Bad Reputation (Agent Juliet Book 4)

  Bad Reputation

  By: E. M. Smith

  Copyright 2014 E. M. Smith

  “Bad Influences” by E. M. Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

  For Officer Mary

  My heart was yours the second you slapped on the cuffs. You might say it was a...

  *looks at camera*

  ...cardiac arrest.

  *Officer Mary starts breakdancing.*

  Table of Contents

  Bad Reputation

  About the Author

  Present

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Whiskey wouldn’t sell us out.”

  Bravo rolled his eyes. “We’re in a hot box in the middle of the jungle, bitch-boy. We didn’t even make it past Customs. Somebody flagged our passports.”

  I looked around the box, trying to shake the fog left over from the drugs so I could assess the situation. The box was five foot by five foot square, made out of sheets of corrugated tin and two-by-fours. Even the floor was tin. No door, no ventilation, no nothing.

  “How the hell’d they get us in here without a door?” I said.

  Bravo pointed at the corner. “See the burn marks on that end of the frame? Threw us in, covered the side, and screwed and welded it shut.”

  The pain from my broken cheekbone flared up so bad that I thought I was going to puke. Didn’t help that it reeked like armpits and ball sweat in here. I swallowed and held still until the nausea went away.

  “Whiskey wouldn’t do this,” I said when I could talk again. “She’s on our side.”

  Bravo snorted. “Whiskey doesn’t have a side. She has a job.”

  Sweat dripped into my eye. I took off my shirt and wadded it up so I could wipe my forehead, but it didn’t do much good. All my clothes were soaked. Sweat is supposed to cool you off, but if the environment is humid enough to keep the sweat from evaporating, all it does is break down your skin—a fun fact I’d picked up from the last book Whiskey had assigned me.

  “Is it really this hot in here or are hot flashes a side effect from the drugs?” I asked.

  “You think it’s hot now,” Bravo said. “Wait ‘til noon.”

  The sheet of tin on the floor popped and clunked when I turned around to look out one of the screw holes. The box was in a clearing that looked like it got a lot of use. The ground around the box was wet and muddy-looking. I could see drag marks—probably from me or Bravo—and footprints. The prints didn’t look like they’d come from combat boots or bare feet.

  “Who do you think’s got us?” I asked.

  Bravo shrugged. “The Brazilian government. Guerillas. Kidnappers. Kroeger. Who knows? The point is we’re out of NOC-Unit’s hair and we’re not Whiskey’s problem anymore.”

  I turned around and sat back down.

  “Think we’re still in Brazil?” I asked.

  “It’s a big country,” Bravo said. “We landed in Rio at oh-five-thirty local, and it’s probably nine now. They wouldn’t have had time to drive us out of Brazil and set this hot box up.”

  “Unless that shit knocked us out overnight,” I said. “Or they put us on a plane and flew us someplace else.”

  I tried to remember anything after waking up in the SUV, but couldn’t. Whatever those guys had shot us up with, it’d been good.

  Bravo unlaced his boots and took them off, adding foot soup to the hot box potpourri.

  “I can tell you one thing,” he said. “Wherever we are, they wouldn’t use hot boxes if it was nice and cool.”

  Then it hit me—“Nobody knows where we are.”

  “And guess what,” Bravo said. “Nobody cares. No one’s coming for us. This whole fucking mission? It was a setup. You were pissing off NOC-Unit command fighting with that old lady, I was trying to find out what happened with Trick and they don’t want me to know, so they took care of us. If no one shows up to give us a double-tap to the back of the head, then we’re here until we die of dehydration.”

  “We need to bust out,” I said.

  “Good luck.” Bravo nodded at the wall. “That’s 26-gauge steel, galvanized, corrugated, bent, overlapped, and welded on every corner. See how the burn marks go all the way down? Whoever did that has either never heard of spot-welding or is a big fan of overkill. We’re not getting out of here alive, bitch-boy.”

  Eleven years ago

  Mina looked into the mirror.

  “Wil,” she said. “My name is Wil. Nice to meet you. Wilhelmina—but you can call me Wil.”

  No, that sounded like a come-on.

  Mina straightened her shoulders and subtracted the smile.

  “Wil,” she said again. “I’m Wil. It’s short for Wilhelmina. Nice to meet you.”

  The “nice to meet you” didn’t sound right without the smile.

  “I’m Wil,” she told the mirror. “And I couldn’t care less who you are.”

  Definitely not. That sounded like something a dominatrix would say.

  “I’m Wil. Just Wil.”

  Mina sat down on the lid of the toilet and put her face in her hands. She knew it didn’t matter if she got it right—Father’s clients weren’t going to ask her what her name was—but she needed a name that would give her strength.

  ‘Mina’ was too sleek, sexy, exotic. The name of a plaything, not a human. An it. It did what it was told, when it was told.

  Her whole life she’d been Mina. Tonight she had to be someone else. Someone strong enough to rebel. Someone who could destroy property right under Father’s nose.

  Wil could do that. Wil would be strong. Wil wouldn’t panic halfway through and give up.

  She sniffed, then stood and faced the mirror once more.

  “I’m Wil,” she said.

  But she knew she wasn’t.

  *****

  Mina sat silently in the limo. Eyes forward. Hands in her lap. Legs crossed. Back arched slightly. Mina never deviated from the correct posture.

  Father and Dawson were discussing shipments. Mina didn’t listen. Playthings had no interest in business.

  Wil would have listened.

  But Mina wasn’t Wil. If she were, she would have ripped open the limousine door and thrown herself under the tires.

  As they drove, Mina mentally encased each of her internal organs in steel.

  The limo stopped at the Dauphin, Father’s preferred restaurant and hotel. Dawson climbed out. Father followed, then turned back and offered his hand. Mina took it. A brilliant grin spread across her face. Inside, she burned with the cold.

  Father escorted her inside. The maître d’ smiled, complimented Mina, and led them to Father’s table.

  The clients arrived a few minutes late, which put Father in a mood, but Mina didn’t cringe. She didn’t feel, so how could she be frightened?

  Father and the clients spoke. Dawson watched and learned, preparing for the day when all of this would become his. When the clients engaged Mina, she laughed and flirted. When the clients offered to buy Mina a drink, she declined, citing the calories. Mina didn’t tell the clients that she and Dawson were forbidden from consuming alcohol. Father considered drunkenness the world’s greatest evil.

  The waiter came. Father ordered Mina something that she would pretend to eat. Dawson and the clients ordered various combinations of lobster, steak, and shrimp. The waiter left. The food came. The clients ate and ate and talked and talked.

  When the meal was finished, Father gave the clients the keys to his private penthouse. The clients made certain of the terms of their contract one last time. Father was notoriously strict with his clientele. He had made an example of the first client who returned his property permanently damaged. The client
s got Father’s approval on every tool and toy they had in their suitcase before climbing into the elevator with Mina. None of them wanted to be castrated because of a misunderstanding.

  During the ascent, Mina stayed silent. Now that dinner was over, the clients didn’t need her carefully scripted charm to put them at ease. They needed an object.

  The elevator stopped. Mina let the steel engulf her entire body, then she stepped out of it. The body left the elevator with the clients. Mina stayed. It was a safe place to wait. No one but Father or his clients were allowed to use this elevator.

  Even when Mina heard her body scream, she stayed in the elevator. Screaming didn’t mean that the clients had finished, only that they had broken through the outer layer of steel.

  *****

  It was just after midnight when the clients left and Mina climbed back into her body. Bruised, cramped, aching, stinging, rope burns. Mina wrapped the blankets around her shoulders, trying to stop the shaking.

  On a normal night, the next order of business for Mina would be to take a shower, dress, and wait for Dawson to escort her back to Father’s house. He usually allowed thirty to forty-five minutes for this.

  Tonight, Mina wasn’t going back.

  She searched the floor until she found the black pumps she’d worn with her dress.

  Two days ago, Mina had walked in on the new maid watching television instead of cleaning the parlor. The maid had jumped to her feet and begged Mina not to tell Father. She had finished the parlor early, she swore, and was only catching her breath before continuing on to the second floor.

  Mina hadn’t been listening to the maid. She would tell Father. She was required to. Father had security cameras in every corner of the house.

  But on the television screen over the maid’s shoulder, an actor had smashed his bathroom mirror. He picked up the largest shard of glass and used it to slice open first one wrist, then the other. The music swelled as he lay down in the bathtub. The life drained from his body.

  In the bathroom of the penthouse, Mina clutched the shoe in her fist. She looked at the mirror.

  “I am Wil,” she said.

  The shaking got worse. If Father had cameras here, he could stop her. The punishment for this insubordination would be worse than anything she had ever suffered. Layers upon layers of steel wouldn’t protect her.

  Her palms were slick with sweat. She paused to wipe her hands on the towel hanging beside the sink.

  What if she didn’t cut deeply enough? What if she didn’t bleed quickly enough? What if Dawson came early? What if she had already wasted too much time? She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t do this. There were too many variables.

  Tears stung her eyes. Wil was going to be trapped forever because Mina was a coward. Mina would go on as she always had, until Father smothered the tiny spark of Wil inside of her.

  “No.”

  Wil took the pump by the toe and swung it heel-first at the mirror.

  The sound of glass shattering was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. Never before had Mina believed that there might be a higher power—let alone a loving god—looking down on her, but in that second, she heard His voice calling her home.

  Millions of tiny, harmless pebbles fell from the mirror’s frame, littering the sink, the vanity, and the bathroom floor.

  The mirror had been made of safety glass.

  For several minutes, Mina stared. Then she turned the shower on and climbed in.

  *****

  “Father saw what you did, you know,” Dawson said as soon as the limousine pulled away from the Dauphin.

  Mina stared straight ahead.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked. “That you could somehow get away with it?”

  Eyes forward. Hands in lap. Legs crossed. Back slightly arched.

  “You should’ve known better,” Dawson said.

  It was true. She should have.

  “He’s going to kill you, Mina.”

  That was just an expression. Father wouldn’t kill Mina. Mina was his property and he would never destroy something that belonged to him. Father would kill Wil and make Mina watch while he did.

  *****

  The punishment didn’t end the first time Mina lost consciousness. Father used smelling salts to revive her. By the third time he dragged her back from oblivion, Mina had lost the ability to scream.

  *****

  Mina heard glass break. She was dreaming of a world where her plan had gone right. She felt warmth and safety envelop her as she lifted the razor-sharp piece of mirror to her wrist. Blood poured like a waterfall.

  Then she heard the explosion. The house shook on its foundations.

  Consciousness allowed the pain to come back into focus, bright and red, so deep that every cell in Mina’s body begged her to return to the nothingness of sleep.

  Gunfire—probably from Father’s security team. Yelling. More shooting. Splintering wood. The sound of someone running down the hall.

  Mina’s bedroom door rattled.

  “Goddammit,” Dawson hissed. “I need in, Mina. Where’s the key?”

  Mina couldn’t answer. She was so tired. More than anything, she wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

  “They already got Father.” Dawson kept his voice at a whisper, as if he were afraid someone might hear him. “He’s dead. He’ll never know you told me where the key was. I won’t even touch you. They’ll get us both if you don’t help me. Tell me where the goddamn key is!”

  Mina knew that in Father’s absence she had to obey Dawson, but she couldn’t move.

  “Mina, you worthless bitch—” The sound of Dawson shaking the door slipped farther and farther away. Mina’s eyes closed.

  *****

  Electricity jolted through the nerves in Mina’s body. Again and again. She whimpered and tried to curl in on herself, but something held her immobile.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” a man’s voice said. “Normally, I wouldn’t move you, but the whole place is on fire. Once we make it to a safe distance, I’ll check you over and get you something for the pain.”

  Mina managed to open her eyes a crack. The grounds of Father’s home were illuminated by flickering yellow light. A large man was carrying her.

  He saw her looking at him.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m a medic. I’ll make sure you’re good to travel, then we’ll get you the hell out of here. And, uh, hey, if my CO asks, could you say I identified myself clearly?”

  Mina moved her mouth, but couldn’t vocalize more than a rasp.

  “Oh, yeah, duh,” the man said. “Mike—my call sign’s Mike. Sorry about that. First day on the job.”

  *****

  Mina spent her first three days in the hospital certain that Father had lost control and put her in a coma. That would explain the lack of conversation and eye contact.

  On the fourth day, two men knocked at her room’s door.

  “Can we come in?”

  Mina’s voice hadn’t fully recovered. She nodded.

  “Mike,” the younger man said. “Remember me?”

  Again she nodded. She hadn’t recognized him in the street clothes.

  “What about Charlie?” Mike asked.

  Mina searched the man’s face. He was black, middle-aged, and he stood ramrod straight. Perfect posture. The way Father stood.

  “It’s all right if you don’t remember me,” Charlie said. His voice was surprisingly kind. “You were pretty out of it by the time we rendezvoused.”

  Mike stepped forward and stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

  “We didn’t want to bother you so soon after the raid,” Mike said. “But we’re running out of time. I know you feel like you should protect your brother, with him being all that’s left of your family, but you’re the only person who knows where Dawson would run now that your father’s dead.”

  “This isn’t blackmail,” Charlie said. “It’s going to sound like it in a second when I tell you that you could
go to prison for withholding information from us, but I just wanted you to know up front that we’re not here to further victimize you. We’re here to give you some power back.”

  Mike said, “Kroeger—uh, your father, I mean—was in the negotiation phase of a major shipment of girls with Sasha Barokov. You know the name, don’t you?”

  Mina didn’t.

  “We have surveillance photos of the night you, your father, and your brother met with him at the Dauphin,” Charlie said. “And we’ve got it on good authority that Dawson is going ahead with the delivery.”

  “We can stop him,” Mike said. “If we knew where your father kept the girls before he shipped them, where the transaction was going down—anything. It could mean saving as many as a hundred and fifty young girls from a life of slavery.”

  Mina couldn’t help them. She wasn’t sure how to explain that she wasn’t allowed to listen to business. She wasn’t even sure that this was really happening.

  “You don’t need to be afraid that your brother will somehow find out it was you,” Charlie said. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Wilhelmina Kroeger died when her father’s mansion burned to the ground. Her body was positively identified and laid to rest in the family plot.”

  “Help us,” Mike said, “And we can help you. The people we work for can get you a new life somewhere safe.”

  Mina shook her head.

  “Think about everything you’ve been through, Wilhelmina,” Charlie said. “If you help, those girls won’t have to suffer like you did.”

  “Wil,” she whispered. “Call me Wil.” The words scraped across her injured vocal cords, but she forced herself to continue. “I don’t know anything. But I want to help.”

  Present

  Every second we spent inside that box, the temperature climbed. The air was thick and rank enough to gag on. And to top it all off, mosquitoes had started to find their way into the box. I’d put my shirt back on, but the little bloodsucking bastards were still biting my arms, face, and neck like crazy. I slapped at one and missed for the hundredth time.