The man sat in his car down the street from the house he had been surveilling for the past two days as he waited for his best opportunity to approach. At approximately six-thirty in the morning, he watched as a woman and an almost adult teenager placed suitcases in the rear of an SUV, got in and drove away. He waited another thirty minutes to see if they would return. When they didn't, he exited his vehicle and walked down the sidewalk to the house's walkway, walked around to the back door and knocked loudly.
Moments later, the curtain covering the inner door's glass shifted sharply to the left and an angry man's face appeared. Anger turned to shock when the man recognized his early morning visitor. He released the curtain, unlocked the door and snatched it open. "Dembe! Come in!" As he stepped aside to allow Dembe access he said, "I don't believe it! How long has it been?"
"Hello, Harold. Three years."
"Have a seat, Dembe, have a seat. I'll make us some coffee." Harold began to add water to his coffee maker. "You just missed Charlene and Agnes; they're heading out to do a college tour. Can you believe Agnes is seventeen?"
"Time does fly, Harold. My daughter and granddaughter shock me every time I see them because they are so grown! I saw your wife and Agnes leave; I did not want them to see me. They have never met me and I wished it to remain so."
Harold placed a mug full of coffee in front of his guest along with milk and sugar and then poured a mug for himself. "Before we get to whatever brought you here, I have to ask: How are you doing, Dembe? I thought you would stay in DC after you were released from the hospital, but you left town so quickly, none of us, not even Ressler, had a chance to say goodbye. Why did you leave so fast?"
Dembe ignored the milk and sugar and sipped his coffee black. "I told you I wanted to do something with my life that involved fewer bullets. When Raymond died…" He took another sip of his coffee and Harold could see he was working hard to control his emotions. "When Raymond died," he began again, "I was devastated. You have to understand, Harold, since the age of fourteen when he saved me from a brothel in Nairobi, he had been my father, my mother, my brother, my everything! I had not contemplated my life without him. Yes, he was older, but he was so full of life that I couldn't picture a world without him in it. He used the Task Force in the end to dismantle his criminal organization, but his will made me Executor and heir of his legal estate. He owned an island in the Philippines; that is where I went when I left the US and that is where I recuperated from my injuries. So, once I recovered, I began to fulfill his final wishes. There were some associates to whom he had bequeathed certain things and it was my duty to take care of if for him. And then, I used some of the money he left me to create a charity overseen by the Islamic Relief Worldwide Organization; It's called the Dembe Zuma Foundation only because the Raymond Reddington Foundation would not fly and I knew it."
Harold chuckled at that and said, "I guess you're right. So, why are you here?"
"To fulfill my last task as Raymond's Executor." He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted an envelope and handed it to Harold. "Inside is a check for a quarter of a million dollars, payable to Agnes, for her college education. There will be no tax burden because she is the successor to his trust. Also, if her education costs more, I have been instructed to provide funds to take care of the costs."
Harold was taken aback. "This is incredible! I have to admit: This takes a load off my mind, too. Thank you, Dembe."
"No, you should thank Raymond. This was his plan."
"You know, once Agnes and I were talking and she asked me if I loved 'Pinky,' her nickname for Reddington and I had to admit that I did feel love for him. I hadn't thought of it until she mentioned it, but I realized the love was there." He put the envelope in his bathrobe pocket. "If this is your last task for Raymond, will I ever see you again?"
Dembe swallowed the last of his coffee and smiled. "Probably not. I'll be leaving the country today. Raymond left me more money than I could spend in several lifetimes, so a lot of it will go to the Zuma Foundation, my family and I will make sure I want for nothing for the rest of my life. Once I'm out of the country, I will contact Ressler to see how he is."
Harold nodded as he sensed that the end of his visit with Dembe was fast approaching. "Dembe, may I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"You knew that the FBI was able to determine that the man we knew as Raymond Reddington was, in fact, not the real Raymond Reddington, therefore he couldn't have been Elizabeth Keenler's father. So, I have to ask: Do you know who the man we knew as Raymond Reddington really is?"
"I do, Harold. I said to Raymond years ago that he should come clean to Elizabeth and reveal his true self to her. Unfortunately, both of them died before the truth came out."
Harold stared at the man who had stood up in preparation to leave. "Will you tell me who he really was? He's gone now, as is Keenler. Maybe Agnes might want to know one day; what should I tell her?"
Dembe smiled. "Tell her that her Pinky loved her very, very much. What else is there to know? If Raymond had wanted you to know his true identity, he would have told you. I will always respect my brother's wishes; he didn't want you to know." He stood and headed to the door. "It was good to see you again, Harold. Take care of yourself." And just like that, he was out the door and gone.
