Chokepoint

by Jill Williamson

I took a deep breath. It was about time.

  “Because of what happened with your parents years ago, the Mission League moved you and your grandmother into their witness relocation program and put you under surveillance. This you already know, oui?”

  I nodded. My dad had done something to betray the Mission League and was responsible for my mom’s death. It was the main reason I joined up, to find out what had happened. “My real first name is Jonas.”

  “Correct,” Prière said. “Partly we were concerned about your father trying to take you or cause you harm, but there was another reason for the relocation and surveillance. A prophecy.”

  Whaaat? I couldn’t help myself. “I’m supposed to kill Voldemort?”

  Everyone stared. Crickets. As usual, my sarcasm was wasted with this crowd.

  “He is joking with me again, oui?” Prière asked Kimbal.

  “Yes. Spencer, zip your lip long enough for Prière to get this out, will you?” Kimbal said. “I thought you wanted to know what was going on?”

  “Sorry.” Sheesh. I thought it was funny.

  “Because of this prophecy, International has been watching fourteen young men who are currently between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. These young men all match the profile of the one who will be the emissary of the prophecy. You are one of those fourteen.”

  So many questions popped into my head, but I kept it to two. “How do you know this? And what’s that mean: emissary?”

  Prière leaned back on the sofa. “To be an emissary of a prophecy is to be the one to carry it, to eventually speak it. And you match many of the elements derived from communiqués prophesied by intercessors over the last sixty years. The biggest two are that the match is male and that he is a descendent of Freidrich Lange, your great grandfather.

  “Seriously?” Freidrich Lange was one of the founders of the Mission League. “Pasha asked me that in Moscow—if I was related to Lange. Anya told him to ask me.”

  “Precisely our concern,” Kimbal said. “We think she was trying to discover whether or not you’re the profile match.”

  I looked at Grandma, sitting quietly on her chair. She seemed awfully calm. “But what made her think I might be?”

  “We have some theories, but we don’t know for certain. Meeting Anya and going to Bratva headquarters was a move many interpreted as a sign,” Prière said. “Perhaps they think, since you came after them, it proved you’re the one.”

  I shifted on the sewing machine chair. “And what’s the prophecy supposed to say?”

  “If we knew that exactly, you would not be in danger,” Prière said.

  “But Anya knows?”

  Kimbal leaned forward and clasped his hands. “We don’t know what Anya knows.”

  “But I have, like, thirteen cousins who also might be it?”

  “Second cousins… second cousins once removed,” Kimbal said. “You have no first cousins since I don’t have kids and your mom was an only child.”

  “But the bad guys want to kill me?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Kimbal said. “The profile match is going to cause problems for a lot of people. If they can wipe the emissary out before that happens, they will. If they can turn him around to benefit their interests, they will.”

  Turn me. Like they turned my dad. I slouched a bit, not thrilled with Kimbal’s iffy outcomes. “What about the guy in the Range Rover? Does he work for Anya?”

  Prière removed his glasses, pulled out a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit, and rubbed it over his lenses. “We don’t know, but the fact that he approached you and called you by name leads us to believe he is connected to Anya’s employer. If not, we could have a traitor in our organization.”

  Another traitor. Great.

  Prière put his glasses back on. “After your experiences in Moscow, my superiors were adamant that you be watched even more closely than before—for your own protection and for the potential fulfillment of this prophecy. But now the international board would like to relocate you and Alice, give you new identities, and set in place two agents who would pose as your parents to throw off any suspicion.”

  Move? I jumped to my feet. “No way!”

  “It doesn’t have to be forever,” Grandma said. “Just until you make this prophecy or someone else does.”

  “Or you outgrow the prophecy,” Prière said. “Turn twenty.”

  “I’m not hiding until I’m twenty. I just made varsity. Please. Don’t do this. Kimbal can drive me everywhere. And I promise not to take off my necklace. Ever.”

  “The international board has left the choice in my hands,” Prière said.

  So it wasn’t decided yet. “Prière, please.” I crossed the living room and stood in front of him, looking down. “I’ll do anything you say. I’ll be good. I won’t talk to strangers. I won’t run off on my own.”

  “You must promise to abide by my rules.”

  “I will. Anything.” I would wax Prière moustache every day, if that’s what it took.

  “We will put cameras at this house and at your school. I will start training you in how to track your prophecies, and you must work hard to do it right.”

  “Why not come to dinner tomorrow night and start then?” Grandma said.

  I held my breath, dreading the idea of pork chops with Prière.

  “Thank you, Alice, that would be most convenient.” He turned back to me. “We will also get you a cellular phone that you must carry at all times. It will have programmed emergency phone numbers. And you must wear the tracker, even during your basket-balling games.”

  “I get a cell phone?” I glanced at Grandma, who was scowling my way. Sweet!

  “We will give this one chance, Spence,” Prière said. “If I have reason to believe that we cannot keep you safe, you and Alice will have to move to a new location.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my heart rate slowing now that the rug hadn’t been fully yanked out from under my life. I had to stay safe. Had to make this work. For basketball. For Kip. For Beth.

  That night I made my own emergency field ops kit. It was nice that all these spy guys were going to follow me, but I had to be able to take care of myself. LCT training and field ops kits were the best I could come up with.

  I found a razor blade in a little cardboard sleeve in Grandma’s bathroom. She used them to clean glass. I slid it into an unused credit card slot in my wallet. I also hid a safety pin and paperclip in some other slots in my wallet, hoping I’d never need to pick a lock.

  I unwrapped a stick of gum and tucked another razor blade, safety pin, and paperclip inside the wrapper. The razor blade was too wide, so I taped the wrapper closed, hoping no one would examine it too closely. I made five gum kits and put one in each of my jackets.

  Those loony boys could come and get me, ’cause I was ready.

  • • •

  The next night I sat at the kitchen table with Prière while Grandma Alice bustled about making some sort of casserole for dinner. Prière’s people had been to the house today and installed cameras outside and in Grandma’s car.

  He also gave me an iPhone—an iPhone!—but the glorious new toy was sitting on my bed as Grandma had just yelled at me for playing with it when I should have been memorizing Prière’s every word.

  I admit, it had been hard to focus with my precious in my hand. Even now it was calling to me. I couldn’t wait to text Kip. But I had to pay attention to Prière. My life in Pilot Point—and perhaps in general—depended on it.

  “There are three methods of receiving prophecy: messengers, dreams, and glimpses,” Prière said. “Messengers are extremely rare. This is when God sends an angel with a message to deliver. From what I understand, the homeless man Viktor acted as a messenger of sorts to you in Moscow, although I don’t think you realized it at the time.”

  Yeah… I still wasn’t convinced that Viktor was human. Isaac had thought he was an angel, which I suppose would fit with what Prière was telling me.

&nbs
p; Viktor had wanted me to pray, something I had tried in Moscow. Maybe I should try that again sometime when I wasn’t around Beth.

  “Dreams happen when you are sleeping,” Prière said. “Glimpses happen when you are awake. Are you keeping an intercession journal?”

  “A what?”

  “I will take that response as a no.” Prière reached under the table, lifted his briefcase to his lap, and clicked it open. He pulled out a leather book that had a thin strap wrapped around the center and handed it to me.

  “I’m supposed to keep a diary?”

  “This will be a record of your prophetic revelations.”

  “A dream diary?”

  Prière smoothed one side of his moustache. “If that helps you understand.”

  I wrinkled my nose. At least it didn’t have one of those kiddy locks and keys.

  “One thing you must always remember, Spence. Your journal is for you alone. It is confidential. Only you must decide what is to be reported.” Prière withdrew another leather journal, this one thin and cracked with age. He flipped through the pages. “Here is one that is safe to share—and mostly in Anglais, which I do not often write in.” He set the journal on the table and turned it so that it faced me. “Read this entry, if you please. Rêve is meaning ‘dream.’ ”

  I read a little chart scrawled in fresh black ink:

  I gaped at the page. Some of the entries involved people I knew. One of Gabe’s sisters, something in French about me and Beth and LCT—had she fibbed about being allowed to train me? Some mysterious girl and Nick. And Jake arrested? How could that be? The guy was a Boy Scout.

  I turned the page.

  “Mais non.” Prière snatched back the journal. “This is not entertainment reading, Spence. Never let anyone see your journal unless there is reason, like showing a superior an unreported entry or showing me, since I am training you. Me comprends-tu? Do you understand?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “And you are not to be speaking a word of anything you saw in my journal. Is this clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  “Now, I write up all of my prophecies in official reports, so there is no reason to ever let anyone see my journal. But occasionally there is a prophecy I do not write up, for instance the glimpse of food poisoning. That is why I put an asterisk beside the date. However, if I started to have prophecies that someone was trying to kill me, maybe I would begin wondering about the glimpse of Jean Carlo’s Bistro. Perhaps there was more to that glimpse than I originally thought, oui? In that case I would go back through my journal, find this entry, and write up a report for the dream and cross out the asterisk. Is this clear?”

  I nodded, my mind still fumbling over the information I’d read in Prière’s journal. What was going to happen to Katie Lindley?

  Grandma Alice set a plate of salad in front of me and Prière.

  “Merci, Alice,” Prière said smiling up at Grandma.

  “Tu seras toujours la bienvenue mon cher.” Grandma smiled and waltzed back to the stove.

  I shuddered. Grandma flirting in French? Wrong on so many levels.

  Prière turned back to me. “Notice that dreams are often quite vague. Sometimes I do not know whom or what they are about. I log the most concrete information possible. Another thing, glimpses, they mostly occur when you are in the presence of the subject. If I remember correctly, this was true for the glimpses you reported having in Moscow. You were with the person when the glimpse occurred, yes?”

  “Yeah.” Most the time. I thought.

  “So you see how that works. Sometimes a field agent gifted in prophecy will go undercover, hoping to receive a glimpse of a target. Although we can never force what God will show us, do you see how this could be helpful during an investigation?”

  “Sure.”

  Grandma set a plate of bread and the butter dish between us.

  “You have been using your glimpses to avoid trouble,” Prière said. “That is good. It is what I did with the fish at Jean Carlo’s Bistro. I do the same when I issue warnings to those on my list. I would like for you to continue with this process as well. Also, you will write official reports for all of your prophecies. Hand them in to Mr. Stopplecamp. If you have a prophecy about bad cod, you may skip the report, but log it into your journal with an asterisk just in case. Sometimes, even for you and me, dreams are only regular dreams. Do you have any questions?”

  “What’s going to happen to Jake’s sister Katie? She’s in my class. And is Beth going to get in trouble for teaching me LCT?”

  “Non, Spence. All of what you have seen in my journal, you must forget. I only showed you to teach. Knowledge can be a terrible burden. Anything you and I see is but a glimpse of what God sees. Can you imagine his burden, Spencer? To know everything about everyone?”

  I looked down and counted five cherry tomatoes on my salad. I didn’t want to think about what all this had to do with God. I’d never asked for any glimpses or dreams. I didn’t know why God was putting me through all this. But I had to admit, I was glad to have someone explain how to deal with it.

  REPORT NUMBER: 5

  REPORT TITLE: I Get a Bunch of Girls’ Numbers and Strike Out with the Prude Patrol

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond

  LOCATION: Grandma Alice’s House, Pilot Point, California, USA

  DATE AND TIME: Saturday, October 25, 2:00 p.m.

  Our first game was local. Pilot Point High was sort of our rival because we were the only two high schools in town. But they were a huge school and not in our division, so the game didn’t matter for playoffs as much as for pride.

  Most the Mission League kids showed up to cheer me on. Gabe, Arianna, Isabel, Beth, Jake, and Jensina all sat two rows behind our bench. Kip’s girlfriend Megan, her best friend Trella-the-troll, and Jake’s sister, Katie, sat with them. The girls’ team had lost big to Pilot Point High in the game before ours. Meagan had her phone out, texting a novel to some unlucky sap. I hoped Kip knew better than to text from the bench.

  I spotted Sasquatch, Gardener, and Kimbal in the crowd. Since I couldn’t wear jewelry in a game, I’d taped the charm of my cross necklace around my wrist. Had to be paranoid if I was going to keep my digs in Pilot Point.

  Coach made me co-captain with Wyatt Estes, the only starting senior. Another plus. Someday, if all went well, I’d be on a college team, and later, NBA.

  That was the dream, anyway.

  Once some PPH kid had swept the court, I ran a baseline jump shot drill with my team to start our warm up. I glanced in Beth’s direction more times than necessary, wondering if she was watching me. She was wearing her, “Don’t let pink fool you” T-shirt. I loved that one.

  A ball whacked me in the arm.

  “Head out of the clouds, Garmond!” Coach yelled from under the key.

  Nuts. I grabbed up the ball, fired it to Kip at the free throw line, then ran to the baseline. Kip passed the ball back and I shot a three-pointer. All net.

  I jogged to collect the ball and whipped a pass to Alex who was next in line.

  I had to get my head in the game. If I didn’t pay attention, I could lose my place as a starter.

  The Pilot Point Bulldogs were all juniors and seniors. With three thousand kids in the high school, they could afford to be picky. They got the jump ball, but missed their first shot. Desh rebounded and passed to me. I brought the ball down, surveying the bodies waiting at the other end. Our red and whites fought to stay in front of the blues. My ankle felt good. I’d wrapped it before the game when I’d taped my necklace to my wrist.

  I held up my hand, signaled a three. It seemed the best choice considering Burbank’s height. I wasn’t likely to get too many passes inside their zone. Not yet, anyway.

  Desh must not have seen me call the play because he was fighting for position with the Bulldog’s center. Kip popped back out on my right, and I passed him the ball. He took a terrible shot that bricked off the rim. I darted in for the rebound and grab
bed the ball in the air. So did Bulldog number forty-four. The power forward came down on my ankle. I screamed as I ripped the ball away. The whistle blew and the ref called a jump ball. Ours because of alternating possession.

  “Good hustle, Tiger!” Beth yelled.

  I smiled as we lined up for an inbounds play. Kip slapped the ball; we broke. Defense was always obsessed with the key when someone inbounded under the basket. I popped out on the baseline, Kip shot me the ball, and I sank a three. So pretty.

  And the first points were ours.

  After that, every time I touched the ball, I got doubled. That was fine. I wasn’t the only shooter on our team. But sharp pain had begun to stab through my ankle. Forty-four had killed it. I should have asked to sit out, put some ice on it.

  But this was the first game of the season, and I was playing well.

  I recalled a Bible verse from Sunday school. “First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.”

  Yeah… but this wasn’t pride so much as confidence.

  Burbank missed another shot. Desh rebounded and passed it to me. I moved slowly down the court, hoping it looked like I was observing and waiting for the perfect play rather than nursing an injury. I passed off to Kip and set a screen for Desh, who lumbered to the free throw line. Kip passed to Desh, but Burbank was in his face. He pitched the ball back out to Kip who passed to me. I faked, dribbled around the Bulldog, and passed to Desh for an easy dunk.

  Our fans went wild. I grinned and knocked fists with Desh as we jogged back to the Burbank end.

  Thirteen brought the ball down and passed left. His teammate passed it back, but I intercepted. I fast-breaked for an easy layup. But when I came down, I hopped on my right foot to avoid putting pressure on my left.

  The buzzer rang and I knew. Coach had seen. I gritted my teeth and headed for the sidelines. I slapped Chaz’s hand as he went in to replace me and limped to the bench.

  Coach ignored me. Had to make his point. The team scooted down and made room for me in front, but Assistant Coach Scott motioned me to the end where he could look at my ankle. I sat at the end of the line and accepted a water bottle from Brent, our manager.