by C. G. Cooper
Now it was beginning to come together. The trainers were off duty. Decker and Zyga had spent the majority of the day with Spencer. The other candidates had been seen wandering the cafeteria or the yard. But there had been a few missing. At the time, Kinkaid had suspected these four were just keeping to themselves.
When he saw York, he figured she’d been putting in extra time. Her work ethic had surprised him. She was eager to learn as much as possible from those around her, even if she rarely showed that excitement in spades. He could tell early on that she was one to keep an eye on. He should’ve taken his own advice.
But now that Kinkaid knew these four had been together the entire time, he realized what Decker and Zyga had done. Four of the top candidates in one place could only mean one thing—his superiors were testing out the program, and his little project was their new mission.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Decker hadn’t been in his office, so when Higgins burst through Zyga’s door, he was expecting to see the other agent in there with him. Who he wasn’t expecting, however, were Spencer and Director Thatcher. It stopped Higgins in his tracks, sputtering and unable to utter a single world.
York pushed past him, looking apologetic but harried. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and acknowledged everyone in the room. Johnson and Abrams shuffled in behind them, and the latter had the wherewithal to shut the door.
“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen.” She shot an annoyed look at Higgins. “We have some important information to pass along.”
Zyga stood. “You found something?”
“We think so, sir.” York handed him the file.
“Kinkaid?” Zyga’s eyes snapped up to Decker’s, then back to the newcomers. “Are you sure?”
Higgins finally found his voice. “As sure as we can be, sir.” Decker quirked an eyebrow, so Higgins carried on, pointing at the file. “Everything is in there; his involvement in the program, his connection to Agent Spencer, and his psych eval.”
“What does his psych eval say?” the director asked.
It was the first time Higgins had ever been in the same room with the director, and he had to admit he was more than a little intimidated. He swallowed back the lump in his throat. “He cuts himself off from his emotions. He either doesn’t know how to process them or sees them as a weakness. Either way, he has no outlet. Causing the program to fail could be his way of working through his problems, getting his twisted revenge.”
“What problems are those?” Zyga asked.
It was Johnson who spoke first. “The pressure of living up to his distinguished family, sir.”
The director nodded. “Is this enough to send him over the edge; throw one of his team members under the bus, plant a bomb, for god’s sake?”
Spencer scoffed. “Kinkaid and I haven’t exactly been the best of friends. He loathes me.”
“You goad him into loathing you,” Decker said.
“If he can’t take a good ribbing—”
Higgins held up his hand. “It doesn’t matter what your intentions were. The feelings present in people like this become pressurized until they’re compounded to the point of exploding. This emotion needs to be expressed. Kinkaid’s evaluation points to someone who is driven and meticulous. He’d see this as a mission.”
Abrams stepped forward. “You and Kinkaid were never close, but it got worse after Beirut, didn’t it?”
Just the sound of the word “Beirut” made half the men stiffen. Spencer ground his teeth. “He blamed me for the mistake.”
“It was your fault after all,” Higgins said.
Spencer glared at him.
Abrams cleared his throat awkwardly. “He was never punished. He and Thomas were never held accountable.”
“Not officially,” said Spencer, “but he got a lot of flak from other agents for being involved. His name means something around here. He blamed me for dragging him through the mud.”
“You didn’t think about this when your name was leaked?” the director asked.
Spencer matched Thatcher’s stare. “Honestly? No. We’re not friends, but we’re still agents. He has always been professional. More professional than I have. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
Higgins again pointed at Kinkaid’s file. “Well, he does. We know that now.”
“What are we going to do with this revelation?” Decker was looking at all four candidates like he was leading another class, not like they were trying to figure out how best to bring down a mole inside the CIA.
“We must catch him in the act,” York said. “We have to prove without a doubt that he’s the one behind the leaks.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
York looked first at Higgins, then Johnson and Abrams. She cast her gaze down and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“We’re interrogators, aren’t we?” Higgins asked. “This is what we do. We confront him and get him to admit to what he’s done.”
It had been decided that Zyga would track down Kinkaid and lure him into one of the meeting rooms under the pretense of gathering the trainers together to debrief them before the next exercise. Higgins and York would strike up a conversation under the pretense of wanting some pointers. York would engage, Higgins would observe.
They waited in Zyga’s office until he returned. A simple nod was their signal, and the pair left silently. Higgins had a thousand things he wanted to say to York, about the program, about her mother, about what they were about to engage. He couldn’t find the words.
York stared straight ahead, and when she spoke, her voice was low. “Are you nervous?”
“A little bit,” Higgins whispered.
“I’m nervous. I don’t trust a lot of people.” She looked at him. It was brief, but he caught a glimpse of her wide eyes. “But I trust you.”
Higgins just nodded his head, unsure of what to say. York was usually a wrecking ball—hard to miss and straight to the point—but right now she seemed soft and vulnerable.
She let out a breath of air. “If we do this, we’re in. There’s no way we’re not in.”
That made Higgins stumble. He had felt a sense of pride at being one of the final candidates for the program, but with everything going on, he hadn’t realized the end was so close. York was right, of course. If they caught Kinkaid in a lie, that was it. Decker and Zyga would have no choice but to induct them.
“Way to ramp up the pressure.”
She failed to share the joke.
York stopped outside a classroom and adjusted her blazer. She turned back to Higgins, her mask already in place. She smiled, and it even reached her eyes.
When she started walking again, Higgins hurried to catch up.
“I don’t know where anyone is.” Her voice was a loud whisper, enough to carry into the room. “I swear I saw Zyga walk in this direction.”
“We’re not late, right?” Higgins didn’t have trouble injecting some nervousness into his voice. “I don’t want to get kicked out on some technicality.”
York waved a hand to dismiss his comment, slowing down to peek her head into the classroom. “Oh! Agent Kinkaid. You’re the first one here? Awesome. Higgins and I wanted to speak with you for a moment.”
Higgins felt his heart rate increase.
“Well, I’m expecting Zyga in a few moments, but I think I have a little time.” Kinkaid smiled. “Come on in.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
York slid into a chair with that smile still on her face. Higgins tripped over his feet as he took a seat next to her.
Kinkaid quirked an eyebrow at him, but if he found Higgins anymore awkward than usual, he didn’t say anything. “What can I help you with?”
York shifted in her seat, looking around the room and avoiding eye contact. “You’re sure we’re not interrupting?”
“Agent Zyga isn’t here yet,” Kinkaid said, with the air of a teacher relaying a lesson to a student who didn’t quite understand the material, “so, I think
we’re good.”
“Trainer’s meeting?”
“Sorry?”
“I assume it’s a meeting for the trainers.” York shifted in her seat again. Higgins knew it was an act, but he still felt his anxiety spike. She was making him nervous. “I haven’t seen anyone all day.”
“That’s what he told me, although I’m not sure what it’s about.” Kinkaid was cool. If he was at all worried about what Zyga might be talking to him or the other trainers about, he didn’t let on.
“They told us we had the day off,” York said. “But they never said why.”
“They never do.”
“At first I was excited.” York let out a light little laugh. It made Higgins want to smile. “But then I started to think that maybe it was a test.”
“A test?” Kinkaid asked.
“Yeah, you know, like in college?” Kinkaid shook his head, so York continued. “I had a professor who said that if anyone wanted to leave, they could. No penalty. About half the class took him up on it.”
“I feel like there’s a twist coming.” Kinkaid’s voice sounded saccharine to Higgins. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“After the last person closed the door behind him, the professor turned back to the rest of us and said, ‘Okay, here’s everything that’s going to be on the next test.’ So, everyone who stayed in class got an A. Nearly everyone else failed.”
“You stayed?”
York laughed again. “Of course.”
Kinkaid shook his head. “I’m not surprised.” He turned to Higgins. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Would you have stayed?”
“Probably.”
“I probably would’ve left,” Kinkaid said.
“Really?” York looked genuinely surprised. “Why?”
Kinkaid shrugged. “I was a good student in college, but I liked to have a social life. I liked to sleep. I probably would’ve gone back to my dorm and taken a nap.”
“You probably would’ve passed anyway,” York said.
“Maybe.” Kinkaid paused and looked back and forth between the two of them. “You didn’t come here to talk to me about the good ol’ days.”
York looked sheepish. Higgins tried to keep his face neutral. “No, we didn’t,” she said. “We were getting nervous that maybe we missed something. That we should be doing something instead of just sitting around waiting for Agents Decker or Zyga to give us our next assignment.”
Kinkaid spread his arms out to his side. “As far as I know, there’s nothing else going on.”
York’s voice was light when she asked, “Would you tell us if there was?”
“Probably not.” Kinkaid laughed. “But I still don’t think that’s why you came here.”
York opened her mouth and then closed it again. She looked at Higgins and the panic in her eyes seemed so real. When she looked back at Kinkaid, she didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“We, uh, overheard something,” she said. “Something we probably shouldn’t have.”
“Go on.”
York wiped her hands on her pants and paused a beat. Then she stood up suddenly. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here. This was stupid.” She turned to Higgins. “Come on, Alvin. Let’s go. I shouldn’t have asked you to come here with me.”
Higgins was halfway out of his chair before he realized this was probably just part of the charade. Confidence rushed into him and tingled the tips of his fingers.
“No, no, sit.” Kinkaid was standing now, too. “Clearly this is important to you. Tell me what it is.”
York settled back into her seat with a sigh and an embarrassed chuckle. She looked at Higgins once more before focusing her attention on Kinkaid. “Alvin and I overheard you in the hallway the other day. Something about information that was leaked about Agent Spencer?”
Kinkaid’s mouth tightened. “I should be upset, but it was our fault for having that conversation in the hallway.”
“You don’t know who did it?”
“No,” Kinkaid said. He cocked his head to the side. “Why? Do you know something?”
York and Higgins exchanged a look. Kinkaid was playing right into their plan. “I’m not sure. Maybe?”
“Have you talked to Decker or Zyga about this yet?”
York shook her head vehemently. “I was nervous. I didn’t want to bring it up to them if I was wrong. I’d be embarrassed.”
“I keep telling them we should bring some others in on this, potentially the candidates. You’re here to solve problems no one else can, right? Why not let you have a crack at it?”
“I just assumed it was because it would be classified,” York said. She leaned forward. “I didn’t want to overstep.”
Kinkaid waved away her worry. “I don’t care what Zyga has to say, Solving the leak is more important. We need to catch whoever did this before they target someone else.”
“You think they’ll target someone else?” Higgins asked. His mouth was dry from lack of use.
Kinkaid turned his attention away from York for the first time in several minutes. His eyes were piercing. “If they were trying to get Agent Spencer suspended, it didn’t work, did it?”
“No, but that’s only if they were trying to get him suspended.”
“You have another idea?”
Higgins wet his lips. “I’m not sure. It just seems random, like it came out of nowhere.”
A spark of anger flashed across Kinkaid’s eyes, but it was gone so quickly, Higgins wasn’t sure it had actually been there.
“Agent Spencer isn’t exactly popular around here these days.” There was humor in Kinkaid’s eyes now, but a bite to his words.
“Because of what happened in Beirut?” York asked. “We heard that the bombings were the result of something he did.”
Kinkaid leaned in conspiratorially. “He killed a prisoner. Facts are facts. It didn’t exactly help the situation in Beirut.”
“Were you there?” Higgins asked.
Kinkaid nodded. “He shouldn’t have done what he did.”
“It’s because of him that this program was started, isn’t it?” Higgins asked. “We’re only here because he made a mistake.”
“A big mistake.” Kinkaid wasn’t hiding the anger in his voice now. “We’re all paying for it.”
“You know,” said Higgins, a slight smile on his face, “just between the three of us, I’m a little skeptical of the program.”
Kinkaid looked up sharply. He smoothed out his features with a smile. “Is that so?”
“You aren’t?”
“Well, I can’t say I know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a shot, don’t you think? If it’ll save lives.”
“If it saves lives,” York said. She sat back and crossed her arms.
“So, you’re skeptical too,” said Kinkaid.
“I’ve been on the force since I was 20. I’ve pulled my gun more times than I care to admit, but I don’t regret it. Sometimes being at the other end of a barrel is the only negotiation tool a person will pay attention to.”
“And yet here you are.” Kinkaid’s eyebrows shot up.
“Listen, I thought detective was where I wanted to stop, but the CIA has its perks. I like being in the field, and the agency would give me more opportunities. I’ve always had a knack for reading people, so the EIU seemed like a good fit.”
“But it isn’t what you were expecting?”
She shook her head. “It’s more hands-off than I thought it would be.”
Kinkaid cocked his head to the side. “You don’t strike me as the rough and tumble type, Ms. York.”
York spread her hands out to the side. “That’s part of what makes it work.”
“You haven’t exactly been leaning into that version of yourself.” Kinkaid’s voice was sharper now.
“Decker made it clear when he brought me in that they were looking for someone who would think outside the box.” York’s voice was even. “I’ve been trying s
omething new.”
“It’s been working for you.”
“I’d like to think so.”
Kinkaid turned to Higgins. “What about you, Doctor? Is the program everything you’d hoped it would be?”
“Oh well, sure... It just that...”
Kinkaid’s head was cocked to the side.
“Well, I’m skeptical.”
“A little skepticism is always a good thing. Agent Spencer hasn’t been too tough on you, I trust? He was in a bad mood earlier. I hope he wasn’t targeting you this afternoon.”
Higgins twisted his mouth to the side. “Not any more than usual.”
“That’s about all we can hope for.” Kinkaid laughed and relaxed back into his chair, turning to York once more. “So, what do you want me to tell Agent Zyga?” Then he gave a condescending smile to Higgins.
Higgins looked into the man’s eyes. “You can talk to him about names.”
“Come again?”
“Names. Kinkaid. It’s a strong name. Two hard consonants in a row ending on a third hard consonant. Zyga. That’s another strong name. But that “a” at the end... it just doesn’t...” He looked at York. “I don’t know. It has this kind of wishy-washy aspect to it. It sounds like something you get from a mosquito bite. You can take pride in a name like Kincaid. Not like the name Higgins. Forget that. Wiggly Higgins, is what they used to call me in elementary school. I was the nervous type. Always fidgeting. Wiggly Higgins. How would you like that?”
“I’m not exactly following you,” said Kinkaid, his voice stern.
“I’m just talking about names. How they’re so much more than what someone calls you. It’s how you answer to them, that’s really what’s in a name. Wouldn’t you agree? Right, York? Sergeant York? New York?”
“Whatever you say,” said York, letting her interrogator facade slip slightly.
“Yeah,” said Higgins. “The name is everything, really. Wiggly Higgins. Did you know my father was a Marine? Real tough guy. Barrel chest. No nonsense.” He paused reflectively. “Great guy; I couldn’t impress him.” He snapped from the reverie. “Oh, he loved me. I wasn’t the son he wanted, and I know that. I always had my nose buried in some book while his friends’ sons were pummeling each other on the football field and making them proud papas. And my dad? The old Marine? Tough as nails but loving me just the same. How can I not feel like crap for failing to live up to what I know he wanted from me? He died five years ago. I wish I had him here so that I could tell him how sorry I am, and that he was my inspiration. That I wanted to be like him but I just couldn’t. And that my heart breaks every day for the love he showed me despite it all.”