The Red Room

57

It isn’t the first time Grace has faced a difficult decision, so why does she hesitate now? What hold over her does Knox possess? Dulwich hires her because of her pragmatism, her cultural tendency to follow orders to the letter and leave her imagination at the door. She supposes he balances her against Knox for this reason, sees this as the logic behind their recent pairings.

Has she allowed herself to be seduced, corrupted? After all the sacrifices for her career, is she willing to risk a setback? For what? For whom? A testosterone-charged renegade? A maverick, that by his own admission is only in it for the money? A mercenary?

The problem is, she has had the occasional glimpse of the overprotective brother, the defender of women — the sensitivities Knox doesn’t want exposed. Dulwich exploits these vulnerabilities for his own benefit. As the op supervisor, he’s no doubt willing to sacrifice the troops to win the battle. Turning the opposing loyalties in her head, Grace finds herself uneasy and undecided, two qualities she would never associate with her usual logical assurance.

Cancer or cure, John Knox is under her skin.

In the hotel’s lobby bathroom, she uses a safety pin she’d snagged previously to narrow the waistband of her pants to attach Mashe Okle’s business card behind the interior garment tag. Her pants slip lower but hold above her hips; it’s not a look she would normally tolerate, as the hems of the pant legs drag behind her flats. But if she’s searched, the card will be difficult to find. A cursory look at the contents of her handbag and pockets will yield nothing.

The accountant in her ticks off the successes of the op: she and Knox got to Okle and sent him to the hospital, ensuring the implantation of a customized pacemaker in place of the defective model. They did so without the involvement of any government agency. A highly sought-after shopping list of what is likely parts for nuclear reactor maintenance, a list perhaps intended for the Russians, Chinese or North Koreans, is currently pinned by her hip bone. Any such agents could be in the hunt.

Might kill for it.

She leaves the hotel using a side exit; she conceals herself among a group of conventioneers wearing blue lanyards and plastic-shrouded white badges. She hesitates beneath a metal canopy that holds back the steady drum of gray rain. Smothered by conflicting emotion and reason, she battles the two sides of her conscience.

Then she pulls her phone to her ear.

“Xin, I am sorry to wake you. If you inform Dulwich of what I am about to request, I will make what is left of your life a living hell.” She knows what it’s like in Digital Services, knows the degree to which the myth of field ops pervades the culture. She counts on her bluster to rattle the man, hopes he doesn’t identify her words as a hollow bluff.

“You threaten me?”

“I have three phone numbers. I need a ‘last-known position’ for each of them.”

“iPhones?” Xin is already coming awake.

“The numbers won’t be registered.”

“Understood.”

“How quickly?” Grace asks. With a laptop and secure Internet connection, she could do the work herself. She’s being polite and they both know it. Xin can accomplish this as fast as he’s willing.

“Five minutes,” he says, perhaps sensing the trap she’s laid.

She rattles off the numbers of Knox’s SIM chips. They are committed to memory, not carried in her phone’s contact list.

Xin repeats them, double-checking.

“Nothing personal,” she says.

The line goes dead.