I DID IT FOR ELEANOR
Since no one will read this, let's just put it out there. I did it for Eleanor. It started with Dr. Malek. Cora had been right, engaging in sedition was good for my love.
With Emily gone, things were boring. When Waterford was rubbing elbows with the D.C. bunch, my Eye-guy gave me the heads-up about the art adorning our house. It had only taken a day, but Beth and Sienna had removed the priceless stuff to the basement under Eleanor's supervision. It's a good thing, too. When Billy the Bartender needed to get paid, two trucks pulled up and four burly stevedores loaded them with our art. Last Billy was seen was in Ecuador, at one of those offshore American enclaves just outside of Quito where someone with a fortune could disappear to in peace.
Then June Osborne came to meet the truck. I'd not really known of her at that point. But the reign of terror began when she got appointed to my house. Apparently one of the other Aunts had taken advantage of Aunt Lydia's injuries to place her at my place. If Dr. Malek, Beth and Mayday had been good for Eleanor, June Osborne turned out to be a one-woman Disneyland. Yes, the handmaid I'd last seen in my rear-view mirror under that dark underpass when she'd handed her baby away.
Crazy like paper.
Towards the end, not even Osborne could keep Eleanor stable. Indeed, it was the opposite. Eleanor had gone all hyper in the presence of Osborne's grand plan. So much so that even Osborne had to handcuff her, emotionally speaking. So much so that one night I loaded Eleanor into the car and we tried to get out of the city.
Me, I was losing it. I'm usually on top of such things. Unbeknownst to me, at at peril to Eleanor, my security privileges had been revoked.
Then the Waterfords headed north in their hair-brained scheme to fetch baby Nichole on their own. Then I drove Osborne down to Jezebels. I thought she was negotiating with Billy, but she came back to the car in the alley covered in blood. I found out that the blood belonged to D.C. Commander Winslow, who'd been in there for a little Boston R&R. He was never seen again.
Then there was me reading Treasure Island to those 86 kids. Eleanor and I never had any of our own, but she would have loved that scene. She would have been at the head of the line escorting them through the woods to the airport.
Now that my own salvaging was off the table I can say it - I would have gladly gone to my doom that night, if only for what it would have meant for my love.
But that was then. Me, I am now being summoned to the prison. Relax, not for me.
BLAINE AND OSBORNE'S TIGHTROPE ACT
Blaine caught Osborne. Bad luck, the other Handmaids were still on the run. But for that, Blaine might have been able to parlay something better for her. With other missing Handmaids, they could not outright kill Osborne, they needed to know where the others were.
Blaine was a magician, but it was hard to see how even he could save her from Lieutenant Stans and Aunt Lydia, who now called herself Osborne's Guardian Angel.
By the way. I'd been wrong about Beth and Sienna. They weren't dead. Not then anyway. They'd been at the prison. Note: "had been". That's all I will say about that. Let's just say that Lieutenant Stans is a man who enjoys his work.
So, do you remember me getting all up Putnam's ass for not being ruthless in Chancery? Way back when?
No one was getting anywhere with Osborne, not Lieutenant Stans, not Aunt Lydia. It was not for lack of trying. Ask Beth. Ask Sienna.
FOR OSBORNE'S SAKE
I did not volunteer to try my hand at Osborne for Eleanor's sake. Not that one. I honestly did it for Osborne's sake. Blaine was going to get he killed.
I did a mental calculation. How long before a Commander of Gilead could marshal a response to his own daughter being kidnapped by the State? I figured - two days. The moron-Commanders back at the New Gilead Chancery in Boston might have taken longer, given that most of them actually did not care about their trafficked children.
But Commander Mackenzie and his Wife, Tabitha, had been spooked out of New Gilead because of - you guessed it - June Osborne. It turned out that they were Hannah Bankole's new parents, sporting a new identity as Agnes Mackenzie. So it was I went to Lieutenant Stans and Aunt Lydia and asked for two days.
Call me cold if you want. What would you have done?
When I told Stans my plan, he smiled that swarmy smile and said much to his own relief, "It's your funeral, Commander." He had the smile of someone who would genuinely enjoy officiating at mine. If my plan had gone south, or lingered longer than two days. Stans would be my man!
Like a trip to the dentist, truly this one was for June Osborne's own health. Her longevity. She would not see it that way. But Lieutenant Stans needed to know where those other handmaids were, or else both me and Commander Blaine might have short tenures back home in Chancery.
THE THINGS WE DO
The Mackenzies I could handle. The kid's screams I could not. Maybe I am not High Commander material after all. I should apologize to Warren Putnam for being squeamish. High Commander Pryce would have never batted an eyelash.
The four-sided glass cage had been Lieutenant Stans' idea. That guy would have made a great High Commander, except he enjoyed his 'hands-on' work too much. His stupid smirk gave way to a frown when I told him that Agnes Mackenzie needed to be returned in one piece. We had 48 hours.
I had not expected the negotiation with Stans to include that he wanted to handle 'the reveal' himself, to Osborne. He wanted to be the one to retrieve the handmaids location, and lead her away with promises that Agnes would be safe. He enjoyed stuff like that. Way, way, way too much!
For fuck's sake, of course she would be safe! Jesus Murphy, it was my neck on the line! But I demurred to him because he had that soft-voice to make it seem part of a reasonable narrative. God, I hated him. If Blaine had not interceded, maybe his stupid grin and calm voice would have been my own exit from this mortal coil. God save us all.
As luck would have it, Commander Mackenzie and a cohort of his loyal Guardians headed first to Boston, thinking that that was where Agnes had been taken. By the time they discovered that Agnes was at the prison, two things happened. One - Agnes was already on her way home, shaken but otherwise not worse for wear, considering. Two - the guy in command of the Guardian cohort had refused to tangle with prison security, especially in a close-encounter fire-fight. Apparently, there are things we won't do.
But we got the info. Handmaids were now in custody. Ready to be sent to the first operational Magdalene farm. Like God, aka me, intended. Like POW's, all the bad eggs in one basket where they can be watched 24/7. And fucked at the Commander's leisure.
And as you are about to read - as hard-packed as security was designed out at the breeding farm, we lost the plot during transport. This one was on Aunt Lydia. All her. She'd insisted. As for the rest of us, we were so cowed by The Aunts, none of us thought anything of it. What could go wrong in a Birthmobile?
WHICH EXPLAINS THE DINER
Fast forward. An abandoned diner on the old Route 89 to Montreal. At Swanton in the disputed area, used to be northern Vermont. As a New Gilead Commander, now with border security in my portfolio, this disputed area covered a number of sins.
The coming meeting being one of them. Officially Gilead claimed all the 'disputed areas', but we did not do a lot from a military point of view to control them. Besides, our hands were full out West, like in Chicago. The Missisquoi indigenous folk of northern Vermont liked it, both The United States as well as 'Vermont' and Canada were out of their hair. My Guardian detail said that today you could see them up in the hills with binoculars - wondering why Gilead vehicles were parked beside SUV's with American and Canadian flags on them.
Out of which hopped June Osborne. With a guy who must be that American, Mark Tuello. A Hollywood type, with permanently coiffed stubble, for that rugged look. With God as my witness he looked like every middle-level US State Department lackey I ever saw. No wonder the moronic Sons of Jacob were able to foment a successful rebellion.
As they came in, I got out the 22 file folders. Why June Osborne wanted 22 was beyond me. But if Tuello could guarantee we got Fred Waterford in exchange, 22 renegade Marthas in exchange for him was worth it. Better to be rid of them, and better to have Fred inside our tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.
But it was good to see Osborne. I'm serious. She's got a little Che Guevara shtick going. I had a good feeling about her!
And then there was what I didn't know. What I didn't know would fill the hold of an ocean-going freighter. What I didn't know that the night I released the 22 women across that bridge, and collected Commander Waterford, Commander Blaine had come up from behind me. This time not acting as a Commander of the New Gilead District. This time as a member of The Eyes of God, like my frat buddy.
Who, by the way, had not tipped me off about this. He and I were going to have to speak about that.
Cut to the chase. A real, live 'chase'. None other than June Osborne (and some other refugee, Gilead women in Canada) chased Fred Waterford through the woods in the disputed area. I'm told that if Fred had just kept running in a straight line, he would have crossed the 45th parallel - and his murder would have created a mess for the Sûreté du Québec, not to mention the Prime Minister's Office up in Ottawa. Yet in the dark of the woods, he had veered left and had saved some Canadian bureaucrats a pile of work. He was found hanged on a wall not 50 feet south of the 45th parallel. In that disputed area which covered for a lot of sins.
Of course. Not that I knew at the time. Of course all of this had been hatched in an abandoned Swanton diner. My bet was that neither did that emotionless paper-pusher know, Mark Tuello.
I'll do business with him any day. June Osborne, apparently she'd never figured out that it was me who'd corraled Agnes Mackenzie. I'm still alive. But, I'll still count my fingers after shaking her hand.
WHITHER SERENA JOY
The satellite phone had been meant for me and June Osborne.
Yet this time? No sooner had the echoes of Fred's screams in the forest died down, than the phone rang, and it wasn't her.
It was Mark Tuello. For me and him, this was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Why?
Without so much as a 'hello' or any other social pleasantry, he just started in, "Lawrence. Mrs Waterford, she's pregnant. Due any day. I want to talk to you about a trade that doesn't involve her bludgeoned to death. Capisce?"
It never gets boring. One day I will have finally paid my debt to Eleanor, and I will be done with this place.