Chapter 30

Jill had coffee with Marge Saunders, Marcie's mother, in the week following the prom. "Marge, I know that we both agreed to prohibit our daughters from dating until they were sixteen, but we both know that whatever our concerns were, reality has long surpassed them. Kyle would like to be allowed to date Marcie without hiding that from others. He knows that you would probably be reluctant to agree so long as I had not released Emma from her limit."

"Isn't it silly how we worry and plan and try to control what our children do, only so that they can be creative and discover ways to circumvent it? Kyle is a wonderful young man and I am proud as heck that he is interested in Marcie. He'll be graduating soon and off to school in the fall. I say that we let them enjoy their summer together."

"You do know that it will be terribly hard for her when he leaves for school."

"I'll be crying large tears, I'm afraid. I will miss him, and Marcie will be devastated, that's true. I don't think a mother could ask for a nicer boy to date her daughter."

And so four young people became three, so to speak. Jason and Emma became closer, but Emma maintained appropriate decorum physically, much to Jason's disappointment. Kyle and Marcie, while not literally bonded together, figuratively became one being in the public's view. They were together everywhere, after school, every evening, on the weekends, and sometimes in Kyle's bedroom. Emma and Jill understood the new "order", and they both accepted that without making an issue of it.

Graduation ceremonies took place three weeks after the prom with all the pomp and circumstance, speeches and drama. Most of the graduates held parties. Grandmas and grandpas, aunts, uncles, and a whole flock of older people flooded the town for three or four days to celebrate with the new graduates. When the parties ended and the last of the visiting silverhairs were safely off to their own homes, life in the city slowed down. According to the calendar, it was officially summer. School was out, the kids were everywhere and everyone had a chance to relax.

That was the theory, anyway, or so Jill thought, until the telephone rang about nine o'clock on a Tuesday morning. "Mrs. Jill Harper?" the voice asked on the phone.

"Yes."

"Please hold a minute while I connect you."

"Connect me to whom?" she asked, but she was already on hold.

"Mrs. Harper? This is Phil Murdock. I am the Federal Attorney for the Northern half of the State of Illinois."

"Why are you calling me? Is something wrong?" Jill was frightened. She had received this type of call when her husband died, but as far as she knew, the children were still upstairs in bed.

"Mrs. Harper, I know this sounds a little strange, but I cannot discuss this with you on the telephone. Would you be able to meet with me in my office one day this week? I must tell you that this is a very important matter."

"Well, yes, I guess so. Where is your office?"

"If it is not too much trouble for you, it would be best to meet in the Federal Building in downtown Chicago, on the fourteenth floor. What day would be convenient for you?"

"I need to plan. I can come on Thursday, if that's okay. I'll need to tell the children where I am going. I am sure they will wonder why."

"Oh, no. They need to accompany you as well. I will need to speak to the three of you."

"Can't you tell me what this is about? Give me a hint."

"Please answer this question either yes or no. Do not say anything else. Do you recall a conversation that you had with your Congressman recently? Answer yes or no only, please."

Jill thought for a minute and then said, "Yes."

"Then I will see you, your daughter and your nephew this Thursday. Good bye." The call terminated. Jill stood there holding the phone, her mouth hanging open, wondering what had just taken place.

When they arrived on the fourteenth floor, the receptionist sat at a desk on the hall side of two metal doors. She had them sign in to the registry and then asked them to remove all jewelry and watches and seal them in an envelope. In a separate envelope, they were to place all cell phones, turned off, as well as any other recording device they may have on them or in a purse or bag. "We ask you to do this for security purposes. When you step through those doors, you will be in a sound and data secure environment through which no sound or data can be transmitted by ordinary means. By leaving everything out here, no one will be able to eavesdrop on what is said inside." Once cleared through the metal scanner, they were escorted to a conference room, on the other side of those metal doors.

"Good Morning. My name is Phillip Murdock and I am the Chief Federal Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. I will now show you a letter signed by the President of the United States, which authorizes me to disclose certain information to you at my discretion. I must retain this letter for my files, obviously, but you are to read it and initial it at the bottom next to your name." He slid the letter across the table to Jill, who read it and initialed it before passing it to her daughter. Once all three had read and initialed the letter Jill returned it to Mr. Murdock.

"Mr. Winston, may I call you Kyle this morning?"

"Sure."

"Good, thank you. Kyle, your father, William Winston was employed by a branch of the Department of Justice ... it doesn't matter what the branch is called. This group concentrated all of its efforts on locating and destroying certain areas of countries in Central and South America that are known to produce drugs. He and his teammates would locate the area of concern, perform the necessary intelligence data and then destroy the facility or the crop or both. He had been performing these missions for many years, even before you were born." He stopped to allow what he had just told them to sink in.

"Go on."

His team had learned of an enormous quantity of extra powerful cocaine being packaged for shipment across the world. After some initial intelligence, they learned that the staging area was near an airstrip next to a river, but that was all they knew at the time. This was before drones, and the satellite could not see anything unusual. But the satellite had picked up another small airfield along a river in a different country but not too far from the first."

"Five men were sent to investigate, William Winston being one of those five men. They infiltrated the first country, near the original location, and were never heard from again. Three weeks later, our embassy in yet a third country received a photograph which was clear enough to identify the bodies of all five men. There was no indication of the location of the ambush or the bodies. Your father died in the service of his country, but due to the secretive nature of his unit, no details could be released."

"At the same time, we intercepted a large volume of radio traffic indicating that some U.S. drug agents had raided the home of one of the top leaders in the drug cartel, and that during the raid, the agents had killed his wife, daughter and son. Your father's team was the only team that had been operating in the field at that time. The cartel leader has offered a million dollar bounty to anyone who can avenge those deaths. We have intercepted several kill squads as they have come into this country in search of you."

"So what has changed?" Kyle asked.

"The publicity surrounding your famous field goal changed everything. The cartel knew what your father looked like, and they knew your name from the dedication in one of his books. He made a careless mistake by putting that dedication in his book, but once published, there was nothing he could do. The cartel has its people everywhere, looking for any sign of you. They are very good at finding their enemies. It does not take much of a hint for them to find whomever they are seeking. We immediately froze all royalty payments so that they could not locate you through them. The royalties are being held by the publisher in a special fund, awaiting our instructions."

"Kyle and Emma, have you noticed any new faces in town, especially Latino faces? People that seemed to be paying too much attention to you?"

Emma shook her head but Kyle immediately responded. "Yes there is one. An older man and a girl my age. We talked at the pizza place, and she knew Emma's name, but thinks she is my sister. She also has a short barreled gun in her purse."

"Kyle," Jill reacted with surprise, "What are you doing hanging around with people who have guns?"

"We don't hang with her. She works at the pizza place. Jason and I gave her a ride home one night and when she got out of the car, she dropped her purse and the gun fell out."

"One of our agents spotted her yesterday and she and her companion are both in custody now."

"So now what?" Kyle asked.

"That's the second reason why you are here. The Department of Justice would like to offer you an opportunity to enroll in what is commonly described as the Witness Protection Program, even though you would not normally qualify. This means that we will prepare a completely new identity for each of you, complete with passport and birth certificate. You will be given new names, which you can choose from a rather lengthy list of possibilities. You will be the same person inside, but with a completely new identity, in a completely new place. You will NOT be allowed to make contact with ANYONE in your past lives except relatives, and since you have no other relatives, you will be much safer."

"We will relocate you to a new city, also with some input from you as to preferences. Your property will be sold through a realty agent and the funds transferred to a new account for you. Everything that you own now will be sent with you or sold and you will be compensated for the sale."

"But what about my friends?" Emma asked. "What about school?"

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