In The Valley Of Shadows

by Kat Smith

  Alex dug a beer out of the refrigerator, then leaned against the counter and rubbed the drumming throb in her temples. “Pull it together.”

  As she waited for Alex to return, Devan slowly circled the den, glancing at photos tucked intimately into the built-in cherry bookshelves. She recognized one of her and Alex taken during a camping trip three years earlier. She reached for it but quickly pulled back when she heard Alex’s footsteps.

  Alex uncapped the beer and placed it on a coaster on the coffee table. She returned to her spot but didn’t invite Devan to sit. “I think it’s one you abandoned along with everything else here. Drink it at your own peril.”

  Devan plucked the beer from the table, took a swig, and immediately spit it back into the bottle. “Goddamn it, Alex.”

  Alex smirked. “Told you.”

  “Jesus Christ, throw that shit away, will you.” Devan swiped her mouth with the back of her hand and plopped the bottle onto the coffee table, purposely avoiding the coaster that Alex insisted she use.

  Alex sipped her wine and studied Devan, really looked at her for the first time in two years. She looked older―no, not older, weary. The lines at the corners of her eyes were new. There was a new jagged scar just above her right eyebrow. It was still red and angry, and even from the distance separating them, she could see the small dots where stitches had sewn the edges of flesh together. A twinge of concern swept over Alex. She wanted to ask about it, wanted to touch it and make sure it was healing, but she knew if she let her guard down, Devan would see a crack in her armor and exploit it to her advantage.

  Devan’s eyes looked lifeless and dull. The things they had to do, the things they had to see in the field would cause many to crumple. Alex empathized with the weariness, but she could not allow it to make her vulnerable. “What’s on your mind, Captain?”

  Devan slumped on the opposite end of the sofa. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  Alex released an impatient sigh and rolled her eyes.

  Devan tipped a brow. “Girlfriend?”

  “Seriously? You came here to do this?” Alex set the glass down harder than necessary, and the dark wine sloshed onto the coffee table. She ignored it. “Why are you here? I’ve had a long and very unpleasant day. I’m tired and not in the mood for your games.”

  Their gazes locked, and anger built. Devan saw Alex’s arrogant expression and erupted. “Have you lost your fucking mind? Do you really think I’m going to let you join this mission?”

  “Not my decision. Not yours, either.” Alex shrugged.

  Devan stood and paced the room. “Oh, so there’s no one else in the entire ICC that can do this job?”

  “Is there no one else in the entire U.S. Army that can do your job?”

  The question halted Devan’s tirade. “Cute. You never could give a straight answer, could you?”

  Alex sat back. “Well, I’m not straight, so why would I?” She was tired, and the bickering was getting them nowhere. “Look, it’s a highly classified, very complex project. Your techs can’t handle it. They wouldn’t even be allowed to touch it. I can assure you, none of them have the clearance.”

  “Complex, how?” The question was met with silence. “We execute classified missions all the time.”

  Alex picked up her glass and sipped. “Look, it’s your mission to get me there. It’s my mission to deploy the software. The decision was made by people way above our pay grades, Captain. I don’t need your permission or your blessing.”

  Devan swung around. “This is my mission, and I need to know what I’m getting my team involved in. I don’t want another clusterfuck like you created the last time you hijacked one of my missions.”

  Alex rose, walked to the door, and opened it. “Then I suggest you talk to the colonel. If she feels you need to know, she’ll read you in. Now get out, I’m tired.”

  Devan stormed to the door and slammed it shut, ignoring Alex’s dismissal. She stepped so close she could smell the sweet fragrance of soap on Alex’s skin. A familiar sensation struck her, made her pause, made her remember. She took a step back and jabbed a finger toward Alex. “You almost got us all killed.”

  Alex stepped closer, their faces inches apart. She looked into Devan’s eyes, and her voice broke as she whispered. “This has nothing to do with the last mission, and you know it.” Alex knew she’d hit a nerve when she saw the twitch in Devan’s jaw. She reached out, but Devan grabbed her arm.

  “I need people on my team that I can trust.” The grip tightened. “And we both know you’re not very trustworthy.”

  Alex jerked her arm free and massaged it. “Here we go again.”

  Devan’s voice elevated. “You betrayed my trust. You threw us away.”

  “No. You walked out and never looked back.”

  “What did you expect me to do?”

  “Devan, most of the time, you’re the smartest person in the room. But there are rare moments when you’re a complete idiot. You assume that you know everything. What you don’t know, what you were too blind to see was…” She threw up her hands in defeat. “Jesus, forget it.”

  Devan stormed over. “Oh, no, go on, please. Tell me what I didn’t see. Tell me I didn’t see you groping someone on that sofa―a man, for god’s sake.” She pointed to the sofa Alex had retreated to. “That very sofa, in our fucking home.”

  “I wasn’t,” Alex whispered. She dropped to the sofa. “He was posing as a recruiter for the NSA. Came here to complete my vetting interview.” She raked a hand through her hair. “He went on to rape two other women before he was arrested.”

  Devan’s face twisted with confusion. “What?

  “He’s in jail now, no thanks to you.”

  Stunned, Devan walked a few paces away, spun around, and returned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Alex’s gaze pierced Devan’s, “Tell you? Really? I tried. You didn’t believe me, remember?” She refilled her glass. “You completely shut me out. Three days later, we were in Charikar, the mission went to hell, and when we returned, you were nowhere to be found.” She scowled at Devan in exasperation. “Disappeared for six fucking months.”

  Devan dropped to the sofa. “I-I didn’t know.”

  Alex shook her head. “Doesn’t really matter anymore. You were looking for a way out. You were scared to death of commitment.” Alex retraced her steps to the door. “But you’re right. Working together again isn’t a good idea. I need to know that someone will have my back when things go to hell. I know for a fact it sure as hell won’t be you.”

  Devan felt her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t breathe.

  Alex opened the door. “Get out, and don’t come back.”

  Devan’s mind reeled as she stepped through the door. She turned back to the woman she’d spent three incredible years with, the only person she’d ever truly loved. “Alex―”

  The door slammed in her face.

  The next morning, Devan walked into the gym and spotted Alex on the far side pounding a speed bag. Her lean body was muscular, yet graceful. She kept her gaze on Alex as she walked across the gym floor.

  With one last punch, Alex stepped back and bent, hands on her knees, and breathed deeply. Devan’s feet appeared in her field of vision.

  Devan leaned against the wall. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  Alex wiped sweat from her face with her forearm. “As I said last night, not my choice.” She bit at the tape binding her hands. In frustration, she extended her arms toward Devan. “Cut me out of these.” Devan didn’t move. “Please.”

  “You should wear gloves.” Devan looked around for something to cut the tape binding Alex’s hands.

  Alex tipped her head toward the gym bag on the bench. “Scissors are in my bag. Gloves are for twits who don’t want to chip a nail.”

  Devan dug the scissors out of the bag. “You trust me with these?”

  “I never declared you untrustworthy. That’s your spiel.”

  “Touché.” She began sni
pping the tape and noticed the dark angry bruise on Alex’s forearm. “Did I do that?”

  Alex shrugged. “I’ve had a lot worse.”

  Devan’s head snapped up, and pain flickered in her eyes. “Not from me, you haven’t. I’m sorry.” She cut the last of the tape away and tossed it into the trash. The nearness to Alex was distracting. When she caught the scent of her perfume, Devan took a step back, turned, and moved quickly across the gym. “Get your gear, we’re booked at the range.”

  Alex scrambled to zip her bag and jogged to catch up, “Would’ve been nice to get a heads-up. I’d’ve brought my own weapon.”

  “Just now decided.” Devan picked up the pace.

  “Oh, so you just decide when, where, and what?”

  Devan turned and grinned. “Yep. My team, my call.”

  Mara paced the office; the conference call had droned on for over an hour, and her patience was wearing thin. She knew how to run a damn mission, and she didn’t need some desk jockey from the ICC telling her how to manage her team. “Let’s reconvene at 1500 tomorrow…Yes… Sounds good…Goodbye.” She disconnected the call and turned absently to the window. She was beginning to regret agreeing to this joint mission. She saw Devan and Alex walk, heads down, like indignant children. “Oh, bloody hell.” She dropped into her chair and pulled out a bottle of Scotch from the bottom drawer. She looked at the calendar and noted that the next day marked a year since she’d lost three soldiers when they had been ambushed during a mission. “I don’t think I can take losing another.” She spoke aloud to the empty space as she sipped her drink. “It may be time for you to retire, Colonel.”

  The shooting range was the usual utilitarian military block building. The industrial green paint on the walls was chipping. The floors, once naked concrete, were now scarred with dirt and gun oil, and the air was filled with the odor of burnt gunpower. After Alex had checked out a weapon, they walked through the metal door connected to the shooting gallery.

  Devan stepped into the middle booth, ejected the clip from her P320, and checked the rounds before slamming the magazine home with a snap. “We’ll start at fifteen meters.”

  Annoyed with being ambushed, Alex slipped the goggles and ear protection over her head. “Fine.”

  At the push of a button, the targets zipped downrange. Devan double-tapped six rounds. A second later, the last four rounds exploded out of the barrel. Alex followed suit and emptied her magazine in a single rush of shots. She dropped the weapon on the table and punched the button to bring the target home. “All ten shots center mass.”

  “Good shots.” Devan hit the button and waited until her target sped home. Eight shots hit center mass.

  Alex stifled a smile. “Too bad, champ.”

  Annoyed, Devan loaded another target and punched the button on the wall a bit harder than intended. “Let’s see what you can do at twenty meters.”

  Jacob Altman paced in his small drab Moscow apartment. At thirty-seven, he was a ten-year veteran with the CIA. His large frame filled the small drafty apartment. The once white paint was peeling off the walls and created a constant layer of dust on the old shabby furniture.

  He’d always been enamored with the shadowed world of espionage and focused on his studies in computer programming in college with the main goal of joining the CIA after graduation. He’d been elated when, during a work fair in his senior year, a CIA recruiter signed him up for preliminary vetting.

  He spoke five languages and had spent several years undercover in some of the most beautiful cities in the world. Paris, London, Brussels. There had been some danger with all of them, but mostly, they were easy assignments and left a lot of time to enjoy the local culture. However, as he tossed coal into the small stove in the corner, he wondered how the hell he’d ended up in this shithole of a country.

  Russia, he’d been told, was where all the action was―the new cold war was in cyber espionage. He’d been in Russia for over a year; he hated the bitter cold winters and was looking forward to escaping the lonely misery of this assignment.

  He’d been naïve in thinking he could make a difference. The political unrest would never calm as long as there were egotistical tyrants running the world’s most powerful countries. His initial mission was to work an asset his predecessor had groomed. It had been mundane work, picking up intel on the Russian government that the asset dead dropped for him.

  Of course, that was before he became lost in the underbelly workings of a state-backed radical group that wanted to start a war over an almost unlivable span of mountain terrain bordering Russia and the Republic of Georgia. Since Georgia had seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991, the relationship between the two countries had been tenuous at best.

  The radical group that he’d managed to infiltrate was made up of men who wanted Russia to go back to the ways of the old Soviet Union. As such, their plan was to instigate a rebellion and open the door for the Russian government to step in and take control. In the end, he didn’t give a damn who got what, he just wanted out and away from these fanatics.

  He peered through a slit in the thin drapes and spied a Lada Largus parked across the street. He returned to his desk and punched a number into his phone and waited. “Hey, I need to get out of here as soon as possible. Can you meet me at the coffee shop tomorrow morning, so I can get the keys?...Sure…Nine o’clock. I’ll see you then, thanks.” He dropped the phone to his desk and stepped back to the window.

  The car had been there off and on for the last week. Occasionally, one or the other of the two men would get out and go into the diner below his apartment for coffee. It was always the same car, same two men, and much to his apprehension, they didn’t try to hide their presence.

  He went back to his desk, opened his laptop, updated his journal, then reviewed his past entries. He’d screwed up somewhere, somehow. If they were on to him, he had to disappear fast.

  Other than a single mattress on the concrete floor, Devan’s bedroom was bare. A blue sheet shielded the single window from the streetlight and cast a depressing hue throughout the room. Unable to sleep, Devan rolled up onto her elbow, pounded the pillow with her fist and dropped back down. Every time she closed her eyes, the memory of her last day with Alex flooded back. She wondered if she could have seen it all wrong. Was she so sure of what she saw that she couldn’t even entertain a different scenario?

  It had been an unusual day, and things were slow at the base. Devan finished work early and took a half day off to surprise Alex. She hadn’t noticed the car at the curb as she cut the engine and pulled into the drive. She eased through the front door and came to a dead stop. Alex and a man she’d never seen were tangled together on the sofa.

  “What the fuck!”

  The man jumped up, and Alex sat up flustered and disheveled. She’d rushed toward her. “Oh, God, Devan.” Alex reached out, but Devan pushed her away.

  “Is this what I get for taking the afternoon off to surprise you?”

  Neither noticed when the man grabbed his bag and raced out the door.

  Alex’s face was contorted in confusion. “What! He was… Devan, I wasn’t―”

  “Really? That’s not what I saw.”

  Alex reached out again. “Devan, stop, please.”

  “No, you stop. Go back to your boyfriend. Sorry I disturbed you.” Devan turned and rushed out of the house. She saw Alex running down the front steps as she backed out of the drive and sped away.

  “You fucked up, Conner.” Devan rolled to her side, “You really fucked up.”

  Devan was at the gym doing leg presses and didn’t look up when Alex stopped beside her.

  Alex saw the signs that it was going to be another difficult day. “You look like shit. Are you okay?”

  Devan finished the last set, swung her legs off the bench, and grumbled, “I’m fine.”

  Alex shrugged. “Okay, so what’s on the agenda today?”

  Devan picked up her towel and brushed past Alex. “A five-miler.”

&nbs
p; Alex called out to Devan, “Wait up, Dev. I need to get my running shoes out of the locker.” Alex threw her arms in the air when Devan ignored her and disappeared out the door.

  Ten minutes later, Alex found Devan warming up on the track. She’d let Devan brood if that was what she wanted; she wasn’t in the mood to chat anyway. She began to stretch and saw the expression on Devan’s face. It wasn’t pain or anger; it was more like grief. Devan was never one to share her thoughts, much less her emotions. She knew Devan had nightmares after some missions. With some of the things they had to see and experience, it was understandable. Alex finally broke. “Did you have a bad night, bad dreams?”

  Devan knelt to retie her shoelace. “Nope.” To avoid any further discussion, Devan jogged ahead. “Move it, Sheridan.”

  Alex scrambled to catch up. “Hey, no fair.”

  “Life’s not fair, Sheridan. Move your ass.”

  After sixteen laps on the ancient track, Alex slowed to a speed walk. “I have shin splints. Next time, we’re going to the new UMD track.”

  Devan passed Alex. “Stop whining and run. You have four more laps to log before you’re done.” Devan turned and grinned while she ran backward. “Yep, I’m keeping count of your laps.”

  Alex gripped her side as she watched Devan spin around and pick up the pace as she easily ran the cracked red track like a gazelle across the savannah. “Bitch,” she huffed between sucking deep breaths and resumed jogging.

  Chapter Four

  One Week Later

  Payton tapped a clear-coated nail on her desk at Integrated Cyber Command and waited as the phone rang through the speaker.

  Mara answered her private line on the first ring. “Morrissey.”

  Payton smiled into the phone. “Good morning, Colonel. How is your day going?”

  “Good morning, Director. All is well thus far. Our two wards are still snipping and spitting at each other, but blood hasn’t been shed―yet.”

  Payton’s laugh was deep and warm. “That’s good to hear. I wanted to give you a heads-up. An update came in during the night. We may be moving on this in the next few days.”