39. Sheer Genetics
sheer genetics
Strider
Sliding my hand into my pocket, I find my phone, ready to dial nine-one-one.
“Come now. That won’t be necessary,” the smooth feminine voice says. “Have a seat.”
“All due respect… No.” I shift my weight from foot to foot.
“You’ll want to hear what I have to say.” She tilts her chin to my sofa as if she expects me to obey her whims.
I study the woman. She’s lean and fit, with short blondish hair, and looks vaguely familiar. One leg is draped over the other in tailored slacks. She doesn’t look concerned at all that she’s trespassing, or that I’m a man who could easily overpower her if I had to.
“My ears work fine with me standing.”
She laughs and stands, making her way to right in front of me, almost eye to eye. “Have it your way, Strider.” She extends a hand. “I’m June Jones, Mirren’s mom.”
What the hell?
“And you thought breaking into my home was a good idea?” I eventually take her proffered hand. Some force of inexplicable midwest manners requires my compliance.
Knowing who she is and that I doubt she’s here to finish what O’Neill started, I take a seat and gesture to the chair she just vacated.
She’s silent… watching and judging, waiting on something, but I have no clue what.
“I don’t like being in the dark, Mrs. Jones. Care to enlighten me why you’re in my living room?”
“Call me June,” she replies as if she’s in complete control of the situation.
Again. What the hell?
“Okay, June. What can I do for you?
She looks at my throat before meeting my eyes. “How good are you at keeping secrets, Strider?”
“Well, I’m not interested in a tryst if that’s where you’re going. I’m in love with your daughter and not going to entertain anyone else.” My eyes narrow. “And I hate lies and secrets.”
A smile breaks across her face. “Can you keep a secret though? It’s imperative I know.”
Nothing in my life should be imperative to anyone else. “I won’t keep anything from Mirren.” My words are gunshots… lethal, precise and final.
“I can see why Scooter likes you. Yet, I still need an answer.” She drums her fingers on the arm of the chair as if I tire her.
“I can. But I won’t promise to keep anything from your daughter.”
She nods slowly. Not in agreement with me, but as if she’s metering her thoughts. Her eyes focus on mine. “I’m going to tell you something that only my sister and my husband know. Mirren does too, but my boys do not. It’s imperative it stays that way.”
There’s that word again.
“When I left college, I was recruited by the CIA. They trained me. Very well, I might add. I worked as a spy in the eighties. Sharing this could get me killed. It’s certainly frowned upon.”
Of all the mother-in-law problems I could’ve walked into…
“It’s a life that Mirren was made for.” She gestures to herself as if she birthed a spy by sheer genetics. “And she’s damn good at it.”
Wait. Wait. What? “Are you telling me…?”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m letting you infer from data I’m not sharing.”
I jump to my feet, pacing my living room. Mirren’s lied to me this whole time. What’s been real? I was talking about shuttering my business to be with a woman who lies as smoothly as she breathes. And does it as a job! I missed every clue.
Hell. There were no clues. She’s a professional liar.
And I was clear what would happen if she lied to me.
The shredding of my heart is a physical pain. I fall to my butt on the sofa and spear my hands through my hair, tugging at the roots.
June gives me more time than I expected. She also studies me as I come to terms with the failure in my relationship with her daughter.
My brain whirls and spins, my anger bubbles, and my soul shatters into more pieces than can be placed back together. Finally, I flop back onto the sofa.
This is a fitting end to the weeks of hell I’ve been living.
No escape. No relief. No light at the end of the tunnel. Just the utter devastation of the future I wanted being ripped from my grasp, leaving me in the quagmire of this meaningless life.
After a few minutes of my thoughts and emotions warring, June cuts in.
“Mirri would be fired—or worse— if she told you. But she’s been agonizing over how to keep her job and keep you. She has these conversations with her father. He’s the sentimental one. I told her to fight for her job.”
Lovely. The mother-in-law lottery just keeps getting better and better. My face must say it all.
“Don’t look at me like I betrayed you. I didn’t know you—I don’t know you—and Mirri isn’t like other girls.”
“Understatement,” I cut in, scrubbing a hand down my face.
“Here’s where things get dicey—”
“They weren’t already?” I interject.
She bobs her head left and right, neither nodding, nor negating my statement. “She has told the agency she can’t work on your case.”
My case? My case? “What case? What are you talking about?”
“Yeah. It shocked us too. And tipping you off is treason for both of us, so I’m counting on your discretion.” She looks away, and I’d swear she mutters, “I’d hate to have to kill you” under her breath.
I don’t ask for clarification, because I can’t help but believe June Jones is who she says she is. And my life can’t get any weirder.
“So, let’s talk about what could be happening inside Electric Peoria, why that happened”—she nods to my throat—“and how we clear your name so my daughter isn’t pining for a man in federal prison for something he didn’t do.”
“What, may I ask, am I being accused of doing?”
“Plotting to take out the U.S. electrical grid.”
What. The. Fuck.
Mirren
Janis is getting blown up on the chat boards. Apparently her anti-government, anti-capitalism speech resonates with the crowd that’s never gone a day without technology at their fingertips. I wonder if they know how this all works.
Fighter2389
Yo. We want you with us in Texas. You down?
I aim for nonchalance in my reply.
Wouldn’t miss it. When?
Fighter2389
No. No. No. No. First, a test...
What do I have to prove?
SallyIsAMenace
Convince me—convince us—that you mean it.
How?
Hello15.72.9
We’ll leave that up to you. But it should be newsworthy. And in the next couple of days. We want to be on the ground by the weekend.
They want some kind of proof I’m willing to go all in. Without agency resources, it’s going to be hard to manufacture and publicize an attack. The nice part of being on the books is the documentation at my fingertips, fake or otherwise.
Straight up, these people are stupid. They want to be on the ground in Texas when they crush power to ninety percent of the state.
Do they think their flights will run on time?
What about gas pumps? They can’t possibly think they’ll have enough fuel to get out.
And I know they won’t possibly have the wherewithal to stay in.
That said, there won’t be a strike or a breach—not on my watch—but I need to get a lock on faces and get this case closed. Tanzi’s glasses should be all I need to prove to the higher-ups I have what it takes.
And to clear Strider’s name.
I’m going to need human backup too. But that’s a problem for future Mirren.
Today Mirren needs to find a way, under the radar, to assure some antisocial psychopaths Janis is as delusional as they are. All the while shielding the people I’m sworn to protect from the crazies I’m baiting.
What would it take to convince them? An explosion? Murder? It has to be big enough to garner at least regional attention. National would be better. Within the energy sector preferably and by a lone actor.
Results need to be substantial for one person but not so over the top that it forces a nationwide manhunt. It must look credible, and it can’t be too far away from me… the me they think lives in New Mexico.
My fake target is easily acquired… Now how the hell do I create a false narrative?
Brody’s out. But Nathan might be a resource.
Nate Smith and I met on day one of training.
He’s great at his job but pushes the envelope more than the agency would like.
I’ve seen it, and he’s told me the same.
We’ve kept in touch though none of our assignments have ever overlapped.
He’s typically out of the country, which isn’t a bad thing for my current needs.
It does mean I have no clue to his location, what time it is where he is or if he’s even reachable.
Have a minute to talk strategy?
I flip contacts and text my mom.
Progress. Got invited to Texas. I can close this thing in the next couple of weeks.
Mom
We. You meant *we.*
More in a bit, but this is good news.
That woman and her we are going to get me unemployed. Not that unpaid administrative leave and unemployment are much different. Except for semantics.
My phone rings as bubbles dance in the text app from Mom, and I answer to avoid whatever crazy she has planned next.
“Hello?”
“Jones? It’s Nate. Do you mean strategy or strategy?” His voice thickens with innuendo.
“I never mean the second, Nate.” Ew. “Always the first.”
“Fine. But you’re missing out.”
I’m not, but arguing that point won’t help me at this juncture. “You keep telling me that.”
“One day…”
The idea that I have to deal with sexual harassment for the help I need annoys the hell out of me. But I need him and his skills enough to deal with the insinuations.
“So, full disclosure, this is off the books.”
“I’m in. Besides, I’m bored out of my mind here. It’s just endless rich beaches or abject poverty. Mauritania is boring. Give me something to do.”
“How would you feel about fake blowing something up? I need news stories planted. An explosion video. All the quote-unquote government cover-up. The whole thing.”
“So I get to blow something up for real?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s boring,” he drawls.
“It is.”
“How, Jones, do you plan to have news articles about an explosion when the thing is left standing? People will notice.”
“I’m good if that’s figured out later. We can blame terrible journalism or something. But I need the story to hold for a couple of weeks. And I’ve picked a target that’s not easily verified.”
“Again. How?”
“Because it exists on Navajo National land. It’s remote. I’m looking at Four Corners power plant in northwest New Mexico.”
“Do I want to know what you’re up to?” he asks, covering the mic of his phone. “Shit. I have to go. Give me a day or two, and I’ll be back.”
He disconnects and I have no clue whether he’s working on it, whether my project is a go, whether I need to find another fake target.
The thought occurs to me. Smith. I wonder if he’s related to Sal and Franco Smith. Did I just seal my own fate?