Chapter 4
Four
John’s world tilted. A knock interrupted the booming silence between him and the woman he’d thought he loved. Vivian Flint from Baltimore. Not Jane Marie Davis from Denver.
“Is your middle name Marie?” he asked.
She reached for the knob. “No.”
A silver-haired Black woman strode into the room. The fluorescent overheads’ gleaming reflection in her glasses obscured her eyes as she swiveled her gaze between him and not-Jane.
“I hear congratulations are in order?”
Vivian nodded. “Pending the polygraph.”
John’s brain cramped. “Pending nothing. You’ve lied for our whole relationship.”
She folded her arms. “I wasn’t permitted to disclose my identity.”
Liars got under his skin. Which she knew. Just like he knew Jane didn’t tolerate littering, line-cutting, or listening to phones without headphones in public spaces. Big public displays of emotion were also a no-go for her.
His stomach oiled.
But this wasn’t Jane. This was Vivian, and he had no fucking clue what made her tick.
“Lean forward.” The polygrapher snugged a band around his lower abdomen, followed by another around his chest.
“I’m not doing this.” He tried to stand, but the surprisingly strong polygrapher pressed him back into the chair’s squishy embrace.
“No need to be nervous.” Velcro crackled as she adjusted the blood pressure cuff on his biceps. “It only takes two to four hours.”
“Am I under arrest?”
The woman laughed. “You were right, Viv. He is funny.”
He locked eyes with Vivian. “What else have you said about me?”
“All good things,” the polygrapher assured him as she capped his ring finger with a monitor, then stuck two adhesive circles to the back of his other hand. “Ready to start?”
“No,” he said.
The woman chuckled again as the machine whirred to life.
Paper flowed under gently undulating ink needles, then curled into a collection bin.
He preferred to stare at the machine rather than Jane.
Vivian, dammit. Because if he locked eyes with her, the sadness, anger and humiliation building within him would burst forth.
At the moment, numb seemed the better choice.
The polygrapher sat at the table’s other side. “Did Vivian explain how this works?”
He shook his head. “I just learned she was Vivian a minute ago.”
“Girl, what?” The older woman shot Vivian a look.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell him, Beverly.”
“You’re Beverly?” John asked. Jane—not Jane, Vivian—had described Beverly as the office mom, the person who remembered everyone’s birthdays and work anniversaries, sent them home if they had the sniffles, and kept their boss in check since she’d been on the job longer.
“The one and only.” She gestured to the cables and cords wrapped around him. “Here are the basics. This machine is sensitive to biometric inputs. Pulse rate, perspiration, movements in the chair. It isn’t perfect, but it picks up on strong reactions, which usually signal lies.”
“I don’t lie.” He stared at the poster of a calm lake behind Vivian. “Unlike some people.”
“Shots fired!” Beverly laughed again. “Listen, I’m not here to mediate. Let me ask my questions and get back to my weekend, and you two can figure out your wedding plans.”
Wedding plans?
He’d asked Jane Marie Davis to marry him, not Vivian Question Mark Flint.
He clutched the armrests. “If we aren’t engaged, can we stop this?”
Vivian flinched. “John—”
“Well, that spiked the needles.” Beverly marked the paper with a red pen. “Since I’ve gone to the trouble to hook you up, let’s ask a few questions. Vivian, mind stepping outside?”
“Okay.” She opened the door. “Be kind to him.”
Vivian slipped into the hallway, leaving him alone with Beverly.
“Okay, young man.” Beverly uncapped more pens. “To start, I’ll ask you three questions. Answer truthfully, yes or no, and don’t get in your head about them. I don’t ask trick questions. So here we go. Is your name John Carroll Seymour?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Are you thirty-four years old?”
“Yes.”
“Do you live in Washington, DC?”
“Yes.”
The temptation to add context tugged at him. He’d just turned thirty-four in May, which was how old his parents were when they got married. And yes, he lived in DC now, but had lived all over the world growing up.
“Good. Now I’ll repeat those questions, but this time, lie so I can get a baseline for how your body responds when you’re deceptive. Is your name John Carroll Seymour?”
“No.” The needles danced wildly.
No surprise there. Lies made him desperate to move, to run, to outpace the discomfort building in his body. Always had.
Beverly whistled as she marked the paper. “Are you thirty-four?”
“No.” More skittering needles.
“Might not even take a half hour,” Beverly murmured. “Do you live in Washington, DC?”
The needles waved before he lied this time. “No.”
“It’s like you can’t lie,” Beverly said. “I’ve got my baseline. For the rest of these, I’d like you to answer truthfully. Are you an American citizen?”
“Yes.” No noise from the needles.
“You were born in Belgium. Are you Belgian?”
“No.” Could he shake his head? Better not. “My parents work for the State Department and were abroad when I was born. They didn’t claim Belgian nationality for me.”
Beverly’s seat creaked. “Do you have frequent contact with any foreign nationals?”
“Yes.” People he’d known for years through work, but he didn’t offer details.
“Are these personal contacts?”
“No. Colleagues at the Smithsonian.”
“Do you have reason to believe any of them work for foreign intelligence services?”
“No,” he said.
“Have you ever committed a crime?”
That was a left turn. “Yes.”
“Tell me more.”
“I walk against traffic signals. When I drive, I speed, things like that. Sixteen years ago, I got into trouble in France for picking the lock at my high school. I’d forgotten a book I needed over the weekend.”
He’d acquired the habit in rebellion against his parents’ secrecy, but he’d never been able to crack into the safe they kept in their bedroom.
“Have you picked any locks in the past year?”
“No.” The needles remained still.
“Are you engaged to Vivian Flint?”
The calm needles rioted. “Still wrapping my head around that one. Technically, yes, I’m engaged to Vivian Flint.”
Her name felt strange in his mouth. Like a foreign phrase.
“Do you love her?”
“How is that relevant?”
“People aren’t clear-eyed about their romantic partners. We need to ensure those partners aren’t using agents for access to sensitive information. So, do you love Vivian Flint?”
“Yes.” The needles didn’t move.
Love had never been the problem.
But trust would be.
* * *
In the antechamber to the interrogation room, Vivian clutched the two-way mirror’s sill. John was done with her. This hurt worse than pepper spray to the eyes, a pain she’d endured during training.
She pressed her forehead to the glass.
Since college, she’d let men go before they could leave her.
Treated everyone as a fling to avoid rejection.
She’d started with John that way, but he seemingly adored her and her love of art, game nights and sweary tirades.
He’d introduced her to his family, invited her to move in with him and accepted it when she kept her Arlington apartment.
She swiped a tear from her eye.
No. There’s no crying in spy craft.
A decade ago, during her first night in her chilly bunk at the Farm, when she’d been scared and exhausted from the training and close to breaking, she’d promised herself she’d never cry at work. She would not break her pledge over a man. Even one she was terrified to lose.
A shadow filled the doorway. “Flint?”
Great. Like she wanted to deal with her boss while her heart was shredding itself.
She turned to MacColl. “Hello, sir.”
“That him?” He entered the room. “Looks short. And scruffy.”
“He’s six-three, and he’s not scruffy.”
MacColl favored suits, a high and tight haircut, and a shave so close it was more like exfoliation. For him, a bearded man in business casual was one step away from a hippie.
He flicked the eavesdrop switch in time to hear John say, “I can’t trust her.”
She tried to keep it together like a bomb disposal unit that barely quaked while chaos ate its insides.
“You good to give a mission update?”
“Yes, sir.” Didn’t matter if her personal life was imploding. Country came first, always.
“So, what the fuck with the Rocksy auction?”
“As expected, when the auctioneer gaveled the win, Rocksy remotely triggered it. My auction house contact said Jean-Michel repped both the seller and the buyer. Buyer’s unknown. Best I could find is they’re based in the Cayman Islands.”
“Take that to Digger.”
Digger, aka Anjali Patel, was a fellow Georgetown grad with a reputation for cracking codes and untangling twisty business ownership schemes.
Other CIA officers snarked that their work wasn’t real agenting, but Vivian and Anjali had snatched a ton of laundered money from organized crime bosses’ and terrorists’ pockets.
“Will Jean-Michel be a problem?”
“Affirmative. He’s pledged to unmask Rocksy.”
“That can’t happen.” MacColl leaned back in his chair. “You brought the drive?”
She reached into her purse. “Right here, sir.”
Beverly’s voice interrupted on the other side of the glass. “When did you and Ms. Flint begin a sexual relationship?”
Vivian’s fingers stiffened around the drive. Her boss did not need to hear she happily jumped into bed with John on their first date.
“Can we…?”
“Sure.” MacColl flipped the switch on the speaker.
“Thanks, sir.” She dropped the drive in his palm.
MacColl turned it end over end while eyeballing her. “Your nonofficial travel request says you’re heading to Copenhagen?”
If she couldn’t turn this around, she might be moving her shit out of John’s apartment. But she didn’t need to involve MacColl in her personal life.
“Correct,” she said.
“How available are you while you’re on leave?”
“Somewhat.” Constant availability was another job reality. “Why?”