Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) (10 page)

Miserable and at a loss for what to do, Mercy looked up and then down the dark road that disappeared at both ends into deep woods. It appeared to run northeast to southwest, at least for the section visible to her. Due south was where she really wanted to go. At least that’s what she thought. But until she was absolutely sure of her location it would be dangerous to continue trekking blindly through the wilderness. She might end up moving away from the rendezvous location instead of toward it. Away from civilization, too. 

But there was something reassuring about a road. Any road. Roads always led somewhere. Didn’t they? And this one, although unpaved, had been kept clear of brush and looked to be frequently traveled.

Until she could get her bearings, the road would have to do. She started walking along the hard-packed dirt strip.

After another few minutes Mercy felt a gentle vibration coming up through the soles of her boots. She stood still. The ground tremors grew stronger. Soon she heard the guttural rumble of an engine in the distance. It was coming closer. She turned to look behind her. Amber headlights pierced the gloom.

Her breath caught, and she felt energized with anticipation. Rescue! She saw herself waving down the vehicle and hitching a ride out of this miasma of mud, cold, and vicious biting insects. But instinct warned her off. If she cheated by accepting a ride, she’d have failed the test and likely would lose Red Sands’ help in locating her mother. And then there was the “enemy,” supposedly combing the area for her and the other trainees. She had no way of knowing whether the vehicle’s driver was friend or foe.

Mercy dove into the brush at the roadside. Her chest tight, pulse racing, she held her breath as the headlights swelled in the dark to two blinding cat-eye yellow beams. She hunkered deeper into the dense thicket, hoping to hell she hadn’t chosen a patch of poison ivy. A black sedan drove past her, kicking out gravel behind its tires with a loud clatter.
Stupid!
she scolded herself.
You should have stopped them.
By dawn she’d have been back in civilization—warm and dry. But she would have failed the challenge. And she couldn’t let that happen.

After hiking another dismal quarter mile, still debating whether she was heading in the right or the wrong direction, she heard voices and cautiously turned toward them―maybe other trainees? Perhaps they could help each other reach their coordinates. That thought lightened her mood. She approached cautiously.

Stopped in the middle of the road ahead of her was the same sedan that had passed her earlier—a dark Honda, not black as she’d thought but a midnight blue. Mercy hung back, studying the scene before her. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

An electric torch brightly lit the clearing. A pair of armed men in black paramilitary jumpsuits—she supposed the two who had been in the car—had picked up two of her fellow trainees, a man and a woman. They were roughly questioning their captives, who looked truly terrified.

One of the men in black shoved the woman up against the car’s front right fender. She held her hands up in front of her body, sobbing, spouting a list of excuses for being in the middle of a swamp at night—her cover story. They were tourists, lost. They were trying to get back to their car. She thought it was just down the road.

“Please, let us go,” she wailed. “We’ll find the car and get off your land. We didn’t know we were trespassing.”

But the man just looked meaner and angrier, his face a swollen, red mask of rage. Towering over her he continued to shove her savagely against the car, using his whole body to batter and trap her there. “Liar!” he shouted. “You’re a spy, aren’t you, bitch? Admit it. Who sent you?”

The woman’s eyes kept darting toward her companion. He had been knocked to the ground by the other soldier, who stood over him, leveling the barrel of his rifle at the trainee’s forehead, the muzzle pressed so hard against the skin it had made a red blotch on his chalky skin.

“Your names. Who are you? Who do you work for?” the soldier shouted at the man cowering on the ground.

Mercy knew both prisoners. Sandra and Bret.

Sandra was the woman with Asian-African features woman who had bitterly accused her of slumming her first day in camp. Bret was a young CPA, a soft-spoken guy who’d shyly offered her encouragement on two of her most dismal days. He had lost his job six months ago and was desperate to find another way to support his wife and daughter. He told her that the offer to work for Red Sands seemed a godsend. The proposed income enough for the three of them to live on comfortably. Plus, he thought it was kind of cool, digging into the finances of corrupt companies and governments, helping catch bad guys. “It’ll be a whole lot more fun than filling out tax returns,” he’d said. Only after he’d told his wife about the job, getting her hopes up, he’d found out that everyone who worked for Red Sands Consulting had to pass demanding physical tests in their private boot camp.

Mercy considered sneaking past the horrific scene. That would be the smart thing to do—look out for herself. But after watching the so-called enemy ruthlessly bully the couple for another minute, she couldn’t make herself walk away. If she had been on a real mission and her teammates got into trouble, she’d have to help them. Granted, she was supposed to be working this test on her own, but Sandra, Bret, and she were on the same side, weren’t they? And the guys in black were the enemy. Definitely.

Gathering a fistful of pebbles from the ground around her, she hunkered down again in the undergrowth. Without a weapon of any kind she had no chance against two armed thugs. But she could at least give her classmates a chance at helping themselves. She drew a deep breath then rapid-fired six stones, one after another, at a spot on the far side of the road.

Not a very sophisticated diversion, but the rustling clatter of the stones striking tree trunks and leaves drew the two Darth Vader types’ attention for just a second. Sandra kneed her attacker in the balls; he went down with an agonized bellow. Bret kicked aside the other soldier’s rifle and rolled up onto his feet. The accountant was small and not very strong looking, but he was quick. She caught a last satisfying glimpse of the scene in the car’s headlights as she took off at a run, away and down the road. It looked like the two trainees had snagged the guards’ weapons and car keys.

Energized by her victory, she ran a short ways then stopped and recalculated her location and her route, which now seemed to make more sense. Her confidence back, she shouldered her pack and headed off toward a rocky rise.

Thirty minutes later, Mercy checked in at her designated finish line and was told that Sandra and Bret had already reached their goals. Two other trainees made it in shortly thereafter, just beating dawn. The final man was still somewhere in the swamp, presumably lost. They gave him another hour. Then instructors tracked him down and brought him in. He looked wretched, and Mercy wondered if this really meant he’d flunked his training.

Back at base camp the five victors were too hyped to sleep. Bret announced that he’d figured out Mercy was their savior, and the team unanimously voted her MVP, toasting her with Gator-Aid.

“I almost wish I were staying longer,” Mercy told them. “I feel like there’s so much more I should learn.”

“You’re nuts,” Bret said. “I’d have opted out of physical training in a minute if they let me. It’s crazy, putting a guy like me through this. I probably won’t leave my desk my entire career, but they insist on everyone going through this crap. I doubt you’ll need to use any of this wherever you’re headed.”

But Mercy wasn’t sure she could count on that being true. What if she desperately needed skills the others would learn after she’d gone? The possibility left her week-kneed and queasy.

                                          10

Benjamin Geddes, Director of Red Sands Consulting according to Margaret Storey, and another man she didn’t identify, were already seated in the cherry-wood paneled briefing room at the company’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. Mercy followed Storey to a seat at the single long table. She looked around the walls at framed photographs of former RSC, CIA, and FBI Directors, not a woman among them, all wearing appropriately solemn and skeptical expressions. She wondered about the true connections between the U.S. government and the spooks-for-hire company. Connections kept secret from the press and public.

Mercy recognized the CIA’s Deutch and Tenet on one wall…and Robert Gates, of course, who had often been a guest at her parents’ home. Gates had spoken eloquently at her father’s funeral. But she imagined both men would disapprove of her being here now. They’d tell her she didn’t belong. “Walk away, Mercy.” Just like Bull in his one moment of compassion. Her father’s voice came to her, as clearly as if he were sitting beside her: “This is no job for a young educated woman like you. An artist, respected former curator for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, private gallery owner. What are you thinking, girl?”

It’s not like I can turn my back on these people, Dad. It would be like giving up on Mom.

Her father had no response to that.

Geddes was first to speak. “We’re glad you’ve agreed to work with us,” he said. “I received a report from West Virginia. I’m impressed by your achievements, Ms. O’Brien, especially for an AOI.”

“AOI?” Mercy looked at Agent Storey.

“Agent of Influence,” Storey said. “Because of your family’s political background and your connections throughout the art world, you have the ability to influence the decisions of powerful people. An asset for a clandestine agent.”

“Plus,” Geddes added, “there’s an assumption of innocence when a person is a public figure. You’re someone known to a lot of people, someone with a respected history and many friends. You travel widely. You show up at fundraisers, do charity work. Your family has deep and legitimate roots in society.”

Storey tilted her head and observed Mercy with satisfaction, as if taking credit for enlisting her. “You’d be a CIA handler’s wet dream,” she whispered.

Mercy wasn’t sure the two men had heard that last bit. But she was certain of one thing—she hated the corner these people had forced her into. The thing was—now that she was here she wanted to get on with the job at hand. The sooner she accomplished what they asked of her, the sooner she might see her mother.

“So far, gentlemen, information about my trip has been pretty thin,” she said. “What exactly do you expect me to do in the Virgin Islands?”

Geddes folded his hands on the table. “Before we get to your formal briefing, I’d like to update you on your mother’s situation. I know you must be anxious.”

Her breath caught at the mention of Talia. Pressure surged in her temples, the precursor of a possible migraine. She swallowed with difficulty. “Yes, please. What do you know?”

“This is Agent Michel DuBois with Interpol, the Paris Bureau.” Geddes gestured toward the dark-haired man to his left—conservative charcoal pinstripe suit, trim physique, tortoise-shell framed eyeglasses. The lenses were so thin she wondered if they might be for show. She had felt him watching her from the moment she entered the room. But every time she looked his way, his focus seemed elsewhere in the room. Although he sat back in his chair, body language relaxed, she noticed he never blinked—at least not that she could see—and that made him appear perpetually wary. Almost reptilian.

If she’d passed DuBois in a corridor of the Senate office building, she would have guessed he was a lawyer, lobbyist, or politician. But he was with the sole international policing agency in the world—Interpol. Her throat constricted. Her face flushed with heat. Finally she was face to face with a representative of the agency that, irrationally, cruelly had branded her mother an international criminal and prevented the U.S. State Department from acting on her behalf. And stopped Mercy from leaving the U.S. to search for Talia.

Mercy bit back the first words that came to her. Anger and bitter accusations wouldn’t get her far. “I’ll be grateful, Agent DuBois,” she began, measuring out her words, “for any explanation you can give me of your organization’s behavior in the past months. My mother is a respected photojournalist and widow of a U. S. Senator. She would never do anything to harm the United States, or any human being, I assure you.”

DuBois’ gaze shifted to observe her with cool detachment. “What I have to say may change your mind about us, madam.” His accent was clearly French, his tone unabashedly arrogant.

Mercy raised one eyebrow:
So, convince me.

DuBois cleared his throat and leaned forward, arms folded on the table in front of him. His starched, white shirt cuffs shot out a precise inch from his jacket sleeves. Plain gold studs pinched the cuffs. “For several months we’ve believed that your mother was being used by Russians, specifically the Tambov Syndicate, as a runner for—”

“
That
is a lie!”

Margaret Storey reached out and laid a hand on her arm, silently urging patience.

DuBois continued, unruffled. “That was our initial belief, since we had strong evidence of her cooperation.”

“What kind of evidence?” Mercy said, keeping her voice as even as possible.

“Jewelry, two small paintings, silverware, and porcelain figurines. They were found in a trunk in her hotel room. We believed she intended to bring them with her into the United States.”