My first crack at beginning my first Novel: The Zoey Chronicles

So I'm writing this thing in two formats: for screen and novel form. Here's my first crack at writing narrative...

Again, this is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any persons or events is coincidental.

Chapter 1

The gentle whir came to an end, as did her once dream career. She stretched her arms as best she could within the seventeen inches she had and opened her eyes for the first time in hours.

“Disarm, crosscheck, and all call,” came those familiar closing words though the cabin PA.

Zoey stood up, opened the overhead bin, and slung her black extra-small North Face duffle bag over her shoulder, then deplaned with her default vacant gaze, trudging through the all too familiar terminal.

At 33, her lanky and girlish, yet weathered, Korean features emphasized her teenage look even more than her lack of make-up and the casual American Giant sweatshirt, her Nike running pants, and Adidas Sambas.

Not even the black coffee she bought after stopping off at the Dunkin’ was working to snap her out of her funk. But even antipsychotic medications had not been able to do that, yet. If anything, they were contributing to her feeling of spaciness.

Even with her long nap, she was as drained as a Tesla driven across The States without a recharge, and like a sailboat thrown out to open sea and having its masts broken by a great squall, she was now adrift amidst the fog of her life.

It was six in the morning on a cold fall Sunday. Being a Catholic American girl who, growing up took great joy in both Sunday’s Mass, the scent and taste of big breakfasts of waffles and kielbasa that followed, and watching football all afternoon, she wanted to do none of the above. She needed some alternate form of recovery…something more potent.

She was in no rush this morning, spending most of her mental energy trying to process everything. Letting out a sigh and giving a shrug of surrender, she took out her phone and speed-dialed the van service for her pickup. Sipping ever so slowly from her extra-large coffee she was uncertain what the purpose of everything thus far was.

After twenty minutes that passed like a second, the white van showed up and a kind old man who looked like he should have retired a decade ago got out and approached her. She was the van’s only passenger on this trip. The driver tried to make conversation but could tell she wasn’t looking for it and let her be.

As the van set out, Zoey’s blank stare evaporated, and her eyes darted around the scenery outside with attentive curiosity. A brand-new Mercedes broken-down midway through the Sumner. Ventilation fans turning in the O’Neil. A LifeFlight helicopter on its way to Mass General. Steam rising from the rooftops of buildings out over on the Charlestown and Somerville sides, after they crossed the Zakim.

As a kid, she liked to watch gameshows on TV. In her mind, she likened her 1/3-complete life to a losing spin on Wheel of Fortune: she had a bit banked up, took a spin, and then landed on Bankrupt. She had to start from scratch with nothing and almost no one. It had all been taken from her.

As the van crossed the Massachusetts and New Hampshire border, she started to think: What now?

The van passed the now vacant building that once housed a Staples store, where she worked as a college student. She remembered the hope she felt back then, as a top performer, albeit at a shit-hole school that had since gone bankrupt and repurposed as an eldercare community.

She remembered the only upside of being a commuter student there: the free-time she had, due to ostracization from the cliquish community, to spend in her tiny college’s cozy library pulling up interesting journal articles from the ACM and EBSCO Digital Libraries, reading about advances in issues of Technology Review, or in the latest technology, defense, geopolitics, or aerospace engineering books bought for those in the Air Force ROTC.

On Friday nights, it was game night in the computer labs, and though she couldn’t play the first-person shooters, as she got motion sickness, she enjoyed the atmosphere…and the free pizza. She missed it.

And then it occurred to her: she had a blank slate now and could start anew. Her eleven years in espionage was a chapter closed.

--

Patton greeted her at the door. He must have known, from the bustling in the kitchen, Zoey was on her way home.

“Hi kitty,” Zoey whispered with a grin as she entered her parent’s condominium. She picked Patton up, gave him a nuzzle and carried him as she walked.

The entryway was nothing to be proud of. Completely unfinished with a concrete floor, a hallway to the garage on one-side and a water heater in the open to the other, leading to an unpainted and worn pine staircase up to the main floor; so creaky one could hear anyone approaching, even Zoey at her stealthiest. When she got to the top of the stairs, she paused briefly to compose herself, from her feelings of defeat. Then she turned the doorknob.

“Hey kiddo. Grab a seat, I’ll have the flapjacks ready in a jiff,” her dad greeted her cheerily. It was like she was there yesterday, when in fact it had been nearly five years since she set foot in the home.

Zoey nodded, dropped her bag beside the bar stool at the island separating the kitchen from the dining room, went to the cupboard and pulled out the giant bag of Kirkland branded Starbucks dark roast.

Over the bean grinding, her dad Ken did his best to engage her in conversation. Unlike many times in her past, she was willing to oblige.

“Look at this as the start of a different kind of adventure,” he offered, trying to sound encouraging. “Like when the Ghostbusters were kicked out of their university.”

“I don’t have a Ray or an Egon, I’ve got no ideas, no technology, nor a body of knowledge of any practical and legal use that I can think of.” Zoey dumped the fresh smelling coffee grinds into the filter of the coffee machine, filled it with water and began the brew.

“You still drink as much coffee as you used to, eh?” Ken joked.

“Probably more; But you know, you adapt to it and it doesn’t do as much for you.” Zoey replied.

After a pause, she continued, “I need to relax and decompress. Just take stock of everything. I don’t want to think of next steps yet.”

“Fair enough, take as much time as you need.”

Again, Zoey’s vacant stare out the sliding glass door to the porch, overlooking western Nashua from the hilltop at the Cannongate Complex, made Ken wonder how his daughter was doing. He did his best to mask his concern.

“Rent’s due on the first of the month,” Ken joked.

Zoey gave a wry look and smirked, “Right.” She took another sip of her coffee, heavily diluted in cream and sugar.

--

After breakfast Zoey returned to her room, which was as unchanged as the day she left it. She put on her Metallica Load CD from high school and skipped to Until It Sleeps. Then she pulled her laptop from a safe in the closet, bolted to the floor.

Zoey’s room was as immaculate as it could possibly be, with her childhood bed cleanly made and the sheets having hospital corners. A giant poster with a map of the globe was strewn from the wall to the ceiling in front of her desk. Her high school basketball trophies were in the corner across from a giant bookshelf, loaded to near collapse with books, that seemed to be too big for such a small room.

From the underwear draw of her dresser she pulled out a key, then unscrewed the base of her end table lamp. She pulled out of it a cylindrical mini-safe, unlocked it and took out a microSD card, then put it into the slot on her Panasonic Toughbook. She hopped on her bed after kicking her shoes off.

After starting it up, the wallpaper of a seal with a sword in the middle of it with the words Latebra Factum surrounding it appears. Her laptop was running the Tails operating system.

From the laptop bag she removed an IronKey USB drive and plugged it in. Opening a custom version of Thunderbird, her emails started to trickle in…and then a deluge. Twenty thousand emails, unread…and still more were stacking up.

Letting out a groan, “fuck it,” she declared. She slammed the laptop shut, tossed it onto the cushion at the foot of her bed. Her cat, looking for some affection from her long-gone pal, hopped up on the bed seeking to be pet.

“And you know the worst of it, Patton, most of those thousands are probably junk with a handful from people who I might actually want to try getting in touch with again.”

Ken popped his head in, briefly letting her know that “the CVS computer-voice called. Said your pills are ready. Let me know when you’re ready to talk about what’s going down on your health front. Mom will be home late tonight; it’s that season at the sort center.”

Zoey squeezed her eyes shut and then thought of a path to relief, for the moment.

“As Walter says, ‘fuck it, let’s go bowling.’”

--

It was mid-morning and the parking lot was empty, except for a few Buicks and Cadillac’s of the regular retirees. Zoey rode in on her orange Huffy mountain bike, which she had outgrown two decades ago. Still decked out in her sweats and Adidas, she strolled into the bowling alley, without giving even a sense of the fact she hadn’t been there since her senior year of college.

Carl, the manager, still recognized her.

“Well hey little lady, you haven’t changed a bit,” the old man smiled.

“Hey Carl, a lane and shoes if you don’t mind; Size 9,” she replied, grateful to see a friendly face.

“No problem at all Zoey. You still working in the telephone business?”

“I left. A lot of mismanagement. Just a toxic place.”

“That’s a shame. How’s your pal Margo doing?”

“I haven’t heard from her in some time. Still in New York probably; last I heard she still hadn’t learned to drive.”

“How can you spend so much time repairing cars as a kid and never actually drive one?”

“Beats the shit out of me.”

“Here are your shoes, lane 20. You look a bit off you know? You got kind of an empty-eyed expressionless gaze there. Just let loose a little. As many games as you want, it’s on me.”

Zoey smiled, best she could. and walked off to her lane, past the arcade and its pinball machines blaring music, speech and sound effects.

--

After three games of mostly gutters, Zoey pulled a dollar out of her wallet and went to the Coca Cola machine. Coke was Zoey’s favorite drink, with Diet Coke being her distant second. The taste reminded her of two places: McDonalds, where her parents would bring her on weekends as a kid after her soccer games and Disney World, particularly Epcot, where wonderous futures seemed tangible.

If America itself were a beverage, it would be Coca Cola. It was a comforting symbol she had seen all over the world in her travels and could always be counted on to remind her of home. She had liked Mexican coke in the recycled glass bottles the best because she heard they used real cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. Though the bottles looked kind of worn and almost dirty in Mexico, she craved them, nonetheless.

Oddly enough, Zoey found that Leda Lanes still had a working Jukebox. It was digital, but still cool none the less. She flipped through the digital images of albums and chose Teach Your Children from Crosby Stills and Nash’s Greatest Hits. She leaned on the machine and sung along quietly, after eyeballing the joint carefully. Even trying hard, there was only so much of her attentiveness she could turn off, but she was getting better at it. The medication was helping, in its own weird way. She had never felt so spacy in all her life, though. And the restlessness in her legs was insufferable.

Three lanes down from the arcade area, some kids hurried over to claim their lane. Zoey eavesdropped on them, which was no superhuman feat as they were raucously chatting about a friend’s “hilarious” Facebook status update.

Zoey’s account had been dormant for some time, and she was ordered not to use social media for the time being as there was a potential and specific threat to her. But without a timeframe, she was in the lurch. Being alone at thirty-three didn’t feel very promising.

In all honesty, she went to the bowling alley in the hope of seeing someone familiar…well other than Carl…though she knew that was silly for an early Sunday in Nashua. She wanted to make a connection. Not that she enjoyed socializing at all, but she had hoped to turn over a new leaf amid some familiarity. To have someone to set out on a path with.

The Eminem song Rock Bottom started to play. She rolled her eyes at the irony of it, then closed them for a minute. Nashua was not where she was going to run into people her age. She needed to relocate to a major city. And perhaps she should try it where she landed just hours ago. In Boston. Or one of its outlying areas. She dropped off her bowling shoes, and with a kind wave and nod to Carl, she left.

In the parking lot a Honda Civic, painted like a race car and with an elaborate spoiler and exhaust, pulled in with the speakers pumping out Beck’s Loser. How fitting.

She needed to wash her hands of this place and move on. She thought, just hours ago, it would be good to stay and decompress a bit, but on second thought the sooner to a new lily pad the better the prospects would be. And now was time to up-periscope on social media.

--

Google. The place where everything seems to start in much of the world. “Top places for young professionals.” “Boston.”

On her screen, the instant answers popped up. “Dorchester, Hyde Park, Jaimaca Plain…” Hmmm. Weren’t those the places that always were mentioned on the six AM news with police officers shining flashlights and ambulances picking up lifeless bodies? Skip that, what else? she thought.

Back Bay. The Red Sox. Bars, museums, a bunch of schools. People. But then again, people? Tons of people? Could she handle that? Would she panic like she did before?

Would she be followed and talked about by mystery people here too?

Coming to Nashua was so she could “reset” herself. Leave the world of threatening environments, torrents of crowds, noise-filled settings with hidden and unknowable threats. Have some alone downtime. Acclimate to normalcy in a familiar setting of safety.

--

“Psychosis? You’re psychotic? Jesus Christ Zoey.”

“Look, don’t focus on what that label means based on the opinions of mass media. It really means that they think I lost touch with reality. I heard things that weren’t there. I was delusional, and I had a breakdown.” Zoey said with her eyes averted in shame.

“Jesus. And how long does this last, this psychosis?”

“For most people, it’s up to six months. It’s called schizophreniform disorder. If it goes longer than that it’s schizophrenia. I think my sleep deprivation and depression caused it, but the doctors have no idea. Medical science doesn’t fully get it yet,” she put it quietly.

“So you’re a schizo?”

“Forget the labels Dad. It’s an illness. Bad. Fucking. Luck.” She looked on him with quiet frustration. Thinking to herself, what on earth does this man not understand about being dealt bad cards.

Resisting tears, Ken recomposed himself. “So, this happened while you were on the job. What exactly are they going to provide?”

“I get three year’s salary and healthcare, plus a desk job in Washington if I chose, when I’m more stable.”

“You’re going to live in Washington?”

“I think I’m going to pass on that part. I think I’m going to pass on the job part entirely.”

“And do WHAT?”

“I want to write. Be a writer. Make something comical. I don’t know.”

“What, after being Mrs. Darkness for a decade, assassinating people, or who knows what? That’s probably what caused this…”

“That’s not what I did…would you just quit it with this ‘psycho’ stuff okay. Fuck it. I’m out of here.”

--

Zoey sat in the stuffy office before the priest, who was remarkably bright-eyed, relaxed, and comforting. Fr. Krantz, a rather young priest, albeit known for his mastery of management and to a degree his marketing skills, had just taken over the parish. Being bilingual and having a very affable persona, clergy were very hopeful in his ability to increase membership and make the parish more welcoming, while keeping committed to core values.

“So, you haven’t been to mass in how long?”

“I’d say about…seven years.”

“And what’s your prayer life been like?”

“I haven’t said any prayers in like…forever.”

“Do you have a bible at home to study with?”

“I don’t think I have the focus to study the back of a cereal box at the moment.”

“You haven’t been doing any witchcraft or anything lately?”

Zoey shot back a perplexed look.

“I’m only kidding. You don’t look like the type and that stuff’s pretty bogus anyway.”

“I like watching Harry Potter.”

The priest let out a chuckle, “Those are fun stories. There’s nothing wrong with good fiction.” “So, you hear people talking negatively about you when you’re out in public, and you think someone is both angry at you and out to get you, but you’re unsure who.”

“That’s basically it…I mean I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty.”

“I understand that, that’s alright. Mental illness is an illness like any other. When you’re sick with pneumonia you pray. When you’re sick with schizophrenia you pray too.”

“It’s actually schizophreniform.”

“So, let’s try this for starters, a Novena to St. Blaise…”

“Okay.”

Fr. Krantz extends his hand over Zoey and prays, “St Blaise, gracious helper of mankind and faithful servant of God, who for the love of our Savior suffered many tortures with patience and resignation; We ask for your powerful intercession. Preserve your daughter Zoey from all evils of soul and body.” He blesses her throat. “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” Zoey replies, eyes closed.

“So, say that prayer,” reaching into his desk he pulls out a card, “and three Our Father’s, three Hail Mary’s and three Glory Be’s. It’s all on that card if you forget. Do that for nine days straight.”

Zoey was expecting more, almost hoping for an epiphany, but realizes her expectations going in were a bit unreasonable.

“Talk to God. You don’t need to talk all preachy; just talk to him like you were talking to a friend. Talk angry if it suits you. When the time is right for you, sooner rather than later hopefully, join us for mass. Take the sacraments. Go to confession. Right now, you’re in a tough state and I get that. Rest you mind, body and soul. And take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”

--

She awoke to the sound of the blades of the Mi-26 helicopter slicing through the night air along with the return fire of AKMs and her team’s SAW gunner.

Zoey was just coming to, as the sedative was wearing off, just as she was thrown over the shoulders of her colleague, in a Fireman’s carry. A bunch of Asian faces she couldn’t make out all talking American English, plus some she recognized as her teammates.

She was carried onto the helicopter first, as members of her team leapfrogged out of there, covering each other as they moved out and board. Her team fired smoke grenades out the back door to cover their extraction from the hot landing zone.

--

As the aircraft is safely out of range, and on a stable low altitude flightpath, Zoey starts to get a sense of her surroundings. An unfamiliar face appears above her.

“Hi Zoey, I’m Dr. Han with the Office of Medical Services. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Okay.”

“If I gave you the challenge, ‘Guru’ what would you reply with?”

“Ratatouille.”

“Can you tell me your full name?” he said as he looks in her eyes with a mini flashlight.

“Zoey Hu Leung.”

“Do you know the date and year?”

“3 August 2016.”

“Do you know what task force you’re assigned to?”

“White Juniper.”

“Do you know where you just were?”

“Rason, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

“I’m going to say three words and I want you to try your best to remember them, okay.”

“Apple, Cup, Desk. Just keep those words in your head, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Could you spell the word Finger backwards for me?”

“R, E, ahh…G, N, I, F,” Zoey replied, confused and very fatigued.

“Could you explain to me what makes water boil?”

“I flunked chemistry…I don’t know, heat applied to the molecules causes the beginning of a state change from liquid to gas? I don’t know.”

“Could you repeat those three words I asked you to remember?”

“Desk, Cup, Apple.”

“Okay. We’ve been sent to rescue you and your unit. Could you tell me what’s been happening?”

“We boarded the merchant ship Ja Ryok to pick up a defector…this scientist with the People’s Navy who was designing the latest model of the KN-11 submarine launched ballistic missiles. We got him, but before my team could get to the Zodiaks we took fire and next thing I knew, I woke up feeling like I was just knocked out. There was some trouble with one of the boats, so we diverted to a backup LZ before it crapped out on us and then I was being carried onto a helicopter and then talking to you.”

“Zoey, have you ever felt that someone could put a thought in your head?”

“Umm, no.”

“Or take one out?”

“No.”

“Ever feel that people could know or hear what you are thinking?”

“I did feel that way with a member of my team, Everett. It felt like he knew what I was going to say before I said it.”

“Have you ever felt you were getting signals or signs in anyway, other than what you’d experience normally operating your com gear?”

“I’ve had the feeling that my whole team was seeing all the emails I was sending out and that there is a mole in our unit, but I don’t know who. And in my quarters…I’ve…this is uncomfortable to say…”

“It’s okay, go ahead…”

“I’ve felt like people on the team have been able to see through my wall as I was undressing. I can’t explain how.”

“Okay. Zoey, we’re going to take you back to safety. Obviously, that’s not the easiest thing in the world to do considering the circumstances, but we’ll be landing on another ship shortly and from there you’ll be headed to BHC Chinhae, Korea, and ultimately, most likely, the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka after that. So just do your best to relax, have some fluids and rations and sit tight.”

--

Omar couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Four hours into his sleep, he was awoken by an urgent call from the Operations Center at CIA Headquarters telling him he needed to come in, and a car would be there for him momentarily. While not an irregular occurrence, something about this was particularly worrisome. A team leader had gone nuts, nearly killing her asset and her team during an op.

Things were going very wrong in North Korea, to begin with. As Associate Director of the National Clandestine Service’s Special Activities Division, it was his job to manage the clean-up of this latest disaster.

In July, Kim Jong-Un was placed on a sanctioned person’s list, and as a result North Korea warned the US it was crossing a red line. Missile development activities were being ramped up, in response to these latest tensions.

Sleepy-eyed, Omar watched the PowerPoint deck, hastily prepared for the briefing.

The Division Chief summarized their predicament to him. “SNOWSQUALL, our asset in the People’s Navy heading up the development of the submarine-based missile program gave his case officer word he was going to defect, as he felt, and we later confirmed, he was about to be targeted for sacking,” he spoke. He too felt like a zombie, after spending the last three days in the operations center, overseeing the action, and sleeping on a cot.

He continued, getting to the part that made the hair on his neck stand up. “The leader of the forward-deployed rescue team was seen as becoming increasing unstable, and her team had recently notified the deputy station chief of their concerns. Unfortunately, operations were already underway when these concerns materialized in earnest.”

“The rescue was nearly botched, the defector was seriously wounded, and the team leader, coming fully unhinged, was relieved in the field, and sedated by the team medic. For some reason, a well-armed team was aboard the merchant ship, indicating someone knew of the rescue mission in advance. When fire broke out, one of the Zodiaks was hit and damaged and the extraction by the rubber inflatables back to a submarine was aborted, with the team diverting to shore. A rescue team was dispatched by helicopter.”

--

SIX MONTHS LATER

And there she was, her new home. It was a cavernous third floor apartment in a brick building out in Brookline, a city just south west of Boston.

She had little furniture or other affects to speak of, other than a sofa, two standing lamps, a bed, a large cable spool for a coffee table, a commercial grade desk, a 72” LCD TV her dad just bought her, and an office multifunction printer as well as a high-end hot cocoa machine. Her dad loaded and unloaded everything from the car and then helped Zoey get settled in her new abode.

“Good luck honey. I’m glad the meds are working so far. I’m sure the spaciness will wear away in a few weeks.”

“Thanks dad, I’ll be in touch.”

She closed the door and turned around. This was the start of the blank slate she had hoped for. All she needed was for the life’s’ rainstorm pianos from the sky to let up as she tried to integrate into the community and be a normal person.

--

TWO MONTHS LATER

Zoey is listening to music with the TV on, but on mute. It’s the Price is Right, a rerun with Bob Barker.

“Just you and me huh Patton?” She picked the cat up and placed it in her lap. Suddenly her phone vibrated. It was an email from her old childhood friend Margo. Together they had worked in Margo’s father’s garage as kids working on cars.

Oddly, Margo was never allowed to drive a car while living with her parents and was strongly cautioned against it after her uncle Philip died in a car accident with a drunk driver on route 101 in Milford, NH one night. She rode a bicycle for the longest time, even when she moved to New York City after she got a job at Wells Fargo through a connection.

Hey Girlfriend, it’s been forever since I saw you. Noticed you moved to the city. Let’s meetup. - Margo

Zoey, replied quickly…

Sure. Where? I’m near Kenmore Sq. if that helps.

Margo’s response was immediate…

Hey, I’m right near there. Let’s meet at Eastern Standard @11am tomorrow if that works for you.

Zoey got up and went to the phonebooth sized utility closet, where the washer and dryer were, and from behind her pulled out a Gerber Diesel Multitool from a holster at the small of her back attached to her belt. She switched tools quickly, selected a prying edge, and shimmied the enclosure off an HVAC panel.

On the ceiling of the enclosure was a laptop held in by a shelf hidden by an aluminum cover that perfectly matched the interior of the enclosure. A servicer would never have noticed it.

She pulled out the laptop, a Panisonic Toughbook CF-31, in blue. She puts the panel aside, stowed her tool back behind her, pulled a SD Card from her ankle wallet, and sat comfortably on the bed in her Chuck Norris hoodie and jeans with the laptop in her lap while music blared the voice of Lauryn Hill singing with The Fugees in the background from her desktop’s speakers.

Inserting the SD card and turning it on, a blue screen with a white Panasonic and Intel logo appeared, followed by the boot screen for the Tails OS, a more secure operating system than Windows. She logged in and started things up.

Zoey began typing…

December 15, 2016 10:21:42

This is the first entry in this diary. So here I am in Boston.

Tomorrow I go to the hospital to see my new outpatient psychiatrist. I’m nervous. The exams overseas and the one in San Diego were a bit cold and discomforting. Military doctors, you know. Plus, it’s obvious to them I wasn’t a service member, so it’s quite odd.

Though I’m here in Boston now, I’m no more encouraged by things even though they seem to be on the up and up.

It’s a beautiful city full of charm, a diversity of the seasons, and carrying with it the history of the revolution, the nation’s founding I cherished hearing about from the heroic and glorious…though somewhat embellished at times…stories from fourth grade. And despite me always bad-mouthing Boston, the historic charm and variety are what I love about it.

Boston is the 24th largest city in the country, and the hub of the best of the world’s education. Harvard, MIT, not far out of the state is Brown, within the city is Tufts and just outside is Brandeis, then right along the Charles is BU and followed further out west is BC; there’s also Northeastern and a bunch of stuff down by Longwood along with Harvard Medical School and there’s a ton more good schools in and around the area.

Also, in the area, feeding into those top universities and colleges are Philips, then Philips Exeter in New Hampshire, Deerfield, Winsor, Milton…and others.

You’re talking about long lines of connected, educated, moneyed, and influential people. Networks intersecting networks in a region where your success and ability to survive life’s slings and arrows is often dominated by your ability to network, carry favor, or the ability of those around you or who came before you to do the same.

What does this mean to us spooks? It means it’s also the second biggest continental target of foreign intelligence activities. Spooks love networks and working them.

You have a gigantic influx of immigrants or LPRs, a lot of F’s all around the school areas, the H’s who are often the high-tech dudes and dudetts, the G’s who work for the mega corps, and others. All good and hardworking people save a small few, contrary to what some in our government puts out.

And a small number of them are being used or suspected of being used in one way or another, often without them knowing it. Everybody has a vulnerability or secret want or longing. And that’s how, the few that are, are compromised.

Either by them, with them, or through them, sometimes without them knowing, some of our biggest national assets and secrets are flowing over our borders, across our seas, or into the stratosphere into the minds, the labs, information centers and war rooms of our enemies.

There’s lots of fresh money and cutting-edge technology here. Research in every conceivable area under the sun or the cover of darkness, happens in this city in the bowels of some university, a startup’s office, some dude’s apartment, a coworking space, a corporate or government lab, or a medical facility.

Everybody wants to keep or make more friends or wants to propel their social status whether it be in the bar room, the soccer sidelines, the clubs, the balls, the gym, the box seats, the mixers and fundraisers, hell the fucking bingo parlor…I don’t know.

They’re people with money and who are eager to make more. And everyone knows somebody with a great idea, whether it be the latest internet-of-things-connected-self-flushing-rubber-dog-shit or autonomous-broadband-multimedia-toaster-oven-carpet-cleaner, to invest in or a hot penny stock tip, or some great real estate, or some other investment, or who can do some job or favor that will make a big return or whatever.

There are tons of banks and hedge funds and other financial instrument thingumajigs and various types of paper-pushing flunkies beyond my understanding. That’s not my end of the business.

But I do know that Boston is the second biggest source of actionable FinCEN SAR hits and the top source of SEVIS alerts needing special attention in the country.

It’s a place where the FBI’s own counter-intelligence people don’t even trust their own local field office or any of the other local yokels. I mean, while it was long ago, this is John Connelly’s old stomping grounds. It’s the culture.

Too many talkers in this city. Can’t stop fucking talking. They just can’t. Must be something in the water or something. People can’t help themselves; there’s no discipline in anything. Hell, just watch them drive for Christ’sake. “Blinkah”. There I said it.

Anyway, in a reinforced vault held in place by deep, deep pylons to protect it from the inevitable collapse that will happen to this city when the fault this place is on eventually goes active again and sinks Back Bay into the center of the earth, over in a non-descript building on the outskirts of Cambridge, once owned by a part of some old telco has-been no one remembers, is the second largest, second-most advanced and third-busiest COMINT magnet in the entire country. It’s run by the National Security Agency, of course.

Data from every source imaginable is intercepted multiplexed and loaded onto black fiber that’s strung up through specially shielded utility conduits, at the very bottom of the trenches underneath the regular fiber runs, up Interstate 93 and up and down Interstate 95 over to US-3 and up the median of it into New Hampshire (or on many other routes where the more secure stuff doesn’t even get the benefit of a Dig Safe marker), all the way up into a mill-yard building in Manchester, New Hampshire.

I’m going to call it STYLEPOINT here, but that’s not what it’s called. I chose the word STYLEPOINT because Margo always said I had no sense of style. Anyhow, this place is where all the info is mostly just stored, like the world’s biggest cache of unsold David Hasselhoff cassettes; but a tiny bit of it is given first stage analysis by humans or through automation.

The counterintelligence program run in the Greater Boston Area is gigantic. And the counter-intel feebs often have got over 350 active investigations at any one time across a range of industries from defense and electronics to healthcare and biotech. From finance to academics and everything around and between. And government, and other stuff. I’d bet they’re even watching the cab stands and the few hot dog carts there are.

So, this is a place with lots of movers and shakers, and lots of events…over a trillion graph nodes associated with billions of pieces of information, surveillance, and evidence…some tracked or recorded in real-time or near it.

So here I am…in the middle of it. I don’t work this industry anymore. I’m too susceptible to the bullshit my brain cooks up and with the labels I carry, and the Achilles heel I have, too easy to humiliate and thus blackmail. When you’ve got the scarlet letter of “the crazies” people tend to stay away, say things or otherwise shun you.

And I have to be on my toes about everybody, even though I know all of it is cooked up by my mind. And that includes my best friend, Margo. My gal.

If this were Harry Potter, we’d be thick as Harry and Ron. Or at least I’d hope we could be again after this meet. But this is no fairytale.

Yesterday I had a visitor…this dude from the FBI, and even in my spacey-headed, hard-to-converse, or non-“walk and chew gum”-functional state, this feeb dude drones on about every possibly important motherfucker who enters my life.

He says they have information on a plausible threat to me and since the Duty to Warn has existed for quite some time, and especially since it was enshrined in Intelligence Community Directive 191…well…here they are. But I really am not in a caring mood.

Anyways, being I’m going to be getting civilian real-deal hospital care now, that introduces a new risk.

I don’t know much about psychology other than what I’ve seen on TV from Dr. Katz on Comedy Central, or that guy I worked as a guidance office runner for in High School, plus the questions in the exams I got over in Japan and at the San Diego Naval Medical Center, but it’s the one part of medicine that involves less about the physical structure of your brain and more their guess as to the chemical balance of it, what you’re thinking, why you think it, and how you think about it and what you do with those thoughts. And your thoughts are made of what you experience, learn and remember.

Problem is, with somebody like me, there’s a fuck lot you “don’t remember.” And there’s a lot of care about who I “don’t remember it” to while giving them my reality so they can do their job of treating and advising me.

So again, seeing anybody showing up that I might have to communicate something more than my favorite color to means another visit from this lowest guy on the totem-poll among the feebs, at least while I’m in this state so early on.

What do they want to talk at me about: who to watch out for, what to watch out for and why I should be scared to death, as if my condition doesn’t cause me to live in enough terror.

So, this lady I’ve got to see is Dr. Wendy McGregor at Brigham and Women’s. She’s 37, and living in Lexington, a transplant from Cincinnati and prior to that Deluth.

Went to medical school at UCLA and graduated top of her class. Married to her girlfriend who’s from Indianapolis, some executive at National Grid out in Waltham. They’ve got two adopted kids who are a bit older and go to private school.

So, what the fuck do I care about any of that for?

Well, through the kids, the family is very close friends with this Chinese American family where the husband and wife both work over at a Fidelity facility in the Seaport district by the Trade Center.

Mr. Cheap-suit-FBI-man’s dossier tells him to warn me that they’ve got computer hits on six members of his family overseas (some distant, but clearly big-wigs in Hainan, a place WE don’t like), plus two ancillary hits on people down the hall from this doctor’s main office in the hospital, who are Egyptian and Saudi, respectively. Not that I ever did anything ever in the middle east or even in any white dude territory (save my temporary embarrassment in Alaska).

Again, who fucking cares and why? Well, who knows. People talk. Even at my work people talked. And these people in hospitals don’t work in silos; they get advice, they get managed, they do “case conferences,” they chat up in the staff elevator, or while fighting for that stuck Cheetos bag at the vending machine in a basement of the medical school, or whatever. Carpools, vanpools, shared cabs or Ubers, you name it. People talk; that’s human.

Plus, who knows, maybe some jag-off facilities guy has to walk into an office one day with a step ladder and a humidity meter to check on a leaky pipe or it just happens to be the time of year for one of their full-time paint staff to do their job at the perfect spot. And maybe that guy’s a plant or something.

Who fucking knows. You can never know. There is no such thing as security. It’s a business of illusions that simply encompasses best efforts to mitigate the known knowns, and as best as possible the known unknowns, as Rummy liked to say.

Again, in a place employing thousands of people who the hell cares. Probably a small handful have overstayed their visas or have other minor violations and are no more a threat than the guy selling hotdogs in The Common.

And when I say “computer hits”, I have no idea what he means, because again that’s not my end of the business and they probably are just inflating or making up shit and combining that with the other documents to show me just to scare the bejesus out of me enough to be very careful so I don’t give out the secret formula of Coke.

But considering he says he and his fellow ass-clowns will be showing up every couple of months to keep me updated of my situation until the threat is neutralized, it makes me think they wouldn’t be wasting the time unless they were concerned. Just not sure if that’s concern about my stupid mouth or people around me who might want to harm me.

I think it’s my stupid mouth. Before I went into the Agency’s Special Activities Division for Marine Special Ops, doing commando style-shit, I went through four roles as a technical operations officer with non-official covers.

But now, being nuts means the fake companies I worked for back then had to be wound down in the most seemingly legitimate ways possible, and never used as cover for anyone ever again.

Fellow “colleagues” and anyone with current or past ties to those entities and me needed new covers and good stories for what happened that resulted in such changes at those fake companies. Bullshit stories about what happened to me after my shift to SAD, that were already in place, needed to be amended and necessary people briefed.

And all of this would have to withstand many levels of verification, review, and other scrutiny from the legal paperwork for wind-down, to telephone number changes, site façade modifications for actual office locations, briefing of facility managers and for any necessary security updates. Costly stuff.

And then, all my stuff that got picked up when I joined and was picked up by Agency movers and put in storage, from my Disney celluloids, to my panties, to my fucking Nissan Sentra are supposed to be coming tomorrow. And it all better be in pristine condition.

So much to think about, and I feel I can’t think on it, much less anything with any clarity.

Hopefully this meet with Margo goes well. I need a friend in this.

Zoey can’t think of more to write. She hits a key shortcut and saves it, shuts the lid, folds her arms and stares at the ceiling. Her cat hops up on the bed and wants attention.

--

It was a crisp, cold, fall morning in Boston. Waiting at a table at the Eastern Standard Restaurant, overlooking Kenmore Square, Margo looked out. She was in a very good mood and looking forward to meeting her old friend. She hadn’t seen her in eleven years. Last time they talked was at the end of college. She’s happy and relaxed. She checks her watch, as if her acquaintance is running late but is not concerned.

It’s Zoey; apparently even with her experience in her job she couldn’t manage to meet a friend on time. Finally, Zoey makes her way around the corner. They make eye contact and a smile comes across Margo’s face.

Zoey is wearing Levis jeans and a green pea coat, while Margo has come in a Gucci sweater. Margo, a friend many mistook for Zoey’s sister, due to their same last names and the amount of time they spent hanging out together, was Zoey’s closest confidant growing up. Margo waves as her friend approaches.

“Zoey! So good to see you girlfriend!” Margo exclaimed, with Zoey doing her best to feign excitement.

They give a warm embrace, and take their seats.

“How's life?” Zoey asked.

Margo gave a bit of a shrug. “Heh. Yeah, guess you haven't been reading the papers.”

“To be honest, I've been sitting in an apartment in Brookline watching marathons of the Price is Right and eating sausage pizza for the past few months.”

Margo gives a quizzical look. “But, but… you had your dream job? What the hell happened?”

Zoey, paused, trying to decide how deep to get into it. She began, “I got shipped off to the loneliest city, in the loneliest slanty-eyed country in the world, to live among a bunch of other slanty-eyed people drinking the Kool-aide since they were toddlers.”

Margo was speechless.

Zoey continued, “Extreme stress and near-death experiences.  It sours you on life, I guess. Got sick of it. Literally.”

Margo was unsure how to comfort her. All she could say was, “That's so sad! But what do you mean sick?”

Zoey, wondering if she was revealing too much, bit her tongue at first, but then relented, “I had a bit of a breakdown and some other shit. So, I’m out. I’m the kind of person they’re supposed to be expertly good at screening out day one too. I have no idea how I got in with them in the first place.”

“Shit,” replied Margo, finding no better words to say.

Zoey, thought about the direction this meeting was going and wanted to bring back a more positive vibe ,so she changed the subject, “Sorry, I don't mean to be so depressing. You know me, I was always pretty negative back in our hey days anyways.”

Margo, again stupefied, “Yeah, but you always had that quiet confidence that things would work out though…I mean, all through school.”

Zoey, again trying to change the conversation asked, “So why are you in the press?”

“Well you remember I got hired by Wells Fargo, right?” Margo replied, with a tad of a gloomy demeanor.

“No, some big bank I knew. What's so bad about them? Good'ol horse and buggy dudes, right?”

Not exactly. Frankly, they decided the best way to make money was to fuck people. I thought I was on top of the world when I made Assistant VP.

Zoey, not knowing well enough to keep her mouth shut with her friend, asked “I thought that there were thousands of VPs at those banks, that they gave those titles out like Christmas cards?”

Margo, gave a brief embarrassed look. “Yeah, but I was in HR, the hierarchy is a little different and there are some real duties. Anyways, when they got pinched they blamed part of it on me and about a thousand other low-level people. And then to top that all off the FBI came after me.”

 “Yikes,” Zoey said with a slight look of surprise.

“But I got a good lawyer, turned a witness, got off and helped put a few over-privileged old white men away while getting the CEO "retired" and helping them to claw back his severance.” 

"The year of the boomerang," Zoey quoted from a Rage Against the Machine song.

Finally, the waiter approached, seeing they had settled themselves.

Sorry for the delay, what can I get you?

“A vodka tonic,” Margo replied.

 “Any particular brand of Vodka?” the waiter asked.

 “Um…you have Ivan the Terrible?”

 “We do.”

 “That works. And…well let’s just get to it…I'll have the steak-frites. Cooked to medium-rare,” Margo said enthusiastically, ordering before her friend, then noticing her faux pas.

And you, mam?

“Diet Coke. Burger and fries, no onions, medium,” Replied with her default option. If she were invited to eat at Legal Sea Foods she would probably have ordered the same.

“You sure? It’s on me,” Margo asked wanting to make sure it was clear she was treating her to the meeting.

“That's fine,” replied Zoey with a nod after sipping from her water.

“Great. Back with your drinks shortly.”

Wanting to get a laugh out of Margo, Zoey joked, "Ivan the Terrible, huh? Sounds made up.”

It worked and Margo gave a hearty laugh.

“It's a top shelf vodka. All you ever drank back in college was the occasional Budweiser. Why?”

“Didn't the Mythbusters do a special on taking cheap vodka, passing it through like twenty filters and having professionals not be able to tell the difference between it and a high end?”

Reminiscing about old days in her mind, Margo replied, “I haven’t watched Discovery since…well, college.”

With a touch of despondency Zoey remarked, “They're not even on it anymore, it kind of sucks now.”

“So anyway, I noticed you moved back into town when you popped up on Facebook. Have any plans?”

Zoey knew there was something more to this meeting. She replied, “Not yet, but I have a feeling you do.”

“I was, um, thinking, thinking…”

Zoey, getting impatient, responded “Thinking…out with it already.”

“How about we head to Northeastern for joint Law and MBA degrees?”

“More school?” Zoey put negatively, knowing secretly she was considering graduate school an option now that the data science academy didn’t work out.

“You loved learning and so did I. We didn't even have to try.”

Seeing there was more too this, Zoey tried to pull the curtain back further, “You don't bring things up without doing a complete workup. So…what have you found?”

“Northeastern is a good school, we'd get in easily, great faculty, great facilities, nice mix of people without the ego of the tier-ones, and even most tier-twos. I've sat in several classes, talked to a few students. Plus, they just built a graduate dorm that’s pretty nice.”

Zoey, liking the idea a bit replied, “I’ve already got a nice apartment, though. You should move in with me. But more importantly, what’s the end goal here?” 

“Maybe, you and I start and lead a security software firm someday. Maybe target the finance sector. Our skills are complementary. Recruit some peers.”

“Northeastern’s InfoSec program is top notch. It’s one of the few the NSA recruits out of,” Zoey noted.

“Plus you need a social life to pick you up out of the dumps. And a boyfriend.”

Zoey acknowledged, “My romantic life has gone nowhere since…well forever I guess. It's an opportunity.”

With emphasis Margo replied, “You've never had a romantic life unless something happened with you on the job you haven't told me so far, and I mean, what the fuck else do you have going for you now?”

Returning to her indifferent self, “Not much, just junk food and TV in a cavern of an apartment with the lights off. I barely even have furniture. And I don’t care.”

“Healthy,” Margo spoke with sarcasm.

Trying to rebalance her initial answer, Zoey said, “Well, look…I still run 10 miles a day, do 100 burpees, a full body workout four times a week, and spend an hour a day stretching. Lots of water, vitamins, protein and recovery fluids, and I use a juicer. Despite appearances, I’m not devoid of energy. I’ve gotta let it out somehow.”

Almost motherly, Margo warned, “You do look really good for a person who claims not to give a damn, which contradicts your exercise routine; But, diet and exercise go hand in hand. You’re little splurge must not have been going on long, as even with the exercise, the crap food would have caught up with you. And, you know, Bill Clinton ran all the time and worked out. He looked fine, but he loved Big Macs so much he ended up getting a quadruple bypass. Have you even had a checkup lately?

Matter-of-factly, Zoey said, “Two actually; one after the extract to Yokosuka and again in San Diego. Nothing physically wrong. Look, how much damage can four months of Upper Crust pies do to me? It’s not like doing bath salts for Christ’s sake.”

“Hey, I’m just looking out for you,” Margo said, showing she wasn’t going to push the issue further.

“I’m just so sick of the fucking Asian cuisine. If I eat anything involving rice, noodles or that comes out of the sea or gets pickled again I’m gonna vomit.”

Margo couldn’t help herself, retorting with “There are these things called salads you know.”

“Fuck salads.”

Margo rolled her eyes just as the waiter came with their drinks. “Here you are ladies.”

“Thanks,” Margo put kindly.

Deciding to divulge more, Zoey gave the crux of the matter: “They can’t technically give me Workman’s Comp or Disability for some reason tied to my work, so they dumped some cash on me and I’ve been living on that a few blocks over. I see a some shrinks over at Brigham every week. That they pay for that till I drop dead.”

“So, let's be straight here…how are you…up here (pointing to her head) and in here.”

It was a penetrating question and Zoey was unsure how far she wanted to get into it. With a noticeable dely, she finally spoke, “I'm more depressed than I was, even in high school. I’m anxious and paranoid all the time. There’s a numbness. Cognitively…I don’t fuckin’ know…I’m not exactly challenging myself intellectually as you can tell, but I think I’m still on the ball. A little foggy-headed sometimes I guess…I don’t know.” To a degree she was unsure of her capabilities anymore.

She continued, “About this schooling thing though, I don't know how I'd do at fraternizing with these type-A’s.”

“What are you afraid of?” wondered Margo.

Zoey replied, “There’s a reason I was on the technical side of things and not working resources. Plus, I mean isn't that what B-School is all about, being a people person? The law school is just tests and angry professors…no problem there.”

Margo conceded, “Yeah there's quite a bit of socializing and teamwork for an MBA.” Then she thought of the best way to sell it: “But maybe that's just what you need though. Not to mention a mission.”

At first her try nearly backfired, “God, please… I don't like the word ‘mission’.” She sat and thought a minute.

Then Zoey came around, “Let’s call it a goal instead. I do need goals.”

Excited, but want to confirm, Margo asked, “So, what do you think of the one I proposed.”

“It's not unreasonable, I'll give you that. It’s a tall mountain, but it's in our wheelhouse.” It was Zoey’s version of an enthusiastic yes.

Wanting to move on to other fun chitchat, Margo asked, “So, who you voting for, anyways?” Margo knew Zoey was a conservative in college.

With mock seriousness, she replied, “Mickey Mouse.”

Margo laughed but really wanted to know, “Really, who?”

“I haven't been states-side long enough to know any of the issues or candidates. I’ll be lucky if I don’t put “Dear Leader” in Chosŏn-mal as a write-in by accident. All I got was state TV over there.”

Shifting the conversation into a much lighter mode, “So, no Whoopi and the View?”

“The Guinan lady from Sister Act? I channel surfed past it a few weeks ago. I'm really not into news or politics at all. Game shows, TV Land, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon…or I guess they call it just “Nick” now. If there were a fucking 24-hour Mr. Rogers channel I’d be glued to it. And if I'm up at 3am I watch infomercials or televangelists. They’re hysterical.”

“I could never get you to take your Catholicism with much seriousness, though I know you enjoyed mass for a time. But why the Joel Olsteen crowd?”

“I'm not saying I buy it, I said it entertains me. Bill Cosby couldn't draw that crowd,” Zoey put, ignorant of current events since her seclusion.

“I doubt they’re there for entertainment. Have you heard about Cosby?” asked Margo.

Really not in the mood to hear about the sad state of the world, “No news. Just let me enjoy my bubble of brain-dead TV for a little while. Maybe it will help me recover.”

Pointedly, Margo replied, “Well, recover fast. The app deadline is March 20th. The latest GMAT you can take is February 1st. The latest LSAT is January 6th. And there's a whole process to the latter.”

“Those acronyms are tests I assume.” Zoey paused to think. “I'll be ready, I mean how hard could it be?”

 “I studied a lot and got a perfect 800 on the GMAT and a 173 on the LSAT. Took me two months of studying straight. Did the essays in a weekend.”

“Well look at you Mary Ingalls,” referencing the goody-two-shoes sister from the ancient show, Little House on the Prarie.

After eating a slice of her steak, Margo added, nonchalantly, “Had my interview yesterday and I'm in.”

Surprised for the first time, Zoey broke her first smile, “Woah. Wait…you prefaced this as if you were thinking about it. Now you tell me you already did it?”

Margo, almost too pleased with herself replied, “I knew you'd come along. I applied for an early decision, and now I’m admitted. I always was a few steps ahead of you.”

--

Zoey sat down at her desk. There was work to be done. What books did she need to learn about these LSAT and GMAT things. She needed to piece together a resume and she needed to learn what “behavioral interviewing” meant in the context of business schools.

She got on her computer and did some Googling. Some studies on the effectiveness of behavioral interviewing, a “competency dictionary” with keywords and explanations, a Kaplan guide for getting up to speed on basic mathematics quickly (she never was good with math), a similar preparation guide for Logic Games and Reading Comprehension.

She was going to need some music for all of this. She opened up Spotify and pulled up some coffee house music.

Once again, she felt the energy of a new start.

--

ONE YEAR LATER

Zoey dressed a little more sharply this time. She wanted to make friends for a change, perhaps meet mister right if she were lucky enough. Have a group of people to hang with.

She showed up early to case the place to get a degree of comfort with her environment. The large lobby with polished marble, having balconies for each of the six floors up to an atrium and flanked by trees gave the place more a feel of a bank headquarters than a business school.

Gradually people began to arrive, many dressed up in a business casual that leaned more towards business and carrying either a leather messenger bag or a business traveler’s backpack.

Margo strolled in, with a look of excitement in her eyes. checked in with her. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

“Okay,” Zoey replied.

Okay so far; in her mind she told herself this was just a big diplomatic party, like from her training days. And while those skills never got any use out in the field for her, she ended up doing well enough on her assessments to go on to better things.

A curly-haired, college-age-looking guy shows up, about 5’10 and weighing 220. Zoey decides to approach him.

“Hi, I’m Zoey.”

“Hi, I’m Franco.”

With a smile she added, “Beautiful lobby they have here, eh?” Franco’s breath stank quite a bit. Probably a last-minute kind of person who didn’t get a chance to brush teeth and mouth wash before the day began. They chatted for a while and then move on to work the room as more people arrived.

One of the program administrators call upon the attention of the crowd gathered in the lobby.

“Okay everybody, we’re going to be entering the auditorium next for the orientation presentations by the Dean of Academics and his staff. If you’ll form two lines please in front of both auditorium doors that would be great.”

Auditoriums. Zoey hated auditoriums. Zoey joined the line and made her way into the room.

“Please push all the way towards the center to make room for everyone. No empty seats in between.” Once everyone was settled, it began.

A slightly overweight man, with glasses in a button downed shirt, and sweat glistening off his forehead approached the podium.

“Hi all, I’m Tomassini, the Dean of Admissions, if you haven’t met me yet. So, we’re all very proud to have you here as members of the class of 2019.”

“There’s been an uptick in problems with academic dishonesty across all schools lately, so we need to have this talk first. You just received a paper with the MBA oath that you must sign and give to the people at the doors as you exit.”

Zoey hadn’t so much as asked a question yet in this program and yet she felt the eyes of the auditorium on her. As if she were guilty of this, despite not even sitting for a first lecture or starting an assignment. Behind her she could hear people giggling and talking about her, saying she would be the one to break the honesty oath.

And then she felt it…the dump of adrenaline and cortisol. Her heart started pounding, she felt her face flush. She worried how much of this could be seen by the administrators on the stage, knowing full-well that was ridiculous in a dark room of 200 people. She felt people’s eyeballs on her and heard them making remarks about how she would be the first cheater removed from the program. She wanted to leave but was in the middle of the row, and it was quite cramped. All she could do was accept all this and wait for her body to calm.

But she would need to learn to get a grip sooner than later or this sort of thing would spiral out of control.

All in all, it dawned on her…the time for preparation was at an end and now it was time to start the next stage of her life, for real. If she was going to make it, she needed to figure out how to keep her paranoia and hallucinations at bay or she’d sink like a stone in this program.

--

Chapter 2

Zoey was seated in the unmarked Hong Kong Police car staring intently out the window, with an earpiece in. Her eyes were fixed across the street on a man, roughly in his fifties who was feeding pigeons in the park from a bench.

Beside her, her “partner” and host had no reservations about expressing his displeasure at this whole thing. Finally he couldn’t quell his feelings any further and spoke up, “I hate you people. All of you.”

Zoey gave a confused and quizzical look but didn’t avert her gaze “You” meaning me, or “You” meaning Americans in general?

Tony replied in Cantonese: “You personally, you fucking spies and, yes you Americans in general, yes.”

“Well…what exactly did I do to you? I met you this morning, polite greetings, and us sitting in the car for three hours without talking and now you hate, me…and all Americans.”

Tony replied in English, “There is a name for this kindnapping you people are doing. You know what we call it here?”

Zoey responded, somewhat absent mindedly, “No…what?”

With a sternness she didn’t see coming, Tony replied, “KIDNAPPING!”

Trying to calm him down, with reason, and oblivious to the fact that that never works she explained things from her point of view. “This guy is being rendered because he is a mutual danger to our country and yours.”

“And what did he do?” Tony replied incredulously.

Realizing the hole she has now dug herself into, she admitted her own ignorance. “I have no fucking idea.

"Only saw his name and face on the paper slid under my door yesterday morning.”

“That’s it? You’re even less impressive in person. You could have at least made something up.”

Zoey gave up trying on the patriotic, “greater good” argument that she had been pushing. “Do I look like I’m here to impress? Before this I was just a Company locksmith in Alaska. This isn’t even something I’ve been trained to do very well.”

Even angrier at the wrongness of what he was being forced to stomach, Tony retorted, “You had no business going through our police academy at all. You know how hard people here have to work to even be considered for that?”

“I needed to be convincing, you understand.”

With threatened pride, Tony explained, “Hong Kong police work is something that has evolved over many generations, with many lessons gained from the British presence in our country and after that the Chinese. We have a very different approach to policing than you fucking Americans.”

Zoey wanting to end the argument, so she could focus on the task at hand, undistracted by her host’s feelings of national pride.

“I’m not here to track down guys stealing televisions, mediate community disputes, or make friends with the neighborhood shopkeepers, with the grace and friendliness of a Bobbie. I’m here to snatch that fucking guy across the street and put him in the back of that van over there with a group of a lot stronger, more competent and better trained people, with no one knowing the wiser other than thinking they just saw some cops pick up some hoodlum from a park bench. Then I hop on a flight to Singapore for some other shit tasking after a relaxing shower.”

Tony continued, “Even your American police don’t get it.”

Zoey had just about hand it. She exclaimed, “I’m not here to debate police tactics or community improvement to you! My job is national security and I’m providing an unspoken service to your country on behalf of mine, and considering we’re not only not allies but friendly adversaries I think you should give me some credit.”

“This is a dishonor to my country. I want no part in it.”

Zoey replied, matter of factly, “You’re probably best doing what you’re told by your superiors.”

Tony took off his seatbelt, said “I’m leaving” in Cantonese, got out of the car with disgust and walked away.

Into her other radio, Zoey let her team know of this new conundrum, “Three to two, my host just walked out on me…”. She received instructions through her ear piece, and nodded to herself. “Copy.”

Zoey looks back over her should exasperated, at her squad car partner, the only real Hong Kong officer who was in the car, who had now gone back up the street, abandoning her. She shook her head.

The time was nearing for action. She took off her seatbelt, nonchalantly looked away from the direction of the park bench and gazed seemingly lazily out the windshield. Then, on the signal in her ear-piece, she opened the door and bolted from the car in the direction of the man she was surveilling.

Zoey, yelling in Cantonese, “Stop! Police!” as she neared the stunned man in the park feeding the pigeons.

Other “police officers” from other cars nearby rush in. All of were uniformed. The man is cuffed. And led away to the back of a white unmarked Mercedes Sprinter van on the street.

Zoey climbed in with them, closed the door, and from a kit withdraws a syringe and a medication bottle of ketamine from which she drew from with the needle. She approached the man to administer it but suddenly he headbutted her in the face causing her to fall backwards.

The last words she heard before going out cold were those of a colleague: “Fucking idiot.”

--

The light was green, and in Boston, if more that two seconds have elapsed before you hit the gas, you’ve really pissed someone off.

Margo jabbed Zoey with her elbow, “Wake up Zoey! They’re honking!”

From her dream state, Zoey was startled awake, her head resting on the steering wheel. She shook her head, as she gathered herself together. Too many nights without enough sleep and it was taking its toll.

“Sorry.”

They started driving onwards.

Margo, giggling, teased her, “So is that the first part of your lesson in driving for me? Fall asleep at the wheel? Where’d you get your license, again? Mrs. Puff’s Boating School?”

“Look, don’t make me drop you off at a bus depot in Rock Bottom.”

Margo jokingly returned, “Is that in Dorchester?” Zoey could only shake her head with a smirk.

“Okay, so street lesson one: look both ways when the light turns green. You never know if some idiot on a bike or a guy with headphones, or even a police car or other emergency vehicle is on it’s way though. So you look first, even if it’s green.”

“mm’kay.”

They turn onto Commonwealth Ave.

“Where are we?” asked Zoey.

“Commonwealth Ave, duh.”

“No, we are Westbound on Commonwealth passing Blandford. You always need to know your nearest cross street and direction. Same goes for when you’re on the highway, note the mile marker or at the very least know what exit you just passed.”

“But there’s google if anything goes wrong.”

“You can’t trust everything to your phone you know. What if the battery dies? Hmmm, that’s funny.”

Zoey gave her a look. Margo knew that look since the day they met. Zoey sensed trouble, but was doing her best to remain calm.

“It’s nothing. Just the license plate on that Ford Super Duty with the utility cap. I’ve seen it in a few places on our drive tonight.”

“You mean the one behind us?”

“Yeah. Don’t turn around.”

“How the hell can you read the plate when it’s backwards in the mirror?”

“Same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice.”

Zoey pulls off to the side to double park for a moment. She puts her hazard lights on. The pickup truck drives on by and takes a left at the next intersection.

Calmly Zoey tells Margo, “Let’s just wait here a second.” Zoey’s watching her mirrors, then decides to continue driving.

“So, crosswalks are a bitch here. At night, if they’re not illuminated it’s almost too easy to hit someone. In the nice parts of town, like in Longwood, they have this flashy thing that lets you know people are gonna cross. Other places, at times you’re not sure whether the pedestrians have a signal or you need to yield to them. This city’s signage is a mess.”

“Okay I get it. I want to drive now.”

“Don’t be so impatient.” Zoey felt a duty to show her safe driving. She had always been like a sister to her. They even, coincidentally, shared the same last name.

“Oh, come on, I’ll go slowly.”

As they approach Granby Street, Zoey sees something else she doesn’t like: another familiar plate.

“This guy was paralleling us from Bay State Road. We’re being tailed.”

“What?” Margo exclaimed with confusion.

“I remember the plate on the car up here from when we were cruising down Newbury street. The blue Ford Fusion up here, I think it’s a Special Service Edition. It’s a cop car. I’m gonna run a route.”

“A what?”

“I’m going to run my surveillance detection route; I’m going left at St. Mary’s and I’ll head towards Coolidge Corner."

“You gonna lose ‘em.”

“No, I’m going to bore them to death. You don’t lose people. Otherwise the next time they’ll double the surveillance.”

--