Seven-Sided Spy

by Hannah Carmack

  If Diana was shocked, she didn’t show it. That doll-like face of hers hardly moved. But, when she spoke, there was a revitalized energy. “You think I seduce so I can do my job?” She laughed. “I can break necks without flinching. I’m the best shot in the CIA. I am why we are beating the reds. I’ve started wars and ended them. I do what I do to make my job easier. Not because I need to. You want to talk about strength? I am the epitome of it.”

  “Save it for someone who cares, honey.” Nikola slammed a locker and then started toward the door, but she found Diana following close behind her.

  “Wait.” Diana rushed to Nikola and cornered her in the small doorway to the gym, their faces only inches apart. “I believe I misjudged you. Which was a poor decision on my part, but you gave me plentiful cause.” Diana wasn’t making the best case. “Perhaps you will be a great agent, but what I am saying is still true. The purging and over-exercising must stop. Perhaps I could help you.” She sounded diplomatic and well-rounded, but she was still crawling under Nikola’s skin.

  “In case I wasn’t clear enough earlier, I don’t want your help.” Nikola pushed past her and swung the door open, but Diana pursued her farther. It wasn’t until they were out into the main hallway that Diana caught up to her, grabbing at Nikola’s arm.

  “What if I could get you in on the Jimmy Hoffa arrest?” Diana looked up to Nikola, a serious expression in her eyes but a manipulative knowing in her heart.

  Nikola glanced around at the swarms of agents piling in for their morning shifts. In the sea of black, white, and neckties, she felt like the crowd was big enough that she and the goddess could speak as if they were alone.

  “Dammit,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. “Of course, I want in on that.” She kept her head down like the conversation they were having was illegal.

  Diana’s eyes lit with excitement. “Perfect.”

  *

  FOUR HOURS INTO the car ride, Gulliver finally passed out. Exhaustion hit him quickly. Kal had done a bit to cheer him up, stupid impressions, dumb Russian jokes that failed in translation and thus made Gulliver crack up even more, but there was still a sadness to Kal that couldn’t be denied. Nikola had been feeling anxiety. They’d be in the hills soon enough. She mustered up what energy she had and spoke.

  “Kal, after you got the steroid, did you feel any different? Not physically, but mentally.” Nikola rested her arm on the seat behind him.

  “A bit,” Kal replied. “I’m less worried about destroying my liver now.” He laughed.

  “Pffft, Yeah, you would.” Nikola paused for a moment, watching Kal’s attention drift down to Gulliver before looking up to her for help.

  “You think he’ll be all right?” Kal asked.

  Nikola laughed as a knee-jerk reaction. She didn’t feel too bad about it, but it was clear that it didn’t soothe her partner’s anxiety. “You know him better than I do. What do you think?”

  “I know what I think. What do you think?” Kal tipped his head forward, a seriousness about him.

  “I don’t know if he’ll be okay or not. But what I can say is, regardless of the outcome, we are going to have to listen to him bitch about this for the next year.”

  Kal released a low, bellow of a laugh. “We should be fine.”

  “Fine,” Nikola repeated. “That’s a way to put it.” The car drove deep into the mountains of the Carolinas.

  Roswell

  SEPTEMBER 26, 1963

  When it rains in the mountains, waiting for the storm to pass can take hours. With the altitude of the bluffs, the temperature can drop twenty-some degrees in only an hour. And although Ruby had driven home in worse weather, that night, she felt more on edge than ever before. Since her brush with the three-eyed man of the mountain, she hadn’t gone near the park. But a friend needed a ride out to Fontana and she was too indebted to them to say no. It was just to some bonfire in the woods. Normally, Ruby would have attended, but she wouldn’t dare risk hiking now. She was ten parts interested in knowing more about the strange man she’d met weeks earlier, but ten thousand parts more terrified of what would happen if their paths crossed again. The pounding rain on her windshield and the clatter of thunder only added to her stress.

  She sat in her driver’s seat, white-knuckling the steering wheel and singing softly to herself as she sped through the curves of the road. For a minute, she even felt a little safe, the necklaces on her rearview mirror jingling along with the bumps in the road and her heat blasting to keep her warm. But in the midst of this last moment of peace, her tire blew out, and her car skidded on the slick pavement and hydroplaned into a ditch. Her face smashed into the steering wheel and her whole body was suspended as the car’s momentum sent her up off her seat. It happened in slow motion yet all at once.

  BEFORE SHE WOKE, a monster pulled her from her van.

  The vehicle had wedged itself on the border of the woods and the road. Anyone looking in would be concealed and hidden away from the world. So Diana wasn’t afraid to approach it. She had half a mind to get Da Vinci and hijack it, but upon seeing who was inside the van, any plans of escape vanished and were replaced by an irrefutable rage.

  “We should kill her.” Tim examined the girl’s bruised body. “We have to kill her.” He opened the door of the van and she came slumping out. He caught her before she fell. Steadily, he placed his hands around her neck. He looked to Diana, as though waiting for confirmation, but she’d give him none of it.

  “It’s got to be Da Vinci.” Diana stared at the girl with no empathy in her heart. “We give him an inch and he takes a mile. Now, he’s lied to us and put the whole group at risk. We need to know that we can trust him.” There was a chill in the air that did not come from the rain but the frigidity in her voice.

  “It’s Da Vinci, Diana.” Tim went to break Ruby’s neck anyway, only to be stopped in the split instant before it was too late.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Diana had a cruel tone to her voice. She had her hands between Tim’s and the girl’s neck. “You heard me. Da Vinci is the one to do it.”

  “He won’t.” Tim scowled as he resisted Diana’s controlling grip.

  “Then we abandon him and Rigan to fend for themselves.”

  Tim let go of Ruby and left Diana to catch the girl before she hit the ground. “You know what I hate most about you?” He paused, but not long enough for her to answer. “You’re petty.” He turned his back to her and began his ascent into the mountains. “You think now is the time for your game of power and politics, Diana?” Tim kept his back to her, speaking from a distance. “I’ll clue you in; no one here has power.”

  THERE WASN’T SLEEP anymore. Only a dreamlike state existed for Da Vinci. Blurs of men in power, explosions on the water, small-town mothers, and the smell of meat grinding intertwined with the faces of those he knew, wars he’d been in, and other jumbled pieces of subconscious, all trying to make sense of his partial lucidity. Being snapped out of it was sometimes a blessing. So, when Diana woke him, he welcomed it.

  “Da Vinci?” Her voice was a lover’s coo. She was seated on damp grass, barely visible in the dark. “I need you to wake up for me.”

  Protected under a makeshift shelter of sticks and tarp, Da Vinci had only a sliver of warmth. He felt for Diana’s hand as he came out of his trance. “Hey.” He gave her a tired smile, whispering over the muffled sounds of crickets and rain. “What’s going on?” He looked at her face, still beautiful and her hair, still a soft yellow. Her presence had a warmth to it, regardless of her cracked skin. For a moment, it was paradise.

  “Are you okay?” Da Vinci grabbed for his still-drying shirt. Once he caught sight of the trouble in those big eyes of hers, he hurried to get ready. “What’s going on?”

  She grabbed his hand and helped him to his feet. “There’s something you need to see.” She let her hand linger in his for another few moments before turning away. “Come now.” She ducked out of the shelter and entered the clearing, Da
Vinci not far behind her.

  “Diana, wait,” he grunted, zipping his damp slacks and shuffling out after her. It was only upon entering the clearing that his stomach turned and the bile in his gut wrenched up and burned his throat. Lying in the clearing was Ruby Starr, badly bruised and unconscious.

  He stepped over to the girl, not looking Diana or Tim in the eye. He crouched down to examine her. On her cheek, was an imprint of her steering wheel’s logo. “Wait.” His gaze turned upward to Diana. “You didn’t do this. It was a car wreck?”

  “No, but we would have.” Diana stepped Ruby and stood beside Tim. Both of them had a cold aloofness in their stance.

  “When I saw this the first time… In the first vision I had, it was you two who hurt her.” Da Vinci looked at Ruby’s forehead, the wounds seemed superficial. “But this time, it wasn’t,” he said simply. “I would have rather she never come back, but at least this time, we did things differently.”

  “This time, we’ll do things right.” Diana kept a hard, flat expression on her face. “She dies. You lied to us. You breached trust. Make it right.”

  The reality of the situation settled in. Da Vinci’s mind began to reel and the weight on his shoulders felt heavy enough to sink him. He turned to Tim who offered him no assistance.

  “There is no other way, Da Vinci. She has to die. She knows too much and could lead the KGB right to us.” Tim was always honest with him.

  “We got lucky the first time,” she explained. “We had the upper hand because they underestimated us. If we run into them again, it won’t be the same level of child’s play. We’ll have no element of surprise. Next time we see them, they’ll have come up with something to counter us. She’s too much of a liability.”

  Da Vinci brushed off the knees of his pants and threw his shoulders back as he stood. “We’re not going to kill her. This conversation will go on and on, but we’re not going to kill her.” He crossed his arms. “I know this. So, let’s just skip to the part where we decide it’s in our best interest not to kill the kid.” He let out a long deep breath that sounded more like a groan of pain than an exhale of relief. “This argument is going to be a waste of our time, because I know that in a few weeks, she’ll still be here.”

  Diana gave orders, and when they weren’t followed, someone always paid. Under her cold surface, a rage was boiling, and Da Vinci knew it. The two men were her audience, hinged on her response.

  “You’ve already proven that the future can be changed. This is no different. We’ve got to kill her, and if you want us to stick together, it’s got to be you who does it.” Not a muscle in Diana’s face flinched as Da Vinci started his rebuttal.

  “She hasn’t told anyone, and she won’t tell anyone. She didn’t even see you two that first night in the woods. If I’m right, this girl will become vital to our survival. We can’t kill her now, or we doom ourselves later on.” Da Vinci was more irritated at this whole ordeal than anything else. He knew she lived. He’d seen it. This was a waste of time.

  “We’ve spent enough energy on this already,” Tim huffed. “This needs to end.”

  “Tim agrees, Da Vinci. This needs to end.” Diana took a few steps back from the girl, giving Da Vinci more space. “Kill her before she wakes up, or you’ll have to do it while she’s conscious.”

  Sweat built up on Da Vinci’s brow. His heart beat in his ears. How did this play out? How did they get from here to letting her live? He guessed the only way, was if he made it happen. “We don’t kill her.”

  “We don’t,” Diana confirmed. “You do.”

  A twinge of resentment hit Da Vinci. He stared at Diana with the same amount of coldness she presented to him. “I don’t kill kids.”

  “But you kill mothers, you kill fathers, soldiers, civilians, collateral damage. You may not kill kids, but you sure commanded the orders that did. The landing at Normandy, the bombings in Dresden, it’s no different.”

  Her words cut him deep enough to harm him, but he kept his head held high and his voice strong. “That was war. It isn’t the same.” Da Vinci stepped up closer to the two of them, his face now only inches from Diana’s. “And you know that.”

  “It is the same, Da Vinci,” she answered. “It’s us or them, and you’ll choose us like you always do.”

  “You need to shut the hell up.” A hoarse voice came from behind Da Vinci, an indisputable accent strung onto the words. Da Vinci turned just in time for Rigan to grab onto his shoulder. Rigan was weak, but he’d always been resilient.

  Diana saved face. “I apologize if my words have offended either of you, but this is no time to show mercy or compassion. This girl puts us all at risk.” Diana turned to Tim for support, and although it was rare they agreed on something, he supported her in this endeavor.

  “The sooner we kill her, the sooner we can get moving,” Tim added.

  “Your answer is always homicide. I’m sure she’s…” Rigan’s voice grew faint as his gaze followed Tim’s to the girl on the ground. “Fuck.” For a minute, Rigan stood there with his mouth hanging open and his jagged car-wreck teeth exposed. “Fuck!”

  This made Da Vinci’s heart break. He and Rigan had always shared the same hesitance toward death. The boy was realizing this entire situation was his fault.

  “What?!” Tim put his hands out in confusion. “Why are you yelling?”

  “She’s my local.” Rigan’s words were labored. His breathing slowing to long, heavy heaves.

  “You led her here?” Diana asked.

  Rigan bowed his head, and Da Vinci was quick to offer any condolences he could muster up.

  “It’s okay, Rigan.” Da Vinci spoke in Portuguese, excluding Diana and Tim from the conversation.

  “Okay?” Rigan turned to Da Vinci, speaking in his native tongue. “It’s not okay. They’re going to kill her. I did this.” Rigan coughed. Just the walk from the shelter had taken the wind out of him, the anxiety induced by seeing Ruby seemed to be overwhelming his still-healing body.

  “They’re not going to kill her.” Da Vinci could feel Tim and Diana glaring, but he continued on in Portuguese, choosing to console Rigan instead.

  “Enough, you two.” There was an edge of contempt in Tim’s voice, coming from years of listening to Rigan and Da Vinci talk exclusively to each other. “We need to get this over with.”

  Ruby woke up to a scene. Tim reaching for her neck and three shrill voices screaming for him to stop.

  “Knock it off!”

  “What the fuck, Tim?!”

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Da Vinci pushed on Tim’s shoulders but made about as much progress as one might make attempting to move a giant. Diana on the other hand, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and succeeded in yanking him away from Ruby. Tim looked ready to jump her but stopped on account of Da Vinci throwing himself between the two of them.

  “Stop it,” Da Vinci growled. “The both of you!” The tension in the air was high, and everyone had a temper that was bubbling over. His inflection teeter-tottered between screaming and sobbing. “We can’t kill her.”

  “Ruby? Are you all right?” Rigan was over her, ready to fight off anyone who sprung at her, but as she came to, she began to scream.

  Startled and likely physically strained, Rigan fainted. Da Vinci was quick and lucky enough to catch him. He laid the boy on the ground gently. “Rigan, Rigan, come on…” Da Vinci kneeled down, checking Rigan’s now fully scaled neck for a pulse. He was alive but out for now. It seemed each time he came to, he could stay for less and less time. Da Vinci checked Rigan’s bandages.

  “What is that?” Ruby’s voice was high and her breathing was off. She stumbled to her feet and audibly gasped as she found herself face to face with Da Vinci once again. “No.” Her voice was low and her tone was riddled with dread. “No,” she repeated. “I didn’t come back. I didn’t break the rules.” She nearly collapsed again in agony.

  “The rules?” Diana parroted. “What’s she talking about, Da Vinci?”


  “I told her not to come back on the first night we met her.” Da Vinci shook his head and turned his attention to Ruby. “Do you feel all right? You were in a crash.”

  “You told me things would be fine if I didn’t come back,” she croaked as her eyes started to well. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

  Diana and Tim both watched Da Vinci carefully now. He couldn’t read past their expressions, but he was certain they were rightly pissed.

  “You knew this was going to happen?” Diana didn’t hold back on the accusing aspect of the situation.

  “Not exactly,” Da Vinci defended himself.

  “But you knew she’d find us again? You knew she’d create complications.” Tim crossed his arms over his chest, perhaps showing the most emotion Tim was capable of.

  “I thought I had stopped her.” Da Vinci could feel himself losing footing in this argument. “I thought things had changed.”

  Diana looked at him with an icy expression. “This isn’t the future you said you changed, is it? The one where Tim and I die?”

  “No!” Da Vinci immediately blurted. “I changed that. Rigan is here. That’s a change!”

  “What a positive change on Rigan’s behalf,” Tim muttered dryly.

  “I am trying, Tim,” Da Vinci barked.

  Ruby was already gathering the belongings they’d taken from her, including a backpack and blanket. They were quick to notice.

  “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.” Diana’s words were not a challenge but an order.

  Ruby swallowed hard and stepped closer to the group now. She was afraid but brave. “Is it okay?” She pointed down to Rigan.

  “It?” Da Vinci replied with an unintentionally sharp tone. “It is Marco.”

  “What?” She joined Da Vinci on the ground. Her eyes widened as she took in all of Rigan’s abnormalities. “Maybe what he was telling me was true,” she whispered as a note to self, but with trained ears, they all heard.