Secret Raisin Man

As a secret agent brings his mission to a close, he finds the one he is after may not be exactly who he thinks it is.

I think I've been here before.

The leak above mocked me, plink-plink-plink, until it was all I could hear. I stuffed another raisin in my mouth since I was out of smokes yet again. I could swear someone in the office was bumming.

I smoked for years before my ex-wife made me quit. Gum never could work but the raisins held me over until my wife quit me. So again, I smoke. Couldn't quite kick the raisins, though.

We acquired intel the perp was meeting with someone big here at the docks. I've been chasing him in circles for months; one spy after the other like a classic yet run-dry game of cat and mouse. I go to open yet another box of raisins, but figure it best I save them. Plink-plink-plink.

The noise of it began to sound familiar and I began to fear I was wasting my time here. This mole we were after began to feel much more like someone only I was chasing: plink-plink-plink until it was all I could hear.

I've been here before.

I adjust my holster as unease begins to waft over me. It felt eerie, the way the ship barely swayed even though a part of me felt this mission was about to unravel. How could it hold still while months of work were spiraling into its center? I kick an old wooden crate from my path as I begin to slightly pace.

When I first received the file on this man so many months ago I believed it to be a joke. Not that he was not real, but rather humorous that he had escaped us all this time, right under our noses. He misled us within the same office building we gathered for coffee and Wednesday meetings. A mole - right here within our agency, sipping the same coffee we brewed, perhaps bumming a cigarette or two from someone. Reporting to a foreign organization intending to sabotage us. It's rather ironic the way he mocks us. I said I'd have him apprehended or dead by the end of the month. Now it's been seven.

I reach for my raisins only to find them gone, my pocket empty. Odd, thought I had one more box. My nerves are out of sorts tonight. I feel as though I am holding out for someone who is already here yet avoiding me maliciously; a wolf in sheep's clothing waiting for me to drop my guard.

I pat my side pocket for my pack of cigarettes but found that box to be empty as well. I could swear someone in the office was bumming. I smoked for years before my ex...

I've been here before.

No, no really. I've walked these docks, entered the steep ramp into the dark, wet cargo hold. I've smelled that same damp, fishy scent before. Oil and fuel wafted with a familiarity into my nostrils. Or have I been here too long? Have a staked this location until this location staked me? It is now an hour past when this guy was supposed to show - what felt like a breakthrough is now feeling much more like a crushing, confusing endeavor.

My cell rings and its chime intertwines with the plink-plink-plink of the dripping water to the point that I no longer know who to answer. I try to shake it off, lift my phone from my jacket pocket and answer my boss, his name glaring across the screen.

"He's there. You were right, we've just intercepted his communication with his other agency. We're sending in backup now. Don't go anywhere. I'll update you when we get more information."

I click end not just because I know the drill, but because I feel an overwhelming sense of relief.

I start to walk back to my initial post when I spotted it. On an old water-logged crate sat...a box of raisins. I peek in to see it nearly half empty.

Is he fucking with me? Are my months' worth of work simply just a game for him? Has he been here, creeping in the still darkness, following me as I pace through the holds below deck?

I hear a creak and a quick drip down the metal staircase behind me. I want to clear my throat as my breathing quickens but find my body frozen. Where I once believed I was the cat I found I was simply the senseless, petty mouse.

Plink-plink-plink.

This is it. I grab my gun from its holster and begin up the metal staircase. The past few months race through my brain but with each new step a feel a sense of finality. Every single thing I have done has led to this.

I emerge to the upper deck, slick with water and heavy in its silence. I know he is here, I know not to let my guard down just yet. I wish for a cigarette yet taste the sweetness of a raisin my mouth. The two habits entwined and I found myself wondering in that moment how two things could ever live within the same person: rich, creamy smoke up against a sweet, tangy raisin.

And just when the thought felt like I was on to something - something much larger than all of this, I found myself surrounded not just by guns, but by my co-workers. My boss, though shouting directly at me, echoed silently as I tried to piece it all together.

As I was tackled.

As my gun skidded across the slick, metal deck.

As I hoped to God my cigarettes weren't crushed in the process.

Katie Lilljedahl | 2021-09-13