Chapter 8 - Fire
In a world on fire nothing ever as it seems
Even your dreams, bathe in gasoline, oh
In a world on fire - Klergy
Have you ever been too tired to sleep? Oh so tired that when that warm, heavenly feeling of languidness makes your body drift off, that's as far as it gets?
I was tired and drowsy after a long hot bath where I tried to read a book but the sentences bled into one another. I dozed off twice, the smell of ginger and lavender combined with chamomile tea I was sipping had the most calming effect. So tired that I dropped into bed nude when I almost always had something cute to wear to sleep.
The very second my head hit the pillow I felt like a bucket of ice water was thrown over me. There was plenty of drowsiness to drift my eyes shut but no sleep to come by. I flipped the pillow over multiple times, tried foreign sleeping positions but the rest I craved never came.
It was midnight when I dragged a pillow and comforter out to the living room unceremoniously dropping into the couch after lighting the fireplace although it was summer and far too warm for such things. It didn't matter, I felt cold, the kind that seeps from your bones a few days before catching the flu.
The TV held no interest to me, I much preferred the quiet solitude of nothing but the crackle of flames. I did drift off if only briefly because one of three distinct nightmares scared me to death.
I was back in the torture shack. Back to being tied down while two of Sadik's goons leered lasciviously. As a woman in the military, especially a Marine with combat experience, the subject of rape is often glossed over. I thought it wouldn't happen to me but was aware of the dangers of being caught behind enemy lines. Only Webb was supposed to keep me safe. He promised.
I could still feel one if the men's hands groping me none too delicately, touching me in intimate places while I definitely ignored the mistreatment. I prayed each time he got closer that my God would bring his wrath down on these vile men, a plea that was answered minutes before another man promised to press crackling steel wool onto my skin.
There was some comfort in this nightmare, I knew it would end the moment my flyboy crashed through the door guns-a-blazing. Any second now he would stop it, he would rescue me he would...No!
The men anticipated the rescue. An AK-47 aimed and shot true, killing Harm instantly. I saw his bloodied body crumble to the ground with eyes that stared accusingly at me as life drained from them.
I awoke with a start, clutching my hand to my chest in an effort to stop my racing heart. It wasn't real. I wasn't hurt and neither was he but the desire to call him was so overwhelming.
I picked up my phone, blocked my number before dialing his. Two rings, three, four and five when i decided to give up only to hear his groggy voice over the line. "Rabb….Hello?"
My hand covered the receiver, muffling my sob at the relief that he was, indeed, alive. For a time he remained silent and just the simple act of him breathing was like a balm over my battered soul.
"Mac? Is this you? I'm sorry." He sounded so hurt, so desperate but any love I still had for him dwindled as I recalled his betrayal and the eight week sentence I was given. "Sarah, talk to me please."
Hanging up was the sensible thing to do.
It felt odd to walk without uniform through Bethesda the following morning. But, I saw no point in wearing the stupid thing since I was not working at the moment. A turtleneck covered the marks on my throat, it was a little out of place for the summer but no one seemed to care or notice.
I stride past the psychology department and the open appointment that the Admiral ordered Harriet to make on my behalf. Therapy won't work, my experience with psychologists was that they were nothing more than a receptacle for gossip with a penchant for using your emotions against you.
They never helped me stop drinking. A terrible crash, detoxing in the desert and my ass being shipped to boot cured my alcoholism. Even after my first taste of combat and subsequent trip to the headshrinker, all I felt was worse with a crippling sense of guilt for the young corpsman that died beside me. That rough patch lasted a few days tops and soon I was out on the field again until I rotated to Okinawa.
I made a beeline to my general practitioner, a woman in her 50s who was a civilian with short spiky hair, kind green eyes and a picture of her two tuxedo cats a top her desk. She was between clients and a legal favor earned me a squeeze into her calendar. "Colonel, you don't have to see me for a few months, what's up?"
She looks at me expectantly with a sly smile that makes me realize she thinks I'm finally ready for kids. We've discussed it several times, how long it could take after I remove the IUD, if there were any complications from getting older. It was endearing once and now, another box to tick in subjects that piss me off.
"I'm having trouble sleeping…work is stressful, you know. Is there something you could, maybe prescribe?"
Her eyes square at me. "There's plenty but have you tried the natural approach first? Warm bath, chamomile tea, even reading before bed can be effective."
"I've tried all of that...I need a little help just for a few days I'm sure that-"
"No." She interrupts, threading her hands together as she leans forwards. The doc's face is impassive and when I ask why she wouldn't give me meds, there was one answer. "Colonel, I hate to put it this way but, you're an alcoholic. I can't prescribe you anything that could cause a relapse and frankly, most of it can be addicting."
"There's nothing? Nothing at all?" I know I sound desperate and when she slides a promotional pack of a vitamin called Melatonin, I want to flip over her desk and destroy the office to bits.
On the ride home I open the window and dump the tiny white capsules, the useless substitution that wouldn't work for my sleeplessness. Upon entering my apartment I find something is off.
The hairs in the back of my neck stand up, that intuition, my own personal sixth sense is on high alert. I reach for my pistol, the Beretta I have stashed to a secret compartment behind the armoire. A gun I keep fully loaded and cocked at all times.
I take a quick sweep of the living room and find my balcony door open, it's curtains flapping in the wind. I make a point to close them and before I get a chance a glimmer of some sort catches my eye.
It comes from the coffee table where on a small velvet mat sits a rather large diamond. I pinch it between two fingers, hold it up to the light to learn that it's real. A small paper in cardstock provides a number with the words 'Call now' written in sprawling black ink.
I knew who would be on the other line, Harm warned at one day he would come for us I just stupidly hoped we'd survive unscathed. "Hello Sarah."
He knows my name, my real name on the made up Jane something or other Webb came up with. He knows my name and the way he says it makes my skin crawl. I straighten almost to attention and try to keep my voice impassive. I won't show him my fear. "The terrorism business mustn't be too lucrative if you have nothing better to do than bother me."
"Perhaps I am freeing you?"
Freeing me? Okay, I'll bite. "Freeing me from what exactly?"
"Your life where you dress and act like a man...I'm freeing you from your lover who will never understand a woman like you."
Harm. "My lover?"
"Don't play coy, Sarah. Your lover, the Commander you seemed so enamored with and is now rarely in your bed."
His tone is rough and I wonder if Sadik Fahd is acting jealous over me. "What do-"
"Have you entered your bedroom?" As if commanded, my eyes focus on the closed door and a feeling of dread settles at the pit of my stomach. When I enter the window is wide open, my bed is made when I had left it messy.
Tacked to the wall above my headboard are various images of me and Harm at various settings. He'd been following us, keeping an eye from the distance. In the center of my crimson bed sheets is a velvet bag, smaller diamonds spilling out as if he'd left them as a gift for me. What was even more out of place, the small model of an old red Corvette and another image, one taken in Harm's loft through louvered windows of him asleep. That type of violation makes me feel dirty as I wonder how much of our intimate activities the bastard was privy to. It was perverse and disgusting.
"He has the loveliest red car, doesn't he? I can appreciate that Americans enjoy vintage vehicles, it really is quite beautiful."
"Why are you so interested in his Corvette?"
Sadik's response is a laugh, malevolent in nature but then I feel it, the sense of desperation and fear that I'd only senses one other time, when Harm was lost in the sea. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong and in an instant I feel my legs nearly give out.
"Older cars are easier to break into. Less technical, no alarms. Not that it would matter, the security at your office building...tsk, tsk, tsk...I'm sure the Commander found it explosive-"
I hang up when he laughs and frantically dial Harm's cellphone but get no answer. I try the office next and then Bud who sounds out of breath. "Bud, I need to you-"
"Ma'am...Mac...the Commander he's...it was awful." He rambles and the words are mostly incoherent until he takes a breath. "...Harm was caught in the explosion...I think, I don't know...they think he's dead."