The Pursuit (Alias) Read online

  Don’t forget about the plans, Michael thought, coming to a stop. He rubbed the tough part of his glove along the side of his skate blade, an old nervous habit. How you never told Nora what you were really planning to do after college.

  Like everyone else that senior year, Michael was consumed with fear and excitement about what was ahead. But he had also had a secret: While he had applied for advanced degree programs in economics and international studies at all the best universities and been accepted to most of them, he wasn’t planning on going to school. He’d had known what he wanted to do ever since he’d watched four men lower his father’s coffin unsteadily into the ground and his mother’s hand had clamped down like a vise on his left shoulder.

  Follow his father into the CIA.

  While Michael hadn’t known much about what his father had done when he was very young, over the years he had gleaned enough information to put the pieces together.

  He remembered the cold night in November—the fifth anniversary of his father’s death—when his mother had finally told him what his father had done for a living, explaining that he hadn’t worked for the state department. “He worked for the CIA, Michael,” she’d said, her voice breaking. “And while I was never able to know exactly what he was working on when he died, I know that he gave his life in service to his country.” Her hand had covered his and her accent had deepened. “Michael, I always want you to know that I loved your father very much, and it was very hard to lose him. But still”—and here she gave way entirely to tears—“I cannot help being very proud of him.”

  Michael didn’t cry—he hadn’t cried since his father’s funeral. “Mom, I’m not stupid,” he said, squeezing her hand in support. “I figured out what Dad did a long time ago. It’s what I want to do, too.”

  It had been another night in November when he had headed out to the computer lab to finally do what he’d thought about a million times: fill out the online application for the CIA. He felt a surge of something as he finally pressed the Send button. Excitement? Fear? Exhilaration?

  It was living.

  And while Michael knew that he wanted to feel that way when he was with Nora, too, somehow their time together wasn’t even close to being that real.

  So in August, after a summer of driving to the shore to visit friends on weekends and dropping Nora off at the lab before he headed to his job as a research assistant for one of his old economics professors, Nora and Michael finally parted in front of their apartment before she drove up to New York to begin her program in clinical psychology at Columbia.

  “Michael, let me write you first, okay?” Nora asked, her eyes shining with tears. For moving day, she was wearing old Converse high-tops and cutoffs, and he thought she had never looked more beautiful.

  “Okay,” he said, gently stroking the side of her face.

  They’d argued it over and over. Nora had practically begged Michael to go to one of the programs that had accepted him on the East Coast, so that they could at least stay in close touch, if not together. “You’re breaking up with me,” Nora had said. “You don’t realize you are, but that’s what you’re doing.”

  “Nora, it doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Michael had said. “I just have to get away from here.”

  What he couldn’t tell Nora was that he was miserable and he had to get away. Because as remarkable as it was, the CIA hadn’t called. And like a rejected suitor, part of him felt that if he couldn’t be a part of the CIA, he had to get away from the United States entirely for a while.

  But leaving Nora was harder in person than in theory. “Just please don’t come home with one of those stupid Swiss girls,” Nora joked, smiling through her tears. Michael felt a lump in his throat and pulled her close to him.

  If he could only tell her the truth—that just the word Swiss made him feel sick. Every stupid program he had applied to had offered him the works: a free ride; minimal teaching duties; housing stipends. He’d chosen the University of Geneva. As much as he’d loved his work in college, he had never dreaded anything so much in his life. Once I have a Ph.D. in economics, he thought, the CIA better give me a second look.

  “I’m not really into Swiss economists,” Michael said, trying to smile. Or Swiss anything, he wanted to add.

  Nora gave him a gentle punch in the arm. “It’s not really the economists I’m worried about,” she said.

  The weeks since she’d gone had been dry and dusty as old books: an endless succession of papers for his boss, unmemorable pool halls, and late-night hockey sessions at Orca. Now it was his turn. His bags were packed, and tomorrow he would board a train for New York, where he would catch the plane that would finally take him to Geneva.

  Could I have really told Nora about my plans? Michael asked himself. Maybe not being able to talk about my plans—and about my past—was a big part of why I never felt really close to her.

  You think? Michael could almost hear her replying, with her trademark sarcasm. Although he often made fun of Nora’s chosen profession, he knew that the accuracy of her insights often made him blush. You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to figure this one out.

  Finally Michael chose not to examine Nora’s insights and just focus on the present. He was going to the University of Geneva, that was all—and then let the CIA try to keep him out.

  “Ready, aim, fire,” he said now with more heartiness than he really felt. He held up the last puck and with all his strength hurled it across the frigid expanse.

  “Not bad,” a voice called from the darkness.

  2

  WHEN THE VOICE CALLED out to Michael from the stands that summer night, he wasn’t surprised—he assumed it was one of his old pool buddies or a study friend stopping by to take him out for a celebratory beer. In fact, his spirits lifted at the prospect. “Who’s there?” he yelled back happily, speed-skating across the rink. Snapping guards on his blades, he stuck his gear into his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

  But the man who emerged from the upper stands was no one Michael knew. Middle-aged, average height, carrying a gray trench coat over his left arm, he looked like anyone’s ordinary businessman father—except for his eyes. As he and Michael approached each other, the man’s eyes, black and bottomless, locked onto Michael and drew him deeper, like an undertow. “Michael Vaughn,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” Michael heard himself say, and held his hand out. The other man took it and gripped it lightly, but for a second he seemed to Michael like a space traveler returned years later, one for whom shaking hands was a custom he had long since forgotten.

  “My name’s Les Ryan. I understand you’re leaving town tomorrow.”

  Michael nodded. For a second he had the absurd thought that the man was some official from Georgetown come to collect a huge library fee or rescind a course credit before Michael skipped the country. You think you can just drop an art course with one of our most esteemed professors and waltz on out of here, huh?

  Michael shook off the thought. The university did withhold diplomas for library fees or other unpaid charges, of course, but he had received his in May with the rest of his classmates. And like the rest of his buddies, he had immedi-ately handed the rolled document over to his mother, who had framed it and hung it over the mantel.

  “Mr. Vaughn?” the man asked again. “Is that the case?”

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said, trying to focus. “It’s just that I’m trying to figure out who you are.”

  The man didn’t crack a reassuring smile or in any way try to make the usual pleasantries. “I’m a government official. I’m here to discuss certain things related to your application.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what application you’re referring to,” Michael said. He was suddenly filled with irritation. Could the University of Geneva be having a problem processing his student visa?

  Les Ryan looked closely at Michael, and Michael stared back. Suddenly, his visitor seemed to remember how human beings cra
cked a smile.

  “That’s not bad, Mr. Vaughn,” Les Ryan said. “Let’s go and get ourselves a cup of coffee, shall we?”

  Considering the CIA’s association with spies, espionage, and international warfare, Michael felt that the commencement of his career was oddly dull. It started with a cup of extremely subpar coffee at the old greasy spoon that had been a favorite of Nora’s.

  Over two cups of brown sludge, Les explained that it might be months before Michael even reached the career trainee—CT—stage at the CIA. That is, if he reached it at all. “Clearance and security checks can take awhile.”

  “How much of a while?” Michael prodded. He was only too happy to dispense with the University of Geneva for the time being, but it wasn’t clear what he was supposed to do with himself while the CIA sent out officers to interview everyone who’d ever known him—though when he thought about it, it was not a particularly long list.

  Les drained his cup. “Could be two months,” he offered, his forehead crinkling as he looked off into space. “Then again, could be two years.”

  Michael blanched. “What am I supposed to do in all that time?”

  Les raised his shoulders and then let them fall. “You can do whatever you want,” he said, “as long as you remember that what goes on between us stays between us. As I said, though, it could be awhile, so you might want to keep your day job.” He raised his cup and tapped it. “Waitress!”

  Michael tried to keep Les’s attention. “But my day job was going to be attending the University of Geneva,” he said pointedly.

  Michael’s tone worked—it got the man’s attention. Les gave him a sharp look, as if taking his measure, and then his face returned to his blank, genial neutrality—the Switzerland of faces. “Like I said, do what you want,” Les said, slurping at the refill the waitress had just provided. “But it’s going to be hard for us to continue the interview process if you go to Switzerland.”

  Michael tried to relax. He wanted to explain to Les that he wasn’t trying to be difficult, he’d just always hated uncertainty. The period Les seemed to be talking about was a long time to wait for an answer that might not come—or to hang around doing nothing.

  Michael had doctored his coffee with four creamers and a half-dozen sugar packets to make it vaguely palatable. He pushed at the muddy brew with a stirrer, breaking the film that had formed on the surface. Sure, he could probably continue with his job as a research assistant for his old professor, get a new crappy apartment. But wouldn’t it get back to Nora somehow that he was still at school? And wouldn’t she wonder why?

  “Why don’t you consider figuring out a good cover your first assignment,” Les said, possibly hiding another smile with a sip of his coffee.

  Michael cracked his knuckles—he was talking to the CIA, after all, not some dopey human resources assistant. I don’t think they’d bother wasting their manpower on giving me the runaround, he thought, almost smiling at the thought of being strung along by the CIA. He’d seen his friends agonize for months over summer jobs with various labs and law firms, waiting in vain for a reply to the endless white envelopes they sent out. Well, here’s the reply to my little white envelope, he thought. I’m sure once the CIA is at the one-on-one stage, they’re pretty efficient at telling you no.

  Or yes.

  “I guess for a while I can still be . . . going to the University of Geneva,” Michael hazarded.

  Les nodded. “Sounds good. And you never know; sometimes these clearance checks can go pretty fast.”

  Lucky I left things the way I did with Nora, Michael mused, realizing that, in the current hazy guidelines of their quasi-relationship, it wouldn’t be weird for him not to write for quite a while—maybe even a few months. His mother wouldn’t worry either—a quick email or note to let her know he’d arrived and she’d be taken care of. She’d told him she’d long ago given up trying to get him on the phone in person more than once or twice a month, and she certainly wouldn’t expect even that frequency when he was overseas.

  With few close friends, no inquisitive parents or siblings, and no girlfriend at home to lie to, Michael was suddenly and painfully aware that he must fit what the CIA was sure to call their perfect psychological profile. In fact, he’d surpassed it: At this point, he didn’t even really have a home. His stuff was packed up, and he’d left his forwarding address with the super.

  I’m more ready for the CIA than I thought, Michael realized.

  The thought wasn’t entirely comforting.

  The next couple of steps didn’t get any more glamorous. As he rented a car and temporarily took a room in a dreary residential hotel about an hour from Georgetown, Michael inwardly groused that this was certainly an odd way to begin a career involving spies and international intrigue.

  Let’s hope we get to the spy part soon, he thought.

  But they didn’t. Over the next few weeks, Michael had several scheduled “dates” with Les, during which, over coffee, Les would grill Michael on every aspect of his life since he’d been born, from his favorite nursery school activities to his thesis in economics—of which, of course, Les already had a copy.

  At these meetings, Les gave away almost nothing about himself or what he already knew about Michael, except to let Michael know that he hadn’t needed to apply to the CIA after all—the CIA had been keeping an eye on him and his academics throughout his college career, tipped off by an economics professor who worked for them in a recruitment capacity.

  “We were happy enough to learn of your enthusiasm for the prospect of joining us, though,” Les said, leaning down to hide one of his rare smiles.

  Michael flushed at the thought of the admittedly gung-ho answers he’d given to all the “Why do you want to join the CIA?” questions. “And you’re not going to let me know who that professor is, I’m thinking,” Michael said, reaching for the check. Although Les never allowed him to pay it, it had become their little routine.

  “No,” Les said shortly. However diligently Michael prodded him, Les remained a no-nonsense kind of guy.

  After a few more interviews, Les invited him to a larger recruitment event. It had been nearly a month since Michael had supposedly gone to Geneva, and he’d spent the greater part of that time at a local motel, catching up on his reading. He was almost at the end of his tether, going stir-crazy from having nowhere to go and nothing to do, when he realized something that made his boredom seem a little more bearable.

  Although it was true that CIA careers were billed as being glamour and action 24/7, his work with the CIA would likely involve a lot of exactly this kind of waiting. Slowly accumulating and analyzing bits of information, he would always be waiting for a break so he could move on something or someone. “Just pretend it’s your first assignment,” Les had said. All right, that’s what he would do. For all he knew, the CIA jumped on people during career transitions specifically to see how they stood up under pressure—or lack of it.

  As he got dressed to go, Michael was hoping that Les’s invitation to this event meant he’d made it to another level—and thus was one step closer to getting out of his motel room. The address Les had given him was a Holiday Inn about two hours away, a beige monolith off an artery of the interstate. Wearing a suit and tie for the first time in months, Michael walked into a conference room teeming with other recruits, perhaps three or four hundred in all.

  Michael didn’t know whether he’d expected three people or three thousand, but somehow he was taken aback by the crush of people. How many other people put their lives on hold for this chance? he wondered, a competitive streak flaring up. Or does everyone else just meet with the CIA on his or her lunch break?

  “Jeez, this could be any graduate student conference,” a pretty Asian woman next to Michael commented. They were hanging back from the main part of the crowd: a huge group clustered around the banquet tables who were loading up on canapés. Some other scattered recruits seemed to be staying on the sidelines, as if they were afraid of their hosts, w
ho, lurking in the corner like vultures, were all wearing Les’s no-nonsense mask, battered gray suit, and credentials on their clip-on IDs.

  Michael had checked around for Les, but he hadn’t seen him amongst the gray ghosts. Now he looked more closely at the animated crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings. Everyone was dressed in business standard: the women with minimal makeup and sensible shoes, the men with crisp shirts and red power ties. He himself, after a fierce internal debate, had chosen a more decorous blue.

  Michael grinned down at the woman. “You mean it’s not a graduate student conference?” he asked, downing his ginger ale in one swallow. “My advisor’s gonna have to answer for this.”

  That day, alongside the other hopefuls, Michael sat through what seemed like an endless battery of psychological, analytical, and physical tests, including a lie detector test. He signed about a million nondisclosure agreements. He gave the officers the number at the hotel where he was staying, and finally, about ten hours later, he was discharged.

  In the hotel lobby he ran into the Asian woman he’d met earlier. She looked as fatigued as he felt, a gray tinge marring the oyster white of her skin.

  Despite her obvious weariness, she seemed glad to see him. “Some day, huh?” she offered brightly.

  He was glad for her friendly smile, and glad to speak to someone who didn’t seem to want to fire questions at him or take his pulse twice every hour while he used a Stairmaster. “Unbelievable,” he agreed. He knew by now it was strictly verboten to talk to outsiders about the experience they’d just had, but they were allowed to talk to each other, weren’t they? And this woman didn’t seem like one of the brown-nosers who were already adopting the grim-faced silence of their interrogators in imitation.

  “Want to get a cup of coffee?” he asked. “We could compare notes.”

  She gave him a guarded look, as if he were yet another test, then jingled her car keys back at him. “Gotta get home to the wife and kids,” she laughed, then made a face and sighed. “I’m just kidding, you know. My husband absolutely hates it when I call him that. It’s just that this is such an old-boy organization. It gets my back up.”