There are about a dozen girls in the courtyard on a beautiful spring day. One girl, smaller than the others, finds a black caterpillar with red spots inching its way across the pavement. She picks it up and watches it crawl across her hand, fascinated.
The other girls take notice and crowd around her. One of them tries to pluck the caterpillar from the first girl's hand, but she pulls away. The taller girl shoves her to the ground and the others pin her arms down. She attempts to pry her hand open, but the first girl is holding on so tightly that when she finally lets go, the caterpillar is squished into a pulp. The second girl scrapes up what's left of the caterpillar and uses her other hand to pinch the first girl's nose shut. When the first girl opens her mouth to breathe, the other shoves the caterpillar down her throat.
The woman steps closer, pushing the muzzle of her gun into Dottie's wounded stomach. She and Dottie are exactly the same height. With her left hand, she pulls the wig off of Dottie's head and tosses it to the side. She toys with a strand of Dottie's real hair, twisting it around her fingers. "Red isn't your color, sweetheart."
"So I've been told."
"I want you to understand that you're a dead woman already. You seem to be the only one who hasn't grasped that yet." She shoves the gun even harder into Dottie's wound. "You bought yourself an additional twelve hours with this charade. I hope you enjoyed it."
Dottie smiles. "Oh, I'll take whatever I can get."
"Indeed you will." She pats Dottie down thoroughly and relieves her of Peggy's gun, the radio, and the other odds and ends Dottie took from the closet. "Congratulations. Get me what I want, and you can run. Buy yourself another day or two, until your body shows up floating in the river. Or run back to your friends at the SSR and buy yourself a few more weeks, until they find you hanged in your cell. It doesn't make any difference to me."
Leviathan has multiple training centers; multiple generations of girls raised to kill. But even though Dottie doesn't recognize her, she feels certain that this woman was in her cohort. "You won't be far behind me if you succeed. You'd be better off taking your chances and running, too."
The woman backhands her casually. "Get on the radio with your friend at the SSR. He will bring Frost and the documents to the location of my choosing; you must take me for some kind of fool if you think I would walk right into whatever ambush they have planned for me. After that—" She glances over at Peggy and shrugs.
Dottie nods. Her meaning is perfectly clear.
They tie Peggy up and load her into the green Ford, abandoning the SSR car. Dottie switches the radio on. "Daniel, there's been a change in plans."
"Underwood? What's going on? What did you do with Peggy?" Even over the radio, the anger in his voice is unmistakable. But what Dottie's really listening for is the tinge of fear. She's gambling an awful lot on Sousa; when she hears the fear in his voice she knows she judged him correctly.
"Listen carefully. Tell your men at the end of the canyon to stand down. Then, you personally—and you alone; that should go without saying—will bring Whitney Frost and her entire file to a certain location. After that, you'll hand Frost over to us and we will give you Peggy."
"If you've killed her, I swear—"
"What would be the point of me bringing you a corpse? Of course she's alive." The words slip out of her before she even realizes what she said.
There's a long pause on the other end. "Will you be able to live with yourself if she dies?" Dottie asks. "Choose wisely, Daniel."
The silence continues. At last, Sousa answers. "Fine."
"Excellent. Now, I shouldn't need to give you the coordinates of where we will be meeting, since you've got a tracking device on me." Another gamble.
Sousa says nothing. A smile spreads across Dottie's face. "Ah, so it was a bluff. You'll need the coordinates after all. We'll be seeing you in one hour, Daniel. Don't be late."
The other spy drives them to a waste management facility located on the far edge of town. The building clearly hasn't been in use for some time, and when they carry Peggy in, Dottie finds herself stepping over shattered glass and pieces of lab equipment. It looks like a bomb was set off inside. She feels the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "What a charming place," she remarks.
The woman raises a hand and silences her with a look. Then Dottie hears the voices and the hum of machinery, coming from the next room over.
"—the guy's been put through the wringer."
"Fine. Fine, kill the machine." Dottie recognizes Whitney Frost's voice immediately. She freezes in place. "I am at my wit's end, doctor. Scalpels, needles, nothing pulls this out of you, and I know you could give it to me if you choose."
The reply is inaudible. They set Peggy down on the floor and the other spy pulls out her gun, advancing slowly. Dottie trails behind her.
There's nobody there. Just more broken equipment, glass shards, and ominously, a table with leather straps. Dottie sees a flicker of uncertainty cross the other woman's face. "I think you don't really know what you're getting yourself into. Sweetheart."
Behind them, Peggy groans. "Gag her," the other woman orders Dottie absently, still searching the room.
Dottie helps Peggy sit up. She's still only partly conscious. "Daniel will be by soon to pick you up," Dottie says, winding a piece of cloth around Peggy's mouth. She touches Peggy's neck, gently running her finger along the red mark left by the cord. Peggy doesn't flinch, but her muscles tighten under Dottie's touch. "I'm sorry it has to be this way."
She stands when she hears the car pull up outside and drags Peggy out by her hair, the other spy following them silently. Dottie senses she's still a little spooked. As she should be.
Sousa is waiting for them, his mouth pressed tight with fury. He holds a gun awkwardly in his left hand, pointed at Dottie, with his right hand around Whitney Frost's elbow. She appears to have reverted to her earlier state, muttering endlessly to somebody only she can see. Her eyes pass over Peggy and Dottie without recognition. I should have killed her the moment I saw her.
"I've fulfilled my end of the bargain," Sousa says flatly. "Now let Peggy go." When he meets Dottie's eyes, his expression is so cold that she doesn't doubt that he would kill her, given the chance. Well, let him try.
She jerks Peggy into a headlock. The sudden movement causes the stitches in her stomach to start to tear again, but she ignores it and squeezes harder as Peggy struggles. "Drop the gun, Daniel."
He does, and the other operative advances with her gun raised. With surprising gentleness, she takes Frost by her other arm and guides her away. Frost doesn't appear to care; when the other woman lets go of her arm she just stands there, mumbling. "The documents, Chief Sousa."
Sousa tilts his head towards the car, not taking his eyes off of Peggy. "In the trunk. You'll have to take it; I can't carry it."
The woman takes out a large blue box and carries it over to where Frost is standing. She takes off the lid and starts rifling through the papers, and then gives Dottie a nod. Dottie releases Peggy from the headlock and shoves her towards Sousa. He scrambles to catch her.
The other spy frowns as she lifts a small round object out of the box and turns it over in her hands. Out of the corner of her eye, Dottie sees Sousa brace himself and turn away, shielding Peggy. Dottie barely has time to react and cover her face before the object explodes with a blinding flash of light and a tremendous bang and she's knocked off her feet.
