Down days—or DDs, as we like to call them—are the days in between missions, the slow, quiet days when we’re really not expected to do much, and rarely do. The first day after a mission, DD1, is usually the best. I catch up on sleep, relax a bit, maybe shop online for a book to add to my collection—I’ve been looking for a first edition, first printing of The Hunt for Red October, but they’re not easy to find in good condition, nor are they cheap.
Once or twice a week I go to the health club with Jimmy; he lifts and I pretend to lift. Eventually he coerces me into doing reps with him until my arms and legs are solid iron—and I don’t mean strong like iron, I mean heavy like iron: battleship-heavy, with a couple frigates thrown in for good measure. He’s like all the PE teachers I’ve ever had rolled up into one and sprinkled with Nazi dust.
I’ve never been much for working out; I always thought the term health club was a bit of a misnomer, since every time I leave the place I’m winded, sweaty, and fatigued, like I’m coming down with the flu. Fortunately, I’m blessed with good genes, so I don’t have to exercise much to have a good physique.
Jimmy says it’s unfair.
I think he’s just jealous of my abs.
On DD2 we’re usually in the office about half the day. Well, not in the office part of the office but in the break area downstairs watching a movie, or in the hangar playing ping-pong or foosball.
By DD3 Les and Marty start popping in and out, checking the plane and lounging around the break area, while Jimmy and I kill time with Nerf guns, exploding soda bottles—we like to experiment—and marathon sessions of CSI, Game of Thrones, or The Walking Dead. Three days is our average downtime.
Today is DD5.
“Heather Jennings called for you,” Diane shouts from the railing outside her office as soon as I step foot in the hangar. She’s waving a piece of paper in her hand, no doubt Heather’s phone number, which I’m supposed to dutifully call. Diane should know better, but she has that smug, motherly, the-polite-thing-to-do-would-be-to-call-her-back look on her face.
Heather’s the hack reporter who wrote the article for Newsweek last fall, the same article that labeled me the Human Bloodhound. I guess I shouldn’t call her a hack reporter, she’s actually very intuitive and thorough; the problem was she saw everything and understood most of what she was seeing.
To say I let her get too close is probably an understatement.
She was embedded with the team for three weeks and went on seven searches, amassing enough notes to write a book. I did my best imitation of a human tracker: looking for signs, getting down on my hands and knees with a flashlight—in the mud!—documenting shoe size and stride and pausing studiously at just the right moments. I thought it an Oscar-worthy performance.
I was wrong.
On her last day with the team she took me aside and called me a fraud in the nicest, most polite way imaginable, complete with a kiss on the cheek. She admitted that she didn’t know how I was doing it but knew that it wasn’t man-tracking. Still, we parted on better-than-good terms, and over the next month there were a number of dinners together, and several movies. Things were just starting to get, well, comfortable … and then the article came out.
“Don’t even start on me, Diane. I’m not calling.” She’s still waving the paper.
“Why not?”
“You know why. She stabbed me in the back.”
Ripped my heart out.
Shredded my soul.
Diane sighs. “Right. She stabbed you in the back. Why don’t you just admit that you won’t let anyone get close to you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. How many dates have you been on since we’ve been working together? Who was that girl that Jimmy set you up with? The fitness coach?”
“That was Emily, and she wasn’t—”
“Right. Emily. After three dates you stopped calling her. Why? Because she wanted to know more about what you do for a living. I’ve got news for you, Steps. That’s normal. That’s the stuff people talk about when they’re getting to know each other.”
Diane knows nothing about my gift; how could she possibly understand?
“And about Heather ‘stabbing you in the back’”—she uses air quotes to frame the words—“you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never even bothered to ask for her side of the story, have you?”
“Her side of the story was published in Newsweek for all the world to see.”
“She has editors, you know. You could at least hear her out. She’s called you every couple weeks since November; I think she deserves a little of your time.”
“I don’t think so,” I mutter, more to myself than to Diane. Turning, I exit the hangar just as quickly as I entered: step-stump-step-stump-step-stump. A trip to Bellis Fair Mall suddenly sounds appealing; better than sticking around the office while Diane peck-peck-pecks at me in that relentless manner of hers. If I didn’t love her, I’d hate her … okay, I’d strongly dislike her; Diane’s a little hard to hate.
A couple hours should give her time to put this Heather thing out of her head.
Besides, I need shoes.
*
Evil exists.
Many dismiss it as a relic of our superstitious past, or view it as a religious phenomenon and don’t buy in to good and evil, heaven and hell. Psychologists explain it away as chemical imbalances, genetics, or nurturing.
I know evil exists—real evil—because I see it from time to time.
I’m looking at it right now.
I came to Bellis Fair Mall to buy a new pair of shoes, and instead find the recent shine of my nemesis, the elusive one, the killer I call Leonardo. He’s been here before—just a couple times over the years, but it’s enough. He always parks in the same spot. And not the same general location but the exact same parking spot. Maybe he’s OCD or a creature of habit, it really doesn’t matter. It just means that whenever I come to the mall, I check that parking spot.
Sometimes I think he’s taunting me.