Caitlyn opened her mouth but, at a look from her husband, closed it.
“Uh,” Kevin said, and then he closed his mouth.
Caitlyn and Dmitri had brought her straight to The Boss’s office on the tenth floor with no fuss and no fanfare: she hadn’t even had to show her I.D. It was something to consider; her friends had some rank, for sure.
Although, if pressed, they would both deny working for The Boss; it was certainly no secret how much they disliked him.
Like him or not, the fact was that they both periodically disappeared, sometimes for weeks at a time, sometimes apart, more often together. “Vacations,” Caitlyn would explain it away nervously when she asked Jenny to look after the salon.
But nobody—Jenny didn’t care how much money they had—nobody took that many vacations. The fact that Caitlyn remained in denial about her status was irrelevant.
The Boss’s office was like any CEO’s—all dark leather and wood, with a formal outer office for an assistant (a pleasant red-headed woman named Sharon, with as many freckles as IQ points—a formidable thought).
“Jennifer—stop scaring me.”
“I’m sorry?” she asked, startled.
“What are you, some kind of super-genius? I mean, I know you’re smart, obviously you’re smart, but this is just weird. You’re around people who do heads, so you pick up style tips, and now you’re around, uh, people in government work, and now you’re figuring out all this—uh—”
“Spy stuff?” she asked. “It’s all right, Caitlyn. I figured it out a few months ago. For heaven’s sake. I’d have to be pretty dumb not to.”
“Yeah, it’s all right,” Kevin yawned, propping his booted feet up on The Boss’s desk. “I like ’em brainy.”
“She’s a chameleon personality,” Dmitri explained. “It’s a typical condition found in Generation X’ers.”
“You’re a Gen X’er,” Caitlyn pointed out. “I’m a Gen X’er. We’re all Gen X’ers.”
“Barely,” Dmitri sniffed.
“That’s a psychological theory that hasn’t been definitely proven,” Jenny felt obliged to mention.
“What is?” Caitlyn asked.
“Successful Gen X’ers are, to quote Dr. Rosen on the subject—”
“Can I take my nap now?”
“—‘are tormented by anxiety, fear of failure, and a lack of control over the forces that affect their lives.’”
“So?” Caitlyn asked. “Welcome to the world.”
“‘To cope,’” Dmitri continued, ignoring his wife, “‘many have adopted “chameleon” personalities, pretending to be what others want them to be…’”
“I resent that,” Caitlyn said.
“It’s not all about you, dear,” The Boss replied a little sharply.
“And—and that’s basically all there is on that,” Dmitri finished, somewhat abruptly. Jennifer said nothing, though she knew he had skipped the part about how chameleonism was basically self-defeating, and the cost was very high, emotionally.
Oh, and also, over time, pretending to be what you’re not becomes permanent. Crazy, much? Like father, like daugh—
“I apologize,” Dmitri was saying, “for getting us off topic.”
“That’s all right,” Caitlyn said, leaning over and giving his knee a smack. “I do it all the time.”
“Well, well,” Kevin said, an admiring look on his face. His brown eyes twinkled at her. “No wonder you’re the hot commodity ’round these parts.”
Jenny felt herself blushing again, and silently cursed. Bad enough to be a boring pale blonde living in Minnesota, with the de rigueur blue eyes and long hair, but her complexion was always a dead giveaway to her emotional state.
“Be that as it may,” The Boss said, forcing them back on track, “we were discussing how Kevin might reinfiltrate the Snakepit.”
“Assuming he goes,” Caitlyn added. “That’s what we were discussing.”
“How nice.” The Boss gave her a wintry smile. “You were paying attention. Allow me to make note of the date and time. Also, Lieutenant, if you don’t get your feet off my desk, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering which Big Mac is laced with poison.”
Jenny almost laughed as Kevin sat up so straight, so quickly, he almost toppled out of his chair. “You leave the McDonalds Corporation alone,” he warned.
“Dude! Didn’t you see Super Size Me?”
“We don’t all have efficient little baby robots cutting the fat out of our bloodstream every minute,” Kevin practically snapped.
“Nobody’s taking away your Big Macs,” Jenny soothed. “That would be cruel and unusual.” She herself was partial to the Filet-O-Fish.
“Goddamned right,” he grumped. “But getting back to what we were jawin’ about, you guys are giving me too much credit. The guys in the Pit’ll shoot me on sight.”
“Not if you bring them something they want.”
“I can’t explain going off the grid for almost twenty-four hours, not to mention coming back empty-handed.”
“I can circulate arrest paperwork,” The Boss said.
“So anyone hacking on him would think he was lawfully detained?” Dmitri asked.
“Exactly.”
“And then he—what? Escaped? Was bailed out? By whom?”
“An escape, I think,” The Boss replied. “Perhaps in transit.”
“And he’s bringing back—what?”
“Information.”
“Discs, paperwork, what? And how did he get it?”
“He could bring me back,” Jennifer suggested, and smiled through the expected uproar.
Chapter 12
“It’s a tremendously daring idea,” The Boss said.
“Shut up,” Caitlyn snapped. “Jenny, listen to reason. You’re a receptionist, not a spy. This is not a movie, it’s not television. This shit is an excellent way to get your head blown off. I don’t even work here, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been shot at.”
“She’s right,” Kevin piped up helpfully. “I’ve almost had my head blown off thirteen times over the course of my career.”
“They’d never see it coming,” Dmitri offered, looking intrigued.
“He’s right,” Kevin said, still helpful. “I’ve never seen a receptionist anywhere near me those thirteen times.”
“Shut up, Stone. You were useful for about eight seconds.”
“Aw,” Kevin said. “You sound mad.”
The Boss cleared his throat. “It’s quite a good idea, Jennifer, but Caitlyn’s right—it’s dangerous.”
“Yes, but—if it’ll help the Lieutenant get back into the Snakepit, it’s worth it, don’t you think? I mean, who knows what those bums are up to?”
“Who cares?” Caitlyn snapped, visibly upset.
“Caitlyn, they sent this guy to shoot your best friend in the face. Are you really going to stand for that?”
“No, but I’m not sending my other friend into the Snakepit, either. Think about what you’re saying! We’ve got a building full of spies, but we’ve got to send Jenny? No offense, Jenn.”
“This might be the twenty-first century,” Jenny pointed out, “but still—when people see a petite, cute blonde, they blow her off. I’ve seen it since I was four. It’s believable that I was a drone for The Boss, but not a field agent. They’ll accept that Kevin could overpower me and bring me back for whatever faux info you’ll give me.”
“Bring us back,” Caitlyn said promptly.
Kevin laughed. “Oh, honey. I’m good, but not that good. They’d never believe I could overpower a cyborg and a receptionist.”
Jenny hid her grin behind her hand.
“Just me, then,” Caitlyn suggested.
“No,” The Boss said at once.
“It’s not up to you,” Caitlyn practically snarled.
“On that you are wrong, as you are so often, my dear.”
“Why the hell not?”
“For the same reason Jenny’s right. Th
ey’d never believe he could bring you back.”
“They don’t have to know—”
“You won’t be able to resist tossing minions over railings. And the first blood test they do, they will know. Not to mention, as you tirelessly remind me, you don’t work for me.”
“Neither does Jenny!”
He ignored the outburst. “But a ‘drone’, as Jenny put it—”
“What, you don’t have an agent who looks innocent and kidnappable?”
“Don’t you see, Caitlyn?” Jenny interrupted. “That’s why it’s foolproof. Because if something goes wrong, nobody’s out anything. The Boss doesn’t lose a field agent, intel doesn’t fall in the wrong hands, and the lieutenant can get safely back in.”
“I’d never let anything happen to her,” Kevin said quietly, if a bit muffled around the spork he was chewing.
“That’s sweet,” Caitlyn snapped, “but unrealistic. Why are we even considering this? And how many of those things do you keep on you at any given time?”
“Because it’s a viable option,” The Boss said, ignoring the other part of her question.
“Dude—if you do this, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Promises, promises, dear.”
“And I won’t do any more jobs for you, either. And neither will my husband.”
“Stop it, Caitlyn,” Jenny said sharply. “You’re my boss, not my mother.”
“Don’t call me that,” Caitlyn begged. “I’m not your boss.”
“Exactly. This is my decision, not yours, and it was my idea, I might add, not anyone else’s, and we’re going to do it, and that’s how it is.”
Kevin sighed and leaned back, smirking at The Boss. “It’s great to have a real man in charge.”
Chapter 13
An hour later, it was decided. Dmitri had more or less dragged his wife out—she still had plenty to say on the subject—and Kevin went off to prep for the mission. The Boss had asked Jenny to remain for a while, and he was looking at her thoughtfully now.
She broke the long silence with a barely polite, “What?”
“You know, Jennifer, you don’t have to prove anything to anybody. You’re a successful young woman. You’re not defined by what you do.”
“Hmmph,” she replied with a skeptical twist of the mouth.
“If I could hazard a guess—were your parents drug addicts, or perhaps alcoholics?”
She smiled a bit and tilted her head.
“It’s quite typical for the child of such parents to think his—or her—worth is measured by how useful they are. How helpful they can be to others. How many problems they can solve, in tough spots. How many—”
“So I don’t like sitting on my hands,” she interrupted as gently as she could, feeling the smile dry up on her face. “That proves, what exactly?”
“Not a thing. Off the topic entirely, how attached are you to keeping your current managerial position at Caitlyn’s salon?”
“Extremely,” she lied.
Now it was his turn to give a skeptical look.
“Even if I wasn’t, what use am I beyond this particular mission? I’m nobody special. I can’t do things like Caitlyn and Dmitri. I’m just a, a nobody,” she said again, because she couldn’t think of a better descriptive term.
“Jennifer.” The Boss shook his sleek head. “Remind me to throttle the gentleman—it always seems to be a man—who put such shitty ideas in your pretty head.” He sighed when she betrayed no reaction, and changed the subject. “Do you understand exactly what it is you’re supposed to do?”
“Accompany Kevin back to his Snakepit contacts and verify his account of attempts to complete their mission for him. Once they accept him, submit to what Kevin believes will be a mild interrogation process for a civilian captive. Observe the initial stages of Kevin’s sabotage of the Snakepit, within a day or so. When the moment arrives and he releases me from captivity, run like hell.”
“Comparisons are odious—”
“John Donne. And Cervantes.”
“—but this is such a pleasant change from Caitlyn. Keep an eye on Lieutenant Stone,” he added. He looked down at himself and seemed surprised to see the rose boutonnière, looking pretty bedraggled after the day it had had. Jenny wondered how the EMTs had worked around it, how he’d gotten his bulletproof vest off without disturbing it. A puzzle for another day.
“The man was playing a part for years,” The Boss continued. “He might have forgotten about the real Kevin Stone.”
“Yes,” she said again; it was a thought that had occurred to her many times.
“Do you have any weapons experience?”
“Yes—I can hit the ten-spot about ninety-five percent of the time with my Beretta.”
“Self-defense? Karate, judo, aikido?”
“I have a brown belt in judo, a black in aikido.”
“Any special licensing, degrees?”
“I had a double major in Marketing and Criminal Psychology. I’m fifteen credits away from my master’s in psychology.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, right.” She had forgotten. “I’m a licensed EMT in the state of Minnesota.”
“And you’re—”
“Twenty-three.” She answered his unspoken question. “There’s never anything good on TV.”
He actually rubbed his hands together. “And you’ve been spending your entire life trying to make yourself useful, probably trying to get your father’s attention—”
“Boss,” she said, “your ability to take advantage of my fragile emotional state, born of years of verbal parental abuse, is…well, limited.”
“Ha,” he said dourly.
“This isn’t about pleasing you. Or annoying Caitlyn. That’s just, you know, a bonus. It’s not even about protecting Stacy. For once, maybe this once, it’s about me. It’s like, well, a non-movie, you know?”
“No.”
“If this was a sci-fi flick, Caitlyn would be the star. If it was an action movie, Dmitri would be the star. Romance—maybe you and Stacy together. Well, there is no movie for people like me. But I’m the star, anyway.”
“Movie or not, it all ends when you catch a bullet between those pretty baby blues,” The Boss added with grating cheer.
“Plenty more where I came from.”
He rolled his eyes and stretched his neck, looking like a mildly pissed-off seal anxious for his morning fish bucket. “Jenny m’dear, if there were plenty more like you, I’d send another one in your place.”
Chapter 14
Jenny almost smiled; like any gun range, the place had the comforting smell of metal, gun oil, gunpowder, and burned paper.
“At least he didn’t just drop you over the Snakepit on your word you can take of yourself,” Caitlyn bitched from the shooter’s bench behind her.
“It’s something to pass the time,” she replied calmly, popping the last round into the clip, then sliding the clip into the pistol. She sighted downrange, glanced to the left, saw all lights were green, and emptied the gun at the paper target.
“Ninety-eight,” Caitlyn said.
“Are you sure?” A ninety-eight would mean she wasn’t entirely in the black on two of the targets.
“Helloooooo? Super vision over here.”
Jenny hit the button, which brought the targets on their slow, rumbling track toward her. As they got closer, she saw Caitlyn was right.
She scowled at the ruined paper. “I guess I was a little nervous.”
“You still hit all the centers—just not entirely in the center. I mean, jeez, I didn’t know you could do that. When do you do that? It must take—I dunno—years of practice.”
“Years,” she agreed.
“This whole place gives me the creeps,” Caitlyn admitted in a low voice. “A shooting range in the basement, and The Boss on the top floor. And any number of horrors in between.”
“I kind of like it,” she
said, popping the clip. She pulled out the earplugs and set them on the waist-high table beside her. This was a small lie; she’d never in her life been alone in a shooting range—except for Caitlyn, that is. Alone, no shooters to call the safety checks, no one to spot for her, no one to good-naturedly kid her about a date on Saturday night.
Just loud shots, echoing concrete, and Caitlyn’s occasional commentary.
“So, you can shoot,” she said glumly.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I have a life,” she teased, “outside of running your salon.”
“Don’t remind me. Apparently a secret life of bullets and karate. Cripes.”
She opened a new box of bullets, loaded the clip again, slid the clip back into the gun, popped her plugs back in, said, “Clear, range,” out of force of habit, and squeezed (never pulled) the trigger a few more times. It wasn’t her gun, but it was a good one, all the same.
“One hundred—there, are you happy now?”
“Sure.”
“Seeing as how we’re alone and all—if I can get you to stop banging away with that thing for five seconds—”
“Don’t bother, Caitlyn.”
Her friend made a face and got up from the folding chair, looking like she wanted several wet naps. Jenny had to smile. Like all gun ranges, this one had a hint of grime about it. All the powder flying in the air at all hours, such places were impossible to keep clean. At least they’d changed out of their bridesmaid dresses.
“Don’t bother, she tells me.”
“Who are you talking to?” Jenny asked.
“You know how nuts this is, right?”
“Sure,” Jenny replied. “That’s why I want to go.”
Part Two
WITHOUT*
Chapter 15
As she stretched out in the back of the navy blue Ford minivan, Jenny couldn’t help feeling abnormally cheerful. And not just because of all the legroom, either.
Okay, she had a splitting headache. And a long drive (well, Kevin had a long drive), since she’d refused any sleep medication. Shoot, she wouldn’t take a Tylenol for a stab wound—she was well aware that her risk of becoming an addict was much higher than the average bear’s.