by L. T. Ryan
Haeli shut the door behind her and lugged the suitcase up the stairs to the second floor. She swung it onto Blake’s bed and unzipped it.
The contents of the suitcase consisted of a few dozen items of clothing and a handful of beauty products. They represented the full inventory of her earthly possessions.
Living in a decommissioned CIA safe house had its benefits. Free rent. Basic furnishings. Quiet location. But it also had its inconveniences.
Fezz had cleared the temporary arrangement with his superiors, but it hadn’t been run all the way up the flagpole. It meant Haeli had to be prepared to clear out at a moment’s notice, should Fezz give her the word. It was for that reason she lived out of the bulky Samsonite suitcase.
For the past several months, she may well have been backcountry camping. She kept no food and left little trace of her presence. Whatever trash she generated—mostly consisting of takeout containers and plastic utensils—she immediately removed and deposited in dumpsters and garbage cans around the area. A moment’s notice was all she would need.
But that was behind her now. She was setting down roots. Joining the ordinary world, if such a thing existed. And it made her happier than she imagined it would.
Cohabitation was sure to come with its challenges. Despite her small footprint, her former arrangement seemed disorganized in comparison to her new dwelling.
Blake was meticulous. There was no other word for it. Other than, perhaps, sick.
Everything had its place. If it didn’t have a purpose, it didn’t exist. Haeli feared the addition of her modest freight would threaten to send the entire system into disarray.
She opened the closet. There were two unused hangers, which no doubt had previously been occupied by two garments Blake had taken with him to Rhode Island.
Next, she tried the dresser, opening each drawer in succession, from top to bottom. The first, socks and underwear. The next, shirts. The third, pants. But the last—she could tell the last was empty as soon as she pulled it.
Only, as it turned out, it wasn’t.
Lying in the otherwise unused drawer was a single business card. She didn’t have to pick it up to know what it said.
Anja Kohler, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The average person in her position would have removed the small piece of card stock and set about loading her clothes into the empty drawer. And she would have if the card had belonged to anyone else. But God only knew what kind of mausoleum she would be desecrating. Knowing Blake, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had set aside the drawer as some type of shrine. As if he were keeping it empty in case she returned.
As selfish as it felt, Haeli wanted nothing more than to push it aside. To push Anja aside. But she would rather Blake get there on his own when he was ready. And she had faith he would.
Haeli zipped the suitcase closed, dragged it onto the floor, and slid it into the closet.
Finish moving in. Check.
She sat on the edge of the bed and fell backward onto the plush comforter, arms outstretched. She could have closed her eyes for a few minutes, but the buzz from inside her pants pocket nudged her to reconsider.
There you are, Mick. Tell me you’re on your way home.
Haeli sat up and fished the phone from her pocket.
There was a pending text message, but it wasn’t from Blake. It was from a number she didn’t recognize. She touched the notification and held the phone up to allow the facial recognition algorithm to do its thing. The text message appeared on the screen.
“Do I have your attention now?” it read.
Ugh.
Haeli tapped in her response. “Wrong number.”
Before she could slip the phone back into her pocket, another message came. She considered ignoring it, but curiosity got the better of her. It wasn’t as if she was in the middle of anything important.
She opened the text thread.
“The envelope, Haeli. Open it,” it said.
Only a few people had her number. Whomever it was, they knew her name. Blake was the most obvious culprit. She had seen him place calls with a spoof number before. Was he back? Setting her up for a surprise? That would be just like him. The question was whether she should play along or call him out.
She couldn’t help herself.
“Mick, I know it’s you. What are you doing?” she typed.
There was no response.
Fine. I’ll play along.
“What envelope?”
Still no response.
Apparently, she was supposed to work for it.
Haeli headed down the stairs to the foyer and checked the small table that sat by the front door. No envelope.
She opened the door, checked the stoop and inside the mailbox. Nothing.
“Blake?” she called out and listened for a response.
She remembered that she hadn’t checked the basement. Was the vault door open? Blake was probably down there the whole time, laughing at her.
She headed for the kitchen.
As she reached the end of the hallway, she could already see the brown envelope sitting on the island countertop. She picked it up before heading over to the top of the staircase.
She peeked down at the vault door. Closed.
What are you up to, Mick?
Haeli giggled to herself. She had to admit, she was enjoying the suspense. There were limitless possibilities of what could have been inside the envelope. Tickets to a tropical getaway? Fezz, Khat, and Griff’s retirement notices—that would be even better than the tropics. A love poem?
Okay, maybe there is a limit.
Pulling a stool from under the counter, she sat with her elbows resting on the granite. She unfastened the flap and dug into the envelope like a kid on Christmas morning.
A picture?
Haeli looked at the photograph. In it, Blake stood by a fence along the edge of a building, looking over his shoulder at the camera. In the background there was water and a long wooden dock. While she tried to hold on to her excitement, it was changing to confusion. This was Blake in Rhode Island, she assumed, but what was it supposed to mean?
Shoving her hand back into the envelope, she felt the gloss of another photograph. She pulled it out.
Jesus!
Her hands sprung open, and the photograph dropped to the counter.
This wasn’t meant to be cute. And it certainly wasn’t from Blake.
The picture of the mangled, severed head stared back at her. A pit grew in her stomach. Not because of the gruesomeness of the image, but because she recognized the face.
Haeli’s thumbs flew across the screen of her phone. “Who is this?”
“I think you know,” read the reply.
And she did. As soon as she saw it, she knew.
“Sokolov,” she wrote.
Several messages came in rapid succession.
“I believe you have something of mine.”
“I will give you two days to get me my diamonds.”
“Text me when you have them. I will send you the address where you will bring them.”
“If you fail to do so, the boyfriend dies.”
“If you still fail to do so, you will die as well.”
Haeli stared at the screen. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t think of a response. She could tell him that she didn’t have his diamonds, but it wouldn’t matter. He thought she did. And if she knew anything about Sokolov, it was that he was anything but reasonable.
A feeling of rage surged inside of her. For the first time, she understood how Blake felt. She remembered what he had said about Anja and how his work had tainted everything he dared to love. He had expressed his concern that he would bring the same down on her. But now, it was the opposite. It was her that had put Blake in harm’s way.
When she was alone, Haeli had accepted the risk. It was understood that every mission brought with it the chance of something going wrong. Something coming back on her, whether at the time or in the
future. But it was no longer just her. And it was no longer acceptable.
She knew what had to be done.
Haeli shoved the pictures back into the envelope and moved around the island. She opened the drawer next to the stove and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.
“Mick,” she wrote, “Thank you for asking me to move in with you—”
5
Haeli leaned against the concrete column. Her feet ached and her eyes burned.
From her vantage point, she had a clear view of the guard station. She hoped the opposite wasn’t true.
Hundreds of people had moved through the checkpoint over the past several hours. In and out. During that time, she had tried to not so much as blink for fear of missing her opportunity.
But the sun was hanging low in the sky and Haeli was beginning to wonder if this was a fool’s errand.
As she lurked in the shadow of the Techyon tower, watching the steady flow of pedestrians passing by the gates on their way to wherever, a tingling sensation ran down her neck. Not from fear, but a sense of foreboding. Like the scene in a horror movie when the unsuspecting teenager is about to open the closet where the intruder is hiding, only to be distracted away at the last minute. It was the same with the oblivious public. Gliding past the Techyon gates like a fly buzzing around the leaves of a Venus flytrap.
Not that there was any danger to passersby. There wasn’t. But heaven help anyone with a hair-brained scheme to breach the perimeter, uninvited.
To the casual observer, the Techyon Headquarters building would have looked like any other high-end corporate office complex. Guards, gates, and cameras were common security measures. Expected, even.
But beyond this deliberate facade was a level of security that exceeded most top-secret military installations.
Complex-wide facial recognition, automated airlock doors, gas, and other autonomous weapon systems would be a nasty surprise for anyone dumb enough to try to infiltrate. And then there were the anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. Thanks to Techyon’s own advancements in the field of artificial intelligence, the building itself had the capability of containing and eradicating a small army, if directed to do so.
Luckily, Haeli was not one in the unsuspecting crowd. She knew, even with her knowledge of the layout and inner workings of the security protocols, setting foot anywhere on the property would be a death sentence.
As much as it might have seemed so, Haeli didn’t have a death wish. But even if she did, she wouldn’t want to give Levi Farr the satisfaction. She had no doubt the founder and CEO of Techyon would love nothing more than to see her shredded to pieces.
It left her with one option. To wait.
After another fifteen minutes or so, she noticed a group of three people emerging from the glass doors at the base of the tower. Two women and one man, each carrying a different style bag. Their body language suggested they were engaged in lighthearted conversation.
As they reached the gate, Haeli could see one of the women smiling and laughing with the other. But it wasn’t the women who garnered her attention. It was the arid, clean-cut man with jet black hair who accompanied them.
Even from a distance, she recognized him. His name was Michael Wan, and he was one of the reasons she was there.
As the group cleared the gate, Wan gave a small wave and the two women peeled off toward the south. Wan jogged across the street, straight toward Haeli.
Figures.
Haeli spun around and took up a brisk stride. She headed east for a few hundred feet, fighting the urge to look behind her, and ducked into the first storefront she came upon. It turned out to be a locksmith shop.
An obese man with a scruffy beard slouched behind a cluttered counter, fiddling with a lock cylinder. Based on the run-down state of the shop, Haeli assumed he was the owner and sole employee.
“Can I help you?” the man asked in Hebrew.
“Just looking,” she answered in English.
“Ah. You prefer English. But you are Israeli, are you not?”
Haeli turned her back to him and ran her fingers over one of three carousel racks of keys that sat in the front window. She peered out at the street.
The man had dropped the cylinder, but still hadn’t bothered to stand. “What are you looking for?”
For a moment, the seemingly nosy question got her dander up. But she realized he was only asking her what she needed. Without turning toward him, she offered an obligatory reply.
“A key.”
“No problem,” he said. “Give me the one you want to copy, and I’ll tell you which ones you can choose from.”
As the head and shoulders of Michael Wan streaked across the window, Haeli snapped her head around to face the store owner.
“That’s okay.” She moved to the door and cracked it open. “I changed my mind.”
Haeli stepped onto the sidewalk and waited a few seconds to put a little more distance between herself and Wan. Then she followed.
She matched Wan’s pace until he reached the corner and turned left. As soon as he was out of sight, she sprinted to the corner and peeked down the perpendicular street, managing to catch a glimpse just before he disappeared into a doorway.
The nature of his destination wasn’t much of a mystery. The two small tables sitting on the sidewalk were a strong clue.
As she approached, the plain black and white sign confirmed her crack detective work.
Nahum Falafel.
Haeli’s stomach groaned. She knew what it wanted. A Sabich. It had been too long since she had eaten her favorite food. Eggplant, hard boiled eggs, hummus, tahini, pita. The thought of it brought her back years and caused her to salivate.
But this was no time to get caught up with frivolous cravings. So-called comfort food would provide her none. What she needed was focus.
There was no way to know how long Wan would be. Was he eating in or just picking up? Was he meeting someone there?
She considered going inside, but then thought better of it.
This close to Techyon, the risk of being recognized was high. It was one thing to be on the street where she could flip her hair into her face and wander away from approaching pedestrians. But inside, Wan would be almost certain to make a scene. And a scene was exactly what she wanted to avoid.
To the left of the storefront was a narrow alley. Two sections of corrugated steel blocked its view from the street—one protruding from the falafel restaurant and the other from the adjacent building, a few feet behind the first.
Haeli slipped into the gap and snaked around the second panel.
The alley ran the length of the two buildings and was empty, apart from an array of garbage cans. The seclusion of the tight space brought a sense of relief. It was the first time since she arrived she didn’t feel like she was being watched.
Backtracking around the inner panel, Haeli leaned her back against the building. From that angle, she could just see the sidewalk in front of Nahum Falafel’s front door. It was a good tactical position, or as good as it was going to get.
Ugh. I need a cigarette.
Haeli didn’t smoke. Never had. But in circumstances like this, having a pack of cigarettes on hand was a necessity.
A woman lurking in the entrance to an alley, for example, was likely to stand out. The same woman smoking a cigarette in the same alley—perfectly normal. The average person wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
It was an artifact of the fight-or-flight response. Like all animals, the human brain was constantly making connections. Quantifying the level of danger based on how well the details of any circumstance fit with past experience. It was the reason many victims later say they knew something was wrong before they were victimized. But when the brain can justify something, it checks the box and moves on.
Of course, it was moot. She hadn’t thought to pick up a pack ahead of time.
The sound of bells jingling signaled the door’s movement. Haeli held her breath.
Two
men emerged. Neither of them Wan.
They headed in Haeli’s direction. She sprung forward, secreting herself behind the front corrugated panel. She waited until they passed, then returned to her original position.
As her back touched the building, the bells sounded off again. This time, it wasn’t a false alarm.
Alone and carrying a white plastic bag, Wan stepped out, turned, and headed in her direction.
She slid back behind the panel and bent her knees.
Three, Two—
At the first glimpse of Wan’s profile, she uncoiled, launching herself through the gap.
Wan’s body lurched as she pressed her chest against his back and flung her right arm around his neck. As her forearm pressed into his throat, she brought her left hand to his chest and leaned her weight backward, pulling him toward the alley.
Instead of giving resistance, as she expected, Wan dropped the bag and threw himself backward, putting Haeli off balance. His momentum pushed them through the gap and into the corrugated steel with a clang.
Crushed between Wan’s weight and the immovable panel, Haeli’s grip loosened. Wan dipped, slipping his chin under her forearm. He spun around, snapping his elbow toward her face.
With her left palm, Haeli intercepted the blow and squeezed the meaty part of his arm, above the elbow. She drove the web of her right thumb and forefinger into Wan’s throat and pushed. Wan stumbled and his back slammed into the side of the building.
Face to face, Haeli applied more pressure. Just long enough to see Wan’s steely expression slacken. Not out of defeat, but out of realization.
“Haeli?” he wheezed.
She released her grip and smiled. “Nice to see you, too, Michael.”
Wan peeled himself from the brick wall and rubbed his throat. “I thought you were dead?”
“I am.” Haeli walked a few steps further into the alley.
Mirroring her movement, Wan’s face still carried the look of disbelief—mouth slightly open, brow furrowed, eyeballs fluttering up and down. Haeli stood still, as if offering him an opportunity to take her in. For his mind to catch up.