A.G.R.A.
She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
The smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem inside her shell
- She, Elvis Costello
Krrrr. "A. Come in. A, report."
"Still no movement. Over," she mutters, trying to muffle the sound of the earpiece with her hand. What was the point of having an invisible earpiece if the high-pitched sound were audible?
"Any signs of the suspect? Over."
She tilts her head slightly to the right toward a car in the corner. The reflection in the car mirror is of the suspect's apartment door. She is loitering under the canopy of the shop in the corner, as inconspicuous as a simple young woman browsing for magazines at the stand.
For a slightly longer time than normal.
"No signs. May need to move soon to avoid suspicion. Ov – oh, shit." The apartment door has opened.
She kills the mic, smoothly moving her position to the inside. The heavy-set shop-owner gives her a fleeting look then goes back to restocking the shelves.
Krrrr. "Agent, report. Backup needed?"
She doesn't dare reply as their suspect walks into the little shop, her stomach dropping when the shop-owner pales and rushes into the backroom without a backward glance.
Their suspect is a handsome man in his forties, dark-haired and clean-shaven. Robertson. He looks more like a businessman or a model on a real-estate ad than anything, and yet, he is the mastermind of a sex-trafficking ring for underage girls between the United States and the Middle East. He comes up the aisle in her direction, seemingly browsing a selection of shaving cream.
As he nears, she feels a tingling in her spine: a warning, her mind screaming at her to leave now.
With an uninterested look at the man, she strides to the front counter and rings the bell, a pack of gum in her hand.
The back of the shop is quiet.
She rings the bell again, tapping her foot impatiently. "What do I have to do to get some service around here?" she grumbles. "I'm going to the next shop over." She turns to the door.
A thick arm blocks her way.
"Excuse me," she says calmly. He eyes her up and down, his tongue flicking out to lick the corner of his lips.
"What's your name, little lady?" Robertson croons.
She feels goose bumps rise on her arms at his voice, lusty and low, and suppresses her shiver. This was routine. Concentrate, concentrate.
"None of your business, old man. My friends are waiting for me outside."
That was a mistake, she thinks immediately. Robertson would have seen that there was nobody outside as he was coming in. Stupid.
Rolling her eyes at him, she places the gum on the counter and makes to duck under the stretched arm when he suddenly shoves her into the counter and slaps her hard across the face. She gasps at the impact, head-ringing.
He presses her hips to the counter with his, so tightly that she can't move an inch to the side, and seizes her wrists with bruising strength. The other hand yanks the earpiece away and thrusts it to the floor, strands of long blonde hair accompanying it.
Suppressing a wince, she glares at him. "That was expensive, thanks."
"I've been waiting for some government pig to show up at my doorstep," he says, "but I didn't know they were recruiting beautiful young whores these days. You cheap?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He grins. "You'd be popular with my clients. Blonde, blue eyes, innocent face, cheeky. You could pass for 17."
"Oh, are you a talent recruiter? Would you like to hear me sing?"
His hand comes up again and she recoils at the force of the hit, her head buzzing even harder. Robertson is still smiling, but it looks carved into his face, a jagged knife to wood. "Let's cut the crap. You CIA?" Her back digs painfully into the sharp edge of the counter.
She forces a snigger. "CIA? Are you joking?"
"Don't lie."
"Why would I lie about not being in the CIA?"
"Don't antagonize me."
The next thing she knows, she's looking into the small dark hole of a handgun. But when she gasps, it isn't at the firearm mere inches from her face; instead, she gasps at the shock of recognizing the gun.
The face in the window that one sunny day. The gun that blew her Papa's face apart.
Despite herself, she can't help ask the question: "Where did you get that gun?"
He looks briefly nonplussed, then laughs. "You want to know what's going to kill you?"
"Exactly," she says, nodding seriously. "If you think I'm the CIA and are prepared to kill an innocent civilian, you might as well tell me what you're going to shoot me with, don't you think?"
"Cheeky young girl, aren't you? You know who I got it from?" He examines his gun with fondness before pointing it again at her head. "Some agent sent to kill me. From Russia. It's not a sniper rifle, this; it's for close distance. You can actually see the surprise on your victim's face before – splat! – they die. Handy, innit? Took the bastard's daughter after I cut his throat. Beautiful young thing. Popular," he says, and she is struck with the sudden desire to rip off his slimy lips.
"How old?" she asks, her mind a turmoil of thoughts. Russia? Agent?
Robertson grins. "Twelve. Trembing in the motel, waiting for her daddy to come back from his errand. She told me they were on vacation. Hah! After what I did to Daddy, I thought it fit to take her under my wing. It'd've been a waste to let her go back to the Commies." He sounds pleased.
"That's good of you. How do you even choose your clients, anyway?" Her heart is pounding, but not from nervousness. The murderer's face swims in her mind.
"I have my ways."
"And those ways are?"
"Secret."
Pushing the thought of Russia aside for now, she opts for Plan B (or, as her teammate called it, Plan Full-On Bitch: not recommended or endorsed by the CIA).
A snort. "That's what I thought. You probably have a bunch of goons who work for two bucks an hour, right? So much for being a criminal mastermind. You know, if I were CIA, I don't know why they would be wasting time on you." She watches his handsome face crumple into a frown.
"You have no idea the work that goes in," Robertson says petulantly.
"Do you fit it in between buying bargain shaving cream and watching football alone with a box of tissues?"
His face turns even uglier. "You bitch," he growls, releasing her wrists to put both hands on the gun.
And there was her chance.
She whacks his wrists with joined arms, making her hit strong enough to knock his balance off kilter; so when he pulls the trigger a split second later, there is nothing more than a burning on her right cheek and a sudden, all-engulfing silence from the bullet's roar. She thinks she may have screamed. Without a pause, she slams a foot into his crotch and the heel of her hand pounds his nose upwards into his head – crunch – and he's down on the ground, bleeding. Robertson's mouth is moving; spittle lands on her face as she leans over him, unsympathetic to the blood coursing from his nose like from a broken dam. The gun is missing from his hands. Instead, she notices, it's in hers.
She stands over him in her silent world. He is cowering, hands raised over his head. A damned man at the mercy of his own damn gun. She aims the weapon and his mouth rounds in protest: no, no, no. And as her finger moves instinctively to the trigger, from her periphery, she notices a slight movement at the door.
Her teammate strides in, steps precise and quick, wielding a pair of handcuffs. "Stand down, A. I'll take it from here," Andrew says, peering at Robertson like he's a particularly grimy piece of gum stuck to his shoe. "Get some ice on that bruise and some cream on that burn," he adds, jutting his chin toward her face. It is then that she notices the pulsing ache on both cheeks: the graze of the bullet and the sting of the slaps.
Keeping her aim on Robertson, she backs away, leaving room for Andrew to shove the man to the ground and cuff his wrists behind him. But before she is out the door, Robertson, voice pitched low despite his mangled nose, calls in her direction. "Pretty blonde girl like you, I'd watch your back. You never know who might want to just... lick you up."
Andrew shoves his back hard – "I'd advise you to keep your mouth shut, sir" – but she can't help shuddering at his words.
After she hands over the wire she had hidden in her jacket and files the report and explains why she didn't get the hell out of the shop at the first sign of danger, she finally leaves the building, exhausted and sore – but satisfied at the part she played in the sting. Before she arrives at her small apartment building, she stops by the gas station just around the corner to make a purchase.
And the moment she reaches her bathroom, she sets to dyeing her hair black.
"Well, that is an interesting look."
Andrew is still gaping at her from across the table. He'd been gaping ever since she walked in the restaurant. The gaudy red candle flickers between them and she pinches it out, making a face at him. "Get over it, Andy." She runs a hand down her new hairdo – she's had it cut and straightened the day before, to just below her shoulders – and flips it dramatically. "I thought this would, you know, inspire me to be better at my job. Dark and mysterious and all that crap."
"God, you look like my sister."
"Oh, isn't she that Victoria's Secret model?"
"She's a teller at that BofA by McDonald's."
"I knew there was a reason all the gorgeous men went there instead of HSBC."
Andrew rolls his eyes. "Okay, you and I both know that I can't win against you in like, any conversation ever. But we are both trained in interrogation and evitation, so don't think I'm oblivious to your techniques. So, Miss AGRA, why'd you decide to go all Morticia on us? Charlene was gawping so hard I thought she'd finally cracked from staring at code all day."
She raises her eyebrows at him. Throwing around her agent moniker, was he now?
"Sorry, sorry, A," he says hastily, knowing the reason behind her glare. "But seriously: why?"
"Well," she says, twirling her hair around her index finger. "It's very Bond, wouldn't you say?"
He snorts and takes a sip of his beer, melting back into his seat, finally relaxed. Good. Maybe he'd lay off on the questions. "You never even liked those films, A."
"Oh, give it a rest, Andy," she says exasperatedly, flapping a hand in his direction. "I'm 28. I'm having a mid-life crisis."
"Mid-life? You aren't even 30, my friend."
"My bones ache like they're 75, however," she grumbles. The bruise on her face – as well as the ones on her hips – is fading; the bullet graze is still bright red on her face. It's been three days since Robertson, and she still feels cold when she thinks of his words.
You never know who might want to just lick you up.
And she remembers a familiar pair of spectacles on a flat, serpent face.
Jesus.
"A? Aly?" Andy's concerned voice breaks into her thoughts.
"God, I need a beer," she says, and snatches Andy's cup before he can protest. "You can stop treating me like I'm 12 and order me actual alcohol instead of ice tea, you know."
"Beer is more expensive," he jokes. She tosses a crumpled napkin at his head.
He plucks it out of the air and grins sheepishly. "Okay, I just can't stop seeing you as that tiny little girl who walked into headquarters five years ago with bright blue doe eyes and a lacy pink purse."
She stares. "I can literally shoot a coin in midair."
"Who brings in apple pie and chocolate muffins every other week."
"I can decipher almost any coded message."
"Who reads one dollar romance novels during lunch breaks."
"I can swear at you in fluent Russian."
He bursts into laughter. "All right, you win." He waves the waitress over and gives her a stunning smile. "One house beer for my friend here, please. And, uh," he adds, a slip of paper appearing mysteriously between his fingers, "if you would do me the honour of calling me after your shift..." The waitress grins and heads off to the bar, a blush on her cheeks.
"Andy, you've got to stop flirting with women half your age."
"Hey, you go through your mid-life crisis in your twenties, and I'll try and date while I'm still in my thirties. It's not easy to find your other half when you're in this business."
She rubs her eyes and sighs. "Tell me about it." She puts on a fake cheerful voice. "'Hi, I'm Aly. Call me A. I work for the CIA to catch bad guys. Oh, did you know that I could probably kill you with my bare hands or through some elaborate, elongated form of torture disguised as interrogation? Bummer, I'll have to call off the date night 'cause I have to go to Nigeria and shoot –' Oh, bother. Never mind. You get my point."
"A," Andy interrupts, looking slightly perturbed, "you make us sound like a bunch of bloodthirsty bastards."
"Aren't we?" she challenges.
There is a beat of silence between the two agents.
Staring at the red wax of the now-cold candle and feeling the alcohol warming her throat, she finds herself quietly saying something that has been weighing on her mind these last few months: "They've been asking me to take on assignments that... I don't quite agree with."
She knows that she can trust Andy: her confidante and her partner for the last three years of her going undercover, and a colleague for double that time. They had their disagreements, oh yes – spurred on usually by the stress of the job – but the fact that they could disagree on sensitive topics without lingering acrimony was a testament to their friendship.
And so, she confesses.
There is a pause as Andy considers this, looking thoughtful. He takes a swig of his beer. "You know, A," he starts carefully, "all my life I dreamed of being a secret agent – the Bond – and 'lo and behold, here I am. Dream job. Great benefits. Cool title."
She gives him a slight grin, remembering their first introduction. Call me Andy. Agent Andy.
He continues on. "But to get here, I've had to do things. I've done things I never thought I'd do simply because there was a paycheck at the end." Here, he frowns, but then gives his head a quick shake. "I know I only have about, what, seven more years of experience? But here's what I've learned: you do what your bosses tell you to do, and you will find success. Morals? They have no place here. Personal beliefs? Throw them out the window. You signed up for a job, so you do it. You do it without question.
"We're all soldiers in a war, pawns in a game. That's how society works. That's how the government works. And that's especially how the CIA works."
The following Monday, she finds an inconspicuous envelope in her inbox. A thick packet advertising coupons she could use to buy groceries at Safeway. A tendril of dread winds its way up her chest and clutches at her throat as she stares at the packet in her hands; she knows that it contains not coupons, but a task.
Schooling her features, she waves at Charlene and mouths spam mail, making her coworker roll her eyes in sympathy. Alyssa was the only person on their floor who got spam mail every couple of months; they clearly needed to retrain the interns who sorted the post.
When she arrives at her desk, she casually stretches her back – just another typical day – and casts an eye around to assess her surroundings. There is no one by her desk, her co-workers busy typing away or staring intently at their screens. She takes out a letter opener and very carefully unseals the envelope.
She thinks, not for the first time, that she should have never signed that damned contract.
It is shortly after her being assigned as an operations officer that she is called into the office of the COO. Andrew has dubbed him the Hulk, the massive green character from the comics and the soon-to-be movie, for he is just as any outsider would imagine a director of the CIA: intimidating, huge, and serious as hell.
Hulk flicks his eyes up at her and tilts his head to the side; she stares back at him, trying not to feel as though she's a specimen under his microscope. She's never been one to cower.
He opens his mouth and says, "The CIA doesn't kill."
What on earth was she supposed to say to that?
"The CIA doesn't have assassins," Hulk continues, finally looking away. He starts to pick at his nails and gestures at her to sit down in black leather chair in front of his desk. Once she is settled, he pulls out a file and sets it in front of her. ALISA G. R. AMELINA, it reads.
Then before she can ask what, exactly, was the reason for this meeting, he stops her short by saying something completely unexpected: "Ms Amelina, It's come to our notice that with some special training and some extra hours, you could be one of our best agents."
She quirks a brow. "Sir, I've just been assigned as an operations officer –"
"– and here, I'm offering you something more, if you'll let me continue," he interrupts, looking severe. She sits back and waits, resisting the urge to cross her arms. After a moment, he clears his throat and begins anew. "You could be one of our best agents – not just as a linguist or an operations officer, but as a... field agent who will carry out tasks such as termination, in times of extreme necessity."
He pauses for a moment as if to gauge her reaction, but her face betrays nothing.
"So you're saying," she says slowly, "an assassin."
He gives her a look. "The CIA doesn't have assassins."
She nods. Of course not.
"If you would choose to accept this offer, you will have no official title. An envelope will arrive in your mailbox with an assignment, disguised. Your coworkers will not know about this. You will need to be discreet. You will get directions, as well as other items – such as plane tickets and receipts for hotel reservations – if required. You will be going out of country more often than not. Your absence will be excused and explained accordingly. You will not question your assignments."
It was an order: You will not question your assignments. You will obey.
"Am I to be working independently?" she asks, thinking of Andrew, who was her teammate for her role as operations officer. She wonders if he, too, is such a field agent for the Hulk, plucked from the rest of their coworkers and handed an M40M3. With his skill set, she thinks he very well may be.
"Yes," Hulk replies. "And should you fail to be discreet, should you reveal your task or deviate from it, then there will be consequences."
"Such as termination," she says, meaning her job.
He smiles thinly. "Perhaps in more ways than one."
She tilts her head at him. He stares back, unflinching.
And when the office falls into a silence that presses into her very skin, when she's run the conversation over in her head once, twice, thrice, she can't help but to ask: "Why me?"
"You're quick," Hulk says without missing a beat, "and sharp. You've been observed... to be impassive and impulsive to an extent that some people might call cruel. Sociopathic. No action goes unnoticed around here." When she winces, thinking about the temptation of the trigger, the anticipated rush of satisfaction such a forbidden act would bring, he gives her a crooked, unamused smile. "We, on the other hand, would call it useful – ideal, in fact, for such field agents. You do what is necessary for the safety of this nation. You do what is right by you and by us, but this will make you better."
The clock ticks on the wall, and someone laughs loudly from somewhere beyond the door. She thinks about Taras, who once, during one of their weekly sessions, told her that he had, long ago, tried to track and kill a man, a very bad man, who trespassed into his home in Russia and strangled his wife and child while he was at work. The man took their jewelry box and a pair of shoes. I was punching metal sheets while they were being slaughtered, Taras said, more bitterness than regret colouring his voice. If only I were faster. If only I were capable. If only I could have caught the bastard. And she thinks of the face in the window, like she did hundreds, thousands of times before.
If only she could be fast. If only she could be capable. If only she could catch the bastard.
If only.
"I'll take the job."
She trains quickly and effectively, impressing the stone-faced instructors. She is a crack shot – something she attributes to her keen vision – and discovers that her slight build is an advantage in gymnastics and acrobatics. However, not all of her training is in the physical: she finds herself plowing away at textbooks and newspapers, methodically solving crosswords and cryptographs, learning how to forge papers to fool even the best customs officer, and even imitating actors' mannerisms and accents on Sunday morning soaps. Anything that might be used to her advantage.
And, just a few months later, she gets a thick envelope in her inbox. An ad for washers and dryers, 20% off.
She is surprised – or perhaps unsurprised – to feel nothing at all when the bullet whips through the head of the drug lord and bloodies the wall of his decrepit hideout like spray paint. When she gets back to the office a day later, Andrew asks her if she's feeling better from her bout of flu. She tells him yes.
Then she knows that he knows, and he knows that she knows he knows. Things turn out to be better that way.
The first few tasks are easy, simple. The justifications are clearly laid out, reasons for the terminations making her toes curl inwards with disgust and her fingers clench with the need to slowly but surely pick out these people, one by one, and rid the Earth of them, like overgrown weeds in the garden.
And yet, as time goes by and more tasks are marked complete, she starts to notice inconsistencies. The justifications that made so much sense to her before seem sparse and biased. The men and women she targets are often living out of country, having put their past behind them. She watches them laugh with their neighbours in Mexico and France, tracks their patterns and routines and habits, and spends more and more time observing. Seeing.
And she sees not the heinous criminals described in their descriptions, but cautious, average people who once made mistakes and were now to pay for them with their lives.
Terminate the man who is now 70, for he once inadvertently caused the death of three undercover CIA agents back when he was 34. She sees him walking his pet dog along the coast of British Columbia. He has a limp in his right leg.
Terminate the woman who now teaches English in an impoverished community in China, for she drunkenly spilled sensitive government secrets to her date and soon found that she was being stalked by members of Al-Qaeda. She was deemed a defector when she ran without explanation.
This black branch of the CIA, as it turns out, tracked not only drug-lords and terrorists and traffickers, but journalists, government agents, politicians. People whose crimes had been forgotten, whose names had faded into obscurity – to all but them. When the CIA deemed them sufficiently removed from the public eye, they would then make these people disappear, with nobody left to miss them.
In a way, by running away, her targets had dug their own graves.
Her eyes skim her assignment.
AGENT ALISA AMELINA, CODE NAME AGRA
LOCATION: TVER, RUSSIA
Her heart starts to pound. Russia. Finally. She has not forgotten the reason why she is who she is. Whom she has become, however, is a subject she does not want to ponder.
TASK: TRACK AND TERMINATE FREDERICK HOFFMAN (SEE NOTE),
RETURN TO BASE ONLY AND WHEN MISSION IS FINISHED
It was always, always the rule: Do not return until you have done what you've been asked.
Only and when.
Frederick Aubrey Hoffman (January 8th, 1952-)
Former DYCLAIM agent. Went AWOL after leaking sensitive information regarding LNHARP and VENONA.
Last seen Tver. Must be apprehended and terminated.
No known relations.
No known relations. She thinks that isolation is what seals the fate of their targets. There was no one to witness and no one to care. And as she looks around at her co-workers, desks decorated with framed pictures of their husbands or wives or chubby-cheeked children, her stomach tightens into a familiar ball; they all had someone. They would all be missed.
Who was there to miss her?
Years and years ago, she would have said her mother.
Months and months ago, she would have said Taras.
Perhaps Andrew, but he was merely a friend with many friends of his own. Her confidante, yes, and her closest friend, yes, but that did not mean he was hers in return. She wouldn't blame him. Everyone seemed to drift away from her in violent, inevitable ways, as if she were a pill they took to cure an illness but instead made it worse. She briefly considers Charlene, then almost snorts out loud. Daily exposure forged polite tolerance, not deep friendship and love.
The name on the documents fade, and as if through a fog, she sees her name in the target's place.
Alisa G.R. Amelina (Jan. 21st, 1974-)
No known relations.
And she thinks she would make a rather ideal target, for she had no-one.
The next day, as she's shuffling around for documents at her desk and shoving them into her suitcase, Andrew leans over and wishes her dead mother good health with a concerned look on his face. "Sick again, huh?"
"Yeah. Might have to visit her for a week or more this time around," she replies easily.
"Damn," he whistles. And she knows what he's thinking: their cases, unless extremely covert, usually never ran over a week. "Well, I hope she gets better soon."
She smiles grimly. "Thanks, Andrew. So do I."
tbc.
