Crossing the Line

by Meghan Rogers

  My eyes narrowed. I grabbed my notebook and pen and headed down the hall, not giving Cody the satisfaction of an answer.

  • • •

  Cody glared at me through my entire breakfast, and I very pointedly ignored him. When we got to the gym for the morning training session, Nikki tried to grab me but Cody stopped her. “Oh no,” he said. “She’s mine.”

  Nikki stepped closer, getting in his face. Rachel stood a step behind, her anger visibly growing by the minute. “Just because Travis isn’t here to keep an eye on her doesn’t mean you get to be in charge,” Nikki said.

  He let out a heavy, irritated grunt. “Look, Nikki, I know she’s your latest lost cause, but you don’t get to protect her. She hasn’t earned it.”

  Nikki tried to argue, but Rachel tugged on her arm. “He’s right,” she said. “None of us were told we had to be nice to her, and Travis isn’t here to enforce anything.”

  Nikki’s eyes widened. It was a safe bet she’d never met quite this much resistance before.

  “It’s fine,” I said to her. “I can handle him.” There was a doubtful glint in her eye, but I blew it off. “Don’t worry about me.”

  She didn’t seem convinced, but she let Rachel pull her away, leaving Cody and me alone. He stalked off past other agents who had already claimed the more spacious areas, and came to a stop close to the center of the room. It would seem that this was this best chance he was going to get to make a show of putting me in my place. Cody must have talked to Scorpion, because his first hits were to my side, which nearly made me see stars. He took the time to give me a cocky, condescending smirk, which gave me just enough time to recover. Cody was good, but not as good as Scorpion. Even injured, I was able to take him down.

  The biggest surprise of my morning came when I was told that Rachel of all people would be escorting me to my classes.

  “You must have lost a bet or something,” I said, once we had made it to the courtyard.

  She glared at me, giving me a look so piercing it made my heart skip. “I hate you.”

  “You’re not the only one.” I couldn’t keep the light laugh out of my voice.

  “Am I the only person who you gutted and left with two broken legs?” she asked. “Or is there some club I can join?”

  “I was only doing a job.”

  She stopped walking and I turned to look at her. The rage radiated off her. “Are you saying I should just get over it?” Her voice hit a pitch that was clearly out of her control. I stayed quiet. “You don’t know what it was like coming back from that. What you did—” She cut herself off and visibly swallowed the emotion. “You don’t get to speak to me.” She started walking again. “Not a single word.”

  I wasn’t in any position to argue, not that I even wanted to.

  • • •

  I snuck away in between classes to check for KATO’s message. They hadn’t questioned the information I’d sent them, but they did ask if that was truly everything the IDA had. It made my stomach turn. Not only because I felt like they were questioning me, but also because it seemed as if they wanted to be sure. As if there was something for the IDA to know, but KATO wanted to be positive they were in the dark. I told them I’d sent them everything I’d found, but I’d keep looking.

  The message stayed in my mind the rest of the day, but I had other problems to deal with more directly. Fortunately, Nikki stole me from Cody when I got to the gym that afternoon. Cody, who was looking for revenge from earlier, wasn’t happy about it, but Nikki had let him have his way that morning and she wasn’t about to give in twice. She took me outside and spent the rest of the workout time taking me through yoga, which I knew about but had never practiced. It was slow and methodical and didn’t strain my side too badly. In fact, when we were done, I felt so relaxed it was as if I had gotten an acupuncture treatment. After, she walked me back to my room, most likely to make sure no one else did, which I was grateful for.

  “I’m sorry about Cody,” she said as I unlocked my door.

  “It’s not your fault.” I looked everywhere but at her, hoping she’d get the hint to change the subject.

  “Still,” she said, then she broke off. I looked up at her. She slowly scanned my room, taking everything in, before coming back around to me. “You haven’t changed it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Your room.” She turned her attention back inside. “It’s exactly the same as it was when Simmonds assigned it to you. And I know because I used to live in a room identical to this when I was in school. You didn’t change a thing.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “You’ve never decorated a room before, have you?” she asked.

  I shifted uncomfortably. “It’s been a long time since I actually had a room.”

  Nikki’s eyes flicked to mine for a half a second, then back to the room. “Okay, then. It looks like we have some work to do.”

  “You don’t have to.” I shook my head, feeling anxious at the prospect.

  “Oh no,” she said, still absorbing every detail of my room. “This is my project now.” She smiled at me. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “Nikki, really—”

  She started to down the hall, still smiling. “Good night, Jocelyn.”

  • • •

  Later that night, I was stretched out on my bed with another round of ice packs strapped to my side. I was almost about to fall asleep when there was a sharp knock at the door. I didn’t move, hoping that whoever it was would think I was sleeping and leave. They knocked again. “Viper!” Cody’s voice went right through me. “Get your ass to this door or I will break it down!”

  I struggled to get up while Cody pounded like he was trying to knock the door off its hinges.

  “Give me a minute!” I ripped off the ice packs and pulled on a shirt. Cody’s fist never stopped.

  I yanked the door open but held on to it, ready to slam it in his face if I had to.

  Cody’s demeanor changed. He rocked back and forth on his feet, seeming a little shifty. “You need to come with me.”

  I tightened my fingers around the knob. “I think I’ve had enough of you today.”

  He had a biting comment sitting on his tongue, but decided against it. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke it was extremely controlled. “This isn’t me asking. Simmonds wants to see you.”

  I squinted at him, looking for some sign that he was lying.

  “You need to come with me. Now.” He was getting frustrated. “This isn’t a trick.”

  I tilted my head, considering for another second, then looked him in the eye. “It better not be.” I started down the hall, with Cody right behind me.

  He stayed quiet the entire walk to the director’s office, and his muscles were coiled and tight. It couldn’t have been more obvious that something was wrong, and a part of me enjoyed it. Every step he took was heavy and purposeful. When we got to the office, he opened the door without knocking. The second he did, we were hit with a wall of yelling.

  “You can’t possibly be considering this!” an older man shouted. The room was full of people—at least twenty—and I recognized only a handful of them.

  “I’m more than considering it,” Simmonds shot back. “It’s the closest thing we’re going to get to a test without risking an agent or assignment. If this works, she’ll prove that she can be trusted in the field and we’ll get back one of our best agents.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” the first guy asked. “You’re willing to risk letting someone that dangerous loose in the world?”

  “If that happens, she’ll have two spy agencies after her. She won’t get far,” Simmonds said.

  My heart skipped a beat. They were talking about me.

  “She’s an expertly trained spy,” Simmonds continued. “And now she works for us
. It’s ridiculous to have her here if we’re not going to use her. And if it doesn’t work out, then we won’t have any less than we would have if we’d followed procedure.”

  “She spent ten years working for KATO,” the man said. “I don’t care how she got there. She can’t be trusted!”

  “I happen to know she can be.” Simmonds voice was deep and powerful. “I would have had her on active missions a week ago, but you want her to prove herself. This is the best way.”

  Cody cleared his throat, cutting off the argument, and every eye in the room trained itself on me.

  Simmonds straightened up. “Jocelyn. Excellent, you have your first assignment.”

  “Roy—” the man started, but Simmonds cut him off with a glare.

  Excitement swirled inside me, like it had been caged and cooped up as much as I had. This was my chance to get back in the field. Simmonds’s eyes came back to me. “Agent Elton has been compromised,” he said. “He was on an assignment in China and he’s been out of contact for over twelve hours.”

  I stood up straighter, falling into the comfort and exhilaration of a mission. “What do you need from me?”

  He looked directly at me. “It’s agency policy not to stage rescue missions, as we rarely have enough intel to pull them off successfully. But in this case we’re making an exception. We’re sending you to China to retrieve Agent Elton.”

  “This is a bad idea,” a woman to his left said. “Especially given the nature of Elton’s original mission. And on top of that, we’d be sending her to China, a country with a history of assisting North Korea. The only way we could make it easier for her to pass on information is if we dropped her in KATO’s headquarters.”

  Simmonds spun around to face her. “This is no longer a discussion. Agent Jocelyn Steely is going to China to retrieve Agent Travis Elton tonight.” The room was dead silent. He scanned every face, waiting for someone to challenge him, but no one seemed that stupid. “I need the room. Agent Steely and I have some details to discuss.”

  The room emptied slowly with disgruntled mumbles that I couldn’t completely make out. The only person left was Cody.

  “Agent Mathers,” Simmonds said, “that means you too.”

  Cody nodded and turned to me. “If you come back without him, I’ll end you.”

  I took a step closer, drawing myself up to my full height. I knew what it meant to execute a mission. I knew how to be in charge. “The list of people in this place who want to kill me is getting longer by the second, so you’re going to have to take a number. But how about you let me do my job while you’re waiting for your turn?”

  He was readying a comeback, but Simmonds cut him off. “Mathers, now.”

  Cody’s mouth tightened and he backed out of the room. Once he was gone, Simmonds closed the door firmly behind him and sat at his desk. I glanced behind him at the missions map and noticed a red dot on the lower edge of China. I could guess what the color meant.

  I sat on the edge of the chair, getting as close to him as I could, trying to contain myself. An agent was hurt—one of their best. It wouldn’t look good to seem too excited. “I’m going on a rescue mission.”

  He nodded and slid a file across the desk. “Elton was sent to a Hong Kong science lab to retrieve data the Chinese stole from KATO about a month ago.”

  I saw where he was coming from. “You wanted to know if KATO has been working on something without tipping them off.” I smiled lightly, appreciating the approach. “And the best way to do that is by taking intel someone else already successfully stole.”

  “Exactly.” He laced his fingers together across the desk and met my eyes. “Elton should have been on his way back hours ago, but he missed his extraction. We don’t know what happened to him or if he’s even alive, but it’s your job to find him and bring him back.”

  I flipped through the file feeling more relaxed than I had since I first got to the IDA. Preparing for a mission was something I was used to, and being on one was the closest I’d ever come to feeling free. “What do we know?”

  “Very little,” Simmonds said, “which is why rescue missions are against protocol. We lost control of the security feeds when Elton was in the building, which has never happened before. We were able to regain them, but it was too late. You’ll have go back to the initial intel site and try to track him from there.”

  I nodded a little too eagerly. “I can do that.”

  Simmonds studied me for a moment. “This is dangerous, Jocelyn.”

  I rolled my shoulders back, prepared. “I’ve gone on more dangerous missions with less intel. I’ll be fine.”

  “Dr. March wants to see you before you leave. You’re getting on a plane once you’re done.”

  I nodded.

  Simmonds opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small earbud. “Here’s our comm system. It’s also a GPS. It goes deep in your ear. You have to push it to talk, but if you’re offline for more than fifteen minutes it kicks on automatically unless we know you’re going dark.”

  I took the earbud from Simmonds and studied it. I’d never had this kind of support from KATO. They were big on their agents being able to handle field situations on their own. As long as they had the drug, they knew we’d come back. “I take it Scorpion doesn’t have his anymore?”

  He nodded grimly. “According to Walter, it must have been smashed about twelve hours ago.”

  “Who’s Walter?”

  “He’s our tech expert. You’ll be working with him too. He can hack almost any security system or computer.” Simmonds leaned in. “Stay in touch and report back what you find. We’ll have an extraction team in the air tracking you and waiting for your signal to move in.”

  “Okay.” I kept going through the folder, then I glanced back up at him. “I’m going to have to tell KATO about this. As far as I know they’re not tracking me directly, but if they get independent intel that I was in the field, they’ll pull me back for not keeping them informed.”

  Simmonds nodded. “Fine. Find a way to get to a computer and tell them what you have to.”

  “Okay.” I nodded once more. He didn’t have to say how important this was. I gathered the file and headed for the door.

  “And, Jocelyn.” I turned back around to find Simmonds wearing one of his more serious expressions. “Good luck.”

  I gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

  No one had ever said that to me before.

  Chapter Ten

  MISSION CLEANUP

  Dr. March was waiting for me when I arrived at the medical wing. She gave me the usual visual inspection. I hadn’t thought about my torso since Cody showed up at my door, and now I was trying to keep March from noticing. The adrenaline rush had taken over, and all I could feel was the familiar pre-mission excitement. Some of the happiest moments I had ever had working for KATO were right before a mission. They’d send me out for days at a time with just enough of the drug to hold me over until I got back. No one was looking over my shoulder or checking up on me, and I knew I had the skills to pull off whatever they asked me to. It was a feeling I was getting increasingly desperate for.

  “How are you?” Dr. March asked once I was settled into an exam room.

  “I’m doing okay,” I said.

  She looked at me skeptically. “I want to give you a physical and an acupuncture treatment before you go. I’m told this won’t take more than a few days, but I want you to be as symptom-free as possible.”

  She pressed on my side before I was prepared and I winced. Her eyes darted to my face.

  “It’s fine.” I looked her right in the eye, hoping to back my overly insistent tone.

  It didn’t work. Her eyebrows tightened in concern as she slid my shirt up. “Jocelyn!” I wanted to pull away, but I didn’t have anyplace to go. She pressed again, harder, and I clenched my teeth together to hide the pain. �
��How did this happen?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She pursed her lips and leveled her gaze at me. “Lie down.”

  “They’re just bruised. I can handle it.”

  “I get that this assignment is a big deal, but I’m not signing off on a mission while there’s a chance that you’re bleeding internally.” She was firm. “I won’t put you out in the field to die.”

  I bit my lip and lay back. She pressed on my stomach and ribs, with me cringing slightly, but in the end Dr. March determined that my injuries were superficial and not enough to hold me back.

  Afterward, I stretched out, ready for the acupuncture treatment. When I was done, she signed my paperwork and left me to find my way out. I stopped in one of the side offices to let KATO know about the mission. There was also a response to my earlier post, impressing upon me the importance of keeping them updated if the IDA learns anything else about their operations. Now I knew I wasn’t paranoid; KATO was working on something.

  As hard as it was, I did my best to put all of that in the back of my head. I had a more immediate mission to worry about, and KATO couldn’t be a priority right now.

  • • •

  There were a few other agents on the trip with me, but no one I knew. Once they gave me the miniature tablet I’d need and showed me what it could do they kept their distance, which was fine with me. I had read over the mission file at least ten times on the plane ride over. It didn’t matter that I was rescuing one of my least favorite people. I barely had the time to appreciate the fact that the golden boy of the IDA managed to get himself in trouble. He was my mission now and that’s all that mattered.

  After landing close to Hong Kong, I transferred to a helicopter. I had a parachute strapped to my back, the address of Scorpion’s last location memorized, and a backpack with everything I’d need around my chest. I leaned out of the chopper’s door and pushed off, letting the exhilaration take me to the ground as the hot wind slapped my face.