Tracks (29 page)

Jack nodded to her and to the
doctor and followed the officer out of the room.  They once again crossed
the courtyard and descended the spiral stairway one floor below the cellblock
to a dungeon. 

The officer shone a flashlight
to lead the way. 

Total darkness engulfed
them.  The dungeon was damp and silent and reeked terrible odors as they
walked along a narrow pathway among locked steel doors to the last where the
officer produced a key and let Jack, in securing the door shut behind him. He
did not shine the light into the cell and Jack and no sense where he was. 
He began to feel the walls around him and realized he was confined to a room no
bigger than a large closet. When he raised his hand, it hit the ceiling just
above his head.

A sense of panic engulfed
him.  The confined space and total darkness unnerved him.  The damp
stench was dreadful and he could only assume there was no dedicated space to
rid of his bodily secretions. He sat down and brought his hand to his face
trying to make out his fingers.  He could not. 

It was a tomb.

Shivering and on the verge of
nausea he was at least thankful for the blanket Juman had given him.  He
covered himself with it and tried to shut everything out.  His knee was
throbbing and he began to hallucinate long before he managed to fall into
disturbed unconsciousness.

There was little disparity
between night and day in the dungeon, the only difference being a thin ray of
light protruding through a slit in the low ceiling, which did manage to provide
enough glow to allow Jack to inspect his cell and get a sense of the its size.

It took him a while to
reorient himself when he awoke.  He was lying on his back covered with the
blanket, his left leg still throbbing. He fished in his pockets, found the box
of painkillers and popped one in his mouth.  He then positioned himself
underneath the light and inspected his knee.  It looked as it had the
previous night, swollen but well bandaged and relatively clean.

He suddenly felt very thirsty
and looked around the cell for water but none existed.  It was a good few
hours before food and water were shoved through his cell door.  The food
came on a steel platter consisting of two slices of stale bread, some warmed
beans and canned meat of some sort.  The water came in a plastic bottle,
barely enough to last him a half-day.  He had no appetite and discarded
most of his food but carefully measured his water consumption.  Later in
the day, when darkness fell once again he received a second bottle and feasted
on its water.

The second day went by much
slower.  Though he thought he was feeling less apprehensive and a little
more accustomed to the debilitating conditions, he now had boredom and anxiety
of the future to deal with.  His knee pained him and he constantly worried
about its condition.   Blood poisoning was no laughing matter.

Mostly he tried to prepare for
his imminent trial, argue his case, which he knew was weak at best.  In a
Dahab court he would have no chance.  The judge, the police, and the
lawyer had serious misgivings with him not to mention the boy’s father, all of
whom he had cheated out of a large sum of money they expected to extort in
exchange for the boy.

It would be a circus with him
in the middle of it paying for everyone’s sins.  Now he had an assault
charge to worry about as well though he was quite content with that maneuver
which not only punished the infuriating guard, it also earned Jack a visit to a
doctor and might have even saved his life.

To pass the time and keep his
sanity he decided to try some sit-ups and push-ups.  He laid his blanket
on the floor and did fifty sit-ups then turned and began some push-ups but that
put too much strain on his bad leg.  He figured he'd stick to sit-ups to
stay in shape and decided to up the ante every few hours; see how far he could
push himself.  Then he would work on his flexibility;
keep
his blood
flowing.  In the confined space where he was and his
physical condition, there was not much else he could do. 

Now and then his thoughts
wandered to Clair and whether she had managed to escape but everything else
remained far in the background - his friend Sam, his colleagues at the Center,
his previous life.
Unimaginable luxuries, now.

His entire focus was now on
how to survive.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Elena walked into the Center
just as the phone began to ring.

She fought past the door into
the foyer, unwound the scarf from around her neck and ran to Sam’s office where
she had set up camp.  The room was in chaos.  Sam’s desk and floor
were covered with papers and files, the result of Elena’s total lack of
familiarity with the office.

Being thrown into the middle
of a major crisis, unprepared and untrained, she did her best to assist but
found it extremely trying.  Not only was she unfamiliar with the system
Sam and his colleagues had contrived and had no idea of their basic filing
system and computer network, she was also denied access to any classified
information which made her task next to impossible.

Sam had been patiently
coaching her on how to locate things: files, letters, references, and lists
they needed to consult but it was all she could do to keep from conceding to
the bizarre task of juggling balls with no hands.

Simple tasks like securing
airline tickets, rental cars and accommodations for the crew became complicated
snags due to her not having credit authorizations or access to bank accounts.

To overcome this problem, Sam
had given her Metzger’s private phone and his office would pay the bills.

Elena fished the receiver from
under a stack of files and answered, out of breath.

“Elena, it’s me, Sam.” 
She heard his voice through a great deal of static.  “We have Clair and
the boy out but not Jack.”

Elena was not sure she should
rejoice or be dismayed.

“How are they?” she asked.

“Clair and Ibrahim are in fine
shape. 
Worn out but reasonably healthy.
 
It’s Jack everyone’s worried about.”

“What happened to him?”

“We’re not sure.  He hurt
his leg up in the high mountains and couldn’t go on.”

“So they just left him there?”

“They had to.  There was
no choice.”

“Could you make contact with
him?”

“I’m afraid not.  We’re
not sure where he is now.”

“So what do we do?”

“I need you to put me in touch
with Metzger in a minute.  We need to find Jack and get him out
quick.  Meanwhile I need you to book Mai-Li and the six Brits back to
Scotland.  Chris needs to go to Paris and Natasha to New York.  I’ll
stay here until we achieve some progress.”

“I miss you,” Elena
said. 

She could hear him sigh, so
many miles away. “I miss you too.”

“It’s lonely for me here, and
cold.”

“I know.  I’m sorry this
turned out this way but I’ve got to take care of business here.”

“I miss the Greek weather.
 It’s horrible weather here.  The wind is brutal.”

“Elena, please,
give
it a little more time.  We’ll have better days, I
swear.”

“Why can’t you contact Jack?”

“I can’t talk about it but
we’re in a pool of trouble down here.  Get me Metzger, please.”

Elena knew better than to pry
further.  She had had glimpses of the activity going on around her for the
past two weeks but never the entire picture.  She knew where everyone was
since she made travel arrangements but she was never certain where they all
belonged.  She knew who the Center members were but the rest were
clandestine: the six Brits traveling from Scotland to Israel; a guy named Peka
for whom she arranged travel from Romania via London; someone named Kessler for
whom she secured a rented van in Ben Gurion Airport; a high roller named
Metzger who was paying the bills; a woman named Annie Green.

Sam was being as gentle as he
could but was keeping her ignorant.  He had drawn the line explicitly from
the start but it annoyed her.  She felt she deserved to be reasonably
informed and not used like a device.

She also missed him terribly,
their renewed attraction cut short by the crisis.  They were in the midst
of being reacquainted, finding a long absent love, rebuilding their trust in
life, when he hastily left, leaving her with a responsibility she could barely
handle, on her own, in a huge and quite alien metropolis.

She had since learned to use
the subway, hail down a taxi, and eat a deli sandwich on the run, but alone in
the office for most of the day and some of the nights, it was beginning to get
to her.  She had been alone on her husband’s farm too long to fancy living
it all over again even in a vigorous place like New York City.

She craved intimacy and she
wanted to be with her new mate.  Walking the streets and seeing couples in
restaurants and coffee shops was no substitute, it only made it
harder.  

Disappointed, she connected
Sam to George Metzger and put down the receiver.

The fax machine was clogged
with incoming faxes.  Elena pulled them out, not daring to look; she filed
them in a thick folder she had set up when Sam had shown her the office the
first day.

Too early to call the travel
agency, she set about arranging the office as best she could.  At least
she was happy Natasha was coming.  A legitimate Center member, who could
put things in order and relieve some of the
load
.

She began sorting the mail,
placing each correspondence in each member’s room, two weeks’ worth of unopened
mail piling up quite high on their desks. 

Sam rang once more, a few
hours later and she gave him the travel details.

“You OK love?” he asked
gently.

“Barely,” she answered. “Will
Natasha stay long?”

“Not sure.
A
couple of days, at least.”

“I’d appreciate it if she
spent some time here sorting out some of the classified paperwork.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Great, I can use some company
here.”

“Love you,” Sam said.

“Get back quick.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Elena hung up and went out for
lunch.  Her favorite hangout was a Greek kitchen, a fifteen-minute walk
down Pearl Street to Pier 17, where she had made friends with the chef and one
of the deli attendants who were both Athenians.

She ordered the usual: short
espresso to start with, a glass of water, a Greek salad with extra olive oil,
extra Feta and warmed whole wheat bread which she used to wipe her plate clean
from the oil and sauce.  Once her coffee was ready, she took her place by
a corner table facing the East River.  Slowly sipping her coffee she
surveyed the dock and the Manhattan skyline, lost in thought.

Meeting Sam again after so
many years was a shock. Making love to him felt almost familiar.  Stavros,
her ex-husband, would make love to her on occasion when he was not drunk or
tired.  His lovemaking was short and businesslike without any
foreplay.  Sam, on the other hand, made her feel her worth.  He was
gentle and flexible and he cared about what she liked.  The bruises of
their life were forgotten for a while, when they made love.  She was his
first after Michelle and he hers after her split from her husband.

She marveled at the twists
life had in store.  It was almost twenty years ago when they all
carelessly skinny-dipped in the Med.  Now they were trying to pick up
shattered pieces of their life. She suddenly felt her age, her reflection in
the mirror behind the bar looked solemn, tucked in a long black overcoat, under
a fleece fedora, behind a wool scarf.

She also worried constantly
about Sam’s frame of mind.  On the verge of obsession, his relentless
pursuit of clues of his son was threatening to any “normal” relationship she
would hope to have.  The Center was his avenue, his prospect, to learning
the fate of his long lost son.  This took precedence over anything
else.  Sam, she observed, did nothing if it did not serve to bring him
closer to deciphering his life’s enigma.  Granted, it was as horrible fate
as any for a human.  His wife raped and murdered, his infant son vanished;
no one, not even she, could judge Sam.  It was a blessing he remained
sane. 

But time had to be a
factor.  If Sam had managed and remained sane all these years, there was
something healthy in him; a basic survival instinct must have kept him alive,
the same instinct that made love to her and she was convinced Sam had to stop
fighting it or their relationship would never materialize.

She suddenly realized what she
wanted and a smile began forming about her lips.  She looked at the mirror
behind the bar again and noticed her eyes sparkle and her teeth shining from
within the draped reflection, the gray ambiance of the bar suddenly turning
cheerful.