Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good) (11 page)

Chantry knew she was only kidding him so he played along with her and wiggled his bushy eyebrows suggestively, which caused her to laugh.

He enjoyed the sound of her laughter for it was rare, but seriousness returned as he watched her. He asked, “Have you never wanted children Maria or a home with a loving husband in all your long years?”

Maria’s laughter faded away and she became her usual serious self again, but she didn’t make eye contact as she responded, “How do you know that I haven’t?”

“You are many mysteries combined into one big puzzle my dear, but one thing I can say is that you’ve never had children.”

“Oh and how’s that?” She inquired.

“Mothers have a certain intrinsic quality about them and you don’t have that yet. It’s a very defining aspect of someone, who has labored and suffered in order to bring a new life into the world. Besides that I’ve seen you quite a few times in those skimpy hooker outfits on missions to know that the only thing that you have that engenders a stretch mark is how you enflame men with the desire to have you.”

Maria felt a blush touch her cheeks at Chantry’s ribald statement. Chantry could be quite blunt with his choice of the vernacular, but she chose to humor it this time. She knew what he was about. All this talk on the physical, as well as his perusal of her was his attempt at laying the groundwork to get her settled down with a man before he passed away, inveterate matchmaker that he was.

Chantry, like most men, thought that the most stable form of existence for a woman was to be fully yoked with a ring on her finger, laid out flat taking it from her man several times a week, with a baby swelling her belly out every couple of years, until the kids were old enough to take to soccer practice. Her response to that was, ‘No thanks! Not interested!’, But men were ever if not annoyingly persistent.

Maria wished that men would just leave her alone. Chantry, bless his heart, just couldn’t help but fall into the proverbial pit of masculinity’s approach to what a woman wanted or needed from life.

Chantry was studying her again and mentally Maria prepared herself for the next round of this recurring debate with him.

“You’re not a lesbian are you?” Chantry asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Good heavens no! Why would you say such a thing?” Maria said deeply disturbed that he could think such a thing of her.

Chantry chuckled in response, “Because I saw your defenses all thrown up, as you enacted your proverbial strategy of playing keep away with me. I thought I’d shock you out of your defensive line with a statement I know couldn’t be further from the truth in regards to you.”

Maria regarded her boss closely; oh he was good at this game, even old as he was.

“Kind of defeats the purpose of information hunting to alert your target of your culpability isn’t it?” She asked guardedly.

Chantry shook his head, “We both know that you are far too intelligent to ever let anything slip that you don’t want to.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me old man.”

Chantry shrugged, “It was worth a shot.”

Chantry stared out at the sunny landscape reflectively. He supposed he shouldn’t badger his star pupil with personal questions, but truth of the matter was that he didn’t have anything better to do. His range of options for interrogation purposes were dwindling though. Time for abject in your face honesty.

“How old are you Maria?”

Maria glanced at him and he implored her with his eyes to divulge her secret. She glanced at him for a long moment and he thought she wouldn’t answer, but then she surprised him by responding, “One hundred and twenty seven years.”

Chantry kept his surprise that she was finally talking to him well shielded. He had a narrow window of opportunity and he wanted to utilize all of it wisely. “When did you stop aging?”

“Twenty six.”

“Your predicament would be the envy of the world, but I sense that you regard it as more of a curse and have become embittered by it. Why is that?”

“I’m not sure. I just wish everything could have been more normal. It’s not easy to be like this. Heck do you know what kind of hell it is just to have periods every month for that period of time?”

Chantry winced in compassion, as the truth of that predicament fully dawned on him. Maria had extremely painful monthly periods that completely knocked her off her feet for a day or two each month.

In addition to keeping Maria away from those missions she could come in contact with people of the Muslim faith, he’d worked hard to schedule her so that she was always home, when her periods struck. It had been a bit of a juggling act, but he had done it for her and he knew that she’d been profoundly grateful to him for that one fact alone over the years.

That admonition sparked another question of Chantry’s, “Your family?”

“All dead.” She said simply, but Chantry could sense the rawness that lay just beneath the tranquil surface of her unblemished face.

“Did Muslims kill them?”

Maria’s black eyes burned with a fire as she gritted out, “Yes!”

His window of opportunity was closing fast, “Just one last question please. When I’m gone what are you going to do Maria?”

The intenseness of Maria’s face slacked up a little, as she asked in puzzlement, “I thought you were going to leave me the Agency to run?”

Chantry didn’t answer the question, but instead asked, “Why do you want the Agency so bad Maria?”

“It’s a job. A good job. It helps to fill the years by doing something truly useful.”

Chantry nodded and was silent.

In a small voice unlike her usual confident self Maria asked, “You’re not going to give me the Agency anymore are you?”

Tears seeped out of Chantry’s eyes, as he confirmed her question with a nod of his head.

Maria sank down to her knees beside him and Chantry saw another first in his relationship with Maria. She was crying and the sight of that so rarely expressed emotion from her caused him to sob slightly. He loved her so much and to know that he was causing her pain was heartbreaking.

“Shhh! Please don’t! You shouldn’t get so worked up!” Maria was exclaiming, as she tried to wipe her tears away quickly in order to calm Chantry down.

Chantry made an effort to calm down, but he felt twisted up inside with emotion yet. He tried to put into words what needed to be said, “I’m sorry that I can’t give you what you want, but it’s not within my power or will to go against my mentor’s wishes.”

“Mentor? Are you referring to this Elon Gideon you met with?”

“Yes I am.” Chantry affirmed.

Maria stood back up and faced away from Chantry, as she defensively asked, “He doesn’t want me to have the Agency?”

“No, he does not.” Chantry thought about it a moment, but then added, “I feel the same way as he does.”

Maria wheeled around with fire once again in her eyes as she asked, “Why? What have I done wrong? In what way have I shown inability to do your job? Is it because of what I just told you about myself? Is it because I’m a woman? Why?” She was almost begging at the last.

Chantry quickly said, “It’s none of those things Maria! You are more than able to do the job.”

Maria looked like she wanted to scream, but asked in an emotional tone, “Why does God torment me so? Why?”

It wasn’t really a question that Chantry could answer, as he didn’t know the back story, a fact of which he was keenly aware of.

Maria stormed off then in a royal temper, her tears now replaced with anger. Chantry hoped that she cooled down enough in time to come back for him, as he lacked the strength to turn the wheels of the wheelchair anymore.

Chantry’s wheelchair started to move. Startled he’d looked back to see Elon pushing the chair along the path.

“I should’ve known you wouldn’t miss a juicy conversation like that!”

Elon chuckled in response, but said nothing.

“Well since I’m sure you heard all of that have you had all your questions about her answered?” Chantry asked.

“Not really. It’s helpful to know how old she is, but the answer is still no Chantry.”

“Hey you don’t have to convince me. I already am. I’m sure you remember that I know something that you don’t.” Chantry glanced up quickly to see Elon’s jaw clench. He laughed delighted with himself for evoking such an emotion in his mentor and Elon shook his head grudgingly smiling.

Elon parked Chantry’s wheelchair in the shade and went to lean against a nearby tree. This was very unusual of Elon to stick around like this; in fact Chantry hadn’t been expecting to see him again.

Chantry studied his mentor closely, but got nowhere in terms of solving the riddle of Elon’s stoic face. It dawned on him then that Elon was playing with him, “You despicable fiend!” Chantry exclaimed.

Elon chuckled, as his face lost its stoic resolve.

Chantry went on, “This is all because I won’t divulge my secret! Go on run along with yourself! Go before you get spotted by security or worse yet Maria! She’s not too keen on you right now.”

Elon didn’t budge from the tree. After a moment he said, “Your man Utah is faring well with your little Agency problem.”

Chantry breathed out a sigh of relief, “You’ve been helping him?”

“In a roundabout way I suppose you could say.” Elon answered cryptically.

Chantry nodded figuring that was as much information as he was bound to get, but it was a relief to hear at least that much. Chantry glanced past Elon’s shoulder and saw Maria approaching. “Oops you better scram! Here she comes and it looks like her temper is still riding high!”

Again Elon didn’t budge from leaning on the tree, but he did shift to better watch Maria’s stalking approach toward them. My this was strange behavior coming from Elon, thought Chantry to himself.

Maria stalked toward them her eyes on Elon alone, as wary as any cats would be, when approaching an unknown danger. Maria drew to a halt.

Chantry was between the two staring combatants. Inwardly Chantry was delighted at his front row seat to a battle of two strong wills in open conflict. He cleared his throat and broke the silence by saying, “Well I do believe introductions are in order. Maria this is Elon Gideon, Elon this is Maria.”

Silence ensued in the aftermath of the introduction, as Chantry’s eyes flickered from one to the other. There was a war going on here that ran beneath the surface of what was seen. Maria’s face revealed a hot aggression that was growing stormier by the moment whereas Elon’s face was the picture of cool reserve. Elon was getting the best of Maria and it showed.

Chantry sympathized for Maria, as he well knew how incredibly implacable Elon could be and he sought out a way to pull Maria out of the plunge of where her mounting anger would take her, but again surprisingly Elon beat him to it.

“Sit down Maria.” Elon said with stated finality.

The fire in Maria’s eyes turned white-hot to the point that she was trembling with the force of her emotion and then Chantry saw her swallow. She glanced down to the ground in a submissive gesture that was unlike her.

Elon came away from the tree he leaned against and pulled out a chair and waited for her to sit expectantly. Maria moved to the chair and slowly sat down.

Dominance had been asserted and Chantry knew enough of Maria’s facial expressions to see through the mask that she now wore that she had no idea how she’d just been outgunned. Elon in return didn’t act out jubilantly in victory like some might have who were less wise than him. Elon did continue to stand however reinforcing his dominance over the sitting Maria.

Maria began to bite her lip and Chantry reached over and claimed one of her hands trying to help her regain her equilibrium. She glanced at him without seeming to see him and then back at the table.

Chantry looked from her up to Elon and asked for mercy with a thought, as he didn’t like to see Maria so defeated looking. Maria abruptly jerked and glanced up at Elon surprised and raised a hand to touch her head.

Elon sat down and glanced over the table at Maria, “Given your age I should think you would have learned to control your temper by now.”

“It’s a weakness.” She admitted softly, which was again unlike her usual self.

“It’s a hard thing to bring under mastery given any length of time that one has to work on it.” Elon admitted, in as much of a confession of private struggle, as Chantry had ever heard him say before.

There was silence for a moment, which Elon broke wide open, “Maria are you aware that Chantry is being poisoned?”

Maria glanced from Elon to Chantry and then back to Elon and nodded slightly.

“What have you done about it and how long have you known?” Elon asked.

“About a year now I’ve thought that something wasn’t right. I had two full tox screens done on Chantry’s blood. One through the Agency and one through a private lab. They both came back the same. There were elevated toxic levels of heavy metal concentrates, but they weren’t extremely high, as to be necessarily harmful. While higher than usual it wasn’t something that a healthy person would be easily affected by, but in Chantry’s weakened condition it was slowly deteriorating cell structure in his heart, liver, kidneys. I analyzed everything that Chantry came into contact with. I switched our food source suppliers. I screened all the staff and I even replaced our head chef. I had Chantry’s wardrobe tested and replaced. Everything that Chantry touches I’ve had cleaned and cleaned again. I’ve had him under surveillance to see if anyone was slipping him something, but I found nothing of note. The series of abnormal toxins that I detected appeared to be synthetic-based rather than naturally heavy-metal resoluted. I’ve done everything I know to do and yet the poisoning has continued!” Maria paused for a moment and then looking at Elon intently she asked, “Have you found out how it’s being done?”

Elon’s gaze never wavered from hers as he said, “You’ve been doing it Maria.”

Maria’s face blanched in horror, as she looked from Elon to Chantry.

Chantry turned all of his attention on Elon, “Now come on Elon that’s the most unfounded accusation I’ve ever heard you make!”