Decisions

I found that when I slept, I didn't have to think about the many things I should have been thinking about. People didn't seem to want to blind me, shoot me, or take me into custody while I slept, either. I'd slept through the whole flight from Vienna and I was still tired when I got home, after dozing off in the shower I zombie-marched to my room and tumbled into my bed. Either the sleeping pills I bought at the airport were made of magic, or my subconscious really needed to stretch its legs.

I woke up to the sound of my doorbell. In my tired daze, I couldn't decide if it would be the FBI or the police. The clock by my bed said it was just after 3PM. I used the limited resources of my still-asleep brain to make sure I was wearing clothes -- t-shirt and shorts; that should cover it -- and walked down to the front door stiff-legged and still slightly wincing with each step on my left ankle.

Amy was at the door. Suddenly I felt better.

"You're here," she said as I pulled the door open.
"I'm everywhere," I said back, pleased with myself for thinking of it.

I moved out of the way and Amy stepped in, her school bag dangling from one hand. It felt like I hadn't seen her in a month; I was expecting her hair to be longer or a different color. She walked quickly and gracefully, as if she weren't wanted in two countries and had not a care in the world. I envied that.

I was still fuzzy from the sleep, trying to maintain a line of thought was like bobbing for apples in a vat of peanut butter. Apples and peanut butter sounded good. I pointed my feet toward the kitchen and willed myself to locomote.

From wherever Amy was, she said, "I drove by your place on the way home and I saw your car. I thought you flew in tonight."
"Yeah," I said, trying to locate some kind of caffeine delivery system in my cupboards. "Stuff happened. Had to catch an earlier fight."

"So how did the trip go?" she asked, now inside the kitchen.
I stared blankly at some small boxes in a cupboard for what felt like a long time, then turned around and looked at Amy. "Huh?"
Here brow furrowed and her lips sunk into an odd frown. "Your trip," she said again, "Austria. I believe you flew off to the Old Country to find out what was going on with our plucky Principal."
"Right," I said, holding two small cardboard boxes in my hands. One talked of herbal infusion, the other went on about English breakfast.

"I forgot about that part," I said, "it turns out all the suspicious stuff he was doing was because of all the suspicious stuff we were doing so he thought I was going to kill him. Well, not me, but his boss guys. Then an Interpol guy wanted to know why I killed some dead guy two years ago. They flayed him." I was confident that all made sense.

Amy was sitting in a tall chair at the counter now. She started to say something, blinked twice, then finally said, "What?"
I was trying to figure out how to get water hot.

Once I'd had two cups of hot tea and had moved to the couch in the living room, I told Amy about the trip. About the Marriott and the Ambassador, conning my way into the latter, then breaking my way in, the voice recorder, the bank, how the coffees tasted different than Starbucks, about a dead guy named Jens Nesimi, and about what one might call my harrowing escape from a slow-moving vehicle. The absurdity of it all made it so had to stop a few times and make sure I wasn't just making all of this up.

"What is it with you, law enforcement, and automobiles?" she asked when I was finished.
"It's a character trait, I suppose," I said. "I'm starting to fear for the Trans Am."
"So you didn't find out who Comstock is keeping an eye on you for?" she said.
"What?"
"You didn't-- what I just said."
"I thought I told you," I said, confused. "It was an integral part of the story."
"You didn't say anything."
"Oh. Weird."
"So...?"
"Marines."
"What?"
"Marines. Marines-comma-'the'."
"What Marines? All of them?"
"I don't know, all he said was, 'I figured the Marine Corps could afford it.' Or did he say 'thought'? I'm not sure; my brain was too busy exploding at the time."

"So it could just be some Marine guy. It doesn't have to be the whole Corps."
"I didn't say anything either way," I said, "I think the larger issue is the fact that somebody affiliated with the Marines is/was paying Comstock to pretend to be a school administrator just so he could watch me and keep me out of trouble; also, Comstock hired some guy named Dingan to 'bring me in' just because I stopped going to school for a day, and later I drove a car into Dingan."
"That doesn't make any sense," Amy said.
"Put that to a tune and it could be the theme song for my life."
"No, I mean... you had the fight thing on Thursday, right?"
"Last Thursday, yeah."
"And Lorton was on Saturday. So you only missed school one day, on Friday, and he freaked out and hired a nutcase to bring you in?"

I leaned my head back and thought about it. "Friday was when I came in and we did the bank account thing, and I put a hammer through his car window for a distraction. When you called and said his bank card was stolen, and then his car was vandalized, he thought it was his 'boss' people -- some Marine guys -- trying to get to him. He thought they were upset about him asking for more money, or for letting me even get in the fight."
"Ok," she said, "what are our working theories regarding why you're so special that people are paying people to watch you and to pay other people to bring you in?"
"I don't know," I said, "my money? No, that's stupid. My boyish good looks?"
"Well, boyish..."
"I don't know. Unless this is all about the fact that a kid that looks slightly like me was standing outside a guy's house in Austria the night he died."
"That doesn't seem very likely."

"So, yeah. 'I don't know' is my working theory. Is this something I should be asking the FBI guys about?"
"I don't know," she said.
I crossed my arms and said, "Well this all sucks. I'm sick of sitting around and waiting for somebody to attack me so I can acquire another hint at what's going on here. Maybe my mom would know something about this."
"When does she get home?"
"Tomorrow or Sunday," I said. "It doesn't seem like she would have anything to do with this, but I think I'm in too deep now to keep this all a secret."
"What about your dad?" Amy asked.
"Him?" I said, "I think he might be dead."
Amy sighed. "I know that. I mean, maybe this has something to do with him. He did work for the Marines, after all."
"So did yours," I said, "and nobody's chasing, shooting at, or trying to arrest you."
"You don't think this could have anything to do with your dad or what he did?"

"Of course I do, but I don't like to think about it," I said. "I was a lot happier when I thought this was all grief or denial and I was just making all of this up to get attention. If this really is the Marines behind all of this, and it's connected to my dad and his work, then this is a lot bigger than I'd thought."
"This seems like a situation where you'd ask people for information," Amy said, "You know two FBI agents. The 'I' stands for Information."
"No it doesn't."
"It-- oh, right."
"Federal Bureau of Information?" I chuckled.
"Excuse me, then," she snapped back. "There's also that guy from your dad's work. Schumer?"
"Yeah, but I--" I suddenly remembered that there was a USB drive on my kitchen table potentially full of information copied from Schumer's computer. I'd forgotten all about the thing. I thought I was delusional after I'd brought it home, and I didn't want to incriminate myself by looking at possibly classified materials.

My answers could be on that USB drive. I stood up and dashed to the kitchen. There it was, on the table. I picked it up, this innocuous little hunk of plastic. Looking at it, the fear came back. If this whole mystery was as big as I thought it was, maybe I didn't want to find the answers. Maybe there were no answers, just more questions. I was afraid I might find out something about my father that I wouldn't like, or I'd find something out that could get me killed. This area's mantra kept repeating over and over in my head. Don't ask questions. Don't ask questions.

Amy soon followed me into the kitchen and stood to my side. "What's on that?" she asked.
I closed the drive in my fist. "Nothing," I said, turning toward her. "Have you eaten yet?"

* * * *

It was nearly dark when we came back from a locally owned bar & grill-type place. Besides needing to catch up on sleep, I also had a lot of eating to make up for. I couldn't remember eating a full meal during my stay in Vienna. I missed out on a lot of sausages. I'd put on pants before we'd went out, and the USB drive was tucked in my pocket. The same pocket as my knife, which I'd fished from my suitcase. I didn't know why, but it just felt good to have it on me. If I ever came across a letter that needed opening, or a Ugandan rebel that needed opening, I liked to know I'd be covered.

It had been nice to spend an hour or so not thinking or talking about the elephant in the room or the monkey on my back. When we got back to my place, though, they went right to my mind. I sighed, knowing that I'd eventually look at the files on this USB drive, if there were any, so I might as well get it over with. Maybe it had a nice, two-paragraph story that explained everything and pointed out that this was all one big misunderstanding.

I kicked my shoes off and went straight up to my room, Amy followed without a word. I sat down at my computer and plugged the USB drive into a port on the front of the PC tower. Amy set her purse on my desk, then crossed the room and sat down on my bed. I glanced over, again trying not to freak out about the girl-on-my-bed phenomenon. She didn't ask what I was doing; probably assuming I was going to check the webcam outside Comstock's house. She looked down at my open suitcase on the floor with my clothes spewed out.

"So," she said, "did you get me anything?" She was playfully dangling her legs over the side of the bed.
Something sharp stuck into the side of my brain. Shoot. I was going to get her something but I never got around to it. Trying to think of something to say, I opened the USB drive's contents on my computer and clicked the first thing I saw, and then spun the chair sideways to look around the room.

"Umm," I started, grabbing my backpack and fishing through it. There were two passports, an envelope with anonymous Austrian bank account credentials inside, my computer, two books, and, well...

I tossed Amy a small paper book of matches. She caught it and turned it around in her hand. "The Marriott?"
I stood up and walked over to her. "The Marriott Vienna," I said, pointing at the word. "How often do you see matches from Western Europe?"
"Personally?" she asked, with a grin.
"Alright," I said, "I didn't have time to get anything. I left in a bit of a hurry."
"It's fine," she said, looking at the matches in her hand.
"No, really, I was going to get you something. Something amazing, I'm sure."
She looked up, smiling. "No, really," she said, "you didn't have to. You weren't there for sightseeing, I know."

The silence was peppered with the sound of a truck driving down the road.

"You're still supposed to buy stuff when you go to another country," I said.
"Don't worry about it," she said softly, "we can pick something out when we go somewhere together."

I noticed my heart was beating just a bit faster than normal. I sat down beside her on my bed, looking at the matches in her hand. "Like where?" I asked.
She rolled her eyes in a circle. "I don't know," she said, "I've always wanted to see Paris."

I looked at her, she looked at me. It sounded like the truck on the street wasn't moving, but that might have been my brain thumping in my ears.

There was a slight sadness in her eyes, like a painful memory that kept creeping up. The side of my hand on the bed was barely touching hers. Her other hand was holding the book of matches, spinning them around, her eyes following. She smiled, then stood up and walked over to my desk and put the matches in her purse. She glanced at my computer's monitor once, then twice. Her eyes widened a bit and her mouth opened slightly.

I thought I heard a car door opening.

"That's you," she said, still looking at the screen.
"What?" I asked, sliding off the bed and walking around the desk. A video file was playing in Media Player. It must have been the file on the USB drive I opened without paying attention. The video was black and white, taken from an awkward over-the-head angle. It showed an empty-looking room, and me sitting at a desk directly in the center of the frame. It was definitely me, wearing my clothes. I was looking at someone or something outside the frame, and occasionally looking down at a piece of paper in front of me on the desk. There was no audio.

I stepped closer to my computer and sat down in the chair, watching the video frame closely.
"When is this?" Amy asked, over my shoulder.
"I don't know," I said, "I don't remember it at all."
"Where is this from?" she asked.
"Schumer's computer," I said without taking my eyes from the screen, "from Quantico."

On the video, I continued to look back and forth from the paper in front of me to whoever was standing in front of me outside the camera frame. A few seconds later. I folded my hands on the desk, leaned my head forward, and appeared to go to sleep.

"What the hell is this?" I said.
Amy started to speak but I silenced her. A sound from downstairs had grabbed my attention. A light clicking and the sliding of metal. I thought it sounded like a lock being picked.

I stood up and stuck my head outside my bedroom door. The noise low but constant. I also still heard the sound of a truck idling outside.

Everything after that was a sharply-focused blur.

I pulled back into my room and quietly shut my door. I turned off my computer monitor and opened my closet door. I found my handgun and the filled clips, slid one into the gun's grip, and pulled the slide back, chambering a round.

"What are you doing?" Amy asked, pulling me slightly from my focus. I looked at her, standing there. I glanced at the gun, then back at her. Decisions.

I pulled her with me into the wide closet and pushed her carefully into the corner, then handed her the gun and set the other loaded clips on the shelf closest to her. "You know how to use this," I said, "it's just like the Beretta." She looked at me in a stupefied gaze. I pulled clothes from shelves and hangers and dropped them into a pile on the floor. "You can hide under these if you want," I said. I stepped backwards out of the closet and grabbed the door knob.

"You'll hear my voice when I open this door," I said. "If you don't, start shooting."
I pulled my cell phone from one pocket, my knife from the other. I handed Amy the phone, she took it with her left hand; the gun still in her right. "Call the police," I said.
"What are you doing?" she asked again, eyes wider this time.

"I don't know," I said. Her eyes were pleading as I pulled the door closed, leaving her in the closet alone with my only gun.

I stood still, in silence. I heard the knob of the front door turn slowly downstairs, and the hinges whine as the door swung freely open. I flipped the blade of my knife open, spun the handle in my hand so the blade pointed downward, and held my breath.