Rogue Agent - #1 in the Agent Series.: Agent Series, #1

By Dan J Ford

'Rogue Agent is an exceptional series debut...' BestThrillers.com

One agent's stellar FBI career, cut short by an operation gone south. His mentor, a bureau legends star continues to rise.

A decade later, as the investigation of a missing UN helicopter unfolds, half-truths and lies from long ago, assumed dead and buried, resurface with shocking consequences. One man will risk everything to uncover the truth.

Tom Wiseman's old-school investigative brilliance is reawakening … in an ultra-modern world. Lookout technology. And bad guys.

Fans of: Jack Reacher, Jack Ryan, Mitch Rapp, 007, Orphan X, and the standalone: I Am Pilgrim, should thoroughly enjoy Rogue Agent, and the entire Modern-Thriller 'Agent Series'.

'Rogue Agent is a gripping, ultra-modern series opener, delivered with the style and pace of a Bond film. Highly addictive reading.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Torch Press
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645732115

Book preview

1

PROLOGUE. FBI TRAINING ACADEMY. QUANTICO. CURRENT DAY. 0759 HOURS EASTERN STANDARD TIME (EST)

FBI Agent in Training, Tom Wiseman, studied the GPS-synced digital wall clock, then his own wrist-mounted G-Shock as it ticked off seconds, perfectly in time.

The morning was a cold, mid-January special. Outside it was crisp and quiet and cloudless, typical in the first week of training back at the Academy, and the small lecture room’s central heating seemed inadequate for the task.

More of his training cadre filled fix and fold down tables and chairs around him. Many opened laptops or placed tablets on tabletops to take notes, then sat with hands under their thighs in an attempt to warm their hands and fingers; niceties such as gloves, scarves, and head coverings were not permitted to be worn within the Academy’s main building. Not by Agents in training, anyway.

Tom dorsi and plantarflexed his ankles and shifted on the chair’s thin, PVC-covered integrated cushioning.

As the last few recruits took their cold seats, rumors of what was to come in the next four hours continued in whispers and hushed guesses.

The most pervasive rumor among sophomore-year FBI rookies was that graduating, then surviving in the sharp-end world as an FBI investigator, if your career lasted that long, came down to one man’s tuition.

Within seconds of both clocks transitioning to 0800, instantaneous silence fell as the lecturer, pushing a relic from a side door, maneuvered the old-school teaching aide on its squeaky castors. After centering the elementary chalkboard with a few unnecessary adjustments, he hefted a piece of engineer’s chalk from the ledge and spoke.

Field-experienced grittiness within his tone, paired with the clipped and precise verbiage of a drill Sergeant, commanded immediate attention and unquestioned compliance.

iPads, screens, laptops, phones: put all that crap away right now. I don’t want to see or hear any of it again.

Government-issued laptops snapped shut and tech gizmo silent mode buttons clicked as uniform black bags were filled and hustled away quickly.

Special Agent Olsen was treading the not-so-thin line between portly and solid. His combination of a sandy, balding comb-over in a collared and short-sleeved light blue shirt was a firm nod to image coming a far second to ruthless efficiency. Goose pimples were clearly visible on his thick forams, yet the cold did not seem to register in his demeanor. Stump-like, a navy blue tie stopped a full four inches short of being anywhere near fashionable, let alone savvy. Clear, intelligent silver eyes dissected the room of hopefuls like frog limbs as he held his favored piece of engineer’s chalk-like an ice pick, letting the silence drag long enough to hold brief, meaningful and menacing eye contact with each of the candidates for good measure. Tom was overtaken by an involuntarily shiver.

In here we talk, listen and learn. And learn you will. Skills and tactics, tells and reasoning. Tradecraft. We will sharpen teachings through improvised activities and kinesthetic assignments. If you last long enough, you will develop the Investigating Agent’s greatest skill: unwavering observation. In the field, this will evolve further: intuition. There are no stupid questions, however, time management is critical.

A late-twenties, Iowa white-bread lump of testosterone, surnamed Van Prooen, three rows back, raised his hand and was pointed at by the lecturer, who had already pursed his lips disapprovingly.

How do we like, take notes, sir?

Olsen tapped his index finger to his head twice and continued as if no one else had spoken.

This is our primary weapon. Make no mistake. Your sidearm will be your backup if you make it through rookies. And rarely used. At this, two or three sets of shoulders in the room deflated half an inch. Wannabe Hollywood Agents.

Investigations are a spider’s web, Olsen continued. And FBI special investigation teams are our government’s big, hairy, principal domestic security and surveillance tarantulas. And we don’t go hungry.

Olsen was an old-school specialist lecturer, which was a title within the student schedule to obscure his actual job: DC’s most senior Specialist Investigator. His exclusive subject within the second-year syllabus: investigative techniques, quickly dubbed 'spy class' by the recruits, was a fortnightly, four-hour, intensive workshop and field exercise amalgamation.

Olsen raised the chalk and began carving exact lines into the large chalkboard, etching a tiny sun in the middle of the board with long sun rays shooting off in eight directions. Tarantulas are a burrowing spider, Tom knew, guessing correctly where the depiction leaned, but said nothing. It wasn’t yet apparent how much the analogy would shape his future. Plus, no one likes a smartass.

Each stream of data is a long, silk thread in our surveillance web, extending outwards, that an investigative team takes ownership of and interprets data from, feeling it out for fluctuations, deficiencies or patterns: vibrations in the web.

Tom’s finger rubbed and taped lightly on the edge of his chair’s fix-n-fold-away tabletop, feeling into the analogy as Olsen continued pointing at the lengthy lines one at a time.

Phone taps, online communication, visited IP addresses, social media network mapping, GPS location data, online purchases and banking, work timelines and schedules, physical and habitual processes. Now, let’s all fire up that grey matter and find out if it’s just the wind a-blowing, or if it’s suppertime.

The room’s temperature seemed to lift ten degrees in an instant. Recruits shifted in their seats reflexively, already growing uneasy with the prospect of being put on the spot in front of their competitive peers. Tom stared obliviously at the lines on the board, cycling the data streams through his mind on the board, cycling the data streams through his mind on rotation like the spokes of a spinning wheel. Phone taps, online communications, visited IP addresses, social media network mapping, GPS location data, online purchases and banking, work timelines and schedules, physical and habitual processes. Check.

Let's see if a year of rookies has penetrated the surface, shall we. This is the time span of a legitimate investigation. All are individual pieces of data on our suspect X. Could be somebody, could be a nobody. Olsen joined the lines together with smaller ones in an anticlockwise direction, spiraling from the extremity of the board inwards, one web thread per data point.

Web-generated birthday card emailed to Grandma two days after her birthday. Google Calendar entry of a scheduled conference work trip to New York. Cornell University group chat conversation, confirming a time to reunite with an old buddy after losing touch post-college. One-way AA flight confirmation and pre-check in from Vegas to La Guardia. AVIS transaction receipt. Posted Instagram photos of a Knicks game Friday night and the World Trade Center memorial Saturday 3 pm. Hotel purchase of a day spa treatment at World Center Hotel, additional hotel parking charge, AMEX charge to the One World Observatory. Ubers to dinner at the Brooklyn Bridge Pizzeria and the park. Olsen went on detailing various minibar and convenience store purchases, perfect chalk lines completing three-and-a-half octagons around the web’s perimeter exactly two inches apart.

Lunch: BLT, room service. Entry to the Transit Museum, GPS and toll data from the Holland Tunnel and the Port of New Jersey. Eight bucks’ worth of gas from Shell, Hoboken.

At this, Tom’s finger moved and tapped by automation: a target vibration. His hand raised instinctually. Olsen spoke first, then pointed his way.

Don’t be blowing wind now, make something stick.

What type of Avis vehicle?

Isuzu box back, light mover.

It’s Naseem Hamir.

Olsen’s bushy eyebrows came together, followed by a single nod.

Looks as if he was preparing to execute an attack at the memorial, sir.

Olsen’s face grew wider a fraction, the precursor to a smile cut short by tempered pride showing only as a squint at his crow’s feet.

Suppertime, my little spiders. Very good. He was, but we stopped him. Details were still undisclosed to the public in Naseem Hamir’s investigation and fatal shooting. The FBI recruit rumor mill was running rampant with twenty-one GSW. Two shots to the center mass to incapacitate, one to the head at close range for incapacitation insurance. A foiled terrorist attack that involved the fatal shooting of a Saudi-born, watch listed suspect, Naseem Hamir, at the docklands in New Jersey, was leading the week’s news cycle. Olsen flicked the chalk in his hand, now a four-inch light saber, pointing it at Tom.

Break the data down, recruit.

Cornell chat board is a blind exchange. One-way flight. He’s all over the memorial. Hotel across the street, Instagram reconnoiter the day before at peak time. Ubers around to keep the truck off the street until in motion for the job. Transit Museum a possible secondary target? Then he’s in Jersey buying gas that he doesn’t seem to need and picking up God knows what from his fake college buddy at the dockyard.

Korean freighter out of Yemen. Nitroglycerin. Six barrels in an aluminum container to beat the scanners. Packed in tight with Cold War-era Russian tank ammunition recorded on the manifest as engine parts. Eight bucks of gas in a hopper with a state-of-the-art, tungsten chip used as an algorithmic timer, as the initiator.

Tom’s hand again raised at the mention of the unknown tech.

It’s the first time we have seen one. Can’t be disabled by our EMP scanners either. The chip is being analyzed. Had it detonated the payload? Olsen’s face darkened with the thought of the carnage. One helluva mess. Very good. Olsen nodded in Tom’s direction then studied his creation, five-and-a-half laps of the web still unspun. And what kind of shitbag forgets Grammy’s birthday and sends a card by email?

Muffled laughs from thirty-two nervous recruits broke out. Many moved in their chairs a little, easing into more relaxed postures. Predetermined rituals of ice-breaking shifting the water congenially. Tom stared at the web, an unmoving iceberg, back-proving his theory against news reports and Olsen’s disclosure into the operation’s broad strokes. Something was off or inaccurate. He put it away in a box for unpacking later.

Now, Olsen continued. Before all the fancy tech and warrants to complete the rest of our surveillance web on this individual at its outset, how do we identify our suspects to begin with? Anybody?

Word around the Agents-in-training accommodation lines was that too many dips into the stupid questions or answers jar and you’d be cleaning out your locker and boarding a Greyhound. Graduating FBI rookies was a percentage game. Olsen waited as a few recruits palmed cold sweat from their foreheads. Tom silently mouthed the word before Olsen spoke it.

"We detect. Back in detection phase; our team tarantula isn’t alive yet. There’s just itty-bitty baby spiders. Olsen waved the chalk at the young, eager faces. You. Following up on anonymous calls, missing person reports, tip-offs, gang grudges and wading through gusts and gusts of wind. So, we sense by using our own eyes and ears as boots on the ground Agents, starting with visual profiling, posture mechanics and non-verbal communication dynamics."

Buzzcut heads and crown-tied buns gave small nods of understanding.

Let’s break those first few down, because we want some more real estate, more web to feel for vibrations. Olsen motioned to the empty sections of the web, then pointed at another male recruit. Black with a three-quarter ink arm sleeve. Profiling.

Ahh, Arab males between sixteen and forty.

Incorrect, Olsen said. Military-aged males and females. We fight criminals and militants, not Arabs. Could be Russian mafia, could be a weapons cache at a white supremacist biker’s girlfriend’s house. Soon enough, could be a career mailman cooking up homemade napalm because a delivery robot took his job. And the age profiling is sixteen to forty-nine.

Recon marine changeover filed away the correction with a curt ‘sir’ and simultaneous nod. Olsen drew a fresh web line before pointing to a different recruit, female, Hispanic and fine-boned.

Loners, sir?

Socially disengaged individuals. Yes. Why?

Most terrorists don’t get out much?

Olsen’s expedient reply cut through the recruit’s laughter like a master-forged katana blade.

To the contrary. Militants build social networks as a smokescreen to blend in, then go dark before mobilization.

Tom’s finger tapped the beveled edge in recognition as Olsen scratched in another chalk line, then pointed back to Iowa white-bread. Redemption time.

Um. We stakeout mosques?

Olsen minutely but perceptibly leaned back from the bumblefuck cop answer, as if the words and proximity to them might linger with an odor. Dutchy boarded the overnighter to Des Moines a week later after failing his first kinesthetic assignment.

No. We actively surveil areas of cultural and religious significance to us and radical elements. Ours and theirs. As the chalk scratched another silk thread, Tom committed the data point to concrete memory. Olsen’s finger moved to the front row.

You. Shiny Lips. Posture mechanics of a suicide bomber.

Surprise registered on the attractive, strawberry-blonde recruit’s face before her over-glossed lips parted, now matched by her reddening cheeks.

Shorter stride to height ratio?

Yes. Why?

To better distribute the load of a kill vest or IED bag.

Correct. Lose the makeup; we’re here to fit in, not stick out. Olsen’s tone was professional and held no malice.

Yes, sir.

Olsen’s finger moved. Back row. Wiry guy chewing his lip. And stationary?

The recruit looked at the ceiling, picturing the person of interest, bottom lip between his teeth as Shiny Lips wiped her own down with a tissue hastily extracted from somewhere within her bra.

Wider stance for stability.

Good. Olsen’s finger moved to a portly Italian-looking guy. Head? Olsen gave another double tap to his cranium.

Um … lowered to avoid eye contact, I guess.

Lower or fixed at the distant. And now you know. Good. Olsen’s finger jaggedly strafed the small theater, avoiding Tom and Van Prooen from further input.

The air was still slightly chilled, yet Tom sensed that like his own, everyone’s heart rate and body temperature had elevated rapidly as unfamiliar voices began emerging through data points of non-verbal communication dynamics: shifting eye contact, blink rate, fixed facial expression, hand gestures, posture and stance orientation. Each point earned a thread in the web as the exercise continued. Olsen introduced a nod in place of any verbal recognition or a correction into FBI vernacular, then the chalk line in the newer, fast-paced rhythm.

Many recruits grew in stature and confidence, attempting to go for seconds. All were hand-checked by Olsen, a seasoned dealer commanding the no-limit table. His index finger tractor’d in on the shrinking violets, some rising to the spotlight with more data points: sweat patching, fidgeting, restless legs, cold sores from stress, dilated pupils, biting or licking of the lips, grinding or clenching of the jaw. Other recruits balked and stewed in three agonizingly long seconds of silence before Olsen’s finger moved on. Tom could sense Olsen checking suitable candidate boxes. Dull-edged personalities unable to sponge critical information in a timely fashion would meet the dustbin.

With one thread remaining to complete the web, Olsen’s stubby finger jabbed back at McPhee, who would, from that day forward, be nicknamed McShiny. Her matte, flesh-toned lips parted as an idea formed, only to second-guess herself. Shoulders and eyes dropping into ineffectuality. Tom watched on, feeling her anxiety in his stomach from the opposite side of the same row in the clamshell auditorium. Then, as if something dehydrated plunged in water, she reanimated as another idea took hold. Her eyes darted to the board, then Olsen. Then, strangely, over at Tom.

You. Olsen had moved on more quickly than his allotted three seconds to save her prolonged embarrassment after the de-glossing incident, and in doing so had cheated her of proposing the clinching data point.

A change in established communication rhythm? Tom said, his eyes shifting from the tip of Olsen’s finger to McShiny then the board, quickly. Olsen tracked the movement’s intentions with ease, including McShiny’s disappointed frown. Painstakingly slow then, Olsen folded his arms, giving Tom six seconds, which felt more like sixty, of his most dissatisfied expression before his finger again pointed at McShiny.

Bring it home.

Biomechanical discrepancies.

Absolutely. Olsen dagger’d the last thread into the vast web.

McShiny’s hand hid a smile that hinted she’d just had a minor victory in an often-fought battle with self-consciousness.

After using this foremost, Olsen tapped his head again. Then, immersing ourselves in this, he pointed at the blackboard. Moving unexpectedly then, with impressionist flicks of the hand and wrist, twenty-three small x’s, became etched in various threads in a random and fractal explosion of youthful movement. Turning slowly after his drawing arms five seconds dash, Special Agent Olsen put the analogy to bed. We extrapolate the meaningful vibrations from the wind. Our targets. Our dinner. Warrants. Arrests. Prosecutions. And just maybe, if you are lucky, a big enough vibration. Olsen let fly a bigger X in the upper left corner, intersecting with eleven different web threads.

Team Tarantula. Operational threat assessment and face-to-face mitigation. Olsen’s other blocky hand tapped twice on a lighter section of his brown belt where a sidearm holster had rubbed the leather raw. A pinch of that same restrained smile spoke loud and clear to the Agents-in-training: Bullets in bad guys.

But it all starts with the walk. Biomechanics. Is that slight limp from an old soccer injury? Or from a crotch-mounted Simtex belt to avoid frisking at a ball game? Is the person your mark is meeting for lunch bracing from the cold under that jacket or concealing two oblique-slung submachine guns? Is your mark enjoying the view on a casual stroll on the way to the meet or planning for the best path of egress after the carnage? Olsen tapped his head again, scanning the room.

We will now conduct a warm-up exercise that covers some of the most basic aspects of your first kinesthetic assignment. You will now, without talking, go outside, pair up and study your partner’s walk and general biomechanics. Include stairs, elevators, escalators and different pacing. Extrapolate a minimum of five data points about this person to discuss with the group. Zero talking. Zero tech. Ten minutes, back here … Go.

Everyone moved quickly. One syllable punctuated crunchy footfalls on the industrial weave carpet.

You.

Tom froze, one foot on the second ascending stair. Turning, he met Olsen’s appraising look. The older man waited until the room was empty before speaking again to the clean-cut and unassuming young man.

What’s your deal, kid?

Ah, no deal, sir. Just another Agent-in-training.

This answer seemed unsatisfactory to Olsen, who cocked his head slightly and crossed his arms again. The chalk dagger resting on his belt made him look comfortable and menacing at the same time.

No one likes a smartass.

Aware, sir. Hundred percent.

They locked eyes until a feeling of discomfort forced Tom’s eyes over to the board.

Well? Olsen cut in. Is there anything else?

No, sir. Tom took a backward step, almost tripping, then stopped. Something triggered. Another data vibration.

Wait, yes. There was something else.

And what’s that?

Hamir’s buddy must be someone of significance. None of the news bulletins have reported anyone else in custody, so who is he?

Olsen took a moment with that revelation, then pointed to the floor in front of him. Get down here.

With a duster, Olsen dispatched the web to dust. He turned with his chalk ice pick again, causing Tom to stop out of arm’s reach. Just in case. A cold drop of sweat ran down Tom’s lower back. To his surprise, Olsen held the chalk out to him.

Recreate the web, verbally recounting every valid data point covered in the lesson.

Tom feigned hopelessness.

Don’t even try it on, boy. And you have nine minutes. Olsen waggled the chalk and cocked his head. Or you can start packing your bags right now.

Tom saw the challenge in Olsen’s eyes and noted his coffee-stained teeth this time when he approximated a smile. Olsen might have known about Tom’s high-functioning explicit memory. If he hadn’t read it in the faculty files, the last ten minutes were enough for the seasoned investigator to join the dots. The game was up. Fuck.

Tom took the chalk and faced the blank canvas before looking back at the man who would be his greatest teacher and, as Tom’s FBI career progressed, his mentor and direct operational supervisor. Then, eventually, his betrayer.

You want it front to back or back to front?

2

INTERROGAR. A DECADE FROM NOW. 2045 HOURS EST

Tom’s jeans buzzed on the floor. Creeping anger flushed his throat warm, like a scarf worn indoors as he remembered the date. Strands of Rosalita’s ebony hair matted to his chin and her petite, mocha breasts rested warmly on his chest.

It would be Olsen calling.

Rosalita’s breathing was more labored than his again. All dark sweaty hair and heaving intercostal muscles, she pushed up to a sitting position. His breath was barely audible. Reduced general arousal: another side effect from the medication.

Alternating pink and calypso blueish light from the huge freeway-side neon sign penetrated the threadbare excuse of a curtain, thus projecting neon flickers of ever-changing shadows of Rosalita’s lithe, panther-fit figure on the adjacent wall. Outside, eight-foot fluorescent ace cards appeared one at a time; a dancing joker doing a jig accompanied the fifth. ‘Five Aces Bar & Grill’ strobed into, then out of existence. Friday night on an off pay week and the vast, crumbling bitumen and brown potholed car park servicing Five A’s and Candyland gentlemen’s club was still half full.

Rosie skillfully dismounted and removed the condom in one well-practiced motion as a light rain began rat-a-tapping the corrugated metal roof of the small flat. Even with a stiff breeze moving through the back porch to the car park facing windows, the scent of fresh rain, sex, and overripe stone fruit in the tiny bedsit apartment was palpable.

You were … más lento … ah, slower this time.

She was always the first to speak afterwards, in her fusion of English and Spanish. Reaching out with a latte brown skin-toned hand sprinkled with tiny sweat beads, she traced his scar with the pads of two fingers, running along, then up his left shoulder as he lay on his back. Her touch lightened as the scraping of her index fingernail followed the raised red line of skin approaching the apex of his neck, towards the ear.

No. Not so much slower, but more … She searched for the right word, her finger coming to a halt at the end of the lengthy shrapnel laceration scar at the base of his ear. Then, with a little flick of the nail, it came to her. La passiòn.

Lowering her hand on his chest softly, he felt her studying his face peripherally and intently, as one might a strange puzzle. This brought an unwelcome end to their usual post-coital stage-play. Tom preferred staring at the popcorn-colored stucco ceiling until she padded to the bathroom. This time, their eyes met, and lingered.

Inside, Tom was in a familiar limbo. Trapped somewhere between guilt and the acceptance of animalistic needs being met. Adding to this limbo, it was becoming obvious, for reasons unfathomable to him, that she liked him.

Tell me something about you? A playful tone. Her orgasm less than a minute ago, he suspected, was a rare genuine article. His was a non-event. So prolonged was the eye contact, Tom calibrated her most notable change. Red, puffy eyes had subsided to show twin dark coffee-colored irises, their extremities framed by brilliant white and glossy black orbs.

I thought we were supposed to keep this professional. He said.

Her reply, looking away with a mini-eye-roll, was a friendly admonishment. We can still talk.

Rosie was studying social work, weekend classes at community college. She had a kid, too: Alexandro. That’s what the block letter Sharpie on his schoolbag had said as it ruptured open, catching Tom’s eye as he was driving by the elementary school just off base. Frankenstein-like, home mended base stitching had literally burst under the weight of a lunch box, textbooks and a busted pencil case as the boy had slung it, like a pint-sized Indiana Jones, onto his back at drop-off last Friday morning.

Their eyes had met as she glanced around to see who, if anyone, was watching the calamity. Colorful pencils bouncing and rolling this way and that. He saw the instant she registered who he was in a moment of undisguisable self-consciousness. Scrambling around the rear door of her tetanus-on-wheels VW Beetle, she scooped up books with one arm whilst keeping Alex away from snail-paced drop-off lane traffic and her decomposing rear bumper. Tom had smiled and given her a half-wave, then almost rear-ended the car in front of him; the baton of embarrassment passed in an instant. And when he looked back a few moments later, she had stacked Alexandro’s books in his little arms and was smiling back across the lanes of traffic at him.

So? Tell me something about you.

My name is Tom.

I know that already. Something else.

He raised an eyebrow like there wasn’t much else to know.

Where did you get this? Her finger was tracing the scar again.

You first. His eyes flicked to a line of mild discoloration around her throat beneath some hastily applied concealer, then to two light brown and yellow-tinged bruises showing on her inner thigh near her knee. He had kissed and gently bitten his way up the smoothness of that same thigh’s length earlier, appraising the healing contusions momentarily as she moaned in what he was now coming to define as her transition between mock and real pleasure. Last week the injury had been red, raw and stinging with heat and intensity. So much so, she had adjusted their favored coupling positioning to guard from further discomfort.

They locked eyes again, coming to a silent understanding. Rosalita ran the fingers of one delicate hand along her nape.

This?! Her legs parted again to show a set of five finger marks on one leg and what looked like a pin down knee compression bruise high on the adductor muscle of the other. "La policia. Mi casero," she hissed with a Costa Rican pit viper’s venom.

Police? A policeman did this to you?

She nodded angrily and in frustration at first. Sharpened features fading quickly with the subjugated acceptance well-worn by immigrants. Caramel neck cables softened as she leaned towards him. Eyebrows raised, lips pursing with pre-appraisal.

Your turn.

Shark bite.

What! When did you … Las penjadas? She gave him a playful nudge and a sly grin. Bullshit. Tell me.

He swallowed, eyes falling to the kitchenette’s step-worn linoleum floor. Aleppo.

What happened?

The movement of his head was small but definitive: subject closed.

You’re getting better, you know.

He met her stare again. She was the puzzle now. At what?

This. Her hand moved between him and her in quick succession. The fucking, the talking.

He searched her eyes and face, oozing skepticism.

Okay, mostly the fucking. She smiled a disarming, animal rehabilitation shelter carer type of smile as she swept off of the single bed and into act two of her perfunctory, post-tryst dance. Slipping into a pink silk nighty and white hipster panties that had been draped over a chair, she moved into her studio’s kitchen as he propped up onto an elbow.

Look, Rosie. I’m not here for a debrief.

Rosie squinted back questioningly at him after plucking a peach from a wooden fruit bowl. She drew the only knife, a small paring blade from a wooden block with five other sad-looking empty slots by feel.

Debrief? she said, carving off a wedge of peach as she rolled her tongue around the unfamiliar word, eyes darting down at his discarded underwear in confusion.

He half-smirked. Interrogar.

Ah. Interrogar. She popped the peach sliver into her mouth with a tilted head, attuning to his perfectly formed Español for the first time.

Nooo. No interrogar. she snickered, waving the knife-wielding hand to the left and right, swatting away the implication like a fly. Tom raised a mock eyebrow at her statement of innocence whilst brandishing the silverware. Realizing this, a giggle seemed to creep up unexpectedly, racking her stomach first, then shoulders, with a thoughtful sound emanating from playfulness.

She cut him a slice of peach on the move, then lunged at the bed, thrusting the knife at his throat. Stopping a few inches short. He didn’t flinch, even at the grim face she was making as she straddled him again, maneuvering around the blade like a pendulum. Now rasping as if a Spanish inquisitor.

Yooou. Wiiiill. Talk! At this, her crooked smile and warm tone fissured their way through the mask. Or eat.

Dipping his chin, he accepted the offering between the knife and her thumb. Their eyes never separating until she giggled again. Small, erratic movements of her breasts beneath the robe captured his