by Dan Decker
No, I’d keep my backup hidden for now. I was just a little paranoid, but I knew that about myself.
It helped me deal with it.
I moved a stack of books from the second to last shelf and found the manila envelope. Rather than alert my captor to my discovery I pulled out the books and set them on the credenza. He had no way of knowing I’d found the envelope but had not pulled it out unless he got down on his knees and looked.
I just pretended that the second to last shelf was clear and reached down past the rough metal and fished around inside the bottom. My eyes must have bulged when my hand touched the butt of a pistol, but I was turned away from him, so he didn’t notice.
Despite his instruction that I alert him to the presence of a weapon, I kept my mouth shut.
Beltran had put this pistol here on purpose. I guessed it was loaded with blanks, but I would still be careful if I decided to make use of it, perhaps aiming beside the man instead of his chest or head.
The pistol was next to a thick book. Grabbing the gun with one hand and the book with the other, I maneuvered so that I could pull the book out first, turning it on its side to cover the pistol.
As I stood, I kept the pistol behind the book and moved towards the credenza, carefully putting down both at the same time. As I did, I noticed that it was a revolver and it was indeed loaded. It looked like a .357, but I couldn’t be sure without closer examination. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the gun as I returned to the safe. My fingers touched what appeared to be a box of ammo, but I silently pushed it back into the far corner.
I grabbed what felt like a picture frame and pulled it out, setting it on top of the book I’d taken out a moment before, letting it overlap to cover the handgun.
“That’s it,” I said. “Anything here look like what you’re looking for? You mentioned a package, but I’m not seeing it.”
“Don’t play games with me, we’re both here for the same thing.”
I pointed at the box of recipes. “I came for that.”
“Impossible.”
I shrugged. “Those recipes are worth good money to the right buyer. Why do you think they were locked up?” I briefly considered playing an angle that I was a restaurant owner looking to get an edge but discarded the thought as quick as it came. While the average food services entrepreneur might be savvy enough to cut into a safe, it was doubtful they would come armed.
The man shook his head and muttered the word “amateurs.” He reached into his pocket and threw me a pair of handcuffs. “Put these on.”
I moved to catch them put intentionally let them slip through my hands and onto the floor. I shrugged as he frowned.
“Bend over slowly. Pick them up. You do realize I’d kill you if you weren’t a kid, right? That’s the only thing keeping you alive.”
I was eighteen, had been for several months, but if my youthful appearance was protecting me, I wasn’t about to tell him I was of legal age.
I raised my hands while I squatted without taking my eyes from the man. I had hoped he might get distracted or look away, giving me an opportunity to grab his pistol but he did not. The man didn’t even blink. I thought long and hard as one hand slowly reached for the handcuffs.
There was a certainty to the man’s words that made me doubt he was part of Beltran’s plan. He rubbed his chin as if trying to decide if his conscience would be okay with shooting a kid.
If he worked for Beltran, it could be an act that was part of the test. If he didn’t, the best I could do was grab my backup pistol and shoot him. That would be difficult considering how he stared at me with unblinking eyes.
I picked up the handcuffs and put them on, I kept them loose enough to pull out a hand and held my hands at an angle to give the appearance they were fully secured.
The man approached, frowning as he examined them.
“You almost got away with it.” He grasped the cuffs with one hand, further pushing both clasps down until they were tight. He pushed me onto the credenza, right beside the hidden revolver. I didn’t look at it, though it took considerable conscious effort.
“You’re well trained for a kid who looks like he should be at prom on a night like this, not robbing some executive’s office.” He frowned as he stared at me. The confusion on his face was genuine. “I don’t like this at all. What is your name, son?”
I stared back without saying a word.
His smile was friendly, grandfatherly almost. “Where did you learn to do the things you’re doing?”
“YouTube.” I gave him a wan smile, trying to emphasize my youth by hunching over. We were almost the same height, and I assumed it was my boyish face that confused him.
The man gave me a dubious look. “Come now, you can’t pass something like that off on me.” He pointed at my pistol. “You acted as if it were an extension of your body. Want to try another explanation?”
I frowned. “My reasons are my own.”
The man looked at me, again without blinking. I stared back but found myself suddenly aware of my own subconscious blinking.
“Whatever you’re messed up in, kid, take my advice and get out before you’re put in a position from which you cannot return.”
“I’m comfortable with my life decisions.”
I spoke without thinking and immediately regretted the words because they told him too much, but I’d already gone this far. “What are you here for?”
The man moved over to the safe, and as he could plainly see the higher shelves were empty, he squatted sideways so he could keep me in his peripheral vision while examining the lower shelves. He kept his pistol pointed my direction, but for him to look inside the safe, he would have to look away from me.
He hesitated when he realized what he would need to do. “Look, kid, I would hate for something to happen to you, so don’t try anything funny, okay?”
I nodded my assent, my mind awhirl with possibility. Things had gone wrong. Beltran had put me in an active situation without telling me that was what he was doing. He’d done things like this before, just never to this level.
I moved more on instinct than conscious decision. When the man looked away, I went for the hidden pistol, picking up the picture with my bound hands and setting it quietly to the side.
I took the revolver and pointed it at the man. Then I lunged forward and kicked him in the chin as he turned around. I had hoped my action would be enough to send his pistol flying from his hands, but he managed to retain a grip as I followed up my kick with a push into the jagged edge safe. I brought down the butt of my pistol on his head, hard.
He was on me in my next breath, grabbing the pistol with one hand and my neck with the other.
“You shouldn’t have done that, boy. You shouldn’t have done that.” He ripped the pistol from my hands and tossed it to the other side of the room. He slowly walked me to the wall, pushing my head up against the window while applying pressure.
It was probably just my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt the glass buckle against my head.
“I’m done messing around with you boy. Give me an answer or die.” He took a breath and wiped a hand on his shirt. I was surprised to see it was bleeding. He must have cut it on one of the sharp edges of the safe. He looked back around the room as if trying to determine whether blood had gotten anywhere else. His frown turned to a grimace when he spotted a few drops on the carpet. “What is your name?”
When I didn’t immediately answer, he squeezed my neck.
“Jake.” I coughed.
He banged my head against the window. “Last name. Now.”
That wasn’t the easiest question to answer. My current name wasn’t my real name. My actual name was for a boy who’d long since died, at least as far as anybody official knew. I gave him that one because it was better to do that than break cover.
“Ramsey. My name is Jake Ramsey.”
He grabbed my head again and applied pressure until I was afraid the glass might start to crack. I knew in the b
ack of my mind that was unlikely because it was probably tempered, but in the moment the fear still came.
I pushed it back, willing it away.
“It is the truth.”
“Tell me who you work for.”
6
That was also a difficult question to answer, but as I’d successfully passed off an old name because it was partially right, I figured I might have a shot at pulling off another half-truth.
“The government.” That was all the answer I was going to give him. It was true, yet it was not. My name didn’t exist on any official records in any actual government database. Black Brick was a highly classified and experimental program. Beltran had recruited children with potential who had suffered horrible losses.
Unbidden, the image of my father came to mind, lying in his blood on our kitchen floor. I backed out of the memory before the rest could surface.
I was a survivor.
That was what I’d learned about myself that day. My whole world had come apart at the seams, and while it had nearly killed me, I’d somehow managed to survive. No doubt due in large part to the patient influence of Sister Bautista.
When Beltran had presented his offer, I had taken it without thinking. It hadn’t been until years later that I’d wondered if Sister Bautista knew what had happened to me. Beltran had picked me up on a day when she’d been away. I’d never had the opportunity to say goodbye.
The man shook his head. “The government doesn’t recruit children. Tell me who.” He hit my head up against the window, but not as hard as he had before as if mentioning my youth made him think he needed to go easier on me.
He’d been on edge before, but the cold, calm tone had returned.
“It’s the truth.” I made my voice as earnest as possible, letting a little bit of the fear I felt show, but it betrayed more than I wanted, cracking like I was still going through puberty. It had more of an effect on him than I intended and appeared to hit him hard. He shook his head as if to clear it.
“I’m going to give you one opportunity to walk away. You understand? One.”
He fished something out of my pocket and forced it into my hands before walking me through the door of Arnold Smith’s office. He didn’t stop there and pushed me to the back door I’d used to enter the office space.
When we got to the door he looked me in the eye. “It is not right for a kid your age to be mixed up in things like this. I hope you rethink and get out.” He opened the door. “If I see you again tonight, I’ll kill you.” His eyes hardened. “You better move fast, I’ll be right behind you.”
7
Once the door was shut I unlocked the handcuffs with the key he’d pushed into my hands. It was a surprising act of mercy.
All this because my voice broke?
I wondered if the man had a son. Perhaps I reminded him of his boy. Shaking my head, I looked around for options. The surveillance team would have seen everything that had transpired since we’d left Arnold Smith’s office. They would know I’d been apprehended, but they would also know I’d been set free. My instincts told me they wouldn’t contact Shannon for back up.
In a “normal” situation that would have been the protocol, but as they were testing me, Beltran had probably just decided to roll with this turn of events to see how I handled the sudden change.
Despite my captor’s harsh words, I wasn’t about to turn around now. If Beltran had put me on a real assignment to procure real information, I wasn’t going to let him down. As I slipped the handcuffs into my pocket, I walked down the hall, looking for anything I might use as a weapon.
I still had my subcompact, but I would only use that as a last resort, assuming the man was indeed about to make good on his promise to kill me.
Nothing short of that would cause me to pull it out. It might have just been paranoia, but I felt the need to keep the secret from Beltran and the others.
I found a bathroom and entered after checking to make sure nobody was around. It was two in the morning, and I expected the place to be empty, but there was always the chance a janitor was wandering around the building emptying trash.
I had hoped to find a mop or a broom to use as a weapon, but there wasn’t anything lying around. There was a locked door at the back of the bathroom, but after examining the lock and the door, I realized I couldn’t bash my way inside. My lock picks were back in my briefcase.
As I looked around the bathroom, looking for anything I could use as a weapon, my eyes stopped on the mirror. Then out of habit, I looked around the ceilings for security cameras and found nothing. That didn’t mean there wasn’t something hidden, but I hoped it was unlikely. Even if Beltran had outfitted Arnold Smith’s office with a hidden camera, he couldn’t have foreseen I’d go into the bathroom while on the mission.
I pulled my subcompact Glock 43 from my ankle holster and used the butt of the weapon to break the mirror.
8
The man didn’t leave right on my heels as he’d threatened. Shannon had checked in with me twice during the last ten minutes, and each time I’d assured things were okay and that I had the situation in hand. It had been two hours and forty minutes since I’d left her outside the building.
Twenty minutes to go.
After several more minutes ticked by, I wondered if the man might have slipped out while I was in the bathroom. I rechecked my watch.
Seventeen more minutes. Had I guessed wrong? Should I find a way back into the office space? As I wondered what to do, I heard the back door open. I froze and crept back into my hiding spot in the hallway beside the bathroom. I believed the man would use the stairs and not the elevator.
I counted my heartbeats while I waited for some other indication of where he was going. I got to twenty before I heard the door to the stairs open.
I sprung forward like a trap, grabbing my makeshift shiv tightly in my hand. I ran on tiptoes to minimize the chances of him hearing me as I approached.
The door was shutting by the time I arrived, but I caught it with my free hand just before it latched. Pushing it open, I ran down the stairs. He turned just as I kicked him in the back, sending him down to the landing below. A moment later I was on top of him with my shiv pressed into his neck.
The man went red in the face, but I beat back his hand as I knelt on his stomach. In addition to his backpack, he also had my briefcase. It was heavier than when I’d entered the building, so he must have taken the time to put my pistol in there as well.
I turned him onto his back and brought his hands around before latching him in his own handcuffs. Once I’d done that, I searched and relieved him of two pistols and a couple knives. I put all this into my briefcase before looking into his pack where I found the manila package.
“What did you want with the package?” I asked, taking a quick glance and noticing with relief there wasn’t a camera nearby.
“Same thing as you.”
“Does the name Black Brick mean anything to you?” Asking him was risky, but I was confident he hadn’t been part of Beltran’s plan. I wanted to confirm it because I was unlikely to get the truth from Beltran.
The man furrowed his brow. “The government doesn’t recruit children. They are lying to you.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “Forget you ever saw me, and I won’t harm you.”
“You’re too wrapped up in it now, but someday you’re going to see the truth.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I don’t need to.”
I couldn’t resist. I pulled one of his knives from my briefcase and cut the top of the envelope.
“The government doesn’t send special agents to steal drugs and money.” The man gave me a hard look. “They get a warrant and knock on the door during business hours.”
I pulled several bags of white powder from the envelope and multiple stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills. At the bottom was a USB drive.
I knew Beltran wasn’t after drugs or money. It was what was on the drive that
was the reason for this mission. But I didn’t need to tell my adversary that was my purpose. Or even that there was something else in the bag.
“Believe what you want,” I said, closing the bag and rehearsing in my mind the line I’d give to Beltran when delivering the package. I’d even made sure to use my foe’s knife so that if they ran any tests, my claim he had opened it would hold up.
I slipped the envelope and knife into my briefcase.
“Think about it, boy,” he said. “What would the government want with drugs and money?”
I didn’t answer as I backed away, even going so far as to walk down the stairs backward while holding onto the rail. The man didn’t appear worried even though I had his weapons and backpack. I already knew he ran at a colder temperature than most, but perhaps there was another reason for his lack of fear. Maybe he had help nearby.
Once I was out of sight, I ran down the stairs, taking care to not make noise. I also kept his pistol by my side as the two bags over my shoulder bounced into one another. After going down two flights, I went through a door, checking my watch as I did.
I had five minutes to deliver the package, or I had failed.
Twenty seconds later he ran down the stairs, not even stopping to check in the window of the door to see if I was watching him pass. I gave him a twenty-second head start before carefully opening the door and tiptoeing out after him.
He was unarmed, and I was armed to the teeth, but something told me he wasn’t just going to let me get away.
9
When I reached the bottom flight of stairs without running into him, I paused at the door and looked through the window. The lobby appeared empty, but there was any number of places he could hide.
I had three minutes left, so I didn’t have time to monkey around. I pushed open the door and went into the lobby with my pistol up, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.