The Agency

by Edward Kendrick

  “I can’t keep you safe if I’m halfway across town.”

  Kip might have told him, with everything he’d installed, he was very safe. He didn’t because he liked the idea that John would be staying with him, at least for the time being, until one or both of them decided no one was coming after him for his part in Harris’s arrest.

  When John returned, they ate supper, went for a walk—both of them carrying and aware of who was around them—then watched TV until they went to bed.

  That was something that would become their routine during the week. On the weekends, weather permitting, they took John’s bike on long rides into the mountains or up and down the Front Range, exploring the cities and towns along the way. Twice, they went as far as Elderon to visit Mitch, taking Kip’s car in case the weather turned bad, as it was wont to do with winter approaching.

  Their living arrangement, which had begun as a temporary way for John to be certain Kip was safe, fast became the norm. While John hadn’t officially moved in—at the beginning—he soon had all his clothes in the bedroom closet, his books on the shelves, and almost everything else that had been in his apartment now at Kip’s place, with the exception of his furniture.

  “Seems like I’ve got a permanent roommate,” Kip had teased one late September morning.

  “I can always move back to my place,” John had replied without blinking an eye. “Of course by now I’m sure it’s been rented to someone else, as a furnished apartment.”

  They knew that was undoubtedly the truth. John had given up his lease a week previously when Kip told him it was stupid to keep paying rent on the apartment, all things considered. John had told his landlord to do whatever he wanted with the furniture as he didn’t need it. The man had seemed quite happy with the idea John told Kip when he’d returned to the agency.

  * * * *

  Then, one Saturday in mid-October, with the forecast calling for the last decent day before an early snowstorm hit the city, they decided to take John’s bike and go up to Lookout Mountain and the Lariat Loop road. They packed a lunch and put it and their heavy jackets in the saddlebags, in case the snow came in earlier than predicted. Otherwise, they’d stick with lightweight leather ones they’d bought a month previously.

  The sun was bright, the day cool but comfortable as they began the ascent. When they got to the first set of switchbacks, John warned Kip to hold on tight before racing around the sharp curves.

  “That was scary as hell,” Kip said through his helmet mike when they were back on the straightaway, getting a “Wuss” in reply from his lover.

  They continued up, stopping at a lookout point that gave them a good view of the mountains, their peaks covered with snow. Cars drove by them, most of them heading down toward Golden, and there were a few hikers, bicyclists, and bikes going in both directions. They were cruising, enjoying the scenery and the day, and had passed a slow-moving car before they made the turn into the second set of switchbacks, this time at normal speed. Suddenly, there was what sounded like a loud ‘crack.’ For a second, Kip thought the bike had hit a small rock, shooting it up against the fender.

  John must have known differently. He shifted into high gear, taking the next turn at maximum speed, racing to the final one before the road straightened again. There was another ‘crack’ and this time Kip knew what it was because he felt a burning sensation across the top of his shoulder. Someone was shooting at them with, he thought, a high-powered rifle. As they hit the straightaway, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the car they’d just passed coming up fast behind them.

  “Hang on,” John shouted as he veered the bike off the road and onto a dirt path cutting between the trees. For a second, Kip was certain the bike would spin out, land on its side, or hit a tree or boulder. Only John’s expert driving kept any of those from happening. Instead, they moved down between the trees to where they’d been only moments before. John swerved onto the road, accelerating as they headed toward Golden. “So much for a nice Saturday drive,” Kip heard him growl through the mike.

  Kip might have laughed if he’d had it in him. As it was, he clung to John even tighter as they raced back to the city, checking the mirror every few seconds to see if the car was behind them.

  When they got there, John found the nearest convenience store, pulling in the lot behind it. “You can let go, now,” he said—getting off the bike when Kip released his grip, and then helping him off. When Kip’s legs threatened to give out, John held him tightly. Kip felt him shaking, which didn’t surprise him. He was, too. “We’ll stay right here for now,” John told him.

  Not that Kip had any intention of moving from behind the store. Not until he was certain they’d lost whoever was in the car.

  “Fuck, you were hit,” John said.

  Kip knew that, although he’d forgotten until John’s exclamation. There was a tear in the shoulder of his jacket and when John peeled it off him, Kip saw his shirt sleeve was soaked with blood. John got the first aid kit from his saddlebags, using the scissors to cut the sleeve open and slit the shoulder seam. He wiped an alcohol pad over the area of the gash to clean away the blood, causing Kip to hiss in pain. Then John sighed with relief. “It’s only a flesh wound.”

  “I could have told you that,” Kip said through gritted teeth as John put antiseptic on the wound and bandaged it.

  “Back on the bike,” John told him. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  “John…” Kip protested.

  “Don’t argue. I’ll call the local police to tell them you’ve been shot and ask them to meet us there.”

  “Great. Just what I need, another interrogation.”

  John ignored him as he made the call and then helped Kip onto the bike. Rather than leave the way they’d come into the lot, John drove down the alley behind it and through two more before getting onto a side street which eventually took them to the one leading to the hospital.

  By the time they walked into the ER, Kip had gone from being afraid to being furious as he thought about what had happened and wondered how the bastards had found them. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he told John angrily. “Two months of nothing, and God only knows we haven’t been in hiding, and now this?”

  “Calm down. We’ll figure it out. First let the good doctor take a look at your shoulder while I give the admitting nurse your particulars. Then, you can rant.”

  Kip realized a resident was watching them, waiting for Kip to acknowledge her, which he finally did. She and a nurse took him into one of the curtained cubicles where she examined him. “You’ll live,” she said with a brief smile as she cleaned and bandaged the wound.

  “I’d better,” he growled. “I owe someone for this.”

  “Mr. Faulkner?”

  Kip turned to see a man standing at the opening in the curtains. He was holding up his badge to let Kip know he was with the police.

  “That’s me,” Kip replied, sitting up.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened. I’ve spoken briefly with your friend, who suggested I call Detective Ingles in Denver.”

  “I bet he was happy to hear from you,” Kip said sourly.

  The detective chuckled. “Not really. He asked me to have one of my men give you an escort to the Denver city limits, where one of his people will pick you up and follow you to his precinct house so Ingles can talk with you.”

  Kip replied sarcastically, “That should be fun, or not.”

  “Behave and quit making this man’s job harder than it already is,” John said, coming in to join them.

  Kip did, reluctantly, while the doctor wrote him a script for antibiotics. After Kip was finished giving his statement and had signed it, the detective turned him over to a patrol officer. When they got to John’s bike, the officer said in no uncertain terms that Kip would ride with him. “You’re a wide open target on that thing.” Something Kip was well aware of at that point.

  Another patrol officer met them
in the parking lot of gas station just inside the Denver city limits, taking Kip, with John following, into the city and directly to Detective Ingles office.

  After Kip and John told Ingles what had occurred, the detective said, “I’m sorry it happened, although I’m afraid I’m not terribly surprised. Robert Macklin, the head of a criminal organization Parker and Harris worked for, was arrested late last night on several federal warrants. He was the man who sent them after Constantine and Alexander, among others. If I were to guess, he and-or his people decided to tie up a few loose ends.”

  “And I was one of them. How the hell did they find us?”

  “Probably followed you,” Ingles replied, “figuring it was easier and safer to dispose of you outside of the city. That does seem to be their MO and finding out where you live and work wouldn’t be that hard after your TV appearance.”

  “But we’ve gone riding every weekend,” Kip protested.

  “One presumption for today’s attack is they’re upset at Macklin’s arrest and decided it was time for you to pay for pointing us and the Feds at them, especially since they can’t get to Harris. Or, as I said, they could have gone after you on Macklin’s orders.”

  “Either one sounds right to me,” John agreed. “So we’re not going off anywhere on our own for a while, at least outside of the city.”

  “The Feds’ offer still stands, Kip,” Ingles said. “They’ll put you into the Marshals Program if you want.”

  “No way in hell,” Kip replied at the same time that John said, “We’ll think about it.”

  * * * *

  An hour later, having changed clothes, Kip was pacing angrily back and forth in his living room while John watched from the sofa.

  “I am not going to become someone new,” Kip said for at least the third time since they’d gotten home. “I worked hard to build the agency. I’m not letting some assholes scare me into running and hiding.”

  “I understand that,” John replied calmly. “The problem is, at this point they obviously know where to find you. Next time they might take the direct approach and come here. Or try to pick you off while you’re out on a job. Until the Feds completely close down Macklin’s operation and have everybody in custody you’ll be in their sights. I suspect Macklin will make sure of that. If one of them shows up here they won’t hesitate to deal with anyone in their way—me, Nina, or a client—to get to you.”

  Kip stopped pacing, giving a sharp nod to acknowledge what John had said. “We could close for a while. Take an extended vacation until the Feds say it’s safe to come back.”

  “We could,” John agreed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, though. One, the people who shot you today aren’t stupid. If we do disappear, they’ll do their best to track us down, and they probably have the connections to do it. Two, we’d go bugfuck with nothing to do but spend our time sightseeing. At least I would.”

  “Yeah, me too, after a week or so.” Kip joined him on the sofa, finally smiling when John put his arm around him in a loose embrace—being careful not to touch his injured shoulder. “I suppose we could open a new agency somewhere else.”

  “I don’t see why not. It would take time to build it up to what we are today, but isn’t it better than staying here and ending up dead?”

  “You do have a selling point,” Kip replied, entwining his hand with John’s. “It could be a long time before Macklin’s people stop coming after me.”

  “Exactly. Punks like them have long memories and a longer hatred for people who cross them.”

  With a sigh, Kip said, “I guess we get our friendly Fed to turn us over to WITSEC’s tender mercies.”

  John laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”

  Chapter 9

  “What do you think?” Kip asked as he and John walked through a small building on the south side of a city more than fifteen hundred miles east of Denver.

  “I like it. It’ll take some work on the ground floor, but with the upstairs already set up as a living space it’ll be worth it. The location is great and the price is right.”

  “Then let’s let the realtor know we want it.”

  At that point it had been three weeks since Kip and John had received their pre-admission briefing by their Marshals Service contact. Detective Ingles, and Kip’s ‘friendly Fed’ as he’d put it, had backed his request that John be included in the program. The following day, after spending all night packing what they’d be taking with them—primarily clothes and everything they wanted in the way of supplies from the agency—they were on their way to their new location. When they arrived, they were given the use of an apartment until they found their own living quarters.

  The only problem they thought they’d have, before all that happened, was telling Nina they were closing the agency, without letting her know why. It turned out not to be a problem at all.

  “I’m not as dumb as I look, Kip. I knew after you got shot again that you’d have to go somewhere else to be safe,” Nina had said. “You’d better be taking John with you or you’ll have more to face than some angry gangsters,” she added, waggling a finger at him.

  John laughed. “He’s stuck with me, like it or not.”

  “Good. Then I won’t worry too much. I’ll make all the necessary calls to tell our clients they need to find someone new to handle their business. They are not going to be happy but, hey, the fact you had to go home to be with your father who has Alzheimer’s should placate them, Kip.”

  “That’s what you’re going to tell them?”

  “Sure. It’s something even the densest person can accept because they’ll feel sorry for you.”

  “Whatever works, I guess.” As Kip hadn’t seen either of his parents since he’d run away from home almost twelve years ago, for all he knew it could be the truth.

  Nina had hugged them, telling them to stay in contact if they could. Kip had the feeling she knew that wouldn’t happen, and why, but promised they’d try.

  Kip and John had identity documents in their new names, a bank account to match them, and a new car for Kip. John had been adamant that his bike would go with them. After some argument, their contact had reluctantly allowed it to happen. For the moment, it was parked in a storage garage. After they moved into the new building, John would keep it in the one-car garage at the back of the property.

  The next few weeks, once they’d made their bid on the building and it had been accepted, were an exercise in frustration for them as they waited for the closing. As a result, they spent too much time arguing about how to redesign the ground floor—from where to put new walls, to what color to paint the offices—to how they’d find a decent secretary-receptionist to do what Nina had handled so perfectly, and what furniture they needed to buy for the agency and the upstairs apartment.

  Finally, late one Friday afternoon after another heated discussion, John said, “Enough! Pack some clothes. We’re going away for the weekend.”

  “We are?” Kip replied in surprise.

  “Yeah. If we don’t, we’ll end up killing each other. Or worse, we’re going to break up and I don’t want that to happen.”

  “I don’t, either,” Kip replied quietly, giving John a hug. “Where are we going?”

  “Hell if I know. We’ll get on the bike and ride until we stop.”

  After packing, and putting on heavy jackets as the weather was November cold, they went to pick up John’s bike then headed in a northerly direction out of the city. Ten miles later, they found themselves on the shores of a large lake which was, according to a sign, part of a wildlife management area. They rode around the southern shore, stopping several times to rest and watch the various boats on the lake and birds flying over it. When they came to a causeway, they crossed to the northern shore, ending up on a sparsely populated two-lane highway with trees, fields, and a few houses on either side. At one point they saw a creek and pulled off the road to walk along it, after they found a place to conceal the bike.

  “This is nice,” Kip
said when they stretched out on the grass beside the creek to watch the clouds floating above them. “A lot different from the mountains.”

  “You think?” John turned onto his side, resting on one elbow, running his fingers through Kip’s hair. When Kip gave him a questioning look, John told him he was removing a couple of pieces of grass. “Or—” he smiled, “—maybe it’s the start of my seducing you.”

  “Like you have to do that.” Kip put his hands on John’s chest, pushing him onto his back, and then straddled him, hands on either side of his head. “I’m easy. No seduction needed.” He leaned down and they kissed. Things might have progressed from there if it had been a warm summer’s day. As it was, they shared more kisses until a chill wind kicked up.

  “We’d better move it,” John said, standing and pulling Kip to his feet. “It’s not supposed to snow but there’s no sense in taking chances.”

  Kip agreed and they returned to the bike. It was late afternoon when they came to a crossroads and saw a small town in the distance off to their left.

  “Let’s check it out. Maybe we’ll find somewhere to eat dinner and a decent motel,” Kip suggested.

  There was a restaurant—a family-style diner which obviously was popular from the number of cars parked outside. The interior was brightly lit, with a choice of tables and booths. They chose a booth, and soon a waitress came by to ask if they wanted coffee and hand them menus. They ordered burgers and fries when she returned with their coffees, deciding after looking around that they were the meal of choice for most of the customers and so they must be good.

  When they left, half an hour later, they were happily stuffed and ready to find the motel the waitress had recommended. It turned out to be nice enough. “Not five star,” as John put it, “but clean and the bed looks comfortable. And…” he chuckled, “the clerk didn’t raise an eyebrow when we said we only needed one room, which in my book is a definite plus.”

  It was still early, only eight-thirty, but they were tired after a day on the bike. Not so tired however that they couldn’t make love first.