Operation Sheba

by Evans, Misty

  Of course, Conrad was right, she’d never killed anyone and she prayed she never had to. But she was CIA trained and still completed five hours of firearm training every week out of diligence to her previous life. She was more likely to shoot to injure but she could kill if necessary.

  Two pay phones hung on the wall near the restroom doors. A stained and tattered piece of paper was taped to one of the phones, announcing it was out of order. No doubt had been for years. She would have used her cell phone, but couldn’t take the chance anyone might pick up her conversation. Standing off to the side of the working phone, Julia glanced again at the men at the bar. Most had gone back to their glasses of beer, complaining about their wives or discussing sports. Dropping two coins in the phone, Julia dialed a number she had last used a lifetime ago.

  Two rings and she was connected. “Ace’s Mortuary,” answered one of Conrad’s favorite access agents. “You stab ’em, we’ll slab ’em.”

  “Did you know he was alive?” she asked over the background noise. Her pulse was pounding viciously as she waited for the answer she didn’t actually want to hear. There was a long pause and she knew Ace was trying to place her voice and put what she was asking in context.

  “I take it you’ve seen him?” His question answering hers.

  She grazed a finger over the buttons of the phone and tried to keep her voice from giving away the ecstatic relief and unbelievable hurt swirling around inside her heart. “He paid me a casual visit this morning.”

  “Casual?” Ace chuckled in her ear. “You ask me, wasn’t ever anything casual between Solomon and his queen.”

  Julia turned slightly and partially covered her mouth with a hand, keeping the bar patrons in her peripheral vision while blocking any spying eyes from reading her lips. “Can you get a message to him?”

  “No guarantees, but for you, Sheba, I’ll give it my best shot.”

  Julia knew Ace would dial Conrad’s number the moment she hung up. If there was anything about Ace that Conrad loved more than his ability to land Knicks tickets on a moment’s notice, it was his unquestioning loyalty. “The Queen of Sheba is being guarded closely. He should not, I repeat not, pay her a visit tonight.”

  A long pause. “Nothing else?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Oh yes, there was so much else. Tell him I hate him for his lie. That I’ll never forgive him. That I…that I missed him. That, God help me, I’m so glad he’s still alive…

  “No. Nothing else.” She surveyed the room again. A different man had slipped into the room and bellied up to the bar, his silver hair and crisp blue jeans looking oddly out of place with the rest of the patrons. Julia felt a twitch of fear in her gut. “Take care, Ace,” she said into the phone.

  “Ditto, Queen.”

  She hung up and stood for a moment watching the silver-haired man. He didn’t look her way, but she could sense his hyperawareness. Was he a tail? Only one way to find out.

  Several men at the bar leered at her as she walked past, offering a beer or a pinch on her ass. The silver-haired man continued to ignore her. Pushing through the bar’s door, Julia fought the urge to run. Even if he was a tail from the Office of Security, he presented no real danger to her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. All she had to do was act normal.

  She slid behind the wheel of the Audi, locked her doors and started the engine. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly to calm her nerves and tried to recall the way the parking lot had looked before she went into the bar. Which car or truck was new? The red Honda? The Chevy Bronco? She scanned the area, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember. Your apprentice has lost her edge, Con. Slipping big time.

  Shaking her head, she put the car in drive and bumped her way out of the parking lot, watching her rearview mirror. It wasn’t until she was on the highway that she noticed the Audi’s hood bobbing slightly. Julia slapped the steering wheel. The Audi was nearing 180,000 miles and the metal release latch hidden in the grill had been loose for several months. An errant pothole or train track sometimes shook the latch enough to spring the hood.

  Julia took the first off-ramp and pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. She sat for several minutes scanning the traffic passing by. When there was no sign of a tail, she got out of the car and raised the hood, keeping one eye on the cars entering the parking lot. There was no such thing as being a little paranoid and all of Julia’s senses were on alert. She did a thorough check of the engine, and once she deemed it was clean, she slammed the lid and dropped to her hands and knees to examine the underbelly of the car. Again, nothing unusual. Standing up, she walked around the car, running her hands in the wheel wells and the undersides of the bumpers looking for tracking devices. All she came up with was a dirty hand. Sinking back into the Audi’s driver seat, she found her antiseptic hand gel and cleaned up as best she could. Then she let out a deep sigh. What a way to live, she thought. And then, This is all Con’s fault, the dirty rotten sneak.

  The message light was blinking. Conrad pushed the play button.

  “An old and dear friend of yours asked me to give you a message,” Ace’s voice said. “It goes like this: The Queen of Sheba is being guarded closely. You should not, repeat not, pay her a visit tonight. End of message.” There was a slight pause. “Man, she’s pissed. I wish you luck, bro.”

  The line went dead and Flynn stood staring at the phone with his hands on his hips.

  Nice try, Jules. Like the Great Conrad Flynn couldn’t outsmart whatever surveillance and security the Agency could throw at him.

  He left his apartment, locking the door, and sauntered down the hall to Julia’s place.

  Hell, he smiled to himself, he already had.

  She couldn’t believe she was standing here. Keys out, poised to unlock the door. What the devil was she thinking?

  Oh, come on, Julia, her inner voice cajoled. You loved him, still love him, why wouldn’t you stay at your apartment tonight and wait for him just in case he does show up?

  She leaned her forehead against the door. Because by faking his own death, he nearly killed me too. Because if he could do that to me, I don’t want to be with him. She racked her brain for more. Because now there’s Michael.

  Michael. Conrad. Two very different men, and yet, on some level, the same. Both were puzzles she couldn’t completely figure out. Both were men she loved, respected.

  Just not the same way.

  Julia slid the key into the lock and let herself into the apartment.

  She stopped short at the sight of her favorite flowers, red and white tulips, overflowing from a glass vase on the diminutive entryway table. She was confused and alert at the same time. Assassins and terrorists rarely announced their presence with flowers, but then again some were very resourceful…

  Ex-lovers, even more.

  Considering her options, she brought out the SIG. It wouldn’t hurt to be prepared. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to scare the heck out of whomever it was—the dirty rotten sneak—just for good measure.

  Slipping her heels off, she dropped her purse quietly to the floor. Standing motionless, her back against the wall, she slowed her uneven breathing and listened. The unobtrusive clink of silverware met her ears. The aroma of sautéing onions wafted past her nose.

  Yep, ex-lover.

  Gun at her side, she walked soundlessly down the hall feeling pissed off and relieved at the same time. She passed the living room and bedroom. It didn’t surprise her Con had gotten in—he’d gotten into Michael’s house without so much as breaking a sweat and she had to find out how he did that—but she hoped he’d been diligent enough to scan the apartment for bugs before he’d announced his presence.

  She stopped in the kitchen doorway, scanning the room. Place settings for three had been squeezed onto her small dinette table. A single red tulip sat spotlighted under the low-hanging lamp. Con was at the stove, pushing chopped onion and mushrooms around in a frying pan. The blood red color of his Iow
a State University sweatshirt matched the New York strips lying on the counter nearby.

  Ryan Smith, in his standard polo shirt and chinos, was standing across from the sink, pouring wine into glasses. He looked up when she took a hesitant step forward and flashed her a big smile. “Welcome home, Sheba.” He walked toward her, offering one of the glasses. “How was your day at work? Kick any terrorist butt?”

  And just like that, Julia Torrison was back.

  Chapter Six

  Langley Michael closed Smith’s personnel file and threw it on top of Flynn’s. He rubbed his eyes and swiveled his chair to look outside. Darkness was falling and he wished he could to say to hell with it all and go home. Branches of the nearby pin oaks bowed effortlessly with the wind as if waving him away.

  He didn’t really want to go home though—Abby wouldn’t be there. Funny how fast he’d gotten used to her presence, how fast she had turned his home into hers. Unlike the other women he’d known, Abigail hadn’t forced herself into his life. She hadn’t been looking for the perfect man to hang on her arm and show off to her friends while she privately criticized his long hours at the office and nagged him relentlessly to give up confidential information on his network of spies.

  Spies, always a double-edged sword. He turned back to his desk, his fingers toying with the manila file folder still unopened. Julia Torrison, aka Abigail Quinn. He knew the information contained in the file by heart, but he opened and scanned the highlights of her Agency bio again.

  JULIA MARIE TORRISON

  SEX/F

  RAC/W

  POB/ILLINOIS

  DOB/060177

  HGT/5’4”

  WGT/125

  EYE/GRE

  HAI/BROWN

  LV/APT

  TWN/ARLING

  ST/VA

  EDU/BA-SYR UNIV

  LANG/FLUENT ITAL-FREN

  POSTGRAD/NO

  OCC/INTELANALYST-CIA

  A more reader-friendly report, updated the previous year, followed…

  Torrison is single with no children. Lives alone. Psychological profile is negative, but shows she is prone to taking risks and harbors resentment toward those in authority. Agency indicators reveal that Torrison is a high analytic and excels working with ideas and data, but forms strong attachments to those few she does befriend. Father is unknown. Mother Valerie (Torrison) Valhuis died in 1995 due to breast cancer. Stepfather James Valhuis remarried in 1997 and currently resides in Austin, TX. Brother Eric Valhuis currently resides in Baltimore, MD with his wife and two children.

  Her career with the CIA was revealed in general terms. Beginning as an intelligence analyst out of college, Torrison requested and was granted a transfer to field operations several years later. Torrison received multiple commendations for work in the field under COS Ryan Smith.

  Minute details concerning her level of involvement in operations were scant. Torrison served in Europe between 2001-2006, working legitimately as a translator at three different U.S. embassies while also conducting surveillance and other covert operations with Conrad Flynn.

  Besides her proficient language abilities, Torrison is highly skilled in computer technology and bomb making.

  Michael smiled to himself. Bomb making was indeed an interesting skill to have on your résumé. Her last official tour as a case officer ended in Berlin, Germany, in September 2006, when Flynn’s cover was blown and he was killed in a job-related accident.

  Deputy Director of Operations, Michael Stone, requested Torrison to return to the U.S. and resume duties at CIA headquarters in Langley in the Counterterrorism Center. Due to the circumstances surrounding her last assignment, a change of identity was initiated.

  Between him and Susan, they had transformed Julia Torrison into Abigail Quinn. And since that time, they’d lost four more agents. There was no doubt in Michael’s mind they were as dead as Flynn.

  Rubbing his eyes, he closed the file and quietly thanked God Susan had had the foresight to pull Julia out of the field. Swiveling his chair, he watched the trees bend in the wind again. Images of Conrad and Julia swirled in his brain.

  “What are you thinking about?” he’d asked her as they shared a lounge chair on the back deck of his house. The day was Abby’s thirtieth birthday and that was how she wanted to end it, there, alone with him, enjoying the fading colors of the sunset. Several birch logs popped and cracked in the fire kettle while the songs of crickets and frogs rose and fell in the night.

  She hadn’t answered immediately, sifting carefully, he was sure, through the memory in her head. She’d stared down at their legs, his perfectly outlining hers, and traced the edge where skin met skin. Her face was partially hidden from his view.

  “Isolation,” she murmured.

  He’d taken his turn at being quiet. Agency interpreters long ago had classified the woman in his arms as a high analytic with a corresponding high level of introversion. She craved solitude, preferred to work alone, and sought companionship on a one-on-one basis. A lone wolf to whom isolation was comfortable. Even then, Michael knew their conversation was somehow linked to a past that hung in the shadows of their relationship. He’d rested a hand on her stomach and waited for her to continue.

  “Isolation and Interrogation is where it really started for me,” she told him. “My training leader at the Farm thought he would get me to confess to the usual list of false crimes, conspiracy and espionage particularly, the way he had everyone else in the class up to that point.”

  She’d paused for a moment and he’d felt her sadness enveloping them. “The first twenty-four hours he left me in a cell with nothing but a pot to pee in. Isolation, however, didn’t bother me. When he came back after the first day and told me to confess, I laughed at him.

  “But of course, he was smart. He went back and read my file more thoroughly and figured out the way to break me was to overwhelm me with social interaction instead. So he began sending small groups of soldiers into the cell to verbally accost me. Every few hours a fresh set would enter the room, corner me and get in my face. They screamed at me, sang to me, told me vulgar jokes. Another twenty-four hours passed without a moment’s peace.”

  She’d sighed and he’d caressed strands of her hair lying on his chest, sending her silent encouragement through the stroke of his fingertips.

  “About four o’clock in the morning, my leader sent the last group of soldiers out of the cell and went for the confession again.”

  Sitting up, she’d pulled away from Michael and brought her knees to her chest. “He’d broken me, but he didn’t know it. When he told me to confess, I didn’t react at all. So he moved in closer.

  “I didn’t acknowledge he was there, mostly because my brain was fried. He decided to force a confession out of me. He pushed me up against the wall, pinned my arms at my sides, and whispered in my ear…”

  Leaning forward, Michael slipped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her hair. “What did he say?”

  She’d struggled to keep emotion out of her voice, but Michael heard it anyway. “He said, ‘I would love to kiss you.’”

  He couldn’t miss the humor, but he still had stiffened at the inappropriate behavior of the trainer. “He made a pass at you?”

  Abby had nodded. “Since he was in such close proximity to me, he left himself open to my knee and I drove his balls about six inches into his body. His sudden physical contact had sent me right over the edge. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, I suppose. He stayed standing for a couple of seconds, but then went down to his knees, and as he did, I pulled his gun out of his waistband and pointed it at his head.

  “‘The price of a kiss is your life,’ I told him. I honestly thought about pulling that trigger too, but at the last second I threw the gun on the ground instead. I like to believe I never would have pulled the trigger, no matter how strung out I was.”

  Her fingers had combed through her hair. “Of course, that effectively ended the training session and landed me a t
horough psych evaluation.”

  Michael hadn’t tried to stop the slow rumble of laughter erupting from deep in his stomach. “Jesus, I bet he was pissed.”

  Abigail had laughed too. “He was and I knew enough about him to be scared shitless once my brain was functioning normally again. He had been a Navy SEAL, an SAS trainer for the Agency and a CIA operator in Germany for a year before they rotated him back to the Farm to train recruits. Susan said he was the best and she liked pulling him in to train whenever she could. Embarrassing him like that in front of his fellow trainers and the class wasn’t my best move. He passed me anyway.”

  “Did you ever grant him his wish, let him kiss you?”

  She’d nodded and understanding dawned on him. He couldn’t help but ask, “Who was it?”

  A spark from the fire had caught Michael’s attention as it was lifted into the dark by the wind. “Conrad Flynn,” she’d answered.

  “You had no right to screw with my life, Flynn.”

  Conrad watched her carefully, felt his pulse beating a tad faster than he wanted it to as his gaze slid over her in a quick inventory. God, he just wanted to stand there and soak her up. Wisps of chestnut brown curls framed her face and lay on the shoulders of her double-breasted jacket. The blush-pink suit accentuated the delicate curves of her body. Her toenails sported deep bubble gum pink polish. He swallowed hard, forcing his gaze back to hers.

  The words had been said with no emotion, just a statement of fact from the Queen of Reason. Her face was expressionless, her eyes guarded. As always, an excellent poker player.

  But she was holding her gun, finger on the trigger. A personal tic that betrayed her feelings. Flynn shifted his weight, fought the urge to step back. At least the gun isn’t pointed at me…yet.