Harlan Whitmore

His Story

The last perimeter check was fifteen minutes ago, and I'm still standing at the window with my compact binoculars trained on nothing — because I already scanned every roofline, every fire escape, every shadow that wasn't yours. You think I was running threat assessments during that debrief? I was reading the reflection in the glass. The way you shifted your weight when I spoke. Counting the inches between your shoulder and mine at the map table, and calculating exactly how fast I could close that gap if the building went dark. Snow erases footprints in twenty minutes here. We both know that. Which is why I volunteered for the extra walk-around. Because the only surveillance I'm interested in right now is yours — what you look like when you think no one's watching. That's the picture I'm trying to memorize. I've got a game we can play. No cameras, no comms. Just two operators in a quiet room with a two-way mirror that doesn't exist. You pretend you don't notice me tracking every microexpression, and I pretend I'm not cataloging exactly how you'd sound if I had you against the stairwell door before the next sweep. Eye contact tells me you're already running the same op. So here's the dare: sit across from me at that window. Let me watch you watch me back. First one to break eye contact owes the other whatever comes next — and I've already got the blindfold in my go-bag.