Just after 3 p.m., a visitor and one resident walked up the stairs of the home. The word 'home' is misused everywhere and was in this instance. This was a home only in that it was a place with walls and windows and beds and people all under a roof. The residents of this home were not family members.
No, this home was a place in-between, en el medio, for violent youth. Many of the residents of this home were going to find themselves residents of prisons if they continued their violent ways past the age of 17.
But for a select group of youthful offenders residing in the facility, this place was a library, a school, a lab, training grounds. A secret system steeped in espionage had worked its behind-the-scenes magic to bring these kids here, bring them together. And it was here that a select group of instructors taught these youthful offenders to harness the violent malevolence within them for the good of the nation.
The program was the supposed brainchild of a man known far and wide in certain circles as the greatest spy to mole his way into the CIA. And the program was sponsored by a now discredited CIA legend who was also a wanted criminal. But what to do with the program?
The visitor accompanying the wayward returning resident this afternoon was a member of the U.S. military, not unheard of around the home. Once inside, the visitor handed over the injured resident and asked to speak with the facility's director. He was informed that the director, fairly new to the facility within the last six months, was with a resident and would join him shortly.
After 20 minutes or so, a man using a cane walked slowly into the waiting room where the visitor sat reading a magazine. The man reached out his hand in greeting.
He didn't need to, of course. The facility's director was known far and wide to a select group of people the rest of the world called spies. Stan Meadows stood and accepted the outstretched hand of Geoffrey Seibel and shook his head.
"Good afternoon lieutenant." Seibel smiled. "I hope you have a little time to sit and talk and tell me about that little adventure south of the border."
"Man, you never cease..." Meadows was still shaking his head as he spoke. The look on Meadows' face said it all. Seibel was a criminal, a wanted man in hiding in some cave somewhere. He was the CIA's most wanted target. And yet, here he is.
It was all B.S. All another Seibel masterpiece of misdirection. Damn.
"I know, I know Stan. Tell me how did the kid do? And how did he do against Preacher?" Seibel smiled broadly and could hardly control his excitement.
Meadows took his hand back and stepped over to a chair as Seibel did the same. The Lieutenant shook his head some more. "I did as Wyrick," he stopped and nodded. "As you ordered."
Seibel raised has hand. "I know, I know. You feel you've been misled. But that was necessary. What you've done was incredibly valuable and will be recognized in an appropriate manner. I'm sorry to have to create this facade."
"Sure. I don't have all the details yet, but as I reported to Wyrick yesterday, the kid performed at 100% of goal. Deep tunneling into the organization, full termination of targets and acquisition of positional control within the cartel. All in less than eight months. Incredible stuff for a 19-year-old."
"Excellent. Just like I, we planned. Excellent work." Seibel nodded and smiled again. "And up against Preacher?"
"Did you see him? The kid?"
"Yes, just on the video monitor though. He looked like he'd been in a car wreck." Seibel cringed a little as he said this. "I'm guessing that was from his encounter with Preacher."
"That's what he told me. He was out of it a bit from the meds, but the kid said he threw everything he had at Preacher. Tried like hell to kill him."
"And?"
"And he ended up with a broken arm, fractured ribs and a seriously bruised larynx. You saw him. He looked like anyone, everyone else who faces Preacher."
"But," Seibel sat back.
"But what?" Meadows didn't work for Seibel, never had. He didn't need to play the master's Socrates game of 100 questions.
"But he wasn't killed. He survived. Just like our young Preacher surprised us all years ago by outsmarting his hunters and then everyone else along the way. The kid survived against Preacher."
Meadows was done, ready to go. "Did he survive, or did Preacher let him live?" Meadows sat forward in his chair. "Did Preacher and Marta send the kid back in here so they can work him, work you?"
"It doesn't matter," Seibel reached out and smacked Meadows' thigh. "He survived, that is it. That is all. He passed the test. The kid is ready for the next mission and ahead of schedule, after he heals up, of course. We are going to need him."
"He's too young." Meadows argued.
Seibel shook his head. "He was too young. Now he's a veteran of a deep cover mission. He's a confirmed killer and a very valuable asset that we are going to need in the years ahead. I'm not crazy. This is not some experiment Lieutenant."
"I disagree."
"I understand. But you will have to trust me, as you did in years past. Please."
Meadows just shook his head.
"Tell me, how did you track the kid down? He had completely dropped off the radar for a couple of months. Went very deep."
"It was Preacher."
"He found him? How?"
Meadows pursed up his lips and then broke into a smile. "That son of a bitch. I don't want to know what goes on in that jumbled mess of a brain of his. But the only word I can use to explain it is magic."
Seibel smiled and nodded. "Go on."
"He started honing in on the whereabouts of the kid while we were in the plane from Colorado to El Paso. Just about everything I've heard about Preacher started showing up. Photographic memory and you know how he is about maps."
"Yep. He devours them and then sees them in layers. Like a satellite." Seibel's turn to shake his head.
"Yes. And then he starts working through multiple, like a dozen or so, scenarios. When we landed in El Paso and went across to Juarez, he had it narrowed down to two or three and then moved down the track of the one he thought most likely."
"He found drugs, didn't he?"
Meadows nodded. "In 15 minutes. It was like he could smell them. He knew exactly where to find dealers. He was talking to a Cartel operative minutes later and learned about that desert warehouse half an hour after that, after breaking the guy's fingers."
"Less than an hour?"
Meadows nodded. "In less than an hour, he did the work a rotating team couldn't do in three months."
"Damn. Preacher." Seibel sighed and looked out the window, just as he'd done hundreds of times before thinking about the man who used to be "the kid."
And right on cue, the cell phone in Meadows' pocket rang. He wasn't used to it and jumped. He still preferred a pager on his belt. He pulled the phone out and answered.
"Hello." He listened to the voice at the end of the line and handed the phone to Seibel.
The CIA legend's procerus muscle tightened and pulled his eyebrows together. He didn't reach out for the phone. "Take it, it's for you, Papa." Meadows added.
Seibel reluctantly accepted the phone and put it to his ear, but didn't speak. A couple of seconds later a familiar voice spoke to him across miles and radio waves.
"It took a little while, but I finally figured it out." It was Preacher.
"What's that?" Seibel was not amused. The smile gone.
"It was you. It wasn't Braden at all. The kid didn't know who I was talking about when I described Braden. But without knowing it, he described you to a 't' when Marta struck up a conversation with him in the car driving across the border this morning." Preacher chuckled at the other end of the radio transmission comprising the cell phone connection.
"Hmm." Seibel nodded.
"I couldn't decipher the kill until I got a tiny bit more information from the kid. And then it clicked. It was the woman. She was the key. The rest just happened to be there.
"Go on."
"She was the power behind the throne of the Cartel. She funded it all and pulled all
the strings from behind a curtain. The kid learned that over time and followed his orders to take out the person in charge. Awesome stuff Papa."
"Indeed." Seibel sounded more than a little pissed.
"But what really gave you away was all the residents of the kid's 'home' who had been brought in over the last eight months."
"You have a point, correct?" Seibel interrupted.
"I do, I do indeed. And that is, the kid was somewhat surprised that almost all of the residents brought to the facility this past year were Chinese, or at least Asian."
No reply from Seibel. None needed.
"Interesting that you, acting completely independent and outside the CIA as a supposed martyr, are building what can only be described as a secret Chinese-American army. Very interesting Papa. Very interesting." These last words were not spoken in English. Preacher said them in Mandarin Chinese.
Seibel responded in kind, and in Chinese, "Yěxǔ nǐ shēnghuó zài yǒuqù de shídài." Translated, it goes something like this, "May you live in interesting times."
Preacher laughed and spoke away from the phone to someone, also in Chinese. They both laughed. The other voice was a woman's. When he came back to the phone the smile was still in Preacher's voice. "No problem there. These times are nothing if not interesting my man."
The line went dead.
Seibel handed the cell phone to Meadows and stood up with a pained sigh. His right knee was killing him so he put his weight on the cane. When he was upright, he smiled at Meadows and tapped the cane against the knee.
"Been waiting for a new titanium alloy joint that is supposed to be available next month. When I get the new knee, I think I might just have to hunt down and kill that prick Preacher."
Meadows stood up and smiled at the comment. "How are you going to kill someone who is already dead?"
About the Author
So, here is where you read interesting information about Christopher Metcalf. First things first – he’s not clinically insane. Clinical may be the key word there. He is married to the beautiful Diana. They have five incredibly bright and good-looking kids, and now a first grandchild. Most of the family lives in Oklahoma. You can learn more about the author or contact Chris by visiting his website: www.christophermetcalf.com.
Chris really appreciates your time and hopes you enjoyed reading en el Medio. The idea for this one came from a simple question - what would Preacher do on vacation? Fun stuff, huh?
If you haven't read it, The Perfect Candidate is the first book in the Lance Priest series. The Perfect Weapon was the second installment. And The Perfect Angel is the third. The fourth full novel in the series – The Perfect Union – will be published in 2014. Thanks again for your time, your eyeballs and your willingness to increase the information in your cranial depository. Once you let Lance in there, he messes with things.
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Since you stuck it out this far, how about a little bonus. Here's how this one started. This idea was always in mind, but only written here for you this morning as I prepare to upload the file to the Kindle store. This is like sticking around until after the credits.
Imagine high mountains with tall pines and snow. Can you see it? Can you hear the silence? Hear only the wind rustling branches and your breath and nothing else?
Take off the glove and reach out to touch the trunk of a towering tree. This tree and the one next to it and all the other millions of them as far as the eye can see don't care about you and your life and your dreams. They only know sun and water and dirt and pulling nutrients from the world to reach for sky.
Engines, either Jeeps or snowmobiles, are the only intrusions into this nature. They can be heard on the next hill over, driving up the road that becomes a trail and is closed each year in October.
But this engine sounded different. It wasn't a Jeep. Maybe a truck. Could be nothing. But it could be something.
Continue up the hillside. High knee action is required to make it through this unbroken canvas of deep snow. This is beyond exercise. This is voluntary torture. And doing this day after day creates a fitness level unrivaled by all but those crazy triathletes.
But. There is that engine again. It is closer, but still over the hill on the trail road. Run. Check. Take preemptive action.
Race through the snow and trees up the hill and then down. Lungs burning. Muscles exploding with pain. Don't stop.
Circle above and move around behind. Descend. Pull binoculars out. Up ahead, through the trees, the truck sits idling on the trail road. A single human inside. Watch, wait.
After many minutes, 17 of them, and 41 seconds to be exact, the driver gets out. He is tall. He's got a wimpy beard, just a couple weeks old. He trudges through the snow up to a post with a flat surface that sits beside the road. The driver swipes away the eight inches of snow sitting atop the post and pulls something from his pocket. He places the item on post and looks around.
After a minute, the tall man makes his way back to the truck and get back in where he takes the gloves off his hands and rubs them together to warm them. A minute later, he puts the Ford in gear and turns around to head back down the mountain trail road.
Wait. Wait and watch. Scan every inch. One hour and then two and then move. Down the hill to the post.
It is a pager. Pick it up and press the button to show the message. It is short, only three words and then a number. Look around. No one. Nothing moving.
Read the message again. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
When the movie is made for this Preacher episode, we'll have to decide which we like better for the title -- en el Medio or No Questions Asked.
En El Medio Page 10