Skill Set (7 page)

Sarah and Humphrey Worthington had been married nearly fourteen years when their only offspring, a son, Daniel, was born after only two and a half hours of light labor, during which Sarah was tempted to try and convince the resident intern on duty for that week in October that she must have a “
false pregnancy
” as her aunts and her mother had been telling her. Actually, she had sat upright on the hospital bed, eager for Humphrey to get back with her Coca-Cola (with crushed ice and a straw), when she stopped speaking suddenly right in the middle of a sentence. Her eyes widened hugely and she grabbed at her slightly bulging belly with her left hand and her right gripped the edge of the mattress so hard her knuckles turned white. The intern hardly noticed the change in her as he tried to write intelligently on her chart bringing it up to date as best he could with nothing much to add. Sarah inhaled deeply and then as slowly as a descending weather balloon losing its inside air, she leaned over to her left, her back as straight as a ramrod all the way, and she landed gently and quietly on her side with her bent legs rising up in tandem and protectively clenched together as if locked as tightly as the vault at her father’s bank. She didn’t make a sound. The nurse’s aide, busily see-sawing an emery board on one of her enviable fingernails, did a double-take and her mouth fell open when she realized the doctor hadn’t noticed Sarah’s leaning tower behavior. For a minute, the young nurse just stared, then she blinked once, glanced at the door of the hospital room just beyond the sliding patched sheeting around both of the beds, saw no one she could nominate for the next inevitable maneuver, so she blinked again and cleared her throat.

“’
Scuse me, sir? Doctor?
”

“
Mmmm?
” He kept writing, frowning with concentration.

“Sir? Mister. . .uh. . doctor? I think. . .”

“
Oh, my God. She
’s..;.she’s crowning, I think. . .HEY! Somebody? Get me a gurney in here, STET! And call McPherson, the OB/GYN. . .he’s on call tonight and I just saw him in the cafeteria. . .”

Julie Brown, the teenaged nurse
’s aide-in-training forgot all about trying to get the young doctor to notice her lacy C-cup peeking out of the neck of her uniform and slapped both hands across her gasping mouth as the emery board flew to the floor and skidded away into oblivion.

At this exact moment, Humphrey backed into one of the swinging doors to the ER exam room and carefully holding the two large paper cups full to the brim with Coca-Cola and crushed ice, eased himself into the tiled room focused on not spilling a drop, smiling with pride. Another nurse, a male nurse with his stethoscope flopping on his chest, raced by the quivering statue that was Humphrey, bumped him with his clipboard causing both cold drinks to erupt into twin cataracts of dark coke syrup and miniature icebergs as they shot out of their heat-proof cups and turned the floor into a sticky, slippery miniature brown floodplain. The nurse
’s aide dry-heaved as she ran from the room and the attending turned around too quickly and his feet in their brand new Nikes slipped out from under him and he sustained a painful compression fracture of T-12, which distracted him from the imminent obstetrical need of the patient. She, Sarah, was still lying quietly on her side, but now with one leg bent upward and her hands desperately trying to cover herself with the lower part of the hospital gown. The young intern, himself in severe pain but not in a life-threatening condition, at least had the grace to shout a garbled instruction to the male nurse, who got the message and forgot the intern on the floor but began to give orders. In seconds, others had appeared and as they transferred Sarah to a gurney with wheels, she emitted a soft whimper and a baby’s head, covered in bloody streaks and plastered-down wispy hair, delivered itself while the grown-up people in the room tried to act like they knew what they were doing. There was nothing they could do but stop and help Sarah finish giving birth to a four-pound eleven-ounce little boy, who they named after the male nurse who had helped, Daniel Curtis Worthington.
It was over an hour before they remembered the intern with the injured vertebra on the floor, but quietly waiting his turn. Humphrey had scooted on his butt over to the wall out of the way, as the crowd grew and the mess on the floor got even wetter. He just watched the chaotic activity and kept cleaning his glasses with a wadded-up handkerchief he kept for that purpose. Eventually, after Doctor McPherson sailed in like a Viking conquering an innocent, unsuspecting village of lesser beings, things calmed down a bit and Humphrey found the Men
’s and washed up before retracing his steps and locating Sarah in another two-bed patient room with a baby (a baby?) sleeping peacefully in a bassinet next to her, his miniature old-man’s face peeking from under a knitted cap. Sarah also was asleep so Humphrey glanced at the baby as if he thought it might explode and kill him instantly then he nodded toward Sarah as if she could see him through her translucent eyelids, and he wheeled around and rushed back to his job at the local Wal Mart’s auto supplies department. From that day forward, no one ever mentioned the birth of Daniel, because it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the ensuing repercussions that just about unnerved everyone involved and forever made Sarah feel guilty every time she looked at Daniel. He wore his inherited shame like a warrior carried a shield that was cracked and relatively useless for protection anyway. And he left home, with his parents’ blessings (and sighs of relief) as soon as he could which was after his high school graduation at fourteen and he never did understand how the two people he lived with could have had him as their son.

Daniel lied about his age and managed to get an intern position at the Target store in a town about forty miles from his folks’ house. Hampton, Iowa, had a YMCA a block off the main drag and the Christian church next door managed the renting of double rooms there for young men of Christian heritage and seriously representative of clean-living standards. They furnished coffee and apple juice and hard-boiled eggs every morning and at night, the amiable capable mountain of a woman who could cook anything she could catch or find, prepared a hearty soup or stew and sometimes even a cobbler when peaches or apples were in season. For all this, Daniel paid a percentage of his hourly wages which, in his case, amounted to sixty dollars a month, including meals. He had to provide laundry soap for his bed linens and clothing and, of course, quarters for the machines at the laundromat around the corner. Daniel lived in a room alone for about six months then Hampton suddenly got busier than ever, and he found himself with a roommate named Franklin Thompson, a gregarious, cheerful, overweight African American who laughed all the time, even when nothing was funny. He even laughed in his sleep but that didn’t bother Daniel who kept telling himself laughter was better than a lot of things he could think of.

A non-threatening married couple were the resident managers of the rooming house operating under the auspices of the YMCA. Marge and Bert Majors were their names and they had lived in Hampton, Iowa, most of their lives, both from farm families and raised on the corn and wheat their families grew as income-producing crops. Both were the oldest siblings in their respective families and grew up within 8 miles of each other, so they had known each other
’s families forever. They had not been blessed with children of their own, so once in a while one of their “
roomers
” slipped into their need to nurture - and they could not hide their favoritism. Daniel was one of those lucky young persons and his own dearth of parental love and concern was usurped by the avalanche of affection Marge and Bert lavished upon his fair blonde head. The more they catered to him, the harder he worked at his job and at being a “
perfect
” tenant. Franklin, nicknamed Frankie or Frankfurter, noticed the favoritism and even though his black eyes flashed briefly with a twinge of jealous resentment, he was actually happy for Daniel, who had disclosed enough of his childhood feelings of being unwanted and unloved to incur Franklin’s sympathy. Daniel let Frankie know he appreciated his loyalty in different ways; sometimes he’d share the extra dessert Marge served him when no one else was looking and other times, Daniel made up Frankie’s cot for him before he got out of the shower. They never said much but there seemed to be an osmosis transfer of mutual concern for each other, both different types of below-average personalities: Frankie was at a disadvantage because of his skin color, so he used his bright white smile and gregariousness to disarm suspicious prejudiced white persons. Daniel was at a disadvantage because he began every encounter with his head down and expecting to be short-changed or left out or blamed. And so it was that he learned to expect negative treatment and that’s what he got. In a way, the same was true for Frankie, and it was this common thread that bound them together for a lifetime. They watched each other’s back and maintained this habit even into their adulthoods.

As time slipped over the hills of memory, Daniel started going to night school three evenings a week. He was a studious young man and much to his surprise, discovered he could actually understand the mathematical concepts the instructor from the local community college was explaining and he went from the basics of math to the more advanced principles of diplomatic strategies and psychological perceptions and from there to tenets of political beliefs and then he found his niche. He discovered he was invisible. He was a chameleon and as long as he kept his persona indeterminate and apologetic in posture, people tended to forget he was there. He could listen and remember things and make notes about different personality types and once in a while, he discussed some of his tentative conclusions with his instructors, who were always shocked this soft-voiced,
apologetic loser-type knew so much about personality types. It didn’t take long for him to gravitate toward more involved methods of investigating, which included agents working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and for the Counter Intelligence Activities, the latter appealing to Daniel the most, since its emphasis was in surreptitiously gathering information from and about other countries and their organizations in order to be on guard and protect our country as efficiently as possible. He listened to visiting active agents, willingly underwent all the testing required and before too many months went by, he had moved to Hyde Park, NY, to train and become an agent himself. His companion, the smiling, innocuous Franklin Thompson followed suit and they became an outstanding pair of shadow agents, known as such by very few senior agents and groomed to infiltrate and report everything of interest or concern. Eventually, the opportunity to work in D.C. right in the middle of the political pressure cooker that exists up on The Hill presented itself and Daniel, hidden inside the obsequious, apologetic, rather clumsy personage he used as a disguise, was hired as Isaac Rose’s intern, who was supposed to learn all he could on the job. Along with Daniel, Franklin Thompson was also hired in a parallel position, also secretly working as a watch-dog. Franklin didn’t let anyone know he was basically planted as Daniel’s guard dog, as well as the ordinary agent’s duties. He and Daniel were roommates again, but this time in a nondescript townhouse with nothing blatant to call attention to it at all. It was in a quiet neighborhood, had two master bedrooms, two land lines, and one false panel in the den area that slid open to reveal a bank of electronic equipment that would make the agents of the President’s personal bodyguards pea green with envy. Daniel and Franklin were trusted agents working undercover disguised as underlings in training, with watchful eyes on everyone close to the power in the government. And more importantly, on anyone who might possibly be considering an assassination plot against the President or on anyone with strategic information, such as Emma Soto, the Defense Secretary, or the Vice President, or the Secretary of State. No one working adjacent to Daniel and Franklin, not even Foxhound or Persephone, knew their true identity and they had been ordered to keep it that way. Their neighbors in the townhouse complex thought they were traveling salesmen working for a new electronic wireless telephone and internet company, the Orbit. They explained their odd hours of operation as necessary when setting up a large corporation’s electronic operations when less commerce was being conducted.

“
No. . .I
’m still on my way. . .What did you find out from the M.E.?” Daniel was talking into his cell phone as he walked rapidly from the roof-top parking area to the elevator bank. “Ah ha. . .Just as we thought, right?. . .I’ll be in Isaac’s office in less than three minutes. . .Suggest you remain right there behind the newspaper, as invisible as one of the roaches in the kitchen and let me know which direction Ivan and his cronies move after their breakfast. . .Yeah. Bye.”
Daniel slipped his cell phone in his suit coat pocket just as he stepped onto the elevator going down. He nodded respectfully at one of the women standing aside impatiently but she did not acknowledge his presence. He blinked a few times, his blue eyes almost watery, but behind the smeared lenses of his eyeglasses, his nervous blinking hid a razor-sharp laser vision which didn
’t miss anything and his analytical mind filed the entire moment away for future reference.

When the elevator stopped at the ninth floor, Daniel got off walking amid several other passengers who had exited at the same time. He lagged behind just long enough for the other seven passengers to disappear into various offices then he scurried to the door marked
“
STAIRS.
” He pushed it open and restrained it so it could close only softly, then he rushed up a flight and opened the hall door marked “
Tenth Floor.
” Glancing back over his shoulder, he squared his shoulders and merged with the few people walking in the hall, most carrying files, some with briefcases. He slipped inside an unmarked doorway with the upper half made out of translucent glass, and stood quietly inside a darkened, empty anteroom, not much bigger than a broom closet. A faint LED light flickered from the edge of the decorative molding around the top of the room walls, barely noticeable against the ceiling tiles.

”Your I.D. please?” The female voice was soft and non-threatening.

“
Oh. . .um It
’s. . .uh. . .seventy-nine forty-two? I think that’
s correct. . .
”

“
Oh, hi, Daniel. It
’s you. He’s waiting, so come on in. . .”

Daniel nodded to no one and never indicated he knew there were cameras filming his entrance, then he heard a click as the connecting door of solid steel was unlocked. He opened it and walked into the brightness of a summer
’s day, at least that’s what the decorating reminded him of. He squinted for a moment, until his eyes adjusted to the light.

This was the inner sanctum of the secret and mysterious hand-picked group of Special Forces members who were outstanding in every facet of their former operations
’ duties which had drawn the attention of the even-more secret commanding officers who were constantly on the lookout for new members, particularly those with a natural tendency to be invisible but always hyper-alert and, of course, over-achievers. These were the cream of the crop, the absolute best exponents of every branch - Air Force, Marines, Army , Navy, FBI, NCIS, and CIA. Their number varied from year to year, depending upon enforced retirements or age-required retirements or, rarely, death in the line of duty. Their record while undeniably outstanding was never mentioned in any obituaries of members or former members. No one had ever heard of The Trackers or Group One, both of which were sobriquets for the secret organization. Many of the most accomplished members had no knowledge of the identification of any other member; he or she knew only his or her immediate team members or assigned office staff. This, obviously, was for the protection of the members themselves as well as the high-ranking government officials of the United States or any other friendlies recognized as such, including visiting or in-country traveling royals. One person was appointed as the Director and held this position for seven years or until accidental early retirement. He, or she, had the difficult task of matching whatever needed investigating or protecting or assisting through a maze that was usually a threat to our country - or theirs - to the agent or agents that best fit the known circumstances, such as language, mutual acquaintances, past travels, etc. It was not an easy job and this term’s director was dubbed Foxhound within six months of having taken over the reins. He truly was as alert and shrewd as a fox and his agents revered him, even though he was tougher than most of his men himself.

For a moment, Daniel didn
’t think Foxhound knew he had entered his private office, then he remembered the man’s portfolio and remained silent while the older man continued reading a file, open on his desktop. When he had finished scanning the last page, he closed the manila folder and glanced up at Daniel, who immediately looked at the floor.

“You know how serious this threat is, don’t you?”

“
Yes, sir, I do.
” Daniel nodded briefly, never looking up.

“All right, then. Take the file with you and I expect you and Frankie to memorize the damned thing. We’ve got to find the mole, if there is one, and if Soto was murdered, I want to know by whom and how and when. Nothing else is to interfere with this investigation. . .Is that clear?”

“Absolutely.” Daniel picked up the file and without another word, nodded at Foxhound and left the Director’s office as quietly as he had arrived. He saw no other person and no one saw him, or so he thought.