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Mrs. Collins had been looking forward to this. She’d been promoted to the high school English department, and this was her first day. As she’d come up from the middle school along with the freshmen, she knew many of the students, having taught them in ninth grade last year. Of course, this meant they knew her, too, and weren’t quite as intimidated as they’d have been with what they considered a “real” high school teacher.
Finally, she got the class quiet enough to begin speaking. “Shush now! I know you’re happy to see each other again after your summer vacations, and you have a lot to tell each other, but we have to get going here. We need to start now. John, get in your chair! Quiet, all of you. All right, and if—” She was interrupted once again, this time by Lucy whispering to Morgan. Ben was turned around talking to Andy, too, and paying no attention at all to what she was saying.
Frustration was setting in. “Stop! All of you. Do I have to remind you this is high school?”
Even her tone of voice and obvious irritation didn’t entirely settle the students. Exasperated, she said, “OK, if that’s how it’s going to be, we’ll do it this way. Each of you take out a sheet of paper. And a pencil. Right now!” She clapped her hands, then waited impatiently, tapping her foot, while the kids noisily found sheets of paper in their brand new notebooks and sharp, never-used-before pencils.
“I was going to have fun today. Each of you was going to come up front and talk about your summer, but obviously that isn’t going to work. So, instead, each of you are to write for the rest of the period. No talking! Write what you did this summer. I want good grammar, proper spelling, interesting and illuminating writing. You’re all in tenth grade now, so you all know, or at least all have been taught, how to write an essay. I taught a lot of you how myself, so follow that style. You have the rest of the class to write as much as you can. Fill up your paper, and as many more sheets as you need. No talking. Title your work, What I Did On My Summer Vacation. All right, get started.”
Simon looked at the blank paper, then up at Mrs. Collins, who seemed to be looking back at him frequently as her eyes moved around the classroom. He sighed and picked up his pencil. He could do with more sleep, he knew that for sure.
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It had been two months and two weeks since Simon had walked home from his last class ever in middle school. He was experiencing a mixture of sadness and glee. He’d really liked the three years he’d spent in Harry S. Truman Middle School. He’d made a lot of friends, grown from a little boy into a young teenager, and become much more self-assured in the process. Now, middle school was finished. He was leaving that behind him, closing that door. It was exciting to think about high school next year, but even at 14, he was feeling nostalgic about leaving behind what had been so much a part of him.
Simon had a different perspective on many things from his friends and classmates. School and friends made up the majority of their lives. Simon enjoyed those things too, but they were secondary to the time he spent with his father. His father was gone a lot. His responsibilities forced their separations, and Simon regretted the times his father was away while thoroughly understanding the need for them. He was terribly proud of his father. If he had to sacrifice time with him for the job that was getting done, that was simply part of the equation.
There were compensations, however. When his father was home, he and Simon spent almost all their time together. His father talked about his job, and even better, worked with Simon, training and coaching him. He’d begun this when Simon was just twelve, and it had been ongoing ever since, making the two of them much closer than the ordinary father and son. In the process, Simon had become more observant of the world and more mature than most boys his age.
Simon was just leaving the school grounds when he saw a younger boy he recognized but didn’t know come running toward him, a look of panic on his face. Then, behind the boy, he saw two other boys, both considerably older than the first one, running as well, apparently chasing the first. Instinctively, Simon reached out and corralled the younger boy.
“Hey,” he said softly, trying to quell the boy’s fear. “What’s going on?”
The boy didn’t have time to answer before the two older boys arrived. They were both larger than Simon. They stopped, then one stepped forward. He spoke to Simon.
“Let him go and get out of here. This doesn’t concern you. Beat it!” He reached out to take the younger boy’s arm.
Simon moved slightly, just enough so he was between the boy who was reaching out and the boy he’d stopped. He looked hard into the larger boy’s eyes, then said, his voice even and unwavering, “You sure you want to do this? I’d advise you and your friend here to move along. You’re both too old to be playing with this guy.”
The older boy was looking down on Simon as he was several inches taller. A small smile formed on his lips. “You’re sort of cocky for a little kid, aren’t you? You’re just as easy as this kid is going to be. Last warning. Get out of here. Just go and you won’t get hurt. This isn’t any business of yours.”
“I’m not going to get hurt regardless.” Simon didn’t move at all. This time there had been a slight but noticeable edge to his voice.
“Have it your way then,” said the speaker, and stepped forward, reaching out to grab Simon’s shoulder.
The smaller boy watched what happened next in disbelief. The large boy reached for Simon, Simon seemed to move his arms and legs and body very quickly, then the large boy was suddenly on his back on the sidewalk, his wind knocked out of him from the hard fall, and Simon was looking down at him. Then Simon looked at the fallen boy’s friend.
That boy must have seen something in Simon’s eyes, because he started taking backward steps, then turned and ran.
Simon put his arm around the smaller boy. “Come on, I’ll walk you home, and you can tell me why these guys were bugging you. Maybe we can figure something out to do about it so it doesn’t happen any more.”
The smaller boy looked up at Simon, something very much like awe in his expression, then started walking towards home with a bounce in his step. Simon walked with him, and soon both were giggling at some joke that had been told. Seemingly in little more than the blink of an eye, Simon had reverted back to the young, happy teen he was.
Simon went all the way to the boy’s house with him, chatting and laughing while they walked, enjoying the fact he’d made a new friend, then headed for his own. As he turned into his street and looked ahead to his own house, thinking that he was walking home for the last time as a middle-schooler, he came to a sudden halt. Up the street in his driveway was a silver Jaguar, low and sleek, and looking as always as if it were ready to run. Simon was at once excited and cautious. His father never came home during the day. Never. Often, he didn’t come home for a week or more at a time. For him to be home in the middle of the day was strikingly odd, and that made Simon uneasy, especially as he thought his father was in Bolivia till next week. So Simon stopped. He looked around him. Nothing on the street was suspicious or unusual. He resumed walking home, and then the excitement of seeing his dad again was too much, and he started running, his loaded backpack containing all the stuff he had to bring home from his locker on this last day of school slapping him on the back with each step.
He ran up to the front door, then stopped abruptly and didn’t enter. Instead, he dropped his backpack there, then looked in one of the small windows that were beside the door. He could see only the empty hallway and staircase inside. Still, he didn’t enter, but instead moved around to the back of the house. He stayed close to the sides while doing so and dropped below window level as he came to each one so as to make himself invisible to anyone looking out from inside.
He looked in the rear window and saw his mother standing at the kitchen sink, washing the first peaches of the year. He could faintly hear the stereo playing. It sounded like Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony to him, but he then thought it might be the Spring instead. He always got the two confused. In either case, it was OK. Anytime his father was home, if whatever was playing on the stereo was written by a composer whose surname began with an S, it meant everything was fine inside.
Simon himself preferred Shostakovich to Schumann, but he always had been a bit precocious.
Knowing that caution wasn’t needed, he opened the back door and went in. He greeted his mother with a hi, she smiled her usual rather nervous and preoccupied smile at him and told him his father was home, was down in the den, and wanted to talk to him. She dropped her eyes after saying that, looking back down at her peaches. Simon, his heart speeding up, opened the door to the basement and descended.
Simon’s father, Brigadier General Amos Bellow, was at his desk in his den. The den was a windowless walled room, the walls made of cinder blocks, which took up most of the basement. It was large, brightly lighted, and soundproof. The heavy oak door, the room’s only entrance, swung open when Simon turned the knob. It had spring-assisted hinges; it was impossible to tell there was a heavy titanium-steel plate inside, making it bulletproof and impregnable except for an extremely high explosive device.
Simon knew his father was aware of who had entered the den without even having to raise his eyes. There was a bank of TV monitors in front of the desk, and his progress down the stairs had been clearly shown.
“Hi, Dad.” And then Simon was jumping into his lap, hugging him.
General Bellow hugged his son fiercely, then kissed the top of his strawberry blond head. “How was your last day of school, kiddo?”
“We just got our report cards, cleaned out our lockers and left. Easy day.”
“Can I see your grades?”
Simon reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the manila card. He glanced at it, then handed it to his father. General Bellow looked it over thoroughly, then harrumphed.
“What is this?” he asked gruffly.
Simon looked at where his father was pointing, then laughed. “What’s wrong with that?” he asked disingenuously.
“You got a B, in gym? What’s going on here? I like those A’s in everything else, but a B? And in gym?”
Simon’s eyes sparkled as he answered. “Sir, yes sir! That’s camouflage, sir! Misdirection. Confusion. You always said, keep the enemy off-balance, only let them know what’s in your best interests for them to know, keep everything that’s important hidden. Maintain the element of surprise in case you even need it. That’s what I was doing there. Practicing. No need for Coach Taggart to know more than he needs to know. Sir!”
By the time he was finished with his army style speech, that of a lower ranking officer reporting to a higher ranking one, the General was laughing, and as Simon was still in his lap, tickling was very easily accomplished. Simon shrieked and wriggled out of his lap.
The general looked at his son adoringly, but as always, the pressing need for work cut short the playtime between father and son.
Simon saw his father’s eyes change, the fun leaving them, his usual seriousness returning, and the excitement he’d felt when coming down to the den returned. He moved back and sat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of the desk, then waited to see what his father had to say. He was sure he’d know why his father was home in the middle of the day, why he wasn’t in Bolivia, very shortly.
The general was the top man in a super-secret government agency. Officially it was named the Interagency Clandestine Antiterrorist Networking section of the Armed Forces Intelligence Group under the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, working out of the Department of Defense. ICAN/AFIG was its official acronym, but those who spoke of it, those very few who even knew of its existence, shortened that verbally to I-Can, which over time had become the motto of the group.
Simon had known what his father’s job was for only a little over two years. He actually knew more of what his father did than his mother knew. The bond and closeness between father and son was unique. When Simon was twelve, his father had taken him to his den and they’d talked for hours. After that, Simon had begun training, physically and mentally, and now, at fourteen and having just finished the ninth grade, he was strong of body and keen of mind, with quick reflexes and reactions and an even quicker insight and awareness of all that was around him.
Simon was tall for his age, and his thinness masked his wiry strength. He kept his hair shorter than the style that was popular with his peers. He was outgoing, good looking and had a quick wit, all of which made him well liked at school. The girls had been showing more and more interest in him lately, which he found bothersome. He had no time for girls.
Now, he was watching his father collect his thoughts. He could tell as he watched that his father was troubled.
The general got up from the swivel chair behind his desk and came out in front and sank down into a chair next to Simon. His words, when he spoke, were grave, and shocked Simon.
“I-CAN has been penetrated. I realized it when our last mission failed. Our agent in the field was killed. And there was no way that could have happened unless the enemy had prior warning of what was going down. Problem is, we’ve got an extremely delicate situation facing us right now, and I don’t have the confidence in our people I need to have. This is something that would be disastrous if we failed.”
The general turned to look at the bank of TV monitors, though it was just to give him time to gather his thoughts. Any movement on any of the monitors was accompanied by a beep to alert the viewer. He then turned back and looked Simon right in the eye. “Son,” he said, “this can’t leave this room. Top, top secret. What’s happened is, Fayed bin Hammad has been kidnapped, and his father has received demands that he cannot accede to. He’s turned to us. We have to rescue his son. If Fayed is killed, we’ll have failed one of our strongest allies in the middle-East. Additionally, it will make Hammad look weak, that he was unable to protect his own family. There will be rumblings by his opposition that if he can’t do that, how can he protect their country? We can’t allow this to blow up into a shitstorm. We have to rescue Fayed, but the people holding him know that killing him is almost as good as holding him to make his father do what they demand, so any rescue has to be covert.”
Simon had felt his heart jerk when his father had mentioned Fayed bin Hammad. Simon knew who Fayed was. He was the son of the ruling emir in one of the mid-eastern emirates, and was being groomed to ascend to that position himself in the future. Simon knew who he was because the two boys, the same age, had actually met about a year ago. Simon was blond and fair, Fayed was dark haired and swarthy, but both were precocious, both had sparkling eyes and quick enthusiasms, and they’d become good friends in the short week they’d been together while Simon’s father was discussing security issues with Hammad’s second in command.
“Is Fayed all right?” Simon asked, more worried about the boy he liked and had bonded with than the international implications of the problem.
“He was as of this morning. His father is getting daily proof-of-life communiqués from the terrorists, but they’re becoming more and more threatening. As of this morning, a deadline has been given. The demand is that Hammad must resign all authority in just a little over two months from now, handing over his reign to his third cousin, a minor emir who is well known to our intelligence networks. He is certainly the one who orchestrated the kidnapping. He is a very dangerous man, cunning and unscrupulous with a great thirst for power and an unending hatred for our country.
“But that two-month window that was given was only because it will take time to arrange such a shifting of power. The announcement that Hammad is relinquishing his position is to be done almost immediately. Hammad has to announce he’ll be turning over the government to his cousin, and he has to do that by tomorrow, or the kidnappers say they’ll begin sending him parts of Fayed every day till he does make that statement to the world. They’ve said the first part they’ll send is one of his eyes.”
Simon gulped, then sat up straighter. “What can I do to help?” he asked. He knew his father wouldn’t be briefing him on this ultra sensitive information unless there was a reason to do so. He wondered if that reason was that he knew Fayed. Whatever it was, he was eager to help rescue him. For most any other 14-year-old boy, such a thought would have been ridiculous whimsy. Simon wasn’t any other 14-year-old boy, and both he and his father were aware of that.
The general looked at him without speaking for several seconds, and Simon could almost see his mind working, weighing options, weighing the fact that Simon was his son, and whether he had the courage to send him into harm’s way. He’d never done so in the past, but he had been preparing for that day. He’d expected it would be years away. But events had changed that timetable.
Simon saw his father’s eyes clear, and determination set into his face.
“Simon, as I said, I-Can has been compromised. If we’re to save Fayed, it has to be done without our usual people being involved. We are trying to discover who the traitor among us is, but we don’t have much time. Whoever it is, he’s probably being paid a lot of money by Hammad’s cousin for his treachery. But the fact they’ve penetrated I-CAN means our response options have been severely hamstrung. I’m afraid that if we mount any sort of mission, Fayed’s kidnappers will know almost immediately and they’ll simply kill Fayed, then use his body politically to destroy Hammad.
“Hammad has agreed to make the announcement he’s handing over the government to his cousin tonight, and I’ve spoken to him privately, saying we’re mounting an operation to rescue his son. We have about two and a half months to find where Fayed is being held, then plan and execute his rescue. Once that has been accomplished, Hammad can seize his cousin and rescind the announcement. I’ve given him my word that the rescue will be done secretly with as little risk to Fayed as possible. That means I have to have a field agent who is entirely trustworthy, and because of our internal leak, this agent must be able to work alone in enemy territory.
“There’s no one I can trust absolutely except one person. You. But Simon, I don’t know if I have the guts to ask you to do this. It’ll be horribly dangerous, and I’ll be asking you to do things that most adults shy away from doing. You’d have to kill people.”
Simon had already figured that out. The thought was unnerving, but he had to balance it against the fate of the boy he knew and cared about. He only paused for a moment before saying, “I’m ready to start whatever specific training I’ll need right now. It sounds like we should move immediately. Who knows what Fayed is suffering as we sit and talk about it.”
The general didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he wiped the corner of his eye, and stood up. He leaned forward and grabbed his son, wordlessly embracing him, feeling a mixture of pride and fear.
Neither of them even spoke of Simon’s mother. Need-to-know excluded her from involvement.
For the next two months, Simon was at a camp in South Carolina, getting physical and weapons training that was much more intensive than what he’d already undergone. That was during the day. At night, tactics and strategies were reviewed. Specific plans could not be made because Fayed’s whereabouts were still a mystery. This meant planning had to be for all terrains, all situations, with an emphasis on thinking clearly under pressure and using what was available wherever he was to complete his mission. Versatility, creativity and spontaneous response were emphasized over and over.
While Simon was working harder than he’d ever worked before, the general himself was working twenty-hour days trying to locate where the boy was being held.
The father and son met every evening for dinner. Simon could see the stress in his father’s face, growing worse daily as the days passed. The general was having no success in locating Fayed. If the place where Fayed was sequestered wasn’t discovered, and discovered quickly, there was no hope of rescuing him, and his father would have the choice of turning over his country into the hands of a totalitarian madman with a known hatred of the United States, or having his son sent to him one piece at a time.
With only days remaining before Hammad would have to cede power or lose his son, with the hand-over process of his government already well under way, the general sat down to dinner with Simon. It was another in seemingly endless string of hot nights. They were still at the hidden training camp. The general took a quick glance at his son as they were being seated. Simon had always been thin. Now, he wasn’t quite so slender. He’d added some weight, the change being added muscle. His face was leaner and harder, with no traces of baby fat present. There was a glint in his eye that made him look older than his fourteen years. His walk was confident, his carriage erect.
Simon looked briefly at his father, as well. He was expecting to see the same discouraged slump of his father’s tired shoulders as they sat down at the table. Instead, his father looked more relaxed.
“Simon, I’m pretty sure we’ve found him,” he said with no preamble.
“Really? That’s great! Where is he?”
“Bulgaria. In the Rila Mountains.”
“How did you find him?”
“I was a little lucky and a little good. I’ve had a computer team intercepting phone messages and listening for certain words, like ‘boy’ and ‘hostage’ and ‘Fayed’ and ‘Hammad’ and several others. I didn’t tell them why I was looking, and as they run intercepts all the time with strange combinations of words, I thought it was safe to do this. Only the operators themselves know what I’m doing.
“I know there has been communication going on between the kidnappers and Hammad because of the proof-of-life communiqués. I’ve been trying to backtrack those and tie them into the key word intercepts, but gotten nowhere. Until today.
“Today, one of my operators, a really smart kid who’s been working for us for a little over a year now, heard someone on a secure phone to Hammad’s cousin talking about ‘the source.’ Thinking that might be a code word, he backtracked that call, and immediately became suspicious because he couldn’t get a location on it. Someone was intentionally blocking it, which didn’t make sense if they were talking about anything unimportant. So he got NSA involved in tracking it, and they found where it was coming from, which was an office in the emirate’s embassy in Teheran. He found who had that office, told me, and I assigned an Israeli agent to follow that man when he left work.
“He was followed to a pay phone several blocks from the embassy. It was easy to use a sound wave intensifier and recorder from that point to listen in on both ends of the conversation, then match that up with computer copies of all phone conversations coming out of Tehran. And when we did that, it pinpointed a location in Bulgaria.
“So I reprogrammed a satellite to concentrate on that spot. We now have pictures of where the phone calls came from. It’s a mountain clearing and there’s a shack there. Nothing else around for miles. There are, from what we’ve seen, three guards there patrolling the area around the shack. We don’t know how many guards might be inside.”
Simon was listening intently. Now, he asked the obvious question. “OK, you’ve found a shack that’s apparently being guarded, and had a phone call to it about a ‘source.’ That’s pretty thin evidence that Fayed is there.”
The general smiled. “The source talk was from Tehran to the emirate. The talk from Tehran to Bulgaria mentioned the word ‘boy’ three times, and Hammad’s cousin once. And then, at three in the afternoon today, a guard we hadn’t seen before came out of the shack, holding the arm of a smaller person. That person was dressed in white robes rather than trousers and shirts like the guards. Fayed was wearing his ceremonial dress when he was grabbed; that costume was a long embroidered white robe. Also, by comparing the shadows that could be seen by the satellite’s camera, we know how tall this person is. He’s one inch shorter than you are. And I seem to remember you telling me that he was just shorter than you were when you two were together a year ago.
“The guards appeared to be letting the boy move around a bit. He was able to walk around the clearing for about ten minutes, and then the guards took him back inside. He was moving a bit unsteadily when they first brought him outside, suggesting he may have been chained or shackled for some time.”