Six Years

Chapter 27

If I’d been ranking the many surreal moments I’d been experiencing in recent days, having my best friend point a gun at me would have just elbowed its way into the top spot. I shook my head. How had I not seen it or sensed anything? His eyeglasses and their frames were beyond ridiculous. The haircut almost dared me to question his sanity or personal space-time continuum.

Benedict stood there wearing a green turtleneck, beige corduroys, and a tweed jacket-with a gun in his hand. Part of me wanted to laugh out loud. I had a million questions for him, but I started with the one I had been asking repeatedly from the beginning.

“Where’s Natalie?”

If he was surprised by what I’d asked, his face didn’t show it. “I don’t know.”

I pointed at the gun in his hand. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“I took an oath,” he said. “I made a promise.”

“To shoot me?”

“To kill anyone who learned my secret.”

“Even your maybe best friend?”

“Even him.”

I nodded. “I get it, you know.”

“Get what?”

“Jamal W. Langston,” I said, gesturing toward the screen. “He was a crusading prosecutor. He took on the deadly drug cartels of Ghana without worry about his own safety. He brought them down when no one else could. The man died a hero.”

I waited for him to say something. He didn’t.

“Brave guy,” I said.

“Foolish guy,” Benedict corrected.

“The cartels swore vengeance on him-and if the article is to be believed, they got it. Jamal W. Langston was burned alive. But he wasn’t, was he?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“No, Jamal wasn’t burned alive,” Benedict said. “But the cartels still got their vengeance.”

The proverbial veil was being lifted from my eyes. Well, no, it felt more like a camera coming into focus. The indistinguishable blob in the distance was gaining shape and form. Turn by turn-or in this case, moment by moment-the focus was growing sharper. Natalie, the retreat, our sudden breakup, the wedding, the NYPD, that surveillance photo, her mysterious e-mail to me, the promise she forced me to make six years ago… it was all coming together now.

“You faked your own death to save this woman, didn’t you?”

“Her,” he said. “And me too, I guess.”

“But mostly her.”

He didn’t respond. Instead Benedict-or should I call him Jamal?-moved toward the computer screen. His eyes were moist as he reached his finger out and gently touched Marie-Anne’s face.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“My wife.”

“Does she know what you’ve done?”

“No.”

“Wait,” I said, my head spinning with the realization. “Even she thinks you’re dead?”

He nodded. “Those are the rules. That’s part of the oath we take. It is the only way to make sure everyone stays safe.”

I thought again about him sitting here, looking up that Facebook page, staring at those photographs, her status, her life updates-like the one about her being “in a relationship” with another man.

“Who is Kevin Backus?” I asked.

Benedict managed something like a smile. “Kevin is an old friend. He waited a long time for his chance. It’s okay. I don’t want her to be alone. He’s a good man.”

Even the silence pierced the heart.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing to tell.”

“I think there is.”

He shook his head. “I already told you. I don’t know where Natalie is. I’ve never met her. I’ve never even heard her name except through you.”

“I’m having trouble believing that.”

“Too bad.” He still had the gun in his hand. “What made you suspect me?”

“The GPS in your car. It showed you’d gone to the retreat in Kraftboro, Vermont.”

He made a face. “Dumb of me.”

“Why did you drive up there?”

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“I was trying to save your life. I pulled into Jed’s farm right after the cops. Seems you didn’t need my help.”

I remembered now-that car coming up the driveway as the cops found my buried phone.

“Are you going to shoot me?” I asked.

“You should have listened to Cookie.”

“I couldn’t. You of all people should understand that.”

“Me?” There was something akin to fury in his voice now. “Are you out of your mind? You said it before. I did all this to keep the woman I loved safe. But you? You’re trying to get her killed.”

“Are you going to shoot me, yes or no?”

“I need you to understand.”

“I think I do,” I said. “Like we said before, you worked as a prosecutor. You put some really bad people in jail. They tried to seek vengeance on you.”

“They did more than try,” he said softly, gazing again at Marie-Anne’s photograph. “They took her. They even… they even hurt her.”

“Oh no,” I said.

His eyes filled with tears. “It was a warning. I managed to get her back. But that was when I knew for certain that the two of us had to leave.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“They’d find us. The Ghana cartel smuggles for the Latin Americans. Their tentacles can reach anyplace. Wherever we’d go, they’d track us down. I thought about faking both of our deaths, but…”

“But what?”

“But Malcolm said they’d never buy it.”

I swallowed. “Malcolm Hume?”

He nodded. “See, Fresh Start had people in the area. They heard about my situation. Professor Hume was put in charge of me. He went off protocol though. Sent me here because I thought I could be of value as both a teacher and, if they needed me, someone to help others.”

“You mean, someone like Natalie?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“It is very compartmentalized. Different people deal with different aspects and different members. I only worked with Malcolm. I spent some time in that training facility in Vermont, but until a few days ago I never knew about Todd Sanderson, for example.”

“So our friendship,” I said. “Was that part of your work? Were you supposed to keep an eye on me?”

“No. Why would we need to keep an eye on you?”

“Because of Natalie.”

“I told you. I never met her. I don’t know anything about her case.”

“But she does have a case, doesn’t she?”

“You don’t get it. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “No one has ever said anything to me about your Natalie.”

“But it makes sense, right? You’ll grant me that?”

He didn’t respond.

“You didn’t call it a retreat,” I said. “You called it a training center. How brilliant, really. Disguising it as some kind of artist retreat in such a remote area. Who’d suspect, right?”

“I’ve said too much already,” Benedict said. “It isn’t important.”

“Like hell it isn’t. Fresh Start. I should have guessed by the name. That’s what they do. They give people who need it a fresh start. A drug cartel wanted you dead. So they saved you. Gave you a fresh start. I don’t know what that entails-fake IDs, I guess. A plausible reason for a person to vanish. A dead body in your case. Or maybe you paid off a coroner or a cop, I don’t know. Maybe some kind of training on how to behave, learn a language or a new accent, maybe wear a disguise like yours. By the way, can you take those stupid glasses off now?”

He almost smiled. “Can’t. I used to wear contact lenses.”

I shook my head. “So six years ago, Natalie is up at this training center. I don’t know why yet. I assume that it has something to do with that surveillance photograph the NYPD showed us. Maybe she committed a crime, but my guess is, she witnessed something. Something big.”

I stopped. Something here wasn’t adding up, but I pushed on.

“We met,” I said. “We fell in love. That was probably frowned upon or maybe, I don’t know, she was up there for another reason when we started our relationship. I don’t really get what happened exactly, but all of a sudden Natalie had to vanish. She had to vanish fast. If she wanted to take me too, how would your organization have reacted?”

“Not positively.”

“Right. Like with you and Marie-Anne.” I barely stopped to think about it now, the pieces just falling into place. “But Natalie also knew me. She knew how I felt about her. She knew that if she just broke up with me, I’d never buy it. She knew if she suddenly disappeared, vanished, I’d follow her to the ends of the earth. That I’d never give up on her.”

Benedict just stared at me, not saying a word.

“So what happened next?” I went on. “I guess that your organization could have faked her death, like with you, but nobody would buy it in her case. If guys like Danny Zuker and the NYPD were looking for her, they’d need some pretty solid proof that she was dead. They’d need to see her body and with DNA, well, I don’t know. It wouldn’t work. So she staged that fake wedding. In many ways it was perfect. It would convince me and, at the same time, it would convince her sister and close friends. Several birds, one stone. She told me that Todd was an old boyfriend that she had recently decided was her true love. That was a lot more plausible than a guy she’d just met. But when I asked Julie about him, she said she had never met Todd. She just thought it was a whirlwind romance. Either way, even if we all felt it was odd, what could we do about it? Natalie was married and gone.”

I looked up at him.

“Am I right, Benedict? Or Jamal? Or whatever the hell your name is? Am I at least close?”

“I don’t know. I’m not lying. I know nothing about Natalie.”

“Are you going to shoot me?”

He still had the gun in hand. “No, Jake, I don’t think so.”

“Why not? What about your precious oath?”

“The oath is for real. You have no idea how real.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. My grandmother used to keep her pills in one just like it. “We all carry one of these.”

“What’s in it?” I asked.

He opened it. There was only one black-and-yellow capsule inside. “Cyanide,” he said simply, the word chilling the room. “Whoever grabbed Todd Sanderson, well, he must have caught Todd off guard, before he had a chance to jam it in his mouth.” He took a step toward me. “You see now, don’t you? You see why Natalie made you promise?”

I just stood there, unable to move.

“If you find her, you kill her. It is as simple as that. If the organization is compromised, a lot of people will die. Good people. People like your Natalie and my Marie-Anne. People like you and me. Do you understand now? Do you understand why you have to let it go?”

I did. But I still raged against the machine. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“You just haven’t thought of it yet.”

“I have,” he said in the gentlest voice I have ever heard. “More times than you can imagine. For years and years. You have no idea.”

He put the pillbox back in his pocket.

“You know what I’m saying is the truth, Jake. You are my best friend. With the exception of a woman I will never get to see or touch again, you are the most important person in my life. Please, Jake. Please don’t make me kill you.”