Chapter 2: Chapter 2
* * * *
“What the fuck are you doing here, Vincent?” he’d demanded.
I’d opened my eyes really wide. “I was invited.” Although I’d had no clue why. This was the first time The Boss had told me to get into my tux and show up at the party he hosted for directors, and I was a little uneasy.
“You…I…how….” Sperling had ground his teeth, then stepped around me and stalked over to where the Director of Public Relations stood with his personal assistant. A nod from his director, and the personal assistant had left them.
Sperling’d glared at me over his shoulder before deliberately turning his back on me.
Not the smartest idea—I wouldn’t have done it—but then he wasn’t me.
I’d looked down at my tux. Well, until The Boss let me off the leash, Sperling was safe for another day.
A waiter passed by, and I’d stopped him.
“Would you care for a glass of champagne, sir?”
“No thanks.” I had a minor issue with champagne—it made me horny as hell, and if I had no interest in getting laid, I stayed away from it. “Napkin?”
“Of course, sir.”
I’d taken the napkin and brushed at the drops of champagne that were splattered all over my dress shirt and my jacket.
“You might want some club soda for that.”
“Good idea. Thanks.” I’d need to head for the bar. Unless…. I’d started to grin. This would make a perfect excuse for me to leave.
I’d crossed the room to where The Boss stood with some of his senior directors and waited patiently until there was a break in the conversation.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll need to leave. Champagne leaves an unpleasant stain.”
He’d looked from me to Sperling, shook his head, and said, “Go.”
“Thank you. Merry Christmas, sir.”
“Merry Christmas.”
Not that it had been. It was just another day for me, and a workday at that, although I did drop off presents to some people I knew—the rent boys who’d been my landlords, the genius who worked R&D for the WBIS and who’d come up with some nifty gadgets for me, and a medical examiner who’d done some autopsies on the odd occasion when a body needed to be officially dead.
* * * *
Mr. Wallace cleared his throat pointedly, and I focused on him again.
“Sorry, sir.”
“You were thinking of Sperling, weren’t you?”
“Actually, I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t? Hmm. I must be losing my touch.”
“Not you, sir.” I wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole.
“You’ll be on the clock.” He handed me an envelope. Inside was a ticket granting admittance to the New Year’s Eve event to K. Flint. That was a name I used if I was going undercover as a spook. Anyone looking into it would find I’d been recruited out of Cornell, and both the CIA and Cornell would have the records to back it up.
“What am I looking for?” Flint appeared to be stationed in Austria this time around.
“Director of Counter Intelligence Edward Holmes. It seems he’s becoming very cozy with a certain senator from the Midwest.”
“The same senator who’s on the Appropriations Committee?” He’d been giving us a pain in the ass, and because it was happening within the country, it was Sperling’s job to straighten it out.
“The very one.”
“I’ll keep an eye on Holmes.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
“Do I have time for prosthetics?” R&D down in the basement had the raw materials. I’d need to bake them and then let them cool, but if I had the time—
“If you’re fast enough. I don’t want you there later than eight.”
I shook my head. “I have nothing made up in my apartment, although I can tack my ears back. It’s amazing what a difference that can make.” They were prominent, but no one called me Dumbo. Not more than once.
“I trust you. This is a last-minute assignment, and I’m sorry for that, but something came up, and the director I was going to send will be unable to attend.”
Shit. I hoped this didn’t mean he was planning on grooming me for a desk job. I’d been in the field longer than any other agent, and only part of that was due to the fact that the date of birth listed in my file shaved five years off my real age—I was just that fucking good.
I worried my inner cheek. I wouldn’t let the fact that the WBIS believed in mandatory retirement from the field at the age of thirty-five bother me now. “Ms. Parker is going to be there.”
“Yes. That’s why I asked to speak to her. I informed her of your attendance and that if she should see you, she’s not to recognize you.”
“Okay.” She was good, and I could trust her not to blow my cover. “I’ll shut down my computer and get going.”
“Excellent. Report to me in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the morning” would be New Year’s Day, but I didn’t have any plans, and if The Boss was going to be here at headquarters, then so would I.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone