Curtain Fall: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 1) (3 page)

The first time John heard his father say that he looked at him with a puzzled expression. He remembered his dad pointing to his forehead and saying, “You already have the answer John; you just have to coax it out of that head of yours. An open mind is the key to every problem ever solved by man.”

John’s father always cautioned him to keep an open mind; that having a closed mind was like a type of mental bondage. “When you
approach a problem with preconceived notions,” he would say, “you not only limit your options, but you also slow your progress.” It was the later, the Jedi mind aspect of his father’s philosophy, that made John chuckle. But he always respected his father’s mind, much more than his actions, and those were something in their own right.

As a man, John deeply respected his father’s wisdom. There was no one he loved and respected more than his father. And though his father wasn’t a formally educated man, he was wise beyond measure. John considered him smart like the earth. His father possessed a deep, meaningful intelligence that spoke of unparalleled experience, and he missed him dearly. His untimely death had been hard to deal with, but he left a legacy in John. He was grateful for the time he had with him, and for what he had learned from him.

John’s large, black 1983 Suburban slowed to climb one of many small hills that defined the farm roads leading to and from his rural address, so he applied a bit more pressure on the gas pedal to ease her up and over the top. He usually didn’t drive his truck to work, but he didn’t have a choice today. Jenna needed the more economical Jetta for a longer run she planned to make into Dallas later that morning.

Secretly, John actually preferred driving the Suburban, even if it drank twice the gas as the Jetta. However, it was difficult to justify the additional fuel costs when the smaller car just sat idle most of the time. When Jenna started working from home, her Jetta became John’s main commute vehicle. John appreciated the Jetta, but he felt more solid in the Suburban - more durable somehow. He patted the dash again and glanced at the odometer. He noted the 248,000 miles on the odometer and grinned. “Got my money’s worth out of you, didn’t I ol’ gal.”

John had to sit and wait several minutes for an opening in the traffic. It was never easy entering the four-lane highway from the smaller farm road he used, but the commute traffic made it even more challenging. Spotting a brake in the traffic, one that looked large enough to allow him to merge, he gunned it. John momentarily forgot he was driving a truck, and not the quicker little sub-compact, and the Suburban
hesitated just long enough to irritate the nearest approaching motorist. The driver, a thirty-something woman dressed in a gray business suit, swerved dramatically around John while blasting her horn. John waved an apology and received her middle finger as a reply.

“Very classy, lady,” he mumbled quietly to himself, “I’m sorry I’m on your highway!”

The verbal response made him think of Jenna, and John smiled despite the crass behavior of such a pretty lady. Jenna wasn’t fond of his frequent and uncontrolled verbal outbursts while driving, especially when the kids were in the car, but it was too much a part of who he was. He learned to accept an inner-monologue as a fair substitute, but it didn’t always function properly, or with the same amount of pleasure.

While recalling Jenna’s critiques, he was proud of himself for not losing control with the lady. He marveled at how different people acted when they were in their cars, insulated from direct contact. People rarely acted like that when they were face to face with other people. John knew that such a benign gesture could result in very aggressive behavior when face to face, but he refused to be baited by anyone’s communications, be they verbal or non-verbal. Besides, people who risked that form of sign language as communication were stupid and careless.

A few minutes later, John climbed the IH-35W on-ramp and merged into the flow of heavy traffic moving south. The traffic into Fort Worth was thick and steady, but moving. John knew it would thicken and slow as they approached the construction near the 820 interchange, but it was his current way of life.

At a little more than twelve miles from his exit, John was forced to reduce speed and settle into the familiar fifteen mile-per-hour crawl that he came to associate with his daily commute.

He tried to relax, but having no radio to listen to made it tough to ignore the traffic around him. At one time he felt like he was actually getting a handle on the mental aspect of commuting, but some days the traffic really tried his patience. He was never comfortable in such an environment, of being trapped and controlled by others. It dulled his
senses, and commuter traffic, regardless of how dull it was, was not a place to lose his awareness.

He realized that enduring traffic was a bit like running. He ran best when he didn’t think about the run itself, or how his knees were killing him with every step. The similarities were strangely ironic. John didn’t like running either, but both were necessary to maintain his health and wellbeing.

John accepted the reality that most people didn’t like traffic, but unlike most people John couldn’t adequately disconnect from it and maintain his awareness. For John, the frustration came mostly from the fact that he couldn’t avoid it. After the first few weeks of his new commute, he spent several hours studying maps and satellite imagery of all the possible routes to and from his work. He then drove each route, and after finding that a ‘golden route’ did not exist, John resigned himself to the route he currently drove. The good news was that he now knew all possible alternate routes, and it had saved him from time to time, like when there was an accident and I-35 became a parking lot for hours on end.

In many ways, the military side of John’s thinking was at odds with the conclusion that he had to endure the traffic. John saw it as an obstacle, and the fact that it was an unavoidable obstacle made it that much harder to bear. When an enemy employs an obstacle, if it’s properly placed, then it will effectively delay or redirect friendly movement. And when faced with an obstacle, there are generally two ways to respond, you either breach the obstacle, or bypass it. Since John already discovered that he couldn’t bypass the traffic, which left him with only one option, to breach.

Unfortunately, being a retired combat veteran didn’t entitle him to access the necessary equipment to breach an obstacle, be it traffic or otherwise. But that didn’t prevent him from taking pleasure in considering the idea. He realized there were many similarities between the commute traffic leading into Fort Worth, and the traffic he experienced in Baghdad. And a Suburban also wasn’t an up-armored Humvee, nor could he justifiably driving on the shoulders or sidewalks to avoid an obstacle.

John saw that he was getting close to his exit and moved into the right lane. His off-ramp was still two miles away, but he dare not wait any longer to begin his move to exit the interstate. Traffic this close to the city was much thicker, and the lack of friendly drivers made last minute lane-jumping a very dangerous practice.

He returned to thoughts of breaching obstacles, and sighed. He actually considered having grill lights added to his Suburban and then set them up to flash in an alternating pattern, but he knew that was wishful thinking. He wasn’t in law enforcement. Besides, he knew he would need more than flashing white lights to penetrate this traffic; he’d need a siren and colored roof lights.

The thought of driving a marked car appealed to John at one point during his Army career. He even considered law enforcement after he retired from the Army, but he decided against it. At forty four, he was in excellent physical shape, but the idea of starting over didn’t appeal to him. He was done with starting over. However, he did manage to maintain his proficiency with firearms, and exercised his right to carry a concealed handgun.

John didn’t need a pistol to feel safe. He was quite capable of handling himself with a knife, or even his hands, but after having carried a firearm for most of his career, being without one made him feel naked and exposed. The Concealed Handgun License, or CHL, helped him alleviate the weapon separation anxiety he faced after retirement. John also felt the CHL was a good way for him to more comfortably ease into civilian life.

When he reached the exit he merged right, which earned him a honk from a motorist who tried to pinch him off at the exit. John considered letting him shoot past, but he would have risked missing his exit. He hated the games other drives played on the road, but defensive driving wasn’t always about yielding to impatient idiots.

As he drove through the city, John allowed a small laugh to escape his lips. He saw the high rise condo he and Jenna had considered buying when they first decided to move to Fort Worth. After accepting his new
job, they met with a realtor to view a few downtown condo listings. The first was on the 21
^st
floor of a new building, and just three blocks from John’s work. They were stunned by the expansive Fort Worth vista, but the appeal ended there. The idea of dealing with elevators, a parking garage, and no personal outside space, quickly refocused their search to life at ground level.

The realtor then showed them several single family homes on the edge of the city, but it offered them little in terms of improvements on their desire for more personal space, so they spread their search farther from the city.

As they moved farther and farther out, it became obvious to their realtor that they wanted something at least semi-rural. As military brats, both John and Jenna were accustomed to living a suburban life, at least suburban life as the military emulates, but that didn’t mean they wanted to do the same for their children. Besides, nearly all the new suburban developments were compact and generic. Jenna called them, “Cookie cutter homes,” and John agreed. They both wanted something a bit more unique; something with a little more elbow room, with land and trees.

John clashed with the idea of city life in every way but his work. He actually liked his job. Even though he would have preferred to work away from the city, he understood the necessity of it at this point in his life. It was a little like having to work at Corps Headquarters, a military city in its own right. You could lose your identity when placed in such a large fishbowl, but it was essential for promotion.

It also didn’t help that the city, or any big city for that matter, reminded John of Baghdad. While he was in Baghdad, especially in the Shia controlled area of Sadr City, the heavy traffic and people that choked streets demanded he maintain a hyper-awareness of his surroundings. John found that he couldn’t turn that habit off, and it exhausted him. He could never relax in a city environment, or more accurately, never allow himself to relax. There were too many memories to lower his guard.

John allowed his mind to reflect on what brought him to Fort Worth in the first place. It wasn’t very long after retiring from the Army that he
landed a lucrative financial strategy position at a prominent Fort Worth financial investment firm.

He never considered a career in money management, but a recruiter got his attention with an excellent salary, benefits, and relocation package. John agreed to meet with one of the firm’s top executives, and flew to Fort Worth to test the waters.

The meeting went well. At least well enough to convince John that he didn’t waste his money on the suit he just bought, but when the executive informed him that he came highly recommended from General Brooks, a retired banking CEO, he knew he couldn’t walk away. John had served as Brooks’ senior intelligence officer while in Iraq, back when General Brooks was Colonel Brooks, a brigade combat team commander.

John didn’t think their relationship was that strong, but apparently he impressed Brooks enough to warrant his endorsement. John didn’t know Brooks was the CEO of a very successful banking institution, one that catered to service members and their families, but it didn’t surprise him. Brooks was a smart, hard-charging, professional in anything he touched.

According to the executive, Brooks recommended John for the job because of his talent to accurately predict future events, and his lack of fear in standing firm in his position.

Wrongly sensing John’s discomfort with the referral, the financial executive explained that the general did little more than put John on the firm’s radar. He said they were interested in his abilities, and not in whom he was connected, or his military service.

Later, the executive admitted to John that the general was his friend, and while at a dinner party in San Antonio, he asked the general if he knew of any exceptional and currently available human resources that were released from the clutches of the Department of Defense. And as it turned out, the general heard of John’s retirement, and dropped his name as someone of interest.

John remembered the executive’s words, now his high-level boss, very well, “I did some digging into your past and came to my own conclusions
about your abilities and, talents. It’s true I can find analysts out there,” as he waived an arm at the window that offered a stunning view of the Trinity River below. “But I need more than another good analyst. I need an analyst who can lead, one who’s not afraid to commit to a position or idea, and one who can see patterns. I want someone who has the confidence and ability to make things happen . . . here . . . in this firm.”

Twenty minutes later, after John learned more about what would be expected of him, the executive asked if he was interested. John requested a moment to confer with his wife, and the executive graciously stepped out of his office to give John some privacy.

Jenna agreed that the offer was too good to pass up, and that it was better than anything he had encountered thus far since his retirement. She encouraged him to accept the position, but only if it’s what he wanted. John knew, that for Jenna, it meant that she could finally settle down in an area she loved. It’s what she always wanted, to live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but it was something the military could never facilitate. With Jenna’s blessing, John accepted the offer.