Like Grownups Do

by Nathan Roden

  Drew was called in late one evening. He was introduced to two older men—dark and intimidating types in expensively tailored suits. The men explained Drew’s new mission in a humorless, clinical presentation.

  He was returning to the United States. His “legal” name was now Patrick Andrew London. He would receive documentation depicting a stellar educational background, from fictional beginnings in Virginia, continuing through a graduate degree from the University of Virginia. All necessary documents had been placed into his employment file.

  His new assignment—

  Cyber Division analyst with the Boston field office of the FBI.

  Drew London looked nervously out of every window of his Ford Explorer. It was almost noon and he was in a crowded parking garage. He was sweating slightly though he had no reason to. He couldn’t think of how he could possibly be more in charge of the day, which was a lot more than he could say about the last few days—especially yesterday.

  He received a coded message telling him to burn everything. That could only mean one thing. The FBI had them. And if they had them that meant that every damned resource that the FBI possessed was going to come right down on Drew London’s head.

  He was probably looking at the death penalty. He didn’t know if he could or would be executed. Which name or address would they use? Which state had the jurisdiction? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t do life in prison, either.

  Wasn’t there a famous saying, about the simple things bringing you down? Drew thought. If there wasn’t, there should be.

  The organization was prepared for this situation. Hell, Drew was prepared for this situation. One of the first things a hacker learns is how to set bombs—cyber bombs; bombs to blow up the evidence if everything turns to shit. And everything always turns to shit. You know you’re going to have to torch everything eventually when you’re fucking over the FB fucking I.

  So, yeah, there were bombs. Bombs in the office. Bombs in the internal servers. Bombs in the intranet system. Bombs in every computer that Drew had touched since he had come back to the states. And Drew lit them all off within an hour of receiving word that he was burned. If only—

  If only he could find his flash drive. His lucky thirty-two gigabyte flash drive—the very first thing he had purchased on European soil, the very first thing he had paid for in Euros, the first thing bought with money received from the international crime ring that had become his family.

  The drive that he used to transfer data between the FBI office and his home computer.

  Drew was virtually insane the previous afternoon as he madly searched through everything in his office. Ten times, twenty times. Sweat poured from his face and piss leaked down his leg until it gushed due to his inability to care. Desperation clouded any ability to worry about his being watched.

  He was still in this frame of mind as he approached his apartment building that night. Approach is as close as he got before he spotted at least eight Bureau cars. Lights were on in his apartment and he watched multiple shadows pass in front of his windows.

  Drew was calm about this now, unlike the sleepless night of terror he had just endured. He scratched the faded scar on his forearm. The tattoo removal still itched. That itch reminded him that he had not belonged to himself for a long time.

  Drew acquired a few guns after he arrived in Boston—all illegal. If he ever had to use them he was screwed, anyway. He had no experience with them. The one that lay beside him in the seat he knew only as a sniper rifle. He knew that the scope worked. Well, it made far away shit look close up. He put as many rounds into the clip as it would hold but he wasn’t counting.

  What do I have to lose? The bunch of hacker criminals that I’m here for are the closest thing to family that I have. This was only days away from going down, anyway. But, of course, by someone else that knows what they’re doing—someone that hoped to stay alive in the aftermath. Maybe they’ll speak well of me— the ones that survive…

  At ten minutes before noon, Drew exited the parking garage, drove around the block and pulled to the curb. He lowered the tinted window slightly. He knew the schedule, and after a few men made their way out of the building, he began firing.

  He got off six shots before agents moved to within seconds of taking him down. Drew lowered the gun and reached into his pocket.

  In the movies, the bad guy bites down on one cyanide capsule. But Drew ‘Taylor’ London was taking no more chances. He bit down on two and brought down the curtain on his one-act play.

  At the sound of gunfire and the ensuing commotion, Russell Eckhart moved from his desk to a fifth story window. He walked back to his desk where he opened a drawer and removed a brand new pair of surgical gloves. He removed them from the package, folded them into his jacket pocket, and walked to the empty offices of Cyber Division. He pulled on the gloves and pulled out a computer tower on its rolling shelf, exposing the rear panel.

  From his other pocket he took a thirty-two gigabyte flash drive.

  Thirty

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly smooth, but that does it, Gabriel. I’ll have everything forwarded to the Bureau by Monday or Tuesday. Someone will be in touch,” Babe said. He extended his hand across his desk.

  “I’m sorry for the trouble I have caused you,” Gabriel said, “I hope we can remain friends.”

  “I give you a fair amount of latitude for the stress of your military experience. You have a good heart, Gabriel, and I hope your head is allowed to catch up,” Babe said.

  “And I want to thank you. I’ve spoken with my mother a few times over the last couple of weeks. I believe we’re going to be okay.”

  “This is excellent news. If you think you might—” Gabriel suddenly broke eye contact, blinked several times and looked down at the floor.

  “I’m sorry. I have to get going. Got to go. Goodbye.”

  Babe stared as Gabriel bolted from the room. He had been gone for only seconds when MG crashed through the door with a look of terror on her face.

  “It’s Jack! He’s…he’s been shot.”

  Babe and MG threaded their way through the wall of law enforcement officers that layered the entrances to the ER. MG had Babe’s sleeve in one hand and held her ID in front of her with the other. Officers parted like the Red Sea. Babe had his fists clenched in case they did not. They were met in the waiting room by FBI personnel. MG and two large special agents quickly cornered a passing doctor for an update. Jack was in surgery.

  “The older gentleman was hit in the lower left shoulder. They took him straight into surgery. That’s all I know,” the doctor told them. He leaned away from the agents, trying to get out of the waiting area. A large agent who lifted heavy things for fun held the doctor’s arm.

  “Who else is back there, from the scene?” MG asked him.

  “There are two others. One is just an upper arm flesh wound. The other one—he’s in bad shape; Two in the chest. Please, I can’t tell you any more. I...I have to go,” the young doctor said. The agent loosened his grip and the doctor scrambled through the double doors to ICU. These doors were attended by two Boston police officers.

  MG turned to Babe.

  “Try Jordan again.”

  A nearby senior agent was directing traffic in the waiting area. He gave some instructions via walkie-talkie and then stepped between MG and Babe.

  “Jordan Blackledge has been notified, ma’am. He’s on-board a Navy bird. ETA sixty-five minutes.”

  “Thank you, Dan. Babe, I’ll be right outside. I have to call Rebecca,” MG said.

  Babe nodded.

  Tom slipped through the door and passed quickly through the maze of agents and officers. He reached Babe and rested one hand on his knee as he gasped for breath.

  “Haaaaaahh, how is he?” Tom asked.

  “In surgery. He took at least one, that’s all we’ve heard so far,” Babe said, “Shoulder. Left shoulder, that’s what the doc said.”

  “How many—” Tom swallowed hard.

&nbs
p; “How many others?”

  “Two, they said.”

  Tom continued to catch his breath. An ID badge on a piece of purple string circled his neck and spun in the air. Babe reached out and caught the badge.

  “Comic Con 2010, and,” Babe turned the badge around.

  “World of Warcraft Official Beta Tester. This actually works?”

  “I got in here, didn’t I?” Tom answered. “I have to step out for a sec. I don’t think Christie has her phone with her, or she forgot to turn it on, or it’s dead. She was going to the mall and I was supposed to meet her for dinner, but I can’t remember where. I know where it is but I don’t remember the name.”

  “Okay, Tom. I’ll be right here.”

  Babe left the room and made his way to the nurse’s station. The nurse’s station was also overrun by FBI and local police. Other serious government types were arriving by the minute. Babe took the elevator up two floors. He wanted to find out if Marshall Gates would be on duty later that night. He was thinking that having a friend on duty might prove helpful.

  Babe inquired at the nurses desk on the third floor and was told that Dr. Marshall Gates would be on staff at ten that evening.

  Babe returned to the ER waiting room to find MG pacing in a corner. Babe seldom saw MG in the agitated state she was in right now. It was like watching Magneto, of the X-Men—MG looked to be generating her own electric field. Babe looked down at the tile floor, thinking that if it was carpet, MG’s hair would probably be standing straight up.

  That’s probably the reason she wears it short.

  He walked to MG’s side and risked electrocution to put his arm around her shoulder. MG patted his hand.

  Rebecca arrived twenty minutes later. Her running shoes were covered in dried spackling compound. Her hair was in a ponytail and she wore a painter’s cap that bore drips and splatters from a dozen different colors of paint. She was her mother’s child.

  Jordan and Samantha rushed into the room. It looked like they had run all the way from the helipad. Under different circumstances, their destroyed hairdos might have been a source of jokes. MG hugged them both. After each hug she ran her hands through their hair to smooth it down.

  “What do we know?” Jordan asked, looking quickly back and forth at Babe and MG while backing him and Samantha toward chairs.

  “He’s still in surgery,” MG said, “We only know of one hit, lower left shoulder.”

  “Any others?” Jordan asked.

  “Two other agents. I believe he said…what did he say, Babe?” MG said.

  “It sounded like one was bad; two in the chest. The other one I’m pretty sure they said was just a flesh wound. In the arm, I think.”

  Jordan continued breathing heavily. His right hand crossed his lap and held tight to Samantha’s hand. Jordan rocked and stared at the floor.

  “This isn’t the way we go out, Jack. We have rocking chairs on the porch with fifty thousand miles left on them,” Jordan said to the floor.

  After forty-five minutes Jordan and Samantha went in search of their luggage. They had a nearby hotel reservation but Jordan said that he wasn’t leaving until there was some good news.

  “MG, Marshall Gates is on duty tonight. He comes on at ten,” Babe said.

  “Good! That’s good, Babe,” MG said, and then wrinkled her nose. “Ew. We, uh…”

  Babe smiled. “I know. Let’s just keep our wits about us,” then he continued, in an exaggerated, kindergarten teacher type voice, “Remember, I know Marshall from school and I introduced the two of you a year ago—”

  “Babe,” MG said softly. She took his hand. She leaned in and looked him in the eye. Then she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Did you call Millie?” Babe asked.

  “No. I… I didn’t think about it. Do you think we should? Jesus, where is my head? Of course we should. I’ve gotten so used to her being…God, some friend I am.” MG said.

  “I’ll call her, MG. I need to walk around a little, anyway. You may have to pick her up,” Babe said.

  “Do you think she’ll come? Two days ago her eye was still pretty discolored.”

  “She’s coming in on Monday, anyway. I don’t know how much difference three days could make. We’re…shit. We’re kind of her family.”

  “I know,” MG said.

  Babe felt a welcome breeze across his face when the second of two automatic doors opened in front of him. He walked toward a lighted courtyard area, where an old fashioned gazebo beckoned the weary to sit peacefully and contemplate. Perfect. But as he approached the gazebo he saw a solitary figure seated there.

  Shit. Not so perfect after all. Oh, well. There were a few wooden benches around the perimeter of the courtyard. The bench opposite him had the amount of ambient light that he was after so he started around the gazebo.

  “How is he?”

  Babe spun to a halt.

  “You scared the bejesus out of me, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel stood.

  “How is Jack?”

  “He’s still in surgery. That’s all we know,” Babe said.

  He continued to stare at Gabriel.

  “How did you know that he was shot? You left before we found out about it.”

  Gabriel sat on the edge of the gazebo’s table and dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

  “He is a very good man, is he not?”

  “No. He’s the best, is what he is. He’s a wise, old man, and he’s a mischievous kid. He’s Daddy, and he spent the last fifteen years being Mommy, too.” Babe shoved his hands into his pockets, and slid to the corner of a bench.

  “And some son-of-a-bitch decided that this world didn’t need Jack to be in it anymore. But I’ll tell you one thing, for damned sure. This world needs Jack Englemann. This world could use ten thousand of him.”

  Gabriel slid off of the table and walked to Babe’s side. He put his hand on Babe’s shoulder until he felt Babe tremble. Gabriel put his arm around Babe’s shoulder. Babe blinked hard and tried as hard as he could to concentrate on his professional standing, and the fact that this very strange, perhaps unstable man was still his responsibility—a strange man that he found himself clinging to as his tears sank into the man’s coat.

  “Shit, I’m sorry. Jesus, you didn’t sign up for this, did you?” Babe said with a sniffle and a small laugh as he wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  “What greater honor is there for a man—than to be someone, for somebody?” Gabriel said, “I have to go now and your friends will be wondering about you. Jack will recover. Miss Vandermeer should be here. Has someone contacted her?”

  “That’s why I came out here,” Babe said.

  Gabriel nodded.

  “Looks like it might rain,” he said as he turned to go.

  Babe smiled.

  “I think it’ll blow over.”

  Gabriel looked over his shoulder,

  “Congratulations. You pass.”

  Babe took his phone from his pocket and began scrolling toward Millie’s number as he watched Gabriel go. He dropped his hand and yelled after Gabriel,

  “What do you mean, Jack will—” Babe stopped himself.

  He put his curiosity back to bed, pulled it’s warm, fuzzy blanket up to its chin, and kissed it on its forehead.

  Right now, stronger than his desire to grill Gabriel about Jack’s future—

  Was his need to believe in him.

  Babe called Millie and filled her in. She said she would be out the door in twenty minutes. Babe walked quickly back toward the entrance. He passed by two large trucks backed up to a dock on the side of the building; rental service trucks. There were also two food service vans alongside the dock.

  Odd time of night for deliveries, Babe thought. Big screen televisions? And furniture?

  Babe walked toward a circle of standing people in the ER waiting room, his heart in his throat. Two doctors held court in the center.

  “No organ or major blood vesse
l damage,” one of the doctors said.

  “There was some touchy bone fragmentation and some tendon and ligament damage to deal with. But we’re going to call this one a success because it was close to being— something else. Mr. Englemann will be monitored in ICU for a few days. This is Carl Anderson, the hospital’s administrator. I believe he has some rather unusual arrangements to tell you about.”

  The doctors were given the rock star treatment and they were probably going to be sore from all of the back slapping. Carl Anderson introduced himself and his personal secretary.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations on the news concerning Agent Englemann. I would like to pass along some information regarding the move to the fourth floor, where the ICU is located. First of all, please observe the activity outside those windows,” Carl Anderson pointed toward the service hall connecting the dock area with the service elevators.

  “We are converting a conference room on the fourth floor into a temporary additional waiting room. I regret to inform you, that an Agent Petrelli received two gunshots which have proven to be inoperable. Agent Petrelli has been in an ICU room since shortly after his arrival. The Petrelli family is…very large. I would say that there may be—” Anderson turned to his secretary.

  “How many would you say, Bonnie; twenty-eight? Thirty..?”

  “There must be forty of them!” Bonnie said.

  “It’s hard to say,” Anderson continued. “They come, and they go. And there are a number of children—women carrying children, women passing babies around, women taking crying children outside—