DEAD BEEF (Our Cyber World Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter 13

Cynthia Spencer arrived just short of one hour later than her scheduled interview time. If Agent Albert Ochoa was upset by her late arrival, Stan Beloski thought he hid it well. Beloski had suspected that a start time of 7:30 AM was a little sporty considering how much Cynthia loved to bask in early morning light while cuddled up in a feather bed, but he said nothing to Ochoa.

Upon her arrival, Beloski was taken aback by Cynthia's appearance. In fact it took a closer look before his mind reconciled the way she looked now with her identity. Her usually trim and prim auburn hair had received little more than a shower scrub and rinse, and still clung to her, wet. Her blue eyes lacked the vibrancy and sharpness with which she would look at you. Her lips were colorless. Dark areas under her eyes suggested she had slept little the night before.

“Stan,” she said. “You're a sight for sore eyes, and I mean that literally.” She came over to Beloski and gave him a peck on the cheek and a quick hug, long enough for him to smell the jasmine in her hair.

Ochoa was closing the door when he said, “Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Mrs. Spencer.”

“Please, call me Cynthia,” she said as she sat down. “And let's drop the Spencer part, which if you haven't heard is becoming obsolete, though surely not soon enough.”

Both Beloski and Ochoa took their seats, Ochoa across the table from Cynthia, and Beloski on the same side as Cynthia, separated by just one seat.

Though Ochoa had instructed him to remain silent and speak only when prompted, Beloski heard himself asking, “Are you feeling well, Cynthia?”

“OK, I told a little white lie when I called you on the way. I'm not really feeling sick. Now that we're in here,” she added while waving at the walls, “in this secure location, I can be more, shall we say, transparent?”

She slapped the table and laughed. “I'm afraid I got a little high last night? The news kept playing that light show on and on, and I got all upset and excited, and I just had to get high!”

Her laughter returned, bouncing off the walls like a hyena’s call. “And I took a closer look at the lighting show after I got high, and everything got clearrrerr. I couldn't say it at home,” she added, covering her mouth, “but here,” waving at the walls, “in this secure environment I can say it all I want.”

She stood up, closed her eyes, and with arms raised she shouted, “Ouroboros! Ouroboros! Ouroboros! Ouroborrrr!”

She sat down laughing hysterically. “I sure can't say it ten times fast,” she said after getting a hold of herself. Then as if some switch had flipped inside her, she leaned forward and with eyes wide open said, “You boys have a little hot mess lapping at your crotches, don't ya? What do you intend to do about it?”

“Mrs. Spencer, when did you say you got high last night?” Ochoa asked.

“That's just it. I didn't say.” She winked at Beloski. “A girl's gotta have some secrets. And please, like I told you, it's Cynthia.”

“What kind of drugs did you take?” Ochoa asked.

“That white powdery stuff. And OK, if you must know, I got high twice last night, though what exact time it all happened I couldn't manage to guess. And just a tiny touch this morning.”

“Would you excuse us, Cynthia?” Ochoa said. “Stan and I need a moment.”

This time she winked at Ochoa. “Sure thing.”

Ochoa and Beloski stepped outside and closed the door. “She’s faking it,” Ochoa said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. If she had snorted cocaine this morning, her pupils would be the size of pin holes. Her eyes are perfectly normal. The dark bags under her eyes, just heavy makeup. Maybe she drank last night, maybe she gargled with Tequila, but she’s not drunk now.”

“That looked pretty real to me,” Beloski said.

“She’s playing us. You do know she minored in theater in college.”

Beloski thought about it for a second. “I do recall her saying something about that.”

“OK, I think we need to mix things up a bit,” Ochoa said. “From this point on, you drive the conversation. Show a lot of caring, play right along with her. I’ll re-direct the conversation when I think it’s necessary.”

“OK,” Beloski said.

“Right now, you go in and get things rolling, and I’ll stay out for a couple of minutes.”

Stan Beloski nodded before going in.

“What happened to your friend?” Cynthia asked.

“I think he had to go to the restroom.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” she said. “He looked a bit too uptight.”

Beloski paused, searching for a way forward. “We really need Martin back. We need his expertise to get through this mess.”

“And what do you suppose I can do about it?”

Her directness startled him. It was at this point he realized her voice and demeanor had gone even, almost deadpan.

“I needed to play that game with you, Stan,” Cynthia said, as if she had read his mind. “Needed to flex my acting chops, see if I can get a bite of the feeling that I’m winning at something. But it’s over now, I’m back, ready to be asked questions I cannot answer, and offer advice no one will use.”

Cynthia reached into her purse and took out a compact and lipstick. Within seconds she was working on her face, extinguishing the shadow under her eyes and puckering her lips to paint them burgundy red. A hairbrush came out next.

“There’s a restroom if you want,” Beloski offered.

She smiled. “I really can’t help you with Martin. You know that. He’s been beyond my reach for some time now.”

The door opened, and Ochoa stepped in with an empty cup and a bottle of Perrier. He stopped for a second when he saw her, then placed the two items in front of her.

“I thought this might help,” he said, still looking at her like someone wondering whether he had stepped into the right room.

Cynthia smiled broadly at him, with a tilt of the head that reminded Beloski of her past flirtations toward him. “Why thank you. That’s very sweet of you. Since I’m going to be doing most of the talking, I do believe this moist substance will help.” She poured herself half the bottle before asking, “You wouldn’t also have an egg, cheese and bacon burrito, would you? I’m afraid I didn’t have much of a breakfast.”

Ochoa stared her down with a blank, cold look.

Beloski said, “We really need your help, Cynthia.”

“What kind of help?” she asked, as she put the hairbrush away and took one last look at herself in the compact.

“I think you know,” Beloski said. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ochoa, still staring her down.

Cynthia turned to Ochoa. “What’s your first name?” she asked him. “I don’t like dealing with people whose first name I do not know.”

“Rodrigo.”

“I bet you go by Rod?”

“You win the bet.”

She smiled. “So, you want me to come back in, for one last mission, one last glorious save. Me, the one who can talk the Martin Spencer kitty down the tree. Is that it, Rod?”

“Yes,” Ochoa replied.

“And I bet Stan is here for, well, sentimental reasons. Do I win that bet, too?”

“You sure do.”

Now she turned to Stan. “See that?” she told him. “That’s how it’s done among professionals. No BS, no clever verbal sparring, no curve balls. Just truth straight down the middle. Saves lots of time and calories.”

She faced Ochoa again. “I’ll tell you my recovery record if you tell me yours.”

For the first time since Beloski had met him, Ochoa looked unsettled. He shifted in his chair and asked, “What’s your point?”

“Aw, chucks. I hit a nerve. You’re either a newbie, which I doubt given the importance of this recovery, you know, for national security and all that jazz. Or you have a swing and a miss in your past. No worries. We can overlook.”

Cynthia walked over to Ochoa and sat next to him. She leaned into him so that their faces were no more than six inches apart. “I’ll share my record. Five for five, all computer technologists. Yes, I know how they think and I can talk them down. And as luck would have it, one of them is Martin Spencer, recovered twice.”

“Twice?” Beloski asked.

“Indeed, twice,” she replied. “It was your op, but they cut you out by the time the Iranian mess required a recovery. And guess who they called to the rescue? That’s right. I got him back when he was Sasha heart-broken, and I got him back when the Iranian mess went down and his heart was once more broken, this time because his baby was stranded amidst wolves. Who better to go for the trifecta now?”

“You were out then,” Beloski said.

“Oh, Stan. You’ve been smelling the D.C. laughing gas way too long. Once you enter this world, you never leave. You’re never free of it, of all its secrets that you can never mention outside hallowed halls you can no longer enter. You’re never rid of all the memories of things you did or didn’t do.”

Cynthia faced down Ochoa again. “And you remember that too, you young Navy Seal buck. You can retire, but you can never really leave. Not unless you’re dead or crippled.” She leaned back in her chair and faced Beloski again. “And now, Stan, all I have to do is sign some silly piece of paper that is already loaded on some computer in this blasted building, crying out to be printed. Then it’s off to the chase, the adventure of it all.”

“And the straight up answer is,” Ochoa said.

“No thank you,” she replied without looking at him.

“You don’t even want to try,” Ochoa said.

“Rod, honey, I’ve been trying for 8 years, in a gorgeous home, with an obscenely large feather bed, with scented candles, and with the best bottles of French wine money can buy. I guess my record isn’t perfect after all, and I don’t intend to dig the hole any deeper.”

“Do you have any tips for us?” Beloski asked. “Anything that could help?”

“I’ve given you everything, except maybe this. Leave Martin alone.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Ochoa said. “If we don’t get to him, someone else will. We have reason to believe they’re already out there.”

“I’d be more worried about collecting Julian,” she said. “Martin won’t help the other guys any more than he will help you. If they get to him, he’ll calculate some way to bring the whole thing down on their heads. Julian on the other hand, you have to get to him.”

“Why do you say Martin won’t help?” Beloski asked.

“Because he regrets ever getting co-opted into creating this thing,” Cynthia replied.

“How do you know this?” Ochoa asked.

“I saw it in his face the night he came home after the Saint Onofre Nuclear Plant incident.”

“What did he say about it?” Ochoa asked.

“Nothing. He was a good boy and kept his OpSec intact.” Cynthia looked at the front of the room and kept her gaze there, as if her memories were replaying on the projector screen. “I asked him about it, if he knew anything about it, and he just looked at me and walked away. I didn’t have to be read in to know. The plant had gone offline because one of the monitors had back-morphed. That’s the term, isn’t it? Back-morphed?”

“Yes,” Beloski said.

“Two days later,” Cynthia added, “I could tell he was done. I asked him what was wrong, and he just said, ‘They do not get it.’ He said that it didn’t matter how he explained it, no one had the imagination to understand what he was talking about. A bunch of robots, he called you. All of you suffering from a deficit of imagination. He was never the same after that.”