Fatal Exchange

by Cindy M. Hogan

  The thief was fast. I had to give him that. But thanks to rigorous physical training, I was faster. I closed the distance between us with a burst of speed. Only a bit further. I reached out and caught a fistful of his jacket, but he simply shrugged it off and ducked behind a corner. I let the jacket fall to the ground and turned the corner after him. The alley’s narrow walkway was packed with people. I looked around, frantic, running down the walkway, bumping into people as I went, searching for him and any doors or windows he could have entered. As I made it to the end, it was obvious there were none, only solid stucco walls on both sides of me. He was gone.

  I rubbed my hands roughly over my face and shook my head. This was not good. My chest squeezed with what this would mean. My mind scrambled for solutions—I needed to find that thief. I gritted my teeth and fought back a groan. I’d had him—his jacket had been in my hands, that yellow sun taunted my memory.

  There was nothing for it. The drive was long gone by now. I needed to get back to headquarters and start brainstorming with my team how we were going to get that information. We’d just have to convince Dufor to recopy it. I knew he’d be reluctant, but perhaps he could be persuaded. I took a deep breath, fighting back the wave of nausea and despair that threatened to crash over me. Dufor would have to help us. He was our only hope now. I ran back the way I’d come, bumping through the crowds to the metro, people calling out about my lack of footwear. C’est dégoutant, ça!

  As I gasped for air, waiting on the platform for the train to arrive, Ace’s voice sounded in my ear once again. “Christy. Christy. Do you read? Report to headquarters immediately.” His voice was loud and clear. “Dufor is dead.”

  Chapter 2

  I called Ace as soon as I exited the metro and found a quiet spot.

  “What happened, Ace? Tell me it’s not true. He can’t be dead.” Heat seared my heart, and I gripped the back of a bench to steady myself.

  “Someone stabbed him three times before shoving him off the train at his exit.” His Canadian French was so distinctly different from what I’d learned during my three-month intensive training, I had to focus to catch every word.

  I gasped. “This is all my fault. I never should have left him.” I stood still, my hand grasping the bench tightly.

  There was a slight pause. “You had to get the drive, Christy. Dufor knew the risk.”

  I tilted my head to the sky and closed my burning eyes to prevent the tears. “I didn’t get it, Ace. The thief—he just disappeared.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but stunned silence. Then Ace said, “Come in, Christy. We’ll figure this out.” His voice was firm, but lacked its usual confidence when giving instruction.

  “Okay.” It was almost a whisper as I stood.

  “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “We’re meeting in the conference room. It’s all going to be okay. Don’t worry.”

  “I’ll be there soon.” My head hung down as I walked toward the building that housed Division.

  I walked to headquarters, barely registering my surroundings. My chest felt tight, and guilt ate at me. Dufor had been my responsibility, and he’d been killed on my watch. I kept seeing his face—the look of utter dismay right before I’d left him on the train. The decision to go after the drive played over and over in my mind and for a terrible second, I thought about running away so I wouldn’t have to face my team. I trudged up the stairs. I was a failure in the worst way, and someone had died because of my error. I wiped my hands on my skirt before grabbing the door handle and entering the building. I wished I could talk to Jeremy.

  After taking the stairs to the basement, I pulled open the first door on the left, marked Médecine Gaston. To a civilian, it appeared to be the entrance to a doctor’s office, complete with receptionist, chairs, magazines, and crappy music playing. I looked up in hopes of clearing the tears that welled up in my eyes. I shook my head and glanced at the placard next to the door for a fraction of a second, allowing the hidden retinal scanner to scan my eye. The lock on the door slid open silently.

  The door handle scanned my fingerprint and sent my identification to the receptionist’s computer. Once the computer confirmed I was a valid agent, she buzzed me through to the scanner room. The full body scanner was the last defense against anyone trying to forge an agent’s identity. I took deep breaths, trying to stop the shivers that threatened to overpower me. Once I was verified, a door unlocked, allowing me access to the enormous underground space Division claimed. Without a word, and angling my body away from anyone who came near, I made my way into the conference room. As I passed them, Halluis, Ace, and Rosabella rose silently from their desks and followed behind me.

  As they filed into the room, a deep ache spread through my chest. I forced myself to look at them. Rosabella looked sick, a green tinge to her face and sweat beading on her forehead. Her normally bright blue eyes looked dull. Even her curly, brown hair hung limp, like she’d torn at it over and over in frustration and anxiety. Ace and Halluis were quiet and subdued, which was odd for Ace. I didn’t think anything could get him down. Despite the ashen color that marred both their faces, they pulled out smiles for me. Ace tugged me into a quick side hug, a piece of his boyish, caring self bleeding through the stress. The new tattoo on his forearm caught my eye. The bright green color of the snake wrapping around the brown dagger was hard to miss. An angry, thin line of red surrounding the art was the only indication he’d received it recently. His earthy, sweet smell comforted me, but only for a minute. Anger welled up inside me. Anger at the boy who’d taken the drive and anger at the people who’d dared to kill Dufor. As I pulled back, Ace handed me a sucker from his pocket. He was the candy man after all.

  I knew it wouldn’t be long before Siron showed up. I had to apologize. “Look guys, I’m sorry. It was all my fault, and I’ll make sure Siron understands that.”

  All eyes darted toward me. Ace’s were soft and kind. Halluis’s nervous and worried, mirroring his all black attire.

  “I cleared the train. At least I thought I did.” My frantic search through the train car played once again in my mind. “I didn’t see a threat. And I knew Agent Heiner and Agent Kawalski would have Dufor the second he arrived at the next stop. I thought he was safe. Obviously, I was wrong. I missed someone.” I brushed at the tear that streamed down my face. How had I missed someone? Rosabella moved toward me.

  “Oh, Christy, it could’ve happened to any of us.” She clasped my upper arms, her soft hands cold, mirroring her cool blue manicure.

  “No. No. It wouldn’t have. I let my guard down. I was sloppy. And Rosabella, this was your op and so perfectly planned.” Why was she being nice to me?

  “It’s not like you ignored protocol, Christy,” Halluis said as he raised one dark eyebrow. “You had a difficult decision to make. You believed Dufor was safe. You double-checked. Only then did you go after the drive.” His hand rubbed over his pencil thin mustache. It was hard for him to be kind after such a terrible blunder.

  Ace said, “I know it can be tough out there, Christy, that’s why I try to stay inside at all costs.” He pushed his sleeves all the way up until they sat just above his elbows.

  Rosabella interrupted, “But I think you should be prepared for Siron. She is hard as nails.” She rubbed her hands down her tight fitting skirt.

  I nodded, refusing to let another tear fall. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better, guys, but this…this was big.”

  “Come on, Rosabella,” Ace said. “Siron was an agent once. She knows what it can be like.” I wondered if Rosabella had botched a mission and that was why she stayed inside, too.

  “But has she ever gotten someone killed?” I said. “Whatever happens to me, whatever punishment she gives me, I totally deserve it.”

  Ace straightened as Siron—the director of Division 57’s Paris chapter—entered the room and shut the door behind her. Her tall, lean frame set us in a flurry of motion to sit, though she remained
standing, rigid. Her stony look gave nothing away. As always, she wore a perfectly tailored suit coat that leant her a look of importance. Her two inch heels barely poked out of the bottom of her dress pants.

  Panic filled me, my heart racing like that of a scared rabbit. I forced my eyes to hers.

  “I need a full accounting of what happened, Agent Hadden.” There was no sympathy in her voice, only command. Rosabella had been right. It was surprising that at Siron’s age—she had to be at least fifty—she only had a hint of crow’s feet around her dark eyes.

  I told her everything and took full and total responsibility.

  One of her perfectly shaped eyebrows started to twitch when I admitted that I’d been unable to retrieve the drive after leaving Dufor. At my last word, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose.

  “You have been nothing but a disappointment, Agent Hadden,” she said, her voice quiet and her gaze piercing. “When I received your file, I thought, this is too good to be true. Accelerated through training school, phenomenal test scores, astounding affinity for memorization and learning, fluent in seven languages, with comprehension skills in another ten! And so young—not even out of your teens.” Her full lips curled in disdain. “So disappointing. I should have known that your talents on paper wouldn’t translate to excellence in the field.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out—memories of everything that had gone wrong on my missions flashed through my mind. It was true that none of them had ever gone perfectly.

  Siron’s mouth twitched, and I suspected she was suppressing a smirk. She seemed almost pleased to have this chance to deride me in front my team. I didn’t dare look at any of them for fear I’d see agreement on their faces.

  “Your handler—Agent McGinnis, I believe—spoke particularly highly of you. He said you were exceptionally skilled at improvisation. So, let’s hear it. What is your brilliant plan to redeem yourself and salvage what is left of this mission?”

  I could tell by her tone and the scornful look in her eye that she didn’t really expect an answer. She was expecting me to have nothing to say, and my humiliation would be complete.

  But I did have a plan. When I’d learned Dufor was dead, that we had no hope of getting the information from him, my mind had immediately begun formulating.

  I swallowed and mustered the courage to speak. “I saw the pickpocket’s face. I can go undercover, find the thief and his gang, and retrieve the drive.”

  Her lip curled, and her small nose wrinkled.

  “Ridiculous. To search for one pickpocket in a sea of thousands could take weeks. We do not have weeks.”

  “Respectfully, Director, it wouldn’t take me weeks.”

  “Ah, I see you still think so highly of yourself, despite the utter lack of evidence,” she waved a hand dismissively. “No, it’s impossible. Even if you were as talented as your file claims, it couldn’t be done. Find one pickpocket in the middle of Paris? If that was the extent of your plan,” she spit the word at me like poison, “I am even more disgusted than before. If you had stuck with Dufor and protected him, he could have made another copy. Now we have no informant and no way of retrieving the information.”

  I chafed inwardly at her words, but kept my face passive. “Director, I know I made a mistake today, but—”

  “A mistake?” Her voice was acid. “A man is dead, Agent Hadden. Where I come from, we do not have tolerance for such a mistake.”

  The room was silent for a moment, Director Siron’s recriminations ringing in the air.

  Halluis cleared his throat. “If we don’t go after the pickpocket, what hope do we have of retrieving the information? Dufor indicated that what he knew could have serious repercussions for Paris, for all of France. We have to get a hold of that drive.”

  I shot him a quick look of gratitude. He hadn’t exactly challenged Siron outright, but his words did lend some support to my plan, and for that I was grateful.

  But Siron only shook her head, her stylish brown hair sweeping her shoulders. “The drive is gone. Perhaps in the hands of Dufor’s killers, but most likely tossed into the trash by a disappointed pickpocket. Our only hope of completing this mission now is to root out the original source of the information.”

  “You mean—infiltrate Sécurité Un?” I asked in disbelief. It had always been deemed too risky to break into the company itself. The place was a fortress.

  “We need this information as soon as possible, and this is the quickest way,” Director Siron said. “This happens tonight. I want the mission plans on my desk within the hour.” She turned to go, then turned back and locked eyes with me. “Agent Hadden, I expect you will apply your remarkable intellect to the task. This is your chance—the only one you will get—to redeem yourself. While there is no way to bring Dufor back to life, you can at least give meaning to his death by retrieving the information he gave his life for. Our best course of action now is to find out what Dufor knew—and to do that we have to get into Sécurité Un. I will tolerate no more mistakes. I need perfection here.”

  She turned to Rosabella. “And Agent Cantu, don’t underestimate Sécurité Un. Keep in mind that they found Dufor and killed him and quite possibly sent that pickpocket to retrieve the flash drive Dufor intended to give us. We have to assume they were privy to our plans and thwarted them.”

  “Yes, Director.”

  Siron left the room, saying, “Plans. On my desk in one hour.”

  “Getting inside Sécurité Un is no easy task.” Ace’s grim face turned a shade darker, more like his original color. He immediately started typing something on the keyboard in front of him, and the schematics of the target building appeared on the screen on the wall at the end of the table.

  Halluis, on the other hand, looked a bit excited. “Their security is tight, Ace. I don’t know that we can crack it.”

  The two of them started tossing out ideas, arguing back and forth about different entry strategies, but I couldn’t get my mind to focus. I fought back waves of nausea as Siron’s words repeated over and over in my mind. I’d ruined everything; Dufor was dead because of me; I was a complete and utter failure. Yet, underneath all the vicious self-recrimination, another thought was fighting its way to the surface.

  Siron was wrong.

  Trying to break into Sécurité Un was not only dangerous, but likely to prove futile. We had no idea where Dufor would have kept the information—or even exactly what information he’d planned to give us. It was like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but without even knowing which haystack to search. On top of that, I couldn’t shake the idea that Siron was wrong about the drive—she was working on the assumption that the pickpocket was either working for Sécurité Un or that he wouldn’t know the significance of the drive he’d stolen.

  It didn’t make much sense for Sécurité Un to send both a thief and a killer, when just one could do the job. I was reasonably sure the kid was acting independently, and he’d had no idea what he was getting in the middle of. But I’d seen the look in his eye—he was clever, and he probably worked for someone smarter still. They wouldn’t just toss away something that could be valuable. That information could easily make its way into the wrong hands. I glanced over at Siron; the door to her office was open, and she was sifting through paperwork at her desk. I thought about going over to her, trying again to make my case, but the futility of it struck me like a blow. She’d made her disdain for me and my ideas very clear.

  I wanted to make things better, but how could I if the director thought I was useless? And she was right. Dufor was dead because of my mistake. We wouldn’t ever know what information Dufor wanted us to have and there was no way to retrieve the information either. He had truly died for nothing.

  But then again, Dufor had found the courage to seek Division out and ask for help despite his fear. If I gave up, it would be letting him down all over again. He risked his life to stop something terrible and I wasn’t about to let that go to waste.<
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  My team talked, but I didn’t hear. They wrote plans on the whiteboard, but I was lost in thought. I curled my fists and set my jaw. Yes. I’d messed up, but I was not going to let this mission fail. I couldn’t. Someone had been willing to kill to keep this information secret. There was no way I was going to let them win. But what could be done? A solution presented itself and I didn’t like it one bit. I had to at least suggest it. If there was a problem with the plan, my team would find it. I stood up straight, took a deep breath, and thought to myself, I can’t change what happened, but I can influence the future.

  I cleared my throat, then said, “I think I know how we can do this.”

  Rosabella shifted in her seat. Ace leaned his head to the side, and Halluis stared at me, lips pressed tight.

  “The only sure way in is through the vents. I know we very briefly talked about it before we started this mission, but just hear me out.” I pointed to the schematics on the screen. I could see the questions forming in their minds. “Halluis will need to shut down the laser security running through them, and Ace will need to create something to disrupt the cameras that will hide me—er—whoever goes in. And whoever it is will have to be fast. We can’t have the alarm systems down for long, or it will be noticed.” They were all staring at me. I hoped they were analyzing what I’d said and realizing it was the only way.

  “It is the only way we could circumvent the tricky alarm system,” Halluis spoke up. “With the guards, the optical scanners, coded entry, and all that, there is no way through the main doors. This solves all those problems. Lasers I can take care of.” There was renewed hope in his eyes.

  “I have just the right thing for redirecting the cameras and security,” Ace added. “And I know just the right little girl to get in that ductwork.” He gave me a sly smile.

  Rosabella raised an eyebrow. “And you know I’m the best leader around, even if forced to direct a troublemaker like Christy.” A smile played at the corner of her lips. “It’s got to be you, Christy. I can’t think of anyone else at Paris Division small enough to fit into those vents, and it would take too long to get someone else here who would fit. Will you be able to control that claustrophobia of yours?”