The Shadow Mission

by Shamim Sarif

  The muscular tones of Nina Simone belting out “Feeling Good” fill the space, emanating from a vinyl record rotating sedately on a vintage turntable. In the center of the room, remote-controlled flames dance invitingly on a raised marble hearth. On the other side of this modern fireplace, Amber sits at her semicircular desk, surrounded by computer screens. To her left is a long counter, uncluttered by any ornamentation, and behind that counter are several locked safe boxes.

  “Jessie!” she says. “Good to see you.” She throws me a smiling glance from beneath a carefully styled crop of hair that’s currently dyed an improbable shade of electric blue.

  “Are those new highlights in your hair?” I ask.

  “Your powers of observation seem to evolve to ever-new heights.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m a highly trained special agent.”

  “Apparently,” Amber observes.

  I come close enough to perch on the edge of her desk, something that drives her insane at the best of times.

  “I hear you’re having some trouble hacking into Jake Graham’s computer,” I say.

  Amber looks daggers at me and I return the glare with the most charming smile I can conjure.

  “Jake is the kind of meticulous journalist who is obsessed with protecting his sources,” she replies haughtily.

  “Not surprising,” I say. “I mean, it’s not like he reports on the weather. He writes about corrupt regimes and the worst kinds of criminals.”

  “Exactly the sorts of people we go after,” Amber agrees.

  I look at her for a moment. Though Jake Graham’s social justice leanings are hardly news to me, it’s the first time I’ve really thought about him as having the same interests as us. Since his report on the shooting of Ahmed in Cameroon—the shooting that was my fault—not to mention his article about my mother singing for Gregory Pavlic, and his current stalking of Kit and Peggy, I’ve considered him to be an enemy. Someone to hide from and fight against. The irony is that Amber is right; Jake and Athena want mostly the same things. For the rights of women and girls, and all human beings, to be protected across the world.

  Amber’s bracing tones interrupt my musing.

  “Without an actual lock on the Wi-Fi he uses or, rather, a lock on the router he uses for his VPN, I don’t think even you’d have had more luck than me.”

  “So, basically, if Jake has pieced together that there’s a rogue agency of women based in London bringing down traffickers and assorted scum—we won’t know until the police show up to arrest us?”

  Amber stands up with an exasperated sigh. Her heels tap efficiently over to the turntable, where she switches off the music.

  “I doubt he has any evidence of note,” she says.

  “I hope you’re right. And if you’re not, I hope we get to share a jail cell,” I sigh. “It would be fun.”

  “In the same way as having a root canal is fun, perhaps,” remarks Amber.

  She sits down at her desk and motions me to take a chair beside her. The seat is one of those lush, ergonomic jobs that keeps your posture perfect while you stare at a screen for hours. Meanwhile, Amber types like a maniac, bringing up different items on different screens.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” she asks.

  “Good news.”

  “I did manage to get into Jake’s email this morning.”

  “Well done,” I say. I don’t ask how she did it, because chances are good that I’ll end up with my head on the desk, drooling from boredom. “So, what’s the bad news?”

  “I found out from his email that he never keeps any of his investigations on a computer,” she says. “They’re all on paper.”

  She points out the relevant messages on the screen. Notes that Jake has written to anonymous-looking email addresses to reassure potential sources that they won’t be tracked through him.

  “Can’t be,” I say. “How does he write his reports?”

  “Oh, he does write his actual journalism pieces on a laptop. Because within hours, they’re published in a newspaper or live on TV anyway. It’s only the sources and the ongoing research and unfinished investigations that he keeps in notebooks or whatever.”

  Well, that sucks. I lean back in the chair, frowning.

  “Don’t bother,” Amber says.

  “Don’t bother what?”

  “Thinking. I’ve already done it for you and run the plan by Li. You’re going to have to break into Jake Graham’s home.”

  12

  THOUGH ALL OF US ARE nervous about our intrepid reporter friend, I also have to hang on to the fact that my main mission back in London is still to track down more on this AAB Enterprises outfit that Hassan spilled the name of after our colorful chase through the slums of Mumbai. That means working with Li and Caitlin to get into the private bank where AAB holds its accounts. But now, I’ll also need to find a way into Jake’s home to see if Athena is about to be blown out of the water. It’s going to be a busy couple of days, and once Amber runs me and Caitlin through the plan to access the bank, I decide to fill in the rest of the morning with a workout. Caitlin stays at Athena to check in with our private doctor about progress in coming off her meds. I’m feeling edgy and nervous, not to mention lethargic from jet lag, so I head out for some fresh air and a lengthy run along the river. My feet hit a rhythm early on; nice and steady, nothing earth-shattering in terms of speed. It’s just enough to stop me from thinking, to scour my mind clean of all the noise. There’s a breeze that carries the metallic smell of rain from the gathering clouds that lie crouched on top of the city. I sprint down as far as the wedding-cake spires of the Albert Bridge, then jog across it and through Battersea Park before making a big circle back to where I started.

  It’s only when I’m done and back at Athena, slumped gratefully in the baking heat of the steam room that connects to the gym, that my mind starts going back to India again. I’m puzzling over the warehouse—the garments printed with Jingo Jain’s political slogans, and the sophistication of guarding the place with an active denial system. It makes Family First, or whoever is behind them, feel bigger and better organized than we would have hoped. While I think, my eyes trace a hundred different trails carved out by the water droplets coursing down the glass door of the steam room.

  I wonder if Riya has turned anything up yet. Then I recall our conversation, about how personal this case is to her. What must it have been like for her, growing up in an orphanage? Did the people who adopted her take care of her, love her? I wonder if it would be okay to ask her to lunch or dinner; somewhere off-duty, a setting where we could be free from constantly having to worry about the stresses of the case.

  But then, I think it might be better to not go there. I’m beginning to find several things about Riya—her ethics, her commitment, her sharp intelligence—attractive. And the truth is, the very idea of being attracted to someone related to my work scares me. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that the last girl I thought was a knockout was the daughter of a human trafficking kingpin. Not only did my overactive hormones compromise my judgment but, in the end, she turned out to be a chip off the old block when it came to selling women like they were commodities. All in all, I’m not thrilled with my recent track record. Reluctantly, I decide that it would be logical to keep personal feelings at a distance, and just focus on the jobs at hand.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m in the locker room, standing side by side with Caitlin in front of full-length mirrors. Both of us are getting dressed up for our next job, in navy trousers and jackets, with pressed white shirts beneath.

  “I feel like your suit fits better than mine,” I mutter, pulling at my outfit.

  “Let me get this straight,” Caitlin says in her dry drawl. “You’re wearing a wig that a Vegas showgirl would find tacky, but it’s your suit that bothers you?”

  She has a point. My real hair is covered with a wig that’s really expensive and realistic, but it’s a dark, short, spiky cut with reddish highlights.
It serves its purpose because, undoubtedly, it’s only this dubious hairstyle that anyone would remember about me if they met me just once. Caitlin adjusts the tight skullcap that’s covering her dark gold hair and then pulls on her own fake hairpiece—long, brunette, straight. I watch her run her hands through it as she looks approvingly at herself in the mirror.

  “How come you get ‘elegant’ and I get ‘drag artist’?” I protest.

  “Maybe because you give Amber shit all the time.” Caitlin grins. “And Amber chooses our disguises. You do the math.”

  Caitlin slips a mouthpiece over her bottom teeth that alters the shape of her jawline. Even I don’t recognize her at this point. But then, with my new hairstyle and deep blue contact lenses over my naturally green eyes, I don’t recognize myself either.

  “You have to admit, it’s kind of fun,” Caitlin says, beaming at me. “I mean, in this tech-crazy world, how often do we get to play ‘dress-up’ like real spies?”

  Being out there in the field, boots on the ground, is what Caitlin lives for. She had the worst time in the US military, but that was because of the abuse she saw on both sides, not because of the work. She’s never enjoyed the endless hours pinned behind a desk that online spying entails, though she rarely complains. I shake out my shoulders and button up the suit jacket, getting a feel for it, because it needs to fit me like I wear it every day. Meanwhile, Caitlin slides on a set of aviator shades and poses in front of the mirror.

  “Too much?” she asks.

  “Not if you’re going for a look that screams ‘I’m a Hollywood actress pretending to be a bodyguard.’”

  She sighs, removes the sunglasses, and slips them into her breast pocket.

  “If you’re done admiring yourself, we should get going,” Caitlin says.

  I follow her out of the locker area and into the tech cave, where Amber seems to be taking some kind of weapons inventory on her precious countertop. She pauses to come over and give us a final briefing. A very cool 3D floor plan projects out from her screens, and just hangs there in the space by her desk like a floating holograph. Caitlin is circling it, examining it for what must be the tenth time. She’s always meticulous about this stuff. I like to think I am too, but once, twice—and I’ve got it.

  It’s the layout of the Cypriot Private Bank in London. Their headquarters is just two miles from here, housed in a three-hundred-year-old landmark building. Normally, a structure that age is a cinch to work with because the heating, cooling, and security systems have been added in piecemeal over time, without a proper plan—and that means there are often weaknesses that we can creatively exploit. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. This bank is notorious for handling offshore money for a secret roster of dodgy corporations, heads of state (usually the brutal, dictator kind), and sovereign wealth funds from countries with less-than-stellar human rights records. They’re awash in cash just from the fees they charge their grateful clients to make their dirty money disappear and so, while the facade of their building remains intact and compliant with building regulations, they’ve had plenty of funds available to do a complete overhaul on the inside.

  For us, that creates a headache. Firstly, Amber’s been unable to get a lock on their most secure internal network, through which she might have tried to find any unprotected data or weaknesses in their servers. On the plus side, she’s used the bank staff’s Wi-Fi to get a lock on a potential vulnerability—two server ports that are unused but not properly blocked off. But she can’t access those remotely. So, our job is to get an actual piece of equipment into the room where the bank houses its physical computer servers so that Amber can get into the important information flow—the data on their clients, which include AAB Enterprises.

  “Let’s run through the server room again,” Caitlin says.

  “Here it is,” says Amber, moving her finger through the floating floor plan.

  “And there’s definitely no way in there through the door?” Caitlin pushes.

  “You mean the three-foot-thick metal door opened with a biometric key and an encrypted passcode?” Amber asks sardonically. “No, probably not. That’s why we’ve come up with the current plan. Is there anything else you want to second-guess me on?”

  Caitlin smiles at her. “Just trying to help,” she says.

  “If I need assistance, I won’t hesitate to ask,” Amber replies.

  “Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning,” I comment.

  Amber fixes me with an irritable glare. “Someone hasn’t seen her bed for three days,” she retorts.

  “Okay, kids, let’s not bicker,” Caitlin says, deflecting Amber’s temper. “Just check this.”

  Amber opens up an app on Caitlin’s phone, tests that it works okay, then gives it back. Then she bustles over to me and tucks two tiny drones, the size of flies, into small padded pockets sewn into the lapels of my jacket, along with a tiny tool kit. She sniffs at me as she works.

  “You smell lemony,” Amber observes.

  “Which is strange,” I reply. “Because you seem to be the sour one.”

  Amber sighs. “I’m sorry to be crabby. I’m just tired,” she adds.

  In return for her unusual apology, I try my best to be conversational.

  “Are you sure the drones won’t get caught by the metal detector at the front door?” I ask.

  “They’re fiberglass, and the tool kit is high-tensile plastic,” Amber says. “More chance of this raising an alarm.” She holds up a small digital tape measure like the kind real estate agents use to figure out room sizes. Amber slips it into my pocket, then steps back and casts a critical eye over us.

  “You look authentic,” she says, clearly pleased with her handiwork in transforming us. “I completely believe you as Li’s bodyguards.”

  “Really? ‘Authentic’ was the word in your mind when you chose this wig and these contacts for me to wear?” I demand. “I barely look human. I look like one of those avatars in a weird sci-fi game—”

  “Go and get this done,” Amber says, interrupting my whining. “Don’t worry, you’ll be perfectly fine.”

  Spoken like someone who’ll be spending the next hour right here, completely safe, sipping tea and listening to old-time music on her vinyl turntable, while we sweat through trying to break into a bank server protected like a fortress. With a brief nod goodbye, we move into the elevator and scan ourselves down to the parking garage, where we wait for Li to meet us by her car.

  13

  IT’S JUST A BIT MORTIFYING that even Li has to smother a smile when she sees me. This is a woman who could sit through any stand-up comedy set without cracking a laugh. I meet her amused look with as much irritation as I can while still maintaining a shred of respect for my superior.

  “Impressive,” Li tells us, perfectly deadpan. “I don’t recognize the two of you. Disguises might be superfluous to our requirements, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  Thankfully, we’re so close to the bank that I don’t have much time in the back of Li’s super-cool Tesla with my boss trying not to stare at me. When the driver pulls up outside the bank, Caitlin and I both exit smoothly, assessing the street for risks like real bodyguards would before allowing the rear door to open and Li to exit. We escort her inside the towering building, which is all carved stone and marble on the outside. Right inside the foyer, a deferential wealth manager and assistant are anxiously awaiting our arrival. They bow and scrape us into a private client lounge, an acre of neutral-toned space with lush cream carpets, expensive leather armchairs, and some kind of championship barista coffee machine. A wine cooler holds an array of champagnes and vintage wines. Another bar area houses racks of coconut water, matcha tea, and the kind of environment-slaughtering bottled water that’s probably harvested by hand in the foothills of the Himalayas.

  Bank managers parked behind desks are so not how it’s done in this world, apparently. Li is ushered to a plush armchair, and the elegant manager sits opposite her. He’s perh
aps fifty, in a tailored suit; clean shaven, salt-and-pepper hair cut neatly and swept back. He looks like he stepped out of an ad for luxury Swiss watches; you know the ones—where a satisfied guy lounges on the deck of a yacht, smiling fondly at his designer kids, so ecstatic that their hundred-thousand-dollar graduation gift timepieces will last for six generations.

  Completely poised, Caitlin plants herself by the door while I station myself right beside Li. The assistant that greeted us when we arrived, a young woman in a gray skirt suit and heels, brings over a small, gleaming silver tray. Upon it sits a solid crystal glass filled with the sparkling water that Li just requested. But Li shakes her head.

  “Bring me a bottle. Sealed. And a new glass. Two glasses.”

  The woman scurries off. Even though it’s Li who is behaving (intentionally) like a prima donna, and a rude one at that, the manager apologizes profusely for his assistant’s terrible service. When he’s done with the self-flagellation, he starts making polite small talk. Li looks bored and provides one-word replies to his questions, upon which he casually tries tossing out a few phrases in Mandarin. Li is originally from outside Beijing, so that’s her first language. Now she smiles slightly, like she’s so impressed, and they chat a bit more. The water bottle appears but Li returns it again, because it’s the wrong brand of water this time. I smirk, but only on the inside. Li is setting up her fussiness for the next stage of our attack. By the time the young assistant is back for the third time, I take the bottle of water from her tray myself, open it, pour a little into one of the glasses, and then I actually taste it, like it might be poisoned, before allowing my esteemed boss to get near the other glass. The manager watches politely, like he sees this kind of thing every day. And who knows? Catering to paranoid tyrants, maybe he does.