Chapter Nineteen
Leland
The next morning, I was out of bed, into the shower, and dressed before Richard woke. I was putting on my Rolex when he turned toward me, rubbed his eyes, then squinted in confusion after he’d noted how early it was.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
“I need to take job qualification exams for the recruiter. They start in”—I checked my watch— “forty minutes. How long do you think the drive will be at six a.m. to—” I clamped my mouth shut before stupidly saying Langley, Virginia.
“To where?” he snapped, annoyed.
“Never mind. I’ll figure it out.”
As I shoved my feet into my shoes, I glanced over my shoulder to smile at Richard. He was sitting on the bed, arms crossed around his legs, and his sharp dark eyes didn’t have an encouraging expression.
“Employment exams, huh? How far are you going to carry on this BS? I know what you’re trying to do. Don’t think I don’t. Like I said, you don’t have to behave like a woman if you want to go be with a woman. You don’t have to put on a lie to do it. You’ve got my blessing to fuck all the pussy you want.”
Hmm, taunt from Richard on the way out the door meant hot, dominate-me sex when I returned. Maybe Jena was right. The cure to fixing our problems was for me to find employment and something other than Richard to focus on.
“I don’t know how late I’ll be.”
“Doesn’t matter. The only thing I plan to do today is sleep. I work four to twelve tonight.” He tossed off the blankets and stumbled into the bathroom to take a leak.
“We can have dinner after,” I said from the bathroom doorway. “Maybe meet downtown. Go out together for a change, before your shift starts.”
His gaze stayed trained on his dick. “You may not want to after you’re done with your exams.”
There was enough hint of sneer in that I felt a little pulse in my cock. He’d be wound up, fully lit, ready to pound me if I reached home before he left for his shift.
A nice erection began to stir in my briefs. It didn’t help matters that his bare ass was pointed in my direction. I ran my teeth along my lower lip, willed my dick to stand down, and said, “I’ll see you when I get home.”
He flushed the toilet. “Whatever you say, Lee.” And he brushed past me and climbed back into bed.
The drive to Langley was fast. It was closer than I thought, less than fifteen miles, and as I drove I realized how little time I’d invested in anything but Richard since landing in DC.
I was screened and checked at a security entrance—it stunned me a little that my name was on the visitors’ list—then told where to park.
I was early, so I sat in my car, staring at the building the way you do when you discover something you believed was myth really existed. Of course, I knew it did exist, but it was the least likely turn for my life I’d expected.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Did I want this? I didn’t know. Were there answers in there to finalize piecing together the puzzle of my father Wilcox had left me with at The Blue House Restaurant? I was confident that was my sole motivation for coming there. But did I want them? Fuck yeah, I did.
There was a lot unresolved in me about my father. He’d always been a bit of a mystery and enigma. I’d traveled the world with him when I was little, but we’d never been what I’d call close. He seemed to hold me at arm’s length, and I’d chalked it up to my being a disappointment to him.
Now there was the possibility—a faint possibility—it’d had nothing to do with me and everything to do with whatever his involvement was with the CIA. Oddly, it didn’t make me feel better; it made me feel worse there was the possibility he’d put service to his country over me.
Fuck, I was taking that too far in my head. Leland Edward Jensen the second was a man who put himself over all else. Country and me. That was a more comfortable theory.
I climbed out of the car, hurried up the walk, was put through another security check, and told to sit on a couch in the lobby and wait.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Ah, Wilcox lumbering down the stairs.
My nerves jumped. He really was a fucking spook. I’d only half believed what he’d told me and hadn’t completely lost the suspicion that the napkin note with CIA being burned by the candle had been him fucking with me.
He strode toward me and extended his hand, and my gaze froze on the badge dangling from his neck as his fingers locked around mine. “You showed.”
“We both knew I would. Don’t pretend to be surprised.”
Releasing my hand, he laughed. “Jena told me you had an uncanny ability to read people. She hadn’t lied.”
After he motioned with his head, I followed him toward the stairs. “How do you know Jena?”
“This is not a place where you ask questions, Lee. This is where you pick up answers by being silent.”
“Ah, the training begins.”
He laughed, swiped a card across a panel, then there was a beep and a heavy security door opened. Jesus Christ, the room was large. A giant bank of examination tables and chairs, and what I was sure was a two-way observation window disguised as a mirror, but what I noted most was that it was empty.
“You give qualification exams individually?” I asked.
“Not usually, Lee. You’re an urgent priority. I need to get you through this and to The Farm for field training by end of day. We’re running out of time getting you in place.”
Running out of time? In place? I didn’t bother asking the questions because I knew he wouldn’t answer. Instead, I tilted my head toward the observation glass. “How many are behind there watching me?”
He pointed at a chair, directing me to sit. “Quite a few. You’re important.”
Important, huh? Ridiculous. He didn’t need to pump up my ego; I was already there.
He spread out an exam paper and a pencil on the table, then reached for a wooden box and said, “Phone, keys, identification. Everything from your pockets. You get this back when you leave here.”
“Only if you promise not to hack the password on my phone and look at my photo library.”
He shook his head at me, struggling with a smile as I dumped said contents as ordered into the box. “Watch in box as well, Lee.”
My features shifted into a what-the-fuck face.
“You’d be surprised where people hide things.”
I carefully laid my Rolex in the bin.
“You have four hours for the written exam.”
I waited until he was out of the room before I opened the booklet. Oh fuck, really? This was the qualification exam for becoming a spook? Random, meaningless junk I’d known since I was a child, a few logic tests—not very difficult—a section on government and laws, a foreign language test, and an essay with a prompt.
Scanning the pages, my respect for the intelligence community dropped a few notches and it hadn’t been that high in the first place.
I launched into the section I was sure was a test of my knowledge of the geopolitical landscape, history and leadership of foreign governments, and never came up for air.
The exam was beneath me, even more than they’d been at Princeton. Multiple choice, really? Circle. Circle. Circle. Wow, a short answer question: list the cabinet members of the United States and the congressional leadership? Answered with a vengeance, scribbled out hard into the paper.
Next was the essay: Why are you applying for a position in the CIA? Dumb. This crossed over into the psych evaluation, no doubt. Fine, honest answer: My lesbian friend at the State Department thought it’d make me more interesting to my lover if I found something to do instead of playing online cards nine to five.
I slapped the book shut. There, didn’t need five hundred words to answer that last one.
Leaning back in my chair, I slowly smoothed my hair back into place and wondered if they’d wait the entire four hours before realizing I’d finished the test in what I was sure was half the allotted time.
The door opened. Wilcox moved my way. “How are you holding up, Lee?”
“Marvelous, though I could use a latte. Just point me in the direction while you score my exam.”
He scooped up the test and tossed it in the box with my belongings he’d carried in with him. “Sorry, Lee. No latte. I can grab you a cup of plain joe on our way to your next stop. Sorry about the pace of this. Can’t be helped.”
My brow hitched up. “Next stop? Aren’t you even going to look at my answers?”
He continued walking toward the door. “Don’t have to. It’s already been evaluated. There’s an eye in the light fixture above you. You passed the written qualifications exam with flying colors.”
Halfway down the hall, he paused at a cubicle and leaned in holding out my belongings and exam. “Lock that up, Jena, until we’re through with Lee.”
Jena. My head swam. But, fuck, it was her. There was no way to mistake those legs and that killer smile of hers as she swiveled her chair around from her desk.
Oh, fuck me. She didn’t work for the State Department; Jena Garret was a spook.
She grabbed the box from Wilcox’s hand. “See you when you’re done, Lee. I promise.”
Oh, you bet I will, I thought, shooting her a fuck you glance before I caught up with Wilcox ambling down the hall.
“Jena is one of our best analysts. A rising star,” he said absently. He opened a door using his card and pointed at a chair in front of a desk. “Someone will be here soon.”
The door closed behind me. Jesus Christ, what had I gotten myself into?
The rest of the day unfolded like speed dating. Someone coming into the office to talk to me. Leaving abruptly. Then another person. On and on, round and round, shooting questions at me ranging from the intensely personal to the absurd.
Never a break. Never a moment to rest. It should have been exhausting, but it was exhilarating. Sharp minds. Quick words. Mental warfare to figure out what made Leland tick.
“Have you ever stolen anything?” my—what was it, thirty-sixth?—interrogator asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Jena Garret’s cherry.” That was a fuck-you to Jena for not giving me a heads-up on this.
“Are you gay?” she asked.
“No.” In truth, I didn’t think of myself that way.
“Do you have sex with men?”
“Yes. Every chance I get.”
“What does that make you?”
I smirked. “Lucky.”
The luscious redhead stepped out of the room and I barely got a breath out before a stodgy, portly man filled the vacancy on the chair across the desk from me.
“We’re almost through,” he announced.
“What a shame. It’s been lovely.”
“Would you rather have world peace or world dominance?” he asked without looking up at me.
“If I dominated it would be peace,” I responded glibly.
“Do you prefer rainy days or sunny?”
“Depends on if I’m naked. No. Scratch that. They’re both good when you’re naked.”
“How far would you go for your country?”
“I’d fuck someone but I wouldn’t kill them.”
Mr. No Personality rocked back in his chair. “If you are selected as a field agent you’d be responsible for collecting intel from governments hostile and friendly to the United States that may lead to people’s deaths.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t be the one killing them.”
“Does that make a difference to you?”
“Yes.”
“Would you kill to protect your own life and identity?”
“Yes.”
“How is that different?”
“It’s hard to be a pacifist from the grave.”
“Do you consider yourself a pacifist?”
“No. Practical and enamored of living.”
“Are you lying?”
“Yes.”
“Have you lied during the oral examination?”
“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
The door was slammed.
I was alone again.
The minutes ticked by slowly as I watched the hand turn on the wall clock. One hour. What were they doing? Why was I still here? The answers from my mouth had been mocking at best. They couldn’t still want me. No fucking way.
Wilcox entered the room, and parked his bulk on the edge of the desk near me. “One last round of questions, Lee, and we can get out of here.”
I shrugged. “Why not? Shoot.”
“How many interrogators have questioned you today? How many questions were you asked?”
“Thirty-seven for the oral Q and A, and—” I paused to tally the list in my head. “Four hundred seventeen questions.”
Wilcox pursed his lips and nodded.
My eyes went wide. “No, wait. Four hundred nineteen questions. You asked me two. And that means I’ve been interrogated by thirty-eight spooks in five hours.”
That time Wilcox smiled.