And if you can, it’s not a bad state to die in.
I can’t cover both sides of the bridge alone, and I don’t dare text Brand to change the plans. Seems disorganized. Incompetent. Lost.
I’m none of those things.
The only contingency I haven’t planned for is Brand not showing. Then what? Call him out as a coward? Clearly he cares so much about the opinion of an anonymous texter.
“What’ve we got?” comes a familiar voice behind me.
I jump. People are not supposed to creep up on me. At least this time I don’t have to panic — I whirl on Elliott. “Thanks for the heads-up. You should’ve been here an hour ago.”
“Hey, I’ve got work, too.”
“Could’ve at least called.” I’m glad enough to see him that I’m just teasing. How could I muster real irritation when he shows up, blue jacket and all?
I should ask about Shanna, and tell him how much I hope they’re doing better, but I think that goes without saying. “Should I ask what changed your mind?” I ask.
“You really think I could leave you hanging if this is as big as you say?” He shakes his head like he can’t believe I’d ever think that even though that’s pretty much what he said. “What’s my position? And what does this guy look like?”
Fortunately, I do have a picture of Brand, though I had to dig through years of digital photos and way more memories than I wanted to. I show Elliott the picture, brief him on the details, from Wasti to Samir, from Brand’s meeting to his “dead drop.”
Once Elliott’s kitted out with information, an earpiece, and a recorder, I assign him to the west side arch. I slip into a blond wig, jog up to the street to cross the Plaza Bridge and take up my position on the east side, by the bike rental shop (which Danny and I used on our first date). Portals slice through the thick cement bridge support, arched windows with railings to hold us back from the empty canal. I can see Elliott in the middle portal, reading a newspaper.
“Snap your paper if you’re ready,” I murmur. Elliott does.
Not a minute too soon. 6:25.
The crowds flow and the minutes inch by until the rendezvous time arrives. And passes. And keeps going.
Is he trying to take the upper hand by freezing us out? Or just not going to show?
The last rays of the sunset filter down from above. Elliott’s maintained radio silence in his position, on the stairs to the street, perusing his newspaper. But after twenty minutes, he can’t keep it up. “How long do we wait?”
“Why, you have other plans tonight?” I wince inwardly. Elliott gives the verbal equivalent of a smirk and flips to the next page.
A shadow passes over him, slows, crosses back. “Done with the first section, buddy?”
My breath snags in my chest. The voice we’ve been waiting for. Brand.
Does Elliott recognize him?
Nobody’s nearby, but I barely dare to breathe the message to Elliott. “That’s our target.”
Elliott’s already folding the first section and giving it to him. A rope wraps around my rib cage. I can only hope Elliott heard me.
Brand stands by him, flipping through the pages until he finishes the section. “Newspaper’s always the last to know.”
“Yep.” Elliott stands, and suddenly I remember how good he used to be at this job. He’s got the tall, dark and handsome spy part down, and tonight he acts it. “We’ve got a few things to talk about that won’t make it in here.” He folds his half of the paper.
Brand merely nods. “How about we walk and talk?”
Not part of the plan. “Go south,” I tell Elliott. “Away from the river.” I can’t track with them if they go the other way.
Brand starts northward before Elliott can direct him. Crap. I’ve got to get over there. I press two fingers against my earpiece and jog to the steps. My thighs are burning by the time I hit the top of the double flight on my side of the bridge, but I can’t stop.
“So,” Brand’s saying, “we have a mutual friend.”
Please don’t let him mean me. Luckily Elliott cuts off at least that route. “Seems like he’s more than a friend to you.”
Brand scoffs. “All business, isn’t it? Once they’re not useful anymore, it’s over.”
“Maybe. The question is, ‘Who’s being useful to who?’”
Good. Stay on point. I reach the stairs down to the west arch and practically fly.
“Where I work, there’s only one way these relationships go,” Brand says. I scan the sidewalk ahead for them, but I can’t see anything. The disembodied voices over the earpiece create a spooky soundtrack to my searching. I concentrate on the sound filtering through my rapid-fire pulse.
“And where do you work?” Elliott asks. “Because I’m pretty sure you’re on more than one payroll.”
“Right.” Yep, Brand, flip and dismissive as ever. “Shouldn’t I ask where you work?”
“I think you know. At least you know someone I work with.”
There’s an echo — are they still under the arch somewhere? I scan the shadows, the part of the arch protected by the rock ruins of the old bridges from a hundred years ago. Nobody.
“That so?” Brand asks.
“Don’t you know Will?”
I think I can hear their footsteps through the earpiece. Still echoing. I duck down to the portals where Elliott waited for Brand not five minutes ago.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Brand continues. “Will sent you, then?”
“I’m hoping we can resolve this problem without involving him,” Elliott sidesteps.
Thank you. If I’m not the one confronting Brand, I’m glad it’s Elliott. I peer through the shadows, but I still can’t see them. Nowhere to hide here. An uneasy sensation slips down my back, the smallest shiver.
“I hope you haven’t wasted your time sending your paperwork on this straight to the top.” Brand neatly avoids any reference to Langley. But what does that overconfidence mean? Does he have someone in DC to fix everything for him?
“Wasted my time?” Elliott snorts. “No.”
The footsteps stop. “Good move,” Brand says. “For you.”
A deafening crack rips through my earpiece and the air. Another.
My body, my heart, my breath jar to a stop. I know that sound. Gunshots. Close.
All the oxygen feels like it’s been sucked out of this tunnel. I force my fiery legs to follow the sound. I fight back the howling urge to run — too suspicious. Too much attention. A few other gawkers start in the direction of the sound, but more are hustling away from the shots for safety.
I catch a glimpse of a guy with that gratingly perfect tousle of curls headed the opposite direction before I hit the real commotion. A woman screaming, a crowd gathering, three or four people pointing into the drained canal. Dread sinks in my stomach and closes my throat.
I know what I’ll find, but panic makes me elbow my way through the onlookers to the edge, to look into the canal, to see what I don’t want to imagine.
Elliott on the bricks. Broken. Bleeding. Because of me.
My carefully constructed semblance of calm shatters. People crowd in behind me, bending over the canal, too. A cry builds in my lungs.
No. No. I can’t panic. I have to act. I swallow the shriek and retreat through the crowd. Run to the nearest ladder and half-climb/half-slide down. It’s a jump from the bottom rung to the cement-lined canal floor. The shock lances up my legs; pain hasn’t stopped me yet.
How far is the fall? How did he land? Is he okay?
I manage not to call his real name. I don’t know his cover, if he has one. When I hit my knees beside him and another quick-thinking guy, that’s the first question I ask, and then, “What happened?”
“Josh Lee.” Elliott grunts and gasps for air. The other guy attending to him tries to calm him down, applying direct pressure to the bloody wound below his collarbone.
Please don’t let that be his heart.
Elliott tries to knock him away. “Muggi
ng,” he groans.
Ottawa’s really safe for an international capital — DC has eight times as many robberies per capita — but that may be a good enough cover. “Do you have somebody we need to call?”
“How about 9-1-1?” He coughs and grimaces at his own attempt at humor.
The helpful guy rocks back on his heels to survey the growing crowd above us. “Somebody call 9-1-1!”
While the guy canvasses the onlookers for someone who isn’t too traumatized to dial, I lean over Elliott to block the crowd’s view. I snag his earpiece, then empty his jacket pockets. His wallet holds $20. I grab it and any ID with his real name on it. Next, his phone: the nuclear option app. Clears out everything but a couple designated contacts.
I stuff Elliott’s stuff in his pockets before the other guy turns back to him. “How’s his breathing?”
“Still breathing,” Elliott groans.
The guy relays that information to the crowd above, whoever dialed 9-1-1.
Elliott’s hand clamps onto my wrist. “You need to go.”
I know. I nod. I stay.
A couple other civilians crowd in, elevating his shoulders, making him more comfortable, edging me out. Elliott finds a break in the cloud of helpers to catch my eye. “Go,” he mouths.
I back away a few more steps, numb, stumbling, lost.
The last thing I hear before I leave the echoes of the canal is Elliott’s choking cough.
And I walk away.
I jolt awake in the dark, the image of Elliott bleeding still imprinted on my eyelids. It was a dream? It wasn’t real?
It was a dream. A nightmare. I draw one sweet breath of relief and sigh, willing the cold sweat away. Elliott’s fine. I imagined the whole thing. We’re still safe.
Then something — someone next to me shifts, a weight pressing on my ribs that’s more than just the residual fear from seeing dream-Elliott shot.
Adrenaline spikes in my system, panic screeching in my ears again. I try to back away, but something soft behind me blocks my escape.
I have to save myself. I do what any sensible person would and shove whoever this is off me. He tumbles to the floor with a sharp little gasp that I recognize.
Danny.
What is going on?
“Ouch.” His tone is flat.
In the moonlight through the blinds, I pick up enough setting cues: the familiar TV and love seat. That means I’m on his couch. We both were, until I freaked.
I dare to peer over the cushions’ edge. Danny simply stares at me. “Sorry,” I murmur.
“Just . . . don’t wake me up like that when we’re married.”
The pieces fall into place. The crazy long SDR, hours of trying to outrun the memory. Parking half a mile from Danny’s. Sneaking through the woods to his back door. Danny jumped when I crawled in after twelve, while he was putting away his late night snack. His mom had made cookies. I couldn’t even touch one.
Because it wasn’t a dream. Elliott really was shot. And Brand did it.
And it’s my fault.
A weight hits my chest, heavier than even Danny: guilt. Desperation. Fear.
Danny sits up and squints through the dark at me. “Are you okay?”
I try to respond. There aren’t any words. I can’t form the letters that would make this make sense, make this okay, make this not real.
“You’re starting to scare me here.” He checks his I’m-an-engineer-so-I-need-a-freaking-graphing-calculator-on-my-wrist watch. “You came in five hours ago and started bawling.”
That doesn’t sound like me. But I know it is without checking my face to see if I’m puffy and blotchy.
“You turned down chocolate chip cookies,” Danny continues.
“And we fell asleep on the couch?” I pat the black cushions beneath me.
“Yeah. Is this something I’m not supposed to know about?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t realize how true those words are until I hear them. Can I tell him anything that happened tonight, or would that put him in too much danger?
Still sitting on the floor, Danny studies me for a long minute. Even in the shadows, the I-wish-I-could-fix-this-for-you in his face is all too evident. At last, he tucks my hair behind my ear. “I know you’re the international superspy here —”
We both glance at the stairs, though his mother’s surely fast asleep. Neither of us have any plans to tell her I’m not a lawyer.
Danny continues. “But if you ever need me, for anything, I will be there.”
The image of Elliott lying at the bottom of the canal flashes through my mind. This time it’s not Elliott broken and bleeding on the cement. It’s Danny.
I shake my head, hard and fast. Elliott’s life was in my hands and I let him down. I will not let the same thing happen to Danny. Not even metaphorically.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “But the offer stands.”
“Only one person could’ve helped me.” And now he can’t. I barely hear my own whisper, and I’m not sure the last part is out loud. Danny touches my arm. I try to make my shoulder pat as comforting (and non-condescending) as possible. All I can see is Elliott/Danny/Elliott there, gasping for air, sending me away for my own sake.
He could be dead.
He probably isn’t. Even with a chest wound, you have a good chance of surviving one or possibly two gunshots.
Still. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have been shot.
I won’t put Danny in that position. “I’m so sorry,” I say. I can’t bear to look at him, burying my face in my arms. “I have to do this. I’m the only one left.” My voice breaks, squeaking out the hysteria growing wild in my mind. I’m the only one left that I’m willing to sacrifice.
“Talia?” Danny’s murmur breaks through the mounting guilt/panic attack. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” And that’s exactly why he gets to stay right here in his safe little suburb where the closest he comes to danger is working on his defense contracts.
But he’s not done. Danny’s gaze is so intense that I have to avert my eyes till he speaks. “Please.”
That single syllable plea is self-explanatory: please let me help. Please let me be there. Please let me in.
I can’t. I can’t. I have to protect him.
The seconds of silence squeeze between us, the chasm growing every second, pushing us apart. I need him almost as much as I need him to be safe.
And then I see the concern — the fear in Danny’s expression. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, and for him, that’s the scariest part of all.
He doesn’t know what I do. “He shot him, Danny. He shot him and it’s my fault.”
Danny’s eyes widen to the size of satellite dishes, and the fear doesn’t dim. “What? Who shot who?”
“Elliott.”
“Elliott shot —?”
“No, Elliott got shot, and it’s my fault.”
Apparently this is bigger than he was expecting. But also note: I walked in and immediately broke down, so he should’ve been tipped off already. “It’s not your fault,” he says.
“I asked Elliott to back me up and he got shot. My fault.”
“Do you know who shot him?”
I’ve been striding into the surf, and suddenly the sandbar beneath me shifts and gives out. I squeeze out the answer before my head sinks below the surface of terror: “My boss.”
Danny eases me to sitting up and joins me on the couch, one arm clamped around my shoulders as if he already knows I need the extra support to stay upright. “Why would your boss shoot Elliott?”
I shift to study him. This is something I shouldn’t tell him, something that’s too classified and way too dangerous.
I have to. I have to let someone know, don’t I? “I think he’s skimming CIA payouts. They’re supposed to go to an agent.”
“Elliott’s skimming?”
“No.”
Danny bows his head, half an inch closer to mine. “Are you saying —?”
“Are you in danger?”
I wish I could tell Danny no, but my brain flashes to Brand peering up at my building, trying to get a visual on my apartment.
The biggest betrayals within the Agency aren’t upending ops. They’re selling out officers to the enemy.
I might be in even more danger than I thought. Backed into a corner. Betrayed.
“I have to go away.” I’m on my feet before Danny can react. I’m pacing, wringing my hands, my mind flying in a thousand directions, and my feet running in circles. “I have to . . .”
Danny stands, catches my hands, pulls me in. “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
I’m supposed to be the one calm under fire. But when you’re confronting literal fire —
“You need something to eat.” Danny tows me to the kitchen and leaves me by the counter to dig through the pantry.
Okay, eating might be a decent start, but I need to brainstorm beyond breakfast. I’ll have to think three, four, five steps ahead to make it through alive.
Danny sets about making oatmeal the way I like it — actually, he doesn’t particularly care for oatmeal, so the fact he has any in stock is sweet. While he works, I put my over-taxed, under-rested brain to work on the next step —
“Montréal,” he breaks in.
I doubt a city two hours away has much to do with oatmeal. “Why would —?” And then the other meaning hits me. Montréal has the closest LDS temple. He’s talking about eloping.
Yesterday, I probably would have taken him up on the offer. But today, something scarier hangs over our pending marriage than my persistent fear of dress shopping and divorce.
In our church, we don’t say “till death do you part” or “as long as you both shall live.” The ceremony says “for time and all eternity.” Marriages sealed in the temple can last beyond death.
And what Danny’s really saying isn’t Let’s forget all this stupid wedding planning. He’s saying, I’m afraid you’re going to die.
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 42
