by Slaton Smith
On Thursday, Sean’s itinerary arrived. His next few days were to be very busy. He was leaving on Friday at around noon and had reservations at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Nice. They asked for him to take a cab to the hotel.
He decided to wear a pair of khaki pants, one of his new shirts and a navy sport coat on the trip. Yeah, he looked like he was coming from a fraternity party, but who cared.
The trip to the airport was uneventful. He was relieved. The Pittsburgh airport’s security line was usually bad. It was not unusual for the line to extend all the way out to the parking walkway. He was looking forward to the mileage he would get from the trips overseas, as the status would enable him to jump into the elite line, which scooted him through security infinitely faster. For the time being, he was just like everybody else.
The trip to Boston was quick and he had no trouble gathering his bag. He took a cab to the hotel and was delighted with where he was staying. The Boston Park Plaza was stunning. Like the William Penn, the hotel was built in the early 20th century and oozed class. The lobby was awe-inspiring. Sean crossed the lobby to the registration desk and checked in. Waiting for him was an American Express card and the schedule for the next several days. Hass also had included a personal note.
Sean:
Feel free to enjoy the restaurants here in the hotel or in Boston. I am picking up the tab.
Glad to have you aboard.
Regards,
W. Mathis
Sean was elated. There were three great restaurants in the hotel alone. He headed to the elevator bank and up to his room on the seventh floor. The room was as nice as the lobby. Sean placed his bag on the bed and started unpacking. After he had hung up all of his clothes, he sat down in the armchair placed near the room’s window. Taking the phone from his pocket, he Googled the Boston Bruins. They were not playing tonight, but were in town on Saturday, the fourteenth. It was a playoff game, but who knows, he might be able to score a ticket. He decided to take Mathis up on his offer to enjoy himself. He located a Smith & Wollensky – always a good choice. It was roughly a block down the road. He washed up, headed out with the goal of having a drink and nice dinner.
Sean loved his room, but it was not a chance booking. McFarland and his team had already wired the room for video and audio surveillance. Everything Sean said or did would be monitored by McFarland’s team and his new handler. She would be stationed in the adjacent room. The team was not really concerned with what he was doing the next couple of days, however, it was crucial to monitor him once he had undergone the procedures they had planned. As part of the process, he would be implanted with a tracking device that would enable the team to follow his every move.
His handler, Sandy, wanted to get a closer look at him, before he became a science experiment. She waited in the lobby for him. She was wearing a tan pantsuit with a black blouse underneath. She liked the way it accented her auburn hair. He didn’t notice her as he walked through the lobby. She noted how happy he looked as he exited the hotel. She could see him talking to the bellman, asking for directions. The bellman pointed to the right and Sean started off in the direction of the restaurant. Sandy exited a couple of seconds behind him. It was rush hour and the sidewalk was congested. She liked being tall. It made it easier to follow someone through a crowd like this. With heels, Sandy was over six feet tall. Despite her height, she blended in with the crowd on the street as everyone was dressed more or less the same. She followed him down Arlington Street, until he entered Smith & Wollensky. Sandy smiled. She was glad he was taking advantage of Waters’ American Express card. She gave him a couple of minutes and entered the restaurant. Sean was sitting up at the bar and was already chatting up the bartender. Sandy walked past him and took a seat at the far end of the bar. Smith & Wollensky won’t win an award for best ‘happy hour” in Boston, but they did have a decent crowd in the bar area. It wasn’t long before others noticed Sandy. A fiftyish man approached her.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, sliding into the chair to her right.
“No thanks,” she said, without looking at him and flipping through the bar menu.
“Just one drink?” he pleaded.
“Sure. I’ll have glass of this Stag’s Leap cab,” she said, pointing at the menu. The man grimaced. It was a $29 a glass.
“Happy to,” he gestured to the bartender, who poured the wine and set it in front of Sandy. The bartender turned and moved towards Sean. She took a sip and glanced down the bar at Sean who had a beer and a Caesar salad in front of him. He was still talking to the bartender. It looked like one of them had told some sort of joke as both were laughing.
“How’s the wine?” the older guy asked, leaning towards her.
“Great. Do you mind also getting one for my fiancé? He’ll be here any minute. He plays the Bruins on Saturday and loves meeting new people,” she said, suddenly flashing a huge diamond on her left hand.
“Hmmm. I’ll pass,” he started to get up and walk away, as Sandy turned.
“Thanks for the wine. I hope you stick around, I think you two would really hit it off,” she said sarcastically. “God, it feels good to twist these jerks around,” she thought to herself. Sitting at the bar without further incident, she watched Sean out of the corner of her eye. She took about fifteen minutes to finish her wine and decided she had seen enough of Sean Garrison. She left the bar, moving towards the door, when at the same time; Sean dropped his napkin and rose to pick it up. They came face to face. Sean smiled at her.
“Oh, sorry, excuse me,” Sean said, looking right at her. Sandy didn’t reply, just moved to the right and headed for the door. She was angry with herself. She almost blew it and the assignment had not even started.
“Brrrrr,” Sean said, sitting back down. The bartender was looking at him.
“Tell me about it. She shut some poor bastard down earlier after he bought her a $29 glass of wine,” the bartender said, tossing a towel over his shoulder.
“No shit,” Sean replied.
“No shit,” the bartender answered.
Sean’s steak had arrived and he focused on his meal. He took his time but still finished quickly. You always seem to eat faster when you dine alone. He paid his check and left the restaurant. He stopped to chat with the bellman before going inside.
The next morning he dressed in much the same fashion as the day before. As instructed, he stuffed all of his workout gear into an old, WVU duffel. He went downstairs to take advantage of the breakfast buffet. It was a glorious spread that rivaled anything Sean had seen before. He tossed the bag containing his workout clothes on the seat next to him and strode up to the buffet. He had a definite pep in his step. He loved to eat. After eating way too much, he walked into the lobby to find a man holding a sign with his name on it.
“I’m Sean,” he said walking up to the man.
“Mr. Garrison, please follow me.” Outside was a Town Car by the curb. The man took the gym bag from Sean, opened the door for him and placed the bag in the trunk.
“Thank you.”
“I need your phone, please,” the driver said, as he slid behind the wheel.
“My phone? Why?”
“This is a private facility. I will return your phone when you arrive back at the hotel.”
Sean thought it was weird, but handed him the phone anyway.
Traffic was light as it was a Saturday and the car eased into the flow. After twenty minutes, Sean began to think the driver was lost. Eventually, they arrived at what looked like an empty building. The car stopped in front of a gated garage and the driver entered a code. The metal gate slowly retracted and the car drove down two levels and stopped near an elevator. There were two white vans parked on the level, but nothing else. In front of the elevator, a small woman in a white lab coat was waiting. Sean opened the door and stepped out. The driver quickly handed him his bag. Sean slung the bag over his shoulder and walked towards the elevator.
“Mr. Garrison, I am Dr. Baum. I will be with
you today as we complete your physical,” she said extending her hand. Sean shook her hand. Dr. Roberta Baum was barely 5’3” with mousy-brown hair arranged in a tight, painful looking bun. She wore glasses with black frames. Her white lab coat looked like it had been starched stiff enough to stand on its own. Sean looked at her shoes and guessed they were orthopedic. “We can put a man on the moon, but can’t make decent looking orthopedic shoes?” he thought to himself. Big thoughts indeed.
“Good to meet you. Interesting office you have here,” he commented, stepping onto the elevator with the doctor.
“We are a private facility that is primarily used by large corporations and the Boston professional sports teams,” she explained with a clinical tone, while adjusting her glasses.
“Hmmm,” Sean responded.
When the elevator doors closed, the driver rolled down his window and held Sean’s phone out. A guy from one of the vans, took the phone, walked back to the van and got in the back. He hooked Sean’s phone up to a laptop and began downloading a program onto the phone, a program that would allow Waters and Sean’s handler to see everything Sean did on his iPhone. Texts. Emails. Facebook. Twitter posts. Everything. Once the program was loaded, the phone was returned to the driver.
The elevator doors opened to a scene common to any hospital in the country. There was a nurse’s station and doctors milling about, with the same harsh fluorescent lighting all hospitals were plagued with and stark white tile floors. Dr. Baum gestured to an exam room directly across from the elevator. It was standard, with the typical exam table, the round stool on rollers and a sink with cabinets over and under it. Sean entered and was joined by Dr. Baum and a nurse. They went through a very thorough questionnaire that covered everything from past hospital visits, to the last time he was sick, to any identifying scars. The nurse took a photograph of the fading scar under his ear – weird, but he didn’t protest. The nurse drew four vials of blood, took his blood pressure and then asked him to urinate in a cup. The basic exam done, the nurse instructed him to change into his workout clothes. They knocked shortly after he had changed and led him to another room that contained a table, treadmill and a cart that was loaded with equipment. They asked him to remove his shirt and began applying electrodes to his chest, back and upper arms.
“Sean, I am going to ask for you to do at least seven minutes on the treadmill for me. I need at least that much to get a good reading,” Dr. Baum said.
Sean stepped on the treadmill. He sincerely hoped he could make seven minutes. He hated running.
“What’s the record?” Sean asked, smiling at the nurse and doctor. The doctor didn’t look up from her clipboard.
“One of the Celtics did it for twenty-two minutes.”
“Perhaps, I should set my sights lower,” Sean said, laughing.
“Perhaps,” replied Dr. Baum. She started the treadmill and it moved very slowly for two minutes, but then began to pick up speed and the elevation increased. Suddenly, twenty-two minutes looked like twenty-two days. Seven minutes was not looking that much easier. Sean began to trot at the six-minute mark and by the time the test got to eight minutes, he was breathing from his mouth.
“The longer you run, the better my read,” Dr. Baum added with little if any emotion in her voice.
Sean kept going. He had a goal of fourteen minutes in his head. When he reached eleven minutes, his legs and lungs were really starting to burn. Sweat was dripping off his head. At 12.56 he hit the stop button. He was spent. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer when he stepped off the treadmill.
“Sean, please lay down on the table on your left side.”
Sean stumbled over to the table and lay down. It was hard to do. He really was breathing hard. Dr. Baum rolled the cart over and did an ultrasound on his heart. She made several notes on a clipboard.
“Sean, you can get dressed,” Dr. Baum said.
They left the room and Sean put his shirt back on. Dr. Baum returned a minute later to walk Sean back to the exam room.
“How did I do?”
“Very well. You have a very strong heart. You’re a little out of shape and need to lose some weight. Lay off the beer and sweets.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Sean said, not sure how to respond. He figured all doctors were trained from day one of medical school to steer patients away from the evils of beer and sweets.
There was no way in hell he was giving up beer.
“Please put your street clothes back on and I will be right back.”
Dr. Baum escorted Sean to the garage where the driver from earlier in the day was waiting for him. She did not say a word to Sean, which he felt was odd and slightly cold.
“Oh well,” he said to himself.
Sean already knew the driver wouldn’t speak so he simply relaxed and enjoyed the ride as they headed back to the hotel. Again, it seemed like the driver took the scenic route. When they arrived at the hotel, the driver handed Sean his phone back. He let himself out of the car and thanked the driver.
Sean nodded to the bellman and went up to his room to take what he felt was a well-deserved nap.
As Sean napped in his hotel room, Oscar Pasco was getting into a car that would take him to the medical office. He was not happy about the tests and made sure everyone knew about it. Unlike Sean, he did not make the seven-minute mark on the treadmill. McFarland’s team immediately disliked him.
McFarland and his team poured over the candidate’s test results. They separated the men into groups. Each man was assigned a number. Oscar Pasco was Number One. Sean Garrison was Number Two. There ended up being fifteen men who qualified, but some were better than others. It was determined that the top third could, theoretically, handle two advanced implants and the serum. The second tier received an implant and the serum and finally, the last group would receive the implant only. McFarland didn’t hold out much hope for the third group.
The next step was getting the men into the lab for the procedure. Like everything else, McFarland had that covered. Food poisoning. He would poison the men, have them rushed to the lab, which they thought was some sort of outpatient facility. He had people in their hotels ready for when the time was right.
At the same time, Waters was assigning handlers to each of the men. He had already deployed Sandy to shadow Sean and assigned another agent, Todd Klein, to Oscar Pasco. These two were his best people and were assigned the top candidates. All of the agents were briefed individually and immediately deployed. Operational control was paramount and Waters intended to keep every candidate and their corresponding team in a silo. Of the field agents, only Todd Klein understood the scope of the program. Normally, this would concern Waters, but he knew he could dispatch Klein whenever he pleased – accidents happen all the time.
Genuinely skeptical that McFarland could pull off everything he was promising, part of Waters believed that doctor would end up killing all of the men they had recruited. He was not so much concerned with the lives of the men, but that he would need to start all over.
Success would come in phases. Phase one started in twelve hours.
XI
Guardian Angel
Boston – Saturday Night – May 14, 2011
Sean woke up from his nap and had made up his mind that he was going to try to get tickets to the hockey game. He took his phone off the nightstand, went to his Facebook page and left a quick post about the night’s game. In the next room, Sandy watched him type and saw the post pop up on her phone. She would need to dress appropriately. Her job started tonight. She was now Sean’s shadow.
Sean put on a pair of jeans, his old brown shoes, a white polo shirt and headed down to the lobby. He stopped to talk to the bellman on the way out.
“Evening Fred,” Sean said.
“Good evening, Mr. Garrison,” Fred said, smiling at Sean. Fred was a big guy - he had to be at least 300 pounds and 6’6” or more. The bellman’s uniform made him look even bigger. He wore it well.
“Hey, I am going to try
and score tickets to the game tonight. Any advice?”
“That’s a tough one. They are going to be expensive. I don’t have a hook-up. Sorry,” he paused. “You going to buy one off the street?”
“Thinking about it.”
“Be careful.”
“I will. Can you get me a cab to the Garden?”
“Now, that I can do,” Fred said, putting a whistle to his mouth and motioning for a cab. Fred told the driver to head down to the Garden. Sean handed Fred a $10 bill. It was a big tip for a cab, but Sean liked Fred and he knew how much shit Fred had to put up with.
“Thanks Fred. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
The cab pulled away from the hotel. Simultaneously, a black Tahoe pulled up and a tall redhead exited the hotel, jumped in the backseat and simply nodded to her back up team, Bill and Bob, in the front seat. The trio followed the cab.