Authors: Steve Richer
Rick’s cubicle was tiny and it seemed to
shrink with every passing month. Was that possible? Was there a team sent in by
management, when everyone was gone, to rearrange the furniture and make the
workspace smaller and smaller every night? It had seriously occurred to him.
In all likelihood though it was probably
just the weight of the job getting to him. It always happened to him, it never
failed. He sighed heavily into his phone while he leaned back in his squeaky
swivel chair.
“Look, it really doesn’t make any
difference to me, you either buy it or you don’t.”
He did his very best to listen to the
reply but his heart wasn’t in it. He was feeling the call of adventure once
again. There was only one explanation: he just hadn’t found the right career to
keep him interested.
He knew what he wanted, he’d known since
elementary school. He’d always wanted to be part of the FBI like Uncle Peter,
like his dad. That’s why it was doubly heartbreaking that he kept being
rejected.
During college he’d been a mall cop,
stoically patrolling the Short Pump Town Center to keep shoplifters at bay, but
mostly encountering people in need of directions. He’d gone to law school
figuring it would be his gateway to the FBI Academy, yet he couldn’t stomach
even a full year of boring lectures and mind-numbing research.
After that, he’d spent two years working
for the TSA, screening passengers at Reagan National Airport. He had kept sane
telling himself that he had to endure the tedious work because soon he would
join the FBI. But he was rejected within a week of applying.
Then came two years of odd jobs such as
Greyhound bus driver and leather worker. He’d thought he was getting somewhere
when he was hired by a bond recovering agency – he’d been certain he would be
taught how to be a bounty hunter – but his only duties had been related to
manning the phones.
After his second FBI Academy rejection,
he joined the company he was currently with. The position had been pitched as
aftermarket
business solution specialist
.
It took less than a day at his desk to
realize he was nothing more than a glorified insurance salesman. The firm
specialized in selling wholesale insurance tranches to agricultural co-ops,
essentially brokering deals between New York banks and California farmers.
By now, Rick thought it was one step
removed from brain cancer.
“I understand, I understand,” he said to
the woman on the phone. “I won’t insult your intelligence by saying something
like
I’m selling you a hassle-free future
, or some other crap. What I am
gonna say is that your company cannot afford to pass up this opportunity for
the only reason that we have the lowest premiums. We provide what you
absolutely need and we have the lowest prices in the business.”
He barely paid attention to the reply on
the other end of the line. He had spoken this exact speech so many times that
he knew it failed very rarely. This was why the money was so decent here.
Maybe he was good at his job, maybe he
had a natural gift for it. One thing was certain though, he hated it.
“Listen, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m
gonna give you names of some of our clients. You call them and see what they
have to say about us.”
There was a pause in California and the
mid-level agent over there agreed. Rick knew he had her.
“All right, let me get you my secretary.”
He punched a button on his phone and
transferred the call to another department. It was a foregone conclusion that
he’d just signed up a new client which would probably net him a $5,000
commission.
But why wasn’t he happy about that?
Money was nice but it was only really
rewarding when it was from something you enjoyed. Being an insurance salesman
sure as hell wasn’t something he enjoyed. The more he thought about this, the
more he wanted to slash his wrists.
Most of all, he kept thinking about what he
had discussed with Titus the night before. He still had the hangover to remind
him of it too which wasn’t such a bad thing.
His friend had done everything in his
power short of waterboarding to change his mind but Rick firmly believed it was
something he had to do.
Instinctively looking left and right to
see if someone was looking at him – there wasn’t, he was alone in his cubicle –
he opened a new browser window. He searched for
FBI most wanted
and the
first Google result took him where he wanted to go.
Interestingly enough, there wasn’t just a
single list anymore. No, there were several including
Most Wanted Terrorists
,
Crimes Against Children
, and
Violent Crimes
. But the most
prominent one, the list everybody knew about and why Rick had surfed onto this
website was the link labeled
Ten Most Wanted
.
It was without much surprise that at the
very top was the name Willis Greenwood. It was accompanied by the computer-aged
photograph that was everywhere in the media these days.
Rick scanned the data sheet. Just below a
brief description of Greenwood’s role in the New York City bombing was a bolded
inscription:
REWARD
.
With a smile he read to himself, “The
United States Government is offering a reward of up to $4 million for
information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Willis
Greenwood.”
He knew that sentence by heart now. He
had read it over a dozen times over the past week and every time it did a
little more to cement his decision to change his life forever.
“Yeah,” he muttered to no one. “Let’s do
this.”
He closed his browser, stood up, and
walked the entire length of the floor until he reached his boss’s office. The
chubby man with a stained tie looked up from his computer.
“Rick, what’s up?”
“Hey boss. Just wanted to let you know I
closed the deal today. I’m sending the TX-97s in an hour.”
“That’s great!”
“Thanks. Oh, and I quit.”
He winked at his superior, knocked on the
door frame, and left. He didn’t even turn back when his boss called “Wait!”
Peter Travis almost choked on his scotch.
“You did what?”
“I know,” Rick said. “It’s totally crazy,
I’m aware of that. But I got a plan.”
He was ecstatic, so excited that he
couldn’t sit still. His uncle was sitting at his kitchen table with his drink while
the young man paced back and forth.
After quitting his job and then
celebrating the life-changing decision with some tasty chicken from Checkers,
he had headed for his uncle’s house in Alexandria. There was a beer in Rick’s
hand but he had barely touched it.
The older man looked up at him
incredulously. “You got a plan?”
“I got a great plan. I’m gonna find
Greenwood, I’m gonna lure him out of his hiding place, and I’m gonna call in
the cavalry to arrest him.”
For a moment Peter was puzzled. “Who’s
Greenwood?”
“The terrorist. The Owl.”
“Willis Greenwood, public enemy number
one. This guy?”
“Yeppers,” Rick said with the enthusiasm
of a coked up cheerleader.
He took a sip from his bottle, draining
half of it while he continued walking through the small kitchen.
“So let me get this straight,” Peter
began. “You quit a very well-paying job – you were making what, six figures?”
“Thereabouts, before taxes.”
“You’re giving up a hundred thousand
dollars a year to go off hunting for a murderous international terrorist.
Excuse me but this begs the question, kid: what the fuck? Why would you want to
do that?”
Rick stopped walking and looked down at
the other man. “There’s a little reward involved.”
“How little?”
“Four million.”
“Dollars?” Peter asked, again almost
choking on his drink.
“
American
dollars to boot, none of
those pesky Brunei dollars.”
“I thought you always said money never
mattered to you.”
This stopped Rick cold. He sobered up and
sat down across from his uncle, setting his beer on the table.
“That’s the beauty of my plan. I figure
if I get to catch Greenwood the FBI’ll let me join. Hell, with all the media
buzz this’ll create they won’t have a choice.”
This was genius, why was everybody giving
him grief about it? He reached for the bowl of fruit on the table and grabbed
an apple. After inspecting it for blemishes, he polished it on his shirt and
took a huge bite.
“And you think you can pull this off?”
“How hard can it be to find someone?”
Rick replied with a shrug, his mouth full.
“Hard enough that the guy’s picture has
been in every police precinct in the known world for the last 20 years and he
hasn’t ever been spotted.”
“Why are you busting my balls about this,
Uncle Pete?”
He stood up again and decided that after
all he wasn’t in the mood for an apple. He tossed it in the garbage.
“Why I’m busting your balls? Rick, you’re
talking about going after an international terrorist. I hate to break it to you
but you’re an insurance salesman.”
“I
was
, keep your verb tenses
straight.”
“You don’t think the resources of the
entire world aren’t on this already? The CIA probably has a hundred people
working on this as we speak, and you think you can do it single-handedly?”
Titus had told him essentially the same
thing. The FBI, Interpol, the CIA, everybody was working on this, if not for
global security then for the professional glory.
“Uncle Pete, that’s the advantage of
working alone.” He opened his mouth to say something else when a memory flashed
through his head. “You remember when I was 15 and you and dad took me hunting
in New Hampshire?”
“Yeah, I remember. Where is this going?”
“You taught me about stalking. Remember,
you said that I had to be careful, I had to be quiet. I’d floated this bonehead
idea, that if we really wanted to bag a deer we should storm the woods with a
dozen guys and machine guns. Only you said the deer would run away if it sensed
our presence. You’ve always been wise.”
“I am?”
“Totally. That’s why I think the same
principle applies here. If you’re a terrorist, you can see that the world
closing in, you feel it. But just one guy not associated with anyone? Someone
like me? He’ll never see it coming.”
“That’s still a hell of a risk,” Peter
said.
“I’ll have a secret weapon.”
“Such as?”
Rick grinned. “You can get me the files.”
“Oh no!” Peter brought his glass to his
lips before deciding against it. “No way.”
“You get me the files the FBI has on the
guy and suddenly my job becomes a lot easier. You know, you improve my risk of
not ending up a corpse.”
“Forget it. You wanna play detective?
Fine. Get yourself a PI license, investigate missing cats, investigate cheating
husbands. Not this cockamamie shit.”
“Why are you fighting me on this?” Rick
asked with exasperation.
“Because you’re gonna fail, kid!”
The reply was so spontaneous that it took
both men by surprise. Rick felt heat rise to his face while his uncle avoided
his gaze, clearly having said more than he’d intended.
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“Face it, Rick. You don’t ever finish
anything. Law school, the 72 jobs you’ve had. You start something, you see that
it’s too hard, and you move onto something else. Tracking down a terrorist?
That’s not something you do halfway. There’s no half measures on this.”
The two men stared at each other for long
seconds. Rick was stung because there was truth in this. Then again, he needed
a change in his life. He knew this time it would be different. Angie Miller
getting killed had somehow made him grow up very quickly.
He crouched next to the table, right in
front of his uncle. The room was quiet, only the old refrigerator humming in
the background.
“I need to do this, Uncle Pete. I took a
sales rep job as a temporary measure. I’ve been doing all these jobs for the
past five years and I don’t see the end. I don’t want to end up like dad. I don’t
want to be so resentful of my life that I drive a bullet through my head when I’m
47 years old.”
“Jesus, Rick…”
They never talked about his father, about
his suicide. It was as if talking about it would shift blame on someone.
Although they had never discussed this precisely, Rick was convinced Peter felt
responsible for his brother’s fate. But now wasn’t the time for this.
“With or without your help I’m gonna do
it, Uncle Pete. I just run a few less chances of dying if you provide me with
the files, that’s all. No biggie.”
Peter exhaled loudly, avoiding looking at
his nephew. After a moment, he finished his scotch and shook his head.
“Okay, fine. But we’re not telling your
aunt anything. She’d shit big fat hairy kittens.”
Rick had never felt so relieved before
and he hugged the older man. He was one step closer to having a new life.
His dream life.