The Syndrome
It started the night before as Jack reviewed sensitive data. The photos blurred before his eyes as a pain racked his brain like his skull was split by a railroad spike. His stomach churned—not like normal, the constant watery shits from his early days drinking the Bogotá water, before he’d insisted the Company send down a monthly palette of Dasani. This wasn’t from the food, or the worms he was sure were in the warmed entrails the Colombians called food. This was so sudden, so deep, so crippling. He stumbled, leaning his massive arm on the counter, scattering the photos. He knew exactly what it was.
Havana Syndrome.
He powered through, determined to finish his work, digitize the photographic evidence for uplink to Langley. His recommendation to arm the Salazars had produced results, the photos were concrete evidence. Coca fields drenched in blood, a warning to the Ochoa Cartel. Sure, the Salazars were a cartel themselves, but they were small potatoes, nothing to worry about. The Ochoas wouldn’t play ball and what was the Company going to do? Invade Colombia? No. The Salazars were cleaner. It took a cartel to beat a cartel. And if the Salazars ended up too big for their britches, there’d be another upstart family happy to take a shipping container full of munitions. Same as it ever was.
The photos completed their upload over secure sat-link, and Jack torched the originals with a Bic, letting them burn safely in a cast-iron pan. A child’s eyes stared back, a hole blown through his prepubescent skull. Collateral damage. Unfortunate, but acceptable losses. How many kids had the Ochoas killed? He compartmentalized. It wasn’t his actions that had done this, he acted in the interest of the United States of America, with its power and authority. The flame burned away the kid’s missing skull.
The pain came back. He collapsed.
He wandered the tight avenues, delirious. He was sick all night, unable to sleep, his head splitting, his stomach twisted. He scoured the intel on Havana Syndrome—what there was, anyway. The brains didn’t know what caused it, but suspected it could be a short-range microwave ray. Field agents had experienced a range of symptoms. Jack’s included.
When the sun rose, he decided to try to escape the short range of the ray. He had spilled into the Bogotá streets, aimless, just trying to put distance between him and whatever spy had tracked down his residence. The avenues were overgrown with people, and stands, and favelas. He was outside, but it was claustrophobic with people, shouts, kids trying to push fresh guava in his palms, guys selling ugly puppets.
And the pain hadn’t gone away. The symptoms were strong, just as strong as they’d been last night, just as strong as when he’d seen the kid with spilled brains. He knew that whoever was targeting him had remained close. He was being followed.
Every brown face a potential enemy, he weaved through the narrow alleys. The stench of roasted meat was thick in the air, to Jack it smelled somehow rotten. The crowds around him salivating at the carrion. He scanned the sea of faces for someone out of place, someone looking at him. Someone in the game.
Brown-eyed kid, pregnant woman lugging laundry, fleshy moustache man selling DVDs.
Then: Blue eyes, dark hair, angular features. Bingo. The hair was dark (too dark?), sure, and his skin was tan, but it was just tan. Not deep, not natural. Not native. The cutting blue eyes were the giveaway. St. Petersburg should have worn contacts. The blue eyes scanned the crowd looking everywhere but directly at Jack. His avoidance painted the target. Sloppy. Obvious.
Jack scanned his subject, unconcerned that he might be noticed. He wanted to be noticed. St. Petersburg gave away the game. His hand flitted nervously toward a jacket pocket. Jack caught the light glint from a metal device within.
Jack weaved around, nearly knocking over the pregnant woman, turning a corner. He pushed through the crowd, trying to look like he was trying to lose him but not actually trying to lose him. At a distance he deemed safe, he stole a glance over his shoulder.
Poking above the crowd, those piercing blue eyes.
Jack cut into an alley, really little more than a crawlspace between two melting adobe huts. He waited, imagining a snake’s tail coiled. Faces passed. The crowd flowed. The angular jaw appeared. Whip-snap, Jack wrapped his massive palm around the man’s arm, whisking him out of the crowd.
He threw St. Petersburg against a metal can, the crowd too noisy to be bothered by the din, the alley too dim for them to see. His stomach burned, so close to the device, as he rained his fist onto the man’s face. Jack’s eyes blurred and the dead kid’s face flashed in his mind. Blood blotted St. Petersburg’s blue eyes, his face swelled, purpled, no longer angular. Jack snapped St. Peterburg’s jaw. St. Petersburg fainted.
Jack tossed the unconscious spy. He found a Bogotá ID, St. Petersburg’s nom de plume was apparently Trente Aguilar. Could be useful for the brains in Langley. He pocketed the ID. Otherwise, he just had a few coins in his pants pocket and a biscuit wrapped in a napkin.
Jack stared down the jacket pocket, his body racked with illness. He felt a flash of worry as he considered the device. If it could do all of this to him from a distance, should he really touch it? What could physical, direct skin contact do to him?
Fuck it. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He was a fucking spy, a beast, with the backing of the most powerful espionage agency in human history. He plunged his hand into the pocket.
And retrieved an old Nokia.