Celia's Puppies (12 page)

“
Monterey?” the
interviewer asked.

“
My team was assigned to
Fort Irwin for training. Valerie moved to Barstow to be near me.
When she went back to school, we saw each other every
weekend.”

“
We got married on New
Year’s Eve,” Valerie said.

“
Val, we’ve looked for
your marriage license and we haven’t found one for you,” the
interviewer said.

“
I have both of my
parent’s last names. I’m Valerie Marlowe Lipson. I was married as
Valerie Marlowe and Mike...”

“
My family name was Repin.
When I entered the Army, I had to dig out my birth certificate. Low
and behold, Megan and I are Repins. Our other siblings were born
here in Denver. They’re Ropers. I was married under my legal name
Mikhail Repin.”

“
But your name is Roper?”
the interviewer asked

“
Yes, ma’am. We still
called ourselves Mike and Val Roper, we married under our official
names,” Mike said. “Megan sorted our names out after I
died.”

“
What?” the interviewer
almost jumped from her chair.

Valerie gave the interviewer a soft smile
then continued with their story.

“
We lived in Monterey. I
finished school early and we played house. It was a truly magical
time in my life.”

“
Mine too.” Mike shrugged
his shoulders. His sigh spoke volumes. “Then it ended.”

“
My team was assigned to
the Middle East,” Mike said. “Val and I had been through this so
many, many times that you’d think we’d have gotten used to it. I
know people who learn to deal with it. But for us, it
was…”

“
Horribly sad.” Valerie
finished his sentence.

“
Val made it work for me.
She is a great actress. She put on a bright face and helped me
every step of the way. She was… a delight on every phone call. She
sent me those pictures...”

“
Pictures?”

“
You know the ones. The
poses of me naked? I think the entire world has seen them. Well, I
took them for Mike. I was in our bedroom. You can see the ocean in
a couple of them.”

“
I’ve seen them,” the
interviewer said. “I’d say they are more seductive photos than
nudes.”

“
That’s nice of you to
say,” Valerie said. “I... I wanted to make him miss me… a
lot.”

“
She’s right, Val,” Mike
said. “They’re not like Penthouse or Playboy. No full frontal
nudity. They’re just you and the camera. They’re very
seductive.”

Valerie gave him a soft smile.

“
She sent me a photo a
week,” Mike said. “And we tried to talk every night. I noticed her
body was changing but...”

“
I was pregnant,” Valerie
said.

Mike’s eyes filled. When he turned to look
at Valerie, she kissed him.

“
Mike went on a mission. I
was going to tell him when he came back, but I met two Army men
instead. They told me Mike was missing and I should assume he was
dead,” Valerie said. “My mother died the next day and I lost the
baby a few days later. In the course of a few days, I lost the
three people that mattered most to me. I… barely
survived.”

“
And where were you,
Mike?” the interviewer asked.

Mike looked at the woman then looked at
Valerie. With the question, his mouth was cotton ball dry. His eyes
flicked across his brother and sisters, Valerie’s family, and the
billion people in that tiny room. Like an oasis in the desert, his
eyes landed on Alex Hargreaves. Wearing a ridiculous maid’s
costume, her green arm band tattoo peaking from the ruffled edges
of her sleeve, she winked at him. He let out a breath.

“
That’s the
question. I have no idea. My team was in a transport helicopter out
of Turkey and... I was so focused on what we had to do, what I had
to do, that the
where
wasn’t important. I was rehearsing
in my mind what I would do when the pilot came on the headsets to
tell us the electric systems were malfunctioning. We strapped in
and waited for him to land.

“
If you talk to people who
have been through this kind of thing, you never expect that
something bad is going to happen. You just do what’s next – strap
in and wait.”

Mike rubbed his forehead and looked up. Alex
Hargreaves nodded and he continued.

“
Then WHAM, everything
fell apart. The Army says the helicopter crashed against an object
the pilot didn’t see. I’ll tell you, it felt like a small bomb went
off. I dropped forward to avoid… fire, metal, body parts, objects…
I don’t know… stuff coming at me.

“
I don’t remember landing.
I may have passed out. I injured my head,” Mike pointed to a thin
scar just under his hair line. “I woke up strapped to my seat. We
started with twelve men and four pilots. Ten of us survived the
crash.

“
I grew up here… in
Colorado. I spent most of my youth in the mountains camping or
skiing. We landed in the mountains. I wasn’t in charge of the
group, but I was the only one who knew what to do.”

“
From growing up in the
mountains?” the interviewer asked.

“
Exactly. Under my
direction, we bandaged people, built fires and looked over our
supplies. We separated out the dead men. We were situated just as
night fall came. I...” Mike’s eyes filled. “We lost a couple men
that night.”

Valerie slipped her hand into his. He looked
into her smile and love filled eyes then gave a soft smile.

“
We were perched on this
rocky ledge. We couldn’t stay there. No way. We only had the water
and food we scavenged from the wreckage. We decided to split up. We
built a shelter for the men who couldn’t travel and gave them most
of our food and water.”

“
Why didn’t the Army come
for you?” the interviewer asked.

“
We think of the world as
easily accessible. But the Army wasn’t sure where we went down.
They sent someone for us immediately but it was eight hours to
where we started then another twelve to where we refueled
then...”

Mike shrugged.

“
We’ve talked to a couple
of the men who were left behind,” the interviewer said. “They said
the Army arrived three days after you left.”

“
Three days,” Mike said.
“The guys had food and water for a day, maybe two.”

“
But they survived. Every
one of them said they survived because of you. You made a fire from
a stick?”

“
Well, yeah, that’s what
you’re supposed to do. You settle in and wait.” Mike
shrugged.

“
The Army searched for
you,” the interviewer said. “They never found you. What
happened?”

“
We set off to find water
and food. That meant we had to head down off the mountain. We
weren’t in the greatest shape so the going was slow. But we were
Army hardened. We stumbled, fell, walked for as long as we could
stay on our feet. We made camp the first night.”

“
What about your GPS and
equipment?”

“
Most of our equipment was
destroyed in the crash. And you can ask anybody about GPS in the
mountains. When it works, it’s inaccurate about 60% of the time. We
couldn’t get a signal and the map was wrong.

“
That first night, we
dropped most of our possessions. I kept food, water and Valerie’s
pictures. I had the pictures in this pouch right next to my heart.
I knew exactly where I was going. I was hiking home… to
Valerie.

“
It never occurred to us
that someone was tracking us. In all my years in the Rockies, I
never saw anyone. But no one lives in caves in the
Rockies.

“
We were picked up about
two days into our hike.”

Mike stopped talking. For a moment, his mind
flooded with images.

“
I’ve thought a lot about
this,” Mike said. “We invaded their land, their country. I’ve
thought about how I’d feel if I found three foreign soldiers in the
middle of the Rockies or walking down the street… We… Anyway, they
took us back to their camp.

“
There was a lot of
yelling, hitting, and all the stuff you can imagine. They wanted to
know why we were there and we wouldn’t tell them. Truth was that we
weren’t supposed to be there. But why would they believe us? By the
time they hiked to the crash site, the Army had been there and
gone. The Army took everything – men, chopper, everything. The Army
even cleaned up the char marks from the crash and the fire. When
they got back? The shit hit the fan.

Mike shrugged.

“
They sent someone to get
the head guy in their region. After the initial drama, things fell
into a normal pattern. It was hard for us Americans. We were used
to doing what we wanted when we wanted, even in the Army. We were
captives. We did what we were told.

“
The guys and I were
strong and capable. We knew someone would come for us eventually.
As long as we were of value to them, they fed us. So we worked and
worked and worked and worked.

“
I told you I had the
photos next to my heart. I didn’t know Val was pregnant. She was my
life, my heart, my soul. I... I just focused on the pictures. When
I was alone, I would take them out. She has this smile in those
pictures. A kind of, ‘I have a secret’ smile. I’d imagine we were
talking or laughing. Those pictures and Val saved me.”

“
The photos we just talked
about?” the interviewer asked.

Mike nodded.

“
What was it like for you,
Val?”

“
I went numb for a while,”
she said. “Then I got mad. I told the Army that I wanted Mike’s
body. I insisted, in fact. I hired lawyers, talked to Senators and
banged on any door I could bang on. When we just got bullshit back,
we started to look for Mike.”

“
We?”

“
My brother and I,”
Valerie said. “We hired ex-military or ex-CIA guys to search for
him. We compiled stacks of paper, spent… lots of money, but never
found Mike. We were able to convince the Army there was a
possibility Mike was alive.”

“
So Val’s looking for
Mike. And Mike you’re waiting for the head guy to determine your
fate?”

“
Yeah. We were there about
six months before that guy showed up. And wanted information.
They... I don’t remember most of it. Then they found the photos.
Pornography. Evil. I fought for them, which made things worse for
me. They pinned me down and cut my face.” Mike pointed to a scar on
his jaw. “I thought they were going to cut my face off. I wouldn’t
give up the photos. So they… Anyway, I lost the photos.”

The room was silent. Every face held round,
shocked eyes. Even the interviewer was at a loss for words. The
cameraman wiped a renegade tear. When Alex cleared her throat, the
interviewer startled then came back to herself.

“
What was that like?” the
interviewer asked.

“
I lost my mind. Days
passed. One guy tried to kill himself.”

“
He said you kept him from
bleeding to death,” the interviewer said.

“
Yeah, I guess I did. I
wanted to kill myself but...”

He looked at Valerie then stroked her face
with his hand. She smiled.

“
In my insanity, I would
draw Val’s picture in the dirt. I wasn’t an artist or a painter or
anything. I thought I’d go to medical school when I got
out.”

“
What happened to the
photos?”

“
I thought they destroyed
the photos. Pornography, you know,” Mike said. “But they needed
money. Bad. They put the photos up for sale. Val’s Dad found them
in like two hours and paid a lot of money for them.”

“
Do you know how much?”
the interviewer asked.

“
Two or three million I
think,” Mike said. “He won’t say.”

“
My Dad and I weren’t in
contact then,” Valerie said. “I didn’t know he bought the photos.
He took the photos and my brother’s file on Mike to our Colorado
Senator, Patrick Hargreaves. The Senator took the photos and file
from my Dad and said he’d take care of it.”

“
Did you know that?” the
interviewer asked.

“
No,” Valerie said. “I was
already an actress. I had put this shell around me… so I couldn’t
get hurt, I guess. By then, I wasn’t speaking to my brother or my
father.”

Mike pulled her closer to him then kissed
her head.

“
Those photos? That’s how
they found me,” Mike said. “Senator Hargreaves sent them through
the channels and the Fey team was notified within forty-eight
hours. They were in the air within a week.”

“
The Fey team?” the
interviewer asked.

“
Special Forces. They used
to get hostages. That’s what they did. Retrieved hostages. They
were killed a couple years ago.”

Mike looked across at Alex. She gave him a
‘good job’ smile.

“
What happened when they
rescued you?”

“
I’ll tell you what I
remember. At night, they chained me up in this area with the other
guys. I mean, I wasn’t really sane. I’d sleep a couple hours then
draw Val’s photos. The guys helped me get more charcoal or chalky
rocks for the photos. I guess these pictures, so full of beauty and
love, bolstered us. Well, they found them and it was not
good.