Free Spy Mom by Beth McMullen Page A

Up until now, my nostalgia for the USAWMD has kept me from doing so, but my patience is wearing thin and they are becoming more of a nuisance than I’m inclined to tolerate.” He focused those blue eyes on me and my heart pushed its way into my throat. “I kill, Sally Sin, Agent Twenty-six. That’s what I do. And I’m very good at it. Do we understand each other?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “I understand perfectly.”
    He sat down next to me, our legs not twelve inches apart, on the mildewed old couch.
    â€œCompetition is tough out there, as I’m sure you can imagine. So I don’t need the Agency fucking up any more of my deals.” He sounded like we could have been talking about the weather or politics or the Red Sox. “And as long as you’re here, there is something I want you to tell me, something about the Agency.”
    The way he put it you would think I had popped in to borrow a cup of sugar and now he couldn’t get rid of me, which wasn’t really how it felt from where I was sitting. And what could I possibly tell him that he didn’t already know? I was basically a subhuman life-form at the Agency, so green that most people wouldn’t even give me the time of day, let alone state secrets. All the rungs of the ladder were still above my head. But even if, by accident, I did know something, I’d have to let him kill me before I could give him any Agency intelligence. And I didn’t fancy dying in a dusty old apartment building with this lunatic. I sighed. Blackford laughed. Naturally.
    â€œDon’t worry, Sally Sin, I’m not going to make you give up any of your prized tidbits of useless information. You can go. Live another day. I assume you can find your way home.” Insulted or not, I was out the door in no time.
    Simon didn’t like the message I had nor did he like the fact that I kept getting myself kidnapped. He also told me that if I tried to pass the message on to Gray as I’d been instructed, he’d send me to Siberia. He stepped up the pursuit of Ian Blackford, but that didn’t seem to have much of an impact. It did, however, lead to several uncomfortable situations that were hard to explain to the bosses.
    So we kept stumbling along, tripping over our own feet, until one rainy Monday word came from deep in Sudan that Blackford was dead. The Blind Monk had finally gotten to him through some unsatisfied militiamen. He was shot at close range in the head. In fact, the range was so close that there was no head left. But several reliable European allies confirmed that it was without a doubt Ian Blackford, dead as a doornail.
    Simon gathered us in his office. He glowed like a woman in her second trimester. It was the happiest I had ever seen him, before or since. Standing on his swivel chair, trying hard not to fall off, he clapped his hands to draw our attention.
    â€œBlackford,” he said, spreading his arms as if to take flight, “is dead.”
    â€œDead,” he said again in case we somehow missed it the first time. “Now go back to work. Do something useful.” And we were dismissed.
    As I walked toward my empty little office, all I could think was, Wait a minute. Nothing interesting ever happens on a Monday. This is impossible . In the background, Simon Still was chanting “Blackford is dead, Blackford is dead” over and over again as if he were insane. I waited for relief to rush in, for the tension in my neck to suddenly vanish. But instead of relief, I felt like a helium balloon two days after the circus leaves town, smaller and duller and forgotten. Blackford was dead and I was alive. Somehow I’d always seen it ending up the other way around.
    But like I said, nothing that interesting ever happens on a Monday. And in this case, apparently, I was right.
    I pull into my driveway and hit Will’s Colnago custom-made road bike, parked precariously near where my front bumper