“Last but not least is Megan Rudolph. Megan is our senior operator and Charlie Team’s second-in-command. Her specialties include interrogation, infiltration, and operations coordination. Prior to working for SPIRE, she worked for the FBI. If Megan says jump, you say how high. Got it?”
Wolfgang flashed what he hoped was a friendly smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Kevin stiffened, but Megan looked up. She appraised Wolfgang with a quick sweep of those brilliant grey eyes, her lips lifting in a perfunctory smile, and Wolfgang adjusted his assessment again. Megan was more than cute; she was beautiful. Not in an ordinary way, certainly, but that smile, however brief and stiff, lit up the room like a flare.
She returned her gaze to her fingernails, and the smile faded as quickly as it had come. Wolfgang swallowed and chugged his Sprite.
“Okay, then,” Edric said. “I realize the circumstances around Wolfgang’s recruitment are rushed and unusual, but—”
“We don’t need him,” Kevin growled. “It’s a liability having somebody we don’t know. I don’t like it.”
Edric’s tone remained calm. “I hear you, Kev, but we do need him. I’m out of the field until my arm heals, and you and Megan can’t operate alone.”
“Is he trained?” Lyle’s voice was as mousy as his appearance—little more than a squeak.
“Yes,” Edric said. “Like I said, he’s a three-year veteran of SPIRE’s corporate espionage division.”
“So, he’s got no experience with a team,” Kevin said. “He shouldn’t be here.”
Edric set his beer down and leaned over the table, wrapping his fingers over the back of a chair.
“Look. I hear you. But this is happening. If you’re not comfortable with it, you can leave. Okay?”
Kevin shot Wolfgang a long glower, then looked at Megan. She was still busy picking her fingernails, but she looked up and swept another passive gaze over Wolfgang, every bit as quick as she had the first time. He felt her look in his bones—sharp and penetrating—and he had the distinct impression that she was evaluating him on a molecular level, like an X-ray that searched for weaknesses in his body language. The experience was maddening, but something about her attention was addictive, too.
Megan nodded once, and Kevin grunted and folded his arms.
“Okay, then.” Edric wiped away the tic-tac-toe games from the marker board, then selected a red marker, and began to write.
“We’re going to Paris. Bravo Team was originally tasked, but the director reassigned the operation last minute. So, the pressure’s on . . . got me?”
Edric wrote Paris across the top of the board, then turned to the table. “Our primary objective is an unknown male, code-named Spider. He’s an anarchist suspected of running a complex, multi-national terrorist organization. His ethnicity, background, and true identity are all unknown. The CIA has been tracking him for the past six months and believe that his organization is preparing a terrorist attack for someplace in Western Europe.”
“Why?” Kevin asked.
Edric wrote “Spider - ID unknown” on the whiteboard. “Why what?”
“Why the attack?” Kevin said. “What’s his motive?”
“He’s an anarchist,” Edric said with a little shrug, as if that explained it. “Captured manifestos from his organization call for the dismantlement of all governments around the world. Basically, anarchists want chaos. They believe it will ‘restore natural balance’ to the planet. Whatever that means.”
“So, we’re gonna take him out?” Kevin asked. There was a hint of a smile on the edge of his lips that sent a chill down Wolfgang’s spine.
Edric shook his head. “Negative. In fact, our mission is to protect him.”
“What the hell?” Kevin’s eyebrows furrowed, but Wolfgang’s mind was spinning, already unraveling the puzzle.
“The CIA is in contact with him,” Wolfgang said. “They need intel.”
Edric pointed the marker toward Wolfgang. “Bingo. The CIA has an operator, code-named Raven, who has established contact with Spider and is slowly gaining his trust. Spider is meeting Raven in Paris thirty-six hours from now. The CIA hopes this meeting will provide critical intel about Spider’s identity, his operations, and the attack he’s planning.”
Edric returned to the whiteboard and wrote “CIA” on it, with an arrow connecting “CIA” and “Spider.”
“Wait . . . You said we were protecting Spider, though,” Kevin said. “From who?”
Wolfgang wondered the same thing.
Edric wrote another word on the whiteboard, completing a triangle with lines connecting the new word. “Russia,” he said, stepping back from the board. “The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has been tracking Spider, also, and they’ve obtained his plans to meet a foreign operator in Paris. As far as we know, the Russians are clueless as to the CIA operation, and we need to keep it that way. However, if we know anything about our friends from Moscow, they aren’t likely to ask questions. We suspect they’ve already deployed a hit team to eliminate Spider and prevent his planned attack.”
“But if they succeed, we’ll never know where the attack was planned to take place, or who else was behind it,” Wolfgang said. He leaned forward, his mind racing as he connected the dots. “We need more than Spider. We need the people behind him. The financing, the foot soldiers, the weapons suppliers.”
“Cha-ching. Exactly,” Edric said. “The CIA needs intel from Spider, and they’ll never get it if Moscow guns him down. So, we have to protect Spider—at least until the CIA is finished with him.”
“Why can’t the CIA protect him themselves?” Kevin asked.
“Plausible deniability,” Wolfgang said. “Spider is a global terrorist, and the US isn’t on great terms with Russia. If they discovered the CIA protecting a known anarchist, Russia could easily spin their hit squad as a policing team sent to detain Spider, and then frame the CIA as collaborating with him. It would be an international scandal. The CIA needs a third party to shield Spider. Somebody they can disavow.”
The room fell quiet, and Wolfgang noticed that everybody seemed to be waiting on Megan to speak. She sat still, staring at him with piercing, unblinking eyes.
