So now she’s Mother Teresa.
“When do I get my lollipop?”
A hint of a smile lifts her lips. Her voice low, she says, “I thought you’d do well. The guys had their money on Gray getting you to crack in under two minutes, but you struck me as someone who digs in her heels.”
“Really? How could you tell?”
“I saw them bring you aboard. What a shit show. You managed to make eight trained Marines look like circus clowns.”
I say drily, “Apparently, I do my best fighting when I’m under the influence of mind-altering drugs. I don’t remember a thing about getting here. Which isn’t exactly reassuring considering I had a brain bleed recently.”
“I don’t know about your brain, but there’s nothing wrong with your fine motor skills, that’s for sure.”
She sounds like she’s proud of me.
I’m curious about her until she says, “Let’s get you some food,” and she’s instantly dead to me. All I can think about is stuffing my face.
She makes me a plate, sets it on the coffee table by the sofa, then exits the room. I wobble over to the food and fall on it like a farm animal at the trough.
When I’m finished, I collapse back onto the sofa and close my eyes. I lie there listening to my disgruntled stomach grumble and groan as it tries to digest the first food it’s had in days, and wonder what’s happening. Wonder why I’ve been let out of the cage.
Wonder what they’re really going to do with me.
Because I know it won’t be as simple as letting me walk away scot-free. Everything involving the government comes with a catch and miles of red tape.
“Declan O’Donnell is one of our finest espionage agents.”
I open my eyes to see a middle-aged man with shoe-polish-black hair in a navy blue pin stripe suit sitting across from me in one of the chairs. I didn’t hear him come in. Did I fall asleep? Or did he simply appear from thin air, like Dracula?
And what the hell did he just say about Declan?
Confused, I repeat, “Espionage?”
“It’s another word for spy.”
“No shit. I don’t like you already.”
“I was trying to be concise, not condescending.”
“You failed.”
He purses his lips and frowns at me. “Perhaps you’d like to sit up so we can talk more comfortably.”
Talk. Here comes that catch. “I’m perfectly comfortable where I am, thank you.”
He crosses his legs, plucking at a piece of nonexistent lint on his suit jacket.
I’m annoying him. Good.
As if I hadn’t interrupted him at all, he continues from the beginning.
“Declan has been an invaluable asset to us for more than twenty years. One of our longest serving. I know him as a man of impeccable integrity, unfailing loyalty, and,” he chuckles, “though his methods are sometimes crude, exceptional abilities.”
Declan is a spy? Is that what he’s saying? That can’t be right. My brain isn’t working.
Just go with it. He’s waiting for you to say something.
“Meaning this Declan kills people well.”
“Indeed. He’s the Leonardo da Vinci of killers. Utterly efficient, utterly ruthless. As evolved to kill without remorse as a crocodile.” Behind his wire-rimmed glasses and practiced demeanor of a friendly advertising executive, his gaze is a vulture’s. “So imagine my surprise when I found out about you.”
“I already told you guys. I don’t know a Declan. Thanks for the food, though. Will I be going back to my cage now?”
He waves a hand like I’m being ridiculous. “You’ve passed the test. No need to continue the charade.”
Sitting up is a struggle, but I eventually get there. “Test?”
“Did you think we’d let one of our most valued agents get romantically entangled without a vetting process?”
“Is that a rhetorical question? Because I have some feelings to share with you if it is.”
“The answer is no. We would not. We don’t take those kind of risks. So you were brought here for evaluation.”
I say nothing. I’m still dizzy and nauseated, and I might smell like pee. It’s hard to concentrate on what this suit is saying, or what he wants from me, because a disbelieving chorus of Declan is a spy? is running through my head like a song on repeat.
Gazing at me with an odd expression, the suit says, “I didn’t expect you to perform so well.”
I realize that his weird expression is admiration and get a bad feeling about where he’s going with this. “Um…thanks?”
“We’d like you to work for us.”
I have to take a moment to let that ridiculous statement sink through my throbbing skull. “I already have a job, but I appreciate the offer.”
He chuckles. “Not as a yoga instructor. In intelligence gathering.”
“In other words, spying.”
“Correct.”
To buy some time for my brain to recover from that newest shock, I say, “Who’s we?”
“The United States government.”
“You mean the CIA?”
“The particular branch is immaterial.”
“I’d like to know who I’d be working for.”
“You’d report to a handler who’d give you your assignments. That’s all you need to know at this point.”
“Would I still have to pay taxes?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the upside?”
“You’d be serving your country.”
“I consider myself a citizen of the multiverse.”
“I’m not joking, Miss Keller.”
“Neither am I. I’d be a bad investment. When the aliens land, I’ll be the first one to volunteer to head off with them to Mars.”
He pauses to gather his fraying patience. “I’m not making myself clear. This isn’t an offer. It’s an order.”
I smile condescendingly at him. “Too bad you’re not the boss of me.”
His expression sours. “If you refuse, you’ll be administered an injection of potassium chloride that will induce cardiac arrest within seven minutes. It will be fatal. It will also be an excruciating seven minutes. Then we’ll wrap your body in a biodegradable shroud enhanced with shark attractant and dump you into the sea. No part of you will ever be found.”
“Wow. And here I thought we were getting along so well.”
“You’re exceptionally stubborn. I like that. I also like your spirit. In twenty-five years on this job, I’ve had thousands of enemy combatants pass through the various facilities I oversee. Ninety-one percent of them give us the information we’re looking for within one day of arrival. Another four percent make it two days before they give in. You can see why I’m impressed.”
“What about the other five percent?”
He smiles.
“Sleeping with the fishes, huh?”
“Such a quaint expression to describe something so unspeakably violent. Before you make your decision, there are two things I’d like you to keep in mind. First, refusal equals certain death.”
“You already mentioned that.”
“I thought it important enough to restate. Second, you’re not the only one that applies to.”