Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force)

by Anderson, S

  “Really?” I glance between him and Claymore.

  There’s a hard set to Claymore’s jaw, a distant distracted look in his eyes, but he nods. “Aye. Countess and I were out of the country. We didn’t get here until you were already being inspected.”

  “Marko?” I ask no one in particular, still waiting for that damn 'Polo'. I look to each face in the room, my eyes stopping on Countess.

  “Representative Veltriv is… stable.”

  Stable. I’ve known the man for five years, and I have a dictionary full of words I’d call him. Stable would never be one.

  “What happened?” I ask. I’m so confused. Everything is just past my reach. I know we were in the limo. I know we were shot at. I just can’t put anything together about how it all ended.

  Ace turns so his chin rests on my stomach. “He was shot through the right shoulder. Clean wound, really, but he lost a lot of blood by the time we got you guys to the hospital. And the hypothermia you both were suffering from by then didn’t help.”

  It might have. Hypothermia slows the blood. Technically, he should have bled less thanks to the freeze.

  “But he’s alive,” I say, repeating it more for the sake of comforting myself.

  “Aye, barely,” Claymore says, that look in his eyes having melted into distress. He’s gone paler than usual.

  Something is bothering him.

  “Any info on what hit us?” I ask, hoping that’s where his worry resides.

  “That is job for us today,” Countess says.

  “Today?” I echo. “You haven’t been out there looking before?”

  “Settle down, Pineapple,” Ace says. I hate when calls me that. “We have, but we've had to share with local authorities. You guys were in a high speed chase with a shitload of bullets in the middle of one the most populated cities in the world. We couldn’t really hope it would go unnoticed.”

  “Furthermore,” Claymore adds, “Veltriv’s father is furious. He’s been frothing at the mouth for your arrest.”

  Again, my sight bounces around the room. “Arrest me? Why?”

  Ace half-heartedly shrugs. “Russians are illogical and passionate people.”

  “I have license to kill you,” Countess says, pointing a deadly finger at him.

  “She’ll do it, pretty boy,” Claymore says. “You better watch out.”

  “Worry about your own back, Coog.” Ace stands, stretching like a cat. “Pretty sure she’ll kill us all in our sleep someday.”

  “Is not entirely unreasonable assumption,” Countess says, patting my foot like she’s comforting me, but she’s worried I’m going to pass some infectious disease to her. “Rest, delicate American flower.” My eye twitches. She’s trying to be nice, but I take offense to how weak her words make me sound. “We will find who attacked you and eradicate threat.”

  Ace kisses my cheek and follows her out the door. Claymore stays behind. He’s retrieved his knife and flips it as high as his forehead.

  I can see troubles are still deep inside him. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  I know that look. I wear it a lot myself. It’s not the look of nothing.

  “Why aren’t you helping them?”

  He catches the handle and flips the blade back into it before sliding it in his pocket. He stares at the wall for fifteen seconds. I know. I count.

  “It doesn’t add up,” he finally says.

  My insides feel like someone smashed me with a giant hammer. I can’t take a full, deep breath. “What doesn’t add up?”

  “Why would someone attack him?”

  Him. He says it so subtly, and if I weren’t trained in the art of reading people, I might have missed it. There's a sense of familiarity in his voice. He knows Marko.

  “Have you been on his security detail before?”

  He nods. “Aye. I was… you relieved me when you flew here the other day. I was his shadow for the week before that.”

  Funny. All the times I’ve served security for Marko, he’s never mentioned anyone but Sven guarding him. I can’t recall a single time Claymore’s been on the books as covering Marko’s security. In fact, considering he was in the states, why would they use a Scottish agent on his shadow detail?

  I keep my curiosity to myself. The threat at hand isn’t my colleague. “And you didn’t see any warnings or lurking threats?”

  “None that I would classify as this level of danger.”

  I nod as blurry memories rush through my mind. “There was a switch… the driver was either kidnapped or killed, replaced by a plant.”

  Claymore’s cheek twitches.

  “And there was a second car—SUV. Didn’t catch the plate.”

  “And ya didn’t think to shoot any of these threats before you went for a swim?”

  I frown. “Didn’t pack a gun.”

  Accusations are alive in his eyes. He doesn’t have to voice them for me to know what he’s thinking. How could I be stupid enough to be unarmed, to not notice the driver and get us out of the car by the time I saw they had reinforcements?

  “You’re not a damn rookie, Penelope. Where the hell was your head?”

  Buried under the ice in Siberia.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. In my greenest days during basic, I never felt this incompetent. I feel like Nikolai’s ghost is going to walk in the room and tell me to take a lap. My pride is wounded, and I’m still more confused than anything.

  “Why did they call you?” I ask.

  Claymore blanches. “You called us, Penelope.”

  “No, I mean… why did they have a Scottish agent on security detail for a Russian diplomat on US soil?”

  “The bloody multicultural fair was in town,” he says, his voice clipped with more than just his normal snippy sarcasm.

  I’m hitting a nerve. The more I think about it, the more this doesn’t add up. “Don’t bullshit me, MacNeal. What were you doing in New York last week?

  This could blow the investigation wide open. The Deadly Seven are often referred to as excessive force. Me as Marko’s bodyguard is overkill, but calling in an agent who isn’t even American would only come from one source—the council.

  “What aren’t you telling me about Marko’s involvement with the council?” I ask.

  Claymore stares at me like I’ve lost my mind, and then all at once he doubles over, laughing. He’s so amused he’s got tears in his eyes. “You actually think that…?”

  He can't even finish. He loses it all over again.

  “Let me in on the joke,” I say, not sharing his enjoyment in the least. “Because if the council didn’t sanction you working with him, I highly doubt my government did. Which puts you in contact with the man I was assigned to protect just before an attack on his life.”

  That shuts his humor down immediately. “I would never hurt him. I have no need to hurt him.”

  “Really?” I say, suddenly no longer aware of my pain and completely focused on the riddle unraveling in my head. “I seem to remember you bitching once that we don’t get enough vacation. I’m guessing Russian executions bring in a fair penny.”

  His knife is out, twirling in the air, the blade pressed against my throat before I’ve even realized he’s moved across the room. “I love you like a sister, Shade, but if you ever call me disloyal again, I’ll spill every last drop of your blood. Get it?”

  I swallow, and my throat pulls and flexes against the edge of his knife. “Then tell me what you were doing here.”

  He debates something I ache to understand before shaking his head. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Were you here to protect him?”

  He flips the knife away from me, tucking it back in his pocket. “No… not technically.”

  He’s hiding something, and that bothers me, but I trust him when it comes down to it. Claymore was the first recruit I became friends with. I wouldn’t have survived Nikolai’s training without him. He’s saved my ass more times than I can count.

/>   “So we’re back to square one,” I say with a miserable sigh.

  “Why weren’t you prepared for a fight?”

  My dirty little secret. So many spots on my body are held together with stitches right now that I’m aware of how many pieces I was nearly torn into. No sense keeping it to myself now. I’m a walking open wound. “Marko told me to take the night off.”

  Emotions cross his face that I’m not expecting. I anticipate disgust, disappointment, even a fair bit of secondhand shame. I don’t know where the look of hurt welling in his eyes is coming from.

  He looks away, walks to the window, and stares out at the view. “Were you fucking him?”

  More blurry assaults to my memory echo with screams of pleasure. “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  “What does it matter?”

  He’s not flipping his knife. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him not flip his knife for so long.

  “It matters if he seduced one of the most skilled agents all in one night or if this was a decision made by a woman who’s had an ongoing affair with someone she’s been charged to protect.”

  Neither of us knows how to soften the blow of our words. We’re frank and harsh, jumping straight to the point and skipping right over concern for the other one’s feelings.

  Soldiers don’t have feelings, Poppy. Your concern is to your mission. Nothing else matters. Nothing.

  Nikolai certainly wasn't thinking about my feelings when he marched off to war and got himself killed.

  “I’ve had a—”

  The door swings open and two uniforms step inside, followed by Commander Justice.

  Great.

  “Agent Vincent,” he says with that sneer he loves so much. “Nice to see you awake and no longer sleeping on Uncle Sam’s dollar.”

  I bite my tongue.

  “Agent MacNeal,” he says, addressing Claymore with a look of surprise. “You should be on a plane to London right about now, shouldn’t you?”

  “London?” I hiss as I try to straighten up. “But what about investigating—?”

  “No longer your concern, Agent Vincent,” Justice says. He’s smiling. I’ve never seen him smile. His teeth are yellowed, possibly from smoking. Somehow, he makes joy look sinister. “You are now under disciplinary ordinance 0506-02. You will submit to questioning, testing, and if found guilty, formal disciplinary action.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong,” Claymore says. His knife is out, but the closest MP grabs his arm and stops him from flipping it open.

  “That’ll be all, Agent MacNeal,” Justice says, motioning for the MP to escort him out of the room. He turns back to me once they’re gone. “You have a change of clothes in the lavatory. Suit up. Questioning begins in twenty minutes.”

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  I look up from my hands, from the cuts and sores that are still fresh. A guy, solider… doctor sits across from me.

  Dr. Stevens. He told me his name when they escorted me in here a few minutes ago.

  “I thought you have to wait until I’m checking out for the psych eval,” I say.

  Dr. Stevens makes a note on his yellow notepad. He’s young, probably a few years younger than me. His ears stick out from his buzz cut, and he wears the kind of glasses that I imagine they hand out with his PhD.

  “This isn’t your evaluation,” he says, clicking the end of his pen.

  It’s a funny thing, not being normal. I’ve spent my entire life having guys like Stevens poke and prod me, test me, to figure out what makes me tick. They act like they’re not, pretend that we’re just having a conversation, but really, I’m the monkey, and he’s the researcher, and we’re sitting in a fancy lab that’s made to look like a waiting room.

  I sometimes wonder if animals in labs catch on, if any of them know what’s happening to them and fuck with the doctors’ minds for fun.

  “When was the last time you spoke to someone?”

  I want to laugh. Do all doctors think we float around in bubbles between visits to their offices? “I was just talking to you a few seconds ago, and Commander Justice a few minutes before that in my hospital room.”

  He looks baffled for a second before smiling. It’s not a humorous smile. It’s calculated, like he’s put one piece of my puzzle in place already. “Funny.”

  I raise my brows and nod.

  “I’ll be sure to be more specific with the remainder of our conversation,” he says.

  “You do that.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to a therapist in regards to your job? Specifically, in regards to your job as a killer?”

  Killer is meant to get a reaction from me. It doesn’t bother me. Maybe that’s another reaction for him to piece in. My boss calls me an assassin, but that’s just a fancy title for a killer.

  “Don’t know,” I say. Brick by brick, I feel the wall going up in front of me. I know I need to keep my cool. Don’t get defensive. Don’t be happy-go-lucky, either. People who shoot other people should feel some sort of compassion for killing them. But don’t come off so depressed that you get escorted to the psych ward. It's a tricky balance.

  “I operate under UN sanctions, wartime conditions. Unless my CO declares me unfit to serve, I’m not required to speak to anyone about anything that I do.”

  “Do you find that fair?”

  I’m not sure what angle he’s spinning with that one. “You said you would be specific.”

  “Right. Do you believe you’re…” He waves the hand holding his pen in the space between us. “…above having to explain yourself or your actions in duty?”

  Don’t get defensive, Poppy. You get angry too quickly. You have nothing to prove to anyone but yourself. You have to know you. You don’t have to make sure anyone else does.

  “I believe I perform my duty to the optimum standards expected by my superiors, sir.”

  “That didn’t answer my question, Agent Vincent.”

  I pick the nail on my right pointer finger but keep my eyes trained on his. “I believe the nature of my work requires I don’t discuss the context lightly.”

  “I’ve been briefed on your work, Agent Vincent,” he assures me. I want to laugh. He’s been told the barest cover of my work at best. Only a handful of people on earth have the clearance level to know the details of what I do. “And I’m not asking you to tell me about any of your missions. I’m simply saying, do you think someone such as yourself, who has seen and done the things that you have, shouldn’t be required to process it from time to time?”

  Process it. He wants me to sit and chat about what I think and feel about killing the people I’ve killed? A man’s head exploded four days ago because of me. Even though the scope on the rifle wasn’t great, I saw chunks of his brain fly away before I registered that I had pulled the trigger. I know this man is certificated to hear me say that and to help me work through it.

  But the truth is I can’t work through it.

  I can’t think of Pishkar as a human. I can’t understand that I’m a good person who doesn’t want to do these sorts of things. Because I’m not. Like he said—I’m a killer.

  “You’ve read my file,” I say. “So you know I’m designated as borderline sociopathic, with an extreme personality disorder. I’ve also been diagnosed with low latent inhibitive tendencies. So I’m quite able to process my situations before I even find myself within them. I don’t believe I’m above anything, but within it. I’m a microorganism within a larger cell. Ask me whatever questions you want, Doctor. I’ll answer them. But I won’t be treated like a child you wish to scold through condescension. I don’t answer to you." I nod to where Justice stands on the opposite side of the room. "And I don’t answer to him, either.”

  “Do you believe your age at the time of recruitment had any effect on the person you are today?”

  “You’re the doctor. You tell me.”

  “That wasn’t an answer to my question, Agent Vincent.”

  I
sigh. I’ve heard this debate since I was seven years old. That was the first time my mother took me to a shrink. Back then it was about my gifts. Oh, she’s gifted, Mary, you should have her tested for that special school for kids who think like her. My mother resisted it for as long as she could, but eventually, public schools got tired of me. I was bored, working independently on course work years beyond my age.

  Funny, when you’re 'talking' to a shrink who thinks you’re brilliant, it’s not much different from talking to a shrink who thinks you’re a loose cannon.

  People fear intelligence when they lack it themselves.

  “You have access to my file,” I remind him. “What did my previous shrink have to say about my seventeen-year-old self?”

  The doctor’s eyes narrow, and he makes another note on his pad. “Marko Veltriv. Have you had intimate relations with him? Were you intimate with him the night of the attack?”

  I don’t know if the pain meds are finally kicking in, my tolerance for bullshit has finally been reached, or the fact that this state of openness I'm in is liberating, but I’m numb to implications admitting my relationship with Marko will cause.

  Plus, there’s no use lying about it. I was found wearing no underwear, in a dress the man bought for me. I’m not a doctor, didn’t even score high on my Biology midterm, but I have a feeling they ran tests to determine if I’d had sex that night. They know now that I was more than just a security guard to Marko.

  “Representative Veltriv and I had a professional and personal relationship, yes.”

  “And you think that was the optimum efficiency of your job as his bodyguard?”

  “Representative Veltriv’s security has always been my first priority, sir.”

  “Was it your priority three nights ago? Were you thinking about his safety or your libido when you left yourself unarmed and vulnerable to… well, what led you to this hospital?”

  He says it so matter of fact, so void of anything but that clinical delivery they must teach in that final year of medical school. It weasels under my skin more effectively than the contempt I feel floating through the air from Justice.