“Go, sir,” the man said to Markus.
Markus limped away as fast as he could.
“If you want this man to live, you’re going to stay very still,” the man said to Sam after his boss was gone.
“The local law enforcement will be here soon. Do you really want to answer the question of why we’re all holding guns and there are two dead bodies here?” Sam asked.
“My boss will pay off the police, and I’ll be free by tonight. I wonder if your superiors will be so generous.”
Nathan slowly turned to face the barrel and the man holding it.
“What are you doing? I didn’t say that you could move.”
“Relax. I just want to be able to see it when it comes,” Nathan said.
Nathan knew that they had to get out of the building, and they needed to do it fast if they weren’t going to be arrested, so he formed a plan. It was a poor one at best, but he had to try something.
“Hey you, look at me. If you hurt him, I’ll make you suffer in ways that you can’t even imagine,” Sam said.
When the man temporarily cut his eyes to Sam, Nathan acted. In a quick motion, he grabbed the man’s hand and thrust it upward. The gun fired straight into the ceiling. With his other hand, he punched the man in the ribs, and as he started to crumble to the floor, Nathan took the gun from him. He motioned for Sam to come with him. She ran to Nathan, but once she was beside him, she did something surprising. She shot the man twice in the head.
“Why did you do that?” Nathan asked.
“We don’t need to leave any loose ends. It’s already bad enough that we lost Markus.”
The two of them quickly made their way back to the lift and started down to the ground floor.
“When these doors open, I want you to hold me,” Sam said.
“What?” Nathan asked.
“Just do it.”
When the doors opened, there were cops everywhere. Sam suddenly burst into hysterical tears and Nathan, as she had told him to, held her. The two of them walked straight through the sea of cops who were going upward. Once they were outside, all of Sam’s fake hysterics ceased. They quickly called a cab and went back to their room. When they were back inside of the room, Nathan asked the most obvious thing.
“What are we going to do now?”
“We’re getting out of here. We need to get to the airport and get home as soon as we can,” Sam answered.
“But we have Markus on the run. Shouldn’t we stay and try to track him?”
“There were bound to be security cameras around that building and inside of it. It won’t be long until our pictures are on every television station here in France. We have to go home now.”
The two gathered their things and quickly made their way to the airport. They took the quickest flight leaving for Washington. Once they were on the plane, Sam turned to Nathan.
“What you did back there was both incredible and stupid. Why would you have taken that guy on when he had a gun to your head?” Sam asked.
“I just knew that we had to go right then. I didn’t want to be selfish and land both of us in a jail cell. My plan was either going to work, or I was going to give you an opportunity to escape.”
“Don’t ever do that again. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. I would rather spend the rest of my life in a prison cell with you than spend the rest of my life without you,” Sam said as she leaned over in the seat and kissed him.
“All right. I won’t, but what are we going to tell everyone back in Washington?”
“We’re going to tell them that we have Markus on the run, and now he knows just how scared he should be.”
Chapter 17
In Washington, Michael went to see James again. The mood of their session was a bit different today, though.
“I have good news for you, Michael,” James said.
“Really, what is it?” Michael asked.
“I think that I’m going to sign off on you going back to active duty.”
That statement threw Michael into an emotional tailspin. He wanted to get back to work initially, but it seemed like the more time that he spent with James, the more he started to come into his own.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I still don’t know if I can do my job yet.”
“There’s only one way to find out what you can or can’t do, and that’s to throw yourself into the situation. I believe that you’re capable of much more than you give yourself credit for. You’ll do your job, not so you won’t feel less than capable, but instead, because you know that the people around you are counting on you. You can do this, and you will do it,” James said confidently.
“And what if I let everyone down? What if I still can’t fire a shot?”
“Then your squad will be no better or worse for having you around. You can come back here, and we can sort through everything if it turns out that you’re not ready, but please believe in yourself, and buy into what you and all of the people around you are doing. Even when you’re forced to do things that go against your morals, realize that it’s all for something more important than you or anyone else involved. You should do everything as if it were for Jess or any of your other friends, because in a way, that’s who you are doing this for. Every time you do your job, theirs becomes remarkably easier and even more important, safer.”
Michael thought for a few seconds. He didn’t know how he felt about all of this or how he would feel if he had to kill another human being, but he finally realized that none of it mattered right now. He had to pull his own weight so the people around him didn’t have to continue to do it for him. He had to keep the people he loved safe.
“All right. I don’t know how I feel about this, but if you think this is the right course of action, then I’ll do it, and I’ll do it to the best of my ability,” Michael said as he got up from the couch.
James laughed a little at Michael’s eagerness.
“You can sit back down. It’s not like you’re going to be rejoining everyone at this moment. I’ll get this paper to Campbell after we’re done here. For now, I wanted to show you something,” James said.
“What is it?”
“Well, you couldn’t even make rice the other night. I’m going to show you a few things that you can make so you don’t almost kill anyone else while trying to make dinner.”
Michael looked at him very strangely.
“Hey, it isn’t my job, but if I let you get out of here without preventing poor Jess from tasting another meal like the one that you described the other day, then I just won’t be able to live with myself,” James said with a slight chuckle.
It was really odd. James had turned into more of a mentor or a life coach than a psychologist to Michael. James had always had strange methods when dealing with people. He didn’t just sit them down on a couch and listen to their feelings while writing on some notepad. Instead, he tried to be what each individual person needed him to be, and all Michael needed was someone who would tell him exactly how things were and then give him a slight push in the right direction, whether that was where he wanted to go or not.
“So is this our last session?” Michael asked as the two men worked in the kitchen.
“Officially yes, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. The CIA pays me by the hour, regardless of whether I have any patients within that hour, so you can pretty much just drop by anytime you want to as long as I’m not with someone else,” James said.
“All right, that’s good to know.”
* * * * *
Back at home, Jess, Lee, and Trish were looking at the headlines about the facility in Atlanta on the news. It had burned to the ground, and the news channels were predictably calling it a terrorist attack. After seeing the still smoldering ashes from the building, Jess couldn’t help but feel a bit of a twinge in her heart. She hadn’t done anything to literally start the fire, but she had certainly helped plan the attack, and somehow, even though what she did was ultimately right, it just
didn’t sit too well with her.
“What’s wrong?” Lee asked while studying her face.
“I just feel a little guilty,” Jess answered.
“You have nothing to feel guilty about. We did a great job here, and hitting their largest facility on American soil will certainly send a message,” Lee said.
“That or royally piss them off,” Trish said.
Lee hadn’t wanted to mention the fact that attacking their enemies in such an underhanded way may open themselves up to more attacks like the one that had occurred at their office.
“You know, you really didn’t have to bring that up,” Lee said to Trish.
“No, it’s okay. She’s right. We probably need to have a defense plan against the retribution that will be coming,” Jess said.
“All right, well . . .” Trish said before the sound of the phone ringing interrupted her.
Jess grabbed the phone. After a few moments of talking, she hung up.
“Well?” Lee asked.
“It was Campbell. We’re meeting him at his home in an hour,” Jess said.
“Did he say what it was about?” Trish asked.
“No, but it sounded very serious.”
Campbell had just hung up the phone with Jess, and he was very stressed. He had gotten word that Nathan and Sam’s mission ultimately failed but that Markus was there, and he had been wounded. With Zane, Dan, and Burt arriving back in town, he was calling the entire crew together, minus Nathan and Sam, to talk about how they were going to move forward. He no longer had a clear plan, and he was hoping that he wasn’t going to have to use the only ace up his sleeve. He didn’t want to have to use a boy to get Markus. Maybe someone will have some type of idea so I can avoid what is probably inevitable, Campbell thought. He was tired and emotionally drained. He had gotten Zane hurt, lost some great soldiers, and his office had been destroyed all over the last few days. The sad thing was that all of that didn’t even scratch the surface of the pressure and guilt he was feeling. Every minute that Markus was still out there was another minute his family had to spend in hiding, and it was another minute he had to spend in his large empty house alone. Then there was the guilt he felt for the lives that were lost in Dallas. He felt that if he had only chosen to act quicker, then things would have been drastically different. How do you atone for that? How do you explain to the thousands of families that you’re sorry and that you dropped the ball on this one? Do you even deserve forgiveness? All of these questions and feelings Campbell wrestled with in his mind but never let anyone see. He had to appear strong for the morale of everyone around him. If he didn’t feel confident in what they were doing, then no one would, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself.
* * * * *
Back at James’s house, the two men had just finished up in the kitchen when Michael received a phone call from Jess telling him that they were supposed to meet Campbell in a few minutes, and considering the fact that he had the car, he needed to come pick them up. Michael immediately, and as politely as possible, left James’s house and drove over to get his friends. Once they were all at Campbell’s home, they saw some familiar faces that they hadn’t seen in quite some time. Zane and Dan were there. All of them told their stories about what had been going on with each one of them, and after everyone had caught up, Campbell began their meeting.
“I have called you all here because Nathan and Sam’s mission failed. They did locate Markus, and they even wounded him, but in hindsight, I probably should have sent more people because they found themselves outnumbered once they reached his apartment,” Campbell said.
Michael felt a large amount of regret sweep over him. He couldn’t help but feel that if he had been there, things might have been different.
Campbell continued.
“This leaves us at a bit of a dead end. Nathan and Sam can’t get back into France because any cover that they may have had there is now blown, and the option of striking the facility in France isn’t a realistic one.”
“Why is it unrealistic?” Dan asked.
“It’s on foreign soil. It would cause one hell of a political storm if we got caught with an army attacking over there, and given the fact that we would be in the middle of a firefight there, I’m pretty sure that we would make a little too much noise to be under the French authority’s radar.”
“What other options do we have?” Zane asked.
Campbell told him about Markus’s son.
“I don’t really feel comfortable involving a child in all of this, so if anyone has any bright ideas, then now would be the time to speak up,” Campbell said.
“Is there any chance that we could cooperate with the French government to take down the facility there?” Jess asked.
“That would be ideal, but there’s one major problem with it. We’ve bought weapons and given jobs to Markus for years now. How is it going to look to the public when they find that out? How do we know that the French aren’t going to have a convenient leak as soon as we give them the information? I can just see the headline now . . .US funds terrorist attack on its own soil,” Campbell said.
The room was dead silent for a moment.
“I have poured through everything on the device that we brought in, and there are several records of the French buying from Markus, too,” Lee said.
“What’s your point, Mr. Higgins?” Campbell asked.
“His point is that the French government wouldn’t want the public to know what’s going on any more than we do,” Trish said.
“Right. I really don’t see why we couldn’t let different governments around the world know exactly what’s going on. Pretty much everyone has been screwed over by Markus at one point or another. What government is going to want to run to the public with this information?” Lee asked.
“I see your point, but you have to look at the big picture. If we just blew the lid off this whole thing and let all the world leaders know what was going on, it might create problems for Markus, but it would also create an opportunity for him.”
“How do you figure that?” Michael asked.
“Most modern super powers would purge anything that had Markus Boyd’s name on it from their land, and in turn, force him into hiding in a third world country. He would still have facilities there because while countries like our own and France don’t really need to have help from him, others do. Do you believe that places like Iran, North Korea, and Syria would simply abandon their partnership with him because they had been misled? I don’t. Instead, I think Markus would be forced to pour all of his energy into helping these third world countries, and with his kind of money and influence, the difference between our own fire power and a country like Iran’s becomes significantly smaller. When you separate the world between countries that do things reasonably and countries that only want power, it’s a dangerous thing. That’s how large scale wars that span multiple boarders are started,” Campbell explained.
“Okay, but maybe we could use the France situation to test the waters. We could share some intel with a likeminded people and maybe end all of this in the process,” Jess said.
Campbell thought for a moment.
“Zane, I have something that I want to talk to you about,” Campbell said.
“What is it?” Zane asked.
“I have a new job for you, if you want it.”
“What will I be doing?”
“I want you to be my advisor and second in command. I want you to check every major decision that I make, and if anything were to happen to me, I want you to lead my team.”
“I’m honored, but are you sure that you want me to do this?”
“I am. Your first order of business will be to tell me what you think of all this. Would you try to cooperate with the French government in this situation?”
Zane thought for a minute.
“It’s risky, but I would do it. We don’t have any other ideas, and Jess hasn’t had a bad idea yet from what I’ve heard. I would stand by this deci
sion.”
“Great, then it’s decided. Mr. Higgins, I want you to get me copies of everything that we have on Markus, and first thing tomorrow, I’ll get in contact with the French government and turn over a copy of our evidence. As for you, Michael, I would like to congratulate you on being reinstated for duty. Get ready, because when everything is set, you’ll be going with Nathan and Sam back to France,” Campbell said.
Shortly after everything was settled, everyone broke off and left the house.
* * * * *
That night, when Sam and Nathan’s flight landed, they went straight to their friends’ house to discuss what had happened. Jess filled Nathan and Sam in on their meeting with Campbell.
“Great. We just barely got out of France, and now we’re going back. I don’t think that I can take another fourteen hour flight,” Nathan said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there to keep you company this time,” Michael said proudly.
Nathan couldn’t help but feel a little scared. Sam had surprisingly turned out to be quite the handful in France. How much worse was Michael going to be?
“That’s great,” Nathan said to try to appear excited.
Even if he had his doubts about Michael coming with them, he was still glad that his friend was apparently much better.
“So did anything else interesting happen while we were gone?” Sam asked everyone.
“Well, there was an incident involving a feature film,” Michael said.
“Yeah, that film was pretty good, if I do say so myself,” Lee said with a smile.
“Hey, now don’t get too cocky. It was a nice film, but there was still room for improvement,” Trish said.
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