Mr. Nice Spy (10 page)

Talia scoffs, a little more than playful now. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Just the really cute ones.”

“Oh yeah? Like Leyla al-Fulan?”

The satisfied smile falls from Marcus’s face, taking all the color from his cheeks with it. “Who?”

Talia slowly advances up the driveway another two steps. “You know. The Emirati Deputy Ambassador’s wife. Did you introduce her to Ambassador Rhodes?”

“Who are you?”

“Alaine Marchant. The pianist from the reception? Where you both were?” She almost fools me with that retreat into an innocent, why-are-you-freaking-out? tone.

“But — how—” Marcus holds up defensive hands. Talia doesn’t move, but Marcus backs up until he runs into his still-open car door.

“You there?” Angela’s voice breaks in so suddenly, I almost drop the earphones.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say in the phone’s general direction. “You got it?”

Pause. “Yeah, but this doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if this is true, we have to—”

“If it’s true, we’ve got bigger problems. We planted a message, and I need to know if it got through okay.”

“Those were the days.” Angela sighs. “What was the message?”

“You tell me.”

She thinks for a second, and I have a chance to readjust the earphones. From the way they’re gesturing, I know Talia and Marcus have to be talking, but I can’t hear them.

Talia pulls out her phone and taps the screen for a minute.

My heart drops to meet my stomach on its way up my throat. Please, please tell me she’s not doing what I think she’s doing.

The parabolic picks up exactly what I don’t want to hear — Marcus’s voice. His lips aren’t moving.

She’s playing back the recording of him returning Leyla’s phone.

And we don’t have enough to nail him for anything worse than adultery.

“I’m pretty sure,” Angela starts, but the beat of silence makes it clear she isn’t pretty sure at all. “I think she’s saying the Americans won’t make the call. But without more context—”

“No, that’s great. That’s exactly what we need to hear.”

I think. I think we told Kelvin the “ambassador” would finagle things for the Emiratis’ landing rights, and we told Marcus the “ambassador” would rather die.

Her job done, Angela gets off the phone, and I grab the headset to talk to Talia. “Got the translation — the message was the Americans
won’t
call. Enough evidence for you to back off.”

She doesn’t acknowledge me, and I have one more thing to do before I go bring her in from the cold. I’m back on the phone, though I’m officially never supposed to dial this number. Never.

“Adam Dixon,” he answers.

“Yeah, listen, we’ve got a situation with one of your colleagues.”

There’s a pause, but I almost don’t notice, I’m so intent on watching Talia. “Maybe it was an accident,” she continues.

“Who is this?” Dixon asks.

“Elliott.”

This time it’s more than a pause. It’s a silent threat.

Talia, oblivious to my major breach of protocol, keeps going at Marcus. “It starts off so innocent. Smiles at those functions. Small talk by the bar. You didn’t mean to cross any lines.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marcus insists. “You need to go.”

“What kind of situation?” Dixon finally follows up.

I can only say so much right now, but I need to let him know this isn’t some stunt. Suddenly I remember the last time I was hanging out in this van, eavesdropping on the Emiratis — a plumbing van. “Situation at the embassy. Plumbing problem.”

Again, Dixon takes way longer than necessary to interpret the code for a leak. Talia’s interrogation continues. “Crossing one line made it easier to cross another, huh? And you had to help Leyla, help her people.”

Maybe it’s hearing her name again, or the reference to the Emiratis. Now Marcus grows a spine and advances on Talia a step. My gut clenches. I brace myself to run to her, Dixon or no Dixon.

But Marcus is all talk. “You don’t know anything.”

Dixon comes back again. “What kind of action are we talking about?”

I haven’t thought much about how to go after the guy through the official channels, but suddenly I remember when I worked under the cover of the embassy in Nicaragua. We walked on eggshells if we ever came within fifty feet of the ambassador. The guy could send you home on the slightest pretext, anything from insulting the local officials to looking at him cross-eyed.

“Can you talk to the ambassador?” I ask. “Get the guy on a plane?”

Talia, meanwhile, isn’t done. “Why shouldn’t the Emiratis be allowed the same rights as other countries? And of course, it only makes sense for you to help a friend.”

“Watch for instructions.” Dixon cuts in again. “And you’d better be able to back this up.” He ends the call before I have to admit we’ve
almost
got him.

“T,” I say over comms as soon as she pauses. “Hook him.”

But now it’s Marcus on the advance. “I couldn’t care less about landing rights.”

Talia sees the tide changing and backs off a little to pounce from a safe distance. “Then what do you care about? Why are you selling out your ambassador?”

“
My
ambassador? He’s my
boss
. He’s a career diplomat. The Emiratis needed my help. They needed me.”

Talia’s red wig moves back and forth, like she’s shaking her head at the pitiful little man in front of her. “Your country needed you.”

It takes a second to register — we’ve got it. That’s enough of a confession to end a career in the Foreign Service, earn a demotion to Minuscule Mole, and warrant a pink slip and a plane ticket home.

“Okay, we got him. Now get out of there.”

She turns back toward me, ambling away from Marcus. He stands there, every second tempering the set to his jaw to harder steel.

Don’t like that. “When you’re clear, get out of sight,” I tell her. There is no trusting this guy, even if he weren’t a leak.

Talia passes the hedges on his side of the street, and I tell her she’s good. If she can get back to the van before he —

Marcus’s car door slams shut. The engine starts, then revs.

No.

“T, he’s in the car.”

He whips out of the driveway into a three point turn, into the street. I maneuver to check the side mirrors for Talia. She’d better be closer than she appears.

She steps off the sidewalk without checking Marcus’s way.

No no no.

All my equipment clatters to the floor. I slam through the back doors, already hunched over in a dead run. My feet find the pavement and I sprint flat-out for Talia.

I didn’t make her do this — but I let her. And when your partner needs you, you do whatever it takes.

My pulse hammers in my ears. Not loud enough to drown out the engine and tire squeal.

Talia stops short, whirls to face the sound. I don’t slow down as I get close. I don’t have time. I plow right into her. We fly a good five feet before we trip and fall and tumble. I twist to hit the cement first, my back lighting up with pain.

The headlights flash. He passes us. Misses us.

We lay on the sidewalk, panting, for what feels like an hour, but it’s got to be less than a minute. I’m still holding Talia, and she’s still clinging to me. I look to her and she’s right there, inches from my face. The whole world is quiet other than my heartbeat still pounding against my eardrums.

And nothing. I don’t even want to kiss her.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Better than okay. She’s safe. I was there when she needed me. We’re both bruised and scraped, but still alive.

And this is what she needs me for. Friends. Safety. Work.

I let her go, and we help each other to our feet. “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

She pretends to not see how I’m shaking from the adrenaline. We’re in the van a mile away before either of us can string together a sentence. “They’ll track him down, right?” Talia asks.

“Of course. They probably have a GPS tracker on his car, his keychain . . . his cranium.” At the very least we can ping his phone. “They’ll have him on a plane in two hours.”

She bites her lip for a minute. “Buy his story?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t want to feel useful?”

“Yeah, but to betray the people who’re paying you? Who need you? Over landing rights?”

I don’t know how else to explain it, but that accusation hits a nerve with me. “No excuse for stupidity, but I don’t think it was just about landing rights for him. He thought the Emiratis needed him, and we didn’t.”

And when someone needs you, you do whatever it takes. But the person who needs me isn’t Talia. It never was.

“He was wrong.” Talia rolls her eyes. “He needs to straighten out his life.”

Yeah, he was, and yeah, he does. And I’m straightening out mine. Tonight.

Oh, crap — the time. I check. I can’t scrape through an SDR and make it to get Shanna.

I do not have the option of missing her tonight. Of losing her.

“Hang on,” I tell Talia. “We’re going to see how well this baby handles.”

She shoots me a look of
surely you can’t be serious
. But she buckles her seatbelt. Backing me up.

Just like it should be. Now, if I can just make it to the airport on time. If.

I can’t make it to the airport on time. Talia’s a stickler for following the rules on a surveillance detection route — and with Mad Mad Marticus out there, I have to agree. But every stop we make chews through at least ten minutes of my timeline.

Wait for me
, I text after the second stop.

Shanna hasn’t responded by the time we’ve finished our fourth stop, so I add one word to my last message:
Please
.

Once I’ve left Talia safe at her car, the invisible ticking clock feels like it’s counting down the seconds to my doom. At least trading in the cable van for my car is on the way, even if it does soak up precious minutes.

I’m going to get to Shanna.

Fortunately, it’s Saturday night, and this is Ottawa, so traffic doesn’t have me parked on the Queensway. I speed through a red light — it was really more
orange
— and swoop up to the terminal pickup.

Late.

I’m out of the car almost before it’s in park, jogging, scanning for her. My ribs lock up. Nobody’s out here.

She’s gone.

I slow to a stop. I have to fight to keep on my feet, like they’re weighted down.

Obviously I’ve been an idiot with Shanna lately, but I thought — I’d hoped —

“Hey.”

I spin on my heel to find the woman behind me. Tall, willowy, blonde. Shanna.

“Hey,” I say, as if my chest doesn’t feel like it’ll burst any second from running. From nearly losing her.

“Didn’t think you were coming.”

I shrug. “Nothing better to do.”

She purses her lips. I cross the distance between us, but I can’t quite dare to touch her yet. “Nothing I needed to do more.”

That lip-purse slowly transforms into a one-corner smile.

But then the smile freezes, breaks off like a sheet of ice in a storm and shatters on the cement. Shanna looks away. “I sort of saw somebody else while I was gone.”

“I know.” I try to take a deep breath, but my lungs have already steeled themselves. “I did, too. Sort of.”

Those blue eyes search mine. “And?”

“What can I say? She’s not you.” She never was.

The grin peeks through those ice-storm clouds again. “And he’s not you.” She slides her hand into mine, and my fingers wrap around her engagement ring.

“So, marriage, huh?”

“Big step.” Her tone tiptoes on a tightrope, carefully noncommittal. Like she didn’t flat-out tell me this is exactly what she needs from me. And if Shanna needs me . . . “I’m there.”

The clouds melt away and her full smile shines through, warmer than the sun. “Are you sure? I don’t want to push you if you’re not ready—”

“Hey, I was born ready.”

Shanna rolls her eyes.

“But can I ask one thing?” I ask.

She nods, her eyes brimming with trepidation.

“Can we please
not
go for the actual picket fence? Those things are a beast to paint.”

Shanna nudges me with an elbow. “Knowing you, you’d charm the neighborhood kids into doing it for you. And make them think it’s fun.”

“Or I could just force ours to paint it.”

She hesitates half a beat. “Kids, too?”

“I’m ready if you are.”

Shanna pulls her hand from mine and slides her arms around my waist. “I was born ready.”

I tuck her hair behind her ear. “Then I’m sorry it took me so long to catch up.”

I lean down and kiss her. Because she totally needs kissing. And so do I.

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