Authors: Ernie Lindsey
I
had ignored
Agent Kelly’s call, and she didn’t leave a message, so now I’m standing here on the street corner wondering what she wanted. Knowing that the SASS meeting had ended, she was probably calling for a status update, but she usually waits until the next morning. Maybe she’s getting antsy. It’s been a month, and I’m no closer to finding her traitor.
That can wait until tomorrow. I have more important things on my mind.
The Oracle, or Phil, as he actually prefers, lives in a modest two-story condo in the Northwest District in Portland. It’s within walking distance of a number of awesome shops, pubs, and more coffee joints than anyone would ever need. There’s a bagel place, too, that will knock your socks off if you’re wearing any with your Birkenstocks. (Don’t Birkenstocks come furnished with socks? Just asking.)
I climb up his steps, checking the tree-lined street both north and south to see if I have a tail. The only thing that might be out of place is a gas-guzzling Hummer parked two blocks up, which is astronomically out of sorts for how green this city prides itself to be. It’s a little past ten p.m. and the soft glow of the street lamps don’t help much, but if I focus just the right way, I can tell that it has a California license plate.
Tourists.
There’s a hostel around the corner, but I’m thinking if you can afford the gas and car payments for a monstrosity like that, you can afford a hotel downtown, something swanky like The Nines.
Is it out of place enough to worry? I doubt it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some hipster decides to key the thing in the middle of the night. Can’t say I would blame them.
Phil’s place hasn’t changed in the last decade. I recruited him for backup info gathering when I got into this business. Aside from the members of SASS, my handlers, my mom, and the two ex-girlfriends I stupidly opened my mouth to, Phil is the only person who is aware of what I do for a living.
He gets paid handsomely to keep quiet about it.
If I were to trust someone implicitly, Phil would be on the top of the list, probably more than Dear Old Mom. She’s not happy with my chosen profession, and I wouldn’t put it past her to leak my identity to
Tonight with Don Donner
just to get me to retire.
I knock on his front door. Even in the low light, I can tell that the black paint is fading. I wait impatiently, so long that I’m ready to knock again before I spot the subtle swish of a curtain falling back into place.
There goes the metallic clunk of the deadbolt, followed by the jangling chain, and then the latch on the knob.
He opens the front door—crazy bed hair standing at attention on the top of his head—wearing a red flannel bathrobe and matching slippers. Underneath that, he’s got on purple silk pajamas. He doesn’t offer a greeting. He simply stands there looking annoyed.
I say, “You look like the Oregonian version of Hugh Hefner.”
Phil smirks. “If only.”
“How’re you doing, Dad?”
“It’s late, Leo.”
“You got anything better to do?”
“Sleep, for one thing. Get in here before somebody spots you.”
I check the street and sidewalk one last time, and step inside, satisfied that I wasn’t followed by Charlene or anyone else.
Dad. Phil.
Phil. Dad.
Bio
Dad, a man named Martin Lauderhill, walked out on Mom when I was two, and we never heard from him again. My connections say he died in the early ‘90s from a heroin overdose. Whatever.
Thirty-five years later, I still waffle on what to call Phil. He insists on “Phil,” but he’s been in my life since I was four years old. He’s my dad, plain and simple. Being the manly men we are, beating our chests and chasing down mastodons with sticks, we’ve never really discussed this conundrum. I mean, gauging by the way he constantly reminds me to call him by his proper name, I’d say he has attachment issues, but it’s been a game we’ve played for almost four decades. If it
is
an attachment thing, then it’s likely due to his years and years of undercover work for the CIA.
Phil was a Cold War spy, and a damn good one, too, so it’s easy to see how he wouldn’t want to get emotionally involved with anything. It’s not a huge stretch to see why he and Mom divorced. Well, that and his Russian mistress, Ilya, might’ve had something to do with it.
He called me “Son” once and refuses to acknowledge it whenever I bring it up.
Phil moves a stack of newspapers and a crocheted blanket off his decrepit couch and motions for me to sit down. He asks me if I want coffee.
“Got anything stronger?”
“It’s gonna be one of those conversations, is it?”
“Yup. ‘Fraid so.”
He waddles over to the mini-bar that I installed for him two years ago—a Christmas gift that actually put a real smile on the man’s face—and pours us both a hearty helping of Glenfiddich twenty-year-old scotch that he keeps around for emergencies. I notice that he’s gained some weight since Ilya left him. And by “left him,” I mean, “went to Heaven” six months ago.
Mom even came to the funeral. That took a lot of willpower and heart, but as insane as it sounds, she and Ilya had become acquaintances, often sharing war stories about Phil. Their mutual annoyances had served as plenty of laughter over wine. Phil has asked Mom if she’d like another go at it, and the last I’d heard, she’s considering the possibility.
Why? God knows. Forgiven but not forgotten? Could be all the money he has and refuses to spend.
Phil apologizes for the lack of ice and hands me the tumbler. “You shouldn’t ruin good scotch like that anyway.”
I don’t feel like arguing with him. If it enhances the flavor in different ways then—never mind. I nod and down it in one gulp. Yeah, it’s that kinda night.
He looks at me like I kicked a puppy. “Jesus, you shouldn’t waste it like that either. Take your time, enjoy it. Things that bad?”
Oh God, the burn. I cough and beat on my chest. “I’m in something deep, Dad, and I don’t know what’s going on.”
“
Phil
.”
I roll my eyes. “Can we not do that right now? This is serious.”
“Yeah, yeah. So what’s going on?”
“You’ve been watching the news lately, haven’t you? Seen the Patriotman thing?”
“God, how could I not? They interrupted
Wheel of Fortune
the other night, again, just to say they’d found another new lead—wait. Why do you ask?” He leans forward in his armchair, cradling the tumbler in his hands. They shake a little, but they always do that. You couldn’t unnerve the man if you told him there was a ticking bomb under his seat.
I flatten my lips against each other, frown, and raise my hand.
His surprise is evident. “That was
you
?”
For the past three years, Phil has been a part of nearly every mission I’ve ever worked. He’s a master at digging up details on people—their strengths, weaknesses, and habits—superheroes in particular, and he’s one of the reasons I’ve been so successful. I never mentioned the Patriotman gig to him because it was too big, too…
wrong
, and I didn’t want him to think less of me.
I had ruined the hopes and dreams of so many little boys and girls. Crime rates the world over were already rising. North Korea, just this morning, had announced the reboot of their nuclear weapons testing program.
And it was all because of my handiwork.
“Oh, God, Leo, that’s over the line. You were…what were you thinking, son?”
He calls me
son
. That’s how much it affects him. “I know, Phil. Lecture me later, but right now, I need information before—this is so deep, I honestly don’t even know what I’m involved in. I guess the worst that could happen is being six feet under, but—”
“Wrong, bud.”
“Wrong?”
“The worst thing that can happen is somebody turns you over to SALCON.”
SALCON is sort of like the NATO of superheroes.
Superhero Alliance of Cooperative Nations.
Trips off the tongue when you say it, which is why SALCON is much easier.
It’s made up of representatives from around the world and though they publicly deny it—while those of us behind the scenes know the truth—they’ve been accused of prisoner detainment and torture that violates all sorts of international treaties. It’s whispered that they’re worse than most supervillains.
What does it say about your character if you do bad things while claiming it’s all in the name of good?
I suppose I should ask myself the same question.
“And in your position,” Phil continues, “if they ever found out what you’ve been up to for the last three years, it’d be a helluva lot worse than a dirty cop going to prison. You’d never see sunlight again, Leo, and that’d be the easy part.”
“The people they have on the case are morons. They’ll never get within ten miles of me, but they’re not the ones I have to worry about. The only way SALCON finds out is if I tell them myself, or—” For a moment, I had forgotten about Charlene. “I, uh, it’s more complicated…”
“How many people, Leo?”
I shake my head softly. “That’s the thing; I don’t know.”
Phil lowers his eyes and stares into his scotch like he’s reading tea leaves, looking for an answer. He takes a deep breath, huffs, and then downs his glass in a single gulp as well. Without a word, he gets up and walks over to the bar, then grabs the Glen by the bottle’s neck and pours me another one before he sits down. I fight the urge to blather everything I’ve done, know, and seen over the past month, but Phil is a master of extracting information. He’ll ask me the right questions.
This particular skill set of his is the reason I never got away with anything while I was in high school.
Phil sips again, smacks his lips—a habit I picked up, apparently—and asks again, “How many?”
“My two handlers,” I say, counting them off finger by finger. “Another S.A. named Charlene, possibly
her
handlers, their supervisors, and…” And God, I hate to admit this, but I add, “Possibly another S.A. named Dallas.”
He doesn’t get angry. He simply shakes his head, disappointed. “Goddamn it, Leo. That’s a fucking football team. What were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t my—”
“Fault, I know. It never was, never is.” Phil reclines in his chair and rubs his hands through his hair. “Explain to me how two other S.A.’s know about it. Let’s start there.”
I realize I should start back at the beginning, back when Agent Kelly and Deke Carter stepped up to me in PDX, but I know Phil well enough to realize that not answering what he’s asking will lead to a round-and-round that I don’t want to deal with.
You know what? The hell with it. We’ll waste too much time dancing around details if we attack the timeline like a Tarantino movie.
“That’s the middle of the story, Dad. I need to go back further than that.”
“
Phil
.”
“Fine,
Phil
. So about a month ago, I land in PDX after that last gig with the…you remember…”
“Yeah, the guy. Right, right.”
“I get the
hi-how-are-ya
from two D.C. suits right there in the terminal. Didn’t surprise me because I’m used to approaches like that, you know? Just not in plain sight in the airport.”
“Brazen bastards, huh? Greenhorns?”
“Nah. Deke Carter? He’s old enough that you should know him.”
“Deke Carter… Nope, no clue.”
Strange. I thought Dad knew all those Cold War dudes.
“The other one is Lisa Kelly. Close to my age. Not too much of a hard-ass, but she’s sharp. Good back and forth. Pretty, too.”
“And that matters…why?”
“Doesn’t. It’s a detail.”
He looks at me sideways. “Mmm-hmm. What’d they want?”
“Said they had some work for me, on the good side of things. They’re from DPS, which I’d never heard of.”
Phil raises an eyebrow.
“Direct Protection Services?”
I realize I’m in deep shit when he says, “Who are they?”
I
’m riding
in the back of the black sedan with tinted windows. This is highly unconventional because I was informed that I wouldn’t be able to bring a weapon to protect myself, nor would I be allowed to see where we were going once we got to a certain point on I-5, north toward Seattle.
Back at my house, I’d insisted that if I were going to do what they were asking, I would need to talk to someone higher up the food chain than Agent Lisa Kelly and Deke Carter.
She made some phone calls and got approval, so now I’m sitting here with my arms crossed over my chest, left leg bouncing nervously as I stare at the back of Deke’s head. It would’ve been smart of them to put me in the front seat where Agent Kelly could keep me honest, but as it stands, if things go bad, I’m within an arm’s distance of snapping the old man’s neck if I need to.
I figure that’ll take less than a half-second, which will leave me with plenty of time to take care of her, too. We’ll see.
Things are quiet at the moment. Deke navigates the traffic with ease, which tells me he’s used to the hustle-bustle of city driving. Whether it’s from living around
here
or not is another story altogether. I’d say most of their kind are residents of the northern Virginia area where a lot of the big government offices are, but it’s possible that they’re stationed out west.
That idea changes when he has to ask me for road clarifications a couple of times once we cross the river and head into Vancouver, Washington. It could be an act, but I doubt it, because Agent Kelly doesn’t offer up any solid knowledge either.
Why does this matter? It doesn’t, really, but I like to know that my handlers are confident of their surroundings. If they’re operating with some level of ignorance, what else don’t they know? I like to see the bottom of the pool before I dive in, you know? That’s the one good thing about the CIA, NSA, and the FBI—this might sound unbelievable, but when it comes to doing what I do for them…total transparency.
That took years to earn.
With Agent Kelly, Deke, and the DPS, however, I’m back to rookie status, and I’m not feeling the love.
O
nce we’re
a ways north of Vancouver and traveling along the Columbia River, Deke pulls into a rest area. “Anybody need to rest?” he asks and actually chuckles at his own joke.
Agent Kelly and I both say no, and Deke offers more detail than he needs to about being old, bladder size, and nature calling. When he gets out of the car, he leans back inside and says to her, “We’re probably close enough. Give him the thing.” Deke slams the door closed and does the full-bladder waddle across the parking lot.
“The thing?” I ask.
“Trust me,” Agent Kelly says, “it’s for your own good,” as she hands me a black cloth bag with a gold drawstring. I’ve seen these before, and they’re usually worn by SALCON detainees in some exotic prison halfway around the world. I’ve heard Thailand is nice if you’re an illegally detained prisoner.
I toss it back to her. “I’m not wearing that.” Out the window, a young mother and father chase their darting, giggling children between a minivan and a pickup. They’re laughing and having a good time. He’s probably a computer programmer. She works as…I’m going to guess as a caterer—a little dessert company that specializes in cupcakes. Their kids are both towheaded, about five or six years old, a boy and a girl. American dream, right? I’m jealous. Maybe I’ll have that one of these days.
But first, these people want me to kill Patriotman and catch an international traitor.
My appointment calendar should be booked solid for April.
Agent Kelly hands the black hood over the seat and says, “To get what you want, you will, Leo. You asked to talk to the suits; that’s what we’re giving you. I made the calls. I didn’t have to.”
Her demeanor has changed. She’s all business; gone is the friendly
who’s-your-buddy
woman that I had already married in my mind. I snatch it from her hand with enough force to show her I’m irritated. “Fine.”
But no Belize for you.
I hold up the black hood and examine it. “I’ve always wondered…who makes these things? I mean, like, do you buy them in bulk from Abercrombie & Terrorist or what? Or maybe they’re hand sewn by the indigenous people of wherever and smuggled in on the back of a donkey?”
She wiggles around in the passenger seat so that she’s facing me. With an upturned eyebrow, she asks, “What’re you talking about?”
“Have you never wondered just how much stuff goes into making the world go ‘round?”
“No. I prefer to stay blissfully ignorant.”
“But you work for an intelligence agency.”
“Like I said…blissfully ignorant.”
“Seriously, think about it,” I say, sitting forward in the back seat, close enough that I could grab her hand, break her thumb, and have her subdued before Deke pulls his zipper up.
I won’t, though. Not yet.
I hold up the hood. “There’s a guy that makes the string that goes into the mouth of this hood. Somebody feeds cloth into a machine and it spits this thing out. Then, somewhere back at the zero point, there’s a guy in a factory whose sole job is to monitor the assembly line where a bolt is made that holds the wings on an airplane. Some guy has to put the bolt on the plane along with the other millions of parts, and then another guy loads boxes of black hoods into the cargo bay, and—”
“And five hundred million years ago a dinosaur died to make the oil that goes into the engine, and now it’s there in your hand. I get it. What’s your point?”
I’m not sure I have one. The number of things that had to happen to get that black sack into my hands is mind numbing, but I make something up to sound smart.
I pull it on and let it rest on my forehead. “We’re all living in one big machine, Agent Kelly. Whether it happens by design or by accident, things happened in order to get us right here, right where we’re sitting. We’re living in a machine that continues to function even if some of the parts are broken. Humanity tries to steer it in the directions we want to go, but does it matter what we do? There’s really only one direction we
can
go, and that’s forward, no matter what happens.”
“I still don’t see your point.”
“If that guy making the bolts died, it wouldn’t change a damn thing about the direction we’re all headed. We’re going forward regardless, at least until some outside force changes it for us, so if that’s the case then why does it matter if I see how we get to where we’re going? And furthermore, why does Patriotman have to die if the world won’t stop?”
I’ll have to admit, I’m having a hard time with what they’re asking me to do.
“That’s exactly the point, Leo. If the end result is the same, then why not make a few changes along the way to make it better? And you can spew out whatever philosophy you want. The reason for the hood is simple: cause and effect.
You
wear the fucking thing, so
I
don’t lose my job. You
don’t
wear it, I put a bullet between your eyes, and we find someone else to complete the mission. The world keeps turning, just like you said.”
That doesn’t exactly explain why I have to eliminate the most beloved superhero in the history of mankind, but whatever. I like my job, and I like my forehead free of gaping holes. Round Two goes to Agent Kelly, so I sit back, pull the black hood all the way down over my head, and cinch the string tight.
“Lie down on the seat,” she tells me. “If I have to murder that family because they saw you, that’ll be a very bad day, and I don’t appreciate very bad days.”
I understand what she’s getting at, but man, those are some harsh threats coming from a representative of the federal government whose job is to protect people.
The car door opens, and Deke grunts his approval. “Much trouble?”
“He fits his profile so well, it’s like he’s acting out scenes from a script. They’ll be pleased.”
My voice is muffled coming through the black cloth, but I say it loud enough for them to hear, “I’m not deaf, you know.”
But, I’m also concerned about who “they” are and why “they” will be pleased at the apparent lack of deviation from my norm.
W
e travel maybe
another fifteen minutes. I feel the car decelerate down an exit ramp, we make a right turn, heading east, and then who knows where we end up, because Deke makes so many rights and lefts and stops and U-turns that I have to assume he’s doing it on purpose. He must figure that if I’m a good judge of distance, based on where we stopped at the rest area, I could find my way back here.
He’s right. I could’ve, if it hadn’t been for the haphazard insanity he just pulled. Well played, Deke. Another round for the defending champs.
Five more minutes pass before he parks the car. They climb out, and that’s followed by the right side door opening near my head. Agent Kelly says, “Out, Leo. We’re here. Leave the hood in the car.”
I do as she says, and when I exit and get to my feet, it’s not what I expect, but it kind of is at the same time. It’s wet and flush with green everywhere; a thick grove of pine trees envelops the surrounding area. It smells like wet earth and drenched pine needles. Behind me, a road cuts through the evergreen forest, and, faintly, the hum of traffic on a highway cuts through the thick fog. I couldn’t even begin to guess where we are.
We’re in the middle-of-nowhere Washington. I wish there were some sort of landmark nearby to give me a hint, or the scent of salt air to know we’re closer to the ocean, but with such a short drive time, we’re still deep in the pine jungle.
I could get home if you gave me a compass, but since that’s not an option, I’m here, and I might as well be moving forward.
When I turn, the large home in front of me is surprising. I had anticipated a dull, boxy, beige-colored government building with minimal windows and plentiful soul-sucking attributes like a spot reserved for the DPS director of Northwest Operations or some nonsense.
Nope. This place is gorgeous; mossy, gray siding covers the outside, accentuated by black shutters and white trim. Potted plants hang from baskets, flowers bloom beautifully, while the small bushes lining the walkway are carved into miniature shapes. I see a puppy, an angel, and what appears to be a sailboat before Agent Kelly grabs me by the upper arm and drags me toward the house.
Deke follows, but since it’s on a slight incline, I can hear him already struggling to keep up behind us.
I pull my arm free of her talon-like grip and say, “I’m guessing this isn’t an officially sanctioned building, huh?”
“Black site,” she says, keeping her eyes trained on the looming porch steps. “You didn’t think we’d just parade you through the front door of our corporate headquarters, did you?”
“I didn’t expect a marching band, but I wasn’t prepared for my grandparents’ house, either.”
“Time to behave, then, because we’re about to meet Grandma and Grandpa.”
Being younger and fitter, we take the steps in twos while Deke latches onto the handrail and propels himself upward with willpower and grunts.
Agent Kelly knocks on the door’s window, and it rattles loosely. I fall into old habits, doing a quick visual recon of the area.
Pine trees and…and that’s about it. I see no other cars aside from the black sedan, which sits in the driveway, engine ticking as it cools down.
If we’re meeting someone, how’d
they
get here?
When the front door finally opens, I don’t have to wonder how. I
know
how.
Deke and Agent Kelly appear to be as surprised as I am.