Chrissie’s eyes widened at the sight of the small velvet box sitting on the plate between them. Its presence sent a barrage of mixed feelings coursing through her. The box represented the culmination of two years of excitement and anticipation which, in the last few months, had melted into an array of ominous despair and regret. Despite the torrent of conflicts assaulting her, Chrissie attempted to keep her face a mask hiding her true feelings.
Jason smiled. His grin relented, as determination seemed to fill his features.
The waitress stood over her two customers, transfixed with anticipation. She stepped back, the smile on her face widening. Jason slipped out of the booth. Two other waitresses stopped serving their tables and watched, along with everyone else in the small balcony dining room, their faces replete with expectation.
He dropped to a knee beside the table. Chrissie glanced around. She felt her face fill with color.
“Jason, what are you doing?”
He picked up the box. It squeaked open. He gazed down upon its contents. The glint from the jewel inside was briefly captured in his deep blue eyes.
He turned it toward her. She saw a massive, round-cut diamond solitaire, glittering in the soft candlelight.
Her countenance brightened. Her eyes sparkled.
“Oh my!”
Jason placed the box on the table and took her hand.
“Will you marry me?”
A rainbow of emotions danced over her delicate features. She felt them ebbing and flowing like surf pounding over the sand before a nor’easter. The other diners all gawked. Jason waited for Chrissie’s response.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. Chrissie wiped away a tear as she lowered her eyes. She took Jason’s hand in both of hers, blinking away more droplets as they overflowed and streamed down her cheeks.
“Oh, Jason,” she whispered.
“Is that a yes?”
Jason eyes never left hers. She stroked the top of his hand with her fingers in rapid, nervous twitches. She felt her brow furrow. A melancholy curtain of dread seeped in. Chrissie’s lower lip fell then began to quiver.
Since they’d nearly been killed two years ago, it had taken forever to reach this point in their lives. At this moment, time slowed, agonizingly so, like frozen syrup.
Jason glanced about, forcing a smile.
“Did she say yes?” one diner whispered.
“Yeah, what did she say?” another chimed.
Jason turned back to Chrissie. His eyebrows lifted, imploring her for an answer.
“Chrissie,” he begged, “everyone’s looking at us. They’re waiting for an answer. I’m waiting for an answer!”
Her head remained motionless. Then as if set in heavy, wet concrete, she began to move it. She saw Jason’s eyes following the tip of her nose. The tip of her perfect, sexy nose shifted a fraction from side to side. Back and forth, it gained momentum, swinging in larger, torturous arcs. Tears streamed along the margins of her delicate nose, dripping unabashed over her lips. She tasted their saltiness. Nevertheless, her mouth and tongue, barren and parched, found great difficulty in forming words. To utter each syllable was a Herculean task. In a choked whisper, Chrissie said, “No … no … no. I can’t!”
Chrissie tried to slide from the booth. Jason did not move, blocking her way.
“Jason, move … please!”
He gazed into her watery, red, swollen eyes. The look of amazement and shock on his face cut her. She had just wounded him more deeply than if she had tried to cut out his heart. His gaze seesawed back and forth between her eyes. He said, “Chrissie … I don’t understand…”
Chrissie reached out and pushed him back, shoving away his hands. She grabbed a cloth napkin, and rattling a cup and saucer, shouldered her way into the aisle and ran.
Jason lowered his head. He remained crouched by the table as Chrissie, descending the stairs, dropped out of sight. He lifted his eyes and glanced around the room.
Faces now registered the embarrassment rippling through him. They looked away, returning to their meals, their heads rigid and bowed, as if restrained by an invisible force field from glancing his way. The waitresses vanished like wisps of fog. A tightening spasm of anxiety clutched his gut.
“Well, don’t just sit there,” someone whispered. “Go after her!”
Jason whipped his head in the direction of the words, trying to absorb them. Seconds evaporated as his mind clutched. Then he stood up, grabbed the ring, and ran.
The Watcher moved his eyes to peer through the darkened cab of his black Cadillac CTS-V into the rearview mirror. The familiar blue van was still there, sitting three hundred yards back on a cross street, masquerading as a plumber’s truck. The three small but noticeable antennae mounted on the roof did not escape his trained eye. He had been aware of their presence for the past several days. It was the Americans monitoring his whereabouts using his cell phone signal. They had been following him, monitoring his actions and communications, for at least the last week and a half.
The covert agent lurched upright from his slumped position behind the wheel of the Caddy. A loud crash from across Boush Street startled him to alertness. That alertness turned to alarm when he saw the Pettigrew woman emerge from the old church-turned-restaurant. The alarm melted into a knowing realization, as a curt smile creased his lips.
She darted down Freemason Street like she was running away from … something or someone. His eyes followed her until she disappeared from sight past a building.
Everything was happening as predicted!
Operation Hygeia was underway. There was no stopping it now. The Watcher was a part of it. And so was Jason Rodgers. The Watcher didn’t have all the details about Rodgers’ unwitting involvement in Hussein’s plan. But he hoped to learn everything very soon.
Rodgers would rendezvous with two men in the next twenty-four hours. The Watcher had called both of them in the last hour to warn them and give them last-minute instruction. These men had been a part, albeit it a miniscule one, of the assassination attempts two years ago. Though neither liked the idea, they would face the pharmacist again very soon. Both men had no choice.
The Watcher killed the engine and exited the Caddy. Stepping off the curb and circling the creaking engine compartment, he was halfway across the street when the door of the restaurant burst open a second time.
It was the pharmacist.
The Watcher pretended to check his watch, an IDF Krav Maga, as Jason Rodgers whipped his head in all directions, searching for the woman. Trying to avoid being spotted, The Watcher turned right, away from the restaurant and Rodgers, toward the Southern Bank and Trust and West Brambleton.
He glanced back over his shoulder and glimpsed Rodgers darting down Freemason after the Pettigrew woman. The Watcher doubled back to the corner and poked his head around the corner of the building. He watched Rodgers march into the restaurant parking lot out of view. A crooked grin slanted up The Watcher’s face as he stepped carefully down Freemason Street.
The Watcher had been following Rodgers, examining and reporting every aspect of the druggist’s life for the last year. His email, phone calls, texts, and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram activity—all were being monitored by his associates, as were those of his girlfriend, Christine Pettigrew, and his son, Michael. The Watcher’s job was to keep eyes on Rodgers. Though he knew what was happening, he could not resist witnessing the carnage. Like watching a car wreck in slow motion.
For Rodgers, however, tonight would feel like a Swedish massage compared with what was to take place in the days to come. The Watcher was a cog in a very delicate machine. A machine manipulating governments, people, and events in the hopes of the right outcome. This covert machine was more delicate than a house of cards, ready to implode if the wind blew in the wrong direction.
For the past twelve months, The Watcher had communicated with his handler through electronic means, updating and apprising weekly. To ensure secrecy, the communications always used coded words and phrases.
At first, his orders had been clear. Monitor and advise. Report movements. Now, his role changed. He was ordered to place items for Rodgers to find. Those items were in the trunk of his Cadillac. They would direct the pharmacist, if all went well, along a predetermined route on a collision course, The Watcher guessed, with Delilah Hussein.
Two weeks ago, The Watcher sent a text in which he purposely used Rodgers and his handler’s real name, Delilah Hussein, rather than their code names. It was a calculated gamble. It was the first and only time The Watcher had breached protocol. But it had been a necessary move.
The misstep would be chastised as a careless mistake. His handler had replied to his text with a stern warning not to repeat the error. A second would result in the end of his participation in Operation Hygeia.
The implications were clear. His life would end violently. But it was part of his job to take such risks. He’d realized it when he signed up.
His gambit had worked. The fact that the plumber’s van was sitting a few hundred yards back and had been following him was evidence that his ployed had worked. He had alerted the Americans. Only time would tell if his risky move would payoff. If it did, he might just be able to save the lives of Christine Pettigrew and Michael Rodgers. And he would prevent Jason Rodgers’s life from being totally ruined. More importantly, The Watcher might be able to prevent something much worse.
The pharmacist was involuntarily involved in a plot against his own country. If The Watcher was a piece in this chess match, it was as a medially-powered one, perhaps a bishop or a knight. Jason Rodgers’s role was that of the lowly pawn. As in many chess matches, the role of the weakest piece could be the most vital. Once most of the pieces were removed from the board, it was how a player manipulated one or two pawns that determined success or failure.
The target of Operation Hygeia was still a mystery, as were the how and when. The Watcher only knew that it existed and was underway. As he gazed at Jason Rodgers’s back striding toward the ashen-faced Christine Pettigrew, he pushed his fedora tighter onto his head, hoping this pawn could lead him to answers.
Jason caught up with Chrissie as she reached his Mustang.
“Chrissie, what the hell is going on?”
“I can’t marry you!”
“What! Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all along? Isn’t it what we’ve talked about for two years?”
Her face, covered with angled streaks of mascara and tears smeared by swipes with her hand, seemed to have shrunk. The cheeks were hollow. Her skin was drained of color. Her autumn locks fell on either side of her narrow face like steel curtains. She studied the pavement, refusing to look up.
She shook her head again, with greater emphasis than in the restaurant. “I can’t marry you right now, Jason.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re not the same man I knew. You’re hiding something.”
“What are you talking about?”
Chrissie lifted her eyes, meeting his.
“Take me home,” she whispered.
“Tell me what’s going on first.”
“No. I don’t want to do this here.”
The finality in her voice caused a sharp stabbing pain in his chest. He sucked in a long breath and forced it out as he looked to the murky sky above.
“You don’t want to do what here?”
“You didn’t pay for dinner, Jason.”
Jason scoffed. “That’s my Chrissie. Always taking care of business … and avoiding the topic at hand.”
Jason called the restaurant and asked for the waitress who had served them. He explained that he would not be returning. She took a credit card number and he included a sizable tip.
“I hope everything works out,” the waitress said, her voice professional but concerned.
He ended the call and directed his next statement at Chrissie. “Now tell me why you can’t marry me.”
“Take me home!”