I saw something in Morello’s eyes, a glimmer of acknowledgement, it seemed — as if she knew that to square with Ryan Demarco’s character. “What was your state of mind while you were physically engaged with him?” she asked.
I knew this line of questioning was necessary, but felt uncomfortable answering. Did I dare tell her the truth? Instead, I got testy.
“Are you asking if I enjoyed fucking Agent Demarco?” I asked.
“No, Anna,” Morello said. “I’m asking if you remained focused on your mission, if you were able to separate any physical component, be it pleasure or discomfort, from your goal.”
“There was no point at which I lost sight of the job I had to do,” I said, “even while Demarco was deep inside of me.”
That seemed to shut her up, if only for a moment.
“Good,” she said. “And afterward, when you left the hotel, what was your mental state about what had taken place between you and Lazarenko?”
“I won’t lie to you, Dr. Morello, the sex was great,” I confided. “But it was just a means to get me into the target’s hotel room and plant the bugs. When it was over, I was proud of myself for having done what was necessary to properly complete my mission. That’s all.”
Morello smiled at me. “Excellent. I can tell you that Mr. Sills and his superiors are all very pleased with how you handled yourself during this blind simulation, Anna. Everyone thinks you’ll make a terrific agent. It’s my job to make sure you keep your head straight until you get used doing this.” She paused, then added, “I think that’s enough for today.”
After the Lazarenko operation, my training resumed without a hiccup. In fact, my instructors treated me with more respect because I had successfully completed a simulated operation. They had no idea there was sex involved (I had asked Dr. Morello about this), but they suddenly seemed to consider me an actual covert operative instead of a trainee.
Simone Guilbeau had me speaking near-fluent French and rudimentary Russian, while my time with Jordan Williams and Aaron Deckard had been reduced after I’d grasped the basics of cyber-technology and standard weaponry. Instead, I spent only a couple of hours a week with each of them, and two full hours every day with a new instructor. Dennis Raimundo was a thirty-year CIA veteran who’d been tasked with giving me an overall education in a wide range of topics. We would be covering communication skills, geography of critical regions, foreign intelligence communities, weapons proliferation, chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, terrorist tactics, and even simple project management.
Dennis was a kind, burly man in his early sixties who took the time to teach me, but was never condescending about to my status as a new covert agent. He was married with three grown kids and had given up a role as an overseas operative out of concern for his family. For twenty years he’d been teaching at CIA University and loved showing the ropes to new agents. I looked forward to my time in the classroom with Dennis.
* * *
Leslie Costas, my fitness trainer, told me I’d achieved a satisfactory level of overall fitness and that she was shifting her emphasis to hand-to-hand combat. She also reminded me to keep my calorie levels up so that I wouldn’t “grow thin,” which I happily obliged. My body continued to put on muscle to replace the fat I was losing, and though my proportions had shifted quite a bit, there was no mistaking me for a model. I was still a big girl, but I felt better about my size and shape than I ever had before.
Leslie worked with me on close-combat fighting, using techniques developed in the military for special ops forces; Green Berets, Navy Seals, Delta Force, etc. The methods I learned were for last-resort fighting and were designed to incapacitate, maim, or even kill an opponent. Since I would rarely (if ever) be armed while on a mission, I had to know how to free myself from any situation in which my instincts indicated I was in mortal danger.
Four things were stressed: protect my face, remain on my feet, hit hard and accurately, and always look for a chance to flee. Once we started going over the actual techniques, I became fascinated. There were bits and pieces from many different self-defense disciplines, including boxing, taekwondo, judo, and Krav Maga, a totally badass methodology developed by the Israeli military.
Over the next two months, Leslie trained me in punches, palm strikes, kicks, front and rear chokeholds, and even wrestling. I learned that the body’s most vulnerable points were mostly from the neck up, particularly the eyes, the carotid arteries and the windpipe, not to mention the weakest section of the spine. We spent an entire week covering “situational awareness,” and how if I trained myself to always pay close attention to my surroundings, I’d be at an advantage over those who don’t.
From time to time, Leslie would have me spar with other agents, varying my partner so I wouldn’t grow accustomed to any one person’s fighting style. It was extremely difficult at the beginning and I sported a black eye for two weeks following my first sparring session, but I soon settled into it and was quickly doing well enough to earn my trainer’s praise by the six-month mark of my training.
I hadn’t seen Ryan Demarco at all since the day he’d dropped off his little “gift” at my office a few months earlier. I’d heard he was involved in a lengthy operation in Indonesia. Not a day passed that I didn’t think about what had occurred in the Lazarenko simulation and how he’d taken the exercise much further than was necessary. I’d grown to hate how much I thought about that man. Following Dr. Morello’s advice, I had a couple of one-night stands since then, allowing myself to be picked up in hotel bars in DC so I could keep my real-life sex separate from my job sex in my mind. The problem was that the real-life sex hadn’t been anywhere near as good as my short time with Lazarenko/Demarco had been, which made me despise him that much more. The asshole was distracting me in both my work life and my private life.
So imagine my surprise when I’d just finished my warmup routine in Leslie’s gym one day to see Ryan Demarco walk in. He was tanned and looked well-rested, as if he’d just come back from vacation, and was wearing his trademark grin.
“Anna, this is Agent Demarco,” Leslie said obliviously. “He’ll be your sparring partner today.”
Demarco was wearing workout clothes: a tight gray T-shirt and dark blue pants that clung to his large thighs. I’d forgotten how absolutely ripped the man was and my body involuntarily clenched when I saw his build. He approached me and offered his hand, his eyes never leaving mine. I looked away and shook it as quickly as possible, my pulse suddenly pounding in my veins.
Leslie asked him if he needed time to loosen up and he declined, stretching his muscles a few feet in front of me as I tried not to watch. She laid out the rules of the bout, which would start by Demarco grabbing me from behind, supposedly catching me off-guard. My task was to nullify that initial hold and neutralize him as efficiently as I could, obviously without actually injuring him. It dawned on me that I could use this exercise to extract a little revenge on this jerk, and as I took my starting position facing away from him, a smile slowly crept across my lips.
Leslie’s whistle sounded and I was surprised by how fast Demarco was on me. His arms wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides as he put me in a bear hug. One of his arms was directly over my breasts, certainly done on purpose. Before I could think I felt his hard chest against my back and his crotch on my butt. The jerk was doing that deliberately, I just knew it. The last time he and I had been in this position, he was taking me from behind in that hotel room in London. I struggled against his grip, but it was hopeless; there was no way I could use my arms to break his hold. I tried walking backwards into him, but he was too heavy and I couldn’t move him.
At this point, the old Anna Mercer would have panicked, but all the training and sparring I’d done kept me calm. I lifted my right leg and slammed my heel down on Demarco’s toes. In the split second in which his muscles relaxed, I elbowed him in the ribs and dropped my body to a squatting position, wriggling out of his grip. Wrapping my arm behind hi
s opposite knee, I pulled hard and he tumbled to the ground as I burst free.
“Good!” Leslie shouted as Demarco quickly got to his feet. I realized then that I should have pounced on him while he was down. I’d lost a perfect chance at neutralizing him while I still had the element of surprise in my favor. Now as we faced each other the surprise was gone and Demarco was much bigger, stronger and faster than I was.
He approached me and I attempted to jab his neck with my knuckles, but he was too quick, grabbing my wrist and twisting my arm. The pain was so great I had to spin my body and in an instant Demarco had me helpless with my arm behind my back and me crying, “Give!”
We sparred for about twenty minutes with only one break and he got the best of me more often than not. I succeeded in neutralizing him only once, when I inadvertently dislocated his index finger while bending it backwards to break free from a grip. Demarco simply popped the crooked digit back into place and smiled at me.
During the final session he grabbed me from behind again, arms wrapped right across my tits, with his legs spread far enough so that I couldn’t kick his foot again. With his strength and my level of exhaustion, I was helpless.
Leslie blew her whistle, then said, “Okay, that’s enough.” She turned to the water fountain and Demarco refused to let me go, pressing his crotch against my ass. Suddenly I felt his soft lips on my shoulder, gently kissing it before I wiggled free of his grasp. My blood was boiling as I turned to face him.
When I saw that cocky grin again, my reflexes took over and my foot shot out and kicked him right in the testicles as hard as I could. He grunted loudly and doubled over in pain.
“Agent Demarco!” Leslie shouted. I turned to her and knew I was in trouble. “What happened?” she asked, coming to Demarco’s assistance. I realized she hadn’t actually seen the kick.
Demarco lifted his head up and looked at Leslie. “I think I pulled a groin muscle,” he groaned, straightening up while still holding his balls. Then the fucker actually turned to me, smiled, and winked. Looking back at Leslie, he said, “I think I’m done for the day, though.”
She said she understood and dismissed him. I stood watching, my heart beating like drum and the sweat pouring off my body as Demarco limped out the door.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
More importantly, I’d dislocated his finger and hopefully crushed his balls. Now we were even.
Eleven
My first real mission came after eight full months of training. When Sills called me into his office and gave me the news, I knew I was ready. No longer the tentative agent hoping she could do what was required of her, I was now a strong, confident woman who believed in her abilities. I had been expertly trained to handle myself in almost any situation I might come across.
Still, my pulse quickened as Sills turned off the lights and lowered the multimedia screen in his office. Musgrave sat a few feet from me; I’d seen him at least once a week since our return from London and the two of us had become fast work-friends. To his right was Sandra Teer, a makeup and disguise expert I had worked with in OTS and knew quite well.
The overhead projector flicked on and I was looking at a dark-skinned man with thick black hair and a full beard. His dark brown eyes gave no hint of the personality behind them.
“The man you are looking at is Olin Zeybeck,” Sills said matter-of-factly. “Zeybeck is a Turkish national, a highly educated man with the equivalent of two Ph.D.s, one in chemical engineering and one in what passes for political science at Istanbul Technical University. He is a former head of SANAEM, the Sarayköy Nuclear Research and Training Center in Ankara Province, part of the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority. He’s currently employed as a senior engineer at Kutup Hizmetler, a private and relatively low-key engineering firm. More importantly, Zeybeck suspiciously spends weeks at a time in Tehran at MODAFL, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. We believe him to be working on new types of military weaponry for Iran, possibly nuclear in nature.”
Sills pushed a button and we saw a picture of a two-story building, burnt orange in color, its features plain.
“This is Zeybeck’s home,” Sills said. “It’s remarkable in one aspect: a complete lack of connection to the Internet. For someone of Zeybeck’s intellect and career, that’s highly unusual.” Another click showed a picture of Zeybeck carrying a computer bag. “Our target has a laptop that he takes with him on his visits to Tehran, but which is apparently never actually online. We suspect he uses USB drives to transfer data if he needs to, but the fact that he isolates this one computer is a big concern to us. We need to see what’s on that laptop.”
Sills turned to me and said, “That’s where you come in, Agent Mercer.” My heart skipped a beat as he continued, “This is a simple black bag job. Agent Musgrave will give you a USB cloning device developed by OTS. Plug it into a USB port on any computer and it will make copies of all attached storage devices — hard drives, DVDs or CDs, etc. The computer must be powered on, but the cloner will work even if the system is sitting at a password prompt. It has a capacity of five terabytes, yet is small enough not to draw undue attention to itself. Mercer, you are to make the acquaintance of Zeybeck, get into his home, find and clone his laptop, and bring the cloner back with you. To minimize suspicion, you will be traveling under the guise of a French national who has spent time in the UK, but who has never been on U.S. soil.”
Another click, another image — this one of a younger man, also with dark hair and a beard. There was a slightly crazed look in his eyes, though. “This is our agent-in-place by the name of Hagen Turgut. He works at Kutup Hizmetler with Zeybeck, though he has a much lower security clearance there. Turgut will facilitate your meeting with the target, then the rest is up to you.”
The lights came back on.
“Agent Teer will provide you with material support in the form of clothing,” Sills said. “Agent Musgrave will provide your backstory and paperwork, and he’ll accompany you to Izmir to shadow you and offer backup in case of emergency. You’ll leave the day after tomorrow at 0600 hours. If all goes as planned, the operation will require only two or three days.”
Sills continued to cover the plans and I tried to absorb it all. As he wrapped things up, I asked him if I could have a word alone with him.
“What’s on your mind, Anna?” Sills said when the others had left.
“Sir, I understand that my job is to entice the target to invite me back to his house,” I said. “My concern is that I am unfamiliar with the, um, pickup habits of Muslim men in predominantly Muslim countries. How do we know that he’ll even give me the time of day, considering that I’m a French woman?”
Sills smiled. “We don’t foresee that as a problem. Though we don’t yet know how dirty his hands are, we definitely know that Zeybeck is an extremist. Experience tells us that while that type of man will behave chastely around Muslim women, they see physical interaction with Western women as a form of defiling the enemy. They also believe that Western women have no morals and sleep around a lot, so that should help tilt things in your favor. Don’t get me wrong, though, Zeybeck does not appear to be violent and is unlikely to be a physical threat to you if he doesn’t discover that you’re an agent.”
So this Zeybeck guy would embrace the idea of sex with an Imperialist European woman because he’s merely taking advantage of her godless sluttiness? Somehow, that made sense, or at least I could see how it would make sense to Zeybeck. Getting a glimpse into his mentality gave me something to work with.
“This is a relatively safe, low-risk operation,” Sills continued. “The fact that Agent Musgrave will be your only backup should tell you all you need to know.” He smiled, then added, “We’re not going to throw you to the wolves your first time out.”
Good to know, I thought.
* * *
Two days later I was in Izmir, Turkey. The flight from Dulles had taken thirteen hours, including a two-hour layover in Istanbul. Bei
ng in an Arab nation was strange, even though Turkey is considered almost as much a part of Europe as it is a Middle Eastern country.
My passport got me through Customs without a problem. I was Sophie Giroux, aspiring novelist and daughter of two university professors in Paris. I was in Turkey for a week to do research on my first novel and was starting my trip in Izmir before moving on to Ankara and finally Istanbul. The flights and hotels had all been booked for the sake of authenticity, but would be canceled once my mission was complete and I’d returned safely to the US. Izmir is Turkey’s third largest city, a port on the Aegean Sea. Musgrave and I had rooms on separate floors at the Hilton Izmir. In fact, we didn’t sit together on the plane and took separate cabs to the hotel, just in case.
That first night in Turkey I was to meet with my local contact, Hagen Turgut. He’d been handing over data to the CIA for more than a year and because he knew Olin Zeybeck, he was the perfect choice to help get us together. Sandra had packed my suitcase with several outfits I could choose from, so I slipped into some simple slacks and a loose T-shirt and waited in my room with Musgrave.
Turgut was right on time and seemed outgoing and pleasant enough at first. His English was accented but flawless, and the three of us laid out plans for the operation. We decided that Turgut would invite Zeybeck to dinner at Kafe Sarıkedi, a small restaurant not far from Zeybeck’s house. He would tell the target he met me while on vacation in Paris a year prior, and that I had contacted him when I made plans to come to Turkey to do some research for my novel. He would also let Zeybeck know that I had a thing for intelligent dark-skinned men and that I got very flirty when I drank. Turgut was married with two children and wouldn’t cheat on his wife, but Zeybeck would think nothing of him passing a “sure thing” tip to his bachelor co-worker.
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