by Greg Herren
What the fuck was going on?
Eternal seeming seconds passed as we all stared at each other. I focused on getting control of my thoughts as the two black-clad figures kept their guns aimed at us. Stay calm, I said to myself as I slowed my breathing and tried to bring my heart rate under control. They hadn’t fired right away, so maybe they weren’t here to kill us, after all.
My eyes narrowed a bit as I watched the intruders. They were wearing tight hoods over their heads. Only their eyes were exposed. Their bodies were concealed in tight black bodysuits made from some material that hugged every inch of their bodies—and I realized they were most definitely women. There was no mistaking those curves. The one on my right was slightly shorter than the one on my left. Each was holding a gigantic-looking gun in her right hand.
I really hate looking down the barrel of a gun. It’s something you never really get used to, no matter how often it happens. And no matter how fast I could dive, I wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet.
There was no place to dive anyway. We were both standing in the open. Colin might be able to launch himself over the couch, but he wasn’t moving.
I closed my eyes and braced myself for the shots I was certain were going to follow.
Instead, the one to my left said, in a thick Middle Eastern accent, “Abram? What the hell are you doing here?”
I sighed inwardly, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Of course they know each other, I thought. Can this day get any crazier?
They both lowered their guns. The one on my right reached up with her free hand and pulled the hood off. Long, thick chestnut brown hair fell loose. Whatever I was expecting to see once the hood pulled free, it sure as hell wasn’t one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Her face was heart-shaped, with prominent cheekbones and a sharp chin that gave her a bit of a feline look. Her almond-shaped eyes were a gorgeous shade of green, and her lashes were long and thick. Her nose was petite and perfectly centered in her face. Her skin was smooth and creamy. Her red lips slowly spread into a delighted smile, lighting up her entire face. She tucked her gun back into a shoulder holster and she started moving with a squeal of delight. In four steps she bounded across the room and threw her arms around Colin in a bear hug, her legs going around his waist as she buried her face in his neck. Colin laughed and threw his own arms around her, spinning her around.
“Would someone,” I said, exasperated, “explain to me what the hell is going on? Who the hell are you people, and what are you doing here?”
The other one yanked her own hood off. She was older, with a mop of brown curls cut short. She was more striking than pretty. Her face was rounder, and not as perfectly proportioned. But her brown eyes were larger, and became warmer as she smiled at me and rolled her eyes. “Pay them no mind,” she said. She had an accent that sounded Middle Eastern to me, although she didn’t look Semitic. “They do this every time they see each other.” She wearily waved her gun. “It’s becomes tiresome. They’re like children. Try to get used to it.” She sighed and holstered her gun. “Of course, it’s been years and I am still not used to it.”
“Oh, relax, Rhoda,” the other said, kissing Colin on the cheek. She jumped off him lightly, landing without making a sound. Her English was flawless, although I thought I detected a bit of a Texas twang. She held out her hand to me. “So sorry about the entrance. I’m Lindy, and this is my partner, Rhoda.” Her green eyes widened, and she turned back to Colin. “Oh my God, oh my God!” She gestured at me, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her voice bubbling with excitement. “Is this—is this the Scotty?” She looked back at me. Her smile was so wide it had to hurt. “Are you Scotty? Please tell me you’re Scotty!”
Before I could say anything, Colin grinned at her. “The one and only.”
In one gazelle-like bound she had her arms around me and kissed my cheek. She was squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe, and her large firm breasts were pressed against my chest. She smelled of Chanel, and I felt a little dizzy. It was a bit on the surreal side. Just a few moments earlier she’d been holding a gun on me and now she was squeezing the life out of me in one of the tightest bear hugs I’d ever felt. She was incredibly strong, even though she looked slender.
“I can’t breathe,” I finally managed to gasp out when it started to seem like she was never going to let go. I looked over her shoulder at Rhoda, who was also smiling.
“Sorry.” She let me go, and I gulped in air. “I’m just so excited to finally meet you! My God, we’ve heard so much about you—I was starting to think Abram was making you up, no one could be that perfect, you know what I mean, and look at you, you’re even cuter than he said, which I didn’t think possible, you know he is kind of prone to exaggeration, and if I weren’t a lesbian I’d—”
“Down, girl.” Colin interrupted her. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Give him a chance to recover from that dramatic entrance.” He gestured to my wrecked French doors. “Was that really necessary?”
“Sorry about that.” Rhoda plopped down on the sofa. “We didn’t know what we’d find here, so we figured no one would expect us to come in through the windows—” She shrugged and looked back over at the broken glass twinkling in the sunlight on my floor. “We’ll replace them, of course.”
“Of course.” I shook my head, which was starting to hurt again. I walked over and closed the shutters, latching them. “At least it isn’t raining.” I grabbed a broom from the hall closet and started sweeping up the broken glass. Lindy bounded over and took the broom from me. She beamed at me with that thousand-watt smile. “Let me. It’s the least I can do.”
“She likes to clean,” Rhoda said with a shrug.
As I watched her methodically get every sliver and splinter of glass into the dustpan, I thought, When the shock wears off I’m probably going to be really, really pissed.
I walked back into the living room. “So, what were you expecting to find here?” I collapsed into my armchair. The headache was getting worse. It didn’t help that I was exhausted. “That warranted breaking in? And how did you get on my balcony in the first place?”
“From the roof,” Rhoda replied. She exchanged a look with Colin I didn’t like. “We’ve been following the Wolf—”
“The Wolf?” I interrupted. “Who is the Wolf?”
Colin whistled. “Levi was the Wolf! Of course! That makes sense!” He started pacing. “How long have you been following him?”
“We got a tip he was here in New Orleans.” Rhoda gave him another strange look. “We’d followed him to Ohio a few months ago, but we lost him. So, we followed up on the tip and came here a few days ago, and spotted him on the street.” She shrugged. “We followed him and found he was living in this building. We’ve kept an eye on him ever since.”
“Did you kill him?” I blurted out.
They all three looked at me. Rhoda pursed her lips and said in a rather chilly tone, “Of course we did not. We had no reason to kill him. He was worth more to us alive than dead.”
“But if you were following him, then you must know who killed him.”
Rhoda shook her head. “No, we do not.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed and he gave me a look I think meant let me do the questioning here.
Irritated, I bit my lip and glared back at him. He ignored me, and said, “Why don’t you start at the beginning? Why were you on his trail to begin with?”
Lindy winked at me and plopped down on the couch next to Rhoda, leaning into her. Rhoda put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “What are you doing here, Abram?” Lindy ran her fingers through her luxuriant hair, changing the subject. “No one told us you were here. Are you working the same case as we are?”
“Hold on just a minute,” I said, struggling to control the irritation and anger I could feel rising. “Just who exactly are you two, anyway?” My voice was shaking. Stay calm, Scotty. “You can’t just break in here, point a gun at us and—”
Colin threw his head
back and laughed.
I wanted to slug him.
He wiped at his eyes. “Scotty, these are two of the best agents the Mossad has to offer. Rhoda Sapirstein and I went through Mossad training together,” Rhoda inclined her head to me, “and Lindy Zielinsky—she was in my first class when I worked as a trainer for the Mossad.”
“He introduced us to each other,” Lindy kissed Rhoda’s cheek again, “for which I will be forever grateful.”
“In the business they’re known as the Ninja Lesbians—”
“Don’t listen to him, Scotty.” Rhoda interrupted him. “He is the only one who calls us that.” She gave me a wicked grin that chilled me a little bit. “He’s a horrible tease—but you probably already know that.”
I bit my lower lip and started counting to ten in my head. Colin saw the look on my face and winked at me. Surprisingly enough, that didn’t make me any happier. “Why are the two of you here in New Orleans?” he said hastily. “Why were you on the trail of the Wolf?”
“Who the hell is the Wolf!” I exploded. “I want some answers!” I gestured to my shattered French doors. “You break in here, point guns at us—”
“Calm down, Scotty,” Colin said in a patronizing tone that made me want to throw something at him. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. “No one knows his real name, or where he’s from—where he was from. He’s a master thief. Sometimes he works for someone else, sometimes he works on his own.” He frowned. “You’re certain he was the Wolf?”
“Reliable intelligence,” Lindy replied, placing her right leg over Rhoda’s. “We got the word that the Wolf had been hired to find Kali’s Eye. And given what’s going on in Pleshiwar right now—well, it is not in our national interests for Kali’s Eye to fall into the wrong hands. We couldn’t find out who he was working for—whether it was an individual who just wanted to possess the Eye, or if it was one of our enemies.” She shrugged. “Our orders were to follow him and take the Eye from him if he found it.” She smiled at me. “Such a small world—who knew he’d been living upstairs from Scotty?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about being referred to as a thing, but just bit my lip and didn’t say anything. “Had we known you were on the same trail, Abram, we certainly would have made contact. Better to work together, right? Since we have the same objective.”
Colin’s face was expressionless, and I raised an eyebrow. They’re assuming Colin has the same final objective as they do.
I may not be a highly skilled agent trained by the Mossad, but even I could see that assumption could prove to be a costly mistake. “And what,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could, keeping my eyes on Colin, “is that objective?”
“That control of the Pleshiwarian uranium is in the right hands, of course.” Rhoda crossed her legs casually. “That is why you are here, right?” She winked at me. “Why else would there be all this international interest in the stolen eye of an idol from a remote little mountain country nobody has heard of?” She leaned forward. “Obviously, who has control of that uranium is of vital interest to our country, Abram. It cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of our enemies.”
“Obviously,” he replied. “Why else would Tel Aviv risk having agents operating within the United States?” He sat down on the arm of my chair. “Does Tel Aviv care who finds the sapphire, as long as it winds up in the correct hands afterward?”
“Politics.” Lindy waved her hand. “They bore me. Scotty, would you mind if I made some coffee?” She punctuated it with a yawn. “I’m seriously under-caffeinated.”
“Scotty can make it,” Colin said, and as I opened my mouth to protest he pinched me—hard. I glared at him, and his only response was to move his eyes in the direction of the kitchen. Okay, he wanted me out of the room.
He better not have bruised my leg, I thought angrily.
Rubbing my leg, I stood up and walked into the kitchen. Lindy followed me and hopped up on my kitchen counter as I filled the pot with water from the tap. “Thank you.” She smiled at me, yawning again. “I should probably break my caffeine addiction, but I haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours.”
“I know the feeling,” I replied sourly, scooping coffee into a filter. I poured the water in and switched it on.
“We’re truly sorry about the doors,” Lindy said, petting my shoulder. “But we knew the Wolf was killed and tossed down onto your balcony. We assumed there must be some kind of link between you and the Wolf—” She shrugged. “And the element of surprise always works.”
“Give me a break,” I snapped as I got two mugs down. “If you were watching, you had to see Colin come in with me. You knew he was here all along.” I smiled at her. “And I don’t believe for a minute you believe he’s on the same side as you.”
She inhaled sharply, and her eyes narrowed a bit. A smile began to spread across her face. “He was right, you are sharp.” She punched me lightly in the shoulder. “And good looking. I can see why he’s so crazy about you.”
I ignored that and smiled back at her. “So, tell me, who killed the Wolf? Was it you two?”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t us. We didn’t see it happen. But we did see whoever it was dump the body.” She closed her eyes and inhaled the smell of the brewing coffee. She reached over and filled her mug. “Even with our binoculars—we were on a roof nearby—all we saw was someone climb up onto your roof. They lugged something over to the edge and tossed it over.” She took a gulp of the coffee and sighed with bliss. “This is good. Anyway, we could see it was the Wolf’s body. Whoever was up there was a man, we could tell that much, but he was wearing a stocking cap over his face, and all black.” She shrugged. “It may have been Abram, for all we know. Whoever it was climbed back down from the roof behind your building.”
I inhaled sharply. Then if it wasn’t Colin, he had to have seen who it was. He was down in the courtyard—
I cut off that thought before it went any further. There was a half-smile on her face as she took another drink.
I was being played.
“Divide and conquer” was the oldest trick in the book—so was splitting off the weakest member of the herd. I bristled a little inwardly. Obviously, I wasn’t a trained agent like Colin, but I wasn’t exactly a fool. As I watched the coffee streaming down into the pot, I realized two things—they’d been watching us so they’d known Colin was here, and their dramatic entrance was carefully designed to throw us both off balance. Or maybe just me—and she was trying to drive a wedge between Colin and me.
Well, two can play at that game, I thought, pouring myself a cup of coffee and allowing a confused look to appear on my face. Let’s see what you’re up to, Agent Zielinsky—I bet I can get some information out of you.
After all, nobody can play dumb better than I can. I opened my eyes a little wider and turned to face her. “You aren’t serious, are you?” I allowed a little horror and uncertainty to creep into my voice. “You don’t think…”
She shrugged. “It’s possible, after all. He works for Blackledge now, and you know they’re capable of anything.” She shivered. “The stories I’ve heard”—her eyes glinted—“make things we do look like child’s play. But at least we work for the security of our country, and our people. They work for whoever pays them the most.”
“I worked for them, too.”
She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “You were just part of their cover. You never really worked for them, Scotty.” She hopped off the counter and refilled her coffee cup. “You’re not capable of what they require.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Now I wasn’t playing dumb—I really didn’t know what she was talking about.
“You and the other one—Frank, right—never did any research on who you were working for?” She patted the side of my face. “Not that there would be anything to find. They are much too good for that—it is necessary for their success for them to operate completely under the radar. If people knew—” She made a face. “I wish Abram would s
top working for them and come back to us. He was the best, you know, which is why none of us can understand why he works for such awful people now.” She clinked her coffee mug against mine. “Have you heard of Blackwater?”
“Who hasn’t?” Blackwater was a private company of mercenaries for hire, and had worked for the U.S. government in Iraq. My mother had raged against Blackwater as more of their atrocities and criminal conduct had become public knowledge over the last few years.
She leaned in close and whispered, “Blackledge makes Blackwater look like amateurs. I love Abram like a brother—but I wish he didn’t work for those awful people.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
I gulped down the rest of my coffee and refilled it. I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes.
She’s playing you, just like you thought. She’s trying to drive a wedge between you and Colin—Abram, whatever the hell his name is. The Ninja Lesbians are working their own angle here, and whatever it is, the endgame is different than the one he’s playing for. And you already don’t trust him. Why should you believe anything she says? You don’t know her, either. And the Mossad—remember what Colin told you about why he left the Mossad? He had to kill a young boy who was a suspected terrorist. But is that true?
And what she said made a certain kind of sense.
Frank and I had simply taken his word all those years ago that the Blackledge Agency—which was how he’d always referred to it—was just an international investigation company, with offices all over the globe. I’d certainly never thought to do any research, even after the Mardi Gras case. Angela Blackledge had denied all knowledge of Colin and us.
How could we have been so stupid? And after Colin was gone—we hadn’t bothered to do any more checking. I hadn’t wanted to know any more than I did.
Maybe Lindy was right. My mind just didn’t work that way.
It is necessary for their success for them to operate completely under the radar.