The Courier

Maybe it's the way he pulled out the chair for me when we were seated in the corner of the quiet restaurant. Or the dimness of the light cast by the jeweled chandelier. Or the lightness in my head from that second martini.

Something flutters to life in my belly when he says in that low voice, "What do you want, Chloe?"

I'm perfectly fine, I should say.

I live on my own, I cook my own meals, I pay my own bills. I work a decent enough job, and I date a nice man named Marcus. I have no business meeting with strange, accented men in Michelin-starred restaurants.

But what's so wrong with wanting a little something extra?

Dessert, a chocolate mousse artfully sprinkled with edible flowers, lingers between us, untouched. "I want," I say, a little breathless, "your money."

I reach for my purse and slide a pack of cigarettes across the table, leaning closer to him than I strictly must. For all the world would know, I am a shameless flirt. A sugar baby looking for her daddy - not so uncommon in this sinful city, after all. But I know the cheshire smile on his face is not for me or my carefully chosen black dress, but for the contents of the cardboard box before us. I drum my nails against it, but don't let go.

"Rather forward of you," he says, and moves to lay his hand over mine.

"I quit my job," I reply. Careful, now. "A girl's got to get by somehow."

The slightest of wrinkles mars his perfect brow for a split second. Good. It's all I need to confirm my value to his country. The leverage I've planned so painstakingly. "We had an arrangement."

"And we still do. I am simply recommending a modification." My siren smile is enough to deter the inbound waiter from disrupting our intimate moment.

"There are no modifications," he says. The cigarette pack crunches slightly under the grip of both our hands.

"My contributions have more than satisfied our original arrangement," I say.

"And we have compensated you accordingly."

I hum, and lean back, taking the cigarette pack with me. "I suppose you have. But you don't know what else I have to offer."

Irritation sparks in his eyes - the most emotion I've seen from him yet. The first time we met, Ethan - which surely cannot be his real name - instructed me to go to a diner in the part of town that always reminds me of a mob movie. When I made a joke to that effect, he gave me nothing but stone-faced silence. The second time, though, he bought me coffee at an overpriced hipster café. The third time was a drink in an uptown hotel bar. Neither caffeine, nor alcohol, nor my feminine charms seemed to generate a reaction from him.

But now that I'm joining in his game, he is not happy.

"You don't seem to understand the nature of this agreement," he says through gritted teeth.

"Don't glower. You'll draw attention."

He scoffs. "Only one of us here is looking for attention." He glances meaningfully at the cut of my dress, as though now is the first time he's noticed it.

"I'm dressing the part," I say with a shrug. "Why else would I be in a place like this with a man twice my age?"

I don't expect him to take the bait, but Ethan slams a hand onto the table hard enough to make my empty martini glass teeter in place. His sport coat swings open just enough for me to catch a glint of metal at his hip. Poised to leap over the table at me, he says, "Hand it over, Chloe."

"You need to sit down, right now." The noise, the shift in energy has drawn at least two tables' eyes in our direction. Ethan sinks back into his chair.

"Hand it over. And you'll never see me again. We are done with you."

"Oh, but I don't think you are." I flick the cigarette box in his direction with the tips of my blood-red nails. "Not once you see what I got you this time."

Ethan seizes the box, triumphant. "Thank you, Chloe. But given that your employment with your agency has ended, then so does our arrangement." He tucks the box into an inner pocket and gestures for the bill.

"That would be a shame, given that you're wrong."

"Excuse me?"

"About my employment ending. A poor choice of words on my part, earlier -- I can see how you'd be confused." I'm just having fun at this point. I can almost taste the frustration on Ethan as he tries to comprehend what his best agent has done now. Scooping up a bite of our dessert from the shared plate between us, I say, "Actually, I took a promotion. Bit of a hassle, honestly -- I've got to get caught up on so much new information."

"Like what?"

I've got him right where I want him. "Please. Be a professional, Ethan. Let's just say this -- I'm flying to Langley tomorrow to get read in." I take a bite, savor the chocolate melting on my tongue, the knowledge that this single bite costs more than my average meal before I met Ethan's boss. "Tell your people I want thirty thousand."

Ethan narrows his eyes. He doesn't touch the mousse, so I reach for another bite. "Thirty thousand dollars, and you'll give us what?"

"Lower your voice." Mine is razor-sharp.

"What will you give us, Chloe?" It's no longer a question, but a demand.

"You'll get double the value of what's in that box," I say with a jerk of my chin toward his jacket pocket. The way he's forcing me to spell it out, to explain the details of our deal out loud -- it's making me feel dirty, like some sort of street criminal.

The waiter approaches, a black leather portfolio in one hand. I glare in his direction. It's really not the time. But he doesn't stop, and now he's standing just a bit too close for comfort, and he's flipping the portfolio open to reveal a golden badge.

"You're both under arrest."

#

"This is all a misunderstanding," I begin the second I lay eyes on the fed walking into the one-way-mirrored room I’ve been trapped in for the better part of an hour. So incredibly boring. Not the waiting, or the comedown from the adrenaline that had flooded my body back at the restaurant - but me. Of all the outcomes I'd imagined, all the worst-case scenarios I'd constructed when Marcus first asked for my help, never had it occurred to me that I would end up reciting lines from B-list action movies in some dingy government building. And yet.

I could say that Marcus manipulated me, that he gaslit me into believing I had no choice, but that would make me a liar. Until now, playing the spy has been exactly what I wanted, the thrill I physically needed. His paranoia, his cowardice gave me the chance of a lifetime, and for that, I am thankful.

But I'm not going down for this - not for him.

The fed takes a seat across the table from me. "Miss Chase, do you understand why you're here?"

"I do, I know how it looks, but I can explain --" God, I hate myself in this moment, but the words are spilling from me uncontrolled. "-- the box I gave him, it isn't mine. Someone asked me to give it to that man."

"That's all very interesting, Miss Chase." She's not taking notes. Why isn't she taking notes? "Tell me about the man you met in the restaurant tonight."

"Doesn't he work with you?"

"I'd like to hear from you what you understood to be that man's purpose in meeting with you."

I glance down at the revealing dress I'm still wearing, as if that should be an answer. The fed doesn't meet my smirk, so I sigh. "Ethan - that's the name he gave me, anyway - wanted some information. I was going to provide it. But I don't know anything more. Marcus Winslow - he's the one who gave me the thumb drive --" Tears spring to my eyes, unexpected, as his name leaves my mouth. As if my body knows - really knows - what I've done. Regrets the betrayal.

"Who is Marcus Winslow?" The fed's narrowed eyes and buttoned-up pantsuit give me the sensation of being in a bad dream, one where I'm naked standing in front of the whole school. So I tell her. I tell her everything.

#

Marcus, as it turns out, is a very smart man.

I have to give the man some credit where it's due. Working for an organization whose core principles orient around phrases like "zero-trust" and "accountability" and "need-to-know," it can't have been easy to cover his tracks the way he did. Digital forensics haven't turned up a trace of suspicious behavior on any of his accounts, according to my lawyer.

Mine, on the other hand…my account activity screams "insider threat." I feel a bit sorry for the cybersecurity guys on my team - surely this isn't a good look for them. Future company all-hands security briefings will frame this case as their failure to notice all my red flags. I wish I could tell them that I get it - I know they never stood a chance.

I'm not a liar. I told the truth when I told that FBI lady my side of the story - that this was all Marcus's idea, that I never stole government secrets, that I would never have begun to know how to find a foreign agent to sell said secrets to, let alone actually do it of my own accord. But the breadcrumbs Marcus left are damning. It's tough to make a case for yourself when you're accused of violating the Espionage Act, but in rare cases, one factor can help a defendant to make a plea deal.

I'm grateful now for my instinct not to tell Marcus about the collateral I'd impulsively decided to demand from Ethan after our first meeting. The embarrassment of asking my public defender to go through my nightstand drawer to find the thumb drives hidden there, the months of wearing khaki in a prison cell, the waiting for somebody in the government to realize that I'm not the dumb bimbo they must think I am - when I'm free, it will all be worth it.

I can't wait to see Marcus's face when he finds out.