Martin"s Secret

Thirty-five minutes after Martin shoved her out of the doomed jet, Jessica was sitting on a bus-stop bench at the intersection of Cortez Boulevard and Barclay Avenue a few miles south of Brooksville. Her clothes offered little warmth and she doubted Florida’s Sunshine State moniker. A pocket of fog had settled over the region and she folded her arms to insulate her body from the damp, morning air.

For now, they would follow Martin’s instincts and she would help him corner the animals that messed up his head. She despised the incognitos who replaced his humanity with microscopic files brimming with soul-less artificial intelligence. A government’s illegal actions killed her beloved husband and she was not about to surrender the only man to rekindle her passion since to a bunch of government spies. Her husband was a decorated hero who gave his life so that six ambushed Marines could go home to their families. Martin was the target of deep-state assassins, government contractors that would simply dispose of him and choose another next guinea pig. But Martin was here, with her, not on some Middle East desert outpost a half-world away. She could help him foil the double-agents who tried to kill them to cover their collective ass. Together they would seek and find the missing components of his life.

I’m the only person in the world that he can trust and I’m not going let him down, she thought.

A mockingbird imitating local songbirds from atop the bus-stop shelter interrupted Jessica’s thoughts. She wondered if Martin’s instruction to wait for him was a clever ploy to cover a speedy exit from her life. In less than twenty-four hours they had become so emotionally entwined that the thought of losing him was strangely overwhelming. Suddenly she felt foolish, as though all the risks she had endured were in vain.

Martin waited across from the bus stop for the traffic-light to change. From inside the ocean-blue 2018 Chevrolet Silverado with darkly-tinted windows, he peered out at the dark-haired beauty sitting on a bench bouncing a crossed leg and knuckling an eye. He wondered what she was thinking. Her hair was damp and frizzy from the fog and she looked as alone in the world as he felt.

“Why did I bring you here?” he cursed, pounding the steering wheel in frustration. There was no justification for involving her and he was as angry with himself as he was with the organization that was tracking him like safari game. He took her to the diner because he could no longer bare the isolation and loneliness of his purposeless life. Without the ability to remember his parents, siblings or anyone, he was trapped in a living void where staying alive was all that mattered. When the light turned green he negotiated a right turn and stopped in the bus-lane beside the bench, opened the passenger door and smiled.

Jessica stayed put, arms folded with a pensive stare and pretended to ignore him.

“I was thinking about you,” said Martin.

After her husband’s death, Jessica had ignored the flirtations of most men. Suddenly, after years of sequestering courtship, her prolonged grief disappeared when this stranger showed up. Martin renewed her passion and stirred suppressed emotions she thought were buried with her husband. But he was dying as surely as her husband had died. It was a different kind of death, but dying nonetheless.

“Sure, you were probably trying to decide whether to leave me,” she said.

“It never crossed my mind,” he assured.

“You’re bleeding, what happened?”

“It’s just a scratch.”

Jessica spat on her pink handkerchief, used it to wipe a trickle of blood from his cheek and gave it to him.

“So you aren’t Superman,” she said.

“Nope. He retired when they got rid of the phone booths.”

Jessica smiled sadly. She had questioned her decision to stick with Martin as the plane plunged toward the ground. When death seemed imminent, she resented him. But she had chosen to be with him precisely because he was mysterious and unique. And the attraction was mutual. She had seen that in his eyes, felt it when they made love, and experienced his loyalty first hand in the face of danger. Now, having survived the crash, she felt guilty for ever doubting him.

The sun wasn’t up but daylight was creeping over the horizon in advance of a cool mid-November morning that would warm to a comfortable high of seventy-degrees Fahrenheit. Martin wished they could buy a bungalow somewhere by the sea and live happily ever afterward but right now all he could offer was life on the run or a one-way ticket to Colorado.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Last night, before we jumped, I was scared, really scared for my life. I doubted us,” Jessica confessed.

“I know. Anyone would have. If you’d been hurt, I....”

“You suggested we split up.” Her words were hitched to a sob. “Did I tell you Tampa is where I said goodbye to him?”

“No, I’m sorry.” Martin leaned further and offered back her pink handkerchief.

“Were you a Boy Scout or something?” she teased between sniffles.

He shrugged and smiled. “What was his name?”

Jessica rose from the bench, sat on the edge of the passenger seat and took the handkerchief. Her eyes welling with fresh tears.

“Thomas Gregory Mason, that was his birth name - but his father always called him Bud, it kinda stuck.” She blew her nose and continued. “Bud. Some name, right? Bud. I loved that name, I loved that man.”

“That’s easy to see,” said Martin.

She turned her attention back to him, her eyes clearing as her emotions rested. His physical composite had managed to escape the schemes of his pursuers and virtually overnight he became a beloved yet tragic figure to her.

“People are trying to kill you, but I don’t believe you’re evil, that you would harm anyone unless it was to defend yourself or someone else.”

“I needed to hear that.”

Jessica eased herself fully into the truck and closed the door. “But I need to know what you expect from me. I mean, do you like me or is this just me filling your temporary void?”

“Both and much more,” said Martin without hesitating. “I need you and I want you and I feel utterly alone.”

She swiped at a residual tear and smiled. “That was a really good answer” - she took his hand in hers and gently squeezed - “I’ll stay until we figure things out, then we’ll see.”

“They’ll keep coming, and it’ll get worse before it gets better,” Martin cautioned.

“I know. So let’s go before we get hit by the bus,” she said, sighing pretend-impatience while staring straight ahead.

After checking into the Tampa Hilton the two freshened up and went to breakfast at the La Tropicana Café, a popular eatery in Ybor, the famed Latin city within the city. Afterward they went shopping at the International Mall, an upscale retail haven near the expansive Tampa International Airport complex. Three hours later they emerged with as many shopping bags as they could carry.

“We should find a hotel where you can rest,” suggested Martin as he heaved shopping bags into the rear of the Silverado’s cab.

“We already have a room at the Hilton in the city. Don’t you remember?

“The Hilton is a decoy.”

Jessica squinted.

“Holiday Inn would make a more practical decoy,” she stated with perplexity.

“Less expensive and less credible,” Martin replied.

“Doesn’t that credit card of yours have a limit?

“I checked, and according to some guy in Basel, Switzerland, my financial benefactor hasn’t capped it, yet.”

“Who is this guy in Basel?” she probed.

“I don’t know, he answered the phone when I called the number on the back of the credit card.”

As usual, Jessica got few answers to many questions before they pulled into the valet-lane at the Grand Hyatt. Martin instructed a young freckle-faced valet with a luggage cart to bring their shopping bags to the reservation lobby. Martin pulled his briefcase out from under the seat and he and Jessica walked across the hotel’s extravagant portico to the entrance where a doorman welcomed them.

“The guy in Basel sounded like he was working in a call center in India,” he volunteered as they waited to check in.

“That narrows the search to a couple of billion people,” poked Jessica.

Martin smiled, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.

In the room, she packed their new clothes and personal items, placing them on either side of a divider in a wheeled suitcase and in two gym bags with Tampa Bay Rays logos that they purchased in the hotel’s lobby.

Meanwhile, Martin stashed some money from his briefcase into each of the gym bags while he listened intently to a local television news broadcast. The anchor was reporting breaking news about a plane crash in Hernando County that occurred about 500-yards into the Gulf near Weeki Wachee. The reporter said authorities could not identify the crew or passengers and had not located any survivors or remains. She added that authorities speculated there was a midair explosion followed by a horrific crash and that the search for survivors would soon transition to a recovery operation.

Following that report, the anchor told of gunfire and the detonation of a small explosive device in a room in Tampa’s downtown Hilton. Authorities at that scene were baffled as to the motive since the room had been empty. The newswoman added that a malfunction with the hotel’s security cameras along with a phone system outage had greatly compromised the investigation.

“Oh my God, that was our room,” Jessica practically shouted, visibly shaken.

“It was our decoy, and it worked,” corrected Martin.

After packing, the two plopped on the king-size bed and fell asleep. Jessica woke at six o’clock in the evening as Martin gently massaged her shoulders. She rolled onto her back, brushed the hair from her face and smiled.

“Thought you’d want to see this,” said Martin, nodding at the fifty-inch television screen.

An afternoon news anchor was reporting that the source of a bomb blast in room 914 at the downtown Hilton Hotel earlier in the day continued to baffle investigators. The newsman told how someone shot the room’s lock with a large caliber handgun before tossing a concussion grenade into the room and closing the door. The concussion-type explosive discharged very little fragmentation and scant chemical trace, suggesting it was designed to leave a minimum of evidence at the scene, according to the reporter, who added the attempted ambush likely involved two or more perpetrators who managed to elude police.

“So far, so good. No collateral damage,” said Martin.

He removed the electronic device that he used on the jet from his briefcase and scanned the room for transponders and GPS devices but got nothing save the expected listing of locked phones and Internet routers.

“Anthony Fererra, ACR’s operations manager is on this and probably figures we’re already in Tampa. But the room and luggage are not bugged so we’re safe for now. They don’t know where we are,” said Martin.

A television reporter was telling how law-enforcement was still unable to ascertain a motive in the Hilton incident. Investigators were keying on the coincidence of malfunctioning security cameras and phones at the high-end hotel as events unfolded. The broadcaster added that “miraculously” no one was killed or injured in the blast or subsequent gunfire.

“Why are they trying to kill you?” Jessica inquired bluntly.

“ACR is the acronym for Advanced Cybernetics and Robotics. The firm has more projects under classified status than any other government contractor.”

She took a moment to allow the information to sink in.

“What kind of projects?”

“They deal in everything from artificial intelligence to working concepts of robotic warfare,” he responded with simple directness.

“Martin, Do you remember where you found that briefcase and laptop?” she asked.

“I took it from an ACR compound. They had already screwed up my head and they wanted to do more procedures. I panicked, stole the briefcase and you know the rest.”

“So how do you know you’re really Martin Harbach?”

Martin flipped open his wallet and showed his driver’s license. “That’s my face, right?”

“Honey, don’t take this the wrong way but you took your own picture, printed out a pilot’s license in someone else’s name and flew us here from Colorado.”

“I get that, but it’s the only name I’ve got right now and I’m attached to it.”

“Me too,” said Jessica. At that, she made her way to the dressing room where she provocatively peeled off her clothes, grabbed a towel from a shelf and wrapped it around her body.

“Do you want me?” she asked with an over-the-shoulder pose in a sultry voice jutting her hip flirtatiously with her hands on her waist.

“Want? Want is a puny word for what I’m feeling.”

“Well, Martin Harbach, I’m about to take a long shower and you have an exclusive invitation to join me,” she teased in her best Charlize Theron accent. After towel wrapping her hair, she flashed a provocative smile and disappeared into the bathroom.

Martin fastened the door’s chain-lock, ripped off his tee-shirt and followed her into the steam.