Kiana Cruise

by Jody Studdard

  “Brace yourself,” he told Amanda as he caught back up to the Mazda. “This could get ugly. Computer, acquire target, directly ahead. Fire missile upon target lock.”

  Amanda’s jaw dropped as a thin, gray missile flew from the Charger’s grille and hit the Mazda, destroying it completely. There was a massive explosion and chunks of flaming metal, plastic, and glass rained down on them from above. Amanda’s heart skipped a beat as a tire came out of nowhere and soared right over them, missing them by less than a foot.

  James spoke to the screen. He was calm but there was unmistakable urgency in his voice. “Jones, I need your location. Now.”

  The man he called Jones appeared on the screen. “We’re here. We see you. Just hold on for a few more seconds.”

  In the distance, just coming into view was a small helicopter, and it was racing right toward them. But unfortunately it did not arrive in time. The car behind them, the red Audi, pulled next to them, directly to their left. The passenger rolled down his window, pulled out a gun (a large pistol of some sort), and fired. The window next to James shattered, sending chunks of glass spraying all over him. Temporarily distracted and disoriented, he lost control of the car and it lurched violently to the right, hit another car that was in the lane next to it, and flipped. It rolled down the freeway, end over end, completely out of control. It turned over at least five times, maybe ten, maybe more, then came to a stop upside down in the exact middle of the freeway. It was engulfed in smoke and was a complete mangled mess of glass and metal.

  The last thing Amanda heard before blacking out was the sound of James’s voice next to her. He was completely desperate and frantic.

  “Amanda. Are you okay? Amanda. Jones, I need an ambulance. Now.”

  Amanda awoke in a hospital bed, hooked to an intravenous drip and countless other tubes and wires. She had no clue what most of them were for, but the sheer number of them frightened her. She was completely disoriented and had a pounding headache that felt so bad she thought her forehead was going to explode. She was barely conscious, and she couldn’t see much of anything because one of her eyes, her left one, was completely swollen shut and her other eye was blurry. She only stayed conscious for a few minutes but it was just long enough to overhear James, standing on the far side of the room talking to the man she had seen on the screen in the car. The one he had always referred to as Jones.

  “That’s not an option,” James said. “I don’t want her exposed to this type of life. I’ve tried to keep her out of it for years.”

  “We’ve had this discussion before,” Jones said. “This is the perfect time to bring her in. You’ll never get a better chance. This is an unfortunate accident, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s also a great opportunity.”

  “I don’t like it, not one bit.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. She already saw too much. What are you going to tell her? This was all just a mix-up? A freak accident? She’s a smart girl, James, she’ll never buy it. And you know how much the agency needs new agents, especially young ones like her. She’s the perfect age for the teen program. And if she’s anything like her old man, and I know she is, she’ll turn out to be one of the best agents we’ve ever had.”

  James hesitated for a second. “I’m so mad I can barely think right now. I wanted my daughter to do something different. Something safe. I don’t want her to end up like her mother.”

  “I didn’t want my daughter to join the program either. But look at how she’s doing. You’ve got to admit she was invaluable during the recent op in Cuba. Amanda will be okay, James. And I bet she’ll enjoy being an agent. Just you wait and see.”

  James was quiet for a long while, clearly weighing his options, but then he let out a loud sigh of resignation. “If anything happens to that girl, Jones, I’m going to hold you personally responsible.”

  “Whatever,” Jones said. “Let’s get the doctor. We need to move her as soon as possible.”

  A few seconds later, a doctor, a nurse, and two technicians wearing scrubs entered the room and wheeled her away.

  Ten minutes later, according to official documents, she died.

  Chapter 3

  In reality, Amanda did not die. Instead, she slipped back into unconsciousness and slept for two days. The minute she finally began to awaken, a nurse walked up and began to attend to her.

  “Doctor,” the nurse said. “She’s coming around.”

  A heavy, bearded man wearing a white overcoat walked up and shined a penlight in her eyes. Her left eye was still pretty swollen but it was already starting to get a little better and she could actually see out of it a little, but not much. Her other eye was blurry.

  “Where am I? What happened?”

  Her mind was racing, trying to remember all of the events that had transpired. Bits and pieces of the car chase, and the ensuing accident, came back to her in brief, violent flashes that shocked and terrified her.

  She tried to sit up, which was an extreme challenge since she was so sore. Every part of her ached and felt like it had been damaged in some way, some parts more badly than others.

  “Slowly,” the doctor said. “You’ve been through a lot. Don’t rush yourself.”

  James came into view directly behind him. He looked extremely haggard, as though he hadn’t slept for days. His face was covered with stubble, he had long wrinkles under both eyes, and his eyes themselves were bloodshot. It was quite a contrast to what Amanda was used to seeing, as James was an attractive man who was normally very well-kept.

  “May I speak to her?”

  “Give me a minute.” The doctor continued his examination for a couple of seconds, which included examining the readouts on the machine above her head and asking her a series of brief questions.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Not good. My head is pounding. And I’m dizzy. And my arm is killing me.”

  The doctor smiled. “That’s not surprising. The pounding in your head and the dizziness are due to the concussion you suffered. You should start feeling better soon, but if the pain gets too much to bear tell me and I’ll take care of it. Regarding the pain in your arm, it’s to be expected since you broke it in five different places.”

  “I broke my arm?” Amanda looked down and sure enough, her left arm was wrapped in gauze and had been placed in some type of splint.

  The doctor nodded. “The surgery went well. Luckily, all of the fractures were clean so I was able to set everything nicely. I expect it to recover fully with no ill effects whatsoever. But you’ll have a slight scar on your inner arm, just above your elbow where I had to make the largest incision. It shouldn’t be too noticeable but if you’re unhappy with it I’ll give you a referral to a plastic surgeon and he can clean it up for you. I’m going to cast your arm as soon as the swelling subsides.”

  It was at that point Amanda realized there was another part of her body that ached even worse than her arm.

  “My ribs. It hurts when I breathe.”

  “You’re going to have some discomfort for a while. You broke three different ribs, one in two spots. But they’ll be fine. They were small fractures and unlike your arm did not require any surgery.”

  Amanda nodded. She was starting to wonder how many other body parts she had broken but never got the chance to ask.

  “Your vitals all look good,” the doctor said. “I still want to monitor you for a couple more days, but if everything goes according to plan we should be able to get you out of here soon. In the meantime, there’s someone here who has been waiting a long time to talk to you.”

  At that, he motioned to James, who immediately took his place at Amanda’s side.

  “How are you doing, kiddo?”

  “I’ve had better days.”

  “I can imagine. You’ve been asleep for two days. I was starting to get worried.”

  “Two days?” Amanda could hardly believe it. To her, the car accident had just happened a few seconds ago. The brief, violent flashes cont
inued to form in her head, and they seemed so vivid and so real.

  “What happened? Where are we?”

  “We’re in a hospital in downtown LA, in a special ward used exclusively by my agency.”

  “Agency? What do you mean? You’re a salesman at Anaheim Dodge.”

  James smiled. “That was my cover. In reality, I’m an agent for the USIA.”

  “An agent?” She didn’t know what he meant by that, and with her head still foggy, she was having an even harder time than normal following what he was saying.

  “An operative,” James said, trying to clarify things for her.

  “A spy?”

  He smiled. “That’s an antiquated term. It was popular in the sixties and seventies but nowadays we prefer the word agent.”

  Amanda nodded, but really she had no idea what he was talking about. “USIA?”

  “United States Intelligence Agency.”

  “I thought the US intelligence agency was the CIA.”

  “Not anymore. The CIA became too big and too well known to be effective. It still exists, but is really just a front for the general public and for the media. It’s the same with the NSA.”

  “NSA?” Amanda had never heard the term NSA before.

  “The National Security Agency. It was the military’s version of the CIA. Kinda. But anyway, nowadays the real American intelligence agency is the USIA. It was formed about ten years ago and its identity is kept much more confidential than the CIA and the NSA. Few people outside of the agency know of its existence.”

  Amanda’s head started to spin again and she couldn’t tell if it was due to her current physical condition or due to the fact she couldn’t handle what James was telling her. Her mind, which was already in a complete fog, was doing overtime, trying to digest all of the information she had been told, but she couldn’t believe any of it. All of these years, she had thought James was a car salesman, who worked at a small Dodge dealership, and nothing more. But in reality he had been a spy, working for a top-secret, covert agency she had never heard of before.

  But in some ways, however, it made sense. Over the years, James had frequently gone on out-of-state business trips, sometimes with very little advance notice, and sometimes the trips had been for extended periods of time. Usually they were just for a day or two, but Amanda remembered one trip a few years back that had lasted nearly two weeks. She had had to stay with her uncle Dan and her aunt Patty in Pasadena while he was away. He had told her it was some type of training seminar, but in reality it had probably been a foreign assignment.

  It also explained his injuries. Sometimes, when he came back from his ‘business’ trips, he would have strange injuries. One time, he had returned with a black eye and another time he had been shot in the leg. He always had an explanation for them, most of which involved bizarre, freak accidents, and the time he had been shot he had claimed he had been mugged while walking down a street in Detroit (which Amanda actually believed since she had been to Detroit once and she hadn’t been impressed).

  It would also explain the gun. Years ago, when Amanda had been ten, she had been in James’s bedroom putting away his laundry (unlike most kids, she had always liked doing laundry – don’t ask her why), and had been putting his socks into the top drawer of his dresser, just the way he had liked. At one point, as she was placing the socks into the drawer, her hand touched a spot on the drawer’s side, just below its uppermost lip, and the drawer’s bottom slid open revealing a small, hidden compartment. Sitting within the compartment was a revolver with a silencer on the end of its barrel. Later, when she had asked him about it, he had immediately gotten defensive and had told her he had it in case someone broke into their house.

  “How long have you been an agent?”

  “Pretty much forever. I was recruited by the CIA straight out of college and I transferred to the USIA as soon as it was formed. The USIA only took a select group of agents from the CIA so it was seen as quite an honor. I’ve been with them ever since. Your mom worked for them, too.”

  Amanda’s heart raced. “Mom was an agent, too?”

  James nodded. “That’s how we met, on an assignment in Paris. She was my contact.”

  Amanda’s mom had died several years earlier, in a car accident coming home from work one day. Ever since, Amanda and James had lived on their own in their house in Anaheim. Amanda was about to ask some more questions about her mom, to find out more about her involvement with the USIA, but she never got the chance because she was beset by a series of quick, sharp bursts in the front of her forehead, just above her eyes. For a few brief seconds (which seemed like an eternity to her) she felt like her head was going to explode. Her eyes started to glaze over and she leaned back in her bed.

  James saw what was happening and called out to the doctor, who was standing on the fire side of the room examining some paperwork on a clipboard. He rushed over and did a quick exam. Luckily for Amanda, and much to her relief, the bursts of pain did not last for long.

  “It’s nothing serious,” the doctor said. “But you need to get some more rest.” He turned to James. “You can continue your explanation later. With a concussion of this severity, we need to proceed slowly.”

  James immediately started to protest, as he didn’t want to leave, and Amanda didn’t want him to go either, but the doctor was adamant. As such, he and the nurse accompanied James from the room. Amanda was pretty disappointed to see them go, but in the long run it was probably for the best, since a second later she was sound asleep.

  Chapter 4

  While Amanda slept, she kept replaying the chase, and the subsequent accident, over and over in her mind. She saw the strange, foreign men, and the cars zipping in and out of traffic on I-5, and she heard the terrifying, gut-wrenching sound of twisting metal as James’s Charger flipped (ten times) and eventually landed on its top, flattening it like an accordion. In her dreams everything seemed even more terrifying than in real life, since in real life the whole thing had happened so quickly she had barely had time to keep up with it all, but in her dreams everything happened in slow motion, making it seem somewhat surreal, and it kept happening over and over and over again. The worst part, by far, was the end, when the Charger’s roof caved in and Amanda’s entire world went black.

  So, like all people who have had a bad dream, she was more than happy to finally awaken. She was still in the hospital bed but it was a full day later. As before, the minute she started to regain consciousness, the nurse and doctor rushed over to her, did their customary checks and inquiries, then turned her over to James. Like the day before, he still looked pretty haggard, but not quite as bad. He had shaved so his stubble was gone and his eyes weren’t nearly as bloodshot.

  “How are you feeling today, kiddo?”

  “Okay. I guess.”

  “You were really restless while you slept. You were thrashing about pretty bad at times. At one point we thought we might have to strap you down.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was serious or kidding, but she didn’t really care. “I kept having nightmares. I kept seeing the accident over and over again. I still don’t understand. Who were those men and why were they chasing us?”

  “The men were former KGB agents, now freelance mercenaries. We’re still not certain what they were doing at your game, but they were both linked to an operation I performed in Slovakia about six months ago. As such, they must have been after me.”

  “How did they know where to find you? I thought agents were supposed to keep their identities and homes a secret.”

  “Usually, we do. But there have been security breaches on occasion. This must have been one of them.”

  “Where are they now?”

  James hesitated for a second, clearly choosing his words carefully. “You needn’t worry about them. Jones and the rest of his team took care of them.”

  Amanda’s heart stopped. She didn’t really know what James meant when he used the phrase ‘took care of them’ but she had a good idea
.

  “If they found us isn’t there a good chance others could, too? Other agents, from other countries?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the two of us died in the car accident. I died on the scene and you died shortly after being transported to the hospital. The USIA is taking care of the details now, including press releases and death certificates.”

  At that point, Amanda’s head was really spinning. What in the world was James talking about? They were supposed to be dead? That was crazy.

  He saw the confusion and anxiety in her face.

  “I know it sounds insane but it’s the only way. There’s no other way to guarantee our safety. We’ll both be given new identities, including social security numbers, birth certificates, passports, driver’s licenses, names -”

  “Names? What do you mean?”

  “You can’t have a new identity without a new name. And the new identity is essential. Otherwise, foreign agents may be able to locate us again.”

  “What’s my new name?”

  “That’s up to you. Our last name was already assigned by the USIA, and it’s Cruise, but they want you to pick your first and middle names. They think it’ll be a little easier for you to accept if you get to have some input. I’m thinking about picking the name Michael. I’ve always liked it. What do you think?”

  “It’s pretty common. Pretty plain.”

  “You think so?” He paused for a second. “What do you think I should pick?”

  “José.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Do I look like a José?”

  Amanda giggled. James was a tall, athletic man, at least 6’2” and 180 pounds. He had broad shoulders, a large chest, blue eyes, and thick, blonde hair. He did not look like a José at all.

  “Wow. A giggle. Is that a sign you’re feeling better?”

  “A little. But my arm is still killing me. It’s going to take a lot of ice cream to make it better.”

  James smiled. That was one of their favorite, and longest running, jokes. It stemmed from a time when Amanda had been four and James had been teaching her how to ride a bike without training wheels. There was a terrible crash. She fell and scraped her leg from the knee down. After getting some medicine and cleaning it up, he offered her a bowl of ice cream and said it would make her feel a lot better since “ice cream had magical healing abilities, especially when eaten by girls.” Amanda hadn’t really believed him but she really liked ice cream, so from that point forward whenever she got an injury of any type they went for ice cream. One softball season, when she went through a particularly nasty spell of games, they became regulars at the local Cold Stone Creamery.