All rise,” the clerk bellowed again. “This court is adjourned.” Ross was led out of one door of the courtroom, heading to his holding cell. A few feet away Jared walked out of another door, past the court officers, and into the marble lobby on the fifteenth floor. Jared needed a place to think, and he knew exactly where he was going to go: Ground Zero, the place the towers fell.
Jared had been pummeled on the stand. He was accused by Ross’s lawyers of screwing up the case in every way possible. The lawyer painted a portrait of Jared as a young agent who was under so much pressure to capture the Dread Pirate Roberts that he and his buddies at the FBI had apprehended the wrong man. The questions lobbed at Jared grew so contentious that every query was met with a loud and vociferous “Objection!” from the prosecution.
The media lapped up the drama, volleying Dratel’s theories out to the world, noting that Jared had, at different times in the case, “alternative perpetrators” in his sights. After days of being pelted and accused by the defense, Jared finally heard seven words that relieved him to no end. “I have no further questions, your honor.”
Now, as he walked toward Ground Zero, Jared played back the last few years in his mind. What a country, he thought as he walked down Broadway, away from the courthouse. One minute you’re the nobody son of an Armenian immigrant, working in a movie theater, applying over and over for a dozen jobs in government, each of which you are denied. They say you don’t have a degree. You’re too abrasive. You didn’t answer my question correctly. No. No. No. And then finally, after years of trying, you get a job stamping passports. You try and you try and you try, and eventually you become an agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Then the call comes in from a thankless employee in a humongous government mail center at the airport about a single tiny pink pill. And then here you are.
As Jared entered the site of the Trade Center, he was surrounded by construction equipment beeping and digging, hardhats yelling, the roar of giant trucks and cranes as tourists peered up through their phones and cameras to capture the new, almost finished One World Trade Center. He thought about the Silk Road. He had set out to try to stop what he saw as potentially devastating to the fabric of this country on his own, and he had ended up doing just that, but he had needed the assistance of so many others, each of them bringing a single piece to one giant puzzle.
He continued walking through the sprawling construction site, growing more emotional with each step, still thinking about how a single pill might have saved so many lives. That every single person can have a sweeping and massive impact on the world they live in. Some choose to have a positive effect, others a negative; some don’t know the difference. But most people think their role in this big, big world is meaningless. Just a job.
With this realization in his mind, Jared walked up to one of the burly, seemingly bored security guards at the One World Trade Center construction site, and he looked directly into the man’s eyes and blurted out, “Thank you for your service.” The security guard looked back with complete confusion. He thought the man in front of him—Jared—had gone mad. Jared said it again. “Thank you for your service.” The guard peered at this strange man, perplexed, as he walked away. Jared’s eyes were now welling up with tears as he came across another security guard. “Thank you for your service.” He beamed. “Thank you for your service,” he said again as tears rolled down his cheeks. He walked up to every single security guard he could find, some old, some young, men and women, large and small. “Thank you for your service.” He knew he sounded like a crazy person, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted them all to know.
“Thank you for your service.”
• • •
The following morning everyone streamed back into the courthouse as the judge instructed the jury on what they were to do next. Ross, his mother, Lyn, and his father, Kirk, were there. Tarbell and Gary too. Dozens of reporters and even more supporters. Except there was one person who wasn’t in the courtroom: Jared.
As the twelve jurors entered the chambers to deliberate, Jared was on a United Airlines flight heading back to Chicago. He had spent years, months, weeks, and days hunting for the Dread Pirate Roberts, and he had been away from his family for so long during that chase. He didn’t need to be away from his wife and son any longer, and he frankly didn’t care what the verdict was. He had done his job.
As the plane landed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, the same place the pink pill had touched down almost four years earlier, Jared got a text message from Tarbell. The jury had deliberated for a mere three and a half hours.
“Guilty on all counts.”
Jared smiled as he walked to his Pervert Car and drove back toward his house, where he walked inside and was gleefully greeted by his son, who asked, “Did you catch the pirate, Daddy?”
“Yes, we did,” Jared said as they fell onto the couch to play video games together. “We caught the pirate.”