“Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately, never to return. Repeat: Say nothing to anyone”. Stephen furrowed his eyebrows at the message he received from the doorman in his brownstone apartment complex. He had received many hate letters, but something was different about this one. It had more of a demanding, threatening tone to it. The others were simply “You will regret this” or “You’ve made a mistake”, and were written on a crumpled up piece of paper. However, the letter Mr. Hightower received was typed and placed inside of a minnie, manilla folder. This one probably had nothing more behind it than words on paper.
When Stephen got to his apartment inside room 3021, he set his black gloves on the foyer table beside his ash tray - which wasn’t really used for cigarettes, rather all of the hate letters he received - and placed his newest note into it. He walked into the small kitchen and placed his briefcase on the table. Mr. Hightower liked to look at them on occasion for a good laugh. He threw his tailcoat on the leather couch and proceeded to the kitchen where he made himself grilled chicken and asparagus. As he sat down at the dinner table, Stephen opened his briefcase to study his newly opened case.
Stephen Hightower was one of the top prosecutors in all of America. The only way to make it to the top was to throw away all aspects of social life and be married to the job. He had no family and spent nearly all of his time in the office or at home working on a case. He had thrown a countless number of people in jail, therefore he received a countless amount of hate. Learning to brush off any negative comments or crude remarks, Stephen stopped paying any mind to the letters he would receive at least once a week. He did not have time to be worrying about who hated him, especially with this new case coming up. A man named Robert Frinovskii had just been accused of selling top classified, federal information to the Russian government. In just over a month, Stephen would be in court persecuting Frinovskii. This would be no easy case, however, because Frinovskii had lawyers all over the world ready to back him up. All Stephen had to do, was get all the evidence possible and find a way to make him admit what he did.
Having finished dinner and sorting all of the files for this case, Stephen put his dishes in the sink and got ready for bed. He went over to the ash tray and looked at the note one more time. For an unknown reason, he could not scratch this note from his mind. It stayed lodged in the back of his brain throughout the night and into the morning until his alarm clock rang.
Ring! Ring! Ring! the alarm clock sounded. It was five thirty in the morning as Hartford, Connecticut was preparing for another busy day at work. The light beamed through the clear, glass window hanging above Stephen’s king sized bed. He rolled onto his back to the left side of the bed and stared at the ceiling fan, and smacked the snooze button on his alarm clock. Stephen continued to roll out of bed and groggily got dressed in the usual white collared shirt, black slacks, and today’s random black and pink striped tie. He grabbed his briefcase, gloves, and tailcoat, snagging one last peak at the anonymous note and headed out the door.
With only ten minutes to spare, Stephen locked the door behind him and decided to grab some coffee at the Starbucks across the street. As he was heading towards the lobby, a man dressed in a large, beige trench coat wearing black RayBans rammed into Stephen, nearly knocking him down. This did not appear to be an accidental shove, for the man was looking directly at him the entire time!
“Sorry, Sir. Are you okay?” the man said in a Russian accent as he held partly onto Stephen’s elbow and partly by the coat, helping him regain his composure. Before Stephen could even reply, the man swiftly walked away as if he was on a pivotal mission. This caught Stephen off guard, but he continued to Starbucks and got a taxi over to his attorney’s office. He entered the building only five minutes late, took an elevator to the third floor and walked to his glass, double-doored office. When he entered the office, Stephen took off his coat and threw it to the coat rack by the right of the door. He missed, and the coat fell to the floor. Agitated, he picked up the coat and placed it on the rack as a thin, white envelope fell to his feet from one of its pockets. Where the hell did this come from? Suddenly, he realized. The guy that ‘accidentally’ ran into me this morning must have slid it in my coat pocket! Hightower opened the envelope and unfolded the piece of paper. It read: “Mr. Hightower,
My lawyers and I have been watching you since we found out you were assigned this case. We do not plan on losing and if we do... bad, bad things will happen not only to you but your country as well. See, Stephen, my Russian government sent me here to hack into CIA files and erase the, so-called, evidence you have of our plan to crash your stock market and send America into a total economic depression that cannot be fixed. As our previous note read, you are to leave the city, or better yet the country, and never return. You must not say anything to anyone. Don’t bother trying to sneak around. We have men everywhere. Again, this is not a joke. You are in serious danger, Mr. Hightower.”
Without hesitation, Stephen slid the letter back into the envelope and put his tailcoat back on. He swung both doors open and walked covertly to the elevator, down to the lobby, and back to his apartment. There, he locked the door, closed all of the blinds and curtains, and began making phone calls to various people. First, he called Agent Miller, who then called the head of the CIA and everything was explained. As he did this, he began packing a suitcase and opened his laptop to purchase an airplane ticket that would take him to England. Stephen had contacts in England that he secondly made a phone call to, who set up a place for him to stay where everything would remain quiet. He did not overly explain anything, for Stephen was still confused himself. What exactly had the CIA figured out and how would Russia crash America? There was no time to worry himself over these questions. He had to get to the airport and out of America before his life- and maybe the lives of others- was gone.
Sitting in the taxi on the way to the airplane, Stephen listened on the phone for his instructions.
“Okay Stephen, when you get off the plane, go to the Embassy Suites. They will give you the address of where you are staying. There are some supplies you may need there, such as a computer and phones that cannot be traced to your location,” Agent Miller explained.
“Why am I such a big part of their plan? Don’t they have other things to worry about?” Hightower kept his questions limited, to keep curious thoughts out of the taxi driver’s head.
As Stephen pulled into the airport, Miller explained, “If you send Frinovskii to jail, their plan is foiled. Robert is the only one who has the drive they need to have access to our computers and all of our databases. Without him, they have nothing. The court date was set on the day he was going to send the drive to them, and he knew that he’d end up going to prison.”
“Do we know where the drive is now?”
“We aren’t sure, but we can assume Robert still has it. While you are on the plane, I need a detailed email about these past two days and all the letters you received. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Roger. I am about to board the plane, I’ll contact you when I land.”
Hightower took a seat on the plane and his chocolate eyes surveyed each row, looking for anyone suspicious. He wiped his sweaty palms from his thigh to his knee repeatedly, and leaned back in his seat. The CIA had formed a plan, but could only tell Stephen the parts that had to do with him. That caused a mammoth amount of questions and worries. Stephen closed his eyes and anticipated the next few hours.
Finally arriving in England, Stephen grabbed his luggage and waited for the black mercedes that would take him to the Embassy Suites and what would be his home for the next few days. Pulling into the drive, Stephen called Miller and told him he had landed and made it to the penthouse he would be staying in. Miller explained that the doorman who gave him the letter was part of the plan and was in interrogation. The man in the trench coat was yet to be caught, but the doorman had told them where Frinovskii and his men were. They were on their way to catch them at that moment. The only instructions Stephen was given, were to relax and wait for a call. Stephen took a nice, long shower, ate dinner, and went to bed.
Early the next morning, the phone let out one loud ring before Stephen picked it up and gave a drained, “What’s up?”
“We got him! Frinovskii’s in the federal prison right now. There were only a few casualties getting to him, but for now America seems pretty safe. It’s not exactly safe for you to come back yet, though. We aren’t one hundred percent positive that all of his men were caught. There still may be a few and if there are, you’re the one they will be looking for.”? “Great. What am I supposed to do? Stay locked up in this place for months? Years, even?” Stephen replied, giving an exasperated sigh and scratching his right temple.
“Look, you’re free to rome around England all you want. We’re positive no one’s there. This is your chance to have a social life for once. Go explore, have some fun. We’ll keep in touch daily. You should be able to return in about a year or so. Don’t worry about it. Get some rest. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”
Agent Miller hung up then, and Hightower crawled out of bed into the kitchen to make some eggs. Stephen wanted to feel angry at the fact he couldn’t come back home, but he couldn’t. Miller was right. He should use this as a chance to go out and live. Maybe he’ll like it in England. America was safe and right now, so was he. Stephen would have to just wait until the day he could come back home. How bad could it be? Stephen got dressed, let the front door swing closed behind him, and strutted out into the city streets.