How Spy I Am

by Diane Henders

  But I had to see him face to face. Had to look into his eyes and know once and for all whether our marriage had been a lie. Had to know whether he was trying to save me or blow me to hell in a thousand juicy shreds. And if he was trying to kill Kane…

  Unable to sit still any longer, I lurched to my feet and stumbled down the hallway.

  Into the living room, around the coffee table, back down the hallway.

  Into the office and back out again. Down the hallway.

  Staring into the hall mirror, I spoke to my fearful-looking reflection. “And what the hell are you going to do if he refuses to tell you anything? Or if he lies and you know he’s lying?”

  My reflection didn’t answer, but I didn’t like the look in its eyes.

  In the garage, I loaded up the truck. Polyethylene tarp. Duct tape. Cable ties. Wrestling the wheelbarrow in, I cracked my head on the fibreglass box topper and swore. My voice shook almost as much as my hands, and I sank down to sit on the tailgate while I took a few slow, deep breaths.

  Ocean waves. Stay calm. This was going to work.

  It had to work.

  I arrived at the park early to unload the wheelbarrow and tarp. The crunching of the gravel sent tingles of dread down my back while I wheeled along the path in the darkness. Nothing moved in the deserted park, and the silence felt heavy with menace.

  In the bushes near the playground, I bunched up the tarp and left it in the wheelbarrow. Nothing to arouse suspicion. Just the groundskeeper’s equipment.

  Now I needed Robert to get here and believe I hadn’t arrived yet. I hurried back to the truck and parked a couple of streets away, wishing I could leave it closer. After quivering in the driver’s seat for a few moments, I hissed pent-up nervousness through my teeth and slid out to hike for the park.

  Crouched in the bushes beside the playground, I had a moment of panic when I realized it was too dark to see the open sights of the trank gun. I frantically considered and discarded the idea of firing blindly. The gun was quiet, but it wasn’t silent.

  I gulped at the realization that an agent like Robert would shoot first and ask questions later if he thought somebody was shooting at him. I’d only get one chance. I’d have to walk right up to him.

  God, there were so many ways this could go wrong.

  I summoned up every remnant of courage I owned. I could do this. He was expecting me, after all. He wouldn’t shoot me on sight. Theoretically.

  I could barely make out the shapes of the playground equipment, and I strained my eyes and ears, heart thumping.

  Come on, Robert.

  Adrenaline blazed into my bloodstream when an indistinct shape detached itself from the trees and moved quietly toward the playground.

  Could it be him?

  Impossible to tell in the darkness. The height and build looked about right, but there was no way to know for sure.

  Hell, who else could it be? Innocent people don’t sneak around in deserted parks in the middle of the night without a flashlight.

  The figure stopped beside the climbing frame and stood still.

  Showtime.

  I stood from my concealment and forced my trembling legs to walk toward the dark figure. When I was a couple of yards away, he spoke, his voice barely audible.

  “It’s Robert at last.”

  “Hi,” I said, and shot him.

  Chapter 43

  Relief and panic fought for equal space in my brain when he crumpled to the ground. I stood paralyzed for a few seconds before floundering into action. Cable ties to bind his wrists and ankles. Duct tape over his mouth. I winced at the feel of stubble under my hand. That was really going to hurt when I pulled the tape off.

  Never mind. Move.

  I scrambled up, nearly tripping over my own feet as I stumbled for the wheelbarrow.

  Wrestling his limp body into the tarp, the laxness of his muscles recalled all the frantic horror of the night I thought he’d died, and I swallowed nausea. When I got him wrapped up at last, I hunched over, elbows on knees, drawing in deep breaths through my mouth.

  Suck it up, for chrissake. Get on with it.

  Moments later, I discovered another major flaw in my plan. An empty wheelbarrow is high and unstable. An unconscious man is a heavy sack of sticks and Jello. I muffled curses, straining to lift him in.

  After the second time the wheelbarrow tipped over with a resounding thud, I gave up, heart hammering.

  Hell, he was going to be black and blue by now anyway. Time for Plan B. Leaving the wheelbarrow in the bushes, I began to drag his tarp-wrapped body down the path.

  The noise was appalling. The crackling of polyethylene and scraping of gravel seemed to fill the entire park, and my grunts of effort and panted obscenities didn’t help. By the time I got him down the short path and into some low bushes at the edge of the park, I was drenched in sweat and shaking like an addict coming off a week-long bender.

  I crouched beside the tarp, gasping for breath and cursing my own stupidity. Nice work, Jane Bond. Way to think things through.

  I heaved to my feet and was about to head for the truck when it occurred to me that the tranks were only good for a short time. When Richardson had shot me, I was conscious again in about twenty minutes.

  I couldn’t take the chance.

  “Sorry,” I muttered pointlessly, and shot him again just for good measure.

  Getting him into the truck wasn’t much easier than getting him into the wheelbarrow. I backed the truck over the curb and up to the bushes, praying the deserted street would stay deserted.

  After a sweat-popping, curse-laden struggle, I managed to flop his upper body onto the tailgate, undoubtedly awarding him some new bruises in the process. Then a final strain to lift his flaccid legs and bundle him into the truck box, and I leaned against the truck for a moment, panting and shaking.

  No time. Move.

  I closed the tailgate and the back of the topper, staggered around to the cab on rubbery legs, and got the hell out of there.

  My panting gradually slowed while I drove through the open country north of my farm, but my heart refused to ease its pounding. The sweat turned clammy on my body, and I cranked the heater up. I hoped Robert had a warm jacket on. It was pretty damn nippy outside.

  I shook my head vigorously. No room for sympathy. I had to be ruthless. Do what had to be done.

  Be a spy.

  Something that sounded suspiciously like a whimper escaped me.

  At the abandoned farmstead I’d scoped out earlier, I idled the truck in behind the ruins of the house and cut the lights and engine. My pulse pounded in my ears, and my shaking hands didn’t seem to want to close around the flashlight on the seat beside me.

  I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and forced myself to take slow, deep breaths.

  If I didn’t do this, Kane could die. Sam could die. Our national security could be compromised. All of those things were more important than my squeamishness.

  Time to harden my heart. Robert had lied to me. Betrayed national security. Possibly tried to blow up Kane, me, or both of us, killing an innocent man in the process.

  I swung out of the driver’s seat and marched around to the back of the truck.

  When I climbed into the box, the tarp-wrapped legs pistoned out, narrowly missing my ankle and making me smash my head painfully against the inside of the topper when I dodged.

  Ruthless. Be ruthless.

  I dealt him a not-too-vicious kick. “Cut it out, or I’ll soften you up a bit first. I just want to talk.”

  Duct-tape-muffled mumbling emanated from the tarp, but I ignored it.

  Kane had once said effective torture was mostly psychological.

  I dragged my toolbox over, deliberately letting it rattle over the uneven bed of the truck box.

  I laid out my stage, letting the tools clank ominously against the steel floor. Pliers. Bolt cutters. A hacksaw. My trembling hands amplified the clatter.

  Finally, I knelt for a few
minutes in silence. Let him wonder. And please, God, let me be able to breathe. I sucked a shallow breath into my constricted lungs, trying to be quiet about it. Then another, my rigid muscles responding reluctantly.

  Come on, stop shaking. Don’t let him see how scared you are.

  I took as deep a breath as I could manage and flipped the tarp away from his face.

  I froze, completely unprepared for the rage in the duct-taped face. Hell, completely unprepared for the face.

  I toppled back onto my butt and sat staring at him.

  At last, my voice emerged as a faint croak. “What the fuck?”

  Chapter 44

  Kasper mumbled furiously, his face reddening behind the tape.

  How the hell…? I hadn’t even smelled him. In fact…

  My mind reeled as I inhaled cautiously. I still couldn’t smell him. No, wait, I could. A hint of spicy cologne. And his hair and clothes were clean.

  After another moment of stupefaction, I leaned over and ripped the tape off.

  “OW! You idiot! You stupid, incompetent, blundering… moron! What the hell were you thinking, you… you…”

  My hand flashed out in adrenaline-driven reaction before I even thought. The force of the slap rocked his head back, and my voice was a harsh growl. “Shut up!”

  Contrition squeezed my gut an instant later, but I hid it as best I could. “What the hell were you doing in the park?”

  Kasper’s tongue flicked against the small bleeding gash that had opened in his lip. “Waiting for Robert, stupid, what do you think?”

  “He contacted you?”

  “Yes, of course. Untie me.”

  “I… uh…”

  I slowly gathered my wits. Okay, maybe this wasn’t a total loss. In fact, this might even be better than capturing Robert. Kasper didn’t know me nearly as well as Robert did.

  “Um. Not right away. Let’s talk.”

  “We can talk when I’m untied,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Let me go.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” I tried not to let his outraged expression faze me. “I want to make sure I get all the answers I need this time.”

  “I’m not telling you anything more.” He shot a contemptuous glance at my shaking hands. “Untie me. Try not to be even more pathetically stupid than you already are.”

  Hot anger restored my strength and I jerked forward, my fingers clenching around his face to grind into his cheeks. “You’re going to tell me everything,” I snarled. “Or you’re going to be very, very sorry.”

  Kasper jerked back out of my grip, his sneer wavering into uncertainty. “You won’t do anything to me.”

  “You don’t want to bet on that.” I brandished the pliers close to his face. “You have no idea how desperate I am.”

  His usual disdainful expression reappeared. “You can skip the melodrama. We’re on the same side here. What do you want to know?”

  I wished I could remember his exact words in Blue Eddy’s. Had he mentioned the Knights or not? I decided to take a chance.

  “Who are the Knights of Sirius?”

  He eyed me in silence, the flashlight casting long shadows around us. The wind rattled the latch of the box topper and I suppressed a nervous twitch.

  “Remember, we’re on the same side here,” I prompted.

  “You said Robert briefed you. You should already know,” he said finally.

  “I want your version.”

  “He didn’t tell you, did he?” Kasper’s face settled into stubbornness. “If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

  “I don’t give a shit what he wants! Talk!”

  Kasper pressed his lips into a thin line, and the last of my frayed patience unravelled.

  Two innocent people dead. Betty lying still and silent in the hospital. Kane injured and nearly killed. Some homicidal nutcase still trying to blow me up. And Kasper wasn’t going to tell me what he knew. The rage swelled into a white-hot mushroom cloud.

  I lunged, slamming him onto his back to crush a knee into his chest, yanking his head back by his hair. Pliers poised a half-inch from his mouth, I gave his hair a jerk for emphasis. “Now. Everything. Or I start playing dentist.” My voice boiled from my throat, and he went rigid under me.

  I glared into his eyes. “And when I’m finished playing dentist, I’m going to start playing mechanic. And then surgeon.”

  “You’re bluffing.” His hoarse whisper didn’t sound convinced. “You won’t torture me.”

  He flinched when I rocked forward to grind my knee harder into his chest, and I spoke very softly. “Trust me, I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

  His eyes darted sideways. “If I tell you, I’m as good as dead.”

  “If you don’t tell me, you’ll be praying you were dead.”

  Oh God, I can’t do this.

  I hid my wave of nausea in a snarl. “Fuck this. I’m done playing nice.” I yanked his head back and leaned in, clenching my shaking fist on the pliers.

  “All right!” His yelp nearly made me melt with relief.

  I got off him and propped myself against the side of the truck box before he could feel my trembling. “Give.”

  “They don’t know I know about them.”

  “And if you cooperate, they won’t hear it from me.”

  His gaze searched my face for a moment. “There were originally eight Knights and eight mages. Two pairs are dead.” He paused, then shrugged. “Cartwright makes three Knights dead.”

  “Who are the rest?”

  “Terry Sherman with Plum Blossom in China. Don Rousseau with Lilac in France. Martin-”

  “Hang on.” I fumbled in my waist pouch for a pen and paper. My writing was barely legible, and I tried to still my trembling hand enough to scribble the names. “Okay.”

  “Martin Brewster with Rose in the U.K. Frank Plissol with Cherry Blossom in Japan.” Kasper fixed me with an ironic eye. “Sam Kraus with Tiger Lily in Canada.”

  Sudden comprehension flooded me, and I held my voice steady. “And what flower was Irina?”

  His voice was a whisper. “Irina was my Sunflower.”

  “You were her Knight?”

  Kasper’s face twisted. “No! Never! Those filthy traitors! Ivan Rimmel was her Knight. That bastard. I shot him like the dog he was.”

  Gulp.

  I kept my tone noncommittal. “Why?”

  He glared at me, but his eyes were looking into the past. “He was driving her. Always driving her. She was fading away. My beautiful Sunflower. Then the first symptoms started. At first I thought it was just stress. She was under so much pressure. She started doing more and more odd things to escape surveillance. She swore she was being constantly watched.”

  He returned his attention to me with a bitter smile. “She was, of course. It was Russia. We all were. So I didn’t understand until she started telling me about the voices in her head. The strange power that forced her to do things against her will. Shortly afterward, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He drove her to it. Always demanding. Always pushing. He drove her to madness and she took her own life.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach. “But it wasn’t schizophrenia, it was the Knights. The Knights are the ghosts. They take control in the network.”

  “I discovered that later. From Rimmel.” His voice was a venomous hiss.

  “But why? What are they trying to do?”

  “They’re traitors,” he spat. “They get government funding for the brainwave driven virtual network, and all the while they’re selling out that same government for the noble cause of world peace. Sharing information, they call it. So what if they managed to settle the Cuban Missile Crisis peacefully? So what if they brought about Glasnost? Those things would have happened eventually anyway. And they destroyed lives in the process. Two mages dead. One as good as dead. Four more teetering on the edge of insanity. You…”

  He appraised me, frowning. “You’re different. Maybe it’s because you weren’t under mind control i
nitially.”

  “That would make sense. If I’d never gone in on my own, I wouldn’t have known there was anything weird happening when they tried to control me.” I pondered for a few moments. “But how did they get into China and Russia and those places to start with? Those countries weren’t exactly welcoming tourists back then.”

  His lips twisted cynically. “Offer up a bit of cutting-edge technology and just see how quickly you get welcomed. And while the official purpose for virtual reality sims is research and development, they also facilitate, let’s just say… intensive interrogation without leaving behind any physical evidence to embarrass a government or law-enforcement agency. I’m sure you recall how effective it is.”

  I recalled. My throat tightened and it took every ounce of my will to prevent my arms from wrapping protectively around my body.

  I changed the subject. “How does the mind control work? And why are the Knights doing it?”

  “None of the other governments know about the unique network keys.” Kasper gave me a baleful look. “And the Canadian government wouldn’t have, either, if you’d kept your mouth shut.”

  I glowered back at him, and he continued grudgingly. “As far as the governments know, the mages are only acting as super-users to power the sims. Meanwhile, the Knights collect and decrypt information by controlling the mages with the secret keys. The mages don’t even know what’s happening, though Irina began to recognize it toward the end.” He swallowed.

  “When… How did you find all this out?”

  “I was Irina’s handler.” His face softened. “But we became more than just co-workers. We were married for sixteen years. She was the love of my life.” Hatred distorted his features. “Until they killed her.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  His lips drew back in a snarl. “Not nearly as sorry as Rimmel by the time I finished with him. I didn’t kill him until I’d extracted every scrap of information. And acquired Irina’s network key.”