Undercover Agent

by Slade, Heather

  I pressed the button for the lift, mulling over the proposal Decker Ashford had outlined in our earlier phone call, as I had been since I rang off. It didn’t make sense either, and that Emerson’s father was willing to go along with it, was even more worrisome.

  I walked Emerson to her door and saw that the keypad I’d requested had been installed.

  “Oh! What’s this? I mean, I know what it is, but what do I do? Well, I know what to do, but is there a code? Has someone programmed my handprint in? How did they get my—”

  “I know your code.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” She tapped her finger on her bottom lip. “Why?”

  “Because it’s my birthday, followed by my initials.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “Twenty-three December.”

  “And your initials?”

  “LCE.”

  “Lennox…”

  “Charles Edgemon.”

  Emerson cocked her head to the side and smiled. “How cute is that?” She punched in the code, rested her hand on the pad, and the door opened.

  If only I weren’t so angry at Decker and her father, I might have smiled too, but right now, I couldn’t muster more than a scowl.

  With a shoulder shrug, Emerson took her bags to the bedroom and then rejoined me in the apartment’s main room.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Your father and Decker should be here momentarily.” I hadn’t asked specifically, but I assumed the apartment had been swept for spyware of any kind.

  Emerson walked over to the window and looked out. Her arms were folded, and she was tapping her lower lip with her fingertip again. She took a deep breath and then turned toward me. “Something is bothering you, and it has nothing to do with Tommy or Dr. Benjamin.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s something to do with me, isn’t it?”

  “It’s best we wait—”

  “No, Lynx. If it involves me, I want to know what it is.”

  “Very well. Decker has had Irish under surveillance for several days. He has spent the majority of the last few at MIT.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m unaware of how, but yesterday, Decker arranged for Irish to gain access to your office.”

  Her eyes opened wide.

  “Decker planted information which he has reason to believe Irish discovered.” I scrubbed my face with my hand. “There is a second part to this that involves you.”

  Before I could go on, there was a knock at the door. I answered it before Emerson could, wishing I had time to speak to the two gentlemen who joined us, alone.

  “Emme,” Rick Charles said, taking his daughter in his arms. I thought about the last conversation he and I had and his warning not to hurt his daughter. Wasn’t what he and Decker were suggesting the antithesis of his warning to me?

  “Let’s sit,” I suggested.

  “I’ll stand,” Emerson replied, motioning for the three of us to sit. Only Decker and her father did.

  I turned to Decker. “I’ve made Emerson aware of the events taking place through yesterday.”

  He nodded and looked up at her. “We have reason to believe that Paxon Warrick has been gathering intelligence that he is selling to the Chinese.”

  By the time he finished his sentence, I was by Emerson’s side. I led her to the sofa and sat next to her.

  “He’s a double agent?” she asked.

  “We believe so,” Decker answered.

  “Lynx said this involves me somehow.”

  “We need to be certain,” said her father, leaning forward in his chair. “In order for that to happen, we need you to return to your office.”

  “To feed him specific information?”

  “That’s right,” Rick answered, looking from her to me. “Emme, you should know that Lynx is not in favor of this.”

  “Why not?” she asked me directly.

  “In order for this to work, the two of you will need to be alone.”

  “We worked alone for weeks.”

  Simultaneously, Decker’s and my mobile went off.

  “Excuse me,” he said, standing and leaving Emerson’s apartment.

  “What’s going on?” she asked when I stood as well.

  “There’s a press conference taking place.”

  Both Emerson and her father followed me to Saint’s apartment. Once inside, I saw Decker had donned a headset. When I approached the monitors he was studying, I could see that the news ticker on the bottom of the screen read, Breaking News/Special Report. The headline at the top of the screen read, “Two Americans and two Brits arrested in China, sentenced to death on drug-trafficking charges.” There on the dais to the side of the podium where a Chinese official stood, were Dr. Adam Benjamin and Niven St. Thomas. Next to them, stood two other men.

  I was about to call Z when my mobile rang with his call.

  “Have you seen?” he asked.

  “Just now.”

  “The execution is scheduled in two days’ time.”

  “Has the team mobilized?”

  “Affirmative. How soon can you and Ashford do the same?” Z asked.

  I made my way to the back of the apartment, walked into Saint’s office, and closed the door behind me. “I’ll be on the next transport out, but Ashford will not be with me.” I went on to explain what we believed about Irish Warrick. “He needs to stay to see this through.”

  “Understood,” said Z. “Angel as well?”

  “Yes. She’s going into MIT undercover.”

  There was a knock at the door, and I opened it. Decker stepped inside. When he motioned, I put the mobile on speaker.

  “Decker is here,” I told Z.

  “Fill us in.”

  Decker cleared his throat. “The U.S. Ambassador has made arrangements to transport Lynx to Beijing. He’ll be accompanying him under the auspice of further negotiation. They’ll meet with the U.K. Ambassador to China, and both will insist on an audience with the prisoners to confirm their health and well-being before making the deal to deliver the dissidents. The team will be ready to move in upon Lynx’s signal. His job will be to get the two ambassadors out before the Chinese discover the extraction. Questions?”

  “Lynx?” asked Z.

  “None.”

  Decker looked at his mobile and then up at me. “Transport will be here in fifteen.”

  Which left me exactly that long to say goodbye to Emerson.

  28

  Emerson

  “Lynx is waiting for you in the office,” said Decker.

  The time for him to leave had arrived, and as much as my brain understood and accepted that fact, my heart ached. Our magical summer was coming to an end far too soon, but I couldn’t ask him not to go. Tommy’s and Dr. Benjamin’s lives were at stake.

  “Hi,” I said, standing in the doorway.

  “I don’t have much time.”

  When he held out his hand, I took it and let him pull me into an embrace. “Be safe,” I whispered.

  Lynx cupped my cheek with his palm and stared into my eyes. “I wish I could say I’ll be back, but I can’t.”

  “I understand.”

  “Decker will be with you tomorrow, as will Angel.”

  “Angel? Why?”

  “She’ll be undercover.”

  I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t something I would argue with Lynx about now.

  “I wish we had more time.”

  “I do too.”

  “Emerson, I—”

  I put my fingertips on his lips. Whatever he’d say now would be forced, and I didn’t want to hear it in his voice. In the course of the last several days, there was a reason we hadn’t discussed anything beyond this mission. Reality had been lurking in the background of every conversation we had. It had risen to the surface on a number of occasions when one or both of us were willing to say out loud what we were both thinking.

  Once Saint and Dr. Benjamin were
safe, they, along with Lynx, would return to the U.K. End of story; it didn’t include a happily ever after.

  I brought my lips to his and kissed him. He held me so tight that it made me wonder if he was having as hard a time letting go as I was.

  He pulled away and brushed my hair from my face. He rested his hand near the place where I’d cut my head. “You need to get the staples removed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Contact Simon.”

  “I don’t want to inconvenience him.”

  “Contact Simon,” he repeated, kissing my forehead. “He’ll take care of you.”

  “Okay,” I murmured. The truth was, I couldn’t imagine going to anyone else—inconvenient or not.

  “There are things I want to say…”

  “Lynx, please don’t.”

  He nodded and kissed me again. It was the kind of kiss he’d given me when we had sex. It was deep and hard and packed full of the emotion neither of us would allow ourselves to admit we were feeling.

  “Goodbye, Emerson.”

  “Goodbye, Lynx.”

  I walked with him to the elevator, where he kissed me once more. When the door opened and he stepped inside, I couldn’t look at him. I turned before the door closed and walked to my apartment.

  I felt like a boulder of sadness was resting on my chest, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as my heart ached. Why? God, I’d known this was coming. I’d reminded myself of it often enough over the course of the last three weeks. Three weeks? It felt like months. It was said that doing something twenty-one days in a row made it a habit. It hadn’t taken that long for Lynx to become a habit I wanted to continue doing for the rest of my life.

  I rested my forehead against the door while I punched in the code, 2312LCE, and then pressed my palm on the pad.

  The door opened, and when I walked inside, my mom was sitting on the sofa, waiting for me.

  “Lynx is gone,” I told her, and she nodded.

  “Come here,” she said, holding her hand out to me.

  I sat beside her, she put her arm around me, and I rested my head on her shoulder. “I knew this was coming.”

  “It doesn’t make it any easier, sweetheart.”

  I wiped the tears that slid down my cheeks away, wishing I could stop them from falling.

  “It’s okay to be sad, you know.”

  “It’s silly.”

  “No, Emme, it’s normal. You know what we should do?”

  I shook my head.

  “Eat.”

  “You don’t want to cook in my kitchen, Mom.”

  “You’re right. We’ll get your father to take us out for dinner,” said my mom.

  “I’m not that hungry.”

  “You will be when you see where he’s taking us.”

  I shook my head. I could guarantee my father had no idea where my mother would be insisting they go.

  “This place is such a tourist trap,” I said when my father drove up to the only place in Boston that made lobster the way my mother liked.

  “Everyone says that, but I bet ninety percent of the people having dinner here tonight are from Boston.”

  “Sorry about this,” I said to Decker, who my mother had insisted join us regardless of his protests. “But unless you want hundred-dollar lobster, they don’t have much else.”

  “Lobster’s good. Can’t find it much back home.”

  “Where is home?”

  “I live on a ranch just north of Austin, Texas. You want a steak? Come visit.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Decker.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, as though he understood that him being along gave me the moral support I needed to get through not just tonight, but the next few days too.

  The maître d’ led us to the back of the restaurant to a private dining room.

  “We have business to discuss,” my father murmured, escorting me into the room.

  Once we’d ordered dinner and our drinks were delivered, my parents stood. My father walked my mother to the door and closed it behind her after she’d walked out.

  “Decker, do you want to fill Emme in on what you’ve uncovered?”

  “As you know, U.S. intelligence—the CIA specifically—has suffered major setbacks in China.”

  I was aware that the agency’s once-robust espionage network had been falling apart for the last five years. In that time, dozens of CIA informants in China had disappeared, either jailed or killed.

  “The agency has been convinced there was a mole feeding information to Chinese intelligence officers.”

  “And you suspect Paxon?”

  “More than suspect, Emme,” said my father.

  “While it wasn’t his original mission, Saint was also investigating Irish based on information he was given by Dr. Benjamin.”

  “Dr. Benjamin?” I tapped my lip with my fingertip. “You think he left proof. That’s why Paxon has been at MIT even though I haven’t. It’s also why he didn’t want me to return last week.”

  “There’s more,” said my father, covering my hand with his.

  “What?” I asked, looking between him and Decker.

  “There’s evidence suggesting that Irish may have had a hand in Saint’s and Benjamin’s disappearances.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Two things,” said Decker. “First, find the evidence Dr. Benjamin left, and then lead Paxon to the remaining evidence we planted.”

  “Wait. You don’t have Benjamin’s evidence already?”

  Decker shook his head. “I have enough on Irish without it, but finding it would give us the names of the people Irish has been working with.”

  “You don’t think Irish knows where it is?” I asked.

  “Even if he did, it’s unlikely he’d know what he was looking at,” said my dad.

  “It’s in code. That’s where you come in,” I said to him.

  He and Decker both nodded.

  The door opened, and my mother walked back in, followed by two waiters carrying our lobster, signaling the end of our conversation.

  My parents went home after dropping Decker and me at my building.

  “You up for doing this tonight?” he asked when the elevator opened to my floor.

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  Decker went over everything that had been planted in my office, as well as what he believed I should be looking for when I got there tomorrow.

  Something occurred to me. “Wait a minute.”

  Decker raised his head.

  “We need to get my father back over here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have what we’re looking for.”

  Three hours later, my father raised his head and smiled. “I found it.”

  As much as I wanted to be there when Paxon was arrested, I knew I shouldn’t be. It would only complicate what would already be a tenuous situation. My father didn’t go either. Instead, he, my mother, and I went out for breakfast.

  We were just finishing our coffee when my mother reached over and touched my hand and then motioned to the television above the bar.

  “CIA Officer Arrested for Conspiracy to Spy for China,” the headline read. I watched as Paxon Warrick was led away in handcuffs. Off to the side, I could see the top of Decker’s head. These weren’t men that needed the glory that came along with a press conference. No, men like Decker, Lynx, and even my father, were the kind of people who worked behind the scenes, keeping the rest of us safe from the atrocities that took place daily around the world.

  “I want to leave MIT,” I blurted. I couldn’t say it was something I’d thought about. I just decided, and once I had, I knew I couldn’t go back.

  29

  Lynx

  “I wanted you to know Irish Warrick was arrested a little over an hour ago,” said Decker when he called shortly after our plane landed in London.

  He explained that Emerson had Dr. Benjamin’s reports with her all along.

  “Those bloody bags
full of bricks,” I mumbled. I should’ve known.

  “It didn’t take her father long before he pieced the code together. Once he had, there was no reason for us to execute the rest of the plan.”

  I was relieved there hadn’t been any need for Emerson to interact with Irish or put herself in unnecessary danger.

  “I sent you the full report.”

  “Thanks, Decker.”

  “Godspeed, Lynx. To the crew also.”

  “I’ll pass it on.”

  I intentionally hung up before asking where Emerson was now. That was no longer any of my business, but, God, did I miss her. When I closed my eyes, I saw her face and smelled her skin. I could even feel her touch and her soft lips, her tongue, everything. Besides my parents, I’d never missed anyone. Not even Keon. But Emerson, I didn’t just miss her, I longed for her with a yearning like none other I’d ever experienced. I’d walked away from her this morning without a word about when I might see her again. It’s what we both accepted to be our reality, but that didn’t change the fact I’d give anything to have the fantasies I had about what our life would be like together become our new reality.

  I sighed and opened Deck’s report and read it while I waited for our next flight.

  Paxon “Irish” Warrick, it appeared, had been passing classified intelligence reports to the Chinese dating back as early as seven years ago. For betraying his country and being directly responsible for the loss of life of several of his fellow agents, Irish pocketed a little over five million dollars.

  There was no clear understanding of why he did it, except for the money.

  I’d just ordered a pint in the private lounge where the ambassador and I were waiting when my mobile rang again.

  “Hello, Cope,” I said.

  “You’ve been expecting my call.”

  “I have.”

  “Listen, Lynx, I’m sorry I couldn’t read you in on the investigation into Irish, but it was vital that he be left in place long enough that he’d eventually show his hand. We had to stop the bloodbath, and in order to do so, we needed to know who he was working with.”