Forty-eight hours had been enough to destroy whoever Allison Shaw had been. For the last two days, Jill Penske received crash courses in acting, psychology and hand to hand combat in the F.B.I office. Everything seemed so surreal to her that she retracted from herself and went on autopilot, doing what she was asked to. She still had no idea where her dad was, or even if he was still alive, but Harry didn’t leave her sight for the last two days. The only time she was on her own was when she was getting locked up in a very nice bedroom with access to bathroom at 11 PM. She liked it; she always wanted her own bedroom. At 7 PM in the morning, Harry appeared at the door to take her to breakfast room and brief her about the day to come. The FBI had a word for what Jill experienced. Deprogramming.
Over the span of two days, she lost her name, her family, her house, every base of a teenager’s identity. That made kids malleable and obedient. That’s what Harold Mason did for a living, deprogramming people. He was specialized in the activity of convincing criminals to help the authorities, but this time around, he was on a special mission. Transform a teenage girl into a double agent in forty eight hours. Harry lived to challenge himself, so when he was proposed the mission, he said: “Yeah, sure!” with a grin and he felt the satisfaction of well accomplished work as he was about to knock on Lieutenant Borland’s door to introduce him to the fruit of his labor.
Thomas Borland was in charge of the Aksoy investigation. Not much was known about the Turkish doctor, except that he was a war criminal and escaped jail in Turkey to smuggle himself into a cargo ship to New York city. The F.B.I was so lost on the investigation that they were wondering how Aksoy bought a house and opened up clinic in Washington D.C. The man seemed to have deceptively long arms. The first step to smoke the rat out of the hole was to gain his trust. Borland and Mason would use emotional manipulation to get to Aksoy. They were going to play the cards of innocence and friendship. Colonel White amiably handed his special ops nut job Tatum for that work. The guy was jailed in Germany for killing his C.O and had nothing better to do than wait for probably execution. Mason suggested the Penske-Shaw girl. He went to war in Kossovo with that pompous asshole Mike Penske and it was a way to get back at him. His daughter also seemed more than cooperative and happy to change her lifestyle.
Marvin White was sitting in Borland’s office when they came in. They were both impressed to see the changed that Mason operated on Jill over two days. Her hair was shorter and died so it would look more natural but paler. She also looked a lot older, around eighteen. Mason turned Jill into a woman almost overnight. He was the king of emotional manipulation. Borland looked over at White and said softly: “Told you he was gooood!” White smiled and pulled a chair to Jill, he knew his way around young girls, he knew how to make them feel comfortable: “Hey Jill, sit down, I’m Colonel White, but you can call me Marvin if you want.”
She took the seat and said: “I’ll call you Colonel White then.”
White had a loud laugh. This one had a lot more character than her father. Mike Penske was a butt kisser. The daughter seemed empowered by her new knowledge and responsibilities, she stood tall and proud. White and Borland had the same thought as the same time. They thought they took her early enough out of her father’s grasp so she wouldn’t turn into a coward like him. Borland and White smiled at each other, as if they were telepathically communicating. Harry was smiling too, but he was always smiling. He was a happy man, fulfilled by a challenging job he was the best at. He couldn’t ask for more.
“Jill, I’m Lieutenant Thomas Borland. Feel free to call me whatever you want.”
“I’ll call you Lieutenant Borland.” Jill said.
“That suits me. Tell me what you know about your mission.” asked Borland.
“I’m a young girl with a degenerative disease; I need spinal implants to be able to walk properly. I need to get Aksoy to propose me the experimental implants he’s working on, so another double agent can snatch a sample, so we can trace is back. Is that it?”
“That’s it Agent Penske, I see you did your homeworks.” said White.
The three men in the room started laughing loudly. Jill had an uncomfortable smile.
They stopped laughing at the same time because they recognized the body language of someone wanting to ask a question.
“About that” she said, “what’s going to happen with school?”
“Well, we’re in May, so it’s almost over, consider this early vacation, you’ll resume in September as if you passed everything with flying colors. You were about to anyway.” said Borland.
She smiled, reassured. She was still fragile from all of the late turmoil, but she seemed to enjoy herself. Thomas Borland was really happy of what he saw. The girl had a perfect fake limp, big innocent eyes and the will to be the best she could. He had high expectations from that girl; she was going to be a valuable effective in the long run, giving the Penske family a better name along the U.S Government.
Borland was very appreciative for the fact that Jill didn’t ask any questions about her father for the last two days. Mike Penske, just his name gave Borland stomach ache. The guy had been a major pain in the neck in the Kossovo war. Borland and Mason were snipers back then. Often, late at night, they would drink together and shoot away into the Serbian camps until these sons of bitches were all hiding. Penske found them doing that one night. He threatened them to snitch to the C.O. What would Colonel Daniels have done anyway? Protect the genocidal bastards? Since then, Penske used this as leverage against Borland and Mason. Due to stupid conventions this could have been to martial law, so they both took it with a smile and did nothing about it, giving occasionally Penske a hand for free when they got all transferred to the FBI.
Now that Colonel White sent Penske in an express mission in Russia and had his wife signing divorce and relocation papers behind his back, he would come back in the U.S in a few weeks to realize he had nothing left. Borland and Mason thought it was a great payback for all these years of nagging threats made by Penske. His wife was estranged for the longest time and the location of Jill would be classified. Anyway, that asshole would look for her under the name of Allison Shaw. The ultimate payback for all the years Penske made them fear prison.
“So, where am I going to live now? With Harry?” asked Jill.
“No, not with Harry, he’s going to go back to what he does best, change people’s lives.” said White.
“You bet he’s good at that” said Jill with a smile.
“Jill, have you ever wanted to live in a big three stories high house in Bethesda?” asked Borland, swinging back in his leather chair.
“Well, the thought never occurred to me, I always thought I lived in a nice enough house.” , said Jill.
“You’re going to love your new one then. Harry will lead you do your new home.” said Borland.
She got up and followed Mason on his way out. Borland couldn’t help but be amazed of the work he did on the girl. He took a teenage kid with plenty of temper and turned her into an obedient and proud soldier in no time. The man definitively earned the fat pay check he had every two weeks.
“I got one thing on my mind Colonel” said Borland, looking at Harry and Jill going downstairs.
“What is it Tom?” answered White.
“Your guy, Tatum, he’s not going to strangle the girl and sneak out into the night no?”
“No, he trusts me, whatever I ask him to do, he does. Plus, he never backs away from a challenge.”
“OK, because she’s a good girl, I’d hate fucking up on her.”
“He’s not going to. He’s a soldier, not a psychopath.” promised White.
“All right, I trust you too sir.”
“Thanks, hey, how are the things with you camera guy?”
“All set up, the clinic is wired tapped into next week. He’s going to install cameras on our agents before they come in so they can go into that secret room of Aksoy’s place.”
“Good, you’ve done a good work Lieutenant. I’m not exactly sure what we’re after, but we’ll take that butcher down first and follow the evidence from there.”
Share
0 comments:
Post a Comment