Damsel in Distress
Previous Chapter: It's All In The Mind
After I get back from my latest project, I log on to my job site. I see several notes from Tessa asking for an immediate contact. This is alarming. I check our secure form of verbal communication. There are several messages as well. Isabel is in trouble somehow. Tessa needs help getting her out of it. I immediately contact Tessa on our secure line, but she doesn’t respond. I leave a message.
It’s been a smidge over five years since Isabel and I met back in Venezuela. However, only six to eight months since Tessa and I last got together and weeks since we last communicated. It seems Isabel was meant to fail on the last job, triggering her downfall in their organization (Isabel knew the risk, but felt the reward would be justified). Her visibility after being successful made her additional enemies. As an effort to sideline her, several of her detractors maneuvered her into managing internal affairs. That just seemed to make things worse. I have a suspicion that Tessa’s contact may have something to do with Isabel’s relationship with certain co-workers.
Rather than unpacking completely, I start to lay out for a new trip, then make some preliminary contacts for travel arrangements. This is a new sensation for me: I find myself getting tense and angry. I even notice a slight tremor in a hand as I shuffle things around. Last time we met, Isabel and I talked about “love” and what it means to be in such a state, could lust evolve into love, could a psychopath/sociopath like me even feel it? I’ve thought about this off and on over the years, not the least because Tessa always seems to encourage doing so. Based on my research, I would say I have the “clinical” signs of being in love. Fearing that my love is in danger, my heart rate has increased. I’m getting little squirts of adrenaline which has led to the mentioned tremor. My palms are sweaty and I’m uncharacteristically having trouble focusing.
I decide I need to relax, so grab a cigar, take the phone and sit on the porch. The smoke and the view do calm me somewhat, though when I drop down into reverie, I find myself tensing again. I get up and pace back and forth on the deck from time to time. After realizing I’m not relaxing, I drop back down in the chair. Then, within minutes, find myself back up, pacing again, with no conscious recollection of having stood up.
At last, the phone rings. Jettisoning the cigar over the railing, I answer it. There’s a seemingly interminable period before the encrypted connection is finalized, though I know it really is only a couple of seconds. Finally, Tessa gets on the line.
“They have her Seacay! I didn’t think they’d go this far, but I clearly underestimated them. Other than feeling sure she’s still in the city, I have no idea where they’re holding her or under what conditions.”
“Slow down. Who are ‘they’ and what precipitated this?”
There’s a pause and I can hear her take a long, deep breath and slowly let it out. A little more in control now, she continues.
“ ‘They’ are her enemies in the agency. She was never popular, as I told you before, and her being maneuvered into IA turned out to be a big mistake for them. She’s a by-the-book sort of person and has a fetish for rooting out skimming for some reason. Over the last several years, she’s gone after a number of people who’ve been careless in how they skim off of projects. She’s made a few make financial amends and even forced a couple out of the agency. I’ve kept an eye on some of the loudest offenders, but it seems they weren’t the dangerous ones. Though it’s been made to look like she stormed off in some sort of huff, there’s no question in my mind someone in the group has kidnapped her. There’s a limit to how much investigating I can do without becoming a target myself. How long until you can get here?”
“I can be there in about seven hours.” I ask her if she knows about a particular airfield, she does. I tell her I’ll text her with the specific time and will meet her there as soon as possible.
After hanging up with Tessa, I finalize arrangements with Jim. He heads out straightaway. I go to the airstrip we agreed on, after he made whatever arrangements he needs in order to leave the country without being subjected to surveillance. Jim’s worked extensively in South America in general, Brazil and Rio in particular (though the capital has moved, many of the agencies have kept their operations in their old locations), so we’ll be able to get in without any problems. Though the flight will be fast in comparison to commercial, it’s still a long haul and I’m not looking forward to being idle that long. For the first couple of hours, I sit with him in the cockpit and we talk shop. I generally don’t discuss private matters at all; Agatha is the only exception. Jim doesn’t know anything about Isabel or Tessa and only knows I need to be at a given airport as soon as possible for some reason. Since I’d already traveled for a good half day before this adventure began, after a few hours I head to a seat in the passenger area to get some sleep.
As I lay there, I think about Isabel. Tessa described Isabel and her agency like Joan from “Covert Affairs.” The main difference is Joan has a husband in the ‘biz who helps look out for back stabbers; Isabel is all alone. Isabel might be a wee bit politically naive as well. She may have made too many aggressive moves too quickly when she started in IA. Perhaps, if she’d made her intentions known and given some time for people to clean up their act, things would’ve turned out better. Still, I think I know Isabel well enough to know that this thought wouldn’t have even occurred to her. She would have bulled straight ahead with her plans.
I eventually get to sleep, though don’t manage to do so soundly. I keep having dreams where I see Isabel tied up. As I move forward to untie her, she keeps moving away.