by C G Cooper
“The same thing you do, darling. Freedom and peace.”
“At the luncheon, you claimed to know a lot about men in my line of work.”
“It’s practically a vocation.”
He remembered the request he’d made to Kreisburg for compartmentalized info on Anne. A request that had gone unanswered.
“You’re not an officer.”
“Dear God, no. How do you breathe with a handler hanging round your neck?”
Mac sat back. “An asset, then.”
“I’ve been told,” said Anne, crossing her legs, “that I’m the best asset any of my darling boys ever had.”
He wondered how long it took her to put on makeup. The rouge on her cheeks, the crimson lipstick, her black mascara. Every delicate touch a flashbulb to show her best features when the sun wasn’t at an agreeable angle. He fought down a thumping urge to tear off her pearlescent blouse.
“I don’t get you. You want me to think you’re something special, but you won’t give me anything. What information are you keeping from me?”
“The mind reels. But credit where due, please. I’ve helped you already.”
Mac stretched his neck, thinking back. “You sent me the photo.”
“Shh,” said Anne. “What would Mickie think?”
“Our mutual friend—”
“Mister Ross is no friend of mine,” Anne said. Up until that moment, she was a stone wall. But at the suggestion of common cause with Jordan Ross, her clenched serenity dissolved. Reflexively, she shut her eyes. When she opened them again, her disdain for lesser mortals had returned.
“Okay,” said Mac. “Our acquaintance, then. He’s been operating for some time. You couldn’t have sent a name instead of making me chase it down?”
“Certainly I could have,” she said.
“Why didn’t you?”
“It’s been a day, darling. What’s your rush? Have you some reason to believe the end is nigh?”
“What else do you know?”
“I know all, see all. You want to know why I did not bleed myself of secrets upon our first acquaintance. Simple. I wanted to know if I could trust you, Mac. Not in the sense that any play you could make has a hope of upsetting my plans. I want to know if you’re up to the task I’ve drafted for you to accomplish.”
“If you’re trying to rile me, get over it. Prima donnas with delusions of grandeur don’t scare me. You talk like you had something to do with getting me here. My reasons are known to myself and people higher than our pay grades combined.”
“Darling, I’m so high you’d need a scissor lift to lick my toes. I suppose you think Bogey Billings gave you the nod as payment for your years of free caddying. Mais non. I was the one who saw your potential, Mac. I was the one who sold you to Bogey. Did you think he got his name on the links, by the way? No. It’s because he only needs one extra stroke to do anything I ask.”
Mac sat up straight, startled by this revelation. He couldn’t form the words to reply. It took a few long moments before he noticed that the clanking from the kitchen had taken on an orderly, wrapping-up quality.
“Why should I believe you?” he hissed.
“One quick call will put everything in order. Is that what you’d like, proof?”
Too many complications added to the ticking time on his wrist. Mac exhaled. What did he have to lose?
“I believe you.”
“Well done. Now, prove to me that you’re the man for the job,” Anne purred. She uncrossed her legs, turned her face to the side. Snarling in profile, she looked savage, wolf-like. Her mid-Atlantic accent faltered, replaced by a hodgepodge of influences. The change made her sound like a lit Molotov cocktail. “The game was fun for a time. Then those fools made the mistake of crossing me. I don’t forgive, you understand. Now that I’ve started, I won’t stop until the least of them is broken.” She snapped an imaginary branch over her knee. When she spoke again, she’d resumed the accent. “I brought you in to show them what you can do for me, Mac.”
From a pocket of her cream-colored trousers, she produced a cell phone. It was recent model, in a scuffed pink cover. She slid it across the coffee table.
All Mac could do was stare.
“It’s not mine, if you’re wondering. The color clashes with my wardrobe.”
With his hands trembling slightly, Mac scooped up the phone. “This is—”
“I took the liberty of disabling the lock screen to save you time.”
“It’s Tiffany’s?”
“Soup’s on,” Mikayla called from the kitchen. “Or salad, at least.”
“Just coming, dear,” Anne called back. Then in her previous tone, “Listen to me, Mac. I’m going to respect your privacy with my friend. In return, I ask that you respect her intelligence.”
“I—”
“Your bruises, darling. You can’t let her see them, if you get my meaning. Bad enough you didn’t cover this one up.” She touched his jaw. The discoloration stung. “You walked into a door, correct? I doubt Mickie will believe you tumbled down a set of stairs, on the same night.”
Mac shook the phone. “Where’d you get this?”
“Where Jade hid it for me.”
“Jade?”
“Tiffany. Don’t change the subject. I won’t see Mickie endangered. I’ll give you an hour. Plenty of time to win her with your charm. After that, she’ll be called away. You won’t have to lie this time.” She stood, smoothing her trousers.
There was nothing more to say. At least, there was nothing he could ask that he expected she would answer. Her warning not to let Mikayla see his bruises was unnecessary. As much as he would have liked to spend the night, the possibilities that the recovered phone presented were too compelling to ignore. All he had to do was give it a charge and connect it to the transmitter sitting in the townhouse closet. Then he could locate the bugged equipment Tiffany had set out to scan.
By morning, he could be free of the countdown ticking away on his watch. He still wasn’t sure how he’d be able to build on his connection with Mikayla after he left the school, but getting out from under his deadline would leave him freer to try.
“Fine,” he said to Anne. “I’ll do what you say. We want the same things.”
“I hope so,” said Anne. “Don’t forget the wine.”
She led him to the table.
Chapter Thirty
They sat in silence as the thrum of the Jag’s engine receded into the night.
“I thought she’d never leave,” said Mikayla. She danced around the table and stood on tiptoes to kiss Mac.
As he drew her body to his own, the ache from his ribs reminded him of the promise he’d made to Anne. It’d been smart of her to taint his evening with bittersweetness. The kiss was so intense, he forgot his plans for Tiffany’s phone until Mikayla pulled away.
“Wow,” he said. “I was on the islands for a second there. Walking on the beach at sunrise, surf calling to me.”
She gave him a short peck and said, “I’m tempted to skip supper, but I know the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“That’s one theory,” he said. If not for his bruises, he would have scooped her up in his arms. Instead he sighed, “I do wake up hungry.”
“I make a great breakfast,” she said.
“I bet you do. Dinner smells amazing. We better have that first. I’m feeling light-headed.”
“Must be the wine.”
They sat down across from each other. The table was too long for Mac’s liking. He wanted to be closer.
“What did you and Anne talk about?”
He’d not had time to think up a really good answer, so he said, “This and that. I think she wanted to apologize for the other day.”
“Apologize? Anne?”
“Maybe not. Actually, she told me what she’d do to me if you got hurt. In vivid detail.”
Mikayla poured herself wine from Anne’s bottle. “That’s more like it.” She sipped, pursed her lips admi
ringly. “You always know where you stand with Anne-Jeanette. You know she’s the head of our department?”
“You see a lot of her.”
“Sometimes too much.” She swirled and sipped the Sangiovese wine again. “Sorry. Forget I said that. Anne’s a good boss and a wonderful friend.”
“How’s she for a landlady?”
“Exhausting. I didn’t ask you over to talk about her, though.”
Mac relaxed. Telling Mikayla even the slightest of white lies cut him to the bone. He couldn’t have kept it up for long.
“What do you want to talk about?” he said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Politics. Religion. Whatever.”
“How about you?” he said. “Tell me about yourself.”
So she did. She took him on an abbreviated tour of her childhood, prompted by his encouragement every time she suggested that the next part of the tale was boring. Mac ate two servings of spaghetti. The sauce was enlivened by a spice he couldn’t name. It tingled on his tongue a split second before the buttery pasta fused it into an accent note on the tomato and herbs. As Mac lost track of the time, he said, “This is like nothing I’ve ever tasted.” They made it nearly to the end of the meal before Mikayla turned the tables on him.
Clearing away his plate, she said, “What about you? No special someone waiting for you back in— Where was it again?”
He said, “I’ve got an apartment in Cabin John, but it’s mostly a place to hang my suits. I work days and nights in Langley. And no. There hasn’t been anybody special for a long time.”
“Ever been married?” she said, trying to sound casual.
Mac’s set down his fork. “Yeah, once. She died seven years ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“We, uh, actually split up a few months before,” he said. “I thought it was because of the job. That was part of it, but she knew about the cancer before she told me that we were over.”
Mikayla’s sympathy was palpable as she said, “She wanted to spare you.”
“I think so. My wife’s mom and dad didn’t see it that way, though. They sued for custody of our daughter - her name’s Leilani - on the grounds that I was an absentee father. Which was true up ‘til then. I was gonna leave the Company, make a fresh start. Didn’t work out, but that’s a story I’ll save for another time.”
Mikayla rose, paced into the kitchen, her cheeks pink with concern. “That’s—” She paced back, turned around, repeated the performance.
“You okay?” said Mac.
“No,” she said. “How do you—”
“You know what would cheer me up?” he said. “Some of that dessert Anne was talking about.”
“Dessert?” said Mikayla. “Dessert. Yeah. Good idea.”
She produced a metal pie cutter from a drawer and a serving plate covered by a plastic dome from the refrigerator. Flashing him a tight smile, she lifted the dome to reveal what looked like a chocolate cream pie. Two china plates stood ready on the island. Deftly, she slid a slice onto each. He waited until she was seated before plunging in his fork. The flavor was instantly familiar.
“My grandmother used to make this,” he said. “We call it haupia, coconut milk pudding and chocolate. I can’t remember the last time I had it.”
“This is my first,” she said.
“A-plus,” he said. “I mean it.”
“Good as your grandmother’s?”
“Better.”
The compliment brought back the glow his tragic history had banished. He forced himself to eat slowly. He knew that if he finished the slice, she’d offer him another. From first course to last, he hadn’t looked at his watch once. Still, he sensed that their time was nearly up.
Without meaning to say anything, he said, “You’re amazing.”
She paused in mid-bite and pulled the fork out of her mouth. “I’ll say this for you, darling. You’re terribly perceptive.” Her impression of Anne was spot-on.
Mac was chewing the last of his crust when Mikayla’s phone rang. Their time was up.
Mikayla looked at Mac, measuring, calculating.
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll be— I understand. How’s twenty minutes sound?”
She hung up and returned the phone to her purse.
“Trouble at the mill?” said Mac.
“That was the police. A student of mine— Sorry. I probably shouldn’t say anything more.”
She covered the pie plate with its dome.
“Take this. It’s not what I was hoping to send you home with. Actually, I wasn’t hoping to send you home at all.”
“It’s all right.”
“Is it?” She kissed him. It was a cooler, more contained sensation than their first kiss had been, but no less thrilling. “I am so gonna make this up to you.”
“I can’t ask for a rain check after that meal.”
“You can. Believe me, you can.”
“Okay. Rain check, then.”
“Rain check,” she said, and kissed him again.
He offered to drive her into town. She refused.
Sooner than he would have liked, Mac was snug in his overcoat and sitting in the rented sedan. Before he buckled up, he pulled Tiffany’s phone from his pocket and set it on the passenger seat.
After one more wave to Mikayla, he backed out. She followed him to the highway then took a right toward Wilburville. He turned left.
Mac drove on, and even considered looping around, tailing her to town. But the details of Anne’s distraction made little difference. Tiffany’s phone, on the other hand, might make all the difference in the world.
Chapter Thirty-One
He pulled over to try his charger on Tiffany’s phone, taking shallow breaths for the five minutes it took for the screen to blink on. The startup display showed a swirl of rose petals followed by the gray outline of a battery with a single line of red at the bottom.
Wishing he had someone with him to high five, he called Kreisburg. One of the old man’s assistants picked up, which was lucky. If Kreisburg himself had hopped on the line, Mac would have had to spend time arguing the details of his plan. As it was, he left a brief message and drove on.
A few minutes later, he pulled over again to call Chance. The detective had spent the late afternoon consulting with the forensics team at the Ross farm. They’d found the dogs - two Bluetick Hounds - each with a bullet in its head, under the snow.
Buried deeper were the remains of two adults, as yet unidentified, in a state of decomposition consistent with having been placed in the ground in late autumn. Mac took this as confirmation of what he had already guessed. Yawning into the receiver, Chance announced his plans to get some shut eye and signed off.
Mac finished his trip to the townhouse and killed time while the phone took a full charge. A bunch of air squats and push-ups later, the alarm he’d set on his own phone buzzed. He splashed water over his face and got the portable transmitter out of the closet. He retrieved his gun case while he was at it and carried both into the kitchen.
Tiffany’s phone was fully charged. There were no apps marked “Top Secret Decryption Routine” waiting for him, but the transmitter’s built-in CPU would be doing the hard work. He plugged the charging cable into the USB port. A bleep informed him that the phone was going into media server mode. Then the screen went dark and the OS exited to console. White letters scrolled against a black background.
Mac waited, gritting his teeth. Finally, the text was replaced by a login screen he recognized. He entered his CIA credentials and was greeted by the graphic interface of an encrypt/decrypt program, complete with SPD scanning capabilities.
Ten minutes later, he entered the Fountain Tunnel on foot. The boot print evidence said that Tiffany had passed the door to Morris Hall, then doubled back. He traced her path now with mounting excitement.
On his way through the tunnel, he passed a young couple engrossed in conversation. Listening to their laughter, he imagined Tiffany and Jordan Ross in thei
r place. In life, she had been attractive, if not quite a beauty, and smarter than even her professors knew, judging by how successfully she’d hidden her double life.
What had drawn her to a reject from a death metal album cover, a young man who wasn’t even a student at the school? He couldn’t guess.
Tiffany must have been encouraged by Anne Keyes. Trained by her, perhaps, before she had entered Jordan’s clandestine circle. The girl had been a spy equipped to spy on other spies. From the emotion she had displayed before dinner, Anne didn’t seem the type to put a student in harm’s way without cause. Whatever the balaclavas were after, she clearly thought stopping them was worth the risk.
The tall man with the red-ringed eye had inflicted blows with the precision of one who revels in the power of violence. A psychopath. The woman had fought pragmatically, though with a determination that told Mac she was trying to impress someone.
Jordan, he suspected, was a pledge to their criminal fraternity. Somebody, most likely the tall man, had pushed him to commit horrible acts. The tactic was familiar to Mac from his studies of child armies. Capture an inductee, abuse him until he feels helpless, then force him to violate and kill until the boundaries of his humanity collapse. After that, you can get him to do anything.
Maybe a variation of the formula had been applied to Tiffany. By some unknown means, someone had made her feel like a trapped animal, so desperate to escape that she’d killed herself in the process. It was the only theory that connected the boot prints, the residue, and Paul Arken’s ravings about mind control. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Mac was sure the scarecrow was onto something.
If the balaclavas had found a way to fast-track the dehumanization of a subject, they could accelerate recruitment for terrorist organizations all over the world. Ross was weak-willed, but Tiffany wasn’t. She’d conducted a successful infiltration of an enemy organization with Anne Keyes coaching her along the way. Yet, in the end, she’d been compelled to her death.
In a flash of insight, the implications of Tiffany’s final mission came to Mac. She must have been on the verge of securing evidence that would have exposed the opposing spymaster. That had to be it.
