SAECULUM ( A Novel: Part 20) – INTEMPESTIUM VII & VIII

SOL OCCAXUS (Sunset) Monday, 19 September, 2011

CREPUSCULUM (Evening Twilight)

I. Friday, 23 September, 2011
II. Thursday, 29 September, 2011
III. Thursday, 29 September, 2011
IV. Sunday, 16 October, 2011

VESPER (Evening Dusk)

I. Sunday, 23 October, 2011
II. Sunday, 30 October, 2011
III. Wednesday, 9 November, 2011
IV. Monday, 14 November, 2011
V. Monday, 14 November, 2011

CONCUBIUM (First Sleep – Coitus – Rest)

I. Thursday, 17 November 2011
II. Sunday, 20 November, 2011
III. Friday, 25 November, 2011
IV. Thursday, 1 December, 2011
V. Thursday, 1 December, 2011
VI. Thursday, 8 December, 2011
VII. Sunday, 11 December, 2011

INTEMPESTIUM (Midnight)

I. Sunday, 1 January, 2012
II. Thursday, 5 January, 2012
III. Saturday, 7 January, 2012
IV. Monday, 16 January, 2012
V. Sunday, 29 January, 2012
VI. Sunday, 29 January, 2012
VII. Friday, 3 February, 2012
VIII. Friday, 3 February, 2012

GALLICINIUM (Cock Crow)
I.
II.
III.

MATUTINUM (Dawn Goddess)
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.

DILUCULUM (Dawn Twilight)
I.
II.
III.
IV.

SOLI ORTUS (Sunrise)

INTEMPESTIUM

MIDNIGHT

VII

“Wake up, you bitch,” the voice screamed.

At that moment Caroline Mara could not be sure whether the voice was part of a dream or a reality. She felt movement and pain as somebody violently shook her awake while shouting in her ear. She opened her eyes to find that the light hurt her and couldn’t focus. Who was talking to her? What had happened, she wondered. She did not remember anything.

“Wake up, you bitch,” the voice screamed again.

She lay face down on a bed. There was a taste of vomit in her mouth and soiled sheets about her head. She couldn’t move her hands. “Where am I?” Caroline had to spit out a plug of blood stained food before she could shout the words. “Where are my clothes? Is that you Diego?” she spluttered.

“Yes, whore,” Rios answered in an ice-cold tone.

“Why are you speaking like that, Diego? Why am I tied up? Why am I so confused?” she pleaded. Tears ran down her face.

“Rohypnol in your dessert, bitch. Your brain and ass were roched, as it were. Ha Ha.”

“Why? Why are you doing this Diego?” she cried.

“Shut the fuck up, whore.” He rolled her over on the bed so that she looked up at him. “Tell me about your husband’s work with the American Army,” he demanded.

“What?” Caroline tried moving her hands to cover her breasts and pubic area but they remained tied behind her. She struggled to release herself but the chords or wires holding her just cut deeper into her skin. Her tears ran freely. “I don’t know anything about the work my husband…Michael has done for the Army.”

“You’re lying!” Rios said angrily.

“I’m not Diego. I swear. Oh God I don’t know anything. Please stop hurt–”

Caroline’s pleas were interrupted as Rios leant down, grabbed her hair with his left hand and jerked her head backwards. His face was a sweating mask of hatred. She felt the retching begin again. He had a half-smoked cigarette in his other hand and brought its crimson tip closer and closer to her eyes.

“Tell me,” he demanded.

“I don’t –” She screamed as he suddenly pulled the cigarette away from her eyelid and buried it into the flesh of her cheek. She smelt the burning flesh, her own flesh and then the pain. She wanted him to stop. “I . . . Please stop hurting me, Diego. . . I only heard of one name. A General Arnold. I swear.”

“I don’t believe you, bitch. Make it easier for yourself and tell me about the Mara Stealth Virus.”

“The what? I don’t know anything, Diego. Please. Pleassssse!” Caroline screamed again as the Mexican policeman held the cigarette close over the skin of her right breast. She felt the heat getting more intense as he circled it towards her. All of a sudden he stopped and looked down at her for a moment, as if thinking about what to do next. The hard facial features softened and the voice grew kinder. He pulled back the cigarette and with his other hand began pinching her nipple gently, until it was engorged.

“Do you know, Caroline, that when the Spanish arrived in this part of the world they thought they would find the fabled race of Amazons? You know the legend about the Amazons, Caroline? Don’t you?” Rios suddenly and violently pressed the cigarette into the flesh of her right breast.

Caroline screamed again with the searing pain. “Nooooooooo…….. please!”

“It is said that they removed the right breast at puberty so that its full development would not interfere with their ability to draw a bow.” Rios pressed the cigarette into another spot. “Tell me about the virus your husband has developed for the Americans.”

“I don’t know. Oh God. I don’t know. Help me please. Somebody help.”

Caroline continued screaming as Rios burnt her again and again. She wanted to die. She couldn’t fight the pain any more. Then it suddenly stopped.

Rios turned away and walked towards the bathroom. “Shit. I don’t think she knows anything,” he said, annoyed.

“The Sheila must know something mate,” a voice from within the bathroom said.

“Unlikely. I’ve hurt her fairly bad.”

Rios spoke to somebody else and Caroline realised that there was another person nearby. Then it struck her: she recognised the voice! Caroline turned her head and tried to look towards the bathroom. She cried out in a weak and plaintive voice, “Rod . . . Is that you, Rod. Oh, thank God. You have come to save me, Rod. Thank God. Help me, Rod. Rooodddd please help me!”

“What shall I do with her?” Rios said as he stood over her again.

“Kill her, mate. I don’t want the Sheila fingering us. No trace. Understand. A bullet to the brain. Nice and quick,” Rod Mallory said coldly.

“But this is my room! I will be suspected,” Rios protested.

There was a long pause. “I know, mate.”

“What–”

Caroline watched through half-closed eyelids as Rios turned to look at the approaching figure of Rod Mallory. Suddenly there was a muffled sphattt sound and the blond Mexican’s head jerked back. Tissue and blood sprayed over her from a fist-sized hole in the back of his head and Rios body was catapulted back, to land across her chest and force the breath from her lungs. “Oh . . .Oh thank God! Get him off me, Rod. Get him off,” Caroline screamed as Diego’s body jerked in spasm and one of his hands came to rest on her leg. “Please hurry Rod. I’m going to puke again. I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry, sweetheart but I’m going to have to find a new tennis partner. Shame really. You banged Commander Rios there, like a dunny door. Even I felt like joining in.”

Rod’s shadow hovered over her. “Oh, God no. Not you, Rod. Not –.”

Caroline closed her eyes as the gun discharged.

VIII

It was dark, yet flashes of light illuminated the space where Michael Mara lay. Somebody was shouting, somebody was calling his name, “Michael, Doctor Mara. Wake up. Wake up.” His head was pounding and as he tried to sit up the dizziness took over. The flashes of light hurt his eyes. “Where am I?” he asked.

“Near your hotel outside the old cafe.”

It was a girl’s voice. American accent, he realised as he tried focusing on the face that hovered over him. He felt hers or somebody’s hands pulling at him. “How did I get here? What happened?”

“You don’t remember anything? You passed out in the apartment and Isabella wanted you to sleep it off. I brought you back here in my car.”

“Is that you Zoë? I can hardly make you out.”

“Yes, Michael. Apparently a mixture of champagne and pot and you’re anybody’s. Now come on. We’d better get some coffee in you.”

“Where’s Isabella?”

“She had to take an early flight from Granada to Madrid. I dropped her at the airport before coming here. She will be back tomorrow. A conference I think.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“She told me to tell you that you and she will meet in a quiet moment again. Whatever that means!”

“What time is it, Zoë?”

“Nearly six thirty.”

“In the morning?”

“Of course. Now come on. Stand on your feet.”

A hazy image of an angry Bob Arnold, his thick-set face glaring, suddenly seared into Michael’s confusion. He tried again to focus on his surroundings. The smell of freshly ground coffee was coming from the small 24-hour café that he recognized as being the one near the hotel. He began to search his pockets, in a flea-bitten frenzy of moving hands, for his wallet and cell phone. Both were still there, he realised with relief. The cell phone was still turned on but he could not remember whether he had followed Arnold’s instructions before he had left the Hotel. To Michael that conversation seemed a very long time ago. “You were there, Zoë, last night. It was you who made . . . eh . . . when Isabella was dancing.”

“It was me who made what, Michael?” the athlete asked as she strong-armed him from the car and across the pavement to stumble through the door of the café. She sat him down at an unoccupied table.

The few other patrons in the café stared in his direction. They, sober, were about to start a day’s work whereas he, it appeared, was abusing their hospitality and morning peace; another over indulgent layabout tourist. He looked at Zoe and said, “Last night when Isabella was dancing. You were there with me. We made love . . . I think.”

“Ha! Ha! In your dreams, my American friend! I think you had better stick to lemonade and coffee in the future. Hold on, I’ll just get yours. Sugar?”

“Thanks. Two please,” he said, more confused than ever. As she went to the counter he opened out the cell-phone and dialled in the instructions that Bob Arnold had given. He then pressed the redial button and left it on the table.

“Here is your coffee,” Zoë said as she looked down at the phone. She suddenly became agitated. “I must go now. I’m sure you will be alright from here.”

“Zoë . . . ” he called after her but she did not look back.

Michael Mara had been sitting in the cafe for about twenty minutes nursing his coffee and his confusion when three men with short haircuts and large dark glasses walked in. The morning sunlight was not that bright on this side of the street.

“Doctor Mara?” the first of the men asked as he approached the table.

“Yes.”

“I have been sent to get you by General Arnold. He is very anxious about you. You need to come with us?”

“I need this coffee more. Rough night. You know how it is.”

“Yeah right. Where the fuck, have you been? We’ve been searching for you for two days,” the man barked.

“What?” Michael was puzzled. His head throbbed as he looked at his watch. “What day is it?” he asked quietly unable to focus on the small date display.

“Friday, 7 September.”

“Friday . . . but that means I’ve been gone for ... Where? I don’t remember.”

“Who the fuck knows?” The man looked really pissed-off.

“I want to know!” Michael shouted, banging his hand down on the table. The cell-phone fell to the floor.

“I understand Doctor Mara, but we need to go, now.”

Michael hesitated. The sun-shaded man leant down and lifted the cell phone. He turned off the power and slipped it into his pocket. One of the three men remained near the door, while the others lifted him to his feet. He did not protest. The other café patrons nodded approvingly as they left.