by Tina Folsom
Focusing on the task ahead, Nick let his gaze roam. He still knew his way around, though it had been over three years since he’d last been at Langley. The maze of corridors had never seemed daunting to him before. He’d loved the challenge, loved to figure out the fastest way from point A to point B.
Acting as if he belonged there, Nick walked confidently. He never hesitated, always planned ahead, his mind constantly mapping out the path in front of him, so he would never have to stop to orient himself. He wouldn’t give anybody a reason to look at him with suspicion.
He didn’t take the elevator, but used the stairs instead, not wanting to be in a confined space from which it would be difficult to escape should anybody recognize him. Though it was unlikely, there was always a chance of running into somebody who knew Sheppard and therefore knew the badge that hung on Nick’s pocket wasn’t his, even though the picture was of his face.
It felt like an eternity until he reached the right corridor. He approached the door that said Restricted Area and stopped. Outside of it were a card reader and a camera.
Nick swiped his card, then lifted his face toward the camera, knowing that a facial recognition software was about to scan his face and compare it to the picture on file—the picture he’d uploaded to the CIA’s systems himself.
Several seconds passed, then he heard a click. Nick pushed against the door. It opened inward. He stepped through it and let the door close behind him. It was quieter here, though he knew he wasn’t alone. Along the corridor were several rooms with their doors closed.
“I’m in,” he whispered into the tiny mic hidden beneath the lapel of his jacket.
“Good, I’ve got you.”
He heard Yankee’s reply in his ear and sighed with relief. The GPS in the heel of Nick’s shoe was sending back a signal to his fellow Stargate agent. The infrared system Michelle had tapped into and showed Yankee how to use, was doing the rest.
“Walk straight ahead,” came the first instruction through his earpiece.
With an outward calmness, Nick passed the closed doors until he reached a bend in the corridor.
“Now left.”
He turned left.
“Third door.”
Nick counted. At the third door, he stopped. There was only a number on it, no other indication of what lay behind it.
“Is it empty?” Nick asked, keeping his voice low.
“Yes. Infrared indicates no human inside. It’s a go.”
Nick pushed the door open and slipped in, easing it shut behind him. The humming noise in the room was created by the many computers lining one wall.
“I’m going silent,” he advised Yankee.
“Understood.”
Nick walked up to the first computer and touched the mouse. The login screen came on as expected. He pulled the paper Yankee had given him from his pocket and placed it next to the keyboard, then typed in the string of numbers and letters into the login and password area on the screen. Praying he was correct that this was Sheppard’s ghost login, he pressed the Enter key.
It only took a second for a blue desktop to appear. Welcome, Henry, it said in large letters before the writing faded into the background, and made way for several icons.
It wasn’t hard to navigate the area. Sheppard had been an organized man, keeping everything in its proper place.
Under a folder named Family, Nick found a folder simply named My Boys. For Sheppard, his Stargate agents had been his family.
For a brief instant, Nick’s heart clenched. Sheppard had truly been a father to him, and most likely to the other Stargate agents, too. To know that he had seen them as his sons, brought back the pain of losing him. But he had no time to wallow in that pain now.
Nick clicked on the folder.
Shock made him jerk back. The folder was empty.
“Shit!” he cursed.
“What’s wrong?” Yankee asked.
“Not now!”
Frantically, Nick searched the remainder of the folders. Empty, all of them!
“Fuck!” he cursed. “Somebody got here ahead of us! The files are all gone!”
“Shit!” Yankee ground out.
“Wait!” He’d just had an idea. “The recycle bin.” Maybe it hadn’t been emptied and the deleted files were still sitting in there.
Nick clicked on the icon. Empty, too.
“Fuck!” All this for nothing. He kicked against the desk, frustrated. “Somebody knew we’d be coming.”
“Get out of there!” Yankee ordered. “Now!”
“There must be another way,” Nick mumbled to himself. There had to be. He scanned all icons on the desktop once more.
“Damn it, Fox, you’ve gotta leave!”
Nick shook his head, when his eyes suddenly fell on an icon he’d ignored. “The backup system.”
“What?”
“All computers are backed up regularly. The backup files are kept for quite some time.” He only had to figure out where the backup files were kept.
Quickly, Nick opened the control panel and searched for the right area then scanned the information and found the file path he was looking for.
Moments later, he’d navigated to it. There were hundreds of backup files pertaining to Sheppard’s files. They were listed chronologically. The last one had been made about a month after Sheppard’s death. Since then, the files in his cloud hadn’t been backed up, most likely because the system hadn’t detected any activity.
Nick opened the last backup file, the one made after Sheppard’s death, but no folder with the name My Boys was among it. This meant that somebody had erased it within a month after the Stargate program’s leader had been murdered.
Remembering Sheppard’s date of death all too well, Nick clicked on the file with a date only two days prior.
“Shit, Fox!” Yankee’s voice came through his earpiece. “Somebody’s coming. You’ve gotta hightail it outta there.”
“I only need a minute,” he said, already perusing the contents of the backup file. “There! Got it!” The folder named My Boys was right there. Nick clicked on it, and a long list of individual files appeared, all carrying only initials.
Nick pulled a flash drive from his pocket, jammed it in the computer’s USB port. Immediately, an alert flashed on the screen: Copying disabled. He’d expected this, but thanks to his years in the CIA’s Data Security department, he knew a way around it. He typed in the appropriate command and seconds later, copied the entire folder. A window popped up, indicating the number of megabytes it was copying and the time left.
“Damn it, Fox! Get your ass out of there now!”
“Almost there, just twenty more seconds!”
Drumming his fingers on the desk, he watched the time on the window decrease. “Ten seconds.”
“Now, Fox, now!”
The window closed, indicating that the copying process was complete. Nick pulled the flash drive from the USB port and shut the computer down.
He headed for the door.
“Fuck!” he cursed and whirled back around. “The login credentials.”
“Leave ’em!” Yankee ordered.
“Can’t!” He rushed back to the computer, snatched the piece of paper from the desk and ran back to the door. He eased it open.
“Turn right! Into the office next to you.”
Nick followed Yankee’s command without hesitation and dove into the room next to the one he’d just exited. Just in time, as it turned out. Footsteps passed by his door. Then the door to the other room was opened and closed.
“Now, out!” Yankee ordered.
Breathing heavily, Nick exited the room and walked back the same way he’d come. At the door, he stopped for a brief moment, then he pushed it open and left the restricted area.
As he walked through the maze of corridors, back toward the main entrance, he glanced at one of the clocks on the wall. It was high time that he left. His hour was almost up. Shortly, a vigilant system administrator would realize that the I
D Nick was using belonged to a dead man. But before that happened, Nick had to get back to the computer Yankee was using to keep tabs on him, and replace his photo on Sheppard’s ID with Sheppard’s original one.
He increased his speed, but didn’t run. It would only draw suspicion onto him. At the next turn, he reached the entrance hall. Ahead of him was the oversized seal of the CIA, and beyond it were the turnstiles. Nick let his eyes roam. The security guard who’d assisted him earlier was gone, probably on a break. Somebody else had taken his place. Good. It meant the guy wouldn’t get suspicious seeing him leave again so quickly.
Trying to appear as relaxed and calm as he could under the circumstances, Nick walked past the turnstiles and through the glass doors into the open air. He didn’t look back, and continued in the same tempo until he reached the Toyota.
“I’m outside.”
“Good. I’ll be right there.”
Nick unlocked the car and got inside. When the engine started, he felt a little better already, but only once he’d passed through the gate, leaving the CIA campus, did his heart beat normally again.
The Buick with Yankee was waiting for him in a side street about two miles from the CIA’s security gate.
Nick pulled over, killed the engine, and took out a special antiseptic wipe, ripped open the package and proceeded to wipe down the steering wheel, gear stick, and anything else he’d touched. Not only would it make sure he didn’t leave any fingerprints behind, it would also get rid of any DNA. He finished by wiping the outside door handle, before he stuffed the used wipe and packaging into his pocket then got into the waiting Buick.
Yankee pulled into the street the moment Nick was inside the car. “You got it?”
Nick patted his jacket pocket. “I’ve got it.” Then he looked at his watch. “Step on the gas, Yankee. Michelle is waiting for us.”
Nick reached for his computer on the back seat, jetpack already attached, and didn’t lose any time wiping out any trace of his picture on Sheppard’s old CIA access card.
It took them less than ten minutes on the George Washington Memorial Parkway to reach the Arlington Metro station.
Nick searched for the van. “Do you see her?”
“Nothing,” Yankee said.
“Shit!” Nick cursed and looked at his watch again. Then his nape began to prickle uncomfortably. “Something isn’t right. Shit, something happened to Michelle.”
23
Michelle cursed. She’d wanted to place only one more camera, but had remembered too late that the northbound lane on George Washington Memorial Parkway didn’t have an exit on Columbia Island. So she’d had to double-back after installing a camera right off the highway where the Pentagon Lagoon Yacht Basin was flowing back into the Potomac River. The bridge was a strategic point from which any boat leaving the lagoon could be watched.
Unfortunately the detour had cost her precious minutes. Minutes, it now turned out, she didn’t have. Because she wasn’t the only early bird.
“Well, look who couldn’t wait to meet,” the stranger said in a menacing voice, as he gripped her elbow.
She knew immediately that this wasn’t Smith. His voice sounded different, and he let her see his face. Smith had always made sure she never got a glimpse of him so she couldn’t identify him.
One thing was immediately crystal clear: this man had been sent by Smith to get rid of her.
“Let’s go somewhere more private,” he suggested, jamming something hard—and concealed beneath the jacket that he’d slung over his forearm—into her side.
She didn’t need to see the item to know it was a gun. She also knew immediately why he wanted to head away from the path that led back to where she’d parked the van. A group of three-to-five year olds was playing in the open meadow only a few yards away, supervised by three young kindergarten teachers. He couldn’t kill her here, or he would have several witnesses and a panicked group of kids on his hands.
Just as Michelle knew she couldn’t call out to the three teachers for help either. It would only endanger the children. For all she knew, the man currently holding a gun to her ribs had no scruples killing innocent children in order to save his own ass.
She was on her own.
“Move!” he ordered between clenched teeth.
She cast him a sideways glance. He looked so normal. Not like a villain, but more like a boring accountant on his way to work. That’s why she hadn’t even noticed him, though clearly he’d noticed her.
Michelle had no choice but to put one foot in front of the other. But she had to somehow buy herself time. “Smith sent you? What does he want?”
A little chuckle came from the man. “What do you think?” He pressed the barrel of the gun harder into her side to make his point.
“Why? I’ve done everything he wanted.”
The assassin nudged her in the direction of a public restroom, which was partially surrounded by bushes and trees.
“Apparently your employer wasn’t quite satisfied with your job performance.”
“I can improve,” she hastened to say, realizing that once they reached the restrooms there was nothing to prevent him from killing her out of sight of any witnesses.
“I believe your probationary period is over. And guess what?” He leaned in. “You didn’t make the cut.”
Her heart beat frantically, and her palms were sweaty. “Whatever he’s paying you, I can pay you more.”
A snort was his answer. He didn’t believe her. Well, she wouldn’t believe herself either.
Michelle eyed the one-story brick building that housed the restrooms and saw a man exit from one side. He walked toward them.
The assassin pasted a smile on his face and said for the benefit of the man passing them, “Honey, your stomach will feel better in a second, I promise you.”
The fake sweet tone of his voice made her want to puke and make his lie about her stomach trouble true.
The moment the other man was out of earshot, her assailant hurried her along. “Let’s move.”
She pretended to stumble over her own feet, letting out a gasp. He gripped her elbow even harder, his gun slipping for a moment, but then he pulled her along again. The distraction had worked, however: she’d managed to pull the cell phone Yankee had given her from her pocket, press what she hoped was the redial button, and drop it into the grass. Yankee had programmed in his number, and they’d tested it before she’d left with the van. She could only hope now that he would get the message that she was in trouble. It was a long shot, but what else could she do?
“Stop, please,” she begged loudly, praying that the call had already connected and would pick up her voice from this distance. “My ankle. I think I sprained it. Please don’t take me into those public restrooms. Please don’t kill me.”
“Shut up, you bitch!” he growled, looking around. He seemed satisfied that nobody was close enough to have heard her or seen her struggle.
Her gaze darted past the structure ahead of them, where sailboats and motorboats were docked at the small marina. But it was quiet there, too.
With every step they got closer to the public restrooms, hope that the cavalry would arrive in time faded a little bit more. A hand clamped around her heart and squeezed it tighter with every second. Soon, it would all be over. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her end: shot in a public restroom, her body lying on the urine-stained concrete floor. A cold shiver raced down her back, and her hands trembled.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she didn’t even try to blink them back. Nobody would see them, nobody but her killer.
“Please,” she murmured, but he’d already opened the door to the women’s restroom and shoved her inside.
A single neon light flickered on the ceiling. Except for the dripping faucet it was quiet. There were three stalls, their doors open. The smell of human waste hit her immediately, making her nose twitch uncomfortably. A morbid thought came: at least she wouldn’t have to bear the stench for long.
&nbs
p; For the first time since the assassin had caught her, he released her elbow and pushed her from him, toward one of the stalls. She whirled around, needing to watch him. As if seeing the gun would somehow help her stop him.
With a serenity only a professional killer could exhibit, he pulled a silencer from his jacket pocket. He placed the jacket over the waste bin, then slowly screwed the silencer onto the barrel of his pistol.
“It won’t hurt,” he promised.
“Please, just let me go. I promise I’ll disappear today. Nobody has to find out that you didn’t kill me. I’ll leave the country.”
The assassin shook his head. “Sorry, lady, but I always fulfill my duty.”
Instinctively, she shrank back, stepping deeper into the stall until her legs backed up against the toilet bowl.
The cocking of the gun echoed off the walls. The sound thundered in her ears and made her heart stop. This was it then. The end.
Another sound, that of creaking door hinges, reached her ears a split second later.
Her head veered in the direction of the door as it opened. Oh, no, another innocent woman would have to die because she was about to witness a murder.
“No! Run!” Michelle screamed at the person she couldn’t even see, because the assassin was blocking her view of the door.
He spun around, his back to her now, his gun hand outstretched.
The shot echoed louder than she would have expected. She’d always thought a silencer would dampen the sound of the gunshot to a dull rumble. But this was different, louder, deafening.
Paralyzed, she stared at the assassin’s back, expecting him to turn around to her now and finish her. But instead, his knees buckled and he collapsed onto the dirty floor. Her gaze flew to the door. Nick stood there, a gun in his hand.
“Are you all right?” he asked, rushing toward her.
She nodded, but couldn’t get a single word over her lips.
Nick sidestepped the dead body and reached for her, pulling her out of the stall. “We have to leave. Now. Before anybody sees us.”
She nodded numbly and clung to his hand as he dragged her out of the bathroom and around to the other side, away from the entrance.