Once Burned, Twice Spy

by Diane Henders

  Hang on. Surely it wasn’t possible for mental programming to control my metabolism.

  It might convince me that I was hungry even if I wasn’t; or maybe it could convince me that if I got too hungry I’d be felled by low blood sugar… but it couldn’t change my fundamental physiology. If I was being manipulated into eating more than I needed, I’d be carrying around a few dozen extra pounds, not the modest ten or so that had nestled around my middle for the past decade.

  And that was exactly the kind of pseudo-fact that could be twisted to make Nora’s story seem true. If she really was my mother, she’d know I was permanently hungry; and if she was trying to mindfuck me she’d use that knowledge to make it seem as though she knew something I didn’t.

  I backtracked farther along the memory trail to her statement about how I reacted to pain and fear with anger and aggression. That could be another unrelated piece of knowledge she was spinning to make her story sound more convincing. God knew I had more than enough legitimate reasons for my fucked-up emotional wiring.

  “To hell with it,” I muttered, and made for the bathroom to shower and put on Teresa’s face.

  A quick trip to the grocery store furnished enough food to cram the tiny refrigerator in my motel room. Sipping from a juice box after my breakfast of bread and peanut butter, I contemplated the depressing décor around me. The sooner I started investigating, the sooner I’d get to go home.

  I sighed and took my laptop out of my grab-and-go bag. Stemp’s comments about extradition had been lurking in the back of my mind like an ominous black cloud, but I knew nothing about the process. Maybe more information would make it seem less scary. After all, this was Canada. I trusted our justice system.

  Didn’t I?

  I sighed. Stay on track. After a bit of research on extradition, I’d sneak into the Department’s system and have a look. Stemp would be expecting me to invisibly infiltrate Sirius’s servers. If he was trying to help me, he would file an update on the situation.

  And then I’d slip into the MI5 and MI6 networks and see whether Ian had lied about Nora’s employment record. And whether he had betrayed my identity.

  I swallowed a small lump of disappointment. Until last night, I had believed Ian was on my side.

  “You know better than to trust a guy like that,” I muttered, and plugged the brainwave-driven network generator into my USB port.

  Holding the tiny network key clenched in my fist, I stretched out on the bed and eyed the laptop unhappily.

  All alone. If I got lost in the internet, I could die of thirst and starvation before the motel cleaning staff came into the room next week.

  But at least Dirk and Grandin wouldn’t get me.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on stepping into the white void of virtual reality.

  When it opened around me, I dissolved into invisibility and slipped into the busy data streams of the internet. As I surfed toward my destination I planted frequent data bits along my path, visible only to me. At least I’d have a hope of finding my own laptop again when I was done.

  The Canadian government’s public information pages were easy to find, and the extradition process looked reassuring. A request for extradition went to the Justice Minister, who decided whether to authorize it to proceed; and if authorized, the request went through the courts to determine whether there was sufficient evidence.

  Due process. I’d be fine.

  But Stemp’s doubts niggled at me. He undoubtedly knew more than I did.

  I surfed away from the government pages, sniffing for clues.

  They were easy to find, too. With each newspaper article and law journal essay, my fear built. This wasn’t due process. This was a travesty of justice.

  Over the last ten years and a thousand or so extradition requests, only five had been successfully appealed.

  Stemp was right, it was just a rubber-stamp process.

  Oh shit…

  Too terrified to consider it any more, I diverted my consciousness back to the mission at hand.

  Stay focused. Prove my innocence.

  Sirius’s servers were well-concealed as usual, but I found them eventually. I planted data markers around myself while I hovered outside their firewall with my consciousness quivering fearfully.

  God, I hated this. How many tries would it take? How many times would I be torn to shreds and spewed out in terrifying chaos?

  I steeled myself and surged forward, clinging to the image of bodysurfing on a wave of data.

  The proxy servers repelled me, tumbling me violently over and over like a weir in a rushing river. Utterly disoriented, I clung to the few sparks of consciousness that remained to me, flailing helplessly until the turbulence lessened and I could drag myself free.

  Then came the slow and terrifying process of reassembling myself, my tiny thread of data slowly strengthening.

  At last I faced the servers again.

  This time I would make it.

  Please, God.

  To my own shock, I succeeded. Floating in the smooth currents of Sirius’s internal data, I gathered my strength. Almost there…

  I slipped undetectably into the server that held our internal reports.

  Stemp had filed a report at ten-twenty last night, but he hadn’t filed anything this morning. That was odd. He was always at work by seven A.M., and it was already a quarter to nine.

  But maybe for the first time ever, he’d decided to come in at nine when his job officially started. Maybe he’d taken his parents out for breakfast. My heart warmed with hope.

  When I opened his report, an icy deluge of dread obliterated every other thought. Clinging to the last vestiges of my composure, I absorbed the contents in a single searing gulp, then snapped out of the report and rocketed through the rest of the server searching out every document that had been filed since ten-twenty last night.

  A warrant for my arrest.

  Stemp suspended and ordered to be interrogated under the lie detector.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  They would ask if he knew where I was or how to contact me. He would have to tell them I’d given his parents my burner phone number.

  Holt might have already traced the phone to my motel room.

  I flung myself out of the Sirius servers and into the internet, frantically seeking my markers.

  They were gone.

  Chapter 29

  If I could have managed it in my bodiless form, I would have screamed. Sworn violently. Pounded the living shit out of anything within reach.

  But I couldn’t do any of it. I was nothing but helpless data bits quivering in a hostile electronic sea…

  Suck it up.

  With a giant effort I yanked my consciousness together and flung out inquiring tendrils in all directions.

  My markers couldn’t all have vanished. They must have just shifted while I was in Sirius’s network. It was only a normal IP reassignment; nothing to worry about…

  I was damn worried.

  My tendrils stretched farther, then farther still.

  Dammit, this couldn’t be happening. Holt or Dirk or Grandin could be kicking down the door of my motel room right this moment.

  Or maybe they were already manhandling my helpless body into handcuffs. Grandin could be pocketing the tiny computer chip that was so secret only a handful of people in the world knew about it…

  Stop it.

  Focus.

  Still no markers.

  Oh, Jesus, what if they’d shut off my network generator? I’d be trapped forever. Locked in an eternal hell of consciousness without body, unable to feel or move or breathe ever again…

  White-hot panic scrambled my data for an instant, but I forced it back under control with all my will.

  Find. The. Markers.

  Do it.

  When the first one pinged I would have wept with relief if I’d been capable of it. Locking onto the beautiful little data bits, I hurtled down the data tunnels.

  When the white void of
my own virtual reality welcomed me back, I dove through the portal with frantic speed.

  And crashed into agony.

  Violent colours bombarded me with nausea, my stomach wrenching while red-hot lava seared every vein. Incinerating from the inside out…

  Beyond control or even thought, my body thrashed in a desperate attempt to escape. Screams tore my throat, the additional pain lost in the firestorm of torture.

  At last the suffering lessened. My screams faded to broken whimpers as the agony receded from my limbs to converge into a monstrous headache that pulsed like a pain-bloated jellyfish with every beat of my heart.

  I groaned, and the sound pushed blazing spears through my brain. Shit, I knew better than to jump through the portal like that. The pain I experienced from leaving the network at normal speed was bad enough.

  Idiot.

  Get up. Escape while you still can…

  The thumping of my headache increased and I groaned again, clutching my head with both hands.

  After a few seconds I realized the thumping was a sound, not a sensation.

  “Mrs. Diaz! Hello! Are you all right?”

  Thump, thump, thump. Somebody was pounding on the door.

  A male voice shouted, “Should I call 911?”

  “Fuck,” I moaned, then clenched my eyes shut so they wouldn’t explode when I raised my voice. “No, I’m fine. I was watching TV.”

  The knocking mercifully ceased, but the voice persisted, “Can you come to the door? I want to be sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine…”

  When he knocked again, I let out a small moan and crept off the bed, holding my head together with both hands. As I stumbled toward the door, caution reasserted itself. Was this a trick?

  I squinted out the fisheye lens, blinking in an attempt to clear my blurry vision.

  A worried-looking man stared back at me. No sign of official-looking vehicles. No agents. No guns.

  I didn’t recognize the man, but if he was the day clerk, I wouldn’t have seen him last night anyway.

  As I stood debating, he knocked again, his face firming into determination. “Mrs. Diaz, I’m going to call 911 now.”

  Fuck!

  Out of options.

  I cranked an apologetic smile onto my face and opened the door. “Hi,” I croaked. “I’m sorry, I fell asleep with the TV on and I guess it must have changed to this horrible violent show while I was sleeping.” I blinked woozily at him. “All the screaming woke me up, but I was so dozy that I took a while to get up and turn it off. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” He surveyed me, his gaze lingering on my birthmark for a moment before snapping behind me to take in the rumpled bed. He returned his attention to me, his shoulders relaxing. “I’m glad you’re okay. No need to apologize; there’s nobody in either of the units beside you. The maid heard screaming and panicked.”

  “Oh, I’m glad I didn’t wake anybody. Please tell the maid I’m sorry for scaring her. And thanks for checking on me.”

  “No problem.” He nodded and turned away.

  Trembling, I locked the door and sprang across to my backpack to grab the burner phone. I ripped the battery out of it and dropped the rest of the phone to the floor, then flung on my hiking boots and crushed the small plastic carcass under my heel. Stomping and grinding, I reduced the phone to small pieces, then fell to my knees and scooped up the bits.

  Thank God for good old-fashioned water-wasting plumbing. When I flushed the pieces down the toilet, the cataract of water carried them effortlessly away.

  Less than two minutes later my belongings were in my backpack and I was standing at the door fearfully studying the parking lot through the fisheye lens. If Holt had already traced the burner phone to this motel room, he knew I was Teresa Diaz. He might be out there right now, concealed around a corner just waiting for me to emerge.

  And the Ministry of Transportation database would have given him the Saturn’s year, model, colour, and license number. He would alert the Calgary police, and every officer in the city would be watching for my car.

  If I could escape from the motel on foot, I might still be able to avoid capture…

  Swallowing my whimper of fear, I slipped out the door. Nobody seized me so I strode away, my back straight. A bus was pulling up to its stop only a hundred yards down the sidewalk, and I broke into a run and waved wildly at it. The driver mercifully waited, and I pounded up the steps and gave him a breathless ‘thank you’ while I excavated my change purse for the correct fare.

  Heart hammering, I fell into a seat.

  After several minutes of anxiously studying the surrounding traffic, I decided that nobody was about to pull us over. Time to figure out a plan.

  When the bus pulled into one of the LRT stations, I kept my head down. Too many cameras on the train platforms. My makeup might fool a human eye, but it didn’t alter the fundamental data points used by facial recognition software.

  After a nerve-wracking five minute wait, the bus left the station and turned off the main roads to wind through a residential area. The passengers slowly dwindled, and I got off while there were still a few people remaining on the bus. No need to attract attention by being the last one.

  The sidewalks were deserted and nothing moved behind the blank windows of the houses; but just in case someone was watching, I walked with a business-like stride as though I had a destination and a plan.

  Too bad I had neither.

  But maybe I could get some advice.

  Pulling out a burner phone, I dialled the number Moonbeam had given me. When she answered, I hung up without speaking.

  Next, Karma’s number. Then Skidmark’s. Each time I hung up.

  Then I kept walking. They would know it was me, and they’d call back when our conversation couldn’t be overheard.

  Minutes dragged by.

  Lacking any other ideas, I followed the bus route signs. At least I wouldn’t get completely lost.

  Dammit, what if Stemp’s parents hadn’t figured out my signal?

  But they had to know I was the one calling them. Surely nobody else would have all three of their burner numbers.

  Maybe they couldn’t talk. Maybe Stemp was there with them, pretending he’d taken a last-minute vacation so he could spend more time with them.

  Or maybe that ‘suspended from duty’ order had been the tip of the iceberg. What if they’d arrested Stemp? And what if Holt was handcuffing Stemp’s parents at this very moment?

  I groaned aloud. God, I could only imagine the shitstorm in the Department this morning…

  The ring of my burner phone made me twitch violently, and I punched the button and snapped, “Hello?”

  “Storm Cloud Dancer?”

  Moonbeam sounded cautious.

  “Can you talk?” I asked.

  “Yes. We weren’t sure whether your house was secure, so we’re walking outside. All three of us are listening in on this call. What’s wrong?”

  Sheer gratitude for their professionalism nearly closed my throat. “Have you spoken to Charles yet this morning?” I demanded.

  “No.” Fear knifed into Moonbeam’s voice. “Is he in danger?”

  Thank God. They hadn’t given him the burner number.

  “No,” I replied, hoping I wasn’t lying. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you…” Shit, now I needed a reason for my question. I blurted the first half-baked idea that came to mind. “It’s just that I… I think he might be in trouble at work… because we were working together.”

  “Oh, no. What happened? What kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t know; but that’s not actually why I’m calling you. I have a situation…” Stubborn pride made me choke off the words ‘and I need help’.

  Moonbeam’s voice turned crisp. “What is it?”

  First I had to uphold Stemp’s cover. No need to give him any more reasons to want me dead.

  I sighed and delivered a mix of truth and half-truth. “I’ve got several branches of la
w enforcement after me at the moment, and I expect that by now they’ve called Sirius looking for me. Since Charles and I were working together on that big audit, they might investigate him, too; or even suspend him until they’re sure he’s innocent.”

  “Law enforcement is seeking you? Why?”

  “I… might have been compromised. Or framed. Maybe both. Have you told anybody about the phone number I gave you yesterday?” I held my breath, afraid to hear the reply.

  “No, of course not.”

  My knees weakened with relief. “Thank you,” I croaked.

  “You were afraid they would trace you via the phone,” Moonbeam deduced. “Don’t worry. No one has asked us, and we wouldn’t divulge the number even if they had.”

  Thank God. I could keep being Teresa Diaz, and I still had a car and a place to live.

  “I destroyed the phone,” I said. “But I was worried that if you told them you didn't have my number and then they put you on a lie detector…”

  Moonbeam’s gentle chuckle interrupted me. “We were all trained long ago to withstand polygraph tests, Storm Cloud Dancer. We’ve beaten them many times. Please don’t concern yourself.”

  “That’s good, but there’s a new kind of lie detector. Classified.” I suppressed my momentary twinge of guilt over disclosing something I had no business sharing. “It reads brainwaves. It’s infallible.”

  “Oh.” Her word came out on a whoosh of breath as though she’d taken a punch to the stomach. “Oh, dear. That… could be problematic, indeed.”

  Sudden realization made me wince as though I’d just taken a blow, too. Dammit, it wasn’t only my ass on the line. If Stemp’s parents were taken in for questioning, their cover was at risk, too.

  And Holt wouldn’t hesitate to drag them in and subject them to the lie detector. He’d love the chance to take a shot at Stemp by harassing his parents. Asshole.

  And with Stemp suspended, Holt’s best buddy Dermott would be acting director. Dermott, with his casual disregard for protocol and due process. Oh, God.

  “If anybody asks for that number, just give it to them,” I urged. “If you don’t get caught in a lie, nobody will have any reason to suspect anything; and there would be no reason to drag you in for a lie detector test.”