Chapter 12 - Living Nightmares
(Some events and descriptions may be disturbing, some may be true.)
Hordes of displaced people were clustered in the barely adequate shelters. Aid agencies seemed to be fighting an uphill battle. As soon as things seemed better, hostilities would break out again. It was also in the middle of the bitterest winter in written history. Gurmukistan was a country with a long history of violent and bloody warfare. While modern peace treaties and sanctions made it almost impossible to have warfare between nations, Gurmukistan managed to be at war with itself for long years.
As usual with such conflicts, it was the innocent who suffered more. Women and children more than outnumbered the men. Marie had been there for two months already and was sick to the bone with the misery she had seen. She had been sent in to give a hand to Jason Petrovich who had seemed less than delighted at first to see her, but a warm friendship had grown between them. Jason had done wonders - placing children in foster homes and adopted around the world in fantastic numbers. Experience rang an alarm bell in her head, but Jason assured her that all was well.
What made her hide her talent for learning languages quickly she couldn't explain. Gurmeese was known as the Chinese of the mid-east as it was a convoluted languages plagued with diphthongs, triphthongs, double vowels and a vocabulary that included 20 different words for snow and over 40 for suffering.
Her initial niggling doubts slowly grew to the horrifying conclusion that Jason Petrovich was using his position to sell children. The cost of adoptions had been regulated for years due to international agreements and the ground breaking work done by her agency, the ICPA. But, there was always those willing to pay for a child when they had been deemed unsuitable as parents by the authorities.
Marie could feel a secret sympathy for the adults willing to go outside the law and pay fantastic sums for their own child, for that is what her adopted parents had done. They had been well over the minimum age for prospective parents and Mumsy had a history of psychotic episodes that had been barely controlled by medication. Popsy had tried his best to make up for the days when his wife couldn't cope with the lively little girl. The downside of illegal adoption was for her, at least, the fact that she had no idea of her past. No papers, no records were available to tell where a small two year old had been before she was adopted by the Rykers.
No matter where her heart or sympathies lay, how much she had come to like Jason Petrovich, her dedication to protecting the children came first. Hunches and overheard conversations weren't enough. She needed cold hard information, proof. She was a canny investigator, but had not counted on Jason's partners. She had followed him into the mountains where he was meeting with some of his Gurmukaani contacts.
The mountain men were cautious in the extreme and she fell into the hands of perimeter guards, men who knew every rock and bush like the hairs on their beards.
"You little fool." Jason had spat out. "Why couldn't you leave things alone? You of all people should know I'm doing these children a service by finding them homes."
"How many are really going to families Jason?" Marie hazarded a guess. Hundreds of children a month couldn't all be illegally adopted. It just wasn't possible, not even with the biggest and best organized agencies. She repeated the question in credible Gurmeese. The men moved restlessly.
"Shut up!" Jason hissed, his normally friendly open face was the mask of a stranger, a dangerous, evil stranger.
"How many are sold as slaves or to bordellos?" She began to translate the sentence into Gurmeese and to her shock Jason shot her in the leg. She fell to the ground.
"SHUT UP!!" He screamed his lips pulled back over his teeth like a wild animal brought to bay.
"And how many are sold as body parts to hospitals?" She still didn't feel the pain of the wound, though blood was oozing sluggishly through her fingers.
"Is this so?" One of the men said in credible English.
"Look at him." Marie felt a wave of dizziness pass over her.
Jason stood there with the gun in his hand his face twisted in hate and the truth.
"Dog. You promised a good life for our children away from the horrors of poverty and war and you have sold them into slavery and worse." Before anyone could react he shot the crooked agency worker between the eyes.
"You have done us a service, of a sort." The bearded man hefted his rifle towards Marie. "We are not a forgiving race. Leave and do not come back."
"Wait. Help me." But she found herself talking to thin air and the falling snow as the men melted into the countryside. She was left with the rapidly cooling body of a man she had once considered a friend. Someone she had killed as if by her own hand. "Nu. Nu. Begrame - No. No. In the name of mercy. Jo savaren- I beg of thee....please...Don't leave me behind!"
"I'm not too sure how I got back to the city. I hobbled, I crawled, I...don't know. The next thing I knew I was being airlifted to an International Peacekeeper Hospital. I had pneumonia, my leg was gangrenous. They tried to save it. Despite pain killers I suffered greatly for seven long weeks. It was almost a relief to have it amputated."
Marie paused for a breath and shuddered involuntarily. Warm arms were wrapped around her and she found her head resting on a broad shoulder. Her hand was being held tightly by Brains, his face soft with sympathy.
"They didn't quite believe me. Jason's body was never found. The proof I had gathered disappeared. In order to keep the integrity of the Agency I given a gag order. I couldn't even discuss it with anyone. You are the only ones outside of my superiors who know. Now, they are threatening to take me out of field duty. Give me a desk. Or worse, fire me for messing up."
"N-nonsense." To her surprise Brains raised her hand to his lips in a salute. "Y-you w-were exceedingly br-brave. You st-still are."
"Brains is right. If anyone is to blame its that agency of yours for sending you out without proper backup and not taking care of you afterwards." Virgil's arms tightened around her tightly, making her feel protected, cared for. Maybe- even, just for this moment, loved.
Marie felt a wave of warmth sweep over her that she hadn't felt since Popsy had died when she was 16, leaving her to cope with a desolate Mumsy for six long months until she had followed her beloved husband. The tears that had been so long surpressed during the day had found only outlet in nightmares welled in her eyes. She found herself weeping like a broken-hearted child on Virgil Tracy's shoulder. Brains was patting her on the back and both men were muttering words of comfort.
(Some events and descriptions may be disturbing, some may be true.)
Hordes of displaced people were clustered in the barely adequate shelters. Aid agencies seemed to be fighting an uphill battle. As soon as things seemed better, hostilities would break out again. It was also in the middle of the bitterest winter in written history. Gurmukistan was a country with a long history of violent and bloody warfare. While modern peace treaties and sanctions made it almost impossible to have warfare between nations, Gurmukistan managed to be at war with itself for long years.
As usual with such conflicts, it was the innocent who suffered more. Women and children more than outnumbered the men. Marie had been there for two months already and was sick to the bone with the misery she had seen. She had been sent in to give a hand to Jason Petrovich who had seemed less than delighted at first to see her, but a warm friendship had grown between them. Jason had done wonders - placing children in foster homes and adopted around the world in fantastic numbers. Experience rang an alarm bell in her head, but Jason assured her that all was well.
What made her hide her talent for learning languages quickly she couldn't explain. Gurmeese was known as the Chinese of the mid-east as it was a convoluted languages plagued with diphthongs, triphthongs, double vowels and a vocabulary that included 20 different words for snow and over 40 for suffering.
Her initial niggling doubts slowly grew to the horrifying conclusion that Jason Petrovich was using his position to sell children. The cost of adoptions had been regulated for years due to international agreements and the ground breaking work done by her agency, the ICPA. But, there was always those willing to pay for a child when they had been deemed unsuitable as parents by the authorities.
Marie could feel a secret sympathy for the adults willing to go outside the law and pay fantastic sums for their own child, for that is what her adopted parents had done. They had been well over the minimum age for prospective parents and Mumsy had a history of psychotic episodes that had been barely controlled by medication. Popsy had tried his best to make up for the days when his wife couldn't cope with the lively little girl. The downside of illegal adoption was for her, at least, the fact that she had no idea of her past. No papers, no records were available to tell where a small two year old had been before she was adopted by the Rykers.
No matter where her heart or sympathies lay, how much she had come to like Jason Petrovich, her dedication to protecting the children came first. Hunches and overheard conversations weren't enough. She needed cold hard information, proof. She was a canny investigator, but had not counted on Jason's partners. She had followed him into the mountains where he was meeting with some of his Gurmukaani contacts.
The mountain men were cautious in the extreme and she fell into the hands of perimeter guards, men who knew every rock and bush like the hairs on their beards.
"You little fool." Jason had spat out. "Why couldn't you leave things alone? You of all people should know I'm doing these children a service by finding them homes."
"How many are really going to families Jason?" Marie hazarded a guess. Hundreds of children a month couldn't all be illegally adopted. It just wasn't possible, not even with the biggest and best organized agencies. She repeated the question in credible Gurmeese. The men moved restlessly.
"Shut up!" Jason hissed, his normally friendly open face was the mask of a stranger, a dangerous, evil stranger.
"How many are sold as slaves or to bordellos?" She began to translate the sentence into Gurmeese and to her shock Jason shot her in the leg. She fell to the ground.
"SHUT UP!!" He screamed his lips pulled back over his teeth like a wild animal brought to bay.
"And how many are sold as body parts to hospitals?" She still didn't feel the pain of the wound, though blood was oozing sluggishly through her fingers.
"Is this so?" One of the men said in credible English.
"Look at him." Marie felt a wave of dizziness pass over her.
Jason stood there with the gun in his hand his face twisted in hate and the truth.
"Dog. You promised a good life for our children away from the horrors of poverty and war and you have sold them into slavery and worse." Before anyone could react he shot the crooked agency worker between the eyes.
"You have done us a service, of a sort." The bearded man hefted his rifle towards Marie. "We are not a forgiving race. Leave and do not come back."
"Wait. Help me." But she found herself talking to thin air and the falling snow as the men melted into the countryside. She was left with the rapidly cooling body of a man she had once considered a friend. Someone she had killed as if by her own hand. "Nu. Nu. Begrame - No. No. In the name of mercy. Jo savaren- I beg of thee....please...Don't leave me behind!"
"I'm not too sure how I got back to the city. I hobbled, I crawled, I...don't know. The next thing I knew I was being airlifted to an International Peacekeeper Hospital. I had pneumonia, my leg was gangrenous. They tried to save it. Despite pain killers I suffered greatly for seven long weeks. It was almost a relief to have it amputated."
Marie paused for a breath and shuddered involuntarily. Warm arms were wrapped around her and she found her head resting on a broad shoulder. Her hand was being held tightly by Brains, his face soft with sympathy.
"They didn't quite believe me. Jason's body was never found. The proof I had gathered disappeared. In order to keep the integrity of the Agency I given a gag order. I couldn't even discuss it with anyone. You are the only ones outside of my superiors who know. Now, they are threatening to take me out of field duty. Give me a desk. Or worse, fire me for messing up."
"N-nonsense." To her surprise Brains raised her hand to his lips in a salute. "Y-you w-were exceedingly br-brave. You st-still are."
"Brains is right. If anyone is to blame its that agency of yours for sending you out without proper backup and not taking care of you afterwards." Virgil's arms tightened around her tightly, making her feel protected, cared for. Maybe- even, just for this moment, loved.
Marie felt a wave of warmth sweep over her that she hadn't felt since Popsy had died when she was 16, leaving her to cope with a desolate Mumsy for six long months until she had followed her beloved husband. The tears that had been so long surpressed during the day had found only outlet in nightmares welled in her eyes. She found herself weeping like a broken-hearted child on Virgil Tracy's shoulder. Brains was patting her on the back and both men were muttering words of comfort.