The Guardian

by Marliss Melton

  Lena gripped one of the bed posts to keep the room from reeling.

  It was too disturbing to contemplate. The man who’d coerced her into declaring her trust for him had a child and was probably married. The son of a bitch. No wonder he hadn’t gone all the way with her.

  Peter finally took note of her silence. “You okay?” He craned his neck to look back at her.

  “Yeah.”

  She closed her eyes in gratitude when his cell phone rang.

  “That was fast,” he said, taking the call. It had to be his buddy at the DMV. “Awesome. Whatchu got?” He opened a Word document and started typing. Dept. of Homeland Security, year-long lease, Lena read. “That’s it? No names?” Peter dabbed at the beads of sweat glistening at his hairline. “What about the other car?”

  She held her breath as Peter typed the name Silvia Shultz. Jealousy, as green and sour as the skin on a Granny Smith apple made Lena’s lips pucker. Peter typed DOB: and the date 7/19/1949, and her jealousy morphed into relief. No way could Silvia Shultz be Jackson’s wife or the little girl’s mother, not at sixty some years of age. Themou efharisto. Thank you, God.

  However, that didn’t mean he didn’t have a wife tucked away somewhere, she cautioned herself.

  With a word of gratitude and a promise to take Rich out to lunch soon, Peter hung up.

  “Are you thirsty?” Lena asked. Her throat was parched.

  “Definitely.”

  She went to kitchen and poured two iced-teas in the new drinking glasses she’d purchased. A fresh wave of resentment plunged through her as she chugged her glass. Returning to the room with the other, she found Peter reading an online news article.

  “Can you open the window any farther?” he asked her, taking his glass. “It’s hot as hell in here.”

  “Sure.” She wrestled the window all the way open. “No air-conditioning,” she apologized, flicking on the overhead fan.

  “I don’t know how you stand it.” He put his empty glass down with a thud. Armpit stains ringed his short-sleeved shirt. “Plus your internet is slow as hell.”

  “It’s DSL,” she explained. Funny how sweat looked sexy on some men and not on others. She shifted her attention the article he was reading. “What’d you find?”

  “I paired Silvia Shultz’s name with Jackson Maddox, and this is what came up. It’s her daughter’s obituary.”

  The relief that washed over her left her feeling shamed. His wife was dead.

  “Colleen Shultz Maddox was killed in a single-car collision in 2009,” Peter quoted, unaware of her response. “She is survived by her husband Captain Jackson Maddox, United States Marines Corps, blah, blah, blah. None of this tells me what he’s investigating now.” He closed the page before she could read past the first paragraph. “I’m better off returning to the office where I have broadband.”

  With rising panic, Lena watched him put away his camera. The certainty that Peter was going to blow Jackson’s cover made her stomach cramp. She laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Peter, you promised you wouldn’t expose the agent’s cover,” she reminded him.

  He looked up at her like she was crazy. “No I didn’t.” Zipping up his camera case, he stood up and shouldered the strap.

  “What if he’s at Gateway to prevent an act of terror?” she argued. “You could be jeopardizing thousands of American lives.”

  He eyed her in disbelief. “Why are you defending him? This guy broke into your house. He stole your camera and your laptop, for God’s sake.”

  She thought it best not to mention that the pendant, which he’d given her last Christmas, had been taken also.

  “Who cares if his fucking cover is blown?” Pushing past her, he stalked into the living room.

  Lena chased after him. “We’re talking about national security, though,” she persisted, blocking his path to the door. “The FBI wouldn’t have an agent masquerading as a felon unless something serious is happening at Gateway.”

  He drew up short. “And why would anything bad be happening at Gateway?” he sneered. “Because it’s run by Muslims? That’s racial profiling, Lena. And it ought to be illegal.”

  “You can’t be certain Gateway doesn’t have terrorist ties.”

  “It’s a highly esteemed reintegration program,” he shot back. “Ninety percent of its graduates do not reoffend and are contributing to society.”

  “But what if there’s some link to terrorists, and people die because you exposed a government investigation?”

  “No one is going to die.”

  “The agent could, Peter! They’ll consider him a traitor. Who knows what they’ll do to him in reprisal.”

  Peter jerked the strap on his shoulder higher. “Not my problem,” he said shortly.

  She wished she had never asked his help in identifying Jackson in the first place. “So that’s it? You’re just going to take this story away from me?”

  “If I let you have it, then there won’t be a story,” he predicted. “Sorry, this one’s mine.” With a tight smile, he elbowed her out of his way and marched outside.

  “Peter, please!” she shouted off the porch. “Just give it two weeks before you run your story.” That way the session would be over, and Jackson would be safe.

  “We’ll see.” He halted suddenly en route to his Jeep. “I want my car back,” he announced, returning to the house to hand her back her keys.

  He would go and make this even more difficult for her. Seething, Lena stormed inside to fetch his key ring. They met on the porch. “What’s Davis going to think when I show up in a fifty thousand dollar car, and what’s my small town convenience store boss going to think?”

  “Tell them your Jeep broke down, and the Jag’s your dad’s.”

  “Fine.” She thrust his keys at him and snatched hers out of his hand.

  “Come on, babe,” he coaxed, eyeing her flushed face. “Don’t take this so hard. I’ll give you credit for the story, I promise.”

  “No! I don’t want credit. Don’t you dare link my name with your article.” It was bad enough that Jackson now ignored her; she couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if he blamed her for ruining his investigation.

  “Whatever. I thought you were a journalist first and foremost, but I guess I was wrong.” Turning his back on her Peter marched to his car.

  Stung by his words, Lena had to remind herself that not long ago she had planned to discover Abdul’s secret and use it against him. For the first time ever she found herself on the other side of the fence, emotionally involved with the subject of a story—not that Jackson reciprocated her emotions. He’d had no apparent difficulty shutting her out of his life.

  She watched Peter climb into his Jeep and pull away. Glancing back at her once, he shook his head. It was obvious he thought she’d lost her touch.

  The black Jeep disappeared over a hillock. Disappearing with it was glimmer of hope that Jackson Maddox might one day be an integral part of her life. When Crime and Liberty declared him an undercover agent and paired an article with a photo of him taken from the vantage of Artie’s freaking parking lot, who would Jackson blame, but her?

  If she’d just left town when he’d first asked her to, none of this would have happened.

  **

  Ike Calhoun’s scowling face loomed on the company laptop. “All clear?” he rapped.

  Jackson heard the kitchen door thump shut as Silvia followed Naomi outside. His team lead had called an immediate, top secret conference requiring anyone in the house who was not a Taskforce agent to step out. The fact that it was required to be top secret suggested Ike had critical news to share.

  “All clear,” Jackson affirmed, annoyed that he hadn’t even been able to greet his daughter properly.

  Toby shot him a sympathetic grimace and sank into the chair next to his.

  “What the hell happened last night, Maddox?” Ike demanded. “I want your version.”

  Obviously, Toby’s version hadn’t appeased him.

&nbs
p; Chagrined, Jackson relayed how Zakariya had caught them by surprise by varying from his usual routine, and what they’d seen and heard before Jackson accidentally betrayed their presence. He even admitted how the local police had awakened all twelve parolees to question them, only to leave the campus scratching their heads.

  “You realize,” Ike retorted, using whip-lash syllables that made Jackson flinch, “that the imams are going to tighten security from now on.”

  They’d fucked up and Ike was right; the investigation would now be that much harder.

  “I think we should look at the music he was listening to,” Jackson suggested. “Something tells me it was encoded.”

  Ike sent him a hard look. “Our analysts report that he was visiting a music site, but they have no way of knowing what he listened to.”

  “But I remember.” Jackson imbued his tone with confidence. “I’ll look up the songs and send them to you.”

  Ike did not look mollified.

  “I have an idea,” Toby said, earning Ike’s hard stare. “Have the fire marshal check on Gateway’s compliance with NFPA Code 58 regarding the storage of propane. If they’re in violation, we could get warrants for Ibrahim’s arrest and then search his office.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Ike replied, jotting himself a note. “That’s not all,” he continued, his rough voice raising the hairs on Jackson’s forearms. He should have guessed something else was going on, here, besides a royal ass-chewing.

  “At zero five hundred hours today, Greenwich time, the Algerian rebels who received funds from Gateway last year rammed a boat packed with explosives into a luxury cruise liner, causing it to catch fire and to sink. There were dozens of casualties including six American tourists.”

  Jackson felt suddenly sick to his stomach.

  “Whether that stunt could have been pulled off without Gateway’s financial backing is a moot point. Attorney General Wilkes wants to prosecute the leaders, only he knows he won’t win his case without substantive evidence. It’s our job to find a link between Gateway and terror.”

  Toby scrubbed his face with his hands. “I hate fucking politics,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Maddox, this is the halfway mark in the program,” Ike reminded him. “I need you to pull out all the stops and goddamn find what we’re looking for.”

  “Understood,” Jackson answered.

  “Identify that music, and I’ll have our analysts study it for hidden meaning.” Ike jabbed a key with a long finger, and the screen went black.

  Jackson slowly exhaled.

  “He busted my balls last night,” Toby offered consolingly.

  “The man’s under a lot of pressure,” Jackson said in Ike’s defense. Though, come to think of it, he had seen the Taskforce lead under unprecedented pressure before, and Ike had never once lost his cool. Could pressure from the AG really be stressing him out, or was something else going on, maybe in his private life?

  “Let’s find the music,” Toby suggested.

  “Right.” Sitting forward, Jackson went to YouTube to hunt down the two songs he’d heard snatches of the previous night. “This was the first one.” He turned up the volume as Wu Tang spewed, Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin Ta Fuck Wit! Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin Ta Fuck Wit!

  Jackson glanced at Toby, who flipped him the bird.

  There's no place to hide once I step inside the room.

  Dr. Doom, prepare for the boom. BAM! Aw, MAN! I SLAM JAM, that's freedom like Tarzan.

  They listened to the rest of the song filled with similar messages of frustration and revenge. Sending the link to Ike, Jackson hunted down the song by Public Enemy. He found it by the lyrics he remembered.

  Can I live my life without 'em treatin' every brother like me, like we're holdin' a knife? Alright, time to smack Uncle Sam. Don't give a damn, look at the flag. My bloods a flood--

  Jackson glanced at Toby, who rolled his eyes at what clearly sounded to him like gibberish.

  War at thirty three and a third, not really live! I’d rather do it at forty five! Went west in the quest for my intelligence.

  He added the link to the music in his email, suggesting a code prescribed by the Supreme Alphabet and Supreme Mathematics, and fired it off to Ike. The allusion to bombs, bloodshed, and anti-government sentiment was obvious enough, but he had a feeling the message went deeper. Had Zakariya been disseminating information to Five Percenters everywhere? He doubted he was just playing random snippets of hip hop for his own kicks.

  Toby pushed to his feet. “Why would a guy his age even listen to that shit?”

  “Because the rhythm is catchy?” Jackson suggested.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Toby said on his way out of the room. “I’m a white Devil, and I have no rhythm.”

  It was meant to be a joke, but Jackson wasn’t in a humorous frame of mind. Sitting back, he heard the refrigerator open and close; heard the familiar hiss of a twist-off cap as Toby ventured out onto the balcony.

  Sending off his email, Jackson logged out of his computer and left the office. He found Toby lounging on the sun-baked balcony nursing a beer. Beyond him, at the bottom of the long run of stairs, Naomi and Silvia stood in water to their ankles.

  “Hi, Dad!” His daughter caught sight of him and waved. Her bright hair lifted in the warm breeze. “Come on down.”

  “In a minute,” he promised.

  Drawing a deep breath of air, he tried to shake off his growing sense of foreboding. The air smelled of brackish water and sunscreen. He imagined it might have smelled similarly aboard the cruise ship that was attacked by rebels that dawn.

  No one vacationing on that cruise ship would have expected the attack. It made Jackson wonder if equally unforeseen violence was about to break loose on U.S. soil.

  **

  Not a soul had entered Artie’s in the past hour. Gateway stood deserted. Out in the darkening parking lot, Deputy Doug Hazelwood had fallen asleep in his cruiser, his head lolling against his head rest, one arm flopped outside his open window. Sweeping the linoleum floors with an electric Swiffer, Lena sought to pass the time while contemplating Peter’s intent to accuse the government of infringing on civilians’ rights by spying on them.

  Rounding the end of an aisle, she was startled to find herself staring at a pair of scuffed boots. Snatching her head up, she recognized the man standing silently in front of her. “Seth!” Her heart pounded at the false alarm. “I didn’t hear you come in.” Turning off the appliance, she hurried behind the counter to get him a scratch-off ticket.

  It wasn’t until she stood directly opposite the Amish man that she caught a whiff of whisky on his breath. He clutched his straw hat to his stomach as he held the edge of the countertop, using it to keep his balance. Astonished and fairly positive that Amish folk were forbidden to touch liquor, Lena went through the motions of ringing him up while wondering if there were any Amish rules Seth didn’t break.

  “Having a rough day?” she worked up the courage to ask.

  When he raised bloodshot eyes at her, Lena realized he’d never looked directly at her before. She was startled to discover his eyes were a vivid green. With his beard wildly disheveled, he looked a little like a madman. She instantly regretted her impulse to reach out to him but then, surprisingly, he answered her.

  “Yeah,” he admitted on a gruff note. “You?”

  Because he asked, she told the truth. What the heck. “Yeah, me, too.” If it weren’t bad enough that Peter’s anti-government campaign was going to put Jackson in danger, all hope for reconciliation between them was doomed, which sucked. Every moment she had ever spent with him had been fraught with exhilaration, something that had never happened to her before, not with any man. What if he was meant for her and she’d blown her one and only chance at finding the love of her life?

  Seth grunted. He opened his mouth as if to say something, changed his mind and handed her his payment, instead.

  Sensing he was on the verge of actually confessing something a
nd that he could benefit from unburdening himself, Lena gave him a nudge. “So I noticed your tattoo the other day,” she said before he could get away. “Is it a girl’s name?”

  He looked down at his right arm. Today the tattoo was hidden under the sleeve of his homespun shirt. “Yeah.”

  “Old flame?” she asked.

  He seemed confused by that remark, but then his brow cleared. “Oh, no. I didn’t...love her,” he admitted. “I just—” With a far-away look in his eyes, he cut himself off.

  His Lotto ticket was paid for, but he still didn’t leave. Lena felt sorry for him. He had to be lonely, cut off from the other Amish folk. “You don’t really fit in here, do you, hon?” she asked, curious to know more about him.

  He loosed a humorless laugh. “You noticed?”

  “I don’t know of any Amish who play the lottery.” She didn’t know any other Amish, period, but that was beside the point.

  He smoothed his wild, wiry whiskers, his eyes downcast.

  “So, what happened?” she asked, betraying the journalist in her. “Did you do something that branded you an outcast?”

  He glanced up, and his glassy eyes filled with tears that darkened them to a lovely emerald green. She suffered a sudden sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t she seen that effect before, on someone else with green eyes?

  “’S not what I did.” Seth’s words slurred together. “’S what I didn’t do.” Pocketing his scratch-off ticket, he swiveled on his heels and staggered out the door.

  Struck by his remorse, Lena watched him stumble off the sidewalk, waking Deputy Doug with his muttered curse. His words reverberated in her mind: ’S what I didn’t do.

  She thought immediately of Jackson and of what might happen to him if she didn’t warn him of Peter’s intent. So what if Jackson blamed her for tipping off Peter in the first place? Not warning him would be an act of cowardice. The last thing she wanted was to be like Seth and regret all her life that she hadn’t acted when she should have.

  Her heart began to pound as the thought took hold. How should she get a hold of Jackson? She didn’t have a number. Should I call the FBI?