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Charli stared deeply into her, and for the first time, Elaine saw a glimmer of something under, and perhaps even outside of, the rigid façade of control, as Charli set her jaw. “He said he was trying to save me, save me from being a total dyke.”
The lift of her chin, the slight squaring of her shoulders, the wall that Elaine could now really see rise in her eyes, half up and ready to close, she understood. The best defense was a good offense, and Charli was ready to go either way: let her in and stay there, or shut her out forever.
“I see,” Elaine said with a small nod, accepting both the statement and the challenge. “What did your parents say to that?”
Charli withdrew her hand from Elaine’s to run it through her hair as she moved away to sit. “My mom, she told him, ‘I don’t think you’ve done us any favors,’ and a few days later, I was in Virginia Beach with my dad’s brother and his family.”
Away. They’d sent their daughter, hurt, injured, confused, away from her school, her friends, away from the family she needed probably then more than ever. Elaine thought of her own family, her parents and her siblings, what they would have said or done. Death, she was certain, would have swiftly visited anyone who’d dared to touch her that way, and since her father wasn’t merely career Navy, but Naval Intelligence—Navy SEAL—she was also especially certain it would have been something creatively painful. Her sibs would have settled for a simple “take ’im out back and shoot ’im” solution, and to be completely honest, she knew that if it were her decision to make for any of them, she’d feel the same. But she also knew that under no circumstances would either he or her mother have sent her away—to anyone. They’d moved all over the country and, indeed, the world during her childhood, but unlike other military brats who she knew were parked with relatives, she and her sibs had been raised at home. Her parents were very clear on that: home wasn’t a fixed address, it was wherever the family was, together.
Elaine allowed herself to once more visually measure the stress and strain in the way Charli held her arms, the strength in the angle of her neck, her shoulders, then finally, the soft vulnerability of her lips, the unflinching return of her eyes. Elaine finally saw what she had never seen, and never really understood before, not with the same cold and crystalline clarity: Charli was alone.
It made her want to pull Charli into her arms and hold her until it simply went away. She didn’t know who she wanted to tell more—Charli or herself—that in some fundamental way she wasn’t alone, not anymore.
Elaine didn’t realize she sighed as she reached for Charli. Something intrinsic—a part of her own base foundation—had permanently changed. “Babe, you’ve got to be cold,” she said quietly as she drew Charli in, felt the slide of skin on skin, the fierce pulse against her chest so hard she couldn’t tell who it belonged to. She felt the shiver that raced through Charli’s frame before she settled comfortably, and the whisper of lips against her own neck.
“I’m not—not right now.” The warm breath that dusted across her throat made her close her eyes as she filled her arms as much as she could.
The light sound of foot tread brought her back to the present and as a nurse came in to check on her patient, Elaine once more kissed Charli’s hand and hoped that somehow, in some way, Charli knew she was still there.
*
* * *
BB84 Secure Session - - Loss 0
* * *
04:00 tRstN01: ChknMn interrogated,
04:01 tRstN01: agents debriefed
04:02 tRstN01: awaiting final report
04:03 tRstN01: Orders?
04:04 tRstN01:
04:05 tRstN01:
04:06 DsrtFx: what about the girl? Riven.
04:07 DsrtFx:
04:08 tRstN01: Serious, but no longer critical.
04:09 tRstN01: In med bay.
04:10 DsrtFx: Alone?
04:11 DsrtFx:
04:12 tRstN01: Harper is with her.
04:13 tRstN01: Commander Riven to be flown in -
04:14 tRstN01: standard family emergency protocol
04:15 DsrtFx: Orders are as follows:
04:16 DsrtFx: the plan still in effect
04:17 DsrtFx: continue to Ground Zero
04:18 DsrtFx: notify the others
04:19 tRstN01: Done. Stand-by for info.
04:20 tRstN01: New intel on I-team designation
* * *
BB84 Secure Session TERMINATED
* * *
John smiled to himself as the snow and salt air flew into his face while he leaned against the railing and reflected on the last bit of intel he’d received from another of his inside operatives. He stared at the sun as it rose above the curve of the Atlantic. That, he thought, could not have gone better. On the face of it, it might seem like a partial loss, but in fact, it had been in many ways a beautiful, and if he didn’t mind saying himself, brilliant, success.
And really, why shouldn’t it have been, considering who he himself had been modeled on. Like all men, or at least, all the boys who’d grown to men that he’d known and worked with—his peers—he had a deep fascination with the near-fully-global conflict that had not only changed the European map, but had also changed the way war was fought in general. World War II had other side effects: it had not only initiated the Cold War but had also jump-started the technological age the world would subsequently enter.
Those important things aside, though, John found himself particularly focused on the men who’d led the various countries and their campaigns: Eisenhower. MacArthur. Nimitz. Chester. Patton. These were the names of American men, American heroes. Then there were the Brits: Churchill, Chamberlain, Montgomery and his most famous opponent, the best mind, the soldier’s soldier, a man of reputed honor and decency, the Desert Fox himself, Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel.
He fascinated a young John whose name was so similar to his, and in his mind John wondered things that could not be proved. His own father’s family was from Isonzo, Italy, and born in 1918…and John had learned that in 1917 Rommel had fought, then been a prisoner of war, in Isonzo. Of course, amazing as he was, Rommel escaped and returned to Germany in two weeks. It was possible, John thought when he’d learned that, it was within the realm of possibility that their name, the family surname… The thought, the “what if” tantalized him as a boy, even though his father refused to answer any of his questions about what had happened over there, and forbade him from asking his Nona, who spoke no English, any questions about any of it.
“Your grandfather was killed in the war, Johnny. You don’t want to be making Nona cry about it,” his parents told him whenever curiosity got the better of him.
Still, John felt no guilt over admiring the Nazi hero, because as Churchill himself had said upon learning of his death, “He also deserves our respect, because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life.”
The combination of childhood wondering and actual history inspired him to be a better soldier, a better leader, and the supposed mystery of it lent itself further to things he noticed and heard as a man.
True or not, the conceit had brought him very far, and this operation had only confirmed for him that he was at the very least the spiritual, if not necessarily the physical, inheritor of the Desert Fox mantle.
Tonight, John had learned quite a bit that would make him even better prepared for the next step. Soon he’d know what the I designation was, and, hopefully even better, how many and to whom it had been applied. He already had his suspicions, and they had everything to do with the Company projects he’d uncovered.
He had what he needed: a goodly supply of saxitoxin, a side project that Chul-Moo had been working on. It was even better than the various infectious agents they’d originally discussed; there would be a certain poetry, a sense of justice, in employing it. Saxitoxin was a by-product of the red-tide alg
ae bloom that was a result of the poisoned oceans, and found its way into the human food chain via mollusks and the fish that ate them. It was colorless and odorless, and temperature did nothing to affect its toxicity level, which gave it a huge range of applications.
As he had explained to Charli, it acted quickly, sometimes within minutes, and would leave its recipients in an aware but mellow state as their bodies shut down. It wasn’t really their fault they were born, they didn’t need to suffer while they were erased.
The erasing of mistakes… He shook his head and chuckled under his breath as he made his way along the starboard side of the deck, past the anterior cabin and through the door that would lead to his berth below deck. In another hour the ship would arrive at predesignated coordinates and he’d switch to another ship, a commercial vessel that would take him to Santos, in São Paulo, Brazil. He wasn’t starting over, no, not at all. He was merely continuing…somewhat differently. The only thing that had changed from the original plan was that he no longer had the company he thought he would.
Cooper had ultimately broken—John had expected that, although he did not yet know how deep the break had gone; the silence surrounding what John was certain had been a preliminary but thorough interrogation was, for the moment, absolute. It didn’t matter: Cooper had been taken care of, and the second report John received confirmed that bit of intelligence along with the other information it gave. Harper had performed her expected role admirably—perhaps not from a Company perspective, but certainly from his. He’d expected her to come for Charli, to not merely sit back and let the teams take over—and she had.
Whether she actively knew it or not, she’d earned herself a higher ranking among her peers and even some of her superiors; she’d been the only one on her team to get so close to him, and the way she had accomplished it—he shook his head. That…that had taken not only a large degree of creativity, but quite some internal fortitude.
He’d been more than merely impressed by the way she’d handled her access to the island when he’d learned of it; it was not a route most would have considered in her position; many would prefer to either go wait everything out at a predesignated safe site or to simply accompany the extraction team, and it gave him a sense of satisfaction to confirm still further that his deduction of her feelings for Charli had been accurate. The last line of his report told him that as soon as Harper had been permitted, she’d fled her debriefing to be with Charli, who was under close observation in a medical unit. He wondered if any of Charli’s family had been notified, then decided that more than likely her brother would have been informed immediately.
He shook his head as he once more removed his coat, placing it carefully on the foot of the bunk. Charli, oh that Charli…she’d played him brilliantly, he admitted as he inspected his firearm, set the safety, then placed it securely into an ankle holster. He hadn’t suspected a thing until she’d already pulled the matchbook from her pocket.
She’d done exactly what she should have: she hacked, then she cracked his brain. And in doing so, she had proven once and for all that the experiment had been a roaring success. She had read him, then anticipated him. She had one of the final markers, the ability to deduce another’s mental state, and quite probably, the ability to project the one she wanted to. He, who was schooled and well practiced in reading body language, tone, posture, had been completely taken in.
He wondered which, if any, of the other abilities she had. It was paramount, now, that he once again recover her into his custody—not to control her, but to protect her. She was even now in the belly of the beast that ruled the world, and if the Company ever had even the slightest clue…he knew how ruthlessly she’d be exploited.
He was glad now that he’d followed his own instincts, had literally shoved her over Chul-Moo and into the tool shed before he’d ducked behind another bench and made good his own escape. Not for nothing that he’d memorized not only the path he needed but the substructure. He knew where the newer wall had been built over the old ventilation system. In the confusion, and with the assistance he expected, no one would notice until he’d already crawled down it—and they hadn’t.
It had worked perfectly, and as he reviewed how the operation had played out, he was pleased with how unexpectedly well—all things considered—it had gone. He had no concerns for Chul-Moo, his friend would be fine; his knowledge and abilities were crucial to national security interests, and even if he was forced to work under more direct supervision, he’d be given the budget as well as the resources he needed to continue. They’d use intermediaries to get in touch again—nothing any different than the majority of their past communications.
But now that he was absolutely certain about Charli—that in of itself was a prize that made the small losses of the evening pale into virtual insignificance. It meant there were others, it meant the experiment had been—still was—a success, and most importantly, it meant he was right. He was still on track, and Charli, not just her records, but also her abilities as he’d witnessed them, proved it once and for all. She would be the standard by which he could evaluate the rest, and that alone meant she was important to his plans; John knew that as surely as he knew the strength and speed of his firearms, the formidability of his mind, and the facts he’d spent years researching.
Harper was with Charli… He considered rapidly. It was obvious her cover with the Treas had been compromised beyond repair and it was possible, and more than likely probable, that her emotional connection to Charli had ruined her for further deep-cover work. As to what Charli might feel for her in return—that didn’t matter, he realized, and his eyes widened as it all fell into place for him. Charli had proven that she was at heart an altruist, willing to sacrifice herself for the unworthy, the so-called people, out of a misguided sense of ethics and a misplaced compassion. Those were creatures she didn’t even know.
He smiled into the dim light of his cabin. If that was what she was willing to do for strangers, then it was easy to imagine what she might sacrifice for those she knew—no matter what she might or might not feel for them. John, the Desert Fox, knew exactly what he needed to do next, and knew he didn’t have to risk his operation to accomplish it, either. The smile on his face invaded his chest, made it swell with satisfaction.
He was the Desert Fox, and he would make her come to him, fully aware, and very willing. She would come, because she would feel she had to: he would have Harper.
char *create_memory()
Glass Onion
It was no more than a few days before Charli was fully alert for more than a few moments at a time, and Elaine wasn’t certain if it was luck or not that she was not the first person Charli consciously saw. She’d certainly wanted to be there.
There had been interviews and reviews, briefings and debriefings. Cooper had been sitting in a cell, a cozy one, to be certain. His information and his skills would contribute greatly to future investigations, but first, he was to show and then correct the modifications he’d performed at Whitestone.
Elaine would never forget the way she had felt as she stared down past the barrel and at the spot, right dead-center, of Cooper’s brow. It would have been easy, so damn easy…and Cooper had committed treason. The calm she had felt as she contemplated putting a bullet into another human being at point-blank range was something she had never felt before, she’d never felt so detached from action and outcome…it simply didn’t matter. There was only one thing that mattered, and as soon as her debriefing was over, that was where she’d fled, ignoring the glances—curious, sympathetic, or merely observant—when she’d made her hasty escape.
Elaine sighed and shook her head as she crossed the corridor to the elevator that would take her down to the level she wanted to visit.
Before any of Cooper’s information could be used in a beneficial way, the official story was that some idiot had neglected to mandate a twenty-four-hour watch and—she couldn’t help the shiver that shook her shoulders—it had been gruesome.
/>
The report said that Cooper had sawed through his own carotid artery with the zipper of his jeans after scrawling “Die Free” on the wall, probably with the first bit of blood he’d drawn. They’d found him slumped over on the floor of the cell, blood still warm on the floor and flowing down his neck. The team had done everything they could, but he’d already lost too much blood and the jagged tear he’d opened in his flesh couldn’t be closed in time. She didn’t know what they would do with the body. She didn’t care, either.
The fact that it had happened at two minutes to midnight, the same time Romello’s watch had been set to—she knew that was not a coincidence.
Whitestone’s Eric Lundenman had been flown in. He had in essence lost three mission-critical employees. Discussions were underway and Elaine suspected they involved asking Whitestone to voluntarily participate as part of a watchdog system.
Charli was going to be given what were supposed to be choices—either work directly for the Company within analytics and cryptology as a civilian, or work for the new DC division of Whitestone, and report to the Company. If she refused, they would use her brother as leverage since his ratings and clearances depended upon, among other things, the reliability, loyalty, and patriotism of his friends and family. Elaine’s mind took a cynical turn—she knew what they would do. If those facts didn’t impress Charli in the right way, all they had to do was simply imply that her choices might affect his deployments—and one never knew for certain where a sniper might hide.
Elaine had met the young commander.
“I want to meet the agent who got my sister out of there,” she heard him say as he approached the sick bay. She was reluctant to stand, to let go of Charli’s hand, protocols and formalities be damned. She wouldn’t. “Your brother’s here, baby,” she whispered against the fingertips that barely stirred within hers.