“Did he tell you what it was he thought you needed?”
He sighs. “I nearly shot him. My gun was on the other side of the room at the time, or I think I probably would have.” A pause. “He told me I simply needed to be loved. Real unconditional love. It didn’t have to be romantic, but that was the most likely source. His next words I couldn’t forget if I tried, not in a million years. ‘You were mistreated by your mother. Unparented. This, I can fix. I can help you learn to re-parent yourself. Your history is sordid, your family steeped in blood and greed and many other evil things. I can help you overcome your self-loathing, and I can help you learn to let the past simply be exactly that—the past. What I cannot do is love you. You suffer from an acute lack of love. You were not hugged. You were not cherished. No one simply cared for you, for no reason other than that theyenjoyyou. Until you are loved—until you are capable ofallowingsomeone to love you, you will never be whole.’” He swallows hard. “Those words hurt me more deeply than any words I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Nothing my mother ever said cut me that deeply—perhaps I was simply used to that from her. His words hurt because I knew they were true. But also because I didn’t believe Icouldbe loved. That anyone could love me—because no one ever had. The one person who should have, didn’t. Couldn’t.”
“God, Apollo.” I reach for him, and he tangles his hand in mine, and our eyes meet. “Iloveyou. Unconditionally. Deeply. Permanently. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. “I said that, at the beginning of this. To Uncle Harris, I think it was. That I would do anything for you. But…it was really tested, today.” I wipe my face. “God, has it all been just today? It feels like a million years since I got on this truck for the first time.”
He looks at me. “It was hard to accept that you love me. Even…even after I left you, to become a better person, a person worthy of your love…it wasn’t--I hadn’t trulyacceptedthat you love me. Deep down, you know? Not in my soul. I knew it, but I hadn’t…internalized it. And that meant I couldn’t be whole. And if I’m not whole, I can’t love you. Not fully.”
“So, when did that change?”
“When you opened the door to my cell.” He closes his eyes, a tear trickling down his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away, isn’t ashamed of or threatened by it. “When the door opened, I expected Sasha, or Harris, or Duke, or…one of them. I knew they’d come for us. I knew that. And I think in my gut, I knew you’d insist on being part of it. But I…I honestly had hoped you wouldn’t endanger yourself. Because if anything happened to you, because of me? I couldn’t bear it. But…when that door opened and you stood there like an avenging angel, covered in blood and looking so fierce, so beautiful…that’s when something inside me just…clicked. I knew during the hours of travel that I loved you, and that you deserved to hear it from me. I knew I’d say it, I knew I’d find some way of forcing myself to say the words I knew I meant, that I knew I felt, that were and are true inside me. But it was that moment, seeing you in the doorway with the rifle, with such ferocity and such love in your eyes. That was the moment I understood. Youloveme. In a way I don’t think most people could ever fathom. How we started, what it took for us to be able to be together…and then this? You stormed a fortress full of hired killers and you rescued me. Youkilledfor me.”
“I actually infiltrated. Harris and the guys did the storming.” I glance at him. “You saw love in my eyes when I opened the door? It’s hard to remember what I was feeling—that whole assault and rescue is a blur…except the parts that are frozen in my brain.”
He nods, then shrugs. “It’s hard to describe, honestly. You looked at me, and…yes, I saw love. A flash of it, at least—brief, but very potent. Relief. Anger. It was all wrapped up in this rabid ferocity, this sense that no one and nothing was going to stand in your way—and I was the focus of that.”
I think, head tilted. “Yeah, that’s about right.”
He glances at a sign above the highway we’re on—it’s mostly in Arabic writing, but there are some numerals, and two words in English, the names of towns, I assume, with arrows pointing to the upcoming exit. “Take this exit.” He glances at the crude map. “Then left, I believe…wait, no…right. Take the exit and then turn right.”
The exit is a long wide curve which arcs all the way back around and over the highway via the overpass we just went under—this leads to another smaller highway, which extends a few miles through more arid desert, and then a roundabout takes us into a small town. It’s quaint. Low buildings, cracked pavement. Apollo consults the map as we roll slowly through the town—there are a few people out, here and there; we receive long, curious stares. Finally, after a few wrong turns, we come to an auto repair shop on the outskirts of the town—there’s a large lot attached to it, the pavement cracking and overgrown with weeds, the lot littered with old cars in varying states of disrepair, most of them in the process of being slowly stripped for parts. The shop itself has two bays, open, one of them featuring a lift, on which is an old sedan of a make and model I don’t recognize. Two men in dirty gray coveralls stand underneath it, peering at the underside—this is utterly familiar, the postures, the way they point and gesture, consult back and forth.
They see us approaching in the huge military truck, and turn away from the car on the lift, ambling slowly toward us as I bring the truck to a halt on the apron of their shop’s driveway.
I shut the engine off, set the brake, and grab the handgun, check the load, and shove it behind my back, draping my shirt over it as I descend. Apollo follows suit, leaving the M-16 for now, the note from the officer in his hand.
The older of the men, stout and balding, approaches us. “American?”
“We speak English, yes,” Apollo says.
“English, okay.” He gestures at the truck. “Bad time, hey?”
Apollo hands him the note. “Yeah, you could say that.”
The man takes it, scans it. “What you want?”
“Youssef sent us. We want to trade that,” Apollo gestures at the truck, “for something…smaller. Not so much attention. Something that will get us to Tunis.”
The man chuckles. “Tunis, hmm?” He walks over to the truck, fingers a few of the bullet holes. “You have trouble?”
“Hopefully not anymore.”
A nod. “You pay?”
“No. Trade.”
“Trade.” He nods, scratches his belly. “Trade, okay. I got it for you. Come, come.”
We follow him around to the back of the shop, where a dozen or twenty cars are lined up in rows. Some are fairly decent, on the older side but decent. Other are…salvaged is a nice term. Operational, but barely. He surveys the cars, muttering under his breath; turns and looks the way the truck is, as if he can see it through the building; scratches his bald spot.
He gestures at a four-door sedan. It was maybe a Volvo, once upon a time. Most of the body is pale blue, but one rear quarter panel has been replaced with a maroon piece that doesn’t quite fit, hastily cut and soldered into place. The hood is different again, and doesn’t latch properly. I’m not sure it has any windows, and it appears to not have a muffler, either, from what I can tell; I’m not exactly a car girl, but it’s obvious this guy is ripping us off, even considering the age and condition of the truck.
Apollo frowns at the man. “Come on. It’s got to get us to Tunis in one piece.”
The man chuckles again. “Better, hmm? You beg, no choose, hmm?” He scratches his belly again, ambling along the row of cars, until he comes to a boxy SUV—a classic Toyota in fairly decent condition. “Like this? Is good. All in one piece. Engine good, hmmm?”
Apollo nods, opens the driver’s door and pops the hood, lifts it, leans over and examines.
I go over up next to him. “You know what you’re looking at?” I ask in a whisper.
