The more he thought about it the more he knew that the answers to his questions could only come from the Agency. He could go to Smith and ask him about it, but he didn’t think the asshole would volunteer any information. The only option left to him was to call Samantha and see if she would tell him anything. He doubted it, but it was the only thing left for him to do, well not the only thing, there was one more option he could pursue.
Reese went over to the sink and turned the water on. When it was warm enough he washed his hands and splashed water onto his face several times as if trying to wash away his troubling thoughts. He grabbed some paper towels and turned to leave and then remembered his chocolate donuts and candy bar he had purchased. He grabbed them, looked at them for a few seconds, and then tossed them into the garbage can. Despite his grumbling stomach, he didn’t feel hungry any longer. He knew he had to hunt down some more coffee. It was going to be another long night.
He returned to his office and grabbed a road atlas of the Tidewater area and looked at the summary map of the area finding the area he wanted enclosed in a black square with a number 12 on it. He flipped to that page and studied the map until he found what he was looking for. He circled the area and then took the atlas over to the scanner and scanned then printed it. He then folded the print out and placed it in his pocket.
Looking at the clock he saw that it was almost 6PM. It would be dark in less than an hour. That would leave him enough time to stop at his house to pick up some gear and change his clothes before he headed out to Suffolk and the abandoned Navy site in Driver.
C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
At home, Reese removed his uniform and put on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt. He grabbed a small carry bag and threw in two flashlights, extra batteries, a hammer, crowbar and a few other small tools that he thought he might need. He took the bag and placed it by the door. He checked the time, 6:15PM. Dusk was just settling in so given his estimation of 45 minutes to drive to the base it would be completely dark by the time he arrived. Just what he wanted.
There was one more thing to do before he left, he picked up the phone and dialed Christina’s number. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hi, John,” she said.
“Hi, yourself,” he said, “wait, how did you know? Oh, never mind. How are you?”
“I’m,” she paused, “I’m good. Really good.”
“Was that a tough question?” he asked wondering why it took her so long to answer. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. Actually it’s better then fine but I’ll explain it to you later. Are you still at work?”
“No, but I have to go somewhere in a few minutes. I might be able to see you later though. That is, if you’re interested.”
“Cute. Very cute, mister,” she said playfully. “Working eh? Are you sure you aren’t off to some secret meeting with a mysterious woman? Hmmm?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I can only handle one mysterious woman at a time,” he shot back.
“Me mysterious? Okay, I’ll have to give you that one. For now,” she said. Her voice changed and became less playful and more serious. “But that is all going to change John. I have things I want to talk to you about.”
“And I want to hear them,” he said. “How about I call you later and maybe we can meet for a coffee or something?”
“Sounds good,” she agreed. “Where are you off to? Or can’t you tell me? If you tell me you’ll have to kill me right?”
“Something like that,” he said. “It’s work related.”
“Okay mysterious Commander. I think maybe I’ll call you Commander Dark, you with that shining optimism of yours.”
“I’m trying darling, I’m really working on that image thing.”
“I’m messing with you, John. You know that, right?” she asked earnestly.
“Sure. It’s all good,” he said. “Hey well I better get going. The sooner I get started the sooner I finish.”
“You be safe,” she said. “There are a lot of bad people in the world, John. I think perhaps I used to be one of them.”
“Whoa! Where did that come from?” he said. “Now who is being dark?”
“Sorry,” she said, “I was just thinking out loud.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, “You sound different tonight. What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking lately and there is someone I need to talk to tonight. I need to end an old relationship.”
Reese felt his stomach knot.
“John?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. You…ah…just caught me off guard a little.”
“Sorry. It’s a long story about an odd relationship.”
“How odd?” asked Reese.
“I think the best way I can describe it was that it was a mutually beneficial one but one that wasn’t based upon any love.”
“Okay, now I’m really confused,” Reese said.
“Hmm…you’re right. This is not telephone stuff and I probably really have you wondering now. I don’t want you to worry while you’re working, so trust me on this. It’s not what you think.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I know how you think John, remember? You only think about the worse things that can happen and not the best.”
“Okay,” he said still not sure where all of this was going.
“How about we save it for later then?” she offered.
“Good idea,” he agreed. “I’ll call you later.”
“John?” she asked.
“Yeah?”
“I,” she began hesitantly. But then her voice changed as she sounded as if she was correcting herself from saying something else, “I’ll see you later,” she said.
Reese almost dropped the phone. His mind had filled in the missing words that he thought she was going to say.
“John?” she asked, “You there?”
“Yes,” he said, “I’m here. I’ll call you in a few hours.” He suddenly felt awkward. He thought that if he didn’t say something at this point about what she almost said, or what he thought she was going to say, she might think the wrong thing. “I really want to see you,” he said.
“Me too,” she agreed. “Call me later.”
“Okay. Bye,” Reese said.
“Bye.”
Reese stood there with the phone still up to his ear after she had hung up. He wondered if, in fact, he might even be in a state of shock. Part of him urged caution. Things were moving very fast. Or were they? What was fast anymore? But hadn’t she slowed things down last night when they were on the verge of making love?
He felt a smile form on his lips. He was proud of his positive subconscious thoughts speaking up. In fact, he agreed with them wholeheartedly.
As he remained in his positive thoughts, the sound of an additional click from the phone brought him back to reality. The click was followed by some audible sounds that he couldn’t make out. However, it didn’t take him long to figure out what those sounds might be.
“You guys kill me,” he said into the phone. “So Smith, did you get your cheap thrill for tonight? Well we’re going to have a little talk about this phone tapping bullshit. I’ll be back there in about thirty minutes and I’m going to look to kick some phone tapping ass!” He slammed the phone into its receiver.
He smiled. He had lied about heading back to the base, but what the hell. He hoped he sounded pissed enough so that whoever was listening or recording his phone conversations would now be running to their supervisor with what they called a ‘holy shit’ report: “The subject knows we’re listening.” Besides, he really was pissed. Here he was in the middle of having a special moment with a woman, and some asshole who was probably sitting in some room somewhere smiling as he flipped through the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue on a frequent basis out of boredom, and thinking how cute all of this was. The more Reese thought about it, the madder he got.
“The hell with it for now,” he said as he moved toward the door where his bag awaited him. “I’ll take care of this tomorrow. Perhaps something interesting will come out of tonight’s foraging and maybe we’ll have a lot more to talk about as well.”
Reese grabbed his bag and car keys and headed out the door into the night.
C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
-O
NE
“That car, there,” Andre pointed for Dimitri to see. They sat in their own car which was a couple houses down from Reese’s house.
“Are you sure?” asked Dimitri.
“It arrived not long after Reese did and he’s been watching the house ever since. Commander Reese is definitely being followed.”
“I wonder if he is aware of it?” Dimitri pondered.
“What do you want to do?” asked Andre.
“We can’t have anyone see us come or go,” replied Dimitri. “We can get into the house without him seeing us, however, if Reese is being followed there is probably a good chance that his house is also wired. They would hear us and that will not work either.”
“So, we take out the surveillance man,” suggested Andre.
“Yes,” agreed Dimitri. “You wait here. This won’t take long.”
Dimitri slipped out of the car and merged into the shadows that the old, tall oak trees bathed the street in. He moved quickly and quietly. Within a few minutes he found himself on the sidewalk less then fifty feet from the car and the man that was inside of it. Because of the way that the car was situated in the street, Dimitri decided that he would walk up alongside the car and pretend to be lost and ask directions. He stepped out onto the sidewalk and approached the driver’s side window. “Excuse me,” he said as he came up alongside the car. “I was wondering if you could help me?”
The man sitting in the driver’s seat looked up at Dimitri. “What seems to be the problem?” the man asked as he eyed Dimitri warily.
“I’m lost,” Dimitri said as he raised his hands to indicate the expression. “I’m looking for Bayview Boulevard? Do you know where that is?”
“Hold on, I have a map in the car,” the man said. He turned his head and reached across the seat to grab the map.
Dimitri quickly reached in and grabbed the man by the throat in a paralyzing hold. SLEEP…he said in his thoughts. The man’s eyelids closed slightly but then opened wide again as he resisted. SLEEP NOW! Dimitri repeated. This time the man’s eyes closed and Dimitri felt his resistance fade immediately. He released him and the man fell over onto his side and quietly lay across the front seat.
Dimitri opened the door and searched the contents of the car. He opened the glove box and found nothing but rental car paperwork. He checked the backseat and found nothing that would answer his question of who the man was. He searched the man and found a gun in his shoulder holster and an official form of government identification in his breast pocket of his suit.
Dimitri examined the identification card. He recognized it as a governmental law enforcement type of identification, however there was no name of the particular institution that the man represented. He thought this very strange. He had expected to see CIA or FBI, but to find nothing at all added another level of questions to what was happening. Who was the strange man and why was he following Reese?
Dimitri decided to get back to his own car to get Andre. They were going to have to figure out some way to get Reese out of the house so that they wouldn’t be detected in the process. Just as he closed the door to the car, and turned to walk back to his own vehicle, Andre pulled up alongside.
“He’s gone,” Andre said through the open window.
“Reese?”
“Yes. While you were taking care of this, he came out of the house and got into his car. If we hurry, we can still catch him.”
Dimitri hopped into the car. “Let’s go.”
Andre drove off quickly down the street. “He’s only a few seconds ahead, we should catch him soon.”
“Actually this is probably better,” Dimitri said. “Now we don’t need to figure out how to get him out of the house without being seen.”
Andre came to the end of the street and glanced left and then right. “There,” he said, “the blue Honda Civic.”
Dimitri looked in the direction Andre indicated and saw the taillights of the car. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ll follow and see where he is going and then decide when it is best to reacquaint ourselves with Commander John Reese.”
C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
-T
WO
When Christina finished talking with Reese, she hung up the phone and suddenly sensed that something was not right. Her heightened senses were flooding her thoughts. She simply knew something was wrong. She tried to focus and narrow it down. She went through her mind sorting out what had caused her to suddenly become aware of whatever it was. And then she found it: A void where one had not existed for many years.
Last night when she went to sleep, she had broken her connection to Jake. He was aggravated and she had been too tired to deal with him so it seemed the best choice at the moment. However, having awakened and reopened her thoughts to the connection which had been there for over 60 years, she discovered it missing. The void could only indicate that something was terribly wrong.
She left her room and headed out of the underground compound with the intent to backtrack her steps from this morning to see if she could find him. She stepped out into the cool night and its welcoming darkness. Christina closed her mind to all other thoughts and focused on Jake. She replayed their conversation in her mind from last night focusing her senses to try and piece together what happened after she had left.
In her mind she saw Jake throwing the coffee cup and it flying off into the distance to finally shatter against a rock. The pieces of the cup seemed to hang in the air as if they might come back together like a last hope or chance to fix the moment and make things right. But the pieces finally fell to the ground as if in silent confirmation that there was no chance of anything changing in the past.
She felt him move away from the compound and toward the car so she moved in that direction. As she walked she could sense the coarse feelings that had washed through his mind and his thoughts. She felt the painful stab of anger, neglect, and a sense of loss. They were not unfamiliar to her. She had sensed these feelings before but they’d not bothered her. That was all before her epiphany and altered perspective but it was different now. Now they brought upon her a sense of guilt and even regret. She should have tried to reason with him last night and not have let him gone off in that state of mind. They had been together a long time and to mindlessly cast him away seemed cold and cruel even though she had never worried about it before.