Agent of Desire (Jessica Booker)

by Charlie Evans

  We drive for several hours, not stopping. We don’t talk. We couldn’t if we wanted to because of the wind, but I’m glad we can’t because I’m busy playing the blame game in my mind. How stupid was I to leave the phone lying around without at least telling Geoffrey how important it was that it remain off? I’m going to have to take the battery out so that doesn’t happen again.

  We stop finally at a gas station. I fill the tank and Geoffrey runs in to pay.

  While he’s inside I make use of the station’s pay-phone, dialing Lincoln’s number.

  “Jessica,” he answers. His voice is slow and relaxed, like there isn’t a life or death situation playing out right now. It’s annoying, but at least he’s awake this time.

  “We had to leave your friends’ house. We’re on the move. Do you have anything new for me?”

  “Wait, what happened?” he asks with a bit more urgency in his voice.

  “Geoffrey turned on my phone.”

  “Idiot!”

  Lincoln calling Geoffrey an idiot annoys me more than it should. “He was just playing with one of the kids. He didn’t know.”

  Lincoln blows out his breath into the phone. I can tell he’s beginning to understand the urgency of the situation. Finally.

  “I’ve got your location right now. I’ll start looking for something for you in the area.”

  “Forget it,” I say. “Don’t worry about us. I’ll find a place. You focus on getting Sims off the street so that Geoffrey can go home.”

  “Fine. Call me in twenty-four hours.”

  “Sure.” I hang up the phone. Crap. If Lincoln already knows where we are, it’s a good bet Sims does, too. We’re going to have to do some more driving, get us as far from this payphone as we can.

  Geoffrey comes out with a bag of chicken-flavored potato chips and mint soda. As if I need reminding that French junk food really has that certain je ne sais quoi.

  “I got supplies,” he announces.

  I roll my eyes and try not to barf as I put the “food” into my pack and then offer to take over driving.

  He nods and takes the pack, shrugging it on. “But how far are we going? How long do we have to keep running?” he asks.

  “As long as it takes,” I say, which I know is a cliché answer, but it’s true. “We can’t stop while those guys are out there trying to get you. Because whatever it is they think you can do for them, it can’t be good. Letting them have you is not an option.”

  He nods, resigned. I climb on the bike and flip the ignition. The bike roars to life. He climbs on behind me. I can barely feel him back there. He is sitting as far back as he can and his hands are holding onto the back of the seat. It’s a racing bike, and there is nothing back there to hold him on if I speed up fast.

  “You’re gonna want to hold on,” I say.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I give the bike some gas and throw it in gear, deliberately jerking the bike forward so that he almost tumbles off the back, hopefully proving my point. I jerk to a stop and he falls into me. I wait, and he finally wraps his arms around my waist, locking his arms in front of me like a good boy.

  I’m not sure if it’s because I am softer and smaller than he is, but having his strong arms around me feels like the most intimate we’ve been in twenty-four hours. It warms me inside and makes me want to lean back into him, getting lost in his arms. I can’t help but notice his muscular chest pressed up against my body, and the hint of a bulge just a bit lower.

  I pull out more smoothly this time, and continue south. I love riding, but having someone else on the back can be tricky. Riding on two wheels requires you to lean the bike when you turn. That means that anyone on the bike needs to lean with you. If they don’t, you can lose control, and you both die.

  The passenger has to trust the driver to lead. I’ve given a few other chicks rides on my bike, and they all get it. But the few guys I’ve ever given rides to—even if they ride themselves—resist the lean like it’s going to give them herpes.

  I try to remember that Geoffrey’s been through a lot in the last few days, and take it easy on him the first half hour. I creep slowly into the first few turns, but escalate my speed a little each time. An hour in, he is leaning with me like it’s as natural as breathing.

  I don’t think I’ve ever ridden with a guy who was so smooth before.

  By late afternoon, we are far enough away that I start looking for a place to stay the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We find a room at an inn off a minor highway. It’s one of those quaint, small-town French affairs, almost like a bed and breakfast. The place is run by a couple who don’t even think to worry why we want to pay cash.

  Our room only has one bed, which is fine since I don’t plan on sleeping anyway. Now that we really are on our own, there is no way I’m going to let him talk me into it. I curl up in a plush chair in one corner, and he sits down on the bed.

  After riding with Geoffrey for several hours, it feels like the distance between us has lessened a little.

  “You’re a pretty good rider,” he says. The distance between us narrows even more.

  “I’ve been riding since before I was of legal age,” I say, then realize I’m talking about myself. Not only is he not supposed to know the real me, but I don’t talk about myself to guys. Ever. I decide now isn’t the time to start, and let the awkward silence that follows grow.

  “Right,” he finally says. He takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes. “You don’t mind if I take a little nap, do you?”

  I shake my head.

  He lies back on the bed and rolls over away from me. I stare at his back, and wonder why I feel the way I do around him. Why I do stupid things like telling him about myself. He’s just a job, right?

  My thoughts are interrupted by shouting downstairs. I didn’t hear what was said, because I was so lost in thought. The yelling has stopped, but now I hear footsteps pound up the stairs and down the hall toward our room.

  I have to think fast. My gun. Where the hell is my gun? Why am I sitting here thinking about stupid guys when I need my gun? I manically search the room until I find my bag over by the door where Geoffrey must have dropped it. I’m out of the chair and halfway across the small room when the door crashes open.

  I dive out of the way of the swinging door and see a flash of two—no, three—men in the hall. They’re armed with semi-automatics. I make it safely to the wall on the other side of the doorway and, as the first person steps in gun barrel first, I grab the rifle and twist it toward the ceiling while kicking at the side of the man’s leg with all my weight.

  He screams in pain as his leg bends sideways. He collapses to the floor, and I disarm him, but not before the other two have their rifles pointed at my head.

  I slowly put down the gun. They haven’t shot me, which is a relief, but no assurance that I’ll live through this. In fact, I know from training that, most likely, the only way out of this alive is escape. It’s part of the deal of being an agent. You get caught, you die.

  “Lori?” Geoffrey’s voice comes from the bed behind me, and I take note of the gunmen’s minute eye movement toward the bed. I know I don’t have enough time, but I’m dead if I don’t try, so there’s nothing to lose. I lift my leg and kick at one of the guns while grabbing the other with my hands, shoving down hard.

  One of them fires and I think the slug must have hit the wall because I feel nothing at first. The gun slips out of my hand as the owner reclaims it. The other man lands on the ground from my kick, but he’s still armed, and stands up quickly. Both of the men retrain their weapons on me.

  “Lori!” Geoffrey yells and jumps off the bed toward me.

  “Down!” One of the men says, and shoves Geoffrey back on the bed with the nose of his gun.

  Then I feel it, a little trickle of something running down my arm. I know what it is before I turn to look—but still, I have to look. The blood is coming from my upper arm. The bullet grazed it, leaving a l
ong, deep gash. My arm heats up and starts to burn. All at once, the pain hits me.

  “No,” Geoffrey yells, lunging forward.

  I feel a hard smack on the back of my head, and it jerks forward with a shooting pain. I can’t see anything anymore. The world has gone black.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I wake up with the worst headache ever. I reach for the throbbing pain at the back of my head, but my arm screams in protest, and I recoil from it. Shit.

  “Stop moving.” Geoffrey leans over me. I’m in his lap, and he’s holding me close, like I might die. “I have to apply pressure. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Seeing the fear in his eyes throws me into a panic, until I remember what my arm looked like before I blacked out. It hurts like shit, and I’m bleeding, but it’s just a flesh wound. I’ll survive. I have got to stop blacking out on him.

  I take in the surroundings. Several naked light bulbs hang from the ceiling, throwing harsh light on our surroundings. The place is made of dirty concrete. We are locked in a fenced-in area the size of a small room. The ceilings are high, and there are several other cages in the same room. All open and empty. It’s probably a storage facility in an old warehouse.

  “What happened?” I sit up. My shirt is covered in blood, but someone has tied a rag around my arm and the bleeding appears to have slowed.

  “They shot you,” he says.

  “Yeah, but did I pass out?”

  He shakes his head. “No, you were hit on the head with the butt of a gun.”

  I reach back with my good arm to touch my head. Sure enough, there is a huge bump there. That explains the headache. But it also means they need me alive. Which irritates me. If I’d known that, I would have fought even harder. But I don’t understand why they want me alive.

  Until I look over at Geoffrey and see the fear in his eyes. They’re going to use me to get what they want from him. He scoots toward me and cups my face in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Lori. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t think it would come to this.” His eyes are red. He looks exhausted.

  “Why are you sorry?” I ask. “I’m the one who was supposed to be protecting you. I fell down on the job.” Literally.

  He moves to put his arms around me, and I let him. He traces his hand gently along the side of my face, brushing my hair back. It’s warming, soothing.

  “I should have told you sooner,” Geoffrey says, pulling me out of my fog. “I can’t watch them hurt you anymore. You’ve already been shot. I’ll make them let you go and then give them what they want.”

  “But they’re looking for the information inside those boxes you made to hold NATO’s military secrets. We know they don’t have one. You can’t give them access to something they don’t have.”

  He nuzzles his face in my hair. His hot breath warms my ear as he whispers, “I have what they need.”

  “Huh?” I ask, not able to process what he just said.

  “They don’t need the box. All they need is a secure internet connection…and me.”

  Geoffrey goes on to explain how NATO initially came to him to make the secure boxes because of his vast knowledge and ability in cyber warfare. “They wanted something that couldn’t be hacked by anyone. I rose to the challenge and created their uncrackable boxes. But I thought it would add to the challenge if I was able to install a backdoor without anyone knowing. Something I could use to get into the devices, and poke around. It wasn’t supposed to be used for anything. It was just my stupid curiosity. I wanted to see if I could do it. And I did.”

  “How? Didn’t they have their tech guys watching you? Didn’t they double-check your work?”

  “Yes, that’s what made it such a great challenge. I handmade a small modem that not only looked like another memory stick, it acted like one when tested by their techies. I can turn it on remotely. I’ve never tried it. I don’t care about the information in there—I just wanted to know if it could be done. And it can. I did it. I don’t know how they found out, but they know.”

  I should be pissed at him for not telling me sooner. But I would have held out, too.

  Trust no one.

  Crap.

  “I’m sorry. Just tell me what to do to fix this,” he says into my hair. He kisses the top of my head, which doesn’t help me think at all. It pushes the stress away, relaxing me.

  He pulls his head back to look at me. Our faces are only an inch apart. “I’m sorry I was cold to you. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I did this. I—”

  I lean forward and close the distance, kissing him. I don’t want him to blame himself. I just want him to feel good. Kissing him is the only way I know how. He kisses back, brushing his lips against mine. When he pulls me close, his hand presses against my bandaged arm making me cry out in pain, causing him to pull away.

  A door opens down the hall and we both turn to see who’s coming. “No fair. Torturing her was my job,” Sims shouts as he walks toward the door of our cage, flanked by two gunmen.

  I turn to Geoffrey as Sims gets closer. “Whatever they do, do not give them what they want,” I whisper. “I can handle pain. I’ve trained for it. I will get us out of this.” I look into his eyes as I let myself out of his arms. If there is any chance of us escaping, we will need to be ready.

  Sims unlocks the cage and walks in confidently. The other men wait outside, guns pointed at us. Sims comes within a foot of me and squats down.

  If it were anyone else, I would have grabbed him and used him as a shield as I fought my way out, but Sims was my trainer. No matter how good I am—and I’m really good—he’s better. He knows it, and is flaunting it by getting so close to me.

  “E for effort,” Sims says, smirking at me.

  The spy game is pass-fail. There is no E for effort. Fucker. I can’t believe I slept with him.

  “I hear you sent one of my guys to the hospital. Too bad I know you. I know what you’re capable of.” His eyes slowly and deliberately scan my body. There is nothing subtle about the way they devour me. “That’s why I sent three guys to take care of you.”

  Geoffrey tenses. I know what he’s going to do before he does, but my lame arm prevents me from stopping him in time. He lunges at Sims, who also sees him coming a mile away. Sims throws him on the ground with one arm, hardly moving the rest of his body.

  “Let him go!” I shout.

  Sims laughs. “Take him to the room,” he barks to the gunmen just outside the gate.

  “Don’t you dare hurt him,” I say. I never thought I would be saying these words with such feeling, but I really think if they hurt Geoffrey, I may kick the living shit out of Sims. Or die trying.

  “You did a better job than I thought,” Sims says once Geoffrey has left with the gunmen. “I knew you could do it—make him fall for you. But you’ve done such a good job that you’ve even convinced yourself you like him.”

  I glare at him, hating the fact that what he’s saying might be true.

  “I handpicked you because I knew you would be just his type—a tough girl who only needs to find the right guy.”

  I glare some more.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Jessica. You’re a new agent; you don’t have enough field experience to have figured any of this out in time to change anything. We’ve been playing you all along. The other “agent” at Intelex. The farmhouse in the country. We’ve had eyes on you the whole time. Just waiting for Geoffrey to reach the tipping point. The point where he would do anything for you.”

  My fist flies towards his face before I’ve consciously registered how badly I want to hit him. Still, Sims dodges my swing, chuckling at my failed attempt.

  “Now, let’s give him a good show, shall we?” He raises his eyebrows, and that’s when I know that what he’s going to do next will be no show.

  He grabs my hands, and I have no chance. Still, I fight against him as he throws me on my stomach, twisting my good arm behind my back. He grabs my injured arm, places his thumb on the center of the wound, an
d presses hard.

  I don’t want to scream. I can withstand a lot of pain, but this…I can’t control myself. The pain shoots through me like hellfire. I cry out.

  This is the “show” he’s putting on for Geoffrey. He must be right outside—somewhere he can hear me.

  “You cry easier than I thought you would. Don’t they train you to turn that shit off anymore? Young agents.” He shakes his head and jabs his thumb in again, making me shriek.

  I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to deflate my ego, calling me a newbie and telling me how badly I’m failing. I tell myself it’s not working, but it’s Sims—he was my teacher. And what he’s saying is true. I have failed. I did exactly what he wanted me to do, making Geoffrey fall for me, and then bumbling out over the countryside, thinking we were on the run. And now I’m failing worse by not being able to shut out the pain.

  He jabs his thumb in one more time, and I cry out until he releases my arm and stands up. I lay facedown on the floor, deflated, not caring enough to move.

  “Thanks for playing,” he says and walks out of cage, locking the gate behind him.

  He’s playing me, I think as I lie there unmoving on the floor. Asshole.

  He’s winning.

  Something stirs inside me. That means I’m losing.

  I hate losing.

  The game isn’t over until you’re dead.

  Chapter Twenty

  When they bring Geoffrey back, I’m lying on the floor staring at the ceiling. I’ve been alone for a while—well, mostly alone. They have a man posted down at the end of the hall with a gun. But I’ve been ignoring him, puzzling, obsessing over one thing. How did they find us? What was I missing?

  They put Geoffrey back in the cage and he sits down next to me, pulling me into his arms. “Lori,” he says. His eyes are desperate. He looks down at me through his cute nerdy glasses…

  Of course. I struggle to keep a straight face as I berate myself.

  The glasses he’s wearing, they’re not his. They’re the ones I swapped out several days ago. Sims was right. They’ve known where we were the whole time because they have seen everything that Geoffrey has seen over the past several days.