by Storm Chase
“It won’t happen again,” pink silk tie said reassuringly. “We’ve lost some people recently. Analysis isn’t what it should be. This exercise was clearly a mistake. I will inform the rest of the Committee.”
“Tell them that if they touch Pandora again,” Xavier said softly, “I’ll smash my fingers.”
Pandora gasped.
Pink silk tie stared. “It will never come to that,” he said. “Really. It was all a mistake. As I said, our information was incomplete. And we were misled by reports from Ramon. I’ll take personal responsibility.”
“See that you do,” Xavier said coldly.
Pink silk tie hesitated. “When will you get back to work?”
“I’m taking Pandora out for dinner,” Xavier said grimly. “I’ll start again tomorrow. When I get a new computer.”
“Right,” Pink silk tie said with relief. “Great.” He nodded at Pandora. “Please don’t worry anymore. This won’t happen again.”
He nodded at Xavier and exited rapidly.
Pandora heaved a sigh of relief.
“You all right?” Xavier asked her softly.
She nodded because she could see how upset he was. “Will he come back?” she asked.
Xavier was looking out of the window meditatively. Then he sighed. “They may send someone to show you some more pictures but that will be it.” He kissed her hair. “Come on, Panda. Let’s go for a walk on the beach.”
They sat on a pier, looking out over the sea. The sun was high in the sky, casting little sparkles of light on the deep blue waves. It was picture postcard perfect.
Pandora sat in the circle of his arms, absorbing the tang of the salt in the air, and his sweet breath on her neck. Leaning his chin on her shoulder, Xavier looked out over the ocean with her. They sat there silently, absorbing its peaceful mightiness.
Finally Xavier sighed. “I can’t keep you safe anymore, Panda,” he said softly in her ear.
She turned her face a little and looked into his eyes. “I know,” she said. “They know I want you to leave, don’t they?”
“Yes, but they know I don’t want to, so they’re not going to take action. They really thought you knew something about the brigadier. Ramon’s work.”
“And my fault for speaking up. You told me not to.”
“What’s done is done,” he said philosophically. Xavier rubbed his face against hers. “Griffiths said it won’t happen again.”
“Is that pink tie?”
“Yes. His name was Neil Griffiths. He stole a couple of million from his bank, changed his face and is now called Adam Jenkins. He’s a member of the Committee.”
Pandora nodded. “I thought he looked like a banker.”
“Well spotted. I don’t know how you do that, Panda. To me he’s just a man in a suit.” Xavier sighed. “Now we have a different problem. The Committee know how much I love you. That means they have an edge. If anything happens, if they have any doubts about my loyalty, they will take you. And I will do anything they ask.”
Pandora felt her stomach clench.
“It’s okay, Panda,” he said quickly. “It’s very, very unlikely. They’d much rather have me happy and working of my own free will. It’s easier and much more efficient. But if there is ever a fight, I can’t win.”
Pandora understood how this unsettled him. Loving her meant Xavier had lost his invulnerability. “What happens now?” she asked.
Xavier looked serious. He buried his lips in the hair by her ear. “I will have to get us out,” he murmured.
Her heart fluttered. She didn’t know if it was anticipation or fear. “How?” she asked. “And where do we go?”
“I have to figure it out. It will take time. Not weeks but months.” He thought for a while, and added. “There’s no way I’m going to risk ending up like Huan but Sig might have an idea.”
“Sig? Chess playing Sig?”
“Hmmm, Sig works for a competing team. Don’t know who exactly but I can check it out.”
Pandora shivered. “It sounds dangerous.”
“Sig seems pretty happy. It may be an option.” His lips were still by her ear. “Pandora, we can’t speak of this again. They will be watching. After this, we go back and you settle in. They must think that we think this is over. That there is no problem. That we’re in for good. Do you understand? If they suspect, they’ll take you.” His voice trembled and stopped.
“I can do it,” Pandora said fiercely. “Just get us out, Xav.”
He squeezed her and kissed her ear. “Give me time,” he murmured.
“I trust you, Xav,” she whispered. “I know you can do it.” She looked into his eyes. “I love you,” she said.
“What a hell of a time to tell me!” he laughed brokenly. “Jesus, Panda, I never know what you’re going to say next.”
“That’s what makes it fun, Xav.”
Chapter Thirteen
Pandora slept like a log. When she woke up, the sun was high in the sky. Xavier was sitting in the kitchen, reading a comic on the iPad. “I have to go out and buy a computer,” he announced.
“I’ll stay and have a swim.”
“Really? I thought you might be frightened to be here alone.”
“Not anymore.” Pandora shrugged. “I can’t figure it out, Xav. But I feel so different that I want some time to think.”
“All right. I’ll tell Paco to stay.”
“If you like, Xav, but I’m all right. Really.”
An hour later, Paco appeared by the side of the pool “Pandora, he says you’re not to worry, but it’s the Committee rep again. He says that if you don’t want to see him without Dragon, he’ll wait.”
Pandora felt her stomach flutter but she ignored it. “I’ll be down in a sec.”
Pink tie was sitting in the living room. When he saw her, he stood up politely. “I thought Dragon might be back by now.” He held out a newspaper. “Thought you should see this.”
The front page carried a picture of a car being pulled out of the ocean. Three tourists dead in late night crash, the headline screamed. An inset showing Ramon, Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers described them as French tourists.
“A peace offering.” Pink tie said coolly. “From the Committee.”
Pandora felt her insides clench but managed not to show it. “For Xav or me?” she asked.
“To both of you,” Pink tie explained carefully. “We were mistaken in seeing you as a problem. Quite apart from the misunderstanding, we’ve seen your contribution to Dragon’s work and we are impressed.”
Pandora couldn’t think what he meant but she nodded. “All right.”
“We’ve never thought of matching Dragon with a psychologist,” pink tie said. “The results are excellent.”
Pandora heard the lift open signalling Xavier was back. She was happy he was home but she realised that she could have dealt with pink tie herself. She really had changed.
Xavier came breezing in and ground to a halt when spotted pink tie. “Hello,” he said coldly. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
To Pandora’s amusement, pink tie stood up to greet Xavier. He was smiling and fawning, something that she was sure was quite out of character. The Committee must be keen to placate Xavier, she thought.
“I was just explaining to Pandora that we will be making arrangements to pay her for her contributions.”
“Quite right,” Xavier said. “Usual terms and conditions?”
“Yes.”
“You all right with that, Panda?”
She had no idea and didn’t feel like saying so. “Sure.”
Pink tie handed Xavier the newspaper. “If that’s all, I’ll be on my way.”
“Back to Aberystwyth to see the kids?” Xavier asked nonchalantly.
Pink tie froze and paled slightly. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.
Xavier nodded. “I’ll see you out.”
“Goodbye, Neil,” Pandora said sweetly. “Or should I say, Adam? Have a good flight.” She watch
ed with barely hidden amusement as pink tie went even paler as he retreated. When Xavier returned, she confronted him immediately. “What’s all this about my contribution?”
“Oh, you know when we talk about trust and cheats? I made a bunch of notes and used it to tweak a few algorithms,” Xavier explained. “It’s making Rover much more efficient.”
“Your logic and my humanity?” Pandora joked.
“Exactly.” Xavier was not joking. “Now you’re officially on board, I’d like you to read some books on intelligence gathering, covert systems and so on.”
“Sounds like I have a job,” Pandora said lightly.
Xavier hesitated a moment. “You don’t have to, Panda.”
“Why not?” Pandora said coolly. She realised they might be listening in, thought for a moment, and then added, “I’m in it up to my neck now. I can’t stop you doing what you do but the only thing I ask is that when Rover is ready, you will use it regularly to gather evidence on kiddie porn peddlers. And I want you to dump that info with whatever police system you think will use it best.”
“That’s no problem,” Xavier said happily. “Paedophiles are a great target because they’re so clandestine.”
“And I want a laptop that’s not connected to anything, so that nobody can hack it,” Pandora said. She walked up to Xavier and said softly in his ear, “I’ll use the iPad for general reading but my notes stay private. Also, I want all the background on every one of your people. I know you’ve collected it. I need to see it.”
Xavier looked surprised but nodded.
Within an hour, Xavier had dumped a huge reading list on the iPad. Pandora took one look and realised that he was deadly serious about educating her. Although broadening her knowledge of psychology was just a matter of reading, immersing herself in the world of information gathering, disinformation and other covert techniques was a real challenge.
The old Pandora would have worried about morality and ethics; the new Pandora decided knowledge was power. She threw herself into the work, and quickly became absorbed.
When her brain flagged learning about assurance, countermeasures and vulnerability indexes, she read Xavier’s dossiers on everyone in the organisation. Learning who they were, and how they got into their present business, taught her more than all of her books put together. Knowing where some of the skeletons were also gave her confidence.
One advantage of her new focus was that she didn’t have much time to think about the Committee or what they might be up to. She rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn as Xavier did and studied until late afternoon. Usually she could persuade Xavier to come out for a swim or a workout. Evenings were spent in fierce debate.
Three weeks later, just as February was turning into March, Ramon’s replacement turned up. Pandora didn’t like him much. Mo was a Tunisian who thought all women should do housework. When he ordered her to help him clean the floor, Pandora looked him up and down, escorted him to the lift and kicked him out.
When Paco turned up ten minutes later, he had Mo in tow, ready to argue his point. “Do you know how hard it is to find someone?” Paco hissed. “Dragon’s security check is tougher to pass than the Pentagon’s! Why do you think it took me three weeks to get this guy?”
The old Pandora would have conceded but the new Pandora just shrugged. “I’m not putting up with any macho crap,” she said crisply, “The next person who gives me grief leaves via the roof.”
Paco caved. Two days later he produced Sam, a round butterball of a man from Ulan Bator in Mongolia who grinned constantly. “His English is very hit and miss, so you’ll have to learn Mongolian or Mandarin but I’ve told him about your exit policy,” Paco said dryly. “He says he’ll risk it.”
Pandora had to laugh. Since pink tie’s second visit, Paco had changed his attitude towards her. She was no longer an unknown quantity, a dangerous anomaly or even just Dragon’s girl: she was part of the team. A player. All she had to do now was to become valuable in her own right. Then she’d be safe.
The one thing that bothered Pandora was that the more she learned, the less sure she was of her loyalties. Learning about the unconventional war policies of her own country and their allies left a bad taste in her mouth.
“I can see that terrorists fight dirty, and that we’d be idiots not to fight back,” she said to Xavier, “but I can’t support us paying off third parties for secret assassinations or withholding aid from poor countries because we don’t happen to like the leaders in charge.”
Xavier shrugged. “It’s what I’ve been telling you, Panda. It’s a dirty business and there are no heroes.”
Pandora sighed. Although she was becoming more and more cynical, the prospect of finishing Rover and using it against her own country freaked her out. She didn’t say it out loud because she didn’t have to. She and Xavier had become so close that they could almost read each other’s thoughts
“Come on,” Xavier said. “Let’s go snorkelling for a few hours. And when we come back, we can decide on the target for our next test run.”
“That’s a no-brainer,” Pandora said cheerfully. “I just read an article about kids being trafficked in Africa. Let’s see which chocolate manufacturers knowingly buy from cocoa farms that use child slave labour. We can dump the info on Wiki Leaks.”
“You still think small, Panda,” Xavier chided her. “Practically nobody outside of our community reads Wiki Leaks. We dump the info on the welcome pages of the top news agencies. That’s where the eyeballs are.”
“My hero,” Pandora said sagely. She thought for a moment. “And on the Linked-In profiles of the execs in charge. They can ignore the media but it’s harder when all their pals know their dirty little secret.”
“Peer pressure,” Xavier sighed. “I still can’t quantify that.”
“That’s what makes me special,” Pandora smiled. “You successful criminal types just don’t give a damn what others think but for most of the world, that’s all that matters.”
“Do you care what people think?” he asked her with interest.
Pandora thought it over. “Not anymore,” she admitted. “I used to but I’m not part of the world anymore. I only care about you.”
Xavier sighed. “That’s my fault.”
Pandora shrugged. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been. You’ve done me a favour. Come on, Xav, let’s get out there while the sun’s shining. I want to swim with the fishes. And I mean that in a good way.”
Slowly the weeks turned into months. Twice they had to suspend work on Rover because of projects that came up. In May they spent a fortnight in an apartment in Japan where Xavier hacked into a government agency on behalf of a US company looking for advance news of new trade laws. Two months later they were in Canada, working for a local company that wanted a sneak peek at their competitor’s new dye process.
Pandora no longer questioned motives or ethics. “I think it kills innovation,” she said. “But I don’t care what they do in Canada. As long as you don’t take on jobs that involve companies messing up my country, I don’t care.”
Paco overheard her and was appalled at the implications. “Companies in your country pay a fortune, and always on time,” he chided her.
“I don’t mind if it means helping us against foreign powers but I don’t want to do anything that hurts England,” Pandora explained. Then, with a sly grin, she added, “But I’m glad to hear we have a good reputation. What about your country? Are the Salvadorian companies good paymasters?”
“Bloody awful,” Paco said cheerfully. “Last time we did a deal, they tried to pay us off in colón instead of dollars. Now we make them pay up front.”
Pandora laughed. She rather liked Paco these days. One night when Xavier was pulling an all-nighter trying to break into a Russian satellite, she and Paco had split a bottle of wine and talked. She’d learned from Xavier’s files that Paco was from San Salvador, had grown up poor, and had spent some time in the El Salvador army. What she didn’t know was why he
’d left.
“This is a better option,” Paco said casually. “More money and I don’t have to murder anyone.” Having read about the troubles in Central America, and the frequent battles between the military and the rebels there, Pandora knew what he meant.
“I don’t work for the Committee,” Paco explained. “I work for Dragon. I enjoy hammering out deals and I’m earning a fortune but as I’ve no paper qualifications, I doubt I could get a job this like anywhere else. Nobody would let someone who left school at 15 negotiate a multimillion dollar deal.”
“You met Xav in San Salvador,” Pandora said. “You were running a bar.”
“Yup. Dragon came in a few times for a drink, saw how I handled the place, and offered me a job. I was divorced, bored and constantly broke. I took a chance on Dragon and haven’t looked back since.”
“I wish I knew more about business. All I have is some book learning.”
“Feel free to ask me anything, anytime.”
After that Pandora began sitting in on meetings where Xav’s people pitched project ideas to him. She didn’t speak but she watched and listened, drinking up every little thing and discussing it after with Xavier as well as Paco. Xavier was only interested in the work and wanted to take anything with a challenge but Paco looked at everything in terms of business. Pandora didn’t think much of his morals but she couldn’t fault his negotiating skills or his careful analyses of the pros and cons of every job.
When Paco realised she was truly interested in learning more, he happily tutored her, adding books and articles about Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision theory, grid analysis and other strategic decision making models to her reading list.
“I thought SWOT was what people used,” Pandora said bewildered.
“That is so 1970s,” Paco reproved her. “No wonder you’ve messed up so much. You’re not logical at all. You can’t go on your gut, Pandora, you’ve got to use your brain.”
Paco had clearly learned his manners in the same charm school as Xavier, Pandora thought, but she was soon picking up skills she never thought to have in a million years.