Chapter 4: Meeting Amanda
Sovant looked out over the waters of Lake Superior and over all of the miles of green foliage above the deep-blue waters. He stood on a parapet of Von Helleman's Castle with his thoughts consumed with memories of distant days. Two weeks had elapsed since he had been shot and now he was reminiscing on events which happened years before that horrible night of recent memory. There was once a midnight rendezvous in fog-bound Prague, when, as a CIA agent, not as a soldier in Von Hellemann's army, he met a husky Russian, a female agent who, first, asked for a bribe, and then threatened to kill him, and then asked for a job with the CIA, then tried to seduce him, and then she tried to offer him a bribe. Only the love of intrigue could compel most people to live the life of a secret agent. A life of double crosses and continuous fear, of harrowing escapes, of love affairs that couldn't last, of living in close proximity to death, of forever trying to win the confidence of people by engaging in false friendships - who wanted that sort of existence? One's boss might be a sullen brute or a grinning assassin, he might be an agile liar or a harmless drudge, but if he ran into money problems from some sort of addiction, and if he absolutely had to sell something, it might be the names and the lives of the agents he was running. Vengeance was always a great motivator, as was the love of money, as was, for that matter, the urge to salute a flag. He knew espionage agents who craved only the drug of adrenaline. Others seemed to be slaves to their amour-propre. Whether they were or not, they refused to beg, steal or toil, and they evidently found espionage somewhat conducive to their amusement. A man, or a woman for that matter, was born under one of two kinds of curses, Sovant philosophized. There were those who were cursed with a lack of self-confidence, and then there were those who were cursed with too much of it. The latter made the worst kind of agents imaginable, but then the former were just as bad. Sovant didn't quite know what to do with the husky Russian, with her enormous arms and her little mustache - how could he be expected to grasp the complexities of every dilemma that came the way of a secret agent? No doubt there were mysteries too deep to be divined by even his fine mind. He wrestled her to the ground in a central plaza in Prague and stole her handgun. He felt stupid doing so at the time, but, really, what can you do with a crazy Russian female agent with huge arms and a little mustache?
Sovant, like everyone else at Von Helleman's Castle, was wondering when more blood would be shed in this war which seemed to have begun two weeks ago. The exact number of enemies that Von Hellemann had was something of a mystery. Even the basic lore surrounding this industrialist boss of his was murky and convoluted. Sovant found himself becoming disoriented as he attempted to disentangle the tentacles of various gangland operations involving people bent on extorting money from Von Hellemann and his legitimate businesses. One wondered if Von Hellemann was having more trouble with extortionists than the typical mega-billionaire had with them.
A blur of images filed through Sovant's memory. He recalled ancient conversations in dingy beer-halls, the haunts of broken gamblers and backslid preachers. His wife, every bit as much as himself, had to live in these sorts of dingy demimonde circles. They had both been sent by the CIA to work in places where the principals often seemed to die a few years after being born, such as from drug overdoses, or from gangland feuds, or from military coups, or from the wrath of jealous husbands. Sovant thought he might try to reminisce on the more the genteel streets and the less decadent circles he had known. But those memories were too tedious for his current mood. He certainly had to marvel at one piece of news: he had become passionately obsessed with his own wife. What an amazing change happened recently. Haakon was now ailing with love-sickness for his wife. She was so sweet to him after his ordeal in the woods, and now, unless he made a supreme effort to think about other things, all he could think about was Maria.
Sovant at last decamped from the parapet. It was time to go to work. He went to a closet, grabbed a coat, a second weapon, more ammunition, and then he swung a rucksack full of supplies and provisions on to his back. He set off for a door leading out of Von Helleman's Castle. In five minutes he was well on his way down a path through the forest. Sovant, with a weapon in hand, ready to kill anyone who tried to kill him, was alert to sounds and movements all round him. But, so far, the forest presented only the calm façade of springtime innocence.
The path descended the mountain on a course through birch and spruce, pines and firs, blackberries and choke cherries. Despite the obscuring wall of the forest, the blue expanse of Superior was never far from sight if one cared to squint through all the evergreen foliage. Coming to the top of a little rise, he looked in the direction of the city and saw where Grand Marais culminated in a little harbor with its picturesque lighthouse. He could not quite see the sailboat he purchased last summer and which he kept moored in the harbor. He could, however, see a huge seafaring vessel on the horizon. The sweetness of the conifers was marvelously mingled with, if not salt-water, then at least a maritime theme in this part of the Midwest. The tolling of church bells in the little city reminded Sovant of his clandestine days in Spain. Continuing his sylvan voyage, Sovant soon came to a breach in a precipice where a torrent was plunging down from the higher slopes. The cataract ended abruptly where a meadow began just as abruptly. A languid stream flowed over this meadow until it entered another gorge, where it became a wild torrent again which plunged toward the Great Lake. Sovant was soon hearing the pounding of horses' hooves. He turned to catch sight of his friend Sergio, Pamela's husband. He was one of Von Helleman's ostensible woodcutters: in reality he was yet another clandestine agent in Von Hellemann's army. Sergio waved to Sovant as he worked his team of Belgian work-horses in clearing away the winter deadfall. Sovant waved in reply and then continued on, following the path as it ascended briefly to reach the top of yet another precipice. Sovant ventured across a footbridge which spanned this second river on Von Hellemann's estate. Beneath the bridge a torrent was roaring through a gorge. Halfway across he stopped and looked down. Some kids had carved their initials into the railing. He peered over the side of the bridge to see that the river was swollen with melted snow. Whirlpools swirled round submerged boulders.
Sovant didn't neglect to scan the woods for signs of trouble, though a chipmunk was perhaps the most lethal adversary he had seen since leaving the Castle. Sovant wondered if he was in the cross-hairs of a rifle at this very moment as he loitered on the footbridge, enraptured by the perfumed and beautiful forest, by the thunder of the cascade. He looked at the railing and saw again the initials of urchins carved into the wood. There was an Al. M., an A.M. and a W.V.H. Sovant also saw some other initials inside a heart. One could barely make them out but he scratched them out with the edge of a penny, and then, like an adolescent, he wrote: H.S. loves M.S. with a penknife. Sovant admired his artistry, and his youthful romanticism. And then he moved on across the bridge and down the path. In a few more moments a young girl, a twelve-year-old, emerged from the front door of a large cottage, which was charmingly decorated with flowers under its windows. She greeted Sovant in the middle of the pathway. Haakon Sovant knew Amanda Molina perfectly well. She was none other than Sergio's and Pamela's daughter. But for everyone's sake a charade had to be maintained. Amanda and Haakon pretended they barely knew each other, even though Amanda had not been very subtle when she practically ran to greet her secret friend on the path. Amanda thought the charade was idiotic. She was ignoring it completely. Amanda called to her mom, who was inside their cottage, asking her to come and visit with Haakon. Pamela appeared carrying her son, Amanda's baby brother, the two-year-old, Al Molina.
Sovant could see two schools of thought on whether or not he should end the charade of ignoring Pamela and Pamela's kids in public: it would look suspicious if he didn't, and it would look suspicious if he did. It might be best, he decided, should any thugs be spying on them, to not shun Pamela's family completely. But he wanted t
o convey the impression that Sergio was merely a laborer on Von Helleman's staff of landscapers, and that Pamela was merely a harmless woman who worked part time at a beer-hall. If one of those kids was kidnapped and held for ransom to get money out of Von Hellemann…
Well, it was part of all of their jobs to make sure that never happened.
The cottage had sort of a Scandinavian or Icelandic charm to its lines. Pamela and Amanda, Al and Sovant chatted for a few minutes on a bench beside the path before Sovant got the urge to resume his stroll down the mountainside. Pamela seemed eager to talk to him but Haakon felt impatient, eager to depart. Maria said that he and Pamela always had lots to talk about, but Haakon wished he was talking to Maria rather than Pamela. When Amanda and Al ran off to play, Haakon excused himself and more or less did the same - setting off into the woods and down the path. He pulled his weapon out of his coat pocket as he scanned the path ahead. In twenty minutes he would arrive at the place where he had been shot. Sovant peered into the trees to his right and left, and he looked behind him now and then. Everything seemed perfectly calm.
He soon found the exact location where he spent hours writhing on the ground. In another twenty minutes he arrived at the surveillance post they used, the one which sat atop a precipice and which afforded excellent views of both Superior and the mountain. Sovant's orders were simple enough: stay awake at your post and confront anyone who ventured on to Von Hellemann's property: be polite with people who wandered on to the estate accidentally; but if extortionists wanted war, then fight and win the war.
Sovant settled in for a 12-hour shift on surveillance duty. He had removed from his rucksack some items which he would require later that afternoon and evening: a bottle of whiskey, a huge bottle of water, some bread and cheese, some smoked salmon, some smoked whitefish…
The bright sunlight of the cloudless day reminded him of former days. He once spent a scorching summer in South America sitting on various Columbian and Ecuadoran rooftops watching the comings and goings of people his employers wanted him to watch. Then there was the month he spent living in a shack on a beach in Mexico where he spent his days alone with his Smith & Wesson .357 and his Nikon, watching the doors of no end of resort hotels, hoping to get photographs of some people his CIA superiors were seeking. It was his ordeals with boredom more than the ordeals with danger which led Sovant to loathe the life of a secret agent. And yet when his wife wanted to get out of the espionage business altogether, he thought it might be a mistake. He followed her though and now he was bored to death most of the time with his body guard job. What can you do?
The hours passed monotonously. The afternoon sun sank lower and lower. Twilight came and then night fell. The temperature was falling as well. Sovant reached for a bottle. Like Grant and Beauregard, Haakon Sovant was a soldier who liked to sip Bourbon - a smooth Kentucky sour mash that warmed his bones while he manned a wintry post - while Orion burned above in the cold abyss of the night sky and while war raged below here on earth.
Around 11: 45 pm, while Sovant had briefly nodded off. A gunshot rang out in the woods somewhere on the mountain above him. Sovant woke up, feeling a little disoriented. He was not sure in which direction the shot came from. He drew his Smith & Wesson .357 but felt no great inclination to run up the mountain to investigate. Sovant scanned the slopes for any sign of movement. If was far too dark to see much beyond 100 feet. What else could he do but intercept the shooter should he show himself? And if the shooter never showed, perhaps Johann would apprehend him on the other side of the mountain. Sovant would certainly have gone up the mountain, and risked being ambushed, but he decided his smartest move was to remain where he was, and to keep his eyes and ears open, and to not fall asleep again! It wasn't at all unusual for friendly people to trespass unawares on Von Hellemann's property, though a gunshot at this time of night was unusual. Sovant recalled that Von Hellemann had recently told his guards that it wouldn't hurt if they fired their weapons into the ground, to warn away extortionists. Sovant couldn't see the logic in giving away your position though.
The world had resumed its quiet repose and no more shots had rung out through the woods when Pamela came to relieve him 15 minutes later, at midnight. She said that she had stopped in at the beer-hall and that everything looked safe and secure. She had chatted with Maria for a minute or two, and she even saw her husband there. `Who's watching the kids?' she asked Sergio.
`The boss popped over and said he would,' answered her husband.
Pamela thought there were people who looked like gangsters in the beer-hall, but there were no new people there who looked like gangsters.
When she arrived at the post, Sovant told Pamela about the gunshot. Evidently the forest smothered the sound of the shot in her direction during her walk; she didn't hear it. Sovant told her he would run up the mountain and find out if Amanda and Al and the boss were ok. Then he said he would sprint back to the post and to Pamela to tell her what he learned. A cell phone call would be so much easier, but Von Hellemann would of course be forced to say everything was ok if an extortionist was holding a gun to Amanda's head, or to the head of her two-year-old brother.
Sovant was breathing hard by the time he saw the lights burning in the windows of Sergio's and Pamela's cottage. He peered in a window and saw Amanda, Al and even Von Hellemann all sleeping peacefully on sofas in the living room. Sovant wanted to know if Sergio was all right, but the sleepers didn't look too worried about him. Sovant didn't want to wake them up when it was obvious they weren't worried about the missing Sergio, and he also didn't want to give his boss the impression that he had been sleeping on duty, or that the only gunshot he heard was in his dreams. If Sergio was lying dead or near dead somewhere in the woods, it would be tough to find him, as Haakon wasn't sure of the direction of the gunshot. And there was no direct path between Sergio's cottage and the beer-hall. So who knew what path he had taken? Sovant ran down his path and told Pamela what he saw through the window: her kids were ok, and, it was probably just what it usually was: some kid was firing a gun for fun.
It was now 1:00 am. Sovant knew his wife would be working until 3:00 am at Wolf's Lair. He despised the thought of loitering in that beer-hall for two hours, and so he decided to stay with Pamela for awhile, and no doubt nap a little more, and certainly drink some more Bourbon. He would walk home with his wife after she finished her shift at Wolf's Lair. Body guards, Maria included, were supposed to be tough and independent, perfectly capable of walking home alone. But Sovant worried about his wife.