Leverage, page 15
“Own spot. Which isn’t great.”
I mmm’d in agreement. If someone figured out we weren’t who we said we were, they would watch us and learn our routines. It would be easy to tamper with the vehicle. I reminded myself that the likelihood of any of that happening was almost nonexistent. This wasn’t my first time in the field, nor Jeff’s, I imagined, and I got the feeling he was good at being a chameleon, part of the scenery.
“I think the parking garage is secure enough but I’d still check things before I got in the car. You never know who knows what, and if that’s slipped our notice.” It was a loaded statement.
Oh good. Car bombs. Why not add another thing to the list of things to worry about? Sophia’s question rattled around my brain. Is it dangerous? Just a whole lot, sweetheart. But only if we’re caught. Otherwise it’s just every-day-in-a-terrorist-hotbed dangerous. I tried to keep the image of her in my head but it kept sliding away, leaving me with nothing more than just a sense of her, of the feeling I had being near her, thinking about her. Whole. That thought had to be enough for now.
The car only just fit under the concrete roof of the parking space and I instinctively ducked. Jeff peered at me, seeming satisfied about something I didn’t know, and murmured before he cut the engine, “We’re on the sixth floor. Your garage swipe card, keys, and some other goodies are upstairs.”
“Okay, thanks.” A little higher up than I liked—getting out quickly in an emergency was my jam—but higher meant no through-the-window visitors, and six was still in reach of fire department ladders. I opened the door, careful not to scrape it on the pylon next to me. I didn’t know why I bothered, because the car’s paint job was basically one great big scrape. “This is a nice building. Nicer than where I was living the last time I was here.”
“If you want to find accommodations like what you had last time, be my guest, but I’m staying right here with my amenities.”
“I rather enjoyed cooking on my wood stove, thank you very much,” I said imperiously as I hauled my suitcase and duffel from the trunk.
It was the truth. Elaheh, my ex-girlfriend—if she could be called that—had taught me how to prepare local dishes, and we’d cooked around frantic fucking sessions and then eaten our creations to refuel during moments of rest. I wondered what had happened to her. Married off to a man? Killed in drone strikes? Escaped somewhere where she could live the way she wanted?
It’d been attraction then flirtation then seduction before I’d realized Elaheh’s younger brother was a person of interest who was quickly working his way up the local terrorist cell hierarchy. Talk about rock and hard place. I’d thought about asking someone to track her down once I was safely back on home soil and recovered, but wondered what the point would be. Though I’d cared for her, I didn’t love her, and most importantly—I’d murdered her brother in self-defense during my hostage event, and my rescue operation had also killed her uncle. There was nothing more to say to her.
“I’m sure you did enjoy cooking on your wood stove, and maybe you were even good at it.” There it was, another compliment wrapped in a slap.
“Thanks?”
“You’re welcome. Now try to look like a schoolteacher wanting to establish a school for the young women of this region.”
I quickly checked my appearance in my compact, ensuring I looked presentable and my headscarf was still settled neatly and tightly over my hair and around my shoulders. Jeff took my suitcase and duffel and started walking toward the bank of elevators set into the polished concrete wall, leaving me to hurry after him.
“And what did we decide you were again?” I asked when I drew level, trying for a withering tone and falling short to somewhere around disparaging. I knew what Jeff’s cover was, but was in a snicky mood. I held the strap of my backpack tightly and tried to look as casual and not “hey I’m an intelligence analyst here to gather information on people you might know” as I could.
“Your long-suffering husband, also a schoolteacher, relegated to the shadow of your brilliance in a nonteaching position this time.” He adopted a hangdog expression as he pressed the elevator button.
I raised an eyebrow and, as best I could from my three-inches-shorter position, looked down my nose at him. “You’d better remember that.”
“I never forget my place, Alexandra. And it’s the perfect complement—I’ll say I’m looking at assisting with infrastructure and whatnot, related to your school. And I couldn’t bear to be apart from you for months on end.” That last bit dripped dry sarcasm.
“Solid.” I raised a clenched fist. “The dream school team.”
As we waited for the elevator, I pulled my long-sleeved linen top away from my body, annoyed that I was sweating through the cool, airy fabric. The weather was much as I recalled when I’d been in the country around the same time of year—cool and dry—and I tried to ignore the fact the sweat trickling down my back had nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with nervousness.
The elevator was empty when we got in, but stopped at the lobby floor to admit a young couple. I peeked out through the closing doors, taking in the lobby and noting that, like the interior of the elevator, on the surface it looked elegant and well-crafted. But if you looked closer you could see evidence of quick, shoddy work. I hoped the shoddy work was only cosmetic and didn’t extend to important things like the structure and electrical stuff.
I offered a polite nod to the couple then averted my eyes and kept them down as we rode the elevator up. Thankfully, it was sans shitty elevator music. When we stopped on six, Jeff took my bags again, and gestured for me to go ahead. “Six-oh-three,” he said once the elevator doors closed behind us. “End of the hall on the left.”
Standard apartment hallway, and the doors were surprisingly well-spaced. Maybe we weren’t in for cramped living quarters after all. Cooking smells from 601, television sounds from 602, a quiet argument from 604.
“Home sweet home,” Jeff declared as he opened the front door of our apartment, and after peeking inside, ushered me in.
I dropped my backpack onto the kitchen counter just inside the doorway on the right, and stared at what would be my home for the next six months. The apartment was a medium-sized two-bedroom with soundproofing on all the walls and ceiling. “What about the floor?” I asked as I pointed to the tacked-up foam material, which would keep our conversations private, but also made home-ifying the space with artwork hard. “Or are we only worried about what’s above and beside us?”
He set my bags down by the door then closed and locked it before engaging the deadbolt and super-heavy-duty chain. “It’s under the flooring.”
A small table with two chairs sat on a shiny linoleum patch beside the kitchen, a couch was wedged against the far wall facing a television set on a small entertainment unit. The rest of the living room was taken up with two desks laden with computers, laptops, telephone and electronics equipment. The desks were separated by a partition which had maps and photographs and assorted documentation pinned to it. It provided a small amount of privacy so we could work without the distraction of someone right beside us.
“You did all this in just a few days?” Organizing the rent or purchase of the apartment and kitting it out would have been a huge, time-consuming job.
“No. I just made a few modifications. The ops team had been utilizing this apartment as a second office. They’re not particularly happy to have lost the space.”
“What a coincidence, because I’m not particularly happy to have gained the space.” I unwound my headscarf, folded it in three, and draped it over the back of a chair.
“But it’s a great space. With a great view.” He pointed to the kinda-cubicle farthest from the apartment door. “That’s your workstation.”
“Thanks.” I’d deal with that once I’d taken a shower, eaten something that wasn’t snack food, done something about the fact my body felt like a knotted rope, and spoken to Sophia.
I checked out the couch, which was barely a two-seater, and the television that was more like a computer monitor but was better than what I’d expected, which was nothing. Actually, the whole apartment was better than I’d expected—new, clean, and surprisingly light and airy. I realized immediately that the windows were bullet resistant. Comforting, but I wasn’t worried about bullets; I was worried about something bigger and boomier. Surprisingly, given the fortresslike feeling of the whole place, the door to the balcony worked. I unlocked the sliding glass door and peeked out. Jeff was lying about the view, unless you were an urbanophile.
As well as the plethora of small buildings and houses, I could see two embassies, the Presidential Palace, a school, a few other apartment buildings, and a handful of restaurants. Green spaces—parks and rudimentary sporting fields—broke up the immense sprawl of buildings, but the press of so many high-rises felt stifling.
When I came back inside, Jeff double-checked the sliding door lock, and I grumbled internally at being treated like a five-year-old until he explained it was a weird one, and I discovered I hadn’t locked it as I’d thought.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, suitably embarrassed at my reaction.
He nodded. “I’ve taken the first room and left the one at the back closest to the bathroom for you.”
Seemed he’d jumped in and grabbed the good stuff first—workstation, bedroom. My brain mercifully ran the scenario before I accused him of that, and realized he’d actually taken the worst of both. They were closest to the door, which would put him in the metaphorical line of fire. Interesting. “Great, thanks. I pee in the middle of the night, so…close to the bathroom is good.”
Jeff’s eyebrows rose fleetingly. “Good to know. I’m a light sleeper, when I actually manage to sleep, so I’ll make a note to train my brain into ‘that’s Alexandra peeing, not someone who shouldn’t be in here.’ Also, there’s something in the closet for you.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I asked dryly. That was going to get old fast.
His laugh was quick and loud. Still chuckling, he assured me, “No, that’s just where I thought it’d be safe and out of your way until you needed it.”
Chivalry personified, he took my bags to my room, placing them outside the door, then mumbled something about leaving me to settle in before slipping away, now mumbling something about food.
My bedroom was about ten-by-ten and consisted of a bed, unmade but with linens folded neatly on the full-sized mattress which looked mercifully clean and new, a bedside table, and a freestanding closet and dresser. The walls were covered in the same soundproofing material as the rest of the house, and my immediate thought was that at least I could have phone or video sex without worrying about being overheard. All the furniture seemed new and when I sat and bounced on the mattress, I discovered it had a pleasing firmness. Great sex mattress. Pity I had nobody to have sex with.
I opened the closet in search of what’d been left for me. Jeff’s closet gift was a Heckler & Koch handgun case. Nice to have but still, something I hoped I’d never use here. I clicked it open and peered inside. An HK P30—the same model as my personal, rarely used, firearm. Creepy that he or They knew that.
I got to work putting clothing and shoes in the closet and dresser, and setting out my Kindle and laptop before making the bed with the pale-blue linens provided.
The bathroom was surprisingly spacious. Half the cabinet behind the mirror and also the space under the sink had been left for my stuff. Jeff had sensitive teeth. I packed my personal bathroom items into the spaces provided, magnanimously didn’t leave tampons strewn everywhere, and left the area as neat as I’d found it.
There. I was all moved in. Still no answer from Sophia.
I took my mind off that fact for a few minutes by adjusting the time and date on my wristwatch. The Longines was a gift from my father on my thirtieth birthday and was, like most things I’d received from him, flashy but not really my style. A quick shower and clean clothes helped me feel somewhat human, and I further humanized myself setting up the Zen space in the bedroom with my yoga mat and props, a scaled-down version of my altar from home, my portable speaker, and a picture of calming forest scenery stuck to the closet. I’d need to find some healthy greenery and gorgeous scented candles at the market to complete the vibe.
Still nothing from Sophia.
I wasn’t worried, but I was…yeah, I was worried. I didn’t think anything had actually happened to her, but it was unlike her to sleep this late. Unlike her, but still not completely outside the realm of possibility, especially not given the stresses of the past week. I’d soften my brain and body with some yoga, otherwise I’d be projecting my anxieties and stress onto her, then I’d call.
I changed, put on my yoga playlist, and settled in for a practice I’d been anticipating for days. Everything outside my body receded as I moved through Sun Salutations, Cat-Cow, deep Forward Folds and back-stretching Head-to-Knee Forward Bends, energy-focusing Warrior Two, and long, gorgeous minutes in Pigeon to open my plane-and-airport-stuck hips. I took my time in each pose, letting the movement and breath calm me, then lay down on my back for a long restorative Savasana. Finally, my brain and body felt like mine again, like I could inhale a full breath into my belly and move my limbs without them sticking.
My practice had settled the worry I’d felt about Sophia and when I picked up my phone again, and saw her message on the silenced screen, that worry left me completely.
Sorry! I was dead asleep. So glad you’re there safely, call whenever? The group of emojis that followed looked like she’d smashed everything that might convey love.
I responded to her message on Signal that I was about to video call, and received a heart emoji in response. I hadn’t tried the Internet yet, and crossed my fingers it’d work. Sophia accepted my call within seconds and after a heart-stopping connection lag, her face appeared. She sat on her couch, with the laptop on her coffee table. I closed my eyes and imagined the space she was in, warm and comforting, the ever-present scent of vanilla from the candles she kept burning whenever she was home.
When I opened my eyes again, Sophia’s expression of worry and delight and relief made my eyes burn. “Hi,” I breathed. “Can you hear me okay? See me?”
“Yes! I can. I’m so sorry, I’ve hardly slept since you left and I got super tired so I set an alarm to wake up when you were supposed to land, and then I slept through it. I’m a terrible person. How are you? How were your flights? You look tired, baby. God, I love you. I’ve missed you. I can’t believe I survived two days with you a million miles away.”
What was I supposed to say? I love you so much that it fills me with indescribable joy and I miss you so much my chest hurts. And how am I? Terrified, anxious, and missing you. Smiling at her expectant expression, I answered, “Tired. But I’m doing okay.” It was true, just a slightly abbreviated version of how I was.
She propped her chin in her palms. “You look exhausted. Have you eaten and relaxed at all yet? How’s your accommodation? Are you in a house?”
I looked around the room. “I haven’t eaten yet, no. That’s next on the agenda. We’ve got an apartment. Pretty new and nice, actually. I’ve showered and had a short yoga practice, so I’m as relaxed as I can be.” I pushed up off the bed, raising my phone up high. Contorting out of the way of the front-facing camera, I did a slow three-sixty spin around the room so she could see my bedroom.
“What’s with the padding?”
“For when I feel like throwing myself at the walls.” I grinned, then grinned wider when she smiled and rolled her eyes in response. “It’s soundproofing. Which will come in handy when you and I want to talk about something other than my new digs.” I bounced my eyebrows, hoping she’d catch my drift.
She did. “So noted,” Sophia murmured. After a charged pause, she said, “It looks…cozy.”
Laughing, I agreed, “That about sums it up. But it’s got enough space for everything I need in a bedroom. Just.”
She gestured over my left shoulder. “I see you’ve already got the Zen Zone set up.”
I flopped down onto the bed, lying on my back with the phone held above me. “Yeah. I think I’ll really need some Zen.”
“I’ll bet.” She let out a soft groan of frustration, then shook her head as if forcibly shaking whatever thought she’d just had out of her head. “What about your work partner? Are you guys getting along okay?”
I paused. “He’s fine. I may have misjudged him slightly and he’s not actually the vilest thing to walk the Earth. But it’s only the first day, so there’s still plenty of time for him to let me down.”
“Well, that’s a positive, right?”
“Right.” I sat up and settled back against my pile of pillows, raising my knees to rest the hand holding my phone against my thighs. “How about you? How was Thanksgiving? How’d you sleep last night?” These questions, ones we’d ask each other if we were in the same city and had spent the day apart at work, now felt like polite small talk between new friends, not deep conversation between lovers.
“Thanksgiving was the same as it always is,” she said lightly, and I could tell she was being evasive, probably worried about upsetting me because I’d missed it. “And I slept like shit. Kept waking up, until I forgot to wake up. I just…miss you. And it’s only been a couple of days.” The unspoken “And we have nearly two hundred more” lingered unpleasantly between us.
“I know, sweetheart. I miss you too. It’s shit, and I hate it. I hate being here. I hate being apart from you. I hate knowing we have to schedule talking to each other. I hate that we had no time before I had to leave, and that everything felt so stilted and like we’d forgotten how to communicate with each other.” And I hated that it still felt like we didn’t know how to communicate. I blew out a noisy breath as the weight of the situation finally settled on my shoulders. “I…I think it’s finally hit me. That this is really happening. That we’re separated and it’s for a while.”
