Covert Christmas Twin

Beverly poked her head around the bottom of the staircase. “Go already. The back is clear!”

“I forgot she had cameras there, too.” Joe pressed the open button on the keypad and they burst through the door, down a long hallway lined with tall windows covered in green roller shades, through a kitchen that still held a woodstove and old-fashioned refrigerator. If they had the time Kendra would’ve wanted to soak in the feeling of being in the early 1900s. Joe led them through the dining room and hovered at the back doorknob.

They each took a window on either side. “It’s clear over here,” she whispered, in case the men had already entered the house. “Are you sure Beverly has another way out of this place?”

“I know her well enough to know she always has a backup plan.” Joe put a finger to his lips before he opened the door. She followed him into the sticky air. The so-called bushes he’d referred to were, in reality, five-foot-tall weeds. They ran through the rest of the wild grasses and around the second house.

“Keep watch.” Kendra slipped out her government-issued steel picks and made short work of the flimsy back-door lock. Joe poked his head around the corner of the house, watching for anyone coming their way. The door squeaked when she pulled on the doorknob, but they slipped inside the weathered blue house into another old kitchen, left abandoned in the middle of a remodel.

Joe joined her and closed the door behind him. “The men haven’t entered her house yet. They’re circling.” He kept his voice soft.

Kendra peeled back the side edge of the window shade half an inch. “They’ve got two men approaching the back entrance.” She straightened. “The house is surrounded, but I never saw Beverly exit unless she did while I picked the lock. We know there were men already at the front and side. How is she getting out?”

“She might have decided to bluff her way out. Unless Masked is sure she’s betrayed them, they won’t hurt her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Your mother—”

“Please don’t call her that.” She closed her eyes and exhaled. Her bones felt heavy with destroyed hopes. “I’m not ready. Beverly is so antagonistic, so bitter, so... She knows nothing about me, but she basically implied I’m bad at my job.”

“Understood. It won’t happen again.” He nodded. “She’s a hard woman, but she’d be the first to admit it. I suppose if you lived your entire adult life undercover, it might do that to a person.”

Kendra prickled at the thought. She’d been undercover for several years. Already, she’d developed a thick skin and a tendency to assume the worst of people. Was Beverly a walking example of her future? “Why is she so valuable to Masked?”

“She’s the expert at behavior analysis. The CIA recruited her because she could pinpoint with disturbing accuracy the people that were foreign agents hiding among us. When they sent her overseas, she knew who was an American agent without any prior knowledge. Back in those days, the KGB also seemed to be good at pinpointing Americans. Beverly taught our side what indicators were giving our agents away. Agents often drove the same types of cars, always took the same type of jobs—sometimes the exact same job and apartment as their predecessors.”

“Does it surprise you that I can believe it? You’ve been in the Bureau long enough to see its flaws, maybe more so since you’re an analyst. Our government excels at many things, but bureaucracy makes room for plenty of blind spots in the intelligence community.”

“True, but we can thank her for a lot of the improvements that have been made since before we were born. She also pointed out where their training made them stand out in a world of other agents. Her real passion was research, though, so she retired from the CIA at a young age and continued her work in academia. That’s when she met...” Joe’s brow furrowed.

Kendra wasn’t sure she was ready to hear any more news about her father. “If she was that good, why didn’t she pick up that my father was a double agent?”

Joe removed his own sunglasses but avoided her gaze. “When I was at the Bureau, I saw enough cases where love blinded people.”

Her cheeks heated so fast it took her off guard. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that.”

“I imagine her shame at being duped is what sent her back into Intelligence, but this time with the NCS.”

“You’re saying it’s her way of making amends.”

“If I’ve learned one thing today, it’s not to underestimate her. I don’t presume to know any of her motivations.”

“So you’re sure she’s NCS. How do we know she’s not the mole?”

“I think her earlier logic about taking down the communications network answered that. Besides, didn’t you say all her anonymous tips helped your cases?”

She’d forgotten momentarily about that. “I’m finding it hard to believe the unfeeling woman I just met could do anything helpful without her own agenda.”

“Either way, her actions don’t really sound like the modus operandi of the Pirate.” He peeked out the blinds. “Two more cars arrived. That’s not a good sign.”

“They wouldn’t send so many if they were just checking on her.” Kendra took another glance out the window to see for herself. “I count three from my vantage point alone. I’m sure there’s more. They haven’t entered the house yet.” She reared back. “We can’t let her be ambushed like this.” She pulled her gun from the back and rushed toward the stairs. “Come on, sharpshooter.”

“I shot that man only out of defense. I don’t purposely kill anyone. Not anymore.”

She faltered on the first step. She had a feeling he was referring to his military experience before he joined the FBI. “I appreciate that you saved my life back there. If I haven’t said it before, thank you. But, Joe, I can’t stand around and let Beverly get killed. I can take out most of those gunmen, but not all. I need your help.”

Joe paled and reached for his weapon. “I can see that.”

Kendra followed his gaze to a side window with a plate-sized rip in the shade. She’d been spotted.

Joe held his gun aim steady, certain the man outside the window couldn’t see him because of the angle. “Maybe he didn’t see your gun,” Joe said. “Keep moving at a natural pace up the stairs.”

The creak of the wood confirmed she was on the move without him looking away from the window.

“I don’t think they’re going to ignore potential witnesses,” she said. “I can take them out from the top floor. Holler if we have a first-floor breach.”

Joe blew out a steady breath, struggling to keep cool. The tension in the back of his shoulders had turned into a full-fledged knot, most likely because he refused to process what he’d done. Now, when he thought he’d never need to be responsible for someone else’s physical safety again, he’d been forced to raise his weapon for the second time in one day. The man outside reached inside his blazer. Joe tensed and moved his finger closer to the trigger.

A handheld radio appeared in the man’s hands as his gaze traveled above, upstairs. He was likely calling for reinforcements. He turned and waved at someone outside of Joe’s view. Not good.

The windows Joe stared out of appeared to be single pane, not the double-pane windows so common after the fifties, so Joe didn’t feel comfortable hollering to Kendra upstairs without fear of being heard. He took advantage of the man’s distraction, though, and kept sight of him through the ten-inch-diameter hole in the shade, praying silently that the man and the “friend” who joined him didn’t see Joe as he slid over to the stairway. He took the stairs three steps at a time.

He reached the landing. Kendra glanced up from her position by the northernmost window. “They haven’t entered Beverly’s house yet, but I’m counting a good eight men that have it surrounded now. Oh. Scratch that. One man is opening her back door.” Kendra looked over her shoulder. “Why don’t you take a post near the guardrail in case we get any visitors downstairs?”

“I don’t intend to shoot anyone, Kendra.”

She pursed her lips and glanced at the gun in his hand. “Why do you have that then?”

“For self-defense only. If you’re so worried about her safety, let’s call the police. Beverly made it clear she wanted us to go, and if we’d stuck to the plan—”

“You mean the plan to hide out until the coast was clear? It wasn’t as if I meant for that man to see me, Joe.”

“If you weren’t so intent on proving—”

Kendra’s lips flattened. She lowered her weapon and stepped away from the window. With her left hand she raised an index finger. “Don’t. Whatever ninja behavior analysis she taught you, I don’t want to hear it. I know I’m a good agent, despite what she said. I don’t need to prove anything. Besides, you didn’t answer my question. Why do you still carry a gun?”

“I don’t usually carry it.”

“You had one with you at a university, Joe. I’m grateful, but that’s not a normal thing for a chaplain or pastor to do.”

“That’s different. You saw the man who was following her. Those men are always armed.”

“You appointed yourself as Beverly’s personal bodyguard? Again, not the behavior of a guy ready to leave the FBI.”

He opened his mouth but had no reply because he couldn’t ignore the possibility she was right. Beverly had practically said the same thing when she’d suggested he keep his foot in the door by applying for the FBI chaplain program. It was like an epic game of Twister. He had one foot in law enforcement, the other foot in academia and his hands in two different types of ministry. Not a single spot felt very comfortable at the moment.

Kendra straightened and glanced out the window. “We’ll have to continue this conversation later. Guard the front door. It looks like they’re about to swarm both this house and Beverly’s.”