Blue Eagle

Mira awoke with a start. She looked around in panic, trying to catch her breath. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a mid-sized sedan, a man sat in the driver’s seat next to her. “Woah, you’re okay, you were dreaming,” said the man, putting his hand on her shoulder. A strange feeling of déjà vu flooded her body giving her chills. It took nearly a minute to collect herself. She strained her memory to try and recall the dream she was having; the details seemed to have left her the moment she had awoken. She could still feel it though, an overwhelming feeling of panic. She shook her head, it felt like it had been split open. She took a deep breath and turned her attention to what was outside of the car. The blinding light of the morning sun was flooding in through the window. A shadow swept across the road causing her to look up, a blue eagle flew across the sun. It was the most unusual and beautiful bird she had ever witnessed. She was able to follow it with her eyes for a brief moment before shielding them with her hand. She removed her hand and looked up again hoping to catch another glimpse, but it had gone as quickly as it had appeared. A blue eagle, she had never heard of such a thing, it had to be a figment of her imagination left over from the dream. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“How long was I out?” She said, turning to look at the man sitting next to her.

“Half hour, you were tossing and turning for a while there, looked like you were having a nightmare,” James handed her a cup of coffee.

“How’d you get this?” She asked. He pointed across the street at a small coffee shop.

She stared at James’ profile as they sipped their coffees. She hadn’t really stopped to look at him for some time. He appeared much older than she had remembered. The hair and goatee that used to be speckled with gray was now mostly white with black peppered in. The bags around his bloodshot eyes gave him the look of a man who had been under a large amount of stress for an extended period of time; the job was getting to him. Mira and James were FBI agents for the Bureau’s antiterrorism task force. James was one of the best agents in the history of the Bureau. He was the agent all other agents aspired to be. He was highly intelligent, athletic, and street smart. His patience, calm demeanor, and wisdom led many of the agents to refer to him simply as “Zen.”

Mira pulled her visor down and looked into the small mirror on the inside. She didn’t look much better. She stared into her own eyes for a moment, she had aged beyond her years the same way James had. She was twenty years younger than James, but in the same mold. Mira was top of her class, in excellent shape, and carried a chip on her shoulder, a thirst to prove herself. The FBI had paired them up almost nine years ago, they took to each other almost instantly. Mira had never had much of a family, her father had passed away when she was very young, too young to remember. Her mother was absent at best. James became somewhat of a father figure to Mira, and James saw her as something like a daughter.

They had been watching a large warehouse half a block away. Three years ago, weapons grade uranium went missing from a US government stockpile that officially didn’t exist. Initially it had been written off as something of a clerical error, however, intelligence began to uncover information it may be in use by a group of unnamed domestic terrorists. The risk level was now the highest it had ever been. James and Mira had barely slept. After chasing cold leads and dead ends for months, they finally received some reliable intel almost a day ago. The threat of a nuclear device being in play was now more than likely. Mira remembered the initial feeling of panic; the horror of learning the truth. Using the intel of one of Mira’s most trusted informants, they had arrived at a warehouse in New Jersey, just across the river from downtown Manhattan.

“Are you coming to dinner Sunday?” James asked, cutting the tension.

“Is Natalie cooking this time?” Mira asked.

“You don’t like my cooking?” James asked smiling. “My wife loves you Mira, you know that right?” He said, turning to look at her. Mira was somewhat taken aback. She stared at him for a moment, taking it in. James looked back out toward the warehouse; a car pulled up; a man stepped out.

“I’m getting closer, we need a better look,” James said, getting out of the car. She heard James’ voice in her ear buds, “All agents, hold position, wait for my signal.” Mira watched as he casually made his way toward the warehouse sipping his coffee. In several minutes, he was at the front. He peered through one of the windows, then moved to another, before stopping at the front door and turning to look at Mira.

“Don’t do it,” Mira whispered, her eyes glued to James. She knew what he would do. He opened the door and slipped in, “Dammit,” she said, shaking her head. She stepped out of the car and began walking toward the warehouse. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest as she walked. Her ear buds echoed, “MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!” Gunshots rang out from the direction of the warehouse; flashes of light lit the windows. Mira’s heart seemed to stop for a moment before thumping harder than she had ever felt it. She froze in her place for fraction of second before breaking into a run, knowing other agents would be converging on the building. She stopped at the front door, removing her gun from its holster before going in.

The lights went out, bringing the room into almost complete darkness. Only small chinks of light seeped in from the heavily tinted windows. It was nearly impossible to see what may be lurking in the darkness. Mira stopped just inside the door, stepping behind a nearby shelf, her gun out in front, knowing the building’s generator would kick on any moment. More gunshots rang out from deep in the warehouse. Her mind moved to James. Why had she allowed him to go in alone? If he was hurt, it was her fault.

The generator lights kicked on. They were dim and spread out twenty feet apart, high on the walls along the ceiling. The ceiling was high, about forty feet up. The lights gave the room an orange glow. She moved forward, quickly, but carefully, her gun out in front. The room was roughly the size of football field, full of equipment, containers, and boxes, but seemingly empty of people. She cleared the room in matter of minutes, stopping at a door on the far end. More shots rang out. She turned the knob and slipped in, entering a narrow hallway, a body lay on the floor at the other end. She moved down the hall, her gun pointed toward the door. She identified the body; it was an agent she knew. She slipped and looked down; a pool of blood covered the floor. She bent down, checking his vitals, no pulse. Her heart beat harder still.

Mira moved around the warehouse, down small hallways and through larger rooms for several minutes that felt like hours, her heart pumping. On two more occasions she heard single gunshots and thought only of James and getting to him. She attempted to speak to him several times through their coms, but heard only white noise. She arrived in another hallway; another body lay on the floor. She moved passed, another agent. She stepped over the body without checking the vitals this time; the silence told her what she needed to know.

Mira turned the doorknob slowly, trying hard not to make a sound; her heart beat fast, her hand shook, her breathing heavy. She inched the door open, leading into the doorway with her gun out in front. Something hard hit her in the back of the head. She dropped her gun and fell to one knee. Her vision blurred; her head felt as though it had been split open. She heard her gun kicked away. She put her hand up to the back of her head feeling the wet, warmth of what she knew to be blood. She looked back, a man stood over her with a pipe, his face blurred by the blow to the head. He threw the pipe to the side; she could hear the clang of metal reverberate off the walls as the pipe hit the floor. The man drew his gun from its holster and pointed it in her direction. “I’m so sorry Mira.”

Mira shook her head in disbelief and closed her eyes, trying to dull the pain. “No,” she whispered. Even with her eyes closed she could feel her vision returning to normal, but she kept them shut tight. She couldn’t look. The truth she knew to be was her imagination. As long as she didn’t look, it wouldn’t be real. She could hear the screeching of a chair moving across the floor some ten feet away.

“You have to look up Mira, you have to open your eyes,” the man spoke. Mira knew she couldn’t keep the truth hidden. She used every ounce of strength she had to open her eyes. She stared at the floor for another moment, before turning her head in the direction of the voice. James sat in a wooden chair some ten feet away, leaning over, his arms resting on his knees, his gun pointed lazily toward the floor.

“It can’t be you…I don’t understand. James, what is this?” Her voice shook as she spoke. James looked down at the floor for a moment and took a deep breath before speaking again.

“I tried so hard to keep you away. I used every ounce of cunning I possess. I knew you wouldn’t give up. You’re too good,” he responded, attempting to avoid her eyes.

“I don’t understand,” she repeated, attempting to get to her feet.

“Don’t do that,” James said quickly. She ignored him, continuing to try and stand. It happened in the blink of an eye, the bang, a flash of light. Mira screamed, sharp, excruciating pain shot through the top of her knee as it buckled, and she fell to the floor. She began breathing heavily again, her heart beating fast. She reached down placing her hand over her knee, the same wet warmth she had felt at the back of her head, she couldn’t look. “Don’t do that again, stay down,” James pleaded.

Mira crawled over to the wall and sat with her back against it. She removed her jacket and wrapped it tightly over her knee, trying to reduce the flow of blood now spreading across the floor. “You’re relentless. You tracked the device down to this warehouse. You didn’t know exactly where it was and maybe you weren’t even sure what it was, but you knew something was here. Once you told me you thought a bomb was in play and you may have found a location, I had to act. We don’t leave anything to chance, Mira.”

“What is this?” She asked. Her only chance was to keep him talking. A backup tactical team would be here in minutes.

“If you’re hoping for tactical, I’m sorry. Their entry points are rigged with explosives, I know where they’ll come in, I practically wrote the book, Mira.”

“That’s a dozen men James, men with wives, sons, daughters.”

“I know,” he whispered, tears appeared to be forming in his eyes.

“Who are you?” Mira asked. She felt as though she were in a dream, she had to be. This wasn’t James.

“I’m a concerned patriot, from a large group of concerned patriots,” he responded, standing up to pace to the room. “We’re tired Mira, we’ve been tired for a long time.”

“You’re a terrorist.”

“For lack of better term.” James looked into her eyes for the first time. An understanding flooded her mind.

“The bomb isn’t in the warehouse, it’s in the coffee shop, isn’t it?” Mira whispered.

“I don’t know exactly where it is, but yes, I think somewhere in the coffee shop,” James said. “If you want to destroy Manhattan, it makes more sense to put the bomb across the river. No one is looking in New Jersey.” He continued, “To be honest though, I don’t know exactly where. It’s supposed to be that way, the less any one of us knows the better.”

“What organization is this? How many of you are there?”

“We don’t have a name, and I don’t know for sure, but I think there are hundreds of thousands of us. We communicate in small groups. We’re spread out all over the country. FBI agents, local cops, government, factory workers, postal workers.”

“There’s no way. No way we would miss an organization that big. I don’t believe it.” She thought about her informant. “My informant, I’ve used him a hundred times.”

“One hundred truths, all so he could tell you one lie. You had to trust him.” He paced in silence for a moment before stopping to look at Mira again. He was grappling with something. “This has been in the works for decades Mira, I don’t know exactly how long. We’ve been slowly infiltrating every system and entity we needed. We’re in everything. I’ve been investigating myself for three years,” James stopped to look at Mira for a moment. “I don’t really know how many other teams there are, I was assigned to just this bomb.” Mira’s eyes widened in horror.

“Just this bomb?” She repeated. “There are more?”

“Somewhere around a dozen more nuclear, several dozen non-nuclear. They’re spread out all over the US and its territories, major cities, landmarks. The bombs are in everything, couches, the walls of new buildings, coffee shops. Mine is supposed to go off sometime today.” Thoughts flooded through Mira’s head. All of the possible approaches she could take, all of the scenarios and options, all seemed less likely to work than the previous. She had only one chance.

“None of them have gone off yet James, we can still stop this. Think about all of the lives this will end, think about your daughter.”

“I AM THINKING ABOUT MY DAUGHTER!” James yelled, startling Mira, she had never seen him lose control like this. It was like looking at someone else, into different eyes. “The system is broken Mira. The government hasn’t been on the side of the people for quite some time now. A bunch of bureaucrats and con artists out for themselves while people suffer, good people, people who shouldn’t suffer. We’re going to change that.”

“So, the plan is to kill tens of millions of people? That’s your fix?”

“It’s not a ‘fix,’ you can’t fix something this big, this ingrained, this broken, you have to destroy it and build something else. There is no other way.”

“This is insane James,” Mira said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“The government is insane. The system is insane. The people trying to fix it are insane. New insane people, same insane methods. It doesn’t work,” he paused, “I don’t want to kill anyone, I never did, but there is no other way. Progress does not exist without sacrifice.” He pointed his gun at Mira’s head.

“Why kill me? The bomb is going off anyway,” Mira said, a wave of panic flowing through her body once more.

“You know where the bomb is, we don’t take chances, no matter how small.” James said as he turned the gun on Mira, tears streaming down his face, he took a deep breath. Fear flooded through Mira once more, but she stared straight into his eyes, defiantly, refusing to blink. If he was going to kill her, she was not going to make it easy. She felt her breathing become more rapid; her heart beating fast. Then she saw it, something she had seen a thousand times but never really noticed; the tattoo of a small blue eagle on James’ forearm, his daughter’s name etched underneath it. A sudden feeling of familiarity flowed through her body causing her mouth to drop and her gaze to soften. “I’m so sorry Mira.” Mira tilted her head slightly to one side; she had been here before. Mira’s eyes moved to the barrel of the gun. James squeezed the trigger, a flash of light.

Mira awoke with a start. She looked around in panic, trying to catch her breath. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a mid-sized sedan, James sat in the driver’s seat next to her. “Woah, you’re okay, you were dreaming,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. A strange feeling of déjà vu flooded her body giving her chills. It took nearly a minute to collect herself. She strained her memory to try and recall the dream she had just awoken from. She couldn’t remember most of what she was dreaming about, most of the details had left her the moment she had awoken. She could still feel it though, the overwhelming feeling of panic. She shook her head, it felt like it had been split open. She noticed a sharp pain near her knee and reached down to massage it. She took a deep breath. She turned her attention to what was outside of the car. The blinding light of the morning sun was flooding in through the window. A shadow swept across the road causing her to look up, a blue eagle flew across the sun.