Undeceived

by Cox, Karen M.

  “Never thought this would happen to you.”

  “What?”

  “Never thought you were the type to fall for the Darcy mystique.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw who brought you home. Nice little romantic scene in the driveway.”

  “No one likes a voyeur.” Elizabeth’s cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment. “Darcy and I have gotten to know each other over the last several months.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Let’s just say, I’ve discovered he improves on acquaintance.”

  “Does he now? Has he stopped massaging the facts to cast himself in the best light? Does he no longer treat everyone he considers beneath him with contempt? Is he no longer a pompous ass?”

  “You misunderstand me. When I say he improves on acquaintance, I don’t mean that he has really changed all that much, but rather that my opinion of him improved the longer I knew him.”

  “Best watch yourself. He’ll bury you to suit his own agenda—just like he did me.”

  “You would have liked to stay in the field?”

  “Very much. I was a good field officer.”

  An image of Georgina swam before her eyes, and anger shot through her. “Bullshit. Just bullshit! I’ve seen the tapes. I’ve read the reports. I’ve got a damned file on you. I know now you weren’t quite the field officer you claimed to be. I learned your screw-ups led to Jirina’s capture, despite Darcy’s attempts to protect her, and that you somehow bamboozled the director into investigating Darcy because he reported you.” She reached inside her bag and put her hands on her revolver, just in case she needed it. “I know the story, and now I’m wondering if Jirina’s capture was only the result of your incompetence or there was more to it than you led me to believe.”

  “I’m not sure I like what you’re suggesting.” His voice was cool, but she saw the flush of temper on his face.

  “Did you set Jirina up to betray her to the Czechoslovakian secret police? Are you setting me up tomorrow too? Are you on the Soviets’ payroll to solve your financial woes?”

  He pulled a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket, lit it, and studied her. “You really think I’m capable of that?”

  “I’m curious as to why, instead of answering me directly, your default response is to answer a question with a question.”

  He bolted upright in his chair, making her jump. “Damn it, Lizzy! What do you expect me to say? You’ve got your damn information from the FBI and think you know it all. What answer could I give that you would even believe at this point?”

  She didn’t respond, not knowing what answer would possibly convince her.

  “That’s what I thought.” He scanned the room for an ashtray and, not finding one, stepped over to the sink to tap the ashes off his smoke. He took another drag off of it then stubbed it out.

  “Tell you what, Officer Bennet. I’ll check the drop tomorrow. You can just go along for the ride. You’ll see that, not only am I on the up and up, but this new asset is everything I said he’d be.”

  “You’ll check the drop?”

  “Of course. I know there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “It’s my job to check the drop, and I always do my job.”

  “I said I’ll do it.” His voice was tinged with irritation. “You can still send the message to Langley and ‘do your job.’ And I will get my job back. This mission will show that I’m still good enough for fieldwork. No one can argue with me after I bring in a big fish like Viceroy.”

  “That’s a stupid code name,” Elizabeth muttered under her breath.

  “You think? The director came up with it.” He grinned, a shadow of his old charm, but it was unsubstantial, fleeting, like the man himself. “You’re one to talk about stupid code names, Fine Eyes. The eyes aren’t your best feature, by the way.” His gaze roamed her figure.

  She watched his every move as he made his way to the door and turned back to face her.

  “So yeah, I’ll check the drop. You come along to play witness and take my triumph back to Langley and to Darcy since you and he are”—he air quoted with a smirk—“close now. Let him gnaw on my success awhile. He can’t stop me forever. I’ll be back in the field in no time.”

  “Fine then. Suit yourself. You can check the drop.” Elizabeth crossed her arms and stared him down. “Now, if you don’t mind, tomorrow’s an early day, and I need some sleep. My vacation wore me out.”

  “Sad. Not so much a woman of the eighties now, are we? Just like every other female agent since the OSS: dangle a man in front of her and her brain goes to mush. And they say men think with their dicks.”

  “I won’t remind you what a hypocrite you are. Poor Lidia.”

  “Who?” He chuckled. “Just kidding. I remember her. I remember all of them. Pick you up at 5:30 a.m. Drop is right after dawn, but we’ll surprise him. I want you to actually lay eyes on the son-of-a-bitch. That should prove it to you. Good night, Ms. Bennet. I’ll show myself out.”

  “Asshole,” she said as she locked the door after him. “Just get through tomorrow, Elizabeth. After that, you’ll never have to see George Wickham again.”

  ***

  He was late. No surprise there. His horn blared in the pre-dawn light, and she climbed into his rented Jeep without a word. They rode in silence down to the secluded cove on the leeward side of Tobago. Elizabeth could hear the ocean as they approached the predetermined drop point. She’d agreed to it, but now that she was here, she didn’t like it. Left to her own devices, she would have bolted.

  “This is sketchy, George. I don’t like the isolation, the time of day. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Viceroy wants privacy. He says the intel he has will shake up the agency, and he’s nervous about being identified. He doesn’t want the local CIA involved.”

  She pulled out her pistol, checked it.

  “Glad to see you’re armed. Try not to shoot me in the dark though.”

  “And you do the same.”

  He cut the engine and rolled to a stop beside the path. “We’ll walk in from here.”

  “The message said the drop is beside a rock formation down next to the water.”

  As they approached the knoll above the meeting place, the crashing of the waves grew louder. Looking down on the beach, Elizabeth saw a lone figure approach. Asset looked male, about five foot ten, she observed. Short hair, but it was still too dark to see his face.

  “There he is. See: real person, real asset. No funny stuff. No KGB. We’re all alone—just the three of us.”

  “Yeah.” She folded her arms across her chest, rubbing them to shake the sudden chill. The man knelt down beside the rocks, fumbled in the dark for a minute, then walked away, scanning all around him before he disappeared into the trees.

  “Okay, I’m going down there. Wait. Shit.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t have my flashlight. It’s darker than I thought it would be. I’m gonna have trouble finding the drop among those rocks.”

  “Maybe you should have waited until the appointed time like he said. Then you’d have sunlight.”

  “Run back and get the flashlight for me, would you? It’s in the glove box.”

  Elizabeth sighed, exasperated. “I’m not your flunky.”

  “Just get the damn light, Lizzy. I’ll meet you down there.”

  She trudged back to the Jeep and began digging through the papers, wrappers, and junk. She found the flashlight and closed her hand around it. That’s when she heard the gunshot.

  Her heart leaped into her throat, preventing her scream from escaping. At the same instant, she rose up and hit her head on the roll bar. Still seeing stars before her eyes, she reached for her pistol a
s she stumbled down the path toward the beach. She’d gotten maybe fifty feet when someone took her to the ground. Fighting, she wiggled away, but he caught her legs and held her down. Her gun had been knocked out of her hand, and it was lying on the sand just out of reach. She made a sound of terror, of desperation, and fought even harder when he covered her mouth.

  “Shh, shh, darling. Elizabeth. Shh, now. The shooter hasn’t left yet.”

  She froze.

  “You’re okay. It’s me. It’s William.” He stroked her hair, brought her head to his shoulder as they lay on the sand.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Shh. I’ll explain later. Are you hurt?” With shaking hands, he cataloged her limbs, her torso, her face, checking for injuries.

  “No.” She wanted to sob, to babble, so she pressed her lips together firmly to keep any sound to herself.

  Staying low to the ground, he led her by the hand toward the knoll overlooking the beach. Right before they reached the crest, he dropped to his belly and commando crawled up to peek over the ridge. He pulled small night-vision binoculars out of his shirt pocket and adjusted them.

  Elizabeth had calmed enough to stop perceiving time as if it were stretched and distorted. She lay beside Darcy as he watched the scene below. In the predawn, she could see the shooter, a dark form running toward the rocks. She saw him crouch, roll his victim over, and sit back suddenly. Then he stood, running fingers through his hair as he paced back and forth a few times before picking up something and flinging it into the sea. She heard a roar of frustration, and then he turned, heading back to the other side of the beach.

  “Got the wrong officer, didn’t ya, asshole?” Darcy muttered.

  Elizabeth heard an engine roar to life then fade off into the distance.

  “I bet he doesn’t know you’re here. He thinks Wickham came alone, last minute change of plans. He might double around to Wickham’s Jeep to make sure, though. We need to get out of here.”

  “We can’t just leave George down there.”

  “We won’t if we can help it.” He cradled the side of her face, forcing her to look at him. “You didn’t bring anything with you, did you?”

  “Nothing except my weapon.” She crawled forward to grab it.

  “No papers, no keys still in the Jeep?”

  “No. Spy Rule Number Five, remember? When sneaking around and worried you might get caught, leave your ID at home. And I hid my key outside the villa.”

  “Good girl. Now we don’t have to risk going back.”

  “How will we get out of here?”

  “I have a way. Come on.” He led her down to the beach, using the foliage to mask their approach until they had to step out into the open. “Cover me,” he whispered and took off toward the rocks where Wickham lay in the sand.

  She moved toward the two men, the ocean at her back as she scanned back and forth, pistol at the ready.

  “I think we’re in the clear.” She squatted down next to Wickham’s head. “Surely he would have taken a shot at us by now if he was still around. How’s Wickham?”

  Darcy looked at her, his mouth set in a grim line and shook his head.

  The heavy presence of Death lurked at the edges of the scene as the red light of dawn crept toward them over the sand. “Oh, surely not, Darcy. He can’t die.” She began to inspect the wound. “At least he’s not conscious.”

  “Not at the moment. He was a second ago.”

  “Did he know who shot him?”

  “I don’t know. He only said, ‘Should’ve known. Wilhelm.’”

  “That’s the name—”

  “Anneliese gave me before she died, I remember.” Darcy yanked off his shirt as he talked, and used it to cover Wickham’s wound. “Help me take him down to the water. Mrs. G brought a boat down here yesterday. It’s anchored just beyond that grove of trees.”

  “You followed me?”

  “Yes.” His reply was terse, without apology.

  Moving Wickham was a risky business, but with Elizabeth’s help, Darcy managed to heave him over his shoulder. She covered them while they made their way to Darcy’s Zodiac boat. While Darcy pulled up the anchor, Elizabeth found the first aid kit and rifled through it, but there was little besides clean gauze. The two of them said nothing but became more somber by the minute. Wickham’s wound was serious, more so than Darcy’s gunshot in East Berlin. It was becoming clear there was little she could do.

  Darcy’s hands flew over the console as he started the boat, steered out of the bay with a terrific spray of water, and picked up the radio mouthpiece. “Henry? I’ve got a medical emergency here. No, it isn’t me. Have a team standing by. If he makes it, they’ll probably air-vac him to San Juan or Miami.”

  Elizabeth startled at the movement beside her. “He’s coming to.”

  “You?” George gasped.

  “I’m fine. You will be too after they fix you up.”

  He croaked something unintelligible.

  “Hurry, William.” But she knew he was going as fast as he could.

  “Tell Darcy…” He grimaced and tried to bend his torso.

  “Shh, lie still, George.”

  “Sorry. About Jirina.”

  “You can tell him.”

  “No. I can’t.” And he was gone.

  The boat bounced and swayed, throwing the occasional sea spray over them. The bright morning sun lent a surreal quality to the trip—a boat ride with a dead man’s head in her lap. A part of her wanted to scramble as far from him as she could, but she sat there, unable to move, and for a moment, unable to breathe.

  Darcy seemed to understand the shock and her need for silence. Finally, he broke the quiet with another call on his radio.

  “Henry? Change of plans. Have the coroner meet us at the dock. And I’ll need secure transport back to my office.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “For two.”

  Within hours, George’s body was on a US government jet to the States, the local police were satisfied and/or bribed with the story of two lovers finding a dead body on a deserted beach, and Elizabeth was sitting in Darcy’s office in Port of Spain, chewing on her thumb and trying to place a call to Charlotte Lucas at the FBI.

  “Ms. Lucas is out of the office until next week. Is there someone else who can help you, Ms. Bennet?”

  “When did she leave?” It was unlikely that Charlotte would take a vacation, not when they were in the middle of designing a trap to use on the mole.

  “Two—no, three days ago.”

  “Did she tell you exactly when she’d be back?”

  “Actually, I didn’t talk to her myself. Someone else took the message. Said she and her boyfriend took a trip.”

  Charlotte’s not seeing anyone. “Can someone just please call and check on her?”

  “We can go by her place, but if she isn’t there, there’s not much we can do. If she doesn’t turn up at the time she said she would, you can file a missing person’s report.”

  “This is ridiculous! She’s an FBI agent. Somebody over there can bloody well find her!”

  The voice stiffened. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll report your concern.”

  She slammed the receiver onto the cradle with a satisfying thud.

  Darcy came in behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got some instructions from headquarters.”

  Elizabeth’s voice shook. “What is going on?”

  “Somebody tried to kill you today.”

  “I know that! Don’t patronize me, Darcy. I want to know why.”

  “My guess is you’ve hit awfully close to a nerve. You’ve found something that has made you dangerous to a well-buried double agent.”

  “But what, specifically, would that be?”

  “Tell me what you’ve been work
ing on.”

  “Translations, mostly. From various departments.”

  “That’s all?”

  She started to open her mouth and shut it tight.

  Darcy swore. “You can’t tell me. Damn it!” He paced to the office window and back. When he turned, the famous Darcy scowl was firmly in place.

  “Elizabeth, answer me honestly: Am I still under suspicion?”

  “No. At least not as far as I know.”

  “As chief of station here, I should have been informed about this meeting of yours.”

  “I did inform you.”

  “I meant through formal channels. The director could have sent a dossier or even just made a damned phone call. Why won’t they trust me with intelligence operations going on in my own field office?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did the asset want to meet here on my island?”

  “I don’t know that either. Wickham let me have the assignment after I volunteered. He got permission from the director.”

  He paced back and forth behind his desk. “This is maddening. You’re being flown back to the US in two hours. They’re finding you a safe house now. I won’t know where or how to find you if you can’t tell me anything.”

  “I can’t, Darcy. It could spell trouble for you if you knew—and you don’t need any more trouble.”

  “The director has expressly forbidden me to accompany you back home.”

  Her chin rose with stubborn defiance although she fought to keep it from trembling.

  “I can go alone. I don’t need a babysitter or a knight in shining armor.”

  “Elizabeth.” He knelt down on one knee in front of her, a bizarre parallel to a proposal. But instead of declaring his feelings, his eyes bore into hers, trying to read her face. He took both her arms in his hands, slid them down to her hands.

  She looked down at their intertwined fingers. “Besides, you have a job here. I won’t have you jeopardize that for my sake.”