Chapter 5: Bittersweet distractors

It was close to eight when they finally reached Concord, the traffic having turned sluggish with the arrival of commuters, but at least the necessity to use the brake pedal and steering wheel for a change had kept Mando awake. The little one on the other hand had fallen back to sleep after the soccer game. Mando couldn't blame him, and hoped he'd soon be able to do the same. The 'No Vacancy' signs scared him at first – this was the start of a holiday weekend after all – but as he got further and further away from the city center, the accommodations turned shabbier looking, but with available rooms at least. And would be more than ready to accept cash payment, Mando thought.

The manager barely looked up from the TV show she was watching when she took down his (fake) name, address, and license plate. When he told her he was with an 18 months old kid, she finally raised an eye towards him, looking doubtful. Said kid was still in the car just outside, though. She sighed deeply, no doubt annoyed at having to miss out on her show for him.

"We don't have cots," she warned.

"That's fine," he replied quickly.

"And that'll be an extra 20 bucks."

Of course.

"Also fine."

"If the kid falls out of bed, we're not responsible," she added, although she had now finally handed him the key.

"Understood," Mando cut in, hoping she wasn't about to go on a whole tirade regarding all the hazards the hotel wasn't responsible for. But she was apparently done with him, and back to watching her blaring TV.

The kid woke up as he was releasing him from his car seat. Mando had hoped he could have quickly put him to bed, but he seemed wide-awake now, and excited about his new surroundings. It wasn't as hot as in L.A., and for this he was grateful, given how old and noisy the A/C unit in their double room was. Everything was ancient and dingy, including the mattresses Mando made the mistake of immediately lying on, hearing a few bones crack, but at least it seemed relatively clean. He knew that if he were to close his eyes right there and then, he'd immediately fall asleep. So he forced himself up, and checked what the kid was doing. He found him in the bathroom, trying to get inside the tub.

"Whoa, wait there, you'll fall in," he warned, grabbing him under his arms.

He received a deep frown and raised lower lip in answer.

"You want to take a bath?" he surmised, and before he could ask him in Spanish, the kid nodded.

Mando had no idea baths were such a hit with kids, but apparently they were. Thinking it would not necessarily be a bad thing to get him clean, he easily relented, even though the only thing he wanted at the moment was to crawl into bed and sleep for ten hours straight.

He filled the tub with warm water, wondering whether it would be too hot or too cold for the kid and fearing the old pipes would simply give out at some point, with the awful noise they were making. The child was jumping excitedly next to him, and he had to prevent him again from going in with his clothes on.

"Bubbles!" he exclaimed.

"Sorry kid, no bubbles," Mando told him.

This didn't seem to please him, so he got the tiny complimentary cheap soap and shampoo bottles and poured them both in. He should have probably only put one, or even half of one he quickly realized, when the foam wouldn't stop rising, but the delighted squeal he received from the kid was, all things considered, a nice result. He stopped the water, checked the temperature one more time, and finally divested the boy of his clothes and diaper and put him in the tub. He knelt down anxiously and kept on holding him, worried that he would slip, but the little tyke seemed to know what he was doing and sat pleasantly in the warm bubbles, so he slowly released him, his arms tensed and at the ready to catch him if anything should happen. After a full minute of uneasiness, he eventually felt he was agonizing too much over things – the kid wouldn't drown if he sat down next to the tub and simply let him be. So that's what Mando did, observing him quietly and forcing himself to stay awake. But the sight of the clearly happy and giggly child was enough. He even managed to wash him after a while, using the baby soap he had bought that morning, and the only challenge arose when he tried to wash his hair. Baths were a yes, shampoos a no it seemed, and he was almost as drenched as the kid when he was done rinsing all the bubbles from him.

Mando wrapped him four times around in a starchy towel, then carried him back to the bedroom. The warm water seemed to have made him sleepy, and he was completely unresisting when he dried him, applied the cream on his bottom and a fresh diaper – he was pretty sure he'd been right all along with the adhesive tags meeting in the front, but the whole process still seemed unnatural to him. As he had feared when he removed the green one from him that morning, getting him inside his new onesie (blue and short-sleeved this time) was a struggle. There were far too many tiny buttons and no clear indication again on the direction it was supposed to go. What he did learn was that toddlers were incredibly supple, though – worryingly so – given how easy it was to move each of his limbs in the various parts, until he was sure he got everything in the right place and order.

He sat down with a huff when he was done, his back and ribs complaining fiercely. The kid crawled on his lap before he had time to rest, so Mando took him in his arms, hoping he would fall asleep as quickly as he had that morning in the car, but somehow doubting it. He only wanted to be held it seemed, and Mando stroked his back as his curly and still slightly wet head came to rest against his chest.

He wasn't an easily rattled person. On the contrary – Mando believed he possessed an ordered and collected approach to unknown or unexpected situations. He'd thrived on it in the army and in the Air Force later. And yet, this unknown and unexpected situation, currently curved around him, was so completely alien and overwhelming that he had no choice but to let his instincts take over.

"Are you hungry?" he asked him, not moving. "¿Tienes hambre?"

"Bibi," the child whispered, and Mando understood he meant his baby bottle.

Thankfully, he'd also bought formula this morning – once again staggered at the sheer amount of choice but happy to see that the ages were clearly indicated on the boxes – and although he now knew from experience that the kid ate actual food, that sounded reasonable to him to let him have milk before going to sleep.

He left him on the bed, and used bottled water and the almost antique microwave that was surprisingly still working. The formula box came with a measuring scoop, and for once the instructions were written clearly on the side. It did say that he should check the temperature though, and Mando wasn't sure how warm the kid wanted it, so he waited until it cooled down to about the same temperature as the clinic nurse's had made it the previous night. As he sat down once more and tried to remember the instructions she had given him, he marveled at the fact that he'd had the child for just shy under 24 hours. Nevertheless, when the boy grabbed his thumb and squeezed it rhythmically with his fist as he was feeding him his bottle, he almost felt like he had been doing this for much longer.

It was the last straw for the kid. After a barely there burp, his eyes kept on trying to close, and Mando knew he had to get him in bed quickly if he wanted to be able to detach him from his chest. He gave him his pacifier, and placed him in the middle of the bed, with all the pillows he could find around him, hopefully blocking his escape and preventing him from receiving a pointed "I told you so" from the bored manager the next morning. The child was asleep before he rose up from the bed, looking quite incapable of making any movement anytime soon.

Mando sighed deeply, and stared at him for a little while, convincing himself that he was only making sure he was well and truly asleep. Pleased that it did seem to be the case, he went to clean the bottle in the bathroom then got ready for his own shower – minus the bubbles.

It was the first time he was actually looking at himself in a mirror, and he couldn't help a muttered "Fuck". He looked terrible. Without the sunglasses, he could see that his left cheekbone was starting to change color, the cut on his forehead had closed but the skin was still red around it and painful to the touch, and his lower lip had split. He was pretty sure he'd look worse tomorrow. Hopefully, the sunglasses and ball cap he'd got from Walmart would improve the situation. He wasn't going to be able to shave anytime soon either, but that was actually more of a relief than anything (he hadn't shaved for days), and would help covering the bruises. The wrist that had bothered him last night seemed fine, but his ribs were a different story. His right side was turning a nasty greenish blue, although the hot spray of the shower helped. Cracked he thought, not broken.

He put on a clean pair of boxers, nixed the idea of food, left a small light on, and crawled into the second bed, after having made sure his gun was within reach and the child still hadn't moved. He hadn't.

He was in the cupboard again. Waiting for people who were not coming. People who would never come. But he could hear a sound in the stuffy place. A cry. Was that him? Crying? He never cried that day. And never cried again. But the cries wouldn't stop. And were getting louder and louder…

Mando opened his eyes.

The cries.

He automatically reached for his gun, then remembered where he was.

The child.

The crying was coming from the child, not an enemy.

Mando switched on another light – it was still completely dark outside. The kid had been moving around, but thankfully didn't seem to have fallen. He was sitting up in the middle of the huge bed, rubbing his eyes and crying in earnest.

"Hey, hey kid, it's okay," he told him softly, approaching cautiously.

But it wasn't okay, and the kid was crying harder.

He sat on the bed next to him and stroked his soft curls, hoping it would have an effect. The child removed his hands from his eyes and raised them over his head instead once he saw Mando. Used to the gesture by now, he took him in his arms, and the tiny lump kept on shedding warm tears against his neck.

"It's okay, everything's okay," he shushed him, stroking his head and back in calm circles.

"Todo esta bien. Estás a salvo, tesoro," he added when the sobs still wouldn't stop, and it seemed to work better, so Mando continued reassuring him in Spanish, trying and failing to remember what his mother would say to him when he had a nightmare. She'd been gone for 30 years, and there had never been a day when he hadn't spared a thought for her, even a very small one. But that night, holding the child against his chest, trying to stop his tears and make him go back to sleep, he was missing her cruelly, and wishing he could ask for her advice.

The next time he woke up wasn't to cries but to a sore neck. He'd fallen back to sleep on the kid's bed, and said kid was still dozing on his chest, quite happily it seemed. Mando groaned and moved slowly, removing the toddler carefully and placing him back on the mattress. He stood up and rolled his shoulders, hoping to ease the tension in them. He knew there was no going back to sleep for him now, but the alarm clock only read a few minutes after five.

He grabbed the tablet from his gym bag, and used the complimentary half hour of Wi-Fi to check a few websites. It didn't take him long to find what he had been afraid to see.

"Shit."

They had to leave, now. The manager had barely seen his face, and hadn't seen the kid at all, but it was not safe to linger. He also needed to ditch the car.

It turned out Moff did have influence over the State police. Although the news alert only appeared on Californian outlets for now, there was his name, and his picture, and the description that he was "an ex US Air Force Captain, armed and dangerous, who had kidnapped an 18 months old boy from a Los Angeles clinic and should be approached with caution".

"Shit!"

There was no name or description for the child, and they apparently hadn't been spotted driving North in the stolen SUV, but that didn't mean some people wouldn't call the kindly provided helpline number. The photo was old, from his army days, and he'd lost weight since and grew facial hair, yet he was certain it wouldn't fool most cops.

Mando didn't waste another minute, and quickly packed their belongings and dressed. The kid still seemed dead to the world, and he barely woke up when he put on his sweatpants, socks, and shoes. He added the brown hoody for good measure over his onesie, thinking he'd be more comfortable in that in the car and hoping the hood, cute as it was, would hide his features.

His gym bag over his right shoulder, the kid against his left side, a gun at his belt and the ball cap firmly on his head, Mando quietly exited the room. He left the key on the door and was glad to see that the manager's office showed no light. He strapped in the sleepy kid and left the motel parking lot with his headlights off. Dawn was less than two hours away and he needed to find a new car.

He drove aimlessly at first, then saw signs for Buchanan Field Airport. Though there were no flights at this hour, the long-term parking lots were still accessible. He didn't have the time to do a proper canvas, but the further he drove, the less there seemed to be any sign of security cameras. There was a good chance he'd still be caught on one, but he hoped to be far away by then.

This time, he didn't pick a car with a child seat, and simply looked for the most inconspicuous vehicle. He settled on a ten-year-old run of the mill sedan, parked next to it, and had it opened in record time. He moved their stuff in the new car, and placed the kid, who seemed drowsy but awake, in the back, while he proceeded to move the child seat.

One of the reasons that had motivated Mando to join the army when he turned 18 was that they could pay for his studies. Something he would have never managed on his own. And they had, and he'd completed a BSE from Arizona State University in Electrical Engineering. Now that he had left the armed forces, he had managed to get the funds for a second online degree, and was currently – if all went well, which he now clearly doubted – just 3 months away from earning a MS in Industrial Engineering. Needless to say, he thought he was starting to know machines and how they worked pretty well. He could fix airplanes. Assemble rifles with his eyes closed. Pilot a helo in the dead of night while under heavy fire. But disassembling then reassembling a child seat? Apparently, no.

Mando groaned, and sweated and cursed in all the languages that he knew while working. The child was giggling. It took almost an hour, during which he was tempted about a hundred times to either look for another car that had a child seat, or simply leave without one. But a cursory check had told him that the former solution was going to be hard, while the latter would be dangerous. There was now a likely chance they might have to escape some tight spots, and he didn't want the kid harmed in the process.

So he kept on pestering and tinkering, and eventually got the seat set up. The toddler was now wide-awake, so he handed him a bagel, took one for himself, and started driving once more.

The fuel tank was full and the car was thankfully driving well, but he made one more stop outside of Concord to check his map. Mando was tensed – he knew he was racing against the clock. He needed to cover as many miles as possible before daylight. The only good news was that today was the 4th of July. Most people wouldn't be going to work. But the police would still be patrolling and he would have to avoid all major roads and hubs like the plague. Which wouldn't be easy at first since he needed to cross San Pablo Bay. He decided to reach his destination, Bolinas, going the long way round – crossing the water now and hopefully leave Vallejo behind him quickly enough, rather than driving all the way to Richmond to go over San Francisco Bay. It would take longer, but they had more chances to arrive safely.

If he was home.

Mando couldn't allow himself to think that wouldn't be the case for now. He'd worry about it once he was there. He just couldn't function otherwise at the moment, which in itself was one more cause of worry.

The kid seemed to have none of Mando's reservations, and didn't pick up on the anxious mood. Quite the contrary – he was babbling happily, either munching on his bagel or pointing out the other cars outside once there was enough light, and listing their colors. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish. After a while, Mando felt his shoulders relax, and played the game with him, correcting him when he was wrong and teaching him new words.

They reached Bolinas around ten. They had seen several patrol cars, and Mando had held his breath each time, but they hadn't been stopped. The tiny residential coastal city, which boasted 1620 inhabitants, was just the way his friend had described it. Which was a good thing, because there were no clear road signs to access it. To say the community enjoyed a reclusive lifestyle wasn't that much of a stretch. But looking at the wood paneled houses, the quiet streets and peaceful bay, Mando could understand why – he wouldn't want to be disturbed or gentrified here either.

He eventually found Agate Beach, but his search stopped there – that's all the USAF Colonel had told him about where he lived when he wasn't on tour. Where he had tried to spend all his 4th of Julys since he was born.

Mando parked and had a look around. There were several houses, and no way to know which one was his friend's. As he was contemplating his next course of action – namely, knocking on doors and hoping he wouldn't be recognized if he got the wrong one – someone beat him to it, standing on the porch of the house directly to his right.

He hadn't seen him for three years, but there was no mistaking that silhouette.

"Hello, Paz," he said.