“Ronnie has feelings for me?”
“Man. How do you get through life? You couldn’t see an eagle if it landed on your nose, could you? Unless of course the eagle was your quarry.”
We were back at the Audi, and Therese was still talking with Ted. They’d gotten into the back seat and were carrying on a low conversation. It looked like they were doing a lot of talking about their mutual connection, J.D., because Therese would get teary, then shake it off, and they just kept talking.
Ronnie was leaning against the small lightpost in front of her parking spot. I looked at Evie, and thought about what she’d just told me. It was true that I focused exclusively on the ‘mission’ when I was in the field, and yes, to the exclusion of all else. But the only women that I‘d worked with before were all military women. Subject to military regs and discipline. That made for an easy working relationship. I wasn’t used to dealing with civilians on a personal level while I was working. When I worked, it was a twenty-four hour a day job. That’s part of how you survive. It looked like I was going to have to use some diplomacy here. I hate diplomacy, and diplomats. The end result of diplomacy, I’d seen before. Up close. It doesn’t always look that pretty.
Evie gave me a look, then glanced at Ronnie, and opened the passenger side door of the car. Before she got in, she leaned close to me.
“Ride with Ronnie for a bit. Just do it, Okay?”
Then she was in the car and slipping over into the driver’s seat.
I pulled a pack of Camels out of my pocket and shook one out, putting it between my lips, and stuffing the pack back into my pocket. This was complicated. We had failed with Terry, and the chance of his being alive was zilch. The rest of the mission in Zurich had gone well. Except for the body count.
That was usually something the police frowned on and the military applauded. If it was covert ops, it didn’t even get discussed. Now we had to get to Paris and link up with the rest of the team. I didn’t see any time in there for a personal agenda. It would end up being just a lot of potential trouble.
I walked around the front of the car, and leaned up on the opposite side of the light pole that Ronnie was propping up. She didn’t lose that far-away look, or even glance at me directly. She did speak, though she didn’t look away from that far-away place that was holding her eye. I was the one who waited this time. Patiently, I might add. It took about five minutes before she opened up some.
“So.”
“So. Penny for your thoughts.”
Dead silence.
“Ronnie?”
“Yes, Jeffry?”
“I meant it. If you don’t mind saying, that is.”
“You actually want to know what I’m thinking?”
This was starting to sound like it might sting. I took a deep breath and let it out real slow, pursing my lips and holding the air back as long as I could, letting it out in a controlled stream.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know what it was like. You were right and I was wrong. I’m not used to that.”
“You’re thinking about the woman officer that these guys killed this morning.”
“Yes, and a lot more besides.”
“Okay. That’s allowed. Everybody has their first field mission go wonky on them. Know why?”
“No, I don’t. That’s part of the problem. Out here, it’s all different somehow. I always have time to see the answer when I’m at the Centre. Out here you lead and I follow. Then the action goes down, and I realize time after time that if I’d been left to my own resources, or even if I’d chosen someone else for the job, I’d be dead and so would Evie, and Therese, and Ted, and whoever the hell else was following my command on this job. It didn’t look that way on paper. It really didn’t. It’s you that tips the scale in our favour. You, and you alone. The only thing I do for you out here is get in the way and come up with bad plans.”
“Our success so far will be measured on the effectiveness of the team leader. That’s you. What I do for you, I haven’t done in many years. I do it for you, for the team, not because some high-ranking RCMP officer had access to files that said I would be just the right man for the job, because that’s bull. There’s nothing relevant in the file, as you discovered early on. This whole thing is working because I trust you. You made the choice to have me on the mission, whether you say you were pressured or not, based on all of the wrong reasons. But it turned out to be the right choice. For you and for me, in a funny kind of way. We work well together. If Evie is an example of your level of standards for your people, then you must have some very good people on your side indeed. You inspire loyalty, which is the toughest test a commander can pass. Or fail. You pass. That’s good. You’re good. It’s just that the field trial is one of fire. It will harden your steel edge, or it will burn you to the ground. It’s mostly your choice, what you let it do, or what you make it do.”
“You should have been a speech writer.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be preachy about it.”
“No, don’t apologize. I appreciate what you’re doing. Really I do. I just…”
Her far-away look vanished as she zeroed in on me eye to eye.
“Can I say something of a personal nature without you walking away from me?”
“Uh-huh.”
I reached into my breast pocket and showed her that my comms link was turned off.
“Mine too.”
She smiled at me, a slow sad smile.
“I promise.”
“Okay then. I’m not sure how to start, so I’m just going to jump in and try to make it simple. Walk with me?”
“Lead the way.”
She took her shoulder off the pole and straightened up, starting off at a slow stroll towards the entry-way, but on the grass of the lawn surrounding the whole Info Kiosk area. I took a few quick steps and fell in beside her. She had her arms folded, and her head down, looking at the ground while she walked.
When we were about halfway to the entrance she started talking.
“I always used to feel like I was on top of things, no matter how bad the situation was. Detachment is the key there. Now I’m out here, and it isn’t the same thing at all. I find myself making bad calls only to have you bail me out. Not once but over and over, and never once have you said to me that I shouldn’t be here, or that I was wrong. You point out alternate choices, and leave it to me to authorize them. I still think like I’m back at the office, monitoring things from a nice safe distance. Sometimes. Then is when I make bad calls. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s not what I can’t seem to get around, though. I know it’s my first shot at a field assignment, and not one person from my chain of command recommended it. I forced the issue. Like a twelve-year-old. I want to go to the party! I yelled loud enough for them to accept my decision. But if I had to do it all over again, maybe I would stay home and leave the job to the people who can handle it.”
“You’re doing a fine job, what more can you ask of yourself? We have more leads now than ever to the source of all this crap, and, we have our missing material witness, and the one we had to start with is still alive and kicking. That’s the completion of the primary objectives, right?”
“Yes and no.”
“Now you’ll have to explain. Us guys can only follow female logic so far, and then…”
I shrugged and held up my hands. When I put them down again Ronnie unfolded her arms and took my left hand in her right. She squeezed it, and I squeezed back.
We were behind a few oak trees by now, into the picnic space and out of sight of the Audi, but I could still see the ‘Vette. I didn’t know where this was going, but I knew that this particular team member needed some time with me. Boss or not, we were just Ronnie and Jeffry right now.
She kept hold of my hand, and it felt good so I didn’t pull away.
“What if a team leader goes out on her first field mission and falls for the second-in-command? What then
? Do we trust her to be as sharp as she can be? Do we send her back to her old life with a glowing mission report? Is that all she’ll have to show for her efforts? No. What she’ll have is an empty space where you used to be, and nothing will ever be the same again.”
I looked at her closely as she spoke to me, and I realized with a shock that she was trying to tell me that she was in love. With me. I could see the tears shed from her right side, as they gathered at the corner of her beautiful eye, and dropped onto her cheek, rolling slowly down into the corner of her mouth. She went to wipe it away, but I was there first. I brushed the tear away with my fingertips, and turned her towards me as we stopped beside a picnic table. I leaned my back against the table and drew her to me with both arms, folding around her like a big security blanket.
That was all she needed. The damn burst as she fell into my chest, laying her head against me and pressing both of her hands up to my shoulders, as if to push me away, but she didn’t. The tears came for a few minutes or more, and I held her, silently, thinking of what would have happened, or could have happened, if we had just met normally, the way other people do.
Eventually the tears tapered off and were replaced by sniffles. I dug into my back pocket and pulled out a pack of pocket Kleenex. A thousand and one uses. She blew her nose and dried her eyes while I crouched down and tried to get a squirrel to come and see what I had in my hand. He didn’t fall for it. Maybe they can tell when you’re just teasing them.
A couple of minutes later, she took a deep breath of her own, letting it out slowly, the way I had.
”That seems to work well.”
“Yeah, it does. But how do you feel?”
“I feel like a woman more than a Colonel. That’s how I feel. Last night when she made you sleep with her, you acted as if she owned you. I know that’s not true, you’re just doing your job, the best way you can under the circumstances.”
“That is true.”
“All night long I lay awake listening to you breathe and snore.”
“What? I do not snore.”
“Yes, you bloody well do! And I wanted to be Therese so bad last night—just so I would be lying next to you. What the hell do I do about that, eh?”
This self-questioning phase of our talk wasn’t doing her any good at all. The tears started again, and this time she turned away from me. Not wanting to show me the extent of her wound.
“Ronnie?”
She was only a half-step away, and she turned back to face me.
“Please listen carefully to my words, Okay?”
She gave me a small nod, not trusting herself to talk without tears.
“Okay. The truth. I could fall for you in a split second, and fall hard, but that comes later. First, we do the job. Then I get you and the rest of the gang back home safely. Then we can see what’s what. That’s how it has to be.”
“You mean it? You think you could fall for me?”
“I don’t lie. Not to team members. Only to the enemy.”
“I thought you had just found yourself a girlfriend before we left.”
“That’s still open to interpretation. I found someone who excites me, and that’s the first time in three years. We’re still at the ‘talking over lunch’ stage. Maybe it’s for me. Maybe it’s not. I know less about her than I do about you.”
I held out my arms and she just… stepped in. I held her with both arms for a little, then I pushed her back just far enough to see those eyes, and then… I kissed her. Her lips were warm, and our body heat mingled as we held each other. I don’t know how long the kiss was, but I know where it took me. Far, so far away. When we came out of it, we were both a touch breathless, and surprised as hell. She recovered first. Figures.
“At least this means I’m not on the ‘enemy’ list. I guess.”
“At least. And vice-versa, I guess. It’s a two-way list, never forget that. You have total control over your list too.”
She let her head slowly settle onto my shoulder with her face away from me, looking out at the trees surrounding us. I held her low around her waist with my left arm and used my right to stroke her hair, slowly… slowly… daydreaming, with this wonderful woman in my arms…
… The Corvette had been done and the engine re-bored and blueprinted. Black Metallic paint over black leather Recaro seats, and a custom five-speed transmission with a final rear-axle ratio of 2.82, giving me a top end in fifth gear of maybe one hundred and seventy-five miles per hour. I was turning onto the on-ramp to the Autobahn, to see if that was true. There was Ronnie, in the passenger seat beside me. She was dressed in racing leathers, with her crash helmet in her lap, and her long blonde hair trailing all over the place from her open window when… when… BEEP!. BEEP!. BEEP!
The beeping of the pager on my belt made the both of us literally jump.
“I don’t know about you Ronnie, but my heart’s pumping like a fifteen-year old just hearing his parents opening the front door to the house two hours before they were expected, and I had just made first base for the very first time ever.”
She looked at me kind of sideways, and then laughed with me. We held each other lightly while we laughed, and everything was Okay with us again. Actually, I suppose that I’d have to say ‘better than ever’.
But we were awake and alert now. That’s the real danger of mission romance, it’s not on the mandate. Of course, all things great and small are subject to interpretation, misinterpretation, omission, dismissal, rejection, acceptance with qualifications, you name it. The trouble was drifting away. Love and romance did that to you. Like I’d just done. I felt as if I were keeping an eye on things with a part of my consciousness, but it hadn’t been enough. If you can be startled by a pager, imagine your surprise at a silenced 9 mm slug as it hits.
I checked the content of the message on the pager. The sequence of numbers equaled the cipher code translation; ice-mail alert–2P-1x: –sub-translation, Walter had already gotten the answers to my questions and posted them to a family-oriented local Web Site in Northern Ontario that he maintained an account on. All of his dealings with this mail-drop were as difficult as the old-fashioned way, but produced a very neatly enhanced sense of security. He used a public telephone with an acoustic coupler for his hand-held, attached to a card-modem, interfacing them with a circuit the size of a matchbox that he had programmed himself, to do any on-line status work with his web page and its contents, as well as for uploading data.
Walter had created a program using Visual Basic, that allowed only one read per document. It attaches itself to a target document in the form of a complex macro, and as it’s being accessed, it deletes itself. In real time. That means you could grab a chance to read one page of the document, perhaps, then go back at a later time to finish it, but the first page that you had read earlier wasn’t part of the document anymore. Very slick. It was impossible to be unaware if your data had been downloaded by anyone else.
“It’s Walter. Maybe we have some answers.”
“Then we’d better get back. Give you a chance to pull the data.”
“Yeah, Okay let’s go.”
We sauntered back as casually as we’d walked away, only we both felt an uplifting power, from being so close for a moment. I know that because Ronnie told me we did. I just felt good, period.
It turned out that our stroll had consumed over fifteen minutes. Wow, a mini-vacation. I took myself off to the Corvette, and Ronnie came with me. It was understood that we would ride together now. Until we got to Paris.
Therese and Ted would ride with Evie. I stopped on the way and had a small chat with Ted about the rules. He asked me what I meant by ‘rules’. I told him that if he did anything that I didn’t like, I’d cuff him and drug him and put him in the bloody trunk all the way to Paris, and did he think that was clear enough, because if it wasn’t, I’d just cuff and lock him right here and now. He seemed to be slightly resentful as he agreed that he now understood perfectly what I meant. To emphasize the point, I ask
ed him to talk with Therese about the last two days. That would probably keep him in line until we handed him over to George in Paris.
Therese seemed somewhat subdued, and made no overt demands of me. No ‘I want to ride with you’ antics, nothing of a troublesome nature at all, in fact. I think she was so happy to have found Ted that she was only slightly miffed about my walk with Ronnie. I think. It’s hard to tell with a woman at times.
When we got back to the car I relinked my palmtop and cell phone, dialing in to pick up the messages Walter had left for me.
The web page that Walter had put together on this obscure Citynet server in Northern Ontario was like most Web Pages, cobbled together like an amateur had done it. Which was the look he was going for. There were three files in the link to my mail drop. I downloaded all three in about five minutes of connect time. Then I ran the cipher on each one, starting with the first, alphabetically. Once the cipher decryption ran, I only got one read, so I saved each screen to flash card as I scrolled through the messages and answers.
It didn’t look good. About one hour after the first meeting with Inwestek’s banker, Monsieur La Forge, he placed a call to Geneva, to the offices of Crassberg AG. That call had lasted less than one minute. Voicemail.
Two hours after that, Geneva called back. To the bank number. It was closed, but La Forge was still there, because his office took the call, despite the fact that he had told us he had to get home for dinner with the family. That one lasted a good ten minutes. Apparently, this locking of Ted Dawson’s account had been put in place the same day that Ronnie’s Data Acquisition Department had found out that he had an account there.
That would have been the girl that was turned by one of the Latin soldiers. Handing away secret material in exchange for a play-acting love affair. Totally sad.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 76