A Dangerous Liaison Part One

  A Dangerous Liaison

  Part 1

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Melanie Brooks

  Copyright © 2015

  www.melaniebrooks01.blogspot.co.uk

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Chapter 1

  Petra

  His fingers brushed my cheek, sending a thrill through me, so intense I gasped. Then our eyes locked. His seemed as blue as a deep lake. I gazed into them feeling like I was falling.

  We were standing on the beach. Cool, wet sand caked my toes. Waves crashed on the shore behind us, and the fall air chilled my skin. I knew these things, but I was hardly aware of them. It was as if the beach and the sea were millions of miles away. All my attention was riveted on the man who held me in his arms.

  We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. He smiled softly, and my heart melted. Then he leaned forward and his lips met mine.

  As we kissed a feeling grew inside me, starting in my belly as a warm glow, and spreading out through every part of my body. At first I didn’t recognize it. Then I realized it was happiness. Real, deep, and authentic happiness. The kind people searched for their whole lives.

  His hand slipped around the back of my neck, and a shiver shot down my legs.

  We were soul mates and would be together, always.

  In my mind’s eye I saw the years roll by. I saw us married, later with smiling happy children, then growing old together; a perfect happy life.

  I let out a long, slow sigh. This couldn’t be more perfect.

  Then I jerked.

  Something was wrong. It started like before, in my stomach, where the feeling of happiness had begun. But now the sensation was dark and heavy and cold. With a gasp I realized it was fear. The fear raced through me, bringing with it a sense of despair and hopelessness. He still held me, but his skin felt oddly alien now. I pushed him away, a scream in my throat, then clapped my hand over my mouth.

  He was fading, disappearing, already so faint I could hardly make out his face. And when I reached out for him, he’d gone. I tried to stifle the howling sob that rose up in my throat, but I couldn’t, any more than I could stop the hot tears that ran down my face. I fell on my knees in the sand, overwhelmed by the raw ache inside me. A voice, in the back of my mind, told me it was only a dream – but I knew that was a lie.

  Then abruptly I was in a white room, lying strapped to a hard bed. A fluorescent strip light on the ceiling above me shone in my eyes.

  I screwed my eyes closed, and when I opened them again, a dark mask was floating towards my face. It was the kind you see in the ER for delivering oxygen, but bigger. It would easily cover my face, from forehead to chin. I made to get up, but cold fingers gripped my arm, and a harsh voice said:

  “Don’t struggle, Petra. It will be over soon.”

  As the mask was sealed over my face, just before the darkness engulfed me, the voice said:

  “Forget.”

  ***

  I jackknifed upright in the bed, shivering and covered in a cold sweat. It took me a moment, then I realized I’d had the dream again. The same dream I’d had every night for the past ten years.

  Like always, I felt as if a vital part of me had been ripped away. The feeling of loss made my whole body ache. I was raw and empty. But I knew I couldn’t allow that feeling to grow, or it would consume me. And I had something important to do, before it was too late.

  Quickly I twisted in the bed, and grabbed the pen and pad I kept on the bedside table. I flicked the pad open, my hand shaking, and put the pen on the paper and waited.

  My chest heaved.

  It seemed stupid, after all this time, but I hoped that one day I would remember his face. So every time I had the dream, I tried to sketch him. I used to be good at art, and could draw a recognizable likeness of a face. If I could remember it.

  I stared at the pen. I’d made a jagged zigzag mark on the paper, because my hand was shaking so much. But otherwise it was blank – like my memory. A surge of despair rose up inside me, and I hurled that damn pen and pad at the wall. They hit it with a slap then fell to the floor, while I howled like a banshee.

  ***

  A few hours later, I was sitting in my kitchen at the table, drinking my third cup of strong black coffee from a Starbucks mug.

  The coffee didn’t really help. I always felt strung out after the dream. But I craved the coffee, and even though it made me edgier, it helped push back the exhaustion.

  I took a sip and picked up my badge from the table, and ran my thumb over its surface. It read Special Agent Petra Anderson. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice. That’s what I was to most people. An FBI agent. Twenty-six year of age. Smart, able to think outside of the box, and prone to insubordination. At least that’s what my last annual appraisal report had said.

  And that’s what the outside world saw – a young agent driven, ambitious and allergic to authority. An agent who, apart from the occasional party-binge, worked all hours – staying up late at night reading case files, or chasing up leads. An outsider would have said I was FBI to my marrow. But that wasn’t me. That wasn’t me at all.

  I worked so hard to fill the void in my soul. But no matter how hard I worked and what I achieved, that pain never went away. I was incomplete. Something crucial had been taken from me, and the cruel joke was that I didn’t even know what it was.

  I raked my hand through my hair, and blinked away the tears.

  From my apartment window I could see the sun rising over the neighboring apartment blocks in the east, and if I squinted the Statue of Liberty was just visible to the west.

  I sipped my coffee, my mind still running.

  Was this ever going to stop? The nightly dreams – always the same. Each time leaving me emotionally wrecked and yearning for answers. It was as if my heart had been cut from my chest and thrown to the wolves. I’d picked the pad off the bedroom floor earlier. It lay on the kitchen table in front of me now. The blank page seemed to accuse me. Abruptly I pulled the pad toward me, grabbed the pen that lay next to it, and waited.

  My mind wasn’t a blank, not totally.

  I knew I’d been on the beach with someone who meant everything to me. Someone who made me feel safe and happy. But his face was just a blur – like it had been erased from my mind.

  I pushed my hand through my hair, tucking a stray lock behind my ear, and bit my lip. I was trying too hard. It would only give me a headache that would last all morning. I looked up and gazed for a long moment, eyes unfocused, out of the window at the Statue of Liberty, as if she might help me. But America’s great lady gave me no inspiration.

  I sighed, then checked the time.

  Shit. 8:30 a.m.

  I had a meeting with my boss, Will Cooper, at 9, and I didn’t want to be late. I’d already pissed him off enough. I jumped up – ran into the shower.

  Ten minutes later I left my apartment in downtown Brooklyn, and got the subway to the FBI building in lower Manhattan.

  ***

  When I arrived at the meeting, it was already ten past nine. I burst in, holding a coffee in a Styrofoam cup. The meeting was in full flow. Will Cooper stood at the front of the room alongside a TV screen covering half the wall. He wore the regulation FBI suit, like it had been made for him, and had the build to match: broad shoulders, squeezed into his navy jacket, leading to an athletic, slim waist. His jaw was square, th
e skin over it as smooth as his Gillette razor would allow. His eyes were steely gray. He was an FBI poster boy. I often thought if someone were to examine his blood under a microscope, they’d see the letters FBI stamped on each red cell.

  About a dozen agents sat on chairs fanned out in front of him. I noticed Gabriel off to the right. He was in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair pushed back from a heavily lined forehead, and thick black-rimmed glasses. He’d been my unofficial mentor, coach, and shoulder to cry on since I’d started with the Bureau.

  When I closed the door behind me everyone looked up.

  “Agent Anderson,” said Cooper after a pause. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  I flinched at the hostility in his voice. Despite his smooth exterior, Cooper had a mean streak, and was not someone to get on the wrong side of.

  “Just running behind,” I said, flatly.

  He pointed at an empty chair in the front of the room. “Take a seat.”

  I sat down, glancing at Gabriel as I did. He gave me a half-smile that made me feel better. I knew Cooper wasn’t all bad. He was just blowing off steam. Maybe his bad mood had nothing to do with me.

  “For the benefit of Agent Anderson,” he said, “let’s go over it again.”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then began.

  “Over the last six months unprecedented numbers of American citizens have been murdered in Rome. I’m talking about muggings, rapes, and suspicious accidents. Americans have been stabbed, shot, and crushed under buses or trucks, in a supposedly safe city.”

  He turned to the screen, and clicked on a remote control in his hand; he flicked through images of the dead, narrating as he did.

  “This young man was knifed on his way to work, just after leaving his recently pregnant wife. This woman shot in the back, after leaving one of Rome’s fashionable coffee shops. This student knocked off his bike and crushed under the wheels of a Ford pickup.”

  The list went on and on. As I watched my blood went cold. This was Rome, not the Middle East. I shook my head, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. Most of the victims were young or in their prime. Their lives had been cruelly cut short. Not for the first time, I wondered at the depths to which people would go.

  After a full minute Cooper was still clicking through the images. Then he stopped and turned to face us.

  “I could go on, but I think you get the picture.”

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  “What kind of numbers are we talking about here?” I said, finally.

  “Forty dead so far,” replied Cooper.

  A collective gasp, like a wave, ran through the briefing room. Forty American citizens had been murdered in a safe European capital in the last three months? I couldn’t believe it. Jesus, I thought. If Cooper had been keeping this to himself for the last few months it was no wonder he was snapping.

  One of the other agents, a guy called Uzbeke, shoved up his hand.

  “What’s this got to do with us, boss? The FBI only deals with domestic issues – not killings in Europe.”

  Uzbeke wasn’t a bad agent. But he was a hothead, and too quick with his fists. Something had happened to him, about a year ago, that had turned him in on himself for a while. He’d started drinking heavily, but Cooper had pulled him back from the brink.

  “Usually you’re right,” said Cooper. “We only have a presence in embassies. But exceptional circumstances call for exceptional measures. We let the Italians handle the investigation at first but they got nowhere. America couldn’t stand by and watch its citizens die. So we insisted on sending a contingent of FBI agents to Rome to work with the police, until the perpetrators were caught. The Italians didn’t like it but they had no choice.”

  Gabriel shifted in his seat.

  “What are we looking at, Will? Is this terrorists? Islamic State trying to hit soft American targets off US soil?”

  Cooper put down the remote control and sighed.

  I knew he respected Gabriel, even though they often didn’t see eye to eye. Gabriel had been with the Bureau for twenty years. His experience was a gold mine.

  “That’s that working theory, Gabriel, yes. But we’ve drawn a blank with all the usual groups.”

  “But why Rome, for God’s sake?” said Uzbeke.

  Cooper put his hands up. “Look, I’m the first to admit that we don’t have all the answers. We need to get on the ground, and work this case. The CIA is already there and will be able to help us with intelligence, but we’ll be doing most of the footwork – working closely with the Rome police.”

  He gestured at sheets of paper on our desks.

  “The agents coming to Rome are on that list. The rest of you will stay behind.”

  As Cooper spoke I suddenly knew with complete certainty that I had to go to Rome. It was an unshakeable conviction. At first I thought it was because I hated what was happening in Rome, and I wanted to stop it. I did. But this feeling was more personal. It was a deep belief that I’d find the answer to my nightly dreams there.

  My heart surged. I was going to find him.

  I didn’t know how I knew this – but I did.

  Trying to control my excitement, I reached for the A4 slip of paper, and scanned the names. I wanted to see who I was going to be working with. If this operation was going to provide the answer to my life’s quest, as well as stop American deaths, I wanted to make sure Cooper had chosen the right people. I got to the bottom the list. Then I did a double take and read it again, more slowly, holding my breath. But I’d been right the first time.

  My hand shook.

  I wasn’t on the list.

  I stared at the paper as the implications sunk in. A wave of nausea ran through me. I had to go to Rome. If I ever wanted to answer the questions that had haunted me for the past ten years, I had to.

  “Okay,” said Cooper. “Everyone going to Rome see Gabriel. The rest of you will support us from here. Liaise with the Rome police. Dig around for anything we might have missed. I want to know everything about the murders.”

  In a few seconds the room was almost empty. Cooper was putting on his jacket, collecting up his things.

  I was frantic.

  Then I spotted Gabriel heading for the door, and rushed over to him.

  “Gabriel,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Did you know about this?”

  He froze and looked at me. Then he pulled his arm away.

  “Yes, Petra, I knew.”

  I gaped.

  How could he have not said anything? Gabriel was supposed to be my mentor. He was supposed to support me, not betray me.

  “I have to go on this operation,” I said.

  He put his bag down on the table, sighed, and looked directly at me.

  “Petra, I think you need to let someone else do the heavy lifting on this one.”

  Shit. I was getting a very bad feeling about this. It must be about the operation last month. We’d been called in to a bank heist that had turned into a hostage situation after the local PD hadn’t gotten anywhere.

  The perp had hit the bank at 1 p.m., when it was crowded with customers. When he couldn’t get into the vault, he’d held them all hostage. There were office workers, some old folk, even a six-month-old baby. The FBI negotiator tried hard for another five hours, but the perp refused to release anyone, even the baby. We’d received his profile by then. Turned out he had taken hostages before – and killed them. I knew then we’d never be able to reason with him. So I went in and took him out.

  Don’t get me wrong; I’m no female Rambo. I just see risk differently than most people. Maybe it’s just part of my psychological make-up. I don’t know. But I thought it was a risk worth taking.

  All the hostages survived. The kidnapper got a bullet in the leg. It missed all his major arteries, so he lived to face trial, and hopefully a long prison sentence. He shot me in the shoulder. I spent a few weeks in the hospital after they removed the bullet. It still ached a little but otherwise I wa
s fine.

  But Cooper didn’t agree. As far as he was concerned I’d broken department protocol, again. I’d thought Gabriel would back me up, but the look in his eyes told me I was wrong.

  I looked to my left, saw Cooper leaving the room, and dashed after him. When I got through the door he was already halfway down the corridor.

  “Will!” I shouted.

  He stopped. I saw his shoulders flinch, probably because I’d used his Christian name. He hated that.

  I drew level with him.

  “Will, what’s all this about?” I said, waving the paper in his face.

  “What?” he said, his voice calm and low.

  “I’m not on the fucking list.”

  “I know.”

  “Will, I’m qualified. More than qualified. And I’m one of the few agents who’s fluent in Italian.”

  He turned to face me and blew out a breath.

  “We don’t need an Italian speaker – the Rome police will provide an interpreter.”

  “You’re kidding. You can’t rely on that.”

  “We can and we will, Petra. I’m not discussing this with you. You know why you’re not going on this operation.”

  Of course I knew. Normally I’d have let it go. I didn’t agree with him about the previous case, but I could tell he’d made up his mind. But I couldn’t give in now. Something inside was driving me.

  “You turned Gabriel against me, didn’t you?”

  It wasn’t the most helpful argument – but I was furious with Cooper for blocking me. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into his office, then closed the door behind me. I had my back to the door. He stood over me, an arm resting on the door above my head. I cringed. Last year Cooper and I had a brief fling. I’d known it was a mistake and split us up soon after. But he was still bitter about it. I didn’t think he had feelings for me – not really. It was more that his ego had been hurt.

  He leaned in close.

  “Gabriel recommended you stay back.”

  He smiled thinly, watching the shocked expression on my face. Then he put one finger on my cheek and traced it down toward my lips.