The Vision Master

by William Hill

Liam was a little surprised but figured they'd taken the opportunity to use the facilities. Deciding to use the time while waiting, he opened the phone package and familiarized himself with the phone. After reading the instructions and loading his minutes, he realized quite a lot of time had passed and they hadn't returned to the car yet. Maybe an old woman like his Gran needed more time than most, but his father, like any man, would only need three minutes to do his business and get back. He decided to go back to the store and see what was holding them up.

  Entering, he looked around and saw no one other than the clerk. He asked where the toilets were and the clerk, again, merely pointed in the general direction. When Liam reached the Men's he knocked and, hearing no answer, opened the door. Empty. He knocked on the adjoining Women's and called out, "Gran? You in there?" Again, no answer, so he tried the handle, found it unlocked, and peeked in. Empty.

  Now he was worried. He left the store, surveyed the parking lot, saw no one, went to the street and looked up and down it, and again saw no one. He went back to the car and got behind the steering wheel. Looking down he saw the key was still in the ignition. He was more than worried now; he was scared. Something was really wrong here and he didn't want to stick around; he didn’t want to disappear too!

  He started the engine and pulled out into the street, heading in the direction they had been headed before the stop. He knew he was on Route 50, headed west. Thinking quickly, he knew that eventually he'd run into 495, the Washington Beltway, that circles D.C. If he got on it going north it would circle around west and into Virginia.

  Once before he and his family had gone this way to Arlington to visit a Methodist church that his Gran had been a founding member of in an area called Ballston, named for the Ball family — cousin of hers — who had originally settled the area. Mary Ball had been the mother of George Washington. Her family once owned much of the land between the Custis' estate to the east that belonged to Robert E. Lee, whose wife was a Custis, and after the Civil War, it became Arlington Cemetery; Washington's Mount Vernon to the south; and Lord Fairfax's lands to the west, later to be the county named after him. His Gran had inherited the last remaining five acres or so, across the street form Washington-Lee High School, which she sold some time ago. He remembered that at some point he could get onto Route 66 East until he could exit on Glebe Road, then turn onto Arlington Boulevard, which would take him to the church. He recalled that there had been a mall about two blocks south of it. He'd go there, a public place, and figure out what to do.

  He found the church. It was on a corner. He turned left and parked against the curb about half a block up, and walked back. Crossing the street, he noticed escalators going down to a Metro station, the subway system that services the metropolitan area of D.C., Northern Virginia, and suburban Maryland, to his right, but kept walking towards the mall. He was soon there but saw it looked closed. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to see how late it was, after eleven. Looking around and wondering what to do now, he walked back toward the Metro station and saw a restaurant just a few doors down.

  He went in and was led by the hostess to a table by the window. After ordering a coffee, he decided he needed to call someone, but the only numbers he knew by heart were his own home and Carol’s, all his other contacts were in the memory of the phone that he'd surrendered to his father. It was too late to call Carol. Besides, he should probably call his mother; she was probably worried about them not home yet. He dialed.

  "Hello?"

  "It's me, Mom."

  "Liam! Do you guys know how late it is? Let me speak to your father."

  "Mom, I'd love to hand the phone to Dad, or even Gran, but I don't know where they are."

  "Where are you?"

  "Arlington."

  "What are you doing in Virginia?"

  He told her. Everything, even how scared he was.

  She told him, "You don't move. I'll call your uncle Gene. What number are you using?"

  He told her his new mobile number and hung up. He had just taken the first sip of his coffee when his phone rang.

  "Liam? It's Del, listen up. You have to get out of there, and I mean now! But before you leave, take the battery out of your phone."

  "Why?"

  "It’s possible your parent's phone is tapped and your call was traced. Even if it isn't, the phone company can identify the number you used to call home and knows it’s a mobile. That information is available to Homeland Security or anyone else who needs to know. And, as you move around, your phone searches and transfers you to the next repeater tower, effectively tracking your movements. Same with GPS, if it's so enabled. Only removing the battery disables everything. Go to the Metro station. Go down and take the next train to the New Carrollton Station. It's on the Orange line. When you get there, wait by the exit escalator. I'll meet you there. Now move. I'm already on my way!"

  He hung up and stared at the phone. What’s going on? He removed the battery, placing it in one pocket, and the phone in the other, of his pants, got up and paid his bill.

  Reaching the bottom of the station’s escalator, Liam saw the banks of ticket machines along the wall. He found how much a one-way pass cost from Ballston to New Carrollton, deposited the requisite coins, went to the automated turn stile that accepted his pass and spit it back out to him, allowing him to pass through. He went down to the track platform and noticed the overhead monitor that said he had a ten minute wait for the next train.

  He stood with his back against the wall, away from the tracks. The tube he found himself in wasn't doing his mild case of claustrophobia any good, but he knew it would be worse in the train, more worse once in the tunnels, and borderline terrifying when he knew they were under the Potomac River going into D.C.

  While he waited, he casually glanced at the half dozen or so people around him waiting for the train also. No one seemed interested enough to look at him, and that made him feel a little better. Then he looked across the tracks to the opposite platform. There was a cop staring at him. Liam figured he was probably wondering why a young kid was by himself, out so late. Without taking his eyes off Liam, the cop turned and headed to the escalators on his side of the track that would take him up and over the tracks and back down to Liam's side. Liam started to plan what his alibi would be just as his train pulled in, stopped, and automatically opened its car doors. Quickly, but without obvious haste, he boarded the train and then began walking through all the cars until he got to the very front. He sat down and looked out the window for the cop. Liam saw him coming down the escalator now on his side, walking down it two steps at a time instead of riding it down. Liam scrunched down in the seat as far as he could and still be able to see the cop’s progress. He knew if the cop got on before the doors closed there would be nowhere to hide. There were no more cars ahead of the one he was in to move to.

  Fortune was with him. Just as the cop jumped the last three steps to the platform and began running to the train, the doors closed almost in his face and Liam saw the look of frustration and anger in his face. The cop must not have seen Liam move up the cars, because he stepped back and began looking into the windows of each car behind his as the train pulled away from the platform. There was no doubt now in Liam's mind that the cop had wanted him.

  The rest of his ride was uneventful, even as he nervously looked around the platforms at each of the stops in between his destination, expecting to see cops everywhere, waiting for him. He alighted and scanned the platform for the exit elevator, only to see his uncle already there, waiting for him.

  As Liam approached him, his uncle walked up to him and said, "Give me the phone."

  He handed both it and its battery to him.

  "Follow ten paces behind me. Not nine, not eleven, ten. If I stop at any point to bend down to tie my shoe, you keep walking past me, got it?” his uncle instructed him as he turned and mounted the escalator.

  As he did so, he threw
the battery in a trash bin beside the escalator, but Liam noticed he put the phone in his pocket.

  He followed his uncle exactly ten paces behind as they exited the station, turning first right, then left at the corner to cross the street, past the church, and past Liam's dad's car. At the next corner, they turned left and half up the block, when his uncle stopped, bent over and made as if he was retying a shoelace. Liam kept walking and as he passed, his uncle, without looking up, spoke under his breath just loud enough for Liam to distinctly hear him.

  "My car is at the corner. Get in."

  As he got to it and reached for the door handle, he heard the audible "click" of it being remotely unlocked. He got in and was buckling his seatbelt as his uncle got behind the wheel, started the engine and, after checking the rearview mirror for what Liam thought longer than necessary, pulled out, making several turns in both directions, and finally re-entered Route 66, all the while constantly checking his rearview. As they passed a small wood beside the road, his uncle rolled down his window and threw Liam's phone into the underbrush.

  "Looks like we haven't been followed," he told Liam, the tension in his voice and body audibly and visibly easing.

  Liam couldn't be tenser. The events of the day had now taken him past fear and into anger. "Excuse me Del, but what the Hell is going on?"

  His uncle ignored the question and asked one of his own. "Did you notice anyone watching you?"

  Liam told him about the cop.

  "Damn! Surveillance cameras will tell them where you got off. I'll explain everything when we get there."

  "Where's that, exactly?"

  "To a 'safe house', but first we're going to go to BWI."

  "The Baltimore-Washington International airport? Why?"

  "To ditch this car and pick up another I have in the long-term parking lot."

  This is starting to sound like a story line straight out of a John Le Carre spy novel! Liam thought. "I know you said we'd talk later, but can't you tell me anything now?"

  "It's elementary, my dear Sherlock, you're a 'wanted' man."

  Chapter Twenty One: On the Run

  “[A]s we strive to fulfill our vision, we must make the most out of every living moment.”