by Tara Brown
Coop sighed and sat on the oversized floral couch that matched the room beautifully. I felt like I might actually be in Savannah, Georgia, or somewhere Southern and warm.
“Now back to the business at hand.” Fitz’s dark-brown eyes sparkled at me. “What do y’all know?”
“That's easy.” I leaned back into the massage. “Nothing.”
He crossed his arms and sat in the fancy armchair. “Well, I knew this was coming. James was onto something.” He glimpsed around. “Once this can of worms is opened there ain’t no coming back.”
“Why?” I furrowed my brow. “Is this what killed my dad?”
“Yeah. You could say that.” He appeared uncomfortable. “I don’t want this to ever come out. I don’t want to be the reason you know jack shit.”
“Why?” Coop placed the full glass on the coffee table and leaned forward. “Who are you?”
Fitz’s eyes darkened, which didn’t seem possible. His tanned old face darkened with them. “I was in with Lincoln, her daddy. We enlisted the same year, joined CI same year, and I retired the year he was gone.”
“No way.” Seeing the skepticism on Coop’s face made me smile. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not really.” Fitz brushed the comment off with a truly feminine hand wave. “My life before doesn’t matter. I’m Fitz now and I’m living the life I always wanted to.” He stood and went to the kitchen. He did what my mom did and talked as he sliced and stirred. “Back then, gays had no choice but to be in the closet. But Linc knew, he knew day one. We were in basic together and he made a shitty comment to me. I could have slapped him silly, but I just laughed it off. We were friends instantly. He saved me tons of times. Covered for me so I could meet up with”—a slow smile crept across his face—“gentlemen callers.” He laughed. “No, I was indebted to him from the day I met him.” He pointed his huge knife at me from across the room. “He made me godfather of this pain in the ass the day she was born, her and Sissy.” He winked. “I always imagined myself as more of a fairy godmother though.” Luce and I laughed but Jack snorted some of his drink and Coop seemed confused. He wanted the story.
“You’re Lieutenant Daily,” he whispered.
“I was once, but I left a long time ago.” Fitz’s eyes lit. His grip tightened on the blade.
I put a hand in the air. “He has one of those memories, Fitz. Eidetic. Every detail of everything he’s ever read or seen is in there.”
Fitz’s eyes remained stormy.
Coop glared. “Keep your mouth shut and let him talk.” It was an expression I was getting used to. “You both have five minutes to have this all make some sense before I drag your ass out of this place. This feels like a stall. Maybe he’s waiting for the backup.”
Fitz started to laugh. “Oh, honey, I am dead. Didn’t you read that little chestnut in the files, Mr. Memory Bank?”
Coop sighed. “I only saw a few comments about you, one of them was the godfather thing. They didn’t have anything about the fairy godmother though.”
Fitz laughed. “You are an animal in the sheets, aren’t you? I, myself, love control freaks.”
I grinned at Coop’s tightening jaw.
Fitz challenged him with his stare but Coop didn’t bite. Fitz finished cutting the fruit salad. “Anyway, how much do y’all know about the Second World War?”
“Fitz. You’re killing me.” I rolled my eyes. “Can you stop with that accent? It’s annoying.”
“No. I choose my reality to be the gay version of Gone with the Wind.” His eyes lit up. “I have some of the dresses. Wanna put some on for the rest of the story?”
“No.” I giggled. Jack swallowed nervously and Luce seemed more scared than she had before.
I winked at Fitz. “They don’t get your sense of humor.”
“Anyway,” Coop spoke through his teeth, “Second World War?”
Fitz pointed the knife at him. “Right. Well, did you all learn about how Hitler was taking the best of the best as far as scientists and intellects were concerned?”
I replied, “Yeah. We’ve all seen Indiana Jones.”
“I swear to God in heaven, nine minutes is all I need with Harrison Ford in that outfit with that whip.” He fanned himself. “Whew!”
The others laughed, getting used to the performance. Fitz was crazy and he was all about the show.
He nattered as he peeled a massive watermelon and cut it into tiny pieces on the huge marble island in the kitchen. “Well, when the other countries, the Brits especially, found out Hitler was doing that, they went nuts. Thus, forming the much more modern spy agencies we all work for. The scientists were lost as the war ended.” The subtlest grin crossed his lips.
“What does this have to do with the Burrow?” Coop asked. I could tell he was beyond annoyed.
“You lied.” Fitz froze. The act was over. He swallowed as he peered up. “You said you knew nothing.”
“No.” I explained, “We know James was searching for the Burrow. He and a guy named Gustavo Servario. That’s it though. It feels like nothing. We honestly don't know a single thing more than that.”
“Oh shit.” Fitz stared at each of us. “You all are in over your heads.”
My spine tingled. His Jersey accent was back.
He placed the knife down. “Have you spoken the word “Burrow” to anyone beyond yourselves?”
“No, but we spoke about it at the bugged house. The government knows about the Burrow. They’re the ones trying to get it.” I was lost and Coop’s countenance told me he was too.
“Shit!” He slammed a hand down on the hard counter. “Of course they know about it, they made the fucking thing. They hid them. They made a unanimous decision and saved the world from ending at the hands of idiotic idealists.”
I glanced at Jack. “Guess you were right.”
“Yay.” He didn't seem excited.
Fitz closed his eyes and pinched his brow with his juice-covered hand. “We need to run now. They know you’ll come here.”
I frowned. “You’re dead.”
“Not where the Burrow is concerned.” He glanced at me.
My guts burned. “You said you knew James was going to find something out or be onto something. What the hell did you think we were here for?”
“I thought you’d found out about your mom,” he said.
“What?”
He looked at me. “She’s one of us. Always has been. Close your damned mouths, you look like idiots. She was the Mata Hari of our time. Magnificent spy.”
“What?” My legs and arms were numb. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s retired. She used to be one of the head spies for MI6.”
Betrayal and sickness rolled around inside me. “She’s English?”
“German and English. Her mother—your grandmother—was born in a concentration camp. Your great-grandparents both died there and your great-aunt fled to England with your grandmother. She met an Englishman and married him and gave birth to your mother. It was obvious early on that your mother was far more intelligent than the boys in school. MI6 hired her in the sixties at eighteen. She climbed ranks faster than the men. She was the first female to reach those levels. Brilliant, bloody deadly too. She can kill with her pinky finger.” He spoke with such pride in his voice, but I nearly gagged.
“She has my kids,” I blurted.
“Good.” He nodded. “Then they have never been safer.”
I closed my eyes and tried to see it all. “None of it makes sense. She never left the house. She was always there. He was gone on mission but she was there, baking and sewing and making ornaments. She let the lawyer into James’ office, she let me go to the hotels, and she let the bad men get to James and me. How had it all happened before her eyes? She would’ve known if she was a spy, even a shitty one, much less a brilliant one.”
“My sweet naïve girl,” he groaned. “Then she did it for a reason. She's aware of what’s happening. How do you think I know you're in shit?
She got word to me that you were in trouble.”
“Oh my God.” I opened my eyes. “What kind of fucking operation is this?”
There was sadness in Fitz’s eyes. “She stopped when you were born. You and Sissy were everything to her. She wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant. You were a miracle. A set of twin girls for a lady who was told she couldn’t have a single baby. As you aged, she slowly got back into it. Small missions, tiny jobs, little things she could do while you were in school.”
“Impossible.”
He laughed, at me. “Not for her. She was one of a kind. She could take you to the park, assassinate someone, and not even bat an eyelash or have a hair out of place. She was a machine.”
“What does that even mean? Did she do that?”
“Of course not. She never endangered you. She became a regular American mother. She doted on your father, but always maintained the aid to her country.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and tried not to notice the grease. “What is the Burrow?” I didn’t want to ask, I didn’t have room for it, but I had to.
“Something dangerous. Something that once you know about it, you can never come back from knowing. You leave the service the way I did.” He sounded appalled. “The way your father did.”
Tears flooded my eyes as I realized what he was saying.
My father was alive.
He was another person who had pretended to be dead and left me.
“I can’t do this.” I got up and headed to the hallway. “I need to lay down.”
I entered the spare room I had slept in before and curled up in the sheets.
When I closed my eyes I saw it all: the obvious things that once seemed innocent with unknowing eyes. With jaded bitterness, I saw them for what they were.
The door opened as I was about to jump up and scream at Fitz some more.
“Evie?” Coop poked his head in. “You okay?”
I shook my head. “Fuck no.”
“Me either.” He laughed and closed the door. He lay on the bed on his back. “Feeling stupid?”
I punched him in the arm, hurting my hand.
He snorted. “I’ll take that as a yes. You hit like a girl.”
I shut my eyes. “How could they? How could they lie and cheat Sissy and me? How could the very same shit happen to my kids? Do you see the irony in this? It’s insane.”
Coop was still watching me when I gave up trying to sleep and opened my eyes. “Almost like it was planned,” he said.
“No doubt some of it was. Look at it all. It fits so nicely when you stand back. Up close it’s a jumbled mess, but from a distance you see everything, the puzzle pieces slip together easily.”
He grabbed my hand. “Your kids are safe. She isn’t going to hurt them. She won’t let them get hurt.”
My eyes watered. “Why didn’t she tell me the truth? Why didn’t she let me in?”
He wiped a tear dripping down my cheek. “Did you tell your kids what you used to be?”
I scowled. “Of course not. They’re only little.”
He shrugged. “Did you ever plan on telling them about you being a spy? Do you plan on telling them about James’ betrayal, or his still being alive, or what he really did for a living?”
My jaw tightened.
“You don’t know why she never told you things, but you can see how easy it is to want to protect them.”
I wasn’t giving in so easily. “I was CI though. Why didn’t she tell me then? Or when I retired?”
“I don’t know. You have to ask her.”
“How do I reach her?”
“No.” He sighed. “Just no.”
I climbed off the bed and left the room. “What is the Burrow?” I shouted down the hall.
Fitz passed me a bowl of probably the most amazing-looking fruit salad I’d ever seen. I sighed, taking it and my seat.
He sat with a bowl of fruit too. “Well, I guess since the story of how the Burrow was created is the same as the story of how your mom became a spy, I can just head off from where I was before. The newly formed spy operatives joined forces with what we now call the UN and saved the weapons from the Germans. We didn’t get them all, just the ones with the potential to destroy everything with their so-called brilliance.” He ate a bite and chewed, seemingly lost in it all. “We took them somewhere no one would ever find them. An asylum where they’d be safe. At first the presidents and leaders were aware the Burrow existed, but they didn’t know where it was. They agreed that if one knew, they’d all be privy to the information and it would end badly. Then the Korean War happened and the Americans wanted the weapons. They wanted to win. But it was decided that the Master Key makes the call. He decides if the cause is worthy or not. He saw the request for aid from the nations involved in the Korean War, and he turned them down. At that point the US conducted its first mission to try to find the Burrow. We’d been brothers in arms and suddenly we were at war within our own ranks. The men working for the Burrow would die protecting it, and the men working for the cause would die trying to find it.”
“You hid weapons from the government you worked for?”
Coop was standing in the hallway.
“Yeah, we did.” Fitz nodded at Coop and spoke through the bite he was chewing, “Then came the Vietnam War. The CIA would stop at nothing to get those weapons. The Burrow had been moved in secret to protect it. It was no easy feat but we managed. Everyone was so angry when they couldn’t find it, and eventually more weapons began to disappear. Anytime a new one was created, it was taken. The Burrow grew as technology developed. It wasn’t during Bosnia, Afghanistan, or the First Gulf War that we saw the biggest threat against the Burrow. As technology grew, so did the Burrow’s capabilities. It’s only been since 9/11 that we’ve had a hard time keeping the Burrow a secret.” He ate another bite.
I took a bite and chewed. “What kind of weapons?”
Coop answered, “People.”
Fitz glimpsed back. “You are a sharp one.”
“People?” Luce looked confused.
“Oh snap.” Jack inhaled sharply. “That actually makes sense.”
“What does?”
“Who invents the weapons, Evie?” Coop crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “They’re hiding the scientists and engineers who pose a threat to society with their discoveries. Isn’t that right, Fitz?”
Fitz nodded. “Yes, it is. You see, they always come from an innocent place. The intelligent mean well. The technology rarely has weaponry as the intention, but the governments around the world always see it as a potential. So we fake a death with a heart attack, or accident, or sometimes we just go with plain old missing persons. We take them and their work to the Burrow. We leave behind misinformation and lies. Nothing in this world is ever as it seems. You have to understand, everyone thinks the weapons will save them or give them the upper hand, but they are rarely able to see that winning won’t save us in the big picture. Pollution, destruction of the environment, destruction of land, deaths of innocents, upping the ante and winning, have to all be separated and looked at piece by piece.”
“Fitz?” I had only one question. “Where is the Burrow?”
“I don’t know. Only the Master Key knows that.”
Coop took his seat again. “Where is the Master Key?”
“I would die before I would reveal that,” Fitz sounded grave. “He or she must find you, if they wish to be found at all.”
“Was my father a Master Key?”
His eyes lit up. “He was so proud of you.”
“ANSWER ME!” I shouted, “WAS HE, FITZ?”
“Yes”—he jumped slightly—“he was. The Master Key dies when it’s his turn to retire. He always dies. There is no other way to protect his family, in case it’s discovered he was a Master Key. I have endangered you by telling you with these other people here. Your children will never be safe again. Are you happy you know?”
“No.” I fought a sob. “Fuck.” What o
ther word was there? I scanned the room for the Magic Beanbag as my neck was nearly seized.
12
Love in all the wrong places
Staring up at the dark ceiling, I knew. The questions had swirled for so long in my exhausted mind that the answers I had started to make sense.
There was an answer to one problem in my mind that I couldn't believe to be true, but it was. Luce’s chest was rising and falling. She was either sleeping or an expert at faking.
I reached for my small purse and slipped the phone from it. Coop had warned me to leave it behind but I hadn’t. I didn’t want to think about why. I checked the screen and the number that had called seventeen times. I gulped as I slowly texted: Come Find Me. I’m in SLC.
Holding my breath, I pressed send and then tried to keep my breathing even. What would he do to me if I came back? Would he hurt me?
Slipping from the bed, I tiptoed out of the room and down the hall. I picked my shoes up, but there was a whisper as I rounded the corner, “You won’t get far, you know. Mr. Serious, he likes you.”
A pair of dark eyes watched me from the shadowed corner of the store.
“He’s like nine years old. He doesn't like me. He doesn't know me. And I need answers, Fitz. I’m done risking you. Tell them I went back to Boston. Tell them to forget they ever met you or me.”
He smiled and his teeth glinted from the streetlights shining in the window. “I’ll be out of here the minute they are, kid.”
“I’m so sorry to have involved you.”
“Evie, please don't be.” He chuckled softly. “I knew it would come for me one day. I’m glad it was you. The Burrow can’t stay hidden without a lot of work and, unfortunately, times are changing. It’s getting increasingly harder to keep its secret.”
“What do you do with the doctors that don’t want to stay hidden?”
“It’s getting late.” His eyes narrowed as he stepped forward and hugged me. “Have a safe trip, kid. Go easy on the arms dealer.” He ignored my question.