The Grendel Affair: A SPI Files Novel (19 page)

IT took me a good five seconds to find words, another five to get them out. “Ma’am, that ain’t me.”

I cringed to myself. Way to sound like a hick to the boss, Mac. You can take the girl out of the mountains, but fear of being eaten by your dragon boss brings out the mountain in the girl.

“This photo is from a surveillance camera mounted outside of Saga Partners Investments,” Moreau said. “This particular scene was recorded at eleven thirty-five yesterday morning at the café across the street.”

“That’s him, but it’s not me.”

“Who is he, Agent Fraser?”

“That’s the vampire from SoHo last night and Brooklyn today. Those were the only times I’ve ever set eyes on him in my life.”

You have to believe me, I wanted to shout. But they didn’t have to believe me; they had photographic evidence smack-dab in front of them, complete with a date and time stamp, and I couldn’t prove otherwise. The homeless man was the only witness last night, and today the vampire was gone by the time we came up from the subway station. Hell, either him or one of his MiB buddies had even cleaned up his blood first.

I’d been set up.

This was officially a nightmare.

I locked eyes with Moreau. “You know who he is, don’t you?”

Without taking his eyes from mine, he touched the bottom of the screen again, and the photo changed to a scene I didn’t recognize, but it was the same vampire. “Charles Warrenton Fitzpatrick the Third. He previously worked for the CIA as a handler.”

I froze. “Handler?”

“A point of contact for their undercover agents.”

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

Someone was setting me up to not only be fired, but probably killed, if not by the vampire CIA agent, then by my own employers. I was shaking in my snow boots, but I was also mad as hell. Whoever had painted a bull’s eye on me wasn’t here, so I turned my anger on the vampire in the room with me. “So what is it that I’m supposed to be all happy about with this Charlie Fitzpatrick?”

“Unknown,” Moreau said.

“You mean unknown until you get it out of me.”

Silence.

“We’re merely seeking an explanation, Agent Fraser,” Vivienne Sagadraco said.

Then they’d turn me over to the Vulcan mind meld people.

“You said
previously
a CIA handler,” Ian said to Moreau.

“That is correct.”

“Who’s he working for now?”

“Unknown. But it appears he is working in a similar capacity.”

“You said this was taken at eleven thirty-five yesterday?” Ian asked.

“Correct.”

“The photo of Mac in Adam Falke’s pocket, did you discover when that was taken while reviewing the break room tape?”

“I did.” Moreau brought up the security camera’s version of that photo on his screen, the one where I had a cookie in each hand. The date was yesterday. The time was 11:00 a.m., which gave me plenty of time to get across the street for some vamp schmoozing. Great. Just great. I resisted the urge to kick something.

Ian indicated the tablet. “May I?”

Moreau slid it over to him.

“Is this icon for the break room video?” Ian asked.

Moreau nodded. “For a twelve-hour period beginning at six yesterday morning through six last night.”

Ian glanced at me, then his attention was back on the tablet. “Mac, you said you ate cookies several times yesterday.”

“Yes.” I failed to see how bringing up my cookie addiction could do anything but get me fired and/or killed quicker.

Ian fast-forwarded the video until I appeared again. The time indicator read 12:15. Again it left plenty of time to get back from the café across the street.

A small smile creased Ian’s lips. “Makenna Fraser is no traitor. But then I already knew that.”

He isolated the three photos and dragged them so that they were side by side.

“What do you see, Mac?” he asked me.

I leaned in for a closer look. There I stood in the first photo eating a cookie, with another in my hand lined up to be devoured next. Powdered sugar was sprinkled down one side of my sweater. At least in the third photo I was only eating one cookie. Aw jeez, I hadn’t even wiped off the powdered sugar from the previous cookie raid.

Wait a minute.

My eyes went to the middle photo of me and the yuppie vampire. The vampire was in profile, but my twin was almost facing the camera straight on. I could clearly see the front of the sweater.

“No powdered sugar,” I said, almost to myself.

Ian sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not one speck.” He showed Moreau and the boss. “It’s on her sweater in the exact same place at ten and twelve fifteen in the break room, but not at eleven thirty-five across the street.”

“I didn’t have time to go to lunch,” I remembered, “so I had another cookie.”

“Security has your hand scan indicating that you left at eleven thirty-one and returned at eleven fifty-five,” Moreau said.

“I was at my desk during that time,” I said. “Check the bull pen video. I may have cookie issues, but I’m no traitor.”

Alain Moreau and Vivienne Sagadraco exchanged a concerned glance.

Moreau lowered the tablet. “I no longer need to check. It was not you.”

“You have our apologies, Agent Fraser,” Vivienne Sagadraco told me. “I had hoped there was a logical explanation. Now we have one.”

I was even more confused, if that was possible. “Apology accepted, ma’am. But there’s not a damned thing logical about that second photo. It’s not me, but she could be my twin. She’s even wearing the same clothes.”

“Not your twin, Agent Fraser. Your doppelganger.”

“My what?”

“A doppelganger is the paranormal double of a living person,” Sagadraco said.

“I’ve been xeroxed?” I heard myself ask.

“Historically to see one’s doppelganger was a harbinger of death. In modern times, they are often used to take the place of a person for nefarious purposes.”

“Framing me for corporate treason is plenty nefarious.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And this thing is so perfectly me that it replicated my handprint well enough to get in and out of headquarters?”

“A doppelganger assumes not only the appearance of its victim, but all of its mannerisms and thought processes as well,” Moreau added. “A perfect copy.”

“Thankfully for me, minus the powdered sugar.”

“An experienced doppelganger can easily convince even a victim’s closest associates,” Sagadraco said. “We’ve been infiltrated more cleverly than I ever suspected.”

“If the traitor is a shapeshifter who looks like me, then who took that picture in the break room of me eating cookies?” I asked. “I think I would have noticed if my twin was standing ten feet in front of me clicking away with her phone. Someone else would have noticed, too.”

“The angle at which it was taken suggests that the photographer was standing outside the door,” Moreau said, “just to the left—an area that is not covered by the security camera. It is doubtful that is a coincidence. This thing knows our security system.”

“So, my doppelganger has an accomplice?” I asked. “Or another stolen identity. Could someone here have gotten themselves a new body for Christmas, and decided that yesterday they needed to be me?”

“Fortunately, that’s not possible,” Ian said. “Doppelgangers are at the top of the shapeshifter food chain, but they can still change into only one person at a time.”

“What do doppelgangers look like normally?”

“Amorphous blob pretty much covers it.”

Ick.

Ian’s expression darkened. “Doppelgangers usually kill the person whose appearance they replicate to avoid discovery. If you’re going to make a copy, it’s risky to leave the original behind.”

“Apparently my being alive to take the blame was worth more to the thing than the risk of it being caught.”

Ian brushed his finger across the tip of his nose.

“Doppelgangers are perfect for spy and infiltration work,” Moreau said. “I had heard rumors that the CIA had recently begun using them. Simply replace the person and act in their stead. Spies, CEOs, political and world leaders—the perfect infiltrator with endless possibilities.”

I blinked. “The CIA is using supernaturals?”

“Another rumor.” Moreau glanced down at the photo of me and the vampire ex-CIA handler. “One that seems to have just been verified. Another benefit to using doppelgangers is that doppelgangers are exceptionally strong, supernaturally so. That strength is not diminished regardless of the form they take.”

“Why have a doppelganger impersonate me? I don’t know or have access to anything that would be useful to the CIA or anyone else.”

“Perhaps it is not what you know,” Vivienne Sagadraco said quietly, “but what you are.”

“A seer.”

“The
only
seer in our New York office, and one of only five in the entire company. Aside from yourself, we have one seer in our Canadian, Scandinavian, British, and South American offices. The Scandinavian seer will be accompanying Director Anderssen. The Canadian, British, and South American seers are unavailable. The Canadian is still recuperating from a Sasquatch encounter gone extremely wrong. The British seer is assisting in a rabid gryphon outbreak in Wales, and the South American is somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon on vacation and out of contact.”

“So aside from the Scandinavian, I’m all we have. And if you thought I was a traitor . . .”

“There would be no seer available in all of the Americas on the eve of what could be a world-altering, catastrophic event. Monsters are real, and billions of people will witness it as it happens live on television or the Internet on New Year’s Eve.”

Ian leaned back and his chair creaked. It was the only sound in the room. “That’s not a coincidence, either.”

“No, I don’t believe it is, Agent Byrne,” Sagadraco said. “These two grendels are somehow veiled against sight and sound. Our teams would never know what hit them. But at midnight on New Year’s Eve the world could witness it all. Alain, we must determine what damage the doppelganger has done to our security while masquerading as Agent Fraser—and any other form it may have been using. Determine if it brought any kind of package into this building. Review the hand scan records for agents arriving or departing early or late for anything that stands out from their normal routine. Any sickness or offsite appointments that were requested at the last minute or that ran longer than requested. Start with the senior security and science staff and work your way down until you find any anomalies. Personally select a few nonhuman agents to assist you.”

“What good would—” I began.

“Doppelgangers can only duplicate humans,” she told me. “For some reason, supernatural physiology impairs accurate duplication. Unfortunately, our uninvited guest has probably already eliminated the person they originally used to gain entrance. I imagine they’ve been with us for some time. Alain, have all of the security tapes been reviewed?”

“No, madame. Just the break room and the Saga Partners Investments cameras. I stopped once I found what I was looking for.”

Me making nice with my presumed handler.

“Have security review the tapes for the past forty-eight hours, looking for Agent Fraser,” the boss instructed. “Note the time and location of each instance. Agent Fraser, please provide Alain with your whereabouts for the same time period, both here and outside of headquarters. We will go back further if necessary. I want to know where that doppelganger has been and what it has done.”

“I’ll have a report for you within the hour,” Moreau said.

“I’d also suggest checking the Saga video further than Fitzpatrick’s meeting with Mac’s doppelganger across the street,” Ian said. “He could’ve left soon after—or he could’ve had a meeting with his handler or his employer.”

Sagadraco nodded in approval. “Excellent idea, Agent Byrne. Alain?”

“Added to the list, ma’am.”

“We need it done quickly, and we also should monitor the Saga camera overlooking the street in case Mr. Fitzgerald pays our doppelganger another visit.” She paused thoughtfully. “Get that new employee in Research to assist you, the one with four pair of eyes. Bob has reported that he’s very adept with them and is an excellent multitasker.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sagadraco turned to me. “For your safety, Agent Fraser, I want you to stay here until these issues are resolved.”

“With my doppelganger running loose?”

She raised an elegant brow. “And Mr. Fitzpatrick and an unknown phantom organization on the prowl out there? One creature inside SPI as opposed to an unknown number outside.”

“Good point, ma’am.”

“We can protect you more efficiently here. Agent Byrne will remain with you at all times. By the time Lars and his team arrive we will have the most probable locations for the grendels and begin our search. I need you to be with them. They are bringing their seer. You’ll deploy with the teams. I can’t risk having you abducted or murdered before then.”

“I wouldn’t like that either, ma’am.” I had a disturbing thought, even more disturbing than possibly running into my evil twin in the ladies’ room. “It’s dark outside. There’s been two killings in two nights. These things hunt when it’s dark, and our Scandinavian grendel experts are somewhere over the North Atlantic right now.”

Sagadraco glanced at her slender, diamond watch, as did her dragon aura. Dragons liked their sparklies. “On the contrary, they should be landing by nine o’clock tonight.”

“But in the meeting just now, you said—”

Her eyes glittered with a hint of humor. “I say many things, Agent Fraser—some of which are intentionally inaccurate.”

“I wondered why you invited me to a meeting if you thought I was a traitor.”

“I sincerely hope it is not the case, but the doppelganger could very well have been one of the other people in that room. They represent my best and most valued people. Everyone who was in that room is now privy to the fake time and place of Director Anderssen’s arrival.”

“The fake time five hours from now.”

“I am having all of them watched,” Moreau said. “If one of those in that meeting attempts to contact anyone outside of SPI within the next few hours, that communication will be monitored, intercepted, and if it is suspect, swiftly acted upon.”