Samuel Black

CHAPTER 5

I woke up at 3am the next morning with my heart hammering. My face and my pillow were drenched in cold sweat and I was breathing heavily. Parts of my dream...no my nightmare came back to me in flashing images. My mother's unconscious body being carried away by two men in suits. I lay there weak and unable to help. I drank a glass of water and tried to go back to sleep but I just couldn't. I lay there staring at the ceiling absent mindedly till the sun finally came up and woke me up from sleep that I don't remember falling into. I dragged my body to the bathroom to brush my teeth and take a shower.

         For some reason, the table was laid with a full English breakfast by the time I got there on my way out. I tactfully ignored that little detail and tried to get to the front door as inconspicuously as possible, but because my life is my life, that wasn't successful. Agent Brown materialized in front of me and asked me to sit for breakfast. I didn't want to be rude so  shoved my way past her and out the door. I dropped by the office to have a stealth and surveillance team organized. It took longer than expected, but eventually they came and I was ready. Our base of operations was a beat up old Mercedes-Benz  van that has its license plate registered to a Washington based telecommunications company. For half an hour, we were parked in the parking lot of a Starbucks trying to trace the last signal received. It wasn't easy, but eventually we got it.

       We were about to leave when there was a loud knock on the door of the van. I furrowed my eyebrows in surprise and awe. I started to panic when one of the agents started to open the door and I  definitely didn't stop panicking when I saw that it was David. I looked around in disgust trying to figure  out why he was there. He came in, shut the door behind him and took a seat. I silently prayed that the disappointment wasn't obvious on my face. Every time I set eyes on that boy, I fell deeper into depression. It was like a curse I was forced to bear. "You have the signal?" David asked an agent right beside me. She nodded and answered "Yes sir." There was a slight jerk as we started to move. I sat down and pretended to be looking at something important on my phone.

          We drove for an hour and a half and came to a stop on the side of the road. One of the agents turned to look in my direction. "This is the last place the signal was received. Its either the tracker f ell off, or there was electronic intervention. I set some agents out to scan the area for the tracking device but it wasn't there. We decided to continue down the next turn. Half a mile down, I was informed that all the houses on the close were owned by the same organization. Thirteen snipers were accounted for with several close circuit security cameras mounted all over the place, and there was a disarmed minefield all the way down the street. Satellite views showed that there was an entire private army of fifty men protecting the mansion at the end of the road. David had already started making plans to penetrate their perimeter.

       "Wait. how do we know that id where Khelani and her mother live?" Sadly I didn't win that battle. I was made to call her to meet up at the café and barely ten minutes after, she left the house. At that moment, all that I was ready to do was get out of the van and head home. I had begun to ross the road when David caught up with me. He followed me across the street and blocked my path. "Lets just go home. This is boring." Surprisingly, I didn't feel like arguing with him so I just let him tag along. We started walking again when we heard and felt an huge explosion. We turned around and saw the van... or at least what was left of it blackened and burning with thick black smoke billowing out from every possible corner. David and I hurried away as fast as possible. if there was any chance we were being targeted, it would be a major compromise.

        By the time we made it to the next block the news vans were already speeding towards the site. "Oh shit" I turned to look at David. Khelani was waiting for me. She was already there tucking into  chocolate croissant by the time I arrived. She and I spoke for a while but I had to make a quick exit when I realized there were people surveilling us. I made my exit through the kitchen and out the back door, took a detour through the beach and the mall before going home through a secret entrance under my back wall. I had to make sure that I wasn't being followed. The van being blown up was an unpleasant awakening and several precautions had to be taken. Somehow, somebody knew about the van and maybe I was being paranoid but something was telling me that there was a mole in the agency. There were only a handful of people that could be trusted.

       The next morning, I once more found myself in a meeting room with David and my boss. Usually, I wouldn't be too opinionated and vocative in a meeting nut this time I decided to stand up for Khelani to be left out of it as much as possible. if only I had known that wouldn't be a long term arrangement. I decided that blurting out my mole conspiracy theory to even these two people might be a huge mistake that could destroy me and could set a potentially dangerous person on my tail. I met with Khelani later on in the evening not at the café but at the movies. We watched a movie and had some pastries and spoke. She complained of all the drama at home and how she didn't want to go home. I couldn't let her sleep in a hotel suite all by herself so, I did the only responsible thing to do. I let her stay at my house. Don't judge me.