Read Masquerade for Free Online

had down days, but I don’t sit around examining my navel. You can’t do that and survive in our business. Remember that.”
    Everywhere they went at the Ranch, she secretly scanned faces. What did the Carnivore look like? Where was he? What would she have to do to survive when she met him?
    To save her sanity, she focused on one single task—preparing for the operation, whatever her part in it would be. Gordon seemed equally obsessed. She excelled quickly, and she could see his pride. Despite her long, exhausting days, she became stronger and healthier. She had no sense of depression or inadequacy. As her confidence grew, she became increasingly irritated with her daily antidepressant.
    One morning at breakfast she asked, “Why do I have to keep taking this?” She looked at the pill he’d just handed her. “I feel terrific. Yesterday I did a ten-mile hike with full pack, for God’s sake.”
    â€œThat’s your body, not your brain,” he answered mildly.
    â€œBut it’s my brain
chemicals
Dr. Levine said were out of whack. Brain chemicals sound like ‘body’ to me. Certainly they’re physical.”
    He returned his spoon to his cereal bowl and his brown-eyed gaze locked onto her. “Dr. Levine is a brain specialist. Without him, you’d be dead. We don’t have time for you to get sick and crazy again. We have an assignment!”
    â€œI seriously doubt skipping one pill as an experiment—”
    Something snapped behind his eyes. A flash of fury, perhaps outrage, maybe fear. “Liz, you have your orders. We’re almost at the end. I won’t let you blow it! Take your pill!”
    She blinked. Slowly she put the pill into her mouth, drank her water, and swallowed. His reaction had been a revelation: He blindly revered authority. She recalled the only other time she’d seen him angry. That had been when she’d insisted he tell her the rest of her life story. He’d wanted to follow Dr. Levine’s directions then, too, to make certain she wasn’t overwhelmed by too much bad news too soon.
    He’d been wrong then, and he could be wrong now.
    During the rest of the day she considered the situation. The next morning she decided to experiment on her own. At breakfast she pretended to swallow the antidepressant. Instead she spit it into her paper napkin, sneaked it into a pocket, and an hour later flushed it down the toilet.
    She had no symptoms of depression all day, and the next morning she again secretly spit out her pill. By the end of the week she was sure her analysis was correct. For whatever reason, her brain chemicals had righted themselves. She took no more pills, and she saw no reason to tell Gordon about it.
    The next week she began cipher class. The instructor told them, “I’m going to show you how to use one of the oldest encryption methods—the Playfair cipher.”
    Liz spoke up, “But what I read about is electronic espionage. Why bother with something as old-fashioned and slow as a cipher?”
    The instructor, a balding man with wire-rimmed glasses, raised his eyebrows at her ignorance.
    â€œPhone and radio transmissions can be tapped,” he lectured. “Electronic signals can be tracked. The NSA spends billions a year doing just that. Those methods are sometimes good, but often they’re much too risky. Which brings us back to basics. You’ll want to avoid giving a message in person, because you might be overheard, or being seen with your contact might be dangerous. So what do you do? You leave a note at some neutral spot—a dead drop—to be picked up. And to make sure no one else can read it, you use a decipher.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œChoose a word, any word.”
    Without hesitation, she said, “Hamilton.” And immediately wondered where it had come from.
    The instructor had her print it on the blackboard. “Five letters across, then start