Villains and Vixens

by Charles Dougherty

  "All right. That's fair, but can I change my mind about that offer of wine?"

  She nodded. "Red or white?"

  "Red, if it's handy."

  She got up and went into the kitchen. While I was alone, I thought about where to begin, and how much I should tell her. I was on new ground with "Kathy."

  I played back my discussions with the others at Phorcys when we were wondering what we should do about Mary. Of all the things we considered to explain her behavior, a psychotic break wasn't one. I came here prepared for almost anything but what I found. When I knocked on her front door, I was ready to kill her, or be killed by her. But life with this woman was never that simple; I should have known that.

  The woman I knew as Mary was tough, but "Kathy" was an unknown quantity. She seemed a bit frail and uncertain compared to Mary. I didn't want to precipitate another breakdown; it could have consequences beyond our personal relationship.

  3

  I could hear Mary — I need to call her Kathy to her face, damn it. — opening cabinets and drawers. There was the rattle of glassware followed by a musical ringtone from a cellphone. I heard her answer the phone, and then there was the sound of a door closing. That's probably Sam, whoever the hell he is. Somebody from her college days, I guess.

  Nobody within Phorcys, including her Uncle Bob, knew what she was up to. The woman was a walking time bomb. If she spilled what she knew, the consequences would be dire, not just for those of us in Phorcys, but for the good old U.S. of A.

  My current assignment was to evaluate the risk she posed and deal with her accordingly. The executive committee within Phorcys included Bob Lawson and another, slightly older, retired general named Mike Killington. Mike was a legend in the special ops world when I was coming along, and he was Bob Lawson's mentor. I spent the better part of last week with the two of them and Aaron Sanchez as we tried to figure out what to do about Mary.

  This wasn't the first time she took off on her own — went off the reservation, as Aaron put it — but it was by far the most serious. As much as Bob Lawson and I wanted to protect her for personal reasons, we acknowledged that she could be dangerous to us.

  The only innocent explanation for her absence that we could imagine was that Lavrov, the Russian gangster who kidnapped her, was holding her prisoner, or worse. And then Aaron tracked her down in Gainesville, Florida. We knew the University was her alma mater, but nobody realized she still had ties here.

  The situation in which we found her was damning. She was living alone, not a prisoner at all. That foreclosed the only acceptable explanation for her recent disappearance. Had she changed sides? Or taken a contract with somebody else? We didn't know. Either of those things meant I would have to kill her. Or try to, at least. She was a formidable target. I knew her skills better than anybody.

  And now, typical of her, she threw our plans into disarray. Nobody considered that she might have lost her marbles. That made her even more dangerous, in a way. On the other hand, if it were true, and if she could recover, well … We would have to see how things played out.

  When I knocked on her door a little while ago, I was hoping to discover that she was being held against her will somehow — that she was a prisoner in this townhouse. Otherwise, my mission was to dispose of her. I was primed for a black or white situation, but now I was dazzled by all the colors of the rainbow. I didn't know what to do, and there was no way to consult with Phorcys before I made a decision.

  I knew two things for sure. One, I was no psychiatrist. I couldn't evaluate this whole "brief psychotic disorder" claim. And two, I dared not leave her unsupervised. We all knew how readily she could disappear; it was one of the things that made her so good at what she did.

  "Hey, Finn?" She held a tray with an open bottle of wine, two full glasses, and a plate of fruit and cheese with crackers.

  "Yes?"

  "Sorry for the interruption. That was Sam. I rescheduled our date for tomorrow. Ready to tell me what you've been up to since Charleston?"

  "There's not a lot to tell," I said, taking the wineglass that she passed me. I pretended to take a sip; no way would I risk drinking it, since I didn't see her pour it. "I went to Tortola and got Island Girl ready to launch. Then I went on to Charlotte Amalie and dropped the hook in that anchorage on the northwest corner of Water Island. When the time came to meet your flight, I took the dinghy across to the marina in Crown Bay and got a taxi to the airport."

  "So you had flight details for me, then?" she looked puzzled.

  "You sent them to me in a text — from your encrypted phone to mine."

  "Those phones Phorcys gave us, you mean?" she asked.

  "That's right."

  "I don't remember that. How long between the time I sent the text and the time I was supposed to get there?"

  "Thirty hours," I said.

  "Thirty hours? You know to the hour?"

  "Yes. When you didn't show up, I tried to get in touch with you using the Phorcys phone, but you didn't answer. The phone didn't go to voicemail, either. I checked our blind email drop, but there was nothing from you there. That's when I got worried and called Aaron. He tried to locate your phone, but tracking was disabled. Do you still have the phone?"

  She shook her head, frowning. "No. And I remember nothing about any of that. Not making the travel arrangements, nor sending you the text — nothing."

  "What did you do with the phone?"

  She pursed her lips, tapping them with her finger. After several seconds, she shook her head. "I have no idea. Until you mentioned it, I didn't even recall having that phone. But I remember it, now. I wonder … " she shook her head again. "I don't know, Finn. So Phorcys started looking for me then? Like, within a few hours of my scheduled arrival time?"

  "That's right. And there was no trace of you. Not under any identities that we knew about."

  "And when did you find me?"

  "In the afternoon, the day before yesterday. Aaron and Bob came up with the idea of following your trail from the University, from the time you graduated. Aaron was hoping to pick up some new false identities to trace. The first problem was that we didn't know what name you were using back then, when you were in college. That prompted Bob to dig out the old private surveillance reports he commissioned when you went missing as a kid."

  "You mean after I skipped out of the foster care system? That far back?"

  "Yes, exactly. Once Aaron learned that you used the Kathleen Riley identity the whole time you were in college, everything fell into place. You even lived here, in this townhouse, back then. Classy for a college kid, wasn't it?"

  "Well, yes. But I wasn't a typical college kid, either. You know that."

  "We were surprised you still had access to this place. And that it wasn't rented, or anything." I looked around. "But it's sort of, I don't know, sterile? Is that the right word? It doesn't look lived in."

  "No. Sterile is a good word to describe it. I kept it because I really was planning to come back to graduate school, at some point. And the Kathleen Riley identity is clean, too."

  "Don't be too sure of that," I said.

  "Why? Has Aaron blown that cover? Or you?"

  "No. But he did discover Lavrov's looking for you. That shouldn't be a surprise, after what you did to his people on Anastasia."

  "Lavrov," she said, staring into the distance. "The Russian. He'll never find me here. Has Phorcys turned up any more intel on him?"

  "Some. Mostly just that he's still around. Nothing definitive, except word's out that he's looking for you. You should assume he can find you. If we found you, he can, too."

  "But you had the background reports from Bob, back when he was trying to find me after my mother died."

  "Yes. That made it a little easier for us, but you were here at the University for over four years. That's a long time; you would have left quite a trail."

  "As Kathy Riley, yes. But she was just a student."

  "A student who had plenty of cash, from the looks of t
his place. She was renting it from a shell corporation, too — a little strange for a college kid. And then, given how you were earning money, there was extended travel and unexplained absences. Aaron picked up all that; he was suspicious of Kathleen Riley, but he couldn't be sure until he got the info from the detective who worked for Bob."

  "Lavrov won't have access to that," she said.

  "No, but he might not be as worried about making a mistake as we were. He would grab you just on the chance you might be the one he's looking for."

  "It's not going to work, Finn."

  "What?"

  "You're trying to spook me, get me to run back to Phorcys."

  "Don't take this the wrong way," I said, "but that may not be an option for you."

  "It's not?" Her brows shot up, her eyes round.

  "It's not a sure thing." I shook my head.

  "Then why are you here, if not to bring me back?"

  "Bob and I feel a personal obligation to you."

  "I hear a but … " she said, her eyes narrowing to slits. I held her gaze and kept quiet. She stared at me for several seconds and then spoke.

  "Did they send you, Finn? Or is this something you and Bob are doing on your own?"

  "It doesn't work that way. Bob and I are attached to you, for personal reasons. But put that aside for a moment and look at this objectively. You know a lot of potentially damaging information, and your disappearance didn't inspire confidence."

  She nodded her head and swallowed, hard. Picking up her wineglass, she took a sip and stared into space. "Okay. I get it. I screwed up. Is that it?"

  "That's one way to interpret your actions."

  "Was it killing the people on Anastasia? On my own account?"

  "By itself, that may have been a mistake, but it's one that we could live with. Given the situation you were in, you might have made a professional judgment to go on the offensive to protect yourself. That was a decision that was yours to make. None of us would question it."

  "But I didn't make a conscious decision, Finn. I lost it; I was pissed off because I let myself get snatched off the street. I killed twelve people, basically in a temper tantrum."

  "So you say. But they were part of the team that kidnapped you; they were working for Lavrov. You didn't kill twelve innocent bystanders. And you're the only one who can decide whether that was the right thing to do. Phorcys will live with your call on that one; they've already told you so, remember?"

  "No, I don't remember. They told me that? When?"

  "Bob covered that with you when you called in right after you and I had breakfast at the marina that morning after you killed them all. You don't remember that?"

  She shook her head. "No. Were you on that call?"

  "No, but Mike and Bob both told me about it. The slaughter on Anastasia wasn't something they would have ordered, but they hired you because you brought a different perspective to situations like that. We all respect your judgment on that. You're the only one who's second-guessing yourself. And I understand that. It's a healthy reaction in my opinion. But now that you've worked your way through it, put it to rest. It's done; it can't be undone. Learn what you can from it and move on."

  "You said that wasn't a problem by itself," she said. "The killings. I'm not sure where you were going with that. Did you mean it was a problem in some overall context?"

  "I meant that it could be, yes. It was the immediate precursor to your disappearance. That worried us."

  "Because I disappeared? Is that it?"

  "You killed twelve people you weren't ordered to kill while you were supposed to be working for Phorcys, and then you cut and ran. Either of those acts would have raised eyebrows, but together, they set off alarms. Think about it. We wondered what the hell you were up to. Were you working for somebody else? Or did Lavrov snatch you again?

  "We didn't think you just took off on your own. But then we discovered Lavrov was looking for you, so we knew he wasn't responsible for your disappearance.

  "And once we picked up your trail, we started trying to come up with an explanation. None of the plausible reasons for your behavior were favorable for your continued relationship with Phorcys."

  She took a big swallow of wine and stared off into space again. After almost thirty seconds, she spoke. "Finn?"

  "Yes?"

  "I love you, and I know you love me. I need a straight answer to a simple question. Okay?"

  "Okay. Ask it."

  "Are you here to kill me?"

  4

  I forced myself to breathe at a normal rate, relaxing the muscles in my jaw. Dropping my gaze to the top of her chest, I fixed my eyes on the triangle of flesh exposed at her collar. If she were going to try a preemptive strike, the first sign would be a twitch in her upper pectoral muscles.

  Brute strength and experience were in my favor, but she was faster than I was. I wouldn't kill her — not now, not based on what I knew so far — but she didn't know that. If she attacked, I wasn't at all sure of the outcome.

  We sat there watching each other for what seemed like an eternity. My thoughts were racing as I considered how to answer her. She knew the score; there was no chance I could bullshit her.

  If I told her they sent me to kill her, only one of us would leave the townhouse alive. I wasn't making any bets on who it would be. If I told her I wasn't sent to kill her, she would think I was lying, and the outcome would be the same.

  "I'm going to take a drink of wine before I answer you," I said, playing for time.

  She didn't respond.

  "I'll move slowly; I don't want to alarm you, okay?"

  "Okay," she said, tension in her voice.

  I lifted the wineglass to my lips and faked taking a sip. Lowering the glass slowly, I brought it to rest in my lap, cradled in both hands.

  "Answer me, please," she said, her voice cracking. "Yes or no?"

  "I wasn't given an order to kill you. My mission was to evaluate your situation and make my own decision. To be honest, I was hoping to find you were being held here against your will."

  "Why were you hoping that?"

  "It was the only explanation we could think of that would excuse your behavior. Anything else would have left us doubting your trustworthiness. Then I would have been expected to kill you, but it was to have been my decision."

  She stared at me; her eyes narrowed to slits as she thought about what I said.

  "'It was to have been?' You phrased that carefully," she said.

  "I tried to; I can't lie to you. Not about something like that."

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her eyes relaxing. "Okay. You didn't lie, but you didn't answer me."

  "No, not yes-or-no, I didn't. But I told you the truth. None of us wants you dead."

  "I believe that, but you haven't decided yet, have you?"

  "No, I haven't."

  "Why not?"

  "You've given me new information; it changes the whole situation."

  "I see. Well, I don't think there's much more I can tell you, so I guess you need to fish or cut bait."

  "There may not be much more you can tell me, but before I decide, I need to learn more about this 'brief psychotic disorder' you have."

  "And how do you plan to do that? What is it you expect to learn?"

  "It's outside my experience; this is the first time I've even heard of such a thing. So I need to know what it means to Phorcys. Does it make you more dangerous to us? Can it explain what you've done? Is it something you can get over, and if so, is it likely to happen again? See what I mean?"

  She nodded and took a sip of her wine. "What will you do when you have those answers? Or how will you know whether to trust the answers? We both know shrinks don't guarantee the accuracy of their diagnoses. And who are you even going to ask, anyway?"

  "You've done a good job of describing my problem, except for one other thing."

  "What one other thing?"

  "I can't leave you alone while I go chasing after answers; you'r
e too good at disappearing."

  She smiled, a sad smile, and nodded. "Yeah. I can't blame you for feeling that way. You have a responsibility to the others. I get that."

  I wanted to keep her talking; the longer we conversed, the less likely she would be to attack. At least that was my hope. "How did you discover you had this 'brief psychotic disorder' thing? Can you tell me about that?"

  "I'm no psychiatrist. I can tell you what I know about it, though. But first, I want to know where your head is on this whole thing. You laid out your problem in a bunch of questions. We both know some of them will have ambiguous answers. But depending on which way the answers tip the scales, you'll either kill me or bring me back into the fold. Is that right?"

  "Yes. But you know that I hope it's the latter, that you're still part of the team. You know that, don't you?"

  "It's a relief to hear you say it; it's what I was hoping was hidden in those questions. I can't guess which way the others will vote, but at least I know you're not trying to railroad me."

  "You should know that. All of us like you; nobody's happy with this situation, and I know you aren't either."

  She nodded, but she said nothing for several seconds. She swirled the wine around in her glass, studying it. Then she looked me in the eye. "I'm not going to attack you, Finn. I saw the way you were watching me; it was the same way I was watching you. I don't blame you, and I would be lying if I said I didn't think about it. But I don't want to kill you any more than you want to kill me. I know we aren't out of the woods yet, but can we declare a truce? Maybe just for the night? Can you trust me that far?"

  "Yes." I don't see much of an alternative.

  "Good. Thank you. Now, about my little psychotic episode. Ready to talk about it?"

  "Sure. It's your story; lead on."

  "I want to go upstairs and get some stuff off my desk, okay?"

  "Sure. I'll be right here when you get back."

  5

  When she returned, Mary had a notebook in her hand. "Given my problems with memory lately, I want to refer to this if I need to."