He had outlined three responses the agents might have and still get by during the negotiations with Matka. First, they could go along with the scenario and make use of one of the prostitutes. He did not expect them to do that; it was up to them. Second, they could negotiate away the time with the prostitute and play their role as if they had made use of his or her services. Third, they could say they negotiated the deal but did not sample the goods. Any of the three reactions would be acceptable. Any would work in the field. Steve was there to make the agents ready for what might happen, not to judge them.
He watched Brian and Trina closely. Staying in his role as Matka, he said, "Do you want to sample the goods? I can arrange rooms for you."
He could see the shock in Brian's eyes, but he quickly lowered them and remained silent, perhaps at a loss for words. Trina turned a deep purplish red. Her face became so distorted with fury that she resembled one of the gargoyles on the older buildings around Bern.
"You complete and utter deviant," she spat out. "How could you bring in these kids? They are what fifteen? How are you any better than the slime we're trying to catch? This is going too far. I will have you called before the Bureau for this and I hope they castrate you. You are a sick son of a bitch."
Steve held his silence. Mathew opened his mouth to defend him. Steve gave him a look that told him to be quiet. They had to hear it all. Trina was fired up. This was fail or succeed time for her. She flew at Steve as a ball of rage and frustration. He could have pushed her away, but he wanted to see how this played out with her. First Mathew and then Brian moved to grab her. He shook his head. When Steve failed to fight back, Trina moved away and glared at him furiously.
"What you are doing is all wrong. It's sick. This isn't a scenario; it's not in our casebook. Your mind has become so warped you can't see right from wrong any more. Do you have any idea what's it like to be a child forced to do whatever some sick adult wants?"
Suddenly Steve realized why Trina was furious. He was so stunned by this turn of events that a few moments passed before he said, "No, but you do."
She went silent. Her red face paled as if a bucket of whitewash had been thrown over her. As the rage left her, she sank to her knees on the floor. She began to quiver, rock back and forth and sob, and then she went into a stupor, draped over her knees. Steve’s guess was that it was a childhood pose -- a place she went after she had suffered.
It was hard to see a good agent implode. He had pushed and pushed until she broke. He had no idea she had been abused as a child and he had driven her back into that personal hell. If he had known, she would not have been on this case. Now it was too late and he felt dreadful.
They carried Trina back to her room, where Brian stayed while Steve arranged for another agent to be with her. He also called for the hotel doctor. He had only wanted to see what she or Brian would do if a situation like this arose. Unfortunately he went too close to those horrible memories trapped inside of her. It explained why she had been on this case with such a vengeance. He hated himself for pushing Trina too far.
Mathew escorted the two prostitutes out of the hotel. Steve went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth and washed his face, trying to cleanse away his remorse. It didn't work. He went out for a walk to make peace with himself. Once he was calmed down enough to return, he started making calls. He arranged for Trina to fly home the next day. He also contacted the Bureau’s Human Relations folks to ensure that Trina received the care and counseling she needed. Finally he filed a report on the incident and added the scenario to the casebook along with a fourth possible reaction.
Now they had a problem. Their front woman was gone. They had to activate Plan 8.5 which was to use a backup for Trina. They thought a woman might play better as the lead with Matka, therefore their contact man was describing a woman as the leader in the overtures to set up a meeting with the perps. Steve considered sound planning one of his strengths: outlining possible scenarios, analyzing the risks, devising backup plans and second-guessing the other side. Nothing in reality went by any of the plans. However after testing out so many instances, the team was ready for close to anything.
Brian came back. While he was rattled, he understood the need to keep moving forward.
"What do we do now, Chief?"
"It's Plan 8.5, but we don't have another female agent who is both up to speed and sufficiently skilled to take that lead role."
"So we switch to a guy."
"Yes."
"Mathew?"
"He'll get five o'clock shadow an hour into the negotiations."
"You mean have a guy play a woman?" Brian asked apprehensively.
"It has to be you. You are thoroughly acquainted with the playbook. We need to keep the lead person as a woman. That is what is expected for the meeting with Matka."
"Me? No way. I have never refused an assignment before. This one, definitely not."
"Any other solution will delay us by weeks -- finding the right agent, bringing her up to speed, running scenarios. Think of what could happen to those kids in that time."
Brian paled. "Hey, I may not be a real macho type, but I am a man like you, Chief. Me dressing up as a woman? That's insane."
Steve’s expression conveyed his conviction. Brian remained solemn and sat staring at the floor. Minutes passed. Just as Steve was giving up hope that he would come around, Brian sat up straight and said, “While I don't want to fucking do this, I will. I'll need makeup, clothes, hairdo, training and no wisecracks. What happens on this case, stays on this case. No leaks. No kidding around."
"Deal. Let's get started."
To stay on track, they had only a couple of days to turn Brian into a convincing woman. Steve would shift the negotiations to Mathew to take some pressure off Brian and to let him concentrate on his role as a convincing female executive. Twenty-four hours later, with the help of a junior female agent on our team, Brian passed for a woman. He learned a new walk that was athletic yet feminine. They worked on gestures that women make -- primping, playing with his necklace, licking his lips a certain way. His beard had never been heavy and he could hide his slight Adam's apple with a scarf or a turtleneck. The issue was his deep, masculine voice. Steve lined up a Bureau speech expert to work with Brian on his speech. Once his tones were worked out, they would go back to tweaking roles and doing practice scenarios. Steve planned to lean on their contact the next day to have the meeting confirmed with Matka.
That night Steve was reviewing their risk analysis. Perpetrators are dangerous criminals who often fight to the death to avoid capture. Every mission had risks. Steve considered it his responsibility to minimize the impact of those risks on his team and on the public. He glanced over at Mathew.
"We need a strong lead for our backup team, now that you’re not on it," Steve said.
"You remember that Lenny guy from that second case we did together?"
"Lenny lacked finesse."
"Damn it Steve. Have you ever played back yourself in action? When the pressure is on, you kind of lack finesse too. You shoot first and worry about arrests later. You get the job done and you get it done fast, but it isn't always tidy."
"And you could do better?" Steve countered a bit belligerently.
"No, I think with time I might become as good, not better."
Steve battled with that hard stubbornness he had and then he said, "You are already better than I am in action. You're craftier and you're a bit faster. We are lucky to have you."
Mathew smiled at the unexpected compliment. “And Lenny?”
“Yeah, line him up. Have him plan to meet me in Frankfurt when we’re ready to do the sting. I will brief him there and then we will fly into Sofia.”
***
Almost two weeks had passed where Ivy did not hear from Steve. Work was keeping her in the office long hours and often she was working at home in the evenings as well. Client demands were adding to her stress levels and yet occasional thoughts of Steve buoyed her up. On Thursday, she was
delighted to see a secure email come in from him and allowed herself the luxury of opening it while she ate lunch at her desk.
Secure Email from Steve Nielsen, November 8, 2012
Dearest Ivy,
How very often you have been in my thoughts. We have only been together twice, talked a few times and emailed, but like your namesake you are twining yourself around my heart rapidly, completely, divinely.
Before I met you, for about the last year or so, a long-dormant part of me decided to come awake. Everything about you, including that captivating "big town" you live in, reaches out to this new region in me. You are warm, enticing, and verging a bit to the unusual. I think that all the oxygen from the trees in the Northwest makes you folks a bit elfin, yet you seem to have both feet on the ground.
You are a curious mix of sophistication and earthiness. You are soft and yielding yet strong. Womanly but capable and I think you are totally lacking in guile. Still you are mysterious in some ways. I sense that you have unexplored layers and depths and that perhaps I could spend years with you and still discover surprising new twists.
At that moment, one of Ivy's directors burst into her office with the news that a key project manager had walked off the job, crumbling under the pressure and leaving a major client project in trouble. Reluctantly she closed the email to focus her attention on the immediate problem, which became all absorbing as she strove to fill the gap.
***
The next day, Mathew was in his room working on his laptop and thinking morosely about where he was in life when Steve walked in.
"What's up?" he said, spinning around in his desk chair to face Steve.
"One o'clock, we leave. Bubird taking us to Frankfurt. From there we take public transport by various routes to Sofia. Spread the word."
Mathew nodded and turned back to his laptop.
"What's with you?" Steve asked. "You usually jump up and down with enthusiasm when we're ready to move in. Today you look like your pet dog died."
Mathew shook his head. Steve sat on a spare chair in the room.
"Spill it or I'm not leaving."
"Thinking too much. Like how does this happen? I'm sailing along in my thirties, feeling like my life is coming to fruition. Then I wake up one morning, and I hit forty. Suddenly I’m rushing headlong into the second half of my productive life. What do I have to show for the first half?"
"The big four-oh? Yeah, milestone birthdays make you think, don't they? Mathew, you have one hell of a career. You are well educated. You have the ability to go to the top of the Bureau. Maybe even be the Chief one day."
"I wasn't thinking of my career. I am so isolated personally. Sadly no one cares that this is a milestone day for me. My mother never remembers my birthday. At least when my Dad was alive, he would have given me a phone call from wherever his business interests had taken him."
"I'm here and for what it's worth, I do care. Happy Birthday, Mathew. What are you going to do? What do you want to change?" Steve made a mental note to add Mathew’s birthday to his calendar so he would remember it next year.
"If turning forty fails to give me the impetus to change my life, what will? My life clock is ticking inexorably that way it does, steadily marching forward. I have to make some life-changing resolutions to find a wife, family, and fulfillment. How do I get there? How do I find someone as promising as this Ivy you met?"
Mathew noticed that Steve blanched a little at the mention of Ivy's name. "Something wrong with you and Ivy, Big Guy?"
"Don’t know. Oh crap. I emailed her about what I'm like -- what a demanding SOB I am and stuff. Gave her some examples -- things she should understand about me before we go further. She hasn't responded."
"Maybe she is thinking. Maybe she is busy. Can't believe you did that in an email."
"Yeah, well maybe not the best way to tell her. It's done now. To make things worse, we have to take off and leave all our personal stuff behind in some airport or other."
"Stinks. Why don't you call her before we go?"
"Nah. I'll do that after the action. Right now, I have to focus on those kids. Hope I haven't scared her off."
"If I ever do find someone, how do I hold onto her? Can I do that and maintain this career path? My FBI career is great -- challenging, stimulating, and gratifying. Is it worth the heavy toll it takes on my personal life and me?"
"Guys do it."
"You didn't."
"My life should not be an example for you. Remember that discussion we had about love and marriage a few years back?"
Mathew nodded.
"Take your own advice. Manage it like a project. Commit yourself to having an approach settled in your mind by a certain date."
Mathew nodded. "You're right. Three months. By February 9th, 2013, I will have a path to follow. Every day I will spend at least ten minutes on it. For now, "Ad Meliora Vertamur" -- Let Us Turn to Better Things!"
Feeling, if not better, at least glad to have a goal, he picked up his cell phone to alert the rest of the team that they were flying out at one.
***
Going out of Bern, the team split up using the tickets Steve arranged for them, boarding planes for Vienna, Rome or Budapest switching IDs as they went. From those cities, they would then fly to Sofia. Anything that could identify who they really were -- passports, credit cards, driver’s licenses, and even personal cell phones, tablets and laptops were left at an FBI office or an airport locker en route. Steve planned to leave his in a locker at the Frankfort airport since he expected that to be his route flying back to the States. Mathew left his in Bern. They had to do the sting in Sofia, handle the follow-on work to shut down the child brothels once they knew where they were, and finish the case wrap-up that was required. Steve rechecked his iPhone at the airport, but found no messages from Ivy. He stopped to check his secure email service. That was empty as well. He put his roscoe, creds, iPhone, iPad and laptop in the airport locker, closed the door, spun the dial and walked away, hoping he would have a message from Ivy when he picked up his iPhone again, but fearing that he had scared her off.
All the agents, except Steve and Lenny, arrived in Sofia on Zero Day minus one. Each agent was down to a suitcase, anonymous laptop, a new cell phone, and leather briefcase. On the surface, they appeared to be business people from the American Heartland. Steve and Lenny were to meet up in Frankfurt on Day Zero and fly out on the next flight to Sofia. Behind the scenes the legats had arranged local forces for the arrest team, the required in-country weapons and technology, and social services to take the children. The first meeting with the head of the child trafficking ring – the woman they called Matka -- was scheduled for late in the afternoon of Day Zero. Only Mathew, Brian and a bilingual agent would attend.
***
Not until early the following Tuesday morning was Ivy able to get back to Steve's email, reading the part she had not read before twice in the early morning quiet of her home.
While I want to see more of you, I have been doing a great deal of thinking and soul searching when I manage to pull myself away from this investigation. Before we go further, you need to better understand me. Ivy, you have seen that as an agent, I can be brash, headstrong, and difficult. While I would never (and have never) become physically aggressive, I likely will always be obdurately demanding when I feel I am in the right. My parents used to tell me that I was their American angel with one devil of a Norwegian stubborn streak.
My work life has been successful even though that is at a cost. I have done and will do whatever it takes to solve a case. I have killed people; they were always the perps; it was always in self-defense, but I pulled the trigger. Can you still smile at me and want to be with me knowing that? Sometimes team members have been severely hurt on missions because I insisted that we solve a case, catch the perps, and end the crimes. Agents have been shot up, nastily wounded and even crippled. Can you gaze at me with those sincere eyes of yours and still want me as you learn more about this tougher side?
Why am I telling you this? Because it is what I do and what I have done for 35 years. Working for the Bureau on cases takes my full concentration; it takes up almost all of my life and my energy. Frankly my personal life has been a disaster. I buried myself in work when my marriage failed. I turned my back on my son, letting my wife and her second husband bring him up.
Now I want to find my way to you, if you will have me. At 60 years old I need to have more of life for myself before it becomes too late. I would like to think that you are interested in me too, but you have to understand what I can be like. You need to recognize that I have this harder side that I built over many years. While I can compartmentalize, it is there when needed. I can be a demanding SOB who always, or so I believe, keeps the end good in mind.
Old Growth & Ivy (The Spook Hills Trilogy Book 1) Page 7
