Simon Green - The Spy Who Haunted Me

“Fine by me,” said Walker. “But will the Independent Agent agree?”

“The man is dying,” I said. “He doesn’t have enough time left to haggle. He can give his prize to three agents who’ve proved their worth or risk his precious secrets falling into unworthy hands after he’s dead.”

“And . . . Peter?” said Honey. “How do we tell an old man that we got his only grandson killed?”

“We don’t know that he’s dead,” Walker said immediately. “He’s just . . . missing in action.”

“Alexander King wanted his grandson in the game,” I said. “He knew the risks.”

“Did Peter?” said Honey. “He didn’t operate in the same world as the rest of us.”

“No,” said Walker. “He worked in industrial espionage. I’m pretty damn sure he wouldn’t have shared the prize.”

“The game is now officially over,” I said. “We’ve been to all five of the designated areas, investigated each mystery we found there, and come up with an answer. We may not have uncovered the answer to the original Roswell mystery, but I think this . . . is better. Certainly it’s more than enough to prove our worth as the Independent Agent’s successors, which was supposed to be the whole point of the game. Time . . . to call it a day.”

“How are we supposed to let Alexander King know?” said Walker, glaring at the teleport bracelet on his wrist. “How do we persuade these infernal contraptions to take us back to Place Gloria?”

I took out Peter’s phone and showed it to the teleport bracelet around my wrist. “See this?” I said loudly. “Proof, evidence, and answers to all the questions we were set. I know you’re listening, Alexander! We can either give this to you or . . . take it back to our respective organisations. So, beam us up, Scotty!”

And that was when Peter King stepped out of the shadows, stabbed Honey Lake between the ribs with a long-bladed knife,

snatched the phone from my hand, and disappeared, teleported away.

Honey made a shocked, surprised sound, and then collapsed as the strength went out of her legs. I caught her and eased her to the ground. Her whole left side was already soaked with blood, and more ran down between our closely pressed bodies. Walker was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. Honey made a pained sound and blood spilled from her mouth. I held her tightly to me. I looked up at Walker to yell at him to get some help, but the look on his face stopped me. It confirmed what I already knew.

“It was Peter all along,” said Walker. “The treacherous little shit. He killed Katt, and Blue, and—”

“No,” said Honey. “That was me.”

“Hush,” I said. “Hush.”

“No.” She forced the words out past the pain and the blood. She needed me to know the truth. “I killed Blue and Katt. Tried to kill Walker. Even sabotaged my own sub at the loch, so I wouldn’t be suspected. I thought . . . it was my duty. To win the prize at any cost.”

“Honey . . .” I said, but the hard knot in my stomach wouldn’t let me say anything more.

She smiled briefly, showing perfect teeth slick with blood. “Never fall in love with another agent, Eddie. You know it’s never going to end well.”

She died in my arms. I held her for a long time.

It all went bad so quickly.

Why be an agent? All right, you get to play with all the best toys, you get to see the world (though rarely the better parts), and now and again you get a real chance to stand between humanity and the forces that threaten . . . You get to be a hero, or a villain, and sometimes both. But what does any of that buy you in the end? Except death and suffering and the loss of those you care for. What makes a man an agent? And what keeps him going, in the face of everything?

Why be an agent?

Walker and I stood together in a dirty backstreet, looking down at Honey Lake’s body. I’d like to say she looked peaceful and at rest, but she didn’t. She looked like a toy that had been played with too roughly, and then thrown aside. I’d seen a lot of people look like that in the years I’d spent playing the spying game. When all the fun and games, all the adventure and romance, adds up to nothing more than bright red blood on a white jumpsuit.

“She was a good agent,” said Walker.

“Yes,” I said.

“She wouldn’t want us to just stand around, waiting to get caught.”

“No.”

“My teleport bracelet is gone,” said Walker, looking at his bare wrist. “Yours too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Honey’s bracelet is gone as well.”

Walker sniffed loudly, shooting his impeccably white cuff forward to cover his wrist. “Peter must have taken them with him.”

“Only one way he could have done that,” I said, still looking down at Honey’s body. “Peter must have been working with his grandfather all along. The Independent Agent always intended for his nephew to win the game, to keep his precious secrets in the family. This whole contest was a setup to establish Peter King as the new Independent Agent. I should have known. It’s always about family. The rest of us were just here for show. Window dressing for Peter’s great triumph.”

“And we’re left stranded in Roswell,” said Walker. “With a dead body at our feet and the local law no doubt already on their way, tipped off by an anonymous source. How very awkward. Time to be going, I think.”

“We have to go to Place Gloria,” I said. “Alexander and Peter have to pay for this.”

“Yes,” said Walker. “They do. I’ve always been a great believer in an eye for an eye, and a death for a death. Comes of a traditional public school upbringing, no doubt. Unfortunately, getting to the Independent Agent’s private lair isn’t going to be easy. We can’t be sure Place Gloria is where or even when we think it is. Remember the flux fog? The exterior we saw may have no connection at all to the more than comfortable retreat we walked through.”

“You’re just talking to distract me,” I said. “I appreciate the thought, but don’t. What are we going to do about Honey?”

“Communications should be working again, now that the alien mound has been destroyed,” said Walker. “We’ll call her people and tell them what’s happened, and they’ll get the local people to do what’s necessary. The Company’s always been very good at cleaning up after itself.”

I looked at Walker, and to his credit he didn’t blink. “Just walk away and leave her?” I said. “Leave her lying here in the street, alone?”

Walker met my gaze unflinchingly. “You’ll pardon me if I’m not overly sympathetic, Eddie. She did try to kill me back in Tunguska. And she did murder poor little Katt and your friend the Blue Fairy.”

“I know,” I said. “She was an agent.”

“Yes,” said Walker. “And that’s why she’d understand. In the field, you do what you have to do. She wouldn’t have hesitated to walk away from you and leave your body to be taken care of by the Droods.”

“Is this why we became agents?” I said, and was surprised by the bitterness in my voice. “To play games, to chase after secrets that are rarely worth all the blood spilled on their behalf . . . To end up stabbed in the back, just when you thought you’d won, bleeding out in some nameless backstreet . . . With most people never even knowing who you were, or what you did, or why it mattered?”

“You can’t work in the shadows and still expect applause,” said Walker. “The right people will know, and sometimes that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Anything for the family,” I said. “Anything for England. For humanity. But for us? What about us, Walker?”