Noble Warrior by Alan Lawrence Sitomer Read Free Book Online Page B

showed off her first loose tooth. “G’head.
Feel.”
    McCutcheon gently examined Gemma’s mouth.
    “Wow,” M.D. said. “Before you know it the Tooth Fairy will be here.”
    “And I want a hundred bucks.”
    “What?” M.D. said. “Setting your sights a little high, aren’t you?”
    “First tooth, doesn’t get more special.”
    “Well, that’s between you and the Tooth Fairy,” McCutcheon replied.
    “You watch, Doc,” Gemma said as she got ready to head inside. “I betchya she comes through for me. I can just feel it in my bones.”
    Her purple backpack bouncing up and down, Gemma skipped through the school’s front door. McCutcheon wanted to join her. Wanted to rewind the clock on his life, return to being in first
grade and enter into a clean, safe classroom himself, the future a blank slate and a place where having a loose tooth didn’t come as the result of someone having loosened it for you with
their foot or their fist.
    M.D. idled home, in no rush to talk with Stanzer. Though he tried to remain calm, he found himself hunting in vain for an answer about what he should do.
    Action always felt easier to him than waiting.
    When McCutcheon approached his front door, he found Stanzer sitting on the wooden bench in front of his town house eating leftover lasagna from a plastic container.
    “Your mom’s a great cook.”
    “I make my own meals.”
    “Still tension between you two, huh?”
    “Just feel free to raid our fridge any time you like.”
    “I guess that’s a yes.” Stanzer rose from his seat and licked his fork clean. “You realize she’s happy I’m eating this, don’t you? Good cooks appreciate
good eaters. Whether she admits it or not, she wants me to gobble these goodies.”
    “Always in people’s heads, aren’t you?”
    “Come on, let’s walk.”
    Stanzer set the empty Tupperware on the arm of the bench and led M.D. down the driveway. They turned right and walked down the middle of the street. People in Bellevue often walked down the
middle of the street because traffic in town was minimal and drivers always slowed to wave hello to folks taking a stroll, even if they didn’t know you.
    In Detroit, pedestrians who walked in the middle of the street got honked at, given the bird, or run over.
    One America, two different worlds.
    “You’re set up nice here, son. Maybe you should just go back to high school or junior college or something. We could even get you credits at Harvard if you want.”
    “I bet you could,” McCutcheon said.
    Stanzer chuckled at the long reach of the feds. It stretched further than most U.S. citizens imagined. Background information, financial history, any and every digital transaction stood within
their grasp to view, tweak, or entirely fabricate. Say the word and M.D. could be given a PhD in molecular astrophysics before Stanzer had eaten his morning muffin.
    “Maybe this is why there are age limits for what we do,” the colonel continued. “This whole thing, well…You’re still a kid.”
    M.D. scowled.
    “No offense. And no shame either,” the colonel said. “Look around, this place is nice. And that little princess of yours is in hog heaven. Girl’s getting big.”
    “Maybe
she
could move out here?” M.D. said. “You know, with the others.”
    Stanzer stopped.
Others?
Of course McCutcheon had figured it out, the colonel realized. M.D. was too sharp. The Daniels weren’t the only family Wit Sec had ever moved to Bellevue.
Sure, different locations on the national map existed, plenty of them, but when things worked well for government programs they often repeated them, and M.D. had been trained to spot small, telling
details that, to a keen agent, lay all over town. The holes in people’s stories. The avoidance of direct eye contact when talking about their past. The cryptic way some folks in Bellevue
didn’t really speak about their relatives in other cities when holiday time rolled around, or the fact that some families never