“Well fuck me sideways, you did it again! That’s twice now, pal!”
Norman exclaimed while looking at one of the paintings on the wall of the cabin’s living area.
“Your whole fucking cell gone, yet you still stand. How the fuck do you pull that off, you cripple?”
He chuckled and leaned in closer to the canvas, squinting at the painted deer, surrounded by the hunting dogs.
“That one’s a goner… Did Jude have the same startled look in his eyes?”
Nancy walked over from the kitchen area, carrying two glasses and sat down on the lounge next to Jason. She poured two vodkas, one for Norman, one for herself. Jason’s glass was still full. She looked over at him, with a slight sad smile, but couldn’t hide the worried look in her eyes.
“Are you ok? You seem more… together… than last time”
She looked around the cabin. Jason had taken the time over the last few days to give the place a thorough clean. After his extended period of self-pity, he had decided it was time to get thing back on track. Getting rid of all the rubbish and scrubbing the floors felt like a good place to start.
He nodded.
“Yeah, I’m ok. It… doesn’t really affect me, to be honest. Jude and Jasper had been overstretched for a while now. I knew it during Monolith, Jude tried to shoot me after he lost it, and after killing Joshua I think he would never recover. Jasper…”
Jason picked up his glass and looked at the ice-cubes clinking together.
“I have no clue where Jasper is, but I have indicated to A-cell to burn any links tying us to Jasper and clear all Green Boxes known to him. Those guys may have killed him, but at the same time they may have brainwashed him, and plan to use him against us.”
He drank a good measure of the Smirnoff.
“Anyway… I had given both of them an out, they didn’t want to take it. I was willing to give Jasper a bit of a break, he wasn’t as far gone as Jude…”
“…And he WAS right about the water…” Norman snorted
“Yes, that he was…” A slight smile appeared on Jason’s lips, but disappeared quickly, to be replaced by a frown.“Both of them were cowboys. Jude going against the rules each and every time, taking his own gun and vest all the time, risking exposure. Jasper pulling Bill in like that…” Jason shook his head.
“So… what happened with Bill?” Nancy asked.
“The usual. I took him for a drive, gave him the basic drill, telling him to keep his mouth shut, you know how it works when Friendlies get pulled in. I passed his details on to A-cell, they’re checking the guy out. He’s seen more than enough to rope him in, and was reliable under fire, facing the shit we were up against. I think he’d be a good asset.”
“Would have been kinder to retire them in the back of the car, but you’re right, we’re always short of meat for the grinder.” Norman leaned forward to pick up his drink and tapped on the envelope and box. “What’s this?”
Jason looked at the items, then back to the fire.
“I had decided to retire Jude after this Op. He was deadest to continue in the field, not in the slightest interested in taking a tutorial role and being reassigned to Friendly level. He wanted “a Last Op” as he put it. I tried to shield him during Magenta, not for his own benefit, but for the safety of the rest of the team. Last thing I needed was for him to go berserk and take one of us out. Then, at the barn I decided it would be best to use him… rather than risk Knight. Or Jasper.”
“Yeah, and the only reason you didn’t volunteer for the job is because you probably couldn’t even get on that ladder with your gimpy leg…” Norman grinned.
Jason ignored him and continued, looking at the box and envelope
“I had already planned an option in case he would survive Magenta. A-cell has this philosophy about keeping agents as long as possible in the field, because of lack on manpower, but at the same time they lose people just because of that. Bit of a catch-22 that I decided to break before it broke J-cell.”
He slid the items across the table to Norman, who opened the envelope first. From it, he pulled a number of faxed sheets that he laid out on the table. They looked like an FBI case file, supplemented with autopsy pictures.
Jason got up and stretched, his hand on the solid oak mantelpiece.
“You may remember me telling you way back about what happened during Sanctum? How Jude came back and gave me a mouthful? How he all but said he’d have killed me if I had taken out those kids? How he drugged them and we drove them back to Boston, then left them sleeping in the van so a different cell could sort the aftermath out? I never had any illusions as what would happen in the end.”
He nodded at the envelope’s contents
“Turns out I was wrong. It wasn’t a clean-up crew that disposed of the kids. Just over a week or so after Sanctum I got a call from Jagger. All edgy, needed to talk. He told me how he had been contacted by A-cell for another Op, right after Sanctum.” Jason bent over and pulled a single sheet from the others, so Norman and Nancy could read it.
After a few moments, giving them time to read the briefing, he continued.
“So… Jagger did the autopsies, and, as you can see in the copies of the official reports, he reported smoke inhalation. The kids had been dropped off back to the orphanage by the other cell and were found by the authorities. Case closed, kids died in the fire, nothing to see here. But that’s not what had happened. Jagger told me what he actually had found. The five bodies were malnourished and all had minor, old to recent, non-lethal, torture wounds. They ranged in age from 3 to 5 years old. Jagger said they had traces of Acepromazine still present in their system that would have credited to their deaths. They just never woke up.”
In the silence, the only thing that could be heard was the ticking of the old clock and the crackling of the fire.
“So… Jude had insisted on drugging them, using the stuff we had planned to use on the dog, and had overdone it. Killed 5 kids. I told Jagger to keep it quiet and not mention it to anyone else. There would be a time and place for this. So, after I saw him back on the Magenta Op, and noticed that the break hadn’t had a positive effect on him to recover, I decided to use it as backup after the Op.”
Nancy raised an eyebrow, not sure what he meant. Jason nodded to the small box, which Norman was just about to open. Inside was a .38 revolver.
“In case the Op was a success, and Jude was still alive, I planned to find a secluded spot and send Jude unarmed into the woods with the envelope and the box. The gun only has one bullet in it. I expected the contents would have sent him over the edge, perhaps killing himself, perhaps going berserk again and coming for me or the other. I would have made sur that the others would be notified that I expected Jude to lose it and come back, trying to kill us, and that they should prepare to take him out.”
Noticing Nancy’s incredulous look, he emptied his glass.
“Like I said, Jude made it clear to me he would have killed me if I harmed those kids. Only seemed fitting he would reserve the same judgement for himself…”
Norman gathered the papers and put them back in the envelope, then got up with a wide grin and looked at Nancy.
“Kids… they grow up so quickly!”
He handed the envelope to Jason, who chucked it into the fireplace, no longer in need of the contents. As Nancy and Norman left, he washed his glass in the sink, looking outside into the darkness of the night. Now, there was one other thing to take care of…
Once the embers in the fire had gone out, he closed and locked the door and left the empty hunting lodge, in the middle of nowhere.
***
Jason dialed the number on the landline, listening to the ring tone at the other end. After about 5 rings, someone at the other side picked up.“Sue? I need you to listen and pay attention, so don’t hang up. I have thought about our last conversation, and how you wanted me to sign the papers giving you full custody of Emily… Yes, hang on and hear me out. It’s not going to happen…”
He stopped for a second, listening to the barrage of abuse that was thrown at him.
“Okay… here’s the story. You’re an accomplice in a federal crime. If you open your mouth, I’ll drag you down with me. If it doesn’t result in jail time for you, it will at least damage your reputation, and you’ll be able to forget about the rest of your career when this hits the papers, and believe me, I'll make sure it does... I don’t think any of this will be of benefit to our daughter. And think what it will do to the old man, he thinks the world of you…”
He stopped for a moment to let it sink in with his ex-wife
“So… we’ll keep things as they are, and there will be no more mention of this in the future. You only have yourself to blame for this, I wouldn’t have resorted to it if you didn’t try to blackmail me with custody. Goodnight.”
He hung up and looked around as he put his coat on and took his keys. Now it was time to make some changes at work. Get back in the good books. While waiting for the next Op.
