Page 83 of Erase Me
Avalie wandered toward the far side of the stateroom.
“Don’t make yourself at home, surfer girl,” Vaughn said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.“You aren’t staying long.”
“By the book?”I snapped.“You tried to kill us with poison gas in that shipping container.”
“Maybe I did.But you were already off the rails,” he said.“And did you even notice how I personally showed up to see with my own fucking eyes how you two were breaking all protocol at the beach?”
That day when he was watching me teach Avalie how to surf.He already knew her true identity by then, yet he kept silent about it.
Vaughn gestured towards Avalie.“That immobilizer of hers was a dead giveaway.That was when I knew I had to get involved.It was my obligation to cut Division losses before the entire future of humankind went to shit.”
I scoffed.“You don’t care about the future.You’ve been undermining the mission from the start.”
“Undermining the mission?”Vaughn barked a laugh.“This isn’t about me, pal.This is all about you.This mission was doomed the minute you dropped into my time zone.You’ve broken every rule, every procedure.”
Hearing him rant didn’t mean a thing to me.I already knew what I had to do.
“What’s the biggest worry the Division has?Section R, item 7, states that agents will avoid all contact with any ancestor or earlier version of themselves.What have you been doing?You’ve been cavorting all over San Clemente with your own mother.Your ownmother!”
Vaughn was well aware of the formidable force the woman he was trying to recruit would become in the future.While persuading her to join him offered numerous advantages, he remained perfectly content even without her, thanks to Volpe’s fortune.
“And this one.She comes in here, using an AI assistant that a five-year-old could have hacked into.Another breach of protocol.Good thing I snatched it.There’s no telling what kind of Pandora’s Box would have been blown open if the wrong people got hold of it.”
The handler continued ticking off points as he directed his comments at me.
“But you want to talk about this mission?Face it, cowboy, you had the chance to take out your assigned target this afternoon, but you muffed it.”
“As you like to say, Vaughn, that’s my business.Not yours.”
“Wrong.Read Section T, item 23.The facilitator will intervene in the event of failure on the part of the agent to perform assigned duties.Failure?It’s worse than failure.You fucked up big time.In fact, you’ve gone full rogue agent here.And this one...”He pointed at Avalie.“She’s not only rogue.She’s completely unauthorized.Section V, item?—”
“Fuck those protocols,” I snapped.“You tried to kill us twice.That’s not intervention.”
“You’re a dangerous rogue operator.And this Mata Hari is the threat to all humanity.”He pointed a finger at me.“I know what the Division wants, and it isn’t you.They want agents who think with their heads, not with their dicks.So, get out of here.The two of you.When I make my report, you’re toast.You hear me?Toast.And she’s toast.The whole fucking lot of you are toast.So just tuck your tails between your legs and get out of here.You’re done.You’re finished.”
He was pointing at the door, but neither of us moved.
“What are you gonna do?”he shouted.“GET OUT OF HERE!”
Pulling the bodyguard’s pistol from my belt at the small of my back, I pointed the weapon directly between Vaughn’s two surprised eyes and squeezed the trigger.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Avalie
Reedand I left the dinghy from the yacht on the beach next to San Clemente Pier and strolled past the silent restaurants and the deserted train station toward Avenida Victoria.The seaside town was sleeping at this late hour, its businesses shuttered.
I wasn’t prepared to discuss what had transpired on that yacht with Vaughn.I didn’t sense Reed was ready either.There were moments out there when I genuinely had no idea how things would unfold.Being a rookie, I wasn’t familiar with the rules and citations Vaughn was rattling off.Still, I suspected there was some truth to what he said, albeit tinged with his own agenda.
“I’m going to miss this town,” Reed murmured, casting a wistful glance around.
“Maybe they’ll send you back and you get to see it again,” I offered, trying to inject some optimism into the moment.I was glad he was changing the mood.
“Considering the mess we’re leaving behind, and with no handler to clean it up, I suspect the Sheriff’s Department has my face plastered on every corner.”
“But maybe the news won’t spread to other beach towns along the California coast,” I mused.“Looking at the map, there are at least a dozen other places where you could do some serious damage.”
“Hey, I didn’t do all of that alone,” Reed retorted with a half-smile.
