Chapter 4 12 to 24 Hours
Annie had fallen quiet for a time. He hoped she had drifted off to sleep. Auggie folded his arms on his desk and rested his head in them. If he could sleep for even 20 minutes, it would help.
There was the sound of solid footsteps made by a heavy male, and a deep voice said, "Sleeping on the job, Mr. Anderson?"
Auggie lifted his head and stood up. "Just resting my eyes, Director," he said with a grin.
Arthur chuckled.
There was a soft click as Auggie opened his watch cover and ran a finger over the raised numerals. It was close to midnight. "You're in late, sir. Can I help you with something?"
Arthur Campbell looked at the man who stood before him with that quietly elegant tilt of his head that always suggested he was listening intently. He had come to read him the Riot Act, but somehow, in the late night quiet of the bullpen, he didn't want to do that. And, despite what Joan had said, Auggie gave no evidence of coming 'unglued'.
"How long have you been on, Auggie?" he asked.
It took Auggie a minute. It was getting hard to do math in his head. "About 16 hours, sir."
"And how is our Annie?"
"Resting at the moment. As always, her courage amazes me."
"And the new man?"
Auggie's shoulders sank. "Going pretty hard, sir. I doubt he'll make it through the night. I hate to say it, but it might be better if he didn't."
"Damn! I knew his father well."
"I'm truly sorry, sir," Auggie said softly. "It's difficult for us all."
"It's Annie's first time, isn't it."
"To watch someone die slowly in front of you and be helpless to prevent it? Yes, it is."
"But you've been there?"
"Unfortunately, I have. I doubt if it's unknown to you either, sir?"
"It's not. You'll see Annie through it?"
"I'm trying to pick up some of the load, cushion her against the inevitable, but it's hard." Auggie pushed at the hair that was curling into his face.
"It certainly is."
He heard the sounds of a chair being pulled out and turned around as the Director settled heavily into it.
"Sit down, Auggie. It's the middle of the night. You must be tired. I know I am."
Auggie slid back into his seat, and there was a minute of quiet between them.
"Would you like someone to relieve you for a few hours?" Arthur asked.
"No, sir." The answer came quickly. "It's not my first long shift. I'd like to see this thing through until we can get her to safety." Auggie hesitated before going on, "She knows me, trusts me, and she's going to be alone, without light, as she makes her way through a series of caves. Who better to help her?"
Odd, Arthur thought, how there wasn't a trace of irony in Auggie's voice, only honesty. The man was a warrior – wounded perhaps, but far from defeated. More dangerous now, he suspected, than when his principal weapons had been firearms. You had to admire the understated but highly effective style with which he made his way through two murky worlds. He was fascinating to observe.
"You know," Arthur said with humor in his tone, "I came down here to give you hell about somehow re-tasking a string of low orbit COMSTATS to keep us in constant contact with Monterrey. But I understand exactly why you did it, and I'm going to okay it."
Auggie had been braced for trouble over this and had prepared his arguments. He was momentarily caught off base. "Sir, I … Thank you!"
"Don't tell me how you did it, but I am curious about what it's going to cost the Agency."
"Not a cent." Auggie grinned his delightful, rascal smile. "It's costing me a case of champagne from France and one of single malt from Scotland."
Arthur roared with laughter. When he caught his breath he told Auggie, "Your country appreciates your contributions, Mr. Anderson. Would it help if they traveled over in the diplomatic pouches?"
"Absolutely; I'd be very grateful."
"Consider it done, and, Auggie …"
"Sir?"
"My wife wants to pull you out of this operation. As long as you can still make sense, I'm not going to let her. Just be careful when it comes to the stimulants."
"Always, sir."
"Keep the night watch, soldier."
Arthur was up and out before Auggie could find the right reply – there probably wasn't one, anyway. The Director had a way of surprising you. The man was no fool.
There was a soft sound on Annie's line and Auggie turned back to her, all else forgotten.
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She was up and down through the hours of darkness, rarely sleeping more than 30 or 40 minutes at a time. Auggie stayed on, drank coffee, ate half of an apple and worried about the ordeal Annie had coming.
At a little after 3:00 a.m. her frantic voice roused Auggie from a haze of waking sleep.
"Auggie! It's Frank. He's thrashing, sobbing; I can't keep him quiet."
Auggie could hear him in the background.
He took a deep, steadying breath and said the thing he had dreaded most. Would Annie despise him …?
"Annie, I've been honest with you. You know how this is going down. If you choose, with the cocaine you have the means to help him slip away quickly, quietly, without pain, with no more fear."
The wait was so long he thought she had simply put the phone down, but eventually she spoke very softly.
"There's a name for what you're asking me to do, Auggie."
"The most common one is a mercy killing, but be clear; it's not something I'm asking you to do. It's a possibility that I'm offering. No one can make this decision other than you. I can promise you that whatever you choose to do, or not do, it doesn't have to ever come up again unless you want it to. No one, including me, will ever question you about it. I wish with all my strength, Annie, that we hadn't reached this point, but we have. What more can I do to help you?"
Annie was strong, but this plunged into the very foundations of all she believed in. She felt torn into small, lonely pieces.
"Auggie, just stay with me. I don't know … It's so hard … He's suffering so much. I know you saw terrible things when you were in the field. Have you …? Did you …? Oh God, I can't ask you that!
Auggie's response was slow and painful. "I'll answer you, if you think it will really help, but it's not somewhere I go often. I'll be honest, it hurts." He could feel pressure building behind his eyes.
"I'm going to close down for a little while and try to think. Wait for me?
"Always, Annie, always." Strange how blind eyes could still form tears.
Ep4myr3zaq
Just before dawn the satellite phone's line buzzed. Auggie stopped pacing, slid into his chair, hit a single switch without the slightest fumble and pulled his headphones up from their resting place around his throat. "I'm here, Annie."
Her voice, when he heard it, was faint and flat. "He's gone."
Auggie felt the relief he had been expecting, but he hadn't anticipated the flood of genuine grief that accompanied it.
"I'm so sorry, Annie. Sorry you had to go through this alone; sorry he died for one mistake; sorry he couldn't tell his loved ones goodbye, but he had you, Annie. Having someone beside you who cares makes all the difference in the world."
"I held his hand. Told him the pain would go away, that he'd be safe and warm. He asked if I'd tell his family, asked me to remember him. I told him I would, that'd I'd always remember him."
"You always will, Auggie said. The sorrow and warmth in his voice wrapped around her like a soft fur robe.
"We'll see that his remains are recovered and brought home to his family. There is absolutely nothing more you can do for him now, Annie."
Auggie was suddenly all business. "I want you to move away where you can't see him. Drink some water. Eat one of your energy bars, and rest for ten minutes. Then you have one more hard thing to do. I want you out of there before the fog burns off."
He knew she was hanging on by her fingernails, but he couldn't give her time to start thinking. Food and action was the best remedy for the moment. If it meant he had to be tough and drive her, then he would push hard.
The last hard thing required that she go over Frank's body and remove anything that might identify him as an agent of the U.S. Government. Auggie also instructed her to take anything that might be useful in making her way out of the caves. That turned out to be his leather jacket – there would be no warm pile of leaves deeper in the caves – and the case of drugs. She fought him on that. Told him she hated drugs, hated this batch in particular because it had gotten Frank killed.
Auggie had a hunch it might, in the long run, prove to be the key to unlock this whole mess. He insisted, argued, pled, demanded and finally made it a question of her trust in him. She surrendered and piled the hated case with her bag and the other items that would go along when she left.