“Funny you didn’t mention anything about politics when we were in bed? Why the sudden morals?”
“You know why.”
“Do I? You’re the mind reader, why don’t you tell me what I know.”
“We have both known about the other this entire time, Elisa. Only I love you, that’s why I did it. You did it for your cause.”
“So, you’re going to turn me in because you’re in love with me, is that it?”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Like putting down an injured horse.”
“You need help, Elisa, if not from me, from someone else. The whole thing’s over, I’m sure you heard about the raid.”
She looks at him directly, quizzically:
“Yes. Thanks for the warning.”
“Don’t mention it again, I’ll deny it. It’s all over, we can go back to normal. You can either join us or be hunted like the rest of the rats.”
“I’m joining Vincent, I’ve already decided. Nicholas has run and I didn’t go with him. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“That you don’t give a damn about him.”
“Very profound.”
“I love you Elisa. Let me help you. I can protect you. If you’re going straight, let me help.”
“No thanks, you don’t want to help. You want me to be your good little wife. That’s not what I call help.”
“I can legitimize you,” Willardianly suggestive…
“I don’t want, nor do I need, you to legitimize me. Why it’s okay for you to perjure yourself and defraud but wrong for anyone else is beyond me.”
“I didn’t lie to you to try to catch you.”
“I know that.”
“Don’t you see, Elisa, my motives were based on affection? I could have arrested you at any time, you and Dodger, I could have arrested you immediately.”
“Instead, you choose to spy on me and then, when I initiated a face-to-face relationship, you kept spying on me and kept lying to me. You call yourself my friend, but it was all convenience for you Vincent. As soon as your director found out about it, I was dead. Who has the morals?”
“I wanted to save you — that’s why I continued. Do you really think I’ve done all this for sex? I’ve done all of this for you. Now, you’ve got to make a decision, Elisa, you’ve got to decide if you’re going for rebranding or if you’re coming with me.”
“So, those are my choices? Zombie or wife,” Persephonianly put. “All right, Vincent, if that’s all I’ve got, I’ll marry you. But you should know, I’m doing it for survival.”
“In time, you’ll learn to love me, that’s how it works.”
“You poor man, you have the stomach of a skeleton, so used to waiting for someone to give you your opinion on things.”
“I need to know, Elisa.”
She clutches her purse in both hands, face downcast, remembering Maija Hanley and the others… if this is what he wants…
“Yes, Vincent, I do.”
* * *
With her acceptance, he turned away and walked back towards his command post, whilst she, on the other hand, made her way towards the front of her brother’s home. He knew there was a reason for her arrival, and that it was not just to hide. She was involved somehow… Elisa entered the house without knocking, and had the servants take her belongings to one of the guest rooms, one overlooking the back of the house. No one thought it peculiar — she was a peculiar girl.
The estate had been in the Greene family for four generations, before Graham it belonged to their uncle Claude and he had left it to his favorite nephew. As children, the clan had visited the estate often, every other year, when they weren’t summering in the Hapsburgs; they summered at Cloud Ten Acres, and Elisa knew the house from top to bottom (including the cellar, where Graham had recently installed his famed armory [she never quite understood his fascination with old weaponry, but then, she didn’t really bother to try either] that was often featured on documentaries about the history of war and surveyed by wrinkled old professors at least once a month — like it was an archive. Graham had spent millions at auctions, estate sales, and the like procuring medieval long swords, lances, suits of armor, oriental bows, samurai costumes, rapiers, cross-bows, catapults, norse battleaxes, war hammers, morning stars, clubs, foils, knives of varying lengths, styles, and shapes, pikes, spears, shields, Zulu artifacts, Bohr rifles, Amazon blow-tubes, Herero relics, Lap tools, Reich ammunitions, American gangster rapid fire guns, wild west gattlan-guns & six-shooters, ancient missiles, helmets, flame-throwers, even Leonardo da Vinci’s cannon).
Vincent only had to keep her out of trouble for a few more days — then she was his. He ordered his men to initiate another search of the premises, they were going to strike, that was why she was there, to assist them, to act as decoy (they knew her affect on men), something, he just had to figure out what, and before it happened. He wouldn’t let some mistake take away his prize, not after all that work, not after all of his time and energy spent on her, she was finally his (he was still recovering from her drugging him, but he choose not to entertain it, not when she was willing to agree to his terms). Within a few days, she’d be at his home, living there, every day, every night, he’d teach her to take her meds, to cook for him, to clean the house, to greet him at the door, and within a year or two, she’d be pregnant with his child. He would be an A-lister, slightly impure, but still an A, and his child, his boy or girl would be a Greene, distant, but still aristocracy. All he had to do was keep her safe for a day or two, one last mission…
After dinner, as evening wore on and the sun’s light began to pale the horizon, she retired to her room to wait. She hadn’t seen Captain Vincent since that morning; he’d not bothered her, or said anything else. He had her acceptance, he knew she was up to something — he was just too late. She waited patiently; she knew he’d come, and that she’d witness the accomplishment of it. She wanted to see him, she’d desperately been waiting for the chance to be with him again, to hear his voice, see his eyes, feel his hands, and she’d chosen the best possible place to catch him. She just hoped Vincent wouldn’t think of it, that he hadn’t inspected the house.
Elisa pulled out her book, set it on the window sill and began to mechanically follow the words, although she paid no attention to the subject or the plot, since she made sure she looked up, out the window and down onto the grounds, every few seconds. She listened as the house closed down for the night, heard Graham and Haddie turning out lights, talking in whispers, heard them climb the stairs, the young bride’s giggles, synthetic pleas for Graham to stop what he was doing (probably pinching her as she walked up the steps in front of him), the flirtations, and the muffled groans echoing down the hall after only a half hour.
She saw movement by the tree line, flexed, stared after the shape coming towards her, turned out her light, turned it back on, and off again, but it was just an agent making his rounds. She felt disappointment, but settled back in for the wait.
A few hours later, she saw the agent again, his flashlight darting around the meadow, into the trees, and she laid her head down on her book, tiredly observing his search. He wasn’t too thorough, he’d gone over that area about eight times that day, and was simply completing it yet again out of duty. As his flashlight swept the dark forest, which was so silhouetted against the starry night it looked like a black fire engulfing the cosmos, she saw a glint of inorganic color, for only a second. The agent’s light continued though, unaware, until he was gone. Then, the color moved, quickly, straight, directly towards her. She watched intently, nervously, checked east and west, no one in sight, nothing but the shape moving closer, darting from the hedge to the terrace, from the terrace to a lone tree, from the tree to a bush, from the bush to the shrubbery bordering the garden surrounding the back of the house.