Blades of Winter (10 page)

For the rest of the week my schedule was totally different from hers. This prevented us from having time for any more serious talks, but that might have been for the best. We both felt bad about hurting the other’s feelings, and there wasn’t anything else to say, anyway. I kept her note and slipped it in with the rest of my stuff when I packed my bag this morning. I also packed two flasks of 100-proof cherry schnapps.

Covert agents like us travel with an assortment of
guns, ammo, knives, bombs, and other gear. This doesn’t cause a problem at domestic airports, where we flash our ExOps ID cards and blow past the security desk. From then on we use our traveling aliases, which are always civilian identities. If we posed as spies from a competitor’s agency, we’d be much too memorable. On our return flights we evade security with a variety of acrobatic dodges. My favorite is the ol’ ventilator shaft routine.

Our disregard for airport security also enables us to carry on our own booze. I prefer things like flavored schnapps or brandy. I get Coca-Cola from the air waitresses to use as a mixer and let the good times roll.

Sooner or later the Barbies figure out that I’ve been drinking in their airplane and get on my case. I’ve learned to break down these busybodies in five stages. Denial: “This girl can’t be drunk, she’s only had sodas.” Anger: “What did she just call me?” Bargaining: “Maybe I can distract her with food.” Depression: “I hate my job.” And, finally, acceptance: “Oh my God, this girl is a nightmare. Just let her do what she wants.”

Trick moves my cribbage pegs for me since my left hand is holding my cards and my right hand is still kind of uncoordinated. It’s not my shooting hand, thank goodness, but the lack of fine motor control limits my conversational options. We use a lot of sign language on our missions, and except for simple phrases I need both hands. Patrick invented a system that combines American Sign Language with the tactical hand signals we use in the field. Over time we’ve embellished his system with so many shortcuts and in-jokes that it’s become its own dialect. We showed it to one of the language experts at headquarters, and she couldn’t tell what the hell we were signing to each other. We’ve been taught that it’s safe to have quiet conversations on airplanes since there’s so much ambient sound, but sometimes we switch to our Patrick Sign Language anyway, just in case.

While Trick and I drink and play cards, we review what the Information Department has learned about the clowns who kidnapped my mom. Even though we didn’t harvest any live intel from our recovery mission in Quantico, Info has unearthed some clues by sifting through the bodies and rubble. It doesn’t seem to be any of the usual suspects, meaning the German, Chinese, and Russian covert agencies. Although Info accepts Cleo’s assessment that her abductors were Russkies, they don’t think the kidnappers were acting on behalf of Mother Russia.

But Info is certain about one thing: I was the intended target. Although Cleo’s inside knowledge of ExOps would be of moderate value to the competition, it’s nothing compared with what they’d gain from snatching me. Also, people like Mom are considered civilians and they’re generally left alone, especially since the embargo. Our diplomats work hard enough to maintain the peace. They can’t have us running around putting the glom on our rivals’ unarmed employees. Besides, most of these regular staffers are affiliated with prominent businessmen and government officials who become
mucho furioso
when international incidents happen to their friends and relatives.

While Trick shuffles the deck he whispers, “And if those kidnappers were our usual competitors, rescuing your mother wouldn’t have been so easy.”

“Easy?” I blurt. Trick’s eyes look from side to side. I’m blurting too loudly. I switch to one-handed sign language and sign, “What do you mean easy? Five of our guys were wounded.”

He mumbles, “That’s because you were going so fast—”

I let out a low growl.

Trick continues, “—but we didn’t pick up a single outside communication to the kidnappers at any point during that op. Which might’ve been because you were going so fast.” He winks at me as he deals the cards.

I smile over my drink and ask, “So you think their handlers abandoned them?”

“Definitely. That operation was a clusterfuck right from the start. I mean, you and your mother
do
look alike, but c’mon. You don’t snatch a Level without a major fight. Then to get cornered that way down in Quantico? Normally a snatch team gets their target out of the area as fast as possible.”

I pick up my cards and begin to arrange them by suit. “How about the bomb?”

Patrick shakes his head and comms from behind his cards. “I don’t know what to think about that. Your father’s reappearance makes so many things possible. My boss suspects that the kidnappers’ main objective was to acquire intel about your father, first by searching your house and then by abducting you. Maybe they thought your dad stashed something down in his shop, and if they couldn’t find it, they were told to destroy it.” He lays down a two. “Or maybe they thought he left information with you.”

“That can’t be it. I don’t know squat.” I put a four on Trick’s two to make six.

“They didn’t know that, Alix.” Patrick drops a nine and makes fifteen for two points. He moves his peg up two holes and comms, “Besides, you may have picked up more than you think. You’ve told me that you used to have long conversations with your father after he got home from his jobs.”

“ ‘Conversations’ isn’t quite right. It was more like Dad flushed his stories onto the floor and I’d sit there and listen.” I lay down a ten for twenty-five.

“Well, there you go.” Patrick discards a six to make thirty-one and moves his peg up another two holes.

I grumble at him, but he doesn’t notice. I comm, “Yeah, but he never told me where, or who, or any of that stuff.”

“He did tell you
what
, though, didn’t he?”

“You mean like how many people he stuffed in a van
before he drove it into a river? That could have happened anywhere!”

“Alix, the fact is it happened
somewhere
. From what you just told me, I’d be able to find out exactly which operation that was.”

Meanwhile, I’m not concentrating on our cribbage game and Patrick is clobbering me. He makes points off every card I put down, and then he cleans up with a run of three and two fifteens, all in the same suit. His peg races up the cribbage board and leaves mine in the dust. I grumble louder, but he still doesn’t notice. I better see some boneheaded moves from him right quick or he sleeps on the floor tonight.

Maybe Dad did tell me more than he should have, but his adventures were so awesome that I never said no. Children, however, aren’t exactly great at informational security. I couldn’t resist bringing my father’s anecdotes to school. None of my classmates could match my stories.

Their dad: “I went to the office today and leaned on the watercooler.”

My dad: “I kicked a guy’s ass so hard that the next time he took a dump, it came out shaped like my shoe.” When my father told me that one, I laughed so much that I got hiccups. Dad held me upside down by my ankles and had me drink a big glass of water to make them go away.

While I think about my father, Trick starts a new hand and lays down a completely exposed five. He makes this lousy play with no change of expression. I slap down a jack to make fifteen and earn two quick points for myself. He follows with a six—the worst possible card he could drop. I pounce with a king for thirty-one and two more points. He groans like he didn’t see it, how could he have been so stupid, and so on. God, I love this person. He’s wonderful.

I ask, “Who’s our Greeter in Paris?”

“The House himself, Jacques. He’ll pick us up at the airport.”

“Does he know that the Fuerza Libertad mission is a cover job?”

Trick sips his drink. “Not yet. We’ll tell him about our primary mission after we get to his safe house.” He puts his glass back on the tray. “I’ll be interested to see if Jacques’s memories of Big Bertha match what I’ve read in his dispatches.”

I look up from my cards. “You’ve read my father’s dispatches?”

“Sure.” He mixes me another schnapps and Coke, which finishes off the first flask. “All of us Info Operators have to read everything related to our current work. Everything I have clearance for. I’ve read everybody’s dispatches.”

“Did you find anything about the ExOps inquiry into what happened to my dad?”

Patrick looks at me over his cards and answers, “The Germans’ announcement about him came so quickly that the inquiry was called off. The CORE entry states that your father was captured by the Russians in Damascus. Then he was traded to the Germans for some captured Russian assets.”

The lagoon of schnapps in my head helps me think about all this like it was someone else’s father, but my stomach still clenches. I distract myself by asking Patrick, “Did you notice anything unusual about my dad’s reports from his last job?”

“I did.” Patrick continues to play incredibly badly, and my peg catches up to his. “In fact, I’m not entirely sure he wrote them.” Patrick explains that my father’s dispatches all sound like they were from the same efficient and detail-oriented agent, job after job, until the last one. His mission to survey Russian covert activity in the Middle East proceeded in a strangely halfhearted way. This was totally out of character for the hard-charging Big Bertha. The reports were missing specifics about who he was checking out and where he was. They were also all filed at the same time every day.

“I take it my dad wasn’t usually so punctual?” I ask.

“Far from it.” Patrick puts his cards down for a moment. “His previous Job Numbers are notable for the inconsistent timing of his reports. Morning, evening, nothing for three days, then two in an hour. It was all over the place.”

“How about us?”

“What about us?”

“How punctual are we with our reports?”

Patrick holds his cards back up. “
My
reports go out every evening before we rack out.”

I’m too busy moving my peg into the lead to snap out a comeback. Trick deals another hand. I ask, “Did my dad find out what the Russians were doing in the Middle East?”

“No, not really. It was strange. He sort of … wandered around for a while, until he disappeared.”

That
does
sound strange. Dad never wandered anywhere. He either did something with great purpose or he didn’t do it at all.

We finish our card game. I win, of course. While Trick shuffles the cards I grab the second flask and pour us another round.

Ah, Paris. The City of Darkness. My father pulled a bunch of jobs here. He used to tell me stories about how bright and beautiful this city is, but as far as I can tell, it’s just another dark hole in western Greater Germany. I’ve been here twice. Both times it was a midnight landing at the airport, followed by a tinted-window car ride to some ancient, reeking cellar full of poorly lit spy stuff.

The brightest light I’ve seen in Paris so far has been the House, whose name is Jacques. He runs the ExOps safe house in Paris, which is one of the busiest in Europe.

The House is parked in front of the terminal, waiting for us. He’s in a beat-up old Citroën with “Stairway to Heaven” blaring at top volume. We woozily hump our bags up to Jacques’s car and lean into his line of sight. Even in this dim light I can see his long chin, his big schnoz, and his omnipresent tan. His dark brown eyes sparkle as he spots us.

“My friends!” Jacques shouts. “It is good to see you again!”

We both say, “Hi, Jacques.” He gets out of the car and takes our bags from us. They’re too heavy for him to lift, so he drags them around to the rear of his Citroën. He heaves our bags into the trunk while we pile into the backseat.

Jacques hops in front, turns the radio up even louder, and stomps his foot on the gas pedal. The sudden acceleration sloshes my pickled brain around in my head and makes me dizzy. I can’t wait to lie down and sleep off all those schnapps and Cokes. I hold on to Trick’s
forearm as we tear out of the parking lot like we’re being chased by Hitler’s ghost.

I ask our host if we’re being followed, and he says, “
Mais oui!
I am always followed. With a handsome face like zis, how can it not be so?” He laughs as he swerves onto a highway entrance ramp.

Trick and I look at each other. It’s not the first time we’ve wondered if Jacques is actually a Martian.

Jacques pulls onto the highway and zooms toward metro Paris, but his attention is mostly on the rearview mirror. “Hmm,” he says, “perhaps tonight my face is especially handsome.”

Trick and I spin around in our seats and look back. A white Peugeot noodles along behind us. When Jacques speeds up, they speed up. When he slows down, they slow down.

I pull Li’l Bertha out of her holster. “Jacques, open the sunroof.” He flips a switch, and the sunroof slides back. I gingerly climb up to the front seat while my partner stays in the rear and comms with his IC back home. I crouch on the front seat, under the open sunroof. Jacques suddenly floors it and passes a truck. The Peugeot follows suit. It’s definitely somebody. We don’t want to attract attention, but we can’t have anyone following us, either.

“Solomon, any intel on this fucker?” I ask. When we work with other people, I have to use Trick’s field name.

He says, “Nothing friendly. He’s either a competitor or a joyrider.”

“Either way.” I stand up through the sunroof, turn off Li’l Bertha’s safeties, and point her in the general direction of the car following us. She hones in on the Peugeot’s grill and pops three .50-caliber rounds into the engine. Her shots are incredibly loud, but I hope it sounds like a car backfiring. Flashes of yellow light erupt from under the hood as the slugs drill half-inch holes through the engine block. The Peugeot stalls out and shudders to the breakdown lane. Jacques keeps up the speed, and soon we’re all by ourselves again.