Chapter Sixteen
Heaven on Earth is what she called it. Valerie Darling’s parents own a vacation home on Clearwater Beach and visit it twice a year. I play the educated hunch and take the flight down to the Sunshine State. To save money, Jimenez and Hamilton stay behind in Philly, electing instead to crash at Nick’s townhouse in Manayunk while he detoxifies.
In town for two days, I’ve been mostly taking in the sun as well as a few sights. I’ve also staked out the row of houses on the beach’s main drag with no sign of Valerie or her family. Today, I’m hanging around the beach behind the houses. I’ve rented a large umbrella for the day and have slathered on the sunscreen. Black people don’t burn easily but I’m not taking any chances; I’m prepared to be here all day. I start my stakeout at nine in the morning and wait.
It’s now two o’clock and there’s no sign of anyone yet, other than the usual patrons down by the more public areas of the beach.
Feeling like I might fall asleep, I check sports scores on my phone. I take a peek to my left. Forty yards away is a short female—a redhead— in a two-piece bikini with a towel thrown over her shoulder. She closes the fence behind one of the houses and disturbs the sand leading up to the water. Halfway down to the water, she unfurls her towel and lays it down on the sand.
If this is Valerie, she has let her red hair grow out, letting it down past her shoulders. And I hadn’t realized the kind of shape she was in. Her stomach is as flat as you can get without a six-pack. She sits down on the towel, staring out into the Gulf of Mexico, her knees up under her chin.
As Kevin, Valerie won’t recognize me. Thusly, I want to avoid any awkward situations and make sure that it’s her before approaching. My umbrella’s situated in a manner that will allow me to covertly observe the girl.
In the distance, a speedboat skips along the otherwise calm waters of the gulf, travelling from my right to left. The disturbance of the water surrounding the boat adds to the light, salty mist permeating the air. On a line behind the boat, a parasailor hangs on for dear life high above the water. From their vantage point, they probably have a good view of the entire Tampa Bay area.
I look back at the girl sitting on the beach and see her raise her arms, as if welcoming the sun and its harmful rays onto her fair skin. I never knew Valerie to be one of those sun god zealots. Back in the gulf, the surf swells around the boat. It’s a little early for high tide, I think, but the boat rocks from side to side as the surf swells higher.
In the air, the parasailor starts to panic as the wind is literally taken out of his sail. I look back at the girl and see her thrust her arms in the air once again. The water swells again, this time reaching as high as twenty feet in the air.
“What the hell?” With a wave of my arm, I toss my umbrella aside, exposing myself to the sun. I stand up and run on the beach’s uneven sand.
The girl thrusts her arms in the air once more. This time, the waves swell so high that it nearly turns the boat over. Meanwhile, the parasailor braces for a crash landing into the Gulf.
Still fifteen yards away, I knock the girl on her side, attempting to disrupt her focus with a thrust of my right hand. The waves subside, allowing the boat to regain its footing in the now-foamy waters and move at a more graceful gait.
In the meantime, this can’t be Valerie. The girl starts to pick herself up off the sand, coughing up what she no doubt inhaled.
Within earshot of the girl, I keep my hand at the ready. “Tell me why I shouldn’t—”
I stop when the girl turns to look at me, terror in her eyes.
It’s Valerie. Red hair, blue eyes, freckles, everything. It’s Agent Darling, America’s Sweetheart.
“Who are you?” she says, squinting her eyes up at the sun behind me.
“Cal—” I feel my face. I’m still Kevin.
“Calvin?”
“What were you doing, Valerie?” I say, kneeling down beside her.
“Calvin … ”
“Who do you work for?”
“I … ” For some reason, she’s speechless.
I wait for her to explain herself before speaking through clenched teeth. “Tell me!”
Valerie closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “They hired me right after the A of I did.”
“You were the mole? Why?”
“Everything Richardson said, everything the A of I stands for is bullshit.”
“How do you figure?”
“The A of J stands for something, Calvin. Justice, just like our title says.”
“So justice makes it okay to kill thousands of innocent people? That’s real noble.”
“Collateral damage.”
I scoff and shake my head before sitting down next to her.
Valerie Darling has proven to be the snakiest of liars. Now, she can only stare at the sand beside her.
Swoosh!
“Look at me,” I say, grabbing her arm. “Take a good look and see what you’ve done.”
She glances at my real face. “I didn’t do that. That was your beloved Ronni.”
I throw her arm out of my hand. “Fuck you.”
“Poor thing. You have no idea.”
“Have no idea about what? That she killed Jenny Cooper? I know that already.”
“She did kill Jenny … before she became one of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jenny’s death was an accident, Calvin. Ronni was too much of a coward to come forward.”
“Bullshit.”
“The A of J targeted her but decided to recruit her instead. She terminated a lot of people,” she says, as though sorry to have to tell me that. “And the agency knew that convincing her to cause the wreck would be easy. She was weak.”
“You used her.”
“She had a choice. She joined us in exchange for making sure the police didn’t start asking her questions.”
“You’re so full of shit. What about Josh, then, huh? What about me?”
“You? More collateral damage. And don’t think Josh was a saint, either.”
“Well, no but—”
“He was going to kill himself, right? That’s what I led everyone to believe,” she says before leaning in to me. “Josh killed his mom on that boat, Calvin. He was a murderer and a drug pusher.”
“Right.”
“Think I’m lying? You saw Josh’s notebook. The clues were right there.” She’s right. Josh’s notebook was littered with scribblings that read I wish you would just die.
I’m more curious than angry now. “Why did they need you inside the agency?”
“To cause a diversion. While everyone was off worrying about you, I got what I came for.”
“Which was?”
“You’ve noticed the fact that Agents of Justice can change now, right?” So, she’s the reason why the A of J perfected the change machine.
“Then why Suburban Station?” I say. “That’s not justice.”
“Because the people in this world don’t deserve goodwill.”
“So you guys play God now?”
“Hey, we don’t do it any more than the A of I. Look, people need to respect the world they live in. This society is past the point of saving. We’re going to heal it.”
“Armageddon? That’s your idea of healing?”
“We’ll be better off,” she says with a shrug. “When people are at the point when they’ve had enough, when they beg for mercy … that’s when our world will be healed.”
I laugh. “You’re out of your mind.”
She stands up. “I saw what you did in Montreal. That was impressive. You should give me a call when you’re done buying into Richardson’s bullshit.”
“I’ve already got something lined up.”
“Oh, right. With Hamilton and Jimenez.” Another blank stare. “Well, you can’t catch what you can’t see.”
“Val!” a man’s voice calls from behind the fence. “Grandma’s here.”
She dusts herself off. “I
feel bad for you.”
“Don’t,” I say, rolling my eyes.
She slides her sun-kissed hair behind her ear. “Richardson’s lies have blinded you bad.”
“I don’t work for him anymore.”
“Good,” she says, walking away. “Just be careful, then.”
I hear the sand move under Valerie’s feet as she walks back to her house, swinging her gate open and closed when she gets there. I pull out my cell phone and dial Jimenez.
She picks up quickly this time. “I was just about to call you.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s happening again. Miami.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning. Hamilton and I are catching the next flight out.”
“Okay, I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“Wait,” Jimenez says. “Did you find Valerie?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what did she say?”
“She’s our mole, Elena.”
“Shit.”
“She was behind everything. She planted the ID, she gave us the false intelligence on Josh, and now the A of J can change, thanks to her. She figured out the Change Machine.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Did any of your intelligence staff ever run diagnostics on the machine?”
“No, only I did those.”
“Before the derailing, I walked in on her studying the machine.”
“Ay my God. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Okay, whatever. Just get to Miami.”
“Fine. Bye.” I hang up the phone.
With the sun’s rays spanking the back of my neck, I put my knees up to my chin and place my arms on them as I look down at the sand underneath me. To my right, a couple walks along the edge of the beach, their hands intertwined. I miss Ronni, even though I didn’t know her as much as I thought. Mostly, I miss the time when I still had her, before she killed Jenny Cooper, before I became an Agent of Influence.
That certainly explains her malaise the past couple years. I was so blind, so flattered by myself that I thought Ronni’s negative attitude had something to do with me. I thought she still pined over me. Instead, she was guilty. She carried the guilt of Jenny’s death—and those of countless others—every day. If only I had opened my eyes, if only I had listened, I would have known something was terribly amiss. Instead, I never truly got to know the person I held in the highest regard.
Meanwhile, Valerie’s betrayal eats away at me like acid. Everything she said and did was a lie. Her charming smile, her playful pats on the shoulder, all of her positive body language was just a ruse. Her brief career as an A of I was a dodge, just to cozy up to that damn machine. It’s made the A of J more dangerous. Their new power allows them to virtually disappear, vanishing from suspecting eyes as they destroy city after city. It allows them the ability to slither up to their case subjects in the same manner in which Valerie seduced me. Most importantly, it also means that Agents of Influence won’t know of their presence. In a roundabout way, that’s good news for Calvin and all ordinary A of Is. It’s terrible news, though, for folks like Kevin, Elena, Nick and any future Agents of Change.
It only comes as small consolation that I believe that Valerie truly does feel sorry for me. If the Agency of Justice wanted me dead, they would have seen to it that I was killed. Instead, I was a pawn in their game of chess. As I recall, it was Valerie who told me not to take Josh’s death personally, that I might not have been the Agency of Justice’s primary target. She knew the deal and couldn’t bear to see me hurt any more than I already was.
It’s a pity. Given the chance, if we ever cross paths again, I can’t say I’ll be so sympathetic.