That Time in Paris Read online

  Edric slowly tapped his finger on the table, still staring Wolfgang down. “What’s up with you, Wolf?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re not . . . sharp. You’re not focused.”

  “Sure I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Today. You took the bus to Hawthorn’s coffee shop. I was sitting two benches back, dressed as an old man with a cane, reading a novel. You never saw me.”

  Wolfgang laughed. “The old man reading the novel was Asian. You should know that because you were sitting at the bus stop where he boarded, feeding pigeons out of a bread bag. Seriously, Edric. Maybe you’re losing focus.”

  Edric continued tapping his finger, his stare unbroken.

  Wolfgang sighed and threw up one hand. “What?”

  “You’re bored, aren’t you?”

  Wolfgang shook his head, then hesitated and shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  “You’re getting sloppy. Have been for weeks.”

  “Maybe,” Wolfgang admitted.

  “Why?”

  Wolfgang searched for the server, then sighed. “It’s been three years, Edric. I guess . . . I don’t know. I just thought the work would be more exciting.”

  “When I recruited you for SPIRE, I promised you travel, money, and danger. Have I not delivered?”

  “You have,” Wolfgang said. “Maybe I just need a little more of each.”

  Wolfgang thought back to Edric’s recruitment speech three years before, when he talked with animation about the mysterious company he worked for. SPIRE: a private espionage service specializing in subterfuge, procurement, infiltration, retaliation, and entrapment. At the time, Wolfgang was eighteen, and it all sounded very thrilling, but dumping a laxative in a business executive’s coffee felt more junior high than espionage elite, regardless of how effective the strategy was.

  “A little more of each,” Edric repeated, his voice trailing. “Drugs or no drugs, you have to admit, that’s something an addict would say.”

  Wolfgang didn’t dispute the accusation. Excitement was its own form of drug, and like any high, everything dulled after a while. “I don’t know, Edric. Just give me another op. Something tropical. I need a tan.”

  Seconds ticked into minutes while Edric continued to stare, then he seemed to reach a decision. “Does the name ‘Charlie Team’ mean anything to you?”

  Wolfgang shook his head. “Video game?”

  “No, it’s one of SPIRE’s elite team units.”

  Wolfgang frowned. “What do you mean, team units? SPIRE only hires individual operators.”

  Edric shrugged. “For petty corporate ops like the Hawthorn job, sure. But sometimes those operators turn out to be exemplary. And sometimes a job is too big for one man.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “In addition to being your handler, I’m the operation commander of Charlie Team. We execute covert operations on behalf of SPIRE around the world. Next-level stuff. Stuff with a lot more risk and a lot more reward.”

  Wolfgang remained relaxed, trying to disguise the twitch he felt in his stomach.

  Edric held his gaze, then picked up the coffee and took a long sip. “Charlie Team is fully operational, with five members—myself, a techie, and three ground-level operators. Three weeks ago, we conducted an operation in Damascus and things went sideways. One of my guys was killed, and I was thrown off a building. Hence the cast.”

  Wolfgang sat forward involuntarily. He could tell where this conversation was headed, and he was already sold.

  “I received a call from the director this morning. He’s got a special job that he wants Charlie Team to take. I can lead from behind, given the cast, but I can’t get by without three operators on the ground. I need somebody new. Somebody . . . exemplary.”

  Wolfgang flipped a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and pinned it beneath his water.

  “Lucky you. I’m free this weekend.”

  2

  The setting sun gleamed against The Gateway Arch as Wolfgang stepped out of the cab and passed the driver a fifty. The driver fumbled for change, and Wolfgang waved him off, taking a moment to admire the old monument. A haze of pollution clouded it, and shabby buildings blocked part of his view, but it was still something worth admiring.

  Wolfgang had never been to Saint Louis before. He wasn’t sure if this was SPIRE’s headquarters or if Edric simply deemed it to be the most convenient location for Charlie Team’s next rendezvous. The cryptic, encoded text message from the previous night directed him to fly into Saint Louis and meet on the fourteenth floor of the Bank of America Plaza at seven p.m. It was now barely five-thirty, but Wolfgang believed in arriving early. It gave him an advantage over whatever kind of initiation awaited him.

  He had the cab drop him off six blocks north of Eighth and Market Street, choosing to walk the final stretch to acclimate himself to the city. There wasn’t much to see on a Saturday afternoon—apparently, most of the Saint Louis downtown action orbited around business, not tourism. Only a few people bustled past him on the dirty sidewalks, although he counted at least thirty panhandlers, along with two distant gunshots.

  Saint Louis—not exactly a family town.

  Wolfgang arrived at the Bank of America Plaza without breaking a sweat, but still appreciated the air conditioning inside. His shoes clicked against marble floors, echoing inside an empty lobby as he moved toward the elevator. There was a security guard at the front desk watching Netflix on an iPad, and he made no effort to stop or question Wolfgang before the elevator door closed.

  Wolfgang pressed the button for the sixteenth floor and stuck his hands into his pockets, contemplating all the things that could happen. Prior to the previous day, he really had no idea that SPIRE operated multi-person units, but it shouldn’t have surprised him. His three-year tenure with the peculiar, independent espionage service had led him all over North America, mostly conducting petty sabotage and intellectual theft jobs against corporations, not governments. The prior day’s operation was a prime example—somebody didn’t want the Hawthorn and Company deal to close, and they were willing to pay handsomely to have it sabotaged. So they hired SPIRE, and SPIRE deployed Wolfgang, and Wolfgang got creative and made it happen. Boring, really.

  When Edric recruited Wolfgang to work for SPIRE just months prior to his eighteenth birthday, Wolfgang had dreamed of fast jets, flying bullets, and exotic locales. So far, his average mission was more likely to land him in Cleveland than Bangladesh. Hardly the stuff of James Bond movies.

  The elevator dinged to a stop on the sixteenth floor, and Wolfgang stepped into the lobby. Offices for a construction firm lay to his right, and more elevators to his left. The entire floor was dark and silent, fast asleep after a busy week.

  He stepped out of the elevator and slipped his hand into his coat, feeling for the Beretta 92X Compact handgun held in a shoulder holster beneath his left armpit. Wolfgang kept his hand on the gun as he stepped to the stairwell and eased the door open, listening for any sounds from two floors beneath him.

  As he expected, all was silent. He really didn’t foresee any games from Edric; he wasn’t the game-playing type. But then again, twenty-four hours before, Wolfgang hadn’t expected to be recruited to an unknown team, either. He wasn’t about to walk in with his pants down.

  He took a cautious step into the stairwell, then crept down two flights of stairs and into the lobby of the fourteenth floor. All was silent, and Wolfgang adjusted his grip on the pistol, then took a cautious step down the hallway.

  “Hey, moron! Over here.”

  Wolfgang jumped and whirled around.

  An office door, half-hidden behind a decorative tree at the corner of the lobby, swung open, and Edric leaned out. He shot Wolfgang a glare, then jerked his head toward the room behind him. “You’re early,” Edric said as Wolfgang sheepishly withdrew his hand from his coat.

  “Early is alive,” Wolfgang sai
d.

  It was one of Edric’s favorite quips, and Wolfgang hoped it would win him some points for being caught with his back turned.

  Edric didn’t seem to care. He just stepped back, allowing Wolfgang to slide into the room, then the door smacked shut.

  The office suite was laid out like a penthouse, minus the fancy trappings or expensive furniture. A wall of windows stared out over the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch, while a hodgepodge of folding chairs, a cheap futon, and a beanbag were strewn over the industrial carpet.

  On one wall was a massive marker board, currently festooned with a series of completed tic-tac-toe games, and in the middle of the room was a folding table with a few chairs gathered around it. The only light in the room shone in from the windows, growing gradually dimmer as the sun faded behind the tower.

  Three people looked up as Wolfgang shuffled in. First was a tall man with broad shoulders and the kind of buzzed haircut that only an ex-military guy would subject himself to. He had milky blue eyes, and from the moment Wolfgang caught his gaze, he felt unwelcome. Buzzcut stood next to the windows and raised one eyebrow in condescending dismissal.

  A second man was short and wiry, with long fingers and round glasses that sat on a sharp nose. His black T-shirt was covered with bleach stains, and he leaned over a laptop computer as though it were his child, not even looking up as Wolfgang entered.

  Then there was the petite woman sitting in a corner. Wolfgang didn’t notice her at first. She leaned back against the wall with her legs crossed and a cocktail glass in one hand. Shadows played across her face, obscuring her features, but it was impossible to miss the bright red of her hair, which was held back in a ponytail and laid over one shoulder. Eyes closed, she looked perfectly relaxed, as if the world around her either existed or it didn’t, and either way, she wasn’t going to move.

  Wolfgang felt Buzzcut’s glare and realized he’d been staring. Somehow, the irritation of the big man only made him want to stare longer.

  Edric cleared his throat. “Drink?”

  “Sprite,” Wolfgang said.

  Edric retrieved a beer and a can of Sprite from a mini-fridge, then hit a switch on the wall. The room flooded with bright LED light from overhead, and Wolfgang could now see the woman in perfect clarity.

  She was attractive. She kept her eyes closed, apparently undisturbed by the glare. Her face reminded him of a china doll, with rounded cheeks and a nose that was more of the button variety than the supermodel shape, but suited her perfectly.

  She was cute more than hot. Pretty, more than runway gorgeous. The kind of woman you might just as soon meet in Iowa as you would Los Angeles, but she’d draw eyes either way. Wolfgang liked that for some reason. Something about the way she gently pulled herself to her feet and turned to the window, stretching and running a hand through her hair was confident but weary, as if she hadn’t slept much lately or had something heavy on her mind.

  Whatever it was, it kept him staring far longer than was polite.

  “Hey, shitface. Shut your mouth before I stick a brick in it.”

  Wolfgang turned toward Buzzcut, whose eyes blazed somewhere between disgust and irritation.

  Wolfgang smirked, a retort already wavering on his lips as Edric pressed the Sprite into his hand.

  “Ease up, Kev,” Edric said. “Let’s be friendly.” He snapped his fingers and motioned to the table.

  Wolfgang glanced back in time to see the woman take one more look out the window before turning to the table, and then he saw her eyes. They were large and grey, a little brighter than stone, and crystal clear, but sad. As she brushed hair away from her face and scrunched her nose, he saw a deep pain accentuated by a slight redness in her cheeks. Their gazes met, and in an instant, the sadness vanished, replaced by a block wall. Her back stiffened, and she looked away, proceeding to the table without giving him a second look.

  “Have a seat, Wolf,” Edric said. He motioned to the end of the table as the woman and Buzzcut found their seats.

  Wolfgang slid into the end chair and took a long pull of the Sprite, suddenly feeling very awkward and self-conscious.

  “All right, everybody,” Edric said. He stepped behind Wolfgang and gave him a slap on the shoulder. “This is Wolfgang Pierce. He’s been with the company for three years, and he’s now joining Charlie Team.”

  The woman picked at her fingernails, and the wiry man behind the computer continued to stare at his screen. Only Buzzcut faced Wolfgang, his eyes as cold as death.

  Man, what’s up this guy’s ass?

  Edric walked around the table and smacked the laptop shut without ceremony. The wiry man opened his mouth to object, but Edric continued.

  “Wolfgang, welcome to Charlie Team. On your left is Kevin Jones. Besides being a three-time world champion of the Resting Bitch Face Olympics, Kevin is our primary driver and combat specialist. When we need the big guns, Kevin’s our man.”

  Wolfgang nodded once at Kevin but received nothing more than a continued glare.

  Edric moved around the table. “Center stage is Lyle Tillman. Lyle is our tech wizard. Phones, computers, security, communications, high-tech gadgets . . . Lyle makes it happen.”

  Wolfgang offered the nod to Lyle and was gratified to have the wiry man return it, even if he wouldn’t meet Wolfgang’s gaze. Edric moved toward the woman, and Wolfgang felt self-conscious again.

  “Last but not least is Megan Rudolph. Megan is our senior operator and Charlie Team’s second-in-command. Her specialties include interrogation, infiltration, and operations coordination. Prior to working for SPIRE, she worked for the FBI. If Megan says jump, you say how high. Got it?”

  Wolfgang flashed what he hoped was a friendly smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  Kevin stiffened, but Megan looked up. She appraised Wolfgang with a quick sweep of those brilliant grey eyes, her lips lifting in a perfunctory smile, and Wolfgang adjusted his assessment again. Megan was more than cute; she was beautiful. Not in an ordinary way, certainly, but that smile, however brief and stiff, lit up the room like a flare.

  She returned her gaze to her fingernails, and the smile faded as quickly as it had come. Wolfgang swallowed and chugged his Sprite.

  “Okay, then,” Edric said. “I realize the circumstances around Wolfgang’s recruitment are rushed and unusual, but—”

  “We don’t need him,” Kevin growled. “It’s a liability having somebody we don’t know. I don’t like it.”

  Edric’s tone remained calm. “I hear you, Kev, but we do need him. I’m out of the field until my arm heals, and you and Megan can’t operate alone.”

  “Is he trained?” Lyle’s voice was as mousy as his appearance—little more than a squeak.

  “Yes,” Edric said. “Like I said, he’s a three-year veteran of SPIRE’s corporate espionage division.”

  “So, he’s got no experience with a team,” Kevin said. “He shouldn’t be here.”

  Edric set his beer down and leaned over the table, wrapping his fingers over the back of a chair.

  “Look. I hear you. But this is happening. If you’re not comfortable with it, you can leave. Okay?”

  Kevin shot Wolfgang a long glower, then looked at Megan. She was still busy picking her fingernails, but she looked up and swept another passive gaze over Wolfgang, every bit as quick as she had the first time. He felt her look in his bones—sharp and penetrating—and he had the distinct impression that she was evaluating him on a molecular level, like an X-ray that searched for weaknesses in his body language. The experience was maddening, but something about her attention was addictive, too.

  Megan nodded once, and Kevin grunted and folded his arms.

  “Okay, then.” Edric wiped away the tic-tac-toe games from the marker board, then selected a red marker, and began to write.

  “We’re going to Paris. Bravo Team was originally tasked, but the director reassigned the operation last minute. So, the pressure’s on . . . got me?”

  Edric wrote Pari
s across the top of the board, then turned to the table. “Our primary objective is an unknown male, code-named Spider. He’s an anarchist suspected of running a complex, multi-national terrorist organization. His ethnicity, background, and true identity are all unknown. The CIA has been tracking him for the past six months and believe that his organization is preparing a terrorist attack for someplace in Western Europe.”

  “Why?” Kevin asked.

  Edric wrote “Spider - ID unknown” on the whiteboard. “Why what?”

  “Why the attack?” Kevin said. “What’s his motive?”

  “He’s an anarchist,” Edric said with a little shrug, as if that explained it. “Captured manifestos from his organization call for the dismantlement of all governments around the world. Basically, anarchists want chaos. They believe it will ‘restore natural balance’ to the planet. Whatever that means.”

  “So, we’re gonna take him out?” Kevin asked. There was a hint of a smile on the edge of his lips that sent a chill down Wolfgang’s spine.

  Edric shook his head. “Negative. In fact, our mission is to protect him.”

  “What the hell?” Kevin’s eyebrows furrowed, but Wolfgang’s mind was spinning, already unraveling the puzzle.

  “The CIA is in contact with him,” Wolfgang said. “They need intel.”

  Edric pointed the marker toward Wolfgang. “Bingo. The CIA has an operator, code-named Raven, who has established contact with Spider and is slowly gaining his trust. Spider is meeting Raven in Paris thirty-six hours from now. The CIA hopes this meeting will provide critical intel about Spider’s identity, his operations, and the attack he’s planning.”

  Edric returned to the whiteboard and wrote “CIA” on it, with an arrow connecting “CIA” and “Spider.”

  “Wait . . . You said we were protecting Spider, though,” Kevin said. “From who?”