Desert Dark

by Sonja Stone

  Back in the car, Libby carefully arranged a wavy, medium-length, auburn-colored wig against her scalp. She pushed a pair of non-prescription eyeglasses onto her face. The dark plastic frames matched her new hair. “And I still look good.”

  Libby dialed her cell phone. “It’s me,” she said, too tired to hide her Georgia drawl.

  “How are you, sugah?” His familiar voice reassured her.

  She sighed. “I don’t want to do this.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “We all have our orders. This one happens to be yours. We all got obligations we don’t like.”

  “I know, Daddy. I just really don’t feel good about this.”

  “If there was anything I could do to get you out of it, you know I would.”

  “I know you would.” Libby took a long breath, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. She wasn’t trying to make him feel bad, it was just—well, he was her daddy. When she was in trouble, he was her first call. But even he couldn’t fix this mess. “You’ll send the address and relevant file to my phone?”

  “Already on the way. Be careful, baby. Lot a crazies out there.”

  “I will, Daddy. Love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Libby shut off her phone. She clamped her hand over her mouth and choked back a sob.

  Less than two hours later Libby pulled into the Tucson Regency Resort and Spa. She handed the rental key to the valet and strolled toward the front desk. Flashing her sweetest smile, she batted her eyes at the desk clerk. “Good evening, Charles. I’m Amanda Downing.” She took out her wallet—the one with Amanda Downing’s license and credit cards. “I believe you have a reservation for me?” Libby toyed with a curl on her wig.

  He clicked away at the keyboard. “Ms. Downing, of course. The Presidential Suite is ready for you. As requested, we have provided a laptop and full-color printer.” He used two fingers to summon a bellboy. “Garret will show you to your room. Is there anything else I can do for you at this time?” He swiped her card and verified the picture on her driver’s license.

  “I can’t imagine.”

  Libby followed Garret to the elevators. They rode all the way to the top floor. Figured her daddy got her the Presidential Suite. It’s the least he can do, making me be here like this. Her heart pounded harder just thinking about it. Garret led her inside.

  “We’ve set up your office in the bedroom to your left; the master suite is on the right. Our menu of spa services is here,” he pointed to the coffee table, “and in-room dining is, of course, available around the clock. Shall I place your bag in the bedroom?”

  “No, you can leave it out here. Is there a password for the wireless?”

  “The gentleman who made your reservations sent a personal wifi.”

  “Perfect.” Libby fished into her wallet and grabbed a twenty. An extravagant tip, but it was her father’s money and right now she didn’t care too much about looking out for him. Hell, she’d just thrown a four-hundred-dollar airline ticket into the waste-basket. “Thank you.”

  Garret showed himself out and Libby eased off her jacket. First things first. She booted the computer and searched through her handbag. The Photocrop program she’d purchased on the way down installed quickly. She removed the flashlight—actually a USB drive—from her keyring and pulled up a dozen pictures on the screen.

  A dull ache grew at the back of her skull. She rubbed her neck as she examined the photos. They were taken last year, right about this time. Her momma and brother, each holding up a glass of wine, toasting the camera. One of Libby decorating the Christmas tree.

  “Oh shoot,” she said out loud. “It’s that dang sweater.” The black cashmere she’d given Nadia. Libby pulled that photo into the trash and looked for another. She and her brother in front of the Christmas tree, wearing matching footed pajamas—a gag gift from her momma. She and her momma leaning over the roasted turkey with forks and knives in hand.

  The only picture she could find of her daddy was from the summer. Standing on their yacht, deeply suntanned, looking handsome as ever. This might be problematic. Her father did not presently have a tan, what with being in Washington all season, and it was entirely possible one of her friends would see him on television over the holiday.

  I bet I can lighten him right up.

  Libby cut her daddy out of the photo like a surgeon removes a tumor. She brightened the light, lessened the contrast, decreased the saturation and carefully inserted him into the picture with her and her momma.

  Libby searched the background of the photos for telltale markers. Just for good measure, she found a calendar and stuck it on the kitchen wall. She changed the year to make it current and printed the proof of her perfect holiday.

  “And a happy Thanksgiving to me.”

  46

  NADIA

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24

  Nadia spent Thanksgiving morning at the dojo and the afternoon in the language lab. In the early evening she went for a run, sprinting along the hiking trails beyond the wall. During her cool-down lap she practiced slowing her breath to slow her heart rate.

  She had just finished showering when Casey knocked on her door. “You have a phone call, sweetie,” she called.

  Nadia pulled on her robe and jogged to the front desk. “Hello!” she sang, expecting to hear her mother’s voice.

  “Nadia, it’s Jack.”

  “Oh hey, Jack. Sorry, I thought you were my mom.” She winced, embarrassed by her over-enthusiastic greeting.

  “Are you homesick?”

  “A little. How’s it going?” She balanced the cordless phone between her shoulder and chin and tightened her robe.

  “Good. I wanted to say hi, let you know I was thinking about you.”

  Nadia was glad he couldn’t see her grin. “That was thoughtful.” She hesitated, trying to think of a casual way to ask about Jennifer without sounding like a psycho girlfriend. Did you get Jennifer dropped off okay? Did she keep her hands to herself? Are you hooking up with her? She kept her mouth shut.

  “Are you wearing your earrings?”

  “No, I just got out of the shower. I’m not even dressed yet, but I’ll wear them to dinner.”

  “Sweet. Think of me when you do. I’m going to my dad’s tomorrow, so I doubt I’ll have a chance to call again, but I wanted to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. I miss you,” Jack said.

  “Me too,” she answered, suddenly shy. She hung up the phone and noticed Casey shivering outside. Nadia waved her in.

  “I thought you’d like some privacy,” Casey said.

  “Do you think I could use the phone later? To call home?”

  “Of course. Whenever you want. If I’m not here, today’s code is 9-7-6-9. But make sure you call by midnight or that code won’t work.”

  The staff prepared a traditional Thanksgiving meal, which made Nadia more homesick. Damon never showed for dinner. She’d hoped he would cancel his trip.

  She liked being around him. He always seemed so interested in what she had to say. And the way he’d confided in her: she was honored for his trust.

  Why am I thinking about Damon? Nadia fiddled with one of her earrings. She pictured Jack in his tuxedo, holding her close as they danced. The way his kiss sent a warm rush through her entire body. She felt herself smiling.

  She hurried through dinner and returned to her dorm, walking quickly down the path to escape the cold night.

  Casey wasn’t in the lobby, so Nadia slipped behind her desk and into the chair, dialing as instructed.

  “Happy Thanksgiving!” her mom said.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Mom!” Nadia called back. “I miss you!”

  “Nadia, we miss you, too! Did you—”

  Feedback screeched through the phone. She moved the receiver away from her ear. “Mom, what did you say?”

  “I asked about your holiday,” she repeated.

  “It was great, how about you?”


  “Sweetie, I can barely hear you.”

  Nadia moved the receiver back to her ear and the screeching resumed. “Something’s wrong with the phone,” she said loudly. “Can you hear me?”

  “You’re breaking up. Do you want to call me back?” her mom asked.

  The desk blurred as Nadia’s eyes filled with tears. “No, it’s okay.” She steadied her voice so her mom wouldn’t worry. “A bunch of us are gonna watch a movie in the lounge. Everyone’s waiting on me. I love you. Tell Dad.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. Love you, too!”

  Nadia hung up and hurried down the hall, desperate to get to her room before she started crying. She fumbled with the lock and rushed inside, slamming her door. She fell onto her bed, sobbing quietly. She pictured her parents, turning out the lights, getting ready for bed; Jack at home with his brothers and sister; Libby curled up on the couch with her mom. Even Alan, surrounded by family, watching the snow fall on Central Park. Everyone she knew was with someone they loved.

  Her thoughts turned briefly to Damon, and with them another surge of guilt for feeling sorry for herself.

  For some reason she didn’t fully understand, she wished he was there with her.

  47

  AGENT 77365

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25

  “You are the most incompetent agent I have ever worked with,” the young man said into his cell phone.

  “May I remind you, I’m still your superior,” the older man answered sharply.

  “Wrong. You are my professor on campus; that is your cover. I do not answer to you, despite your chain-of-command delusions. It’s been months, and Nadia Riley is still at school. What is taking so long?”

  “You’re right to be concerned. It’s only a matter of time until Riley figures out she’s being set up. And that you’re the one doing it. You should’ve gotten rid of her when you had the chance.”

  “When exactly do you think that was? First you tell me to send her home, then you tell me to frame her. And what are you doing? Besides creating all these problems in the first place?”

  “You’ve no one but yourself to blame. You haven’t done a very good job planting evidence. Set her up, we’ll give her to the CIA and all our problems disappear,” the professor said.

  “Are you kidding? I arranged an incriminating phone call, the dead drop at the dance. What more do you want? A dead body in her closet? Why does this all fall on me?”

  “Get a hold of yourself. You have the most access. I can’t do it—I have a classroom full of students watching me. But you need to give us something big.”

  She needs to disappear. I need her gone from school and out of my life. I still have her knife. I could plant her bloody knife somewhere. But whose blood would I use? He sighed. The last thing he needed was another complication. And framing her for treason was not the same as framing her for murder.

  An hour later, at 0225 on Friday morning, he finished forging a Canadian plane ticket. At 0315 he wrote out a message using a complicated cipher code. By 0400, he was back in bed, sleeping like a baby.

  48

  NADIA

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25

  At seven o’clock on Friday morning, Nadia met Hashimoto Sensei at the dojo.

  “I let you sleep in because it is a holiday weekend,” he said.

  “How thoughtful of you,” she replied, with only a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “What are we doing today?”

  “This morning we will study jujutsu. Your ground fighting skills are unacceptable. Are you ready to begin?”

  “Hai.”

  “Take off your earrings. I do not allow jewelry in the dojo. It is too easy to be injured or to injure another.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. I slept in them last night and I don’t usually do that.”

  “To say you are sorry implies an accident, and what is an accident?” he asked.

  “A lack of discipline,” she recited, placing her earrings on the window sill.

  A minute later, she stood at attention on the mat, awaiting instruction.

  “Nadia-san.” Sensei slowly circled the mat as he spoke. “Do you know the difference between ninja and samurai?”

  Nadia shook her head, eyes forward.

  “Both are deadly. Ninja is silence, stealth and cunning.” Sensei stopped an arm’s length away on her left. “But there is more: Ninja cannot be trusted. He sells himself to the highest bidder.”

  A flash of movement in her peripheral vision as his bamboo pole flew toward her face. Nadia ducked the blow and deflected his stick, forcing Sensei’s shoulder away from her. She struck at his throat with the blade of her hand. His hand caught hers an instant before she made contact.

  Sensei smiled and bowed. “Yoku dekimashita. Well done.”

  She grinned and returned his bow. As Sensei moved to the front of the room, Nadia stood back at attention.

  “Samurai, also, is clever. Strong, disciplined, proud. But he is loyal. He serves one master, like his father before him. He believes in honor above all. While ninja fights in shadows; samurai harnesses light. Nadia-san, you are like samurai. You consistently demonstrate self-restraint, self-discipline and a desire to improve yourself through a rigorous study of martial arts. You have impressed me. Otherwise, I would not waste my time.”

  Her cheeks flushed, embarrassed—but pleased—by his praise. She knew this was Hashimoto Sensei’s deepest compliment.

  If Sensei saw how she was feeling, he ignored it. “I trust you are happy in your studies?”

  “Hai, very much.”

  “Excellent. I believe this semester is a new beginning for you. This is why I am willing to share my experience. This afternoon I will show you the covert-operations room, but first, you must understand something. No one is permitted in that room except me. In the history of the Academy, I have shown the covert-ops room to only one other student. Bring your passport this afternoon.”

  “I need my passport to get into the covert-ops room?” Nadia smiled. “Where exactly is it?”

  “One hundred snap-kicks. Hajime!”

  After a quick lunch Nadia returned to the dojo. She followed Sensei down the south wing, where he stopped in front of a metal door.

  He turned to enter his password, but he didn’t shield the keypad with his body. Under most circumstances Nadia would have turned away out of courtesy, but she was watching the keypad because, unlike the weapons room, it had no thumbprint reader, and she wondered why. I guess the weapons room needs more security? Sensei entered his password: abunai. The door clanged softly as the lock released. “Come in.”

  Nadia stepped into the tiny room, about the size of her and Libby’s bathroom. Richly grained wood panels, each the size of a kitchen cabinet door, lined the walls. The empty room contained two recessed bookshelves, both stacked with books.

  “This is the covert-operations room,” Sensei said with moderate ceremony.

  Nadia had the feeling she should ooh and ah, but she really didn’t see anything special. Literally, an empty wood-paneled room with a couple bookshelves.

  “We will begin here.” Sensei turned to the wall on their left. He ran his hand over the panel. “This salvaged wood came from a Buddhist monastery that was abandoned during the First World War. Each plank was hand-carved and smoothed by young monks.” He pressed the panel and a hidden cabinet opened with a quiet click.

  Nadia smiled. Room not so lame anymore.

  “This row of cabinets contains surveillance equipment.” He held up an unabridged Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. “Look closely.”

  She leaned in for a better view. “What about it?”

  “Run your hand down the spine.”

  Her fingers slid down the binding. The canvas was smooth—until a slight indentation over the ‘o’ in Dictionary. “What is it?”

  He opened the book, exposing a hollow cavity filled with wires and a small black box. “This is a camera, audio and visual.” He held up a box of lightbulbs. “These are strictly audio.”
<
br />   “In the lightbulb? No kidding.”

  “A wiretap can be hidden anywhere: inside a pencil, sewn into the button on a sofa, concealed in a ring.” He returned the items to their shelves. “The next cabinet contains counter-surveillance equipment. These tools are used to sweep for wiretaps, to make sure the integrity of your environment has not been compromised.” Sensei picked up a thick wand-shaped device and turned it on. He quickly scanned Nadia’s torso. “You are clean,” he joked. He rarely joked.

  “A bug could be anywhere, right?” Nadia asked. “I know the school has security cameras outside all the buildings, but you don’t think our bedrooms are wired, do you?”

  “No. It would be a serious violation of civil rights, especially since you are minors.” Sensei gestured to the second wall, opposite the door. “This cabinet houses equipment for dead drops. Have you learned about dead drops in class?”

  “Yes, in fact—” She wasn’t sure she should tell him about her dead drop. The waiter had said not to tell anyone.

  “ ‘In fact’ what?”

  I better not. “We learned about them weeks ago.”

  He held up a small tin. “A magnetic box can be attached to a park bench or under a car.” He showed her a can of shaving cream with a false bottom, a pair of hollowed chopsticks, even a glass eye with a pocket to conceal a message. “You have your passport?”

  Nadia reached behind her back to pull the passport from the waistband of her Gi.

  I bet he’d be able to confirm that Jack was supposed to retrieve my dead drop.

  Sensei selected a thin, foot-long stick from the cabinet. He flipped a switch and a blue glow filled the room.

  Why is that still bothering me?

  Sensei held the light over the pages. “A customs official uses this wand to identify counterfeit passports. The light detects security threads in the paper, which are sensitive to ultra-violet radiation.”

  “Excellent,” Nadia said. It just seems strange Jack allowed himself to be seen by Alan. Why didn’t he come back later—after everyone was asleep? Sensei won’t mind if I ask. He won’t give me a bad report. “May I ask you a question?”