Chapter Fourteen
Elena Jimenez drives us to the north, far from rioters or anyone else that might recognize me and my heroics. We’ve stopped at a hotel for the night. By the looks of it, the hotel is something along the same caliber as an Econolodge. If Montreal is an island, much like New York City, we’ve ventured off that island tonight, settling in a town called Repentigny.
“We need two rooms,” I tell the hotel’s front desk clerk, Jimenez behind me. This is the first time I’ve seen Elena out of her signature pants suit since the day she abducted me. Tonight, she’s wearing a form-fitting v-neck T-shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. She caps off the ensemble with a pair of black boots.
“I only have one,” the clerk says. He must’ve watched the game, too. He never even greeted us. As this was the first All-Canada Stanley Cup Final in decades, hotels have been a hot commodity.
I look back at Jimenez with a shrug. She nods.
“We’ll take it,” I say.
When I first met Elena, this would have been a dream come true. Unfortunately, my experience with the Agency of Influence has distorted her beauty, and I no longer view her as the vixen I saw when we first met. That said, it’s nice to see a familiar face and, I must say, I’ve noticed a change in her temperament, however slight.
During our hour-long trek to Repentigny, Jimenez revealed to me that she has big plans and that tonight’s events offer a taste of the future to come.
“I’m assembling a team,” she said with her eyes fixed on the road. Her grip on the steering wheel caused her knuckles to be as pale as her tanned skin would allow.
“For what?” I said, leaning back in my seat.
“This. All of this … craziness.”
“You mean that?” I said, pointing back toward the Bell Centre with my thumb.
“That, Chicago, Milan.”
“You think the A of J caused Milan?”
Elena shot me a look.
“Good luck,” I said.
“I’m serious.”
I scoffed. “Well, you’re not an Agent of Influence anymore.”
“Exactly,” she said, slowly rounding a corner.
“You’re nuts, then.”
“It’s just the beginning, Calvin.”
“Of what? Like, World War III or something?”
“Kind of.”
“How do you know this?”
“I told you,” she said, peeking at the rearview mirror, “I have my sources.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s not a person. It’s my computer. I’ve hacked into the A of J’s communication system.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“All military intelligence can,” she said with a grin. “They didn’t teach you that at Penn, did they?”
That time, I shot her a look.
“Calvin,” she said, suddenly turning serious, “I never got the chance to tell you … I’m sorry for your loss. This past year’s been hard on all of us. Can’t imagine how it’s been for you.”
I continued to look at Elena. This was the most sympathetic she’d been since I met her. I have no doubt that the events of the past year have weighed heavily on her. No matter how much of a bitch she may have been, the human conscience can only witness so many things before it begins to question its owner. Elena’s eyes told me she’d done a lot of self-questioning lately.
“I want you on my team,” she said without hesitating.
“Me? I’m not a soldier.”
“This isn’t that kind of war. It’s about what’s up here,” she said, poking the side of her head.
“That was just a helicopter.”
“And you saved it.”
I snickered. “Elena, you don’t really think we can stop all of this, do you? The world’s a pretty big place.”
“So, we recruit more people to our cause. Look, the people in this world deserve to decide their own fate.”
I nodded. Amen to that.
“My father was an émigré from Cuba and met my mother in Miami. I’ve never seen another couple love each other the way they did.”
“Yeah?”
“He also had a bad temper.”
“Was he abusive?”
“No,” she said with a slight tilt of the head. “Not with us.”
I glanced at Jimenez, looking at the corner of her right eye, waiting for any hint of emotion. She was poker-faced, as usual.
“One night,” she said, “he was at a bar. One of my mom’s exes approached him and insulted him.”
“They got in fight, right?”
“Yes,” she said, looking over at me. “They took it outside and my father beat him to death.”
“Damn.”
“My father was arrested and arraigned. They were going to try him for murder but our lawyer had a defense in place to take it down to involuntary manslaughter.”
“Because he was drunk,” I said.
“Right. But on the first day of the trial, the van taking him to the courthouse swerved off a road and landed in the Everglades.”
“You think it was the A of J?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “I obviously didn’t know then but … it hadn’t rained in weeks and it was in the middle of broad daylight. There was no reason for the van to swerve off the road on its own.”
“Why do you think they killed Josh Jenner?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, he wasn’t exactly the nicest kid.”
“Well, the intelligence said he needed saving,” she said. “I looked at his file. I approved it.”
“What if we were wrong? What if it wasn’t a coincidence the mole set up the Jenny Cooper ID for a subject that the A of J eventually … eliminated?”
Jimenez shot me a razor-sharp look; I touched a nerve. She’s still obviously sore about the fact that the branch’s intelligence faltered under her watch. Still, the question—one that had bothered me since Josh’s death—needed to be asked. The mole’s presence automatically rendered all of the branch’s intelligence questionable.
“Who else are you recruiting?” I said.
“Hamilton.”
“What’d he say?”
“I haven’t asked him yet. We have to go get him.”
“We?”
“I thought you said you’d do it.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet. Where does he live?”
“Philly.”
“Hell no. I’m not going back there.”
“It’ll be quick, Calvin. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“Right.”
“Remember how I recruited you?”
“Yeah, you poisoned me.”
“This is going to take two people. He’s a big guy.”
“You love knocking people out.” If someone held a gun to my head and told me to explain all of this to them, I couldn’t convince them of the truth even if I tried. Hell, these days I have a hard time convincing myself of the truth. “What about Valerie?”
“Who?”
“Agent Darling, your department’s up-and-comer.”
“Oh, right.”
“Aren’t you going to recruit her?”
“I don’t think so. She’s too young for this.”
“I think she’d be a good fit, actually.” While that’s true, I really just want to see Valerie. She’s the one person from the agency that I’ve missed since going into exile. “We get her, I’m in.”
Jimenez looked at me, a slight wrinkle in her brow. “I think it’s a waste of time, but if we get Hamilton first, fine.”
“Deal.”
In the hotel, Elena and I are placed in a compromising situation. When we take the last room in the hotel, we also take the last bed in the hotel … bed, as in one. Thankfully, it’s a king, so we declare our own separate zones.
While I shower, I assume Jimenez slips into something more comfortable. I won’t know for sure because, when I come out of the bathroom, she is wrapped in the blanket,
much like a caterpillar in a cocoon. All I can see of her is her long, dark hair against her white pillowcase. Wearing the same undershirt and boxers I wore to the bar, I slip in to bed.
“Goodnight,” I Elena says.
I turn out the lamp on my nightstand. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Not yet.”
“When we swing by my place to get my car tomorrow,” I say, “can I go up to get a few things?”
“Sure,” she says, the back of her head still facing me.
“Elena,” I say, “that thing with your father. Is that why you’re always so … I don’t know, serious?”
She shrugs through the covers.
“Hamilton said you had your reasons.”
“I do.”
“Well, you’re getting better,” I say, placing my arms behind my head. “Thank you for not making me sleep on the floor.”
“Do you think I’m a bitch?”
“No.” I stare at a slanted pattern on the wall as a streetlight outside shines through the blinds on our room’s window.
“Be honest,” she says.
“Maybe—in the past—I don’t know. I wouldn’t call you a bitch. I just think you could loosen up some.” I look at the back of Elena’s head. She doesn’t flinch. “I mean, what do you do for fun?”
“The Air Force and A of I were always my life.”
“When’s the last time you went to see a movie?”
“I don’t know. When I was sixteen, maybe?”
“God.”
“I guess it makes me sound like a loser, huh?”
“No. You made commitments. You chose to serve your country in ways most people wouldn’t fathom doing.”
She scoffs. “But I’m thirty-one, Calvin. Look at me.”
“What do you mean? You’re beautiful, you’re intelligent—”
“I want to be a mother,” she says.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Why? You don’t think I—”
“No, no. I just … you didn’t strike me as the motherly type.”
“I would like to be.”
“Well, why not start dating first? See what you like?”
“I hate dating. It’s all a stupid game.”
“Okay. Then do artificial insemination.”
“No way. I couldn’t raise a kid on my own. Wouldn’t even want to.”
I laugh. “Well, what do you want?”
“I don’t know,” she says, shrugging again.
I sigh and furrow my brow. “Elena, do you feel like … I don’t know, like you’ve missed out on life or something?”
Silence.
After a brief moment, I hear the faint sound of the cars on the highway outside before I hear what sounds like a sniffle.
“Are you crying?” I say.
“Damn you, Calvin. I liked you better when you thought I was a bitch.”
“You like being a bitch?”
“No. But I like making people think I do.”
“You are nuts.”
“It has its advantages. Nobody uses you.”
“So, it’s like that?”
“Yeah,” Elena says with a whisper. She rolls over to face me, tears in her eyes, her hair strewn across her face. She then places her head on my chest and turns away from my gaze. Next, her body starts to shake as she heaves silent sobs into my undershirt, each one more violent than the last and her toned core muscles contracting against my hip. With her cries intensifying, she clutches my undershirt with closed fists. Unsure of what to do, I start moving my hands from behind my head and on to Elena’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me.”
When’s the last time Jimenez cried? It sure as hell seems like it’s been a long time. I want to delve deeper into Elena’s subconscious, but now is not the time. Her wounds are now open and exposed. It’s only when that wound starts to scar that the issue can be broached, head on. Until now, Elena’s wound was a scab. Our conversation picked at it until it bled.