Express Male

Again, she followed his instructions, leading them into an empty interrogation room. Still training his gun on her, Noah closed the door and thumbed a green button on the wall, to announce their arrival. Within seconds, the door opened again and another agent entered the room.

Noah nodded once at the man in acknowledgment, who nodded silently back in reply. His dark eyes widened, and his shaggy black eyebrows shot high when he noted the extent of Noah’s injuries, until he obviously remembered it was Lila Noah had just brought in. Noah didn’t bother to tell the man it was Sorcerer, not she, who’d inflicted the damage. No reason for the other man to let down his guard.

By now she had retreated to the opposite corner of the room. She stood with her back pressed against the place where the two walls met, hugging herself tight, as if she were trying to hold herself together. Her eyes, an incredible aquamarine that Noah had never seen on any human being but her, were wide with what looked like fear—yeah, right—and her entire body seemed to be shaking now.

For the first time, he noted her attire; the slim gray skirt, the pale blue top and sweater. Her hair, darker blond than it had been the last time he saw her, was wound atop her head in a loose bun, except for a few stray pieces that had fallen free, probably during her scuffle with Sorcerer. She wore no makeup, and her legs were bare, her feet encased in chunky, ugly shoes. It was a remarkably bland getup, worn obviously because she didn’t want to attract attention. Noah had seen her outfitted in everything from black camouflage to designer evening gowns to perform her job. But never had he seen her try to carry off a persona like this. Mild. Unobtrusive. Compliant. It didn’t suit her at all.

“Good to have you back, She-Wolf,” said the second man, an agent whose code name was Zorba, thanks to his Mediterranean heritage. “Though it would have been better if you’d come in on your own, instead of having to be dragged back.”

Lila’s expression changed at the man’s use of her code name, a slip Noah noticed with some satisfaction. Maybe she was finally going to give up the lame pretense, and then they could start talking in earnest about why she’d taken off, where she’d been and what the hell she’d been doing while she was gone and prior to her disappearance.

“She-Wolf?” she echoed, her voice edged with irritation.

“I thought you people were convinced I was this Lila person. What’s with the She-Wolf? What kind of name is that?”

Noah almost smiled. Oh, yeah. Lila was about to reveal herself. Even backed against the wall—literally—she could still snarl.

Zorba looked at Noah. “Gonna be a long night, I see.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Zorba,” Noah said, not taking his eyes off Lila. “If anyone can make her crack, you can.”

Her eyes went wide at that, and he smiled with satisfaction. She’d been out of the game too long if she was revealing herself that easily. Then again, this was probably all part of her game. Since she kept insisting she was someone else, she had to pretend to be scared of what was happening to her. Smart agent. Excellent actress.

“Go ahead and get started without me,” he told Zorba.

“I need to get cleaned up and find something to eat. I’m starving. You hungry?” he asked Lila.

She didn’t seem to know what to make of the offer. After a small hesitation, she said softly, “A little.”

“Too bad,” he told her. “You’ll get nothing until you tell us what we want to hear.”

And without awaiting a reply—or a dagger in his back, which was the most likely response from Lila Moreau—he left the room.

“NOW, LET’S TRY this again, Lila, starting five months ago. We know you went to the Nesbitt estate to make contact with your partner after knocking Romeo unconscious and taking his clothes. But that was the last time anyone saw you. Where did you go after that?”

Noah bit back a growl at hearing Zorba ask the question again. Four hours after bringing Lila to the OPUS interrogation facility, she was still insisting she was someone named Marnie Lundy who’d grown up in Cleveland and held down two jobs, one for the department store where he’d picked her up tonight and one teaching piano to schoolchildren.

He’d actually laughed out loud at that. The only reason Lila would get near a kid would be to have it for breakfast. And the only way she’d get near a piano would be to cut the wire for garroting someone later. Not that OPUS had ever called on her to be an assassin. But she sure as hell had all the right moves and qualities to make a good one.

During a break in the interrogation, when Noah and Zorba had stepped out of the room, the other man had suggested they bring in an OPUS shrink, on the outside chance—the way outside chance—that Lila really had gone off the deep end this time. She’d been out in the cold for five months, all alone, without any of her usual tools or contacts to help her. She’d lost her mother just prior to her disappearance, and although Noah knew there was no love lost between the two women, the death of a parent could still have a powerful impact on a person. Lila’s past was troubled—to put it mildly—her background unstable—ditto. Throw all of that into a pot and it made for a toxic stew that might undo anyone. Even Lila Moreau.

Reluctantly, Noah had called in not just a shrink, but also his superior officer from OPUS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Although Noah headed up the Ohio unit, there were interstate implications with this, and he felt obligated to alert the big guns to what was going on. Especially the biggest gun of all, He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say—mostly because nobody knew what it was. After all, he was the one Lila had reportedly tried to kill.

Now, both No-Name and the shrink had arrived and been briefed on what was going on. The psychiatrist, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, code name Gestalt, had joined Noah and Zorba in the interrogation room, and He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say was watching from another room on the closed-circuit TV.

“My name isn’t Lila,” Lila said wearily for what felt like the hundredth time.

She was sitting with her arms crossed on the table, her forehead resting on the top one. She was clearly exhausted, and they’d allowed her no food or drink, nor breaks of any kind, since her arrival. Anyone else would have rolled over by now. But not Lila.

“My name is Marnie Lundy,” she said again. “I live at 207 Mockingbird Lane in Cleveland, Ohio. I was born and raised in Cleveland. I’m thirty-three years old. I graduated from Moore High School in 1991, and from Ohio State University with a B.A. in music in 1995. I earned my master’s in music from OSU in 1996. My work record has been varied and eclectic since then, but I now work at Lauderdale’s Department Store, and I teach piano to kids after school and on weekends.” She lifted her head and met each of her inquisitors’ gazes in turn. “I don’t know who you people are or why you’re keeping me here. But I swear, if it’s at all within my power to do so, once this is over, I will hunt down every one of you like dogs and call you Rover.”

Well, at least she’d been honest about her age, Noah thought. And maybe the part about hunting them all down like dogs. Except that she’d do a lot more than call them names once she found them.

“Perhaps you should let me ask a few questions.” The comment came from Gestalt. “I’d like to speak to Ms. Lundy alone for a bit.”

Noah was about to decline, but one look from the psychiatrist stopped him. Fine. If she wanted to call Lila Ms. Lundy, hell, who was Noah to stop her? It wasn’t like he and Zorba had had any luck all night. And they could watch from the closed-circuit TV, too.

“All right,” he said. “Zorba and I will go for coffee. And I think they put out some doughnuts, too,” he added, looking at Lila. “Anybody else want anything? Except you, I mean?”

If looks could kill, Noah would have been atomic fallout about then.

“We’ll be fine,” Gestalt told him. “Ms. Lundy…Marnie,” she said, softening her voice, “and I will have a nice little chat, I hope.”

Whatever, Noah thought.

He and Zorba left the room, locking the door behind them, just in case Lila decided to ditch the compliant, complacent role and return to her old badass self. Then they strode to the next room to join their boss. Also present was Noah’s secretary, Ellie Chandler, a slim brunette on the tall side wearing a dark suit similar to the ones the men favored. Only instead of a necktie, she’d closed the collar with an understated bit of jewelry.

Normally, Noah wouldn’t include his secretary in something like this. But Ellie was ninety percent finished with the instruction and training required to become an agent, and he did his best to include her in things that might be helpful to her education. He was confident she would be an excellent agent. He was, after all, the one who had recommended her to the program.

“All set for your first field assignment?” he asked her now.

It was a rhetorical question. She’d be going undercover in three days, so she’d damned well better be ready. Not to mention she’d made clear her desire to become a field agent on the first day she’d been assigned to his office. The fact that it would only be a training assignment, and therefore not particularly dangerous, didn’t seem to make any difference to her at this point. He just hoped her enthusiasm didn’t ebb when she discovered the particulars of what her assignment would involve.

“I am so ready for it,” she told him. “Bring it on.”

“Funny you should say that,” he replied. “Because I just so happen to have the dossier with me. You can take it home with you after we’re finished here and start going over it. Since you’re working tonight, take tomorrow at home. Get a few hours of sleep before you dive in. You need to be fresh when you review everything.”

She looked slightly disappointed to be taking a day away from the office, and Noah tried to curb yet another grin. Honestly, if even half of his agents were as gung ho as Ellie, OPUS would have ensured world peace ages ago.

The room in which they had all gathered was outfitted more comfortably than the interrogation room, but was by no means luxurious. In addition to a metal table and chairs, there was a long couch and two upholstered chairs. Along one wall was a kitchenette of sorts, with sink and refrigerator and countertops—upon which whattayaknow, were some doughnuts—and a coffeemaker.

That last was coughing out the final drops of a fresh brew, so Noah made his way over and removed the pot, filling a white ceramic mug. Over the speakers, he could hear Gestalt’s voice as she spoke to Lila, a low, indulgent, monotonous tone clearly meant to be soothing. It put Noah’s teeth on edge. He moved to stand next to the others, his attention fixed on the television. His boss, too, a man of indeterminate age and average everything else, had his attention focused entirely on the TV screen.

Gestalt had seated herself at the end of the table kitty-corner to Lila, a less adversarial position than Noah and Zorba had held sitting across from her. She’d removed her jacket and hung it over the back of the chair to further her image as relaxed and less administrative. Lila leaned back in her chair with her hands in her lap, eyeing the other woman warily, just as she had Noah and Zorba. But she didn’t seem to reek quite as much contempt for Gestalt. Yet.

“Do you mind if I call you Marnie?” Gestalt said.

Lila’s response was an irritated sound, followed by a weary, “No. It would be nice to hear my name. I just wish you were calling me that because you believe I am who I say I am and not just to humor me.”

“I do believe you.”

“Then why aren’t you doing something to see that I’m released?”

“Because it’s not up to me to make that decision.”

“Who are you people?” Lila demanded. She sounded genuinely confused, which Noah knew she wasn’t, and genuinely angry, which he was sure she was.

Gestalt smiled in the way a kindergarten teacher might smile at a new pupil. “We work for a branch of the U.S. government called the Office for Political Unity and Security.”

“I’ve never heard of you,” Lila muttered.

“That’s because we’re a small, top-secret organization,” Gestalt told her, clearly unconcerned about revealing information she shouldn’t be revealing to anyone outside the organization, since Lila wasn’t outside the organization, no matter how much she insisted she was. “We don’t want anyone to hear about us, so few people have.”

“Are you law enforcement or what?” Lila asked.

“We fall under the domain of Homeland Security, and we have many functions,” Gestalt said. “Essentially, OPUS tackles anything or anyone that poses a threat to national security, be they domestic or international. We are both collectors of information and enforcers of the law. Right now, much of our focus is on finding two people. One man, one woman.”

“Let me guess,” Lila said. “The woman is this Lila person.”

“Lila Moreau,” Gestalt said. “She works for us. Her code name in the organization is She-Wolf.”

“Code name?” Lila echoed dubiously. A nervous-sounding chuckle escaped her. “You people actually have code names?”

“We do.”

“Gosh, do you have a secret handshake and decoder rings, too?”

Gestalt smiled that benign smile again. “No secret handshakes,” she said.

Lila hesitated a telling beat, narrowing her eyes before saying, “So then you do have decoder rings.”

In response to that, Gestalt removed what looked like a college ring from her right ring finger and laid it on the table between herself and Lila.

Lila looked at it blankly, then back at Gestalt. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“It has a laser in it, too,” Gestalt told her. “And a camera. And a microphone. And a global-positioning device. And a few other little features that are too hush-hush for me to share with a civilian like you.” She reached for the ring and put it on again. “But I could break into the Bank of Switzerland and take out half the United Arab Emirates with it if I wanted to.”

“Unbelievable,” Lila said, even though she owned a ring exactly like it. Just as Noah did. Just as every agent did. “So what makes you people think I’m this Lila Moreau slash She-Wolf person?”

“Well, you do look very much like her.”

Ha, Noah thought. She looked exactly like Lila. Same face, same height, same build, same mannerisms. Because she was Lila. Yeah, her hair was a little darker and she’d dropped a few pounds, but he’d know Lila anywhere.

“What’s she done to make her such a priority with your organization?” Lila asked.

“She’s an agent with top-secret clearance, and she disappeared five months ago without a trace.”

“How do you know she’s not dead?”

“We don’t know that. But it would be unlikely. She’s quite a good agent. Arguably our best.”

No argument here, Noah thought. At least, Lila had been their best agent, up until the time she vanished. Unfortunately, there was so much innuendo and rumor surrounding her disappearance that he wasn’t sure what to think now.

The official word was that Lila had taken a short leave of absence in the middle of an assignment to return to her hometown of Las Vegas because her mother was terminally ill and near death. Within a few weeks of her arrival in Vegas, her mother died, so Lila had asked for a little more time to sort through her mother’s effects and settle the woman’s estate. Well, as much estate as a woman could leave behind when she’d spent her adult life as a showgirl and hooker and had no family besides the illegitimate daughter who’d left home at age sixteen and never returned.

After that, things got a little murky. Last November, Noah, like everyone at his level and higher, had received a report that She-Wolf had returned to Washington and, while being debriefed by He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say, had gone nuts and tried to murder him. Then she’d disappeared.

This, Noah had trouble believing. At one time or another, everyone in OPUS had wanted to murder He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say. But everyone in OPUS, especially someone as smart as Lila, knew that to even attempt such a thing would be suicide. Plus, Lila wasn’t one to lose control and go nuts. She never let her emotions overrule her. She was the coolest, at times the most emotionless person Noah knew.

So, like many in OPUS, he’d had his doubts about the reliability—he hesitated to use the word veracity—of the report. It wouldn’t be the first time the big muckety-mucks in D.C. had inflated—or created—a story to suit their own needs. Still he’d had no choice but to follow protocol and treat Lila as an enemy of the organization.

Watching her now, he couldn’t quite figure out what she was. She certainly wasn’t cooperating with them. But she didn’t seem to be a threat, either. So Noah would reserve judgment and observe.

“If she’s your best agent,” Lila said to Gestalt, “and if you think I’m her, then why are you treating me like a criminal? For that matter, if I’m her, why wouldn’t I come along peacefully and cooperate with you? Why would I keep insisting I’m someone else?”

“Well, there were some…circumstances…surrounding her disappearance,” Gestalt said. “Circumstances that are a bit unclear.”

Lila was silent for a moment, clearly digesting the information. Then she said, “Meaning she either screwed something up really badly, or else she’s turned to the dark side.”

Gestalt smiled again. “Let’s just say there are a few questions we’d like to ask her. A few things we need for her to clear up. But let’s talk about you, Marnie. I want to hear more about you right now.”

For the next half hour, Gestalt quizzed Lila on her phony-baloney Marnie Lundy persona, asking questions that ranged from her childhood illnesses to her high-school social life to her experiences as a teaching assistant at Ohio State. Had he not known better, Noah would have sworn Lila really was some woman named Marnie Lundy. Not once did she stop to think before responding, and not once did she waver from her story. Even when Gestalt tried to trip her up, Lila always made perfect sense.

But that was Lila. She had a gift for changing herself into whatever she needed to be. When she took on the identity of someone else, she didn’t just pass herself off as that individual. She became that individual. Mind, body and soul. The fact that this time the identity was one she’d assigned to herself instead of being assigned it by OPUS didn’t change that.

At the end of Gestalt’s questioning, she left Lila alone and returned to the room where Noah and the others were waiting. Much to his surprise, her expression when she entered was one of philosophical acceptance.

“You think she’s telling the truth?” he asked incredulously.

“I think she’s telling the truth as she sees it, yes,” Gestalt told them. “I think She-Wolf genuinely believes that she’s Marnie Lundy.”

“What?” Noah barked.

“She’s delusional,” Gestalt said. “Something happened to her that’s made her block out her actual identity and assume the identity of a fictional person who lives a life completely different from the one she’s used to. A quiet, uneventful, safe life,” she added meaningfully. “She’s even given that fictional person her initials, albeit reversed. Lila Moreau. Marnie Lundy. But I’m quite convinced that right now, She-Wolf firmly believes she’s who she says she is.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Noah asked. He still wasn’t sure he believed Gestalt’s analysis, but he couldn’t offer a better explanation himself.

The psychologist sighed heavily. “There are a number of ways we can deal with it, but most of those take time, and I gather you don’t have much of that to spare.”

“You got that right,” Noah told her. “Sorcerer has resurfaced, and She-Wolf’s made contact. Hell, Philosopher’s turned up again after being missing for three years, and She-Wolf has made contact with him, too. I never thought we’d see him again. If we’re going to nail Sorcerer and find out what Philosopher knows, not to mention discover what Lila learned over the last five months, we need her.”

“Then we need a quick fix,” Gestalt translated. “And I have an idea. It’s unconventional, and normally not what I would do in such a situation, but…”

“What?” Noah asked. “I’ll try anything.”

“Then try playing along with her,” Gestalt told him. Though she clearly still had some reservations about what she was saying. “Go in there and tell her you ran her name through the databases and found out Marnie Lundy really exists, and that everything she’s said tonight has been corroborated, and we’re so sorry for detaining her and now she’s free to go.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Noah muttered. “Like I really believe there’s a Marnie Lundy out there in the world who looks exactly like Lila Moreau and just happened to have her path cross with both Philosopher and Sorcerer in one night.”

“You don’t have to believe it,” Gestalt said. “Just make her think you do. She was specific about her background and home life and jobs. She has a firm grip on her delusion. So expose that delusion for the fantasy it really is. Prove to her that all of what she’s told us is completely false. Once she’s forced to confront the fact that there is no reality to support her convictions, she may—and I do mean may—come out of it.”

“How do I do that?” Noah asked.

“Take her to the address she insists is hers. See if it really exists. And if it does, go inside and see what you find. Ask her questions. Try to trip her up. Do the same thing with her workplace.”

“You didn’t have much luck tripping her up,” Noah pointed out.

“Here, I have no choice but to accept that what she says is true. Out there, you’ll have more opportunities to force her to accept the unreality of the world she’s created for herself. I’m betting she won’t be able to prove much of what she told us tonight. And I’m betting it will happen fairly quickly.”

“And then she’ll go back to being Lila again?” Noah asked dubiously.

“Maybe,” Gestalt told him. “Of course, she might be propelled into an even worse state than she’s in now.” Her gaze shifted from Noah to No-Name, then back to Noah again. “But I don’t think something like that is really a concern for OPUS, is it?”

Noah clamped his jaw shut tight. Gestalt was right. OPUS never put the human condition before national security. They couldn’t afford to. National security was job one. Even more important than the health and well-being of one of their top agents.

“It’s worth a try,” No-Name said without hesitation.

“We need to know where She-Wolf’s been and what she’s discovered. At this point, she may be our only hope for bringing in Sorcerer.”

And they needed to bring Lila up on charges for trying to take out the big guy, too, Noah thought. If indeed she had tried to take out the big guy. The big guy was acting awfully calm for a man whose alleged would-be murderer was on the other side of the wall.

“All right,” Noah said, ignoring the sudden bad taste in his mouth. “I’ll do it. I’ll take her home and see what happens.”

He looked at the TV screen again and saw that Lila had laid her head back on her arms on the table. She was completely motionless. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her in such a state. Even when she slept, she moved constantly. He remembered that much, and more—too much more—about her.

He shifted his attention to Gestalt. “This better work,” he muttered. “And it better work fast. I need She-Wolf back.”

CHAPTER FIVE

IN HER DREAM, Marnie was playing the Polonaise in an empty Carnegie Hall, her passion and love for the music swelling inside her, flowing out through her fingertips and into the cavernous room. As she completed the final stanza, she dropped her head and let her hands fall from the keys into her lap. But when solitary applause erupted, she snapped her head up again.

Not an empty auditorium after all. A lone, tuxedoed gentleman sat center stage in the front row, his crisp white shirt and tie a direct contrast to the black cut of his jacket and trousers. His dark-blond hair was swept straight back from his face, giving more prominence to his blue, blue eyes, his finely sculpted cheekbones, his full, sexy mouth. Marnie’s own lips parted in surprise at seeing him and her heart hammered hard in her chest. But she said nothing.