Mr. Nice Spy

by Jordan McCollum

  “Elliott?” Slow, even breathing fills in a long pause. At least she isn’t crying, but something about her voice is off. Could’ve been drinking. It’d explain why Shanna, always so in control, meticulous, careful, would contradict herself and reach out to me when she “needs time.”

  “So tonight my mom tricked me, set me up with a guy I went to high school with.” A slight slur, missing beats in her rhythm — maybe tipsy. Doesn’t take much.

  “And it was great.”

  I stop analyzing and start panicking. My chance is slipping through my fingers. I’ve already lost.

  If she’s tipsy enough to call me, she might actually have been drunk enough to do something really, really bad. Or at least bad for me.

  “I don’t—” She sighs. “Anyway, if you want it, here’s my flight info.” She rattles off the time, airline and flight number, before another long pause. And then another sigh.

  And then Shanna’s gone.

  I pull my phone back. Talia breaks into my thoughts. “All right, I think we’ve narrowed down the field to two choices.”

  I can’t look away from the voicemail screen and my two choices. Delete? Save?

  “Elliott?”

  “Yeah.” I power off the screen and push the phone into my pocket, forcing the panic and the pressure to the back of my mind. I don’t have time to be devastated. Yet. “What’s up?”

  Talia flips the cloned phone around to me. “Kelvin Adams and Marcus Lee. Neither of them show up in the embassy directory, and from the emails we’ve got, Rhodes has had both of them adjust his schedule.”

  “Which one’s which?”

  She shrugs. “Shockingly, there’s more than one Kelvin Adams and Marcus Lee on the Internet. Didn’t see anybody familiar, though.”

  “You checked the whole Internet?”

  “Twice.” Smirk. “Now what, Mister Brains-Behind-This-Op?”

  Now what, indeed. We’ve narrowed our list to two, but those options are faceless names. Waltzing into the embassy to talk to them doesn’t quite qualify as “covert.”

  We need something to tell them apart. Some way to make the real mole show his hand. Something like — “Wait, we’ve got his emails?”

  “A few. What was in the cache on his phone.”

  “Can we send emails as him?”

  Talia’s lip curls and she stares at the phone. “If DS&T’s as good as they claim.” The Department of Science & Technology is our real-life Q — and sometimes they’re way better. I’m hoping this standard phone cloning program is one of those times. “What’ve you got in mind?”

  Now it’s my lips curling into a smile I can’t stop, and I don’t want to. “Oh, just a way to tell John Doe from Joe Schmoe.”

  I let her peer over my shoulder while I fire off short emails with two polar opposite messages to the ambassador’s stoolies.

  I’ve given it some thought, I type in an email to Kelvin, and we need to talk to the Emiratis.

  Then I write the opposite message to Marcus: the Canadians and the Emiratis need to reach an agreement on their own.

  Now, when the mole relays the message to the Emiratis, we’ll know who he is from which message he sends. I can tell Talia is impressed by my genius by the way she’s trying so hard not to look impressed. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  Shocker: Talia, paranoid.

  “We’re not here to interfere in international affairs,” she finishes.

  I cast her a sidelong glance. “Oh, aren’t we?” I shake off the teasing tone. “It’s minor. We’re fine.”

  “Until the embassy reads these guys’ emails.”

  Nah. “By then, this phone will be so long gone they won’t be able to trace it to an American, let alone one of us.”

  Talia gives me a look that I think means you’d better hope so. “Let’s try not to go down with the guy, okay?”

  I roll my eyes. The woman takes suspicion to newfound lows. Neither of us is in danger.

  I think.

  Talia takes off to play catch-up with her other job, leaving me to my own devices for the afternoon. I know it’s a Saturday, and the odds of non-emergency diplomatic business getting done on a weekend are almost nil, but there’s still the possibility. Mr. Mole and his Emirati Girlfriend might both find my email important enough to warrant a visit. At least a phone call.

  Yep, I’m back in that “plumbing” van, except this time it’s dressed up as Rogers Communications. The vans are ubiquitous enough that I’m not too worried about sticking out, even a couple cars away from the Emirati Embassy entrance.

  A cable company on the weekend? Weirder things have happened.

  Sometimes, just sometimes, being in the right place at the right time is a matter of hours and hours of patience. In a routine check of the area for security — not going through that again — I see them. I see it — our one big break.

  An Emirati woman in an abaya walks to the corner across from the embassy, casting a few surreptitious glances around. To see if anyone’s watching her. Anyone like me.

  My lungs hold my next breath hostage.

  Her gaze passes right over the van.

  And I can breathe again. It’s much brighter out than it was at that reception, but she’s a little farther away this time. Despite the distance, I can’t help the feeling this is the same woman I saw fighting with her husband at the party. The mole’s contact.

  I scan the area again, like my luck will work out that well. But apparently I’ve taken enough hits this week to bank a stroke of good karma. A little red car slingshots around the corner and parks, and a guy comes sprinting out, holding out something to the woman. A cell phone.

  The woman’s head whips around, like someone’s about to swoop in on them. Only electronically, sister. I turn the parabolic mic their direction.

  “You need to be more careful,” she whispers.

  “And me getting caught carrying your phone around is careful?” His sarcasm carries a New England accent. Same as the guy at the reception? I think so.

  She sighs. He clasps her hands for a second, before jogging back to the driver’s seat.

  In the van, I make a rush for my phone. If I can get a shot of the guy’s face or license plate — but when I get him in the frame, his little red car disappears around the corner.

  Instead, I catch a shot of the woman and send it off to the Company facial recognition server. Good thing she doesn’t wear a niqab over her face. Three seconds later, the woman’s crossing the street to the embassy, and I have my confirmation: Leyla al-Fulan, UAE citizen, wife of Ibrahim al-Khoori, Dep Ambassador to CAN.

  Yep.

  Past the embassy gates, Leyla lifts her phone to her ear. I aim my parabolic mic again, but my language luck doesn’t hold. Rapid-fire Arabic is not my specialty. She ends the call before she reaches the embassy doors.

  I double check I’ve got the recording, then sink back into my chair, releasing that hostage breath. Depending on what Leyla said, this might be enough to pin him.

  Time to rally the troops. My phone is still in my other hand, and I pull up Talia’s number.

  I pause for half a second, the muscles in my shoulders tensing again. We’re fine. Calling in her help isn’t weird, right?

  Right. This morning was fine. One little kiss two days ago didn’t change that. We’re okay. But I have to recalculate that conclusion when Talia’s tight-with-tension voice answers: “Hello?”

  “You busy?”

  “Yeah?”

  When is she ever not busy? “Is it work? Because I need you.” I wince. I don’t want to sound like a whiny little boyfriend. I’m none of the above. I rush on: “At the Emirati Embassy.”

  “Now?” Pause. “Fine, ten minutes.” Her tone clipped, she ends the call setting up a fake meeting for anyone in earshot.

  She’s annoyed. I could handle this on my own, but we’re a team. And I do need her. For that much.

  Unless, of course, I’ve already screwed everything up.

&nb
sp; I shake off my doubts and look back to my phone. With this latest Arabic recording, my team needs at least one more person, since this message has to be for her ears only. I don’t have her number in my phone, so it takes a minute for muscle memory to kick in before I figure it out.

  And get her voicemail. Great. “Angela, it’s Elliott. I need you — I need your help. Time sensitive.” I don’t dare say more without a secure line. She’ll figure out what I’m asking.

  I end the call and stare at my phone, showing me and Shanna on a beach in Saint John, the sun behind us, reducing us to silhouettes. Maybe there’s still one more person I need to call.

  Once again, I end up at voicemail. Is she ignoring me, or does she not have her phone around? “Hey, Shan,” I start, trying to sound casual. But the nerves wear my voice thin around the edges.

  “Just calling to let you know I got your flight info.” There’s more to say — a lot more — but how can I say it to a machine? I end the call before I realize I didn’t promise I’d be there.

  Do I call back? I don’t have time to decide. My phone chimes with a text message. One spark of hope ignites in my rib cage — until I see it’s from Talia. The spark sputters and dies.

  Meet at Jules Morin Park in 20. Bring food.

  I think she’s always that clipped, and there’s not enough time to overanalyze. In fact, there’s hardly time for the minimum SDR. I make it — no food — but have to sacrifice another couple minutes walking the slope that rings the park’s ball fields, scanning for her. The smell of grass, the sounds of baseball games, the sun shining, and I’m here for work. Typical.

  I don’t spot Talia until she’s already walking toward me. The little white dress from this morning has changed to a little black T-shirt and jean capris, her leather jacket over her arm. She nods a greeting, but she focuses on my hands. “What, no food?”

  “What are you, a teenager?”

  She scowls. “I barely had time for breakfast this morning, thanks to you, and now you interrupt dinner before I get to eat?” But then she looks away, her cheeks already tingeing pink.

  “Conversation number two? Or are things turning out with your Turkmen boyfriend?”

  “Mind your own business.” Her tone carries only a little bite.

  Much as I’d love to tease her more, one of us has to focus. “Can you describe the guy you saw at the reception?”

  “Average height, dark hair, freckles. New Englander accent.”

  Sounds like my guy, too. “We might just be in business.”

  Talia’s eyes, so busy skimming the field, suddenly snap to mine. “Seriously? He’s fast.”

  “Very.” I lead the way back to the van, back to the recordings.

  “So which message did he give them?”

  And that’s the bad news. “I’m waiting to hear back from Angela. But I’ve got a couple lines in English.”

  I cue up the first recording, the American and the Emirati woman on the street. Talia listens intently to the tape, his one little line, her expression grim. “Right accent, at least.”

  “Not a lot to go on.”

  “It may be enough.” She pulls out her phone, and I know exactly what she’s aiming for.

  We don’t just do facial recognition via cell phones. We can do voiceprints, too — but the system isn’t quite as seamless, or as fast. You’d think otherwise, since, you know, phones were kind of made to do voices, but it’s easier to enhance a photo than manufacture frequencies that a telephone can’t transmit. Or something like that. I’m sure DS&T would be happy to explain the whole fiasco.

  I restart the recording to let Talia capture the guy’s voice, and she gets to work sending the sample to our computers. Then I fast-forward to the Arabic half of the conversation. It’s only been half an hour, but I need to be ready for if — when — Angela calls.

  In fact, I’ll go the preemptive route. I send the audio message to her email, hoping the attachment works this time.

  Without the facial recognition, and waiting on the voiceprint, we need Angela’s translation to be sure A.) who this guy is and B.) that he’s definitely passing along confidential diplomatic information.

  “We need everything we can find on Marcus and Kelvin — addresses, profiles, the works,” Talia says. “We need to be ready for all the eventualities.”

  “We’ll figure that out when we get there, princess of paranoia.”

  She scowls at me. “Excuse me for being prepared. Why are you always thinking one move ahead? You can do better than that, or you wouldn’t have survived this long.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I mutter. “You know we’re winging this out of necessity. We need flexibility.”

  “We need to plan ahead.”

  “This is my case, isn’t it?” Like Talia hasn’t been roped into every step of the way.

  “And I’m tired of scrambling. Step up.”

  The last time I heard those words flashes through my mind. I turn away, ignoring the burning welts in my chest from her words. Her words — and Shanna’s.

  Talia won’t let the conversation end, but at least she stays focused on the case. “Are we going to convince him to turn himself in? Quit?”

  “We could threaten to go to the ambassador.”

  “Would we?”

  I offer an I-don’t-know palm. “We’re counterintel. That alone should fill any lower-level pencil pusher with fear.”

  “If we tell him.” She sighs. “Profiles, at least?”

  “Fine. I’ll take Kelvin. Sounds like my kind of guy.”

  “An absolute zero?”

  I force an obviously fake pity laugh. I don’t get her joke, but I’m clearly the butt of it — in more ways than one. I plug my phone into a charger and get to work on the best profiling methods we have without resorting to actual CIA resources.

  This could take a while.

  Of course, Kelvin and Marcus couldn’t possibly live in the same part of town. No, no, why would they want to make things simple? We try to split the difference between Kelvin’s boonies address and Marcus’s across the river — and end up uncomfortably close to our office. But nobody will notice a cable company van in a residential neighborhood, right?

  Who am I kidding? It’s a Saturday in Ottawa. Who’s around to notice?

  The dark creeps in until Talia and I can’t see our latest hands of five-card bluff. I check my watch. Ninety minutes until Shanna’s flight. I don’t think showing up with Talia would send quite the right message.

  “So,” I start, “who’s this guy?”

  She shrugs, like downplaying it now is going to work. “A guy.”

  “A guy that’s got you blushing after one conversation.”

  On cue, Talia blushes. “Two.”

  Nailed it. “Come on, give me something to work with.”

  “Yeah, that’s a big no.” Normally, she’d say something like that with an undercurrent of humor, and I’d be able to tease and cajole some little factoid out of her. But this time that’s a shutdown. The conversation dies, and a palpable quiet falls over us, thick and heavy and tense.

  I watch the clock, the street, the sky, anything but Talia.

  “Why?” Her question finally slices through the silence.

  “Why what?” I ask, though I know exactly what she means.

  “Why’d you do it? The truth.”

  I look into those hazel eyes, though all I can see in the dark is the reflection from the streetlamp. I’ve had a thing for Talia pretty much always, but clearly that feeling isn’t mutual.

  Spies have to be good at figuring out what someone wants and using that to get what we want. This time I know exactly what Talia wants. Despite what she says, she doesn’t want the truth.

  I tell her what she needs to hear. “It was nothing. Part of the cover.”

  She stares at me — stares me down — but this isn’t a challenge. Even in the streetlight, I can see her eyes are a lot closer to pleading.

  I’ll play the l
ie to the hilt if it’s what she needs. “Don’t tell me you’re developing a crush on me.”

  Talia groans. “When are you going to get over yourself?”

  “But there’s so much to love.” Despite the bravado, something in my brain clicks into place and I know. Her smile’s almost real, and I’d have to be blind not to see the relief there.

  She must know it’s a lie, but she wants it to be true. And I can do that for her. I can be that for her. I can make that lie true for her.

  I hope.

  The tension level in the van doesn’t change — for me, at least. Now we can either chat more about that — uh, no — or sit in the thick silence.

  I can’t leave it like this between us, but I don’t dare broach that subject. I go for my favorite distraction: humor. Right before I crack a joke about how this is like that one night in Spain, I realize Talia would have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s Shanna’s joke.

  Something else, then. “Seriously.” I lean across the front seat, grinning. “What’s his name?”

  Talia half-groans, half-sighs. “Danny, okay?”

  “Told you you’d have to tell me. Sounds like a geek.”

  “Shut up.” But there’s no hint of harshness in her voice.

  So I press on. “How’d you meet him? Work?”

  “Church.”

  “And you’re sure he’s not a geek?”

  She shoves me back into the driver’s seat. “Shut up.”

  “Come on, throw me a bone here. Your eyes locked across the crowded chapel? Your hands brushed when he passed you the plate?”

  “We don’t have collection plates.”

  I wait, but she doesn’t add anything. “Seriously? That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

  “I was sitting in the foyer during church, and he came out and talked to me.”

  “Coincidence? I think not.” I waggle my eyebrows, like a conversation in a church “foyer” is racy stuff.

  “I think so. He couldn’t have seen me from the chapel.”

  Something about that little tidbit triggers a memory — the first time I met Shanna back in law school. I nearly cracked her head open with a door. I apologized every day for two weeks until finally she pointed out that I couldn’t have seen her from inside the cinderblock classroom.