Intervener number one is Sigurd Ferdinand Olson. Ferd lost his consulting business in the financial crisis of 2007 and not too long after losing his job, he also lost his house in Walnut Creek. Shortly after moving to Oakhurst, he lost his spouse (well not lost lost, he knew where she was) because Aggie didn’t get married to live in fucking Oakhurst. Truth be told he didn’t mind much, he and Aggie had never really got along so well. He spent the next ten years working as an exterminator. In his spare time he was writing a novel about a financial consultant that ends up working as an exterminator. There wasn’t much plot to it other than the main character getting it on with some very attractive women.
Ferd wasn’t very happy with this life so he thought he might try some of this meth he’s always hearing about. He liked it quite a bit. This led to him losing his extermination job, trying his hand at petty criminality, and ultimately becoming homeless for three years going. He’s off the meth now but it’s hard to get a job when you have no address or phone. Ferd was friends with Carlos and more or less saw Andrew Gale kill him but he didn’t do anything because he was scared. He’s been trying to work up the courage to do something after the fact for a while. When he saw Grace and Sanaa grappling with Andrew Gale, he sprang into action. Not immediately, because Ferd isn’t really much for fighting, but he did make a move.
Baun Moutsidis has the privilege of being intervener number two. Baun was born on the island of Rhodes and spent his early life wandering the island beaches and mostly being ignored by his family – small time criminals that made their living off ripping off tourists. When the pater familias didn’t return one day (did he take off, was he arrested, was he killed? No one much cared), Baun became the family bread winner. He wasn’t a very good thief and he was an even worse conman but he was a big kid and as he got older, his mother rented him out as muscle for various criminal enterprises. He ended up working all throughout Greece and eventually around the Mediterranean.
By the time he was a young man, his mother and sisters back in Rhodes were living quite comfortably off the back of his muscle for hiring while Baun, none the wiser, was just happy to hang out with some blokes. It seemed like those people were making fun of him sometimes, but it was easy not to think about that and just smile. When it was decided that Baun needed to get “blooded” he was put on a ship and sent to Seattle. Someone was supposed to meet him there but they never did. After sleeping on the streets for several days he got a text from someone he didn’t know “Good doing business with you, we’ll be in touch.”
That was nine months ago. Baun wandered his way south along the coast for no particular reason, trying to make enough money to sort himself out. It’s been tough sledding for Baun because he’s never had to come up with crimes to commit himself before and he can’t figure out how America works. To Baun, in Greece everything was so organized, in America everything seems like a jumbled mess. Not speaking English doesn’t help. He alternates between terror at being arrested (his “friends” in Greece told him that in the US they execute you for being there illegally) and wanting to be picked up just so he doesn’t have to think for himself anymore.
When Baun saw a fight he jumped in mostly because a fight is something he understands. He also harbored a secret hope that if he won, someone involved would tell him what to do next.
Andrew Gale is no slouch when it comes to this kind of scrap, but four against one? That’s a hard row to hoe. Although if we’re being honest, Baun does a lot of the heavy lifting in subduing the escaped murderer. On the other hand though, once they have him subdued, Baun is also the one that starts bashing Andrew Gale’s head into the ground until Grace barks at him to stop. He couldn’t understand her but he knows the tone. While Baun keeps Andrew Gale pinned to the ground, Ferd helps Grace to her feet where she clutches her bleeding knife-hole.
“Oh Jesus . . . I can’t catch my breath . . .”
Sanaa examines the knife-hilt under her arm “You probably have a punctured lung.”
Grace gasps for air “Why . . . didn’t . . . you melt that guy?”
Sanaa frowns “That’s not how it works. We need to get you to a hospital.”
Graces shakes her head grimly “No, the hospitals have to be fucking zoos right now. Just help me heal myself, give me your hand, let me draw on your power.”
Sanaa backs away quickly “No, don’t touch me! You can’t . . . your magic . . . we’re not compatible, I can’t help you.”
Grace holds her hand out insistently “Give me your fucking hand before I die!”
