Caught in a Lie

In “Anecdotal Tales”, stories will be told. Some will be fun, some will not. Some will be great, some will be less so. Some stories are true, some are merely possible. This is one of them.

Caught in a Lie

“You realize you’re killing us, right?  We’re going to die, along with who knows how many others, and it’s entirely your fault.”

“Wait a second there, boss.  You’re the one who got us in this mess in the first place.  How is any of this my fault?”

“Why don’t you just untie me?”

“Uh, no”, Jones said to the man in the chair across from him.  He looked to the window to see if any help was on its way.  His gaze was met by the darkness of early morning.  The garbage men had finished their nightly pickups hours ago and the newspaper deliveries had yet to begin.  The raccoons and dogs might be strolling for early morning feasts, but they were unlikely to be much help.  It was just Jones and Drake.

“I told you”, Drake responded in an annoyed tone.  “I had to block all calls from getting out of this building.  That includes the GPS locator they imbedded in your neck.  You’re off their radar.  You could be anywhere in a four block radius.  There’s no way they find this specific hotel room in fifteen minutes.  Untie me, let me get us out of here, and then you can go back to whatever menial task you were assigned.”

Jones turned his attention back to Drake and walked closer to him.  His feet slipped and slid in his loose shoes.  Jones stood three feet away and was about to stare Drake down face-to-face, mano-a-mano.  Then he remembered the close-combat training they had both gone through and he thought twice.  Backing up, putting a solid ten feet between them, Jones put on his best growl and demanded, “Shut.  Up.”

Drake only laughed at him.  The man was easily in his early fifties; that much Moe knew.  Yet if even a few of the stories that Jones had heard were true, this legend was as capable as they came.  Drake’s close-cut hair had gone entirely grey long ago, and deep creases lined his mouth and eyes.  Those that had been brave enough to get close; and there were few, whispered that there was a long scar underneath his chin.  Word had it that Drake had allowed himself to be taken in place of hostages.  Then the assailant had held a butcher’s knife to Drake’s throat. If the tale was to be believed, he had then disarmed the man in charge, freed himself of his grip, and subdued the five other men in the room.  Jones had wanted to believe the epic when he was going through training and as stories were shared over cups of coffee.  But now he started hoping that all the exaggerations were just that.

“Look”, Jones started off, hoping his new approach would work.  “You know how this goes.  I’ve been tasked with defusing the situation.  You have a bomb hooked up to the timer…”

“Which keeps ticking while you keep talking”, Drake noted.

“…and I’m here solely to stop the explosion.  If I can somehow convince you to turn yourself in, then that’s just great.  However, I have no problem convincing you to work with me.  You want this to go the painful way, then so be it.”

“You’re going to have to work on that whole ‘convincing’ thing, Jones.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that any ‘extreme measures’ you wanted to enact on me would hurt you more than me.  You’ve probably never tortured anyone.  You might throw up all over your nice new combat boots.”

“You’re so sure of that, aren’t you?”  Jones could hear in his voice that he wasn’t being nearly as threatening as he was trying to be.

“Jones…”, Drake said with a sigh.  “You play chess, right?”

“Chess?  What does that…” Jones started to ask as he felt himself sweat every time he looked at the LED counter.  The pesky numbers kept getting lower and lower while Jones’ heart beat faster and faster.

“Don’t look at the clock”, Drake stated in an oddly calm tone.  “Look at me.  Focus on your objective.  Do you play chess?”

“Not really”, Jones admitted.  “I mean, maybe with my niece, but she’s eight.  Well, eight and a half, according to her.

“Okay, so you’re no pro.  You know how the game ends though, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Checkmate”, Drake answered.  And do you know why they call it ‘checkmate’?

“I… I don’t know”, Jones stuttered as he tried to stop his hands from shaking.  “Maybe the loser has checked all their exits for any mates that might offer him help?”

“Jones.”

“What?” he shouted out of frustration.

“That’s just stupid.  Mates?  What, you think Chess was invented by the prisoners sent to Australia?  Did you read some children’s book about kangaroos that deftly moved pawns around the board while they put knights in their pouches as the joeys looked on curiously?  Come on now.”

“Look, I just think you should disarm the bomb.  Then we can talk about whatever you want.”

“Untie me, and then we’ll talk.”

“I’m not untying you!”

“Then we’re back to the topic at hand.”

“The only topic is you shutting of that bomb before I get desperate and take action!”

“I think you’re already desperate.  Unless, of course, the armpits of your shirt were always that color.  No, I think we’ll talk about whatever I feel like.”

“Why won’t you just turn of the bomb before we’re blown up?  Are you that crazy?  That suicidal?”

“Checkmate comes from the Arabic, shãh-mãt.  Guess what that means.  Go ahead, prove you’re smart.”

“No.  I won’t play your games.”

“Games?  Chess?  Well aren’t you clever”, Drake commented.  “How ‘bout I just tell you, then?”

“How about you agree to disarm the bomb!”

“It means, ‘the king is dead’.  That’s what you’ve got here, Jones.  You’re dead.  You, me, everybody in the building.  We’re all dead.  Unless you do what I want.”

“I still don’t get why you’re doing this.”

“That’s it?”  Drake shook his head.  “Understanding ‘why’ is more important to you than the little clock with five minutes left?”

Jones looked to the table covered in wires and bricks labeled “C-4” and felt his head nodding.  He paused, took a deep breath, and tried to look confidently at Drake.  “Maybe, just maybe, I think that if we can come to some sort of a disagreement we can all walk away from this with what we want.”

Drake burst out laughing.  “I like that, Jones.  I do.  I mean, there’s no way it’s going to happen.  My task is to take you out and this building.  Yours is to take me in and keep the building in one piece.  I don’t know if you realize, but that’s the textbook example of ‘mutually exclusive’.”

“How about you just tell me who tasked you with this job?  Who’s giving the orders on this?”

“My superiors”, Drake answered.

“Your superiors”, Jones replied.  “But you’ve clearly gone rogue.”

“Funny, they said the same thing about you.”

“What?”  Jones couldn’t believe Drake was trying this tactic.  “I’m supposed to believe that the agency sent you to take me in?”

“It would seem a lot more plausible if you were the one sitting in this chair and I was the one standing over you.  I have to admit, you’re not as green as I thought.  I mean, drugging the coffee?  That was smart.  I really didn’t think you’d go that route.  Of course, I didn’t think you would tie up me with your shoelaces either.  That one’s new.”

“Well what was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.  I figured; a kid like you, you’d try to meet me at the door dressed as a bellhop and zap me with a tranq gun.”

Jones felt silent as he felt his eyes sneak a peek towards the hallway.

Drake looked at Jones, thought for a moment, and then rolled his eyes.  “You’re kidding me.”

“I thought the direct approach would work.”

“Wait, so you knew you were taking on a senior agent.  One with decades more experience than yourself, and you’re telling me that your back-up plan was to be covert?  You really thought taking me face on was the best idea?  That being smart should be plan B?”

“Well it would have taken you by surprise”, Jones said.

“Not as much as you would have needed it to.  Well, now I just have to know”, Drake prompted.

“What?”

“Why didn’t you go through with your oh-so-well-thought-out plan?”

“I couldn’t find one of the hats”, Jones said quietly.

“That’s it?”

“We were trained to strive for authenticity, weren’t we?”

“Kid…”

“That’s what I was trying to do!  Bellhops in this hotel wear the little hat!”

“Kid, that’s just sad.  I take it all back.  You’re even greener than I thought.”

“I am not!”  Jones realized as soon as he had retorted just how sad he sounded.

“With skills like yours, I’m not surprised the agency secretly dismissed you.”

“Hold on, you think I’m not working for the agency anymore?”  Jones was shocked.  “First you call me a rogue, now you think I’ve been dismissed?”

“Well, not technically.  See, the agency wants you to think that you’re still working for them so that you’ll feed your side bad information.  That’s the thing about double agents; they can be used to dupe both sides.”

“I’m not the double agent, you are!”

“Uh huh.”  Drake tilted his head towards the bomb.  “Clock’s still ticking by the way.”

Jones walked towards the clock and gave up all hope of containing the sweat that was now pouring down his forehead.  Worrying even more that he would escape this alive, he attempted to muster up the last of his resolve and turned to Drake.

“Ahhh, crud.”  Jones looked at the lone chair in the room and found that Drake was no longer seated there.  He swung around quickly, but not fast enough to stop the massive arm from grabbing him around the neck.  Jones reached up to pull the arm away, but that left his kidneys exposed and Drake pummeled the right one with a fierce intensity.  Jones fell to the floor in pain and felt Drake’s boot dig in between his shoulder blades.

“It’s not bragging to tell you that I could have escaped at any time, right?  I mean, you’ve figured that out by now, yes?  Oh, and by the way?  There’s a reason you don’t tie people up with shoelaces.  C’mon, kid.  Maybe try something like rope?  It’s just a little bit stronger.”

Jones moaned in consent.

“Great.  Glad we cleared that up.  Now I’m through being patient.  You’re a rogue.  You are, for some unknown reason, in charge of security in this facility.  All your little rogue pals skip in here, rest up for another long trek of causing trouble, and then skip back out.  So why don’t you just go ahead and tell me who’s in charge.  Really, that’s all I want to know.  Then we can go back to you getting the snot knocked out of you.  By me, in case that was unclear.”

“I’m not a rogue agent”, Jones managed to say.  “I was tasked with bringing you in.”

“Terrific.  You say I’m a rogue, you say you’re a rogue; we’re just a bunch of guys who can’t be trusted.  Even so, answer me this one, Jones.”  Drake paused and let the anticipation build.  “Why would the agency send someone as completely fresh as you to bring in someone…. well, someone like me.”

“They said the older agents had too much loyalty to you.”

“Loyalty?”  Drake sneered at the response.  “Son, these folks have loyalty to the job first, then to each other.  Why, the kinds of things I’ve seen these agents do to each other would frost your…”

A silence fell over the room.  Jones looked over to the clock and watched it ticking down to the one minute mark.  He couldn’t understand what was going on.

“Uh, Drake?”  Jones couldn’t take the quiet any longer.  “You want to tell me what’s going on here?  I mean… what with you apparently winning and the bomb ticking.  If you’re really who you say you are then you won’t blow us both up, right?  Buddy?  Comrade?”

“It’s Dodson, isn’t it?  You were given this task by Dodson.”

“How could you know…”

“I need you to think back.  Like, back to the beginning of your training up until today.  Have you ever done something to make Dodson mad?”

“What?”  Jones was utterly confused.  “What the sam hill does that have to do with anything?”

“Just answer the question”, Drake replied with an eerie calm in his voice.  “Have you ever, either accidentally or on purpose, done something that Dodson got annoyed at?”

“No.  I mean, I haven’t even seen him since I moved up in the program.”

“But way back then.  Those few months he was in charge of the recruits until he got moved into my office.  Did you make any mistakes around him?”

“No.  Okay, there was that one time I drank his coffee.  That was just a stupid little thing, though.”

“That’s it.”  Drake took his foot off Jones and marched over to the bomb.  “That”, he said putting his hand on an electrical plug, “is the answer to all this.”  With a triumphant look on his face, Drake held the plug and quickly jerked it out of the outlet.  Upon seeing the LED display turn black, Jones scrambled to his feet.

“Are you kidding me?  All I had to do was unplug the stupid thing?  That’s it?”

“Yeah”, Drake said as he looked at his creation with pride.  “I always like to make things as simple as possible.  You weren’t going to be looking for a cord anytime soon, right?  And you would have just assumed I’d have some sort of short-term back-up; right?”

“That’s what you should have done…” Jones trailed off.

“Exactly.  Which is why I didn’t.”

“So Dodson just set this whole thing up?  Neither of us is a turncoat?”

“That’s how it looks”, Drake admitted.  “Dodson has this thing about getting even.  It makes him a great agent in the field, but it pretty much makes him the biggest, pettiest jerk to work with.”

“All this because I drank his coffee?”

“He’s real particular about his morning dose of java.  He has to have it just so.  Priss.”

“And what about you”, Jones asked, still in complete disbelief.  “What could you possibly done to warrant all of this?”

“I kinda dented his car.”

“Oh man”, Jones replied.  “He loves that car.”

“I know.  That’s why I did it”, Drake said with a grin.  “He was on my nerves that morning.”

“How big of a dent are we talking about?”

“How big is his front passenger door?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.  I can be kind of a jerk too.  I’m just more upfront about it.”

“I still can’t believe he put us through all of this just to get even.”

“Would you rather he went all loopy and locked your office supplies in the vending machine?”

“No”, Jones said.  He was relieved that the conversation had turned much less dire.  “That thing is impossible.”

“I know, it ate all my change when I first started.”

“And it won’t take pennies”, Jones chimed in.

“Hold on”, Drake said as he put his hand up.  “Your big complaint is that it won’t take pennies?  Since when do vending machines ever take pennies?”

“Okay, they don’t.  But this one should.”

“What, pray tell, makes this vending machine so special?”

“We’re in a government agency.”

“Granted”, Drake replied.

“C’mon, it’s government issued-currency in a government building.  The stupid thing should help me get rid of all these pennies I have lying around.”

“You are a strange one, Jones.”  Drake moved towards the door and motioned for Jones to follow.  “Let’s just get back to the bosses and make sure we’ve got this all sorted out.  Y’know, now that you’re not a double agent, a terrorist, or some guy calling me for political donations on my day off.”

“Fine.  Sounds just dandy to me.”

“You don’t feel like you’re betraying your mission?  You are leading a suspected ne’er-do-well into a place with government secrets.”

“Hey, my job was just to get the bomb turned off and bring you in.”  Jones shrugged.  “The way I see it, I’m getting exactly what I want.”

“And I’m going to go see your boss.  It simply turns out that he’s also my boss.  So I guess we both made out like bandits.  Plus, since this evil-headquarters doesn’t exist, I’ve wiped it out without doing a lick of work.  I like that kind of assignment.”

“I’d call them to tell them we’re coming, but I assume all the phones are blocked?”

“Oh, that”, Drake said.  “Yeah, it’ll take me a few minutes to power down my cellular jammer.  Just use the room phone.”

Jones stared in disbelief.  “Room phone?”

“Yeah, I like to always have one working phone in case I need to call for back up or something like that.  My little gizmo only blocks wireless calls.  The phone should work just fine.”

“Really?”

“What can I say, I like to keep things interesting”, Drake replied.

“Why don’t you call them?  I don’t even know how to explain all this.

“Fair enough”, Drake said as he started to dial.  “And hey, no hard feelings, right?  We were both just doing our jobs.  Or at least we thought we were.”

“No, we’re good”, Jones said.  He watched the other agent dial up a number and confer over the phone for a few moments.  His retelling of it was pitch-perfect and he could hear the voice on the other end laughing along with Drake as they enjoyed the good prank.  Jones knew only two things for sure.  One, that everything they said about Drake was true.  And two, none of his friends would ever believe a word of it.

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