What They Don't Know - 9. A Secret Discovered.

As soon as Ethan crawled past me, I followed closely behind him, as we moved inside the previously hidden room. Once we were both safely on the other side, I pulled the bookcase back into position behind me and heard the latch snap into place. When that happened, I grabbed the steel door that was located behind the bookcase, on the inside of the room, and pushed it closed.

As soon as the steel door was in position, I spun the large wheel that was located on the backside and this moved six fat, steel bolts that secured the door in place. This left us sealed in this small room, but we were now out of harm’s way, because the room was lined with 20 mm (3/4 inch) thick steel plates, which were then insulated with an extra layer of Kevlar padding. Once the deadbolts were securely fastened, the door could only be opened from the inside.

“What the hell is this place?” Ethan asked, panicked, after he had a chance to look around.

“It’s a safe room that Joe had installed in the house for me, before I moved in,” I informed him. “That’s why the second bedroom is so small.”

“Why do you need a safe room?” Ethan followed, but I ignored his question for now and picked up the phone that was hanging on the wall and pushed a preset button.

“Joe, it’s Bryan,” I began, as soon as the person on the other end picked up. “Someone just took a couple of shots at me.”

“I heard something that sounded like a rifle going off, but I thought it might just have been kids playing with firecrackers,” he stated. “I was trying to see what was going on when you called. I didn’t realize it was definitely gunfire or that you were the target. Did you get hit?”

“No, Ethan was in the bathroom at the time, so he wasn’t in the line of fire either,” I answered. “Luckily, I’d just bent over to pick something off the floor when the first shot came through the window. That’s probably what saved my life and is most likely the only reason the shooter missed.”

“Thank God for that and I’ll get a team dispatched right away,” Joe assured me.

Ethan couldn’t hear Joe’s responses, so he was looking at me strangely. As soon as I finished this discussion and hung up, Ethan had another question he wanted answered.

“Why the hell did you just call Joe and not the cops?” he demanded.

I didn’t have a chance to respond to his query before our conversation was rudely interrupted by the sound of automatic weapon fire.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Ethan screamed. “Why is someone trying to kill us?”

“It’s a long story,” I answered, cryptically.

“Well it doesn’t appear that we’re going anywhere soon, so you should have plenty of time to explain this to me, unless this room isn’t bulletproof,” Ethan challenged.

“Don’t worry, this place is heavily armored,” I began, “so if you want I’ll try to explain what this is all about. As you might have guessed, there are some things I haven’t told you about mys…”

At that moment, my explanation was cut off by the sound of a rather loud explosion, which caused the entire house to shake.

“What the fuck was that?” Ethan screamed when he heard the earsplitting blast and felt everything around us tremble. “It sounded like they just blew up your damn house.”

“That might be exactly what happened,” I agreed. “Hopefully, Joe will get a team out here shortly to rescue us.”

“Ok, what the hell does Joe have to do with any of this?” Ethan followed.

“Ethan, I’m not supposed to tell anyone this information, but I think you have the right to know, since you’ve been caught up in it. I’m in the witness protection program and Joe is the U.S. Marshall handling my transition,” I began. “They’ve got him living next door for now, so he can help keep an eye on things. He was only supposed to have to do this for the first few months, just until he felt my transition had been completed and I was safe. When I called him, he told me he was going to get a team of Feds out here to rescue us and, hopefully, nab the people who are trying to kill us.”

“Who or what are they keeping you safe from?” Ethan wanted to know.

“From something I accidentally got sucked into when I was in college,” I explained. “I didn’t realize what I was being roped into at the time and by the time I figured it out, it was too late to cut my ties. When we got busted later, I agreed to cooperate with the U.S. attorney’s office and turned state’s evidence. In the end, I had to testify against the people who got me involved in this whole mess, and doing so placed my life in jeopardy. It also kept me from getting charged with any crimes and going to prison, which I thought was a fair trade. In return for my testimony, I was given a new identity and moved here as part of the program, but I am not permitted to contact anyone from my past and I’m not allowed to tell anybody new in my life about my situation.”

“So everything I know about you is a lie?” Ethan asked. “I can’t believe you’re telling me that you’re really just a name someone made up, like some storybook character, and Bryan Walters doesn’t actually exist!”

“Do I look made up?” I challenged, “Maybe the name Bryan Walters is fictitious, but the guy you fell in love with and who loves you dearly is definitely real. I’ll admit that all the things I’ve told you about my past are also fabricated, but I’m real. I’ve just had to memorize a whole new past, one that I never lived, but having to do that has also taught me to think ahead and be mentally agile as I go along. That’s how I was able to come up with those answers for Chad and Maria so quickly, because I thought ahead and prepared myself for their questions. I’m still the same person you met, have enjoyed being with and who loves you more than life, but it’s just that I didn’t grow up in Florida, didn’t go to UGA and my parents aren’t dead.

“When this happened, my mom and dad had to be put in the witness protection program too,” I continued, “so the guys looking for me wouldn’t kill them in retaliation. The Feds relocated them as well, but they put my parents somewhere else, because they said it would just be too risky to allow us to stay together. I don’t even know their new identities or where they currently reside, and they don’t have any of my information either, so there’s no way we can contact each other, even if we wanted to.”

“I’m sorry to hear about that and it must be really tough on each of you, not knowing how the other is doing,” Ethan told me, while toning down his rhetoric slightly.

“Thanks, and it certainly hasn’t been easy, since I don’t know how my mom and dad are doing,” I agreed. “They were all I had in this world and now they’re gone too. I really screwed up when I got involved with that guy and his crew.”

“Look, I’m not going to judge what you did, because I still don’t know the details about how you got involved with this,” Ethan acknowledged, “but why did you move here and how did you manage to get a job with the state?”

“I’m not sure why they brought me to New Mexico, other than they thought the people hunting for me wouldn’t look here,” I answered. “They also set me up in this job, which I was qualified for because of my education. I’m not certain if the Feds had to pull some strings to get me a state job, but that’s how it worked out.”

“So you do have a degree then?” Ethan pressed.

“Yes, I do,” I confirmed. “I actually have an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing working in a low-level accounting position with the state?” he nearly shouted. “With a degree like that, you could choose almost any job out there and it would be one that you could make a minimum of ten times more than you’re earning now.”

“That’s true, but because I’m in the witness protection program I was told I couldn’t publicize my degree,” I explained. “If I did, the Feds said it would be easier for the people looking for me to narrow down where I am. That’s why they thought it would be best if they only provided my new identity with a bachelor’s degree in business for now, instead of a master’s degree.”

We ended up spending several hours in the safe room, but fortunately there was a small fridge in there with bottled water, plus I kept some snack food in there as well. I moved the old stuff out to my kitchen and stock it with new supplies every couple of weeks, so at least we didn’t go hungry or thirsty. During this time, I also filled Ethan in on other details about my past, meaning my childhood and real family life, but I didn’t go into detail about the things that put me in this situation. I felt I’d need Joe to clear that first, so I didn’t create any further problems.

I had just finished disclosing another piece of information about my high school years to Ethan when we heard a rap on the safe room door. There was one knock, a pause, another knock, a pause, then two knocks, a pause, one knock, a pause, three knocks, another pause and then two more knocks.

“That’s Joe,” I advised Ethan. “He just used the code he had me memorize for situations like this. He’s letting me know it’s safe to open the door.”

“Why didn’t he just call?” Ethan countered.

“I have a feeling the explosion disconnected the phone lines, along with a few other things,” I explained, “and the armor interferes with any wireless communication.”

Slowly, I turned the wheel on the back of the door counter-clockwise and released the bolts that had held it securely in place. I then pulled the door toward me and Joe rushed into the room.

“I have something here for you to put on,” he announced, as he reached into a satchel he was carrying.

Joe then pulled out some items and handed them to Ethan and me. He gave us each a white jumpsuit, a windbreaker and baseball cap, which all had ‘F.B.I.’ emblazoned on them. The jumpsuits and windbreaker had the logo on the front, above the left pocket, and also on the back, while the caps had the same designation just behind and above the bill.

“I’m using this disguise to take you out of here,” Joe informed us. “Since this place is swarming with F.B.I. agents and technicians, I think this deception will keep you from being noticed. We’ve got a large collection of people that are dressed similarly going through the debris and looking for evidence, so you’ll just appear to be part of that crew. Your first job will be to help load two dummies into the ambulance waiting out front. These dummies were discretely inflated after we got inside the house and are now in weighted body bags, so it will appear as if the bags contain human remains when they’re taken out.

“After you finish doing that, I want you to come back in here and help me load your computer and a few other items into my S.U.V. Once we’ve done that, you’ll get into the S.U.V. with me and we’ll head out to a temporary safe house location. Does he know anything about what just happened here?” Joe followed, while nodding toward Ethan.

“A little, but I didn’t tell him about it until after we came in here and I didn’t tell him the details of what I did that got me put into witness protection,” I answered. “I felt he had a right to know some of the things about my past, but I didn’t tell him all of it. I just thought he should know part of the reason why he was being shot at too, but I wanted your approval before I told him more.”

“Fair enough,” Joe replied.

We did as Joe had directed and helped load two body bags into an ambulance. Then, the body bags were transported to a place that was tightly controlled, so no one would find out that there were only dummies inside. Once that had been completed, we followed Joe back into what was left of my house and carried those other items out to the S.U.V., placed them in the back, and then we hopped inside and drove away.

“Do they know who did this or have they caught anyone yet?” I asked, after we were away from that location.

I was wondering about the shooters, because I wanted to know if they might still be hunting us. I figured if they’d been captured, we might be in the clear for now, unless they had backup teams around here too.

“I’ve been advised that they’ve picked up two men so far and are looking for a third,” Joe answered. “They’re also in the process of collecting evidence from the two areas the shooters fired from, so they can connect these men to the crime.”

“So if there were two locations, then it means there must have been more than one group involved, right?” I wondered.

“Yes, it does,” Joe answered. “Our investigative team was able to trace the initial rifleman to a location on the roof of a commercial building a couple of blocks over. It was high enough that he had a fairly good vantage point and could track your movements from there. It was also fairly obvious that he’d been trained as a sniper and had been watching your house from that spot for several hours. In fact, the information I was given indicated that he had been at that location so long that one of the storeowners reported his vehicle for being parked in a restricted area and it was towed away.”

“And no one looked for the driver when they towed the car away?” I wanted to know.

“I guess the police just figured the driver had merely left it there and was doing some shopping or had gone off to visit someone,” Joe explained. “However, they were able to get a team here quickly from Albuquerque and after our investigators learned that a vehicle had been towed from the location, they went to the impound lot and were able to collect the guy’s fingerprints. I guess he hadn’t been very careful about wiping the interior down, because he thought he could finish the job quickly and then get away.”

“So it was just lucky he parked somewhere he shouldn’t have,” I observed.

“You might say that,” Joe answered. “When they ran the fingerprints that had been collected against the database, they were able to come up with the shooter’s identity. He’s also the person they’re still looking for. If his vehicle hadn’t been impounded, we wouldn’t have known anything about him or had his fingerprints, so we’d probably never have learned who he was. He’d have been able to merely drive off after shooting you and would have gotten away, scot-free.”

“Wow! I’m certainly glad Ethan took me on that hike this morning and we were gone until this afternoon,” I told Joe. “The sniper must have arrived and got into position some time after we left the house, but waited there until we got back. I have a feeling he did that because he must have thought I was home and kept watching for me.”

“Why would he have thought you were home?” Joe asked.

“Because we took Ethan’s car and left mine in the driveway,” I replied. “Since my car was there, he must have figured I was too.”

“It would appear as if that must have been the case, so you can thank you’re lucky stars that you were gone for so long,” Joe confirmed.

“Or that he didn’t try to shoot us when we first got back and were heading into the house,” Ethan added.

“Yes, he might have thought you two were just coming to pick Bryan up, because he probably couldn’t see your faces until after you were inside and he saw Bryan through the window,” Joe replied.

Ethan and I both breathed a quick sigh of relief after hearing this.

“Who were the two guys they caught?” I followed.

“They were obviously the cleanup crew,” Joe announced. “I take it the sniper must have contacted them on a cell phone or walkie after he realized he missed his shot, so they drove up in front of your house, got out of their vehicle and attempted to finish the job,” Joe confirmed. “First, they shot up the house with assault rifles and then they tossed some sort of bomb inside. As you saw, it really did a number on your place.”

“Yes, I kind of noticed that,” I confessed. “So how did they catch them then?”

“After I talked to you, I went to the monitors connected to the surveillance cameras and watched a vehicle pull up in front of your house and saw two guys jump out,” Joe informed me. “Since I knew you were already in the safe room, I was able to focus on them and got their license plate number and a description of the vehicle they were using while they were shooting up your place. After they took off, I called the State Police and gave them the information, so they were able to pick the two men up a short time later.

“I was told that the shooters were totally surprised that someone had been able to get any details about them and then pass it on to the authorities,” Joe added. “They figured that once they started shooting in a residential neighborhood that the people would be so scared that they’d duck for cover and wouldn’t go anywhere near a window to look out.”

“I guess they didn’t count on any surveillance systems then,” I jokingly responded. “So did Fat Tony send them?”

“It looks that way,” Joe confirmed. “All three names have come up with links back to him, so I don’t think it will be too difficult to pin this attack on him.”

“So what happens now?” I followed.

“You’ll be declared dead this time and then set up in a safe house just outside of Albuquerque for the time being,” Joe replied.

“Does that mean me too?” Ethan asked next.

“Only if you want it to,” Joe stated. “We can easily make up a story to claim that you were somewhere else when everything happened and that I was the other body, since I won’t need to be sticking around here once Bryan’s gone. If you choose to do that, then you can go on with your life, but Bryan doesn’t have that option. He’ll have to be given a new identity and relocated again.”

“What if I want to stay with Brian?” Ethan followed.

“In that case, someone from my office will grab two unclaimed John Doe bodies from the morgue, make them unrecognizable and then put out press releases that you were both killed in the blast,” Joe explained. “It’s entirely your choice, but I still want to know how the hell they found Bryan.”

“I have no idea,” I answered, honestly. “The only thing I can think of is that someone must have seen me in Las Vegas and traced us back here.”

“Wait, which Las Vegas did you go to?” Joe asked.

“Nevada, of course,” I told him.

“Are you fucking crazy,” Joe shouted. “When you told me you were going to Las Vegas, I thought you meant Las Vegas, New Mexico, which is just east of here. I wasn’t worried about anyone seeing you there, because it isn’t a place that attracts a lot of tourists. I guess it was a little naïve of me not to ask you that question before you left though, but I didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to go to such a high profile place as ‘Sin City.’”

“I never really thought about anyone recognizing me there,” I confessed. “I just wanted to get away for a nice weekend alone with Ethan.”

“I hope you two had a good time then,” Joe responded, “because everything is definitely going to change now.”

“So where will you be sending me next,” I wondered.

Joe didn’t answer right away, because he didn’t want to give the location up in front of Ethan. He eyed him for a few seconds and then spoke.

“Have you made your decision about whether we’re going to declare you dead too or do you just want to return home?” Joe asked Ethan.

“I have some things I want to clear up with Bryan before I make up my mind” he replied. “Will you give us some time to talk about this first, before I have to give you my answer?”

“I guess we don’t need you to decide anything this very minute, so you can tell me later,” Joe agreed. “I’ll leave you guys alone for a while once we reach the safe house and you can talk things over then.”

We thought this would work out fine, so we agreed. Ethan, however, was eyeballing me during the entire trip, so I was pretty sure he was going to want to know the details about how I got myself into this type of situation in the first place. Even though I knew this was on his mind, we rode the rest of the way to our destination in complete silence. When we finally reached Albuquerque, we discovered our temporary safe house was merely an out of the way, cheap motel on the northwestern outskirts of the city. Joe quickly booked us into two adjoining rooms, one for him and one for us, but we didn’t even have any extra clothes or much of anything else to take in with us.

“We’ve used this place before and never had any problems, so I doubt anyone will find you here,” he said, as he handed us our keys. “Just stay inside and I’ll bring you anything you want.”

We thanked Joe for everything he’d done for us so far and then Ethan and I entered our room. Once we were inside, Ethan looked at me and spoke.

“Will you please explain how you got yourself involved in all of this?” he asked.

“Of course I will, and I hope it won’t change anything between us,” I began. “It all started in my junior year at college, when I became good friends with my roommate that year. In fact, we became so close that we asked if we could be hooked up together again during our senior year too. During our time as roommates, he introduced me to a lot of other people he knew. Nothing much ever came from meeting any of those people until I was working on my M.B.A.”

I paused briefly at this point, as I tried to decide how I wanted to present the next part of this story.

“My roommate was from New York City and one of the guys he introduce me to was Gino Mironti,” I continued. “After Gino discovered I was working on my M.B.A., he let me know that he was planning to start a business and asked if I’d help him set it up, since I knew how to do those types of things. A short time after I helped him get his business off the ground, he asked me to help him to set up a second business, and then it quickly moved into a third and fourth venture. Since I also understood that most new businesses fail during the first couple of years, it made me wonder why he was starting these other businesses too, when he didn’t know if the first one was going to succeed yet. That’s when I began to question if what he was doing was legal.”

“Was that what got you in trouble?” Ethan wanted to know.

“Yes, it was,” I answered, simply.

“So who was this guy?” Ethan asked, as soon as I answered him.

“Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I eventually discovered that Gino Mironti was the son of Anthony Mironti,” I replied.

“So who is he?” Ethan wondered, since he didn’t recognize the name.

“I guess you must not have heard about him here in New Mexico,” I responded. “Anthony ‘Fat Tony’ Mironti is a pretty important crime boss in the east and I didn’t realize the connection between Gino and him when I first started helping Gino out.”

“So you didn’t realize you were working for a criminal?” Ethan followed.

“Not at that point. I had no idea Gino was doing anything illegal, only my suspicions, until we were caught,” I answered. “As far as I was concerned, he was just a guy trying to set up a legitimate business when I first got involved with him. Even if that had been his original intention, it seemed to change soon after he got it set up and before long he was aligning those businesses with the dark side. Looking back at things now, I guess I probably should have figured out that he was either in some kind of gang or connected with the mob shortly after he first approached me. My biggest hint should have been that whenever the guys working for Gino talked about him when he wasn’t around, they didn’t usually call him by name. Instead, they generally referred to him as ‘Little Dawg.’”

“So because they had a nickname for him, it meant he was in a gang or the mob?” Ethan wondered.

“At first I didn’t think it was a big deal, but how many people do you know who call their boss by a nickname?” I challenged. “I can’t name any other CEO’s or executives that people only refer to by a nickname, instead of their given name. If anything, they’d call him Mr. So-and-so and not even think about using just his first name or a nickname. I mean, some people call Donald Trump ‘the Donald,’ but I’m sure if he found out anyone working for him was using that nickname for him outside of work, then he’d fire them.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right about that,” Ethan reluctantly agreed.

“Anyway, it wasn’t until after we got busted that I found out why he had that nickname,” I added. “When the Feds were trying to turn me, I discovered that Fat Tony had another nickname too. His closest friends referred to him as ‘Big Dawg,’ when he wasn’t around, so that meant his son automatically got the nickname ‘Little Dawg.’

“So you had no idea they were related before then,” Ethan wondered.

“No,” I confirmed. “I’d heard about his father before I met Gino, but I just never realized they were related. I just thought that it was a coincidence that they had the same surname. That was my first big mistake.”

“Why, what did you do for him?” Ethan wanted to know.

“I found out later that the businesses he asked me to help him set up were basically front companies and he was using them to launder some of his illegal income,” I informed him.

“Why would he do that?” Ethan wondered. “If his income was illegal, then he must have been paid the cash and didn’t have to report it or pay taxes on any of it.”

“That’s true, but if he wasn’t able to show some kind of income, then how could he explain how he could afford his lavish lifestyle?” I countered. “His father was already being investigated and pressured by the Feds, so Gino had to set up his own businesses as a cover.”

“Did these businesses really exist?” Ethan asked.

“Yes, to a limited extent, but they weren’t raking in nearly as much money as his books showed,” I explained. “After coming up with a bunch of tax write-offs to offset a rather large percentage of what he was claiming as income, he didn’t end up paying taxes on all of it anyway, but it did show him earning enough income to keep the I.R.S. at bay. He still had a lot of unreported income too, because he was only claiming enough to cover his tracks.”

“So if this seemed to be working for him, then how did you get caught and arrested?” Ethan asked.

“I’m not sure how it happened, but I was told that Gino got nabbed while attempting to move some of his illegal money to tax havens in the Caribbean,” I answered. “I have no idea as to how the Feds discovered he was doing that, but they used the information to start questioning all of Gino’s known business associates and that’s when my name came up. I have no idea who gave it to them, but I’ll bet one of Gino’s friends linked me to their operation in order to get a better deal for themselves.”

“So that’s when you got busted?” Ethan asked.

“Yes, the Feds hauled me in and booked me for money laundering and racketeering,” I answered. “Not only did it expose me to criminal charges, but they were even going to prevent me from getting my degree. Even though I had already finished all of the requirements to earn my M.B.A. degree before I was picked up, I hadn’t technically been awarded it yet, so the Feds made me an offer. They told me that if I was willing to explain everything I’d done to help Gino and would agree to testify against him and the others, then they’d make sure I received my master’s degree and would put me in the witness protection program. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I’d never be able to claim that I even had a master’s degree, so I’d never benefit from all the hard work I’d done to earn it anyway.”

“That really sucks,” Ethan noted.

“It certainly does, but it beat going to prison,” I confessed.

Ethan and I spent another hour or so with me explaining the rest of the story to him, and I also told Ethan a little more about my family. By the time Joe called to ask what we wanted for dinner, Ethan and I were both pretty exhausted.

After Joe told us about our meal options, we both chose to merely order a simple dinner tonight. I think we each ended up with a burger, fries and a drink from a nearby diner, and after we finished eating, I looked at Ethan and spoke.

“After the hell you went through today because of me, I wouldn’t blame you if you decided you wanted to go back to your old life,” I offered. “Even if you do, I’d still like to take this opportunity to make it up to you, at least as well as I can, if you’re interested.”

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“I thought I’d let you make love to me tonight, if you’re up for it,” I explained. “I’ll even do it if you still aren’t sure about us staying together, because I figure I owe you at least that much for what you went through today.”

It only took a second for Ethan to react to my offer, but when he looked at me a smile began to appear upon his face.

“Of course I want us to stay together,” he answered. “I don’t want to ever lose you and I think we could both use a little loving after what we went through earlier.”

He was certainly right about that, so we made slow, passionate love that evening. I’m not sure if Joe could hear what we were up to from his room, because the walls were kind of thin, but we really didn’t care. We were totally focused on each other.