CHAPTER 55

The blond headed woman dumped her tickets in the trash can as she left the airplane. She had bought them, at the last minute, from one of those on line discount sites anyway. She then left the concourse, for the main terminal building. Hartsfield was a big place that took an underground trip in both a subway car, and then, a moving sidewalk before she reached the escalators that brought her out very near the airline ticket counters. Atlanta was a big hub of air activity and, as such, they had quite a few carriers. Before the woman went to one of the many counters, she ducked into the nearest bathroom, changed her clothing from casual to business attire. She also swapped out the wig, with the long blond hair, for another. She bought her new ticket, that became available from a last minute cancellation on an already over booked flight, with cash. It was an international flight that went directly to Paris and she did it as a short red head.

As she waited for the flight to board, in an international concourse that required you to have a ticket to be here, she not only watched for anyone that looked as if they were not traveling but, she kept one eye peeled to the TV in the waiting area. Since that was her business she had more than a passive interest in what was on the screen.

Most of what was running now was filler, as they waited for yet another sliver or real news to slip into the grinder so that they could package and slap it up on the monitors. The news channels were running the American President’s speech to death. Unlike the live broadcast that played last night, they were now only playing the words they wanted everyone to hear. Naturally, she had watched the live speech that played in prime time on the east coast of America, and the President was trying to sound assuring. His lame duck administration was down playing the current situation with Feyland. No one seemed to be listening. They all wanted to hear from the guy who was about to be President, and William Devon was not talking at the moment. She could understand why.

When the news producers and programmers figured that story would get boring, they jumped on the other one they had going at the moment. Some US congressman was constantly jumping in front of the camera’s and saying things that directly contradicted the President. This guy, Clancy Oldham, was definitely buying his screen time with material that the television news wanted. The missing little girl story was nice and juicy for them and Clancy was controlling it. He was acting as a private attorney on behalf of the mother and not doing too bad a job as a media consultant as well.

Every few days the news would get new video’s of this Thompson girl. The latest one showed her in a cheerleading outfit, doing splits and waiving pom-pom’s, for her mother’s camera, in the front yard of her modest looking Florida home. That video was even trending on the internet right now. The girl was not exactly some kind of beauty queen but, she did have that girl next door quality going for her and, just maybe, that was why the public was eating it up. It was certainly hard to image that skinny little thing running around in the Hertugan Forest, carrying a machinegun.

The plane was starting to board when something new actually showed up on the television screen. The woman in the red wig actually waited a few minutes so she could see the recap of this guys interview from a morning talk show. He was some kind of reverend, had a voice that was made for broadcast, knew how to say the right things and, most of all, he had conviction. It made the red head wonder how real this Reverend Emmet B. Shoals was. He was a cable news channels wet dream as he talked about the inherit dangers and perils of dealing with another universe. The red head had been all too aware that there was a growing number of people who found the elves, the dell, and Feyland alarming. They were a minority but, this Reverend made her wonder if they had just found a voice for their cause. She did not know at present. It was a problem for later, so, she boarded the airplane.

Several hours later her flight landed in Paris. She rented a car at the airport, drove to the coast near Calais where she purchased a ticket for a ride on the hovercraft across to England. She sold that ticket to someone in the back of the purchase line, at an extreme discount, and then she turned in her rental. She had dumped the red hair for her real hair, jet black, when she boarded the train back to Paris. She got off long before she got anywhere near the central city, and checked into a little hotel that she knew all too well. When she walked in the room, he was waiting for her.

The door closed behind her and then there was silence. She put her bags down and took off her sun glasses. Then she took off her coat and, not once, did her eyes leave his. After they stared at each other for another few minutes John Snow put out his arms and Carol Somerset rushed to them. They were on the bed not long after that and twenty minutes later they were sleeping, side by side, naked. When Carol finally woke up she laid next to John, watched him sleep, and played with his hair.

Without warning, and still appearing to be asleep, John peacefully said, “it’s been too long.”

Carol was not that surprised that he was awake. She kept right on stroking his hair, “I know. We knew it would be.” The silence returned for a little while and then Carol had to ask, because she was a little bit concerned, “how did you duck your shadow?”

John rolled over in bed and looked her in the eyes. He was almost laughing as he said, “which one? When you got as many shadows as I do, it’s actually pretty easy. They keep getting in each other’s way.”

Carol was still not happy about it, “what about that Interpol guy, the one you mentioned in your note from way back.”

“The German?” John did not seem overly concerned, “haven’t seen him face to face in a while. Besides, he’s the least of our problems right now.”

“John,” Carol replied as she propped up on her arms, “you’re assuming he’s Interpol. You have no idea who he really might be. I certainly wouldn’t put it past Uncle Arthur to play you like that.”

“To be honest honey,” John replied, “so far the only one that looks like they’re playing me is you.”

Carol was quite firm with her reply, “as I recall, three years ago, you agreed with me completely. This wasn’t all my idea.”

John closed his eyes, rubbed his face, and told her point blank, “that was before I knew a few things.”

“Damn it John,” Carol complained, “if I had told you that, you would have never gone through with it. Where would we be then?”

“Where are we now?” John looked back at her and then asked, “how long have you known, you know, about our daughter?”

“Please,” Carol said as if to beg but, did not sound as if she was, “John this is for her. It’s the only way she’ll ever be free and, most important, safe. You know that.”

“It’s what I don’t know that concerns me now,” John told her. “You didn’t answer the question Carol. How long?”

Carol rolled over and pouted as she meekly replied, “since she was born.”

That left John stunned and silent for a minute or two. Then he asked the obvious, “how is that possible? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Now Carol was furious as she rolled back over and looked him the eye, “because I couldn’t. It would have made you a target. I wanted my daughter to know her father. You wouldn’t have lived to see her first birthday if you knew the truth.”

John sat up and threw the attitude right back in her face, “well I’m a target now and I can take care of myself, so, you might as well spill the whole story. You might consider that it’s not just our lives we’re playing with here. My mother is caught up in this. My little brother is on the front lines, not just Amanda who, as near as I can tell, is safer than any of us right now.”

Carol almost felt like crying, “I know babe, I’m sorry. When we got married, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I didn’t even think it was possible.” Now she really started crying, “I wasn’t suppose to be able to have children, you know that.”

What did that have to do with anything? All John could say was, “it just made our little girl all the more special. Past that it’s no big deal honey. It happens every day, doctors make mistakes. They don’t know everything.”

“She’s not just special John,” Carol bowed her head and wiped at her tears, “she’s impossible.”

John took that in and thought about it before he blurted out, “what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Still crying, Carol admitted, “you don’t know everything about my family.”

“I kind of figured that much,” John told her bluntly.

“My father,” Carol settled down and told him, “he never really saw eye to eye with the board. That had been going on for a very long time.”

“No shit,” John told her. “I get that. It’s why we think he was murdered and not in some car accident.”

“No,” Carol told him, “that’s what I led you to believe John. I hope you can forgive me but, I lied to you for the best reasons. I would do it again if I had too. I know that doesn’t exactly engender a great deal of trust between us my love, it’s just, there’s no choice.”

“This is our daughter we’re talking about here,” John said angrily, “this is for her.”
“I know,” Carol said sympathetically, “and it’s for her benefit as well. When she started showing the first signs of trouble, I knew what was coming next. I was panicked John, I had known from the moment she was born that this was coming and I still had no idea what to do about it.”

“How could you know that,” John demanded. “We had the best prenatal care in the world. Isn’t that why we spent all that time in Germany? The clinic didn’t say there was a single problem.”

“That’s because they didn’t know what to look for,” Carol admitted. She put her hand on his arm and looked him in the eye, “I knew it from the moment I was pregnant. More importantly, so did my father. That’s why we went to that clinic.”

John was angry but, he was controlling it as he told Carol, point blank, “you not only suspect, you know for a fact that your Dad was murdered. Why Carol? The board did it, right? What for?”

“John,” she said with a great deal of alarm, “he crossed them.”

John slapped back with, “how? He was one of them! What would make…” Suddenly it hit John like a bolt of lightening, “Amanda? It had something to do with her. That’s why he was in Bavaria that night. He was coming from the clinic?” That only led to the obvious question, “what’s really wrong with her Carol? Is this some kind of family genetic thing or is it…”

Carol reached out and gently put her hand on his lips. He became silent and then she told him, “how much do you know about my mother?”

“I know she died,” John replied. “What about her?”

Carol just said point blank, “she wasn’t my real mother, John.”

“I’m not following you Carol,” but, John was most certainly alarmed. When Carol would say nothing else he had to prompt her and it almost reached the point of shouting, “what does that have to do with my daughter?”

Weeping, Carol told him, “she shouldn’t exist.”

“You keep bringing that up,” John growled, “why?”

Carol finally looked him in the eye again, “John, my mother, my real mother, was an elf.”

Now it was John’s turn to be silent. He backed off because he had to let the shock subside. When he could finally speak again he said, “how’s that possible? That’s supposed to be impossible!”

“Not impossible,” Carol told him, “just rare. What’s impossible is a half breed having a child.”

John was still stunned and looking off into space as he said, “you’re telling me that my daughter is one quarter elf and she’s some rare specimen?”

“No,” Carol tried to compose herself, “what I’m telling you is that, in all of recorded history, this has never happened, ever. Amanda is not just rare John, she is unique. My father knew that and, so did the board. That’s why he crossed them and that’s why they killed him. That’s why they’ll kill you if they even suspect that you know.”

“I don’t care,” was John’s reply and he meant it.

Carol replied with equal conviction, “well you had damn well better because I’m not going to loose you too those bastards as well.”

John wanted to pull at his hair, “I don’t get this Carol. You’re on the board now. They can’t all be in agreement on this. Hell, they never agree on anything!”

“That should tell you something John,” Carol replied with dead seriousness, “this is something important enough, dangerous enough, that it made men like Ian and my Uncle, allies. You know how much those two hate each other.”

“I don’t give a damn about your politics,” John complained in frustration, “Amanda is my little girl and she’s not going to be some lab rat.”

Carol’s eyes narrowed as she said, “then stick to the plan.”

“What’s that got us so far,” John quickly replied, still frustrated.

She put her hands on his bare shoulders and rubbed them as she said, “we knew this wasn’t going to be easy love. We didn’t do it because it was the best plan. We did it because it’s the only thing we could do.”

John faced her and said, “convince me.”