by C. L. Jones
As the driver took him into the business area of town, Pops noted that it looked like any other town and the signs were in English. The car pulled up, stopped in front of an older red brick building, and Pops leaned close to the window looking up and counting six stories. There was a single light on what looked like the third floor of the building, probably his target. For a few minutes he sat there at curbside wondering if he could pull it off, sitting and wondering, wondering and thinking about what he knew was about to happen. Just then he heard the car door unlatch and like magic it swung open on its own. Not being a stupid man he knew this was his cue, so he slowly stepped out.
Walking up to the front door of the building he wondered if the key he had was for the front door or was it like some master key that would allow him access to the entire building. Doing his best to look and act normally he walked up the steps to the landing, reached into his pocket, and slipped on his black leather gloves. Then standing in front of the door he reached out and grasped the handle, turning it slowly trying not to make any noise while he waited to hear that click. Bingo there it was, the door eased open without hardly a sound. Standing in a small dark entry, he leaned to his left he and saw a hallway with a lot of office doors while right in front of him was a stairwell leading up to the next floor. Taking it easy and doing everything he could not to put his full weight on a step until he tested it, he started up the stairs. In the back of his mind he was worried that this could just be a test and one mishap meant someone would jump out and announce that he had failed.
He watched for trip wires or even the good old fashion creaky step. He remembered staying at his Grandmother’s place as a kid playing hide and seek with his cousins with stairs being part of the playground. Like back then, he spread his feet wide apart so they touched the ends of the steps where the steps were nailed to the supporting stair frame. He knew at the edges they would make the least noise. After a few sweat filled moments of climbing the stairs he finally reached the second floor landing, and with a quick glance down the hall he started up the next flight of stairs using the same technique he’d used on the first set of stairs. He had no more than stepped onto the third floor landing when he saw the light on the hallway floor coming through a frosted glass window. He stood there thinking about what he was going to do, going over every movement while staring at the lit glass window in the door. He pictured the next few upcoming events in his mind. Amazingly he knew just what he needed to do. He slipped off his shoes, put them on top of a fire hose box located near the stairwell and placed one foot in front of the other as he started his slow walk down the hall.
The name on the door would be burnt into his mind forever. The gold print looked to be mostly black with the only light coming from behind the glass. His concentration on the name was broken as he reached down with his black leather gloved hand to try turn the door knob. Finding the door locked, it suddenly occurred to him that through everything he was still carrying the key that had been attached to the photo. With his one hundred percent focus on the noise of the rickety steps and avoiding any obstacles in the hall he hadn’t even thought about the key once he entered the building. Pops took out the key and locking his eye on the keyhole slid the key in a fraction at a time not wanting to make any noise with the key scratching against the metal lock. Pops stood back up, taking a deep breath and gave it a try by turning the key to the right. There was hardly a sound but he felt the tumblers click as the door unlocked. He quietly pulled the key back out. With the key still in one hand and his pocket 380 pistol with a compact silencer in the other, he pushed the door open with his shoulder.
He quietly entered an outer office area that looked to be a secretary’s office and a waiting room. Across the room there was an open door which led to an inner office where a light was on. Pops moved slowly across the room with his weapon in the ready position and as he moved he could hear the sound of someone typing on a keyboard. He moved to where he could see into the inner office, and there with his back to him was a man working on an old fashion electric typewriter. The man was so involved in his work that he wouldn’t have heard a bull elephant rampaging through the room. Pops pulled both arms up and took aim. He braced his shooting and took a small breath and held it.
This was one of those war-time moments in the heat of the battle, where time slowed down. In less than a second he thought here he was, a little boy from a good midwestern Christian family about to shoot some unsuspecting man in the back that he didn’t know and had no idea why the man was a target. Pops was depending on the word of the people who were supposed to be watching out for the best interest of the country, but the words he’d heard in the past haunted him. The people sending him out to bring down a target were the same people who likely had no one who held them responsible, and with no accountability they could become their own criminal organization.
Holding the gun on his target for too long was making his arm muscles tense up and his hand was starting to weave around just a little. Pops dropped his arm to his side and stepped out of the room and back around the door. He stood there resting his arm and considered the situation he found himself in. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about killing over the last few years. Being a combat veteran, he thought he wouldn’t have a hard time completing a mission but now these unanswered questions hung in the air. He forced himself to stop thinking about the doubts. As quietly as before he took that huge step back to where he could see the target and again raised his weapon and braced it in the same manner. It was almost as if something inside of him had taken over, something that was about to complete the mission and all he had to do was watch. His finger started slowly squeezing the trigger when for some unknown reason and almost in slow motion the target’s head popped up and in the same motion the target spun around. When he saw Pops holding a gun on him his eyes widened and his mouth moved as if he was trying to speak. Pops knew everything that had happened so far couldn’t have taken more than a split second but it was like looking at a roll of movie film by holding it up to the light and running each frame through your fingers. As the man’s eyes widened and his jaw quivered, his hand lunged for the open top desk drawer. Then the only thing Pops knew was the sound of three loud explosions and the stinging sensation in his tightly gripped hand.
Reality slipped away until he saw he was standing at the fire hose box near the stairwell slipping his shoes on. He tucked the weapon back in his belt under his jacket, walked back down the stairs and out the front door. Still not showing any emotion, he stopped and scanned the street for any pedestrians. There wasn’t anyone in sight so he headed back to where he had been dropped by the car and driver. He was so busy checking the windows of the other buildings that he hadn’t noticed that the car he was walking towards wasn’t the car that had dropped him. Once he lowered his eyes from the surrounding buildings and he saw the strange and different car sitting there, he stopped dead in his tracks. Before Pops could react in any way the car’s back door swung open and a voice from inside the dark interior said, “We ain’t got all night. Get in before anyone sees you.” Without thinking he started for the open door and again the voice spoke, “Come on let’s go.”
Pops slid into the back seat but before his eyes could adjust to the darker light in the car he caught a glimpse of a sliding blackened window that divided the front of the car from the back seat area, and it was going up. He’d expected to find someone sitting there. Maybe some business-looking man wearing a dark suit sitting there striking a distinguished pose. Instead the back seat was empty. Realizing he was alone, Pops turned back towards the open door and discovered the door was closing. He’d been so shocked to find no one in the backseat after hearing the voice that he hadn’t even noticed that the car door was automatically closing behind him.
Taking his weapon out from under his jacket and holding it in his lap he slid back in the seat to wait when the same voice he had heard a few seconds earlier spoke through a speaker in the back of the front seat, “MC”?
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Pops knew from his military days that MC stood for mission completed. Staring at the blackened glass in front of him he nodded his head yes and answered, “Completed”.
By this time the car had started to move so he sat there holding on to his weapon and waiting for any big unwanted surprise. Eventually the car pulled up next to the building on the airstrip where he had been picked up and the door automatically opened. Pops was sliding out when the voice come over the speaker, “Good job, it’s been confirmed, you’re officially onboard. You’ve just completed your first solo mission with us. Get comfortable. We’ll fly you back to the post where you will be picked up by a car and driver. Tomorrow go back to work and wait for us to contact you with maybe another mission or some training.” From that point the trip home was the same as the trip out, only in reverse.
After completing his first solo mission, Pops was ready to get back to his life with Mary. It would be years later when he would realize that he’d never thought that this was the beginning of a lifelong journey down a road where he could never get off. Instead he’d thought he would work for the organization for a couple of years and then they would bring in another new young patriot. He’d never guessed how long he would be a part of it and the degree he would become numb to it. It was just a job wasn’t it?
When Pops went home he did his best to act normal. He took a few days off duty and told Mary that the company commander suggested it. Unfortunately for Pops, he couldn’t just take it easy. He would be sitting watching a baseball game on TV and his thoughts would wonder back to the man in that office. No, taking it easy was something that would need to come with time, additional missions and learning to separate his two different lives. After all he thought he was only a soldier, a soldier that fought for his country, one mission and one enemy at a time.
In his effort to relax he took Mary to the movies, the zoo and every shopping mall in town. After several weeks of keeping himself busy with his “supposed” job on post and running all over the place with Mary, slowly but surely the calls started coming in. In most cases the calls were to his office on post while he was on duty. Like before, each call ordered him to report to the CO’s office. It was always the same process. He would arrive and the same older man would be there. The man would hand the phone to Pops who would just stand there with the phone to his ear looking at the floor. Pops acted like a zombie shaking his head yes and no, never saying a word as if he could be seen . . . and maybe he could. Without a change in demeanor Pops always hung the phone up, turned around and walked out. He and the older guy never exchanged many words.
Trying to live any kind of normal life style was harder than anyone could have ever believed. The years crept by and the missions had never ended and if it wasn’t a mission it was a move to another area. Each time he’d been called he and Mary would pack up everything in the house, take the kids out of school and move to a different part of the country.
When they would get to the new area, Pops and his wife would act as if they had to go out and find a home and jobs but for the most part a home and jobs had already been arranged. They would settle down into what appeared to be a normal life and Pops would wait for another set of instructions, or a new mission. It never failed that the family would just start getting acclimated in a new place and a new life when Pops would get the incoming call. And like he had been doing for way too long, he’d find a secure phone and start the message taking all over again. Some of the things were hard for him to even think about let alone do them, but as time went by it had become the same old crap over and over. The common saying in the service was always “different bull, same shit”. Pops knew he was becoming hardened to the world and that his only real anchor was Mary and the kids, and now he felt like everything was wearing thin.
As the missions continued, he realized that the organization had fingers everywhere. He marveled how missions were more out in the open in the middle of a crowded area. He would complete these missions and without any problem, turn and walk away. On more than one occasion he’d walked right through the lines of the local law enforcement. The cops would be running and driving all around and as the police were stopping other people, Pops would just walk away, walking right past them as if he were invisible as a ghost. Occasionally he would bump shoulders with the cops and he would watch their reactions. It never failed to surprise him how he was completely ignored. While he was walking he kept saying to himself, “Be cool, keep walking and act as if you are just another pedestrian.” But he knew that the cops were told to treat him as an invisible ghost.
Then one day unexpectedly Pops received a call that stunned him. The voice on the other end of the phone was the same monotone voice he’d heard for much too long. The voice changed from its normal pattern and told him that his current military tour was almost up. When that piece of unexpected information was dropped on him, the man’s voice seemed to ooze through the phone like murky sewer slime that smells bad enough that most people would do their best to retreat away as fast as they could.
Pops was told that he would be called in for his service record review and reenlistment and retention talk. He was instructed to turndown reenlistment, go back to civilian life and then wait. As Pops left the building, he had never felt so good. He felt like doing a little dance on the way to his car but restrained himself.
As ordered he finished his tour of duty, received his honorable discharge and left the military. As time went by, he and his wife started their family, moved to southern California and bought their first home. He went to a trade school and started a small business. Mary stayed home and made them a life that neither he nor any other man could have ever complained about. They were happy and on their way to enjoying a long, comfortable new life. Pops was starting to believe that, as he’d expected, the organization had recruited another young man to take over for him.
Then one day, out of the blue, his home phone rang and the voice on the other end reminded him of days he thought were long past. The voice referred to him by his old code name and that’s all it took for him to know that what he had thought was ended wasn’t over. He then realized that when he’d crossed over the line on the very first call and accepted the job and the first mission, he had ensured that it would never end. The organization was too anonymous, to powerful, way too omnipotent and they sure as hell didn’t care about him any more than they did the targets they sent him after. Pops was only a tool and tools get old, tools get rusty and need to be replaced.
After sitting at the table and deciphering the message, he thought he’d made a mistake. He rechecked the translation, reread it several times, and sat there running his hands through his hair and talking to himself. Out loud he said, “What the hell, what the hell is this.”
After taking a couple of days to ponder the message Pops broke it to his wife as if the requirements of the message were his idea. As normal, she did not question any of it, but Pops knew down deep that she had some instinctive knowledge of this weird life he lived. She had never asked him anything about any of the moves or the different jobs. Pops often thought that maybe she had gone through some type of organization training herself. When he finally got around to telling her he simply stated, “I’m going back on active duty, they are calling me back.” Pops knew that his cover for the next few years would be classes, NCO training, maneuvers or so called war games or anything else they could think of to keep any snoopers off his scent and allowing the organization the freedom to send him where ever and whenever with complete ease.
CHAPTER THREE:
THE COMPOUND
Present Day
In life, time passes. Pops had put in more than enough time in military service and in the organization to retire. And now all these years later, he was standing with phone in hand making the call he thought he would never make. The Pit Man answered with low gruff, monotone voice, “Yes.”
Things had changed over the years. Pops now had to give a strange series of numbers and letters that wa
s his identifier, and after his identity was confirmed he would follow it by giving the remaining coded message. With this particular call Pops was asking for a favor to be done, which is what made this call so awkward. The request for a favor had been coming for a long time. Pops said something that was not within regular procedure, “We’re about even, I’m done and I don’t expect to hear from you again.” Without another word or waiting for a response Pops reached down and put his finger on the disconnect button of the phone and then after a couple of seconds of waiting placed the phone back on the cradle.
He went to his car and wrote an account of the long dirty story of his association with the organization. After finishing the document he placed it in a sealed envelope and then put everything in a larger envelope with a letter addressed to an old childhood friend. The letter instructed his buddy to put the sealed envelope in a safe place and never open it for as long as Pops was living. The letter further instructed that if his friend ever heard that anything strange happened to Pops, the letter and the rest of the contents should be sent to ten different large city newspapers and TV news shows.
Pops’ hope was that the organization would just let him go and he could pick up his retirement where he left off and slide into obscurity. But a few days later when Pops received a message, he knew that obscure retirement wasn’t to be, and he came to realize it never would be. The message indicated he was to call the Pit Man. He hesitated and his hatred of the organization and his situation were building. After a time, he finally made the call and as always he was given an assignment. At the end of the message Pops exploded and in no uncertain terms responded, “I said I was done, I’m out.”
It was as if the Pit Man hadn’t heard a word of this or the preceding call. Sounding like that same old monotone machine, he simply said, “Nike.” Pops knew what Nike meant, “Just do it”.
