Monaco

“Remind me again why we’re here?” Raven sighed, exasperated.
“Because they offered you a job.” Jena chimed, the picture of a faithful, supportive best friend.
“Probably as a dancer in the casino.” Raven brooded at the lights and tourist traffic through the car window.
Jena grinned at Raven’s grumbling, the grin displaying a spark of humor, as though she was laughing at a private joke as well as her friend’s pessimism. “I doubt it.”
“What makes you so sure?” Raven demanded, giving her petite friend a dark look that clearly said she was to blame for the whole situation.
“Experience.” Jena answered evasively.
“You’ve never been to Monaco, either!” Raven exclaimed, outraged.
“Suffice to say that people such as yourself are never solicited as dancers.”
Raven didn’t answer. Jena had defeated her, as was one of the drawbacks of having a lawyer for a close friend. People with degrees from Oxford, already having completed a business internship, were rarely asked to give up success to be casino dancers. Even so, Raven thought this escapade was both foolish and unnecessary, and had scoffed the instant she received the letter asking her to attend a job interview for an unspecified job. The interview was set to take place at Monaco’s casino, which even now she was traveling to. It was ridiculous. Raven had not even applied for a job anywhere in this region! She would never have come if not for Jena.
Jena had been pressuring her since the moment the letter arrived, insisting that it could be the opportunity of a lifetime, and was not to be tossed away casually. She argued that they were already in nearby France, so why not go see what it was about? It was so unlike Jena that Raven had relented. Besides, she never won an argument with Jena.
So now she found herself in an odd situation, sitting in the back of a Monacan taxi on her way to an interview for an unknown job she hadn’t applied for. It was simply too odd to be comfortable. The cab pulled to a standstill in front of an imposing, castle-like building complete with towers. Raven stared at it, alarm bells going off in her head, triggered by the design of the large casino. For all its gaudy lights, the casino was a stronghold, built to withstand and defend. Raven’s engineering/architecture degree was screaming “fortress, fortress!”. She was transfixed.
Jena barely glanced up at the casino, blind to the nuances that irked her friend. “This is it.”
She chucked a few bills at the driver and jumped out of the cab, leaving the door ajar for Raven. It took Jena several moments to realize that Raven hadn’t gotten out.
“Come on!” Jena ordered impatiently.
“No way!” Raven’s answer was muffled.
“Why not?” Jena stooped down to peer through car’s door.
“That, my dear lawyer, is a fortress, and not a place I want a mystery job offer from.” Raven declared stubbornly.
“It’s a casino, and maybe the job interview is only being held here.” Jean retorted scornfully.Raven narrowed her eyes in suspicion before lunging to grab Jena’s shirt, dragging her back into the car. Jena stared in shock.
“You know something you’re not telling. You’d better let me in on it or I will not go to that interview.” Raven whispered fiercely, carefully keeping her voice too low for the mystified driver to hear.
Jena sighed, looking beaten for once. “Look, Raven, you’re right. I was informed that it would be good to encourage you to attend this interview. They seemed to think this would make you happy. I believe them, too. You should go.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Raven asked.
“Uh...that I can’t say.”
“But you know?” Raven pressed.
Jena nodded. “So will you go? It’s a good thing, I promise.”
Raven looked at the casino and the people swarming around it. Her friend would never intentionally involve her in a bad situation, but what if Jena had been duped? It was unlikely she had been; Jena was a lawyer with many connections. Maybe Raven was just overreacting, but Jena’s enigmatic information wasn’t helping her nerves at all.
By way of answering Jena’s question, Raven turned and opened her door. Jena hurried to scramble out on the other side. For the entirety of the short walk into the casino, Jena chattered as eagerly as if Raven had never confronted her in the car. Raven was too preoccupied with being wary to keep up her half of the conversation, but this posed no problem for Jena.
They arrived in a typical casino arranged with game tables, slot machines, and number wheels. It was stuffed with so many people the details were hard to absorb. The pair battled their way through the crowd to a set of elevators farther back and in a more subdued area. By this point, Raven was distracting herself trying to keep tabs on everything in the bustle, and was still too overwhelmed to call an elevator. Jena covered for her, the elevator arriving without Raven even noticing.
“I’m going to wait for you here. Good luck.”
Raven jumped out of her skin at Jena’s voice and near proximity. She had been so busy scanning the distant crowds she’d forgotten the immediate vicinity and Jena. Someone could easily have followed behind her and attacked.
Why would I even think that? Who would stalk and attack me in a casino?
Still, Raven was on edge. Perhaps it was the idea that these people had contacted and recruited her best friend to get her here, or maybe it was the atmosphere, which seemed entirely too aware for casino gambling. But whatever the reason, she was anxious.
“Thanks.” Raven mumbled, and stepped into the waiting elevator.
The doors pinged shut behind her, and chagrined, she found she had been holding her breath for this to trigger some disaster. She was alone in the elevator, and her demise would have been too easy. It was a relief when the elevator lurched to a stop a few floors later. Raven stepped out onto floor three, where she had specific instructions to go to room 3C. With a chill, she realized that she had never pressed the button for this floor. No one was standing before the elevators to have called one, either. Raven was now struggling to ignore her suspicions and write if off as coincidence.
Quickly, she strode off down the empty hall, before she could think about it more. This new hallway was bright and spacious; made for many people but completely devoid of them. Her high-heeled shoes clicked decisively on the tiles. Self-consciously, she smoothed the creases out of her pantsuit as she approached the double doors marked 3C with gold, embossed letters on the double doors of pine wood. This was a situation she was more accustomed to: an interview in a typical office setting, not an odd letter lacking even a company name. Soon she would find out what this was all about.
‹
“She’s here.” A voice announced clearly through the small radio.
The man receiving the message did not reply. He simply tucked the radio into his inside coat pocket, jerking his suit straight again afterward. The suited man surveyed the bland conference room, seeing all was in order. He sat at the end of the long conference table, his posture rigid. The steady tapping of heels filtered through the heavy pine doors at the other end of the elongated room.
Firm knocking followed the footsteps. The man was practiced enough at discerning character from body language that the manner of the knocking alone told him much of the person about to enter. The patient but forceful rapping was that of someone in control, or at the very least, confident. It fit the slender, dark-haired woman he had observed entering the casino. The man nodded his satisfaction.
‹
“Come in, Miss. Lert.”
Raven froze at the shiver the bodiless voice had induced. How had he known that she was the one here, and that she’d decided to accept this strange interview? The man’s voice itself was enough to have caused the shiver. He sounded emotionless but for a hint of amusement, as if he was laughing at her. His voice had also carried surprisingly well, as she could tell he had not risen his voice at all to invite her in. It was not a voice she’d heard before or would readily forget.
Trepidation growing, Raven blew into the room with all the confidence she didn’t have , determined not to let him see her unease. She had the feeling it would only make him laugh.
It took Raven several seconds to make out the figure seated at the other end of the long, stereotypical conference room she had just entered. The figure clarified into a broad-shouldered man in a black suit with a bush of thick, dark hair. By Raven’s estimate he was in his early thirties. He was the epitome of the corporate boss. He could be any level of manager from anywhere. Raven had hoped for someone a bit more distinctive.
She wondered too late if he had noticed her eyeing him. The man made no move of any sort, however, even to speak. Raven marched down the lengthy conference table, knowing no interview would be conducted from one end to the other. The man was waiting for her.
“Good afternoon, Miss. Raven Lert,” the man began before she reached the table’s head, “and thank you for attending on such short notice. Perhaps you would appreciate an explanation?”
“I would.” Raven was thrown off-balance by the way the ‘interview’ began. She could already tell this would be like nothing she’d ever experienced.
“Then sit; this will take a while.” The unknown man gestured at the chair on his right. Obligingly, Raven sat. The man launched into his explanation.
“I am Rafael Cabrera, and I am the director of a most important world organization.”
Raven pretended not to be surprised by the distant origin of his name, or his high office.
“I doubt, though, that you know the company, since few do. It is very secretive, and informally known as PUP, or formally as the Protectors of Universal Peace. As I believe you were about to guess, it is a spy network.”
Raven’s jaw unhinged and dropped to the floor. That certainly had not been her guess.
“The country of Monaco is our base, no more than a country of spies, retired or otherwise. That’s who created this casino and the famous race; it’s all spy games. It is unusual, no? We thought so, and that is why we chose to construct the base here. Who expects a small country on the Mediterranean coast of France, one swamped with tourists, to play host to the U.N.’s spy network? The operation is truly amazing; we even wrangled a seat on the U.N. with our pretense of being a country.” Cabrera chuckled, pleased with himself. “In multiple aspects, I run this country. You, Miss. Lert, have been offered citizenship.”
The shocking information he had just supplied still had Raven reeling. There were more than 30,000 people in Monaco, and all of them were spies! The tourism made their traveling inconspicuous. Monaco even had its own unique language, which was probably a code of some sort. The little country was also famous for its mix of cultures. All of the information and statistics she had ever heard describing Monaco fit Cabrera’s statement perfectly. Besides, there was no reason for him to make up something as elaborate as this. How had no one guessed the truth before?
But then again, who was looking? Not a single tourist was seeking the location of an international spy base. Very few people even knew the U.N. had its own espionage agency. At least Raven felt better about her earlier squeamishness; she had been reacting to the spies around her.
“I’m flattered, but frankly not very suited to the job.” Raven finally answered, still trying to grasp all of the connections.
“Ah, but you are. You have excelled in all athletic endeavors you bothered with, achieved the highest academic marks, and you reason exceptionally well. I could tell from the instant you crossed our border you knew something was amiss.”
Raven caught herself just in time to prevent herself from asking how he knew all of these things. After all, he had 30,000 spies! She silently waited, not needing to acknowledge his accuracy.
“Besides, you never wanted an office job. Why else would you have taken off to France immediately following a very successful internship, especially when it resulted in a job offer? It was a good job, but you didn’t want it.”
Raven was stunned. Not even Jena knew about her discontent and the job offer, so how could he? Her breath caught so she couldn’t reply. Cabrera seemed to have anticipated this. He smoothly placed a business card on the table in front of her.
“Call this number with your decision within the next ten days.” he instructed.
Cabrera stood and left by a door Raven hadn’t seen before, leaving her alone with his card. Her thoughts slowly calmed enough to be coherent. Cabrera’s obvious risk in exposing his whole operation was the first realization to surface. He was confident that she would accept his offer.
And she would. Raven surveyed the conference room in distaste, taking in the identical chairs, plain table, and barren walls. She had no intention of spending the prime of her life locked away in rooms like these. Cabrera knew that, too.
Then there was the excitement and joy of doing something that actually helped people, instead of just outfitting the highest bidder. Cabrera had guessed correctly about that, also.
The only thing Raven loathed more than the thought of the desk job she had almost accepted was the thought that she was predictable. It was as if Cabrera had seen right through her. She couldn’t possibly have been that transparent.
Just to vindicate herself, she would go out on a limb, and risk her security without any further consideration. They thought it would take her ten days to decide, but she was going to answer now. She doubted they would find her predictable then! Raven snatched up the card and her cell phone, dialing furiously. She was still grinning smugly when Cabrera’s secretary answered.
“Hello, Miss. Lert. Mr. Cabrera said you would be calling. I would like to be the first to welcome you to PUP. Your training schedule has been emailed to you, and there are also instructions regarding your housing. Just call back if you have any questions!”
The phone slipped from her fingers as the secretary hung up cheerily. Raven had never even spoken before being identified and second-guessed. To add insult to injury, they had her email address, too! Raven glared at the phone as though it had betrayed her, her triumph ruined. She’d been preempted again!
Bitterly, she resigned herself to this becoming a common occurrence. She had just agreed to work for Cabrera, and he could read into her mind better than she could. This entire setup had been for her benefit, with him one step ahead the entire time. Raven snorted in dissatisfaction, making a silent vow to one day be better at this than he was.