Shot Through

The sky changed color. 

Moments before, it had been a rich cobalt blue and now it was more of a pale lavender shot through with splashes of peach. 

Lavender? 

Peach? 

Fuck. 

Could not believe it. No way. 

I checked my watch. 

Where was my watch? 

And why was I so cold? 

Where was I? 

Oh...right. 

I rolled over on my right side to check my six. 

Big mistake. 

I've been all kinds of sore in my life. Comes with the territory, but the day-in-day-out irritation of arthritis get to you. It gets in your head and changes your whole world view. Everything is different, everything starts with a capital letter: Temperature, Humidity, Calendar, Birthday, Doctor, Drug Store. 

Worse still, it changes “why not” into “why.” Why not take the dog for a walk, or climb to the roof of Notre Dame to see the gargoyles becomes a calculation, a risk versus benefit assessment that can destroy you. 

When I rolled over, my whole right side lit up like a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. 

I was awake now. 

Fuck. 

Slowly, I raised my head above the knoll. 

No Fire Department, no evidence of anything. 

The only constant was the wind and the traffic noise from the expressway. 

Far off, a couple of dogs were barking like characters in a Pinter play. One would bark, there would be a pause, and then the other would seem to answer back. And, like all Pinter characters, it was hard to tell if they were communicating, or just in love with the sound of their own voices. 

I could see a guy running up the street toward the place where the car had crashed. He wasn't really running. It seemed like he was being pulled along by the momentum of his arms as they punched the air in front of him. He was a compact rectangle of a man and reminded me of Popeye the Sailor. 

In one of his tightly clenched fists, Popeye held a well-worn yardstick that was attached to a sign reminding anyone who had the bad luck to be up at this hour that Jesus forgives. 

This hour...? What time was it? 

And where was my watch? 

I checked my pockets. 

What was all this shit...? 

Oh...right. 

I unearthed my phone and turned it back on. 

Risky I know, but I needed to know what time it was. I had to know how far in front of me they were. 

I became more anxious as I waited for the damn thing to power up. We went to the moon on less computing power than is being used to run this launch diagnostic and yet I am ready to throw the fucking thing into the swimming pool it doesn't come alive instantly and be able to intuit my every desire. 

The phone seemed to sense my growing frustration as it began to vibrate in about the same staccato cadence as those two far-off dogs. 

One-by-one, the screen of my phone filled up with messages. And then it was two screens worth before it finally loaded the time. 

Fuck. 

I was out about two hours. 

They could be in another time zone by now. 

Can't chase fly balls. Time to focus on the ground game. 

I headed into the wooded area between the pool and the street to look for any evidence I could find. They may be long gone, but there would be some evidence. I just had to find it. 

I started on the perimeter and worked my way in in ever-smaller concentric circles. I looked for anything out of place, anything added, or taken away. 

I didn't expect to find anything. 

They send a pro, they're paying for no traces. 

And there weren't any. 

This guy was good. 

I corkscrewed my way to the dead center and all I found were some random bits of trash—crushed beer cans and discarded fast food containers—all of which seemed to have been there for more than twenty-four hours. 

That surprised me. A swank place like this, you'd expect they'd do a better job of cleaning up than this. What if a member happened to walk back here? 

Outta sight, outta mind. 

I heard a door slam across the street. 

Time to move. 

Not that I was doing anything wrong, but it wouldn't do for some civilian to remember me standing there staring at the dirt. 

Hospital parking lot. That would be my next chance to find something. 

Slowly, deliberately, I backed out of the wooded area and toward the pool house. 

At the pool house, I turned left and followed the paved golf cart path around the green at Eighteen and off toward the driving range. 

I heard another car door slam and, when I turned my head to see from what direction it had come, I about tripped over a small pine branch that had been laying in the middle of the path. 

What the--? 

That didn't.... 

I quickly scanned the area and, not surprisingly, there wasn't a pine to be found. In fact, the only pines in the area were.... 

I quickened my pace. 

They were still two hours ahead, but now I had something to work with. 

The golf cart path ended abruptly at the driving range. To my right, the indifferently marked distances stood up like fishing shacks on a frozen green lake. To my left, one of the ugly one-storey buildings that made up the Hospital's doctors park. 

In front of me, there was all kinds of activity in the Hospital parking lot. Car after car pulled in and seemed to fill every available spot. It was like an amusement park for seniors and the most popular rides were about to open. 

An airport-style shuttle bus cruised up and down the rows to pick up those who might have had trouble walking to the door. 

One more shambling older person was not going to draw too much attention. 

I was trying to figure out how I was going to find what I was looking for when the shuttle bus purred to a stop next to me and the driver motioned me aboard. And then it came to me. 

I told him some story about not being able to find my car.

 He welcomed me aboard agreeing that it was much harder to tell the cars apart these days. He couldn't abandon his pick-ups, but he felt certain that, in between trips to the door, we would cover most of the lot. 

I thanked him and slumped into a seat across the aisle from him grateful that the heat was on and the seats were upholstered. 

True to his word, up and down, up and down, we covered the whole lot. 

Along the way, we'd stop by cars that were unloading their passengers and offer a ride to the door. It was surprising how often we were greeted with hostility and suspicion. Did we think that these would-be passengers were somehow impaired? How much did it cost? Why was the hospital offering? 

To the driver's credit, he was unfailingly courteous and respectful. 

And then I saw it. 

It was a work car, no question. 

Key feature of a work car is that it's invisible. Not bullshit movie invisible, invisible as in it disappears into the background. You take no notice because there is nothing to notice. 

And, as in most things, context is crucial. Where you are going to work determines what kind of a car you work out of. You can spot the unmarked cop cars because while they don't look exactly like cop cars, they also don't look like any other car parked in the neighborhood. 

What was it still doing here?   That didn't make any sense.   You don't leave stuff like that behind, especially if a job goes sideways. 

We drove past the staff parking area and a line of cars with the Hospital's parking sticker in the lower left corner of the rear window. Blue and white, blue and white, blue and white, green and white, blue and--, wait a minute. 

I told the driver that I thought maybe I had seen my car over in the opposite corner of the lot and he cheerfully offered to take me back over there. 

Along the way, he told me about some diet his wife's sister had told him about that was supposed to help with memory. 

I thanked him for the tip. 

I directed the driver to stop in front of a small pick-up parked in the middle of the very first row, about half-way between the light poles. I needed as much cover as possible. 

I thanked him again and got off the bus. 

I went through an elaborate pantomime looking for my non-existent keys thinking that the bus driver would go on about his business. 

The bus didn't move. 

I thanked him again and said something about not wanting to keep him. 

It was no problem, he assured me. 

A car pulled into the row. A potential passenger. A dilemma for the driver: help me or go for the pick-up. 

I pretended to drop my keys. 

The driver started to get out of the bus. 

I assured him I was okay. 

Reluctantly, he relented and continued on his way. 

I kicked off one of my shoes and pulled the lace. 

I pulled myself back to my feet and, after making certain the bus driver was out of range, I twisted off the gas cap. From the windshield, I removed one of the wiper blades and tied one end of the lace to it. 

I quickly stuffed the wiper blade into the gas tank as far as it would go hoping that the truck's owner had a close to full tank. 

While it wasn't full, it was full enough. 

From another pocket, I pulled out a pair of the gopher bombs I took from the maintenance barn. 

I tied one end of the damp lace around the twin fuses. 

Nobody who got downwind of the truck would believe it was on fire, but I wasn't worried about them, I was playing for the cameras. 

Just in case anyone was watching, I pretended to drop my keys a second time. 

This time, I disappeared under the truck and placed the gopher bombs right at the base of the firewall and lit the fuse. 

Out from under the truck and out of my coat. It was cold and damp, but I needed to have a different look for this next part. 

Keeping low, I moved as quickly as possible between the cars and across the rows. Behind me, I could hear the hiss as a cloud of sulfurous smoke leaked out from around the pick-up. 

I was about half-way across the lot when the first Hospital security vehicle arrived at the truck and all the way across by the time the Fire Department showed up. 

Next stop, the loading dock. 

In their trash compactor, waiting to be run through were several wooden freight pallets. I rescued one of them from certain death. 

Using the narrow space between the compactor and the edge of the dock, I worked the pallet back and forth until I could lever one of its planks free. 

It took some more time to straighten the splayed nails. I only needed one sharp point. 

Back to the staff parking lot. 

The cloud of smoke still lingered in the beam of the parking lot lights. The sulfur made it smell less like a hospital and more like a pulp mill. 

I was running out of time. 

The work car not only had the wrong parking sticker, it also had temporary license plates indicating that it had just been purchased earlier that week. 

From what I could see, the inside was remarkably clean: too clean. 

I used my piece of wood to break the back passenger window.   Fortunately, there was no alarm. 

Reaching in, I unlocked the driver's door and slid in behind the wheel. 

I searched all the obvious places. 

Nothing. 

I had nothing. 

As I slid out of the seat, I felt something scrape across by butt. 

I snapped on my flashlight once I was again outside the car. 

No idea how it got there, but there is was. 

Had this all been some sort of elaborate feint? A test of some kind? Were we still just warming up? 

Out of reflex, I stood up and looked around. I wasn't going to see them, but I knew they would be watching me. 

Definitely time to go. 

Time to get the dog and get lost. 

I turned back to car and picked up my watch.

The Paper Strip

The sound of the damp night air rushing through the carefully curated collection of trees that lined the fairways mixed with the incessant low roar of traffic from the nearby expressway to almost make you think you were in the deep woods on an autumn night.

The dull discomfort of the bones in my right hip wearing on each other reminded me that my deep woods days had long since passed me by.

Head down.

Work to be done.

The clubhouse was maybe a hundred yards from the maintenance barn, but to get there without being seen and without running into whoever might be out there, meant having to cover about half the course. Down more fairways and across more greens until I could get to the far side of the clubhouse and the spot where I thought he might be.

Might have been.

He wouldn't still be there.

Of course not. He'd have bugged out as soon as he could after making sure that he hadn't been spotted.

That's what a pro would do.

That's what I would do.

No, there would be nothing to find and that would be the measure of how good he was.

But I had to go look, so I could tell what I was up against.

I remember sitting in class and listening to the old-timers talk about the wild west days. The days when they could take things and drop people—take people and drop things—and sign their work. People knew they had been played and by whom.

But those days were a long time ago.

Turns out, it's a small world after all and people feel ever so much safer if they think we can all just get along.

Signature became a bad word. Signing your work would get you bounced. Signing your work might get you arrested.

We'd play a guy and he would absolutely know he had been played, but he could never be certain by whom.

This was so important in our work that they started us out on clean-up right after graduation.

All this specialized training that maybe a school bus full of people have in the whole country and the first thing they do is put a broom in your hand and put you to work cleaning up other people's shit.

That's all I did for the first five years.

We'd go in after the fact and leave when it looked like it did before the fact. We sanitized safe houses, disposed of work cars and made certain that there was no track-back to our teams.

Sometimes a job would be as simple as sweeping up and disposing of the perishables. Sometimes, there was a lot that had to happen before we could slip the strip on the toilet seat.

And we didn't just clean up after our people, we backstopped a whole alphabet soup of other agencies. Sometimes they asked for our help, and some times they got our help and never even knew it.

It's not flashy work, but our paper strip kept the thermostat under control during a lot of the Cold War.

Part science, part craft: a good cleaning is a work of art and once you understand the skill set, you can appreciate the work.

It takes a cleaner to spot a cleaner.

I crawled to the top of a grassy knoll that framed the first tee.

From my vantage point, I could see the club's pool the foreground, behind that was the changing house, behind that was the dark void of trees where my dog had heard something,and beyond that was the street full of Fire Department vehicles.

Now I was seeing it from a whole new perspective. I was seeing it like he saw it.

The void was maybe an acre in size with club buildings on one side and private homes on the other. Access would have been simple. They could have parked in the hospital parking lot that formed it's southwestern border, breached the course fence and then hiked in much the same way I had.

Getting out would be harder.

People were up now.

Curious or not, the presence of the Fire Department had turned the entire neighborhood into witnesses and there would be no way of knowing who was watching what.

He wouldn't be able to run. The sudden movement would catch somebody's eye.

He'd have to back out slowly, very slowly.

He'd have started that almost immediately after the Fire Department showed up.

Could be out by now.

He's probably out.

Although....

Covering his tracks would take time. Slow him down.

And he would have to do it, because sooner or later the police would see the high caliber slug in the car's engine block and they would know exactly where to look.

I had a pretty good idea of the path he would have to take. I ticked off the things I would have to do in order to clean my way out of the scene and estimated how long that would take.

He could still be in there.

Inching his way slowly back toward the pool building.

Checking constantly for any trace that might have been left.

Brushing the ground to obliterate any trace of his body.

Making sure the no stones were turned over.

Yeah, he was still in there.

I decided to wait him out. Tail him back to his vehicle and see what other intel I could get.

I learned a long time ago that some stains you have to let set, before you start to clean.

The Go/No-Go Line

I doubled back down the alley.

I could hear the Fire Department radio traffic coming from the emergency vehicles to my left. Never understood why they had to monitor the radio while they were supposed to be devoting their full attention to whatever it was that brought them out in the first place. Perhaps they were only killing time until a better emergency came along.

I had a long walk ahead of me and the longer they stayed on-scene, the better. The lights, the sounds, the prospect of catastrophic personal injury were enough to keep inquiring minds from paying too much attention to me.

I paused at the cross-street and waited long after I needed to before crossing into the next block and following that alley to the fence.

I say “fence” but it really didn't present much of a barrier. It was more of a compromise, an impression of a border that did little to protect the property, but gave legitimacy to claims of trespass, should the Club choose to prosecute.

Trespass seemed to be a significant concern to the Club and its members judging by the license plate style signs that were nailed to every other section of the fence. But even the signs themselves seemed to acknowledge their irrelevance. They were still legible, but it seemed as though they were retired from their primary function and had embarked on a second career as collectors of rust and examples of illegibility.

I made it to the end of the alley and again I waited and I watched.

Had I been made?

Was I being followed?

What were my options?

To my right, I could see the light bar of a police car parked across the intersection and blocking access to the accident scene.

On my left, I could see some of the houses had contributed their occupants to the floor show audience. One couple in calf-length heavy coats and fuzzy slippers had been so forward thinking as to bring their folding chairs and cellphones: they were in for the duration and providing play-by-play for distant friends.

Ahead of me was the comforting gloom of the golf course.

There wasn't much in the way of cover, but once I was far enough beyond the reach of the light pollution, I'd be okay.

As I made my way across greens and along the edges of the fairways, I took another inventory of my pockets: poop sacks and a flashlight, keys, wallet and phone.

Phone.

I had been sold by some ponytail-wearing “genius” on buying a smart phone that would solve all my problems even before I knew I had any. It would remember where I parked and tell me where I was going and what I was supposed to do when I got there. The twenty-first century Swiss Army knife and it was useless to me.

If it could talk to me, it was capable of talking to others about me.

I should have ditched it right there, but I couldn't escape the idea that it might come in handy even if I didn't know precisely how. Instead, I turned it completely off, retraced a portion of my steps and then set off in a slightly different direction.

In stark contrast to the imperial elegance of the nearby clubhouse, the grounds keeper's buildings were drab, workman-like affairs built as cheaply as possible. A country club lives or dies on the experience it provides to its members and the people responsible for that experience are given a shitty pole barn to work out of? Didn't make any sense.

I took a moment to survey the perimeter.

There was an underground power line feeding the building, but there was also a lone delicate strand of wire running in lazy swags from the building, along the driveway, toward the clubhouse.

I took another look at the building.

It was cheap and hastily built, but it was new enough that if they had bothered to bury the power lines then they would have the phone lines at the same time.

Once more around the building.

I saw it this time: the keypad on the corner next to a side door.

It was going to be all about the response time.

Police were only a couple of blocks away. If they got the call, they could be on the scene in a matter of seconds. If they got the call.

They wouldn't, at least not right away.

I had watched scenes like this play out too many times. The patrol sergeant would have assigned the road blocks and that, by itself, would have made for a big night; a welcome break from paperwork and patrol and the endless personnel problems.

An accident with injuries in a wealthy part of town and he would be hell-bent on making a good impression and demonstrating leadership. Careers are made on how opportunities such as this are handled.

A second call would be a challenge, a departure from the textbook. Does he pull his road blocks, or take more resources off the street?

What are the odds it's a false alarm?

If more units get involved, would his role in controlling the scene be as apparent?

That would get me critical time. Question was, could I find what I needed before the patrol sergeant figured out what he needed?

If I was a betting man, I would have wagered that there would be no response. If I was a betting man, I would have assumed that the alarm company had instructions to call a club official and not the police. If I was a betting man, I would have put money up that the possibility of embarrassment was more potent than the prospect of some damaged equipment, or lost supplies.

I don't bet.

Another circuit around the building to check again for cameras.

Didn't see any. Couldn't be sure there wouldn't be any inside.

There was a window on the backside of the building. That meant one of three things: a desk, a bench, or a washroom.

A quick scan of the roof line ruled out washroom.

Damn.

Desk or workbench: either way, they would make getting in and out that much easier.

Go time.

I pulled out a couple of the poop sacks and pulled them over my shoes. Crude, but effective.

I pulled my coat up over my head and ran the zipper up as far as it would go. Also crude, but it would obscure me enough to make identification difficult.

It was probably over-kill, but as I always say, “Better safe than arrested.”

Peering through the gap in my coat, I made my approach to the building right below the window.

I used my last poop sack as a shapeless glove with which I pulled the flashlight from my pocket. I used its dumb end to break the glass.

In that moment, it sounded really loud: like all the cymbal crashes in the 1812 Overture put together.

This was another of those moments where experience shows. Beginners would look around to see if anyone had noticed; real operators recognize that by the time there's a sound you can't cover, the go/no-go line has already vanished from their rear view.

Once you go, you keep going.

I reached my bagged hand through the window and slipped the catch. Surprisingly, for an industrial building, the window slid smoothly up.

Right then, I began to feel the effect of having picked up that seventy pound dog.

I really do try to stay active, but I don't routinely snatch weights anything close to that and nowhere near what I used to. I was not certain I could hoist myself up and through.

I heard the drumbeat of my pulse in both ears. Pain shot through my right shoulder as I pulled myself up.

I could feel the friction of bone on bone and the weight of the sands of time.

I kept thinking of all the times I had done this exact thing in windows all over the world. I could do this in my sleep. I could do this without thinking.

I could do this...at one time.

Up and over, up and over: it was my mantra. Up and over.

It took a couple of false starts and a lot of muttered oaths, but I did get up and, after an inartful dismount, I did get over.

I felt like an upholstered egg roll standing an a pair of deli-style toothpicks as I pulled myself to my feet.

I snapped on my flashlight and scanned the ceiling in the corners of the room.

First break: no cameras. Motion sensors, but no cameras.

Clock ticking.

I unzipped my coat, popped my head out and quickly scanned the rest of the room. On the far side, by the door, was the red cabinet.

Perfect.

I picked up a pruning saw and a large wrench and began a make-work project for the crime scene investigators and the insurance adjusters.

Once at the cabinet, I was able to pry it open with the wrench and a lot of leverage. I was not the sort of threat that OSHA had in mind.

Spray paint, spray lubricants, fertilizer and weed killer. They also kept propane torches in there; I didn't understand that one.

At the back of one of the lower shelves I found what I was looking for: the perfect tool for combating a golf course pest. I dropped the wrench and quickly filled my pockets.

I checked my watch: about four minutes. Time to go.

I pulled open the door and disappeared into the shadows.

Quarters

They drill this stuff into you:  have a Go Bag; plan and then make different plans; practice, practice, practice; don't pick up what you can't put down.  It's trade craft:  basic, basic stuff.

You learn it, you go to work and you almost immediately forget it.

There is no way you can do the kind of work we were asked to do if, every time you walk into a room with a mark, you are looking for two different exits and a minimum of four potential weapons.  You'd get made faster than a preacher in the Champagne Room.

You can tell because we all--doesn't matter whether you played for the visitors or the home team--we all got the same class so we know the look, we can see the involuntary pause that is so hard to shake.  It's like a reflex:  that quarter-step that operators take while doing all that survey work.

You're saying to yourself, "A quarter-step, what difference could that possibly make?"

Fuck you is what I say.  Fuck you.

That quarter-step has lost me team members and it has saved my life more than a few times.

No, you have to bury that stuff deep, rehearse and rehearse until you can walk into every room like it's your bathroom.  That's how you tell the professionals from the test-takers, the workers from the wanna-bees.

The funny thing is that just then, at that moment, when I had to figure my next play, all that stuff, that training, snapped into focus.  I had a quarter-step of "What am I go to do?" and then I was able to answer my own question.  

I knew what to do.

I didn't like it, but I knew what to do.

My dog looked at me like he was waiting for me to throw a ball.  He wanted to know the next part of the game.

Couldn't really blame him; with all that had happened so far it must have seemed like the best walk ever.

We turned around and headed down the dark side street.

Half-way into the next block and with the pastel shades of blue and red emergency lights bouncing off the low-hanging clouds, the dog and I turned into the alley and headed south toward the main drag.

I pulled out the flashlight and began looking for the right one.  Trees, shade, a covered porch and no kids:  I was asking a lot and so I needed the conditions to be tolerable.  Most of all, it had to have a fence.  I wasn't concerned that he'd get out, I just didn't want it to be too easy for anyone else to get in.

Close.

Almost.

Not quite.

I had to be careful with the light.  I didn't want to rouse another homeowner.  I didn't think I could go another round of that.

No fence.

The dog started to slow down and pull away from me.  It wasn't like before, he knew I was up to something.

I told him I was sorry.

I meant it.

I needed intel.  I had to find out what had happened and who was after me.  Who had taken the time to learn my patterns and anticipate where I was going to be and when?  That takes effort.  Motivation.

I turned it over and over in my mind as I passed the light across the back yards.

When had they picked me up?

What had I missed?

Why were they interested in me?  After all these years?

All of the situational awareness training replayed in my mind's eye.

Another quarter-step.

No.  I had to put that away.

If they knew what I knew then they would know what I was thinking and how I would react.  Christ, if they were really good, they'd have probably already staked out my Go Bag spots.

Perfect.

Well, not "perfect" but pretty close.

Close enough.

He'd be safe here until I could figure out what I was dealing with.

I led him on to the covered porch and to a spot with the best view of the yard and the back gate.  I pulled the vinyl cover off of a stack of summer furniture and improvised a little sleeping area.

He wouldn't like it.  He'd use it, but he wouldn't like it.

I think he knew it was coming.  I didn't have to ask him, he just went over, sniffed, turned around and lay down.

As I walked back past the sliding glass door, I realized that I could see all the way through to the house to the uncovered front window.  The house was empty and, now, it was a possibility.

But that would have to wait.  Top priority was provisions and counter-intel.

Time to find out what was out there, how they got out in front of me.  

Time to see if I could knock them back a step.

I wouldn't need much.