Agent out of Time (The Agents for Good)

by Stanton III, Guy

  I glanced at the green flashing indicator beacon light on my wristwatch. Things would be okay. They just had to be after all the ordeal that we’d already come through. I hadn’t alerted the couple laying out on the moonlit deck lost in each other’s arms kissing each other’s face off, as to the imminent problem we might be facing. They’d had enough distractions already in their young life together, without adding a new fear to the mix.

  Relief shot through me as my watch spoke, “Come in Shalako, Mother Goose calling.”

  “Read you loud and clear Mother Goose!”

  “Are you aware of possible bogey in pursuit?”

  “Yes, let’s make this a hole in one.”

  “Affirmative, the Eagle is landing.”

  I shook my head at the man’s brashness of wordology on the other end of the radio.

  The seaplane I had just recently noticed began to bank around and lose altitude and I adjusted the navigation of the fishing trolley to compensate. I saw the plane touch down in the distance, as the moon highlighted the kicked up waves, of its landing. I didn’t have to go far though before I caught the darker shadow of a fast approaching pontoon boat. I began to slow the fishing trolley down to a stop.

  The pontoon pulled alongside, as the ship’s radio crackled with harsh activity. Trent handed Deshavi down into the boat and then followed. I slipped over the ship’s side and landed in the boat a little unsteadily. A strong hand steadied me and I thanked the man, who it belonged to.

  “Can’t be losing you now after all you’ve come through!” The hand’s owner said.

  In the moonlit darkness I saw a hand outstretched toward me and I gave it a firm shake with my own.

  “The names Flint and it is an honor to finally meet you Sir.”

  I glanced at the man more closely in the semi darkness. So this was the man that Chantry had brought in to serve as my replacement, when at the time he had been nothing but a teenager. An extremely capable teenager. I hadn’t thought Chantry would send someone so important for a pickup errand. It would appear that I had underestimated my old friend yet again.

  “The honor is mine.” I responded softly, as the pontoon boat pulled alongside of the shiny seaplane.

  I was in for another surprise as I stepped inside of the luxurious interior of the plane. Chantry held up a glass of wine with a genial smile of welcome, “I knew you could do it old friend! If anyone could it would be you!”

  I sat down heavily beside him and I took the wine glass from him. “I do recall you having a few doubts, as to the success of our endeavor.”

  He waved a hand through the air dismissively, “Glad to be proven wrong!”

  As Trent and Deshavi sat down across from me and Chantry the plane began to move forward. We talked for a while after takeoff, but general weariness coupled with the peace of being free on good terms soon had my eyes closing.

  Chantry did his best to sleep, but sleep rarely came to him anymore. He wasn’t the only one, who was sleepless it would seem. Shalako’s enchanting granddaughter sat wide-awake, with her love’s head resting on her shoulder. Her own head rested over against his in a way that only people, who love each other, would do. Her hands were endlessly massaging the big hand that lay in her lap.

  It was a touching sight and well worth every penny of the several million dollars that Chantry had spent to help this mission become a success. She noticed him gazing at her in the darkened cabin and her head straightened.

  “Oh no, my dear don’t stir on my account! I’m just an old man that can’t sleep anymore.” He said softly.

  Her face was hard to read just as her grandfathers was at times. “May I ask a question of you Sir?”

  “Certainly!” Chantry said quickly in response.

  “Why?” She asked.

  Now that was a big question, Chantry reflected to himself.

  “I’d like to think that I would’ve done anything that was needed to rescue anyone, in such a circumstance, as yours my dear. But the truth is I would never have risked the lives of two of my operatives the way your grandfather and Trent did for you. It was little enough to enable them and give the mission the best possible chance with the funding that is available to me. I gave the chances at success to your grandfather at less than ten percent, but he wouldn’t hear it. He was going to save you and that was that and look where we are now. We are living in the moment of prayer’s result, which no mission percentage rate can ever quantify. This mission truly has been a miracle in all aspects and you are very lucky girl to have these two men on your side!”

  Deshavi nodded before asking, “What did my grandfather do with you when he was younger?”

  Chantry chuckled softly, “Oh, I suppose you could say, a lot of crazy type things like he just did, only then he was younger, but he can still get it done apparently. Gives me continued hope for myself in my advanced years.”

  Silence reigned for a little while in the darkened cabin and Chantry decided to volunteer something about Shalako that he knew Shalako would never speak of himself. He just wasn’t the type to brag.

  “I do many things for those who ask something of me, but I give out very few favors. Your grandfather has the most favors of anyone I’ve ever dealt with, at two. He redeemed one of them in order to gain my help. He didn’t need to, but he insisted it be considered as such. That favor he redeemed was hard earned. In effect, your grandfather saved the entire world from nuclear war once. The world was never going to give him credit for what he helped to avert so I decided that I would at least in a small way offer my own appreciation.”

  Deshavi’s eyes had grown large at the mention of nuclear war, but Chantry doubted that she could appreciate her grandfather any more than she already did. Everyone on the planet should know and appreciate what Shalako had done for them. Since that wasn’t possible, at the very least his granddaughter should know.

  “What was the other favor for?”

  Chantry seemed to stare off into the distance as he answered, “After my wife died I became very low and your grandfather talked me out of blowing my brains out, when few could have.”

  Chantry glanced over at the sleeping Shalako, “He is as good a friend to have, as any I have ever had.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Catharsis

  Deshavi stood at the sink washing dishes feeling, as usual, the deep awkwardness that she felt around anyone that knew. Knew what had happened to her. She glanced out of the corner of her eyes at Trent’s mom, who was drying the dishes beside her. Ella was looking directly at her!

  Deshavi quickly looked away blushing and in the process a dish slippery with soap slipped free of her hands and shattered in the sink.

  “I’m so sorry! I’m such a klutz!”

  “Oh stop it! I mean stop all of it!” Ella said with authority.

  “What?” Deshavi asked uncertainly.

  “You know what I mean honey.” Ella said, as she started picking the pieces of the broken dish up. “If I had a nickel for every dish I’ve broken over the years I’d be able to afford the set of dishes that I’ve always wanted. If this dish was something I cared about I’d take the time and painstakingly glue it back together, but it’s not. It’s much the same with people. Those we care about we don’t even think twice about giving of our time and resources to help them back up on their feet. Those people we don’t like we typically don’t invest any time in and perhaps only a few resources meant only to make us look good. I suppose it’s a bad analogy to compare the two, because we as humans, more specifically Christians, should give equally of our time and wealth to anyone and not just those we like. I like you Deshavi, otherwise I wouldn’t still be so happy to soon have you as my daughter.”

  Deshavi nodded somewhat moodily, “It’s just that…. I feel different and I can’t help, but feel that anybody, who knows about what happened to me would feel differently about me to.”

  Ella was quietly reflective, as she dried a dish off with a
towel. “I supposed based on that logic I should feel differently about myself or even Trent for that matter.”

  Deshavi stopped washing the dish in her hand, “Why should you feel differently about yourself or Trent?”

  Ella glanced over discerningly at Deshavi, “You aren’t the first woman to experience rape Deshavi.”

  Deshavi stared at her in disbelief and Ella reached out and took the soapy dish away before it joined its broken companion.

  “Trent is an outcome of that rape and yet he is still my son and I love him more than my own life. Should I look at him differently because of how he came to be? What choice did he have in the matter of his conception? Should he be forced to bear the shame of a sin that he didn’t commit? Should I for that matter?”

  Deshavi shook her head no vigorously.

  Ella put the dish down on the counter and raised her hands up to frame Deshavi’s face, “Then why should you? Things happen in life, but just as I don’t view or love my son any differently and he me in return, then why should you be viewed or loved any different?”

  Deshavi was crying freely and Ella pulled her close in for a hug that could only be considered motherly and loving.

  “I love you as my daughter already and you know more so than many women can attest to just how much your man, my son, loves you!”

  Deshavi nodded against her shoulder.

  “Nothing is ever going to change that or altar how much your Heavenly Father feels about you! Nothing! So don’t hide yourself from living life. Enjoy it as you were meant to!”

  Ella held Deshavi for a few more moments before letting her go.

  “Now Trent will be back soon and I’m sure he has a plan to do something, heaven knows what though.”

  Deshavi looked at the clock in alarm and started quickly out of the kitchen, but stopped midstride to turn back to Ella.

  “Thank you! I wish my mother could have been more like you!” She said, before rushing back out of the room to go get ready for her date with Trent.

  I stepped into the kitchen from the side hallway entrance that I had been listening from. Ella’s expressive eyes darted to me and her face blushed a little. I didn’t say anything, but I quietly went to the sink and washed the next dish. When it was washed I held it up for Ella to dry. Hesitantly she took it from me, as she came to stand beside me at the sink. We washed and dried dishes in silence for a while.

  “I feel like such a hypocrite!” Ella said speaking into the silence of the moment.

  I glanced over at her, but I didn’t say anything.

  “All these years that I’ve struggled not to view myself as some sort of second-class citizen and I have the gall to tell her it’s wrong to feel different about herself!”

  “We all have our weak moments, but the occurrence of them doesn’t alter the truth of what you said to her.” I said quietly in response.

  She studied me for a moment, “Why is it that we can’t practice successfully the things that we preach to others?”

  I smiled and shook my head in agreement with her sentiment, as I continued to wash the dishes. I handed a dish to her and as she took it I let my thumb caress over her hand. She noticed the touch and imperceptibly she drew closer to me. I liked her nearness.

  “I suppose you’d like to hear the rest of the story?” Ella asked softly.

  “Only if it helps you. I don’t need to know otherwise.”

  She nodded and I thought that was the end of it. She surprised me by speaking up though.

  “I sort of rushed into marriage against my parents wishes, but I was young and I thought I knew better. Things were good for the first years of marriage and then things began to change between Robert and me. He lost his job, but after a while he got another one. It took him away on business though quite often. By that time we had both realized that we hadn’t really married for love, but rather an infatuation of youth. We began drifting apart from each other. Robert came from a big family and he had many fond memories of growing up with his siblings. He thought us having children together would help mend the divide that had grown between us. Then, as I still do now, I believe divorce to be wrong in most instances, so I was eager to change the way things were going. We tried to have children for two long years. I never had so much as a miscarriage or sign of pregnancy. Robert’s family were big progenitors and both he and his family came to blame me for the lack of offspring. Eventually I consented to do medical testing to see what was wrong. Turns out there was nothing wrong with me, it was him that was the problem. The doctor said he was infertile. Robert took it hard. Another year went by and I put forward the idea of adoption. He wouldn’t hear of it and got very angry about it. A month went by and he left for a five day business trip. That night I woke up in bed to find a man over top of me pressing an ether scented cloth to my face. I passed out. When I woke up it was to discover myself tied and blindfolded to the bed. The man raped me many times over the next several days. He didn’t beat me and as rape goes it wasn’t particularly vicious. To my everlasting shame he even made me enjoy some of it. He left me abruptly and several hours later Robert found me still tied to the bed and blindfolded. I was a mess! I wanted to go to the police! I wanted justice! But Robert was worried about what people would think of me, of him. He said he might lose his job, if I came forward and said anything about the incident. He worked for a PR company that monitored their employees personal lives quite stringently so in part I understood his position. Besides, he said what did I really have to put forward, as evidence of rape that would lead to the capture of the perpetrator. I only had some light bruising, I’d never seen the man, and he’d never spoke more than to grunt. Against my better judgment I listened to Robert and tried to go on, as if nothing had happened. A month passed and I missed my period. I panicked, after I did a test that showed I was pregnant. I told Robert in tears and his reaction was not what I had expected. He said that perhaps this was a way to make a positive out of the whole situation. I thought he’d gone crazy. He wanted to make my rape into a positive. I hated him then, as much as I hated the little growing life inside of me, but I obeyed and to the world, most notably his family it appeared that we were finally on tract as a young couple. Something changed in me at Trent’s birth. My hate turned to love and I treasured him. Robert never got ever being distant from me, especially after the rape. My marriage was lousy, but at least I had a little life to pour myself into. Robert never had intimacy with me again and treated both me and Trent as lepers, while he was at home. But around his family he acted like we were the All-American family. I couldn’t understand it. I had done everything he wanted or asked of me. When Trent was two we went to a family reunion on Robert’s side of the family. Robert had an older brother in the Army that I had never met. I knew. I just knew when I saw him what had happened. I’d already been having wild speculative thoughts, as to the possibility of what I found out, upon seeing Robert’s brother. Trent’s baby pictures looked so identical trait wise to Robert’s family that it was uncanny that he wasn’t somehow related to them. I confronted Robert. At first he denied it and then he broke down crying and admitted that he’d set the whole thing up. I demanded he come forward and admit his wrongdoing and testify against his brother, but he refused saying it would kill his parents. It probably would have, they weren’t bad people, but all their sense of self-worth was rooted in their family. I left him then taking Trent with me. I went to my parents and told them everything. They took me in and helped me get back on my feet. A couple years later I heard that Robert committed suicide. I changed my name back to my maiden name and continued on making a life for Trent and me. When Trent was twenty I heard that Robert’s older brother died in a car crash and I felt it was safe to tell Trent what had happened and how he had come to be and who his father had been. He didn’t take it well and it was a good thing his father was already dead. He changed his name back to my maiden name and other than for my parents, who are dead now and Trent you’re the only one t
hat knows the whole story.”

  I let my hand brush over hers again, “Thank you for sharing. I know that was difficult.”

  She shook her head no, “Not really, sharing with you isn’t difficult at all for some reason. I have many regrets that I live with. One of them is that I didn’t marry a man more like you than the one that I did.”

  We met each other’s eyes briefly and then tacitly we went back to finishing up the dishes.

  “So now that I’ve shared with you one of my deep dark catharsis of soul experiences perhaps you’d like to share one of yours secret agent man?”

  I glanced over to her not able to keep from smiling cheekily, “I have many such moments, but I prefer to keep them secret and listen to you expose yours.”

  She swatted at me, with a spatula, enough to sting and I chuckled as she accused teasingly, “You jerk! Egg me on into bearing my soul and share nothing of yourself in return!”

  We finished the dishes and I glanced at the broken shards of the dish Deshavi had broken.

  “Do they still sell the dish set that you always wanted?”

  The corner of Ella’s mouth twitched slowly into a smile and in a low voice she said pointing across the kitchen at an elaborate cupboard full of dishes, “I bought them twelve years ago.”

  The broken dish was a match for those in the cabinet. I started to say something, but she squeezed my arm, “Shhhh! Don’t tell her!”

  I looked at her, it was the little things that told you the most about what someone was made of.

  “What?” She asked noticing my look, but I didn’t answer.

  I watched a gleam come into her eyes then, “I never did buy the serving platters to go with the dishes though. I suppose they still make them.”

  “Want to find out?”

  She smiled radiantly up at me showing off her dimples, “I’ll get my coat.”

  She started to leave, but I reached out and brought her closer to me. She had time to back out if she wanted, but in the end it was her that closed the distance between our lips.