by Don Bentley
“Agreed. Know anyone who fits the bill?”
“Actually, I do.”
EIGHTEEN
I drove up to the redbrick building and parked in an empty visitor’s spot, trying not to dwell on the absurdity of what I was about to attempt. On the surface, this made very little sense. There were plenty of people in both the DIA and FBI who specialized in Middle Eastern customs and culture. Between our two organizations, we undoubtedly had female native Arabic speakers.
But that wasn’t what I’d suggested to Rawlings, or Frodo, who was back in DC playing chaperone to the mystery woman.
The espionage business was a strange one on many levels. Technology had vastly improved the tradecraft aspects of the profession, but at the end of the day, recruiting a spy was still a deeply personal endeavor. Stripped down to the basics, pitching an asset meant convincing another human being to become a traitor.
The perfect pitch was still as much art as science, and the artist in me believed that the right spy to bond with my mystery woman wasn’t a spy at all. She was a chemistry professor from East Tennessee who didn’t speak a word of Arabic. As pitches went, this might just be one for the record books.
If it worked.
Locking the car behind me, I walked up the sidewalk, pulled open the door to the chemistry building, and ducked inside. The gray winter sky had faded into darkness more than an hour ago, and the biting wind that had been harassing me all day had turned positively wicked. Temperatures were plunging now that the lukewarm sun had ceased to provide even the illusion of warmth. Since joining the DIA, I’d spent a fair amount of time in the greater DC area. Other than brief interludes provided by fall and spring, the nation’s most self-important city didn’t offer much in the way of an appealing climate.
The building’s overactive heater blasted me full in the face with a wall of moistureless air. I’d been back in DC for less than forty-eight hours, and my lips were already chapped and bleeding. Nothing like the District to make you miss tracking Taliban through the Afghan mountains.
Students pushed past in clumps of twos and threes, paying me no attention. This was good. While I was fairly certain the scientist I was coming to see wouldn’t mind the intrusion, I couldn’t say the same for her fellow faculty members.
George Washington University was one of the nation’s most prestigious institutes of higher learning, and a factory for future government workers. Even so, there were limits to higher education’s sense of patriotism. Guest lecturers from previous presidential administrations were always welcome, but a case officer hoping to recruit a faculty member was another thing altogether.
A touch screen at the far end of the lobby listed faculty members and their offices. Paging through the names, I selected one. The screen asked me if I wanted the scientist paged. I did not. It then asked if I needed directions to her office. I did. The list of names morphed into a 3-D rendering of the building with a dashed blue line directing me where to go.
Ah, the marvels of technology.
“Can I help you?”
“Nope,” I said, ignoring the man standing behind me in favor of pressing the house-shaped button at the bottom of the screen. The blue line vanished and was replaced by the alphabetical listing of faculty members.
I could see the man’s reflection on the touch screen—thirties, about my height and weight. No uniform, so he wasn’t a security guard or campus cop. Probably just an angry postdoc looking to unleash pent-up frustration.
I’d started toward the stairwell that the blue line had indicated when the angry postdoc grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.
“I wanna see some ID.”
Now that we were face-to-face, I had to change my assessment. He was my height, but he was definitely not my build. He was bigger. Considerably. Engorged biceps and pecs bulged beneath an artfully faded shirt that was at least one size too small. His five-o’clock shadow was masculine without being scruffy, and his thick brown hair was stylishly messy.
I’m sure in a world populated by men who spent more time in a book than in a gym, he was quite the catch. But to me, he was just another pain in the ass.
“And I want a date with Dana Perino,” I said, shrugging off his hand. “But sometimes we don’t get what we want. Please, move out of the way.”
“Dana Perino? I figured you for more of a Megyn Kelly kind of guy.”
The new speaker was standing somewhere off to my right, but I couldn’t see her. Then again, I didn’t need to. Her East Tennessee twang was unmistakable.
“Hello, darling,” Virginia Kenyon said, sliding between me and the tough guy as if he wasn’t there. “I’ve missed you.”
Before I could reply, she wrapped her arms around my neck and planted a kiss on my lips.
“God,” Virginia said as she pulled away, “I’ve been wanting to do that all day.”
“You know each other?” the tough guy said, looking from me to Virginia.
“Well, of course,” Virginia said, looping her arm through mine. “This is how we say hello to our cousins in the South. Come on, cousin. Let’s head to my office, where we won’t be bothered.”
Without waiting for a response, Virginia led me up the stairs. I looked over my shoulder at the tough guy and waved.
He didn’t wave back.
* * *
—
Sorry about that,” Virginia said, offering me a cup of coffee freshly brewed from her Keurig. “I know it was a little over-the-top, even for me, but that jackass has been asking me out for the better part of a month.”
I studied Virginia as I took the coffee, trying to figure out what was different about her. And then it hit me—this was the first time I’d seen her in anything but contractor garb. In Syria, her wardrobe had consisted of outdoors clothes: 5.11 Tactical pants, REI shirts, and a faded Yankees ball cap holding back her hair. Today, she was wearing an outfit that flattered rather than hid her athletic figure: a curve-hugging sweater paired with skinny jeans tucked into calf-length leather boots.
The change was startling.
“He did seem awfully persistent,” I said, adding a generous helping of cream along with several packets of sugar.
“If it was just persistence, I might think better of him,” Virginia said, settling into the small love seat across from me. “But you’re giving him too much credit. For reasons known only to the Almighty, he’s considered quite the catch around here. Undergrads swoon over him, and he’s gone through the graduate students like shit through a goose. Now he has his sights set on me. Since I haven’t responded to his overtures, he’s abandoned any pretense of subtlety. Yesterday, he asked me how long it had been since I’d been laid.”
“Seriously?” I said, setting down my coffee. “What did you say?”
“That I’d rip out his tongue if he ever used words like that again.”
“Did you go to your department head?”
Virginia looked at me over her cup, her blue eyes glittering. “Because we’re friends, I’m going to forget you said that. Daddy taught me to shoot before I could ride a bike. If that jackass can’t take no for an answer, I’ll put a thirty-eight-caliber slug through his man parts. Now, I know you didn’t come all this way to hear about my love life. On the phone you said you needed help. Is this about another undetectable chemical weapon?”
The last question was not a demonstration of Virginia’s subtle sense of humor. The sassy Southerner was a top-notch synthetic chemist. For reasons known only to her, Virginia had taken an interest in chemical weapons. Several of her papers on novel nerve agent formulation methods had made their way to the DIA’s Directorate for Science & Technology. From there, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened next. We’d met while both on an operation in Syria, and Virginia had impressed me with her grit and outside-the-box thinking. Now I wanted to see just how far down the rabbit hole she was willing to g
o.
“No weapons, chemical or otherwise,” I said, setting my empty cup on her cluttered end table. “In fact, there’s no science involved at all. But I do need your brain.”
“You know just how to get a girl’s attention, Matty,” Virginia said, tucking her auburn hair behind her ear. “If that mouth breather downstairs had your way with words, I’d have already taken him to bed. Please, tell me, how can my superior intellect be of service?”
“There’s this crossword puzzle I’ve been working—”
“No one likes a smart-ass, Matthew.”
“Sorry—couldn’t resist. There’s a girl—”
“There’s always a girl. Ever since Eve motivated Adam to finally get his ass out of Eden, every man has been convinced that his problems revolve around a girl.”
“And lack of good beer. If Adam could have kicked back with a six-pack of Yuengling, he’d never have given that apple a second glance.”
“Yuengling is for savages. Is this going somewhere? I’ve got papers to grade.”
“Not tonight. Tonight, you’re going with me to a DIA safe house to meet my partner and a girl I found in a strip club.”
“Matthew!”
“An Arabic-speaking girl. When I found her, she was getting the shit beat out of her by an Iraqi commando. We need to figure out her story, and I think you can help.”
“Why not ask the commando?”
“He’s more of the strong, silent type.”
Virginia leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. “This conversation is both interesting and indecipherable. Though I appreciate your faith in me, I’m not sure it’s warranted. I’m a damn good chemist, but my Arabic is mediocre. And by mediocre I mean I don’t speak a word.”
“Here’s the thing,” I said, shifting forward to match Virginia’s intensity. “I’m not sure how you’re gonna help either. But I have a feeling you will. Know why? Because when I look at you, I see me.”
“Forget what I said earlier about your way with words.”
“I’m serious. How long have you been back from Syria?”
“A year.”
“A year?” I said.
“A year, two weeks, and four days.”
“Know why the time has passed so slowly since you’ve been back?” I said.
“Because my freshman students were raised by helicopter parents?”
“Worse. Because you’re bored. One year, two weeks, and four days ago, you were doing something that mattered. Something that lit your blood on fire. And you want it back. Two days ago, a team of foreign shooters tried to kill me. I don’t know why, but I do know that their trail leads through a scared girl sitting in a safe house twenty minutes away. She won’t even look at me, but you’re a different story. So, what’s it gonna be? Take a ride with me or spend another night grading papers?”
For the first time since I’d known her, Virginia didn’t answer with a sarcastic comeback. Instead, she looked at me for a long moment before blowing out a held breath.
“Let me get my coat.”
NINETEEN
Frodo, this is Virginia. Virginia, Frodo.”
“Did your momma not like you?” Virginia said, forgoing Frodo’s offered hand in favor of pulling the former commando in for a hug. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. East Tennessee has its own naming conventions. But we stick to Earls and Bubbas as opposed to mystical creatures with furry feet.”
“My momma liked me just fine,” Frodo said, returning Virginia’s hug one-handed. “My first team leader gave me my call sign.”
“Call sign?”
“It’s a Unit tradition. New operators get christened with call signs. On my first trip to the range, we had some downtime. I pulled out a book, and that was that.”
“Lord of the Rings?”
Frodo shook his head with a laugh. “Actually, it was The Briar King by Greg Keyes. But my team leader wasn’t exactly a fantasy novel connoisseur. He saw the cover and asked if I was into hobbit porn. I’ve been Frodo ever since.”
As war stories went, this one wasn’t exactly a doozy, but I still shook my head. Frodo had been my shadow in combat zones the world over. For six years, I’d tried to get the story behind his call sign and never succeeded. Virginia had needed all of fifteen seconds.
Maybe bringing her along hadn’t been so crazy after all.
“Well, I’m glad to meet you,” Virginia said. “What can you tell me about our girl?”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Frodo said. “She’s not catatonic, but she’s close. She’s in the back bedroom. I’ve checked on her a couple of times, but she hasn’t moved since Matty left.”
At the description of the girl, Virginia’s smile faded, replaced by a more serious expression. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
By unspoken agreement, Frodo drifted back to the living room while I walked Virginia to the bedroom. Frodo’s Arabic was worse than mine, and he thought that his presence would do more harm than good. If the girl had wanted to open up to him, she would have already. In fact, if I hadn’t needed to translate, I’d have let Virginia handle the interview solo. It didn’t take a genius to understand that something terrible had happened to the girl, probably at the hands of a terrible man.
I paused outside the closed bedroom door, intending to take a second to strategize, but the chemistry professor had other ideas. Virginia stopped just long enough to knock and then entered.
The girl was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She flinched as the door banged open, pushing herself against the wall until she saw me. Only then did her narrow shoulders relax.
I felt a murderous rage at the thought of what she must have endured to provoke such a reaction. But just as quickly, I pushed those images aside, afraid that she might see my anger but mistake its source. Fortunately, the girl was focused on Virginia.
The chemistry professor crossed the room in three easy strides and then crouched down so that she was eye to eye with the girl.
“Hi,” Virginia said, reaching out to squeeze the girl’s shoulder. “I’m Virginia.”
I started to translate, but the girl interrupted.
“I speak English.”
Her words were halting, as if carefully chosen, but still understandable. I was shocked. Virginia was not.
“Of course you do,” Virginia said, pulling a chair from the desk next to the bed without breaking eye contact. “My friend’s gonna make us something to drink while you and I talk. Is that okay?”
The girl gave a hesitant nod.
“Good,” Virginia said, settling into the chair. “Coffee or tea?”
“Tea.”
“Perfect. We’ll make that two. Matt?”
“Two teas coming up,” I said, taking my cue. I excused myself and shut the door quietly behind me. Once the latch clicked home, I leaned toward the door, listening. I couldn’t make out her words, but I could hear Virginia’s voice. Her Tennessee twang sounded soothing as she spoke with an even cadence. After a moment of silence, the girl answered. Her words trickled out at first and then became a torrent, as if a dam had burst.
At its core, the profession of espionage is built upon relationships. Upon people. Judging by what was happening behind that door, Virginia was well on her way to becoming a spy.
* * *
—
Ten minutes later, I knocked on the door with a TV tray in my hand. I waited for Virginia’s “Come in” and then entered. As asked, I’d brewed two cups of tea and then added a plateful of dates along with a box of baklava. Though I still thought the safe house’s furnishings were a bit ostentatious, the housekeepers knew their business. The kitchen and the large pantry looked like Costco’s ethnic food section. Cuisines the world over were represented, but the majority of delicacies were Middle Eastern.
Go figure.
Virginia indi
cated the desk with a wave, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge my presence. The girl had been talking, but stopped midsentence, her lips compressing into a thin line as she watched me with hard eyes. Again taking my cue from the chemistry professor–turned–case officer, I set the tray down and closed the door behind me.
“How’s it going in there?” Frodo said as I joined him at the kitchen table.
“Hell if I know. Arabic I can comprehend, but the language of women is still beyond me.”
“Truer words have never been spoken. Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Then get your uncrippled ass up and go make it. And sandwiches too. Salami’s in the fridge.”
“If you weren’t missing an arm, I’d kick your ass,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Cream but no sugar. I’m watching my figure.”
* * *
—
A pot of coffee later, I heard the bedroom door open and close. Then Virginia appeared.
“Take my chair,” Frodo said, springing to his feet.
“Coffee?” I said, standing as well.
“Something stronger if you’ve got it,” Virginia said, collapsing into Frodo’s offered seat.
The horrors she’d discovered in the bedroom had shaken her. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. For once, she didn’t have a zinger on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she looked . . . drained.
“Beer, whiskey, or wine?” I said, opening the pantry door.
“Whiskey. Straight.”
I found a bottle of Maker’s Mark, added a pair of ice cubes, and poured three fingers into a glass. Taking the bottle and glass to the table, I handed Virginia her drink. She took a long swallow and then set the tumbler down.
“My daddy drank Maker’s Mark,” Virginia said, tracing patterns in the condensation dripping down the glass. “I wish he were here.”
“Why?” I said.