then cut it the hell
out like a damned cancer.”
 
Gage could smell
the Old Spice scent of Hunter’s after-shave; he felt Hunter’s favorite desert
bush jacket as it brushed behind him; he could see the soggy, unlit cigar
clamped in Hunter’s teeth as he spoke to the men he loved so dearly.

“Identify the
problem.” Gage spoke in full voice to the empty room.
 
His voice was deep and velvety, softened by
the good food and a long night of sleep.
 
He looked at the clock in the kitchen.
 
It was then nearly 2 p.m., morning back in the States.
 
He hesitated a moment, finally grabbing the
cordless phone, dialing Colonel Hunter again.

“Hunter here,”
came the answer.
 
Even retired, the man
sounded like he was in a command tent somewhere just south of Saigon.

“It’s me again.”
 
There was a long pause.

“I kept my ears
open,” said Hunter.
 
“I heard something.”

“Roger, sir.
 
We were careless, corporately, something I’m
not at all proud of.
 
Our adversaries located
us, just like you said.”

Hunter was silent.

“Do you have a
minute?” Gage asked.

“All I got is time
these days, son.
 
What’s on your mind?”
 
In Hunter’s voice was the faintest hint of
something every good leader must have.
 
It was compassion.
 
Gage had seen
it from Hunter before, but the steady old war horse doled it out sparingly.

Gage spoke for
nearly an hour; Hunter listened.
 
Gage
told him everything, including some of the things he had suffered with since he
had been discharged after Crete.
 
He
twirled the pistol on the table as he finished.

“That’s it,
sir.
 
That’s everything.”

Hunter was silent,
other than his breathing.
 
Eventually, he
spoke.
 
“Who else knows about this?
 
About everything?”

“Just you.
 
Monika knew most of it.
 
The guy I’m with here, he knows some.
 
He’s one of us, though.”

Hunter’s voice was
gravel and broken glass. “You got two choices, son, and neither of ‘
em
involves swallowing the first bullet in that pistol.
 
This isn’t a mission, you aren’t surrounded,
and that’d be the damned coward’s way out, roger?”
 
He cleared his throat.

“Choice one: get
back here, come see me, and we’ll go get you some help.
 
You’ll have to come clean, on everything, but
I think you’ll be okay.
 
The powers that
be would take you in, debrief you and then create a
third
life for you.
 
Hell,
they’d have to.
 
This is their damned
fault anyway.
 
The main thing, though, is
for you to just get the hell outta there.
 
Sure as hell wouldn’t put my backside on the line with a foreign
government, even an ally.
 
I assume
you’ve got a clean passport.
 
You could
probably fly outta Poland or the Czech Republic without much problem.”

Gage listened intently
as Hunter levied his verdict.
 
“What’s
choice two, sir?”

“If it were me—and
you need to remember that part, ‘cause this
ain’t
necessarily for you—but if it were me, I’d go to ground for a bit, let everyone
forget all about me.”
 
He paused.
 
“Those sons of bitches ripped away the only
person I love?
 
They’d have to pay.
 
And when the heat finally cooled, I’d unleash
so much fury on those bastards that they’d be killing themselves voluntarily to
avoid my wrath.
 
It’d be my reprisal, my
revenge.
 
It’d be my damned reimbursement
for what they took.”
 
Hunter took another
sip of his drink, afterward his voice booming.
 
“‘Cause if you’re
gonna
commit suicide, you
might as well do it in a blaze of glory and take some evil bastards down with
you.”
 
Icy silence followed.

Gage allowed it to
sink in for a moment, finally speaking.
 
“Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“In the event I
choose that plan, could you
maybe
spread a little disinformation?
 
Maybe have some of our friends tell the right
people that I might be hiding out there with a friend at Bragg?
 
Do it in a way that wouldn’t get back to
you?”

Hunter’s chuckle
was barely audible.
 
“Now you’re
talking.”

Gage’s heart was
thudding dual bass drums in his ears.
 
“You
may hear from me again, sir,
after
it’s over.”

“Good luck, son.”

Gage placed the
phone in its cradle and stared at the pistol.
 
He stood, crossed the room and stuffed it back beside the cushion.
 
Next to the chair was his filthy pack.
 
From it he retrieved the 1935 diary, sitting
on the chair and searching for the passage he’d been recalling when the polizei
had eyeballed him by the river.
 
It was
the passage when “Aldo” had first confronted Greta in the reading room, asking
her to remove the clothing underneath her skirt…

I apologize, diary, for what I will now write.
 
Perhaps if I take my life, or I simply change
my mind, I will remove these pages lest someone read them someday.

Hesitantly, not knowing what else to do, I stood
behind a chair and removed my undergarments.
 
Aldo had me slip my shoes back on, gesturing me to stand next to him as
he sat on an ottoman.
 
He gripped me
around my waist, cinching me to him as one hand roamed up my skirt, exploring the
private areas of my body.
 
Though I was
thoroughly disgusted and bewildered, I will admit he wasn’t rough in his
ministrations.
 
Not until later.
 
My eyes were shut for a number of minutes
until I felt his other arm release me.
 
While his one hand still continued to roam, I opened my eyes enough to
look down and see what he was doing with his other hand.
 
It was something I am unwilling to recount on
these pages.
 
Suffice it to say the
entire episode was worse than any nightmare my mind's eye could ever dream up.

When he was finished, after a long moment of him
sitting slumped over, catching his breath, he quietly told me to replace my
clothes.
 
After I did, he walked to me
and slapped me across the face so hard I fell to the floor.
 
He called me a wicked harlot and instructed
me to draw blood from both of my index fingers tonight, telling me he would
view the punctures on the morrow.

I must pause my writing, diary…

I am back; it is an hour later.
 
Admittedly, diary, I have just had a crying
spell, but one that ended with no more available tears and me feeling much
stronger.
 
Perhaps I just needed to get
it out.
 
I’ve pricked both fingers with a
hot needle and have made up my mind that no matter what Aldo does to me, I can
endure his savagery.

Mama and Papa didn’t raise me to end my life
prematurely…