Adventure Story

Caitlin looked upon the retreating backs of Antichrist I and Antichrist II (formally known as Jessica Neafie and Jonathan De Vine). She decided that she was no longer on speaking terms with either one of them for leaving them with the Bane of Her Current Existence. Of course, they didn’t know that he was the Bane nor why, but that didn’t stop the anger and then the fear of being left alone with him again. She had always hated confrontation.
“Caitlin, you can’t keep ignoring me…or the issue,” Patrick told her. She scoffed.
“As a matter of fact, I can. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it, too, until our mutual acquaintance fucked me over.”
“Actually, it looked as though he was fucking your friend,” he smiled. She gave him a Look, and he stopped laughing. “Caitlin, you are everything I want in a woman. You’re beautiful; you’re intelligent; you’re brilliant in bed…why won’t you marry me?” Caitlin just looked at him, into his eyes, and he felt cold.
“Because it isn’t enough.” A harsh noise came out of the back of his throat. “No, listen, to you I am a generic prize to be won. That’s fine for you, but it isn’t for me. I am not an ideal woman and if you think that I am, when you discover all my imperfections you’ll despise me for them, and I won’t be despised for being human. But even…even if it was enough, even if you loved every flaw and every failure, I still don’t know if it would be enough. Because I don’t love you and I don’t know if I can love anybody, but it isn’t you, and I’m sorry.” She paused, and a phone chirped.
“It’s mine,” she said apologetically. She looked at the text filling up the screen and paled. A tune – Nessun Dorma, he realized – rose softly from her phone, and she answered in some language he couldn’t understand. Her voice was hard as diamonds, and she swallowed as if she were being strangled. She said something final and sad and angry before signing off. Her eyes were fierce and her face hard lines as she looked up to him.
“Patrick, I have to go. Please tell them that I had to leave…that I received an urgent message and couldn’t be delayed. I…I’ll try to be back in a few days.”
“Are you alright? I mean, I can get Jessica for you…”
“No,” she cut him off with some alarm in her voice. “No, I need to go alone. Thank you, though, for your concern. It’s very kind of you, considering what I said.”
“It’s nothing,” he shrugged.
“We’re alright, though, aren’t we?” she asked. He nodded, and she turned to leave. Patrick called out to her.
“I’m sure that someday you’ll find somebody to love.” She looked at him oddly.
“Thank you…that was Queen, wasn’t it?” He thought about it.
“Oh, god, it was.” She smiled slightly as he hung his head.
“Don’t worry; I won’t tell a soul…besides I like Queen.”

Five minutes later, Patrick Sloane walked back into the large exhibit room, sipped his champagne, and watched Jonathan do a slinky, slightly disturbing but technically correct version of the tango with his girl. He felt mildly displeased with himself for letting Caitlin go off distressed, and slightly less upset at not telling her friends about her departure or her attitude. He had learned, though, to trust Caitlin’s instincts and decisions. She was intelligent and played the Game well. She normally came to a wise course of action, and was wildly successful because she followed it with her entire being. He never knew when she did something with less than 110% of effort, which was one of the most attractive things about her.
He grabbed another glass from a passing waiter and downed it quickly. He watched Jonathan and Jessica move from a tango to a waltz to a walk toward another couple. He guessed that the girl was the other in the trio, and when he noticed their approach he knew he was right.
“Hello,” the nameless one said, “You must be Mr. Sloane.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied. They shook hands. He felt robotic.
“My name is Julie, this is Eric, and you already know Jessica and Jonathan.” He nodded, and noticed Jessica move her eyes over the room.
“Where is Caitlin?” she asked finally, directing her full attention to his answer. He cleared his throat.
“She stepped out.”
“Excuse me?” Her voice was flat but expressive and her eyes were glaring daggers at him; she thought he had hurt her, and he laughed inwardly at the irony. Julie’s eyes moved from him to her friend and back.
“Explain yourself,” she said finally. He shrugged.
“She received a phone call and had to step out.”
“Did it sound like her family?” Jessica asked, knowing the problems Caitlin had had recently with her parents and sister; they were one of the few reasons Caitlin would ever leave by herself from a party. He shrugged carelessly.
“It was in a language I couldn’t understand…it sounded like an African dialect, though, and I didn’t know she spoke any of those.”
“You know Caitlin…personally?” Julie asked. “When did this happen?”
“Jonathan and I stumbled across them in the hall,” Jessica began mischievously. “She and Mr. Sloane were discussing something very intimately…I couldn’t hear it, but I can imagine…”
“No, it was nothing like that. We ran into each other at a conference last year and we were talking about an issue that still could not be discussed in public. We had tried to find a private hall, but obviously it wasn’t private enough.” Everyone looked skeptical.
“Right, Mr. Sloane…well, I’m sure Caitlin can take care of herself…Now, what is this job you wanted to see us about?”


Caitlin rushed from the exhibition. The text message and following phone call had not brought good news. She had worked on a project in the Congo the previous year which had put her into a torture camp and had only escaped by the skin of her teeth. The project was working on opening certain areas to food relief and health care and general aid, but the local governments had not been happy with her presence. Now, it seemed, more torture camps had been set up and they had begun to not only hurt and kill the women she was helping, but also the children. They had also taken one of her close friends, Mollie Cain.
The alert had come from one of the other ladies on the project, Beth Reed, who had been instrumental in the engineering of compounds, shelters, bridges, and other pieces that would help the delivering of help. She had received the news that day that Mollie had been missing for at least four days. It did not look good.
Caitlin was on the first plane to Moscow; she had a contact to meet.

Jonathan began explaining how he had first met Mr. Sloane and how the elder man worked for a group that investigated pieces collected and archived by the British Museum and several other smaller museums around the globe. One of the pieces, now believed to be the key to the most awesome linguistic and historical breakthrough since the Rosetta stone and perhaps even more so than, had been stolen the week before.
“It’s made of gold,” Patrick explained. “It was a table that witnessed most of the diplomatic negotiations of the ancient world. It has several different languages and could open up our understanding of the linguistics and communication of that time. But it has not been stolen for its historical worth. It has been stolen because of the gold. The gold is so perfect we are not sure how they were able to get it so fine, so pure. It has no impurity except for one and we believe that that was intentional. Those responsible for its kidnapping are, we believe, more worried about the pricelessness of the gold rather than the incredible opportunities written upon it. We need to discover exactly who has stolen it, where they have hidden it, and we need to get it back. If we don’t have it within a week, I’d say that we are too late and that it has been destroyed and lost forever.” Patrick looked at the girls’ faces; Julie looked thoughtful, but Jessica was sold. He knew she was as passionate about saving anything that might provide information about the ancient world as both Caitlin and Jonathan. After another quick look at Julie (disregarding poor Eric), he knew he had them, hook, line, and sinker.