Jan. 3, 2013
The rental car felt cramped. Even as the radio blasted an Adele song, Justine Rushing couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling of being, well… cramped.
Not physically, because the rental car had phenomenal legroom. Hell, she would drive one herself if she could afford it. But after paying for an overpriced apartment, outrageous student loans, and an ever-growing list of medical expenses, her FBI agent’s salary never seemed to stretch far enough.
If her salary was enough?
Then Justine would have chosen a Mustang. No four-door agency car for her. Three hundred and fifty horsepower of rear wheel drive madness was her preferred mode of travel. Hell, her laptop screensaver was a black 2013 Cobra for God sakes. No. Justine felt cramped in other ways.
Early January and the hills of southern Pennsylvania were, as usual, blanketed with a coating of fresh snow. On her way to someplace called the ‘Wilson Institute,' Justine stared out through the passenger window onto rows and rows of Colorado and Easter White spruce trees. Each one of them evoked memories of her favorite movie, Christmas Vacation.
“Two hours by car, that’s what the GPS came up with, Jeff.” She thumped the radio’s power button, and silence descended. Blah, blah, blah my boyfriend left me, blah. Adele always got on her nerves, especially this time of year. “We should have been there an hour ago. I guess I should have programmed it for Saunders' time.”
Special Agent Jeffrey Saunders turned the radio back on without acknowledging her impudence. In his late forties, with a bit of a gut and just a touch of silver in his hair, Jeffrey had been with the FBI for over twenty years. In contrast, his new partner had only been with the bureau for five. That mathematical distinction not only gave him purview in the field, but in smaller matters like who gets to control the radio.
Besides, Jeffrey Saunders liked Adele. “Why are you in such a hurry all the time?”
“Because” Justine answered in a hushed voice. “I still like my job.”
“What was that?” Knowing full well what she said, Jeffrey wanted her to squirm a little bit. After all, that’s what rookies were supposed to do around senior agents… squirm.
“Nothing, I’m just ready to get this little fetch quest over with and head back to Washington,” she offered weakly. “You know… stuff to do.”
Jeffrey didn’t believe her answer for one minute. In their brief time together, Saunders had reached a decent understanding of his partner’s tells. Like right now, her hesitance to give a concise answer meant she was lying to him. “What’s it this time? Star Trek or Star Wars?”
Her love of science fiction was legendary at the office. Just two months ago, she showed up to the agency Halloween party dressed up as a hairy alien. Only the guy in tech services recognized her costume while the lifers relentlessly gave her shit about it all night long. But she didn’t care. Justine just laughed off their jokes while trying to explain the intricacies of Babylon Five to anyone who would listen.
Factoring in those things, he also knew she didn’t date a great deal. So, the question hung precariously in the air while Justine carefully planned a response. One that would hopefully make her look less like a geek than she already did.
“Paperwork,” she lied, not wanting to change course. “I’ve got tons of paperwork.”
“Really,” Saunders chuckled to himself as he listened to Adele drone on incessantly. “You’ve got tons of paperwork?”
“Yes.” The car speakers peaked as Justine cringed with every long drawn out note. Finally, as if someone was prying loose fingernails during a lengthy interrogation, her resolve broke. “Battlestar,” she relented unwillingly. “Are you happy? I just got the new Blu-rays in this morning, and I had been planning on a long weekend marathon for a month.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Saunders grimaced as the contrast of Justine the person and Justine the personnel file was never farther apart than it was right now. She looked so innocent and harmless sitting there pouting, but he knew better. “You know everyone at the office has a nickname for you, don’t you? They say, “she’s Rushing.”
“That’s not a nickname. That’s my real name.”
Saunders tore his eyes away from the road to linger over the tiny scars which littered her fingers. Beneath her thick down sweater and Gore-Tex jacket, the seasoned agent knew there were more scars hidden away where nobody could see them.
“True, your last name is Rushing. Though, from what I’ve read in your file, it’s clear that ‘rushing’ is not only a moniker. It’s how you seem to treat every dangerous situation. You just rush on in. How many times have you been shot in the last five years?”
“On or off duty?” she asked, sincerely. “Because the numbers are different.”
“That’s not funny, Justine,” Saunders chided the young agent. “A lot of agents go their whole lives without ever having to draw down on a suspect, much less pull the trigger. But your record shows that you’ve been in ten shootouts during the last three years. Ten.”
To an agent creeping up on retirement age, that number was as inconceivable as infinity was to a toddler. That’s why he had requested a transfer to the Washington office a year ago. He and his family were looking forward to a break from the more dangerous parts of his career. A long slow lap to the finish line, that’s how he described it to his wife. And unlike Justine, he loved doing paperwork.
“I’m just…” Justine hesitated for a second, searching for the best way to phrase it. “Look. I like action, always have. I also like helping people, and that means stopping criminals.” The statement was clean and concise, like a tagline from an 80’s action movie. “I won’t apologize for it.”
“And I wouldn’t expect you to,” Saunders conceded. “No one questions your motives or your ability, Justine. Hell, you have just as many commendations as you do reprimands. But admit it. Your choices are starting to come back and bite you. I mean. How does walking around with over thirty broken bones fit into that life statement of yours? You’ve probably got more arthritis pain than I do?”
Not yet, but her ribs were sore. Near the end of last year, just before Christmas, a hostage situation had broken out on the campus of Jones University in northern Virginia. Worried that he was about to be expelled, a 20-year-old student decided it would be beneficial for him to bring a couple of 9mm’s and a shotgun to economics class. To, you know, talk about it.
Fearing another Virginia Tech incident, the bureau mobilized a Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) out of DC in case things got out of hand. Justine hadn’t even been on rotation when the call went out. She just showed up at the heliport and began trading her perfect marksmanship scores for a ride.
Unable to dissuade her and extremely pressed for time, the team leader reluctantly allowed her onto the transport out of Quantico. At first, this was to satiate her enthusiasm. But by the time the helicopter touched down on the campus parking lot, she had been assigned to take point on the breach team.
Part of the rotation or not, the operation went off with textbook precision. Justine entered the classroom and put one in the guy’s shoulder before he could blink. In the scramble though, the gunmen got off a lucky shot from his 12-gauge on the way to the floor. A massacre was averted that day, but the cost to Justine was another trip to the hospital. Still, it could have been worse. She could have not been wearing Kevlar.
“Good days and bad days,” she shifted the seatbelt away from her taped ribs and smiled through the pain. “That’s what you’re always telling me. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, but I’m 49. You’re 27. You should be having nothing but good days.”
“It’s the mileage, not the road.” Justine sighed, hoping that was true. “Right?”
Saunders involuntarily broke out into a smile at his partner’s inexperience. He flipped on the wipers, then the defroster. Swirling snow was beginning to stick to the windshield, and he thought it was better to be safe than sorry. “The road does matter, Justine. For your sake, you should take the one less traveled by so many bad guys.”
Justine rubbed her bruised ribs absent-mindedly. The seatbelt was still digging in at just the wrong angle, and she wished she could unhook the damn thing. “Partner, those roads are dull. Besides,” she sighed again. “With the way you drive, all my wounds will have healed by the time we get there.”
Saunders laughed again, “Wounds maybe, but not the scars.”
“You’re right about that, Jeffrey.” Justine didn’t have to hope to find the truth in that statement. As young as Saunders believed her to be, the fact was her life was full of scars. Some of her own making. While some were placed there by others. “Never the scars.”
Saunders drifted back to the radio to find Maroon 5 singing about jealousy and love. Secretly, Justine thanked God that it wasn’t Adele.
