Jack Be Quick

by Fiona Quinn

  Suz tucked her head down against his chest, affirming to herself that it was a bad idea to go beyond a dating relationship with a man whose job was defined by danger; she just wasn’t emotionally strong enough. Obviously.

  They were still waiting for the call for him to head out the door. And the truth was that very well could have been their last night together, so Suz made a conscious choice not to wallow. She shoved those desperation feelings down deep. She’d have plenty of time to pull them out and roll around in them after Jack took off on his assignment. In that moment, she needed Jack to see she was fine. If he was worried about her, his mind wouldn’t be on the mission – and that could prove deadly for him and his team.

  “Periods suck,” she mumbled to lay the blame for her emotional outburst somewhere safe.

  “They do.” He kissed the top of her head as he unwound himself from her. “Hang tight for a second. I have chocolate for you in the truck.”

  Of course, he did.

  Suz desperately wanted to call and talk to Jack, to listen to the reassuring warmth in his voice. But he was going to be off-limits now that she had made her decision to leave him. Suz let her eyes move around her living room. It suddenly dawned on her that she couldn’t live here anymore. She was going to have to move. Maybe even back to California, she thought, dully. This house, she had often laughed, should be called “The House that Jack Built.” His care and hard work had made it the gem that it was. It really belonged to him. How could she start a new life with a new man, living in Jack’s house? That thought made her want to sob.

  When Jack came back from the mission following their zombie discussion, he invited her for a picnic. She remembered it like it was yesterday. She had worn little copper ballet slippers and a beautiful moss-colored sundress that matched her eyes and let the highlights shine their brightest in her auburn curls. The flowing skirt reached to her ankles, and Suz felt like she had stepped out of a Jane Austen novel. Jack had taken her to a park, and he was full of himself. She couldn’t put her finger on it until they had climbed out of the cab, and he pulled a backpack from the pickup’s bed.

  “We’re going to play a game,” he’d said.

  “What game?” Suz was on high alert. This wasn’t Jack’s normal vibe. He was. . . excited. Normally, he was very even tempered and calm; but today, his energy snapped in the air, bright and eager.

  “Zombie apocalypse,” he’d said. “Remember what we were talking about before I left?”

  He held the pack up for her to see.

  She stared at it. It looked like a back pack. Nothing fancy or even interesting. It was grey digital camo with what looked like a solar panel clipped onto the front.

  “It’s one of your birthday presents. We’re celebrating your birthday – though a few weeks late. Sorry about that.” He kissed her cheek, then made her put the pack on.

  “It’s heavy,” she complained. This didn’t match her mood or her outfit. It wasn’t at all romantic. “You carry it, Jack.”

  “Nope. You can do it.”

  “What the heck is in here? It weighs as much as I do.”

  “It’s the lightest I could make it – it’s 30lbs. I could have gone lighter, but I wanted you to have a power source, so I added that on.”

  “What?” Suz was thoroughly confused.

  “If you were ever in a Zombie apocalypse this is your bugout bag. You can stay happy and healthy for a week on this bag alone. And by then you could hike out of most situations. The boots make it weigh more right now, but they’ll be on your feet in an emergency.” He tapped the laces tied to the top handle, draping down the back of the pack.

  “Okay, but I don’t want to be carrying it today.”

  “Hang on,” he said. He went around to her back, and she could feel him tugging around. A zipper scratched closed, Jack appeared with an odd-looking phone into which, he explained, he was programming GPS coordinates that she had to follow. “First, you need to find your way to food.”

  Suz was uncomfortable in the pack and ticked that Jack was hands free. But Jack was so happy that Suz did her best to be a good sport. Following the arrow indicator on the gadget, they eventually emerged from the trees at a beautiful spot overlooking a picturesque creek where a picnic blanket with pillows and a cooler filled with delicious food had been set.

  They had a wonderful lunch.

  “You know, I think I could handle an apocalypse if I got to have chocolate covered strawberries and moscato whenever I got hungry.” She had laughed.

  He grinned and took her phone and plugged in another number. “Your next assignment is to find shelter.” They left everything from their picnic laying out which made Suz uneasy until Jack explained that he had texted one of his helpers that they were done, and he would come pick it up.

  “One of them?” she asked.

  Again, she was walking through the woods with the heavy pack on her back and twigs slipping into her shoes. The moscato had put her in a better mood, though. Off she went down the path following the arrow on the phone, wondering what was around the bend. Jack’s nerves were increasing, and this was so antithetical to Jack that she couldn’t help but mirror his excitement, picking up her pace and skipping along the trail.

  They emerged at the edge of a neighborhood. The GPS indicated the house at the very end of a cul de sac, surrounded on three sides by nature, the neighborhood stretched out to the east.

  She had turned, “Where are we, Jack?”

  “Home,” he said.

  “What?”

  “This is your other birthday present.” He held up a key.

  “But, Jack…”

  “I used my Iniquus signing bonus to buy a house for you.”

  He hadn’t asked her if she wanted to live there. She had had no say so. She was conflicted by emotions. It was too generous. Too sudden. Too much. “Mine?”

  “Yours.”

  She turned away. Hers. Not theirs. She’d be alone in that house. Jack, by contract, had to spend nights when he was on assignment up at the Iniquus barracks. Iniquus, like the military, was a lifestyle not a job. Even though he had his own apartment in the barracks, she wasn’t allowed to see it. Anyone that wasn’t employed by Iniquus was barred from their secure campus unless they had a darned good reason and an escort.

  “Before you go in, I should warn you. It’s dated inside. It needs a lot of work.” Now he seemed worried. “You decide how you want it fixed up, and I’ll do that for you.”

  “You look overly excited about painting walls and putting down tile.”

  “I’m going to make it beautiful for you, Suz.” He brushed her hair back over her shoulders and kissed her lips, making her tingle right down to her toes.

  Her concerns flew away in the breeze.

  “You’re going to feel at home here. Like you belong. Ready for more?”

  “More?” No. She thought she was filled to the brim and couldn’t handle more. Really, the zombie bag and the picnic were more than enough.

  “You need companionship to keep your spirits up.”

  Jack raised his hand over his head and the front door opened. Out waddled two little fur balls. Basset hound puppies with tiny little legs and an overabundance of ears. Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her to the porch where the pups were shuffling around, trying to find a way down the steps. Suz scooped them protectively to her chest, looking wide-eyed at Jack.

  “Dick and Jane,” he said.

  Her heart stuttered. “But I told you that was what I wished for on the first night we met. The night I told you that I wanted—”

  “A cottage in the woods with a kitchen big enough to cook and eat as a family, a big dining room – big enough for dinner parties, lots of windows, at least two fire places—”

  “And a garage,” she said.

  Jack pointed to the side of the house. “And a garage.”

  The cottage was perched at the edge of Matthew Henson State Park – it was a 30-minute drive to Iniquus Headquarters on a goo
d day—not that she was allowed to go there, 10 minutes to St. Basil’s Prep, and 19 minutes to Suburban Hospital in heavy traffic with a lot of horn honking and arm flailing for people to get the heck out of her way. Though, honestly, she had only made that lone drive to Suburban this last time. Before now, two Iniquus staff had always shown up to give her a full report. One was there to help with whatever she needed help with–finishing a half-cooked dinner and storing it in the fridge, ironing the clothes that she was working on, taking care of Dick and Jane—and the other helper was there to drive her, in her own car, to the hospital so she could get there safely. Jack had said Iniquus had her on the family roster. And they were stellar about smoothing the waters and making things easy for the operatives’ families.

  They won’t be taking care of me anymore. Time to stand on my own two feet.

  Suz let her gaze rest on her 1940’s style rotary dial phone. She should call the hospital and see if Jack was released. Suz didn’t want him to show up here at the house. She was too fragile. She didn’t have the stamina to go through the actual breakup talk right now. She also couldn’t pretend everything was okay.

  That’s when the doorbell rang.

  9

  Suz

  12:05 p.m., Tuesday, February 15th

  The House That Jack Built, Bethesda, Maryland

  Suz closed the door behind the Iniquus Support Officer. It would be the last time Suz would have their help, but he didn’t know that. Before the ISO left, he gave Suz his cell number and told her he was assigned to her and that if she needed anything at all to send him a text. Suz put the number in her wastebasket, and reached down to rub the pups’ ears. “You two look like you were spoiled rotten.”

  Dick waddled into the living room and flopped onto his bed.

  The guy had handed her a takeout bag from one of her and Jack’s favorite lunch spots. Jack must have listed it with her preferences in some data base somewhere. Suz put her head in the bag a sniffed the rich spicy aroma of the Moroccan cuisine as she shuffled to the kitchen with Jane at her heels. Suz hadn’t eaten anything since her MRE in the woods. And she had eaten that for the kids’ sake. They had been watching her closely. Seeing how she acted. She pretended that everything was a-okay. But the truth was, Suz was so depressed that the act of chewing and then swallowing seemed too monumental to take on.

  The to-go box was filled with couscous topped with chicken and vegetables that had been slow roasted in a tagine. The side dishes were the apricot fitters with pistachio coulis that she ordered every single time, and Zaalouk, an eggplant and tomato salad. If anything could get her eating, this was the meal. Jack must have noted that too, otherwise the ISO could have picked up a pizza at Jack’s and her go-to “I don’t feel like cooking” spot, up the street. Truth be told, Iniquus spoiled her.

  Suz understood that Iniquus took good care of her as part of their business model. The United States government put a great deal of time and money into choosing and training the best of the best in their special ops military programs. There were only but so many retired SEALs, Green Berets, Marine Raiders and other specialists to be had. Iniquus also had internationally proficient hackers, lawyers, spies and thieves. The thieves part she was making up – maybe. Iniquus wanted the best of the best on their payroll so that no matter what emergency sprang up, they had the right person with the right skillset ready to leap into action.

  Keeping those skills on the Iniquus payroll, and not someone else’s, meant more than a fat paycheck, it meant a commitment to excellence, a highly sought after sterling reputation, and a sense of family. The operatives never worried about what was happening on the home front. If there was a way to solve an issue, Iniquus solved it — from mowing the family yards, to road side assistance, to flying in world-renowned doctors, to, well, anything that was needed. Suz had never heard of a family doing without – except of course for doing without their loved one. That was the price. Too rich for her blood. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy this last, and very delicious, Iniquus delivered meal.

  Suz decided her lunch needed a cup of mint tea. She got up and put the kettle on to boil. She was a purest when it came to tea making. It was as much about the process as it was about the drinking it. She had just turned the element on high when the bell rang again.

  “Did you forget something?” She called as she moved toward the front door, threw the bolt and swung it wide to two men in long black coats.

  “Miss Molloy?” The man in front asked. He was tall and thin with wide apple cheeks and pale eyes that reminded her of a shark, cold and emotionless.

  She scowled at him.

  “My name is Samuel Jones. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  Jane was at their feet growling and soon Dick trotted over to sniff at the strangers. Neither seemed impressed. Their barks echoed off the ceiling and bounced off the walls. Basset Hounds were known for being loud, but Dick and Jane were unusually riled. Suz pushed the door to close it. “This isn’t a good time. You should call my lawyer and make an appointment.” Suz didn’t have a lawyer, but suddenly she felt claustrophobic and anxious. These guys needed to go.

  Samuel Jones reached out and blocked the door’s movement. “You misunderstand,” he said in his quiet alpha-male voice. “I am not making a request.” He walked in as if he had been invited. As if he owned the place.

  The two men stalked into her living room corralling her away from any exits. “You may call me Jones. Take a seat, please.” He gestured to the arm chair where Jack would never sit. It had no view of the windows or the doors, and the back was “unprotected”, according to Jack. As a matter of fact, the Iniquus team would rather sit on the floor up against the wall than sit in that particular seat. It was the submissive seat. Suz felt her vulnerability quotient ratchet up.

  Jones sat in Jack’s spot. The alpha place in the room. Between Jones’s posture, his voice, and this seating selection, Suz recognized that the man in front of her was of the class of men who killed as part of their job description, and he was here on a mission. For the good guys? For the bad guys? Suz knew from stories told around the campfire by Jack’s soldiering friends, that there was a whole lot of grey in the world. So even the good guys could act like the bad. In the grey world, classifying someone came down to their motivation not how they got to the end result. Sometimes any means to the end was necessary. Where did what was happening here in her living room land on that spectrum?

  The other man turned the bolt on the door, clicked on the living room lights, then moved to the windows where he yanked the drapes tightly closed.

  Jones looked down at the dogs baring their teeth and yapping at him – which was about as vicious as these two sad-eyed, droopy-eared dogs could get—and he flicked a finger toward the second man.

  The other man—medium everything, non-descript, monochromatic—who had not yet mentioned his name or spoken, reached into his pocket and pulled a handful of liver-smelling treats. He fed a few to each of the pups and rubbed them behind their ears, making them moan and wag their tails.

  Traitors.

  He whistled, and they happily followed him into the kitchen where he opened the door and let them go out.

  Suz was wide-eyed at the audacity. Her gaze travelled to the trashcan where her Iniquus support guy’s number lay. She wondered where she put her cell phone. She eyed the antique dial phone next to Jones. Jones turned his attention to where she was looking. He leaned back and pulled a knife from his pocket, reached over, and cut the cord that lead to the wall socket.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked with a whisper thin voice.

  “We have a few questions, we have a few requests, but it is not really what we want, it is what your little students want that is most important here.”

  Suz felt darkness slowly drape down over her eyeballs. She felt heat and pressure round over the spheres, blocking out light, then she saw a fringe of brown fibers. Those are my eyelashes, she thought. I just blinked. Her mind ha
d moved with the adrenaline that spiked through her system into that weird vortex-y place where it felt like her brain opened up and vacuumed in every single extraneous morsel of information. The cardinal who sat in a nest under her eves let out a call that sounded like a bomb falling. The long whistle came to a momentary halt, then bounced four times on nothingness, each time emitting a short, staccato note. Suz had these thoughts inside her head but another part of her brain sat just to the side, yelling, “Stop! You have to stop. Something horrible is happening. You need to focus on the important things.”

  The tea kettle’s shriek jolted her in her seat. She stared into the kitchen at the high pitched sound, not knowing what she should do. Instead of making an actionable decision, her brain went to a word she had studied for the GMATs that were required by her grad school: “impuissance, middle English, French derivation – the lack of physical or mental power, weakness.” That word did nothing to help her deal with this situation; it simply stated the obvious. Suz’s eyes followed the second nameless guy as he went into the kitchen. She heard him lift the kettle, rendering it instantly silent, then he rattled around in there.

  Jones snapped his fingers and the spell was broken. Suz focused over on him, her brain functioning again. Suz hated adrenaline.

  Jones had removed his overcoat and draped in neatly on the arm of the chair. She had missed that while she focused on eyelids, and bird songs, and tea whistles. He reached into the inside pocket of his suitcoat, pulled out three pictures, and handed them to her. She reached out and saw that he wore gloves made of thin black leather. They looked odd with his suit coat. It was odd to wear gloves inside her house.