It started when I was paged, although I didn't know it at the time. I probably should have. I'd been trained, and besides, who gets paged anymore? Just call my cell! But I jumped up from breakfast and ran over to the front desk, and all I got was a dial tone.
****
I was up early for the first tracks. Skiing's the best when you have the clean snow all to yourself, and this was going to be a classic day in the Rockies -- cold, crisp, and clear, with a nice thick layer of overnight powder. It was windless this early, unless you count the biting headwind from skiing really fast. I'd grown up near here, and if there's one thing I can do competently, it's slide down a hill. I was used to leaving most other skiers behind, but apparently, today was going to be different. A blond in an electric blue racing suit had appeared from nowhere and was hanging with me.
It's fairly common, when you're skiing with guys, to get into little unacknowledged competitions. You go a little faster, find some tougher terrain, see who wobbles first. I'd never had a girl chase me down like this one. I'm sure plenty of them could, but typically not the ones you find skiing casually on a weekend morning at a big resort. So I turned it on and tried to shake her. It didn't work; the trail was too easy. I finally found a steep, bumpy part and carved some good turns. She hung with me for a minute but then went across the trail, so I tried to put some distance between us before we met again. Then I glanced across the trail just in time to see her launch herself off a crest and sail thirty yards through the air in a perfect tuck, landing slightly ahead of me with an annoying 'thwack!'
Message received.
We traded positions a few times, totally ignoring each other of course, and arrived at the lift line together. We fetched up side by side. Out of breath, I just said "Hey!"
"Good morning! Still waking up?" Big grin. She was hardly breathing at all.
****
Her name was Jana. She had a charming little accent, enormous blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a perfect athlete's body with highly-developed skiing muscles. She had a perma-grin. Implausibly, she seemed interested in me, which was surprising because she was way too cute. But she must have put a hand on my forearm five times as we laughed our way up the lift.
At the top she hopped off and skied right up to me, stopping face to face with her skis outside mine, grinning mischievously. It was unusual. Normally, you talk side-by-side so it's easy to push off again. This position seemed oddly sexual. She was close, straddling my skis, with the crotch of her skin-tight suit right over my upturned ski tips. She had to be aware.
"Ready? Let's do Death Spiral!" She bolted off. "I'll wait at the bottom!" she called over her shoulder.
We were off.
****
Of course we had lunch together.
We introduced and filled in our bios. She was the daughter of immigrant parents who had moved to the States when she was fifteen. Before that she'd lived in Czechia and skied in Austria, sort of like living in New York and skiing in Vermont, but with actual mountains. Now she lived and worked near D.C. and was pursuing an advanced degree at night. She was Miss Enthusiasm, one of those people who seem happy about everything.
I asked who she worked for.
".... I'm in government," she said. "DHS."
"Really? You're a fed too? Doing what?"
"... Nothing important. It's my first year. I'm one step above a summer intern." She smiled so ruefully I couldn't pursue it. "How about you? You're in government too?"
Something about meeting cute girls brings out the worst in me. I tried to impress her. "Yup. I'm with the Diplomatic branch of the State Department. My first rotation was two years in Islamabad, and next week I'm headed for Prague."
"Really? You'll love Prague!... How was Pakistan, though?"
"Not great. You can only go out in groups, with guards, and curfew starts right after work. We never send any women there anyway, of course. You do get a free handgun and self-defense lessons. But it was a good post, career-wise."
"It must be competitive! How'd you get it?"
"I have an uncle in the Department," I admitted. "He got me into a hot-spot embassy so I wouldn't be stamping visas for a living."
"Mr. Bond, James Bond? How nice to meet you!" We shook. She giggled. "What's your portfolio?"
"Non-proliferation, actually." That was the sexy part, anyway.
"You mean like, back-pack bombs?"
An uneasy feeling started to creep into in the back of my mind. Everyone knows that in Pakistan, the usual non-proliferation issues are urgent. The Pakistani military has plenty of nukes on hair trigger, mostly aimed at India. But I had done some work in a slightly different area: miniature atomic devices. Mini-nukes are a major concern in the third world. Small enough bombs would be deliverable anonymously, by car or home-brewed missile. Non-attributable weapons, like ex-pat assassinations or hacking attacks, are a problem when the only defense is the threat of retaliation.
So I'd been trained to watch for questions about my work. Part of State Department rookie induction, even for diplomats, is a quick course on intelligence and counter-intelligence -- how to extract information, but also how to tell if you're a target. It might seem farfetched for a youngster like me to be targeted. I didn't have that much to spill. Yet. But I was inexperienced and single, and I had a diplomatically sensitive career ahead of me, so I'd been told I was a prospect. And as a recruiter, Jana seemed custom-tailored for me.
Of course she might have figured out that miniaturized nukes were a hot issue all by herself. It's logical, once you think about it. But that would be pretty perceptive for a civilian. So after lunch I told her I had to make some calls, and she went back on the slopes while I had a precautionary talk with Uncle Mike.
****
Mike had always been my guardian angel. The help with my career was just one example. He said he was glad I called.
"I realize it's probably nothing," I said. "I just want to be careful and -- you know, show I'm paying attention."
He seemed slightly amused, but interested, too. "No, no,.... good for you, Dave. You can't be too careful. Your career could be stunted if you associate with the wrong people, especially without reporting. But this is interesting. Let me think for a minute..... Actually, you know, you should talk to my buddy Ralph. He's FBI, in domestic counter-intel. He'll know what to do."
"What if it's nothing, though? Won't I seem alarmist?"
"I'll tell him you're just a new guy being cautious. He'll understand. I've known him for years and we've worked on a bunch of stuff together. He's good. He'll give you a call on your Department phone after I've talked to him. Just do exactly what he says, OK?"
That was the second step on my trip down the hall of mirrors.
