“If this happened three weeks ago, I am guessing he is in some danger. I am sorry for putting it so bluntly, but he could be dead. Do you not think so?” asked John.
“I won’t lie to you, John. There is a good chance that he is dead. At the same time, from what Todd has taught me, I think he is more valuable to them alive than dead. I am pretty sure he is still alive.” said Diane.
“What makes you think that?” asked John.
“This is one of those things that Todd taught me. He told me that many undercover police officers end up becoming corrupt, and start working for the bad guys that they are supposed to be catching. He also told me that if I should ever get caught, a simple way of keeping myself alive would be to agree to join the bad guys. The longer a cop has been undercover, the more he or she knows about the workings of the two systems. Such a cop becomes both an angel and a demon, being able to walk on both sides. Don’t you agree?” asked Diane.
“It makes perfect sense. I would agree with you on that.” said John.
“That is what I am hoping for. I know that Todd is smart. He is a hell of a lot smarter than any person I have met, ever. If I know him well, and I do, he would immediately pretend to start working for them. He would have told them that he would change sides, make some money, and such motivations.” said Diane.
“Would that not have given him his freedom? He should have called you by now?” said John.
“I don’t think he would contact anybody. He would wait it out, till they were entirely convinced of what he was capable of. That means he might lie low for a seriously long time. He could lay low for a month, six months, or may be a year, if that is how long it takes for them to be convinced of him. My guess is he is alive and well, just cut off from the rest of the world.” said Diane.
“You think where we are going right now will lead us to him?” asked John, linking what she had just told him with what he knew about the actions that had taken place so far.
“About a week ago, I got some new information. An informant told me that he became aware of a person being held under house arrest. As with any criminal organization, there are some people who are good at specific tasks. One such specialist is Jory Hunger, the guy whose base we are about to break into. His job is a simple one. He holds onto things. It could be anything. He can hold onto money, goods, gold, and even people. He does not care about the value of the item that is given to him. As long as he is paid his fee, he will guard over an item without asking any questions.” said Diane.
“Did your informant say that they were holding Todd hostage at this Jory Hunger’s place?” asked John.
“Not really. He said that there was a person of high interest who was being held hostage. He did not, or could not, give any more details. I am, again, running on hunches, John. We won’t find out until we reach there. For all we know, this high value subject could be someone else. It could be something else entirely. I have to give this a shot.” said Diane, her voice growing anxious.
“The more I hear you speak, the more I get the feeling that you don’t really have everything fully under control. I suspect that this is the case because you seem to be pretty much on your own in your first assignment. I can understand that feeling. I felt lost in my first case. I guess things became really bad when your mentor was captured.” said John, trying to sympathize with her.
“Thank you, John. I am sorry I did not put faith in you earlier. I was forced to play all those mind games with you. I wish I had not. I am still new in this business. I hope you will accept my apology, detective.” said Diane.
“That’s quite alright. I mean, everybody makes mistakes, don’t we?” said John, trying to think hard about a way of calming her down. He noticed that she was getting increasingly excited. The place they were going to seemed to be dangerous, and he wanted her in the best state of mind. He thought hard about what she had shared with him so far. Suddenly, John realized that despite spending almost two days with her, he knew nothing about her.
“John, are you listening?” asked Diane. She must have been speaking while John was lost in his thoughts.
“I am sorry, Diane. I was lost in my own thoughts about the place we are going to right now.” said John, still not finding a suitable detour out of the discussion. Then, he remembered her remark about her losing her parents at a young age.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” said John.
“Sure, we still have some time before the boat reaches the island. Go on.” said Diane.
“Your parents. Do you miss them?” asked John, hopeful that this would take her mind off the botched up mission.
“Yeah, I do miss them, sometimes. Of course, I was too young when they died. I don’t really remember them that much to begin with.” said Diane.
John was feeling better about where the discussion had been diverted to. He decided to latch onto this topic till the boat reached the shore.
“I can imagine that. How old were you when this happened?” asked John.
“I was about eight years old. I was away at my aunt’s house when my aunt got a phone call. When they told me the bad news, I did not really know what it meant. I just assumed that they were gone on a long trip. That was the original story that my aunt told me. When I went to the funeral, I did not even know it was a funeral. It was few years later that my aunt told me that my parents were actually gone and were not coming back.” said Diane, looking away into the sea.
“I remember something like that happening to a friend of mine in school. I was studying in a boarding school at that time. He was inconsolable for almost a week. It was a terrible experience for him. Many of us were actually put on his suicide watch, because things got ugly.” said John.
“That is terrible. Is he okay? Did he actually try to do something to hurt himself?” asked Diane.
“He tried once or twice. We caught him just a few seconds away from slashing his wrists. I was the one who caught him. He told me not to tell anybody. I made a deal with him. I wouldn’t tell anybody about this, and in return, he wouldn’t attempt any more stupid things. After that, he stopped trying to hurt himself. He was never the same after the sudden death of his parents. It was like he was a different person. Every time I saw him, I was reminded about my own parents. It was crazy.” said John.
“There are benefits that come with not having parents, John. It is not all that bad, really.” said Diane, in a tone that was somewhere between serious and playful.
John thought that it was leaning more towards playful than anything else. John was happy that the discussion was now in full flow about something other than the job at hand. John knew that it was generally a good idea to get the mind off things when you are doing something hectic. It was one of the many things that John learned at the University and also while working on many cases over the past couple of years.
“What kind of benefits?” asked John, wondering about what was to come next.
“For one thing, there is only so much supervision that your aunt can do for you. You can play the ‘you are not my mom’ card all the time, stay up all night, go for car drives with strange guys, and party well into the morning. The world is literally your oyster, detective.” said Diane.
“That really does sound like fun. In many ways, I had a similar life in school and college. Of course, I never stayed with my parents. Dad was schooled in a boarding school and he made sure I got the same treatment. His theory was that living alone made him a better man. After all these years, I am forced to agree with him. Compared to many of my friends, I do feel like a better man. Still, I did tell a lot of lies. I guess you never had to do anything like that.” said John.
“I guess so. I did not have to lie that much. What did you lie about? I know boys are usually very good at lying. What kind of lies did you tell, detective?” asked Diane, sitting a little closer to him now.
“I told lies about not dating anybody, coming late from vacation, summer vacation travelling. The biggest lie had to be what I said about my graduation. When I went to the University, I fully intended to pursue a degree in criminal investigation. I told my parents that I was pursuing a degree in law. They thought I was going to, and always wanted me to, be a lawyer. Dad always wanted to become a lawyer, and he could not. So, he wanted me to become a lawyer.” said John.
“You were going to become a lawyer? Seriously?” responded Diane, laughing uncontrollably.
“I am serious, Diane. He wanted me to become a lawyer. I wanted to become a private detective. I did not tell anybody about my career aspirations. If I did, they would have laughed. I did not realize that at first. I found out about it the hard way.” said John.
“It is a ridiculous job, a private detective? They don’t exist anymore. I mean, you do exist, and you are currently working on a pretty big case. You are good, no doubt about that. Still, if someone were to tell me that they were pursuing a career in private detection, I would have surely responded with a laugh. I think you did the right thing, lying to your parents. They would have never believed you for one second.” said Diane.
“That was my thinking when I decided on my future. In the beginning, like in my freshman year, I thought lying to my parents was fun. It was thrilling. I was so occupied with becoming a private detective that I did not realize how painful it would be for them if they should ever find out the truth. It took me a while to realize that. In fact, it took me about a year to find that out.” said John.
“Obviously, your parents found out. When did they find out? After the first year, I suppose.” said Diane.
“They did not find out in the first year. I have to say, I must have been a pretty good liar. They did not find out till my graduation. I somehow convinced them not to come to my graduation party as well. Unfortunately for me, despite all the precautions I took, my lie was discovered by my parents. I was pretty disappointed with myself.” said John, looking at the darkening sky. At a distance, the island was getting closer.
“What happened?” asked Diane.
“I had changed every contact address to a fake address that I had in the same city I was studying. There was a documented mistake in the University register. They mailed out the certificate to the second address. That address happened to be my parents. The letter went to them, and my four year lie died in a matter of seconds. Do you know the weird part?” asked John.
“What is the weird part?” asked Diane.
“I had fully made up my mind to tell them that night. It was crazy. I was already on my way to see them and come clean. Guess life had other plans for me. My parents were devastated. If my Mom wasn’t there that night, things could have gotten really ugly.” said John.
“Life can be cruel sometimes, John. That is just how it is.” said Diane.
John did not say anything, but was lost in his thoughts. His mind was travelling back to that night when he had that loud discussion with his Father. He remembered how his Mother came to his rescue and made everything alright. He was still thinking about it, when he felt something on his lips. Diane was sitting right in front of him, and she was kissing him. John came back to his senses and was just about to respond, when he noticed that the island was within a stone’s throw away. Diane stopped kissing him right away, and John backed off as well.
“Okay, detective, we are here.” she said, getting up and turning off the engine and switching off all the lights. The boat was steady, and it was easy for them to anchor it a safe distant from shore. They had deliberately chosen that part of the island which was most isolated and furthest from the dock. John and Diane had a closer look at the parts of the island that they could see in the dark using their night vision accessories and equipment. They already knew that this was a small island with a hill in the middle. On top of the hill was a bungalow. The lights in the bungalow were switched on. The rest of the island was covered in trees, and there were occasional dots that represented night lights along streets and footpaths.
John could see a vague outline of a dock that was big enough to handle medium size boats. He could not see anybody either walking around on the island or in the dock area. It was like somebody left the island in a hurry and forgot to switch off the lights. As John continued to observe the island, Diane was busy with her bags. She pulled out two backpacks and started filling each of them with contents. First, she pushed two guns and four boxes of ammo into each bag. That was followed by a bottle of water. Finally, night vision enabled binoculars.
She handed one bag to John and pulled the other one onto her own back. Then, she dug into her coat pocket and pulled out 2 pairs of swimming goggles out of them. She provided one pair to John, and proceeded to wear the other. John did the same. She then walked over to the edge of the boat and jumped into the water. John followed her and jumped into the water too. The water was still and the waves were moving toward the island. John and Diane comfortably reached the side of the island that was furthest from the dock and any street lights.
Once on shore, they removed their goggles and snuck inside the forest. It seemed to John that Diane had planned this mission well before landing on the island. She quickly walked up to a tree and started climbing up. John followed suit, and a few minutes later, they were perched on top of a tree. They both secured their seats on one of the branches and grabbed the binoculars from the bag. Then, they observed the area around them, and the bungalow that was about half a mile from them.
“I see nothing. It’s like the whole island is deserted.” said John, not finding anything through his binoculars.
“Of course you won’t see anything. Its night, and these guys are smart. They anticipate people snooping up on them. Did you enable the night vision mode on the binoculars?” asked Diane.
“How could I forget that! Let me turn it on.” said John, doing so.
The moment he enable the night vision mode on the binoculars, the vision in front of him became clear. He could see some movement at a distance. As he panned the entire forest in front of them, he noticed that there were regular movements across the forest. All in all, John could count at least six individuals who were moving around. Despite the night vision mode that was engaged, he could not make out clear outlines. That would have been better, because that would help them chalk out a more effective game plan.