CL Hart -From A Distance

by CL Hart

  "Consider it done," the caller said and the line went dead.

  After what seemed like a lifetime, Kenzie landed back at Whidbey Island Naval Base. The silence on the plane ride home was almost unbearable. There was no one there to talk to, and for the first time in her life, she realized there never really had been. She was alone - no partner, no companionship, no one to share her life's ups and downs with - except for the man she called "Judge". Looking out at the lights of Seattle, she fingered the fresh sutures on her cheek. Even in the distorted reflection of the plane's window, she could see the swelling and the discolorations on her chin and cheek. She wished it hurt more. The physical pain would keep her mind occupied.

  She was alone and it was more than her conscience could bear as she tried to forget the images burning in her mind. She needed someone to tell her that she'd done what needed to be done. What she didn't need was to face the man who had put her into that position. Flagrantly flouting policy and procedures, Kenzie deplaned and left the base.

  She sped through the empty streets on her bike, running from the memories and the shadows in her mind. She had no idea where she was going - she just needed to drive, to get away - but she couldn't run from herself and from what she had done. Hours later, she pulled up in front of a convenience store just as the bundle of newspapers arrived. She waited impatiently for the elderly man to pull one from the pile. Walking back to her bike, she flipped madly through the pages until a small article caught her eye.

  After reading it a second time, she folded the newspaper in half and tucked it inside her leather jacket. She sat on her bike, struggling to decide between following her principles or her training. A moment later, she fired up her bike and roared down the deserted roadway.

  Kenzie parked her bike and walked a short distance through the quiet, urban neighborhood. Silently, she slipped into the shadows and made her way along the side of a house. Within seconds, she disappeared through a ground level window into the basement. Making her way up the basement stairs and through the house, she was as soundless as they had trained her to be. Without a noise, she moved down the hall, pausing only for a moment at a picture hanging on the wall. It was obviously taken many years earlier, a young Judge Woodward standing with one hand in the air and the other on the bible as he swore an oath of duty and justice. Moving on, she took a chair in the kitchen and waited.

  A long, patient wait later, she heard a familiar creak coming from the carpeted stairs leading to the second floor. The swinging door opened into the kitchen and a hand reached for the light switch.

  "Leave them off, Judge."

  He froze at the sound of her voice and flattened himself against the opposite wall. "What? Who's there?"

  His startled voice tugged at her and she realized just how long it had been since they had spoken in person. "A ghost," she answered solemnly.

  The judge hesitated, but even in the dark, he knew who it was. "Katherine?"

  No one but the judge ever used her first name, and it sounded strange. She had almost forgotten it was hers. "Yeah."

  The judge noted that she sounded tired. "My God, girl, what are you doing here?" he said, reaching again for the light switch. "It's been so long. Let me take a look at you?"

  "Leave 'em off." She regretted the demanding tone in her voice. "Please."

  Judge Woodward did as asked, crossed the dimly lit room and took a chair opposite her. "Katherine, you're sounding awful good for a dead person." Squinting in the low light, he didn't like what he saw in the shadows. "Rough work you're in?" He nodded toward her bruised cheek and the row of stitches. He watched in painful interest as her eyes went down to a scratch on the table she was picking at with her nail.

  "Yeah, well, you should see the other guy," she said.

  The judge waited, hoping she would say more. When she didn't, he could wait no longer. "Katherine, what's wrong?"

  She took a deep breath, but said nothing as she glanced out the back window. There was a long moment of profound silence before her low whispered words crept from the shadows. "I shouldn't have come here."

  "Well, you are here and you can't change that now.' He watched her with knowing eyes, waiting, probing. "Something happened that was bad enough for you to risk coming out in the open." She turned back and looked at him, and he understood. "I have a military background, my dear. I have a pretty good idea what you're doing."

  "I wish I did." There was an awkward moment of silence and it penetrated deep into her subconscious. Never before had she felt uneasy around the judge.

  "Katherine?"

  The concern was evident in his voice, but she didn't know what to say or how to say it. He watched her in the shadows, waiting long enough to know she was not going to answer him.

  "I know you can't tell me what happened, but maybe I could help if you give me something to go on."

  Her eyes darted around the room, telling him just how uncomfortable she was, but he wondered if her nerves came from whatever had happened or from who she had become. He waited and finally she spoke.

  "Who am I?"

  The judge leaned closer, knowing there was more to the question than the obvious. "I'm not sure how to answer that. Who do you think you are?"

  There was a long silence, a palpable pause to have come from such a simple question. "I don't think I know anymore...1 don't think I ever really did. I've just followed orders." She stopped and the only sound in the room was the steady tick of the kitchen clock. "Because that's what a good soldier does...but at some point I stopped thinking for myself...I stopped caring." It was the most she had spoken all at once in a long time.

  "That's your job."

  "What?" she said as she stood up quickly from the table. "Not to care?"

  "No." He wanted to reach out to her, but had no idea how. "Katherine, your job is to follow orders, because if you don't follow those orders, people will die."

  Kenzie slowly unzipped her jacket. "People are dying whether I follow orders or not." She tossed the folded newspaper onto the table.

  Picking it up, he moved to the light over the sink. Judge Woodward quickly scanned the paper, knowing it was her way of communicating without giving him information. The moment he spotted the military press release, he knew he had found what he was looking for.

  "That was no accident." He read the article quickly. "Are you sure?" Kenzie nodded and waited for him to finish. When he was done, he returned to the table, put the paper down, and sat across from her.

  "I was there."

  "At the base?"

  Kenzie stared into nothing, recalling the sights and sounds where she had just been - the flames, the heat, and the sound of gunfire, the stench of death as it rose into the night sky. Her conflict then was almost as bad as the conflict she was experiencing now. Kenzie looked at the judge as she fingered the injury to her face.

  "Those men didn't die on any base." She reached for the paper and zipped it back into her jacket.

  "Katherine?"

  Kenzie noticed the growing gray of twilight and knew her time was up. "I gotta go."

  "But you just got here. Stay for a bit, let's talk."

  "I can't." She rose from the table, uncertain of what she was going to do. She did know that she should not have come. Her being there put her only friend at risk. "I, ah, I'm sorry...but I gotta go."

  "Where are you going?" the judge asked.

  She walked over to the door at the edge of the hallway, which would take her back to the basement. "I don't know. I have to deal with this myself."

  "It was good to see you, Katherine. I've missed you - and our chess game."

  She tried to smile but couldn't muster one. She didn't know whether it was because of the wound on her cheek, or the confusion in her conscience.

  "Can you come back?"

  "It might be better for us if I didn't."

  "I'm here if you need me. Be careful."

  "Always."

  He watched as the basement door closed silently, and ju
st like that, she was gone. Standing alone in his kitchen, Judge Woodward made his own decision and reached for the phone. Dialing a number, he listened to the ringing until a sleepy voice answered.

  Kenzie had no idea what possessed her to go and see the judge, knowing she should not. Regardless, it had made her feel a little bit better. She kept her mind busy on the long drive back, and when she pulled into her driveway, she was certain she had made a decision.

  With confident strides, she made her way up the stairs and stopped to unlock the back door, but it was already unlocked. Someone was in her house! Startled and apprehensive, she reached for her weapon. Crouching down, she pushed the door open from the bottom as a large figure filled the doorway in her kitchen.

  "Where the hell have you been, LeGault?" Colonel Manuck said. "Have you got any goddamn idea what goes on when someone like you doesn't show up for a debriefing? Especially after a mission that was almost a disaster."

  "Almost a disaster? It was a disaster!" She fought to calm her rising anger.

  "We do what we have to do. We do what we're asked. People live and people die, for God, for country-"

  Kenzie glared at her commander. "They didn't die for their country. They were murdered!"

  "Sit down and shut up, LeGault. You do what you're told to do, and that's the end of it. You're not here to think, you're here to do, because we've trained you to do it - period!"

  "I didn't sign up for this."

  "No one ever does, but someone has to do the dirty work and that's what we do."

  Kenzie couldn't help looking down at her hands, knowing just how dirty they had become. She picked at her bitten fingernails, digging at the rough skin around the edges. "Did you know what we were being sent there to do?"

  "You do what you're told to do - period. What we do here is highly sensitive and classified. We can't afford the actions of one person to destroy the delicate balance of our nation's safety and security."

  Kenzie crossed the room and looked out the window, her eyes scanning the busy streets below. She crossed her arms, but it felt uncomfortable and unnatural. "So what happens now?"

  "That depends on you." Manuck sat down at her desk, ignoring the thin layer of dust covering the unused work area. Pulling herself from the view out her window, she turned to watch him. He felt her stare. Wiping his hands off, he turned his attention back to her. "I need to know - are you an asset or a liability?"

  "Meaning what?"

  Manuck picked up a briefcase and placed it on the table. Keeping his attention on Kenzie, he opened it and looked down at the two large envelopes with her name on them. He pulled out one and offered it. "Your next assignment." He never took his eyes off her.

  As she studied the lines in his face, Kenzie knew it was a test. "What if I don't take it?" There was no answer as his dark eyes returned her questioning stare. "What if that was my last assignment and I wanted to...let's say, take an extended leave, without a return date?"

  "Extended leave? You mean quit?"

  "Whatever you want to call it - leave, quit, holiday... What if I want to resign? What if I've had enough? What if I want out? What happens?"

  Manuck studied the grain on her dusty table and was silent for too long a time before answering. "There are proper procedures, steps to be taken, but it isn't going to happen overnight. We would have to establish an identity for you, and that takes time. We have spent a lot of time and money training you. We can't just let you leave."

  "But I can get out?"

  "If that's what you want, but in the meantime there are jobs that need to be done." He reached back into his briefcase for another envelope and held it out to her, waiting to see if she was going to accept it. When she didn't, he laid it on the table and pushed it toward her. "We need confirmation within forty-eight hours." He slipped the first manila envelope he had offered her back into his briefcase.

  Reaching for the envelope, her hand stopped and she pulled it back as if she had been burned. "Forty-eight hours?"

  "We need to - eliminate the problem - quickly." Manuck's eyes bored into hers. "And we need the best."

  Kenzie finally picked up the envelope and broke the seal. The colonel watched her with interest as he clicked shut his briefcase. Kenzie pulled out the documents, perusing them quickly.

  "It's a woman," she said flatly, looking at the picture of a young woman sitting on what appeared to be a park bench. The photo had obviously been taken with a telephoto lens, but Kenzie could clearly see the features of the young woman's face.

  "Is it a problem?" Manuck asked. "I need to know."

  Kenzie flipped through the pages, absorbing the information without even realizing it. Though the thought of killing a woman weighed heavily on her mind, she reminded herself that she was a soldier.

  "Can I count on you?"

  "Where?"

  "Guadalajara, Mexico. There's a plane standing by."

  Kenzie didn't answer him. She walked over to her bags and looked around her bare living room. There was nothing personal in the room, nothing she really cared about. How could she? She didn't exist. Aside from the judge, she had no one in her life and never had. This was not a home; it was just a place where she waited for her next assignment.

  "I need an answer, LeGault," he said impatiently. "Can I count on you to eliminate this problem?"

  Walking over to the fireplace mantle, she picked up the only photograph in the room. Staring into Judge Woodward's face, she spoke in a distant voice.

  "Have you ever heard the fable about the frog and the scorpion?"

  She didn't wait for an answer. "You see, this scorpion wants to cross this river, but he can't. He sees a frog out swimming in the river, so he asks the frog for a ride on his back. The frog says, 'No - if I give you a ride on my back, you'll sting me.' The scorpion replies, 'Why would I do that - we would both drown.' The frog thinks it over and then decides it seems safe enough, so he lets the scorpion on his back. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog and as the frog starts to sink to his death, he says to the scorpion, 'Why did you do that? Now we're both going to die.' The scorpion says, I couldn't help it - it's what I do."'

  Kenzie replaced the photo, picked up her bag, and walked over to the colonel. "Of course I'll eliminate your problem. It's what I do."

  Manuck stood on the tarmac and watched Kenzie's plane ascend to the skies before he climbed into his black Suburban. With one eye on the blinking taillights, he picked up his cell phone and dialed a number.

  "It's Manuck. She accepted the second envelope, so I would consider the problem solved. Yes...the best man for the job."

  Chapter 4

  Cori Evans. The name meant nothing to Kenzie, just another notch on the butt of an imaginary gun. Still, something kept drawing her to the photo she had folded up inside her pocket. The information she'd been given was sketchy at best, but that was typical. It was her job to find the person, the patterns, and the best method of disposal, though this time is was different and she knew it. She had a deadline, and the countdown had already begun.

  The plane landed on a strip that was non-military, noncommercial, and definitely nondescript, but it was Mexico. If one flew low enough and fast enough, no one was any the wiser. Kenzie glanced at her watch. "What's our evac time?"

  The pilot looked at his own watch and shrugged. "Twenty-three hundred hours."

  "Don't be late," she said as she climbed from the plane. The sun was high and hot by the time she reached her destination. She undid one more button of her thin white cotton blouse, thankful she had changed into her khakis. A large component of her job was to blend in, and clothes and fashion were all a part of the cover. Unfortunately, most of the time she found herself in the desert of a third world country or deep in a bug infested jungle. When the opportunity presented itself, she liked to dress up rather than down.

  Her target was located in a small apartment building crowded within the bowels of Guadalajara. With a dense population of five million, there w
ere few places one could observe unnoticed. A vacant lot situated across the street from the four-floor apartment house would have made a good place to lie in wait, but a quick examination of the area told her there was little coverage for a sniper shot. Kenzie repositioned the heavy canvas bag on her shoulder as she decided to see where Cori Evans lived before she found a spot to watch Cori Evans die.

  Mexican and American music blared loudly outside and inside the apartments as Kenzie made her way down the narrow hallway. Doors opened and doors closed, but no one paid her any mind when she stopped in front of apartment 307- She knocked quietly then tried the knob. It was locked. No surprise. A quick glance left and right and Kenzie had the cheap lock picked and was quickly inside. A wave of warm air engulfed her as she closed the door behind her and looked about the room. It was basic and plain with simple furniture. There was a hint of jasmine in the air and she wondered for a brief moment if it was the woman's perfume.

  Kenzie looked around the apartment. In some ways, it reminded her of her own house. It was neat and tidy, but didn't have a lived-in feel. There was no real warmth, no feeling of home. The kitchen was clean, the tables were spotless, and the door to the bedroom was open. The smell of jasmine grew even stronger as she glanced inside at the made bed. A quick, but thorough search of the room revealed little about the woman in the photograph in her pocket.

  The woman's passport was taped to the underside of a dresser drawer - a predictable hiding spot. Kenzie flipped through the blank pages. Not a traveler. She looked at the lone photograph on the dresser next to a set of keys in a basket. Kenzie picked up the photograph and looked at the picture of Cori with her arms draped around an older woman. Her mother, Kenzie guessed. Who are you and what are you into? Kenzie looked at the smiling, fresh face of the young woman. A terrorist threat? No, not likely, she answered her own thought. Then what? She doesn't look like the type to be starting a revolution. Maybe she's sleeping with a terrorist. Maybe she is the terrorist. Whatever... That's someone else's problem, not mine. I'm just here to fix it. Just do your job, soldier.