Secret Agent Man

The strange man’s demeanor continued to unnerve Gerard long after they left the party. Lyn complained of a headache and fell asleep just minutes after they returned to the room. Gerard was unable to quiet his mind, so he watched TV while the other agent slept quietly next to him.

“…please…no…”

Gerard ignored her quiet mutterings. It was not uncommon for others in their line of work to have problems sleeping; he was surprised more of them didn’t have more serious issues, but it did take a special personality type to be one of them, something he often forgot.

“…Gerard…no, don’t…hurt him…”

“Lyn?” he asked softly. She showed no response. He placed two fingers on the artery in her neck and tried to see how fast her pulse was, but she sat up suddenly with terror in her eyes. She was gasping for air, and she stared at him for a moment before collapsing onto his chest and bursting into tears.

“Calm down, it’s okay…” He wasn’t entirely sure what to do, so he simply wrapped his arms around her and let her cry, wondering what was wrong. He assumed she had had some sort of nightmare, though he also knew it could be anything. He hated seeing her so upset, but it was only when he was thinking of how beautiful she looked when she smiled instead of crying that he realized he was in love with her.

He woke up several hours later, finding her still asleep and not having moved at all. He checked the clock and saw that it was already past noon. Moving slightly, he couldn’t help it when he saw a thick bang fall out from behind Lyn’s ear, and because it looked so foreign and dark against her cheek, he felt he had to brush it away. The rest of her hair curled over her back in a dark wave, hiding one of her shoulders and almost all of the red spaghetti-strap top she wore.

He bit his lip and muttered a nothing into the silence, shaken only by Lyn’s rhythmic breathing fighting against his own scattered gasps of air, halfway convinced his heart would be crushed under her weight. He could even feel the steady beating of her heart, slower and more relaxed than his own. It almost scared him, the fact that he felt himself wanting to give every possible fiber of his being to her. Even if he did, he knew that everything he was made of would not be enough for her, simply because she was divine, and he most certainly wasn’t. It was dangerous trying to love someone so perfect and deadly, a poisonous cobra he should stay away from entirely but could never bring himself to ignore.

With trembling hands, Gerard let himself dip into her hair. A choked and introverted gasp pushed past his lips, and he reveled in the sharp contrast between his own calloused, rough skin and her delicate strands of hair. It was almost like feeling the wet sand slip through his fingers at the beach; each strand released a strangely comfortable and smoothly euphoric feeling.

But Gerard kept doing so, slowly losing himself with every stroke of Lyn’s hair while she stirred in her sleep. At first, it was only subtle and he hardly noticed, as he found the quiet sounds of her relaxed breathing and the occasional sharp inhale to be settling.

“What are you-”

The sound of her mumbled words made him freeze, as if he had been caught in some illegal act and would have to try and invent a story to cover for himself, but before he could even open his mouth to say something, she spoke again.

“…oh…it’s just you.”

He managed a small smile. “Were you expecting someone else?”

She didn’t return the smile, instead abruptly getting up and walking away from him. He raised an eyebrow, but after thinking about it, he decided she was self-conscious about being so emotional the previous night and brushed it off as her way of throwing a fit.

When he asked about where or when he should meet the man from the previous day, she simply said to go to the top floor at six o’clock and left it at that. He frowned a little, wondering why she was being so short with him. He heard the door open a few minutes later and saw her about to walk through it.

“Where are you off to?” he asked. She looked at the floor.

“I need some time to think.”

A whirlwind of questions filled his mind once the door closed behind her. Where was she going? Had he done something wrong? What had made her so upset?

He dressed hurriedly, hoping to follow after her and find out what she was doing. As soon as he pulled on one shoe, he heard a knock at the door. He frowned. Lyn had taken her key with her, and the maids always shouted something to announce their presence. His eyes widened in worry. He used the handle of his gun to break open a huge section of the window to make it look like he’d jumped, then ran and hid in the closet.

Not half a second later, a few hundred bullets ripped the room to shreds, shattering mirrors and splintering wood. He kept his breathing silent and steady until it all stopped, looking through a small space between the wall and the closet door. He saw a man standing no more than two feet away dangling a sub-machine gun in one hand, still smoking from the destruction. Gerard moved slightly and pressed a button, opening a hidden compartment in the one shoe he was wearing. He wished he had the other one – there was a Swiss army knife in its heel – but this one only held a simple switchblade, and it would have to do.

He leapt from his hiding place and quickly stabbed the man once in the back of each lung, then kicked him forward so he fell through the shattered window. Gerard had to admit that it was a cruel death, but he calmly placed the blade back in its hiding spot before retrieving his other shoe.

He sighed, thinking he should go find Lyn and assure himself of her safety. While he didn’t doubt her abilities in the slightest amount, an ingrained instinct to protect her had wormed its way into his mind, and he refused to ignore it.

He left the room and continued down the hallway towards the elevator. He scanned the area for any evidence to where she had disappeared, but it was pointless. He felt he should’ve known better than to think he would be able to find her so easily. She was an undercover agent by specialty; her main skills lay in pretending to be someone else and not getting caught. He half expected to find her masquerading as a bartender or cocktail waitress, or even something more devious. It occurred to Gerard that, perhaps, looking for her wasn’t the best idea. She was certainly upset, he knew that, but she didn’t want to tell him why. When this thought entered his mind as he stepped into the elevator, he felt a tiny ounce of hurt shoot through him. As much as he wanted her to tell him everything, left alone with her thoughts was probably the best place for her, as it would be for him. For now, he knew he belonged at the poker table.

He had always enjoyed poker. He had picked up the basics while in the Air Force and refined his technique in almost every country he had visited in his travels as a spy. As one of his military friends had told him, “It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” He loved the simple joy in seeing through another man’s ruse and destroying someone’s pride, joy, and dignity with the simple flip of a card.

The prospect of winning more money never bothered him, either.

He stepped off the elevator and let the casino overwhelm his senses. The flashing lights, the ringing of the slot machines, the thick smog of cigarettes, and the aura of miserable people losing their fortunes in such a glamorous place… It was perfect. He sat down at the nearest card table and ordered a vodka martini with a twist of lemon.

“Shaken, not stirred,” he murmured on the side. He glanced over the waitress’s features with a practiced eye but absolutely no interest. Any other day he would have considered her flawlessly beautiful and moved to a table nearer to the restaurant so she would’ve had a reason to serve him, which would undoubtedly lead to the other half of his usual lifestyle, but instead he turned his attention back to the table where the cards were now being dealt.

He quickly realized he needed to improve on his game when he lost the first three hands and a few hundred in chips. He drained a second martini soon after the first, then moved on to straight vodka on the rocks to help him loosen up a little. He planned to sleep it off later, and he was never sure when he would be in Vegas again, so he always took advantage of it.

He won a few hands, but lost more. After more losses and more than a few martinis and glasses of vodka, his thoughts predictably drifted back to Lyn. He wondered if she might be in the casino somewhere. She hadn’t hit him as the gambling type, but neither did those families with an overconfident dad and a housewife mom who always seemed to win more money than her husband. He rolled his eyes at the thought; he hated tourists almost as much as Vegas locals did.

He slowly got up from the table and, stumbling a little, began to wander the casino looking for her. He was barely sober enough to remember her words. “Don’t hurt him,” she had muttered in her otherwise peaceful slumber. But who was the man in question? This thought troubled Gerard momentarily, and he hoped there wasn’t someone else, but he dismissed it as nothing but a memory. It must have been someone from her past, someone she hadn’t bothered mentioning because it wasn’t important. It happened often to people like them, and he forced himself to accept this and forget any questions he might have had.

As his vision was getting blurrier by the second, he realized he had walked the entire casino floor and had not found her. Sighing just a little, he made his way back up to their room, setting the empty vodka glass on top of a slot machine, the internationally recognized sign of a defeated gambler. Her teasing had always made him smile, he thought, shoving the room key into its little slot. Come to think of it, everything about her made him smile. He almost tripped through the door as he imagined her smile, her laugh, the way her eyelashes brushed almost down to her cheekbones when she blinked…

He collapsed on the bed a drunken mess, letting the image of the smile reserved solely for him fill his mind as he fell into a numb sleep.
-
Gerard hesitantly stepped into the room at exactly six o’clock. He was greeted with a high ceiling and polished marble flooring. He quickly realized he wasn’t nearly as wealthy as this man.

“Hello?” he called, voice echoing along with his footsteps.

“Hello,” said a voice to his right. He looked and saw the man standing in the doorway, wearing a suit just as formal as the black one Gerard had chosen.

“I hope I’m not too late,” he said to break the silence.

“Ah, you’re a lucky one,” the man said with a disturbing smile. “I usually only wait half an hour for my guests before I go find them myself.”

Though he was thoroughly creeped out by the statement, Gerard kept his cool. “Sorry, I couldn’t find Lyn. She was a little unhappy with me today.”

“She can get quite emotional at times, unfortunately. But it is nice to see you came.”

“All she told me to do was be here at six,” Gerard said with a shrug.

“Yes, I was awaiting your arrival,” the man stated plainly. “The food is already waiting, so if you’ll walk this way…” He turned and began walking, and Gerard followed a safe distance behind him.

“Are you enjoying your time at the Mirage?” he asked cordially.

“Yes. It must have been expensive to build,” Gerard noted. The man nodded.

“It was indeed. My crowning achievement.”

Gerard was a little surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I built it, of course,” the man said with a small laugh. Gerard frowned.

“…You’re not Wynn; he’s way older.”

“No, I am most certainly not.”

They finally reached the table. Gerard took his seat and waited for the man to start eating before he did so, wondering if the food was safe.

“And yet you claim to have built this place,” he said as the man began eating.

“I do not claim, Mr. Way,” he said sternly. “It is a fact that I built the Mirage.”

“Interesting.” Gerard wanted to say more, but he was distracted by a well-dressed man pouring each of them half a glass of deeply colored wine.

“So, I hardly know anything about why you’ve come here,” the man continued. “Are you on holiday?”

“Not quite,” Gerard managed to say, pausing to sample the fine alcohol. It was good, but not the best he’d ever had. He glanced at the bottle’s label and saw that everything was written in French. While he respected the French, he had decided long ago that nothing would ever compare with a fine Italian Sangiovese. “I’m looking for a few friends of mine that I haven’t heard from in a while.”

“Oh,” said the man, taking a sip of the wine as well. “Friends from your line of work?”

“You could say that.”

“Interesting.”

“So, assuming you do own this hotel…I can assume you own the cats, too,” Gerard said as he continued eating. “Is that right?”

“It is,” the man answered. “They are so dangerous, but so beautiful.”

Gerard thought of Lyn the moment the words were spoken, and all the thoughts of her he had shoved out of his mind to concentrate on the task at hand came flooding back in a tidal wave of memories and hopes and dreams. Dangerously beautiful. Beautifully dangerous. Not unlike any number of wild animals no man could ever hope to tame.

He could only respond with one thing.

“I know what that’s like.”

The man didn’t seem to hear him and continued speaking. “You love them, but at any moment, they could strike you down. In my opinion, the risk is worth any type of love.”

“Someone who understands,” Gerard said, allowing himself a smile. “You’ve managed to surprise me.”

Although he tried to force himself to focus on the mission, his thoughts continued to stay firmly planted on Lyn with every word spoken. He almost wondered if the man knew what he was thinking.

“You have surprised me, Gerard,” the man said, taking a small sip of wine. “I didn’t think of you as the sensitive type. Now, how do you like the cats?”

Gerard was careful not to let any ounce of his demeanor change, though fear washed over him at the thought of the huge, intimidating animals. “They’re…difficult to describe.”

“I see,” the man answered. “Do they catch you speechless?”

“…yeah.”

“With fear?”

He swallowed carefully. “I think they scare everyone a little. It would be stupid to not be afraid of them, wouldn’t it? That’s how people get killed: by being too overconfident around something they think is safe.” He knew he was rambling, and from the look on the man’s face, it was easy to see his true feelings about the giant cats. He took a break from speaking by finishing off the last of his dinner and letting the single waiter carry it away.

The other man let out a low, startling laugh. “You are very wise in the business of fear, Gerard, and strangely philosophical; I never would have guessed.” He motioned to the waiter before speaking again. Gerard noticed he was careful to only do one thing at a time. “If you met yourself, wouldn’t you be afraid?”

Gerard smirked for what he believed to be the first time since he had been in the man’s presence. “I’d have a lot of questions for me.”

The man smirked as well, right as dessert was placed on the table. “Why don’t you ask some?”

Gerard glanced at the perfectly formed circle of chocolate cake before him, topped with a layer of dark chocolate sprinkled with gold dust. “For starters, is this real gold?” he asked, pointing to it.

The man laughed. “Of course.”

“And you can eat it?”

“Yes, you can eat it,” the man said, demonstrating. “It’s quite delicious, in fact.”

“Hm.” Gerard hesitantly started eating it, only tasting the chocolate. He chose not to question it.

“Do you have any more questions for yourself?” the man asked with a slightly darker smirk, made darker by his British accent. “Seeing as we are so alike, you could ask me almost anything.”

“Yes, actually.” Gerard was piling the last of the decorative chocolate sauce onto the fork when he was hit with a sudden wave of tiredness, and he wondered if he had had too much alcohol. “I was wondering i-” Before he could finish speaking, he yawned widely. Alarms were screaming in his mind, but all he could do was fight to stay awake. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came…from…”

Gerard’s eyes closed one last time as he gave in to the feeling and fell out of the chair sideways. The man calmly finished his dessert, waited until it had been taken away, then stood and motioned for Bob to take Gerard to the room just down the hall. He smiled and spoke softly as the agent was removed from his sight.

“We just had a conversation about fear, Gerard. You should’ve taken it more seriously.”