Chapter 41

Sometimes a drive in the middle of the night can seem like an eternity, regardless of how short the actual distance might be. The trip from the spa to Cremona was only a little more than an hour, but at three in the morning the dark road seemed to stretch into days of travel, interrupted every so often by a comment from Jamie on Michael’s music selection. 
Whatever her musical yearnings, Jamie’s heart and mind did not trend towards the classical style, though the curious look on her face as she listened to portions of the music showed that her ears, at least, had an interest. As the brass tones of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture swelled and was picked up by the winds section at a rapid pace, Michael could see Jamie’s mind turning it over in her head in order to understand it with her limited knowledge of orchestral phrasing.
“It feels whimsical, but strongly directed to some end. Like an aging horse who, having been set free into a large pasture, decides to give his legs one last romp, because it’ll be his last.”
“Very insightful. The man was held as a remarkable composer in his time, even by westerners. That piece was created in three days as a favor to a friend, who suddenly found himself in need of a piece for his performance, and needed it in a hurry.”
“I’m curious as to what you get out of such music though. To be honest, you don’t seem like the refined type that could find solace in classical.”
It was relaxing in a way. Both the music and Jamie were taking his mind away from the hatred that had flashed so hot through him at George’s revelations. Michael could not have anticipated that he had sold Tanya out, though Smith had been someone he could believe would do it, now that he knew of the connection with Amherst. 
Now, as the music filled the car, Michael could feel his body calming back down to a point where his brain started thinking ahead again. Amherst was going to blow his stack at having missed Michael again, and also at losing his CIA source of information. Smith had likely been helping him to keep out of the way, as well as tossing him a few bones on business contacts. The CIA kept every tidbit of information on file and well organized, and it would only take a computer search to find out who the suspected arms, drug, and porn dealers were in any given area. Such information would be gold in the forming and maintaining of a black market network.
So... What would the result of this be? What could Amherst do to get to Michael now?
“I’m hungry. Can we stop some place and get breakfast?”
Jamie wasn’t one to complain about being hungry, particularly immediately after a mission, so her plea seemed disconnected from her usual self.
“It’s four in the morning, Jamie. It’s not like there’s a Denny’s here that we can stop at.”
She reached over and hit the button on the in-dash GPS to bring up the facilities directory. There, about three miles further up the road, was a gas station. It wasn’t much further to get into Cremona, but there was no real reason to get a hotel room at this hour. Perhaps a bit of food and an hour’s sleep in the car was going to be the right idea after all.
“Okay. We’ll stop and get something. Skip the coffee and energy bars. I want you to get a little sleep before we meet with Marco.”
“Alright.” 
The station was open, and even more surprising was that it was an American style with an actual convenience store. In a place where things were just different all of the time, it seemed incredibly out of place to Michael’s mind. He was about to follow Jamie out of the car when his phone started ringing, the screen flashing the number of a person who was calling earlier than expected. He waved Jamie to continue with her mission, perhaps preferring that she not hear what was about to be said.
He answered the call, setting himself to contain his anger this time. “That was an expensive mistake, Ian. I trust you understand now that you’re not just dealing with me, but also competing for the right to kill me. If I had to place a bet, my money is on Uncle Sam.”
“I might be running out of assets to attack with, but you’re also running out of the layered protection that you’re cowering beneath. Smith was a valuable source of information, to be sure, but you don’t actually believe that I have been using my best pieces, do you?”
Jamie was paying for the stack of things she picked out, so he had to make it quick.
“Listen Amherst, I’m not hiding behind anything but my gun. You and I are heading for a meeting that you are not going to survive, and if I have to cut my way through your biggest and baddest lackeys, it’s going to happen. There is no way you can stop me, short of putting a bullet in your head and saving me the trouble.”
“My, my... you are confident, aren’t you? You think it’s going to be easy to finish our little story? I will go down fighting, just as you intend to. Your little girl is going to be mine, and I’m going to make you suffer, just as my blonde plaything did before I blew her brains out. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to cut the girl in front of you or if I’ll make her watch you suffer, but I AM going to have satisfaction.”
Jamie was finished inside and she started walking towards the car, her pace slowing as she looked cautiously into the darkness surrounding the station.
“If that’s the only way you can get it up, then I guess you’ve got bigger problems than I thought.”
“Oh, I have no problem getting anything up, Christiansen. In fact, I have a cute little thing here that I picked up in Verona. She reminded me a bit of that girl your friend Greco had with him, so I thought I’d give you a call to let you know that I’m still out here, waiting for you.”
There was a yelp of pain on the other end of the line, followed by a weak cry- the cry of someone who had given up resisting and was awaiting their fate.
“She’s a darling, this one is. Her little brother gave the lads a good time, but I saved her for myself.”
Michael had wanted to end the call before Jamie could return but she was already there, climbing in beside him as he listened to the gasping breaths of a young girl.
“Are you there, Christiansen?”
“I’m here.” His voice hardened and his knuckles turned white on the phone, making the plastic frame creak softly as the pressure on it increased.
“Good. Then I trust you’ll know this sound.” 
There was the distinct sound of slicing flesh and a scream of pain. Another slice quickly followed, and then another, each one making Michael’s stomach jump into his throat. He had to close his eyes to avoid looking at Jamie, as he was too afraid to see what she thought of the sounds she could not help but hear.
There was a final slice and a gurgling sound, the singular sound of a throat being slit. Michael felt sick. His hands were sweating and his mouth watered uncontrollably, forcing him to swallow often against his churning stomach. 
“Christiansen?”
It took Michael several deep breaths to be able to speak. He felt Jamie’s hand on his- a hand that pulled his clenched one from the steering wheel and held it tight, giving him strength.
“I’m here.”
“You couldn’t save this one. You couldn’t save the others. You could not even save your own girlfriend. So, if I might ask, who exactly are you trying to save? You obviously are having a tough time making any progress in the saving of people. It seems that the bodies just keep piling up and yet you have saved no one. Not one.”
“I’ve saved one, you sick bastard, and when you meet her again you will pay dearly for every life you’ve taken.” His hand clenched Jamie’s tightly, strengthening his resolve. “I promise you that.”
“Don’t keep me waiting, Christiansen. My appetite is insatiable.”
He ended the call and turned the power off, taking time to sort his thoughts and calm his stomach from the terrible thing he had just been a witness to. Jamie took a bottle of water from her shopping bag and pressed it to his forehead, hoping its cold would help a little in calming him down.
“I’m sorry, Jamie.”
“Don’t be. We’re doing the best we can in trying to find him. It just takes time.” She settled back into the seat when he brushed the bottle away, and in spite of her hunger, she really didn’t feel like eating anymore.
“Time that other people don’t have. It was a boy and a girl this time. He just keeps on killing, regardless of the fact that it’s leading us to him.”
Jamie’s blue eyes shifted to the view outside the car and tried to focus on the darkness, wishing that answers could be found easily within.
“He knows he will die. I think there’s a bit of humanity left in even the worst murderer, and it’s a voice crying out for someone to end their actions. They are beyond repentance and salvation, but they can still hope for an end to the burning of their souls that occurs with every victim. You don’t need a conscience to have that desire. It’s why, in the end, most murderers get themselves caught or self-destruct.”
Michael look at her, knowing that he had never told her anything like that. “Where did you hear that?”
“It’s something I know. The conditioning and nature of the work might make it acceptable for me to kill, but it’s no more right for the soul than murder is. Even now there’s a part of me that screams out for an end to it all. Perhaps even a desire to be killed so that I no longer have to slowly die a bit more inside every time I end a life.”
There was no real trace of the conditioning left inside her, at least not in regards to the morality of killing. She was now operating on her own will with only physical help from the agency’s programming. She didn’t hesitate to kill when she needed to, and her body resisted pain, fatigue, and fear because they had made her like that. But where the other girls were forced by chemical and brainwashing means to ignore the morality of their actions, Jamie was dealing with it every time she killed.
“Why do you keep doing it?”
Her eyes were serious as they locked onto his. “Because I am called to do it. It might sound farcical, but I feel that I am still here because I have to bring an end to Amherst. It’s gone beyond a civil duty now. You might even say it’s divine Providence.”
“Providence... a state in which God is the sustaining or guiding power in one’s destiny.”
“You find that hard to believe, Michael?”
She wasn’t depressed about the idea. In fact, she seemed buoyed by her belief that she was doing God’s work, another sign of the way in which the agency had lost control of her. Faith made a lot of things seem okay, something the Crusades and Inquisition seemed to bring home when considered.
As he watched her sip her water, smiling softly as she went about her own thoughts, he could understand why she felt that way. Her life had ended and she had been given a new one, one with an arguably just cause initially, but Fate had brought them both into a position to fight something greater than themselves, something personal to both. 
There was no doubt in Jamie’s mind that her purpose was to fight this evil they knew, and the acceptance of this singular purpose was the reason she was no longer unstable around him. The woman inside her who was screaming for vengeance found her reasons to be in line with her beliefs.
“No. No, it’s not hard to believe at all. Not anymore.”
He started the car and drove on towards Cremona.

A solid knock on the window startled them both from their sleep and Michael had to lean Jamie’s sluggish form towards the other side of the back seat in order to free up an arm to roll down the window. Marco was there with Priscilla, smiling at the tired pair in the car as they tried to blink their eyes to adapt to the morning sun.
“Good morning. Sleep well?”
“Ugh, no. What time is it?”
Priscilla glanced at her watch before tossing in a paper bag with breakfast inside. “Ten-thirty.”
“Shit. Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?”
“You looked too cute cuddled up with each other, so I told him to let you sleep.” She waved at Jamie and managed to get a half-hearted wave in return.
Michael opened the door and climbed out into the morning sun to stretch the protests from his body. The sandwich from the bag was very good and a sip of the coffee handed to him snapped him fully awake. Jamie accepted hers and settled against the car to wake up at a slower pace as the older people discussed their business.
“Amherst struck again last night. He called to let me know that he knew about Smith, and to slaughter a little girl over the phone for me.”
“A little girl?” Marco had been through a lot with Angelica’s death, and through that he had learned that his more caring side was no longer dead inside him. 
“Yeah. He said he picked her and her brother up in Verona. We need to head there immediately to pick up his trail.”
“There’s a place in Milan we need to check out as well. Europol sent down a file from their investigations and has pinpointed a place there as the likely base he’s staging his people out of. We were about to go there to set up a reconnaissance.”
Michael nodded at Marco’s plan. “It’s not like we have the firepower to storm a place like that anyway. He’s pulling out the stops now, Marco, and that means we’re going to start seeing soldiers with guns instead of punks with a fetish. He said as much in our conversation.”
Jamie tossed her empty coffee cup into the trash and stepped up beside Michael, feeling a bit more awake and ready for the day’s activities.
“Why don’t we take the recon of the place in Milan, Michael? Tracking down the trail of the two kids is just police work, something that Priscilla and Marco both are better at. My forte is observation and elimination, both of which are likely to be needed if there are soldiers around. To hunt a soldier, you need a soldier, simple as that.”
Her eyes were frightening again, this time in their determination. If she’d held any feelings from what she had heard over the phone the previous night, she had kept them to herself for a specific purpose: that of empowerment.
“If the information doesn’t pan out, we’ll be that much further behind.”
“If the information doesn’t pan out, we’re right where we are now. He isn’t running, Michael- he’s waiting. And while he waits, he continues killing. Even if it’s just you and me against an army, hunting him actively is better than knowingly chasing his shadow.”
He had to admit that she had a point. Michael’s recent steps had been to track slowly closer on Amherst by following the trail of destruction, and even if the place in Milan didn’t pay out, they were hunting ahead of him rather than following his tracks. Of course, having the benefit of seeing Michael’s recent actions meant that Amherst could plan for the next one.
“Marco, I want you and Priscilla to go to Verona and check on the missing children angle. Find out what you can, but be extremely careful. Amherst expects me to go there to follow it up, so it may be that he has a trap set. I can’t really think of any other reason he would tell me where he had been.”
There was an understanding nod from the pair. They knew what they were dealing with and would make every effort to avoid falling into it.
“Jamie and I are going to Milan. With any luck we will hit on something and be able to plan an assault to finish it all.”
“Be careful, Michael.” Priscilla gave him a hug- a comforting gesture between close friends. She hugged Jamie even tighter, squeezing her playfully in the way she had become accustomed to in the months after Angelica’s death. “You too, Jamie. Take care of him.”
“I always have.”
She waved to their car as it sped away and then joined Michael at the Jag’s hood to go over the information.
“It seems pretty fresh. There’s a couple of photos here of a small industrial business at the side of the warehouse- maybe a machine shop.”
Jamie glanced through a stack of papers, looking for one she had seen before she had straightened them. “Here it is. It’s a mixed business warehouse. Import-export and distribution, along with a truck repair facility.” There was a satellite photo of the location along with a broader scale one. “Look here! Right next to a rail yard. In fact, it looks like they have a spur that slips right into the building.”
“Hmm.” She was right, Michael knew. He could not have asked for a better student. “If I had to move military hardware and other illegal goods on specific-but-open timeframe, that’s how I would do it. Rail freight is checked less thoroughly than that sent by sea or air. Not to mention it is easy to hide illegal goods inside heavy equipment that is packed inside a freight car. Add to that the intermodal applications and you have a nice place to do business from. I think you hit right on it.”
His praise made her smile and her smile brought one to his face in return.
“This is all assuming that Europol was right about the place, right?”
“And that we can come up with some way to survey without being noticed. And that we can plan, prepare for, and execute an assault in a manner that nets us the bad guys.”
Her expression said all that he needed to hear. She was willing to take it on, in any conditions, and would do so without hesitation. As if to punctuate it, she went to the floor of the backseat and pulled out her stealth jumpsuit, the one she had just purchased because it “showed off her curves better”. 
“Come on. Lets get going or we’ll never make it to Milan and you’ll never get to see me wear this.”
Michael packed up the papers and climbed into the car, deciding it would be best to get moving before she came up with something even more uncomfortable to threaten him with.
“I told you before that spies don’t wear stuff like that.”
“That’s not what Tanya told me. She said she used to wear a skin-tight suit all of the time.”
“Not when she was infiltrating.” Damn. What did that woman tell her?
“Then when?” Jamie was beginning to enjoy making Michael uncomfortable.
He shook his head and turned onto the road out of town, wondering what else Jamie was going to decide to discuss on the way to Milan.
“None of your business.”

The fact that they were agents of the Social Welfare Agency and that they were in an arguably hostile city, run by arguably hostile political and criminal powers, was not lost on Michael as they jumped off of the four-fifteen onto the highway that would take them further into Milan. Through careful maneuvering in the side streets, he was able to find the place they were looking for without actually passing alongside it- a hedge against the enemy lackeys knowing what his car looked like. He pulled slowly through the intersections so that Jamie could observe the location with her binoculars. 
“See anything?”
“Yes. A large brick wall, some billboards, and some of the worst parking I’ve ever seen. Seriously, parking on the sidewalk is okay here?”
“I’m not sure, I never really considered it. I’m from a civilized country, remember?”
“Well, you might also consider us to be in a very conspicuous car. These are mostly apartment buildings and that is the most Fiats I’ve ever seen. This green Jag is going to get noticed.”
He chose to ignore her commentary and focus on her observations instead. “Is that all you see?”
“Nope. There’s a few Fords in there too.” Her inability to contain her smile showed that she was simply playing off of him. “But on the bright side, it shouldn’t be too hard to get an observation site and avoid being noticed by them.”
“And it shouldn’t be too hard to fire your rifle without someone noticing either.” 
If she caught the sarcasm in his voice, she didn’t show it. “Still... I think we’re going to have to take some time on this one. It’s strange that they are in a populated part of the city. If they’re going to do something untoward, you would think they would prefer privacy.”
“We’re less than two miles from agricultural lands. I’m sure this is private enough to do wicked things with a business as cover. Always remember to be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.”
“Pig farm?”
“Never mind. Lets find ourselves an office or apartment to rent.”

Sure enough, there was an office for rent just up the busy street from the objective, and even had a clear view of the loading docks for the warehouse. Michael determined it would be better to work up a cover for this move, so he and Jamie put on their suits and toured the available offices as a web-developer and his assistant, something he actually had a business card already made up for. The story was that they needed a transitional space to work in while they awaited his promised office to be finished in a new-construction building.
The young woman who showed them the space was lively and excelled at her work, and more than once Jamie caught Michael staring at the woman in an unconscious attraction to her. They looked at their preferred office space a second time before finally voicing the opinion that the view of the street, and of the rising sun, would be the best choice. Michael paid for three months in cash, noting to Jamie after the woman left that cash began and ended conversations the same ways in every country.
It was dark by the time they returned to the office with the things they needed. The Jag was parked in a secure spot not far away and they had rented a van, something they needed to move in some basic office furniture. No one bothered them as they moved the furniture and equipment cases up to the sixth floor office, and after the door was closed, Jamie remarked that it seemed “just too damn easy”.
“It’s like that sometimes,” was Michael’s only response. If there was more to be said, he refused to give it freely.
The video gear was in place to observe the warehouse and they were both tired from the day’s driving and work. Jamie went to the outer office and returned in her “stealth suit”, a piece of clothing that looked familiar to him once he saw it because Tanya had, in fact, worn one on missions a few times.
It was a lightweight spandex and cotton composite that could be worn alone in cool to hot weather and still be comfortable, dried fast once wet while remaining warm and, most importantly, was silent. It fit the body like a glove and could be worn under almost anything. There were numerous pockets along the thighs, upper arms, chest, and even a sheath on each ankle. Each pocket had an elastic-strapped hook to close it, eliminating the noise of Velcro, metal snaps, and even plastic clips.
Jamie spun in place after she came back in, showing off her figure in a teasing way. To Michael, it seemed so long ago that she was stepping from the locker room in her new swimsuit, her face flush with embarrassment. 
“What do you think? Isn’t it cool?”
“You know that you’re not going to look that good with those pockets stuffed with gear, right?”
“I know.” She jumped and landed softy, like a cat, on the sleeping bag he had laid out for her next to his. “But I can enjoy this now, right?”
“Sure.” He slipped into his sleeping bag and settled into his pillow. “Just don’t ask me whether I think your thighs look fat or not after you load those pockets down. In fact, don’t ask me any questions on your appearance at all. The last thing I need is for you to become neurotic on a mission after I screw up and say the wrong thing.”
She curled up against him again, leaning over to speak softly into his ear. “So you’re saying I’m fat now?”
He rolled over to face her and found her lips nearly touching his, just as she had planned. Her entire persona that day had been driven towards enticing him, but to what end? She knew that he felt that he had to keep some distance between them for his own sanity’s sake. She also had feelings for the young man, Nicholas Ferrari. If she were serious about wanting to see him again, she wouldn’t be as close to Michael as he now found her to be.
He tried to read her intentions in her eyes, but the blues whose hue he had been so specific about was now working against him in the near-darkness of the office.
“Jamie... What are your intentions?”
“To live.” Her lips touched his and he nearly lost himself in their feel. She had closed her eyes to enjoy the kiss, so she didn’t see the worried and confused look on his face, a look that he hid before the blues opened again. She pulled away and settled into her bed, extinguishing the moment just as quickly as it had flared up. 
“I thought about it last night as I fell asleep. My heart was screaming out for me to love Nicholas, but somewhere inside me I knew it was wrong. No, not that it was wrong, but that it simply could not happen. He was a great guy. He was handsome, polite, charming, and yet vulnerable and impulsive. I felt myself drawn to him, especially because of those last two, and I couldn’t understand why. And then, just as I drifted into sleep, it came to me. I had trouble remembering it this morning, but I finally got it.”
She reached behind her and found his hand, and linked her fingers with his, squeezing gently so as to avoid crushing it in her bionic grip.
“I finally understood that the reason I felt so close to him, desired to be with him, was because he reminded me of you. Sure, maybe you’re not polite and charming all of the time, and you’re always impulsive. But when I watch you as you face your vulnerabilities I feel closer to you, as if I am discovering them with you, and that draws my heart to you.”
“Jamie, stop this.” He shut his eyes and willed the feeling of betraying Tanya away. “It hurts me when you’re like this.”
“Because you don’t love me?”
“Because I don’t know what to feel. She’s still in my heart and I don’t want to betray her.”
Silence. It seemed to last forever and made it impossible to ignore, but she finally gave his hand another gentle squeeze and let go, curling back up with her pillow.
“Then I’ll wait for you to figure it out. I know what you’re going through, in a manner of speaking, so I can have a little patience.” 
As Michael closed his eyes and willed his brain to relax and sleep, he could not help but feel a bit of regret hovering over him. Was it regret that he was thinking about her, or was it regret that he could not decide?
“Good night, Michael.”
“Good night.”
If he had dreamt that night about Tanya, he might not have felt as bad.

The sun was at their backs and a warm breeze drifted in from the southwest making the early evening recon pleasant enough. With the blinding sun as their cover, they were examining their target from a building across the rail yard, making careful note of everything of value.
“The ventilation is localized so there’s no way to set teargas effectively.”
“Well, those have their uses as well. Nothing clears a building like an A/C unit that’s pouring smoke into a building.” Michael finished drawing the map of the location, noting that the entrances were more limited than he had expected. “Figure a dozen or more guards housed inside. Add in the workers and we’re looking at a lot of guys with guns.”
Her eyes never left the binoculars. “I’m not afraid. Maybe it’s perilous, but a little peril never killed anyone.”
He sagged against the brick and laughed heartily before sipping from his water bottle. “Do you know how dumb you just sounded? Peril is the very nature of death!”
“I was just making a joke.”
“Then make ones that are funny ha-ha, not funny stupid. Life’s too short to laugh at dumb things.”
“You were the one laughing.”
Her matter-of-fact tone made him laugh again. It felt strange to laugh like this after the nightmare of the previous night but the moment was right for it, and so he had seized it.
“Car arriving... A Land Rover with five occupants.”
“ID?”
She adjusted the focus slightly and steadied her hands as the vehicle stopped at the warehouse door. Her breath caught, a clue to Michael of what she was going to say next. 
“It’s him.”
Michael risked the spotting scope’s taller profile in hopes of getting a certain confirmation of her sighting. The magnification brought him seemingly eye to eye with his nemesis, making his own heart skip slightly.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t see what’s marked on that box. Can you?”
He adjust the magnification back to get a better grasp on what she was looking at, noticing a crimson red Pelican case with bold white lettering in the back of the vehicle.
“SXU-37?”
“What’s that?”
“Something they shouldn’t have. Technically I’m not even supposed to know about it, but I happened to be having lunch with a guy from the NSA test lab about five years ago when he was sketching the idea on a napkin. He was at Langley for a review of the latest cryptography gear and we got to talking about the Russian systems. They had started to use something similar to our encrypted field-radios and he had an idea on how to track them in spite of their burst-transmission design. It was only in his mind and in a summary at the time, but I remember him saying the prototype designation was going to be that.”
“So what does it do? Track our transmissions to the source?”
Michael winced, thinking about what else the man had said with his big mouth. “Yes, but if I had to guess, I’d say that it probably can decode them as well, even if they’re not in real-time. We’re not even safe using our cell-phones now.”
“Are we still go for tonight?” The delay before her question showed that she had considered the situation and its consequences.
“Yes. We can’t wait. If he’s here then it means that something is going to be happening.”
“Okay then.” Jamie pulled back from the ledge and packed her binoculars away. “We should get moving if I’m going to make that entrance.”
“We’ve got a little time, Jamie. How about dinner? We can’t go in fighting on an empty stomach.”
Her smile lit up his heart, framed as it was by the light of the setting sun. The orange hue gave color to her pale complexion and made her feel as real as she had ever been.
“Sounds good.”

They found a casual restaurant some distance away from their target and took their time, enjoying casual conversation and the long pauses that come with preparing one’s self for serious work. Somehow they managed to avoid making it feel as if they were eating a last meal or saying goodbye and for that Michael was grateful. If there was one thing he had taken a disliking to it was dramatically long goodbyes.
Darkness was setting in when they arrived back at the office, quieting their discussions to near silence as they made ready to make war on an impossible scale. There was no help coming, that much was made clear when Michael had told Lorenzo of his plans. There was simply no one available to help. Even Priscilla and Marco had been recalled for the agency’s operation, as had Michael and Jamie, but Michael wasn’t about to lose this chance. Amherst was here in his sights and he was not going to let him go.
“I wish I had my rifle at that moment... I could have ended this.” Jamie had been thinking along the same lines, it seemed. 
“Hmm.”
“Can you help me with my suit? I don’t want to rip my radio wire out as I pull it on.” A belt with her radio pack was the only thing she was wearing aside from her tank top and underwear, a key item she had figured out on her own. Wearing the pack and the wire outside of the suit promotes snags and damage.
He stepped behind her and helped her pull it up and onto her arms and shoulders, taking care to keep the wire straight up to the collar.
“Thanks.” She turned and flashed a smile at him as she started to zip up the front.
Michael saw Tanya again in Jamie’s smile. It was so real to him- as real as it had been years before when he had been in the same position, helping her suit up before her mission. His arms wrapped around her and stopped her hands, holding them tightly as he leaned his head next to hers and kissed her cheek.
“Michael what-?”
“Shhh... I’m sorry.”
Her body softened from its startled state and she blushed slightly at his intimacy. “Sorry? What for?” 
“For not being able to let go. For making you put up with my selfish desires.”
If Jamie held any confusion on his meaning she never showed it. She freed a hand and gently pulled his head tighter to her. “I don’t mind.”
He pulled away and she finished zipping the suit, then sat down to pull on her boots. Michael watched her as she picked up equipment off of the table and carefully considered whether she would need it and where it should go. By the time she had finished, Michael was impressed by how well she had taken to what he had instructed her in.
“Are you ready?”
She stood and stepped to the window to peer out at the target, wishing once more that things would go smoothly. She could see the guards at the gate were in some state of readiness, further proof that something was happening tonight.
“I’m a little scared.”
“You’ll be fine, Jamie. You’ve got all you need now, and there isn’t much more I can teach you.” He smiled for her, helping her to stay strong. “Besides, I’ll be along soon after.”
“Okay.” Jamie pulled on her jacket and a pair of dark pants, her disguise to cover the suit she wore. She stopped on her way out the door though, pausing to look back with a girlish smile. “By the way... Why do they make these suits skin-tight? It can’t just be to look good in or to cut down on noise.”
“You’ll find out before the night’s over. You’re bound to run into the situation at some point.”
“Riiiiiight.”
“Radios on but no transmissions unless it’s urgent.”
Jamie waved as the door closed behind her and Michael was suddenly alone. He dreaded sending her out her own but his plan required her to move faster than he ever could, not to mention do some things only a cyborg could manage. His own part of the plan was going to be tough and the thought of that reminded him to start preparing for the worst.