Vanish (22 page)

“You’re a drag on me, Mila. You’ll slow me down. I don’t want to have to watch out for you

all the time. I’m
not
your fucking mother!”

“I never wanted you to be.”

“Then why don’t you grow up?”

“And why don’t you stop being a bitch!”

The car takes us by surprise. We are so focused on each other that we do not notice its

approach. Suddenly it rounds the curve, and the headlights trap us like doomed animals. Tires

screech to a stop. It is an old car, and the engine makes knocking noises as it idles.

The driver sticks his head out the window. “You two ladies need help,” he says. It sounds

more like a statement than a question, but then our situation is obvious. A freezing night. Two

women stranded on a lonely road. Of course we need help.

I gape at him, silent. It is Olena who takes command, as she always does. In an instant she has

transformed. Her walk, her voice, the provocative way she thrusts out her hip—this is Olena at

her most seductive. She smiles and says, in throaty English: “Our car is dead. Can you drive

us?”

The man studies her. Is he just being cautious? Somehow he realizes that something is very

wrong here. I am on the edge of retreating back into the woods, before he can call the police.

When he finally answers, his voice is flat, revealing no hint that Olena’s charms have affected

him. “There’s a service station up the road. I need to stop there for gas anyway. I’ll ask about a

tow truck.”

We climb into the car. Olena sits in the front seat, I huddle in the back. I have stuffed the

money she gave me into my pocket, and now it feels like a glowing lump of coal. I am still

angry, still wounded by her cruelty. With this money, I can manage without her, without

anyone. And I will.

The man does not talk as he drives. At first I think he is merely ignoring us, that we are of no

interest to him. Then I catch a glimpse of his eyes in the rearview mirror, and I realize he’s been

studying me, studying both of us. In his silence, he’s as alert as a cat.

The lights of the service station glow ahead, and we pull into the driveway and stop beside the

pump. The man gets out to fill his tank, then he says to us: “I’ll ask about the tow truck.” He

walks into the building.

Olena and I remain in the car, uncertain of our next move. Through the window, we see our

driver talking to the cashier. He points to us, and the cashier picks up a phone.

“He’s calling the police,” I whisper to Olena. “We should leave. We should run
now.
” I reach

for the door and am about to push it open when a black car swings into the service station and

pulls up right beside our car. Two men step out, both dressed in dark clothes. One of them has

white-blond hair, cut short as a brush. They look at us.

In an instant, my blood freezes in my veins.

We are trapped animals in this stranger’s car, and two hunters have now surrounded us. The

blond man stands right outside my door, gazing in at me, and I can only stare back through the

window at the last face the Mother ever saw. The last face I will probably ever see.

Suddenly, the blond man’s chin snaps up and his gaze shifts to the building. I turn and see that

our driver has just stepped outside, and is walking toward the car. He has paid for the gas, and

he is stuffing his wallet back in his pocket. He slows down, frowning at the two men who now

flank his car.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” our driver asks.

The blond man answers. “Sir, could we ask you a few questions?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Special Agent Steve Ullman. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Our driver does not seem particularly impressed by this. He reaches into the service station

bucket and picks up a squeegee. Wrings out the excess water and begins to wipe his dirty

windshield. “What do you two fellows want to talk to me about?” he asks, scraping water from

the glass.

The blond man leans in closer to our driver and speaks in a muted voice. I hear the words

female fugitives
and
dangerous.

“So why are you talking to me?” the driver says.

“This is your car, right?”

“Yeah.” Our driver suddenly laughs. “Oh, now I get it. In case you’re wondering, that’s my

wife and her cousin sitting in the car. They look real dangerous, don’t they?”

The blond man glances at his partner. A look of surprise. They don’t know what to say.

Our driver drops the squeegee back in the bucket, throwing up a splash. “Good luck, guys,” he

says, and opens his car door. As he climbs in behind the wheel, he says loudly to Olena:

“Sorry, honey. They didn’t have any Advil. We’ll have to try the next gas station.”

As we drive away, I glance back and see that the men are still staring after us. One of them is

writing down the license number.

For a moment, no one in the car speaks. I am still too paralyzed by fear to say a word. I can

only stare at the back of our driver’s head. The man who has just saved our lives.

Finally he says: “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

“They lied to you,” says Olena. “We are not dangerous!”

“And they’re not FBI.”

“You already know this?”

The man looks at her. “Look, I’m not stupid. I know the real deal when I see it. And I know

when I’m getting bullshitted. So how about telling me the truth?”

Olena releases a weary sigh. In a whisper she says: “They want to kill us.”

“That much I figured out.” He shakes his head and laughs, but there is no humor in it. It’s the

laugh of a man who cannot believe his bad luck. “Man, when it rains on me, it just fucking

pours,” he says. “So who are they and why do they want to kill you?”

“Because of what we have seen tonight.”

“What did you see?”

She looks out the window. “Too much,” she murmurs. “We have seen too much.”

For the moment he lets that answer suffice, because we have just turned off the road. Our tires

bump over a dirt track that takes us deep into woods. He stops the car in front of a ramshackle

house surrounded by trees. It is little more than a rough-hewn cabin, something that only a

poor man would live in. But on the roof is a giant satellite dish.

“This is your home?” Olena asks.

“It’s where I live,” is his odd answer.

He uses three different keys to open the front door. Standing on the porch, waiting for him to

open his various locks, I notice that his windows all have bars. For a moment I hesitate to step

inside because I think of the other house that we have just escaped. But these bars, I realize, are

different; these are not to trap people in; they are meant to keep people out.

Inside I smell wood smoke and damp wool. He does not turn on any lights, but navigates

across the dark room as though he knows every square inch of it blind. “It gets a little musty in

here when I go away for a few days,” he says. He strikes a match, and I see that he is kneeling

at a hearth. The bundle of kindling and logs are already waiting to be lit, and flames soon dance

to life. The glow illuminates his face, which seems even more gaunt, more somber in this

shadowy room. Once, I think, it might have been a handsome face, but the eyes are now too

hollow, and his lean jaw has several days’ growth of dark stubble. As the fire brightens, I

glance around at a small room made even smaller by tall piles of newspapers and magazines, by

the dozens and dozens of news clippings he has tacked to the walls. They are everywhere, like

yellowing scales, and I imagine him shut up in this lonely cabin, day after day, month after

month, feverishly cutting out articles whose significance only he understands. I look around at

the barred windows and remember the three locks on the front door. And I think: This is the

home of a frightened man.

He goes to a cabinet and unlocks it. I am startled to see half a dozen rifles racked inside. He

removes one and locks the cabinet again. At the sight of that gun in his hand, I retreat a step.

“It’s okay. Nothing to be scared of,” he says, seeing my alarmed face. “Tonight, I’d just like to

keep a gun close at hand.”

We hear a bell-like chime.

The man’s head jerks up at the sound. Carrying his rifle, he moves to the window and peers

out at the woods. “Something just tripped the sensor,” he says. “Could be just an animal. Then

again . . .” He lingers at the window for a long time, his hand on his rifle. I remember the two

men at the service station watching us drive away. Writing down our license number. By now,

they must know who owns the car. They must know where he lives.

The man crosses to a stack of wood, picks up a fresh log, and drops it onto the fire. Then he

settles into a rocking chair and sits looking at us, the rifle on his lap. Flames crackle, and sparks

dance in the hearth.

“My name is Joe,” he says. “Tell me who you are.”

I look at Olena. Neither one of us says anything. Though this strange man has saved our lives

tonight, we are still afraid of him.

“Look, you made the choice. You climbed in my car.” His chair creaks as it rocks on the

wooden floor. “Now it’s too late to be coy, ladies,” he says. “The die has been cast.”

When I awaken, it is still not daylight, but the fire has burned down to mere embers. The last

thing I recall, before falling asleep, were the voices of Olena and Joe, talking softly. Now, by

the glow from the hearth, I can see Olena sleeping beside me on the braided rug. I am still

angry at her, and have not forgiven her for the things she said. A few hours’ sleep has made

the inevitable clear to me. We cannot stay together forever.

The creak of the rocking chair draws my gaze; I see the faint gleam of Joe’s rifle, and feel him

watching me. He has probably been watching us sleep for some time.

“Wake her up,” he says to me. “We need to leave now.”

“Why?”

“They’re out there. They’ve been watching the house.”

“What?” I scramble to my feet, my heart suddenly thudding, and go to the window. All I see

outside is the darkness of woods. Then I realize that the stars are fading, that the night will

soon lift to gray.

“I think they’re still parked up the road. They haven’t tripped the next set of motion detectors

yet,” he says. “But we need to move now, before it gets light.” He rises, goes to a closet, and

takes out a backpack. Whatever the pack contains gives a metallic clank. “Olena,” he says, and

nudges her with his boot. She stirs and looks at him. “Time to go,” he says. “If you want to

live.”

He does not take us out the front door. Instead he pulls up floorboards, and the smell of damp

earth rises from the shadows below. He backs down the ladder and calls up to us: “Let’s go,

ladies.”

I hand him the Mother’s tote bag, then scramble down after him. He has turned on a flashlight,

and in the gloom I catch glimpses of crates stacked up against stone walls.

“In Vietnam, the villagers had tunnels under their houses, just like this one,” he says as he

leads the way down a low passage. “Mostly, it was just to store food. But sometimes, it saved

their lives.” He comes to a stop, unlocks a padlock, then turns off his flashlight. He lifts up a

wooden hatch above his head.

We climb out of the tunnel, into dark woods. The trees cloak us as he leads us away from the

house. We do not say a word; we don’t dare to. Once again, I am blindly following, always the

foot soldier, never the general. But this time I trust the person leading me. Joe walks quietly,

moving with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where he’s going. I walk right

behind him, and as dawn begins to lighten the sky, I see that he has a limp. He is dragging his

left leg a little, and once, when he glances back, I see his grimace of pain. But he pushes on into

the gray light of morning.

Finally, through the trees ahead, I see a tumbledown farm. As we draw closer, I can tell that no

one lives here. The windows are broken, and one end of the roof has caved inward. But Joe

does not go to the house; he heads instead to the barn, which appears to be at equal risk of

collapse. He opens a padlock and slides the barn door open.

Inside is a car.

“Always wondered if I’d ever really need it,” he says as he slides into the driver’s seat.

I climb in back. There is a blanket and pillow on the seat, and at my feet are cans of food.

Enough to eat for several days.

Joe turns the ignition; the engine coughs reluctantly to life. “Hate to leave that place behind,” he

says. “But maybe it’s time to go away for a while.”

“You are doing this for us?” I ask him.

He glances at me over his shoulder. “I’m doing this to stay out of trouble. You two ladies seem

to have brought me a heaping dose of it.”

He backs the car out of the barn, and we begin to bump along the dirt road, past the ramshackle

farmhouse, past a stagnant pond. Suddenly we hear a heavy
whump.
At once Joe stops the car,

rolls down his window, and stares toward the woods from which we have just emerged.

Black smoke is rising above the trees, billowing up in angry columns that swirl into the

brightening sky. I hear Olena give a startled cry. My hands are sweating and shaking as I think

of the cabin we have just left, now in flames. And I think of burning flesh. Joe says nothing; he

only stares at the smoke in shocked silence, and I wonder if he is cursing his bad luck at ever