Hiding The Truth

Rising Star

Six years later, Lydia was a star pupil, the prodigy of the Organization. No student had ever risen to the top the way she had. She had graduated summa cum laude from the University, breezed through her Master's program, and taken on many challenging projects in the aerospace labs. If someone needed a problem solved, they requested Lydia Lafayette. If any documentation or lab data was out of order, she was the go-to woman to fix it. She was a highly desired attendee at social functions and she could always be counted on to know the best caterers, the right florists, and the correct way to format an invitation to any event. Her apartment was beautifully appointed and she was perpetually dressed to the nines. She believed firmly in such maxims as "it's not what you know, it's whom you know" and "the clothes make the (wo)man." When she was sent to a soirée, she gathered social and political information of note to the Organization like a squirrel gathered nuts and her reports were extremely thorough. Even the hardest, most dispassionate, most jaded Agents sung her praises up and down the halls of the imposing Organization office building.

Almost equally excitingly, Douglas Reever had been calling on her of an evening, escorting her to charity balls and business dinners, sending flowers to her office and apartment. They were becoming quite the item. She loved being seen as half of an Organization power couple. With his suit-and-tie good looks and her meticulous perfectionism, she knew they could take on anything, achieve any success, and rid the world of the blight of the evils every Agent strove to take down. She fantasized about being First Lady and Vice President to his President Reever.

"You should really run for Governor, Douglas. It would be a perfect start to a political career that could take you, us, all the way to the White House within a decade or so." She told him.

"I think we can do more good right here where we are, Lydia," he demurred. "The Organization is fighting a battle on two fronts in the Deep South. We not only have to fight Nazis and their offshoot groups, we also have to fight the Yankee disinformation campaign against our whole region. They talk about us like we're ignorant and inbred. Some of the greatest minds in our country come from towns great and small across Cotton, Limestone, Bayou, and so forth. Just look at yourself. Who would have ever suspected such a beautiful and brilliant woman could be found in little old Frog Level?"

"And as Governor of Cotton and later President of Columbia, you can have a far-reaching influence for good," she argued.

"I pledged a duty to the Organization I must fulfill." He stated firmly.

"And every Columbian has an inherent duty to our country," she insisted.

"We'll see, Lydia. Maybe when the time is right. All the circumstances would have to come together perfectly. Let's get through this tour of the Arsenal and the next mission and then we'll talk more about it." He put her off. Again. It made her feel like organizing a campaign herself, but she knew from experience the best way to manage men was to make them think anything a woman suggested was really their own idea. It wore her nerves out, but she was very good at it and because of that, she was confident she would prevail.