Dr. Hugh Mann Read online

  The major inwardly smiled, he liked the man’s verve. The sergeant, however, did not see the humor in the words and was waging a war within himself to not reach for his sidearm.

  The major had risen through the ranks quickly and a large portion of his success could be attributed to his ability to read his men. He could tell that the sergeant felt a strong need to impose his own form of justice on this indignant man, although the major felt confident that without back-up or his sidearm, the scrappy Talbot might hold his own against the stockier sergeant.

  “Sergeant, why don’t you go help Corporal Bickens,” the major said.

  “Sir, the prisoners…”

  “We’re prisoners now?” Marissa exclaimed.

  “Wrong choice of words, I assure you,” the Major answered back. “Sergeant… now.”

  “Yes, sir!” the sergeant said, coming to the position of attention and saluting the major.

  “Good boy!” Jonathan said from the couch. “Can he roll over too?” he asked the major.

  The sergeant hesitated ever so slightly but thought better of any action that would harm his career. He would make sure to break something on his way out that looked relatively expensive though.

  The major sat down on the couch next to Marissa. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” he started. Marissa looked like she was about to protest. “Listen, we know Dr. Mann, your father took some things from the lab before we seized it.”

  Marissa feigned ignorance; Jonathan sat stoically still, his eyes never leaving the major’s. That stare was having a disconcerting effect on the major and now his decision to send the sergeant away did not seem quite as valid as it had a moment ago. The major stood up as nonchalantly as he could and paced the room.

  “He has placed a lot of people including your selves at risk by doing this,” the major continued.

  “The only risk I see here is you and your men,” Jonathan said disdainfully.

  “Be that as it may. We need to retrieve the property that rightfully belongs to the U.S. Government.”

  “I really wish we could help you.” Jonathan’s words dripped with sarcasm.

  “That’s the spirit,” the major shot back.

  Another crash came from down the hallway. “Oops,” the sergeant said a little louder than necessary.

  The major watched Jonathan tense and knew his time of holding him at bay was growing short. He had no desire to harm the man but he had a job to do. Marissa cried softly, placing her cheek on her husband’s shoulder. It was a beautiful tactic, the major thought. Marissa had sensed that her husband was on the verge of doing something incredibly stupid and whether or not the tears were real or not they had pulled her husband away from aggression and into comforting tenderness.

  Corporal Bickens came down the hallway. “Sir, there is nothing in the master bedroom or the baby’s room.”

  Jonathan looked up, fire in his eyes. “What do you mean you didn’t find anything in the baby’s room? That’s where we always hide our extremely dangerous materials!” This time he did stand. “I don’t care how many of you there are, Major. You need to get your men out of my house…NOW.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” the corporal said off-handedly.

  Jonathan moved fast, the major noted. Jonathan’s fist struck the corporal square on the chin; he was out cold before he hit the floor. The ensuing thud brought the sergeant racing into the room, sidearm drawn.

  “Do not move!” he shouted.

  Jonathan’s fists were clenched. The major had seen how fast the kid had moved but he had never met anyone yet that could beat a bullet.

  “Stand down, Sergeant!” the major ordered.

  Jonathan was still weighing his chances. Disaster hovered like a black cloud over a polluted city.

  “He assaulted Bickens!” the sergeant said, never wavering.

  “I am perfectly aware of that, Sergeant. Now put the gun away! Jonathan, go sit back on the couch with your wife!”

  The red rage that had blinded Jonathan began to clear and the resulting image was not much better; the large bore barrel of a 45 caliber was pointed straight at his chest. The next few images were of his wife sitting next to his downed body, exploded chest cavity leaking vital life giving fluids. The next frames showed a sad Marissa as she did her best to raise their child in a hard, fatherless world. Jonathan slowly uncurled his fingers and raised them slightly above his shoulders. The sergeant eased a bit but did not put his pistol back into his holster until Jonathan was in a completely seated position.

  When the sergeant was satisfied that the threat was over he nudged the corporal’s prone body with his foot. “Get your ass up!” he shouted.

  The corporal stirred. “What the hell happened?” he asked, placing his hand to his jaw.

  “You got knocked out by a civvy, is what happened!” the sergeant stated with disgust. “I should demote your ass.”

  “I think the corporal will have more punishment than he can handle,” the major said, pointing to the two privates that were now watching the scene unfold in the living room. News of the corporal being laid out would be base wide within an hour as soon as the two arrived back to their barracks.

  “I think that we are done here for now, Sergeant,” the major said.

  “Murphy,” the sergeant said to one of the gawking privates. “Grab the corporal here and get him back into the truck.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” The private moved quickly to help the still dazed corporal up.

  Private Jenkins looked in a big rush to join his fellow soldiers and get out of this house. He had signed up to fight wars on enemy territories, not harass American citizens in their homes. This entire detail had not sat well with him.

  Murphy assisted Bickens out and to the truck. Private Jenkins came into the living room to let the major know he had found nothing in the kitchen or the dining room.

  “I am truly sorry to have bothered you, Marissa, especially given your condition,” the major said, taking note of her distended belly.

  Marissa smiled wanly.

  “No offer of apology to me?” Jonathan asked.

  “You’re lucky I don’t have you thrown in irons,” the major answered severely. The sergeant seemed all to ready to make that a reality.

  The major donned his cap and was adjusting it when his eyes came across the closet door in the foyer. “Did you check that?” the major asked the sergeant.

  The sergeant took a moment to switch gears. “No sir, it’s almost as if I’m seeing it for the first time,” the sergeant said, wiping his hand over his face as if to lift a thin veil.

  “Strange,” the major added. “I would have sworn that was an empty wall.”

  “Jenkins, check that closet!” the sergeant said, pointing to a door that for him had literally just appeared.

  Jenkins looked long and hard at the point in the wall where the sergeant’s finger was directing him. He took a step back as the white wall shimmered and an oaken door stood out plain as day. Jenkins had about as much desire to look at the contents behind that door as he did looking up the petticoats of his grandmother’s friends.

  The major took note of the silent exchange between Jonathan and Marissa, guilt mixed in with a dose of fear and a side of defeat. So it was with great surprise when Jenkins, red with exertion, emerged from the closet empty handed.

  “Nothing, sir,” Jenkins reported.

  “Check it again,” the major said sternly. “This time take everything out.”

  Fifteen minutes later, golf clubs stood along with wooden tennis racquets, three umbrellas, a broken coat rack and a fishing pole along with various fishing gear.

  “Nothing, sir,” Jenkins said.

  “Take the clothes out.”

  “Sir?” Jenkins asked.

  “You heard him, Private, what are you, daft? Take the damn clothes out!” the sergeant said.

  Jenkins tried to be as neat as possible, but still the stack of jackets and sweaters toppled over.
/>   “Satisfied?” Jonathan asked as he peered cautiously into the now empty closet.

  “Not really,” the major said as he strode over to the door. He tapped the floor and the wall looking for a false bottom. Everything sounded solid. He would later testify to his superiors that he would have sworn that they were or had been hiding something in there at some point but that it had been moved. He would never talk to anyone about how the door seemingly materialized out of thin air though.

  “I think it’s time for you to go, Major.” Marissa said forcefully. “And you may consider yourself never welcome here.”

  “Jonathan, Marissa,” the major said curtly as he followed Jenkins and the sergeant out the door.

  The front door closed and the young couple watched through the window as the military detachment entered their truck. The major took one long look back before entering into the passenger seat.

  “Do you think he saw us?” Marissa asked Jonathan.

  “I hope so,” he answered her back.

  They then turned so they were facing each other. “Where’d you put it?” Jonathan and Marissa asked simultaneously.

  Marissa pointed her finger at her chest. “I never touched it. You were the one that told my father to leave it here, and I told you to deal with it.”

  “You didn’t move it?” he asked incredulously. She shook her head in the negative. Not that he was looking, he had stood up and walked cautiously over to the closet. He had read about vortexes in some of the more popular penny press books and was absolutely terrified that they now had one in their closet. For what other explanation could there be? Jonathan gingerly stuck his head in the closet. “I don’t understand it?” he said, looking at the bare floor.

  “When was the last time you saw it?” His very pregnant wife asked as she huffed and puffed her way off the couch. He immediately rushed to her side to help. “I’m not a beached whale, I can do it myself,” she said indignantly.

  “Oh honey, I would never have said beached whale, I might have thought it, but I would have never said it.”

  “Hilarious, Mr. Talbot.”

  “Why thank you Mrs. Talbot.”

  “So?”

  “Oh I haven’t even thought about the suitcase since the day your dad...”

  “Father.”

  “Father… came over. So two weeks… I put it at the bottom of the closet and that was that.”

  Marissa thought long and hard about all the events that had transpired over the course of that time frame. They had not even entertained in the last month. Her pregnancy, while not overly difficult, had left her drained so that by the end of the day all she really wanted to do was put her feet up and listen to the radio. “How long was that boy here this morning?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “Good work Sherlock, but it couldn’t have been him.”

  “And why would that be, my trusty Holmes?” she asked, arching her other eyebrow, making her look more like a circus clown than a detective.

  “First off because I honestly couldn’t have been gone more than twenty seconds, thirty tops, and secondly my love, I think that the boy was slow.”

  “Slow in terms of speed? Like a zombie?”

  “Like a what?”

  “Oh come on, Jonathan, in all those books you’ve read you have never heard of zombies?”

  “No, they are all mostly about outer space, what is a zombie?”

  Marissa waddled down the hallway and left Jonathan to stare into the closet and now have something new to wonder about. She was back in five minutes with an armful of reading material.

  “Did you get lost?” Jonathan asked her, grabbing the books out of her hands.

  “I had other pressing needs,” she answered cryptically.

  “These are gruesome!” Jonathan said shuffling through the stack and looking at the covers. “I think I’m going to like these! But Timothy… no Terrence… no that wasn’t it… Tommy, aha! No, Tomas! That was what the boy said his name was, he certainly was no zombie.”

  “It had to have been him, it’s the only thing that makes sense dear,” Marissa said gently, as if she were speaking to a child.

  “Thieves do not generally trade pastries for stolen goods, although I think that perhaps we got the better part of the deal,” he said as he rubbed his stomach in remembrance of the earlier sweet feast.

  “We are in agreement of that,” Marissa said as she struggled to sit down. Jonathan was too busy looking once again through the zombie booklets to offer much help. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” Marissa said sarcastically as she sat down.

  “Great,” Jonathan answered absently.

  “Did you also notice how those men looked queerly at the door? Almost like they had not noticed it previously.”

  “I did not see that, my love,” Jonathan said, putting the books down.

  “You are not much of a Dr. Watson,” she laughed.

  “I was busy protecting your honor, m’lady,” Jonathan said with his thickest cockney accent.

  “And that you did admirably,” she said with a smile as she kissed him deeply.

  * * *

  It was eleven years later. Marissa cried softly on the bed in the new home they had purchased four years previously. The ever-expanding Talbot clan had necessitated that.

  Jonathan entered the room, pulling off his jacket and loosening his tie. “It was a nice service, Hon,” Jonathan said, trying to console his wife.

  She cried a little harder, bringing her kerchief to the corner of her eye.

  “The kids are going to miss their grandpappy,” he said as he sat next to her on the bed and placed his arms around her shoulders.

  She cried harder placing her head on his shoulder. After she composed herself she spoke. “He ended up being a great dad and an even better grandfather,” she sobbed, breaking back down.

  Jonathan hugged her tighter. “Well look at us!” he said brightly. “Who wouldn’t want to be around us?”

  That brought him a momentary reprieve from her free flowing tears. “Sane… people I… would imagine,” She managed to say between a mixture of hiccups and sobs.

  “Mom, you alright?” Anthony, their oldest, asked from the doorway.

  She outstretched her arms and Anthony walked into them. “I am now,” she said.

  “Dad, there is someone at the door, says he has something of yours,” Anthony squeezed out as his mother squished him even harder. “Help me,” he managed to mouth to his dad.

  “On your own son,” Jonathan smiled as he headed out of the room and down the stairs to the front door.

  “Hello Mr. Talbot!” Tomas yelled into the house, waving furiously as he saw Jonathan descend the stairs.

  “Hello there yourself,” Jonathan said with a confused expression on his face.

  “It’s me, Tomas,” the young man said happily, as if he had been there only moments earlier, when it had actually been more than a decade previously.

  “Tomas?” Jonathan rolled the name around in his head looking for a memory docking station.

  “Here, this will help,” Tomas said, reaching into his pocket and removing a hastily wrapped strawberry frosting covered baklava.

  Jonathan’s eyes nearly bulged out of their head as he took in the culinary delight. “Tomas! My boy, where have you been!” he said, clapping the youth on the shoulder and ushering him half forcibly into the house, making damn well sure he didn’t pull another vanishing act. “But it can’t be, you look just about the same age, lad, and that had to have been over ten years ago. But I’d never forget this pastry. Do you mind?” Jonathan asked as he took a huge bite without waiting for a response.

  Jonathan barely took notice as Tomas placed the large black suitcase into the entryway.

  “So Marissa was right, you did take it.”

  “I am sorry, sir,” Tomas said.

  “No, you have nothing to be sorry for. If those men from the army had found it I believe we would have been in a great deal of difficulty.”
r />   “You and your wife would have been dead,” Tomas answered with a straight face, no sense of his previous merriment present. “The only reason they let Dr. Mann live so long was in the hopes that he would lead them to what he had taken.”

  “How do you know all this? How can you be so sure?”

  “Those men have been in your house on three more occasions, since the first day we met,” Tomas said.

  There had been times throughout the years that something had been amiss in his household but he could not put his finger on it. Sometimes he had thought the chairs were slightly out of place, books had been rearranged, things of that nature, but he had attributed it to forgetfulness or paranoia. Now he realized it was neither, rather it had been a concerted effort to find his father-in-law’s suitcase by the government he had trusted.

  “Then why bring it back now?” Jonathan asked as he subtlety pushed it back towards Tomas.

  “With the passing of Dr. Mann they have stopped searching. They might have stopped looking even as long as two years ago but now that he is gone, they won’t look anymore. I am very sorry for your loss.”

  “What do I need this for, Tomas? I am no scientist.”

  “You will not need it at all Mr. Talbot, but your grandson will.”

  “I do not have a grandson, Tomas. My oldest child is eleven and believes that all girls have ‘cooties,’ so I cannot begin to believe that he has somehow fostered a child,” Jonathan said with a smile.

  “Your grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren will live in a time when the Spanish Flu, Black Plague and World War II combined would be better than what they will have to deal with.”

  “Stop, lad, I am still in my thirties but you talk of a time when I surely will not exist, and what is this World War II you speak of? World War I was the war to end all wars.”

  “I may have spoken too much,” Tomas said with a furrow on his forehead.

  “Or not enough,” Jonathan answered back, a furrow in his brow to match his guest’s.

  “Who is it dear?” Marissa asked as she came down the stairs.