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jaybee65Title: Succession
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Rating: Probably a hard R, for sexual situations and violence.
Pairings: Contains Madeline/Paul (Operations) and Charles Sand/Madeline as well as references to Adrian/George, but this doesn't fit comfortably into "shippy" categories.
Length: The whole thing is 120k-plus words. There are 31 chapters, which are distributed among four "Parts."
Warning: Michael and Nikita do not appear in this story, except as minor references at the very end.
Summary: Set during the 1980's, this story traces the events that ultimately led to the overthrow of Adrian as leader of Section One and to her replacement by Paul Wolfe (Operations).
Part Four - 1989
Chapter Twenty-Four
The van bounced along the rutted dirt road, jerking Lisa back and forth against the operatives beside her. She did her best to ignore their grunts and sharp elbows; to pass the time, she played absentmindedly with the straps of her rifle sling.
On the bench opposite, another operative sat by the portable satellite uplink. The woman kept switching it on and off and back on again in an effort to adjust the settings, and the incessant series of beeps and clicks was getting on Lisa's nerves.
"Would you cut that out?" snapped Lisa. "You'll just have to recalibrate for the new coordinates when we get there. It's pointless to do it now." Not to mention really fucking annoying, she thought but didn't say.
The operative shot Lisa a nasty look and turned toward Bertold, the team leader, for support.
"You heard her, Valeska," he said, smacking his gum. "Turn it off."
Valeska rolled her eyes but complied. Bitch, she mouthed at Lisa when Bertold looked away.
Lisa was about to flip her off in return, but then she thought better of it. Why bother? After all, Valeska wasn't going to last very long. Lisa had reached that conclusion already, despite the fact that the two women hadn't spent more than forty-five minutes together. By this time in her career, Lisa could pick out mission casualties almost at first sight, and Valeska nearly stank of dead meat. If she didn't get her head blown off this time, then it would be the next, or maybe the one after that if she got really lucky. In any event, there was no point getting to know her. No point feeling sorry for her. No point disliking her, even. Forming an opinion of any kind would just be a waste of energy. All Lisa cared about was that the moron had stopped screwing around with the equipment. Glad at the relative quiet, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall of the van.
"So, Lisa." The voice belonged to Umar, a skinny, intense Level One who'd been with her in Tangiers the week before. "You've been around forever, and you know your stuff. Why aren't you a team leader by now?"
Lisa opened her eyes to find the gaze of entire team focused on her. All except Bertold, who looked away uncomfortably. He knew the answer already.
"My numbers aren't high enough," she said. When Umar made a face in disbelief, she shrugged. "I don't test well."
Umar still looked skeptical, but the statement was true. What she neglected to mention, however, was that she didn't try to test well. Instead, she made every effort to ensure that her scores came out exceedingly average. Her aim was mediocrity and therefore anonymity: she never applied for promotions and took great pains to avoid assignments that would result in anything other than the most perfunctory review. She was, quite intentionally, the very definition of "the middle of the pack" in all things.
At least officially. The team leaders knew better, but they didn't say anything to Adrian. Why would they, when having her on their teams kept their numbers high? Madeline, as chief profiler and the main compiler of test results, no doubt knew as well, but she kept as silent as the team leaders. She and Lisa had an understanding about such things once upon a time when they might have been called friends, and while those days were long past, it appeared Madeline still kept that confidence. Why, Lisa had no idea, but she wasn't about to start questioning good fortune.
So Level Two she remained. That way, she could do her job without any effort -- and, more importantly, with hardly any prep time. That was the key. Time was a precious commodity, something to be scavenged and hoarded whenever possible. She needed every spare moment she could find, in fact -- because she had a personal mission to take care of that mattered a hell of a lot more than professional advancement in Section. And she devoted every hour, every minute, every second she could squeeze from the day to it.
With Mireille's reluctant help, she'd been reviewing information on all the Level 16 children. There weren't many, no more than a dozen, but the sheer volume of data was overwhelming. Training programs. Progress reports. Psychological profiles. Medical records. All of it collected over more than a decade from both the children within Section and their siblings in the control group outside.
Seymour, she discovered, was an anomaly in that respect. He was the only twin; the others were all children of operatives who had left existing families behind upon recruitment. She had even surveilled several of those families when missions took her to the vicinity. A few times, when she felt particularly reckless, she donned disguises and talked to them directly. Would Section notice the occasional saleswoman or postal worker chatting with the subjects? She always half expected it would, but when nothing ever happened, she grew complacent. The all-seeing and all-knowing Section, like so many other things in life, turned out to be a myth.
And now? Now she knew everything. Everything except one odd detail: what were the references to something called Center that filled the children's files? Reports were submitted to it and instructions received in return, but Center -- whatever it was -- seemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the Sections. Maybe beyond Adrian's control altogether. Mireille told her it didn't matter, but she didn't understand: the only thing that got Lisa out of bed every morning was the overwhelming strength of her hate for whoever was responsible for fucking up her son's life. She wanted to know -- no, she needed to know -- who the enemy was. So she could focus. So she could plan. Plan what, she wasn't sure. When the time came, she'd come up with something.
Until then, however, she had to work on finding out what Center was. Mireille was clueless. Jules only knew that that it had something to do with Section's funding. Together, he and Lisa tried -- and failed -- to access any connection to it on the computer network. Lisa suspected that Walter might know more -- he'd been around from the very beginning, after all -- but she no longer trusted him enough to ask.
She didn't let Walter know that, though. To his face, she was still warm and jocular, full of friendly punches on the arm and glib remarks like "Hey, Walter!" and "How's it going, Walter?" and "Oh, Walter, you're so funny!" She never asked him "So, what else have you hidden from me Walter?" She never even asked a simple "How could you, Walter?" -- even though the question burned on her tongue every time she saw him.
Jules, Mireille, the team leaders: she could rely on them, to a point, because she had something to trade. But with Walter, all she'd had to offer was her friendship. Shame on her for thinking that was enough. She should have known there was no such thing as friendship in Section.
Bertold whacked her on the arm and broke off her thoughts.
"Hey. Wake up. We're almost there."
She made a great show of yawning. "Don't worry. I could do this job in my sleep."
***
Adrian closed her eyes and leaned back into the cushioned seat of the jet. She didn't want to sleep, not with a half-dozen unread reports spread out on the table in front of her, but the effort to keep her eyes open was just too great to continue struggling.
For a few moments she succeeded in blocking out everything from her mind except the noise of the plane's engines. Its blissful hum embraced her, vibrating straight through to her bones. But then the thoughts began to creep back.
Another meeting with a potential financial backer. Another rejection. Another avenue of independence closed. It disgusted her how timid they all were, these men of supposed substance and power, virtually cowering at the thought of what the Council might do to upstart rivals. After two years of courting them, her only successes had been with minor players: those too marginal -- or perhaps too stupid -- to care whether they offended the existing establishment. She'd collected pledges of support from several dozen of them. But they wouldn't be enough. Even collectively, they didn't possess the resources to render her self-supporting. If she cut off ties to Center and the Council now, she'd be bankrupt within months.
It was pointless to continue, really. This road led nowhere. She would need to rethink everything and devise a new approach, unwelcome as that prospect might be.
She opened her eyes. Through the window, lights shone like a glimmering blanket thrown across the dark landscape. She heard a thump as the landing gear opened and the plane descended. It touched down smoothly and taxied into the hangar.
She had scarcely reached the bottom of the rollaway steps when a man waved her toward an office.
"Telephone, ma'am."
She crossed the hangar into the office and took the receiver. "Yes?"
"Good evening, ma'am. Charles here."
She smiled to herself. "Yes, Charles. I do believe I recognize your voice by now."
"I wasn't certain whether you were planning on returning to Section tonight or heading directly home. So I thought I'd call and give you a status report."
She glanced at her watch. Midnight. By her usual standards, it wasn't late at all. On the other hand, she couldn't remember when she had ever felt so weary. The promise of home, bed and dreamless oblivion was enormously enticing.
"Go ahead," she said.
"Bertold's team was successful in Berlin. They liquidated the weapons cache with only one casualty on our side."
"Who?"
"A Level One named Valeska."
The name meant nothing to Adrian. The new ones were all beginning to blur in her mind. They came and went so quickly that none of them stood out anymore, for good or ill. What was it about them that made them so unmemorable? Perhaps the younger generation lacked distinct characters. Or perhaps she just didn't care anymore.
"Anything else?" she asked, her energy lagging.
"Only routine matters. They can await your return tomorrow."
Routine matters. What a meaningless thing to say. After all, everything at Section One was routine now. And for that she had no one to blame but herself. While she roamed the globe in a fruitless and rather tawdry scramble after pennies, she'd allowed Section to slip into dull, mechanistic predictability. Charles and Madeline managed most of the day to day operations in her absence, and although they were an efficient and thoroughly capable team, they were at heart caretakers, not leaders. Perfectionists, not innovators. Their Section was an anemic creature, incapable of growth, of adaptation, of the bold changes of course necessary to keep an organization alive and relevant. In short, they lacked inspiration: a quality Adrian possessed in abundance. Or at least used to. Sadly, it seemed to have deserted her of late.
She shook herself out of that train of thought. "Thank you, Charles," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."
She hung up and began the walk across the hangar toward her car. When the driver closed the door behind her and sealed her into the back seat, she had never felt so alone.
***
It was well after dark when Madeline arrived at her apartment building, and a light rain slickened the streets. Closing her umbrella, she ducked into a shop to purchase a newspaper -- she didn't actually want one, but a woman had been on her heels for two blocks, and it was prudent to ensure she wasn't being followed.
The woman disappeared down the sidewalk. A false alarm, but one could never be too cautious. Madeline paid for the newspaper, bid the proprietor good evening, and entered her building.
She dragged her hand along the banister in fatigue as climbed the stairs. It had been more than a full day of work, followed by two more hours paying a "social" call on Eduard, the head of Accommodations. He tended toward tedious, self-important monologues, and tonight was no exception. But she'd forced herself to smile, plied him with 80-year-old armagnac at his favorite café, and showered him with compliments about his refined taste. Once he was flushed with alcohol and flattery, she warned him with oh-so-sympathetic concern that Adrian was about to transfer his boyfriend to Pakistan. When Eduard became suitably alarmed, Madeline reassured him that she would intervene to prevent it -- which in turn made him suitably grateful.
The entire story was, of course, a fabrication. Eduard, with his access to operatives' homes and personal lives, was one of the best sources of blackmail material in all of Section, and Madeline had been working him for months. It had taken patience and persistence, but now she finally had him, and she felt a warming sense of triumph as she mentally checked him off her list.
That list was getting longer by the day. Ever since George gave her the order, she'd been systematically wooing sympathizers. She started from her base in Profiling, Interrogation, DRV and R&D. She'd hand-selected most of the personnel herself and knew she had their loyalty. From there, she expanded her influence to Housekeeping, Maintenance, and, more recently, Accommodations. Adrian considered their activities routine and thus beneath the rarified stratosphere of her intellectual engagement. Madeline, in contrast, believed that the very dull regularity that bored Adrian so much was, in fact, their greatest asset. They were invisible but ubiquitous. Individually, they were insignificant; collectively, they knew every single thing that every operative -- including Adrian -- ever did.
Medlab, although more peripheral, had also become a useful source of intel about people's secrets and weaknesses; she kept her informant there in line by keeping quiet about his addiction to medication. Other departments, however, were more problematic. There was Systems, run by the unreliable Jules. She hadn't made much headway there, and it worried her. Munitions -- and Walter -- was another challenge. Walter wasn't a threat -- he was too much survival-focused to stick his neck out for Adrian if he felt the wind was changing. But he wouldn't make a good conspirator, either. Madeline respected that he was good at his job, had developed a cordial relationship with him, and to her own surprise had even grown somewhat fond of his broad sense of humor, but she kept him very much at arms length. He wouldn't be a hindrance, of that she was certain, and that was enough.
The field ops were trickier. She hadn't done much fieldwork in the past several years, and because of her role in profiling and personnel assessment, she knew they saw her as somewhat of an adversary. She could work on them to a degree, but they were almost as wary of her as they were of Adrian. Nor did Paul exercise much influence. He had some allies, but he had alienated almost as many people as he'd won over.
That was where Charles came in. After Paul's demotion, he became the senior field operative and de facto tactician. He may not have been a charismatic leader, but the rank and file respected him as competent and fair. His dissent could sway enough opinion to doom any rebellion to disaster. Unfortunately, while he was by no means an Adrian loyalist per se, he was so very, very scrupulous about duty, honor, and doing the proper thing. Ordinarily, that was a quality Madeline appreciated. Here, it rendered him a wild card she'd rather do without.
Paul had wanted to kill him. He proposed tampering with a mission profile to turn Charles into an "accidental" casualty. It wasn't unprecedented. Madeline had, in fact, resorted to that very method to eliminate a handful of particularly troublesome Adrian sycophants. But in this case, she resisted. She told herself that she had good reason: that it would be imprudent, a waste of a skilled and experienced operative. She told herself that it would needlessly provoke George, who had urged her to cultivate Charles as an alternate coup leader. She told herself that Paul was being swayed by personal prejudice and failing to be objective. That she, too, might have some bias in the matter was a possibility she entertained briefly, but dismissed. She felt affection for Charles, true enough. But her friendship with him was irrelevant. Were he genuinely an obstacle, she would treat him as such and deal with him resolutely, regardless of her feelings. However, there was a better way. She insisted on following it, and Paul -- no matter how much he argued -- could not convince her otherwise.
To get people on their side, she used a wide range of methods: blackmail, lies, threats, promises, temptations, manipulation. With Charles, it was easy. She simply gave him what she'd always known he wanted.
She opened the door and entered the apartment. It smelled of beef stew and toasted bread.
"Hello, Charles," she said. "I'm sorry I'm late."
His face lit up happily, and he set down the report he was reading. "Hello, darling."
She walked over to the sofa and kissed his forehead in greeting.
"I saved dinner for you," he said. "You must be famished."
"I am," she admitted. "All I've had since lunch has been bread and cheese."
"Sit down, then, and I'll get it ready."
"Let me help."
"No. You look tired. Sit and relax."
She smiled in acquiescence. "All right. Thank you."
She settled onto the sofa, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Soon she heard the clatter of dishes and serving spoons. She opened the newspaper she'd bought downstairs and began thumbing through the pages. There was a transit strike in Lyons. The Nikkei index was up. Rumors were spreading of an impending coup in Nigeria. She smiled at the last article: she'd started that rumor herself.
"It's going to need a little time to reheat," said Charles, emerging from the kitchen.
She looked up from the newspaper. He stared at her with the oddest expression, as if he were about to burst into song.
"What is it?"
His mouth quirked into a not-quite-restrained smile. "I have something to show you."
Puzzled, she followed him across the room. He pulled open the glass doors that led to the balcony and gestured for her to step outside.
That morning, the balcony was empty but for a wrought-iron chair that was more decorative than it was comfortable. Now, the space was transformed: it held a miniature forest of trees sprouting from rows of earthenware pots. The air was fragrant with the scent of juniper, wood chips and damp earth. She stood in the doorway, transfixed.
"I had a fellow from Kyoto install it this afternoon," said Charles, standing behind her. "He'll come back once a week to teach you how to tend it."
She turned to face him. He was beaming, obviously pleased with himself.
"How on earth did you know?"
"You mentioned something once in conversation about liking the way bonsai looked. I thought it might make a nice surprise. It's our six-month anniversary, after all."
"So it is," she murmured, embarrassed at having forgotten. "I didn't get you anything, I'm afraid."
"The look on your face just now was enough."
Incredible. He had taken a stray remark, something said in passing so long ago she didn't even remember it, and somehow managed to give her exactly what she wanted. What's more, it wasn't the first time he had done so. All she need do was express the mildest interest in something and he would go to elaborate lengths to get it for her. He was so attentive, so eager to please her, that at times she felt sick with guilt. Until she reminded herself of just how happy she'd made him.
It wasn't really valentining if it didn't hurt anyone. It didn't matter that she had an ulterior motive. What mattered was that they both gained something from the arrangement. She took great pains to ensure that he did.
He wanted a committed monogamy, so she'd given up the casual relationships with other men. He wanted an emotionally deep connection, so she'd confided in him about her past. He wanted a relationship of equals, so she compromised and stood her ground in reasonably alternating intervals. Whatever he thought he saw in her, she became. She became it so thoroughly, she wasn't altogether sure she hadn't already been that person in the first place.
"You're too good to me," she said, and touched her lips to his.
No, it wasn't really valentining if both parties gained from the relationship. And sometimes, those gains took unexpected forms.
***
Paul took a swallow of coffee and immediately wished he'd opted for the tea. In an effort to be accommodating to their idea of Western tastes, his hosts had offered him some sort of powdered instant dreck that came in paper tubes. With sugar and so-called creamer pre-added, it was sweet to the point of hurting his teeth, and after tasting it he doubted any real coffee was included in the ingredients. But the jetlag from the flight to Beijing had given him a ferocious headache, so he swirled the liquid around a few times in an effort to make it more palatable. It was useless: clumps of undissolved powder clung to the sides of the cup like sodden paste. Stifling a grimace of disgust, he gulped it down.
Across the table, General Lu glanced through the sheaf of documents Paul had given him. The fluorescent light reflected off the lenses of his square, wire-framed glasses. The pages rustled, sheet by sheet, until he set them aside and stroked his chin in thought.
"This information is not credible," he said. "Red Cell has no history of activity in China."
"It's a new development, certainly," Paul answered. "But I wouldn't be here if we didn't take it very seriously."
Lu made a skeptical face. "You might have many reasons to be here. Why should I trust you?"
"Because you can't afford not to. If Red Cell succeeds in assassinating Gorbachev while he's visiting China, and you could have stopped it, well, I hate to think might happen to your career." Paul shook his head. "Forget your career. I hate to think what might happen to you personally. To your family. It won't be pretty."
The line creasing Lu's forehead deepened. Paul could tell he was wavering. He just needed one more little push.
"We're here to help," Paul said. "To share resources for our mutual benefit." He leaned forward in an effort to convey chummy sincerity. "Think about the long term. You can help your country and yourself. What could be better than that?"
Lu didn't answer, but the tension in his posture eased. He reached for a pack of cigarettes, withdrew one and put it between his lips, and held out the pack to Paul. Paul accepted gratefully.
They smoked amiably for a few moments, and Paul took the opportunity to examine the other man more thoroughly. He liked what he saw. The spotless uniform and polished buttons spoke of discipline and self-confidence. The fluent command of English suggested sophistication and a talent for diplomacy. But the general was no mere paper pusher. Paul had done some background digging prior to the meeting: from a peasant family, Lu had worked his way up the military chain of command through sheer guts and tenacity. Even more important, however, he had the reputation of being bureaucratically astute. He knew whom to flatter, whom to bribe, whom to threaten, and whom to ignore. He was, in short, a man who was going places -- and therefore the perfect person to cultivate. Not for Section, although it was Section business that had brought the two men together. No, Paul intended to keep this resource to himself.
For the past two years, Paul had been consolidating a network of just such men: rising leaders, all of them competent, pragmatic, and willing to look objectively at the world. Adrian, unwittingly, had given him the perfect opportunity to do this. He had survived his demotion to Level One -- humiliated but unscathed -- and Adrian, true to her word, had reinstated him after six months. However, he never regained the same level of authority. Instead, Adrian steered him away from most fieldwork and sent him off on glorified errands, cultivating "relationships" with sister intelligence organizations.
Adrian appeared to think it was a punishment. In reality, it was the best education he'd had since he joined Section. Meeting his counterparts the world over forced him to rethink the simplistic equation of good guys versus terrorists, of West versus East. Those categories were meaningless: fairytales for a public raised on cop shows and action movies. In reality, the battle was much more insidious, pitting the forces of chaos against the forces of order. To his surprise, he was learning that the defenders of order could be found in every nation and across the entire political spectrum. He intended to gather and lead them.
For now, his networking was entirely social. In the future, he'd build his empire with these men.
Lu stubbed out his cigarette. "I still don't trust you," he said. "But I will grant Section One limited access to Beijing during Gorbachev's visit. You can pose as journalists. We will share intelligence and cooperate on security. If we decide it is helpful, we may ask you to assist in a joint operation to terminate Red Cell operatives. But that is all. If we catch you engaging in any espionage, your people will be executed on the spot."
"That sounds fair." Paul grinned. Of course, their operatives would engage in espionage anyway, but that was all part of the game, and both men knew it.
Paul reached across the table to shake Lu's hand -- then stopped short when the door burst open. A thin-faced man in a major's uniform hurried inside. Lu looked annoyed at the interruption, but when the major whispered in his ear, his expression turned suddenly grave.
"I'm sorry," Lu said, rising to his feet, "but I must cut this short. I've received some urgent news."
************
To go on to Chapter Twenty-Five, click here.
Previous Chapters
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Rating: Probably a hard R, for sexual situations and violence.
Pairings: Contains Madeline/Paul (Operations) and Charles Sand/Madeline as well as references to Adrian/George, but this doesn't fit comfortably into "shippy" categories.
Length: The whole thing is 120k-plus words. There are 31 chapters, which are distributed among four "Parts."
Warning: Michael and Nikita do not appear in this story, except as minor references at the very end.
Summary: Set during the 1980's, this story traces the events that ultimately led to the overthrow of Adrian as leader of Section One and to her replacement by Paul Wolfe (Operations).
Chapter Twenty-Four
The van bounced along the rutted dirt road, jerking Lisa back and forth against the operatives beside her. She did her best to ignore their grunts and sharp elbows; to pass the time, she played absentmindedly with the straps of her rifle sling.
On the bench opposite, another operative sat by the portable satellite uplink. The woman kept switching it on and off and back on again in an effort to adjust the settings, and the incessant series of beeps and clicks was getting on Lisa's nerves.
"Would you cut that out?" snapped Lisa. "You'll just have to recalibrate for the new coordinates when we get there. It's pointless to do it now." Not to mention really fucking annoying, she thought but didn't say.
The operative shot Lisa a nasty look and turned toward Bertold, the team leader, for support.
"You heard her, Valeska," he said, smacking his gum. "Turn it off."
Valeska rolled her eyes but complied. Bitch, she mouthed at Lisa when Bertold looked away.
Lisa was about to flip her off in return, but then she thought better of it. Why bother? After all, Valeska wasn't going to last very long. Lisa had reached that conclusion already, despite the fact that the two women hadn't spent more than forty-five minutes together. By this time in her career, Lisa could pick out mission casualties almost at first sight, and Valeska nearly stank of dead meat. If she didn't get her head blown off this time, then it would be the next, or maybe the one after that if she got really lucky. In any event, there was no point getting to know her. No point feeling sorry for her. No point disliking her, even. Forming an opinion of any kind would just be a waste of energy. All Lisa cared about was that the moron had stopped screwing around with the equipment. Glad at the relative quiet, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall of the van.
"So, Lisa." The voice belonged to Umar, a skinny, intense Level One who'd been with her in Tangiers the week before. "You've been around forever, and you know your stuff. Why aren't you a team leader by now?"
Lisa opened her eyes to find the gaze of entire team focused on her. All except Bertold, who looked away uncomfortably. He knew the answer already.
"My numbers aren't high enough," she said. When Umar made a face in disbelief, she shrugged. "I don't test well."
Umar still looked skeptical, but the statement was true. What she neglected to mention, however, was that she didn't try to test well. Instead, she made every effort to ensure that her scores came out exceedingly average. Her aim was mediocrity and therefore anonymity: she never applied for promotions and took great pains to avoid assignments that would result in anything other than the most perfunctory review. She was, quite intentionally, the very definition of "the middle of the pack" in all things.
At least officially. The team leaders knew better, but they didn't say anything to Adrian. Why would they, when having her on their teams kept their numbers high? Madeline, as chief profiler and the main compiler of test results, no doubt knew as well, but she kept as silent as the team leaders. She and Lisa had an understanding about such things once upon a time when they might have been called friends, and while those days were long past, it appeared Madeline still kept that confidence. Why, Lisa had no idea, but she wasn't about to start questioning good fortune.
So Level Two she remained. That way, she could do her job without any effort -- and, more importantly, with hardly any prep time. That was the key. Time was a precious commodity, something to be scavenged and hoarded whenever possible. She needed every spare moment she could find, in fact -- because she had a personal mission to take care of that mattered a hell of a lot more than professional advancement in Section. And she devoted every hour, every minute, every second she could squeeze from the day to it.
With Mireille's reluctant help, she'd been reviewing information on all the Level 16 children. There weren't many, no more than a dozen, but the sheer volume of data was overwhelming. Training programs. Progress reports. Psychological profiles. Medical records. All of it collected over more than a decade from both the children within Section and their siblings in the control group outside.
Seymour, she discovered, was an anomaly in that respect. He was the only twin; the others were all children of operatives who had left existing families behind upon recruitment. She had even surveilled several of those families when missions took her to the vicinity. A few times, when she felt particularly reckless, she donned disguises and talked to them directly. Would Section notice the occasional saleswoman or postal worker chatting with the subjects? She always half expected it would, but when nothing ever happened, she grew complacent. The all-seeing and all-knowing Section, like so many other things in life, turned out to be a myth.
And now? Now she knew everything. Everything except one odd detail: what were the references to something called Center that filled the children's files? Reports were submitted to it and instructions received in return, but Center -- whatever it was -- seemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the Sections. Maybe beyond Adrian's control altogether. Mireille told her it didn't matter, but she didn't understand: the only thing that got Lisa out of bed every morning was the overwhelming strength of her hate for whoever was responsible for fucking up her son's life. She wanted to know -- no, she needed to know -- who the enemy was. So she could focus. So she could plan. Plan what, she wasn't sure. When the time came, she'd come up with something.
Until then, however, she had to work on finding out what Center was. Mireille was clueless. Jules only knew that that it had something to do with Section's funding. Together, he and Lisa tried -- and failed -- to access any connection to it on the computer network. Lisa suspected that Walter might know more -- he'd been around from the very beginning, after all -- but she no longer trusted him enough to ask.
She didn't let Walter know that, though. To his face, she was still warm and jocular, full of friendly punches on the arm and glib remarks like "Hey, Walter!" and "How's it going, Walter?" and "Oh, Walter, you're so funny!" She never asked him "So, what else have you hidden from me Walter?" She never even asked a simple "How could you, Walter?" -- even though the question burned on her tongue every time she saw him.
Jules, Mireille, the team leaders: she could rely on them, to a point, because she had something to trade. But with Walter, all she'd had to offer was her friendship. Shame on her for thinking that was enough. She should have known there was no such thing as friendship in Section.
Bertold whacked her on the arm and broke off her thoughts.
"Hey. Wake up. We're almost there."
She made a great show of yawning. "Don't worry. I could do this job in my sleep."
***
Adrian closed her eyes and leaned back into the cushioned seat of the jet. She didn't want to sleep, not with a half-dozen unread reports spread out on the table in front of her, but the effort to keep her eyes open was just too great to continue struggling.
For a few moments she succeeded in blocking out everything from her mind except the noise of the plane's engines. Its blissful hum embraced her, vibrating straight through to her bones. But then the thoughts began to creep back.
Another meeting with a potential financial backer. Another rejection. Another avenue of independence closed. It disgusted her how timid they all were, these men of supposed substance and power, virtually cowering at the thought of what the Council might do to upstart rivals. After two years of courting them, her only successes had been with minor players: those too marginal -- or perhaps too stupid -- to care whether they offended the existing establishment. She'd collected pledges of support from several dozen of them. But they wouldn't be enough. Even collectively, they didn't possess the resources to render her self-supporting. If she cut off ties to Center and the Council now, she'd be bankrupt within months.
It was pointless to continue, really. This road led nowhere. She would need to rethink everything and devise a new approach, unwelcome as that prospect might be.
She opened her eyes. Through the window, lights shone like a glimmering blanket thrown across the dark landscape. She heard a thump as the landing gear opened and the plane descended. It touched down smoothly and taxied into the hangar.
She had scarcely reached the bottom of the rollaway steps when a man waved her toward an office.
"Telephone, ma'am."
She crossed the hangar into the office and took the receiver. "Yes?"
"Good evening, ma'am. Charles here."
She smiled to herself. "Yes, Charles. I do believe I recognize your voice by now."
"I wasn't certain whether you were planning on returning to Section tonight or heading directly home. So I thought I'd call and give you a status report."
She glanced at her watch. Midnight. By her usual standards, it wasn't late at all. On the other hand, she couldn't remember when she had ever felt so weary. The promise of home, bed and dreamless oblivion was enormously enticing.
"Go ahead," she said.
"Bertold's team was successful in Berlin. They liquidated the weapons cache with only one casualty on our side."
"Who?"
"A Level One named Valeska."
The name meant nothing to Adrian. The new ones were all beginning to blur in her mind. They came and went so quickly that none of them stood out anymore, for good or ill. What was it about them that made them so unmemorable? Perhaps the younger generation lacked distinct characters. Or perhaps she just didn't care anymore.
"Anything else?" she asked, her energy lagging.
"Only routine matters. They can await your return tomorrow."
Routine matters. What a meaningless thing to say. After all, everything at Section One was routine now. And for that she had no one to blame but herself. While she roamed the globe in a fruitless and rather tawdry scramble after pennies, she'd allowed Section to slip into dull, mechanistic predictability. Charles and Madeline managed most of the day to day operations in her absence, and although they were an efficient and thoroughly capable team, they were at heart caretakers, not leaders. Perfectionists, not innovators. Their Section was an anemic creature, incapable of growth, of adaptation, of the bold changes of course necessary to keep an organization alive and relevant. In short, they lacked inspiration: a quality Adrian possessed in abundance. Or at least used to. Sadly, it seemed to have deserted her of late.
She shook herself out of that train of thought. "Thank you, Charles," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."
She hung up and began the walk across the hangar toward her car. When the driver closed the door behind her and sealed her into the back seat, she had never felt so alone.
***
It was well after dark when Madeline arrived at her apartment building, and a light rain slickened the streets. Closing her umbrella, she ducked into a shop to purchase a newspaper -- she didn't actually want one, but a woman had been on her heels for two blocks, and it was prudent to ensure she wasn't being followed.
The woman disappeared down the sidewalk. A false alarm, but one could never be too cautious. Madeline paid for the newspaper, bid the proprietor good evening, and entered her building.
She dragged her hand along the banister in fatigue as climbed the stairs. It had been more than a full day of work, followed by two more hours paying a "social" call on Eduard, the head of Accommodations. He tended toward tedious, self-important monologues, and tonight was no exception. But she'd forced herself to smile, plied him with 80-year-old armagnac at his favorite café, and showered him with compliments about his refined taste. Once he was flushed with alcohol and flattery, she warned him with oh-so-sympathetic concern that Adrian was about to transfer his boyfriend to Pakistan. When Eduard became suitably alarmed, Madeline reassured him that she would intervene to prevent it -- which in turn made him suitably grateful.
The entire story was, of course, a fabrication. Eduard, with his access to operatives' homes and personal lives, was one of the best sources of blackmail material in all of Section, and Madeline had been working him for months. It had taken patience and persistence, but now she finally had him, and she felt a warming sense of triumph as she mentally checked him off her list.
That list was getting longer by the day. Ever since George gave her the order, she'd been systematically wooing sympathizers. She started from her base in Profiling, Interrogation, DRV and R&D. She'd hand-selected most of the personnel herself and knew she had their loyalty. From there, she expanded her influence to Housekeeping, Maintenance, and, more recently, Accommodations. Adrian considered their activities routine and thus beneath the rarified stratosphere of her intellectual engagement. Madeline, in contrast, believed that the very dull regularity that bored Adrian so much was, in fact, their greatest asset. They were invisible but ubiquitous. Individually, they were insignificant; collectively, they knew every single thing that every operative -- including Adrian -- ever did.
Medlab, although more peripheral, had also become a useful source of intel about people's secrets and weaknesses; she kept her informant there in line by keeping quiet about his addiction to medication. Other departments, however, were more problematic. There was Systems, run by the unreliable Jules. She hadn't made much headway there, and it worried her. Munitions -- and Walter -- was another challenge. Walter wasn't a threat -- he was too much survival-focused to stick his neck out for Adrian if he felt the wind was changing. But he wouldn't make a good conspirator, either. Madeline respected that he was good at his job, had developed a cordial relationship with him, and to her own surprise had even grown somewhat fond of his broad sense of humor, but she kept him very much at arms length. He wouldn't be a hindrance, of that she was certain, and that was enough.
The field ops were trickier. She hadn't done much fieldwork in the past several years, and because of her role in profiling and personnel assessment, she knew they saw her as somewhat of an adversary. She could work on them to a degree, but they were almost as wary of her as they were of Adrian. Nor did Paul exercise much influence. He had some allies, but he had alienated almost as many people as he'd won over.
That was where Charles came in. After Paul's demotion, he became the senior field operative and de facto tactician. He may not have been a charismatic leader, but the rank and file respected him as competent and fair. His dissent could sway enough opinion to doom any rebellion to disaster. Unfortunately, while he was by no means an Adrian loyalist per se, he was so very, very scrupulous about duty, honor, and doing the proper thing. Ordinarily, that was a quality Madeline appreciated. Here, it rendered him a wild card she'd rather do without.
Paul had wanted to kill him. He proposed tampering with a mission profile to turn Charles into an "accidental" casualty. It wasn't unprecedented. Madeline had, in fact, resorted to that very method to eliminate a handful of particularly troublesome Adrian sycophants. But in this case, she resisted. She told herself that she had good reason: that it would be imprudent, a waste of a skilled and experienced operative. She told herself that it would needlessly provoke George, who had urged her to cultivate Charles as an alternate coup leader. She told herself that Paul was being swayed by personal prejudice and failing to be objective. That she, too, might have some bias in the matter was a possibility she entertained briefly, but dismissed. She felt affection for Charles, true enough. But her friendship with him was irrelevant. Were he genuinely an obstacle, she would treat him as such and deal with him resolutely, regardless of her feelings. However, there was a better way. She insisted on following it, and Paul -- no matter how much he argued -- could not convince her otherwise.
To get people on their side, she used a wide range of methods: blackmail, lies, threats, promises, temptations, manipulation. With Charles, it was easy. She simply gave him what she'd always known he wanted.
She opened the door and entered the apartment. It smelled of beef stew and toasted bread.
"Hello, Charles," she said. "I'm sorry I'm late."
His face lit up happily, and he set down the report he was reading. "Hello, darling."
She walked over to the sofa and kissed his forehead in greeting.
"I saved dinner for you," he said. "You must be famished."
"I am," she admitted. "All I've had since lunch has been bread and cheese."
"Sit down, then, and I'll get it ready."
"Let me help."
"No. You look tired. Sit and relax."
She smiled in acquiescence. "All right. Thank you."
She settled onto the sofa, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Soon she heard the clatter of dishes and serving spoons. She opened the newspaper she'd bought downstairs and began thumbing through the pages. There was a transit strike in Lyons. The Nikkei index was up. Rumors were spreading of an impending coup in Nigeria. She smiled at the last article: she'd started that rumor herself.
"It's going to need a little time to reheat," said Charles, emerging from the kitchen.
She looked up from the newspaper. He stared at her with the oddest expression, as if he were about to burst into song.
"What is it?"
His mouth quirked into a not-quite-restrained smile. "I have something to show you."
Puzzled, she followed him across the room. He pulled open the glass doors that led to the balcony and gestured for her to step outside.
That morning, the balcony was empty but for a wrought-iron chair that was more decorative than it was comfortable. Now, the space was transformed: it held a miniature forest of trees sprouting from rows of earthenware pots. The air was fragrant with the scent of juniper, wood chips and damp earth. She stood in the doorway, transfixed.
"I had a fellow from Kyoto install it this afternoon," said Charles, standing behind her. "He'll come back once a week to teach you how to tend it."
She turned to face him. He was beaming, obviously pleased with himself.
"How on earth did you know?"
"You mentioned something once in conversation about liking the way bonsai looked. I thought it might make a nice surprise. It's our six-month anniversary, after all."
"So it is," she murmured, embarrassed at having forgotten. "I didn't get you anything, I'm afraid."
"The look on your face just now was enough."
Incredible. He had taken a stray remark, something said in passing so long ago she didn't even remember it, and somehow managed to give her exactly what she wanted. What's more, it wasn't the first time he had done so. All she need do was express the mildest interest in something and he would go to elaborate lengths to get it for her. He was so attentive, so eager to please her, that at times she felt sick with guilt. Until she reminded herself of just how happy she'd made him.
It wasn't really valentining if it didn't hurt anyone. It didn't matter that she had an ulterior motive. What mattered was that they both gained something from the arrangement. She took great pains to ensure that he did.
He wanted a committed monogamy, so she'd given up the casual relationships with other men. He wanted an emotionally deep connection, so she'd confided in him about her past. He wanted a relationship of equals, so she compromised and stood her ground in reasonably alternating intervals. Whatever he thought he saw in her, she became. She became it so thoroughly, she wasn't altogether sure she hadn't already been that person in the first place.
"You're too good to me," she said, and touched her lips to his.
No, it wasn't really valentining if both parties gained from the relationship. And sometimes, those gains took unexpected forms.
***
Paul took a swallow of coffee and immediately wished he'd opted for the tea. In an effort to be accommodating to their idea of Western tastes, his hosts had offered him some sort of powdered instant dreck that came in paper tubes. With sugar and so-called creamer pre-added, it was sweet to the point of hurting his teeth, and after tasting it he doubted any real coffee was included in the ingredients. But the jetlag from the flight to Beijing had given him a ferocious headache, so he swirled the liquid around a few times in an effort to make it more palatable. It was useless: clumps of undissolved powder clung to the sides of the cup like sodden paste. Stifling a grimace of disgust, he gulped it down.
Across the table, General Lu glanced through the sheaf of documents Paul had given him. The fluorescent light reflected off the lenses of his square, wire-framed glasses. The pages rustled, sheet by sheet, until he set them aside and stroked his chin in thought.
"This information is not credible," he said. "Red Cell has no history of activity in China."
"It's a new development, certainly," Paul answered. "But I wouldn't be here if we didn't take it very seriously."
Lu made a skeptical face. "You might have many reasons to be here. Why should I trust you?"
"Because you can't afford not to. If Red Cell succeeds in assassinating Gorbachev while he's visiting China, and you could have stopped it, well, I hate to think might happen to your career." Paul shook his head. "Forget your career. I hate to think what might happen to you personally. To your family. It won't be pretty."
The line creasing Lu's forehead deepened. Paul could tell he was wavering. He just needed one more little push.
"We're here to help," Paul said. "To share resources for our mutual benefit." He leaned forward in an effort to convey chummy sincerity. "Think about the long term. You can help your country and yourself. What could be better than that?"
Lu didn't answer, but the tension in his posture eased. He reached for a pack of cigarettes, withdrew one and put it between his lips, and held out the pack to Paul. Paul accepted gratefully.
They smoked amiably for a few moments, and Paul took the opportunity to examine the other man more thoroughly. He liked what he saw. The spotless uniform and polished buttons spoke of discipline and self-confidence. The fluent command of English suggested sophistication and a talent for diplomacy. But the general was no mere paper pusher. Paul had done some background digging prior to the meeting: from a peasant family, Lu had worked his way up the military chain of command through sheer guts and tenacity. Even more important, however, he had the reputation of being bureaucratically astute. He knew whom to flatter, whom to bribe, whom to threaten, and whom to ignore. He was, in short, a man who was going places -- and therefore the perfect person to cultivate. Not for Section, although it was Section business that had brought the two men together. No, Paul intended to keep this resource to himself.
For the past two years, Paul had been consolidating a network of just such men: rising leaders, all of them competent, pragmatic, and willing to look objectively at the world. Adrian, unwittingly, had given him the perfect opportunity to do this. He had survived his demotion to Level One -- humiliated but unscathed -- and Adrian, true to her word, had reinstated him after six months. However, he never regained the same level of authority. Instead, Adrian steered him away from most fieldwork and sent him off on glorified errands, cultivating "relationships" with sister intelligence organizations.
Adrian appeared to think it was a punishment. In reality, it was the best education he'd had since he joined Section. Meeting his counterparts the world over forced him to rethink the simplistic equation of good guys versus terrorists, of West versus East. Those categories were meaningless: fairytales for a public raised on cop shows and action movies. In reality, the battle was much more insidious, pitting the forces of chaos against the forces of order. To his surprise, he was learning that the defenders of order could be found in every nation and across the entire political spectrum. He intended to gather and lead them.
For now, his networking was entirely social. In the future, he'd build his empire with these men.
Lu stubbed out his cigarette. "I still don't trust you," he said. "But I will grant Section One limited access to Beijing during Gorbachev's visit. You can pose as journalists. We will share intelligence and cooperate on security. If we decide it is helpful, we may ask you to assist in a joint operation to terminate Red Cell operatives. But that is all. If we catch you engaging in any espionage, your people will be executed on the spot."
"That sounds fair." Paul grinned. Of course, their operatives would engage in espionage anyway, but that was all part of the game, and both men knew it.
Paul reached across the table to shake Lu's hand -- then stopped short when the door burst open. A thin-faced man in a major's uniform hurried inside. Lu looked annoyed at the interruption, but when the major whispered in his ear, his expression turned suddenly grave.
"I'm sorry," Lu said, rising to his feet, "but I must cut this short. I've received some urgent news."
************
To go on to Chapter Twenty-Five, click here.