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I wanted to pretend I hadn’t heard him, but as long as I remained either on the Albanian task force or in another role in the coalition, I would have to work with him. “Yes?” I responded, glancing over my shoulder.
“Stay alive, Schön.”
I turned to look at him, confused by his words.
“It’s what we say whenever someone is leaving on an op.”
“I see. Um, thanks.”
“I’ll walk with you,” he offered.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Given I’m driving you and your team to Gatwick, it is.”
“Right,” I muttered. When I got outside, Magnet was holding the rear passenger door open. I peeked into the vehicle and saw Ehren in the third row and Rogue in the front seat. “Thanks,” I said, not taking the hand he offered, knowing every time I touched him would result in the same breathlessness.
“I’ll go around,” he said when I was about to scoot across to the opposite side.
I folded my hands in my lap and closed my eyes, reminding myself I was a different kind of agent than I’d been before. My job had been to get information out of men who would essentially tell me anything I wanted to know if it meant they could have sex with me.
Very few times, it had gone that far. Usually, I could collect what I needed and be gone before the mark, as they were called, realized what had happened.
It had been difficult for me to accept that a man would desire me enough to pass on classified information he’d made a commitment not to share. Yes, my breasts were overly large and the rest of me usually referred to as voluptuous, but I’d always wondered how desire could cloud a person’s judgment that much.
It was something Mrs. Strousberg had taught me, though. “Like me, you are a very beautiful woman. Use it to get what you want. Other women are not as fortunate. You and I can wiggle a finger, and men will drop to their knees in front of us, willing to do anything we ask of them.”
While I had no state secrets to share with Magnet, once in his arms, I’d answer any question he asked, no matter how much I knew I shouldn’t. The predator would become the prey. Not that I’d ever be with him that way.
I turned my head and looked out the window, feeling my cheeks heat in embarrassment as I remembered the night I’d attempted to make a pass at Zeppelin. He’d turned me down in a way no one else ever had.
Something had changed in me that night. I realized I no longer wanted men to drop to their knees, willing to do my bidding in a way that Mrs. Strousberg had encouraged me to take advantage of. I wanted to be like Verity. Respected for how good she was at her job.
“Argh,” I groaned under my breath, wishing there was a way to wipe the memory from my brain. I had many I would if only it were possible.
I tensed when I felt Magnet’s hand on my arm.
“Schön, are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. I just realized I’d forgotten something.”
“Do we need to return to the command center?”
“No, no. It wasn’t that important.” I’d answered both his questions without turning to face him. Did he realize? Most likely, he hadn’t. However, I had no doubt Ehren had, especially when the agent looked right through me when we arrived at the airfield and exited the vehicle.
It was another behavior I’d experienced many times, starting long before I joined Swiss intelligence.
“My God, those breasts. She looks like a heifer needing to be milked,” I’d heard the one person at boarding school I’d considered a friend say when I was about to enter the room we shared. The laughter of the others with her had echoed in the hallway as I hurried away, praying no one would see me and realize I’d been eavesdropping outside the door. If they’d known, they wouldn’t have apologized. No, they would have looked me up and down and sneered, like they always did.
“You need to ignore them, Schön. Hold your head high, square your shoulders, and walk away, knowing that you will go much further in life than they ever will,” Mrs. Strousberg had said when I confided in her what had happened when she visited a few weeks later.
Like then, I wished I was invisible as I made my way to the back of the plane and sat by the window.
I pulled the wrap I always wore on flights around me, folded my arms, and positioned my body with my back to the aisle. I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes.
When I felt someone take the seat beside me, I first assumed it was Rogue. Within mere moments, I knew it wasn’t. While it was subtle, I recognized the scent Magnet wore.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
