Off Guard: A clean action adventure book

by Glen Robins

  If I had done nothing—if I had remained in my seat in the airport waiting area like everyone else did—almost sixteen hundred more people would have lost their lives. Myself included. But if I had somehow been able to act faster or more effectively, another four hundred people would still be alive. I’ll wrestle with the decisions I made and the results I attained for the rest of my life, I suppose.

  I chose a course of action today that altered not only my personal plans but, perhaps, world history. I don’t suppose, however, that more than a handful of people will ever know the full story of what transpired. The events of this day are not the kind of things those in authority, especially elected officials, want the public to know. The things I did to earn my B- are not things you talk about. There’s no pride in recounting them.

  I’ve been told that terrorist plots get thwarted from time to time, but these incidents get swept under the proverbial rug because we can’t have the public living in fear. It ruins the economy. It tilts elections. It snuffs out joy. And if that happens, the bad guys win. No one wants that. At least, none of the good guys.

  When I got up from my seat at LAX this morning, I stepped onto a path that would lead me to places and decisions that I could never have foreseen.

  I did what I did because there were hundreds of lives on the line, not to mention careers and reputations. What I did wasn’t pretty. It’s barely defensible. But it was effective. Mostly.

  Would I do it the same, given similar circumstances? Yes, if it meant achieving the same or better results. Saving innocent lives often requires unspoken sacrifices. Most assuredly, mine will never be written in the annals of history or spoken of at dinner parties. My sacrifices involve moral morasses on a societal level.

  I sold my soul in a way in order to save thousands of others. In the final analysis, I can only hope the means are justified by the end result.

  Chosen Path

  Chapter 1

  Tom Bradley International Terminal, Los Angeles International Airport

  June 5, 9:48 a.m.

  Something about these two guys didn’t look right. It didn’t feel right. Something was off, which triggered a response in me—a soldier’s response, I suppose—that was almost as innate as breathing, compelling me to take a closer look. They caught my attention, and my internal alarm went off.

  Despite the crowds milling to and fro and the noises and confusion of one of the country’s busiest airports on what felt like an unusually busy day at the start of the summer travel season, two men stood out of the crowd. Of all the people moving about in the cavernous corridor at a quarter to ten in the morning, these guys made me notice them. Everyone else carried on with business as usual. No one paid them the attention that I felt they deserved. But that’s understandable. I used to get paid to detect threats and to notice unusual things. It had been a few years, but the tendencies drilled into me in my prior life as a military officer still remained.

  Our plane wasn’t scheduled to depart for another two hours, not that I was counting down. It’s just the ingrained situational awareness from my days as a specialized soldier.

  My small group was congregated in the waiting area not far from our gate. We had decided to beat the wildly unpredictable traffic between Orange County and Los Angeles International Airport and get through airport security ahead of schedule to reduce stress on everyone, especially me. It’s just easier to manage youngsters without all the typical chaos that ensues when thousands of people are all scrambling to make their flights. Besides, I was the teacher, and I was trying to teach a life lesson by example. In my Tae Kwon Do classes, one of my many mantras was, “Show up on time and be in the moment.”

  We had made our way through security, grabbed some food at various food vendors in the airport, and found our places near our assigned gate. The kids were now settled in and quiet, amused by whatever apps they had on their phones. Games and social media, I suppose.

  We had arrived even earlier than I had planned, thanks to the carpool lanes. That’s why I was sitting there in the International terminal of LAX sipping coffee with two hours to spare, thinking about how my life had turned out so much differently than I had planned, trying to relax so I could prepare myself for my first return trip to Korea, my homeland, since I had left in shame six years before.

  The first thing that came to my mind was the argument my wife and I had had about this trip. I started involuntarily replaying the scene in my head. My wife was upset about my not bringing her and our two children on the trip. She had wanted to take a vacation as a family. Great idea, maybe, but that would have meant an obligatory visit to my parents’ house. Talk about awkward. I was not prepared for the stress of dealing with my father yet. My wife was eager for me to patch things up with him. Despite the fall out between us, she wanted our children to have a relationship with both sets of grandparents. But I needed more time.

  Even as I contemplated my life and the mess it currently felt to be in, my eyes kept returning to the two guys and the way they comported themselves.

  Watching them lurk about for several minutes had me even more on edge than the argument. Maybe it was the way they were dressed. They wore thick-soled work boots and what looked like mechanics’ one-piece zip-up uniforms under unzipped hooded sweatshirts. The uniforms were the customary dark blue. I could just see the edge of some sort of embroidered patches on the left chest area on each uniform, outlined in red. The boots were the typical black. The hoodies were dark gray. Nothing odd about any of that, except for the fact that they matched perfectly, and it all looked brand new. Not a scuff on either pair of boots. The pant legs were stiff and still had perfectly straight creases. The sweatshirts were practically shimmering with that fresh-off-the-shelf look. Even the point at the top of the hoods looked starched. Both of them. They looked like twins whose mothers had dressed them in their brand-new work clothes.

  A casual observer might say they were showing up for their first day on the job, but as I watched them, that seemed less and less likely.

  Something was amiss. Both men had a familiar bearing about them, the type of bearing that comes with specialized military training. There’s a kind of hyper-awareness about operatives. It’s subtle, but noticeable to the trained eye. They were scoping the place, getting the lay of the land, surveilling. That’s what my instinct told me, even after being out of the game all these years.

  The first two times they passed by me they were empty-handed. That’s not unusual. But the way they walked with purpose and determination told me they were up to something. The two men continued on down the corridor and I tried to push the thought of them out of my mind. I stood and went to the restroom. On my way back, I stopped in the little convenience store just a few meters from where my group was seated. I needed some Advil and wanted one of those bottled smoothie drinks to wash it down. A headache was the last thing I wanted before we even boarded the plane.

  When I walked into the store, the same two guys with their freshly bought outfits were there. I overheard them speaking in my native tongue with the clerk behind the counter when I walked in. Their conversation quickly ended, and they walked to the far corner of the shop, which only served to further raise my hackles. They pretended to be interested in the American newspapers and paperback books, but I caught them in my peripheral vision peering over the racks, as if waiting for me to leave.

  I spoke very few words to the clerk, all in English, as I paid for my items. I glanced back at the two characters as I headed out of the store. They were watching me, so I focused on looking casual, clueless, and unconcerned.

  Returning to my seat, I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid. I swallowed a couple of the pain relievers and pulled out my phone to check my newsfeeds when I noticed the two guys emerge from the store. There was something different about them that I was sure no one else noticed: they were no longer empty handed. This was a significant development, one that set off alarms in my head.

  The smaller guy dragged a me
dium-sized, nondescript black roller bag behind him, the same as half the other passengers in every airport I’ve been in. But this bag appeared heavy. He struggled to keep the handle in his grip and the way it clacked as it rolled along the shiny marble floor betrayed its mass. His head swiveled often and purposefully. The big guy muttered frequently, but not to the shorter guy. The shorter guy never responded and paid no attention to what the big guy was saying. He was watching for watchers. It didn’t take a genius to realize these guys were up to no good.

  I knew they were Korean, like myself. I could tell by their features and by what little I had heard of their conversation with the clerk. I’m not in the habit of suspecting my fellow countrymen of wrongdoing, but my training told me something was brewing.

  As they exited the store, I got the sense that they had received their assignment. The familiar look of a soldier with his marching orders was painted on each of their faces. They never checked departure or arrival times on the giant display screens, yet it seemed to me like they were anticipating something—something big.

  I kept watching them.

  I had the perfect seat to do it, too. At the end of a row of conjoined armchairs perpendicular to the direction of foot traffic, I sat closest to the tiled concourse that led from one end of the terminal to the other. I could sit and observe them without moving a muscle. I played it cool, though, slouched in my seat looking bored and sleepy. With my phone held in front of me as a decoy, I observed them walk past my position without registering the fact that I was watching them and recording them with my phone. I flipped the camera on my phone so that I was recording over my shoulder as they moved away from me, still hyper-aware of their surroundings.

  Their demeanor had shifted now that they had this bag in tow; their alertness amped up a notch or two as they made a beeline for an unmarked door halfway between two stores.

  Vigilance is an interesting concept. People talk about it. Authorities ask for it. The public is warned that it is necessary for their own protection and security. But what is it? What does it entail?

  In this case, vigilance meant that I had to stand up when I would have preferred to stay sitting. It meant that I had to shake off the weariness and stress of the past several weeks leading up to this trip. It was a big deal to get these kids ready for it. I was nervous, as were they. The Advil had not yet kicked in. I needed a few minutes of quiet time, but it was becoming clear that I wouldn’t get it. I couldn’t ignore these two suspicious characters.

  My entire upbringing had taught me to be wary, alert, and vigilant. You always do your duty, do it well, then your conscience lets you sleep at night. A lesson, a mantra, a way of life drilled into me, sometimes forcefully, by my father.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts, but I couldn’t shrug off the nagging instinct tickling the back of my neck.

  At first blush, mine was a difficult choice. I had two competing responsibilities battling for supremacy within my beleaguered brain: follow the two odd dudes to make sure they were not a threat to the safety of everyone in sight or stay with my sixteen Tae Kwon Do students and the five accompanying chaperones.

  I quickly determined my course of action. All twenty-one of my charges were zoned-out to some extent. They would be just fine if I left them for a few minutes.

  Urgency prompted my decision. The two quirky dudes had ducked through a door about ten meters behind me and across the wide corridor. As they approached the door, about one stride from its handle, I watched them don black gloves. Even though there was a security lock that required the swipe of a card key, neither of them swiped, but the door opened when they pulled on the handle. Before the door closed behind them, they pulled the hoods of their sweatshirts over their heads. What further prompting did I need? Apparently, mine were the only eyes that caught this cagy little exploit.

  The door they pulled open, entered, then pulled shut, did not appear to be a doorway for use by the general public. There were no markings or placards on it. No signs anywhere explained the use of that door. It was even painted the same pearl white as the adjacent wall, probably so that it would blend in and not be mistaken for an available exit. But these guys, without ID, disappeared inside.

  Hordes of people ambled to and fro, oblivious to the potential menace. Most were too concerned with getting somewhere. Many were staring at their phones. Others were talking with each other or wrestling children or focused on finding the right place.

  I sat no more than fifteen meters away, arms folded across my chest, slumped down in my barely padded seat at the end of a long row of connected chairs, phone in hand recording the whole thing. My legs were stretched out in front of me as I watched it all unfold. Once the door closed, I sat straight up and twisted my head in all directions to see if anyone else was going to do something. I detected no movement, no signs of recognition that anything unusual was taking place. Why was someone not reacting to this apparent breach of airport security? Did these guys really belong there? Did they have permission to enter that passageway?

  I couldn’t be sure one way or the other. Part of me wanted to ignore it. After all, it wasn’t my job. Getting my kids on the plane for their competition was. But the soldier in me with all the training on defending the home country and protecting the innocent wouldn’t—couldn’t—sit by idly and let this pass. There were too many oddities to suppress the internal alarms.

  There were no security guards or police officers or even TSA agents in sight. By the time I explained the situation over the phone, these two would be long gone. It was time to act, not time to talk. I had missed that chance. At this point, I had no other choice but to follow them.

  I looked at my students, the select group that had qualified to participate in the World Tae Kwon Do championship in my hometown of Seoul. Two from each of my eight mid-level to advanced classes. One winner and one runner-up. The youngest two, seven and eight years old, were cute, smart, and sassy. The two oldest were seventeen and all teenager. Shaggy dyed hair, hoods over their heads, slumped in their chairs, earbuds in, eyes closed. That was the façade a Korean kid living in America had to put on to fit in, I guess. Inside, however, I knew them to be diligent students, respectful of their parents, aware of their culture and history, and proud of it. They had mastered not only the skills of Tae Kwon Do, but also the principles. Discipline. Respect. Self-Mastery. The other students ranged through the intervening age categories. All were good kids from good families, trying to bridge the gap between keeping the values of the old country while assimilating to the new.

  The competing stirrings within me grew stronger. I was in charge of all these kids. I shouldn’t leave them. But I also knew something was about to go down and I had the capability to stop it. Therefore, I also had the duty to act—another lesson I had been taught at home. In the end, that would provide more safety than merely being present with my students. If something big were to happen and I didn’t do anything to stop it, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.

  Vigilance called, and I answered.