Field Agent

by Dom Testa

  Well, shit. It’s never easy, is it?

  I rolled to my right, into the passenger seat as he stabbed. The end of the screwdriver embedded in my left calf, and I let out a scream. Mostly out of pure anger, I think.

  All right, I decided; I was tired of shithead villains pushing me to my limit, handcuffed or not. As he reared back to stab at me again, I pulled my legs back like a spring, then shot both feet hard into his face, slamming his head into the window beside him. The screwdriver dropped to his feet.

  But that wasn’t enough for me. I wound up and did it again, this time so that his skull actually made a slight crack in the window glass. He turned toward me with dazed eyes, blood beginning to flow from multiple gashes in his head. It was a beautiful sight.

  And yet there was another sight I longed to see.

  After leaning forward and punching him hard across the jaw, I used my shackled hands to unhitch his seat harness. Then, moving back, I used every ounce of my gymnast strength to drag his squirming body out of the seat and into the rear compartment. The plane, now without anyone at the controls, was beginning to sway and dip. In another minute it would begin a spiral to the water’s surface 2,000 feet below.

  I punched Deele again, and blood spewed from his mouth. He looked at me, unable to comprehend, it seemed, that this could happen to him.

  Grabbing hold of the front of his shirt, I brought his face up to within inches of mine.

  “I still didn’t bring a helmet, Jason, so no Red Baron look for me. But you’ll need one more than I will.”

  His eyes went wide with fear and perhaps recognition. I hoped he made the connection with our previous ride aboard the plane, and our final chat in Paraguay. But, if not, who cared?

  With one arm I threw his sorry ass out of the plane.

  32

  None of the magazines appealed to me, or, if they did, I was too grossed out by the evidence accumulated from dozens of human hands, many of which must’ve held food at the same time. The television volume was up too loud, blaring a program that appealed to the least-educated and most-bored segment of the population. A few seats down, someone’s child was unhappy about something, and wailed.

  I felt like matching him decibel for decibel.

  Hospital waiting areas produce a vibe all their own. It’s a strange melding of hope and sadness, coated with a thick covering of restlessness. Name the places where you’d least like to spend an afternoon, and a hospital waiting room would give hell and furniture stores a run for their money.

  I picked at the bandage covering my calf, grateful at least for pain pills that worked wonders.

  A pair of white, thick-soled shoes appeared in my vision as I sat slumped with my chin resting on a fist. I looked up to find the same nurse who’d asked me to kindly wait over there.

  “You can go in now, sir. But only ten minutes, okay?”

  I thanked her and made a dash out of the pit of despair.

  Fife was gazing in a listless way at the muted TV screen in his room, which featured a sports-talk show that couldn’t have appealed to much more of an IQ than the garbage I’d just escaped. The screen was crowded along the bottom and one side with scrolling updates and statistics about people who made large sums of money playing games.

  “Need me to place a bet for you?” I asked when he hadn’t registered my entrance.

  His head fell to my side of the room, and he grunted a laugh that seemed to pain him.

  “Hey, asshole, get in here. What’s it been? Two days?”

  I grinned and strolled to his bedside, where I didn’t hesitate to grasp his hand. “What the hell, champ? How do you like this role reversal?”

  “I hate it. It was much better when I came to visit and you were the one with tubes sticking out.”

  “I still owe you one. You’ve had to visit me twice.”

  He smiled, and even that seemed to cause discomfort. I’d had a good talk with the surgeon who’d operated on him, and he warned me about how difficult the recovery would be. As he’d told me, That man is gonna hate the world for a few days.

  I pulled up a chair. “They won’t let me stay long. What can I do for you?”

  “Tell me what the hell I missed after I passed out on the plane. Tell me all of it.”

  “Oh, we flew around and buzzed sheep for a while, then took a beautiful moonlight cruise over Lake Michigan.”

  “All right, jerk. What happened?”

  So I told him. From Jaclyn Stone’s early departure, to the slugfest with Conor Wood, and finally the cockpit battle. Nothing caused so much as a raised eyebrow until I mentioned the abrupt exit of Jason Deele.

  “No shit,” Fife said in a mumble. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Is that how you reported it?”

  I didn’t answer at first. Just glanced past him out the window. Finally I said, “There are two reports. One is strictly internal. In that one I said we scuffled near the door and Deele fell out.”

  “Uh huh. What about the external report?”

  “Well, you can’t have one of the richest men in the country die without a news story. So after I managed to land that crazy airplane at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee and got you whisked off to surgery, the phantoms from Sanitation showed up and worked their magic.”

  “How?”

  “The official log at Mitchell shows that Jason Deele and two passengers touched down briefly in Milwaukee before departing again, this time for Detroit. Unfortunately their plane went into the lake not long after takeoff. It was an experimental craft, you know. Very risky.”

  “They crashed the plane?”

  I nodded. “After removing certain containers from the back.”

  Fife grimaced as he tried to shift in bed. Then he said, “So now what happens?”

  “Now we’re treated to news reports about how the loss of a maverick like Jason Deele can’t be accurately measured, blah blah blah. Some sidebars about how he lived a daredevil life that finally caught up to him.

  “And we’re waiting to see which two crops turn up diseased. Sarah Eklund’s people will convince the farmers it’s an isolated incident, and they’ll be quietly reimbursed for planting new crops after some special soil treatment.”

  “You’ve spoken with Eklund?”

  “Briefly. She wasn’t sure how to take the news of Deele’s accidental death. I think she thinks it’s bad form to cheer somebody’s plane crash. But I’m sure inwardly she did.”

  Fife stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds. I could tell another wave of pain had rolled in. When he finally relaxed, he turned back to me.

  “Thanks for saving my life, Swan.”

  “Hey, I saved both our lives. And the world’s food supply. Don’t forget that.”

  “Don’t get cocky.”

  I laughed. Then I gave his hand a squeeze. “Listen, champ—I hope this little incident has at least made you rethink your decision.”

  “Yeah, what decision is that?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  He shook his head. “You got it backwards, pal. This only reinforced everything.”

  I was startled, and it must’ve showed.

  “Look,” he said, his voice mellow. “Facing death doesn’t make me want to upload myself into a computer hard drive. If anything it makes me more at peace with the prospect that it’s going to happen.”

  “But—”

  “No, wait,” he said. “This is no judgment on your decision. It works for you. And I’m pretty sure you have underlying reasons that have nothing to do with the job. Personal reasons. Am I right?”

  I just blinked a few times, then turned my attention back to the window.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought. But see, for me, I have all the answers I need when I go home. Having no reset button makes my life more special for me. I know, it doesn’t make sense to you. But it does to me. And that’s all that matters.”

  Seconds ticked by, then a full minute. We sat there together, hands cla
sped like brothers, the flash of the TV screen illuminating us.

  When the silence became uncomfortable, I said, “Need me to sneak in some whiskey?”

  One week later I sat at the round table in Quanta’s kitchen. She placed a glass of water in front of me and took the chair directly across.

  “You stayed in Milwaukee a long time,” she said.

  “I wasn’t going to leave Agent Fife until I knew he was fine.”

  “But his wife was there, correct?”

  “I don’t care.”

  Quanta had no comment.

  “So tell me,” I said. “What happens with the contents of Deele’s Houston lab? It’s not all deadly. There’s a lot of potentially powerful science in there.”

  “That depends on several factors,” she said. “There’s a lot to be done first with the settlement of his estate, and I’m sure that’s weeks away, at best.”

  I studied her face. “Who are you kidding? You expect me to believe our government’s just going to sit back and wait to see who gets control of those samples? I’ll be shocked if you haven’t had them removed already.”

  By not answering she confirmed exactly what I suspected. All I could do was shake my head and give a low chuckle. “Well, there’s really no one around to complain, I guess. No direct heirs for either Jason Deele or Jaclyn Stone. And you know, Miller was absolutely right. He told me two psychopaths could never work together for long. Deele was pretty quick to jettison his partner, figuratively and literally.”

  Quanta said, “I have no doubt many more will step up to fill their vacancies.”

  “Speaking of which, I need you to get Deputy Secretary Halloran to direct her bark at someone else.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “The DOJ.”

  Quanta raised one eyebrow. “What can Justice do for you?”

  “I need her to get Justice to relocate Steffan Parks from the supermax in Colorado.”

  “That’s an unusual request. Especially since he was responsible for your death. Are you feeling benevolent?”

  “I won’t be exchanging birthday cards with him, if that’s what you mean. But I gave him my word I’d try to get it done if he helped out.”

  She tapped a finger on the table. “I’ve gone over the case, Swan. His information didn’t help that much. A member of the Arcetri may have played a major role in what happened, but the organization as a whole was very much in the background. I’m not sure anything changed because of what he shared with you.”

  “I agree. I think ultimately Jaclyn Stone was dangerous as hell, but her original vision wasn’t wrong. Her dream was to build stronger, more pest-resistant crops to expand worldwide food productivity. It was the implementation of her vision that was criminal, encouraged by some underlying resentment and a whole shitload of anger. All of her anger, though, was tightly focused on this project, most of which was Deele’s baby, not hers. He couldn’t have done it without her, but I don’t think she would’ve done it on her own. He provided the structure she lacked.”

  “So why the sympathy now for Parks?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not sympathy. It’s leverage. I’m going to make it clear to Steffan that this isn’t a gift. It’s an exchange. And from now on, when friends of the late Eric Swan want information he better pony up all of it. Any time, any subject. Or back he goes to Colorado.”

  Quanta studied my face. “You’re creating a source in case we encounter the Arcetri again.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You think his information will be that valuable?”

  “Over time? Yes. In the spirit of this particular assignment, let’s say I’m planting a seed I hope will reap dividends down the road. Because while I don’t know everything, I know this much: We will hear from the Arcetri again.”

  Quanta paused a moment before answering. “All right. I’ll see it gets done. I’ll let the Deputy Secretary know this is the bill for helping her step-daughter.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Now please don’t tell me you have another case right now. I need a few days.”

  “A few more days, you mean.”

  “Are you insinuating that one week in a Milwaukee hospital is a vacation?”

  She actually smiled.

  “I need you back to work. I’ll give you three days, Swan.”

  “Which means two. What’s going on?”

  Quanta stood up and shook her head. “No. Take your break. Spend some time with Christina. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Not even a hint?”

  She hesitated before saying, “Cybersecurity. And this could be very bad.”

  I’d showered, and now I lay on my stomach across the bed on Christina’s side of our dual-condo complex. Over on my side people were dropping off a new set of clothes for my somewhat-shorter physique. Just one of those side effects of constantly switching bodies.

  I suspected Quanta had waited to see if I brought this version back home before she bothered with the wardrobe update.

  Christina was hunched beside me, working on a second coat on her toenails.

  “Should you be breathing those fumes in your condition?” I asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Nail polish? Is that okay?”

  “Yes, it’s safe. Unless you’re huffing it all the time. Besides, I haven’t painted my nails in ages. I’m treating myself tonight.”

  With the polish brush she indicated the bandage on my leg. “Do I want to know how you got that?”

  “Screwdriver.”

  She went back to work, slowly shaking her head in disbelief. Sometimes I wondered what went through her mind when she considered her husband’s job. Her questions were few and far between, mostly because not knowing much was better than knowing and worrying. At least that’s what I told myself.

  How anyone could live with a Q2 agent was beyond me. Christina made it work.

  “Do you feel like talking?” she asked.

  I squinted the one eye that wasn’t buried in her comforter. “Uh oh.”

  A broad smile flashed across her beautiful face. “Oh, stop it. Nothing about us. Well, sort of about us, but not really.”

  I pushed up onto my elbows. “All right. I’m game.”

  She finished the final coat and screwed the cap back onto the polish bottle. Leaning over, she set it on the nightstand, then collapsed next to me.

  “Just wondering if this first assignment back . . . well, if it made you glad you didn’t quit. Or did it make you want to quit?”

  I sighed. “Whatever I tell you now might be different than what I would’ve said yesterday. Or tomorrow.”

  “Kind of a chickenshit answer, wouldn’t you say, Swan?”

  It was my turn to smile. “Here’s what I can tell you. I’ve been so unsure lately. And yet, babe, when I’m in the middle of it, when things are heating up—even when the game is going badly—there’s not a single thought in my mind about giving it up. It’s only when I get away from it that I begin to doubt everything.” I shrugged. “Too much time to think about it makes me second-guess.”

  “That’s still not an answer,” she said, her eyes revealing a sincere curiosity.

  “Yeah, I know. What I’m trying to say is I haven’t figured it out myself. But I suppose when those doubts begin to seep into my mind when I’m in the middle of a case, that’ll be a sign it’s time to walk away.”

  I leaned over and kissed her, then did it again.

  “I just can’t right now. There’s still too much I have to learn.” I paused. “And too many loose ends to clean up.”

  I knew she knew what that meant. We both let it go.

  Then, with a devious smile, I pushed her onto her back and placed a hand on her belly. “How would this little guy feel about some ice cream right now?”

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