Day 115 and 116 – Writing Evercise

…

It was my second-to-last test before the final results of my year of in-field training were aggregated into a posting or an ignominious exit.

The last effort had been, as far as I was concerned, sabotaged by a colleague whose efforts were less than stellar, but had been schmoozing the test panel.

But, as someone else said, we cannot allow ourselves to believe the test panel would be so naive.

We should not have known who was on the test panel, but maybe that was also part of the test.  In the field, there were no panel members there to listen to your whining. You were on your own, or dead.

I sat alone that morning, not knowing who to trust.  Breakfast was a decent spread, worthy of a five-star hotel, but I had little appetite.  Two cups of strong black coffee and a scan of the morning newspaper.

The world was, as usual, still going to hell in a handbasket.  Page eight had a small piece about a missing scientist, one of several I’d read about over the last three months.

Patterns.

All seemed to have visited a nightclub, Ryker’s, in the seedier part of Boise, Idaho. 

Coincidence, maybe, but three of us had been given instructions to hole up in three separate three-star hotels that someone wanting to remain anonymous would stay at.

I had made the decision to have breakfast at an upmarket hotel and observe another class of people, just for a surveillance exercise.  I’d dressed up so that I’d fit in, channelling the lawyer/accountant vibe.

My cell phone was sitting nearby, waiting for the call.  It could be any time, or not for days.  We had to be able to deal with boredom and still stay honed.

It wasn’t easy.

The dining room was quite full.  For half an hour, guests and friends arrived and departed.  It was quite full, and wait staff were continuously threading their way, pouring coffee, taking orders, and being abused.

My waitress was amiable, even effervescent.  She smiled, filled the cup, and moved on.

As I watched her leave, I heard a scuffle nearby, and a body slid into the seat to my left.

A girl, mid-thirties, dyed blonde with dark roots, a recent change.  She wore a red blouse and a dark blue pantsuit.  Professional?

She turned to see me looking at her.  Usually, people ask before sitting down.

“Sorry.”  Breathless like she had been running.  I hadn’t seen her arrive.

She hadn’t brought anything with her.

Perhaps I should ask the question.  “Are you alright?”

She was scanning the entrance to the room, then stiffened.

I saw two men, one short, one medium, in cheap suits.  They were not police, perhaps private security.  They scanned the room, stopped at my table and without appearing to, moved quickly towards me.

“Oh, God.”  She looked as if she had seen the devil himself.

“Who are they?” I asked casually, keeping an eye on their progress.

“Trouble.”

“Do you need help?”

“You can’t…”

I shrugged.  As they approached, I stood.  I motioned for her to stay seated and raised a hand to my coffee waitress to come over.

The two men and the waitress arrived at the same time.  They took up positions that cut off the girl’s exit.  The look on my breakfast companion’s face was stark terror.

The waitress asked, “Coffee?”

“No.  Call the police.  The two men behind you are fugitives from a kidnapping my team have bren trackeing using this young lady as a decoy.”

I showed my FBI badge and showed it to the shorter man. “You don’t want to do this, especially with the CCTV cameras focused on you.”

“Walk away,” the short one said.

People were starting to notice, and a ripple was going through the room.  Police appeared at the entrance.  The waitress headed towards them quickly.  I had expected the two men to impede her progress.

The two men ran.  They headed for the nearest exit away from the policemen and disappeared from sight.  I put the ID away and sat.

The girl spoke to them and pointed in my direction, then in the direction the men had taken, and they followed them.  The waitress disappeared.

The girl did not look relieved in the slightest.  I said, “The police can deal with them.”

Another waiter stopped and filled our cups with black coffee and moved on.  It was as if nothing had happened, except there were a few looking and guessing at what had happened. I said, “Exactly how did you end up here?”

“Are you really FBI?”

“In a manner of speaking.”  I noticed then a purple mark on her wrist.  “What is that in your arm?”

She hid it.  “Nothing.”

“It’s something that might save you. What is it?”

“A pass-out stamp from a nightclub.”

“Ryker’s?”

She sucked in her breath and went on the defensive.  “It’s nothing to do with this?”

“Are you a scientist?”

“Who are you?”  She stood.  “I’ve got to go.”

I stood.  “Fine.  But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong?”

“No.  I can’t.” 

She took two steps, then stopped.  I think we both had the same thought.  Those men had not left; they were waiting for her to leave.  Somewhere outside the building.

She said quietly, “Not here.”

…

We left in the opposite direction from the two men.  I walked slightly in front of her, protecting her as I had been shown to do in similar situations.

The thought crossed my mind that this was a simulation, and I was surrounded by some of the best actors I’d seen, too good for our usual simulations.  They were second-year graduates honing their skills.

I had a gun, a license to carry, and instructions never to use it in plain sight.  I nearly broke that rule.

At the doorway, I checked and rechecked the perimeter and considered the possible four locations where they could be.  I didn’t think they’d attack inside the building, not the way they left in a hurry, their cover blown.

And on CCTV.  That was bad enough.  I was on it too.  But, here’s the thing.  How often do you find yourself in a situation that is so random, it’s unexplainable?

No unusual movement and no heads peeking from behind walls.  If it were me, I’d call for reinforcements and stake out every entrance and exit.

Movement, just in the corner of my eye.  Or not. 

Batten down the nerves and go back to basics.

Don’t stand still, keep moving, steady but not fast enough to attract attention.  Look purposeful, like you have somewhere to be, and above all, look like you know where you’re going.

But…

New city, no time to check the necessary information about it, the hotel, the exits, how to leave without being seen.  That was going to be my after-breakfast task.

I should have done it yesterday when I arrived.

Then a thought: basement.  All hotels had a basement.

Towards the back, stairs.  Down.  Through the lobby.  Damn.  I shook my head.

“We have to go down.  Via the lobby.”

“They’ll be waiting.”

She was right.  We needed a diversion.

I said a small prayer, crossed the passage and broke the fire alarm, setting it off.  Then we headed through the lobby.

She was right.  But they had not expected us to cross from front to back, but from back to front.  They got caught on the exodus heading for the front door, after we got through to the stairs.

And down, down a corridor and into the kitchen, through to the rear entrance left ajar so the smokers could get in and out.

It was where we would leave the building.

Just as bullets pinged off the wall above our heads as we exited.  I dove to the right behind a dumpster, dragging her with me, hearing her groan as we hit the ground, as more bullets pinged off the metal bin.

I pulled out my gun and fired several random shots in their direction, and the volley ended.

From the frying pan into the fire…

The door opened behind me, and several bullets hit the wall. Someone returned fire, then the alley went quiet.

Then, “You can come out now.”

The waitress.

We both got up off the ground and came out to see the waitress, who was no longer a waitress.  She showed us a State Police department badge.  “Detective Somers, who the hell are you two?”

“Agent Alex Pettigrew, FBI.  I think I’ve stumbled into something I don’t want to know about.”

The girl, “Professor Jane Blanch, neither of you has clearance high enough to ask any more questions.”

“And those two men?”

“You don’t want to know,” Jane said. She looked at Somers.  “Are they dead?”

“I hope not.  They have a thousand questions to answer.  Look,” she said to me.  “Just wrap yourself up and leave, and don’t come back.  This is not your jurisdiction.”

“As right as that might sound in your head as the right thing to say, it is not.  Whatever just happened is symptomatic of something much, much larger and is not going away.  It has something to do with Ryker’s Nightclub, science, and research.  Jane is not the first scientist to disappear from that cohort.”

“Pack it up and walk away, FBI man.  This is not your rodeo.”

“You going to save this woman?  There’ll be more where those two came from.”

“That’s my job.  You can leave it with me.  Miss.”  She had her hand in the Professor’s arm.”

The Professor looked at me.  “Thanks.”

“You feel safe with the Detective?”

“Of course.  Thank you again.”

…

Convenient.

When something doesn’t feel right, it generally isn’t.

As I watched them head down the alley, I had a bad thought.  What if what I saw was just a show?  This was the trouble distinguishing between what was real and what was training.

More than once, I’d say, in the post mission review after a training session and have my ass handed to me in a sling.

Do not trust anything or anyone.  The enemy will come to you dressed in any disguise, as your friend, as someone you can trust.  And thirty seconds later, they end up with a bullet between the eyes.

You rarely saw the bullet that had your name on it.

I waited until they were out of sight and followed discreetly.  I noted they did not go back into the hotel.

Jurisdictional issues were common.  County and State police pulled jurisdiction on what they called their patch.  We were not supposed to pull rank and were obliged to advise local authorities if we were working their patch.

Sometimes we didn’t have time.

I should be expecting a phone call if a different sort after breaking cover.  If the detective decided to call it, or if the detective was a detective.

I reached the end of the alleyway and stopped.  Should I have a weapon ready or just poke my head around the corner? 

This could go wrong in so many ways.

Ideally, there would be no one there.  The remote chance, the two men, the bogus detective and the girl were waiting.

I peered around the corner.

Two police cars, four officers, the detective and the girl standing by one of the cars.  No flashing lights, so not an active situation.

The detective was on her cell phone.

Not my problem.

But…

Where were the people who were shooting at us?  If there were police at the end of the alley, the fact that there were shooters in an urban environment would have led to lights and perpetrators under arrest.

There were no shooters anywhere, and they certainly had time to get away.

I leaned against the wall.  It had to be a simulation, and I failed because I had let the girl go into what was potentially a life-threatening situation.

My cell phone vibrated.  Yes, I’d learned the lesson about having an active or loud ringtone, exposing my presence.

No one else knew this number.  It was the bad news.

“Yes?”

“You have passed the final test and are being assigned under your FBI cover name.  We received a call from Somers, a detective with ISP investigations, to verify your identity.  You identified a possible kidnap victim, one of several in the past six months, and prevented a possible situation.”

“It was several notices in various newspapers.  I had no idea it was going to happen or if it meant anything.  She just sat at my table.”

“Not in your hotel.”

“Boring breakfast, sir.”

“A coincidence that just got you into the service.  Now you need to prove you belong there.  She’s waiting around the corner.  Good to see you didn’t trust that she was who she said she was, but I’m not going to ask what you intended to do if there was a problem.”

“Neither did I.  Good thing you called.”

Silence.  Perhaps flippancy wasn’t the way to go.

“Report through the usual channels.  We will update your cell with your support teams.  Good luck.”

I sighed, more in relief than anything else.  Then I pocketed the phone and walked around the corner.

She was expecting me.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026