by Martha Carr
“Can I come in?” he asked, standing on the doorstep. At first, Fred thought about saying no. He knew what was coming. There was only one reason someone stood on your doorstep like that and it wasn’t a good one. Norman and Fred weren’t close enough friends for it to be someone in Norman’s family. There were too many other doorsteps Norman would have been standing at if it was Wallis or Ned.
But Maureen and Wallis are friends, thought Fred. And Maureen was ordered by the President, no less, to protect Wallis by any means necessary.
How long ago was that, thought Fred. Just a couple of weeks, no maybe a month by now.
He was still holding the door open with one hand, almost leaning on it now. He still hadn’t said a word to Norman except for ‘hello’, trying to hold off the inevitable.
In this moment, nothing bad had happened yet. No one was hurt or worse, dead. No one was missing. He didn’t have to live with the loss, forever.
Norman looked around nervously and repeated the question. “Okay if I come in?” he asked. Fred moved back a little to give Norman room and he slid past him, looking Fred in the eye as he held out his arm to gesture toward the formal living room that no one ever really used.
That’s where information like this was usually spilled out. In a room that was a little uncomfortable, a little too formal that was hardly ever sat in by anyone. That way, when the dust has settled and the routines have returned, no one has to go in there, ever again. No one has to face sitting in the same spot remembering what was said there, what was suddenly lost when they weren’t looking.
No one has to think about all of the regrets over what they could have done differently, if only they’d thought about this conversation, in this room, that came way too soon.
Fred watched Norman wind around him but he stayed by the door for a few minutes longer, looking out at the front yard and the small bit of his neighborhood that he could see in the morning light.
Everything looked normal, just where he had left it when he went to bed. His car was parked in the driveway with room for Maureen to get by so she could have the space in the garage. The Richmond Times Dispatch was sitting on front stoops of the houses that still got a newspaper and wanted to see the local scores and read about the small city politics.
The recycle bins were neatly stacked by everyone’s curb, waiting for the truck that would be there shortly. His lawn still needed mowing sometime today even though the morning air was cold. It took a lot to get his lawn to shut off for the winter.
He held onto those images, watching them slowly, trying to memorize them before he would be willing to follow Norman into the living room and listen to what he had to say. Into his and Maureen’s living room, that Maureen had decorated.
He lifted his chin and reminded himself that this was all an assignment, not a life he had chosen. There were certain outcomes that were always a possibility.
It’s just that he thought the deadly outcomes belonged to him. He had always thought that Maureen would be the one standing at the front door on a beautiful Saturday morning, listening to a blue jay even in the late fall, wondering how things could have changed when he wasn’t looking.
That’s what really got to him. He was trained to scan situations and take in possible outcomes so that he could do whatever was possible to bring about a different ending. Last night, when Maureen was leaving for Bunko night he didn’t do a thing but kiss her goodbye.
Nothing more had occurred to him.
The wave of anger washed over him again, making him crumple, just a little right in the center as he gripped the door for support.
He knew what her assignment was and that Wallis would be at Bunko night, after all this was the neighborhood’s version of Ladies Night and yet, he didn’t even sense the possibility of anything going wrong beyond too much drinking and eating or telling too many secrets.
But Norman was here looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, inviting Fred into his own living room to sit on the edge of a couch that was too hard and too small to ever really be comfortable.
Maureen had found it in an antique shop and insisted they get it and reupholster it themselves. It could be a project they could do together. Besides, the Circle only gave them so much of a budget to decorate and his salary from being an accountant mostly went toward their retirement. That was a recent decision that they had not mentioned to anyone.
It was against protocol to build a mutual retirement with someone who was assigned on a detail with you. It compromised the integrity of the relationship according to the training manual. An operative couldn’t be relied on to keep to their singleness of purpose if they were authentically invested in the relationship.
“To hell with that,” Maureen had said. “We’ve made it this far. I’m too used to you now. And if we don’t start saving, when we’re forced out to pasture we won’t have enough to finally travel without our weapons.” He had laughed and given in to her plans.
It wasn’t too long after that they had spotted the couch and she had taken another step toward being a real couple and convinced him to buy something because they wanted it and not because they had an item on their list that needed to be filled. They wanted the couch just for them.
This would even help their cover, she had said, beaming at him in the store.
He dreaded the idea of figuring out the right way to upholster the fussy piece of furniture so that they didn’t ruin it but he couldn’t resist the look on Maureen’s face. That was happening to him a lot more, lately. He didn’t care anymore. For her, he would finally let his guard down.
“I love you,” she had said when he kissed her goodbye. Her voice was like an echo in his head. Norman hadn’t told him yet but he knew and her voice was already just a step away in his head. He wondered how long before it would get harder to really hear how she sounded. Where was her phone, he thought. If he could get to it first he could capture her reply on voicemail before the Circle erased all of the data so that Maureen Bowers ceased to exist.
Fred started to shake, making the front door rattle as he held on even tighter. Norman got up from where he was perched and came slowly over to Fred to help him gently let go of the door.
Fred let Norman help him. He was trying to remember something. “I know why you’re here,” he said, not looking at Norman. He was focusing on the small, uncomfortable couch. He sat down slowly and slid back against the upholstered back that was topped by an elaborate wood carving, stretching across the entire back of the couch and repeated along the front of the arms. The wood carving always poked whoever was sitting there in the back, making the whole experience even worse. Fred sat back and let the curlicues dig into his shoulder while he tried to remember something.
“Fred,” Norman started, as he sat down in the wing chair next to Fred, leaning forward till their knees almost touched. “Something has happened to Maureen.” Norman looked like he was struggling to get out the words. “There was a gun battle.” Fred cut him off.
“I’m trying to remember something.” Fred was trying to contain his anger. It threatened to spill out onto everything, including Norman. After all, Maureen’s assignment was to protect Norman’s wife and Fred was having trouble remembering why Wallis was more important than his Maureen. He heard the echo of her voice again. ‘I love you.’
“I can’t quite remember,” he said, choking back the first wave of nausea to hit him. “What did I say to Maureen before she left last night? I remember what she said to me. It was I love you.” He held up his hand to stop Norman from speaking. He didn’t want to hear the words yet. Then everything would change and it would all have to be dealt with and he would have to show Norman out and move to protocol. His training would insist on it.
But if he could hold off those words for just a few more moment he could be Maureen’s husband for just a little longer and grieve for the woman he had learned how to love despite the way the operation had started.
“I can’t remember what I said to her. Did I
say, I love you, back to Maureen? Did I? I’m not sure,” he said, through gritted teeth.
Norman waited a moment and started again.
“There was a gun battle and Maureen was shot. She died at the scene. I’m very sorry. I’m very sorry.” Norman looked like he was waiting for Fred to say something, maybe ask him questions but it wasn’t necessary.
Fred knew that Norman would only know part of the story and would get some of it wrong. Better to wait for the official report. Fred’s clearance was high enough up that he would see the report before most of it was redacted and Maureen Bowers would be honored before fading into memory.
What was her real name? It was something they never talked about even when they were alone. They couldn’t be certain that no one was listening from Management or the Circle. He wished he knew. He wished he had figured out a way to tell her his real name was actually Fred. He was named for an uncle. She would have found that funny.
Fred showed Norman to the door. He turned down the offer of help with any arrangements and said he would be sure to get in touch once he knew anything more. Fred knew the Circle would insist on setting up everything and would use another operative. Both of them had occasionally mentioned relatives who lived in another state to establish the roles for a situation just like this. More protocol, more training.
An older woman around their age who would be cast in the role of Maureen’s sister and would even bear somewhat of a resemblance. She would come in from out of town and help Fred set up all of the arrangements. Maureen would be cremated so that no corpse was left behind to dig up later to look at how she died or test DNA against anyone else. There would be no loose ends.
If Maureen had managed to protect her real role in the neighborhood, right until the end, Fred knew he could be expected to continue in his assignment. They might move him to get him out of the role of grieving husband so that he could better do his job but even that was not for sure.
The reality was, he was a valuable asset right where he was in Richmond. Close enough to D.C. to have immediate access to the President without being seen around the Capital and becoming a familiar face to anyone.
He watched Norman pull away from the curb and then he took a last look at his neighborhood before shutting the door. He went to his go bag that was kept on a shelf in the garage behind the leftover paint cans and took it inside to check the contents. It was a process he went through every few months like clockwork, only this time he planned to use what was in it.
There was a passport with a new name, Jeff Monaghan, a nice Irish name to go with his fair looks and close to a hundred grand in cash. That was what Maureen and Fred had decided should be their retirement account. Trust, but verify Maureen had said, laughing. They would take a note from Ronald Reagan and keep their assets under their own roof.
That way, if something happened they could get out of town together and for a while at least, survive off of the grid. It was a ridiculous plan, he had thought at the time. He would not have left the President unprotected and just disappear unless the government had ceased to exist and then the money would have probably been useless.
He didn’t realize there was another possible scenario.
At the bottom of the bag was a burner phone that contained information in its directory that Fred had been collecting steadily over the years. A list of known Management operatives in the area.
He reported them, as he was instructed but he also kept a list with their names, addresses and titles in the phone. That part was not protocol.
Fred retrieved the phone and charged it. It took less than an hour. The phone was a smart phone that he had converted so that it couldn’t connect to any wifi and stayed off of the grid. There were a few more burners in his bag just like this one, all designed to keep him off of the grid in the case of an extreme emergency.
He saw that there were almost a hundred names on the list. Mid-level managers who were thought to be rising stars in Management. Others who he suspected were now commanders in the field and had taken sabbaticals from their jobs but still returned home on most weekends to keep up appearances of a normal suburban life. Still others who were leaders in their business or in politics and all reported to some other cell within Management.
There wouldn’t be time to get to all of them. He would need to choose the ones that were most likely in the squad that he knew had come for Wallis Jones last night. Even if he was wrong about some of them, he knew that he’d be able to pick out a few. The rest would be selected for their strategic role in Management and their absence would cause the most harm to the organization.
At the least, it would really piss off a lot of people. That was enough for Fred.
All of them had notes in the directory under their names that included their regular routines during the week. Fred had been monitoring them for years, as instructed, but siphoning off the information.
Fred checked his weapons. There was a shallow closet built behind the walk-in closet in the master bedroom. It was just big enough for a rack on the wall that held enough firearms of various sizes to start a battle, not just a fight.
Fred chose carefully and laid everything out on the kitchen table. He went outside and backed his car into the garage and shut the door. He loaded the weapons onto the backseat and covered them with a blanket, keeping a Heckler and Koch .45 caliber special operations command pistols next to him on the front seat.
The go bag with a change of clothes, the new identity and the money was in the trunk.
He opened the door to the garage and slowly pulled out onto the street. The anger was making his chest hurt but he put it aside.
There were a few things to take care of first and time to let it all go, later.
The first name on the list was a woman who he suspected was in Special Forces for Management. There was a good possibility she had been one of the shooters last night. He started with her name and drove to the Martin’s on John Rolfe Parkway. The woman was a creature of habit and would be just getting to the store as it opened. She liked to get in and out before the store got busy with shoppers and the good produced was picked over.
Fred had made a point with each name on his list to run into them somewhere along their route and start a conversation, gather information. It had taken years but he was patient. A lot of what he gathered seemed innocuous. Even though each of these people was a trained agent they didn’t understand they were being mined for details that could prove useful to the Circle and eventually, Fred.
When he got to the parking lot he saw the woman parking in her usual area, a little ways from the store. She had a nice car, an early model silver Urban, and he watched how careful she was with it. She didn’t want the doors to get dinged.
He waited till she had taken a few steps away from her car and he lifted the gun, aiming carefully and shot her down with just one bullet. It was easy and quiet. The gun gave off no noise and she had dropped so quickly, so close to the edge of the parking lot it would take some time for anyone to notice she was out there, lying on the ground.
He had rehearsed what would happen a few times before this morning, just in case. His own protocol.
He didn’t know what might cause hunting down Management operatives to be necessary but there was a war going on and he knew all along it was a possibility. He had assumed, though that someone would have given him an order. This was okay, though.
The war was just spreading out into the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.
He knew what his actions would bring down on himself and even on the Circle. Management would want to fight back and there was the likelihood that the Circle would try and beat them to it.
He deleted the woman from the phone and looked up the next one. He knew he needed to hurry. There were almost twenty people on his list and it wouldn’t take long for someone to connect the dots and figure out that someone was hunting Management. Then they would institute their own protocol and this would all get more difficult.
Maureen
’s death might even point back to him and Fred’s face would appear on a lot of Management screens. There wasn’t much time.
The next name on the list was an older man who had risen through the ranks to become a vice-president in a commercial real estate firm. He was close to retirement.
Fred had watched his coming and going lately and knew he was probably in charge of troop movements for the mid-Atlantic region. He would have passed down the order to hunt down Wallis. Fred drove to the golf course in Goochland where the man spent a lot of his Saturday mornings. It was a good way to keep his visibility in the community and catch a little down time from the machinations of the war.
Fred found him on the ninth hole, playing with a few younger Management operatives, all most likely officers in the war. He shot them all, leaving them lying around the tee-off. None of them had time to pull out the weapons that were secured in their golf bags. During wartime no one went anywhere unarmed. That was to be expected. But this was Richmond and no one believed that a sniper would bring the war to their doorsteps, even after last night.
Wallis was the target, after all and Norman was a known recluse from whatever the Circle was doing. Casualties were to be expected. Vengeance is not normally a part of conflict. It brings too many unknown factors.
Fred noted on his phone that one of the men at the golf course was number eleven on his list. He deleted that name too.
Less than an hour had passed since he had pulled out of his driveway. He calculated that he had until one o’clock at best before he needed to leave whether he had gotten to his entire list or not.
The next name on the list was a lawyer. This one would be harder to catch out in the open. He turned the car toward Patterson Avenue and headed for Route 288 and the Veterans Memorial Bridge to the Southside. He needed to hurry. ‘I love you.’ He heard himself saying it in his head. Surely, he answered her.
Fred was right. It was early afternoon when word was sent through secure channels to Tom Weiskopf in Montana. Someone was hunting Management operatives in Richmond, Virginia and they were being very selective about who they chose. Tom already knew about the botched attempt on his sister in law’s life and he knew that Maureen Bowers had died.
