by Jake Devlin
“'Sorry, mate. Budget problems back home.'
“'So I've heard. Sorry 'bout that.'
“'Right-oh. Not to mention the problems in my agency.'
“'Problems?' I asked.
“'Oh, nothing; never mind.'
“'Bet they aren't worse than on our side of the Pond,' Gordy said.
“'I've heard.'
“'You have? What have you heard?' That was me.
“'Oh, nothing; sorry. Me and my big mouth.'
“'No, seriously. I'd like to know what you've heard.'
“'Well, okay. But understand, this is just rumors; I've no solid proof.'
“'Understood.'
“'All right. Rumor has it that you've got at least four Soviet moles in your agency.'
“'Four? Really?'
“'At least four. I've not seen any papers, only heard some talk, and all I've heard is two code names the Russkis use: Big Toe and either Desane or Deshane, something that sounds like that. Only heard those, never saw 'em written out. But apparently the Desane or Deshane mole is the most productive of the four.'”
“Did you have any idea who those four might have been, Jake?”
“Some suspicions about two agents, but remember, Pam, I was just a low-level assassin at that time, only contact was with my handler and my co-workers at the security company, and I was thinking about getting out and opening my own business.”
“So what happened next with Amber aka Jasmine?”
“Well, the three of us talked for a while longer over dinner, and, if I remember right, Gordy blurted out that we were thinking about going off on our own.”
“As assassins?”
“No, just the new security systems company … at that time.
“And Amber kinda perked up at that, and after some more time testing each other and coming to a conclusion that all three of us were trustable, she let us know that she was disaffected with MI6, mainly with the bureaucracy, the incompetence, the rigidity, the interference by stupid and ignorant politicians and the egos – no surprise there -- and she started asking us about our plans and our timetable.
“I wasn't ready to get into a whole lot of detail with her at that point, but I did give her a very general picture, and happened to mention that we had a third partner with a fully vetted backer if and when we made the break. And then she dropped the bomb.
“'A hundred thousand dollars? That's not enough. I've got a hundred thousand pounds – that's a little over two hundred thousand dollars – in a private account, and I could throw that into the – what do you Yanks call it? Ah, the pot; yes – into the pot. If, and only if, you include me.'”
“Wow, Jake. 200K? So did you include her?”
“Of course we did.”
- 20 -
June 21, 2013
2:27 p.m. local time
Undisclosed location
“Ah, we've been expecting you. Amber told us you'd be coming today.”
“Good. I'm Rona, this is Joel.”
“I'm Wyman.”
“Dominika.”
“And where's the doctor?”
“He's in bed, sleeping.”
“You've been disorienting him?”
“Yes, ma'am. Down to cycles of six and six for the last month.”
“Where are we in the cycle now?”
“Let's see. Two hours, 28 minutes into night, ma'am.”
“So his day comes at six p.m., night at midnight?”
“Correct.”
“Our time?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Any communication?”
“No, ma'am. As requested, we've maintained strict silence ever since he was turned over to us.”
“In April?”
“Correct.”
“Behavior?”
“We think he's accepted his fate, no more banging on the doors, no more yelling or screaming, no more searching for a way out.”
“Has he found any of the cameras or mikes?”
“No, ma'am; they're very well hidden. But he was yelling at one of the knick-knacks on the bookcase in the living room as if it were a mike.”
“When was that?”
“In late April and early May; he's given up on that, too. All he does now is sit on the bed, stare straight ahead and then occasionally go to the desk and scribble in one of his notebooks.”
“And eats and sleeps, obviously.”
“Correct, ma'am. And showers.”
“And he's accustomed to the meal deliveries?”
“Yes, ma'am; that took only five cycles early on, when we began with ten-hour days and nights.”
“And the reduced calories and fiber in each meal?”
“No problems with that.”
“Good.
“The record shows he has no medications.”
“Correct, ma'am; none needed nor requested.”
“And he's had no psychotropics or hallucinogens?”
“No, ma'am, nothing.”
“Well, Wy, there is that spinach-and-milk thing.”
“Ah, yes, Dominika, there is that.
“Every seventh 'day' in his time, ma'am, he insists on a daylong diet of nothing but spinach and milk. He claims it gives his creativity a boost.”
“I thought you said you had no communication with him.”
“Correct, ma'am. He wrote a note specifying that request. We did nothing but accommodate that, no communication from us to him.”
“And did you observe his behavior during those sessions?”
“We did, and we have it all recorded, as well.”
“Well?”
“Well what, ma'am?”
“What behavior did you observe?”
“Oh; sorry. Nothing significant, just more pacing and more writing in his notebooks.”
“Maybe a bit more agitated?”
“I guess you could say so, ma'am.”
“Okay. I'll want to see some of those recordings.”
“I can have those for you in less than two minutes.”
“Two minutes our time?”
“Oh – yes, ma'am.”
“Good.”
“Also, we have two sets of clocks in the control room, one on our time, one set to his.”
“And wristwatches for us?”
“Yes, ma'am. You can swap those before you go in to see him.”
“Good. Now let's take a look at those recordings.”
- 21 -
June 17, 2013
10:47 a.m. local time
St. Tropez, France
“Of course you did. I've met her. Duh.”
“Yup.”
“But you hardly knew her. How could you just let her in like that?”
“C'mon, Pam, do you think it was a coincidence that we were in Athens just when she needed some help, and do you think it was just a coincidence that she needed our help?”
“Uh-oh. What'd you do, Jake?”
“I'm not sure I” –
“Oh, go ahead.”
“I'm not sure where to” –
“Anywhere you want to.”
“Well, after our chance meeting here in SanTrope, I was curious about her – no, no, Pam, not sexually – and I did some background investigation, very quietly, and after a month, I identified her and got in touch through a couple of cutouts with one of my clients, a British minister who'd bought one of our midlevel security systems and who'd been carrying on with a skinny model when his wife was away and had the misfortune to do some of that with our cameras looking on, and he was less than happy to get a copy of her file to us, but he managed it. Once I'd seen that, I was able to do a lot more investigation, and when I'd finished that, I knew I wanted her for our team. And I managed to keep an eye on her until her Athens job came up, even let our paths cross, as if by accident, once in Munich, pretending not to notice her, but making sure she saw me.
“I had a list of known KGB agents that we were leaving in place, not bothering with them, and there were nine
in Athens. So I took Gordy along and we went after one of them, one that I'd chosen totally at random, excluding her target, of course. Unsanctioned; no one in the Agency knew about it. We got there a day before she did, using our Sam and Dave covers, and got eyes on both her target and ours.
“That evening, just after dark, I took a shot, pfft, at her target, but missed, deliberately. So he got a little paranoid, probably didn't sleep too well that night.
“The next morning, as she walked through the airline terminal, I made sure she saw me striding across her path, but doing another Munich, so again it seemed coincidental, and we didn't make contact. But I knew she saw me.
“Gordy tailed her at a distance, with me a good way behind him, with our secure walkie-talkies for communication, as she checked into her hotel and then as she went to get eyes on her target, who had spent the night at my target's house several blocks from the hotel.”
“Not at the embassy?”
“Nope; they were both deep-cover NOCs.”
“Ah; okay.”
“But I had gone there just before sunrise and dropped a note in their dead drop, in Russian, warning them that a female MI6 assassin was coming for them three days later. If their files were anywhere near as good as ours, they'd know it'd have to be one of only eight or nine agents, and they'd probably have pictures.”
“But they'd have the timing wrong.”
“Right. But now they were really spooked, both of 'em.”
“Over one agent?”
“Hey, Pam, those eight or nine were Top Echelon.”
“Oh, okay; heard of them.”
“So they pulled in three underlings from their embassy, and that's when I headed off to the airport to let Amber see me. She got in about ten in the morning, and she was nearing their house by about eleven.
“Now, she'd never seen Gordy before, and I was way behind him, so when she got about a block from their house and stopped for a quick counter-surveillance, he was able to walk unnoticed past her, a good ways past the house and across the street, where he ducked casually behind a bush and watched the action out of the corner of his eye.”
- 22 -
August 25, 2013
10:13 a.m. local time
Bonita Beach, Florida
“Whatcha reading, Gordy? Can I see?”
“G'morning, Deb. Sure.”
“'The Julianna Rae Chronicles – The Uninvited.' Any good?”
“Oh, yeah. I like her voice.”
“Voice?”
“Her style. This is the first in a series, dystopian urban fantasy.”
“Dys what?”
“Dystopian, opposite of utopian.”
“Oh. Bad, not good?”
“Right. It's pretty gritty and dark, militias versus resistance under a New World Order kind of stuff. The main character, J. Rae, is a great, well-written character.”
“Who's the author? Ara- – can ya move your thumb?”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Aral Bereux?”
“Yeah. She's Australian, I think. You might like her. I can loan you this one when I'm done.”
“Cool; thanks. I like to read between customers.”
“I like to read between the lines.”
“You write that way, too.”
“Got me there, Deb. So how's biz?”
“Slow. Those releases from Lake Okeechobee are sure keeping people away.”
“Yeah. Never seen the Gulf so brown and dirty.”
“I heard people are canceling contracts to buy homes out on Sanibel.”
“And the hotels are having lots of cancellations, too.”
“Yeah. Goddamn Army Corps of Engineers.”
“Y'got that right, Deb. Stupid of them to wait until the lake is near the overflow level and then surge the water out; they shoulda started trickling it out when it was lower.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry for the soapboxing; got my blood pressure up to almost normal.”
“Oh, I agree with you. That's for sure.”
“So you ready to tell me where you get your hot dogs?”
“Nice weather today, huh?”
“I'll take that as a no.”
“Yeah. Rosemary coming over?”
“Yeah. She had some things to do this morning, so she'll be late.”
“Tell her hi for me, okay?”
“Sure. We may come up later for a dog.”
“Cool.”
- 23 -
June 17, 2013
10:54 a.m. local time
St. Tropez, France
“So what happened?”
“Well, Amber had good tradecraft, so she turned back, walked around the corner, turned her jacket and hat inside out, pushed in some cheek puffers, changed her gait to a slight limp and came back around the corner again, and that's when Gordy took his shot.”
“He shot at her?”
“No, no, no, Pam, he shot at the house, hit a window next to the front door, but he had a silencer and flash suppressor, so Amber couldn't hear or see it, just heard the window breaking; all she saw was one of the goons coming cautiously out and looking around.”
“And he saw her?”
“Yup, and that's when she made a mistake. She turned around too quickly, but then remembered the limp and went back to that. So the guy saw that change before she got back around the corner, and he figured she was the one who'd fired.”
“So he came after her?”
“Cautiously, at first, probably worried about a second shooter, or maybe more. Then the other three came out and joined him. When they decided all was clear, they all took off after her.
“Of course, she'd started running, reversing her jacket and hat again and pulling out the cheek puffers. So she had a good head start on 'em, and Gordy figured she'd get away clean, and we had a pretty good idea of where she'd be going, a roundabout path back to her hotel.
“So he grabbed a cab, picked me up and we headed to that cafe, giving maybe a 75 percent probability that she'd come that way.”
“And it turned out you were right.”
“Yup; we had barely gotten our appetizers and ouzo when she showed up.”
“And then you helped her out?”
“Yup.”
“But she could have been killed by those guys, and you blew her cover, put her in their crosshairs.”
“Yup.”
“Seems pretty cruel.”
“Naw. We gave her a 90 percent chance of getting away. And it was kind of a test.”
“A test?”
“Yup, of her skills.”
“Did you ever tell her what you'd done, how you'd manipulated her?”
“Yup.”
“And how did she take that?”
“Well, it wasn't till much later, after we'd gotten settled in our new company and after we'd taken some private assassination contracts.”
“So she was stuck?”
“Pretty happily, actually.”
“So how did she react when you told her what you'd done?”
“Well, at first she was kinda pissed, but that didn't last long. She sat back and analyzed the whole situation and realized she probably woulda done the same thing in our position, so she got over being pissed.”
“How long did that take?”
“Hmm, lemme – about two hours, I think.”
“Two hours? Only two hours?”
“Yup. Bright woman.”
“I'm not sure I could do it that fast.”
“I don't know, Pam; you're at least that bright. Hell, you might even break that record.”
“Uh-oh. Do I hear a setup there?”
“Kind of. I've been meaning to tell you something for a while, but I've held off.”
“Double uh-oh.”
“Before I do, how about another mimosa?”
“No, thanks, Jake; I think one was enough.”
“Okay.”
“So start talking, Buster.”
- 24 -
June 21, 2013
5:47 p.m. local time
Undisclosed location
“You wanna take this one, Joel?”
“Nah, you take the lead, Rona; you can be tougher.”
“Okay. But you go in first, wake him up and soften him up a bit. I'll come in about a minute later.”
“Okay. Here goes.”
“Go for it.”
“Rise and shine, Doc! Rise and shine!”
“Mmff? Who – vere” –
“Rise and shine!”
“Va- – who – vat time is it?”
“Time for our first happy little discussion.”
“Va- – interrogation, you mean.”
“Oh, Herr Doktor, no, no, no. I thought you'd be happy to have some human contact after so long with these people.”
“Vell, you haf been holding me for over – vat – nine, zehn montz now?”
“Something like that. And we have not been the ones holding you; we just got here last night.”
“'Ve'? Und who is 've'?”
“Oh, sorry. I'm Joel, and my wife, Rona, should be here in just a minute. Female problems, ya know?”
“Female – oh, ja, ja.”
“You want some coffee, tea, anything?”
“Ja, tea, please. Und I need to use the – ah, the” –
“Go ahead. I'll have some tea sent in … and some breakfast. I'm starved.”
“Ja.”
“Take your time.”
“Ah, time. Ja.”
“Okay, time to get down to – where is he?”
“In the john.”
“Ah, shit; a grand entrance wasted.”
“No worry, Rona. He's only been in there a minute or so. He'll be out in a while. You can do it again.”
“Okay; lemme go back ou- – oh, shit.”
“Ah, zis must be Frau Rona. Did I say zat right?”
“Yeah, you did. And you, of course, are Dr. Frenchensteiner.”
“Ja, ja. But ze 'c-h' is pronounced like a 'k.'
“Frenchensteiner?”
“Ja, good. Und you are here to – vat is ze vort? – interrogate me.”
“Interrogate? No, no, no, Doc. Rona and I just want to talk with you for a while.”
“Greg and Julie said to say hello.”
