by David Archer
Her smile spread across her face. “You might be surprised,” she said. “Did you consider the possibility that your presence is the reason no one paid attention? Even for those who don’t know who you truly are, you cut quite an imposing figure. I recognized three faces inside the bank, and I can assure you that any one of them would be pleased if something bad would happen to me.”
“Why? What have you done to them?”
Monique laughed. “It isn’t so much what I’ve done to them,” she said, “as what they revealed to me about themselves. I seduced them, Mr. Wolf, and in so doing I learned that they are men of socially unacceptable tastes. Since they would greatly prefer not to have anyone learn of their proclivities, they grudgingly grant me whatever I require of them.”
“Blackmail?” Noah asked. “Oh, wait, that’s your stock in trade, isn’t it?”
“If it works, it works. I used to think that being so small made me weak and vulnerable, but the truth is actually quite the opposite. Men like those, they see my diminutive stature as a way to exercise their most secret fantasies. I play along, and then I simply send them an email. One look at the video that I attach to it is usually enough to ensure their cooperation, because I’ve learned to use camera angles and software that make me look much younger than I truly am.”
Noah nodded. “They’re pedophiles, then,” he said. “They pretend that you are a child?”
“Which is something they don’t want anyone else, particularly their wives and business associates, to ever find out. It’s absolutely amazing to me how many men fall for that trap.” She let her eyes roam over Noah. “But you wouldn’t.”
“No. But if you ever decide you want them eliminated, please feel free to hand me that assignment.”
She lowered her eyebrows. “Why? Despite their fantasies, we were all consenting adults.”
“Because the day might come when pretending with a small woman won’t be enough to satisfy those fantasies. Eliminating them might very well prevent a child from ever suffering at their hands.”
“Well, well,” Monique said. “Perhaps I’ll let you do just that, one of these days.”
“So, what’s next?” Noah asked. “Where do we go from here?”
“Back to Memphis. I’ll drop you there, and then I have to go home.”
They arrived at the airport a few minutes later, and the chauffeur took them directly to the area where the Learjet was waiting. Noah followed Monique through the gate and onto the plane, stowed the briefcase under her seat, and reclaimed the seat that would be facing her. The flight crew took care of their last-minute details, and the plane was in the air only a few minutes later.
Monique was leaning back in her seat with her eyes closed, and Noah took the opportunity to look more closely at her hands. They were perfectly proportioned in themselves, yet they seemed smaller than the rest of her body would indicate. Monique was about the size of an average twelve-year-old girl, but her hands looked like they would fit better on a six-year-old.
He looked up at her face and let the dots find the various points on her features. “Where are you from, originally?”
Monique’s eyes opened and she looked at him. “Why do you ask?”
Noah shrugged. “You said something earlier about how we could be friends,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I guess if I had to be honest, today you don’t seem so frightening or evil. Makes me curious about you.”
She let a slow smile spread across her features. “I’m an American,” she said, “just like you. Small-town girl who ended up in the big city and found out how the world really works.”
“Everyone thinks you’re part of the CIA,” Noah went on, “but I don’t think so. I’m not sure exactly who or what you are, but I know you can pull a lot of strings. Seems to me that if I’m going to be working for you, now, it couldn’t hurt to let go of my anger and see if we can’t develop some mutual loyalty.”
“You mean, I could let my guard down around you? Not have to worry that you might shove a knife in my throat?” There was a small increase in the upward curvature of her smile.
“Can you really arrange for me to vanish from E & E?” He focused on the orange dots and watched them carefully.
“That’s surprisingly easy to do,” she said, and the dots indicated she was telling the truth. “Some of the people I control are quite capable of producing bodies that would convince anyone you were dead. I also have people who can alter the DNA records that I know are on file for you, so even DNA identification would pass. As far as Neverland would know, you would be dead and buried.”
There was still no change in the display.
“And I’m right, aren’t I? You’re not part of the CIA. Whatever you do, you have a much greater reach than that.”
Monique only looked at him but said nothing.
Noah grinned at her. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“It never hurts to ask a question,” she replied, “but sometimes it can hurt to answer one. You surely don’t want me to start wondering why you want these answers, do you?”
“It’s just simple curiosity,” Noah said. “I don’t expect you to tell me anything that could actually identify you, and I wouldn’t ask questions like that. To be honest, though, I’m wondering how someone who obviously has no actual connection to the government could be as powerful as you seem to have become. The guy you had me kill back at Neverland? Randy Mitchell? I knew him. If there was ever a man I would’ve trusted, it would’ve been him. Somehow, though, you managed to subvert him and, I’m guessing now, get him to get you all the information you needed on me. Right?”
She winked at him. “Touché,” she said. “Obviously, he knew too much. If he decided to work against me, he could have blown things for both of us. His death was a good thing, beneficial to our mutual interests.”
“I’m not going to completely disagree,” Noah said, “but I’m a little concerned that you were done with him so easily. What happens if you decide you don’t need me any longer? Am I going to get a visit in the night, the way he did?”
Monique simply looked at him for several seconds, then cocked her head slightly to the right. “If I reach the point of being unable to trust you,” she said slowly, “then that is obviously a possibility. However, that little gift I gave you, the one under your arm, pretty well ensures that won’t happen, don’t you think?”
The glasses indicated no deception, and Noah shrugged. “I’ll admit to a certain determination not to get on your bad side, and some definite interest in your personal well-being.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Camelot, I’m going to answer a couple of your questions. This is one of those quid pro quo things, where I give you something because I want something in return. Ready?”
Noah gave a quick nod. “Sure.”
Monique smiled. “Okay, then,” she said, “here’s the answer to your last question. No, I’m not directly connected to the CIA. My connections are actually much higher than that. I can honestly state that I have access to and control over personnel in every major intelligence agency in the United States, as well as having a few people scattered around other agencies throughout the world.”
Noah let this run through his mind for a moment. “Okay, I can see that,” he said. “Quid pro quo. You answered my question, now I’ll answer one for you.”
“Good, because I’ve got one,” she said. “A couple of days ago, you went to Neverland. You spent several hours at R&D the afternoon you arrived, but you didn’t pick up the phones until the following morning. What was going on out there for those hours?”
Noah thought quickly and then smiled. “Don’t you already know?”
“Yes,” she said calmly, “but I want to see if you’ll be honest about it.”
The dots on the inside of the lenses turned red, and the display lit up with “Deception detected.” In less than a second, Noah thought through the implications, but he could not be certain whether the d
etected deception indicated that she actually did not know or if she truly did not care about his honesty.
“Wally has come up with some interesting new toys,” he said. “A few of them appealed to me, and I wanted to take the time to check them out. I ended up bringing some back with me to Arkansas, something he calls a ‘smart gun’ that can be hidden just about anywhere and will watch for a particular target. When someone comes into view, it uses facial-recognition technology to decide whether that person is the target or not. If it is, the gun aims and fires instantly.”
Monique’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Interesting,” she said. “The report that I got indicated that you spent some time alone in a highly secure area of the facility. Why was that?”
The glasses indicated that she was telling the truth. “That was because certain items I was shown are so new and highly classified that only a team leader is allowed to see them. The rest of my team had to go put up with Wally trying to entertain them for an hour or so.”
Monique watched him for a moment, then inclined her head toward him in acceptance. “Okay,” she said. “I got two in a row, so I’ll give you one more.”
Noah looked directly into her eyes for five seconds, then smiled. “What’s your ultimate goal?” he asked. “You’ve got an incredible amount of power, but something tells me you’re not out to rule the world. What is it you’re really after?”
“Wow,” she said with a chuckle. “Straight to the finish line, right? I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you the short version for now. If things progress smoothly, then eventually I’ll fill in the details. Acceptable?”
Noah nodded once. “Acceptable.”
She leaned her head back against the seat for a moment, then sighed. “Noah—you don’t mind if I use your first name, right?”
“Why not?”
“Good. You see, Noah, our world is managed by groups of people who, to me, personify evil. Innocent people are sacrificed every day so that these groups can build and maintain their power, and I find that unacceptable. Unfortunately, many of them are so well insulated that there’s no way to strip them of that power, short of killing them.” She raised her head again and looked him in the eye. “Some years ago, I came to realize that power is like a chess game. If you can maneuver your pawns into positions of strength, but without letting your opponent realize what it is that you’re trying to do, you can eventually surprise them with a checkmate. Once I understood that, and managed to make certain connections that would allow me to see what my opponents’ future moves were likely to be, I decided to try to play against them. Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that I would have to be every bit as ruthless and cunning as they were, which is why you and I are having this conversation today.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a couple of seconds, then smiled at him. “You want to know what my goal is? It’s to completely undermine the power of the oligarchs, the groups that run the world from the shadows. I don’t give a damn about ruling the world; I think that should be a matter of the will of the people. The problem is that there are so many of these groups that the will of the people is never truly known. I’m preparing an endgame that I hope will topple at least some of those groups, and expose others.” She shrugged. “Maybe then the people will have a chance to run their own world.”
The dots stayed orange. Monique was telling the truth.
“You are an altruist, then?” Noah asked. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I find that just a bit hard to believe.”
“An altruist? Probably not. I definitely have some selfish motives in mind. I want to be protected and safe when all this goes down, and I don’t want to have to worry about my own personal future. There might even be a few people that I genuinely care about, so some of this is for them rather than for just everybody. No, I don’t think I’m being altruistic; I think I’m just being coldly and ruthlessly practical. The only thing these groups can understand is the same kind of power and force that they use, so I have had to learn to express myself in their language.”
Noah chuckled. “You seem to have achieved a significant level of fluency.”
“Well, it came at a high price. Would you believe, I used to be the kind of girl who cried over homeless kittens? I had an almost perfect attendance record at Sunday school until I was nineteen, and I had a very hard time accepting my role in all of this. It took the better part of ten years for me to get up the nerve to do some of the things I have to do. The first time I used sex to get information, I spent hours crying and begging God to forgive me, but I learned what a powerful tool it really is. Now, it’s just another weapon in my arsenal. When you sacrifice innocence in the pursuit of power, it’s hard to decide whether you’ve won or lost, you know?”
“I’m sure you sacrificed more than that,” Noah said. “Family, children—if you’ve honestly committed yourself to the path you’re describing, then your life is undoubtedly far from what you expected it to be.”
Monique giggled suddenly, and Noah had a brief mental impression of what she must’ve been like as a child. “The key to success in any endeavor,” she said, “is knowing how to insulate one part of your life from another. Would it surprise you to learn that I’m a happily married woman?”
“A bit, yes. I suspect your husband might be surprised if he knew who his wife really is.”
“That’s why he doesn’t know. He can never know. That’s one of many reasons I’m so careful about who knows who I really am, and why I make sure that I have their absolute loyalty, no matter how I have to get it.”
“Which explains this little gadget in my arm, right?” Noah asked.
Monique nodded. “An unfortunate but necessary measure. I actually have hopes that you’ll become a genuine and trusted ally, but until that time…”
“I suppose anything is possible,” Noah said. “At the moment, you still present enough of a threat to me and my family that I’m not sure we’ll ever reach that point. Once we’re out of E & E, that might change.”
She shrugged and smiled. “One can only hope.”
“You got two questions in a row, so I get one more. How does selling American secrets to our potential enemies benefit your plan to eliminate oligarchy? When you had Sarah captured and sent to the Chinese, they were trying to identify me and prove the existence of E & E. Had they been successful, it could have done significant damage to American national security.”
Monique laughed. “But they weren’t,” she said. “I’m sorry that your Sarah had to be used in the way she was, but it wasn’t about helping the Chinese identify you. It was about getting all the intel on you that I possibly could for myself. I first learned about you almost a year ago, but you were wrapped in such a shroud of secrecy that I couldn’t even get your real name. All I knew was Camelot, and that you were considered America’s number one assassin. You’ll find that I always employ the best, because only the best are going to help me achieve my goals.” She leaned back in her seat and sighed. “I stumbled across Mitchell about a year ago and was able to learn enough to identify his family. I got him to cooperate by proving to him that I could reach them at any time, and for the most part all I needed him to do was keep me apprised of the missions his team was involved in. Knowing who was going to be taken out allowed me to adapt and modify any existing plans I might have, you see. Then, when he let me know that he was working with the famous Team Camelot, I required him to give me particular details of the mission. All he knew at that point was that a female operative who was part of your team had been abducted from an undercover operation in the Bangkok Hilton, but it wasn’t hard for me to find out who had snatched her. I got a message to them explaining just how valuable the blonde girl was and arranged for them to profit substantially by turning her over to those who would transport her to China. Once the Chinese had her, I simply waited for you to make your move.”
“You expected me to go after her,” Noah said, a statement rather than a question. “But what was the point?”
&n
bsp; Monique leaned her head forward, and her eyebrows rose. “Well, the point was to make sure you were really as good as your PR. I knew just enough about you to know that you’d go to any lengths to get her back. I had my people watching when you took down the safe house on Hong Kong Island, and I have to tell you that they were impressed.” She settled back again. “After that, I just pressured Mitchell to get me any information he could find on you. Anyone who could not only get past all of the Chinese intelligence community to find her, but then manage to get out of the country without being caught? I knew right then that I definitely needed you working with me. How did you get out of China, by the way?”
“I stole an antique airplane and flew it into Vietnam. It was a little tricky, especially when we had to shoot down a fighter jet along the way.”
The eyebrows went up another notch. “Impressive,” she said. “That wasn’t in your file.”
“I think the Dragon Lady decided to keep that out of the after-action report. It had the potential to cause several different kinds of international incident.”
“The Dragon Lady? That’s what you call Allison Peterson?”
Noah grinned. “Kind of our internal nickname for her. If you knew her, you’d understand.”
“I’m just surprised I hadn’t heard it before,” Monique said. “I’ve had someone almost on top of her for the last eight months, but they never mentioned that nickname.”
The orange dots didn’t flicker.
“That’s interesting,” Noah said. “I would never guess you could’ve gotten that close to her. I know you had Randy Mitchell, and there was that girl in Korea, but I guess it just never occurred to me that you might go for the average office worker. It’s her secretary, right?”
Monique only smiled.
After a moment, Noah chuckled. “Of course,” he said, “you’re not going to tell me anything yet. First you have to be sure you can trust me, right?”
