For spies, keeping in touch is often touch and go. When you spend so much time being someone else, a letter or phone call from a friend calling you by the wrong name can lead to unnecessary hospital stays and funeral arrangements. Hence the need for code words and phrases, something to flag a person as friend, a verbal or written calling card that can be used without giving away too much and putting everyone involved at risk. Something short, sweet, simple, and easy to work into a conversation.
"Someone sent you a postcard, Michael," the elderly Ms. Westen was in the process of lighting a cigarette when her son let himself into the house.
"You called me down here for a postcard?" There was no denying that he had the occasional urge to sit his mother down and have a lengthy discussion about the real definition of the word 'emergency' but he knew that she would listen, smoke, smile, nod and then call him with an emergency the next time that the cable went out.
"Well, Michael," she had finished lighting her cigarette and moved across the room to the divider between the kitchen and the dining room. "It's a weird postcard." A few puffs later as she held it out to him. "There's almost nothing on it."
The postcard that she handed him was the kind that you could buy in any of the gift shops at Walt Disney World for highly inflated prices considering they were really just pictures on paper. On the front, Mickey and Minnie Mouse holding hands in front of Cinderella's Castle with a moon and stars. Tiny red x's had been drawn on their huge cartoony eyes. On the back in solid, steady block print:
I HATE THE MOUSE
The postmark was three days ago in Orlando, Florida, no surprise considering.
"Mom, when did you get this?"
"It came this morning," that first trace of worry was creeping into her voice.
The United States Postal service is not the most efficient organization on te planet; however, it can be counted on to move something as small as a postcard in under a week. The postmark said as much. By car, you can get from Orlando to Miami in less than a day.
"What's the matter, Michael?"
"Nothing, Mom," he folded the postcard in half and stuck it in his pocket. "Just a note from an old friend. I've got to go." It was hardly unusual to see Michael walking and using his cellphone at the same time, but the hurriedness of the whole thing did draw an interested eyebrow.
"Yello," Sam picked up his phone and opened it left handed. His right was busy with a freshly prepared mojito.
"Sam, I need a favor."
"Shoot, Mikey."
"I need everything recent you can get your hands on regarding a cleaner, Mei-Ling "Mickey" Chin." Michael slipped into the driver's seat of his car and shut the door.
"A cleaner, Mike?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because Sam I think Mickey is in Miami."
***
"Mei-Ling Chin," Sam sat on the stairs headed up to the second floor of Michael's dubiously named apartment looking at a manila folder. "American born. Trained sniper, black ops, anti-terrorism terrorist maneuvers. Suspected to have taken part in over a hundred suspicious deaths over the past ten years."
"That all," considering that even if the file only covered the last ten years, there should have been more in it than that.
"Yeah, let me tell you, Mikey, no one wants to talk about this lady. It's like she barely exists. Her whole file can be summed up in one word, empty. Like my beer can, we go any more?" He looked expectantly in the direction of the fridge as if he could will there to be more beer just waiting inside for him to get to.
"Not unless you brought it with you, Sam," Michael sat down on his bed, yogurt and spoon in hand. "Anybody got a clue why she's on American soil?"
"Nope, as far as they are concerned, she's probably homesick. I get the feeling that her name is out of their pay grade though. I'll keep digging." Shutting the folder, he slipped it down on the stairs and leaned on his elbows. "This chick sounds like bad news, Mikey, how'd you get to know her?"
"We partnered up a few years ago," Michael answered, opening his yogurt. "And she sent a postcard to my Mother from Orlando. Mickey doesn't usually do America, so I figure if she's in Florida, she's probably on her way here."
"And you're trying to find out what she's been up to before she gets here so that you can find out what you're dealing with."
"Exactly, Sam." Michael had no choice but to look up when Sam cleared his throat before asking his next question.
"So when you say that you partnered up with her are we talking Fiona tactical support partnered up or we've got a mutual target and we'll disavow each other's existence partnered up?"
"Sam..."
"Come on, Mike. We're talking about a woman who can kill a man from six blocks away. This might be important." Mike had his spoon halfway to his mouth in a conversation stalling action when Fiona let herself in. The look on her face made him swallow quickly.
"So when were you going to tell me that you are getting postcards from old friends?" Whether she was saying that from the perspective of a jilted girlfriend or a colleague who doesn't like being left out of the loop, Michael wasn't truly sure. The lines got blurry about that a little too often.
"Look Fi, like I was telling Sam, I owe her a few favors. She did some big things for me."
"What kind of big things?"
"The drag my ass out of a war zone kind of big things, okay? Everybody just drop it."
One big difference between spies and normal people is that while people make friends, spies cultivate assets. Unfortunately spies are people too so every so often, the lines get blurred.