The Longest Winter (21 page)

“To rescue your sorry ass.”

I laughed. “Semantics.”

“Should I be worried?” Yuri said, looking in the rearview mirror.

“Nah. This one should be pretty straight-forward.”

“I’ve heard that from you too many times, Link.”

“Oh, come on, Kara. You wouldn’t trade any of this.”

“Not now. A week ago…” she stopped, unsure if she should continue. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kat said. “As hard as it was for me, I was almost certain I’d see everyone again. I kind of believed what he said, about how long I would be there, but I never really believed his tales about the end of the world. I knew I would get out of there eventually and that everyone would be waiting, it was what kept me going. None of you had that.”

She stopped and took a few breaths. I could tell she was holding back tears. I reached across Chen – good thing he and I have always been close – and put my hand on Kat’s leg.

She shook her head, and I knew she wanted to continue. “You all kept working to find me, from wherever you were, even though I’m sure you all thought I was dead. If it wasn’t for hope and faith, I never would’ve made it through. But your hope… I’m surprised you could even hold onto any.”

“We had to,” I said. “Even if we feared the worst, there was always that possibility that you were still alive. We had to cling to it.”

“I know. Thank you.”

I rubbed her leg to try to comfort her, but ended up rubbing Chen’s leg as well. It was an awkward seating arrangement in a car barely large enough for two in the back seat. It didn’t matter anyway. Two minutes later we turned into the detachment parking lot and waited for the gate to open. It took its time moving across the driveway, clunking along on what had to have been an ancient, rusted chain. The moment there was enough room, Yuri steered through the opening and found us a place to park. Time was of the essence, and waiting for a gate wasn’t in the schedule.

We piled out of the car and made our way inside the detachment. Five minutes later Kara and I were in the interrogation room with Max while Chen watched from behind the glass, with another detective I had just met. Sophie Van-something. Yuri had felt that someone new might be better as an observer, someone who might catch something different or come up with a new avenue of interrogation, so he volunteered Chen and Sophie then went to the lounge to keep Kat company.

I sat down in the seat across from Max. “My name is…”

I didn’t get a chance to finish. “I know who you are. They’re calling in the hotshot now, are they?”

“Something like that. We need to know where the boys are, and you’re going to tell me.”

“No, I’m not. I’m not supposed to even be talking to you.”

“Then don’t, no one is forcing your hand. Well, except your lawyer if you stay quiet.” I was risking a lot taking the strong approach right off the bat, but I had a feeling it would work.

“I’ll do what I want, but I’m still not telling you where the boys are.”

“Right,” I said, “because they need to die together. It’s your gift to them.”

Max nodded but didn’t say anything.

I looked into his eyes and tried to read him as best I could. I had a knack for it, but he had spent so many years in hiding he knew how to conceal himself. There was a lot shut away in that mind of his - that much I could tell.

I watched him for a few minutes, neither of us speaking, and observed the subtle movements and expressions he made. If he leaned forward or back far enough that the cuffs pressed against his wrists, he would close his eyes and take a breath. He always looked straight forward, maintaining eye contact with me, and never down at himself. It could have been a comfort thing, not wanting to see the metal chair he was secured to, or the absence of his hands which might have rested on his lap were they not otherwise occupied.

Even though he was looking right at me, he wasn’t. It was as if he spent most of his time staring through me, like there was something projected on the wall behind my head. He was staring at images in his mind, something happy or calming – a waterfall or a sunset, waves lapping at the seashore. Or whatever it was that he found soothing. I didn’t want to know.

I knew what he was doing, it was something I had done myself.

“I think I understand you,” I said, breaking the silence.

“I doubt it.”

“Hear me out. I’m sure it’ll all make sense when I’m done.”

Max chuckled, an uncomfortable mix of laughter and concern. “Go ahead.”

“This isn’t your first time in handcuffs,” I said, starting small. “Or perhaps that isn’t true. Let me rephrase it. This isn’t your first time being locked up, unable to move.”

He didn’t react so I continued.

“You’ve been somewhere like this before, somewhere worse. I can see it in your eyes, Max.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“When I was eight, I was abducted. I was on a camping trip with my father and had gotten up to take a leak. Someone grabbed me and ran with me through the forest. He beat me, because he could and because I wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a white boy, but he had to take what he could get. You know that feeling, or else you wouldn’t have convinced yourself that David is Claude.”

“Fuck you. I told her, stop with the games. I know who I kidnapped. You can lie all you fucking want.”

“Funny how you’ve been calm up to that point, and now you get pissed off. Seems to me like the fantasy has a few holes in it.”

Max pulled at his cuffs then closed his eyes tight, the same response I’d seen before. Had he been able to, I think he would’ve folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, a dismissive posture more expected from a teenager.

“It’s pretty simple, really. You didn’t get what you wanted. But that’s fine. We’ll call him Claude.”

“I don’t care what you call him. I know who he is.”

“Good. Good for you.”

Max grew angry, his face turned red. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Alright, I’ll finish my story. So, got abducted, beaten for being black, and so on. But here’s where I got lucky. My dad found me, saved my life, but then I had to save his. I put a knife in my abductor’s back, right through his chest. Got knocked out in the process and woke up with no memory of it all. Dad took care of it, buried the pedophile in a shallow grave. I’m sure that there are a few fathers right now who would like to do the same to another pedophile.”

He squirmed in his seat, then closed his eyes tight again just for a moment.

“I never knew about it. Only found out a couple of years ago when the repressed memories started to come back. But you, you’ve been dealing with it since it happened.”

He shook his head, as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Max. You and I, in a way we’re kindred spirits. We’ve been through shit the rest of the world can’t even begin to imagine. It almost tore me apart, but I had strong support from my family. I feel like you didn’t have that. They left you high and dry afterward, didn’t they.”

I could see his eyes becoming watery. He was trying to hold it back but I was getting to him.

“How old were you at the time? Ten?”

“Eleven.”

“How long did he hold you for?”

“Four weeks.”

“That’s why the cuffs are bothering you. You were tied up the whole time, weren’t you.”

Max nodded.

“I’ll take them off, but try anything stupid and you will regret it. Understood?”

“Yes, I promise I won’t do anything.”

I looked at Kara but she was already up and searching for her key. She unlocked the cuffs and Max brought his hands in front of him then rubbed his wrists.

“Better?”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said.

“Look, Max, you got dealt a shitty hand, there’s no doubt about that. Your parents, as much as they wanted you back, didn’t know what to do after they actually got you back, did they?”

He shook his head. I needed to hit hard, and a part of me felt bad for it.

“You were damaged goods. You weren’t the same kid you were before, were you? And they knew it. They saw you differently, you’d been defiled, you were unclean, and they couldn’t handle it. Catholic, am I right?”

Max nodded. “How’d you know?”

“Something like that, it messes with you. It breaks your faith.” I thought of Kat and how hard it must be for her to still believe in a loving, caring God. “What happened to you, it changed them as well.”

“My mom went to church more and more after that, praying every chance she got. My dad withdrew from it and turned to alcohol. He wasn’t a pleasant man to begin with.”

“It got worse a couple of years later, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve never married?”

“No… but I’m not…”

“I know, but you dabbled, didn’t you?”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m good at reading people,” I said. I knew he was a loner, I knew he had been on his own and in psych institutions from the age of sixteen on, I just had to fill in the blanks. A few deductions, and a few lucky guesses were all I had. “With what happened to you, it was what you knew. It’s only logical that you would look to the same place as you got older. But your parents didn’t approve, did they?”

“My dad beat the shit out of me for it and my mom dragged me to the church to try to absolve me of my sins. I didn’t know what I was doing. It went on for a bit, just as a way of getting back at them. But then when I was fifteen I met a girl and she was amazing. Most people knew about me, they knew what had happened, but she didn’t. She went to another school on the other side of town.”

“What happened to her?”

“We dated in secret for a bit, but then she got pregnant. She was fifteen and neither of us knew how to take care of a baby.”

“You were both children yourself.”

“She had an abortion. Still hurts to think about even now. Just how things could’ve been different. My parents disowned me after that, especially my mom. She kicked me out of the house with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. I tried to kill myself that night. Jumped off a bridge in Brussels into the
kanaal Brussel-Charleroi
in the middle of the winter. If someone hadn’t seen me, I would’ve died. That was when I first found myself in the psych ward.”

“Your parents wouldn’t take you back, would they?”

“I’d tried to kill myself. I was a sinner in too many ways. They turned me over to the state at that point.”

“And when you were sixteen you changed your name?”

He nodded.

“There were no records from before.”

“They were sealed. My dad had been getting more and more abusive before I tried to kill myself. He told me at the hospital if he ever saw me again, he’d kill me. He blamed me for everything.”

“Is that how you got the scar and the broken tooth?” I’d wanted to ask him how those happened since I first saw him.

“The tooth was his fault. He had one of those big ugly gold rings. Punched me in the face. The scar though, that was a stupid mistake doing farming work. Don’t ask someone to toss you a pickaxe, get them to hand it to you.”

I cringed at the thought. Looking at the scar, he’d needed more than a few stitches to close the wound. “Ouch,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Max smiled faintly, the scar bunching at the edges and his broken tooth showing. “I could’ve gotten the tooth fixed, but I kept it as a reminder of why I wasn’t going back.”

“So the name change… the records were sealed to protect you from your own parents?”

“Yes.”

“What was your name before?”

Max shook his head. “I’ll answer your other questions, but not that. I’ve tried so hard to forget it.”

“Okay, that’s fair. What happened after that?”

“You know where I’ve been, what I was doing. I was just running from everything for years, trying to find somewhere to make a place for myself, but I never could. It always followed me.”

“It? The urges?”

“Yeah. It would get so bad I’d have to leave and find another city far away to live in. But it always came back.”

I wasn’t sure where else to go but to try to get it out of him once more.

“So the boys, you want them to die together to save them from everything you’ve been through?”

Max nodded.

“Then why abduct them in the first place?”

“I couldn’t help myself, and I wanted to…”

“Give them your gift. That they would be together forever. Because you were alone, you want them to never be.”

“Yes. I want them to be happy forever.”

“Then why keep them for so long?”

“So that they would bond, so that they would become closer than they ever knew they could be. I wanted them to depend on each other, to love each other like never before so that when it happened, they’d be happy and comfortable with each other.”

“Then why beat them? You tortured those boys. Why do the same things to them that he did to you?”

Max didn’t speak, he just did as I had expected him to do before – he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He had closed himself off to me.

“You molested them. Why? Just because someone did it to you?”

Max stood up and Kara and I jumped to our feet ready to fight. “I’m done. I want to go back to my cell.”

“Sit down,” I said, my face stern.

“Fine, but I’m done talking.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

K
at followed Yuri to a small interview room, one with nice couches and a single-serve coffee machine. It was the exact opposite of the interrogation room; this room was warm, comfortable and relaxing. It was where victims of crime and witnesses were interviewed, a place where they could relax and focus. Criminals didn’t have that luxury; they were put in a barren room with metal furniture secured to the floor, a place where they couldn’t relax if they tried.

Different tactics for different purposes. Yuri knew that, but it wasn’t his intention this time. He just wanted a comfortable place to sit and have a cup of coffee.

“What do you take in yours?” he asked.

“Is there tea?”

Yuri looked at the selection of little discs. “Earl Grey, green, or orange pekoe?”

“Pekoe, please.”

“Milk or sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

Kat sat on the couch as Yuri made the drinks. Aside from the sounds of the machine, the room was silent.

“This is…” Kat started.

“A little awkward?”

She nodded. “I know you said you could help me, help me understand, but I just don’t know how. Have you investigated a case, a case like mine before?”

Yuri tried to remember exactly what he had told her on the phone. She had been at the hospital when he called, and he had timed it so that Lincoln would be too preoccupied with his conversation with Kara to wonder what was happening. Of course, he didn’t have Kat’s number, but Chen’s was still in the INTERPOL employee database. It had just meant he needed to beg secrecy from two people instead of one.

He had told her simply that they needed Lincoln’s help with the case, but that he knew Lincoln wouldn’t go. Yuri told Kat he could help her. He said he knew what she was going through and suggested she come along – even if it meant convincing Lincoln. Yuri had been very vague, almost cryptic, but it had worked. Kat sat before him wondering what he could possibly say that would help her.

“It was as a result of a case I worked on,” he said. “Years ago I was a field agent working across a number of countries to try to combat the international drug and gun trade. I was in South America at the time with my partner, a Brazilian agent, and we were supposed to meet with an informant who was going to provide us the location of the kingpin.”

“He tricked you?”

“No, he was an honest man forced into growing coca plants on his farm. He wanted a new life for his family and INTERPOL was willing to help him with that. What he did not know was that someone had been suspicious of him and they’d had him followed. He was killed and my partner and I were abducted. They held us at gunpoint, five-to-one odds, and bound and blindfolded us before throwing us into a Jeep. When the blindfolds were removed, the kingpin was staring us right in the eyes.”

Kat took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“We were in his compound, the very place we wanted to find. He already knew who we were, found our badges and identification cards, and had already made his demands to INTERPOL. Ten million dollars for each of us and five hundred rifles with ammunition.”

“I’m assuming they paid?”

“Policy is never to deal with terrorists. We knew that going in. However a ‘private individual’ got the money together, but not the guns. The trade was accepted. Unfortunately for us, they never had any intention of sticking to the deal. He got his money, and he kept us. We were more valuable to him than any amount of money or weapons.”

“Why?”

“We had a lot of information on him and his rivals. He needed to know how much we knew, and he would go to any lengths to get it.”

“You were tortured. I’m sorry, Yuri.” Kat looked down and shook her head from side to side.

“It is okay. It was bad, but it only lasted for a few weeks.”

“What… what did they do to you?”

“This,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt and exposing the left side of his chest, “was the part I can never forget. He branded me with his symbol, a spider. He said I was his forever. I would rather not discuss the rest. It has taken me many years to overcome it all, but those scars were mental, not physical.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Please, do not worry. It has been almost ten years now, I have moved past it. But there are still things I would rather not think about.”

Yuri buttoned his shirt back up.

“I understand,” Kat said. “And I’m sure I’ll understand more in a few years.”

“You will move on from this, I promise.”

Kat nodded. “I hope you’re right.” She paused for a moment. “What happened next?”

“After a few weeks of it, they gave up. I never said a word to them, and I was never going to. They knew that, but it did not matter. My partner, he had not lasted as long. It isn’t like it is in the movies though. Once a person has been broken they do not just tell everything they know. He cracked the first time, told them what they wanted to hear, and I knew he felt like he had betrayed me. He did not speak again for five days, and they tortured even more for it. Eventually he told them a little more and a little more. It took them three months, but they learned everything they wanted to know and then some.”

“And you?”

“They made me watch. I tried to get them to turn on me but they knew it was pointless. They would still beat me, but it was for fun and not for a purpose. I watched them torture him every single day and then, when they had everything they needed, they left us alone. They brought us our food and water but that was it. He died four days later. It had been too much to bear and they had never treated his wounds. I know it was infection, but at the same time I think he just gave up.”

“What happened to you?”

“Two months later the compound was stormed by a rival cartel. The kingpin and his men were massacred. They came into the hut where I was tied up and I was so weak I think they figured I was dead. When I spoke to them, I thought they were going to kill me. I was a waste of time to them, until I convinced them I was worth money. They made their own demand, far less than the original, and I was free within the week.”

“So you were there for five months?”

Yuri nodded. “Half the time you spent in that bunker.”

“But I wasn’t tortured.”

“And I was not alone. Even after my partner died, I still had my jailers. They would bring me food and water and I even managed to somewhat befriend one, just enough that we would exchange a few words each time. That interaction helped so much.”

“It was so hard,” Kat said. “But I was never alone. I prayed every day more times than I could count, and Link and the kids were right there with me, even if they were hallucinations. I spoke to them and I imagined them speaking back. But you’re right, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t actual human interaction. The solitude was the worst part of it.”

“I can imagine,” Yuri said. He finished the last of his coffee and set the mug on the table.

“How did you get past it all?”

“Time. And a lot of counseling.”

“They keep saying time. But how do you let time heal it when you’re not even sure you’ll make it to the next day?”

Yuri looked up. “Are you suicidal?” He cursed himself, wishing he wasn’t always so blunt.

Kat turned away and hid her face. “I shouldn’t be, I know I shouldn’t. Not now that I’m out. But there wasn’t a day in that bunker where I didn’t think about killing myself. And now, with how hard it’s been to adjust, the thoughts keep coming back. But it’s the easy way out.” Kat reached up and held the cross that hung around her neck.

“I thought about it too. A lot. It was so hard to adjust back to normal life. I stayed away from crowds for a while and spent most of my time at home.”

“That’s all I want to do,” Kat said. “Just hide away from the world, even from Lincoln and the kids.”

“It is what you know now. After I was free, I withdrew from everyone. I had some interaction while I was there, but once I was out I wanted even less of it. My sister and I had been really close before, but then I barely spoke to her. I never answered her calls or her emails.”

“Are you close again now?”

“No. There’s a lot to it. My mother couldn’t handle my being held captive. When the money was paid and I wasn’t returned the cartel cut off all contact and my partner and I were assumed to be dead. It broke her. She killed herself a few weeks later. Then my father died of a heart attack a week before I was rescued. He could not bear the thought of life without my mother; I know that. My sister blamed me for all of this.”

“It wasn’t your fault at all, Yuri.”

“Maybe it was. I should never have taken such a dangerous job.”

“Someone has to.”

Yuri nodded. “Anyway, by the time I was better, too much time had passed. I tried to contact her again but neither of us really knew where to start. She had a son and I think she was worried about me being around him too much. The times she had seen me after I got back… well, I was not myself to say the least.”

“I can imagine. Every second I feel like I’m just going to start to scream or cry or both. Then when the anxiety hits, my blood starts to boil and I need to leave, but how do I tell the kids that? How do I explain why mommy just ran out of the room?”

“I wish I could answer that. I never had kids. But from what Kara has told me, yours seem very smart and well-adjusted. I am sure that they will learn to understand.”

“This helps, Yuri, it really does.” Kat wiped a tear from her eye. “I never thought anyone would understand any of what I’ve been through.”

“Me neither,” Yuri said.

“So what do I do? How did you get through it?”

“I think the big thing was when I realized I did not have to be perfect. No one was expecting me to just come back from it the next day and be fine. We try too hard to cover things up, to pretend like they never happened. We try to be superheroes. But it just makes it worse. Let yourself cry, let yourself be afraid and upset and alone.”

Kat nodded. “I know, but I need to be strong for the kids.”

“You are. You need to be able to let it out and talk about it. You have not stuttered since we first walked in.”

Kat looked embarrassed for a moment. “I didn’t notice. I can’t control it and I’m worried it’ll scare the kids. I need to learn to stop.”

“You will. Staying relaxed and comfortable will help. For now you need to let yourself adjust and, and this is going to sound strange, you need to grieve for the life you left behind. Even though you hated every minute of it, your body and your mind became used to it. It is like a drug addiction, you know it is bad but you come to need it. This is no different. There were days where I actually wished I were back in that hut tied to a post. At least then I would have known what to do and how to survive.”

Kat breathed a sigh of relief. “So I’m not crazy for wishing I was back there?”

“To anyone else, yes, we are crazy. But they have never experienced what we did.”

“At least when I was in there it was safe and there was routine. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen from one minute to the next and it terrifies me.” Kat could feel her blood pressure rising and her face going flush. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“Want another tea?”

“Please, yes,” Kat said. “That would be nice.”

Yuri put another disc in the machine and slid Kat’s mug under the nozzle. “You just need to take it one day at a time, and just remember that you can always give up for the day. If the fight is too much to handle, there is no shame in backing down. I slept a lot when I got back, just because it was the easiest way to get away from reality.”

“I really appreciate this, and don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve told me.”

“You can tell Lincoln,” Yuri said. “He may be wondering what we talked about, and I want you to know that if you need someone to talk to you can call day or night.”

“Thank you. So Kara doesn’t know?”

“Not yet, but I am going to tell her. Very few people know. That part of my employment record and all of the investigations I was on have been sealed. They managed to keep it pretty quiet. But she deserves to know if we are going to be working together again after this.”

“It would probably be good for you. The more people who can share the burden, the better. I remember that from when Lincoln was going through the worst of his PTSD.”

Yuri nodded and handed Kat her tea. “You are probably right. Remember your own advice as well. There is safety in numbers.”