The Shadows Below

Chapter Thirteen

Once again, I'm running in my dreams. That's one thing Kasia and I had in common, running from our homelands while they burned behind us. Despite my mother's and my aunt's best-laid plans, we had had to both run to the plane. Kasia's plane. Despite both of us running, she's calm when she belts herself into the cockpit and starts running through the lift-off procedures. 

I did not know then and I still don't know now how she managed it. Got us out of there and back to her home, as it was when. It wasn't as though her time on the island hadn't been brutal and life-changing.

We had arrived at night and she had gotten our bags out of the plane and borrowed a car to her tiny apartment in New Orleans. Not quite Bourbon street but close enough to the pubs and clubs.

The plane shudders and I try to stay stoic, as my aunt reminded me before we left.

'You are royalty. Royalty does not shudder, or show any fear at all.'

'Bit of turbulence,' Kasia shouts back to me. 'Should be past it soon.'

Turbulence. I knew that word well. The island home where I was born and raised in luxury, was always turbulent. The five factions were always warring between themselves, alliances made and broken, sometimes on the same day. I was on the verge of inheriting one faction when the others aligned with each other and staged a coup.

Finally, I woke up. My apartment in New York is perfectly appointed and cleaned every day. And still, despite my schooling, I still shudder a little from the old nightmare. In my mind's eye, I can see my mother pursing her lips at my 'childishness'.

Kasia had kept the old phone we had been given, I remember. She had kept it plugged in, she had dug into the city's power supply when the electricity bills got too much.

It had remained silent.

After those heady years in New Orleans, the partying and drinking, mostly myself who partook of the nightlife. Kasia was the one who worked at the airfield and then finally managed to convince me to get my high school diploma, so I could go to college. I hadn't wanted to, even then I thought the phone would ring and I would hear my aunt's voice and she would tell me home was safe now and ready for my rule.

But it didn't. Instead, Kasia helped me study and learn how her world worked and then later, we both applied for college. Even after her experience flying all manner of planes, she was still restricted to college. We both got accepted to Princeton and even there, she still looked after me. She had to, my aunt had seen to that. A smile. My aunt would be proud of how I had improved her original formula and applied it so well.

I begin my day by making my breakfast and eating muesli and yoghurt in front of the various news channels this world has. I have a busy day at the office so I leave at the usual time, dressed to impress but nothing too showy. When the CIA beckoned as a possible career, Kasia had been all for it. I know she wanted me to be independent and my own job was part of that. Of course, by then I had learnt to look after myself and she was able to have her life back. She married and had a daughter, while I rose through the ranks, making contacts and a shadowy name for myself.

In the office, I have meetings. Go over projects. Progress reports from Poland are on my desk - corner office, something else I had earned here.

A smile edges onto my face as I read the latest from Poland, they're ready for the next mission. Time to get to work. The next lot of targets aren't in Poland per se, but it's a useful jumping-off point. And if it puts Kasia on edge, so much the better. It takes me a moment to clarify which one I'm thinking of. The phone rings, the usual suspect.

'Peter, good to hear from you. I'll have the latest report ready for you in 20 minutes.'

'Marion, I've been getting some rather distressing calls.'

'Anderson, it's good to hear you've been promoted. Do you need a reminder of why?'

'Marion, it's Peter here. Some of our allies have taken notice of your more recent methods.'

'Is it so different to how we've got others on the list?'

'You sent me the first photos. And it's not as though the others on that list didn't have friends.'

'You've seen their methods before. Again, is this so different?' Such a joke. These boys that pose as men. My mother would have devoured them long ago, metaphorically at least. But I need them alive. Unfortunately.

'It's not going to be long before one of them gets a camera out and starts sharing them.'

I stifle a chuckle. 'Again, it wouldn't be the first time.'

'If pictures are leaked, it puts a clock on the operation. Do you have an exit strategy?'

'Of course, I do. Anyway, we're nearing the end of the list.' He won't like the details but he doesn't need to know, yet.

'Marion, there are other names that the CIA would like to see gone.'

'These are the highest-ranking names. I am not here for the chicken feed and neither is anyone else on this call.'

'Are you really going to let the asset go after the names are all gone?' The first reasonable question.

'I did tell her I would.'

'That's not the question I asked, Marion.'

'I have a job to do and she understands that. Besides, we live in a dangerous world. It's not as though that is going to change any time soon.' I pick up a picture from my mahogany desk. Kasia, the younger, as she is being led off the plane after landing in Poland. The resemblance to her grandmother is uncanny.

'Well, if this asset is going to be kept in the field indefinitely, there will be times that she will have to deal with the chicken feed and so will you.'

I take a deep breath. 'Fine.'

'I look forward to reading your report. You did say 20 minutes?

'Of course.'

I'm already typing by the time I hang up. Removing enemies was a speciality of my family, silently, violently and without showing off.

My aunt would be proud of me.