Fury Read online

  FURY

  A novel

  Llewellin RG Jegels

  Copyright © Llewellin RG Jegels 2015

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any human or computer language, in any form or by any means whatsoever, without the express written permission of

  New Adventure Publishing

  P.O. Box 298

  Rondebosch

  7701

  Cape Town

  South Africa

  Internet Electronic Mail Address: [email protected]

  Published by New Adventure Publishing, April 2015

  ISBN: 978-1500625344

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I remain convinced that any successful endeavor always relies on some kind of collaboration. Even then one has no guarantee that any creative impulse will see the light of day. Often it requires the effort of months, even years and by then the journey will have taken one along paths not previously considered. The creation of this story is no different.

  The final product may look nothing like the first original idea that sparked the entire creative process. But that is the journey, and often one just plods along until eventually, before one realizes it, and not without much shedding of blood, sweat and tears along the way, one reaches the goalpost.

  And the end result stares one in the face like some monument to the collective effort of all involved.

  My gratitude to Barry whose creative input helped shape the initial manuscript and see it become a reality, to Elana for her invaluable support during the rewriting phase, to Dmitri who cast his trained editor’s eye over every word, to Melvin, Francoise and Denise who assisted in various ways, and to my family and friends whose constant encouragement remains the bedrock of all my effort.

  I salute you all.

  Truly, madly, deeply

  CHAPTER ONE

  The incessant noise coming from my phone’s tiny speaker made me wonder why I forgot to screen the world out with silent mode. Sleep in.

  Damn.

  You can’t keep up with the youngsters anymore. Move on.

  Yeah right.

  I reached over to the nightstand and searched for the phone, my eyes still closed, the hangover throbbing in my head made all the worse by the Progressive Rock number I stupidly chose as my ring tone at the club the previous night. My idea of a quiet evening became a night out to celebrate the birth of a friend’s firstborn.

  I understand. More to the point, I understood my friend’s turmoil amidst the celebration, calling me up and arranging to meet. This felt like his last night of real, unencumbered freedom, and he wanted to make merry before fatherhood swallowed up most, if not all, his free time.

  Yeah, I got it.

  Things started out innocently enough. A couple of beers, chatting about the usual suspects, the good old days. But somewhere along the line someone mentioned tequila. And other colorful things I couldn’t name right now.

  Things got a bit… hazy.

  So, when one of the lovely women celebrating with us asked if I liked her ringtone, I said ‘hell yeah.’

  And now it blasted me like the tiny angry god.

  What can I say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  But, for some bizarre reason, everything seems that way at two in the morning, when you’re surrounded by buddies and pretty women and the drinks are flowing like a river.

  Until the following morning.

  It’s funny how you never learn your lesson on that one. While the drinks are coming you don’t expect a hangover the following morning. You are absolutely sure everything will be fine.

  Even when the tequilas come out to play.

  Ah well.

  I opened an eye wide enough to slide the touch screen to answer, took a breath in an effort to not sound incredibly irritated, and said “What?” in an incredibly irritated tone.

  “Thomas?”

  I didn’t recognize the voice. Or rather, I did but my mind conspired against me.

  Damn. She still remembered my number.

  I didn’t think she would.

  Unbelievable.

  “Shelley,” I muttered, the fuzziness and mild hangover giving my voice an unintended edge.

  A moment’s hesitation.

  “Sorry to call you like this.”

  Jesus. “Yeah,” I replied. “Me too.”

  A sigh came through like a gentle breeze from the other end of the line, the sound of a woman on the edge of a very thin blade, teetering on the brink and about to go over. And not caring one way or the other.

  This couldn’t be good. I’d never heard her like this before.

  Angry? Yeah.

  Agitated? Hell yeah.

  But hopeless? No. Never hopeless. Stubborn? Yes. I don’t think she knew how to spell ‘docile’ much less ‘hopeless.’

  “Sorry,” I muttered, not really feeling sorry but thinking what the hell, let’s be the gentleman, she clearly needs it.

  “It’s okay,” she replied, her voice carrying a sense of… hopelessness again. “Look Tom, I need…”

  Then silence.

  The kind you only get when there’s a person on the other side who has something to say and doesn’t want to say it. Or rather, someone who has something she doesn’t want to say but knows she has to say it.

  “Shelley, it’s,” I glanced at my watch but couldn’t make out the time in the darkness, “the middle of the night.” A guess, but hell, I couldn’t see a thing in the dark, so it counted. “I can hear you’re in a… a bad place. But can’t you call back in the morning?”

  Yeah, but my head hurt which triggered a transformation into the werewolf of Seattle which didn’t exactly make me Mr. Nice Guy. I usually am, but not always. Not now. Not with my head exploding.

  “It’s just gone five.”

  “Close enough.”

  Another hesitation.

  I sighed, giving up and letting my better nature take over.

  “Ok, Shelley. What is it? What’s wrong?” Truth is, I started getting a bit worried about this, her complete lack of communication after deciding to phone me before the birds started singing. Something seemed off.

  “Jesus, Thomas,” she snapped. “I’m trying to get my shit together here. Can you throw me a bone? For old times’ sake?”

  “Last time I checked, things didn’t end well between us. I’m not sure you’ve earned enough points with me to justify a call like this. What do you think?”

  I disgusted myself and probably her too at my petulant reaction. Harsh, yeah.

  But things did not end well. And I experienced an almost adolescent need to take it out on her. Perhaps the hangover exerted a stronger influence on my mental state than I imagined.

  Perhaps not.

  “Thomas,” she tried again, taking a softer tone, which told me she didn’t have the energy for this. It surprised me. She’d always been up for a challenge in the past. But now…

  “Tom,” I said, matching her calmer tone. “I hate Thomas. I do. I’m still Tom, okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” she said softly. I perked up more, even managing to get my muscles in gear. I flicked on the bedside light and grabbed my smokes, lit up one. I needed no apology from her. The last mists of sleep vaporized, and I realized she wouldn’t be calling at all at this time of the morning unless something really troubled her.

  Something she couldn’t deal with on her own. Something she seemed to think only I could help her with. I’d completely missed it when I first picked up the phone.

  Score one for the triple-malt last night. Or the tequila.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, taking a deep drag from the smoke, feeling its tendrils flow down my throat, wondering about the s
eriousness of her situation, and why I received the call instead of her husband.

  Unless…

  “Tom, it’s Rachel.” Spoken softly, her tone almost hushed.

  “What about Rachel? What’s happened?” I felt a rising panic now. I loved my little girl. If anything happened to her, if anything happened…

  “She’s gone,” her voice breaking on the second word. A muffled sob, pulled quickly back under control, but there.

  One little sentence and my world fell apart.

  “Gone?” I said, trying for an even tone, trying not to freak us both out.

  “I think Don did it,” she continued, obviously trying to match my even tone of voice. “I think he took her.”

  Shelley’s husband, a bastard by all accounts, especially my own, but a good father who loved my daughter almost as much as I did. I harbored doubts about his love for his wife, some mutual friends saying he disregarded Shelley, took her for granted. His life revolved around Rachel but I acquired the information second-hand.

  But now this.

  I shook my head, trying to get myself awake faster without actually standing up, trying to get at what she meant.

  “Don took Rachel?” I asked.

  “I think so, yes,” Shelley began falling apart again, all the little tell-tale signs surfacing at once. Have to calm her down. Got to get to the bottom of the situation.

  “I’m sure they’re fine, Shel,” I said, thinking hard. What father takes his daughter out at six in the morning? “Perhaps he took her somewhere to see the sunrise?” I cringed even as I said it, but needed to work this out as we spoke, trying to multi-task while my composure started unravelling at a rate of knots.

  “I looked in her closets, her cupboards. He took some of her things.”

  Shit.

  “Such as?” Buying for time now, desperately trying to get my head in gear. Gather the Intel, work out a plan of action, execute.

  “Clothes, underwear, a backpack and a suitcase,” she paused for a moment, as if taking inventory. “Her mp3 player, the little pink one you gave her for Christmas. You remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” She could not contain her excitement when I bought it for her. I remember how she squealed in delight, how she wrapped her arms around me in a way I’d never forget.

  “Her phone?” I asked without much hope.

  “No,” she said, barely restraining the panic in her voice. “I’m sitting in her room. Her phone is charging. It’s… it’s…”

  “Take it easy,” I could be a complete idiot sometimes. You don’t tell a mother who’s lost her kid to fucking take it easy.

  “Tom…” She started breaking down, I could hear it as clear as crystal.

  “Why would your husband leave with Rach in the middle of the night, Shelley?” I asked, trying to reassure her but failing in my attempt. “I mean, you guys are happy together and-”

  “Last night, we fought again.”

  I felt no surprise on hearing the news. I pinged him as a bully and asshole the moment I met him, and he proved me right ever since.

  “You think he lost his temper? Needed a breather?” It didn’t make sense. A man has a fight with his wife, he’ll go off and have a few beers to cool down. What he won’t do is take his kid with him.

  “I asked him for a divorce,” Shelley said quietly. “He got upset, angry. But I stood my ground. He hit me, told me if I tried to leave him he’d take Rachel and leave, so I backed down. When I woke up this morning they were both gone.”

  Jesus.

  The guy held a Lebanese passport. If he planned on leaving his wife, and taking his kid with him, the obvious place would be to take her out of the country. Shelley realized this, and so did I, but neither of us said it.

  His family possessed wealth. Vast amounts of wealth. If he wanted to get away, to get his way, nothing could stop him.

  Except a bullet in the head.

  So Shelley came seeking my help.

  One of the reasons we ended the relationship revolved around my work as a Navy SEAL. Or rather, why she ended it. She couldn’t deal with the dangers of the job anymore, the constant anxiety. She always worried about the possibility of me coming home in a body bag. More than a young mother needed to cope with, deserved to have to cope with. The last heated argument also signified the beginning of the end. Or perhaps just the end.

  The inevitable outcome of a series of poor choices on my part. And all the time I’d fought back with perfect logic and well-honed, military grade negotiation skills, I’d known the battle at hand represented a losing proposition for me.

  So we ended up breaking it off but not even a year later she married him. I’d like to tell you I didn’t feel any jealousy. But I did without ever letting on. What would the point have been?

  We stayed in contact for a while. We still cared very much for each other. The chance for a reconciliation existed somewhere on the fringes of possibility.

  But then she moved to another city, and after a while the calls grew further apart, the emails less frequent, contact with my beloved Rachel fell by the wayside until eventually we just drifted apart entirely. The final implosion of the unseen emotional structures which keep a family together.

  And now, Shelley’s phone call…

  CHAPTER TWO

  After the call, I got up and went into the kitchen, poured a cup of the previous night’s coffee, and sat down at the window counter, staring at the slowly lightening day. The rain lashed the city, making the view hazy and devoid of color, like a picture taken in the 1920’s. It suited my mood perfectly.

  We’d made a plan to meet, at around eight at a coffee shop nearest to her place. Shelley felt strongly about meeting away from home but close by.

  I found it bizarre she wouldn’t meet at her place, even under these circumstances. She feared that somehow strangers monitored the place for some unknown reason.

  I did ask why, trying to get insight into her concerns, trying to figure if they were real, or just the delusions of a woman on the edge of the abyss.

  But then she’d told me, before hanging up, she’d suspected it for about six months now, which made me uneasy. If the surveillance predated Rachel’s abduction then more sinister reasons existed for it, which made her suspicion of being watched more real to me.

  And more disturbing. When pressed on the matter, however, she’d made it perfectly clear reasons existed for her suspicions, but nothing she’d get into over the phone, or in her house for that matter.

  I’d tried to explain her irrationality, without actually using the word ‘irrational’, mainly just to alleviate some of her anxiety, but she’d been adamant. So I agreed, mainly just to keep things moving, and we ended the call on an even gloomier note.

  Ah well…

  So I sat at the window, sipping on cold coffee and playing our conversation back in my head. The fight, the threat afterward, the missing stuff. The possibility of being under some kind of electronic surveillance by forces unknown to either of us. And finally, my missing girl.

  Rachel.

  Little Rachel.

  Shelley and I lived together for nearly five years. Rachel graced us with her presence two years in. An unexpected surprise.

  The breakup between Shelley and me wounded me especially because of Rachel, the thought of not seeing her regularly or if denied access, possibly not all, weighed me down. I’m pretty sure my little girl felt the same way.

  Shelley and I disagreed often when it came to my job, and I understood why. At the time I served on the front lines while she stayed at home, crying herself to sleep every night out of fear for my safety.

  And then, of course, all the special missions which resulted in extended periods of absence. Far too many for any relationship to stand. Calls would come in the middle of the night and I’d have to get out of bed, pack a light bag, and disappear for weeks at a time, without telling her of my whereabouts or what I would be doing when I got there.

  I told her the job nee
ded me, leaving at two in the morning with her sitting on our bed and crying, invariably waking a very young Rachel in the process which made matters worse.

  But I still couldn’t forgive her for ending it, not just with her, but with my little girl too. And I didn’t think I ever could.

  I understood, I did. But I lived for my little girl.

  So, not even three months after we broke up, she met Don.

  Handsome, wealthy, tall, dark and psychotic Don.

  He completely knocked her off her feet, apparently. Wooed her with all the usual stuff.

  Fast cars, expensive restaurants specializing in types of fusion cuisine with the sort of names usually reserved for NASA hardware, beautiful gifts and other assorted shiny objects which cost more than my apartment.

  Like catching a crow with a silver bauble, I thought to myself. And then immediately hated myself for thinking it.

  He’d been a rebound, our friends assured me at the time. Nothing more than a damn rebound.

  He’d be gone in no time, everyone assured me. The guy possessed wealth, but not much else. He couldn’t hold a candle to charming Tom. Just some guy with more money than God and a superiority complex almost guaranteeing a small dick.

  Well, Shelley and Don married instead.

  The ceremony blew guests away by all accounts, tastefully done, the setting a white gondola on whiter sand, on a little island somewhere in the Caribbean, followed by a reception which cost as much as the annual budget of a small country.

  Moreover he flew in all the guests, both his own friends, family and Shelley’s, first class from all corners of the world, no expense spared.

  Classy.

  But, like with most rich guys I’d encountered in my life, the class resided all on the outside. Not long after the wedding, his real nature began to surface, and friends of Shelley and me, not to mention her own mother, began telling me things.

  And I’d listened with a growing sense of horror and powerlessness.

  He constantly acted like the complete thug, a rotten-to-the-core misogynist who periodically cheated on Shelley and made no effort to cover it up. He probably figured his money equaled power. Those types always do.

  Well, I intended showing him the error of his ways.