by PM Kavanaugh
“You’ve now crossed that line, as every operative must. The next time you’re in the field, and you’re given an order to shoot, you won’t hesitate.” His voice was flat, devoid of emotion.
“You risked everyone’s life. Mari’s, the other operatives’, mine.”
“That is the kind of life we all live in here.”
“He had a grenade, Gianni.” Something flickered in his eyes. She sensed he was holding something back. “It wasn’t live, was it?” she realized aloud.
“He thought it was.”
“And the syringe?”
“Saline solution.”
Anika gave a sharp exhale. The deception, and her inability to see through it, had landed a sucker punch to the gut.
“Today wasn’t just about you,” Gianni continued. “It was a drill. A test. For you, for Mari, for the others. You all passed.”
“What about the operative lying on the floor in his own blood?”
“He’ll live,” Gianni said. “But not for long, if his instincts or his skills for surviving an assault don’t improve.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she burst out. Where was the man who had held her in his arms, kissed her, told her he wanted more from her? “You’re so... how can you not care?”
His gaze cut right, then left, taking in the area around them.
Shit, Anika thought. Surveillance cams.
She knew better than to try and have this kind of conversation out in the open. Annoyance at her rookie mistake clashed with anger at Gianni. She half expected him to walk away.
Instead, he strode to the northern outer wall of the auto-lift and gestured for her to follow. When she came within earshot, he said, “Camera dead spot.”
She nodded in understanding. He couldn’t tell her where he had been, what he had been doing, so she wouldn’t waste time asking. “When did you get back?”
“Last night.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?”
“There was no time. I had to finish my debriefing, then review the Belgrade mission report, prepare my assessment, and plan today’s drill.”
Her emotions cooled, ice chips tossed on a hot sidewalk. In their place, trepidation. “Your assessment?”
“I’m still the senior officer in charge of your training.”
“What did you conclude?”
“The exterior cameras suggested your fall took place after you received the order to fire.”
Anika’s breath stopped in her throat. She refused to look at him, afraid he would see the truth in her eyes.
“However, there were gaps in the recording,” Gianni said. “I was forced to rely on your answers and the sensor readings.”
When the silence between them had stretched to a painful length, Anika cleared her throat. “I trust they were satisfactory.”
“Barely.”
She made herself look at him then. “What does that mean?”
“It means no disciplinary action. You’ll continue your advanced training. The team leader, Nigatu, made a bad judgment call. He shouldn’t have tried to use you for a live kill. He was overly influenced by your firing proficiency, but failed to consider your psychological profile.”
“My... profile? Does it say I can’t shoot a live target?” Fear rolled through her, setting off tremors. How will I survive in here?
“You need the proper motivation. Today, you killed one hostile to save one operative. In the field, you typically will kill one to save many. Fellow operatives, civilians, often both. Remember that the next time.”
Next time. There would always be a next time. The trembling stopped, replaced by a heavy resignation. Saving the world from those who sought to destroy it would sometimes require an extreme act. A live kill. What else had she expected when she joined a counterterrorist organization?
“Is that all?” she asked.
“One more thing.”
“What is it?”
“You need to debrief on what happened here. If asked, don’t acknowledge hesitating when you first encountered the hostile. Say you were angling for a better shot.”
“I was angling for a better shot. So I wouldn’t accidentally hit Mari.”
“Fair enough. You should add to that. Say you thought you could spare the hostile. Take him down with a non-lethal shot.”
“Your order was to kill.”
“My order was to set your weapon to maximum force. Which you did.”
“In order to kill. To save our own.”
“Tell them you thought you could save both. Keep the hostile alive for a possible future trade. That demonstrates bigger picture thinking. Shows progress in your training. And it proves commitment to U.N.I.T. and what we stand for.”
“Taking out bad guys?” Sarcasm threaded through her words. Nothing in Gianni’s eyes or words suggested she was anything to him but an operative in need of more training. Anger returned with a vengeance, sizzling through her. “Did you even mean what you said to me that night on the tarmac? About wanting me, wanting us? Or was that just motivation...to strengthen my commitment?”
His gaze lashed like a whip. “I meant it.”
Good. She had forced a momentary connection, even if it was full of anger.
“Then why didn’t I hear from you?” The words shot out, unfiltered. “Three months and not a word. I know you couldn’t say where you were, what your mission was. But you could at least have found a way to tell me you were still alive, still coming back.”
Gianni glanced away for a moment and studied the wall over her head. He reached up and adjusted a silver chain around his neck, pulling it out from under his shirt and letting the medal that hung from it drop against his chest. She remembered seeing the chain before, remembered wondering about its significance. Most operatives didn’t wear impractical items, like jewelry, inside the complex. “I was under deep cover,” he said. “That means no contact. None. It would have endangered the mission.”
“The mission.” Fury heated Anika’s voice. “It’s always going to come down to that, isn’t it?” Hot tears scalded her eyes, burned the back of her throat. Maybe the agency was right to forbid romantic relationships. If Gianni were only her trainer, she wouldn’t be angry about his absence, his distance. She might even be grateful to him for ensuring she followed through on a live kill, even if meant deceiving her to do it. “I don’t think...I don’t know how there can be more. With us.” She turned to stalk off.
Gianni reached out.
She twisted away.
He caught hold of her arm and forced her to stop. “Contacting you would have...distracted me. Endangered not just the mission, but my life. I couldn’t risk it. If I’d tried, I couldn’t have done what was required.”
Anika saw it then. The pain hiding behind his eyes. The sorrow he masked inside.
Her anger cooled, replaced by something warmer. Something that made her want to forget all about the agency’s rule against emotional attachments.
She covered his hand with hers. If only she could soothe the pain away. “What did you have to do?”
He glanced away from her again, his gaze focused on a distant point. The same technique she had been taught to calm her emotions. His grip around her arm was a vise. “You were never far from my thoughts.” His gaze returned to her face. “Believe that.” Before Anika could speak, he released her and strode away.
She stood there, staring at him, as he became smaller and smaller. Her arm tingled with equal parts pain and pleasure. She rubbed the tender skin, certain he had left a mark.
Chapter 7
“Cheers!” Anika clinked her glass against Mari’s and drained it. The potent cocktail, a Suicide Bomber, burned its way down her throat.
“Another?” Mari asked, and before Anika could answer, she had punched an order for a second round into their table’s e-pad. She bobbed her head in time with the electro-world music blaring through Amnesia’s sound system. The dozens of bronze braids from Mari’s wig shimmied around her face. Her ey
es shone with excitement and alcohol through her purple-tinted contacts. Full eye and lip makeup hid the facial bruises from her fight with the hostile. Her high-collared faux-fur top covered the flex-brace supporting her still-sore right shoulder. She looked happy and carefree. No doubt, the pain blockers from Clinic were working.
Anika had chosen to hide her own long dark hair under a wig of shoulder-length titanium blond waves. Her blue-green eyes were now a deep brown, her nose an upturned snub from temporary nasal implants, and her fair skin a sun-kissed bronze. She wore a short leather skirt, body-vest, and ankle boots. Shiny silver detachable sleeves wrapped around her arms past her elbows and hid the cast on her right wrist. To anyone watching, she looked like a young woman out for a night of fun. What she really wanted was a night of forgetting.
The disguises weren’t absolutely necessary. Even if a bar regular spotted one of them using the street access to U.N.I.T’s compound a few blocks away, they wouldn’t understand they were witnessing a highly-trained operative reporting for duty at the world’s most covert global counterterrorist agency. Still, better not to risk being recognized and possibly approached by a friendly civilian while so close to the agency.
Anika glanced around the bar’s dim interior. Holograms of dancers intermixed with the human bodies shaking and weaving across the dance floor.
“Wanna groove?” Mari asked.
Anika shook her head. “Sure you’re up for it? Not too sore from...today?”
“I’m sure.”
Anika gestured toward the crowd. “Go for it.”
A server-droid delivered their drinks. Mari took a big gulp of hers, then slid off her stool and salsa-stepped away.
Anika watched as her friend approached two guys standing on the edge of the floor, grabbed their arms, and pulled them into the gyrating mass. The bronze braids swung back and forth, as Mari swayed to the pulsing beat.
Anika smiled at the sight. Maybe Mari had the right idea. Apply a combination of alcohol, loud music, and dancing to unleash the tension and stress of the day. She took a sip of her drink and tried to enjoy the buzzing in her head and limbs. It had been so long since she had had a drink. Closing her eyes, she rocked side-to-side in her seat. How long?
An image of Gianni pressing a glass of champagne into her hand flashed through her mind. Her first mission. She had just rendezvoused with him at the North Korean embassy. They were overlooking the ballroom floor, pretending to be a couple at the exclusive social event. Though she had been too nervous to drink, he had insisted she hold a glass of the bubbly liquid to enhance her cover as a socialite enjoying herself. She had planned to drink some champagne after completing the assignment. But that plan changed with the shocking blare of the alarm followed by the heart-pounding escape through the building’s temperature ducts.
Anika’s eyes flew open, her hand clenched around the cocktail glass. She took a sip to ease her grip. That first mission had been terrifying. And thrilling. Especially those last precious minutes with Gianni, once she knew they had both escaped and the nano disc was safe. The glow of success had kindled inside her for weeks afterward.
Not like today. She swirled the purple-red liquid around in her glass. Today had been terrifying and sickening and confusing, with no afterglow. She’d thought she’d been acting to save Mari’s life. But the grenade was fake and the syringe was full of saline. Mari hadn’t been in mortal danger at all, and Anika had been deceived into shooting the hostile. All because Gianni believed she needed the proper motivation to kill.
Anika took a sip of her drink.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she couldn’t just blindly follow kill orders. Did that make her a bad operative? Her hand tightened around the glass. She hoped not.
Mari weaved her way back to their table, her arm slung around a young woman’s shoulders. Another dance partner?
“This is her,” Mari cried out, flinging her arm toward Anika. “My savior.”
Uh-oh, Anika thought. Her eyes widened in appraisal and apprehension. What had Mari done? Had she let her guard down and revealed something about U.N.I.T. she shouldn’t have?
The woman nodded at Anika. She was Mari’s height, 5'6", slender, with short hair streaked every color in the rainbow. Her eyebrows, arched above green eyes, matched her hair. “I’m Evan. How do you do?” Cut-glass British accent. Either a really good fake, or Evan belonged to Britain’s upper class.
“Hello,” Anika replied, choosing to keep her name to herself. She set her glass on the table.
“Another round of Suicides?” Mari tapped the e-pad.
“God, no,” Evan said. “Whiskey for me. Neat.”
“I’m still working on mine,” Anika said.
“Let me help.” Giggling, Mari grabbed Anika’s glass and drained it. She frowned at the glowing screen. “The pictures are swimming around on this thing. I think it’s broken.”
“Here, let me do it.” Evan swiveled the e-pad away from Mari and gave it a few taps. “There. Done.” She looked at Anika. “Nice work in the training facility today.”
Anika’s chest constricted. How would this woman know about what had happened in there today, unless Mari had told her?
“I’ll say,” Mari jumped in. “One shot. Right here,” she continued, touching her forehead. “Bye-bye bad guy.”
“Mari, stop.” Anika’s gaze traveled the room. Nobody seemed to be watching them and the music was certainly loud enough to swallow up their conversation. Still, agency business was not discussed in public or in front of strangers.
“It’s okay,” Mari said. “Evan’s one of us.”
“Anika’s right,” Evan said. “We need to be careful. Second probably has eyes and ears all over this place. Hacking into the droids’ systems,” she added, eyes narrowing at the e-pad. “Yes, that could work.”
The combination of alarm and alcohol set off tiny explosions in Anika’s brain. “How do you...who’s Second?” She knew, of course. But she didn’t know what this stranger in front of her knew.
Evan’s left eyebrow lifted a half inch higher.
“I haven’t seen you before,” Anika said.
“Relax, Anika, baby.” Mari squeezed Anika’s hand. “Evan’s cool-hot.”
“Anika’s right to question me,” Evan said. “Trust no one, isn’t that the training?” Anika didn’t respond. “I transferred in from London a week ago. I’m the new number one in tech ops.”
“I took Evan’s advanced seminar in computer hacking while you were away on your last mission,” Mari explained. “You should sign up. Girl’s got some sweet tricks to teach.”
Anika’s chin lifted in challenge. “Describe Second.”
“With pleasure.” Evan leaned her arms on the table and looked straight at Anika. “Short, barely five feet. Bones like a bird, mind like a megacomputer. Blond hair. Similar to your color tonight, but not so...obvious,” she said, a glint in her eyes.
“Ouch,” Anika replied, in mock hurt.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like your look. The ring’s a nice bauble.”
Anika fingered the thick leather band topped by an enormous skull on her left index finger.
“Looks a bit familiar,” Evan said, continuing to eye the piece of jewelry. “A gift from the tech wizards at the agency?”
Hmm, yes. Anika crossed her arms and leaned forward, crushing the sparkly fabric of her sleeves against the table’s surface.
The server arrived and set their drinks on the table. Anika waited until he was out of earshot before continuing. “You were describing Second.”
“Blue eyes that cut right through you, like the stiletto heels she favors. Dresses smartly in bespoke suits. Comes across as being a posh, world-dominating executive. Which, in a way, I guess she is, given her number two position in the agency.” Evan’s lips quirked. “How’d I do?”
The description fit Second perfectly. “You didn’t say anything a visual wouldn’t show.”
“Not even the description of her eyes? I thought tha
t was rather poetic.” Evan took a sip of her amber-colored drink. “Okay, I’ll move on to Command,” she said, mentioning the elusive top officer at the agency. “No current visuals of her floating around the ether. I met her on my first day. Bald-headed, deep-voiced Amazon warrior. Probably didn’t cut off one of her boobs so she could shoot an arrow better, unlike her ancient predecessors, though I wouldn’t put it past her. Hard to be sure, though, given her preference for wearing loose tunics over long trousers.” Evan set her glass down. “Convinced now?”
Evan’s description of Command and their first-day meeting rang true. Anika had also seen Command on her first day at the agency. Along with the other recruits in her class, she had been taken to the tower office in Hub and introduced to the female commander who did, indeed, remind her of an Amazon.
“I thought Amazons cutting off their own breasts was a discredited myth,” she said, still unsure about Evan.
“Hell of a myth, though, eh?” Evan grinned. When Anika didn’t soften, she grew serious again. “Right, then. You joined U.N.I.T. six-oh-five thirteen months ago after being recruited from an orphanage in Washington, where you grew up. The orphanage belongs to the federal network that serves as one of the agency’s two recruiting grounds. The other being, of course, life-row prison cells. So, you’re known as a ‘federal’ in agency-speak. Unlike Mari.” Evan took another sip. “And me.”
“You’re a lifer?” Mari sat up straight, her eyes beaming. “Like me?”
“Yes, like you, but for a different reason. Which I won’t go into now,” Evan said. “Need more?” She arched a rainbow-colored brow at Anika. “The first two alphas of your tracking ID are kilo, bravo.”
Anika’s gaze hardened. “You only know the first two?”
“Foxtrot, one, sev—”
“Enough.” Anika cut her off. “How do you know so much about me?”
“Hacked your profile,” Evan said. “I was curious about a recruit who completed her training and graduated to Level One in ten months, instead of the typical twelve,” Evan replied. “Curious and impressed.”