I kept a steady pace while jogging through the park. Training for a marathon is a lot harder than I expected and I had to continuously coach myself through the process, “You can do it Keller, almost done!” My little amount of perseverance dwindled as I neared the end of my run and when I saw a peculiar man sitting on a bench, reading the newspaper. At first I just overlook it, but as I glance around there is another man, pretending to work at a hotdog stand. Yet another was dressed in a fake park services uniform, pretending to clean up here and there. I had seen this scene before, it was all too familiar to me. The hundreds of shows and movies I had watched were actually coming to life. The people in the park were FBI agents, sitting there, just waiting for the enemy to make the first move. They had the area completely surrounded, no one could get anywhere without being noticed. I wanted to stick around to see if I could get a peek at the action but I had already run farther than I had planned. I toughed it out until my legs were absolutely shot and my lungs were about to erupt into flames. An extreme amount of time had passed and still nothing had happened, so I decided to leave. Casually, I make my way around the park for one last loop, laying out a clear pathway to my car. I stop by the fountain to get some final stretching in so that I won’t hurt too much tomorrow. I pick up the pace once more, making my way to my car. I was almost out of the park when all of the FBI agents started yelling…at me! They all are frantically signaling me to stay inside of the park, what could I have possibly done wrong?! Naturally I started freaking out. All of these specially trained agents were freaking out and I had no idea what was going on. The only thing I wanted this weekend was a nice quiet get away in the park, was it really that hard for me to get some alone time around here?
After everyone calmed down a little and I got ahold of myself, a few of them slowly started to approach me.
“Hello, I am agent Nick Jones with the FBI, I am about to tell you some very serious and possibly even highly classified information that you are not allowed to share with anyone under any circumstances. I am going to need you to come take a seat with me because this could take a while” he said in a very demanding yet reassuring tone.
To get me started he talked about a mission that the FBI had been overseeing for three years. There was a group of about seven people that had been wreaking small amounts of havoc across different parts of the U.S. At first it was low in their radar and they kind of brushed it off, leaving it for the surrounding area’s police to deal with. However as the situations kept popping up, they discovered that the group went a lot farther than seven people. They had bad agents of their own in different jobs all across the country so that they could affect even more people once they got a chance. They worked at grocery stores, libraries, business offices, banks, science labs, some were even a part of various branches of government and agencies like the FBI or police department. They had rented out various warehouses across the country to keep in contact with each other and to have a common workplace or meeting grounds. The FBI had given the group the title of “The Nametag” because no one really knew who they were and so much was unknown about them. With agents in all different workplaces, “The Nametag” group was able to create the perfect system by combining all the supplies and skill sets from each job to add expertise to their organization.
“We have slowly been working on getting a few of our own agents inside, to learn even more about what they are planning. We have to take special precautions and be sure move slowly otherwise we could be putting agents at risk. Right now we have made some connections with the scientist of their division, and we have made the conclusion that they are making their way towards the production of mass bombing. We have been able to get about one agent inside right now and they have discovered that a few test bombs have gone out. “The Nametag” is developing a hunger for more of a public image. They have grown from just making chaos to having a thirst for more. These bombs aren’t activated by time or force, but rather by location. Once the bomb is brought into the programmed area, it activates and if you leave this programmed area, or the radius it is set at- it will go off. We had been watching over the distribution of these bombs and have intercepted a few already, but there was one that we lost, and that is how this all connects to you Mr. Keller” Agent Jones is doing his best to explain everything to me.
Now it was my turn to register everything. A bomb had been implanted inside of me, rather inside of my watch. What?! How could this have even happened?! I don’t think I would have bought this stupid watch if I had known that it was going to do a lot more than just tick because of the time! I also don’t understand how they decided that I should be the culprit. My mind was about to explode, quite literally and metaphorically. Jones grabbed a couple other agents to try explaining the whole story to me again but I couldn’t take it all at once, this had to be some sort of dream. Another Agent named Rachel Skye decided to drop one other big shock on me too. “Your wife is the head agent of this case” she said quite bluntly.
“Well that’s impossible.” I think to myself. “No, she works at the Museum of Prehistoric History.” I now had to voice my thoughts because I would never get answers if I never brought them forward. The explanations started right back up again.
“Her family has been known for having the best agents in our program and she has lived right up to the legacy, just as the rest of her family has done before her. It was getting very dangerous for them to let the world know that they work for the FBI, so extreme measures had to be taken. They were given a cover saying that they work at the museum, but if you really go into the museum and take a look downstairs, you will see the true FBI quarters” Agent Skye said with her calming voice and reassuring actions. She portrayed all of this as normal, so much so that gradually my thoughts were slowly starting to come together and I could now make rational conclusions, “So apparently it was all a cover, to keep me and her safe. This is why I stay away from these situations: I could die, plus I’m way too confused.”
While all this explaining had been going on, the bomb squad had taken my watch and started to look at it. Enough time had passed that they were able to successfully disable it. Finally, everyone was safe.
Now that one problem was out of my life I could start focusing on other things. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a red car screech up. I knew exactly who it was at once. The woman got out and started running towards me, not even bothering to close the door. It was my wife, she was extremely relieved to see that I was alright. She apologized profusely for getting me involved in this situation.
“This is exactly what I had hoped to avoid by telling you I worked for the museum, but I guess even that cover up failed me” she was almost in tears.
“Well I’m okay now, aren’t I? How about we go home and sort through this a little more, I really need to hear your side of the story” I suggest.
“Sounds good to me. This is all up to my agents now, they can keep us updated on what’s happening” she replied.
“Ok! There’s one stop we should make first…I am in need of a new watch” I said very seriously.
“How about we wait a little bit for that” She says cracking a smile.
On we went, trying to pretend our lives were back to normal.
When we arrive home, I attempt to cook my wife supper while she kept in contact with her agents about today’s extravaganza. We had a very long conversation about the events that had unfolded that day, she recapped what Agent Jones and Skye had already told me, only in more detail and this time it was easier to wrap my head around since it was coming from her. By the time we got everything straight with each other, we were both exhausted. Off to bed we went. I laid down and images from the day started jumping all across my mind. I tried to get myself calmed down so I could get at least a little rest. However, that presented quite the challenge.
After a few hours of restless sleep, I needed to try something else to clear my head. I quietly get out of bed and tip-toe down the creaky stairs. I glance at the time in the living room as I make my way to the kitchen. 3:00am, I really needed sleep. I get to the kitchen and grab a glass of water, I wander around for a while, trying to get my life straight. How could I have been so clueless and bought this watch. I want to try to help catch these guys so I try to remember every possible time and place I used my watch this past week. I go through my daily schedule and nothing stands out at all. Everyday I had gotten up, gone to work and then come home. I know, I live a fairly average life. Occasionally I had hung out with some guys from work, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. I had to go back to when I got this watch and remember everything about that specific day so I could take down these guys. My wife and I were doing some casual Sunday afternoon shopping and we stopped at Walmart to grab a few things- naturally she had a huge list and I needed to stay out of her way so I headed towards the watches. My old one was starting to fail me and I had seen a pretty sweet one in a commercial the other day so I wanted to check it out. It was from a new company called, “Gateman.” This watch company had become quite popular in the past months, it was rather strange the amount of success they were receiving. I kept thinking about that for a little while. However, there was something about the name that seemed to stick out but it wasn’t quite coming to me. Then I had it! I fumbled through the drawers in the kitchen looking for something to write on. I quickly jotted down the name of the group that the FBI agent had told me “Nametag” and the company name of the watch “Gateman.” I stare in awe, wondering how I possibly could have missed this before. They were the exact same, just spelled backwards! This means the groups had to be connected and this intel would surely help the FBI in their mission.
I quickly, but quietly, ran to the phone, not wanting to wake up my wife. I dialed Agent Jones’s number and was quite surprised when he actually picked up. I told him about my discovery and the conclusion that I had come to. He thanked me and got right on his way. Finally, I could get some sleep. I had helped the FBI out, well at least a little bit. Things became rather normal in the next few weeks, my wife had consistently been giving me updates on the case and I’m happy to say that after three years of being under the FBI’s radar, the “Nametag” had finally been caught and they would be rightly punished. For the first time in a a long time, I have been able to feel completely at peace.