by Mike Ryan
“So if I get flagged somewhere for trying to use these, I can come back and kill you?”
Nails felt a lump go down his throat as he looked up at her, not sure if she was actually serious or not. He tried to put those visions out of his head. “No, no, don’t even think about stuff like that. I’m telling you, those are perfection. You will not have one ounce of problems with that.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“I promise you, with those, you can go anywhere you want to, and nobody will be the wiser. With those, you can slip away quietly into the night, and nobody will ever know where you are.”
18
A few hours had passed since the shootings in South Africa, and word had quickly spread throughout the building. Stephenson was summoned for another meeting with Director Lennick. As soon as he was shuttled into the office, he sat down across from his boss, who was already sitting down and waiting for him this time.
“I’ve got a meeting in thirty minutes, so we’ll have to keep this short,” Lennick said.
“That’s the way I like them.”
“I’ve already received word that the Patriotic Party of South Africa met with an untimely demise several hours ago.”
“Very true.”
“Was that the work of us?”
“Yes,” Stephenson said, not wanting to get into exact details. The director didn’t need to know it was actually Porter that did the shooting. As far as Stephenson was concerned at that moment, it was still the agency that pulled the trigger.
“How did that come about? Wasn’t Porter supposed to be the one doing that job?”
“We improvised.”
“Who did the shooting?”
“It was a collaborative effort,” Stephenson answered, still not willing to admit what actually happened. “We got wind of the rally, determined it would be a good spot, and had several agents in different areas waiting for a shot.”
“Well, that’s good work on your part. You’re to be commended for it.”
“Thank you.”
“The Patriotic Party was a dangerous group, and could threaten stability in the entire region if they came into power at some point. It’s better that we nipped it in the bud now, before they had a chance to grow any more than they already had.”
“I agree.”
“Is this the last we’ll see of them?” Lennick asked. “Or will someone else pick up the mantle in their absence?”
“It’s our belief that the party will now collapse. The three leaders were the heart and soul of the organization. They’ll most likely crumble without them. But is there one understudy they’ve been grooming who we haven’t yet identified? Maybe. If so, we’ll deal with it at the appropriate time.”
“Good. Just keep on it.” Lennick shuffled a few papers around on his desk before getting to his next topic. “Porter. Where do we stand on her? Have we made any progress since yesterday?”
Stephenson hesitated before answering, choosing his words carefully. “It’s a fluid situation.”
“How soon before it becomes settled?”
“We’re working on it.”
“I want an answer better than that.”
“We’re close.”
“Close can mean different things for different people,” Lennick said. “What’s yours?”
“We’re still pursuing her, but there are those who believe she may want to come back in, so that is complicating things a bit.”
“Come back in? Why would she want to do that?”
“I don’t know. But right now the situation bears monitoring in the event that she does.”
“What leads you to that conclusion?”
“She’s done a few things that still align with our interests,” Stephenson replied.
“Such as?”
“Well, she was also spotted at the rally earlier, and it is our belief that she was also there to kill the members of the Patriotic Party.”
“Why would she do that?”
“We think that the missions are so ingrained into the fabric of these agents that she was just compelled to finish her assignment. We believe she was there to kill them. We just happened to get to them first.”
“Ever think she turned on us and was hired by the Patriotic Party in some capacity?”
“Unlikely,” Stephenson answered. “If that were the case, then they would’ve canceled the rally to begin with. The fact that they didn’t suggests they had no idea what was coming. They wouldn’t have taken that kind of chance. That’s not who they are.”
“Have we actually confirmed the bodies? Any chance Porter warned them and they put in doubles in case something like that happened?”
“There were no doubles. And the bodies have been confirmed.”
“I don’t like having an ex-agent walking around knowing all our secrets, whether her goals align with ours or not.”
“I agree. That’s why we’re monitoring it closely.”
“Fine. Give her a couple of days to come back in if that’s what she wants. If she’s not back on the reservation by then, I want her eliminated permanently.”
“Understood.”
“We can’t take the chance of her walking around talking to people, talking to the press, talking to other governments. She could get a fortune if she told our secrets to certain foreign governments.”
“I think her selling out to a foreign government is unlikely. Her profile and her past indicates she’s never been one who’s motivated purely by money.”
“Well, I know one thing for certain,” Lennick said. “People have a tendency to change, and not always for the better. Whatever her intentions, if she’s not back on our payroll within three days, I want her taken out.”
“Understood.”
“Assuming we can find her,” Lennick snidely remarked.
“She’s a top operative. She knows how to disappear. That’s why she is who she is. And why she was one of us.”
“We’re supposed to be better. That’s why tracking devices were supposed to be put into these agents’ bodies without their knowledge, so a situation like this never came to fruition.”
“It was just a perfect storm of events.”
“Whether that’s true or not, I don’t want excuses. You’re running a top-secret, black ops intelligence agency. There’s no room for anything but getting the job done. If she’s not back within a few days, I want to see a report on my desk confirming her body in a morgue.”
Stephenson nodded, understanding there might be ramifications if they didn’t succeed in bringing Porter back in...one way or another.
As Porter tried to figure out her next course of action, one thing kept coming back to her. Her heart kept tugging at her, telling her that she needed to do one more thing before trying to leave the country. Jeso’s wife needed to be told about his fate. Considering the secretive nature of the people coming after her, she didn’t even know if Jeso’s body was left for the police to find, and therefore identify any family members. For all she knew, the woman didn’t even know her husband had been killed.
Porter got the address from Nails, who’d previously mailed something to the house before on Jeso’s behalf. After leaving her hotel and checking out early in the morning, Porter took a taxi to the Jordaan home. Stopping the taxi across the street, Porter got out and stood on the corner, leaning up against a building, just watching the house for a few minutes. Part of her was wondering if she should even be there. Maybe it was her nerves kicking in, not really wanting to be the one to tell someone that their loved one was dead.
As she stood there, debating with herself about moving forward, she couldn’t shake loose the feeling that she had a responsibility to knock on the door. Guilt spread through her body, thinking that it was her fault that Jeso was dead. If they hadn’t met, he’d still be alive. The only reason he was dead was because he got mixed up with her. Even if Mrs. Jordaan already knew of her husband’s death, the least Porter could do was look her in the eye and express
her sympathy. She owed her that much. It was just something she had to do. Porter finally shuffled her feet, getting enough courage to move forward.
A runner was sent to summon Stephenson from his office. Myers didn’t want to chance leaving the room and having something happen in his absence. After knocking on the door, the analyst peeked his head in the door, seeing Stephenson sitting at his desk.
“Sir, we’ve got her. We’ve picked up Porter again.”
Stephenson jumped out of his chair and hurried out of the office, quickly walking back to the situation room. As soon as he entered, Myers rushed over to him to explain the particulars.
“We just picked up Porter again.”
“Where?” Stephenson asked.
“I thought it might be a good idea to station someone outside the Jordaan home, just in case Porter still had business with the wife. Maybe she was holding something for her, documents or money, or whatever the case may be.”
“And she showed up?”
“Lo-and-behold, she just arrived there a few minutes ago.”
“Is she still there?”
“Apparently she knocked on the door and was let in,” Myers answered. “She’s been in there about three minutes as of now.”
Stephenson stood there staring at the screens, thinking, though he wasn’t really focusing on anything that was being played on the wall.
“What do you want to do? Should we move in?”
“Not yet,” Stephenson answered. “Let it play out. Let’s see how long she’s in there.”
“And when she comes out?”
“How many agents do we have in play there?”
“Right now, one. We’ve got two more en route, but it’s gonna be at least fifteen or twenty minutes before they get there.”
Stephenson continued thinking about what he wanted to do. He folded his arms, then lifted his left hand up to his throat and started rubbing it, feeling three days’ worth of stubble.
“If she stays in there a while and we get the backup unit in there, have one of them investigate what she was doing there, while the other two stay on Porter. If she leaves before the second team gets there, we have to stay on her. We can’t afford to let her get out of our sight again.”
“What do you think she’s doing?” Myers asked.
“Damned if I know. Maybe she’s just paying her last respects.”
“Maybe the good doctor was holding some passports for her in his home and she’s coming around to collect?”
Stephenson then started focusing on the screens. “One thing’s for sure, we’ll know soon enough.”
19
Porter and Mrs. Jordaan were sitting at the kitchen table, just about ready to finish up their conversation. Porter kept an eye on the time, and though she had no place to go in particular, didn’t want to stay in one place too long, especially there. She already felt responsible for Jeso’s death. The last thing she needed was for his family to meet the same fate because she was there. But she also didn’t want to be abrupt and cut Mrs. Jordaan short as she remembered her husband fondly. As Mrs. Jordaan spoke of her husband, Porter could see she was tearing up, so she reached her hand across the table to hold her hand.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Mrs. Jordaan fought back tears, somehow managing to flash a quick, but fleeting smile. “Thank you.”
“I feel like it was my fault. I could’ve done something to prevent it. If he’d never have met me, he’d still be alive.”
Still fighting back tears, Mrs. Jordaan shook her head, feeling sympathy for her guest. “No, it wasn’t you. Please don’t ever blame yourself.”
“I don’t know how I can’t.”
“Because it was only a matter of time before this happened. As much as my heart breaks, I resigned myself to hearing this news a long time ago. I’m honestly surprised that it took this long.”
“I just wish there was more I could’ve done,” Porter said, now fighting back tears of her own.
“You did all you could.”
“I’d gladly have traded places with him if I could.”
Mrs. Jordaan squeezed her hand, liking the young woman sitting next to her. “I believe you would. Jeso would be glad you thought as affectionately of him as you do. But he would, we both would, want you to move on. Don’t hold the sorrow in your heart for too long. You’re still young. You have your whole life ahead of you yet.”
“Well, I’m not sure about that. Might be a lot shorter than we think.”
Mrs. Jordaan gave her a smile. “You will get it straightened out. I will say a prayer for you.”
“I’m not sure just one will cut it,” Porter said with a laugh, wiping her eyes.
“I will say as many as are needed.”
They continued talking for a few more minutes. Though Porter knew she should be leaving soon, she found it hard to do so. Visiting with Mrs. Jordaan was so comforting for her, it was actually therapeutic. Porter felt she was such a strong woman for how well she’d been dealing with the news of her husband’s death. Though Porter truthfully told her everything, Mrs. Jordaan had already been notified by the police the night before. And though she hoped that somehow Jeso would get everything figured out, and his trouble would somehow miraculously pass, she knew that was just a dream. She’d been preparing for two years to get that knock on the door, saying her husband was dead.
After forty-five minutes, Porter finally got up to leave. As much as she wished she could stay longer, she just couldn’t afford to. Mrs. Jordaan understood she was also in a bad situation and wished her luck on her journey. She escorted Porter to the front door of the house, and gave her visitor a hug before she walked out the door.
“May God be with you,” Mrs. Jordaan said.
Porter looked back as she walked, giving her a friendly smile, hoping the woman would have no more troubles and somehow find peace in the aftermath of her husband’s death.
One of the agents at the Jordaan house was shooting live video from their phone, transferring back to the situation room, where it was put on one of the screens for all to see.
“She’s coming out,” Myers said, observing Porter step out of the Jordaan house.
“Wait a few minutes for her to move along, then have one of the agents check the house,” Stephenson said. “The other two follow Porter.”
The two agents followed Porter as she walked along the street, making sure they kept their distance, not wanting to engage in a fight in broad daylight in the public eye. They would keep following until just the right moment. It only took about five minutes for the agent at the Jordaan house to check back in. He talked to Myers, who then relayed the information to his boss.
“Looks like Porter was only there to pay her respects,” Myers said. “They just sat in the kitchen and talked for a while about the husband.”
Stephenson nodded, accepting the answer, figuring that would be the case. “OK. Get him on Porter as well.”
“How ‘bout we get him in the van and have him drive by her? We can do either a snatch-and-grab or a drive-by, whichever seems more doable?”
“Yeah, let’s do that. We certainly can’t just tail her all over the city. Eventually she’ll pick one of them up, probably sooner rather than later, and then who knows what would happen after that? Let’s get it done now and get it over with.”
“What do you wanna do? Grab her or kill her?”
Stephenson thought for a minute, part of him wanting to bring her back into the fold, or at the very least question her to figure out what was going on. If they knew why she went rogue, they could make sure they fixed whatever the issue was to prevent any other agents from ever doing the same. But at the same time, actually capturing an agent of Porter’s caliber was usually a tough, if not impossible, proposition, and he knew it.
“Whatever seems advisable at the moment,” Stephenson said, knowing full well that usually meant a drive-by. “It’s their option based on what’s presented to them.”
; “You know that usually rules out them grabbing her. They’re not gonna wanna get close to her.”
“I know. But let’s at least give them the option.”
Myers went back to the phone and sent a group message to let all three agents know the plan. After getting a confirmation back, they eagerly waited for the plan to come to fruition. The last agent got the van and started driving down the street, looking for Porter. With the other two agents still following her, they knew exactly where she was. The van slowly drove down the street, finally seeing the back of Porter’s head. It maintained its speed as it cruised toward her.
Porter stopped, looking in the window of a corner store at a display of various household items, such as glasses, candles, and other small items. As she stood there, her eyes went to the corner of the window, where she saw something that was alarming. She focused on the glass, and not the items inside, and saw the reflection of everything behind her across the street. She saw a man standing there, leaning up against a building, pretending to read a magazine. Porter knew he was pretending because she recognized the man’s face from Jeso’s apartment. She only saw his face for a split second when she crashed through the window that led to the balcony, when she came up firing at the men. It wasn’t the same man she bested in the scrap back at the office building. But even though she saw this man’s face for only a second, she still remembered it clear as day. Funny, she thought, that she could remember a person’s face that she only saw for a second, but she couldn’t remember the last twenty years of her life.
Not wanting to panic, Porter stayed glued in her spot for the time being, pretending she didn’t recognize the man. She then turned her head to the right, looking down the street and seeing another man, also looking at a store window. The man had his hands in his pockets, and though Porter didn’t recognize him, he certainly had the same look as the others. Similar haircuts, comparable clothes, similar build. Everything about him screamed he was one of them.