6VERY RARELY DOESZeke grant an in-person audience, so the fact he accepted my request without question shows just how fucked up this whole Nick Jin situation is.Mary Sue and I return to headquarters and make our way through the underground labyrinth to an office all the way at the back of the building—Zeke’s office. I’ve barely raised my hand to knock on the door when I hear Zeke’s slithery voice call out, “Come in.” I don’t know how the hell he does that, since there aren’t any cameras in the hallway (at least none I’ve ever been able to pick out).Mary Sue and I enter the office and close the door behind us. You might think the office of the leader of a super secret organization of trained serial killers would look like your stereotypical Bond villain evil lair. Sinister gadgets ticking mechanically in the background. Vials of chemicals bubbling with nefarious purpose. Instruments of torture hanging from the walls like a high schooler’s swim meet trophies. A map of the wor
7NEEDLESS TO SAY, rest does not come easy to me. I spend most of the night fitfully tossing and turning. In the few moments I do manage to doze off, I’m woken by nightmares of a zombie Senator Keeley strangling me and moaning in a repeated chant, “Nick says hi ... Nick says hi ... ”So by the time Zeke calls me at 6:00 in the morning (the sadistic bastard loves calling me early, because he knows I’m not a morning person), I feel like I would have been better off not even trying to sleep.“Good morning star shine, the Earth says hello!” Zeke says. I’m so tired, it takes me a minute to figure out who he’s impersonating this time. Then it hits me, and I literally face-palm. Willy Wonka—and not the Gene Wilder Willy, but the Johnny Depp Willy. Technically not a serial killer, but definitely a sociopath, and I guess after thirty or forty years of doing this, Zeke’s probably running out of good characters to impersonate.“Cut the crap, Zeke, I’m in no mood today,
8AN HOUR LATER,Mary Sue and I are in a town car being escorted to headquarters. We are both so exhausted even Mary Sue takes the ride in silence—which is not a natural state of being for her.I get a strange sense of déjà vuas—for the second time in twenty-four hours—we make our way through the porn warehouse to the secret entrance to the subterranean corridors, and back to the domain of the F.U.C.K.’s.“See ya in a few, girlfriend!” Mary Sue chirps cheekily, the first words she’s uttered all morning, as we separate into our respective make-over rooms.I groan audibly when I see that, unlike yesterday, my team of F.U.C.K.’s are all men. I guess they decided to even it out and let Mary Sue have a turn with ... what was her name? Jenny? Gemma? Geranium? Meh, whatever. Not like it matters.“Please take it easy on the boobs this time, guys,” I sigh resignedly, and with little hope of being listened to.Sure enough, all I get in response is a smirk from the le
9WE TOUCHDOWN INNashville at about 9:30 p.m. The flight was relatively uneventful, except for Mary Sue’s incessant spew of verbal vomit. Being confined in a sardine can with this woman for four hours makes me want to suggest that Guantanamo Bay look into utilizing Mary Sue as a replacement method of torture as opposed to water boarding—half an hour into the flight and I was already at the point where I would tell anyone my deepest darkest secrets just for the sake of shutting her up.By the time we landed however, we were both so exhausted after the long two days we just went through that Mary Sue is back to her previous, albeit non-characteristic, complacent and silent state. It’s just as well that T.H.E.M. traditionally arranges transportation service for agents from the airport to their living arrangement, because I don’t think either of us are in a state where we can be trusted to operate a motor vehicle (anyone who points out that my radar intolerance makes me permanently
10I CROSS THEroom to my bed and kneel down by the safe under the bedside cabinet. I open the safe with a combination provided to me in my T.H.E.M. documentation and pull out a stack of manila envelopes—my case files. The safe, of course, had been sent by T.H.E.M. to the hotel to be placed in my room prior to arrival, and a duplicate safe is in Mary Sue’s room, as well.“You haven’t even looked at those yet, have you,” Mary Sue tisks with annoyance, indicating the envelopes in my hands.I roll my eyes, then retort, “For the love of Captain Hammer’s nipples, Lindsay, gimme a break already.” Even though we are now in the privacy of my suite, it’s probably best to stay in character, just in case a housekeeper walks in on us or something, and so I maintain my accent and use of Mary Sue’s dupe name.“Fine, whatever,” Mary Sue huffs in annoyance. “While you’re catching up, I’m gonna order room service. Do you want anything?”“No, I already ate,” I say as I plop myself onto my bed
11BEFORE LEAVING, we each lock our case files back up in our respective safes, to keep the housekeepers from randomly stumbling upon them.It is standard operating procedure for T.H.E.M. to have operatives use a company-issued vehicle while on assignment. As I’ve already explained, I’m something of an exception to that rule thanks to my radar sensitivity, which is one of the fewadvantages to being forced to have Mary Sue along with me on this assignment. I don’t particularly enjoy being escorted around, but it’s definitely preferable to having to take public transportation.However, something—a mischievous glint in her eye, a slight smirk, an almost too-eager spring in her step—about Mary Sue’s attitude as we make our way down to the hotel lobby makes me suspect she is hiding something, and I suspect that something has to do with our mode of transportation. By the time we get out of the hotel and into the parking lot, she is practically bursting at the seams with bubbly excit
12WE FOLLOW THE beat-up Grobes truck at a distance so as not to garner too much attention. Fortunately, it’s starting to get dark out, which will make it harder for them to distinguish us.After about a ten-minute drive, we find ourselves approaching the center of town and the truck turns right off of the main road into a parking lot, facilitating a large, white building. Mary Sue parks the car about a block away, and we watch as the two Clarks—easily distinguishable even in the fading twilight by the girth of one and lack of girth of the other—get out of the truck and disappear into the white building.We wait in the car for about fifteen minutes, to make sure no one else arrives, before getting out and making our way down the block to investigate closer. The parking lot looks to be about half full, so the two Clarks must have been the last of the group to arrive.As we draw closer to the white building, we begin to see a sign clearly marked at the front of the building: Bucksnor
13WHEN WE ARRIVEback at The Hotel Dickson, we are eagerly greeted in the lobby by our friend from the night before, Tim the Bellman.“Welcome back Ms. Buchanan, Ms. Dieterle, is there anything I can assist you with this evening?” Tim asks, reminding me of a love-sick puppy dog. I can’t help if he’s hoping to get another of Mary Sue’s ‘tips.’“Easy there, Tim,” says an older, balding man wearing the same monkey organ-grinder uniform as Tim, stepping between Tim and ourselves. I assume from his reprimand that he’s a supervisor or something. “I gather you are our new long-term residents?” The balding man inquires of Mary Sue and myself.“Yes,” Mary Sue says in her thick, fake, southern drawl. “I’m Lindsay Buchanan, and this is my associate Nanetta Dieterle.”“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man replies—as his eyes wander over us, I can feel him undressing us and I have to refrain from visibly shuddering with revulsion. “I am Howard, the head of Guest Services here at The Hot