Papa Jack Chapter 5

Richard kicks the apartment door closed behind them as he and his father trudge inside. "All right, Dad, we're home. I want to know what's going on. Now!"

"I could make us some coffee, Richard," Jack offers. "You might want to get comfortable. This could take a while."

"I don't want any coffee!" the teen retorts. "I just want the truth. Are you what that woman said you are?"

"That woman is Anna Volkov, an agent for the Soviet Bloc. She is responsible for at least 100 confirmed deaths, and God knows how many others. And to answer what is probably your next question, yes, I did kill her husband, Gregory Volkov. He was also an agent. He went rogue and was about to blow up a nuclear plant in France. It would have caused an untold number of deaths from the initial blast and from the radiation that would have spread over Western Europe afterward. I won't apologize for that. The man was an amoral monster. Anna was his closest ally. Together, they were that much deadlier."

"But why you, Dad?" Richard demands. "Are you some kind of spy?"

"The term is intelligence asset and, strictly speaking, no. I resigned shortly after you were born so I could take care of you. But you're never really out, just inactive – until something happens to reactivate you. In this case, Anna Volkov escaped from prison and joined up with an old cell. The agency alerted me that I was a potential target. I was prepared for that. But I never thought she'd come after you. That's why I quit the agency, to keep anything connected to my job away from you. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way."

"How about my mother? Did you really take over after she gave me up, or was she some spy too?"

Jack chuckles. "No, Martha is no spy."

"My birth certificate says her name is Martha Siobhan Gilhooly. Is that true?"

"That's the name her parents gave her, but she goes by Martha Rodgers now."

"The Martha Rodgers who was just nominated for a Tony? That Martha Rodgers?"

"That's her," Jack confirms, "but when I met her, she could barely get cast in plays off, off, off-Broadway. I had just finished up a job – or I thought I had. I went to a bar in Midtown to celebrate. She was there, nursing one drink as long as she could so she could eat the free peanuts. Our attraction was immediate and irresistible. You were conceived that night, and I was trying to figure out how I could see her again when I got a code on my pager. My mission went completely south. I had to get out of New York and out of the country fast. I had no idea Martha would get pregnant. We used condoms, but I guess we were caught by the tiny percentage of failures. I was back in New York just as Martha was giving birth to you. Then I found out she was going to give you up. At the time, she must have thought it was the only thing she could do. She believed I had run out on her. She had no family to fall back on, and she was broke. But I couldn't let my flesh and blood go into the system when there was something I could do about it. So, I decided to use my resources to come up with the proper paperwork and raise you myself."

"And the story about you knowing all those languages because you were an army brat, Anna called that a cover. Was it?"

"Not entirely. My Dad was in the army, and I did live all over the world as a kid. I discovered very early that I had a talent for picking up languages, much more than a lot of the other kids of military parents. That's why the agency recruited me – or at least one of the reasons. My parents did die in an accident when I wasn't much older than you are now, and I had no family entanglements to endanger my missions – until you. Also, being brought up around the military, I had practically breathed loyalty and service to my country. As far as the agency was concerned, that made me the perfect candidate to become an asset. But a translator was one of my covers. It allowed me to gather a lot of intelligence. And it also got me my job at Hill and Schwartz. It would have been hard to be any kind of a father without that."

"Is your name really Jackson Hunt?"

"Close enough. My parents named me Jackson, and Hunt was my mother's middle name, an old family name. I've used it for so many years that I think of it as my name. And I named you for my father, Richard. Even to his buddies, he was always Richard, never Rick or Dick. So you've always been Richard to me."

"How about my mother? Have you ever let her know where you were – where I am?"

"Richard, you saw how, even after so many years, Anna Volkov tried to use you to get to me. Martha gave you up willingly. There was no reason to add a vulnerability for both of us."

"So, that's a no."

"It's a no. But As far as I know, Richard, she's never tried to find you. It's better to leave her out of it."

"I'm not sure about that, Dad. Right now, I'm not sure about anything except that to get this all straight in my head, I need to write."

Jack nods. "Then, Son, that's what you should do."

"Is that your report on the Volkov affair?" Daltry inquires when Agent Mason hands him a file.

"It is," Mason confirms.

"I'll go through the details when I have the time, but give me the broad strokes now," Daltry instructs.

"We captured Anna Volkov and six members of her cell. Anna suicided before we could get anything out of her – an old-style cyanide pill. Six cell members are being interrogated, but we believe two escaped from the warehouse. We're still looking, but they're in the wind. We're keeping up surveillance on Hunt, but there's been no sign that he's still a target."

"Keep looking," Daltry orders. "Rogue agents could decide to strike anywhere at any time."

"Yes, Sir. And there's one more thing."

"What?"

"Hunt revealed to his son that he had been an asset."

Daltry grunts. "After what happened, the kid could have figured that out on his own. Hunt was probably wise to limit the boy's speculation. He didn't reveal anything that would compromise agency operations, did he?"

"No, Sir, but the young man is already a published writer. His speculations springing from his experience with Volkov could end up in a story somewhere or even a book."

"Speculations are all they could be," Daltry declares. "The young man's threat potential is minimal at most, but we'll keep an eye on him."

"Welcome to the summer writing seminar," Professor Judith Mayne greets students assembled in a semicircle around her. By the end of this course, you will have written a novel. You will be choosing your own genre and characters. We will, however, be discussing techniques to engage your readers and increase your writing's impact. That will involve an exchange of ideas with me as well as your fellow students. At times, that may be emotionally challenging – even wrenching. In order to trigger the emotions necessary to hook your readers, you will have to admit and explore your own, even the unpleasant ones. But as a writer, I can tell you it will be worth it. So, now, let's get started."

Richard listens with half an ear as Professor Mayne continues. He's had plenty of triggers for his emotions. If that's what it takes to hook his readers, he's had one hell of a head start.