by RJ Blain
Even coffee made me think of him. Determined to forget everything about him, I drank tea instead.
It reminded me of minty grass.
The hotel I found catered to tourists, and I had taken a cheap, cramped room with a view of the neighboring building. After checking out, I let my feet carry me where they would.
In the maze of merchants eager to haggle, I found a bead vendor. While the bright blue of turquoise caught my attention, the chocolate-colored spheres a match for the brown of Jake’s eyes enthralled me. In broken English, the merchant hawked his wares, ranging from the beads to the string and metal threads needed to bind them together.
I stared at my wrist. I hadn’t replaced my watch, something I had been meaning to do but hadn’t gotten around to. I bought a handful of the spheres, arguing with the man until he sold them to me for half the amount he had pitched me. Instead of running away, I was clinging to Jake’s memory again, and disgusted with myself, I stuffed my purchase in my small bag.
How was I supposed to find peace if I insisted on thinking of Jake and purchasing frivolous things destined to remind me of him every time I looked at them? Cursing myself, cursing him, and cursing the circumstances leading to my flight to Africa, I abandoned Marrakesh.
I couldn’t bring myself to even try to make a bracelet.
In Casablanca, I found crowded beaches and blue seas. I took off my slippers and waded in to my knees. The billowing material covering my legs swirled in the water, and the waves tugging at me encouraged me to venture in deeper.
While I’d find peace of a different sort there, that wasn’t what I was looking for.
I stayed long enough in the port city to book a flight away from Africa. The choices were few and far between, leaving me the option of returning to London or venturing to Moscow.
I chose Russia, and three hours later, I was in the air.
When I thought of Russia, I thought of snow. Instead, I got the brisk chill of autumn, and it reminded me of Baltimore on the brink of winter. My frustrations grew, and instead of leaving the airport like a wise woman, I searched through the departing flights for something—anything—that resonated.
London seemed like the type of city I would want to visit with someone, so I discarded it as an option. All it’d do was make me feel even lonelier.
Why was even running away so damned hard? I picked the next flight out headed to mainland Europe.
Flying wasn’t working, so I’d drive. Maybe by the time I finished roaming around Europe, I’d have so many stamps in my passport they’d have to staple in new pages. It gave me something to look forward to. How far could fifty thousand take me?
I laughed so I wouldn’t cry. I couldn’t even vacation right.
From Moscow, I flew into Germany, staying the night in Berlin before renting a car. Determined to walk away from the trip with something positive, I selected the best Mercedes they’d give me.
If I was going to put hundreds of miles behind me, I’d do so in comfort and luxury.
On the Autobahn, I found freedom but little else. In the stretches without speed limits, I pushed the Mercedes and enjoyed the purring roar of its engine. My life narrowed to nothing more than the moment, the skill needed to keep from crashing the vehicle, and the adrenaline rush from zipping over a hundred miles per hour on empty roads in the dead of night. Each time I passed through a city or stopped to sleep, I filled up on gas.
Two or so weeks later, I returned to Berlin without having left Germany, the backseat of the Mercedes littered with Christmas ornaments and other pointless knick-knacks. I had no idea why I had purchased them or what I was supposed to do with them, so I boxed them up and shipped them to my parents.
Maybe they’d enjoy them. They loved Christmas. They loved everything about the holidays. The last thing I wanted to do was crawl back in defeat with nothing of substance to show for having finally managed to join CARD.
Instead of the peace I needed, my guilt over everything I had done grew until it smothered me. I checked into a hotel connected to the airport and barely made it to my room before the tears I had refused to shed caught up with me.
It took three days before I managed to crawl out of the depths of my misery and force myself to put one foot in front of the other.
Tired of Germany, tired of traveling, and tired of everything, I booked a flight for London. While waiting for my flight, I acquired a cell phone and a data plan. According to the device, I had left the United States almost three weeks ago.
Flitting from city to city aimlessly had done nothing more than damage my bank account. Sighing, I checked my personal email, staring numbly at the hundreds of unread messages waiting for me, each one a reminder of the life I had left behind.
Maybe I’d find something in London. If I didn’t, I’d bow my head and return to the United States. Where, I didn’t know—not New York, not Vermont, and definitely not Baltimore.
I had to find a new place to call home.
The first thing I noticed about London was the fact people spoke English. In Morocco and Germany, I had been surrounded by the babble of language unfamiliar and alien. Many people spoke some English, but few spoke it well, and I hadn’t minded the solitude. It hadn’t helped me, but it hadn’t hurt me, either.
I followed the signs to get out of the terminal but didn’t make it far before someone caught hold of my elbow.
“Excuse me, miss. Are you Karma Johnson?”
I didn’t know the man in his early thirties, but I recognized his FBI badge all too well.
“Well, shit.” I sighed, shifted my bag on my shoulder, and shrugged. There was no point in hiding the truth. “Yes, I’m Karma Johnson. What do you want?”
“Please come with me.”
If he were following protocol, he would have introduced himself. I shook my head. “Name and identification first.”
The man chuckled, pulled his identification card out of his pocket, and offered it to me. I dug my passport out, found my card, which I really should have taken scissors to, and compared them. If it was a fake, it was a good one. I handed them back. “Thank you, Agent Miller.”
“Can’t be too careful these days.”
I shrugged and followed him through the terminal. An unmarked car was waiting near the curb, and Miller held open the back door for me. I slid inside, shoving my bag between my feet, regretting having chosen London as my destination.
Why couldn’t the FBI just leave me alone? I had resigned and left my badge and phone. Did they want their damned identification card back? If so, I’d happily give it to them before walking away.
Three weeks should have done something to ease my bitterness, but I circled like a vulture over a rotten corpse. When I thought of the FBI, without fail, I thought of Jake. When I thought of Jake, I couldn’t think about anything other than the fact he couldn’t trust me enough to ask me to relinquish my gun and agree to evaluation.
“Comfortable, Agent Johnson?”
“I’m no longer in the FBI,” I replied, proud of how calm my voice sounded. “Miss Johnson or Karma, if you must.”
Maybe I had found something in Germany after all: my voice, the one I had built my reputation on. Calm, cool, and collected.
I didn’t even have to focus on my breathing.
“A resignation made under duress can be challenged or postponed during an investigation of circumstances,” Agent Miller countered.
I glanced in the direction of the driver, another younger man who was dressed in the same style of suit. “Are you saying my resignation has been challenged, sir?”
The numbness settled into my bones again, and I shivered. To hide the shaking of my hands, I pulled out my phone and scrolled though my unread messages without seeing any of them.
“Both challenged and postponed, Agent Johnson.”
“Am I under arrest?”
Without a waiver, failure to present myself for duty could land me in a set of handcuffs. I kept on scrolling without truly seeing the screen.
“I was hoping to take a more civil approach with this situation, Agent Johnson. Your cooperation would be appreciated.”
I read between the lines. As long as I behaved, Agent Miller and his partner wouldn’t arrest me. That was something at least. Not much, but something. “Understood, sir.”
“We’re expected at the embassy. It’s about an hour drive from here if traffic cooperates. If you need anything, let us know.”
Flicking my finger up and down the screen of my phone, I stared at the scrolling messages in silence.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When the FBI agents riding in the front of the car didn’t break the silence, I forced my eyes to focus on my emails. I couldn’t quite bring myself to read any of them, but I sorted them by sender and started counting. I turned off the ability to preview the opening lines of the messages so I wouldn’t have to cope with what they said.
My parents had sent me fifty-three messages, and the subjects warned me of hell to pay the instant I set foot on American soil. Most of them boiled down to threats of death when they got their hands on me. I was grateful I had turned message previewing off.
It was bad enough knowing how angry they were with me.
There were a handful of messages from girls involved with the Baltimore kickboxing circuit, which I ignored. A few had tried to keep in touch with me, and I had given half-hearted replies, just enough to keep them contacting me, though not enough to entice me into finding a New York circuit.
Two hundred and three messages were from FBI employees, and most of the subjects indicated a desire to know my whereabouts.
Three hundred and sixteen messages were spam, which I systematically deleted.
One message was from Jake, and he had sent it over two weeks ago. It had a blank subject heading, which hurt almost as much as his lack of trust. What was the point of emailing me at all if he couldn’t be bothered to put in enough effort to add a subject?
A little over an hour after leaving the airport, we arrived at the US embassy. Windows offset in a checkered pattern gave the building an odd sense of rigidity while having an industrial air.
The giant sculpture of a bald eagle far overhead seemed ready to fly off the embassy roof.
Pulling through the gates, the car parked in front of the building, and while I stared in resignation at the embassy’s doors, Agent Miller got out and opened my door.
“This way, Agent Johnson,” he ordered. “Dillan will join us after he parks the car.”
I slid out, grabbed my bag, and followed after him.
“Do you have any weapons or anything else to declare?”
I stared at him. Despite having spent three weeks traveling, all I had to show for the journey was a bag of beads, some string, and metal wire, which I informed him of.
Everything else had ended up in the box with the Christmas ornaments, not that I had a whole lot to show for my trip.
“Is that it?” Agent Miller frowned. “You were in Europe for three weeks.”
I shrugged. “I shipped some things to my parents.”
“What sort of things?”
If my selection of things to buy wasn’t a solid indication I had no business in the FBI, I had no idea if they’d ever figure it out. “Mostly Christmas ornaments.”
“Interesting.”
That was one way to put it. When I made no effort to elaborate, Agent Miller led me into the embassy. The inside was the stark elegance I expected from a United States federal building, both intimidating and comforting in its familiarity. An armed guard checked through my bag, and when he discovered nothing more than a few changes of clothes, slippers, some odds and ends, and the beads, string, and wire, he stared at me as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Then he offered a smile and went back to his work. It was hard enough to keep from frowning. If anyone wanted more from me, they were going to be disappointed.
Too many people were smiling, and the last thing I wanted to do was pretend I was happy.
Agent Miller led me to a conference room on one of the upper floors, and when he gestured for me to sit, I sank down onto one of the chairs, dropping my bag to the floor. “Coffee, Agent Johnson?”
I shook my head. Coffee had been one of many things I hadn’t bothered with after landing in Africa, although it had been readily available. I had gone beyond not bothering with it. I cringed at the thought of drinking it.
Jake had ruined coffee for me. I declined the water, soda, and a long list of other drinks the man kept insisting on offering.
Agent Miller made himself scarce, leaving me alone in the wood-paneled room. When he returned, he had a stack of empty glasses and a pitcher of water in hand. His partner was with him, as was a young woman wearing a blazer and knee-length skirt. She carried a briefcase with her, which she set on the table.
“Agent Johnson, I’m Dr. Mellisa Sampson.” The woman pulled out a seat across from me and sat down. “I can take this from here, gentlemen.”
With bright blond hair and blue eyes and a slim but curved figure accented by her blazer jacket and skirt, Dr. Sampson could have easily made the front cover of a fashion magazine. She regarded me with a calculating stare, silent until both men had excused themselves.
“Do you know why I’m here?”
I set my elbows on the table, clasped my hands together, and rested my chin on them. “I’m no longer in the business of guessing motives, profiling people, and trying to deduce next moves, Dr. Sampson.”
“That is up for negotiation, Agent Johnson. I’ve been assigned as your psychologist. I’m also a psychiatrist, so I’ve been put in charge of your evaluation. There are specific rules in place dealing with agents who have been coerced into handing in their resignations. This is one of those cases.” Opening the briefcase, she pulled out a thick file and set it on the polished wood. “This is a part of your file.”
The stack was over two inches thick, and I pitied anyone assigned to the task of searching through it. Unable to guess what the woman wanted, I shrugged. With the exception of forgetting to turn in my FBI identification card, I had followed protocol. I had emailed a formal resignation in addition to notifying management directly of my intent to resign. “I wasn’t coerced to resign, Dr. Sampson.”
“Management and Human Resources disagree. I have all day, Agent Johnson. Where would you like to begin?”
I kept staring at her, and to her credit, Dr. Sampson didn’t seem to care. “With all due respect, Dr. Sampson, can we skip directly to the part where you ask me if I feel I should pass my psychiatric evaluation so I can say no? Your time is valuable, and I would rather not waste it on something unnecessary. I wasn’t coerced. It was established I was prepared to quit prior to my official resignation.”
“We can start with discussing your psychiatric evaluation if you’d like, Agent Johnson. Please elaborate on why you feel you would fail.” Dr. Sampson clasped her hands on the table in front of her, her body leaning towards me to give the illusion she was interested in what I had to say, and waited.
“I thought taking an unexpected flight to Africa before going to Russia and then spending several weeks driving in circles in Germany was sufficient evidence I am not of a sound mind, Dr. Sampson. If you consider the circumstances leading up to the first time I quit and up to when I handed in my badge and filed my resignation, I think you’ll find all the evidence you need to support a failure of a psychiatric evaluation.”
“Agent Johnson, you have not taken a substantial vacation since you joined the FBI when you turned twenty-three. In fact, the only time you took more than two consecutive days off work was when you or your partner were recovering from injuries sustained during the line of duty.”
There was no point in denying the truth, so I nodded.
“It comes as absolutely no surprise to me you would have adverse reactions to being, essentially, forced into a support role when you have dedicated your entire career to field work. Frankly, no one in their sound mind expe
cts an agent to remain stable under such conditions for an extended period of time, especially without an established timeline for a return to duty. It’s a little like working with police dogs, Agent Johnson. When you give a good police dog an excellent trainer and challenging work, you will not find a better partner. Transfer that same dog into a quiet home expecting him to become a couch potato, and you are asking for trouble and a fortune in destroyed property.”
I understood the analogy well enough; some breeds of dogs simply needed work, and the ones favored by the police and military tended to be happiest when given a job to do. “I follow.”
“Why would anyone expect anything different from a highly successful FBI agent? We have programs to transition retiring agents for a reason, Agent Johnson. When an agent has an expectation for meaningful work and is relegated to a supporting role, there will be problems.” Dr. Sampson pulled out several sheets of paper from my file and set them in front of her. “Mr. Daniels’s decision to set you loose with a rather unique set of conditions was a rather unusual approach to dealing with the problem. While I’m not sure I approve of the specifics of his method, the method itself is sound.”
I frowned. “In short, give the highly trained dog a job to do and watch the problem sort itself out?”
“Essentially. Unfortunately, I think Mr. Daniels underestimated the severity of your situation. Rebellion and insubordination are common symptoms of psychological strain, especially of the sort you have undergone. Of course, no one expected some of the circumstances following him cutting you loose.”
“The Henry case and the Greenwich case,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“In part. In short, Agent Johnson, you were expected to be volatile, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous, which was the reasoning behind bringing a stabilizing factor into the situation.” Dr. Sampson coughed, and the corners of her mouth twitched up in a smile. “Of course, no one predicted you and your partner would visit a courthouse in Ohio and take advantage of the state’s laxer laws regarding marriage. Would you prefer if I called you Agent Thomas?”