Authors: Kathy Disanto
I love it when it’s easy.
Tanya Sidorov didn’t turn pale or
gasp or fall into a dead faint at the mere sight of us. No, she remained every
inch the professional domestic in her long-sleeved white blouse, knee-length
black skirt, and sensible black brogans, her arms forked under a stack of clean,
crisply folded sheets. Her expression veered between concerned and attentive when
Eagan ordered her to round up the rest of our suspects PDQ and meet us in the
conference room. But when her eyes met mine a second later, space-time skated
sideways, my head swam, and my pulse picked up a beat.
Showtime.
The vision started to play out per
usual—colorful, soft-focus blur followed by the snap to the high-res close-up.
Only this time, I caught no more than a flash preview—face breaking out in
scales; flat, snaky gaze; neck flaring like a cobra’s hood, tattooed with an
obolus—before it all disintegrated like so much pixie dust. I was confused
until I noticed Sidorov’s relaxed posture and cynical smile. That explained
it. She had decided to reveal her true colors in real time.
“Hel-lo,” I said.
Eagan stared into Sidorov’s suddenly
cold, empty eyes and said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
She, on the other hand, didn’t say a
word. Maybe because she was waiting for a question? I decided to ask one and
see. “How long have you been with the Ferrymen?”
“I was recruited when I was
fourteen.” No start of surprise, no useless denials. Her jig was up, and we
all knew it.
“You’re under arrest,” Jack immediately
decided. “You have the right to remain—”
“I know my rights, Agent Eagan. And
waive them.”
“And you admit involvement with the Ferrymen?”
She shrugged. “Why not?” And
pointed at me with her chin. “She already saw the truth.”
Jack’s head slowly swiveled my way.
Despite the combined weight of his stare and the
I told you so!
poised like
a diver on the tip of my tongue, I kept my eyes on Sidorov. Was she guessing,
or did she know?
“Did I?”
“Oh, please! I was listening,” she informed
Eagan, “when she told you about the Sight. You were too sophisticated to even
consider the possibility, but where I come from we embrace the mystical. Not all
of life can be explained. Some things one can only believe.”
“Hmm,” said Iceman.
I felt smug but tried not to get
carried away with it.
Focus, A.J.!
“Where
do
you come from?” I
asked.
“Sibiu, a city in the Carpathian
mountains.” She eyed me with professional curiosity. “It was the shock, yes?
That was why I could not hide from you.”
“Probably. You thought we were compost.”
“
Da.
Your survival was
inconceivable; the organization never fails to take down a target. What is it
they say? First time for everything?”
“Except this is the second time you
guys tried and failed with me.”
“Ah, right. Well, under normal
circumstances, I could have covered my reaction. I’m good, and it’s not in my
nature to panic or give up without a fight. But knowing you have the Sight ….”
She shrugged. “I concluded pretense would be useless, any attempt to maintain my
cover a foolish waste of time. Much better to devote my energy to negotiating our
deal.”
Eagan spoke up. “No deals.”
“Agent Eagan,” she replied patiently,
“I do not blame you for being angry. We tried to remove you, and you want to
make me pay. I would feel the same. But the attempt failed, and no harm has
been done. The question you must now ask yourself is, ‘Do I want the foot
soldier, or do I want Malcolm Conover?’ Your ultimate goal is to destroy the
organization, yes?”
His eyes narrowed on her face.
“You’re saying Conover
does
run the Ferrymen? And you’re going to give
him up? Just like that?”
“Not
just like that
. Do I
look stupid? In addition to immunity, I want a new identity and enough credits
to live comfortably in the country of my choice. Or perhaps I will settle in
one of those luxury lunar colonies,” she mused. “I have not decided.” She
cocked an eyebrow. “Well? Do we have a deal?”
“Jack?” I prodded, when he hesitated.
“I won’t agree to fix a parking
ticket until I hear what she has to offer. I want proof,” he warned her, “the
kind that will stand up in any court on the planet. If you can tie Malcolm
Conover to the Ferrymen so tightly he can’t wiggle free, then we’ll talk.”
Tanya weighed her options, then nodded.
“It’s fair.” She hefted the towels slightly. “Let me put these away. Meet me
in the living room, and I’ll tell you my story. When I’m done, you’ll give me
whatever I ask for. You’ll see.”
She had quite a story to tell—one part
Dickens, two parts rap sheet.
Transylvania’s answer to the Artful
Dodger was born on the wrong side of the tracks. Mother a prostitute, father …
well, take your pick. Her early childhood was a study in benign neglect and
bad examples until her tenth birthday. That was the day a light popped on in
the drug-addled recesses of her mother’s brain. Little girls like her daughter
were a hot commodity.
Wise beyond her years, and not in a
good way, Tanya understood more than any ten-year-old should have. So when she
overheard Mama and the madam ironing out the details for her “coming out,” she made
up her mind that even a dog-eat-dog life on the street beat slow death in the
brothel. She didn’t bother to pack, simply walked out the door and never
looked back.
Before the week was out, she hooked
up with a gang of tweens and teens who didn’t mind stealing what they couldn’t
get by panhandling, and who more or less watched out for each other. For the
next two years home was a cavernous, trash-strewn freight terminal hundreds of
years old, outer walls still black with the exhaust of the twentieth-century
diesel locomotives it was built to service. That’s where the forces of law and
order finally caught up with Tanya’s
kompania
less than twenty-four
hours after the gang burglarized an electronics store. Owned, as luck would
have it, by the mayor’s son.
Most of her pals went directly to
jail, but our heroine was young and plain and had gotten a less than idyllic
start in life. In view of those extenuating circumstances, and the fact that this
was her first (known) offense, a well-intentioned judge gave twelve-year-old
Tanya a six-year opportunity to turn her life around at the Crina Antonescu School
for Wayward Girls. Run by a charity called
Salvare
, or Rescue. A
subsidiary, as luck would have it, of the Change a Life Foundation.
Well, you know what they say about
good intentions.
The judge’s gamble might have paid
off, except Tanya didn’t
want
to be reformed. She
liked
stealing.
But she was canny enough to work the angles and bide her time. While the
do-gooders congratulated themselves on saving her from a bad end, she went
right on pilfering whatever she needed or wanted, mostly from the other girls,
sometimes from teachers or fat-cat visitors. She only got caught once. By
Malcolm Conover. As luck would have it.
It was a month before her fourteenth
birthday, and young Ms. Sidorov had decided she’d had enough. Fed up with slim
pickings, rules, and moral platitudes, she couldn’t wait to put Antonescu’s
behind her. All she needed was traveling money and a chance to make her break.
She could steal the money. The golden chance dropped into her lap when the
headmistress announced the school would hold a folk music festival in honor of
a group of important visitors from the Foundation. Tanya could well imagine
the uproar. The regimental routine would fall apart while the teachers and
counselors ran around like chickens without heads, distracted by details and kowtowing
to the VIPs.
Perfect.
When the great day came, Tanya waited
until all eyes were on the twelve girls fast-stepping a manic Romanian folk
dance called the
Mărunţel
, then slipped out of her back-row,
aisle seat. She ghosted through the hallways to the teachers’ quarters, where
she managed to exchange her frumpy gray uniform for jeans, a t-shirt, and a
black hooded sweatshirt with deep pockets—which she quickly filled with the ill-gotten
gains she had been hoarding for this very occasion. The gates were unlocked to
facilitate all the comings and goings. Freedom was a leisurely stroll out the
back gate away.
Good plan, she congratulated
herself, simple yet bold. But she no sooner reached the gate, when a hand
latched onto her upper arm. Her captor was none other than Mr. Change a Life
Foundation himself, the wealthy American philanthropist, Malcolm Conover. But
far from reflecting the shock, sorrow, or moral outrage one might expect from
such a pillar of goodness, his blue gaze was sharp, cold, and calculating.
He had watched her. Even followed
her.
She was astounded. She had seen or
sensed no one.
He was putting together a special
organization, and he could use someone with her gifts.
What gifts?
she asked
.
Face nobody remembers, heart of a
devil, and ice water in the veins. You stand to make a great deal of money …
eventually. But first you have to finish school. I can’t use you if you’re ignorant
or undisciplined.
Finish school? That’s all?
That’s first. But you have to graduate
with a record that won’t raise a single eyebrow, or the deal is off. No more
stealing.
“I had already decided to accept his
offer,” Sidorov admitted to Jack and me, “but I was curious. ‘If I refuse?’ I
asked him. ‘If I report your attempt to recruit me?’ He reminded me
unfortunate accidents happened to children all the time. Needless to say, I signed
on. I would be the best student the school ever had, I boasted, and so I
was.” Her lips curved sardonically. “A miraculous redemption.
“I didn’t see Conover again until I
graduated four years later. He sent a woman to pick me up and take me to his
ranch in Texas. There he reinvented me with a legend so detailed and
well-documented, I almost came to believe it myself. I was trained in tradecraft,
hand-to-hand combat, the use of biological agents and all kinds of weaponry. Very
intense. Three years. So, obviously, I was bitterly disappointed when he finally
informed me I would be working as a housekeeper for the government, but by then
I knew better than to object. That was two years ago.”
“And you’ve been with the Service
ever since,” Eagan muttered in disgust. “How did you manage to get a clearance?
A first-class legend won’t get you past the truth scan.”
“Surely you realize such matters can
be arranged. One only has to buy or threaten the right people.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I
want a name.”
She gave it to him, then dismissed
the issue with an airy wave of her hand. “But she’s dead. Hit by a hover-bus,
I believe. The organization always ties off loose ends.”
“Loose ends like you?”
She smiled, obviously unfazed. “I
have every confidence CIIS will take excellent care of me until the threat no
longer exists.”
“Are there others?” I asked with a
glance at Jack. “At other safe houses?”
“No mechanics. Drones, perhaps.”
“Drones?”
“That’s what we call nonlethal assets
who are ignorant of the identities of their true controllers.”
“Like the couriers.”
“
Da.
Most think they’re
working for some government. They pass information through virtual cutouts,
who pass it through other virtual cutouts, etcetera. We are sometimes forced to
use them, because the organization itself is small and tightly knit. Fifteen
of us, all trained at the same time.”
“If you’re one of the inner circle,”
said Eagan, “what are you doing so far from the action?”
“You think I’m an incompetent like
Stanhope? Or are you trying to shame me into bragging about my accomplishments?”
Her smile was a twisted sister to coy. “Maybe I’ll disabuse you of that notion
after you promise me immunity. For the moment, I will only say even a
housekeeper can take a vacation.”
“This was the perfect base of
operations,” I realized.
Tanya nodded. “Hiding in plain
sight. The boss decided the advantages would far outweigh the risks. CIIS
would hardly think to look for one of us in its bosom. Still, one has to be
careful. I was extremely
careful, but ….” She shrugged
philosophically.
“This was more than a base of
operations,” Eagan guessed. “Conover had another reason for planting you here,
didn’t he?”
“Correct. The boss is a great
believer in luck, and a man who trusts his intuition. This house is used only
to hide important people. He foresaw the possibility that here I could have
access to a target we might not otherwise be able to reach.”
“A target like me,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“What I don’t understand,” Jack
interjected, “is how you set us up today. This place is in lockdown when it’s
in use, all communications restricted.”
“Ah, but I’ve been in this position
for two years. Ample time to put certain measures in place when no one is in
residence.”
“What kind of measures?”
“A tiny fragment of code uploaded to
the communications system via an untraceable UpLink.”
“Comms are scanned for malware on a
regular basis.”
“True, but the script I used masks
its presence long enough to gain control of the scanning software, making the
intrusion impossible to detect later on. The code enables
transmissions—infrequent microbursts buried in normal traffic—then removes all
subsequent traces. In this case, I simply told Agent Stanhope one of the water
recyclers had malfunctioned—the glitch wasn’t hard to arrange—and asked
permission to call it in. My voiceprint and the use of a specific code word triggered
a burst, transmitting my location to alert the organization to a previously
designated high-value target at these coordinates. All they had to do was
position the weapons and await developments.”
Jack closed his eyes and pinched the
bridge of his nose. “Terrific.” He dropped his hand and opened his eyes to
glare at her. “Were the coordinates all you managed to broadcast, or should we
assume Conover is in on A.J.’s secret?”
“I told you. It was a microburst.
Coordinates only.”
“Now what?” I asked after a brief
silence.
“Now we bring in the rest of the
team and decide how to play this,” said Eagan.
“And my deal?” asked Tanya.
“Depends. Right now, all we’ve got
is a he-said-she-said, and Conover is the one with all the credibility. Justice
will want more: names, dates, methods of operation. If you can give us that,
and if it all comes out in the wash—meaning your boss goes down, and we put the
Ferrymen out of business for good—you can probably write your own ticket.” He froze
her with a look. “But so help me God, if this is a setup, or if you ever cross
the line again when this is over, I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.”
Tanya studied his expression. “A
dangerous man,” she finally decided. “Like the boss.”
“Keep it in mind.”
“I will.” She glanced between Jack
and me. “So, it’s settled.” Her lips curved disparagingly. “I have turned
over a new leaf, joined the forces of good in the contest against evil. Good
always triumphs in the end, yes?”
“I don’t know about always, but I’m
going to make damned sure it triumphs this time,” Jack promised grimly.
I wanted to believe him, but my gut
was warning me this particular match was going to be closer than any of us
cared to admit.