Page 8 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)
DESMOND
Gia pushed through the revolving doors at the front of the building. Diego followed her, carrying his laptop, along with the one he’d taken from Agent Berriston’s desk. Charlotte and I brought up the rear.
Low glass walls topped with silver handrails cordoned off the upper levels, which boasted shops selling luxury clothing, organic teas, artisanal chocolates, and more. Black wrought-iron chandeliers dangled from the high ceiling, bathing the storefronts in soft white light.
Even though it was the middle of a workday, a steady stream of people flowed from one shop and level to the next, and the din of conversation filled the air, along with an occasional sharp cha-ching! as someone used a phone app to pay for their pricey goods.
Gia and Diego kept going, but I stopped and jerked my thumb over at the cafeteria. “You want a smoothie? My treat.”
Charlotte had been quiet ever since we had left the Vault building. I knew she was still beating herself up for the mission failure, but I’d been there too, and it was just as much my fault as hers that things had gone wrong.
Charlotte arched an eyebrow at me. “If by smoothie you mean hot chocolate brimming with marshmallows, whipped cream, and chocolate shavings, then yes, I would very much like a smoothie.”
I huffed. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—”
“All that sugar will be the death of me.” Charlotte finished my thought. “I know. Hot chocolate isn’t exactly healthy, but it sure would be comforting right now.”
Charlotte and I had radically different ideas about food. She loved anything that was deep-fried, was crusted with sugar, or came with a dipping sauce, whereas I tried to eat as clean, natural, and organic as possible, which included smoothies packed with fruits, veggies, and spices.
Some of the tension eased out of Charlotte’s shoulders. “But thank you for trying to cheer me up.”
“Was I that obvious?”
Her blue eyes softened with warmth. “Yes.”
She threaded her arm through mine, and I relished the feel of her body next to mine.
When we had first met at headquarters a few months ago, we had gotten off to a rocky start, and I had promised never to touch Charlotte without her permission.
Of course, she had given me that permission long ago, but I never forgot that being with her was a privilege, even when it was something as simple as walking arm in arm.
“Let’s go,” Charlotte said. “Gia and Diego have already checked in with Evelyn.”
Charlotte and I went over to a raised, round dais where a sixty-something woman was ensconced behind a curved marble counter.
The woman was wearing a bright fuchsia pantsuit that highlighted her cropped black hair and ebony skin.
A row of monitors mounted in front of her showed different views of the three floors and cast a bluish glow onto her silver glasses and dark brown eyes.
A keycard reader and a metal turnstile were positioned a few feet away, although no mortal shoppers were going near that area.
Evelyn Hawkes looked up as Charlotte and I approached.
Most Section 47 agents thought Evelyn was merely a receptionist, someone who passed out travel brochures to lost tourists and steered mortals away from the main entrance.
But she was actually Maestro, the code name for the head of the Washington, D.C.
, station, and one of the most powerful people in the spy organization.
The Section leaders were all about compartmentalizing information to protect the agency as a whole, and not even my father, General Jethro Percy, knew Maestro’s real identity.
Charlotte had figured out who Evelyn was a few months ago, after realizing that the older woman kept pushing us to work together to ferret out some moles in the D.C.
station. Evelyn’s subterfuge still impressed me.
Sitting out here in the open as though she was just a gatekeeper was an inspired way to pick up gossip and other information Section agents would keep to themselves whenever they were around senior officers.
I nodded respectfully at Evelyn, who returned the gesture. Her dark gaze flicked over to Charlotte. “I’m sorry the mission didn’t go as planned.”
“Me too,” Charlotte muttered.
Evelyn nodded, then cleared her throat. “A mission debriefing has already been scheduled. You two have been ordered to report immediately. Level-five conference room.”
That was odd. Back at the Vault building, Gia had said she wanted an update in two hours, not as soon as we returned to headquarters.
I turned to ask Gia if she had moved up the timetable, but she was already waving her keycard over the reader, pushing through the turnstile, and heading for the Section elevators.
Diego juggled the two laptops from one arm to the other, scrambling to swipe his own card, shove through the turnstile, and keep up with her.
Charlotte eyed Evelyn. “Anything else you’d like to tell us?”
Evelyn tapped her index finger on her mouse, making the monitors flicker in front of her. “I just got the message a minute ago. I’ll see you both down there. I should know more then.”
Charlotte nodded. The two of us waved our keycards over the reader, then moved through the turnstile. Diego held the elevator for us, and the door closed with a whisper.
“What’s going on?” Charlotte asked, her voice sharp with worry. “Why the sudden rush to debrief?”
Gia scrolled through screens on her phone. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
The elevator dropped, and my gut along with it. Urgent, unexpected debriefings were never a good thing, especially after a mission gone wrong. Someone was not happy with our failure.
The elevator kept going down, down, down.
The old train station had seven underground levels, all serving a different purpose and facet of Section 47.
The accounting department was on level one, followed by the IT hub on level two.
Analysts like Charlotte usually worked on level three, along with charmers, although both analysts and charmers could be assigned to different departments and work on different levels as needed.
Level four was reserved for the offices of the Section leaders, including Evelyn as Maestro, along with holding cells for prisoners until they could be sent to a black site for further interrogation.
Level six housed the armory, which was filled with weapons, clothing, and other supplies, while level seven served as a parking garage for Section surveillance vans and vehicles.
The elevator floated to a stop at level five, which was where cleaners like me worked, along with our liaisons, Section agents who made sure we assassins had everything we needed to find, track, and eliminate targets. Most of the mission briefings and debriefings were also held on this level.
The elevator door slid back. Gia strode forward, her nose still buried in her phone. Diego juggled the two laptops again and followed her. Charlotte and I also stepped out of the elevator.
“Does this feel as wrong to you as it does to me?” I murmured.
“Yep.” Charlotte blew out a tense breath. “But we’ve been summoned by someone, so we might as well get it over with. Right?”
“Right,” I echoed, although my voice was just as wary as hers.
Charlotte smiled, but her expression quickly twisted into a grimace, and she trailed after Gia and Diego. I fell in step beside her.
Something was most definitely wrong, and I had a sinking feeling that Charlotte and I were in much more trouble than simply botching a mission.
I followed the others down a long corridor with light gray walls and matching carpet.
Gia waved her keycard over another reader, and a set of bullet- and magic-resistant doors buzzed open, revealing the level-five bullpen.
Clear plastic cubicles took up most of the space, and a wide walkway running down the center led to some glassed-in offices and a large conference room set into the back wall.
Cleaners sat on the left side of the main aisle, while their liaisons were situated on the right side.
Even assassins had to do paperwork, and several cleaners were dutifully typing away on keyboards.
Some of the liaisons were also typing away, while others murmured into phones.
Every time I entered the bullpen, it always struck me how it seemed like an ordinary office—except for the fact that we killed people.
Gia and Diego went to the conference room, but Charlotte headed over to her assigned desk, which was in the back row of cubicles, directly across the aisle from my own desk.
She slung down the green-stained briefcase, then plopped into a chair, flipped on a monitor, and powered up her laptop.
She was clearly still trying to find out who had called the sudden debriefing.
I headed over to my own desk to do the same. Forewarned and forearmed and all that.
I was just about to sit down when I realized that all the cleaners and liaisons had turned their heads to stare at me.
They all had the same stiff posture—high shoulders, squinty eyes, pinched lips—and the air practically crackled with tension.
If I touched someone right now, my galvanism would give me a violent static shock from all the nervous, pent-up energy.
Charlotte stopped typing and looked at me, her eyebrows raised in a silent question. I wondered if her synesthesia was whispering that we were in danger, but I couldn’t ask with everyone staring at me.
Why were they staring at me? Sure, my mission with Charlotte had been a failure, but this level of scrutiny bordered on disturbing.
“Ahem.” Someone cleared her throat.
The woman sitting at the desk in front of Charlotte swiveled around in her chair.
She had long black hair, light blue eyes, and rosy skin.
Like everyone else in the bullpen, she was wearing a pantsuit, although hers was a cheerful sky-blue instead of the somber blacks, navy blues, and dark grays the other agents were sporting.
Joan Samson was my closest friend at Section 47, and she had been my liaison on dozens of missions.
She was a powerful transmuter, someone who was able to transform the physical properties of an element or object, like shifting glass to sand or reducing a wooden block to splinters.
Joan was also a Legacy, and several of her relatives had worked at Section 47, although her family name didn’t garner the same notoriety as being a Locke or a Percy did.
I envied my friend her distinguished reputation, along with that of her family.
Joan had also been involved with Graham.
With his dying words, Graham had told me how much he loved Joan, and he’d begged me to watch out for her.
Joan had never revealed how she’d truly felt about Graham, but the ice-blue aura around her heart always dimmed whenever she said his name, indicating she felt his loss as keenly as I did.
“I heard about the mission, Dez,” Joan murmured. “Sorry it didn’t go as planned.”
I shrugged. “These things happen.”
Joan’s cool gaze flicked over to Charlotte. “Yes, things always seem to go off the rails whenever she’s involved.”
An accusatory note colored her voice. Charlotte rolled her eyes in response.
Gia and Evelyn had tasked Charlotte and me with discreetly tracking down Henrika Hyde, at least until we could make sure Henrika didn’t have any more moles inside the D.C.
station, but I suspected Joan had figured out what we were doing.
She was one of the smartest people I knew, right up there with Charlotte, and she had dropped several hints that she would be happy to help me with the mission, but so far, I’d played dumb.
I didn’t want Joan to get caught in the crossfire of the dangerous game Charlotte and I were playing with Henrika.
Joan kept staring at me, as though waiting for me to say something. Most of the other cleaners and liaisons returned to their work, although a few kept glancing over their shoulders at me.
That uneasy feeling swept over me again. “What’s going on?”
“You haven’t heard?” Joan asked.
“About what? The emergency debriefing? Yeah, I know about that.” I frowned again. “Wait. Is something else going on?”
Sympathy crinkled Joan’s face, which only added to my unease.
She opened her mouth, but before she could answer me, a door buzzed open in the distance.
Everyone in the bullpen straightened in their seats, as though guns had just been shoved against their spines.
Charlotte stopped her typing, once again picking up on the sudden tension.
In the distance, footsteps sounded. Even though they were muffled by the carpet, my chin immediately lifted, and my shoulders squared, as though I was a soldier called to attention.
I’d been hearing those swift, heavy footsteps my entire life, both inside and outside Section 47, and they always filled me with a sense of weary, wary dread.
Everyone froze, still maintaining their impossibly stiff postures. No one moved, no one whispered, no one fidgeted. I don’t think some people even bloody breathed .
The footsteps stopped, but a familiar presence loomed behind me like a dark storm cloud. I slowly turned around.
A sixty-something man was standing in the middle of the aisle.
He was roughly my height, six feet tall, although his body was broader and stockier than mine.
His wavy silver hair had been brushed back from his forehead, and his skin had the deep, permanent tan of someone who had spent years outdoors.
Lines grooved into the skin around his light blue eyes, and the matching aura pulsing over his heart was such a pale blue it was almost translucent.
He was wearing a navy jacket over a matching shirt and tie. To him, it wasn’t a suit but just another uniform, and it was as neat, crisp, and sharply creased as any military garb he’d worn over the years.
General Jethro Percy, the head of the board of directors, one of the most powerful people at Section 47—and my father.