The Leveling by Dan Mayland

for a minute as they both considered the full implications of what that meant.
    “Did you know this was coming?” asked Daria.
    Ordinarily Mark considered himself to be an adept liar. As a CIA officer, he’d had plenty of practice. But even before he spoke, he was afraid that his timing and intonation would be subtly off. A normal person would never notice, but Daria wasn’t normal. She’d been his best operations officer. “No.”
    “You did know. Didn’t you?” She pulled her hand off his chest.
    “I suspected, that’s all.”
    “You didn’t talk to Orkhan about it? He didn’t tell you?”
    “He didn’t tell me anything.”
    “So all that talk about my taking courses here—”
    “I didn’t know this was going to happen, Daria. I just know the system. I knew it was a possibility.”
    She took a while to let that settle. “Did you try to stop it from happening?”
    The last time Mark had spoken to Orkhan, Daria had still been holed up in his spare bedroom, driving herself crazy with her dark thoughts and recriminations. And while he and Orkhan hadn’t talked about Daria being served with a PNG, if they had, Mark might not have pushed back on the idea. At the time, he certainly hadn’t thought that her hanging out with an introverted washed-up spy who used to be her boss, in the very city where her life had gone to hell, in a country famous for corruption, was a recipe for long-term happiness. Now he wasn’t so sure.
    “Maybe I should have,” said Mark.
    “Can you get the Azeris to reconsider?”
    “No. They’re responding to Washington, Kaufman was adamant, and the PNG has already been filed.”
    A long silence passed between them.
    “And you’re staying here.”
    When Mark didn’t answer, Daria sat up in bed. “Well…I guess that’s it then.” She sounded angry, but it was a hurt, sad kind of anger.
    “Daria.”
    “Don’t worry, I won’t make this hard.
”
    “I work here.”
    “I understand.”
    “My whole life is here. I can’t just—”
    “I wouldn’t want to take you away from that. It’s no big deal. I’ll pack today,”
    They kept talking, but it soon became clear there really wasn’t much more to say. Daria had to leave, and Mark wasn’t willing to go with her.

    “What is this place?” Mark figured maybe it was a safe house she kept for meetings like this, when she wanted to be away from prying eyes.
    “I live here.”
    He took a closer look around him. There was no bed, but there was a door—he’d assumed it was a closet—in the far corner. Maybe that was the bedroom. A glass was perched on the side of the utility sink. Inside the glass was a toothbrush. “I like it.”
    He hated it. He hated to think that this was what Daria’s life had come to.
    Mark looked around the room again. “How do you cook?”
    “I don’t.”
    Daria had been raised by upper-crust diplomats, so her voice had a sophisticated lilt to it. It sounded completely out of place in a shit hole like this.
    “What are you doing here, Daria?”
    “What I’m doing here is none of your business. The question is what are you doing here?”
    “You even go back to the States?”
    He knew she had, because he’d kept tabs on her without her knowing it. She’d been staying with her adoptive parents, doing pro bono work for a charity that was trying to help orphans in Iran. Mark had been touched, given that Daria was an orphan of sorts herself. Knowing that she’d started to build a new life for herself had put his mind at ease.
    “For a bit.”
    “How was it?”
    “Not so great. The CIA wouldn’t lift my cover, so my résumé’s got a six-year blank on it. People would let me work for them for free, but that’s about it. And I got sick of living with my parents.”
    “You said you would call me when you got settled. You never did.”
    “I know,” she said. “What do you want?”

18

    A LTY HAD BEEN propped up in the chair, but his head sagged at an unnatural angle.
    “We must bury