The Trade Ch. 01

"Lily." I could say her name now without feeling like my heart would tear apart, could picture her face without gasping for breath like a fish out of water. That was progress, right?

My food arrived, a huge plate piled high with crusty bread, bacon, poached eggs, pork sausage, blood pudding, mushrooms and grilled tomato all steaming in the morning air. My coffee arrived at the same time, and I quickly raised the cup and took a long pull of the bitter black brew to prevent myself heaving at the smell coming off the plate. The coffee was of course excellent, and I'm sure under normal circumstances I would have found the food to be equally so. The Colonel was a rather renowned epicure and kept an excellent cook on staff.

I looked up from my cup to find Parker still peering at me with his penetrating blue eyes. "Well go on, tuck in." He said, gesticulating at the food. At my hesitation he continued, "I have a deal for you. I'm sure you're desperate to know why I dragged you here. You start eating, I'll start talking." I winced, but when there's only one road ahead a man has to take it, no matter how narrow and winding the path. I cut off a slice of bread and bacon, popped them in my mouth and started chewing while meeting Parker's stare with my own defiant one. He grunted in satisfaction and took a long drag on his cigar.

Now that we'd come down to the reason for this morning's visit, he seemed rather to struggle getting to the point, fiddling around while he folded the paper and shifted in his seat. "What did you think of young Alice?" He asked finally.

"She seems nice."

"Nice? The weather is nice. My cigar is nice. Well that's a lie, my cigar is bloody fantastic. I want your professional assessment of the girl."

I paused briefly to chew and swallow before continuing, "Well, she's charming, chatty, has a tendency to over share, horrible diver. I'd say she's intelligent but a bit naive. I don't think she's fully aware of how attractive she is yet. That kind of beauty can corrupt some young women, but I didn't sense any of that in her." I paused and raised an eyebrow, "she seems to know an awful lot about me."

"Hmm yes." He had the grace to look a touched chagrined at that. "It's not as bad as you might be thinking old boy."

I frowned at him, something here wasn't adding up. "You're deflecting. Why am I here?"

His cigar was down to the nub, which he ground out in the ashtray. "I'm actually not deflecting. She is the reason you're here."

He paused again, leaving me even more confused. "What do you mean? Is she in some kind of trouble?"

"No no, nothing like that." He fiddled with a fresh cigar and seemed to be avoiding eye contact. Now it was my turn to wait him out, subconsciously chewing on another stacked forkful of food. "Right, well then... young Alice has just graduated from basic."

It suddenly all clicked into place. I choked and swallowed, and had to take a sip of coffee to help recover. "Oh no," I shook my head and leaned back away from the table "no chance. I'm not doing that again."

He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Just listen to me for a bit Moss. Hear me out before you decide." I crossed my arms and glared at him. He paused again, perhaps thinking about how to best craft a compelling argument.

"Right, well I keep my private life and family away from the job so I imagine most of this will be unknown to you. Alice has more or less become our adoptive Daughter over the last five years after my brother and his wife died in an auto-mobile accident." Alice had left this particular detail out during our car trip, but I guess talking about the death of your parents is a bit of a heavy topic for discussion with a stranger, even for her. She'd also left out her graduation from basic training, so perhaps she wasn't that prone to over sharing after all. "She was just 13 poor girl, and absolutely devastated as you can probably imagine. She moved in with us, and has mostly been living with Bertha at the country house." Bertha Parker was the Colonel's long suffering wife. "She's always been a nosy little thing, and evidently found out about the agency and my position when she sneaked into my office and read a bunch of my papers. She developed a bit of an obsession with the whole thing after that. She kept badgering me for stories about our cases, so eventually to get some peace I had her sign all the NDA stuff and started sharing some details here and there. I'll be honest Moss, I was sure it was all just a phase that she would eventually grow out of, but she made me promise that when she was old enough I'd give her a chance to try out as a field agent. She graduated from school a little ahead of schedule about six months ago. She's a smart cookie, you're right about that much. Straight away she was on me to make good on my promise. I'll admit that I'm not great at refusing that little girl whatever she wants.

"So that's the story. There's nothing in our rules to say that a candidate has to be 18 to attend basic field agent training and assessment. She graduated from that two weeks ago, and turned 18 a week ago so I'm running out of excuses to put her off. The others in her graduating class have already been given their initial assignments. Most of them on desk roles to start with. But Alice only wants to work as a field agent." He finished his coffee in a big swallow and waved the cup in the direction of the doorway. Greg emerged after a brief pause and refilled both our coffee cups.

"And so," I suggested "you want me to be her mentor." Basic training was really just that, a basic three month skills course. The real training began when new field agents were paired up with a veteran like myself. In this job, the real training never really ended. "You still haven't mentioned why I should be interested."

"Do you want some more food?" He said gesturing at my plate which had mysteriously emptied itself. I frowned at him and shook my head.

"Okay listen here. I still believe this is just a phase for Alice. I think she's got some glamorous vision of meeting Sean Connery and jet setting around the world, staying in fancy hotels and occasionally shooting at an evil villain stroking a cat. I'm not asking you to commit to anything straight away. Just spend some time with her. Disabuse her of any incorrect notions about the trade. Push her hard and I'm sure she'll come to her senses. If she doesn't quit, but you don't believe she's capable of doing the job then I'll tell her myself. If she can do the job but you don't want her as a partner then I'll move her on to someone else. Just give it a go, that's all I ask."

"I want a shot at Jonas."

"No chance. That's never going to happen. He knows your face, he'd see you coming from a mile away." I already knew the answer before he gave it but I thought it was worth a try. One of these days I'd wear him down. "I'll owe you a personal favour, anything up to but not including a shot at that little shit."

"Why me?"

When Parker got serious, like now, the upper class affectations and bonhomie would slowly disappear. "Because you're the best I have. Because you're a ruthless bastard. Because if she's not good enough you won't string her along in an attempt to curry favour with me. Because if she is good enough you're too honourable to kick her aside just to spite me. But most importantly, while you might not admit it, you need this. You've been flying solo for too long."

I grunted in response to that. I sat there subconsciously rubbing at both sides of a scar in the center of my right hand from a through and through knife wound. It had ached for months after it happened, but like most scars the pain had faded over time. I looked up and found Parker looking at me quizzically with his brows raised. "I want to talk to the trainer before I decide" I said.

"Of course my boy!" The bonhomie was back in force. "Rogers took the class." I groaned out loud causing Parker to chuckle. The enmity between Rogers and I was no secret. "He doesn't know she's my niece and I'd like to keep it that way."

I shook my head. Bloody Rogers of all people, like I wasn't already having a shit enough day. "Alright, may as well get it over with." I muttered, standing up and moving away from the table for some privacy. I took a moment, drawing in a deep breath. The sky above was still and blue, birds hidden within the garden shrubs twittered a pleasant song. The whole idyllic scene seemed to be trying its best to override my mood, but my body refused to cooperate. I sighed, unlocked the encrypted voice service with finger and retina biometric scans, then dialed our central exchange.

"How may I direct your call?" An indicator flashed green letting me know the voice signature of the operator had been authenticated on my end.

"Connect to Rogers, voice only." After a brief pause I heard the call connect through.

"Well well well." Drawled a voice in a heavy Australian accent. "How ya goin' mate? Long time no see." He drew out 'mate' adding several unnecessary vowels. I swear Rogers deliberately exaggerated his accent when we spoke just to piss me off.

"Rogers, I need some details about a recent trainee." I said, reminding myself not to rise to any bait.

"What, no chit chat? You know it's polite for old colleagues like us to make with the friendly banter first." I didn't respond to this and instead let the silence drag out. "Oh alright, you're too god damn serious buddy that's your problem. Picking up a new apprentice are we? Which one are you into?"

"From the last batch, called Alice."

I heard a brief burst of laughter. "Oh Christ you're in for it if you're taking on that bird. She barely made it through basic, mate. Clever enough I guess, but it's all book smarts, she's got no street smarts at all and her instincts are all wrong. Barely passed the physical stuff, pretty bad with a gun, second to last with hand to hand. Plus she's a chick, all emotional and stuff you know? They're just not cut out for this business." I'd forgotten how much of a misogynist Rogers was.

"Right, well aside from the emotional problems and lack of testicles, what else have you got? Did she excel in anything?" I asked, fighting hard to keep my tone neutral.

"Well see, here's the thing. Have you done any training in the last few years?" He knew that I hadn't, it was a not so subtle dig. I waited for him to continue thinking he'd asked a rhetorical question, but he paused for me to answer.

"You know I haven't."

"I do know you haven't." He sounded like he was enjoying himself. "So you wouldn't be aware of this mate, but they've been slowly changing the play book. These days the honey pot technique is all the rage. They call the female agents that specialise in it 'Doves'. Its all about some bullshit like conversion rates or whatever, I didn't pay a lot of attention to be honest. Used to be that a gun pointed at a mark's face was enough to get them to spill their secrets. These days the brass wants us to fuck it out of them."

"So what does this have to do with Alice?" I asked, already suspecting the answer.

"I'm sure you've noticed that she's a sexy little piece. She also tested on her psych profile as extremely high for the traits we see in candidates that are natural Doves. They learn to love the dick."

"So she's just good for honey potting? Nothing else?"

Rogers tone turned serious. "Listen Moss, you and I both know we don't get along but I care about this job just as much as you do. Five years ago she wouldn't have made it through basic, but these days she's hot shit. My advice is to kick this broad to the curb. But I know what you're bloody like, the patron saint of lost causes and a sucker for a pretty face. Your only play is to use her as a Dove. It's a risk, and she's a woman, but maybe she'll grow into it." He started laughing and I hung up feeling just a little dirty like I always did after dealing with that creep.

I collected my thoughts as I walked back to the table and sat down. Colonel Parker had resumed reading the paper while I was making the call, and now lowered it to peer at me over the top.

"And so?" He prompted when I didn't immediately speak.

"Have you read her grad file sir?"

"I have."

"So you know she barely passed, and Rogers recommends she be developed as a... 'Dove' I think he called it. Seems to feel that it's her only choice." I maintained eye contact with him, waiting for any signs of embarrassment but the old coot was solid as a rock.

"I'm fully aware of Agent Rogers' opinions."

"It's probably the only option, at least to begin with. Would you be okay with that?"

"Nobody gets a free ride in this business Moss, the only thing that matters is the result. As you well know, we have to operate unfettered by the normal standards of decency and morality. We do what we must to keep this country safe." He'd gone into full bluster mode, which made me suspect that he wasn't quite as blasé about the whole thing as he was trying to appear.

"Okay I don't need the full recruitment pitch." I paused, suddenly feeling as though I was on the precipice of a cliff, deciding whether to jump. I hadn't had a partner in years. I'd grown comfortable in my loneliness. Relying on nobody but myself meant that I couldn't let anyone else down. But if I was being completely honest with myself, I'd been on a slow descent for a long time. I really didn't have much left to lose. "I accept your offer." The Colonel allowed himself a small self satisfied smile.

I stood up from the table, suddenly feeling energetic. "I'll meet her tonight at the Pussy Cat, eight thirty, she should ask for Oscar at the bar. Don't tell her anything else." Before leaving via the concealed exit along the back fence I looked back briefly to ask a final question, "oh, and Sir... would you prefer if she makes it as an agent or not?"

"She's been through a lot John, but we cant afford to be emotional about these things. Its the work that counts." I nodded at him and drew in a deep breath, the morning air suddenly sweet in my lungs, the old buzz surging within me again.