She looked at me and smiled. “How am I doing?”
“Not bad.”
“If that’s true,” she continued, “your unit was likely black ops and off the books. Which ultimately tells me you have some pretty good skills. The intrigue comes from you leaving all that behind and taking an entry-level position with the feds and becoming a desk jockey. That doesn’t add up.”
“A desk jockey?” I laughed. “Good one.”
“Am I right?”
She was good. I smiled. “I could ask you the same question. I can tell you’re too smart for this job, that’s clear already, yet you’re sitting here beside me. We’re probably the same classification, right?”
“But I’m a woman, I had to start here. I had no other choice. And I don’t have the background that you do.”
Fair enough.
We resumed scouring the area. Though we didn’t talk surveillance strategy, our eyes scanned opposite areas. She’d look right for a while, while I looked left, then we’d flip flop.
Karla broke the silence. “Tell me more about this black ops unit, if you can. I know it’s classified.”
“It is, but you’re a federal agent, and I’m no longer with the organization. So as long as you don’t tell anybody, I don’t mind. What do you want to know?”
“You were involved in some heavy situations, I imagine. Was it reconnaissance type work or more of spying and killing?”
“All of the above.”
“Why were you recruited? What was your specialty?”
I debated lying and saying something like ‘intel gathering’. In the end, I went with the truth. “Shooting. That was my specialty.” I looked over to see if she had a reaction. She didn’t.
“Was that easy for you?”
I thought about giving a curt answer, but Karla was as genuine as they come. Whatever I told her, I knew she wouldn’t go blabbing it to others. And besides, we had time to talk.
“Struggled with it, for sure. Even had a crisis of conscience early on in my career.”
“A crisis of conscience? Interesting. What happened?”
I settled into the seat and debated going down that road.
“You don’t have to tell me anything; sorry for prying. I shouldn’t have.”
Telling the story always helped me feel unburdened. Plus, there was something about Karla that made me open up.
“No, it’s okay. I’m alright with it.” I ran my hand over my head, then started the story. “My crisis of conscience came near the beginning of my career. I was in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. I was part of a small mission to find and kill a Somali general. He was one of the top d-bags in the country’s warlord hierarchy. We found the guy on the 16th of January and I was green-lighted to take him out. So I set up in a building directly across the street from where the general was holed up.”
“Set up? What do you mean?”
Even though it was a long time ago, I could envision that day like it was yesterday. I took a deep breath. “My shooting set up. I held a Weatherby Mark V rifle while sitting in a rickety wooden chair about ten feet back from a blown-out window. My rifle was perched on top of an even more rickety table. I’d leveled the table out with a couple of sugar packs I kept in my food pouch. I scanned the windows, waiting for the general to make an appearance. I also kept an eye out for ‘Skinnies’ on the ground. That was what we called the Somali soldiers since they were so emaciated. Anyway, I didn’t want to shoot the soldiers and give my position away, so I relayed their whereabouts to the boys on the ground.”
Karla nodded and kept watching the street.
I kept an eye out, too.
“About ten to one in the afternoon,” I continued, “I spotted a group of enemy militia filing into a room on the top floor of the dilapidated hotel. About ten ‘Skinnies’ entered the room and sat on the dusty floor. All of them had blank looks. They were literally kids; couldn’t even see a whisker of facial hair on any of them. The general waltzed into the room after the kids had settled. You couldn’t call him ‘Skinny’, since he was clearly well fed. He paced about the room and fired up the troops. I sat and waited for a good opportunity to take him out, waited for the prick to pause long enough in front one of the windows – but he never did. The guy had an unbelievable amount of energy. Never stood still.”
Karla looked at me. “What did you do?”
“I tracked him for a couple of hours and waited for a clean shot. About every half hour a new group of ragtag militia would file into the room for a pep talk. I didn’t know what the general was saying, but I knew he was doing a fine job because the kids left the room excited. They bashed through the doors and hustled down the stairs. The whole thing fired me up even more.”
“How so?”
I thought about it for a moment. “The big picture of it all, I guess. The situation was beyond messy. Over 300,000 Somalians had starved to death in this general’s country, all because he and the other feuding warlords wouldn’t feed and protect their own people. Yet this big prick was getting his fair share of carbs, that’s for sure. And here he was across the street firing up the troops, telling these kid soldiers that the Yanks were the evil ones; that the Americans were the ones who deserved to die; that ultimately these kids should give their lives to this bogus cause. It still makes me mad thinking about it.”
I paused and cleared my throat. “Anyway, after watching this guy for hours I had his mannerisms figured out. He had distinct facial tics and arm movements that he repeated with absolute precision. I spent a lot of time studying him. Every time the troops left the room, he’d continue firing himself up. He wouldn’t stop pacing and talking and shaking his fists at a torn-up American flag hanging in the corner of the room. He actually—“
I stopped because I could see the general’s face as clear as can be. The man’s face gave me the chills.
A moment later Karla touched my knee. “Go on.”
I took a breath. “He actually got more riled up when he was alone. He truly believed in his cause. I mean, deep down in his soul. It was crazy. He totally bought what he was selling to these kids. That got me thinking a lot.”
“About what?”
“About right from wrong and how we can ultimately distinguish between the two. Because here I was, directly across the street, dead determined that I was in the right. Deep down I believed that what I was doing was the moral thing. I knew it without question, without hesitation. Yet the man on the other end of my scope thought the exact same thing about his position. So who was right? How do we ultimately judge between two equally determined passions or points of view? That was my crisis of conscience.”
“What did you end up figuring out?”
“That there had to be an outside source to determine right from wrong.”
“Outside source like what?”
“Like a third party. I got that idea from my mentor in The Activity. He’d been preaching his theories to me for six months.”
Karla raised her eyebrows. “The Activity was your specialized unit?”
“Right, the black ops unit I joined after being recruited out of the Marines. The one authorized by the Pentagon.”
She smiled. “Go on.”
“The guy who taught me everything about spy work, including shooting and killing, was my commanding officer, a man by the name of Hans Schlimmergaard. He was this crazy German Christian guy. His call name was Bonhoeffer.”
“That the same as a code name?”
“Yeah. Hans loved this twentieth-century German theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was this pious Christian who hatched a plan to kill Hitler right near the end of World War II. He believed in killing Hitler for the greater good. The irony was that Bonhoeffer’s plan never came to fruition and the theologian was hanged just days before the Germans surrendered. Regardless, Hans was fanatic about the greater good theory. He truly believed in it, which I imagine helped him face the fact that he killed people, a lot of people in his cas
e. And he was good at it. I never thought too much about the greater good theory until that afternoon.”
Karla shifted toward me. She was excited about the story and not watching for Gates. “So what ended up happening?”
I paused.
She punched my shoulder. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
I smiled. “At 3:30 in the afternoon I was still following the general from window to window. He was on his sixth speech to his sixth group of ‘Skinnies’. I was in the chair cursing Hans under my breath, figuring all his talk had finally caught up with me. I spent some time in that room thinking about the Bonhoeffer story. In the end, I knew I believed in Bonhoeffer’s theory, the greater good theory. I had to. If I didn’t, I knew I was killing indiscriminately and wasn’t any better than the man on the receiving end of my bullet – the scumbag across the street in my scope.”
Karla’s eyes lit up. She nodded. “You kill him?”
I cleared my throat. “When the general reached the crescendo of his last speech, I watched the group of young kids jump up and burst out of the hotel room, but I didn’t focus on them; I focused on the general. Because at that moment he did something unusual, something he hadn’t done the other five times, something totally out of character: He lit a cigarette, walked to one of the windows, and stood right in front of it. There he was, perfectly framed in this open window. Maybe he did it to catch a breeze and cool down, maybe to blow smoke out, or maybe to watch his troops rush out into the street. Who knows? I didn’t, and I didn’t dwell on it long. I aligned the crosshairs on his face. I can remember the details precisely. I took a slow breath and calmed my heart. Then I cradled the trigger with my finger and took up the slack. Took up two full pounds of pressure – all I needed was three. Then the general took a slow and steady drag on the cigarette, and—”
I paused, remembering the situation in vivid color.
“And what?”
“I whispered to myself, ‘For the greater good’. Then I pulled back with another pound of pressure.”
“And?”
“And blew his head clear off his shoulders.”
The car went eerily silent.
After about ten seconds, Karla said, “Good for you.”
A minute of silence went by. I felt like finishing my story and bringing it full circle. “After the incident with the general, I started reading Bonhoeffer’s work, as well as some other old theologians and philosophers.”
“Impressive for a killer,” she said, smiling.
“Don’t get too impressed. I didn’t understand a lot of what I read. But I did learn that the ‘greater good’ theory wasn’t actually Bonhoeffer’s invention. The theory dated back to a Persian prophet by the name of Zoroaster. St Augustine, however, was the one who truly made the theory famous. The Summum Bonum, as he called it, which was Latin for the supreme good or the greatest good. He put things simply, said there must be something outside of ourselves, something by which we measure all things, by which we determined what was good from what was bad. In other words, right from wrong. He believed that was God, that God was the highest good and the thing by which we measure everything else. That made sense, which was why I used Augustine as my code name.”
“You’re a theist then?”
“I guess. I think I have to be.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, something else besides society and humans must exist. If it doesn’t, then everything is relative. Then my missions weren’t any better, weren’t any more virtuous or right, than the missions of the men I was trying to kill. If everything’s relative, I had no good reason to take another human life, other than following my chain of command. Which was hardly justification for killing.”
Karla nodded. “Never thought of it like that.”
“My commanding officer, Hans, totally got in my head. But in a good way. He helped me clear my conscience about what I was doing. I didn’t have a problem killing a person like General Douchebag, for instance, since it served the greater good of the nation. Because I believed he and his fellow conspirators were violating the higher moral code. A moral code established by a higher being, a third party.”
“Got it,” Karla said. “I understand. Were all of your missions for the greater good? Was every mission black and white like Mogadishu?”
She was sharp. I thought about her question. “It’s a fair question, and the answer is no. The longer I was with The Activity, the more I became engaged in questionable missions. Near the end, I became pretty disillusioned with the job, if I’m being honest. When my son was born, I saw my out and took it. I didn’t mind being a desk jockey if it meant I’d see my son grow up. Much higher value in that than in taking questionable kill orders.”
“See, being a desk jockey has some redeeming qualities.”
I smiled. “I guess it does.”
We resumed scanning the area. I could tell Karla was deep in thought, digesting what I just said, so I stayed quiet.
A few minutes later, she broke the silence. “You know, it doesn’t look like Gates is coming, at least not any time soon. You should get some rest. You look awful.”
“Thanks.”
I fired up the Ford and drove to the Faded Blue Motel. It took less than ten minutes.
When I opened the door to room 12, Karla peeked in. “Did you pay extra for the seventies theme?”
“Vintage,” I corrected, “not seventies. I had to put down an extra deposit.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Karla smiled. “Get some rest.” Before she closed the door, she said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why are you risking it all?”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re risking your career for Stanley Tuchek. And you’ve been pulled off the case. So it’s not your responsibility. I know the kid was shot and Labonte may be on his death bed, and you want vindication for that, but it seems way too risky for you to pursue this when you could lose your job for good this time. If Hornsby or the governor finds out, you may be living here full-time. What’s the greater good in that?”
“You don’t have all the facts.” I reached into my wallet and pulled out a worn picture of Simon and me. He was a year and a half old in the picture. I was wading in chest-deep ocean water with Simon on my shoulders. We had huge smiles. I handed her the picture. “He’s three now.”
“Super cute. He has your eyes. And for his sake, let’s hope not your hair line. What’s his name?”
“Simon. I saw him yesterday. The first time in a year. I lost visitation rights after the YouTube thing aired. Next week I have an important custody hearing. Before yesterday, I figured I’d at least get weekend visits back, but after everything that’s happened, I feel screwed. My ex-wife will do whatever she can to stop me from being with him. She’s even filed a restraining order by now.”
“Cold,” Karla said. “Really cold. I mean, you’re his father. I don’t get that at all.”
“The only chance I have is figuring out Stanley’s case, wrapping it all up before the hearing. That way I can convince the judge that the break-in had to do with Stanley’s death threats and not my past. I need to prove that there are no imminent threats on my life, and that I can provide a safe environment for Simon. I’ll probably have to commit to being a desk jockey for life, but if it means getting Simon back, I’ll do it.”
Karla nodded. “We’ll solve this.”
“I have to stay low profile. You’re going to actually solve the case. I’ll help in the background. No one can find out we’re working together.”
“It’s our secret. And trust me, I’ll do the best I can, I promise.” She closed the door behind her.
I drew the heavy curtains closed and plunged the room in darkness. Since Karla was going to work the WBC investigation, I figured I’d catch an hour or two of sleep and wait for one of my contacts to call.
Collapsing on the bed
, I put my beeper on the nightstand, then took out the picture of Simon and studied it. Stared at it for as long as I could, until my eyes were so heavy I had to close them. I fell asleep with the picture of Simon on my chest and my hands crossed on top of it. Slept that way for a while. I didn’t wake until a knock on the door rattled the motel room. That knock was a first in a series of knocks.
A series of knocks that would keep me up for the second night in a row, and change everything I knew about Stanley Tuchek’s case.
CHAPTER 13
Another loud knock shook the flimsy motel door. I tucked Simon’s picture into my wallet, got out of bed, and peeled the curtains back a fraction, just to be safe. Standing in front of the door was a chubby-faced cop with a warm smile. I opened the door.
“Agent Gates told me you were staying here,” Officer Kowalski said. “Thought you might be missing some things. I hope you won’t be needing them, though with your past couple of days, who knows?”
He thrust out a case. To the untrained eye, the case looked like it contained a long musical instrument like a trombone; but it wasn’t a trombone case. The case held my Weatherby Mark V .308 caliber rifle. The one I used in Mogadishu.
“Thanks, Kowalski. Come on in. I’m surprised I’m getting this back.”
Kowalski unclipped the catch on his holster, withdrew a gun, and stepped into the motel room. “This is yours as well. The rifle and gun were registered in your name, and a few others were registered in your father’s name. You can come by the station and pick up those ones. We can’t give you back the illegal assault weapons. Their serial numbers were scratched off.”
I nodded. That was my father for you.
Kowalski whistled and handed over the Smith & Wesson Model 500. “Sure is a beauty.”
The Greatest Good Page 11