How It Started…
August of LAST YEAR
Richmond, England
Chapter One
McKayla Pickard
Last August, Chesterton House, Richmond, England
Clickety clacking across the marble hall in her hot pink stilettos, McKayla would choose combat boots any day of the year.
The ridiculousness of squeezing a woman’s toes and having her balance on the balls of her feet for hours on end was sadistic. High heels, in McKayla’s estimation, were merely a vehicle for torture and a means to keep a woman from successfully running away.
Or maybe a high heel’s purpose was to weed out the complainers early on. If a woman couldn’t handle the agony of toe cramps, they might not be willing to put up with her lover’s crap for long.
Yeah, that mindset made sense to McKayla—a means to test a woman’s capacity for stoicism in the face of pain.
She looked up at the grandeur of the sweeping, red-carpeted staircase that would take her to the ballroom in Chesterton House, an eighteenth-century stone mansion nestled along the Thames just outside of London.
A stunning show of affluence.
Even if it felt farcical that lil’ ol’ McKayla Anne Pickard, of Bentwood, PA, was here with her name hand calligraphed on the invitation in her purse, this was indeed the twisted turn that her life had taken.
She could do this.
Penance, that was how McKayla viewed her new career with the CIA.
Lifting her chin, McKayla moved elegantly up the stairs as her etiquette coach, Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins, had taught her to do. Face soft, lips lightly bowed into a gentle inviting smile, eyes warm, McKayla gathered her skirt near her thigh.
The hand sweeps back and tucks just to the side of one’s bottom, so the fabric doesn’t tangle the feet, and…Up we go.
Picture perfect, she made the ascent.
While Langley had offered McKayla an escort for the evening, she thought that would be too clunky. McKayla wanted to go where she wanted to go, move where she wanted to move, and not be tied to anyone or any baggage they might drag along.
Simple and clean.
No sidekick for this superhero.
McKayla tipped her head down as a smile curled her lips and a puff of laughter escaped.
Though, it wasn’t a completely absurd thought.
When McKayla had approached the CIA, in her mind’s eye, this kind of assignment was exactly what she’d envisioned. Sort of like turning herself into a modern-day female Bruce Wayne.
McKayla grimaced at that image.
It wasn’t the right metaphor. But McKayla couldn’t find a better one. She would be using her name, notoriety, and financial status to give her cred and entrée into elite spaces that Langley would have difficulty maneuvering into.
She was a key that could unlock the doors to royals, political leaders, and financial supernovas.
Yes, this evening’s charity dinner with the nobility and the glitterati was exactly the type of assignment McKayla had envisioned when she’d approached the CIA and asked for a job.
It was the best way McKayla could figure to both help her country and scrub some of the scum off her karma.
McKayla rounded into the perfumed garden of bejeweled women and the knots of tuxedoed, highball-clenching men.
Her internal monologue announced McKayla: Arriving on the red carpet, we have our rags-to-riches Cinderella making the magical transformation sans Prince Charming. Financial world crypto disruptor. The world’s newest female billionaire. While everyone else relaxed back to enjoy the music of the soon-to-be-drowned orchestra, this is the lady who slipped onto a water jet and peeled away from the Titanic just shy of the iceberg. Yes! Ladies and gentlemen, I present McKayla Pickard!
Ooo! Ahhh!
Now that she was here and could see the setup, she needed a good tactic.
Her mark?
Misha Popyrin, a Russian oligarch’s son.
Misha was a means to an end. No one thought Misha did anything wrong.
He just went to the parties and hung out with the people that might give a better picture of what was up on the world stage.
Really what the CIA needed was to keep a finger on the pulse.
That was, after all, the CIA’s mandate. They had nothing to do with investigating crimes. That was the FBI, among other alphabets.
Nope, the CIA was mainly about schmooze and gossip.
Whom do you know?
What do they know?
The job was keeping an eye on everything and reporting in.
That cloak and dagger crap? Yeah, mainly for TV.
Not to say that the CIA didn’t do dangerous things. Of course, they did.
Just not her.
Not for today, anyway.
Standing in the shadows, McKayla rested her hands on the boning that compacted her ribs and tried to take a deep breath. She was used to belly breathing on a tactical cadence. No wonder the highbrow crowd had a bunch of females who just stood around like store mannequins. The poor women didn’t have enough oxygen in their systems to do anything else.
Here we go! Game face.
Stress—she’d learned back in her Army days—got picked up by people’s danger antennae. Out on assignment in Afghanistan, the women she was supposed to interrogate would shy from conversations and slip from the rooms when McKayla felt tense.
Release it. Loosen up.
There really didn’t seem to be much to tonight’s gig. The goal was a handshake, and that was it. “Easy day,” she muttered under her breath.
McKayla had figured that bumping into Misha and trying to involve him in a random conversation would seem odd.
The French-styled nine-course meal, McKayla figured, would be her best opportunity to make an impression.
When the gong sounded to assemble the guests in the dining hall, there wasn’t going to be a run on the best seats to join in the “it” crowd of one’s choosing.
No, oh no, this had been plotted in advance.
The criterion was known only to the curators of discourse, or whatever their title was.
This was what Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins explained about seating arrangements: Apparently formal events no longer did things old school. There were no more tables with seating cards lined in alphabetical order standing outside of the dining hall. Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins described how the usher at the door would check for McKayla’s name on their tablet and escort her to the correct seat.
And the CIA had no way to affect McKayla’s seating placement at this event.
McKayla was on her own to get the job done. She headed to the dining hall.
“Excuse me,” she said with a pleasant smile. “I’m looking for the head usher, please.”
“Is there a problem, madam?” A server in an immaculate uniform looked ready to jump forward and fulfill any task.
“I just wanted to check on my seating assignment. As there is no air conditioning, and the windows are open…allergies.” She offered a little shrug.
“Of course, madam, if you’ll wait but a moment,” he said without a return of McKayla’s smile. She wondered if they all went to stick-up-the-rump school or if it was the consequence of too many baked beans from their “full-English” breakfasts that made them clench that way.
McKayla turned to stare into the immense bosom of some long-ago regal ancestor. Pretending to appreciate the composition of the neo-classical styled painting, McKayla pulled out and counted ten fifty-pound notes, then folded them neatly, positioning them between her thumb and the back of her handbag.
“Madam?”
McKayla spun toward the voice.
A thin man dressed in tails, like a penguin, stood with his chest puffed out and his chin tucked in. “I understand there is a concern.”
This guy was greasy in a way that McKayla had not expected. She saw the glint in his eye and thought that she was not the first person to slip into the shadow and ask a small favor. “I would like to check on my dinner seating assignment,” McKayla said, stepping back behind a column.
The head usher followed along. “Your name, madam?”
“McKayla Pickard.”
Ah, that name meant something to him. Yes, well she had been in all the papers. Just not as a blonde.
“And you have a concern about the windows is my understanding?”
“Yes, I have terrible allergies. And I’m afraid that the only place I can find relief is if I were to sit, for example, at the same table as Irene Bellini.”
Their gazes met and held.
“Is Irene on your list?” McKayla flipped her hand over to expose the wad of cash.
The move dropped the usher’s gaze. He seemed to be mentally calculating how much she might have there.
It hadn’t been McKayla’s intention to have an entire wad, but it seemed that England’s largest bank note was a fifty. McKayla dropped her hand to her side.
“I see.” The head usher scrolled. “I don’t seem to have that name on my list.”
Of course, he didn’t. McKayla had made up the name out of thin air. But she thought going right for Misha would be a mistake. That information sent into the wrong ear could out her.
“Mmm, well she was coming with Misha. Let’s see, that would be…” McKayla pretended to search her memory. “I believe it’s Popyrin Mikhail Victorovich. He’s Russian.” She shrugged. “That would be the way he’d formally write it.” She made a grimace that said, sorry, I’m trying. “No idea. Maybe he doesn’t do that here in London. He might have changed it to the western style? Mikhail Popyrin? Irene just calls him Misha. It could be on your list like that, too.”
This was the first mission where McKayla had no anonymity.
In the Army she’d been called “Dealer.” In boot, her fellow recruits thought they were being clever with her last name. Pickard became Pick-a-card, which then became “Dealer.”
Trying to get them to change her call sign, she told them that it was a magician that said, “pick a card.” But it was too late. Until she left the Army, she was only sometimes called Captain Pickard. She was mostly just “Hey, Dealer!”
It sounded like she sold drugs on the side. Maybe it headed a sniffer dog toward her locker and made her pee tests more frequent than for the others. She’d always seen that name as hazing, but there had been nothing she could do about it.
With your Army name, you kind of got what you got and dealt with it.
Dealt with it, Dealer? Ah, I see what you did there.
McKayla’s inner dialogue was interrupted when the usher said, “Popyrin Mikhail Victorovich is seated at Table Five along with his plus one.”
“Irene.” McKayla smiled with satisfaction. In truth, McKayla was thrilled that there wasn’t a woman’s name, and it was a plus one. It made this a smoother transaction. “Is there a way that I could address my allergies without creating a disturbance?”
“Yes, of course, madam. It will be my honor to help you remain comfortable this evening. Your name card shall be placed on Table Five. I am updating the seating arrangements in my system.” He tapped silently for a moment, then looked up to catch her gaze. He turned the tablet to show her that she would be seated across the rectangular table from “Popyrin guest.”
McKayla slid the wad under the tablet and into the usher’s hand.
“I will go and move your place card now. If there is anything else you would need this evening, madame,” he offered a slight bow, “please do not hesitate to elicit my aid.”
At the ridiculousness of that bow, McKayla wanted to offer a sarcastic curtsy. Her foot moved into place just the way Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins had taught her, lest McKayla somehow come within the environs of the king. McKayla caught herself just in time. And offered a smile and a, “You are most kind, thank you.”
And so, her first spy effort was a success. Could she keep that going?
Chapter Two
McKayla Pickard
Last August, Chesterton House, Richmond, England
As it turned out, the Misha-plus-one chick’s name was Simona Fiorini, an haute couture model who, in her heels and poofed hair, towered over Misha.
The whole table was a suck-joy. Nobody spoke throughout dinner.
Misha never looked directly at McKayla—or anyone else for that matter. He seemed to have developed a way of looking around with enough vacancy in his gaze that everyone knew he was physically there, but mentally he was off somewhere else. And from the curl of derision on his lips, McKayla would surmise he wasn’t planning his next vacation.
She’d read his file, and he sounded kind of useless as far as her needs went.
Work. Home. Charitable events. There wasn’t even rhyme or reason to what charities Misha supported. It all seemed random and half-hearted.
Unless, of course, they weren’t random at all, and Misha was showing up to whisper the right thing into the necessary ear.
Whether it was Misha or someone in his social circle who had an interesting snippet of information, McKayla needed to develop the kind of intimacy that would open the doors to those rooms and where she could become privy to the secret whispers.
McKayla wanted to become the proverbial fly on the wall. One that no one would notice. And hopefully, not the kind of fly that brought a swatter into play.
Access was gold.
The only kind of gold McKayla needed.
But since Misha had, evidently, decided to pretend to be a ghost, McKayla was left to contemplate the Amazonian flower who had graced Misha’s arm this evening.
Simona was in a mood.
She pushed her hors d’oeuvres around her plate.
She merely skimmed her spoon through the soup at the first course.
McKayla, on the other hand, had to stop herself from lifting the plates and licking them clean. She was famished, and the serving sizes had been Lilliputian. McKayla would have pre-fed herself except there was no room in her bodice for such things.
After watching the fish come and go without Simona taking a single bite, then the sorbet, and now the same with the main course, McKayla was fairly sure that Simona’s anger was caused by hypoglycemia.
Or it could be the woman, sitting two seats down from McKayla, who expressed condescension and animosity.
From the way they kept flinging darts at each other with their eyes, they knew each other from before tonight.
“Monique” was the only name on that woman’s place card McKayla could see from her position.
Monique, like Simona, was a silent stew of vitriol.
Was theirs a rivalry about work? Competition for Misha’s affections?
After all, he wasn’t a half-bad-looking guy. And his millions could make up nicely for what he lacked. Possibly the only drawback would be the threat of brewed plutonium being served with their biscuits at high tea, or of being in the way should Misha trip and fall out of a fourth-story window, which seemed to be a fairly common hazard for Russian nationals in the past few years.
Suddenly, Simona pushed her chair back as she slapped her napkin down onto the table like it was a gloved invitation to a duel—a no-no according to Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins.
As she rose, Simona glared at Monique.
Misha must be used to tantrums, McKayla surmised, when he showed no curiosity at all about the anger that swirled with the fabric of his date’s ball gown. He didn’t even turn to watch as Simona stormed out of the room.
After Monique rose and followed, McKayla thought that—since she wasn’t getting any conversation and friendship-building out of her five-hundred-pound bribe—at least this might be a bit of entertainment.
And of course, it might be that McKayla could gather some piece of intelligence to better approach Misha.
Entering an echoing corridor lined with busts resting on carved marble pedestals and 18th-century canvases of tables laden with rustic foods, McKayla glanced around. She had assumed the women would head to the privacy of the ladies’ room to work through their issues.
McKayla stood there confused. The women were nowhere to be seen.
Secret passage? Wouldn’t that be fun!
Catching the eye of the usher, whom she’d bribed earlier, McKayla canted her head.
He held up two fingers and a questioning brow.
When McKayla gave a subtle nod, he pointed toward a set of stairs that led back outside and far away from the dining hall.
With her skirts hitched up in the front, in a way that would make Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins recoil in horror, McKayla did her best to hustle jog in the stilettos down to the stairs.
She slowed as she approached the exit, dropping her skirts and patting them into place. If the women were hissing at each other on the other side of this door, no need to look like McKayla was chasing them down instead of just needing a breath of fresh air.
McKayla’s adjustments allowed the doorman time to bow and pull the door wide.
It had to be fifteen feet tall and made of four inches of solid wood. McKayla wasn’t sure she could have mastered it on her own with so much dress fabric to contend with.
Outside, McKayla stopped on a dime.
The women were standing on the porch, almost as McKayla had imagined, spit yelling in French with very emphatic arm gestures.
McKayla reached for her phone. Her French was pretty much basic conversation and food ordering. What the two women were engaged in seemed to be punctuated with a lot of curse-sounding words that McKayla hadn’t learned, yet.
Hovering in the shadow, McKayla tapped “record” on her phone just as Simona’s hand reached up and grabbed Monique’s face, pushing the poor woman into a backbend.
Monique, being shorter by about four inches, was teetering on the edge of the porch, windmilling her arms, trying to catch her balance.
With the grass below only about two feet away, McKayla wasn’t sure Monique would be able to stand back up. Monque’s dress was tight enough that McKayla thought she’d probably end up lying there like a turtle balanced on its shell.
Desperately trying to stay upright, Monique swung her arms upward, sinking her claws into Simona’s hair as a handle, trying to stay upright and on the porch.
Simona staggered forward, and of course, that did it. Both women went over.
McKayla was horror fascinated. This was nothing like what Mrs. Peabody-Strumpkins had described to her about tonight’s soirée.
When McKayla watched women fighting—heck, when she had been in fights herself—it was either about training or the stakes were life and death.
McKayla had never seen a catfight before.
Running forward to capture the video and to record what the rivals were screaming at each other, McKayla hoped it was juicy gossip that the agency could use somehow.
The linguists at Langley could translate.
It was crazy as all get out what they were doing.
Clearly, Monique was at a severe disadvantage. Wrapped up in that sausage casing of a dress of hers—that McKayla had predicted would be a problem—she was flopping like a fish trying to get herself onto her stomach.
Bad move, girlfriend! Never get on your stomach in a fight. Use your abs. Scoop like an ice cream and roll up—but of course, Monique couldn’t hear McKayla silently offering advice.
She had no idea what Simona was doing gathering her skirt up like she had to squat and pee. Her heels had sunk deep into the garden soil making her look like she was wearing flats.
McKayla’s inner announcer was calling this like it was a prize fight:
And Monique is showing off her years of yoga practice, pushing her weight into her hands. Piking her hips, Monique is now using her arm strength to walk her body into a downward facing dog posture, leaving her wildly open to further attack.
Is this a bluff? Will Simona fall for it? Or will Monique navigate herself to standing and come face to face with Simona once more?
Oooof.
It’s bad news for Monique. Salmonella—no sorry. Simona…Simona finally got her legs free from her miles of tulle and has pulled one foot out of her stiletto. She push-kicked Monique square on the rump.
Monique has come out of her shoes as she flies forward.
Faceplant!
We’ll have to check with the judges, but that looked like a “ten” to me.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was a rip that you heard, and the sausage is freed of its casing.
Just in time, Monique is flipping onto her back. She curls up, protecting her vital organs as Simona is launching herself on top.
Oooo! Wow. That last-second hike of Monique’s knee hit squarely into Simona’s stomach. Simona is hunkered over Monique, retching. Lucky for Monique, Simona probably hasn’t eaten anything this year, so no spew should come out.
At this point, the fight degenerated into flailing dress parts, slaps, and hissing shit-talk.
Oh, if she wasn’t here for the CIA, how McKayla would love to post this to social media to read the comments from her Army buddies.
Face’s obscured, of course. McKayla wasn’t a bitch.
But she was crouched, pressing her knees together to keep herself from pee-laughing.
Surely, this wasn’t how the women at these events conducted themselves or when Monique and Simona huffed from the hall, all the men would have given chase to watch and lay bets like it was a cock fight. Hen fight…
Oh man, McKayla grimaced, that was a strip of hair extensions that went flying. And from Simona’s howl, that must have been excruciating as Monique tore it from Simona’s head.
Now, the extensions lay in a tangled snarl to the side looking like a dead squirrel.
McKayla checked to make sure her phone was recording.
Yup. All was good. Up here, it was anyway.
Down there in the mulch, not so much.
Two red-coated men rushed out of the door, jumped into the flower bed, and pulled the women apart.
Yeah, that last Monique screech was high-pitched and kinda hard to ignore.
Both women lay flat on their backs on the grass, gasping for air.
It looked like they’d just completed the throes of passion. Time for a cigarette.
Holy shit!
The ushers were asking both women for their driver’s phone numbers so they could come around and collect them away from the dinner guests’ curious eyes.
McKayla quietly slid back into the hall. Maneuvering through that massive door hadn’t been a problem after all.
Once McKayla had forwarded the video to her handler, McKayla slipped the phone into her purse and headed on to find the ladies’ room.
Welp, McKayla thought with a smile, looked like Misha was single this evening.
Could McKayla exploit that?
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