Hidden In Plain Sight

“You’re losing people?” Scotch asked.

“At an alarming rate. So are the French, the Spanish, the Americans...”

“What about the Russians?”

One corner of Ursula’s mouth turned up revealing a rarely seen dimple, “Ask the Americans, if you can find a live one.”

Scotch thought back to his conversation with McKinney, it felt like it had taken place a lifetime ago, only a few hours had passed between that conversation and this one, “Who are the men in the SUV working for?”

“The one outside your apartment?”

Scotch nodded.

“I don’t recognize them. They must be independents.”

“You don’t know who they might be working for?”

“No. I don’t. The only thing that I can tell you is spies from agencies all over the world are dying and no one is taking responsibility.”

Ursula looked at Scotch waiting for a response.

He sat and waited for her to reveal her final piece of information.

“Have you noticed how none of the spies at your agency have died?”

Scotch remained quiet.

“Why is that? Perhaps it’s because your agency is responsible?”

“You chose to warn Pen.” Scotch pointed out.

“Because I knew that she would go to you and eventually you would come to me.”

“Isn’t that taking the long way around? What if Pen had been reassigned? What if I had been out of the country tonight? How many more employees might you have lost before we ran into each other?”

“I guess I got lucky.”

“You got lucky? There’s more to this Ursula. I’m going to find out. About everything.”

“I hope you do.” She responded, turning her attention to Fluffy. He was slumped in his chair, chewing on his cuticles looking bored. “Good help is getting more and more difficult to find.”

“Things just got very interesting.” Pen repeated to herself as she took in her surroundings.

The area housed a desk with several monitors displaying video surveillance of everything from the hallway outside of the apartment and the street below to Jeremy in 5J’s dog’s whereabouts. A comfortable looking wing back chair stood in the center of the room. A small table sat next to it. She settled herself into the chair and looked around the room.

“If I were Scotch where would I hide things?”

Pen continued studying the room, the dark walls and furniture. She looked down and admired the rug beneath her feet, ran her fingers along the black leather of the chair, took in the carved detail of the cherry table next to her. The furniture looked familiar. A bit too familiar. Pen turned and looked at the monitors. One displayed a view of Scotch’s library. The room she was sitting in was a smaller more simple version of the other room. It appeared that Scotch had intentionally put in the same room twice.

“If I were Scotch and I hid an entire room. I would hide sensitive information, anywhere I wanted.” Pen looked at the room from another perspective. “Knowing Scotch, I would hide it...in plain sight.” Her eyes stopped at the surface of the cherry table next to her and the paperback book. She picked it up greedily like a child who had successfully filched a cookie while Dad napped on the couch. “I would have had it whether I had found this room or not.” Pen quickly looked at the monitors, nothing had changed. She looked at the cover of the book, the chemist remembered looking at the synopsis of this movie when she was exploring Scotch’s references to James Bond and discounting the film as being too far from his references to be of any use in understanding him. Obviously, she had been wrong. It would be useful to do an Internet search to get more details but all she had was Scotch’s phone and she was sure that he would be able to quickly see everything she had done with the phone in his absence. It would be the same story with any equipment within the apartment. There was always the possibility of introducing herself to Jeremy in 5J and requesting use of his computer but explaining how looking up the details of a movie that’s nearly twenty years old in the wee hours of the morning is an emergency requiring he get out of bed and let a complete stranger into his home, suffice it to say Scotch would definitely find out about that one. Pen would have to rely on her own memory and hope that she remembered enough about the movie to help her navigate through her partner’s mind.

She started with the cover. Spy Game By Nathan Muir. The author name was not right. Nathan Muir. Nathan Muir. He was Redford’s character. It sounded like a Redford character. Pen flipped through the book. There was dialogue, narration, the names Bishop and Muir were both mentioned many times. The passages that she read did not stand out. Maybe a novelization of the film was released at some time. Without access to the Internet, Pen would have to confirm that later. Pen turned her attention to the back cover of the book. A website was listed above the ISBN number. Isleofskyepublishing.com. A website was of no use to Pen for the moment. She looked at the ISBN number. Something looked off.

Finally, something she could work with. The spy-in-training stepped out of the room and walked quickly into Scotch’s library. She turned on the light closest to Scotch’s bookshelves, pulled down a paperback book, and compared ISBN numbers.

“This book’s ISBN has ten digits on it. Spy Game’s ISBN has nine digits.”

She located another book and compared.

“Ten.”

Another book.

“Ten.”

Another.

Pen checked twenty books and compared them to Spy Game before concluding that her hypothesis was correct. The paperback in her hand held something Scotch had been hiding. The chemist was determined to find out what it was and what it had to do with the events that had been taking place.

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.