Memories.
It was funny how strong some of them could be, when they came back and slapped you in the face. Renee hadn’t thought of Max in quite some time.
“Who was that on the phone?”
“No one, Mom.”
“It didn’t sound like no one.” Renee’s mother came to visit every six months or so. And whenever she did, she always gave Renee advice that she didn’t want.
“Just an old friend, Mom.”
“A boy?” Nosey.
“The friend was male, yes.”
“Does your old friend have a name? Tell him to take my daughter out. She needs a man in her life.”
Renee walked into the living room, where her mother was knitting and watching a home-buying show with the volume down low.
“Enough, please,” Renee said.
“You’re much too young and pretty to give up on men now.”
“Mother.”
“Well, I’m only saying. What happened with the nice man who took you out tonight? You came home early.”
“He’s a client. I won’t be seeing him again.”
Her mother looked up from her knitting. “Well, that’s a shame.”
“I’m going to my room, Mother. I need to get a little work done. What are your plans tomorrow morning — do you need the car? I have something in the morning.”
“No, dear. I’ll be fine. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Renee went into her bedroom and sat on her bed, bringing her computer onto her lap. Time to find out what Max Fend had been up to over the past few years, and what kind of trouble he was in.
7
The next morning, Renee was there waiting for him in the lobby of the hotel, a laptop resting on her knees, and a cup of steaming coffee lying on the hotel rug next to her chair. She put the computer down next to the coffee and stood, extending her hand.
“Hello, Max.”
A quiet, steady voice. That same lovely French Canadian accent. She’d changed her hair up a bit. It was shorter. And he saw that she’d added a long flower tattoo that wound down her milky-white leg.
“Renee. It’s good to see you again.” A quick embrace.
“Why don’t we go somewhere we can talk, Max?”
He took her back to his room.
Max and Renee sat on two opposite ends of the room’s ugly couch.
She began. “You’re in trouble.”
“How much do you know?”
“As much as I could find out, before speaking in person. I looked at everything I could get my hands on last night after you called.”
Renee held dual Canadian and US citizenship. She had always been very good with computers in college, but while there, she had mostly been concerned with playing field hockey. The tech companies had come at her hard her senior year. She had gone to work for a cybersecurity firm after graduating.
When they’d last seen each other at a reunion party in 2008, Max had asked her about her job. She had been coy, saying only that she worked for a small Canadian firm. Max knew how to spot a lie. The answer had piqued his interest, and he’d used his resources to look into Renee’s work the following week.
Max was surprised to discover that Renee had gone to work for Canada’s Communications Security Establishment in Ottawa for a few years. The CSE was Canada’s version of the National Security Agency. From what he could decipher, she was one of their cyberwarriors. Then she’d left and had gone to work for herself… probably about the same time she’d met her ex-husband.
Max had thrown her name into his little black book spreadsheet.
“Are you guilty?” she asked.
“Of what, exactly?”
“The FBI thinks that you gave some foreign cybercriminals access to your father’s company network. This allowed them to steal information” — she looked down at her notes — “something about an autonomous test flight. I haven’t read up on that yet. But I’m sure you are more than familiar.”
“Well, to answer your question, then, no.” He shook his head. “I’m not guilty of that.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What are you guilty of?”
“Good looks. A voracious appetite for life.”
She tried not to smile. “I’ve missed you. But you don’t need to put on your little show for me. Remember, I know who you really are.”
“And who’s that?”
She shrugged. “Not this act that I’ve read about.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Each trying to unmask the other.
Max shrugged. “I hate it when my reputation gets ruined.”
“If you were the little brat the gossip columnists make you out to be, I wouldn’t be talking to you. But I knew you before you went away to Europe and got put in the magazines with your shirt off.”
“You saw those?”
“Oh, yes. Quite the heartthrob to the tweens and moms who read that sort of thing.”
“Moms and their daughters have always loved me. What can I say?”
Renee didn’t respond.
“I checked you out. Your work in Europe seemed…”
“Interesting?”
“Controversial.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How did you get involved with all those people?”
“Which ones?”
“Max, the things I read about… the FBI file says that you’ve been mixed up with several groups… well, they aren’t the types of people I would expect you to know.”
Max leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Let’s get this out of the way now, because you’ll need to know. Renee, when I was in Europe, I wasn’t just a consultant. That was a cover. A nonofficial cover.”
“What do you mean, a nonofficial cover?”
“Intelligence agencies have two types of operatives. Ones who are official government employees… and ones who aren’t. The official cover agents are the ones who work in the State Department or some other section of government. But really, they serve multiple masters. You might have seen news stories about how Russia will send home several of our diplomats, claiming that they’re spies. And then we send home several of their diplomats, claiming the same thing. Those people are under official covers. They get diplomatic immunity. Protection.”
“Wait, are you saying that you worked for the intelligence community?”
“Yes.”
“As in… like… you were a spy?”
“Yes, Renee. I was an illegal. I had no diplomatic immunity. And my posting was unrelated to any government agency.”
“You were a spy, Max. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.”
“I understand.”
She blurted out, “I worked for the CSE. In Canada.”
He laughed at her expression. As if she’d been holding it in for years and had finally found someone she could admit it to.
“I mean, the work was pretty boring. Nothing like being a spy. I was trapped in a windowless room all day for a few years. But it was all super hush-hush.” The words flew out of her mouth, like she was trying to match confessions.
Max smiled. “Actually, I know.”
“You know?”
“I’m familiar with your professional background. That’s part of the reason I’ve reached out to you.”
“Hmm. And I thought you missed me.”
“I do.”
Her voice was excited. “So who did you work for? The CIA?”
“DIA. The Defense Intelligence Agency.”
“Since when?”
“Pretty soon after I left college.”
“That long?”