Free Fall

by Christa Roberts

  But Stephanie shook her head quickly, her face defeated. “There's no way I could do that. Paul would find me in a heartbeat.” She stood up and paced nervously in front of the TV. Then she turned, sitting down on the low dresser. “I'm going to tell you something, but you must swear to secrecy. Swear.”

  Sydney gave her an incredulous look. After what they had just been talking about, was secrecy really an issue?

  “Fine, I swear,” Sydney said dutifully.

  “A few minutes ago you said you were on a mission. . . . Well, I'm on a mission too,” Stephanie admitted. “SD-2 has intel that suggests that Paul and his father are double agents working for K-Directorate.”

  Sydney let out a low whistle at the mention of the rogue Russian spy group. The plot was thickening.

  Stephanie nodded. “Before I was sent here to Niagara Falls, another, more high-ranking officer stepped in and asked me to spy on Paul and to secure any information I can about him.”

  “Who was the agent?” Sydney asked.

  “I'm not at liberty to say,” Stephanie told her reluctantly. “To make things easier, I'll call him . . . Jones. Jones had no idea that I'd been romantically involved with Paul. But we only were together for a few weeks before I realized I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.” Stephanie put her face in her hands.

  “And so now—” Sydney prompted gently.

  “Now I've been asked by Jones to eliminate Paul should I be able to confirm his double-agent status.” Stephanie held up her thumb and pointer finger millimeters apart. “And I'm this close to having the proof I need.” She stood up abruptly. “I've never killed anybody,” she confessed, her blue eyes pooling with tears. “But I'm not afraid to do it if that's what I'm ordered to do.”

  Sydney sat for a minute, trying to absorb it all. When she'd first heard Stephanie's plan, it sounded like out-and-out murder. But now, with K-Directorate and Jones involved, it wasn't nearly as cut and dried.

  “The big problem, though, is that if something happens to Paul and I can be pinned to the crime, Paul's father will see to it that I'm eliminated.” Stephanie's eyes were pleading. “So I need someone to help me. And—and you're the only one I trust.”

  The wheels had been spinning in Sydney's head. Knowing that Stephanie really trusted her made it awfully hard to tell her no. I'd hate to think that if I turned to someone I trusted for help, they'd turn me away, Sydney thought, her emotions churning inside her.

  “It's not that I don't believe you,” Sydney began, “but it's a lot to deal with. I—I'm not sure what to say.”

  Stephanie came over and sat down next to her. Gone was the bubbly blond beauty who had strode into the Maple Leaf Lodge just a few days before. In her place was a scared, thin, wide-eyed girl . . . a girl who had become a friend.

  A surge of pity rushed through Sydney as she tried to imagine herself in Stephanie's situation. And in truth, it wasn't as if Stephanie was committing a crime—if Paul was a double agent, she'd be doing her duty as an officer of the U.S. government.

  “I guess—it's just that I can't believe we're actually having a conversation about killing someone. . . . I'm a college sophomore, for Pete's sake,” Sydney said at last.

  Stephanie let out a wry laugh. “We should be worrying about what classes to take and which happy hours to go to, not plotting the death of a K-Directorate agent, right?”

  Sydney managed a small smile. “Exactly.” She pushed herself off the bed and picked up her card key from the nightstand. “I need to go for a walk and think a little bit. Okay?”

  Stephanie nodded. “Thanks, Sydney. Even—even if you can't help me, it means a lot to me that you were willing to listen . . . and believe me.”

  Walking down the corridor, Sydney focused her thoughts. She did believe Stephanie was tell-ing the truth. But whether she wanted to get involved . . . that was another story.

  Still, how could she walk away, knowing that SD-2 might be home to a double agent and that a fellow agent was in serious jeopardy?

  Before she realized it, she was turning down the wing where Paul and Greg's room was located. She slowed as she passed their door, the chance to do a little reconnaissance eating away at her. She was pretty sure she could find a way to break into the room—but what would that solve? And explaining it to Agent Henry if she was caught would take some real doing.

  Instead, she headed for the lobby. On impulse, she bought a bottle of water and a bag of chips from a vending machine, then stepped outside. The cool evening air washed over her, and for a moment, she wished she had changed into her running clothes.

  Instead, she turned down Niagara Parkway and headed toward the falls. Maybe I'll ride up the Skylon Tower, she thought, wondering if the elevated view of the falls would show her anything that might help her make a decision.

  I could always go to one of the nightclubs on Clifton Hill, she thought, smiling as she walked down the dark street, lit every few hundred yards with a streetlamp. The drinking age in Ontario was nineteen. I'd be completely legal. Wouldn't the frat guys back home love to go to school here! But it wouldn't be much fun sitting in a bar without any of her friends to hang out with.

  She wished she could see the Festival of Lights she had read about in a tourist guidebook. Starting in late autumn the city of Niagara Falls lit up the water with rainbow-colored lights, using so many strings of lightbulbs that it was well into January before they could get them all down.

  At the pace she was keeping, she'd be at the falls in a few minutes.

  What would Noah do? she wondered as the air around her grew moist and her ears picked up the dull roar of the water. Well, one thing was for sure. He definitely wouldn't be wondering what she would do. For better or worse, he would react.

  She was standing next to a large framed map of the Canadian Falls, trying to decide where to go, when she heard someone call her name.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed, jogging over to where Maureen was sitting on a bench, her hair pulled into a short stubby ponytail. “What's going on?”

  “Paul and I were just hanging out,” Maureen said, patting the empty seat beside her. “He had to visit the rest room.” She shivered. “And he promised to bring back some coffee too.”

  “Oh!” Sydney said, barely believing her good luck. “I'll go see if I can find him and make that two cups.”

  “Make sure he grabs three sugars,” Maureen called as Sydney started up the embankment toward the visitors' center.

  Sydney didn't plan on letting Paul see her, but maybe she'd catch him doing something that would be helpful in some way. Like . . . like . . . Like what, Sydney? Coming out of the men's room? Grabbing four sugars? Well, she was stumped.

  But the chance to see him after all Stephanie had told her was too tempting to pass up. Making her way up the sidewalk, Sydney passed tourists taking in the falls at night. A quick look inside the visitors' center told her that Paul wasn't there, and the coffee shop was empty save for a group of German tourists. Sydney hesitated under the green-awninged portico of the shop and suddenly picked up the sound of Russian being spoken in the darkness alongside the building.

  Sydney walked away from the building and moved behind a large kiosk. There was a pay phone adjacent to the visitors' center, and a man was hunched beside it, talking quietly into the phone.

  Stealthily, Sydney inched her way around the kiosk, trying to get within earshot without alerting the man to her presence.

  Squinting in the darkness, she recognized Paul's tall frame and his messy hair, shoved underneath a baseball cap. And she recognized his voice as well . . . except that instead of Chicago-tinged English, he was speaking in fluent Russian.

  Barely breathing, she translated the snippets of conversation that she could pick up.

  “Rock climbing . . . accident. . . . Things will work out. . . . I understand my orders. . . .”

  Sydney let out a gasp. Stephanie was right. Paul was working with K-Directorate. There could be no other explanation for a furtive
phone call made in the dark cover of night, in Russian spoken with the ease of a native. And if by some small chance it was a phone call to a friend, Paul would use his cell in front of Maureen, not come all the way up here.

  Sydney flattened herself against the kiosk. And then she heard the most chilling words of all, spoken with the cold, hard voice of a killer.

  “Don't worry about Stephanie Harling. She will be taken care of.”

  12

  “OKAY, LET'S GO OVER it one more time.” Stephanie took a deep, steadying breath and met Sydney's eyes in the mirror over the wet paper-towel-strewn bathroom sink in one of the public rest rooms across from the falls. They were each wearing navy blue windbreakers to protect themselves from the perennial wetness, white shorts, baseball caps, and Nikes. A laptop sat propped up next to the tiled wall.

  Sydney nodded, but she had already committed the plan they had concocted to memory. As part of Stephanie and Paul's secret SD-2 mission, Paul was to pick up a disk from a local informant and then leave that disk for Stephanie in front of a nearby Starbucks. In turn, Stephanie was to give the disk to a bearded man wearing an orange baseball cap on the Whirlpool Aero Car, an aerial cable car that traveled between two points on the Canadian shore of the Niagara River.

  “Now, like I've said, I am ninety-nine percent sure that the disk Paul gives me will not be the one he's led me to believe it will be. Instead, it's going to contain secrets vital to SD-2 operations,” Stephanie said hurriedly, wringing her hands.

  “We'll find out,” Sydney said confidently. “I'll get the disk and then run it down to you. You'll be able to do a quick scan on your laptop.” If it turned out that Stephanie was wrong, Sydney would go ahead and make the scheduled SD-2 drop as planned. If Stephanie was right, Sydney had given her word that she would help.

  Help equaled assistance. Help didn't equal kill.

  “Right, and meanwhile, I'll be IM'ing Paul's father back at SD-2,” Stephanie said calmly, reassuring herself with the details of the plan. “If anything happens to Paul, my online records will prove that I didn't have anything to do with it.”

  And if things went as she intended, Sydney wouldn't either.

  She had made the decision that if Paul was confirmed to be a traitor, she would contact SD-6. Getting involved in a physical altercation with another CIA agent was not something she wanted on her permanent record at SD-6, no matter how justified.

  “How do I look?” Sydney asked, adjusting her long blond wig into a loose ponytail and pulling her baseball cap down over her face. In the split second she was going to be near Paul, she was confident he wouldn't detect the switch.

  “Like the person who's going to save my life,” Stephanie whispered back.

  “That's it,” Sydney murmured to herself as she watched Paul Riley put a small black disk on the ledge of an oversized planter outside the busy coffee shop. He casually covered the disk with an empty paper coffee cup and began ambling in her direction, sipping a full cup of coffee.

  Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. Now. She walked briskly toward the familiar Starbucks logo, head down, and as she passed Paul, she gave herself a mental high five. She had learned never to make eye contact with someone when making a drop, and it was likely that Paul followed the same protocol. If he suspected something, he would most certainly have stopped her.

  Pocketing the disk, she walked as quickly as she could down the recreation trail that ran alongside the Niagara Parkway to the entrance of the Whirlpool Aero Car.

  “That was fast,” Stephanie breathed, stepping out from behind a cluster of trees. She popped open her laptop and Sydney slid the disk into the drive.

  She watched over Stephanie's shoulder as Stephanie clicked rapidly through various folders, letting out a low whistle.

  Stephanie had been right, and then some. The disk not only gave details of SD-2's operations, but operations of SD-6 and SD-15 as well.

  “That bastard,” Stephanie hissed.

  Sydney couldn't believe what was scrolling down on the laptop screen in front of her. Somehow Paul had gained clearance to Greg's, Maureen's, and Sydney's home offices, downloading complete dossiers on all key staff, along with itemized accounts of all missions and locations of satellite offices. Top-secret information that someone at Sydney's level would never be privy to.

  And then Stephanie clicked open a folder that contained a memo:

  To: Timothy G.

  From: Paul R.

  Subject: Agent Stephanie Harling

  This memo is to confirm that Stephanie Harling is working against us. Will do what is necessary. Problem will be taken care of before our return from Niagara Falls.

  The red-roofed Aero Car was filled to capacity as it left the disembarking point and began to travel slowly across the turbulent water below. It reminded Sydney of an amusement park sky tram, except much bigger—and with a much scarier view.

  Sydney had thought it would be easy to spot her mark, but everyone on board seemed to be wearing a hat, and the crowded car was difficult to navigate. She reached inside her jacket pocket and gave the disk a reassuring touch.

  “Excuse me,” Sydney said to a large woman busily snapping pictures of her three children posing against the yellow metal railing. Then Sydney spotted a flash of orange. A man with a black goatee, dressed in a jean jacket, jeans, and a trucker-style orange foam hat stood off to the side, barely looking at the water as it formed a massive whirlpool below.

  Sydney looked out at the majestic view, trying to calm the pounding in her heart. Relax. It's not like he's going to know you're tricking him, she told herself. She took a few photos with the disposable Kodak camera she'd stuck in her pocket for appearance's sake and made a show of pulling out a guide map to the area and studying it closely. Then, after she'd dallied as long as she dared, she nonchalantly walked over to Orange Hat.

  As a prerecorded voice detailed the sights below and the oohing and ahhing Aero Car passengers snapped photographs, Sydney placed the disk on a water-spattered interior ledge, then backed away.

  In a split second, Orange Hat had retrieved it.

  I wonder what he'll do when he discovers that the intel he was expecting was deleted and replaced with pages of Madame LeFèvre's French vocabulary handouts? Sydney thought, suppressing a chuckle. Stephanie had saved the treasonous information onto her laptop's hard drive; the disk Sydney was handing over would be useless to him.

  As the car made its way back to the boarding area and the passengers began to disembark, Sydney watched Orange Hat blend into the crowd.

  She agonized over what to do. Should she head back to the main viewing area to try to find Paul and confront him? She didn't have a weapon, and the thought of getting into a death match with a trained SD officer didn't have a lot of appeal.

  And it could be a real death match, she thought uneasily. Because if Paul was ready to hand Stephanie over to K-Directorate on a plate, there was no reason to think he wouldn't just shoot her on sight, especially if he thought she was Stephanie. There was no way to know if the traitorous agent had a gun.

  Maybe he did.

  Maybe she was in his line of fire right now. Her nerves beginning to fray, she pushed forward through the crowd, not wanting to stand immobile, a potential sitting duck.

  As soon as her Nikes hit solid ground, Sydney took off running. “Taxi!” she yelled to an idling city cab at the nearby intersection. “The Horseshoe Falls,” she said breathlessly to the driver, climbing into the backseat.

  Before she did anything, she would locate Carl Sanderling's notes.

  And then I'll call Sloane. Her handler at SD-6 would know exactly what to do.

  13

  THE SECOND THE ELEVATOR door opened in the Table Rock complex, Sydney jumped out and raced through the empty network of manmade tunnels behind the Horseshoe Falls, her sneakers splashing through puddles. She had been the elevator's sole occupant, and it appeared that she was alone in the tunnel as well. That was good—she didn't have ti
me to explain to any curious bystanders what she was doing. She only had a few minutes to find Sanderling's papers and get back to the main viewing platform, where the agents were to gather for further border patrol instruction.

  The tunnel walls were craggy and dank, narrow beams of light making their way through cracks. Sydney pulled out the small flashlight she had in her pocket and clicked it on, then adjusted the tiny earpiece in her right ear. The flashlight beam danced jerkily over the ground as she jogged. Up ahead she could hear the thunder of the falls.

  This would be really cool if I weren't working, she thought, coming out onto a small outdoor observation deck that at most could hold three people. Agents were always supposed to tend to the matter at hand, whether they were scaling the Eiffel Tower or walking the Great Wall of China. There wasn't time to be a sightseer.

  But sometimes it was hard to follow the rules.

  Sydney stopped for a moment, mesmerized by the rush of water. She was far below the rim of the gorge, directly behind the Horseshoe Falls. The platform she was standing on was just above the water level.

  Everything she did—school, SD-6, running—seemed so meaningless in the face of such a powerful force of nature. Insignificant, she thought, remembering what Stephanie had said on their visit a few days ago. The falls were as thunderous, thrilling, and awesome as she had always imagined them to be.

  Brushing back a clump of soggy blond wig, Sydney pulled the bright yellow rain poncho included with the attraction's admission fee around her. In one of its pockets were a magnetic tape measure and a grease pencil, which she used to carefully follow the measurements she'd memorized from Sloane. Sanderling hadn't had time to come up with a complicated hiding place. . . . He had been in fear for his life, and a quickly devised plan to use a crevice in this tunnel made the search not as complicated as it might have been.