by Jay Klages
Kade nodded and Owens moved on from there.
“In your Chapter network display, do you see the Progress tab at the far lower right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, stare at it for a second until you see it change to blue and blink.”
Kade now saw the main screen change to ASSOCIATE PROGRAM. There were three graphic progress indicators underneath—Knowledge, Performance, and Reward. A points total, now showing zero, was listed next to each.
“I can see it.”
“This dashboard will give you daily feedback and how you’re progressing through your custom-designed Associate Program. You amass points based on exercises and test scores. At certain point level thresholds, monetary rewards and other privileges are granted.”
It was clearly the ultimate micromanagement tool. A carrot dangling in front of every Chapter member’s eyes.
“Interesting,” Kade said.
“Walter Lefear will be your primary Associate mentor. We thought that’d be useful since he’s a physician, and it’ll give us another means to monitor your health under the G protocol. You’ll continue to have weekly medical screenings from our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Drakos, and I’m also adding Associate Carol Reese as an additional peer mentor.”
“Great,” Kade said. Carol Reese had to be the other female Associate at the table he didn’t meet. And Dr. Drakos had to be the one treating him, except apparently she was a doctor, not a nurse.
“A couple more things I wanted to ask you about.” Owens produced a classic composition notebook with a black-and-white marbled cover and flipped to a spot in it. “You write entries in your journal, such as ‘Today I feel like a happy insect.’ Or on a different day, ‘Today I feel like the blazing light in my life has been swapped for the dull glow of a compact fluorescent.’ All of your entries are single sentences, and they sound depressing and cynical.”
Kade felt his cheeks get a little warm.
“Uh, somehow you took my journal from my apartment and read it?”
“Our background check is very thorough. We had to make sure you are who you say you are.” Owens pulled out a paper chart inserted between the journal pages and unfolded it. “And the mood chart—you always seem to mark your mood right in the middle, every day. That doesn’t seem very likely.”
Kade shrugged. “I do what the doctor tells me to do. Some parts of the treatment are good and some seem like bull. I don’t waste a lot of time on the bull. I admit my life hasn’t been very interesting for a good number of months. And at least in that way, the journal tells it like it is.”
“I see,” Owens said. “We’ll try to give you some very interesting projects. And we’ll try not to waste your time with bull.” He tossed the journal so it landed on the coffee table and Kade took it. “As you’ll find out starting tomorrow, you’re going to have little time to waste. My second topic: you have a prescription for carbamazepine? Do you need these pills?”
“No, I shouldn’t. I haven’t taken them in a while.”
“Okay, third topic: I want to ask about the website and blog that you managed.”
“You mean Wakethehelluppeople?”
“Yes. What you wrote on there for a number of months looks more interesting and thoughtful than your journal, but then you suddenly stopped updating it about six months ago. Why was that?”
Kade thought about how to phrase his answer.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you know about the website too,” he said, followed by a nervous laugh. “Uh, I don’t know. I just didn’t feel like doing it anymore. And people seemed to be missing the point anyway, thinking it’s political when it really wasn’t. I was just tired of the cover-your-ass leadership—from those in my immediate chain of command all the way to the top. But, then again, I have a patience deficiency. My girlfriend at the time thought I was obsessed with the blog, and I probably was.”
Owens nodded. “Yes, we have too many armchair politician-generals with no military experience or strategic knowledge. It’s all about managing political ‘optics’ now.”
“The only optics that matter are the ones mounted on a rifle.”
Owens laughed and raised a finger. “I like that. I know you sometimes made commentary on the wars. Afghanistan—you seemed quite knowledgeable on the theater of operations there.”
“Yeah, I’d studied it some in my previous job. I went there once on temporary duty, just for a few weeks, but it was in a pretty safe area. I also spent a number of months in Iraq.”
“What do you know about the Watapur Valley—more specifically Operation Bulldog Bite?”
That was Afghanistan. Kade took about ten seconds to put his thoughts together.
“Bulldog Bite . . . That was the First of the Three-Twenty-Seventh Infantry Regiment, Hundred and First Airborne, and the First Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. Kunar Province. They conducted air assault operations together with some Afghan troops mixed in. The enemy was a combined Taliban and Al Qaeda force. There was fierce fighting with many heroic actions on our side and over fifty of the enemy reported killed. We also suffered deaths and many casualties, not only from the fighting, but before and after—the whole area was littered with IEDs.”
Owens gazed downward.
“Would you call the operation a success?”
“The brass was quick to call it a success. But some soldiers on the ground thought the op was poorly planned and coordinated. They questioned if it was really worth it. I’m not going to call it anything. Any American soldier is going to fight his hardest for his buddy next to him.”
Owens sighed and shut his eyes for a few seconds.
“Yes, your summary is spot-on. It’s sad our government lacks the courage to put a halt to these continuous undeclared wars. The people who chant for boots on the ground have never been on the ground in the blistering heat or freezing cold. They don’t give our troops the tools, technology, and strategy to win. So they have the blood of our brave warriors on their hands. We, the people of America, need to clean house. And the Chapter needs to prosper, lead, and win.”
Kade gave a slight nod. Stay out of politics. Change the subject.
“In hindsight, about the blog,” Kade said, “some of what I wrote was clouded by my feelings when I left the service on bad terms. I also lost a colleague in Iraq. Then my mom passed away. I was just in an angry-at-life mode all around, and I think I wrote a lot of things out of that anger. So I knew I had to stop writing the blog to leave the anger behind. Maybe it was good self-therapy while it lasted. Sorry if it offended.”
Owens looked back into Kade’s eyes, and reconnected.
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he said. “We all get angry. It’s what we do with that anger that counts. In Chinook, sollecks means ‘anger.’ Mamook means ‘to make.’ When you join the words together, mamook sollecks, it means ‘to make war.’ Beautifully simple, isn’t it?”
“Yeah . . .” Kade’s foot stopped tapping the carpet.
“Mr. Sims, people do their best, most important work when they’re angry.”
CHAPTER 17
Sunday, June 16
9:33 a.m. (PDT)
FBI field office, Portland, Oregon
Agents Morris and Velasquez sat waiting in the briefing room while the technician, Greg Belmont, prepped the audio. Velasquez picked a Boston cream doughnut out of the box he’d brought. Today, he wore a blue-and-white three-quarter-sleeve baseball T-shirt with jeans. Morris had arrived straight from church and was wearing a light gray suit.
“So we’ve got two call recordings?” Morris asked.
“Yeah,” Velasquez said. “One voice mail Flash left for his boss at the Home Depot and one live discussion with us, where Agent Evans is role-playing his sister.”
“Great.”
“We ready, Greg?” Velasquez asked.
“Yeah. Here’s the first one.”
Belmont tapped a few keys on the laptop and the first call played through the speake
rphone console.
“Hi, this is Julie Perkins, please leave me a message and have a great day.”
After the tone, Kade’s voice began the message.
“Hey, Julie. This is Kade Sims calling from vacation. I know I was supposed to be coming back on the seventeenth, but I wanted to let you know that I found another job opportunity that I’m going to take out here with an Oregon company. I, uh, really appreciate the time I had working with you and I’m really sorry about not giving you two weeks’ notice. If you need to get a hold of me, shoot me an e-mail, I guess. I lost my cell phone last week. Okay, thanks again. Bye.”
“All right!” Morris clapped his hands together once and it echoed in the room. Belmont recoiled in his chair at the sound.
Velasquez nodded but didn’t look as happy. “He’s in, but he’s not in the best shape,” he said. “Listen to the next one.”
Belmont brought up the audio for the next conversation.
“Hello?” the female voice of Agent Evans answered.
“Hi, Janeen.”
“Kade! Oh my God, I haven’t heard from you in like a month.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
“I tried to call you a few times this week, and it just goes straight to voice mail.”
“Yeah, I lost my cell phone. Haven’t gotten a replacement.”
“You sound kind of hoarse. Are you okay? Are you still in Oregon?”
“Yeah, still in Oregon. And I’m okay. Just tired. I got in a little fender-bender and had to get eight staples in my head, but it wasn’t a big deal. Don’t tell Aunt Whitney.”
“Oh my God! Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
“So are you still going to visit me later this summer?”
“Uh, well, that’s where I have some news.”
“What? What’s going on?”
“I found a job out here. A great one, in software.”
“Really!”
“Yeah, I’ve already started their new employee orientation. Kind of like a boot camp.”
“Wow. What kind of company is it? Do I know it?”
“I doubt it. The name is AgriteX. They’re an agricultural biotech company. They do environmental work—forest restoration and stuff. They’ve got a few hundred employees and I’m in a little team with a handful of people. It was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
“Sounds cool. Wow, that means I won’t be seeing you for a while, then?”
“Yeah, that’s the bad news. The initial training program and internship lasts a number of months. So I don’t think I’ll be getting home very much.”
“Well, that sucks for me and Aunt Whitney. Maybe we can come to see you?”
“I don’t know. Hey, I gotta go, Janeen. I’ll call when I can.”
“Okay, hope it goes well. Love you.”
“Love you, bye.”
Morris had a smile on his face. “Evans has the teenager cadence down pat.”
Velasquez laughed. “I know. Shouldn’t be hard for her—she’s got two teen girls of her own.”
“She was great,” Morris said.
“So it sounds like Flash was pressured to end the call,” Velasquez said. “But we know he’s officially a Chapter recruit. He’s sized up the employees he’s seen at around two hundred. He’s in a small group. Maybe a group of new recruits.”
“But he got banged up,” Morris said.
“Yeah, it could be worse than what he said on the call,” Velasquez said. “In training, we told him to give us a number from one to ten to make clear what kind of shape he might be in. We asked him to weave it in so we could pick it out. So when he said eight staples, it could also mean he got hurt at an eight out of ten, from his assessment.”
Morris’s excitement returned to seriousness and he stood up.
“Okay, give Jenkins and Stephenson an update, and have them return to Alderville.”
CHAPTER 18
Sunday, June 16
11:47 a.m. (PDT)
Manzanita, Oregon
The waitress brought Alex’s fish and chips and another beer out to the pub’s weathered deck facing the Pacific. Alex researched a few stocks on his iPad and put a plan together for this coming week of trading. A golden retriever lying on the deck looked at him with smiling eyes, enjoying the perfect mix of warm sunshine and cool wind.
He felt a buzz from his front right jeans pocket. His iPhone said he had a voice mail. It seemed like calls went straight to voice mail here on the coast. Pain in the ass.
His heart beat faster when he played the message and heard Kade’s voice.
“Hey, it’s me. I got a couple big favors to ask you, man. I landed a cool job in Oregon and I’m going to be staying here for a while. I only have a month left on the apartment lease, so I’ll need some help when it’s up. If you can just move all my junk over to your storage unit and hold on to it for now, I’ll get it sooner or later. And I’ll pay you if you can clean up the place for me. I owe ya big time, man. Thanks, brother, bye.”
He replayed the message eight times. Kade was asking him to pick up his stuff and bring it over to his storage unit. This meant to go retrieve Kade’s Glock and hold on to it. Since Kade had asked for him to clean, that meant the Glock was still in the Jeep. No mention of cleaning would have meant the Glock was with the phone somewhere else.
That’s where it stopped making sense. Kade had told him he might ditch the phone and Glock together somewhere near Lost Lake so Alex could locate them later. But the Glock was still in the Jeep? Kade was at AgriteX now, but left the Jeep at Lost Lake?
Alex brought up Kade’s phone account on his iPad using the information Kade had given him. The GPS in the phone was showing as “not enabled,” and the phone was showing as off. The site did show the phone’s last known location as a grid coordinate, time stamped JUN 08, 3:13 a.m.—over a week ago. He typed the coordinates into his Google Earth application.
It looked like Kade had ditched the phone and the Glock at the side of the road about a mile from AgriteX headquarters. So maybe Kade had been driving to AgriteX and decided to toss them out the window. Then the phone must have run out of power.
Alex had agreed to bring some of Kade’s extra ammo for the Glock in a locked box but wasn’t happy about it. He was nervous with the ammo in the cab of his truck as he drove cross-country over three days, even though Kade assured him it was legal. Alex couldn’t be convinced to register a weapon of his own to bring west, and he suspected that Kade’s unspoken idea was to have an extra weapon available. No, he wasn’t a big fan of guns and there was only so far he would go.
But now getting Kade’s Glock was his assigned task, and then he would wait for further instructions. He could do that. But his truck was a two-wheel-drive model, so now he had concerns about its reliability on the dirt roads weaving through the forest. He hadn’t thought of that potential issue before, and now he’d have to come up with something else.
He didn’t know how long this gig was going to last, but it looked like he’d be extending his stay for a while. He would support Kade for the duration. Kade had given him the shirt off his back many times. Hell, he had a veritable closetful of Kade’s shirts at this point. Whether it was the free place to stay in DC while he got his business going, shared vacations and road trips, the endless dinner invites as a kid, or getting together over the holidays and picking up where they’d left off, Kade’s generosity and friendship was steadfast.
The waitress made her way back to Alex’s table.
“Can I get you another stout?”
Alex played with his bristly chin and glanced at his watch.
“No thanks, I’ve got to go.”
CHAPTER 19
Saturday, June 22
9:09 a.m. (PST)
AgriteX
Lin stopped and stood at the door of Kade’s room on her way out. The food on the breakfast tray she’d brought for him sat untouched on his desk. She’d tried engaging h
im in conversation for the last twenty minutes but mainly got one- or two-word answers.
Kade continued to stare at the computer screen with an occasional glance at the clock in the lower right corner. The best thing about being logged in was that he knew what time it was. At this moment, he thought about his door being left unlocked during the day for the last five days but then automatically locked at night. Even though he was under constant video surveillance, they were relaxing his level of physical security.
“Yeah, you’re welcome, by the way,” Lin said. “You might try lightening up.”
“Thanks, Lin Soon, you’re a sweetheart. Or a world-class pretender, according to Hank.”
She shut the door and Kade heard her yell from behind it.
“Whatever, asshole!”
“Nice!” Kade yelled back.
He didn’t need Lin to tell him that he was becoming more intense and irritable. This was a precursor to a possible hypomania episode, and it would have been a perfect time to take a carbamazepine, but without the pills, he had managed using the tedious methods that were part of Dr. Ross’s sessions. Deep breathing, mental checklists, and mnemonics. No journaling this time.
The upside to this state of mind was he needed only three to four hours’ sleep at night and he could still be highly productive. He could skip a night of sleep, even two, with very little adverse effect. This was a key difference from ADHD, one never properly noted as he was growing up. And on a normal night, he only needed five to six hours of sleep to be fully refreshed.
Yes, he was being abrupt with Lin, blowing her off while she was being pleasant and flirty. The Chapter leadership must have told her to be nice to him. Maybe she was getting paid more or something. There was an extra dash of attention thrown in for sure, and it was effective, since she was damn good looking. She could sell a Yankees jersey in Fenway Park.
She’d brought breakfast from the cafeteria the last three days. T-shirt and no bra each time, which he silently appreciated. She’d lie on his bed and say some provocative things. He felt increasingly distracted, weakening every time she showed up. But if he gave into physical impulses, it could be too risky. He could be stoked and made dysfunctional.