Jacks Run

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The heat lies heavily, blanketing the asphalt so deeply that it flows into the car windows as I wait in line at the border crossing to Mexico. A thin sheen of sweat coats my skin, catching and absorbing the dust into it, making the effort of wiping it off tiresome and gritty.3

The guards seem leaden; encumbered by the temperature. They move lazily around the car at the head of the line, leaning to look into a window or studiously peer at a face. My mind drifts back to my family and what they might be doing now. Are they worried about me? I’m sure they are though it’s better that they know nothing of where I am. Better that they imagine I am forever out of their lives.4

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“Hon, I have to go away for a while. I can’t tell you where I’m going. It would be best for you not to know,” I tell Molly, my wife of twenty years, as she silently cries in front of me. Standing in the entryway of our home in Virginia, I feel out of place- dislocated. It's not my home anymore. Her shoulders begin to shake with suppressed sobs and I feel my throat tightening in sympathy.6

“Jack, please! You can’t run out on this- on us! Your family needs you now more than ever.” I can see she wants to reach out to me but there’s a distance between us now that can never be bridged.7

“You’ll have to stay with Margaret in Florida for a while. It’s not safe here anymore.”8

Jack Junior, my fourteen year old son, stands to one side of his mother in this house that’s not a home with a look of near comprehension. He meets my eyes briefly, then looks down at his feet. Lizzy is only ten but she has a maturity about her that I imagine her mother had at that age. She stares at me with eyes that know she will never see me again and a heart that hopes she will. Taylor, my youngest son of seven years old, clings to his mother’s skirt- a habit he had given up years before, now reawakened in this time of stress. I want to take them all with me but I know I can’t. I have no idea what the future holds for me but I know my family is better off in Florida. I know they're better off without me.9

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The line of cars creeps along. The only benefit of moving slow being that it leaves the dust mostly settled. I take a mouthful of water from the Evian one liter beside me and I’m tempted to pour the whole bottle over my head. Its tepid liquidity does little to quench my thirst and only alleviates the dryness of the dust for a minute or two.11

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“Jack, there’s been some difficulties. You’re being called before the directors within the week.” Davis, my boss, has the worst taste in ties. My usual reply would include a jab at this fault of his but I could see he was serious. Deadly serious.13

“Any idea what it’s about?” I ask, pretending ignorance. We both know what it’s about.14

“How can you ask me that? Against my advice, you did what you thought best. You took matters into your own hands.” I could see he was building up steam for a long lecture but I think his common sense won out. “No!" he barks. "I’m not going over this with you again.” He shakes his head and looks down at his feet, much like my oldest boy would do almost a month into the future.15

“Hey, I know this is a hard time for us all but...” I began, trying to mollify him somewhat. He cut me off.16

“A hard time? Jack, that has to be the understatement of the year!”17

He turns his back on me and walks out of my office with his cheesy tie as I search for the words to make us friends again.18

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Suicide did cross my mind, I’ll admit. I sat for about four hours in the drivers seat of this very car with my government issue Beretta 9 mm in my lap and a fifth of Baileys gin in the passenger seat beside me. The garage was dark, quiet and comforting. I felt secure there at that moment. I thought long and hard about the past month and the months before. I stared at that black automatic like a kid on the high dive at the public pool trying to work up the nerve to jump for the first time. The gin was harsh. It smelled like Scotch tape when I took a swig and left a dryness behind that was not unlike the dryness in my mouth right now, sitting in this same car waiting to cross the border out of my life. Funny how similar the experiences are now that I recall. I guess you could say I’m committing another type of suicide by doing this. I wonder which one would have been cleaner.20

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“Jack Tyrell, you are hereby summoned before this board on charges of treason. This is not a trial and no guilt or innocence will be decided in this hearing. The evidence brought before us...” The voice of the Head of Directors droned on but I was listening to a song in my head that I had heard many times during my high school days. Molly and I would dance to that song and, later on in our relationship, make love to it, feeling the youth of our bodies and the youth of the world. The song played over and over, taking me away from the hearing and the evidence and the lawyers and the directors. I was distantly aware of the fact that tears were streaming down my face but I couldn’t be bothered to be ashamed or even care in the slightest. I’ve thought, since then, about news stories that report the defendant crying during the reading of a guilty verdict and I wonder if they had a song playing through their head. The reporters always make it sound as if the defendant has come face to face with his guilt and is feeling remorse, but I wonder...22

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A hot breeze blows through the open windows and I can’t decide if it’s welcome or not. It does little to relieve the heat, more to stir the dust. I turn the car off and sit in relative silence, listening to the ticking of the engine. I wonder if the Evian people realize the name of their product is ‘naive’ spelled backwards. I wonder if the guards will find the Beretta under the seat.24

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Seven men and two women lost their lives six months ago in a not-so-covert raid on a drug lord in South America. I was the CIA’s recon agent casing the estate; gathering information for the intended assault. I was the best at my job. That’s why I was sent. Rumors and actual documentation had been flowing into the agency for years about this guy. We had kept it low profile for a number of reasons, the most obvious being him or some of his sympathizers getting wind of it.26

I was dropped in at dusk about ten miles from the northern edge of the estate with a digital camera, an M-16 GAU assault rifle, starlight vision goggles and a laptop computer with a satellite connection directly to the agency. Heavily camouflaged, I made my way to the GPS coordinates through the woods. I circled the perimeter, noting the locations of guards and towers; the guy must have been paranoid as there were twenty-foot towers every hundred yards or so. The guards were complacent and never saw me. The grounds of the estate itself had been cleared of trees and brush leaving scabs of dried grass and tree stumps weathered gray with age and death. I waited until full dark to attempt to penetrate the grounds, making full use of every advantage I could.27

Night brought mosquitoes and invisible spider webs to torture me as I made my way to the estate. The grainy vision that the goggles provided threatened to give me a headache before I reached the perimeter but they were necessary as there was not even a sliver of moon present.28

I came within sight of a tower and zoomed the goggles in on it, checking to see if the guards in it might be wearing a device similar to the one I was using right then. The patrols were bunched together, smoking and laughing too loud. ‘Piece of cake’, I thought to myself as I duck-walked halfway between the two closest towers and into the grounds.29

The mansion was huge. A sprawling collage of buildings seemingly built at random and attached to each other by nearness alone. The main building was in the center surrounded by the others. I noticed narrow alleyways as I approached and felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck with the rush of adrenaline. It would be a deathtrap if I were discovered. I took out the camera and attached the patch cord that would enable it to use the starlight vision of my goggles and began to snap pictures of the buildings and the placements of guards.30

The night seemed to speed by, leaving me feeling jet lagged and tired as I made my way off the grounds to the cover of the woods outside. I connected the camera to the laptop and uploaded the pictures I’d taken so far. Not bad for only having been here twenty hours or so. I crawled into a dense copse of bushes gathered around a tree nearby, leaned up against the rough bark of the trunk and was asleep within minutes.31

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Sweat drips into my eye and I wipe it away, squinting from the sting of salt. The sun reflects off of the chrome and windshields of the cars around me in shards of brilliance, making spots and streaks dance in my vision. I close my eyes and see the patterns they’ve created beneath my eyelids.33

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Red.35

Light refracting through my closed eyes. I wake in a start, grasping for the 9 mm at my belt. I try to open my eyes but the light is blinding - painful to my dilated pupils. I peek through my eyelashes still groping for my weapon.36

A darkness rushes out of the light, slamming into the side of my face, driving me to the ground. Hands grab me and pull my arms behind me, twisting my shoulders. I kick out at them and my feet are pinned painfully under a crushing weight. My instincts take over and I think I’m screaming - it’s hard to tell. I know I want to scream or yell or something but the roaring in my ears from the kick to the side of my head deadens everything else. I’m handcuffed and dragged to my feet. The light is no longer shining fully into my face and I can barely see the four men armed with AK-47s in front of me. Two others are holding me by either arm, not really supporting me but leading me on toward the estate.37

We make our way through the narrow pathways between the buildings, silent except for the scuffing of our feet on the concrete walkways and the jingle of the straps on the rifles. I recognize the main building and I can guess what’s going to happen next. It’s been a possibility for me in my line of work for so long now that it holds no surprise - no shock - for me, now that it’s come to this. Death seems a companion that has always stood to one side, waiting. The sky lightens in the east as dawn arrives.38

A set of mahogany double doors swing open as we enter the visual range of the cameras mounted above them. I’m led up stairs to a room furnished with chairs and a large sectional sofa. The guards holding me throw me roughly onto the couch and I squirm around to get the handcuffs in a comfortable position. Two rifles are aimed at my chest and I sit quietly, feeling the bruise swell on the side of my face.39

After about a half an hour, a door opens and two large men precede a slim, well-groomed individual dressed in a tasteful and expensive suit.40

“So, this is our computer whiz,” he says, in a cultured American accent with a slight grin. I’m surprised not to hear even a trace of the South American accent I expected. I recognize him from the photos I studied in the briefing before being air dropped outside of his complex. Santiago, the drug lord. He motions to the guards that led me here and they hoist me from the couch, leading me into the room that Santiago is returning to.41

His office is stark to the point of being sterile. A modest desk, a couple of paintings and several chairs lined up against the wall make it seem uninspired. He sits behind his desk under flat fluorescent lighting as the guards stand me up in front of it.42

“We both know what is going on so there will be no questions about what you are doing here. I am not patient with those who would lie to me and I think I can interest you in a deal,” he tells me as he randomly shuffles and replaces already perfectly placed stacks of documents.43

I keep silent, waiting for the bullet or the knife in the back.44

He looks up directly into my eyes. The left one is swelling shut and my sight is blurring.45

“Jack,” he says, and I have to admit to myself that I’m a bit surprised that he knows my name. “I have an offer you can’t refuse. I know you will try to refuse it but, in the end, you will accept. You see, I know exactly where your wife and three kids are. It would be child’s play to gather them up and bring them here. Please, don’t waste my time. I have contacts in Virginia that are waiting to hear from me. Will you listen to my deal now?”46

“It seems I have no choice.”47

“You always have a choice, Jack. You just have to make the decision,” he says as he steeples his fingers in front of his chin.48

“I can listen.”49

He smiles and picks up a pen, twirling it through his fingers.50

“I need someone like you, Jack.” He keeps repeating my name like a technique to calm a growling dog. “I need someone on my side in your organization. The CIA is tough to infiltrate and I think you could be an asset to me. Pull up a chair and let us talk, shall we?”51

The conversation took over two hours to play out and, after I was cleaned up, I was released outside the estate to find my way to the extraction point.52

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I grip the steering wheel and close my eyes briefly against the pain of the heated plastic under my palms. My hands tighten and the burning spreads. The cars inch forward again and I start the engine, shift to drive and roll along with the rest.54

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Seven men. Two women. These weights ride me now. These chips I gambled with to win the safety of my family. I killed those soldiers as surely as if I had gunned them down myself. I can justify my actions right along with the best of them, knowing that my children would have died had I not done this thing. I want to take it all back but I know I’d do the same thing again, given the chance.56

Guilt? I can feel it. It’s right here behind my eyes. I could never face the families of those soldiers. Those mothers and fathers that raised their kids to die for their country in some foreign land because of a traitor. I can barely face myself in the mirror.57

Remorse? I feel that, too, but I think of my kids and I wonder that it doesn’t feel somehow sharper. I can forgive myself for what I did to those men and women but I could never forgive myself for what I might not have done to lose my kids.58

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I smile up at the guard as he asks to see my identification. Just another tourist waiting in line to get his kicks in Mexico.60

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