A Place Like This
A story by J. P. Winger
Browse all of the stories produced at Guardian Summer School here
“You should talk to her, man.”
Jake looked up from the half-empty glass of scotch from which he took an occasional sip. Todd Anderson – Jake’s best friend – was the one who’d made the comment, sitting opposite Jake, now well into his third beer. It was nearing ten, and Jake and Todd were once again at the seedy bar in one of Washington’s less exquisite areas.
“You think?” He asked simply. “She’s probably looking at you, not me.”
He’d never had Todd’s quick wit or forethought. He looked back at the girl to whom Todd was referring, sitting alone at a bar stool across the room. She was pretty, to say the least – beautiful, really – with blonde hair which flowed down the back of her black dress and blue eyes which could easily have been mistaken for a summer sky.
As he turned, the girl saw his glance and turned away, hastily disguising her interest. The truth was, in the hour Jake and Todd had been there, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of her. Jake had contrived disinterest every time Todd noticed her casual glances in his direction.
“Dude,” Todd said, “If I thought she was interested in me, would I have let you thrash me at pool?”
Until then, Jake had considered his victory at the tables earlier as a fluke. “I guess.”
“Man, look at her. Don’t throw this away. These kind of opportunities don’t come often for guys like you.”
Feigning offence, Jake said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Todd smiled. “Just talk to her. Please.”
“Fine,” Jake relented. “This better go well.” He then promptly downed the glass of scotch in one searing gulp. The girl seemed to have noticed; she turned on her bar stool and a smile began to spread across her face.
“Good luck, brother.”
Jake stood and began the walk across the bar. It felt like a million miles as the butterflies began to rise in his stomach. He wasn’t the same awkward seventeen-year-old that had been rejected by Shelly Saunders in front of the entire school; that had been fifteen years ago, but he was haunted by the memory as he approached the girl.
Sitting down across the bar, he realized in panic that he had no idea what to say. The girl just sat there, smiling and after what must have been ten seconds of silence, raising her eyebrows.
“W-what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” It sounded so cheap and cringe-worthy, but it was the best he could come up with. Cursing the peer pressure, he waited for her response.
“Looking for you, actually,” she began. “Jake.”
His excitement faded and was quickly replaced by momentary panic. “Do I know you?”
“No. But I know you.”
Unsure of what to say, he quickly said, “How?”
“I’ve read your file.”
“I have a file?”
“You think a man in your position doesn’t have a file?”
“A file with who, exactly?”
The girls face was plain, showing no hint of emotion. “The CIA.”
That’s it! Jake thought. That’s why Todd wanted me to approach her, this is a giant practical joke. He decided to play along.
“Of course,” he replied, glaring at Todd; his best friend only shrugged and gave him a thumbs up, rather than bursting into laughter as Jake expected him to. “Did Todd put you up to this?”
The girl shook her head. “Jake, this isn’t a joke. I want to help you.”
“Bullshit. The CIA doesn’t operate on American soil, anyway.”
“Not officially. I didn’t think you’d be naive enough to believe that.”
Momentarily convinced, Jake replied, “Okay. For arguments sake, I’ll pretend to believe you. Why would the CIA want to help a leftie like me?”
“The Agency doesn’t. I’m not exactly on the best of terms with them right now. You’re a reporter, for The Washington Post, and your friend over there”-she pointed in Todd’s direction-“is a civil rights attorney.”
“How do you know that?”
“Like I said, I read your file.”
“What...why me? Why Todd? Why read our files?”
“Because I was ordered to collect information on you, Jake. I was ordered to spy on you.”
Jake could barely believe what he was hearing. “Ordered by the CIA? What did I do?”
“You’re not exactly a fan of the current government. You’ve written articles on numerous scandals involving agency surveillance, unlawful detention of American citizens...and, most importantly, you’re currently investigating the bombing of American Airlines Flight 416.”
“So you’re some kind of whistle-blower?” He asked. “Another Edward Snowden?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Alright. If you’re genuine, you won’t mind me asking Todd to join us.”
“Go ahead, Jake.”
He walked over to the booth where Todd was sitting; he grinned. “How’s it going?”
“Dude,” Jake said in a rushed, excited voice. “You’re going to want to come over here.”
“She wants to talk to me? Hey, buddy, she’s your girl not mi-”
“Shut the hell up, Todd!” Jake interrupted furiously. “She’s not who you think. She knows who we are, says she’s CIA and has information for me.”
“Of course she does.”
“Look, I didn’t believe it at first either. Just listen to what she has to say.”
“Fine. If you’re having me on you owe me a month of your wages.”
“Okay then.” The two shook hands and walked back over the woman. Jake realized that he still didn’t know her name. He introduced the two of them and the woman explained her story to an increasingly sceptical Todd.
“Hang on a second,” he interrupted. “Why come to us?”
“Because I was ordered to spy on you,” she explained once again. Jake noticed she was growing frustrated and restless.
“And why did you suddenly decide to betray your country, again?”
“I’m not the one betraying my country, Todd,” she said. “We have a constitution; we are supposed to be a democracy. To my mind, this government has utterly betrayed that obligation.”
“And you think we can stop that?” Jake added.
“You two are uniquely placed to report the truth. People will believe you. If I was the one saying it, they would discredit me, call me a traitor...but they can’t do that to you.”
Both Jake and Todd were impressed by her speech. Taking a deep breath, Jake finally asked the question that both of them had been wondering. “Are we in danger?”
The woman nodded slowly. “They’ll do whatever they have to do to cover up what they’ve done. This goes up the President himself, as far as I know. They will stop at nothing - and I mean nothing - to keep this a secret.”
Jake already knew the answer. He’d faced death before; in Iraq, Syria, Beirut and Nepal, but that had been different. At least that hadn’t been at the hands of his own government…Regardless, Jake was willing to do what had to be done. He was a principled man, and this was a bridge too far.
“I’ll do what has to be done,” he said firmly.
Todd looked hesitantly at his companions, but looked to after a brief silence and nodded sternly.
“I can’t tell you anything else. Not now, not here. I’ll decide on a meeting place and contact you.”
“Contact us how?” Jake inquired. She leaned forwards and pulled a sharpie from her purse, writing down an eight-digit number on his forearm.
“Don’t try to call. I’ll contact you on this number when the time’s right.”
Jake and Todd both nodded warily.
“By the way,” Jake stated, “I didn’t catch your name.”
The woman flashed him a mischievous smile as she stood. “You weren’t meant to.”
Outside the old-style brick building, flecks of snow drifted gently from the ash-grey sky; it had been cold for months now, but this was record.
“X-ray One is mobile,” one of the men suddenly said from his seat in the black Range Rover, parked on the opposite side of the road. The woman – she had once been a colleague - had just left the bar. The man’s name was Vic, and he worked for the Section C of the Security Service. His partner, Tommy, looked up from his magazine.
“That’s our girl,” he muttered, gunning twisting the key in the ignition. “Thought she was one of us.”
“She was,” Vic retorted. “Some people just aren’t meant for this job.”
Section C reported directly too the Prime Minister. The only rule was that it’s members did not ask questions. All you had to do was follow your orders, lawful or not. Ashley Baines – the agent they had been assigned to trail – had disobeyed that rule. She had been assigned to spy on Jake Woodley, a reporter for The Guardian, following his coverage of the burglary of the Labour Party headquarters. The head of Section C, known to its members solely as ‘Boss’, had began to notice her lack of actionable intelligence. And so he’d ordered Tommy and Vic to spy on Ashley in order to uncover her activities.
Tommy and Vic hadn’t gone inside the bar. She would have recognised them, and probably bolted along with whoever she was meeting. They had, however, had time to plant a bug in her car and another in her one-bedroom apartment, thirty minutes away from the bar.
Both operators saw her clamber into her car, a battered old Ford, and waited for ten seconds before following. Vic and Tommy were trained to pursue subjects without catching their attention, but so was Ashley. They knew she would take precautions.
