CHAPTER19
Georg
The trip on the snowmobile seemed no more than half real to me. I had spent the last eighteen months almost completely in the field, living the life of Georg Richter. Just having the men around me speak to me in American English and address me as Agent Gruner—my real last name—had disoriented me so thoroughly the frozen tundra seemed like a fairyland.
Or maybe—well, probably, really—it was Briana that had done that. At the FOB, taken aside into a separate interrogation room, I had had the chance to make my case to stay in the field. I had even had a not completely insane argument to make that I should take over Garonov’s entire operation.
But my heart hadn’t been in it, and it wouldn’t have been in it even if I thought the argument a good one—which it definitely was not. The circumstances would look much, much too suspicious. No, we had to take the not inconsiderable victory Briana had helped us win, keep Garonov and Ivan with the possibility of making them our own agents for good in the region, and send me home.
The real reason I hadn’t tried to convince them to leave me in the field for longer than about ten minutes lay completely with Briana, though. All the time in the chopper from Garonov’s bunker to the FOB, I had felt the hard restraint I had placed on my emotions starting to give way. I had kept them in check—all the various things I wanted to think about her and feel about her—during my debrief, but on the snowmobile, embraced in the chilly wind-rushing stillness of the night and numbed by the roar of the engine, it all came rushing into my heart and mind.
I loved her. She had betrayed me, of course—and she had enough training to know what she did even as she did it. I had seen it in her eyes, very plainly: she hadn’t meant to betray me, specifically, but she had spoken out of a selfish impulse as much as out of a generous one. Yes, her eyes had told me, she had feared for me—but she had also wanted me for herself, wanted me not to be taken away from her.
How could I not love her for that? And yet, as her own face had told me when our eyes had met, she knew she had ruined a very important plan.
I shook my head and felt the wind penetrate around the edges of my parka hood to my cheeks.
“Almost there,” the snowmobile driver yelled, jerking his chin back toward me.
Almost there, and I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do.
Thank everything good that I had the chance to do something, though. My station chief’s mouth had twisted up into a slight, lopsided smile when I had asked for a temporary transitional assignment with the Lumberjacks, but he hadn’t said anything other than, “I think we can probably arrange that. They could use your help as we figure out who’s going to take Garonov’s place.”
The email I had gotten from HQ in Washington an hour later, in response to my own inquiries, had put things a little more bluntly.
Reassignment of thirty days to Special Operations North Region authorized. Status of SRD Briana Tragner is currently ‘on leave.’ North Region Command SRD policy states that a SRD may request discharge following a Grade 3 or higher incident. The Garonov operation has been graded 5.
“When you see her,” said the CO of North Region as he said goodbye right before I had gotten on the snowmobile, “thank her for us. Your mission might have gotten fucked, agent, but ours just got a lot easier—and SRD Tragner is the reason.”
The snowmobile pulled up outside what looked like a utility shack on a failed, deserted oil rig. The driver didn’t even kill the engine.
“Bottom of the stairs, agent,” he shouted. “They’ll see you coming.”
“Thanks!” I shouted back, but he had already roared away, the better to make sure no one following his heat signature from the sky would notice anything interesting. I took his cue and went through the door of the little building, closing it quickly behind me so that my own heat signature would vanish.
Then I paused to think before I descended the little staircase. I didn’t really have any doubts about what I needed to do: I just had to make sure I did it the right way. The look in Briana’s eyes when she had seen my pretended scorn stabbed at my memory and descended to my heart, and I took a moment to replace it with the one I had seen there when she had blown my cover.
It had only been a few hours since then, I realized suddenly, though it felt like weeks. I would have to reconnect with her, begin relating to her as a real girl—a bad girl, but also on the inside, marvelously, a little girl, and a good little girl at that. I smiled, and began to walk down the stairs. I heard the lock click in the security door at their bottom.
Yes, sweetheart. We’re going to reconnect. And then, I’m afraid, we’re going to settle up. In every way.
* * *
Briana
“Daddy Trevor,” I pleaded. “Don’t leave me alone with him?”
I didn’t really know why the thing I wanted most in the world had suddenly become the one that frightened me so much. I literally had to hold myself rigidly still, sitting there on my little bed in my new bedroom, to keep from trembling.
“Are you really scared, honey?” Daddy Trevor asked. He stood over me, his arms folded across his broad chest and a slight frown on his kind, handsome face. “Or are you really excited?”
I felt my own face frown in response as I considered the question. I had fallen asleep waiting for Papa Georg to come, after my bath and a tuck-in from all three of my Lumberjacks. That had felt very nice, and they had assured me they would make sure Papa Georg didn’t go too far when he gave me what I knew I had coming.