“All set,” he said, and stepped outside, locking the door behind him. He followed Marco to a fairly new Ford Mustang, and climbed into the passenger seat as Marco got behind the wheel.
“Okay, we’re off to see the wizard, a.k.a. Doc Parker,” Marco said. “When we get there, I’m going to let you go on inside, and I’ll just wait out here in the car.” He held up a paperback novel. “Brought my own entertainment with me, so don’t worry about trying to hurry things along. I’ll be sitting outside when you get done.”
“No problem,” Noah said.
SEVEN
Doc Parker was a small man who appeared to be in his late 70s, maybe even early 80s. He had an office that sat in a little building all by itself, and he had been waiting for Noah when he arrived.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “You’re late, young man. You were supposed to be here three minutes ago. One thing you need to learn here, if you learn nothing else, is to be prompt. If you can’t keep to a schedule, how can those working with you be sure that you can do your part, when the time comes?”
Noah’s eyebrows shot up. “My apologies, Sir,” he said. “I’m new here, just arrived this morning.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? There will be a lot of times, if you live long enough, when you will arrive in the morning at some new destination and have to kill five people before you can even have breakfast. Now, imagine if there are other people depending on you to do your part, so that they can then do theirs—should they have to wait for you to acclimate yourself? Should they have to hope that you show up on time? Bear in mind, if you don’t show up on time and do your part, there’s a pretty good chance that some of them are going to die. Promptness, my boy, promptness is important, and don’t you forget it.”
Noah dipped his head once. “Understood, Sir. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re damned right it won’t, because if it does, it will be the last time.” The old man pointed at a chair. “Put your ass right there,” he said, “and pucker your lips as tightly shut as your asshole is.”
Noah took the seat, and sat there in silence as the old man sat down behind the desk in front of him. He waited for a couple of minutes, as Parker seemed to be looking for something in the papers scattered across the top of the desk.
Suddenly, the old fellow looked him in the eye. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you knew how to follow orders.” He paused and looked at Noah for several seconds, then broke into a huge grin. “That’s two tests you passed in as many minutes. Most newbies get tired of waiting for me to stop digging through my papers, and speak up to get my attention, which means they fail. Those who don’t fall for that one usually grin and start talking after I act surprised that they didn’t, which means they fail. About one in fifty are smart enough sit there and say nothing, like you just did. You wanna tell me who tipped you off?”
Noah grinned, but didn’t open his mouth, and the old man burst out laughing. “Oh, my goodness, you’re going to be the best one I’ve had in years, I can feel it already. Listen up, youngster, from here on out, if I ask a question it means you can answer it. You already proved you could keep your mouth shut when you need to, and that’s pretty important. Got that?”
“Got it, Sir,” Noah said, and then closed his mouth again.
The old man nodded his head, his smile wide and genuine. “Okay, then,” he said. “My job today is to try to give you an idea of why our organization exists, and why it must exist. Do you have any opinion on that subject, before I get started?”
Noah looked at the old fellow for a moment, then nodded. “I know from personal experience, Sir, that there are people in this world who make it a much more dangerous place for everyone else. Sometimes, they might be enemy combatants of one sort or another, sometimes they may be proponents of organized crime, sometimes they may just be people whose views or purposes create a risk for our country, but whatever the reason, the only solution is to remove them from whatever equation they may be part of. In some cases, it’s simply not possible to remove them through the use of normal legal means, so other methods will have to be employed. That means it’s necessary for those other methods to exist, and that’s where we come in.”
Doc Parker nodded. “Very good,” he said. “And do you approve of those other methods?”