previously:

I asked in English, knowing that they’d been talking in a different language. In halting English they explain he has indeed been here and they point off in another direction suggesting I might try over with the group of Israelis. I play dumb and ask which group is the Israelis. The one man comes over to me, placing a hand on my bare shoulder as he stands behind me and points out a uniform in the distance.

I give a slight curtsey and thank them. They smile and I’m off again, targeting the Israelis. The men return to their conversation, the momentary assistance to a young woman now dismissed as unimportant.

---

Admin Note: Originally published on BigCloset TopShelf by T D Aldoennetti on Sun, 2008/11/30 - 2:43am, Air Force Sweetheart -- TacPzlSolGp Chapter 30 is revised and reposted on Fri, 2010/01/01 - 06:41 PM. ~Sephrena

---

 

It’s just another way to hide:

 

Chapter 30

 

As I search around the roomful of men, I start to feel panicky. My ‘protector’ is missing and I’m alone in a room full of strangers. After two more encounters with random attendees in my hunt for him, I figure out that ‘Rudolf’ is working the room in a clock-wise direction. I’ll have to go counter-clock-wise in order to intercept him. The pull to run out the door is getting stronger, but I start walking around the edge of the crowd, looking for my hero. I’m about half way around, so he can’t be far, when I glance off to my left and see what I think is an all-too-familiar profile across the room. I think it’s the creep, and I give a small squeak. His back is mostly toward me, so I start looking all around to see if Randolf is nearby, so maybe he can get me out of here.

I finally spot Randolf, I mean ‘Rudolf,’ and like a bloodhound, zero in on him as he moves through the room until I latch onto his arm like he’s a cool jug of water in the middle of the desert. He gives a momentary jump, but then turns toward me with calm assurance.

“You, Herr Klein, are a difficult man to track down. Could we go outside?” I plead at him with my eyes.

“Yah. Hier, ve shal out the garden to go, yes?”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. He makes a terrible German.

I rush toward the garden doors, half towing him beside me. I’m not so much on his arm as clutching it as we move swiftly through the crowd toward the open French doors. Finally we exit the room, leaving the noise of conversations and the bright lights behind us as we move into the soft array of lawns and plantings that stretch out toward the high garden walls. The lights here are shaded to illuminate the paths, with a few spotlights shining up into the treetops, and one bright ring of floodlights shining up toward the flag of Israel flying at the top of a very tall flagpole. There’s no wind to speak of, so the flag droops against the pole, stirring faintly as little gusts of wind drift by.

I’m unimpressed by what must be beautiful gardens, and even by the open lawns, which offer at least no cover for potential assailants. I look around in panic. There appears to be no one out here, so perhaps everything’s alright.

He looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. “What’s wrong?” he says.

“I needed air. I thought that I saw him.” I’m glancing nervously from one end of the garden to the other, then back toward the doors that lead back into the hall.

Someone enters at the far end and I smother a yelp and duck behind Randolf’s bulk, hoping that he doesn’t see me.

“Lucy, relax. That’s one of the Israeli security agents.”

I peek past his shoulder toward the man walking toward us and vaguely recall having seen him when we entered.

The agent comes over to us as I cower behind Randolf. “What’s wrong, Sir, Ma’am? Are you all right?” he says.

“She’s having a panic attack. She thinks she saw someone who nearly killed her about a year ago. We’ll see how she is in a few minutes. Perhaps you might wait nearby, just in case there is a need?”

I see someone else entering the garden and again yelp and try find an avenue of escape. Spotting an open door with no one near it I am off and running. They are momentarily surprised and then are in hot pursuit. Randolf catches me just before I enter the unlit room. The security agent is suddenly between me and the doorway as he pulls out a radio and begins speaking into it.

Moments later, the other man is standing beside us, another security agent. Again I am looking around in panic. “I need to go home. I NEED to go HOME. I NEED TO GO HOME,” I moan, the last coming out in a wail as tears begin to drop down my face.

The first security guy says, “Have you a car here?”

“Yes, I drove her here. General Pendleton is her father. He will need to know I’m taking her home. Her mink is checked. At least she is still holding her purse.”

“Come, this way. Give me the ticket. I will have her coat brought out, while we go to your car.”

He gets on the radio again and starts talking. Somewhere in the conversation, I suppose that he passes along the ticket number and the need to notify General Pendleton.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Princess, You’ll be okay. You did great. You made it through more than an hour.”

“Where did all the people come from?”

“I guess they snuck up on us when we weren’t looking.”

He didn’t get a laugh back so he knows I’m in pretty bad shape. I see another man follow us out of the garden and I take a second look. If it isn’t the creep, then it’s his twin.

A small scream escapes my mouth, and Randolf quickly looks at me and then over in the direction I’m looking. He does a double take as well.

“That looks like him over there.” He says quietly to the Israeli agent, who turns and looks also.

The man is continuing to walk in our direction.

“It’s all right. He’s one of us,” he says, but he looks concerned.

I’m still not convinced. I continue to watch as he gets closer and closer while my eyes get wider and wider. I feel Randolf getting ready for a fight. I’m so frightened I don’t think I could do a thing. The man reaches us and begins talking with the other agent in rapid Hebrew, which reassures me slightly. Even this close, he looks like the creep.

I can tell that Randolf thinks so too, because he says, “You know something, you could be the twin brother of the man who tried to kill her last year.”

The man answers us with a thick Israeli accent, “So I have just heard. I’m sorry if I have upset you, Madam. Perhaps, if you remain out here for a few minutes, you will calm down enough to return.”

I watch him warily, the way a mouse watches a stalking cat.

“Perhaps this is the man you saw inside.”

“Inside? No, I have been out on the grounds all evening.”

So now we know there is at least one more who looks like the creep.

Randolf obviously realizes the same thing, because he pulls the man who looks like the creep aside and starts talking to him in hushed tones.

The agent looks through the glass of the French window, and turns back toward us. Again the radio comes out and flurry of activity erupts as an examination of the number of guests versus the number of invited attendees is quickly and quietly conducted. Daddy comes out and checks on me. Randolf says that he’ll take me home and wait with me until Mom and Dad return later. Daddy shakes his hand in appreciation and goes back in to Mom.

The report comes back, after three rounds of counting. There are three people present without invitations, at least one of whom must look like someone on staff. The extra people aren’t totally unexpected, from their expressions, but the idea that one of them might be masquerading is not exactly happy tidings for Israeli security, who now have men discretely circulating through the crowd. Randolf decides to take me home just after my mink is brought out to us.

-o~O~o-

My throat and mouth are dry and I’m still trembling. We hadn’t been driving long before I say, “Randolf, I’m not going to make it home. I feel like I’m choking; I need something cold to sip. Maybe we could stop for a cola at McDonald’s or something.”

“Okay, Princess,” he says. In a few minutes, he pulls off the highway, about halfway home, and I finally see the Burger King sign he must have noticed, or maybe he knew it was there, near the bottom of the off ramp. He parks in the lot and asks if I want to go inside.

I shake my head no. “I want to be ready to run in case he watched and followed us.”

“Actually,” he tells me, “if he was planning to do anything, he would have spooked you at the Embassy and then hightailed it to your house to wait for you to show up. That way he would have fewer witnesses and a clearer shot.”

I never thought of it that way. I guess that’s another difference between being a field agent and an analyst. Most of me still wants to run home, but now I’m having second thoughts. There’s no particular reason we couldn’t wait a few minutes.

Randolf must have seen my hesitation, because he says, “Princess, why don’t I take you to a restaurant? We can have a little bit to eat, and maybe some tea, so you’ll have a chance to calm down before I take you home. If he’s there, that will give him time to have a lot of second thoughts by the time we’re ready to return. We could even call for some roving patrols to begin about half an hour before we arrive. They could check out to rifle range and we can ask the inside security to search the house for a potential break in.”

I guess I’m so rattled I’m not thinking clearly. Everything he’s saying is so logical. I didn’t have a lot to eat today, so a snack, maybe even some real food, sounds interesting.

“Okay. I hadn’t planned to use my three week’s meal so soon, but let’s go. Do you know anyplace that will let us in dressed like this?”

He laughs, which somehow cheers me up immensely. “Well, I know a few places that are pretty nice, but even those might think we’re a bit over the top in evening wear.”

At least he gets a little smile out of me. I look at my hands and they are shaking.

I guess he looked too because he grabs them and I almost jerk away as he lifts them and kisses each one.

“Princess, this meal’s on me.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

He looks at me for a second or two and slowly reaches up to my face as I try not to flinch. He gently touches my cheek for a few seconds, then moves his hand away.

I shake my head and say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just still difficult for me. I’m actually doing a lot better. A year ago, if you had done that, I would still be screaming and trying to claw my way out the door.”

He slams his hand onto the steering wheel and says, “If I ever get that son of a bitch in my two hands, he’ll rue the day he ever touched you, if he lives long enough. Any so-called ‘man’ who could hurt a woman this badly, and leave this much fear behind to plague her, doesn’t deserve to live. Do you think you could handle a restaurant, or would you rather just go home?”

I want to go home but I know I need to start to trust people again. I’m hungry too, but I need to go home. I need to hide. To hide? Hide?! I’m just beginning to realize what’s been done to me. I’m no longer looking at life with the idea that I can handle whatever comes at me. I panic and run without even thinking. My confidence and pride has been taken from me, and fear and cowardice pushed into the void. I’m an intelligent woman, a third degree black belt, and an American soldier. A year ago, I was in Vietnam, in the middle of a shooting war, infiltrating behind enemy lines armed only with a pistol and my wits. Why am I afraid? Why do I collapse in fear whenever I think he’s near me? Why should I recoil when a decent man tries to touch my hand? He should be afraid of me.

I make up my mind. “Randolf…, would you…. Would you please touch my face again?”

He looks at me and sees that I’m still afraid, but trying to control it. “Princess,” he says gently. “It frightens you. As much as I would like to touch you, I don’t want to bring that kind of pain to you.”

“Randolf, please. I’m trying to break through a barrier inside myself. Please help me. Remember basic training?”

I see him looking at me and trying to decide if I’ll be alright. Now his hand is coming up and again I flinch, but manage to accept him touching me on my cheek. He waits a few seconds and his other hand comes up to my other cheek and softly touches it. Suddenly, I’m perfectly calm. Petrified! But calm. He takes this moment to quickly bend toward me and kiss my lips, then he backs away as though nothing ever happened and I come out of my trance.

“Randolf….”

“Sorry, Princess. I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”

I’m not frightened now; If he’s going to kiss me, then he’ll have to learn how to do it right. I lean over and take his surprised face placing my lips against his and give him a kiss. Not some anemic little peck, but a kiss.

“That’s how it’s done,” I say to him indignantly. “You need a bit more practice.”

He starts laughing.

I look at him and start to feel a little miffed. What am I, chopped liver?

He doesn’t comprehend, but manages to calm down enough that after two or three attempts he is able to say, “Aren’t you still frightened? You don’t appear to be shaking any more.”

I’m not shaking. I look at my hands and they’re perfectly still. I’m perfectly calm. Everything was in a haze before, but now it’s all clear again. I don’t know how I am looking at him but he gets this funny look on his face like maybe he made a mistake and I’m not the timid Lucy he knew, but some tigress who appears to be considering having him for supper.

I lean over, taking his face between my two hands again and kiss him, longer, deeper, and more sensually. He asked for it, now he’s got it. Let’s see him handle it. This time we stay under for ten or fifteen seconds. We back away for air and then I am right back into it. Lucy girl, you’ve got to stop this before you get in trouble. Stop it, Lucy, before you get in…. Oh, never mind, but if you wake up pregnant don’t blame him.

That thought gets my attention. I sit back into my seat and examine the way my body feels. It feels quite well, thank you. Randolf is sitting there smiling, but apparently unwilling to re-engage.

My breasts are slightly enlarged and I think I’ve become moist somewhere. I didn’t think I could ever feel this way again.

“Princess….” He’s hesitant.

I quickly put my finger on his lips. He’s just staring at me.

I whisper, “Randolf, could you touch my face for a moment? Please don’t kiss me, just touch me.”

I hold up my hands to show that they’re not shaking. His hand reaches over and is against my face as I lean my head into his hand. I didn’t flinch and my hands are still rock steady.

“Yes,” I say, and smile.

“What?” He’s bewildered.

“Yes, I would like to go out to eat supper with you. And this is our three week’s agreement. I want to get that bet behind us so that, if we continue to see each other, it’s because we like each other and not because you owe me on a bet.”

“Princess, I would like to take you out, bet or not.”

I give him a grateful smile.

He looks at me a little oddly. “Uh. I think… that is…. Maybe you’d better take a look at your face in the mirror before we go….”

My face? Oh, my makeup. I pull down the mirror on the sun visor and he turns on the overhead light. Even in this light I look a mess. Oh, Geez! No wonder he was looking at me with a little less enthusiasm than I’d expected.

“Randolf, could you take me home for about fifteen minutes, so I can touch up my face a little. I’m not sure that racoon eyes are ‘in’ this season. Then, if you’d still like to take me to supper, I’d very much like to go.”

“Deal.”

He starts the car and we’re on the highway again in moments.

Less than ten minutes later, I’m home. We leave the car outside and go in together. I leave him in the living room while I go upstairs. In less than fifteen minutes (my new record, a personal best, I think) I’ve removed my makeup, moisturized, buffed my skin with tissues and cotton balls, and put on new makeup before exchanging my coat for my jacket. Then I’m back downstairs in the front hall, about to allow my handsome escort to take me out to supper.

He says, “In case you hadn’t noticed, your coat shrank while you were upstairs.”

I smile at him with gaiety in my eyes.

“Now that’s something I never thought I would see.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve actually come out of your shell. After all these months, I was wondering if there was still a happy young woman buried deep inside.”

He opens the car door for me and, while his hands are busy with the car and his keys, I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him again. Not as deeply, nor as long, but a kiss none the less. I hear his keys hit the pavement.

His arms find their way around me and we stand there, forehead to forehead, for perhaps thirty seconds, before he collects himself and says, “Come on, lady, I’m hungry. I didn’t eat since breakfast so I’m looking forward to going out with good company just as much as you are.”

Now I do laugh. Oh, not a belly-bursting gut-wrenching laugh but a happy chime, music, literally, to my own ears. I haven’t felt so free in a long time. “I’m hungry too.”

-o~O~o-

We’re finally on our way and arrive in twenty minutes at an upscale restaurant.

We’re still a bit over the top, but not TOO badly. The food is good and the company great. We manage to keep our hands off each other. Most of the time anyway. It’s the funniest thing. I like the way he touches my arm. Soft, like a Golden Retriever, but with underlying strength and the will to use it for my protection. We leave and drive slowly home. The car door is opened and he walks me to the door.

“Randolf, I had a wonderful time. Thank you. Thank you very much. You’ve been great therapy. See you Monday in the cafeteria?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping you would go out on a date with me tomorrow during the day. There’s a nice little park and a carousel, and hotdog stands and even a cotton candy booth. We could watch the model sailboats, walk the path around the lake and just spend a little time alone. Well almost alone. There will probably be four or five hundred others there but the park is pretty big so we aren’t likely to be tripping over them.”

“I thought you said it was a little park.”

“Well, ‘little’ is a figure of speech in this case. It’s about a half mile on a side. Not huge, but not the corner lot type of park.”

“I’d like that. A real date. Afterward maybe we could go to a little Italian place not far from here for supper, Dutch treat?”

“I could say no, that I’ll pay, but I think I’ll lose the argument. Okay. That sounds great. Dutch treat. Pick you up about ten?”

“I’ll be ready.”

He watches me open the door and go into the house, then he turns and walks down to his car as I stand just inside the door watching him get in and drive away.

I close the door and check in with security. Mom and Dad are still out but are expected within an hour or so. I take my pumps off and walk up to my room in my stocking feet, feeling the carpeting wrapping around my feet with every step.

In my room I put away my jewelry, take off my gown and hang it, sliding the shoes into their proper place next to several other pairs below the gowns. I continue to undress and then go wash my face. Now dressed in my nightgown and robe I find my novel and lie down on my bed to read. A strange thought passes through my mind. I haven’t used that thing since the weeks I was mating with the creep and getting bashed. What if I’ve collapsed in all these months? What if I couldn’t be intimate with Randolf, even if we did want to be married? I get up and start digging through my dressers. Where did I put it? I spend perhaps forty minutes searching and finally give up. I can’t imagine where it could be. I’m a little disappointed and worried. I’d like to know I could do it if I wanted to.

I go back to bed as I hear Mom and Dad arriving upstairs and entering their room.

Thirty minutes or so later Mom knocks and then comes in, sitting on the edge of my bed. “How are you doing, Lucy?”

I smile at her. “I’m doing wonderfully, Mom.”

She looks at me a little strangely. “That’s an odd answer, considering that Phillip had said you were a basket case when you left.”

“I finally got over it. In fact, I think that the terror that creep planted in me is gone, although the creep still exists, and may well still be a danger. Randolf and I made it home just fine, but we stopped along the way and I had a chance to talk with him for a while. We even went out to dinner later and I got back in just an hour or so before you came home. I think that my irrational fear is gone now, although I still believe that he represents a danger to me, and probably to other women as well. He’s a sadist, I think, just like those creeps were back home, but my fear has been replaced.”

“Replaced? With what?”

“Resolve. Determination. Anger. Joy. Love…? We went out to eat at a really nice restaurant. I enjoyed it and I didn’t collapse even once. In fact, I had fun. He’s going to pick me up tomorrow morning and we are going to a park he knows of, where we’re going to walk and ride the carousel and talk some more. Maybe I’ll even find out what his deep dark secret is.”

“His secret? Lucy, I think you should talk with Phillip for a few minutes. We’ll both be right back.”

What’s all this? Is he an axe murderer or what?

They return together, Mom sits on the bed again while Daddy stands.

“Tell her, Phillip. She’s going to start dating him, so she needs to know.”

“What is it, Daddy? What’s wrong?”

He looks like he isn’t comfortable at all. “Lucy….” He stops, then starts over, “Lucy, I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this, he should. So you can’t let on that you know until and if he tells you. Understand?”

Geez, it must be something terrible. “I understand. I won’t mention it unless he tells me.”

Father looks like he’d very much like to be somewhere else. I can see him collecting his thoughts, as though he’s trying to decide where to begin.

“He was married, Lucy. She was killed and he blames himself. It wasn’t his fault, no one could have done more than he did but still it happened and he just withdrew. Oh, he kept working. He did just as well as ever, but the assignments he began taking were all the riskier ones. We don’t know if it was in penance or a subconscious desire to join her in death, or what.” He made a little shrug.

“They’d been married about six months when it happened. It was maybe five or six months earlier than that time you were interviewed in ’Nam. They were in East Germany at the time. Things had a way of heating up quickly and cooling just as fast back then. Hell, they still do. She was an operative as well, half of a husband-wife team. We don’t know exactly what happened. Whatever it was took place while they were both still in East Berlin. They made for the West and the Sandkrugbrücke at the Invalidenstraße checkpoint but something happened somewhere along the way. Shots were fired, according to the statements of witnesses we managed to contact several days later, but we don’t know anything more than that.”

“They continued on, at that point still unharmed, and had made it through the communist checkpoint and were crossing the bridge into the British sector when another series of shots rang out. She was dead before he dragged her to the British side. He was wounded, but not critically. The British rushed onto the bridge with weapons ready but no more shots were fired, and no one had seen where they came from. Some say the Red guards at the checkpoint, while others say they came from an upper floor of one of the buildings nearby. The bullets which hit them weren’t the standard Warsaw Pact military issue used in the guard’s weapons, but more likely those of a Dragunov sniper rifle, longer and heavier than a standard round, so they could have been fired from anywhere within half a mile. There were plenty of potential hide sites in the nearby buildings. There may even have been more than one sniper.” He paused for a moment, remembering what were evidently still troubling memories for him.

I wondered how well he’d known them. He and Randolf worked in the same building, so… I looked around, wondering if she’d been a guest here. Mom obviously knew them both.

“At any rate, she was dead in his arms and he was badly hurt but alive. He blames himself, because they were scheduled to return to the West the day before and he delayed to get more information. He still thinks if they had returned on time she would still be alive. There are no indications that would be true, but that is what he believes.”

“Then why would he want to date me, if he’s still in love with the memory of his lost wife?”

“Who knows? I’m only telling you this so you will tread lightly. Don’t get involved too deeply or you might find yourself emotionally hurt again.”

I sit and think about this for a moment or two.

“Thank you, Daddy. I’ll be careful. I know that going out with him will help me. I looked to him for protection this evening and somehow that made everything click. I’m doing better in the psychological department now. I’d like to date him a while to help me continue to improve if nothing else. Maybe it will help him too.”

“That would be good. The rate at which he’s going right now is burning him out. We don’t know how he’s doing it. It’s been maybe eighteen to twenty months since his wife died, but if he’s going to go into meltdown, it won’t be pretty. I just hope you’re not near him when it happens.”

Mom and Dad go back to their room and I decide to put the novel on the night stand and go to sleep. I lay there for what seems like hours thinking about everything. Why can’t I just have a nice simple life? Everything I do seems to have all these unforeseen repercussions waiting to come down on me like an avalanche. Why can’t the men I run into be like I was? I’d like to think that I would have been a Prince Charming for some Princess without bringing a lot of baggage to our relationship. Now I’m the Princess and I can’t find a Prince Charming who doesn’t carry several tons of doom and gloom along with him.

You’re dumb, Lucy, You’re dumb. If you hadn’t kissed him so much, then he probably wouldn’t have asked you out tomorrow and everything would be okay.

Of course the additional date or dates might help me, but at what new cost? Why does the world have to be so complicated? I guess I’m like the lead in the movie South Pacific, a cockeyed optimist. Maybe I should take her song to heart ‘I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair.’ As if. And who am I to talk about baggage? I had a boatload of it long before I entered the program that made me what I am today, and it obviously wasn’t the big secret I’d thought it was at the time. They found me, didn’t they?

I need to find my action group and go back to work there. It seemed so much more simple back then than things are now. Interacting with men simply complicates my life in ways I’m not prepared to accept. Then again, I want a family. That almost requires me to have a man in my life. How do I find a nice one, who isn’t encumbered with ghosts, or poisoned by hatred for women? I need to move to Venus, or Mars, or Jupiter, or somewhere. Somewhere logical.

And what would that accomplish, Lucy? It’s just another way to hide.

---

 

To Be Continued….       © 2008, 2009 by T D Aldoennetti & Rénae Dúmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder) or her assigned representative. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. An Aldoennetti Original.