Chapter 1
The streetlights outside on 7th and 28th street flickered as a woman darted down to the depths of the subway. She was a blur amongst the rushing ocean of people, sinking, falling down stairs and entangling herself in the 6pm rush hour hysteria. Whilst on the subway car, (standing of course) she gripped the steel pole tightly, sweat dripping down her neck and staining her white shirt collar. In her other hand was a briefcase, and in her head thoughts crashed and bumped around like cars at an intersection sans traffic lights.
She looked around, studying the faces of the people she was squeezed next to, all either too tired to make any hint of actual expression or too hyped up on caffeine to care. The conductor mumbled some drivel into the speaker and the doors slid open, the woman pressed past the crowd and made her way off the train. Her shiny high heels clacked against the wet city sidewalk as she strode to her apartment, neon lights and signs flashed as she walked by. She turned her key into the lock and it clicked open as the sun started to drown behind the tall buildings in the dusk.
Throwing off her coat and breifcase she went over to bedroom and took off her pumps, placing them in the closet and returning to the kitchen. There stood her fiancé, he looked up from the bubbling pots on the stove, took off his oven mitts and went over to peck her on the cheek. "Mmm, smells good," she complimented and went to go set the dinner table.
"It's beef stew, I know it's one of your favorites," said the fiancé, "And there is some bread in the oven."
"Can't wait! You really didn't have to go to all this trouble though, I mean... I could have-"
"Katniss, it's no big deal. I like to cook, and you must have had a long day at work."
"Ugh, I did. But really, thank you."
The two of them sat down at the dinner table, the clinking of forks and knives and ceramic plates replaced the words they didn't say. She washed the dishes, he dried them and put them away. A siren's sound wailed through the walls of the apartment as it went past on the street floors below them, the two of them sat on the couch stiffly.
"What's your favorite color?" he asked suddenly.
"That's random," she laughed. "Green, what's yours?"
"Orange."
"Orange?"
"Orange, like a sunset orange."
"Oh, that's a pretty color."
They watched the news and she took a shower afterwards. The warm water trickling down her hair and skin, she tried to focus on nothing else. An hour passed and she still stood there underneath the falling water, there was a concerned knock at the door, she replied with a simple, "I'm alright, I'm just getting out now," and turned off the faucet. She wrapped herself in two towels, one for her body and one for her hair and brushed her teeth.
When she came out, he was still there, they lived together so he was always going to be there. The two of them had decided to move into the same apartment after their engagement which was a few weeks earlier. The thought of having him always being there comforted her, but also unnerved her slightly. She was more independent than he was.
The next day went almost exactly the same way, routine with a few small alterations: the headline on the newspaper was different, the subway was running five minutes late, she wore a different blouse etc... She came home, dinner was cooking, they sat and ate and watched the news. She took a shower.
The day after she woke up before him as usual, got herself dressed, wove her long brown hair into a neat braid, and made a pot of coffee. She sat at the empty table, drinking small sips as her eyes wandered over the latest copy of The New York Times. The headline story was something about what the Soviets were up to now, the threat of communism and nuclear war sat on the weight of America's shoulders still, she didn't know how long the war would last, no one really did. The clock ticked by each second she sat alone and when it was over, she put on her coat, grabbed her case and stepped out the door.
The crisp air of a New York autumn morning refreshed her and did a more efficient job of waking her up than the coffee. She rushed down to the subway, descending into the morning sea of people on their way to work. She'd gotten used to the busy new city, her and her fiancé had moved there from a suburban town and it was a change, but maybe it was a good one. Arriving at the field office, she stepped in and flashed her badge to the guard at the desk and swiftly made her way down the hall to her office. She waved to everyone as she passed them, her kind eyes practically said "good morning" all on their own. She sat down at her mahogany desk and started to sift through her papers and log on to her clunky gray computer.
"Morning Ms. Everdeen," called an older gentleman as he entered her office.
"Morning sir," she said as she looked up from her work.
"Your findings on the drug bust from last week were excellent!" he raved. "But I actually have something else to slap on your plate right now."
"Thank you, but I'm pretty booked, I mean I still have to do my conclusions on that case and I have some new lead about a ring from Queens to work on."
"Yes, well I assigned that work to Mr. Abernathy, hope you don't mind. What I have for you is really big, and I know you're the one for the job."
"Haymitch? Seriously? I mean no disrespect, but... I put so much into those reports and I was really excited about that lead... Sir I just don't think I can give up everything I've been working on and start a new case right now."
"I understand you have a lot of irons in the fire right now, but Ms. Everdeen please consider this opportunity. I haven't even told you what it was yet."
"What... is it?" she asked as she fiddled with one of her pens.
"Well, we have a lead on a Red."
"Oh nooo, I told you from the beginning that I wanted no part in this Russian investigation business, I want no part in the war at all."
"You're one of the best field agents we have, I know this isn't exactly what you signed up for but I think a change of pace would be good for you," he shot her a look of almost desperation. "We think that we've located one of the most elusive Red spies in years, this is a very important job and I know I can trust you to handle it."
Katniss thought about it for a moment, she thought about her mundane life, her routine, everything she felt too comfortable with but also too sick of. She thought some more, her boss began to sweat. "I'll do it," she shot out impulsively.
"Excellent!" he smiled and threw a thick manilla folder on her desk, "Here is the file, I'll give you more details about this case tomorrow. Just take some time to really study the suspect. And by the way, how is the wedding planning going?"
"Um, it's going well," she smiled.
"Great. You won't regret this, Everdeen!" and with that he was out the door.
Katniss looked down at the folder, she knew that by opening it and looking at its contents she would become involved and everything she'd just agreed to would become real. She decided to leave it there, sitting on her desk amongst papers from all of her other cases, all of her murder cases and drug bust files. This one though was a different species, this one was much bigger than anything she'd done so far, it was on another level. It was on the Cold War level and as her fingers tensely lifted the folder open, she was about to be immersed into all of it.
But before she could even read the suspected spy's name, a coworker came in and started to ramble about something insignificant. She breathed a sigh of relief as procrastination comforted her and she lost herself in the smooth, meaningless words filling the room.
Katniss left the building when the day was through and made her way down the city streets to the subway station. The still unopened folder screamed out to her from inside her bag, it begged to be perused, and she dashed home clutching it tightly to her chest the entire time. She sped through subway tunnels, streets and crowds of people; she'd spent most of the day trying to ignore the classified information but she couldn't anymore. The curiosity was too much, she was enthralled with this new adventure, something scary to break her free of the mundane.
She crashed into her apartment, and her fiancé ran over to her from the kitchen startled. "Katniss, are you okay?" he asked with at least twelve different shades of concern in his voice.
"Yeah..." she began distractedly, "Peeta, I'm fine, I'm... I'm good..." she trailed off into their bedroom and closed the door. He waited outside for a moment and then returned to the kitchen to finish dinner. He worked at a bakery on the Lower East Side, it wasn't a very high-income career, but with Katniss working in the FBI they didn't need to worry about finances too much, and it was what he loved to do.
She dazedly sat down on the bed, the folder had her in a trance from the moment she laid eyes on it. Her delicate fingers ran down the side of the folder, she eyed it with caution but desire, she was almost teasing herself by not tearing it open right away. She flipped it open at last and it was like she'd unlocked Pandora's Box. Her gaze ran in circles all over the page, she was staring at a folder full of information about one single, very dangerous person. The suspect's name was Johanna Mason, it was written in large black Times New Roman and it sat next to a black and white photograph of the woman. She didn't look like a spy, she wasn't wearing a trench coat, or a fedora, she didn't look furtive or mysterious at all in fact. The picture showed a woman with shoulder-length dark brown hair, she was wearing a black T-shirt and staring into the camera smugly with a crooked smirk on her face. Her eyes were dark and suggested maybe there was something more to her than her expression, but who knows?
Her file was packed with clippings from obscure newspapers and various other sources. There were blurry photos, little blurbs cut out of documents and such, it didn't seem like there was too much information known about her at all. She was seen rendezvousing with some other suspected spies, and there was a plethora of reports or news stories about a person they suspected was her leaking information to the USSR. She had been charged with espionage and treason nine times, but was never caught or captured. She had been known to be very good at her job, getting top secret information was practically her God-given talent it seemed. Katniss sifted through page after page, picture after picture, allegation after allegation of information about this person. The agency had suspected she was hiding out somewhere in Canada, but no one had actually seen the suspect in three months.
She stayed up late pouring over Mason's file, she ignored her fiancé's call to eat dinner, she didn't shower or change. Finally she fell asleep, the papers scattered over her and the bed, blanketing her. Peeta came in around midnight, tiptoeing around his soon-to-be-wife and picked up each paper, stacking them into a neat pile and placing it on the nightstand. He climbed into bed next to Katniss, put his arm around her waist and drifted off to sleep.