The Takedown

Chapter 4

4

We should go outside. Into the yard. Way past the listening devices currently implanted in our house.

Calla does try to drag me by the hand upstairs. (The hand thing is new. She’s a kindergarten teacher now. I imagine there’s a lot of hand-holding in that profession; at least mine aren’t sticky.) But I think quickly, gripping her hand instead—and pulling her toward the front door. Won’t she drive around our neighborhood with me? I’ve barely seen the Christmas decorations. “Come on, please?” I beg. “It’ll just take a second. I want to know if the Wilsons still have that big inflatable reindeer. What did we name him? Pudding?”

She’ll go for this. She’ll relent. My other option was to entice her with a frozen yogurt run. Random? Yes. Effective? Totally.

“Okay, fine,” Calla says. “Pudding. But we have to be really quick, so—”

The wind eats up the rest of her words, icy air pelting down our throats, but I manage to engineer her into my rental car, practically pushing her into the passenger seat and clicking shut the door. Once I’m in the driver’s seat myself, I switch on the engine, blast the heating, and turn to her. “You were saying?”

Her bright red holiday scarf is still wrapped tightly around her neck. She loosens it, reaching out and lifting a piece of my hair. “Why are you so soggy? Syd, it’s freezing out here. Your hair’s going to turn to icicles.”

I brush off her last comment, letting her hand drop as I pull out of the driveway on this Christmas lights charade. “What were you going to say? And are we just ignoring the fact that there are two random men in our kitchen?”

Calla bites her lip, her snowman earrings blowing back with the force of the heater. Our mailbox wreath flashes by the window. “I’ll get to them. It’s just... Do you have any idea how many times I’ve tried to reach you in the last month? I know you’re bad about answering the phone, and I usually don’t blame you—but this time it was really, really important. You know what? I went to your apartment.”

This stops me cold, even as I act naturally. “You... went to my apartment.”

“Or what I thought was your apartment,” Calla says, gaining steam. Little red dots are starting to appear on her neck, just above her scarf. “I booked a ticket from Boston to DC. I brought a bottle of champagne and a big bag of Swedish fish to your building, and your doorman told me I couldn’t go up because you didn’t live there. Where do you live, Sydney? I mailed you a Christmas card. It came back return to sender .”

There are so many elements to unpack in her statement. The Swedish fish? That’s our thing. It’s always been our thing. A callback to when we were little, and we’d spend hours after school watching cartoons and chewing stale candy from Grandma Ruby’s kitchen stash. Sometimes Dad would join us, lounging out in his wool socks, laughing at all of our cartoons; sometimes it felt like he was a kid, too. Less like a dad, more like an older brother. I’m not sure he ever knew quite what to do with us, almost on his own, a widower at thirty-eight. The one time he tried to give Calla a ponytail, he used a vacuum cleaner hose: just sucked all her hair into a bundle and tied it with a thin, rubbery band.

He didn’t do the discipline or the “fathering.” Just the fun. Grandma Ruby was always the gentle disciplinarian, the one we ran to, the one who stayed.

I swallow soundlessly. “I moved a few weeks ago to be closer to work. I didn’t—”

“ Please don’t lie to me,” Calla interrupts loudly, which is how I know she’s serious. Calla almost never raises her voice. She’s lit up equally with holiday spirit and fury, icicle lights from the houses flashing behind her. Her eyes look—just slightly—like she wants to break all my Christmas cookies. “I mailed you that card in November.”

Of course she mails her Christmas cards in November. She would do that. That is the kind of person Calla is: dependable, thoughtful, the first to wish you a happy holiday. And she’s right. I am lying. I moved four months ago into an unlisted apartment near the Lincoln Memorial. No one’s been inside it but me. (And an Uber Eats delivery guy, once, when my kitchen sink was overflowing.)

I hate lying to her. I hate lying to anyone.

“I had my mail stopped before then,” I hedge, making a turn around the cul-de-sac. Pudding the reindeer is nowhere to be seen. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“I’m getting married,” Calla says without the slightest hint of a pause, thrusting up a hand. The engagement ring on her finger doesn’t just sparkle; it announces itself. It’s like one of those flashing beacons they use to advertise a car dealership. My stomach gutters, remembering the jewelry store from the Jones file. Johnny didn’t... Johnny didn’t give her a ring from one of his heists , did he? Would he be that stupid? That arrogant?

Is she literally wearing evidence on her finger?

Those diamonds from the Tampa, Florida, heist never showed up on the black market...

“You don’t look surprised,” Calla says, some of the anger fizzling out of her. It’s more disappointment now. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

Pulling to a halt at the next mailbox, I grab her hand gently, examining the ring in the half-light of the car, physically unable to stop whatever my face is doing. I thought I’d be able to keep up the act, to not break character. To treat this holiday like every other mission of my career. But I’m slowly realizing... easier said than done. “Look at the size of that thing. People always say that in movies, and I really get it now.”

“Sydney!”

“Okay, fine.” I drop her hand, flustered—and settle back into my part. “I just met Nick, and we were talking about it downstairs... I can’t believe my little sister’s getting married.” It’s true. So is the genuine emotion in my voice. I remember when Calla married our G.I. Joes, and her biggest crush was the fox version of Robin Hood. How’d we get here from there?

Calla’s brown eyes soften a bit, and her fingers yank at the sleeves of her sweater. The black outline of a crescent moon tattoo, same as mine, peeks out from above the cuff. “This is kind of the point where you congratulate me.”

“Congratulations,” I say, throwing in as much warmth as I can stomach. I’m happy that she’s happy. But I’m not happy that she’s happy with him .

Snow starts falling on the windshield. Big globs of it splat , splat , splat . I stare at the oversize snowflakes, sifting through options of how to play this. I can’t just jump in with Are you sure Johnny’s the one? Two thousand percent sure? Before I settle on something, Calla adds, “It probably sucked not to hear it from me, but I really was trying to tell you! I didn’t want to do it over a text or in a voice mail. You’re my maid of honor, and—”

Damn it if my eyes don’t get a little foggy. “I am?”

“Syd. Of course you are. You’re my sister, always, forever, to the moon and back, whether or not you answer my calls in a timely manner... I love you, Jelly Belly.”

Jelly Belly . For my childhood love of jelly beans. The nickname hits me in the solar plexus. Calla hasn’t called me that in years. Maybe not since... not since the last time we saw a Cape Hathaway Huskies baseball game together. Our end-of-summer ritual, never missed, until it was. Calla never really liked baseball, so I thought it would be okay to let that one thing—that hard thing—go.

I inhale and let it all out, ignoring every single one of the Christmas lights. “Love you, too, Calla Lilly.”

Calla leans back against the headrest and scrounges up a smile. “Sweetie Pie’s going to be the flower girl. We just have to train her not to sniff Johnny’s crotch in front of the entire wedding party.”

“That would add to the ceremony, honestly,” I say before steering us back on track, my pulse picking up again. “When’s the wedding?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Calla says with another lip bite. “Probably in the spring. Johnny’s family has a big house in Boston. We thought we’d have it there. Classy, but simple. Family focused.” She pokes me with a finger. “You could’ve called to say you were coming home.”

“Mmm,” I say, calculating how the FBI might set up surveillance inside the Jones compound. Hopefully we won’t need that. Hopefully I can secure enough intel this Christmas, and the wedding will be over before the cake’s even ordered. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Well, it is. I’m very surprised.” Just then, she straightens in the passenger seat. When I look over again, something sparks in her pupils. Pure joy and inspiration. “Sydney, you’re here for Christmas.”

“Yes...” I say, unsure where she’s going with this.

“You’re staying through Christmas Day, right?” The sparks grow, like miniature sticks of dynamite, ready to explode. Shrapnel everywhere. Wear a helmet. “And Nick’s here. You two are going to get along so well. He’s Johnny’s best man. And Johnny’s parents just said they’re coming for Christmas Eve.”

I twirl my finger, asking her to rewind. “Johnny’s parents are going to be here, too? In our house?”

But she isn’t really hearing me. She’s lost in an idea. The red blotches on her neck are growing in the excitement, and I’m getting the very distinct and terrible impression that one of the most significant conversations of my life is about to happen in a Prius. “All the decorations will still be up,” Calla says, speaking faster and faster, “and since—sorry—I have no faith that you’ll be back in the Northeast anytime soon, even with advance warning, and I really want you by my side...”

No. No, she isn’t.

She isn’t going to say it. Calla is too meticulously organized for anything this spontaneous.

“Johnny and I should get married this Christmas, don’t you think? We could have an impromptu Christmas Day wedding.”

She said it. Shit, shit, shit. “Nooooo,” I breathe, feeling like the car is caving in. This isn’t Calla. Who is this impulsive, devil-may-care person? “No, I’ll be there. I’ll be there in the spring . Or the summer! Summer’s even better. You said it yourself, it’s freezing outside. It’s Maine. You don’t want a winter wedding.”

“I do, actually,” Calla says, as if the thought’s appealing to her more and more. “You know I love Christmas, and it’s easier for you this way. Less work for all the maid of honor things. Plus, I am never spontaneous, and it would just be so romantic—”

“Know what’s romantic? Advance planning. Vendor spreadsheets.” My chest is tight. I know my sister. I know my sister, don’t I? “Calla, this isn’t... this isn’t you. Don’t you want to schedule it all out?”

“Not this time,” she says, adamant. “I’ve realized over the past year that I hold on to things so tightly, and I’m also so rigid in my relationships. I promised myself, with Johnny, that it’s going to be different in every way.”

Well, that’s for damn sure.

Calla reaches out and holds my hand as we stop in front of our house again. “I want this.”

“You just thought of this.”

“You owe me,” she bats back. “I know it’s happening fast, but this really is what I want. To get married here, at the house, with my family.” She gestures out the window, where our yellow colonial stands in all its Christmassy glory. There’s a dancing felt reindeer in one of the windows; it looks like it’s doing a drunken, slightly risqué jig. Somewhere inside the kitchen, Grandma Ruby might be pouring herself a glass of chardonnay, getting ready to outdo the reindeer.

“I don’t need fancy,” Calla says. “I don’t need the elaborate table settings or the expensive dress. I have everything I need, right here. Grandma Ruby’s a certified justice of the peace! She can marry us.”

Like fucking fuck she will.

“What about Johnny?” I’m foraging for an excuse. Any reasonable excuse that I can say out loud. “Maybe he’ll think it’s too soon? Maybe he wants to get married at his parents’ place instead? This is a lot to put on him, Cal, and he might not—”

Calla shakes her head. “I’ll have to run it past him first, of course, and we’ll have to talk it through, but I think he’ll be happy if I’m happy. And he really does try to make me happy.” It’s like she feels the need to prove this, plowing on. “He’s even started learning about art history so we can go to all the museums I like and actually talk in depth about the paintings. I mean, what other guy would do that? Johnny... Johnny’s stable, and he’s really emotionally intelligent, and he loves me. I promise—I promise you, Sydney—you’ll love him, too.”

It’s the first promise she’s ever made to me that I know she can’t keep.

“Come on,” Calla says with one last squeeze of her hand. “Let’s tell everyone the good news.”

—

When Calla and Johnny unleash the “good news,” there’s an instant, joyous uproar. Mostly from Johnny himself. He hoots and pumps his fist, twice, like our kitchen is a New Jersey nightclub. Nick pours five glasses of cider from Cape Hathaway Farms, which Grandma Ruby’s brought up with a little shimmy from the cellar. Tears stream down her cheeks as she offers Calla her wedding dress (which, as far as we know, has been mildly pillaged by attic raccoons), and Sweetie Pie dances on everyone’s feet, thrilled to be a part of whatever the hell is happening. As for me? I watch Johnny swing Calla wildly in his arms, self-congratulatory balloons tangled all around them, and try not to ignore the churn in my stomach.

If I didn’t know who he was—who the real Johnny was—I might think they were a nice couple. Very much in love. He bops the tip of her nose, all cutesy, with his finger, and there’s an easygoing air between them, like they’ve known each other for much longer than a few measly months. Does he really love her? Probably. It’s impossible not to love Calla. But does Calla have any doubts about him ?

Or his friends? Like Nick?

“God, I love weddings,” Nick says, sidling up next to me, running a hand through his hair. He’s just popped another cider cork in a vaguely sexual way, and he offers me a tall, thin glass.

My, aren’t we polite?

“Thanks.” I take the glass, half numb, adding Nick’s cell phone to the plan. I’ll upload the tracking virus to his phone as well. Tonight. After everyone’s had a bit too much to drink. Trailing Calla inside, I’ve already planted a dime-size tracker under the bumper of Johnny’s rental car.

That way, anywhere the car goes, I can follow.

“You been to one lately?” Nick asks, taking a sip of his cider. The glug skates down his throat.

“I’m sorry.” I shake my head, preoccupied with Calla and Johnny. “One what?”

Another slow sip from Nick, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Wedding.”

“Ah,” I say. “No.”

“You’re missing out,” Nick says, still in joking mode. “Cake, the Chicken Dance, talking to random relatives, what’s not to like?”

I’m only half listening to him. I can’t take my eyes off my sister. How she’s leaning into Johnny, so comfortable.

When I was recruited for the CIA, I knew I’d learn everything there was to know about reading people: their body language, their motives, the things they try to hide. I knew that the CIA would provide a cover that I could slip into. There, I wouldn’t have to be the real Sydney, the whole Sydney; no one would get to know me unless I let them. And I didn’t have to let them.

Problem is, when you abandon your old life, it’s hard to keep an eye on it.

I used to want the distance. Not from Calla. Just from... everything else. Now, I’m kicking myself for it.

“Sydney Bean?” Grandma Ruby shuffles over to Nick and me, pointing at the record player in the living room. “Would you mind putting on something festive?”

“Sure.” I nod a little too forcefully. “Sure.”

Grandma Ruby runs her thumb along the rim of her glass, like she’s trying to make it sing. “Something on your mind, pumpkin? You’ve had that same look since you were a baby and you were trying to figure out how to pet a dog.”

This— this is why she’s so good at blackjack, why no one bets against her at the senior center anymore. She’s quietly perceptive. Sharp. She can read people better than most CIA officers in the field.

Outwardly, I cheer up, eyes brightening. I need to be as merry looking as the rest of them. Nick’s outdoing me with his stupid christmas sweater sweatshirt. “Just happy for Calla, that’s all.” I slip away from Grandma Ruby and Nick as nonchalantly as possible. “I’ll pick something good. Go celebrate! Go!”

At my back, Nick gives me a perceptive tilt of his head, wavy black hair shimmering under the kitchen lights. Despite the happiness on his face, his security professional mind might be picking apart my performance. I make a sharp turn into the living room, thinking, So! This is what an out-of-body experience feels like. My sister in the breakfast nook with a crime lord. Marrying him. This Christmas. By the stereo, I lean on my tried-and-true techniques for relieving anxiety. Everyone in the CIA has anxiety. We just know how to hide it better, how to harness it, and how to manage it in times of extreme crisis.

Silently, I box-breathe. Four-second inhale, four-second hold, four-second exhale. Repeat, repeat, as my fingers flick through old records, landing on a band called The Squirrel Nut Zippers. My dad... my dad used to play their Christmas album every holiday. He’d turn the volume up loud and do the Pulp Fiction dance, limp-wristed, just to make us giggle. He could really do Christmas, with the reindeer antlers and fake stomps on the roof; he’d actually get up there and trick us. Nearly slipped on the ice one year. Grandma Ruby had to tell us Santa was a bit clumsy.

I almost smile at this, the memory of Calla and me, necks craned up to the stomping sound—but then, ten Christmases later, nothing. Silence. A lot of people joke about just walking off one day, disappearing into the woods, but our dad—well, he put his money where his mouth was. As far as I know, he’s still walking.

I run a smooth finger over the record. He liked saying the band’s name. Zippers. Zippy. Zip-Zip. Zzzzzz...

My phone vibrates in my back pocket.

An encrypted text from Gail: Call me ASAP .

I might hear from my CIA handler once a week. Gail is oddly communicative.

Slapping on the record, I duck out of sight, climbing the creaky wooden stairs all the way up to the attic, not even bothering to flip on the lights. It’s private up here—and inside-of-the-fridge freezing. The cold starts numbing my fingertips, my eyelids... My eyelids are getting heavier. When was the last time I slept? Thirty hours ago?

Never mind. Doesn’t matter. I stand near the boiler for warmth and for a noise barrier.

“Sydney,” Gail says when I dial her. Her voice is crisp. “I’m not sure whether I should say congratulations, maid of honor, or offer you a Kleenex. Metaphorically speaking.”

I lean back to thwack my head—once, twice—on one of the attic rafters. You know the Christmas song that goes, He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake ? That’s not Santa. That’s the FBI. It doesn’t surprise me: There are bugs in the kitchen.

Gail goes swiftly on. “Needless to say, the landscape has changed slightly. Especially on your end. I thought we had more time, at least until New Year’s Eve, but once they’re married, Calla’s plausible deniability diminishes significantly. Of course, it’s not a wife’s responsibility to know everything her husband is up to, but...”

“I’m telling you,” I stress, still managing to whisper. Sound carries in this house, and I don’t want Johnny to hear me above the boiler. Or Nick. Or the attic raccoons. “I don’t think that Calla knows about the heists. She wasn’t hiding anything with her body language.” Not that I could see, anyway. But you don’t always see what’s right in front of you, do you, Sydney? “You don’t think we should bring her into the fold? Tell her who her fiancé really is and what’s about to go down on New Year’s Eve?”

“Absolutely not. We’ve spoken about this. We’d risk compromising the entire investigation. If your sister is innocent, by some miracle, there’s no way she could keep up the charade after we tell her. And then what?”

“Maybe we could put a wire on her,” I push gently, still wrestling with the choice. The spontaneous wedding—the swift switch in personality—has made me question my gut, but she’s... she’s Calla . “Who knows what Johnny might tell her if she prods him a little when they’re alone? We could give her a script, work in a specific question about the next heist that feels organic. Maybe tell her to ask him about her engagement ring. Did you see the ring?”

“I’ve seen the ring.”

“Okay, so—”

“So I’ll say it again: We cannot risk getting found out. We’d need much more information before making that sort of leap.”

She’s right. She is. Keeping this from Calla is my choice, too. “Then I’ll get the information. I’m planting the tracker on Johnny’s phone tonight, and I’ll keep working on my sister.”

It sounds like Gail sucks her teeth. “No.”

The flatness of her response throws me. “No?”

“A targeted approach is always better than a scattershot one,” Gail says after a moment’s pause. “No need to go poking holes in everything willy-nilly. Keep tabs on Johnny. Send me the intel from his phone and a close-up image of the ring, and I’ll see if it matches any of our records of stolen items. Keep a line of communication open with Calla, obviously, but it’s clear that you two aren’t as close as you once were, and my gut is telling me there’s a smarter way to go about this.”

Her comment slices its way into my stomach. It curdles there. True, Calla and I aren’t as close as we were, but hearing it out loud—from someone I met a little over twenty-four hours ago—is particularly brutal. “How’s that?”

“Nick,” Gail says, in the same way one might say duh . “You two clearly have some sort of... chemistry.”

The comment is a face slap. “With the Canadian guy?”

“What’s wrong with being Canadian? My grandmother was half Canadian.”

I shake my head furiously. “Nothing. That wasn’t a comment about his nationality. Just about him.”

Gail waits a third of a beat. “Since you haven’t jumped in immediately with a rebuttal, I think you agree about the chemistry.”

“Actually, I unequivocally disagree.”

“Too late,” Gail says. “The pause was noted.”

My jaw clenches. I see where she’s going with this. “So you want me to...”

“Make him like you,” Gail finishes, providing the answer I’ve already guessed. “Listen. Nick is closer to Johnny than anyone. Who knows more than the former bodyguard? Add to that, Nick’s new role as head of personal security and his friendly history with Johnny. This could be the break for us, Sydney. Nick has dated women in the past, and you’re a woman...”

Seduce him , she means. Seduce Nick Fraser.

I massage my forehead, which is beginning to feel like an ice cube. A throbbing, painful ice cube.

I’m confident about my abilities, but did it really have to be him ? Besides the fact that I trust the guy about as much as a rabid wolverine, Nick’s goal is to protect Johnny and the Jones family at all costs. My goal is to take down Johnny and the Jones family at all costs. Not exactly a match made in heaven. Also, it isn’t an even playing field. I’m me here. I’m only half undercover in my own house, in my hometown. So many things about me are already out in the open; I can’t dole them out strategically.

There’s no barrier. No protection.

I need that.

Besides, who knows if Nick will play along? Who knows if he’s even attracted to me? What if he finds me as obnoxious as I find him?

Apparently, Gail interprets my silence as insubordination. “Your organization does unseemly, unethical, and grotesque things nearly every day. The CIA makes political prisoners disappear. They facilitate illogical coups on foreign soil. All I’m asking you, Sydney, is to flirt with the man over a chicken.”

I frown into my palm and say bluntly, “I legitimately lost you with the chicken.”

Some paperwork shuffles in the background, as if Gail is multitasking. “Christmas chicken! Or turkey. I mean turkey. Turkey, ham, pimiento loaf, whatever your family serves at holiday dinners. Just be whoever he wants you to be. Get him to open up and trust you. I know he works in the security world, so he might spot warning signs—tread carefully—but he was already starting to open up in the kitchen, even after that disastrous shower stunt. I think we have a decent chance.”

She isn’t wrong. I peek over my shoulder, triple-ensuring that no one’s followed me into the attic, then whisper over the sound of the boiler, “What about Johnny’s family? If they come in early for the wedding, can you assemble a task force to swoop in and—”

“Yes, yes, it’ll be handled. Don’t worry. Go back to the kitchen. Your grandmother is about to make some sort of pie with... cayenne peppers?”

“Cayenne pecan pie,” I say, distracted. “She’s obsessed with spice.”

“Mmm. Now, Sydney?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t fall for the target.”

Seriously? Fall for Nick ? My brow fully crinkles. I’m used to the distrust. The CIA never fully trusts you—that’s what all the polygraph tests are for—but usually I don’t get this shit right before a mission. “Zero percent chance of that.”

“It’s happened before, historically. With other agents. Sometimes the lines get a tad blurry. It’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s fake.”

“Well, I’m not other operatives. If I can recruit foreign spies, I think I can handle some guy in an airport sweatshirt. You’re forgetting that I’ve done this before.”

“Not like this. Those were far different circumstances.”

“Gail.” I harden myself. “Everything will be under control.”