Book 2: Operation Detour

Episode 7

© by William Arthur Holmes

Warning: Mature themes.

Catch and Release

Riva is outside the jail waiting in her black Hummer H3. When Dobie emerges, he smiles but it is obvious he has been roughed up and barely slept, if at all.

“He’s happy to see me,” Riva has Serge on the phone.

“Your own little catch and release program?” Serge says. “Of course he is happy to see you. He would be happy to see the devil himself at this point. You ever spend a night in a Malaysian jail?”

The tears return, surprising herself. “Not a Malaysian jail, no.”

“I forgot who I was talking to,” he almost apologizes.

Steeling herself against those bad memories, she continues, “I’m telling you, Serge, he loves me now. I am giving him a new lease on life.”

“A new lease after you ruined his life.”

“He doesn’t know that. This is all part of the plan, Serge. Trust me. He will be putty in my hands.”

“He probably knows by now that you’re responsible for all of this, unless he’s a complete idiot. Hasn’t he at least figured out that you’ve been following him?”

“Yes. I could not hide that.”

“Then he can guess the rest,” Serge says, “and that means he knows too much.”

“I am telling you, we’re good, as far as he’s concerned. He does not know anything.”

“The more you try to convince me,” he says, “the less convinced I become. You have to put him back. We are finished with him. We got the media attention we wanted. Not much. I would have preferred a bigger blast, much bigger. But, it will have to do.”

“That would be cruel,” she says, “to let him out for five minutes, only to put him right back in.”

“Cruel? So what? What is he, a puppy? Who cares?!”

“But...”

“Riva, I will declare you a rogue agent. Neither one of us wants that, but I will put you and your boyfriend on The List if need be. Either you kill him or lock him up forever, or I send in someone who can. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

~ ~ ~

As I get into her car, Riva begins, “Okay, here’s the deal...”

“Oh God,” I interrupt, “not another one of your deals.”

“Shut up and listen,” she says, “I need you to get out of here.”

I re-open my door to leave.

“Not now!” she snaps.

I give her a disgusted look, but say nothing. She has, after all, just gotten me out of jail. I know or can guess she is the one who put me there in the first place. But, right now, it is so good to be out, I am not going to quibble.

She puts the car in gear and starts driving. I don’t know or care where we’re going, but we’re going there fast.

I notice two cars following us.

“I hope you appreciate this,” she says. “It is like when I was let out of prison. . .”

“You were in prison?”

“. . .with one huge difference,” she ignores me. “There are no strings attached.”

She never explains further, but hands me a credit card and passport, and says, “Take this.”

I grab it as I search for my seat belt. “What is it?”

“A new identity and an unlimited credit card.”

She takes a sudden left turn into heavy traffic to lose our followers. A couple hundred yards further down, she veers onto a street with hardly any traffic… other than several monkeys. She swerves to miss them as they cross the road.

“There are a lot of monkeys around here,” I state the obvious. “’Why did the monkey cross the road…’ Hey, I can pay off my own credit card with this one.”

We come to a red light and stop. Riva asks, “What? Why?”

“I’ll need good credit if I want to return to society.”

“But it is a credit card company,” she says. “Fuck them!” The light turns green. “Besides, you just don’t get it. It is cute... and pathetic. Dobie, you have an entirely new identity. You are no longer Dobromir Pokorny. Your name is...”

She reaches over, takes the passport and looks at it again. She cannot help but laugh. “Your name is now Axel Winchester McLean.”

“How could you have possibly known about that name?” I ask and snatch the passport back.

“I’ve had you bugged since before you picked up your prescription back in LA,” she shrugs as if it is not even worth mentioning. “Everyone is under surveillance one way or another these days.”

I shake my head. She’s right about the surveillance.

I fiddle with the radio buttons. Radio around here consists of Indian, Chinese, Persian and English stations. I settle on something Hindi-sounding, but with electric bass and electric guitar accompaniment. Not something you would hear back home.

“You’re just setting me up again,” I say after a moment.

“You have to trust me,” she shouts to be heard over the radio before reaching over and turning it off. In a normal voice, she adds, “You have no choice.”

I know she is right. “So, you get away with it?”

“Get away with what?”

“What do you mean ‘what’? Ruining my life. Remember?”

Sighing, she says, “Yes, I get away with it. We always do. It is how the world works. Do not blow this, Dobie. Just let it go. You cannot win. Consider yourself lucky I am doing this much for you.”

I sit, glowering.

“Oh, come on,” she defends herself. “I did you a favor.”

“Come again?!”

“I got you out of your humdrum life,” she explains. “You were hanging out with Cheryl and Christian, taking his leftover women, working as a data entry clerk.”

“I never took his leftover women. Cheryl chose me over him. We were...” I don’t finish the thought. She is right about that. “I am not a data entry clerk!”

“Programmer, data entry clerk, whatever. You are staring at a computer all day. How have you not gone insane already!? “

“My sanity was intact until you showed up!”

“But,” she adds, now smiling, “were you emotionally fulfilled?”

I scoff. “Nobody in LA is emotionally fulfilled.”

“You are better off,” she says, “trust me.”

I don’t bother answering. She’s zig-zagging us through traffic, taking random turns. I think we just passed a store we passed earlier.

“Have you ever wondered why you were chosen for this?” she continues. “Have you never asked ‘Why me?’”

“I’m not the ‘why me?’ type,” I say. “Shit happens. Just having a run of bad luck.”

“Serge chose you,” she says. When I look confused, she clarifies, “Serge Coleman.”

“Never met the man,” I shake my head.

“Well, he knows you…”

“Wait, yeah, Christian’s gay lover from Beverly Hills.”

“That’s the one, and he decided to ruin your life.”

“Lucky me. But, it doesn’t matter why. There is one thing I’d like to know, though.” I take a deep breath and ask, “What about that mystery disease they say I had? You never answered that. Is it real?”

“Fake test results,” she explains. My jaw drops, and she adds quickly, “That was Serge’s doing. I had no idea. I’m not that cruel.”

I am speechless. On one hand, I’m happy to hear it’s fake. On the other, beyond furious that someone would do that to me.

“Do you know why,” she asks again, “he might have chosen you?”

“No, why?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m asking you.”

Shaking my head, I can only say, “I guess I pissed him off somehow.”

~ ~ ~

One of our pursuers blows out our rear window with a shotgun blast. Riva swerves. We bounce off a couple cars, veer off the road, and land in the jungle with the H3 wedged in between two trees. It looks intact, but with its left-side wheels off the ground, there’s no way we could ever extract it.

I tumble out then circle around to pull Riva out. She is already out and pointing a gun at me.

“Dobie, I am sorry...” she begins.

“You’re going to shoot me now!?”

“It would make things a lot easier,” she nods her head.

“It was not a suggestion!”

Shaking her head, she lowers the gun and says, “I am sorry for everything I did to you, Dobie.” She turns and spots one of our pursuers’ cars weaving its way toward us.

No time for heartfelt conversation. She steps out into traffic and pulls a gun on the first car she sees stopped at the light.

In Malay, she barks at the unlucky man, “Out!” The man jumps out. To me, still in Malay, she orders, “In!”

I understand but have to think about it. A second later, I climb into the yellow Perodua Myvi sedan, apologizing to our victim, not knowing if he speaks English.

Riva drives like a maniac through traffic, once again eluding the bad guys. As we drive, we are quiet a moment before her eyes well up with tears.

“I am from Moldova,” she explains herself. “I was an orphan.”

It is a strange time to be telling me her life story, but I listen. What hasn’t been strange lately?

“I was pretty,” she continues.

I’m having trouble believing anything she says or does, but agree with this last statement.

“I was sold into sex slavery when I was ten.”

“Ten?!” I am aghast. “Who could...?”

“It was a rich bastard in England,” she continues. “His wife and daughter had died in an automobile accident, or so I was told. He bought me as a replacement daughter. Literally. Money can buy anything. Things were wonderful for the first few months, and might have worked out if not for the bastard’s son, Colin. To this day, I hate that name. He was fourteen and, on the night of my 11th birthday, started using me as his sex toy. He said he’d kill me if I told anyone. Great birthday gift, huh? When our father found out, he sent me back to the broker.”

“Broker?”

“Slave trader, trafficker, whatever you want to call those people,” she spits. “Just before my 12th birthday, I was sold again, to a ‘businessman’ from Serbia. He was the first man I killed.”

I say nothing.

“In prison,” she continues, “I was recruited by Serge, on behalf of whoever we work for. I don’t even know. But, here I am today!” She says that last part with a yawn, stretch and smile, as if simply waking from a nap.

I remain silent, looking at her with an entirely new appreciation for surviving the life she was forced to live.

“You are right, though,” she picks up on an earlier conversation. “I had no right doing what I did to you. The only problem now is how do I quit this job? I have been thinking about quitting ever since I met you, if it makes you feel any better.”

She swerves to avoid more pedestrians and monkeys, and asks, “Should I quit?”

“I think so, yes,” I nod vigorously.