Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Truth is the Savior, Part Four
Matteo Rivadavia International Airport
Releinthi, Abanhfleft
The customs agent fixed a tired smile upon his face once again as he prepared to receive the latest in a series of people who had gone through his counter on their way to enter the city of Releinthi and by extension, the Democratic Republic of Abanhfleft. This one was a dark-skinned young man who was a bit heavyset around the waist, and he handed the agent a dark green Fleftic passport. According to the information on the passport, the man had been born here in Releinthi, but for the last seven years he had apparently been living in the Fhulghamous Peninsula colony, if the colonial immigration stamp on his passport dating back to 2008 was to be believed. The agent gave the man a cursory glance, and then he stamped the passport and said, "Welcome back to the Democratic Republic, sir."
"Thanks, man," the man replied. He took his passport, pocketed it, and went through the counter and into the airport proper. There he met up with a woman whom he kissed, and then the woman said, "Well, that went much easier than I thought."
"That's easy for you to say," Tim Lane said. "You're not wanted by the FNP and the RBI."
"No one even wants me at all," Helen Ignacio replied. "But that's all right with me."
"Man, I thought I was gonna get stopped by the customs agent when he looked at me after looking at my passport."
"Well, that's over now," Helen said. "So what's next in that plan of yours?"
"I'm definitely not walking into the RBI headquarters, if that's what you thought I was gonna do," Tim replied. "Nope, I'm going to Raffy's house; see if he's home right now. If nothing else, I'm hoping to see Kandi and Olivia there."
Tim and Helen got into an airport taxi, and he told the driver to head for Stoneshore Boulevard in the Ebelgorze District, one of the more affluent areas of the city. The Durants were from Releinthi, and the city had benefited much from their benevolent rule in both the Senate and Parliament. Their place of honor in Ebelgorze had been given to them in exchange for the clan's lifelong service to the Free Land and now the Democratic Republic. The driver gave them a weird look, as if wanting to ask what the two of them were going to do in Ebelgorze, but he held his tongue and drove them there anyway.
They finally arrived in front of a large mansion on Stoneshore Boulevard, and Tim paid the driver in cash and told him to keep the change. As the taxi drove away, he and Helen stared up at the mansion, which was flanked by trees on either side. It was the only house in Ebelgorze that had its own area and was quite separate from the rest of the houses. All other houses within the district were quite close to each other, and it only served as yet another reminder that the Durants were a class above the rest of Ebelgorze's denizens.
"So that's Raffy Durant's house, huh?" Helen asked. "It's very, very big. Bigger than our family's villas in Pilken and Porcusces."
"You had villas in Pilken and Porcusces?" Tim asked her in reply. "I thought the real estate prices there were sky-high."
"Yeah, but when you're a criminal, not even the sky's the limit."
"Huh. So, you wanna come with me, see if Raffy's inside?"
"No thanks, I'll pass," Helen said. "Says a small part of me. But I told you before, Tim, we're in this together now. Whatever happens, we'll go through it together. So let's go."
Tim and Helen walked hand in hand towards the front door of the Durant mansion. Finally they arrived in front of the massive oak door, and Tim reached out and rang the bell. And, just to be sure, he also took the brass knocker and used it three times. After a minute he heard steps from within the house, and a female voice saying, "Hang on, I'm coming," and then the door opened, and Tim was greeted by a blonde woman holding a baby in each of her arms. "Tim?" she asked with a hint of disbelief in her voice.
"Yes, Kandi, it's me," Tim said as he reached out and hugged his sister, Candace. Tears welled up in his eyes as she returned his embrace, but in the end he managed to let only a single tear flow down his cheek.
"It's been seven years, Tim," Kandi finally said through her own tears. "Seven years of us worrying about you. I mean, Mom was worried; Dad was worried; heck, even Livvie was worried." Livvie was Kandi's pet name for their other sister, Olivia. "Come in, Tim!" she continued. "We've got a lot of catching up to do." And then it seemed as if she finally noticed Helen standing behind Tim, and she asked him," Who's the girl? Yours?"
"Why don't we come in, Kandi?" Tim replied. "It's much better if we talk about this inside."
"Of course!" Turning to face the inside of the house, Kandi shouted, "Livvie, Tim's here!" Then she nodded at Tim and Helen, and she watched as they came into the house, the two babies still in her arms.
Kandi lowered the two babies into separate cribs as Tim's other sister, Olivia, went down the stairs and into the living room. "Tim!" she shouted, and she practically tackled him and brought him into a tight bear hug. Tim struggled to return air to his lungs. "Oh, Tim, I can't believe you're really here!" Olivia continued. "You're really really here now! I just can't believe it!"
"Yes, Olivia, I'm back," Tim finally managed to say once she released him from her bear hug.
Olivia also noticed Helen, and she asked him who she was. "She's my wife, actually," Tim replied. "Yes, it's true. I got married, and in the Fhulghamous too!"
"Oh, good for you, Tim," Kandi said. "Dad and Mom would be proud."
"I know," Tim replied. "How about you two, though? I heard you got married to Raffy Durant. Both of you, not just one. I knew you two were very much in love with him, but how did you two do such a thing?"
Tim's two sisters looked at each other and giggled like two schoolgirls sharing a secret that no one else knew. "We didn't know how we were going to do it at first either," Kandi said, "but then Raffy himself gave us the solution. He said that we could convert to Islam so we could marry him together. To be honest, we didn't think of it, but when he said it, it seemed like the logical choice. So we did it. We went Muslim and married Raffy. And because we converted, we got new names. I'm Fatima, and Livvie there's Amatullah."
"I still prefer Candace and Olivia, to be honest," Tim replied.
"So do we," Olivia said.
"So, are those kids yours?" Tim asked, pointing at the two babies in the cribs that Kandi had been carrying when she had answered the door. "Or are they Raffy's from another woman?"
"They're both mine," Kandi replied. "They're twins, actually. And Livvie has three kids!"
"Really?" Tim asked. "Man, I don't even want to know how that works."
Finally, after a minute of awkward silence, Olivia finally spoke up and asked, "So, Tim, are the rumors true? Were you really the guy who shot up Releinthi State all those years earlier?"
Tim sighed and lowered his head. He knew that one of his sisters would eventually ask the question, but despite steeling himself for the moment, he found that there was still quite a bit of fear and doubt in his heart. "Yes, Olivia, it's true," he replied. "I shot all those people in Releinthi State."
"Oh, my God!" Olivia gasped. "Why, Tim? Why did you do it?"
"They were bullying me," Tim said. "They did... things to me. I couldn't take it. I snapped. I found a gun in a dumpster near the uni, and then the next day I just shot my way through."
"My God, Tim, why didn't you tell anyone this?" Candace asked. "No wonder you were wanted for questioning by the crocs!"
"Look, Kandi, Olivia, that's all in the past now, and I don't want to talk about it any more," Tim said. "Anyway, I'm here because Raffy called me. Do you know when he might be coming home?"
"Well, he should be coming home right around this time," Kandi said. As if on cue, the doorbell went off, and she added, "That should be him." She stood up, walked over to the door, and opened it.
The man standing in the door was quite different from the friend that Tim Lane remembered during his brief and ultimately disastrous days in Releinthi State University. Far from being white, Durant was actually brown-skinned, and he looked more Persian than Arab. Also, it appeared that he had traded in his hip-hop image for the suit-and-tie image of a blue-collar worker, although in the back of his mind Tim knew that Raphael Durant looked very much like the Republican Bureau of Investigation agent that he had wanted to be when he was one of Tim's classmates.
Durant saw Tim at the same time that Tim saw Raffy. The smile on Durant's lips disappeared once he recognized Tim, which was replaced by a look of relieved resignation. "Tim," he finally said. "You came."
"I thought it was time for me to face my fate with dignity and honor," Tim replied.
"I think that part comes later. Come with me. We have to talk, but not here." Only then did he notice Helen, who had also stood up and was now standing beside Tim. "And she's..."
"My wife," Tim replied. "I got married in the Fhulghamous."
"Well, wouldn't you know it? Come on, Tim, the sun's setting. We've got a little time left. Let's make it count."
Tim sighed. "All right," he said. "But Helen's coming with me."
"Oh, all right," Durant said after a moment of thought. Tim and Helen followed him out of the house and to his car, a plain black Ford Crown Victoria that practically confirmed Tim's belief that Raffy Durant had become a blue. Durant got into the driver's seat while Tim got into the passenger's seat. Helen got into the rear behind the men, and just as Durant started the car, he turned to Tim and said in a low voice, "You know that that's Helen Ignacio that you just married, don't you?"
"I know," Tim replied simply. "And she's different from her family, if I may say so."
Durant drove the Crown Victoria out of the city proper, not stopping until he finally found a diner on a small two-lane highway that was quite out of the way for many people going out of Releinthi. Durant parked his car in front of the doors of the diner, and he waited as Tim and Helen got out of the car. They entered the diner, and Tim watched as Durant nodded to the girl behind the counter. Durant led the two of them to a corner booth that gave him a good view of the door to the diner, as well as the doors into the kitchen. As he sat down, a waitress appeared and laid down three bottles of beer on the table. As Durant took one of the bottles and drank, Tim couldn't help but say, "I thought drinking alcohol was haram to you Muslims."
"I never really believed in that stuff anyway," Durant said as he gulped down almost a third of the beer in the bottle. "Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. I'm here because something's come up in the investigation about your 'supposed' role in the shooting, and now I'm really glad that you brought along your wife with you, because in a weird sort of way this involves her too."
"What?" Helen blurted out. She had just begun reaching for a beer when Durant had dropped his bombshell. "What do you mean, this involves me too?"
"Look, let's not mince words here," Durant said. "You're Helen Ignacio, right? Despite all the evidence telling me that you should have died in Releinthi North Cemetery back in 2008."
"How did you know that?" Helen asked in an almost panicky tone.
"Well, obviously you're alive and kicking," Durant said. "No, what I meant was something's come up involving your family, the Ignacios. We all know that they're part of the YKI criminal empire, but we've not yet been able to pin anything substantial on them. As from what I'm sure you've gathered, I am an agent of the Republican Bureau of Investigation. Now, in the face of this I'm here to offer you a deal, Tim."
"A deal?" Tim asked. "What do you mean, man?"
"Look, we all know that you were bullied by Johnny, Marvic and Mark in Releinthi State, and that led you to shooting them and a bunch of other people in the school, but the simple fact is that in the eyes of the law, you've committed murder, and that's very heavy. But the state is willing to lift all those murder charges on you and turn them into manslaughter, if you'll just do a little favor for us."
