He would see to it that Vivika was safe, just so long as Matt kept his word about bringing Patrick over once Hans was rescued, and the American network was annihilated. But then Matt had come by those awful pictures. That had made things even more complicated. Of course, he could never tell his Grandfather about how he had treated Vivika. That wasn’t a detail he didn’t need to know.
Yet as he finished his story and looked up at his Grandfather’s eyes, he noticed the old man’s eyes were glistening as well.
“How dare you,” Grandfather said, acidly. “How dare you!”
“How dare I what?!”
“How dare you not tell me these things! How dare you allow yourself to be treated in such a fashion! How dare you not allow me to destroy that worthless bitch in your honor! How dare you not allow me to keep my promises to you!”
“I didn’t…”
“No! No, Patrick!” Grandfather cried. “How dare you! Stupid, stupid boy! You may not be my flesh and blood, but you are my Agent—one of my chosen few! And I would gladly kill for you without a second thought! Why didn’t you tell me?! Why?!”
“Because it’s disgusting!” Patrick yelled, “Because I’m disgusting! Because I disgust everyone else… the one fucking person I didn’t want to disgust was you!”
“You…” Grandfather stood, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I’m a million-years-old, Patrick! You don’t think I’ve heard, seen, and been through similar things?!”
“Been through…?”
“It’s a dark world, boy!” Grandfather admonished. “It’s a dark, evil, rotten, horrible, and downright godless world! Things happen! Terrible things! But we are the few that are in a position to change that! We can fix problems so bad and so hidden, that most folks can’t even conceive of them! We are capable of knowing unspeakable things, and we exist to fight the unspeakable. But we have to stick together. Or else what are we?! What are we, Patrick?!”
“But we don’t do anything!” Patrick snapped. “All we do is play our little mind games—with the Americans, with the folks of the GDR, with the Soviets—pissing into the wind for what?! For what?!”
“Again, you don’t see what I see! Those mind games aren’t what we do! They aren’t the three steps forward; they are the two steps back! The enemy does counter-intelligence the same as we do—sowing the seeds of discord, same as we do. I’m sorry that the confusion breeds so much contempt, but that’s the Americans doing their job. So, we have to do our job even better and trust. If we don’t trust each other and work together, they win.”
Suddenly, the front door opened. There, standing in the doorway, was old Wart-face in all of his dour glory. Patrick hated the man. Perhaps less than the others, sure; but he hated him still. He was always so… standoffish. It was as if he was better than everyone else, and didn’t want to be caught up in the filth of the rest of the team. He never laughed at anyone’s jokes, or chimed in during anyone’s stories. He simply sat, all by his lonesome, plugging away at reports or working timelines. Oh sure, he was a hard worker, and a team player when he had to be; but he didn’t like being on a team. Or at least not Patrick’s team.
“Sir, a moment of your time?” old warty-face said, “Alone?”
“…we’re busy, Sergeant.” Grandfather responded. “How important is it?”
“It’s…” warty-face said, while throwing a disgusted sneer at Patrick, “…it’s important.”
“Patrick,” Grandfather began, “I need you to go prepare a car for me. Don’t you worry. I will consider your proposals and pass it up for consideration.”
Patrick scooped himself up, with a bit of trepidation, but also note of gratitude. In truth, he was glad to be rid of this room and he desperately needed some fresh air. Especially since just a half hour ago, he was sure he would never taste fresh air again. So, he opened the door to the outside realm and stepped out into the crisp sunshine. He couldn’t help but take note of old warty-face’s smirk, however. “What is that ugly bastard up to?”
“So, what now?” Lena asked honestly.
“I don’t know,” Vivika responded. “I was kinda hoping that you would know.”
The two had sat for nearly an hour talking, and they held absolutely nothing back. At first, Lena had been extremely pensive about talking so openly, knowing full-well that her room was bugged. That is, until Vivika produced a decently-sized camera recorder with several wires hanging out of the back.
“I found it behind your wall socket. They put it back there so that it has a constant power source, and they can run wires outside of the building to retrieve the information easily.”
“Behind the wall socket?! Are you kidding me?!”
“Those are the easy ones. They also stick them in the doorknobs. But every now and then… they stick them in your shower-head, because people like to imagine things out loud while showering or pooping.”
Lena preferred to just ignore the connotations of that. The two talked openly about the black cells, including the bildungsbälle, the fire-hosings, the interrogation techniques… all of it. They discussed Mr. Collins and Grandfather… they left nothing out. Despite how nervous the two felt about naming them, it felt good to open up. They also realized simultaneously that Lena didn’t actually knew what Grandfather’s name was, and that conversations like these were likely precisely why. They discussed the various agents that they had worked with, Wart-face, Fancy-man and the others.
“You know that Wart-face works for the Americans, right?” Vivika said, knowingly.
“Wait, what?” Lena asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know precisely if he knows, honestly. He just has a way of feeding information to Mr. Collins. Like the camera that he put in your purse.”
“What camera?”
“The camera pen that you told me about earlier. The one that Mr. Collins took out of your purse while he was making your coffee.”
“He what?!?” Lena shouted.
“Yeah.” Vivika sighed, “You should really look inside your purse every now and again. You would be surprised how much information we’ve transferred back and forth using it. Did you even notice the pen was missing?”
“No.” Lena replied sheepishly. Yet the mention of the other agents hit a nerve with Vivika the way that the pen had with Lena—especially the mention of Red-hat, whom Vivika had a special relationship with.
“So that’s the bastard that keeps following me!” Vivika shouted.
“Oh, he’s following you?” Lena offered, “As in, like, training you?”
“No. As in he’s following-following me. Which is a really difficult thing to manage, because he can legally follow me anywhere and arrest me anytime he wants. So, I have to be really careful and make sure I don’t piss him off, or let him know that I know he’s following me.”
“That’s what Mr. Collins told me to do, too!” Lena gasped.
“Yeah, this stuff works.” Vivika said with authority. “It’s like this, Lena… if the State wants to arrest you, it will. If the State hasn’t, it’s trying to find a reason to—which it really doesn’t need, because the State can just make up a reason. So, if you are being followed, you have to do what you can do to lose the heat, so to speak. Bore them, and make them less interested in following you.