by Toby Neal
As if it didn’t matter and she had all the time in the world, Sophie finished her five minutes on the bag and walked back to Alika’s office, stepping inside it to shut the door. She was surprised when he got up from behind his desk and pushed the switch on the wall that frosted over the viewing window into the gym, ensuring privacy.
“Have a seat.” He gestured to one of the molded plastic chairs in front of his desk.
She sat, pulling the Velcro tabs that secured her split-fingered gloves open and easing them off.
“I wanted to have a chance to congratulate you properly on graduating from coaching.” Alika’s voice was carefully neutral as he sat down behind his desk. “I think we ended things on a—well, a tense note. I was angry that you beat me in the ring, and I don’t think the way I ended our coaching relationship acknowledged what a remarkable athlete you are and what a milestone you’ve achieved.”
“Thank you.” Sophie didn’t know how to respond to this formal speech. Alika pulled open a drawer and removed a parchment certificate, heavy with gold leaf. He handed it across the desk to her.
Sophie Malee Smithson Ang has achieved the highest level of Mixed Martial Arts training available through Fight Club, the paper read. It was dated and signed Alika Wolcott: Coach, Owner, and Operator.
Sophie blinked. The black letters of her name swam in front of her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered again. “I will treasure this.”
“You should. I’ve never given one out before.” Alika smiled, and she liked the way a dimple creased his cheek, tiny fans of good humor highlighting golden-brown eyes under black brows. “I thought that, now that you’ve graduated, we might spend some time doing other things.”
Sophie’s heart lurched and sped up. “What kind of things?” Her eyes went back to the certificate in her hands. The paper trembled.
“I don’t know. A run-hike on one of the trails. Something.” He shrugged, elaborately casual. “I think I’ll miss our bouts.”
“I’d like that.” Her voice was thready. “We can still spar, right? I need a partner who can really give me a workout.”
A long pause followed this and he didn’t answer. Finally, she raised her eyes to his. They locked on hers in a heated gaze she’d only ever imagined he’d give her, a look that dried her mouth and loosened her knees. She was glad she was sitting down.
“I can give you a workout you’ll never forget. Any time.” His voice was a rough whisper.
Sophie shot to her feet, terrified by the intimacy he hinted at and her response to it. “Thanks for this,” she stuttered, waving the certificate, and fled.
Dr. LaSota was a woman made up of angles. Her asymmetrical bob lined up with her jutting cheekbones, and a sharp collarbone provided a counterpoint. Her well-marked eyebrows raised as she pointed a pen at Sophie. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the kidnapping bust.”
Seated on an industrial-beige couch in the temporary office the peripatetic psychologist used when she was in Honolulu, Sophie wore her expressionless mask. She’d showered and changed at the gym, and carefully and professionally dressed for the interview in her FBI non-uniform.
Sophie crossed her legs and swung one foot a little as she described the tipoff email to the FBI, the surveillance of the address, her role of going into the apartment above the kidnap location and installing surveillance feeds.
“So there was no intention to raid the place. Cause loss of life.”
“No. We just wanted to get a visual on what was happening inside. We had already verified that the girl was missing, though her parents hadn’t reported it due to the kidnappers’ threats. We’d identified the kidnappers entering and exiting the apartment unit.”
“So how did you know to drill into the ceiling of the walk-in closet?”
“It seemed a logical place to stash a small child. Only one exit, and any noise would be muffled.” Sophie’s leg swung a little faster. She slowed it consciously.
“So you speculated and made your holes for the surveillance camera based on logic.”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.” A long beat went by. Dr. LaSota eyed her, and Sophie held her gaze, demeanor compliant. She could feel Dr. LaSota waiting for her to disclose more, and finally the psychologist said, “Tell me more about what you felt when you saw the child in the closet.”
Sophie shrugged. “She appeared to be adequately cared for. She wasn’t injured.” She knew Dr. LaSota couldn’t see how fast her pulse was racing if she kept her breathing even.
“Tell me about the decision to saw through the ceiling and try to rescue the child.”
“I was monitoring the surveillance of the kidnappers. I saw them get the texts that set them against each other, and speculated the child only had a few moments before the kidnappers tried to take her out.”
“I reviewed the recordings and also the reports from the field. You could have crushed the child by landing on her.”
“I was aware of that, yes.” Sophie’s foot swung faster and she couldn’t seem to slow it. “It seemed worth the risk.”
“You’re a tech agent. Other than your training at Quantico, you have not had an active role in operations in the field. I’m interested in what made you take such a risk—both to yourself and to Anna.”
Sophie knew the woman’s use of the girl’s name was deliberate, and she felt the name like a deeply struck chord. Her mind filled with the sight of the child’s tear-streaked face, calling for her mother.
“It seemed worth the risk,” Sophie repeated woodenly.
“It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you were kidnapped and held in a closet at the age of seven?” Dr. LaSota said gently.
Chapter Three
Dr. LaSota’s words sliced through Sophie’s self-protection, a razor slicing a veil. Sophie had never disclosed her own kidnapping during any of her psych interviews or on her Bureau application, but it was a matter of record in Thailand. Dr. LaSota must have located that record. Sophie had hoped it had been obscured by her parents’ influence.
“I don’t know if it had anything to do with that ancient history.” Sophie’s lips had gone immobile, and she could barely force the words through them, but her foot wouldn’t stop swinging. “It doesn’t much matter, does it? It worked. I saved the child.”
“It all matters. How our agents react in the field is critical, and nothing is off limits in this interview. Nothing.” Dr. LaSota flipped open a folder on her lap. Sophie had the sense she was only doing that for effect. “It appears that you also have a history of domestic violence.”
“I fail to see how that’s relevant. Were any of my actions in the field inappropriate?”
“Not necessarily.” Dr. LaSota kept her eyes on the folder, but Sophie felt the sharpness of the woman’s full attention trained on her. “Have you ever had any therapy for your past experiences?”
“I have not needed to.”
“What constitutes ‘needing to’?” The psychologist closed the folder and gazed at Sophie with pebble-hard eyes.
“I don’t know. Symptoms. Difficulties with relationships and getting along with others. Panic attacks. Impairment in normal activities.” Sophie willed her foot to stop and it finally did. “I handle uncomfortable feelings through exercise.”
“And what an exerciser you are.” LaSota opened the folder again. “According to your coworkers, you take exercise breaks throughout the day an average of four times.”
“Who told you that? Bateman?” Sophie felt heat suffuse her. “I could be standing around or getting coffee. I choose to stay fit for my job, instead. The FBI would be lucky to have the rest of its employees stay as fit as I do.”
“Feeling defensive?”
“I don’t like being spied on.”
“You aren’t. All agents are under assessment to a degree. We monitor our agents’ mental, physical, and emotional health. And I wonder if this exercising strategy is not just a little excessive.” She mock-co
nsulted her file. “Apparently you are something of a mixed martial arts contender in the Hawaii fight scene.”
“SAC Waxman is aware of my hobby and we’ve discussed it. I don’t fight in any public exhibition matches.”
“And it never occurred to you that taking up a form of aggressive hand-to-hand combat after your divorce was a form of displacement?”
“Who cares what it is. It’s my private life, and the way I’ve chosen to act in my private life enhances my job performance, not impairs it.” Sophie locked eyes with the psychologist and this time, didn’t back down. “Show me evidence of any wrongdoing or impairment, and I’ll address it.”
“Sophie.” Dr. LaSota closed the folder and leaned forward, the picture of sincerity, but Sophie felt nothing but clinical judgment. “it’s my job to assess the mental and emotional fitness of our agents. If it was only physical fitness that was a yardstick, you know you’d beat half the agents here. But I worry that these un-dealt-with issues are a ticking time bomb, and someday, some time, they are going to cause you to slip up. To be frozen when you should move or, more likely, jump when you should take the stairs. It’s just lucky that child moved out of the way when you came through the ceiling. Can you imagine how you would have felt if you’d crushed her? As it was, you pulled this off. I want you to know I’ve got a flag on your file.”
“Noted.” Sweat prickled under Sophie’s arms. “What would reassure you that I’m handling my past perfectly well?”
“If you went to counseling, and showed some more normal relationship patterns. Dated a little. Were a little more interactive and connected with your peers.”
“I have relationships—at my gym, and in the Bureau. I have a dog. A Labrador.”
LaSota consulted the folder again and made a note. Sophie was beginning to hate whatever it contained, and the way LaSota used it as a prop.
“And have you dated since your divorce?”
“No. But I have—possibilities. Not that it’s any of your business.” Sophie kept her facial mask in place, glad something was finally moving forward, maybe a little bit, in her situation with Alika.
“That’s interesting timing.” LaSota made a note in the file. “Let me know if anything develops. I also see that you’re friends with Agent Marcella Scott and former agent Lei Texeira. Both of them have had issues with men. Interesting choice of friends.”
“Enough.” Sophie’s voice was firm and low. “They’ve handled their ‘issues’ as you call them, and so have I. We’re doing our jobs above and beyond the norm. Until you can show some wrongdoing, I have no intention of allowing this invasion of my privacy to go any further.” She stood. “I will let SAC Waxman know I complied with my post-shoot debrief. Good day.”
She yanked open the office door but closed it very softly as she left, and had the satisfaction of seeing Dr. LaSota’s eyes and mouth wide in astonishment.
Sophie called her friend Marcella Scott on the way home. “Just survived Dr. LaSota,” she told her fellow agent.
She and Marcella had become friends over four years of working together in the same office, and now often met at the gym to spar or go on run-hikes together. They hadn’t spent much time together since Marcella and Detective Marcus Kamuela got engaged, though, and Sophie missed her friend.
“Oh God. That woman. She has eyes like a witch pricker,” Marcella said.
“A what?” Sophie frowned at the unfamiliar Americanism. She’d only been in the United States full time since she joined the FBI five years ago, and she still ran across colloquialisms she wasn’t familiar with.
“Oh, never mind—a dark period in Western history, not your side of the world. How are you feeling? I heard your vest took a bullet.”
“Bruised, but fine. You going to make it to the gym at all this week?”
“It’s not looking like it, sorry. Got some hot cases, and when I’m not working on that, Mama is driving me nuts with wedding stuff. You’re just lucky I haven’t roped you in on any of it.”
“I will help,” Sophie said. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
“Not yet. We still have time for flower choices and all that. Lately we’ve been visiting venues to try to pick a location for the ceremony. So what’s new with your love life?”
“As usual, nothing. But I graduated from coaching with Alika and…it seems like he might ask me out.”
“It’s about time! I’ve been losing patience with both of you.” Marcella’s indignant tone made Sophie smile even as she turned into and navigated the parking garage at her apartment building. “Keep me posted, ok?”
“Will do.”
Sophie said goodbye. Anxiety about her ex-husband, stirred up by the interview with LaSota, resurfaced as she settled in at her apartment after giving Ginger a brief outing. She needed to do something about Assan.
She keyed on the computers and while they booted up, she fixed a cup of tea and let herself remember him. He’d always been immaculately groomed, with a blocky face and deep-set eyes, so dark they were almost black. His sensual mouth held a cruelty not immediately evident.
Sophie had told herself he was handsome and rich, and it was the best she could hope for in an arranged marriage that she was cooperating with to please her mother. He’d given her a diamond bracelet and been gentle with her virginity on their wedding night, and she’d been hopeful and happy until after the honeymoon—when he took her to his apartment in Hong Kong.
Sophie shook her head to banish the memories and took a restorative sip of tea. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she set up a secondary monitoring cache on Assan.
He was an importer-exporter with dual citizenship in Thailand and China, and he’d used that to bring all sorts of goods back and forth. Sophie had always wondered if his business was clean of contraband, but she’d never wanted to attract his attention by looking into it. Now, she needed to stop him from destroying another young woman’s life, and the best way to do that was to use DAVID to find some dirt on him.
DAVID began sieving a number of items for review into the cache. Sophie shunted them to her FBI rig for tomorrow when she was back at work. She took a quick look at the “simultaneous” search, and frowned to see that there was yet another anomaly loaded in.
Several stockbrokers participating in an insider trading scheme had turned each other in—at the same time.
“Strange,” she muttered. This new case had nothing in common with the other crimes, beginning to look fortuitous for law enforcement as kidnappers shot each other, gang leaders offed each other, and now stockbrokers turned each other in. It smacked of some kind of manipulation, and probably through technology. But what was the common thread?
She needed to find a way to get a look at the phones from the gang leaders. And maybe a call to the SEC to find out more about the way the stockbrokers had set each other up was in order, but it would have to wait until tomorrow. That agency kept decent business hours.
Sophie set up a query in DAVID about the probability that the cases were related, and while that worked, she put on her headphones. Ginger rested her head, appealing, on Sophie’s leg. She’d been taken out briefly, but hadn’t had a real walk.
The headphones beeped with an incoming call and she didn’t check the caller window before answering. “Special Agent Ang.”
“Sophie. It’s Alika.” That familiar deep voice, with its trace of warm humor.
“Yes.” Sophie’s voice came out flat and wooden, which is how she sounded when she was surprised. Surprised, and a little bit terrified.
He cleared his throat, laughed a little. “Okay, then. Happy to hear from me, I can tell. Well, remember how I asked you if you wanted to do something? Go for a run? I thought we could do a few miles before the gym tomorrow evening. If you’re coming, that is.”
Sophie stared at her monitor unseeing. “I planned to go to the gym.” She still sounded stiff, even though this wasn’t a real date. Just a run before their usual workout, something he might have suggested
when he was coaching her. Nothing to be freaked out about, as Marcella would call it. “That sounds fine.”
“Okay!” He injected his voice with cheer. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He hung up.
“Flea-bitten meat-stealing mongrel covered in the spit of a thousand angry butchers,” Sophie hissed in Thai. “Dammit.”
It occurred to her for the first time that Alika might not be the only one sending mixed signals.
Work finally done, Sophie brought the clean, freshly washed stuffed rabbit to bed with her. “No, Ginger,” she said, as the dog looked at the soft, fuzzy animal longingly. “This is special.”
Holding the rabbit as she got into bed, she had a flash of memory of her own kidnapping. The closet she’d been kept in was smaller than the one that held Anna, and no nightlight had been provided to ward off the dark. She’d cried at first, and called for her father. Even at seven, she’d known that her mother couldn’t help her. Sophie still remembered the door opening, the figure silhouetted there.
“Shut up,” the man said. “Or I’ll shut you up myself.” He’d cracked his knuckles as he said it. But he must have felt a little sorry for her, because he’d thrown a fabric doll into the closet. Sophie had wrapped her arms around the soft shape and been able to get to sleep.
She fell asleep with the rabbit in her arms, and dreamed of hunting viruses. All night she chased shifting patterns of electricity down the long gray corridors of a vast mazelike motherboard, frustrated that they were always out of reach.
The Ghost made a hand signal, and the Doberman came to him. Anubis’s coat had a sheen to it like oil on the surface of black water, and he sat so perfectly still, ears pricked, that he reminded the Ghost of the Egyptian god he’d named the dog for. “Anubis, down.”
