The King's Deception

A man named Farrow Curry, employed by the Americans, may have cracked this code. Unfortunately, Curry died a few weeks ago in an Underground accident. The best information we have indicates that his research may have survived. It is this research that we require your assistance in securing. Blake Antrim is presently searching for it, too. In order for you to be fully prepared, a separate briefing has been arranged. Please proceed immediately to the hall at Jesus College, Oxford, where this information will be provided.

The narrative ended.

She sat in the dark and stared at the screen.

Thoughts of Blake Antrim filled her mind. They’d dated for a year, she a law student, he supposedly working for the State Department. Eventually, though, he’d told her the truth about himself.

“I work for the CIA,” Antrim said.

She was surprised. She would have never thought that to be the case. “What do you do?”

“Senior field analyst, but I’ll be a team leader soon. Counter-intelligence is my area.”

“Should you be telling me this?”

He shrugged. “I doubt you’re a spy.”

She resented his conclusion. “You don’t think me capable?”

“I don’t think that interests you.”

They’d met in a London pub, introduced by a mutual friend. The end came swiftly when he caught her with another man. By then she’d tired of his ways. Particularly his anger, which could erupt with little or no warning. He hated his job and his superiors, with little good to say about either. She came to view him as a sad, weak man, blessed with good looks but incapable of sincerity.

And that last day.

“You whore.”

Antrim’s eyes blazed with venom. She’d seen him mad, but not like this. He’d appeared at her flat early, unannounced. She’d had a visitor last night who’d only left a few minutes before. When the knock came she’d thought her new lover had returned for another kiss, but instead Antrim stood outside.

“It’s over,” she said. “We’re done.”

He burst inside and slammed the door.

“And this is how you do it?” he asked. “Another man? Here? Where you and I spent all that time?”

“I live here.”

She just wanted him gone. The sight of him turned her stomach. She could not remember exactly when the attraction had turned to loathing. But when someone else showed her interest, one so opposite from the calculating soul she’d spent the last year with, the opportunity had been too inviting to resist.

She’d planned on phoning later today to tell him.

“It’s over,” she said again. “Now leave.”

He sprang at her with a suddenness she’d not expected. A hand clamped onto her throat, her spine slammed down onto a tabletop, the robe open, exposing her naked body. The force of his attack lifted her feet from the ground and she was now pinned to the table, legs dangling.

She’d never been physically attacked before.