Chapter 21: Homeward Bound
Things moved slowly in Tarawa, but finally the American assistant under-secretary to the US Ambassador to Kiribati arrived. He reserved a suite of rooms at South Tarawa's finest hotel, a ramshackle A-frame structure with a sign on the swimming pool which read, "Warning: Hepatitis C. Closed by the South Tarawa Health and Safety Commissioner."
Somehow, as often happened in Tarawa, there was a mix-up. The Perth Wagga Wagga Wombats had booked the entire place for the same two days. There were no computer records. The slips of paper with the reservations couldn't be found. No American appeals or threats could convince the manager to dislodge the Aussie soccer team.
The disgruntled Americans had retired to a pub in Betio, where the charge d'affaires for Her Excellency the Australian High Commissioner happened to be sitting across the bar from them. A few phone calls later, the High Commissioner herself invited the American diplomats to bunk down in the guest wing at the Australian embassy.
Her Excellency had encountered this situation before. Other than "Christmas" Island, it was understandable that Americans didn't get to Kiribati much.
Claire knew that the others were terrified on hearing that the US government representatives had finally arrived. Everyone was required to show up, except for Claire.
A few hours before the meeting, Claire and Kate sat in their bedroom. Kate went over how to reach Claire's mother; the combination to the safe where Kate kept her cash, papers, Aaron's passport. There were legal papers which would let Carole take him out of the country.
Kate was telling her this because she wasn't sure that she'd be allowed to return to the lodge, much less Los Angeles. She was preparing to be taken into custody.
All the Yanks could be held, theoretically. But Claire didn't think the Australian ambassador would let that happen.
The panel van to take the Americans to the embassy bore the Blue Ensign of Australia, and directly under it fluttered the Stars and Stripes. Kate's white, scared face disappeared into the diplomatic van. Sawyer followed, his brows knit together with worry. Miles had lost his perennial smirk, and Lapidus stared ahead, stone-faced. Only Richard seemed unfazed.
Maybe it was crazy, maybe the fever had fried her brain, but Claire wasn't as worried as she probably should have been. After the van drove off, Mrs. Maleaua tentatively announced that she wanted to go hear a Mass for the new priest, a young and jovial fellow from the Philippines. Mr. Maleaua was off fishing with his nephews instead of Sawyer and the rest.
"You could come with me," Mrs. Maleaua said. It was the first time she'd ever suggested anything like that to Claire.
"You go ahead. I'll get supper started."
Mrs. Maleaua hesitated. "You sure? There's eight people, after all. And I always throw a bit more in the pot, in case we get visitors."
"I've got this," Claire answered. "Really. You've done so much for me."
Mrs. Maleaua hugged Claire, put on her bright blue and yellow scarf, and headed out through the swinging metal gate.
On this hot, wet blanket of an afternoon, Claire was alone for the first time since they'd landed here several weeks ago. It wasn't like being on the Island, overwhelmed with abandonment and loss. This was the delicious kind of solitude, sweet because it wouldn't last forever.
Claire put the enormous battered pot to boil on the gas-ring to boil. Everyone except her and the Maleauas were sick of rice. But Claire had lived for years on greasy rodent, boiled roots and scraps of pork, so white rice was a feast.
The next task was one which she loved. Mr. Maleaua's brother had dropped off an enormous cooler full of ice and deep-sea scallops. Claire shucked each one with a butter knife, tossing the shells into the rubbish bin and the tender white meat into a stainless-steel bowl.
The milky-white scallops were almost as thick as her fist. Once in a while she'd cut off a slice and pop it into her mouth. All they needed to be perfect was a dollop of hot green horseradish sauce, but as far as Claire knew, there wasn't a speck of wasabi to be found on Tarawa Atoll.
Back on the Island, Claire had hungered desperately for sea-food. Forced inland by Samael, she had sneaked to the shore whenever she could, to grab bits of sea bounty before running back under the jungle cover.
One day, she encountered some Others. Not Temple Others, but the ones who lived on the northeast coast in round white tents. She skirted the edge of their camp and made off with a handful of fish drying on the line. The next time, someone had left her a few octopus. After that it was a thick shark steak, and later, a few sea scallops just like these.
Claire finally glimpsed the young, dark-haired woman who left these ocean presents for her. Vanessa, the Others called her, and she had a friendly, open face. Even though Claire didn't dare speak to her, every so often Claire snared a young boar, then left it at the edge of their village as payment. Samael never caught her at it, either.
Ah, but you could never forget the taste of the sea. As Claire shucked and tossed, her thoughts drifted back to her fever dream, as they so often did. She used to read dream books, each one packed with more extravagant nonsense than the last. They never seemed to apply to her dreams, and finally she threw them all away, taking up astrology instead.
This dream, though, was so clear and straightforward. The Island was a garden, peaceful and quiet, with Hurley at the center of it, somehow. The dream didn't feel like a coded message from her subconscious that could mean anything, or nothing. She struggled to find the right word, and finally hit upon it.
Her dream wasn't symbolism. It was news, as clear as a program on the telly. Well, except for the part where Hurley was dressed head to foot in bird feathers.
She sighed. Maybe it had been the fever talking, after all.
Claire was still puzzling it out when the front gate gave a loud creak. She tensed like a cat, alert. It was too soon for Mrs. Maleaua to get back from church, and she usually stayed a long time after Mass to chat.
Then her heart started to pound, because the thin, short shadow which passed over the concrete path didn't belong to anybody she recognized.
A complete stranger entered the courtyard and strode towards her as if he owned the place. Claire stared into the dark, reptilian eyes of a thin, sallow-skinned man in a black suit, his shirt collar pinned together with a golden snake pin. Its eye glittered at Claire, as if it could see her. The man's violet cuffs hung down below his sleeves, and each cuff-link bore a tiny blue eye-ball.
"Hello, Claire," he said in one of those neutral American television accents.
Claire dropped the scallop she'd just opened. She rose to her feet with precise motion, ready to fight The butter knife made a poor weapon, but she'd had worse. She knew how to use it, and to make it hurt besides.
The stranger was no taller than she was, and even thinner. His head bobbled on a slender, hairless neck. If her narrowed eyes and the hard set of her jaw bothered him, he didn't show it. "I'm glad you didn't go to the embassy. These are such better circumstances under which to meet you."
"Who the hell are you?" she snarled, gripping the butter-knife even tighter. She wondered if it would do any good to scream. Normally the neighborhood was noisy, full of barking dogs, children yelling, women talking, men shouting out boasts to one another from concrete front stoops. But it seemed that everyone had gone inside, or retreated to their back yards.
So screaming wouldn't do a damned bit of good.
Then, the strange man did something extraordinary. He reached down to the pocket of his slim-cut suit and started to pull something out.
Her thoughts started to race, Oh god no don't let it be a gun oh please not a gun.
When he handed something to her, she almost dropped it in surprise. Luckily she recovered her grip in time, and stared in disbelief at what she held. It was a tiny jar of light green wasabi.
"It's the real thing," he said. "No substitutes for you, my dear." His oily tone reminded her of Samael.
She dropped the knife, not even hearing it clatter on the concrete.
Smiling like a man who's gotten a woman's full attention, he extended his hand. "Mr. Shinigami of Zaibatsu Enterprises, headquarters in Honolulu, regional offices in Tokyo, Seoul, and Los Angeles. I'd offer you a business card, but I seem to have distributed them all at the Australian embassy."
Claire shook Mr. Shinigami's hand, and it was every bit as cold and leathery as she imagined. His dark, unblinking eyes sized her up and down.
She hadn't lived with Samael all those years to not recognize something like him. It was all in the eyes. Even when Samael had fully taken on John Locke's form, his eyes were still mostly dead. But even Samael's eyes had more life in them than Mr. Shinigami's.
"Wouldn't you like to try your wasabi on some of that fine sea-food, while I tell you how it went this afternoon for your friends?"
As a little girl, Claire's mother had told her the story of Persephone, who ate the pomegranate and thus had to stay with Hades for half the year. Or how if you ate the fairies' food, you belonged to them forever. Then the fairies would bring you back years later, your friends and family gone.
She handed the jar back to him. "I'm not hungry. Maybe you'd best just tell me what happened."
Mr. Shinigami's laugh had no humor in it as he returned the jar to his suit pocket. "So you're satisfied to just serve as a fish-wife here, without even a fisher-husband?"
"Look, you said you'd tell me what happened to my friends. So start telling, okay?"
He folded his arms across his narrow chest and gave the entire motel a scathing look of contempt. "What a disappointment you are, my dear, not even aware of the queen's ransom you command. In exchange for getting you and your lot off this dungheap of an atoll, my employer finally got clear title to the land he wanted on Kaua'i."
"Where?" Claire said, confused. "What land?"
"That's in Hawai'i, my boganette. Drop by in a couple of years for the perfect Hawai'ian theme park experience, complete with water-park and nightly lua'us, complete with authentic dances performed by natives." His eyes grew unfocused and his tone more robotic, like a demented commercial stuck in an endless loop.
Claire said, "Look, I've got to move these scallops out of the sun, or they'll go over."
Shinigami gave a contemptuous gesture. "Such a little peasant you are. I'll spare you the details and just tell you what you're supposed to do, as that's obviously the level to which one has to descend to communicate with you."
Claire slid the bowl of shucked scallops into the cooler, along with the knife. "I'm not interested in your tosh. What's been going on with Kate and everybody?"
Mr. Shinigami fixed her with his snakelike glance. In a horrible imitation of Sawyer's accent he said, "Now, Missy, I made a bargain for you, and I keep my word. And if you want to see that little sonny-boy of yours, you got to get into the good ol' US of A, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. So you listen up, all righty?"
Samael used to imitate accents for his own amusement, too. The effect was just as dreadful, but she swallowed her terror. "Fine. Whatever you want."
"That's just what ah like to hear, little Miss," he drawled.
Claire could have sworn that when Mr. Shinigami had first walked through the gate, he hadn't been wearing a tall black Texas hat and pointed boots. But he wore them now. His shiny boot tips looked like they were tipped with razors.
Shinigami leered at Claire, an ugly and terrifying sight, but his tone of voice was all business. "The Americans are going to issue emergency passports to get your friends into the country, just this once. For all your sakes, they won't look too closely at Ms. Austen's. And thanks to typical American fragmentation of government, the customs officials won't know that Ms. Austen is a parole violator."
Claire narrowed her eyes, angry despite the fear. "And did you tell anyone?"
"Of course not. Like I told you, a deal's a deal. So this is what you're going to do. At exactly 6:00 PM this evening, I'll send a hired car for you, and you're going to get in. Don't be a second late, because my drivers never are. You'll take one suitcase each. When we get to Bonriki Airport, the fat and lazy airport employees are going to look the other way while the lot of you boards my employer's private jet. It will take you non-stop to Van Nuys Airport, in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area." Again that sing-song aura crept into his tone.
"What then?" Claire asked, half-hypnotized by that dry, repetitive voice.
"What then, you ask? The customs agents who check you in at Van Nuys will be working for me. There's only one answer when they ask you if you have anything to declare, and that's 'Nothing.' Oh, don't look so surprised. I know all about your friend Miles's baubles. But just so things don't go tits up, as you say in your colorful vernacular, you keep your pretty mouth shut, you and the rest of you. After that, I don't care. Once you clear customs, you're out of my hands."
With that, he began to sing in a silky tenor, "Oooh, that Shakespeherian rag … It's so elegant, so intelligent..." As he sang, he gradually moved into a soft-shoe. His Texas hat and boots were gone now, replaced by leather dance shoes, a bowler hat, and a cane.
Claire just stood and stared, dumbstruck.
"What's the matter, you ignorant little ockerina? Don't you like music? Maybe you'll fancy this tune. Reminds me of an old friend of mine, in fact. 'No one half so breezy as, Half so free and easy as, Old Tiresias...'
"Or perhaps you'd enjoy something apropos of my employer's new prime Hawai'i real estate." The soft-shoe changed subtly, sinuously, into a grotesque parody of a hula. "Aloha oe, aloha oe, I knew she'd get it in the end—"
Claire couldn't bear it any longer. If he did something horrible to her, at least he'd have to quit wriggling his hips. "Stop it!"
Amazingly, he did. Hand on hip, head cocked, cane mysteriously gone, he gave her a fierce glare, obviously unhappy at having his performance interrupted. "Don't worry, my dear, you'll get the peasant life you deserve. Now, since I don't want a certain fiery individual with a volcanic temper to erupt on me for not fulfilling my end of the bargain, you just make sure that everybody trots right onto that plane this evening. Remember, the car leaves at six PM, sharp."
"Does anyone else know about this?"
"If they did, my small Smurfette, do you think I'd be standing here wasting my time with you? I'm a good negotiator. But some things don't get stated obviously. Some points need to be interpreted, with delicacy. You don't seem to appreciate delicacy, but you do seem to be able to take instructions. Don't 'bollocks it up,' as you'd say."
"I'll try. Not to bollocks it up, I mean."
He stood there, arms folded, as if waiting for something else. Claire remained silent, so after a few heartbeats Shinigami said in a sour tone, "Aren't you going to thank me? I mean, this is the last opportunity you'll get."
Even though she didn't want to touch that cold, leathery skin again, she extended her hand, and tried to sound as polite as possible. "Of course, Mr. Shinigami. Thank you, for everything." But she was willing to wager that wasn't his real name.
Mr. Shinigami gave a small bow, turned on his dance-shoe heel and strode out the front gate. Before he even made it to the roadway, he had vanished.
The crowded Australian embassy van sped down the pothole-laden main road of South Tarawa, heading back to the Bikenibeu Lodge. Squeezed in between Frank and the van's rear door, Kate clutched a manila envelope so tightly that the yellow paper stuck to her hands with sweat. She wiped her hands frantically on her skirt, then tried to blot the moisture off the paper. Her whole life was in this envelope. It was going to get her past US Customs and back to some kind of life in LA, whatever was left of it, anyway.
She didn't think she could face again what happened after the Oceanic Six returned to Los Angeles: the media, the paparazzi, the cameras. One step at a time. She had to get out of here first, before she could worry about getting back into the United States, much less what awaited her there.
At the Bikenibeu Lodge, they piled out of the van, exhausted, hot, silent. Sawyer stepped aside to let Kate enter the patio first, but she stopped short, nose wrinkled in disgust. "You smell that?"
"Kate, everything around here smells like wet dog."
"No, this is different." The odor was unbelievably foul, like dried reptilian scat.
Richard turned off the propane stove and removed the big pot from the burner. "It's probably this rice. It's going to be burned on the bottom."
Claire was nowhere to be seen. Pushing past the men, Kate headed for their room."Claire? Claire, honey? We're back."
The blinds were pulled down against the afternoon sunlight. Claire lay in the dark, rolled over on her side.
"You sleeping?" Kate said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Claire's voice was muffled by a pillow. "Nope."
A small flame of panic flickered through Kate. "What's wrong? Are you sick again?"
Claire sat up in bed, her face tear-streaked, eyes swollen as if she'd been crying. "I'm going crazy. There was this man—"
"What man?"
"He came into the courtyard. Said his name was Mr. Shinigami, and that we had to do everything he said if we wanted to get out of here. And then—"
"Then what? Claire, what happened?"
"He, oh God, I know this doesn't make any sense, but he … he did a dance. And had one of those Yank cowboy hats, but then he didn't."
"Well, you didn't imagine him," Kate said. "Because there was a Mr. Shinigami at the meeting, for awhile. He didn't do a dance, though."
"Really?" Claire said, sniffling. "I thought he couldn't have been real. Because what I saw was completely crazy."
Kate stroked Claire's forehead. "You know, those fevers sometimes take a long time to go away completely."
"I don't have a fever."
"Well, I guess you can have after-effects, without a temperature."
"So, you met him? He was real?"
"It was a big meeting, confusing," Kate said. "The US embassy people just stared at us, like they wanted to rip into us, but couldn't. Ajira Airlines sent some people, too, and they stonewalled everything. Frank's definitely out of a job, and Ajira might never land anywhere else in the US again. Then, the black box, it doesn't show anything. No record of the Island. Nothing."
"But what about this Mr. Shinigami? Kate, it's important that I know."
"It was like watching people play poker. Each group would bluff, bluster, then lay down their cards. Long story short, this guy Shinigami's company is going to invest a huge amount of money in Kiribati, especially on Tarawa Atoll. The oceans are rising and in twenty years, this whole place might be gone, underwater. So his company offered to build sea-walls at first, and then islands, floating artificial islands, where people from Tarawa could live. In return, the Kiribati government wouldn't just turn us over to the Americans."
"But why?" Claire asked. "It's clear what the I-Kiribati want. But why would the Americans go along with it?"
"Because America hasn't done anything to help Kiribati. This is their chance to not be embarrassed, or something like that. Everybody was cutting deals with everybody else, and we just sat there."
"Like you were the jackpot that everybody is betting on."
"Exactly." Kate realized she was squishing her envelope again, and stuffed it into her bag. "They gave us passports. Well, not exactly, as they don't look like passports. But they'll get us into the United States."
"Did anybody tell you how that was supposed to happen, Kate?"
For the first time, Kate looked flustered. "No, not really. I just assumed that we'd book flights, wait till the plane to Fiji comes next week, and then leave. But nobody said anything about that part."
"Kate, we need to get everybody together. And don't think I'm crazy. But this Mr. Shinigami came here to see me while you were gone, and told me what we're going to have to do."
They huddled together under the tin-roofed breezeway as the western sun slid down the tropical sky. There was about an hour left until twilight.
"We have to be ready at six," Claire kept insisting.
Kate rubbed her temples, sure that if Claire said that one more time, her head would split right open. She glanced over to Sawyer, hoping he'd help her out, but he just scratched his jaw, paced, and avoided her eyes.
Surprisingly, the one most resistant to the idea was Frank. "You mean we're just going on the lam? After everything everybody here's done for us?"
Richard sighed, impatient. "Frank, we're not going on the lam. If Claire is right—"
"I am right," Claire said stubbornly.
"Excuse me, Frank," Richard put in, all politeness. "According to Claire, the I-Kiribati are going to just let us leave the country. They're a sovereign nation. They can do that."
"Easy for you to say," Frank snapped. "You just didn't lose your third job in as many years."
Richard stared dumbstruck for a second, then something inside of him snapped. "That's what this is about, a job? All right, I'll give you a job. You come to Portland, we'll set you up with a Tunisian pilot's license and you can fly for Herarat."
"Never heard of them."
"It'll be boring as hell. You can shuttle industrial-process engineers between Portland and the Tunis factories."
"I can do boring," Frank said. "But if I'm gonna show my face in the USA again, I've got payments to make. The court-ordered kind."
"Factories?" Sawyer asked. "What factories you talking about?"
"Mittelos Bioscience." Richard gave Sawyer a wary glance, as if not sure what he might do.
Sawyer didn't disappoint. He got right up into Richard's face, eyes wild. "You sons of bitches. You were the ones that recruited Juliet."
Oh crap, Kate thought. If Sawyer laid into Richard, they would never get out of here. She gripped Sawyer's arm, hard. "Hold on and focus. We've got one aim here, the only one that counts."
Sawyer pulled back, still glaring.
"Are you kidding me?" Richard said. "You didn't know this?"
Sawyer's look of wild anguish filled Kate with pity. "Juliet never told you?"
"She was vague on the details," Sawyer muttered.
Richard still wasn't ready to back down. "Who the hell do you think has been doing our stateside logistics? And paying Dan Norton's prodigious legal bills?"
"Richard, just cool off," Kate said. "I believe Claire. You saw that man Shinigami at the embassy today. Sawyer, you know what Locke was like after he got taken over by that thing. It was like that today. Didn't you sense it? There was something there—"
Claire interrupted, pleading in her voice. "I know weird. I lived with it for years. This bloke, he wasn't natural. Guys, after what we've all seen, what we've all been through, you have to trust me on this."
"You can really get me a job?" Frank asked Richard.
"Hey, what about me?" Miles piped up. "I'm gonna need a job, too."
Sawyer sat down, arms folded. "What the hell you gonna need a job for, Enos, with your sack full of rocks there?"
"You never know," Miles said. "The market in diamonds could go down."
"Yes, I can get you both jobs," Richard said through clenched teeth. "Jobs for everyone. Can we just please talk about this later, after we get out of here?"
At that moment the Maleauas headed up the roadway, followed by Auntie Merey and Auntie Lilona. As they let themselves in the gate, Richard pulled Miles aside. "I think it would be prudent to leave these kind people a generous tip."
Miles started to protest, but with five other pairs of eyes staring him down, he just shrugged.
"Smells like somebody burned the rice," Mrs. Maleaua said. "No matter, it'll still be OK if we just spoon it off the top."
"We won't be here for supper," Claire said, daring the others to contradict her.
"We know, sweetie," Auntie Merey said. "By the time we left the church, the news was all over. You're getting on a plane right at sundown."
"Well, damn," Sawyer said.
The two I-Kiribati women frowned at him, then turned to Kate and Claire. "Come on, we'll help you pack. These men can fend for themselves."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Richard said to Miles.
Mr. Maleaua pocketed his diamonds as casually as if they were sticks of gum. Mrs. Maleaua refused, saying that the Australian dollars the government was paying her for the travelers' upkeep was more than enough. Auntie Merey waved them away with a laugh, saying, "Save those for the airport, for my brother. He's gonna be the one stamping your exit visas."
Miles made a disgusted noise and rolled his eyes.
In their room, Kate emptied everything in her suitcase onto the bed, then handed the make-up and most of the clothes to the aunties. "I know you have grand-daughters. And it's hard to get some things here."
Auntie Merey stuffed the items into her huge woven bag, saying, "Auntie Lilona and I, we'll divide it up at home. Thanks so much."
Tears welled up in Kate's eyes. "We're the ones who should thank you."
Claire just hugged both women, hard. "I'll never forget either of you."
"We won't forget you, either," Auntie Merey said.
"It's good you're traveling light," said Auntie Lilona. "That's the best way to start a new life."
A shiny grey Toyota van rolled up to the front step of the motel at 6:01 PM, by Richard's watch. Two large Asian men got out and gently held Claire and Kate's elbows as they helped them into the van. Kate noticed the sidearms holstered under their well-tailored, matching charcoal grey suits.
Crushed into two rows of back seats, they drove to the airport in silence. Sawyer must have seen the weapons too, because he kept glancing over to Kate. At one point when Kate started to speak, Sawyer put his finger to his lips and gave a small shake of the head.
At the airport, Miles covertly passed a few diamonds to the cheerful, older I-Kiribati man in a bright orange lavalava as he examined their papers. The man smiled broadly as he waved them out onto the tarmac, along with a friendly, "Have a good trip."
Outside, the usual crowd had gathered. An airport employee shouted at a few bicyclists to get off the runway. Didn't they see that a plane was about to take off?
"Nice," Frank said as they climbed up the stairs of the Zaibatsu Corporation's private jet. "A G550. Always wanted to fly one of these babies."
"Well, maybe you'll get your chance," Richard answered. "While we've been waiting to get out of here, I've been thinking of a new business model for Herarat. We could put those jets to use when we're not flying our teams to Tunis."
"Love to hear about it," Frank said.
They fanned out into the jet's cabin, a luxurious beige cocoon with buttery leather seats and a wood-paneled interior. The only color came from the blue twilight that filtered through the tinted window glass.
Miles grinned in admiration as he settled himself in a wide recliner. "This is the life."
Kate and Claire settled themselves into two adjacent seats, while Sawyer buckled into the seat facing them. The van's driver waved to his companion, then headed back across the tarmac. But the other man stayed on board, and now had a two-way radio-speaker clipped to his ear. He said a few words to the pilot, then positioned himself in a single seat close to the cockpit.
"Looks like Mr. Moto's joining us," Sawyer said quietly to Kate. "No, don't turn around."
Richard, Frank, and Miles buckled themselves into seats clustered around a pale wooden table, intently listening as Richard talked about growing Herarat's business.
As they taxied out onto the runway, Sawyer leaned over to Kate. "So if this Shinigami's jet, where's he? He didn't seem to be the type to book economy class on Air Fiji."
Before Kate could answer, Claire said in a low, strangled voice, "I really don't think he needs a plane to leave Tarawa."
Kate just stared ahead as Claire's words sunk in. When the jet took off, this time it was Kate who reached out for Claire's hand and gripped it hard.
(continued)
(A/N: "That Shakespeherian Rag" and "Old Tiresias" are from T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Waste Land." "Aloha 'oe" was written by the last queen of Hawai'i, Liliʻuokalani, who was deposed by the US government in 1893.)