Triple Jeopardy

I had always thought my High School creative writing teacher was joking when he claimed to be a hunted terrorist. I actually had no reason to doubt his story, aside from the fact that it sounded ludicrous. He was of medium height, medium weight, medium build, medium rare, with a black beard that barely covered his chin and thin lips; it was more of a ten PM shadow than anything else. His brown eyes held a dry wit that emanated in his voice. He looked Caucasian, with a light Mediterranean tan. He had long fingers, an unintelligible script, and an ID that read: Joseph Sheridan. Born June 9^th, 1952. In class, he would tell us in a quick one-liner about knowing how to kill a man with two fingers.

When he first mentioned it, he said, "I'm a terrorist, hunted by the FBI for the last twenty-seven years." I laughed, as did we all. In retrospect, twenty-seven years ago from that year was the Yom Kippur war.

To tell the truth, I sort of liked him. He took disrespectful students' comments and fired one-liners back at them that were as subtle as torpedoes. He kept his calm at all times, and spoke softly, and a lot.

After class one day, when everyone else had gone, I joked, "Mr. Sheridan, why don't you try writing your biography? It would make a good terrorist novel—no one would say it's real. I mean, come on, a terrorist retiring to teach? No one'd believe it."

Sheridan smiled and said, "It's an idea."

That was the last we talked of it for weeks. A month later he wanted me to read it. It wasn't much: ten, fifteen pages. He had spent his free time writing it.

"I wanted to read it to the class in the hopes that they'd learn something," he told me.

I smirked. "Ha! That's a stretch. What do you want me to do?"

"See if it would catch their interest. Maybe they'd even pay attention."

"Ah, you want a miracle, is that all? No problem."

It was a detailed manuscript of a quick, one-man strike on an army complex in a made up Middle East country. The character was from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, synonymous in the Arab World with terrorist. I finished the entire thing in twenty minutes; I would've finished sooner if my uncle hadn't dropped by for a surprise visit.

My uncle Mike seemed to be a well-built, forty-year-old, blond space case. He supposedly worked with relief aid worldwide, but no one knew the name of the organization, and no one asked. He would often give credible, detailed stories of his journeys to Russia, North Ireland, China, and what used to be Yugoslavia. At dinner that night, I asked him if he knew much about the Middle East.

"My knowledge of that area is not inconsiderable. Why?"

"Just wondering. A teacher of mine wrote a manuscript, and he wanted me to see if it was credible. I think so, but what do I know?"

He smiled. "Too much sometimes. What do you need?"

"Is it possible for one man to go into an army base and take it out?"

"Depends on what service and when."

"Mossad, early seventies," I casually replied as I glanced at the clock.

He stopped eating. He stopped talking. His entire body froze into one position for what felt like an hour. Then he locked his eyes on me. I was held in the grip of an iron glare and a wave of paranoia, as though I'd mouthed off to a drug dealer, or a rapper. What the hell was going on?

His body relaxed, and I glanced at the clock again. It was only five seconds after I last looked. It had to have been my writer's over-imagination playing with me.

"In the early seventies, I guess it would be possible. It's not like the Mossad ever played around to begin with, and in the seventies, they couldn't afford the niceties of being gentle. Israel can only lose once. Your teacher know much about the Middle East?" he asked, glancing at his plate.

"I don't know, but he does claim to be a hunted terrorist," I answered, smirking.

"Does he?" He grinned. "What exactly does he look like?"

I told him, then added, "He once had a beard like a lion's mane that went around his face. I saw it once in the eighty-eight yearbook."

"Fascinating. Are all of your teachers this year like this?"

"They've always had some quirks, you know that."

Each time Uncle Mike had come over, I had told him stories of my teachers, my classmates, and other creatures at Cardinal Archbishop Alois (pronounced "Alloy," prompting the slogan "Alois boys: We're made of sterner stuff"). He'd laugh at the weirdness that went on: classmates who acted like wackos from Waco; brain dead pervs who'd never shut up. The local sociopath who wanted my scalp particularly amused him. He'd always bet that I'd wipe the floor with him, because—while I wasn't Superman—I was creative.

"So," he continued, "what's this teacher's name?" I told him. "Sheridan?" he replied "Sounds Irish."

"I know. Makes it even funnier. But, in all reality, I'd swear he's the sanest of them all. Him and my homeroom teacher, Moiré Ann Bell. If you believe the rumors I've heard, they're either best friends, sleeping together, or he's her gay friend."

Mike gave a short, sharp laugh. "What do they base that on?"

I shrugged. "They're always seen together. If they aren't in her Homeroom, they're in his. They spend free and lunch periods together...or so I've heard."

"Indeed?" Mike gave me an incredulous look, as if peering at me over glasses he didn't wear. I was the school's invisible man, mistaken for a guidance counselor by student and teacher alike. If something happened in school I didn't know about, I worried.

"Yep," I replied. "I've seen them walk out together. It's not like I care what they do outside of school. Speculating on that sort of stuff I leave to the rest of the student body. The only exercise they get is jumping to conclusions."

"Ha! Isn't that always the case? Don't worry, you're going to have to live with people like that when you're thirty and working...different professions."

He started sipping from his glass when I asked, "Like where you work?"

He stopped in mid-sip and swallowed. "When I go abroad it's no problem. My bosses can't get to me except at HQ."

"It's like that down in Virginia?" Langley, perhaps?

"What makes you say Virginia?"

"Just a guess."

"Yeah, right."

Uncle Mike spoke fluent Russian, and I knew, as he did, that—in Russian—while a double negative was still a negative, a double positive meant a negative. Yeah, right.

*

The next day, I walked into creative writing dead tired. The rest of the family and I had listened to Uncle Mike's tales of Milosevic's Serbia and various civil war hot spots in South America, especially Columbia. If I had watched the news the week before, I would've learned about the laser targeting paints used to aim cruise missiles at individual floors of buildings in Serbia. I also would've heard about several drug cartel leaders being gutted.

"Rough night?" Mr. Sheridan asked as I staggered into class.

"Kinda," I answered as I dropped my bag into my seat. "I read your manuscript and spent the night talking with a relative of mine."

"Big talker, huh?"

"With a vengeance. At least he had something interesting to say."

Sheridan arched his eyebrows. "Hm? What about?"

"His various trips to the back ends of Europe and your manuscript."

"Really? What did he think?"

"Credible. He's been to the Middle East once or twice. I figured he could help."

"And what does he do? Spy?" he asked with his dry wit smile. He laughed.

I didn't. "We try not to ask questions like that."

Sheridan stopped laughing and went into a controlled silence, the one he used when he didn't want to show inappropriate displays of affect, usually anger.

He's not getting angry, he has no reason to. What's with the silent routine?

His dry smile returned. "Sounds like you have story material there."

"Story material? What story material?" I told him. He gave a slight nod. We understood each other. At that moment, if someone had told me that I would be looking at this man through a target sight later that week, I'd have laughed...

*

However, it was the end of the day when I was nearly killed. I stepped off the sidewalk, only to be nearly hit by a black van with no license plates. The toe of my right loafer was flattened, and the toes were spared by a millimeter. The van came to a halt three feet away, leaving me a foot of clearance as the back doors swung open.

I was shocked to find men in black suits jump out, not men in ski masks and combat fatigues. Don't these people read novels?

"Think fast," I told one of them as I gave my best basketball pass with a Tom Clancy novel into Suit #1's face. Debt of Honor made a very satisfying crack as it broke his nose.

Suit #2, on my right, just had his feet touch the ground when I dropped to a crouch on my left leg, slapped both hands on the asphalt, and swept my right leg under his. My girlfriend had taught me that move the week before. The entire ordeal took two seconds, at most. I snatched my novel and took off at a dead run, covering a block in five seconds. I glanced back. Suits one and two were gone, so was the van.

What was that about?

After I made it back inside Alois, I caught my breath. My best speed blew away the fastest track guys... for all of about thirty seconds, then I was lucky if I could move. The entire ordeal was so fast I could've dreamt it on my feet. Then I looked at my blood-spotted book.

Most people in danger do the smart, rational thing, and call the cops. Some people, in my position, would have walked into the Queens Borough command center down in the train station where I walked every day. But I'm not some people. I'm not even most people. So, I made like ET and phoned home. My mother answered.

"Yeah, mom, it's Matt. You busy?" I asked.

"What happened?"

"I nearly got kidnapped by two guys in suits jumping out of a black van."

She sighed. "If it isn't one thing it's another. Wait there."

Most probably, you've figured out that this wasn't new for us. My High School and—more precisely—me, myself, and I attracted all manner of beings, creatures, murderers and the occasional psycho; and those were just the TAs. My biography already read like a Patricia Cornwell novel crossed with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode.

I stepped out of the claustrophobic phone booth (How did Superman do it?) into the main lobby of the school. You're wondering whether I had a rational bone in my body. Why didn't I call the police? Or just go home? Think about it. What would I tell the cops? Two yuppies jumped me from a black van with no plates. This would not go over well with New York cops, who dealt with more neurotics than I did. Home? The Suits knew when I got out of school, so they probably knew where I waited for the bus.

I had been mulling over those exact same questions when Ms. Bell almost ran me over coming out of the elevator next to the phone booth. I sidestepped in the graceful manner I only possess when dodging in the halls, but lose when dancing.

Moiré Bell was only five-three, and weighed a hundred pounds, if that. She was the only person on the staff who could get away with a skirt that barely brushed the tops of her kneecaps. Most of her height was composed of her long, slender legs that were—literally—registered legal weapons within the state of New York. If any of my classmates knew she took kickboxing on top of gymnastics, the perpetual comments they made about her would disappear. Her hair was either dark or light brown, depending on how the light touched it. Her eyes were definitely dark brown.

"Sorry," we said in tandem, briefly making eye contact. I glanced up. There was no sign of Sheridan. I smiled. "Have a good day."

"You, too, Matt," she replied as she went on her way.

When I was sure she was gone, I bounded up the stairs three at a time until I reached the third floor. With my neurotic attention to detail, I know that Bell was usually out of the building by 2:15. Sheridan caught the train five minutes later. I was curious about where he was, and I had time. My sense of curiosity hadn't gotten me killed yet, although it kept trying.

I waited to make sure I didn't look winded when I walked by Sheridan's room; I still had the copper taste of blood in my mouth from my previous run. His room was five feet from the stairwell I'd come up. I could see his lights on. Why'd he stay?

The last thing on my mind was to pry into anyone's private life, and I'd have just shrugged off any idiosyncrasy in his schedule, had I not almost been hit by a car. After that, everything looked sinister. Besides, there had been only two things that happened out of the ordinary the day before: my uncle's arrival and Sheridan's manuscript. While the manuscript was almost certainly out of the question, paranoia was a plus in these situations. After all, even paranoids had real enemies.

Sheridan's door was open. He wasn't at his desk. I turned into the classroom. He sat at his conductor's stand, reading a book he had assigned his freshman class. He held it in his left hand, though he was right-handed. His right was hidden within his blazer.

I knocked on the door to get his attention. "Afternoon."

His head snapped up from the book fast enough to produce whiplash, and, had I been less observant than I am, I would have missed his right arm tensing for a split second.

"Administration isn't letting you out tonight?" I joked.

He smiled. "No. I just decided to stay in awhile, take in the scenery."

Spring was just setting in, but the trees across the street were still bare. "Yes, I see what you mean. It's a simply be-uutiful view."

"So, why are you still here?" he asked, closing the book, putting it on the stand.

"Just waiting for my ride. I'd be home by now if that car didn't try to run me down."

Sheridan's body turned toward me, and he took his hand out of his jacket. He even took his black reading glasses off.

I noticed the buttons of his shirt had a slight pull to the left they didn't have that morning; a pull I once read about in a book by Capt. Dan Mahoney, NYPD ret. It was a way to spot a concealed gun.

"Who the hell tried to run you over?" he asked.

"Guys in black suits, believe it or not. They even stopped to try to kidnap me. "

"Caucasian? Black?"

"I didn't notice at the time." Good question, but why did he ask?

"You think they'd try again?"

"I'm not taking any chances that they won't. I'll just wait inside 'til my ride comes."

"I'll wait with you, outside. After all, anyone off the street could waltz right in here."

Sheridan came outside, wearing just his suit and carrying his briefcase. The street was devoid of traffic. It didn't look like anyone would come.

"You know her?" Sheridan asked me, pointing at the block behind me.

The woman he pointed to had legs like Madonna, no cellulite, all sleek muscle, like a deer's, graceful. She had a flat, solid belly and dark, red hair, with fiery blue eyes that made one want to fall into them. She spoke in a nice soft voice and almost always smiled a slight smile, a glorious sight. How do I know this at first glance? you ask.

"That's Moira McShane." Moira had been my girlfriend for four years. I'd have sworn she knew every form of Martial Arts, and attended The Marie Louise Academy: Alois' sister school ... let's just say that if that was the sister school, there was a lot of incest going on.

She walked up to me with a benevolent smile. "What happened?"

Ah nuts. I was supposed to meet her at snob hill. I had finished telling her what I told Sheridan when a black HUMVEE pulled up to the curb. Sheridan noticed it first, of course, and Moira tapped me on the shoulder before I realized it was even there. It wasn't my best day. It dipped lower when I saw Uncle Mike in the driver's seat.

*

Uncle Mike pulled onto the Grand Central Parkway. "So, that was Sheridan? Interesting looking fellow. He hung around after you were nearly nailed?"

"He decided to wait with me. He was staying late anyway."

"Not too late. I saw him walk toward the subway after we pulled away."

"Must've been intimidated by your RV and left before the rest of the army showed."

"What? This? It's a company car."

"Generous Company," Moira commented, emphasizing the C. I had told her about what my uncle "did" a few months after we met; a week after I had figured it out.

"That they are," I said. "Company car. Company business. Company man. How much would you want to bet, Moira, that the men who jumped me have a similar Company?"

"I wouldn't bet on that, if I were you, Moira," Mike told her. "The Middle East has different types of Companies from ours. What do you think, Matt?"

"I think the two Suits that jumped me could've been bright green and I might not have noticed."

"Would you have noticed a plate number?" asked Moira, always a cop step ahead.

"I can't answer that since there wasn't a plate."

"Just like the car behind us," Mike said. "You two buckled in?"

*

Five miles, two road blocks, about 4 clips, and fifty assault rifle rounds later, Mike's HUMVEE pulled into my driveway. It was impossible to see out of the bulletproof back window, it was covered by webbed cracks. Unlike Moira, the bozos who had chased us didn't know enough to shoot for the tires.

Stepping out of the car, Mike asked Moira, "Where exactly did you learn to shoot?"

"My father's a cop. Where exactly did you get a .45 like that in International Aid?"

"It's a hazardous job," he replied. "I go to some real nasty places."

I actually managed to finish my homework that night. Don't ask me how, I don't question the imponderable. Even more surprising, I dragged myself into school the next day. I insisted on my carpool leaving earlier than usual, just in case our schedule had gotten predictable. The last thing I needed, however, was what happened next.

It seemed everyone decided to not follow their normal routine. I arrived early. Miss Bell and Sheridan went through the cafeteria instead of the faculty entrance, and Keith Mangiere accidentally used one drop of acid too many. Even farther out of routine, one of the Teacher's Assistants actually looked at a student's eyes; Keith's eyes, to be exact. When the TA miraculously put one and three together, he decided to have Keith checked out by the school nurse. Keith, in his LSD-ridden state, didn't appreciate the efforts the TA took and tossed him over his shoulder through the cafeteria window, a yard or two away.

At the time, I was coming through the entrance on one side of the window as Sheridan and Bell went through the other, so I had a ringside seat for what happened next. Sheridan wasted no time covering the 20-foot gap between him and Keith, dropping his briefcase as he ran. I don't see how Keith could've realized what hit him as Sheridan's fist blurred into his diaphragm. He staggered back, still standing, when Sheridan's thumb and index finger latched onto a part of his throat, the carotid artery. Keith struggled for five seconds before he passed out. If Sheridan'd held on longer, Keith would've been dead.

He could have killed him with just two fingers.

*

It was an amazing experience to realize that a teacher, one you'd consider a friend, is a terrorist. It defied all laws of logic, reason, and I'm sure one or two state and federal laws, I just couldn't figure out which two.

Although—as I thought it over—he wasn't a terrorist, except to people like Yasir Arafat. Mossad were the good guys. But why would a Mossad agent—a good one, if the story was any clue—come to New York and teach in a Roman Catholic High School? It certainly wasn't for the money. He must have pissed off someone real bad.

It didn't matter who was after ... him? Me? Us? All that mattered was how to stop them. The NYPD wouldn't buy any of this. The FBI didn't have any reason to take my word. I needed to have a long, long talk with Uncle Mike. Not only did I need him to get me out of this mess, I needed him to explain why men in suits wanted to abduct an 18 year old like me.