The Grey Area (Book 1)

Crash and Burn

CHAPTER 5

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."-John Stuart Mill                    

11th September, present

“Whoa. All this was going on next door?” Sib was startled. “The commander seriously came to call on you guys?”        

Ali nodded. “Uh-huh. And that wasn’t all. He decided to come and make sure 75064 was dead this time…”

11th September 2001

5:55 a.m.                   

I looked over at Commander Ackbar as I drove north on Route 12 to Watertown. The commander was the only one to permanently go by a name to set the commander apart from everyone else. Ackbar was different, though. Nobody could remember what his number was and what had really happened to the previous commander, Jane Reynolds. Karı had had a theory that he was Usama, the man we were assigned to find and kill not long after Commander Reynolds vanished. “Do you know why 75064 came here?”          

He sighed. “We think he may want vengeance on the living agents that returned him to the unit. This means you two agents are his targets. Here is your chance to redeem yourselves. You failed to keep him last time. Easier to keep a corpse than a living nightmare: the perfect spy. If you should happen to fail…”          

Ackbar didn’t have to finish the sentence, because if you failed a mission, you die. Simple enough to understand, even a kid would get it.

All I had to do was ensure his death to ensure my survival. With Phoenix, that would be tricky.          

“So, I heard you almost dropped a box on a colleague’s foot a while back. How is the O’Rourke family doing these days? Oh, don’t look so surprised, Agent. We know everything, remember?”          

I turned off 12 onto Public Square, admiring the fountain. It was lit with lights in the basin, casting interesting shadows on State Street’s pavement.          

It was six A.M one fateful Tuesday morning, and the chaos had yet to begin.

September 11th, present          

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” - Abraham Lincoln       

“So why did a wanted man go hide in a court complex in Watertown? That doesn’t make sense!” Sib was incredulous.

“He hid in a court complex that had people inside day in and day out, and nobody noticed?”          

“Well, nobody knew he was wanted, seeing as the man doesn’t exist legally. None of us exist except under the names we are known by, and those people are dead. We never existed except at Inferno, and that doesn’t exist anymore. We just are, an experimental project gone twisted. I can see why he ran.” Ali stepped off the curb and hailed a cab. “It was wrong of him to run off, yes, but I can’t see why I wanted to go running back, now that I’ve tasted the true nature of the Unit.”