The Stickmen by Edward Lee Page B

through it.
    QY/WYN drew another red X through the next
name: Farrell, W.
    SWENSON, N. came next, and after that: UBEL,
K.
    The last name on the list was GARRETT,
H.
     
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    “Don’t be nervous,” Myers said, running a
finger under his tight collar.
    “Aren’t you nervous?”
    “Yes.”
    Lynn wore a nice dandelion-yellow business
dress, and Myers, his best charcoal-gray suit. They both stood
uneasily in the spotless, well-appointed office.
    The crested plaque on the white wall behind
them read: THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.
    A grumpy, matronish secretary with bunned
hair and an immense bosom sat at the reception desk. She seemed
disapproving at she pretended to proofread some stenography.
    She knows spooks when she sees them, Lynn considered.
    She and Myers were here for a quick
congratulatory meeting with the vice-president, pretty much just an
official pat on the back for an operation several months ago in
which they’d burned a Red Chinese double-agent at Sandia National
Laboratories, and left him no choice but to come over to them.
    “Best thing about field commendations is you
never have to worry about where to
    hang them,” Lynn remarked.
    “Yeah,” Myers agreed. “Can you imagine how
pissed off Willie Mays would be if he was ordered not to reveal his
entry into the Hall of Fame?”
    “Duty and service, that’s all we care about,
right? And the great pay.”
    Myers chuckled. Awards and commendations
such at this were, of course, classified, and only existed as
indexes in some computer file or book in a safe. It seemed as silly
as the CIA’s memorial to operatives who’d died in the line of duty;
a wall in the lobby of Langley Headquarters displayed fifty-one
brass plaques that were blank.
    The frumpy secretary shot up a pinched
glared when Lynn’s cell phone rang. Damn it! Who’s calling me
here, for God’s sake! Lynn quickly retrieved the phone from her
purse.
    She began to whisper, “Cred 667-401—”
    “Hi, honey, it’s me—”
    It was Garrett.
    Lynn winced, stepped back deeper into the
office. “Damn it, Harlan!” came the fierce whisper. “How did you
get my field number? It’s classified!”
    Garrett’s tone over the line reeked with
calm arrogance. “I hacked it out of a discreted directory from
Arlington Hall’s intra-server net. Also got your new home number,
your new fax, and your new email. Took me all of—oh, say, two
minutes. You got a new car too, huh? And a new hopper-frequency
chip for your laptop? Screencode L-26-12?”
    Instant rage made Lynn’s face feel crushed
by a vise. “You know I can never, ever take personal calls on this
line! Never, ever—”
    “This is important, Lynn, I mean really
im—”
    God! This is embarrassing! In front of my
boss even! “Right now I’m standing in the Old Executive Office
Building, and I’m about to meet the Vice President for God’s sake!
Call me later! On my unlisted home line that you’ve
obviously already illegally ascertained!”
    Seething, Lynn turned the phone off, put it
back into her purse.
    “Your crackpot ex-husband?” Myers took a
good guess.
    “Unfortunately, yes.”
    “So how’s our favorite paranoid, oddball
tabloid writer doing these days? Has he found Bigfoot yet?”
    “Don’t know, don’t care.”
    “Hell, last time I saw him, he looked like Bigfoot. The long hair and the shaggy beard.”
    “He shaved the beard. So now he just looks
like a—”
    “—a paranoid, oddball tabloid writer.”
    The dour secretary’s bosom seemed to heave
when she huffed at them, “The Vice President will see you now.”
Then her weasely eyes indicated the double doors across the
room.
    “I thought Aunt Bee died a while back,”
Myers said in the lightest whisper.
    The double doors opened as they approached,
a Secret Service agent on each knob. Lynn and Myers prepare to
enter, adjusting their collars, checking for last-second lint.
Butterflies bloomed in Lynn’s stomach;