In the last chapter Ohmie's father leaves for Minsk. Ohmie and his mother get a visit from the Company.

Dad couldn't rent a car in Lithuania to drive all the way to Minsk. They wouldn't allow rented cars across the border into Belarus. He wouldn't fly, of course, for pretty much the same reasons he didn't fly from Berlin. Mostly, though, his disguise wouldn't stand much scrutiny, especially of intense inspection. They might even have his fingerprints or DNA on file. Who knows.

It's only two-and-a-half hours by car. I'm sure Dad could sneak his way over the border. He could steal a car, convince someone to take him, or stowaway, somehow.

Mom didn't tell me this. And I didn't read it in a book. Well, maybe novels influenced me a little. Mostly it's plain common sense, the way I would get across. Leave a rented car where I could get back to it. Hop the fence after dark. "Help, help, please. My wife was in an accident and I have to get to her. She was in our car. I've been getting rides. Please help." Or, "Get out of your car or I will shoot you." Tie him to a tree. Before he is found, you are in Minsk. Then steal a different car to drive back after dealing with Pete.

Here's the story Dad told us when we reconnected at the chateau south of Lucerne.

+++

More or less the way I supposed, Dad drove east from Vilnius toward the Kamienny Loh border crossing. South to Dainava was a wooded area where the border ran consistent with a small creek. Not Dainava the big city, but Dainava the little village near the Belarus border.  After parking in the woods, he could hike in tree cover to the creek where he crossed easily. Once he made it to Ashmyany, he was in his element.

His last trip to Minsk was not hardly as strenuous, traveling under the cover of the Agency as a businessman. This time, he was not only on his own, but the Belarus government might have been tipped to his possible presence. Though that was unlikely, he could not discount anything Dortch might have done. If Dortch had turned political, his allegiance to the Company and the Constitution might be in doubt, riding in the backseat, so to speak. Dad kept watch on Deus Comtec from an hour before Pete was supposed to start work until an hour after he left. Dad either sat where he could observe without being too noticeable, or passed by, both walking and in a car. He used a few different disguises, different coat, hat, scarf, glasses, things like that. But he knew his trade and was never approached.

Pete came and went as if nothing had happened, completely normal. No one seemed to pay him any attention. No-one came in or out of the building that didn't appear to belong. Everyone was under thirty years old and nerdy-looking. No-one looked particularly athletic, business-like, too handsome, or too beautiful. And no-one was over dressed, or flamboyantly put together. And Dad was ultra careful. Not über, that stupid fad is over. Anyway, Dad was careful to see whether he was followed each time he left the area. He wasn't. But he was only one man. And a single person can't see everything.

All things considered, Dad figured that one: the Russians, the SVR, or Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, which was the modern version of the Soviet KGB, were either not involved with the operation, or had already dismissed Deus as irrelevant. Or two: Dortch was on his own. The Company would have told Dad if anyone else was involved with Deus before he'd ever connected with Pete. And Dortch would not have been surveilling Deutsche bank by himself had the Company been involved. And Virginia would have been followed. And he would not still be a free man. The Company knew all about the clandestine Dainava border point. It was safe to confront Pete. No-one would be staked out in his apartment. No-one but himself.

The next day Dad stole his way into Pete's apartment. He waited until he figured everyone who worked was out of the building. For such an old building, he was surprised at how quiet the stairs were, Pete being on the second floor. Even taking the stairs in a normal manner, as if he owned the place and belonged there, it was quiet. Someone opened a door down the hallway, quickly closing it when they discovered Dad's presence. It was just as he was about to pick the lock. Dad, instead quickly turned to return to the stairway where he walked up a flight to wait for whoever it was to leave. They never did.

He went on up to the top floor. Deciding to kill some time, he thought he might as well check out emergency exit routes. There was no roof access, and no fire escapes from either end of the hall. Returning to Pete's apartment, he was inside within thirty seconds of starting on the lock. After closing the door behind himself, he thought he'd heard the sound of another door closing. The sound came from the same direction as the previously opening and closing door. He listened hard but couldn't hear any footsteps. Now he cursed the quiet stairs.

A methodical search turned up nothing remarkable. Pete's morning appeared normal. He left at the appropriate time and had taken the time to eat a breakfast of bread, that he'd fried in a skillet, with peanut butter. The pan and knife were all that was unwashed. Pete was a night shower person, his washcloth damp, but not wet and the shower unused that morning. The bed in the one-bedroom unit was made, of a sort, the sheet and blanket had been thrown back up in place, but would not be considered made. His toothbrush had been used. Pete's morning was routine with no evidence of stressful behavior. There were no work papers, or writing materials, or anything that might resemble work in the open. The novel on the end table beside the small couch had no papers or notes in it. Dad found nothing out of the ordinary, not even in the drawers of the small, student desk. Pete had no computer. He thought that odd, but then thought that maybe he just couldn't afford one or couldn't get an Internet hookup.

He waited until after the lunch hour to fix himself the same meal Pete had for breakfast. The wait was in case Pete came home for lunch, something Dad had never known Pete to do.

An hour after Pete should have been home, he still hadn't shown. Did he have a code, a signal that Dad missed that told him someone was inside his room? Had the neighbor seen him, seen the door close behind him and called Pete? Or was it a shopping day? That was unlikely since Pete's container of milk was about half full. Perhaps it was Dad's bad luck that it was Pete's day to visit his mother. Maybe Pete had had an accident and was in the hospital, Or in hospital, as the Brits and English speaking Europeans were wont to say, dropping the article. But I guessed that we did the same thing for jail - he's in jail, he's going to jail. I hopped off my bunny trail and got my mind back on track with Dad's story. Dad continued to sit quietly, waiting for Pete to return. At five o'clock the next morning, exhausted from staying awake all night, Dad ambled his way to the Deus Comtec building. No Pete. Dad kicked himself for not following him, confronting him, the previous day. Sometimes extra caution was not your friend.

Dad returned to Pete's for some sleep, this time using a spare key that he'd found in the apartment. Moving the room's only sitting chair to the area behind the entry door, Dad napped in it sitting up, satisfied the door's opening would awaken him. The door never opened. Dad waited until five the following morning to make his way back to Deus, this time not necessarily looking for Pete, but hoping to find someone who worked with Pete, preferably a female. He was hoping he would recognize someone that registered on his memory as someone he might have seen Pete speak to, or at least nod good morning or good-bye to.

That afternoon Dad picked a likely target, someone not married, at least not wearing a ring, though she could be living with someone. She was about the same age as Pete and Viktar, but then, they all were in Deus. And someone with a nerdy look, but then again ...

The young woman drove an older car, one that had a fob entry, but used a key to start and run. Dad saw her extract it from her purse as she walked to the parking lot, a small fifteen or twenty car lot beside the building. She waved at a co-worker who drove by and quickened her pace when, during her turn, she saw Dad behind her.

As she reached the driver's door handle with her left hand, Dad grabbed her right, wrenching into it like a vise. She winced in pain. "Open all the doors," he commanded. She did. Dad deftly hooked his fingers into her shirt collar from the back door behind the driver's seat as she got in. "I'm not going to hurt you. Start the car and drive out of the lot. We're going toward your home but pull over a block down the street. We will talk, and I will leave you alone forever. Do you understand?"

Dad spoke in Russian, hoping that she could speak it. Most Belarus learned Russian in school. Some learned English, but only a small percentage.

"I speak English better tan Russian," she replied, guessing that he was not Russian. When Dad didn't respond immediately, she continued. "A Russian would come in building like tank. Take want dey want. Interrogate."

Dad released his grip as she followed his instruction, driving without drawing attention.

"Viktar," Dad said.

"He is dead."

"Who killed him? Why?" Dad hoped not to be the one mentioning Pete.

"I dón know. Someting. Of computer hacks. He tought he to be my boyfriend. I already have boyfriend. He knew dat. Not interested in two boyfriends."

"Who is your other boyfriend?" It dawned on Dad that maybe Pete was not worried about discovery after all, merely jealous, or used Dad to get rid of competition. Maybe married Pete could afford to eat more than peanut butter.

"My name is Lizavieta. You call me Bett. You come up, if you do."

Elizabeth. Dad knew that she meant up to the front seat. He doubted that she would pull a sneaky and drive away while he was out of the vehicle but opted to stay put. "What happened to Viktar?"

"As I say, dead."

"But how?" Dad asked. "Accident? He get mugged, uh, robbed and murdered?"

"I tink murder. Broken neck, fallink down steps. Russia tink murder. I think murder."

"Why?"

Bett shrugged her shoulders.

"Any others killed?" Dad was fishing.

Bett didn't answer.

"Anyone else missing? You know, not show up for work?"

"Piotr," she replied. Dad waited for more. She didn't bite.

"Has Piotr been sick? Is he in trouble?"

Bett tried to turn and look at Dad as if he was asking stupid questions. "Piotr tinks he in luf wit me. Want to move in wit me."

"Is that where he is? Now?"

Bett laughed, "No, I dón tink so. My boyfriend. He dón to like dat." She laughed again. "But Piotr dón know of Val. Maybe he went over at my house and Val kill him." Bett laughed again. "No. Last week. After Viktar was killed. Supervisor looked in all computers. Even mine. I dón know Viktar, but Piotr say he back up too much. Wrong day. Maybe in trouble for dat, I dón know."

Satisfied he'd learned all he could from Bett, Dad got out of the car without saying anything more. He returned in the direction they'd come, taking the first side street before sprinting away, taking as many turns as there were.

Mind you now, this was as close as I could come to remembering how Dad told it, me laying there in my sick bed, asking him to fill me in on the case. (I might have filled in a few voids on my own, but it coulda all been exactly like this.)

They were on to both Piotr and Viktar. Probably found Piotr's and Viktar's money. Might have learned both men had been behaving strangely recently. Someone might have even seen himself, or Dortch. They might be sweating Piotr that very moment. He'd learned nothing that he couldn't have guessed from Berlin, but he had to try to see Piotr. Now Dad was certain that he was either dead, or in custody, wishing that he was ... dead.

Poitr could probably convince his interrogators that he had nothing to do with Viktar's death, even though he'd hired Dad to do it. And he might be able to prove that Viktar had been into his computer. Viktar could be established as a leak.

Dad shuddered to think that the SVR could have been searching Poitr's apartment while he had it staked out. It would be suicidal to wait and watch for Poitr.

Author Notes

Not much Ohmie action, but I felt this chapter necessary for plot development.

The last chapter detailed Ohmie’s father’s Minsk excursion.

Dad told me that he more-or-less reversed his route leaving Belarus. Finally getting to his fence crossing location, he saw what looked to be a trap. It was hard to tell considering it was only a quarter moon and his little, made for snooping in offices, pen light was so weak. He wasn’t taking any chances. That was how agents got killed. There was probably an enemy combatant, whether military, police, or SVR or all three, watching him that moment, or staking out his car, or both. There was no question that they would not shoot him from a distance. They would want to interrogate him.

They could have the car. It was rented under a false name, one that he would have to abandon. It was paid for with a fake debit card. Oh, it was real money, but there was no tie to himself, or the Company. Clandestine work was getting more expensive all the time.

He quietly walked back to the wooded area behind him, back into Belarus. He traveled south, staying in the woods nearly all the way. He had to wait for dark at one place, glad that he had as many power bars as he did. He finally got to a place where the fence had been cut, whether by locals, defectors, or other spies, he didn’t care. Hitching a ride to Vilnius was safer than hitching a ride in Belarus. And trains ran through Vilnius.

Dad didn’t have a bank in Vilnius. After buying a week-long pass for the train, regular coach seating, he had enough cash left for a tube of salami and a bottle of water. Since Vilnius was where he’d rented the car, and the car was only found the day before, possibly even only the night before, he tried his debit card, the same one he’d used to rent the car. If it was declined, he would get to the train as fast as he could. It worked. He bought a cheap flip phone, figuring to use up the minutes and toss it. The debit card he left at a pay phone with the pin number etched on it, hoping that someone would steal it and use it, sending searchers on a chase.

From the train station, Dad texted one of the few agents that he trusted. But then again, Dortch had been on that short list just a few days past.

Dad could tell without asking that he was not the subject of an all-out search. The man knew nothing, only that Dortch was taking personal time from work. That information was offered because Dad mentioned that Dortch was MIA. Dad told his friend that Dortch didn’t show at a pre-arranged meet. The guy then told Dad that it was probably connected to Dortch suddenly taking leave.

Dad figured that the car being spotted was more than likely a local affair – someone seeing it, or even seeing him drive in. They reported it to the border agents, who sent someone to check it out and to watch the next couple nights for the driver’s return.

The Company didn’t have a Code on him yet, at least not an all-hands Code. The SVR might not be on to him, yet. The assassins might have been SVR, but that was very unlikely. They might have been Middle Easterners from past operations. But that, too, was unlikely. What was more probable was that they worked for Dortch, or the people who Dortch worked for. The question was how much money did they have backing them up? Could he expect very many more?

Dad decided to go back to Berlin for the thumb drive. He would deal with Dortch if he had to but preferred to let the Company sort out the traitor matter. He would clandestinely get the drive to the Embassy. And a day or two later contact his immediate supervisor.

If he was still alive.

There was an espresso shop on the corner across the side street of Deutsche Bank. I would have called it caterwhompus, but no one ever knows what I’m talking about when I do. Catercorner isn’t right because that means diagonally across the street. Caterwhompus is across the street from cattercorner. But some people, those who do not own dictionaries, might call catercorner kittycorner. Dad went to the espresso shop an hour before the bank closed. It was a long shot one: because it had been days since his appearance there could have been predicted. And two: it was a bad place to observe the bank’s entry. There were too many other ways to enter and not be seen from this vantage point.

But guess what? Bingo, you win the booby prize. Dortch. Sometimes long shots pay off.

Dad was already in line to place his order before he recognized Dortch. It wasn’t such a great disguise, only that Dortch had just slightly let down his guard. My guess is that it is impossible to keep it up constantly, that there is a lot of dependency on luck. Dortch was looking at a newspaper and occasionally looking out the window toward the bank. He obviously hadn’t been looking at the entry door, or the direction Dad had come from. A big mistake.

Dad ordered a sixteen-ounce latte, no adds, just hot. Waiting for Dortch to resume his window surveillance, Dad sat down across from him, tapping him on the knee with his Glock. “Who you working for, Dortch?” Seeing hand movement, Dad again tapped his knee with the gun. “Keep your hands on the table, please. Who do you work for?” Dad repeated.

Dortch gave him the professional response – a blank smile.

Dad offered a few possibilities, beginning with the most unlikely: "The Israelis, the Taliban, the SVR?” Dad paused a second. “Surely not Company sanctioned?” Dortch let out a very modest guffaw. Dad named the two American political parties. He thought he saw something when he hit on one of them, but he wasn’t sure. He might have been reading something into nothing. Then Dad named the President. Bingo. Dortch’s smile failed him on his right side. It wasn’t much. Maybe no one else would have seen it, but my dad, the spy, did.

His latte still hot enough, Dad splashed most of it onto Dortch’s chest.

Half surprised and half in pain, Dortch let out a string of American curses, attempting to stand. Dad kicked his legs out from under him, bringing Dortch back down. Before his butt found the seat, Dad had the heel of his hand into Dortch’s nose, breaking it instantly, and sending excruciating pain into his frontal lobe. Done properly, it would kill the largest of men. Dad hoped he hadn’t struck that hard. Dortch was out, slumped down to the floor.

“The American wants to sue for too hot coffee!” In German, Dad announced to the crowd, “Call him an ambulance, please.” Dad casually got up and left, not crossing the street to the tourist visitor shop across the street from the bank until he was out of sight. There, he watched and waited. An ambulance appeared, but no one else. Dad waited for the bank to open, and promptly took care of his business.

Author Notes

It's a fine line line, the thread that combines good grammar and a 13 year old's vernacular in first person - all too easy for the amateur to miss a stitch. For those who jump in and out, Ohmie is a prodigy, the son of CIA agents, and has stage 4 lymphoma.

Chapter 17
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 17

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie’s father returned to Berlin from Minsk and promptly sent Dortch to the hospital.

I got off the tourist bus from the Jungfraujoch excursion first. It was a train to the top, but we bussed from Lauterbrunnen to Zurich, where our chateau was. Someone separated me and Mom by using the zipper system of taking turns getting in line – left, right, left, right. The bus driver was standing just outside the door. So he could get tipped, probably. He helped me navigate the steps since they were pretty awkward for me. I guess my frailty was pretty obvious at that point. I thought that the people who were wanting to get on the bus were pretty rude, jamming themselves up to the door. Then I took a better look and saw that it was only two dark-complected men that were pushy. The bus driver said something to them that I didn’t get. Probably telling them to back away. I was too concerned with not falling down, working my way to a lamppost to hang on to. That’s when I looked back for Mom.

The two rude men had her by her elbows. I imagined that they had her up on her tiptoes. There were quite a few people milling about, but she caught my eyes. I didn’t catch what she mimed, her mouth moving, but not her voice. “Call Paul.” I’m sure that’s what she’d tried to communicate. Her head also dipped downward as if pointing with her forehead. Within a second, maybe two, they were gone.

Protecting me, she never once called out to me. Never calling out, “My son!” She wanted me to get away. I remembered the hammer to the fingers talk Dad and I had. I would talk, she would talk. Everybody talked. Then you died anyway.

Once people cleared out and the bus drove off, I saw that Mom had managed to drop the room key to the gutter. It must’ve been in her jacket pocket. It was then that I realized Mom really was a spy. She’d stuck a few Euros in one of my pockets before we left our room. “You never know,” she’d said. I took a cab to our chateau. Once in the room, noting that it did not seem to’ve been disturbed, I put the battery into my phone and called Mom’s work number. No one answered. When it went to voice mail, in a loud voice, just short of a shout, I called Paul Santos’ name until someone picked up asking who I was and what could they do for me. They finally transferred me to Paul.

I talked like my fingers had been hammered. I was able to describe the two men pretty well – “they looked like Romanians, Turks, Bosnians.” There, that ought to narrow down your search.

One thing sure, I had to git. Paul would have someone at the chateau within the hour, most likely. Maybe within minutes if he used local authorities to just pick me up.

I grabbed what few things I thought I might need, which of course included the gun, jammed ‘em into my backpack and kicked into my version of running out the back way. A small chateau south of Lucerne. One that had a nice view of the mountains. Probably where I was conceived.

I’d removed the battery from my phone. And I also noted that I only had one magazine for the Baretta – thirteen rounds. Fortunately, Mom only had my U. S. passport with her. I would travel as Tymofiy. But just in case, the wig and bra went into my backpack, too.

I forgot I had cancer; I was so sick with worry about Mom.

The chateau restaurant was too far from the main entry. So, with the wig on and me looking my prettiest, I buried my face in my novel and tried my best to look casual as I glanced through my eyebrows over the top of the book. I was on a couch in the lobby where I could see the front door. I couldn’t see the check-in counter very well, though. I didn’t like that, not being able to see whether any of the clerks took a phone call and quickly looked to me. That would have been helpful. But I guess spy work always had its risks.

I was going to watch for two hours. I didn’t expect to see Mom. But I wanted to know if whoever came were Americans, or more like Romanians, Turks, Bosnians.

Could I trust Paul? I was one hundred percent certain that he would have me first taken to the American Embassy. And then probably back to the states, probably to whoever Mom had listed as who to notify in case of whatever, after Dad. But had Paul been apprised of Dad’s operation? Probably by now. Was Paul a Dortcher? Would Paul believe the story that I’d babbled like a baby? That Dad was trying to find out who killed Viktar and why he had bad data, and who was trying to kill him? No way for me to know.

At the end of two hours, I would have to make a choice: to go to the little chateau south of Lucerne, if I could find it, or go to Berlin and find Dad. Like that would be a snap. Hah!

The first to show was a single person, walking not in what I’d call a rush, but with all deliberate urgency. He was tanned, but white, fair-haired, about six feet tall. Prob’ly American. Okay so far. I could follow him up to the room, or wait to see if he was followed. I waited. Good thing.

Romania followed about a minute later. I was feeling pretty full of myself so I got into the elevator with them. “Go ahead, Bosnia, just even look at my boobs and I’ll plug ya both." My thoughts were very close to being actual speech. Oh, I forgot to say that I had the Baretta in the small of my back. Well, tucked into my belt in back. My back is all small nowadays.

I followed them out of the elevator, but turned the opposite direction. Looking back through the eyes in the back of my head that every good spy has… Hah! Actually, I stooped down to tie my shoe (that was Velcro fastened), I saw that they were drawing out guns from shoulder holsters as they reached for mine and Mom’s room door. I drew mine. I got down there as fast as I could.

Man, these Swiss chateau doors are for crap. It hadn’t closed behind them.

Chapter 18
Best Time of Ohmie's Life, pt 18

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie’s mother is kidnapped. Ohmie snuck up on two guys who were entering his and his mother's  hotel room.

It sounded like one shot, but I knew it was two, just real close together, They were taking better aim this time. I could tell that by their shoulder motion. Bam – bam. I dropped ‘em both. Dead center mass – in their backs. Does that make me a cowardly back-shooter? I didn’t care. I thought about head shots just to make sure, but I was sure enough, the way they crumpled down. Another man was down. Shot once in his right chest. Looked like it hurt.

He acknowledged me. I wished I didn’t have the wig on. One, I looked like a … and two, he could pass on my description. I ran, as best I could, to the bathroom for a couple towels. I rolled him as best I could, cramming one of the towels where I knew the exit would be. Probably a hole the size of my fist, well… maybe Dad’s fist. After pressing the other one to his chest, I pulled off his belt to tie him together. It wouldn’t reach. So I took my own off and buckled them together. That was enough to do it. But I’d be a sagger getting out of here.

“Where’s Mom,” I kept asking the whole while. “Virginia Westlake?”

I guess it finally registered. “She’s okay. Broken arm is all. Scrapes.” My guess was that she jumped out of the car that they put her into while it was moving. “She’s at the Embassy.” His voice was weak, one word at a time, like. A lot of pain, I was sure. I wondered if Dad was as tough as this guy seemed.

Captive, was my bet. Mom was kept captive at the embassy. Otherwise, Mom would have been here.

Satisfied that I’d stopped the worst of the bleeding, I skedaddled outta there, but not before taking the two Romanians’ extra magazines. The magazines wouldn’t fit the Beretta, of course, but the nines would. Like Mom said, “You never know.” I also told the desk to call an ambulance.

I took a cab to the train station. There was a line that went to Lucerne. The Lucerne depot had brochures where I grabbed one of each. My cab driver spoke French, naturally, since Switzerland was half French and half German speaking. Most Swiss spoke one, or both, of them plus English.

I was comfortable with French, and more confident in the cabbie’s French than in the hope he properly understood my English, and then used the correct English back. I showed him the brochures that I’d narrowed my search down to. I explained that my parents were revisiting their honeymoon without phones, but that my Mom’s mother was in the hospital with a heart attack and needed her. I explained that it was probably one of the cheaper ones, but had to have a good view of the mountains. He thought a minute and we took off like a shot. I tipped him well.

At the chateau, and I agreed that this had to be the one, I talked to the owner/manager. The place was more like an American B&B than a resort. I told her that my parents were returning to the place where I was conceived. (ha-ha) I smiled in what I thought to be a blush. Then I told her that at the train station I boarded, but they spent so much time kissing that they missed the train. I came on because I have lymphoma and couldn’t just wait around. I had to lay down. It was the truth. I figured that the closer I could stay to the truth, the easier time I would have remembering my story.

I had money, I said. And that I could sleep on a chair or in a shed, or closet. I guess I was lucky that it was early fall and not ski season. She had rooms. Did I need anything? I asked if she had anything to eat. She would bring me bread and soup.

I woke up to Dad sitting beside the bed watching me.

I told him what I knew about Mom. And what happened at the hotel room. And that it was now my four to his two. I didn’t want to sound like a crazy, gun-happy kid. I just thought he needed to know, and tried to put a light side to it. He just looked at me sad like. After a moment Dad told me that I’d saved a man’s life. A good man. I don’t think Dad knew who he was, though. But maybe he did.

When I woke up again, Mom was there, her right arm in a cast and sling. She and Dad were kissing.

“Hey, Ohmie,” Mom said, seeing me try to get up to go to the bathroom. “Can I help you?” she asked. I just looked at her. But I know she meant well.

“No thanks. Maybe something to eat,” I said as I shut the door behind me. “And some clean clothes,” I shouted as loud as my weakened condition allowed.

Turned out, Mom not only jumped from the moving car while she was zip tied, but she also skipped from the hospital. Jumping from the car, she was immediately surrounded by well-wishers. Rather than go to a hospital, she demanded police take he to the Embassy. After giving her report four different times, they finally took her to get her arm looked at. As soon as the bone was set and cast applied, she bolted. Of course, that meant she was now without her passport. Now that I was more, or less, capable of feeding myself, Dad would go with her back to Berlin to get one from the guy who was originally going to make one for me.

But they would first have to stop at a couple of Dad’s banks. I’m learning a lot about the industry.

Mom planned on calling Paul from somewhere away from Lucerne to tell him the story, the one that they wanted him to know. She would also refuse to come back to the states, or to be guarded (read babysat while they trapped Dad). She was going to stay with me until the end, and then deal with whatever had to be dealt with, whatever the cost. I was really proud of her. I wondered if I should, I don’t know, hurry the end.

Me, I wanted to, one: look at what was on Dad’s thumb drive, the one that was still in Deutsche bank. And two: I wanted to go to Minsk and get into Deus Comtec. There had to be computers there that were only intermittently on line, if ever. Work product could be manually carried to other computers that did not have programs or data, but merely used to upload, to transmit. I might have to pull a Mom to get there. I should be able to pull it off while they’re in Berlin.

Chapter 19
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 19

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie kills two bad guys and saves a good guy. His mother escapes kidnappers and the CIA, and Ohmie’s father meets them in Switzerland.

We went to the public library. For a nominal fee we could use a computer that was connected to their WIFI.

“Yes, Mo-om, I can do it.” I knew I shouldn’t have been so bratty, ‘specially since Mom had a kind of meeting of the hearts when she sort of opened hers up. I felt bratty and was sorry, but I didn’t say anything. I wish I had. It wasn’t like I could count on time to set things right, you know? I mean what if that was the last thing I ever said to her. I wanted to run to her and apologize and bawl crocodile tears and say how sorry I was for being a brat and that I would never do it again. But I didn’t ‘cause I knew I would… do it again.

I think Mom assigned me the computer chore ‘cause she an’ Dad didn’t trust me to be safe, or do it right, being lookout or stopping someone from looking at what we were doing. So I was working the computer while she and Dad kept me private and watched for assassins.

First thing I did was turn off the WIFI. Then I opened the thumb drive. One file had programmer’s code. I was pretty sure it was a Russian version, or usage in Russian, of JAVA code, but I could’ve been wrong. Might’ve been Belarussian, or some other Slavic language. Dad would know – more on that in a minute.

As soon as I saw that there might have been stuff of value on the drive, I made a copy of it, handing the original to Mom. Then I went in and deleted any evidence from the computers’ hard drive. A pro could have learned that we made a copy of a thumb drive. He might have been able to retrieve what it was that I copied. But I really didn’t think so. Besides, in the long run, America would not be hurt by public release of information that Russia was involved with other countries’ politics and elections. And besides all that, who would think to investigate some obscure computer in a library in Lucerne, Switzerland?

After several minutes, at a time when I lingered in a file, Mom looked on with me. It was a list of names. Mom probably thought she might recognize some. I was almost snotty again, she was invading my space, nosing into my part of the operation. Instead, I just gritted my teeth, careful not to break one. Boy, it was hard not to be a twit.

The plan was to just go in to see what we could see, make sure we could navigate around, and then let Dad have at it. He watched to see that we were not eavesdropped on. What we could see was other files, some of which looked like lists, others could have been projects. There were folders, each of which contained folders entitled by individual names: politicians’ names. Most of them, but not all, were American. A quick look inside a couple of those appeared to contain social media posts. Some looked to be videos, videos that I would not play in the library. Another folder was different. I thought it might have been ransomware stuff.

But I’d seen enough. And so had Mom. We let Dad have it for the rest of the hour. Then we went to eat and put me to bed. It was getting hard for me to keep my head up by the time we got back. I crashed in my clothes. Mom just took off my shoes and jacket. She laid down beside me and stroked my back. I’d rather she didn’t, but I wouldn’t ask her to stop for a million bucks. I was out in under a minute anyway.

I woke up hearing Mom and Dad’s muffled voices coming from the bathroom. I thought it was funny because I knew how small the room was. They were trying to figure out how to get to Berlin to get Mom a new passport, probably from the same guy that Dad was going to get one for me. I guess the Ukraine thing wouldn’t work as well for an adult. Anyway, they didn’t want to take me to Berlin. Dad said I would make it hard to run. That made me sad, thinking that I was slowing him down, that I was a hindrance. Mom took his side. That made me sad, too. Mom’s issue was what to do with me. They couldn’t leave me alone. Her “what if” about made me cry. I hate to say it, but I had feelings of resentment, that she was thinking about her own feelings of not being a good mother, a mother who wouldn’t be there to watch her son die. Later, when I’d given it some thought, I’m sure she meant for it to be that she didn’t want me to go on alone, without someone there to tell me that they loved me.

I spoke loud enough for them to hear me. “Mme Benoir can bring me soup. No one will come looking for me. She can call the Embassy if, you know. So, Mom can take me home.” (We’d long ago had the talk and agreed on cremation. No one wanted to look at mummified remains of a cancer ravaged kid.) “But that won’t happen. I promise. I’m the reason Mom’s here. Mom takes me back to the States. Squares things with Paul. Dad takes the stuff to his boss, whoever that is. After taking care of Dortch, that is.” I met Dad’s eyes. I knew it. I knew that was what he had in mind.

What I didn’t say, was that I was going to Minsk. I needed the IP addresses of their computers. And to see what computers those computers had been talking to.

I don’t know if it was my promise not to croak while they were gone, or the line about Mom taking my remains home, but they were both very accommodating after that. Not that they weren’t before, but you know what I mean. Mom would set it up with Mme Benoir. Dad wouldn’t be coming back here until after his business was done. He would come back before turning himself in, though, because, well, he just would. Mom and I would stay right here where no one but Mme Benoir knew where we were. Anyway, we had a real nice view of the mountains. And with enough sugar, Mme Benoir’s coffee was good. Too bad I would acquire a taste for it after it was practically too late. I know somewhere there’s a chunk-head that would sigh and say, “Ah, such is life.” Maybe for them.

Mom hoped to be back in four days, five max. Dad didn’t know. He’d had a better look at the drive. Him knowing the language no doubt helped. But he didn’t have any answers for me. And I remembered the part about not asking questions.

My worst issue was Mme Benoir. I had to convince her not to call the Embassy after I left.

“Mme Benoir,” I said as if I was an executive speaking to my secretary. “I will be going to The Top of Europe in about an hour.”

Mom and Dad had just left after a leisurely breakfast. There was no particular hurry, and they figured to let the work traffic and busy travelers clear out first.

Mme Benoir lowered her head and gave me a stink eye, an eye of “Oh yeah? We’ll just see about that. That does not at all comport with what your parents asked of me.” She didn’t say it, though.

Keeping my air of superiority over the matter, I said, “I have met a young woman, Eva.”

Mme Benoir smiled a devilish grin. Her eyes twinkled. But she wanted to hear what a thirteen-year-old kid had to say about love, was my guess; so she didn’t say anything.

“She offered me a gift.” It was embarrassing. I said it like a whiny plea and it wasn’t even a request.  

Mme Benoir couldn’t help herself. “A gift?” She knew exactly what I was talking about. Her eyes, held mine but only after a quick dance southward.

“Yes.” I was the boss again. “And what man can refuse a beautiful woman such an offer of altruism?” I threw that in there in order to properly continue the role.

“And how old is this beautiful, young woman?” Mme Benoir asked.

“Sixteen,” I blurted. “We met on the train. She is a woman.” I said this expecting Mme Benoir to understand that this made-up person, Eva, was experienced and fully understood my condition and was behaving perfectly normally, finding me attractive, and no one wanted to die before… well, you know. “Surely, you understand, Mme Benoir." I restrained myself from giving her the little universal wrist flip that said “go away.”

“Perhaps, I should go wiz Master Ohmie, to assist wiz matters of such, uh… privacy?”

She was playing with me. I could feel it. Her mouth didn’t laugh, or even smile, but her eyes were roaring with hilarity.

I embellished my lie. “Eva has an apartment.”

“Ah, an apartment.”

By this time, I really didn’t know if Mme Benoir believed me, or not. But I was committed. I did it. I gave her the little wave-away. “Half past nine, Mme Benoir. Will you call me a taxi? Thank you.” Another wave of dismissal.

She didn’t dismiss so easily. “Master Ohmie, I have a concern for your health. Are you sure you are…?”

“I am, Mme Benoir. Shall I perform pushups? I’ll do twenty pushups right now.”

Mme Benoir chuckled. I was glad that she hadn’t called my bluff.

“I will call you when I get there. And again when I begin my return. I promise, Mme Benoir.”

I hugged her and kissed her cheek. I think that was what sold it; though I doubt she believed I was going to be blessed with a gift.

She made bacon sandwiches for me and said that if I didn’t call, she would call the Embassy and tell them everything. I was good with that.

Chapter 20
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 20

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter, after Ohmie interprets the data on the thumb drive, Ohmie’s parents decide to leave him in the chateau under Mme Benoir’s care and go to Berlin for his mother a passport. Ohmie decides to travel to Minsk.

My cover story was that I was going to my Godfather’s. My dad was killed in the fighting in Ukraine and my mom was unable to care for me. She’s in Paris. I only speak French and a little Ukrainian. I am sorry. I’m sick. I don’t need any help. Thank you. My Godfather was a sales rep for a product used in smelting ore. Belarus was his territory. That was my story. My French was good enough to sell it. I hoped.

I called Mme Benoir from Warsaw simply telling her that I was fine.

The bus from Lucerne to Zurich was only a forty-five-minute ride. Then I flew to Minsk. Lucky me, there was a direct flight. Ol’ Tymofiy was getting to be quite the world traveler. I could have saved some money by changing planes in Warsaw, but I’ve already seen Warsaw. Besides, it wasn’t like Dad was going to have to buy me another birthday present, not even a Christmas gift, ever.

It was a bit of a hassle at the customs desk. I guess Belarus doesn’t like Ukrainians much. I convinced them that I was really French, adding that my good-for-nothing father had been put to death by some patriotic Rushkie. I just needed to go to my Godfather, please, that I had lymphoma and might pass out any minute. I guess I was convincing. They wanted to be rid of me.

Before getting a cab, I gave myself an injection of the opioid and steroid stuff. I had enough for two more shots of each.

I activated my phone. Whoever would be looking for it, probably nobody, would play heck getting here and finding me before I left again. My phone gave me the address of Deus Comtec. Taking a cab, I got there an hour before closing time. In my best Ukrainian, I told the receptionist that I had to see my mother and bolted, if you want to call my fastest bolting. The elevator was only steps away. I probably looked more like the old man in Up, think arthritic sloth. I got lucky that someone was leaving work early and the elevator door opened for me.

It was only an eight-story building. I went to the seventh. It didn’t stop at any of the levels going up, so no one got on. I went to the stairwell and went part way up. No one who worked on the eighth floor would take the stairs at quitting time. If they did, I would go down and take my chances through the door to the seventh floor until the hikers passed by. If anybody entered the stairway from the seventh, I could go up and be out of sight. If it went as I’d hoped, I would take a nap for a few hours. I’d deactivated my phone, so I couldn’t set my alarm.

I might’ve napped a few times, but I was too tired to have had much sleep. I did not feel rested. I didn’t want to battery up my phone, but I knew that it had to be midnight or later. I couldn’t tell that any lights had been turned off, but the windows to the outside were dark. That wasn’t much of a barometer, though. It was probably this dark outside at nine o’clock. Regardless, I thought it was time.

I didn’t think there would be any way that what I wanted, the meat and guts, would be on the top floor, the penthouse. I started on the seventh. None of the office doors were locked, but none looked like work stations, more like secretaries and paper-pushers, maybe bosses. The sixth floor was where I finally saw a clock: eleven twenty-one. Fine. Even the latest worker shouldn’t be here at this hour. My only real concern was a nightwatchman. But my bet was that he would be on the first floor and only get up to check the two, or maybe three entry doors. Anyway, the sixth floor had conference rooms, an eating area, and a kitchen, probably a bathroom, too.

The fifth floor had six rooms with computer stations, two and three to a room. One of the rooms was locked, but I could get to it through a pass-through door after I entered the next office. The lights were turned off, but the computers were all left on. On my way through, I tapped a key on each computer just to see if they were password-protected, and I would be locked out. They weren’t. But one of the ones in the locked office did need a password. There were no sticky notes anywhere nearby. The desk drawers were not locked, but I didn’t see anything obvious.

I’m not a computer geek. And I just hate shows that stereotypically have an ugly, gangly kid (or young adult) who can get into anything and extract exactly what they need, or get money out of off-shore accounts with blazing, lightning-speed keystrokes, all while the bad guy is inserting his key in the door. But you don’t have to be nerdy to pick up the keyboard and look underneath. Nope, again no sticky note. But there was a piece of masking tape stuck to the bottom with an eight-digit combination number, letters, and symbols. My bet is that it was computer generated and the administrator changed it regularly.

Bingo! Like I said, not a geek. But I know about history, and about email, and about saved files. When we bought a spare thumb drive to copy what was on Dad’s, we bought two. I kept one of them. I copied nearly everything. If I could see it, I copied it. It was simple as pointing and dragging. I’d been at that one for nearly thirty minutes when I heard a crash. I froze. Then I backed the computer to its screen-saver. I didn’t dare try to move the chair, not knowing what noise it would make. I didn’t dare try to wriggle out of it without moving it for fear that it would zip out and away, or worse, crash down.

When I heard voices, two men talking, I chanced moving the chair just enough to slide out. I had to get out of the line of sight of the still locked office door. I said it was two men talking, but I actually only heard one. But it was obviously in conversation with another. The tone told me that it was conversation between two men, gruff, declarative, staccato-like. Of course, I would have no way of knowing, but my bet was that it was shift change. It was midnight. The new guy, was all pumped, ready to start his shift. He was also hard-of-hearing, which caused him to nearly shout. I was on the fifth floor, remember. The crash must have been him slamming the back door shut. It probably has an issue. Good to know for when I plan my escape.

I carefully made my way to the stairwell just in case the new guy was going to make rounds. There was no more talking. My guess was that the old guy left through a quieter door. I wish I knew where that door was. I heard the elevator. I felt certain that he was going to the top floor – elevator up, stairs down, just like every good high-rise mailman- common sense. I hid on the sixth landing. After checking out the top floor, he would take the stairs to the seventh. That’s when I would sneak up to the eighth. And stay there until I figured he had time to get back down to at least the second or third, preferably all the way to the first where he might very well take a nap.

He wasn’t long on the seventh floor, but he took forever on the sixth. The kitchen! He was eating everyone’s leftovers. It was nearly one o’clock before I heard him on the stairs again. He must have had leather heels because I could hear them tap. I could also hear him rattle the locked door that I’d been behind.

Not too long after that, I went back to the locked office, again through the back way. There I did the same to the other computer in the same office. It wasn’t password-protected, so all I was really interested in was files that looked like lists, anything that had an English, or American name, and emails. Right then is when I thought to get the computer’s IP address, the number that identifies that particular machine. I went back to the locked computer and got that one, too.

I didn’t have all night, so the computers in the other offices, as well as the ones on levels three and four, I randomly opened and copied what looked interesting. There wasn’t much. Going down to the first floor, I was glad that my shoes had rubber soles, and not the kind that squeaked.

I wish I’d taken the time to look for cameras when I entered the building. I was too conscious of getting by the receptionist. The back door, the one I’m sure the guy had slammed, was a steel door. There was an exit light above it, though it was in Belarus and didn’t say exit. It did light up the hallway enough that I could see there were no cameras. They were probably all on the outside. I went into a room that had a window to the back parking lot. I saw one car parked under one of the lights. I couldn’t tell if the windows were wired for alarms, or not. I couldn’t even tell if they’d ever been opened.

My goal was to get out without anyone having known that there’d been a visitor. I didn’t want any of the good stuff that I might have copied to be changed, rendering my stuff half useless. I mean it was one thing to find a smoking gun. It would be quite something else if you could turn that same smoking gun back on its owner and shoot him. It was nearly four in the morning. As soon as I got back to the back door area, I heard the guard’s footsteps. I quickly stepped back into the same room I was in and hid behind the door. I could hear the back door open, followed by the crinkling of what I guessed to be a pack of cigarettes. I was surprised that a smoker could wait four hours between smokes. I crept as quietly as I could out of the room and down the hall toward the front, back the way the guard had come. I stood at the front door until I heard the slam of the back door. One: that told me where he was for a certainty. And two: he was still hearing his own slamming, when I opened and shut the front door, making my escape.

No one was going to look at the video recording unless a break-in was suspected, or something was missing. I was free. I just had to get away and get somewhere that I could get a cab and not be associated in any way with this building. I remembered a sort of main street a few blocks away. There ought to be a cab there, if not then, then later. When I finally got into a cab I literally collapsed.

 

Author Notes

I apologize for the length of this chapter. I just couldn't leave Ohmie in jeopardy.

Chapter 21
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 21

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie turns serious spy in Minsk.

I called Mme Benoir before getting on the plane. All cool. No word from Mom or Dad. I finally got smart, wishing I’d thought it through before being so liberal with Dad’s cash. I saved enough money on my return trip by changing planes in Warsaw to buy a second-hand laptop computer. It had no frills, but all I needed was a USB port for the jump drive. Whatever programs were on it would be fine. I hoped Mme Benoir had some soup left, because after putting money aside for the bus and cab fare, I wouldn’t be eating anything all day. I made sure to ask the flight attendant for extra peanuts. I must have looked pretty bad because she gave me a pocket full. Yay bang!

I plugged the computer in to make sure it was charged, but didn’t even have the strength to shower. I just crashed. I woke to Mme Benoir tending to me with a wet face cloth, but couldn’t even speak to her before zoning out again. The adrenaline I’d been running on was gone. I was worse than exhausted and sort of gasping for breath. I must have scared Mme Benoir half to death, making her want to scream for Mom from the rooftop. The last I remembered before seeing Mom come out of the bathroom in her underclothes was the aroma from Mme Benoir’s soup. I shut my eyes and stirred a little bit to give Mom a chance to dress.

She helped me to the shower and kept me from falling down. I didn’t care. I was a mess from all the sweating. And I was dying. I took a little soup that Mom must’ve gone to get while I took a half an hour to get my skivvies on, insisting that I was okay. I saw that she had the computer booted up when she sat me in a chair so she could change the sheets before putting me back to bed. I was too beat to look at what she’d opened. I was out before she had me tucked in.

“Well?” I asked Mom. I don’t know how long I’d been awake. She’d been dozing in a chair, an opened book laid down on her chest as she slouched, her feet up on my bed. I just came to, realizing that I’d been watching her. I don’t know how I could have not noticed my entire life how pretty she was. She was always just Mom.

“Well?” I asked again, seeing her eyelids flutter the same as when I asked the first time. It wasn’t dream eye movement, more like beginning to awaken movement.

“Hmmm. Hello, honey. You hungry? You need to go to the bathroom?”

“Uh. Mom. I’m not a baby. In fact, I’m as old as I’m going to get.” I don’t know why I was so rude. I didn’t know that I was until Mom turned aside and blinked back a flood of tears that she finally had to wipe away.

“I’m sorry, Mom. You don’t deserve that.”

She didn’t bother wiping her eyes as she crouched down to put her head by mine and hug me.

“Well,” she answered. "I have an idea where your dad is, but not for sure. I’ve talked to Paul, and things are okay for the time being, although he really wants us to come back, or at least tell him where we are. I think he understands, though. It’s just that he has supervisors, too. And Mme Benoir was absolutely beside herself.” With a wink, Mom asked how I enjoyed my dalliance on the Top of Europe.

I laughed, but wished I hadn’t because I really did have to use the bathroom like Mom thought. And now we would have to change the sheets and take another shower.

“What about the jump drive?” I asked as we began to take care of business.

“So, my little spy. You have been busy. I suppose you think this will earn you a Boy Scout merit badge in spying? Or an official decoder ring?” Mom was laughing her butt off inside. I knew her well enough to recognize her tease.

I grinned at her. Which was the particular grin I used that always made her laugh out loud. It was like a trigger reflex. She couldn’t control herself. She probably used a lot of memory license to give herself the mental image of what the grin used to look like before I lost nearly half my body weight: a dip of my head, a half-mouth devious getting-away-with-something, peeking through my eyebrow grin. I saw a picture of it once. She took it on her phone and made a photograph of it. She took it to her office, so I only saw it that once. It was a cross between a Shirley Temple what-a-cute-puppy smile and that Home Alone kid’s smirk. At least that’s how Dad described it one time. All I knew was that it worked on Mom nearly every time. I wish I’d used it that morning when she lit out and Dad had to take me to London. I wish a lot of things about those days before this all started.

“We took the train to Berlin. I got the new passport… My name is still Mom, by the way.” She chuckled to herself, smiling with her whole face. “I flew to Amsterdam to call Paul, then back here. Amsterdam fit the pretext of touring Europe with you.”

She didn’t need to add that part. It was easy enough to figure out.

“Now, I want every detail, all you did, how you did it, and what you saw. I need to know because there might be significance to something, some detail that could bite us.”

I told her everything. My timeline was screwy because I kept having to go back and fill in things that I’d left out, or didn’t even realize that I’d seen at the time. She nodded a lot, hardly asking any follow-up, or for more detail. It took nearly all day what with meals and little rests. When I was finally done, she asked several questions all having to do with whether or not I was followed anywhere. I guess not, since nobody had busted in to shoot us, or kidnap us.

“I didn’t have to kill anybody!” I half exclaimed.

She smiled, then a sadness came over her whole body, starting with her eyes.

Mom’s turn. She was sure that it was meddling with U. S. politics on the thumb drive. And spyware and ransomware programs, just like I thought. She was proud of me, really proud. I could tell because she didn’t gush about it like I’d come home with a smiley face on my homework back when I was four. But being in Russian, or whatever, it would have to go to the experts back at Langley. She would get it to them when, and if, we could travel again.

Her mouth didn’t say if, but her eyes did.

 

Author Notes

With heartfelt gratitude to Lyenochka for giving me Mme, as it should have been from the start, especially since Ohmie and his mother speak French.

Chapter 22
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 22

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter, first Ohmie, and then his mother return to Switzerland.

As soon as I got some strength back. Well, that’s a bit strong, get it? Hah! Anyway, as soon as I could move around unassisted, we arranged with Mme Benoir to keep one of our rooms. Mom would wire some more money when we got to Venice. We were going to Paris, but in spy work, well … Turns out Dad wasn’t the only one with bank boxes scattered around the world. Mom had enough to keep us a month, or so, as long as we shared a room and acted more like tourists on vacation than spies on an expense account.

She wouldn’t have to tell me that there would be no command performance recital after the philharmonic. I was past that, health-wise. I really, really enjoyed the performance. I did. It’s just that I couldn’t stay as alert as I wanted to.

Back at the hotel, I read Mom’s mind. “No point in getting a set of tests, blood work and all,” I said. “It is what it is. The numbers would make you even sadder, harder to put up a cheery front.” I looked at her hard. I mean, not hard, hard, just more intently. “I love you. Mom.” She hugged me for a bit too long, but that was okay.

“Do you miss your friends?” she asked a little later, after she made me comfortable where I could look at the busy city street.

“Yeah, I guess, some. But they ‘bout gave up on me. They didn’t know what to say, or how to act. I really miss my own bed, and my room. Maybe we could get a wheelchair when we get back home. You know, to get to the bathroom easier.

“Don’t get me wrong, though. I wouldn’t want to do anything else than to help Dad. It’s like the symphony last night.” Mom looked at me funny. “Or was that two nights ago?” Yup. I saw it in her eyes. “They finished with that comedic rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth. I can still hear it.” Mom smiled. “They went out on a high note,” I didn’t say.

Mom rented a wheelchair for our visit to the Louvre. We didn’t take a tour. We… I… didn’t know if I would have time for the whole tour. We just used the brochure/map thing and raced from main exhibit to main exhibit looking at the masters. It was good.

“Mom,” I started out once nestled into the chair by the window. “You don’t have to spend all your money showing me Europe. No matter what you told Paul.”

“I know, honey. I want to do, or not do whatever you would like. Is there anything at all… you know, that you would like to do?” After a moment of my silence she lightened things up a little. “Besides go back to the Top of Europe to get that sixteen-year-old’s gift?”

We both laughed our butts off. It didn’t take much for me, though.

It was a while later that I asked if we had enough money to go to Rome, that I would like to see the Sistine Chapel.

“Yes, honey. But I’d rob the bank if I had to.”

I wondered if Mom thought that I was waxing religious, suggesting the chapel. We weren’t a religious family. Dad’s mother was Jewish, but Dad was raised Baptist. Mom’s parents were probably what you’d call nominal Catholic, not going to mass, or even having Rosary beads. Mom wasn’t anything as far as I knew.

I’d never been in a church in my life. I’ve read about all the major religions, though. The one thing that struck me about all that was why the disciples of Jesus would go all their lives, all the way to their deaths believing a lie, if it was a lie. Anyway, that’s not why I wanted to see the Sistine. It was one of Michelangelos major life’s work. A truly magnificent piece of art. That, and his fifteen-foot statue of David with normal size junk that some people wanted to cover up. Hah!

I still had that in my head when there came a loud whomping on the door. Not polite knuckle-knocking. Tap-tap-tap like maid service, but serious pounding. And not like hand-slapping like some desperate person trying to get away from bad guys. This was a fist. I looked at Mom. She’d frozen for a moment, too long out of the field, I figured. Then she sprang to action, grabbing the Berretta from her purse, slightly jacking the slide to check that a round was chambered, and then clicking off the safety.

It was flower delivery. Mom gave him a single Euro, signaling her displeasure at his service. The bouquet was pretty enough. The card was to both Mom and me from Paul. He’d tracked us down. We’d used our real names to get to Paris and register into the hotel, no reason not to. But it was time for a French lady and a Ukrainian boy to sneak off to Rome.

Mom studied the card that came with the flowers. It wasn’t a Hallmark, or anything like that, just a business card sized note that said who they were from. “Mme Paula Zürman,” Mom read.

I just looked at her funny.

“These are really for you,” Mom said. “For what you did to save that man’s life in Zurich. This is Paul’s way of saying that he and his wife are grateful.”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t choke up a little. Mom did too. Some tough spies we were, hah!

Chapter 23
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 23

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie and his mother attend the Paris Philharmonic and decide to go to Rome.

Mom had a pretty good disguise, and I turned back into a girl. We left the hotel through a back, service exit. Leaving our fancy, philharmonic clothes behind, we only had my backpack and Mom’s carry-on that she would have to check anyway because of the Berretta. Once we got to the Rome gate area, we changed disguises again, me returning to masculinity. Hah, a joke.

Mom had sent money to Mme Benoir from Paris, of course. But she called her from Rome. We needed to know if we’d had any visitors, and whether Dad had come yet. No, and no. Good, and maybe bad. How was Dad doing? Had he found Dortch? Had he gone to the Embassy anywhere? Was he even alive? I kept my wonderings to myself. No need to let Mom think I was a worried crybaby.

Surely Paul would have sent someone, not just flowers if Dad was dead, or hurt. Or even if he’d been taken into custody. That is, if Paul even knew. Mom explained how compartmentalized Langley was, the whole need to know thing. If it wasn’t in your portfolio, you didn’t need to know – even if it was your husband. Maybe especially if it was your husband. People talk to family, and close friends. Even the best of them talk too much sometimes. And people drink, sometimes to the point of bad judgment. It happens, and they know it. And… people are people, people with money problems, or people with money dreams. If what they know is limited, then what they have to sell is equally limited. And determining the leak commensurately easier to identify.

I can’t describe the joy I felt in the Sistine. Again, Mom rented a wheelchair. Without it, I would have fallen down every time I tried to look up. The place was… enchanted. It was majestic. I felt like someone was reaching into my chest and massaging my heart. I looked at the part where God, I guess it was God, reached to touch Adam’s hand. I couldn’t say a word. Mom was ready to move on with the tour group, but I wasn’t. I just grunted my disagreement when she began to wheel me. I didn’t care if I saw anything else as long as I lived.

Finally, I was ready and looked at Mom before saying anything. She’d been looking up, too, tears on her cheeks.

Sensing me, she looked down and mumbled. I nodded, pointing toward the exit, back the way we’d come. One of the attendants guided us to the exit that they wanted us to use. We got something to eat that we could take back to our hotel. They called it pizza, but it wasn’t. It was good, though.

“Ohmie?” Mom said, our meal finished and me getting ready for bed, even though it wasn’t even noon.

I looked at her, waiting.

“Did you see what was between God and Adam?”

I thought a minute. “You saw what I saw, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “There was nothing between them. Nobody, and nothing.”

I just nodded my agreement and understanding.

The bed was too hard and the pillow too soft. I felt crappy, but I felt good.

The next day we decided to go back to the chateau south of Lucerne. David and his tiny weenie would just have to be looked at by somebody else.

I prepared a text that Mom could send Dad. She’d use my phone and if Dad were to turn his on, the message would ping in. He wouldn’t have to be lit up but for a second. The message was: 3233461972721. I explained to Mom that we didn’t need to pretend that it wasn’t spy talk. Anybody who intercepted it already knew that we were spies. Anyway, they would probably think that it was a bank account number and that we needed money, or that it was a phone number, or something like that, some kind of number that meant something as a number.

“Okay,” she began, “We’re using your phone, so the start is simple:Me, or Ohmie Dad might read, an’ Mom are good. He’d get that right away.” Mom did a little bit of ciphering with her lips for the next part. “He would know that we would have a date in there somewhere, probably at the end, so the last two and one are obviously July twenty-first. That leaves p/b - hard g/k - n. The next n would be on, on the twenty-first, leaving p/b – hard g/k. peg, pack, bag, beg, ba… back on the twenty-first! Great work, Ohmie!”

“Not bad, yourself, Mom. I didn’t fall outta the clear blue sky.”

Mom laughed and hugged me a little too hard.

We packed and got ready so we could leave out early the next morning. We wouldn’t check out, just leave. I would have to shower in the morning, though. Couldn’t be helped. Mom had already paid for three nights. Boy, spy work is expensive!

Mom got me a different color wig to wear back to Switzerland. She used mine for herself. It fit okay, but looked hideous. This was the worst disguise ever. She looked like Cinderella – before the fairy godmother got a hold of her.

We traveled by train. We had to change trains once, but we could ride in the observation car. It was great, even if my eyes were shut a lot.

We were late getting in, but Mme Benoir heated us up some soup anyway. Her expression was more than pity. I truly believe she’d cry at my passing. I think I loved her, too.

Chapter 24
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 24

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie and his mother have a moving experience in the Sistine Chapel. They then took a train back to Switzerland.

It was tough not hearing from Dad. Not knowing. Dortch was every bit as professional as Dad was. He had all the training and experience Dad had. Plus, to a certain extent anyway, Dortch had the blessings and backing of the Company at his disposal. And he had the official contacts within the various nations of the European Union. Not that Dortch could put out an APB, all points bulletin, on Dad, but he had access to all those cameras that spied on the public. And he could ask a variety of officials whether Dad crossed borders, where and when. He, Dortch, could himself make official inquiries at hotels using the names of law enforcement people. And the United States would not stop him from doing any of these things. After all, Dad had killed outside his license. And he had provided phony data in an official operation. The fact that he hadn’t come in to give his side made him guilty of espionage against the United States of America.

And now Dad had assaulted and injured an American employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Company.

Dad was in trouble, and aside from me and Mom, he didn’t know who he could trust. Other agents, one in particular that I knew about from talks with Mom, Dad was particularly chummy with. They had worked together on a lot of jobs. Both trusted one another with their lives. But that guy, I don’t know his name, I’m sure Mom does, though, would give Dad up if he was convinced Dad had gone over to the dark side.

We never turned on the TV, Mom and I. While I rested (a pleasant way of saying lay there dying), Mom talked to me about their practices. I guess she thought I would like to know the rest of the story, which I did. Also, Dad filled a lot of this in later. And double also, I can fill in a lot of the holes myself. Not that hard.

Dad would never put that guy in a tough spot, having to decide between himself and his career, or his and Dad’s career. Dad wouldn’t do that. Well, unless a thousand other things complicated it.

Dad and his buddy used a variation of the secret code. Almost exclusively, they used it for coordinates, dates, and times. Mom told me that she learned that the Company intercepted one of their messages. It was a jumble of nonsense words, but if you took away all the vowels and all the silent letters, and counted double letters as a single letter, then it reduced to a twenty-six-digit code. The Company code people figured that much. Yay bang for them. Score one for the good guys. Except this one worked against Dad.

Dad and his buddy knew that the first nine was the coordinate for the latitude in decimals, and the next nine were the longitude, again in decimals. The next two were the date. The month and year were understood. And the last four would be the time. They trusted one another to figure out any ambiguities, such as the fact that sometimes latitude or longitude numbers in front of the decimal could be one, two, or three digits. But there was one other catch. Whoever sent the message subtracted one digit from each digit. And whoever received the message, added a number. If Dad sent the word mistake, that would decipher to 3017. But his buddy would do the adding and get 4128.

Dad sent his friend coordinates for the middle of a park in London for 6:35 PM on the eighteenth. Those are the coordinates and time his friend would have worked out if he’d decoded the message according to their routine. The message read: soursmakenogcafeceaselame-funkcuffsageducksevenoar. It decoded to 04037277800538277806170824. And that, after his friend added back all the ones to each digit, translated to the middle of Kennington Park on London at 7:35 on July 18.

Had anyone intercepted the signal, and then managed to translate the words to the proper numeric code, and then accurately figured that it was coordinates, it would have put them in the Atlantic Ocean. And on an unknown time and date. With no way to get it right. Ordinary decoders would be stuck trying to understand what café served sour eggnog.

The location was heavy with trees, going on dusk, and had many avenues of escape. Dad would be there very early in a disguise and would leave at 7:40. Dad bought a one-time-use phone as soon as he’d broken Dortch’s nose and texted the guy, giving him plenty of time to get there, or code something back to Dad’s phone. Dad would never activate his phone unless he was in the process of leaving that place immediately.

Spy work ain’t all fun and games, taking pictures and shooting people.

Like I said, Mom told me they had people trying to break the code. She thinks that after some more time, when they give up, they might buy the code off us and use it Company-wide.

Dad was at Kennington Park an hour and a half early picking up cigarette butts with a stick thing and wearing coveralls. He had a bald head, a goatee and mustache, and funky horned rim glasses. He showed me when he got to the chateau to try to cheer me up. I was having a real bad day.

Dad saw his friend, Dale Fremington, already on a park bench near the center of the park. Dad noted that it was the one most obscured by lilac bushes. After scanning the immediate area, Dad approached. He was sure that if it was a trap, Dale would wave him off. He didn’t.

“Dale,”

“Sam,”

“You wired?” Dale lifted his left hand holding the electronic device. Of course, it was operating. With his right hand, Dale withdrew a photo of his twin sons, briefly showing it to Dad before returning it to his pocket. Dad studied his friend’s sad eyes for a moment. “How’s the family?” Dad asked.

“Ah, Beth’s fine. And the boys start their sophomore years next month. Both made State last year. It’ll be the first time M. U. will have brothers on their varsity team.”

“I’d like to see them play,” Dad said. Dad knew that someone in the Company was holding Dale’s family over his head somehow.

“I’ll get you their schedule. How’s Ohmie?”

Aside from Ohmie’s friends and his school principal, Dale was the only person in the world who called him by his nickname. Dale’s eyes conveyed his sincere concern.

Dad shrugged. “Guess you know we stopped treatment.”

Dale pinched his lips, nodding once.

“The boy is truly gifted.” Dad’s voice uplifted emotionally, nearly a cry at the end. He cleared his throat and strained his chin from side to side.

“He saved Zürman’s life,” Dale said matter-of-factly. “And the Company knows it.”

Dad nodded. Obviously changing the subject, Dad pointed to his eyes.

“My boys can hit a baseball, but what Ohmie did…” Dale shook his head.

Dad knew another code they’d used. When asked a question that they didn’t want listeners to understand the response, they coded. The first sound out of the responder’s mouth was all that mattered. Using only the cardinals of analog clock, three, six, nine, and twelve, the first phonetic sound Dale made was an m, three. Dale could have said Gee, my boys… or simply my boys. Gee would have told Dad to beware of his six o’clock position, and simply boys would tell him nine o’clock. Dad knew that there was someone at his three o’clock, to his right, that had binoculars trained on him. Or maybe a rifle scope.

“Might as well have sent you an RSVP,” Dad quipped, joking about sending the code in the first place.

Dale laughed. “Remember Slobodan Praljak?”

“Croatia.”

Dale nodded. Slobodan was the general that he and Dad captured and had sent to The Hague for his war crimes trial.

“It’s possible someone made a connection with his inner circle, his guard.”

“Ah, the two in London and the two who hit Zürman.”

“And your train,” Dale added. “There was another on that train, more than likely.”

Dad nodded. Getting down to business, Dad handed Dale the thumb drive that Poitr had hidden in the fake packet of Euros. “Pete said that Viktar was on to him.”

Dale didn’t know who Viktar was, but he didn’t need to know. The Company was listening. “Thing is, they didn’t know. For sure, that is.”

Dad knew what Dale was saying, that the Company had Dortch over Dad on points.

Dale continued. “But when they finally nailed down the stiffs…”

Dad just nodded.

“Here’s the thing,” Dale began, raising himself up on his seat, leaning in with his elbows on his knees. “They don’t know Dortch’s game, the who and the why.” Dale then nodded toward the wire still in his left hand.

Dad knew that Dale was playing to the people listening in.

“They need the whole package. Bringing you in won’t get ‘em that.” Dale settled back an inch, telling Dad that it was his turn to talk.

“I’m to put Dortch in a box.”

“And tie a ribbon on it,” Dale finished for him.

Dad hmmmed.

“Your bank box here in London has ten thousand in Euros.” Seeing Dad’s eyes perk, Dale added, “Yeah, I was surprised, too. Officially, you’re the goat, but no one’s assigned to rope you.”

“Just Dortch,” Dad said.

“Just Dortch. But he’s between assignments. Well, sort of. His assignment is Belarus. To get another asset in that computer company.”

“Which gives him complete liberty to travel Europe unbridled.”

Dale nodded. “The Company wants to put somebody on your family. I volunteered.”

“No,” Dad said, no ambiguity in it. “With politics involved, loyalties are fluid. You know that. Too many would be able to locate you. They’re safer alone. And right now, Ohmie is Virgie’s best protection.”

Dale smiled, showing most of his dentures, his real teeth having been knocked out by certain of the Taliban before Dad rescued him. “My friend, this is an ugly business we’re in.”

“And getting worse,” Dad agreed.

“Call me,” Dale said. “You know I’ll come runnin’”

“Unless one of the twins is at bat,” Dad laughed, joined by Dale.

Dad left first, unimpeded.

 

Chapter 25
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 25

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie’s father chanced a meeting with a trusted fellow spy. Ohmie’s father is forgiven, but assigned to catch Dortch, without Company help.

First order of business was the bank of London where the Company had money in Dad’s account.

Dad caught me up with his activities once we reconnected.

He would take out nearly all of the currency and what he didn’t need, he would try to replenish what he’d already tapped. His next task was a gunsmith he knew in Czech Republic. For not too much, he could get a composite, single use gun that fired a nine-millimeter bullet. It was basically plastic and could pass through metal detectors undiscovered. The biggest problem with it, Dad said, was that you couldn’t trust the accuracy. First of all, it only had a two-and-a-half-inch barrel – extremely inaccurate over mere feet. Secondly, even with perfect conditions, the composite barrel may not have been true from manufacture. It was made for very close quarters. The bullet was painted pink and glued to a neck chain and was easily pried loose. Airport security people usually smirked at it.

At least flying as himself didn’t risk the Company nabbing him, just Dortch to be concerned about. Dale said nothing about controls on him. Dortch should be expected to continue as before: possible connections with EU authorities, and a Croatian army at his disposal.

Dad’s third order of business was me. And Mom, of course. He flew to Zurich using a fake passport. His real name wouldn’t show up on the manifest; and if anyone flagged his photo with facial recognition, he’d be in his rental car and gone before anyone was the wiser. When Dad told me the details, I wondered, if trading places, I would have kept the same order. Anyway, I guess I’d taxed myself pretty hard. Mom and Mme Benoir were worried. That’s when Dad got here and told me his story while I lay there more than half dead.

Mom put Dad’s rental car to good use. She drove Mme Benoir on some much-appreciated errands, and then did some much-needed shopping. I had to have more suitable clothes – night clothes and warmer daytime stuff. I don’t think I had any excess body fat. At all. And it was hard to stay warm. I started a bit of uncontrollable shaking sometimes. Mom also came home with everything that she thought came close to my favorite snack and candy food. Swedish Fish were good if they were fresh. But even though the ones she bought were soft and tender, they were a chore for me. Soup and Malto Meal, at least I called it Malto Meal, some kind of porridge that Mme Benoir swore by. Break up a biscuit and let it soak and it was good, really good. But I could never eat more’n a half’a bowl.

Dad had time to look at my thumb drive. He was double glad we were his third priority after seeing that. Mom gave him the play-by-play of my Minsk trip. I could tell he was impressed. I think that was why he gave me all the details of everything he did while apart from us. And… he was amazed that I’d brought home a computer – perfect. He poured over that thing and made notes, notes that he promptly burned up. Said the writing logged it into his long-term memory. Good trick to know for… He’d started to say school. School that I would never again darken the door.

I’m half ashamed of myself, but one time when Mme Benoir was there, bringing fresh linen, I think, I made a point of asking Mom if we could go back to Jungfraujoch. You should have seen Mme Benoir’s face turn red! “I love you, Mme Benoir,” I said. She gave me a Swiss wave-off. At least that’s what I called it, a cross between a royal British wave and an oh, you, silly.

“I’m going to ask you to take this thumb drive to Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It’s only an hour or so from here. Some beautiful country. There’s a small Embassy there. Usually no operative, but they’ll let you seal it into a diplomatic pouch.” Dad was holding up the drive like it was the code to the Presidential nuclear football. “But this part is most important – Be sure they understand that I have more.”

Personally, I would have questioned that… how to get them to do that. But this was their trade. I trusted they knew what they were talking about.

“This isn’t the one Ohmie brought you,” Mom observed.

“No, I only copied the spyware, malware, and ransomware files. And a little bit of the political stuff. The rest, I don’t know… Some of it’s encrypted. Some of it I may be able to use to flush out Dortch. If he thinks I might still have incriminating stuff…” Dad looked over at me. “Well, let’s just say he wouldn’t use a rifle.”

“You know the Liechtenstein flight will fly right over here to Zurich?” Mom was a bit skeptical of going out of her way when Zurich was closer and bigger, and had a Company presence.

“Dortch,” Dad said. “He knows you and Ohmie are in Europe. He knows I would want to see you. Both of you.” Again, Dad stole a glance at me. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have a couple soldiers watching the Embassy. They got you once, remember?” This time Dad looked at Mom’s right arm in a cast.

“I’ve never been there. You might swing past the airport and check out its security, how advantageous it might be for me to fly in for you to pick me up… on occasion.” He looked at me again.

Ready to go, he came over to say goodbye to me. By this time I was sitting up in a chair where I could see the mountains. I was wrapped in a blanket, my arms bundled up. I could see that he was at a loss for words.

“I should be going with you,” I said. “We’re a team.”

Dad smiled. His eyes were blinking faster than normal.

“Dad, I love you.” It was the first time I ever remember saying it. Mom was by the door dabbing her eyes.

“Ohmie, Tim. I love you.” He kissed me on the forehead. It was the first time he’d ever said that.

Author Notes

Seems like I've tried a hundred ways to get line and paragraph spacing more professional. What's the trick?

Chapter 26
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 26

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Dad got the Company cash that was offered. He bought a plastic, one time use gun, and came to our chateau. There, he studied the thumb drive, copying part for Mom to take to the Liechtenstein Embassy. Dad told me he loved me as he left to find Dortch. It was the first time ever.

We were going to Vaduz. I woke up at two in the morning feeling better than I had since Minsk. It was cold, but the moon over the Alps was fantastic. I decided I was fit to go to Vaduz with Mom. She got up at about five and agreed that it would be good for me to get out. I was a little surprised that she agreed so easily. Then on the drive I saw why.

“But Mom, Dad needs us!” I was as emphatic as I could be.

“Ohmie, I came over to get you and take you home, remember? This wasn’t a holiday; Dad never would have involved you in business.”

“But… he needed me!”

“Yes, honey. You saved his life. No one will ever forget that. But the mess with the Company is straightened out, and we can go home.”

I didn’t have an immediate response. And I won’t deny that my own room and bed sounded attractive. Mom, sensing that I was just working up another excuse to stay in Europe laid in again. “Honey, this is what your father does. This is his job. Danger is always a consideration.”

“That why he never tried to get to know me? Never was involved with anything I was into?”

Mom looked out her side window a little longer than safe driving permitted. “I guess that’s right. But don’t doubt that he loves you. He came from a family that, that just didn’t show emotions. Your grandmother’s idea of affection is signing her name to a card, or a check. Did you know that your dad has a scrap book? I need to show it to you when we get home. I only learned about it a couple years ago. Your dad didn’t want to look at it, so I put it back in the box that I’d found it in. In the back sleeve he has five birthday cards from when he was nine through fourteen. They’re signed by your grandmother, just that, her signature. And a check for ten dollars inside each card. He never cashed them.”

Mom didn’t add any commentary. She didn’t need to.

“He’s not like my friends’ dads,” I said.

“No, he’s not.” Mom said that like matter-of-factly.

“He’s a hero, isn’t he?” I looked at Mom until she looked back.

“Yes he is, Ohmie. When we get home I’ll show you his medals. But it has to be our secret. He told me once that a man shouldn’t get decorated for just doing his job.”

Ohmie didn’t respond. He saw the four men he’d killed and knew that he’d only done what he’d had to do. Maybe he should have felt … freaked out, or something. But he had no choice.

At the Embassy, I was not impressed. Since Mom had to have the thumb drive sealed and registered for C.I.A delivery, specifically to Paul, the Ambassador met with us. Mom said he was a political appointee, not a career diplomat. My guess was that he’d donated a hundred grand to a PAC. He probably thought he shoulda got Switzerland, but took Liechtenstein as a consolation prize.

The airport we checked out would do… if you didn’t mind flying in a thirty-passenger jet prop. I wondered if the one I saw people loading onto could clear the mountains. Since Dad would have to change planes somewhere to fly into Vaduz, I didn’t see a great advantage, other than the fact that he could avoid the public area where Croatians might be lurking. If it was Dortch, Vaduz would make him a sitting duck. At Zurich, if he was picked up by a private car, he could stay at the gate and wait for an appointed time to dash out and hop in. That’s how I’d do it.

We were nearly back at the chateau before I’d worked that out. I probably napped some.

Once inside, Mom sprang it on me. “What do you say we go home tomorrow, Ohmie?” She dashed into the bathroom. I think she knew that I wasn’t going to talk to her through the door when she was on the pot. Totally not fair.

Since I couldn’t think of a good reason to stay, and there were several good reasons to go home, I didn’t resist. Mom already knew that I wanted to help Dad. But even I knew that a stage four lymphaticly-dying thirteen-year-old would only drag Dad down, probably be the death of him.

I’d wear the wig and bra to the terminal gate. Hah! That’s not a funny picture – the airport terminal. We would both travel on our fake passports. Zurich to Heathrow, then Heathrow to Washington national. Home was actually sounding good. Goodbyes to Mme Benoir, yes, I would send postcards, and we were off.

I wonder where Dad is?

We parked in long term parking and waited for a golf cart shuttle to take us to our airline area.

“Mom!” Mom looked to where my eyes were focused. The two men could be twins of the two in London. One of them was staring directly at me. I think Mom recognized them, too, because she made no effort to get off the tram thing.

“Where’s the gun?” I asked. Then I remembered that it was in her suitcase. We would avoid a shootout in this crowd anyway. I knew that. Mom looked away. I kept looking at him like an amateur. We stayed on and returned to the car.

“Want to try the train?” Mom asked.

I thought about the gun coming in the sleeper car, followed closely by an assassin.

“Let’s go back to the chateau and think things out, shall we?” Mom called Mme Benoir to hold our room. I was betting that Mom would figure a route that took us back through Italy. That seemed safe enough. I couldn’t think of a reason to rebut it. We could drive to Vaduz and just transfer to Zurich Air from inside the terminal. I doubt if the assassins could get inside that far to look for us. Surely, they wouldn’t expect us to fly from Liechtenstein? But I wasn’t going to suggest it.

“If we flew from Vaduz, we could stay within the secure area changing flights,” Mom suggested.

Chapter 27
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 27

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter we shipped the thumb drive to Langley from Liechtenstein, and then decided to go home to America. But seeing assassins watching for us at the Zurich airport, we changed our minds. Then Mom thought of flying from Vaduz.

We stayed with Mme Benoir two days and three nights. Again with the teary good bye. I really did love her, more than either of my grandmothers. Well, I almost never saw Dad’s mother, even though she only lived about forty miles away. And Mom’s mom died before I was born. We got to Vaduz all right, everything looked fine, a little vacated, but it was a small, regional airport. After parking the car, mom hid the key where Dad could find it. There was no shuttle in Camp Rinky-Dink, so we carried our bags – only to carry them back to the car again. There was a notice taped to the glass door that the airport was closed due to an outbreak of a Covid-19 variant.

Back to Mme Benoir, who was expecting us – she’d seen the news on TV.

My Berretta was getting worn out going in and out of Mom’s suitcase.

While we were leaving Vaduz, I powered up my phone for a moment. No messages from Dad. Mom had me do the same for hers. Same result. Was Dad all right? Or was he dead? We didn’t talk about him all the way back, just about the Covid and how bad it would be for me to get it and would I want to be intubated – my call. Yea or nay?

Nay.

Tears. Huge hug. “Ohmie do you even know how much I love you?” I had to put that together from between sobbing. But that was okay. Really. I tried to make her feel better.

We turned on the twenty-four-hour news channel. As far as I know, it was the first time the thing had been turned on since we got there.

“How do you think it’ll affect Dad?” I asked. Mom didn’t answer right away.

“I wish he’d come here and wait things out a bit. But I expect he’s going to the major city airports and making contact with sources and assets, maybe friends in the various agencies. He has to be careful, though. Just because the Company isn’t after him, doesn’t mean that individuals don’t have compromised loyalties.”

“You mean like at home? The polarization?”

“Yes, there are people, even good people who somehow have lost themselves and decided their oath to the Constitution is… well, something else.”

I knew what she was talking around. Not about, but around. Some of my teachers, Mr. Sanders in particular, couldn’t help but let us know which side we should be on.

“Will Dad go to the train stations, too?”

“That would be a lot harder. Nearly impossible for one man.”

“Where do you think Dortch would be?”

Without hesitation, Mom said Moscow. “Your dad didn’t break his nose, he crushed the septum, rammed it into the sinus cavity. It’ll probably need reconstruction. Dortch should have gone to an Embassy and let them escort him to a hospital in the states. But we know he didn’t. That was a major mistake on his part. It was a big part of why your dad wasn’t netted by the Company. Moscow.”

“Would Dad follow him? Go to Moscow?”

“Not if he had any sense.”

“But would he?”

After a moment, Mom said maybe.

That’s when the TV anchor person raised her voice, in French, she said, “This just in – a bomb blast damaged the Philharmonie de Paris. The extent of damage is unknown at this time, and there are no reports of fatalities. The significance is that it has been such a long time since the last terrorist attack in Paris, and never before has one of the arts buildings been targeted. No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.”

“Mom?” I asked.

She was thinking.

“Dortch found out about Berlin, right? And he knew we were in Paris. Does he think we’re still there?”

“And he’s trying to frighten us into doing something stupid,” Mom finished for me. “Dortch might still be in Moscow, or he might be in Paris. Either way he could direct his troops. And if he has them convinced that he is going to give them the persecutor of their hero, General Slobodan….”

“He knows the airports are closed, right? Do you think the ones in Zurich reported what they saw?”

“A woman who could be me and a girl who could be a boy who looks like you? … Maybe. I would if I wanted a pat on the back.”

I chuckled to myself. Mom would never do something like that for a pat on the back. She was imagining that she was them.

“So they’re looking at trains?”

“Maybe the transcontinental routes,” she answered.

“When do you think Dad will show up?” My change of subject made her smile.

“I miss him, too.”

“Tell you what. Let’s tell Mme Benoir that we won’t be here for dinner and go out while we still can – if we can.” Mom glanced toward the TV as if it would answer the question for her. “We’ll get authentic Swiss fondue with bösti and a plate of Swiss chocolate!”

“Where’s my coat?” I said with as much enthusiasm as my limited capacity would allow.

 

Author Notes

Covid-19 caused many flights to be cancelled and entry into many countries was limited, or controlled. Liberties have been taken in this story.

Chapter 28
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 28

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie and his mother attempted to go home to the states when a Covid outbreak shut down air travel. They then learned that terrorists attacked the Paris symphony building that they’d attended.

Dad got his money’s worth out of a week-long ride pass for the train. He spent more time in Brussels than anywhere else. Brussels, of course, is where the headquarters of the European Union lives. There were a couple guys that Dad knew that worked there. They were only mid-level, but… It was two things Dad needed. One, was to let the EU know what he was up to, and that he was not there to cause trouble. The other was to let someone know that Dortch had ties to General Slobodan’s followers and that they were running amuck through Europe. And to look at them for the Paris bombing. Dad didn’t say that as soon as he, himself, was dead, they would go back home.

Another place that Dad visited early on was Lyon, France. That was the headquarters of Interpol, International Criminal Police Organization. Using his credentials, Dad got as high up as he could, telling them the same story. Dad had a picture of Dortch. Dad’s hope that they would enter it into the facial recognition program was dashed. He hinted, but did not ask. They didn’t offer. They did promise to check with the C.I.A. and keep Dad’s own name and face from any apprehension, or warrants list provided the C.I.A. confirmed Dad’s story. Dad did not hold a great deal of confidence in that whole thing playing out favorably. He figured that the Company would stick with a no comment position.

At least Dortch hadn’t committed them to a shoot him on sight stance.

Dad was in Paris a few days before we got there to go to the symphony, and several days before the bomb. He checked out the airport as best a one-man team could. Dad also spent as much time as he could looking at the files on the jump drive (a copy of it, anyway). He wanted to let the really gifted boys at Langley get after it, but he would never see it again, and they would more than likely, share nothing with him.

Another thing about the political stuff in the files. America was not merely polarized among the general population, many within law enforcement held very strong beliefs on both sides. Some of them were in positions of power. And Dad still did not know who to trust. Would an honest, impartial boss have left him out there to perform the nearly impossible with nothing but a pocketful of money, money that could be gone in a week if used for bribes, or hiring help? Or had his bosses cut him bigtime slack, offering him the opportunity to claw himself out of a hole the size of the Grand Canyon, placing their own positions and reputations at risk. Someone this very moment might be wearing thumbscrews, maybe, over the ten thousand Euros.

Brussells, Lyon, Paris, and then Berlin, the last known place for Dortch. Surely a hospital would have a record of his visit. Maybe something could be learned there. Worth a try. He wanted to make a deposit into his Deutsche Bank box anyway.

Dad came to see me (and Mom) before he left Berlin. I was pretty non-responsive while he talked about his travels. Better than saying he loved me and was sorry I was dying 500 times.

After leaving us, Dad made it to the Franziskus-Krankenhaus administrator. It was the nearest hospital to the coffee shop where Dad had smashed Dortch’s nose. Dad’s C.I.A. credentials got him to the administrator. Dad wanted to make sure that the hospital bill was paid (ha-ha, funny Dad), and to make sure that the doctor’s recommendations were followed up. “You know us spies,” Dad chuckled. “Just like teenaged boys, ten feet tall and bullet-proof.” (hardy-har-har). “Kevin Dortch is one of our best, and he’ll want to report back for duty as soon as he can stand up.” The administrator was accommodating. Dortch required reconstructive surgery. And against the advice of the doctors, checked himself out to have the procedure done elsewhere. Dortch’s records had been sent to Capio Saint Göran Hospital – in a non-NATO country. Interesting. Did Dortch not want to risk the Company finding out about his injury?

Dad wished he had access to Company resources. This was something Virginia could have researched in two minutes: border crossings and flight manifests for one Kevin Dortch. Unless he used a false passport, which he most likely had done. But he checked into Saint Göran under his own name, probably as an outpatient, and into a hotel under an assumed name, probably a different one than he had flown in under.

Dad could go to Stockholm and find out when Dortch’s follow-up visit would be. Surely Dortch would have the surgical doctor do the follow up, the unpacking of his sinus cavity of all the swabbing material? Maybe, maybe not. Functionality and pain relief. Anything more could be dealt with later, when the mission was accomplished and he was home in the states. That’s what Dad would do, he said to me.

But where would Dortch go after surgery, was the question. Would he travel with such a glaring, attention-drawing feature in the middle of his face? Getting out of Germany and to immediate surgery was one thing. That was urgent. He probably flew at night, zipping through the treetops. Besides the bandaged nose, he more than likely sported two terribly discolored eyes, black and blue and purple. Dad chuckled to himself at the thought. Yes, Dortch would stay in Sweden at least until he could remove the bandaging and cover the worst discoloring with make-up. It would be worth a trip to hang out at the Stockholm airport, the Arlanda.

But how was he contacting his Croation troop? Who was his contact? Dad had no answers. The Company probably did, though. But who could he trust?

Zürman. I had to get that name to Dad. It came to me in a moment of delirium. I took a turn for the worse early in the morning after Mom and my evening out. Dad could trust Zürman to tell him straight.

 

Author Notes

My apologies to new followers (I can't make myself say fans, since that seemingly elevates my writing to an undeserved level.) This is an action-free chapter. Ohmie is dying of cancer. He became involved with his parents' spy work before even aware they worked for the CIA. If it was me, I wouldn't even try to get into a story in chapter 28. But a reading of chapter one would definitely help. I could not make FanStory blacken Saint Goran.

Chapter 29
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 29

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie’s father traveled to the EU and to the Interpol headquarters. He also learned of Dortch’s nose surgery and that he’d gone to Stockholm, Sweden. Ohmie began to turn for the worse.

Mom gave me a dose of the anti-nausea stuff and waited only half the time to repeat the steroid and pain killer. They weren’t helping. I don’t think I was in pain, but Mom couldn’t tell. She sent Dad a text that we were going to a local clinic. Turned out we had to go all the way into Lucerne. They got all excited and sent us by ambulance to the University Hospital of Zurich. Zurich refused to do a thing until Mom authorized them to send to the states for my records. All she wanted was pain control. They were unimpressed with our recent decisions regarding my healthcare. Of course, they had to use my real name.

Dad opened his phone in Stockholm. All he learned about Dortch was that it was outpatient surgery. Dortch could be anywhere, but was most likely there in Stockholm for a few days, at least. No matter. Dad made plans to fly to Zurich on a series of cargo planes. A person would be amazed at what a 007 card and a decoder ring could get you. (just kidding, sort of).

Mme Benoir came to Zurich as soon as Mom called her to let her know that we were not in Lucerne. I figured she would come to see me in Lucerne. I was pleasantly surprised to see her in Zurich. How was I doing? Not so well. I was able to catch what was going on, but my ability to grasp any subtleties was pretty much shot. Hearing was working, speaking, not so much, especially since they had an oxygen mask on me. Mom refused to let them intubate me. Palliative care only. Okay, they said, washing their hands of me once I was made comfortable. They went to work looking for a hospice that would take me.

Dad showed up. He hugged Mme Benoir, and then really hugged Mom. Then it was my turn. “Virgy, would you and Mme Benoir give Ohmie and me a little time? Maybe get yourselves something to eat and bring me back some coffee? Virgy you have your…?” Dad nodded toward his hip. Mom nodded back. Gun. Dad had seen something.

That was when Dad caught me up. He knew that I was dying to be involved. Hah! Get it? With just a little time to tell it, I know he only hit the highlights. I don’t think I even blinked the whole time. When he finally took a breath, I tried with all my might to take off my mask. Dad did it for me long enough for me to tell him that he could trust Zürman.

Mom and Mme Benoir came back.

“Mme Benoir,” Mom began. I thought it peculiar that Mom would start a conversation like that after being with her a half an hour. “Maybe you should say good…” Mom choked up, unable to finish her sentence.

“Virginia, Sam. I know. I saw those men, too, Virginia. And I saw your guns in the room, and on your back, Sam. I also saw your disguises,” She looked at me. “And Ohmie’s brassiere. You are C.I.A., or something like that. I know.”

Mom and Dad snapped their heads one to another and Mme Benoir a few times, saying nothing.

“My grandmother was French resistance. My mother was a nurse in Vietnam, a French nurse in the Gendarmerie at Dien Bien Phu.” She let that sink in a minute. I knew history pretty well. Not only was I an advanced student, but I read a lot. Dien Bien Phu was where the French army was defeated, the impetus for their leaving Vietnam.

“Me. I have cooked soup, and changed beds my entire life. My mother, my grandmother were heroic.” She stopped for a moment, not in self-pity, but in tribute. “My mother was conceived under, shall I say, less than pleasant conditions. My mother never spoke of her battle experiences. Never. But I read stories. I saw the films. I always wondered what I would have done, how I would react. Well, this is my moment. It may not be much, but for Ohmie…”

Mom and Dad both started to speak, but Mme Benoir held up both hands like she was a traffic cop in the middle of an intersection. “I will disguise as Virginia, arm sling, a wig, one of her…” Mrs Benoir nodded toward Mom’s much larger chest. I couldn’t help but chortle through the mask. Mom thought I was gagging, but Mrs Benoir knew. “Such a stinker, he is.” She was grinning.

She continued. “We put a dummy in a wheelchair. And with your car parked at the door, Dummy and I, what do you say divert those men before they shoot up innocent people.”

“And when they catch you?” Mom asked.

“My moment,” was all Mme Benoir said.

Dad looked at the wall clock. “Soon as it’s dark,” he said. Then Dad left to set things in motion. Maybe steal some kid to play me in a wheelchair. He hadn’t touched his coffee.

Somehow, I felt a little invigorated and motioned toward the cup. Mom made a little face and shrugged her shoulders. I think right then I could have asked for anything in the world. I just wanted to sip Dad’s drink, like it could make me closer to him. I don’t know. Maybe that’s stupid, but that’s what was in my head. It tasted awful, but I took three big sips anyway.

Mme Benoir gave me another one of those little stinker looks.

Chapter 30
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt30

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie was whisked off to the hospital. Both his father and Mme Benoir show up. Assassins show up at the hospital. Mme Benoir discloses her heroic ancestry and determination to help.

Dad was still gone setting things up. Mme Benoir was out fueling up her car for Dad to use. She had said that she knew it was low, but had come on to the hospital to see me. She was also going to pick up a bag of foodstuffs in case we had to run and hide out. She knew that we would never just lead them back to her chateau. Mom was dozing in the chair beside my bed. When a doctor entered the room. I could see him all the way into the room—all of him. Mom only saw over the bed.

Two things: one, he didn’t tap, tap, tap on the door. Two, he was wearing dirty tennis shoes. They were made of leather, but still sneakers. And old and dirty. And three. Three things. And three, his stethoscope was backwards. I’d never seen any medical person put the pick-up piece on the left, always on the right, their right.

I furrowed my brow at Mom, blinking hard. She nodded. My bet was that she’d picked up on some other clues.

The fake doctor looked around the room. No doubt reconnoitering the security. “You are feelink better, yes? We weel transfer you soon. To other floor. Good day.”

As he turned to leave, Mom let him have it with her cast right over the top of his head. Him being not overly tall gave her a lot more torque. It broke her cast, and probably didn’t do his head any good at all. Mom winced a little. I’m sure it hurt her arm, too. After first closing the door, Mom tied him up with his belt and the TV cable. Then she gagged him with a face cloth and a cut-up towel. Who knew that Mom carried a knife? After dragging him into the bathroom, I don’t know if she finished him off or not. She might’ve been taking the time to get him all the way in so the bathroom door would close. Or…

Mme Benoir came back with fish sandwiches. I wasn’t much for eating. Mom told her about their friend using the bathroom. Mom said that he was probably doing recon, and would already be missed. Mme Benoir hadn’t seen any of them when she came in, but that didn’t mean anything. Probably in their car.

Dad returned with a mannequin. Really. A female a little larger than me. He said that it cost him three hundred Euros and if he’d had time, he could’ve bought a brand new one for half that. Spy work is expensive! Turns out he had to break the legs. It was an older model made without flexible limbs. They would bend, he’d said, but not enough. They bend just fine now.

Mme Benoir went to work on making herself look like Mom. She couldn’t use the bathroom, so Dad turned his back. I shut my eyes – mostly. Dad made the dummy look like me, a scarf, a baseball cap and a blanket. Mom helped me get dressed.

“I don’t think they know I’m here,” Dad said. “I used the administrative entrance each time. Right now, I don’t know how many of them there are. It’s me they want. I could show myself, and let them chase me, but they will come for you just in case they don’t capture me. So that’s out. I’ll put our car at the emergency department entrance. They may have someone watching our car right now, and also the emergency department door. I’ll deal with that.”

“Mme Benoir, if you will leave the wig here with Virgy, and go move your car to the main discharge door. We’ll have your Ohmie and the wig near the reception kiosk. And our Ohmie at the emergency exit.

There was something missing to Dad’s plan. I just knew it. But I also knew that he would have it covered.

Mom and I were to wait for gunfire before going outside. I convinced Mom that I could get into the car on my own if she would get behind the wheel and be ready to roll.

Mme Benoir slowly pushed the dummy out to the car. Her job was to give them a chance to identify Mom and Ohmie. It was almost too easy. She could have pushed faster, loaded the dummy and been gone. We needed her to draw any assassins away from the emergency door. Since Mom did not want to show herself, she couldn’t look to spot any of them. And she would have had to expose herself fully in order to get a good look around. We waited, hoping we would hear gunfire from that distance.

Mme Benoir left the dummy in the wheelchair beside the passenger door, the door open, as if waiting for an orderly or nurse to come help her. She waited patiently, until an assassin with his gun out was mere yards away. (Meters to Mme Benoir) The car already running, she put it in gear, ducked low, and sped off as quickly as a four-cylinder Fiat could speed her. The man in front of her car with a pointed weapon suddenly dropped as if shot, which he was, by Dad.

That was our signal. There was more gunfire, but we were too interested in getting into the car and racing toward the back of the hospital to count, or try to figure how many different guns might be involved. I worried about Mme Benoir.

Dad had a borrowed taxi a short distance away. As quickly as he’d dispatched the first assassin, he ran to it to chase Mme Benoir. After crashing into a vehicle that he’d seen chasing her, presumably full of assassins, Dad jumped from the wrecked cab and three dumbfounded Croatians got out of their vehicle and ran back toward the hospital. By then, we were in a parking lot off Gloriastrasse watching for a pedestrian that looked like Dad. He came strolling by like a man walking a dog, only he had no dog. The way Dad told it, there were no terrified bystanders, no cars slamming into other cars to get out of Mme Benoir’s way. No screaming or shouting for the police. Uh-huh. Another day at the beach.

We drove the speed limit on the route we expected Mme Benoir would take, looking for a bullet-ridden blue Fiat.

 

Author Notes

Dying of stage four lymphoma, Ohmie, the teenage prodigy, has seen enough doctors to know.

Chapter 31
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 31

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Mom takes out an assassin in my room. Mme Benoir, disguised as Mom fakes out more assassins, covered by Dad, as Mom and I  snuck out through a different exit.

We were back at the chateau, Dad standing guard down the road. Dad noticed that Mme Benoir had removed her car’s plates, leaving them at the chateau. Smart lady. I hugged her tight when we got back. I was feeling better. Mom learned while we were there to double the corticosteroids. Well, the same dosage, but twice as often. We would have to get more pretty soon.

This time our good-byes were for real. We all knew it. “Yes, Mme Benoir, of course I will keep in touch. I will.” I meant it, too. As best I could. For as long as I could.

Mom drove us to a train station in Bern. It was only an hour away. We’d spent the night before boarding a morning train. Dad would meet in Spiez where he would board after guarding Mme Benoir all night. 

I thought it cool, fitting. That three spies would meet up in Spiez, Switzerland. Get it, spies. ’Course that’s not how the Swiss pronounce it.

Dad and I slept the whole way to Rome. I never did get to see that part of the mountains. Mom made reservations for us in a nice villa outside Labaro, the last stop before Rome. We took two cabs to get there. Spy work was expensive. We stayed there two days.

I’m not quite myself those two days, pretty quiet. But I watch, and listen. It was during one of those watching and listening times that Mom opened the subject out of the blue. We’d just finished some kind of tomato-pasta dish. I didn’t eat much.

Mom said they didn’t know. “I came home from work and you were pale, short of breath, feverish. I thought the flu. Covid wasn’t a thing yet. It didn’t sound like the typical symptoms, but who knew? I took you to the doctor’s and then we went back home. The next day I took you to the emergency room. Within thirty seconds the doctor there locked eyes on me like I’d shot you. The emergent blood work proved it: lymphoma, stage four. You’d never once complained of being sick.

“Ohmie, you don’t know how sorry we were. We are. They offered… well you know. But what they didn’t offer us was hope.”

“I know Mom. Dad.” Dad had been as engaged in what Mom was saying as she was. “I felt stuff, tired, but I didn’t know it wasn’t normal. Or a bug, or something. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

We all moved into the living room. The picture window looked out at rolling hills of grape vineyards. It was cool, but not cool like the mountains. The TV was on a news channel. It was in Italian, but I understood some of it. Italian’s not that much different from French or Spanish. They were all related. There was a video of a super yacht that had been confiscated from a Russian oligarch, a friend of Putin’s.

Dad grabbed one of his many one-time-use, disposable telephones and called his friend, Dale. He had to leave a message: share my gmen gym kit (6-4--2--7-3-2--6-3--7-1). It was a code used several times before. After Dale added back the ones: 7-5--3--8-4-3--0-7-4--8-2. Call me from a secure phone.

Dad explained it when he saw my confusion. “Sometimes we need the numbers sorted by syllables. Gmen, of course is 7-3-2. Dale adds one and gets 8-4-3. He knows that it’s one word, not for me, two words. Of course, it could be either from, or from. We have to get that part from context. Many sequences are instinctual. 0-7-4 is secure, no matter what else it could be, we see secure. Usually, the spaces aren’t needed, and running letters all together helps confound the bad guys. But in this case, I want rapid response.

Dad let me listen in to his side of the conversation. It was way better than a steroid shot.

The Koroleva Ledi was the name of the yacht, Queen Lady. From Dale to his boss, to his, to his, and to the Secretary of State. From him to the President. The boat was ours. It took all day and all night, but midmorning the next day, it was ours. All Dad had to do was find a captain and crew.

As I read in some novel, somewhere: No hill for a hilly horse. Or for a spy: typical day at the office.

Then, Mom had some work to do. She used another of Dad’s phones to call Paul. Would he use his influence and get Ohmies’ – Tim’s – doctor to send some meds to Ottavia. Mom made reservations at a hotel there and explained that schizophrenia medication would be arriving for them, to please hold it. No hotel would dare lose, or withhold a customer’s schizophrenia meds. And they weren’t worth anything on the black market, anyway. I didn’t have schizophrenia, but the ploy worked.

The boat was in Naples, so that’s where Dad went. Mom and I had to wait for the meds. We didn’t have them sent to Naples, because you just get into the habit of being careful in the spying industry. Mistakes like that can get you killed. Sure, we trusted Paul, but who else might see an address? Or who at Dr. Hamilton’s office, or the pharmacy? Or in the carrier service? No. Too many hands. Mom would call the hotel in a couple days. When the package arrived, she would go in disguise. She would go by taxi as herself, because she didn’t want Paul, or anyone, to know her fake name. After getting the package, she would change her disguise a little, and go out a different door, and walk to a taxi.

I wanted to go with her, but you know how mothers are.

Author Notes

13 yo Ohmie, a gifted prodigy, is in stage 4 lymphoma. Unaware his parents worked for the CIA, he was drawn into the trade having saved his father's life by killing would-be assassins. The intrigue has persisted despite declining health. The code was explained in detail in previous posts.

Chapter 32
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 32

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie and his parents leave Mme Benoir’s chateau for good, heading toward Rome by train. Learning of a confiscated Russian yacht, Ohmie’s father arranged to commandeer it to sail to the U.S. Ohmie tells the tale.

Here’s something funny. The authorities waited until the Russians had the boat fueled and outfitted for travel before taking it over. They knew whose it was all along. Six other yachts had been confiscated already. The boat captain had already alerted the Port Commander that they were bound for Cuba. My bet is that was what the authorities were waiting for. When the harbor pilot came aboard, he wasn’t the harbor pilot, and he brought trainees, who weren’t trainees. Hah!

Get off our boat, Mr. Ruskie! If you wanted to keep it, you shouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. They weren’t even allowed to pack. But they did eventually let Mrs. Ruskie aboard to pack personal meds and stuff. My bet was that she got all her jewelry and expensive clothes. Mom wouldn’t want that stuff anyway. Hot don’t need gaudy.

Just thinking about the cruise perked me up. I was definitely feeling better. Then again, maybe it was compounding the steroids. Whatever, I could walk again, and not like a one-legged dog, either.

Dad introduced us to the captain and crew. They were from Greece, but spoke French, at least the captain and one or two of the crew did. The captain spoke Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian, but not English. I didn’t blame him. English, unless spoken at home, would be a terrible language to learn. My bet was that his command of languages was what helped make him a captain. Auggie, I don’t know his regular name, was the second in command, second mate. Hah! I get the lingo, feelin’ it. Auggie spoke Greek and English. It seemed like he made most of the decisions running the boat.

That was one thing about Europe – the languages. About the same size as the states, they had about fifteen languages. The U.S. was basically one language. There were a lot of Spanish-speaking people, but English was everywhere. In Europe you might need three or four different languages in a single day of ground travel. Weird. Guess it made more sense when nobody traveled faster than a horse.

Mom gave me the nausea medicine just in case. Sure can’t hurt. Hah! Yes, it can. I didn’t take any more of it. Tinnitus and too sleepy. I was finally feeling better and I didn’t want to sleep it away. And the tinnitus was like living under buzzing bees, or mosquitos, only louder, more constant, and higher pitched. No mas!

The captain said that I might want to take them when we hit the Atlantic. He’d take us close enough to see the Rock of Gibraltar, and then… hang on. He liked to make that crossing in the daylight, one: because it was relatively narrow and you didn’t want to be anywhere near other ships, or boats. And two: people didn’t like to be thrown out of their beds. Or to throw up in their beds. It wasn’t always like that, but often enough.

This was the best time of my life. I was cruising on a luxury yacht with as much caviar as I wanted. I was with Mom and Dad, a dad that I finally got to know. And I knew that Mom and Dad loved each other and would make it without me around. An empty nest. I bet I knew what would be goin’ on. And it wouldn’t be a lotta bickering.

The week was going too fast. So fast, in fact, Dad had the captain slow down to a creep. It’s like we were treading water, nearly drifting. We hit the gulf stream and turned right. Hah! Starboard. We were going to dock at Newport News, Virginia. And get this – Grandma Vera, Dad’s mother, was going to pick us up in her Escalade. Grandpa Westlake was going to secure the house, make sure it was safe. I guess he was the one that taught Dad how to shoot. They didn’t know any details, but Dad got word to him to look things over, with his nine. Grandpa, of course, knew what business we were in.

Even drifting went too fast, but without actually turning around, which would probably be breaking the rules…. Well, we couldn’t actually drag an anchor, or run the props in reverse. Oh, well. I missed my own room and bed anyway. And I’d had all the caviar I wanted for the rest of my life, all four to six weeks of it.

Grandma actually hugged me. She really was nice about it too. Her perfume was a bit overwhelming, but that was okay.

Grandpa had burgers ready to grill. As soon as we got inside the house, he went to work on them. I went out back with him because Dad did. We were a team, after all.

“Hey Timmie!” He never did like the name Ohmie. “Hear you can make a violin sound like a fiddle.” He chuckled at me. Dad’s head said to go ahead and get it. It took a few minutes because I wasn’t too good on stairs. I saw Grandma frowning out of the corner of my eye. She wasn’t frowning in my eye. From the corner of my eye, I saw her frowning just a little bit. After tuning the violin and carefully negotiating the steps, it was time to eat. I got about half a burger down and showed them what a spoiled violin sounded like with my version of Orange Blossom Special.

Mom and Grandma came out to listen and watch. Since they came out, I added another minute or so to it. I think that after the Berlin deal, she forgave me my fiddling.

Chapter 33
Best Time of Ohmie's Life, pt 33

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie’s father managed to get the yacht. They made it to Newport News where Grandma Westlake shows Ohmie affection. Grandpa Westlake made sure the house was clear.

Dad gave me a copy of his thumb drive. He worked in his and Mom’s office, and I worked in my bedroom. We decided that instead of moving my room downstairs, converting the dining room, or the formal living room, and then in a matter of weeks having to change it back, we decided to put a chair lift on the stairs. And it would be handy if the next time Mom broke her leg instead of her arm. Hah! They didn’t laugh when I said that.

When Mom got back from having her arm x-rayed and re-cast, she worked with the files some, too.

Dad told me to forget about the spyware and ransomware stuff, the Company already had that and had experts on it. He didn't want to give up the political stuff yet for a few reasons: one, it was explosive. Some people might get hurt, some get mad, and some take actions that would compromise our investigation. Two, heads might roll. Maybe appointee heads, maybe elected heads. And that might affect our investigation. And three, we didn’t know who was who. I’m sure Mom and dad had some guesses, but….

So, I went through what I’d copied in Minsk line by line. I tried to show Dad where the stuff was that came from the locked office, the pass-coded computer, but whether he got it, I don’t know. But I knew. The trouble was that I didn’t speak Russian, or Belarussian. But I knew patterns, and I knew numbers. And I could use simple translation website programs. I did that once, just once, before catching myself. After that once, I bought a translating program that I could do the same thing, but off-line.  Referencing a Russian alphabet, I wrote an extra simple substitution program.

I did searches of U.S. politicians’ names, both candidates and elected, all I could think of. Names from both parties showed up. It was easy enough to see which were viewed positively by the data author, and which more negatively. It struck me odd. From what I’d learned in history classes, fifty years ago I would expect opposite sentiment expressed.

Then I searched for Dortch. Nothing. Not one time. But neither was Dad’s name mentioned anywhere. What I did see, was a word that should have been a name, but translated dutch. I showed it to Dad. After all, we were a team. Dad’s fingers flew over his keyboard. His monitor displayed a chart with dutch at the top of a list of names. Right of the names were series and columns of numbers. Not every name had an entry in the middle column, but dutch did.

“Those are off-shore bank account numbers, Ohmie. And the next column are amounts in U.S. dollars.”

I saw that dutch had 100,000. The column to the right of that had 2,985,500, probably cumulative. “They’re paying Dortch?” I exclaimed.

Dad called toward the door of his office for Mom. I ran as fast as a one-legged horse could for my chair lift, willing it to go faster. I heard Dad talking to Dale on the phone, asking him to get to his encrypted line to call Dad back. My bet was that Dad wanted Dale to go to the Company and get them to see if that number was really a bank account, and was it really Dortch’s.

I was going to go a more direct route. On my computer, I wrote, and printed out, entries for every one of the social media sites, all with relevant tag markers and detailed notifications. Of course, I would get Dad’s approval, but my plan was to draw Dortch to 1010 Rocky Waters Avenue, our house.

We had our answer the next day. Yes, Dortch owned that account in the Bank of Singapore.

It didn’t take much debate. Why traipse all over Europe where you couldn’t very well watch your own back? And it was highly unlikely that Dortch could get his hired assassins to America, very quickly, anyway.

They tweaked a couple of my posts, but most they left what I wrote. I think out of curiosity, but Mom followed me up to watch me post them. I’d opened the accounts days ago, a couple I opened years ago, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. I posted them all, and hashtagged as much as I could. Some of the hashtags were fake, just designed to make Dortch mad enough to make a mistake. Like #FatDortch, and #DortchTreason.

Dad double-checked the house’s defenses, the fence, the camera locations and performance, and the security system. He thought about getting a big dog from the pound, but didn’t want Dortch to just kill it.

I didn’t either, life being kinda precious.

“Dad, don’t you think I should have the Berretta?”

“No, he doesn’t.” It was Mom from the other room “Ohmie, you’re thirteen years old.” Mom came into the dining room where Dad and I were having a snack. I think it was part of Mom and Dad’s plan to eat a snack, getting me to have one too. Mom wasn’t done. “Honey, I know what you’ve been through. I know you are capable. I just can’t have anyone taking shots at you because you have a gun. Your father and I are trained for this.” She looked to Dad for support. He gave it to her with his silence.

We kept working on the data. Mom kept up with medicating me every couple hours. Believe it or not, I felt well enough to bypass the chairlift once in a while, at least halfway up, to where I wished I’d used the lift.

Mom and I called Mme Benoir. She was fine. No one had bothered her. And yes, she would like to come visit us. Maybe soon, before the skiers arrived. I thought soon… before I died.

Chapter 34
Best Time of Ohmie's Life

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie and his dad figured out that Dortch had an off-shore bank account and that he received millions of dollars from either Russia, or Belarus. They baited him to come to their house.

Paul Santos came to the house. He’s a good guy, Mom’s boss. I felt good about him, like he cared. I know Dad and Dale talked on the phone some. I overheard at least one conversation. And the way Dad talked to Mom, I think they would like to go to one of the twins’ baseball games, but not until after… They didn’t say it like that, but after Mom saying that she’d like to go, hers and Dad’s eyes sort of leaned my way. They changed the subject.

A couple days after my posts hit the ether, the netherworld, I asked, “Dad?” As if the idea was novel, I asked, “Could Dale, or Mr. Santos track Dortch’s travel? See if he came back to the states? Tell you where he is?”

“No more than they could when we were in Europe, Ohmie. Dortch uses fake names about as much as I do. And America doesn’t use facial recognition cameras like they have in Europe.”

“Doesn’t the Company keep track of your phony names? Aren’t they who gave them to you?”

“Not all of them.” Dad and Mom exchanged grins and glances.

“And remember, the Company is hands off. It’s my operation.”

“Ours,” I corrected.

“Ours,” he agreed. He and Mom exchanged glances again, sans grins.

We played with the data for two more days before we heard the alarm telling us that someone was at the back fence. Ordinarily, that triggered flood lights. Dad rewired it, making it signal a buzzer on each floor. We didn’t care that the wire ran right there on top of the carpet. It was temporary. And Dad had it taped at the edge where I wouldn’t trip on it. Mom and Dad took positions as if practiced. If I was downstairs, I was to go to their office. If upstairs, I was to stay in my room.

It was three o’clock in the morning. We were up because I got up, done with sleep for the night. My shower woke Dad. We were having coffee in the dark. Why not. We were glad that we did, but the plan was spoiled by the light outside by the backdoor of the garage. It came on with the alarm. Dad must have forgotten about that one.

Mom came into the dining room carrying her Glock after she and Dad were sure that the night’s event was over. I wondered where my Berretta was.

We all looked at the security video. All you could make out was a shape that was probably man-sized. It’s a big back yard, but the system worked. If the flood lights had been wired, we probably could have identified Dortch. But we didn’t want to identify him. We wanted to catch him. Maybe put a couple bullets in him first.

Mom and Dad, after unscrewing the light by the garage door, made sure that they had naps that day. Dad said that if it was him, he would come back the next night with some kind of spring-loaded Jack-in-the-Box gizmo that would trigger an alarm in the front of the house, and a moment later come into the yard from the back. Dad said that we would naturally expect a different route, and not be as well prepared for an attack from the same location.

It was just after eleven when an alarm tripped indicating an intruder at the front gate. Mom watched the front – just in case. Dad was at the back where he could see the back door, as well as the windows in the kitchen and kitchen dinette area. I crept down the stairs and made it into the office. What I worried about was a bomb – worse, an incendiary bomb, one that would blow up and burn. A single shooter who blew up the back door would be ready to shoot whoever came out the front. I know I read too many Clancy type books, but what if he had an RPG – rocket-propelled-grenade launcher? Or a couple of them?

I hated staying in the office. But I knew that if I came out, Mom and Dad’s attention would be diverted, split between me and where they should be paying attention. I get it. Being thirteen sucks. I cracked the door open.

None of us made a sound. I had no idea if Mom or Dad was moving around, or frozen in place. I also had no idea where Dortch was. I suddenly had the idea that I should go out and show myself to him to bait him. If he had me, like Dad said, Dad would do anything. But I have nothing to lose… what, a few more weeks? I had an appointment to see Dr. Hamilton that we might, or might not keep. I do want to see Nurse May, though. So, we might keep the appointment just to let them draw blood and to see her one last time.

But right now, if I stepped out the back door….

Suddenly, the automatic garage door opener activated. Dad, I think, stayed put. I saw a flash go by the office doorway that was probably Mom, positioning herself to watch that entry. I could really help out if I had the Berretta. I could watch the front door where Mom was.

I would have been flattened as the front door crashed down, flat inside the foyer as if the hinges were blown with some sort of detonation device. Dortch was probably in the house, but it was dark, too dark. Like even the TV and electronic device power lights weren’t even on. The garage door – the breaker box was in the garage. The back door blew the same way as the front had. Now, Dortch could be at either door. Or neither. He could come in through the garage where Mom was. I really needed the Berretta. All I had was my phone, so I called 9-1-1 and gave them our address. I don’t think either Mom or Dad factored in blowing the doors down.

Our house is pretty big. Too big for just the three of us. There were a couple walls between the front and the back doors. So you couldn’t guard them both. The entry from the garage into the house was only a hallway from the front entry. With a professional lock pick device, Dortch could be in that door in seconds, and quietly too. That’s why Mom went there, hoping to also detect anyone coming in the front. Dad couldn’t leave the back, the kitchen area.

We just had to wait. I was wishing I hadn’t taken it on myself to call the cops. What if they came with sirens and just scared him off. It would be all this damage for nothing. Maybe the cops would just do a courtesy drive-by. My phone rang. I answered it immediately.

“Hello?”

“No Ma’am. It’s a false alarm. Our power is off is all.”

“No, Ma’am.” I’m home alone. My folks are out, but they’ll be back soon. I just got scared is all.”

“Yes, Ma’am, I opened the garage door for my parents.”

The cops were out front. I told them I would step out and wave if everything was all right. I had no choice. Dortch just had to be in the garage or out back.

I stepped out front. Fortunately, the cops' spotlight saw me, but not the blown-up door. Mom and Dad were probably pretty upset with me.

Chapter 35
Best Time of Ohmie's Life, pt 35

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Dortch set off the backyard alarm. A light bulb that Ohmie’s father thought he taken care of came on and interrupted the trap. Dortch blows in both the front and the back doors, after successfully killing the home’s electricity. Ohmie calls 9-1-1 and then has to go outside to call the responding cops off.

I tried to back up into the house, but I stumbled a bit when I got to the threshold. An arm caught me and kept me from falling. Wishful thinking made me believe for a second that it was Dad, but I knew better. Dortch let go, but only long enough to grip me by the back of the neck. His paw wrapped just about all the way around.

“I gotcher kid,” Dortch shouted. “And the police are gone.”

Mom was inching her way up the hallway. I could feel her. I guess Dortch did too. Either that or he felt me looking that direction. He fired several rounds toward where I’d been looking. Mom was down. I knew it. She’d been creeping our way, but Dortch just threw bullets that way. One of them got her. I screamed as loud as my cancer-ravaged body could, struggling to get free.

Dad yelled from the dining room. “Let him go, Dortch. Just you and me, hand-to-hand. Take Ohmie into the yard. I’ll come out.”

There was only one reason Dortch would take Dad up on that – that’s if he had a second gun. All of a sudden, I was being yanked by the neck backwards. I almost lost my footing. His grip hurt so bad that I thought I would pass out. There was a street light a half block away that provided a little bit of illumination, enough if your eyes had adjusted to the dark.

Dortch had me with his left hand. His gun was in his right. Dad carefully laid his gun on the concrete porch and stepped toward us. Dortch pitched his toward a birdbath that I used to hate mowing around, and flung me in the other direction. The two faced off. Dad feinted with his right, parried a blow from Dortch that glanced off his head and threw out his foot in a crotch kick. I could feel the clonk through the ground that I was still trying to get up from. We later learned that Dortch was wearing some sort of custom designed protective cup. It was not only a cup, but also a holster for the Browning .25 semi-automatic that he had pointing at Dad.

Bam! I put the one shot from the single use nine-millimeter right in his breadbasket. Dad slapped the .25 out of his hand and ran for Mom. I retrieved both of Dortch’s guns. I’d seen too many horror movies where the supposedly dead guy sneaks up in the dark, or from your blind side.

The cops were there within an instant, it seemed like. Guns drawn, aimed at me, at Dortch, at the house, back at me. They were shouting, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. One of them was taking the guns out of my hands. There was an ambulance at the gate. Turned out the cops that came for my call decided to circle the area and drift back for another look. By then, calls had come in about the explosions and shooting.

My hearing and other senses were coming back by then. Dad was carrying Mom out of the house toward the first responders who’d jumped the gate. I heard Dad tell them that her arm cast was shattered and either the bullet, or a fragment had grazed her head. Her head was wrapped with Dad’s shirt. Dad opened the gate after they put Mom on their surfboard stretcher.

One of the cops was tending Dortch and was on his shoulder microphone telling them to send another ambulance. Then Dad was leading me to our car. We would follow the ambulance that had Mom.

“Dad, I’m sorry, I…”

Dad interrupted me. “Ohmie, you saved my life… again. No, the 9-1-1 call was not in the plan. But neither was blowing up both doors and possibly coming in a third door. Ohmie, I was beside myself back there unable to help your mother.”

“I didn’t see. H-how was Mom’s wound? Bad?” Tears erupted like two water faucets, streaming down my face.

“It was dark, too dark to tell, really. But I think, well, I don’t know if it was one shot that broke up when it hit her cast, or two shots. But she has a head wound. Fragments maybe….” Dad stopped talking when his voice began to break.

The cops were still taking our stories, first a uniform cop, and then a detective when a doctor came into the room where we sat with Mom. They’d already x-rayed her arm and head. The doctor looked from Dad to me, causing Dad to tell him that it was okay to talk in front of me, a wisp of a kid. He was pretty sure that a bullet had fragmented when it hit her cast, a piece of it made a four-inch slice in her scalp and did a little more than just graze her skull – there was penetration. They had a neurosurgeon on his way. She was in a coma.

Not good news.

“Dortch?” Dad asked.

The doctor was familiar with the ordeal and the relationship. He knew that I was the one who shot Dortch. Probably from the first responders, maybe hearing the cops. “Blew up his duodenum, pancreas, half his stomach… oh, and a few inches of his spine. He’ll live, but he won’t be very happy.” The doctor winked at me. I couldn’t believe it. My bet was that the doctor had a little brother.

Then the doctor looked squarely at me. “How are you doing? How long since you’ve had anything?” He glanced at my shunt.

Dad let me speak for myself. “I’m due for the steroids. We’re not doing the antibiotics.” I saw him grimace. “I think I could use some antiemetics, though.”

“That, I can do.” He looked to Dad, who nodded assent.

When we got home the next day, Mom admitted after brain surgery and still in a coma, Mom’s boss, Paul Santos had a contractor crew fixing the doors. I guess he felt some responsibility since it was Company C-4 that blew up our house. Grandma was there waiting for us. She’d already cleaned up inside. She said that professionals were coming out to clean the carpet where Mom was shot. Dad said fine, they should come out; but he ripped out that section of carpet and threw it away. Dad showed her how to give me shots and then helped me with a shower and get into bed. I was out for the rest of the day and all that night.

When I woke up, Grandma gave me a sponge bath and changed my sheets like they do in hospitals, one side at a time. I was kind of surprised at her skill. And I didn’t care that she saw me. I mean what do I care? They say pride goes before a fall. Well, I fell. What does that say about whatever pride a thirteen-year-old should have?

“Ohmie. I, I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

I didn’t, and I guess my face showed it. “There are things… well. You know it now.” She smiled at me like Nurse May and Mom do.

She mouthed a word, or a phrase, actually. She gave it no voice, but I made out the phrase. Then she got up saying that she would go start the laundry, taking the towels and sheets with her, promising to come back with some food. I told her that I was feeling some better and would eat in the dining room. She nodded approval.

The Pledged. That was what she’d mouthed. That was gonna take some thinkin' on.

Three days later, when Grandma brought me a plate of scrambled eggs, scrambled with milk the way I like ‘em, she said that Dad had gone to get Mom, she’d been out of her coma two days and doing well enough to come home as long as Dad had some kind of home health nurse check her every four hours. The hospital set it up. Dad hinted that he had to plead national security. I had learned a lot about how spies operate.

Grandma went to the kitchen to cook, giving the three of us a chance to talk. Dad and I wanted to bring Mom up to speed. I don’t know why I wrote that, since I detest writers speaking in clichés. We told her all about the fight. She couldn’t remember anything past the garage door going up. Which reminded me that I wanted to check that out.

“You shot Dortch?” Mom was shocked. And dismayed. “Oh, Ohmie.”

“Dad’s plastic gun was on his desk. He was using it for a paperweight.” I said, like it was just sitting there going to waste. Funny, it was just a paperweight now.

“But only one shot, and you would have to be close.”

“Twelve feet,” Dad injected. I measured it. “Dead center mass.”

“Blew up his duodenum,” I said with a grin.

Dad’s left lip twitched just that tiny bit.

“But I was aiming for his nose.”

Mom and Dad both just about busted a gut.

Author Notes

...Mom admitted after brain surgery... (admitted into the hospital)

Chapter 36
Best Time of Ohmie's Life, pt 36

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Dortch broke into the house and shot Ohmie’s mother. Ohmie’s father and Dortch fought and Ohmie shot Dortch with the one-shot composite gun. Grandmother Vera is staying on and helping out while Ohmie’s mother recovers.

As I suspected. I had to use a stool, but written in pencil behind the keypunch code box that was fastened outside the garage door was a four-digit code. Like lead pencil marks will do when rubbed, the notation was smeared, nearly smeared out. I couldn’t make out the numbers, but that’s what it was: 5-8-9-7, Mom and Dad’s personal code: l-f/v-p/b-g/k, I love you back.

Of course, vowels having no value, the literal expression would be just love back. But I remember one time hearing Mom on the phone, "I love you back." 5-8-9-7.

Someone had written the code. And someone had tried to rub it out. None of us would have put it there. Grandpa.

I punched 5-8-9-7 and the door began to open. Just as it was supposed to. I played it out in my head.

Grandpa checked out the house – all clear. He wrote the code on the board behind the box. None of us would have written it there. Anyone could see where the electricity went into the house, and then figure where the breaker panel would be. Maybe Grandpa pre-staged the explosives at the door hinges with wire leading to a receiver. It’d be simple to rig both doors to telephone numbers.

And the screaming-loud garage door mechanics would rattle the home’s defenders, giving them a third entry to guard. And no one would open the entry door from the house to the attached garage – certain death would await, possibly even shot through the door before you even got it opened to check out who was in the garage.

Dortch, or somebody, tried to wipe out the penciled code, but it was dark outside. He didn’t see that he left a smear. All he had to do after turning off our lights was to telephone a number and kablam-kablooey.

The Pledged, I searched it on-line. Mom confirmed it. A secret organization. The Company was aware of it, but being domestic, it was a concern for the FBI, not the CIA. Grandpa was a member, a high-ranking member.

The Pledged had infiltrated every facet of American agency, every organization: the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the various executive branch departments, even the National Park Service. Sometimes only one or two key people, in some cases dozens of people, all pledging an oath superseding their oath to the Constitution.

How did I know all this? In the industry, we call it another day at the office.

How we found out was a quiet affair. Me, Mom, and Dad were ushered into the White House. Mr. and Mrs. Zürman were there too. As the President put the Medal of Freedom on me, I asked him, whispering quietly, if he would get me a meeting with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. I just knew that I could trust him, Congressman Smith. A staffer escorted us all the way up the mall and into the House Office Building and to his office. The staffer even pushed my wheelchair. We weren’t in there a minute, and he held up his hand, stopping me. He made a phone call and another Congressman joined us in just a few minutes: the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. They had oversight of all the agencies.

“Ohmie,” the Intelligence Committee guy started, then he introduced everybody. Everybody knew our story and who Mom and Dad were. That was where I learned most about The Pledged. And what else I knew, Dad was learning for the first time. Grandpa. Dad’s dad. A man of men. The single most admired man in Dad’s life. I felt bad for Dad.

Congressman Jones looked at Dad, and then Mom, and then me. “What you folks have been through…. Well, for our part. We’re sorry. It shouldn’t have been.” He looked at me again, glancing at the medal around my neck. “I hear you’re quite the violinist!”

He showed me all his teeth with his smile. Okay, he knew everything.

“I know that you folks can keep a secret. Your job.”

He meant jobs, plural, but I let it go.

He was addressing Dad now. “See, the trouble is, The Pledged are patriots, super patriots. It’s like a circle, you know? You can be so far left that you meet yourself on the right, or so far right, that you… anyway. Some are ordinary Joes, doing regular work. Some in the private sector, some in government. Some are political appointees, some are even elected to office – at every level, local, state, federal. And far more than we’re comfortable with, they are members of our military, every branch. On January 6th, had the DC National Guard unit been called out… well…” He dropped that line but kept talking. “The Pledged controls nearly every other fringe out there: the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Arm and Hammmer… on and on. And when The Pledged speak, every militia in the country perks their ears.”

“Mr. Westlake…”

Dad was the one to hold up his hand. He didn’t want what was going to be said next to be said out loud, in front of me. “Mr. Jones, I share a trait with my son. Ohmie and I can see big pictures if we look at it long enough… if we’re compelled to.”

Dad thanked the two men for their time, offering his services upon request. He asked Mom and I if we were ready to go home.

“Dad,” I asked after we’d crossed the George Mason Bridge, “when he said if the Guard was called out on the 6th?”

“He wouldn’t say it, but they might have fought on the wrong side. Maybe between themselves, too. It would have been far worse. Who knows, we could still be fighting.”

“1776 meets 1861,” I said.

We were all quiet the rest of the ride home, chewing up what all we’d heard.

Grandma greeted us at the door, but then made herself scarce.

“Dad?”

“Later son. I have to think.” I understood. I had to think sometimes, too. I wanted to go to bed anyway. I was exhausted and having a hard time catching my breath. “Oh, Ohmie, before you go up I need to show you something.”

I stepped into his office. Dad reached for the Clancy book that had ridden all over Europe with us. “Oh, that’s okay, Dad. I have my tablet. He kept going for the book, lifting it from the bookcase behind his chair. He didn’t hand it to me, but briefly exposed the Berretta, casually replacing The Cardinal of the Kremlin. The extra magazine was prob’ly there, too. I nodded.

Mom followed my chairlift up the stairs to help me. The home health nurse that was waiting for us followed Mom. She waited for Mom to give me my injections and strip me to my skivvies. I think the nurse saw my medal. It was a ridiculous thought, but I hoped she would tell Nurse May about it.

Author Notes

Light on action, but it is the only way I know to limit post size. 5-8-9-7 : l-f/v-p/b-g/k, I love you back : The Jerry Lucas phonetic code was explained a couple times earlier in the book. I have toyed with reality, obviously. In a previous chapter the Covid-19 outbreak resulted in flight cancellations and restrictions. Here, we discuss Jan 6 as if that event occurred first. Oh well, it's fiction.

Chapter 37
Best Time of Ohmie's Life, ch 37

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie learns of his grandfather’s involvement of their battle. The President awards Ohmie the Medal of Freedom and the family learns of The Pledged.

Paul Santos, Mom’s boss, came out to see us… me. And my medal. I was in bed that day, a kinda bad one. Paul's head nod to Dad said that he wanted a private word. What Paul didn’t know was that Dad and I were a team. Mom too. But Dad and I, well… Dad later told me that Paul warned him of Dad's supervisor, J.R. Sullivan. He didn’t say it to Dad, but like Dad said, we can see the big picture. Dad’s supervisor was Pledged. The next rung up was not. Dad’s immediate boss was not happy about what we had done to Dortch, who BTW (by-the-way for those just entering textland), was a paraplegic now, but wouldn’t be for long. I guess it was a race who would croak first, him or me. I really wanted to win that one. Along with seeing Nurse May again, I now had two goals. The first one was set for this afternoon. I had an appointment with Dr. Hamilton who had a report on the blood work. And Nurse May would be there.

When we got to the office, Nurse May was waiting. She had her smile on, the one reserved for me, was the way my imagination went. From around the back of the receptionist counter came someone who nearly killed me dead. I looked at her and then Mom. I guess my filters took a little walk, because I could feel my eyes widen to their fullest and my mouth make the word WOW! Mom and Nurse May both burst out laughing in a friendly kind of way.

Who came from behind the reception counter was the most beautiful person, besides Mom, that I’d ever seen in my life, and that counts TV and movies. “Hi Ohmie, I’m May.” She held out her hand, unafraid to take mine. (Some people shy from sick people.)

She’d done this part before. “Yeah.” Nodding toward her older sister, she explained. “My sister is Olivia May. I’m Jessica May. We both like it, so…”

“You’re beautiful!” I said, unable to say anything else, she had to be my age, maybe a bit older.

She blushed and giggled a little. Nurse May and Mom laughed again.

“My older sister told me about you, that you are both a genius and cute. I begged her to let me meet you.”

I looked to Nurse May. She seemed okay with conceding her place in my heart. “I’m really glad you did.”

“You won the Congressional Medal of Freedom?”

That was supposed to be a secret. I have no idea how the news got to Nurse May. I was certain, though, that she didn’t know that I killed people to get it.

“Uh, yeah. It’s at home in a box. To tell the truth, I’m better about my violin than I am about that.”

May turned to her older sister, “You didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t know!” Nurse May said.

Beautiful May said that she was learning the guitar. “Cords are easy. Three finger picking is a bit tougher. Could I hear you play?”

I looked at Mom. “I’m not getting in the way of romance,” she said.

“Mo-om!”

Beautiful May blushed.

Somewhere a whole bunch of jocks at her school were probably crying their eyes out, wishing they could play a violin and were dying of cancer.

Mom and the two Mays set up a date while I was with Dr. Hamilton. Since we quit treatment, he wanted a minute with me, alone, before Mom joined us. He was cool. He didn’t say it, but I think he would do it the same way as I was, stop treatment. He wanted to know if I wanted any happy pills, but I told him I was plenty happy.

We got a McDonalds’ burger, fries, and Coke on the way home, I was so happy. I couldn’t finish them, but they were good, the fries especially.

When we got home, Dad was in his office with the door closed, thinking still. I know what he was thinking about—Grandpa. I wish I’d gotten the happy pills for him.

By suppertime, we were all feeling better. I was, Mom and Grandma were because I was, and Dad was. He acted like I imagine Rodin’s The Thinker would act if he were to ever have a Eureka event. I’d get Dad to lay out his plan after supper. We were a team.

“We know Sullivan is Pledged,” Dad started out. We also know that Bell, his boss, is not. They know that we were the ones with the data that burned Dortch, and that the data was encrypted. Not just encrypted, but in code. Remember Dutch. So, we, you and I, found Sullivan’s name on the list.”

I continued the line, “Tell him that we haven’t found his account yet, but we will. You think he’ll try to do what Dortch couldn’t?”

“No, Ohmie. We’re safe. But we’ll give him the opportunity to retire. He has his thirty in. Adam Bell knows that Sullivan put me out to dry, gave Dortch a free hand. We’ll also tie Sullivan to Dortch’s assassins, that he knew about then. That carries life imprisonment. Bell will threaten a military tribunal since it happened overseas.”

“Oh, man! He’s really in trouble, isn’t he?”

“He will be as soon as we frame him up.”

Dad didn’t care what the data showed. We were going to get him – another day at the office.

“But Grandpa?” I asked.

“Part of the deal. Sullivan avoids prison by busting out your grandfather. Grandpa has to resign. I can’t make him abdicate, or renounce, but he has to step down. Your grandmother is prepared to divorce him if he doesn’t.”

“She might anyway,” I said to Dad’s nodding.

As soon as we let Mom know about potential risks, which she could very well figure out for herself, we, meaning Dad, was good to go.

Myself, I spent time practicing my violin, getting ready for May’s and Mme Benoir’s visits. May on Saturday, and Mom would pick up Mme Benoir from the airport on Monday. I was having the best time of my life. Until I overheard Mom and Dad talking.

“Sam,” Mom was saying. “Are you sure, really sure?

I didn’t see them I just heard them. Mom was still speaking. “Before Ohmie came along, he used to call you Ohmie.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Yes. But America, Virgie. It could have been the death of you, me, and Ohmie. But worse. He doesn’t care if he destroys America in his misguided attempt to save an America that most Americans don’t want.”

Author Notes

Ohmie, 13 yr old prodigy, is dying with stage four lymphoma. He didn't know that his parents were CIA. Chapter one explains most of the story. Paul Santos - Mom's CIA boss Nurse May - my Oncologist's nurse Dr. Hamilton - my Oncologist J.R. Sullivan - Dad's boss Adam Bell - Sullivan's supervisor Mme. Benoir - our friend from Switzerland who owned a resort and helped us escape from assassins

Chapter 38
Best Time of Ohmie's Life pt 38

By Wayne Fowler

In the last chapter Ohmie saw Nurse May, and her younger sister. Ohmie and his father, Sam, cook up a scheme to deal with Sam’s dirty boss as well as Grandpa.

“Oh. Master Ohmie, that was wonderful! You could play in Vienna.” Mme Benoir said. “May I please hear the fiddle, now. I understand you can make a violin sound like a fiddle.”

I did. It wasn’t as good as I played for Grandma, who’d gone home to deal with Grandpa, hopefully to keep him from eating his gun now that that business was behind us. Those were a hard couple of days. I had to keep telling myself that we could have all been killed, and that no one was going to jail, we just couldn’t be around him. I felt especially bad for Grandma. My whole life I never knew that she loved anybody. She did, she was just weighed down with the conflict. I hope she’ll come back often. She’s only forty miles away.

But, anyway, like I said, it was fun playing for Mme Benoir. I carefully moved from the bar stool to the couch.

“Ohmie, I must ask. This girlfriend that you have, what about your girlfriend at Jungfraujoch?”

“What’s this?” Mom asked. “Did I miss something?”

“I think so, Virginia.” Mme Benoir was chuckling. “I’m afraid we might have a heart-breaker among us. Girls may wish to hold tight to their heartstrings, with Ohmie dashing around the globe.”

This time it was me who got to turn red blushing. “You got me, Mme Benoir.” I told Mom about my gift story.

“Timothy Westlake!” It was rare I heard that anymore. Mom had been too sensitive, afraid that the last thing she ever says to me might be something negative.

I gave her my best Home Alone kid grin. She tried to look stern, but her lip twitch gave her away.

Mme Benoir asked about May, my May, not older sister, Nurse May.

“She is an angel, Mme Benoir.” I got a little spacey right then. Both Mom and Mme Benoir caught their breath for a moment, thinking the worst when I was really just kind of swept into a state thinking about May.

“She’ll be here next Saturday,” Mom said, “You can meet her then. Unless Ohmie dreams up some reason for us to drive to her house.” Mom gave me a look as if I’d swiped a cookie.

“Well, she did kinda forget to take the sheet music with her.” I grinned big.

“Ohmieeee, you had it hidden, didn’t you?” Addressing Mme Benoir, Mom told her that May was going to practice her guitar so they could play a piece together.

I took as deep breath as I could, closing my eyes and sinking back into the couch. “I think I’ll go lay down, Mom. I’m really tired.”

‘I’ll help,” Mom offered.

Lifting my arm in protest, I gently told her that I wanted to do it myself. She let me.

Both women watched me take about a week to cross the room and ease down onto the chair lift. In my peripheral I saw them both wiping at their eyes, their lips trembling. I felt sorry about that. I decided to visualize May, and Mom and Dad, but mostly May in better times, in times where I wasn’t sick.

Almost unwillingly, I thought of Dad. My repose was not quite ready. Closing my eyes for a second I saw Dad, my partner, my team-mate, more than my partner, my brother. It was as if I’d had a twin, but never knew it. Dad was me. I was him. Grandpa attempted to intervene, but I held onto Dad as he this very moment walked the halls of the Langley building, summoned to the Director’s office. I felt the eyes on him, the stare, and glares, as if he was responsible for the past days’ chaos and the resultant emergence of the new order. Some faces betrayed knowing smirks, glad that their day had finally come. Others stared in concern, was an enemy lurking? Would this day reverse the fortunes of those whose fortunes had just been made? Would chaos return?

Each fateful step… each landed heel the only audible sound, Dad’s leather heel in the stilled halls of the C. I. A. Headquarters. Who awaited his arrival? The Director, alone, or his Goebbels, Goring, and Himmler, Adolf Hitler’s henchmen? Were there executioners lying in wait? I thought of Dad, and extended myself to him, adding my feeble strength to his in the seconds that passed as I began to focus.

Grandpa. He was to have stepped down. But he did not. He merely stepped back. He went to the mattresses, calling the shots from his bunker. Dad was his son, and as wrong-spirited as the son was, he would be given a degree of deference. Dad was the father of his grandson, the winner and recently lauded hero of the netherworld battle. Dad would not be gutted on the open field, perhaps garroted in an alley, but not gutted. I felt it. I reached and helped Dad hold his head high. I helped him see what he was before him.

The vision of Dad blurred and vanished. I began to struggle, but not really. It was like I was under water, but swimming down instead of up. Breathing was worse than hard. I just couldn’t get my breath. I’d fallen onto the bed and just laid there on my face for a while. I felt like a fish on the river bank. I was exhausted, but I wanted my clothes off. I thought of the work of whoever… later. Finally, I got under the sheet. That’s all I wanted – a clean, white sheet over me. I don’t know how I managed. Again, I tried to get just one clear, full breath. Then I asked myself why. Why do I need the next breath?

I relaxed.

A fleeting thought of Mom and Mme. Benoir downstairs passed through, how they wanted to help me. But they couldn’t help me. No one could. The thought of Mom’s love for me was overwhelming. She was a part of me…. She was me. Then I thought of Nurse May, how she cared. More than my health, my disease, she cared how I was, how my soul felt. And her sister, beautiful May. When I first saw her, I saw an angel… a real, literal angel sent from heaven to hold my hand, to guide me… to make the way as beautiful, as beautiful could possibly be. Her smile, her eyes, her nature. May’s body even, displaying curves of promise of fulness yet to come.

I remember, for whatever reason, the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  I wondered whether Michelangelo even recognized the inspiration guiding his hand as he painted the hand of God. Did Michelangelo want to paint anything between God’s hand and man’s, a priest? As he painted God’s hand, did he imagine that it was truly there all the time, and Adam, need only reach out to touch him? I saw myself as Michelangelo, his painting hand wanting to close the gap between the stretching fingertips.

I relaxed more. An ease overcame me. I don’t know how long since I’d pulled up the sheet. Maybe minutes. Maybe only seconds. Maybe less. It didn’t matter.

 

A noise, the rush of air, a presence… I felt it. Eyes closed, the struggle for breath at an end, a hand touched mine. May, beautiful May. To guide me, maybe… to show me the way? Then I heard the soft whisper of her voice. Taking pains not to startle me, she whispered my name. I felt her breath against my cheek, her essence penetrating my skin, the resonant vibrations of herself meld with mine. My chest fluttered as if stirring, searching for rhythm. Gradually, over the course of seconds, it found its beat beneath May’s gentle hand. I turned my unopened eyes to her, and saw her beauty, her smile, her lips near mine softly speaking my name.

“Ohmie, we need you. I need you. Ohmie. It’s May!”

I wasn’t sure that I heard anything. Then, suddenly, I was certain what I heard… and its verity.

I blinked. And May smiled.

“Mom!” It was May’s voice, not mine. May projected down the stairs to my mother, who was alight in an instant, bounding up the stairs to me. May’s voice hardly penetrated the doorway, yet propelled Mom to my side.

“Mom,” May said. “Ohmie has work to do. And he’ll need his strength back to do it.”

Mom reached out and touched my face with the back of her hand, like when she used to take my temperature. Her smile was from somewhere within. “Eggs?” she asked. “Scrambled with milk?”

I gave her my Home Alone grin... a weak version, anyway.

Everyone laughed, Mme. Benoir having joined us. Even I chuckled a little bit. I started to reach out to hold May’s hand, but realized that I already was.

I breathed. For the first time since I didn’t know when, I breathed. I almost passed out from breathing, but I breathed.

Then I allowed May to help me up. That is, until I remembered my state of undress and motioned toward my clothes and for her to go to the door. She knew to wait for me just outside the door that she’d partway closed. What lie on the other side of the door, I dared not hope.

Author Notes

Initially, the story ended after "in times where I wasn't sick." And then after "It didn't matter," and before "A noise, the rush of air, a presence... I felt it." I included the new ending when I decided that I had no desire to write an American Civil War Two story. I do regret, though, that some really good stuff between Ohmie and Beautiful May will have to remain locked in my computer file. (great big smiley face here!) (Some in stage four lymphoma remain there for years., but probably not likely without treatment. Many people, with all sorts of diseases, experience a sense of resurgence just before the end.)

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