A young man wakes up in the desert. The wreckage of an ambulance lies smashed against a boulder and charred to a crisp. By the stitches on his head and face, he assumes he was the patient. But why was an ambulance driving through a desert? Where wa...
"Now? Yes, I know...but...half an hour...OK...OK...bye."
Light looked away from the folder to see Abel hang up the phone and again drive off the road to park.
"What are you doing now?"
"They've said I'll be given some documents before we go, so we'll have to wait."
"Who said?"
"Doesn't matter." Abel unfastened his safety belt and leaned around in the seat, staring directly into her eyes. "Now tell me who you are, and don't look at the notes."
Light closed the folder and cleared her throat slightly.
"My name is Cassidy Henson. I'm from Indianapolis, a student of West Point, and currently in naval practices under your supervision."
"Parents."
"Michael and Elayne Henson. They have their own travel agency."
"Your mother's maiden name."
"O'Connor."
"Siblings."
"Susan, ten, and Mayra, nineteen. Mayra moved to study law at Yale thanks to the legacy that my aunt Gwendoline left for my family."
"Neighborhood where you grew up."
"Eastgate."
"You root for..."
"Indiana Pacers."
"And their coach..."
"George Irvine."
"Marital status."
"Engaged to Jake Olsen, who I've been dating for six years now. He's studying to be a policeman."
"Short-term plans."
"Enlist in the Navy."
"Long-term."
"Move to San Diego."
"Your dream."
"To work at Norad."
Garrard raised his hand, signaling to stop.
"OK, that's enough. But if asked, try not to seem so robotic."
"What do you mean?"
"Come a bit alive, I mean."
"You want me to play 'out cold' at the end?"
"I want you to go to hell. All right, enough about your alias. Now, we need a codename to refer to you in my transmissions with Leviathan."
"OK, which one?"
"I don't care. Just pick one."
"Isn't that something somebody else gives to me?"
"That's just a rule of thumb. Pick whatever you want, for all I care."
"Did you choose yours?"
"Yeah."
"Which one is it?"
"Leon."
"Why that?"
"It's after Tolstoy."
"Isn't it Leo?"
"It's Leon in Spanish."
"Well, I'm more into Dostoyevsky."
"So, you want Fyodor?"
"God no."
"So, what do you want?"
"I don't know. Anything but Jane Doe."
"What about Jane Stag?"
"You think you're funny?"
"Look, I need some name to relay to the command center before we start the op. Don't you like deer and shit?"
Light sighed and rolled her eyes in a way only a woman can.
"Fine, whatever. Jane Stag. You know what? Stagness. Call me Stagness. Sounds more regal."
"All right. Fine by me. In fact, let's transcribe it with just one 's' at the end, make it look Spanish. Sometimes it's useful to throw spies off by giving someone a codename that is or sounds like it is in another language, or that confuses them into thinking one person is many people. You know, two birds for you."
"All right, 'Stagnes,'" repeated Light in Spanish accent.
Abel looked at his watch in a clear attempt to close the subject.
"Well, I've been told the guy will take about fifteen minutes, so we better stay here."
Ace snarled at Light with his tail thudding indistinctly between the shift lever, the door, the seat, and Abel's arm.
"He wants to pee," she said.
"Well, then take him out and make him do all he has to, 'cause I'm telling you he won't do it on the ship."
Light opened the door.
"Ace, davai."
*****
Abel sat on the hood of the car, finishing his second consecutive cigarette. Virgil was late, and that sidetracked him from keeping all his senses on the mission. He gazed sideways, a few yards beyond, staring at those two as they wandered erratically from one side to another of the gray steppe, which was only punctuated by countless bushes, as far as he could see. The eternal sigh of the wind made for a better painkiller than the smoke.
He was careful to drop the ashes away from his new polished shoes, courtesy of the Secret Service. Before changing cars, he had also switched his suit for a military uniform, his regular work clothing. He switched everything but those honing black leather shoes. He couldn't help it.
He looked at his watch. Virgil was definitely late. But he didn't take much longer. Two minutes later, there he was, parking his black all-rounder behind Abel's.
*****
"Are you done?"
Obviously Light did not expect any response, although she'd swear she saw the dog nod. And not for the first time. She grabbed hold of the leash and pulled it towards the car when she saw the second black car park behind theirs, with a mohawked Asian coming out of it, and then Abel stubbed out his cigarette with his sole and met him halfway. She couldn't justify it, and she would never know why, but she crouched instinctively behind the vegetation. She rarely went with her guts, but when she did, she did not doubt them for even one second.
"Ace, zemlya," she whispered.
The dog growled and lay down on the ground, while she, behind the stalks, tried to make out the distant conversation between Abel and that man. The wind and distance deprived her from getting more than the guy's name, Virgil. There was something in him that did not seem to harmonize, like two gears that didn't fit, and that something made him dangerous. He manifested it through his eyes, his closed fists, the poking of his boots against the pavement. Even in his laconic way of speaking, a symptom of incorrigible impatience.
The conversation did not last more than a minute, when suddenly, the man pulled out a gun and pointed it directly at Abel's chest, whose look of disappointment was proportional to his gaze of hatred towards the other man. Time stopped for Light, aware that the trigger also meant the end for her.
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