by Saul Herzog
The woman hurried down the steps and stopped. She reached for the rail to hold herself up and began coughing. Then she fell to the ground.
Sofia ran to her. The woman couldn’t breathe. Sofia looked around for help but didn’t dare leave. The woman gasped for air and Sofia helped her to her feet.
“Come on. Let’s get you back inside.”
The woman leaned on Sofia and they made it a few steps before falling.
When they hit the ground, Sofia’s head smacked painfully against the ice. She got back up but felt dizzy as she tried to lift the woman. She was too heavy. Looking around desperately, Sofia cried for help.
A security guard came out of the hospital.
“What’s the matter?”
“She’s not breathing.”
“I’ll get a stretcher,” he said.
Sofia didn’t know what to do. The woman was dying and against all her better judgment, all her years of training, she did the one thing she knew might save her.
She gave her mouth to mouth.
She leaned the woman’s head back, pinched her nose, put her mouth over hers, and breathed into her lungs. She did it over and over, counting the time between breaths.
By the time the guard returned, the woman was dead.
Sofia helped him get her on the stretcher and they carried her into the hospital.
Inside, she saw why no one had come to their assistance. It was complete chaos. People were on the chairs in the waiting area, on the ground, in the examination rooms. There were women everywhere in the same pink uniform.
Sofia stopped a nurse in the corridor.
“What’s happening?”
“They just keep coming.”
“From the Empress factory?”
“Yes. They can’t breathe. They’ve been poisoned.”
Another woman burst out of an examination room and the nurse ran to her, catching her as she collapsed.
The nurse looked at Sofia desperately.
“What should I do?” she cried. “They’re dying. They’re all dying.”
12
Laurel found a bar that looked like it had come off the set of a Sergio Leone movie.
Inside was a man talking to the bartender and another at the far end, his head on the counter.
“Is he asleep?” she said to the bartender.
The bartender nodded.
It didn’t look like she’d be seeing much action in there. The thought of sharing the bed with Roth flashed across her mind and she shuddered.
The man was settling his bill and Laurel got on a seat a few down from him.
When she looked at him she nearly fell off the stool.
It was him.
The asset.
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” he said.
Lance Spector.
She couldn’t believe it.
Her mind ran over what she knew of him. Not nearly enough. Delta Force. Training at the farm. Everything had been so redacted.
“They don’t make them like you, where I come from,” she said.
That was always her fallback. Her go to strategy. Flirtation. There was no quicker way to get a man to let his guard down.
“And where’s that?” he said.
“Dale County, Alabama.”
Laurel had been working men her whole life. Where she came from, a girl had no choice. Looks-wise, she was a regular homecoming queen, with blonde hair billowing over her shoulders and blue eyes like two sapphires. Men had been underestimating her for her entire life. Starting with daddy.
He’d been a soldier, an officer, a hero, but also one mean drunk. He’d taught her the first and arguably most important thing she’d ever learned.
Trust no one.
The lesson served her well in the Alabama state foster care system. It also served her in the CIA. The two had more in common than they should have.
Laurel learned early to hide weakness. Feelings stayed under the surface, invisible. No one should ever know what you were thinking. And they sure as shit shouldn’t see you coming.
When you strike, strike once, and strike hard.
When you shoot, shoot to kill. Don’t ever let anyone come back at you.
All of which was to say, she knew how to handle herself. She knew how to handle men, get what she wanted out of them without giving up too much of herself.
Lance nodded. “I know Alabama.”
“I bet you do.”
She leaned on the bar to give him a better view of her assets. She wanted his attention. He was on his way out and she needed him to stay.
He sat back down and ordered a refill.
“And whatever my friend’s having,” he said.
The bartender gave him some attitude. “Isn’t your niece waiting?”
Lance looked toward the door. “Wait here,” he said, then went outside with his keys.
Laurel and the bartender eyed each other like cats about to fight. Two women, one man, thirty minutes to last call.
Lance came back and sat two stools closer to Laurel than he’d been before. There was only one empty seat between them now.
Laurel gave the bartender a look that said, any other objections, bitch?
She had nothing.
“What are you drinking?” Lance said, oblivious to the tension.
“Vodka soda,” Laurel said.
The bartender poured the drink and Lance said, “You know Fort Rucker?”
Laurel nodded.
“I know that place,” he said.
“Not like I do,” Laurel said.
She threw her hair back. As with any predator, it was always good to let them see the neck.
She knew exactly what she was doing. It came naturally to her. The slow walk down a path that led to only one place.
She figured if she was going to be his handler, now was as good a time to start as any. A handler wasn’t required to sleep with her asset. In fact, technically there was a rule against it somewhere in the handbook.
But Laurel was no fool. She knew how the world worked. There was a time when the handlers had all been men, back when Langley was a boy’s club and they were still naming assets after muscle cars. Those days were over. Assets were expensive, their job was intense, and the government had yet to come up with a better way of blowing off steam than the one nature provided.
She knew she was playing with fire. She wasn’t his handler yet, and might never be. Roth might be pissed. Lance might know more than he was letting on. She really didn’t have enough information.
But right then, she had a bigger worry. If she didn’t somehow get herself between Lance’s sheets, she’d be sharing a bed with Roth.
And that was not happening.
She had no doubt, zero, nada, that if she went back to room 309 of the Deweyville EconoLodge and got into that bed, Roth’s hands would find their way onto her body. He wouldn’t be able to help himself, whatever his intentions.
She knew men.
And that wasn’t even the worst thing about it. Because if she said no to him, he’d stop. He wouldn’t like it, it would make things awkward between them, but he’d stop and never bring it up again.
No. The thing she hated was that she might not say no. She might let him have his way. As much as she knew men, she knew herself better. And she wasn’t in the habit of lying to herself. If she went back to that bed, she’d go through with it, she’d let it happen, and then she’d torture herself afterward. She’d hate herself.
She had daddy issues up the wazoo. She’d slept with so many older men, the Dale County retirement home probably had a section named after her.
And she didn’t like that. She didn’t like thinking about it. It made her feel dirty.
All she knew was that if she was getting screwed either way, it might as well be by Lance. At least that way there was something in it for her.
Lance was better looking than she’d expected. In their line of work, there was an advantage to being able to disappear in a cro
wd. Any woman would spot Lance a mile away. And she’d remember him.
He had a Clint Eastwood ruggedness about him, like he knew he was attractive but gained nothing from it. He was wearing high-waisted Lee jeans and a checkered shirt. His jacket was aviator style, tan leather with a fleece lining. He was tall, muscular. The way he moved, she’d have been able to tell he was ex-military even if she didn’t already know it.
“You from around here?” she said.
“Born and raised.”
“What’s that like?”
“Not so bad.”
“You get used to this cold?”
“Sure you do.”
The bartender came back over. Lance was the only man in the place who actually had a pulse and she wasn’t ready to let him go.
“He’s been to all sorts of cold places, haven’t you Lance?”
Lance smiled.
“Do tell,” Laurel said.
“I’ve been here and there.”
“Don’t be modest, Lance,” the bartender said.
Laurel hoped she didn’t sound like that when she flirted.
Lance looked at the bartender, then at Laurel. It was clear any lines he used on her had already been used on the bartender. Laurel didn’t care. It wasn’t like she’d been around.
“She doesn’t want to hear it,” Lance said.
“Sure she does,” the bartender said.
“You can’t leave me hanging now,” Laurel said.
Lance sighed. “I guess I was telling my friend here I was in the army.”
“He said he was in mountains as cold as the Rockies,” the bartender said.
Laurel looked at him. She was surprised he was willing to speak about his past at all.
“Where were those?” Laurel said.
Lance looked at her and his face was more open than she’d expected. More honest.
“They were in Afghanistan,” he said.
Laurel was all ears. She wanted him to talk. She’d come all this way. She wanted to see what the fuss was about. “I imagine there’s a lot of dangerous men over there,” she said.
Seduction was all about suggestion. The way she formed her words, the way she shaped her lips, the angle she presented her body. If she showed him he could have her, that he was going to get what he wanted, even if he didn’t realize it, he’d give away more of himself than he intended.
It was a biological quid pro quo.
“Not so dangerous,” he said.
“Not so dangerous? Isn’t that the home of the Taliban?”
“So they say,” Lance said.
“You don’t think they’re there?”
“Oh, they’re there. No denying that.”
“But you don’t think they’re dangerous?”
“No more dangerous than men anywhere.”
Laurel wasn’t so sure. A large part of her life had been spent thinking about the man who’d killed her father. To her, that was what Afghanistan stood for.
“There’s a lot of dead soldiers would say otherwise,” she said.
“Anywhere in the world you dig,” Lance said, “you’ll find the bones of dead soldiers. Anywhere at all.”
Laurel thought a second. “More in some places than others,” she said.
Lance shrugged. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Although,” Laurel said, “what would I know? I’ve never been there.”
That wasn’t true. She’d been to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, everywhere. She’d seen more war than anybody.
“Men,” Lance said, then stopped. He thought and said, “You travel to a dangerous place, you’ll find the men there are no more dangerous than the men in any other place.”
“Any other place?”
Lance nodded.
“Like where?” she said.
He shrugged. “Boise, Kansas City, Wichita.”
“Wichita?”
“For example.”
“You’re saying the men Raqqa are no more dangerous than men in Wichita?”
“Well,” Lance said, “there’s a fight going on in Raqqa.”
“But?”
“But the men themselves, they’re no more dangerous.”
Laurel looked skeptical. “Really?”
“Really,” he said.
“So if I go to a bar in Raqqa?” she said.
“There are no bars in Raqqa,” Lance said.
“Right, but I mean, if I met a man there, you’re telling me there’s no difference between him and some random guy I meet in a bar in Wichita on a Saturday night?”
“Look at it this way,” Lance said. “Someone from Wichita can get on a plane and be in Raqqa in less than a day. Does that make him more dangerous when he steps off the plane? Or someone in Raqqa can be in Wichita. All it takes is a plane ride.”
“And a visa, thankfully.”
“And a visa,” Lance said.
It was Laurel’s turn to shrug. “So you’re saying …”.
“I don’t know. I’m just drunk.”
“No, you’re making some sense.”
“Well, that’s something I don’t hear every day.”
“It’s interesting.”
Lance shrugged. “Maybe I’m smarter than I look,” he said.
Laurel laughed.
“Smarts aren’t even my best skill,” he added.
“Oh, really?” she said. “And you say men aren’t dangerous.”
He shrugged. “Present company excluded.”
“I’d like to see some proof of that.”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
She had him. It was too easy. Like taking candy from a baby. And she knew he’d be a monster in the bedroom. She could tell by the way he held himself. She was in for a wild night.
But there was no hurry.
The longer it took, the sweeter the prize.
“So just for the record,” she said playfully, “you don’t think men anywhere are dangerous?”
Lance smiled. “What is with this chick?” he said to the bartender.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” the bartender said.
Lance missed the attitude. “People think the world is full of dangerous men,” he said.
“But not you?”
“Men aren’t so dangerous. They’re predictable. They follow orders. If you give them a weapon and tell them to fire, they’ll fire.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It isn’t.”
It was time for her to move in for the kill. The poor sucker. There he was, talking about men, when the real danger, as always, was coming from a woman.
She put her hand next to his on the bar. He turned to her and let his knee touch hers.
Contact.
All she had to do now was reel him in.
She was about to lean in and whisper something in his ear. Something naughty. She’d brush her lips on his ear as she whispered it. Something truly dangerous.
But just then, the door of the bar burst open.
Some blonde dressed like a prostitute burst in. She was crying.
13
Lance looked wistfully at Laurel. The resemblance was uncanny. It was almost unfair of Roth.
Where had he found this woman?
“Lance,” Sam cried from across the bar.
He sighed. It almost hurt to pull his attention from Laurel.
Sam’s mascara was all over her face. Her shirt was torn. Her lip was bleeding.
“That didn’t take long,” he said to Laurel.
Laurel was looking at Sam. “You don’t seem too concerned,” she said.
“Believe me,” he said, getting to his feet, “I’m very concerned.”
Laurel watched him walk toward the girl.
“That’s his niece?” she said to the bartender.
The bartender rolled her eyes. “Lady,” she said, “I don’t know who that girl is.”
“What happened?” Lance said when he reached Sam.
She was frantic
. Her hands were shaking. “They were waiting for me.”
“At my place?”
“Yes.”
Lance raised an eyebrow. “Wonder how they found you.”
She looked away. “They must have followed us.”
Lance smiled. “In that snow storm? Incredible.”
Sam looked at him.
He made note of her tells. She was a good liar but no one was perfect. She spoke too fast. Tried to move things along too rapidly.
For all the trouble she caused, she was a conflict-avoider.
Attention, yes.
Drama, yes.
Real trouble, no.
A big guy like the ex, and Lance already thought of him as the ex, would have an ego to repair. That was why he was there. But that was fixable.
The complicated part was Sam. Why was she calling a man she knew would beat her? And what would it take to make her stop?
He had some idea.
In about sixty seconds, the ex would come through the door. And he’d be armed.
“Go back there,” he said to Sam, sending her to the bar where Laurel and the bartender were waiting.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure you don’t call him again.”
Sam hesitated, then warned him the guy had a gun.
“A gun doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t know how to use it,” Lance said.
He went out the door into the cold night. There was a white Range Rover on the street with tinted windows, engine running, its blue headlights shining in his face.
A gust of wind brought a flurry of snow from the mountains and Lance raised his hand in front of his eyes.
Someone was getting out of the passenger side of the Range Rover. Lance strode over and kicked the door shut. Then he held one fist in the other and heaved his elbow through the window.
The ex was inside, shattered glass all over him, his one wrist in a cast. His massive hulk filled the seat like he was a grown man sitting in a toy car. He had a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol in his good hand. Next to him was the friend with the broken nose.
The ex swung the gun and Lance knocked it from his hand and grabbed it
