The Price of a Kiss
By Misty Evans

That summer was hot; the woman I was torturing, hotter.
The CIA had rotated me out of the field to run new recruits through The Farm, a training camp located in the Virginia woods where spies learn paramilitary and tradecraft skills. Because of my background, I was in charge of Isolation and Interrogation in the mock prison camp set up as alternate reality where recruits were subjected to torture much like fraternity hazing. My kill rate—getting students to break under extreme stress—was a hundred percent. Until that summer, until that woman.
To graduate The Farm, you must jump from a tower positioned at the exact height to break your neck if you land wrong or the rope harness snaps. You must fling yourself from a helicopter with an M-16 machine gun ready to fire the moment the helo lands. You must survive being hunted through the Virginia woods without food, water or bug repellent by qualified military specialists. And you must fail Isolation and Interrogation.
Every person, even a trained operative, will break at some point. If you want accurate information, you must manipulate a person’s weaknesses; break their mind along with their body.
The woman in the three-by-three isolation chamber was like no other student I’d dealt with. She’d sat in the corner, knees bent, head bowed, not in frustration or worry, but calm rest for forty-eight hours. She’d shown no signs of separation anxiety, panic or agitation.
Digging for what made her tick, I scanned her classified file, reviewing her history, Myers-Briggs personality test results and psych eval. Julia Torrison was a high analytic who preferred working alone. She sought out peace and quiet and avoided socializing. She was a lone wolf that isolation alone would not break.
Changing tactics, I sent in other trainers to get in her face. They yelled at her like drill sergeants, told her raunchy jokes like drunken sea dogs, interrogated her about the delicate subject of the child abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather.
She gave up nothing.
More hours passed. She leaned against the cell wall, unmoving, her eyes hard as stones. What would it take to make this woman dissolve into tears? To make her beg me to let her go?
Entering her cubicle, I moved in close to her, pressing her body against the cold concrete wall with mine. Her eyes were a startling emerald green, but the fire I’d seen in them earlier was gone. Still she locked her gaze on me, a battle line being drawn, as I lowered my face so close to hers our noses almost touched.
“I’d love to kiss you,” I whispered. I wasn’t lying. Since the moment I’d spotted her in the new recruits, she’d become a wicked form of Venus taunting me day and night. Her flirty lips teasing me, her gutsy bravado challenging me, her carefree attitude pissing me off.
She hadn’t slept more than an hour in four days. She’d eaten only bread and water. Her long hair was a wild tangle around her pale face and there was dirt smudged on her jaw line. In the two months of watching her excel at everything from hand-to-hand combat to passing a lie detector test, I wanted her just as badly as ever.
Waves of heat rolled off her body onto mine. Something sparked in her eyes, the fire in her gut still not dead after all. In one swift movement, her knee connected with my balls.
I buckled, white hot pain searing my groin. As I fell, she snatched the gun from my waistband and pointed it at my head. “The price of a kiss is your life, Conrad Flynn.”
My perfect record took a hit that summer, but I got what I wanted.
The kiss was just the beginning...

Misty Evans believes a natural born adventurer lies in the heart of every woman and writes her super agent suspense series in order to let hers out to play. Her first CIA suspense, OPERATION SHEBA, is available from Samhain Publishing. To find out more about Misty and her super agents, visit www.readmistyevans.com