Flight Instructor

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This is my second story of any kind and my first in the Loving Wives category. A short story with no sex. Please remember to rate and comment on my writing, characterizations and plot so I can improve.

*****

John frowned at the security monitors, watching the company's oh-so-brilliant techie employees shuffling through the cafeteria line just like yesterday, picking the same foods as yesterday, sitting in the same seats, chewing their cud, rehashing yesterday's topics.

'Yep, I'm a lot better off than those poor slobs. A medically retired, gasping, dodgy-hearted member of Spooks-R-Us,' he thought sourly.

On the far side of the cafeteria two men engaged in huddled conversation at a table by themselves. There was no sound pickup but John lipread their conversation and any dolt could see the concern in the younger man's face.

"Whoa! That's a serious thing to say. What makes you think she's cheating?" queried the older supervisor type.

"Well, that's the thing. I'm not sure. I'm just suspicious and very much afraid she is. I don't really know." Whispered words from an obviously anguished younger man.

"Fair enough. Why are you suspicious?"

"The last few months she's seemed like her mind is someplace else most of the time. She gets annoyed at nothing, like she's wanting to find things to criticize. When we do talk she's always questioning me about my work, like she maybe thinks I'm not here at work every day. She just seems more distant and less warm. Then, suddenly, she's all over me, all lovey-dovey, like she's trying to kill me with sex. I can't exactly explain it. Things just don't feel right." The young man shrugged his shoulders and bowed his head.

The older man pondered for a few seconds then, smiling, said, "Okay, I know just the right guy to take this problem to. It may take some time to get answers. In the meantime just don't do anything stupid. Don't make things worse. Don't make any accusations you may have to eat later if it turns out the lady hasn't broken her vows. Just be cool and give us a little time to have this checked out. Can you do that?"

"Yeah. I've dealt with it for months now. I guess I can go another few days without blowing a gasket. Thanks, Boss. I really appreciate it. Whatever the answer is, I've just got to know. The not knowing is killing me."

"Understood. I'll get back to you on this as soon as we have an answer. Keep the faith. And be sure you finish and debug that nested subroutine, the one that checks for spoofed radar returns, before you leave tonight. I don't care how late you have to stay, the overtime's authorized. I need to get it to the review group tomorrow morning."

"That one's done boss and is available on the server now," assured the young programmer.

The older man rose and squeezed the youngster's shoulder as he left the table.

John sighed and stood. He stepped through the connecting door from the security monitor station to his office. He knew who the supervisor, a guy named Baine, would be coming to see. As the new head of security for a specialty military software contractor, he fielded any matter that might affect the security clearance of one of their programming whiz kids. And a cheating spouse was right near the top of a long list of ways the company's programming wizards or their spouses could become vulnerable to blackmail and be pressured to disclose classified information to enemies, foreign or domestic.

The kid was Ben Rush. John perused his file while awaiting the inevitable arrival of Baine.

Twenty-eight years old, married five years to Bethany, with twin daughters age three. With his troubles, not really a kid any more, John realized. Better than average looking woman; cute kids. He wondered how the person assembling the dossier had decided which name to put with which girl's photo. Chuckling, it occurred to him the author could have just used one picture to save space and put both names under it, they were that perfectly identical.

His secretary ushered the visitor in and closed the door. Without being invited, Baine parked himself in one of the unpadded straight-backed oak library chairs in front of the desk. John knew the chairs were uncomfortable but liked them because they discouraged chatty visitors from lingering.

John gazed at the man, allowing the awkward silence to drive Baine to speak. Southerners are funny that way; they can't stand dead air in a conversation and will fill the void every time.

"Got a small problem that could use your wisdom and experience, John." Troweled on a little thick.

"You found a pistol taped under the tank lid of a toilet in the men's room?

"Or maybe a thumb drive containing our latest project code in a beer can out in the parking lot?"

He enjoyed toying with civilians. Not as satisfying as taking down a Syrian covert op, but it passed the time.

Baine stared a few seconds, unsure if the security chief was serious. "No, nothing that important. Young Ben Rush is afraid his wife is stepping out on him and I told him we'd have it checked out."

"Did you use my name or title?" John was careful not to let slip any hint of his lip reading skills. Keeping that to himself came in handy and had saved his life a couple of times.

"No, I don't think so. I just told him I knew where to get help."

"I'll check it out. Go back to the boy and tell him that it's being looked into. Nothing else." John included a cold stare, hoping that would drive the instruction home. No such luck.

"That's great, John. He'll be so relieved to know you're personally looking into it for him. We all have great respect for your skill and experience," Baine droned on, completely missing the point of the blunt instruction.

John sighed, rose and quickly moved around the desk to Baine's side. Placing his right palm on Blabbermouth's sternum and his left hand on the top slat of the chair-back, John heaved chair and occupant back on two legs, balanced by his hands.

Baine screeched and tried to sit up but could not escape with the chair tilted back and John's hand on his chest.

"What the hell? Let me up!"

John gave him the hard stare again and spoke quietly. "Tell the boy only that it's being looked into. Nothing more. Do not mention me, this department or this company. I will be annoyed if you deviate even slightly from my instructions. Do you understand?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I got it. Jeezus H. Christ. All you had to do was say so. There's nothing wrong with my hearing. Could you please put me down now?"

John gently brought the chair back upright, maintaining the stare into the other man's eyes.

"One more thing, Baine, while we're talking. I've been reviewing your management practices in light of their security implications and you will make some changes in your department effective today. You've been dumping work from yourself to your subordinates, forcing them to work overtime to meet your deadlines. That stops now. Get your people out the door not later than 5:30 each afternoon, no exceptions."

Baine sputtered, "You - you can't tell me how to run my department. I'll have . . ."

"I just did. There's more. The weekend 'team building' trips to that fancy mountain resort are over. If you want to do a 'team building' exercise, have your people re-stripe the parking lot on a Saturday morning. Divide them up into competing teams, bring in the spouses to serve as cheerleaders and judges and have a barbeque catered. Losing team works the serving line."

"Our team building weekends are crucial in . . ."

"Crucial, my ass. Company trips that exclude spouses and include playing 'draw-a-room-key-out-of-the-hat' are done. So is all unnecessary travel overnight. If you have to send someone, send a single someone, not a married someone. From now on you're going to be careful to not put unnecessary strain on the marriages of your people. It's a security matter."

Smirking, Baine said "I'm not Mother Teresa. Keeping their marriages healthy is their lookout, not mine."

"Buck me and I'll bury you," John kept the warning simple.

"My only dilemma will be deciding whether to bury you figuratively or literally," John said quietly, adding his best predatory smile.

Baine stared, open-mouthed. "Did you just threaten me?"

"Of course I just threatened you, nimrod. How could I have made it more clear?"

Standing back, the old intelligence officer motioned Baine to the door and kept his expression serious as the man beat a hasty retreat.

John's predecessor had been a useless relative of the Board chairman. The company was leaking classified information like air through a window screen and the pentagon had instructed John and the Board of Directors to plug the leaks quickly and completely.

He had the resources of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and FBI behind him in the effort. The Board had given him a free hand and promised to back anything he did to clean up the mess pronto.

Mid-morning of the following day John was parked in a white Corolla a block from the Rush home. The car was owned by a fifty year old man named Wally Reid.

Unfortunately for Wally, he had died a half-century earlier at age 9 days in a little town in Wisconsin. That didn't keep him from being the registered owner of the Toyota John was driving.

Covert ops do love their spare identities, 'legends' they call 'em. There was no paper trail to John and he'd never touched any portion of the car barehanded. The license, insurance and credit cards in John's billfold matched the car's registration. Couldn't be a member in good standing of Spooks-R-Us without a proper untraceable spookmobile. The thought brought a slight smile to his somber face.

At 11:30 Bethany Rush pulled out of her driveway headed toward town, trailed by the unremarkable Toyota. She dropped the twins off at daycare. John didn't try to stay tight on the subject. With the GPS tracker stuck under her back bumper he didn't need to risk being spotted. A glance at the map on his laptop kept him current on the exact location, direction and speed of the target.

John recognized the usefulness of trackers but didn't really enjoy depending on them. No tradecraft involved. Even a civilian could follow a tracker.

When Mrs Rush pulled in at the Windsor Manor Apartments John found a good vantage point in the parking lot of the assisted living home across the street. He noticed she backed into her parking space. Her car tag wouldn't be readable from the street. Looking around carefully she hurried to the elevator in the breezeway, exited on the third floor and walked quickly to apartment 314 on the front of the building. When the door opened she stepped into a man's embrace and was swept inside. All bad signs.

"Ah, Bethany, what've you gotten yourself into. You could at least have had the smarts to park on the back side," John muttered absentmindedly. He despised cheaters and Miss Bethany looked to be a prime specimen.

Since all of the upper floor apartments faced outward onto railed walkways, it appeared the building probably had started as a motel and was later converted to efficiency apartments. The old Spook pulled out his camera and settled in for a wait as he had in more hell holes around the world than he cared to remember.

At 2:10 pm John raised his camera as the apartment door slowly opened. The telephoto lens put him right there looking over Bethany's shoulder at a tall man. They seemed to be suffering from lip-lock and had trouble separating. Being groped by her lover looked pretty damning too. Click. Click. Snapping pictures was a reflex action John wasn't even aware of. Click-click-click-click.

Mrs. Rush pushed away, touched her lover's cheek and hurried to the elevator, down to her car and out into traffic. Click-click-click-click. Gone. John made no move to follow.

"Well, damn. I hate it when that happens. Mrs Rush, how could you do this? How could you possibly believe this is okay? Your husband loves you, your little girls love you. Your country needs the uncompromised benefit of your husband's programming genius. How in the world could you love them and be a sneaking, cheating, lying, unfaithful slut? It doesn't make any sense. Just no sense."

John wondered if lover-boy knew she was married. He brought up the shot of her touching his cheek on the Canon's review screen and zoomed in until her engagement/wedding ring set was clearly visible. He knew. John redesignated lover-boy in his surveillance notes as 'Peckerwood'. He was screwing a married woman and just didn't care.

From a purely security perspective John knew the standard next step was to turn the info and pictures over to the FBI with instructions to add them to their ongoing investigation of leaks at the company but he knew that would take halfway to forever and eventually result in the whole family being picked apart by the news vultures. Or he could just pull the poor cuckolded husband's security clearance which would result in Ben's instant, and permanent, unemployment in his career field. The woman surely deserved the bad fallout but the little girls and their daddy didn't. Not by a long shot.

"What to do," he mused. "Do I follow procedure and leave those little girls and their dad to cope with the fallout? Or do I do what needs doing? This situation is just going to fester. It needs to be lanced, and not by paper pushers."

As he stewed over the remedy to be applied, he absentmindedly placed his finger to the carotid artery in his neck and felt the wide gaps in his erratic heartbeat. 'Ventricular tachycardia' they called it. The doctors talked optimistically after each cardiac test they inflicted on him but he knew things were getting worse.

"Screw it. I'm feeling proactive today. Foolhardy and proactive." He knew he didn't have unlimited time left. Consequences meant less to him now than before his medical situation had gone into the crapper.

A careful sweep of the front and side of the building as well as the breezeway and parking lot with his telephoto lens revealed no security cameras. It appeared the residents valued privacy over security.

"Perfect," John pronounced after also surveilling the near end of the grocery store parking lot adjacent to the apartment building.

"Showtime. Let's see if we can adjust Peckerwood's attitude about bedding other men's wives."

The Corolla merged with traffic and turned into the grocery lot, parking at the end closest to the apartments, near a group of other cars and pickups.

The driver, wearing a fedora pulled down to cast his sunglasses and face in shadow, strolled casually across the rear parking lot to the apartment breezeway and into the elevator.

Ding. John stepped out and sauntered to apartment 314. There was no response to his first knock. On his second rap-rap-rap the door was jerked open by a scowling man in his early thirties, tall and athletic. Surly and arrogant. Peckerwood himself.

"I don't know you. Knock on my door again and I'll cram whatever you're sellin' down your throat old man." As he started to slam the door in John's face, the spook firmly planted his foot in the path of the swinging door preventing closure.

"I'm not a salesman. I've come to save you from your sins. Actually, just one particular sin. Think of me as your guardian angel," John said, adding an engaging smile for effect.

The younger man stepped back and opened the door wide, clearing the way for dealing with the old fart. He wasn't going to take any preaching from what he mistakenly assumed to be a holy roller.

"I'm not interested in being 'saved' by you or anybody else. What is this sin I'm supposed to have committed?"

"Adultery. You're having sex with a married woman. A woman who has a husband and two sweet little girls who love and trust her. You're doing your damnedest to wreck their family. I'm here to save you from the consequences."

"Consequences? Look old man, the only 'consequence' is I get to tap a seriously fine piece of ass whenever I like. It's not my fault if her husband can't keep his woman satisfied. She's a lady in need of some serious lovin' from a real stud."

"She is a self-absorbed, over-indulged, selfish narcissist who is addicted to the thrill and adventure of spreading her legs for strangers without any regard for her marriage vows or her husband's feelings. And you're forgetting about the pain this will cause her little girls if word of her betrayal gets out, and word will get out."

"I don't care about her little girls. Not my lookout. Her cuck hubby can look after her little girls while I satisfy their mother. Seems fair to me." His smirk was enough to stir the Pope to violence.

"Ah. I can see I misspoke. My bad. I'm not going to be your guardian angel, after all."

"Damn right. What you're gonna be is 'gone' or 'dead'. Your choice old man."

"Peckerwood, I'm going to be your flight instructor."

"Peckerwood? You old fool, you're gonna be both dead and gone if you don't get out of here right now," Peckerwood said spraying spittle.

John continued as if the enraged man hadn't spoken. "To be a good student pilot you first need brains, which are sorely and irreparably lacking in your case. And humility. Now, I can't fix stupid but you're still in luck. I can load you up with humility. Buckets of humility.

"By the time we're through with your first flight lesson I guarantee you will be downright humble. It'll be a big improvement, you'll see. You'll no longer be nearly as irritating as your father and mother taught you to be.

"Given what you think is acceptable behavior with a married woman I imagine your mother is either a whore or a slut. When you were a child was she selling it or just giving it away?"

Wild eyed and bellowing, Peckerwood charged, intending to drive his tormentor back against or maybe over the railing. John didn't react as the bigger man expected, didn't cringe or turn to run. He grabbed a double handful of the charging fool's shirtfront and pulled him forward, accelerating the big man's charge.

John collapsed backward while planting his foot in his attacker's gut, using the momentum of the charge together with his leg strength to propel Peckerwood into a screaming, flailing somersault over the third floor railing.

John lay gasping for a few seconds before rolling over and levering himself to his hands and knees. With his heart hammering erratically he pulled himself up the door frame.

Glancing over the railing at his handiwork he saw Peckerwood draped across a parking block like a shadow, a halo of crimson spreading from his head onto the asphalt.

"Ill-mannered git. I hope he never reproduced."

Glancing around, John saw nobody close by. He casually rode the elevator down, strolled back to his car and left the area. Half way back to the office he pulled over and dialed Bethany Rush's cell number using a burner phone with a small electronic voice changer rubber-banded over the microphone input.

"Hello," Bethany answered the incoming call on her car's bluetooth system as she parked at the daycare center.

"I know what you've been doing. Would you like for me to share that information with Ben?" The voice was deep, male, irritated.

Her mind struggled for an answer as she hyperventilated.

"I don't know what you're talking about. You have a wrong number."

"So, you think I accidentally called the wrong slut whose husband also is coincidentally named Ben? Seriously?"

"Well! You have some nerve whoever you are. I'm certainly not a slut. Goodbye." As she reached for the button his voice froze her.

"If you hang up my next call will be to your husband. I'm quite sure he'll listen to my description of how you spent your afternoon in room 314." John waited; he knew she needed a moment to process what he'd said before she could speak.