The Eyes of Others

by Mikael Carlson

  “Honey, promise me.”

  “I promise. I love you.” He leans in and gives me a kiss.

  “I love you too.”

  It’s late and I reach over to click the light on the nightstand off. I’ll be asleep in a matter of minutes, but I know Boston will fight it as hard as he can until he finally yields to his drowsiness. I hope this dream therapist can provide him answers sooner rather than later. With everything going on at work, it would be nice if he could realize some semblance of normalcy in his life.

  “Try to sleep well, sweetie.”

  “I will. Good night,” he tells me, as I snuggle up to his side and immediately start drifting off.

  .

  ~ Chapter 9 ~

  eugene “BOSTON” hollinger

  The voices are muffled. The fog bank envelops me. A figure stands in what looks like an opening … a doorway. My vision is obscured. What is that in my eyes? It streaks my vision in a golden hue.

  Something brushes it away. I can see more clearly now. A man in a suit … a bed … As the voices become clearer, I can tell the man is … slurring.

  “You are a worthless bitch! You're good for nothing and I don't know why I even bother,” he says.

  “So why do you, Mark?” I hear myself say. I feel … anger. Burning anger.

  “I don’t know. It’s not for your money. You screwed that up already. And it's not like I enjoy the sex.”

  “Then get out!” I hear myself scream in a high-pitched wail. “Go screw one of your cheap floozies!”

  “Who says I haven't been all along?”

  “You're a bastard!” I hear myself yell again. The voice is filled with emotion. It’s hurt … and rage.

  The man in the suit steps closer. The face is … blurry. He comes closer and closer … then pulls back his right arm and swings his hand, striking me above the eye. My vision explodes with stars before going all white. The pain …

  I shoot straight up in the bed, hyperventilating and feeling my left eye with my fingers. There is no blood. It was only a dream. One of those dreams.

  “Oh my God, are you okay, honey?” Gina consoles, rubbing my back and stopping only to switch on the light on her bedside table.

  “I … I don’t know.” I feel nothing but raw emotion. I want to cry.

  “It’s okay, sweetie, I’m here. I’m here,” she whispers, rubbing her cheek against my shoulder. Damn. I need to get in to see that doctor again today.

  * * *

  “Boston?” Tara asks after answering the door on the fifth ring. Dressed in black yoga pants and a sweatshirt, the woman in front of me is a far cry from the professionally dressed woman I met with yesterday.

  “I probably should have called first.”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m a bit of a mess,” she says, not making any attempt to brush the blonde hair framing both sides of her face.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Uh, sure, I guess.”

  I follow her in, closing the door behind to keep the chilly morning air out. I fight to keep my eyes straight ahead and not down at her form-fitting choice of lower garments. It’s a losing battle.

  “I’m sorry if I interrupted your workout,” I explain, really not sorry about it at all.

  “You didn’t,” she says with a forced smile. “This is my bum around the house clothing. So, what brings you here?” she asks nervously. “I thought our meeting wasn’t until later today.”

  “It isn’t. And I’m sorry to show up unannounced, but this is important. Do you have a client, or can we talk now?”

  She looks at her clothing and then back at me like I’m a moron. Of course she doesn’t have a client, at least not until later today. I’m going to blame the lack of clear thinking on those yoga pants.

  “Right. Sorry, stupid question,” I stutter. Way to play it cool, Boston. Wicked smooth.

  “I don’t think―”

  “Please, Tara,” I interrupt before she gets to the “no” part. “I know my coming here without an appointment is unconventional, and maybe a little weird, but this is important.”

  She looks like she’s about to dismiss me when a door slams upstairs. She’s on edge and jumps at the sound. Whatever it was made her change her mind.

  “Okay, please, have a seat. Shouldn’t you be at work?” she inquires as we move into her combination living room-office. We sit in the same spots we occupied when I was here yesterday afternoon. I get the feeling she doesn’t see clients at eight a.m. on a usual basis.

  “I took a sick day.”

  “Ah. Okay, so tell me what happened. I’m guessing you had another dream?”

  She picks up her notepad and pen and subconsciously brushes the hair out of her face, revealing a bruise over her eye she tried to hide with makeup. That explains why the hair is down and why she has spent the last minute or two not fussing with it.

  “I did,” I respond, wondering how and why she looks like she face-planted into a two-by-four.

  “Did the tips I gave you on lucid dreaming work?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good answer,” she says, forcing a smile. “It takes years of practice, and if you said it did, I’d think you were lying.”

  A well-dressed man comes barging down the stairs from the second floor and into the living room before she can say anything further. The suit looks too expensive to make him a government employee, so he is private sector all the way. A lobbyist, or a lawyer for some big firm, most likely.

  “I thought you told me you didn’t have any clients this morning,” he sneers, his eyes making no attempt to mask the contempt behind them. A real charmer this one is.

  I’m getting sized up like a pissed off alpha male does when he thinks someone is moving in on his woman. Nothing could be further from the truth, but my sudden appearance here must be convenient in his mind. Whatever went down between these two last night must have gotten as ugly as the bruise Tara is nursing over her eye.

  “It was an emergency appointment,” she responds, the tone of her voice mixing a hint of defiance with a helping of fear.

  “Yeah, right. I just wanted to tell you that I’m leaving the key on your table out here.”

  I lean back on the sofa and look over at the man. Something is familiar about his voice. I could swear I know him from somewhere.

  “I was wondering if we could―”

  “I'm with a client, Mark.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” he responds, giving me one last dirty look for good measure. “Can we talk? Please? This will only take a moment.”

  “Excuse me for a minute,” she demands more than asks, stomping off to where Mark is standing at the door. They are trying to keep their voices at a whisper, but as the conversation gets heated, their volume goes up.

  “It’s time for you to go now,” Tara demands to him.

  “Fine, have it your way,” the man responds, retreating through the front door and slamming it behind him. Mark? Is that his name? Where have I seen him? The realization hits me like a sledgehammer. I fight to recall the details of last night’s dream.

  “Then get out. Go screw one of your floozies.” I remember saying that.

  “Who says I haven't been all along?” That’s what the figure in the doorway said.

  “You're a bastard, Mark!” The wail was a woman’s voice. The golden streaks in my vision I remember could have been her hair in her eyes.

  I remember the slap, but not the face of who did it. I try to picture what I saw. Everything was so blurry and vague. I try a different approach and superimpose Mark’s face on the figure from the dream. At once, the haziness of the dream begins to subside as I sharpen the memory of it. The man from last night was Mark. How is that possible?

  “Jesus,” I mutter, shaking my head.

  “Sorry about that. Now tell me, have the dreams―”

  “What happened to your eye, Doctor Winters?”

  “What? Oh. Uh, I’m a klutz,” she replies, applying a gentle touch to her eye with her finge
rs. The question knocked her off guard. “I, uh, walked into something.”

  I lean forward on the couch. “Would that something be Mark’s hand after you called him a bastard?”

  Tara’s jaw drops and the blood rushes out of her face as it freezes in shock. I study her intently, gauging her reaction. There’s no hiding it now. That’s exactly what happened. I let out a long breath.

  “How could you know that? I mean, how could you possibly …”

  “Tara, this is going to sound incredible, and wicked creepy, but that was the dream I had last night.”

  “You had a dream about it? But that’s …”

  “Impossible? I agree one hundred percent, but tell me if any of this sounds familiar. You were in the bedroom, he had been drinking, and you were having an argument. You told him to go screw one of his floozies and he said he already was, or something like that. He said something else and you called him a bastard. That’s when he slapped you. Now go ahead, please, tell me I’m wrong, because I’m a little freaked out right now.”

  Tara is astonished, her hand covering her mouth as she shakes her head. Denial is the classic first stage, and she’s refusing to believe what she’s hearing. The fact I’m not getting corrected on my recount is all the proof I need that it went down pretty much like I described it.

  “There … there must be another explanation.”

  “God I hope so. I’m all ears.”

  “You had to have been spying on me. You videotaped me, or bugged my bedroom. You’re in the CIA.”

  “Actually, I’m in the DIA, and I can assure you, I’m not spying on you. This dream I had last night was about you and Mark and whatever happened last night between the two of you. I watched the whole thing as if I was peering through someone else’s eyes.”

  I lean forward in the chair and gaze intently at her while I try to come to grips about this discovery myself. For the first time since I started having these bizarre dreams, I think I may finally be starting to understand them. I’m exhilarated at the thought of making progress, and terrified about the new reality of what these dreams mean.

  “Whose eyes?” she asks. I take a deep breath before responding.

  “Yours.”

  .

  ~ chapter 10 ~

  Eric “MARYLAND” williams

  “He’ll be right with you, Mister Williams,” the secretary relays pleasantly.

  The intelligence community is an attractive career for a lot of people because of how it’s depicted in popular culture. Most fiction novels will paint these jobs as filled with action-packed firefights and intrigue, as analysts help super agents fight the bad guys in a race against the clock. When reality hits, all of that is stripped away and only a desk job remains.

  The positions Boston and I have in intelligence analysis are nothing more than research jobs. Rarely do we ever do dramatic, nail-biting work reminiscent of the drama you see in action films. And while we see all kinds of fancy rooms in the movies, we do our work from the confines of a typical office cubicle. Boston may like the thought of spicing things up with his mole hunt, but I’m more than comfortable just doing the job I was assigned to do.

  Director Washington exits his office with his suit jacket on and toting a black portfolio in his left hand. I can’t help but wonder what I did wrong to get me called into work on a Saturday, but then I remember that I’m friends with Boston and that he’s persona non grata around here right now. This has to be about him.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” I ask as he comes up to me.

  “Yes, Eric, I did. I’m late for a meeting, so why don’t you walk with me.” I follow him out the door, suddenly fighting a bout of acid reflux at the thought of what he might tell me.

  “Do you know where Eugene Hollinger is today? We’re all hands on deck right now and he was asked to come in.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t. I think he’s a little under the weather.”

  “So I was told by his supervisor,” he confirms without looking at me. “It’s a very convenient time to get the sniffles, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

  “Things are liable to get a little … uncomfortable around here. The highest levels of our nation’s intelligence agencies believe there may be someone passing along sensitive information to ISIS.”

  “You don’t think it’s Boston, do you? Because I can tell you―”

  “No, I don’t think it’s him.”

  A wave of relief passes over me. If Boston was ever considered a person of interest, they would dive into his life in great detail, including scrutinizing everyone he knows. As someone with a high-level security clearance, I would be the target of a lot of that attention. I don’t need that in my life, and it is almost a guaranteed career ender.

  I might not agree with Boston about a great many things, but I know with certainty he’s not a spy. Hell, he’s been warning everyone about a leak since the day he got here and it’s been falling on deaf ears. I’m not about to say that, though. Not now.

  “Okay, so why are you bringing it up, sir?”

  “There is a lot of heat being placed on this directorate, and on me, to make sure our house is in order. Hollinger isn’t helping with that. He may have thought he was justified poking around after he was told not to, but now all it’s doing is putting a target on his back.”

  “Director, with all due respect, I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”

  “Don’t play dumb, Eric. I’ve read your file and seen your analysis work. I know you’re brighter than that. You’re friends with Hollinger, and I need you to get him to back off.”

  And there it is. The director is putting me in an uncomfortable situation. I’ve already tried that approach with Boston and it didn’t work. I’m not sure how much he thinks I know, but if I want to preserve my own job, the further I distance myself from this, the better.

  “I can see you’re conflicted about this request. I even understand why, considering the bonds you share from having seen combat together,” Director Washington relays as we climb into an elevator. “Let me explain to you the reality of the situation Hollinger finds himself in and you can make the decision for yourself. His job is at stake. His very freedom may be in peril. As a friend of his, I would think you wouldn’t want him to risk prison time for obstruction. Is that a correct assumption?”

  I want to defend him. Part of me even wants to take up his argument about the bureaucracy and how careerism is destroying our intelligence capabilities. I also know that’s the last thing Director Washington wants to hear. Boston might be okay putting his head on the chopping block, but this is his fight, not mine.

  “I understand completely, sir. I‘ll talk to him.”

  The elevator stops and the director steps out, gesturing me to stay where I am. He uses his hand to block the door and prevent it from closing. He got his answer, so I guess our discussion, if you can call it that, is over.

  “No need to accompany me further. Please talk to him as soon as you can. It’s in his best interests not to make things around here worse.”

  “Yes, sir,” I answer as he removes his hand from the elevator door.

  “You know, Eric, I brought Hollinger on board because I have a great respect for his talents and his service. I don’t want that to be a decision I come to regret.”

  On that note, the door finally closes, and the sinking feeling I get is more than just the elevator going down.

  .

  ~ chapter 11~

  FBI AGENT zach BRUHTE

  The headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is located at the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s an unsightly structure, measuring eight or eleven stories high depending on what part of the building you’re visiting. It was constructed using cream-colored concrete precast segments, featuring tinted square windows set deep in the frames. The whole thing is the pinnacle of ugly late-sixties architecture, and is already at the end of its useful
life not a quarter of the way into the new millennium.

  The building is also the domain of my boss to whose office I have been summoned. As a member of the counterespionage division of the bureau, I spend a lot of time in the field to avoid coming to this hideous place. Today, there’s no avoiding it.

  “Take a seat, Zach,” Supervisory Special Agent Tom Grimman commands from behind his desk. A veteran of the FBI, and a man who has distinguished himself countless times since 9/11, he is a superstar around here. Approaching nearly six foot and bald, he looks like an angrier, and more worn, likeness of Stanley Tucci from Fortitude. Not the Devil Wears Prada or Hunger Games versions of him.

  “I heard we’ve been directed to launch an investigation about a leak in the DIA. Is that why I’m here on a Saturday?” I ask, almost certain that isn’t the reason.

  “No, I don’t want you within ten miles of that investigation, Zach.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a drunk, have become irresponsible and unpredictable, and are a liability to me and this entire division, that’s why,” he declares, apparently not interested in holding anything back.

  “Do me a favor and don’t sugarcoat it for me, Tom,” I needle.

  “It’s Special Agent Grimman to you right now.”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply, snapping off a ridiculous-looking salute.

  “What the hell happened to you? You were a fantastic agent. Top of your class and responsible for helping put some of the most dangerous threats to our country away forever. Then you had the same bit of bad luck every agent who walks through the doors downstairs experiences at some point during their careers.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it was nothing more than bad luck.”

  “I cut you a lot of slack after that all went down. I’ve given you considerable time and space to get your head right, and how did you repay me? By drinking on duty and engaging in all levels of professional misconduct, that’s how.”