Second Chances

Second Chances

Pt. 02

by G. Lawrence

Jack joins a rescue mission

This novel is a sequel to Diminished Capacity. Like the first book, it contains romance, mystery, war, criminals, mild sex, and humor. There are ten chapters and an epilogue. All characters are over 18 years old.

Recap: In an alternate timeline from our own, Jack Lawrence was accused of shooting President Edward Blair, though he had no memory of it. Jack was a decorated combat medic, but he had also participated in classified missions behind enemy lines, so his war record was kept secret. Suffering from PTSD and blackouts, Jack feared conspiracy theories would tear the country apart, so he accepted blame and went to prison. But many, especially in the FBI and Secret Service, didn't believe he was guilty. The Blair family in particular came to doubt the official version, with former First Lady Patricia Blair and her children Bob and Jenny becoming advocates for Jack's release. Now, after seven years, Jack has been freed from Federal custody and taken a teaching position at Skylla College in New Hampshire.

* * * * * *

Palmer Publishing

Mr. Daniel Palmer

New York, NY

Dear Mr. Palmer,

Thank you for the kind note. Though sales of Jack's memoir are exceeding expectations, it cannot make up for the sadness we feel. Jennifer is taking his loss particularly hard. As for what Jack may have thought of his book's success, I find it difficult to judge. He was a very private person. Sincerely yours, Patricia Blair

__________

Chapter Two

624 SUMNER DRIVE

I spent my first few days in captivity in a dark room with only a small crack in the wall for light. My hands and feet were kept bound, though I was fed twice a day and allowed to relieve myself in a bucket. The food was not bad. One of my captors was Iraqi, the other Saudi. They didn't speak to me, and I didn't speak to them. If they thought the isolation was going to break me, they'd picked the wrong victim.

I finally got an explanation, of sorts.

"John Henry Lawrence, you are more famous than I realized," Kassan Abari said, an afternoon sun shining through the open door behind him.

Abari was dark, tall and lean, as most Saudis in this part of the world tend to be. He wore khaki fatigues and a Russian Tokarev TT-30 holstered on his hip. He smiled with white teeth.

"Have you decided to shoot me?" I asked.

"Don't need to. You are already dead," he replied.

He knelt down, pulled a smart phone from his thigh pocket, and activated a video. It was my mock execution from three days before, though the way it was framed, it appeared I had really been killed.

"Broadcast on Al Jazeera last night. Tashad has taken credit," Abari boasted. "The great American hero is slain in the name of Islam."

He showed me the press reports. John Henry Lawrence murdered. Hero of Thanksgiving Eve prey to terrorists. I shrugged.

"This sick game of yours has nothing to do with Islam," I complained. "What is it you really want? Why not leave my body back in Syria?"

"You still might prove useful. Maybe one day, we will announce you are still alive and then kill you again. Wouldn't that be a wonderful joke?"

"Or?"

"Or maybe we will sell you to Rakmanistan, if the price is right."

"Be sure to protect your investment," I advised, for my health wasn't likely to remain good under these circumstances.

A day later, I was packed up in a flatbed truck and taken deep into the eastern mountains. The few times they took the hood off, I saw trees and birds. There were moments I considered making an escape attempt, but in unknown territory, the odds were steep. I hadn't survived the urban jungle of my youth to die foolishly in a desert.

As we reached a village, they took off the hood. It was a nice spring day near a blue lake surrounded by thin trees. The altitude must have been fairly high. There was a score of stone houses with thatched roofs, a storehouse, a granary, and a colorfully tiled plaza with a fountain. Fields below the lake looked good for farming. The people were not Kurds. Probably Sunni. The villagers were dressed in a mixture of traditional and secular styles, as I had seen in the free regions of Afghanistan. And I noticed quite a few children. Wherever I was, it had escaped the worst of the civil war.

"You will be here for a time," a Tashad militia captain said in Arabic.

He cut the ropes off my feet, then tied my hands in front of me, which was a relief. My clothes were looking tattered, which couldn't be helped. The beard that I'd kept trimmed in Syria was now shaggy.

"I am Ma'amet. Kassan Abari has charged me with your care," a village elder said, a short, distinguished gentleman in his early sixties with almost no hair. "If you attempt to escape, I am to chop off one of your feet."

"I would not like that, Mr. Ma'amet," I said.

"Just Ma'amet," he replied. "We will get you better clothes. And food. You are thin."

"Thank you, Ma'amet. May I have books to read?" I requested.

"We have no American books."

"I read Persian and some Arabic. With practice, I will read better."

"The schoolmaster has books. I will find some," he promised.

I bowed my head, for I wanted no trouble with my new captor.

____________

A few days after the Worcester Thanksgiving disaster, I mailed Pat a card apologizing for my outburst at her sister-in-law's house and included apologies to Bob and Jenny. She sent me a nice note and we began corresponding again. Much to my relief.

By the time classes resumed in early December, I was actually beginning to sound like a teacher. But I still planned to spend the Christmas break working on my lesson plans. The basics were not alien to me. Though I hadn't majored in English in high school, preferring biology, I had been a straight A student. At Windhaven, I had used my experience writing after-action reports to tutor aspiring authors like Rafael Martín and Bobby Blair. My techniques were good.

Dr. Frost sat in on several sessions, gave me pointers, and generally thought I was doing well. My students were calling me Mr. Lawrence with genuine respect. Mike was able to be my assistant instead of correcting all my mistakes. In time, I thought, maybe I'd start taking classes and get a teaching degree.

I found the faculty meetings a little awkward, but they were an invaluable source of advice. Most of the professors in my department had doctorates. A few, not as well respected, had multiple master's degrees. I, of course, had my newly awarded high school diploma.

"There is a female student named Caitlyn who is beginning to trouble me," I admitted. "She sits in the front row in a short skirt, waits for me in the hall, and makes more appointments than she needs. She may have a crush on me."

"Half the young women in the English Department have a crush on Sarge Lawrence," Mrs. Frawling said.

"Just keep it professional. And leave your office door open," Mr. Buckner advised. "Try to keep your teaching assistant nearby until Caitlyn gets over it."

"How long will that take?" I asked.

"For you? About twenty years," Mrs. Frawling laughed.

I hoped they were teasing me.

___________

"You look decked out," Emily said as we sat together in the football stadium.

"They're not the Eagles, but they are our team," I said, wearing a Skylarks knit cap and a new wool jacket.

It was the last game of the year. The Skylarks were not very good, having only won one game the entire season, and Boston College was taking them to the woodshed, but it was still fun. I waved my blue handkerchief and cheered in support when they made a first down.

Though the stadium was not crowded, our area on the fifty-yard line was filled with students and faculty. The weather was cold, ready to snow. I was drinking beer. Emily had warm tea.

"You've sure gotten popular," Emily mentioned. "There are so many new students applying, I hear Dr. Johnson wants to give you extra classes next semester."

"It's a celebrity thing. My classroom presentations are so dismal I've been forced to tutor some of the students during office hours," I explained.

"That's what you're supposed to do," Emily said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Weren't you ever tutored in school? Given special attention?"

"Not that I remember. I used to sit in the refectory at St. Mary's and memorize the textbooks," I replied.

"You memorized the textbooks?"

"During my younger days living on the streets, I would spend whole winter days in libraries. Reading. It was a good way to stay warm."

The Skylarks scored a touchdown, causing everyone to jump up and shout. They had closed the gap to 21 points.

"Mr. Lawrence, did you play football in college?" Marissa Simmons asked, one of my brighter students. She had just sold her first article to Mission Magazine.

"Played a little in high school, and some in the Army," I said.

"What position?" Emily asked.

"Middle linebacker. I liked being the team enforcer," I answered.

"Maybe you could coach the Skylarks?" Johnny Barnhart suggested in a drawl, being the nerdish son of a Texas millionaire.

"Not football. Baseball, maybe," I said, wondering if Coach Bowen would want an assistant in the spring.

The game mercifully ended just as snow flurries swept through the stadium. We bundled up and retired to the Greely Tavern where there was already a proliferation of Christmas decorations.

"Dad's not doing well," Emily said as we found seats at the bar. "I want to take him home, but he likes the care center. It's where his friends are."

"It's good to die among friends," I agreed.

"I don't know if that's a sentimental remark or not sentimental," she replied.

"During the war, I had friends, buddies, and strangers die in my arms," I sadly recalled. "Some had a chance to say goodbye. Most didn't. I told many they would be okay, knowing they wouldn't. I don't have any family, so I can't speak to that. But I would like to die among friends when my time comes."

"Dad likes visiting with you. It reminds him of his service in Iraq."

"We'll spend Christmas together," I promised.

The holiday was quiet. I bought a small tree to decorate with popcorn strings, but did not join in any of the campus festivities for fear of the press. I did play some guitar at the long-term care center, behind closed doors, remembering the carols that Old Da taught me. During my two years with the ancient vagabond, the holidays were always our best times. He bought me my first turkey dinner.

Emily's father died in February. I helped take the body back to Buffalo, and wasn't surprised when she decided to live with family for a while. Though I stayed on my medication, I could be moody and self-absorbed, especially when working on my memoirs. I was no substitute for the love Emily needed at such a time.

Bob visited over the President's Day Weekend. I gave him a tour of the campus, introduced him to the Roasted Duck, and we discussed his new book. He was still curious about the Battle of Lavanna Valley, which had finally been declassified. He was particularly interested in my rescue of Corporal Fuentes. We talked in one of the red leather booths with a few veterans joining in, for they had been pressing me on this, too. I made Chubby pay for the beer.

"Lavanna Valley was a tactical operation that went bad," I recalled. "The Entrenchment had held our perimeter around Kandahar for sixteen months and Central Command wanted a breakout. Lavanna Valley was on a known enemy supply route from Turkmenistan. They thought that seizing the village would force the Coalition to counterattack on unfavorable ground."

"Did they?" Chubby asked.

"We never reached the village. Our attack was repulsed, forcing a retreat to the debarkation area."

"Where you jumped out of a helicopter and ran back down the hill?" Bob asked, taking notes. "Under heavy fire?"

"I didn't actually get into the helicopter," I remembered. "The squad had just climbed in when Mathers saw Fuentes was still a hundred yards behind, apparently wounded. I grabbed a weapon and went back for him."

"While the enemy was shooting at you?" Big Solly said, gulping his whisky.

"It was my job. All of the officers were dead or wounded, leaving me in command. And I was a medic. I retrieved Fuentes and brought him back as far as I could."

"As far?" Bob asked, waving for the bartender to refill our shot glasses.

"Just as I reached the last helicopter, I collapsed. The guys in my squad dragged us both to safety."

"Why did you pass out? Serious wounds?" Big Solley asked.

"Not that serious. Not like I'd got at Point Cinco and Sirputa. But enough to run out of blood," I said. "That was my last mission with the 144th Infantry. A few weeks later, I was reassigned to the 104th Rangers."

"Fowler brags about that. A lot," Bob said.

"Good, because I'd rather not. The Army couldn't decide whether to give me a medal or court-martial, so they did neither."

"Court-martial?" Chubby asked, butting in.

"I warned Major Walker not to go down into the valley. Rather rudely. And then I disobeyed his orders and went with the advance. If they had charged me with insubordination, I would have been found guilty. Fowler pulled me out of a complicated situation."

"Sounds like the whole operation was fubared," Dwayne said.

"Eighty of us went down into Lavanna Valley," I said. "Sixteen were killed, forty-eight wounded. But living or dead, we didn't leave anybody behind."

"Not even Corporal Fuentes," Bob said, realizing the significance.

"Nobody. We retreated under heavy fire, but we did it one step at a time. Everyone helping someone else. Or carrying someone else. We didn't run," I said, remembering that part of the defeat with pride.

Bob stayed over that night, sleeping on my couch, and left the next morning. He seemed surprised that Emily and I had broken up.

____________

The spring quarter was proceeding better than the winter term. The new classes were going well, my colleagues provided helpful advice, and the press grew bored trying to follow me around, for I made a point of never doing anything interesting. But once again, fate intervened to put me back in the headlines.

"Okay, everybody. Listen up," Sheriff Walters said as volunteers gathered at the Rawling Street Community Center. "Those with cars can drive. The rest will take the bus. The search parties will meet at the Lowell Park Recreation Center for their assignments."

Thirty townspeople and students moved out. I lingered behind, for Walters and I were driving together in his Chevy Suburban.

"Generous of you to help. I know you've been busy with your students," Jeff said, letting me ride shotgun.

It was Palm Sunday. There had been a series of missing girl reports northwest of Boston, and the latest one set off a full-scale search. Several communities, including Skylla Falls, were asked to help.

"Spent two years with National First Responders. I have experience looking for missing persons," I explained.

We drove south on the 93 into Massachusetts, then west on the 495 to Lowell. The gathering in the community recreation center had attracted about two hundred volunteers. A big map was tacked to the wall.

"Teams will be scouring these woods," Police Chief Jeb Michaels announced, a big-bellied man in his late fifties. "We will also be searching these rural roadsides, drainage pipes, and the rock quarry."

I raised my hand.

"Are you convinced Debbie Palmer is dead?" I asked.

"We need to cover all the bases," Michaels replied. "Miss Palmer has been missing for six days. The other women have been missing several weeks."

I noticed two FBI agents standing in the back of the room. Neither appeared to be a profiler, which surprised me. I considered giving Sandra Livingston a call, then decided not to tell the FBI how to do their job.

As the meeting broke up, I waved to the volunteers from Skylla Falls, gathering them before the map. I motioned for the FBI agents to join us. I didn't know them, but they'd heard plenty about me.

"I don't know about you folks, but I didn't come here on a cold day to look for bodies," I said. "If the kidnappers still have Debbie, they are in a house. Probably on the seedier side of town. My guess is somewhere between Louise Street and the Plummer Canal."

"The police already canvassed that area," FBI Agent Liv Aiyana said, a dark slender woman in a black business suit.

"Then we should canvas it again," I urged. "How about teams of three? Each can take a ten-block section."

"You might be wasting your time," Agent Sam Alston warned, a trim middle-aged veteran with the demeanor of a bureaucrat.

Agent Aiyana made notes from the map. Agent Alston assigned the teams. Jeff, Chubby and I would be canvassing near the old factory district.

"We could have been searching a nice green forest instead of these filthy streets," Chubby complained as we began our quest, which was going to take several hours. "Can we stop for a beer?"

"No," Sheriff Jeff said, much to my disappointment.

We started on South Seward Street, knocking on doors and passing out flyers. Debbie was seventeen years old, medium height, with long dark blond hair and brown eyes. She was a freshman at the University of Massachusetts, discovered missing after a picnic at Lowell National Historical Park. Three other women had gone missing in the last two months under similar circumstances.

After an hour of canvassing our area, I approached a run-down house on Sumner Street, knocking on a door with peeling green paint. A skinny white man about thirty years old answered. By his posture and tattoos, I immediately recognized him as an ex-con. He hadn't shaved recently. His thinning yellow hair looked like it was made of straw. Through the partially open door, I could see a sawed-off shotgun propped against the wall, and far to my left, at the back of the house, I got the fleeting sense of something being wrong. A door hastily closed. A second man, older, thicker, darker and dirtier, approached from the rear hall.

"Have you seen this girl?" I asked, giving the younger man a flyer.

"Nope, ain't never seen her," he said.

"What about your friend?" I inquired.

"My brother ain't seen her, neither," he said.

The older sleaze came to the door also adorned with prison tattoos. I was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, decreasing the chances of being recognized.

"What the hell do you want?" the fat older brother said.

"I'm looking for--"

"Get your fucking ass off my porch," the rude fellow said, slamming the door in my face.

I went to the next house where an elderly couple lived, asking about the neighborhood, and caught up to Jeff at the end of the block.

"Something's wrong back there," I said.

"What?"

"I don't know."

"Did you see something?" Jeff pressed.

"Not exactly. But I need to check it out."

"You have no probable cause. We'll never get a search warrant."

"I'm not a cop. I don't need a search warrant," I said.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"The couple next door seems nice. I'll ask permission to go in their backyard, hop the fence, and look in the windows."

"Trespassing? You can get arrested for that. And with your felony record, they might send you back to prison," Jeff warned.

"I've been in prison before," I said. "You and Chubby stay close enough to observe, but don't let them see you. If nothing is wrong, I'll jump back over the fence and be out in two minutes."

"And if you're not?"

"Then you'll know I'm trespassing on their property. That will give you probable cause to investigate. But be careful. They have a shotgun behind the front door."

"Jack, do you know how crazy this is?"

"Six years ago, I disguised myself as a goat herder and walked into an Afghan village guarded by sixty Tashad to rescue a handful of hostages. That was crazy."