I was in New York another two days, and saw Tiasa on each of them. Cashel had arranged for her to stay at a shelter for abused and battered girls in the North Bronx, one of three her order ministered to. It was the kind of place that didn't advertise itself and relied on anonymity and secrecy for security, rather than guards and alarms, which was a good thing. Guards and alarms were likely to bring back bad memories for Tiasa.
The first day, I went with her and Cashel to visit a doctor. Cashel had prepared her for the visit as best she could, but Tiasa was miserable all the same; she knew why the examination was necessary, but honestly understanding the need for it didn't diminish the fact that she was being asked to, quite literally, open her legs to another stranger, even if the reason for it this time was quite different. Cashel hadn't yet been able to arrange for a translator, and as a result, I had to remain nearby, which I'm sure didn't help things.
The initial results came back quickly, and were as good as could be expected. She wasn't pregnant, and had scored negative on a broad spectrum of tests for venereal diseases. Blood had been drawn for an AIDS test, as well, but it would be another day at least before we knew anything there. The doctor confirmed that Tiasa had been abused, physically and sexually, and while all the news was delivered with clinical precision and professional compassion, it was very hard for me to hear. Somehow, Cashel didn't seem to have the same problem, and I envied her practiced serenity.
The next day, in the afternoon, I took them to lunch at a Chinese restaurant Cashel suggested, near the shelter. Tiasa ate some rice, and a lone steamed dumpling, and that was all. She didn't offer much in conversation, so I did most of the talking, alternating between Georgian and English, trying to keep Cashel in the loop.
Cashel told me that they'd located someone to help with translation, a woman who would be coming by later in the afternoon. I shared that information with Tiasa, and she shrugged. The only emotion I was reading off her was anger, and that just barely.
Men weren't allowed inside the shelter, so after the meal I drove them both back to the house, and made my goodbyes in the car.
“I'm leaving tonight,” I told Tiasa. “To check on Yeva and Cashel's sister.”
Tiasa stared at me, and I saw that the anger I'd sensed was now, at least for the moment, being directed my way. She unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the Jetta.
“Fine,” Tiasa said, and then she slammed the door.
Cashel, in the backseat, leaned forward slightly. “It's going to take time.”
“She thinks I'm abandoning her.”
“I think she knows you're not. She hasn't even begun to talk about what happened to her. As I said, Atticus, it's going to take time.”
I sighed. It wasn't that I didn't believe her. In addition to her holy vows, Cashel had a degree in social work, and far more experience dealing with the survivors of abuse and addiction than I. It was one of the things that had drawn her to become a nun, a calling that had come about as a direct result of witnessing the damage caused by her sister's addiction to heroin back when Bridgett was a teen. I trusted that she knew what she was talking about.
“You have to tell me,” I said. “Is visiting going to do more harm than good?”
“I think it would be wise if you stayed away for a little while,” Cashel replied, carefully. “You have confusing associations for her, and it may complicate things.”
“Great.”
“Keep in touch. And tell Bridgett to call when she gets back in town.”
“I will,” I said. “Thank you, Sister.”
“You're a good man,” she told me, then got out of the car and followed Tiasa into the house.
I sold the car at a lot in Jersey City, got maybe a quarter of what I paid for it back, and used some of my new cash to take a cab out to Newark Airport, where Matthew Twigg was booked on a Lufthansa flight to Dublin via Frankfurt that evening. I'd made a point of divesting myself of anything incriminating earlier in the day, sending the weapons I'd collected into the Hudson River along with the keys and radios I'd taken from the New Paradise PD. After a moment's deliberation, I'd sunk Vladek Karataev's BlackBerry, too.
It had confusing associations for me.
Before the flight, I used an international calling card to reach Bridgett and Alena in Ballygar. I gave them my flight details, told them they could expect me the following evening. Both were happy to hear the news, I thought, each for her own, separate, reasons.
The flight was long and uncomfortable, and the connection through Germany only made it worse. I tried sleeping, couldn't much manage it, and after three hours the battery on my battered and much-abused laptop gave up, leaving me alone with the in-flight entertainment and my thoughts. Mostly, I was worried for Tiasa, if I was doing right by her.
It was just past five in Dublin when we touched down, and by the time I'd cleared customs it was a quarter to seven and already dark. When I emerged into the baggage claim, I was surprised to see both Alena and Bridgett waiting for me.
“She thought we should come to get you,” Bridgett said as I approached.
I made a beeline for Alena, feeling the smile come onto my face unbidden. She looked, to my eyes, great, better than when I'd finally caught up to her in Odessa. Maybe it was just the light, but I thought that the cliché about how pregnant women glow had to have some merit to it, because she certainly seemed to be doing so to me. She was also beginning to show, and my reaction to the sight of the slight bump at her belly took me by surprise, delighted me.
“Hello,” Alena said.
I didn't bother to drop my bags, just wrapped my arms around her and kissed her.
“Oh Christ,” Bridgett muttered. “Should I get you two a room?”
I ignored her, told Alena, “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” she said, and actually smiled at me, then followed it with another kiss, this one even sweeter than the first.
“Please, please, please stop doing that where I can see it,” Bridgett begged. “For the sake of my stomach if not my sanity.”
“One wonders what she would do if forced to watch us fuck,” Alena murmured.
“Gouge my eyes out, to start. The car's this way, come on,” Bridgett said, then turned and began threading her way out of the airport. I took Alena's hand, held it as we followed her to where their rental was parked, the same Ford Focus that Bridgett had been driving last time. We shoved my bags in the trunk, and Alena insisted on my taking the front passenger seat, I think mostly because she didn't want to be that close to Bridgett.
It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Ballygar, and the first half was spent with me relating what had happened since I'd left Ireland. For once, I didn't feel the need to spare any details. When I told them about the drop site in the desert, the concrete building with its jerry can and galvanized bucket, each of them swore under their breath, muttering the same curse, but in different languages.
By the time I was finished, we'd reached the N61, the road all but empty, the night sky clear and full of stars. For a while, none of us said anything, and there was only the expanse of Ireland 's fields and the sound of the road and the engine.
Then Bridgett asked, “So am I finished here?”
“You could head home tomorrow,” I said. “Cashel wants you to call when you get back into town, by the way.”
“Of course she does. Tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“You don't need me around for another day or two?”
“I'd welcome the company,” I said.
Bridgett lifted her chin, indicating Alena's reflection in the rearview mirror. “She wouldn't.”
I expected Alena to offer a retort, or at least a confirmation, and when none came turned my head to see that the reason she'd become so silent was because she'd fallen asleep. Either that or she was avoiding participating in the conversation by pretending to fall asleep. I brought my attention back to the road.
“Maybe not, but she appreciates what you've done for us. I do, too.”
“Good, you should.” She sounded satisfied. “You know where you're going next?”
I shook my head. “Haven't had much time to think about it.”
“You could come back to the States. It's a big country, I'm sure you two could find a nice quiet corner to hide in for happily ever after.”
“You think?”
“Like I said, it's a big country.”
“No, the ‘happily ever after’ part.”
Bridgett grunted. “Fuck if I know. You two and baby makes three.”
I thought about that, didn't speak. Thinking about the future, at least outside of the immediate future, wasn't something I'd devoted time to in years. When we'd lived in Kobuleti, the days had all seemed alike, and even as they passed, time felt like it was standing still. That was until Bakhar had died, until Tiasa had been taken, and in that, it seemed, our life there had been revealed for the purgatory it had been.
I was still thinking about it, lost in my thoughts, when the headlights burst into the car, shining much too close and much too bright. They appeared suddenly, no warning at all, and whoever was behind the wheel had been driving with them off, and as I realized that, I realized we were in trouble.
Bridgett knew it, too, managed to say “What the fuck?” and then followed it with an emphatic “Shit!” as the car behind us tried to clip our rear bumper. The Ford swerved, and she fought it back into line, accelerating. The road stretched straight and thin ahead of us as far as the headlights could see, no turnoffs, no buildings, just field on either side. From the backseat I heard Alena start awake. I twisted in the seat, got rocked a second time as the car following collided with us again.
“Stay down,” I told Alena. She was wearing her seatbelt, which reassured me somewhat.
“Who are they?” Alena demanded.
“No fucking idea,” I said. “Don't suppose either of you have a gun?”
“Talk to her,” Alena snarled.
“I told you, it's Ireland,” Bridgett snapped back, her eyes dancing between the view out the windshield and the view in the mirrors. “They don't like people having guns here!”
“Let's hope whoever's trying to drive us off the road had the same problem,” Alena said.
“I hate you,” Bridgett told her.
Behind us, the car was coming up for another try. As it swung out, I saw a new set of headlights revealed behind it, a second car, following close on the first.
“Now there are two of them,” I remarked.
“I can see that!”
“Don't you think you should lose them?”
“The fuck you think I'm trying to do?”
The Ford rocked again, and I heard something crack on either our car or theirs, and suddenly our wheels broke with the road and we were spinning and sliding. Headlights seemed to flash from impossible angles, Bridgett swearing a blue streak, and I heard the engine scream in agony as she tried to treat the automatic transmission like it was a manual. We flipped around, facing the opposite direction, still moving, now in reverse, and the motor was shrieking like it was about to burst.
“Try to PIT me, motherfucker?” Bridgett said, and wrenched the wheel again, stomping pedals and yanking on the shifter. The Ford flipped around in a J-turn, once more heading the right direction, and then there was a gunshot, and just as suddenly, instead of being on the road we were off of it. The suspension bounced us like kernels in hot oil, and I realized we'd lost a tire to a blowout. The car slewed crazily in soft earth, and both pairs of headlights were still coming after us.
Whoever it was, they had demonstrated their sincerity, even if they lacked skill. The PIT-precision immobilization technique-as Bridgett had called it, was used mostly by law enforcement to immobilize a target vehicle during a pursuit. When executed properly, the fleeing car would be nudged just enough out of line to force a spin that would bring it to a halt. When executed improperly, any number of things could happen, normally beginning and ending with the word “crash.”
Which was exactly what happened to us next.