Never Say Spy (9 page)

A large hand reached out and held my wrist securely.  I tried to move my arm away, but the hand didn’t let go.  I looked up.  Kane again.  He was still wearing civilian clothes.  Nice to know he’d heeded my wardrobe advice.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Where are we?” I implored.  “We were just in the meeting room.  We can’t be here.  I don’t even know where here is.”

I waved a hand at the white void around us.  It reminded me of a blizzard whiteout.  Suddenly I was freezing, snowflakes whipping by on a rising wind.  The easel was gone, but Kane was still there, holding my wrist.

“Come with me,” he repeated, pulling me toward him.  This time I didn’t resist.  I just let him tow me into the whiteness.

“Unnngghh,” I said, or words to that effect.  I rested my elbows on the meeting room table and cradled my throbbing head in an attempt to prevent my eyeballs from exploding.  At least I wasn’t on the floor this time.  I breathed through my teeth for long moments until the pain subsided a fraction.

“Well, that’s better,” Kane said unsympathetically.

“Define better,” I gritted.

“You didn’t make Connor’s ears bleed, and you didn’t pass out this time.”

“Marvellous.  I wish I had.”

“Which do you wish you’d done?” Spider asked, getting back some of his own.

“Both.  Not necessarily in that order.”

 “Aydan, I need you to stay with us,” Kane said.

“I presume you mean mentally.  That would definitely be my preference,” I agreed.  “Any hints on how to accomplish that?”

Kane shrugged, looking frustrated.  “If I knew, we’d all be happier,” he said.  He turned to Connor.  “We need to get some input on this.  I want to meet with you and Sandler at,” he consulted his watch, “four o’clock.  Set it up, would you?”

“Today?” Connor objected.  “It’s Sunday.  I already had to call Mr. Sandler at home for your security clearances, and he wasn’t pleased at all.  Can’t we do it tomorrow?”

Kane skewered him with a look.  “He’s the head of security.  We have a major security breach.  If you’d reported it right away, we’d have two suspects to question.”  He glanced at me.  “Now we only have one.  Get on it.”

“We’ll need Smith, too,” Spider added.

Kane nodded.  “And Smith.  Four o’clock,” he repeated.  Connor trailed out.

Kane turned his attention to Spider.  “We’ve got reasonable cause now.  Call down to Calgary and get a search warrant for Ramos’s place ASAP.  Get search warrants for both of Ms. Kelly’s places, too, while you’re at it.  Get Wheeler and Germain to bring up the Silverside ones.  I’m going to need them to do the searches up here right away.  Get Richardson to do the search at Ms. Kelly’s place in Calgary.  And get digging for anything that relates to this.  I’ll need your expertise in this meeting.”

“Right.  I’ll talk to Larkin, too, and get all the fob records from last week forward.”  Webb headed for the door.  “Oh, those records checks came up while you were in the... gone,” he added obliquely.  “Chief Petty Officer Second Class Roger Kelly, served with the HMCS Bonaventure 1958 to 1970, when the Bonnie was decommissioned and he left the navy.  The other check came up completely empty.  I’ll dig deeper, but so far it looks like what you see is what you get.”

“Thanks,” Kane said.  Spider waved and followed Connor out the door.

“Checking up on me?” I asked.

Kane frowned.  “There’s a lot about you that doesn’t add up.  It was nagging at my subconscious before I ever saw that data record, and now... now I want some answers.”

“So do I,” I snapped.  “I want to know how the hell you got inside my head and filmed my private thoughts.  From all angles, I might add.”

“You’re not in a position to demand answers,” Kane said flatly.  “If you cooperate with me now, things might go easier with you in the long run.  It’s your choice.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I stammered.  “I don’t even know what I did.”  I leaned my head in my hands, massaging my still-aching temples.

“Really.”  Kane’s voice was hard.  “Here’s how I see it.  You and Ramos collaborate.  You succeed.  You... celebrate.”

He eyed me coldly.  “Then, you have a falling out.  Maybe you disagree over where to sell your information.  Or maybe one of you wants a bigger cut.  He follows you to Calgary to eliminate you.  I conveniently show up and shoot him for you.  And you pretend to be an innocent victim.  It almost worked, too.”

“I’m not a spy!  I’d never seen him before.  I was just having a fantasy...” I felt my face heat up and babbled on.  “I was inside my own head.  I don’t know how you recorded it, but I didn’t know him, I don’t know how I imagined his face, I was just...”

“You’re not a spy,” he mocked.  “In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve watched you jump out of a moving vehicle, shrug off a gunshot wound, be completely unfazed by a corpse with a bullet hole in its head, develop an elaborate rooftop escape plan, scale a wall, and fight off a biker.  Let’s see, did I miss anything?  Oh, yes, whenever you enter a public area, you scope out all the exits and choose the seat with the best defensive advantage.  And you coincidentally show up unauthorized in a secured facility.  But no, you’re not a spy.”

The terror rose again.  Jail.  Captivity.

I breathed.

In.  Out.  Ocean waves.  Think ocean waves.

The waves rolled in, soaking my shoes.  Seagulls cried in the gray sky and rain misted my face.  The briny ocean smell surrounded me.

Completely disoriented, I froze for a moment before giving in to panic.  I bolted along the deserted shoreline, kicking up sand and pebbles.  An enormous tumble of boulders loomed up in front of me as if from thin air, and I flung myself into their shelter, scrambling over their shifting bulk.  My overused muscles burned with the effort while I burrowed deeper into the rubble.  At last, I found a dark cave and curled into it, my breath sobbing in my chest.

As my breathing steadied, I took stock.  Kane was nowhere to be seen.  This probably counted as resisting arrest.  Not good.  Staying around to be arrested... also not good.  Talk about a rock and a hard place.  I shifted uncomfortably.  Too bad rocks weren’t soft and warm.

Obligingly, the rock around me warmed to a cozy temperature, and I relaxed into cushy comfort.

Wait a minute.

I gathered my scattered wits and thought over my experiences thus far.  As far as I knew, insanity didn’t conform to logical parameters.  But as I reviewed each episode in which I’d departed the reality of the boardroom, some rules seemed to apply.

In the bathroom, events had proceeded logically and sequentially.  With the exception of the costume changes for the men, everything had occurred just as I’d expected.  Want a piece of wood; there it was, just the right size.  Need a piece of strapping; pull it out of thin air.

And the painting episode.  I’d been thinking about painting, and then suddenly, there I was, painting.  Hmmm, come to think of it, I’d been thinking of working in the bathroom earlier, too, right before it appeared.  I’d thought about calming ocean waves, and here I was, listening to ocean waves.  Go figure.

So far, if I’d concentrated on something specific, it happened.  I wonder...?

I concentrated on a pink hippopotamus in a tutu.  Sure enough, one popped up on the rocks in front of me, pirouetting gracefully.

Okay, the pink hippo was a little disturbing.  I banished it with a wave of my hand.

What if I wanted to be hiding in a forest instead of a rock pile?

From my seat on a fallen log, I breathed in the moist, spicy forest air, cedars swaying above me.  The vividly green ferns nodded in the breeze.  I straightened, smiling.  Being crazy wasn’t so bad after all.

With a dramatic sweep of my arm, I painted the forest floor with daffodils and snowdrops.  Another wave of my hand, and a waterfall appeared, its cascading stream just below my feet.

I could create anything.  I laughed in sheer delight.  I made it rain, then made the sun come out, lighting up the forest.   With a grand gesture, I dried my wet shoes and removed the bloodstain.  As an afterthought, I dried my clothes, too.

Something crackled in the undergrowth behind me and I turned, expecting,
creating
a deer.  Sure enough, there it was.  It bounded away in alarm.

No wonder.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“Nice forest,” Kane said.

A cage blinked into existence around me, shrinking rapidly.  My first whimpers started as the cage contracted, its bars thickening.  I flung myself against my shrinking prison, battering my hips and shoulders.  Mindless wails escaped me.

I tried to close my ears to the hoarse cries of agony from my familiar nightmares, but the apparition loomed closer, horribly visible through the remaining gaps between the bars.  Screams ripped my throat while the broken body writhed, impaled on the post.  The cage crushed inward, constricting my lungs.  My screams stifled, I wheezed fast shallow breaths in my terrified fight for air.

“Aydan!” Kane’s voice cut through the horror.  “
Go somewhere else!
”

I burst free to collapse onto a park bench, frantically gulping the crisp spruce-scented air.  Echoing silence surrounded me while I stared across the long valley, concentrating on the distant peaks beyond.  I wrapped my arms around myself, gasping and shuddering and willing the open space with everything I had.

As panic receded, I realized Kane was standing silent and motionless a few yards away.  My breath caught in my throat, but he made no move toward me.  I wrestled for control and focused again on the view.

A couple of yards from my feet, the shoulder of the mountain fell away in a breathtaking sheer drop.  Almost a thousand feet lower, the lake glittered blue, reflecting the vivid sky.  A wispy cloud drifted below us, dissipating quickly in the autumn sun.

“Where are we?” Kane asked, his voice quiet and conversational.

“Mount Indefatigable.  Kananaskis Country,” I quavered.  “In the fall, about twenty years ago.  This bench isn’t there now.  Here now.  Whatever.”

“Why don’t you come away from the edge?”  The same low-key, non-threatening tones.

“This is where the original bench was.  And I don’t think I can stand up just yet.”

“Is it all right if we go somewhere else?”

“No.”

“All right.”  He lowered himself to the ground, propping his arms behind him and stretching out his legs.

We sat in silence for a while.

Finally, Kane spoke again.  “What did I see, back in the forest?” he asked mildly.

“Dream.  Memory.  Some of each.”

I studied my scuffed running shoes.  The bloodstain was back.

“Which was which?”

A gust of wind tossed my hair and tangled it in the needles of the spruce tree that leaned over the bench.  I concentrated on freeing it, avoiding the question.

“I think I understand why you told Hellhound to ride safe.”

I chanced a look in Kane’s direction.  He was still sitting relaxed on the ground, watching me.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

I sighed.  “The biker pulled out to pass me.  Not a lot of room, but he could have made it.  Drunk driver pulled out from behind an oncoming car.  The biker tried to cut back in and overcorrected.  High-sided.  Landed right on top of the fencepost.”

I fell silent.  The fresh bloodstain spread slowly across the toe of my shoe, glistening brilliant crimson.  I suppressed a shudder.

“Were you injured?”

“Minor stuff by comparison.  Pinned by a compound fracture in my left leg, traction for six weeks.  Some soft-tissue injuries.”

“What happened to the drunk?”

“Those assholes never get hurt.  And this was before they toughened up the drunk driving laws.  Nobody died, so...” I looked up in time to see his look of incredulity.  “Yeah, the biker survived.  That poor bastard was conscious the whole time.”  A shudder rocked my body.  Raw-throated cries of agony echoed through the mountains, getting louder...

I breathed, concentrating on the lake, and the sound faded away.

“And the cage?” he asked.

“Just a dream.  Thanks for yelling at me, by the way.  I forgot I could change things here.  I usually just have to wake up screaming.”

“Do you dream it that often?”

“Not since I divorced my first husband,” I said lightly.  I glanced over.  He wasn’t smiling.  I sighed again.  “I only have that dream when I feel trapped or helpless in some part of my life.  I’m claustrophobic, so it’s just my subconscious mind’s way of expressing anxiety.”

“What are you feeling anxious about?”

“Gee, I don’t know, where should I start?  Carjackers, gunmen, home invasions, and now you want to put me in jail.”  My voice wavered on the last word, and faint bars appeared around me again.  I took a deep, steadying breath and looked out over the valley.

“I don’t even know what I did,” I added.

“And yet, here we are,” Kane said.

I glared at him.  “Would you stop being so goddamn cryptic?”

He gazed at me, silent.

I knotted my fists in my hair and tugged a couple of handfuls.  “Why am I even talking to you?  I’m crazy, and this is a delusion.  You’re only going to tell me what I already know myself, because you’re a figment of my deranged mind.  I don’t know why you keep showing up, though.  Must be my fear of captivity.  You’re just another metaphor for a cage.  Go away.”

I waved a banishing hand at him, but he stayed, watching me.  I leaned back and closed my eyes to block him out.

“I’m not a figment of your imagination.”

“Yes, you are.  Go away.”

“All right, suppose I am your metaphor for captivity.  Talk to me.  If you resolve your issues with me, maybe I’ll go away.  Convince me you’re not guilty.”