It was good work, but twenty-six years was enough. Now she was going to give back, to teach high school. Her friends with teenagers joked that she was leaving intelligence work to go into law enforcement.
Hendricks’s family was accustomed to service. Her husband taught history at Georgetown. Her eldest son was an officer in the Army, in his final year of residency to become a trauma surgeon at Fort Sam Houston. Her youngest was in his second year with the Secret Service, stationed in the Seattle Field Office.
She’d grown up in a middle-class home outside Dallas, where her father was an engineer designing integrated circuits for Texas Instruments. She’d been a child at the end of the Civil Rights movement. Her parents kept themselves to themselves for the most part and were not politically active. She graduated high school in the late eighties with a handful of token minorities in her senior class — the doctor from India’s kid, some Hispanic families. Monica had balked when her mother insisted she take a second language but found she had a knack for Spanish — the only language besides Latin offered by her high school. She took it all four years — and Latin, too, because the puzzles the languages provided seemed to fit well with the way her brain worked. She had plenty of kids to practice her Spanish with, but there were few kids like her. Reggie Good, the fastest wide receiver on the football team, was black, and in a Texas high school, football transcended color — up to a point. There were a few unwritten rules. She was a popular academic kid. Pretty, but not skinny enough to be a cheerleader. She could go out with virtually any boy in the school, no matter the color, so long as it was nothing serious. Reggie could date her, and possibly a couple of the Hispanic girls, but the line against him dating white girls was clearly drawn.
He wasn’t
There was never any violence as far as Monica knew, but there was an undercurrent, easy enough to feel when she was old enough to know what to look for. It bugged the hell out of her.
Monica left home at eighteen with a full-ride academic scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin and a righteous chip on her shoulder. She let her hair grow out into her natural Afro and became active in the Black Student Alliance as well as a Black Action Movement that modeled itself after the U of Michigan protests. But she was never so active as to fall behind on her studies. Her freshman Spanish professor bumped her to upper-level classes and hired her as his TA. She suspected he might have a thing for roundish black girls, but he turned out to be happily married, and was simply astounded at her ability with languages. One of her roommates was from Taiwan and spoke very little English. Monica made a deal that she’d help her with English if she’d teach her Mandarin. She majored in history but minored in languages and went on to pursue a master’s with an added teaching certificate in history and social studies. She wanted to do something worthwhile. Something that could make a difference. Teaching seemed to fit that bill.
Then, near the end of her first year of grad school, a smiling brunette with piercing amber eyes sat down with her in the J2 food court across from Jesta’ Pizza. She was a few years older, early thirties, maybe. At first Monica had thought she was a professor just looking for a place to sit. But there were plenty of empty tables.
“My name’s Faye,” she’d said.
Monica eyed her without looking up from her book. “Hey, Faye,” she’d said.
The woman wasn’t one to beat around the bush. “Maybe you’ve seen me around?”
“Nope.”
“Here’s the deal. I’m a recruiter for the CIA.”
“No shit?” Monica looked up and smirked. Who was this lady? “Are you even allowed to tell me that out loud? I thought you guys were all secret squirrel and stuff.”
Faye laughed and ate a french fry off Monica’s paper plate. “It’s cool. I’m wearing a disguise.” She obviously wasn’t. “Seriously, though, the Central Intelligence Agency is interested in people like you.”
“People
“Getting hired is a long way off,” the woman who called herself Faye had said. “The CIA wants you to
“Because I’m black?” Monica gave a smug nod, as sure of herself as any twenty-four-year-old empowered woman of color could be. “Got to raise those minority numbers and all, show your bosses you’re doing your part for affirmative action.”
Faye let her talk. Flashed those pretty amber eyes, then said, “You about done?”
Monica shrugged. “Sure.”
