FICTION
The Final Mission Part 3
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson and Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson. And I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
When Rick McDonnell opened the door, it was difficult to determine if the look on his face was one of relief or surprise. It could have been both. Why whatever he’d chosen to show he was only willing to show to one of us, was a complete mystery. But then, based on what we all knew about him, or rather, didn’t know about him, his cloak and dagger approach to his personal life made sense.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I said I would, didn’t I? I told Robert I needed to run a few errands, so I can’t stay long, Rick.”
“I know, Sunny. This won’t take long. Come in.”
Rick led me deeper into the house, then turned into the kitchen and walked to a door on the far wall. Just before opening the door, he flipped a light switch up and stepped down into the garage. It seemed immaculate, a workbench lining the back wall, each tool nestled in its own silhouette, four bicycles hanging in a straight line from the ceiling. The concrete floor polished and gleaming beneath a pair of fluorescents.
“Uh, you don’t want to be standing there, Sunny. Please come over and stand beside me for a minute.”
As strange as the request seemed, things took a real turn into weird when Rick reached beneath the edge of the workbench nearest us. The sound of a soft click echoed in the garage, immediately replaced with mechanical sounds of electric motors as the entire garage floor began to move. As the floor slid out of sight, lights flickered on in a large hole of darkness below ground, highlighting a set of metal stairs going down into the hole.
“What in the hell, Rick?”
“I’ve got something like this in every safe house I own. Well, for the ones left.”
“Safe house? Why do you need a safe house?”
“Come on. Watch your step.”
Rick waited until we’d both made it down the stairs then pushed a button on the wall of the hideaway. In a few seconds, the concrete floor slid closed above us. For one who didn’t enjoy being in enclosed spaces, this should have been one of those times when panic attacks usually started. But the room was so spacious and well lit, it seemed like we were standing in the middle of a spacious living room. This room had everything one needed for a lengthy stay. A full-sized refrigerator hummed in the stillness of the room. On one side sat a bunk bed, the sheets and coverlets stretched taut and neat.
“Where does that door go?”
“That’s the bathroom.”
“Let me guess. Full bath?”
“Yes.”
“And those two doors?”
“Fully stocked pantry.”
“No stove?”
“Hot plates.”
“I bet you can cook up some tasty five-course meals with that, huh?”
Rick chuckled and pointed across the room in the direction of another set of doors.
“Okay, over there’s the armory. and that’s the computer room.”
“Armory? As in guns and rifles?”
“Yes, and a little more. A few RPG, hand and smoke grenades, a Stinger, and about twenty thousand rounds of ammunition. Oh, and a couple of hundred strands of Semtex and other little goodies I’ve tinkered with.”
“Tinkered with?”
“Drones.”
“Drones?”
“Yeah, using drones to deliver a payload, then remote detonation. You know, stuff like that.”
“Rick, this is some serious stuff here. Are you stocking up for the next zombie apocalypse or something?”
“In my former line of work, all these things were tools of the trade. But all this is not really what I want to show you. Let’s step into the computer room, then I’ll show you, and then we’ll leave, okay?”
“What do you mean leave? You don’t live here?”
“Not anymore. This house was where Mary and the boys were, where they…”
“You don’t have to say anything else, Rick. I understand. Okay, let’s see what you have.”
When we reached the doorway to the computer room, Rick paused to flip open the lid to a tiny metallic box on the wall beside the door. He pressed his right thumb against a small square in the middle of the box then leaned in close as a beam moved from left to right across his eyes. A loud click sounded, and Rick tugged at the lever to the door and pushed the door inward.
The computer room was as well-stocked as the common area, three large display screens bolted on one wall about midway. Beneath the displays were three computer stations. In one corner, the lights of several computers stacked one above the other in a six-foot rectangular box twinkled.
Rick sat at one of the stations then bumped the mouse. After taking a few large breaths, he turned away and stared at me.
“Sunny, you said I had no compassion and that I never felt anything when I was forced to kill…”
“Rick I was pissed off. I say things…”
“Let me finish, please. What I’m about to show you is how I dealt with those moments. How I really dealt with those moments. I need you to see what the deaths of my own team, and Daryl Hoenig, then Enrique Escobar, and Darla Hardcastle did to me.”
“Okay, Rick. I got it.”
Rick gazed at me for a few more seconds, then nodded and turned to face the computer. With a few clicks of the mouse, he brought up a video. A man was kneeling in the middle of a room, his face buried in his hands. When Rick activated the footage, the anguished sounds of the man wailing filled the computer room. Instantly, the young man jumped up and began systematically destroying everything in the place. Several times he drove his bare fists into the walls. On a furious rampage, he grasped a full-sized overstuffed chair and tossed it across the room, shattering a pair of French doors. The second he stepped out of sight, another video camera picked him up, his fury and blatant disregard for the damage he was doing to the house or himself, spurring him to destroy everything in sight.
Finally, he was done. In the aftermath, gasping for air, and still sobbing, he walked from room to room, a pair of cans in both hands, soaking every splintered piece of furniture, the piles of drapery, the floors and walls with fluid.
Then the man walked to what appeared to be the front door and raised his head to stare at a video camera he seemed to know was there. For several seconds he allowed us to see the pained, haunted expression in his face as if he knew we were there watching him. Then he dug into a pocket of his pants, withdrew a cigarette lighter, ignited it, and tossed it over his right shoulder. We heard the whoosh as the fluid he’d poured from the cans ignited and saw flames hungrily feeding on the house just behind him. Then the man walked out of the door and disappeared.
For several seconds we watched as one by one, the flames consumed each room and the video cameras, and then the screen went dark.
Neither of us said anything for the longest time. Rick continued to stare at the darkened screen in front of him as if reliving the moments we’d just watched in his mind.
“That was you wasn’t Rick? When you were David Anthony Armstrong?”
“Yes.”
“One of your safe houses?”
“Yes. That one. Then another one after Escobar and this last one after Hardcastle.”
“So you trash your safe houses then torch them because of the pain of doing what you had to do?”
“Yes. It’s the only way I know how to let it all go.”
“Expensive therapy, don’t you think?”
“I can buy more.”
“I just bet you can. You know Rick, there’s certainly more to you than meets the eye, that’s for sure. I get it now.”
“Do you? Do you really understand?”
“I do. I also understand this is just between you and me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Why now, Rick? Why now did you decide to lift the covers and let me see the real you?”
“Sunny I’ve been running from this my entire life. I’ve lost a family, and I thought I’d never had a chance to have one again. With you, and Henry, and Robert and Cynthia and all the others, I have a family again. I don’t want to start off our relationship with lies. Eventually, I’m going to tell the others, but for now, you have to know I want this to be over just as much as you do. I need it to be over.”
We stood and faced each other, and for some unknown reason, it seemed the right thing to do. What was to be a quick hug turned into an embrace of two friends who’d not seen one another in a long time. Soon Rick was sobbing into my shoulder, releasing years of anguish and pain his savage assaults on his safe houses never managed to remove. When we parted, he wiped his eyes with the heels of both hands then nodded.
“Come on. I’ll show you out. See you Monday, okay?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mr. McDonnell.”
Read On — The Final Mission Part 4
Let’s s keep in touch: P.G. & Sharon Barnett ([email protected]) © P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.