The Reluctant Assassin Read Free

day-to-day operations. They won’t even know you’re in the country unless you call in.’ Witmeyer looked around excitedly, as though about to deliver
amazing
news. ‘In effect, you’ll have nothing to do but study distance-learning modules for your high-school diploma.’
    Chevie sighed. ‘So it’s back to school for the little kid.’
    ‘I hate to tell you this, Chevie, but you are a kid,’ said Witmeyer, glancing over Chevie’s shoulder, anxious to shut this meeting down and join the other agents clack-clacking their weapons in the bustling office space beyond. ‘I’m giving you double years for your pension, Chevie. That’s the best I can do. You can take the pension offer or not. Either way, if you want any chance of staying on at the Bureau, you’re going to London.’
    So Chevie had been in England for nine months, babysitting a metal capsule that looked an awful lot like an Apollo landing module that had been stuffed into the basement of a four-storey Georgian house on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury.
    ‘What do we actually do here?’ she had asked her boss on the first morning. His name, believe it or not, was Agent Orange, which must be some kind of alias, and he was grey from head to toe, from his floppy quiff to his sunglasses and his skinny suit, right down to his custom-made tasselled loafers.
    ‘We attend the pod,’ said the fifty-year-old agent, his Scottish accent making the word
attend
about three seconds longer than it needed to be.
    ‘What are we, podites?’ said Chevie, still jet-lagged and feeling a little belligerent.
    Orange took the question seriously. ‘In a way. Yes, Agent Savano. That pod downstairs is your church.’
    He led Chevie through the lobby area, which was decked out like a three-star English hotel, complete with fire dogs and a ship in a bottle, down into a basement with a reinforced steel door. Once they got past that door, things got real FBI real quick. Chevie spotted over a dozen cameras in the concrete walls, there were motion-sensor bugs all over the corridor, and every type of information cable known to man was threaded through a grey conduit.
    ‘Nice conduit,’ said Chevie drily. ‘Goes with your … everything.’
    Orange coughed. ‘Agent Witmeyer did mention that I am your superior?’
    ‘Negative on that,’ lied Chevie. ‘He said we were partners.’
    ‘I doubt that very much,’ said Orange. ‘In fact, I am only referring to you as
Agent
as a courtesy. From what I hear, you’re being stashed in London after the ill-conceived
high-school initiative
went south.’
    They passed a holding cell and a well-stocked infirmary, then the corridor widened into a circular chamber, which housed a ten-foot-tall pyramid-shaped metal pod, covered in refrigeration tubes and complicated groups of blinking lights.
    ‘This is WARP central,’ said Orange, patting the casing fondly.
    ‘It looks like a sci-fi Christmas tree,’ said Chevie, doing her best not to be impressed.
    Orange checked a number of readouts; it really looked like he knew what he was doing.
    ‘I was expecting this attitude,’ he said, without facing Chevie. ‘I read your file. Most informative. Graduated top of your special group. Record test scores in spite of your age. Problem with authority figures,
blah blah blah
, so much so movie stereotype.’ Orange turned finally to Chevie. ‘We both know why you’re here, Agent Savano. Your group was an embarrassment to the Bureau and a potential legal minefield, because of your age. You messed up for the cameras in Los Angeles, so they sent you overseas on a quiet posting, but, in spite of what you may think, what we do here is important, Agent. There shall be no cutting of slack because of your youth.’
    Chevie glared
.
‘Don’t worry, Agent. I don’t expect slack and I don’t cut any.’
    Orange thrust a hand inside the pod, checking the temperature. ‘I’m glad to hear it. It is more than likely that your un-slackened talents will never