From a Distance

 

 

 

 

By

 

 

 

CL Hart

 

 

 

The world is no longer considered to be a big place, more like a global community. International incidences become household discussions due to the powers of the Internet and the ever prying eyes of the glossed over news media reporting twenty-four hours a day. However, not all of the world’s problems are reported to the public at large. Sometimes, the powers that be twist events to tip the scales of truth and justice in their favor, other times there is a mere whisper in the shadows and the problem ceases to exist.  These people migrate to each other, creating a core of influential authority, pockets of power spread throughout the world in such cities as London, Paris, Toronto, New York and Washington. They live and work within the fabric of government, the military and large corporations, and they are identified only as ‘Global Engineers’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you a pawn or are you a knight,

Do you move forward, or do you move right?

Some say it’s a game, but it maybe your life,

You can’t walk forever on the edge of a knife.

You best beware of all that’s around,

Death can sneak up without making a sound.

Can you trust in a shadow, that is not your own?

Who has your back if you are standing alone?

The truth that you find may not set you free.

From a distance, the future is not what you see.

 

 

Just then, she saw him coming down the sidewalk toward his chair. Once he sat down, she relaxed her body. Breathing in and out rhythmically, she took one last deep cleansing breath and waited. At one minute to nine, she squeezed the slack out of the trigger, and focused on her target. She felt more than heard the clock hand move onto the hour, and she fired on the second bong of the clock tower. She did not wait, because she did not need to — the job was done. She was out of the tree and on the way out of the park before anyone realized the man was even dead.

 

She left the park and headed for the Charles de Gaulle airport. Traveling northeast through the narrow streets of Paris on a motorcycle, she felt her plane ticket secure in the inside pocket of her jacket. Taking a back alley, she slowed down when she came to the Seine River. Parking the bike, she descended the stone steps until she was on the wide walkway next to the river. Without a second thought, she dropped the rifle, minus its scope, into the unrelenting murky waters. Quickly, though not hurried, she climbed back up the steps and sped away. Her assignment was finished, and now she could crawl back into the darkness that was her only comfort from what she had become.

 

Even though the plane was only half filled to capacity, she still felt crowded as she leaned back into her seat and settled in for her long flight home.

 

Home, what a concept, she sighed deeply as she closed her eyes. Home, it was just a place to wait for her next job.

 

 

[

 

 

Kenzie had never known a real home as a child, just different places with different faces. Her mother, born of Egyptian decent, had died when she was young, leaving behind distant memories and the looks of an exotic princess. Her father had left to go fight in Vietnam and never returned. Kenzie then went to live with her elderly grandmother Helen. She was well intentioned, but she had no idea how to raise a rambunctious, rebellious teenager. The total lack of parenting only added to Kenzie’s moral decline and frequent troubles. She trusted and respected no one.

 

With no adult guidance, her sharp mind and bad attitude landed her in juvenile hall many times. Just when she was about to fall through the cracks of the system, she found herself in front of Judge Benjamin Woodward, a hard-nosed judge with little tolerance for disrespectful teenagers. He had lost his only child more than twenty years ago, and the pain and separation had never left him. However, occasionally, behind his mask of stone, he found himself wanting to reach out to ones that needed a little extra help. He was tough, but fair, firmly demanding respect from those who respected few.

 

Judge Woodward watched with interest, as the latest rebellious young woman in front of him surveyed her surroundings in cocky arrogance. Her looks were as intriguing as her body language with her full lips, dark skin and almond shaped gold-colored eyes. It was easy to tell that she thought her present predicament was wasting her time and she wanted everyone around her to know that. As the two opposing councils shuffled papers, the defendant split her attention between the clock on the wall and the hole in her jean jacket as she ran her fingers through her curly, long, dark hair.

 

To Judge Woodward, it was not hard to see why Kenzie had been in trouble with the law several times. She had stood rebelliously in front of him, reached into her pocket and fished out a cigarette and lighter. Placing the cigarette between her lips, she glanced down at the lighter in her hand. With ease of practice, she flipped open its lid and was about to light her cigarette when her eyes caught the stone face of the judge.

 

“Don’t — you — dare,” he said slowly and clearly, leaving no doubt in Kenzie’s mind he was in charge of this courtroom. Judge Woodward watched and waited, and finally the Zippo clinked shut without its flame ever touching the end of the teen’s cigarette.

 

Judge Woodward saw something in Kenzie’s eyes, and as he looked over her lengthy juvenile record, he continued to glance up at her. Checking her birth date, he realized she was almost an adult, almost — but not quite. He leaned back in his chair and pulled his glasses off. He studied her strong features and her obstinate attitude.

 

“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”

 

Kenzie stared back at him, defiant and uncaring. “Is this going to take long? I’ve a previous engagement.”

 

“I think you’re going to miss it.” He put his glasses back on. “Would you care to explain yourself young lady?”

 

She crossed her arms and looked suspiciously at the judge.

 

“About the stolen car?” he reminded her.

 

The teen shrugged her shoulders. “I needed a ride.”

 

“Twice?”

 

“There and back.”

 

“And the assault?”

 

“He wouldn’t give me his car. I wanted, I needed — I took it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I told you, I needed a ride.”

 

The judge sat quietly on the bench, studying her as she ran her fingers through her unmanageably curly dark hair. Years later, he would look back to this time, trying to figure out what made him do what he did. Kenzie appeared no different from the thousands of other young offenders that were marched before him, but something told him she was.

 

Judge Woodward adjourned the court for lunch and went back to his chambers to see if he could pull a few strings with an old Army buddy. The Colonel and he had remained friends long after the judge had exchanged his uniform for a black robe, and he was more than willing to listen to the judge’s idea.

 

After lunch, Judge Woodward called the young offender, along with her lawyer, into his chambers.

 

“You are almost an adult and you have been in and out of this system like it’s a revolving door. Well, the revolutions are about to stop. Tell me young lady, have you had any thoughts about your future?”

 

Kenzie crossed her arms, but remained silent.

 

The judge flipped through some papers on his desk. “You are no longer a juvenile, and it’s time you started to take some responsibility for yourself as an adult. Two counts of grand theft auto, one count of aggravated assault. You have two options: two years at WCCW or —”

 

Kenzie’s public defender jumped up. “Your Honor, Washington Correctional ­—”

 

The judge cut her off, “Let me finish counselor.”

 

“Your honor that is a center for women, it’s an adult prison, you can’t send her —”

 

“I can and I will. She is old enough to do the crime and old enough to do the time. So it is time for her to make some of her own decisions.” He leaned over his desk and stared straight into Kenzie’s eyes. “Your choice?”

 

“What’s my other option?” Her steady gaze never faltered.

 

“Four years serving Uncle Sam.” This little maneuver was going to cost him a couple of bottles of forty-year-old scotch, but something told him the young woman in front of him was worth the strings he had pulled.

 

Kenzie sat up straight as her court appointed lawyer pleaded with the judge. “Your Honor, this is highly irregular. You can’t just force her —”

 

“Counselor, I would advise you to sit down and shut up. No one is forcing anyone. I am simply giving her options. She is old enough to understand the law and to know the consequences of breaking it. What I’m doing is offering her a choice to turn her life around or to continue on the road she is currently on.”

 

Judge Woodward stared at the young girl, but she showed him no outward appearance of where her mind was going. “If you are thinking of just leaving once you’re in training, the two years at WCCW will be waiting until you have served your entire obligation to the military.”

 

Crossing her arms over her chest, Kenzie raised one eyebrow, “A few years playing soldier, not a problem.”

 

Forty-eight hours later, Katherine Mackenzie LeGault stepped off a bus at Fort Lewis and into the care of Sergeant ‘I eat recruits for breakfast’ Carter. He knew who she was and why she was here, and he wanted to make damn certain she knew that there was no playing soldier under his command.

 

Kenzie thrived in the military. It taught her discipline and responsibility, two things her life had been seriously lacking. She got three meals a day, a place to hang her hat and a chance to make something more of her life. Academically it had been challenging at first, having never applied herself at school. However, she was kicking ass in all the physical training even though she was smaller than most of her troop mates. Soon everyone knew her name, and the direction her military career was heading.

 

Half way through Kenzie’s training two monumental things happened. First, her grandmother Helen passed away, leaving her with no family and making her feel a little guilty for all of the trouble she had caused her; second, she sent a letter of thanks to the man who had changed her life. A few weeks later, she was surprised to receive her first piece of civilian mail. The return address surprised her even further: Judge B. W. Woodward, Seattle, Washington.

 

The letters between them started out short, but soon their length grew, as did their friendship. Kenzie liked having someone around in her life, and Judge Woodward liked the spirited fire he had seen beneath all of the young woman’s anger. Excelling in all levels of her training, Kenzie graduated first in her class.

 

With no family left to invite to her graduation due to the passing of her Grandmother, she sent an invitation to Judge Woodward. She could not hide her smile when she saw him sitting in the second row.

 

The Marine was where she belonged and somehow Judge Woodward had known that. He was there when she received her first promotion, clapping proudly, shoulder to shoulder with the others who were there to see their family members promoted. On her twenty-first birthday, the judge was there to watch her open an envelope that had come from the legal firm of Broughton, Greene and Hanson. Unbeknownst to Kenzie, her grandmother, before she had died, had set up a trust fund for her. It had not been a lot of money, but it was enough for Kenzie to purchase her first off-base residence: a twenty-eight-foot, Catalina Mark II sailboat. No one knew about it but the judge. It was the first thing she had really owned, and it was a home without roots, just like her. In honor of her grandmother, she named it Helen’s Gate.

 

The judge was there for Kenzie, cooking her dinner before she left to begin training at Quantico. Soon after, her duties were taking her all over the globe, opening her eyes to many of the misfortunes that the rest of the world endured. More than once, she recalled her own childhood with shame. Kenzie wrote the judge often, but she talked less and less about what she was doing and where she was doing it.

 

The first time he saw her after she returned from Europe, Judge Woodward was surprised at the maturity in Kenzie’s features. He saw her in a new light. The short-cropped dark hair he was accustomed to was starting to lengthen, showing off her natural wild curls. She had always been a beautiful and intelligent young woman, but now there was a different side to her, an inner awareness of just who she was and a new attentiveness to her eyes that told him some of what she had seen. It was also the first time he saw how quickly she could change her outward appearance, slipping into another language, almost changing her personality. The next time he saw her, Kenzie was sporting a new set of stripes on her uniform. Judge Woodward knew then the army was grooming her for something more than your average soldier.

 

Kenzie phoned him one night and said she would be gone for a while and would not be in touch until she returned. He was not surprised. He had foreseen the potential in her a long time ago.

 

It was over a year before he saw her again. Her hair was a little longer, her demeanor a little quieter. This time he noticed her uniform was decorated with more ribbons of action, and her eyes bore the darkness of someone who had seen death — close up.

 

 

[

 

 

            Europe changed her life. Only those in the high ranks of the military knew they had been training her as a sniper, one of the few female snipers in the world. Kenzie loved it even though it was long hours of lonely work. Friends were never a part of her life, and you never miss what you never had. Girlfriends were a rarity and those that were, were discrete and disposable. It was the military after all – don’t ask, don’t tell.

 

For most of her career, she answered to Colonel Daniel Manuck, a man of color, who wore his rank proudly on his uniform. Much like his charge, Manuck had risen swiftly through the ranks, too swiftly some thought. He was a man of little words who had seen action on several continents. With a massive chest and huge hands, he had been a physical force to reckon with for anyone who had opposed him. Those close to him hardly knew him, which made him perfect for the position he held. A handful of soldiers reported to him and him alone.

 

Kenzie was one of his favorites as she spoke less than he did, but was far more accurate at five hundred meters. When he met with her, their meetings were short and to the point. Kenzie knew he had to answer to someone higher up, but she did not ask to whom. It was irrelevant to her job. He gave her orders and she followed them. Killing became easy. It was her job, and it was what she did.

 

As a sniper, she trained with another soldier as a team, a young man from South Dakota, Corporal John Mifflin. He was her spotter. His eyes were her eyes when her aim looking through a scope. Mifflin was only the second person in her life she had called friend. Sergeant Carter had been a mentor, but she would never have called him friend. Only a few years younger than her, Mifflin’s job was to overlook the target area while she lined up the kill shot. They were a great team and with time had learned to work as an efficient unit. Two people who worked together toward one goal, bringing down the enemy target. They took pride in what they did knowing it took a special person to crawl around in some of the worst conditions the world had to offer. Then to lie in wait for one clear shot at an unsuspecting target took more than nerves of steel and the patients of saint.

 

Within no time, they were rising to the top of their field. If the military wanted a target out of the picture, Kenzie LeGault and John Mifflin’s names were high on the list to get the job done. Then something went wrong, very wrong, during an assignment. They were waiting in the mud through the driving rain, watching for their target. They did not move and they did not speak. Suddenly, two shots rang out, echoing in the night. Kenzie survived with a wound to her shoulder, but Corporal J. Mifflin died instantly. A high caliber bullet hit him in the eye, splattering his partner with brain matter. Kenzie barely made it out of the jungle with her life. All she could bring back of her friend was his dog tags.

 

There had been a brief investigation, but so much of it was confidential the only answer the army gave was that Mifflin died in the line of duty. His family received a medal and a crisply folded flag for his bravery. Kenzie had a hard time after his death and took a leave of absence. She had many long phone conversations with the judge. However, she could not speak about what was really bothering her due to the sensitive issue of security. He tried to console her, but survivor guilt was a hard thing to get over. He understood that having served in Vietnam.

 

When Kenzie was finally able to see him, he knew by the look in her eyes the damage was done. He could not change what she felt inside, but it did not stop him from trying. When her leave of absence was over, she returned to the only life she knew. Within no time, the army had her back in action as one of the very few soldiers who worked alone. The solitude of how she lived, and the way she did her job, made Kenzie even more dangerous than before.

 

Her time with the judge became shorter and shorter, with longer and longer intervals between. Sadly, he understood and said nothing to her, but it felt at times like he was losing another child.

 

One afternoon she received a message to report to the Colonel, off base. The address was an office building and when she entered the room, she was surprised to see another man there. He was tall and athletic looking, with a military haircut and he was dressed in a crisp dark suit and tie — Fed? Possible, she answered herself. He was an Elliot Ness look-alike, no, more like Kevin Costner, I will call you Kevin, she thought when no introductions were given.

 

They offered her a seat, which she took, and then listened quietly as they made her an offer. Manuck did most of the talking, and now and then Kevin would add something. In addition, when Kevin was quiet, she felt his eyes on her every move and every word. She would wonder many years later what would have happened if she had declined their offer.

 

FBI, CIA, SSA — the initials did not matter to her, she would be doing the same thing, but the proposition came with strings attached, and she weighed them carefully. More responsibility, less military operations, and it all came with a fat pay raise and a security clearance of the highest level. Kenzie was ready to jump at it until Kevin made one final statement. He cleared his throat dramatically and then informed her that it came at a very high cost. “Your life in the civilian world will cease.”

 

“Cease?” She looked to Manuck for clarification.

 

The Colonel hesitated for a moment, weighing his words as he studied her face. “Your existence will be eradicated — permanently.”

 

Glancing from one man to another, Kenzie was not sure what to ask, but somehow she knew there would not be an answer.

 

That night she reluctantly called the judge and arranged for them to have dinner together. When she arrived, he could not help but notice there were more changes, some were obvious, and some were subtle. Her dark hair was once again a wild tousle of curls, but it did not hide the concern creased into her brow. He was surprised when Kenzie brought up the subject of her financial estate. Money was not something she discussed often. He listened carefully to her words and wishes, and though she had not mentioned anything, he suddenly had his suspicions. When they had signed all the papers, she had brought, the subject was over and they ate dinner without mentioning it again. The mood became happy and light, but when Kenzie pulled on her black leather jacket, the judge could see something painful in her features. They hugged tightly to one another in the driveway. It was hard for her to leave, but she tried not to show emotions as she climbed on to her motorbike. With a simple nod, she was gone and the elderly judge stood and watched as Kenzie rode out of sight. Somehow, he knew it was the last time he would see her.

 

When Kenzie reported to Colonel Manuck the next morning, she handed him all her signed papers, her dog tags and Identification. He in turn gave her a new security clearance ID card – with no name and no picture, just a laser scan of her thumbprint, and that was it. What there was of Katherine Mackenzie LeGault was no more.

 

Two days later, Judge Woodward was reading his morning paper when a small article caught his eye.

 

 

United States Army Military press release – Fort Lewis, Washington. Officials at the Fort released few details regarding the death of a local Marine. Sergeant-Major Katherine Mackenzie LeGault, a highly decorated member of Special Forces, was killed in the line of duty. The circumstances of her death were not revealed due to national security. She leaves behind no immediate family members.

 

 

He laid the paper down, unsure of what he had just read. He may have felt sorrow, but some how he knew she was still out there somewhere, doing what she was trained to do.

 

Weeks after the judge had read her obituary in the paper, a package arrived for him at the courthouse. Without a postmark, he was a little hesitant in opening it, but something told him to. Inside he found a small jewelry box, and when he pried the lid open, a smile instantly spread across his face. Inside was a Zippo lighter embossed with a black and white yin-yang, the same lighter his Katherine had held in her hand as she stood before him in his courtroom some many years before.

 

Months later, another package arrived, another Zippo lighter — no note or return address, but he knew it was from her. He smiled broadly. Katherine was alive and that was all he needed to know.

 

 

[

 

 

With her new assignment, Kenzie only met Colonel Manuck in non-descript buildings or underground parking lots. At times, she found the whole cloak and dagger thing almost amusing, but considering what she was doing there was little humor to her work. She followed her orders to the letter. The first few jobs she did were a lot harder than she expected. In some ways she felt very vulnerable without her army dog tags and military backup, but she soon realized the job was not much different than it had been before. If anything, it was better because she had more freedom to move and she answered only to Colonel Manuck. Moreover, she was not always there to eliminate a problem, sometimes she would spend months just gathering information, but either way Kenzie considered herself a specialist in her field of global security. When a problem arose and all other avenues had failed, they would bring her in to handle it, in whatever means necessary. It was a different life and she was learning to enjoy it.

 

It was a world of solitude, and she soon realized the cost was anonymity. She followed all protocol as per her orders. She had the luxury of money and two residences, but she did not really have a home. One was a house in the Pacific Northwest and the other was her sailboat, of which she changed the mooring of often. Her only outside existence was the polite conversations she had with the strangers in her life; the overly-happy oriental lady who would giggle and bow every time Kenzie came into her small produce store; Jack, the young skateboarding mechanic who looked after her bike when she was out of town. However, nobody knew her real name, where she lived or what she did. She was alone, living her life as a ghost. No one ever noticed that even though Kenzie had quit smoking years ago she still purchased Zippo lighters on a regular basis.