Enemy Agents (36 page)

Quarrel smiled. “Good. I’m glad.” He paused, and for a moment he just listened to the white noise. “And Swift? Is she . . . ”

“Gone. I called your phone and Saleb answered. Said she’s in the wind.”

Quarrel suddenly felt very alone. “I’m glad,” he said. “She deserves a better life.”

“As do you, young man.”

“Shark had that thing aimed at New York. He wanted to take you out,” said Quarrel.

“Well let’s be glad you stopped him. If you’re ever in London, I owe you a pint.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

When Quarrel got back to the table, Meg was drinking alone.

“Where’s Erica?”

Meg shrugged. “She said you had to call the cops eventually. She’s gone.”

Quarrel sat down and picked up his half-empty beer. On the coaster beneath his glass, Erica had written a note:
“Should old acquaintance be forgot and never thought upon.”

“To Fatale,” Quarrel said, raising the glass. “May she rest in peace.”

EPILOGUE

The house smelled like stale air and mildew, and every surface was covered in a fine layer of dust. At some point months earlier, some relative had come and draped sheets over the upholstered furniture, but most of the house still looked like someone lived there. There was a stack of bills and torn-open envelopes on the counter, a book lying open and upside-down on the side table. The TV remote on the coffee table. All of it covered in dust, as if the people living here had simply vanished in an instant. Which, Quarrel thought, was essentially what had happened.

Quarrel held the door open for Khalid Saleb, who was carrying a large plastic bin full of personal effects and clothing. Saleb walked into the living room and dropped the bin next to a sheet-covered sofa and looked around, studying every detail.

“Welcome home,” said Quarrel. “Anything familiar?”

Saleb shook his head. “It doesn’t feel like it was mine, you know? Don’t even know if I like this furniture.”

Quarrel shut the door. “You’ll get used to it. I don’t think there’s anything better to jog your memory than this.”

Khalid Saleb had been cleared of all charges. After her arrest and the failure of the Digamma plot, Samantha Boswell faced the death penalty. She cooperated fully with the authorities, confessing to everything in order to get a reduced sentence and visitation with her daughters.

Boswell had told the truth about shooting Saleb, but she had lied about deliberately letting him live. When she put the bullet in his head, she was sure she had killed him. Saleb and his wife, Jessica Jordan, had been close to uncovering a mole in the CIB. Their investigation was into Shark, which is why Boswell was able to manipulate them into separating. Once they were apart, Boswell had moved on Saleb while Shark had murdered Jordan.

The plan cooked up by Mercier and Boswell to take over the American intelligence world counted on killing Shark as a scapegoat. Shark had figured it out and kept all the evidence of Boswell’s part in Jordan’s murder, intending to blackmail Boswell once she was installed as the new head of the CIA. That was why Boswell had used the Jupiter program to order Jessica Swift to destroy the files. It was only through Swift’s kind heart that any of the truth came to light. Now Boswell was in maximum security, Shark was dead, and Swift hadn’t been seen since that night in London.

“It’s a big house,” said Saleb. “I don’t know how two people lived here, let alone just one.”

He walked over to a cabinet in the corner and picked up a photograph. It was Saleb and his wife on their wedding day. She was in a strapless white gown, her smile showing pure joy. Saleb traced a finger around her face. “She forgot about bringing something borrowed. So right before the ceremony she traded shoes with her sister since nobody could see her feet under the dress, anyway. She got blisters walking down the aisle.”

Tears welled up in his eyes. “I remember that. But then I look at her face and she’s a stranger. It’s like there’s a hole in my life. I know she’s in my head but I don’t even know where to look for her.”

Quarrel couldn’t think of anything to say. He was realizing more every day that he felt the same way.

#

After a night at Saleb’s house, Quarrel returned to Ottawa. He climbed into his own car and drove back to his own apartment, both of which were strange experiences after being away for over a month. His apartment had both a lock and a deadbolt, which had to be opened with two different keys. He had locked both when he departed for Virginia, but as he walked down the hallway toward his own front door, he noted a crack of light. His door was open.

He reached for a gun, only to realize that he had signed his weapon back into Gig’s care at CIB almost a week earlier. He stayed close to the wall, sneaking up to the door, and heard the sound of music. To make things even stranger, he could smell something cooking inside his own apartment. He crept to the door and peeked inside. His apartment looked the same, but the lights were on. He pushed inside.

Creeping through the living room, he entered the kitchen where strips of chicken were sizzling in a pan. Then someone behind him spoke.

“Hungry?”

Quarrel jumped around to face her. Jessica Swift looked different. Her hair was lighter, and it framed her face in wavy layers. She was tanned, radiant even, and wearing a pale yellow dress. She was completely different from the woman who had broken into CIB in black tights, black hair, and black face paint. She was brighter; she even had a tan. But for all the changes she still had the same eyes, the same look she’d given him on their last night together.

“I tried to find you,” he said. “But since you left the phone behind, I had no way to get in touch.”

“I know. I had to get out of it. Away from my life. I had some issues to sort out,” she was so close he could feel her breath on his neck. “I actually read that copy of Jekyll and Hyde. He thinks he’s one thing, but then his bad side keeps breaking through, eventually he’s always Hyde. I think maybe I’m like that. I thought I was Jupiter’s secret spy, and suddenly this rebellious side just took over.”

“You came back,” Quarrel whispered, “from what they tried to make you. You followed me here?”

“My last ties to The Academy died with Milton. I didn’t have anything to run away from, so I figured I’d run toward you.”

Quarrel kissed her cheek, and pulled back a bit to look her in the eyes. “You know, this isn’t the place to avoid that world. I’m still part of all that, unless they fire me.”

“I know,” she said. “I figured something out before I went after Boswell. With my skills, what The Academy taught me, I can do good. I don’t have to break my rules; I can use my skills and still respect myself. I don’t have to kill anyone. I just have to be smarter than the bad guys.” She looked comfortable, confident. As if all the shattered pieces of Jessica had finally started to heal together. “And I will be.”

“No more Jupiter, eh?” Quarrel asked.

“All gone. I’m a free woman.” She went to the pan and stirred it with a spatula. “I suppose if I can’t find work as a sneak I could work as a personal chef if someone were to offer me a place to stay.”

Quarrel smiled and started to say something but his phone rang and cut him off. He answered on speaker, so Swift could hear.

“Quarrel, this is director Standing,” said the authoritative woman’s voice.

“What can I do for you?” he asked. He was genuinely curious what they would do with him, since his field trip to the CIA was over.

“We’re been going over your report about what you were up to recently.”

“OK?” he said.

“Everything seems mostly tied up except for one thing. That list you gave us, of the original members of this Digamma group who erased Mercier from the records . . . ”

Quarrel had written the list from memory during his debrief at CSIS, since his original copy went with Swift when she crossed the ocean.

Alpha (KGB): Vladimir Plunov

Beta (KGB): Plunov’s partner, now dead according to Crowe

Gamma (CIA): ?

Delta (USA): Shark Scarret

Epsilon (GBR): Julia Thorpe

Digamma: Martin Mercier

“We think we have a line on the one loose end. Gamma. But it’s a long shot. He’s a major player in the CIA’s European branch. He’s been in charge for decades and there’s no way the CIB can touch him.” Director Standing cleared her throat, and then the same woman who had once thought Quarrel was nothing but a nuisance said, “We need an experienced hand in the field on this one. With CSIS-2 in tatters, Quarrel, you’re the best we’ve got.”

Quarrel looked at Swift and she grinned. He spoke to the phone. “Director, you heard my debrief. I’m not cut out to do this sort of work alone. If you want me, I’ll need to bring some backup.”

Swift pulled her new brown hair back into a ponytail and moved the pan off the burner. Quarrel pulled her close. “Two tickets to London.”

THIS NOVEL WITH SELF-DESTRUCT IN 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

THE END

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