Frontline (44 page)

“No.” Kency turns on his side, his back to Trenton, and cushions his head against his forearm.

Trenton turns off the flashlight and lies on the floor next to him. Sleep doesn’t return. The pains in his limbs and back throb every second, and a headache burns behind his tired eyes.

With Kency breathing softly, Trenton crawls out of the tent. The moon hangs bright and round in the starry sky, casting a silver glow over the water in the harbor. He sidesteps back down the muddy slope, scraping his shins and calves on prickly weeds and burrs.

Tent City is as alive during the night as in the day. Candlelight glows beneath some of the tent coverings. Those who are awake lope in between shelters and talk to each other in a mix of Haitian Creole and English. Trenton can only pick out certain words: missing, rescue, food, water, sick. Others sit in the entrance of their tents and cradle their children, swat at flies and mosquitoes, and stare at every passerby as if they’re coming with directions to a dry, stable household. It will take more than a few days. It will take months. Probably even years.

Right now, donations are pouring in from all over the world, but most won’t slip through the sticky fingers of the corrupt Haitian government. This is the group of generous souls who seized the first shipments of donated clothing when they arrived in Haiti, set up distribution booths, and tried to sell the clothes back to its citizens. It reminds Trenton of a key word in the title of his thesis: Profit.

The solutions seemed so simple from the comfortable perch of a private study room in the university library. Page after page of textbook readings, graphs, charts, and statistics offered reams of theories on how to wane fledgling developing countries off first world aid and get them standing on their own two steady economic feet. All they need is A, B, and C to achieve X, Y, and Z.

The acclaimed lectures that made so much sense in the sheltered confines of an Ivy League institution are so simplistic in the face of the chaos decimating Haiti, it would all be laughable if the whole situation wasn’t so hopelessly tragic.

And yet, here he stands on the shore of a country that was more or less forgotten by the rest of the world until a crack in the earth opened beneath it and almost swallowed it whole. So despite the enormity of the task ahead to rebuild the country, accompanied by the sick tingling in his gut telling him that there’s nothing he can truly do, there must be some reason Trenton decided to cancel a month’s worth of work and meetings and transport his life from a Manhattan penthouse to a tent in Port au Prince.

“An activist, first and foremost, must be an optimist,” his father once told him. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Trenton kneels in the sand and rinses his arms in the warm shallows of the Port au Prince Bay. Saltwater stings cuts and scrapes he didn’t even know were there. His body feels entombed in a hardened shell of sweat.

He stares up at the moon and wonders what time it is. Alarm clock screens everywhere in the city sit darkened; cell phones dead hunks of plastic, the wires that carry signals and electricity to them strewn over the ground. Time has no more precision here. Seconds and minutes, so precious in Trenton’s daily life back home, move by in large blocks. Days are measured in the worsening infections in open wounds, in the mounting pressure from a collapsed rooftop on a weak foundation, in the number of breaths left in the lungs of a buried human body.

Somewhere deep inside the camp, a song stirs in the still night. It begins with one voice, a low hum, carried over the air as others join in. Soon, a chorus lifts the melody higher, vaulting it into the darkness, a hopeful prayer from a lost people.

Trenton scrubs the last of the dirt and dust from his hands and arms.

“And now back to work.”

They are words of encouragement, but Trenton states them earnestly, like a promise
—
to himself, to his father and mother, to Kency and the rest of Haiti. He cups his hands in the ocean, presses the water to his face, and watches as thick clouds of dust wash from his skin, swirl in the shallows amongst the sand and silt, then disappear.

When his shirt and trousers land on the floor beside the bed, Randall
Wolverhampton knows he’s in trouble.

Her skin smells of cigarettes and strawberry perfume. Pale, shapely thighs straddle his checkerboard stomach and red lace panties brush against his abdomen.

“Relax, Randall.” A thick Russian accent coats each word, soft as a kitten’s purr. “Enjoy the ride.”

“Miss Babkin, I really must protest. This is not at all why I’m here, and far outside the boundaries of agent etiquette.”

She steadies herself with her right hand against his bare pectorals and laughs so hard, her breasts bounce beneath the thin silk of the red negligee. “It is one of the few pleasures one experiences in our line of work.”

She lifts his hand and tries to guide it to her left breast. Randall retracts it.

It shouldn’t be more than a second or two now . . .

Miss Babkin frowns. “Do you not find me attractive?”

“Why, yes of course.” He forces a smile. “But you see, Miss Babkin . . .”

Her eyes squint into tiny slits. “Then kiss me.”

Randall gulps.

Any second now . . .

FOUR HOURS EARLIER

“So you mean to tell me you’ve never had a shag on the job?”

Randall averts his stare and thinks of anything he can to change the topic. His mind, numb with embarrassment, won’t engage.

“I’m aghast, old boy. Aghast.”

Twenty-five years younger than his overseer, Randall is referred to as “old boy”. It only adds to the shame. For a junior agent in MI6, stationed in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, just thirteen kilometers inland from the North Sea and five hours north of London, shagging is bloody well all Randall should be doing. Lord knows there isn’t much spying to be done amongst the sleepy suburbs, quiet downtown core, and the rolling hills that surround it, populated with rows of turnip and herds of sheep.

When new installments of those
James Bond films hit movie screens in recent years, a
London Times
survey reported that being seduced by a secret agent has risen to number three on the
Most Common Women’s Fantasies
list, just behind footballers and pop stars like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

“It’s 1969, my man! Do you know what they’re already calling this decade? The Swinging Sixties. You’re missing out on the party!”

Randall frowns and stirs his tea. The soft chimes his spoon creates as it plinks against the inside of the porcelain cup do nothing to drown out the chuckles from across the table.

Agent Philip Lawrence, age
forty-six, is the antithesis of any Sean Connery fantasy object that swirls inside a woman’s wet dream. His eyebrows and nose hairs haven’t been acquainted with a pair of scissors in decades. A slick forehead, bulbous nose pocked with shards of broken blood vessels, and crinkled cheeks, are surrounded by two bushy sideburns snaking down his face. Both come to an abrupt halt beside his protruding chin. He offers Randall a gap-toothed grin beneath a white moustache stained nicotine yellow.

“When I was your age, of course, it was the war. I was parachuting all over Europe. Many a French, Belgian, and even German maiden, on occasion, were only too happy to share their beds with a tired, downtrodden solider of the king’s army. I took advantage of their hospitable nature on dozens of occasions, I daresay.”

Late-morning sun pours through the front windows of the empty café. Its black-and-white tiled walls and floors give the place the sound and feel of an echo chamber. In the absence of other patrons and conversations to add to the din, their words bounce into every empty corner of the room.

Randall clears his throat. “Uh, the war aside, sir, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I . . . uh . . . wondered when I might get the chance to change stations . . . perhaps even see some action?”

“Rather a nice piece at your six o’clock, wouldn’t you say, old boy?” Philip cocks his chin over Randall’s shoulder.

Randall knows whom Philip has spotted. The stare he feels burning into the back his head belongs to Laura, the café’s lone waitress during the afternoon slump between the lunch hour and the dinner rush. She also rents the apartment upstairs.

“Yes, she’s an attractive young woman. That aside, sir, as for my current assignment, I feel it doesn’t offer much of a challenge in the way of furthering my skills, if you’ll beg my pardon.”

“Skills, agent?”

“Uh, yes, sir. Quite simply, sir, I feel I’ve been left here to rot. Put out to pasture with the sheep, sir, if you will.”

Randall rehearsed this speech dozens of times in the past week. He needs to sound assertive enough that Philip will respect his request and lend it some consideration, but any hint of pushiness or arrogance and his station up here in the north could easily become permanent. MI6 doesn’t fire its fussy young agents but it doesn’t hesitate to bury them either.

Philip’s caterpillar eyebrows crawl together. “With the sheep, you say, eh?”

Randall swallows hard. “Indeed, sir.”

Philip takes another sip of tea, drains his cup, and places it back on the saucer. He dabs the linen napkin around his mouth, his eyes glued to Randall’s, searching for any indication of self-doubt.

Randall grits his teeth and refuses to blink.

“And you’re sure you haven’t had a shag on the job?”

Randall scoffs and pushes his chair back from the table as Philip explodes with a rush of barrel-chested laughter. He slams his hand on the table, his eyes welling with tears while his bellows eventually shorten his breath and cause him to wheeze.

“You get it? Sheep shagging? Newcastle?”

Randall fishes for a few coins in his pocket, stands, and tosses them onto the table. He turns and looks straight toward at exit, though he can’t help but take a quick glance out of the corner of his eye at Laura, sitting behind the cash register, her long black hair falling over both sides of her face. Her front teeth bite her bottom lip and her shoulders hunch as if it takes all her strength to stop from joining in the laughter.

“Randall, stay. Please. I’m sorry, old boy,” Philip says from behind him.

Randall turns around. Philip dries his eyes with his napkin, coughs a few times as the last chuckles tremble in his chest, and motions to Randall to retake his seat.

“The humor of an old fuddy duddy like me falls flat every time with you youngsters. I should know better by now.”

Randall recognizes this as Philip’s attempt at an apology, though like many of the ones Randall’s heard from him previously, they never actually contain the word
sorry
.

“Never mind, then, I should probably get to the point of my little visit. Yes, there is a point to my being here today, more than just to upset you.”

Philip pops his leather briefcase open in his lap and retrieves an unmarked manila envelope. He hands it across the table to Randall who slumps back into his chair.

“I considered writing
Top Secret
on it myself but then thought better of it. You’d probably believe I was taking the piss again, which I would have been.”

“An assignment?” Randall tears the top of the envelope open and slides out two typed sheets.

“Nothing major but a directorate from a few floors up. It needs seeing to and someone thought you were just the person for the job.”

“Me, sir?” Randall says. “I truly believed they left me for dead up here.”

“It’s service in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, old boy. Not always fast cars, women and guns, I’m afraid, but on occasion we’re called upon to take action. Now then, this is an easy one so even you should be quite able to handle it.”

The top page of the dossier appears in single-spaced typeface and begins with the words
Directorate 151
. A stamp containing bold, black letters stating
CONFIDENTIAL
sits in the top right corner, while smaller type beneath reads
Coordinator of Information, London, 12025
. An illegible signature in red pen scrawls across it. Numbered paragraphs fill the rest of the page.

“Listen to me first, agent, and then peruse the document, if you please.”

Randall sets the pages face down in his lap and directs his attention to Philip who pauses a moment to light a cigarette. He knows to get serious when Philip addresses him as “agent” instead of “old boy”.

“Her name is Svetlana Babkin.” A short breath follows Philip’s introduction. Small tufts of smoke billow out of his mouth and nostrils, absorbed by his plaid tweed jacket and the gray woolen sweater beneath it. “She’s one of our eyes and ears inside the Russian consulate in Edinburgh. It’s ground-level intelligence. As I said, nothing worth rousing the PM, but the more pieces to the puzzle we have, the more complete the picture.”

He taps the tip of his cigarette against the edge of the brass ashtray on the table and returns it to his lips. “You’re to rendezvous with her later this evening in the dining lounge of the Brighton Guest House. Instructions are enclosed. Please memorize your introduction perfectly. Ms. Babkin is a stickler for detail and she will leave if she doubts your authenticity.”

Randall flips the page in his lap.

“Section two,” Philip says.

The clattering of Laura’s shoes across the tile warns of her approach.

“Put it away for now, if you please.”

Randall stuffs the pages back into the manila envelope, places it on his lap, and slides his chair tight against the tabletop.

“May I get you gents anything else?”

“Indeed, you may . . . Laura.” Philip leans forward to read the nametag from her left lapel, but his eyes roam all over her thin legs and bright yellow uniform, tightly fit with a low-cut plunge into her cleavage, which is tastefully bordered with white cotton to minimize skin exposure. She wears no makeup, her freshly scrubbed face and pink lipstick enough to tantalize Philip’s middle-aged hormones. “Though you might take this as slightly unorthodox, I beg your forgiveness in advance.”

Laura smiles. “Try me.”

Philip extends his hand to Randall. “This young man here expressed to me, just minutes ago, that he would be interested in ringing you sometime.”

Randall feels a hot surge of blood into his face as Laura raises her eyebrows at him and giggles.

“Would he now?”

“I told him not to be ridiculous and assured the poor sod he has a fishing boat’s chance in a hurricane, but he’s a persistent one, Laura.”

Randall angles his foot, preparing a swift kick to Philip’s shins, but thinks better of it at the last second. This is his first major assignment since being shipped off to the Geordie countryside, and no matter what he claimed about the directorate coming from a few floors up, Randall knows Philip had at least a minimal role in sending the action his way. He’d best let Philip have a little fun at his expense in return.

“Hmm . . .” Laura taps the eraser end of her pencil against the receipt pad in her left hand. “Well, I do admire persistence. Perhaps if he
persists
in visiting the café and leaving a tidier tip than usual, someday, should I see fit, he might just be rewarded with a phone number.”

“Hey, hey!” Philip shouts in victory. “An ugly bugger like you can’t complain with that result, right?”

Laura playfully swats Philip’s shoulder with her receipt pad. “That’s not nice!”

“Oh, he can take it. A tough young man, this one. Had to be. Abandoned by his parents at birth, raised by wolves in the wilds of Wales.”

“That’s not true,” Randall says to Laura.

“The Lone Eagle they call him on the street
—a quiet sort who keeps to himself, but every bit the watcher from on high. Doesn’t miss a thing.”

“That’s not true either.”

“Laura, whose word will you take on the matter: a distinguished British gentleman such as I, or this overly modest young rabble from the back alleys of Birmingham?”

She tears the top sheet from the receipt pad and tosses it into the middle of the table.

“I don’t trust either of you. But do come again.”

When she returns to her perch behind the register, Philip reaches for the bill.

“No, Philip, I insist,” Randall says, pulling more coins from his pocket.

Philip presses all five fingers of his right hand against the bill and slides it the rest of the way toward Randall. “But of course, old boy.”

A sheet of steel-gray cloud hangs over the downtown core of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Randall and Philip stand on the sidewalk beside Randall’s motorbike parked outside the front door of the café. Though the trees stand in full bloom and spring tulips decorate the garden beds in the park across the street, the day feels unseasonably chilly. Randall spends his days dreaming of the sands of North Africa, the scorching sun of Spain, or the busy hustle of daily life in a sprawling metropolis like Paris or New York.

A few raindrops splatter against the vinyl seat of his motorbike. Typical spring weather for the lovely city of Newcastle, where thick patches of green moss grow over the smooth gray stone of buildings that have stood for centuries, a stiff breeze finds any opening in your clothing, and a handkerchief is always close at hand to catch a runny nose or sneeze. When stationed in a place like Newcastle, everything seems far away, especially a young man’s dreams.