“Sam,” she called, “your view here is worth more than your house!”
“I agree,” he said with a chuckle. His voice sounded distant coming from the kitchen, where he was fixing them both some coffee. “Be right with you.”
He came through the screen door carrying steaming cups of cappuccino.
“Yum,” Alex said, grabbing one of the cups with both her hands and inhaling the aroma.
“Glad you like it,” Sam said. “On the rare occasion when I have guests here I like to show off my new cappuccino maker.”
“Sam, you are the king of caffeinated delights,” Alex remarked after tasting her brew.
She sensed she wore a milk-foam mustache, which made her look childish, and licked it quickly. That brought back memories that had been locked away for years, memories of a time when she had been a happy, worry-free little girl growing up with hot-cocoa whiskers and laughter on her face. Life changes fast on you, she thought. It can take you by surprise and throw you on a different continent. How those times have gone!
“What’s on your mind, kiddo?” Sam asked. “You’re frowning at the cappuccino and that can’t be good.”
“Ah… it’s just the polygraph, Sam. Scares me to death.”
“All right, let’s attack that beast,” he said, fidgeting a little to find a more comfortable position on the wicker armchair. “First of all, remember, you have nothing to lose.”
“But, if I fail the test, I won’t be able to work this case,” she protested. “I do have access to the case documents now, but I won’t be able to roam the building freely, or board the damn ship.”
“True, but in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t mean much. You just go home, and work on another case, that’s all. Don’t work yourself up for nothing.”
“Huh…” she replied thoughtfully. “But maybe it’s not nothing, you know. Maybe the cases are related somehow.”
“Which cases? This one and the elections case?”
“Yup. That’s what I’m hoping. I’m hoping for another lead. I’m hoping somehow this time we’ll be able to find who V is.”
“Fair enough; that thought has crossed my mind. But it’s way too early for that. How do you even know it’s the Russians behind this, not the Chinese?”
Alex thought for a second and grunted angrily at herself. She’d jumped to conclusions again. Somehow, despite that logic, the idea felt right.
“Just my gut, I guess.”
“OK, then, let’s prep you for tomorrow,” Sam said, putting his empty cappuccino cup on the side table. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Alex replied smiling, to hide the tight knot she felt in her stomach. “What should I expect?”
“You’ll be taken in a small room with no windows, a couple of chairs, and a table on which the polygraph is installed. Some rooms might have the old-style one-way mirror, but all rooms have video cameras installed to record the interview.”
“What kind of sensors will they use?”
“They normally measure heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and perspiration. Perspiration is measured through sensors attached to your fingers. Breathing is measured with two sensor bands fitted around your chest, and blood pressure and heart rate with a blood pressure cuff on your arm.”
“Fantastic,” she commented gloomily. “What kind of questions will they ask?”
“To start, they’ll ask baseline questions, such as your name and place of birth, and then they usually ask if you’re planning to lie during the test.”
“Huh,” she snorted, “that depends on the questions they’re gonna ask, right?”
“Wrong, kiddo. Plan to tell the truth. They’ll ask trick questions, like if you’ve ever smoked pot, or other self-incriminating crap like that. Just admit it. Even if you did and cop to it, it’s not a disqualifier. They wanna see you’re willing to tell the truth.”
She stared at him with eyes opened wide in disbelief.
“What if they ask… well, things no one should know about?” She involuntarily crossed her arms and immediately uncrossed them, painfully aware of the body language clues she was giving out. How the hell was she gonna pass the stupid polygraph if she couldn’t control her body language here, in the safety of Sam’s backyard?
“Like what?”
“Like… if I’ve ever killed someone?”
“Just say yes.”
They fell silent for a minute. Sam allowed her to process that information before moving on, and she was grateful for that minute of reprieve. She suddenly felt a wave of panic taking over her rational brain. Oh God… this could go wrong in so many ways, she thought.
“Sam,” she whispered, “I don’t know if I can pull this off. I’m… I’m afraid.”
“Everyone is, kiddo,” he replied in a soft, parental voice. “I’ve been doing this all my life, and I’ve yet to meet someone who’s not afraid to take the poly. But you just deal away with the fear, that’s all.”
Her shoulders hunched, and she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. “How?”
Sam laughed. “You’re asking me how? After everything I’ve seen you handle? Oh, no, kiddo, ask yourself that, ’cause you’ve got all it takes to pull this off like an ace. I’m just a retired old spy, that’s who I am. I’m yesterday’s news, kiddo. You’re tomorrow’s.”
She couldn’t refrain from smiling. She loved how Sam cheered her up and instilled self-confidence in her every time she was in a bind. She suddenly wished they had enough time to share some of his war stories; he must have a few worth telling.
She’d met Sam just over a year before, when he had brought The Agency a new and troublesome case. He was a wartime friend of Tom’s; they went way back. Now sixty-one, Sam was a retired CIA agent, enjoying his free time fishing in the waters of his backyard lake and grilling catfish whenever he’d get lucky. That’s what Sam wanted everyone to believe his current life was all about. However, soon after they met, the two of them had become comrades in arms, chasing terrorists together in exotic destinations. It was a case they should have never worked on, but did anyway.
Sam had identified in her the passion for covert work going beyond the corporate realm. He’d told her many times she was secret-agent material and offered to open the CIA doors for her. Yet she’d stayed true to Tom Isaac and his Agency, jokingly saying that Tom paid way better than the government, but secretly enjoying the family she’d found in Tom and his crew. With Tom, she felt she belonged. She didn’t want to trade that and turn into some faceless, bar-coded agent who no one gave a crap about in an agency as massive as the CIA was. And she did like the bigger paycheck too; it had considerable appeal. There was nothing wrong with having a little wealth and security for a change. She enjoyed the sense of safety that having money brought to her life.
Yet there was something about spies and secret-agent work that lit her imagination and injected her with a deeper sense of purpose. She couldn’t name what that was, and rarely spent any time thinking about it. She just reacted, like she’d done just a few days before, dropping everything else and rushing to the East Coast to catch a spy.
She smiled crookedly, secretly entertained by thoughts about how her career had evolved.
“What?” Sam asked, crinkling his nose, amused.
“Bond. Alex Bond,” she mock introduced herself, and then burst into laughter.
“What? You married James Bond?” Sam laughed with her.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” she said feigning offense and throwing a pillow at him.