Spy Now, Pay Later

by Diane Henders

  Jeez, lucky he didn’t know Betty had actually withdrawn into trauma-induced catatonia after encountering my memories…

  “We can discuss this later,” Stemp said firmly. “Thank you for coming, Ms. Mellor,” he continued in his usual dispassionate tones. “That’s all the testing we require for today, and we’ll expect you tomorrow morning at nine o’clock for your first full day of work.”

  “Oh, thank you, Charles!” Tammy rose, her white cane sweeping her path as she hurried over to reach toward him. He offered his hand and she hugged it, beaming. “It was so exciting to meet everybody and I can hardly wait to work with you, you know I’ll do anything I can to help, I just owe you so much and you’ve been so good to me-”

  Jill intervened to extricate Stemp’s hand and transfer Tammy’s grip to her arm instead. “It’s time to go, Tammy. Nice to meet you, everybody.” Jill steered Tammy toward the door.

  “Oh, yes!” Tammy chirped. “Aydan, I can hardly wait for tomorrow, it was so nice to meet you all and I can hardly wait to get started, this is going to be so much fun, if only my Terry was here it would just perfect, wouldn’t it, Jilly-Bean? I just wish you could have met my Terry, I just know you would have loved him, I miss him so much…”

  Tammy’s chatter receded down the hallway, and I let out a sigh of relief just as Kane released a breath of his own. We caught each other’s eyes and looked away hurriedly.

  “Brock, report,” Stemp said.

  Brock blinked, massaging his temples. “Uh, I guess it went okay. I went into a couple of sites that I knew were securely encrypted and I could read the data no problem. And I don’t think Mellor knew what was going on.”

  “That’s what it looked like to me while I was watching from the outside, too,” Spider seconded, but he didn’t look happy.

  Stemp leaned back in his chair. “Kelly, based on your recollection of Ms. Mellor’s mind, please brief us on exactly what she knows regarding the decryptions. She may turn out to be a liability due to her…”

  My mind supplied the words ‘verbal diarrhea’, but Stemp continued, “…unrestrained enthusiasm. Francis is an excellent handler, but even she can’t control every word out of Ms. Mellor’s mouth.” His inscrutable façade wavered for a moment in what might have been a shudder. “No one could control that.”

  “Yeah. Okay, give me a minute.” I closed my eyes, drawing a deep breath to begin sifting through the alien memories. Too bad the really disturbing ones stayed freshest…

  I suppressed a shudder and forced my mind past them into the innocuous reams of Tammy’s accumulated minutiae.

  “Okay.” I drew a deep breath and opened my eyes again. “Her Knight…” At Brock’s look of incomprehension, I paused. “Didn’t you read her mind while you were driving her?”

  “You seriously think I’d go into that?” He shuddered. “No.”

  Jerk.

  I tried to soften my attitude. He wasn’t a jerk. He hadn’t invaded her mind.

  But his reasons weren’t exactly altruistic…

  I sighed. “Short version, then.” I rubbed my aching temples. “The original eight creators of the controller keys called themselves the Knights of Sirius. They called the super-users mages. That’s what she was talking about earlier, when she said you were her new knight.”

  “Oh. Good.” His nose piercing jiggled unattractively as he sniffed. “I was afraid she was coming onto me.”

  I left that alone and carried on. “So ‘her Terry’, that’s Terry Sherman, her knight… controller… he was a lot more than that…”

  My stomach tried to climb my throat again at the memories, but I gulped it down determinedly. “She’s been blind since she was a little girl, and the Knights arranged to take her from her family when she was only eight. She had no family life at all after that. Sherman started out as a handler and father figure and ended up as a lover. Or pseudo-husband, whatever. He was her whole world.”

  “That’s sick.”

  I breathed carefully. “Yeah. Anyway, the Knights were using the mages to secretly gather data and sell it to the highest bidder. None of the mages knew they were doing anything but powering the brainwave-driven simulations.”

  I spoke to Stemp. “And she still doesn’t know about that part. That’s what she meant when she said she felt light and floaty.”

  Stemp nodded, and I returned my attention to Brock’s puzzled frown. “When a mage is being controlled in the network by someone who’s reading her mind, it feels… heavy. Like being trapped in tar…”

  That mental image wasn’t helping my claustrophobia. I sucked in a breath.

  “…but when the controller shields his mind, it’s not as heavy,” I finished hurriedly. “Tammy has never been in a network without somebody riding her mind, so she felt ‘light and floaty’ because she went in on her own before you gained control of her and you kept your own mind shielded.”

  Brock nodded, and I turned back to Stemp.

  “So she isn’t aware we’re using her to hack and decrypt data,” I finished. “And she wasn’t aware the Knights were doing that, either. But Sherman didn’t try to hide any information about the brainwave-driven network or the other Knight/mage pairs, so there’s plenty of classified information for her to blab if she gets going.”

  “Yes.” Stemp sat in silence for a moment, then nodded decisively. “We’ll have to bury her.”

  “What?” Spider and I chorused.

  Spider sounded horrified. I sounded… dangerous.

  “It’s the only answer.” Stemp rose. “We’ll keep her underground in the secured area.”

  “For how long?” I grated.

  Stemp wasn’t stupid. He had to sense my impending explosion.

  He eyed me dispassionately. “Indefinitely, of course.”

  “You can’t do that to her. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s not a prisoner-”

  Stemp’s cool tone cut across my rising voice like a blade. “I can, and I will. National security is my top priority.”

  Just like that.

  No rights, no appeal, just locked away in a dungeon forever. He’d bury Tammy just like he’d tried to bury me. But Tammy was blind, alone in the world, unable to fight back because she didn’t even know what was at stake…

  My claustrophobic terror rushed back wearing rage as a disguise. I rocketed up from the couch, fists clenched. “Listen, you fucking dickhead-”

  “Kelly!”

  His admonition didn’t even slow me down. I stepped closer, fists and voice rising. “…who the hell do you think you-”

  Spider’s gasp was loud in the sudden silence when I shut up, staring at the gun Stemp had whipped out to train on me.

  Goddamn him. I knew how fast he was, but I’d never thought he’d actually draw on me in front of everybody.

  As if suspended in time, I observed our little tableau.

  Spider, poised half-way off the couch, his hands outstretched in a warding gesture. Brock’s mouth hanging open in an ‘O’ dotted with piercings, dark against his shock-white skin. Kane’s hand on his holster, his jaw taut. Germain’s arms extended, whether to restrain Kane or intercede with Stemp I couldn’t tell.

  Stemp’s voice broke the silence, as emotionless as ever. “In my office, Kelly.” He angled his chin a fraction toward the doorway, the gun rock-steady in his hand. “If you please.”

  I let out a breath, eerie calm supplanting my anger. “You won’t need that.” I nodded at his gun.

  “Good.” He holstered it without changing expression and swept the others with a glance. “Brock, you’re dismissed for the day. Be here tomorrow at zero nine hundred to continue with Ms. Mellor. The rest of you meet back here in twenty minutes for Afterburner. After you, Kelly.”

  As I moved slowly toward the door, I wondered if he actually trusted me not to attack him or if he was just so deadly in hand-to-hand combat that it didn’t matter. Either way, he didn’t blink when I passed.

  He followed several paces behind me wh
ile we marched down the hall toward his office. The skin crawled on my back. Had he drawn his gun again?

  At the door to his office, his voice halted me. “Do I need to ask for your weapon?”

  I turned. He wasn’t holding his gun.

  The knot of tension loosened between my shoulder blades. “No. I promise not to pull it on you this time. But you can take it if you want.” I held my arms out from my sides. “It’s in my waist holster.”

  “No need. I trust you.” His gaze bored into mine. “This time.” He gestured through the door. “Please sit.”

  I tottered over and sank into his guest chair, heart thumping while he closed the door and took a seat across the desk. He regarded me in silence for a moment before extracting a bug detector to contemplate its glowing green light.

  The corner of his mouth lifted in what might have been the smallest smile ever issued. “I knew I could count on your legendary temper. Thank you for obliging me.”

  “Wh…” My lips were barely framing the word when he continued.

  “As much as I don’t particularly appreciate being called a dickhead yet again, your predictability does create a convenient method for arranging confidential meetings with you. So. I need to know…”

  His intense amber gaze transfixed me like prey before a predator. “Can you extract memories from Ms. Mellor’s mind?”

  I blinked. “What…?” My brain caught up with the first part of his statement and I straightened indignantly. “You played me.”

  “Of course.” His impersonal tone never altered. “Please answer the question.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him where to stick it, but clamped it shut again. This was Stemp. I might as well rage at the lush Boston fern in the corner of his office. I’d get more reaction from the plant.

  I held my voice level. “I’m… not really sure what you’re asking.”

  “I’m asking if you can selectively remove memories from her mind.”

  I stared at him, the ramifications of the question slowly sinking in. Sick anger hollowed my chest. “You want me to… mind-rape her? That’s fucking disgusting!”

  “No. That’s not what I want at all. I want to know if you can remove certain very specific memories that pose a major threat to national security and to all of your team. Just like you did for Betty Hooper when you removed your own memories from her mind and restored her sanity.”

  “It’s not just like that!” My fingers bit into the arms of the chair. “With Betty I was retrieving my own memories, memories she never should have had, memories that were destroying her. What you’re asking is like… like… secretly cutting out a piece of Tammy’s brain! Her fundamental… person! Who she is!”

  “That’s not what I’m asking. Please calm down and I’ll explain.”

  Stemp eyed me in silence for a moment as if making sure he had my attention.

  I pried my fingers loose from the chair. A few months ago I would have jumped down his throat with both feet. Now…

  “I’m listening,” I growled.

  He exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “Since you discovered the existence of the Knights and their mages a few months ago, I have been scrambling to make sure our national security remains uncompromised. The Knights are no longer a threat, thanks to you.”

  He inclined his head in my direction, and I nodded grudging acknowledgement.

  He went on, “The three mages you freed when you eliminated the Knights were all citizens of the United States. They have been repatriated and assigned to join Betty Hooper on the U.S. project, which is continuing. Since they are all under strict oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, I don’t consider their knowledge a major threat.”

  “However.” Stemp pressed his fingertips briefly to the bridge of his nose as though trying to suppress a headache. “Ms. Mellor is a Canadian citizen. I assigned Francis immediately after we acquired Ms. Mellor, and Francis and several other agents have been supervising her constantly since then. Dr. Rawling has also been evaluating Ms. Mellor under the guise of grief counselling sessions. She has normal intellect, but her social and emotional development were severely stunted by her isolation with Sherman. She is naively trusting and easily manipulated, with no emotional boundaries or impulse control to speak of. That makes her a constant threat as long as she remains free and retains her memories of the scope of the project.”

  He held up a silencing hand as I leaned forward to protest. “I’m not asking you to do anything at this point. I’m simply asking if you think it’s possible to remove selected memories.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Stemp eyed me wearily. “Consider it. Please. Because otherwise I’ll have to bury Tammy Mellor.”

  Chapter 14

  I glared at Stemp. “You’re playing me again, you bastard! Trying to force me to rip an innocent woman’s mind apart by threatening to stick her in prison for the rest of her life if I don’t. You dickhead!”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “Please don’t shoot the messenger.” The quiet resignation in his tone drained every vestige of heat from my anger.

  I slumped back in my chair. “Shit.” I ground the frown wrinkles out of my forehead with the heel of my hand and added, “Sorry.”

  He sighed and nodded acceptance.

  We sat in silence while I wrestled with the problem and all its complications. I knew Stemp was right, but there had to be another way.

  I just couldn’t think of anything at the moment…

  I blew out a long breath. “Suppose I did actually figure out a way to… edit her memories. What would happen to her then? I thought you wanted her to take over my decryptions. If she doesn’t have any memory of the network, she can’t do that.”

  Stemp shrugged. “That is the least of my worries. I can concoct a plausible ‘job’ to bring Ms. Mellor here daily. Once Brock perfects his control, she need never know there is a network.”

  “But she’s going to wonder why she has no memory of ever doing anything at work besides arriving and leaving.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  Something about the way he said it made suspicion bloom into certainty.

  “False memories.” I stared at him, my stomach twisting. “You don’t just want me to remove the classified memories, you want me to make up new ones to take their place. That’s… that’s…”

  He held up a hand. “I don’t want you to do any of this. I don’t want it to be necessary in the first place. I want to find another solution. I hope you can help me do that.”

  My fingers were digging into the chair again. “But you’re considering it as an option.”

  “Yes.” Stemp met my eyes squarely. “It is my job and my sworn duty to protect national security. I can’t dismiss any option, regardless of how distasteful I may consider it personally. That’s why we’re having this conversation in strict confidence. I hope it turns out to be unnecessary. Take some time to think about it. She’s secure for now under Francis’s constant supervision, but we will have to deal with the issue at some point, preferably in the not-too-distant future. I would appreciate your input.”

  He rose. “We should get back to your office. You can pretend you’ve received a reprimand and use this incident as a plausible reason for being sent to the anger management class. The series begins tomorrow at sixteen-thirty in the meeting room at the end of the hall.”

  I suppressed a groan. Ten long weeks under Dr. Rawling’s too-perceptive observation.

  But it was worth it. As long as Stemp was sending me to the class, it meant he still believed I’d killed Arnie’s father. Arnie would be safe.

  I stood, squaring my shoulders. “Okay.”

  If Stemp heard the reluctance in my voice, he didn’t react to it. “Also, I’ve scheduled your requalification tests for tomorrow.” His eyes narrowed. “I expect you to pass this time.”

  “Tomorrow?” I couldn’t hide my gulp. “I thought you said you’d give me a few weeks. I’ve been pushi
ng hard with my workouts and doing the training simulations at the shooting range whenever I have time, but…”

  “It has been over two weeks. And Germain may be reassigned shortly, so you’ll need to complete your hand-to-hand combat requalification before he leaves.”

  “What?” My voice caught in my suddenly-dry throat. “I can’t do hand-to-hand combat. I already told you that. I’m just a bookkeeper.”

  Stemp gave me one of his deadly stares. “And if you hadn’t breached your cover, you would have been able to avoid the requalification. But since your last mission report clearly states you killed an enemy agent in hand-to-hand combat, you’ll need to complete the requalification.”

  “I didn’t!” I clenched my hands together so I wouldn’t grab him by the lapels. “I never said that! Read my report!”

  “It was detailed in Kane’s report. And the autopsy findings were consistent with Kane’s account. They also matched the results of Helmand Senior’s autopsy report. A broken neck; no other significant injuries.”

  “No, Kane didn’t see what really happened,” I argued desperately. “I just hurt the guy’s arm. Then he tripped and when he fell he couldn’t save himself because his arm collapsed, and that’s when his head got stuck between two seats and-”

  Stemp froze me with a look. “Do you honestly expect me to believe it was an accident? Despite the fact that you already admitted you killed Helmand using exactly the same technique? Or are you saying you lied and someone else actually killed Helmand for you?”

  My heart stopped.

  God, if he discovered the truth, Arnie and I would both go to jail…

  “No,” I squeaked.

  “Good. Report for your requalification tests in the gym at zero nine hundred tomorrow.” He turned and strode out.

  After a paralyzed moment, I stumbled after him.

  I didn’t absorb much at the Afterburner briefing. I was fairly sure I had nodded at the right moments, but as we filed out the door of the meeting room afterward, my mind buzzed like a frantic fly in a Mason jar.