Once Burned, Twice Spy

by Diane Henders

  The blowgun was in his other hand.

  Scowling with concentration, he made a couple of clumsy attempts and managed to fit the dart into the tiny tube on his third try.

  “Shorry, Shtorm,” he slurred as he raised the blowgun to his lips again. “You loosh…”

  I finally managed to pull the trigger, the tiny ‘pffft’ of the propellant like music to my ears.

  My dart pierced his leg as he sucked in a breath to fire the blowgun, only to collapse motionless.

  Mine’s better than yours…

  The taunt circled through my brain while I flopped toward the door in an uncoordinated starfish-like crawl, holding my breath.

  Still inside the nimbus of aerosolized trank. Keep moving…

  Starved for oxygen, I sucked in a breath.

  Everything went dark.

  When I woke, Ian’s legs were still motionless. Dizziness twisted my brain. My body shivered continuously, chilled after lying half naked and motionless for… how long?

  I couldn’t move yet, so I occupied my mind by doing the math. Our tranquilizer darts caused about twenty minutes of unconsciousness. The fast-acting aerosolized part of the tranquilizer usually lasted around five minutes; but I hadn’t gotten the full concentration. I had probably only been down for a couple of minutes.

  But thanks to Ian’s trank, I’d been lying here in my underwear for nearly half an hour. Bastard. No wonder I was frozen to the fucking bone.

  But at least Ian still had a good fifteen minutes to go.

  Fifteen minutes for me to get up, get dressed, go next door, and find out what the fucking hell Nora was up to. Or if she even was Nora Taylor and not Nola, my mother. Ex-mother. Whatever.

  And then I had to get out of the hotel and vanish before Ian woke up. No problem. Piece of cake.

  Now if only I could move my arms and legs…

  It felt like hours, but it was actually only a minute or two later when I managed to drag myself to my hands and knees. By the time I had struggled into my clothes my coordination was almost back to normal.

  Shrugging on my parka, I glared at Ian’s sex-god body and slack handsome face. Asshole. If I wasn’t so pressed for time I’d strip him naked, tie him to the bed, and dump the ice bucket on his crotch.

  I contented myself with a top-speed search of Ian’s limp body and the rest of the room. I found nothing except his Walther PPK and the tiny blowgun, which wasn’t exciting enough to bother pilfering. I shoved them under the opposite side of the mattress so he’d have to waste precious time looking for them, and shot a glance at my watch.

  Twelve minutes left. Tick-tock.

  After a wary surveillance of the deserted hotel corridor through the fisheye lens, I slipped out and knocked on Nora’s door.

  The door swung open as though she had been waiting beside it.

  “Thank you for coming,” she began.

  I sidestepped into the room and whipped out my Glock as I hip-checked the door shut.

  “Talk,” I snapped, taking aim at her face.

  She went white, her eyes widening. “I… I…” she began, then blinked rapidly and drew a trembling breath. “Please don’t point that at me, Dani-dear.”

  “Don’t call me that.” My Glock didn’t waver. “You’ve got five minutes. Talk.”

  “I… I… need to be sure we won’t be overheard.” She gave me an imploring look. “I have a device. May I get my handbag-”

  “No. Tell me where it is.”

  “On the bureau.” Her gaze flicked back toward the room.

  “Move slowly into the room and sit on the chair,” I growled. “One step at a time. Don’t talk, don’t reach for anything, and don’t make any sudden moves.”

  She gave a faint nod, her chin moving a millimetre down and then up, and followed my instructions.

  As we passed the closet and bathroom I darted glances inside, but it seemed we were alone. The room was similarly unoccupied, and as soon as Nora was seated I crossed to the dresser and upended her handbag into the middle of the bed.

  She gave a little cry of distress, quickly stifled when I glared at her over the sights of the Glock.

  “Th-that’s the device,” she stammered. “The little black one with the light on it. You just press the button…”

  “I know what it does. Where did you get it?” I demanded. Holding her in my sights one-handed, I dared a glance down into my waist pouch as I momentarily activated my own bug detector.

  My bug detector, an exact match to the one Nora carried.

  The green light assured me that whatever bullshit she might be pulling, at least we wouldn’t be overheard.

  “I said, where did you get it?” I snapped.

  “Oh… I found it in this little spy shop…” she began.

  “If you’re going to waste my time with lies, we’re done here.” I sidled toward the door, keeping her in my sights.

  “No, no! I’m sorry, I…” She made an entreating gesture, quickly aborted when I moved my finger onto the trigger. “I’m sorry, Dan- Aydan, I’ll tell you everything, I promise. Please don’t leave!”

  “So talk.” I maintained my position in the hallway.

  “I have so much to tell you,” she began.

  “Then you’d better talk fast.”

  “I will, but five minutes isn’t enough. You’ll have questions…”

  “Four minutes.”

  She spoke rapidly. “Aydan, this is too important! Call me anytime on the burner phone. Nobody knows the number, not even Ian…”

  I glared at her. “Talk now, or I’m out of here.”

  “I got the bug detector from Sam,” she blurted. “I know this will be a terrible shock to you, but I’m your mother. Nola Kelly.”

  I held my voice completely flat. “My mother died thirty years ago when her car crashed into a ditch and caught fire. I don’t know who the hell you are or what you’re trying to pull, but you’re not my mother.”

  “But I am! Here…” Grimacing, she yanked a few hairs from her head and held them out to me. “Get a DNA test. It will prove I’m telling the truth.”

  “Right, because I just happen to have a lab in my back pocket,” I snarled.

  But I stepped rapidly forward to snatch the hairs from her before retreating to my previous position, Glock levelled.

  “Please trust me, Aydan. I had to fake my death to protect you, and leaving you and your father to think I’d died was the hardest thing I’ve ever done…”

  “How did that protect me?” The robotic voice barely stirred my lips. As cold and unforgiving as my Glock.

  “They were going to drag you into their program. If I had stayed, you would have been taken away at eighteen years old and forced to work there for the rest of your life. I had to pretend I was in love with Sam and convince him to move to the U.K. with me just to keep him away from you.”

  “Is that so.”

  “Yes! Dani… Aydan, my dearest, it broke my heart but it was the only way.” She hesitated, gazing imploringly up at me. “You don’t believe me. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t believe me either, if I were you. But I’ll prove it to you. Ask me something that only I could know. Ask me anything. Anything at all.”

  Dammit, I wasn’t going to let her draw me in. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to inadvertently feed her information.

  “Who did I take to my Grade Twelve graduation dinner?” I asked.

  Confusion clouded her face. “Dani-dear, I was gone by then. I don’t know who you took.” She smiled. “But I’ll bet it was Darrell Raven. You had such a crush on him.”

  “Wrong.”

  I hadn’t gone to my graduation dinner at all. I had been grieving too hard for my dead mother. My supposedly-dead mother, who had faked her death to run off with another man.

  “Well, I did tell you I couldn’t know,” she said reasonably. “And you used to have a terrible crush on Darrell.”

  “So you say.” My voice came out completely flat. “When did Nichele’s mom
and dad split up?”

  “Heavens, dear, did they finally split? Despite his never-ending infidelities, I wouldn’t have believed…” Her brows drew together. “Oh. You’re testing me, aren’t you? If I hadn’t known them, I would have pretended not to be surprised.”

  “Of course I’m testing you,” I growled. “Duh.”

  But dammit, she was right again. Nichele’s parents never had split up. Her mom had just kept waiting and hoping and forgiving while her dad sneaked around with every woman he could find. No wonder poor Nichele had such trust issues with men.

  I shot a glance at my watch. Running out of time. One more question; and if she got it right, I’d have to believe…

  I swallowed hard and racked my brain. Names of pets and classmates and former addresses were too easy for anyone to discover. Ditto for medical and dental records.

  “What did I want for my sixth birthday?” I demanded.

  Nora frowned into space. “Oh, dear. Was that the year you wanted the pogo stick…? No,” she corrected herself before I could speak. “That was your fifth birthday; I remember because you started kindergarten that fall and you took the pogo stick to your first show-and-tell. And Darrell Raven knocked out his front teeth with it.” She smiled. “I always thought you’d marry Darrell, you know.”

  The words ‘I wish I had’ hovered on the tip of my tongue. How different my life might have been…

  “Nice try,” I grated. “But that’s not what I asked.”

  “No, no; I know. Just give me a moment.” Nora shot me a reproachful look. “It was over forty years ago, after all… wait! I have it!” Her face lit with the radiant smile I remembered from all those years ago. “You wanted a Lone Ranger mask and costume and six-shooter! And you were heartbroken when we couldn’t find the costume in your size; but you wore the mask and the holster with the cap gun everywhere. Even to bed; until you rolled on the gun in your sleep and woke up with a black eye.” She chuckled. “At least you still wore the mask everywhere, so nobody knew.”

  Tremors seized my knees and I locked them to keep from falling to the floor. Rage bubbled up like hot acid burning through the scars her abandonment had left on my soul.

  “I’m so sorry, Dani-dear.” Her voice trembled. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “And yet, you did.” I threw the words at her like weapons. “And you hurt Dad. Losing you nearly killed him. And all the time you were making a new life in a new country with a new lover…”

  Something in her expression tipped me off and comprehension rolled over me in a searing wave.

  “He wasn’t new, was he?” My voice came out quivering with suppressed violence, my finger easing toward the Glock’s trigger as if of its own volition. “How long had you been fucking him, Mom? All those years when Dad was travelling for work? And don’t hand me any bullshit about how lonely it was out on the farm all by yourself!”

  “I won’t,” she said softly. “I don’t expect you to understand, Aydan, but your father and I both did what we had to do in order to protect you.”

  “What? Now you’re saying Dad pimped you out?” My voice was rising, and I clamped down on the need to bellow at her.

  “No, of course not. I…” She let out a breath. “I understand how angry you are and I don’t blame you one bit-”

  “So why now?” I interrupted. “Why search me out thirty years later and fuck up every happy memory I ever had of you? Why not just stay fucking dead? Because as far as I’m concerned, you’re dead to me anyway.”

  “I understand. I won’t agree that I deserve that, because you don’t know the whole story. But to answer your question, I’m telling you now because this is the first chance I’ve had since I discovered you were working for the Department. Before you worked there, you were safe. Now…”

  I glanced at my watch again. Out of time.

  “Yeah, so it’s a dangerous life, yadda, yadda,” I snarled. “Tell me something I don’t know. ’Cause your five minutes is up.”

  Nora leaned forward, her face set and grim. “What you don’t know is that you’ve been programmed. All those ‘tests’ Sam did when you were young? Those mind exercises? He was planting subliminal suggestions, instructions that you aren’t even aware of. And now that you’re an agent, those instructions are ripe to be triggered. You could carry them out without even knowing you were doing his bidding. You would think it was all your own idea.”

  I stared at her, icy terror paralyzing my limbs and crushing my throat.

  “I can help you, Aydan,” she said forcefully. “Let me help you. Let me tell you what the instructions are and how to overcome them.”

  I couldn’t move or speak. Claustrophobia flooded every corner of my mind. I had been controlled since childhood.

  I was still being controlled.

  Trapped.

  Panic spiralled up.

  Fight!

  RUN…

  Nora must have misinterpreted my silent immobility for skepticism.

  “Aydan,” she insisted. “Please believe me. Haven’t you noticed that you don’t react normally to certain things? Most women cry and beg when they’re threatened. You get angry and fight. And you need more energy than most people. You can eat anything you want without gaining weight; but you collapse when you run out of calories. You’re a high-performance machine…”

  “Time’s up,” I croaked, and backed toward the door.

  “Dani… Aydan!”

  Nora… no, Nola… my mother… was on her feet, fists clenched by her sides and voice trembling. “I didn’t give up my life with you and your father on a foolish whim; and I refuse to let you self-destruct now! Keeping Sam away from you, away from Sirius Dynamics, was the only way to protect you. I love you more than life itself!”

  I let the door swing shut on her voice.

  Chapter 27

  With my mind shuttered and every muscle rigid with the need to flee, I marched stiffly down the hotel corridor to the vending machine.

  Retrieved the claim check.

  Rode the elevator down to the main floor.

  Claimed my gear from the concierge, making appropriate mouth-noises and stretching my wooden face into a smile-like grimace.

  When I slid into the back seat of a cab from the taxi queue, the driver asked, “Where to?”

  “Airport.” The word fell from my lips without thought, my mind frozen numb.

  Sometime later, the cabbie’s voice roused me. “Are you cold? I can turn up the heat.”

  I came back to myself, realizing I was huddled with my arms wrapped around myself while I shivered in long hard waves.

  “Y-Yes. Heat. P-Please.” My voice came out in a rusty croak.

  He frowned. “You wanta stop for a coffee or something? There’s a Timmie’s drivethrough on the way.”

  “H-Hot chocolate. Th-Thanks.” I fumbled a five-dollar bill out of my wallet with trembling hands and poked it over the seat at him. “K-Keep the change.”

  Nora’s voice came back to me. “…a high-performance machine… collapse when you run out of calories…”

  I blocked it out with a shudder and sat carefully thinking about nothing until the cabbie handed a cardboard cup back to me.

  The jolt of hot sweetness kicked my brain into gear again. By some miracle, the hairs Nora had given me were still clutched in my white-knuckled hand. I tucked them carefully into my wallet, hoping they would still be viable by the time I got them to a lab.

  But Nora had to know I wouldn’t be able to have them tested right away, so she was probably lying about the whole thing.

  She couldn’t be my mother. My mother had died thirty years ago, and the identity of the corpse had been confirmed by dental records. This was some kind of mindfuck, designed to keep me off-balance for some reason.

  Ian and Nora had to be conspiring against me, although I couldn’t figure out why.

  But how could she have known all those things about me?

  I gulped more hot chocolate, my eyes water
ing as it seared my tongue. How could anyone have researched me that effectively? Or had I somehow given the answers away?

  It wouldn’t have been difficult to dredge up my old crush on Darrell Raven. Practically everybody in our small school had known about it, much to my teenaged humiliation. And anybody from the school could have told her the story of Darrell knocking his teeth out with my pogo stick. Hell, Nichele and I still laughed about it sometimes…

  Another shivering fit seized me. What if ‘Nora’ had talked to Nichele? A few hours of so-called reminiscing could have dredged up all kinds of obscure facts that nobody else would know.

  What if Nichele was in danger right now? What if she was being stalked by whoever was trying to frame me, to be held as leverage against me later?

  But that didn’t make sense. If Nichele had talked to someone who was pretending to be from our old home town, she would have mentioned it to me. And anyway, Nora couldn’t have known what questions I would ask. I hadn’t even known, until I’d asked them.

  Unless…

  What if I’d been programmed to ask exactly those questions?

  Hot-chocolate-flavoured bile rose in my throat, and I gulped it down and hurriedly diverted to a different thought.

  Okay, so maybe Nora really was my mother. That didn’t mean that anything else she’d said was true. Maybe she was just a pathetic cheating slimeball trying to weasel her way back into my life after all these years by making herself out to be a noble martyr.

  Or maybe…

  “Which airline?” The cabbie’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “Oh. Um… Westjet. Domestic.” I shook myself back to the present. Why the hell had I chosen the airport as a destination? If Ian thought I was fleeing, it would be the first place he’d look.

  Or… shit. If I was Ian, I’d wake up, swear a blue streak, and rush straight down the hotel lobby to ask the concierge if she’d seen a tall red-haired woman leaving.

  I had gone straight from the concierge desk to the taxi stand, so he’d easily discover which cab company had picked me up. From there it would only take a persuasive call to their dispatcher to figure out where I was going.

  He might be in a cab only minutes behind me.