BARE HUNTER

God damned Becca. Today, of all days. she has to pull her shit on me. Why couldn’t she disappear and leave me alone? Maybe I’ll start paying for ass instead of dating. It's so complicated and messy. We dated for like, what, six or seven weeks and she thought I was going to fucking marry her or something? I popped a Paroxetine, a Zoloft, and an Advil before hitting the rack, hoping I had enough meds in me to keep the nightmares away.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I was startled awake, hearing a sound in the kitchen. I immediately turned on my active-duty mode, crawling out on my belly, just in time to see the back door slam shut. What the fuck? I ran outside in my skivvies, catching the sound of an old truck rumbling down the street in the darkness. All the streetlights were out up and down my road. That was it. I didn’t care if Captain Howard was awake or asleep. Something terrible was happening and I had to talk with him.

Grabbing my cell phone and the military address book, I skimmed down the H page and found his number. After a few rings, a mechanical voice answered, “You’ve reached Bill Howard’s answering machine. You know what to do.”

“Hey, Cap Howard, this is Ted Bronsky. I have a few..”

“Don’t hang up. Don’t hang up. It’s Cap.”

“Hey, Cap. What the hell is going on with Greg Atkinson and Willco Accounting?”

“I was wondering when you were going to get in touch. That guy makes my skin crawl. What have you gotten yourself into, Ted?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I have no idea. He took me out of the office today to tell me I had to do some skeevy shit for him. What did you tell him about me?”

“Nothing he couldn’t get off your official records,” Captain Howard replied.

“He wants me to set up a surveillance station for some guys in our IT department he thinks might be working for a foreign government.”

“I’m not talking about this on the phone. Can you get down to Virginia this weekend?”

“Virginia? I wasn’t planning on it.

“Well, start planning it. I’ll meet you at Arlington, on Saturday 0800.”

What the fuck was going on? Could I hold Greg off until after I’d talked with the Cap? Why would anyone be interested in me? I’d been out of the service for ten years and my nose was squeaky clean—well, except for that one thing.

-Wednesday-

The office was buzzing the following day about a birthday party for Phyllis at Closing Time Bar & Grille after work. Great. Wonderful. Hey, maybe we’d all find out how old she really is. I asked Sharon at reception if we were supposed to bring gifts.

“Booze and condoms are what I’m hearing. God, she is such a floozy. I don’t know why Greg keeps her around, unless, well. Ugh,” she said, grimacing at the thought of Greg and Phyllis getting it on.

“Okay. Good to know. Thanks. Are you going?” I asked.

“I don’t have a choice. Greg said it was mandatory.”

“Mandatory? A birthday party? Is he high?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Hey, has he been acting funny lately? He spends a lot of time lurking around everyone’s desk. He never used to care what was going on unless something was overdue, and he was getting crap from the top about it.

“Um, not that I’ve noticed. But thanks for the warning. I’ll keep my porn off the screen while I’m at work from now on,” I joked.

“Funny,” she replied as I walked away.

Passing Phyliss’s desk, she called out, “Hey, big boy, coming to my birthday party tonight?”

“I guess I have to. What would you like for a gift?”

She smiled slyly and said loudly, “Guess? It starts with F and ends with me saying ‘AHHHH!’”

Everyone looked up from their work and grinned uncomfortably. Just Phyllis doing her thing. They were all probably as annoyed as I was that we were being forced to attend a frickin’ party for the office pump. I nodded silently and walked away, my cheeks burning. God, I hope no one thought I was doing her.

At two o’clock, my desk phone trilled. It was Greg asking me to go for a walk with him. More secret agent stuff. A few minutes later, he slapped his hand on my cubicle and motioned for me to follow him. We took the elevator to the ground floor and walked out the revolving doors into the bright, April sunshine.

“So, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Why did you call Captain Howard last night? Don’t you trust me?” he said, sounding paranoid as hell and angry.

“I wanted to know what you two discussed behind my back,” I replied shortly. I wasn’t going to be dragged into sketchy shit unless he explained it to me.” I shot back at him, not even giving it a thought as to why Greg knew about the call.

“He didn’t give me much more than what’s on your official separation papers. You did some on-the-ground intel, some shooting, some surveillance. It’s all right there in your records. I didn’t know about the extra-judicial killings, though. He filled me in on those. You know that murder doesn’t have an expiration date, right?”

My stomach fell to the pavement as I stopped short. “What? What do you mean extrajudicial killings?”

“You know. Killing folks who weren’t the enemy. Killing witnesses to what you did in Afghanistan. That kind of thing.”

“Look, whatever Captain told you is none of your business. You don’t want to go there. You don’t want anyone to know he told you anything. You got it? If you think you’re going to have the feds breathing down your neck for a few leaked financials about how much toilets cost the Pentagon, wait until you bring this shit up.”

“Are you threatening me, Ted?”

“No, I’m giving you good advice.”

“So, do we have a deal with you setting up the sting operation?”

“Sting? Now it’s a sting? I thought I was setting up a surveillance spot for you,” I argued, realizing I had just agreed to work for his sleazy operation. Shit.