“You did the right thing,” I said in a deceptively calm voice. “Asking for what you wanted.”
“And leaving?” she asked.
I hung my head, and stared at the patterns in the carpet when I answered. There was no trace of the mad pulse I felt in my throat when I replied.
“And leaving,” I said in the same even tone, holding back the pain.
She sighed deeply, and tugged at her sleeves, hiding her hands completely inside them.
“I knew you’d understand,” she said.
For a moment the urge to shout at her almost overpowered the need to do the right thing. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her, to shout in her face that understanding never made it hurt any less. That she was wrong to walk away from the man she loved. That she was cruel to stay here in front of me and ask me to understand her.
She must have sensed the tension in my body. Her hand hovered over my arm, but instead of touching me, she took a step back.
“When I come back,” she said. “I’ll talk to Stone about coming to your class between missions.”
My heart would break into a million pieces every moment she was there but I wanted nothing more than to see her in my classroom. Healthy and safe.
She thought she was a superhero but she seemed so fragile.
“Don’t get hurt,” I said hastily.
“I assure you, that is always my intention.”
“Of course,” I said, clenching my fists in the depths of my pockets to stop from pulling her into a bear hug.
“I’ll come back,” she said. “Good bye, Woods.”
She walked away without waiting for an answer. I watched her disappear into her room.
“Good bye, Belle,” I said when her door closed.
Chapter 6. Nick – Old Fears
I left with the intention to drink until I couldn’t remember my own name. I didn’t want to do that in the hotel bar, among colleagues. I wanted to be out of that enclosed world of lies and danger. I needed to forget I had no right to be worried about Skye anymore. I forfeited all my rights when my stupid conscience stopped me from tying her to me with unbreakable chains.
Having a child would have kept her in my life. It was what she thought she wanted. Who was I to think I knew better than her?
I called a cab and gave the driver the address of a bar I knew from a previous visit to Langley.
An hour later, I was well on my way to being very thoroughly drunk.
The man placed his beer on my table and sat down in front of me without asking permission. He was the same guy who had talked to Skye after her presentation. I had been too emotional then to realize I knew who he was, Skye’s current handler. Studying her file extended to checking up who was in charge of her safety. I should have recognized immediately the bushy eyebrows, the bags under his tired eyes and the deep wrinkles on his forehead.
“Ben Stone,” he introduced himself.
I shook his hand, trying to sober up. Stone wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have something to tell me, and there could be no other subject than Skye.
“I know,” I said.
He studied me with a flinty gaze.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Stone said. “You check her file every week.”
How many people knew how pathetic I was? I seethed, knowing that despite my shame for displaying such weakness, I was going to keep doing it.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Don’t mess her up,” Stone said. “She’s getting ready for a new mission. She needs her head clear.”
My stomach churned. Another mission. So soon.
“Dangerous?”
Stone nodded and I poured myself another whiskey. The bottle was half empty already. I hadn’t drunk so much in years, and I still couldn’t extinguish the burning pain in my chest.
“She talks about you sometimes,” Stone said. “You were her greatest influence in police work. If I hadn’t read her file, I would have never guessed you two had been involved.”
I didn’t say anything to this stranger who held the reins of Skye’s career and maybe even her life.
“A bad case of hero worship, I thought,” Stone said. “I thought you took advantage of it and when she woke up, she left you.”
“An excellent summary,” I said, only partly ironic.
“No,” Stone said. “She may have left you, but she feels like you’re the one who broke it off.”
“What are you? Her shrink? Her priest?”
“Understanding my asset can make the difference between life and death,” Stone said sternly. “I don’t have the luxury to stay out of her life and hope she’ll do fine.”
Wonderful luxury. That must have been the reason I felt so fucking good. I leaned back in my chair and tried to speak without slurring my words.
“Your asset is a human being,” I said with the extra care of a drunk who tries to appear sober. “That might give you a clue about handling her.”
Stone scoffed at me.
“Self-righteous bastard, aren’t you?” he said.
I raised my glass in a mock toast before taking another gulp of strong liquor. It was supposed to take the edge off this pain trying to claw its way out of my chest.
Pity glinted in Stone’s eyes. He took a drink of his beer, and looked at the people dancing a few feet from us.
“She smuggled recordings of your interrogations out of the NYPD archives,” he said, studying me. “You knew,” he realized, surprised.
“Yes,” I admitted. “She used them to prepare for her work in OCD.”
“They are… interesting,” Stone said. “She’s not very empathetic, but she’s a good mimic. If she studied you, it goes a long way to explain how she did such a good job with her own asset.”
My lip twisted involuntarily. Her asset. Viktor Petrov. The man who tortured her and murdered her friend.
“Not a fan of his I take it,” Stone said.
It would be hypocritical of me to blame Petrov for doing anything he needed to do to survive. I wouldn’t blame Skye if she tortured and killed to protect herself.
“Can’t judge a man until you walk in his shoes,” I said.
Stone shook his head. Even in my alcoholic haze, I caught a glimpse of respect in his eyes.
“So much empathy,” he said. “Can’t be an easy life for you.”
“Dunno about that,” I said. “She was able to forgive him. I never could.”
“Not only forgive,” Stone said. “She trusts him. She spoke for him, and now he’s acting as FSB’s liaison with us now.”
Why was he telling me that? Ben Stone hadn’t come across town to a fourth-rate bar to drink beer and spill secrets.
“Are you sending her to Russia?” I asked suddenly.
Stone started. I must have seemed drunk enough for him not to expect the question.
“I can’t comment,” he said.
After her presentation, I was certain that the Agency was using her in cases related to the Russian mafia. Outside the United States. A protocol with the FSB was necessary if they sent agents on Russian territory.
The heat and the alcohol were taking a heavy toll on my system. I swayed when I stood up.
“Keep her safe,” I said and staggered out of the bar without waiting for a reply.
Chapter 7. Nick – The Spice
My throat was parched despite drinking enough water to use the bathroom twice before I left my room. After a couple of aspirins, my temples still throbbed painfully. When I was younger, I used to be able to drink this much and still function normally the next day. Maybe it wasn’t just age. Maybe I shouldn’t have abandoned the sport.
“I should get drunk more often,” I thought to myself looking at the dark circles under my eyes.
I was putting on my watch when I heard the loud banging on my door. I dropped it on the nightstand and hurried to the source of the infernal noise.
“Where’s the fucking fire?” I asked, jerking the door open.
Alan froze with his hand in the air comically.
“You said you’d be at breakfast at 8.30,” he said.
It was my damn fault. I was never late for as long as they’ve known me, and I showed my displeasure when people were late. No wonder they worried.
I stormed back in the room, put on my shoes and grabbed my cell. When I put on my wrist watch I saw it was 9am already.
“Are you wearing the same clothes?” he asked.
“You’re slow,” I said. “Shania would’ve checked under the bed by now.”
Alan pretended not to laugh. The mirth faded from his eyes and he quickly lowered his eyes. He was staring at his shoes when he spoke.
“You were alone last night,” he said. “You’re always alone, Woods.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I have you two.”
We rushed toward the elevator. For me, Skye’s presentation was the main event of the conference, but Larrabee had been very firm about attending the Chemistry presentation.
Shania was waiting for us at the door. She was tapping her foot and staring at her phone. Judging by the change in her expression, I must have looked pretty pitiful. She went from irritated to concerned in a split second.
“It started ten minutes ago,” she said.
“Let’s go,” I said and opened the door.
Even in the last rows, there weren’t three seats together. We each had to squeeze past people to get to the few empty chairs.
I nearly fell asleep half-way through. The chemistry guy had no charisma and I already knew about all the drugs he droned on about.
“Recently we ran into variations on a few classic hallucinogenic substances. They are not designed for medicinal or recreational purposes. They are designed to attack the brain in such a way to alter its chemistry to make it highly suggestible. They work on highly trained agents with the same speed as ordinary people. If the concentration is high enough, one dose is sufficient to leave the asset open to instant reprogramming.”
I sat up straighter in my chair. It wasn’t unheard of to use neurochemicals to program an agent. A drug that could turn agents without keeping them captive and working on them for days, or weeks… that was dangerous.
The chemistry guy was Professor Cole, the Agency’s leading neurochemistry expert. His studies were opening new avenues for the more experimental divisions of the Agency. I became familiar with his work when they called me in to untangle the minds of people we recruited using his research, but this was new. This time, professor Cole was playing defense.
“We called these variations - Spices. There have been twenty-one documented cases of various Spices used against our agents in the past six months. We recovered fourteen agents. Out of the nine who received massive doses, three died in the first month. The nine who survived show visible improvements. They could recover most of their motor and cognitive functions.”
“What happened to the seven you didn’t recover?” someone in the front row asked.
“We didn’t get to them in time to extract them. They died after completing their ‘mission’. The effect of a massive dose is temporary insanity. They did the thing required of them, but after that, they were no longer functional.”
Seven agents died on mission, three died in our facilities. Ten out of twenty-one was terrifying.
“The effects of the massive dose seem very clear cut. If the subject survives, the mental and physical breakdown is reversible. Time will tell how fast they recover and if they can make a full recovery. The other five cases are more complicated.”
The professor pushed his glasses up his nose, and shuffled his notes.
“We were able to ascertain that five agents who came back with behavioral changes had ingested mild variations of Spices. They were not aware they were drugged. The shifts in behavior varied, depending on the length of time they consumed it, and the chemical composition of the Spice. Unlike the clear breakdown of a massive dose, these five subjects described a range of symptoms, like confusion, forgetfulness, fake memories. We call it the Spice fog.”
Cole looked down at his notes again.
“Physically, they were unharmed. Their cognitive abilities were only mildly affected. During deprogramming, they became unstable. The behavioral changes became clear and the blood tests found traces of Spice. After analyzing their hair, we were able to tell for how long they’d been drugged.”
He took a drink of water, and went on.
“We see progress for those who were fed Spice less than four weeks. If they have been in fog for more than a month, they don’t seem able to distinguish between the fake memories and the real ones. Anything they forgot, remains buried, outside the reach of their conscious mind.”
Ten dead and five in a limbo in their own mind. And we only had a sample of twenty-one. Everyone in that room knew that if twenty-one were the cases we knew for sure, our own people, the real number was anywhere from a hundred times to thousands of times larger.
“At this time,” Professor Cole said, “we don’t have an estimation on the recovery of our agents.”
This was what Larrabee wanted me to hear. He wanted to give me a heads up about my future job in the Agency. Sooner rather than later, Cole’s division was going to put in a request for my services. I pressed my fingers on my temples and rubbed small circles to relieve the pressure gathering inside.
So much for my teaching position. This was the end of my quiet life.
Chapter 8. Skye – “Marion Brunel”
It was about time they gave me a soft assignment. The three operations in a row had been short term, only a few weeks each, but intense. This one might last as long as six months, and if the preparation was anything to go by, I would not mind it in the least. They wanted the image of a high maintenance courtesan accompanying a rich crime boss. I was too willing to get in character. All I had to do was be silent and gorgeous.
Preparing for this job was the most fun I’d had in years. Days on end of pampering myself at luxurious spas and dining at fancy restaurants. Wearing designer gear from the evening dresses that would look great on the red carpet at the Oscars down to the underwear I wore. Everything about me screamed money.
After all of that, going to team meetings was no hassle. I could say it was even fun, when I sat around with my team, looking bored and scrolling through social media on my phone.
“You sure stay in character,” Stone said when I stifled a yawn when he was going over the same point for the zillionth time.
“Whaaaat?” I said with exaggerated fake innocence. “I’ll be there to be eye candy. It’s not as easy as you might think. Despite the…” I waved my hands demonstratively up and down my body.
Stone shook his head and took in a deep, calming breath.
“I heard you,” I said soothingly. “The analog option to send messages,” I stressed the word “analog” with air quotes, “is to use a dead drop box in the Summer Garden.”
He raised a bushy eyebrow, inviting me to go on. I sighed theatrically and went on in a droning sing-song voice.
“The hollowed tree behind the statue of Amor and Psyche. The garden has a restricted visiting program, so we can use the secondary dead drop. In Alexander Garden, behind Glinka’s statue.”
I took a sitting bow at the end of the speech.
“Can we move on now?” Jayden asked.
Agent Jayden Szeleky pushed up his sleeves in an unconscious let’s get down to business gesture. I didn’t envy his starring role on this mission. Undercover work was hard enough on your own, but going in with an accompanying cast increased the risks tenfold.
Stone resumed the briefing. He was right. I stayed in character long before the mission started. It already annoyed me to wear these cheap, everyday clothes. Underneath, I wore the overpriced panties and bra that fitted my identity as Marion Brunel.
In sign of respect to the ma
n who ran the operation, he left the phone on the table. I wasn’t the only team member there. Maybe the others needed to go a dozen times through the procedures. Working with different agencies over the years taught me the importance of learning every bit of detail necessary for filing progress reports or asking for extraction. I didn’t need anyone to hammer them down because I already knew them.
On the far side of the table, the star of our operation faked paying attention to Stone. He had to be faking, even though I could tell from his focused appearance. We worked on our cover every night, and Jayden Szeleky played the part of a powerful New Orleans mobster nonchalantly. When we were in public, he was seamlessly in character. Not a note out of place whether we were at an expensive restaurant or checking in to a fancy hotel.
The ring on his finger bothered him. It was part of the cover as much as my expensive panties, but it served as a reminder. He wouldn’t wear his real wedding ring on a mission, any more than he would have sex with his cover mistress. I had absolutely no problem with that.
My unease came from the moments when Jayden and I retired to a room for what was supposed to be the highest quality sex money could buy. He reverted too easily to his real self. In all my undercover work, I always got in some sort of trouble when I had a partner, from getting shot to being strangled or, worst of all, having to blow my cover to save their life.
He had many years of undercover work under his belt. He was responsible for the success of the mission. He was one of the most highly regarded operatives in the Agency. I talked myself into believing he knew what he had to do to get the job done.
The only easy part, if I could call anything about this job easy, was that he didn’t have to work his way up through the ranks. Jayden Szeleky’s mission was to gain the trust of the man who ran St. Petersburg’s underworld and broker a deal which would divert the stream of weapons from Russia to us, instead of the Middle East. Fun stuff, as usual.
Later that night in our hotel room, I was irritated to discover that he had his own doubts. About me.
In Chaos (Undercover Book 3) Page 5