Line in the Shadow

by Clancy Nacht

  The reception desk itself was unremarkable in shades of grey. Two ex-SEAL agents examined and then scanned his ID. The blond man eyed the photograph and then him, then handed it back. “Who are you here to see?”

  “Rob Masters.” The name made the men trade looks.

  Of all the CIA units in the building, Rob Masters’ was likely the most covert. There were doubts that Masters was even the man’s name. The ex-SEAL paused a moment before making the call to invite Masters or his representative to retrieve Rex.

  Rex gave them a wave. “I know the way.”

  They traded looks again but didn’t stop him as he walked past the desk and down the short hallway. It opened onto a typical cube farm where most of the agents and analysts worked. Along the perimeter stood full offices for managers and conference rooms for obligatory meetings or a moment’s relative privacy. Masters had a corner office, a sign of his importance and seniority.

  He didn’t keep an assistant, just a shut door. A few heads turned when Rex gave it a staccato knock unique to him.

  While he waited for Masters to respond, Rex scanned the cubes. He saw one or two familiar faces, but otherwise there appeared to be a high turnover since the dissolution of his marriage heralded the end of his time here. It wasn’t surprising. In the wake of the CIA’s political and diplomatic misadventures, many agents had been encouraged to retire. The new group appeared younger and very focused on their computers.

  Masters opened the door in his own time and held out his hand for a firm shake. “Carver. Have a seat.”

  Masters looked to have aged twenty years since last Rex had seen him. His hair had gone from salt and pepper to white, still thin on top. He wore new glasses, an aggressive steel frame with square lenses. His eyes were dark, skin deeply lined, and face set in a permanently grim look.

  The office itself was sparse, nothing like when Rex had started. Back then, there had been a mahogany desk and plush leather couch. Now the office was modern, outfitted with Herman Miller, which was no less expensive but gave the appearance that Masters was doing his part to cut back on the budget.

  “Sir.” Rex took a seat on the edge of the streamlined black chair opposite Masters. Rex offered a respectful nod, then opened his attaché case to retrieve the flash drive that held photographs and the portions of the latest report not meant for any eyes but Masters’s. He placed it on the desk, then sat back and watched his boss expectantly, wondering if Masters intended to explain why they’d recalled Rex.

  Masters set the drive in a drawer as he took his seat. The laptop on the desk was closed, making it easy to see him. “Due to the troubles in Lebanon, everyone was obliged to have a face-to-face with their agents.”

  Troubles was an understatement typical to career Company men. Rex didn’t need clearance to read in the papers that a dozen CIA assets had gone missing. A dozen that the CIA would admit to, which meant that the number could be significantly higher. The party line had been that sloppy tradecraft led to Hezbollah’s anti-spy units tracking down the missing assets and agents. Rex’s purpose was obvious; someone wanted information, the precise nature of the failures delivered in a Power Point presentation by Masters’s boss, whoever that was.

  That Masters hadn’t merely directed Rex to his new cubicle hinted at something else going on.

  Masters examined Rex, eyes darting from his face to his posture, briefly pausing at his stomach, then back up. “We’ll need you to do your magic, but we don’t have a lot of information on what those agents were doing or who their assets were. We have their cellphone records. I’ll get you clearance to see the files they marked restricted, but they weren’t checking in with everything either. Do what you can. They’re expecting bad news, so let it rip.”

  Then he sat back, eyeing Rex again. “Divorced life seems to agree with you.”

  Rex settled in his chair, crossing his ankles and folding his hands over his attaché case as he eyed Masters. He didn’t know his boss well enough to tell whether that was meant as encouragement or a test. Either way, the right response was a wry chuckle and perked brow.

  “What makes you say that, sir?”

  “Your work’s been excellent.” The corner of his mouth turned up briefly as if that was funny to him. Odd getting a compliment from Masters. It made Rex suspicious. “Anyway, I’ve seen you. I have your report. You’ll be in cube twenty-three. It’s not a window office, but it’s isolated enough no one will be looking over your shoulder.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Rex stood and nodded to his boss, then reached for the door. As the knob twisted and the dead latch retracted, a tension between his shoulders warned him to pause. Keeping his breaths even, he counted to three.

  One...

  Two...

  “Oh, Carver, by the way....”

  Of course. Rex pushed the door shut and turned but didn’t sit.

  This was another of Masters’s games, his version of toying with his food. Masters leaned forward. “We have a situation in Pakistan. They say NATO, and by NATO they mean us, killed a couple dozen of their so-called soldiers. What happened was that our people were taking fire from enemy combatants and called in air support because those bastard Pakis who were supposed to have our backs were nowhere to be seen. It’s turning into a real he-said-she-said clusterfuck, and they’re threatening to cut us off. If our diplomats can’t bring them around, we may need you to take one of your non-traditional peacekeeping missions.”

  Rex nodded acknowledgment, privately despising the casual way Masters lobbed that bomb at Rex. The implications hung in the air unspoken: if diplomacy failed—if between Homeland and CIA they couldn’t dig up the right motivating factors to get Pakistani relations back on track—Rex would be expected to go in alone. He’d be expected to do what had to be done to unbalance the opposition and restore the U.S.’s upper hand.

  Fifteen years ago, Rex would have chomped at the bit, eager to pit his wits against probable doom. The possibility of disavowal by his own government wouldn’t have fazed him, nor would the tacit instruction to act as more than a hitman, but a self-directed killer. Now, Rex wasn’t sure he’d survive it. He didn’t think he’d want to.

  He’d heard that governing a country was like making sausage—that one should just enjoy the result without asking how it was achieved. Rex’s problem was that after all the butchering and churning guts, he didn’t like the sausage anymore. As he smiled at Masters, Rex wondered for the millionth time what it was he hoped to get out of this job.

  “Why wouldn’t you use an agent in the area?”

  Masters smacked his lips like something nasty was repeating on him, and then he sighed and shook his head. How was Rex supposed to take that? Theoretically he shouldn’t question orders, but if that were the problem, Masters would’ve told him to fuck off.

  “Guess it’s practically public anyway. Spent our resources handling those damned nuclear scientists in Iran. That was meant to be a statement. Besides, even if we got caught directly, the world would thank us for keeping the bomb from the Iranians. If we had to do this one, it would require your special touch. Some finesse.”

  Rex understood what Masters wasn’t saying: Rex no longer had family to miss him if he suddenly disappeared. It was why they’d recruited him to begin with. His desk jockey tenure hadn’t begun until after the wedding.

  “Ah. Thank you, sir.” Rex remained where he was, holding Masters’s gaze with the blank, placid expression he wore whenever he didn’t know who else to be.

  Masters scanned him again. “Take the rest of the day off, Carver. You look like shit.”

  Chapter 2

  The shrill ringing of a telephone jolted Rex from a dead sleep. Without opening his eyes, he extended his hand toward the sound, snatched the handset from the cradle, and croaked, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Carver, this is your six p.m. wake-up call. Please let the concierge know if there’s anything more you need. Thank you for staying with—”

  Rex’s exhausted grunt cut her o
ff. “Thank you so much. Would you please arrange seven-thirty car service for me?”

  “Right away, sir. Thank you again for—”

  Rex left the handset on the nightstand, the tinny voice emanating from its speaker chasing him into the opulent bathroom. It was a nicer hotel than Rex was used to, but after Masters had informed him of his Damoclean fate, Rex thought keeping him in style was the least the CIA could do.

  There was unlimited hot water, a rarity while Rex had been on the road. He took a long, thorough shower that washed away the day but couldn’t begin to wash away the past few weeks. After toweling off, he dressed in the beautiful double-vented gray chalk stripe suit the hotel had provided him before he fell asleep.

  Having been recalled suddenly with no information as to why, Rex had traveled light, but that didn’t mean he was willing to go out looking shabby. Appearance was everything. A covert agent was only as good as his ability to look normal.

  At least, that was what Rex rationalized as he combed his hair, lamenting the thick streaks of gray at his temples. He felt old and washed-up, beyond his usefulness. If he hadn’t had good music to look forward to, he’d have gone back to bed to sleep until Masters called him in personally.

  He’d never been so lonely in his life.

  Frustrated and restless, Rex headed downstairs to eat alone in the hotel restaurant. He downed two gin and tonics in lieu of dessert, glanced at his cell phone to check the time, and then crossed the lobby to see if his driver had arrived. After a quick conversation, the valet summoned a dark sedan from the far end of the porte-cochère. Rex verified the stickers, memorized the license plate, and peeked through the window at the driver’s credentials before allowing the valet to get his door.

  Rex gave the driver the address, then lapsed into silence, resisting the brief attempts to engage him. He wondered if he should go back to bed; the idea of being in a crowd was almost too much to handle. Then the once-familiar melody of one of Ike Graves’s songs insinuated itself in his thoughts, and Rex relaxed. The music was what he needed. It was his only hope of escape from his limitations.

  He had the driver stop a block from the coffee house, tipped the man generously, and told him not to wait for Rex. It was just after eight when he stepped inside and surveyed the place. Rex found a seat that met his requirements of proximity to more than one exit and his back to the wall and settled in.

  Surprisingly, Ike sat at the next table. Slender young men wearing thick glasses surrounded him. Beside Ike sat another familiar face: the rhythm guitarist and other lead singer of Graves Diggers. Nate Cooper, then and now possessed of striking, long black hair and a lean physique, had never been half the singer Ike was.

  The band had balanced strangely between them. That Ike had given his name to the band said something about its origins, and yet Nate’s outrageous stage antics were likely what most people remembered.

  When last Rex heard, a small label had picked up the band, enabling them to tour Europe in support of a soon-to-be-released EP. Rex had never managed to be in the right country to catch a show, and a few months into the tour, Ike left the band with no explanation. A few months later, the band’s label dropped them.

  Rex had assumed Ike left due to an addiction in the grand rock star tradition. The intense lyrics about love and longing sometimes sounded sinister and angry, as if Ike wasn’t pleased to feel such things.

  If an addiction had been behind Ike’s departure, rehab had treated him very kindly.

  Ike flipped back the long part of his undercut blond hair and adjusted a tuning peg minutely. A bit of scruff blessed his chin and cheeks, and his features had settled and hardened. Rex hadn’t considered how young Ike must’ve been when he’d helmed the band, but his face was less round now, his shoulders broader. His biceps flexed as he finessed his guitar, nary an ounce of fat obscuring the view of tendons beneath skin burnished by lots of sunny days outside.

  Nate caught Rex staring and dropped his arm casually around Ike’s shoulders. “Did I mention how good it is to see you playing out?”

  Ike smirked and bumped his side against Nate’s. “Yeah, a couple thousand times just today.”

  The hipster in the red shirt asked, “Why’d you decide to come out now?”

  “I’ve always been out.” Ike peered around the room, apparently assessing his crowd.

  The guy blushed. “No, I mean, uh....”

  Ike gave the man a little more time to sputter out his question, then answered anyway. “I needed to be there for my daughter. Wanted to make sure she was feeling solid before I tried doing all of this—” Ike swirled his index finger to indicate the crowd and stage “–again.”

  “So how is dear Kaylee?” Nate said the girl’s name as if he found her anything but dear.

  Ike either ignored the tone or didn’t catch it. He set his guitar on the table and fished his wallet out of tight jeans before flipping it open and pulling out a picture. “She’s eleven, knows everything. Thank God someone does, because I was feeling pretty lost.”

  The guys looked at the picture with feigned interest. Ike’s brows rose in surprise when he realized Rex was watching curiously, but he leaned toward him and held out the picture to display a brightly grinning blond girl, pretty in the same patrician way Ike was handsome.

  Rex glanced from the picture to Ike with a genuine smile. “I hope you’ve invested in a solid-body, because the acoustic won’t hurt enough to fend off the boys in a few years.”

  He resisted the urge to ask whether Ike needed help fending off boys; it was too close to flirting, and that wasn’t something Rex did off the clock anymore.

  “Got a good old Louisville Slugger for when that time comes.” Ike pulled the picture back and smiled at it before he returned it to his wallet.

  The man in the red t-shirt blurted, “I thought you were gay!”

  Ike smirked. “Last I checked.”

  “But then, I mean, why... How?”

  Nate smacked the side of the man’s head. “It’s his sister’s, dumbass.”

  The guy rubbed his head. “Then why’s it his?”

  Ike looked around as others leaned in. “You guys don’t know this?”

  “No, man. You just vanished. No one knew why.”

  Ike furrowed his brows and flexed his jaw as he stared off into space. “Oh. Well, her man split once he’d knocked her up, so I was helping out while Kaylee was a baby. I took the day shift while she worked and shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Then I was off on tour playing Rock God and I guess it was too much on her all alone. They think she fell asleep on the road. Lost control of her car and died.”

  Standing, Ike grabbed his guitar. “Sister left Kaylee to me. Didn’t want our crazy fundie parents raising her. I didn’t want that either—especially since I let Sylvia down. So, there you go. And now, I should get up on stage.”

  Relief washed through Rex as Ike walked away. That vibrant, sardonic gaze exerted a pull on Rex that was as undeniable as it was uncomfortable. Though Rex’s flexible sexuality had often been a blessing in the field, right now he just wanted to relax and listen to good music. He preferred to fantasize from afar rather than confront the fact he was no longer in the same class as Ike.

  While Rex still knew how to work his charm on women socialized to swoon when flattered by a pleasant older man in an expensive suit, he hadn’t felt desirable to other men for years. As much as he’d have enjoyed interpreting Nate’s possessive behavior as response to a perceived threat, that was wishful thinking. It was far more likely Nate did it because he could, because Rex could not, and because no matter how thoroughly some men had won, they loved rubbing other men’s faces in their victory.

  Obsessive, analytical thoughts chased their tails along Rex’s neural pathways, creating crashes and traffic jams, piling atop each other in ways that made his mind go blank for seconds at a time as he stared at Ike’s final on-stage preparations.

  The handsome blond turned on an amp and plugged in the cl
assical guitar to account for the shop’s terrible acoustics, then adjusted his mic. “Hey. So, I’m Ike Graves, and this is my guitar.”

  With that, Ike brought up his guitar and started finger picking La Catedral Allegro Solemne, a beautiful old piece. The notes flowed flawlessly through dramatic crescendos that incited somewhat inappropriate hoots and hollers. Bent over his guitar, Ike seemed completely unaware of the audience around him until he reached the closing strums of the song.

  Rex listened with sober attention, fascinated by the ripple of Ike’s fingers along the strings. There was something obscene about the speed of his fingertips, their precision, that made Rex itch. The uneasy, persistent sensation tormented him, preventing the loveliness from filling his soul and relaxing him as he’d hoped.

  Ike looked into the audience with an enigmatic little smile and moved seamlessly into a laid-back, poppy sounding song with the chorus, “And when I came out to you, you just turned up Fox News.”

  That irreverence provided Rex a wry contentment. The abrupt about-face was as musically reckless as it was refreshing, and that Ike carried it off with such aplomb reassured Rex that he’d come to the right place. Despite that, hearing Ike sing with well-crafted irony about his love of the XY chromosome while enthroned upon a dais before a small cadre of worshipful young men made Rex uncharacteristically jealous.

  A couple of songs passed as Rex pondered the strange rush of feelings. It was natural to fall a little in love with a performer; that was part of how they became successful. Ike’s costume of a tight ribbed tank wasn’t unusual, and his faded blue jeans were practically a musician’s uniform. It wasn’t as if Ike were any less delightful now than he’d been the last time Rex watched him play, but so much had changed in the meantime. Rex had grown old. He’d sunk deep into his solitude and disconnected from desire.