The fire had died out in the fireplace but there remained a few still glowing bits of ember. The tall drapes were drawn denying entrance to the chill air outside. Small candles lay lit on the nightstands. Anna and Robert lay spoon fashion on the bed. Robert traced letters and words on his wife's bare back.
"We're connected to so many people 24/7. It gets to be ridiculous. We need time to just be us, Robert," said Anna. "Are you still cross with me for hiding your phone?"
"That was before I realized what your true motives were. I now fully support the banning of phones, laptops and work talk before bedtime," said Robert. His finger traced a short straight line before he planted a kiss where the top of the line had been. That was Robert's bedtime version of the letter 'i'.
Anna sighed. "I thought you would. That's the number 1 then a dot then M-Y-W-I so far. Are you making a list?"
"It's an assignment from Tom for my therapy. Think of ten things that give you the most enjoyment. He didn't say it had to be on paper." Robert traced one vertical line then two horizontal lines.
"F?" asked Anna.
"Yes." Robert traced another vertical line then three horizontal lines.
Anna snuggled into her pillow. "I'm number one? Am I the best?"
"Fishing for compliments so soon after you had me at your irresistible mercy?"
"As a former law enforcement officer, I only look for facts not compliments."
Robert's left index finger traced the curve of Anna's left ear.
"Sounds like?" asked Anna.
"Apostrophe," clarified Robert.
"Do you have a gesture for every letter, every symbol?"
"I may before my list is done."
Robert blew softly across the back of her neck. The unexpected sensation made Anna moan softly in sensual appreciation.
"Wh-what's that for?"
"A space. New word coming."
"I may not survive the ... the full list."
"I'll take care of you." Robert traced a bezier curve with two humps.
"S. My wife's what? Not my c-cooking certainly."
Robert chuckled. "There are all kinds of cooking." He traced a quick vertical slash then a horizontal crossbar.
"Not what I was expecting," said Anna. "S-T-what?"
"Patience."
Anna's skin prickled as Robert's finger slashed downwards curved to the right then slashed diagonally. "R?"
The next figure was a horseshoe. This was followed by a vertical slash and a crossbar.
Anna turned over to look at Robert. "My wife's strut?"
"Tis the way you walk. A strut is the best description," said Robert laying on his side.
"You notice the strangest things about me."
"You don't know the effect you have on the male population. The walk's just the first signal."
"Signal of what? Intent?" asked Anna. "How is that possible? I don't flirt so openly."
"Effect, luv, pure effect. It gives the impression of confidence with a hint of sensuality. Two things certain to arouse a man's interest even from a distance."
"That's not my intention." Anna traced his jawline.
"It's not so noticeable when you're in a dress or a skirt. But you in leather pants, leggings and tight jeans are amazing coming or going. Funny thing is that you didn't have this strut when I first met you."
"No?"
"It was a ... a baby strut - flirty and fun. When I saw you for the first time after seven years, it was hardly there unless you were in those jumpsuit things," said Robert.
"Those were functional but I don't know what possessed me to pick the colors I did," said Anna.
"Then with the long dresses and hair helmet you gave off a maternal and standoffish impression."
"That was the calculated and desired effect. I only ever let my guard down with you."
"As Robin got older, the strut came back. 'Course you started wearing trousers more often."
"The way your mind works amazes me sometimes. What do you see now?"
"I-am-woman-I-know-what-I-want-come-on-over-and-chat and bring a fire extinguisher.," replied Robert.
They shared a hearty laugh.
"My turn." Anna snuggled closer to Robert. She put an arm over his shoulder and stroked his hair. "Have I ever told you that I love to see you in snug jeans."
"You've never told me that. I look good, huh? How good?"
"It's not a look per se. You have a natural masculine swagger and jeans make that bloody obvious."
"Like your men manly do you, pommy?"
"Yes, manly and ... and happy. Are you happy, Robert?"
He didn't answer right away. When Robert spoke, his voice was raspy with emotion, "It's nearly March and I'm really looking forward to Christmas. That's ... that's how happy I am."
"New, better, sweeter memories. That's our theme this year," said Anna.
"And for the rest of our lives together," added Robert. "Time for sleep."
"You first," said Anna.
Robert frowned. "You don't have to watch me. I haven't had a nightmare in a while. You need your sleep, too. I've pushed things to the edge with you lately."
"We do that to each other. Nothing new," said Anna watching Robert turn to lie on his back. "As soon as you're settled and safe, I'll sleep."
Robert fell asleep in a few minutes. Anna drifted off too exhausted to think about promises kept and lost.
A few hours into sleep Anna's eyes opened. Something had woken her. She felt and heard Robert sleeping soundly next to her. Automatically, she checked SIMON's reports. No sign of the panic button being pressed or any building crisis at home. She turned the phone off. She laid back in bed and closed her eyes.
Perhaps, her subconscious had dwelled too much on the looming trip to London for that is where her memories took her - London 1975.
August 1974
Her small valise lay on the cream and silver coverlet of the queen sized bed. She hadn't bothered to unpack. She wasn't expecting to stay longer than one night. She had swept the room looking for listening devices and found none. She sipped her tea while looking out the window at the bustling street below.
"Happy people going about their business having no idea what really goes on in the world," said Anna. "Happy, lucky people."
Bringing Gabriel home and representing, albeit secretly, the WSB at his service, had given her a sense of closure in the professional sense. Leah's tearful acceptance of the true story of her husband's death had done little to assuage Anna's feelings of personal guilt and inadequacy though Leah had said not a word of blame. It was seeing Gabriel's son Michael walking without his leg braces that had broken Anna thoroughly.
It had been Leah who had laid aside her own grief to console Gabriel's protege. Anna had said too much but she had meant every word. She and Leah had cried together before wiping their tears away deciding that Gabriel would have wanted them both to look towards the future. Before Anna left, she had penned a few notes about Gabriel to help Michael understand his father in later years. It was completely against protocol but Anna found herself not giving a damn about protocol just then.
Here she was in London waiting for Sean to arrive to whisk her off to the next milestone in her life. His earlier warnings had played over and over in her mind on the plane coming back. Sean needn't have bothered. No matter the nature or danger of the operation she'd committed herself to it body and soul before she had left for Canada with Gabriel's body. This meeting was a formality only. She would counter every one of his objections to her taking part. She would make Sean see that she was the only woman for the job.
There came a knock on the door. It was Sean pushing a dinner service cart.
"I took the liberty of ordering lunch," said Sean.
"I'm not hungry but you can eat while we talk," said Anna.
Sean began to arrange the food for two on the small round table. "I don't like eating alone. You're going to eat while we discuss the operation."
Anna's head snapped up. "You've decided I would suit after all?"
"It was the look in your eye when you left Kizilin. I knew then."
"Then why meet here? Why not send me back to Paris immediately?"
Sean poured white wine for both of them. "Because, Anna, England is where your destiny lies. Once we start, things are going to move fast. Eat up. This may be the last leisurely meal you'll have for a while."
Excitement and curiosity aroused Anna's appetite and she began to eat. It was a gastronomic feast as far as she was concerned. Sean gave her first choice. The first course offered either a salad of quail or langoustine followed by the main course of tournedos of beef or bresse duck. She could only guess at what lay in wait for dessert. She tucked in and listened as Sean laid out the operation in terms broad and narrow.
"I did monitor your training at the academy. I'm aware that the unique training regimen I had devised for you didn't make your life there very comfortable. I'm surprised Gabriel didn't talk my ear off about it. He was very protective of you," said Sean.
"He was going to but I talked him out of it," said Anna.
"What did you tell him?" asked Sean.
"I said there had to be a good reason for it being the way it was."
"And you were absolutely right," said Sean.
"He also said that it was like the old kind of training."
"Right again."
Anna looked at Sean. "Well, what was it all for?"
"It was to prepare you to be isolated, to work alone, to make self reliance an automatic reflex," said Sean. "Most people, especially women, are naturally social creatures. That would have been a liability for this operation. I needed someone approachable and charming on the outside and a chilly lone wolf on the inside."
"And what am I to do with this training?" asked Anna.
"It was to help prepare you to engage a dangerous adversary for as long as necessary. Your training was Phase 1," said Sean. "Phase 2 is why we're here. It's time to add polish to the product - you."
"Surely you can give me a hint?"
"If Phase 1 was for the purposes of engagement, then Phase 2 is for enchantment," said Sean.
"Enchant the oh so dangerous adversary?"
Sean nodded. "We've tried ... conventional means and they've all failed to lead to anything substantial."
"By substantial you mean ... sex?" Anna bit her lip.
"Not even that. None got past a cursory look of interest," said Sean.
"I'm no raving beauty and I'm expected to ... to proceed farther than my ... predecessors? How far would I need to go?"
"This man is unlike any other man I've ever met. He doesn't do things in the way one expects. His unpredictability makes him dangerous," said Sean. "The woman assigned to intrigue him enough to chase her has to be his match in as many ways as possible."
"You're sure he likes women?"
"Yes, he does but he's very selective. His bed is rarely empty but no one has gotten beyond the physical," said Sean. "He has lovers but no one he loves. He has associates but no friends. He is very much alone and he seems to prefer it that way. What he desires isn't comfort or companionship but influence and power."
"He sounds like the proverbial dragon hoarding his treasures on a lonely isle far out at sea," said Anna.
Sean chuckled. "Very poetic. He'd like that description. Keep it in mind and use it."
"You seem to know him well."
"Getting to know him and discovering his strengths and weaknesses was part of my assignment. I'm handing him off to you after Phase 2," said Sean.
"What a lucky girl I am."
"Woman, Anna. The girl has to be left behind for this to work. You have to behave and think as someone older than yourself. If it helps, emulate someone older that you know," said Sean. "The target will only respond to a woman."
"I see," said Anna softly.
"He has sophisticated tastes. He's highly literate and articulate. He likes the finer things like opera, the ballet, fine wines and cigars and-"
"I don't know anything about those things, Sean," said Anna. She gestured to their meal. "This was delicious but i couldn't tell you what's in them or what makes them four or five star dishes."
"Don't worry. It will be like second nature to you after Phase 2. I know your motivation comes from ... from Gabriel, but Anna I need you to believe in yourself. I know you can do this. You need to know that you can, too, and that's what Phase 2 will give you - knowledge and credibility."
"Like turning a sow's ear into a purse?"
"That's it."
"Me?"
"You," said Sean with a smile. "I'm looking at the woman who left home with no immediate prospects in order to take an aptitude test. You can't tell me that you're going to doubt yourself now!"
"I suppose the magnitude has just hit me. This man sounds very important so my success is critical isn't it?"
Sean nodded.
"I'm not afraid of failing, Sean, I'm not. I"m committed. I won't go back on that," said Anna.
"I sense a but in there."
"I want to be fully prepared or as much as I can be. I don't want the mission to fail due to insufficient information or preparation on my part. And, I don't want to be ... be cannon fodder," said Anna.
"Gabriel has taught you a few things outside of the manual."
"It was something we talked about before I decided to join. He said I shouldn't join if I was the type of person who ... who wanted to die gloriously. I'm no martyr. I want to do my best but that doesn't include dying without a good reason," said Anna. "This is a solo mission. Will I be ... be left behind afterwards? Discarded when my usefulness is at an end?"
"Your profile indicated abandonment issues which is to be expected given your background."
"My parents, my sister, my relations ... all of them have left me in some way. It's only natural that it's a fear of mine."
"Except for that flaw, you are remarkably fearless," noted Sean.
"When one has had nothing, one has less to lose so why be scared," said Anna. "I don't have anyone to lean on for support except myself and the Bureau. Is the service going to abandon me, too?"
"I won't abandon you. No matter what I will get you out. I may ask you to do some unbelievable things but, Anna, I don't want you to have any doubts about being fodder for me, the operation or the Bureau. You're not. You are one of my most indispensable agents," said Sean. "Besides, I gave my word to Gabriel that I would always see to what was best for you. My word is very important to me. I don't give it lightly."
Anna said with a smile, "Yet here you are sending me unarmed into the dragon's den."
"You will be far from unarmed. You have the armor already. You just need some additional weapons training," said Sean. "That begins tomorrow."
"Why not tonight? Where's the target dossier? I can start on that surely," said Anna.
"No dossier."
"But how am I going to get inside his head if I don't know enough about him?"
"If you're prepared, he'll know. You have to approach him with as little prior knowledge as possible. It will add that extra bit of authenticity to the occasion," said Sean.
"You remain convinced that I will be able to attract this man. What if he gives me one look and goes the other way?" asked Anna.
"He won't."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know him. Physically, you're close to his ... ideal. Your accent alone will be enough to have him hover around you," said Sean.
"That's it? My voice and my ... my body?" asked Anna in disbelief. "How can you be so certain that's all it'll take?"
"I've watched him personally. I know what types of attributtes he's drawn to," said Sean. "There's your age, too, which could fascinate him more."
"You mean how green and naive I am?"
"His hobby is botany. He likes to grow things. Once they've become established plants, he grows tired of them," said Sean. "The few he keeps are the ones with unique properties like color, scent or texture. He likes a challenge and once the challenge is met, he loses interest."
Anna nodded. "Given my physical age and the wealth of knowledge that Phase 2 is supposed to grant to me, I will appear to be a contradiction, yes? That's the lure?"
"Exactly. All the agents, your predecessors, were not challenging enough for him," said Sean. "My plan is to mold you into a puzzle he can't help but want to solve. Your assignment is to make sure he never quite figures you out."
Anna laughed. "I like how that sounds."
"Thought you might. Another thing I want to be very clear on is that your objective isn't to get in his bed. I don't want you to think that that is the last resort," said Sean. "It's not and I am not expecting you to do so."
"I'm relieved," said Anna draining her wine glass.
"What I do want you to do is to get inside his head and keep him chasing. I want him to turn himself inside out wanting to get closer to you while you keep just out of his reach."
"I'll do my best."
"Your best isn't good enough. You damn well succeed!" Sean's intensity made Anna sit back in her chair. He jumped to his feet and moved to look out the window. His voice became softer without the tone of command that Anna was used to hearing. "I've been preparing for this for a long time. This window of opportunity is slim so we take our shot and we make it as good as we can. We won't get another chance at him. There is no Plan B. You and I are Operation Brimstone, Anna. We'll be the only ones who will ever know the whats, the hows and the whys. It has to be this way for both of us to get out. I will do all I can to set you up to succeed and complete this mission. You have to trust me implicitly and to do what I say without question. Can you do that?"
"Yes, I can. I will. You said that this mission's success would make an enormous difference. I want to be a part of that." Anna moved to stand by Sean. "I won't be a point of failure, Sean. I'll get the job done."
"Just like that? You don't want to know why this target has to be neutralized?"
"If I know too much, I might give something away," said Anna.
"It's not going to bother your moral sensibilities not knowing?" asked Sean.
"This is my job. I can't afford to ... to make it personal. That's rule number something isn't it?"
"Good. Thinking on your feet already. We just might live through this," said Sean.
Anna was thoughtful. "I would think that as I got to know him I'd find out for myself why he was so dangerous."
"He's not the most open of men. You'll have to get pretty close."
"Hmm, I'll have to get under his skin somehow."
"That you do." Sean grinned. "I see the makings of a ... a wonderful relationship here. You're practically reading my mind."
"I want to get started right now. I need to do something," said Anna. "I can't stay idling here another minute longer."
"You won't because I am taking you to the ballet," said Sean.
"What?"
"In one of your essays, you indicated that ballet was a favorite of yours. Isn't that true?"
"I adore it."
"Then I am pleased to inform you that we will be attending a performance of Giselle at the Royal Opera House this evening," said Sean.
Anna gasped. "I don't have anything to wear."
"We have a few hours. Let's go shopping."
"Oh, thank you, Sean!" exclaimed Anna.
Seeing Anna's face alight with childlike wonder and delight made Sean feel good. It was a rare feeling in his line of work. He watched her practically hop around the room getting her coat on and fixing herself up.
"I've never watched a ... a professional production. What a treat!" said Anna. "I'll never forget this! Never!"
Sean smiled. "I know you won't. I don't think I will either. I have to rent a tuxedo. We have to go before the shops close!"
"I'm ready!" Anna fairly pulled Sean out the door.
In Vadsel's library, Anna sat in an armchair with a glass of cognac in hand. She raised the glass in the air and whispered, "To Operation Whatsit, Sean's greatest plan, Cesar's fall and my ... my neverending deception."
Anna drank the entire glass before hurtling it at the granite fireplace. "Karma is such a bitch!"
From outside in the hallway, Robert was calling her name. "Anna?"
She moved towards the half open door. "In here."
A groggy Robert padded inside on bare feet. "You disappeared. I was worried."
"Bad ... dreams. Didn't want to wake you up."
Robert wound his arms around her waist. "I'm your official bad dream swatter. Wake me up next time."
Anna pressed her face against Robert's chest. She said nothing.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"I'll just hold you then. Lean on me." Robert felt Anna sag until he was all but supporting her. His inner Anna Antenna was pinging madly. His wife never lost control without a good reason. His nose twitched at the scent of cognac. "How many glasses have you had?"
"Thank you, Robert." Anna sniffled loudly.
"What are husbands for?" Robert nuzzled the top of Anna's head. She was shivering. He suspected that it wasn't from the cold. "These dreams have to do with our old business?"
"What else?"
Robert was all too aware of the long term effects of being in the service. He understood that everyone had bad days and bad nights. "We have each other. Our family. Everything ... before ... the things we want to forget and can't ... all that doesn't matter."
Anna clutched at Robert's robe. "My family. Mine."
With a finger, he tipped her chin up until their eyes met. "Ours. You and me, kid. I got your back. You have mine. Everything will be fine. You wait and see."
"It's already wonderful. I love you," said Anna.
"I know," said Robert with an easy grin. "Let's get back to bed. We'll snuggle and the dreams and ghosts won't dare come back. We'll fight 'em off to hell and back. Fire and brimstone all the way."
Anna pulled herself free of his arm. "Don't say that!"
"Say what?"
Anna babbled, "Mustn't think it. Say it! It's not for ... for you to say. D-d-death to say it! No, don't say it!"
"I think that cognac has hit you hard, sweetheart." Robert took her by the hand and began to lead her out of the library and up the stairs. "Time to go beddie bye."
"He pulled the trigger and I ... I hit the target. We did our ... our job. That's what we're supposed to do is ... isn't it?"
"Yes, luv, it is," said Robert. "You're going to sleep this off. I'll have my hangover cure ready in the morning."
"Cure? I'm not sick. I'm sad."
"Sad? Why?" Robert kept his arm around her waist.
"Because I did ... stuff. Bad stuff. Shhh. No one can ever know."
"We've all done things we regret." He opened their suite's door. "Come, luv. You're safe. Rest."
"Only safety is death. I ... I wasn't going to die for them." She clambered on to the bed. She looked at Robert. "I'd die for you."
"And I feel the same for you." Robert pulled the coverlet to the side. "Get in. It's late. We need to sleep."
She pulled at his arms. "You can't die. I have to ... to keep you safe. I can ... do it. Again."
"Of course, sweetheart. You can do anything."
Anna settled into her side of the bed. Robert watched over her until he was sure she wouldn't wake up and do another walkabout.
He whispered, "We'll keep each other safe. We always have. Promise."