Марк Грини - One Minute Out

There was a low rise and once the G-Wagen crested it, she peered through the front windshield and saw a massive stucco house, the biggest home she’d ever laid eyes on in her life. It was clearly Hispanic architecture, and when they pulled to a stop in front of it, she saw more Latino men in suits standing around carrying guns.

She and the Hungarian girl followed Dr. Claudia up the steps and through the massive double-door entrance to the building. Inside it was cool and dark, and Roxana saw a beautiful young redhead wearing a low-cut evening dress standing there, a glass of champagne in her hand. Roxana was certain it was morning still, and she couldn’t fathom why the girl would dress in this manner so early in the day.

Claudia led the women up two flights of stairs and down a hallway. As they walked they passed other girls, all young, some very young, and all dressed exotically in one form or another. None of the girls talked to Roxana or Sofia; some did greet Claudia, but others just looked away.

Roxana was certain that most, if not all, of these girls had been drugged. She could see the distant eyes and slow movement, and she assumed it was more of the Xanax she’d been given sporadically throughout this ordeal.

Sofia spoke up as they neared a door at the end of an ornate hall. “Dr. Claudia? How many girls are kept here?”

Claudia answered, “No one is kept here, they all want to be here.”

“How many women want to be here?” Sofia asked.

“At any one time, twenty or so. I don’t know what the occupancy is now.”

They passed a window and Roxana slowed and looked out, again searching in vain for clues as to their location.

Soon Claudia led them into a bedroom, with an adjoining door to the next bedroom. “Maja, you will be in here, and Sofia, just through that door is your room.”

Roxana found the space to be beautiful, large, and well-appointed with antique furniture. A four-poster bed, a makeup vanity and a chest of drawers, a sitting area, and a massive oak wardrobe accented the room. She followed Sofia into her bedroom and found it similar but not identical, with a different color scheme. Claudia directed them to their closets, which were full of clothes, including expensive-looking evening gowns along with more revealing attire.

Roxana could see Sofia’s eyes light up upon seeing the clothes, upon taking in her new living space. The American psychologist had done a good job brainwashing her, Roxana determined.

After the women were settled in, Claudia said someone would be by shortly to take them on a tour of the house. She explained that although they were not allowed to go outside without permission, the building itself was theirs to roam if they wanted to.

Soon the door was closed between Roxana and Sofia’s rooms. Roxana and Claudia stood by her new bed, and the Romanian woman could feel the eyes of the American peering into hers, trying desperately, Roxana imagined, to see if her compliance was genuine.

Roxana masked her true intentions, of course. She was here to help her sister, just like she’d been from the beginning, although right now she had no idea how to be any use to her at all. There were no phones in the room, she’d passed none walking through the house, and, anyway, she didn’t know where the fuck she was.

Finally Claudia looked away from Roxana and at her watch as she said, “I have sessions with some other residents. I will be back here to see you each day for the next five days. You will have good days and bad; that is to be expected. I want to make sure you are settling in.”

Roxana was confused. “You don’t stay here at the property?”

Claudia shook her head. “No. I am not a part of what happens here. I am a part of the process that prepares you for it. I do not stay overnight. I will be back, and I will do what I can to help you.”

Gone was her unbridled optimism about Roxana’s time here on the West Coast. Now she seemed more sanguine, less upbeat.

Roxana decided to take a chance. “Where are we? What is this place?”

Claudia did not answer; she just stared again into the younger woman’s eyes for a long time. Eventually she said, “You should know . . . Jaco is onto you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, he knows about your sister.”

Roxana’s heart sank and she lowered onto the bed. She didn’t know what this meant for herself or for her sister, but panic welled within her.

She tried to play dumb. “What about my sister?”

But to this the psychologist just made a face of disappointment. “You should be proud of yourself for successfully pulling the wool over my eyes for a time. We’ve never had an infiltrator before, so I didn’t properly evaluate you. But now I see through you.”

“What is it that you see?”

“You don’t yet accept the fact that your fate is sealed, but you will soon, and as soon as you do, you will realize that your fate is what you make of it. Infiltrator or not, you can have a good time while you are here, if you just let it happen.”

Roxana didn’t understand this at all, but she was certain this doctor was pure evil, just as bad as the rest of them. She lay back on the bed without another word, and Claudia left the room, shutting the heavy door behind her.

• • •

Fifty-six-year-old Michael “Shep” Duvall slipped his reading glasses off, then put down his Bible. Sitting up from his worn recliner, he looked around the dark living room of his North Las Vegas bungalow.

Something was wrong, but he couldn’t say what.

He scratched at his gray beard, then stood, looked at the little plastic cuckoo clock on the wall, and saw that it was twenty-two hundred hours. He hadn’t read a clock in anything other than military time since he was eighteen years old and would need a second to realize that civilians would refer to the current time as ten p.m.

The dark house was empty and still; he lived alone, so this was no surprise, but something had alerted him, he was sure of it.

He soon pinpointed the source of his disquiet.

Where the hell was his dog?

Duvall’s four-year-old lab, Monkey, had access to the fenced-in front yard facing two-lane Hickey Avenue by means of a doggie door in the kitchen. She was in and out all evening, every evening, but by this late at night she could always be found on the threadbare brown love seat next to Duvall’s reading chair, either sleeping or just looking lovingly at her master, waiting to follow him to the bedroom for the night.

But the dog wasn’t on the love seat, and she wasn’t in the living room or in the little attached kitchen by her water bowl.

“Monkey?” he called out, half expecting the big black dog to shoot through the rubber-curtained doggie door from the outside, although it would be rare for her to be out so late.

But she did not come.

Duvall put on the glasses he wore for distance, and he hefted his Wilson Combat 1911 .45 caliber pistol off the end table next to him. He was not a tall man, but he was broad-chested and possessed a dominating persona when necessary. He could intimidate now, even in his mid-fifties, and even with the paunch that had grown around his midsection since he’d left the Agency.

And the big, stainless steel .45 only added to his intimidation factor.

He called for Monkey one more time, then flipped off the light next to his recliner and stepped to his kitchen door. Quietly he opened it; the business end of the pistol led the way outside, and he carefully walked the chain-link perimeter fence of his tiny property, looking for any sign of his companion.

Monkey was nowhere to be found; the rickety driveway gate was closed and locked.

Worried, but knowing he needed to check his bedroom and his tiny home office, he headed back into the house. He’d just moved through the kitchen for the back hall, had just slipped the Wilson Combat into his drawstring warm-up pants, when the light he’d flipped off by his recliner snapped back on.