Free Celia's Puppies by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

they
rescued before they were all killed and Michael...”
    “ I’m sorry, sir,” the
reporter asked. “Rescued? Who’s they? Killed?”
    The Undersecretary came to a complete halt.
Taking her elbow, he looked into her eyes.
    “ The Fey team,” he said.
“I thought...”
    “ I’m sorry, sir. I was
sent to ask you about Michael Roper,” the reporter said.
“I...”
    “ About three years ago, I
was held hostage.”
    “ What? Where? There’s
nothing in your bio…”
    The reporter searched her mind. Had she even
read his official biography? She had at looked his Wikipedia page
on the way here from her job at the grocery store. But his official
biography...
    “ The ‘where’ isn’t a big
deal. And I’m certain you’re right. There isn’t anything in my
bio,” he said.
    He continued striding down the hall.
    “ I wasn’t held long. I
mean, I was held long enough to have... Never mind. The Fey team
was a Special Ops group that retrieved hostages. They went around
the world rescuing people. Americans mostly, but important people
from other countries too.”
    “ Wow. Why doesn’t everyone
know...”
    “ You can look them up,” he
interrupted. “They have a Wikipedia page. Have you used
Wikipedia?”
    “ Yes, sir,” the reporter
said. “But what...”
    “ Great service,
Wikipedia.” The Undersecretary flashed his identification at a
station in the hallway. Pressing past her question, he continued,
“So they rescue me one day, take two days of vacation, then wham,
the entire team is killed. Except for one guy. And that’s because
his wife was having a baby.”
    The Undersecretary put his hand on the
stairwell door. Looking down at the reporter’s three inch heels, he
asked, “Stairs OK?”
    “ Sure,” the reporter
said.
    “ Gives us more time. And a
little more privacy.” Moving into the stairwell, he said, “I won’t
tell anyone if you want to take the heels off.”
    The reporter blushed. Her feet were killing
her, but these were her only dressy shoes. Looking into the man’s
face, she saw his sincerity. She nodded.
    “ Thanks.”
    “ Where was I?” he asked.
Seeing her hands were full, he added, “I can hold the
recorder.”
    “ Ok, thanks,” she said.
“You were telling me that the Fey team was killed.”
    “ Right,” he
said.
    “ I woke up two days after
they were all killed. I can’t tell you how… disturbing that was for
me. I mean these people had just saved me, rescued me from hell,
and now they were dead. I...”
    They went down a flight of stairs before the
Undersecretary spoke again.
    “ Anyway, Mike came to see
me. He was visiting a friend at Walter Reed and stopped into my
room. He told me there were almost four thousand of us.”
    “ Us?” the reporter
asked.
    “ People rescued by the Fey
team,” he said. “Mike visited me every day. We’d talk about being
held hostage and…”
    “ Michael Roper was held
hostage?” the reporter interrupted.
    “ Uh huh,” the
Undersecretary said. “He took even took me to get my
‘F’.”
    “ Your ‘F’?”
    The Undersecretary moved his watch to review
a script Vivaldi ‘F’ tattooed on the underside of his left
wrist.
    “ Almost everyone who was
rescued by the Fey team has these ‘F’s. Mike said the
Fey...”
    “ The Fey?”
    “ Long story. Anyway, the
Fey didn’t want to keep rescuing the same people over and over
again so people got these tattoos. Frankly, it’s kind of a status
symbol.”
    “ What?”
    “ They all had them. The
team, that is. These same ‘F’s in a green arm band on their right
arms. The guy who’s left – Joseph – he has one too.”
    “ So the ‘F’ is a kind of
marker?”
    “ Sure. Like a badge or a
rank. If you look around, you’ll see that lots of people have these
tattoos. Some guys have them on their arm. Most guys do their wrist
because it’s noticeable and also subtle.”
    “ You said
guys?”
    “ Or gals,” he said. He
rounded a corner to the first floor.