No Turning Back (The Traveler)

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Gary?” he yelled uncontrollably. “You lose your mother to tragedy and then you turn around and you pull this shit! What has gotten into you?”

  The man looked two seconds away from jumping him as his family made an emotional scene at the airport and couldn’t help themselves.

  “How could you do this to us, Gary?” Taylor’s mother cried. “How could you do this to Taylor?”

  Taylor’s two sisters were drowning in tears. “Why, Gary? Whyyy?” they wailed.

  Gary had no immediate answers for any of them. He didn’t have any answers for himself. He just wanted to get away from it all. Maybe the next group of criminals would decide to kill him. He felt that he deserved it. He deserved to die. Then he could join his mother and his best friend in the afterworld. But he didn’t expect to join them after death. He figured they were both better people than he had been. They were more selfless and caring. So why did they have to die instead of him? Gary needed someone to answer his questions.

  The federal agents finally stepped in to separate them before the family grievances became physical.

  “Hey, come on, kid, let’s go,” a gray-haired veteran agent told him as they escorted him away from the airport. A black Lincoln Town Car waited for them in the passenger pick-up area.

  “There’s nothing more you can say to them right now,” the veteran agent commented. Every strand of the man’s hair was gray, but his wrinkle-free face and robust body in a dark suit made him appear young and vibrant.

  He said, “You’ll have to wait for things to boil over.”

  After they tossed his luggage in the trunk, Gary climbed into the back of the car with the two men and sat there in silence while Taylor’s family remained at the airport to receive their son’s body.

  As the dark Lincoln headed toward the airport’s exit ramp, Gary felt a need to explode with anger or anything, but he couldn’t. He still didn’t feel what he felt he should. His icy demeanor had been the same with the death of his mother. So he began to second-guess himself.

  What the hell is wrong with me? he wondered. I should have stayed down there in Colombia and cooperated with the police. I could have helped them to find those guys. I should have just …

  “Shit!” he finally cursed, pounding his balled fists into his thighs. Then he began to slap himself in the head.

  “I really fucked up bad this time. I really fucked up!” he shouted toward the agents and their driver.

  “Join the club, kid,” the old veteran responded. “We all fuckup at one time or another. You didn’t ask for any of this to happen to you and your friend.”

  The younger agent shrugged. “You can’t beat yourself up,” he told Gary. “You just gotta pull a lesson out of it.”

  They were both rational and non-emotional guys, like their profession had trained them to be.

  Gary cried, “A lesson about what? How to think of only yourself? That’s all I’ve ever done in my life. Everything has always been about me. I couldn’t even cry when my mother was killed. It took me a couple of weeks to do it. I didn’t even cry at her funeral.”

  “People don’t always respond the same to a crisis or tragedy, son. We all have our different thresholds and breaking points,” the veteran agent explained.

  Gary listened calmly and thought of whether or not he would be allowed to attend his friend’s funeral. He and Taylor had been the best of friends for seventeen years, but would his parents and family even want him around anymore? Would they ever forgive him for what happened to their son?

  He’ll probably have a closed casket, Gary assumed. He hadn’t even bothered to look at him. But from the way Taylor’s blood and brains had splattered all over him on the floor, Gary could only imagine how bad he would look.

  He imagined a giant hole in Taylor’s head as he viewed his friend’s body at the funeral. It was a surreal flash of imagery.

  Gary’s continued outbursts caused the driver to flinch at the wheel unexpectedly.

  “Hey!” the veteran agent yelped to the sudden swerve at the wheel. He then grabbed Gary by his right arm to try and settle him down as the driver peeked into his rearview mirror.

  “Yeah, he’s gonna need some serious psychological evaluations,” the younger agent informed his older partner. He even thought Gary might attempt suicide. Many men could not handle the unexpected tragedies of life, and he had just gone through two in a row.

  Gary mumbled, “I just … I just can’t feel anything. Why is that?”

  “No, you’re feeling things, all right,” the older veteran assured him. “You just don’t know how to interpret what you’re feeling right now. But I’ve seen and been around plenty of guys who go from one extreme to the other: from not speaking about their pain, to crying like babies. You just never know, kid. We are all very different that way.”

  Once they had driven away from the airport, Gary asked the agents, “Where are you taking me?” They didn’t seem to be headed toward his loft downtown or to his mother’s house in St. Matthews. They were headed in the opposite direction. Did they even know where he lived? He assumed that they did.

  “We understand you have a friend in the area who would love to see you again,” the veteran agent informed him.

  The younger agent nodded. “It’s for your own good. She’ll keep you out of trouble and make your life a lot easier.”

  Gary looked baffled. “What are you talking about?”

  The veteran agent answered, “You recently had a confidential meeting concerning your father, am I right?”

  Gary paused. “How do you know that?”

  “We were informed,” the younger agent answered.

  Gary immediately thought of the black woman, Jonah Brown, who had been sent to him by his father. He doubted if his mother’s estate attorney, Christopher Burnett, had been involved in telling federal agents about his private meeting. Burnett didn’t want to be involved in the missing-in-action father business at all. So it had to be Jonah Brown again.

  Gary scowled as if the conversation pained him. “I guess it was never that confidential then,” he hinted. But he was far too spent to argue against their assignment. He had little energy left in his tank to defer. So he planned to find everything out once they arrived at their destination.

  However, one thing was certain: This is definitely not the time for me to commit to going back to school, he thought. I don’t care how wealthy or powerful my father is. I’m not allowing him to buy me.

  They arrived at a brick-front, two-story office building after ten o’clock at night, and Gary’s full day of traveling. A night light illuminated the double-door glass entrance at the center of the building.

  As they climbed out of the car in the parking lot and walked toward the entrance, Gary stated, “It looks like Jonah has this all mapped out, but I’m a little too tired to deal with her tonight. So I don’t know what more she expects from me.”

  The younger agent shrugged. “However you take it is up to you. We just wanted to make sure you got here tonight and listened to her.”

  They entered the quiet building where an elevator waited to the right of an empty reception desk. They rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and stepped into an open office room down the left hallway. Gary spotted Jonah Brown, sitting behind a makeshift desk, waiting for him.

  “Welcome back,” she stated. She was dressed in another dark business suit with her legs crossed again, looking calm and authoritative.

  Gary appraised her command and sighed. She had drained him already. So he took a seat in the empty chair that sat in front of her desk.

  When the federal agents dropped his luggage on the floor beside him, Gary asked them, “So who’s taking me back home now? I’m very tired.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” Jonah answered.

  The veteran agent nodded to her. “All right, J.B., he’s all yours.”

  “Thank you,” she told them as both men walked out and closed the door behin
d them. Gary immediately asked her, “So, what is this? My father plans to take over my life now? Is this how he’s used to operating?”

  Gary was obviously sour about everything. His recent pains were marked all over his worn face. He had aged ten years in a matter of weeks.

  Jonah listened to him and nodded patiently. He has no idea how fortunate he is, she thought. After two incredible losses like his, most people wouldn’t have a lot left to live for. But he does.

  “I’m very sorry about your recent losses,” she addressed him civilly. “It makes this process more cumbersome for both of us now. But I still have a job to do.”

  “And what exactly is that, to be my father’s watchdog?” Gary snapped at her. He was understandably bitter. He added, “Don’t you guys understand that I just lost my best friend and my mother?”

  He was so emotionally drained that his voice trembled. He said, “I hope this isn’t how he plans to get to know me.”

  Jonah sat there patiently and listened to his pain in silence. But there was no turning back for the kid; there was only forward.

  “So, what do you plan to do now?” she asked him calmly.

  Gary didn’t expect such civility from her. He expected more dictation and reprimand. So he exhaled and thought about her open question.

  “First, I need to take a good shower and rest,” he told her, sinking his head into his hands. He said, “You have no idea what I’ve just gone through. We literally flew down there yesterday. And it still feels like I’m fucking dreaming. And I’m just so tired right now.”

  Jonah continued to empathize. “I understand,” she told him, “but you’re not dreaming.”

  “How did you guys find out so fast?” he asked her.

  Not wanting to reveal her sources, Jonah answered, “It’s in your best interest that we know where you are at all times. Let’s just put it that way.”

  At the moment, Gary was not at liberty to argue with her. So she continued:

  “You have a lot of hard decisions to make about your life, Gary. And I know you don’t want to be controlled or told what to do, because you’re a grown man. So I don’t expect to do that. But like you said, you do need a period to rest to get your priorities in order. Returning to school for more training would be the best way for you to do that.”

  As soon as Gary heard the word “school” he began to shake his head in his hands. He said, “I knew that’s what this was all about. He is trying to control me. But my head’s just not clear for school right now. Why do you think I stopped going in the first place?”

  “You stopped because you’re not committed to anything,” Jonah answered him. “We already know that about you. You start a lot of things that you never finish, and your mother never taught you to.”

  “Hey,” Gary snapped defensively, “you show some respect.” He took the statement as a direct slight from his father. He said, “How dare he complain about how my mother raised me? If he wanted to teach me something different, he should have stepped in for himself. Under the circumstances, my mother did the best job she could do.”

  Jonah was unmoved by his objection. She said, “So what now? You want to continue to use that as an excuse to live irresponsibly? Learn how to stand up for something,” she challenged him.

  “I will,” he argued.

  “Will you? Did you stand up for yourself and your friend in Colombia?”

  “What?” Gary piped, feeling offended and angry. All of the disgust, rage and feelings of helplessness were quickly reawakened inside of him.

  “What did you do to try and save him when you were held hostage last night?” Jonah pressed him. “What did you do to save yourself? Or did they just let you walk away again?”

  In a fit of rage, Gary leaped from his chair as if ready to assault her. But Jonah didn’t even flinch in her chair. She was fully confident that she could defend herself.

  Gary stopped and said, “I don’t abuse women. I wasn’t raised that way. That was something my mother did teach me.”

  Jonah Brown grinned and finally stood from the chair behind her desk. “Yeah, you don’t abuse them physically, you just fuck them and abuse them mentally and emotionally. But that’s a topic for whole ’nother discussion. Too many women allow themselves to be used.”

  The truth left Gary speechless. He had nothing to respond with, so he didn’t.

  In her heels, Jonah was only a few inches shorter than him. But her stance and build was indeed powerful. She didn’t fear him at all. She didn’t fear any man.

  She said, “I’ve been trained to defend myself in any situation.” She then walked out from behind the desk to face him. She unbuttoned her dark suit jacket, revealing a shoulder holster and a short black pistol.

  As Gary eyed the gun guardedly, Jonah took it out and showed it to him. Although it was small, the gun looked heavy and lethal, and he assumed it could do damage at close range.

  “You need to learn how to use one of these,” she told him. “But it won’t happen overnight. You have to commit to it.”

  She reached out to hand it to him. “Take it.”

  Gary frowned before he reluctantly took the gun.

  “Now point it at me,” she told him.

  “What?”

  “Point it at me.”

  Gary hesitated.

  “Point the fucking gun,” she barked.

  As soon as he aimed it at her, weakly, Jonah popped the gun out of his hand from the bottom handle and grabbed it out of the air to aim it back at him.

  Gary ignored her gun trick and said, “I would never aim a gun at a woman.”

  “Well, then, I have an advantage,” she told him. “And I would definitely aim my gun at you.” Then she showed him more tricks with it, spinning the small black pistol around her hands in various directions, like a circus knife act. She even flipped it around her neck and over her shoulders.

  Shit! Gary thought to himself. Now he was impressed.

  Jonah told him, “I like it small because I can handle it better. And at close range …” she said, then stopped her rapid gun tricks and aimed the gun at his head in lightning speed, “… I never miss. “I also handle the bigger guns. But I like this one more.”

  Gary felt out of his league. He knew nothing about guns, but he was curious to learn how much she knew. He also figured she could fight, like Taylor assumed.

  “So you are an agent?” he asked her.

  “Of course,” she answered. “Or I used to be. But I work for your father now.” She placed her gun back inside of her holster and refastened her suit jacket. “As we get to know each other better, I can tell you more. But as of right now, I don’t trust anything that you do, nor does your father trust you. You’re all over the place, an egg yolk with no shell. So you need time and commitment to train at something. That’s what your father wants to teach you.

  “He sees a lot of potential in you,” she added. “And so do I.”

  It was the first moment where Gary could sense a bit of softness between her hard edges. And that made him soften to listen to her.

  She said, “Your life was spared in Colombia for a reason, Gary. Now you need to take advantage of your opportunities for everyone.”

  Gary retook his seat in the chair and thought about it.

  Jonah sat on the edge of the desktop in front of him. She had some curious thoughts in mind of her own. She asked him, “You have any idea why they decided not to kill you?” She still failed understand that part. Why did they spare him in the first place? And with no ransom money requested or a prolonged detainment, what was their motive?

  Gary sighed and repeated the man’s fatal words to him. “He said I was a fearless traveler. And after he shot my friend … he said that I could travel alone in pain and fear.”

  Jonah listened to him intently and nodded. “Interesting,” she concluded. “Now, you know how serious the world is. They don’t play games out there. And if you’re not prepared for certain situations, they can take advantage
of you … and kill you if you let them.”

  Gary had no argument. He was surprised to be alive himself.

  “So, here’s the deal,” Jonah told him, “I need you to finish school for your father. In exchange, I can teach you what I know to protect yourself and introduce you to some other people I learned from. They call me Fox,” she confided in him.

  “But you have to show me that you can finish something before I introduce you,” she challenged. “They don’t like quitters. What they teach is too valuable to be wasted.”

  “Fox?” Gary questioned her with a smirk. “Well, that’s ah … fitting, I guess.”

  “And you never repeat that to anyone,” she warned him. “They’ll ask you to choose your own name, but that’s only for us to know … if they accept you,” she added.

  “And what makes you think I want to learn anything like that?” Gary quizzed her.

  Jonah paused. She said, “How did you feel when these men killed your friend? Did you feel helpless? A lot of people do—people who don’t know how to fight back.”

  Gary argued his point, angrily. “Anyone would have felt helpless if they’d been tied up.”

  “How did you get tied up in the first place?” she countered. “We would train you never to let your guard down and how to recover from it if you do.”

  Gary fell silent again. With no more resistance from him, Jonah sunk her teeth into his fresh wounds to increase his guilt.

  She said, “You owe this to your mother now … and you owe it to your best friend.”

  Gary could read through her obvious ploy, but he was too reflective and weakened to fight it. He felt powerless in both of their deaths. If he could, he would turn back the pages of time and fight to defend them. But he would defend them with what and how? So he figured survival training could be useful for him.

  Jonah told him, “I can promise you this, after you finish school and some basic training, it’s your life. You can decide to do whatever you want with it. And you only have two more years to finish school. So think about it.”