Page 9
Story: Mr. Nice Spy
We weren’t about to open the door and get ourselves killed, so Chan knocked on it to get the guards’ attention instead.
One of them opened the door and stuck his head in. Chan gestured to me. “What’s a guy got to do to get his girlfriend some food around here?”
That was when I remembered I was starving. I didn’t know what time zone we were in. If this was France and we’d been tranquilized for at least twelve hours…that meant it was probably around lunchtime given the time difference.
“Un croissant?” I piped up helpfully.
The man rolled his eyes and then gestured to someone outside I couldn’t see. “Hey, Mila, take these two to the cafeteria.”
A woman answered him. “Get someone else to do it. I’m a little busy at the moment.” Her voice was muffled like her mouth was covered, and a second later something thudded to the ground. Mila swore, and there was some scrambling around. “You see what you made me do? Holt’s going to have my head if anything’s busted.”
The guard only laughed, which made my blood boil. Sure, Mila was working for Holt, which meant she wasn’t exactly doing something legal. But the guard didn’t have to be such a bully either. Mila obviously was doing some kind of errand. All he was doing was guarding us, so why couldn’t he take us to the cafeteria? Too busy mocking Mila?
I had flashbacks to my own coworkers calling me Superstar and making fun of me behind my back. Maybe it was because Mila was the first woman I’d seen (or rather heard) since coming down here, but I hated that those same office politics were alive and well, even buried like we were underground.
Also, what kind of a bunker-slash-secret-underground-tunnel-system had a cafeteria?
“Leave all the boxes here.” The guard stepped back into the hallway. “I’ll take them to storage for you.”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t so bad.
He laughed, a hard bitter sound. “They’re clearly too heavy for you anyway.”
Or maybe not.
“I wasn’t taking them to storage.” She grunted. “I was taking them to my room. So, you’re welcome for completing the task.” I heard a door open across the tunnel. Apparently she slept just across the way.
A second later, Mila sighed and stuck her head into our room. That was when I got my first good look at her. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a high ponytail that reached past her shoulders, and she had the type of cheekbones models killed for. Her tawny skin looked good even under the artificial lights, but what was the most surprising was that she was close to my age. For some reason I’d been expecting someone older, like the rest of Holt’s employees, even though Xander had been on the young side too. But she brightened when she saw Chan and me, her cheeks pulling into a wide smile.
“New recruits?” she asked.
Outside our door, the guard scoffed. “Holt’s daughter and her boyfriend. Why else would they need supervision?” He picked up a box from the ground, hefting it with ease as he took it into Mila’s room, across from ours.
A crease appeared between Mila’s brows. “No one told me Holt had a daughter. Or that she was coming here. Besides, I figured maybe they needed supervision because they were…like me. Or, rather, like I was….” Her voice trailed off, leaving me to wonder what it was she wasn’t saying. Chan picked up on it too, judging from the way his eyes cut to mine.
The guard only grunted, letting the conversation drop. But I had to remind myself that curiosity killed the cat, and I didn’t want to die just yet. The guard came back to pick up another box, and Mila finally opened the door all the way. She was taller than me by a good four inches, but slender, and her personality seemed larger than her petite frame could almost handle.
“All right,” she said. “I hate using my gun, so please don’t do anything stupid, got it?” She put one hand on her holster, more like she was reassuring herself it was still there than anything else. There didn’t seem to be the usual caress behind the action that Holt’s other employees put into it, which, I had to admit, was nice.
We nodded and Mila rocked back on her heels. “Right then. I’m Mila. Do you have names, or am I just supposed to call you Holt’s spawn?”
Chan laughed and I sputtered, momentarily at a loss for words. When I could regain my thoughts, I leaned forward. “Are you allowed to say that?” I whispered. “There’s cameras, you know.”
I found it unlikely that the camera in our room was the only one we needed to worry about. But Mila didn’t seem concerned. She waved her hand in the air. “Oh, he knows how I feel. Let’s just say his grip over me isn’t due to a sense of loyalty and rainbow butterflies.”
Curiouser and curiouser.
Chan dropped his hand from my shoulder so he could angle his body toward Mila. “I’m Chan.” He smiled and my heart gave a flutter in response. “Like Channing Tatum, but Chinese American.”
Mila laughed, but I barely registered the words. I’d just realized how empty my shoulder felt without his hand there. It was strange, how I’d already become so familiar with his touch that I’d gotten used to his hand on my arm or his fingers brushing my skin. Even if he only touched me when someone was watching, my body reacted to his as if we were connected somehow. Well, that couldn’t be a healthy thing.
I shook myself from my stupor.
“And I’m Andee.” I stuck my hand into my pocket so I wouldn’t be tempted to do something foolish. Like take Chan’s hand possessively in mine.
“For what it’s worth,” I added, “I didn’t know Holt was my father before yesterday. There’s no love lost between us.”
Why was I trying to build a rapport with one of Holt’s henchmen? Henchwomen?
I didn’t have a good answer for that. I just knew I wanted her to like me. Here I was, the lone average girl, adrift in a sea of secret agents and edgy supervillains, and I simply wanted to be one of the cool kids for once.
Maybe I needed to buy a leather jacket.
“Noted,” Mila said. She threw her thumb backward over her shoulder. “This way to the grub.”
We filed after her, taking a different tunnel than the one that had led from the exit. Chan fell back a step, then took a longer stride to catch up, repositioning himself so he was now walking on my left. It took me way too long to realize he was putting his better ear toward Mila and me so he could keep up with the conversation more easily. I shook my head, internally chastising myself. He’d literally reminded me about his right ear being better only a few minutes ago, and I’d forgotten already. Some fake girlfriend I was.
Every so often there was another door with a security checkpoint. At each one Mila took out a key fob that was attached to her belt and used it to open the door and escort us through. Chan watched all this while keeping up an easy conversation.
“What’s down that turnoff?” he asked. “The one with the sketchy-looking light that keeps flickering like a horror movie.”
Mila looked over her shoulder. “That’s the lab. My key fob doesn’t have access there, so I can’t show you, sorry.”
A lab? What use did an arms dealer have for a science lab?
“Nah, tell the truth. It’s where you hide all the bodies, isn’t it?” Chan asked.
Mila laughed, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel like joking along. Not when Chan was putting so much effort into establishing a relationship that wasn’t with me. There didn’t seem to be cameras down these tunnels, I noticed. Chan only seemed to care about keeping up appearances when Holt might be watching.
Sour grapes, your name is Andee. I’d only known the guy a day. It wasn’t like he owed me anything. Especially because it was my fault he was here in the first place.
I sighed and followed Mila through another door, wondering at how large this underground lair was. It must have cost Holt a fortune. Plus some kind of unspecified lab, with whatever materials that entailed. How much money did my father make from his illegal schemes? Life really wasn’t fair. I could have had a pony growing up. And a whole lot of other problems, but hey, I wasn’t thinking about that now. I was too busy being bitter and jealous because sometimes a girl just needed to wallow.
“How does Holt finance all this?” I didn’t bother sugarcoating my words the way Chan was. “I can’t imagine he built these tunnels himself with his hedge fund.”
Mila snorted. “As if Holt builds anything himself,” she said. “These tunnels are part of Paris’s catacombs. Holt simply hijacked an abandoned wing that’s isolated and closed to the public, then he sealed the exit tunnel leading into them.”
Definitely in France then. Xander wasn’t lying.
I tucked that information away as I stepped over something I really hoped wasn’t a dead rat. I looked again—I couldn’t help it. Yep, a dead rat. Maybe Holt should have spent some of that money on a cleaning crew.
“How’d he manage to pull that off without the French prime minister knowing what’s going on?” Chan cut in. “There are miles and miles of catacombs, but it’s not like Holt could have gone completely unnoticed.”
Mila gave him a sad smile. “Oh, the prime minister knows. He’s one of Holt’s bankrollers for the lab.”
Again with that lab. I didn’t know what I was more curious about. The lab, or the fact that a leader of the French nation was helping to financially support an illegal underground operation.
“But there has to be more people that know about it than the prime minister,” Chan said. “Other people working for the government.”
Mila nodded. “Sure. Though they probably don’t know the specifics of who they’re really working with or what exactly he’s doing, I don’t think.” She opened another door, and we entered a slightly longer cavern that I guessed was what they called the cafeteria. Folding picnic tables stretched across the entire distance, with benches on either side, their new hard plastic looking oddly out of place among all the dirt and grime. Mila led us into the room while she continued talking.
“They only know that the prime minister has a secret project down here. But there’s also the cataphiles.”
I shot her a quizzical glance, and she hurried to explain. “They’re people that like to explore the catacombs. Usually they’re looking for a place to party, or somewhere to do drugs away from the public eye. If they get too close and stumble upon the sealed door, Holt has them killed and the prime minister stops those investigations before they get too far.”
The way she said them , like this had happened multiple times, made me shudder. Way to kill their vibe. Literally.
“Take your pick of the tables.” Mila gestured toward the row of tables in front of us. “Everyone here has already eaten, but there’s always food left over. I’ll get the chef to bring some plates out.” She smiled, and I wondered whether she was trying to pull one over on me.
“You have a chef?” I asked. “Fancy.”
Sure, maybe she was joking and all of Holt’s employees took turns or something. Or maybe she was being completely serious. I’d never know if I didn’t ask. And yes, once again, I was turning to humor to mask the real horror of the situation, because my father was a despicable human being and I could only hope I hadn’t inherited those genes.
I picked a table at random and sat down, glancing at the joints in the seat to see if there were any telltale signs of recording devices.
Maybe I was starting to adapt to this new life after all. Ten points to Andee.
“I’m more impressed by the fact that you eat together like one big happy family.” Chan settled in on my left, putting his hand on my leg as he did so and giving it a light squeeze. I looked up, a little confused. Was I not supposed to look for bugs? Didn’t he want to find places we could talk without being overheard?
“The only recording device is back in your room.” Mila gave me a once-over. “If that’s what you’re looking for.”
Oh. I supposed I should have waited for Mila to get the food before conducting my search. But she’d been so open about everything else, I’d almost forgotten she was one of the bad guys. Even so, I wasn’t sure I believed her now. As nice as she seemed, I had to remind myself she still worked for Holt, who probably wanted us to think there weren’t cameras so we’d slip up and say something we’d regret later. She was probably lying about this too.
It was like Mila could read my mind. She shook her head. “Trust me. Holt doesn’t want anything that happens down here to be recorded.” She folded her arms across her chest. “If you play your cards right, your camera will be removed eventually. I only had surveillance in my room for about two months before the training wheels came off. Been camera-free for three weeks now.” She did jazz hands, but they were obviously sarcastic.
Two months. Well, wasn’t that reassuring. That, plus the added three weeks, was about the same amount of time since Holt had escaped from prison, which meant he’d been here, assembling this crew, for most of it. You know, just casually building an army for three months, or whatever it was crime bosses did in underground bunkers without cameras.
Still, my mind flashed back to Holt killing the man when I’d refused to spit into the test tube and he’d told me he might not always want me alive. He didn’t seem so concerned that the incident would be recorded, which meant…maybe Mila was telling the truth?
I looked toward Chan, who had turned his right ear toward Mila to better hear her but whose expression was annoyingly neutral. I’d have to get tips on how he maintained such a smooth poker face. I was just giving myself spy points for finally picking up on some of Chan’s hearing loss tells that I probably should have noticed a lot earlier if I’d been paying more attention. Chan was the true master of his craft, never giving anything away by his expression.
“But you probably won’t be left alone all that much,” Mila continued, interrupting my thoughts. “So it’s not like you can plan a coup or anything.”
Debbie Downer. We could certainly try at least.
“Seriously, take a look if you don’t believe me.” Mila gestured to the table. Chan raised his eyebrows, accepting the challenge. He began inspecting everything, and I joined in. After all, it wouldn’t do to have him look like a seasoned spy while I sat around and did nothing. If I remembered the original plan the CIA set forth, they’d wanted me to pretend to have a criminal past so Holt would think we had common interests. That plan had gone up in smoke, but the very least I could do was not blow Chan’s cover by being such a noob that he came under scrutiny.
Mila watched as we inspected all the tables in the makeshift cafeteria, chuckling when we came up empty-handed.
“You ready to eat yet?” she asked. “I’ll warn you, the cook’s an amateur chef in training. I guess there weren’t exactly people lining up for the job.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Chan said, sitting back down at the table and placing his hands on top.
Mila inclined her head. “Be back in a jiffy.”
She walked to the other end of the room, where a door stood propped open. Like the others, it too had added security on it, but judging from the doorstop, the people in Holt’s employ didn’t take those measures too seriously. Apparently food was the one thing that brought everyone together.
When she was a good distance away, Chan angled his body toward mine.
“What are your thoughts about Mila?” he asked.
I breathed through my nose. “Well, she’s not my type, but I guess if you go for the obvious kind of beauty…” I trailed off and looked at my fingernails, refusing to look him in the eyes.
Chan didn’t even pause. “Of course I go for the obviously beautiful type,” he said matter-of-factly. My heart dropped. I looked over at the stone wall, trying to count the bricks in order to occupy my brain.
These catacombs must be hundreds of years old. Filled with thousands of bones, and rodents, and enough dirt to form a small country. That was what I was choosing to focus on right now. Not the fact that Chan was so easily swayed by a pretty face. Or that he apparently liked girls who were a little bit dangerous, which I was not.
Because none of that really mattered when I was stuck sixty-five feet underground, with an unhinged weapons dealer for a father and no hope of escape.
But it still felt like it mattered.
“Andee.” Chan put two fingers under my chin and turned my face so I was looking at him.
He looked…exasperated. But he still wore a smile that told me I hadn’t yet scared him away entirely.
I pursed my lips. “I’m not jealous,” I said, which we both knew was a lie, but which I had to say anyway. Obviously.
“You shouldn’t be,” he replied, hand still cradling my face. “I was talking about you.”
I didn’t think it was possible for my heartbeat to thump any faster, but with that single sentence, it was like I’d run an entire marathon and was suddenly finding it hard to breathe. Surely, Chan could feel my heart hammering? With his hand positioned on my chin, my pulse was only a millimeter away from his thumb, after all.
“I’m with you ,” he said, voice low and husky. “Do you need reminding?”
I knew he said it for Mila’s benefit, because she was watching us from the corner of her eye. But with those words, I was imagining what it would be like to kiss Chan. Not just kissing, but him pushing me up against the wall and his hands getting tangled in my hair while I felt up his abs and lifted his shirt over his head. I got caught up in the daydream, forgetting all about the cameras, the bad guys, the fact that my father was seriously messed up, or that this was so not the time.
Chan leaned in and spoke directly into my ear, sending goose bumps down my arms.
“People give away more information when you act friendly.” He slid his hand back down to my shoulder, burying it in my hair. “But I didn’t say anything that she would misinterpret as being too interested.” He paused and lowered his voice even further so I could barely hear it. “I didn’t jeopardize our cover.”
Right. Our cover.
Because our relationship was a lie.
That’s why he could say things like, I was talking about you , when he said he went for the obviously beautiful types. Because he’d been hoping to be overheard then. Not because he actually thought any of that.
I was so pathetic. Like wears-socks-with-sandals-unironically levels of sad.
I pulled away from Chan as casually as possible, because I needed to believe I could leave this conversation with a single shred of dignity when all was said and done. And if he thought I only cared about keeping our cover intact, and not him , well. This was about to get messy. Ah, who was I kidding? It was already messy. I was the queen of mess. Mess and blowing things up. My fingers itched for a fuse, something I could ignite to distract myself from the dumpster fire that was my life.
Chan didn’t seem to sense my internal crisis, and simply rubbed the stubble that was forming along his jaw. How he could be a spy and yet miss the emotions playing across my face was a mystery of epic proportions.
“It was all too easy though,” he said, obviously still thinking about his interactions with Mila. Awesome. Just what I needed. She’d gone far enough away by this point that he could raise his voice a little. “It doesn’t seem right that she was volunteering all that information about the prime minister and the operation going on here like we were old friends gossiping around the campfire.” He laughed. “I mean, I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
Um, yeah. He was. That good, I mean.
Still, I tried to look at things objectively. In the moment, I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. But then again, I wasn’t a spy.
“Maybe she thought we’d never leave these tunnels,” I said. “Or have a chance at telling anyone.”
It was a sobering thought, and we both fell silent for a moment while we looked back at Mila, who’d returned to the prepping area with a platter and was now innocently spooning food onto a plate. That’s when it hit me—Mila was the chef. All her comments about the chef not being that good, or about there not being many people who’d lined up to take the job—it was because she was the one who’d taken it.
Or was she forced into it?
“She’s the cook,” I told Chan. “That’s why our guard had her take us to the cafeteria rather than him bringing us himself. She said she was going to have the cook prepare our plates. Do you see anyone else back there?”
We watched in silence as she cut some bread.
“It’s interesting that she’d needed a security camera too.” I leaned forward on my elbows, momentarily forgetting how embarrassing I’d acted earlier in light of this new mystery in front of me.
Chan hummed in agreement. “Or she’s saying that to make us feel like we have a connection, or that there’s hope that it’ll be removed.”
I turned to look at him. “You think she’s lying?”
He shrugged. “I’m saying we still need to be careful, even if we can’t see any cameras.” He looked over to where Mila stood behind the counter. She picked up the plates and walked in our direction. Chan lowered his voice. “Just because there aren’t devices in the room doesn’t mean Mila, or whoever’s nearby, isn’t wired.”
His message was clear.
We were never safe.