Owens had devoted his life to Aquarius, as was expected. After sixteen years, he became commander of the aristocratic intelligence agents responsible for protecting sensitive technological information possessed by the United States government — information that had garnered the catchphrase Above Top Secret.
Owens studied his latest disciple, Kayla, sitting in the passenger seat of their Suburban as he filled the vehicle with gasoline. They had a critical task to attend to, which would require a long drive before it was over, and he wanted to fill up before they had any passengers. The situation confronting them would expose Kayla to new facets of their operations, and he had decided it was time to elevate her understanding, and not just of her job duties, but what those duties protected.
Owens spent over two years following Kayla’s progress after he had the Central Intelligence Agency make her an analyst along with five other possible candidates for her Aquarius position.
Intelligence, patience, reclusiveness, few friends, mental stability, physical toughness, no immediate family contacts, intense loyalty to the United States of America: those were a small sampling of the mandatory traits Owens looked for in his team members. The mix wasn’t common, but in a country larger than two hundred and fifty million, there were enough candidates to fill the positions. He never started the search process from scratch. Military and intelligence databases categorized individuals through a variety of means: military service, internship programs, present employees, psychological testing, background checks, even high school and college scholarship contests.
Kayla’s birth name was Trisha Lawrence. Just over three years ago, Trisha Lawrence was a junior partner with a small New York City law firm. She had entered the intelligence community databases early in her career when the firm represented an East Coast defense contractor in a wrongful death case. The government required that all fifteen employees at the firm pass a background check before they could take the case.
Unbeknownst to Trisha, her profile had intrigued several upper level operators over the years, but it wasn’t until Owens had the CIA offer her a lucrative package analyzing and overseeing contract negotiations between defense contractors and international clients that she took the bait.
The CIA served as a microscope for Owens, allowing him to further analyze the candidates for his apprentice position. Kayla had never been in the military, and thus Owens considered her a soldier of different fortune. Kayla had lived her life as the legal professions’ version of a Navy Seaclass="underline" a litigator. He saw her as a white-collar weapon, a valuable addition to his operation. Her beauty furthered her potency, and her beauty was the most dangerous kind: natural. Kayla didn’t own make-up because she didn’t need it; her skin was clear and her lips were full. She often brushed her long brown hair using her hand, and let it hang straight instead of primping with irons or other devices she viewed as a vain waste of time.
As Owens’ apprentice, Trisha Lawrence was taught to live with a past consisting only of her most recent footstep. The name Kayla Kiehl, just like the name Damien Owens, was assigned like a piece of equipment. No paper trails linked them to the government of the United States, nor the Central Intelligence Agency.
As Owens turned the Suburban onto Desert Inn Road, he fell behind a slow-moving truck and had to hit the breaks, sending Kayla’s mobile phone sliding from her lap onto the floor. She reached down to retrieve it and Owens found himself captivated by her hair as a lock fell across her cheek.
“Have you ever worn your hair in a bun?” he asked.
“A bun?” she chuckled. “I think old ladies wear buns.”
“Well then … what do women wear to keep their hair up? Tight to their scalp, like when they’re in the military.”
“Clips, or bobby pins. I haven’t seen a woman with a bun since my seventh-grade English teacher.”
“Whatever it requires, keep some spares in the car. I’d prefer your hair high and tight.” The sexuality a woman brought to his work environment gave him an unfamiliar feeling — a new challenge he didn’t know how to process, as most of his adult life had been spent around men. He needed to be direct and consistent with her, the way he handled everything else.
The Suburban’s onboard computer chimed, alerting receipt of an electronic mail message. Logging onto the computer under the roll-top dash, Kayla checked the message. “It’s from the DC team: ‘In recent actions the National Archives Annex in College Park, Maryland, has accelerated its fulfillment of FOIA requests. Declassification continues to be handled in-house; however many documents are being released to the requestor before we have an opportunity to review. A recent request for anti-gravity related documents was fulfilled without our usual perusal. By the time we received notice through the standard channels, the documents had already been shipped. Please advise.’”
“Why do problems always come in clusters?” Owens asked.
“Is this serious?”
“I doubt it. A lot of classified documents are in storage, most outdated and harmless. But we double-check certain topics. Sometimes the slightest comment or word can be a clue for someone looking to expose our programs. Apparently procedural changes have cut the DC team out of the loop. Send a reply. I want copies of those documents and a background report on the requestor.”
Owens turned left into a gated residential entrance at the Las Vegas Country Club. The homes surrounded a golf course in the shadow of the famed Las Vegas Strip. He gave a name listed on the Skyles’ visitor list and was granted access.
“How does Skyles afford this?” Kayla asked, studying the exclusive homes on the street.
“Barely. He’s cash poor. In 1992 he cashed out his GRATCOR stock options and put all the money, plus everything in his 401(k), into a stock account. Then margined the money so he had twice as much buying power and sunk it all into Starbucks’ IPO. It was the most financially reckless thing I had ever seen, but before I could intervene and protect him, the stock took off. So instead of telling him to stop, I bought into Starbucks too. This past April he cashed out with more than a three hundred percent gain on his original investment in two years time. He paid his capital gains and then put everything down on a house.”
“Then how can he be strapped financially?”
“He still has a mortgage, car payments, country club fees, and a wife who likes to spend.”
“Nice of you to blame it on the woman.”
“Skyles travels too much to participate in all the shopping that gets charged to their credit cards.”
“He can’t spend money when he’s traveling?” she asked.
Owens found her comment amusing. “His government trips are all-inclusive,” he answered, not offering to elaborate because it would only lead to more questions he didn’t have time for.
Turning the car off in front of Skyles’ house, Owens hesitated before exiting, and faced Kayla. “Typically, when a person becomes a full-fledged agent of Aquarius, there is a ceremony with the other agents, at which point the books are opened to you, and you’ll eventually come to learn and understand all that we manage and why. I don’t know exactly what will go down inside that house, and need to prep you for some sensitive technological issues. So I’m sorry the official notification has to come in the front seat of a car, but consider yourself graduated to the United States’ highest security level.” Clearing his throat, he proceeded, “I’ll still hold some topics back so you aren’t overwhelmed, and until you learn to handle them properly, which only comes from on-the-job experience. But from this time forward, believe all that you see. When you ask yourself how something is possible, or how we can keep something so bizarre a secret, think about all the time, energy and resources that went into qualifying you. Then think about the security, the classifications, the segmentation, the surveillance, the monitoring, everything you have been exposed to thus far. When something surprises you, don’t think of it as new, but well-guarded. It’s only new to you.” He offered her a congratulatory handshake. “Are you ready?”