The Long-Lost Jules

by Jane Elizabeth Hughes

  “I feel that the world is founded on compassion.” I hope so, Amy wrote. Ha! Jules said.

  “I find it difficult to speak loudly.” Yes, Amy murmured. Are we almost done with this ridiculous questionnaire? Jules barked.

  “I value justice rather than mercy.” I paused—something else we could agree on. Yes, I wrote firmly and handed in the form.

  While Nola “scored” our questionnaires (I thought this was a no-judgment zone, I thought sourly), everyone chattered about their responses. The Kristens squealed over how similar their answers were—what a surprise!—while the Matts seriously discussed the benefits of sensing over intuition. Because I couldn’t figure out the difference between the two, I drank my Diet Coke in silence.

  “Well!” Nola said. “I see that the fit within this team is remarkably good, on the whole.”

  Gosh, I thought, widening my eyes and looking interested. What a surprise.

  “It’s no wonder you work so well together,” she went on. “This is a team of strong extroverts . . .”

  Well, fancy that, I thought.

  “And very similar personality types. This is a group that prefers sensing over intuition . . .”

  Matt S. smiled triumphantly at Matt M.

  “Thinking over feeling . . .”

  Well, of course; feelings have no value in the marketplace.

  “And judging over perceiving.”

  That, at least, is true.

  Audrey said complacently, “As I told you, Nola, this is a terrific team. I love my peeps.” She beamed at the group, who all beamed back at her. I fashioned my face into a big grin.

  “Amy,” Nola continued, “is the exception, of course. Amy is an introvert who prefers intuition over sensing and perceiving over judging.”

  There was an embarrassed pause as everyone contemplated poor old me.

  “Well,” Matt S. said kindly, “introverts are people too.”

  “Of course!” Nola said heartily.

  I ducked my head and murmured my thanks to everyone for their tolerance and inclusiveness. Someday, I decided, I would get them. I sat back, plotting my revenge.

  But the fun wasn’t over yet. We filed out of the office in a giggling, chattering mass and onto the minibus Yvette had hired, which snaked its way through the never-ending London traffic to the climbing wall at Westway. I had never been there because (a) I hated indoor climbing walls—they were all so artificial and safe—and (b) I didn’t want to advertise my skills so close to home, where I might run into someone I knew.

  So I walked in slowly, trailing behind the crowd, and was careful to awkwardly fumble with the equipment when the patient instructor showed us how to use it. Kristen T. and the Matts, having put in some practice time over the past few weeks, appointed themselves as the class gurus and were kind enough to help the rest of us newbies. Kristen R., a born athlete who had not bothered to do any practice, easily adapted to the gear and started first up the beginners’ wall. Reluctantly, I admired her natural form and prowess.

  I was at the end of the line and watched my teammates with appropriate and admiring oohs and aahs. I had myself perfectly in hand and was preparing to make a thorough mess of my own climb when a disaster occurred: Pia arrived and pushed herself in front of me. “You don’t mind, do you?” she said perkily. “I’ll be much faster than you, so it makes sense for me to go on ahead.”

  You little brat, I thought, striving for equanimity. You rotten little tweeny twerp. I remembered how she had preened after “winning” every game at Field Day, and my blood started to boil.

  “Just copy what I do,” Pia counseled.

  At that, I snapped. I gave Pia a hearty shove and said, “Just watch me and try to learn something.” And I was off.

  I scaled the beginner wall in under a minute, without a belay line to the instructor and without glancing down once; I ignored the angry shouting of the staff and glares of those below me. I passed the Kristens and the Matts, slid down so fast they didn’t even have time to blink, and then ran over to the most advanced wall, where the Jakes were struggling at the bottom holds. I skimmed past them and saw, with satisfaction, that Jake M. lost his tenuous grip when he saw me taking the lead and avoided a giant splat on the mat thanks only to his instructor’s firm hold on the belay line. This wall required some concentration, including a tricky layback maneuver to navigate a crack, and I forgot everything in the sheer pleasure of feeling for holds, relying on pure muscle power and hard-won skill. It finished with a tricky overhang, but before my mind could process the challenge, I had brought my left foot up nearly to my shoulder and used the leverage to pull myself up—my first heel hook in years—to achieve the summit. I was the only person there.

  I hung for a moment at the top of the wall, enjoying the applause of the other climbers and instructors. I hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  But then I realized what I had done. Belatedly, I saw the gaping faces of my officemates below and saw Pia whispering furiously to Audrey. Oh, shit, I thought. Was it too late to fall off the wall? Probably—better to brazen it out.

  I rappelled down quickly and took off the gear, handing it to an admiring instructor. “Are you on a climbing team?” he asked me. “Because we’d love you to join. . . .”

  I let him press his card into my hand and turned to face the music.

  Kristen the Younger said, “Amy! We had no idea! Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Oh, here and there,” I said, trying to look abashed.

  Matt B. asked suspiciously, “Were you taking lessons? For today, I mean?”

  Kristen R. said to him, “Don’t be silly. That takes years of training, not a few lessons.” She studied me. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  I gathered my wits. Really, this wasn’t a disaster, just a slight hiccup. Even nerds could have one small skill. So I said shyly, “My father taught me. He was a big mountain climber.”

  There was a small silence while everyone digested the news and tried to match it with their knowledge of Loser Amy. Matt S. asked, “What have you climbed?”

  I tried to think of the easier, beginner peaks we had climbed when I was Pia’s age, relying on my coworkers’ inability to understand the difference between mountaineering and technical rock climbing. “Oh, just Mount Washington, Denali . . . um . . . Mount Rainier, El Capitan.”

  “Huh,” Jake S. said, eyeing me. “Have you ever been on Everest?”

  I laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I have,” he said proudly. “I hiked to one thousand feet below Base Camp a few years ago.”

  That elicited a chorus of conversation, and I eased my way out of the circle to get a drink. A lucky escape, I thought. Then I caught a glimpse of Audrey’s furious face.

  Oh, crap.

  Chapter 37

  Having spent the rest of the day and night berating myself, I was not at all surprised to get an email from Audrey the next after-noon at work. Let’s meet at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, Amy, she wrote. Uh-oh, I thought.

  When Audrey finally found time for me—at 5:57 p.m., just as I had given up and was putting my jacket on—she motioned me into her office and closed the door. “The FBI has closed its investigation on Sheikh Abdullah,” she said, with no preamble.

  I had expected this, but not so soon. “That’s great,” I said, reminding myself to send a crate of bourbon to Bob the Bear.

  Audrey ignored me, of course. “I don’t know why they backed off,” she said, “but I expect it’s due to some of my friends’ influence in Washington.”

  Audrey had no friends; in fact, she had a “network.” She didn’t seem to understand that there was a difference between friendship and a prominent place in her mental Rolodex; all of her “friends” were business contacts. I almost could have felt sorry for her.

  At any rate, I knew it was not her “friends” who had stopped the FBI. I nodded obediently and thanked her.

  “However,” she said, “your review is long overdue . . .”
/>   This was said in a reproachful tone, as if it were my fault.

  “And I’m afraid there are multiple issues with your performance, even aside from the FBI investigation.”

  Which was my fault too, I gathered.

  “I have long feared you were not a good fit for this organization . . .”

  Uh-oh. This was really not good. I couldn’t afford to lose this job, not when we were so close to nailing the sheikh. Bob could probably salvage the job, once again, but that would mean letting Audrey in on my real identity—which was unthinkable. So far, we had managed to keep her unwitting. Bob had deemed her unreliable, so I wasn’t sure if he would blow my cover in order to keep me at the bank.

  “And your behavior at Christmas Team Day only confirmed that belief.”

  I started to speak, but once again she ignored me.

  “So I’m afraid, I’m very sorry to say”—she paused, and I held my breath—“that as of today, you are officially on a thirty-day probation period.”

  I let out my breath in a whoosh of relief.

  “You must demonstrate a real dedication to our mission, Amy,” she instructed.

  What mission? Making money? My mission was to, you know, prevent terrorists from blowing up half of London—unimportant, really, compared with the bank’s mission.

  “If you cannot show me you are capable of being a real team player over that period, then your career at Atlantic Bank will come to an end.” Her eyes bored into mine. There was not a speck of feeling in hers. “Are we clear?”

  I assured her that we were and that I would most earnestly and sincerely strive to become a valuable member of her team. She nodded curtly and dismissed me. We both understood that this was a thirty-day postponement of the inevitable, as advised by HR in order to prevent me from suing.

  Well, if I couldn’t wrap up this business in thirty days, then I didn’t deserve to be my father’s daughter. If only you knew, Audrey, I thought. If only you knew.

  That Sunday, I took my Syrian teenagers rock climbing in Bradford, which was a huge hit. A few days later, I received official notification from the FBI that the investigation into Sheikh Abdullah had been closed, and emailed the sheikh with the news. No reply. I diverted myself by devising a plan to move his assets from negative-interest-rate Swiss bonds and US bonds with a 0.15 percent interest rate into something that might actually earn him some money, although I knew he would never consider it. That was one of the things that had attracted our attention to him in the first place—only crooks and criminals have no interest in making profitable, productive investments.

  Still no word from Leo.

  The following week, on Wednesday evening, I left work and went to the Four Seasons for a quick drink at the bar. I chatted with the bartender, left through the kitchen, and took a cab to the London Eye, where I picked up another cab, for the Park Lane Hilton. There, I had another drink, chatted with another bartender, and accepted a key to room 1037. Thank goodness for big-city hotels and cab stands; they were custom-made for the cautious spy evading detection.

  And then I walked up ten flights of stairs to the tenth floor, exited cautiously, with my hand poised at my hip, and used the key to get into room 1015. The CIA security contractor behind the door looked me over quickly and let me pass into the very bland hotel room, where four more men were clustered. It was a good-size space, but the big, broad-shouldered alpha males with their piles of gear made it seem small and fussy. Two of them had heavy beards. All four wore dark wraparound sunglasses, despite the dim lighting in the room, and spoke in deep bass voices.

  “The London takedown is Friday,” the team leader, who gave his name as Shea, told me. “We’ve got enough info to make it happen.”

  My info! I exulted.

  “Who are you taking down?”

  He grunted. “The evil spawn.” The sheikh’s sons, I interpreted.

  “Where?”

  “I’m told you don’t need to know that.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What about the father?”

  “Another team is on him. It’s more difficult. He’s in the sandbox.” The Middle East, probably Saudi Arabia.

  Only the leader was talking to me. The others conversed among themselves in the low voices of men accustomed to quiet, shorthand communication.

  “The sons are coming in to meet with you. To tell you they’re pulling their business.”

  Amy would be horrified; I grinned. It was a good way to lure them to London. They would have to sign signature cards in person to close their accounts and transfer money out of Atlantic. “Okay,” I said again. Then, with sudden apprehension, I added, “You’re not doing the takedown at the bank, are you?”

  Shea shrugged. I didn’t need to know that.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Keep your head down.”

  I could do that.

  “And make sure you have copies of all the documentation,” he added.

  I nodded. That documentation was why I had spent two years of my life as a toady to Audrey and her peeps. “It’s secure,” I said.

  He nodded. “Do you need help getting out?”

  “No.”

  I slipped out, ran down the ten flights, and caught a cab at the entrance. Another tiresome round of taxicab tag to ensure that I hadn’t been picked up at the hotel, and I was back in my own bed. As I fell asleep, I remembered Audrey’s telling me I had to be more of a team player, and smiled to myself. When it was my team, I could play with the best of them.

  The next day, I forced myself to do something I had been putting off for days: I had to fill out a “witting” form on Leo. All covert agency employees have to keep an official list of those who know about their agency status—the shorter the better. My father’s list, until he died, had consisted of only one person: his own father. Mine, up until now, had also been admirably short: my mother, Kali, and Kelley, following the agency’s strong admonition that I not keep immediate family in the dark.

  But now I had to add Leo, and I knew this would be a big black mark on my previously unsullied career. To have a foreign national on one’s witting list was bad enough; a foreign national with an intelligence background was even worse. And in the best of times, the CIA and the Israeli military had a tricky relationship.

  Still, it had to be done. The alternative was that someone might discover it by accident one day, and that would be a firing offense. So, reluctantly, I filled out the form and filed it with Internal Security. Maybe I would be lucky and no one would notice it. I couldn’t help thinking about my father’s minuscule witting list and how he—my best friend—had lied to me for his entire life, leaving it to strangers to tell me the truth after he was dead.

  I had always wondered why he didn’t just leave me in ignorance forever. It would have been much easier. But he had left explicit instructions that I be told everything when he was gone, and, for the first time, I understood. The truth is better. Even if it’s belated, the truth is better. So I was glad Leo knew the truth, even though he would never speak to me again. I would not out myself for the sake of Sudeley. I just couldn’t.

  There was no word from Leo himself.

  On Friday, Takedown Day, I was jumpy inside but bland as ever on the outside. Amy dutifully worked on a five-year plan for the sheikh’s investments that Jules knew would never see the light of day, while Jules tried not to fidget and slipped out every hour or so to check her agency cell phone.

  Just after lunch, I got an unexpected email instead.

  Hi Ames,

  Lord Featherstone wants you at his house ASAP. Don’t bring any guests.

  Rosalie

  “Rosalie.” An official, urgent summons. Game on.

  Chapter 38

  Lord Featherstone was the bank’s British director—Audrey’s boss, I supposed, though he was very much an absentee director, and I had met him only once. I made my way to his Knightsbridge mansion, being ultracareful not to bring any “guests”—three taxis and two tube ride
s—and arrived slightly breathless. Was this the takedown, then? Or was it over?

  Shea, my agency contact, met me at the door and ushered me into a high-ceilinged, dark-paneled reception room with no furniture except a mile-long polished table and chairs on a jewellike Oriental rug. The great man Lord Featherstone himself was there and nodded to me. “We need you for the takedown after all,” Shea said.

  “Why?”

  “The sons think they’re moving their funds to another bank. They need you to approve their signatures.”

  “Okay. But why here?”

  “Their new ‘bankers’ advised them not to go to Atlantic, in case Audrey tried to prevent them from making the withdrawal.”

  I nodded briskly and got into character, stooping my shoulders and scooping my hair into a messy bun. I put on my glasses and squinted a little. “Let’s do this,” I said.

  The doorbell rang.

  Lord Featherstone slipped out of the room, and I heard male voices in the foyer. One of Shea’s men, dressed as the quintessential British butler, opened the door; announced, “Their Excellencies Kareem and Nasir bin Saud”; and bowed his way out. Shea, looking every bit the high-level American banker in an Armani suit and wingtips, strode over and shook their hands. I said nervously, “Mr. al-Saud—Sheikh, I mean—what are we doing here? Can I call my colleagues and ask them to join us? Please?” I put a tremor in my voice and avoided eye contact.

  “No. All we need is your signature,” Kareem said. His brother, the muscle, remained silent and glared at everyone impartially.

  The “butler” knocked again and crept in, trying to look unobtrusive. He carried a wide silver tray with shaking hands; I only hoped that under one of those silver domes was a very powerful gun. Nasir had never been known to travel with anything less than a Glock.

  “Tea, sirs?” the butler inquired timorously.

  “No!” Kareem barked. “This is not a social occasion!”

  I visibly shrank into myself and watched as the tray tilted precariously. Quickly, Shea reached out to steady it after only three cups of tea had fallen onto the priceless Oriental rug, and the butler, murmuring in distress, knelt to wipe up the mess. Kareem, who had been splashed with some hot tea, wiped angrily at his bespoke gray suit.