He resisted the temptation to pat the memorandum folded into his coat pocket. He knew that, in reality, the Agency could always renege and then deny they’d ever agreed to anything. On the other hand, he wasn’t too worried about that. The letter spoke mostly about retirement pay and benefits, a coded promise to protect Sloan, and his own acquiescence to taking early retirement in the “best interests of the Agency.” There was no mention of black swans or Allender’s part in creating one for the Chinese Ministry of State Security.
As he drove his elderly Mercedes out through the heavily defended gate complex, he resisted the temptation to lower his window and shout free at last! at the gate guards. He hadn’t realized how tired he’d become of all this BS, aggravated by the growing certainty that, for the past several years, the Agency had been sweeping against an implacably hostile and rising tide and doing so in the interests of a government and people who didn’t really care, unless it was in aid of preventing another demented religious nut from getting one through security.
He’d e-mailed Carol Mann, his own EA down at the Farm, with the news. She’d already heard, which for some reason made him laugh out loud, startling the office staff. Interestingly, she’d predicted that he’d be back, and sooner than he might realize, especially with a presidential election looming next year. Given the current administration and the prospects for any major changes, he told her his ever coming back was highly unlikely. She loyally bet him five bucks, and then informed him she was going to retire as well.
Once home he reached for the Scotch before he remembered that it was still early afternoon. And your problem is? his whiskey devil wanted to know. That was when it hit him: He was fifty-five years old, home from work and out of a job at two in the afternoon, and there wasn’t a single soul he could talk to about it. Admittedly, it wasn’t as if he’d soon be homeless—one of the advantages of staying a bachelor all those years was that there was no clutch of horrified dependents sitting in front of him this afternoon wondering what was going to become of them. The only times he’d even thought about money had been when the bank called to tell him that his direct-deposit checking account had reached its FDIC insurance limit. Again. But, still.
He stood by the front windows in his study, staring idly out at the people walking by on the sidewalk and the seemingly endless stream of traffic all going urgently somewhere and nowhere at the same time. Had he screwed up with his decision to remain an outlier all these years? On balance, he didn’t think so. In the course of vetting just about everyone of consequence in Agency management over the past twenty-five years, he’d seen just about everything that could possibly go wrong in a person’s career: the most unlikely people conducting stupidly illicit affairs or living secret sex lives; middle-grade officials struggling with huge money problems caused by gambling debts or a prescription-medicine problem; the effect on an officer’s performance of a surprise divorce or a gravely ill spouse; the usual alcohol addictions, or just the overwhelming financial burdens of having children in an age where four years at even a public university left parents, graduates, or both drowning in debt. His own career had given him some deep insights into the expression that family is everything.
He’d felt he had much more in common with the Clandestine Service operatives who had to come see him every time they rotated back through Washington from an overseas assignment. Many of them had given up on trying to maintain a marriage or even a special friend, given that their service required them to disappear for months on end, often under deep cover, where homecoming meant dropping your bags in a temporary rental or an Agency apartment with all the hearth-and-home attributes of an empty double-wide. Some of them did manage the double life, a spouse and maybe even kids who became very independent people. Many these days didn’t even try, because anyone with half a brain knew that, to create a middle-class family success story in contemporary America, it took two full-time parents with really good jobs or careers for them to even have a chance.
No, all things considered, he was right where he needed to be at this juncture in his life. He could now literally do anything he wanted to and not have to think about how that decision might impact anyone else. He would have preferred to have gone out on his own initiative and not be forced to leave because of bungling at the top level of the Company, but: What was the saying? No good deed goes unpunished?
He’d had to leave because his op had succeeded beyond expectations. He’d hit one of the Agency’s most dangerous enemies hard and where it counted. In these times of nonconfrontational, apologetic crypto-isolationism and multilateral diplomacy über alles, a sudden strike at one of the nation’s most formidable enemies was apparently a major faux pas, so much so that he would not have been too surprised if the Chinese didn’t approach him one day with an offer to join them. They were clever that way, the bastards. Plus they were always willing to indulge in something few Americans had ever mastered except possibly the Founding Fathers: They were willing to take a long, patient view.
Hell’s bells, he thought. I think I will have that Scotch. It’s not like anyone’s going to call with an urgent problem.
Attaboy, his devil whispered approvingly. Why not two?
* * *
A little after nine, Melanie Sloan called from the West Coast. The tech division had retrieved their special phones and the Agency’s computer terminal, so he had to remind her they were on an open line.
“I just heard,” she said. “WTF, over?”
“How goes the nipping and snipping?” he asked, ignoring her question. “Like your new looks?”
“Right now I look like a raccoon accidentally mated with a woodchuck and then got run over,” she said. “An ugly woodchuck, who’s toying with an addiction to Blessed Mother hydrocodone. They asked if I wanted to become a black woman. Can you believe that?”
“Now there’s a trick question if I ever heard one,” he said. “On the other hand, the Chinese would never look twice at you—they’re the original racists. Can they really do that?”
“Apparently someone in the Company developed an injection that can change the pigments in the body’s largest organ.”
“Hunh?”
“The skin,” she said, triumphantly.
“Ri-i-ght,” he said. “I knew that. A thousand years ago in med school. Can they reverse it?”
“Now who’s asking trick questions?”
He laughed.
“What will you do now?”
“Still thinking and drinking,” he said. “Early days.”
“I’ve met some people who say they’re important in the Hollywood scene,” she said. “I’ll bet they could find a use for those eyes of yours. You’d make a phenomenal vampire.”
He laughed again. “I’m sure I would,” he said. “But I’ve had a lifelong fascination with trees, or rather, the woods and veneers they produce. Some of them are so rare that I have the only specimens in this country.”
“Cool,” she said. “So—import-export? Artwork? Museums?”
“Try Washington decorators,” he said, and this time she laughed.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” she said. “And lucrative, too. Would you travel?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know a lot of people who spend time in faraway places. I can call in some favors, I think.”
“I’ll just bet you can,” she said. “Need an assistant, Doctor?”
“I think they have plans for you, my dear,” he said. Shit, he thought. My dear. I’m starting to sound like McGill.
“What kind of plans?”
“Discreet plans.”
“Oh, right. Well, eventually I hope to be back in the land of guns and posers. Perhaps you can show me your etchings one evening.”
“Veneers,” he said, but smiled to himself. Etchings, indeed.
“What I said,” she replied. “Keep well, Doctor. You never know when opportunity might knock. So to speak.”
“I will do that, Melanie Sloan. But keep your eyes peeled, okay?”
>
“They’ve been peeled by professionals,” she said. “Right now they’re swollen shut, but I’ll try. Who or what should I be watching for?”
“One of us, maybe?”
She had no answer for that, so he wished her well and said good-bye.
He felt a smidgen of regret, which surprised him. Listen to you, he said to himself. She’s in her thirties. You’re in your fifties. She’s been trained in how to lay waste to an entire room full of unwitting men. You’ve been trained to scare people. How’s that for a match?
II
THE RED SWAN
FOURTEEN
Melanie Sloan relaxed on the protected balcony of her new Washington condo with a glass of wine and a view of Rock Creek shimmering through the trees in the gorge behind the building. It was early evening. An amazing number of cars were running the Rock Creek Parkway five floors below. She’d invested every cent of her generous bonus, after taxes, of course, in buying the condo, which had two bedrooms, two full baths, a living room–dining room combination, a kitchen with a breakfast counter, and this delightful balcony. Twice a day it was filled with the hum of Washington’s commuter frenzy down below, but the rest of the time it was as quiet as a tomb. Her neighbors were mostly retirees living on their government pensions. By nine thirty at night hers were probably the only windows still lit. She thought it was perfect. There were upscale markets only a few blocks away, underground parking, card security at the front doors and on the elevators, and even a twenty-four-hour concierge service that she couldn’t afford.
The condo was a big step up from the Randy Towers and a far cry from the faceless Los Angeles suburb where she’d spent just over a year creating the new and improved Melanie Sloan. Having been whisked out of Washington literally on the night of Chiang’s Big Surprise a year ago, she’d been dropped into the hands of the Agency’s discreet plastic-surgeon group, kept on retainer for those occasions which demanded the complete reconstruction of someone’s face either because of injury or, as in Melanie’s case, a need for someone to morph facially into a brand-new person. The practice occupied a large, six-story medical-arts building at the edge of one of the movie-star neighborhoods north of the city. Various other medical practices operated out of the first two floors. The middle two floors consisted of one-bedroom apartments where patients who were in for a major siege of cosmetic surgery could stay until their faces healed sufficiently as to no longer frighten people. The surgical suites occupied the final two floors. It had been a long and surprisingly painful year, the first part of which had been a blur of time, powerful painkillers, and lots of tubes and lines.
She was only now able to say that she had just about managed to expunge the more uncomfortable parts from her memory. She’d been surprised to find that real cosmetic surgery was rarely done in one fell swoop but rather in a series of operations, some of which had to be done to recover from a previous surgery that had had an undesired effect. But they’d been good, really good, Hollywood good, as she reminded herself every time she looked in a mirror these days. She now looked enough like a young Grace Kelly that some older people at LAX had done double takes as she went through security.
The best news was that she’d kept her job at the Agency, especially after someone senior had seen her “graduation” pictures. What that job entailed she would find out tomorrow morning, but apparently it was going to be something based right here in Washington, just as Allender had predicted. She wondered if they’d send her to a reception at the Chinese embassy just to test the new face. She was confident she’d pass that test, but secretly wanted to go find Dragon Eyes and see if he recognized her. She still remembered those times when he’d verbalized the thought that she’d been about to speak, but she’d resisted the temptation to call him until she found out what Langley wanted of her in her next posting. They’d forced him out, and she knew enough to realize that consorting with one of the Agency’s more prominent exiles was not the way to begin a new assignment at headquarters. Still, she smiled to herself; she’d kept his home number.
* * *
Her first day back on the job found her sitting outside the office of the DDO himself at ten in the morning. She’d been assigned to the Office of the Director for administrative purposes and then told to call on the DDO at ten. She’d turned down an offer of coffee and was reading The Washington Post on her phone when the DDO’s secretary called for her to go in. The inner office was expansive and decorated in a faintly British style with incandescent lighting only, rich rugs on the floor, and lots of brass accouterments. The chubby little man sitting behind the desk was apparently trying for the same effect, dressed as he was in light gray wool trousers, a tweed jacket, and a bow tie, and, inevitably, she thought, fooling with an ornate pipe.
“My good gracious,” he exclaimed as Melanie entered. “That’s phenomenal. How in the world do they do that?”
“With knives?” she said, stepping forward to shake hands. “I’m Melanie Sloan.”
“You are when you’re here within the fold,” he said. “On the assignment we have waiting for you your name will be—” He checked a three-by-five card on his desk. “—Virginia Singer.” He sat back down at his desk and indicated a chair for her. “I’d say you’re absolutely safe from recognition.”
“I don’t recall meeting you before, Mister McGill.”
“Oh, we haven’t met, but Preston Allender showed me your picture. You were striking then and more so now, which is perfect for your next assignment.”
“How is the good doctor?” she asked as innocently as she could. “Still scaring people with those vampire eyes?”
“I don’t actually know, my dear,” McGill said. “He retired after the black swan. I’m told he’s doing something in the export-import world, of all things. Exotic wood veneers from equally exotic places. Childhood hobby he learned while growing up in Taiwan. Are you comfortably situated here in D.C.?”
“Yes, sir, I am, thank you, courtesy of that generous bonus.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “Smart way to invest it, too. So: Here’s the program. I’m going to send you down to the Farm for some special training, something vaguely similar to what you did for the black swan. Once we see how that goes, I’ll reveal your target and put you together with young Mister Smith again.”
“Mister Smith,” she said. “I remember him.”
“Thought you might. Has anyone told you how much you look like Grace Kelly in her movie days?”
“One or two,” she replied. “I had several choices of faces, but that one jumped out at me, I have to admit. I never saw her in person, of course. Long before my time.”
“Mine too, unfortunately, but I have seen her movies. The good news is that no one could mistake you for Melanie Sloan. The bad news is that no one will forget your face once they’ve seen it.”
“Then this will be a one-time deal?”
“Clever girl,” he said, silently clapping his hands. “Very clever girl. That’s just what I meant.”
He must have pushed a button under the desk somewhere, because the office door opened and the secretary called her name. Melanie told McGill it had been a pleasure and then left the office. McGill’s secretary sent her down to the travel office to set up her stint at the Farm. On the way down she realized that McGill might be contemplating yet another black swan. Except: That program had supposedly been extinguished after what they’d done to General Chiang. She knew she’d have to be careful here; what had happened to Allender could well happen to her. Then she realized that the likelihood of losing everything increased as a function of how well the upcoming op went. Wasn’t that just perverse! Welcome back.
* * *
Two days later she went in for her first day of mission training at the Farm. She’d been told to report to Gabrielle Farrell in a branch euphemistically called Applied Physiology. Farrell turned out to be a hard-bitten-looking woman in her early fifties who was dressed in a severe gray pantsuit and wearing shoes that looked a lot
like men’s brogues. Her hair was cropped short and she wore no jewelry of any kind. She had slightly protruding eyes that made it look like she was glaring and a surprisingly deep voice. She took Melanie to her private office and closed the door.
“Did they tell you anything about the mission?” she asked as she sat down behind her desk and pointed Melanie into a chair.
“Nope,” Melanie said. “The DDO told me to come down here for training, and that’s about it.”
“Carson McGill, himself, told you that?” the woman asked in a challenging tone.
“Yes,” Melanie said.
“What division do you work out of at Langley?”
“The director’s office,” Melanie said, wondering now why this woman seemed to be angry with her.
“Oh, great,” Farrell snorted. “Another goddamn prima donna from Hingham’s ‘special branch.’ Funny how all the really pretty girls end up in the director’s office.”
Melanie rolled her eyes and got up to leave but Farrell just laughed. “Hold your horses, sweet cheeks,” she sneered. “If this mission folder is accurate, you better get some thicker skin than that. Sit down.”
Melanie thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t going to put up with some kind of plebe-year indoc bullshit from this dyke or anyone else.
“Please?” Farrell said in a grating voice. “We haven’t even started yet and right now you’re wasting my time.”
“I think we’re even, then,” Melanie said.
This time Farrell really did glare. “Repeat after me, Virginia Singer or Melanie Sloan or whatever the fuck your name is: I am a lesbian.”
Melanie was taken aback. “I am not a lesbian,” she replied.
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