The Libra Affair

by Daco

  She rose from her chair, thinking back to Friday night. Her job had been simple over the past year: plant an application inside the program that guided Ben’s laser, so she could use the laser to destroy the missile once it was in flight. The only hard part of this mission had been waiting a full year to access Dunn’s computer at the right place and time. If she loaded her application too soon, it was sure to be discovered. By using Dunn’s computer to transfer the program to Payload Operations Control Center to be uplinked to the Space Station Control Center, she’d avoid any suspicion of tampering.

  Once the program was uplinked, all she had to do was head to Iran to set off the ICBM, which she’d aim at Germany. This would give the world the appearance that Iran was waging war against Germany. She’d make her escape, report back to the Chinese, and when the time was right, return home to the U.S. And that was basically it for her.

  The rest of the game simply came down to politics. Politics where convoluted plots and conspiracies were born that juxtaposed allies and enemies like pawns on a chessboard while the major players vied to reshuffle the weight of the world’s economic powers. This time, it was the Russians and Americans trying to outmaneuver the Chinese. After the missile was destroyed, the Americans and Russians would side with Iran; the Chinese with Germany. And when the Chinese moved to invade Iran as they intended, the rest of the players would come down on them like a hammer.

  So next week, if all went as planned, sanctions would fall on the Chinese, the Russians would sell a little more vodka, and Big Brother U.S. would have gotten a favorable foot back inside Iran’s door to keep a watch on their nuclear development, and the rest of the world, including the repressed citizens of Iran, would be a little safer … for a while.

  Jordan had nothing to do with the political stratagem. Her job was purely logistics. It made her feel like she was in control and that she could make a difference, regardless of the reality.

  That Friday night, after inserting the application into the computer program, Jordan had returned to Ben’s side, where she slipped her hand into his and whispered in his ear. “Are you ready to go?” She brushed his sloppy dark curls from his dark brown eyes.

  He replied without any hesitation. “Absolutely.” Had he known this was the last night she’d lie in his arms, that this was the last night he’d ever make love to her with a passion so rich words had no meaning, that this was the last time she’d feel the warmth of his breath on her shoulders, he would have understood the reason she cried in her sleep.

  There wasn’t another place on earth that Jordan wanted to be that Friday night and there wasn’t another man she wanted more. She was dying inside and would soon have nothing more than Chou’s words to haunt her. You got too close …

  Jordan zipped across the drive-through lane of the cleaners and tossed Mr. Taylor’s jeans through the narrow opening of the sliding glass door. The jeans were gone and so was the life Jordan had lived for the past year.

  She just had one more stop to make before catching her flight.

  • • •

  Kara Murphy entered Ben’s lab at NASA. “You got your ticket to the Cape yet?” she asked.

  “I’ve got a television at home,” Ben replied casually, as if discussing the weather. Then he turned the dial on a piece of lab equipment.

  “All this time, you finally get a payload and you’re not even going down to watch the launch?” Kara shook her head in disbelief.

  When he didn’t comment, she continued. “I’d be down there in a heartbeat watching my baby fly.”

  “Yeah, well, what’s the point?” Then he pressed the start button on the machine. “It’s not like they let anyone get all that close.”

  “Man, I’m so jealous,” she said.

  Ben looked over at her.

  She threw a hand to her hip. “Yeah, I said jealous.”

  Kara had been instrumental in helping Ben get his Laser One experiment on board the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — one of the rockets developed by a private sector company that had taken up where NASA left off in spaceflight — but she had never talked about her own ambitions.

  “What?” she said when he didn’t say anything. “Don’t you think it’d be cool to look at my bubbles in space?” she asked, referring to her own medical research.

  He quickly agreed. “Yes, you’re right.”

  “But I’m super-excited the bone density experiment made the flight.”

  Ben suddenly realized how insensitive he was. “Kara, I’m sorry. Your science is solid. Your work should have been considered. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know how my laser experiment got approved.”

  “Don’t be sorry, you ham. My project wasn’t ready, you know that. I was just razzing you, man.” With hardly a pause, she redirected the conversation. “Hey, you want to grab some lunch?”

  He checked the machine still running. He really wasn’t in the mood for company or food, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings again. “Can I get a rain check?” he said. “I’ve got to wait on the spin coater to wrap up this run.”

  “No problem,” she said, letting him slide, then paused a moment before leaving his lab. “Do you mind if I say something here?”

  He looked at her; he had an idea what she was going to say next. “Lay it on me.”

  “You really ought to take a rest with those crystals and head down to the beach with that dry cleaner chick of yours.” She paused. “Not that it’s any of my business. I’m just saying.” She tapped the top of the lab table with her file to make her point.

  He forced a lighthearted chuckle. “Yeah, I hear you.”

  She touched a light fist to his arm. “Later, dude.” She left the lab.

  Ben hadn’t told Kara about the split. He couldn’t. It was too fresh and he wasn’t ready to talk. No one knew about it, except some idiot on a barstool who’d exchanged spit with Jordan.

  But what kind of guy would stand by and let his girlfriend kiss another guy like that? Didn’t that give him the right to become jealous … even to completely lose it?

  How had a perfect Friday night turned so disastrous? He’d lost the perfect girl, the perfect relationship, and missed the perfect opportunity to tell her how he felt and what he wanted. None of this felt real.

  Ben stared at the paint peeling off the edges of the white cylinder block walls. He wanted to be mad, he wanted to throw something, he wanted to cry, laugh, or be happy again. He wanted to be something, anything, that would help him make sense of what had gone wrong, but all he felt was numb.

  • • •

  “Box 1044,” Jordan said to the branch manager of her bank.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “Right this way, ma’am.”

  Once she was alone in a private chamber, Jordan removed a metal case from the safety deposit box. She opened it and inspected her baby, a Beretta XX-Treme. She looked through the scope, examined the silencer and laser, and then secured the latch. Next, she removed a large manila envelope and quickly inspected the contents, then stuffed it into her bag along with the weapon.

  She had one last task. Grasping her hair to the side, she slipped a long gold chain from around her neck and over her head. A pendant securing a three-and-a-half-carat diamond dangled from the end of the chain.

  She hesitated a moment, admiring the glint of the stone, listening to the hum of the fluorescent lights. The necklace was all she had left of her parents. There was nothing else, not a card, not a photo, a single souvenir, or an ounce of their ashes. And she wasn’t prepared to lose it under any circumstances.

  She never took it with her into the field. It didn’t make sense to bring it. Nor was she permitted to wear it.

  However, each time she left the necklace behind in that cold little box, it felt harder to do so, more emotional. And for some reason, this time felt the hardest. A part o
f her wondered if she would ever see her beloved jewel again.

  She slowly lowered it inside the confines of the safety deposit box and fastened the lid. She rose from her chair and stared down at the box. The tick of the light fixture irritated her to no end. And the longer she stood there, looming over the metal case, the more aggravated she became until she was suddenly overcome with an inexplicable impulse and reopened the box.

  Chapter 2

  Ben tried the key in the lock of Jordan’s apartment. “I can’t believe it!” The words belted from his mouth. Refusing to accept that she’d locked him out of her life, Ben banged on the front door to her apartment. He needed answers.

  She didn’t answer.

  He rang the bell next, twice, three times, and waited. With the sound of traffic in the background, he heard no movement inside the apartment. Looking over his shoulder, he searched the parking lot. Her car wasn’t there.

  He cupped his hands against the window and peered through a break at the edge of the blinds.

  What?!

  No one was inside. Moreover, it was completely empty. Devoid of anything.

  He drew back and looked up at the apartment number at the top of the door. 1208. Jordan’s unit — second floor, end unit.

  But if anyone walked up to him now and asked where in the world he was standing, he’d be tempted to say the surface of Mars.

  He’d never expected this, ever. How could everything inside Jordan’s apartment be gone? She didn’t have a lot of chick crap spread in every direction, but she had stuff … furniture, a few pictures on the walls. Then again, it wasn’t as if he’d taken a line item inventory of her place. They never spent much time there. After working their day jobs, his at NASA as a scientist, hers at the drycleaners, they spent their evenings at his bar — the one his grandfather had left him — or his condo, but that made sense. His place was closer to the bar so why drive the distance to her place. There was also the unspoken fact that she didn’t live in the best of neighborhoods. So where was she? Now, more than ever, he was determined to find her.

  Ben hurried back to his vehicle. Like a madman, he jumped into the driver’s seat and took off, burning up pavement, flying over potholes, and crossing over more than a few yellow lines along the way.

  Bringing his vehicle to a brisk stop in the parking lot of the cleaners, Ben sprang out of the car and burst through the front door of the shop, sending the bell attached to the handle flying completely across the room. He barreled toward the counter where Jolie stood with a gaping mouth.

  “Jolie.” Ben tried to calm himself. “Where’s Jordan? Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, practically shaking.

  “What happened?”

  Jolie peeped out a response. “She just left.”

  “What do you mean she just left?” Ben inhaled sharply. His heart pounded like a fist against his chest wall, screaming why?

  “Left.” Jolie cowered. “She didn’t say anything, Ben. She just walked out.”

  He drew in a deep breath. It wasn’t Jolie’s fault that Jordan had disappeared. He knew that. He also knew the numbness he felt earlier this morning had now morphed into anger.

  Everything that was happening pointed to the conclusion that Jordan had planned all of this. He understood the part about walking out on her job. People walk out on crap jobs every day when they reach their limit. What he couldn’t understand was why she picked up and checked out of her apartment without telling someone.

  Ben relaxed his white-knuckled hands gripping the countertop. “Did you see where she went?” he asked Jolie.

  “No.”

  “Listen, Jolie,” he said, “do me a favor, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Call me if you hear from Jordan. Can you do that?”

  “She’ll probably want her paycheck Friday. That’s what I’m guessing.”

  “If you see Jordan or talk to her just find out where she’s at and tell her to call me. Tell her it’s real important. All right?”

  Jolie nodded.

  “And then call me as soon as you can.”

  “You got it.”

  Ben turned to leave but before he was out the door, Jolie said, “You two didn’t break up, did you?”

  Ben opened the door and left.

  • • •

  Over the last year, Jordan had been able to revert to her natural hair color — dark auburn. It was fun. She liked it. She felt attractive. Sexy. And it drove Ben wild. But all that was over now, it was time for change. She could keep the length, but she had to go black to blend in with the locals.

  She walked to the back of the gym locker room, stepped inside one of the showers, and unscrewed the cap to the bottle of hair color. And after the transition was complete — hair colored, washed, and dried — Jordan Jakes said goodbye to herself and hello to her new alias, Ava Ankasa. The sound of it flowed naturally. She liked the name. It was Persian and meant “beautiful ornament.” There was a certain satire in thinking of herself as a beautiful ornament. The only beautiful ornaments she knew of existed back in England.

  It’d been over a year since she had visited. Last November, her grandmother had insisted she come for Christmas, but Jordan knew it was impossible. Ben was taking her up east to Maine. It was his little surprise: a cabin, some cross-country skiing, and time alone. But as much as she had loved spending that time with Ben, she’d still missed going to England. It was the first Christmas there that she’d missed.

  Jordan felt her eyes water. Then told herself, “Don’t,” and forced the subject from her mind. Emotional distractions were not part of this job.

  • • •

  Back inside his vehicle, Ben looked inside the console for his cell phone. He checked the seat next to him, the floor, between the seats, and then realized he must have left it on his desk back at the lab. Since his corner bar was closer, he decided to go there to make his call instead of driving back to the lab.

  Once inside his office, he entered his password and plugged in Google latitude. At this point, it was a matter of pride. He’d find Jordan because he deserved a better explanation to all of this, not some line telling him, “I can’t do this anymore.” She owed him that much, and he was determined to have an answer.

  D.C. was a big city. Huge. He only uploaded the app on her phone in case she needed help and he needed to find her. He couldn’t help himself, he was overprotective and didn’t want to admit to it. He never thought he’d use the app, but the time had come. If she was still carrying the same cell phone, he could zero in on her location without her ever knowing it.

  Bingo.

  Jordan was at the gym. So she was still in town! Probably just changed apartments, nothing more. It made sense for her to be at the gym — she loved to work out and had the body to prove it. If he got fired, that’d be the first place he’d go to work off some steam. Without wasting another second, Ben left the bar and found himself driving to the gym.

  “She cancelled her membership?” Ben repeated what the young woman staffing the front desk told him. “Are you sure?”

  She gave him a cheeky smile. “I’m not supposed to — ”

  He interrupted her before she went on any further. He wasn’t about to stand there and listen to what some bimbo had to say about rules. “When did she cancel it?”

  “I think that’s supposed to be confidential. But I — ”

  “Is she still here?”

  “I’m really not supposed — ”

  He spied the computer sitting behind the counter. “Hey, listen,” he said, softening his tone, “would you mind if I looked up a number on your computer? The other girl who used to work the front desk never minded. It won’t take a second.”

  “I’m not supposed to — ”

  He angled h
is head and smiled at the young woman who seemed to be at a loss for words, other than to say, “I’m not supposed to.” If there was one thing Ben was good at, it was selling a drink with a simple smile and some charm. If he could do that, he could certainly use a cute wink to land the use of a computer.

  “Well … ” She looked down the hallway. “If you make it quick before my boss finishes teaching her class. I really don’t know if it’s allowed.”

  “Sure it is.” He held up his hand and gave her the all-American Boy Scout salute. “And look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll be in and out like lightning.”

  It didn’t take long for him to plug into the Google latitude site and track Jordan’s whereabouts again. Badda-boom. Her cell phone signal said she was still at the gym.

  After closing the page, he turned to the young woman, smiled, and said, “Thanks, you’re a gem.” Then he headed toward the hallway that led to the exercise studios at back of the facility. Not seeing Jordan through the glass windows, he checked the break room next. She wasn’t there. Then he headed toward the locker rooms. She wasn’t anywhere else to be seen; she had to be in the locker room. It was the only logical place.

  Ben parked himself at the drinking fountains across from the locker room doors and waited. About ten trillion neurons fired through his brain, repeating the question foremost on his mind. Why, Jordan? Why?

  Ben felt a sudden surge in his blood pressure, his palms began to sweat, he was near shaking, and he had the urge to run. He had run many times before, but he wasn’t running this time. He was there and even if he ended up making a fool of himself, so be it. At least he could say for once in his life, he tried.

  As soon as the first woman came through the locker room door, Ben advanced on her. “Excuse me, can you do me a favor?”

  “I’ll try,” the woman replied.