My Time in the Affair

by Stylo Fantome

  “Mrs. Rapaport.”

  Mischa jerked her head up and was shocked at who was walking into the room. She hadn't seen him since Rome, and on top of that, he looked so different, wearing a suit.

  “Ruiz!?” she exclaimed. He nodded his head at her, but didn't smile. He sat down at a second folding chair that had been pulled up to the table.

  “How are you?” he asked, placing a folder in the middle of the table.

  “Is he okay? Please, tell me if he's okay. They hit him so hard. Tell me he's okay,” she begged, a tear slipping down her cheek.

  “Canaan's perfectly fine. I'm sorry about our surroundings, they didn't have a safe house ready – the prison was the best option,” Ruiz said, as if it explained anything. Mischa let out a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  “Oh, thank god. I was so worried about him,” she whispered.

  “Mrs. Rapaport, please. We have a lot of ground to cover, and not much time. You need to answer some questions,” Ruiz informed her. She opened her eyes again.

  “What questions? What am I doing here? Is this because of the shooting!? Tal said it was a terrorist thing. Was he involved with it?” she babbled. Ruiz nodded.

  “He was not involved. Yes, it was a terrorist act. We need you to explain some things to us. Tell us everything you know about Peter Sotera.”

  Mischa gasped.

  “Peter? Peter Peter!? Peter, my boss, Peter?” she double and triple checked. Ruiz nodded.

  “That Peter.”

  “What could you possibly want to know about him? He's an insurance agent, a uh … uh … field guy, he gets sent to start new branches. He sells fucking insurance!” Misch exclaimed. Her mind was unspooling, slowly but surely, becoming a pile of frayed memories and split ends.

  “Yes, he does that. He is also the U.S. liaison for a very violent and aggressive chapter of al Qaeda. He sells them information – advanced intel on NATO and Interpol and the U.N., not to mention the U.S..”

  Misch sat back, stunned. Peter. Her boss, Peter. Slightly overweight, generally smelled like salami. Got drunk and groped her tits at a Christmas party once. Wore Hawaiian shirts every Friday. Peter.

  “You must be joking,” she breathed.

  “I wish I was. Mr. Sotera became involved with al Qaeda following the attacks on 9/11. He's actually spent a lot of time in Afghanistan.”

  “But … but … he's from Hoboken.”

  “Yes. He was a very influential insurance lobbyist in Washing D.C. for a while, where he made a lot of political connections. Then he moved to New York, where he used secrets and blackmail to get the info he wanted. He is responsible for sending information that resulted in the bombings of at least four U.S. convoys, that we can prove. We suspect many more,” Ruiz just kept going.

  I'm having a nightmare. Wake up now, Misch. Wake up, and Tal will be trying to heat up waffles on the hotel's coffee maker. Wake up.

  “Four bombings …,” all the breath left her body.

  “We believe he moved to Detroit shortly after the failed 'shoe-bombing' on Flight 253. Since then, he has been gaining more contacts within the terrorist organizations. He came on the C.I.A.'s radar a little over a year and a half ago, and that's how we were alerted to the fact that he was planning an overseas trip. Armenia, Turkey -,”

  “Italy,” Misch finished for him, her voice barely a hint of a whisper.

  “And Italy. Our contract is with the Turkish government. They knew he was coming here after Rome, so it was requested that we go ahead into Italy to gather more intel and to track his contacts,” Ruiz explained.

  “You knew,” she gasped, her eyes finally meeting his. “You knew who I was. Before you met me, you knew who I was.”

  “Yes,” he answered swiftly.

  “That's why you were upset. That's why you didn't want us to be together,” she began connecting the dots.

  “Yes. Above all else, the mission could not be compromised.”

  “And I was part of the mission.”

  “Yes.”

  She knew she should argue. Knew she should be proclaiming her innocence, shouting from the roof top that she didn't know, she didn't know! She'd had no idea. She'd been busting her ass setting up insurance offices. Peter had been busting his ass trying to topple governments.

  But all she could think about was …

  I was a mission. A mark. A way to get closer to Peter, to get closer to the mission. That's why he was so secretive. That's how he always knew where to find me.

  “He knew me,” she whispered, sniffling.

  “Yes. Now, Mrs. Rapaport, can you tell me the names of every person Peter came in contact with while in Rome?” Ruiz questioned, pulling out a pen before opening the folder he'd brought in with him.

  “Uh, no. No, I didn't spend a lot of time with him,” she coughed out a reply. She felt sick to her stomach.

  She hadn't spent a lot of time with her boss because she'd been busy spending all her time with a man she never really knew.

  “But you did spend some time with him. There was a lunch meeting, and a dinner date,” Ruiz went over some papers.

  “I …,” she couldn't finish. Tal had interrupted, both those times. Both times, he'd assured her Peter wouldn't catch them. She had always wondered at his confidence. Now she wondered if he'd orchestrated it that way; if he'd known that they wouldn't be interrupted.

  How is this my life?

  “What about in Detroit? What kind of business expenses was Mr. Sotera making?” Ruiz pressed.

  “How would I know that? I'm just an agent!” she exclaimed.

  “You are one of the top selling agents in the entire city of Detroit, Mrs. Rapaport. You must be somewhat aware of your boss's movements,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, when it comes to insurance! You wanna know how many policies he sold!?” she snapped.

  “If you become difficult, the interview will stop. It won't start again till tomorrow morning. How long your time in this prison lasts is entirely up to you,” Ruiz told her.

  “Are you threatening me!?”

  “Just explaining the rules, Mrs. Rapaport.”

  “I want to speak to a lawyer.”

  “I'm sorry, that's not possible, Mrs. Rapaport.”

  “Then I want to speak to the U.S. embassy.”

  “I'm not required to do anything you request, Mrs. Rapaport.”

  “A phone call! I should get a goddamn phone call!”

  “This isn't America, there is no 'one phone call' clause, Mrs. Rapaport.”

  “DON'T CALL ME THAT!” she screamed at him.

  “Hey!” he jumped out of his chair. He immediately loomed over her and she shrank back into her seat, afraid of him. “Just answer the goddamn questions! Were you ever aware that your boss was knowingly involved with terrorist cells!?”

  “No! I don't know anything! I don't know anything!” she yelled, pressing her hands over her ears as best she could.

  “You know something! You must know something! I'll keep you here for a fucking year, it that's what it takes! A fucking year in this goddamn pri-,”

  There was a loud alarm. It cut through the room like a buzz saw, startling both of them. Then it shut off, just as suddenly as it had started. Ruiz glared down at her for a second longer, then he grabbed the folder off the table. He strode to the door and yanked it open hard enough that it banged off the opposite wall. Then he slammed it shut behind him.

  Mischa tried to catch her breath, shaking and shuddering in her seat. She'd barely started to calm down – well, calm down as much as was possible in her situation – when there was another buzzing sound. She clasped her hands together again and clutched them in her lap. Wished she could curl into herself. Disappear.

  The door opened and a man started walking across the floor. Not Ruiz. She knew who it was the moment he stepped foot in the room.

  “Are you okay?” Tal asked, sliding into the chair Ruiz had just left.

  She stared at him, her eyes wide. He had a b
ruise on the side of his head, blooming around his temple. He hadn't shaved in a long time, even for him. But the strangest thing was the suit he was wearing. A Brooks Brothers style suit, with a tie that looked like it had been yanked on more than a few times. He looked rumpled and disheveled, which was almost bizarre. Not that he was normally clean cut, but he never looked harried, not the way he looked right then.

  Who is this man?

  “Not really,” she finally replied, her voice scratchy.

  “I'm sorry about all this, I didn't know that was going to happen,” he sighed, rubbing his palm down his face.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone took down my license plate, when I grabbed you outside your building,” Tal explained. “Those were … like policeman, S.W.A.T., the guys who came into my house. They thought I was a part of the shooting.”

  “But you weren't.”

  “No. Just the opposite.”

  “You track them.”

  “Yes.”

  “And me.”

  “... yes.”

  They looked at each other for a long time.

  Wake up, Misch. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up …

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “Just Tal,” he replied with a sad smile. “Same guy as before, I just know more about you than you realized.”

  “Obviously,” she barked out a laugh, but it sounded hollow. Mechanical. He cleared his throat and glanced at the mirror.

  “Look, Mischa. Your boss is in a lot of trouble, but luckily, it's obvious that you weren't involved. You were brought as a cover, to throw people like us off,” he told her.

  “Who are 'people like us'?” she asked.

  “I work for a security company – have you heard of Black Water?”

  “Huh?”

  “It's a private military company, it became kind of famous a couple years ago. They've since changed their name,” Tal filled her in.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember them. You work for them!?” Misch exclaimed. He shook his head.

  “No, but I work for a very similar company, it's called Ansuz. Like Ruiz said, the Turkish government hired our company to help with the growing al Qaeda presence in Turkey. That included your boss, once it was discovered that he would be making a trip here. I have to ask this, Mischa, did you ever notice anything strange, in the U.S.? Hear any names? Meet anyone?” Tal questioned her.

  How did I end up here? Oh yeah, I lied and I cheated and was a horrible person. Touché, karma. Tou-fucking-ché.

  “No. I swear, Tal. I never spent any time with him at work, at all. I was actually shocked that I was offered this job, I figured it was because my sales had been really good that year,” she answered him.

  “Yeah. Okay. I know. I'm gonna get you out of here, don't worry. This never would've happened, if I hadn't come and gotten you from that shoot out. I'm sorry,” he told her before starting to stand.

  “So I never would've known …,” she let the sentence hang.

  “I would've told you.”

  We'll never know if that's true, and you've already lied about everything else ...

  She refused to look at him, so he turned to walk away. But panic started clawing at her; she'd been alone for so long. She was upset and she was nervous and she was scared out of her mind. She dragged her nails up the table, reaching for him but not wanting to touch him.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please, get me out of here soon.”

  He groaned, noticing the handcuffs for the first time.

  “Fucking Ruiz,” he growled, digging something out of his jacket pocket. A key was produced and a second later her restraints were removed. He went to rub at the raw marks on her wrists, but she yanked away from his touch.

  Tal stared at her for a long moment, his eyes sad. So sad. Worse than when he'd left her in Rome. Worse than anything, ever.

  Don't. You don't know this man.

  He turned and walked out of the room. Misch sat there, pulling her knees to her chest, making herself as small as possible. But his word was still good, and maybe twenty minutes later a female police officer came into the room. She murmured words in Turkish that Misch didn't understand, but they sounded comforting. She was given a blanket, which she folded in half and wrapped around her waist like a giant towel, then followed the cop out of the room.

  The sun seemed ridiculously bright to her, and she blinked a lot as they drove across town. The other woman prattled on, not seeming to care that Misch couldn't understand her. When they got to the hotel, the cop walked her all the way to her room, then checked the room over.

  Thorough.

  Mischa had to all but shove the chick out the door, but finally she was alone. Not that she was even sure what to do with herself. She wandered around the room, the towel-blanket falling to the floor. She half-heartedly looked for her phone, but then realized it was in her purse. Which was at Tal's house. Which she would not be going back to.

  She wound up sitting at the foot of the bed, just staring at the dresser across from her. An hour passed. Then two. Then she laid down flat, stared at the ceiling. She didn't know how many hours passed, how many thoughts went by.

  He knew you. He used you. So many times. He was doing his job. And you never even questioned him.

  The sun was beginning to set, casting a gold-orange glow in the room, when she heard a key in the lock. Remembered the time he'd picked the lock to get in her room, in Rome. Remembered him being everywhere, being everything.

  Sad, sad, girl.

  “Are you okay?” Tal's voice was soft as he lowered himself in front of her. She shrugged and sat up.

  “Not really,” she repeated her answer from the prison, staring over his shoulder.

  “Misch, you have to know, I never -,”

  “Tal,” she whispered his name, then took a deep breath. “When was the first time you saw me?”

  “At the -,”

  “The first time, ever.”

  There was a long pause. Enough time for her heart to sink even further.

  “About ten months ago,” he kept his tone even, his voice low. “It was a grainy surveillance photo. You were leaving your office building in Detroit. You looked different.”

  She shocked herself by laughing.

  “I had just started my diet.”

  “You looked amazing, even in black and white. Your hair was a lot longer.”

  “I cut it for the trip.”

  “It looks good.”

  “How long? How long did you study me?” she asked.

  “A long time. When we first got word that you had been chosen to travel with him, we did a general background check. When it got closer, and your tickets were bought, we did a thorough check, all the way back to high school,” he explained.

  She started crying.

  “I hope you didn't see those pictures,” she sniffled, trying to ease the pain with humor.

  “You looked amazing even then.”

  “You said you were a photographer. You lied.”

  “I specialize in surveillance.”

  “Oh, pardon me. You twisted the truth till it was unrecognizable. Completely different, I apologize.”

  “I had to -,”

  “You asked about school. You asked me so many questions. So many things you pretended not to know. You pretended. I feel so stupid. You were just pretending. You said I looked like a dancer, when we first met. I am such a sucker. You already knew. You just said it cause you knew it would work, you were just pretending, because you already knew,” she babbled.

  “Mischa -,”

  “Were you 'assigned' to me? To run 'surveillance' on me?” she asked, lifting her head to look at him. He looked awful. Almost as bad as she felt.

  “I was assigned to the case. You were part of the case. I wasn't necessarily supposed to make contact. That wasn't part of the job,” he said quickly.

  “Oh sure. God, I am so stupid. So fucking stupid,” she hissed, pressing the heel of her hand
into her forehead.

  “Stop it.”

  He always knew where she was, he always knew how to find her. “Come find me”, their special phrase. But he'd always been cheating. That's how he'd known her phone number, that first time he'd called her. That's how he'd known where her office was, when he'd surprised her. That's how he'd known what restaurant she was at, when they'd had sex in the bathroom.

  I'm gonna puke. Hopefully all over his lying face.

  “That's how you knew, that's how, that's how, that's how,” she whispered. “That's how you knew how to find me.”

  “I'll always know how to find you, Misch.”

  “Of course you will! You're a secret fucking agent! That's why, isn't it!? All those times! You were distracting me! God, so many times. What did you do!? Fuck me while Ruiz was sneaking into the office? Breaking into Peter's hotel room?” she demanded.

  Tal suddenly stood up and walked across the room. He began messing with a lamp, and she thought he was trying to turn it on, but it never lit up. He pulled his hand out from under the shade, pinching something between his fingertips. Then he walked over to a night stand and reached underneath it, pulling out an identical object. He fiddled with them, then went into the bathroom. She heard the sound of the toilet flushing.

  Oh. My. God.

  “I just wanted to make sure we had comple-,” he began as he came back out.

  “You bugged my hotel room!?” she demanded. He nodded.

  “I had to. If there was a chance Sotera came in here to talk to you, a chance he would say something, we had to catch it. I had to, Misch,” he stressed. She started breathing heavily and pressed a hand to her chest.

  “Oh my god. Oh my god. Positano. You just showed up. You knew exactly where I was, even what floor, even though I switched rooms,” she gasped for air. He shoved his fingers into his hair, scratching back and forth.

  “I had to see you. The only way I could get them to let me go was by convincing them there was a chance Sotera might show up, might use his old room, might call you, something. I had to be with you again, I had to have an excuse to come back,” Tal said quickly.

  “That room … oh my god … that room was bugged, wasn't it? And the other room, in Rome,” she was almost panting.