The Barista’s Guide to Espionage Read online

  “Did you find my boat? There was a pink umbrella in it.”

  “Pink…? I don’t understand.”

  Eva shook her head and calmed herself. “No, you wouldn’t. Sorry.” There was no point pushing the issue. Chalk it up to another disaster for the day.

  Cole regained his composure. “Now, Miss, could you please state your name?”

  “Eva.”

  He made a note and smiled expectantly.

  She sighed. “Destruction.”

  He wrote that too, stopped and looked up. “That’s seriously not your name, is it?”

  She shrugged.

  He pressed on. “Age?”

  “I’ve been carbon dated at twenty-eight.”

  “From?”

  “Melbourne, Australia, but I’ve lived in London for eight of those.”

  “I see. Eva – may I call you that? I don’t think I can call you… Could you please tell me how you came to be here?”

  She thought about dropping the line, ‘You’ll have to ask my folks, they never told me’ but remained mute instead. She was still sizing up her captor.

  The Lieutenant Commander seemed lost. He appeared positively sick. Green didn’t match the white crisp uniform. The poor guy. Surely he hadn’t signed up for this. He was probably used to small time stuff; a Petty Officer caught with booze in his bunk, a recruit staying too long at port, a crap game that got out of hand. Not this. Definitely not this.

  There was no movement from waves, so the ship must have been huge, maybe even an aircraft carrier. There was no engine vibration so they were probably anchored offshore or were nuclear-powered. If the ship wasn’t moving, she allowed herself a semblance of hope. She doubted it would stay anchored for long, though. The ship would be leaving soon and no matter what, she couldn’t be on it. She had unfinished business on that island. Her captor wasn’t going to leave the room any time soon, let alone undo the handcuffs. He would be no use to her on the other side of the bulkhead.

  There was no way of knowing what Cole knew. The truth had become so twisted Eva couldn’t afford to trust anyone. By contrast, she had to gain his trust. In order to do that, she needed to talk. A lot. There was no way a sly comment and a flirty glance would result in him giving her the slightest of chances. She had to work hard, keep the dialogue going, win him over and only then could she hope to sway him. But say what? She didn’t have time to spin an elaborate yarn. Then a crazy thought hit her. To keep him talking, she could tell him something she hadn’t heard from herself in a while. The truth.

  If she did actually manage to make it back to the island, there was every chance she’d never make it out alive. If this plump but pleasant-looking middle-aged officer wanted to chronicle how she came to be there, at least someone would know her story. There was a chance her friends might one day find out how and why she died. Perhaps they’d understand the sacrifices she’d made, the changes she’d forged. There was a chance they’d one day know their friend, the mouthy barista from Australia, had saved the world.

  She cleared her throat. “Being born with the name Eva Destruction, I was either going to be a supervillain’s girlfriend or a stripper.” She had his attention. “Lucky for me, I’ve been both.”

  He stared blankly as if unsure how to reply, no words formed. She continued before he could regroup. “Neither would have made my staunch feminist of a mother particularly happy. The latter came about due to a chronic shortage of cash, an overbearing landlord and more bills than a duck convention. The former, well, that’s a whole other story. If she were still alive my mother would have berated me about my poor choices, particularly in men. I should have made my own mark, become the change the world needed, you know? To never be reliant on a man and forge my own destiny in the name of womankind, all that crap.”

  “Ah, right…but what about the explosions, and er…?”

  Eva wasn’t going to be distracted now. But it was interesting that he’d mentioned those. They hadn’t been in his two-step summary earlier.

  “Which is all fine and good, and sentiments I wholeheartedly endorse, but when a man buys you a castle, you end up forgetting all about the sisterhood. Wait, that didn’t quite have the right emphasis.”

  She leaned forward. The uniformed man across the table fought valiantly to keep his eyes above her shoulders.

  “He. Bought. Me. A. Fucking. Castle. I don’t care what moral fortitude you have or suffragette principles you lean towards, when a man buys you a fully decked out French castle smack in the middle of the Rhone Valley, you sit up and take notice.”

  “I see, yes, but…”

  “It has a moat and everything.”

  “Sure, but, ah, there’s the small matter of how you came to be on the island and ah…”

  “How did a former stripper and the daughter of a vegan feminist hold the fate of the free world, literally, in her hands?”

  He nodded.

  Keep him occupied. She’d started picking one of the handcuffs with the bobby pin she’d had pinned to her bikini bottoms. She’d learned long ago to have one on her person at all times. She reassessed her surroundings. No windows. Bulkhead door, locked. She assumed armed guards on the other side. The room was bare, except for the metal table and chairs, a sweaty portly man, his folder and a pen.

  The pen.

  The pen was sharp enough to pierce his aorta. He wouldn’t be expecting her to escape the handcuffs. She’d be too fast for him to stop, even in her weakened condition. His pain would be absolute, blood everywhere. Then the door. There would be at least two burly Marines stationed outside. Problematic, but not out of the question. They’d hear the screams and come running in. She’d have to overpower them without raising the alarm. Quick. Silent. Lethal. Then all she had to do was fight her way through a shipload of US Navy personnel using any and all weapons at her disposal, find her way out of an unfamiliar vessel. She’d have to commandeer a boat, navigate her way back to the island, which had been racked by explosions and much of it under water.

  She’d faced worse odds before.

  There was only one problem with her elaborate plan. A minor one, sure. She didn’t have a clue how to do any of those things. Not a one.

  She thought it best to keep her interviewer distracted while she came up with a more practical plan.

  “How did I come to be here?” Eva asked. “It’s a long story.”

  Chapter Two

  ONE MONTH BEFORE THE ISLAND

  Two Jets screamed fast and low over East London. The flyovers, male posturing bullshit at its finest, seemed to be more common since the heightened terror threats. Eva didn’t know where they were headed in such a hurry. The English government wasn’t facing the mutinous cries like the rest of Europe.

  Not that anyone seemed to care. Not a single head rose to watch them careen overhead. Why would they? Folks had other things on their minds on a Saturday night. So did Eva. She was on her way to be set up by her mates, again. Despite the battlefield of dating casualties that made the current Russian civil war look like a garden party, they held out hope for her. Even if she didn’t.

  This guy was apparently ‘nice’. An adjective that generally struck fear into the hearts of single woman everywhere but, as far as Eva was concerned, nice would be a pleasant change. Long overdue, in fact. She absentmindedly tugged at her sleeve as if to hide her tattoos and wondered why she’d felt the need to conceal them. If she hit it off with this guy, he’d see her intricate rose-themed sleeve tats decorating her body in all kinds of strategic places. They were a part of her, a manifestation of her treasured rebellious spirit, so why would she feel the need to hide them?

  Because you’re not attracting the bad boys any more. You’re done with that now.

  Approaching the neon-lit corner bar, she exhaled the last of the cold night air and pulled the heavy wooden door open. She was hit by multiple sensations at once, but the warmth was the most shocking, given the chilly December night. The noise of laughter, mixed with the sound syst
em pumping out some new band she probably should know, but didn’t, assaulted her ears.

  The TV in the corner blared the news headlines, which basically entailed the football results. In the corner, Nancy stood and held her hand high in the air. It barely came above most folk’s heads. Eva waved back and removed her heavy black coat.

  All day, she’d continually told herself it wasn’t too late to pull out. Suddenly it was. Perhaps reading her mind, Nancy had weaved through the punters and stood between her and the door. Sneaky bitch. Another reason she loved her. They hugged and Nancy took in her outfit and gave an appreciative nod. It turned into a scowl when she saw the item under Eva’s arm.

  “Uh, my love, what’s that?” she asked with her faint Irish lilt. The full Irish lilt tended to only come out when she was drunk or yelling at her husband.

  “It’s a book, they still have them you know.”

  “You brought a book to a blind date?”

  Eva tucked a strand of raven hair behind her ear and shrugged.

  “No books tonight, sweetie, you have a man to meet.” Nancy took the heavy tome and slipped it in the pocket of her hanging coat.

  Eva screwed her lips into a semi-snarl. “Is this one potentially Geronimo-worthy or am I just wasting my time?”

  Nancy and Eva had many discussions, usually at ill-advised hours of the morning after too many drinks, about Eva’s Geronimo theory. Not one to believe in predetermination or a god, she still clung to the hope that when she found ‘the one’, it would be a boots and all, blindly jump out of a plane without a parachute kind of deal. So far life had not been kind to her Geronimo theory.

  “How the hell would I know? I just put ‘em up for you to knock down.”

  “What do I pay you for then?”

  “You don’t pay me anything. My reward is to live vicariously through your sexploits and tell derogatory stories about you when you’re out of earshot.”

  Eva fought the grin creeping into the corner of her mouth. “Can this one at least be a good kisser? It’s a seriously underrated skill.”

  “I didn’t pre-kiss him to find out, sorry. I’ll do better next time.”

  “Next time? Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I have met you.”

  Eva tilted her head, regal. “Touché.”

  Nancy grasped her arm and half guided, half dragged her to their table.

  Paul, Nancy’s loyal bloodhound of a husband, greeted her with the requisite bear hug that lifted her feet off the ground. Eva was introduced to Stephen, ‘with a ph, not a v’.

  Eva offered a feeble, “Hi,” sat and unzipped her leather jacket.

  At least he was reasonably good-looking this time. Conventional straight back and sides haircut, a soft face and an affable demeanour. Brown hair, green eyes, nothing offensive, nothing jaw-dropping. He seemed designed by a committee to represent average. Nice and average.

  The last one Nancy tried to set her up with had only left his mum’s basement to pick up the latest video game, or an industrial-sized bucket of cold sore cream. Eva had had to fake period cramps to get out of a second drink. Stephen with a ph looked positively normal by comparison. Sensible trousers, a shirt and jumper. Not exactly neo-punk, but he had his own hair and a nice face. There was that word again.

  A loud collective ‘whoo!’ filled the room, causing Eva to look around the bar. It was followed by a round of enthusiastic applause and cheering. Paul tugged one of the celebrators hollering at the TV and asked what was going on.

  “Liverpool won. Holy crap!” Paul said. English and their football.

  It was nice to see Paul out. He usually spent long hours at the Treasury. When she asked exactly what he did the answers were long and tedious with no actual substance. Nancy was an administrator at HSBC. Her two best friend’s vocations certainly didn’t match their personalities. Paul rarely spoke of his job, in fact he was downright elusive about it. She sometimes wondered if it was because it was so boring it would make mere mortals slip into a coma if he were to explain.

  “I guess a win is a good enough reason as any to have some booze.” Nancy slapped her hands together. “Paul, can you help me with the drinks, love?”

  Paul sighed, then muttered, “Since when did you have issues carrying four pints?”

  Nancy pulled her lovably oblivious husband to his feet and shoved him towards the bar.

  “Way to be fucking obvious, Nance.” Eva mentally slapped herself. She had to watch her mouth around new fuckers. Nancy gave her a scowl and followed her husband towards the bar.

  “So,” Eva said sitting opposite Stephen with what she hoped wasn’t a manic grin.

  “So.” He smiled a pleasant smile. “What do you do, Eva?”

  That was his first question? Out of all the myriad of possibilities the English language offered, three thousand years of Western civilisation and four hundred years of freely available literature, and that’s the best he could come up with?

  One pint and she was out of there.

  Eva forced a pleasant tone. May as well play along. “I’m a barista.”

  “Oh, fascinating, I’ve always been intrigued by the law. I thought about it in college, but I was put off by all that reading. I wouldn’t have picked you for a lawyer, but I guess they aren’t all the button-down type.” He gave an odd half-shrug.

  “No, I think you misheard me. I’m a barista, not a barrister. You know, coffee.”

  Half a pint. Tops.

  “Oh right, must have been the accent. You’re Australian?” He nodded in her direction, like her accent was a physical thing to be gestured at.

  “Ah-huh. And you’re from Yorkshire, a few years gone I’m guessing.”

  His dark eyebrows shot up. “How the did you know that? I haven’t been there since I was five.”

  “The consonants. You hide it well by rounding them out, but they’re still there just under the surface.” Eva’s fingers danced against the tabletop, but on the inside, she cringed and told herself to shut up. Why had she decided to pull out her party trick for accents? She was meant to be getting to know the guy, not showing off.

  Stephen seemed to not mind. “Nancy didn’t mention the Australian thing.”

  Eva forced herself to not roll her eyes. “Is that a problem?”

  If he does a kangaroo impression I’m out of here.

  “Not at all. Given the state of the world, Australians are getting to be the new ruling class, I guess, given recent events, I mean.” He leaned forward then, giving her a megawatt smile. “Plus, I’ve always loved the accent.”

  Alright, a pint.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Eva couldn’t stop the teasing note entering her voice. “No one loves the Aussie accent. We barely tolerate it. All those flat vowels. It makes the South African accent sound positively French by comparison.”

  Nancy strode over and placed two pints before them. “They’re just pouring ours, could be a bit.” Saved by the beer, Eva thought.

  Nancy nodded at Eva. “I like your scarf.” She winked and returned to the bar where she put her arm around her lug of a husband.

  “She’s right you know.”

  Blinking, Eva asked, “I’m sorry?”

  “Your scarf,” Stephen said. “It really suits you, brings out the green in your eyes. I think you look fantastic.”

  “I was unaware there was a new definition of fantastic that means one’s been pulled through a hedge backwards.”

  Before he could issue an answer, the TV blaring in the background became more obvious. Eva heard the news anchor state there was an escalation in the Horatio Lancing crisis. The crowd lowered its volume to a dull murmur.

  Eva’s jaw clenched and her eyes went wide. She broke into a sweat. Stephen with a ph probably thought she was having some kind of fit.

  From the end of the bar, Nancy’s head whipped around. Standing as high as a five foot four woman could, she squinted at the end of the bar and yelled, “Neville!” motioning to the TV.
>
  The barman, who was busy giving change to a customer, gazed at Nancy, then the screen. “Shit, sorry Nance! Right.” He reached for the rear of the bar and fumbled with the remote. The TV screen blipped off.

  Heads turned in his direction, unimpressed. “What the hell, man?”

  “Standing bar rule fifty-seven, no Lancing after nine on a Saturday night, mate.”

  “It’s eight forty-five.”

  “My bar. My rules.” Neville shrugged. He placed the remote behind dusty bottles of vodka. “It’s not like it won’t be repeated ad nauseam tomorrow. We could all use a break from that guy.”

  The crowd slowly turned away from the screen and the bar took on the familiar ambiance of a Saturday night pub.

  Nancy and Paul returned to the table, concern in their eyes. “You all right, love?” Nancy asked stroking Eva’s hand.

  Eva nodded, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, fine. It’s just, you know–”

  “I know.”

  “Am I missing something?” Stephen asked, frowning.

  “Got you a Newcastle Brown,” Paul said, pointing at the beer on the table. “Hope that’s alright. Kilkenny always gives me gas.”

  “Uh, yeah. Fine, thanks.”

  Nancy put on her best congenial façade. “Did Eva tell you about her Masters Degree?”

  Stephen’s frown didn’t ease up. “No, she didn’t.”

  “You know that’s not quite true,” Paul interrupted. “Evie has two. Political Science, and–”

  Since the day Eva and Paul had met, Paul had called her Evie. He’d initially misremembered her name, and had since stuck with it. It was a quirk only long-time friends could understand. But it wasn’t a nickname she normally liked.

  Eva fought to dismiss the lingering malaise from seeing the news report. It was like her mind had temporarily seized and she had to fight to regain control. Finally she said, “History.”

  Stephen nodded his approval.

  “And she speaks three languages. Four if you count Australian.”

  Nancy was incorrigible. Why didn’t she put Eva in a pen and ask men to come up and inspect her teeth? Nancy failed to mention that she spoke as many languages as Eva. In fact, it was how they’d first met: Eva had been shopping in some snooty high-end store in Regent Street, when a shop assistant had started bitching about her under her breath in French. Eva had insulted her back with compound interest. In French. Nancy had been standing in line and laughed her arse off. They’d bonded and gone for coffee. They’d discussed how many languages they spoke and picked out all the best swear words. A lifelong friendship was born.