The Love of his Country Against the Love of his Family
Explaining that I needed some medications for my ghastly headache, I walked down the little street of Dublin, Ireland, and sought out a particular pharmacy. "Little Corner Pharmacy" the sign over my head announced, satisfied that this was the right place, I pushed open the door.
A little tinkling bell announced my presence to a little wrinkled man behind the counter. I walked up to him and asked for his poison, the one rumored to be undetectable, and deadly. Yes, it would be the best way for her to depart from this world.
He asked me to tell him why I desired this poison with which I was to kill my wife. I made up some story about how she always forgot to take out the trash and did not feed the dog, for I could not tell him the real story. No, I could not.
After a drink of coffee, he demanded I write a letter of confession for what I was about to do, in order for the antidote. The antidote? He had poisoned the coffee! No matter what I did, he would not give me the fluid which could save my life.
However, I did not require that any longer. All I really wanted was the poison to finish my task, which he would not give me. The little druggist shoved a pad of paper and a pen in front of me and asked me to write. I picked up the pen, what was I to write after all?
I shook my head and placed the pen down on his pad, for I was not going to write anything. From his little table, I retrieved my pistol and was about to take my wallet when I noticed something. I had seen it many times before, but never so clearly. Taken many years ago, it was a family portrait. Myself, my wife, and her.
I owed her. She needed to know the entire story. I should tell her, but that was never to be. Tears welled up in my eyes, as I sat down and took up the pen and began to write.
* * *
Mr. Banting,
In order for one to desire, even think, of murdering one�s loved one requires a just cause, involving not only one�s interests, but the lives of others as well. When I discovered my wife�s secret, I decided that she must die, despite my love for her.
Country and duty rank first in my personal beliefs, and in the field of my profession, my priorities are especially important. As I have been taught, those who interfere with any of my missions must die, no matter whom they are.
I am currently in the employ of the National Security Agency of the United States and was assigned to a mission involving the safety of the president. I am forbidden to disclose the details of my assigned task, however, I will briefly outlay the connection between my once-innocent wife and the life of the world�s most powerful man.
My team and I have recently uncovered the Irish Republican Army�s plans to assassinate the president during a trade mission dinner tonight. We had planned to allow the assassins to continue, as it was the only way to proceed, but ensure the safety of undercover agents we have in their ranks.
These treacherous plans were discovered by one of our agents, and we owe the president�s life to him. Or at least we would have.
Just a few hours ago, my entire team was at the conference center located in the Ireland Queen Hotel, at our positions, complete with snipers, ready to take out the assassin. However, we did not find an assassin, and it was almost as if the entire plan had never been! Half way through the dinner, we started to become suspicious and wanted our undercover agent to answer some questions, but he, like the assassins, had vanished.
After the dinner, my supervisor took me aside and explained that our plans had been discovered by the IRA. I was shocked. No one, except those on the team knew! I feverishly denied the possibility, having great trust in my fellow agents. However, the other man shook his head sadly. There was a double agent among us.
I demand at one to know who it was, but the surprise of the counter-spy was no greater than this. My wife. It was my own wife! My jaw dropped and my manager slowly told me how she had searched through my notes, gained a suspicion, and with the help of her counterparts, forced the rest of the necessary information out of our disappeared agent.
As I entered my house, she greeted me with a warm smile, and everything was the same as always. Except . . . Except that through her kind face, I saw her dark, twisted betrayal. She was working with the enemy, and I was her tool, her link to the authority�s information, that was all.
The echoing advice of my mission organizer haunted me, I was to dispose of her. Options whisked through my head, if she lived, the president would die. My friends offered to do the deed, if I could not, but I wanted to. It would be easier for her that way.
No where in my heart, could I ever permit myself to shoot her, or do away with her in most of the conventional methods we secret agents use.
I have come to seek your undetectable poison, for I have felt that it would be one of the best ways for her to end her poisoned life, unknowing. Oblivionated that I knew her secret, but most of all, that her husband was the one who delivered her to Death�s door. It would almost be like drifting elsewhere, perhaps a sleep from which none shall ever wake.
The antidote, would save my life, as well as my wife�s. However, with the help of the sly fox crouched in my own house, eventually, the life of the president shall be lost. It would only be a matter of time.
I shall spread the word of your famed poison, for your advice may help many, many people. However, unfortunately, it does not help me. This deed must be done and I will die from a lack of the antidote, but my life would not be tossed away needlessly, it would be sacrificed. It shall be the last sacrifice I shall be able to make, and the greatest I am empowered to give.
Perhaps you may be wondering why I�d bother to tell you my story when I did not require the antidote, that is a question well asked. When I depart from this world, my life, I would have wanted to carry my secret to my grave, my companion to the next world, however, there is one who needs to know the entire story. The whole, true story of her father�s death and her mother�s treachery.
Instead of mailing this letter to your friend on homicide, please deliver this letter to my daughter in person, I shall enclose her business chard. You shall be one of the last people I contact in this life, and I would like to thank you deeply for this chance, this opportunity to be able to lay down this mighty sacrifice for my country.
I do not, I am positive, require the antidote, for even if I lived, the IRA would eventually have their vengeance. It is better for me to die in such a way, of which I am in control of.
I shall not sign this letter, for it could, and would bring you trouble. I only request some of your poison to finish off my task. The price I pay is my life, my private, personal possession, that I gladly would, and will, lose for duty and country.
Please give this letter, and my love to my daughter, and tell her I died not joyous, not happy, but content that I have lived my life to its fullest and that I was honored to be her father. May my daughter forgive me for what I am about to do,
Your ever grateful friend
* * *
"I didn�t know," I looked up and my eyes met the druggist�s, who were also filled with tears, "I read your letter over your shoulder, I thought you were to murder her for some other reason, I never would have guessed! I�m so sorry!"
"Don�t be." I stood up and placed my letter in his hands, as well as a business card from my pocket, "She�s in Washington, works for the FBI."
Slowly, he nodded, and looked up at me, sorrow and pity in his eyes. I shrugged and counted out some money to pay for his trip across the ocean. A trip that I would have made, but now I could not.
"I will see that this gets to her." The little man assured me, and carefully reminded me, "You have two more hours before the poison takes effect. I will supply some more for your wife."
"Thank you." I whispered, grateful, as he placed another cup of coffee in my hands.
"Don�t drink this coffee." He warned, "It holds enough poison to kill her within an hour, so that you will be able to complete your task before your time is up."
I forced a smile and left the little pharmacy and headed up the street to my house, extremely glad that I had a completed will left in my safe at home. After my departure, everything would have been as it was, as it ought to be.
I walked into my house and presented the little cup of coffee to my wife, saying that I had brought it for her. I suppose it could have passed for Irish coffee from the hotel at which I had been on duty. Never again, would I be on duty . . .
The sky was growing darker, as the first stars appeared in the sky. She was gone, and the last minutes of my life were fast approaching. Lying on my bedside table, was a letter I had written to my colleagues, explaining as little as I could, but also mentioning the undetectable poison, as I had promised the man in the pharmacy.
Outside in the garden, the moon lit up the darkening night, however, to me, it was steadily growing dimmer, and dimmer. Suddenly, the darkness enclosed me, and a light beckoned, for I was leaving this life, and wandering into the next.
* * *
The little man walked into the brightness of the airport and squinted. Clutching his bag and the business card he wandered through the American crowds, the first he had ever contacted. Now he was to single out one American from all the rest, how was he to do that?
Scanning the crowd, the druggist saw her looking at him, as if in thought. Was he the one she was seeking? Taking a step forward, the little man began, "You look so much like your father . . ."