Authors: Michael Crow
Allison smiles when I hand her the cards across the lunch table. Nadya, who’s eating with us, smiles as she leads me up to the library afterward and starts a series of Russian “encounters.” She’s by turns an inquisitive cus
toms agent, a cheating taxi driver, a suspicious militiaman, a very aggressive hooker. She critiques my responses: I inadvertently made the customs agent uneasy with my tone in a couple of phrases, almost got arrested for a single disrespectful word to the militiaman, and am bound to get my wallet and passport ripped off by the prostitute because I was way too light and flirty.
“Hard not to be, when a girl as attractive as you is talking dirty to me.”
“Rather you’d keep it businesslike, thanks very much. The hooker certainly would,” Nadya says in that upper-class English drawl of hers. But she can’t stop a flicker of a grin.
Which widens when her twin—well, almost, except this girl’s eyes are black, and aren’t just canted but also lack the lid fold—breezes into the room. Korean, I guess.
“Well, hi, Nadya! This one has to be your latest squeeze, right?” Make that Korean-American. Her accent is one hundred percent Southern California. “Hi, you. I’m Eunkyong and we’re going to do some Korean stuff, okay?”
“Hi, Yunk-jong,” I say.
“No way. It’s Eunkyong.”
“Uke-yung.”
“Hello? Slowly now. Eunkyong, okay?” she says. She rolls her eyes at Nadya. “How come I get the hopeless ones? Is he this awful in Russian, too?”
“Almost,” Nadya says.
“Wait a minute,” I start, but Nadya’s already up and leaving.
“Same time tomorrow, Luther?” she says.
“Really,” Eunkyong sighs, settling into the dent Nadya’s left behind in the overstuffed sofa, but doing nothing that counters the odd hollow I feel now that
Nadya’s no longer with me. “God, I guess I have to start at the start. Do you know anything at all about Korea?”
“There’s two of them, and we don’t like one of them,” I say.
She mutters something in Korean—curses, no doubt—then moves without a hitch into educated Valley-girl lecture mode, minus the “So I’m, like, totally bummed” she’s no doubt thinking. Her face is broad but neatly arranged, her smile is sweet the few times it appears, she’s a bit stocky but still lithe when she moves. Which is fairly often—getting up from the sofa, pacing around the room, sitting back down again—over the next two hours. At the end of which I can say to her satisfaction the Korean versions of “Hello”; “How are you?”; “I’m pleased to meet you”; “Yes, sir”; “Of course, sir, I will do it immediately”; “My pleasure”; “thank you very much”; and a few other phrases beyond the usual tourist’s “How much does this cost?” and “Where is the toilet?”
She also makes me conscious of some key points of behavior and etiquette: always take your shoes off before entering anyone’s house; never blow your nose in public; avoid the number four (it’s unlucky, sounds like the word for death, and buildings skip from three to five in floor number); it’s polite to bow slightly at introductions and when saying good-bye, as it is in Japan; it’s impolite to point at anyone; and it’s “totally grotty” to write anything in red ink, or leave your chopsticks sticking vertically from your bowl—death signs, both.
I get the impression Eunkyong wouldn’t mind drumming even more into my head, but she leaves without a word when Allison appears bearing two big mugs and nods Eunkyong out.
“You’re about to have caffeine withdrawl symptoms, right?” she says, handing me one of the mugs. I sip. Ex
actly the way I like my coffee: almost as strong as espresso but cut generously with half-and-half, one spoon of sugar. I smile gratefully at her, light a Camel.
“That is so unhealthy, man,” she says, then instantly bursts into what seems like genuine laughter. “Heard you left Terry slightly miffed this morning.”
“Miffed? Yeah, well, now that I think about it. Nothing major. But, hey, you already know that.”
“So how’s it going up here? With Nadya and Eunkyong?” Her Korean pronunciation’s much better than mine.
“It’s going. Had some fun with Nadya, anyway.”
“Let me guess. When she did her whore number, right? She’s so good at that one.”
“Had me convinced,” I say, and Allison laughs again, mid-sip from her mug of what smells like chamomile tea. “Tried my best to convince her we ought to go up to my room, remove some of our clothes, make it more realistic.”
“One-track mind, Luther. No, make that two-track in your case. Sex and violence. Just think of all the things in between you’re missing.”
She’s off. Should be violence, full stop. Sex, full stop. Those are the true priorities of my life so far, but always and utterly separate. “Only one track playing here,” I say. “Pretty Nadya.”
“If you can’t damp down your hopeless little fantasies, or whatever, think you could at least keep quiet about them?” Allison says. “If you can’t, what about pretty Eunkyong, too?”
“She’s a piece of work.”
“Is she? Imagine how you must seem to her.”
“Hard labor?”
“Right. And you have some more to do. Westley says you need workouts. So, we’ve got maybe a ten-minute
break here. There’s one of those white martial arts costumes laid out on your bed. After your fix, go up and put it on, then go down to the basement, mix it up a little. Suit you?”
“Sure. Not sure how far out of my usual zone I’ve slipped. Be nice to find out, do what I have to do to get back into it.”
“Positive attitude. Just what we love about you, Luther,” she says. But something’s going on in her eyes she can’t quite mask. “Drinks out later on, so we don’t feel too housebound? If you’re up to it?”
The basement’s a dojo, padded walls and floor, full-fledged but compact. I’m standing there alone, feeling kind of awkward in my stiff whites, when a panel on the far side of the room slides open and my sparring partner backs in. Isn’t till she turns, bows, and assumes an attack posture that I realize it’s Eunkyong.
Shit. That Allison has a kinked sense of humor.
I shake loose, then slide into a position, figuring I’ll go fairly easy on the girl. I don’t know much about the formal oriental martial arts, the gliding gracefulness of it. All I know is close-combat moves, Special Forces version. Which by design are choppy, brutal, short, and deadly. Maximum violence to end it fast. Nothing like the ritualistic duels of the dojo.
Still, the SF way must have borrowed some things, because I find myself instinctively matching Eunkyong’s moves—just much too slowly.
She’s all over me, arms and legs a blur. In less than a minute my forearms are sore from blocking a few strikes, my ribs bruising from those I fail to block. Which are many, especially from her feet.
I get serious, fewer strikes land, but I’m still scarcely getting past her blocks. Eunkyong’s cleaning my clock.
Can’t let that happen; losing face, she’d explained earlier, in teacher mode, is as important in Korean culture as it is in Chinese. So I come on harder, feeling forgotten skills starting to come back as they should: automatic, without thought. She’s in retreat, I ease up just a bit, which is a stupid mistake because next thing I know I’m flat on my back, never feeling the flip she’s thrown me into. She steps back, I get up, we bow, begin again. Standard repertoire of strikes and blocks, a fairly even match. Then I play dirty, swing into some combat moves that I wasn’t sure I still had. But I do. She’s down, and maybe she’d be about to die if this was real.
“Pussy!” Eunkyong says.
She’s right; shitty thing for me to do in a workout. Fuck this face nonsense. I apologize, tell her I was getting desperate, she’s that good. Offer my hand to help her up. She takes it, smiles in what I take to be a forgiving way, starts to rise. Next instant I’m sailing head over heels and land with a thud on the mat. And her foot’s on my thorax. Real world, I’d be dead.
“Accept a surrender?” I manage.
She grins. “See you tomorrow. Library first,” she says.
Standing under the hot spray of my shower, I touch a few spots here and there, and wince. There are at least a dozen light purple bruises on my arms and chest, and they’re growing deeper in color, and larger. It’s a job putting on some clothes, and I’m moving kind of stiffly when I go downstairs and meet Nadya and Allison in the foyer.
“You’re going out dressed like that?” is all Allison says.
“EVER NOTICE HOW ORANGE THIS CITY IS?” I ASK AS
Allison downshifts and slides onto one of the spokes that radiate from Dupont Circle. Nadya’s in the backseat.
“What? Oh, the streetlights. Crime deterrent, right? But we’re heading into a cool neon zone. You like neon, don’t you?”
“Not especially,” I say. “Hey, when are you going to let me take this tin-pot for a spin?”
“You’ll never touch my baby,” Allison says.
“Quite attached to it, she is,” Nadya says.
“True. And it’s not meant to be crudely handled by middle-aged men in crisis. That’s the group market research identifies as the primary buyers of Audi TTs.”
“The Mini requires subtle handling,” Nadya says. “Rather like its owner.”
“Very witty, Nadya,” Allison says.
“It’s a finely tuned rally machine, though a bit high-strung. Rather like its—”
“Oh shut up, Nadya.”
“The original Mini was tough,” I say. “Don’t know
about this replica. I’d like to see if there’s any Cooper left in it.”
“Over my cold, dead body.”
“She means that, I’m sure,” Nadya says. “She’s so tough.”
“Enough,” Allison says. She’s driving almost tenderly, turning easily here, easily there. But pretty soon I’m completely disoriented, and give up trying a back-trace to the spook house. Somehow we’re purring past Jefferson’s monument, the ghost of it gleaming on the dark Tidal Basin, and very quickly we’ve left white-marble Washington entirely, entered a neighborhood of row houses, bars, restaurants that could be Baltimore or Philly or any other city I’ve been in. The neon display’s average only.
The bar doesn’t have any. It’s more like a lounge than a saloon, lots of modern sofas and upholstered chairs, some banquette nooks. Very designer, very upscale, nearly empty. We settle into the rear-most nook, Nadya next to me on the banquette, Allison sprawling in a big chair, a small round chrome table between us.
“You have to try the mango daiquiris,” Allison says. “They chop up fresh ripe mangoes, turn them into juice with a blender, add great rum. The best. Better than the straight Stoly you usually shoot, Nadya.”
“I am not convinced. Do you trust her, Luther?” Nadya asks.
“Absolutely. Without reservation.”
“How I doubt that!” Nadya says. “No one else does.”
“Now, why would that be?”
“Ah, I’ve the sense I’ve gotten rather too often into her bad books lately to honestly answer that one.”
“Your name has been written down, Nadya. There will be consequences.” Allison laughs. “Anyway, Luther
knows you lie. He’s a detective, after all. People lie to him all the time. Don’t they, Luther?”
“Constantly,” I say.
Allison tells the waiter to bring three mango daiquiris. When they arrive, at least they aren’t sporting little paper-and-stick umbrellas. I take a sip. Nice. Too bad a few sips is all I can have.
“Luther likes it. Look at his face,” Allison says to Nadya. Then she turns her eyes to me. “So. What’s it like, being a narc?”
“Nothing you’d particularly enjoy. Except the role-playing. You get to dress up in funny clothes—”
“So we’ve noticed,” Nadya says dryly.
“—like mall rat, biker, gangbanger,” I go on, ignoring her, “and pretend that’s the real you. The interesting moments are mostly physical. Drug dealers tend to be clever, the way rats are, but not real intelligent. The cerebral challenges would be too minor for your taste, Allison.”
“Cerebral challenges? Are you trying a little psy-op thing on me? Isn’t that what they called it in your late, lamented SOG posting? Or could you be just a bit insecure, even bitter that your formal education ended with high school?”
Her shift of tone blind-sides me for an instant. Friendly chat suddenly gone mean, nasty. Why? She’s pushing, wants to see how I’ll react. I decide to push back a little, see where that takes us.
“While you, after learning to walk like a lady at Miss Porter’s, went on to ace a master’s from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,” I say. “Asian studies for sure. First in your class, probably.”
“And that’s somehow a negative?”
Nadya’s concentrating on her drink, staying clear of this.
“No. Good for you. Just wondering if you have a wall anywhere you can hang that nicely framed diploma?”
“If it was about that, I’d have joined the State Department. Those suits all have walls perfect for that sort of thing. As well as photos of themselves with various muckety-mucks of whatever administration happens to be in at the moment, plus distinguished ambassadors, foreign heads of state.”
“So what is it all about for you, Allison?”
“Don’t go there.”
“Because we’re in public? Because Nadya isn’t cleared? Or—just guessing here—because you don’t really know?”
“I’m cleared from top to toe, but I don’t want any part of this aggro, thank you,” Nadya butts in.
“I’m as self-aware as I need to be,” Allison says.
“Now, that sounds a bit defensive. Or is it some of that psy-ops stuff you mentioned earlier?”
“Simple confusion. Where’s all this sudden hostility coming from, Luther? Any one of us offended you in any way?”
I laugh, then shake my head, decide against reminding her that she started the static, with that thing about high school. Just another test. I decide I’ll pass. “Sorry about all this,” I say. “Everyone’s been great. Just that I’m used to doing ops, not prepping for them. And I’m also feeling way out of the loop.”
“Sure. That’s a natural reaction to any sudden transition from what you’re used to. Confined, never without handlers—though most men wouldn’t complain about the close company of women like us. Would they, Nadya?”
“Not straight men, at least.” Nadya leans into me, smiling.
“There it goes again,” I say, hoping almost desperately the girl hasn’t fully sensed how deeply I’m attracted to her.
“Come on, Luther,” Allison says. “You enjoy a little light teasing. You know you do, ’cause you tease back. That’s all this is. And you are not being kept out of the loop. You’re being eased into it. Standard prep. In a little while you’ll probably know more than you really want to.”
“From Westley? Or from you?”
“From the team. Which you are a new but integral part of, okay?”
“You are our true heart-of-hearts,” Nadya says. “Eunkyong didn’t actually mean to thrash you so.”
Now I’m laughing for real. What else can I do? I know when I’m being outmaneuvered. But my riposte just pops out from somewhere deep, surprising and embarrassing me.
“Nadya, I know this is kind of sudden,” I say. “But would you marry me? We’d have such beautiful babies.”
“Oh dear. Bit of a shock. Of course I’m in love with you, darling. But this would change the course of our entire lives. Might I have some time to think on it?”
“Disgusting, the both of you,” Allison says. The atmosphere’s completely cleared. “Especially you, Russki slut. Remember, I saw him first. Thief.”
Nadya goes pure innocent. Protests even as she slips a hand on my forearm. I’m feeling very vulnerable, until I realize they’re taking my remark as pure joke, untainted by any sudden welling up of genuine emotion. Emotion is not in my profile. So my mood’s fine—except for puzzlement about my feelings—when we leave the bar, after they’ve had two more drinks each and I’ve had three more sips of my daiquiri.
Nadya disappears down the street with a wave as Alli
son lets us into the house. We’re heading upstairs when she pulls me into the library, closes the door, stands so close I can smell the faint fragrance of whatever shampoo she favors.
“Time for a little reality check,” she whispers. “How unhappy are you, Luther? It’s important.”
Christ! Now it’s tests within tests. “Not unhappy at all,” I say. “Just restless. I want to get moving.”
“That’s it? You’re sure?”
“Would I lie?”
“Every which way. But this isn’t tease time. I need to know the truth. Right now.”
“As I said. I’m used to action. Long time since I’ve had to train. For anything.”
“But you do realize how far you’ve got to go, physically? You’re very clear there are some new things you’ve yet to learn? This isn’t like any job you’ve ever done before.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I do know. Maybe that’s what’s frustrating. I’m working hard and not getting as far as fast as I’d like. My physical condition is a disgrace. But I’ll deal with it. As long as it takes is fine by me.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. Unqualified yes.”
“Good,” Allison says. “You’ll get into super physical shape once you pass this initial plateau. And there are some cool new things coming up. I think time is going to pass faster than it seems to right now.”
A bright voice calling, then a tremendous flash that turns my shut eyelids red, jerks me out of sleep. I sit up, blurrily spot Allison, looking like a page from a J. Crew catalog, one of those that suggests the morning after a sleepover: men’s boxers, sloppy top, thick socks. She’s
holding what appears to be a big Nikon, professional grade with strobe, and she’s laughing.
“Professional? Fuck me,” I snap. “This is a sorority house. What am I doing in a goddamn sorority house?”
“What I need you to do,” Allison says, “is wash your face, comb your hair, put on a shirt—one of your new ones, any color you like as long as it’s white—a tie, and a suit coat.”
“Too big. Your little man hasn’t altered ’em yet.”
“Won’t matter. I just need some head shots, Terry.”
“Knew it. You got the wrong fucking guy.”
“Not. From later on today, you’re Terry. Might as well start getting used to it.” Allison laughs again. She closes my door as she leaves.
The armoire doors are open. Someone’s sent all those button-downs to the laundry. They’ve come back heavily starched, folded, boxed. I tear one open. I see the name Prentice has been laundry-printed on the inside collar of all the shirts.
Five minutes later I slop down to the library, correctly attired but cranky as hell. Allison’s dressed in officewear, but that Nikon’s hanging from her neck. Before I can start bitching, she hands me a cigarette, already lit.
“Get your fix. Then some pics. He’ll have it set up in a minute,” she says, nodding toward the real Terry. He’s raising what looks like one of those rickety old home-movie screens, except it’s matte white instead of silvery. “Christ, who taught you to knot a tie? I thought they were meticulous about details like that in the military.”
“Not my branch. Ever seen a camo tie?” I mutter, raising my chin so Allison can redo the silk at my neck. Then she manhandles me onto my mark, about a meter in front of the screen.
“Try to look amiable. That’s your best? Oh, go finish
your cigarette, gulp some coffee, think pleasant thoughts. Then step back on the mark.”
I do as she says, feel half-human by the time I take a last sip and butt out the Camel. “What are these for?” I ask.
“Passports, driver’s license, visas. What else?” She’s two meters away, twisting the Nikon’s lens into focus. She snaps a few, the motor drive advancing a frame each time, the strobe leaving spots before my eyes. “Try a little smile, businessman-type. No, you look like a ladies’ shoe salesman. Tone it down a bit. Hey, that’s it. Perfect.”
Click and whir, click and whir, click and whir. I lose count. I’m almost blind when she says, “That’ll do it. Now please go up and put on some street clothes. Meet me down in the foyer.”
Then Allison starts delivering on the cool stuff.
We drive to an area of abandoned warehouses and small factories near the river, but well out of sight of the manicured, official showplace center of town. Dirty brick, busted panes of glass in the windows, a musky, mousey smell when she pushes open a rusted steel door and we enter. It’s a single huge room, no trace at all of what it once was. I see some crack vials and a few needles littering the concrete floor. Feels off, like a stage set, but it could be a junkie shooting gallery the Company appropriates every once in a while.
And I see three cars and at least eight guys in suits waiting for us. No names, no introductions, but one suit with the broken nose of an ex-pug immediately starts giving orders in a voice so harsh it sounds like somebody did a job on his vocal cords with a rasp file. Nobody needs to mention he’s the chief instructor here. Two guys join me as security, and five play bad guys. Rob’s one of them. The package I’m supposed to protect is Nadya. I know some basics from hostage rescue train
ing, but this is nothing like tossing stun grenades, storming into a building and taking down terrorists. It’s more Secret Service VIP protection drill. When the bad guys pop out from various positions, my sole role is to bundle Nadya out of any fields of fire, screened by my two colleagues, who’re supposed to be my friendly shooters. We do several scenarios; I get critiqued by the instructor after each go. He isn’t subtle about it.
“Goddammit, you started to move
into
the fight, dickhead!” he growls after the first. “Never, ever do that. You are
not
a shooter, get it! You take even a half-step into it, you’ll lose your package.” We continue.
“Pathetic. You were way too slow securing the package. You
thought
about taking a half-step into the fight, lost a second before you reversed. You gotta kill that instinct, understand?” he says after the second.
“That was just goddamn stupid!” he shouts after the third. “You steered yourself and your package through one of the fields of fire, not out of them. You’re both dead.”
Every scenario is slightly different. Sometimes I’m supposed to get Nadya out the building’s door in less than five seconds, other times I’ve got to shove her into the rear seat of one of the cars in less than two. In another I have to grab her, swing her down to the floor, lie on top of her, my body her shield. She squirms under me and I’m supposed to pin her.
“The fucking package will often panic, go berserk trying to run,” the instructor says. “Never let that happen. Never lose body contact. Pin that fucking package.”
That’s the drill I’m worst at, this first day. Nadya gets away and runs the first time. “You some kind of pussy?” the instructor rasps in disgust. “Do I have to fucking show you how to hold a woman down?” I glance over where Allison’s leaning against a wall, hop
ing for a grin or something. “Gentle is nice, Terry,” Nadya says, strolling back. “But not in this situation. You do need to do a full-body press. I won’t hold it against you.”