by CD Reiss
I sit at my desk with a deep feeling of sadness. My life hasn’t changed one bit from even twelve hours before. But I’ve changed. I’ve gotten stupid.
His text weighs on me. Every sip of coffee, every answered email, every time a bird chirps outside, I’m aware of the minutes that pass without me responding.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what he intends. I’m afraid that if I answer him, I’ll discover another facet to him and I won’t have a choice but to see if that’s the last level of complexity to Keaton Bridge.
I want him. I know that. I don’t know how to want him. I don’t know how to let myself make it possible.
I write down the letters and numbers he made me memorize. I try a few things that fail, but after that, I don’t know what to do with them, and to be honest, if I did know, nothing would change. Once I use whatever information he gives me, he’s an asset and I’m cutting off the possibility of a relationship. There would be paperwork and questions. Until then, he exists in the netherworld between a problematic tryst and an ethical lapse.
—Be ready 5pm on Friday. We’re
going on a short holiday—
My chest is a balloon filling, squeezing the walls of my heart tighter and tighter. I’ll touch something—a piece of fabric, the silicone grip of a new pen, the smooth glass of my computer monitor—and wonder if he’s thinking about me. Does he feel the creases in his bedsheets, the damp warmth of a coffee cup, the yielding inside of a loaf of bread and think of me? Because I think of him. I want to stop, but I can’t. I text him back and hit Send before I think too hard.
—You’re going to make it all the way
from Uzbekistan by Friday?—
—An ocean cannot separate us —
“You all right?” Frieda says as she passes my desk.
“Fine.” I put my phone facedown.
“The pay grade packet’s going to be late. Coming on Monday.”
“Maybe they were waiting for Ken to get mobile. He’ll get his transfer when they announce, I guess.” I look up at her. She’s clutching her coffee cup, and her one eyebrow is shorter for being knotted in the middle.
“And I’m sure you will too. One hundred percent. You earned it.”
“We should have some preemptive champagne this weekend.” My voice is flat, because one, I’m not getting promoted, and two, making plans with her means I’m not going to have a bag packed on Friday at five.
“Nope.” She thwarts all my quickly laid plans. “I won’t jinx it.”
Sometimes, I wish Frieda wasn’t so superstitious.
Now isn’t one of those times.
27
keaton
Get a handle on yourself, man.
I tell myself this about every fourteen seconds. I feel unglued. I blame this feeling on the fact that she and I have unfinished business, but I fear it’s her I miss.
I flew into San Francisco for a simple meeting with an agenda that had been set, but I needed to change everything. Every step into the stone courtyard and every click of my heels on the marble floors of the British consulate is a punctuation in the paragraph of my revised intentions.
By the time I’m in the waiting room, I’m dissatisfied with what I have done for her and with her. I’m dissatisfied with what I’ve taken, what I’ve given, and what I’ve sacrificed, and I don’t know what to do about it. I only know I need more time to do it.
Betty, the receptionist, has a master’s in political science. She knows me. She knows I’ll refuse tea, but she offers it anyway and goes about her work. The leather chair squeaks under me when I shift. I don’t know what to do with my body. It wants to be inside Cassie, smell her, taste her, feel her texture from the lining out. I start to consider crazy things, then stop myself.
I’m not here to ruin her life, but if I keep thinking about taking her with me, I most certainly will. She’ll be separated from her grandmother, the only family she has. She’ll be torn away from the job she’s dedicated her life to. All the work she’s put into separating herself from her mother’s criminal past will be wasted.
This is not about me. This is not about what I want. This is about her. And I hate it. I hate it with a bloody rage I can barely contain. I tap my fingers on the wooden arm of the chair, cross about leaving without her, panicking about staying with her.
I remind myself that I don’t panic. It’s not in my repertoire.
All I ever wanted was to go home. That’s all I’ve been driving toward for the past three years. And now I’ve added another contingency to something that is already nearly impossible to plan.
I’m a patient man. My plans are incremental. Long term. I am not a child.
But she makes me want to throw it all away.
“David,” the ambassador says as he shakes my hand. He’s a greying man with the friendly mask and calculating eyes of a diplomat. We walk toward his office. “How’s the factory coming?” He closes the door behind us. “On schedule, I hope.”
His office has been the same since I was a boy, with leather books, leather chairs, deep-green wallpaper, and a Persian carpet his father brought home from his days as a Field General.
I can tell he does not have good news. I sit.
He snaps a glass off the bar. “Whiskey?”
“You ask me that every time.”
“This time you may need it.”
“Are Mum and Dad all right?”
“Right as rain, far as I know. You should call them.” The bottle clicks on the edge of his glass. “Tell me about QI4.”
I sit in the leather chair I always sit in, and he unbuttons his jacket before sitting across from me.
“You know Taylor,” I say. “He’s not building a factory, he’s building an empire.”
“I trust he can take care of it.”
“He can.”
“Good.” He folds his hands in front of him. “Because we have a change of plans.”
Hope races with fear and wins, taking a victory lap before I utter the first word. “How much so?”
“There’s chatter. It may be nothing. The bureau and some white supremacists got in a row?”
“With guns, apparently.”
“Right. Chatter’s about your involvement.”
“Mine?” I press my fingertips to my chest as if I can defend the idea that I had nothing to do with it.
“Kaos thinks it was you.”
With the simple utterance of a boastful Internet name, the sparks of hope sputter out and the fear catches fire. I know the real identity behind the avatar. I know that I have alerted him to the fact that I’m not who he thinks I am, or for that matter, who anybody thinks I am. This is why I’m so careful, and this is why looking for Third Psyche must have opened Kaos’s eyes to what was in front of him all along.
“He’s paranoid.” I’m stating the obvious.
“Indeed. But you knew once you went visible with Taylor Harden, they’d stop trusting you. And now that we know Kaos runs Third Psyche, we can see just how paranoid he is.”
Kaos is very dangerous. I’ve worked with him, so I know. But I want to get this discussion over with so I can tell the ambassador I need another month or two. I can’t disappear so soon.
“The fact that I didn’t sell him out to the FBI is irrelevant, I presume.”
“Well…” The ambassador takes a swig of his whiskey and clicks his glass down. “It wasn’t anyone. He mucked it up himself and needs someone to blame.”
All I can think about is the positive. All I gravitate toward is the hopeful. In no time at all, I’ve become a little boy in the park throwing sticks with his dog. Everything is just roses and honey cakes. The future is all possibilities.
“Is everything still in order?” I ask.
“Yes, but we have to move the timeline.”
“I need more time,” I say before he can tell me where he’s moving it. I don’t even recognize my voice, it’s so calm, so flat, so businesslike in its denial of my actual emotions. “
I need to stay another few months.”
“You’re leaving in two weeks.”
I don’t have extra weeks or months or years to spend with Cassie or anybody. I won’t be able to set Taylor up completely, but he doesn’t need me. Not really. And if I’m being honest with myself, Cassie doesn’t need me either.
What I need has changed. My hope illustrated that a little too clearly.
It’s as if I’ve learned nothing since the morning I slipped in my dog’s guts and MI6 relocated us for our safety.
“What?”
“You’ll have a fresh passport. New name. Bank account. Everything as planned, but sooner. You’re going to die in a fiery crash instead of drowning, if it’s all the same to you. Your parents are looking forward to seeing you again.”
“I need…” I drift off. I miss them.
I need more time.
I need to see if what I feel for her is real.
“You need to make sure you’ve done what you wanted for Taylor.”
Taylor? Shit. He’ll be fine.
The ambassador leans over and folds his hands in front of him. His right middle finger taps the wedding band on his left hand. “We have moles in Kaos’s operation telling us he feels particularly betrayed by your new habit of doing the FBI’s bidding. It’s a damn near obsession.”
“He and I had a lot of good times. He’s leaning on them.”
“If you’re defining ‘good times’ as moving money and guns, then I don’t think he’s leaning on any actual warm feelings.”
“Funny how I was never actually the mole.”
“Maybe he’s realizing what you actually were.” He picks up his glass again, rolling the bottom edge on the table before taking a sip. “Be that as it may, we’re working on neutralizing him.”
“You haven’t been able to neutralize him in twelve years. What makes you think you can do it now?”
“He’s after you, and that creates a vulnerability. A sniper has to stick his head out to see his target. That’s our opportunity. The plan is, you disappear for a couple of days. He’ll try to find you, we grab him.”
“And if it works? We push my timeline further out?” That hope again, glowing like the last coal in the dying fire. The ambassador is discussing life or death, and I seem to be guided by the unpredictable dictates of my dick. But that’s not fair, not even to my dick. It’s my heart that’s doing the hoping.
“If you like,” the ambassador replies, opening his drawer and taking out a black thumb drive. “But you know these people are like roaches behind the cupboards. Just smash one against the counter and forty more will come out when you shut the lights.”
“And here I am, thinking you grew up in Kensington.”
He slides the drive across the desk. I pick it up, flipping it between my fingers. It’s completely nondescript.
“We’ve been invested in your safety since you were a lad, and we protect our investments. You have a room booked in beautiful Las Vegas for two nights.”
I groan. “My God, man. Vegas?”
“Lay low. Eyes open. When you’re back, we’ll discuss the timeline.”
I’m about to leave when something occurs to me. “Are you working with the Yanks on this one?”
“Of course I can’t say, but I can tell you what you already know. Keyser Kaos is targeting agents.”
I know what he means immediately. He means the shootout, but he also means future tactics. I’ve never seen anyone on the dark web takes things more personally than this fucking crew.
“Ruthless, these fellows. Ruthless but not reckless. We’ll get them. Don’t fret.”
Fret. He says it as if I’m worried the milk might be a little off. Or that Manchester United might choke at the last minute. Indeed, it’s his job to make everything seem as though a stiff upper lip was a cure, rather than an attitude. I’m not in the mood. I want to get back to Doverton. I never thought I’d say those words, even to myself. But I need to look at Cassie. Make sure that she safe. And not just safe, but happy.
I’m going to fret long and hard until I know that any threats against her are neutralized.
“If you don’t get them, I will.” I stand and pocket the black drive. “Mark my words. I know I promised you that once I was gone, I wouldn’t resurface to pay any old debts or get vengeance. I wasn’t dishonest but if he’s a loose end, I might turn myself into a liar.”
“Trust us. We’ll clear this up.”
We shake on it, and though I trust his intentions, I don’t trust that faith, luck, or some combination of incompetence and overzealousness won’t leave Cassie Grinstead exposed.
That will not do. That will not do at all.
I text her from the building lobby.
—Be ready 5pm on Friday. We’re
going on a short holiday—
* * *
I need to figure out Cassie before I go. I need to see her away from everything. To give us time to be us, then I’ll know what to do.
I check my texts.
—You’re going to make it all the way
from Uzbekistan by Friday?—
She noticed my VPN server’s geotag. Clever, clever girl. How long will it take me to get to the end of my fascination with her?
— An ocean cannot separate us—
* * *
She has a black leather bag that she holds in one hand. Jeans, trainers, a V-neck T-shirt that shows just enough of what I’d love to get my lips on.
I get out, pop the boot, and take her bag. “You ready then?”
“Where are we going?”
“Las Vegas.”
She claps three times and almost jumps up and down. She’s on tiptoes when she stops herself.
“I take it you like Vegas?”
“Never been.” She’s smiling like a Cheshire cat.
“Don’t get knocked up!” Her grandmother waves from the front stoop in lavender polyester pants and white turtleneck with a teddy bear on it. She’s wearing a down coat, slippers, and telling her granddaughter not to get pregnant.
“Not on my watch!” I shout back.
“Nice boy.” She wags her finger at her granddaughter as if Cassie had told her I wasn’t nice. Grandma obviously knows best. I could be brilliantly nice.
I slap the boot closed. “Your grandmother is a wise, wise woman. You should take her advice more often.”
“I’m so sure.” She waves at Grandma, who sits on an aluminum chair at the top of the steps. “I never asked what you guys talked about the other night,” Cassie continues. “Or, actually even last night. What time did you get to my house? What did she tell you?”
“Aren’t we curious?” I give her bottom an affectionate swipe as I pass to open the passenger side door.
She stands still in front of the door for a second, meeting my eyes before getting in. “We are. Mostly because you’re a puzzle.”
“She told me about your grandfather and how she wanted you to do better.”
“I’ve already done better.”
I have nothing to say to that. When she sits, I close the door, wave to her grandmother, and we’re off.
28
cassie
“You can stay through Monday, no?” Keaton asks.
I can. I have a personal day I haven’t taken from last year. “Y—wait. How did you know that?”
“Oh, please, Agent. You had your fingers all over my data. To wit—the direction of my school portrait and my results, which were quite adequate, thank you. If you can use your privileges as a federal agent to see if I am who I say I am, then I can use whatever methods I have at my disposal.”
“I’m not a career criminal.”
“Is that so?”
With three words, he shut me right up. My point was meant to land like a hammer but fizzled like a fuse without a firecracker at the end. I’d told him about my years of training in the arts of the long and short confidence game, and I was sure he hadn’t forgotten the incident that ended with me sliding his w
allet across a dinner table.
My ideas about who I am and who I was raised to be intersect where Keaton Bridge and I connect.
“Point in fact.” I hold up a finger. “You’re hiding something from me. I can’t tell what it is, but there’s something going on with you and that database. You’re withholding. Omitting. Both. You can tell me now. Or I can figure it out. If I have to figure it out, I’m going to be really pissed off.”
He turns toward me at a traffic light. Are his pupils dilated because it’s getting darker? Or have I said something that causes a physical reaction? My skin tingles at the tips of my fingers and in the crevices between my legs. It’s that dangerous side. The side I’ve challenged to speak truthfully. The side I’ve threatened with my anger. I fear this, and I like it. I want to scoop it up like a palmful of fresh water and drink from the heels of my hands as sheets of him spill down my forearms.
“Do not threaten me, my artful dodger.” His voice is a little lower and as serious as a gunshot wound.
I am not afraid.
“You think you can take me in a fight?” I’m only half joking. I can take down bigger and better trained men. But I know he’s not talking about hand-to-hand combat.
“If there is ever a time I don’t tell you something, the omission is for your own good.”
“What’s that code you made me remember?”
“What code?”
I rattle it off.
“That code is everything you need to know,” he says.
“Keaton!”
“Let’s make a deal, love. You tell me everything that you have failed to mention. And I will tell you things you have no business knowing.”
“You know I can’t talk freely about my job.”
“I can’t talk freely about mine either. You know what you’re involved with here.” He taps his middle finger on his sternum. “And I’m pretty clear about what I’m involved with.” He reaches for me, glancing over so he can place his fingers on my sternum.