by Tom Clancy
Uh-oh, I think.
She has a grocery bag full of stuff. “Where’s the kitchen?” she asks.
“Right here,” I reply, pointing to the archway to my left.
“Oh, so it is. Nice place, Sam. You have all this to yourself?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Must be nice.” She puts the bag on the counter. “Okay, you go finish your workout, take a shower, and by then breakfast will be ready.”
“I’m done with the workout. Really.”
“Then go get cleaned up.” She bats her eyes at me. I get the hint; she doesn’t want me to watch her cook.
When I come back down after showering and dressing, the table in the dining room is set with two places and lit candles. She’s brought her own china and a bottle of champagne. In my spot there’s one of those stupid little party hats that reads BIRTHDAY BOY on it.
“Katia, this is beautiful,” I say.
“Sit down, big boy, and put on your hat.”
“Katia, I’m not going to wear that hat.”
She sticks out her tongue at me and goes back into the kitchen. I sit and put on the hat anyway, feeling like an idiot. When she returns carrying a tray of stuff, she sees me and laughs. “Oh, that is too precious for words.”
“Can I take it off now?”
“Oh, all right. I don’t want to snicker all through our meal.”
The breakfast is amazing. She serves omelets made with three different cheeses, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and spinach. We have bagels and lox. A side plate holds a variety of fruit. There’s fresh orange juice as well as champagne.
“Damn, Katia. I guess you’ll have to marry me,” I say facetiously.
“Is that a proposal?”
I don’t answer. Instead I hold up my champagne glass for a toast. She clicks my glass with hers. “Happy birthday, Sam,” she says.
“Thanks.”
And we begin to eat. Our conversation feels awkward at first. It’s like it usually is when we go out for coffee. There’s that underlying sexual tension I normally like to deny is there. She knows it’s there, too, but pretends that it isn’t simply because I’m not acknowledging it. We talk of the class, discuss some of the talented students, and eventually the subject turns into our respective careers.
“I’m pretty happy just teaching Krav Maga,” she says. “I never aspired to anything else. I’m probably too old to be a mother and too young to retire.”
“Can you make ends meet just teaching those classes?” I ask. “And by the way, you’re not too old to be a mother, if that’s what you really want.”
She shakes her head. “No, I am too old. I wouldn’t want to go through that in my late thirties. Having babies is something twenty-somethings do. And to answer your question, no, I don’t make ends meet just teaching. But I have some income in a trust that my father set up before he died. As long as I don’t go crazy at the mall once a month, I’ll do okay with what I make.”
I decide not to push the baby issue. “Where is your mother? Do you have siblings?”
“She and my younger sister live in California. San Diego. In fact, I’m going there in a couple of days. I meant to tell you. There’s no class next week. I’ll let everyone else know by e-mail. I’m gonna stay for about a week, I hope. I was thinking of maybe going up to the wine country afterward but I’m not sure. Or maybe L.A.”
“That sounds nice,” I say. “I could use a vacation, too.”
“You? Mister travel-around-the-world?”
“That’s work. Believe me, I don’t relax when I’m traveling.”
“Just what is it you really do, Sam? And don’t tell me you’re in goddamned sales. I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“I am in sales. Sort of. International relations between the U.S. and companies that provide a lot of goods that Americans can’t get anywhere else. I guess I’m what you might call an information gatherer and troubleshooter.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You work for the government. That’s what you do.”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“Come on, Fisher. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re some kind of spy. You’re so athletic and fit. Most guys your age let themselves go. Not you. And you’re smart and seem so well traveled. You’re gone for sometimes weeks at a time. And you keep your private life incredibly secret. I don’t know a damned thing about you except that you have a daughter and that you’re better at Krav Maga than me.”
“I’m no spy, Katia. And I’m not better at Krav Maga than you.”
“Yes, you are, and you know it. You could have whipped my ass yesterday. You let me pin you.”
“Maybe I wanted you to pin me.”
She looks at me sideways. The candlelight makes her brown eyes sparkle.
“Yeah?” she asks.
I take a sip of champagne and attempt to keep my face expressionless. I now know this is it. My years of ignoring the opposite sex have come to an end. It’s high time I reenter the world of male-and-female relationships.
Our breakfast finished, I stand and hold out my hand. She smiles and takes it. I begin to lead her away from the table but she stops me.
“Wait!” Katia grabs the two champagne glasses and the bottle. “We might need this.”
I lead her upstairs to my bedroom. The bed isn’t made but she doesn’t complain. Katia sets down the bottle and glasses and turns to me. I take her into my arms and we kiss more passionately than we did at the studio, if such a thing is possible.
* * *
When we finally come up for air, the clock on my nightstand reads 1:30. We made fiercely primal love for at least an hour before falling asleep in each other’s arms. The lovemaking, for me, was a revelation. It had been a long time. I guess it’s one of those things you don’t forget, kinda like riding a bike. Well, Katia Loenstern is one hell of a ride. She rode me pretty hard, too. We must have slept for a half hour, then got to it again. You’d have thought I’d been celibate for a century. After chugging down the rest of the tepid champagne, we tried another position. Katia marveled at my stamina and I welcomed her enthusiasm.
It was the best morning — and best birthday — I’d had in years.
We contemplate taking a shower together just as my beeper goes off. That means I need to make a call to Lambert on my secure line downstairs in the office. I don’t want to do it. Damn it, I’m on vacation. I just returned from an assignment. It can’t be that. Not now. Not as I’m just beginning this with the first woman I’ve grown to like since—
“Does that mean anything?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I have to make a call. Downstairs in my office.”
She smiles sweetly. “Go ahead. I’ll just lie here and see if I can get my blood pressure back to normal.”
I touch her face lightly and kiss her. “I’ll be right back.”
“Bring some water,” she hollers as I bound down the stairs. Once I’m alone in the office, I make the call and reach Lambert at Third Echelon.
“Sam, thank God you’re there,” he says.
“What’s up, Colonel?”
“Meet me at the usual place in an hour.”
“An hour?”
“Why, you have something else going on?”
I want to tell him to take this job and shove it but I don’t. “I, uh, I’m a little busy.”
“This is priority three, Sam.”
Shit. That means it’s of vital importance. There’s no way I can weasel out of it.
“I’ll be there,” I say. We hang up and I climb the stairs to the kitchen. I pour two tall glasses of water and bring them to the top floor. Katia’s lying playfully under the sheet, giggling. As I enter the room, she exposes one long, shapely leg and flexes it in the air.
“You like?” she says in a phony European accent. “You vant?”
I sit on the bed and gently pull down the sheet. She has a cute, mischievous expression on her face.
“Here you go,” I say as I hand her the
water. She sits up, exposing her lovely chest.
She downs the liquid quickly, exhales, and says, “So, you ready for round six? Or is it seven? I’ve lost count.”
“Katia, I have to leave. Business. I’m sorry.”
She looks as if I’ve slapped her. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re not trying to get rid of me?”
“Never. If I had my way about it, we’d never leave this room.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls who make you breakfast on your birthday.”
I lean in to kiss her again. She lets me but the earlier passion isn’t there. Her feelings are hurt.
“Does this mean you’re going out of town again?” she asks.
“It might.”
“Sam, what is so important about your job?”
“I can’t tell you, Katia.”
“You do work for the government.”
I figure there’s no harm in her knowing that much. If we’re going to have a relationship…
“Yes. I do. But I can’t tell you what I do. Please don’t ask. All right?”
She considers that a moment and then says, “Okay. As long as you promise you’re not going to drop the Krav Maga class now.”
I laugh. “Of course not.” I hold out my hand and help her out of bed. “We can still take that shower if you want.”
“You bet. I don’t want to go home smelling like sex. My cat will go nuts.”
I precede her into the bathroom to turn on the water. I see her reflection in the mirror and notice that she’s writing something on the notepad I keep on the nightstand. She joins me in the shower and we spend a luxurious five or six minutes soaping each other and getting all hot and bothered again. We do it one more time, standing up in the shower stall as the hot water rains down on us.
Afterward, when we’re dressed, I notice what she wrote on the notepad. It’s her cell phone number and the words, I don’t give this number to just anybody. I smile and lead her downstairs.
“You let me know if you have to leave town, will you?” she asks.
“I promise,” I say. It’s the least I can do.
11
It’s begun to snow. Winter in Maryland is always unpredictable. You never know if it’s going to be blizzard conditions, wet and icy, or just plain cold. The temperature isn’t so low today but the snow is falling heavily. The weather boys predict six inches. Joy.
I crank up the heat in my 2002 Jeep Cherokee and drive down to D.C. on I-95. The vehicle is one of the Overland models, a rugged 4×4 with a potent 265-horsepower V8. For the city, it’s way too much car, but there are times when I like to take it over more rugged territory. I happen to enjoy road trips but I don’t get to take them very often. I’ve often fantasized of being a truck driver after I retire from the intelligence biz. I could go “searching for America,” just like all the other folk heroes.
Lambert and I usually find a public place to meet. I avoid the government agency buildings in and around D.C. just in case someone’s tailing me. Seeing me enter an NSA or CIA building would certainly be a tip-off that I work for the feds. Currently Third Echelon’s actual headquarters is nowhere near the National Security Agency, which is housed on Savage Road in Fort Meade, Maryland, halfway between Baltimore and D.C. Third Echelon proper resides in a small, nondescript building in the nation’s capital, not far from the White House. Every couple of years they move HQ to a new location for security reasons. Even though I try to steer clear of HQ, I occasionally have business there. Lambert and I decided long ago that it was best to rendezvous elsewhere. We used to vary the locations, usually meeting in shopping malls. He knows I hate shopping malls so I think he picks them on purpose just to annoy me. Lambert has a sick sense of humor. Lately we’ve been using the same one, located in Silver Spring, because of its convenience.
I take the exit off I-95 and follow the directions to City Place Mall on Colesville Road, park the Jeep, and go inside. The food court is easy to find and there’s Lambert waiting for me at one of the tables — he’s always the first to arrive — but I’m surprised because he’s not alone. Frances Coen is sitting with him. I know her as one of the Field Runners that Third Echelon uses. She’s in her thirties and is fairly attractive for a tomboy type. Slim with close-cropped dark hair. She’s wearing professional, close-fitting rugged clothes. Lambert is dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and khaki pants. He never wears his uniform when we meet in public. It appears he’s munching down on his favorite fast food, a Big Mac Combo Meal. The woman is eating a salad. I make eye contact with Lambert and then I go to the court to pick up something for myself. Breakfast was hours ago. After all that heavy lovemaking and champagne, I need something substantial. I end up buying a plate of chicken and broccoli from the faux Chinese joint.
I join Lambert and Coen at the table and see that the colonel is already finished with his meal. He has a funny habit of rubbing the top of his crewcut when he’s nervous, and that’s what he does when I sit down. Lambert appears to be more stressed than usual. The bags under his eyes are especially prominent today and I don’t remember them being that bad. Lambert’s usually a very energetic guy. He’s ambitious and smart, and I’m not sure if he ever sleeps. He drinks more coffee than he sucks air. Lambert’s the kind of guy who’s always busy and never relaxes. From the way he looks today, I’d say his lifestyle is going to send him to an early grave.
Coen eyes me silently. For the first time I notice a large scar on the side of her neck that disappears into her collar. Possibly ex-military?
“You okay, Colonel?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Carly St. John is dead.”
I feel my stomach lurch. “What?”
He nods. “Shot in the back of the head. At our office.”
I can’t believe it. Carly is — was — my friend, the one person other than Lambert with whom I enjoyed a meaningful relationship.
“Do you know who—?”
“Not yet,” the colonel says. “But Mike Chan is missing. There’s every indication that he’s the perpetrator. He’s all over the cameras.”
“Mike Chan? The analyst?”
The colonel nods. I met Chan once and only briefly. A quiet Chinese-American, he seemed to be on the ball, a real team player.
I look at Coen. Lambert notices my circumspection and says, “Sam, you know Frances Coen, one of our Field Runners.”
“Yes.” Field Runner. I remember discussing this program with Lambert. He wants to send not one, but two people into the field. A Field Runner is supposedly responsible for coordinating transportation and equipment for a Splinter Cell. I made my objections to the concept known, loud and clear. The main disadvantage, in my opinion, is that it’s dangerous enough having one agent vulnerable to capture and torture. At least a Splinter Cell is trained to withstand rough treatment. What happens if a Field Runner is caught? How is this woman — Frances Coen — going to react when the bad guys try to extract information from her with hot irons?
I save the argument for later. Right now I’m more concerned about what happened to Carly.
“Whoever killed Carly is responsible for our leak to the Shop,” I suggest.
“You’re probably right,” the colonel replies. “If it really is Chan…”
“What’s being done about it?”
“We had to bring in the FBI. This is a federal crime. We couldn’t have the D.C. police in our offices. We don’t exist, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“So we have to sit on our hands while the Bureau sniffs around.” I can see that Lambert isn’t happy about this.
“When did this happen?” I ask.
“Last night sometime. Carly was working late. Her computer was destroyed as well. All the progress she’d made on plugging the leak vanished with it.”
“We do have backup tapes,” Coen says. “We’re starting to go through them now. We just don’t know if Carly backed up her work in the past day or two.”
“I’ve asked that Anna come back from psych leave immediately. Until then we’re operating on thin ice,” Lambert says.
Anna Grimsdottir is just as smart as Carly, but I have — had — a special attachment to Carly. It will be difficult to replace her. “So I guess the reason you called me here today is to go after Mike Chan?”
“No. I’m afraid it isn’t.”
Huh? What the hell? “Sir, I want to go after Mike Chan.”
“It’s not your job. It’s not Third Echelon’s job. It’s the FBI’s job. Sorry, Sam. I want to avenge Carly’s murder as much as you do. We have to let the political wheels turn the way they’re supposed to.”
“Then what am I doing here?”
“It’s unrelated. I’m sending you to Hong Kong, Sam. You’ll need to leave tonight.”
“Tonight? Damn it, Colonel, I just got home from Russia! I haven’t been here a week. And aren’t I supposed to have mandatory psych leave?”
“I know, but you’re the only available operative right now. Remember — we lost our Far East agent last year and have had to fill in with subs when we needed someone. I have the Committee breathing down my neck about budget cuts. For some reason, Third Echelon is on Washington’s shit list. We have to prove our worth and soon. That’s why I need you, Sam. I don’t like to say this because I don’t want you getting a big head, but you’re the best we’ve got.”
It’s nice to hear but I’m too pissed off to respond appropriately. I sure as hell don’t want to go to fucking Hong Kong.
“What the hell is so goddamned important in Hong Kong?” I ask.
Lambert slides a large envelope across the table. “You’ve heard of SeaStrike Technologies?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of ’em.”
“One of their top scientists went missing a week ago. We were afraid he’d been kidnapped because he was the project leader of one of our most important defense programs.”