Death by Latte

by Linda Gerber

  I couldn’t believe that everyone else was being so calm! Well, maybe I could understand Ranger Don and the other ranger. They probably didn’t even know what was going on. I doubt Watts and Ryan announced that they were from the CIA, that they’d killed Joe, and that the rest of us were probably expendable, too. But what was Mom thinking? She hardly even blinked as we passed Ryan in the short hallway leading to the small back room. Were we just going to blithely allow them to herd us wherever they wanted us to go? We had to get out of there. Seth’s dad was depending on it.

  In the room was a pile of gray sweatpants and sweat-shirts folded on a chair. On top of that sat two plastic Fruit of the Loom packages. I picked one of them up and recoiled. Underwear. One set of women’s, one set of men’s. I didn’t know what was creepier, the thought of putting on underwear that one of those guys out there had bought or going commando under the sweats. I reasoned that the underwear was in a sealed package and the sweats were not, so I’d go with the extra layer. I ripped open the package and gingerly removed a pair, passing the others to Mom. The sweats were all men’s size large, so they were huge on us, but at least they were warm.

  “What now?” I asked in a small voice as I pulled the sweatshirt over my head.

  Mom raised a finger to her lips and looked to the door. Of course. We couldn’t talk in there. We couldn’t talk anywhere near Watts or Ryan. Somehow we had to figure out a way to communicate, because I didn’t intend to go down without a fight.

  I pushed up the sleeves and rolled the pant legs so that I wouldn’t trip on them and hurried out to the other room. I noticed that Stuart’s hand had been freshly bandaged, but he still looked miserable. Seth caught my eye as I entered the room, and then glanced down at his hand. It was curled into a tight fist. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me. To fight? I slid a glance at Watts, who had apparently been watching me.

  “I hope you found everything you needed,” he said smoothly.

  “Almost,” I said, probably not anywhere near as smoothly, though I was trying to keep my voice steady. “You wouldn’t happen to have any shoes and socks up here, would you? My feet are freezing.”

  He almost didn’t bother to hide his smile. Of course they wouldn’t give us shoes and socks. Barefoot, we were less of a flight risk. “Please forgive the oversight. We’ll find you appropriate footwear when we get to town.”

  Somehow, I didn’t find that comforting.

  Mom came out of the room behind me. I couldn’t help but think how appropriate it was that our matching gray sweats looked like prison issue.

  “Stuart, Seth, why don’t you go put on your dry clothes now that the ladies are done,” Watts said. I could practically see the smirk in his voice.

  Seth looked at me again, eyes boring into me, willing me to understand. I caught the movement of his fist once more, before he dropped it to his side.

  His fist. The ring. Of course. He’d have no place to hide it while he was changing. I blinked and made myself look away. I didn’t make eye contact with him at all as he followed Stuart to the back room, but I managed to stand just close enough that he bumped into me as he passed. He pressed the ring into my hand. I slipped it onto my thumb and made a fist around it, letting the long sleeve of the sweatshirt fall down over my fingers.

  The first ranger offered Mom and me some hot coffee. “It’d do good to raise your core temperature.”

  I snorted and looked over at Watts. No way was I drinking any coffee he’d been anywhere around. Not after seeing what had happened to Joe. I shook my head no.

  Finally, once everyone was dressed and warmed and Stuart’s vital signs had been checked, Watts announced our departure.

  “Gentlemen, thank you again,” he said to the rangers. “You have done us a great service today.”

  They way the two of them beamed, I had to wonder what kind of story Watts and Ryan had told them. As I watched the exchange and their innocent reaction to it, I began to think that they might just be our best allies in this situation. They didn’t know what Ryan and Watts were up to. Okay, I didn’t know what Ryan and Watts were up to, either, but I knew it wasn’t good. If I could just remove the blinders from their eyes, they might be willing to help us escape.

  The one thing I couldn’t do was leave that ranger station. Once we were alone with the CIA boys, how would Seth ever get away? He was running out of time.

  Watts opened the door. I looked desperately to the naive park rangers, screaming in my head, Don’t let them take us! They were not tuned in to my telepathy.

  What else could I do? I clutched my stomach and doubled over. “Ugn!”

  Mom wrapped an arm around my waist. “Aphra, what is it?”

  “I don’t feel so good,” I said weakly. “I . . . need to use the restroom.”

  Watts rolled his eyes, but how could he refuse me in front of the rangers? He nodded—as if I had been asking his permission!—and pointed out the door to the loo. I hurried inside and locked it behind me.

  The bathroom was a dismal little space that looked as if it had seen better days. I curled my toes in disgust at the feel of the cool, somewhat damp tiles beneath my bare feet. I didn’t even want to think of the kinds of diseases I could get from direct skin contact. The floor was cracked and yellowed—by age, I hoped—and the toilet in the corner leaned a bit to the left. The single bulb hanging from the ceiling cast an ocher pall over it all.

  Worst of all, the place seriously stank of old plumbing and stale pee. I considered cracking open the window, but I didn’t want Watts and Ryan to think I was trying to sneak out and come barging in on me. I wasn’t going to. Sneak out, that is. Even though I would have loved to put as much distance between Watts and myself as humanly possible, I wasn’t going to leave my mom and Seth. Okay, or Stuart, either, even though he had really started to grate on me. I just couldn’t do it. Besides, if I did run away, where would I run to? No, I would stay put, but I had to find a way to leave a message for the rangers.

  I turned in a slow circle, looking for something—anything—I could use to write with, but the bathroom was as depressingly bare as it was filthy. The only decor besides the sink and toilet was an empty paper-towel dispenser, a cracked mirror, and a framed portrait of Smokey the Bear. I am not kidding.

  Nothing to write on. Nothing to write with. I chewed the inside of my cheek. There had to be something I could do. I looked at the mirror again. A spiderweb of cracks fanned out from the corner as if something—a head or a fist or similar—had smacked it. All I needed was one sliver. Maybe I could scratch a message on the wall or something.

  I picked at the edge of the mirror with my fingernails, trying to pry up a piece of glass. It was one of those old drugstore numbers, glued to a cardboard backing, which not only shadowed the reflection just a bit, but also made it supremely hard to pull off a shard without destroying your fingernails. Finally, I was able to work a piece loose.

  Someone banged on the door. “Are you all right in there?”

  I couldn’t tell whose voice it was. “Um, yes. I’ll be right out.” I flushed the toilet for effect.

  It didn’t work. The banging continued.

  “Hold on!” I started to scratch at the wall with the broken piece of mirror, but barely made a letter before the doorknob rattled. I spun away from my SOS, curling my fist around the shard from the broken mirror.

  The door swung open and Ryan crowded through the doorway. His gaze flicked past me to the wall. If he noticed my pathetic scratches, it didn’t show in his bland expression. “We need to be going now,” he said. He steered me out to the porch, where the others were waiting.

  Seth shot me a look, eyes wide and questioning. I gave him the slightest shake of my head. I would say that I was trying to act normal, but normal left the building the minute I’d set foot in Seattle. The best I could do was to not fidget so that I wouldn’t draw attention to the glass in my hand.

  “Let’s move,” Watts growled. He yanked my mom’s arm, pulling her
down the porch steps.

  Seth jumped forward to defend her, but Stuart held him back with his good hand. He shook his head, pantomiming a gun with his finger, cocking it with his thumb.

  Ryan prodded Seth and Stuart forward. I managed to hang back long enough to tug on Ranger Don’s sleeve. “Help us. Please,” I said in a low voice.

  “That’s all right, little lady. It was our pleasure,” he said.

  “No. I mean, we need—”

  Ryan returned to my side and slid a hand around my elbow. “Come, Aphra. Let’s not keep Agent Watts waiting.”

  Watts made my mom sit with him in the front seat of a black Escalade. He put Seth, Stuart, and me—in that order—in the middle seat and Ryan behind us, again with a great show of his gun.

  The result was that we couldn’t talk to one another without one of them knowing. I stared out the window, watching the moonlit mountain scenery slip by. Someday, I thought, I’d like to come back and visit the Cascades when I could actually enjoy it. If I lived that long.

  My fingers throbbed from picking at the glass. A fat lot of good that had done. I ran my thumb over the sharp edge of the sliver of mirror in my hand, trying to come up with a better idea. Outside, the mist had turned to a fine rain, making the road and the trees and the plants around us shine in the weak moonlight.

  “Where are you taking us?” Mom asked, her voice nearly lost in the hum of the tires and the squee-squee-squee of the windshield wipers.

  Watts’s eyes never left the road. “Does it matter?”

  I exchanged a glance with Seth. Of course it mattered. Why wouldn’t it matter?

  “You can’t go back to your apartment, as I’m sure you know,” Watts continued. “That has been sterilized.”

  Mom didn’t say anything.

  “You could always publicly return to the Agency, you know. You and I made a good team.”

  I blanched at the thought.

  Mom’s voice was monotone. “A rogue agent has no team.”

  “You’re not a rogue, Natalie.” He gave her a sideways glance and smiled. It made my stomach turn. “Ooh. You meant me. Valuable lesson, Natalie; learn to play the game.”

  She pressed her lips together and turned her head so that I couldn’t see her face anymore.

  Watts chuckled and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. I closed my hand around the glass until it bit into my skin. How I wanted to rake it across his face and wipe that smirk from his lips!

  Seth caught my eye and made a face like he was asking me what we should do. I made the same questioning face back. What could we do? There were more of us, but they had the gun. Maybe two, if Ryan was packing, which he probably was now that he was all suited up and official. Plus Stuart didn’t really count for our side because he was on the injured-reserve list. So we had three against two plus the guns. Not good odds, but something told me that our odds would become even worse once we got to wherever we were going. If we were to have any chance of escaping, we had to take it before we reached our destination.

  We couldn’t signal Mom to be a part of whatever we might do, which meant it was up to Seth and me. I slid the hand holding the glass shard forward and opened my palm just enough to show him. Problem was, in the shadows, I don’t think he saw it. At least if he did, he didn’t show any reaction, which I suppose was very clever, but it didn’t help me much. I looked down at my hand then back up again like he’d done with the ring. Down and up, down and up. Come on, Seth, get the message.

  He gave me an exasperated, wide-eyed stare as if to say, Yeah, I got it. So what are we going to do with it?

  Heck if I knew.

  And we never got a chance to find out, because all of a sudden Stuart snatched the glass shard from my hand, and in one fluid movement he swung his good hand back, slicing Ryan across the cheek, as he slammed the elbow of his other arm against the back of Watts’s head, knocking him out cold. Watts swerved into the oncoming lane. Twin spots of light raced toward the car. A horn blasted. Mom reached over and jerked the steering wheel the other way. We smashed into the guardrail and rebounded, spinning almost a complete three-sixty before coming to a stop. Watts’s head came to rest on the steering-wheel horn, provoking a sustained, three-toned wail.

  “Grab his gun,” Stuart yelled, pointing back at Ryan. But Ryan wasn’t incapacitated. He was angry. He reached for his gun before Seth or I could grab it.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Stuart said. In his hand he held Watts’s gun, and pointed it right at Ryan’s head.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Hands where I can see them,” Stuart ordered. “Seth, grab his gun.”

  “Seth, don’t do it,” Ryan growled.

  “The gun, Seth!”

  Seth hesitated, but finally reached back and took Ryan’s gun from its holster.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, kid.”

  Seth tightened his grip on the gun. He couldn’t quite bring himself to point it at anyone, though, or to put his finger on the trigger, I noticed.

  “Okay, now everyone out of the car,” Stuart ordered.

  No problem there. I couldn’t get out of Watts’s car fast enough. The ground was cold and wet and the gravel bit into my bare feet, but I didn’t care. I finally felt like I could breathe again.

  Seth climbed from the car as Stuart held the gun on Ryan.

  Without taking his eyes off Ryan, Stuart motioned with his bandaged hand to Seth. “Lemme see that thing. Is it even loaded?”

  Seth furrowed his brows, turning the gun over in his hands. Stuart snatched it with his three good fingers. “Worthless!” He threw it to the other side of the road, where it skittered across the asphalt. The wheel of a passing car caught the gun and twirled it on the road like some macabre game of spin the bottle. The muzzle slowly came to a stop—pointed back at us.

  Mom jumped out and ran to my side. “Are you all right? What was that? What’s happening?”

  “It’s okay. I’m fine,” I assured her.

  Stuart made Watts and Ryan get out of the SUV with their hands clasped behind their heads. He ordered them to kneel on the wet road while Seth frisked them to make sure they weren’t carrying any other weapons. If I didn’t thoroughly dislike Watts, I might have felt sorry for the guy. He looked so confused . . . and chagrined for having been overcome in front of both his former and current partners—by a guy with one good hand, no less.

  Once he was sure they didn’t have any weapons, Stuart allowed them to stand.

  “Why the hell’d you hit me?” Watts demanded, rubbing the back of his head.

  “Effect,” Stuart said. “Get the ring.”

  My head spun. They were together?

  Watts stepped up to Seth and stuck out his hand. “Give me the ring, kid.”

  Mom gasped. “You! Both of you! How could you, you dirty—”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” Stuart pointed the gun at her. “Watch that temper, Nat.”

  Watts poked his finger in Seth’s chest. “The ring!” he demanded.

  Seth didn’t even flinch. “I don’t have it.”

  “Of course you have it,” Stuart snapped. “Your little girlfriend here told me all about it.”

  Seth shot me a disbelieving look and I shook my head wildly. I wanted to deny telling Stuart about the ring, but that seemingly insignificant moment on the plane came back to me all too clearly.

  “You knew the kid had the ring all this time?” Watts sniped. “Why didn’t you just take it and save us all this trouble?”

  “I needed them to get me off the mountain,” Stuart said simply.

  “Stuart.” Mom’s voice shook. “Why are you doing this?”

  He laughed humorlessly. “Well, it’s like my daddy used to say: ‘Son, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”

  “Enemies? But . . . we’re on the same side.”

  Stuart laughed and I have to say, it was about the ugliest sound I’ve ever heard. “Well, you got that wrong.”

  “But .
. . why?”

  “You were getting too close. I joined you and Joe to keep an eye on you, Nat.”

  “We were right, then. The Mole had someone inside the Agency.”

  “No, you were wrong. The Mole has several someones.”

  “And you are one of them.”

  “Bingo.”

  “But how could you?” Mom exclaimed. “What about Joe? Did you kill him?”

  Stuart laughed again. The sound made my stomach turn. “Not personally, no.”

  Mom looked stung. “Damian?” she said, calling Watts by his first name. “You killed him?”

  “I got bills to pay, Natalie. I’m gonna give my services to the highest bidder.”

  “But why? Why Joe? Why not—”

  Stuart laughed humorlessly. “He found something, Nat. A list of names on that ring of young Romeo’s here. That’s why he wanted you to meet him. He discovered a name on the ring that I could not afford to have revealed. Mine.”

  The confusion lingered in her eyes. “Your name was on that list? You mean . . . you’re a sleeper? But . . . your parents!”

  “Yes, that was a nice touch, wasn’t it? Their deaths went a long way toward convincing the Agency to embrace me. Who better to trust than some poor kid whose parents were killed by the Bad Guy?”

  “What are you saying? You killed your own parents?”

  “They defected. They chose their demise.”

  I stared at him in horror. Suddenly he wasn’t the annoying and pathetic nerd anymore. He was a monster. And if he was the kind of person who would kill his own parents, we were in deep trouble.

  The monster turned to Seth. “Give the man the ring, kid.”

  “I. Don’t. Have. It.”

  Stuart was not amused. He gave Watts a look and then nodded at me. Watts grabbed my arm and yanked me forward. Stuart shoved the cold gun barrel against my scalp and drew the hammer back with a click. “One more time, kid. Where’s the—”

  “Don’t shoot!” I cried. “He really doesn’t have it! I swear.”