The next morning, Amanda approached the Agency with a great deal of trepidation. Lee had offered to go in with her, but she refused. As much as she wanted him with her, she knew she had to face this challenge alone. He had some assignments to handle like she did, and it would do her no good if she acted like the frightened housewife she once had been. It also helped knowing that she was not alone, even with Lee's absence. She had made her own allies and contacts over the years, and Billy and Francine were close friends. They would guard her back, even if they had no clue what was happening.
With a quickly remembered password, she was allowed into the deep recesses of the building. Snuggling between two coats in the elevator, she thought about how life had changed over the years. The mild sense of awe she had felt that first year had long since been replaced by nonchalant acceptance, something that was not sure she liked. She refused to think about how much her life changed yesterday. Maybe, if Dotty had been willing to talk to her . . ..
She immediately noticed the air of excitement in the bullpen. Since it was not often this group of blasé spies was so excited, she speculated what had happened. Looking over the faces of friends and co-workers, she knew it was not an emergency. Their faces were too happy. No one had the all-too-familiar pinched look of stress.
She smiled when she saw Francine rushing over towards her. She would soon know what was happening. Some things always remained the same; Francine would forever be the Agency's gossipmonger.
"Have you heard the news?" Francine leaned forward in her excitement. "Of course, you haven't. You just got here, and Doctor Smyth only called and told Billy this morning."
Amanda smiled and leaned against one of the desks behind her. "Good morning, Francine. No, I haven't heard the news, but I bet you are going to tell me."
She saw the brief struggle Francine had with herself. She wanted to walk away to prove a point, but she yearned to tell the information more. Amanda briefly wondered how someone with such a large mouth became an intelligence operative. Francine was a wonderful agent, and did a superior job, but Amanda did question if Francine sometimes felt like she was going crazy trying to hold in all the secrets she knew.
"One of our top operatives from Germany has transferred to DC. The Duchess is a living legend in the intelligence community," Francine shared. "She's in with Billy right now. I think Scarecrow might have some competition now."
Amanda felt her face stiffen at the news. She had known the news, or at least a part of it. Aunt Katherine was the Duchess! Truly amazing in so many ways, it was. Knowing that her aunt worked for the Agency was shocking, but to find out she was one of the best . . .. Even when she had been little more than a clerk that Lee reluctantly took with him on some cases, she had heard whispers of the woman. The codename did not fit her. Regal and aloof is what came to mind when Amanda thought of a Duchess, not laughing and friendly.
"Oh, don't take it so serious, Amanda! I was only joking," Francine snapped, dragging Amanda's attention back to her. She realized that Francine thought she was upset by her comment about Lee's competition. She tried to find the words to explain, but she failed. Instead, she shook her head, and stared over at Billy's office.
Billy's door opened as if on command. Katherine and Billy stepped out wearing large smiles. Amanda watched as her co-workers surrounded the new agent to their field, noticing how at home Aunt Katherine looked. She should have known. After all, she felt at home in these walls now and the older woman had been doing the job for far longer than she had been.
After Francine received her introduction, it was Amanda's turn. The two women stared at one another, unsure what to say or do. Then, they laughed after Billy finished the introduction. Amanda, when she tried to catch her breath, noticed the concern and confusion on her friends' faces.
"I'm so sorry about lunch," Amanda gasped.
Katherine, holding her sides, replied, "Don't worry about it. You didn't know. I should have told you at our first lunch like I had planned. I chickened out, and it all exploded in my face."
Billy asked the question that everyone was wondering. "You've worked together before?"
Katherine, shaking her head, smiled at him. "No, and if Austin has his way, I doubt I'll be working with her much now."
"Austin?" Francine's voice managed to sound both nosy and miffed.
"Doctor Smyth," Amanda answered without thinking. When she saw the look on Francine's face, she realized what she had just revealed. Even Billy seemed to be shocked--not so much from the name as from the fact she knew it. He had probably been section chief before he had learned it. Doctor Smyth enjoyed the distance he maintained from his field agents. He liked being a distant god to so many of them, and Amanda had little doubt he liked being thought of that way.
Billy started to ask another question when Lee entered the bullpen. Lee's gaze immediately rested on Amanda. She could tell from the dark circles under his eyes that he had gotten up extremely early to handle his morning assignments. He wanted to be here to support her. If she had not already been madly in love with the man, she would be now.
She let him know with her eyes that everything was okay. Smiling, he nodded and looked around the room. Everything was really okay. Surprises were commonplace in her life now--oh, this kind man is a spy, that neighbor sells guns after her club scout meetings, that normal lady over there is a princess, and that absolute sweetheart is a highly trained assassin. Most of the surprises had not struck so close to home, but she would handle it and move along like she usually did.
"You must be the famous Scarecrow," Aunt Katherine's boisterous voice drawled. She stepped out of the crowd surrounding her, reaching out her hand for Lee to shake.
Wearing a large smile on his face, Lee grabbed her hand and shook it. "You must be Amanda's famous Aunt Katherine!"
"In the flesh, honey," she answered, shaking his hand. "Amanda's told me a lot about you."
Amanda heard the gasps around her. She had to admit it felt good to be the one with a surprise. Everyone at the Agency had a tendency to view her as old, dependable Amanda. There was one more secret she had to share today. She felt anxious to see her husband's response. "She's also the famous Duchess."
Lee's head whipped around to look at Amanda. Then, he stared at Katherine. "You are the Duchess?"
"In the flesh, honey!" she answered. Her laughter filled the bullpen.
*****
Katherine and Amanda finally sat down in the Q-bureau with a cup of coffee. It had been a long morning. Amanda noticed that her husband was mysteriously absent from their office. She would thank him later, in a special way, for giving her the time she needed alone with her aunt.
Sipping the warm liquid in her cup, Amanda struggled to find the words to express her thoughts. They remained elusive as the truth did. Finally, Aunt Katherine spoke. "Just ask it, Amanda, and get it over with."
Taking a deep breath, Amanda forced out the words. They seemed to stumble over one another in their effort to be spoken. "Was my father a spy?"
Aunt Katherine looked at her for a minute, as if deciding what to say. Amanda knew the look; she had become familiarly with it over the years since she started working for the Agency. It said some information is "need-to-know" and the speaker was deciding what she "needed-to-know". It was a part of her life that Amanda both accepted and resented.
"Yes."
Amanda waited for Katherine to say more, but she realized that the lady was only going to answer specific questions. Need to know. She forced the tears back as she asked, "Was he killed in the line of duty?"
The same brief glance and Katherine again replied, "Yes."
Amanda wiped away at the few tears that slipped past her control. She struggled to remain calm and professional. "How?"
Katherine shook her head, and walked over to look out the window. "I'm not going to answer that, Amanda. You know that sometimes, some things are best left unsaid and unknown. You've been in this business long enough to understand the truth in that. Leave it be, please. For your sake and Dotty's sake, just leave it be."
"Leave it be?" Amanda exploded. "How can I 'leave it be'? My mother is furious at me. I have an uncle whose existence I never even suspected. How come? Why did I never even meet him when I was a little girl? Why--"
"Amanda," Katherine snapped. "Trust me. Some things are best left in the past."
Amanda studied the woman in front of her, the woman she thought she knew. Aunt Katherine had always been the wild one, the free one. Again, Amanda compared her to Lee, the one who had given her the package. Like that Lee, she seemed to be a rolling stone, yelling its joy in its independence, because it was too afraid to let itself be vulnerable. Was that the real reason her Aunt Katherine had never married? Had she seen so much death and destruction at the Agency that she was afraid to love?
Sitting at her desk, looking at the proud woman standing in front of her, Amanda considered what she was being asked to do. A part of her urged her to agree. She wanted to ignore the fact her father had been an agent. She wanted to ignore the fact that her father had died in the line of duty. She wanted to ignore the truth. Like a woman with a toothache, she knew she would not stop probing at the problem until it was fixed.
"What about my mother?" Dotty had not even left her room last night, or this morning.
Aunt Katherine sighed and rubbed her eyes at the question. "Dotty managed to ignore my career choice for nearly twenty years. She'll ignore yours, too."
Amanda was not so sure of that fact, but she decided to try it first. She needed the time to think, to feel, to gather her thoughts and sort through them. "I cannot promise that I'll ignore it, Aunt Katherine, but I'll try."
Nodding, Katherine managed a weak smile. "You're very much like your father in that way; he did not like to be left in the dark, either. Now, don't worry about Dotty. She'll be fine. I promise."
*****
In Arlington, a woman sorts through a box she swore she would never touch again except to destroy it. Inside she finds the dusty address book she had been hunting for all afternoon. Unfortunately, crying fits had stopped her from finding it quickly. Before she lost her courage, she raced downstairs. She found the number she needed and dialed, praying it had not been changed.
Even after two decades of absence, she recognized the voice. It was a warm, friendly voice, a voice that she had often missed over the years. The person behind that voice was one of the casualties of her long-ago decision, and she often wished that she had been somehow been able to maintain the friendship. "Julie, it's me."
"Dotty?" Julie knew her voice after all these years, too. "Oh, my God! How are you?"
She found herself smiling, in spite of the pain. "I'm not doing well, Julie. I found out about Amanda yesterday." She knew she did not have to explain. "I had a loud row with Austin." She did not have to tell that to Julie; Austin would have told her yesterday.
"The old agents always have a much better feel of the pulse of the intelligence community than we new ones do," Carl once said to her. His co-workers were now the ones in the know; he would have been in the know if he had lived.
"I'd like a report on Amanda and on Lee Stetson."
"Dotty--"
"Please." The silence gave her the answer. "Please, do it as if they are getting new security checks."
A soft laugh came across the telephone lines. "They are high enough to be under constant scrutiny."
"Please," was all she could say.
A small sigh and a friendly, "It'll take me a couple of days," managed to bring another small smile to the lips of the woman in Arlington. With a sad "Thank you," she hung up, knowing they would know where to send the information.
As if in a trance, she slowly began flipping the pages of her old address book. She noticed names of men and women that she had almost managed to forget. She saw some that were long dead; she had noticed their obituaries in the papers and wondered if they were full of lies. Names of old friends jumped up off the page and condemned her for ignoring their friendship.
As she had done years before, she closed her eyes and laid her head over crossed arms. The address book's paper crackled under her elbows as she began to sob. She had lost her life once before; now, she was losing it again.
*****