“A Montreal businessman. ‘Friend’ is an exaggeration. If it really belonged to a
friend, I wouldn’t go near it—the risk would be too great. Alasdair Swift is
someone I did a few favors once. Always urged me to stay at his place if I were
ever in northern Italy. He spends a few weeks here in July, otherwise, it’s
pretty much vacant. I figure it’ll serve a turn.
There’s also a fair amount of high-tech communication equipment here. A
satellite dish, high-bandwidth Internet connection. Everything a modern
businessman might need.”
“Everything but a pot of joe,” she said.
“There’s a sack of coffee in the kitchen. Why don’t you make us a pot?”
“Trust me,” she said. “That’s a real bad idea.”
“I’m not fussy,” he said.
She held his gaze sullenly. “I don’t cook and I don’t make coffee. I’d say it
was out of feminist principle. Truth is, I don’t know how. No big whoop.
Something to do with my mom dying when I was a little girl.”
“Wouldn’t that turn you into a cook?”
“You didn’t know my dad. He didn’t like me messing around in the kitchen. Like
it was disrespecting my mom’s memory, or something. Taught me how to microwave a
Hungry-Man dinner, though, and scrape the gunk out of the foil sections and onto
a plate.”
He shrugged. “Hot water. Coffee grounds. Figure it out.”
“On the other hand,” she went on, her cheeks aflame, “I am crazy good with a
rifle. And I’m generally considered hot shit at field tactics, E and E,
surveillance, you name it. So if you had a mind to, you probably could put me to
good use. Instead, you’re acting like you got nothing in your head but boogers
and a peanut shell.”
Janson burst out laughing.
It was not the reaction she had expected. “That’s something my dad used to say,”
the young woman explained, sheepishly. “But I meant what I told you. Don’t sell
me short. Like I say, I can come in real handy. You know it.”
“I don’t even know who you are.” His eyes came to rest on her strong, regular
features, her high cheekbones and full lips. He had almost stopped noticing the
angry welts.
“The name’s Jessica Kincaid,” she said, and extended a hand. “Make us some joe,
why don’t you, and we’ll sit down and talk proper.”
As a pot of coffee made its way into mugs, and into their bellies, accompanied
by a few fried eggs and pieces of coarse bread torn from a round loaf, Janson
learned a few things about his would-be executioner. She grew up in Red Creek,
Kentucky, a hamlet nestled in the Cumberland Mountains, where her father owned
the town’s only gas station and spent more of his money at the local hunting
supply store than was good for them. “He always wanted a boy,” she explained,
“and half the time he kinda forgot I wasn’t one. Took me hunting with him first
time when I wasn’t any more’n five or six. Thought I should be able to play
sports, fix cars, and take down a duck with a bullet, not a cartridge full of
shot.”
“Little Annie Oakley.”
“Shit,” she said, grinning. “That’s what the boys in high school called me.
Guess I had a tendency to scare ’em off.”
“I’m getting the picture. Car would break down, boyfriend would start hoofing it
for a roadside phone box, and meanwhile you’d be communing with the carburetor.
A few minutes after they set off, the motor roars to life.”
“Something like that,” she said, apparently smiling at a memory his words
brought back.
“I hope you don’t take offense if I say you’re not standard-issue Cons Ops.”
“I wasn’t standard-issue Red Creek, either. I was sixteen when I finished high
school. Next day, I lift a thick handful from the gas station cash register, get
on a bus, and keep going. Got a knapsack filled with paperback novels from the
wire racks, and they’re all about FBI agents and shit. I don’t get off until I’m
in Lexington. Can you believe, I’d never been there before. Never went
anywhere—my daddy wouldn’t stand for it. Biggest town I’d ever seen. Go straight
to the FBI office there. There’s a fat-mama secretary at the front desk.
Sweet-talked her into giving me an application form. Now, I’m just a gawky
teenager, all skin and bones, mostly bones, but when this young Fed happens by,
I’m batting my eyes at him like crazy. He’s like, ‘Somebody got you in for
questioning?’ I’m like, ‘Why don’t you take me in for some questioning, ’cause
you hire me, it’ll be the best decision you ever made.’ ” She blushed at the
recollection. “Well, I was young. Didn’t even know you had to have a college
degree to be an agent. And he and another guy in a navy suit are, like, joshing
around with me, since it’s a slow day, and I tell ’em I can pretty much hit
whatever I aim at. And one of them, as a lark, takes me to the shooting range
they got in the basement. He’s calling my bluff, kinda, but mostly just foolin’
with me. So I’m on the shooting range, and they’re like, be sure you got the
safety goggles on, and the ear muffles, and you sure you’ve handled a twenty-two
before?”
“Don’t tell me. You hit in the X-ring.”
“Shit. One shot, one bull’s-eye. Four shots, four bull’s-eyes. No scatter. That
hushed their mouths, all right. They kept punching up new targets, I kept
hittin”em. They went long-distance, gave me a rifle, I showed ’em what I could
do.”
“So the sharpshooter got the job.”
“Not exactly. I got a position as a trainee. Had to get a college-equivalency
certificate in the meantime. A pile of book learning. Wasn’t all that hard.”
“Not for a bright-eyed girl with engine grease beneath her nails and cordite in
her hair.”
“And Quantico was a piece of cake. I could skedaddle up a rope faster than
almost anybody in my class. Hand-over-hand climbing, second-story entrances,
first-over-fence, whatever. Buncha football clods, they couldn’t keep up with
me. I apply for a job at the Bureau’s National Security Division, and they take
me. So a few years later, I’m on a special NSD assignment, and I catch the eye
of some Cons Op spooks, and that’s that.”
“Like Lana Turner getting discovered on a fountain stool at Schwab’s Drugstore,”
Janson said. “So why do I think you’re skipping over the most interesting part?”
“Yeah, well, the details are messy,” she said. “I’m in sniper position, in
Chicago. A stakeout. It’s a funny case, corporate espionage, only the spy
actually works for the People’s Republic of China. It’s Cons Ops’ baby, but the
Feds are providing local backup and support. My job’s pretty much just to keep
watch. Things get a little out of hand, though. The guy slips the net. He’s got
a whole mess of microfiche on him, we know, so we definitely don’t want him to
escape. Somehow he slipped the lobby cordon, and he’s racing down the street to
his car. If he gets in the car, he’s gone, because we don’t have vehicular
coverage. Nobody expected him to get that far, see. So I request permission to
blow the handle off the car door. Slow him down. Operation manager says no—they
think it’s too dangerous, that I’ll hit the subject, risk an international
incident. Shit, the manager’s covering his ass. I know what I can hit. The
risk’s zero. Manager doesn’t know me, and he’s saying, Hold fire. Stand down.
Red light. Desist. ”
“You squeeze off a shot anyway.”
“Pop in a steel-jacketed round, blast off the door handle. Now he can’t get into
the car, and he’s scared shitless to boot, I mean he just freezes, saying his
prayers to the Chairman, and our guys end up hauling him off. Fellow has
beaucoup microfiche on him, technical specs on every kind of telecom device you
could name.”
“So you save the day.”
“And get shit-canned for my troubles. ‘Acting in contravention of orders,’ that
kind of bullshit. Sixty-day suspension followed by disciplinary proceedings.
Except these spooks swoop in and say they like my style, and how’d I like a life
of travel and adventure.”
“I think I’ve got the general idea,” Janson said, and he did. In all likelihood,
he knew from his own experience as a recruiter, the Consular Operations team
first checked out her scores and field reports. Those had to have been
startlingly impressive, for Cons Ops had a generally low estimation of the Feds.
Once she was identified as a serious talent, someone in Cons Ops probably pulled
strings with a contact at the Bureau and arranged for her suspension—simply to
facilitate the transfer. If Cons Ops wanted her, they would get her. Hence
they’d take steps to ensure that their offer of employment was accepted with