input.”
Craig slowly lowered himself back into his seat, feeling sick inside.
Calderon continued, “That’s why we’re putting you on a special task force to capture one of America’s most wanted fugitives.”
Craig looked on, confused, as Calderon pushed a manila folder along the glass to his end of the table.
“Fugitive’s name is Robert Clyde Garrison. He’s been on the run since 2005 after killing his wife and three children with a hammer. Real sicko, this one.” He then turned to Craig. “You’ve been appointed to lead the task force to bring this man to justice.”
Craig flipped through the folder which showed a 6 x 9-inch black-and-white head shot of the man wearing a polo shirt and smiling. The next photo was an older family photo. All smiles. Craig closed the folder and tried to contain his conflicting emotions as best he could.
He stood up, took the file, and tapped it against the table. “Thank you, sir. I think I’ll get to work now.” With a nod, he left the room quietly as chatter followed.
“Good luck, Agent Davis,” Calderon called, just as Craig was about to close the door.
News Cycle
From the top of a small crate in a minimally furnished living room, a television flashed images of the evening news. As the news carried on about a recent FBI report detailing a series of thwarted Fourth of July terror attacks, two brothers sat in the next room, deeply focused on their work at the kitchen table. Rasheed carefully turned his screwdriver, fastening a clip around a small aluminum tube. His dark, curly hair hung over the frame of his glasses while his pursed lips twisted to the side, making the face he always did when deeply concentrating.
His younger brother, Darion, sat across from him counting a line of hollow-point 9mm rounds. Just out of high school, Darion had traveled to America from Chechnya to visit his brother for the summer. An observant and generally mild-mannered boy, Darion looked up to his older brother and was eager to please him. His visa had expired the previous week, but he knew, as did Rasheed, that he had no intention of returning home.
They had a job to do, a mission more important than anything his friends back home were doing. More important than going to college, chasing girls, or hanging around the soccer field. He had been told by Rasheed of an important task assigned to them. They were going to strike a fatal blow to the enemy. The news on the television continued:
“Officials state that a wave of recently thwarted Fourth of July terror attacks have shown that the Islamic State is losing its battle to inflict terror domestically. Homeland Security Chief Ralph Wilson stated that the terror group has grown desperate and that the planned attacks show that they are clearly on their ‘last leg’ of launching domestic terror attacks. New calls to re-examine federal immigration laws in the wake of more than 500 suspected foreign ISIS sympathizers in the U.S. from a leaked FBI report, have sent Capitol Hill into a frenzy of heated political rhetoric.”
The brothers didn’t seem distracted or bothered by the claims made by the government. They were focused and driven by the mission at hand. Darion picked up a small GoPro camera from the table and turned it on, checking the battery power. A closed MacBook sat in front of him, next to the pistol ammunition, with a USB cord connected to its side. He stuck the cord into the camera and set it down.
Rasheed looked up. “Is it charged?”
“Halfway,” Darion replied.
“Keep it plugged in, then.”
“Okay.”
Rasheed went back to fidgeting with some wiring protruding from the second of five tubes he had on the table.
“You know how to upload the video properly, right?”
“Yes,” Darion said, loading pistol rounds into a magazine.
Rasheed looked up again and dropped his screwdriver.
“Darion, look at me.”
Darion raised his head and was met with the familiar, unblinking stare from his older