by Jack Gardner
The message was clear: as soon as Eddie located the man, he must report it and keep his surveillance until he is ordered to leave. He cannot take any steps against the man—unless otherwise specified.
“This is the moment to prove that you are as good as they say you are.” L leaned forward and outstretched his hand to shake Eddie’s goodbye. The conversation was over. Eddie rose and shook the hand of the Head of Operations. For a moment, he wondered how he could even think that the Bureau’s command did not recognize his abilities. He decided to make this the last time that he doubted their judgment.
The heavy door opened and closed behind him. Judy shook his hand and said, “We’ll make sure that your personal belongings are brought from the training unit.” Each guide and trainee had a personal locker there. “We already told them a replacement will be sent. Don’t go back to your office in operations. Just use one of the unit’s research rooms.” The research rooms were generally used by people who were not assigned to any particular mission, and they were considered to be comfortable offices where one’s privacy was well kept.
“Communications with you will be one-sided, initiated by us, except, of course, if you locate the target. Your cover papers are in the file.”
He thanked her and turned to the door. No one was there to escort him out, as if it were an intimate sign of his acceptance into the small family of the privileged, or, which he did not rule out, another loosening of security standards.
“Good luck,” said Judy.
Was there an odd tone in her voice, or was it just his imagination?
13
Careful as ever, I left the apartment at 6:00 a.m. I would have gotten a high mark for my silent footsteps down the stairs as well as the inaudible locking of the front door. I wore shorts and had on sneakers. A light T-shirt and a wide-brimmed fishermen hat completed the outfit that was supposed to allow me to blend in perfectly among the early rising fishermen at the beach. I carried the clothes I would use later in my fishing bag, and spread palm oil on my face, legs, and arms, which gave my skin an olive tone, as one would expect of a regular beachgoer.
I kept my gun and throwing a knife in the bag, right under the handle. If needed, I could reach for them within two seconds. The knife, made by Japanese company named Ski, had an extremely high carbon content and extra tungsten for maximal resistance and was a deadly weapon, as efficient as a gun in a range up to twenty feet.
I had planned my route so that I could confirm whether I was being stalked or not. It led from the apartment through three streets and two backyards: these were narrow passages used by pedestrians who lived in the area. If one is under surveillance, one can take one of two courses of action: he or she can go on with their supposedly innocent routine without paying any attention to the stalkers. This might—if a predictable routine is noted—make the stalkers abandon the surveillance at a certain point. The other way is to evade the surveillance. These actions are usually taken when the man or woman under surveillance is convinced that he or she is under real threat of being arrested, or has a mission that cannot be postponed and must be concealed from the stalkers. I chose the second method.
The route I had planned was supposed to replace the surveillance sector with a limited area so that I could discover the stalkers. I also had an escape route that passed through an underground parking lot with a number of exits. If I noticed that I was being followed, I could use this route to steer clear of the stalkers.
I was walking down my route, making ninety-degree turns from one street to the next while surveying what happens behind me without looking back. The road led to a park with a building used for public restrooms. Surveillance teams hate parks because they’re open on all ends, which forces the surveillance team to come near and keep close eye contact with the target. Upon approaching the park I started walking faster and quickly walked into the restrooms. Through a creek in the window I surveyed the entrance: if a stalker was there, he would have to pass by the entrance to the park in order to confirm that I was indeed there. I waited for about five minutes, and apart from a little old lady whom I disqualified, no one passed my field of vision. I came to the conclusion that I was clean.
I left through the same park entrance and surveyed both sides of the street. I was looking for a head peeping out of a bush, a parked car that wasn’t there before, a quick retraction into a backyard. I didn’t see any of these. I walked on for a couple more minutes and passed by the Lada jeep that I parked there a couple of days earlier. It seemed just as I left it, no sign that anyone tried to meddle with it. At the end of the street, I crossed the road and walked back. Still quiet. I decided that everything was all right.
For now.
I walked into the car and drove to the beach.
14
It was 10:00 a.m. and Eddie knew he had no time to waste.
He took the elevator one floor down and walked toward one of the independent research offices designated to be used by the operations unit’s employees. He debated for a moment whether to take the smallest one, meant for single occupancy, and decided against it. He did not want anyone to suspect he was working on a special mission. If there is, indeed, a traitor in the department, there is always the chance, even if slight, that he has partners. So he chose an office with three desks and took the leftmost one, next to the wall. A routine move for an employee between missions who wants to privately deal with his personal affairs.
The first thing Eddie did was pull out the man’s photograph from the file and put it in his jacket pocket. He did not waste any time looking at it again, he knew that later he will study it in so much detail that he would be able to recognize the man’s face in any kind of costume. One can change a lot about his or her face, but not the eyes. That was the key to those who know what to look at.
The file was incredibly thin considering the fact that this was a Bureau employee who passed numerous security investigations where it is customary to trace a man’s life from the crib and up until the present to the smallest detail. In addition, standard procedures required at least four annual reports about each intelligence officer or operations serviceman. In special cases, these general reports also included detailed evaluations of assignments. None of these were included in this file; they were replaced by a printed summary that included a detailed physical description of the man while noting his professional skills, his education, and his hobbies.
He was marked as a grade A warrior, the highest rank. This meant that the man was trained in efficient use of firearms and cold weapons, as well as ability parallel to a black belt in martial arts with bare hands. The rank was updated every eighteen months and was still valid. This is a man one shouldn’t mess with.
“Shot them like stray dogs,” said L. Eddie felt a shiver running down his spine. A heartless man, a merciless war beast. He had an MBA from one of the world’s most prestigious universities, spoke four languages, and was considered a savant with general knowledge in a wide array of subjects. He had valid drivers licenses in almost all vehicle categories, including motorcycles. He had a class A pilot license, allowing him to fly six different kinds of light aircrafts, and was also a licensed yacht captain for boats up to eighteen meters long, large enough to cross any ocean. Undoubtedly, the man liked motors…
His hobbies included fishing, playing the guitar, reading, off-road driving, and even oil painting. He knew fine cuisine but enjoyed diners and family style restaurants as well. He read masterpieces, but could appreciate a light read full of suspense and adventures. According to the file, he read much faster than the average man, and remembered what he read very well. He had high logical capabilities but still relied on his gut instinct, which usually did not let him down, and he was considered to have a photographic memory—a fact that Eddie could appreciate from his own experience.
He was considered charming and had a way with women, even though he was never accused of having the wrong priorities as a result of this ability. The file also stated that he h
ad financial means, allowing him substantial flexibility, but did not note the source of these funds. In an examination of his bank account, done immediately after his disappearance, they discovered that a large sum of money was withdrawn and has not been spotted yet. Eddie came to the conclusion that the man was one step ahead of them on every level. ‘This is all very impressive,’ Eddie thought to himself, ‘but this man has got to have some weaknesses.’ His job was to discover these soft spots and use them to promote his mission.
After he read through the documents three times, he knew it all by heart. He put the file in his leather briefcase and went to make himself a cup of coffee. Now he had to think. That was the only way of catching up with the target: if Eddie could “get into his head,” he could guess his next moves. Eddie still wondered why this was all the information he was given, but he decided to think about this at a later date.
***
After sipping his coffee, Eddie closed his eyes and asked himself what was it that was bothering him. The answer was quite simple: important information, information that could be described as crucial for this case, was missing from the file. Since his job was to locate the target, Eddie would expect to receive all the details about the man’s treason: when he was suspected, what kind of actions were taken, what intimidated him so much that he went underground, in short: everything. None of this was mentioned in the file. Someone had decided that in the system of giving information on a need-to-know basis, Eddie does not need the chronology of the affair up to now. This may be the result of two things: the first, that this affair involved information that was too sensitive to be disclosed to Eddie, or, even more bothersome, that an analysis of all the missing information by the best men at the bureau did not get them anywhere, leading them to spare Eddie all this information.
At times, new ways of unbiased thinking that are not based on past mistakes are the only chance. So Eddie started focusing on his target, while noting the following facts:
It is very likely that the man is working alone.
The man went underground very recently—probably just a few days ago—following a surveillance of unknown duration.
The man had probably prepared his escape route in advance and knew when to disappear, right before they came to arrest him.
Had he wanted to get away, he had the time to do so. He did not leave the area; therefore it can be assumed that he has some unfinished business there.
Seventy-two hours ago, the Bureau managed to locate him and sent a team to bring him in. The first question is how did they manage to locate him? And the second—how did he know they were coming and manage to hurt them first?
Eddie did not tend to believe that the man’s luck was serendipitous. There was some kind of conclusion to draw from all of this, but Eddie couldn’t reach it yet. He started noting his working assumptions: the target is in town and is not leaving for the moment. Eddie knew that even considering the patrol in the airport, the man could—if he only wanted to—steal a light plane and leave the country.
If the man spends his nights hiding in a safe house, he leaves it during the day to complete his missions, whatever those are. In order for a house to be safe, none of its residents or neighbors should know him. Therefore, he probably disappears before sunrise, when most people are asleep, most likely in a costume.
And he needs to be mobile, too. The distances are too big to walk. The train stations are under surveillance. A rental car is out of the question. So it must be a private car, that is, of course, not in his name. It is unlikely that it would be in the police’s list of stolen vehicles because in that case there is a chance that he would be exposed; therefore, it must have been bought under a different name.
Eddie linked two thoughts: The same name as the one on the lease for the safe house? Sounds reasonable, if this were a reasonable human being. But the target was not a reasonable person. In any case, he’d have to check this lead. You never know.
And where would a man who has to leave his house before sunrise go? Where could he pass the time until he could blend in in the crowd of people leaving for work? This was a lead that could come in handy. Only that it was a large city with many places that could serve as hiding spots: bars that are open all night long, public parks, small and discrete hotels that take cash and do not ask any questions, churches, factories that are open before sunrise…in short, many spaces that would require many people to scan. He will have to guess, and guess right. There was no other way.
Eddie’s cup of coffee was empty. He decided that he had exhausted this office as a space for productive thinking. He picked up his briefcase and left.
15
I chose a beach known as “the jeep beach,” because it could only be reached by driving through large dunes leading to a sandy cliff, requiring an off-road car to get to it.
Three steep lanes were paved through the cliff, allowing entrance and exit from the beach. I was counting on the Lada’s great steering and its light weight, which were supposed to give me an advantage over other more modern or comfortable off-road vehicles that were less operational.
There were a few dozen fishermen at the beach at this early time, most of them with rods, spread on a beach about half a mile long. One end of the beach was barred off by an artificial blockade of rocks big enough to build the pyramids with, which were put there in order to separate the jeep beach from the next beach. There were already quite a number of swimmers and joggers there that morning, the result of the spring weather and people’s aspiration for a high quality of life.
I parked the Lada next to the rocks. It’ll also give me the option of escaping by foot, in case I realize that all other ways out of the beach are barred. I kneeled next to each of its wheels and used a small, manual pressure gauge to reduce the air density in the wheels to ten atmospheres. That would promise the jeep’s maneuverability even in deep sand. I leaned on the car and slowly and efficiently surveyed the fishermen and joggers to discover if any of them was a phony. There were no suspects: maybe there weren’t any, and if there was one, he or she knew their job well.
I pulled out my folding fishing rod with the professional reel. I took a small cardboard box with Korean bait worms that all fish love out of my bag and found a space on a wide rock that could serve me as a hiding place if needed. The fisherman who stood about fifteen feet to my right spun his reel and pulled out a five-inch long silver fish with yellow stripes called a Striped seabream. ‘So that’s what the fish are like today,’ I thought, choosing a number twelve hook, small enough to fit extra small fish. The gun and the knife were in my fishing bag and I knew I should not get away from it, even for a split second. I surveyed the beach and decided that everything was very calm. ‘I wonder,’ I thought, ‘when they would start pulling out the big guns in order to catch me.’ Now that the game is no longer routine I was expecting them to upgrade the level of players. I knew it was only going to get harder. I also knew that I wasn’t going to make it easier on them.
My watch showed 7:00 a.m. I had an hour and fifteen minutes of fishing before I resumed my day’s work. I took the first bate and as it wiggled and struggled in my hand I placed it on the hook. The lead weight that was skillfully cast pulled the nylon line and the hook deep into the blue water. The rod started shifting nervously almost immediately and I knew that I had the first catch. I did not hurry to pull it out of the water, I had more than an hour to kill.
There is nothing like the motion of the blue waves on a nice sunny morning to pacify and make one think. Whether I wanted to or not, I found my thoughts drifting to those same five days I spent in California. The five days following which I was supposed to know what to do with my life.
We barely parted, from that first evening and up until the moment I left. In fact, without saying a word about it, we both knew the reason for our meeting. We thought we had to give it all the necessary conditions so that no technical problems would throw us back into uncertainty.
I didn’t mention it earlier, b
ut at the time, my loved one was already married to another. Life is funny at times, and its course is twisted. So, when she went home heartbroken and unhappy following our breakup, she met a man who supported her, was there for her, and, as far as I know, also truly loved her. She, who knew how to appreciate his friendship and help in hard times, allowed him to get so close to her that at a certain point he offered that they join together their lives—not by marriage, at that point, but by living together in a house they would buy.
She accepted his offer and they moved in together, learning that as far as partnership and a shared life go, they had a lot in common. Two years later, the man started talking about the option of adopting a child that they would raise together. His offer fell on fertile ground, as that has always been what she wanted, especially since the moment when she discovered that due to an untreated infection that resulted in a hysterectomy she would never be able to give birth.
One of the preconditions for the adoption license was a lawful marriage, and so they married and became husband and wife. She claimed that even then she never abandoned her love for me and the hope that one day her and I could reunite and go on with our shared life, as it was meant to be. She may have been married to a man I did not know, but from her description I understood that he loved her, and that in addition, the adoption procedure was advancing quickly. At first I tried to ignore those two facts, but I quickly came to the realization that I could not do that. I could not help but think about the chaos that would be created with my entrance into this arrangement that was shaping up to become an enviable shared life.
That may have been one of the reasons why I could not go back to where we left off. And maybe there was another reason. Maybe there are no eternal loves, or our love did not rise to the occasion. As the days passed, I realized that I could no longer feel what I hoped I would feel. At the end of the third day, I had to admit to myself that the whole thing was a failure. On the fifth day, before we parted, when my bags were packed and I was ready to go, she stood before me and quietly asked the question I didn’t want her to ask.