Cole

Disaster Hits

"Does this person ring a bell with you?" said the thin officer as he produced a photograph.  The photograph showed a boy about 13 with light brown hair and blue eyes with hair longer than mine and with some muscles but nothing like I had.

"This boy's name is Onni Virtanen," he continued.  "He ran away from his home in Finland after seeing propaganda on the internet and migrated to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist organization.  He was an only child.  His parents pursued him to Syria to try to bring him back but were killed.  Before they left and were killed themselves they had provided us with this picture and his finger prints, however once Ohni entered Syria he disappeared.  The information about him was entered into our terrorist watch list, which your fingerprints triggered.  We think this kid is you.  Your fingerprints seem to match."

"I am not engaged in terrorism and have no interest in it. I also know nothing about Islam and have no interest in that. You can search anything you want and talk to my friends. I have no idea why my fingerprints seem to match a kid's fingerprints in Europe. I have never been to Europe. Like I said, my only interest is girls. And I guess you can add to that that I like to exercise."

"We see that you were taken to this police station before because of an altercation at a party."

"That's correct. I attended a party at a high school football player's house, but then I discovered someone at the party attempted to rape my girlfriend by first drugging her. I rescued her and left the party with her and took her home.  Other than that, my life has been pretty routine attending high school. There is no connection or interest to Islam or terrorism. I don't know anything about that stuff.  I honestly don't know anything about Islam and couldn't tell you the first thing about it."

The Federal officers continued to grill me for a couple of hours but it was just more of the same. Eventually they left me in the room where I had to wait four more hours. Finally a policewoman entered the room and said I could join my parents.

I found my parents near the door and they looked exhausted. We got in my dad's car and rode home in silence. Unlike last time following the fight at Lance's house they were not mad at me.

I didn't think that kid from Finland looked like me at all. Yeah, he had the same eye and hair colors, but he was just a scrawny punk. I bet he was on drugs most of the time and hated his home; he was just a burnout.

For the next week Federal agents searched our home and our computers but found nothing they were looking for. Eventually they stopped bugging us. I thought the whole thing was really weird. I never mentioned it to Manda. I didn't see any reason to. There obviously was some kind of mistake as far as I could tell.

Then one day, about a month later my mom and dad said they wanted to have a meeting with me about it. My parents decided they wanted to do this meeting by having us all standing in the basement, which I thought was weird.  My parents were getting weirder and weirder.

After we went downstairs and stood near the furnace looking at each other my dad spoke.

"Cole, there are things about you and your situation that we need to tell you now. You need to begin taking your own responsibility for what is going on here.  In order for you to do that you need to know the whole story."

"Those guys from the government seem to be leaving us alone now," I said.

"Yes. It appears that the fingerprints they have are a bit smudged and they are struggling with trying to tie you, a 15 year old, to terrorism, but you can bet your still on the watch list and they will continue to check on you."

"Okay, well I can deal with that. They are a bunch of idiots to think I even care about terrorism and Islam," I said.

"Cole, there is a lot more going on here than you know about. The reason we want to talk to you is we want you to take on more responsibility and you need to know more things to do that.  We think you are ready for that.  The government agents are not idiots. They know more than you think."

"The only thing I really care about is my girlfriend, Manda".

"No, Cole. We don't know that much about Manda because you keep that to yourself, but I can guarantee that your life very soon is going to get a lot more complicated than just Manda", my dad said.

Dad and mom just stared at me.

"You know, Cole, one way you can think of this is that it's now time to grow up and take responsibility for a lot more things."

"What do you mean?  I am only a kid. I go to school and do my homework and take care of my girlfriend. What more could I possibly do?", I asked.

My mom and dad just looked at each other and did not say anything.

"Cole, we have arranged for you to meet some people that will make things a lot clearer to you. I guarantee that after the meeting you will know and feel a lot more responsibility. Some of what you hear will upset you and some will amaze you, but we feel you need to know."

"Okay, I guess", I said.

"I think you've had a lot of questions these past few months about yourself and we have tried to answer you but the answers did not seem to make sense. That was because we could not tell you everything until now.  We will now try to clear that up for you."

Mom and dad just looked at me for a while and then at each other. Mom then said to my dad, "I think we are ready."

"Cole, in order for you to meet these people and get answers we have to blindfold you. Depending on how things go we may never have to blindfold you again. Once you see what this is all about you will understand the need for security. We will be taking you someplace in the car and then into a building. Once all is set we will remove your blindfold."

I was a bit worried but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't know anything.  It did not appear that Manda was a part of any of this. Right now Manda was everything to me. Nothing else mattered. If this was going to hurt Manda somehow I would tell them all to go to Hell.

"Okay, if you need to do this I am okay with it. When do we go?", I asked.

"Right now,"dad said. "They're waiting for us."

"Oh, now?", I asked. That seemed impatient to me.

"Yes"

My dad pulled out a large blindfold from his pocket, which he tied to my head, and also tied my hands.

"Why do you need to tie my hands?", I asked.

"It's only so you don't take off the blindfold."

"Oh"

We all then went upstairs and then out to the carport for the car. I heard a car door open and was guided into a seat. Mom and dad got in and then dad backed the car out of the carport.

"Cole, we're not going too far - maybe a thirty minute drive - just hang in there."

"Okay", I said.

After doing a number of turns, stops, and starts, and hearing the sounds of other cars, we finally seemed to pull into some kind of drive and stopped. Mom and Dad stepped out and one of them opened my door, unbuckled my belt, and led me out. We walked up some kind of walkway and then someone knocked on a door which was then opened. I was led inside and then down a stair. I was thinking I must have gone below ground level.

I was then led to a spot and directed to sit in a chair that I felt with my legs. Someone then untied my hands and then took off the blindfold.

When the blindfold was removed I had to blink my eyes to see anything as things slowly began to come into focus. I found myself sitting in a chair, and in front of me was a table with a number of people sitting at it. One man in a suit was sitting in the center position. To his immediate right was my mom followed by my dad. On the other side of the man to his left was a man and two women. The youngest person at the table was my mom. I had no idea who the guy in the center was, and I had no idea who the man and two women to his left were.

The man in the center started smiling at me.

"Welcome to S clinic, Cole," he said. "I have been looking forward to meeting you. I am doctor Thorne. I was the surgeon that performed the operation on your head".