Once Upon a Time

I’ve been in my room studying and Tanner has been in his office away from the office, I’m beginning to think he has a ‘red phone’ hidden in there somewhere. After about an hour he comes knocking at my open door and invites himself in when he sees I’m studying my Dutch.

 © 2010 by Lilith Langtree & Rénae Dáºmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the work’s Owner (copyright holder), with the exception of the private and non-commercial viewing by the reader who is also the end purchaser. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. Any and all images which may be shown within this work are taken through license under Corel with the exception of the title image which is Photo Credit to Irina Sheik. No affiliations, involvement or gender assignations through the use of these or any images of the subject or subjects contained within those posted images is to be implied, intended or inferred.
An Aldoennetti & Langtree Original.

My apologies to Teddi’s readers. It has been pointed out to me that there were several errors in the Dutch found in the previous two chapters. That was likely my fault as I applied my spell checker to the entire manuscript before breaking it into chapters for posting. My spell checker knows English and some German thus...

Rénae

I make some kind of a crack about spies and he starts laughing, “Don’t believe everything you see in the movies, Kat. The business isn’t like that. A lot of it is very dry.”

“Oh. Like the wines at the Dinner?”

He laughs some more, then purses his lips. I can see the wheels turning just like the other day when Irina told me not to interrupt Tan while he looked like that.

A minute later he turns and looks at me, “Stand up.”

I have no idea what’s on his mind but I put a halt to my study materials and stand up, moving away from the little desk to where I may stand without anything around me. He walks around me slowly telling me, “No. Don’t move,” when I begin to turn to follow him. He goes slowly completely around me touching my back softly and then my shoulder as he continues around me. I feel like I’m being examined by an X-ray machine or maybe one of those scanners at the image clinic. His wheels are still turning.

Watching my face he says, “All right, MAC. You want to try to help me and do some of this?”

The name Mac hits me like I’ve been slapped and he sees me recoil from it.

“Okay Katrina. How did you feel about that?”

“Not good. I feel much better about Katrina.”

“So Mac is bad memories and Katrina is happy ones?”

I never gave that much thought. I suppose he’s right but I really haven’t had much of a chance to collect bad memories as Katrina. I would prefer not to do so.

“Do you have any good memories as Mac?”

“Would you stop using that name? And no, I don’t have any happy memories as Mac.”

“So you would rather be Katrina?”

“I don’t know. That decision is still something that is still in turmoil and is causing me a lot of pain. It isn’t easy to be someone I’ve never been.”

“That’s right. It isn’t easy to be someone you’ve never been. And that’s how so many people get tripped up in this business. An incomplete past, a mis-spoken word, a memory mentioned which the cover should not have available to them... Any of these and much, much more could bring a person up on the enemy’s radar. And they watch for a long, long time.”

He stands there in front of me as he thinks, “What if you had to go back to being Mac right now and for the rest of your life?”

He sees my face turn white and suddenly I’m holding my breath.

“Okay. Same question but as Katrina.”

Some colour begins to return to my face and I begin breathing again.

“So you prefer to be Katrina, even though you don’t know shit about being a model except for a few days work and the coaching, which officially begins tomorrow by the way. You don’t know much about being a girl nor exactly how a girl would act in various situations because you don’t have a female experience on which to draw for new situations. You want to be ‘engaged’,” he uses his fingers to create quote marks around the word engaged, “as the female in a male-female relationship to a man who is possibly more than he seems and about whom you know so very little. You even want to help him with whatever it is that he does, again as a female in his life. Do you know how absurd all this is?”

My shoulders droop and I hang my head down, “I know.” I manage to somehow croak out barely above a whisper as I return to sit on the bed.

“Can you shoot a gun?”

I deflate further, “No.”

“Can you fight?”

I glance up at him then down again, “No.”

“Do you have the first idea of how to help provide a cover for someone who might be ‘a spy’ as you put it?”

Again, I whisper, “No.” as I continue to look down at my hands which shine back at me all manicured, polished, and moisturized where they lay on my lap.

“Then how could you be anything but a liability for someone who might actually be a spy?”

I shake my head and begin thinking. He’s right. I couldn’t fight my way out of a wet paper bag. I don’t know the first thing about how to help him if he might need my support. All I know is what I’ve seen in spy movies and that’s likely a crock of bull. I would be no help to him and could possibly be a significant hindrance. I rub my temples to try to ease the headache which is coming on due to the heartache which is threatening to kill me. One more possibility shot to pieces.

He stands there in front of me for several minutes just looking at me as I try to shrink smaller.

“ALL RIGHT.” I blurt out, “I haven’t the faintest about how to do anything to help. I’m just a stupid girl who’s not good for anything but being a clothes rack. Happy now? I was too busy getting beat up to learn those things nor much of anything else.”

He continues to stand there looking at me.

“Stop that.”

He continues to watch me.

“Tanner. Please stop that.”

He finally reaches his hand down to me, “Kat. Would you come with me for a bit? Shut down your lessons and put them away. We might be a while.”

Again, I nod absently and get up from the bed shutting down my computer and putting my lessons away in the night stand drawer for now before I follow him to his bedroom. I begin to worry when he closes the door but then he crosses the room to another of the many bookcases he has in the house. I wonder what it is he is going to show me when suddenly the bookcase swings open and there is a hallway behind it. An honest-to-God secret passage, or at least so I thought at the time. We enter the hallway which leads downward and he closes the bookcase, which from this side looks more like a door with a funny latch built into it at this end of the hall. We walk along the hallway which leads down and down, going through two more doors before entering a long room which I figure is underground and likewise must be at least part way under the house next door to his own. He later told me those extra doors were part of a ‘sound lock’ which help to prevent the sound from the room below passing up to anything on the surface.

At the far end of this long skinny room we entered there are two paper silhouettes which he draws to our end of the room using an electrical controller. Turning around I see a dozen or more firearms on pegs on the wall behind us. He goes into a small cabinet which crosses the wall under the weapons and brings out a small box, a pair of goggles and two headsets. Well, they weren’t headsets but I didn’t know that until he told me they are hearing protectors. The little box contains bullets and he takes down one of the hand guns, carrying it and the box over to a small shelf near one of the silhouettes.

He pushes a button on the side of the gun and pulls out this long thing from the handle. I’ve never been this close to a gun before but from the movies I know this thing is where the bullets are supposed to go. He pulls part of the gun back and now it looks strange and the barrel is poking out of the part he pulled back. He lays it down on the shelf which is between us and the target then begins to show me the circles on the silhouette, telling me the best place to shoot the paper.

“If this were a man then this is the best killing spot. If you’re close enough to be able to hit the smaller circle on the head,” he points to it, “then that is also a killing spot. Now I’m going to send the target back down the range and I’ll shoot at each circle then bring the target back so you may see it. After that we’ll let you try it once or twice.”

As he’s loading that thing with four bullets, I’m looking at the target which is now so far away I can’t even see the circles. My heart is in my throat. He has to be kidding. Me shoot that?

“Put on the shooting glasses and your hearing protectors. The shots can echo and feel like they’re pounding at you something fierce down here even with the sound deadening on the ceiling and walls.”

After he helps me adjust my protection, he puts that thing with the bullets in it into the gun then pushes on something and suddenly the sliding part snaps forward startling me and causing me to jump. He smiles at me and just as suddenly the whole room sounds like it has blown up. The sliding part of the gun is stuck back again and he puts it down on that little shelf before bringing the target back for me to look at. There are two nice neat little holes in each of the center circles. I didn’t even know he shot the gun more than once.

I don’t think I can do this. The target is now on it’s way back down the room but it stops about half way. I can just make out the circles. Tanner puts two more bullets into the bullet holder thing and once again snaps the sliding part closed. I jump again. Now he has me come over to the shelf while he holds the gun pointed down at the target. My heart is in my throat. He wants me to hold that... that... gun. I look at it like it’s alive and about to bite me.

“When there are bullets in the pistol, you don’t aim it anywhere except downrange. Downrange is toward the target or targets,” as he points, “understand?” I nod my head. He sends the second target downrange just so I won’t get the idea that it’s okay to aim the gun... pistol, over at the target next to us.

He very slowly and carefully talks me through aiming the gun... pistol, at the target and I squeeze the trigger slowly then almost drop the pistol when it makes a horrible bang and nearly jumps out of my hand. I’m scared half to death.

“Not bad for a first time. Okay, now aim at the head.”

How can he even see where my bullet hit the paper? I feel like I’m going to faint. I take a couple of deep breaths and suppress my desire to be sick, carefully aiming at the head of the target and once again the pistol makes a terrible bang and that slidey thing locks back. I keep the pistol aimed at the target but carefully bring it back and lean over it to look into the empty area which is now visible. No, no more bullets that I can see. Tanner shows me a button to press on the side of the gun and that bullet holder part drops down a little. He pulls it out of the handle and now I can see all the way through the pistol to the ground below. I carefully put the pistol down on the shelf with the... barrel pointed... downrange so I may stop holding it.

I feel much better now that it isn’t in my hand; which feels like it’s tingling. He brings the target back so we can look at it. The holes from my bullets aren’t placed anywhere as well as his, but at least they both hit the paper. My first shot is two rings out from the center and the one where I shot at the head actually hit the shoulder of the target. I feel funny and then realise I’m shaking and...

“Uh, Tanner. Is there a restroom down here?” I ask in dismay.

He chuckles and points at another door. I rush over and make use of the room, returning for further lessons after I also take the time to relieve myself.

The second time went much better as he showed me how to hold the pistol using two hands. Now I don’t feel like I’m going to drop it. When I shoot at the large circles on the... torso of the target my bullet actually hits the paper about two inches from the one Tanner put there. My second shot hits the head this time instead of the shoulder but too low to hit any of the circles. I might even learn how to do this. I considered telling him I would rather not continue but... how can I help him if I can’t do anything he might need me to do? Maybe the movies are right and spies need to carry guns.

We spend nearly an hour down there and by the time we are finishing he has loaded ten bullets into the... magazine... each of the last two times so we don’t need to stop so often to reload. I’m getting better and most of my shots hit less than three inches away from the center of the rings on both the torso and the head with the target all the way down the range. This is getting to be fun. The slidey thing doesn’t frighten me so much now either. We used up the whole box of bullets so he has me remove the hearing protectors and the shooting glasses. We put everything away except the pistol. Now he pulls a metal box out of the cabinet, looks at it and puts it back, doing this twice more before bringing a plastic box and a bottle of liquid over to the bench located at the side of the room where the long walkway that goes down to the... downrange end of the room begins.

“This is the cleaning kit.” He shows me how to clean the pistol with me doing the work. By the time he is happy with the way the pistol looks, my hands look and smell terrible. The cleaning solvent smells bad and then the oil makes a mess. I need to wash my hands, perhaps several times, and put some hand lotion on them. Damn. And I need to touch up my polish.

“The next time we come down here I’m going to bring kitchen gloves with me.”

Tanner laughs and pulls me into a sideways hug, “Kat, you’re quite a girl.”

I think he means that in a positive way.

“Remember, you tell no one about this. Not about the underground range connecting the two houses nor about learning to shoot. Got it?”

“Got it.” This is almost as good as a secret between girl friends.

“Now. This is a secure area. We may talk here and there is little chance anything we say will be overheard. A team comes in here every few days and sweeps for bugs but so far there haven’t been any. You wanted to know and I said I would tell you a little. I’m not a spy, exactly. I’m what is usually known as a ‘free agent’, except I only work for certain US agencies if I do happen to do anything. That basically means I don’t work directly for an Agency but I do keep in contact and let them know where I’m going whenever I go overseas. If they have a need for me they let me know exactly what they expect and we negotiate a price. I then perform that service and they pay me through one means or another. My principle business is photography.

My travels don’t coincide all that often but when they do, it can relieve the pressure on an agent in place as well as sometimes get information out through an unexpected route when the agent in place is being watched since they might be suspect. Usually when the enemy finds the information drop is gone and the AIP hasn’t gone near the drop they figure they have the wrong person shadowed which takes the heat off that agent.

Further, I know a number of languages but don’t let on that I know them. That allows me to hear things and sometimes pick up valuable information which a known or suspected agent might never hear. Again that is unlikely to ever happen.

My instructions are usually brought into this room and left for me, or e-mailed and sometimes even given to me verbally or otherwise in very public places. If you want to start helping while we are on shoots in foreign countries then you need to learn more than Dutch. I’m ordering Russian, probably at least one dialect of Arabic and possibly one of Chinese for starters. We’ll see how you do. If you pick them up as fast as you have been Dutch then we’ll try you on a few more. BUT, and this is very important, you cannot allow ANYONE to suspect you understand these languages. And that’s a lot more difficult to do than it sounds.

If we need to talk without anyone overhearing us then we need to come down here, understand?”

“Yes, Tanner. I understand.”

He looks into my eyes and partially smiles, nodding his head, “Good. Let’s go upstairs and eat some supper.”

We have followed the hallway back to the house and he’s about to open the bookcase door when I grab him and pull him back for a moment. “Thank you, Tanner. Thank you so much.” My arms drop to his torso and hug him tight as I lay my head against his chest. He holds me without hugging quite as much as am I then we let go and I look into his eyes with a happy smile. He opens the door and we go through into the bedroom and after the bookcase is closed we exit the bedroom and go hunt through his TV dinner collection for something edible.

We finish supper and he even allows me to eat my dessert. Perhaps that was supposed to be my reward for beginning to learn to shoot. There must be a lot more to this stuff than shooting guns and learning languages, especially since he told me that I should know how to shoot even though it is very unlikely that I would ever need to do it and talked about listening to people without them knowing we understand their language. I thought some more about other things he said while we were downstairs.

“Contrary to the portrayal of spies in the movies, carrying guns all the time and shooting people seldom happens. Think of it this way, how many accountants do you see carrying weapons and shooting people?”

He had me there. I’ve never seen an accountant carrying a gun nor shooting anyone. I shrugged my shoulders.

He continued, “Much of spying is really information gathering and that is more of a quiet, routine thing. Like going on a photo shoot and taking pictures. Sometimes the subject is a person who is either in the foreground or in the background and sometimes it is simply buildings which are suspected of being used for a purpose different than that which is stated or generally obvious... Like a hospital being used as a civilian cover above an underground munitions bunker or command center. Going around a city with a model and taking publicity photos is a great cover for the few shots which are really the whole purpose of the exercise.

Sometimes someone else provides the information and in that case the agent collects the information and forwards it to the appropriate handler or agency. Again, moving around a city with a model to take publicity photos is still a great cover and they may simply sit to rest for a few moments while they discuss the next location and the clothing to be worn for the shoot. Somewhere during this simple activity the actual information is retrieved from the dead drop where they are sitting or standing during the shoot and then they are on their way to continue the shoot. When the drop is suspected to be under surveillance then it is a little more difficult but there are still ways to accomplish the task.

Dead drops are not used as much as they once were but still it is one method which has a history of working. A brush-by is another which is not used so much since it places two people together in a potentially compromising location and time if one is being followed. It is a great way of getting rid of something though. You brush by the wrong person and give them the ‘package’ then their state security arrests them or just as frequently does not because they didn’t expect you to pass it to someone they never suspected even though you ‘accidentally’ bump into them. Later the correct recipient may also bump into them when they are not under surveillance and thus retrieves the ‘package’. It can work once but not usually more than that.”

My mind comes back to the present just as Tanner smiles, “You better get to your room, Kat. You’ve still got some studying to do and then you need to get to sleep because we’ll be up early again. Tomorrow we have an envelope to send out and we have a couple of shoots to do then you’ll have a busy afternoon with the modeling coach. Tomorrow evening we also have Emerson’s location shoot. The rest of the week is also going to be very busy for you. How are you doing on your Dutch by the way?”

“Mijn lessen gaat goed, dank je.”

“That’s good because I’m sending for those courses I mentioned earlier.”

“Russisch? Ik heb niet klaar met deze cursus.”

“Maybe you haven’t finished the course, but right now you need the Russian worse than the Dutch.”

“Geweldig. Thanks a lot.” I say to him facetiously.

“Yes, if you can learn enough of it quickly it will be ‘wonderful’, and you’re welcome.”

to be continued