Code Name ‘Storm’
Rachel waved excitedly, moved down Fifth Avenue and crossed 84th Street, pushing a stroller, oblivious to the disciplined face of her seated two-year-old daughter, who was urgently signaling me in precise blinks and calculated nods.
Her expression was tense. Storm knew we were running late. Rachel had no idea who her child had become or how much the country depended on her.
A hastily assembled, critical assignment. A lost opportunity we had to make right, or a tactical insertion in a windswept, desert-coated Middle East country would become a kill box for two teams of silent warriors.
I’ve known her family through an ex-girlfriend for over thirty years. Rachel unstrapped the baby harness, freeing her daughter, who jumped into my outstretched arms as I clutched her agency-designed, tradecraft-inspired polka dot jumpsuit.
I’ve survived a half dozen deployments in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and last year a high-risk takedown-insertion in southern Ukraine near the Russian border. I knew the difference this child could have made in half of my deployments.
Storm was recruited six months ago because of a fragmentary mention I made in my last deployment report. Just praiseworthy, not knowing the agency had been looking to recruit a young agent for half a year.
“Hi, sweetie,” I said, both delighted and charmed by her smile and equally fearful about the possible consequences of a future she had never chosen.
Storm quickly nuzzled her chubby face into my neck speaking in restrained code.
Rachel laughed. “She always does that with you.”
Unimaginable sadness swept over me. If anything ever happened to this child, it would land on my doorstep and haunt me forever. “A toddler with terrible judgement.”
Rachel nodded with warmhearted approval and reorganized the blankets where her child had just sat.
~
Rachel was too close. I needed a distraction and moved a few feet away, bouncing Storm against my chest, and asked her about the James Webb’s recent discoveries regarding the age of the universe, the crippling consequences of the battle for the Strait of Hormuz, the acceleration of global warming, recent decisions by the Supreme Court, and SpaceX’s IPO filing targeting a valuation of up to $2 trillion.
She was particularly concerned about the court’s recent rulings, agreed that Elon Musk is a jerk, even if a brilliant one. However, as a respected operator for the National Security Agency, she was hesitant to discuss further sensitive, world-impacting issues, aside from the assignment in which we were currently involved.
What you can’t see as part of her brilliant tradecraft configuration is a modified 9mm Sig Sauer P365 pistol with custom optics secreted in a Sig Sauer P365-XMacro Comp Red Dot Optic Cut IWB Holster under her baggy pants. A top-tier choice for concealed carry, offering10+1 to 17+1 capacity, a preference we shared.
Her instincts almost unnatural and training obvious, with her outstretched right hand already positioned in a defensive posture that covered my back. Her left hand clutching my left shoulder where I had been wounded in a three-hour Somalian firefight last year, which landed me in Walter Reed, and my second Purple Heart. We took casualties, though less than expected. I almost lost a friend.
Both of us were continuously scanning the roiling sea of suspicious food vendors below the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to make sure we weren’t being followed or photographed. The space along Fifth Avenue in front of the museum every Saturday morning was a notorious hotbed of fake tourists, terrorists in training, con artists, and a backstabbing hotbed of international intrigue that would eventually shape the politics of many nations.
Constantly alert, I depended on her remarkable proficiency at lip reading, understanding spoken language by watching a speaker’s mouth movements, facial expressions, and body language, a skill I had never mastered.
“Two Double Z-401 light attack drones at twelve hundred on your three o’clock hovering in Central Park over the back of the museum. More likely CIA than local police,” she said in a practiced giggle that masked her intent.
“Copy that,” I added.
“FBI,” the annoyed voice announced in my earpiece, loud enough for Storm to hear.
Rachel looked up at us with that same curious expression. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on between her daughter and an old family friend besides the mask of false delight we had already both set in place.
“Assholes shouldn’t patrol so close together,” Storm said, shaking her head in professional despair.
You could see it in her eyes. Storm was poised, confident, and certain. Those who had already worked with her in the field described her as “calm and ruthless” in the same breath. She was every measure of her reputation and easy to imagine the hardened lethal force she would become in another two years.
Storm paused, whispered the multiple indexing codes she had to pass on to me in perfect Southern Italian dialect, looked me in the eye, and poked my nose with her tiny thumb before her interfering mother could rescue her child from further madness.
Smart mother.
Arthur Davis is a retired management consultant who has been quoted in The New York Times and in Crain’s New York Business, taught at The New School and interviewed on New York TV News Channel 1. He was featured in a single author collection, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, received the 2018 Write Well Award for excellence in short fiction and twice nominated, received Honorable Mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2017. He has been featured in The Colored Lens, The Literary Hatchet, Allegory e-Zine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, The MacGuffin, Fabula Argentea, and The American Literary Review. Additional background at www.TalesofOurTime.com, the Poets & Writers Directory, Goodreads and Amazon Author Central.
