Chapter Fifteen Breach

Lizzy finished her coffee, turned away from her dread, and bought the Yeats book. Pocketing the small, thin volume, she walked quickly back toward her apartment. Seeing Darcy had quickened her pulse, and having him read her that poem had made her body ache.

With the events of last night, those of today, and those looming over the coming night, she had managed to forget how tired she was. The tiredness returned as she finished her walk with the wind gusting harder, forcing her to lean into it. She put her hand to the collar of her coat and held it shut, narrowing her eyes.

She needed to get inside her apartment, and she needed a long nap, a few hours of nothingness, of unconsciousness before she faced the challenge of the evening, the hyperconsciousness, the double-consciousness it would demand. A fragment of Thoreau from Walden floated to the surface of her mind: to be "beside ourselves in a sane sense." She was facing the problem of needing to be beside herself―both inside and outside herself at the same time—and not lose her mind by halving it.

As she neared the apartment, she thought again about her father and his death. She and her mother had buried him on a January day in Rochester that looked and felt much like this dark, cold October day in Chicago. As his casket had been lowered, Lizzy had been more numb than she ever had felt, and she had felt numb since first learning that he had passed.

As Lizzy reached her teenage years, especially once she went off to college, she had become more aware of her father’s shortcomings―in particular, his self-indulgence. Despite his brilliant mind, he was a detached, alienated observer even of himself. He had no taste for self-reflection or self-discipline and took no responsibility for his shortcomings. He constantly chose what was easy or expedient, not what was right. It was worse than having no taste for it: he seemed to have no capacity for it.

The only thing he had ever taken any responsibility for was Lizzy. He did somewhat better with her than himself, not only teaching her at home but also attempting to teach her that education was intrinsically valuable, worth having for its own sake independent of any advantages it might offer.

Mr. Bennet’s lessons had confused Lizzy, who realized that his spoken precepts and his lived example were contradictory. She had cared about what he wanted because it kept them close, kept him interested in her. Later, at college, that changed and she became much more interested in education itself.

…Or she did, until her father's death derailed her, derailed her plans, and sent her in another direction. The opposite direction.

Since joining the CIA, she had refused to wonder about why she had done it, became a spy―refused to reflect on why she had let Jane talk her into a choice so unanticipated, so radical. Jim Haden had been right; it was out of character.

As she walked along now, head down, the wind pushing against her, she did wonder. How did I get here? Whatever the story about Jane's effect on her, her salesmanship, whatever the story about Lizzy's choice to join the CIA, she had stayed , after all, and she had worked hard, doggedly.

Why?

Her feet stopped, but her thoughts raced.

She…she had worked as hard and as well as she had as an agent because Walter Kellynch had stepped into the hole left in her life by her father's death. Kellynch hadn't adopted her, but she had adopted him. Or maybe he had sort of adopted her, too―had recognized how lost she was without her father.

Why hadn't I seen that before, understood it? Why now?

Darcy.

He had stirred her to depths nothing had other than her father's passing. Darcy could do that. He had done it in Kellynch's office, provoked her to immediate, irrational anger and a sensitive, wounded pride—neither of which was like her.

She’d made her career as an agent by means of her mastery of herself and her carefully measured responses, both when undercover and when not. Without being icy or mechanical, she had earned a reputation for exactness and efficiency. She owed some of that, she knew, to her father. Without duplicating him, she had acquired his trick of detached, alienated self-observation. Unlike him, though, she did feel a responsibility for herself, a deep and lively responsibility.

She shut off her thoughts of her father and her past as she entered her apartment building and strode past a couple of others loitering in the lobby. She stopped at the security desk and smiled. "Hi, I'm Fanny Prince, 1019. I'm expecting a visitor tonight at around 8 p.m., George Wickham." The name tasted bitter on her tongue, but she made herself go on smiling. "Please send him up."

The man nodded, jotting down the name. 'I'll be off-shift by then, but I'll tell my replacement." He smiled up at her from his seat.

A bit of CIA theater.

She gave him a small wave, walked to the elevator, and waited for it to arrive. As she stood waiting, another thought struck her that made the indoors feel outdoors cold.

She had just given a vampire permission to enter.

***

The nap did less for Lizzy than she hoped. Much less. Instead of a blissful loss of consciousness, it was as if her consciousness had become runny and distorted but not lost.

She dreamed strange, episodic dreams that always began with her in Darcy's arms, taking off her clothes in a rush with his help, eager , both so eager…but always ending with her naked and ashamed in Wickham's arms, staring up through hot tears into his malicious and supercilious smile. It was a smile of cold possession so total that Lizzy felt a new rush of sympathy and horror for Georgiana.

Getting up, she went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, trying to chase the image of Wickham's smile from her mind. But it lingered, Cheshire Cat- like . Not only in Lizzy's mind, but in the bathroom, and the bedroom, and the whole apartment. As if waiting for him to arrive, pluck it from the air, and put it on.

Her nerves were taut and vibrating, hard-strummed guitar strings, and they would not stop buzzing. Her nap had made her feel worse, not better. Demoralized .

In hopes it might help, she put coffee on. As it brewed, she went to the bedroom and began to consider what to wear for Wickham's visit.

It was a delicate question. Until now, she had seen him only in public places: parties, restaurants, dinners. She had dressed to be in public. Tonight he would be in her apartment, alone with her―at least as he understood the situation. He would be expecting her to expect him to make love to her. No doubt he also expected a show of resistance, but he would expect that show to end with capitulation. And when it did, the curtain would go up and not down.

She was not going to take Wickham's pointed advice and dress comfortably . Hell, no! He was probably hoping for pajamas, for something opaque and gauzy that suggested the bedroom while not conceding it immediately the way lingerie would…clothing foreshadowing Fanny's eventual surrender.

Lizzy was standing in front of her closet when her phone rang. Not Fanny's phone. Agent Bennet’s work phone…her CIA phone. Not the least of the demands of the mission was the three-phone jugglery: Fanny's, Agent Bennet's, and Lizzy's. Two of the three must be off and hidden before Wickham arrived. She would not commit her version of his forgotten phone number mistake.

She opened the drawer of her nightstand, grabbed the phone, and looked at it, certain that the call was from either Darcy or Charlie. But it was from neither.

Kellynch. His private number was on the screen. The same number had appeared on her phone the night she was called to his office in Langley―called to meet with Darcy and Charlie. That appearance of the number had started all this.

Lizzy exhaled as the phone rang again, this time in her hand.

Kellynch doesn't call me on missions, not in deep cover. Only once, near the beginning of my career on my first honeypot mission. If Kellynch needed to call, he should call Darcy, the Agent in Charge. What's going on? She glanced around the room, surveying it for no good reason other than that the number on the screen spooked her. The apartment was empty and quiet except for the ringing phone.

"Agent Bennet, sir."

"Hello, Agent. My apologies for calling, but I understood that you were not to meet with your mark until later this evening…"

"Yes, sir, that's right. 8 p.m. Still a while from now." It didn't feel that way to Lizzy, but there was no point in saying so. "May I ask why you're calling, sir?" She hazarded the question, knowing that he would expect it from her. The call was too unusual not to awaken perplexity.

She was surprised that he paused before answering. Kellynch was rarely at any loss for words. "Um, yes, well…yes, you may . I'm calling to find out how things are going."

" Things , sir?"

"The mission. I'm not second-guessing Agent Darcy's leadership…or not really, but this is all odd, and it has been from the beginning. His superior at MI-6, my counterpart there, promised me more information. I've waited patiently, but I've gotten almost none.

“As you know, having our agents operate on US soil is normally frowned on. I was able to secure permission since Wickham is not a US citizen and I had put an MI-6 agent in charge. Still, I’ve stuck my neck out―and yours and Bingley’s, too, frankly―and I wish I knew more. I don't like being made to feel like I'm a mere tool, Agent. And I'm beginning to feel that way, and to fear that you are being made a mere tool too. Darcy's tool."

Lizzy might have found this darkly funny some other day, a day after a different night, a day with bright sunlight and without the expected evening advent of Wickham. She might have found it a bit of shadowy irony because Kellynch made tools of people constantly―that was another name for his job.

"Yes, sir," she said when he paused, careful to make it unclear whether she was agreeing or only indicating that she understood.

"I know you don't like seduction missions, and I don't like feeling as if the mission's not mine…not the CIA's. Darcy's been no more forthcoming than his boss at MI-6. Is there something about the mission or his involvement in it I need to know?"

Kellynch had an intuition about the mission, but Lizzy was now sure that it was only an intuition. He felt something was off, and that feeling had finally spurred him into the unprecedented action of calling Lizzy.

Georgiana.

That was what— who —Kellynch intuited. Darcy had so far managed to keep her out of view. Hidden. Darcy's boss was cooperating and had kept Kellynch and almost everyone else in the dark.

Loyalty tugged at Lizzy, her old loyalty to Kellynch that went back to her earliest days in the Company. Loyalty. At any other time, in any other situation, she would have told him.

Not now, though. Not in this situation. She would not expose Georgiana, not give up Darcy's secret. Protecting her was personal to her now.

"No, sir, nothing. Darcy has been good—very good. He's not only overseen the mission effectively, but he has participated in the cover assignment even more effectively. He understands Wickham and how to draw him in."

"To draw him in…draw him to you?" Kellynch asked slowly, rhetorically.

"Yes sir, to me ," Lizzy answered as if the question were genuine. "Agent Darcy's been completely convincing as Ned Moreland, and Ned has been crucial to Wickham's…fascination with Fanny Prince."

"You have no reason to think that Darcy is compromised on this mission? Somehow?"

She had never lied to him, never given a mendacious answer to a direct question. Doing so made her take a silent breath and close her eyes. She might be a practiced liar, but not where her boss was concerned. "No reason."

He said nothing for a minute. "You're sure?" He had never questioned her before…or he had not questioned her for years. Maybe he had, back at the beginning when she was still fresh from the Farm. But that had been so long ago she no longer remembered it; this seemed like the first time.

"I'm sure. Darcy…he's an unusual agent." She let herself talk, honest about everything but the crucial item "He's not like most agents, most of us. He takes what he does seriously. But in a different way. I don't just mean that he wants to do what he does well, skillfully . He's also concerned about doing right, about virtue , old-fashioned sounding things like prudence and justice and courage and temperance. He’s thoughtful. Most of us try to avoid thinking."

A smirk colored Kellynch's voice. "He comes off as a smug ass, frankly. That night when I called you in, the night when he was in my office? After you left, he effectively told me how the mission would go, what I would need to do, supply. He didn't ask; he demanded. I chalked it up to him being a Brit, an aristocrat."

"Is he? An aristocrat ?”

She realized she still knew little about Darcy. Boarding school with Charlie, Georgiana as half-sister, philosophy student at Cambridge, MI-6 agent. That didn't add up to much, although it was more than nothing.

Kellynch chuckled at her question, perhaps a bit at himself. "To be honest, I'm not sure. He has unusual influence with my counterpart at MI-6, serious pull for a mere agent. And, well…you've spent time with him. Whatever the explanation, he's not the kind of man you refuse easily."

No. The earlier ache reclaimed Lizzy's body. Yeats and immediate heat. Darcy in her bedroom. No—he's not.

She sat down on the bed, crossing her legs tightly. "I suppose not," Lizzy made herself say aloud, lightly. "Is there anything else?"

The sound of Kellynch's fingers drumming his desk pulsed in the background from the other end of the phone, a percussive accompaniment to his throat-clearing. "No, nothing else. But, as this call makes clear, I'm breaching protocol, and so I’m authorizing you to do the same. If anything happens that bothers you, anything that suggests Darcy's compromised, let me know . I'll get you out of there, you and Bingley. And Darcy, too―save him from himself, if need be."

As if I weren't under enough pressure, stretched too far already, now I'm stretched between Darcy and Kellynch.

"I'll let you know if anything happens, if anything worries me."

Another moment of silence. "You can work with him, then? You respect him? You’re past whatever it was in my office that night?"

"Yes." I do. I am.

"Thanks, Agent Bennet. I've always counted on you. You're more than…well, you've always been special."

"Thank you, sir."

Lizzy waited for him to end the call and then balanced her phone on her knee. Leaning forward, exasperated, she ran her fingers through her hair, shaking her head gently as she did so.

Darcy, Kellynch, Wickham.

Shit― Wickham!

She still hadn't decided what to wear.

It was 5:30 p.m.

***

She eventually chose a long, oversized red sweater and a pair of black yoga pants. Lizzy stood in the bathroom barefoot, assessing herself. The outfit looked appropriate for loungewear and comfortable, but it had no arrow pointing to the bedroom. It was on the outer margins of what Wickham would be hoping for. She pulled her hair into a loose, messy ponytail. It would do. Her reflection smiled at her, the smile uninviting.

The bathroom counter felt cool against her hands as she leaned against it. On a whim, she bowed and rested her forehead against the counter, letting it cool her head. She felt feverish but with tension, not illness.

A knock on the door caused her to straighten up immediately. She noted the time before she peeked out. It was 6 p.m. She feared Wickham might have arrived early, though surely the security guard would have called her.

But it was Darcy. It didn't seem to occur to him that she would use the peephole, and she saw him standing in the hallway looking the same way she felt: care-worn, depressed, and frazzled. By the time she opened the door, he had corrected his countenance and was smiling. She noticed that he was carrying a small box.

They stood staring at each other, each unsure what to do. She suspected they both had the impulse to embrace and maybe kiss, but each had second thoughts. Beside ourselves in a sane sense?

"Hi," Lizzy said softly after a pause. "I didn't expect you." The comment struck her as truer than she intended, an uncanny backward prophecy, divining the past.

He nodded as if struck as she was, but he did not comment. Checking the hallway, he slipped in. "I brought you a weapon. Bingley will be nearby and I'll be across the street, but you should have access to something at hand." He put the box down on the counter next to the computer. "It's your usual. Bingley checked. There's ammunition inside and a silencer."

"Thanks. I hadn't worried about needing a weapon."

Darcy sat down with a sigh. "I don't think you need to worry about it. Wickham's no rapist… not as rapists are normally understood, anyway. Georgiana helped me to understand that."

Lizzy stepped closer, listening, her chest tightening. "I don't follow you."

Darcy stared at his empty hands and sighed again. "I've been coaching you and creating Ned guided by what she told me. When Wickham found her, she was working at a boutique in London, modeling on the side. Her real love was music—she's a gifted pianist, a talented songwriter. She moved to London hoping to make it in music, but it never happened. People were more interested in looking at her than listening to her. Men …in the music business. Club owners would sometimes hire her but almost always in hopes of sleeping with her. Eventually, she stopped hoping to make it and took a regular job in a boutique. A man saw her there selling dresses, and he offered her a modeling contract. It turned out to be a genuine contract. Unexpectedly, he was a decent man. She began to make money not only selling clothes but wearing them on the catwalk.”

He looked up at Lizzy and then back at his hands. "Wickham saw her at a fashion show. He was there with another woman—and, yes," he smiled to himself bitterly, "she was blonde and voluptuous, but no match for my half-sister. At the time, Georgiana was in a serious relationship. She had been dating a man she met online, another musician. He played in the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Paul. A violinist.

"After seeing her, Wickham pursued her with vigor, more seriously when he found out about Paul. He pursued her…but he never forced her, physically. Oh, he touched her"―Darcy glanced up again―"but he always seemed to know how far he could push that. What's the American baseball metaphor? Second base . He would get to second base and stop while talking about more. The same thing he's done with you. As I mentioned, he wants to sleep with you, and he wanted to sleep with Georgiana. But he wants it to be self-betrayal, and a betrayal of someone else, someone you care about. That's what he did to Georgiana and Paul. He destroyed everything between them by making sure that Georgiana…slept with him while still with Paul. He kept her sleeping with him and kept her lying to Paul about it for as long as he could.

"Paul eventually guessed she was with someone else and ended it. It didn't take long after that for Wickham to lose interest in her. He went on sleeping with her until he tired…of her body, and then he began to mistreat her. Not physically but psychologically. What she had done, her compromise of herself and of Paul, her broken promises"―Darcy paused, and Lizzy thought about the word compromise ―"had already destroyed her self-esteem, filled her with guilt and self-loathing. He tapped into that and added to it.

“In the end, he abandoned her in Manchester in a dingy hotel. That's where she was when she called me. When I arrived, I barely knew her. She was caved-in, wild."

He laced his fingers together and faced Lizzy. "So far, his pattern with you has been the same as his pattern with Georgiana. I've based Ned loosely on Paul. The point of all of this—and I know I've said it before, or some of it—is that I don't believe he will try physically to force anything on you, not tonight, maybe not ever. He would only do that in extremis. What...arouses him isn't physical power―it's moral power, the power to cause you to act against what you know to be right, the power to make you choose what you know is wrong. He wants to exploit weakness of will rather than physical weakness.

"Having said all that, I'd still feel better if I knew you had a firearm when he is in the apartment." His eyes left Lizzy's face and took all of her in.

He seemed to notice her outfit for the first time. He had been too preoccupied when he came in. "Is that what you're going to wear?" he asked, standing up.

Lizzy wasn't sure who was speaking. Agent Darcy, Fitzwilliam, or Ned. "Yes." She spun around on her bare feet. "I thought it was…as close to just right , given the situation, as I could find."

Darcy's eyes swept up and down, ending their movement at her feet, her red toenails. All-day permanent red, Ned had texted.

"Was I wrong?" she asked during his silence.

"No, you look casual and wonderful, and I have to live with that."

"It's Fanny dressing for Wickham. Not me…or not really me, if you know what I mean. I'm dressing myself as if I were someone else."

He nodded, his lips pressed in a thin, grim line. "Yes. But he has to touch you to touch Fanny. He has to stare at you to stare at her."

She started to respond, but Darcy's phone beeped. "It's Bingley," he said, puzzled by the call.

He walked over to the computer.

When Charlie appeared on the screen, he looked pale and upset, and then he spoke as if he could not quite own his own words. "The CIA team that was trailing Wickham, the Rapid City team…One of the Company analysts just called. The South Dakota Highway Patrol found them shot to death inside their car. The car was tangled in a destroyed section of fence alongside a deserted stretch of road."

Neither Lizzy nor Darcy responded at first. Like Charlie, they had to come to grips with the information.

"Where, exactly?" Darcy asked, his voice suddenly hoarse.

"The nearest landmark is Vivos xPoint."

Darcy turned to Lizzy, his face blank. She stepped over and stood beside him. "The bunker community?"

Charlie nodded. "Yes."

Darcy looked at the screen and then at Lizzy. She shrugged. "I don't know much about it, but it was part of a briefing we had a couple of years ago, a briefing about preppers. Doomsday preppers. It was the Black Hills Army Base, built by the Army Corps of Engineers, a fortress of bunkers to store bombs and munitions. In use from the early 40's until the late 60's, roughly. There are over 500 bunkers. The land area's like three-quarters the size of Manhattan."

"Americans!" he muttered in disbelief. He did not elaborate, instead turning back to the screen. "Did Wickham do it?"

Charlie shook his head. "We don't think so. He may have been involved somehow, but it’s impossible for him to have pulled the trigger. The team was found not long ago. As soon as the South Dakota trooper called it in, Langley heard. The team had been expected to report earlier, and Langley was worried. The trooper found them shortly after they'd been killed, although it was long enough for the scene to have been swept—no shells, no tire tracks. Wickham was on the security cameras at the Rapid City airport and had been there for a couple of hours before his flight. It’s about an hour and a half from the airport to the scene. Since he was on camera just after the trooper called it in, there’s no chance he was there when it happened. The timeline is wrong. He had to have help."

Darcy’s shoulders were hunched. "Like I said when this started, the Wicker Man is not just George Wickham. The Wicker Man's a network. So did Wickham visit this fortress of bunkers?"

Charlie shrugged slightly. "Unclear, but that seems like the likeliest explanation for the team being there. After all, their orders were to trail Wickham. I'm guessing he made their tail and called for reinforcements. However, the team never reported being there. Maybe they intended to mention it when they were scheduled to call in.

“The Company has already stepped in and claimed the scene. We'll get full details from the cleaners after they've finished. There's a security team employed by Vivos xPoint, and they keep watch. They claim they can spot anyone within three miles of the property. There's just one road in and out. Our analysts have a call in to Vivos, but they aren't known for easy cooperation with the government."

Darcy and Lizzy exchanged uneasy looks, and he turned to the screen again. "Anything else?"

"No, except I ran the tests on the bugs in Lizzy's apartment a little while ago―before I got the call from Langley. Everything's working as it should. They'll go back on at 7:30 p.m. I need you to return, Darcy, so I can get into position in Lizzy's building. It'll be time for Wickham soon. His flight is on time, and I have a feeling he'll hurry to Fanny once he's on the ground."

Darcy held Lizzy's eyes. "Okay. I'm going to go. Don't think about this. Rapid City. Just think about what's going on here, in your apartment. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof— and unto the location. When Bingley and I trade places, I'll keep up with what's happening in South Dakota and share it after Wickham leaves."

Charlie acknowledged his agreement, and Darcy shut the computer. He put his hands on her shoulders, gripping them tightly, urgently, but not hurting her. "Stay focused. Whatever the Wicker Man came to the Midwest for is now underway." She nodded. His face, his lips were tantalizingly close to hers.

Loosening his grip, he stepped back―the step deliberate, a gesture of self-denial. He looked down at her feet. Then he grinned possessively and also in self-mockery. "Do me a favor and put some socks on before Wickham arrives. He doesn’t need to see your feet. It's cold out."

"Cold in, too," she said. With a last mournful look, he left the apartment.

Once he left, she felt the return of Wickham's Cheshire Cat smile. Now she could feel its fangs.

At 7:58 p.m., Lizzy got a phone call from the security guard on duty. George Wickham was on his way up. She walked to the door in her stocking feet and stood there, taking control of her breathing. In (slowly), out (slowly).

The doorbell rang, startling her. Charlie and Darcy always knocked. Taking one last breath, she opened the door.

Wickham stood there looking fresh for a man who had traveled, hardly showing a wrinkle. His smile was nearly at full power but, deep in his eyes, there was something feral, a mostly concealed wildness that she had not seen―or had not noticed―before.

"Fanny," he breathed, seduction in his tone, an undercurrent of need.

"George," she said quietly, trying her best to sound conflicted, mixing anticipation and dread in her tone. She must have succeeded, because his smile reached full power. The smile from her nightmare.

She stepped aside, and he walked into the apartment.

Then he was inside.

Lizzy silently reminded herself that Darcy could see and hear all that was happening, all that was about to happen.

Wickham turned to face her. "I hope you've had a good day. I've spent mine thinking about you, about tonight. I've been imagining the way you move, the way you talk, express yourself." He reached out and put his hand on her cheek. "You look lovely. Your sweater compliments your hair."

Reaching up, Lizzy took his hand in hers with a gesture she hoped did not seem like an attempt to stop him from touching her. "Thanks, George."

He surveyed the apartment, his gaze lingering on the books Darcy had bought for her. It occurred to her that she had left the Yeats on her bed.

"Lovely, just as I imagined." He faced her again. "So, Ned's back in the Big Apple?"

Lizzy dropped her head. Fanny. "Yes, he's there ."

His eyebrow lifted, transfiguring his smile into a leer. "And I'm here."

"Would you like something to drink?" She passed over Wickham’s pointed remark.

"Yes…some whiskey if you have it. Over ice."

"On such a cold night?" she asked, walking to the kitchen.

"Cold outside , but I expect it to be warm inside . Very warm inside."

Fanny ignored the studied, salacious ambiguity of Wickham's “it.”