Tessa (Tessa Extra-Sensory Agent Book 1)

by Kfir Luzzatto

  The evening went on forever, pretty much along the same lines, boring me stiff. The food was good, though, and I enjoyed it almost as if I was there. It’s funny, though: they say that hunger is in your mind, not in your stomach, and I think they’re right, because after that dinner, I felt completely full.

  After dessert and coffee, the meeting ended and Mary spoke briefly with her assistant, Jason—a burly man of about forty who looked completely out of character at a diplomatic event—and then went up to her room. I broke contact again and pushed the walkie-talkie button. Doctor Alexander silently strode into my room in his black suit. With the night light and the way he walked, shuffling his feet on the floor, he reminded me of a vampire I had seen in a movie.

  “She’s gone to sleep, and I need to do the same,” I announced. “I’m wasted. They will start meetings tomorrow at nine, and I need to be fresh for that.”

  “I agree. I also need to take the equipment for recharging.”

  I handed the pisspot to him, hoping that he wouldn’t notice that it didn’t need any recharging since I hadn’t used it. I hadn’t thought of that. I would have to find a way to discharge it a bit, next time. As he left, I got up and locked my door, set the alarm for eight a.m., and went back to my bed. I wanted a little more time with Mary, to get to know her when she was alone with her thoughts. I lay on my bed and pictured her face again.

  CHAPTER 14

  I gazed at the man asleep in bed with me. I couldn’t see his face, but from behind, he looked good. He was strong, tanned, and sexy. Unfortunately, I had no idea who he was or how I had wound up there. Then I looked at my body. We were both naked and my milky-white, slim body, with silky skin, was pressed against his back, making my breasts look really big. Problem was, my skin is golden-honey, not pale, and my bra size is a 32A.

  Then I remembered. The skin wasn’t mine. It was Mary’s, and she was in bed with Vladimir. But how did that happen? How did I end up sleeping there? I probed Mary’s thoughts, and there were none that I could find. I mentally nudged her into awareness—don’t ask me how it’s done, I can’t explain it if you haven’t experienced it yourself—but nothing doing. I decided to break contact and just leave her to sleep it off, but to my surprise, I didn’t jump back into my own head as always. Instead, I felt rather grounded, so to speak, bound to Mary’s body. I recalled being yanked back into my body by the pain in Liv’s knee, when she fell down on that hill, so I pinched Mary’s arm as hard as I could, but nothing happened.

  I looked at the clock beside the bed. The time was five-thirty a.m., so I still had a little time to figure out what was going on before meetings resumed. My head buzzed, and I felt nauseous and dizzy. I sat up cautiously and in doing so I apparently woke Vladimir up, because he jumped out of bed and started dressing hastily.

  “That … what you gave me … was too potent,” he mumbled. “I should have left. They can’t know I was here.” He was puffing as he spoke while he dressed. “I’m going now,” he concluded, as soon as he was fully dressed.

  All I could do was nod, which I did, and he left hurriedly, without looking back. I really didn’t care what he was doing or where he was going. What bothered me was something else: why was I stuck in Mary’s body? Why wasn’t she alert and in control? What had happened to get me to this point?

  I sat still, trying hard to remember, and it all came back to me—Vladimir coming over, Mary’s plan to get the information she needed from him, to prove that he was really ready to turn, and how the plan had gone bad. I replayed the evening in my head. It had begun with Vladimir kissing and feeling Mary up, which, I’m ashamed to say, I enjoyed so much that for a while I stopped reading Mary’s thoughts and concentrated on feeling her body as it reacted to Vlad’s touch. But when Vlad stopped for a moment, to pour himself a vodka, I pulled myself together and got back to work. I’ll make him take the coke mixed with the scopolamine derivative as soon as I can. Before sex, I think. I need to know if he’s sincere, and if I can trust him to work with us.

  I know that scopolamine is considered a “truth drug,” although mixing it with coke sounded dumb to me, but what do I know. Anyway, that proved that Mary’s heart was in the right place. She was a patriot all right and had a nice plan of her own to reach her goal. She was also going to “sacrifice herself” and have repeat sex with this amazing man. She wouldn’t get any pity from me. I should have left her there, since I already had the answer that I needed to bring back, but I admit that I wanted to hang around for a while longer and enjoy the party a bit. Stupid of me, but I still had to plan what to do with my own troubles, and I was in no hurry to report that everything was good with our Mary.

  “I brought you good stuff, this time, the kind that you don’t get at home,” Mary said, after Vlad finished his vodka, which he gulped down like you and I drink water.

  She pulled a small plastic bag containing white powder from a trolley marked “Diplomatic Baggage” and showed it to Vlad.

  “Wow!” said Vlad. “Let’s party!”

  He took the plastic bag and placed it on a table. He then approached Mary and started to undress her. If my eyes weren’t closed already, I would have had to shut them tight, and it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and avoid making noises that would bring the doctor to my room, in fear that I was sick or something. Mary didn’t have my constraints and was louder than I would have expected.

  “Wait!” Mary said after a while, panting. “Take it. It will be great!” she said, picking up the drug’s plastic bag and dangling it before Vlad’s eyes.

  Vlad emptied the contents on the coffee table, made it into lines with the room key card, and snorted a good portion with a straw he had taken from the bar.

  “All right. Here’s for you,” he said.

  “I don’t need it. I have as much as I want, back home. I brought it all for you,” said Mary.

  Shit, she thought, what do I do if he insists?

  “Nonsense. Go ahead. Let’s party.”

  Mary hesitated for only a second before snorting the remaining strand—a true patriot, as I said. As soon as all the drug was gone, Vlad took her up, dropped her on the bed, and the things he did to her, I’m too shy to tell. I should have left right then, or at least when I started to feel the effects of the drug that ran through Mary’s brain, but it was hard to up and go, right in the middle of what we were doing … well, what Mary and Vlad were doing. By then the “I” and “she” had become a bit mixed up, and at times I wasn’t completely sure who I was. What’s more, I no longer cared. So I hung on, and at some point Mary passed out, and apparently I passed out with her, and that’s all I remember.

  So now what? I sat on the bed, trying to think rationally in spite of the nausea that kept burning in my throat. I drank water from the bottle on Mary’s nightstand, and it calmed the burning a little. I obviously had to break contact with Mary, and then I’d be able to figure out what to do next. I had no idea if words that Vlad had whispered in Mary’s ears, half of which I wouldn’t have understood even without the drug that was screwing up my brain, were the proof she needed, and I didn’t care. That wasn’t my job. I lay down on the bed again, closed my eyes and thought of my safe place, with the beautiful lake and serene waters. My safety switch out of telepathic connection. I imagined myself in a wooden boat, gently lulled by the lake waters, and … nothing!

  I opened my eyes, and I was still in the hotel room, in Mary’s body. For the first time, I hadn’t been able to break contact with the host body. Apparently, Mary’s brain only worked enough to run very basic functions such as breath and blood circulation, but all other areas had been shut down, perhaps indefinitely. I felt trapped. The time was almost six a.m., and soon enough someone would come for me, back at the chalet, or for Mary, here at the hotel. I couldn’t stay there, and I couldn’t leave my body at the mercy of Doctor Alexander.

  There was only one thing that I could do: as long as I was forced to be Mary, I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and use he
r to fix this mess. I got up and went to look at Mary’s wardrobe, which looked like a corporate display—not rugs I would have put on myself to win a bet. I picked one of the less ghastly and more sportive outfits I found, dressed quickly, drank more water, and left the room. Luckily, I didn’t meet anybody on my way down and managed to slip out by a side door that led from the hotel’s evening room to its garden. I had taken Mary’s purse with me, and it contained a fat roll of Swiss francs, so at least I was in funds. A quarter of a mile up the main street I found a taxi stop and negotiated a ride to Flims with an English-speaking driver. What I would do when I got there I had no clue, but I had to be in a position to pull myself out of the hole into which I had dug my telepathic brain.

  CHAPTER 15

  The taxi ride had given me enough time to formulate a plan, which I hoped had a chance of success, if Doctor Alexander proved gullible enough. I asked the taxi driver to drop me half a mile before the chalet and used the time it took me to walk there to refine my plan. I had to knock twice before the chalet door was opened by Jerry.

  “Yes?” he said, curtly.

  “Take me to Doctor Alexander,” I said, speaking as imperiously as I expected that an undersecretary would speak.

  Jerry was so surprised that he didn’t argue. He took a step back, and I walked inside.

  “Who is that?” came Doctor Alexander’s voice.

  “Ehr … for you,” said Jerry.

  Presently Doctor Alexander appeared, gazed at me, and his jaw dropped. “Wha … what?” he mumbled.

  “Doctor Alexander,” I said, speaking with authority, “I need your immediate assistance. Leave us,” I ordered Jerry, and he left without a murmur.

  “But how …? I didn’t know. I don’t understand,” said Alexander.

  “There are many things surrounding this operation that you don’t know, because they are above your pay grade. Now just listen and follow instructions. And while we speak, I would like a cup of coffee and some breakfast. I haven’t had the time to eat, this morning.” I was still feeling nauseous, and the heartburn in my throat was worse than before. I hoped that putting some food in my stomach would calm that.

  “Yes, of course,” Doctor Alexander said, speaking uncharacteristically meekly. He then yelled for Jerry, gave him instructions, and turned back to Mary. “Please, take a seat. Now perhaps you can tell me what’s going on.”

  “Up to a point. Only up to a point, but I’ll tell you what I am allowed to say. You know, of course, that we set up a telepathic operative—what’s her name? Theresa, I think.”

  “Tessa,” Doctor Alexander murmured.

  “Theresa or Tessa, that’s not important. Anyway, we needed her to witness what I was going to hear. I expected to receive top secret, critical information, and we feared that once I heard it I would be in danger, even in real danger for my life. So, if I happened to be neutralized, she would bring the information back to my superiors. You are aware of that, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, yes. Not exactly as you say, but of course I’m aware that she was supposed to be … with you … yes.”

  “Obviously not exactly. You didn’t need the exact details. This is a delicate operation, and information is imparted only on a need-to-know basis, and much of it you don’t need to know even now. Still, I’ll have to share some details with you now that things have changed in the field. First of all, we got the information we needed, and it’s intelligence of momentous importance to our country.”

  “Oh, congratulations!”

  “I’m afraid that congratulations are premature. Vladimir Vilikov gave me the information, over dinner. We were seated together and the room was noisy—a perfect setup that allowed him to whisper the details into my ear as if we were having an innocent conversation.”

  “So you now have that information.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t. Somebody managed to slip a drug into my food, one of those drugs that make you forget recent events. I don’t know what it was, but I felt tired and went to lie down, and when I woke up I had forgotten all of it.”

  A neat fib, I thought, and Doctor Alexander bought right into it.

  “So it’s gone?”

  “No. Your telepath was with me at dinner, and she heard everything. She obviously could not understand the meaning of what she heard, without some prior knowledge, but that doesn’t matter. She only needs to repeat what she heard to me. We need to debrief her right away.”

  “Fantastic! We can go and wake her up right after I report to my director.”

  “You are not to report to your director—particularly not to him—or to anybody else. This is a matter of state security, and what I just told you must not go beyond this room.”

  “But Miss Payne …”

  “Yes?”

  “I report to my director, and I need to apprise him immediately of the situation.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort. I warn you that ESA15 is not who you think he is. He’s a traitor, an enemy asset. He hasn’t been arrested yet because we didn’t want to alert our adversaries that we are on to him. Forget the director. From this moment on, you will follow my instructions exclusively. And, incidentally,” I said, using my most imperious tone, “it’s Undersecretary Payne to you.”

  “I understand, Undersecretary,” said Doctor Alexander, meekly, turning a beautiful purple in the face.

  Some other time I could have really enjoyed seeing him sweat like that, but right then I was in a pickle and didn’t know how to get out of it yet. Still, I admit that, in a sense, it was fun.

  “Good. Let’s go talk to her,” I commanded.

  We walked upstairs and knocked on my door, which, as expected, produced no response. An agitated Doctor Alexander yelled for help and a key arrived in no time, which he used to open the door. I need to tell you something: seeing myself through somebody else’s eyes is not at all the same as seeing myself in the mirror. It’s an altogether different experience, and this time it was not a good one. I lay on the bed, peaceful and with a hint of a smile—I don’t know which part of the night had left that smile on my face, although I can guess—but I was otherwise lifeless, like an empty shell of myself. Doctor Alexander tried to shake me awake, but of course it didn’t work.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to her,” he said in despair.

  “I do. That drug that they gave me must have somehow affected her brain as well, but differently. The side effects of those drugs are usually temporary, so eventually she’ll wake up.”

  I wished I could be more convinced of it myself, but I had to believe it, or I wouldn’t have had the strength to go on.

  “Oh, I’m relieved. So we’ll wait for her to wake up.”

  “Yes, but not here. This chalet is no longer a safe place for her, or me; as long as we are here she is in danger, and so are you and your crew. You need us to be gone, and now is not soon enough.”

  “So what is to be done?”

  “You have a security agent named Tom in your team, right?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll take him and your car, and Tessa, and we’ll take it from there. You need to keep up appearances as if the operation was proceeding smoothly. Call ESA15 as soon as we are gone, and tell him that everything is working according to plan, and you have nothing special to report. We need to avoid arising suspicion with him. Do that for 48 hours, and by then I’ll get further instructions to you.”

  Doctor Alexander nodded in assent, looking shell-shocked by the whole situation. Not for the first time I wondered how someone could be such a bright scientist and inexcusably stupid in everything else. Anyway, he only hung around without interfering, so Tom and Mary dressed my sleeping body, with him watching. Taking off my pajamas and dressing myself as I did was beyond surreal, believe me. At first I did my best to hide my body from Tom’s and Doctor Alexander’s view, but I soon realized that it was a futile effort. After all, I’m not a prude, and they weren’t the first people to see me naked, so I decided not to car
e. Let them enjoy it, I thought, if that’s what does it for them.

  As soon as I was dressed, Tom picked me up and carried me to the car. He was gentle, but I noted that he was enjoying manhandling me a bit too much, placing his hands where they were not really needed for the job, but I didn’t hold that against him. Some men can’t resist temptation, but as much as I liked him, knowing his mind as well as I did, I resolved to tick him off at the first opportunity. He also lingered a bit too long while fastening my seat belt in the back seat of the car. He then walked to the driver’s door.

  “Wait!” I ordered. It had just occurred to me that wherever we were going, we couldn’t just carry my body in that way, making it look like I was drunk or worse. But the chair on the porch had wheels on the front legs and, although it was not, properly speaking, a wheelchair of the type used for infirm people, it would have to do.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Tom said, stopping obediently.

  “Go fetch a blanket and put that chair in the trunk of the car,” I said, pointing to it.

  Tom was used to following orders and didn’t ask any questions. Luckily, the chair was small enough, and the trunk was large enough for it to fit in. As soon as that was done, Tom went to sit in the driver’s seat, waiting for instructions.

  “Where to, Madam?” he asked.

  “Drive on,” I said, dryly. I wished I knew the answer to that question.

  CHAPTER 16

  Some fifteen miles from Flims, going toward Davos, you will find a town by the name of Chur, and that’s where I instructed Tom to stop. We drove around a bit, until I saw a nice, little hotel located in a quiet area and told him to park there. He switched the engine off and waited patiently for instructions.

  “Stay here,” I said, and walked to the front door. A severe-looking woman was working with papers spread on the reception desk. When I walked in, a bell chimed and she gazed straight at me. They seem to have bells everywhere in Switzerland, on doors and on cows alike, and I wonder when they’ll start putting them on people too.