Disclaimer:
John Rainbird, Cap Hollister, Orville Jamieson, Don Jules and Rachel are the intellectual property of Stephen King. This appropriation of the characters is for amusement and not for profit.
This fan fiction is inspired by FIRESTARTER...but is set before the incidents in that novel.
MUTUAL RESCUE
By Running With The Deer
Captain James Hollister checked his watch and waited for John Rainbird to arrive. The door opened as the second hand was sweeping the "IX."
"Good afternoon, Cap," the agent greeted him. As always, Rainbird's voice was mellow and modulated. As always, Cap felt the worm of disquiet stir in his belly, and drew an extra long intake of breath to still it.
March 1. At the beginning of each month, they met this way, unless Rainbird was on assignment. Their standing appointment served a variety of purposes: settling of accounts, discussion of cases pending and resolved, and a kind of checking up. Cap felt compelled to check up on Rainbird, despite the fact that the soft-spoken half-Cherokee was by far the most self-possessed and self-controlled agent he had. That was part of the reason Rainbird scared him. He was, in a word, ungovernable.
This meeting, like all of them, was one-on-one. Cap had attempted to bring Rainbird into the fold at the beginning of his career, but there was too much friction with the other operatives. Something about Rainbird upset them. The most obvious factor was his face. Rainbird had encountered a Claymore mine in his military service overseas. The blast had taken his left eye and transformed that side of his face into a scarred mask. When such a face resided on a body that was nearly seven feet tall, well, it was disquieting, to say the least.
Rainbird was a classic loner. He lived in the Arizona desert, in a house he had built himself. He was known to compulsively collect shoes, as some sort of bizarre compensation for the theft of his father's burial moccasins. Beyond that, Cap knew nothing about his personal life. He suspected Rainbird didn't have much of one. And when he occasionally tried to envision what such a life might entail, he gave up quickly in distaste. Cap had enjoyed a long, satisfying marriage before his wife succumbed to cancer. He looked at Rainbird and could not fathom the man in a relationship of any kind.
There were, of course, professionals for the provision of basic needs, and Cap had no illusions. Rainbird surely availed himself...but one had to wonder how the ladies felt about it.
Rainbird had been kept busy of late, shuttling between Russia and Israel, where he served more as a liaison than an active agent. With his face, he couldn't be seen in the same place too often. And the world seemed to shrink daily. Rainbird was top assassin for the Department of Scientific Intelligence, better known as The Shop, and he also possessed a gift for persuasion. Cap trusted him enough to employ him in matters of Shop disloyalty. In Shopspeak, a "sanction" was a punishment. "Extreme sanction" was death, and it was reserved for the worst turncoats. Cap reflected that an agent who double-crossed the Shop and was discovered quickly could hope to fare better than one who eluded detection for years. Such chronic betrayal was particularly grating to the top brass.
Cap valued Rainbird as much as his fear would allow, and often consulted him on sanction-related matters. There was even an unofficial lingo between them. "Authorized extreme sanction" was when Cap told Rainbird to eliminate someone. "Recommended extreme sanction" was for lesser offenders. He would give Rainbird the suspect's file and assign Rainbird the task of research, to find out exactly how much trouble the troublemaker had caused. If the problem was containable, Rainbird was employed to threaten the offender, either physically or psychologically, depending on the individual. The victim understood that his immediate resignation was non-compensated and non-negotiable, and that if the Shop should hear of any conversations with the news media, it would be the agent's last with anyone. Most such miscreants got the message. Most of them got the hell out of Dodge.
It was a good system.
"I have an assignment for you," said Cap.
"Where?"
"Right here in picturesque Longmont, Virginia."
Rainbird waited while Cap lifted a thick dossier from the shelf under his desk. "There's certainly a sanction involved here, but I need you to do some digging so we can determine exactly how...extreme...it will have to be."
Rainbird smirked. "Was a time, Cap, you never wasted a moment pondering 'if.' It was always just a matter of 'when.' It's been a long time since you authorized an extreme sanction."
Cap shook his head with some irritation. "I know it. Political correctness and litigiousness have gotten their tentacles through our doors at long last. We don't dare just knock people off any more. For one thing, we don't have it in the budget."
Rainbird laughed out loud at that. Cap hadn't been joking, which was what made it so funny. "My friend, I think you need to retire before they throw you into a Sensitivity Training class."
"Damn straight," mumbled the chief, his mood unimproved.
"All right. Who are we looking at?"
"Nathan Conroy."
"I am unsurprised," said Rainbird.
Cap grunted. Another reason he valued Rainbird was the assassin's unerring insight into the motives of others. He wasn't forthcoming with praise, and certainly not with friendship, but when an operation called for a joint effort, there were a select few he trusted. Or perhaps just tolerated. Cap wasn't sure. But it was funny how many times Rainbird had flatly refused to work with one agent or another--had expressed pure contempt for the individual--and sooner or later that agent tripped up. On those occasions Rainbird mercifully dispatched them without any I-told-you-so's, but it annoyed Cap. He didn't fancy Rainbird as a one-eyed, one-man polygraph.
Nathan Conroy was a case in point. Graduated from West Point and earned top marks at the School of the Americas. He'd never set foot in Panama, but Rainbird had disliked him from the first, lumping him in with the incompetent, arrogant officers who had been instrumental in the screwup that cost him his face.
Cap's curiosity got the better of him. "Rainbird, tell me. What is it you see in some of these guys? You had Conroy pegged right off, didn't you? What's the quality they have, or lack, that you sniff out?"
Rainbird offered him his trademark predatory grin. "You want me to divulge my professional secrets, Cap? You wouldn't be planning to take over my job, now, would you?"
Cap didn't rise to the bait. He was accustomed to this type of abuse from Rainbird and had learned to keep silent. Rainbird seemed to respect silence more than any other trait. Cap knew how to use it. Which might have been the only thing that kept him off Rainbird's personal sanction list all these years.
"Heart, Cap. It's heart. When you care about something enough...it's heart. Enough to keep you from turning away from a lost cause. From walking out on your wife when she gets sick and loses her looks. From saying yes to somebody who offers you a little green. To care more about your birthright than your bankbook. Heart. Conroy ain't got it. Never had it."
Cap mulled this. Simple enough. And Rainbird was right. Conroy was a weasely little bureaucrat. He walked around The Shop's outfit like a Junior Senator, wearing Izod shirts and schmoozing up his golf scores. Trying to pretend he was something other than a man who routinely dealt in skullduggery and death, like all of them did.
Conroy was in it for the dough. He was the bane of the agency's Human Resources department, constantly bugging them about his pay rate, his vacation, his benefits, his pension. He treated assignments like unwelcome extra homework, and when in the field, he was known to hang back. Cap compensated for this by withholding the good jobs from him and confining him to more routine domestic matters. Conroy managed to complain about this, too. Cap's private name for him was Half-Empty Conroy, given his pessimistic nature and overall lack of spark. Perhaps Rainbird had hit it dead-on: For someone like Conroy, it was only a matter of time before someone on the other side came up with an offer that would make life a little simpler, easier and greener. An offer too sweet to pass up.
"Let me guess," said Rainbird. "Cuba."
Cap nodded, with fresh respect for Rainbird's instincts. Conroy had been spending weekends in Miami (he told his wife he was golfing on Hilton Head, but this deception represented a different sort of betrayal than appeared on the surface). His contacts weren't golfers, or hookers, and they weren't anti-Castro exiles, either. Cap found it almost comical how easily Half-Empty had given himself away. He'd been overheard chatting up the Cuban food at a place in DC, representing himself as an expert on the comida tipica. This had struck Cap as odd right away. Conroy was as Anglo-Irish as they came, and it just didn't fit to have him flirting up the assistants with throwaway lines in Spanish.
"Yes, we've all been enjoying his Ricky Ricardo impression. He thinks we're idiots, apparently. It takes one to know one, I always say. Anyway," he said, tired of the subject, tired of talking, just wanting to go home and take a nap. He pushed the dossier closer to Rainbird. "go do your thing. I don't think we're going to get much. Our reward will be having him out of our hair."
"I'd like to kick his ass," said Rainbird. "He's got a family, of course?"
"They always do," responded Cap. "The proverbial mantle of respectability."
Rainbird said nothing, but took the packet and left Cap with his thoughts.
It was four-thirty on a Friday. As Rainbird strolled through the corridor on his way to the library, he encountered mostly empty desks and offices with their lights out. The custodial staff outnumbered everyone else. People didn't stick around on the weekends if they didn't have to. This was fine; it was his favorite time of the week, when he could go about his work and not be bothered with people he had no use for. He could even light up a smoke in the library, which also served as a computer lab. He knew where to sit so as not to set off the smoke detectors.
He got a Coke from the machine in the hall and held his thumb against the reader at the library door. The high-pitched tone and the green light indicated his admittance.
Rainbird liked it here. It was quiet. The lighting was kind to his eye, and the thermostat kept a reasonable climate. Usually, few people came in here. And those who did were the sort of agents Rainbird liked (or disliked the least, at any rate). They came in here on their own time to do advance research on their assignments. Sometimes they came in to study for college courses they were taking on the Shop's dime. Either way, these people were focused in their work and less given to the competitive sniping that brought out the worst in Rainbird.
He settled into his favorite spot: in a far corner, behind the stacks. Extra counter space, lots of leg room, and privacy. He popped open the Coke, took a breath, and listened. The library was deserted. Fine. He spread the file out in front of him and began at the beginning.
Nathan Conroy was 50, the only son of a soft-drink distributor. Yawn. West Point, School of the Americas, a little graduate work at Georgetown U. Married 24 years, one child, a daughter, who'd been adopted in infancy from a deceased brother. Rainbird did the math. The daughter was now 17, about to turn 18 in a couple of months. Sometimes kids-very young ones or very sick ones-made a difference in the life and death decisions made in Cap's office. Things weren't looking all that rosy for Agent Half-Empty at the moment.
Rainbird booted up one of the computers to continue his research. He would start with a back-trace on all of Conroy's recent airplane travel and transactions with credit and ATM cards. It would take awhile. Rainbird was fishing in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes when he heard voices outside, and then the sound of someone being "greened in" by the thumbprint reader. It wasn't Cap. There were two people, male and female.
The man had a sing-song sort of voice, irritably condescending. The woman sounded young, more like a girl.
"D'you want to use one of those BIG computers?" asked the man.
"Sure," replied the girl.
Rainbird heard the sounds of belongings being deposited on chairs and coats sliding off. His unwanted company was using the equipment at the opposite end of the library. That was a relief, but he still wouldn't be able to smoke now. He stemmed his irritation and turned his attention back to the job at hand.
From what he could hear, the man had left the girl at the computer and gone somewhere else. He heard pages being turned, then the scrape of the chair on the linoleum. A pencil being sharpened. The window blinds being opened, then closed. Get to work, kid, he absently thought.
But his neighbor seemed unable to settle down. He heard the door to the corridor open, a pause, and then "Rats!" exclaimed the girl. The door shut again, and now he heard footsteps approaching. Resigned, he closed the Nathan Conroy file and turned it face down without even thinking about it. He canceled the program that had been about to download. A second later the girl came around the corner and stopped about five feet from where he sat.
He swiveled in his chair and waited for her to be scared. He didn't hear her gasp at the sight of his face (so many of them did), and he lifted his head and made eye contact. That usually got them.
He saw two things, both quite unusual.
First, the girl. She was very beautiful--slightly taller than average, maybe five-eight. Nice figure. He estimated her age at 18 or 19, but her bearing made her look older. As did her dress. It was a sedate navy blue, in a very smooth line that ended below her knees, with about a dozen gold buttons all the way down the front. It flattered her figure, which was quite pleasing to the eye. Pretty calves and ankles, and a pair of good leather pumps. Somebody had been interviewing today, he surmised. And had probably gotten whatever it was she'd been trying for.
Long, auburn hair, big eyes, little nose, very careful makeup. Understated gold earrings. Either this girl had excellent innate taste, or had someone around who did. Rainbird never made an obvious display of noticing the women he encountered in everyday life. But he noticed. Everything.
The second thing he saw was, again, her face. But not the external features. It was the expression.
The girl was looking at him carefully, which was exceptional in itself. People invariably found something else to look at after they took in the eye and the disfigured face.
This girl just kept looking at him. And, to Rainbird's great surprise, she gave every indication of liking what she saw.
***
Lauren forgot about being tired, or her feet hurting, or being thirsty for a soda. She forgot about her fidgety, fussy father, who thought he could help her narrow down her college choices, but who merely got in the way more and more as time went on.
For a second, she forgot her name.
Sitting in front of her was the most amazing man she had ever seen.
He flows like water, was the thought that summed him up. She noted the long lines of his body, the simple clothes that looked as though they had woven themselves together right there on his frame...the bronze skin, shoulder-length black hair tied back with a leather thong, long fingers steepled together upon his chest, and the absolute calm of his face. She noted, but did not dwell on, the external flaws--the missing eye, the burned and damaged flesh. Whatever had happened to him seemed to have been long ago. It had healed as much as it ever would. And what of it? What mattered was what she sensed behind the very attractive exterior. The power and intelligence, the undeniable sexual force of him. It called to her.
"Hello," said the man, and Lauren felt like she was levitating. The voice was even better than she could have imagined, and she wanted to hear more of it.
"How are you?" she responded, for lack of anything better.
"Just fine. Is there something I can help you with?"
"Well," she said, "I need to go out into the hall to get a drink. But I won't be able to get back in. Someone else let me in, and he's not here. Do you think I might knock and have you open the door for me?"
For the first time in her life, Lauren was glad her parents had shipped her off to that stupid, overpriced private school. For three years she had made fun of her upper-crust classmates and their preppy diction...but look at this, the little stinkbugs had rubbed off on her more than she'd known. Just listen to those pear-shaped, Miss America tones! She sounded seductive, even to her own ears and wondered just how this...hunk...was processing it.
He didn't answer her for a moment, and she became a bit uneasy. She hoped he wasn't going to patronize her, the way some older men had a habit of doing. Please, she thought, not this guy. He just has to be nice. Or at least civilized. Please......?
"You're going to use the machine out there in the hall?" he asked finally. She nodded.
Another pause, but he was smiling, and she saw a nice white set of teeth, offset by the deep desert tan.
"Come on. I'll show you something," he said, and rose. Her eyes followed him up, and up...good God, he was tall. Those long legs, like tree trunks. Perfectly proportioned body. And he smelled nice, too. She could tell he smoked, but it was more like woodsmoke than cigarettes. A suggestion of sandalwood, she thought. I'll bet he sleeps in the nude, was the next observation. -Where did that come from? she wondered, amused.
He led the way to the door-Lauren approvingly observed his walk-and held it open for her. They stood in front of the machine.
"What'll you have?" he asked, his finger poised atop the column of buttons.
"Iced tea," she responded. No soda today. No accidental belches.
The man produced a dollar bill before she had a chance to hand him her coins. She watched him feed it into the machine, then heard a loud clunk and a jingle as the can and the change arrived simultaneously. With his right hand, he passed her the cold can. He held out his left hand, and she saw four quarters there.
"Nice trick?" he asked. "It doesn't work with coins, just bills, and sooner or later the vendor will fix it. But for now, drink and be merry."
She laughed. "Thank you!"
He moved back toward the door and his thumb got them into the library again. "My pleasure," he said, and this time his voice was just a tad lower. She looked straight at him again, and he returned the gaze unselfconsciously.
"My name's John Rainbird," he said.
"I'm Lauren Conroy," she replied, and wondered what it was that passed over his face for the barest instant. She thought he paused again, but so briefly she couldn't be sure.
"Nathan's daughter," he said.
"That's right. My father is here, but he had to make some phone calls. I'm using the computer in here because the dinosaur I have at home takes forever to download anything. I need contacts for colleges."
"Where do you think you'll end up going?"
"I think, wherever I can get the best financial aid. Doesn't much matter where."
"Go where you'll be happy. Someplace with nice weather-unless you're a skier."
"No, I'm not. I like the woods."
"So what's your field of study?"
"Environmental sciences."
"Something you've got a passion for?"
"Yes. But a lot of people tell me I should take a business major. I like consumer affairs, too, so I don't know."
"Do you like math? Follow the stock market and all that?"
"No. It bores me silly."
"Then stay away from the business major."
"I'd have better chances of getting a good job faster."
"Don't believe it. If you look at any company's roster, you'll be surprised how many of the top executives majored in philosophy or art history."
"Really?"
"Really. Take a major you're familiar with, and you'll get the degree without having to struggle. The object is to get the degree. The paper itself matters more to recruiters than what's on it."
She tilted her head. "What did you major in, John?"
He offered her an ironic smile. "Military science and strategy. Bring your things over here and I'll show you how to get your information faster."
Twenty minutes later, Rainbird had essentially forgotten what had brought him to the library. He sat close to Lauren as she surfed the web, looking at college sites and taking notes. A perfect opportunity to discreetly check her out up close.
When she asked him a question, he placed his arm on the back of her chair and leaned over her shoulder, so that they were touching slightly. He could tell, from the way she craned her face up and smiled at him, that she enjoyed the flirtation as much as he did.
He could think of much worse ways to pass an afternoon. She'd related the details of the interview she'd been on that day, and some of her tame senior-class adventures. She didn't talk about friends much, but when she got onto the subject of her teachers, she became more animated. She related best to people older than herself. His collective impression of her was that of a reserved, rather lonely girl. Someone much older than her chronological age, who wouldn't start feeling comfortable with herself until she was past thirty.
Rainbird was aware of the time passing, and knew Nathan Conroy would have to crash the party sooner or later. When he heard someone outside, he stood and positioned himself behind Lauren, leaning over, on the pretext of pointing something out on the computer.
"Laur?" inquired that same annoying voice from before.
"Back here, Dad," replied Lauren, sounding none too enthusiastic.
Showtime, thought Rainbird, with immense satisfaction.
"Oh, here you-" Rainbird turned slowly, smiling, and took in the sight of a flustered Nathan Conroy. Lauren shifted in her chair.
"Hi, Dad. Do you know John?"
Conroy recovered himself, but far from a hundred percent. He stepped forward and shook hands with Rainbird. "Sure do. Finding anything good on that thing?"
"Plenty. You're going to be busy, driving me places. But I can get scholarships!" Lauren held up the sheaf of printouts.
"Dandy!" said Conroy. "Will you be ready to go soon? Your mom will be expecting us for dinner." His eyes kept cutting to Rainbird's hand resting on the back of Lauren's chair. Rainbird just kept smiling.
John Rainbird, Cap Hollister, Orville Jamieson, Don Jules and Rachel are the intellectual property of Stephen King. This appropriation of the characters is for amusement and not for profit.
This fan fiction is inspired by FIRESTARTER...but is set before the incidents in that novel.
MUTUAL RESCUE
By Running With The Deer
Captain James Hollister checked his watch and waited for John Rainbird to arrive. The door opened as the second hand was sweeping the "IX."
"Good afternoon, Cap," the agent greeted him. As always, Rainbird's voice was mellow and modulated. As always, Cap felt the worm of disquiet stir in his belly, and drew an extra long intake of breath to still it.
March 1. At the beginning of each month, they met this way, unless Rainbird was on assignment. Their standing appointment served a variety of purposes: settling of accounts, discussion of cases pending and resolved, and a kind of checking up. Cap felt compelled to check up on Rainbird, despite the fact that the soft-spoken half-Cherokee was by far the most self-possessed and self-controlled agent he had. That was part of the reason Rainbird scared him. He was, in a word, ungovernable.
This meeting, like all of them, was one-on-one. Cap had attempted to bring Rainbird into the fold at the beginning of his career, but there was too much friction with the other operatives. Something about Rainbird upset them. The most obvious factor was his face. Rainbird had encountered a Claymore mine in his military service overseas. The blast had taken his left eye and transformed that side of his face into a scarred mask. When such a face resided on a body that was nearly seven feet tall, well, it was disquieting, to say the least.
Rainbird was a classic loner. He lived in the Arizona desert, in a house he had built himself. He was known to compulsively collect shoes, as some sort of bizarre compensation for the theft of his father's burial moccasins. Beyond that, Cap knew nothing about his personal life. He suspected Rainbird didn't have much of one. And when he occasionally tried to envision what such a life might entail, he gave up quickly in distaste. Cap had enjoyed a long, satisfying marriage before his wife succumbed to cancer. He looked at Rainbird and could not fathom the man in a relationship of any kind.
There were, of course, professionals for the provision of basic needs, and Cap had no illusions. Rainbird surely availed himself...but one had to wonder how the ladies felt about it.
Rainbird had been kept busy of late, shuttling between Russia and Israel, where he served more as a liaison than an active agent. With his face, he couldn't be seen in the same place too often. And the world seemed to shrink daily. Rainbird was top assassin for the Department of Scientific Intelligence, better known as The Shop, and he also possessed a gift for persuasion. Cap trusted him enough to employ him in matters of Shop disloyalty. In Shopspeak, a "sanction" was a punishment. "Extreme sanction" was death, and it was reserved for the worst turncoats. Cap reflected that an agent who double-crossed the Shop and was discovered quickly could hope to fare better than one who eluded detection for years. Such chronic betrayal was particularly grating to the top brass.
Cap valued Rainbird as much as his fear would allow, and often consulted him on sanction-related matters. There was even an unofficial lingo between them. "Authorized extreme sanction" was when Cap told Rainbird to eliminate someone. "Recommended extreme sanction" was for lesser offenders. He would give Rainbird the suspect's file and assign Rainbird the task of research, to find out exactly how much trouble the troublemaker had caused. If the problem was containable, Rainbird was employed to threaten the offender, either physically or psychologically, depending on the individual. The victim understood that his immediate resignation was non-compensated and non-negotiable, and that if the Shop should hear of any conversations with the news media, it would be the agent's last with anyone. Most such miscreants got the message. Most of them got the hell out of Dodge.
It was a good system.
"I have an assignment for you," said Cap.
"Where?"
"Right here in picturesque Longmont, Virginia."
Rainbird waited while Cap lifted a thick dossier from the shelf under his desk. "There's certainly a sanction involved here, but I need you to do some digging so we can determine exactly how...extreme...it will have to be."
Rainbird smirked. "Was a time, Cap, you never wasted a moment pondering 'if.' It was always just a matter of 'when.' It's been a long time since you authorized an extreme sanction."
Cap shook his head with some irritation. "I know it. Political correctness and litigiousness have gotten their tentacles through our doors at long last. We don't dare just knock people off any more. For one thing, we don't have it in the budget."
Rainbird laughed out loud at that. Cap hadn't been joking, which was what made it so funny. "My friend, I think you need to retire before they throw you into a Sensitivity Training class."
"Damn straight," mumbled the chief, his mood unimproved.
"All right. Who are we looking at?"
"Nathan Conroy."
"I am unsurprised," said Rainbird.
Cap grunted. Another reason he valued Rainbird was the assassin's unerring insight into the motives of others. He wasn't forthcoming with praise, and certainly not with friendship, but when an operation called for a joint effort, there were a select few he trusted. Or perhaps just tolerated. Cap wasn't sure. But it was funny how many times Rainbird had flatly refused to work with one agent or another--had expressed pure contempt for the individual--and sooner or later that agent tripped up. On those occasions Rainbird mercifully dispatched them without any I-told-you-so's, but it annoyed Cap. He didn't fancy Rainbird as a one-eyed, one-man polygraph.
Nathan Conroy was a case in point. Graduated from West Point and earned top marks at the School of the Americas. He'd never set foot in Panama, but Rainbird had disliked him from the first, lumping him in with the incompetent, arrogant officers who had been instrumental in the screwup that cost him his face.
Cap's curiosity got the better of him. "Rainbird, tell me. What is it you see in some of these guys? You had Conroy pegged right off, didn't you? What's the quality they have, or lack, that you sniff out?"
Rainbird offered him his trademark predatory grin. "You want me to divulge my professional secrets, Cap? You wouldn't be planning to take over my job, now, would you?"
Cap didn't rise to the bait. He was accustomed to this type of abuse from Rainbird and had learned to keep silent. Rainbird seemed to respect silence more than any other trait. Cap knew how to use it. Which might have been the only thing that kept him off Rainbird's personal sanction list all these years.
"Heart, Cap. It's heart. When you care about something enough...it's heart. Enough to keep you from turning away from a lost cause. From walking out on your wife when she gets sick and loses her looks. From saying yes to somebody who offers you a little green. To care more about your birthright than your bankbook. Heart. Conroy ain't got it. Never had it."
Cap mulled this. Simple enough. And Rainbird was right. Conroy was a weasely little bureaucrat. He walked around The Shop's outfit like a Junior Senator, wearing Izod shirts and schmoozing up his golf scores. Trying to pretend he was something other than a man who routinely dealt in skullduggery and death, like all of them did.
Conroy was in it for the dough. He was the bane of the agency's Human Resources department, constantly bugging them about his pay rate, his vacation, his benefits, his pension. He treated assignments like unwelcome extra homework, and when in the field, he was known to hang back. Cap compensated for this by withholding the good jobs from him and confining him to more routine domestic matters. Conroy managed to complain about this, too. Cap's private name for him was Half-Empty Conroy, given his pessimistic nature and overall lack of spark. Perhaps Rainbird had hit it dead-on: For someone like Conroy, it was only a matter of time before someone on the other side came up with an offer that would make life a little simpler, easier and greener. An offer too sweet to pass up.
"Let me guess," said Rainbird. "Cuba."
Cap nodded, with fresh respect for Rainbird's instincts. Conroy had been spending weekends in Miami (he told his wife he was golfing on Hilton Head, but this deception represented a different sort of betrayal than appeared on the surface). His contacts weren't golfers, or hookers, and they weren't anti-Castro exiles, either. Cap found it almost comical how easily Half-Empty had given himself away. He'd been overheard chatting up the Cuban food at a place in DC, representing himself as an expert on the comida tipica. This had struck Cap as odd right away. Conroy was as Anglo-Irish as they came, and it just didn't fit to have him flirting up the assistants with throwaway lines in Spanish.
"Yes, we've all been enjoying his Ricky Ricardo impression. He thinks we're idiots, apparently. It takes one to know one, I always say. Anyway," he said, tired of the subject, tired of talking, just wanting to go home and take a nap. He pushed the dossier closer to Rainbird. "go do your thing. I don't think we're going to get much. Our reward will be having him out of our hair."
"I'd like to kick his ass," said Rainbird. "He's got a family, of course?"
"They always do," responded Cap. "The proverbial mantle of respectability."
Rainbird said nothing, but took the packet and left Cap with his thoughts.
It was four-thirty on a Friday. As Rainbird strolled through the corridor on his way to the library, he encountered mostly empty desks and offices with their lights out. The custodial staff outnumbered everyone else. People didn't stick around on the weekends if they didn't have to. This was fine; it was his favorite time of the week, when he could go about his work and not be bothered with people he had no use for. He could even light up a smoke in the library, which also served as a computer lab. He knew where to sit so as not to set off the smoke detectors.
He got a Coke from the machine in the hall and held his thumb against the reader at the library door. The high-pitched tone and the green light indicated his admittance.
Rainbird liked it here. It was quiet. The lighting was kind to his eye, and the thermostat kept a reasonable climate. Usually, few people came in here. And those who did were the sort of agents Rainbird liked (or disliked the least, at any rate). They came in here on their own time to do advance research on their assignments. Sometimes they came in to study for college courses they were taking on the Shop's dime. Either way, these people were focused in their work and less given to the competitive sniping that brought out the worst in Rainbird.
He settled into his favorite spot: in a far corner, behind the stacks. Extra counter space, lots of leg room, and privacy. He popped open the Coke, took a breath, and listened. The library was deserted. Fine. He spread the file out in front of him and began at the beginning.
Nathan Conroy was 50, the only son of a soft-drink distributor. Yawn. West Point, School of the Americas, a little graduate work at Georgetown U. Married 24 years, one child, a daughter, who'd been adopted in infancy from a deceased brother. Rainbird did the math. The daughter was now 17, about to turn 18 in a couple of months. Sometimes kids-very young ones or very sick ones-made a difference in the life and death decisions made in Cap's office. Things weren't looking all that rosy for Agent Half-Empty at the moment.
Rainbird booted up one of the computers to continue his research. He would start with a back-trace on all of Conroy's recent airplane travel and transactions with credit and ATM cards. It would take awhile. Rainbird was fishing in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes when he heard voices outside, and then the sound of someone being "greened in" by the thumbprint reader. It wasn't Cap. There were two people, male and female.
The man had a sing-song sort of voice, irritably condescending. The woman sounded young, more like a girl.
"D'you want to use one of those BIG computers?" asked the man.
"Sure," replied the girl.
Rainbird heard the sounds of belongings being deposited on chairs and coats sliding off. His unwanted company was using the equipment at the opposite end of the library. That was a relief, but he still wouldn't be able to smoke now. He stemmed his irritation and turned his attention back to the job at hand.
From what he could hear, the man had left the girl at the computer and gone somewhere else. He heard pages being turned, then the scrape of the chair on the linoleum. A pencil being sharpened. The window blinds being opened, then closed. Get to work, kid, he absently thought.
But his neighbor seemed unable to settle down. He heard the door to the corridor open, a pause, and then "Rats!" exclaimed the girl. The door shut again, and now he heard footsteps approaching. Resigned, he closed the Nathan Conroy file and turned it face down without even thinking about it. He canceled the program that had been about to download. A second later the girl came around the corner and stopped about five feet from where he sat.
He swiveled in his chair and waited for her to be scared. He didn't hear her gasp at the sight of his face (so many of them did), and he lifted his head and made eye contact. That usually got them.
He saw two things, both quite unusual.
First, the girl. She was very beautiful--slightly taller than average, maybe five-eight. Nice figure. He estimated her age at 18 or 19, but her bearing made her look older. As did her dress. It was a sedate navy blue, in a very smooth line that ended below her knees, with about a dozen gold buttons all the way down the front. It flattered her figure, which was quite pleasing to the eye. Pretty calves and ankles, and a pair of good leather pumps. Somebody had been interviewing today, he surmised. And had probably gotten whatever it was she'd been trying for.
Long, auburn hair, big eyes, little nose, very careful makeup. Understated gold earrings. Either this girl had excellent innate taste, or had someone around who did. Rainbird never made an obvious display of noticing the women he encountered in everyday life. But he noticed. Everything.
The second thing he saw was, again, her face. But not the external features. It was the expression.
The girl was looking at him carefully, which was exceptional in itself. People invariably found something else to look at after they took in the eye and the disfigured face.
This girl just kept looking at him. And, to Rainbird's great surprise, she gave every indication of liking what she saw.
***
Lauren forgot about being tired, or her feet hurting, or being thirsty for a soda. She forgot about her fidgety, fussy father, who thought he could help her narrow down her college choices, but who merely got in the way more and more as time went on.
For a second, she forgot her name.
Sitting in front of her was the most amazing man she had ever seen.
He flows like water, was the thought that summed him up. She noted the long lines of his body, the simple clothes that looked as though they had woven themselves together right there on his frame...the bronze skin, shoulder-length black hair tied back with a leather thong, long fingers steepled together upon his chest, and the absolute calm of his face. She noted, but did not dwell on, the external flaws--the missing eye, the burned and damaged flesh. Whatever had happened to him seemed to have been long ago. It had healed as much as it ever would. And what of it? What mattered was what she sensed behind the very attractive exterior. The power and intelligence, the undeniable sexual force of him. It called to her.
"Hello," said the man, and Lauren felt like she was levitating. The voice was even better than she could have imagined, and she wanted to hear more of it.
"How are you?" she responded, for lack of anything better.
"Just fine. Is there something I can help you with?"
"Well," she said, "I need to go out into the hall to get a drink. But I won't be able to get back in. Someone else let me in, and he's not here. Do you think I might knock and have you open the door for me?"
For the first time in her life, Lauren was glad her parents had shipped her off to that stupid, overpriced private school. For three years she had made fun of her upper-crust classmates and their preppy diction...but look at this, the little stinkbugs had rubbed off on her more than she'd known. Just listen to those pear-shaped, Miss America tones! She sounded seductive, even to her own ears and wondered just how this...hunk...was processing it.
He didn't answer her for a moment, and she became a bit uneasy. She hoped he wasn't going to patronize her, the way some older men had a habit of doing. Please, she thought, not this guy. He just has to be nice. Or at least civilized. Please......?
"You're going to use the machine out there in the hall?" he asked finally. She nodded.
Another pause, but he was smiling, and she saw a nice white set of teeth, offset by the deep desert tan.
"Come on. I'll show you something," he said, and rose. Her eyes followed him up, and up...good God, he was tall. Those long legs, like tree trunks. Perfectly proportioned body. And he smelled nice, too. She could tell he smoked, but it was more like woodsmoke than cigarettes. A suggestion of sandalwood, she thought. I'll bet he sleeps in the nude, was the next observation. -Where did that come from? she wondered, amused.
He led the way to the door-Lauren approvingly observed his walk-and held it open for her. They stood in front of the machine.
"What'll you have?" he asked, his finger poised atop the column of buttons.
"Iced tea," she responded. No soda today. No accidental belches.
The man produced a dollar bill before she had a chance to hand him her coins. She watched him feed it into the machine, then heard a loud clunk and a jingle as the can and the change arrived simultaneously. With his right hand, he passed her the cold can. He held out his left hand, and she saw four quarters there.
"Nice trick?" he asked. "It doesn't work with coins, just bills, and sooner or later the vendor will fix it. But for now, drink and be merry."
She laughed. "Thank you!"
He moved back toward the door and his thumb got them into the library again. "My pleasure," he said, and this time his voice was just a tad lower. She looked straight at him again, and he returned the gaze unselfconsciously.
"My name's John Rainbird," he said.
"I'm Lauren Conroy," she replied, and wondered what it was that passed over his face for the barest instant. She thought he paused again, but so briefly she couldn't be sure.
"Nathan's daughter," he said.
"That's right. My father is here, but he had to make some phone calls. I'm using the computer in here because the dinosaur I have at home takes forever to download anything. I need contacts for colleges."
"Where do you think you'll end up going?"
"I think, wherever I can get the best financial aid. Doesn't much matter where."
"Go where you'll be happy. Someplace with nice weather-unless you're a skier."
"No, I'm not. I like the woods."
"So what's your field of study?"
"Environmental sciences."
"Something you've got a passion for?"
"Yes. But a lot of people tell me I should take a business major. I like consumer affairs, too, so I don't know."
"Do you like math? Follow the stock market and all that?"
"No. It bores me silly."
"Then stay away from the business major."
"I'd have better chances of getting a good job faster."
"Don't believe it. If you look at any company's roster, you'll be surprised how many of the top executives majored in philosophy or art history."
"Really?"
"Really. Take a major you're familiar with, and you'll get the degree without having to struggle. The object is to get the degree. The paper itself matters more to recruiters than what's on it."
She tilted her head. "What did you major in, John?"
He offered her an ironic smile. "Military science and strategy. Bring your things over here and I'll show you how to get your information faster."
Twenty minutes later, Rainbird had essentially forgotten what had brought him to the library. He sat close to Lauren as she surfed the web, looking at college sites and taking notes. A perfect opportunity to discreetly check her out up close.
When she asked him a question, he placed his arm on the back of her chair and leaned over her shoulder, so that they were touching slightly. He could tell, from the way she craned her face up and smiled at him, that she enjoyed the flirtation as much as he did.
He could think of much worse ways to pass an afternoon. She'd related the details of the interview she'd been on that day, and some of her tame senior-class adventures. She didn't talk about friends much, but when she got onto the subject of her teachers, she became more animated. She related best to people older than herself. His collective impression of her was that of a reserved, rather lonely girl. Someone much older than her chronological age, who wouldn't start feeling comfortable with herself until she was past thirty.
Rainbird was aware of the time passing, and knew Nathan Conroy would have to crash the party sooner or later. When he heard someone outside, he stood and positioned himself behind Lauren, leaning over, on the pretext of pointing something out on the computer.
"Laur?" inquired that same annoying voice from before.
"Back here, Dad," replied Lauren, sounding none too enthusiastic.
Showtime, thought Rainbird, with immense satisfaction.
"Oh, here you-" Rainbird turned slowly, smiling, and took in the sight of a flustered Nathan Conroy. Lauren shifted in her chair.
"Hi, Dad. Do you know John?"
Conroy recovered himself, but far from a hundred percent. He stepped forward and shook hands with Rainbird. "Sure do. Finding anything good on that thing?"
"Plenty. You're going to be busy, driving me places. But I can get scholarships!" Lauren held up the sheaf of printouts.
"Dandy!" said Conroy. "Will you be ready to go soon? Your mom will be expecting us for dinner." His eyes kept cutting to Rainbird's hand resting on the back of Lauren's chair. Rainbird just kept smiling.