Flight of Fancy

Ana and David’s parents stood in front of the house in shock, not being able to speak for a long time. David’s father broke the silence.

“So what do we do now?” he said in a shaky voice. He was a man prone to panic and you could already hear it starting to creep in.

Both Ana and David’s mother remained silent for a moment. Then Ana realised what was the next logical step.

“Let’s go to the police station,” she said. “And see what we can do.”

They all went inside the house and got dressed properly and in several minutes were outside the house again, ready to go. David’s father drove and they arrived in about 10 minutes.

The police station was a very small local affair, so Ana thought they wouldn’t have any difficulties finding David and maybe even talking to him. They went up to the front desk and Ana asked about David. The officer looked around in his papers for a while, then said: “We don’t have anyone with that name here.”

“Can you please check again?” asked Ana. “They just took him from outside our house about 15 minutes ago.”

“I can’t see him,” he said. “Also, I’ve seen all the people come through the front door in the last hour and we haven’t had anyone new come through.”

Confused, the family walked backed to the car. After a short discussion, they decided to go back home and try to telephone other police stations.

After being driven to the local police station, a confused David was handed over to the American agents, who put him in the back of their SUV, with an agent on each side. David didn’t like being in cramped spaces, so this was doubly difficult for him, as he was not only surrounded by people, but people who for some reason wanted to put him behind bars.

There didn’t seem to be any reason to talk, so he just remained quiet, though he did see glances in the mirror coming from the front seat, from the man in charge. None of the other agents said anything. They probably enjoyed the torturous silence, which made their prisoners squirm even more and admit to anything in the end. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing and this scared the living shit out of David, who had heard of the atrocities American agents and soldiers were capable of committing. True, most of it was whispers and classed as conspiracy theory, but the way his freedom was taken away from him would seem like madness to everyone.

Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

They weren’t really sleeping, but he didn’t want to poke around too much. They had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to make him look guilty and now he was obviously an international criminal, as the local police force gave him up without much of a fight.

The only worry was that his family wouldn’t know where he went. Perhaps the Slovenian policeman would be kind enough to tell them what happened. Still, he didn’t have his hopes up. A phone call seemed like a lifetime away at this moment, but Ana’s voice was the only thing on his mind, besides the dread of what would happen next.

Luckily, the roads they drove on were familiar to him – still. They would eventually go down a route he wouldn’t recognise, he was sure of that. And God knows what they would do to him, with him. There wasn’t really anything to confess.

He took brief glances of both agents next to him, one female and one male. They both appeared in peak physical shape and they probably knew some deadly martial arts.

No sense in trying anything.

They were still on the highway, but the female driver took an exit. He knew exactly where they were, but they were near the Slovenian coast now and the roads here were less familiar, so soon he would not recognise the landscape. It didn’t really matter. Even if they had him in a huge skyscraper in the biggest city, he wouldn’t be any safer. That’s just the way it was with people who worked for people with great power.

How long have we been driving? Must be about two hours.

They were no longer on any roads he recognised. The area they were in was very remote with the last traces of settlements behind them. They were on a road in a dense forest, which seemed to be going on forever. Usually, the large evergreen trees made him feel at ease and safe, but now they cast an ominous shadow over his life.

After another fifteen minutes of driving in this kind of setting, they came to a clearing and he noticed a few structures appearing in the distance. As they grew nearer, they became familiar to him. It was an army encampment.

Must be one of those NATO things.

As they approached the drab buildings, he felt that he had probably seen Ana and the rest of his family for the last time.

How quickly life turns from boring routine to crazy whirlwind torture.

Even though his life prior to these moment had seemed dull and mundane, he would do anything to get that back.

Nothing wrong with boring, nothing wrong with boring at all!

*****************************

There was very little Steven Keffler could do now. His teams had arrested “suspects” all over the world and now would have to find out if any of them had been hiding something. His teams knew how to get information. They had been trained at that. There weren’t any concerns about that. The biggest worries were that they would come up empty-handed. In that case, there remained only one possible explanation.

Stupid thing!

How could he have a meeting with his superiors and tell him that? They would eat him alive. He had a strong hunch that this worst case scenario would come true and they wouldn’t find a single thing.

Of course, they would dispose of the local people involved. That wouldn’t be an issue. But the root of the problem would still be a thorn in their sides. His superiors hated loose ends and this one was so loose you could tie a ribbon around the moon with it.

Waiting!

Again, he had to wait for any results. It would take time, he realised that and would not rush his teams. The job had to be done properly. But it was excruciating, especially knowing the repercussions it would have for him if the teams found nothing.

The meeting with his superiors was less than a week away now. He dreaded every meeting with them, but this time he really felt his life could be at stake.

***************************

Ana was at her wits’ end, but she tried to keep a composed appearance for David’s parents. His father in particularly was losing the plot completely.

“What do we do now?” cried David’s father in hysterics.

They had called all the stations in the area, then pretty much all the stations in the country, with no luck. They went back to their local station and asked about the policeman who had arrested David. He was still on duty, so they waited for him at the police station for more than an hour. When he arrived, they asked him where David was and his reply was simply that the Americans took him. He didn’t know where or why, only that they had all the right papers and David was theirs. They then spoke to the commander, who made a few phone calls and told them that he knew as little as his colleague. It appeared as if David had vanished. They asked the policemen about rights and international laws and such, but they merely shrugged their shoulders. You could tell some of them could feel empathy for the family and couldn’t help, but some of them were just fed up with the questions and distraction, like the commander.

David’s father was still waiting for an answer and it seemed the wait was only deepening his fears.

“Let’s not panic now,” said Ana. “We need to think rationally.”

She was feeling anything but rational at the moment, but she couldn’t stand to see David’s father losing it like this.

“Ana’s right,” said David’s mother. “We have to think this through.”

There was a moment of silence. Ana realised how hard it was to think straight when there were so many things buzzing around in your brain at the same time, so many outcomes and so many possibilities.

“They were American agents,” she thought out loud.

David’s parents looked at her in hope.

“They were Americans, so they would have taken him somewhere that’s American in Slovenia…”

“Embassy!” shouted David’s mother. “The American embassy!”

They all looked at each other. Ana was getting to that conclusion, but she was glad somebody else still regained a shred of sanity.

Ana called the American embassy, but it was out of their office hours, so she had to leave a voice mail.

“They open at 9 in the morning,” she said dejectedly. “I’ll call again tomorrow.”

They all sighed deeply, obviously still thinking of any earlier solutions. There appeared to be nothing to do but wait. There would be no sleep in their household that night, Ana was sure of that.

***************************

When they arrived at the army base in Slovenia, Dawson put David in a cell and said: “Think about your actions, young man,” then left him to his own devices. David still had more luxury than he deserved – his own toilet and bed.

The bosses wanted to leave David in his cell for a while before the questioning would begin. He was restless to begin, but procedure was procedure and you had to follow it.

Dawson was pleased how smoothly it had all gone – no complications from local police, no interference, nothing. These people obviously knew they were dealing with a superior force.

An army officer showed him to his quarters, which was basically just a room with a bed, a wardrobe and a nightstand.

Good enough!

Tomorrow would be a new day with new opportunities to prove one’s worth.