Agent for a Cause (The Agents for Good), page 14
“Saving a child’s life and restoring a family back together is all the thanks I need. You don’t know many of the people your husband works alongside of for the greater good, but we know you and your now part of us. We never leave our own behind!”
“Thank you!” Anna whispered into the phone again anyway.
“I look forward to meeting you tomorrow Anna. Try to get some rest and lunch should be there shortly. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Anna gave me back the phone just as there was a knock on the door. We both got up and I went to the door. Sure enough it was room service. I let the attendant in and he wheeled in the cart heaped high with far more food on it then was needed for two people, who were sick to their stomach with fear.
I tipped the waiter and he was quickly gone. I lifted a lid to view under it as Anna came up to stand with her face pressed against my chest and I wrapped a comforting arm around her as I looked under the other lids.
“Hungry?” I asked.
She mumbled something and I pulled her head back to see a strange expression on her face. It was kind of a self-deprecating look that I didn’t like. I stroked her cheek with a thumb and instinctively she seemed to know what it was I wanted to know.
Her eyes were troubled as they met mine, “Does it sound really bad of me if I told you that all I want right now is for you to make love to me over and over again? I know it’s terrible my……”
I hushed her with my fingers over her mouth. “It’s not terrible at all! You experience love through touch and you need comfort so it’s only natural that you would crave what makes you feel loved.”
I slipped her up into my arms and started towards the bed as she lay her head down against my shoulder.
“What makes you feel loved Tyre?”
“Words.” I responded.
Her head came up and she looked at me with surprised curiosity, “Words?” She asked with evident surprise.
I nodded, “Words of affirmation. You have the power to slay me or build me up with the words you speak to me.”
“How else can you be loved?”
“Well there’s those two and then there’s gift giving, quality time and one other that I can’t think of right now. You have aspects of quality time in your makeup of how you feel loved as well. It’s normal for people to have different combinations of love languages.”
Her surprise hadn’t gone away, “Where did you learn that Tyre?” She exclaimed.
“A book I read once.”
Her look of shock had only intensified and I was beginning to feel a little insulted. What kind of an ignorant caveman did she think I was!
“You read about love languages?” She asked further, as if she couldn’t still believe the conversation we were having.
I laid her down on the bed and then started taking my shirt off. “I read about all sorts of things Mrs. Gravitausky.”
She actually slightly blushed, but her eyes lit up like tree lights on Christmas morning.
“What sort of things?” She asked shyly.
“Oh I think it’ll be better if I show you.”
Her words were silky smooth as she said, “Have I ever told you what a handsome stud you are?”
I smiled; boy did she ever catch on fast as to the how the game of love language was played.
“I don’t recall, perhaps you could explain why you think that way of me in greater detail later.”
Her infectious smile crinkled up further, “As you wish handsome man.”
My job was to keep that smile there for the rest of today. All the fears and the what if’s of life would make their unwelcome presence known again tomorrow, but until then she would have peace from the barrage of negative emotions hounding both of us. It was a good job to have.
Anna gripped my hand nervously as we rode together in the back of the black Mercedes through the German countryside. I’d never been where we were being taken before.
When Chantry had nursed me back to health it had been on an estate in France. I knew a little about the estate in the country though that we were headed for. It was where the board met. The board was comprised of all of the team leaders of the agency and Chantry served as the chairman of it.
Flint was a board member, but he had never spoken of what took place there. We entered a private lane and off in the distance I could see the refurbished castle as its white stone gleamed in the sun against the backdrop of the alpine slopes rising all around it.
The agency I worked for was peculiar to say the least among all the semi secret organizations of the world. We had no secret vows or rites or traditions. We could leave at any time. We didn’t work for hire and yet there was no shortage of money.
We agents did the work we were assigned by Chantry and I’d never had cause to object to anything ever asked of me to do. We respected each other’s privacy as a group of extremely talented individuals and for the most part worked together cohesively.
What we did in the world could be considered both bad and good depending on the viewpoint of the individual, but we only worked on assignments that we felt personally led to the greater good as it befit our own perspectives independent of any one nation or group of nations in the world.
Sometimes our actions lined up with the agendas of the powers that be, sometimes they didn’t. Which is why we never took outside funding so that we were beholden to no one’s rules other than the ones we imposed on ourselves.
We did do favors for certain influential powers in the world from time to time, that bought a lot of personal favor, which in turn allowed us for the most part to work in complete autonomy from the rest of the world’s oversight. I said as much to Anna as we approached the castle.
“So you’re like a superhero club.” She said.
I grimaced, “That’s not exactly the best way of putting it, but I suppose in a crude way, yes, that might be something close to it.”
We were there. The door opened and I got out and then helped Anna emerge from the car. The liveried servant was dressed down to the tee, but I couldn’t help but think that he had several black belts to his name as well as a thriving intellect masked behind his look of servile ability.
The stone walls of the castle surrounded us and I wondered at what defense mechanisms they might hide, because the meeting spot of the board was no secret in the underworld that contained many who hated us and the work we did.
We stepped through the massive front doors into the immaculately preserved interior of the castle vestibule. Anna looked a bit of the tourist at the moment, as she looked all around her with interest.
“I see the old castle has intrigued you as it has me these many long years.” Came a voice from off to our left.
The voice was warm in its quality, but it always sent chills through me. I turned to see Borden Chantry. His agent name was all I knew him by. I had come to know over the years that Chantry was a very big man in the realm of men with an equally big heart, but it was always hard for me to be around him. He had in a sense once killed me and then brought me back to life.
There had always been an awkwardness I had felt around him since then. Chantry, among his many talents, could be utterly charming and I could already see that he had relaxed Anna considerably. Anna moved off to where a servant with a seemingly genuine smile gestured. I had missed something!
Chantry turned to me and smiled the old weathered skin of his face crinkling, “Relax Tyre I haven’t stolen your treasure from you. She’s just taking a tour of the castle while you brief the board on exactly what has happened.”
I nodded as I tried to cover up how much I didn’t like it when he seemingly just read my mind, as if it was an open book. It was like that with no one else I had ever encountered. He always seemed to know what I was thinking, which was always unnerving to me.
I glanced in the direction that Anna had gone, “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Kevin back. Whether the agency helps or not.”
My eyes went back to Chantry as my definitive statement of intent trailed off.
I saw understanding in his eyes, “Your point is well taken. It is your right, as it should be every man’s right, to stand up in the defense of the sacredness of his family, even if opposed by the governance and strictures of mankind in doing so. It is a worthy endeavor that every man blessed with the responsibility of caring for a family should strive to maintain. I am not against you in this endeavor to restore your family bonds Tyre and neither is the board. So relax because you are among friends Tyre.”
Yes that may be so, but as friends I could only afford for them to give me one answer and as friends I prayed that they would do just that. We had been walking as Chantry talked and now we stood before a pair of double oaken doors, which I presumed to be the entrance of the board room.
Chantry seemed hesitant upon entering through them and I looked curiously at him and felt myself grow uncomfortable, as I watched the emotion build up in Chantry’s face as he looked at me with the eyes that had gazed into mine once as I lay dying. He sniffed and a self-deprecating smile came out as he wiped at the corner of one eye.
“You’ll find Tyre that when you get old you lose whatever self-control that one possessed as a young man and are little better in holding emotion in than a woman is. I believe it’s something to do with more estrogen in the blood than testosterone as one grows old.”
Yeah right I thought to myself. He may be pushing eighty, but I was very much doubtful that he had even one less measure of testosterone then he had as a man of thirty five. He looked ten years younger than he was and had the athleticism of a man at least twenty years younger and perhaps more.
His gaze grew more serious as he laid a hand on my shoulder, “Tyre I have had many successes in my life as well as my share of failures. You have been one of my greatest successes! Thank you for not letting me down!”
I swallowed and nodded slightly in acknowledgment of the respect he had just given me.
I had never known my father, but in a way over the past eight years I had strived to please Chantry as if he had been a father to me. I had wanted to show him that I had been worth it and that I was capable of doing something good and that I wasn’t just a coldhearted killer. He had just confirmed my success in achieving that and I couldn’t help but feel a little choked up myself.
His smile came back, “Anna is really special Tyre! She’ll have you out of that tight secretive shell of yours in no time flat!” He said laughing and I had to admit that he was probably right.
He started to push the doors open as he said, “Now let’s go rescue your son!”
I stepped into the room and was surprised to see so many team leaders. I hadn’t known there were so many teams. I only knew half of the thirty some people in the room, which echoed loudly to the fact of how little I might actually know about the breadth of our private organization.
It was humbling to know that so many obviously important players had come together for the purpose of addressing and fixing my problem. It wasn’t exclusively my problem, in some ways it was there’s also.
They were all seated around a roundtable, which the symbolism of did not escape me. I remembered Anna’s comment that our organization was a collection of superheroes. Better put it was a collection of honor bound male and female knights gathered around a table where none were held in any more prominence than the one sitting next to them gathered together to see that justice was done and that good triumphed over evil.
I was directed through a gap in the table to sit in a chair in the center of the group at the table which now surrounded me. I wasn’t much good with making eye contact so to avoid embarrassing stairs I let my eyes drift over the assembled multinational group of agents. I don’t think there was an area of the globe not represented in terms of ethnicity.
An older powerfully built man spoke up and my eyes swung to him, “Fourteen years ago my daughter was taken. I got her back!”
An oriental looking man with a Japanese accent spoke up on the tails of the big American’s voice, “Two years ago my sister and her little boy were taken as hostages. I could not save my sister, but the boy is safe and I raise him now as my own.”
One after the other of the group spoke up as their combined words broke the ice of the perceived judgmentalness of their gazes upon me.
Instead of being in a court filled with judges I was instead among a collective group of people, who all had their own experiences that enabled them to relate to how Anna and I felt in this moment.
Flint spoke up and I zoomed in on him. I hadn’t been expecting him to say anything, “I was a boy growing on to be a young man as I was raised on a small farm in Minnesota. One night people came in the night and stole me, my brother and my sister because they thought we were special. There was a lot of testing done on us, but I escaped. I have unclear memories about virtually everything in my childhood. I can’t even remember what my parents looked like. Tyre, you know how committed I am to saving children from the missions that I have undertaken through the years. Missions that you’ve helped me make a success many times over. I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say that if we do not tolerate such practices occurring in the greater outside world we most certainly do not tolerate such occurrences against one of our own!”
In the wake of his words there was a general noise of acceptance upon everyone’s part seated around the table.
I nodded at Flint in thanks as I felt a tear slip down my face. Oddly I didn’t feel embarrassed by the show of emotion.
A middle-aged woman with skin as black as coal spoke smoothly into the quiet aftermath of the entire group’s affirmation of Flint’s words, “Perhaps now that you have heard our stories you will feel more at ease at sharing your own.” She stated in her beautifully accented Ethiopian voice.
I nodded, “Where do you want me to start?”
“From the beginning and please do not leave anything out even if it sounds trivial to your own ears. Everything is useful in helping us to build a picture of how it will be best to save your son.”
I started my story with Anna and I and I made my way through what already felt like it had been years long into the making of the reality of the past few days.
I conveyed my astonishment at Kevin’s quick grasp of chess. I covered the attack on Anna and how I and Kevin had helped deal with it. I talked of taking apart the computer and finding what I had seen and what my conclusions to Anna had been about Kevin.
I talked of the apartment explosion and my leaving on my wedding day and then of my reunitement with my family.
“Once Flint gave the code he had to Kevin the boy found my location in less than thirty seconds.”
I could see that the threat imposed by Kevin’s capture and the far greater implications other than just the breakup of one little family was beginning to become alarmingly clear to everyone present in the room. I described the attack on the house.
As I finished with our journey through the lava tube and the explosion of the volcano I saw one man of about forty shake his head, “Your either half crazy or you’ve got one big pair of balls to pull off that volcano trip!” He said in a Texan accented drawl.
I don’t know what made me say it and I regretted it instantly, “It’s more of a combination of both actually.”
For a split second there was silence and then in unison almost everyone broke out in laughter. Flint was dying from it and looked like he needed a shot of air badly.
I hadn’t meant to say something crude. It just sort of slipped out, because well it was true for lack of a better way of putting it. I glanced around and to my horror I saw Anna sitting against the back wall of the room.
I hadn’t known she was there. Her face was ten shades of red, but she was laughing so it shouldn’t go too hard on me later, hopefully. Chantry had recovered and brought the meeting back into its soberness of discussion.
“We know that the Iron Wills have been transgressing the bonds of our treaty with them for some time, but no breaches of trust of this significance have come to light before. Small wonder as to why they would make such a risky move now. As vital as Kevin is to his family he also represents an incalculable step forward in technology that is virtually without exception one of the greatest breakthroughs of the modern era. The price alone for such a wealth of knowledge could only be afforded by a handful of countries and commercial magnets in the world.” He said glancing around the table meaningfully.
I caught his drift of thought. With such a technological breakthrough at stake we could expect no friends in this operation in fact there could be direct opposition to us by those we often called friends.
“The details of this operation stay tightly secret are all agreed?” Chantry asked the room at large.
Everyone nodded their heads in matching somberness to fit the gravity of the moment.
“Now our sources have confirmed the boy’s whereabouts. Just as Tyre suspected he is being held at the Iron Wills main office in Prague right next to their rave hall. I’m putting Flint in charge of coordinating the ground assault and while we will need extensive backup ready to move in fast at a moment’s notice, I think it’s best if the retrieval team be small and one based out of stealth in their attempt to rescue the boy.”
A cool voice with a hard edge to it spoke up from the opposite side of the table from Chantry, “I do not agree with your assessment Sir.”
All eyes swiveled to the woman who sat across from Chantry. Her pose and demeanor echoed strong self-confidence in both her reasoning and her abilities to see her plans come to fruition.
Her darker toned gypsy looks were the complete picture of stoic resolve that was impossible to get a clear read on as to what she may be thinking. Her curly hair was restrained back tightly by a clasp at the back of her neck, but her face and body were essentially earthy in their appearance of symmetrical and voluptuous appeal.
