The Story of Mike Doe!

Hey, my name’s Mike Doe, and this is my story. I had a friend in college, my freshman roommate, who was always talking about his family. His name was Robert Gooding, and he must’ve had a family tree that started from Adam and Eve. Every single day he would drone on and on about some cousin or uncle or some such. He would always burst into the room saying things like, “Hey Mike! You’ll never guess Uncle Nate and Aunt Ridley are doing in Taiwan for the orphans this week!” I remember him talking about how Dimitri, his mother’s grandfather’s nephew’s son, which is apparently what second cousin once removed means, had resolved a tense hostage situation in Iran. And how cool Auntie Pauline (actually a distant cousin) was for working on top secret stuff with the CIA. I always tried to be patient with him and at least pretended to listen and nod at his stories. They never seemed to be about the same people. Sometimes he’d mention something that was actually funny or interesting too so it wasn’t always bad.

Good old rambling Robert. He picked up that nickname within a couple weeks of starting school--I don’t think he liked it much. He didn’t make many friends because he could never stop talking about his own family. Sometimes I think that I was the only one he could talk to who wouldn’t start running after five minutes. I’m not going to lie though. Back then I endeavored to be out of the room most of the day to avoid his ramblings. However no matter how late I came back, he was always up and ready to tell me something new about his family’s latest adventures.

There was this one time that was different though. On a day close to the end of our first semester together, he suddenly stopped his rambling and stared at me with a really serious expression. The abrupt lack of background noise startled me from the article I was reading while humoring him, and when I saw his face I thought he must have been angry with me for ignoring him. “You know Michael,” he started as I prepared my apology, “I really appreciate that you listen to my stories every day. I know it must be boring and annoying for you, but you listen anyway and I appreciate that. So I want to promise you something. Us Goodings, we don’t forget stuff like this. We take care of our friends. Just you wait, one day me and the whole family will find a way to thank you.” I shuddered at the thought of having to attend a graduation party with his entire family and hear about all their adventures first hand, but at that moment I realized that Robert was actually a pretty good guy.

Our year together came to an end, and the next year I was assigned a different roommate. Rambling Robert still sent me emails to keep me up to date with all his family happenings for a while, but even those stopped when he decided to transfer out to some college in Washington. I completed my degree in criminal psychology and went on to work as a detective for the DEA for a while. I had a great time there busting drug dealers and cleaning up the streets of my hometown, and my mom was so proud to have a real Officer Doe in the family. I was about 45 years old when they promoted me and had me relocated near the Mexican border to work on the drug traffic coming from the cartels. It was there that I finally met one of Robert’s infamous family members, Randall Gooding. He was my new supervisor, and when I showed up on the first day he greeted me like an old friend. He told me that he recognized my name and background from the stories Robert had told him, and he personally requested that I be sent down. I was surprised that Robert even talked about me, we had only known each other for a year, but it was nice to reminisce about the Goodings again. Randall was just as talkative as Robert was, and we hit it off almost immediately. It felt like I was in college again. His nickname around the office was Rambling Randy, which had me chuckling for at least a day. Robert, it turns out, was doing just fine. He was a doctor now somewhere in Texas, and I was happy that my old friend was able to make such a good life for himself.

Work was good for a few years until the cartel activity started to pick up dramatically. Nobody was sure why but we were suddenly inundated with arrests and busts and all kinds of paper work. Even Randy wasn’t as talkative around this time. It was all supposed to come to a head today. Today we were going to do a massive takedown on a processing plant operating just inside the border. Our undercover agent had uncovered it while posing for a different case so Randy and I took the lead while the rest of the office continued monitoring the other operation. We enlisted the FBI and local SWAT teams for help and I thought everything was going to go smoothly until I got kidnapped right out of the parking lot on my way out of the office last night.

From the time they ripped the rucksack bag off of my head till the first rays of daylight, they questioned me. They were careful. All of them had clown masks on, the hard plastic kind that never quite fit the face right. All of them were wearing gloves and carrying weapons--some had guns, some had various wicked modifications of baseball bats and crowbars. The night was rough. They wanted to know how we found out about them, who we were working with, when the operation was going to go down, and a whole host of other questions. I was patient and waited. I gave them no information and suffered a few broken ribs and some teeth for it. While they were questioning me, I took in my surroundings. I knew from the floor plans I had studied for the bust that I was in the processing plant, specifically in one of the raised offices at the end of the building. I could see the entire plant from the large window on the wall in front of me. I guessed that they did not know about our plans yet, so I contented myself to sit tight and wait for the bust to happen at 10AM.

However, it was around 6AM when I heard the sirens blaring in the distance. Maybe they stepped up the schedule when they found out I was kidnapped, I thought. My captors were awake in an instant and took up the preplanned positions we had predicted. One of the guys carrying what looked like an M16 came cursing into the office where I was being held. After cracking me in the face with the butt of the gun, I felt more than heard him raise the muzzle level with the back of my head. Soon I heard an unfamiliar voice yell over a megaphone giving the normal spiel about being surrounded and to give up. Of course they refused to give up and began to use me as a bargaining chip. Randy’s voice came over the megaphone just before the first officer continued the negotiation, “Mikey! Just wait Mikey! Hang tight and don’t do anything stupid.”

The standoff lasted for hours. If it weren’t for the gun pressed on the nape of my neck, I would have probably passed out from boredom. Eventually things got real quiet. My guard started getting antsy and walked out--probably to check for new orders with his superiors. As soon as he left the room, a hundred glass windows shattered breaking the silence and raining shards of glass down on the main factory floor. White smoke obscured the first floor as tear gas flooded the facility. Shouting and gunfire followed as my captors opened fire. Amid the confusion and smoke I couldn’t tell who was winning. I did hear Randy’s voice at one point yelling orders like, “Dimitri, take the stairs and give Pauline some cover.” None of the officers who were supposed to be with us today were named Dimitri or Pauline. The din began to wither after only a few minutes and unseen officers began yelling, “Clear!” As the smoke dissipated, I expected to see the body armor and face masks of the SWAT teams who were supposed to be part of today’s operation. Instead I saw lots of men and a few women I had never seen before in various uniforms. Some were in army uniforms others were in suits, and there were even a few in civilian clothes. God, did they call the Army and CIA in on this? When Randy saw me, he came running up with one of the suited men who was carrying a bag.

“Mike! Thank God you’re still alive. I’m sorry we made you wait so long, but we had to wait for all the flights to make it before we could move.”

“What? What flights? Randy, what are you talking about?”

“We found out you were kidnapped at about midnight. The team that we were going to use wasn’t trained for hostage situations so I had to improvise. I made some calls around and got as many as I could to come down here. Good thing Nate here happened to have hostage experience. Nobody asked any questions after I brought your name up, we all know you thanks to Robert here.” He motioned at the suited man who was leaning in to assess me.

I frowned at the man and suddenly realized that his bag contained medical supplies. “Robert?” I choked the question out in disbelief. He just gave me a small smile while he continued his work. “You mean to tell me that all of these guys… They’re all your family?”

Robert looked up from where he was examining my jaw with a wry smile, “I told you we don’t forget Mike. All the Goodings come to Doe’s who wait. ”