Falling(14)

“What did you just say?” Jo said suddenly, cutting Bill off.

Bill looked confused, as if he didn’t know what he had just said either.

“I… I said I don’t know how to get someone to my house. I can’t just call the FBI.”

“No,” Jo said. “But I can.”



* * *



Tossing the yellowed houseplant into the trash can under his desk, FBI agent Theo Baldwin wondered how long it had looked like that.

“Those things need water, Theo,” Agent Jenkins said, on his way to the break room.

“Noted,” Theo replied, opening the file on the top of the stack. Scooting his chair in, his phone lit up with an incoming text. Checking the sender, he hit the button on the side of the phone, the screen going dark.

Across the room in a fishbowl of an office, his new boss paced behind her desk with a phone pressed to her ear. The door was shut, but Theo didn’t need to hear what was said to know it wasn’t an enjoyable conversation for the other end of the line. He looked away quickly when she caught him watching.

Theo liked coming into the office on a Saturday. It was quiet. He could get boring paperwork out of the way quickly so he could focus on more interesting cases. Having read the first page, he turned to the second but soon went back to the beginning after realizing he hadn’t absorbed a single word.

Tossing his pen on the stack of dead-end, low-level case files, he rubbed his eyes.

Who was he kidding? He didn’t have more interesting cases to get to. Being at the office on a Saturday was a thinly veiled attempt at brownie points. No, not even that. It was a pathetic attempt at redemption. He’d been with the bureau for close to three years, but that modest seniority didn’t matter anymore. Six months back, the clock had started over.

It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It was as standard a drug raid as possible. Their intelligence was airtight: they knew exactly who was in the house, where they were located, what they had done, what they would be charged with. It was practically over before it even started.

But by the end of the night, the crack house was riddled with bullet holes and Theo’s reputation as the rising star of the bureau was just as shot. He tried to justify his breach of protocol only once. After that, he wisely kept his mouth shut and his head low. Acting on a “hunch” was as respectable as saying a green fairy whispered in his ear. Five disciplinary meetings, a two-week suspension without pay, and a questionable professional forecast meant the only thing Theo could do was punch the clock, stick to the rules, and hope in time all would be forgiven.

He took a sip of coffee and doubled down on the paperwork.

“Should we be worried,” Jenkins said, coming out of the break room with a bag of chips, “that we’re the only assholes with nothing to do on a Saturday?”

Theo’s phone lit up again. He didn’t see it.

“I think,” Theo said, leaning back in his chair, “we’re the only assholes who are dedicated to their jobs.”

“And I think we need to get laid,” Jenkins said through a full mouth. “Let’s go get a drink. Tell hot chicks we’re FBI agents.”

Theo’s phone glowed yet again. Picking it up, he saw seven unread texts from his aunt Jo. His stomach dropped, immediately going to the worst. His mom, Jo’s sister. Something happened. Or maybe Aunt Jo’s sons, who were more like his brothers than cousins.

“Well? We going?” Jenkins said, leaning against his cubicle.

Theo stared at his phone. It was too unbelievable, he had to read it all twice. If anyone else had sent the messages, he would have had doubts.

But Theo knew his aunt Jo.

Grabbing his badge and pushing his chair back, he paid no attention to the toppling stack of files, unfinished paperwork fluttering to the ground.



* * *



Bill shut the door quietly and slid the lock to the right, the fluorescent light in the lav brightening as he did. He stood there for a moment, frozen, as though he had forgotten what he’d come there to do. The flimsy plastic door squeaked in protest as he leaned his forehead against it. His tie dangled forward from his neck.

This was not a scenario he had ever anticipated. This was not a threat he had considered and discussed with his colleagues. There was no page in the manual to reference, no protocol to put in place, no checklist to run. All his training seemed embarrassingly naive, now. Safeguards and redundancies were devised for actual attacks on the flight deck.

Bill turned to the mirror, taking in his reflection. He felt like a guy in a pilot’s costume. It no longer looked right on him. He looked at the gold wings on the front of his shirt and wondered something he never had: Was he worthy of wearing the uniform? Had he ever been?

He peed and pressed the button, wincing at the loud suck of an airplane flush. The sink was just as hostile, icy water assaulting his shaking hands as they wrung out their options.

This would be his only moment alone. This was when he needed to figure it out. Figure out how to fix it. He leaned his face closer to the mirror as though looking for the answer on the other side.

He found nothing.

Grabbing a few paper towels, he entertained an irrational thought of annoyance: the audacity of needing to pee. Couldn’t his body make an exception right now? Didn’t it know there was no time to waste on the unnecessary?