by David Beem
“No pressure,” I reply, my eyes widening.
“Maybe we should get to it, then, huh?” Caleb collects four tablets from behind the bar and passes them out. Alex slides onto the barstool and unlocks her screen. I unlock mine also. There’s a folder on the desktop labeled mission file. I tap it, and up pops the briefing.
“Prime Minister Watson is in New York,” says Alex. “He’s expected to attend mass at the Cathedral of St. Patrick tomorrow morning, where visiting bishop Cain Shillelaugh will be delivering the sermon. We have intelligence this man”—she taps the top left of her screen—I access the same file on mine and the ugly mug of a career assassin pops up—“one Grunka Kasabian, may use this opportunity to target the prime minister ahead of the UN General Assembly speech Tuesday.”
“Can’t Australian secret service protect him?” I ask.
“They can,” replies Alex. “But we want to pick Kasabian up for questioning.” Her gaze flits to Mary and back. “I’d like to know the name of the person who hired him, and the specifics of the payment.”
I look down at my tablet and into this Kasabian guy’s freckled face. Angry eyes, short red hair. He’s like if Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story grew up to make Interpol’s Most Wanted. A shudder passes through me as Alex clears her throat.
“Bonkovich, you will access the Collective Unconscious and be our eyes from the pulpit Sunday morning.”
“Wait, wait—me?”
Alex frowns. “Yes. You will be posing as Bishop Shillelaugh. With the Collective Unconscious, you’ll have no trouble channeling any number of stirring sermons for the occasion. Is there a problem?”
I look at Mary.
“We were thinking,” says Mary, leaning forward and grabbing a coaster out of a tray on the bar, “this being his first official mission, maybe it’d be best he stays in the van while we three, more experienced agents, handle Kasabian.” Her teeth click shut, and she begins idly spinning the coaster on the bar’s dusty surface.
“Leave Bonkovich in the van?” Alex’s hawkish gaze darts from Mary to the coaster and back. “Haven’t you ever seen a superhero show?”
“Yeah, Mare,” says Caleb. “You don’t put the superhero in the van. You put the person in the van in the van. Without the person in the van—”
“—the superhero can’t superhero,” finishes Alex, upturning her hands. “Mary, this is Superhero 101.”
Mary forms a tight smile as she glances sideways at me.
“Right,” I say, sitting forward. “Right. No problem. I got this.”
“Good,” says Alex. “Because it wasn’t hyperbole to say our first mission may well be our last. No training wheels, Bonkovich.” She rests her elbow on the bar and narrows her eyes. “That being the case, I don’t mind admitting I’ll feel better if you can show us something now.”
“Show you something?” I stammer.
“Yes,” she replies. “Show us how this works. Maybe give us a taste of a sermon, or…something.”
“Yeah, bro. It’ll be fun. I’ve never seen you just, you know, mess around with it a little. Let’s meet somebody from the Great Beyond. Yeah!”
Mary’s hand slides onto my arm, which is shaking. Crap—my collar is shaking too. There’s no way I can fool career spies. What the hell was I thinking?
“Edger,” says Mary. “Why don’t you show them the famous British spy you were telling me about the other day. You know, the one who introduced himself to you at the block party?”
Alex’s eyebrows go up. “You met a British spy at a block party?”
“Ha-ha. Yeah,” I say, about a half octave too high. “Happens all the time.”
“Right on,” says Caleb.
“Edger’s being modest,” says Mary. “This spy is one of the best—ever. MI6. His career spanned the globe. There was no place he couldn’t go, and no place you could hide from him. He knew all the local customs. Spoke more than two-dozen languages. His dialects were perfect. His disguises were legend. In Italy, they still whisper his name: il Fantasma, the Ghost. In Azerbaijan, it’s Kabus. In Malta, the legend is il-Fatat.”
Caleb’s smile turns up to level eleven, and somewhere, broken mirrors start mending.
“Wow. Yeah, bro! That’s awesome!” He raises his hand for a high five, which I surrender unenthusiastically. Alex’s mouth turns up on one side.
“This superspy got a name?” she asks.
I clear my throat. “…Nigel.”
Oh no, says Nigel. No, no, no.
Nigel, you have to help me! They won’t know. Just take control of my body for a few minutes and be…you know…British.
Be British?! That’s your big plan?!
“Bonkovich?” says Alex, her forehead creasing. I raise a finger.
“Hang on. I’m trying to get him to come out.”
Sod this for a lark, huffs Nigel. Bagsy on pulling a blinder for the anorak with the Aussie to fool this lot, and—Bob’s your uncle—look ma, I’m a spy!
What?
Bloody hell, I’m being British! he replies, his psychic sense dripping with sarcasm.
Alex frowns. I close my eyes, shake my hands out and, fingers splayed, touch my temples. Not because this is necessary for talking to Nigel, but I figure I ought to at least look like I’m doing something.
Nigel, come on. You’re all I’ve got.
Bollocks. I am not—not—giving a sermon. Do you hear me?
Yes, yes! We’ll get this fixed, Nigel. I promise. Please. Just get me through the meeting.
Nigel sighs.
Please, I plead again, and a cold rush steals through my limbs. Spots drift across my vision like I stood up too fast. Actually—I did. I’m standing. Nigel’s got me.
Weird…
Too effing right, Nigel replies.
“Hello,” I say in a thick British accent.
Alex frowns. “This is supposed to be someone else now?” She shakes her head. “How does this work?”
“Edge, bro,” says Caleb, his eyes peering hard into mine, left, then right. “You in there?”
I’m on my feet and backing away. I’m standing straighter—my shoulders flex back.
Blimey. I have pecs!
No, I have pecs. Come on, man. You’re ruining it. You’ve got to sell this. Secret agent!
Wait—what? I’m bowing. My hand is doing a ridiculous flourishing wave. This isn’t going to work. Hey—less Johnny English—more double-oh-seven, I say.
“Nigel Willianbottom,” I say out loud, speaking in a British accent, “Her Majesty’s Secret Service, at your…er, service.”
Willianbottom?
Well, yes. That’s my name. And don’t think I haven’t heard the jokes. I have. All of them.
Alex’s forehead creases. Her gaze shifts to Mary. Caleb’s face is too deadpan. He’s wondering about your last name too, I just know it.
Well, he won’t be the first, says Nigel. I usually give a good thrust like this—
My arms reach forward, then yank back as my pelvis thrusts out. “Willianbottom!” I say proudly, sticking my chest out, then thumping it with my fist.
Kill me now, I say.
You get to be my age and you learn to own it, Nigel replies.
Alex’s nose wrinkles. “The prime minister’s life hangs in the balance, and the Collective Unconscious sends us…you?”
“Heh-heh,” says Caleb, making his own pelvic thrust. “Willy-in-bottom. Good one. I’m startin’ to like this guy.”
Nigel being in charge, I swagger into Alex’s space, my shoulders loose. I smile, but I can tell it’s all wrong. This is a smile for another man’s face. A sneer, almost.
Oh no. Nigel? What’re you doing? Abort! Abort!
“The Collective Unconscious is mysterious and awl-knowing,” I hear myself say. “I mean that lit-ra-ly. Awl-knowing.” My head tips down. I squint. My eyebrows skip up and down. Nigel has me reach past Alex—in the process pushing my chest firmly against hers—and grab a bottled water.
Wh
at are you doing?!
She’s a bit of all right, this one is, Nigel replies.
We pull away. Alex’s eyes are smoldering.
She’s going to kill us.
Nonsense. She likes a real man, that one. Watch and learn…
Holding eye contact, and with an unnatural swagger, I break the seal, unscrew the cap, and raise the plastic bottle to my lips. Tapping my temple twice, I say, “There are no secrets from me.”
We take a sip—
“What color underwear am I wearing?” asks Alex, still smoldering.
—and spit it out all over Alex.
“—the hell?!”
Her hands spring up. Her eyebrows jerk down. Caleb thrusts his arm between us, knocking the bottled water from my hands and forcing me away as Alex draws her sidearm. Nigel, his psychic presence in a tizzy, has me snatch the spy pen from the bar. I clutch it with both hands into my chest, one knee raised to protect the nuts.
Nigel—we look ridiculous. Relax. She’s not literally going to shoot us. You just pissed her off.
“Okay, okay,” says Caleb. Alex shakes out her T-shirt, taking turns glaring at all three of us.
My body uncoils over a slow count to ten. Nigel thrusts my pecs out like Rambo. With missile-lock precision, he makes my eyes target Caleb’s, Mary’s, and Alex’s in sequence, my head snapping into position for each—one, two, three—and then I’m reaching forward and repeating the pelvic thrust maneuver again. “Willianbottom!”
My three Z-Teamers exchange uncertain glances, while I aim the pen at the two-by-four Caleb shot earlier.
“The art of deception is but one tool in a spymaster’s trade,” I say, clicking the pen. The dart zips across the room, makes a faint tick as it collides with a Dos Equis mirror, and then rebounds harmlessly onto the floor. “Marksmanship is but another.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” says Alex, holding out her hand. “Give me the pen.”
Nigel has me hand over the pen. Alex stuffs it in her hip pocket.
“Mary, Caleb,” she says. “Give me five minutes alone with him.”
Stealing a glance at Mary, she returns a nod as convincing as gravity. Caleb, on the other hand… His gaze tracks from Alex’s wet T-shirt, to her sidearm, to her face, and settles on the gun.
“You sure?” he asks.
“Relax,” Alex replies. “I’m not gonna shoot the asset.”
With a last sideways glance, Caleb shakes his head, then juts his chin out at Mary. The pair heads back to the bar, and Alex leads me by the elbow to the coat check area. When we’re out of earshot, she hauls back on my arm and peers up into my eyes. With all that dark eyeliner, she’s like a goth ninja.
“Okay, Willianbottom. Clearly, deception is a strength. I’ve never seen a master spy so convincingly play inept since Johnny English. Most are too egotistical to pull it off. But after that performance, you deserve an Oscar for Too Stupid to Live. I’m impressed.”
“And that’s only the beginning of what I’m capable of.”
“Good. Because I’ve got a side mission for you.”
My eyebrows rise.
“You and Bonkovich are going to set up a meeting with Prime Minister Watson before his UN speech. Mary can’t suspect a thing. We’re going to get to the bottom of whatever this is with her dad. We can’t afford to botch the UN mission. Washington’s breathing down my neck.”
“A clandestine meeting with the prime minister sounds dangerous,” Nigel has me reply.
Alex waves this away. “You’ll have me as backup. It’ll be no different from Mary—in fact, it’ll be better. Between you and me, that’ll make two neutral professionals on the job. It’ll be good working with you, Mr. Willianbottom. We’ll keep Bonkovich safe.”
Nigel clears my throat. “Right. And…the, er, sermon, then?”
“What? Oh that,” she says, waving her hand again. “Details are in the mission report. Hope Bonkovich packed his Sunday clothes. We’ll see you at church.”
CHAPTER Thirteen
Mary and I exit the nightclub into a blast of taxi horns, hissing buses, and a street musician banging on pots and pans. New York: the city that never shuts up. A refrigerated grocery truck is parked out front, the whine of its compressor also too loud to hear each other over. Mary widens her eyes at me, and I’m guessing this is her let’s-get-out-of-here look. We march up the street. My gears start spinning. I’m not sure what I can say when she asks what Alex wanted. Am I even capable of going behind Mary’s back?
Mary’s lying to you, says Nigel. Only fair you get to lie to her.
Mary isn’t lying. She’s withholding. Key difference.
You sound just like her.
We march on. Maybe if I talk first, the questions will be fewer, and we can move on before she forces me to tell her about the side assignment. I open my mouth on 10th, then shut it for the jackhammers. We get all the way to 18th before either of us speaks.
“Tell me what Alex wanted,” she says.
“She’s worried about Washington pulling the plug. Otherwise, she’s convinced Nigel was demonstrating the art of deception.”
“I thought that might be it,” she says, her thumb swiping something on her phone.
You’re quite a good liar, says Nigel. So this means you’re going to do it? Alex’s side mission?
I haven’t decided. Now go away.
“Mary.” I grab her arm, and we stop walking. “We have got to fix this. My powers.”
“Already on it,” she replies, scanning search results on her phone. She brightens and hops once in place, then wheels around and holds out her screen for me to see.
“Past-life regression therapy?”
“Just our first stop. Keep an open mind.”
“Buh…”
“I’ll get this all sorted out,” she says. “Don’t worry. I promised we’d get you fixed.”
Dr. Cozen’s mustached face is welcoming when he opens the door and shows us into his tiny little hole-in-the-wall office. The air is a mixture of pipe tobacco and mahogany. His bookshelves are stuffed with thick titles. Plenty of framed degrees. Harvard, Yale, Brown. Wow. Looks like he’s the real deal. Strange his schedule had this convenient opening for the two of us, though.
“You’re very fortunate, Mr. Thomas,” says Dr. Cozen, gesturing me forward. “I had a last-minute cancellation. Please. Lie down.”
I glance at Mary. She nods her encouragement. I lie down on the leather chaise lounge. Mary takes a seat in the corner. The upholstery creaks as I fidget. It’s weird, coming in randomly and trying to relax. Outside the tall, bright windows, New York City is busy as ever.
“Everyone comfortable?” he asks.
I squeak around in the leather some more.
“Then let’s begin,” he says, wheeling his chair over to my side. “I’d like you to push against my hand.” He holds his hand out, palm up, and takes my hand and sets it palm down on top of his. “Like this.”
I push.
“Now. Close your eyes and start counting backward from ten…slowly.” His voice is thick. Still pushing his hand, I start counting.
I feel funny, says Nigel.
I feel funny too.
Dr. Cozen pulls his hand away. My arm falls; inside my head, I’m also falling. Down, down, down…
“Can you hear me?”
Whose voice is that? I ask.
I think it’s the doctor, replies Nigel.
Doctor? a new voice asks. A German voice.
My eyes spring open. I sit up like Frankenstein’s monster, bending at the waist without using my arms or elbows. My gaze inventories the office.
Hello, Dr. Freud, says Nigel.
Hallo, says Sigmund Freud. Vhere are vee?
My head is vibrating like a lightsaber with a fracturing Kyber crystal. I hold my palms up and stare at them. These are a young man’s hands. Whose hands are these?
They’re mine! I say.
I vas eighty-three vhen I died, says Sigmund Freud.
&nbs
p; Yeah—and I was twenty-six when I faked my death.
Verdi inter-desting. Tell me about your mother.
Can I have my body back?
No.
“Mr. Thomas?” asks Dr. Cozen, his head ducking to intercept my gaze. “Are you in there?”
“Wer bist du?” I ask, and when Dr. Cozen blinks in confusion, I try again: “Who are you?”
“Are you…German?” asks Dr. Cozen.
“Nein. I am Austrian, du Dummkopf.”
Dr. Cozen’s eyes widen. He glances over his shoulder at the beautiful blonde sitting in the corner.
Mary. That’s Mary! Can I have my body back?
I get to my feet, hold my arms out, and make a hasty examination of my body. Toned arms, chest, stomach. Tall. Strange clothes.
This is amazing, says Dr. Freud. I feel young again!
No—I am young, I reply. I’m twenty-six. You’re using my body without my consent!
Nonsense.
“Greetings, Fräulein,” I hear myself say, crossing to Mary. I take her hand, snap a bow, and kiss her knuckles. Her gaze cruises to Dr. Cozen and back.
Ah. Ze Doktor. I turn on one heel and goose-step over to greet him next.
“Sigmund Freud, at your service,” I say, bowing, then gesturing to the degrees hanging on the wall. “I zee you studied cognitive science at Harvard.”
“Motherfucker,” says Dr. Cozen, abandoning all pretense at professionalism. His eyes are wide in astonishment.
“Hmm. Oedipus complex,” Freud has me say, snatching a notebook and pencil from the table and scribbling. “Verdi inter-desting.”
I look up. Dr. Cozen frowns.
“Vhat can you tell me about ze response time for ze prezentation of ze stimuli in serial versus parallel cognitive operations, Herr Doktor?”
“Motherfucker,” Dr. Cozen says again.
“Inter-desting,” I say, scribbling more notes. “Tell me, Herr Doktor, do you kiss your mother with zat mouth?” I snap my notebook shut. “My diagnosis iz he zuffers from ze classic inferiority complex, vhich stemz from a deep-seated Oedipal longing for hiz mamma. Oh. And ze degrees on ze wallz are all fake. Ze good Herr Doktor here haz only ze Bachelor’s in Communications from somevhere called DeVry. Hiz mamma iz in ze Collective Unconscious and vants him to know he’s been verdi bad boy to lie like zis to you good people.”
