by Hawk, Nate
She presented him with a piece of paper that contained the information. Kelly was surprised. He would have said that he hoped to stay in touch but he doubted that would prove to be very practical. Besides, women weren’t on his radar. He had too much to do. What could Megan possibly provide that Kelly needed? He didn’t understand. Not at first.
“I tried to talk you out of this but I see that won’t happen. So don’t go getting yourself hurt again. But if you do,” she paused. “I have a certain skill set. I will do my best to patch you up.”
Kelly found this difficult to digest. He just looked at her in surprise. To say Megan’s offer was unexpected would be a severe understatement. He knew how much trouble she could get in if she was caught helping him. Did she understand? Aiding and abetting, for starters. She could probably get nailed as an accomplice, with the right prosecutor. She could be throwing her whole career away in her attempt to help him. Was she truly that determined to help him? Did she understand the personal implications that her offer could have on her career and freedom?
Kelly had usually found success through determination when doing things the hard way. Even without a safety net. Now that he realized that he may have found one, he felt even more emboldened. On the other hand he sure didn’t want to pull in any favors. Or bring trouble to anybody else’s doorstep. After a quick assessment, Kelly figured that he had a plan. He’d say his final goodbyes to the entire medical staff, including Megan, the next day when he was released. He didn’t want to pull anyone else down with him as a result of the consequences of the violence that he was planning.
***
Chapter 30
Rick Quinn and Owen “Tiny” Tucker had scheduled a surreptitious meeting. It wasn’t secretive in the fact that an enemy could be lurking in the bushes somewhere nearby. Nothing like that had been a concern. The meeting was held cautiously because both men knew such conversations couldn’t be done via an electronic intermediary such as phone or email. It couldn’t be held in Rick’s Berlin office due to the extreme privacy concerns they shared in conducting an operation that was clandestine, even within the CIA. They were located on an anonymous bench that overlooked the Brandenburg Gate, directly in the heart of Berlin.
“Do you know why I chose this location for our meeting, Owen?” Rick asked.
Owen looked at the structure that was the premier symbol of the reunification of Germany and thought about the question. He sure didn’t want to say something ignorant.
“Well, it’s symbolic of peace and social progress,” he stated confidently.
Owen was wondering where Rick Quinn was going with the conversation.
“I’m afraid peace and social progress are both illusions, Owen. They’re temporary. They exist only temporarily and only in naive minds. Bad actors will always be attempting to take what others have, through any means necessary.”
Owen looked at Quinn with curiosity, still wondering where this was going.
“Take for example the bronze Quadriga at the top of the gate. Did you know that France occupied Berlin in the 18th century? Napoleon proudly sent that statue to Paris as a spoil of war.”
He paused letting the information sink in.
“But nothing lasts forever. After the battle of Waterloo, the Germans triumphantly returned the Quadriga to Berlin, as their own symbol of victory.”
Quinn seemed prepared that day with his very best, including a detailed history lesson. Owen found himself treading water, trying to keep up.
“It seems that war is one of the few certainties of life,” Owen proposed as he watched the pigeons feeding on nearby scraps.
Then the two men looked on together as a group of tourists walked around the Brandenburg Gate, making poses and taking photos.
Quinn said, “I gather that you may be experiencing some uncertainty yourself, in regards to what our humble team is working together on. Being your first time working off of the books, so to speak, I want to share a story with you before you share the reason that you requested this meeting.”
Quinn was correct. Owen was having some second thoughts. He was sure that he was right about Niko but working in the dark, without the full support of the Agency was troubling him. In fact, it was causing him to lose focus.
“Owen, there was a junior agent during 2001 that had personally come across some Intel while working on an unrelated project within the CIA. The Intel led this agent to believe that OBL was planning to execute an imminent, attack on the World Trade Center buildings. Intelligence gathering on this topic consumed this agent and became a near obsession for him. His circumstantial Intel and premonitions were sent up the chain of command to his supervising agent. That agent essentially took the report, patted the junior agent on the head and sent him on his way. All follow-ups on that topic were firmly deflected. You know the next part of the story. You’ve also probably guessed that the junior agent was me.”
Tiny looked towards the more experienced agent with a new level of understanding. Owen knew the feeling of obsessing about certain work related intelligence quite well.
“That’s right, Owen. Nearly 3000 people died that year and I had information that could have prevented it. Can you imagine the guilt? Afterwards, my report resurfaced and, of course, quickly propelled me to the Special Activities Division. I found a home working with the Political Action Group and the Agency has treated me very well, ever since. They will allow me a bit of time off of the reservation, so to speak, but the time must be spent wisely.”
Now Owen understood where Rick had been going with the peace-is-an-illusion angle. They would have to stay focused to resolve their current circumstances, even if they were doing so without the Agency’s blessing. The two men seemed to be of like minds since Rick was putting his career on the line too.
“So, that’s why you hand-selected me for the team. You saw some of yourself in me and thought I would be a good fit?”
“Well, that was certainly part of my decision. The main reason I want you on my team is because I know you are right about Niko and I need a damn good agent to help catch these sons-of-bitches.”
Owen thought about what Rick had said. He was already stuck in a dangerous game. He might as well go all in.
“I understand what you are saying, Rick. Now that you’ve given me some additional perspective, I’ll make sure that I’m doing my very best for the cause. After all, Niko will be arriving soon.”
Rick looked tritely at Owen and, after a well-measured pause, said, “Go big or go home… Weren’t those your words Owen?” he asked with an ironic smirk.
***
Chapter 31
In the end it was a friend from the police force who promised to drive Kelly home from the hospital. She was due there any moment and Kelly was ready in every sense of the word. He had signed all of the required papers, seemingly twice or thrice, during the prior days. Thank God for my insurance coverage, he thought to himself. The flowers from his room had all been redistributed or had died, as he knew that all living things eventually do. Usually before their time, he evenly considered. All of Kelly’s personal items fit into a medium sized cloth bag that the hospital had given him. There seemed to be about a hundred get-well-soon cards, some spare bandages and ointment for his foot, deodorant, miscellaneous hygiene items and lastly, the watch his father had given him. The clothes he had been wearing that day had been discarded, likely the day of the attack. Probably before he even made it to the hospital. He didn’t remember. Or care to.
Kelly supposed his clothing could have been kept as evidence. It didn’t matter where they were. His phone and earphones were gone, probably blown clear during the blast. Kelly knew it was just one more missing piece of his life that would have to be done without or replaced. He didn’t care about the phone. It was the things that he couldn’t replace that weighed on his mind the hardest.
Jen and Brady. His mother and father. His sister. Everybody was gone.
Kelly handled the watch from his bag. It was an au
tomatic watch, imported from Switzerland. It was much heavier than a quartz watch of equal size. This one had a special certification from the Swiss government that guaranteed a specific accuracy. Kelly thought he remembered his father saying that it had been tested and was guaranteed to function within five seconds of accuracy per day. Whatever the rating, Kelly knew it has always performed with stunning accuracy.
No more than five seconds difference for a collection of perpetually moving, man-made parts? Kelly was always impressed by its ability to tell accurate time. However, for Kelly, this timepiece was more about remembering his father. Had the watch survived intact? It had so many tiny, machined pieces working together. Surely not all of them would have survived the blast in working order. Had he been a bit closer to the blast, the watch may have become a projectile as well. Kelly had barely survived in working order but here was this watch, nearly untouched. Its circular bezel did carry with it a couple of dings near the twelve o’clock position. But Kelly had a couple of dings too. He surmised that perhaps the dings just added a bit more character.
Kelly moved the watch back and forth in the dull light of the hospital room. No scratch on the sapphire crystal. Unbelievable, he thought. He spun off the crown and wound the pin to start the watch. He knew the internal spring had lost all of its reserve energy sitting on a shelf somewhere, since the last day he’d worn it. Kelly began setting the time, date and day-of-the-week. He pushed the top button on the right side and the seconds hand began to sweep clockwise. He couldn’t believe it worked! What were the chances? Realizing the watch still worked gave him satisfaction but there was something else he wanted much more. He was looking forward to starting the evening with his favorite Kentucky bourbon. Perhaps, the first evening of many.
His ride home came in the form of Officer Brooke Moore. As everyone else had, she knocked on the room’s open door and hesitantly walked through with a tilted head. Why did everyone tilt their head as they walked in? Regardless, Kelly was glad to see her. She looked very different when she wasn’t dressed in blue.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” she asked, motioning to the wheel chair with a grimace. His nurse came in about the same time to observe Kelly shaking his head in adamant disagreement of being pushed around in the chair.
Kelly had expected Nurse Megan to be there and he sure as hell wasn’t using a wheelchair. In fact, he had looked forward to seeing Megan one last time. He had a vision in his mind that they would have one last conversation as he walked out of the hospital. Something inspiring about strength and drive and continuing on. Surprisingly, she hadn’t showed up for work and he was truly disappointed. He had found himself wondering what the mystery was with her schedule. He was sure that she would have wanted to be there for his release, too. Where was she and what other factors were dictating her schedule? Kelly knew there was more to it. She must have had some inkling though, looking back. I guess that is why she gave me her contact info yesterday, he thought.
Kelly’s current nurse was a man who looked like he was only a generation or two from full Nordic blood. Blond, he was tall and thin and soft-spoken. Kelly was in the process of verbalizing his thoughts about wheelchairs when Nurse Aleks insisted that Kelly have a seat. The nurse informed him that it was a hospital procedure to satisfy the lawyers and insurance companies.
“Kelly,” he said nicely. “I’ll make it quick,” attempting to sweeten the deal. “Brooke already told me she is parked outside near the pull around.”
“All right, Aleks,” Kelly agreed. Waiting at the curb? he thought. What is next, a flimsy handicap sign to hang on my rearview mirror? He shook off his feelings of self-deprecation and took a seat.
“Thank you, kindly,” the man said in his best bedside manner.
Like everywhere and every day in a metro hospital, there were a lot of other nurses working the unit that Kelly was in. The ones that knew him best had already come to say their goodbyes and give their well wishes. Most had done so the day before. The ones who hadn’t had the opportunity to work closely with him just offered a wave as he passed. He figured, correctly, that everyone at the hospital knew his story. At that moment, Kelly felt like some decrepit royalty being ushered to his waiting limo. The big difference was he didn’t want the attention. He just wanted to be left alone. Another difference was that he knew it wasn’t a limo that awaited. It was a lifted 4x4 truck.
When they reached the first floor lobby, Aleks stopped.
“Nurse Megan said I was to have you walk out the door with no wheelchair or it would be my ass,” he said.
Kelly got to his feet. They shook hands and Aleks wished Kelly good luck. Brooke gave Kelly a gentle punch on his shoulder and asked if he wanted her to get him one of those walkers. Kelly gave a slight smirk but that was his only response. His mind was elsewhere. Part of him was apprehensive about being released. All of his previous medium and long-term goals were gone. All that was left was an obsession to find the remnant of the Jamaat Al Fuqra cell that killed his family and to exterminate the man by any means possible. He had committed to pursuing the entire terrorist framework until he lost his sanity or freedom or his own life in the process.
Brooke realized that Kelly was in a worse place than she had hoped. Surely he was happy about being discharged from the hospital but she couldn’t see happiness anywhere in his being. Aleks turned around and pushed the wheelchair back into the elevator. While watching, Kelly’s strange feelings of unfamiliarity continued to sink in. He had been at the hospital for more than a month. Before that his life was completely different than the one before him at that moment. He would not be going home to Jen and Brady. Instead, he was being taxied home by a woman that he had once dated. Ultimately, she had been too tough and hardheaded for them to date seriously. However, that had not stopped them from being friends at work. It was the type of friendship that a married person may occasionally have with a person of the opposite sex. Not physical but just emotional enough that he never talked to Jen about her. With Jen gone, of course the boundaries between Kelly and Brooke seemed less defined. Kelly valued their friendship and hoped that Brooke did too. Kelly didn’t need more complications in his life.
Brooke fired up the truck’s V8 motor, driving out of the parking lot and aggressively merging into traffic. Her hair was in a ponytail and it bobbed around as she turned occasionally, to glance at Kelly, as they talked.
“We’ve both been waiting for this moment for a month, now,” she said, catching Kelly off guard.
What was she talking about? Kelly suddenly wiped Niko from his thoughts and looked her way. He was concerned where the conversation was headed.
“What? I’m sorry,” Kelly began.
He wasn’t really sure what she meant.
“I’ll never forget what you did for me and my family, Kelly. I know that you’re not going to go home and live happily ever after. So let’s go get these sick bastards.”
“No,” he said instantly, as he shook his head.
He told her flat out and right away. He didn’t need to think about her offer. He was pursuing terrorists and he didn’t know, or really care, if he was coming back to civilization. He sure wasn’t taking anybody that he cared for with him. He felt like he’d already had this conversation when Megan had offered her help. Same answer: no. If he wanted anyone to go in with him, he’d call his buddies from the 3/5. His Darkhorse brothers would march right through the gates of hell and burn with him, if he asked. If Kelly went down, they’d carry him physically. If he died, they’d carry his memory. They had gone through so much shit together that none of them feared death. They certainly wouldn’t fear a motley band of terrorists with a catchy acronym. Semper Fi.
“No,” he reiterated.
“C’mon, Kelly. You going to make me read off my resume? You’ve seen me hold my own.”
Kelly couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had previously helped her fight off an inbred clan of murderous scoundrels. Her idea of repayment was insisting to go into
combat alongside of him, again.
“My ‘no’ wasn’t regarding your capabilities,” he said. “It was for your safety.”
“I would have gone without you if you hadn’t survived that blast. That’s how the world works. Or, at least how I work. This for that, Kelly. I’m not going to perpetuate my family’s debt. I’m going to repay it by going in with you.”
“Come on Brooke. My entire family is gone. I don’t want anybody else getting hurt.”
“You know that you’re going to get killed if you go after them alone. You need a second person. You need an over-watch. You could use a spotter. I’ve got your back, Kelly. In every sense of the words.”
Kelly already knew how hardheaded Brooke was. He had one hell of an argument ahead of him if he was going to dissuade her. On the other hand, he knew that she was right. He could use a second person for the first stage of his plan. He still had to find this Niko character that was in the process of fleeing to Germany. Now that the man was leaving the country, Kelly knew that all of the Intel concerning Niko would be out of the FBI’s domestic reach. Kelly did, in fact, need an over-watch person who could keep an eye on the big picture while he went in for specific Intel. It had to be someone with several unique qualities. Competency. Coolness. Intellect. Speed.
He ran the criteria that was required through his mind and compared Brooke to his image. She was certainly capable. She had become proficient with a rifle at a young age. That was a huge plus. Additionally, she had some skin-in-the-game based on her earlier comments of beholden loyalty. Kelly found her loyalty to be a bit misplaced or over-represented, though. Not to mention completely unnecessary. The downside of Kelly’s bringing her into the fold just brought him back around full circle to where he began. If she was hurt on his watch, or worse, how much more could he take? Would she become the next victim in his unpredictable attempt to balance the scales of justice?
