His Super Power was Obvious

The FBI team had been waiting in the most god-awful ugly unmarked cars in the parking lot of Home Depot in what was any town U.S.A. Agent Xavier Yates couldn’t keep cities like this straight anymore. The same tree-lined streets of sleepy suburbia leading to a plethora of retail waiting to soak up whatever money could be squeezed by the surrounding residents who flocked to these places like moths to a flame. Even the bad guys blurred together.

“Hey, YoLo, wake up,” his partner Axe pointed at the entryway. “There goes our guy.”

Yates noted the time. Every Saturday at 7:03, right on the dot, seven Saturdays in a row. “This guy has to be up to something.”

“I don’t get it though. Why make a drop at Home Depot?”

They’d been through this enough times over the seven friggin weeks he’d been sitting in the car watching a man they thought was smuggling secrets to China.

The intel lined up. His job, the top-secret projects he was working on, and his connections. A couple of his cohorts had already been taken in and pointed the finger at him. Yates heard the words of his grandfather, his idol, a JAG back when ‘we took care of things,’ the old man would say not with a wink but a look Xavier would later come to understand. “There is no honor among thieves.” And all this could be a snipe hunt.

Axe flipped the door locks and the men exited the car, passed a list from one to the other as they discussed the building of a fictional deck in the back yard of a fictional house with a fictional family. Last week it was a playhouse. If only all this shit they discussed was real, Yolo might eventually find an almost real family.

In their ears, they heard the team check-in. Mickey added, “for the love of all thing’s holy, can we finally get this guy?”

“I’m with ya,’ Axe answered, pausing to pull a cart from the row before they entered the building.

“Let’s go see, …” Xavier turned towards lumber with Axe right behind him. 

“Five bucks says he’s there.” 

Xavier didn’t take the bait. Of course the guy was there, exactly where he’d been every Saturday for the past seven weeks and the last two Saturdays Xavier and Axe had walked passed him pushing a cart looking for lumber for a fictional project in the fictional yard of a fictional family.

Today he paused at the small table set up a few feet away from the saw where customers waited to have long pieces of wood cut down to smaller pieces and a large coffee pot waited with fresh coffee and what he considered to be a very nice disposable cup. The condiments were plentiful and the counter stayed surprisingly clean considering this was a man’s area of a man's store. 

The man he’d been watching was stirring fresh cream into an extra-large cup. Xavier knew he would pour two packets of brown cane sugar next and use a long wooden stick to stir for nearly 30 seconds before he’d toss the stick in the trash, take two sips, and put a lid on it.

Then the man would browse the isles for approximately 30 minutes and leave without buying anything.

This had to be where he was making the drop. Why else would anyone spend an hour every Saturday morning in Home Depot?

Axe and Xavier discussed their list as they let their man leave the lumber section and walk into the hands of their team placed around the store. There would be eyes on him every second, no way would they miss whatever he left here today.

Xavier pulled two by fours and four by sixes from their places on the racks and put them onto the cart. “How much should we buy?” The stack of crap they bought every week was beginning to become a problem in the small space they were cramped into while waiting for this guy to slip up. 

“Get four of each, we’ll figure it out.” 

Along with the wood, they bought cement, footings, nails, and brackets. Xavier had to laugh at the list, he really could start building a deck with this stuff. Maybe he should start looking for a house around here.

The radio’s in their ears crackled, their man had made a move. The team was closing in. 

“What’s the location?” Xavier spoke into the microphone threaded into the vest underneath the long-sleeved plaid shirt he wore as part of the undercover look. They hustled to the garden section on the other side of the store. Axe left the cart in the lighting aisle and confused greeter by asking him to keep an eye on it for him and didn’t wait for an answer.

The target was picking over the indoor houseplants, a 4” pot with an overgrown spider plant in one hand, the coffee in his other, completely oblivious to the men beginning to close in on him.

“Sir,” Axe started the dialogue. 

The man stood up straight before taking a sip, he didn’t answer Axe. 

Axe showed the man his badge, “Sir, my name is Agent Kinder. I’d like to ask you some questions.” 

Axe motioned he wanted the man to go with him, even reaching for his elbow to get him moving before other shoppers started to notice.

The man set the plant down and went with the Agents without causing a scene, Xavier thought he seemed like he was still shopping as they walked through the outdoor garden section to the parking lot.

***

Inside the temporary offices at the empty end of what once was a bustling outdoor mall, the man settled into the folding chair like it was a recliner. Considering the situation he was in, he remained remarkably calm. 

Xavier and Axe entered the room, taking their seats on the other side of the table. Xavier offered the man water, “or,” he said, “another cup of coffee.”

“No,” the man held up his cup from Home Depot. “Thanks, I’m good. It’s the only reason I go to Home Depot. This has got to be the best coffee around. And, it’s free.”

The man didn’t notice the Agent’s faces as they realized their mistake.

“So,” he sipped the coffee again. “What can I help you with?”