by Len Melvin
“Yes,” she replied slowly. “And how long ago did you peruse this map of yours?”
“Let’s see,” Simon studied the ceiling in thought, “it must have been about three years ago.”
Leanda started to say something but hesitated, instead picking up her mug of beer from the bar. She sipped on it, still watching him, then lowered the beer. “Have you looked at a map of England since?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. How can you remember that after so long?”
“I’ve always had a good memory.”
“Well, I still don’t believe you. Okay, let’s see.” She fished an iPhone from her purse and pulled up a map of England. “Where is,” she hesitated, a finger scrolling across the lit screen, “Glastonbury?” She looked from the screen to Simon, smiling as if he had been caught.
“The lower southeast. Kind’a between the English Channel and the Bristol Channel.”
Leanda’s smile faded. She studied the phone again. “Suffolk?”
Simon laughed. “That’s a county, isn’t it? Were you trying to trick me?”
Leanda dropped her phone on the bar and picked up her mug. “I think you know my country better than I do.” She took a deep swallow of beer and ordered two shots. “You like Irish Whisky?”
“I do.”
She handed him a shot glass, clinked hers with his and they both threw their heads back as they drank. She wiped her mouth with a bar napkin and turned to him. She took his shot glass from his hand and placed it on the bar next to hers. “Can you do that with other countries?”
“If there was a possibility I might be stationed in a country, I studied it.”
“And how many countries were there a possibility that you might be stationed in?”
Simon motioned to the bartender for two more shots. The bartender poured them and Simon handed Leanda another shot of Irish Whiskey. “Pretty much all of them.”
She hesitated, then held up her glass and tapped it against his. “To all of them, then.”
◆◆◆
The brown-haired man moved at a faster clip and Simon, his chin dropping into the top of his shirt, relayed the information to the others. He winced at the increased pace, his left shoulder dipping slightly downward in cadence with his step, a tribute to the knee injury. The crowd was immense and he struggled to keep the man in sight.
Finally, the man slowed his pace, turning to survey the crowd behind him.
Simon stopped, put his back to a wall and sipped from the red cup. He watched the flow of the crowd and then, thirty yards back, he saw her. She was moving along at a steady pace, her hands in the pockets of loose fitting, maroon sweatpants. Simon spoke into his shirt and moved in the direction she was headed, trying to appear casual. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her head and a short, brown ponytail bobbed from side to side as she walked. A hand emerged from her pocket holding a cell phone and her lips were moving as if she was counting.
Simon moved directly into her path. “Ma’am.” He moved his head swiftly towards hers, striking her in the forehead with as much force as he could muster. He grabbed the cellphone from her hand as she stumbled backward, then stuffed it carefully into his pocket. In front of him, the startled woman reeled, holding her head in her hands.
“Down,” Simon ordered, He grabbed her by her ponytail, twisted it and forced her to the ground. With his foot on the nape of her neck he pushed down hard, grinding one side of her face into the asphalt. He drew his weapon from his holster and waved it in a circular motion at the approaching crowd. With the other hand he held up a badge. “Back!” he yelled. “Secret Service.”
Several bystanders who had moved instinctively forward to help the woman stopped and stepped back into the crowd. The woman screamed and Simon spoke into his shirt and surveyed the circle of onlookers, looking for anyone who might be a do-gooder.
“Stay the fuck back.” he warned, pointing the gun at one man who looked ready to come to the woman’s aid. Simon yelled again into his shirt. A man in a suit pushed through the crowd. Simon handed him the cell phone with a quiet admonition, took his foot from her neck, said something to the man in the suit and then moved as fast as his bad knee would allow in the direction the woman had been walking.
He slowed when he spotted the man in the tan jacket. The man searched the crowd behind him. “What’s goin on back there?” he murmured to no one in particular.
The man seemed uncertain now, his features tense, and panicked. Simon moved to one side of the street, along a wall on the fringe of the crowd, most of whom had stopped and were attempting to see what the disturbance was about.
He approached the man in the tan jacket from behind, bent and grabbed him by the shins, lifted up and jerked back. The man instinctively put his hands out to block his fall. He hit the pavement face forward, his hands out in front of him. Simon jumped on his back and thrust his knee deep into the space between the man’s shoulder blades. He grabbed a fistful of hair, yanked the man’s head up, and then drove it back down into the pavement.
Simon secured both of the man’s arms behind him and took his cuffs from his pocket. He clasped the man’s wrists with the cuffs and turned to the crowd. He waved his weapon and his badge, brandishing both to the crowd that circled them.
Simon stood, and turned the man over as people in uniform ran toward him. He held his badge up as they approached and they slowed, weapons held with both hands, pointed upward. With the sight secure, he turned his attention to the man groaning on the pavement. He knelt and unzipped the man’s jacket.
The crowd gasped and took a collective step back. Simon exhaled and put his head down, his weapon held at his side. The man in the tan jacket lay still, his face bloodied, his jacket opened, revealing multiple bombs attached to the vest around his chest.
◆◆◆
“You know I’ve got to leave soon.”
Simon lay still, an arm over his forehead, his heart still pounding in rapid beats, his body glistening with beads of sweat. “Good. I don’t think I can take anymore.”
Leanda hit him across the face with a pillow. “I mean leave leave. Back to my country.”
Simon sat up, one elbow propped on the damp sheets. “Why?”
“My work visa runs out in December.”
Simon put an arm across her breasts, drawing her to him. “You can’t get it extended?”
“No.” She turned on her side facing him. “I’ve already had it extended once. And you know how they are about immigration visas these days.”
Simon brushed a hair from her forehead. They had been together since that night in Georgetown. When she had a night off she would come stay with him in the group home he shared in the Friendship Heights area. Sometimes she would meet him for lunch, bringing the children she was watching with her. If they both had a day off they would go to the Smithsonian or the Zoo or to watch the Nationals play. He had once mumbled an “I love you.” She had laughed and said, “Me too.” He had made an excuse, embarrassed at blurting out that proclamation but she had put a hand on his lips, quieting him and telling him that he couldn’t take it back. They had left it like that and nothing more was said, but he had noticed she hummed a lot when they were together, and he found himself thinking about her more and more.
“So now what?”
Though it was dark he could sense she was smiling. “Well, I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh oh.” He took a deep breath. “About what?”
She sat up in bed, crossed her legs under her and faced him. She put a hand on his chest and was quiet for a moment as if thinking. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you are.”
“What do you mean?” Simon sat up again, one elbow supporting his head.
“You remember how we ran into that couple the other day at Chadwick’s and you remembered them from a year ago from a restaurant on the other side of town?”
“Yeah.”
&n
bsp; “They barely remembered you but you remembered their names, where they were from, and what they did for a living.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“You even remembered what they were wearing.”
“Okay. What has that got to do with anything we’re talking about right now?”
“Simon, you do that all the time. You always remember people and things about them.”
“So what?”
“It’s like a gift that you have.”
“I don’t—”
Leanda put a hand to his lips. “Shh. Even all those stories you told me about Vegas. And knowing all the towns in all of the countries.”
“Okay, so I can remember things well. So what does that have to do with you leaving?”
“Well, I was telling my family about you.”
“Like what?”
“I was telling them what a good guy you are and how well you treat me and what a good time we always have.” Simon nodded. “And I mentioned your gift.”
“You know, it can be a curse also.”
Leanda jerked her head back in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“It’s true.” Simon rose and went to the mini-refrigerator that sat against the wall. He opened it and grabbed a bottle of water. “Are you thirsty?”
“Yeah. Let me have a sip.”
Simon made his way in the dark and handed Leanda the bottle. She took a deep swallow and emitted a small burp. “Sorry. What do you mean a curse?”
“It bothers people when you can remember everything about them and they can’t remember anything about you.” Simon drained the bottle and tossed it into the garbage can beside the bed. “One time I sat behind a couple at a baseball game. We had some beers and talked the whole game. I ran into them at a bar in Adams Morgan six months later. They barely remembered me, but I knew so much about them they thought I had been looking up stuff about them online. Another guy had been drunk in a bar once because his girlfriend dumped him. He told me all about it, her name, a girl he had been going out with behind her back and the guy’s name she dumped him for. Well, a year later I see him and we start talking. I ask him about everything, and he looks at me like I’ve been stalking him. I explained to him, but he didn’t believe me and wanted to fight.”
“So, what happened?”
“The fight didn’t last long.”
“I bet not. I also told my family that you were a tough boy.”
“Well, I was a Ranger.”
“I know. Anyway,” Leanda rubbed her hand across the scar on Simon’s knee, “have you ever heard of the term, ‘prosopagnosia’?”
“No.”
“It’s a big word for a condition known as face blindness.”
“Face blindness?”
“Yeah. It’s a condition that some people have where they are unable to recognize faces.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, some people can’t recognize or remember faces. There are some extreme instances where mothers have tried to pick up the wrong babies from daycare or some people not even recognizing pictures of themselves. But some cases are mild so that people may not even know they have it.”
“So what does that have to do with me?
“Well, it occurred to the people who were studying this condition that if some people were unable to recognize faces that maybe there were people on the other end of the spectrum who were incredibly good at recognizing faces.”
“Like—?”
“Like you. There’s a name for people like you. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“You, my love,” Leanda put a finger on Simon’s forehead between his eyes, “are a super-recognizer.”
“Super-recognizer?”
“Yes, you are.” Leanda removed her finger but now jabbed his forehead for emphasis between each word.
Simon knocked her hand away. “Okay, so I’m a super-recognizer. So what?”
“Do you know there’s a need for people with your abilities?” Leanda rose, went to the window, and raised it as far as it would go. “It’s so hot in here.” She sat on the window sill, her arms crossed and faced Simon.
“People are going to see that pretty ass through the window.”
Leanda ignored him. “Did you know that London is the most surveilled city in the world?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true. If you walk down any street in the city you are a movie star. I would think this might be interesting to you, being in the job you’re in and all.”
“It is. Go ahead.”
“Well, the police thought, ‘Okay, we’ve got so many bloody cameras on every street, that there won’t be any crime.’” Simon reached across the bed and put his hand on Leanda’s thigh. She brushed it away with a swipe of the hand. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah, yeah, no crime because of all the surveillance.”
“Simon,” she said, her voice rising in annoyance.
“Shhh,” Simon put a finger across his lips. “Group house. Remember?”
“You weren’t complaining about too much noise ten minutes ago.”
Simon laughed. “Point taken. Okay, go ahead.”
“Okay,” she said, lowering her voice. “Well, crime didn’t fall off at all. And they couldn’t figure out why all of the cameras weren’t a deterrent to crime. Eventually, it dawned on them that with eight million residents, people just weren’t scared of being caught by a digital image. A fingerprint left at a crime scene would go into a central database and criminals avoided that at all costs but an image left on a camera in a city so large just didn’t scare anyone.”
Simon sat up in bed, his interest piqued. “Go on.”
“Well, the Metropolitan Police formed a special unit of super-recognizers, established data banks and started catching people right and left and publicizing it when they did.”
“And?”
“And, crime started to go down in the city. People were aware now that a photo might be just as damning as a fingerprint.”
Simon reached out and grabbed Leanda’s arm and pulled her toward him. “This is all interesting but what has that got to do with you and me?”
“Simon, my uncle is the head of the super-recognizer unit in London. It’s a very elite group and very prestigious to be a member of. It’s how I know all of this.”
“So?”
“Well, maybe you could apply to work in London as a super-recognizer.”
“What? I don’t understand. London? Why would I do that?”
Leanda pulled her arm free from Simon and put a hand on either side of his face. “Because, my love, I have a job beginning in January in London.” She got on both knees and faced him, her face close to his. “And I want you there with me.”
◆◆◆
“How did you know he was a suicide bomber?” Brooks asked.
“I didn’t.” Simon twirled the swizzle stick in the glass of scotch and water that sat on the table in front of him. “It was a guess.”
“A guess?” Across the table, the Secret Service agent sat, his arms crossed, his brow furrowed. “You assault two people because of a guess?”
Simon removed the swizzle stick, placed it on a napkin and took a sip of his drink. “It was an educated guess.”
The door to the lounge swung open, and an older man with a blond flat-top and a younger man with hair combed neatly and cut short stepped through. The older man walked straight for the table where Simon sat and pulled a chair out. He turned it around and sat backwards in it, his legs straddling the chair which creaked under his considerable girth. He had a ruddy face, that appeared more rosy in the neon light of the Budweiser sign that hung on the wall. Eyes that were quick and piercing and the size and color of a sparrow’s protruded from below a high, broad forehead. The younger man stood behind him, non-committal, his arms folded behind his back.
“Hey, Chief,” the other man at the table said, rising from his chair and then sitting back down with a sigh borne of
fatigue. “You want a drink?”
“Yeah, bourbon.” the Chief said, paying scant attention to the man. He folded his arms across the back of the chair and leaned forward, his head jutting out over the surface of the table. “Okay, Sorenson, I want to hear everything.”
“Well, Mick,” Simon was the only one who called the Chief by his first name, “I was…”
The Chief interrupted. “How did you know that guy had a fuckin’ bomb on him?” A waitress placed a drink in front of him, and he picked it up and took a quick sip. “How did you make those guys?”
“I recognized the guy from a photo in the database. I had also seen film on him. He was a bad guy. Really dangerous. But he seemed different. His body was out of kilter and he was walking with a different gait.”
“That’s it?”
“He was acting nervous and had his jacket zipped all the way up despite the warm weather.”
“The girl?”
“He kept looking behind him and I remembered he was known to have an accomplice, so I looked for her also. She was following him at a distance and talking to herself. I thought she might be counting. Maybe there were a certain amount of steps they had determined that he take to cause maximum casualties. Maybe there was just a number they had between themselves before she triggered it. Then she brought a cell phone out and I thought she might trigger the bomb remotely so I took her out. Then, he could have had a pocket trigger so I had to take him down.”
The Chief chewed on the nail of his thumb as he listened. “What if he had had a dead-man’s switch?”
“I looked for that. There was nothing metallic connected to his thumb and forefinger.”
He took a sip of his drink without taking his eyes off of Simon. “What do you mean by maximum casualties?” The Chief squinted so that the sparrow eyes were barely visible. “You don’t think he was after the Boss?”
“No,” Simon shook his head. “He wouldn’t have been able to get close enough with that vest and all the security. This guy wasn’t an assassin. He was a terrorist. If he had wanted to kill the Boss it wouldn’t have been this way.”
“Then why didn’t he just detonate the bomb where he was?” The younger man standing behind Mick asked. “There were tons of people in that area.”