“Because I was never stupid enough to get married or have kids. Which means I get to do whatever I want with my money, and I like to dress well.”
I chuckled. “You’re certainly the best dressed handler I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m the best dressed officer in the whole damn company,” he said.
“You’ve got my vote,” I retorted, just as our waitress came to the table.
“Top you up, sir?” she asked Leslie in a less than enthusiastic tone, before turning to me.
“Can I getyouanything, sweetie?”
“The coffee smells great and I’d love the blackberry cobbler if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all,” she replied, giving me a wink. “Anything you need, just ask.Anything.”
Once she was gone, Leslie asked, “Does every woman you meet fall in love with you? What the hell is that?”
“Isn’t that one of the reasons you recruited me in the first place?”
“No. I recognized that you had charisma and a natural ease with women. Not that I was recruiting the American James Bond.”
“What can I say, Leslie? Some guys just haveit, and the rest have to buy designer clothes.”
“I can put you inside a cell at Guantanamo with one phone call. You know that, right?”
Leslie was not my handler’s real name, but the alias he was currently using. He changed them upfrom time to time but always used a unisex name. Last time he was Stacy. Before that, Blair. It made subterfuge easier as my family always assumed I was meeting a woman, and honestly, I think he just got a kick out of it. Not that I wanted to paint my handler as a frivolous man. Leslie aka: Frank Graves, was an amazingly effective spy with a long and highly respected career. Working in the Talent Acquisition department was only one of many lives he’d lived within the company. His field work over the years sent over a dozen enemies of the United States to prison or to their graves. His diplomatic record was equally, if not more impressive, and I would not be at all surprised if one day he was appointed as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Four years ago, I was recruited by the agency for a program called the Longbow Initiative. An ongoing undercover operation set up to infiltrate and monitor human trafficking groups at Mexican and Canadian border towns.
“What’s up with the call? Why am I here?” I asked.
“I need you to get on a plane to Moscow in six hours.”
“What? Moscow? No way. I just got into it with my brothers about how I’m never around and I have an eight o’ clock meeting tomorrow morning that I can’t miss.”
“No, you have an early morning flight on a diplomatic plane that you can’t miss. According to the employment agreement you made with the UnitedStates government, that is. You do remember your good old Uncle Sam, don’t you? He’s the one in the hat who puts all that money into your bank accounts every month.”
“You told me I could use whatever civilian cover story I wanted to,” I said. “Well, I’m playing the role of construction company co-owner, and I have to keep up appearances.”
“Seems to me keeping up appearances for you would mean flaking out on the meeting and showing up two days later with an excuse.”
“The only reason my family thinks I’m a flake is because I can’t tell them what I really do for a living outside of the building business.”
“You chose your cover,” Leslie said, with zero sympathy in his voice.
“Ichoseto be close to my family. Something you’d understand if you had one of your own,” I snapped.
“You’re absolutely right, which is why I don’t. Cameron, at some point you are going to be forced to isolate yourself even further from your family. You’re a damn good field officer, but if you want to further your career within the company, not to mention make an even larger impact through your service, you’re gonna need to go deeper.”
“Deeper? I’m pushing thirty years old, and all I do is work. Then, when I’m not on the job, I’m either working with my brothers or getting yelled at by them. Not to mention, they think it took me four years of junior college to get my business degree, and that I spend all my time chasing women and partying. Little do they know, I only drink when I’maround them, and most of that is theater. Hell, I think I’ve managed to kill three potted plants due to dumping my drinks when no one was looking. And it’s pretty fucking hard to be a playboy when you haven’t even been on a date in three years.”
Penny returned with my coffee, cobbler, and another wink before slinking away back to the kitchen.
“Do you remember what I told you when I recruited you?” Leslie asked.
I nodded. “You said that even though I wouldn’t be working for the company full-time at first, that this job would require all of me.”
“That’s right. That’s exactly what I said.”
