by Gennita Low
She was intrigued. That was why she didn’t actually want to truly retire. That would mean she would be out of the loop, and after playing secretary at the great CIA office, handling secrets back and forth between deputy directors, she was addicted to the power of knowing everything.
Langmut. One thing at a time. After ten years dawdling around CIA red tape, she had learned the patience of the old man at the sea. There went that stupid word again. She opened her eyes. Old. She didn’t want to look old when she returned home. She wanted to look beautiful and sophisticated, the way she’d been when she’d been the number one assassin.
Langmut. Greta released a long sigh, then cracked her neck to release the tension. She would knit and think of a plan to teach Miss Noretski and her handler a lesson about double-crossing Greta Van Duren.
CHAPTER 2
Six weeks later
There’s nothing wrong with me.
Lily stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. There were smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep, but, apart from that, she felt and looked perfectly fine. Just a little stressed out, that was all.
After all, she was living with a bunch of moody teenagers, for heaven’s sake. There were enough catfights around here to last her a lifetime.
She welcomed it, which was ironic. She wanted to be alone, had always preferred to be alone, and now she was afraid of it. That was because when she was by herself, she started to think, and thinking made her afraid.
Lily ran a comb slowly through her hair. The back was curling out softly around her shoulders. She needed a haircut; she liked the short, easy style she’d kept for years. All she needed was a pair of scissors and a few quick snips.
She stared down at the scissors by the sink. There was no logical reason for it—she just couldn’t make herself cut her own hair. It was as if staring at her reflection scared her. What if something inside had been programmed that Lily must have short hair? Maybe she was being prepared for another task.
She shook her head and quickly turned on the tap. Leaning down, she splashed her face with cold water, welcoming the sharp, icy slap.
It’d been over two months since she’d run away with the girls, and except for one time, she still hadn’t been able to say the words out loud. The only person who knew about her condition was Tatiana, and even she wasn’t too sure what was wrong with Lily. Hell, she wasn’t too sure herself. She could only remember up to a point, and then everything was a jumbled mass of images. After that she was just…herself. Right?
She bit her lip, drawing her teeth slowly over the lower one. How could she explain brainwashing to a teenager when she didn’t even know how it’d been done to her? But at least Tatiana had accepted the story and had kept an eye on her to make sure she didn’t go anywhere without a reason. That was important—she couldn’t disappear without permission.
She wanted to laugh at the incongruity of that thought but couldn’t. These days the things going round and round in her head were bizarre. If she were programmed to disappear, how would she or anyone else be able to stop her?
Lily leaned closer to the mirror, looking deeply into the dark irises of her eyes, trying to find answers to her unspoken questions. Who was in there? She felt like one of those people who had multiple personalities. Could she really have undergone some kind of brainwashing? It had taken years before the CIA had activated her, and even though she’d somehow stopped herself in time, something inside her was still ticking. What if there were other things she’d been told to do?
The notion horrified her. She blinked back the sudden swell of tears. She’d worked so hard all these years to be in total control of her life, and to find out that she had never been—ever—both devastated and pissed her off. Like this crying. She’d been doing that a lot lately. As if tears could change her situation and what she’d done. As if self-pity would make her feel less lonely.
She knew there was a reason why she’d always hated the CIA. Something inside her had been trying to warn her, trying to make her remember. She’d brushed the feelings off, but now she understood those were real feelings—the hatred and the fear. Everything else was fake. Right? She wasn’t sure anymore. She couldn’t trust her own emotions.
Sometimes she wondered whether she was going through some kind of drug withdrawal. Maybe the CIA had picked her because she was schizophrenic and they’d somehow given her drugs to suppress some of her personalities. She straightened from the mirror, blinking rapidly.
Don’t even go there. You’re driving yourself crazy, thinking like that.
“Lily, are you all right in there?” Tatiana tapped on the door.
Good, at least someone out there was making sure she was okay. That was why she needed this last job, of taking care of the girls and transporting them to their new lives. If she were alone, she would just stand in front of the mirror all day and slowly go insane.
“Yes,” Lily replied, quickly applying lipstick. “I’m fine. Thanks, Tatiana.”
“Dinner’s ready and the others are already at the table.”
“I’ll be right out. You girls start without me.”
“All right, but don’t take too long, okay?”
“Okay.”
Lily had to smile at Tatiana’s concern. Two months ago the girl had barely talked because of what the thugs had done to her. She had sat in a zombie state in her room, and nothing had seemed to touch her. Now, in spite of still needing crutches to walk, she’d become the den mother.
Lily’s smile dimmed. It was because of Hawk and Amber that Tatiana had improved. They’d somehow known what Tatiana had needed and had drawn her out of her shell.
She wondered how her friends were doing. They should be out of the hospital by now. If Hawk was the man she thought he was, he would make an honest woman out of Amber quickly. They both deserved all the happiness in the world.
Lily tossed one last glance at her reflection before opening the bathroom door. Not like some people who ran around betraying and drugging friends, and then almost causing a political scandal as a human bomb at an international summit of world leaders.
* * *
Undisclosed location, VA, the following week
“What are two things you like to do?”
Reed looked at the woman across the table. This was no ordinary interview. Tess Montgomery, or T, as she liked to be called, was the leader of GEM, the organization with which his SEAL team was conducting a Joint Mission.
When she was first introduced to them, his initial impression was that of a glamorous creature—model tall, with a face that had the classical Renaissance lines of a Raphael angel, and red-gold hair that cascaded in waves that had made him wonder how she kept them tangle free. No one on his team could quite believe that this woman knew anything about covert operations or running a team.
But she had the full backing of Admiral Madison, the chief commander of STAR Force, the covert SEAL teams deployed for black ops, so everyone had kept their opinions about women joining their team to themselves. It hadn’t been too long, though, before the guys had been smitten by Miss Montgomery. Yet Reed had never felt he was seeing the real Tess.
With her perfect hair and long nails, he’d also felt a bit doubtful at first about T’s skills, but his skepticism had disappeared immediately at the final Joint Mission conference. T had arrived looking nothing like the red-haired beauty they’d first met. Everyone in the room, except for Admiral Madison, had sat there in stunned silence when they’d realized who it was who had joined them. She had turned blond. It’d still been her when she’d talked, but even the way she’d moved and smiled had been different. Since then Reed had paid closer attention to everything T said.
Since then he was always careful whenever he talked to her. “Like, in hobbies?”
Tess leaned back against the leather seat, her tawny eyes thoughtfully studying him. For some reason she always reminded him of a big predatory cat eyeing prey. There was just something very feline about the woman, from th
e way she played her cat-and-mouse games during conversations to the curiosity she always displayed at the new things that she managed to dig out of a person.
“No,” she said, giving a shake of her head. The gold hoops in her ears glinted back at him as they swung back and forth. “Let me rephrase. What are the two things you enjoy doing?”
She asked the oddest questions. This was supposed to be a final assessment to make sure that he was ready for the mission ahead, not some personality evaluation. He didn’t feel like telling her anything, but Admiral Madison had given strict orders: Answer all of T’s questions. Still, he hadn’t said that Reed couldn’t ask a few questions himself.
“How would those differ from hobbies?” he asked cautiously.
T’s smile made him even more uncomfortable. It was as if she’d predicted his evasive tactic. “Interesting. You’re careful and suspicious. Most people would just answer my question without needing to so thoroughly break it down.” She clicked the top of her ballpoint pen several times as she continued to study him. “Hobbies take time. Stamp collecting, for example, is a hobby. Or building model trains. Of course, what one likes to do can be part of a hobby.”
“So we’re just splitting hairs,” Reed pointed out politely.
“Yes,” she said, “but you started it. What does that say about you?”
He stared back at her. She was right. She’d asked relatively simple questions and he had grown more and more reluctant and suspicious. He was sure she’d manipulated the whole conversation, yet somehow it’d ended with him to blame. How did she do that?
“Surfing,” he replied abruptly. “And dancing.”
T arched a brow. “I get surfing, but why dancing?” She waved away his next words with her pen and continued, “There’s nothing wrong with dancing. What I meant was, Reed, since you’re a SEAL, it’s obvious that you would like swimming. And surfing suits your personality profile. It projects your aloofness. However, dancing needs a partner, and that’s completely the opposite end of the spectrum. Very sad to dance alone, darling.”
Reed could feel the tension rising behind his neck. He didn’t like being psychoanalyzed, especially by strange agencies. And GEM was a very strange agency, consisting of contract operatives that were mostly women, with a lot of government connections. He wasn’t sure whether he liked them, even though he was intrigued by the way it was run. Yet he was under orders to undergo this training, if one could call it training. He decided not to be so cooperative.
“You asked and I answered. I don’t have to explain my likes and dislikes,” he said.
“Defensive, too.”
“I’m not—” Reed stopped himself just in time. T’s expression was watchful as he sat back in his chair. Hawk had already warned him that the woman’s mouth was lethal. He now understood what his commander had meant. Fine, he would play her game. Emptying his mind of all thought, he explained, in a soft, toneless voice, “Both require timing. If you don’t do it right, then you’ll either crash into the water or into your partner.”
T put down her pen. “Thank you for the interview. We may now proceed to the general meeting about your assignment. Lots of notes to take there. Have you studied the files we’ve given you?”
Again, her sudden change of direction surprised him. He’d done nothing for two weeks but read up on Llallana Noretski and what the mole had tried to get her to do. “Yes, I’m ready. Does that mean I pass this…test?”
T smiled. “What, did you think you wouldn’t?”
“Failure is not an option.” That was why the admiral had insisted on this assignment. They’d failed to complete the second objective of Hawk’s mission—the explosive device was still out there somewhere.
“Ask all the questions you need at the meeting. It’s very important you understand what you have to do. We know that you’ve traveled here before, and it’s good that you’re familiar with the cities and its customs so that you don’t come across like a tourist. That’s why you were recommended for this operation. After reading those files, what do you think is the most important thing missing?”
Reed didn’t hesitate to answer. It was important to him to have this on record. “Llallana Noretski was a young girl of whom the CIA had taken advantage, and, in a way, she was also repeatedly raped, just as those bastards had done to her when she was a sex slave. This isn’t just about what some traitors have attempted through her, but what the CIA has done to Llallana with their mind-control programs. The information in the file didn’t point the finger in the right direction.”
T’s smile widened as she pushed her seat back. She waited till he stood up too. “It’s also good to know the SEAL team’s sharpshooter is also a very astute man,” she said. “Let’s go to the conference room, shall we?”
Reed walked to the door and opened it for her. As she passed him on the way out, she paused and touched his sleeve. She was standing a bit too close for his comfort. “What’s the book that’s influenced you most, Mylos Reed Vincenzio?” she asked.
He wasn’t exactly sure how she did it. “The Little Prince,” he said, without thinking, then blinked when she smiled beguilingly at him.
“Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,” she murmured and walked down the hall.
As Reed followed, he realized T had addressed him by his full name, which not even his teammates knew.
* * *
Lily stared out the window. Thank God it had finally stopped snowing. The winter weather wasn’t helping their schedule at all. She hoped they wouldn’t be snowed in too long or she would have to rearrange her plans yet another time. They were very behind as it was.
“What are your plans for us, Lily? What can we do to help? We know you’re short of cash, so we thought perhaps we could go out and find some jobs and help with the bills.”
Lily turned around to face Sonja. She was right. Cash flow was becoming a problem as time went by. If it were just her alone, she would be all right, but she had more than a dozen girls living here and one nurse she had to pay.
When she’d run off from Velesta, she’d only had time to grab what had been available in Amber’s safe. There hadn’t been enough passports for everyone, since the batch had been just enough for the group most ready to leave the safe houses. Lily had taken all the cash, too, which had been substantial, but it still wasn’t enough. After almost two months, they were running low.
Since then, she’d found out that some people had emptied or frozen all the accounts under her name. Probably the damn CIA again. She still had two sources, under an alias. One overseas, so that was currently unavailable. She needed the weather to cooperate so she could withdraw from her second source. It was out of town, and she would have to do it quickly before they found out about it.
She wasn’t sure who was doing it to her, but she had several guesses. After all, she was a wanted woman. She had something in her possession everyone wanted. CIA. Hawk. Even Amber.
Not Amber. Surely Amber would know that she needed all the funds to help the girls. Her friend wouldn’t be that heartless.
Why not? You let Dilaver… Disgusted with herself, Lily shook off the memory.
What did she expect? She deserved everything they were doing to her. She had given Amber to Dilaver. She’d known very well what kind of man Dilaver was; all she had to do was look around her at the girls. She had gambled that Hawk would save Amber, which would have given Lily enough time to finish her task. Had she thought they would understand? Especially if Amber had been…Lily squeezed her eyes shut.
“Lily, are you all right?” Tatiana’s voice cut into the horrific images in her mind.
Lily opened her eyes. “Yes. I’m just tired, that’s all,” she replied quietly. The others were looking at her, worry in their eyes. “I don’t mind one or two of you working, but not everyone can go out. This is a small town, and we don’t want to draw too much attention to us, okay?”
“Okay, maybe two of us older girls will get a job waitressing or something,” Sonja sa
id.
“How are we going to get hold of you while you’re out of town?” Tatiana asked.
“Leave a message at the hotel if I’m not there,” Lily replied, making eye contact. Tatiana would understand. She wouldn’t be answering the phone at all.
“Still in English?” Tatiana asked.
Lily hesitated. They’d been talking more in English than anything else because so many of them were from different countries. It was also good practice for those who didn’t want to return to their homelands and were heading out of the country. After all, English was an international language everywhere. “Yes,” she finally said. “Everyone will assume it’s a foreigner’s message, and if they were tracing us somehow, they would expect one in Croatian.”
She was sure those after them didn’t know where they were or they would have been here by now. Still, she and the girls had to be doubly careful. Lily looked at her charges again, some of them too young to be traveling alone to their destinations. But this was what had to be done. She couldn’t take care of them forever.
“I’ll send messages to Tatiana as often as I can,” she said, knowing that some of the girls were afraid that she would abandon them. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, so stop worrying. I’ll get more money and try to get some contacts about more passports. Before you know it, you’ll be spending Christmas with family! Or in America with new friends. Wouldn’t that be something?”
It was surprising how the thought of Christmas could cheer the girls up; the room was immediately filled with babble about holidays and presents. Lily turned away to look out the window again.
They were so young, so easily distracted. A tap on her shoulder. She glanced to her side. It was Tatiana.
“How are you going to find any contacts when you can’t use the phone?” she asked.
