Blue with Black Dots (The Caprice Trilogy Book 2) (20 page)

Georgia felt the best thing she could do to advance the
Step Down
program was to play her role as student.  She played it better than her flat mates and better than her course mates.  She studied longer and took fewer breaks.  She wanted to ease the atmosphere between Owen and herself by doing well on his exam.  She knew she could probably find him at the
Duster Salute Bar & Restaurant
or maybe he stopped going so often to avoid running into her.  The one place where their lives had to intersect was the lecture hall.  That was the extent of it.  Georgia didn’t want to leave him with mixed emotions.  He was attracted to her.  She knew by the way he talked at the table with her and her flat mates.  He was focused, truly engaged in the conversation; a result of not having anyone else to think about.  The person at the back of his thoughts was sitting right next to him.  There was no other place for his mind to go.  And when her leg brushed his, he didn’t do a thing. Georgia didn’t want him to feel conflicted about grading her.  She didn’t want him to feel the need to boost her grade out of concern for her.  Owen wanted to give her high marks.  Georgia wanted to make it easy for him to do so, doing them both a favor. 

Owen didn’t proctor his own examination.  When Georgia stepped into the lecture hall she found a woman, much older than Owen, standing at the lectern.  There were three stacks of papers on the front table in the lecture hall and a box with ballpoint pens.  Georgia had to check in with the woman, before being allowed to grab her copy of the exam and her pens.  There was no talking allowed in the lecture hall, aside from checking in with the proctor.  Georgia saw Russell and wanted to wish him good luck but would have forfeited her right to take the exam if she chose to speak.  Seeing that most students sat in their usual seats, Georgia chose to do the same.  There were three hours allotted for the exam.  Georgia predetermined to use all three of them.  She did.  She was one of seven people that remained, when time was called.  Russell wasn’t one of the others.  She wanted to ask him how he did but he was gone by the time she left the lecture hall.  It was the only exam that mattered for
Step Down
.  She still wanted to do well on her other exams, not for the program but for herself.  She continued studying with heavy activity for the next week.  Her last examination was on Tuesday, December 14
th
.  She had prepared for it like her first exam.  And like her first exam, she took all the time given.  She left the Business Campus feeling awkward.  She had finished her first semester.  But
Step Down
was at a standstill in the eyes of her manager, Mark Miller.  She hadn’t heard anything about support staff back at Norfolk.  She wondered what Liza and Shane were thinking.

She spent the next two days with Evie and Deirdre.  They hung out and talked before Georgia began to pack her things.  Mark had accepted her proposal to move back to London.  But Georgia had to guarantee she would stay in contact with Owen.  It was a heated conversation, even for someone like Mark, who prided himself on English manners.  But Mark admitted that the classic British man was perhaps a bit more reserved than the average American man of the same age.  He acquiesced to the fact that the Agency had, perhaps, over estimated the nature of things at work.  And he flat out admitted that the Agency’s timetable was accelerated to say the least, exaggerated to say the most.  Georgia told Mark, if any thing, her move back to London would accelerate the program and put
Step Down
’s timeframe back to its hurry-up pace. 

Evie and Deirdre were even harder on Georgia for her decision to move out.  They were already paid through for the next semester, as was Georgia.  But Georgia abated some of the pressure by explaining that she didn’t intend to sublet her room.  Evie and Deidre wouldn’t have to get used to a new third.  In fact, Georgia proposed the girls could use her room as the designated Shag Shack.  If either Evie or Deirdre wanted to bring a guy home without the repercussions of having not tidied up, they had the spare room.  Or if they wanted to throw a party in the flat and someone was too drunk to make it home, they had the third room.  Georgia was able to convince them that having a third room could be beneficial.  But they weren’t convinced having a third room would be better than having Georgia herself.  Georgia didn’t have much stuff to give away but anything she knew she didn’t need was given to either Evie or Deirdre.  She told them everything would be ok.  Her
dad
was paying for her room until her lease was up.  And her Dad had found her a position in consulting at a London real estate management firm.  She promised them she would land on her feet.  They made her promise she’d phone or write or both.  Georgia had made her decision to leave feeling more and more like it was a mistake.  She hadn’t seen Owen in almost two weeks.  She hadn’t seen him outside of scheduled lectures in almost four.  When she arrived in London, she knew she had to go on the attack quickly.  She had to do something.  A phone call might have been too abrupt or needy but the hard-to-get routine was outliving its usefulness.  On Saturday the 18
th
, she went to campus to hand in her student mailbox key.  She had fond memories of her mailbox because early in the semester, she didn’t know anyone.  But she got frequent mail in her box because she was a transfer student.  She got notices of things that the Agency had dropped the ball on, like her shot and medical records.  The University of Strathclyde needed her records but Middlesex had them.  She had to call and make sure it was taken care of.  Her mailbox was full when she first opened it because she couldn’t get the key until she got her ID card and it took her a couple weeks to get that.  She needed to go check her mailbox one last time before handing in her key.  Unlike the first time she opened the box.  It wasn’t full.  It was empty.  Georgia closed the box but before she locked it she opened it again.  She thought the box looked odd, something about the bottom.  The box was just above her eye level giving her an upward angle when peering into the box.  She reached her hand inside to feel the floor.  It didn’t feel like steel.  It felt like paper.  She slid a single white envelope out of the box.  The envelope was sealed and had nothing written on the outside.  It was cryptic—the Agency.  Georgia went to the Student Circulation Desk to turn in her mailbox key.  They crossed her name off the list and said they were sad she wouldn’t be on campus the following semester.

Georgia went back to her third floor flat, which was empty.  She didn’t know where Evie and Deirdre were.  But they had plans to hang out for the evening because all were catching trains leaving Glasgow on Sunday.  Georgia locked her room door and set her pursue down on her desk.  She took the envelope out of her purse and lied on her bed to read it.  The outside had been sealed with tape, which was fitting for the Agency.  They wouldn’t risk a paper cut leaving a blood sample by licking the envelope.  Georgia had to use her fingernail to pry open the envelope.  She tore into the paper envelope like prey.  She knew she would be instructed to discard the envelope and the message inside. 

The message was hand-written.  That wasn’t like the Agency.  Handwriting could be analyzed.  It didn’t make sense.  The handwriting was difficult to read.  She hadn’t seen it before.  But the name at the bottom was easy to read, Owen.  Georgia stared at the paper for a few seconds to get the rhythm of his handwriting.  But the message was short and simple:

Please call me when you get to London.  I’m in the city a few times each year, I’d like to catch up when in town and see how you’re doing.  Hopefully we can toast to your many successes.

Owen

Georgia couldn’t find a phone number written anywhere on the sheet.  She went back to the envelope and found a small white business card wedged into the unripped corner.  Georgia took a good look at it and noticed one promising detail.  It was his card from his political consulting business, not his official professor card from the University.  His name was listed as Owen Spice.  His title was
political analyst/consultant
.  Missing was the prefix, Prof., a good sign.  It was the first time she had seen his name printed without the prefix.  He wanted to leave their student-teacher relationship behind.

She had the letter in her purse on the train ride from Glasgow to London.  She even kept the envelope.  She didn’t sleep on the ride over.  It was over five hours but she preferred to spend the time awake, entertaining the thoughts in her head.  She didn’t want her subconscious to get control of her thoughts.  Then they would turn emotional.  Emotion was another variable.  And variables were the bane of fieldwork.  She had to manage as few as possible, if she wanted to be successful.  She looked out the window.  It was late autumn in Great Britain, leaves were dyed and permed but the grass was green.  She thought of Ireland not England.  Even though Ireland was known for its greenery, she couldn’t help thinking the English countryside got somehow overlooked.  She didn’t know about Ireland but England was green enough. 

Mark met Georgia at the train station in his city car, a silver ’74
Saab 99 EMS
.  The car was petite.  Mark wasn’t extra tall and didn’t need extra leg room.  Georgia didn’t carry much and could easily fit her two suitcases in the back seat.  To Georgia, it seemed an ideal car for an intelligence agent.  The car said nothing.  The
EMS
fit fine for London.  It wasn’t showy or bulky and didn’t attract attention.  It was the perfect car for the average London denizen, what Mark aimed to be.

              “Did you have a nice go of it on the train?” asked Mark.

              “Sure,” said Georgia, “Why not?”

              “Did you sleep?” asked Mark.

              “No,” said Georgia.

              “Wanted to stay awake and look at cows then,” said Mark.  Georgia noticed the hostility behind the usually mild-mannered man.

“You’re uncomfortable with the program,” said Georgia.

“The program no,” said Mark, “Your bouncing the ball, yes.”

“Wait and see,” said Georgia.

“Wait for how long?” asked Mark, “There aren’t exactly lives at stake in this program but as they say in show business,
time is money
.”

“I thought there wasn’t much money in government work in anycase,” said Georgia.

“Well, all governments put on appearances,” said Mark, “The Soviets are the biggest showmen in the world.  They act like everything’s great.  They don’t even report crimes on the national radio.  That would undermine their utopia.  We do the same here, so do the Americans.  But progress has to be somewhere in the pipeline always, progress yielding results.”  Georgia went in her purse and pulled out the letter.

              “This letter was in my campus mailbox,” said Georgia reading the letter to Mark, “He even left me his private business card, where to phone him. 
Progress
. 
Results
.”

“It seems you have managed to make quite the impact in the course of a semester,” said Mark.

“Did the project managers really expect me to be rolling in the hay with him in the course of three months?” asked Georgia.  Mark struggled to find an answer.

“Well,” said Mark, “We expected you to set the trap and then put us on a timeline for him to spring it.”

              “You haven’t said anything,” said Georgia.

              “Based on his prior interaction with one of his female students we accessed his willingness to get involved with someone your age,” said Mark.

              “That’s like saying because you took a bullet for a friend, the assessment is you’re more than willing to dive in front of a gun a second time,” said Georgia.

“That’s a completely different scenario,” said Mark.

              “No it isn’t,” said Georgia, “It’s the same because you’re forgetting the scar that’s left.”

“Scar?” said Mark.

              “You underestimated the impact his relationship with Nita Harris had on him,” said Georgia, “You’re imagining because he didn’t lose his job over it that he just dusted himself off and lit a cigar.”

“Did I say that?” said Mark.

              “Not in so many words,” said Georgia.

              “Then don’t quote me,” said Mark.

“What was your original plan?  I start attending lectures, show my bristols and in a month, he’d be shagging me at his pad in Leeds,” said Georgia.

“You’re out of order,” said Mark, putting emphasis on the word order.