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Epilogue
It was now early summer, and temperatures had already surpassed the 90-degree mark. This, of course, emboldened all of the climate change worry warts, but to Tim Hall, it was just another hot day. Much too hot for the sports jacket he was wearing, so he decided to take it off.
Hot summer days did give Baltimore a certain aroma that reminded Tim of his first summer living there. In his mind, Tim felt that he left Baltimore a long time ago, but it had really only been three months. “Time sure flies when you’re having fun, or something like it,” Tim used to joke, but in reality, the passage of time scared him. Because of this, he’d recently made a commitment to himself to appreciate all of the time that was left in his life.
As Tim walked to the Blue Goose Barbecue, he noticed that nothing much had changed in the neighborhood. Baltimore was like that. No matter how hard anyone tried to improve the city, most of it pretty much stayed the same. Baltimore did not have the success of Brooklyn, NY, for example, which had become a very hip place to live. Maybe this was because Baltimore lived in the shadow of Washington, D.C., except for the notoriety the city received from the numerous TV shows that cited the bad things about Baltimore: the drugs, the murders, and the racial tension. However, the city was also home to some of the best medical facilities in the world, and the people who lived in Baltimore loved the place and were proud of it. DC, on the other hand, was considered by many to be just an outpost, a place you went to just to get your ticket punched. A place where you spent a couple of years before moving on to wherever you really wanted to live. That was the city’s reputation that could never be changed.
As Tim entered the Goose, none of the regulars seemed to recognize him. Tim had cleaned himself up somewhat with a new haircut, and now he was shaving every day. He’d also taken to wearing many of the clothes from his closet at the safe house. His late wife had purchased much of Tim’s wardrobe over the years, and she’d of course had immaculate taste.
Referring to Pam as his late wife did leave Tim with a strange feeling of loss. Somehow, when he’d believed that Pam was dead the first time, he’d had a kind of numb feeling about it. Tim’s new doctor had explained that this was the result of all the drugs he’d been given; now that he was essentially drug free, all sorts of emotions had returned.
“Secret Agent Tim?” It was Randy, the man who’d said new kidneys could be grown from stem cells. “Professor, where have you been? We all thought you must have died or something.”
Tim was not sure what “or something” might mean, but he decided to let it go. “Oh, I just needed to take care of some family business with my uncle. May I buy you a drink, Randy?”
“Well, you know I’m just a fellow who can’t say no,” Randy replied.
A young man who Tim had not seen before walked behind the bar. “Professor?” Randy said. “Meet Jim. He’s Mary Ann’s cousin from Ohio.”
Randy suddenly looked concerned. He directed his gaze toward a framed picture of Mary Ann that was behind the bar. “You do know that happened, don’t you?”
The regulars had made a memorial to Mary Ann. Over the picture, someone had placed a sign that said:
Mary Ann Layback
1976 to 2018
Under that was a story from a newspaper with the headline:
Three Die in Horrific Accident on Point of Rocks Bridge
The news article listed the names of Pam Hall, Sebastian Oak, and Mary Ann Layback, but made no mention of Toby Wheeler. Tim wondered about that and if Mary Ann, or Special Agent Mary Ann Wilson as she was now known, would tell him the reason. The FBI was as anal retentive as usual.
The new bartender and owner of the Goose walked over and introduced himself. “Hi, Jim Jones. And you are?”
“My name is Tim Hall. I’m a regular, but I’ve been away.”
“So, you’re Tim Hall?” the new bartender repeated.
“The one and only.”
He smiled. “My cousin Mary Ann told me all about you. I hope you won’t be a stranger.”
“She did?” Tim asked, now knowing that Jim was full of shit.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, my dad, Mary Ann’s uncle, would love to hear from you.” He handed Tim a business card with a phone number on the back. It had a 703-area code, which was the same as CIA Headquarters in Langley.
“Thanks, Jim,” Tim said pleasantly. “I’ll be sure to give him a call.”
“Thank you, Tim. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
Not if I can help it, Tim thought to himself.
Tim bought a round of drinks for everyone at the Goose in honor of the late Mary Ann Layback and started back to his condominium. He did not mention to anyone at the Goose that he would be moving from Baltimore back to Virginia. That would have of resulted in too many questions. It would be better if he were just to disappear, but he did hand Randy one of his new official business cards from his employer, The Central Intelligence Agency. Tim saw Randy showing his card to one of the other regulars as he walked out the door.
“Is that you, my darling?” a voice called as Tim entered his condo.
“The one and only,” Tim said again as he followed the sound of the voice.
Mary Ann, now officially known as Special Agent Mary Ann Wilson of the FBI, was on a stepladder in the kitchen going through the cabinets one more time. Mary Ann had taken charge of moving Tim from Baltimore to the safe house in Virginia. She had also taken charge of removing Pam’s belongings from the house on Lovettsville Rd, including Pam’s wardrobe and personal effects. Mary Ann was able to do all of that within three days. She was incredibly good at searching and organizing, telling Tim that FBI management often requested her when a search warrant was served. “It’s one of my specialties,” she joked.
Tim had been correct when he surmised that Mary Ann was working undercover when Sebastian entered the picture and that her handlers had told her to maintain her cover to see where it would lead. However, she still would not reveal to Tim why she’d been investigating Toby Wheeler in the first place. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” was all that she would say about the matter.
Mary Ann also confessed to Tim that she did not believe he was a spy either which was the real reason she started the fist fight with him that day at the Blue Goose.
“When I reported that to Sebastian” Mary Ann said “He told me that you were a dangerous man but I’m still not sure Tim. Are you?”
“Well I guess you will just have to find that out for yourself” Tim replied not sure why Mary Ann still doubted his abilities to handle himself.
“By the way, you’ve been replaced at the Goose,” Tim said as he opened a Coke Zero.
“Really? By who?”
“Some young good-looking guy named Jim Jones, if you can believe that name.”
“Hmm. Well, I don’t think he’s FBI. Probably one of your guys. After all, Sebastian owned the place.”
Tim agreed that Jim Jones was probably CIA. After all, the Agency operated lots of different businesses.
Mary Ann, meanwhile, went back to her searching and cleaning.
She no longer looked like the biker chick he had fallen for over six months ago. Mary Ann had cut her hair, so it was slightly below her shoulders and washed out the red highlights, returning it to her natural color of chestnut brown. Gone also were all of her biker clothes and the heavy mascara. If Tim had taken Mary Ann over to the Goose, most of her regulars probably would not have recognized her.
The real Mary Ann Wilson also no longer sounded like biker chick Mary Ann. She now spoke in more soft and measured tones, which oddly enough made her sound like Tim’s late wife Pam. That all said, Mary Ann’s feelings toward Tim had not changed in the slightest. She loved him deeply and was not ashamed to let anyone know it. FBI management was not pleased that Mary Ann had started a sexual relationship while working undercover, but when that was mentioned during her debriefing, Mary Ann simply stated that she would quit rather than give up her relationship with Tim. This effectively called the FBI’s bluff, and the subject was never mentioned again. Mary Ann seemed to be a sort of poster child for women in the new and modern FBI, and the last thing anyone needed was for her to quit.
Tim wondered what the real story was between Mary Ann and Toby. After all, they were supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend. However, Mary Ann had explained that Toby’s steroid abuse had essentially rendered him a eunuch. Tim hoped that Mary Ann was telling him the truth, but he had been finding that she would often tell Tim what he wanted to hear as opposed to the truth. Tim was letting that go for the time being, but he knew that Mary Ann’s tendency to lie would be a problem down the road. Well, what else was new? Pam lied, and now the new girlfriend did, too.
Meanwhile, the President had fully recovered and resumed his war with the media. As a matter of fact, many in the media never believed there was an attempted assassination at all, preferring to think that the entire matter was a giant hoax. The President’s ongoing fight with the media seemed to obscure the fact that a number of CIA and FBI department heads had suddenly decided to retire after the assassination plot was exposed. The press just assumed that these agency heads were leaving because they could no longer work for a President “unqualified to hold office.” This phrase was the media’s new angle on the President, and they were repeating it ad nauseam.
Often, things happened in the nation’s capital for entirely different reasons than the official statements said, and this was certainly not the first time that the media missed a story that happened right under their noses. It actually happened a lot more than anybody in the press corps would like to admit.
Meanwhile, the Agency head who’d been working under the pseudonym Bob Ajacks and who had visited the safe house happened to die in a traffic accident on the GW Parkway. That rated a small article in the Metro section of the Washington Post. The man’s name was mentioned along with where he lived, but nothing else. He would soon be forgotten. Sebastian Oak and Pam Hall would also be forgotten. Officially, they would be classified as having been killed in the line of service, but Tim doubted that either would receive a star on the Memorial Wall at Langley.
Tim was never able to determine how deeply Sebastian and Pam were involved in the conspiracy, yet just being aware of it and not acting to stop it was bad enough and would get you a number of years in a Super-Max. Tim’s guess regarding the kind of poisons used was just pure luck on his part. Pam and Sebastian were probably going to take credit for saving the President, which was another good reason Tim and Mary Ann would need to be killed on the bridge.
Even now, Tim was still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that his wife had every intention of killing him. He had thought from the beginning that Sebastian and Toby were planning to kill him, but he’d really wanted to believe that Pam was on his side. Tim often confused sex with love—but just because Pam had fucked Tim a couple of times over that weekend did not mean that she still loved him.
In regard to the Bitcoin account, Tim was still considering what he should do about it, if anything. Although he did not have Pam’s or Sebastian’s PIN numbers, he could probably find them. But Tim had inherited Pam’s entire estate and now had more money than he would ever need. The accountants and lawyers couldn’t give him an exact total as of yet, but Tim would never need to worry about not having enough money again. This all made the Bitcoin account kind of a moot point...and besides, explaining where you came up with $80 million to the Agency and the IRS would be a problem.
Still, it was something that Tim would need to think over. Perhaps the money could even be used for something good.
Finished with his musings, Tim walked up behind Mary Ann and wrapped his arms around her waist. He could feel the Glock 9mm holstered on her hip. “It’s going to take me some time to get used to this extra appendix,” he remarked as he kissed Mary Ann on her neck.
“Oh, I can always take it off if you want to play cops and robbers,” she replied cheerfully.
“Later on, dear, when we get back to Lovettsville,” Tim said as he hugged her tightly.
Like Pam, Tim had found that Mary Ann had a somewhat kinky side. I must just attract the type, Tim thought.
Mary Ann had accepted a training position at the FBI Academy located in Quantico, Virginia. Quantico was almost a two-hour drive from Lovettsville Road, so Mary Ann had arranged to live on campus from Tuesday through Friday. Tim had also arranged clearance for Mary Ann to reside at the safe house on the weekends, as long as she was willing to help entertain some of the guests if the need arose. She was more than happy to do so. Mary Ann, like the late Pam, seemed to enjoy being a cop.
“Do you think my girls can come and visit us at the safe house, Tim?” she asked.
“Sure, I don’t know why not. Just as long as nothing is going on,” Tim replied.
Until recently, Mary Ann had not seen her children for almost two years, and she was concerned that they were forgetting about her. Mary Ann’s ex-husband Dennis was a Battalion Chief with the Cleveland Fire Department, and his wife Sandy was a surgical nurse at the Cleveland Clinic. Mary Ann had a decent relationship with her ex-husband, but she did not trust his wife Sandy whatsoever. “She’s stealing my girls,” Mary Ann bemoaned to Tim...but she also knew that part of this was her own fault. Mary Ann could have remained a detective with the Cleveland PD, but she wanted a career with the FBI, and that meant moving to different cities. Dennis loved his job as a firefighter and had no intention of moving. Besides it was not easy to transfer from one fire department to another. Their divorce had been amicable enough, although Mary Ann thought that her husband could have been more flexible about following her to her new posts. However, she was still a patrol officer with the Cleveland PD when they were married, and Dennis had no idea that Mary Ann planned to become an FBI agent. In the end, Mary Ann had found that, although she might want it all, she wasn’t likely to get it all.
“Are we close to being ready?” Tim asked. “The movers will be here soon.”
“Just one last looksee,” she responded
“Okay. I just want to be back in Virginia by 6 p.m. Darrel, the security guy, is due back tonight, and I would like to speak with him.”
Darrel had survived the gunshot wound to his belly by the skin of his teeth, and the ER doctors credited this to how he’d been prevented from going into shock. That had been all Pam, Tim thought.
“I’m going down to the loading dock to wait for the truck,” he told Mary Ann.
As Tim rode down in the elevator, he reached into his top pocket and pulled out the business card that Jim Jones, the new bartender at the Goose, had given him. Tim dialed the number and waited.
The phone rang one time, and a man answered. “Mr. Hall, we have been expecting your call.” He paused, then added, “Mr. Hall, from time to time, we need men like you to help us out in several matters. My question to you, Tim, is simply: do you want back in?”
Recently Tim had been thinking about love and wondering if he had ever really been in love, or even knew what love really was. He’d thought he loved Pam when they were married, but it was obvious now that she’d never loved him in return. Mary Ann did appear to love Tim, and Tim really did care for Mary Ann and felt that she needed to be protected. But was protecting Mary Ann really love, or was that just the fatherly side of Tim coming out? Tim was once told by a girlfriend that, in every relationship, one person loves, while the other person allows themselves to be loved. Tim wondered if there were relationships where both people loved one another equally. Somehow, he doubted it.
Tim thought that running the safe house would be an excellent way to retire from the Agency, and he looked forward to spending many wonderful weekends there with Mary Ann, but how long would that last? Mary Ann was just 38 years old, and soon she would be going back out into the field. Mary Ann was not the “it’s just a job” type of cop, meaning that she would throw her heart and soul into each new assignment and case. And, although she would not admit it, Mary Ann had already chosen her career over her children. She may not like her ex-husband’s wife Sandy, but she really should be grateful that Sandy was willing to raise her two daughters.
“I want back in,” Tim said to the voice on the other end of the line.
The man began to laugh. “Mr. Hall, you still don’t get it. You never left.”
Tim hung up the phone.
The door opened behind Tim, and out came Mary Ann. She gave Tim a massive hug. “You and I are going to have a great life, honey. Just you wait and see,” she said.
Tim took hold of her shoulders and turned Mary Ann around, so she was facing him, then gave her the longest and most passionate kiss he had ever given a woman.
“Mary Ann, we are beginning a journey, and where that will take us is anyone’s guess—but there is no one I would rather take it with,” he answered.
“Gosh, Tim,” Mary Ann whispered. “You took the words right out of my mouth.” She laughed. “Now kiss me again like you mean it.”
And he did.
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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR,
Thank you for reading The Adults in the Room. If you enjoyed my book, please take a minute and provide a rating and a short review (if applicable). Your opinion is very valuable to other readers and to me.
Once again thank you for reading Adults in the Room.
Jeffrey D. Mechling
Copywrite June 2019 by the
The Good as Gone Group LLC
Middleburg, Virginia and Los Angeles, California
All Rights Reserved
Third Printing
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