Two black SUVs stopped in front of the small tract house. One man walked to the front door as two others walked around the opposite sides of the house. The other men took their positions as backup. The extraction wouldn’t take long; they were highly skilled professionals.
As he watched the vehicles pull up, his decision was made quickly. He scrambled down the ladder from the tree house that he had built for his kids to use when they came to visit every other weekend. It was in the back of a modest yard that bordered a small wooded area in the little development of twelve homes. Earlier he had parked his car almost a mile away in a small strip center in case he needed to make a run for it. He wondered if it was a crazy idea at the time, but not now.
He stayed in the woods, keeping parallel to the main road. The wooded area ended at a crossroad, and he crouched down and watched as one of the SUVs slowly patrolled the neighborhood. The trees were thick and provided the cover he needed, as the men hunting him cruised by. They had obviously discovered that he wasn’t home and his car was gone. He hoped they would leave soon to search elsewhere.
It all started during the impromptu office party late that afternoon at a local rathskeller where they had toasted the coming December holidays. He had a little too much to drink and spoke about things that he shouldn’t have.
“I wish I got to work on cool stuff like you do,” his colleague said loudly to be heard over the volume of music and chorus of conversations.
They both toasted each other with whiskey, having moved beyond beer a while ago.
“Yeah, it is pretty cool,” he said, wedged in between people at the packed bar.
“That demo was incredible.”
“That doesn’t even do it justice. It is way beyond its time, but none of its real capability was showcased–” He caught himself, but it was too late.
His colleague stared at him for an extended awkward moment and then said, “Really? You know they’re going to want to know all about it.” The cacophony of the room was building as the drinking and merriment grew, but his colleague lowered his voice to be safe and leaned closer. “Ridley held out on them, and no one knows what happened to him.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked nervously. They huddled even closer and tried to move away from the crowd.
He could smell the whiskey on the breath of his colleague as he leaned in close.
“Four years ago right before you came on board, Bo Ridley had built a new radar application that was cutting edge, but he didn’t want it used on an offensive weapon system. Bo thought it should be used for our protection as a defensive tool only.” His colleague looked quickly to his sides and continued speaking in a loud whisper. “Bo learned that it was going to be the centerpiece for a new weapon.” He paused. “All I know is that he hated the idea. One day he didn’t show up for work. The next day his desk was cleaned out, and it was like he was never even here. We were told that he had moved on, but nobody has heard from him since. And … we were ordered not to try and contact him, because he was the subject of a federal investigation.”
He noticed a man in a suit reflected in the mirror behind the bar and wondered if he’d been eavesdropping on their conversation. The man pulling out his cell phone as he left the establishment.
He remembered overhearing a heated discussion a few weeks ago between his boss and a man he had never seen before. The words weren’t discernable, but there was yelling and it was upsetting. He’d asked his boss about it and was told to forget that he heard anything. His boss said that everything would be taken care of. The frightened look on his boss’s face had been burned into his memory. Over the past two weeks his boss had him transfer his files to a local drive that his boss kept, a deviation from the usual protocol, but he had complied. His boss was his mentor, and he owed him so much.
It was just past five when he said his goodbyes and left the bar. He drove to the Ford dealer, where he dropped off his car for a scheduled service appointment and drove out in a loaner.
On his way home his paranoia got the best of him, and he decided to park at the strip center a little less than a mile from his house. He went into the electronics store and bought a pre-paid cell phone and disabled his own. He walked the rest of the way and entered his backyard through the woods and climbed into the tree house.
As the minutes ticked by he felt silly. What the hell am I doing, he thought. When the SUVs pulled up, such thoughts disappeared instantly.
Now, crouched in the woods in darkness, he plotted his next move. He needed to get to his loaner car and warn his boss. After that he would gather his thoughts and make a longer-term plan. Calling his boss was out of the question, they’d find out. He texted his boss’s personal computer, a computer that only he knew about. Most likely it was where the files were being kept. He erased the text after it had been sent successfully.
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