Kate lowered her gun, tucking the weapon behind her back. “Your father worked for the CIA. He was an intelligence operative. A spy.”
Michael just laughed. “And how would you know that?”
“Because I was his partner,” she said.
Chapter 10
Mobi Stearn loved chicken. He loved fried chicken, he loved teriyaki chicken, he loved chicken kabob, but most of all he loved Zankou chicken. Zankou was the name of a river in Lebanon, somebody’s dog, and most importantly, six or seven fast food restaurants dishing out the tastiest, tangiest Lebanese style rotisserie chicken in all of Los Angeles County. The chicken was served with Lebanese pickles, tomatoes, hummus, and a tasty garlic paste, all of which Mobi was trying his best to wrap inside an undersized pita when the call came in.
Mobi dropped his whole pita upon the shrill chirp of the phone in fear that one of his supervisors had caught him violating the “no lunch in the lab” policy again. Mobi was a communications engineer in Pasadena, California, a mid-sized city about fifteen miles northeast of Los Angeles. And though Pasadena was best known for the Rose Bowl, the Rose Parade, and associated Rose events, it was also home to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the world leader in the robotic exploration of space.
Operated as a civilian space research facility in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL as it was known, was both a cutting edge research facility and Mobi Stearn’s nine to five. Mobi enjoyed the fact that referring to his work as a nine to five was an entirely accurate description providing one heeded the caveat that he actually worked the graveyard shift between the hours of nine p.m. and five a.m. Mobi’s title was Deputy to the Deputy Director of Operations. He had ground his way through the grueling PhD program at Caltech to win the job, but the reality was that most of his duties were deathly dull. His work on the current mission, as all of JPL’s space flights were labeled, was to monitor unmanned spacecraft Polo’s orbit of Jupiter’s moon Io. At a distance of three hundred seventy-two million miles, radio communications from Polo took about fifty-two minutes to reach Earth, so Mobi was fairly certain that another half second spent wiping the grease from his hands wouldn’t add up to any major damage before he answered the phone.
“Stearn,” Mobi said through a mostly empty mouth.
“Mobi? I need you up here right away.”
Mobi immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the line as belonging to his boss, Deputy Director Allison Alvarez. “Is this about the chicken? Because if it’s about the chicken —“
“It’s not about the chicken. Hurry up.”
The line went dead, which Mobi considered odd for the Deputy Director Alvarez who, while ever busy, was always polite. The other thing Mobi considered odd was the fact that she was still at work at this late hour. Sure she was known to pull overtime during critical missions, but Alvarez had a family to get back to and as far as he knew JPL’s current missions were running well within operational parameters, all of which led Mobi to believe that something had come up. Something that would relieve him from the boredom he too often felt in his evening vigils. And so, his curiosity piqued, Mobi picked up his square frame, wiped the tahini from his chin, and headed upstairs for what he sensed was about to become a very interesting night.
Chapter 11
When Michael turned eight his father taught him how to lie. His real birthday party wasn’t until the next day, but Michael’s grandmother was coming over that night for a pre-birthday dinner. Michael would have to wear the blue suit she had given him. But Michael didn’t like wearing the suit. It made him look like an old man. So when his mom told him to go put it on, Michael procrastinated. He looked at his comic books. Then he played with his Star Wars stuff. And then he found a book of matches. Michael knew he wasn’t supposed to play with matches, but he lit one just the same. Then he lit another one. And somewhere between the fourth and fifth match, his new Fantastic Four began to burn.
Michael didn’t even notice it at first because he was too busy pulling the suit off its hanger. But when he did see the fire, flames licking toward the curtains, he knew what he had to do. He threw his suit jacket onto the pile of comics, smothering the flame. Luckily it went out, but by that time there was a lot of smoke in the room. And his suit was ruined.
After the inevitable relief that he was okay, his parents were upset. His dad told him that he was going to learn a lesson that night. But it wasn’t the lesson about not playing with fire. Instead, his dad told Michael that he was going to learn how to lie. Telling the truth was always the first choice. But it wasn’t always the best choice. Because some people couldn’t hear the truth. And one of those people was his grandmother. He said it would upset her very much if she found out about the fire and what had happened to the suit. If she asked Michael where it was, Michael’s father asked him to say that it was at the dry cleaners. To not mention the fire. It would only worry her. Michael did as he was told. It was the first time he had lied and from what he could tell, he wasn’t bad at it. He wondered if he would ever have to lie again.
***
“You’re a spy, he’s a spy, I’m a spy too,” Michael said, holding his father’s many passports in hand.
“Give it a rest, Michael,” Kate said.
“No really, you were right the first time. I’m a spy. Went to spy school. Learned some spy stuff. We even had a spy dance. We called it the spy prom. I brought Mata Hari, super spy leader and all round hottie.”
“What I’m saying is serious.”
Michael met Kate’s eyes. They had softened since the cab ride. Since bringing him here. “And I’m not?”
“Your dad’s job,” Kate said. “The way he spent so much time away from home. Did you think that was normal?”
“He traveled for work.”
“But did you ever really ask your dad what exactly he did?”
“We didn’t talk about that stuff.”
“It’s because he didn’t want to lie to you. Not if he didn’t have to.”
“He was a businessman,” Michael said. “He sold sneakers.”
“That was his cover. That’s all it was.”
“So what are you saying then? That the man I knew, that the man who raised me wasn’t who he pretended to be? That he was a spy? That the both of you worked for the Central Intelligence Agency?”
“No. He was CIA. I’m MI6,” Kate said quietly.
“This just keeps getting better. Now you’re telling me you were my dad’s Bond girl?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that. I’m a field operative. Your father and I were teamed up on a joint intelligence project.”
“The CIA and MI6. Working together? Back at the Academy we had a name for that kind of thing.”
“Michael!” Kate lowered her voice. “Enough with the bullshit, alright? The CIA and MI6 have collaborated in the past and no doubt will again in the future. It was a loose affiliation. Your father and I traveled in different circles. But we met and updated each other regularly. Shared progress reports.”
“Doesn’t explain your teeth.”
“What about them?” Kate said, running her tongue along them for any sign of stray food.
“They’re too good to be British.”