Permission to relax

Miranda Newman

Damn Stan. Damn Brit. I can't believe I'm here at the Agency at five in the morning.

I yawn, tired from sleeping so little.

I enter the training center and find Mr. Super Agent Green lying down, peacefully reading a book. I let my training bag fall off my shoulder with a thud. He doesn't even flinch.

I approach him and lean towards him. He continues reading without paying attention to me.

"Hey partner, I'm ready for training," I say, looking into his eyes. He finally looks away from the book and stares at me.

"Good morning, Agent Newman," he says politely. He's really a serious guy.

"So, what are we going to do today?" I look around. Despite the early hour, I wasn't going to let my bad mood affect my training. I enjoyed training, expending all my energy by hitting something sounded good to me. I started trying to imagine what exercise he would ask for... Sit-ups? Boxing? Running? I was more than ready. I looked at my partner expectantly, waiting for his instruction. He stared at me for a moment before responding.

"Nothing."

Wait, did I hear correctly?

"What do you mean nothing?" I ask, confused, emphasizing the last word. He just gives a half-smile and points outside the training area. I go ahead, and he follows me. In the Agency's garden, I find two rectangular mats laid out on the ground in the open air. At first, I didn't understand until a look of complete disbelief crosses my face when I finally realize the situation.

"You've got to be kidding me," I declare, not believing it. "YOGA?"

***

Stan in a guillotine... Hmmm.

Stan with multiple stabbings... Good.

Stan pushed off a bridge... Wonderful!

I think of several possible deaths for Stan while I'm meditating. Don't blame me, I'm just following orders. Dominic told me to have happy thoughts.

I feel his eyes on me and try to appear as relaxed as possible instead of a crazy murderer.

"Happy thoughts don't include killing someone else..." I hear his calm voice next to me. Okay, I didn't do so well pretending to be calm.

I put on an innocent face.

"And torture... Can that be included?" I ask sweetly, blinking my eyes slowly.

Dominic sighs resignedly as he shakes his head in denial. Okay, I guess that was a no.

At the end of the training, if we can call this nonsense training, we head to Stan's office to learn more about the mission. Stan is once again rubbing his half-bald head while examining a stack of documents in front of him. Green knocks on the door all polite-like, and I just wait. Stan looks at us.

"Why did you take so long? Was Newman slacking off?" he accuses.

"Was the Yoga idea yours?" I accuse him. Stan laughs loudly, and I see a glint of mischief in his eyes. This short baldy definitely suggested Yoga.

"No, but what a brilliant idea!" he says cynically, absolving himself of responsibility. He signals for us to enter and sit in two armchairs in front of him.

"Very well, let me present the Pavlov case to you," he says, immediately adopting a serious posture as he hands us two folders. "Victor Pavlov is our main target. He is originally from Russia but has been in the country for two decades, and we suspect he is the mastermind behind the crimes in the city of Helena, Montana."

I read the file and see the photos. Victor appeared to be an elderly man with a frail appearance. One of those kind

old men who feed pigeons or something. The file didn't mention a wife or children, but I see a photo of him with a blonde girl who looks angelic.

"Who is she?" I voice my doubts. Stan immediately points to the next page of the file, where I find the profile of the girl. He quickly changes his tone of voice to a tired one, as if he has spent a long time analyzing this same page.

"Yekaterina Pavlov, Victor's niece and only remaining family. We don't know to what extent she is involved or if she is completely unaware of the situation."

"What approach will we use for the mission?" Dominic asks, very focused.

"Infiltration. You will disguise yourselves as newlyweds and become the new neighbors of Victor. I want you to gather evidence, find out how much Miss Pavlov knows, and how this bastard managed to go unnoticed for so long."

I nod automatically until his words sink deeper into my consciousness... Newly what?

***

The next day, as I walk down the corridor, I hear the whispers again. One of the most mediocre and idiotic agents whistles at my butt as I pass by.

I freeze in my tracks. I turn slowly and walk with my stiletto heels until I'm in front of the idiot who whistled.

He gives a big mocking smile.

I cross my arms and silently stare at him with the most bored expression I can muster.

"Did you come here to spend your day with me?" he asks.

I remain silent.

"If you want, we can leave here and find a mission for you to ruin," he taunts after not getting anything the first time.

The office is silent, waiting and holding their breath for our clash. A bunch of vultures. Adam is standing in a corner with his arms crossed and a playful expression on his face.

"Leon Morgan," I call out to the idiot with widened eyes. "I don't know what kind of trust issues your father instilled in you, or if it stems from a failed relationship with some woman, but let me tell you that I've had thirteen high-risk missions, and I've succeeded in all of them. You're stuck doing bureaucratic work because you failed in the eight attempts you made." At this point, I can see Leon in shock. He didn't expect me to know so much about him. Nobody ever expects anything from me, and that's always where they go wrong.

"No matter how much you try to belittle or objectify me, it won't change the fact that I'm a real agent while you're just doing assistant-level work. Go back to your mediocre job of writing about my missions because that's as close as you'll ever get to me."

His eyes widen in shock, and his face turns red with anger. Leon's face is frozen in a half-shocked, half-angry expression.

"You're a miserable bitch, Miranda," he spits out.

"You have no idea what this miserable bitch is capable of. Here, let me give you a little piece of advice, and enjoy it because it's free: get to know every person you have even the slightest contact with in your life, maybe that will help you with some mission, that is if you're given another chance..." I say as I walk away.

"And if I were you, I'd change my computer password. I don't know if it's appropriate for Stan to find out what you have in your search history," I conclude with a bluff, but like a little duckling, he falls for it, panicking and hastily opening his computer.

Maybe my reputation wasn't the same after the failure of the Monroe operation, but I would run over anyone who dared to diminish me because of it. Oh, I would do that with pleasure.

"Wasn't that a bit unnecessary?" Adam asks, entering my office.

"Of course, because the entire office was eager to defend me, right?" I ask sarcastically.

Adam lowers his head. Adam is my friend, so I try to say the following sentence as gently as I can.

"Wake up, Adam. A woman who doesn't assert herself has no place in this world. Those who say that we gain space are wrong, that's nonsense. We don't gain... We invade, take, and dominate. Because that's the only way it works, that's the only option," I speak the truth.

Adam gives me a penetrating look.

"And now what are you going to do?" he asks.

"I'm going to complete this mission with the utmost skill this agency has ever seen..." I speak confidently.

Adam raises an eyebrow.

"And?" he prompts.

I sigh in defeat.

"And stay away from trouble," I affirm softly.

"Correct, my little pretender," he says and leaves my office.

As I headed home, I thought about the mission I was about to face.

I wasn't a romantic girl, but I didn't expect my marriage to be like this, even if it was fake for the agency, it would be very real to the rest of the world... With signed papers, a ceremony, and everything. We couldn't risk being investigated and finding nothing.

I read Pavlov's file. The guy had to be very intelligent to have stayed off our radar all these years. And he would have stayed hidden even longer if we hadn't received an anonymous tip from a guy who wasn't too happy with how he was treated. But when we tried to find out more about that guy, he had disappeared off the face of the earth, as if he had never existed. He was probably caught and killed.

What intrigued me the most in all of this was the niece.

Yekaterina Pavlov, 25 years old, recently graduated from medical school, exemplary grades, and a model citizen. She was the typical good girl. Just got engaged to her boyfriend, Neal Anderson, a chef. She seemed to have a normal life, more than normal, a perfect life. But I couldn't forget that Victor seemed that way too.

I needed to find out what was happening in that family, and I would do whatever it took to succeed. My future depended on it.