Secret Agent Sam

the busy whispering, rustling calm and sent shock waves skating along Cory’s nerves.

As the night wore on, though, and they left behind the jungle to follow a zigzag track through cultivated fields, his mind, freed of the necessity for constant vigil, began to wander. Perhaps it was inevitable, given recent events, that it should take him into forbidden places…attics of memory he hadn’t allowed himself to visit in years.

A few yards ahead of him, he could see Sam as she walked beside Tony, no doubt trying to comfort him over the loss of his cameras, which were presently in the custody of their armed escort. Temporary custody, Sam had assured Tony, most likely to insure he didn’t photograph any landmarks that might be used to trace the hideout of the elusive al-Rami. Which meant they were getting close…

Now, Cory could hear Sam’s soft laughter, a husky chuckle that seemed to blend with the other night noises, and he felt uncomfortable twinges of…surely not jealousy…as he watched the two shapes lean close for a moment, then veer apart. No, not jealousy-he had no right to that-perhaps envy was a better way to describe the pang it gave him to see the two of them together like that…his best friend and the woman he loved…or the way they’d been back at the hut, talking together on the porch when they’d thought he was sleeping. Not that he worried about Tony, or was surprised Sam would turn to him the way she had; everybody from old people to little children and puppy dogs tended to trust Tony, in spite of his ominous appearance. But he’d felt those pangs nonetheless, and it was only now, walking alone in the early- morning moonlight, that it occurred to him the pangs might be loneliness.

“He doesn’t have a family… He wants one.”

The words he’d overheard on the porch came back to him, along with a stab of resentment. What an oversimplification that was-like something out of a child’s storybook. He was an adult, not a child, and he’d made a fulfilling and successful life for himself without benefit of-or hindrance from-family. The thought of using that as an excuse for bad choices embarrassed him.

Besides, he thought, I had a family…once. A happy one.

As if in defiance, he let them come, then…the sunshine memories.

Dad, coming home from work, and the warm brown smell of oil and dirt and car grease permeating his skin and clothes, and mine, too, when I hug him. It makes me feel safe and good, that smell, and even now, all these years later, the smell of a mechanic’s garage gives me a sense of well-being…a sense that all’s right with the world.

Mom, bending down to kiss me good-night before she rushes off to school, smelling of hand lotion and the dinner she’s left for Dad and me. And that makes me feel safe and good, too, because she’s smiling and her eyes are shining, and I know she’s happy. Not to be leaving me-even as young as I am I know that. “I’m going to be a teacher,” she tells me, and her voice has a breathless excitement that makes me feel it, too. “Maybe I’ll be your teacher someday.”

Impatient, I ask her, “When will that be?”

“Soon,” she tells me. “Very soon-when you’re five.”

Dad and me, just the two of us now, me in my pajamas cozy in my bed, Dad lying on top of the covers, his head propped on his hand while he tells me a story. Sometimes it’s one I already know, like “The Three Little Pigs,” and I chime in with him on the parts I know by heart, like when the Big Bad Wolf says, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!” But sometimes he makes up stories right out of his head, and that’s the best thing of all.

They were the last of the good ones, those memories. Very soon after that his dad had gone away to fight a war in a place called Vietnam, and his mom had quit night school and they’d moved to a big city called Chicago, and his mom had gone to work in a store. He’d started school in a strange place, and his mom didn’t smile as much, and she never did become a teacher, his or anyone else’s.

That was the beginning of the gray times. The black times, the terrible times, the times he wouldn’t let himself remember…those had come later.

Dawn came while the moon, now a flat pale ghost, still floated low in the lavender sky, hovering above a bank of clouds that lay on the horizon like cotton batting thrown down to break its fall. The air was cool, and smelled of crushed vegetation and over-ripe fruit. Humidity lay thick on the grass and dripped like raindrops from the trees. A stillness lay over the jungle and fields and mountains alike, as if the world held its breath in expectation of sunrise.

Before it came, however, the trail they’d been following plunged suddenly into dark green shadows, zigzagging downward into a steep ravine. As they descended into the dense jungle growth Sam could hear the rush of water, muffled by the trees, and from somewhere up ahead, voices calling out challenges. Moments later, she, Cory and Tony were ordered, by the usual method-a thrusting rifle barrel-to halt. A new cadre of armed men, also wearing camouflage, appeared to block the path. Those who had brought them from the village hospital melted away into the jungle, all but the leader-the “spokesman,” who instructed them in his usual staccato English to follow the new escort. As they did so, he fell in behind them, stone-faced as always, rifle at the ready, and off they went once more, deeper into the ravine.

A little farther on, around a sharp bend, they halted once more.

“Holy mother,” said Tony.

“Yeah,” said Cory.

“Oh, cool,” said Sam.

Chapter 7

Directly ahead of them, a large, multi-level house had been built close in against the side of the ravine. Supported by stilts and cantilevered decks and constructed mostly of bamboo with a roof of thatch, it appeared almost to be a part of the surrounding vegetation, making it virtually invisible from both above and below.

Tony said in an awed tone, “This reminds me of a tree house I used to have.”

Sam threw him an interested look. “Really?”

“No,” Tony admitted, grinning back at her, “but I sure do wish, don’t you?”

From a balcony jutting off the top level of the house, yet another rifle-bearing guard wearing camouflage waved them on. The path grew steeper and slippery with spray from the numerous small streams cascading down the side of the ravine. Foliage crowded close and obscured the sky overhead, giving the light a greenish quality, as if they were underwater. There was an eerie beauty about the place, a timeless tranquility-like Eden, Sam thought, and she felt a momentary pang, knowing the catastrophe she was about to bring down upon it. What a shame, she thought, that people have to bring their wars into such a paradise.

Wars. Until now, she hadn’t ever thought of what she was doing as fighting a war; she definitely didn’t see herself as any kind of soldier. She’d signed on to help track down terrorists, to stop them from killing innocent people. As far as she was concerned, her job was to put an end to the senseless destruction and havoc of war, not cause it.

But…there was nothing to be done about it. She had a job to do, whatever label anyone chose to put on it. And from the looks of this setup, the amount of security in this place, it was going to be going down soon.

The path crossed the tumbling stream on a bamboo footbridge before coming to an end at a series of bamboo steps leading down to the lowest deck. The light here was dim and the air cool, even though beyond the ravine Sam knew the sun would already be climbing, promising another hot and humid day.

They followed their escort across the deck, through an open doorway and into a large, shadowy room. It was even cooler here, the light so weak it was a moment before Sam’s eyes adjusted enough to see that the room was already occupied. At the far end of the room, a man was seated cross-legged on cushions covered in brightly colored and intricately patterned fabrics. He was wearing a loose robe made of similar material, which again seemed to her vaguely Indonesian in design. His full beard was liberally streaked with gray, his hair clipped short and nearly covered by a cap of a style that was also more Indonesian than Filipino. His features were neither, however; his face was angular and gaunt, his nose prominent, even hawklike, and the eyes that surveyed them