Episode 4: Secret Spies
Midwest Chief Paul Thomas hung up the phone and placed his face in his hands. He could feel the heat rising up his neck and settling at the top of his bald head.
“This is not happening to me,” he said. Light faded on the horizon and a dim reminder lingered for a short time. The St. Louis skyline did nothing to ease his stress tonight. Maybe nothing could.
When Margaret, his assistant, informed him in her annoying nasal voice that Chandelor Knight was on the phone, Paul knew something bad was brewing.
“You might as well get use to it, boss,” Margaret said, sitting on the edge of his desk. She had intently filed her nails, scraping the emery board back and forth.
“Get used to what? I still have Nikki and Nigel. They can handle this.”
“Nikki, sure. But Nigel? He’s a bumbler if I ever saw one. Did you watch the surveillance tape where he fell over his own feet? A bumbler for sure.”
“All right,” Paul said, raising his voice a notch. “Thank God we have Nikki. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to her.”
Margaret offered him a humorless smile.
“We’d be screwed.” “For sure,” Paul answered, echoing his assistant’s words. “We have to find out who’s trying to break the encryption code and stop them. If we don’t a lot of agents could die, Nikki and Nigel among them.”
A streak of white lightening lit up the sky to the airplane’s left. The power of mother nature’s fury was obvious. A second flash came close to the plane’s engines.
Jack Darcy attempted to keep his attention on flying the aircraft, but the storm was only getting worse. Then the unthinkable happened. Two lines of brilliant white shot from the storm clouds and impacted the left wing. The engine erupted in a flurry of sparks. For a split second the motor sputtered, as if it might be okay, then it died.
“Mayday, mayday,” Jack said, into the microphone. “My aircraft’s been hit.”
A screeching jumble of white noise played on the radio, but no one answered his plea.
Nikki Carpenter wasn’t comfortable flying in good weather. Now that it had taken a turn for the worse, she promised herself she’d never set foot on an airplane again.
“Why are you saying mayday? We’re still flying, aren’t we?”
Jack tried to smile, but found under the circumstances, he couldn’t.
“Not for long. That light show just sheered off our wing taking the engine with it.”
“Figuratively, right? Figuratively. Not literally?” Nikki’s heart began to beat faster. This didn’t sound good.
“We’ll be fine,” he answered. “I’m an excellent pilot.”
Nikki leaned over and glanced out Jack’s window. Her face paled.
“An excellent pilot? How can a pilot fly when half his wing is missing? Tell me that? You think you can do it alone, think you can just make the rest of the wing appear like a rabbit from a hat?” Nikki held her hands to her head. “Oh, God. We’re going to die!”
Jack grabbed her shoulders and faced her toward him.
“Calm, down. We’re not going to die. Ole Jackie-boy won’t let that happen to you,” Jack pretended to be his usual jovial self but his effort fell short.
“Humor in the face of danger? Typical.”
“Listen Nikki. You face death every day. Just think of this as another day at the office.”
Her wide dark eyes brimmed with tears.
“I knew this was a bad idea before I even stepped foot on this plane. I should have never listened to Paul. He’s responsible for this!”
Tony Wolfe struggled against the hand over his mouth. A whisper from his captor calmed him down temporarily.
“Be quiet. Do you want us to get caught?”
Tony turned around and stared at the other person confined in the darkened stairwell. Her blonde hair lightly glowed in the ambient light. It was his foster sister and perpetual pain-in-the-neck, Evie Raines.
“Ah, man,” he lamented. “You? You’re the one who brought me all the way down here? I’m missing an important basketball game for this?”
Evie clamped a hand over his mouth a second time.
"Shut up,” she whispered. “If those men find us down here, we’re both dead.”
“Dead?” he said loudly. When she cringed and glanced toward the door, he toned it down a bit. “Dead? Evie, what are you talking about?”
“Shhh.” She pulled Tony farther down the stairwell. “This way.”
The footsteps grew louder then faded as the duo made their way to the basement of the infirmary.
"This way," Evie whispered. She motioned for Tony to follow her. Since he didn't have big plans to be captured by hulking figures in black, he chased after Evie's retreating outline.
"What exactly *is* this way?" Tony couldn't help but ask. It wasn't like they were breaking into the Athletic Director's office. This was some serious shit they'd gotten themselves into.
What was he thinking? He hadn't gotten himself involved in anything. Evie had done it to him once again. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am! Tony shook his head in disgust and trailed after Evie. What was she up to?
"What's this way?" she repeated, throwing her voice back so he could hear. "My whole life. So come on! My life could be up there waiting for me."
"Could be? COULD BE? We're down here because your life COULD BE up ahead. Oh, my freaking God!" Tony tried to keep his voice down but he couldn't believe they were down here on one of Evie's bizarre hunches.
"Relax, everything will be fine. No one even knows we're down here."
Evie and Tony wandered off down the hall and a figure skulking in the shadows stepped out into the hallway. She watched them in silence.
"No one but me," she said.
Lita Martinez raked a hand through her short salt and pepper hair. What were those two doing down here? It was bad enough she had followed Darien Wolfe to the underground morgue. Now she had Hansel and Gretel to deal with as well? Out of her pocket she pulled a slim black cell phone and dialed a familiar number.
"You know that opportunity you were looking for concerning Wolfe? Well, I think that opportunity has just presented itself. Get down here as fast as you can." Lita's Hispanic voice didn't sound remotely Americanized. She reveled in her Hispanic heritage. She was proud of it, and she'd be damned if anyone was going to take that away from her.
Pretty soon her son, Raphael would be down here and taking control of his own life. She had tried to leave it up to him, but it seemed Raphael wasn't as much the go-getter as she had hoped. But Lita wasn't one who was afraid of providing a little push and shove every once in awhile.
Soon, very soon, Alicia Scott would be one of the family and provide the calming motherly influence on Angel and Raven. God only knew how much those two needed a mother figure. Their own mother was a waste of good oxygen.
Mackenzie Gray shoved his thin, silver cell phone into his back pocket and grabbed his jacket from the chair. Suddenly, he remembered the man sleeping in the next room.
"Nigel, I hate to do this to you, bud, but..."
Mac scribbled a note and left it on the table, informing Nigel of his departure. Quietly, he closed the hotel room door behind him. As he walked out of the building, Mackenzie silently cursed the man on the other end of the phone for intervening with his mission, calling him away from his duty.
"I won't let them get away with it," Mac thought, images of Theresa flashed through his mind. Her smiling face appeared, followed by another image of her lips, her hair. The last was a haunting snapshot of Theresa's body falling as two bullets took her life.
Mac shuddered, trying to leave the images behind but knowing he never could. He had barely made it out of the building before noting a familiar face. What were the chances of seeing her twice in one day?
Mac spun Teryl Ellison around by the shoulders to face him. Her eyes grew wide, but as she did with her many identities, she quickly regained her composure.
"Mackenzie Gray," she began, giving a half-smile. Her voice was low and throaty. "Long time, no see." Her eyes covered every inch of Mac's body. "And I do like what I see."
Mac was undeterred by Teryl's advances. "So Teryl, who are you pretending to be today? Angela Hastings-Sinclair? Jannette Black? Or did you decide to be yourself for a change?"
"You know me, Mac," she said, sensually, "You know every inch of my body and mind better than the CIA with all their high-tech computer equipment."
Teryl came closer. A little too close for his comfort. Not that she wasn't a beautiful woman. She was. She just wasn't his beautiful woman. Even though he didn't respond to her touch, she traced a slender finger over Mackenzie's lower lip. "I do love your mouth."
Mac roughly pushed her hand away. "As much as I'd love to stay and… catch up… I'm late for an important meeting." Mac said confidently, continuing down the street. He could feel her eyes watching him, following his every move. It was unnerving but he knew he was up to the pressure.
She couldn't tear her gaze away until his masculine form rounded a corner and disappeared.
"Always was work before pleasure with you, wasn't it Mac?" she whispered as she climbed into a waiting vehicle. "You want to work? Then work you shall get... and pleanty of it."
The car sped away leaving no reminder that two people had even been there.
Nigel backed away from the window. From his aerial view point, he had witnessed Mac and Teryl's entire conversation. It didn't take a computer genius to know what they were saying. The chemistry between them spoke volumes.
Absently, Nigel tugged on a tan polo shirt, and crushed Mackenzie's note into a crumpled mass.
"Had to run," Nigel said, repeating Mac's words. "Is there a woman who hasn't fallen for Mackenzie Gray?"
Raphael Martinez didn’t like being summoned by anyone much less his mother. His black hair gleamed in the manufactured light of the infirmary basement. Next to him stood his mother wearing a particularly satisfying grin on her face.
“Did I interrupt a midnight shower with another one of your tramps? Who was she?” Lita’s crisp tone sliced the shadows.
“Surprisingly enough, my love life is none of your business,” Raphael said. “And if you must know, I got off work late and needed a shower. Satisfied?”
“For now,” she said.
“For my own information. What in the hell did you drag me down here for?”
“For this, my son.”
Alicia Scott stood radiant in the glow of ambient light. From his vantage point, she looked like an angel glowing in a soft amber. Behind her was a man he wasn’t happy to see.
“Wolfe!” Raphael grunted. “Dammit! What is he doing down here?” He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I trusted the man,” he sighed. “I can’t believe this!”
“Believe it, nino. Some men just can’t help but accept the challenge of a girl alone. But I know you. You told him you fancied her, didn’t you?” Lita shook her salt and pepper head in disgust.
“I don’t think I used those words,” he said. “But, yeah, I might have mentioned it.”
Lita clicked her tongue. “You offered up the juicy-looking bait, and he snapped it up without missing a beat.” She thwapped him upside the head with a soft, ruling hand. “So, my only son, what are you going to do about it?”
“What am ...” Raphael couldn’t face his mother a second longer and turned toward the ajar door where Darien and Alicia still stood. He could see them clearly in the darkness of his hiding place. Darien whispered something in Alicia’s ear, and Raphael could hear the huskiness in her laugh.
“It doesn’t look like he’s forcing himself on her. I don’t think you understand this, mother. I can’t snap my fingers and make her fall in love with me. She doesn’t even know me!”
“She will. She will know soon enough. But maybe she doesn’t know something else, my son,” Lita said, cryptically.
“What would that be? Please, enlighten me.” Raphael hated having words like this with his mother but it seemed she loved nothing more than interfering with and in his life.
“Men! Why do I always have to spell it out for you?” Lita sighed. “I can’t imagine a woman like she would date a man like that if she knew he was married.”
“Oh, so what am I going to do? Casually walk up there, introduce myself and tell her Darien Wolfe is a wolf in sheeps clothing?” He turned away from the sight of Alicia and Darien and back toward his meddling mother. “I don’t think so. Find yourself another lackey.”
“Raphael Sanchez Martinez get your ass back here,” Lita said, after Raphael began walking away from her. “I will not let MY SON lose in the game of love.”
“Mother, I love you dearly and thank you for caring. But this is one game I am NOT playing!”
Raphael stalked away down the corridor, his eyes blazing white hot.
As Lita watched his retreat, she vowed to get Raphael and Alicia Scott together no matter what force of nature it took, earthly or other-worldly.
“Are we almost done? We’ve been down here an hour and haven’t found a dang thing.” Tony was less than happy to be Tag-a-long Cassidy on Evie’s Nancy Drew trip.
“A little longer. I know she’s down here,” Evie’s hair glinted as she passed under a pool of light casting tiny spotlights on the brown and white linoleum.
“The only place we could have possibly missed is the morgue,” Tony said, in frustration.
“The morgue? You think my sister is in the morgue?” Evie’s normally bright eyes turned hooded and glassy.
“Your sister? Evie, that’s what this is all about? Your dead sister?” Tony gathered his foster sister up in his arms giving her a brotherly hug.
“She’s not dead. I know it.” A stray tear escaped its binding sliding down her cheek.
“Don’t cry. I hate it when you cry.”
Evie’s bottom lip jutted out. “I’m sorry. I was just so sure. Jeffrey said she was down here.”
“Jeffrey said? Who in the hell is Jeffrey and when did you start taking his word for anything?”
“He’s somebody that works with your dad.”
“Did this Jeffrey say that Theresa was alive?” Tony turned Evie around to face him.
Her eyes gained an understanding in that moment. “No, I guess not. Not exactly... But he said...”
“The hell with what he said. Don’t put yourself through this again. I don’t know if I can save you a second time.”
Evie started walking. At first it was without purpose, then her feet made the decision for her and scrambled at a fast clip down the hall. “We have to get out of here,” she said, suddenly.
Tony chased after her. “Wait up! By the way, you never said what this place wa....”
His mind blanked on what he was about to say when he saw a familiar image. “Dad?” Tony drew closer to the doors marked MORGUE. Through a thin slit in the ajar door he witnessed his father, Darien Wolfe, kissing a woman who was definitely not his mother.
“Tony. What are you doing? Come on!” Evie tried to tug at his arm, but Tony wouldn’t be budged. “Oh, fine. First you want to leave and now you want to stay? You sure are a fickle one.”
“Evie! Leave me alone!”
She followed Tony’s gaze and finally realized what he was looking at. “Oh, my God! That dog!” She turned to Tony and slapped his shoulder. “Your mother is going to kill him.”
“Not if I kill him first.”
Tony started to confront his father but someone prevented him from doing it. The hand on his shoulder was large and tan.
“No one is killing anyone.” Raphael’s black eyes gleamed.
Stretching out proved awkward for Raven, whose shackles were bound with such extreme care that it was impossible for her to move within inches of any position that was somewhat comfortable. Her wrists ached with a dull pain. Slumping back onto the bed, she gave in. She snapped her watery eyes closed and pressed them tightly together, keeping the tears at bay. She knew if she didn’t keep it together a flood of frustration would spew forth in the form of salty droplets. And she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction in knowing they’d hurt her. Not physically, but emotionally.
Even through her closed eyelids, she could hear Angel’s babbling and the sound of fast, furious typing on the laptop that Teryl and John had set up. Her captors had both been gone for most of the day, nightfall was quickly approaching with no sign of them. This could be her only chance.
Looking around one last time, Raven decided it was time to get out of there. Teryl and John had been a bit careless, Raven realized as she felt around for a hairpin she knew was in her long dark hair. They had left her shackles just loose enough for her to reach around with a wide range. The pin fell to the floor as she pulled it from her hair, landing just out of reach.
Why didn't I try to escape sooner, Raven wondered. She decided that she could have been out of there a long time ago if her fear hadn't clouded her memory.
She reached around the floor for the hairpin, touched it, pushed it further away. Raven gave a deep sigh, and collapsed back against the bed with failure. The bed rocked and moved ever so slightly.
An idea hit her. The bed could move! She continued thrashing her body against the mattress until it spanned the few inches between her and the bobby pin. A few inches was all she needed to grasp the hairpin. With a focus few possessed, Raven worked the make-shift key in one of the shackles.
After about a few minutes, she heard a sharp click. The restraint fell from her wrist. With one arm free, she was easily able to remove the others. It was such a relief to have that band of metal off and not binding her.
"I never thought having a criminal for a father would come in handy," Raven muttered to herself as she tried the locked door to Angel's room. She pounded on the door to no avail.
"He must be asleep. I'll have to come back for him."
This was not good. This was not good at all. Nikki and Jack's plane had gone down and now he was waiting to hear if either of them had survived. With all of his agents on pressing missions, there would be no way to stop the Black Council from cracking the Immortal Code. Mac, Nikki and Jack had been his last and best hope.
Now Nigel Bennett was that hope. Paul shuddered to think that Nigel was the only person who could save this operation, if it was still salvageable.
A loud knock rang through Paul's office, and his assistant rushed to answer it. Lita Martinez stood on the other side, with a teenager in each hand.
"Hey," Tony grumbled to the woman. “Watch the hair.”
"Got a present for you, Thomas," Lita said, pushing the kids into the office. "Found these two in the basement of the infirmary. I thought you might appreciate a little intervention."
"That I do, Lita." Paul tried not to hide his smile. "Capture them all by yourself, did you?"
"Oh, no, sir. My son, Raphael.. he came down straight away and helped me deal with the little buggers. He had another engagement so I brought them up here myself."
Evie studied the face of the Hispanic lady. There was something not quite right about her, Evie decided. Quickly she focused her attention again on the bald man and waited to hear her fate and that of her foster brother.
Paul took a seat at his desk, motioning for Evie and Tony to do the same. They sat, uncomfortably, fidgeting as Paul focused on what to do to them. A broad smile registered on his round face. Paul Thomas had an idea.
"You kids have two options, and I really don't think you're going to like the first…" he began. "Either the two of you can spend an undetermined amount of jail time for trespassing OR... or you can choose door number two."
"Door number two being…?" Tony asked, annoyed by Paul's game-playing.
"The second option is working for us," he stated, keeping eye contact with them both.
"What kind of work?" Tony asked, "Paper work? Delivering mail? Making coffee?"
"Who cares what kind of work!" Evie cried, pushing Tony back into his chair. Evie nodded her head. "Okay, mister. You've got yourself a deal."
On the bad and seedy side of St. Louis, Raphael found a run down watering hole called the Moral Underbelly. It was the kind of place that was bad enough to look at on the outside, but friendly enough for people to keep their distance and not care that he was once a thief. Even in a small berg like St. Louis, the underbelly of society, still could manage to find you if they looked hard enough.
Darien Wolfe must have been looking damn hard.
“Hey, my man,” Darien said, as he slapped Raphael on the back and ordered a fancy micro-brew from the bartender.
Raphael had chosen this darkened bar in order to drown his sorrows in a relationship never discovered, plus his ultimate stupidity at telling his mother about Alicia. He hoped his mother would forget one day. He didn’t need Darien Wolfe rubbing his nose in it, making it even worse.
It was just his luck. If he got any luckier, he’d be hit by a train driving home tonight.
“Darien.” Raphael saluted the better man by raising his beer can. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“To tell you the truth,” he said, taking a swig of the darkened ale. “I’m looking for you.”
“We’re going to be secret agents? Cool!” Evie vaulted onto Paul Thomas’s desk. He didn’t seem too enthralled about his new desk accessory but remained silent.
Tony wasn’t as psyched as Evie. “Nah, man! This is screwed up! I have a curfew and a mother who likes to see me home at night. Preferably alive and in one piece.”
Evie nudged Tony with her elbow. “Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
The screen over Paul Thomas’ shoulder flickered and an enlarged image of Nigel Bennett came into focus. For a moment the picture seemed more static than clear. Nigel appeared to fiddle with the device displaying his image. Little by little the fuzziness went away. “Come on you stupid piece of rubbish, work!”
Instantly, the white snow in the picture was gone leaving a crystal clear signal.
“There, finally,” Nigel said.
“Hello there, Nigel. Perfect timing.” Paul smiled at the image on the large screen.
“Well, at least someone’s day is going right. You don’t happen to know where Mac is, do you? Suddenly, he vanished into thin air. He was, however, good enough to leave me a cryptic note." Nigel brushed a clump of hair out of his eyes and picked up a piece of paper. “Had to run. Watch your back. I’ll be back. Signed Mac.”
Nigel’s face turned toward the screen.
“Could you please explain this to me?”
“Sounds like a no-brainer,” Evie couldn’t help but interject. “He had to go. Deal.” She leaned on her hand knocking over several items on Paul’s desk. He sighed and let the objects fall.
“Excuse me, but I don’t recall asking you for advice.” Nigel didn’t appear as taken with Evie as most men usually seemed to be.
“No charge,” Evie replied, with a smile. “But next time, it’ll cost ya.”
Tony could take Evie’s tirade no longer. He had to step in and defend his British male counterpart.
“Get over yourself, Evie. The man is obviously in dire straights. He needs a break, not your forked tongue.”
Paul stood to his full height and cleared his throat.
“All right! All of you. Settle down. Nigel, I’m sorry to say that Mackenzie was called away on personal business. I’ll try to get him back to you as soon as I can. Until then, you’ll have to head up the operation.”
Nigel’s eyes widened.
“Pardon me? I work strictly undercover. I don’t feel completely comfortable giving orders.”
“Well, then,” Paul said. “You better get comfortable. I just found out five minutes ago that Nikki, Mac’s partner’s plane went down. All my other agents are out on assignment. So I can’t assign you a new supervisor. Luckily, I was able to dig up another team for you. Let me introduce them to you. Nigel Bennett meet Evie Raines and Tony Wolfe, your new backup.”
Tony shook his head in disgust. “Definitely screwed up. Talk about the blind leading the blind.”
Evie came up behind Tony and placed her hands on his shoulders.
“Remember that sense of adventure I was talking about? You need to go away and find it, then come back. Relax. Everything is going to be fine.”
Mackenzie knew something was amiss. Teryl wasn't in Athens without a good reason. Once he returned from his jaunt to the Ivory Tower, he'd find out exactly what little Ms. Ellison was truly up to.
Parked not far away on a helo pad was an unassuming grey helicopter bearing the Knights Foundation logo. As he approached, the blades of the metal bird began revolving sounding more like a train derailment than the whirring of blades.
The passenger side door was open and waiting for him to enter. Mac glanced at the pilot then did a double take. "Stone Jacobs?" He shook the pilot's hand. "It's been too long." The pilot remained silent and maneuvered the craft out of the area. Mac's mood changed suddenly knowing that he wasn't accomplishing anything by seeing the man in the Tower.
"How long is this going to take?" Mac asked, his mind returning to the solemn remembrance of Theresa's shooting.
"I don't rightly know. Mr. Knights doesn't exactly confide in the staff." The ground pulled away from them and they started their flight high above the city.
"The sooner I can get this over with, the sooner I can find the bastard who killed Theresa!"
"I didn't know you two were close."
"Close as two people in our positions can be, I guess." Mac didn't elaborate. He knew that deep cover operatives were not supposed to be fraternizing with local agents.
"That's kinda funny. I always thought you and Nikki... well, you know... might get together one day. You both already fight like you're married. It seemed to me you just missed the obvious step, marriage."
"Oh, you're just a riot!" Mac cast Stone a wan smile and left it at that. Before he knew it, the conversation took a one-eighty.
"I can't imagine what you must be going through considering the circumstances. Nikki and Theresa."
"What are you talking about?"
"Losing Nikki and Theresa in one week."
Mac's face paled. "Nikki? What happened to Nikki?"
"Her plane went down a few hours ago. I thought for sure you'd know about it by now seeing how she's your partner and all."
Suddenly, Mackenzie's entire personal directive did a flip flop. He had no time for further small talk. "Do you know where her plane was last seen?"
"Not too far from the mansion, actually. I don't like that look in your eyes. What are you thinking?"
A vein in Mac's jaw throbbed. "I'm thinking you better take me to that crash site." He withdrew a pistol from his windbreaker. "Don't make me force you to land this helicopter, Stone."
"Come on, Mac. Give a friend a break. You know I have orders to deliver you to KT headquarters." Stone eyed Mac's gun warily.
"Orders be damned. You're taking me to Nikki." Mac cocked the gun. "If you don't, I just may have to reconsider the nature of our friendship."
The sight of John, frantically searching the building was a big tip off that something had gone greatly wrong.
"You are not going to be a happy camper," he said, averting his eyes to avoid Teryl's poisonous gaze.
"What happened," she said, calmly. "The boy didn't get loose, did he?"
"What?" John said, "Oh no, not him. It was her... the sister."
Teryl's eyes narrowed at the site of the empty bed, but she wasn't angry. "The boy is all that really matters, his sister was just here to keep the boy under control."
Teryl unlocked Angel's room, finding him asleep in a corner. The light from the monitor flickered across his face.
John trembled, "Don't you think she'll get someone to help her save him, do your?" he asked. "She'll tell the police about us ... what we're trying to do."
"Why would the police believe a thief?" Teryl asked, typing something on the laptop.
"She's a thief?" John said, unbelieving.
"She is now." Teryl finished entering new information into the Knights Foundation's database trough the hole Angel had created in their encryption code. "Now she's a master thief .. at least, in their eyes. Like father, like daughter, I always say."
John offered up a lopsided smirk.
"Now help me find a better hiding place for this kid, just in case someone comes looking for him."
Coming up on Legacy of Spies:
Raven finds herself in a mess of trouble, as do Tony, Evie and Nigel.
Mac discovers Nikki and Jack in a compromising situation.
Victor Cross reveals his hand concerning the Immortal Code.
Darien Wolfe sets up Raphael for a fall.
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