CHAPTER 24


   The angry shouts were quite frantic until Jake walked in the screen door. Then the commissary exploded with even more anger as Jake stopped in front of the tables and faced everyone else. Norm slipped in right after that but, he stayed as far out of the way as possible. He had even given Jake the few seconds lead because he wanted to make sure if bullets started flying, then he would still be outside and near adequate cover. Fortunately, all anyone did was yell at Jake.
Jake’s voice raised above all the others and he angrily tossed it right back in their faces, “are we done?” The shouting slowly trailed off to a few angered rumbles before Jake told everyone, “good. Now you’re all pissed at me. That’s fine and you’ll get over it. In fact, I’ll give you a chance to get over it. Anybody that wants to kick my ass, you have my permission to try.”
Jake looked at the eyes that were looking back at him. He was really hoping one of them would try. It was not because he wanted to hurt anybody and Jake was pretty sure he could take anybody in the room. What he was really hoping to see was that fire, some anger, someone with guts. Calvin sure didn’t have it but, then again, he got off easy today. Jake had suspected that Garcia might do something but, the guy just looked away and sat there. Jake did find that Amy was looking at him. Her eyes were scornful and she would not break contact but, she was only thinking and none of those thoughts were about violence. Jake didn’t even bother to read Bob.
The only person in the room that was even considering it, appeared to be Leslie and she had the least reason to try. Maybe that was why she did nothing but sit on the back counter and grin. No, Jake thought, she was not making a move because she estimated that her chances of taking him down were not good. Besides that, she also seemed to be only interested in trying for fun. Jake figured he was safe there too.
“Since nobody wants to try,” Jake told them.
Cal spoke up for everybody who nodded as he told Jake, “we just want to know what the hell is going on?” Calvin looked to Norman, “why did you want us to follow Jake?” Then he looked back to Jake, “and did you have anything to do with what happened to Amy and Gar? What about Bob?”
Jake remained stern, “I am taking it from your question that you didn’t tell anybody about what you had to do to get Amy and Garcia out of the lock up.”
“How would you,” Calvin suddenly realized he had the answer to his question and did not care to confirm anything else, “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
Garcia mumbled, “that’s a story I got to hear.” Then he spoke up a little louder and with an edge of anger, “and I bet it has something to do with a little freckle faced brunette named Betsy.”
“As a matter of fact it did,” Jake told them point blank. “Her name is Betsy Fry. She’s a twenty-two year old farm girl from Iowa.” In reality, she was from Chicago but, Iowa sounded better.
Then Bob asked, “what’s an Iowa?”
So much for that. Jake also did not bother to tell them that she was a corporal in the US Marine Corps. “This little girl out smarted every single one of you. Yeah I gave her the basic guidelines but I left the details entirely up to her. She waved red flags in front your faces, one after the other. None of you saw it. You just kept right on and that’s why every last one of you failed, miserably.”
Leslie was still perky and she pointed out from the back of the room, “except for me.”
Jake snarled at her, “you got lucky. That’s all.”
Amy was still fuming when she asked, “why would you do this to us?”
“Oh,” Jake singled her out with a point, “ are you pissed Agent Hiller? GOOD!” It was not only Amy who flinched when he said that. Then Jake asked, “if you’re that mad why don’t you come up here and kick my ass? Right now!” There was nothing that followed but silence.
Jake watched heads bow and then he said, “this was a training exercise. You may be pissed at me now but, I don’t care. I would rather, you be pissed at me and alive, than dead, just because I’m as lousy at doing my job as all of you are at yours. Agent Nguyen already had to pay that price. Next time we might not be so lucky. Next time it’ll be a coffin and a flag and how many of our friends do we want to bury? Cause, in case you haven’t figured it out, if you fuck up with the people we’re playing with, it won’t be a fatal embarrassment, it’ll be just plain fatal.”
In contrast to everyone else, Calvin was only half cowering in his seat instead of all the way. That was why he was the one to ask, “so was there an actual point to all this?”
“Yeah,” Jake sternly replied, “that it’s time to pull your head out of your ass. Everybody.” Jake then pulled a set of keys out his pocket and tossed them to Bob, “your car’s parked outside.” He then walked out the door and slammed it behind him.
The room erupted into angered shouts once more. This time they were directed at Norm who was still standing by the door with his arms crossed. He just shrugged at the accusations being thrown his way and he told them, “if I was you people. I wouldn’t be worrying about what it is me and Jake been doing. That coffin he was just talking about, it might be yours.” Norm left by the same door as Jake.
Leslie happily slid down off her counter and was practically skipping back towards the stairs. She made a sly comment for all to hear. The cocky attitude was just oozing from her lips, “I knew it was all bullshit. Night gang.”
When Leslie was gone Amy sneered and then mumbled, “bitch.”
In the parking lot, Norm stopped next to the station’s cars and leaned up against the closest one. He watched Jake who was just watching the station and listening to the commotion that was still clearly audible way out here. Norm dropped his head, shook it, and then told Jake, “you damn lucky they didn’t shoot your ass. For that matter, you damn lucky they didn’t shoot me too. Cause I done told you Jake, you get my ass killed and I’m taking you with me.”
Jake did not respond so Norman pointed out, “you know, it might have gone down a little better if we’d told them the whole story.”
Now Jake did speak and his voice was calm and very sure, “they’re not ready yet.” Then Jake had a light bulb go off in his head. He reached in to the back of a station car and retrieved a hand full of folders that he tossed to Norm, “take them home and add them to your garage collection. I had ‘em printed out cause I know how much you love electronics. Guess you can tell Darcy they’re her grandmothers good china, or something.”
Norm flipped through the tabs on the folders and quickly saw the pattern, “where the hell did you get these Jake? These are our goddamn personnel files.”
“What?” Jake just shrugged, “I’m the boss and I’m not supposed to have the files on my own people?”
Norm sighed, “yeah, you the boss till Barbara gets back and then she’s going to have a nuclear meltdown when she finds out you been poking around in her office.”
Jake’s eyes were still focused on the light of the screen door. There was still quite a bit of yelling going on in there. He did tell Norm though, “don’t ask where I got ‘em.”
“You on your own with this one Jake,” Norm told him but tossed them in his car window anyway. He then asked Jake, “did we get what we were really after today?”
Now Jake looked at him, “sure did, and I think then some. We had to ad lib our way through some of it but, I think the plan worked like a charm. We managed to spread them out pretty thin.”
“It might be a moot point,” Norm told him. “I think I already know who they are.”
“If you mean Kingsley’s guys,” it was obvious that Jake was not entirely convinced, “they’re just a part of this equation.”
Norm put his hands on hips and asked, “now how the fuck did you know about that?”
“What did he ask you for Norm,” Jake shot back with. “Don’t tell me, he thinks we had a falling out and he wants you to kill me or something like that.”
“As much bullshit as you got me in Jake,” Norm replied in a very serious manner, “Hyrum don’t need to pay me anything to kill you. Just for the record though, no, that wasn’t what he wanted.”
“Oh well,” Jake nodded in return, “too bad. Might have been interesting.”
As Norm walked to the drivers side of his car he added one last thought, “no, what’s going to be interesting is you trying to sleep here tonight.” After opening his car door Norm gave a great big huge smile, and then left without another word.