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She’d told herself it was the menopause and the hormone-replacement-therapy mixing with the adrenaline combining with those memories of the past that had been popping up more often recently. The only thing triggering you is the fact that your target is CIA, a woman, one of your own, uncomfortably similar to yourself, Scarlet had reminded herself fiercely.
It had taken some effort, but Scarlet managed to stifle that eerie sensation awakened by O’Donnell’s eyes. Still, it was hard to stop her mind from spinning down a rabbithole of curiosity as she wondered again why India O’Donnell was being taken out.
Clearly games were being played back in Langley. Scarlet had been an American citizen for thirty years, ever since Benson pushed it through the State Department as part of her deal. Of course, the citizenship record wasn’t connected to her Mumbai identity, would never be traced back if she were found dead in a sewer. But in her heart Scarlet harbored a strange love for the United States, her adopted country, the flag she’d been killing for, would probably eventually die for—one way or the other. She’d been following American politics for years, knew that the current President was ending his second term and that next year’s election would bring fresh blood to the White House.
And along with that perhaps a new CIA Director?
Was this O’Donnell hit somehow connected to a power-play in Langley?
Scarlet had no idea, and although she was curious about O’Donnell, she really didn’t give a damn about CIA power-politics. Langley internal stuff wasn’t in her line of sight anyway. She knew the names and faces of Director Martin Kaiser and the deputy Bill Morris, had seen them on video a couple of times. Of course she knew John Benson by name and face and that fucking coyote grin, but she’d heard from a chatty CIA handler a few missions ago that Benson had quit the Agency a while back to do private security or something like that.
But other than the names Benson, Kaiser, and Morris, Langley was a giant black hole to Scarlet. She’d never even stepped onto the leafy campus of CIA headquarters, wasn’t on any CIA distribution list, didn’t get invited to the picnics and barbecues, wasn’t privy to who was fucking whom and in which hole.
She also didn’t have access to CIA internal personnel databases. She’d once asked her tech-wizard to hack in and pull up Benson’s file just so she could learn more about that bastard, that wolf-eyed motherfucker who’d “recruited” her by giving her the proverbial “offer she couldn’t refuse.”
“Icanbreak into CIA,” the tech-wiz had replied on that encrypted chat. “But I am not stupid enough to do it. It is a suicide mission. They will hunt me down and cut off body parts that will not grow back.”
Scarlet had chuckled at the memory as she paced the granite tiles of her flat, glancing at the ticking clock every few seconds, hoping that her phone would beep with a message from her handler before she had to move her butt and get to the Raj Palace.
But the phone stayed silent and smug, its dull face staring lifelessly back at her as if to say she was on her own, that it was all her now, her choice, her decision.
And itwasa decision, Scarlet had realized back at the flat. She could simply choose to abort the mission, log her name back into the CIA NOC database. In fact maybe that was the right thing to do. Maybe her anonymous handler was waiting to see if Scarlet’s name would pop back up on the list of available assets. That way they could re-establish contact.
Scarlet had tapped her CIA phone to life, her thumb poised on the app that would get her back into the NOC system.
Then her phone beeped.
Not the CIA phone, but her personal device.
It was her tech-wizard checking in like an answer to a question, like something in the ether was pushing her onwards, pointing the way, making the choice for her.
Scarlet had suddenly found herself standing at the center of her empty flat, one phone in each hand as the sun rose red over the horizon past the terrace.
She had to choose.
She’d waited for a long silent moment.
Then exhaled and shaken her head.
Tossed the silent CIA phone onto the couch.
Hit up her tech-wiz, sent over the standard advance payment in anonymous cryptocurrency, got him to jam the Raj Palace cameras for the next twenty-four hours, no questions asked.
And immediately an overwhelming calmness washed over Scarlet, like the decision to proceed blind into the unknown had caused a shift in the cosmos, with events rearranging themselves because of that choice.
Her brain buzzed with new energy, and Scarlet hurried back to her pantry of potions. She ran a well-trimmed fingernail along the neatly labelled bottles, her eyes misting over like she was going into a trance, letting the spirit guide her finger, like a coin that mysteriously moves over a Ouija Board, spelling out the answer one letter at a time.
Then suddenly her fingertip stopped on a bottle, her nail catching on the edge of the label, as if the roulette wheel had stopped its spin, the dice had rolled their number, the Ouija spirit had whispered its word, spelled out its answer one letter at a time.
L.
S.
D.
Scarlet let out a dismissive snort when she read the label.
Concentrated Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.