The Sentinel's Shield

Chapter 2

It has been 20 years since the incident. It took 5 years to accept the fact. Time had always taught Travis Ray one thing. Justice shall be served to the deserving.

He looked at the photo frame next to his bed once last time before leaving for work.

As he climbed to his Dodge Avenger, his phone began to ring.

"Hello" said Travis

"Good mornin Travis, slept well?" came from the other side

"Hey Colton, whats up ?" Travis replied.

"Guess what? Chief wants to you to report him first thing ."

"Any idea why?"

"Lemme guess, you prevent London from burning to ash a year back. Two months later, you stop a group of militants who call themselves the Nazi Generals from nuking Germany and five months into it you expose a mole in the FBI, who you know, I can't talk about through the phone if I want to take my kids to Disneyland this year. So, if I have to guess, I'd say the Chief's gonna give you a promotion or a well deserved holiday"

Travis chuckled "Haha, you really think so ?"

"Fifty bucks say that I'm right" said Colton

"Your on." replied Travis.

As he approached the gate of the headquarters of the Federal Bureau Investigation, Travis slowed down his car. A uniformed man approached him with a device held in one hand.

"Good Morning Mr.Ray" said the guard

"Good Morning Sam" said Travis

Without another word the guard, Sam pointed his device horizontally at Travis' eye. A very thin laser shot from the device to Travis' retina. On the display came a photo of Travis, his name and clearance level.

"Thank you Mr.Ray" said Sam."It must be bugging for you to go through this procedure everyday but I have to."

"Its fine Sam, you're just doing your duty. How's Julie and the kids?" asked Travis.

"Doing great actually, Alice got accepted into Yale" grinned Sam

"That's great, wish her the best from me" said Travis

"Will do Sir".

As he entered the building, there was another retina scan, although this time by a guard Travis had never met before.

He walked straight through the hallway, amidst all the chatter of several agents in suits and some adorned in bulletproof vests.

He stopped in front of the oak door in front of him.

'Joshua Cauldron, Chief of Field Operations' it read on the silver plate that was nailed to the door.

Two knocks of the fist and Travis waited.

In all the time that he had been in the FBI, Travis had picked up certain things when it came to dealing with people with higher authority. Two knocks on the door being one of them.

After what seemed like three seconds came the reply,"Come in".

Joshua Cauldron was a tall man with considerable built and a thin mustache that underlined his authority.

Cauldron was from that particular lot of people who never took "no" for an answer and expected all this subordinates to get the work done. As long as his subordinate followed orders and justice was served under his watch, he was one of the most pleasant people one may ever meet. Otherwise things could get pretty ugly.

As Travis entered, Cauldron sat immersed in the two files that lay on his table. Cauldron shot a quick glance up then back into his files.

"Ah Ray, give me a minute. Sit down." said Cauldorn

After flipping through the files for some time, Cauldron slowly closed his file and looked up.

"So how are you Ray?" asked Cauldron with a thin smile.

" I'm good chief. Colton said you wanted to see me"replied Travis.

"Ray, you've been in about 20 field assignment and luckily for us, you haven't screwed up a anything yet. Well that what your file has told me till now" said Cauldron pointing to the file which he had been looking through when Travis first entered the room.

"Ray" continued Cauldron "during all this time that you've been at the FBI, have you ever heard of a person in the Pentagon named Benjamin Hampton ?"

"Not really Chief. Have you?"

"Not until a few hours ago. Apparently, he's a hotshot over at the Pentagon" he paused taking a sip from the coffee next to him. "Its pretty normal for officials from the Pentagon to grab a peak into our work".

"But this guy isn't any random hotshot..is he chief?" asked Travis.

"I had one of my friends in the Pentagon get some background info "said Cauldron "and as it so happens, Benjamin Hampton is a general. And not just any general, he's the guy that make sure government organizations such as NSA get their job done right".

NSA or also known as the National Security Agency is an intelligence organisation of the United States Government responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. To the public, they are to put in laymen terms, stalkers who snoop on a global network with the permission of the government. Although many of NSA's programs rely on "passive" electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its missions through active clandestine means, among which are physically bugging electronic systems. Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in large number of countries across the globe, where its Special Collection Service or the SCS inserts eavesdropping devices in difficult to reach places.

"So what does General Hampton want ?" asked Travis.

"You!" said Cauldron pointing at Travis.

"What? Me? Why the hell does he need me?"

"I have no idea Travis, but the moment you feel something fishy, you get off the hook and come back" said Cauldron gravely.

Travis knew Cauldron was serious. He used his first name. Cauldron used people's first name only when he was really worried.

"Don't worry Chief. Let's see what happens" said Travis.