The Cardinal Rule

by Cate Dermody

  “Even if it did, Erika should be able to clear it up.”

  “I wish you’d call her Q.”

  “Ali,” Greg said, exasperated. She breathed laughter and started squirming out of the remains of her wet clothes, safely wrapped in the blanket. Sitting naked beneath the dry wool would be warmer than staying in the wet scraps of silk, but she wouldn’t have to: as she wriggled the skirt off Greg leaned across the cabin and popped open a compartment, pulling out black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. He put them on the seat by Alisha’s shoulder and sat back, tapping a finger against the folder by his thigh. “What,” he repeated, “went wrong?”

  Alisha stood up and pulled the jeans on, swallowing a sigh of relief. They were warm and snug against her legs, which were colder than she’d realized until that moment. The warmth gave her the fortitude she needed to say, “Reichart was there.”

  Greg’s eyelashes fluttered. Alisha hid a wince; for him, the faint change of expression was the equivalent of saying, “Oh, Christ.”

  Frank Reichart. An Agency problem child, or he would have been, Alisha amended silently, if he’d worked for the company. He was a freelancer, a mercenary, and he came through with often brilliant intel, well worth the prices he was paid. But he would work for anyone, as long as they met his price. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, dangerous—Alisha shivered, hoping Greg would pass it off to the cold water and wet blouse she still wore.

  She was fooling herself. Greg knew her, and knew that despite everything, Alisha found a man like Reichart to be attractive.

  Attractive enough that she’d almost married him, once upon a time.

  Alisha set her jaw, then lifted her chin in a show of defiance as much against herself as her handler. The relationship with Reichart was long over, and there was no danger of her going back. “He recognized me. I was on my way out, or I wouldn’t have gotten anything at all.” She sat down across from Greg, moving her feet away from the cold puddle she’d left on the floor. There was no reason for false modesty; the ruins of her blouse, plastered against her chest, didn’t hide anything, so she pulled the buttons open and tugged the sticking silk off, drying her shoulders before she reached for the sweater Greg had provided. She used brisk, efficient movements, as if doing so would prevent Greg from saying anything else.

  It didn’t, of course. Greg exhaled, then pursed his lips. “He ratted you out.”

  “That suggests we’re on the same side.” Alisha pulled the sweater over her head, stifling another groan as the warmth enveloped her. She pulled her hair out of the sweater’s neck, then made a face and shucked her wet bra from beneath the sweater. Bouncing a little had to be better than wet underwires soaking through the wool. “Reichart’s not on anybody’s side but his own.”

  “And how do you feel about that?” Greg asked neutrally. Alisha didn’t bother to stifle the groan that time, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees so she could twist her hair dry. Water fell in a steady dribble, then petered out into drops against the metal floor of the helicopter.

  “Good,” she said to the puddle. “I feel good about it. It helps me sleep at night.” She looked up, eyebrows lifted challengingly. “You’re my handler, Greg, not my shrink. Don’t worry, all right? I can handle Reichart.”

  “Does he know why you were there?”

  Alisha gave him a flat look. “Yes. We had a nice cup of tea and some lovely raspberry scones and I told him all about the mission before he called the guards and they chased me over a cliff. But don’t worry. I don’t think I gave away any really important matters of national security.”

  Greg lifted his hands in apology. Alisha held him with her frown a few seconds longer, then shook her head, picking up the blanket again to rub it over her hair. “I downloaded a lot of data, Greg. They’ll know what server I hit, but there’s a lot of information there, and I wasn’t picky about what I collected. I may have been compromised, but I don’t think the mission data was. I haven’t spoken to him in years. Nor do I intend to.”

  Greg nodded a distracted apology, examining the minidisc Alisha’d handed him. He shrugged after a moment, then pulled a laptop out of a compartment above his head, turning it on. Alisha fumbled for the seat belt as she let her head fall against the back of the seat. “What’s next? Home for debriefing?”

  “Mmm.” Greg shook his head slightly, dropping the CD into the computer’s drive. “Only if the disc is corrupted.”

  “All right.” Alisha closed her eyes, letting herself drift. The endless racket of helicopter blades was oddly soothing to her, as if the noise somehow signified safety she couldn’t find in other places. You’ve spent too much time in choppers, Leesh, she told herself, but the admonishment didn’t stop her from settling into a half-aware state of sleep. Flashes of Reichart’s startled expression when he’d spotted her darted through her memory, too-clear imprints in her mind. The man had magnificent cheekbones and a mouth full enough to be feminine. Eminently kissable, that mouth. And his hair was longer. Just a little, but it looked good on him.

  Even half-asleep, Alisha made herself cut off the line of thought. She severed it as efficiently as a surgeon might cut through muscle, removing its emotional content and reminding herself that Frank Reichart was, at the most, nothing more than a job to her. Once that had been different, but not now. And if she needed a reminder of why, a Reichart-inspired compromise followed by a cliff dive should do the trick. Alisha shook her head very slightly and let the memory go.

  Compartmentalization: the CIA taught it as the way to get through the job. Emotions in one tidy package, locked away where they couldn’t interfere; the job and what needed to be done in another neat analytical package, far away from sentiment and passion. Alisha disliked it. Slicing up emotion and cupboarding it away felt like denying her own humanity.

  Not that she would ever admit that to Greg, or any of the Agency psychoanalysts. Maintaining emotional distance from her job and the people she encountered was critical, in their eyes.

  And so she’d found a way around it.

  She called them her Strongbox Chronicles: illegal journals she wrote out in longhand on handmade paper, using fountain pens that blotched and stained her fingers. Penned onto those pages were her fears and her frustrations, the things that had gone wrong and right with each mission, full of the passion that drove her to do the job she did. They were a dangerous luxury; any one of them, found by the wrong person, could compromise not just Alisha, but sometimes dozens of other agents and assets.

  So she never wrote them until the mission was over, usually taking one long night to scrawl out all the emotion that an official report couldn’t afford to have. In the morning, when the notes were finished, she would find a bank and open a safety deposit box under her current alias. Leave the journal there, and never come back for it. It felt like leaving traces of the truth behind, a promise to herself that her clandestine life had left at least one mark that someday might be discovered and understood.

  Counter to the point of being a spy, perhaps, but she did it anyway.

  Greg drew in a sharp breath, audible beneath the sound of the chopper blades. Alisha roused herself from introspective thoughts, coming fully awake with concern. “Greg?”

  “You won’t be going back to Langley.”

  Which meant the new mission was important, and immediate. Alisha sat back, shoulders relaxing. The opportunity for action, the chance to not have to think, was always better than hours spent cooped up on a plane considering the last mission. Alisha doubted everyone found the prospect of imminent danger to be relaxing, but for her a new mission was always a chance to shed the skin of daily life. It was as freeing as the jump off the cliff, in its own way. “What’s the job?”

  “You’re going into a Kazakhstani base to cozy up to an American scientist.”

  Alisha felt a little core of excitement build in her stomach, spreading out through her body to warm her in a way the dry clothes couldn’t. “What’s my cover?”

  “You�
��re a potential buyer for the project he’s working on. Your name is Elisa Moon. The details are in the mission brief.” He handed her the folder he’d kept at his side. Alisha nodded, flipping it open, then glanced up at him.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Brandon.” Greg fell silent a moment before inhaling deeply. “Brandon Parker.”

  Alisha’s chin came up, sharp action that she knew betrayed her surprise. “Your son?”

  Chapter 2

  Greg’s mouth thinned as he looked away. Alisha closed the briefing folder and held her breath a few moments, absorbing Greg’s information. She’d seen the solitary sketch of Greg’s son on his desk, a picture of a light-eyed young man with an edge of intelligence about him. The drawing was labeled at the bottom: B., self-portrait at 19, with the scrawl of his signature beside it. Alisha had wondered more than once if the drawing was idealized: in it, Brandon Parker was unexpectedly attractive, facial features more angular than his father’s, even if he was still a little baby-faced. There was less that was babyish about his build, slender-hipped and broad-shouldered, like a swimmer.

  “I thought you were estranged,” she said carefully. “You told me a long time ago that you and he didn’t speak.”

  Greg had said more than that, though it didn’t seem appropriate to remind him of that now. He’d called Brandon arrogant and self-centered, with no eye for the bigger picture. Curiosity had driven Alisha to check the CIA’s files on Brandon Parker.

  The aura of intelligence given by his portrait barely touched on the man’s potential, according to his file. He understood mathematics as instinctively as breathing. At nine—with the comparatively pathetic equipment available to him twenty years earlier—he’d hacked into his own father’s CIA file and discovered the truth about what his dad did for a living. Rather than have him arrested or confined, the Agency had chosen to develop the boy’s skills. He’d been groomed since childhood to become a spy.

  But Brandon Parker had other ideas about what to do with his life. Not long after Alisha had been recruited—well before there was a chance she might ever meet him—Brandon had defected.

  It was an ugly word, defect. Alisha shied away from it even in her own thoughts. It also wasn’t an entirely accurate one: Brandon hadn’t gone to work for another intelligence agency. Like Reichart, he’d become a freelancer, working for the highest bidder. When Alisha had read his file, it suggested his latest employer was having him work on a new computer chip—a piece of technology that literally encoded atoms, teleporting data from one place to another in an instantaneous transport. Called quantum computing, it had sounded like science fiction to her, until a news report mentioned the breakthrough technology and the anticipated price it would go for. If Brandon Parker was bringing in even a cut of the deal, he was a very wealthy man.

  But that had been years ago. Parker’s trail had gone cold. His latest project, if there was one, was so secret that no one had been able to find him or his sponsors.

  Until, it appeared, now. Alisha let her breath out and leaned forward, touching Greg’s forearm. “Greg?”

  Greg exhaled and let emotion go: when he turned back to Alisha, his expression was the familiar careworn smile that she’d come to know over her career in the Agency. “We don’t speak,” he confirmed. “I haven’t talked to Brandon in years. Long enough that I doubt he knows you. He never had much interest in my work, even when we were both involved in the Agency. His focus was always the laboratory. It’s imperative, Ali, that he doesn’t know you’re working for me.”

  “It’s imperative,” she pointed out, “that nobody knows I’m CIA. Even on my worst day, I don’t think I’d just happen to let it slip that Gregory Parker happened to be my handler.” Alisha proffered a crooked smile. “It would lack subtlety. But if you’re concerned, then why send me instead of someone completely unassociated with you?”

  Greg’s expression tightened minutely. “You were recommended.” The tone sparked Alisha’s curiosity, but left no room for further questioning. She studied her handler for a moment, then nodded.

  “All right. What’s he working on?”

  Greg shook his head. “A piece of new military technology. We think it’s a rudimentary artificial intelligence; an AI that could potentially be sent into battle in lieu of human beings.”

  “We have the Talon robots already.” Alisha pressed her lips together. “But those are remote control battle machines. I didn’t think that AI was more than theoretically possible.” She waved his response off before he spoke. “But that’s why you say rudimentary, I assume.”

  Greg closed his computer most of the way, tapping a finger twice on its surface. “Our own military developers haven’t gotten all that far with AIs, despite having extensive development budgets. Brandon is brilliant, but we think we’re fairly safe in assuming his project isn’t too much more sophisticated than our own.”

  Alisha nodded, then blew out a long breath and twisted her hair again, watching another line of water dribble out of thick curls matted and dark with salt water. “I thought his trail had gone cold. Where’d we get the intel on this project?”

  Greg shook his head. “My orders came from above.” Which meant, Alisha thought, that the source was sufficiently confidential that not even he knew who’d brought it in. Alisha was accustomed to not always knowing who or what prompted her missions. It was part of the job, which didn’t make it rankle any less. She wondered if Greg, privy to a higher level of security, found it as frustrating to be in the dark as she often did. There was no sign of it in his voice, but then, there wouldn’t be.

  “We went into the observatory to corroborate the information Director Boyer’d been given.” Greg opened the screen again, turning the computer to face Alisha. Satellite photos filled the screen, zooming in on pictures of a military complex. Greg keyed forward, flipping through more pictures. Individuals became visible, faces Alisha didn’t recognize, until Greg pulled up a third screen.

  Brandon Parker had changed over the years. He looked more rugged now, more like an outdoorsman than the college-polished and slightly soft young man Alisha remembered from the drawing on Greg’s desk. Stubble graced his chin and his cheekbones were gaunter. He wore the drab colors of the paramilitary instead of a polo shirt and slacks, but it was unmistakably the same man. Alisha studied the photos a few moments before glancing up at Greg.

  “I thought the St. Abbs observatory took pictures of outer space, not surveillance photos on the planet’s surface.”

  Greg pulled a wry moue that turned into a crooked grin. “It’s been an MI-6 installation since it was opened in 1972. They do a great deal of space observation to keep their cover, of course, but…”

  Alisha shook her head in amusement and sat back, but her smile faded almost instantly. “I thought MI-6 was on our side, Greg. Why didn’t we just ask for the photos?”

  Greg’s good humor fled as well. “Because the British government has obligations to the European Union that may not be in our best interests. My superiors—our superiors,” he emphasized, “would prefer it if we were able to contain Brandon and his latest project without any outside interference.”

  “I don’t like it,” Alisha said bluntly. Greg’s crooked smile returned.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  Alisha spread her hands. “I know. I’d just rather have it out in the open than let it fester.” She shrugged, letting her concerns pass from her with the motion. It didn’t matter; she would do her job and do it well, but dillydallying around the truth did no one any good.

  “Fair enough.” Greg nodded. “I appreciate your candor.”

  “Do you?” Alisha asked. He’d said the words before and she’d accepted them at face value, but curiosity suddenly caught her and she watched his expression for the answer.

  It came with a wash of surprise, followed by amusement that lit Greg’s blue eyes to pale gray. “Actually, yes, I do. I’d rather work with an agent who put her opinions on the line than kept
them hidden. If you’ve got a bad feeling about something, I’d be irresponsible to not listen.” He paused. “Do you have a bad feeling about this?”

  “No.” Alisha spoke without taking a moment to think, then shook her head. There was no itch along her spine, no flat taste of copper at the back of her throat that told her something was genuinely wrong with the situation. Hunches, she thought. A trained espionage agent wasn’t supposed to rely on hunches and gut feelings, only cold hard facts. She had never believed it, and doubted most of her superiors did either. Intuition was as much part of the job as carrying a gun. “I just don’t like going behind MI-6’s back. I appreciate the whys, I just don’t like it. It’s fine.”

  “Good. The base is in Kazakhstan. You’ll be going in as a potential buyer for the combat drones.” Greg turned his gaze to the view below the helicopter, which was fast leaving ocean behind in favor of coastal towns and European forests. “Your objective, Alisha…”

  “I know it’s in here, if you’d prefer me to go over the mission myself.” Alisha put her hand over the briefing folder, her heart aching for her handler. It left her with a sense of frustration she didn’t know how to resolve. What would it be like, sending in an agent you’d groomed, someone who was almost like a daughter to you, after the son who’d betrayed you? The conflict set her stomach to churning, and it wasn’t even hers to sleep with at night.

  “It’s better if I tell you. That way if there are any questions you won’t feel awkward about approaching me with them.”

  “Greg, you’ve been my handler for almost ten years. I wouldn’t feel awkward.” Even as she said it, Alisha wondered if it was true. She’d never felt such sympathy for Greg’s plight before.

  “Thank you.” He looked back at her with the fond, patient smile again. “First, you’re to obtain the prototype drone we believe has been developed. Second, destroy any research that you can’t take with you. Third…” Now Greg hesitated. Alisha pressed her lips together and waited, unwilling to push him. Greg put his chin to his chest briefly, then lifted his gaze again. “Third, to determine if Brandon Parker is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States, and report back to not only me, but Director Boyer on your assessment.”