The Click

With the help of a group of black men, the taxi and shuttle wedged through a

storm of journalists who caught them stopping near the gate of the School of Learning. Hitch jumped out from the taxi, pulling Meta with him. Most of the black men, DanShebans Hitch guessed, held back the crowd allowing them to reach the gate.

He watched two of the DanShebans enter the shuttle and lead Barnaby off, followed by Kathy, and then someone Hitch didn’t recognize, Dr. Ringthaller. Kathy waited by the shuttle door as the two DanShebans went back on and brought Christopher off in a gurney along with an IV bottle and tubes.

Before Hitch realized it, Barnaby was standing next to him. “He’s sedated and no changes for the worst,” Barnaby whisper.

“And Kathy?”

“Up and down, I’m afraid. I have a feeling actually being here, not in the abstract, is going to throw her for a loop.”

Hitch nodded, then approached the gurney and looked at Kathy. She glanced away. He inspected Christopher’s V-Mark and bit his tongue, trying not to grimace. It seemed larger and blacker. The roughness around the edges were blistering and migrating to the center. He couldn’t help but wonder whether he had the three weeks he told Delahunt he needed to … to what? He looked around. Jesus! What have I done? With that question rumbling through his brain he turned back to his daughter.

“Kathy.”

She stepped toward him as a soldier ready to do battle with the enemy might and confronted him with venom in her eyes. “What are we doing in this hell hole? Christopher’s death will be on your soul, just as...” She stopped herself.

As he was about to say something, not sure what considering he was asking himself the same question, he felt the immediate presence of an older man and younger woman, both Indians. He felt the man tug at his sleeve.

“As promised. Here she is.” Julian announced in whisper.

Barnaby obviously overhearing that rushed over and put his arms around Elana just as the gate to the Jewish School of Learning opened. Julian turned to leave when Hitch stepped in his path.

“I think not,” Hitch barked.

“I delivered,” Julian shot back, now close enough for Hitch to smell the Indian makeup that transformed his friend into his enemy.

“I can see that but what’s the rush?”

Julian tried to step around Hitch. “I wasn’t planning on …”

Hitch laughed. “Consider this Plan B.” He took Julian by his real arm and coerced his friend through the gate which closed behind all of them.

Meta who was now standing next to Hitch picked up her scud and made a call. “We’re here as planned. … …. Yes, all of us including Dr. Wu and it’s like a circus outside the gates, as I had hoped. … … I will. And let the president know.”

Meta led them past the one-room school houses that Hitch recognized and a long one-story building that contained all the administrative offices. Near the far end of the campus grounds, she directed them into the Teacher’s House, a three-story home large enough to house many people comfortably. A late evening buffet of cold cuts, fruit, salad, and brownies for dessert monopolized the large dining room table along with coffee, tea, and juices on the sidebar under the dining room window. In the meantime, three of the DanShebans gathered up every one’s luggage and personal belongings and took them away.

“I suggest we all take a deep breath, relax, and eat up,” Meta announced as she took a clean plate and stepped to the table.

“Shouldn’t we get settled and unpack?” Kathy asked.

“I think we can wait for that, my dear,” Meta said as she continued to fill her plate. For the next forty-five minutes, the group including a number of the DanShebans

sat in front of a fire blazing within a beautiful used brick fireplace serving as the focal

point in a very large living room. Barnaby, Kathy and Hitch ate in one corner around a game table with Christopher in his gurney next to her. Kathy only nibbled, refusing to look at her father. Dr. Ringthaller sat on the other side of the gurney close to his charge. The doctor looked to be about forty, Hitch thought. He was a quiet man, thin, with thick red hair and wore dark rimmed glasses. Hitch was glad he came along.

Just as everyone was finishing, Elana stepped into the living room carrying a full plate, with new clothes and looking like herself. Hitch couldn’t help but stare.

Kathy looked at her watch and then glanced over at her son. “I think it’s time we retire. She jumped from her chair and walked around the gurney to talk to Dr. Ringthaller, as Hitch bit his tongue and followed his daughter’s every move.

Elana sat in the now empty chair next to Hitch who took her hands in his, below the table’s edge so no one would see. Their eyes met. “I was beginning to think we might never have that pizza together,” he said with a smile that was meant to be more than a smile.

She squeezed his hand and ignoring any onlookers reached over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for getting me out of that … place.”

He wanted to kiss her back but stopped short after glancing over at Kathy who was glaring at him.

Elana shifted her attention to the three figures across the room, Julian sitting on the steps with a DanSheban on either side. She looked back at Hitch, questioningly.

“It’s a long story. … Later.” He rose from his chair and approached Kathy and the doctor. She turned her back on him and marched toward the bathroom.

Just as Kathy returned, Meta stepped into the living room. “If everyone has had enough, please leave your plates where they are and follow me.”

Rather than leading them up a beautiful light oak winding staircase to the bedrooms on the second and third floors, as everyone had expected, she directed them along a narrow hallway, down a dozen steps, and into a large dorm room. Meta asked everyone to step away from the center of the room when a large rectangle in the tile floor began pivoting downwards, as if by magic, exposing an opening into what appeared to be

a cellar. Shortly thereafter, a set of portable stairs leading downwards mysteriously appeared from below.

Just as all the confusion rang loudly across everyone’s face, a DanSheban in a black T-shirt and blue denim overalls came up the steps from below, nodded to Meta without saying a word, and dropped back into the shadows below.

“I believe we are ready,” Meta said and began leading the entire party into the cellar. “There are twelve steps down so please be careful and hold on to the railing.” It took three DanShebans and Hitch to bring Christopher down on his gurney.

Once they were all below ground, Meta motioned them to move up against one wall forming part of a large dimly lit basement with a set of what looked to be railroad tracks running across the floor from a tunnel less than fifty yards away. No one spoke. They were too astonished and as they took in the scene, two DanShebans rolled the stairs out from under the opening and into one corner of the basement after which the floor automatically moved back up to close off the subterranean ceiling. As it did, they could feel the ground rumble under their feet. A miniature train with engines on the front and back rounded the corner after humming through the tunnel and stopped in front of them.

“Would someone pinch me,” Barnaby finally said and everyone burst out laughing.

The engineer, another DanSheban, jumped from the front engine and hurried to the back engine while the passengers were helped in by the DanShebans that had brought Christopher down. Two of those DanShebans stayed with Julian while Hitch sat with Elana and Barnaby sat with Meta. There was a flatbed car behind Hitch for Christopher’s gurney. Dr. Ringthaller sat behind the gurney and Kathy sat in front of it. Hitch turned back to Kathy who again looked away. He took a deep breath and sighed.

Elana squeezed his arm and whispered in his ear. “She’ll be fine. You’ll see.” The train hummed through miles of underground passages that made Hitch

wonder. How long ago were they dug? How did the DanShebans managed to dig them without anyone knowing? One thing was for sure. These were people to reckon with.

Each turn to the left and right, and there were many, bolstered his confidence that they were on the right track. He laughed aloud at the unintended pun causing Elana to turn and smile. She surely was beautiful, he thought. Hopefully she was just as smart when it came to the vaccine. That thought caused him to look back at his grandson and his daughter who at the time was leaning over Christopher and combing her fingers through his hair. … Hopefully Elana was right … Kathy will be fine … but only if her remaining son lives. He clinched his teeth and closed his eyes trying his best to push Delahunt from these thoughts, trying his best to sidestep his role in this genetic debacle.

Before long they pulled into another large cellar similar to the previous one. Several DanShebans escorted them up the same type of portable stairs and into the back of a warehouse. From there two black men wearing black jackets with East Bombay Fish Co printed across their backs led them out of the warehouse and onto a dilapidated wharf. In the distance a flotilla of large VAMA warships could be seen at the East Bombay Wharf, and that image quickly deflated Hitch’s confidence.