by Anderson, S
Claymore shoots me a look that warns he’s two seconds away from taking out his knife and stabbing me with it.
Marko laughs. I know that laugh. It’s the one he gets when he’s stoned off his ass. He might just be hopped up on drugs still. He grabs Claymore’s shirt. “When we fuck her, only I get to call her Poppy, okay? She doesn’t like anyone else calling her it.”
“Aye, got it,” Claymore says.
Marko slumps over, passed out in the next breath.
Awkward becomes an element in the air. Claymore is still halfway on the bed, keeping his eyes anywhere but on me.
I turn back around to watch more of the news, giving him space to pull himself together.
It takes him about five minutes before he rejoins me on the sofa. We watch as our friend’s name is dragged through the mud, silently trying to make sense of what the council is thinking.
When the story ends and a piece about sanitation commissions for Africa comes on, he changes the channel. Another game show.
“So,” I say, keeping my eyes on the screen. “Were you the one who taught him how to do that thing with his hips?”
“Aye. He was a damn jack hammer before me.”
We both laugh.
Marko’s mother arrives a few hours later. I stay out of sight in the bathroom so no one can place me here other than Claymore.
Well, Marko could, but he’s still so whacked out on pain meds that he asked his mother if he could get a hooker for the flight home.
I splash water on my face, running my fingers through my hair before lacing it into a braid. I don’t bother with my reflection. I’ve got a good reading on how I feel. That’s enough of a picture to paint for right now.
The smell of bacon greets me when I step out of the bathroom. Claymore has changed clothes. He wears a loose pair of worn blue jeans that sags below his right hip, exposing his black boxers. He’s shirtless and I get an eyeful of his tattoo. His namesake, a Claymore sword—the hilt is lined to the back of his neck and shoulders. The blade frames his spine by two inches on both sides and the tip disappears under the waist of his pants. It’s one of those tats that stand for something—like Nikolai’s poppy. He’s never explained to me why he has it, but I can tell his shoulders slump more when he’s got it uncovered.
“That thing gets uglier each time I see it.”
He flips me off without turning around. “You want some eggs and bacon, or just bacon?”
I don’t want anything, but my stomach growls as if to say, 'Bitch, please.'
“Just bacon.”
He tosses a liberal amount onto a plate and hands it to me. He’s cracking a few eggs in the pan as I sit down at his kitchen table.
“This place is cute,” I say, looking around. The sun is up and all the windows make the place feel like we’re outside.
“It’s not mine.”
I had hoped cracking jokes about our shared connection to Marko would loosen this defensive mood he’s been in ever since he broke me out of CIA confinement, but he only seems angrier now.
I’m in the mood to poke the bear.
“Are we squatting in some random dude’s apartment?”
“No.”
He fries his eggs and dumps them on his plate. I can see debate in his stance as he decides whether to join me or eat somewhere else. I want to laugh. This is an open apartment. He can move to another room, but I’ll still be able to see him.
“Sit,” I say, shoving a chair out with my foot. “I’ll drop the twenty questions.” I hold up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
He takes the seat, offering me a shaky smile in response to my joke. Something has him jumpy. Something that I don’t think has anything to do with the Russian idiot we’ve both seen naked.
I stab a piece of egg from his plate and pop it into my mouth. “Spill,” I say as he frowns at me.
“I keep going over scenarios in my head. And I think Prizrak is the only answer.”
Ah, he’s preoccupied with the case.
“We have nothing to go on. It’s an isolated incident—”
“Monique.”
I stop chewing. “Vixen?”
“Aye.”
Monique Lacroix, the first recruit brought in by Nikolai for The Deadly Seven. She was the French operative, specializing in communications and monitoring.
She was killed while on assignment six years ago.
“What does she have to do with any of this?”
“When she was compromised, she sent out a distress, too. You remember?”
I remember losing Vixen felt like losing Nikolai all over again. The council ruled any investigation by The Deadly Seven would result in undue vengeance. Which is why Secretary Williams kept the hit made on her murderer off the books a year later. I was given the assignment for that hit, but never the background of who the guy really was or what he did to Vix.
“I don’t.”
He scoots his chair back as he stands to search through his discarded clothes on the bed.
“Is this a friend’s place?” I ask. He feels comfortable, safe, and he’s wearing clothes he had to find in the drawers here.
He gives me a look as he reclaims his seat that warns I’m breaking my promise to not ask questions. He dials a number on his phone and hands it to me. “Mailbox—”
“515,” I guess. I follow the instructions to unlock his mailbox.
“Select listen to saved messages.”
I do and they play newest first. Countess’ message replays, then mine. I look to him as I hear the terror in my own voice. His jaw is tight as he chews his food. I hear a saved message from Panther and another from me from about two years ago. I remember leaving that one. I sound so much younger on the recording.
“This is Vixen.” Her accent makes the words crisp and sharp. I can’t detect fear in her voice at all. Hearing it tugs at my heart, though. “I am compromised. Under heavy fire. No exit.” There’s a break, and the sound of ricocheting bullets echoes on the recording. “Merde. Fantome.”
Fantome. Ghost.
Her message ends, and before I can I end the call, another one begins.
The deep, husky voice sucks all the air out of my lungs. “Comrade,” he says with that accent that melts my bones. “Mission compromised. No exit. Do not look for me. I repeat. It is too dangerous. Do not look for me.”
Something explodes on the other end of the line, and I drop the phone, stumbling out of my chair and tripping backward.
Claymore's on his feet, following me. “What?”
“Don’t touch me!” I scream.
I’m caught in a tornado, spinning in every direction. I never heard that message. Someone deleted it before I could hear it.
Nikolai.
I’m crying. I don’t cry. My fingernails could be ripped from their roots and I would curse up a storm and vow vengeance, but I wouldn’t waste time with the waterworks.
He’s the only one who gets my tears.
Claymore watches me with his hands up in surrender. I see the evolution of understanding dawn in his eyes.
“Wow,” he says, dropping his hands. “Ten years later, and you’re still in hysterics at the thought of losing him?”
“Fuck you.”
He doesn’t push it, but I can see—he suspects it’s something more. He gives me the same look I remember from my eighteenth birthday. He never brought it up back then, but he’s not idiot. He’s going to figure it out.
It’s an odd sensation taking over me now. My default has always been to hide it. I want to reach out and snap his neck. I’ve protected this secret for so long. It’s blasphemous for anyone else to know. And yet in some way I think he’s known all along.
This secret is like this apartment. I’ll let him into it, just like he invited me in here. But I’m not going to explain it him, just like he’s not telling me anything about this place.
“Fantome,” he says, steering us back to the matter at hand. “She saw a ghost, too.”
M
y hands are shaking. Countess saw a ghost and then she died. Vixen saw a ghost and then she died.
It’s like the plot of a lousy horror flick. Once our number’s up, we see a ghost and then we die.
I’ve seen a ghost.
“Do you think they saw something that wasn’t real? Like they were imaging something?”
He leans against the kitchen counter, considering that. “It’s possible. I don’t see any other reason for them both to use the term 'ghost'. They had to have seen someone they believed was dead.”
“Is there a computer here I can use?”
He waves to a desk set up in the living room. I open the silver MacBook sitting there, surprised to find it doesn’t have a security lock on it.
“It’s not mine,” he says, anticipating my observation as he sits on the sofa in front of me. “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, opening the internet browser. “How much do you know about psychotropic drugs used in warfare?”
“I know it’s called psychochemical weaponry,” he says. “And the CIA experimented in the 50’s with LSD to incapacitate soldiers on the field. Why?”
I search medical sites, never typing in directly what I’m looking for. I don’t want to set off any red flags with my searches. “What would induce someone to think they saw a person who’s dead?”
“Suggestive hypnosis coupled with hallucinogenic drugs—in, say, a gas form—might produce that sort of reaction, but that would require a very controlled environment.”
“So you’ve never heard of troops just tripping balls in the field?”
“Aye… well, no. You’re not asking about them just getting high. You’re talking about a specific response, fueled by drugs. Essentially, the drugs don’t do much more than pull someone out of control. You’d have to have a way to introduce the subject you want someone to focus on so that when their mind projects the hallucination, it’s of the desired image. But I can’t think of a case when it would actually be a viable weapon to develop for the battlefield. If a group were doused with LSD in the field with no rhyme or reason, or prior suggestion, they could potentially become an even greater threat.”
That makes sense. “Maybe not for the battlefield, but definitely something that can be used against a soldier.”
“Aye, but again, only under specifically controlled conditions.”
I’ve reached the end of the possible outlets on a public domain access. I tap my right index finger against the spacebar, thinking.
“What are you getting at, Shade? Are you suggesting Prizrak is a figment of imagination?”
I lean back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m not sure. I think my own brain’s playing tricks on me, and I’m trying to make sense of it along with these speculations.”
He gives me a second of silence. The television is muted, and I hear the faint honking of horns from outside.
“PTSD is a powerful tool, though,” he says, seemingly unprompted.
“What?”
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
I glare at him. “I know what it stands for. Why are you bringing it up?”
“Well that I can promise almost every army in the world uses to their advantage on the battlefield with little more than scare tactics.”
“How so?”
“Mind-fucks only require the right combination of location and fear. Trauma can be wielded against a soldier while on the field. They’re set in motion, anticipating the worst, and you let their imagination do the rest. You know as well as I that was how we were trained.”
I’m not beating you down, Poppy. I’m conditioning your ability to always remain in control.
“Conditioning.”
“Aye.”
I have even more puzzle pieces than when I sat down, but none are fitting together. I stare down at my hands, picking at the fingernail of my right index finger.
“What’s your mind-fuck?” he asks.
I laugh. “I have too many to count. Most of them don’t have names.”
“Aye.”
Aye. I throw a pen at him.
“What’s got you putting yourself in their shoes, then?”
“The Daeva.”
“What’s that?”
“Another ghost story,” I say. He’s staring at me. His bright blue eyes are full of understanding I know I can trust. But this is a sinking ship I’ve kept afloat for a long time. I know that telling him could be a life preserver, but I also know it could mean I go down with the ship. “It relates to a mission.”
It’s not an entire lie. I was on assignment the first time I was attacked.
“I think we’re past the point of should I be captured I have plausible deniability, Shade. You spent the night in my boyfriend’s apartment after I kidnapped you from CIA custody.”
I try not to react to the word 'boyfriend'. We don’t get attached in this life. We have flings. We fuck. But we don’t have relationships. Even Nikolai and I didn’t have a name for what we were to each other.
I glance around the room again, really seeing what’s in front of me. Most of the rugs are Persian, but some are distinctly Russian. I’ve seen them in hotels on assignment with Marko. The bed is huge. Marko likes his space when he sleeps—he likes it even more when he fucks. There are shelves filled with books with old tattered spines—Marko loves seventeenth century poetry. Those pieces are all him, but the rest of the space is not the Marko I know. It’s not the man who buys out five floors at a trendy hotel in the middle of the city. It’s not a guy who expects servants to be at his beck and call. This is a lived in, comfortable space.
“Marko never told me he has an apartment here.”
“Aye. He keeps it a secret from everyone. Except his mum. She’s always known about it.”
I get the feeling we’re talking about more than real estate now. I understand. The news outlets are reporting deaths almost every day in his homeland due to homophobia—public executions committed by his own government. The government his father is grooming him to join. “He told me once that he only feels safe to be open here in America, and even here he has to do it in private.”
“Aye.” Claymore’s jaw tightens, and he scans his eyes over the space. “He keeps this a secret for me, too. He knows I won’t visit him unless it’s secure. I don’t want trouble following me home or finding him.”
He doesn’t say it, but I know. He blew all that by bringing me here. Whether he ever tells Marko the truth or not about helping me, he won’t ever come back here and put him at risk.
“So he knows… that you’re an agent?”
“No. He knows I’m a soldier, and he knows I’ll never tell him about my work.”
“But he’s your boyfriend?”
“Aye. My non-exclusive boyfriend who still fucks whomever he wants when I’m on assignment.” His voice is teasing, and I throw another pen at him. “Stop making a mess.”
I wish the humor of the moment would lighten the heaviness on my shoulders, but when he asks me to let him in again, I can’t. “Just trust that if I think I need to, I’ll tell you?”
He stares me down, pursing his lips. “Aye.”
“Turn your heads to the left.”
I do as I’m told, staring at Recruit MacNeal’s back. We’re standing in the training room. All six of us are shoulder to shoulder as General Zolkov barks out his latest lesson. MacNeal slouches to the right, angling the shoulder closest to me down. It’s not regulation stance. We’re to stand at attention when the General speaks.
Recruit MacNeal is peeing on the electric fence.
I can’t say I blame him. It’s been three months since I kissed my freedom goodbye and joined this secret little club. Every day General Zolkov kicks our asses, for nothing more, I believe, than his own amusement. Pushing his buttons every now and then is our only source of amusement.
I’m at the end of the line. No one stands to my right to look at me. I hear General Zolkov move closer. His steps are
light, silent, as he marches down the line. He stops on the other end, taking the spot next to Recruit Lacroix.
“The Army has a saying as old as the uniform they wear,” General Zolkov says. “I’ve got your six.”
Six. It’s a term most commonly used by pilots. In Commando-lingo that means my back… my ass, specifically. General Zolkov explained it to me in the beginning. That I’m the spool in the center of the clock. Straight ahead is twelve o’clock, to my right is three, to my left nine, and behind me is six.
I’ve got your six. Translation: I’ve got your back.
“The army is a well-oiled machine. Each soldier is a wheel, or a dial, or a button, or a belt, turning, spinning, and working together to accomplish their mission.”
The back of my neck feels cold as he talks about teamwork. I can’t help how my mind analyzes the moment. If we’re standing in a visual representation of this concept then I’m screwed—no one has my back.
“It’s an easy promise,” General Zolkov continues. “The Army supplies an endless amount of bodies to stand next to bodies, like matches in a book. It’s noble, too. Soldiers are trained to think of their mission as a group assignment. It removes the responsibility of the kill, draws the focus to the group and not a single member.”
I often wonder what training is like for those soldiers. This is our version of Basic Training. Though, most of the other members went through other combat and military training before they were recruited. Recruit MacNeal served a few years in the Scottish National Army before he migrated to the States. General Zolkov earned his rank in the Russian Army. I wonder how in-depth their COs were with explaining the concept behind their training.
General Zolkov is all about walking us through the logic behind what we’re learning.
“We don’t have the luxury of numbers,” he explains, stepping away from the line. “Face forward and stagger two paces up and two paces back.”
I wait to see where MacNeal moves, two steps forward, and I move two steps back.
“Those in the front look left. Those in the back look right.”
