Department 57: Rubies of Fire

by Lynne Connolly

  After a minute that felt like five, the door opened and the head of the department strode in. Andreas tensed. This could be a standard meeting, a setup, anything, but he’d better prepare for the worst.

  Assistant Director Bernard Knox walked decisively into the room, a laptop computer tucked under one beefy arm. If he hadn’t been a CIA chief, Knox could have made a good living as a wrestler. Under the well-worn suits he wore for work, muscles bulged. He probably had difficulty finding neckties long enough to encircle that bull neck. His bulk matched his intelligence—both were impressive. He glanced around. “Good morning.”

  While they murmured their responses, Knox put the computer down and plugged it into one of the power outlets set in the floor under the table. Then he turned around and picked up a hooked pole. He used it to pull down a screen.

  Great. A picture show.

  “We’re moving on with this operation. Department 57 is turning into a danger, but I need more proof before I take it further. The place is a wild card, and we’ve uncovered disturbing evidence that it works on its own at times, without reference to the proper authorities. The more we discover, the worse it gets. I have a few more pictures. Targets. Memorize the faces, people. Learn all you can about them.”

  Andreas suppressed a flinch of recognition as the first picture flashed onto the screen.

  “These people are what Cristos likes to call ‘consultants.’ Not full-time agents, and they coincidentally have jobs that take them all over the world. I want them tracked and, if possible, turned.”

  Turned into agents for the DIB. Was there a word for that kind of agent? One who worked for one department and reported covertly to another? Andreas could think of a few words, but they wouldn’t pass official muster.

  “This is Fabrice Germain. He’s an advertising executive out of Toronto. He has a French mother and French-Canadian father. Currently working in New York, but it’s for the same holding company that owns the Canadian ad agency he’s worked for since he left university. He’s also a consultant to Department 57 and he’s probably involved in covert activities for the Department. I want him tracked and shadowed, and I want to know what kind of Talent he is. You have a team, Don. Arrange it.”

  Don murmured his agreement.

  The next picture. Christ! “Anushka Baranski. Russian. She’s been seen more than once entering the Department.”

  The DIB wasn’t supposed to know about these people. Like many of the deep undercover agents, the ones with other jobs, they always entered and left the Department by the garage entrance, the one with the most security and surveillance.

  This was getting worse every minute. Andreas watched dumbly as several pictures passed through the computer and onto the screen. Dev Wyvern, art auctioneer and consultant. Laurie Friedland, soccer player and consultant.

  Knox turned away and clicked the computer touch pad, putting up a picture of the outside of the Department, a block of offices next to the flashy headquarters of a large television company. He flicked the picture back to Cristos’s. “The Department has refused to give up the information it captured last year. It rejects any suggestion that it had a base in San Francisco. But our informant tells us they were at that disaster.” When Department 57 offices were firebombed. The worst disaster the Department had ever encountered, and although they’d captured the perpetrator, a lot of information had gone into the wild. And most of the people in that slide show had been there, so it had to be the link.

  “Who’s the informant?” It was worth a try.

  Knox glanced at him scornfully, thin mouth turned down in a sneer. “Oh no, not yet. I’ll give you any names you need when I think you need them. I can tell you that we sent a covert team in last year, just after the San Francisco incident, when the Department’s resources were stretched. They posed as independent documentary makers.”

  The documentary maker, Michael Clarkson. The Company had asked Cristos to cooperate when a documentary maker had asked for access, and he’d diplomatically agreed. Clarkson had made controversial films about matters “dear to the US citizen’s heart,” as he put it, accusing football players of corruption and TV companies of cooperating with the government, and he got the authorities on the run. So the CIA wanted to appease him, or so they’d all thought, and Cristos had agreed to help, but effectively kept Clarkson shut down. Or so he’d thought.

  If anyone unmasked Talents, Andreas would put his money on a maverick filmmaker to be the one to do it. Somebody from the outside, open to new and different ideas.

  On the principle that they wanted Clarkson inside the tent pissing out instead of outside the tent pissing in, the CIA had reluctantly granted him access to some noncovert departments. Cristos had cooperated, up to a point. Department staff had suspected him and been careful around him. Had they been careful enough? Obviously not.

  “Some of you wondered why we relocated two years ago. This is why we’re not in Langley, ladies and gentlemen, as we used to be. Department 57 is in New York, so we’re here too.”

  Speculation had said the department that investigated other departments wanted to make space between it and its targets—rogue CIA officers. It shared the reputation all internal investigations departments in any agency tended to have, fostering suspicion in people who should have been colleagues.

  The move had relieved most residents of Langley, but it only made Andreas’s blood pressure rise now. A two-year investigation. What could the DIB have discovered? How could Department 57 neutralize them? Cristos had made sure that his exit from the Department was messy and noticed, and his cover well established, tempting Knox to request his transfer.

  Knox spread his hands, then punched the touch pad with more force than he needed. At last, Cristos’s picture was replaced by another. Andreas didn’t like this one any better.

  A floor plan of Department 57. The central office area, the smaller offices around it. All labeled, all correct. Cristos’s office at the end of the large space, the big conference room, the smaller ones, and some of the laboratories. At the other side from Cristos’s office, the corridor that led to the more covert laboratories. At least this one didn’t show any details, just a series of rooms. He needed to communicate with his contact, Fabrice. Now.

  “This is the Department 57 layout. Whoever I send in there won’t have to know this, of course.” Knox pulled a small, thin object from his pocket and pressed the catch at the end, so it expanded into a slim pointer. He tapped the screen where the corridor began. “We want you to find out what’s beyond here and to get into the system. Cristos has a discrete system as well as the usual network. We need the code to that and a means of accessing it from here. I have a team of analysts on standby, wasting time. We need to put them to work.”

  Andreas’d been under orders to keep his psi strictly to himself, to scan the members of the DIB quickly and then closing down. He opened his mind and concentrated on Bernard Knox, rapidly scanning the man. Andreas could only enter the outer part. Otherwise, if Knox was psychic, he’d be able to tell someone was probing him. To go further caused a slight but recognizable pain.

  Nothing. No identification, no awareness of his search.

  Quickly, he risked communicating with Fabrice, and even quicker, he received a reply. “Tonight. Usual place.”

  After sending an acknowledgment, Andreas shut down, but as he did, he felt something moving in his mind, or rather someone.

  Someone had made him.

  Shit on a stick.

  ASTONISHMENT GRIPPED ROZ when she realized this man she’d dismissed as useless was a Talent. He used his psi with an assurance that told her he knew what he was doing. She’d been wrong earlier.

  Surely her family would have told her if there was another Talent active in the DIB. She risked a look at Nancy, who met her eyes with a raised eyebrow, and she felt Nancy’s question.

  “What is it?”

  “Didn’t you feel it? Sense it?”

  “No.”

  “Talk to
you later.”

  Abruptly she cut the connection. She needed to concentrate on her boss.

  “I want one of you to go into the Department. Whoever goes in, Constant will be your contact. He’s the only insider we’ve managed to get, so you’ll have to make the best of it.”

  Glancing sideways at Andreas Constant, Roz smiled when she saw the chagrin with which he greeted that comment, but he said nothing and didn’t look at her.

  “Don, I’ve assigned you a technical expert, one of the best we’ve got. Hook on to the private Department 57 system and see if you can break in.” He paused and looked from Nancy to Roz. “So which of you will it be? I need to know today so I can put your name on the transfer documents.”

  Roz heaved a sigh and thought of doing it for her country. “Me. I’ll do it.” If Nancy went in on this op, she’d have to postpone the wedding or at least scale it down. Her mother would never let her hear the end of it. “I take it this is not a fast job. You’ll want your operative in place for as long as it takes.”

  Knox watched her, his eyes gleaming speculatively. She saw the narrowed gaze, the sudden inspiration. Fuck, what now? “That will be fine.” He didn’t take his gaze away from Roz. “You and Constant can cover as an item. He can back you up much better like that.”

  “But they know he works for the DIB.”

  “Yes, and they’ll know he’s a schmuck, a lowlife, someone who won’t climb higher in the Company.” Constant made a sound, but Knox interrupted him. “You know it’s true, Constant. You don’t work hard enough to make a difference. You might have gone further, but you don’t have the dedication to do the job. If you hadn’t fucked the boss’s PA, that might have helped. But you can be liaison and backup, and you’re here to give us as much information as you can. If Roz gets into trouble, she can fake illness and they’ll call you to come get her. Capisce?”

  “Yeah.” Constant didn’t sound any happier than she did. She’d only just shaken him off, and now she was stuck with him again. Whatever else, he was someone she could only despise.

  “Move in together. Make like lovers.”

  Could it get any fucking worse?

  “My apartment isn’t in the best part of town,” Constant said. “I’m changing where I live, so I took a temporary lease on a small place.”

  “You can move in with the two women, then.” Knox gave a bland, conciliatory smile. “You can claim the rent on expenses for the length of the case.”

  Roz felt some relief, but not because of the rent. Because Nancy could help, even act as a buffer between her and Andreas. While she resented being reduced to one of the “two women,” she wanted this meeting over, so she didn’t object aloud.

  When she finally looked at Constant, he grinned at her, but under the smile, she saw a promise. A dark, sensual promise she had no intention of accepting. Truly she didn’t.

  Chapter Two

  Following Andreas Constant had proved as easy as opening her mind and letting him in. So much so that Roz wondered briefly if he suspected anything and was making investigation simple for her. No, that couldn’t be possible. She’d read him, entered the forefront of his mind, and she found nothing there but lustful thoughts and work niggles. No sigil, the mental symbol all Talents had; no image of a shape-shifter’s other form, no family symbol that vampires used, no tense, electric tingling that she would have gotten if he’d had strong psychic gifts. Constant was just an extraordinarily handsome, sex-obsessed mortal. She had to be mistaken.

  She’d picked up his trail right after she’d stopped in a back alley to feed from a college kid looking for kicks in this doubtful area. Being a couple of security levels above Constant had given her access to his files, so she knew where to start.

  The district given as his address shocked her a little. Rather a lot, when she saw the stinking building it took her to in the middle of one of the worst areas of Manhattan, one of the few the authorities hadn’t cleaned up yet. Not so far for her to walk from her home on the Upper West Side, but a world away in every other sense.

  Groups of teens lounged in the street, probably working when they should rightly have been in bed. If she weren’t Talented, Roz wouldn’t have dreamed of venturing here alone. But she fuzzed her presence well enough, blurring people’s vision of her so she looked like anyone else in this godforsaken rat hole, her nondescript sneakers and ragged hoodie fitting right in with the general wear of people here. No one took any notice of her.

  She was beginning to think she had the wrong address, or that he’d lied, when a figure emerged from the block she was watching. She had to look twice to confirm the man really was Andreas Constant.

  He wore a pair of perfectly cut pants and a leather jacket with something dark underneath, a shirt or T-shirt. No sign of the practical but deeply boring clothes he wore to work. His dark hair was free of the gel he used during the daytime, brushed back off his face in short, tousled locks. She supposed everyone was entitled to his or her secrets. Some secrets, anyway.

  But not from her. If she was to work with him, she wanted to know more than he wanted to tell her, and that controlled touch to her mind this morning had made her wonder about him. She’d wait until he was off guard and read him deeper than she’d done so far. Before she began her assignment, she’d find out about her backup. Constant moved along the street with an easy stride, past people who should have mugged him for his jacket alone. Perhaps they knew him. Why he lived here, she had no idea. If he could afford to dress like that, he could afford a decent neighborhood. Perhaps it gave him some perverse pleasure to walk past these lowlifes every day.

  He moved at a brisk pace, so she had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him. She tried a gentle mental probe, but she found his mind shuttered, even more than at work.

  She paused, then had to hurry to catch up.

  Half an hour later, she stopped for breath outside a fashionable nightclub in Gramercy. He’d walked all the way, and her legs ached with the pace he’d set. Also, she wasn’t dressed for fashionable nightclubs. She’d just about pass if she took off the hoodie, in her plain pants and white blouse, but it wasn’t the outfit she’d choose to party in, especially in a swanky place like this. She took off the ragged garment and rolled it into a bundle.

  For New York, it was early, but she knew this club would be fuller than most others at this time. It was newly fashionable, and noncelebrities needed to arrive early. She fumbled in her pocket and found a credit card. She guessed the membership card would be about the same size.

  Ignoring the long line of people neatly corralled behind red ropes, she walked straight to the front and held up her card to one of the door attendants. She didn’t bother to smile. Smiles weren’t for the muscle at the door; it made them suspicious.

  Her standard white-blouse-black-pants looked like designer wear to the discriminating door attendant once she’d messed with his mind a little, and the gold card she showed him allowed her into any area she chose. He opened the door for her. She even got a smile.

  Inside, she was as out of place as a demon in heaven. The fancy nightclubs she visited with her friends were livelier, even at this early time of night. No sign of the elaborate cocktails with paper umbrellas and fruit that the more ebullient crowd favored, no chalked list of cocktails with dubious names by the bar. Instead, she saw dimly lit tables with couples and threesomes sitting absorbed in anything but each other. They occasionally glanced around to see who had come in and who was heading for the roped-off area at the end, where the VIPs mingled with a purposeful air the main room lacked.

  Except for one couple right at the end—two men totally involved in their conversation, leaning across the little table toward each other like lovers at a secret tryst. Roz hastily turned aside and found a place to sit, sliding into a seat as far away from the single, low spotlight as possible. They hadn’t seen her, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  Andreas Constant sat with his back to her. Facing her, though not looking a
t her, his features highlighted by the candle flickering on the table between them, was a face she recognized from the pictures from the briefing this morning. Classically beautiful, his blue eyes dazzling despite the dim lighting of the nightclub, Fabrice Germain stood out even here, in this place where beautiful people gathered. A Talent for sure, but what kind of Talent?

  Cautiously she projected her senses. Just enough to eavesdrop. Blocking out the gossip around her took a moment, and then she honed in on the couple at the end table.

  Her first shock came when she realized they were speaking telepathically. Her second when she realized she could “hear” them. They’d be speaking at a deeper level than the everyday, but that encounter in the elevator… She’d really gotten to Andreas. He’d let her in far more than either of them had realized at the time.

  “There’s a mole in the Department.”

  “What?” Germain sounded rattled.

  “I’m supposed to act as go-between for Roz Templeton and the DIB. They’re sending her into the Department.”

  “We expected something like that. We’ll let her in.”

  “I know. What you don’t know is that you, Anushka, Wyvern, and Takasc are specifically targeted. Knox briefed us this morning.”

  A moment of shock, then, “That could be from surveillance. Watching people coming and going, even if they use the back way.”

  “They can identify most of the team from the San Francisco job, and they know too damned much. There’s a mole.”

  She saw Germain’s slight shrug, the way his silk T-shirt moved like a second skin over his muscular shoulders.

  “I think you’re imagining things, bro, but there’s no harm doing a second sweep.”

  “Yeah. You do that. I’m moving to Roz’s apartment. Knox wants me to play the lover.”

  She saw the chuckle, echoed in Germain’s mind.

  “That shouldn’t bother you none. She’s a good-looking female.”

  “I thought your kind weren’t supposed to notice that?”