Cloak and Dagger (The IMA Book 1)

by Nenia Campbell

  “What's that?” A note of hysteria wound its way through my voice.

  He opened it at an angle so I could see what was inside: three hypodermic needles filled with a honey-colored liquid. He selected the one closest to him and flicked the glass to get the air bubbles out. “It'll knock the fight out of you for a couple hours.”

  I knocked the needle out of his hand. It smashed against a nearby rock. He hoisted himself higher, pinning my arms to my sides with his legs. Then he began unbuttoning my collar. “No!” My scream echoed through the trees and into the valleys, sending the birds nearby into a startled takeoff. I fought, thrashing my head, which earned me another backhanded slap.

  “Shut up.”

  He yanked the shirt off my shoulder, plunging the needle into my upper arm. My fingers tore into the ground. “No.” My voice was half-scream, half-cough. He depressed the syringe all the way before pulling the needle out; it hurt almost as much as going in had. He pulled away. I felt him take my pulse. “What was in that needle?”

  “A sedative.”

  “A sedative?” I yelped. “What kind of a sedative?”

  “A very powerful one,” he said coldly. “Shut up.”

  “Sedative, like an opiate?”

  “It's not like it's going to kill you.”

  His voice sounded dim, as if it were coming from the other end of a tunnel. I struggled to get to my feet. My legs felt disconnected from my brain. The trees were swimming in the sky. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.” My captor reached out to steady me.

  “Screw you.” My words were slurring as if I were drunk. I shoved him unsteadily, managing four weaving steps through a landscape spangled by dots; I couldn't breathe. I stumbled, I fell, winking out of consciousness before my body could hit the mess of dead leaves below.

  Michael:

  I realized something was wrong right away. I got her into the house, jabbing her with an epi pen I kept in the kitchen. She gasped, and rolled over on her side to throw up. Fuck. Immediately, I dialed the number for my contact, Lionel Lott, one of the few doctors left who still made house calls — but only for important people.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “I have a situation here.”

  I described the symptoms to Lionel. He didn't interrupt and waited until I had finished speaking before saying, in a calm voice, “Sounds like an allergic reaction. I'll be there as soon as I can. Do you have an epi pen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Inject her with it.”

  “I did.”

  “Then put her somewhere cool to lower the fever. Keep the pen handy.” He hung up.

  I did as Lionel had advised, cursing the girl with every breath. This was supposed to be a simple job. She wasn't supposed to be this much of a problem. Her forehead was burning up. I slung her over my shoulder and carried her to the bathroom, where I stripped off her clothes. Her arm was swollen. Lionel hadn't sounded concerned so I assumed this was treatable. Richardson would be displeased if I allowed anything to happen to our only means of negotiation with the Parkers. I had been entrusted with this mission because I was the best; I could not fail.

  With that thought in place I filled the tub with cold water and ice from the freezer before setting the girl in the bath. I sat on the lid of the toilet and glared at her. This explains her fear of sedatives. Forty-five minutes later I heard a knock at the door. I wiped my wet hands on my jeans. Keeping one free to reach for my gun, I said, “Who is it?”

  “Lionel.”

  I could see the doctor through the peephole: a portly man with fair hair and a mustache about two hundred years out of style.

  “Praise the Lord,” I muttered, swinging open the door to let him in.

  He took off his coat. “Let me see the patient.”

  “She's upstairs.” I led the way. “In here.”

  I watched him examine Christina. “I couldn't have done a better job for her. Her fever is already starting to recede.” Lionel glanced up at me. “It shouldn't go back up again, but if it does, call me. In the meantime, make sure she gets plenty of fluids — especially water — some aspirin…and maybe some Benadryl, if she can swallow, to help with the swelling. Keep her someplace comfortable and warm. For now, she should be out of the red.”

  I heaved the sigh of relief I'd been holding in. “Good to know.”

  “Would you mind telling me how this happened?”

  My smile disappeared. “She was stung by a bee.” he had undoubtedly seen the mark left by the needle, though he hadn't commented on it. Bee sting allergies, I imagined, looked similar — and with all that swelling, any minor differences would be erased. “I'm her bodyguard,” I added. “Her parents will be displeased if she becomes ill on my watch.”

  Light glinted off his spectacles as he tilted his head up to look at me. “Young, isn't she?”

  “She's eighteen, if that's what you're implying.”

  Lionel seemed surprised. “No, the thought never crossed my mind.” I bet it hadn't. “I hold you in the highest professional regard.” Lionel glanced at her, then back at me. “I only meant she seems a bit young to be running for her life, cloistered away like this. May I ask who she is?”

  “No.”

  This was reasonable enough coming from a bodyguard, and he seemed to accept it. He tried to chat further but I was in no mood for idle pleasantries and couldn't answer most of the questions he asked. Eventually I escorted him back to the front door.

  “You'll be compensated for your time.”

  He inclined his head. “It was a pleasure. I hope your little friend is all right.”

  I kept my face neutral. “I would appreciate it if you refrained from mentioning this incident. To anyone. You understand.”

  “Of course. The information I receive from all patients is strictly confidential.”

  “Good.”

  Like Kent, Lionel and I had been introduced by a mutual contact. Unlike Kent, however, he didn't know who I worked for. As far as he was concerned, I worked for the U.S. Government, “our side.” I never corrected him. Sometimes, like now, I imagined he suspected he was wrong.

  I watched him walk to his car, remaining stationed in the doorway until his Volvo was a distant, glittering speck on the horizon. Then I slammed the door.

  Christina:

  My dreams lacked clarity or continuity. I dreamed about being chased by a large predator: it always caught me just before I got away. I also dreamed I was back home, which was a cruel trick. Then there were brief moments of lucidity, where it was like reality was on the other side of a pair of thick, velvet curtains, and I was separated from the stage. After what felt like a hundred years the curtains parted and I woke with a start, gaping at the scenery. I was in a bedroom. In a bed. My arm throbbed, pulsing as if it were a separate living creature.

  Is this another dream?

  No. A pair of green eyes were watching me, far too intently to be anything but real. My captor was wearing a fitted gray shirt and black sweatpants, sitting so his body was angled towards mine. My leg was almost touching his back. I pulled it away. He was holding a bowl of water and a damp cloth, which he set aside. “Are you conscious?”

  My memory of the events leading up to this moment were disconnected. I could recall running — him chasing me — the pine forest — the sedative. Each scene felt so surreal, like a half-forgotten nightmare. I tried to push myself up. The pain that followed changed my mind.

  “What happened? What did you do to me?”

  “You reacted violently to the sedative.”

  “What do you mean violently? What happened?”

  “It almost killed you. You were out for three days.”

  The sedative. He must have used an opiate, like morphine or codeine. I was terribly allergic to opiates. “You didn't take me to a hospital?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  I'd almost died. That explained the endless sea of sle
ep, the bizarre dreams. My feverish brain had been boiling in the stew of my thoughts. I wondered if he was telling the truth about how long I'd been out for, and why he'd bothered to move me. I could have crashed out in the basement and not known the difference until I woke up, encrusted in my own filth. “Where am I?”

  “My room. I know a doctor. He suggested this might be more comfortable for you.” There was an edge in his voice that suggested he considered such actions on my behalf frivolous.

  I barely heard. I was studying my clothes. I had been wearing a plain white polo and jeans before but now I was wearing a long blue shirt several sizes too big — and nothing else. He wouldn't have…not while I was unconscious and dying of fever. Even he can't be so soulless.

  My throat dried.

  I was in his bedroom. Wearing his shirt.

  And nothing else

  He tried to make me drink some water. I balked at the feel of his hands on me. “Drink it,” he said. “You're dehydrated. You need fluids.”

  I spat the mouthful in his face. He responded by sloshing the rest of the water into mine and stalking out. I lay there with water dripping down my face and neck, soaking into his shirt collar.

  “If I don't get what I want from them by midnight tomorrow, I'll take what I want from you.”

  That had been two days ago.

  I couldn't look him in the eye when he brought more food and drink several hours later. My stomach flip-flopped at the smell and sight of cheap lunch meat. “Are you going to throw up?”

  Not if I didn't eat. I shook my head.

  “Why aren't you eating?”

  “I can't,” I whispered.

  “Is your jaw broken?”

  “Did you rape me?”

  He snorted. “That's what this is all about? Because you think I fucked you?”

  The contempt stung more than his crude word for the act. “Did you?”

  “We waited until midnight. I waited until midnight. My man went home early. There were no phone calls. Nothing. Your parents never showed.”

  What was he saying? That he had every right to rape me? I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming at him. Because if that's what he honestly believed, he was far more callous than I had ever thought him capable of.

  “If I hadn't gotten your clothes off and put you in that cold water, you would have died. You're lucky my contact makes house calls. And you're damn lucky that I'm bound by a contract to give a rat's ass whether you live or die: that I didn't just dump you in a river somewhere.”

  He leaned closer, and all but spat the words into my face. “No, I didn't rape you — and you owe me your goddamn life.” He left, and I cried myself into another fever-driven sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Killer

  Michael:

  The expense reports began to stack up. Keeping someone alive was a difficult task. I had a new-found respect for Lionel and those in his line of work. I had always considered my job challenging and yet death was nothing special. Not once you got past the details. We all died. I merely hastened the process — but not fast enough. Richardson started to ask questions. “You are beginning to cost me a fantastic sum of money, Mr. Boutilier, and I have yet to see any results. Do you have an update on our current status?”

  “There were some complications.”

  “I don't want to hear that. I want answers. Results.”

  I went into town that day anyway to buy the girl and I new clothes and food. There I came across yet another unpleasant surprise — the streets were crawling with cops. I had chosen Nowhere, Oregon, deep in the Cascade Mountains, and I had been found.

  Impossible.

  The capital was nowhere near the Cascade Mountains. That was why I had chosen the Walk of Flags — to buy myself extra time. I knew the FBI liked to cast their net as wide as possible when dealing with criminals, but there was no reason why they should be spending so much of their time and resources looking here. Unless they received a tip-off.

  I could call the IMA. They would deal with the police, throw out a false lead that would divert the FBI's attentions elsewhere. But Richardson would want another progress report and then I'd have no choice but to confess that my charge had fallen grievously ill. And if the leak had originated in one of the departments of my organization, as I suspected it did since all of my contacts — with the exception of Lionel and his sterling reputation — had as much to lose as I did by having me incarcerated, that would be a foolish move. Adding fuel to the pyre.

  If I fled now, I would light up a thousand different radar screens. Moving the girl when she was so sick was foolhardy anyway. I would sweat it out. As soon as she was better, we would move. I already had another location in mind, close enough that it would be the last place anyone would suspect. I would not inform the IMA of the change. I would reroute communication so that it would appear as though I had never left. And then, once the job terminated, I would trim any loose ends, collect my paycheck, and forget the Parkers — and the IMA — ever existed.

  If the cops did not follow me to the new location, I could conclude that the leak had originated from the IMA and take appropriate investigative action. If this wasn't the case, I could form one of two conclusions: (1) either one of my contracts had betrayed me or (2) the girl had somehow managed to communicate her whereabouts to somebody on the outside. Since neither of these scenarios were especially likely, my original suspicion remained the strongest.

  Fan-fucking-tastic. I was a pariah.

  Christina:

  On my third day of consciousness, my temperature was still within the boundaries of a fever. A lower fever, but high enough to be concerned about. I'd thrown up several times already and each of those times he — my captor — would be outside the bathroom door, cursing.

  Now that I had stood face-to-hooded-face with death, I knew for sure that I did not want to die. God had tested me, giving me the opportunity to lie down, stop fighting…and I hadn't taken it. I wanted to live, and I needed my captor to help me, much as I loathed being dependent on him. My one consolation was that if I did die, bad things would happen to him. He never said this expressly but I could see it in his face, written in the lines stress had carved there. Why else would he concern himself with me?

  I was getting anxious, though. He hadn't mentioned my parents since I'd first awakened. My fever had left me so disoriented, I wasn't sure whether he had received any more calls. I wanted to ask what had happened since but didn't quite dare. My illness had left him in a black mood. I didn't want to provoke him, or remind him of his threat to my mother. All I could do was sleep.

  The next thing I knew, my captor was shaking me awake. “Sit up.”

  I managed to throw a halfhearted glare in his direction. The back of his hand was cool against my forehead, and he pulled back as if he'd been burned. “You still have a fever.” He said this like I had contracted one voluntarily for the sole purpose of pissing him off.

  “I told you I was allergic to opiates,” I said pathetically.

  “No, you didn't.”

  “Well, you didn't exactly give me the chance.”

  There was a long, drawn out silence. No matter how sick I felt, I couldn't fall asleep knowing he was there. “Are you allergic to aspirin?”

  “No…”

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes…”

  He left the room but only for a second. I heard the rattle of a pill jar. Aspirin. It was the cheap knock-off version, the kind you can buy for $4 at the store. He tipped two white pills in my hand, pushing a glass of tap water at me.

  “I don't want any medicine.”

  “I don't care what you want. They're for your fever. Take them.”

  I let the pills fall to the floor.

  His fingers closed around my wrist and he yanked me back up. I cried out in pain, trailing into a horrified squeak when he leaned forward until our noses touched. “You're in no state to go head-to-head with me,” he said, shaking two more asp
irins out of the jar. “Take the damn pills.”

  “They'll make me sick. My stomach hurts. I don't want them.”

  Why couldn't he leave me alone? I just wanted to sleep.

  He pried open the fist I had made, grabbed the pills from my hand, and forced them into my mouth. I choked. He had my mouth covered with his hand so I couldn't spit them out. “Swallow. Swallow, you stupid girl. You're too weak for the Heimlich maneuver.” I pointed to my throat and started gagging until he tipped the water glass to my mouth. “Fine. Drink.”

  The bitter taste of the aspirin merged with the water. I felt like I'd swallowed two pieces of jagged glass. My stomach lurched. I grabbed the water from it and knocked it all back, trying to get rid of the phantom pills I could still feel wedged in the back of my throat. My stomach felt bloated now. I imagined I could feel all the water I drank sloshing against the inside.

  “I don't feel good.”

  He set the empty water glass on the nightstand. “You'll live.”

  No thanks to you.

  He reminded me of the Rottweiler one of my mother's rich friends kept. The dog had been so well-trained, he never barked. Only growled — although if you were a burglar who had managed to get that close, it was probably over for you. The dog's yellow eyes were savage and followed you around the room. You could see him deciding whether or not to attack. At the slightest provocation he would. It was what he had been taught to do. “Go on and pet him, Christina,” she used to say. “He won't bite. He knows you're friends.” Dogs like that didn't have friends. They were contained until, one day, their switch was thrown and they turned on you. My mother's friend had named this dog Assassin. Azzie, for short.

  “Assassin,” I whispered, to myself. My captor looked at my sharply with a jerk of his head that reminded me disconcertingly of the dog. “You're…an assassin, aren't you?”

  It all fit together — the hefty price-tags, the reclusive environment, the mysterious business contacts, all the cell phones, his unnatural physique. Everything.