верить
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Did I really think they were gonna believe me?
No. The Secret Service can't have made such a mistake. They couldn't make a mistake in recording Audrey's death. Or could they? She's the First Daughter. Is the procedure a different one, to record the death of a member of the presidential family? Even in situations when the cause of death was 'obviously' clear?
The longer I think about this, the more I start to doubt myself and everything. It's hard to stay sane, after all this. I know that they don't want to believe me. Even I thought my mind was playing tricks on me when I saw her in China for the first time.
There's a knock on my door. I'm sure it's Chloe.
I don't want to open up. She'll just try to talk me out of this, I guess.
And it sit here, by the wall, really comfortably. Don't even wanna get up.
She knocks again.
Damn it, she took a real effort to get me out of that hellhole. She deserves it that I at least open up.
As I do, she pushes past me, into my room, swiftly closing the door behind her.
He's asleep, I have some time, she tells me, and walks over to the bulls eye to look out. Her cabin doesn't even have a window.
I wonder why Belcheck is sleeping over there... are they really sharing a cabin? For the sake of their cover story or for real? None of my business, I guess.
Have you come here to tell me I've gone insane?, I directly ask her. Chloe doesn't need sugar-coating.
She shakes her head, no.
Why then?
Let's say I believe you.
You don't. I can clearly hear that.
Let's say I did. Because I really want to, she sighs. I'm gonna need a few details to make investigations.
Fair enough. I walk over to her and also look out of the bulls eye. There's only water out there. It'll take two more days to reach Havana. Long time ago that I was there.
Go ahead, ask me what you wanna know. This is gonna be an awful conversation, I feel it coming.
Where did you see her for the first time?
In China. I don't know where, exactly. The Russians sold me to them for a few weeks, they put me into a container and shipped it there, I guess through Kazakhstan. The travel didn't take more than two days after the container was loaded from the Russian rail gauge to the Chinese one. We must have been in prison somewhere close to the border.
So far, so good. That were facts. They weren't the painful part of the story.
Chloe sat down on the edge of my bed. I haven't even used it yet. I'm somehow stuck to that place next to it, in between the bulls eye and the bedside table, where I put a blanket on the floor. It's strange but I feel more comfortable down there.
Did they bring the two of you together there for a reason?
I nod my head, yes. I take a deep breath, They were questioning her. She obviously hadn't talked too much in the months before. They brought me there and tortured me to make her give up classified information.
Such as?
White House protocols... some access points. I didn't hear all of their questions. I take the bottle of water from the bedside table with me and sit down on the blanket on the floor. She answered them, this is so hard to say. Am I betraying her by saying that? I stare at the bottle of water in my hands and start picking at the label.
Is she still there?
I don't know. I shrug. One night she came to me in my cell after she somehow managed to get a hold of a bunch of keys. We tried to get away and then we got separated on our way out. I don't know where she is, this is so hard to say: I don't even know if she's still alive.
We sit there in silence, Chloe and I. I don't know if she believes me now.
A knock on the door startles us after a while. It's Belcheck, looking for her. He obviously already worried where she was.
They leave me alone while I still sit at my place, staring at the empty bed.
I finally decide to sleep on the floor.
Jack!
It's Chloe's voice, waking me up again. I don't know how many hours I slept, but it's dark now. Only the small lamp on the bedside table is on. She looks worried somehow, probably because she found me sleeping on the blanket on the floor.
How did you get in here? I tiredly rub my eyes and roll over to lie on my back. She sits right next to my head - with a computer on her lap.
I have the second key to your cabin, she admits, showing me that half-smile that's so typical for her. Like she was telling me 'well, you know, in case you try to something stupid, like try to kill yourself'.
You're not gonna like this, Jack, she says and turns the computer around to let me see the screen.
It's Audrey's death certificate. Died 10:32pm, 25th of September 2020, London, abdominal shot.
That's nothing suspicious yet. I always expected such a document to exist.
Who signed it?, I ask.
She scrolls down. It's a Dr. Ahmad Khan, working for the London Red Cross Emergency Health Services district. It got cross-signed in the witness section by the driver of the ambulance, a man named Francis Spencer.
And? I still don't see it.
I found nobody with that name in the employee database of the London RCEHS. Not the driver, not the doctor. Not as employees and not as volunteers.
I almost shoot up, the adrenaline rushing. So it's a fake?
It could be possible that the records got deleted... or that I just didn't find them.
I know how good she is. You would have found them if they existed, I say.
For the first time, as we sit here, almost in darkness, I feel that she's starting to believe me.
I thought you had no internet connection..., I say.
She smiles. There's a very important guy up in first class. A hedge fonds manager on a holiday trip. Very busy. He has a satellite phone... need I say more?
No. I smile back at her. She tapped into his connection.
She opens up the laptop again and shows me another document. It's the US recognition of the British death certificate. There was no autopsy, she says, pointing at one field in the document. Beneath there's a list of people. All the Secret Service and MI5 members were questioned short after her death. They have 13 eye witnesses who saw her get shot.
There was no legal need for an autopsy, I conculude, I guess James Heller wouldn't have wanted it either that her dead body gets mutilated like this, when it's such a clean-cut case.
She just says yes and puts the laptop away, sitting there, in front of me, now knowing what to say.
We always were friends. But never were the kinds of friends who talked a lot. We were there when someone needed something. We'd fight, we'd lie for each other... I even surrendered to the Russians for her. But I'm at a loss of words now because I just don't know how it is to talk to her.
Thanks for believing me, I finally say.
If I had believed you I wouldn't have had to search for these documents, she dryly answers.
Yes, that's Chloe.
And then we sit again in silence. I know that she wants to tell me something, but she doesn't know how to put it in words.
What's up?, I finally ask her. I hate the silence.
Thanks for going to Russia instead of me. It literally breaks out of her. She probably was afraid to say it. I still don't know why you did. I wouldn't have survived a day there.
She's nervous now. I hear that.
It's okay, Chloe. You lost a lot when you helped me get away four years earlier. Now I was my turn.
She was never very good in talking to other people. When she's nervous she doesn't even dare to look into the other's eyes. Right now, she's sitting there, having hugged her legs, staring at the ground between us.
I guess I was a little suicidal, half a year ago, I add. Hearing 'bout Audrey's death was all too much.
She turns her head, but she still doesn't dare to look at me. I can relate, she whispers.
I shouldn't have said that. I made her remember Morris and Prescott. Hesitatingly I stretch out my hand and put in on her shoulder. That's not enough. I pull her over, and take her into my arms.
We're both sitting here, thinking about the ones we've lost. At least I haven't lost Audrey completely. I still have a chance while she doesn't have one any more. It's horrible to imagine what it would have felt like to lose Kim and Teri like she had lost Morris and Prescott.
Eventually we end up sitting at my blanket at the floor, leaning against the wall, sitting side by side. She's finally opening up a little. We say more words to teach other than we did overall in the past ten years. It's painful to tell her about Russia, about Sengala, and about my stay in China, seeing Audrey again and losing her to incertitude again.
She tells me about her time at open cell, and the past six months in Serbia- even about Belcheck. Well, I already suspected that.
I am endlessly glad that I have a friend back in my life- one that is loyal enough to believe me even if nobody else does.
She's going to help me find Audrey.
At the end of the night, she even promises.
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