by Justin Bell
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He considered himself a sound sleeper, but years of conditioning had trained Richard Grace to have an immediate response to the sound of his phone vibrating on the nightstand next to him. At 5:30 a.m., his reaction this morning was especially visceral.
"Whaddya got?" He barked into the phone.
"Something important."
"Better damn well be."
"Subject is on the move, sir. He woke up at around 5:00 a.m. this morning and decided to go for a morning 'jog.'"
"Any trouble?"
"There could have been. Our boy wasn't jogging so much as sprinting. For nearly three miles straight. Luckily I don't think anyone spotted him."
Agent Grace sat up, rubbing his eyes. His view from inside his small bedroom was not nearly as enjoyable as the one looking over the college town, but it was good enough on a government salary. "Okay, good enough. Where is he now?"
"Approaching downtown. Guy ran over eight miles in a little more than 30 minutes. Was that part of the plan?"
"This fucking guy," Grace said in a sudden breaking New York accent that only emerged when he was sufficiently annoyed. "Don't worry about the plan, Burndock. Just keep watching."
"Roger."
Agent Grace flipped off his smart phone and set it back down on the small table next to his bed. He glanced over at the empty space next to his ruffled sheets and besmirched himself for still bothering to look when that side of the bed had been empty for nearly three years. His Ivy League education had been enough to parlay him into a top-shelf government intelligence job, but not all the higher education in the world could make him a devoted husband. Now he had been sent back North where his college career had begun, most likely because of his past connections here. The fact that one of the high-level members of his current operation was a graduate of the local medical school didn't hurt, and the NSA had many slithering undercurrents throughout most of higher education. Wouldn't the conspiracy theorists love to know that?
Agent Grace chuckled. The prestigious local medical school named after Dr. Seuss? Go figure.
Nonchalantly, he scooped up the pistol that rested on his nightstand and carried it with him into the bathroom, sliding it softly on the sink counter. The agent's morning routine consisted of a 20-minute cold shower, where he relished the cold blast of water pushing aside the thick fog of early morning. Under the sheath of brutally frigid liquid, his mind clarified the events of the morning. He couldn't wait to review this tape.