Unforgettable - eARC (3 page)

Fear did not make me piss my pants, but it gave me a powerful urge, and I begged the detective to let me go to the bathroom. He finally relented and escorted me to the restroom, going so far as to follow me in.

I headed toward the urinal to relieve myself, but inspiration struck and I went into a stall instead.

The detective walked over and stood just outside the stall door. “No funny business,” he said.

“No, sir,” I said as I sat on the toilet seat. Then I held my breath. And despite the pressure in my bladder, I held that in, too. I sat as still as I could, not making any sound as I counted the seconds. Eventually the detective walked to a urinal, relieved himself, flushed, and walked out. Without washing his hands, I might add.

That’s how I figured out that bathrooms were my friends.

After that first time I was caught, I realized that relying on my talent alone to get me out of tough situations was stupid. So I decided to learn how to pick locks.

I couldn’t just go to lock-picking school. I couldn’t even order a locksmith training course over the internet like any civilized person, because when it came to computers, I might as well have had someone follow me around, hitting Ctrl-Z to undo whatever I had done.

So I traded some stolen jewelry for a used lockpick set at a pawn shop. And then, with the help of some library books, I taught myself to pick locks—first with the standard picks, and then with improvised tools.

The skill served me well in many ways. First, I no longer had to sleep on the street or at a homeless shelter, because I could get into nicer places while their owners were away. Second, I could steal the kind of stuff people tended to keep under lock and key. But most importantly, I had a way out in case someone locked me in a room and forgot about me.

Becoming a thief was only partly out of necessity. At the time, I was a friendless teenager who had just lost the only person who cared about me, and I was angry at the world. Stealing was my revenge.

But my mother had not raised me to be a thief. She taught me right from wrong, of course. But more than that, she believed I had a destiny.

“You have your talent for a reason,” she would say. “God must have something special he wants you to do.” I guess that was her way of justifying the sacrifices she made for me—that it was all part of some grand plan. She was so sure about it that I believed her.

Until the night of the fire.

* * *

I didn’t date much as a teenager—or as an adult, for that matter. My talent did provide me with an initial advantage in meeting women, as I could try approaching a girl several times in order to find out what she liked. As for the end of a relationship, I never had to worry about breaking a girl’s heart or being pursued by a jealous ex-girlfriend. A minute after I left, she would be over me.

While all that would have been great if all I wanted were one-night stands with women I’d just met, I longed for something more than that. I would have been thrilled just to have a real date. I lost track of the times I’d take a woman out to dinner, only to have her go to the restroom and forget she was out with me. And begging a woman not to go to the restroom doesn’t make a good impression. Neither does following her to the bathroom and trying to carry on a conversation through the door.

In that situation, bathrooms were not my friends.

When I was seventeen years old, I worked up the courage to flirt with a cute cheerleader from the local high school in the food court at a mall. After a few forgotten attempts, she thought I was funny enough that she invited me to a party at her house that night, writing down the address with pink ink on a paper napkin. I knew she wouldn’t remember me, but I fantasized I would just flirt again and maybe we’d end up making out.

When I got to her house, the party was in full swing, with some kids already drunk enough that they were throwing up on the lawn. Her parents must have been rich, because the house was huge—three stories tall, with so many rooms filled with so many people that after half an hour of searching, I still hadn’t found the cheerleader.

One guy heard me asking about her, and he said she was his sister and he knew where she was. He called it the “secret party within the party.” I showed him the napkin, and he said since she’d invited me personally, he’d take me to her. Like an idiot, I followed him. He unlocked a door and shoved me inside, then closed it.

It was not a secret party within a party. After I managed to find a light switch, I discovered it was a windowless storage room.

I could hear him and his friends laughing outside, but soon they forgot me and wandered off. I reached for my lockpicks, and to my horror I discovered that in changing into nicer clothes for the party, I had left them in my other pants. I cursed myself for my stupidity.

Looking around the storage room for something I could use to unlock the door, I noticed lots of ceramic figurines, silver candlesticks, crystal vases, and other assorted fragile or valuable items. I realized that in finding a secure place to lock me up, the brother had put me in the same place that he and his sister had locked up the things they didn’t want people breaking or stealing during the party.

I laughed when I found their mother’s jewelry box. The party had turned out to be worthwhile after all.

* * *

Twenty-seven days before my eighteenth birthday, I was wandering through a mall looking for a good chance to steal something. As I passed a jewelry store, an employee took out a ring for a man and woman standing in front of the display case that held the really expensive diamonds. There was a pawn shop downtown that would only give me about five percent of what it was worth, but the rings in that case started at ten thousand dollars, so I figured it was worth trying a little snatch and run.

Like many mall jewelry stores, this one didn’t have a door, so I just walked in, approaching the couple from behind, keeping them between me and the young man who worked for the store so he wouldn’t see me until I was close. I stepped up to the counter right next to the woman, who was holding the ring, and with a quick motion I grabbed it from her hand.

Just as I was about to turn and run she said, “Hey!”—and I knew that voice. I looked at her face.

My mother. And she was looking at me with surprise and disgust.

I froze, my heart pounding within me.

The dark-haired man she was with said, “Give that back!” He looked familiar, and after a moment I recognized him as the doctor from the hospital we were taken to after the fire.

I looked back at my mother, and there was no love or even pity in her eyes.

Then the employee reached for my hand holding the ring, and I dropped it and ran, thoughts whirling in my head.

My mother had not raised me to be a thief. She had taught me right from wrong, taught me to be a good person, and I had thrown that all away after I lost her.

When I got back to the house I was currently staying in—the owners were away on vacation—I tried to put my mother out of my mind, but I kept seeing her face. If she knew that I was living as a thief, stealing from ordinary people, she would have been very disappointed in me. She had believed God gave me my talent for a reason, but I was just using it for myself.

Even though she didn’t know it, I had failed the only person who had ever cared about me.

To distract myself from my shame and guilt, I turned on the big-screen TV and flipped through the channels. I stopped when I came to a car chase: two sports cars racing across the ice, one shooting at the other with a Gatling gun.

It was a James Bond movie. I let it distract me until I realized maybe I could put my talent to good use after all.

Chapter Three

I straightened the maroon tie I’d stolen from Macy’s that morning and stepped into the interviewer’s office. Becoming a CIA agent was my only choice if I wanted to go legit. I had to find a way to make this work.

The balding man behind the desk looked up. A placard gave his name as Tom Pendergast. From the look of his office—government-standard desk and chairs, tan file cabinet, no window, not even a family picture to add some color—Pendergast was a no-nonsense kind of guy. My stomach clenched even more. I had hoped for someone with imagination.

“You don’t look twenty-seven,” Pendergast said.

“I’m not. I don’t have a Ph.D. in math, either.” My words rushed out, and I sat in a chair to force myself to slow down. “I copied someone’s resume, just hoping to get the interview.” It was a lot more complicated than that, but I needed to keep explanations simple for now.

Pendergast leaned back in his chair and pinched the tip of his nose a couple of times as he looked me over. “You’re what, eighteen?”

“Yes, sir.” I rubbed the sweat from my palms onto the threadbare tan cloth that padded the chair arms.

“Fresh out of high school and watching too many James Bond movies? Tell you what—I admire your creativity.” He grinned at me with enthusiasm, and for a moment I felt he might give me a chance. Then he continued, “Go to college, get a degree in something useful, and I’ll guarantee you an interview when you graduate.”

“I can’t go to college. Anyway, I need a job that will pay me now, and I think you can use someone of my unique talents.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but you’re not much of a liar.” He held up the resume I’d sent. “A good candidate would have been able to walk through that door and convince me he was the man on this sheet of paper.”

“I’m not a good liar,” I agreed. “My talent is different. I have to show it to you.”

“What is it?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You have to see it first. Write this down on a piece of paper: Nat Morgan promised to show me his talent. Then sign it and put the date and time.”

He shot me a skeptical look. “I don’t have time—”

“Please. I promise you’ll be impressed.”

“Nat Morgan’s your real name?”

I nodded.

After a moment, Pendergast picked up a yellow legal pad off his desk and wrote. “Done. Now what?”

“Now I step outside for a minute and come back in.” I stood up and walked out the door, closing it behind me.

After counting to sixty, I walked back into the office.

Pendergast looked up from his desk. “You don’t look twenty-seven,” he said.

“My name is Nat Morgan,” I said, “and I promised to show you my talent.”

“Sorry, I don’t remember that. You’ll have to make an appointment, because I’m supposed to see—”

“Look at your pad of paper.”

“What?”

I pointed to the pad. “Read it.”

Pendergast pulled the pad across the desk and looked at it, then looked at his watch.

“You must have snuck in here and written that while I was at lunch. How’d you get past security?”

“Is it your handwriting and signature?”

He leaned back in his chair and pinched the tip of his nose a couple of times. “You’re a forger? It’s pretty good work.”

“I’m not a forger. The fact is you wrote that when I was in here a minute ago, but you forgot I’d been here after I stepped outside.”

“I wouldn’t forget something like that so quickly.” But he stared at the writing on the pad.

“That’s my talent: I’m forgettable,” I said. “You know the old saying, ‘out of sight, out of mind’? With me, it’s true. A minute after I’m gone, no one can remember me.”

He shoved the pad away. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. You’d better leave before I call security.”

This wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. “Don’t bother,” I said. I walked out of the office and closed the door behind me.

And sixty seconds after leaving, I walked into the office for the third time. I hoped it would be the charm. There was no telling if I would ever again run into somebody bragging about having a job interview with the CIA the next day. I’d delivered a fake letter this morning telling him the interview had been postponed by an hour.

Pendergast looked up from his desk. His mouth opened.

“I don’t look twenty-seven,” I said, before he could say anything.

He closed his mouth abruptly, then opened it again. “I guess you get that a lot. I’d’ve pegged you at about eighteen. Have a seat.”

I sat.

“Pretty impressive resume,” Pendergast said. “Nothing in it that says why you want to work for the CIA, though.”

Telling him that I was tired of stealing things for a living probably wasn’t the best idea, although I might have to give it a try later if nothing else worked. “I want to serve my country, and I think the CIA could best use my talents.”

“Actually, someone with your math background might be better suited to the NSA,” he said. “Their cryptography—”

“I’m not interested in cryptography. I’m interested in fieldwork.”

“Been watching too many James Bond movies, huh?”

I was losing him again, before I even got far enough to tell him about my talent. He was going to write me off as just another spy wannabe.

“Call security,” I said.

His brow wrinkled. “What?”

“Call security and ask them to send someone here.”

“Why?”

“I want someone to check me to make sure I’m not carrying any weapons.”

Pendergast’s hand moved his phone. “If you’ve managed to sneak a weapon past security, that doesn’t get you a job. That gets you a world of trouble.”

“I’m not carrying. Just have them send someone.”

He made the call, and in less than two minutes, a pair of security officers in navy blue uniforms came through the door. One of them methodically checked my body from head to toe with a metal detector wand, and then patted me down for good measure. All he found was the keys to my latest “house-sitting” location.

“He’s clean,” said the officer.

“Thank you,” I said.

“As long as you’re here, officers,” said Pendergast, “why don’t you just escort this young gentleman out of the building?”

“Wait!” I said, as one of the officers took me by the arm. “Aren’t you even the least bit curious as to why I did this?”

Pendergast pursed his lips. After a moment, he said, “A little. So tell me.”

“Not while they’re in the room.” Seeing he was about to object, I said, “I don’t have any weapons. And they can wait right outside the room.”

He nodded, and they left, closing the door behind them.

“What’s your big secret?” Pendergast said.

Without saying a word, I stepped over to his desk, and picked up the pad of paper on which he had written earlier. I handed it to him.

He read it, then looked at his watch. “Who’s Nat Morgan?”

I tapped my chest. I had to avoid speaking in case the officers were listening at the door. If they heard my voice before they forgot about me, it would keep reminding them of my existence.

“You came here under a false name?”

I picked up a pen from his desk, took back the pad, and wrote, “Is this office bugged?” I didn’t care whether it was or not. It just gave me one more excuse not to speak. Each second that passed make it more likely the officers had forgotten me.

I gave him the pad back, and he read it. His face reddened, and when he spoke, his tone was angry. “Maybe it’s all very funny to you, but the security of our nation is not a joke.”

Knowing that I wasn’t going to get the full sixty seconds, I hoped for the best and spoke quietly. “My talent is that I’m forgettable. I had to find a way to prove it to you, because you wouldn’t believe me when I told you the first time.”

“You’ve never told me.”

I pointed to what he had written on the pad. “Do you remember me asking you to write this?”

“Obviously not. You must’ve faked it somehow.”

“Call in the security guards. Ask them if they remember me.”

He stared at me. “You’re serious?”

“Go ahead. If they remember me, then have them escort me out of the building. But if they don’t, please listen to what I have to say.”

He went to the door and opened it. “Officers, could you step in here, please?”

The two of them came in.

Pendergast pointed at me. “Do you remember him?”

The officers looked at me, and I was relieved to see the puzzlement in their eyes. The one who had searched me said, “Doesn’t look familiar, sir.”

“Same here,” said the other.

“I don’t mean, do you remember him from some other time,” said Pendergast. “I mean, you remember searching him in this office a couple of minutes ago, right?”

After a small hesitation, the one who searched me said, “Is this a joke, sir?”

“Officer,” I said, “will you tell Mr. Pendergast what you do remember about the last time you were in this office?”

The officer looked at Pendergast, who nodded. “We came in and spoke to you, and then you told us to wait outside.”

“Was there anyone else in the room?” I asked.

“Not that I saw,” said the officer. “Of course, you must have been hiding somewhere.”

After a few more questions, Pendergast dismissed the officers, then walked over to his desk and sat. He leaned back in his chair and pinched the tip of his nose a couple of times. “So, tell me about this talent of yours.”

* * *

It took the CIA a while to find the right person to be my handler. Pendergast wanted the job and felt kind of possessive about me since he’d seen me first, so the higher-ups let him try. But I realized quickly that my handler had to be someone who wouldn’t immediately dismiss me as a hoax every time I tried to contact him.

I went through four handlers before someone had the idea of assigning me to Edward Strong. He was career CIA, in his mid-sixties. No one ever flat-out told me why they thought Edward would be a good match, but my guess was it had something to do with the fact that he suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Medication had slowed the progress of his memory loss, but he was capable of forgetting people who lacked my talent. He knew his memory was bad, and so the fact he couldn’t remember me didn’t shock him. Plus, he could take notes in his own special shorthand, which meant he could take down my mission reports in a format that wouldn’t disappear—and that would be proof to him that he really had dealt with me before.

* * *

The CIA didn’t spend much time training me for combat—partly because my instructors couldn’t remember what they had already taught me, which led to some wasted time. However, the most important reason was explained to me by my unarmed combat instructor, a petite blonde named Lydia.

“You’re my instructor?” I asked, as she walked over to me in the training room.

“I am,” she said. “Edward’s just explained to me about your unique skills. Try to take me down.”

“Take you down?” At five feet eleven inches, I was almost a foot taller than her, and I outweighed her by seventy pounds or more. I didn’t want to hurt her.

“Yes, please,” she said.

I reached out to grab her arm. She had me face down on the blue mat in less than five seconds. Her knee pinned my right arm behind my back.

She leaned in close to my ear and said, “You don’t want to fight.”

Even if she only weighed a hundred pounds, it all seemed to be concentrated on my lungs. “I don’t?” I finally managed to say.

“No.” She eased up, and I drew in a deeper breath. “You don’t have the killer instinct.”

“Can you teach me that?”

She laughed. “You can’t teach instinct. Sometimes you can awaken it. But that’s often a nasty process. Sometimes you can learn to fake it. But that’s the wrong choice for you.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Your talent is meant for someone who runs away and hides. That has to be your instinct. Training you to overcome that would be wrong. I’ll teach you stuff to help you get away. But that’s your focus: get away. Hide. Run, not fight. Don’t try to be a hero.”

* * *

The first time the CIA tried to book me on a flight, a few months after I joined, they ran headlong into the weirdness of my talent. The airlines all used computers to track reservations, so any details about my ticket would vanish.

So they tried booking me under an alias, figuring that the computers wouldn’t know it was me. Those reservations disappeared as quickly as the first.

“It’s no use,” I told Edward as he hung up the phone after talking to the travel office. “There’s no way I can fly anywhere, which means I won’t be able to carry out any missions.”

“Nonsense, my boy,” he said. “Someone with your talents was born for a job like this. We just need to figure out the limitations on what is affected and work around those.”

After some trial and error experimentation, we found a way: use an existing reservation made for someone else and informing that person his trip had been postponed. It meant creating new identity documents for me for every trip, but that was no obstacle for the CIA.

My assignments started off small, making dead drop deliveries. Then I was assigned to tail people they were interested in and report on their movements. Eventually the operations grew bigger and bolder. After only three years, I was back to stealing things for a living.

But now I was stealing them for the government.