Sean woke up as the door opened. Vincent Black entered, took one look at Sean, saw through the hair and broke into a huge smile.
“I knew it! I fucking knew it!”
As Sean stood up to greet him, Black pushed past Sean’s outstretched hand and uncharacteristically embraced him. Had Sean been able to see behind him, Black was wiping a small tear from his eye.
“Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Sean pulled back from the embrace and looked at the inane grin on Black’s face.
“You’re not fucking dead is what’s going on!”
“Obviously!”
A knock at the door, followed by the appearance of Smith, interrupted the re-union.
“We have a problem.”
“My DNA checked out!” replied Sean stating the obvious, smiling at Black.
“Yes…”
Sean walked towards the door. He’d hung around long enough, his suite was waiting.
“Not so fast. As I said, we have a problem,” repeated Smith firmly.
Black looked at Smith, surprised at his forcefulness.
“So the guy that’s dead wasn’t me, not my problem, goodbye.” Sean opened the door, followed closely by Black.
“That’s the problem. It was you in the headlines. According to the DNA, you are definitely dead.”
Both Sean and Black stopped in their tracks and looked back at Smith. Sean had the door half open.
“Sorry?” asked Black, struggling to comprehend why the obvious error had not been resolved.
“The DNA from the murder victim matches that on your records and the sample you gave us today. Three separate techs have confirmed it.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Sean. “What’s the chance of a DNA match?
“One in six billion but I think a match with someone who looks like you and takes your identity would be around, oh, one in no fucking chance,” explained Smith succinctly.
Sean thought about what Smith had just said. It didn’t change anything. “Not my problem. I’m out of here!” He opened the door fully.
“Wait a minute,” said Black, turning back towards the small table, wanting to see the results for himself.
Sean was tired and frustrated. He wanted to get to his suite. The bath, steak and comfortable mattress were calling. But with Vincent Black sitting back down, he was left with little option.
“Just check the fingerprints,” offered Sean, taking a seat.
“Not that simple,” replied Black, fully aware of the dead Sean’s lack of digits, hands, arms, feet and legs for that matter. He passed the file that sat in front of Smith to Sean.
Sean opened and witnessed what somebody had done to him. He was immediately incensed. “Holy shit!”
“Not a pretty sight,” agreed Black.
“No,” agreed Sean. “But not just that,” he pointed to a mark on the side of the torso and lifted his shirt — the same mark.
Smith just looked from one to the other. “That’s seriously weird!”
Black looked at the mark and considered the evidence. “There are two options Sean. That’s you or there’s another, sorry, was, another Sean out there exactly like you. You must have had an identical twin.”
“For God’s sake V, you knew them better than me! My mother was desperate for kids and having me was difficult enough. She was desperate for more and trust me, if I had a brother, twin or not, my mother would have kept him.
“I know, I know, it just doesn’t make any sense!” replied Vincent staring at the evidence.
“Adopted?” offered Smith, trying the other most obvious explanation.
“Nope,” replied Vincent. “I was there just before Sean was born and she was definitely pregnant.
“A mix-up at the hospital and they switched the babies by accident?” grasped Smith, looking for a rational explanation.
“He’s the spitting image of his father,” replied Vincent shaking his head.
Sean considered the possibility. Perhaps but then he remembered. “Nope, I was tested after my parents’ crash. I was a perfect match for my mom if she needed a kidney.” Sean went quiet. Even after twenty-five years, the memory hit hard. His father had died instantly and his mother had died 48 hours after the crash. She had never woken up. He had never had the chance to say goodbye, to either of them.
Black noted the change in mood and moved on. “OK, so no siblings or mistakes at the hospital. Which brings us back to there’s something wrong with the evidence. There’s an error somewhere. We’re just missing it.”
“Simple. The wife. She’ll be able to sort it out,” suggested Sean.
“Whose wife?” asked Smith.
“The dead guy’s!” said Sean. “You just need to go see her and she’ll clear it up for you.”
“Wait a minute,” suggested Black. “Exactly what has this got to do with the CIA?”
“Somebody’s impersonating one of our officers?” offered Smith, helpfully.
“He retired 18 months ago,” replied Black, disappointment heavy in his voice. Sean had been his rising star, his protege, the son he never had and as far as Black had envisioned, his replacement as director of the NCS and potentially beyond. However, two years earlier, following a political cluster fuck, three of Sean’s colleagues had been killed after their mission was leaked by an over eager Senator. Sean himself only just survived and six months later, after a full recovery and serving his notice, he left the Agency, vowing never to work for 'Uncle Sam’ again.
Smith looked back at the passport and the date of birth, quickly calculating Sean’s age, ten years younger than him. “You retired at 38!”
“It’s complicated, politics, wanting me to ride a desk. Anyway, that’s all history. I’ve just made in a year what the government would’ve paid me in twenty!”
“Doing what?” asked Black, surprise barely hiding the suspicion at how such a sum could be earned legally.
“All legitimate, don’t worry V,” replied Sean, sensing the concern.
“So what now?” asked Black. He had always hoped Sean would come back. A couple of years’ break after twenty years’ service wasn’t a bad thing. Unbeknownst to Sean, his final termination had never been filed. As far as Black was concerned, before Sean had been reported killed, he had been on an extended career break.
“Florida. Gulf Coast. As cliched as it sounds, a charter boat and a house on the beach.”
“I meant about this guy,” Black pointed to the photo of the corpse.
Sean had promised himself that it was over. For over twenty years he had put his life on the line for others. He had no family of his own, no roots and nowhere to call home. He wanted a family. He wanted a home. He wanted not to be used. For the last eighteen months, he had worked for himself. Tracking and saving two kidnapped execs from the hands of the Taliban had been exceedingly lucrative.
“It’s not my problem.” He pushed the photo towards Smith, indicating to whom he believed the problem belonged.
Smith lifted the photo and placed it back in the file. In full view of both of them, he closed the file and wrote 'stolen identity, case closed’ across the front.
“I’ll re-instate your passport and Social Security numbers. Be aware, it can take some time to filter through the system. So you should probably call your banks and insurance companies asap and let them know it was an error.”
Black stood up and looked at Sean and asked “Drink?” as he picked up the file and flicked through the rest of the contents.
“Definitely! Right after my date with a bath and a razor.”
“Excellent,” he replied, extracting another photo from the back of the file. “Imagine,” he pondered, showing Sean the photo. “If somehow he were your brother, this young boy would be your nephew!”
Sean looked at the photo of the young boy in his school uniform and if it hadn’t been for the Colonel Santos Benavides Elementary School logo on the boy’s sweater, he would have sworn it was a photo of himself. The likeness was impossible to deny.
Chapter 5
Twenty minutes, a shower, shave and hair trim later, a very different Sean Fox, the one resembling his passport photo, was boarding Vincent Black’s CIA gulfstream jet. The stewardess who earlier would have scowled at the Talibanesque Sean smiled warmly as he boarded.
“Still got it, I see,” chided Black. He had always been envious of Sean’s ability to attract the opposite sex.
Sean just shrugged. He didn’t really pay much attention. Black seemed to notice it far more than Sean.
Sean slumped into one of the seats and strapped himself in. The last place he wanted to be was on another airplane. He had spent the last two days travelling. All he had wanted was his hotel suite but Black had pulled the cute kid card.
As the plane took off, champagne was offered and accepted. Shortly after, the pilot announced their descent to Washington D.C.. A rather confused Sean turned to Black. “Washington? I thought they lived in Texas?”
“They do,” he said, nonchalantly looking straight ahead. 'I need to get back to the office, it’ll just be a quick stop to drop me off.”
“Whoa, wait a minute, you’re not coming?” asked Sean grabbing Black’s arm.
Black retrieved his arm. “I told you back at the airport, this is not a CIA matter.”
“Somebody’s been impersonating me! I was CIA!”
“Yes you were,” replied Black, the disappointed tone unhidden. “You’re on your own. The ride to Texas is a personal favor from me, nothing to do with the CIA.”
Sean had no issue with being on his own. He just didn’t know why he should be heading to Texas. He should have been going to Florida if anywhere.