The Chief

Concrete, a single flickering bulb jutting out from the industrial wall, copper pipes on the ceiling dripping grimy water and caked with greenish rust.

“So,” a deep, slightly Scottish voice purred, “This is where the Chief lives.”

A man stood at the end of the hallway, leaning against a metal doorjamb. The room beyond him was spare, populated by a large battered military desk in the center, facing the door, a metal file cabinet in the corner next to a safe, and a small army cot in the corner with a flat pillow and a thin blanket. An ancient, dormant computer monitor sat on the desk while the actual computer device—which looked surprisingly sophisticated—churned away beneath it. The lamp on the desk cast a weak light on the woman in the squeaky office chair. Only a vague impression of long blond hair, a small nose, and a softly curved face were visible.

“That’s right,” she said evenly, her voice quiet and professional, “Come in Tobias, don’t keep me waiting. What do you have for me?”

Even though he had been working for the Chief for several years, he had never met her face-to-face, having previously communicated via phone or middleman. Tobias strode into the room and leaned over the desk, doing his best to show the confidence he always projected toward others. He had earned this prestigious promotion to the Inner Circle recently. Yesterday, in fact. He wanted to make a good impression on the most powerful person in the world.

His scarred hands were strong and lithe, his face a ghoulish jester’s mask in the light cast from the lamp beneath it. His face was sharp-featured, had laugh lines around sunken blue eyes rimmed with grey exhaustion, and his black close-shaved hair formed a widow’s peak over his large nose. A navy blue shirt hung loosely on his slim chest, and a black leather tailored trench coat hung from his muscled shoulders. “Wha’ no kiss an’ hug?” he asked with a toothy, manic grin, “’Coz I’m not here to give ya peanuts, Chief. I’ve got somethin’ you want.”

She leaned forward, almost nose-to-nose with Tobias. Now in better light, it was obvious that she was young, perhaps in her mid- to late-twenties. She was dressed in simple black slacks and a white buttoned shirt with the sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to her elbows. She looked like she was just out of college, but her eyes were a striking golden brown that held the knowledge of centuries. “And what do you have that I might want so badly?” Her grin wasn’t as manic as his, but seemed more disturbing somehow. Tobias leaned back a little.

“Well…” he drew out the single syllable, making it last as he exhaled, “I’ve got one o’ the witnesses to t’the signing of the Kellerman Contract.”

The Chief leaned forward. “Really? Which one?”

“The American lad, Miller. James Miller.”

The Chief leaned back in her chair and pressed the tips of her fingers together under her chin. “I’ll admit it, Tobias; I’m actually impressed.”

His impossibly wide grin grew even wider. “Thought you’d like tha’. He was ‘ard to track down, I’ll ‘ave ya know. Took me six months—and most o’ those favors you called in fer me—to find ‘im.” It was this feat that had earned him the promotion, he knew.

For a moment her expression showed anxiety. “You didn’t bring him down here, did you?”

Tobias let out a harsh bark of laughter. “O’ course not! I wouldn’t risk yer trust in me, Chief, seein’ as it’s th’ first time I’ve been allowed down ‘ere myself!”

She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his honesty, when a shrill, insistent beep went off. She reached into her pocket with a quick “Excuse me, Tobias,” before pulling out a phone and flipping it open. “Yes?”

She was on the phone for less then ten seconds, during which Tobias amused himself by wondering how she managed to get cell phone reception in an abandoned bunker fifteen floors underground. Was there anything she couldn’t do?

She snapped the phone shut, not having uttered a word since her curt greeting, but simply listening to whoever was on the other line. She wearily tossed the phone onto the desk, the front display still lit. Tobias glanced at it and made a note of her service carrier, intending to switch as soon as he was back on the surface; he was lucky to get service in an office high-rise elevator with his current cheap company.

The Chief dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and leaned back, the very image of frustration. She huffed before addressing him, “They’ve caught up with Williams in Cairo. He’s been arrested.”

He cringed. Williams was a good man, one of her best. “You want me to break him ou’, Chief?” he asked. He had a few connections in Cairo; it wouldn’t take long to find him and get him released.

She shook her head no. “I need you to concentrate on that witness, I’m afraid. I’ll send someone else. Question this ‘James Miller’ about Kellerman himself. I want to know what kind of security he has for his family, so I can add to it if I need to.”

“He’s not gonna tell me unless ‘e knows the questions are comin’ from you, Chief.”

“That’s all right; I think he can be trusted. See if you can find out where that other witness is, too. I’m not so sure where his loyalties lie.” She spun in her chair and coaxed her computer screen back to life. A few taps of the keys and several pages began to spew from a small printer under the desk. “And now, about your payment.”

Tobias leaned forward eagerly. 

She handed him a moderately thick stack of paper. “This is everything I could find,” she said with sudden tenderness, “Pictures, addresses, news clippings, blogs, police reports…obituaries.”

Tobias took the stack reverently. “Thank you,” he said, “This is more’n I’d ever dreamed you’d find.”

“Family is important, whether you remember them or not,” she said.

He huffed. “It’s no’ really an issue of rememberin’ them, it’s that I don’t remember anything abou’ who they were.”

“What do you mean?”

Tobias looked up at her face. She seemed genuinely interested.

“I ran away from home when I was abou’ seven.” He said.

“Why did you do that?” She asked.

He had just opened his mouth to ask her why she wanted to know when her phone rang again. She looked at the caller ID and groaned wearily. “One second, Tobias. This won’t take long.” She snapped the phone open and growled into the receiver, “Now what?”

She listened to the frantic babbling on the other end for less than a couple of seconds before interrupting. “No! Absolutely not!” She yelled. “I’m aware that he’s the President. That means nothing to me. Get him out of there!”

She pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “I don’t care if he’s prostesting. Get past his bodyguards and get him out of there. Tie him to a chair if you have to! I am not willing to find another President of the United States when this one’s only been in office for six months. It’ll be too much paperwork if he gets killed over there!”

She snapped the phone shut and tossed it on the desk before digging the heels of her hands into her eyes, leaning back and heaving a loud sigh.

“Coffee, Tobias?” she asked.

He blinked. “Sorry, wha’?”

“Would you like some coffee?” she repeated.

“Oh,” he cleared his throat, “Er…yes, thanks.”

She got up from the computer and walked to the corner where an old coffeemaker sat on a small table. He hadn’t noticed it before in the shadowy corner.

“Cream or sugar?”

“Er…no, thank you.” He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. This wasn’t quite what he had expected.

She handed him some black coffee in a chipped white mug that proclaimed What do you mean caffeine isn’t a food group? and sat back down. He took a sip and looked up at her in surprise. “Ya make a good cup o’ coffee, Chief,” he said in appreciation.

She grinned at him over the rim of her own cup. “I practically invented good coffee.” 

She leaned back. “There’s a chair in the corner if you’d like to sit. I don’t get company very often.”

He pulled up the rusty folding chair in front of the desk and sat down, coffee in hand. “Thank ya, ma’am.”

“You know, you’ve just been promoted to my elite team. Call me Rosetta…or Rose, if that’s easier.”

His surprise must have been obvious because she chuckled, “I don’t like having to be so formal with the few people I trust. My family is long dead, and you and the rest of the Inner Circle are really the only human interaction I get. I mostly stay down here in this room. It’s not my real name, but it serves its purpose.”

He nodded, too thrown off to respond. This was far more than he had been expecting. He had been working with the woman he knew as “The Chief” for nearly six years, and knew that it would be a career that would likely last for the rest of his life. There were only a dozen or so people in the Inner Circle at any time, and a couple of them were in their late seventies and would have to retire soon.

“So,” she said conversationally, “Why did you run away from home so young?”

He shrugged, confused by the change of subject, but willing to talk. “I guess i’ was just to get away from me dad. He would ge’ drunk a lot, an’ he was a righ’ angry drunk, if you ge’ my meanin’, ma’am—I mean, ‘Rose.’” The unfamiliar word felt strange, but appropriate for her. He leaned back in his chair and carefully flipped through the pages of the packet in his hands, seeing news articles about his sisters on their soccer team, his mother’s colorful paintings winning a competition in a local art gallery…and on the very last page was his father’s obituary, stating that he had died almost a year ago. The rest of the family had moved to London after that; there was an address near Trafalgar Square named as his mother’s.

“I’ll ‘ave ta visit her when I’m done wi’ Miller,” he said, mostly to himself. He glanced up at the Chief, who was gazing steadily at him. “Do you ‘ave any family, ma’am?” he asked before sputtering, “Sorry, forge’ I asked. S’not my place.”

She gave him a sad smile. “It’s all right,” She said, “I haven’t had a family for a long time, Tobias. The last family I had was my daughter, who was killed in the Salem witch hunts. She was burned at the stake for witchcraft.” She blinked rapidly, but controlled her emotions quickly.

“Yer tha’ old?” he said before he could catch himself. He cursed and apologized. “Beg yer pardon. I’ve never asked a lady her age before. T’was impolite.”

Rose just gave him a light-hearted chuckle. It sounded out of place in the spare setting. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m old enough not to care anymore. As for my exact age…well, I haven’t hit four digits yet, but I’ll get there before you die.”

His mouth fell open. He knew he looked ridiculous, but he couldn’t help sputtering, “But ya look t’ be no older than twenty.”

She was working on her computer again as she replied, “It’s a dominant gene in the female line of my family. Has been for several generations. Every woman in my family grows naturally until their twentieth birthday, then stop. The men have a normal lifespan, but the women only can only die by two things, one of which is old age.” 

She sighed. “Unfortunately, many people discover the only other thing that can kill us long before we die naturally. Only one of us has died of natural causes, and that was my great-great grandmother.”

Her eyes glistened slightly, and Tobias realized what she had said a moment ago about her daughter dying in the witch hunts. “Rebecca, my great-great grandmother, died of old age at one thousand, one hundred and fifty-three, but looked as young as I do now.”

“I’m sorry.”

The watery smile he got in return struck him as one used countless times over the centuries. “It’s in the past. All things come to an end. Everything dies. Even I will, eventually.”

Tobias’s watch chirped, and he glanced at it without a thought before realizing that he had been here for over an hour. “Sorry to hold you up, Chief,” he said, hefting the stack of family information, “I’ll start questioning Miller first thing tomorrow morning. He’s asleep now from the jet lag.” His tone switched from “new friend” back to “loyal employee.”

She nodded before saying, “Wake him up. I want that security information.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, and Tobias?”

He turned.

“Remember, it’s ‘Rose.’”

“I’ll remember tha’…Rose.”

She grinned widely at him. “Well, go on. I want that security information on my desk by morning.”

He gave a little bow. “As ya wish.”

Typing away at the computer, she dismissed him with a distracted wave of her hand, already immersed in whatever she was working on. He left quietly, closed the door behind him, and headed for the elevator that would take him to the surface. He leaned his head back against the cold metal wall and exhaled loudly when he got inside, listening to the clanking and grinding as he rose through fifteen levels of solid rock. 

Working for Chief Rosetta was going to be interesting, he could already tell.

Copyright 2007 H.J. Hanauer