“1989, you got a Dance Club Barbie.”
Brooke stopped in her tracks as she reached the door. “Big deal. Every girl got a Barbie in 1989.
“1990—Gameboy.”
“Same,” Brooke put her hands on her hips. “Lucky guess on years. Doesn’t mean you have special powers.”
“Okay, 1992. You didn’t get a Christmas present.”
Nick watched Brooke closely. He really didn’t want to have to say this, but she had forced his hand. Nick saw Jim and Andrews both look at Brooke’s face.
“How—how could you . . .” Brooke trailed off. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned to walk out of the room, but Nick’s next remark stopped her cold.
“You didn’t get a present that year because dear ole dad wouldn’t let you have one. Santa delivered, but he threw it out before you could wake up and see it. For about two months straight your pops was getting drunk every night and taking his aggressions out on you. Your mom was too cowardly to stop it, and your brother was too young. You took the beatings for you and your brother. Everything your brother did to piss your dad off, you took the blame and felt the wrath. This is exactly the reason I couldn’t just sit around up there at the North Pole—fat, dumb, and happy—and just keep delivering presents while I ignored shit like this. What kind of man knows this stuff is going on and does nothing about it? Not the kind of Santa I want flying around.”
Nick had said too much, and he knew it. Public relations had never been his strong suit.
“Anyway,” he softened his tone. “Was that magical-powery enough for you?”
“That’s amazing.,” Andrews said. Then he looked over at Jim. “When he did this to about six of my superiors, as you can imagine, we knew then he could be a huge asset. The FBI most wanted list was his proof to us he could do it. This whole thing with you was what, Nick? Revenge? Didn’t matter to us as long as he joined our team.”
Brooke turned around. Nick could tell by the look on her face that she had swallowed a lot of emotion after his little speech about her dad. “This has all been one big show?” She looked Nick dead in the eyes. “You small and petty man. All of this over a girl from twenty years ago? Disgusting.”
Brooke turned and stormed out of the room.
“Wait,” Nick said. “Wait!”
But Brooke didn’t return.
“Go get her,” Nick said. “I’m adding one more demand for my services.”
Andrews nodded to his men to go get Brooke. “Bring her back in here please.”
“Does he work for you, Agent Andrews?” Jim said. “Or do you work for him?”
Andrews gave a Barney Fife laugh. “Jim, he’s Santa Claus. Being a CIA agent doesn’t pay all that well. He can give me whatever he wants for Christmas. Think I’ll just stay on his good side. Sucks for you though.”
Jim rolled his eyes and began gathering his things.
Nick couldn’t help it. “Ridiculous, right, Jimmy?”
Andrew’s men returned with Brooke. She did not look happy. “What? What else could you possibly want from me?”
Everyone looked to Nick.
“I’m in, Agent Andrews. I’ll help the CIA keep the country safe. It suits me better than eating cookies and delivering presents. But you said I had to have an agent work alongside me—to make sure I was following the code or whatever the CIA has to go by. Those were your director’s demands, right?”
“Right,” Andrews confirmed.
Nick looked back at Brooke.
“What?” she said. “Me? Are you kidding? After what you did here?”
“She’s not CIA, Nick,” Andrews said.
“But being FBI, she knows most of the protocol, and you can bring her up to speed on the rest, right?”
Andrews looked at Brooke, then back to Nick. “Yeah, okay. We can make it work.”
“No. Hell, no.” Brooke tried to leave, but the men in black blocked the door. “I’m not working with you.”
“She’s not working with him,” Jim chimed in.
“No one is asking you, Jim,” Andrews said. Then to Nick, “You sure this is what you want? Might be a bit contentious.”
“Come on,” Nick smiled at Brooke. “I promise. It’ll be fun.”
“No.”
“She works for me, not the CIA,” Jim said.
“Go to hell, Jim,” Brooke said. Then she looked at Andrews. “Is this really my only choice here?” She pointed at Jim. “Work for the asshole who treated me like dirt,” she moved her finger to Nick, “or . . . Santa Claus?”
“Afraid so, ma’am,” Andrews said.
Brooke put her hands on her hips. She looked back and forth between the two of them a few times. Then looked at Nick with an expression of disgust. “Okay then, Santa.”
“Call me Nick.”
“Okay, Nick. I’ll babysit you on whatever this little publicity stunt is, or whatever you’re doing.” To Andrews, “But I want a raise. And I want that vacation to Hawaii.”
“Can’t guarantee you how big, but the raise I can do. The vacation to Hawaii is up to the Claus.”
Brooke looked at Nick and rolled her eyes.
Nick was satisfied with how all of this had gone down. He was ready to do what he had always done best and protect his country. Theatrics weren’t really his thing, but he was glad he’d gone through with all of it. As creepy as it was, as he had watched Brooke to learn about her, so he could pull this little stunt on Jim, there was something he really liked about her. She wasn’t model beautiful, but she was a pretty woman. It was more about the way she stood up to Jim. And the way she was passionate about her job. That was sexy. He was happy to have her come along with him. Even if she didn’t really want to. Mrs. Claus and the elves were great people, but the North Pole was getting real damn lonely. Some spunk around the village would be nice.
“No Hawaii, no deal. I’ll just go to work for my uncle,” Brooke said.
Nick was happy to oblige.
“In that case, Brooke . . . aloha.”
3
Nick, Brooke, Agent Andrews, and his men in black all walked out into the setting sun. The tangerine sky backlit the palm-lined street. Nick paused for a moment to take it in. Contrary to how magical popular literature made the North Pole seem, there hadn’t been a day of sunshine there in months. And with only one sunset the entire year, it made Nick appreciate the shimmery one that was currently coloring the Los Angeles sky. He did his best to ignore the layer of smog rolling over it.
“Certainly didn’t take you for sunset man,” Brooke said.
Actually, Nick had always appreciated the beauty of sunrise and sunset. He also enjoyed the beauty of a Patriot missile slamming into the side of an enemy aircraft. He considered himself a complicated man.
“Well, you don’t know me,” Nick said. “So there’s that. And just wait,” he nodded toward the fiery ball, “the sun won’t be coming out for a few months where we’re going. Might want to soak this one in.”
“We’re going to get everything set up on our end, Nick,” Agent Andrews interrupted. Then to Brooke, “I’ll email you all the pertinent information. It’s not much different than you’re used to. Just some higher classification stuff, and some guidelines we’ll need Nick here to follow.”
“So, basically I’m his babysitter?” she said.
“That’s the negative way to look at it. But if I were you, I’d think of myself as his handler. Gives you some power back. You ladies are all about that these days, right?”
Apparently the CIA hadn’t really taught Andrews much about people relations either.
Brooke didn’t dignify it with a response.
“We’ll take it from here, Andrews,” Nick said.
Andrews put his sunglasses on in such a way that would make any man want to punch him––like someone who thinks he’s cool. Being cool is just something you are. Otherwise, you’re just trying too hard. And Andrews was trying way too hard.
The four agency m
en got in their cliché black SUV and drove off.
Brooke turned to Nick. She was facing the dying light, and the orange gave a warm glow to her face. She was much better looking in person. Santa’s All-Seeing Eye didn’t do her justice. “Okay, Nick. Now that there is no one left to put on a show for, what the hell are we doing? And why the hell did you involve me?”
The first answer was a long one, but the second was easy: In a last-minute effort to piss Jim off, Nick had had the idea to make her work with him. Totally spur of the moment. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. Or tell her that there was something about her that reminded Nick of himself. Probably her feisty nature.
“It’s pretty simple,” Nick said. “We’re going to catch some bad guys. The real bad ones. The guys that are trying to pull things off like 9/11 again. I’m an Army Ranger, Brooke. It’s in my blood. Taking out the three small-time FBI most wanted guys was just to show the CIA what I could do for them.”
“Okay, Nick. But why involve me? And you’d better not say it was to piss Jim off.”
“It was to piss Jim off.”
Nick had changed his mind. He didn’t want to start their partnership off with a lie. Nick was a lot of things that weren’t great, but a liar wasn’t one of them.
Brooke scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“I’m kidding.” He wasn’t kidding. “Honestly, Agent Barney Fife back there,” Brooke couldn’t help but chuckle at the comparison, “is making me have an experienced agent with me at all times. I don’t need a babysitter. I’ve been taking down terrorists for years. But if I have to have one, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”
“I’m the devil in this scenario?” Brooke said.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know me.”
“True, but what if they stuck me with someone like Andrews?” Nick squinted his eyes and rubbed his stomach to feign that the thought of that made him sick.
“Okay, I’ll give you that. But you know I already hate you. I made that pretty clear back inside.”
“Also true. But I’m used to women hating me. So this will just be par for the course.”
Nick could tell by the blank stare that Brooke was doing her best to decipher just how full of shit he actually was.
Nick started walking down the sidewalk. “Also, I think it’ll be good for Mrs. Claus to have another female to talk too. She’s a sweet lady, but she’s driving me nuts.”
“Wait, you’re married?”
Nick raised his eyebrow when he turned to face her as he backpedaled. “Married? No. Mrs. Claus, you know, the fat man’s wife.”
“I can’t believe this is my life right now,” Brooke said, shaking her head.
“You think it seems weird now, just wait.” Nick laughed as he turned down the alley behind the police station. “This next bit’s gonna blow your mind.”
“What are we doing in an alley?”
“Flying home, of course.”
Brooke looked down the alley. There were no vehicles. Just a few clumps of trash and a dumpster.
“Fly home in what, exactly? You’re not going to tell me you can make garbage bins fly now, are you?”
Nick pulled a key fob from his pocket. “Nope. It’s much, much crazier than that.”
Nick hit the button and watched Brooke’s face. When he saw her jaw drop, he knew the sleigh and the eight reindeer behind him had been revealed. Brooke just stood frozen, her eyes wide with astonishment.
“Get used to that feeling. Things don’t work at the North Pole the way they do down here. It took me six months for the shock to wear off.”
Brooke was still speechless. She raised her arm and pointed behind Nick. “There’s a . . . That’s a . . . And those are . . .”
“Yeah, a sleigh and some reindeer.”
“How did . . .”
“I pushed this button when the officer gave me back my things earlier. Signaled for Jack to bring my ride. It’s like Uber for the year 2075.”
Brooke began inching closer to the sleigh. One unbelieving step at a time. “Why couldn’t I—”
“See it a second ago? Santa’s cloaking device. One of the many wonders you will find at the NP. See why I couldn’t just sit around getting diabetes from eating cookies and spoiling children? I’m a soldier. You give me the ability to see what the bad guys are doing and a twenty-second century cloaking device, and I’m going to take ‘em down. The only presents I plan on leaving are grenades in these asshole’s stockings.”
For a moment Brooke broke her trance from the sleigh and eyed Nick. “Who talks like that?”
“An Army Ranger. We’re not like guys like Jim. We don’t just talk about taking bad people down, we actually do it.”
“Okay, Ice Man.” Brooke went back to looking at the sleigh in bewilderment and walked forward. She ran her hand along the wooden rail at the back of the sleigh. Nick knew that seeing wasn’t necessarily believing when a sleigh and reindeer magically appear.
“You can pet the reindeer too. They’re real friendly. Vixen gets a little edgy when she hasn’t had her food, but overall she’s a sweetheart.”
Brooke gave him a sidelong look. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Other than a couple of paper pushers at the CIA, I haven’t been able to really tell anyone. It makes it seem more real to me too, now that I can. But to be honest with you, I’m just chomping at the bit—” Nick looked back at the reindeer, “No pun intended guys,” then back to Brooke, “I’m ready to use all this stuff for some real good. To keep the country safe. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”
Brooke looked at him in a way he hadn’t seen her look at him since he met her. Almost like she didn’t loathe him.
“All right,” Brooke said. “I guess I’m going to have to just make the most of this until I can get back to my own investigations. I’ll get some things in order and we’ll get started tomorrow morning.”
A small man with a pointed green hat on popped up from the backseat of the sleigh. “I’m sorry, but we have to get going right now.”
Brooke gasped and jumped back from the sleigh. “Good god, where the hell did you come from?”
“I’ve been right here, on the computer. I’ve been getting everything ready for you.”
Nick walked to the back of the sleigh. “Sorry, Jack, this is Brooke. Brooke, this is Jack. He runs the show for Santa Claus.”
“Now I run the show for you, Nick. Nice to meet you, Brooke. Now hop in, we’ve got to go.”
“Did I mention he’s a little demanding?” Nick smiled.
“You’ll appreciate how demanding I am, Nick, when it saves your life,” Jack said.
“I see you just get along great with everyone don’t you, Nick?” Brooke said. Then to Jack, “Well, Jack, it’s nice to meet you, but I have to have my things before I go anywhere. Especially seeing as how I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.”
“Sorry, no need. We’ve inventoried your things and can access them at any moment.” Jack turned his back on her, then turned around holding the winter coat Brooke kept in the back of her closet. “You’ll need this now. It’s really cold where we’re going. I’ve got your gloves, scarf, and beanie hat as well.”
“How the hell did you get my coat?”
Nick pulled himself up into the sleigh and held out his hand to help Brooke up. “I told you. Things don’t work here like they do in the NP . . . Shall we?”
Brooke snatched her coat from Jack, then bypassed Nick’s hand to get in the sleigh herself. Nick just laughed. He knew her foul mood would turn around as soon as they flew over Santa’s village. Even Nick, the hardened war veteran, had been reduced to the excitement of a little boy when he saw it the first time. He knew Brooke would be no different.
4
After only a few minutes in what could only be classified as something of a fast forward time warp, the sleigh broke through some sort of horizon barrier and went back to real time. Nick w
as happy to see that it was a clear night over the village. The stars were magically bright, and so too was the moon. He’d been up with the reindeer almost every night for the past six months, getting used to all the controls, and he’d only seen the sky this perfect a couple of times.
“I can’t believe this,” Brooke said, her face full of wonder as she looked up into the twinkling night. “Where are we?”
“We’re here.” Nick pointed forward as the reindeer began their descent. In front of her was a small smattering of lights, standing out in the otherwise complete darkness. The closer they became, the more it shaped into a small village.
“Santa’s village,” Nick said.
For the moment, the hatred of her situation disappeared, and Brooke was swept away entirely with wonder. The first time Nick saw it a year ago, after being whisked from the desert, it had blown his mind too. However, dealing with a dead Santa and the hysterical Mrs. Claus when he landed that night had been a bit of a buzz kill.
The next couple of months after that were a very strange time for Nick. He was used to being around strangers—twenty years in the Army and that was how a lot of your time was spent—but, at first, everyone at the North Pole hated Nick. They blamed him for the death of the man they loved more than anything else. Nick showing up had been like a bad dream for them—their worst nightmare come true.
It was contentious on both sides. Nick wanted no part of the fat man’s business. The only time he’d ever even been around a kid was when he rescued some refugees just outside of Baghdad. He’d had to carry a young boy for over three miles, and he swore to himself then that he would never have one of those smelly life-suckers. So he sure as hell didn’t give a damn about taking presents to all the spoiled little brats around the world. The elves resented him for that too.
After a period of mourning, Mrs. Claus was the only one that took to Nick. She said she understood him, because apparently they had kids and one of the boys, Fred, was a real black sheep. Nick hadn’t met Fred, but Joseph, their other son, was the spitting image of heart-attack-Santa. Joseph wasn’t real happy about dear ole dad passing along the powers to Nick, but he understood the circumstances. Mrs. Claus and Joseph helped the elves understand that Nick hadn’t chosen the situation either—that the situation had chosen him. It sounded good to the elves, but Nick hated it. All he wanted to do was get back to his life of duty to his country, so for a while, he was miserable not being able to fight.
Saint Nick Page 3
