Part Thirteen
The sound of a gunshot exploded in the night, and I saw Harm's face freeze in horror right before I slumped to the ground. I heard him yell my name and then everything started happening at once.
Gunny took advantage of the opportunity and wrestled the gun from the man beside him, Gloria jumped on Frankie and had her in a stranglehold, and the man who had been holding me dropped his weapon and was rolling around on the ground, howling in pain.
Harm rushed to my side and gathered me into his arms. "Mac, my God. Are you alright?" he asked frantically.
I managed to catch my breath and muttered, "I'm okay."
"What happened?" he asked as checked me for injuries.
"I shot him in the foot." I gasped. My throat felt bruised and I could barely speak.
"That's my girl." He laughed and pulled me into a brief hug. I struggled to sit up and I could see that Gunny was holding a gun on both of Sadiq's men. Gloria and Frankie were still wrestling, but then Frankie elbowed Gloria in the nose and disappeared into the trees. I jumped somewhat unsteadily to my feet and with Marine-like determination started after her. "She's getting away, Harm."
She was running around the water in the direction she'd been going earlier before Sadiq's goon had caught her. I thought it was strange that she wasn't running back toward the house. Instead it was if she was running toward something. Harm passed me as we broke through the light growth at the edge of the pond and we found ourselves in a hidden alcove that would have been hard to find if we hadn't been following her. Frankie had thrown herself against a stone bench-a small alter that was covered with half burnt candles, dead flowers and small mementos. It suddenly struck me that we had stumbled upon a memorial for her dead lover-Ben Faud.
She was talking to herself or maybe to Ben's spirit, I wasn't sure, but she seemed unaware that we were there. She took a lighter from a box on the bench and started lighting all the candles. Once she was finished she turned around and headed for the edge of the pond. A heavy chain was attached to a fairly large tree and ran along the ground and disappeared into the water. The links coiled at her feet as she started pulling on it, dragging whatever was attached to it toward the shore. I thought maybe it was some kind of strong box filled with Sadiq's money, but soon I could see her grab onto something that looked like a large bundle of rags.
Harm decided to creep closer while I stayed hidden in the brush. Frankie suddenly got very still, and then turned around quickly, but she smiled when she saw him. "Harry! I'm so glad you decided to join me. Did you come to help?"
"Yes, I want to help, Frankie."
"We need to get everything ready."
"Ready for what?" he asked as he moved a little closer.
"Ms. McIntire," she explained patiently. "I know you're upset that we had to kill her, but she wasn't who you thought she was-we can bury her in the pond."
She must have seen me collapse when my gun went off and assumed that I was the one who'd been shot, and now she was planning on disposing of my body. She bent over and finished pulling the bundle completely out of the water and started arranging it lovingly. It was a large mass of sopping wet slime covered cloth wrapped haphazardly around a few connected bones but she spoke to it as if it could answer. "You won't mind. Will you Ben?"
That's what I'd been afraid of as soon as I saw her talking to that moldy pile of material. She wasn't just guilty. She was crazy as a loon. Everyone had assumed that Ben had been killed on a mission, but the entire time he had been hanging out as fish food in Frankie's pond.
And now she was making plans for me to join him. Over my-not-so-dead body! I stood up and announced. "I hate to disappoint you, Ms. Mitchell, but I'm still alive."
She whirled to face me and stared in amazement before she threw her hands in the air and said, "Oh good grief. What else can go wrong with my day?"
"I can think of lots of things, Frankie. Do you hear those sirens? They're coming to take you away. Ha ha."
"Mac," Harm said warningly. He still seemed shocked at coming face to face with Ben, and I guess I wasn't helping.
"Sorry, Harry. I know it's not nice to taunt the crazy lady." All of his illusions about her were well and truly shattered at this point. I guess I didn't need to rub it in.
She glared at me and said, "I'm not crazy. I knew you were up to no good the minute I laid eyes on you. Harry, her boyfriend is the man that was following me around!" She sounded like a whiney tattle tale.
"Well, I knew you were up to no good the minute I saw you pull your dead boyfriend out of the fish pond. Did you kill him, Frankie? Or did you tell someone else to do it the way you ordered that man to kill me?"
"I didn't mean to do it. You know that, don't you, Harry?"
She grabbed onto his arm and started to plead with him. Her dress slipped awkwardly off one shoulder and her hair flew into her face as he jerked away. It seemed he could barely stand to look at her. "Let go, Frankie."
He moved over beside me which seemed to infuriate her. "Of course you're going to take her side. I saw the way you always looked at her-the same way all the men looked at her. You just had to hire her, didn't you? It's disgusting-you were so blinded by lust that you couldn't see that she was just using you to spy on me. You're pathetic and weak-just like Ben."
I wanted to keep her talking until the authorities arrived so I asked, "Is that why you killed him? Because he was weak?"
She picked up the chain from the ground and started wrapping it mindlessly around her arm. She seemed to be in a trance as she spoke. "He was always flirting with other women, and he said it didn't mean anything. Maybe it didn't. I loved him so much-just like I love you, Harry."
"Even if you are pathetic and weak," I muttered out of the side of my mouth.
"You're just jealous," he said under his breath.
She continued to ramble, oblivious to us now. "So I understood why all the women wanted him, and I would always forgive him, but not that last time. Gloria was supposed to be my friend and when I confronted him, he just laughed and he wouldn't stop-so I killed him."
"They had an affair?" Harm asked the question this time.
She nodded. "For all these years Gloria has had no idea that I was using her precious organization to hide Sadiq's money."
"Until today," I guessed. When those men showed up this morning she got suspicious and went to Frankie for answers.
"At first I didn't really know what the money was being used for-I mean when we first met, Ben was involved in all sorts of really worthy humanitarian efforts for his country, and I wanted to help him. By the time I found out what his brother was involved in it would have looked suspicious if I ended the arrangement, especially after Ben disappeared."
"So you just decided to keep helping a criminal so you could save your own hide." I couldn't hide my disgust.
The sirens were getting closer, and I hoped that really was the sound of Catherine sending in back up for us. This operation had never called for us to blow our cover and we weren't authorized to actually arrest any one. And at this point I had no idea who Frankie thought I was working for or why I would be spying on her. I guess when you murder someone and launder money for a terrorist it tends to make you paranoid, so she probably saw enemies under every rock. Harm on the other hand just needed to maintain his cover as Harry, get the evidence and then disappear from the scene. If we could get her to go quietly back to the house we could all be arrested as a group and then Harry and Hannah and Cente would cease to exist.
I decided to show a little force to help her come to a sensible decision and pointed my gun at her. "Why don't we head back to the house now, Frankie?"
"You'll have to shoot me. I'm not leaving Ben." She started edging back toward the water.
"If that's the way you want it." I fired the gun and killed a water lily that had been floating beside her.
She screamed and fell backwards landing in the water with a splash. She floundered around and Harm and I both ran toward her as fast as we could. Before we could reach her, she turned and started swimming out to the middle of the pond.
I stood for a moment watching her as she moved farther away. Because of this woman I had already run barefoot through the woods, scrambled through thorny bushes and crawled on my hands and knees through mud and muck. Somehow I wasn't surprised that I was about to jump fully clothed into this scum covered murky water to chase after Frankie Mitchell. I shook my head in disgust, threw down my gun and took the plunge. Harm dove in before I did and he cut smoothly through the water, making up the distance much faster than I could. I probably should have stayed safely on the shore and let him go after her alone, but I just didn't seem to be able to do that. Besides, she would probably try to drown him as soon as he got within reach.
And I was right. He lunged for her, and she began flailing her arms around wildly, making it impossible for him to subdue her. Harm was much stronger than she was, and I expected her to run out of steam quickly, but she suddenly swung her arm at him and I saw his head snap back. The moonlight was shining enough for me to see that he was bleeding and then I realized she'd hit him with the chain that was still wrapped around her arm. He seemed only half conscious as he made a feeble attempt to hold onto her. She saw that I was getting closer and tried to swim away, but the exertion had worn her out and the chains were beginning to weigh her down. She panicked and grabbed onto to Harm. He moaned and I watched in horror as they both sank beneath the waves.
I was cussing like a sailor as I tried to swim in that dumb tight skirt, but I kicked harder in a desperate attempt to reach them. At that moment I didn't care if Frankie Mitchell lived or died, but there was no way she was going to take Harm down with her. I was starting to panic myself , and then miraculously I swam across the chain that was wrapped around her arm. I dove down and grabbed it hoping and praying that she was still holding onto Harm too. I swam along it, pulling it toward me frantically and shot up through the water hoping to pull them up with it. I cried out when I saw Harm bob to the surface. I pulled him closer and called his name again. He coughed up some water, but I could see that he was still dazed. He was still holding onto Frankie and I managed to get him on his back and grab his collar. She was clutching his shirt and sprawled across his chest as I started towing them both toward the shore. I could barely keep myself afloat but by following the chain that tethered us to the shore, I managed to make slow painful progress.
I was too tired to care when I realized that Ben's mangled body had drifted out from the bank and was bobbing next to us. It was linked to Frankie by the chain around her arm and had been pulled back into the water as she tried to get away from us. It was half submerged and the wrappings were beginning to fill up with water. As it began to sink I felt an unbelievable strain on my arm that was towing the two of them. It felt like it was being pulled out of the socket and I gritted my teeth as I tried to hold on. I realized that as Ben's body was sinking it was pulling Frankie down with it and as long as Harm was hanging onto her it would pull him down too. I tried to untwist the chain from her arm but it was stretched impossibly taut. I pleaded with him to let her go even though I wasn't sure if he could hear me. "Harm listen to me, you have to let her go."
His eyes fluttered open and he seemed to wake up enough to realize the situation. He felt Frankie being pulled down and away from him and his instinct was to fight against it. I was crying uncontrollably as I lost my grip on him. "Harm please let her go and grab onto me." At the last minute he released his grip, and she disappeared under the water. He reached for me, and together we struggled the rest of the way to shore and collapsed half in and half out of the water. I could hear voices and see flash lights bouncing around in the trees. Minutes later Gunny was by our sides, shouting for help.
The rest of the night was a blur. Police swarmed the area and when we told them that they would find two bodies at the bottom of the pond, they started the grisly chore of bringing them to the surface. As a paramedic checked me over I watched a policeman pull on the heavy chain the same way Frankie had done earlier that evening. I watched as the body became visible and was brought up onto the shore. Harm joined me as I walked over to have one last look at Ben. But he wasn't alone. Frankie had found him in the depths of that black lightless void and wrapped herself around him so tightly that it was impossible to tell where one started and the other one stopped. I felt a shudder go through Harm as he looked down at them, and I put my hand on his arm, but he brushed me off and stalked off to stare out at the water. I knew we could add this to his list of things he would feel guilty about-failures he was responsible for-another damsel he hadn't managed to save. And I knew that I would be there for him if he needed me, but right now what he needed was some time alone, so I would honor that. Even though every bone in my beat up, filthy, dirty, exhausted body wanted to hug him and hold him and never let him go.
A picture flashed into my head of me clutching onto Harm the same way Frankie was clutching onto Ben, and I didn't like it, so I did the hardest thing I have ever done. I turned my back on Harm and walked away.
To be continued
The sound of a gunshot exploded in the night, and I saw Harm's face freeze in horror right before I slumped to the ground. I heard him yell my name and then everything started happening at once.
Gunny took advantage of the opportunity and wrestled the gun from the man beside him, Gloria jumped on Frankie and had her in a stranglehold, and the man who had been holding me dropped his weapon and was rolling around on the ground, howling in pain.
Harm rushed to my side and gathered me into his arms. "Mac, my God. Are you alright?" he asked frantically.
I managed to catch my breath and muttered, "I'm okay."
"What happened?" he asked as checked me for injuries.
"I shot him in the foot." I gasped. My throat felt bruised and I could barely speak.
"That's my girl." He laughed and pulled me into a brief hug. I struggled to sit up and I could see that Gunny was holding a gun on both of Sadiq's men. Gloria and Frankie were still wrestling, but then Frankie elbowed Gloria in the nose and disappeared into the trees. I jumped somewhat unsteadily to my feet and with Marine-like determination started after her. "She's getting away, Harm."
She was running around the water in the direction she'd been going earlier before Sadiq's goon had caught her. I thought it was strange that she wasn't running back toward the house. Instead it was if she was running toward something. Harm passed me as we broke through the light growth at the edge of the pond and we found ourselves in a hidden alcove that would have been hard to find if we hadn't been following her. Frankie had thrown herself against a stone bench-a small alter that was covered with half burnt candles, dead flowers and small mementos. It suddenly struck me that we had stumbled upon a memorial for her dead lover-Ben Faud.
She was talking to herself or maybe to Ben's spirit, I wasn't sure, but she seemed unaware that we were there. She took a lighter from a box on the bench and started lighting all the candles. Once she was finished she turned around and headed for the edge of the pond. A heavy chain was attached to a fairly large tree and ran along the ground and disappeared into the water. The links coiled at her feet as she started pulling on it, dragging whatever was attached to it toward the shore. I thought maybe it was some kind of strong box filled with Sadiq's money, but soon I could see her grab onto something that looked like a large bundle of rags.
Harm decided to creep closer while I stayed hidden in the brush. Frankie suddenly got very still, and then turned around quickly, but she smiled when she saw him. "Harry! I'm so glad you decided to join me. Did you come to help?"
"Yes, I want to help, Frankie."
"We need to get everything ready."
"Ready for what?" he asked as he moved a little closer.
"Ms. McIntire," she explained patiently. "I know you're upset that we had to kill her, but she wasn't who you thought she was-we can bury her in the pond."
She must have seen me collapse when my gun went off and assumed that I was the one who'd been shot, and now she was planning on disposing of my body. She bent over and finished pulling the bundle completely out of the water and started arranging it lovingly. It was a large mass of sopping wet slime covered cloth wrapped haphazardly around a few connected bones but she spoke to it as if it could answer. "You won't mind. Will you Ben?"
That's what I'd been afraid of as soon as I saw her talking to that moldy pile of material. She wasn't just guilty. She was crazy as a loon. Everyone had assumed that Ben had been killed on a mission, but the entire time he had been hanging out as fish food in Frankie's pond.
And now she was making plans for me to join him. Over my-not-so-dead body! I stood up and announced. "I hate to disappoint you, Ms. Mitchell, but I'm still alive."
She whirled to face me and stared in amazement before she threw her hands in the air and said, "Oh good grief. What else can go wrong with my day?"
"I can think of lots of things, Frankie. Do you hear those sirens? They're coming to take you away. Ha ha."
"Mac," Harm said warningly. He still seemed shocked at coming face to face with Ben, and I guess I wasn't helping.
"Sorry, Harry. I know it's not nice to taunt the crazy lady." All of his illusions about her were well and truly shattered at this point. I guess I didn't need to rub it in.
She glared at me and said, "I'm not crazy. I knew you were up to no good the minute I laid eyes on you. Harry, her boyfriend is the man that was following me around!" She sounded like a whiney tattle tale.
"Well, I knew you were up to no good the minute I saw you pull your dead boyfriend out of the fish pond. Did you kill him, Frankie? Or did you tell someone else to do it the way you ordered that man to kill me?"
"I didn't mean to do it. You know that, don't you, Harry?"
She grabbed onto his arm and started to plead with him. Her dress slipped awkwardly off one shoulder and her hair flew into her face as he jerked away. It seemed he could barely stand to look at her. "Let go, Frankie."
He moved over beside me which seemed to infuriate her. "Of course you're going to take her side. I saw the way you always looked at her-the same way all the men looked at her. You just had to hire her, didn't you? It's disgusting-you were so blinded by lust that you couldn't see that she was just using you to spy on me. You're pathetic and weak-just like Ben."
I wanted to keep her talking until the authorities arrived so I asked, "Is that why you killed him? Because he was weak?"
She picked up the chain from the ground and started wrapping it mindlessly around her arm. She seemed to be in a trance as she spoke. "He was always flirting with other women, and he said it didn't mean anything. Maybe it didn't. I loved him so much-just like I love you, Harry."
"Even if you are pathetic and weak," I muttered out of the side of my mouth.
"You're just jealous," he said under his breath.
She continued to ramble, oblivious to us now. "So I understood why all the women wanted him, and I would always forgive him, but not that last time. Gloria was supposed to be my friend and when I confronted him, he just laughed and he wouldn't stop-so I killed him."
"They had an affair?" Harm asked the question this time.
She nodded. "For all these years Gloria has had no idea that I was using her precious organization to hide Sadiq's money."
"Until today," I guessed. When those men showed up this morning she got suspicious and went to Frankie for answers.
"At first I didn't really know what the money was being used for-I mean when we first met, Ben was involved in all sorts of really worthy humanitarian efforts for his country, and I wanted to help him. By the time I found out what his brother was involved in it would have looked suspicious if I ended the arrangement, especially after Ben disappeared."
"So you just decided to keep helping a criminal so you could save your own hide." I couldn't hide my disgust.
The sirens were getting closer, and I hoped that really was the sound of Catherine sending in back up for us. This operation had never called for us to blow our cover and we weren't authorized to actually arrest any one. And at this point I had no idea who Frankie thought I was working for or why I would be spying on her. I guess when you murder someone and launder money for a terrorist it tends to make you paranoid, so she probably saw enemies under every rock. Harm on the other hand just needed to maintain his cover as Harry, get the evidence and then disappear from the scene. If we could get her to go quietly back to the house we could all be arrested as a group and then Harry and Hannah and Cente would cease to exist.
I decided to show a little force to help her come to a sensible decision and pointed my gun at her. "Why don't we head back to the house now, Frankie?"
"You'll have to shoot me. I'm not leaving Ben." She started edging back toward the water.
"If that's the way you want it." I fired the gun and killed a water lily that had been floating beside her.
She screamed and fell backwards landing in the water with a splash. She floundered around and Harm and I both ran toward her as fast as we could. Before we could reach her, she turned and started swimming out to the middle of the pond.
I stood for a moment watching her as she moved farther away. Because of this woman I had already run barefoot through the woods, scrambled through thorny bushes and crawled on my hands and knees through mud and muck. Somehow I wasn't surprised that I was about to jump fully clothed into this scum covered murky water to chase after Frankie Mitchell. I shook my head in disgust, threw down my gun and took the plunge. Harm dove in before I did and he cut smoothly through the water, making up the distance much faster than I could. I probably should have stayed safely on the shore and let him go after her alone, but I just didn't seem to be able to do that. Besides, she would probably try to drown him as soon as he got within reach.
And I was right. He lunged for her, and she began flailing her arms around wildly, making it impossible for him to subdue her. Harm was much stronger than she was, and I expected her to run out of steam quickly, but she suddenly swung her arm at him and I saw his head snap back. The moonlight was shining enough for me to see that he was bleeding and then I realized she'd hit him with the chain that was still wrapped around her arm. He seemed only half conscious as he made a feeble attempt to hold onto her. She saw that I was getting closer and tried to swim away, but the exertion had worn her out and the chains were beginning to weigh her down. She panicked and grabbed onto to Harm. He moaned and I watched in horror as they both sank beneath the waves.
I was cussing like a sailor as I tried to swim in that dumb tight skirt, but I kicked harder in a desperate attempt to reach them. At that moment I didn't care if Frankie Mitchell lived or died, but there was no way she was going to take Harm down with her. I was starting to panic myself , and then miraculously I swam across the chain that was wrapped around her arm. I dove down and grabbed it hoping and praying that she was still holding onto Harm too. I swam along it, pulling it toward me frantically and shot up through the water hoping to pull them up with it. I cried out when I saw Harm bob to the surface. I pulled him closer and called his name again. He coughed up some water, but I could see that he was still dazed. He was still holding onto Frankie and I managed to get him on his back and grab his collar. She was clutching his shirt and sprawled across his chest as I started towing them both toward the shore. I could barely keep myself afloat but by following the chain that tethered us to the shore, I managed to make slow painful progress.
I was too tired to care when I realized that Ben's mangled body had drifted out from the bank and was bobbing next to us. It was linked to Frankie by the chain around her arm and had been pulled back into the water as she tried to get away from us. It was half submerged and the wrappings were beginning to fill up with water. As it began to sink I felt an unbelievable strain on my arm that was towing the two of them. It felt like it was being pulled out of the socket and I gritted my teeth as I tried to hold on. I realized that as Ben's body was sinking it was pulling Frankie down with it and as long as Harm was hanging onto her it would pull him down too. I tried to untwist the chain from her arm but it was stretched impossibly taut. I pleaded with him to let her go even though I wasn't sure if he could hear me. "Harm listen to me, you have to let her go."
His eyes fluttered open and he seemed to wake up enough to realize the situation. He felt Frankie being pulled down and away from him and his instinct was to fight against it. I was crying uncontrollably as I lost my grip on him. "Harm please let her go and grab onto me." At the last minute he released his grip, and she disappeared under the water. He reached for me, and together we struggled the rest of the way to shore and collapsed half in and half out of the water. I could hear voices and see flash lights bouncing around in the trees. Minutes later Gunny was by our sides, shouting for help.
The rest of the night was a blur. Police swarmed the area and when we told them that they would find two bodies at the bottom of the pond, they started the grisly chore of bringing them to the surface. As a paramedic checked me over I watched a policeman pull on the heavy chain the same way Frankie had done earlier that evening. I watched as the body became visible and was brought up onto the shore. Harm joined me as I walked over to have one last look at Ben. But he wasn't alone. Frankie had found him in the depths of that black lightless void and wrapped herself around him so tightly that it was impossible to tell where one started and the other one stopped. I felt a shudder go through Harm as he looked down at them, and I put my hand on his arm, but he brushed me off and stalked off to stare out at the water. I knew we could add this to his list of things he would feel guilty about-failures he was responsible for-another damsel he hadn't managed to save. And I knew that I would be there for him if he needed me, but right now what he needed was some time alone, so I would honor that. Even though every bone in my beat up, filthy, dirty, exhausted body wanted to hug him and hold him and never let him go.
A picture flashed into my head of me clutching onto Harm the same way Frankie was clutching onto Ben, and I didn't like it, so I did the hardest thing I have ever done. I turned my back on Harm and walked away.
To be continued