by James Hunt
When the last man had entered the conference room, Locke handed each of them a manila folder. Chris whispered something in Locke’s ear and exited.
“What you have in your hands is a piece of intelligence we just received from Samantha Kearny a little less than an hour ago,” Locke said.
Jim’s head popped up at the sound of her name. “How’d she get this?”
Locke turned on the conference room screen. “Kevin Mears. He was Matt Kearny’s personal lawyer. As far as we know, his employer was unaware of Matt’s arrangement to have these files delivered to Samantha in the event of his death.”
“You let someone go and visit her?” Jim’s voice tensed up as he stared Locke down.
“He had a clean background with no ties to anyone we’ve apprehended, and we made sure we had agents in the area if anything were to happen,” Locke replied.
Locke turned back to the screen. “What’s interesting about the code are the different layers. Our analysts believe that different coding languages were used to encrypt what the underlying code was programmed to do. We think it has to do with another attack, but we don’t know why it was sent to Samantha.”
“You think Matt wasn’t working for the people we’re looking for then?” Twink asked.
“No, I still believe that he had deep ties with the organization we’re hunting. I think the reason he decided to go behind the back of the organization was to help give his family leverage if something ever happened to him,” Locke said.
“What kind of attack is it? Nuclear?” Brett asked.
Locke grabbed a remote lying on the conference room table, pointed it at the projector, and clicked on a button, revealing the other layers of code. “The analysts have deciphered some references to chemical weapons being created.”.
Coyle tried to follow along. “So…the bad guys are trying to use chemical warfare?”
“Yes, we believe so,” Locke answered.
Brett raised his hand. “So, why are we here? The only one of us that can code is Twink.”
Lock clicked on another button on the remote. The screen went dark and retracted back into the ceiling. He set the remote down and looked at Jim. “We’re releasing Matt’s body back to Samantha tomorrow. You four will escort the remains to her for the funeral. The analysts think that the code will have reference markers to who’s in charge. Once they crack it, we want Samantha to bring them the code as a gesture of good faith.”
As soon as the words left Locke’s mouth, Jim shot up from his chair. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Coyle, Brett, and Twink kept silent and glanced around at each other. Then, all at once, they got up and left the room, shutting the door behind them.
Jim and Locke stood off at opposite ends of the conference room table. Jim’s fists were ground into the wooden tabletop. Locke stood his ground. “Jim, I know that you thin-”
“You have no fucking idea what I think about this,” Jim said.
Locke lowered himself into the chair behind him and drummed his fingers on the conference room table. “Jim, it’s not your decision to make.”
“Like hell it’s not!” Jim shouted. All though he knew Locke was right. Ultimately, it would be Samantha’s decision to make.
“We haven’t had a solid opportunity like this in the past three months. It’s just a matter of time before whoever is behind all of this figures out where this code went and when they do, they’ll be the ones to negotiate the terms,” Locke said. “Let’s get this information to them on our terms while we can still get something out of it.”
“That’s all we are to you?” Jim said. “Just opportunities to exploit. It was the same thing when you met me at that refugee camp outside of Phoenix. You were just using me and my family for your own ends.”
“Everything I did was for the benefit of my country,” Locke said. “Whatever qualms you have aren’t because you’re upset with me. It’s because of what happened with Matt.”
All the events set in motion after the Phoenix incident were coming to a boiling point. The missions…the hallucinations…everything that plagued Jim was cornering him.
Locke walked over to Jim, shoving the mission file in Jim’s chest. “Your plane leaves at zero six hundred.” The men stood nose to nose. “You’re dismissed.”
Coyle, Brett, and Twink were down the hall waiting for Jim when he left the conference room. The file landed in Brett’s hand as Jim sped by.
“Get the gear ready,” Jim said, “We leave in the morning.”
***
When Samantha got the call that evening, she wasn’t sure how to feel. The only emotion that she really had, and she felt terrible for having it, was relief. She immediately pushed it out of her mind. She shouldn’t feel that way. It made her a bad person. Samantha decided the best course of action was to just tell her daughter what was happening. The doctors had told her that this would be good for her. They said closure was important.
Samantha leaned against the doorframe to her daughter’s room as she watched Annie pull a toy across the floor that Tigs chased. She was giggling as the cat ran around, batting it with her paws. Samantha didn’t want to lose this again. Seeing her daughter smiling and laughing again felt too good, but she knew putting it off would only make it worse. “Annie.”
The girl looked up at her mother. The toy stopped moving and Tigs pounced on it, trapping it between his paws. Samantha walked into the room and sat on her bed, patting the spot next to her. Annie hopped up next to her mother. Samantha took both her daughter’s hands in hers. “You know how much your father loved you, right?”
Annie looked down for a moment and then back at her mother with wide eyes. She nodded.
“We’re going to his funeral tomorrow. Do you know what that is?” Samantha’s words were gentle, like they were walking on cracking ice and any moment they would plunge her daughter back into the icy cold, stealing her voice again.
“Yes,” Annie said. “It’s where we get to say goodbye.”
Tears started to well up in Samantha’s eyes, several leaking out onto her cheeks. Her lips quivered. “That’s right,” she said, her voice cracking. “We get to say goodbye.” Samantha wrapped her arms around her daughter while tears continued to roll down her face.
***
Chase went over a blueprint of a new plant opening up on the East Coast with six new investors when his brother, Derrick, burst through the door. The look on Derrick’s face was like when he would burst into Chase’s room on Christmas morning. Chase excused himself from the investors, meeting Derrick in the hallway outside his office.
“We’ve got something,” Derrick said, handing his brother a folder.
Chase opened up the file, and a picture of Kevin Mears stared back at him. Chase grabbed the back of his brother’s neck and smiled. He pulled him close so that their foreheads were touching. “Good work, brother.”
CHAPTER 5
With only a twenty-four hour notice and Samantha not in communication with anyone from her life in Phoenix, there wasn’t a large turnout for the funeral. Matt’s parents had died before she and Matt met, and he didn’t have any siblings. An aunt and uncle that lived a few hours east showed up, but aside from that the only other attendees were Coyle, Brett, Twink, and Jim.
Jim hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. The bags under his eyes were as dark as the soil being spread over Matt’s coffin. Samantha had avoided Jim’s gaze since he arrived and Annie hadn’t said a word to him. He would have preferred some screaming and cursing as opposed to the silent treatment.
Once the priest finished his words Jim watched Samantha and Annie each take a handful of dirt, tossing it onto Matt’s grave. Neither of them cried. Jim understood. There weren’t any tears left.
Jim hung back while Samantha picked her daughter up and crossed the graveyard to a black SUV. Twink opened the rear passenger door for Samantha, and she and her daughter climbed into the back seat. Brett hopped into the driver’s seat and pulled out onto the r
oad.
Coyle and Jim followed in a second black SUV. To Jim’s relief, Coyle kept his mouth shut the whole way back to Samantha’s apartment. When the caravan pulled into Samantha’s complex’s parking lot, she and Annie headed upstairs with Twink and Brett. Jim and Coyle remained in their vehicle.
Coyle loosened his tie. “God, I hate wearing these things.”
Jim didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes focused on the small balcony where Samantha’s apartment was located.
“Are you afraid of what she’ll say?” Coyle asked.
“The only thing I’m afraid of is that she’ll say yes,” Jim said.
Jim then opened the car door and left Coyle to wrestle with his tie. He walked up to the second story and stepped inside Samantha’s apartment. He watched from the door way as Annie showed Twink and Brett some drawings she’d made. She pointed at the different things she’d colored while Brett and Twink nodded enthusiastically.
Jim stood unnoticed for almost ten minutes until Tigs came around the corner of the bedroom hallway and saw him. The cat sprinted to Jim and he knelt down, scooping up his old friend.
Jim scratched behind Tigs’ ears and the cat purred loudly. The only person in the room that wasn’t looking at him now was Annie. She was still absorbed in telling the story of what the picture was supposed to be while Jim slowly entered the living room.
“And this is me and Tigs in the tent where I found him at the camp,” Annie said.
The child noticed the silence, then she saw Jim. It was the first time she’d looked her uncle in the eyes since she watched him kill her father. The look she was giving him was the same look he saw on her face three months ago. She was terrified.
“Hey, Annie,” Twink said, “Why don’t you show me the rest of the pictures you drew?”
The girl didn’t move. Samantha kept her eyes locked on Jim. “That’s a good idea. Annie, why don’t you take Twink and Brett to your room and show them what else you’ve drawn,” said Samantha.
Annie finally scooped up her drawings. Brett and Twink disappeared into the hallway after her. Jim let Tigs to the floor and she too trotted off after Annie. When Jim finally heard Annie’s bedroom door shut, he walked over to his sister. Samantha sat motionless on the couch.
Jim couldn’t tell what she was thinking or what she was feeling. The space between them was thick with words waiting to be said. “I tried calling.”
“I know.”
Samantha’s words hit him like ice; cold, unforgiving, and harsh. Jim peeked around the corner of the hallway toward Annie’s room and then walked across the living room to the sliding glass doors that guarded the balcony. “I didn’t know she started talking again.”
“It started a few days ago,” Samantha replied.
“Samantha…” Jim started.
“There isn’t anything you can say, Jim,” she said. “Whatever you planned on saying, or thought about saying…it won’t change what happened.”
“I know,” Jim said. He glanced over the balcony onto the parking lot below.
Samantha shifted herself on the couch and rested her face in her hands. “Tell me why you’re here, Jim.”
Jim turned around and saw his sister’s first look of pain since he arrived. Her face was tired, hurt, and angry. He knew that face because it was the same one he’d been staring at in the mirror for the past three months. There was only one thing that Jim knew could combat the symptoms of loss; action. “You received something from Matt a few days ago?”
“Yeah, I already sent it Locke’s office,” she said.
“I know. That’s why I’m here.” Jim sat down on the couch, keeping a foot of distance between them. He tried to place his hand on her leg, but she jerked it away and scooted further down the couch. He fumbled with the awkwardness of his hand hanging in the empty space between them once she moved. “We think the code you gave us was for another attack. It could be chemical, and it’s a big one. Once we finish deciphering it, we should know who’s been behind all of the attacks since San Diego. When we figure out who that is, we want you to give them the codes.”
Samantha stayed quiet for a long time. Jim watched her squeeze both of her hands until they were rubbed red. She rose from the couch and walked over to the balcony doors. “If I do this, Annie doesn’t get anywhere near the trouble. Understand?”
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” Jim said.
“Promise me.”
“I promise, Sam.”
Samantha nodded. Jim looked at his younger sister and realized for the first time how strong she really was. She’d been in the reserves and used to be a police officer, but he never really saw her resolve until this moment.
“When do we start?” Samantha asked.
“Tomorrow,” Jim said. He pulled out a cellphone and extended to her. “We’ll call you on this moving forward. We’ll have somebody stationed nearby to keep an eye on you.”
Samantha walked over to him and grabbed the phone, but Jim held it tight as she looked her in the eye.
“If you feel like there is anything wrong, just click the power button three times. It’ll send us a distress signal that we’ll be able to track.”
“What about Annie?” Samantha asked.
“We’ll use Matt’s aunt and uncle as cover to keep her somewhere safe. Samantha,” Jim’s voice was calm and low, “if you do this, there isn’t any going back.”
“I need to know, Jim,” she replied. “I need to know why my husband kept this from me for so long. I need to know why he did what he did.”
The truth can haunt you and follow you for the rest of your life if you don’t try and face it. The truth can be hurtful, frightening, unforgiving… But it’s a necessary step, Jim told himself. As much as he wanted to protect her, he couldn’t bring himself to stop her from getting to what she needed to feel whole again. “Sometimes the truth tricks people into thinking it’ll make them feel better.”
“I’ll call you if I need anything,” Samantha said.
Samantha retrieved Brett and Twink from Annie’s room, leaving Jim alone in the living room.
Twink and Brett came out and they both gave Jim a half smile as they passed him on the way to the front door. Samantha came after and then Annie peeked her head around the corner of the hallway that led to her room. Jim watched her inch out until she was fully exposed. Annie stood staring at her uncle and when Jim moved forward to hold her, she immediately ran back to her room. Jim had been shot, burned, and stabbed before, but none of that hurt compared to the sight of his niece running away from him. “Let us know if you anyone contacts you,” Jim said.
“I will,” she replied.
Jim lingered by the door, wanting to tell her that he didn’t have a choice in killing Matt. He wanted to scream at her and tell her that it wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t bring himself to cause her more pain and since he couldn’t find the kind words, he gave her a small kiss on the forehead.
Jim walked out into the hallway and headed for the stairs. Samantha was closing the door behind him and just before he got to the steps, he turned around. “Samantha.”
The door opened back up and she poked her head out.
“I’m… What happened back in Phoenix…” Jim stumbled. Sorry wasn’t enough, but it was all he had. “I’m sorry.”
“I know, Jim,” Samantha said, her eyes beginning to water. Jim stared at the gold apartment numbers etched in the door once she closed it, leaving him alone in the hallway.
Jim wanted to go back over and knock, but he decided against it. He’d said what he could, and that was all was able to muster for now.
Coyle was still waiting for Jim when he climbed back into the SUV. Jim shut the door and then glanced up at the balcony through the vehicle’s windshield.
“So, what now?” Coyle asked.
Jim kept his eyes on the window above. “Now we get to work.”
The SUV exited the parking lot and passed a parked grey sedan. Once the SUV had faded
from sight, the driver’s side door of the sedan opened and Derrick stepped out. He wore a black suit and tie with a white dress shirt and sunglasses. Walking through the entrance gate of the apartment complex, he fastened the top button of his jacket.
Chapter 6
Samantha was about to check on Annie when she was interrupted by a knock at the door. She hoped Jim had returned. She desperately wanted to untie the knot in her stomach and tell her brother that she understood what he did. She wanted the chance to tell him that she forgave him, but when she opened the door and Derrick Brenner appeared, her face went from a sad smile to her mouth dropping open with the color draining from her face.