Spy Mom

by Beth McMullen

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Avery says, bringing me quickly back to the present and San Francisco and the sun and the playground.

  “No,” I say. “I was thinking about something from a long time ago.” She gives me that look, the same one that Will sometimes throws in my direction. It’s the one that says I know you are not telling me the whole truth.

  “Are you coming to yoga tonight?” Avery asks, changing the subject.

  “Oh right. Yoga. Yes. I hate it but I’m coming.”

  “Good.”

  We sit on the bench some more, watching the kids. Eventually, Theo comes over and begs for snacks and juice, and the kids sit in a merry circle and trade food and end up wearing much more than they eat. It’s just another normal morning in my normal life, and if I didn’t have to see Simon Still in less than an hour, it would be a good day all around.

  5

  Simon Still sits at a table in the Java Luv. He is wearing a white fedora, dark sunglasses, and a raincoat, although it hasn’t rained in months. It surprises me that he is waiting. Simon never arrives first. I stand outside, watching him through the big glass windows. For nine years, I considered him my mentor, the shoes I wanted to fill, if in a nicer color. However, I never deluded myself into believing he considered me anything more than your standard-issue amoeba. In profile his chin sags a bit more, but the rest of him looks the same. His eyes lock onto mine and I smile. He does not. I have Theo by the hand and he is joyously singing a tune about his toy car, which he clutches in the other hand. I see Simon run his eyes over my boy and I want to break his neck. There is no obvious reason for this; he hasn’t done anything yet. But I have not a single doubt in my mind that he will.

  I take a deep breath and push the door open. The strong smell of coffee, usually so inviting, is suffocating today. I move through the crowd, navigating my singing son in front of me. Simon doesn’t stand up. He gives me a slight nod of acknowledgment, and for the second time in less than five minutes I want to kill him.

  “Simon Still,” I say.

  “Sally Sin,” he says.

  “Lucy, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” He nods. “Lucy. That’s what it says on your passport, must be true. And this must be Theodore Wilton Hamilton, correct?”

  “Yes. Say hi to the nice man, Theo,” I prompt.

  “Nice man? Well, that’s a new one,” Simon says.

  “Hi,” Theo says. “Do you want to play cars?”

  “No. I don’t want to play cars. I have some quick business with your mother after which I’m sure she will play cars with you. That is her job now, you know.”

  Theo looks disappointed. He is used to people cooing over him and smiling and enthusiastically playing whatever silly games he can dream up.

  “Oh,” he says, looking at me for guidance in these uncharted waters.

  “Can you sit here in the chair like a big boy for Mommy? Only for a few minutes and after we’ll get an ice cream?” Okay. So I’m not above bribery, but I challenge you to find me one mother who is.

  “I guess so,” Theo says, crawling under the table with his car. On the chair, under the chair, it’s all the same when you’re little.

  I focus on Simon. “What do you want?” I ask. My tone is harsher than I intend. I fill my lungs with fresh air, close my eyes. All the yoga I do ought to be good for something, right? I start again.

  “It’s good to see you, Simon. You look well. Healthy.”

  “I’ve been in South America.” I don’t ask him why or where. “It’s good to see you too, Mom.” There is a sneering quality to his voice that I don’t like, but short of pitching a cup of scalding coffee in his face, my hands are tied.

  “What brings you to sunny California?” I ask, hoping to get down to business before Theo grows bored and starts tugging on people’s shoelaces.

  “I wanted a cup of coffee and who better to have it with than Sally Sin? Sorry,” he corrects himself, “Lucy. No more Sally.”

  I try to read him but it’s impossible. Simon Still is not the best there ever was either but he is damn close. He gives nothing away—not a sign, not a gesture, nothing. So I go the direct route.

  “As much as I’d like to believe that is true,” I begin, “I know that it’s not. So I will ask you again. Why are you here, Simon?”

  “That’s Mr. Still to you,” he says in a tone that sets my teeth on edge. “Just kidding. Your boy is in the garbage can.”

  Theo has, in fact, crawled into the recycle bin and is mucking around the dirty bottles and cans. I can hear him talking to himself.

  “Theo, baby, come out of there,” I coax, “please?”

  “No, Mommy. I like it in here. I like the cans.”

  “Theo, now,” I say. I can feel Simon’s eyes boring holes in my back. This is a test and I’m failing. I reach in and grab Theo and he begins to shriek and flail, pounding on me with his three-year-old fists.

  Once he is locked down in my version of the human straitjacket, I return to the table. But I can’t sit down because I’m holding on very tightly to my son, who is about ready to blow.

  “We need to take this conversation outside,” I say. Simon raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t say anything but I know what he is thinking. This is what you traded in a life of adventure and romance and chasing bad guys for? Brilliant choice. And you’re so good at it. Really.

  I wrestle Theo into his stroller and give him a chocolate chip cookie. This takes the edge off his fit. We walk down the street.

  “I’ve always liked San Francisco. It’s very … gay and happy,” Simon comments. And despite all my efforts to hate him and what he is about to do to my life, I laugh.

  “You’ve not changed at all,” I say. “You’re still not funny.”

  “You have, my dear. You’ve changed in a great many ways.” I don’t ask for specifics. We’d be out here on the street all day and we have exactly the length of one chocolate chip cookie to complete our business.

  “What’s going on, Simon? You have to tell me eventually, right? So let’s get it over with.”

  “We find ourselves in a situation that requires your assistance,” he says.

  “Why? It seems hard to believe you don’t have ten Sally Sins in your current clutches.”

  “No,” he says, “there was only one Sally Sin.” And for a second I swear he sounds wistful, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. “The situation is delicate. It involves Ian Blackford.”

  Talk about flashbacks. Every good spy needs a nemesis. Think about where James Bond would be without Dr. No, Auric Goldfinger, and Tee Hee, not to mention Jaws. He’d be just another good-looking guy in an expensive suit driving a nice car. A nemesis, by definition, heightens your senses, makes you grow eyes in the back of your head, adds an edge to every move you make. Of course, most spies go through a life of snooping with nary a nemesis in sight. And that’s not altogether bad because in most cases your nemesis is trying very hard to kill you. So while it makes life interesting, it can also bring it to a premature end. My nemesis wasn’t trying to kill me exactly, just torture me with the unexpected.

  “Ian Blackford is dead,” I say.

  “Well, that’s why it’s delicate,” Simon responds. From the look on his face, I know what is coming and I don’t like it one bit.

  Ian Blackford’s name was on everyone’s lips when I joined the Agency. He actually had been the best there ever was. Everyone agreed. Ian Blackford had magical powers. He singlehandedly averted nuclear war no less than ten times. The sad thing is I’m not kidding. But that wasn’t why everyone was talking about him. All evidence pointed to the fact that Ian Blackford had turned, gone to the dark side, committed treason, done a really bad thing. It seemed that the money was too tempting for an underpaid, underappreciated government employee. So Ian Blackford went from being a star of the USAWMD to being a premier international illegal arms dealer in the blink of an eye. Everyone tried to catch him. Us, the CIA, Mossad, Interpol, even t
he FBI, although their attempt was kind of weak. But he was too good, as elusive as a cloud, sharp as a knife. If you bit him too hard, he’d bite back and it was sure to hurt. The story was that Blackford had offed two agents sent in after him and the USAWMD director was furious. Of course, I didn’t know the dead agents and I had never met the Agency’s director so, for me, it was nothing more than part of the lore.

  And Ian Blackford would have remained simply that for me, a story, a myth, a cautionary tale, had he not gone and started kidnapping me over and over again.

  My second assignment as an agent for the USAWMD put me in Madrid helping Spanish authorities translate Arabic documents that named a number of terror suspects. I’m not sure even now why the Spanish didn’t use their own translator, but at the time I didn’t have the confidence to ask such things. After a night of lying on my single bed in a little cave-like hotel room, I decided to go out. Everyone in Madrid was out. Staying in made me stand out, I reasoned. I needed to go out to blend in. My training said that blending in was all important. Don’t ever want to look out of place or be pegged as odd. It’s a sure way to get killed. So I planted myself on a stool in a cramped, smoky bar and drank a few glasses of sangria, ate some tapas, and generally soaked up the atmosphere, trying to figure out ways to look more Spanish. Impossible, I thought. Americans can never properly imitate the laissez-faire that the Spanish have elevated to an art form. No one around me was talking about stock options or the market or their new $120,000 Mercedes that can parallel park itself and do the occasional load of laundry. They talked about dancing and music and clothes and a possible cigarette ban. A gorgeous man with black hair and blue eyes took a seat next to me and ordered more sangria. I knew he wasn’t Spanish but his accent was flawless. After a while I asked him if he was Canadian.

  “No,” he answered, “I’m from all over.” He was staring at me, a slightly confused look on his face. “And you are not at all what I expected. Not at all.”

  What? At almost the exact second those words flowed from his perfect lips my world started to bob and weave and buckle. I knew immediately that I had screwed up. Never let anyone buy you a drink. Whatever he put in my sangria was working its magic.

  “Stand up,” he said.

  “I can’t,” I said. I felt so weak I thought I might collapse right there on the filthy floor.

  “Of course you can,” he said. “You are trained to act under duress. This is duress. I drugged you. So get up and come on.”

  I wanted to ask him how he knew me and what I was about, but I couldn’t move my lips. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was get up off that bar stool and walk out into the night in front of my captor. And I include childbirth on that list.

  Once outside, the man with the black hair and the blue eyes swept me up in his arms and carried me off down the street. To the innocent bystander, it probably looked achingly romantic. And it might have been had it not actually been a kidnapping. He walked carrying all 135 pounds of me for what seemed like forever. When I eventually retraced the route, it was only five blocks. But that’s still a lot of weight, especially when it’s dead weight. I passed out cold almost immediately and came to some time later to find myself locked in the marble bathroom of a luxurious hotel suite.

  I tried to stay quiet, figure out my options. But my head was pounding so hard I could barely think. Under the sink, in the third drawer, was a note.

  “Take this. It will help.” On top of the note was a single pill with no brand or identifying letters.

  “Right,” I said to my reflection in the huge mirror. “After you drug me and kidnap me and lock me in a bathroom I’m supposed to trust you and pop that thing in my mouth? How fucking stupid do you think I am?”

  I could hear Simon’s voice in my head. “Very stupid. You did everything wrong.”

  I took the pill, if only to shut Simon up.

  Ten minutes later I felt substantially better and began investigating a way out. It didn’t take me long to conclude there was none, so I sat down on the toilet to reflect on my short yet exciting career with the USAWMD.

  “Sad,” I said. “I might have been pretty good at it.”

  “At this?” Mr. Kidnapper, standing in the open bathroom door, asked. “Not until you learn a few ground rules. Didn’t Simon teach you anything?”

  “Who are you? Is this another test?”

  “No, this is officially a hostage situation. You’re the hostage.” A Walther P99 dangled at his side, but I could see even from my perch on the toilet seat that his finger was on the trigger, ready and waiting. “My name is Ian Blackford. Heard of me?”

  Ian Blackford? The Ian Blackford? This was getting weirder by the minute.

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to panic, “I’ve heard of you. Once or twice.” Suddenly I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to diminish the captor or build him up. And all that stuff about trying to create a psychological bond, make him feel empathy, seemed ridiculous as I sat on a toilet, held prisoner by a turncoat.

  “What have you heard?”

  “Oh, things,” I said, trying to dodge.

  “As long as you’re here, you might as well tell me what things. So maybe now is a good time to start talking?”

  In all the chatter about Blackford I’d heard back at the office, it was never once mentioned that the man made James Bond look like a slob. Ian Blackford filled the bathroom door, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He was tall and fit, but that was all secondary to the black hair and those blue eyes, in such contrast, so startling.

  “Do you dye your hair?” I asked suddenly.

  “What?” I caught him off guard. One little unimportant useless point for me. Go team.

  “Is your hair really that black?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Sorry,” I said, “I was curious.”

  “Curiosity will get you killed,” he said in a tone that scared me more than I cared to admit. With that he slammed the bathroom door and I heard it lock from the outside.

  “Nice work, Einstein,” I muttered to my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  I didn’t have a watch so I have no idea how much time passed while he made his point that I was not to ask him about his hair color. I learned the lesson pretty fast, but I estimate he kept me in there for the better part of three hours.

  When Ian Blackford finally unlocked the bathroom, he invited me out into the main room of the suite for lunch. I made a promise to myself that I would do nothing but answer his questions. I certainly wouldn’t ask him for any more personal information. And I would definitely not comment on his very thin skin when it came to his hair.

  “I ordered you a few things. Are you hungry?” On the table before him was what looked like the entire room service menu.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said, thinking if he was going to toss me out a window it might as well be on a full stomach. Blackford paced behind me as I inelegantly stuffed my face. He ran the dull edge of a steak knife back and forth across the palm of his hand. I kept one eye glued on the knife and one eye glued on the food. It wasn’t easy.

  Blackford continued pacing around the hotel suite like a caged tiger with OCD. I crammed some more ham in my mouth to keep it quiet. Finally he stopped directly behind me, tapping the knife rhythmically against his hand. It took me a minute before I realized he was waiting for me to tell him how his betrayal was playing back on the home front.

  “Okay, well, I haven’t been with the Agency for that long really,” I began. “I’m not even sure why they wanted me, but that’s another story. What have they been saying about you? Honestly? That you’re a traitor, that you let them down. They’ve been trying to catch you ever since it became obvious that … well, you know.”

  “Know what?” he prompted. It was almost as if he needed to hear me say it for it to finally be true.

  “That you turned. That you did the worst thing a spy can do.” I waited for him to plunge the steak knife between my shoulder bla
des, but he didn’t so I went on. “You went willingly into the arms of the enemy.” I’ll admit that I was taking some poetic license, but the idea was the important part. And for a split second I thought I saw regret flash in those arctic blue eyes. But it did not last.

  “I brought you here to kill you,” he said matter-of-factly. “It seemed to be the only reasonable response. An eye for an eye. But you really have no idea who you are, do you? Not even a suspicion.” He studied the knife, thinking. “Unexpected. But it makes me think I might let you live. For now.”

  And with that he threw the knife. It floated in the air, rotated, and stuck fast dead center in the bathroom door. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. Apparently he wasn’t going to stick that knife in me and that was all I really cared about.

  “Yes, sir,” I gulped. “Thank you, sir.”

  He reached over me to get the other knife from the table. He was so close I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. I shivered.

  “They also said you were the best there ever was. It’s cliché, I know, but that’s what they said.”

  “I was,” he said. “But things change. You’ll see.”

  I won’t turn, I wanted to say. I might end up living in a corrugated tin shack in western Montana, writing insane rambling letters to the editor of the local paper, but I won’t turn.

  “I’m pretty sure that when I get back I’m going to get fired anyway, so I probably will never make it to the point of disillusionment,” I said.

  Ian Blackford smiled then, and if the smile hadn’t been laced with cynicism it might have stopped my heart. I tried to swallow the piece of bread in my mouth. It stuck like paste in my throat. He hurled the second knife and planted it in the door, a centimeter below the first one.

  “Ask Simon to teach you to throw knives. It’s never actually useful but it can be a good way to pass the time. And Simon is the best. He’ll stab you in the back from halfway around the world.” I didn’t answer. Instead, I sat quietly at the table like a schoolgirl, waiting for what was going to happen next. A good spy would have had a plan by then, some elaborate way to escape the hotel and rush to safety, stopping along the way to learn how to throw knives. But not me. I was simply reciting the parts of the Hail Mary that I could remember and hoping for the best.