The Meeting Chapter 3, a ncis fanfic

Chapter 3

A/N: It is never really explained how Travis Phelps knows the things he does in the present day about Honor Corps. The screenwriters were exactly right in having him say he didn't know their names or faces, because such a group, by its very nature, exists in secrecy. I altered that just a tiny bit, giving Travis knowledge of a couple of faces and a couple of names. I reference a few lines from the 2008 video game Saints Row 2 and the 2009 film Jennifer's Body in this chapter, along with the novel The Rag and Bone Shop as I mentioned. Sections of this third chapter, above all, are based very closely off the Cormier novel. I have considered writing a fourth chapter for this story, and haven't 100% ruled that out. But there's something to be said for writing out events to a point, providing lots of hints and implications, and from there let the reader make up their own mind about how things turned out.

Jason was tired. He was always tired. And he'd learned more about what that word could mean than he'd ever wanted to know.

You could be tired from sleeping too little; you could be tired from sleeping too much. You could be mentally tired from doing something that was taxing or stressful on your mind, or from bearing some heavy mental burden. There was tiredness of the body, tiredness of the mind- and, the one Jason felt he'd come to know best, tiredness of the soul.

He was fifteen years old, and already he'd been arrested six times. Two for every year he'd been a teenager, if you wanted to average it out.

A robbery- that was his first one. After his role model, his mentor and big sister had died, Jason had almost collapsed from despair the very day he was told. But no comfort could be found at home- Jason figured that one out in a hurry.

Mom and Dad had gotten along well enough before, but after Christine killed herself, they had argued almost constantly. Desperate to find some kind of solitude, someplace- anyplace- where he felt like he belonged, Jason had accepted some tentative offers from a few of his more rebellious friends to go hang out over the weekend.

Working each other up on dares and boyish bravado, Jason and his friends had decided to rob a coin laundromat a couple miles from their neighborhood. The two old guys who went around to all the washers and driers every Friday, pulling all the piles and piles of quarters and putting them in a jingling bag, were not that alert. Not pushovers, but they just had the look and walk of guys who hadn't ever had to think twice about watching the pillowcases of change.

So Jason, Jimmy and Rowan had decided to hit Lexington Cleaners this one Friday evening, two summers ago. They wasted a lot of time racing their bikes in the shopping center parking lot, shooting the bull about girls and school, but the whole time, they kept their eyes on the laundromat. Then, once they saw the old guys wrapping up at 8:30, retrieving the change, they got their bikes hidden in the trees across the street and came walking casually across the parking lot at 9:00, just as the one old guy was walking out to his car with the two bags of change, one on each hand.

Robbing him had been a cinch. The three thirteen-year-old boys had gotten just close enough, then shoved him and knocked the old bastard on his ass. The two pillowcases hit the cracked, fading pavement, and Jason could have whooped for joy when they didn't spill one coin. The old guy had been too careful for that- he'd twisted the empty part of the pillowcases and held them there, probably to prevent spillage if he dropped one. Jason took one, Jimmy took the other, and Rowan, the slick bastard that he was, kicked the old guy hard and frisked him for his wallet when he curled up.

Then they'd run for it, taken off just as fast as they could go. Shouts followed them, and it went without saying the police would be called. But somehow- somehow- they'd gotten their bicycles out of there fast enough. They'd made themselves scarce. Gotten away.

From there, it was just a matter of stopping at Rowan's place at the edge of town. They hid in his treehouse all night, having arranged earlier in the week to be having a sleepover at Rowan's tonight. Hanging around up there all evening, bragging and boasting as they counted up the money, the boys had a tough time keeping their voices down. They were high on adrenaline, giddy with the thrill of success, elated at how completely their plan had succeeded.

Nothing could ever be as much fun as this- nothing that the big, bad adults wanted you to do, anyway.

Jason sometimes still smiled when he thought of that June evening. They had stolen something like 4,000 quarters- right about $1,000 exactly. That, along with three $20 bills in the old dude's wallet, had made the three just-turned-thirteen-year-olds very rich boys. The share was $353 per boy. Not bad for pocket money.

They'd gotten away with that one, and had very smartly agreed never to go back to that coin laundry. They went on to get away with some other small-time heists, though they never quite dared to try another thousand-dollar job for a while. In a startlingly short amount of time, though, they began to miss the rush of adrenaline and the thrill of success that only a job like the first one they'd pulled could bring. "One-Kay Jays," Rowan called them, $1K Jobs.

Finally, they'd plotted to take a shot at the Indian bastard running the gas station quickie-mart a few miles down the street. Using two knives and an airsoft pistol spray-painted from see-through to a much more convincing black, they had held up the store just as the Indian guy was closing.

Jason remembered how well the robbery itself had gone- they'd scared the shit out of that dude. Especially Rowan, the big man of the group ever since he'd managed to fuck his girl in the ass for a couple seconds on his 14th birthday. He'd been making all kinds of threats, training the 'gun' on the Indian guy while Jason cleaned out the drawer.

He said some pretty creative stuff. Rowan seemed to have a natural knack for it.

They had done the job just as quick as they could, but maybe God had just decided to crap on them that night. Because as the three boys came flying out the door of the quickie-mart, weapons hastily jammed in their pockets and the plastic bag of loot in Rowan's hand, they'd run right into a Lexington police cruiser, its driver having dropped by in the hopes of gassing up before the place closed. The cop had been so surprised he'd just about pissed himself, but he got his gun out just fine.

Not wanting to get shot, Rowan dropped the bag and raised his hands. Jason and Jimmy did the same. They'd almost escaped with more than $200 in coins and bills, plus a whole box of 20 packs of Camel cigarettes. And some boxes of Trojan condoms.

Almost escaped. So close, yet so fucking far.

That stunt had earned all three of them their first stint in juvy. Rowan was shipped off to some boot camp in Florida after that, courtesy of his parents, and Jimmy was right back in as soon as he got out- right along with Jason. They'd tried to bring back the old days and rob the laundromat, but the guys had been ready for them this time.

They'd gotten out on good behavior six months ago.

Jason didn't know what had happened to Jimmy after that. He'd disappeared, vanished off somewhere, just like Rowan.

Jason laughed when he thought about it sometimes; before his big sister had died, he'd been an honest kid, straight as an arrow. It had only been after her death that he'd become a crook.

And a good one, too- though his luck seemed to be getting shittier every day. Hanging out with his buddies, screwing farm girls at the little parties they had outside of towns sometimes- Jason had plenty of luck there.

But whenever he tried to bust into someone's house or hold up any old fucking store, Jason always got his ass thrown in the slammer.

It helped, all the hell-raising. At least it had for a while. Stealing stuff, sleeping around with the girls he knew, breaking shit just for the fun of it- it took Jason' mind of how absolutely miserable he was. And nine times out of ten, he stayed the night somewhere other than home.

Because home didn't really exist.

Mom had divorced Dad one day. Well, that was what Jason figured the big-shots would say she did. That was probably the legal term for it. But all he knew was that there'd been no court hearing, no lawyers. Mom had just disappeared one day- packed up half the stuff in the house while Jason was in juvy and Dad was drunk, and just fucking left.

Dad had beaten the living shit out of Jason for that one. How exactly that was his fault he wasn't sure, but Dad sure seemed to think so. The most beautiful part of the whole job was when he punched Jason right in the face, right in the eye. His left eye had survived, somehow, but it had been swollen shut for almost a week.

Probation officers, guidance counselors, judges, all these dumb motherfuckers were always asking Jason "Why".

"Why's a smart young man like you doing these things?"

"Why don't you just straighten up and fly right?"

"Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Why won't you learn this ain't gonna do you any good?"

But Jason gave up trying to tell them. His sister was dead, and it had broken his heart from the moment he'd heard about it. Crime, drugs, drinking, fucking, even getting thrown in jail- every bit of it was worth doing if it took his mind off the pain for even an instant.

The pain always came back, though. And from the old, familiar way it asserted its presence every time, it was like it had never left.

Lately, though, Jason had begun to clean up his act. He'd cut his skipping school in half, astounding his teachers. He stopped getting into fights, surprising his guidance counselor. And he actually stopped doing jobs for a while- got out of the business- which surprised almost everybody he knew.

Jason was good with his hands. They seemed to know just what to do, with practically anything. So not long after he'd gotten out of juvy (again) a few months ago, Jason had started tinkering with the old two-door 1990 Honda Accord that had, once upon a time, been intended as Christine's graduation present. Dad had forgotten all about it after she'd killed herself, overdosing on those pills. The car had been quietly decaying in the backyard for years.

But lately, Jason had begun working on it, gathering what he needed out of the many tools Dad had lying around unattended. He'd bought a Haynes manual for the 1990-1994 Honda Accord, hung around at shops asking mechanics questions.

And meanwhile, Dad sat in the house and drank. His retirement paycheck from the Army came every month, and almost all of it went into booze.

Dad had been a bit of a drinker before, but ever since Christine had died he couldn't seem to stop. And if he noticed Jason was in the room, or even in the house, he rarely had anything to say to him. If he did, it was never good.

Then, a month ago, after punching Jason in the eye again the previous night (Jason had made "too much goddamn noise" coming through the kitchen), Robert Sanders had greeted Jason as he came downstairs in the morning.

Not looking up, not turning away from where he sat, staring blankly at the unplugged television, Dad nonetheless knew Jason was there. And though Jason was instantly able to tell the man was sober, there was no change in the way he greeted his son.

"She's dead," Dad had said softly. "Christine is dead, Jason, and all I'm left with is you."

Despite how much he hated the old man most days- hated how he wasted all their money on booze he made Jason go out and get- that remark had cut deep. Jason stood there at the bottom of the stairs, hands shaking, his whole body trembling. He walked into the living room and stood over his father as he sat in the armchair, looking him in the eye.

"Is that so bad?" Jason asked, controlling his voice carefully.

Dad's head slowly rotated up and to the left, and gradually his eyes met with Jason's.

"Worse than you could ever imagine," he said, in a voice just as controlled. "When are you going back in, Jason?"

"I'm not going back to jail, Dad," Jason said suddenly, his composure- and his voice- cracking. "I'm going to school. And you know what? After I come home I'll rake leaves in the yard. Then I'm gonna go out and work on the Honda-"

Robert Sanders gave a dismissive wave of his hand, turning back to stare at the blank television screen. He picked up a beer from the case sitting beside him.

"Do whatever you want, Jason. Just do it away from me."

"You think you're the only one who misses Christine, Dad!" Jason had suddenly shouted. "You think you're the only one in pain! Well you can take your pain, and you can shove it up your ass, Dad! I'm missing a sister! I got plenty of pain!"

With great deliberation, Dad stood up, slapped his son hard across the face.

"Get out of my sight, Jason. I'm not gonna tell you again."

And that had been the beginning of the true unraveling of Jason Sanders' life. Dad's mind had crumbled years ago, almost the very day Mom had left them for good. Jason's, somehow held together all that time by willpower and some ridiculous sense of hope that things would get better, came completely apart. The new leaf he'd been attempting to turn over dried up and blew away in the wind.

But Jason kept on working on his sister's car. Her name was Christine, and he told her about her namesake as he worked on her. How talented Christine had been, how bright and promising, how much she'd looked after her little brother and how much he'd looked up to her.

Sometimes he slept out there in the shed, in the Honda's backseat. It got cold out there, but Jason didn't care. His sleep was awful anyway. The nightmares that had come from time to time over the years returned with a vengeance. But most nights, there were not so much nightmares as bad dreams. Nightmares were… theatrical, almost. They had some flair to them, were spectacular in their scale and unpleasantness.

Bad dreams were far more mundane, far less interesting, yet somehow even worse to experience. They were just that; dreams that were bad.

Jason had long ago taken to wandering the streets of Lexington, sometimes sleeping behind some store or in a back alley, or on a farm on the edge of town- he'd gotten remarkably good at finding all sorts of little spots he could tuck himself into for a few hours, where he could rest and not be discovered.

When he was awake, though, and that was as much as 20 hours a day, Jason walked. Or rode his bike. Sometimes he walked, pushing his bike with him. He visited stores, thought about robbing them. He hung around on auto shop lots until they chased him off. He even dropped by the coin laundry, but they ran him out of there, too, saying he was lucky they hadn't broken his hip like he and his hoodlum friends had done to Dale.

The downward spiral kept on going, seeming to have no end.

One night a week ago, Jason had found he couldn't stand the heat in the house. It was oppressively hot; Dad must have cranked the heat up to 90 fucking degrees. Jason could barely breathe.

So he ran around the house opening every window, even propping open the doors. It wasn't until Dad came home and beat the hell out of him that Jason realized the house was actually fucking cold, and that freezing rain was pouring in.

He'd stayed up all night cleaning up the ice that had melted all over the floor.

But suddenly, as if sent by God Himself, there was a ray of hope. Jason had been sitting in Christine's room, a place in this house where Dad never seemed to go, where everything she had owned had gone untouched since her death in January of 2015. He'd taken the 2014-2015 yearbook sent by Remington Military Academy, still in its mail packaging, untouched, and gotten it out.

For hours, he'd been lost in that room, reading through not just that yearbooks, but all her other school yearbooks, all the way back to the one she had from 5th grade. Then he read her novels, and her history books, and her encyclopedias. But when Jason found her diary, tucked neatly away at the end of one shelf, he immediately put it back, face burning with shame.

But he'd opened it once before. Just once. And there'd been a passage, one of the last entries, in which Christine's normally neat, orderly spelling had been a chaotic mess. The handwriting of someone who was coming apart inside. And while parts of it were all but illegible, Jason had deciphered some. She'd written about something Honor Corps, how they were ruining her life- and how one boy in particular was making it all happen. Orchestrating it, sly and showy at the same time, impossible to accuse of anything because there was no proof. What had his name been? N-something.

Then he returned to the 2014-2015 yearbook. Jason read through it carefully, intensely focused as he tried to remember… something. Someone. A person who he saw in town sometimes. He was often out buying dinner for himself, and often for Dad too since he didn't seem to remember he needed to go out and get food in order to eat, at this cool bar and grill in town, The Boar's Head.

And someone else- someone he'd seen in this yearbook, though he now wore a different school uniform and was several years older- frequented The Boar's Head too.

Someone who Jason knew was more than what he seemed.

He had this air about him, tall and superior in his cadet grays and dress whites, that said "I'm hot shit." He had an almost constant gleam in his eye, a smug look that said "I know something you don't know. Better yet, I know a lot of things you don't know."

Jason had seen him plenty of times, coming by for dinner almost every Friday or Saturday of the month- sometimes both. Sometimes with a hot date, sometimes with a couple cadet buddies, sometimes with that friend of his he was always calling "The Ghost."

Then, in one of the pictures of cadets on graduation day, Jason found him. He found the bastard, and knew him instantly. Years earlier, different school, different uniform, but it was him. He just knew it.

Arms thrown around the shoulders of two grinning friends, a cigar clenched between each boy's teeth, the guy had three silver dots on each shoulder, what Christine had taught Jason represented a Cadet Captain.

Quickly searching through the senior photos, Jason didn't take long at all to find the bastard again. There he was. Flipping between the graduation photo gallery and the senior photos, Jason found him and knew. The face, the posture, but most of all, that look in his eyes. "I know something you don't know."

And that had given Jason the beginnings of an idea.

A real good idea.

It only got better when Jason worked up the nerve to check Christine's journal and found the name there.

By the end of November, Jason was sleeping soundly. He stayed in his room now, savoring the dreamless sleep he enjoyed. The nightmares and bad dreams were over. He had nothing left, nothing but his love for his sister and the realization that blood sometimes needed to be paid for with blood in return.

The realization that his school guidance counselor, Mister Richards, had been more right than even he knew. That Jason really was a good kid, despite seeming evidence to the contrary. That he really could turn things around. Set things right. That Jason could still do whatever he set his mind to- that he could, as they liked to say at VMI, be who he resolved to be.

Dad had been a pretty good soldier, a long time ago. And he'd been quite a sportsman, a firearms enthusiast, a man's man. There were cases, cabinets, and footlockers in this house that had to contain 35 to 45 firearms, most of them semi-automatic pistols, revolvers, or semi-automatic or assault rifles.

Jason had been very careful. He had replaced the key to the heavy steel cabinet just where it had been before. He'd taken just one thing, the only thing he needed.

His Dad would never know that the Glock was missing.

There had been a brief period of indecision, of silent but intense internal conflict, when Jason had taken the pistol, removed the magazine and checked the chamber. The chamber was empty, as expected, but the magazine showed copper-jacketed, brass-cased .45 ACP bullets, thirteen in total. All ready to go. Jason had smiled as he saw he had what he needed. But the smile had vanished as quickly as it appeared, as Jason held the Glock in his hands and battled the sudden, near-overpowering urge to rack the pistols slide back to chamber a round, switch its safety off, and blow his brains out. Abruptly, Jason's wish to die hit him like a freight train, and he actually knelt there in the darkened room for a time- how long, Jason didn't know- and silently wondered if doing it this way wasn't better. Right under his chin, to send the bullet up into his brain. One shot- BAM- then maybe a moment of intense pain, and then… nothing. Jason had wondered why he shouldn't just do it- just save himself and everyone else a lot of trouble.

But then he'd realized: Jason Sanders was not meant to die yet. He wanted little more than to put one of his Dad's guns to his head, under his chin, in his mouth, and end it. But he had to earn death. Jason's inner calm returned, the Glock came down from under his chin, as he realized that his own death really was a privilege. Something that he could not rightly ask for unless he had done something else first. Something very, very important.

Jason had set himself to this task with a kind of willpower he'd never known he would feel in his fifteen years of life. It was his love, his passion, his purpose. It was the reason he existed. The reason God had put him on this earth.

The Honda was running. Jason had no driver's license, no learner's, but he wasn't worried about that. Christine the Accord wasn't actually running that great, and she only had a few gallons of stolen gas in the tank. But Jason wasn't worried about that, either. He'd worked his magic on the Honda, done all the work on Christine that he could. She was ready for tonight. She would get Jason as far as he needed to go.

Excitement filled him the whole day. Friday, December 1, 2017. Jason felt as if electricity was coursing through him, enough to key you up but not enough to hurt. He felt good; as he walked home after school- and he had gone to school- Jason lifted his chin as a swift autumn breeze came up. He let the sun's rays warm him, and he actually stopped there on the side of the street, closing his eyes.

He hadn't felt this good in a long time.

Everything was okay now. Even Dad would be better once this was over. He'd be okay. He would be, because things would be right again. Balanced out. They would be, because Jason set them right. Made them right.

It was six-twenty in the evening. Eighteen-twenty, if you preferred. Jason lay on his bed, dressed and ready, hands behind his head as he gazed up at the ceiling. Wondering what he should do next. Yet knowing what he should do next.

He was excited, but also scared. The weight of that Austrian-made piece of plastic and steel jammed into the waistband of his jeans made him scared. But so did the things he knew about what was about to happen. What he had to do.

What the hell am I even scared of?

Maybe it was failure. The mission could go wrong any number of ways, in spite of all Jason had done to prevent that from happening. In spite of his confidence in a successful mission, Jason was still aware failure was possible. Maybe it was death, as much as Jason welcomed it, that had him scared. People were naturally afraid of dying. Maybe it was the pain, however brief, that would come with shooting himself. Maybe Jason was scared he'd lose his nerve and surrender, or that his target would get away. It was an endless, stupid road to go down- letting your fears eat you up, get the better of you. Jason knew he was scared, and acknowledged that. But he'd been scared before and come out on top. And he simply could not afford to let himself start getting nervous or hesitant now. He would not allow it. Jason reassured himself that while he did have fear, there was also plenty of hate in his heart. He'd allowed it a space there at first, then a bigger one. He'd permitted it to grow, and Jason was thankful he'd done so. He would need all his hate, all his nerve and courage, and yes, all his love, to do this. Jason knew he had enough.

If he was going to set things right… make Dad proud, show Mr. Richards how right he'd been to believe in Jason all this time, balance out the universe and all that…

Nicholas Golan hung around The Boar's Head a lot. Almost every day, come the weekend. Taking his time, as usual, laughing and sly, as usual.

"I know something you don't know."

That's what the look in his eyes said.

But now Jason saw that look in his own eyes. His gray ones, versus Nicholas Golan's blue.

I know something you don't know.

Jason got up and retrieved the note he'd written from his desk, addressed "Dear Dad." It was short, to the point- just a few sentences. It began with "I'm never coming back," and that was about all it said. That was the point to it. The bottom line.

As he made his way downstairs, silent as any Green Beret, Jason listened for the sounds of his father's breathing. Sure enough, he'd fallen asleep in his chair. That was good. Jason wanted his Dad sleeping, had hoped he'd get the perfect chance to get downstairs, leave the letter, and simply disappear. He would vanish from his father's life. From everyone's life. He'd be gone like smoke in the wind, so completely absent it would be as if he'd never even existed. It was what Jason wanted, and knew he deserved.

He left the note on the middle of the kitchen table, neatly folded. It would be found. Dad would find it. And he would be proud of Jason once he knew. He'd be so proud of his son, and he would understand that sometimes hard things needed to be done to set stuff right. To set the world right. He would. He would understand.

The first part of the mission was now accomplished. Jason had tried his luck at the first stage of the operation, and so far, good luck was with him tonight. Jason was pleased. It spoke well of the prospects of the rest of the mission that the first step had gone off so seamlessly.

Jason looked at his watch as he stepped out onto the porch, pulling the front door silently shut behind him. Six-thirty. Cool evening; only a few clouds, occasionally obscuring the otherwise clear light of the moon. He knew that Nicholas Golan would be at The Boar's Head. All he had to do there was go in, wearing his threadbare L.L. Bean jacket, as he always did. If he needed an excuse, he'd say he was out getting dinner for his Dad. He'd even place an order. They'd let him wait. Stretch his legs, if he needed to, use the men's room, if he needed to.

All he had to do was drive there and walk in. 47 South Main Street. Just a couple of miles away. Easy.

Jason's driving left something to be desired, but he'd prepared well, studied the Honda's controls and owner's manual with obsession. He'd even practiced a few times when he'd gotten daring, starting up the Honda and driving it around the property for brief periods of time. He knew enough. He'd get there.

A beautiful feeling of sweetness came over him as Jason stepped off the porch. He lifted his head, let the feeling carry him for a while, like a fresh breeze in his heart.

Then he took the .45 out of the back of his waistband, made sure it was on safety (for now), and snapped a round into the chamber as he walked out to the car.