I HATE MY JOB

Dennis Aderholt had been at the Beeman house many times, but obviously never for something like this. Despite the unspoken suggestion that Special Agents develop friendships outside of the Bureau, Stan and Dennis had taken a liking to each other. They were hand in glove, they had done critical work, met together with Martha Hanson's father who had been in town from Colorado seeking answers of his own.

Dennis exited Beeman's house in White, middle-class Falls Church - for the first time had not thought with some bitterness that someone with his complexion would not be allowed to buy a house there.

Dennis went over to the side of Stan's garage and vomited. He'd seen scenes like what was inside before.

This one was different.

REED STREET TRIO

To the southeast, Assistant Pastor Dale Woods and Secretary Jackie were at Pastor Tim's door. Looking up, Tim thought to himself, 'that's a configuration I've not seen before, both of them at the same time."

Pastor Dale said, "hey Tim, what's happening? Can we come in?" Tim assured them that his door was always open.

Jackie started, "Pastor, I need to tell you - Pastor Dale and I have talked about it because he's had the same visit….." Jackie paused, hoping that one of the otherwise talkative professionals would relieve her of this burden.

Hearing nothing, she reluctantly continued. "I had the FBI over to my house two nights ago. They must have done their homework, because they sent a coloured agent to my place."

Pastor Dale followed up, "ya, I had them at my office at Wesleyan Seminary. Three days ago. They'd also interviewed the Principal."

"Okay," said an inquisitive Pastor Tim. "What did they want?"

Dale and Jackie exchanged glances, hers was desperate for Dale to do the talking. So Dale said, "they were full of questions about the World Council of Churches." Dale paused, then added, "and you."

Jackie looked out of Tim's office window, into the parking lot. Angry police cruisers were speeding to a stop in it. Officers were getting out. In her 6 years with Reed Street Church, she had never encountered anything quite like what followed.

THE PREVIOUS DAY HAD STARTED WITH IT NOT GELLING

"Because it feels wrong, that's why," Beeman said to Aderholt at the suggestion. They just sat there looking at one another, right there in the C.I. office, a new secretary for the head of the division studiously trying to get up to speed with how to support Agent Wolf.

Aderholt then leaned back in his chair and suggested, "maybe I should do it."

Regardless, Aderholt was really pushing hard against Beeman, his friend and colleague. Something was stopping Stan from asking all those questions about Reed Street Church's Pastor Tim - asking them of his good friend, Philip.

Aderholt said, "Stan, I've known you for just over a year. I've never seen you like this."

Stan said, "like what?"

"Afraid of a lead. Afraid of a hunch." He continued, "tell you what, Stan. I'll interview Philip." Aderholt said, "but I'm going to do it down here. I don't have the next-door neighbour, Falls Church bona fides to just slip across the street and have a beer with him."

Beeman was silent, looking pensive. "No," he said, "I'll do it. You're right about something. I don't know why I'm fighting it. Everything from that night - Alice particularly - I think Philip and Elizabeth know something about their good pastor and his wife that they're keeping to themselves." Stan repeated the hunch as a thought, 'Philip knows something, why am I reluctant to ask him?'

Aderholt said encouragingly, "because he's your friend?" Dennis added, "you were right about Martha, dude."

"Yes I was, and I did not want to be. I fought that one!"

Aderholt continued, "maybe that's what's wrong here. You don't want to be right about the Jennings, that they might be withholding something about their daughter's pastor. Your buddy, protecting a lefty."

"That must be it," Beeman said, standing and putting on his coat to leave. "But that can't be it." He paused, "I've never been like this - I mean, I've been wrong before, wayyyy wrong, but I've never been this….. tentative."

Aderholt thought, 'no, Stan has never been shy about pursuing a hunch. He's been galactically wrong, but he's also been right. Why the hesitancy now?'

Stan left. To confront…. himself, mostly.

THE CONFRONTATION

It was Super Bowl Sunday, and the Washington team had just been pasted by the Los Angeles Raiders, 38-9. Stan had just returned home, his plans to call Philip over were foiled (at first) by his son, Matthew, being on the couch with Paige Jennings - the two of them suspiciously apart. Quite obviously embarrassed and straightening their clothing.

Before he could even call, who should show up at the door but Philip. Going for laughs, Stan gleefully pulled him in, then told Philip about the scene between the two teenagers on the couch - even offered the Beeman backyard for the future wedding….. but it didn't seem to catch Philip as funny.

Mixing FBI business with neighbourhood stuff was fraught with complexity. He'd not nearly mentioned anything to do with Pastor Tim, and already Philip had turned sour.

When Philip left with Paige, Stan noted from the window that the two on their way home were arguing. 'Oh God,' thought Stan, 'I hope I did not set them off!' Looking up to the Jennings' second floor, Stan spied Elizabeth similarly looking out at her husband and daughter returning to the house.

'Oh boy,' thought Stan. He briefly considered calling Aderholt at home to recheck the play for the evening, the play of having Philip over for a tête-à-tête about Pastor Tim. Maybe Aderholt had been right, maybe it would be better to call Philip into the FBI building for a more formal interview. Maybe both the Jennings. But that seemed….. 'dangerous' was the word which kept coming up.

Why 'dangerous'? Stan's hunch-machine seemed to be badly malfunctioning.

Despite his hunches, Stan literally had no idea what Philip would say about the good pastor. Which was, by the way, the point of interviewing him. Yet another of his hunches was that the conversation about Tim, should not include Elizabeth.

Why was that!? Why was that dangerous!?

Stan cursed out-loud, knowing he was doing what he always did - he over-thought things. That's how even the most nuanced hunch often ended up being way, way, wrong. Over-thinking things. Bad.

So - to turn off his brain he picked up the phone, and dialed the Jennings. Elizabeth answered. He hunched it would be better not to tell her what this was about, so Stan just said to her, "hey, Philip just left with Paige. Matthew's just left for his mother's. Do you think this evening, that Philip could come back over. Give him 20 minutes or so. I have some beer here with his name on it. Truthfully, any time before midnight is good, depending on you two of course."

Forty-five minutes later - the confrontation. Stan literally had no idea how things would go when Philip arrived. But this boil needed to be lanced.

THE WAY IT HAD GONE DOWN

"I'm sorry the way I acted," said Philip, taking his first sip of Stan's beer. "I don't want to pull rank, Stan, but you don't have a daughter. Call me a male chauvinist if you want, but girls are different than boys."

"Hey, no problem," Stan replied. "I was a teenaged boy once myself. You're right. But I bet you haven't had a son show up in make-up, because he's going to a Rocky Horror movie."

"A 'what' movie?"

Stan smiled, "never mind, buddy." Taking a longer swig of his beer, Stan put it down, then stepped into the abyss.

"Hey, Philip, I've never talked to you about work. Dennis and I, we've been working on something down at the C.I. Office, and it has to do with you."

Philip froze in the most calm manner he could manage. He had imagined moments like this which seemed to be developing. When he and Nadezhda had first embedded themselves into the United States 20 years ago, he'd practised in front of a mirror how to respond to official 'fishing trips'.

He hadn't bothered since, not since the kids in any event. Both Claudia as well as Gabriel, they'd always counseled that one didn't wait for such lines of questioning to get very far. Once it had started, that was the time to quickly exfiltrate.

Now with kids, they made that process a little more demanding. Then again, Philip was going to hear Stan out, rather than assume. Still, it was all he could do to resist going to Stan's window to see if police cars were in his yard across the street!

"So, you and Dennis…. that's Dennis Aderholt, I guess."

"Yup, that's him." Stan took another swig of the beer, then put it down purposely. "Philip, I hate doing this. We're neighbours. You've been with me through my troubles. You're a good listener, and a good friend."

Philip sipped a bit, now conscious that his prints were on the bottle. It was concerning to him that that was where his mind was defaulting to at the moment.

"Stan, just ask! You know me, I'm an open book!"

Stan squinted his eyes a bit, "are you, Philip?" He continued, "Henry, he's the open book!" Stan added with a muffled chuckle.

Then Stan got into it, "Philip, what do you know about the World Council of Churches?" Stan filled the subsequent silence, he said, "the WCC supports international communism, and here's the thing, Philip," Stan lingered on that phrase, "I get the feeling that you know stuff about Paige's church, stuff you're not letting on about."

The question caught Philip off guard. "Look, Stan," Philip said, "we may be here for a while. I'd better call Elizabeth, it's late. I don't want her to worry if you and I get really philosophical or whatever."

"Sure, you know where the phone is."

As announced, Philip had told Elizabeth about him being potentially late and, 'not to wait up'. Then Stan had a nagging problem with hunches and experience in the field. Yet, Stan's kitchen was not 'the field', so Stan simply shrugged off Philip's subsequent non sequiturs with Elizabeth - masking them as husband-wife-speak.

Returning, Philip said he knew next to nothing about the WCC, except that at Reed Street Church there were occasional posters hung in its narthex to do with the organization. "That's about it," Philip said, "me, I'm not as regular as Elizabeth, but Pastor Tim makes mention of them from the pulpit."

Stan fumbled his thoughts. Maybe Aderholt had been right, it would have been better to have done this down at the FBI office. During the day. Without the beer. Without the familiar distractions of friendship and home.

Uncharacteristically, Stan decided to go for broke. He owed it to his friend not to beat around the bush.

"Philip," Stan said while pushing his half-empty beer away a little. "I get the feeling that there's something you're not telling me. About Pastor Tim, about other stuff. Ever since that dinner over at your place, Pastor Tim and his wife - I have it in my head that there's something between the two of you. The four of you, maybe."

Stan sat up straighter to end the silence, "in my capacity as an FBI Agent, Philip, is there anything I should know about any of you, that would give me pause about the security of the United States?"

At that, Elizabeth Jennings appeared behind Stan, fully within Philip's gaze. Philip's eyes stayed focused on Stan, but even so he could see that Elizabeth had located Stan's service revolver and had it in her right hand.

As she raised it and silently approached from behind, Philip said calmly and casually, "Left hand, he's left-handed."

Stan went quizzical at the strange, contextless comment from his friend. The surprise of it all prevented him from taking any action, when something metallic came around over his left shoulder and he could feel it pressed against the bottom of his jaw.

I HATE MY JOB

Aderholt had just finished booting his meal into Stan's garden beside Stan's garage. Falls Church police were getting busy rolling crime-scene tape around the otherwise placid suburban home.

From across the street, Aderholt saw Philip Jennings walking apace towards the Beeman's home. Aderholt swiftly walked into the street to stop him.

"What's going on? That's Stan's!" Philip said with an air of urgency.

"Go home, Mr. Jennings," Aderholt said. "There's nothing for you there."

Mr. Jennings tried to push past Aderhold, but a Falls Church policeman joined them and helped in restraining the panicked man.

Of course, for Philip is was an act. As they spoke, Elizabeth was meeting with Gabriel about next steps. They'd just killed an FBI agent, they desperately wanted to know their new shelf-life in The United States.

Truth be told, it was only halfway an act for Philip. Stan had been the closest person to a friend Philip had ever had, ever. In Russia or there in the USA.

Behind his visible agitation, Philip was thinking, 'I hate my job'.