by D S Kane
He ordered a second café americano and carefully sipped it. All he knew about how to handle himself she’d taught him. What if it wasn’t enough? It felt alien to him, using store window reflections to tell if someone was pursuing him. He opened his notebook computer and tried to focus on something else, anything to distract him from his unraveling life.
Exhausted, drained from fleeing unknown dangers, his mind wandered randomly, seeking a safe time in his past, eventually falling back to his senior prom. He felt the tuxedo collar tight against his neck, seeing the bow tie in the mirror, buckling the cummerbund, and fastening the corsage to Sondra Sandovar’s wrist. He looked into her adoring eyes, but found Cassie’s staring back with concern. Lee jolted awake, steaming coffee spilling down his left hand.
What had he gotten himself into? Now it was all about saving Cassandra as well as himself. The first step was completing a plan and obtaining resources to offer a route to success.
He connected to the Internet and started the first phase of his research for Cassie. Lee forced himself to ignore his feelings of concern for her, his fingers flying over the keyboard as fast as he could.
Since the cell phone she’d destroyed in New York was compromised, she assumed Ainsley’s cells were also compromised. It would be contact by leaving messages at her website’s email function. To keep the emails from being monitored by the feds’ ECHELON system, she and Lee would only open draft emails and write within the drafts, never sending any. She’d given him instructions on how to do this.
Cassie went to the bus terminal restroom and changed into business clothes wearing a 34-D bra stuffed with paper towels, heavy mascara, and a red wig, making her look twenty years older. Less than ten minutes before, Lee had been in the men’s restroom only twenty feet away. She lost track of time as she stood there, collecting and calming herself by deep-breathing.
She passed Lee as she left the restroom, but he didn’t look anything like the man she’d begun to trust and once again, she failed to recognize him. Hurrying to a dark corner of the bus terminal, she watched the others from her bus as they left the terminal. No one following me. The rain had just stopped when Cassie emerged from the bus terminal into the hot, humid Washington night.
Washington. This was where, so short a time ago, she first realized she was hip-deep in shit. She’d fled then. And now she was in shit up to her chin.
Cassie took a taxicab to the Mandarin Oriental, a fancy hotel on Maryland Avenue near the Capitol building. She booked a room, identifying herself as Susan Blumenthal, using an identity she had stolen wholesale from a sixtyish woman shopping in Manhattan’s Saks Fifth Avenue for clothing several weeks ago. Cassie had manufactured forged credit cards and copied the woman’s driver’s license from a picture she took using her cell phone’s camera. The real person lived in Darien, Connecticut.
Her hotel room had free wireless Internet access. She entered and closed the door, relaxed in an overstuffed chair with her cell phone. She checked her website’s email function for news from Ainsley. And there it was, in the “drafts” folder:
I’m holed up at a café near Smithsonian Air & Space. Pay phone inside Starbucks is 202-889-7691. Have thought of a solution for cell phone problem, but now I’m homeless too. Please call before they throw me out of here or I drink too much coffee and begin spilling my guts to anyone who’ll listen.
—L. A.
Cassie laughed. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor over his pending execution.
She took the elevator down and found a bank of pay phones in the hotel lobby. She dialed the number he’d given her. “Lee?”
“Thank heaven you’re okay.” She could hear him sigh. “What’s next?”
She thought for just a moment. “Come to me. Take three taxis, one anywhere out of town, then walk at least a mile before finding one to Government Center, and then walk again another mile before you get a cab to the Mandarin Oriental, 1330 Maryland Avenue SW. Room 312. Make sure you aren’t followed. I’m registered as Susan Blumenthal. Cassie out.”
She returned to the room, exhausted, vulnerable, and worried. Was Ainsley up to the task of the surveillance detection runs needed to get to her undetected?
The old version of herself emerged, feeling dirty from the murders she’d committed, as if she would spoil anything she touched. Cassie walked to the bathroom shower. Without thinking, she undressed and removed her wig and makeup. She found herself in the shower, obsessively scrubbing herself. That little voice in her head hummed “Death Letter Blues” by Son House. She sang along to the story of loss.
She remembered Evan’s mother, sitting in a folding chair by his grave as they lowered his coffin into the pit. Cassie’s tears mixed with the water flowing from the showerhead. She fell to the floor and bawled.
Chapter Twenty-Three
August 18, 4:35 p.m.
Mandarin Oriental, Room 312,1330 Maryland Avenue SW,Washington, DC
A half hour later, Cassie once more felt strong. She finished toweling off as she heard a tapping at the door. She donned a white terrycloth hotel robe and snatched the silenced Beretta just in case. Cassie opened the door. There he stood, his hair slicked gray from the talcum powder. The makeup covering his face was bleeding from the rain.
He looked ludicrous. Sudden irrational anger rose up in her. Somehow she saw him as the source of her failed life in a very disconnected piece of logic. Lee’s eyes were riveted on the gun in her hand. He stepped back into the hallway.
Cassie snarled, “Were you followed?”
Lee gulped. “I don’t think so. I did everything you told me to.” She heard the elevator door open down the hall. Cassie pulled Lee into the room and closed the open door almost all the way, leaving it open a crack, peering out. Whoever had entered their floor was walking away. She heard a door open and close. Cassie shook her head, thinking, can’t be too careful.
She closed the room’s door and faced him, fury and fear at war on her face.
Lee backed further away from her. “You okay? I was worried about you.”
Cassie looked at Lee as if she hadn’t been aware he was there. In her room’s mirror she saw her expression, reflecting the confusion on her face.
She tried to focus, to be normal, but a flurry of contradictory emotions flew through her. She still felt anger, but when she opened her mouth, the words she spoke were warm and caring. “Lee, I was so worried.” Cassie tried to stop herself. It wasn’t safe for her to express warmth for anyone, especially him.
She tried to speak again but her mind and her feelings swirled without focus. Her lips moved without emitting a sound. One thought sprang to the surface: her life was a sham and a ruin. But she found herself hugging him against her, her grip fierce, tears falling as she sobbed.
After a few seconds Lee returned the hug, filled with uncertainty. He tilted his head down toward hers and said, “Cassie, thanks for having faith in me.”
His face was mere inches from hers. Still wanting to push him away, she found herself tilting her head up toward his and moved her lips to his. So close she could breathe his fear, and she did. It fed her sense of rapture.
Cassie wanted to scream no! But their lips touched anyway. Neither one pushed it into a kiss, but Cassie felt the heat there, a bonfire in winter. Then Lee pulled back, a questioning look in his eyes. “Are you sure?”
She remained split between her disembodied self, feeling fear and worthlessness, and a deep-seated passion to merge her body with his. She tried to push him away but her arms wouldn’t comply.
Cassie heard her own voice, whispering, “Yes. Yes, Lee, I am.” Her own words shocked her. She was desperate to flee from him, and at the same time her hands responded, gripping his head with both hands and pulling his mouth toward hers.
She heard herself say, “I was worried I might have gotten you killed. You were never trained for ops and I thought I might be responsible for both our deaths.”
She couldn’t stop herself wanting him. She kiss
ed him, fierce desire coming from a distant part of her she hadn’t felt since Evan. She was suddenly sure the voice in her head controlled her actions now. She fought it, but to no avail.
Once again, she felt disconnected from her body, watching from above as she drove her tongue into the deeper reaches of his mouth. Cassie drew blood from his lower lip. “And you might have died, just when I was beginning to like you.”
Lee grinned and returned the kiss. “You’re just one surprise after another.” He unknotted her bathrobe.
Cassie looked down and saw herself revealed, her tiny breasts bare for him. Her body and mind reunited in a single jolting second, and she was suddenly aware of what she was saying and doing.
She had no idea how the robe had fallen to the floor or how her arms became tangled around him. She noticed that she’d unbuttoned his shirt.
Lee admired his prize. “You’re gorgeous.”
Now aware, she sneered, “I’m not gorgeous. Don’t lie to me. I’m as plain as a woman can be.” She pulled away from him.
Lee placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her around. “Hey. You’re mistaken. You’ve always been wrong about how you look to others. Especially to men. I know from how you look at yourself you think you’re not pretty. But not true. I think you’re just too arrogant to recognize others could be attracted to you. I’m happy to have you want me, and I want you at least as much. By the way, I love what you had done to your cheeks and your lips.”
Cassie wore a puzzled expression on her face. Did she really want him? Her body said yes, definitely, now, right now. But her mind continued to will other outcomes. To confuse her more, the tone of their conversation was so placid. She found it deceiving her into feeling secure, as she had with Judy the night she’d had the awful nightmare. To keep from remembering the nightmare, she thought about the question posed by Lee claiming desire for her. Could she be more attractive than the ugly woman she’d always thought she was? In confusion, Cassie buried her head in his shoulder and cried.
He held her, caressed her chin, stroked her head.
Cassie made her decision. She kissed his lips again, acknowledging her true desire for him.
His clever lips touched hers again. His hand cupped her right breast, and she moaned with satisfaction. She found her legs struggling to stay vertical as she guided him to the bed. On the way, she pulled off his shirt and pushed him onto the bed so their heads were facing each other’s torsos in opposite directions. She kissed his nipples. She asked, “Does that feel good?” and he nodded in approval. She sucked on his nipples while she unbuckled the belt of his pants, unbuttoned and unzipped, and pulled off his pants. The bulge in his shorts was unmistakable. “I guess you really are happy to see me.”
Cassie pulled his shorts down and checked him out. He wasn’t enormous, but she guessed he was big enough, erect, and here for her now. Lee reacted, uneasy as she inspected him. When she looked back to his face, satisfied, he tried to roll her under him, but she said, “No. A few nonnegotiable rules, Lee. I ride on top. Never on bottom. And you prime me before we start. Okay?”
Lee nodded. He reached his hand between her legs. She was downright wet. He forced her down and placed his head where his fingers had been seconds before. His sly tongue touched her in ways she hadn’t let anyone else explore since Evan, and she felt the room flash colors while he moved his tongue almost to the point of being inside her. Cassie moaned. She could smell the musky odor of her fluids. Her heart raced and she felt something powerful flow from her head to her heart, a feeling so commanding it consumed her ability to feel anything else. She reached for his penis and began sucking on him, tasting salt and what she thought might have been sashimi, but no other flavors. His tongue drove her toward ecstasy. Her heart sang with a joy she’d not known since Evan. Mere seconds later, she climaxed.
He pulled her atop him, and she slowly and deliberately forced him to penetrate deep into her, hot as fire itself. She rode him, raised his head with one of her hands and tried to place one of her nipples into his mouth. He shook his head and instead she focused on her body, savored the sensations, convulsing into climax again, sending fluids streaming from her onto him, just as he ejaculated into her. She felt tears at the corners of her eyes. But these were from joy.
They remained coupled together as one. Cassie could feel his pulse pounding into her flesh where he melded with her. They breathed in tandem gasps.
She lowered her head onto his shoulder so he couldn’t see her face. Alarm, fear coursed through her. She tried to hide her feelings but her body grew tense.
“You okay?” He ran his fingers though her hair, massaging her neck.
“Yeah.” She didn’t turn, afraid to face him. She wondered once again, could she trust him to do what she needed done? The voice inside her head screamed at her. Shit! What have you done? Now you’ll be working with someone you hardly know, someone who knows every nuance of your body. Every vulnerable spot. Worse still, you care about him. It was the stupidest thing you could have done.
She shifted and turned, caught sight of his face. Lee grinned like a teenage boy. She was almost sure she knew what he was thinking.
The damage was done. They’d fight together against their common foes. Lee was doomed to suffer the same fate. She might yet be responsible for both their deaths. The contingency plans she’d made when she fled Washington so long ago were now useless. She had no choice but to make sure they were successful.
In the middle of the night Cassie heard the door’s lock click open. She woke fast, sensing slight sounds of movement through the dark. She could smell the scent of cumin, cardamom, and cinnamon along with other spices reminiscent of the Middle East. Her eyes adjusted to the dark. A tall man stood near her. Evan. But he’s dead! There is something wrong about him. The lower half of his body is dripping blood. There was a corpse that looked a little like him by his feet. His brother, Danny. To her left, Lee lay snoring, oblivious to everything.
Cassie rose to her elbows, watched Evan shake his head, chuckle. He said, “Cass, you’re not responsible for my death. I didn’t go to Iraq because of you. It was Danny’s death that did it. And I’ve a message for you. Someone in our government stole your life, forced you to rip off your face and replace it with someone else’s, someone you hate, and made you murder your unborn baby. They sold you to those who want to kill you. Someone in our government wants you dead. Trust that pesky voice in your head. It’s not Misha’s. You have nothing to do with him. That voice is your instincts telling you whether or not something is right.”
He glided out through the door, disappearing into the hallway. Over his shoulder, he whispered, “Goodbye, Cass.” She looked to where Danny had been but the body had vanished.
Before the door could close, figures entered the room and the aromas of Middle Eastern spices grew stronger. One of them turned on the light. Cassie gasped. It was Abdul Hassain, with the van driver and the three other Muslim extremists she’d murdered in Manhattan. They just stood there, reaching under their coats for their guns. She looked around her in desperation for a weapon.
Lee was standing by the bed. He handed Cassie her chef’s knife.
Her eyes snapped open. 4:13 a.m. on the hotel’s alarm clock. Lee rolled over and snored. With sudden understanding, she padded off to the bathroom, thinking about her dream.
The night had ended with a fog-blurred sunrise. Now they sat huddled together in hotel robes at the desk, working with their cell phones. A breakfast tray sat empty on the floor, crumbs from toast and small bits of egg and bacon on one of the plates.
Their room at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel was littered with soiled clothing, and scraps of paper from poorly-designed project plans. The bed emitted gamey aromas. They had not permitted the hotel staff to enter and clean the room.
The fear that had pushed them together had died. Now their task—saving their own lives—was the compulsion governing their behavior.
Lee reviewed Cassie’s newest project pl
an draft. “Too tight on time to completion for every single task. No room for slippage. And the costs! How can you even begin estimating them before recruiting team leaders for the tasks?” He shook his head. “Oh, and I almost forgot…where’s all the money going to come from? How are we ever gonna pay for this?”
At this last comment, Cassie nodded. “When I hacked the West Wing’s program to fund Muslim extremists, I realized that the US Treasury Department sent them money, then had me steal the money back for reuse. Why can’t I simply pick up the cash myself and use it to eliminate the Muslim extremists? This morning, before you woke, I wrote a program to identify their bank accounts and skim funds from them. It executes daily, subtracts about half a percent of the available balance, disguises the deductions as ‘bank fees and penalties’ and erases all traces of the hack. Collections this morning were about $50,000 USD equivalent. The added benefit is that we now know where their local banks are. From the data I have, I may be able to figure out where each radical group is physically located.”
Lee’s face tensed in a way she recognized as thoughtful. “This is what you did for the agency, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes. At the rate I’m ripping them off, one hundred soldiers at about $1,500 per day for four months is $18,000,000, plus about $2 million for weapons, totaling, say, about $20 million needed in our Muslim extremist elimination fund. But at the rate I’m stealing the cash, it will take us four hundred days to accumulate the cash. Given the current plan, our project will run about one hundred days from start to finish, so if we survive I’ll have to empty the extremists’ bank accounts after we’re done and pay our bills in arrears.”
Her face bore a more serious expression. “After they’re rendered, we take all the cash they have. We’d have lots of leftover money. Lee, we’ll be rich if we live through this.”