Walter’s adaptation skills were put to use like never before. Hostile environment took a while to get used to, but at least, he had a frame of reference. Hostile was all he ever knew. Suburbia to him felt like a moon of Jupiter. There was nothing in that kind of life he knew about. The first thing he did was to lock himself up in the three stories house the FBI had given to him, so he could recon the territory from a safe place. Walter spent the first night in his new house in the attic, looking down into the street with night vision goggles, noting down every suspect thing that happened around Murat Aksoy’s house.
The man seemed to lead a pretty mundane life outside his work office. He arrived every night at 11:30 PM sharp, parked his Honda Accord in his driveway, entered his house, went to the second floor, watched T.V took a shower and went to bed around 12:30 AM. Every day he woke up at 7 AM with the sound of his alarm and went to work at 7:30 after a copious breakfast of eggs, ham and bacon. The man has the regulated routine of an old boy. He was boring, but he was doing crazy hours at work. Therefore, Walter’s attention focused on what Aksoy was possibly doing during his work hours. Was he really doing sixteen hours a day of clinical work? It would have been more than a hundred hours per week. That would explain the big house, but it also made for Walter complete loss of interest for what Murat Aksoy was doing around his neighborhood. His enormous house was more of a utilitarian hovel where the doctor slept and ate in between shift, more than a place where he actually lived.
The girl arrived on Monday as Walter was taking on himself to tail Aksoy to work after a week-end of light sleep. He was about to get out the door when the girl arrived with Mason, a brother in arms from the Kossovo war he hadn’t seen in almost ten years. He stopped in his tracks, but was not surprised anymore. The continuous state of surprised he had been for the last few days and the exhaustion he was feeling at the moment shielded him against any kind of possible display of emotion.
“Mason! Man, I thought you exploded on a mine eight years ago.”
“Walter! I’m glad to see you too” said Mason, with his ever awkward grin.
“What’s with the girl? I never knew a reptilian guy like you could reproduce.”
Mason laughed out loud; they always had this eerie friendship. They fought together; they trusted each other with their lives. They saved each other’s life a few times. Mason was one of the best snipers Walter ever worked with. He felt safe to do the boldest attacks whenever Mason was on a mission with him, because he had his back. They never felt like knowing each other outside of work though, their personalities were clashing all the time and both had a bad vibe from each other. Their paths kept crossing though and they both were pretty happy with it. As long as it was work related, they were glad to see each other. They both knew the other guy could get the job done.
“I’m Jill” she said.
“Hem…John” Walter said.
“I thought Harry just called you Walter.”
“Hem yeah, Walter, whatever.”
Walter always tried to stay away from teenage girls. His relationship with women had always been pretty superficial in general, but the teenagers he tried to stay clear of them. They were too complicated with their feelings and their identity crisis. Walter liked simple and straightforward stuff. That’s why he joined the army and that’s why he was good at it. He tried to keep the essential of his relationships to that straightforwardness.
“Jill is your new partner on the Aksoy case Walt” said Mason in his all out grinning glory.
“Fuck you Mason, it’s not funny.”
“Is he always like that?”asked Jill.
“Yes, but he’s very kind at heart” said Harry. “And no, I’m not kidding, Colonel White sends me.
“But I don’t work with girls!”
“Not my call”
“Is she even legal?”
“Legal is irrelevant to the situation Walt, you know it, I know it, it always been like that.”
Walter knew Mason was right. They had done it before. Once, in Kossovo, they had hide in a classroom full of children in order to lure some Serbian soldiers inside. They had killed five enemy soldiers in front of a toddler’s classroom. They felt bad doing it, but they felt even worse when the kids started to applause and cheer. Like little vultures, they looted the corpses of the Serbians, leaving them to rot somewhere in a Kossovar mass grave. Walter knew, in a war situation, there is no such thing as legal or illegal. It’s win or lose, period. He just wasn’t aware that the Aksoy situation was a war situation. He rectified his whole perception of the thing right away.
“She’s going to live with you; she’s going to be your daughter, Abigail Bailey.”
Walter took a deep breath and said: “All right, sure”
“So we should call each other Abigail and John?” said Jill.
“All right, sure.” Answered Walter with a growing unease.
“So, you guys have an appointment at 11:00 AM at Aksoy’s office, if I were you, I would take the time to know each others, you guys can’t screw up.” said Mason, with a jubilating tone.
Before Walter could raise a hand in sign of protest, Mason closed the front door waving goodbye, leaving Jill and her backpack on the carpet. She had that teenage look in her eyes that Walter hated. He felt alien to that whole situation, he babbled a: “Hem…it’s your home too, you should unpack.”
“Eeeh…sure” Jill said. “Where?”
“There’s like a gazillion rooms upstairs, just pick the one you like the most.”
She took her back pack and climbed up the stairs. Walter just lumbered around behind her, not knowing what he should do. Jill turned around swiftly when she reached the top of the staircase and said: “Why are you following me?”
Walter thought it was a good question: “I don’t know..you must be HUNGRY!” he said a little too loud, proud of his idea. Jill jumped a few centimeters backwards from the surprise.
“No, I had breakfast already.”
“Oh I see…” he lumbered down backstairs and sat in the living room couch waiting for Jill to be done with unpacking her things. He damned himself for being that confused by the situation. Things were not ideal, but Jill was nothing more than a partner to him. He should treat her like a partner, nothing else. He decided to adopt the field attitude when she’ll come back downstairs and concert with her on the situation and the course of action.
It took her around an hour to come down. He had time to watch a whole episode of “All my children” on NBC before she came down. When she arrived in the living room, that little something inside that he called “the soldier sense”, told him that she seemed like a good partner. She pulled her hair back and put on some make up so she’d look pale and sick. She put on some darker but nicer clothes and a white shawl on her shoulders, which made her look thinner than an hour before. She looked sick from a very bad disease. It was not just her face, it was her whole demeanor felt resignated.
“How do you like me dying” she said with a faint smile.
“I think you’re dying pretty good” said Walter, with as less emotions as he could.
She winked at him, which made him feel uncomfortable. He brushed it off and continued:
“All right how do you see this?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve read the file on Aksoy right?”
“Yes” she said with a look of confusion.
“How d’you want to tackle this thing down?”
“I don’t know, however you feel like. Harry told me you were the expert.”
Walter felt his momentum going: “All right, here’s how I see things. The first report on Aksoy’s activities is pointing out that most people who go to him are in straight up denial. They don’t cry, they don’t plea for his help. They seem to consider him like the only doctor on earth with a brain. I think we should play that angle, but to give it a little hitch, so we could appeal to anything human left on that wacko.”
“What’s that hitch?” asked Jill.
“See, I’m the rich dad, which think his daughter will never die. You’re good at being pitiable, but I need you to be the girl that wants to believe everything her daddy says, but feels like she’s dying inside. I think it would put us a notch over the cynical businessman who thinks he’s over society, so we could get to Aksoy’s easier, since he’s our neighbor and all.”
“He’s OUR NEIGHBOR?”
“Well yes, Mason didn’t tell you?”
“No…creepy!”
“I know, but we’re not exactly dealing with sweet emotions and repentant bad boys
here. Guy is a scum. I’m not sure why, but if Colonel White says he is…well he is.”
“Oook…so you’re supposed to be my dad?”
“Yeah”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty eight, you?”
“TWENTY EIGHT? YOU LOOK FORTY AT LEAST!”
“So I’ve been told. How about we hop on the car right now and we arrive early at Aksoy’s clinic? It’s downtown D.C, it’s as bit far.”
“You’re the boss.”
She was a good partner so far. She let him run the show. She had yet to perform under pressure though.
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