Headhunters

by Charlie Cole

  I stopped in the bodega first. I waved to the Hispanic man behind the counter. He was probably five and a half feet tall, thin but built from a life of labor. His hair was cut short, close to his scalp. He raised a hand to greet me and I saw the calluses on his palm. Here was a guy who busted his hump to make a living. To build a small market, run it, stock it, keep it in business. He struggled to make a living, but he made it. He worked hard and I could imagine that at the end of his shift, he played hard as well. I envied him that and I’m sure he would have laughed at the gringo in the suit envying him his life. But in truth, there was an honesty to what he did. He worked, he lived, and one day he’d die, probably at a ripe old age. He probably had few if any secrets. He had a simple battered gold wedding band on his finger. I bet his wife knew where he was every night.

  There are things you can change and some things you can’t. I could not change the events of my life, only the way that I reacted to them. I could not have this man’s life. That’s not what I was chosen for. I was made for something else.

  I shopped quickly, grabbing what looked important, knowing that I’d have visitors soon.

  I walked to the checkout and deposited my items. The man asked me how I was and I said fine. It was the dance of clerk and customer and we knew the steps. He wouldn’t have believed me if I told him how I truly was anyway. He bagged the groceries and I paid in cash, then asked for change for the phone. He gave it to me and I stepped outside.

  I set the bag on the sidewalk at my feet and dropped the coins into the pay phone. I dialed quickly, having already retrieved this number from my memory although I hadn’t used it in years.

  It rang once, then again, then it was picked up and there was a long pause before I heard, “Sinclair.”

  “Director Sinclair, I apologize for waking you,” I said. I’d called NSA Director Jack Sinclair at his home number.

  “Who is this?” his voice was groggy was rousing quickly from his interrupted sleep. This was not the first time he’d been woken at home.

  “Simon Parks, sir,” I said.

  Silence filled the line for a moment.

  “You’re a wanted man, Mr. Parks,” Sinclair said coldly.

  “And you have a mole in your organization, sir,” I said.

  “That’s what I understand.”

  “No,” I replied. “Not me, Randall Kendrick. He set me up.”

  “You’re not the first criminal to claim your innocence, Mr. Parks,” Sinclair said. “You’re wanted by the Chicago Police Department, FBI and the NSA.”

  “Hey, Jack…” I replied. “Cut the bullshit. I was there when you needed me. If I really stole Homeland Security files and killed a man, do you honestly think I’d be calling the Director of the National Security Agency at home?”

  He thought about that a moment.

  “Maybe you know you can’t get away and want to make a deal,” Sinclair shot back. He was testy, but he knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t lie to him. Had no reason to lie to him.

  “Jack… where am I right now? Hmm? Chicago? New York? Paris? Zurich? Do you know?” I asked. “Your man Kendrick had me dead to rights at the LaSalle. He should have had me. But I slipped through. That’s what I do, Jack. I get away. I left behind the PD and NSA and Blackthorn, so please tell me that you don’t honestly think that I’m worried about getting caught.”

  In truth, I was scared shitless. I looked over my shoulder even now, but the shadow in the doorway down from the bodega was just a drunk, on his way home from the bar, too tired to keep walking, only resting for the moment.

  Sinclair sighed and I could almost feel his resignation.

  “Alright, Simon…” he said at last. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Randall Kendrick was setting up Max Donovan here in Chicago. Donovan was using his contacts to crack the Department of Homeland Security database and steal internal files relating to operational budgets and how those funds were used. It gave him a backdoor into the capabilities and operations of the DHS. The information could be sold and used against us by al-Qaida or any other foreign or domestic terror group. Donovan was going to sell the information. Kendrick posed as a buyer. When he got close to sealing the deal, Kendrick approached me and asked me to come back into Blackthorn. When I refused, he killed Chris Swenson and framed me for the murder.”

  “So, where does that leave the sale?” Sinclair asked. “Who is the buyer?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t know?” Sinclair repeated. “I thought you were the inside man on this op.”

  “Jack, just to be clear, I don’t work for you,” I said. “Kendrick was supposed to be the buyer, but when I tried to flush him out to Max, he called my bluff. Now Max and Kendrick are tighter than ever and we’re running out of time.”

  “So, do you think Kendrick is trying to broker the deal? Or take down Max?” Sinclair asked.

  “Both.”

  “Both?”

  “Kendrick is a predator. He’s going to broker this deal, make some money and then bury Max to cut loose ends,” I said.

  “Why did he bother coming back to try to recruit you then?” Sinclair asked.

  That was an excellent question. I had no answer.

  “Hell if I know,” I said.

  “Alright, Simon,” Sinclair said. “I have to ask this question. How do I know that you don’t have the DHS files? How do I know that you’re not doing what you say that Kendrick is doing?”

  “Because I never would have left Blackthorn if I wanted to turn renegade. Because if I had the files, I never would have called you. Because if I truly had the files, you’d be reading about them on the Aljazeera network.”

  Sinclair pondered this for a moment.

  “Did they really discover files on my home computer?” I asked.

  “We had our guys in Tech-Ops scan the hard drive,” Sinclair said. “There’s evidence that something was there, but not the actual files themselves. There were residual packets of information. Enough to be incriminating to anyone else, but nothing of substance.”

  “I think Kendrick promised to set up the buyer, but when I wouldn’t come back to Blackthorn, he folded on the buyer and promised something better,” I said. “A scapegoat. Kendrick provided me as the fall guy in the whole affair and protection for Max. Now the DHS, NSA, FBI and Chicago police are all looking for me. Not for Max.”

  “So, who is providing the buyer now?” Sinclair asked.

  “There’s only one person I know that could have those kinds of connections and the ability to broker that deal,” I said.

  “Who?” Sinclair asked.

  I ignored his question.

  “Jack, I helped you when you needed it. I was discreet when the times required it. I need to know… can you help me?” I asked.

  “Simon… I can’t,” Sinclair replied. “I cannot officially turn NSA assets in your direction to assist you. Not as it stands right now. What I can offer you is this… bring me proof that the allegations that you’re making are true, and I’ll do what I can.”

  “You’ll do what you can?” I asked. “You’ll do what you can?”

  “Simon…”

  I hung up and stepped back into the bodega. I asked the man if he could call me a taxi. He agreed. I stood looking at the stack of newspapers inside his door. On the front page, in the bottom corner, there was a report that a man in his 50s had been attacked and killed in the city. According to the report, he’d been both stabbed and shot.

  Ellis.

  Tom Ellis.

  I paid for the paper and tucked it under my arm. I saw the cab pull up and jumped inside. I directed the driver to take a roundabout route and he dropped me a few blocks from the brownstone.

  I let myself into the brownstone and quietly closed the door behind me, snicking the deadbolt into place. I deposited the groceries in the kitchen then kicked off my shoes and ascended the steps to the bedroom.

  Jessica was still there, in bed, unmoved from wh
ere I’d left her. She snored in soft breaths, quiet and reassuring to me. I put the Beretta on the dresser and descended the stairs.

  While I waited for the coffee to brew I cracked eggs in a bowl, whisked in some milk and started making scrambled eggs in a pan on the stove. After grating some cheese over the eggs I made toast while the eggs finished cooking.

  I thought about my discussion with Sinclair while I poured the coffee. It had been a calculated risk to call him at all, but he was my one remaining ally inside the organization. I considered Kendrick, Max and the buy and who might be helping them to broker the deal and how much I truly knew about her.

  I reread the story about Ellis’ death… how he’d died… how it had been covered up. His death was in the media, covered by the news sources, but it was nothing that it seemed to be.

  I plated up the eggs, buttered the toast and poured the coffee. I had a minor moment of panic when I considered trying to carry everything until I found a tray in the bottom cabinet, the kind made for just what I had intended, breakfast in bed. I tucked the paper under my arm again, lifted the tray and made my way upstairs. I nearly forgot about my ankle injury until I stepped on the first step and felt a twinge of pain. I’d have to remember to take something soon to keep the swelling down

  The sun was shining through the window now and long slats of light ran across the bed and Jessica in it.

  “Good morning,” I said and she peeked an eye open at me. She flipped over and covered her head with a pillow.

  “Come on now,” I said. “My eggs aren’t that bad.”

  “You didn’t put ketchup on them, did you?” Jess asked from under the pillow.

  “Ketchup! I forgot ketchup… wait right here,” I said and made to walk out of the room. She sat up quickly causing the sheet to fall away; she had my attention.

  “No, no, that’s okay, I’ll live,” she said with a smile.

  She stretched then, arms up over her head and yawned and I nearly dropped the tray.

  “Sorry,” she laughed and pulled up the covers.

  I set down the tray over her lap and pulled my plate and coffee off of it so that she could enjoy her own space.

  “I love your eggs,” she said and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  “Did you do what you had to do?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Picked up a paper,” I said and pointed to the article about Tom Ellis.

  She read it without saying a word until she was done.

  “God, that’s so sad,” she said at last.

  “Yes.”

  We ate in silence for a bit.

  “I called the Director of the NSA,” I said at last.

  Jess had just put a forkful of eggs in her mouth. Her eyes opened expectantly and she nodded, wanting me to go on.

  “I think he believes me,” I said. “But he can’t help us. Not yet.”

  Jessica thought about that, turned it around in her mind, considering it from every angle.

  “So, what are we going to do?” she asked.

  I sipped my coffee and smiled.

  “We’re going to do the very thing we’ve been accused of,” I said. “We’re going to steal the DHS files…”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I must have been twelve years old the day that my father hit me for the last time. It had been a regular thing. Hardly a day would pass without a swat from his hand. I remembered… his hands were thick, the fingers short and stubby and powerful. I knew because when I tried to get away, he’d lock his hand on me and there was no hope of fleeing. No chance to run, better to just get it over with sometimes. On his knuckles were scars. Scars from brawls from “when I was in the Army” as he always said. I’d come to hate “the Army” by the age of twelve. Whatever “the Army” had done to my father between 1968 and 1972 when he had served had turned him into one malicious son of a bitch. So whatever “the Army” had done to my father, I thought in my 12-year old mind, he was not like the other kids’ dads.

  I had feared him early on, but wisdom comes slowly as young men enter adolescence and my mouth was sometimes faster than my forethought. And the only thing faster than my mouth was my father’s hand. I saw it coming only rarely. Could duck out of the way even less. And when it connected, the side of my head would erupt in a screaming siren of pain, ringing in my ears and the flesh would be angry and red. Although he did seem to be careful enough not to leave a mark often. I don’t know if that made it better or worse.

  Often my father traveled for his job. In retrospect, he was a sales engineer or technician of sorts, but at the age of twelve, I didn’t give a damn what he did. All I cared about was being left along for the week that he traveled. But that fateful day at the age of twelve, my father wasn’t traveling. He was home doing yard work and had indentured me for some father-son time.

  He was using a shovel and I was helping him to sweep up the lawn clippings that dared to stray onto the sidewalk. I was pushing a broom, trying to help him, but I couldn’t stop staring at the shovel. He’d used a shovel like that the last time he’d come home. We were digging around the garden when a garter snake slithered out between the pavers at my father’s feet. The snake had chosen the wrong direction, toward my father, rather than away. And in a second, I saw my father move faster than he ever had before and brought down the sharp edge of the spade on the snake’s neck, severing it. Not cleanly mind you, tore it more than anything and the snake still flipped its body over twice in a death roll, blood leaking out of it. I couldn’t help but stare in fascinated horror.

  Now, my father stood in the same lawn using a shovel again while I helped him clean up the lawn clippings. But my mind had wandered, thinking of the snake and I pushed the clippings too far into the shovel, making it overflow out the back. I don’t know what my father took it for if not a child’s clumsiness. Disobedience? Recklessness? Regardless, my father lifted his shovel and hit me in the shoulder with it, the backside of the blade clubbing my shoulder, glancing off and cuffing me in the ear. Lawn clippings and dirt flew onto me and a feeling of embarrassment poured into my guts like cold water.

  The time that passed after he hit me was no more than a second, but in that second, I formed the thought that to him, I was no better than the snake. I was an annoyance to him, on his property and he’d treat me like the snake in the grass. My reaction was swift and while he may have been able to stop me, he never lifted a hand, never expected me to react. I punched my father in the chest so hard that I heard the air rush from him. He stumbled back a step, then two and clutched at his heart where I’d hit him.

  “Leave… me… alone…” was all that I said. I turned and walked into the house and we never discussed the incident again. He never touched me again either and I never knew if it was out of fear of what I’d do or out of regret for what he’d done.

  I still talk to my father. We’ve become friends in fact and I visit him in Wisconsin when I have time. We work in his garage workshop and build benches and birdhouses and the like. He’s still my father after all.

  I took something away from that day. Something aside from the obvious. I learned that it’s one thing to let the beast have its way and act the way that it will, but when that snake comes into your yard, you need to deal with it.

  I needed to deal with Kendrick and Donovan. It’s one thing if I could leave them to the policemen of the world, but they were in my yard, threatening me and mine. And God help me if I didn’t want their heads.

  ***

  “You want to steal the DHS files?” Jessica repeated. “Why?”

  “I know, I know it sounds nuts,” I said. “But I’ve thought about it. One, the NSA and everyone else assumes that we have the files and that if they catch us, they’ll get the files back…”

  “But we don’t have the files…” Jessica interjected.

  “Right, but if they think we do, no one is looking for them in Max’s offices.”

  “So, Max could sell them
and we’d get blamed,” Jess said, figuring it out.

  “Exactly. Secondly, if we bring the DHS files back in with documentation where we took them from, we can implicate Max and possibly Kendrick,” I said.

  “Which means that the Director will arrest Max and Kendrick and not you and me, is that right?” she asked.

  “Right.”

  Jessica thought about that a moment.

  “But you don’t know how to be a burglar… do you?” Jess asked.

  Like a lot of things in my life, the answer to this question wasn’t simple. I knew the rudimentary methods of lock picking, I understood how to use a tension rod and how to lift the tumblers with the secondary tool called a pick… I knew that it often took minutes and not just seconds like on television. I had the capabilities to bypass some security systems and avoid armed guards. But I was no burglar.

  “No,” I smiled. “But I know people who can help. Our advantage here is that Kendrick and Max expect us to be running, not recruiting. So, you ready to go to work?”

  Jessica loosened her grip on the sheets she held bunched around her.

  “I think I’m a little underdressed,” she purred.

  “Must be a casual day,” I said.

  ***

  Jessica and I met back downstairs after showers. We’d need to shop, for clothes, shoes, equipment… but first things first. Jess came down the stairs in a T-shirt and jeans. She was drying her hair with a towel.

  “Nice,” I said. “Where did you get that?”

  “Oh,” Jess looked down at her new clothes, pleasantly surprised at how well they fit. “Shelly and I are about the same size.”

  She gave me a quick peck, began to move away, came back and kissed me again, deeper this time. She moved away then.

  “Mm, God…” she said under her breath.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For last night.”

  She blushed a little at that. I cleared my throat.

  “Okay, let’s get to work. Do you have a pen and some paper?” I asked.