Mercy's Chase

by Jess Lourey

  The secretary stopped behind Lutsenko’s chair. “Sir.”

  “Da?”

  The secretary held himself like he had a glass stomach. Vit didn’t care one whit for male secretaries. It wasn’t right.

  “We have an intercept,” the man said, staring forward.

  Vit recorded how Barnaby and Lutsenko each demonstrated interest. Barnaby scowled. The Russian grew more rigid.

  “Speak, then,” Barnaby said impatiently.

  “Ms. Wiley spoke of Stonehenge.” The secretary’s hands were clenched. “It seems she is interested in its code.”

  Barnaby barked, “See!”

  “What exactly was said?” Lutsenko asked, signaling for Barnaby’s silence.

  The secretary glanced at the paper in his hand. It fluttered with an almost imperceptible tremor. “It was a phone call with Ms. Odegaard. Ms. Wiley: ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Bel. She’d uncovered a little replica of Stonehenge in her backyard, right next to her grandmother’s grave. The word mercy was carved on one of the stones.’ Ms. Odegaard: ‘Was it a code?’ Ms. Wiley: ‘It was.’ Ms. Odegaard: ‘You solved the mystery of Stonehenge, didn’t you?’ Ms. Wiley: ‘For sure. And for my next trick, I plan to crack the Zodiac Killer’s code.’”

  Lutsenko laughed. “That is a joke.”

  Barnaby’s lips drew tight. “You don’t know that.”

  Vit took charge. “What was their tone?”

  The secretary consulted his sheet again. “There was laughter after the final line. None before.”

  Barnaby spoke through clenched teeth. “She solved the Beale Cipher. This is not an idle threat.”

  Vit’s blood began bubbling nicely. It looked like he would get to cast his first tie-breaking vote. That would leave an impression. He kept score as the men continued arguing across the table.

  “We bring in only the girl. Solving Stonehenge is nothing without the child in hand.”

  “We bring them both in. The Grimalkin can locate the end of the Stonehenge train.”

  “That hasn’t worked before. Why would that change?”

  Vit saw his opening and pounced. “If your Grimalkin is as good as you say, ask for verification when she’s solved Stonehenge. She won’t know she’s being tailed. You have nothing to lose, everything to gain. You can bring in the child, and use her like a gas pedal to speed up, what’d you say her name was? Salem Wiley? Speed up her search for the train.”

  He was just reordering their own words and parroting them back to them, but he’d counted, and they were the only words both Barnaby and Lutsenko would buy. “It’s the one plan with the most exits. You need Wiley brought in? You can do that later.”

  Barnaby’s eyes sparked, but he was beginning to nod.

  “You’re in favor?” Lutsenko asked.

  “With one modification,” Barnaby said, his tone icy. “We acquire the child now, as Mr. Linder has proposed. We let Salem Wiley continue to freelance, but only until she cracks Stonehenge. After that, she is retired once and for all. If her talents are that strong, she is too dangerous to continue as a free agent.”

  “Agreed,” Lutsenko said.

  Just like that, Vit’s patience reached its limits. There was no money on the table, nothing that benefitted him, only smoke and conspiracy and talk of girls. “I’ll leave you fellows to the boots-on-the-ground planning of that one. Because I have the inside information, I’ll oversee the … retiring of the president and vice president.”

  “The president only,” Barnaby said, once again reminding Vit of his father, “or it’s too much unrest.”

  Vit’s testicle spasmed. They’d mentioned that idea earlier, but he hadn’t thought they’d been firm about it. He had overplayed his hand. “Of course. The president only.” That would not work. Richard Cambridge would ascend to the office and appoint a new vice president. Vit Linder would remain only the Speaker of the House.

  Lutsenko steepled his fingers, reclaiming control of the meeting. “We’ll connect you with Clancy Johnson. He’s being brought in to retire the president.”

  Vit’s eyes shot up before he could hide his reaction. “Johnson’s still alive?” Rumor was the FBI had shot their own and dumped his body after the traitor bungled his assassination attempt.

  “Very much,” Lutsenko confirmed.

  “But he failed last time he tried to kill Hayes,” Vit whined.

  Barnaby and Lutsenko’s faces shifted. They had discussed this before.

  “More incentive to get it right this time,” Barnaby finally said. He took clear pleasure in denying Vit his worry. “You’ll make it look like a Middle Easterner did it, of course.”

  Vit nodded like a petulant child.

  The whining had not been an act.

  Fortunately, being denied his due was Vit’s greatest motivator. It took him only a second to arrive at a workaround, which he wisely kept to himself. Johnson had messed up an assassination once. Nobody would point fingers at Vit if it happened again and Johnson “accidentally” fumbled another, killing two instead of one.

  The shortest route to looking good is surrounding yourself with fuck-ups was another of Vit’s father’s sayings.

  Barnaby relaxed pompously, Vit thought, exactly as planned.

  “Jason will acquire the child,” Barnaby said. “And if we are letting Salem Wiley freelance while she solves the Stonehenge train, I want Jason assigned to mentor her along with the Grimalkin. If we lose her, we lose everything.”

  “The Grimalkin won’t like that.”

  Barnaby’s face made clear he didn’t care.

  “It’s settled, then,” Vit said. They needed to move to another subject before the plan changed again. “I get Johnson. Your Jason ‘acquires’ the girl. The Grimalkin and Jason work together on Salem Wiley, retiring her when she cracks the Stonehenge code.” The absurdity of his sentences was almost lost on Vit. Almost. He’d smile about it later, but for now, he was too near the pot of gold. “And by this time Saturday, President Gina Hayes is fired.”

  Barnaby and Lutsenko nodded.

  Vit took a swig of the best diet cola he’d ever tasted.

  6

  The Campus, London

  “Not your cup of tea, eh?”

  Salem snapped her mouth shut. It was ridiculous, but she’d expected Agent Lucan Stone to stride out of the conference room. This man was his physical opposite—bony where Lucan was muscled, the uniquely translucent white skin of a Brit to Lucan’s smooth darkness. She guessed he was in his early forties, crinkled hazel eyes beneath a mop of brown hair more suitable to the lead singer of a boy band than an FBI agent.

  Her disappointment must have been emblazoned on her face.

  He held out his hand. “Charles Arthur Thackeray, but please call me Charlie.”

  She took it. Her own palm was sweaty and shaking. What did it mean that she being was assigned a new partner the day after her only field work with Agent Curson? “Salem Wiley.”

  “Charlie is British Intelligence.” Assistant Director Bench was peeking at his watch. He wore a business suit, as did Charlie.

  Salem grew keenly aware of her sweats and bedhead. “The British know we’re here?” It was a stupid question.

  Charlie’s smile crinkled the corner of his eyes. “MI5, in any case. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You’re a bit of a legend in our department. We’ve crowned you Queen of Cryptanalysis. I look forward to working with the best.”

  Salem frowned. This was happening too fast. She already didn’t have enough time for Gaea, and here she was getting a directive to work with the president this coming weekend as well as a partner from another agency. “What is our assignment?”

  Bench gave her his full attention. “Same as its always been. Intercept threats, develop Gaea, and now, check in with the president’s team while she’s here. Charlie has full secu
rity clearance. He’ll fill you in on the details. I have a meeting to get to.”

  That was his goodbye. Salem watched him walk away, resentment burrowing into her chest. She didn’t know her new partner. He wasn’t even American. He was another distraction from what she was good at, what she had been hired for: developing computer programs that would protect her country. “Agent Thackeray—”

  “Charlie. And believe me, I understand.” His chuckle was rueful. “I was a weeks’ work shy of cracking the ISIL Shard Code when I got pulled to work with you on fuck all.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m that transparent?”

  He politely refrained from answering. “Part of the job, these assignments. It’s a wonder we get anything done.” He tipped his head toward her sneakers. “On your way to lift some weights?”

  She followed his gaze. “Yeah. I mean yes. Then I’d planned to be at my computer at eight. Should I change that?”

  “Let’s walk and talk. The gym is this way?”

  Salem nodded. The familiar hallway felt too narrow now that she had to share it with a stranger. If Bel was here, everything would be okay. Her fingers twitched, and she began the soothing motion of touching her thumb to each of her fingertips, starting with her pinkie and working toward her pointer finger. She didn’t want to work out anymore. She wanted to sit in front of her computer and organize the information into clean pillows of code that followed her command.

  Charlie walked a little bit to the front and as far to the side of her as the hallway would allow. It meant she could watch him without openly staring, which soothed her somewhat.

  “Can’t believe you cracked the Beale Cipher.” His voice was soft and shaded with something. Envy? “How did that feel?”

  “It wasn’t me,” Salem said truthfully. “It was someone else.”

  “Maybe someone else saw it first, but they were using your theories.” He shook his head. “Is what we’re told about Gaea true? You’ve almost pinned down the variables?”

  She rubbed the back of her neck. The crick had returned. “Almost. Do you need my data?”

  They’d reached the gym. It smelled like sweat and unwashed socks. An analyst was bench pressing on the opposite side of the room, his grunts interspersed with the clang of the metal weights. Someone was jogging the overhead track that hugged all four walls. The space was too big. Everyone here was a stranger, including Charlie.

  Especially Charlie.

  She could feel his eyes on her, and she mentally retraced the steps to her Ativan bottle. She didn’t want a partner, not unless it was Bel. She should quit. She should go home to Minneapolis. She could work on Gaea just as well there, probably better. There would be no interruptions. She wouldn’t have access to the real-life code threats, but she could imagine them. She could prototype off that.

  “No data,” he said, but his voice came from far away. “We’re to work together solely on cleaning and sorting SIGINT while your heads of state are in town to avoid an international incident on UK soil, yeah?”

  Salem heard his words but couldn’t process them. All her attention was now on the track. Who was running up there? There was something eerie about him. The length he was currently jogging meant he wasn’t facing her, but his longish hair and lean build looked familiar.

  Her blood drained.

  She realized who he reminded her of.

  Jason.

  The freaky face-changing assassin. The man who’d tortured Vida and brutally murdered Grace, Bel’s mom and Vida’s best friend. The monster who’d hunted her and Bel like rabbits, terrorizing them.

  He’d tracked her down in London.

  But it couldn’t be.

  Her presence here, the Campus, they were top secret.

  Salem’s heart was pounding in her ears. Could she run to her Ativan without making Charlie uncomfortable? It couldn’t be Jason. Could it? She’d know one way or another in three seconds, when he reached the corner and ran this direction, revealing his face. Or he’d exit through the door before he hit the corner. She never should have gone to Ireland. It had thrown everything off.

  “Salem?” Charlie’s voice was soft. She’d forgotten he was standing next to her. Her neck jerked, and she looked at him, the pain pulling her back into the present. He appeared worried.

  “Sorry. Did you say something?”

  He coughed. Clearly, he’d said her name more than once. Her cheeks burned.

  “Not a thing.” He tipped his head toward her sneakers. “I’ll leave you to your workout. We’ll talk later?”

  He walked away without saying another word. Salem wanted to crawl into herself. Two coworkers were laughing over by the drinking fountain. The man who’d been using the jogging track had in fact left through the door rather than running into her sightline. He was probably a new analyst, or an office worker from the front of the agency.

  She felt foolish, just as she had in Ireland yesterday. She couldn’t get so deep into her own head, be so thrown off by haunting reminders. Fighting the urge to run back to her dormitory and hide, she walked toward the weights. Physical exertion had pulled her back from the edge of a panic attack before. Maybe it would work now.

  She tried working her usual circuit, but her neck hurt too bad. Leg curls, it would twinge. Bench press was agony. She probably needed a masseuse, or a chiropractor. She’d have to settle on the steam room. She glanced at her phone as she wiped down her equipment. Fifteen minutes for a quick steam and then a shower and off to meet Charlie.

  She headed to the women’s changing room and located her locker. She swirled the dial on her combination lock. In a crypto cave like the Chamber, putting duct tape over her locker would provide more protection than a dial lock, but old habits died hard.

  Locker open, she traded her workout clothes for a swimsuit, slid her feet into flip-flops, and padded toward the steam room. She hoped the heat would relax her muscles and ease the knot in her neck. When she opened the door, the steam rolled out of the dark room. She squinted. She thought it was empty, but the steam was too thick to be sure.

  She felt along the wall until she reached the far corner.

  She dropped onto the wooden bench and slid her feet out of her sandals.

  Beads of sweat immediately formed on her forehead and began trickling down. She tipped her head back, rubbing her own shoulders. The steam slickened her skin. She located the knot immediately. It was a hard nugget the size of a peach stone between the base of her skull and her right shoulder. She pressed her pointer finger into the center of it, pushing with all her might even though the pain made her tongue taste like alum.

  The knot released the slightest bit.

  She sighed deeply.

  A counter-noise emerged from the opposite side of the room.

  Salem’s every muscle tensed for flight. Her hands dropped to fighting position, the knot forgotten. She blinked, trying to clear the air, but the steam was as thick as paste.

  “Hello?”

  No sound. Was a person sitting on the other bench? Only ten feet separated one seat from the other, but with the thick air, it might as well have been a wall between them. She stood, her knot having grown its own knots.

  “Is there someone there?” She waved her hand. The motion provided a tantalizing inch of visual clarity. Someone was definitely sitting across from her. “Charlie?”

  No answer.

  Her flesh turned icy beneath her sweating skin. The discordance curdled her stomach. She backed toward the door. “Len?”

  The person shifted.

  A savage part of her wanted to jump at the stranger, slap his face, demand to know why he wasn’t answering. She took another step backward. The heel of her flip-flop caught in the wooden flooring slats, and she tumbled backward, catching herself before she hit the floor. She felt vulnerable as she flailed. He could have a knife. Or a gun.
>
  The person most certainly was a male.

  It wasn’t his silhouette that finally gave him away. That was shifting like a genie’s behind the steam. It was his smell, a sour musk magnified by the steam.

  Jason.

  She wanted to yell and fight.

  Instead, she charged the door, grabbing blindly for the handle, feeling his hands racing toward her neck as she struggled to escape.

  7

  The Campus, London

  The panic attack swallowed her whole.

  She ran all the way along the basement level to the dormitory end of the Campus wearing only her swimsuit. Her ragged breath pounded like footsteps in her ears. She was too terrified to glance behind her, too shaken to care that she was half naked. Her hands vibrated as she tried to shove her room key into the slot, but she finally managed, slamming the door behind her, falling against it, gulping for air.

  Salem slid to the floor, fighting nausea.

  The panic eventually receded, replaced by the scrape of rock bottom.

  No villain had been lurking in the steam room. Jason, the face-changing assassin, was not after her, never really had been, in fact. He’d hunted her mother and Bel’s mother, and Gina Hayes. He wanted the Underground leaders; Salem and Bel had gotten in his way but had never been primary targets. He was from a different time and place. She’d imagined him in the steam room with her like a child in bed fabricates a sharp-toothed bogeyman in the closet.

  She’d acted like a weirdo. Again. She’d been able to skate on the surface of this new job for nearly a month, to tell herself she might be good at it, but her nerves had finally caught up. It had been a mistake to come to Europe by herself. The world was too big. She belonged in Minneapolis with Bel, and Mercy, and even her mother. She knew she was in bad shape when spending time with her mother was appealing.