and had no answer and were debating what was next. I took a few steps closer, leaving the elevator and moving within four doors of them. One of the pair had an object mostly obscured in his hand. If it was a gun, I wanted to be closer. Distance meant a lot of time for the person with the weapon to keep trying, including reloading as required, and even a poor marksman could hit someone if they had enough shots. Proximity meant evasion, angles, a chance to grapple and re-direct. It took confidence though, to approach someone with a firearm. Or stupidity. I wasn’t sure which was dominant in me.
A few more steps and I was within three yards. Only then did they notice or sense my presence. I could see now that it was a room key card the taller, older one held. The survival part of my brain relaxed but the analytical part went into overdrive. Law enforcement was the most logical answer, as they could get a key to my room from the hotel front desk with little worry. Warrants were a strict requirement but the reality of the modern world was that most hotels would offer assistance first and worry about legality second. After all, who wanted to be the hotel keeper who harboured a fugitive or dangerous criminal?
But neither of the individuals wore the Kevlar-strengthened belt of most plain -clothes cops, an important ingredient for carrying a weapon, radio and other standard issue equipment. They also didn’t have the stiff, upright demeanour of cops. And one of them was young, lucky to be much past 22 or 23 to my eye. His aggressive stance and failure to assess my close proximity as a threat stank of arrogance or ignorance and that meant one conclusion – ASIO. As I thought about the head of security at the hotel, it was the only conclusion that made enough sense. Even an experienced former military head of security would acquiesce to ASIO’s demands and be too concerned about electronic monitoring to give me a heads up on their presence.
But in the broader scheme of the situation, it made no sense. Why would the spy agency be here? It was terrible for my cover. Surely James would have shut down any further investigation into the matter, with my involvement.
‘Valentine Tyler?’ the kid asked with a note of superiority to which he had no right.
I suppressed the urge to grimace at the use of my full name. It would be hard to find it on a document now, having done my best to erase my birthright. Before she died, my mother would say with her usual fondness for oversharing that I was conceived on Valentine’s Day and it was therefore her favourite day of the year. It was only fitting that she named me after it. Valentine became Valen pretty quickly after she shared that story in my mid-teens. She had encouraged me to shorten it to Val if I was going to at all, but I was concerned it would make me sound like an older woman from an American sitcom.
In the hallway of the hotel, I remained silent, just over a yard and a half away now, breathing calmly and muscles relaxed. They were in a terrible tactical position, the kid half a step in front of the older guy, central enough that he blocked a physical altercation from immediately being two against one. His position would give me the time to neutralise him before the older figure would even come into play. I was confident in my ability to do so, especially given ASIO officers were expressly forbidden by law to carry a firearm.
‘Mr Tyler,’ the older one spoke, putting a controlling hand on the kid’s shoulder which was very poorly received; the young one attempted to shrug it away and shot a look of pure annoyance at his colleague. It was a tactical error, showing me they were not in sync and probably unused to operating together. ‘We’re from ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. We’d like to chat.’
I shrugged and held my palms out, bringing them even closer to the kid, a danger he didn’t recognise. ‘So speak,’ I said quietly, soft enough that the kid leaned forward a little to hear properly which was exactly what I intended, given it put him even closer to my hands. My short verbal response and confident, comfortable demeanour was prompting very different reactions in each of them. The older was suddenly concerned, a frown forming on his face as he watched me closely, as if recognising a threat. The younger was staring at me aggressively.
‘We have a room downstairs. Would you come with us?’ The older officer’s tone was measured, polite.
I nodded, not providing a verbal reply, and stepped aside so they could pass to the elevator. The kid, still eager to assert his authority, reached out for my elbow as if to walk me along the corridor like something he’d seen in a movie. I gave ground and shrugged my arm away from him, brushing against him and emptying the contents of his outside suit pocket at the same time, without his awareness. He bristled but continued to walk down the corridor.
I could feel the leather of his official badge, nicknamed a ‘freddie’, in the palm of my hand, and slipped it into my own pocket.
‘I’m Andrew,’ the older one offered his hand. I gave it a shake, finding his grip gentle and as feminine as his soft hands.
‘Valen,’ I replied, releasing his hand and walking shoulder to shoulder with him down the hall. The kid was holding the elevator door open and only when Andrew and I had stepped in did he offer his own hand.
‘Morgan,’ he practically spat the syllables. I raised an eyebrow and gave his hand a quick shake, a predictably firm grip and a further petty attempt at dominance as he squeezed. This kid had clearly spent more time in an office than operational environment as no amount of his squeezing was going to hurt my hand.
‘Big ‘M’, little ‘organ’?’ I asked, with a perfectly straight face.
Andrew sniggered and we lapsed into silence as the slow elevator took us to the first floor. They both stepped out before me – this entire encounter was full of tactical errors from the agents – and I followed them to a conference room.
What I saw inside made me almost turn to leave immediately. Helen Newton sat at the table. She had the nickname of Giraffe in the organisation and it was for good reason; she had an unnaturally long neck and a body that seemed like it had been stretched out from head to toe. She sat with perfectly composed, ramrod upright posture, her short blonde hair undisturbed by the high flow of air conditioning. An expensive name brand suit, shiny at the shoulders from years of wear, and an elegant looking white shirt. Almost 50 years old, she looked closer to 40 even with limited make-up.
I’d worked alongside ASIO on and off during my years with the government, usually in the places they were too risk averse, cautious or frankly prudent, to send their own.
It was a professional organisation, well-structured and with a good balance between investigative powers and legal restrictions. But, to my mind, it was individuals like Helen who had tarnished the reputation of the 68-year-old agency. She was a schemer, a political chess-player who wielded her power within the agency to make and break careers, only considering her own power base and how to expand it. To bring that mentality to national security issues was repulsive.
‘Valen,’ Helen greeted with a warmth that any stranger would be sure was sincere, presumably using the correct shortened version of my name to build rapport. She seemed poised to stand to greet me when I cut her movement off.
‘What do you want?’ I asked, my transparent hostility freezing her in her approach. I felt the tension in Andrew and the kid behind me.
‘Straight to business, eh?’ she replied, her elongated form stiffened at my less-than-polite words before she slowly sat back down. ‘Sit down, Valen. Would you like a drink?’
I remained where I was, consciously slowing my breathing to relax muscles that were unnaturally and unusually tight. This entire situation was awful for my cover. I released fists I hadn’t realised I’d made. ‘What do you want?’ I repeated. I felt the kid move forward behind me, he was close.
‘Back off, kid. Now.’
