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  “No.” As nicely as Ferrars’ friendly voice pretended, he knew he had been blackmailed by a professional, signed sealed and delivered.

  He entered the lobby and headed to the stairs to his room.

  “Mister Loggerman, a telephone call for you.

  He went to the desk and picked up the phone.

  “Loggerman,” he said.

  No answer. He asked, “Who is this?”

  “Daddy,” said a young female voice, expressed in the exuberance of a millennial. In the background he heard thundering rock music.

  “Stephanie,” he exclaimed. “Where are you?” His mind raced. Ferrars had not promised this phone call. He was taken by surprise. “Are you all right?” he asked, impatiently.

  “Yes. One of my volunteer friends gave me the number. I did not know it was you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t tell. It’s my job.”

  “I want to see you. Where are you?”

  “No.” The music stopped.

  “Why not?”

  “I am working to help my mother. She needs my help.”

  “How do you know?”

  The music started. Loggerman recognized the Cyndi Lauper tune.

  “Your song,” he said.

  She ignored him. “My mother told me to work hard so she would be safe.”

  “I want to get you out of this Tinker program and take you with me back to Africa.”

  “I love you, Daddy, but I can’t leave my mission.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mommy is in danger.”

  “Who would hurt your mom?”

  “Ferrars and Spire.”

  “I thought Ferrars was a friend of your mother?”

  “Spire told me if I didn’t work hard, Mommy would be in trouble.”

  He could hear her swallowing hard, her voice laced with fear. He heard voices calling ‘Stephanie.’ ‘Stephanie, let’s go’”

  She said, “I have to end this call. Ferrars is the worst. Don’t trust him. Go back to Africa. Please go.”

  The phone clicked.

  Stephanie was gone.

  His mind heard his daughter’s song again and the image of his little girl with the red hair wig danced through his mind. He wished he could return to her long ago life.

  Part Two

  “Beware the Devil hiding in shadows

  for he preys best in darkness.”

  Saying carved over the doorway of an ancient Maryland church

  Chapter Nine

  The street was quiet as he tread on ancient brick in the warm evening air toward Doctor Mike’s veterinary. He needed to be around a friend. The town enclosed him in its dark mystery as he moved by closed shops and heavy perfume of beautiful street-fronting gardens.

  He heard his daughter’s childhood music dancing in his head. He knew he would not recover from the impact of hearing Stephanie’s voice. Although he tried to hear a child’s voice, she sounded so much older and as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. He kept asking himself what she was doing and who were her friends at the dance party he heard.

  Mostly he wanted to know about this job Spire and the others had given her.

  He made his way through Doctor Mike’s fanciful animal statues in front of her house. Inside a light showed in the living area across from her clinic’s office space. A bark sounded. He knew the tripod dog had scented his new friend.

  Doctor Mike came to the door before he had a chance to knock. As she opened it, the smell of fried chicken cooking reached his nostrils.

  “I knew it was you from Tripod’s noise. I’m glad you didn’t stay at the hotel. We have better food,” she laughed. She was dressed in jeans and a long Sierra Club tee shirt flowing over her athletic body.

  He relaxed as his entered into the light of the house. He did not have to look around for an enemy. This was the person who had summoned him about Stephanie’s danger. She had to be an ally. The night was not cool yet here the warmth was of a different kind, one of kindness and caring.

  Doctor Mike had modernized her Victorian living room with pastel wall colors and simple furniture. The floors were hardwood and the large pane windows were draped with fabric matching the walls.

  “Telepathy,” she said, “I wanted you to come.”

  As he took the long neck beer she offered, he sank back in an armchair. Tripod found a place at his feet, snuggling his mouth on Loggerman’s right boot. “He smells all the animals in New City, Nigeria, on the boot leather. Animals mark their territory by rubbing against you.”

  She smiled. “Sometimes they leave more than rubbing. Be careful. You’re the kind of man who has animal friends.”

  On the table in front were travel books on Africa. He glanced at the covers.

  “Hey, what’s this?” He looked at her, as he smiled broadly, a rare thing for Loggerman, and asked, “What have you been reading?”

  “I want to go there. Some of the buildings in those pictures are very modern. Up country you can still feel the frontier. I’d like it.”

  “The Africans like it, too. People try to take it away, make it too European. I don’t forget it’s their country.”

  “Your former wife did not enjoy Africa.”

  “She could not fool the people. They figured out pretty fast she did not respect them.”

  “They respected you.”

  “We fought the terrorists together to save what we were building. People over there respect any man who will risk his life. It’s like what we learned as kids about the Early American tribes. The settlers who made friends were the ones who would fight, even if they were at first enemies.”

  “You think a lot of Western cowboy lore.”

  “The chief of the village. I used to give him American Western films and he’d get all his friends to big outdoor movie showings to enjoy John Wayne and Gene Autry and some of the newer actors. The movies all have the same stories but the old ones show more scenery of the West.”

  She nodded. “I know Elizabeth. I can see why all this happened.”

  “You seem to be different, though.”

  “Yes,” she looked deeply into his eyes. “Yes, I am.”

  The tripod dog barked.

  “I have some friends coming for dinner.”

  She went to the door and he heard the chatter between her and a man.

  “Loggerman,” she said as she returned, “This is my friend, Father John, from the River Sunday parish.”

  “Hello,” the priest stuck out his hand. He had the expression of a disappointed man - as though he had found out his faith was all a lie.

  “Nice to meet you, Father John. I work with some of your compatriots in Nigeria.”

  “All kinds, I hope. When I was in seminary, I read in the old days we used to lie to them. We preached the Trinity was Father, Son, and Charles De Gaulle.”

  “Not bad now. We have Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, even Hindus. We all get along.”

  The priest nodded.

  Doctor Mike said, “Father John, this is Stephanie’s father. I mentioned to you I was writing him.”

  The priest looked into Loggerman’s eyes. “This is a difficult place you are visiting, my son.”

  “Tinker?”

  “Yes. I pray, but it is not enough. This will take bullets.”

  He looked at his watch and said,” Let me show you something.”

  He picked up the television control and selected a channel.

  The screen lit up with a lightning strike expanding across the glass, then pulsing as the words “Tinker Time” cascaded. Faces of various men and women, young and old of all races grew large and then small. A scene lit of a primitive man huddled in animal furs beside a small fire, the flames illuminating the black night around him. The bolt shrunk to a small white ball, then expanded with a green line around it. The screen went blank and a picture of a small gas station surrounded with fields of crops appeared.

  An announcer intoned,
his voice cheerful and kindly,

  “It’s time for Cole Tinker and his energy parade.

  Today we’ll meet our latest volunteer hero

  We’ll meet new energy people who joined our Institute.

  Cole will take some of his time to encourage us.

  So without further ado, let’s make sparks.”

  A high school marching band dressed in white uniforms decorated with the green circles came across the screen. From every angle the cameras studied their vibrant youthful faces and exuberance as they marched playing the Star Spangled Banner.

  A commercial appeared asking for volunteers to help raise funds for Cole to continue his work. Fees and awards were explained including special notice from Cole himself for exemplary fund raising.

  A video entitled Hero Volunteer of the Day appeared. The camera showed a Tinker dressed in rubber boots and a denim coat and pants. On his chest was the Tinker symbol. He was walking with a young farmer with a white shirt and dirty pants, across a field. Rain was pouring on them. The camera picked up the water on their faces.

  The volunteer said, “I know what you are going through.” He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  The farmer answered, “I can’t pay the high cost of fuel for my equipment.”

  “We must help you. Write your politicians and stand with a protest at your gas station. They will pay attention. Tell them you spoke to me.”

  The farmer’s wife came up to them. She held the hands of her two small children. “We need to make more money to feed them. All we have is this farm.”

  She pointed to the boots of her largest child. “Lift up, honey.”

  The filthy bare sole of the child’s foot appeared unprotected inside the boot. Her mother said, “These shoes have no soles but I can’t afford new ones.”

  “We will win working together.”

  The video faded to a message in neon red.

  In the background Loggerman could hear America the Beautiful being played by the marching band.

  The narrator intoned, “Write to us and get on our social media news. All you need to do is email us and we’ll send it to you at no extra cost. It’s filled with ideas about saving money in your energy use. Most of all it’s filled with stories of people just like you who have stepped up and helped us in our crusade to get free energy for everyone one. Always remember, we fight for the return of the free energy our ancient ancestors had to warm themselves in the cold night”

  The music grew louder and then the video of the marching band took the whole screen.

  Cole Tinker came on with a well-dressed elderly man standing beside him. “I wanted you to meet the newest president of the Power Company, whose corporation has joined our program.”

  The man stepped up to the camera and said, “We’ll do everything in our power to maintain our good rating with Cole’s Institute. We have already published our new rate for electricity and gas and hope to have our free energy qualifications for the poor available soon.”

  The priest muttered. “Yesterday, two storage tanks of Power Company were mobbed by street gangsters. The fire caused thousands of homes to be evacuated. No one knows how this happened and it dropped out of the news by the next day. Power Company officials had no comment.”

  Doctor Mike called, “Come sit down.”

  The table featured pitchers of iced tea, platters of fried chicken, and a huge salad of fresh cut tomatoes. Another dish held a massive fruit salad. They sat at wooden chairs around a large rectangular brown wooden table. In the middle was a large blue and white Chinese style ceramic bowl of fresh magnolia blooms. The scents of food and flowers pervaded the room as food was served.

  “Father John, how well did you know my daughter Stephanie?” asked Loggerman as he helped the twins with their plates.

  “Stephanie would come by the church. She’d sit in a middle pew near the wall. Sometimes after a Mass I’d see her walking the aisles fascinated by the Stations of the Cross. She told me once the barefoot people in the statues reminded her of how she and her friends went barefoot in in Africa.”

  Doctor Mike added, “I went with her to church sometimes. She loved her former African life. She told me about those days as I drove her back to the compound. Then she would get silent. She became so troubled.”

  Loggerman heard the giggles of Scotty’s girls as they ran into the room.

  Scotty’s rough voice hollered to Doctor Mike as he hugged her. “We could not turn down the invite to your cooking.” The dusty scent of fresh sawdust from the shipyard surrounded him.

  He turned to Loggerman. “You come to the best food in town. Doctor Mike and her brother grew up in the same Nova Scotia town as I did. She learned to cook with the best up there.”

  Loggerman said, “I can tell. She cooks like my mother in Maine.”

  Father John smiled at Scotty, “How did the concert go?”

  “No agent signed but lots of followers on YouTube,” he laughed.

  “How’s your music, May and June? “ Loggerman asked, showing a rare smile to brighten his rugged face.

  June said, “We’re writing a new song.”

  “She’s the composer of the two of them,” said Doctor Mike.

  “It’s about Doctor Mike and Tripod,” June said.

  When they finished supper, everyone helped to clean up the kitchen.

  “Let’s talk about helping Stephanie,” Doctor Mike said as she dried a plate. “You see, we are not as limited here in River Sunday as you might think.”

  “I thought you couldn’t do anything to help me.”

  “We have a little church group. Tinker’s people don’t know everything,” said Father John.

  “What can you do?” asked Loggerman.

  Father John said, “A friend at the compound knows your daughter. Told me he didn’t think she was like the others training there. He said she was too kind to be vicious like the others. She was not like her mother, either.”

  “She’s like you, Loggerman,” said Doctor Mike.

  “Will he help us?”

  “All I got to do is ask,” said Father John.

  “Let’s think about what we want to accomplish,” said Doctor Mike.

  “I need the address of where Stephanie has been assigned. Then I can try to find her.” Loggerman said.

  “How would you do that?” asked Doctor Mike.

  “I know other contacts.”

  “If you get some information, keep it safe. We don’t want to tip off Ferrars we know where she is,” said Doctor Mike. “They have other people across the nation. The guards might hurt her.”

  “Yes. I have to get in there and get out without being seen,” said Loggerman.

  “You’ve also got to know where to go in the compound. It’s a big place.”

  “The barn has the computers. It’s where the addresses are kept,” said Father John.

  “Is the barn heavily guarded?” asked Doctor Mike.

  “My friend will know how to get in.”

  Later, Doctor Mike and Loggerman sat on the back porch. The insects slapped against the screen. She had let her hair down and the red tresses flowed over her shoulders.

  “You pretty much know my story,” he said. “Kid from Maine, ex Marine, upward bound wife who did not like my job in Africa.”

  “There’s Stephanie.”

  “Yes.

  “You’re a pretty gung ho guy, Loggerman.”

  “Tell me more about Nova Scotia.”

  “Grew up in a fisherman town. I went to vet school in Charlottetown to be a fish vet. Then I came to Maryland to work on Chesapeake seafood research. I got interested in pet science. My clinic here is close to my research.”

  “You brother joined you.”

  “He did. He wanted to do more articles for the local papers. We were good together.”

  “You never married.”

  “I did not have time. The only man in my life has been the veterinarian who pushed me to go for my degree. He’s dead
now. I remember him, a white haired bearded lovely man sitting in his mahogany office, his words reflecting off dusty books. He said cats and dogs could love and it was the reason to keep them healthy. I guess my scientific work became a surrogate for a husband - my partner so to speak.”

  “It’s sad you have to work on guard dogs here in River Sunday.”

  “Yes, but even those animals have the potential to love.”

  “So tell me - why they call you Mike?”

  “My birth name was Rosie Carmichael.”

  “Family tradition?”

  “My grandmother’s name was Rose.”

  She moved her hand in the hot night air as she talked. Lightning bugs still glimmered outside. “The boys teased me a lot about my name and my red hair. One day when we were doing art, a big boy laughed and called me ‘Rosie Posey’ He kept doing it and the other kids started saying it too, even the girls. So I socked him in the nose. He fell back on the art supplies and papers and crayons went everywhere. When he stood up, his nose was bleeding.”

  “Then what?”

  “He started crying. He said, in short bursts and coughs, ‘You’re not a girl. I’m calling you a boy’s name. I’m calling you Mike.’ ”

  “Did you punch him again?”

  “No. Afterwards, my name became Mike. I didn’t mind. I got to play more games. The boys counted me as one of them in the playground choose–up. Even my family started calling me Mike.” She smiled.

  “You are the prettiest Mike I have ever seen.” He took her hand.

  “You think so?” she said, looking into his eyes. “I’m the kind of girl who boys like but not the kind they marry. Guys want a pushover.”

  “I married a girl who wasn’t a pushover. Trouble was, she had no heart. People can be tough but they have to have a little love for others in there, too.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Hot tonight. Want to swim in the pool? You could use my brother’s swim shorts.”