The Libra Affair

by Daco

  “Would you mind telling a lady inside the locker room, Jordan Jakes is her name, that someone needs her at the front desk?”

  “I’m sorry,” she looked puzzled, “but there’s no one else in the locker room.”

  “No one?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m quite sure.” She frowned and stepped back.

  Ben’s shoulders dropped.

  Then she said, “It’s not the busiest time of day. Maybe she’s already come and gone. Did you check the log-in book at the front desk?”

  He took a quick look down the hallway. “Thanks,” he said as he regrouped. “I appreciate your help.” And with nothing else to do he turned toward the water fountains. He took in a long drink, keeping an eye on the woman, and as soon as she rounded the corner toward the front, he found himself pushing open the door to the women’s locker room.

  He took a quick survey of the room. It appeared empty.

  “Hello?” he called out just in case. When no one answered, he jogged past the vanity area, the commodes — looking underneath the stalls — and ran into the back rooms. With no water running, he checked the shower area first and then jogged to the changing area where he tried opening every locker without a lock. The woman was right; no one was in the locker room except one very out-of-place man.

  Overcome with awkwardness, he decided it was time to get out of there.

  On his way out, Ben made another sweep of the exercise studios, the weight room, and lounge. There was no sign of Jordan.

  It didn’t make sense. How could she not be there? Unless she forgot her phone or for some reason ditched it there.

  As he started toward the front door, he spied a cell phone sitting on the counter against the wall. It was Jordan’s. He knew it. He smiled at the eager blonde at the front desk. Straight teeth, square jaw, six-four, and a mop of Scotch locks usually did the trick to get him what he wanted.

  “The drink machine ate my quarters,” he said to her, still smiling.

  “Did it?” she replied, posturing back at him flirtatiously. She opened the money drawer and dug out six quarters. “Better luck next time.” She held the quarters in the palm of her hand so that he’d have to slide his hand over hers to take them.

  Instead, he said, “Any chance you could have a look at the machine? I think it’s jammed.” He knew he sounded lame, but he needed to get her away from the desk.

  “You are needy, aren’t you?” She headed around the counter, shaking the quarters in her hand. “Come on then.”

  With an elbow, he knocked a stack of brochures from the counter to the floor. “Ah, jeez,” he remarked, acting embarrassed. “I’m sorry.” He popped a hand across his forehead.

  The girl’s eyes widened.

  “I’ll just pick these up,” he said.

  “Here, let me help you.” She started toward him.

  “No, no. I’ve got it.” He quickly dropped to the floor, posturing as though he didn’t want her to see him embarrassed.

  “Sure?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Be right there.” He watched out of the corner of his eye as she reluctantly walked toward the break room at the back of the facility. When she was out of sight, he zipped behind the counter and slipped Jordan’s cell phone inside his pocket. Then he rushed toward the front door, not looking back. He shoved open the front door, and before it closed, he heard the woman calling after him.

  “Hey? Wait. Where are you going?”

  Ben kept moving.

  Chapter 3

  “Jordan,” a man spoke to her as he laid a heavy hand on her arm. “How you been?”

  “What do you want, Knox?” She jerked her arm free. Once Brian Knox caught sight of her inside the terminal at Dulles International Airport, she knew there was little she could do to avoid him. The man was a drip, a pain in the derrière, and nothing more than a waste of government resources.

  “You going somewhere?” he pried.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Oh, please,” she snipped.

  But he was persistent and said, “Let’s get a drink.” Then he smiled, revealing the whites of his perfectly aligned teeth. “It’s been awhile.”

  “Rain check.”

  “Rain’s not in the forecast.” He touched her again, only this time he squeezed the flesh of her arm; he didn’t want to take no for an answer.

  Annoyed, she reclaimed her arm. Another day, she would have double-socked both of his eyeballs for having touched her, but there wasn’t time for a wrestling match. She had one objective and she wasn’t about to let this idiot get in her way.

  “Careful,” he said.

  “Yes, one can’t be too careful.” Jordan stared at him; he got the point.

  “I heard you left the Agency?”

  Jordan knew he had no way of knowing she had gone underground for the CIA. That she now worked covert ops. That she was a double agent. He wasn’t supposed to know and given the choice, she wouldn’t have wanted him to know. If there was anyone who could blow her cover without even trying, it was Knox.

  “You heard?” she said to him.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Rumors always were your amusement, Knox,” she dug at him.

  More than once, he had chased the wrong lead by relying on false statements. And more than once, she covered for his mistakes. But all that was in the past. She no longer worked with the man. He was a loser agent who schmoozed his way up the ladder using his daddy’s influence. And he was never going to get in her head again, or her pants.

  “Cute, Jordan.”

  When a group of teenagers passed on both sides of them, Jordan angled a foot in front of Knox, causing him to stumble. Knox caught her hand and recovered his balance before he fell.

  “Hey!”

  Jordan reclaimed her hand, then asked, “You okay?” as if tending to an injured child.

  “Not nice, Jordan.”

  “It’s been fun. I’ll see you around, Knox.” Then she diverted her direction away from him and toward the bathroom.

  “I’ll be looking for that rain check.”

  Inside a bathroom stall, Jordan changed into a chador, the conservative prayer dress she would wear to hide her body from neck to toe. Then she slipped the Roosari headscarf over her head, leaving only the features of her face revealed. And for the final touch, she opened a small case containing a pair of dark brown contact lenses engineered to conceal her identity and popped them into her steel blue-gray eyes.

  In an airport this size, this busy, and international in scope, she didn’t have to wait long before a group of Muslim women matching her new profile entered the bathroom. Nor did she have to wait long to leave huddled within the group of women.

  When she left the bathroom, she walked right past Knox. He was completely clueless. Jordan was glad she didn’t have to create an unnecessary diversion to get past the idiot. Knowing Knox, he’d probably stand in the corner across from the restrooms all night, waiting for her. She hurried on to the security checkpoint.

  When she was called forward, the customs officer asked, “Where are you traveling today, Ms. Ankasa?”

  Embodying the new alias of Ava Ankasa, Jordan answered modestly, refraining from direct eye contact with the man. “Home to Tehran,” she said with an accent.

  “Passport.” He held out his latex-covered hand.

  She placed the document onto the counter and waited.

  “Are you carrying any food items with you today? Firearms? Chemicals?”

  “No.”

  “Look up,” the officer said.

  With confidence, Jordan peered into the scope of the newly-installed biometric retina and iris scanner.
/>   “Have a nice trip,” the man said, but his meaning was clear: Don’t come back. Your kind doesn’t belong here.

  Another day, another place, she would have decked the arrogant pig.

  • • •

  “Jane, I need your help,” Ben said to his sister on the other end of the line.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “It’s Jordan.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know.” Ben knew he sounded demoralized. “She split.”

  “What do you mean split? I thought you two were tight. Tighter than tight.”

  “We were.” His voice rose, then fell. “I thought, anyway.”

  “Let me guess, you didn’t ask her?”

  Ben thought about the ring that he’d recently purchased. It cost him quite an armload, but in his mind, Jordan was worth every hard-earned dime he’d paid for it, or at least, she would have been worth it if he had acted sooner. “You think she just gave up, got tired of waiting?”

  “Yeah, it’s possible,” she said.

  “Why is it the guy has to ask a girl to marry him? What’s wrong with the girl being straightforward?”

  “Ben, what happened?”

  “I lost it. Some guy was hitting on her and it went too far. I just went off.” But wasn’t that a reasonable response on his part? He had never been in a situation like this with Jordan; she had never even looked at another guy. She tended to his feelings like a sacred garden. She made him feel like he was the only guy in the world worth talking to.

  “Okay, so you had a jealous fit. How about getting her some chocolates, take her to dinner, or just do something nice. And if that doesn’t work, get down on your knees and beg.”

  “It’s not that easy. She’s gone, Jane.”

  “So go find her.”

  “No, she’s gone, gone,” he tried to explain.

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  “She quit her job, cleaned out her place, quit the gym; there’s no trace of her.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Like a frigging heart attack.”

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “Maybe it wasn’t you,” his sister suggested. “Have you thought of that?”

  “I’ve been through everything a thousand times. Nothing seems to add up. The fact that she packed up and left, it doesn’t sit square. It’s like she knew she was leaving but didn’t have the decency to tell me. I can’t figure out what went wrong.”

  “I have to admit, it does sound rather odd, Ben.”

  “I mean, Friday night was perfect. We went to a reception at NASA headquarters. She seemed happy. Later on back at my place, the sex was amazing.”

  “Okay, you can leave out the details.”

  “Then Saturday night,” he sounded befuddled, “everything went south.”

  “You had an argument?”

  “Jane, we’ve never had an argument that lasted more than a minute before Saturday night. We were like two people with the same mind and body. She knew me better than I knew myself. I knew her … or I thought I knew her.”

  “So what about the guy, what happened?”

  “It was late. The whole place was rocking. Someone got the idea to do a drinking game. It seemed harmless. Until — ”

  “Until someone planted one on Jordan,” his sister finished the sentence.

  “It’s my fault; I should have played a round with them. But doing shots isn’t my thing. New Year’s, okay, I’ll do a few.” Ben drew in a deep breath.

  “One day, you’re going to learn to communicate with the people who matter to you before there’s a problem.”

  “Who needs a bunch of words?” he quipped. “Isn’t it a given that girlfriends aren’t supposed to go around kissing complete strangers?”

  “If you had just opened your mouth and said, ‘Jordan, you’re killing me. Honey, please, I’m jealous.’ If you had just said something, anything to tell her she was wicked hurting you, she would have donkey-kicked that jerk to the curb.”

  “You’re right, I should have stopped her, I should have said something before I lost it. But Jordan doesn’t normally get toasted. It’s not like her. She seemed happy, you know. I don’t know.”

  “Look, Ben, if she was really planning to leave, whatever happened Saturday night probably didn’t have anything to do with her leaving. So don’t beat yourself up about acting like a maniac. But I will say this for future reference — you need to walk out of a room the second you feel your temper starting to rise. If you can’t control your anger, you’ve got to displace it.”

  Another silence passed.

  It didn’t happen often, but when Ben’s temper flared, he wasn’t normally the one who backed down from his principles.

  “Jane, I don’t know how to find her.”

  “Yeah, Ben, you do. You just want me to say it’s okay to call Kate.”

  Jane had nailed it. He had called his sister so she would tell him it was okay to call his ex-girlfriend to ask for help. Kate worked for Homeland Security and if anyone could track a missing person, it was she. “Am I that transparent?”

  “Once upon a time you saved Kate’s life. I promise it’s perfectly okay to call her.”

  “I don’t feel right about asking her for favors. I treated her so poorly.” He expelled a long hard breath, riddled with guilt.

  “An apology is never too late,” Jane said. “And anyway, Kate has moved on. She’s married and has a child now.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, unable to mask the surprise in his voice.

  “You never asked, I never mentioned it.”

  “So you think she can help?” he asked, knowing he was being redundant.

  “If she can’t, I don’t know who can.”

  • • •

  Five years was an embarrassingly long time to make someone wait for an apology. What kind of heel calls to apologize five years too late and then asks for a favor?

  “Kate Blane,” she said, answering her office telephone.

  “Kate, it’s Ben Johnson,” he said.

  “I thought that was you when I saw the name on caller ID. How’s Jane?” she asked, breaking the ice.

  “Oh, she’s great. Great. Just fine,” he said, stumbling through his words.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I heard you got married.”

  “I did!” she exclaimed happily.

  “Congratulations and all.”

  “Thank you, Ben, I appreciate that.”

  It was time. Now or never. “You know, not that it makes any difference now, but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for having been such a jerk. I should have been more supportive when you needed it. But I’m really glad you’re happy now.” He paused, hoping she wouldn’t say something like, “Yeah, you were a jerk so go blow and don’t ever call me again,” but he knew she wouldn’t even if he deserved it.

  “It was a tough time, Ben. I don’t think I ever thanked you for saving my life, did I?”

  “Yeah, I think you did, more than once.” Ben thought back to the day he unexpectedly showed up at her place. Had he not shown up when he did, that monster who raped her would have beaten her to death. Still, Ben wasn’t proud of himself for walking out on his relationship with her, not when she needed him most. He was a jerk for that, but he didn’t know how to deal with her anger and fears. So when she screamed at him to leave, he did just that — he left her. Despite all that, he knew she didn’t mean to end their relationship. He knew she believed he would come back, but he didn’t. And now he regretted how cruel he was to her.

  Kate continued. “To tell you the truth, I really try not to think about that day any longer. Bad stuff happens to good people.
You deal with it or it eats up your life.” She paused, then said, “So what else is going on? I know something big must have happened for you to have called me. And listen, I don’t mind helping if I can.”

  “I, ah,” Ben stuttered; the words just wouldn’t come out. Asking Kate for help seemed shallow, heartless, and downright low. How could he ask her for a favor when he had been such a coward?

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been seeing someone almost a year. Jordan Jakes. We were getting tight. We had an argument. She split town and I haven’t got the foggiest idea how to find her.”

  “I see.”

  “And when I say split, I mean she quit her job, packed up her place, and moved out all in a day’s time. She dumped her phone at the gym and I can’t figure out how to find her. It feels like something’s wrong. I’m concerned.”

  Diving to the heart of the issue, Kate started drilling him with questions. “Do you know where her parents live?”

  “I think all she’s got is a grandmother somewhere in England. She doesn’t have any siblings as far as I know.”

  “Have you tried calling the grandmother?”

  “I don’t know her. I know that sounds sad, but we never got that far. I’m not even sure about the grandmother bit. I only overheard something of a conversation I was listening in on.”

  “Have you checked the hospitals?” she asked next.

  “I just did a little while ago.”

  “Do you have her social?”

  “No.”

  “Driver’s license number?”

  “No.”

  “This won’t sound easy, Ben, but do you think there’s any chance she’s running from the authorities?”

  “No, I don’t see it.”

  “What kind of bank account does she have?”

  “I’m not sure, she always seemed to use cash.”

  “No credit cards?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know.”

  “But she had a cell phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she have any assets?”

  “Not that I know of; she lived in a cheap apartment, but who can ever know about these things,” he answered.