For the Trees

by Brett Baker

  After walking eight blocks in all directions to make sure no one was following me, I flagged down a cab, directed the driver to bring me to my apartment, and tried to figure out what to do next.

  The driver made a right-hand turn, and then did a U-turn and went back in the other direction. “We better go this way,” he said. “Some guy got hit by a bus up ahead. Good lord it’s gruesome. What a way to go.”

  “That sounds horrible,” I said, suppressing a smile.

  5

  Chapter 5

  The cab dropped me off in the alley behind my building. For as long as I’d worked for The Summit I’d avoided exiting a car in front of my building. I always got dropped off in the alley, and if I drove myself I made sure to park my car at least two blocks away and walk. No one had ever followed me in a car and ended up at my apartment. Going directly to my building seemed like a needless, easily avoided risk. I’d known people who parked in front of their building, only to be murdered minutes later by someone who followed them home. Anyone who wanted to follow me would have to do so by foot.

  I rejected the sparse apartment that The Summit suggested all agents maintain. Since agents frequently have to leave at a moment’s notice, sometimes never to return, an apartment with few belongings and no sentimentality helped an agent avoid getting killed upon returning to pickup some material possession. The recommendation made sense, but I’d given enough of my life to The Summit. I refused to let them tell me how to live in the only realm of my life that belonged to me and no one else.

  So I had the sort of apartment that I’d always dreamed of. Restored, reclaimed furniture, vintage curtains on the windows, some of my best photographs hanging on the wall, and a few deadbolts on the door to help secure it all.

  With the door fortified, I allowed myself to unwind at home. Nowhere else in the world, not even in The Roost, did I feel completely safe. During my time at The Summit I’d made plenty of enemies in the world, and the possibility of immediate death at the hands of some murderous brute always loomed as a possibility.

  Except for inside my apartment. With all of the precautions I’d taken over the years, I’d learned to feel safe there, and that ability to completely let go, to stop looking over my shoulder even just for a few minutes, to know for certain that no one within fifteen feet of me wanted me dead, sometimes saved me from going insane.

  I’d lived in the apartment since joining The Summit right out of high school, fifteen years ago. It had been an adjustment at first, living in a city I didn’t know, away from my family and friends, learning how to do the most dangerous job in the world, while also learning how to be myself, and how to be an adult.

  Looking back at that time I’m amazed that I survived. I’d known that bad guys would try to kill me. That went along with the job. But no one told me about the silent enemies. The loneliness, the self-doubt, the fear, the isolation. For the first two years I convinced myself that I’d made a horrible mistake, but I had no idea how to undo it.

  The Summit requires a three-year commitment from the beginning. I found out later that they’d discovered that it usually took three years for a new recruit to become comfortable in the job, and longer than that to become good at it. Almost everyone who ever joined The Summit wanted to quit during those first three years. I was actually ahead of schedule since my desire to quit disappeared after just two years. I didn’t know it at the time though.

  All I knew back then was that I’d altered my life more completely than anyone I’d ever met, and that I wanted to die. In fact, that first December, just before Christmas, six months after signing on with The Summit, I’d purchased fifteen feet of rope, and tied a hangman’s noose. I’d never considered doing such a thing at any point in my entire life, but I’d never been through anything as difficult as The Summit either. Yet somehow, much to my surprise, I persevered and never used the rope. Things gradually improved, and I hung the rope on the wall in my living room as a grave reminder of the hardship of those early days, and my ability to overcome anything.

  My journey to The Summit began during my sophomore year in high school. I worked at an ice cream shop after school, and the owner, a kind older lady everyone in town called Migsy, liked me. Migsy had run the ice cream shop for more than half a century, and a well-known rumor claimed that she’d never actually left the small town where we lived. She’d been born there, lived there, worked there, and someday would die there, without ever leaving town. It might seem like a ridiculous idea, but Migsy wouldn’t have been the first person never to leave the shelter and security of a small town.

  However, the rumors about Migsy weren’t true. She’d not only left town, she’d had a life before the ice cream shop that no one in town knew about. During World War II she worked as a spy for the British inside Nazi Germany. She’d been captured and interrogated at a Nazi war prison, before breaking free and running, swimming and climbing across Germany for thirteen days to reach a British safe house.

  No one in our town knew of Migsy’s past though, and when she told me about her escapades I didn’t believe her at first. But she spoke with such passion, precision and expertise that it didn’t take long before I understood that everything she said was true. She explained it all to me late one July night after we closed the shop together. She hadn’t spoken of her war service in decades until she told me about it. And when I asked her why she shared it with me, she had no answer. “There’s something about you,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s your maturity, your capability, your toughness, your intellect, or a combination of all of it, but I think you can handle it.”

  “I won’t say anything to anyone,” I promised. “I can handle it. Thanks for telling me.”

  “I’m not talking about my story,” Migsy said. “Anyone can handle keeping that secret if I ask them to. I’m talking about something more important. More difficult. I think you can handle that. What do you think?”

  I nodded, but inside I worried about whatever she would say next. She went on to ask me what I planned to do with my life, whether I wanted my life to be a great adventure, and how much bravery, patience and persistence I possessed. It all sounded like a setup, like she was asking me a set of questions for the sole purpose of disappointing me, or reminding me that I was just a teenager and still had a lot to learn.

  Not until eighteen months later, when the first stranger from The Summit followed me to school, pulled me from class, and interviewed me in an interior room with no windows, usually reserved for in-school suspensions, did I learn that the conversation with Migsy had been the first in a series of screenings intended to find suitable candidates for The Summit.

  It only took a few more conversations before I agreed to join. Three days after I graduated high school I began the rigorous training required of all members, whether they plan to be field agents or not, to ensure that The Summit employed only the fittest, most prepared, most resourceful people on earth.

  Even before I left home The Summit proved its efficiency. Soon after I agreed to join, my parents magically won a few hundred thousand dollars in a lottery that helped clear their debt so they were less likely to be lured by a monetary gift from a corrupt organization. When my father asked me to consider staying home to help care for his dying mother, a spot mysteriously opened in the only nursing home in the county. Then, for the next four years my parents believed I was studying at Princeton, thanks to The Summit. When my brother, Johnny, wanted to go to law school, his admission was never in doubt.

  For the first three years, The Summit took care of anything that worried me. Success required complete devotion to The Summit, and anything that distracted me was a danger to them, so they made sure nothing distracted me. They gave me the apartment in Chicago, but shielded me from becoming part of the community. I was permitted to socialize with a few people in the building, just to blend in, but if The Summit thought I was getting too close to someone, or if a friend seemed shady, I received a crystal clear message warning me about who I let i
nto my life.

  I’d often wondered why The Summit chose me. During my training, a man named Newsome, who was in his late forties, but more fit than men half his age, called me Migsy’s Bitch, which infuriated me at first. However, over time I learned that they insulted me to help build a thick skin so that I’d never lose my cool over someone’s words. But Newsome always implied that the only reason I’d been accepted into The Summit was because of Migsy’s recommendation.

  “That woman went through a deeper hell than almost any man in the entire war, but Jesus Fucking Christ it sure as shit didn’t teach her how to evaluate talent. If anyone but Migsy recommended you you’d have been sent home weeks ago. This organization has been around longer than you’ve been alive, but Holy Bat Shit, your fucking stupidity might be enough to take us all down. If I die because of you I’m going to kill you, I don’t care if you’re Migsy’s Bitch or not. I will haunt your ass forever.”

  Newsome berated me almost every single day, and not once did he imply that he thought I could do the job. He invented insults to heap upon me, and there were times when I thought I’d collapse and die just from the sheer force of his objections to my very existence. He pushed me so hard, challenged me so much that it seemed he wanted to kill me. Yet I survived. And after some weeks—counting days or weeks was impossible when enduring such an intense, overwhelming assault during every waking hour—I began to feel stronger.

  One day Newsome tiptoed into my room before dawn and pulled me out of bed by my feet, my back hitting the bedrail on my way to the floor, the cold tile sending a shock throughout my body, his sonorous voice breaking the silence of the night. Despite the shock of such a vicious wake-up call, I simply jumped to my feet as soon as I hit the floor, and instinctively took a defensive stance. Seconds earlier I’d been sound asleep, and before I could even think about what was happening, or how I should react, I’d prepared to protect myself.

  I’d never felt such confidence in my entire life.

  After I finished training, when Newsome left and I was on my own in Chicago, I still felt lost, depressed, isolated. I knew I’d made a terrible mistake, and wished that I could undo it. More than anything, I wanted my old life back. I wanted to go home, see my friends, live in a familiar place. I didn’t want to be in The Summit. I didn’t want to live in Chicago.

  But thanks to Newsome’s training, at least I knew why The Summit had chosen me.

  6

  Chapter 6

  I like baths. I never used to like them. Sitting in dirty ass water is quite disgusting if one thinks too much about it. So I decided to just stop thinking about it. Instead, I’ve developed a routine. I draw my bath, and make it very hot, almost to the point where I can’t stand to get in. Then I sit there and soak until the water has cooled, and on the verge of uncomfortable. By then I’m completely relaxed, and the hot water heater has had a chance to recover. Then I drain the bath and take a shower.

  Baths relax me. Showers clean me.

  After the attempts on my life, I had decided not to leave my apartment the following day. I needed the solitude, and the only way I could guarantee my own safety was to hole up. Since Polestar had no information of threats against me, I figured they could use some extra time to collect intelligence as well. And since the beginning of my decommission was entirely too eventful, I’d earned the downtime. A bath seemed the perfect capstone to a day in which no one tried to kill me.

  I’d been in the bath for just over twenty minutes when the phone rang. The water still felt warm, soothing, but had begun to cool. I hadn’t opened my eyes since I got in the tub, and I felt completely relaxed. When I’m on a mission, I’m always aware of danger. I know that even the most placid day can turn into a shit storm at a moment’s notice, and I can’t afford to let my guard down. But it’s supposed to be different during decommission. The whole point is to relax, to not be constantly on guard, to give one’s heart and nerves a respite. Needless to say those thing don’t happen when you’re being shot at or kidnapped. And since the previous day’s assaults had come as such a surprise, they’d been even more draining than they otherwise would have been. So when the phone rang and interrupted my solitude it startled me and pissed me off.

  I considered not answering, and had I not had the phone within reach, I wouldn’t have. Very few people are important enough for me to interrupt my bath. Against my better judgment I answered the phone, my eyes still closed.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Mia, I need for you to sit down and relax.”

  I immediately recognized my brother’s voice on the phone. Johnny and I talked a couple of times a week, unless a mission kept me out of contact with him. He was one of my favorite people in the world, and no matter what was going on in my life, I always felt better talking to him. He’d graduated from law school and was a real hot shot in the legal world, but then he decided to give it up. He walked away, and chose to live a life more simple, less stressful. We’d always been proud of his accomplishments, but when he worked as an attorney his personality changed and it seemed like he didn’t enjoy life. We were glad when the old Johnny returned after he quit practicing.

  But it was clear from his tone that he hadn’t called to chat. His voice contained an urgent edginess that brought me to attention right away. I sat up in the tub, and opened my eyes.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “Is anyone there with you? Maybe you should have someone come over there.”

  “No, I’m alone. Just say what you need to say, Johnny. You’re scaring me.”

  Silence on the other end of the phone. Johnny said nothing for a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. I held my breath at what words would follow, sure that whatever they were they’d change my life. I was just about to yell at him for being so deliberate, but then he spoke.

  “Mom and dad are dead.” His voice began the sentence strong, firm, but at the word dead it cracked, and he wept. “The sheriff just called me. Whittaker Watson found them when he went to pick them up for bingo.”

  I shrieked. My own scream startled me, and I said aloud, to myself, “Wait, wait, calm down.” I stood up and walked out of the bathroom, dripping water and soap suds, and began pacing around my apartment. From the bathroom to the living room to the kitchen, back to the living room. I hadn’t started to cry yet. My heart raced, and I felt smothered. I looked up at the ceiling to make sure it wasn’t being lowered, as I had a distinct feeling of the space around me getting smaller. I reached out one hand behind me, as if trying to block the wall from crushing me. The walls stood strong though. It was me who was falling apart.

  “Are you…are you sure? I mean, it’s them? How do they know it’s them?” The idiocy of the question surprised me as soon as it left my mouth.

  “It’s them, Mia. Whittaker has known them for forty years. He positively identified them to the sheriff. Our parents are dead. We’re orphans.”

  “How? I mean, together? At the same time? Did they plan it?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word suicide, even though that was the word volleying around my thoughts.

  “It’s horrible, Mia. I mean, just awful. I’m not sure you want to know. Not now. I’ll tell you all the details when I see you.”

  “Fuck you, Johnny.” I stopped walking, realized I was naked, and went to the bathroom to get a towel. Johnny’s refusal to tell me what had happened triggered something in me, and for a moment my sorrow disappeared, and was replaced by fury. “I’m not a little kid. I don’t need you to protect me. Tell me what the fuck happened.”

  “At least sit down,” he said.

  I sat down on the toilet, and crossed one leg over the other. “Done.”

  “Whittaker found dad just inside the door. On the floor of the porch. He’d been stabbed. A lot. The sheriff said they still have to do an autopsy, but there’s no doubt the stab wounds were the cause of death. Whittaker immediately thought of mom. You know how much he loved her. He went inside to look for he
r and found her in the kitchen. She’d been stabbed, too. House was filled with smoke because she’d been baking cookies and they were still in the oven. She had a pulse, and an ambulance came, but it was too late. She’d lost too much blood, and never regained consciousness. Whittaker rode in the ambulance with her and was in the room when they called it. I’m sure she would have been glad to have someone there, and I know Whittaker was glad to be there.”

  Somehow Johnny had managed to describe our parents’ horrific murder without losing it. But as soon as he finished the last sentence, he began to sob. I’d felt the fury build in me as Johnny described what happened, and my first instinct was to find out who I needed to kill, but hearing my brother’s sobs flipped a switch inside my brain, or my heart, or wherever such emotions are controlled, and the fury immediately morphed into uncompromising grief and sadness.

  I wanted to be with my brother. He’d lived in Chicago while he practiced law, and for a few years after, but he’d since moved to Texas. We saw each other a couple of times a year, and I’d never missed him more than I did at that very moment. I wanted to be home, in Alabama, with him. I wanted both of us to have never left the small town where we grew up. I wanted us to live near our parents, to have been there when they needed us, to have protected them, to have prevented their murders.

  “When are you going home?” I asked.

  “I’m going to leave in a couple of hours. I’m going to drive. I considered flying, but there’s no reason to get there right away. I think the time on the road will do me good. I’ll get there tomorrow and that’ll be good enough. You should sleep in your own bed tonight. I’ll call now and book a flight for you tomorrow. I’ll pick you up from the airport and we can drive home together.”