Maybe I had been blinded by my relief. We were finally together (most of the time). After a three-year long-distance relationship during our engagement, and an additional two years of separation after our hasty city hall marriage, the last twenty-four months had been the happiest of my life.
So perhaps I ought to forgive myself for not realizing immediately that my wife was a spy.
I knew she worked for the State Department. I thought she was a consulting engineer. It had been a natural progression of events after her prolonged internship with the Department of Defense throughout her undergrad and postgrad studies in Iowa. Her work seemed to consist of short, random business trips and pouring over engineering schematics.
Seemed legit.
The only friend of hers I didn’t like was one of her business associates at the “State Department,” Spenser Banks. He was, by all accounts, an insufferable twat.
Admittedly, the fervor and depth of my dislike for Spenser Banks was built upon his being in lust with my wife. He made no secret about the fact that he wanted to fuck her. And that pissed me off.
Obviously I’m not opposed to other men admiring Fiona. I’ve never been the jealous sort, and I trusted Fe. But having to witness his nauseating infatuation on more than one occasion, being subjected to his trailing, lingering looks of tortured longing made me want to remove his head from his neck, Marine Corps-style.
The insufferable twat found every reason imaginable to visit wherever we were in the world. He was always popping up and swinging by during convenient business trips to backwoods Alaska or nowhere Iceland.
But even if he’d been ambivalent to Fiona, I still would’ve detested the man. He’d drunk the “my government can do no wrong” Kool-Aid, as it were. Any and all discussions with him were excruciating and intolerable.
I might say, “Lovely weather we’re having.”
And he’d respond with, “You would never have this nice weather without The United States of America.”
No arguing with that logic . . .
Thankfully, I hadn’t been subjected to Spenser Banks in over three months.
On the morning of the reveal, I’d made coffee and sat down to thumb through the newspaper. Ironically, an article about the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame debacle—wherein Valerie Plame, aka Valerie Wilson, was outed as a CIA operative by the State Department—covered that morning’s front page of The New York Times.
I skimmed the article, frowning, irritated by what I found. Disgusted, I turned to the arts and culture section. Nothing like a little art and culture to remedy reality.
Fe drifted into the kitchen a short time later, having returned from her quick forty-eight-hour business trip late the night before. I didn’t look up, but I did smile. I never heard her footsteps, she moved without sound. But I knew she’d entered the room because, as inexplicable as it might be, I felt her.
“Good morning, darling.”
“Morning, handsome.” Her voice was rough, like she’d been shouting too much or had a cold.
I glanced over my shoulder, finding her in a white tank top and panties, and nothing else. I sighed happily, already making plans to devour her before breakfast, but then my eyes caught on a large purple mark on one side of her lower back, only visible because she was reaching for a coffee cup.
“What’s that?” I gestured to her back.
She glanced at me, her short hair in sexy disarray, pillow creases still on her cheek, and then twisted to search her skin.
She found the mark and stiffened. Straightened. Stilled. Stared forward, now apparently completely awake.
“Fe?” I prompted when she remained silent.
Her eyes cut to mine and I saw that her teeth were clenched. She swallowed thickly.
I gave her a slight smile even as the hairs on the back of my neck rose with unease. “Did you get a tattoo?”
I knew it wasn’t a tattoo. It was a bruise. My mind flicked through all possibilities as to the cause. Wherever we went, and whenever feasible, she trained in a mixed martial arts studio. She’d been a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jutsu and Kendo since finishing college. I decided the most likely reason for her bruise was an accident during class.
But I couldn’t figure out why she was so tense about it.
I tried to ease her discomfort. “Did you get hurt during a sparring session?”
She shook her head, her eyes still on me. “Not really.”
“Not really?”
“Not precisely.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her odd answer. “Then how, precisely, did you get that bruise?”
She swallowed again and I recognized she was engaged in a weighty internal debate.
I was just about to assure her that, no matter what, I wouldn’t be angry or upset, when she blurted, “I got it while extracting a high-level target in Mosul yesterday.”
Frowning at her, the sunny kitchen fell into a confused, strained silence as I tried to untangle her words.