Blue with Black Dots (The Caprice Trilogy Book 2) (9 page)

              “Alpha order?” said Alan.  Yvette nodded.  She blew Alan a kiss.

              “I just want you to know,” said Alan, “I would have married any of you.  I’m even talking about the boys.  You guys are some fine gentlemen.  And as for you ladies, well, it’s good that we’re leaving now otherwise I might not be able to control myself.  Let’s synchronize.  13:17.”  They all set their watches.  Alan patted Bryan on the shoulder.

              “I love you, Big Guy,” said Alan.

              “Wait,” said Bryan, “I want everyone to see me do this.”  Bryan walked across the circle toward Georgia.  Despite her training, she froze. 

              “Sorry, Gigi,” said Bryan.  He grabbed her and kissed her, as if the war was over.  Then he let her go.  Georgia started laughing so did Diane and Yvette.

              “It was my last chance,” said Bryan.

              “My turn,” said Alan, “Just kidding.” 

“I hate it,” said Yvette, “But we should wait in our cars.  We’re too conspicuous standing here.”

              “She’s right,” said Georgia.  Patrick walked toward Diane and kissed her almost exactly like Bryan kissed Georgia.

              “That’s for being what you are,” said Patrick, “Back home we’d have called you a class act.”

              “You’re not so bad yourself,” said Diane.  Patrick didn’t make the moment hard.  His car was close so he walked straight toward it and sat inside.  Yvette turned to Georgia.  Georgia met her halfway.  They joined each other in a squeezing match.  They had formed a close bond, everyone knew it but the tight hug made them look inseparable.

              “My big sister,” said Yvette.

              “My little sister,” said Georgia.  As they pulled apart both their faces were slightly red.

              “Whatever happens, do what you gotta do,” said Yvette, “Don’t let your curves keep you.  You do it.”

              “You keep your head on,” said Georgia.  Diane came in and threw her arms around both girls.  Tanis joined in.

              “Next life, we’ll be just as hot and live together next to the Playboy Mansion,” said Tanis, “With guys waiting on us hand and foot.”

              “Not even Gigi’s curves would keep me,” said Diane.  Diane peeled off the pile and went to hug Hagan.  Tanis followed Diane to hug Hagan then Bryan.  Yvette did the same.  Georgia hugged Hagan then went to Bryan and returned the favor.  She went in for the kiss raising her left leg for effect.  It was a photo op, without a camera.  Georgia let go.  She didn’t look at Bryan.  She didn’t look at anyone.  She walked to her car, three spaces away.  She opened the door and sat inside her light brown hatchback ’73
Buick Apollo
.  The others retreated to their vehicles as well.  The parking lot took on an almost graveyard like feel and each car a coffin.  The Peers sat silently in their cars.  All they could do was look at each other through plain glass.  A family of three parked in an empty spot next to Yvette, blocking Georgia’s view of her.  A young-looking man with an older-looking wife came from the car and walked hand-in-hand with his young daughter toward the diner entrance.  Georgia watched them walk almost in slow motion.  As the father opened the door to let his girls go inside, a roaring engine slapped Georgia across the face.  Her head immediately rotated in the opposite direction to see the backlights of Yvette’s red
Morris Marina
as it slowly reversed out of its spot.  Yvette was two spaces over and across the driveway from Georgia.  Georgia could see her profile as she wheeled the
Marina
around.  Yvette tapped her horn as she rolled steadily toward the diner’s parking lot entrance.  Her brake lights blinked as she stopped to check both directions.  She sped off to get on the highway.  As Yvette’s car moved further away, it pulled more and more of Georgia’s heartstrings.   She couldn’t make up her mind if she’d rather see someone else go first, besides Yvette, or if she felt relieved to get the inevitable over with.  It was hard to decide because Georgia had to watch all their exits.  Georgia’s last name began with the letter S, which wasn’t that late in the alphabet.  But it was later than all the others.  Georgia would have to watch everyone leave, wait by herself for eleven minutes, then leave on her own.  No one would see her go.

              Georgia felt for Diane.  Diane was next.  She had eleven minutes to sit and see, to get one last look at her fellow kings and queens, if she wanted it.  Georgia reached under the passenger seat in her car.  Her folder was there.  The one with the large black spade embossed on the front.  She reached in the folder for only the second time.  It was a single sheet of white office paper, mostly negative space.  The first thing written on the page was
Operation Step Down
, then the word
Scotland
.  Next was an address in Norfolk, Virginia with the date and time she was expected to arrive, six-thirty in the afternoon.  The reality was she had to arrive no later than six-thirty. She had time.  There was nothing else written on the paper.  Georgia opened her glove box and reached in to grab a folding map.  She opened the map across the dashboard and pinpointed the exact route to Norfolk.  The quickest direction was to go north on Route 17 because the interstate would take her longer, despite the higher speed limit.  Her mind began to shift back into mode.  She was sitting in a diner parking lot in North Carolina with six of her teammates.  But she behaved as if she were operational.  She looked at her watch.  Diane would pull out in three minutes.  Georgia had fifty-nine minutes to wait.  Her feelings for Diane quickly dissipated as her mind reassessed the parking lot.  Diane could focus on doing what Yvette had done.  Just roll to the end of the parking lot entrance and keep moving.  Georgia had to wait.  But the silver lining started ringing in her ears.  She knew she would get lonelier each time one of their cars pulled out but she got to spend the most time with the group, what was left of it.

Diane Connor sat in her car, a beige ’68
Chevy Nova II
.  Everyone heard her engine started up.  She backed the
Nova
out of its spot and looked back over her left shoulder.  She raised her right hand.  Everyone who saw waved back at her.  Diane alternated the direction of the steering wheel and accelerated toward the edge of the parking lot.  Her red brake lights flashed as she looked both ways.  She turned left and headed toward the highway, much like Yvette had done.  Eleven minutes later Patrick Engel drove down the aisle in his navy ’69
Chevy Corvair
.  As Georgia saw Patrick wheel away, she remembered she always thought the
Corvair
was a sexy car.  She thought of Patrick as having a southern charm and she resolved to remember him that way.  She didn’t fault Diane for wanting to spend the night with him over chatting with the girls.   As he drove off, she decided that she would always remember him as a charming southern gentleman, when it came to class he had it in spades.  She smiled as she sat in her
Apollo
.  It was Thursday, July 8
th
1976, four months before her twenty-fourth birthday.  But she realized how much of a privilege it was to meet men like Patrick and the others.  They were talented, intelligent and quirky but it made them interesting.  Between summer trips to England to see her grandparents and training to be an intelligence operative, Georgia kept smiling.  In over twenty-three years, she had lived much of life.  Even the future couldn’t take that away. 

After Patrick, was Alan Forsythe.  He drove a black ’69
Chevy Camaro
.  Forsythe had a family name that would have taken him places.  Georgia thought it spoke to his character to decide to work for the Directorate of Operations.  She also thought it might have been just ego, to prove that a Have could be just as resourceful as the Have-nots.  Even his car spoke to his pedigree.  His ’69
Camaro
was over seven years old.  Anyone with a house in the Hamptons would have upgraded, but many believed 1969 was the best year for the
Camaro
.  It was a double-edged sword.  It made him look less like New York upper-crust to have a car a-year-and-a-half older than the average car on the road.  But it was still a
Camaro
.  The intervals were speeding up.  Eleven minutes was a bloc of time.  But time wasn’t limited to blocs or clocks.  It had no Director giving it instructions.  It could do what it wanted.  But Hagan did what he had to.  In the required bloc of time after Alan left the parking lot, Hagan Gerard started the engine to his sky blue ’73
VW Beetle
.  The
Beetle
was a colorful reflection to project his hippie self.  He tapped the two-note horn to announce his departure.  Georgia watched him pull to the edge of the parking lot but head to the right away from the highway.  Georgia thought he was lost but he sped away passing behind Georgia’s parked car.  All the others had gone toward the highway.  The thought of where Hagan might be going kept her mind busy for most of the next eleven minutes.  She wasn’t supposed to know, which made her feel guilty for thinking about it.  But his departure had taken him along a completely different route.  It wasn’t a major route.  The highway was the way to all major surrounding destinations:  Columbia; Norfolk; Raleigh; Richmond; Winston-Salem.       

Hagan’s choice of a county road meant he was headed somewhere out of the way.  It wasn’t beyond the norm for intelligence agents but the Agency had a habit of hiding in plain sight.  Georgia was sure her destination was some office building or warehouse near Norfolk.  Her mind quickly reverted back to the order of operation.  She looked over her right shoulder.  She could see Tanis now that Hagan’s car was gone.  She looked at Tanis.  Tanis looked back.  Tanis’ smile could be seen from three spaces away.  Georgia smiled back.  They were thinking the same thing.  Their silent conversation was interrupted by the noisy engine of a ’74
Oldsmobile Omega
.  Georgia could see it was charcoal in color with a black hood.  Bryan Lawrence pulled out from the opposite side of the parking lot.  Georgia and Tanis had a good view of him through the passenger side window.  Bryan stopped his car halfway out of his parking space and looked back at Tanis.  He blew her a kiss through the window.  She sent a kiss in his direction.  He found Georgia sitting in her
Apollo
near the end of the row of parking spaces.  He held his hand over his mouth, a little longer this time.  He blew a kiss in Georgia’s direction.  She returned the favor, a long kiss goodbye.  Bryan angled his tires in the opposite direction and accelerated toward the parking lot entrance.  He tapped his horn as he pulled out toward the highway.  For some reason, Georgia tapped her horn as well.  It was sudden.  She hadn’t done it for the others, not even Yvette.  But it happened.  Only a few seconds after the sound did she realize it was the horn of her
Apollo
.  She didn’t even know how it happened.  She only let the dust in her head settle on the most reasonable explanation.  She was alone in her car.  If her horn made a sound, she had done it.  Tanis looked at Georgia from three parking spots away.  The message in Tanis’ eyes was simple enough to interpret,
what was that
?  Georgia looked at Tanis.  Her look explained her bewilderment.  Tanis smiled at her.  It was embarrassing for Georgia.  She had spent so many weeks, sleep-deprived, interrogated, made to run miles in the middle of the night and recite the capital of any country asked.  They all had done it, for one purpose.  They were to learn to control their thoughts and more than that.  They were trained to suppress emotion.  For Georgia, it was clear.  She didn’t have control always.  She couldn’t suppress everything. 

For the next ten minutes, Georgia and Tanis went from looking at each other to pretending it didn’t matter.  As soon as they convinced themselves that one last look didn’t matter, they looked across the parking spaces where their eyes met in the space between.  As much as Georgia liked Tanis, she realized she didn’t care for Tanis’ car.  Constantly looking in Tanis’ direction, Georgia noticed the car.  It was a ’69
Dodge Phoenix
.  The car was sea green with a white hard top.  It was four door, a family car—Daddy’s old car.  Tanis sat in the car like she owned it but it didn’t own her.  The car was long and clumsy.  It didn’t match Tanis’ athletic build.  The car was boxy.  It couldn’t corner like Tanis and wasn’t as quick.  But Tanis was the type not to care.  She had a set of wheels and that was the focus.  Especially when her engine started.  She had a call time like Georgia, like all the others.  They were all trained to be on time.  Georgia and Tanis were the last two in the parking lot.  It was lonely at the bottom and Tanis had to leave.  Neither could do anything about it.  It was evident in Tanis’ eyes.  It would have been evident in Georgia’s as well if she had looked up to see herself in the rear-view mirror.  She looked only at the ugly green
Phoenix
, running, not rising, in the opposite direction.  She paid close attention to the brake lights of the
Phoenix
as it stopped on the edge of the parking lot.  She imagined they were eyes looking back at her, looking back until they faded.  The
Phoenix
became a monster.  The kind that swooped in and carried off children and loved ones.  Despite her training, Georgia had no way to fight the monster that carried off loved ones.  She watched the ugly thing careen toward the highway.  She didn’t want to watch anymore.  She turned her head back toward her steering wheel, getting a glimpse of her own eyes as they went by the rear-view mirror.  She saw something.  She looked again.  Her eyes were pink on the sides and covered with clear liquid in the middle.  She looked back down at the steering wheel.  Trying to disguise the fear she felt in being without her team.  An onlooker wouldn’t have been fooled.  It didn’t matter.  It was herself that needed fooling.  She sat with her head angled down for most of the next few minutes.  She thought about going back inside the diner, sitting in the same booth and ordering a coffee.  She needed coffee.  The stagger was designed so they didn’t see each other, where they were going.  Georgia figured the rules flexed for the last one.  There was no one left to follow her.  She really wanted to get out of the idle
Apollo
.  Cars were supposed to move but she had spent over an hour just waiting.  It happened in a way she couldn’t have guessed.  Those last eleven minutes were the longest.  When the eleventh minute came and went, she started the engine too fast.  It stalled.  She had to crank it again.  Once it cranked she left. 
No horn to honk
.  Other people would hear it, but it wasn’t meant for them.  It was meant for those who had already left.  It was 2:26pm.  And Georgia was gone for good.