Andrew Britton - The Operative

She had accessed the CNN app on her phone, tucked it in her belt, and let it play as she moved around the room. About a half hour in, after she had looked at the collection of first editions and antique maps, she had almost called to ask for Liz to come by. Something about the woman intrigued her. Her poise was not an affectation. There seemed to be some steel in that woman’s spine.

Muloni went through two cans of ginger ale, found a small lavatory behind a pocket door beside a massive fireplace, then sat in the armchair and closed her eyes. She resisted calling Langley for inside updates because she didn’t want to leave a phone-to-phone e-trail. Her coworkers knew she was on special assignment; she didn’t want any of them to try and find out exactly where.

The CNN broadcast became white noise, and she dozed lightly, a habit acquired from years in the field: both the ability to catch some sleep where she could, and to wake quickly and alert as needed.

The snap of footsteps in the hallway woke her. She had slumped slightly and sat up almost involuntarily. She poked off her phone, put it on the side table and rose as Trask entered the room. Muloni was standing before she was even fully awake. She wouldn’t have fooled him, if that was her goal; she had noticed security cameras in the corners and in the hallway. Nothing happened here that Trask didn’t know about.

He came forward behind an extended hand, a big smile, and an apologetic wince.

“So sorry,” he said. “It was partly business, and partly… mea culpa… I lost track of the hour with all that’s happening out there.” He gestured vaguely toward one of the room’s two big windows before clasping her hand in both of his.

“I understand,” she said.

“I’m Jacob Trask. It’s a pleasure.”

“Jessica Muloni, sir,” she said. “It’s an honor.”

She didn’t know why, but she expected him to feign modesty and dismiss the compliment. He did not.

“Robinson and Elisabeth,” he said, gesturing her back into the armchair while he sat in another. “They treated you well?”

“Very well, Mr. Trask. Liz-Elisabeth-in particular. She fascinated me.”

“A remarkable woman,” Trask agreed. “She’s the former Athens-Clarke County sheriff, well connected among regional law enforcement. We knew each other through mutual political connections, and two months after retiring she came to work for me. She missed the excitement. And her patrol car.” He chuckled. “She said she would go to the market on a scooter to save on gas and would feel… Unempowered was the word she used. No horsepower, no sidearm, no responsibility. Now she’s a highly trained security chauffeur. She’s had all the evasive and defensive training, and she carries a small arsenal in the glove compartment, under the dash, and upon her person.”

Muloni smiled. Trask seemed personable enough, accessible-but there was still scrim of some kind, a line he wouldn’t cross. She didn’t know what it was.

He filled a glass with ice from the bucket, shaking each piece off before dropping it into a tall glass. Then he poured water. He did not offer her any, and then she knew what it was: he was being kind to an employee, but not servile. He did not offer her a refill, did not ask her about herself or her trip. His one question was about how his staff had treated her. Even his apology was by way of explanation, not actual regret.

“You are surprised to be here,” he said.

“More than a little, sir,” she confessed.

“What did your superiors tell you?”

“Nothing,” she said. “If they knew why, they didn’t share that information.”

“They did not know why,” he said. “It was strictly need to know.”

The CIA doesn’t know why I’m here, but a civilian does, she thought. That was a little unnerving. As if the legends were true, that all the events in the United States-indeed, the world-were understood and manipulated by just a handful of mega-powerful industrialists and financiers.

“Your prisoner of late, Yasmin Rassin, is no longer in captivity,” he said. “Nor is she in Pakistan.”

Muloni immediately superimposed that information with the attack on the convention center. It didn’t fit-time-wise, in terms of her modus operandi, or pertinent to her skill set. Besides, she was a mercenary, not an ideologue.

The agent said nothing; she had nothing to add. She wondered how Trask knew and why he was telling her this, but asking wouldn’t get him to say anything he wasn’t already planning to tell her.

“While you process that, here’s the rest,” Trask went on. “We believe she is in the United States, possibly in New York. You are to find her and recapture her if you can, remove her if it’s necessary. You will have the proper authorization, in writing, within the hour in your personal e-mail. Encryption code Date Three is being used.”

Each agent assigned a date to the standard codes, an assignation known only to him- or herself and the high-security dispatcher. For Muloni, Date One was the day of her high school prom, Day Two was the day she saw Rush in concert, and Day Three was the day she had her appendix out. None of these were likely to be guessed by a hacker.

“The reason you are here, the reason I am telling you this, is that we believe she is in the custody of people who are in my employ. I have been watching them for some time, concerned that some of our technology was showing up in foreign weapons systems. Were their rogue status to become commonly known, the impact on my business-much of which involves government contracts that affect your own organization-would be disastrous. Your superiors have authorized you to be seconded to my own security team to track and eliminate my employees and their assassin. Your record is impressive and, now that I’ve met you, I believe what I have been told. You are someone that people know they can trust.” He took a long drink, his steely eyes never leaving the agent. When he finished, he said, “And no. I do not know why they want her. But I can only assume one thing.”

“They want to kill you,” she said.

He regarded her, his gaze grown colder. “Why is that the first thing that came to your mind?”

She tensed, wishing she hadn’t spoken. “I read the corporate file. There is no acknowledged successor. Removing you would create conflict, a distraction. I thought it might open your contracts to other bidders.”

He nodded. “A reasonable guess. Most of my business is built on long-standing relationships. But I don’t believe that I am the target. Besides, these men already have access to me.”

“With her, their hands would be clean.” She corrected herself quickly. “Clean er.” They were already dirty to some degree. Otherwise, Trask wouldn’t suspect them.

He considered this before dismissing it. “No. It is someone else and for some other purpose. They have access to our technology. They could take the company down by corrupting our resources.”

“You found out you’d been compromised by reverse engineering the situation,” she said. She was in this far with her pushing. She might as well go all the way. “How did you identify the personnel?”

He grinned. “Reverse engineering the situation,” he said. “I like that. It’s exactly what we did. Found our technology, and instead of suing the Chinese company, we infiltrated their plant, found the source of the leak, traced it back to our R amp; D division, known, ironically enough, as MoleS-Molecular Studies. They’re responsible for making electronic relays from single molecules.”

She probably looked as surprised as she felt. She thought single-molecule wires and conjugated molecular on-off switches were still mostly theory.

Back to silent mode, Muloni decided. She was out of her element on all fronts.