“I’ve a good mind to go back and get my bloomin’ hat,” muses Daphne at Trina’s breakfast table early Saturday morning.
“Great idea!” exclaims Trina excitedly. “But I’d better not tell Rick. He worries about me. Though I don’t know why.”
“Don’t be silly. I was only joking,” laughs Daphne, but Trina has got her teeth into the scheme.
“No, I mean it,” she enthuses. “It’s not like they’re going to do anything to us now.”
“I don’t think so…” Daphne is continuing, but Trina isn’t listening. “We’ll just drive up to the gate and tell them we want it,” she explains confidently. “The worst they can do is to say no.”
“I suppose we could…” says Daphne hesitantly.
“I’ll make sure my cell phone is working, and we’ll just ask nicely. We needn’t even get out of the car.”
“But what about your children? You’ve hardly seen them since Tuesday.”
“I think Rob’s still disappointed that Daisy didn’t come back,” laughs Trina, sounding unconcerned. “And Kylie’s been telling her friends that she was adopted at birth since that picture of us in the paper in the Kidneymobile. Anyway, they’re teenagers.”
“So?”
“It’s Saturday!” she explodes, as if Daphne should have figured it out. “They won’t be up before lunch.”
“And Rick?”
“Oh, he was happy enough to see me last night, but I expect he’ll sleep for a week.”
“Well… maybe,” says Daphne, still equivocating.
“You could always check with David,” suggests Trina, offering Daphne a phone.
“It’s no good asking him,” she chortles. “He’s a policeman — he was born saying no. Anyway,” she adds meaningfully, “I don’t expect he’d be thrilled if I got him out of bed too early this morning.”
“Oh, Daphne!” shrieks Trina.
However, bed has not been an option for Bliss. The heavy wooden bedstead that should have given him and Daisy a pleasurable night now barricades the splintered front door, while its king-size mattress blocks the light from the glazed balcony slider. Bliss wouldn’t have bothered for himself — “They won’t come back,” he assured Daisy — but as the night wore on she became increasingly alarmed at the possibility. And now, despite the sun rising high over the mountains, they cuddle under a duvet in front of the log fire, dead to the world, pooped by a sleepless night of pain and discomfort.
The Saturday-morning officers at the U.S. border show little interest in Trina’s Jetta as the two women join the throngs of families streaming to Washington for the weekend.
“We’re only going to ask at the gate,” Daphne reminds Trina resolutely as they take the highway south. “We’re not going in.”
“I agree.”
“After all, it’s only a bloomin’ hat.”
“I know that.”
“I can easily make another one.”
“Don’t worry,” says Trina, “we’re not going in.”
“Good. As long as we’ve got that straight.”
“We have.”
Steam rising off the treetops vapourizes into the clear blue sky above the Cascade Mountains as the VW turns off the highway, but while robins and chickadees twitter cheerfully in the forest, fresh memories of the ill-fated expedition in the Kidneymobile begin to weigh more heavily as the women drive the twisty road towards their goal. They drive in silence, neither of them admitting any apprehension. The road that had taken them several hours to navigate in the mechanical bathtub takes only fifteen minutes by car, and they arrive at the gates before they have a chance to change their minds.
“Here we are,” says Trina in surprise as she slows in the shadow of the high gates, although she is momentarily confused when she sees that the mission’s signboard has gone, replaced by a more sinister one that warns that the premises are the property of the federal government and that trespassers will be prosecuted. “Is this the place?” she asks, turning to Daphne.
“It looks like it,” says Daphne releasing her seat-belt. “Pull in over there.”
But a chill comes over Trina as she views the high fence topped with a roll of razor wire. “I’m not so sure about this…” she begins, and she readies to drive on.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going in,” repeats Daphne as she catches hold of the door handle. “They can bloomin’ well bring it to the gate after all the trouble they’ve caused. You just keep the engine running and we’ll take off at the first sign of trouble.”
“You be careful…” cautions Trina as Daphne heads for the entryphone.
“Are you sure they’ve gone?” whispers Daisy as Bliss drags himself to the balcony’s glass door and eases the mattress aside.
“Don’t worry, love!” he calls. “It’s broad daylight. The maid should be here soon…” Then he pauses. “Oh, no!” he sighs with the sudden realization that it is Saturday, the projected day of Daisy’s departure, and he had declined cleaning services. “The maid might as well wait until I’ve left on Sunday,” he had told the operator when booking.
“You are going to miss your flight,” he tells Daisy as he checks the bandage on her swollen ankle, once he’s explained the situation.
“Maman will worry.”
“I’d better try to get to one of the other cottages and find a phone…” he starts, but Daisy stays his hand. “Daavid,” she queries, with something that’s been on her mind for several hours.
“Yes?”
“Last night. Before zhis happened. You said you had something for me.”
Now what? he questions himself. Admit that I lost the ring; admit that Sarah was probably right — that I did usually put the job before her; admit that I might do the same again with Daisy? “It’ll keep,” he says with the realization that his vacillations had kept him awake almost as much as the pain in his leg and his concern over the attackers’ return.
Daphne stands at the gate with her finger on the entry-phone’s call button, but she turns and shrugs to Trina when there is no response.
“Come on, let’s go,” says Trina with growing uneasiness. But Daphne spots the surveillance camera and stares at it openly.
“Halloo,” she trills. “Anyone there? I’ve come for my hat.”
A flock of gulls takes off from garbage bins inside the compound, and their shrieks of alarm make her jump as they pierce the silence. But once the birds have flown, peace returns and she again yells, “Halloo…”
“Daphne…” calls Trina, but the older woman waves her to be quiet. “I think I heard someone,” she says, but Trina is doubtful.
“Are you sure?”
“Listen,” says Daphne, then she loudly shouts, “Halloo! Who’s there?”
“Maybe I should call Mike,” suggests Trina. “He’s a policeman. He’ll know what to do.” But her face falls when she pulls out her cell phone. “No service,” she says, dropping the car into drive. “We’d best go. I’ll treat you to another hat.”
“Trina,” Daphne reminds her sternly, “I made that hat with my own hands.”
“Sorry…” starts Trina, but the other woman has set her sight on the fence. “Where are you going?” Trina demands as Daphne begins to kick a path through the undergrowth at the side of the gate.
“Don’t worry,” says Daphne, “I’m not going in. I just want to get a better view. I’m sure I heard something.”
“Daphne… Come back!”
“The place looks deserted,” she calls over her shoulder as she peers into the grounds.
“We’d better go, then,” advocates Trina, but Daphne is tugging speculatively at the wire.
“Have you got a towrope?” she asks roguishly.
“No,” lies Trina, but she gets out of her car and calls. “Hey! Anybody there?”
“Another one bites the dust,” muses Bliss as he and Daisy prop each other over the raised hood of Daisy’s rental car. “The radiator’s got a couple of holes, the air filter’s punctured and some of the electrics look shot.”
“Can you make it go?” asks Daisy hopefully.
“If we push it,” laughs Bliss, then he looks down the track to the distant road and adds, speculatively, “although it is downhill most of the way.”
“Keep going… keep going…” encourages Daphne a few minutes later as Trina inches the Jetta forward with her tow-hitch tied to the fence.
“Just get ready to run,” Trina warns, still expecting half a dozen gun-toting guards to rush out and blast them, but Daphne isn’t listening as she waits to slip through the gap.
“I’m only going to get what’s rightfully mine,” she calls, readying her defence.
“This is very dangerous,” admits Bliss, at the wheel of the freewheeling Toyota as it gathers speed, in reverse, down the hillside towards the highway. “I just hope the brakes will hold without power.”
“See. I told you there was no one here,” says Daphne, strolling nonchalantly into the empty guardhouse and kicking at a few scraps of paper on the dusty wooden floor.
“Nothing…” agrees Trina, pointing to frayed wiring where phones, cameras and lights had been forcefully ripped out.
“I bet they didn’t leave my bloomin’ hat,” says Daphne despondently as they carry on through the compound towards the main building, but Trina is still wary, and she carries her useless cell phone ahead of her like a weapon.
“They were obviously up to no good,” Daphne is saying, pointing to the deserted offices and living quarters, now stripped of every trace of habitation, when a metallic bang brings them up short.
“Run!” cries Trina, but Daphne grabs her hand.
“Who’s there?” demands Daphne with the authority of a sentry, and as her words echo around the empty buildings, the gulls take off in fright again. But amongst the birds’ raucous cries there is an unmistakeably human sound.
“Help…” cries a weak voice from inside an old outhouse on the edge of the forest. “Help…”
“Someone’s here.”
“I told you.”
“Help…”
“I didn’t realize it was this steep,” yells Bliss as he grapples with the wheel, one-handed, while he hangs onto the handbrake with the other. Behind him, Daisy grimaces as she is flung around by the bouncing car. “Hang on,” he shrieks as he sees another looming pothole, but he’s zooming backwards without power and can’t avoid it.
“Putain!” screams Daisy as she flies off the seat and comes down heavily.
“Sorry,” says Bliss, keeping up the pressure on the brake.
“I think it came from over there,” whispers Trina, pointing to an old outhouse on the edge of the forest clearing, and they creep, hand in hand, towards the building. Then, after a moment’s pause to look at each other, Daphne whips open the door.
“Willy — it’s you!” cries Trina at the sight of the pitiable man chained to the steel pipe.
“Who?” asks Wallace.
“Oops — oh, sorry… Spotty —” she starts, but Daphne kicks her.
“What’s your name?” asks Daphne.
“I don’t think I should…” he begins, and Daphne starts to close the door.
“All right… all right.”
“Well?” questions Daphne.
“It’s Wallace — Allan Wallace,” says the pathetic-looking prisoner. “Can you get me out?”
“Yes —” starts Trina, but Daphne kicks her again.
“Possibly,” says Daphne, as if giving it her fullest consideration.
“I helped you escape,” he pleads, and Daphne seemingly relents.
“All right. But we want to know what was going on here first.”
“I can’t —” he starts, and the door begins to close again. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you.”
“Hold tight!” yells Bliss, seeing the traffic on the highway approaching at speed, and he puts all his weight behind the brakes and prays.
By the time Bliss has brought the car to a stop and flagged down a passing motorist, Daphne and Trina have used a tire iron to jemmy Wallace from his makeshift cell. And as Bliss and Daisy ride to hospital in Seattle, the forlorn CIA officer is cadging a lift into Bellingham from his erstwhile prisoners.
“Wait a minute,” says Daphne as they prepare to drive away. “I still I haven’t got my bloomin’ hat.”
“Never mind,” says Trina, happy to get away. “You’ve got plenty more at home.”
“No,” insists Daphne, “it’s my favourite. And you never know; I might get invited to a wedding while I’m here.”