Bait and Switch

by MC Lee

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Jack said, meaning it sincerely. He and Instructor Clare Colson had not always seen eye to eye. She was a demanding teacher, with little tolerance for screwups and no inclination to cut Jack any slack. She saw it as her duty to advise his guardian whenever Jack failed to reach her high standards, and most of the discipline and corrective action he’d endured over the years had been at her insistence. But she had been part of Jack’s field team on his last assignment and had proven herself a capable and sympathetic operative. They had grown closer during the long weeks in the field together, and Jack considered her an ally now instead of an enemy.

  It didn’t mean she had softened toward him; she was as severe and relentless as she had ever been. Jack simply understood now that her strictness was designed to ensure he was totally prepared for every situation, and that her stern governance masked a deep concern for his safety and welfare.

  Jack often wondered how much Instructor Colson knew about his personal circumstances. Sean had told him nobody else knew his guardian was actually his uncle, but Colson was a shrewd woman with access to a lot of the Center’s secrets. Even if she didn’t know who Jack was, she surely questioned where he had come from and why he had been brought up here where other young operatives, like Leo, were raised in foster homes.

  She had been his teacher for three years, joining the team alongside Evan and Sean and helping them move Jack’s education and training to a whole new level. It was most often Instructor Colson who created Jack’s cover story and brought him up to speed on social and cultural trends, as well as supervising his instruction in the high school curriculum.

  She brought Jack’s wandering mind back to the classroom with a sharp tap on the cover of his textbook.

  “We have an hour before dinner. Let’s get to grips with international politics.”

  JACK HAD thought it would be impossible to sit across from his guardian twice a day at mealtimes and not have the revelation of their relationship playing on a continual silent loop inside his head. However, he found it was surprisingly easy to put the information out of his mind.

  His guardian didn’t change a single thing: not the way he spoke to Jack nor the way he generally ignored him; not the things he expected nor the things he didn’t allow; not the way he looked at Jack nor the way he mostly disregarded him. In the two weeks since Jack had confronted him with the truth, he had never caught his guardian watching him surreptitiously, had never sensed that he was contemplating the disclosure, had never heard an unexpected word. It was as if he refused to acknowledge that the secret he had hidden for thirteen years had now been revealed. It made it easier for Jack to deny the relationship between them.

  He rose respectfully when his guardian walked into the dining room, unable to overcome thirteen years of conditioning, and resumed his seat when the man waved him back into it. As always the conversation took place above Jack’s head between the adults in the room, and he more or less tuned them out. They rarely called on him during dinner, unless it was to chastise him for some infraction, and he happily ignored their boring talk of politics and the economy. He had learned long ago they never discussed anything he would consider useful.

  His gaze drifted toward the two black-clad women who noiselessly entered the room to serve dinner, and he was surprised to find he didn’t recognize one of them. Over the years he had come to know the names of all the staff who worked in the dining room. They followed a regular schedule of three nights on and three nights off and had been paired with the same partners for as long as Jack could remember.

  The new woman was practically interchangeable with all the other servers, her expression as blank as theirs, her eyes carefully averted even as she placed a plate on the table in front of him. So he was shocked when he looked up idly between courses to find her gaze fixed on him. None of the staff ever looked Jack in the face, and he had never exchanged a single word with any of them outside of thanking them for their service. It was startling to find this woman’s frank gaze weighing him up.

  Jack ducked his head before Sean caught him staring. He covertly followed her movements, sure he didn’t imagine the way she nudged his shoulder when she slid a plate across the table to him. Because he was so keenly aware of her, he was not surprised when she seemed to accidently spill a glass of milk in front of him, although he pretended to be.

  She leapt back, looking mortified and apologizing under her breath. Sean threw his napkin over the spill, though not before it dripped off the table and soaked the leg of Jack’s pants. He stood quickly and brushed uselessly at the wet stain.

  “Go clean up in the bathroom down the hall,” Sean ordered.

  Jack hurried out of the room, wondering what had just happened; she had clearly tipped the drink on purpose. He was just sponging off the worst of the stain when the bathroom door opened and the woman slipped inside.

  Jack tensed, not knowing what angle she might be playing, but he couldn’t keep the shock off his face when she whispered, “You’re Eleanor Palmer’s son.”

  He was too stunned to confirm her statement, though she didn’t appear to need it. She glanced around quickly before crossing the room. “We only have a minute. Keep an eye out. I’m going to get something to you—”

  She stopped speaking as the door to the bathroom suddenly opened and Sean walked in, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked the woman. “You know this area is off-limits.”

  Jack held his breath, but the woman just reached into her pocket and pulled out a can of club soda. “For the stain,” she said. She pressed the can into Sean’s hand and hurried out, her head bent as she passed Jack.

  The frown slowly eased off Sean’s face, though he kept his eyes fixed firmly on Jack. “Your dinner’s getting cold,” he said. He stood aside to let Jack pass, and Jack was sure he felt the weight of Sean’s gaze on him long after he’d walked out of the bathroom.

  Back at the dinner table, he kept his expression carefully neutral, aware every time Sean looked his way. The new woman didn’t appear again, which was just as well as Jack wasn’t sure he could pretend to ignore somebody who had dropped such a stunning bombshell.

  AS HE had every night for the past two weeks, Jack spent the rest of the evening before lights out working under Sean’s supervision. The only difference tonight was that Sean accompanied him to his quarters so that he could get out of his wet clothes and then decided they might as well stay here to work instead of returning to his office.

  After changing into sweatpants and a T-shirt, Jack sat at his desk and signed into his tablet, bending his head studiously to avoid Sean’s eyes. He wanted to puzzle out the possibilities without Sean wondering what had captured his attention.

  Sean threw himself onto the couch and began scanning his laptop, seemingly engaged with his own work. As soon as Sean started typing, Jack allowed himself to examine what had just happened.

  Though he had never seen her in the dining room before, the woman must have worked at the Center for several years. Jack knew only the most trusted staff were allowed to get close to him, only those who had been thoroughly vetted and cleared. Since she seemed to know him, it stood to reason that this woman had been at the Center when his mother had been here.

  Jack had often glanced at the Center’s staff as they silently went about their business, wondering if any of them knew who he was. Now that he had actually found somebody who appeared to know him, he wasn’t sure what to do about it. There was almost no chance of finding the woman and speaking to her again, and even if conversation had been possible, Jack didn’t know her motivation and couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t report the infraction to his guardian. Still, it was impossible not to wonder what she was going to try to bring him.

  “You realize I’m going to test you on today’s modules.”

  Jack jumped at the sound of Sean’s voice. He turned his head and glanced at his handler.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.r />
  Sean raised an eyebrow. “I know your mind isn’t on your work.”

  Jack swallowed the panic rising up in him. If Sean pressed him about the woman….

  “I know you’re thinking about Leo,” Sean said, and Jack’s pent-up breath whistled through his teeth. “It’s understandable that you’re worried about him,” Sean continued. “But you can’t let yourself get distracted. I don’t want to file a negative report with your guardian, but if you don’t settle down to your work, I’ll have no option.”

  “Sir,” Jack said. He turned his head and forced his attention back to his training modules. He couldn’t afford to piss off any of his handlers, and he wasn’t going to solve the mystery of the woman who knew his mother without a lot more information.

  TWO DAYS later Jack returned to his quarters after an early morning session. He had twenty minutes before his next lesson started and had swung by to pick up a training manual. As he walked into his suite, he looked around quickly for anything that seemed out of place. The woman in the dining room had told him she would bring something to him, but so far he hadn’t discovered anything that didn’t belong.

  He kept an eye out for her during the evening meal, but she never appeared again. Jack was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined the whole encounter.

  There was a stack of clean laundry on the end of his bed, so Jack crossed the room and began to put the folded clothes into various dresser drawers. Like everything at the Center, there was an established routine, his laundry disappearing from his room twice a week and reappearing next day as clean, freshly pressed piles, neatly stacked at the end of his bed. In thirteen years he had never seen anybody enter his suite to remove or return the laundry, just as he’d never laid eyes on the staff who cleaned his quarters on a regular basis.

  Jack grabbed two sweatshirts from the top of the pile and shook them out before placing them on hangars and putting them into his closet. He started to reach for a T-shirt but stopped when he didn’t recognize it. Though new items of clothing occasionally appeared, they were always in a separate pile and still in their original packaging.

  For a moment Jack wondered if this might be one of Leo’s tees. After all, he had practically moved into Jack’s suite for the few weeks they were together, and there was a chance their clothes had become mixed in together. He picked it up and unfolded it, not immediately recognizing it as Leo’s. At any other time, he would have shrugged and stuffed it into one of his drawers, but he’d been primed to look out for anything unusual.

  He turned the T-shirt over in his hands, seeing nothing out of the ordinary and almost believing it was a simple accident that it had ended up in his room. He was about to throw it back down onto the bed when he felt something unusual. Swiftly turning the tee inside out, Jack was astonished to find a plastic bag pinned to the back of it. He reached inside and pulled out a photograph, his heart stuttering when he registered what he was seeing. It was a picture of a young couple, the woman holding a child who looked to be no more than a year old.

  She had short sandy hair, warm brown eyes, and a wide, beautiful smile on her laughing face. The man looked more serious, although he was also smiling. It wasn’t a staged photograph. In fact it looked as though it had been taken covertly. Jack had seen many pictures like this over the years—people snapped in unguarded moments, oblivious to the fact they were being followed. It was surprising these two had been caught in that way, because as Jack studied the man’s face, he felt a sudden sharp jolt of recognition. It was a face he had seen every day of his life for the past thirteen years, or at least a younger, less severe version of it.

  It was obvious the man in the picture was his guardian’s younger brother. Which meant the people in the photo were John and Eleanor Palmer, Jack’s parents.

  Chapter Four

  “JACK, GET your damned head in the game!”

  Jack jumped, startled by Evan’s exasperated order. He quickly refocused and went back to pounding the punching bag. He hadn’t realized his wandering attention was so obvious, but he supposed it was pretty difficult to get much past his trainer.

  “You’re still dropping your right,” Evan said. “Get over here.”

  Jack stopped the bag as it swung back toward him and then walked out from behind it to face Evan across one of the practice mats. He winced at the implacable look on Evan’s face, knowing he was in for a painful reminder of why he needed to learn what Evan was trying to teach him.

  Despite his determination to stay absolutely focused, it didn’t take Evan more than four moves to take Jack down.

  “You want to go again?” Evan said, standing over him.

  “Not really,” Jack said. He scrambled to his feet anyway, aware it was a rhetorical question.

  They resumed their positions, and Jack warily circled Evan, jabbing occasionally to try to find a weak spot. His head snapped back when Evan’s gloved fist connected with his chin.

  “Dropped my right?” he said ruefully.

  Evan’s response was an equally hard jab to the exact same spot.

  “We’re going to do this until you get it,” he said grimly.

  It was incentive enough to clear Jack’s mind, even pushing the photograph of his parents out of his head. He concentrated with everything he had, and twenty minutes later, with no further damage done, Evan called a halt.

  “So, you can learn,” Evan said sarcastically.

  “I guess the motivation was right,” Jack replied, rubbing his jaw.

  “I shouldn’t have to beat the crap out of you to get your attention.”

  “Sorry,” Jack mumbled.

  “It was good work, apart from that,” Evan conceded. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’d better hit the shower. You don’t want to be late for breakfast.”

  Jack turned and sprinted toward the locker room, and minutes later he was standing under the warm spray, trying to ease the tension out of his muscles. Now that he was alone, he let his thoughts return to the photograph that had turned up in his room and the multitude of questions it raised.

  It seemed obvious the woman from the dining room had put it there. The big question was why she had risked so much to get the photo to him and why she had waited so long to approach him. There was an outside chance she was newly arrived at the Center, but it was highly unlikely given that she had been allowed to serve at dinner.

  Jack hoped fervently that he would see her again and maybe have another opportunity to speak to her. He realized she would have to create the conditions to contact him again. Given the limited communication he had with the staff, there was little chance he would be able to find her by himself.

  When he sat down to breakfast, he found it impossible to look across at his guardian without acknowledging the resemblance between him and his younger brother. Even though the photograph had been taken covertly and was grainy, the similarity between the two was striking. It was hard not to speculate about why his mother had turned from one to the other, or wonder if the man he knew as his guardian had driven his wife away with the same cold indifference Jack faced on a daily basis.

  “I’m pleased with the reports I’ve been receiving. Your work has improved.”

  Even though he had been surreptitiously watching his guardian, Jack was still startled when he spoke.

  “Thank you, sir,” he mumbled.

  “I think we might reduce your study sessions after dinner,” Sean said. “Give me one good hour and you can have the rest of the evening to yourself. Provided you complete all your assignments.”

  Jack nodded and returned his gaze to his plate as his handlers continued to talk. Though he wasn’t unhappy to escape Sean’s supervision for a few hours each night, there was nothing much he could do to fill the time, not with everything stripped out of his quarters. It wasn’t until everything had been taken away that he’d realized how much he had come to rely on all the gadgets and electronics, which was weird since he’d only had access to them for a few months. Before that, his
life had been almost as austere as a monk’s.

  When conversation turned to training techniques, Jack’s thoughts returned to the photograph that was now securely taped to the underside of his desk. He knew his room was regularly checked for contraband, but he doubted the sweeps were anything more than a routine shakedown. It was only when he returned from an outside assignment that the room was completely pulled apart and every inch scrutinized. He felt confident that the photo was safe, at least until after his next assignment.

  Thinking of security brought up the biggest puzzle regarding the photograph. It was clearly a covert shot, which meant that somebody had been watching the family. But who had ordered the surveillance, and why?

  DAYS LATER Jack was no closer to finding any answers. The woman from the dining room never reappeared, and though Jack looked more closely than ever at the staff he passed in the hallways, he never saw her again. Every time he walked into his room to find a neat stack of laundry, he carefully examined every piece of clothing inside and out. But there were no further messages and no more photographs.

  He studied the picture of his parents every day, drawn to the man and woman, looking for clues in their faces and in the grainy surroundings. But there was nothing to tell him where the photograph had been taken. If he accepted that the young child in the photo was him, it placed the timeframe approximately fifteen years ago.

  It was frustrating to see his guardian twice a day and have to restrain himself from blurting the questions that raged through his head. The man had softened his severe manner slightly, and the three-hour study block after dinner had been removed from Jack’s daily calendar. He had also been thrilled to find his computer back in his room. Even though he knew everything he looked at was monitored and there were numerous restrictions on the sites he could visit, it was still a relief from the boredom of his otherwise empty room.