"What are we really doing, Frank?"
Three days into their investigation, Cal could have written a book about being a spook—assuming the book was about waiting around and being bored out of his mind. The first chapter would describe how to nurse a beer slow enough to keep his seat at a table for a few hours, which meant he had to nurse a few beers, and then pray his quarry didn't slip past him during a trip to the restroom. They were a two-man team, Cal and Frank, which meant there were significant gaps in their coverage, like playing ball without a shortstop. Mostly it was Cal sitting alone at the curbside pub across from Mercury Deliveries, eating fried calamari, and watching for the white van to come and go. He'd take stealthy photos on his phone of whoever walked through the office door while Frank was elsewhere doing God-knows what.
At some point or another, the two would switch and Cal would go observe another location that Frank had tentatively linked to the white van: one of a few shopping plazas, a random assortment of business offices, and even an art gallery, always snapping photos on the sly to be analyzed later over a bottle of wine for recurring faces.
They were back at the curbside pub across the street from Mercury Deliveries, together for a change.
"We're gathering data points," Frank said between chewy bites of squid. "Putting together a bigger picture from smaller snapshots."
They sat opposite at a small table right at the edge of the building overhang, so they were practically on the sidewalk outside and with a good view of the street. Canned music streamed from small speakers mounted to the wall, filling the semi-open room with just enough noise to obscure their conversation from other patrons. It was American music, Top 40 stuff from the 80's and 90's mostly, and it seemed to attract an international crowd of tourist visitors. Cal and Frank blended right in.
Cal shook his head at Frank's explanation.
"No, I mean why? This has been a lot of work—if sitting on my ass and playing on my phone for hours can be called work—just to find out who these creeps who followed Eeva are."
"You don't want to know?"
"I do! Or I did at first," Cal said. "But it's been days with nothing to show for it, and they don't seem to be a problem anymore. I've been keeping in touch with Eeva, and she hasn't seen them again."
"Does she still keep an eye out for them?"
"Of course! They really freaked her out."
"They were in our neighborhood, too," Frank reminded him and then signaled the man behind the indoor/outdoor bar for another round of light beer. Cal inwardly prepared to rise and retrieve the beers, as there wasn't a waitstaff to serve them. "They could be human traffickers," Frank continued.
"And it's our job to stop them," Cal said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
"What's with the pissy attitude, man?" Frank shot back.
Cal opened his mouth to retort but was at a loss for words. His buddy's eyes were unblinking, intense, and his brow was raised in challenge. Frank usually came at people from the side, like a cat running across your path and tripping you up, but this was a direct challenge.
"I'm sorry. I guess I'm just bored," Cal said and turned away.
Frank leaned back in his stool and crossed his arms.
"All these years," he said, "and you thought my job was, what? Firefights and secret meetings? For thirty years, Cal, you've wanted to be a spook. Well, this is it! You're more likely to experience death by PowerPoint than you are from a stray bullet or a terrorist's bomb. I hate to break it to you."
Cal pondered this. "Do you think more teachers are killed every year from school shootings than spooks in the field?"
"I guarantee it," Frank said without hesitation, "And that's fucking sad. But at the end of the day, both our jobs were similar. Hold on—"
Frank got up to retrieve the round of beers from the bar counter a few steps away. Of course, Cal knew that being an intelligence officer wasn't like the movies, but that hadn't stopped thirty years of daydreaming and hero worship. Frank walked back to their table with two frosty mugs in his hands, looking every bit like an ordinary man.
"Really," Frank continued, "our professions were similar in that most of it was pretty mundane. You graded papers and planned lessons. I collated information and prepared presentations. You taught lessons to dumbass kids who would become America's future, and I babysat those same kids after they spent a few years in the Ivy League and then signed up to serve their country and make a difference."
"And did any of it?" Cal asked. "From my hours spent on lesson plans to your babysitting new spooks . . . did it make a difference?"
"Absolutely."
"Alright," Cal said and finished his beer dramatically. "Let's do it, then."
"Do what?"
"Let's make a difference," Cal said. "Now get out of here before somebody makes you. It's my shift."