Sleeping With the Enemy

by Adaire, Alexis

  Yep, I was officially one of the boys.

  Sills was gracious with his praise during the debriefing session. The laser microphone was once again detecting speech in Contreras’s office and the Agency was thrilled that my colleagues and I had found a way to succeed. I asked about Mendez and Krause and was told they were fine and due home in three days. In my report, I had told Sills about the interview with Contreras and that afterward, I went to dinner with him, then back to his house for a drink with his girlfriend. I didn’t mention sex and he didn’t ask. I wondered, though, how much detail Dr. Morello would require after I’d met with her. I was supposed to tell her everything, and some of that information would undoubtedly end up in my file.

  On my way to Morello’s office, I ran into Kent Perlotto, the other agent besides Demarco who had tried and failed to resolve the problem in Contreras’s office. We talked briefly about what had occurred, but I skipped the parts about dinner and drinks, sticking to the rest of the operation. Though discussing the details of what we did on missions was supposedly against regulations, I’d found it to be all too common between covert agents.

  Morello commended me on a job well done, then we settled in to discuss what had taken place in Caracas. I told her everything, including the fact that I’d had sex with Contreras’s girlfriend. When she asked me if I had taken her advice and been intimate with a woman in my private life to prepare me for that possible turn of events, I lied and said I had, thanking her for the tip. Something told me Morello didn’t believe me, but she let it slide.

  She asked me if I had found anything occurring between me, Contreras and his girlfriend to be traumatizing in any way, or even just troubling.

  “Not in the slightest,” I said. “I enjoyed it. Once I realized it was a part of my job that I needed to do, I gave in and had a great time in bed with the two of them.” I paused, then got to the point that had been worrying me since my return. “And now I’m wondering about that. Having fun sexually could conceivably reduce my focus. It could leave me exposed.”

  Morello mulled it over, then said, “I find your judgement to be sound overall, so I wouldn’t worry about it. As long as you never forgot why you were there and what your operational goals were.” She could see on my face that I wasn’t convinced. I didn’t tell her, but that was the part that bothered me: For a short while, I focused on the sex more than the operation. “It’s okay, Anna. Occasionally you’re going to enjoy that aspect of your job. It happens. Just try not to make a habit of it. And never forget why you’re there.”

  I felt a little better after our talk. The truth is that Miguel Contreras had been nothing special in bed. I had enjoyed the ego stroke of having sex with a man who wielded that much power, but his prowess as a lover had been lacking. Having his hot girlfriend join us, though, had made the evening spectacular. If I live ten lifetimes, I don’t think I could ever forget the feeling of kissing another woman while she was in the throes of orgasm.

  * * *

  My training resumed. It had been nearly ten months since I began and my instructors were pleased with my progress. My little crush on Jordan Williams, my hot technology coach, continued, though I never let it distract me. Maybe it was because I’d never been with a black man and was curious, but I kept it to myself and our relationship remained strictly professional.

  Over the next month, Demarco twice sent me invitations to meet him for a drink after work. I ignored both, not bothering to reply. I saw him only once, when we passed each other in the hall one day. I was sending a text as I walked and didn’t notice him until he said, “Good morning, Agent Tampax.”

  I turned and said loudly to his back, “That’s Agent Actually-Got-the-Job-Done to you.” Hit him where it hurts. A short time later I received an email from him.

  Ouch. That was mean.

  I’ll let you buy me a drink to apologize.

  How about Friday when we get off?

  I stared at my computer screen. Something about his choice of the words “get off” bugged me. Once an asshole, always an asshole. I deleted the message, then try as I might, I couldn’t get the memory of his hard muscular body off my mind the rest of the day.

  Twenty

  “Agent Mercer, good morning,” Mr. Sills greeted me as I entered his office to find two other men there. “You know Agent Zeller.” I smiled at John. He was a nice guy and from what I heard, an excellent agent. He was just a few years older than I, but had much more field experience. Sills said, “And I don’t think you’ve met Samuel Nguyen yet.”

  I felt like an idiot for not recognizing the other man. Nguyen was the head of the National Clandestine Service! Sills’s boss, who reported straight to the Director of the CIA. He stood up and offered his hand. “Agent Mercer.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said as we shook. I suddenly had butterflies in my stomach as I took my seat. What the hell is this about? I thought.

  “We have an operation planned, and we wanted to make sure you two are the right agents for this one,” Sills said.

  “It’s a delicate situation,” Nguyen added. “We want to be upfront with you about what it entails.”

  Delicate?

  “Our target for the operation is the highest possible level,” Sills said. “We need to plant one of our new Cyclops sniffers in an office in the Russian Defense Ministry.”

  Wow, this was big. Get-caught-and-you’re-screwed big.

  Sills continued, “The Cyclops is a tiny cylinder, less than an inch long and just a few millimeters in diameter, nearly impossible to detect. Inserted into an ethernet cable at any point, it can read all TCP/IP packet traffic and send a highly compressed copy, disguised as simple address resolution protocol data, to a chosen destination. Simply put, it can get us every piece of data routed through the cable where we install it. And we’re going to put one on the main cable feeding the router in a wiring closet located in a conference room off of Sergei Gurov’s personal office.”

  I gulped and looked at Zeller. I knew from my training with Raimundo that Gurov was Russia’s First Deputy Minister of Defense, one of the country’s half-dozen highest ranking military officials.

  “Here’s the deal,” Sills continued, “as you well know, often our best bet at gaining the confidence of a target is by learning their behavioral patterns — in particular their sexual behavior. We have been cultivating an agent-in-place in the Defense Ministry, a liaison who works directly under Gurov. As it turns out…” Sills paused, looking at Nguyen.

  “Gurov is a twisted man with a very specific sexual kink,” Nguyen said. “He has a predilection for meeting married couples, then forcing the husband to watch while he has sex with the man’s wife.”

  I immediately saw where this was headed and I tensed up.

  Nguyen continued, “Neither the husband nor the wife has any choice in the matter, due to the immense power Gurov wields in Russia. There’s a certain implied threat in failing to cooperate.”

  “That’s rape,” I said.

  “Undoubtedly,” he replied. “Although our contact tells us Gurov’s motivation is psychological dominance, not physical violence. He wields his power to convince the couple they have no other option but to comply. Once he’s completed the act, shaming the wife and in effect cuckolding the husband, he sends them on their way. Gurov’s too smart to risk his career with a charge of sexual violence. This way, he can always claim there was consent and it would be their word against his — and he vacations with Putin, so we know whose word would be believed.”

  Sills jumped in, saying, “It’s disgusting, but it gets us in his office. Our agent-in-place says he’s introduced couples to Gurov on occasion, one of the reasons he’s gained Gurov’s trust. The two times he’s done so at the General Staff Building, Gurov gives the couple a personal tour of the premises, ending up in his office.”

  “Can’t the agent-in-place, this liaison for Gurov, plant the Cyclops?” Zeller asked. Good question.

  “He refuses because it
would mean certain execution for treason if he were caught,” Sills answered. “However, he’s agreed to introduce the two of you, posing as a married couple, of course, to Gurov at a reception being held a week from Saturday at the Ministry of Defense General Staff Building.”

  “And if we get caught?” I asked.

  “It would be a messy diplomatic affair,” Nguyen replied. “Possible jail time until we can arrange for a prisoner exchange with the SVR or the GRU. But no execution.”

  “Bottom line is: Don’t get caught,” Sills said.

  There was a pause to let it all soak in, then Nguyen asked, “Are you willing, Agent Mercer?”

  Could I let this Russian guy pull his little power play and force me to have sex with him in front of my fellow agent? I looked at Zeller.

  “You have my assurance nothing would be shared beyond this room, Anna,” Zeller said sympathetically. I believed him. Zeller was a good man and a solid agent who didn’t indulge in some of the frat-boy stuff the other men did. That was likely the reason he’d been chosen for this.

  “I assume you wouldn’t attempt this if it weren’t vital for national security reasons?” I asked Sills and Nguyen.

  “It would undoubtedly yield a wealth of information on the former Eastern Bloc Soviet states,” Sills said. “Worst case, we should know better how to proceed when things get sticky in those countries. At best, it could actually save lives in the Ukraine in the near future. And obviously, anything we can do to know what Putin is planning is critical to US foreign policy.”

  The three men waited for an answer from me. Sills once told me, “The Agency doesn’t ask” when it comes to assignments, yet they wanted to determine if I was comfortable with the idea of doing this in front of a co-worker. I assumed if I said I wasn’t, they’d find another female agent who was.

  Then I thought of my actions saving lives. Even a single life saved would be worth the trade off. And I was being asked to do this by a man who reported directly to the Director of the CIA.

  “Let’s do it,” I said. I was a covert agent in the Extracurricular Affairs section of the Clandestine Service Division of the CIA. This was my job, and I was good at it.

  * * *

  I spent the week studying up on Sergei Gurov and the Russian Ministry of Defense. I also put in extra time with Jordan Williams, who showed me and Zeller how to insert the Cyclops sniffer into an ethernet cable. One end of the small cylinder was sharp enough to puncture the cable, creating a tiny hole into which the Cyclops was inserted. There was an art to pushing the sniffer into the cable without severing any of the wires inside. The resulting hole in the cable was so small it was invisible to all but the closest inspection. Jordan also showed us how to distinguish a router from other similar-looking devices and how to differentiate the single incoming ethernet cable from the many outgoing ones.

  Zeller and I would be posing as Aimon and Marit Zobrist, a Swiss couple who made their fortune in the tech industry. The Agency excelled at building “dusty trails” for that sort of thing — retroactively planting mentions of us in legitimate web pages that were created more than a decade prior, even in actual news sites. The reception we would attend was to foster interest in Russia's burgeoning high-tech industry. The agent-in-place who would introduce us to Gurev was a man by the name of Pavel Baryshev, and we would be his guests at the reception. His high rank ensured that security wouldn’t give us more than a cursory background check. Baryshev also knew that if the Cyclops sniffers were ever detected, we wouldn’t be on the official security list of those having been inside Gurov’s office.

  We were scheduled to take a Thursday morning commercial flight from Dulles to Geneva, Switzerland. From there, we would use fake Swiss passports to take a private jet to Moscow. That way a simple check by the Russians would show we began our journey from Geneva. Two other agents, Bryce Henninger and Josh MacAuliffe, both of whom had spent time in Moscow, would accompany us on the operation. They would fly with us to Geneva, then continue on the same commercial airline to Moscow. They would also be staying at the Hotel Metropol, not far from the Kremlin and Red Square. The Ministry of Defense’s General Staff Building, the location of both the reception and Gurov’s office, was a few blocks further.

  I was nervous and ready to get going, a feeling I recognized as common now. The anxiety of being on an actual mission was easy to deal with because I had to focus on the present. This part, though — the waiting — was harder.

  Wednesday morning I was summoned to Sills’s office. When I entered I was surprised to see Ryan Demarco sitting there.

  “There’s been a change in plans, Agent Mercer,” Sills said. “We’ve decided that Agent Demarco is a better fit for this operation, since you’ve already worked together. We wanted to run it by you first to make sure you didn’t have a problem with it.”

  What the hell? NO! I didn’t want Demarco involved, especially considering the specifics of that operation.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir,” I said. “I have no problem working with Zeller on this.”

  “I know, Anna,” Sills said, softening his tone. “But your blind simulation with Demarco in London put the two of you together in an intimate situation. It’s not the same as what we expect in Moscow, but that would be one less thing to worry about. It’s our thinking that would make this difficult situation a little easier for you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I turned to Demarco and saw a serious look on his face. “I can do this if you can, Mercer.”

  “Dr. Morello was the one who suggested it,” Sills said. “She thought that the specific kind of interaction you’ll likely have with Gurev is going to be stressful enough and that your shared history with Demarco will help.”

  At that moment I wanted to kill Morello. My blood boiling, I tried to remain calm. Everyone seemed to be fine with this except me, and as the new kid on the block I hated the idea of rocking the boat. I looked at Demarco again and saw a smugness in his eyes that irritated me.

  That jerk thought he could fluster me? Fuck him.

  “I don’t have a problem with it, sir,” I said to Sills. “I’m a professional. I’ll work with anyone you assign.”

  Sills was glad to hear it. A briefing was scheduled for that afternoon, to be attended by Sills, Henninger and MacAuliffe, and Jordan Williams. And of course me and Demarco. As soon as Sills dismissed me, I strutted through the building to Morello’s office, only to be told that she was out for the rest of the day. Lucky for her, and probably for me as well, as I was on the verge of losing my professional composure.

  I sat fuming in my office for a while before I realized I’d never told Morello the full extent of what had taken place in London. She knew Demarco and I had sex, but was unaware he’d pushed things as far as he had. It probably made sense to her to suggest that Demarco replace Zeller. As I continued to think about the Moscow operation, I became determined to ignore Demarco as much as I could while still getting the job done.

  My phone rang to snap me out of my thoughts. Sandra Teer wanted me to stop by her office to get the clothing I would need for the trip. Frankly, I welcomed the distraction.

  Twenty-One

  The four of us met near dawn at headquarters and rode together to Dulles. I sat in the front with MacAuliffe driving, and Henninger and Demarco sat in the back. MacAuliffe and Henninger were both veteran agents, two of the Agency’s top support guys for operations in Russia. Sills had brought out the big guns for this and I was still marveling at his trust in me. MacAuliffe was an average looking guy, tall and thin with curly hair and a constant amused expression, while Henninger was his opposite: shorter and stockier and quite somber. Rather than discuss the operation as we drove, we compared notes on Swiss food, everyone speaking in Russian to get accustomed to it. I was impressed with Demarco’s facility with languages, but would never tell him that.

  During the eight-hour flight to Geneva on Delta, I sat next to Henninger. We landed at Geneve Aeroport, on a runway tha
t was actually in both Switzerland and France. Demarco and I met an agent in the airport who led us to a private lounge with restrooms where we changed clothes, putting on outfits more befitting our covers as a nouveau riche couple. Demarco looked far too handsome in his dark Armani jeans with a blue shirt and charcoal blazer by Zegna, while I wore a lovely navy Prada pantsuit paired with a Hermes bag. I made a mental note to compliment Sandra Teer on her taste. Demarco’s outfit was complemented by an antique Rolex watch and mine by a gorgeous strand of black pearls.

  Our contact took our US passports and handed us Swiss ones containing our new names and a full decade’s worth of exit and entry stamps. We also received Swiss driver’s licenses and credit cards, photos of our two young children, and thirty thousand Russian rubles each, the equivalent of five hundred bucks.

  We were driven by a Swiss security guard to a private hangar to board our jet, a Hawker Beechcraft 800. We had a ninety minute layover before the three-hour flight to Moscow. The jet was sleek and sexy, with two seats on each side facing each other, and a small couch with another seat toward the back. I took one of the seats facing forward and Demarco sat in the one facing me. To that point, any conversation we’d had was minimal, and in Russian. In the jet we’d have to speak French with a Swiss accent to cover ourselves, just in case. If the Russians were to learn from the jet’s crew that we spoken in English, it would sink us.

  The flight had been booked through an executive travel company and there were two other passengers, an older man traveling with a woman in her twenties, both Swiss. The woman struck up a conversation with me as soon as she boarded, asking me about my Hermes bag. I somehow kept her going for most of the flight to practice my French, but more importantly to avoid Demarco.