When I turned the corner at the end of the block I was joined by Musgrave, who’d been waiting outside in case of trouble. “How’d it go?” he asked. “Do you have a rendezvous for later?”
I turned to my fellow agent and grinned. “I’m done. Let’s go grab some lunch, then make arrangements for our flight home.”
“You’re done?” he asked, dumbfounded. “You made the switch already?”
I grinned at him. “Yep.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Damn, Anna. I didn’t even have time to feel the jet lag.”
Fifteen
The pride I’d felt in my successful mission had eroded by the time I entered Sills’s office the following morning. Still tired from the whirlwind trip — just one night in Paris and less than forty hours from departure to return — I had begun to think I might be reprimanded for rushing the operation. Although I’d manage to plant the bug, maybe Sills wouldn’t approve of the manner in which I’d done it. It was possible the Agency preferred a slower, more methodical approach in these situations, and my improvised bathroom scenario might be looked at as hasty and unnecessarily risky.
“Come in, Agent Mercer,” Sills said, motioning for me to take a seat. When I did, I saw the smile on his face from across the desk. “Congratulations on a successful operation.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied. “I was afraid you might think of my breaking from the planned strategy as too impulsive.”
“On the contrary. According to your report, you perceived an unexpected risk with the original plan and altered it in a manner that allowed you to install the bug before any suspicion might have arisen. I commend you on your quick, clear thinking and your dedication to finding a way to complete your mission.” Sills smiled and added, “Anna, this is the type of judgment and savvy we hope to see from a covert operative. Going forward, this gives us greater confidence in your ability to handle the various types of challenging situations that can come up in the field. We were very pleased with the operation and are quite proud of you.”
During the debriefing, I wondered if Sills had been curious how I had, as my report stated, “kept the target occupied in the restroom of an uncrowded wing of the Pompidou Centre as I simultaneously switched the handle of his briefcase with the one provided by OTS without his knowledge.” What did Sills think I had done? Surely he imagined me having some kind of sex in that restroom. Though I’d been told early on that as few people as possible at the Agency would know what kinds of missions I would be undertaking, certainly some of those people wondered what went on in the field, too. I concluded it was something I’d probably never know and shouldn’t waste much time thinking about. My job was to complete my given missions, and I knew that doing so would help to make my country safer. That was good enough for me.
* * *
My tray had space for dessert, but I passed. I knew the lasagna should do the work of keeping my calories up, but I got two pieces of garlic bread to be on the safe side. I made my way through the cafeteria at CIA headquarters and looked for an empty table, not really in the mood to chat. I was lucky — the room was mostly empty. I had just left a meeting with Dr. Morello that kept me busy way past lunch time. I was always trepidatious when meeting with Morello after an operation, because she was the only person with whom I was required to share the most graphic details of my actions. When I updated her about the Paris operation, she told me she thought I had acted “a little overconfidently.” Whatever. My pat on the back from Sills was what really mattered.
I found a table and sat, digging into the pasta. I hadn’t eaten more than a couple of bites when I saw another tray land on the table across from me and looked up to see Ryan Demarco standing there.
“What’s up, beautiful?” he asked.
I quickly finished chewing my food while I glared at him. Despite the smirk, that amazing body gave my nervous system a jolt every time I saw it, my own body remembering how his rock-hard chest had felt. It irritated me that I couldn’t help but get a sexual thrill from him in a way my brain found impossible to override. “What do you want, Demarco?” I asked in return.
“Please, call me Ryan,” he said as he took the seat across from me. “Hey, I hear you’re two-for-two now. Very nice start to your new career.”
“Whatever,” I said.
He put his sandwich to his lips, then stopped and said, “I’d love to hear about Paris. The more details the better.” He winked at me as he took a bite.
“You’re an asshole, Demarco.” I didn’t have time for this jerk. I set my fork down, stood up and reached for my tray.
“Sit down,” he insisted, grabbing my wrist. “I’ll behave. You and I have to learn to get along. We may end up working an operation together and can’t let hurt feelings get in the way.”
I remained standing and looked into those hazel eyes, which still conveyed that he was amused with me. He released my wrist and gestured for me to sit, saying, “Come on, I promise I’ll behave.”
I reluctantly sat. Could we actually work together on an operation? That thought had never crossed my mind after our encounter in London. I didn’t even know exactly what department he was in, only that he also worked in the Clandestine Service Division and had Sills’s trust.
“So no details then,” Demarco continued, “but are you happy with the way things went in Paris? Did Sills think you did well?”
“Things hit a snag very early,” I said. “I made a snap decision to improvise and was able to wrap things up very quickly. Sills seemed to be thrilled.”
“How quickly?” he asked. I sensed a competitive vibe to his question.
“Less than an hour,” I said.
Demarco nearly did a spit-take with his iced tea. “Less than an hour?” he asked incredulously.
“Yep,” I replied, “counting the target’s forty-minute speech.”
“Impossible,” he said. “That doesn’t happen. Especially with someone who’s still as green as you.”
I felt my own sense of competition rise from within. “Well, it happened this time.”
“What was the goal, a bug plant?” he demanded, sounding a little agitated.
“You know I can’t divulge that,” I countered.
“We’re colleagues. Anything you say will be between us.”
“It’s against regulations,” I said.
He frowned. “Whatever.”
Now I was getting a little pissed off. He was treating me like the rookie-in-training I’d been when we met in London, while I was actually a full-fledged covert ops agent with two successful operations under my belt.
“Yes, it was a bug plant,” I admitted. “And I did it in about ten minutes.”
“Can’t be done,” Demarco scoffed.
“Well I did it,” I bragged, “with the target in the room.”
Demarco laughed. “Now I know you’re lying. Where were you? In a hotel room?”
“No, in a men’s room,” I said. “With the lights off.”
“So you’re trying to tell me you planted a bug while simultaneously fucking your target in a restroom in the dark? No way.”
“Actually, I was blowing him,” I said snarkily.
I could see in his eyes that Demarco was impressed. I felt as if I’d won this little battle of egos.
Then I watched in horror as a big grin broke out across his face.
“I knew I could get the details out of you,” he laughed.
I felt my cheeks grow red and my pulse quicken.
“I have no doubt the target was very distracted by that talented mouth of yours,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I half-shouted, then threw my water in his face and stormed off.
For the next couple of days I waited on pins and needles to see if anyone had reported me for drenching my colleague, but never heard a word about it.
And to my dismay, despite my feelings of hatred for Ryan Demarco, I couldn’t stop thinking intensely sexual thoughts about him.
Sixteen
/> My room at the Hotel Paloma was small but comfortable. I set my bag down and tested the bed, which proved adequate if not luxurious. Musgrave hadn’t accompanied me to Venezuela; instead I had the company of agents Luis Mendez and Roger Krause, both of whom had twenty or more years of service, twice as much as I did. That told me this operation was of a more critical nature than my first two had been. The two agents were sharing a room one floor below mine. The Paloma wasn’t in the best part of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, but it was relatively close to the National Assembly building, where my target’s office was. Still, that was a five-block walk through a sketchy part of town, so it was nice to know I would have two trained CIA agents close behind me.
Sills had called the three of us into his office out of the blue one morning about a month after my short Paris operation. There was a problem in Caracas that required intervention by a covert agent, and unfortunately two other attempts to resolve things had already failed.
“Agent Mercer, you’re not the best person for this particular operation,” Sills had bluntly told me, “but the two best people couldn’t get the job done. We’re hoping you can find a way. It’s worth a shot.”
Again he’d dimmed his office lights and lowered the screen. We saw a picture of a man in military clothing, with thick black hair, olive skin and brown eyes. I guessed him to be roughly forty years old. Definitely on the handsome side.
“This is your target, Miguel Salazar Contreras, the corrupt leader of the National Assembly and a high-level advisor to the Venezuelan armed forces. Contreras isn’t considered particularly dangerous on a personal level; he’s not a violent man. Still, a slip-up that compromises any of your covers could result in apprehension and questioning by the Venezuelan government and even possible imprisonment.” Sills paused for effect. “Agent Mercer, this is definitely the edgiest operation you have been assigned to thus far. Luckily, the mission goal is relatively simple: You are to somehow loosen a picture hanging on the wall of Contreras’s office opposite his desk.”
What the hell? I had thought.
As Sills explained it to us, for months the Agency had been eavesdropping on conversations in Contreras’s office via a laser microphone. The laser was mounted in a closet in the projection room of the Cine Continental, a movie theater directly across the street from the National Assembly building. An invisible laser beam was fired through the window of Contreras’s office and aimed at a painting mounted on the wall opposite Contreras’s desk. The beam could detect minute vibrations of the glass covering the painting caused by sound waves in the room — even the sounds of speech. The sound wave data was transmitted by satellite to CIA Headquarters where it was converted back to the audio that had produced the vibrations on the glass to begin with. The results were never crystal clear, but the Agency’s audio experts were usually able to salvage audible speech from it.
“Unfortunately, about three weeks ago something changed and the vibrations picked up by the laser are now too faint. People are still talking in that office, but we can no longer hear them well enough to understand what’s being said. Nobody has any idea what caused the change, but your task, Agent Mercer, is to get into Contreras’s office, analyze the painting, and identify and fix the problem so that it can vibrate as it did before.”
He hesitated, then added, “And if that sounds too easy, consider that Agents Perlotto and Demarco have both tried and failed.”
My ears had perked up instantly. Demarco took a crack at this and wasn’t able to get the job done? I was suddenly determined not to fail. Next thing I knew I was in Venezuela.
I looked out the window of my room in the Hotel Paloma at downtown Caracas. Venezuela was run by the country’s socialist party, with strong backing from the communists. The country had been only recently declared a national security threat by our president, but for more than a decade it had been common knowledge around the CIA that the U.S. was doing everything it could, espionage-wise, to weaken and hopefully one day overthrow the regime there.
Armed robberies of foreigners were common in Caracas and the State Department had issued an official travel warning to U.S. citizens about the area. Things had only gotten worse since then. Kidnappings were a regular occurrence and heavily armed criminals used grenades and assault rifles to get their point across. Last but not least, Venezuela as a country had the second highest homicide rate in the world. Needless to say, I did not want to be there any longer than necessary.
I settled into my bed and booted my tablet, plugged in the USB drive hidden in a fake pack of chewing gum in my purse, and once again went over the data regarding the operation.
The painting in Contreras’s office depicted the Battle of Carabobo, a turning point in the country’s battle for independence from Spain. I was more interested in Contreras himself, though. He was divorced, but currently lived with a girlfriend by the name of Isabel, who was a dark-haired curvy beauty in her mid-thirties.
My cover story this time was that I was Liz Sutter, a British writer who worked for a well-established socialist magazine based in London called the Socialist Standard. Sills had me call ahead of time to set up an interview with Contreras on the pretext that the magazine was planning a feature story on him. The Agency had a special phone that would “spoof” the country code, making it seems as if the call were coming from Great Britain. The interview had been set up and I was provided with a list of questions to ask, along with greater detail that would allow me to seem as if I actually knew what I was talking about.
As usual, the rest would be up to me.
* * *
I walked into the National Assembly building the next day, prepared to do my job quickly and effectively. My credentials were checked, then I was escorted to a lobby just outside of Contreras’s office and asked to take a seat. For the next hour I watched people come and go, but not once did anyone say a word to me. I had read in my file that the building was built in the late 1800s and it was certainly showing its age, with dull marble floors and cracking paint on the walls. The chair I was sitting in seemed ready for retirement as well. After a while I asked the nearby receptionist how much longer it would be and she said she’d check on it. She made a quick phone call then told me, “Wait just one moment, please.”
The door to the office opened and Miguel Contreras himself stepped out. He was even better looking in person than in his photos, wearing a dark gray suit and purple tie.
“Miss Sutter,” he said in Spanish-accented English, “I apologize for keeping you waiting. Unfortunately, I will not be able to meet with you today because something with high priority requires my attention. My receptionist will reschedule for you.”
Having said that, he seemed to actually notice me for the first time and smiled as he subtly looked me over. I smiled back and said, “I’m disappointed we can’t talk today, but I understand.”
“I promise to make it up to you,” he said, turning on the charm. “I will give you the best interview ever.”
He excused himself and returned to his office. Once he was gone, the receptionist informed me that the next opening in Contreras’s schedule was three days later. Great.
I relayed the bad news to Sills, then spent that interim period hanging out in the Hotel Paloma with Mendez and Krause. The first night we went out for dinner and got drunker than the rules allow, then returned to the hotel for “one more round” and ended up playing strip poker in the guys’ room. I have no doubt they both thought I’d be an easy mark and were hoping to see me naked. Eventually I was sitting in my bra and panties, while Mendez was shirtless in his jeans and Krause was down to his underwear. One jack-high straight later, I was treated to a few seconds’ worth of Krause’s shriveled pink penis as the three of us laughed our asses off, then we decided to call it a night. Nothing like alcohol and nudity to facilitate a bit of bonding between co-workers. After that night, the two men treated me like one of the boys.
Lounging around the hotel’s pool the following day in pajama bottoms a
nd a T-shirt, as I certainly hadn’t thought to bring a bathing suit, I began to get nervous about my meeting with Contreras. I hated the waiting because it gave me too much time to think. I kept picturing my target in his suit, looking very important and powerful. To my chagrin, I soon found myself growing horny and realized I hadn’t had good sex in quite a while. My restroom blowjob in Paris and the lackluster sex with Zeybeck in Turkey hadn’t done anything for me; the hot time in London with Demarco had been my last memorable sex, and that was seven months earlier. I resolved to follow Morello’s instructions and find a no-strings-attached hookup as soon as I was back home after completing the operation. It was time.
* * *
“Miss Sutter! I’m glad you could wait for me.”
Contreras offered me his hand as he gestured for me to come into his office. He had a strong handshake, but his hands were softer than I would have expected. His office was beautiful and stood in stark contrast to the rest of the building. It looked clean and modern and had obviously benefited from the touch of an experienced interior designer. I took a seat when he offered it, glancing at the large painting on the wall behind me — in a sense, my actual target.
“Are you sure we’re going to have enough time, sir?” I asked. The interview had been rescheduled at the end of his workday, after all of his regular appointments. I was afraid he’d rush through things and I wouldn’t get a chance to even inspect the painting, much less identify and resolve the issue with it.
“I scheduled our meeting at this time purposely,” he replied, settling into the oversized chair behind his desk, “so you could have as much of me as you want.” Did he phrase it that way on purpose? “And please, call me Miguel.” There was that charm again. Good, if I could get him interested in me as more than a reporter, it could help me buy more time in his office.
Sleeping With the Enemy Page 11