Old Growth & Ivy (The Spook Hills Trilogy Book 1) (9 page)

"Any other solution will delay us
by weeks -- finding the right agent, bringing her up to speed, running
scenarios.  Think of what could happen to those kids in that
time." 

Brian paled.  "Hey, I may
not be a real macho type, but I am a man like you, Chief.  Me dressing up
as a woman?  That's insane."

Steve’s expression conveyed his
conviction.  Brian remained solemn and sat staring at the floor. 
Minutes passed.  Just as Steve was giving up hope that he would come
around, Brian sat up straight and said, “While I don't want to
fucking
do this, I will.  I'll need makeup, clothes,
hairdo, training and no wisecracks.  What happens on this case, stays on
this case.  No leaks.  No kidding around."

"Deal.  Let's get
started." 

To stay on track, they had only a
couple of days to turn Brian into a convincing woman.  Steve would shift
the negotiations to Mathew to take some pressure off Brian and to let him
concentrate on his role as a convincing female executive.  Twenty-four
hours later, with the help of a junior female agent on our team, Brian passed
for a woman.  He learned a new walk that was athletic yet feminine. 
They worked on gestures that women make -- primping, playing with his necklace,
licking his lips a certain way.  His beard had never been heavy and he
could hide his slight Adam's apple with a scarf or a turtleneck.  The
issue was his deep, masculine voice.  Steve lined up a Bureau speech
expert to work with Brian on his speech.   Once his tones were worked
out, they would go back to tweaking roles and doing practice scenarios. 
Steve planned to lean on their contact the next day to have the meeting
confirmed with Matka. 

That night Steve was reviewing their
risk analysis.  Perpetrators are dangerous criminals who often fight to
the death to avoid capture.  Every mission had risks.  Steve
considered it his responsibility to minimize the impact of those risks on his
team and on the public.  He glanced over at Mathew.

"We need a strong lead for our
backup team, now that you’re not on it," Steve said.

"You remember that Lenny guy from
that second case we did together?"

"Lenny lacked finesse."

"Damn it Steve.  Have you
ever played back yourself in action?  When the pressure is on, you kind of
lack finesse too.  You shoot first and worry about arrests later. 
You get the job done and you get it done fast, but it isn't always tidy."

"And you could do
better?"  Steve countered a bit belligerently.

"No, I think with time I might
become as good, not better."

Steve battled with that hard
stubbornness he had and then he said, "You are already better than I am in
action.  You're craftier and you're a bit faster.  We are lucky to
have you." 

Mathew smiled at the unexpected
compliment.  “And Lenny?”

“Yeah, line him up.  Have him
plan to meet me in Frankfurt when we’re ready to do the sting.  I will
brief him there and then we will fly into Sofia.”

***

Almost two weeks had passed where Ivy
did not hear from Steve. Work was keeping her in the office long hours and
often she was working at home in the evenings as well.  Client demands
were adding to her stress levels and yet occasional thoughts of Steve buoyed
her up.  On Thursday, she was delighted to see a secure email come in from
him and allowed herself the luxury of opening it while she ate lunch at her
desk.

Secure
Email from Steve Nielsen, November 8, 2012

Dearest Ivy,

How
very often you have been in my thoughts.  We have only been together
twice, talked a few times and emailed, but like your namesake you are twining
yourself around my heart rapidly, completely, di
vine
ly.  

Before
I met you, for about the last year or so, a long-dormant part of me decided to
come awake.  Everything about you, including that captivating "big
town" you live in, reaches out to this new region in me.  You are
warm, enticing, and verging a bit to the unusual.  I think that all the
oxygen from the trees in the Northwest makes you folks a bit elfin, yet you
seem to have both feet on the ground. 

You
are a curious mix of sophistication and earthiness.  You are soft and
yielding yet strong.  Womanly but capable and I think you are totally
lacking in guile.  Still you are mysterious in some ways.  I sense
that you have unexplored layers and depths and that perhaps I could spend years
with you and still discover surprising new twists. 

At that moment, one of Ivy's directors
burst into her office with the news that a key project manager had walked off
the job, crumbling under the pressure and leaving a major client project in
trouble.  Reluctantly she closed the email to focus her attention on the
immediate problem, which became all absorbing as she strove to fill the
gap. 

***

The next day, Mathew was in his room
working on his laptop and thinking morosely about where he was in life when
Steve walked in.

"What's up?" he said,
spinning around in his desk chair to face Steve.

"One o'clock, we leave. 
Bubird taking us to Frankfurt.  From there we take public transport by
various routes to Sofia.  Spread the word."

Mathew nodded and turned back to his
laptop.

"What's with you?" Steve
asked.  "You usually jump up and down with enthusiasm when we're
ready to move in.  Today you look like your pet dog died."

Mathew shook his head.  Steve sat
on a spare chair in the room. 

"Spill it or I'm not
leaving."

"Thinking too much.  Like
how does this happen?  I'm sailing along in my thirties, feeling like my
life is coming to fruition.  Then I wake up one morning, and I hit
forty.  Suddenly I’m rushing headlong into the second half of my
productive life.  What do I have to show for the first half?"

"The big four-oh?  Yeah,
milestone birthdays make you think, don't they?  Mathew, you have one hell
of a career.  You are well educated.  You have the ability to go to
the top of the Bureau.  Maybe even be the Chief one day."

"I wasn't thinking of my
career.  I am so isolated personally.  Sadly no one cares that this
is a milestone day for me.  My mother never remembers my birthday. 
At least when my Dad was alive, he would have given me a phone call from
wherever his business interests had taken him."

"I'm here and for what it's
worth, I do care.  Happy Birthday, Mathew.  What are you going to
do?  What do you want to change?"  Steve made a mental note to
add Mathew’s birthday to his calendar so he would remember it next year.

"If turning forty fails to give
me the impetus to change my life, what will?  My life clock is ticking
inexorably that way it does, steadily marching forward.  I have to make
some life-changing resolutions to find a wife, family, and fulfillment. 
How do I get there?  How do I find someone as promising as this Ivy you
met?"

Mathew noticed that Steve blanched a
little at the mention of Ivy's name.  "Something wrong with you and
Ivy, Big Guy?"

"Don’t know.  Oh crap. 
I emailed her about what I'm like -- what a demanding SOB I am and stuff. 
Gave her some examples -- things she should understand about me before we go
further.  She hasn't responded."

"Maybe she is thinking. 
Maybe she is busy.  Can't believe you did that in an email."

"Yeah, well maybe not the best
way to tell her.  It's done now.  To make things worse, we have to
take off and leave all our personal stuff behind in some airport or
other."

"Stinks.  Why don't you call
her before we go?"

"Nah.  I'll do that after
the action.  Right now, I have to focus on those kids.  Hope I
haven't scared her off."

"If I ever do find someone, how
do I hold onto her?  Can I do that and maintain this career path?  My
FBI career is great -- challenging, stimulating, and gratifying.  Is it
worth the heavy toll it takes on my personal life and me?"

"Guys do it."

"You didn't."

"My life should not be an example
for you.  Remember that discussion we had about love and marriage a few
years back?"

Mathew nodded.

"Take your own advice. 
Manage it like a project.  Commit yourself to having an approach settled
in your mind by a certain date."

Mathew nodded.  "You're
right.  Three months.  By February 9th, 2013, I will have a path to
follow.  Every day I will spend at least ten minutes on it.  For now,
"
Ad Meliora Vertamur
" --
Let Us Turn to Better
Things!"

Feeling, if not better, at least glad
to have a goal, he picked up his cell phone to alert the rest of the team that
they were flying out at one.

***

Going out of Bern, the team split up
using the tickets Steve arranged for them, boarding planes for Vienna, Rome or
Budapest switching IDs as they went.  From those cities, they would then
fly to Sofia.  Anything that could identify who they really were -- passports,
credit cards, driver’s licenses, and even personal cell phones, tablets and
laptops were left at an FBI office or an airport locker en route.  Steve
planned to leave his in a locker at the Frankfort airport since he expected
that to be his route flying back to the States.  Mathew left his in
Bern.  They had to do the sting in Sofia, handle the follow-on work to
shut down the child brothels once they knew where they were, and finish the
case wrap-up that was required.  Steve rechecked his iPhone at the airport,
but found no messages from Ivy.  He stopped to check his secure email
service.  That was empty as well.  He put his roscoe, creds, iPhone,
iPad and laptop in the airport locker, closed the door, spun the dial and
walked away, hoping he would have a message from Ivy when he picked up his
iPhone again, but fearing that he had scared her off.

All the agents, except Steve and
Lenny, arrived in Sofia on Zero Day minus one.  Each agent was down to a
suitcase, anonymous laptop, a new cell phone, and leather briefcase.  On
the surface, they appeared to be business people from the American
Heartland.  Steve and Lenny were to meet up in Frankfurt on Day Zero and
fly out on the next flight to Sofia.  Behind the scenes the legats had
arranged local forces for the arrest team, the required in-country weapons and
technology, and social services to take the children.  The first meeting
with the head of the child trafficking ring – the woman they called Matka --
was scheduled for late in the afternoon of Day Zero.  Only Mathew, Brian
and a bilingual agent would attend.

***

Not until early the following Tuesday
morning was Ivy able to get back to Steve's email, reading the part she had not
read before twice in the early morning quiet of her home. 

While
I want to see more of you, I have been doing a great deal of thinking and soul
searching when I manage to pull myself away from this investigation. 
Before we go further, you need to better understand me.  Ivy, you have
seen that as an agent, I can be brash, headstrong, and difficult.  While I
would never (and have never) become physically aggressive, I likely will always
be obdurately demanding when I feel I am in the right.  My parents used to
tell me that I was their American angel with one devil of a Norwegian stubborn streak. 

My
work life has been successful even though that is at a cost.  I have done
and will do whatever it takes to solve a case.  I have killed people; they
were always the perps; it was always in self-defense, but I pulled the
trigger.  Can you still smile at me and want to be with me knowing
that?  Sometimes team members have been severely hurt on missions because
I insisted that we solve a case, catch the perps, and end the crimes. 
Agents have been shot up, nastily wounded and even crippled.  Can you gaze
at me with those sincere eyes of yours and still want me as you learn more
about this tougher side?

I
also mess with people's heads.  I push them beyond their physical,
emotional and psychological endurances.  I have ended any number of
careers; I have put aspiring agents in situations where they came to think far
less of themselves.  Working with me shook their confidence down to their
toes.  Often I go after solving a case so hard, that I fail to see the
impact on the agents on my teams.  Recently I pushed a good agent on the
team so hard that she had a flashback to a bad time in her life and completely
broke down.  She had to be sent home, take a leave of absence and go into
therapy.  While I had no idea that she had this ticking time bomb of
memories inside of her, I should have seen the warning signs and backed
off.  Unfortunately this is not untypical of me.  I push agents to
take on roles that they do not want or are not always ready for.  Over the
course of my years at the FBI, I have damaged the careers of scores of agents.

Why
am I telling you this?  Because it is what I do and what I have done for
35 years.  Working for the Bureau on cases takes my full concentration; it
takes up almost all of my life and my energy.  Frankly my personal life
has been a disaster.  I buried myself in work when my marriage
failed.  I turned my back on my son, letting my wife and her second
husband bring him up.