by Sansa Rayne
“Understood.”
At least this trip will kill two birds with one stone. I’m looking forward to tonight’s task much more than the one at hand, but I can be patient.
“Is everything in place for this evening’s operation?”
“Our courier is waiting with the package. Once the target is in position, it’ll be delivered,” says Eyal.
“Good.”
I get out my phone and check on the package — signal coming through loud and clear. Perfect.
“Ingram, I have a concern.”
“Oh?”
Eyal heads south on 9th Avenue toward Houston Street and Tribeca, honking at the cabs trying to cut him off.
“Kate Atwood.”
“What about her?”
“She can’t just disappear. She’s too famous. People will assume some conspiracy related to the Victor Sovereign incident,” Eyal explains.
I smirk. Eyal’s flexing his analyst muscle. He clearly wants to be more than an operative. There’s no doubt, he has the talent to go further, but he’s already my second-in-command. I suppose I could make him a partner.
“You’re right. But don’t worry,” I say. “It’s been handled.”
He nods, his face rising in the rearview mirror.
Sighing, I stare out the window. Eyal deserves his own command. I suppose he could take over for me once Hardt retires and I no longer work field operations. I like getting my hands dirty, though. I’ll miss it.
When we arrive, Eyal once again scans the street, making sure no one has located us. My company owns several properties throughout the city; if one gets found, we burn it and move on. In our field, a single mistake is too many.
The Tribeca loft is our newest, and most advanced. Biometric surveillance assures us no one gets in who shouldn’t. Automatic shutters can deploy in a fraction of a second to repel an outside attack. Machine guns can fire from hidden compartments and neutralize an incursion before they breach the interior. Thermal and electronic nodes can confound enemy espionage. Most importantly, it boasts an armory that would make a third-world dictator salivate.
That’s why I keep my Manhattan apartment here, in the unit next door. Maybe after my promotion I’ll finally buy a midtown penthouse, something on the fiftieth floor or higher with a view. But how many days a year would I be there? No more than a handful. Even with all the money in the world, it feels like a waste.
Once Eyal checks out the street, he taps on the limo’s window. His mirrored sunglasses hide the heads-up display on their interior, feeding Eyal information beyond his line of sight: in a blink he can summon live satellite footage, building schematics — whatever documents or data he needs. They do look somewhat large for men’s sunglasses, but his height and bodybuilder’s physique make up for it.
I get out and we head inside the building, passing through all the security systems. They read our retinas the second we step in the door and analyze our gaits for their unique profiles. Electromagnetic signal detectors search for unauthorized electronic devices. Once we’re cleared, we make our way through the control room, where Stanislaw and Henrik watch a series of monitors.
“Any updates?” I ask.
“Our asset in Lyon has recruited a new informant inside Interpol,” Stanislaw reports, sipping black coffee.
“A company in Beirut is looking to hire a driver for an upcoming ambassador's visit,” adds Henrik, not looking up from his screen.
“And our guest?” I ask.
“Waiting for you,” says Eyal. “In the conference room.”
We go on ahead; he buzzes us in.
Inside the small, windowless chamber, a barely conscious man sits in a metal chair that’s been bolted to the floor. His hands have been cuffed behind his back. Sweat soaks his white undershirt and glistens on his greasy skin. Blood drips down his chin and missing clumps of dark hair reveal his scalp. He looks up when he hears us, though; there’s strength in his eyes, despite the dark bags beneath them.
“Ingram Dent,” he croaks, smiling through missing teeth. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Is it?” I say, mentally cataloging how much pain he must be in. It’s a wonder he’s even conscious. “You know where this is headed, right?”
The man sighs.
“You can just do it already if you like. I’m not telling you more than I told the others.”
“Let’s start with your name,” I say.
He laughs.
“You can call me whatever you like. It’s all the same.”
Sighing, I take off my jacket and roll up my shirt sleeves. Careful not to get too close, I show him the cut still healing on my underarm.
“Your car bomb came very close to killing me,” I say. “If Eyal hadn’t told me to take cover when he did… I’d like to at least know the name of the man who nearly killed me.”
“That’s a disappointment you’ll have to live with.”
Needle-nose pliers, an electric drill and a dozen knives sit arrayed on a metal tray on a small table at the room’s side. Glancing at them, I consider getting one.
“It won’t help,” he says. “They’ve already tried.”
I turn the other way, where a medicine cabinet on the wall holds bandages, gauze and various painkillers.
“I don’t need it,” the assassin responds. “I don’t fear pain.”
“Do you like it?” I snap.
“Not really,” he chuckles. “But I can take it. You won’t coerce me with it. You won’t-”
I interrupt him with a hard kick to the shin. He gasps, and a tear slips from his cheek, but within seconds he rights himself.
“I told you,” he says.
“Who hired you to kill me?” I ask, straining to keep my voice free of anger. I have to try, even if it’s pointless. Stanislaw and Henrik are two of the best interrogators alive; if they couldn’t break this man, then he can’t be broken — but I have to try.
He doesn’t respond. He just stares.
“Why did they want me dead?”
I meet his silence with a punch to his already broken nose. Fresh blood drips out from his nostrils. His only reaction is to part his lips to breathe.
“I can do this all day. You’ll break eventually.”
“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “I won’t. You’re wasting your time. And you must understand I can’t tell you what I don’t know. The person who hired me did not give me his name, or a reason — just the job. He isn’t a fool and neither am I.”
As he speaks, I pick out a scalpel and examine it. Despite his bold talk, he’s full of shit. If he received a payment for this job, the transfer can be tracked. It was likely routed through a dozen shell corporations and tax havens, but that’s no obstacle for me.
“Do you have a family?” I ask him.
He laughs.
“Two ex-wives and two daughters. They won’t miss me. And you won’t find them.”
“No, I’m sure I won’t. But that’s not why I’m asking. That bomb of yours killed an innocent person — one with a family.”
The man shrugs.
“Occupational hazard, Ingram. You know how it is. You try to avoid it. Sometimes you don’t succeed. Did you make your anonymous donation to the family?”
“Not yet. I’d like to make it in your name.”
His chuckle comes out choked.
“Please. You don’t care about that innocent family any more than I do. You only bring them up in an attempt to elicit my guilt, but I don’t feel any. Do you?”
My next punch rocks his chin, snapping his head sideways.
“I’m not the one who killed their father,” I growl.
He spits blood, a stream of it that splatters my shoe.
“No, but he’s dead in part because of you,” he says. “But what have you done for them? Nothing.”
Now I grin.
“I’ve found the man responsible for their loss. I could leave your body on the street for them to find.”
“You won�
��t. My employer will know I failed. He’ll find out eventually, but why tell him sooner?”
Fuck. He’s right.
“Then I guess we’re done here.”
I press the scalpel to his throat and drag it. Blood pours out his neck, and he slumps over. He doesn’t try to speak his last words.
Setting down the blade, my heart racing, I feel a warm wetness on my chest. Some of his blood sprayed over my shirt. Annoyed, I rip it off, bunch it up and chuck it at Eyal.
“Burn this, and get me another,” I say.
Dammit.
He better find one that matches my suit. I’ve still got my appointment with Kate Atwood. I’d like to look good.
The next morning I spend an hour going through my work inbox and corresponding with sources before John catches me and revokes my remote access. Grumbling, I get out of bed, wash up and have breakfast.
Yeah, I know I told Brendan I’d take a day off. I suppose I can try it — at least until dinner tonight. Then it’ll no longer be day anymore — loophole!
After putting away the dishes I crack open the book that’s sat on my coffee table for more than a year. The so-called “beach read” I’d dive into next time I went to the beach, which is never. I don’t get more than two pages into it when I set it aside and turn on LPN.
Daytime anchors discuss the latest political horse race, and for every thirty seconds I watch, I jot down interview questions that really should be asked next time I’m with the congressmen and senators expected to run in the next cycle. A few of them would make for good panel questions, so I text them to John.
After about twenty, he texts back, Turn off the TV!
What, can I not watch TV on vacation? I ask.
He responds, Change the channel!
Not a chance. With or without my LPN credentials, I’m still a reporter. If I want to work, then I’m going to work. I’ve got plenty I can do independently. As soon as this forced vacation ends, I’m hitting the ground running. In a way, this could be a good thing: time to focus on the job instead of office bullshit. Someone else can babysit the interns for a while. By the time this forced exile is up, I’ll have groundbreaking exposes, in-depth features and exclusive investigative reporting ready to go. Let the LPN board try to tell me what to do after that.
Five o’clock sneaks up on me, and I show up for dinner with Brendan ten minutes late. We meet at Amit’s and find a table near the back. We order and pay at the counter, both getting shawarma platters with falafel and hummus; I’m starved, having forgotten to eat lunch. The food smells amazing, as usual.
“You always order that,” Brendan says as I pour on the tahini. “Ever since we started coming here.”
If one good thing came of experimenting with turning our friendship into a short-lived relationship, it’s him introducing me to this restaurant.
“It’s the best,” I say, shrugging.
“Every other restaurant in the world, you refuse to order the same thing twice. Not here.”
“Sometimes you just know what you want.”
“I guess so,” Brendan says, digging in.
One good thing about staying platonic friends is not having to be shy when ravenous. I relish my dinner as if it could be my last while Brendan talks about Ellman’s upcoming fundraising drive and all the high-profile personalities pledged to attend.
“So on a scale from one to malaria, how much did you suffer on your day off?” he asks. “Was it as hellish as you thought it would be?”
I smirk.
“Actually it was very productive.”
Brendan slumps in his chair, shaking his head.
“Would it have been that hard for you to go out and see a movie? Maybe take a walk in the park.”
“Eh, I could do that tomorrow,” I say, though I know I won’t.
“When was the last time you took in a play?”
“I saw Hamilton.”
“With me!” says Brendan. “That was three years ago!”
“Then I guess that was it.”
My phone buzzes in my purse loud enough for both to hear. I start to reach for it, but stop myself.
“Late for an interview?” he asks.
“Ha. Ha. What do you want? I like my job. I got that from my dad.”
“He ever burn out from it?”
That’s a good question. In fairness to John and Brendan, Dad did take his fair share of vacations. When I was young we traveled all around the world — by the time I was twelve I’d seen Tokyo twice. I got to climb the Eiffel Tower while my classmates worked summer jobs for minimum wage. Except for Antarctica, I’ve visited every continent at least four times.
However, Dad spent several hours on each of those trips making calls from our hotel room. What he would have done for a cell phone and unlimited data…
“I don’t think he ever burned out,” I reply. “He loved the job. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Brendan says. “But he never put his life on the line for a story. If Victor Sovereign hadn’t thought he could get away…”
He would have escaped and then had me shot. I get it. My lip curls into a sneer at Sovereign’s name.
“What was I supposed to do? Walk away? It was risky, but worth it.”
“Not if you had died. A scoop isn’t worth your life, Kate.”
I could smack him.
I unmasked the malfeasance of one of the most powerful and corrupt industrialists in modern history, and he calls it a scoop. Sovereign’s brazenly illegal drone surveillance was going to get people hurt. If my work keeps civil liberties alive another few years, that could be worth dying for.
“Sorry,” Brendan says, lifting his hands in surrender. “You did a good thing, no one is saying otherwise. But you didn’t have to get personally involved like that.”
“Remember when Sovereign said the police work for him? If he’d been tipped off about a warrant for his arrest, he would have gotten away.”
“Yeah. And he’d have had to hide in some private villa for the rest of his life, instead of jetting all over the world. It would have been like prison. I’d take that if it kept you safe.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” I murmur. “I’ll be okay.”
I could mention the fact that I’ve taken regular self-defense classes, including courses on using handguns. If I get into a scrape, I know how to break a hold, incapacitate an attacker and — if necessary — load a gun and shoot it straight. I may not be Jason Bourne but I’m not a delicate flower either.
“You’re making enemies of powerful people,” he says. “I worry about you.”
My phone buzzes again, but I leave it.
“I’d rather take my chances and make a difference than play nice with the rich and powerful and get nowhere.”
“Your father made a difference,” Brendan snaps. “He never put his life on the line to do it either.”
“My father exposed a lot of conflict and injustice in his storied career, but he turned a blind eye to the corruption within,” I explain, feeling my hands tremble. “He compromised, helping the lesser evil thrive so he could shine a light on the bigger monsters. I’d like to do better — I’d like to stop compromising.”
“Then come work for Ellman.”
I shake my head. We’ve been through this before.
“I won’t have the same reach. LPN is national. I need their audience.”
“It’s not their audience, it’s yours. Forget Ellman, go to any company you want — viewers will follow you. But if you stay with LPN, you’ll be under their thumb the same as your father.”
“Maybe,” I say. He might be right — maybe I’d take the viewers with me — but he doesn’t know that for sure. It’s a gamble, one I’d be willing to take, except for that other problem: the money.
“Kate, I’ve got an idea. Don’t take it the wrong way, okay?”
My gut churns. Whatever it is, he knows I’m not gonna like it, or he wouldn’t bother with the preface.
“I
could take a few days off too,” he says. “We could spend some time at the family lake house in the Catskills. It would be a real nice break.”
Ugh. Is he really serious? Having John breathing down my neck about a vacation is bad enough. I’d hoped Brendan would be on my side.
“Yeah, what would we do there?” I snort. “Watch the news and do crosswords?”
Brendan’s face falls.
“There’s the lake… and hiking…”
Like he has any interest in either of those. The closest he gets to nature is Central Park.
“Oh, wouldn’t that be romantic?” I drawl.
“Hey,” he says. “That’s not what I was-”
“A little lakeside getaway, just the two of us? Are you kidding me?”
He murmurs, “Sorry I bothered. I just wanted to help.”
“Yeah,” I say, getting up to leave. “I know.”
“Kate-”
“I’ll call you later,” I say, striding out.
I nearly get knocked over by a cyclist as I exit, rushing toward Lexington Ave and a downtown E train. Stomach full and mind racing, I just want to go home and check to see what stories have broken in the last hour.
After all these years, he pulls this shit? Even if that really wasn’t meant to be taken as an advance, did he really think I’d just up and leave the city like that? I told him yesterday I’d take one day off — that was it. He had to have known this was a bad idea.
In truth, I could use some company. It’s been too long since I’ve dated, and when you’re a celebrity, it’s always way too fucking complicated. Brendan’s got his heart in the right place, but we didn’t work. He’s not exciting. Maybe he enjoys the idea of freezing his ass off at a lake upstate in the middle of fall, where the WiFi is probably crap and there’s not even a Starbucks for miles. I’d rather be dead.
I catch my train as it pulls into the station. Even after dinner the passengers have to cram in; commuters who have stayed late loosen their ties, swaying on their feet with the subway’s bends and bumps. One man looks my way, probably recognizing me. I keep my eyes on him until he turns aside. Tall and muscular, he doesn’t strike me as one to get starstruck — perhaps he just doesn’t care.
I glance at him again when we reach my stop; he gets off too. My heart thumps, so I hurry my pace some more.
