by Sonja Stone
“Offense taken,” he mumbled.
“I’m not kidding. I won’t do it.”
Damon met her eyes. He stared at her in that way of his—scrutinizing, analyzing, unblinking. She didn’t flinch.
After a minute he said, “I won’t show you the whole file, not until we get back.” He crouched on the floor and reached under the table. Nadia stuck her head underneath as Damon opened the built-in cupboard tucked below his bench seat. After rifling through a black backpack, he tossed a photograph onto the table, then took the pack and disappeared into the bedroom. A second later he returned, empty-handed. “Go ahead.” He nodded at the table.
She glanced at the picture. Two high school boys standing on a bright green lawn in caps and gowns. Graduation day. She looked back at Damon.
“Closer,” he said.
As Nadia turned her eyes back to the photograph, a warm rush moved through her body. Her heart sank as she took in her father’s face. She started to say, “You could’ve gotten this anywhere,” until she recognized the other kid.
Her dad stood with his arm thrown over the shoulder of a tall, slender boy, impeccably groomed even then. Marcus Sloan, the recruiter who had invited her to Desert Mountain Academy. The man her father pretended never to have seen before.
It was true. Her father was CIA.
And he knew about the Academy.
Alan could not decide which was worse: his Mossad-agent grandfather lurking around campus jeopardizing Alan’s freedoms, or his charlatan roommate who, upon discovering the family secret, immediately blackmailed Alan into committing a series of horrific crimes.
Presently, Alan sat at his desk in his dorm room, fingers poised over Simon’s laptop, racking his brain for Saba’s password.
“Hack the back door,” Simon said nonchalantly, as though Alan’s relationship with his grandfather did not rest on this mission remaining undiscovered. “It’s no big deal.”
Simon, Alan decided. Simon is definitely worse.
Alan swiveled in his chair. His roommate lounged across his bed, bare feet propped up on a pillow, flipping through a men’s fashion magazine. “If it is such an easy task, why do you need my help?”
“Because I don’t speak Hebrew.” Simon dropped the magazine and rose from the bed. He pulled his desk chair next to Alan’s. “Look, I can probably get into Mossad’s mainframe, but we’ll need your grandfather’s credentials to hijack a drone. Can you translate once we’re in?”
“Of course I can, but I am still unclear as to why you need a military drone.”
“Hand me the laptop.”
Alan pushed the computer across the desk and waited while Simon tapped away at the keyboard. After a few minutes, Simon passed it back.
“There.” He returned to his bed. “Now hook me up. I want a flyover at noon. Just as Shepard leaves for lunch.”
Alan had learned Hebrew before English, so negotiating the menu to locate Saba’s nonlethal arsenal required little mental effort. “If you are so curious as to where she eats, why do you not just follow her?”
“I don’t care where she’s going. I want her to see the drone.”
Alan turned back around. “You know it flies several miles above the earth, right?”
Simon dropped his head back against the pile of pillows. “Oh, shite. I didn’t even think of that. Can you set it to fly lower?”
Alan sighed and glared at his roommate. “I will do my best.”
Simon smiled. “I really owe you one, mate.”
* * *
—
An hour after redirecting the Israeli drone, Alan received a coded message under the door instructing him to attend a clandestine meeting later that afternoon. Convinced that Saba had already discovered his transgressions, Alan nearly burst into his office to confess. But it was Sunday, and he did not believe that Saba kept office hours on Sunday. So when Alan arrived at the specified location—a small grove of olive trees behind the library—he was infinitely relieved to see Jack waiting for him, and not his grandfather.
“How’s it going?” Jack asked.
“What do you mean? Have you heard something?” Panic filled his chest. Maybe Simon had lied—maybe his laptop was not undetectable.
“What are you talking about?”
Alan swallowed hard. “Nothing, why? What are you talking about?”
Jack narrowed his eyes as he handed Alan an envelope. “Your op-specs are in here. Use the cipher computer in the library. Dr. Wilson is expecting you. Questions?”
“My mission is to crack a code using the cipher computer?”
“You’re using that computer because it’s not monitored. It’s barely used, so security doesn’t bother with it. That’s all I can tell you right now. Read your op-specs; following directions is part of the assignment. Understand?”
Alan nodded slightly, still woozy from the rush of stress-induced cortisol he’d experienced.
“Give me three minutes, then go to the library. Good luck.”
As Jack receded around the building, Alan leaned against the gnarled trunk of the closest tree. He checked his watch and took a few deep breaths. He could not do this—how did people live with the constant deceit? What was he doing here, at a black-ops training facility?
This was a horrible mistake. He closed his eyes and waited.
Two minutes later he pushed himself off the tree, rounded the building, and entered the library.
Dr. Wilson escorted him down the hall behind the language lab and unlocked the door to the cipher computer. “Lock up when you’re done,” she said, turning on the light.
“Yes ma’am.” Alan closed the door and sat at the tiny cubicle, which filled the windowless room. He pulled the trash can close to his chair—the jumping nerves in his stomach had left a lingering nausea, and he was afraid he might vomit—and then ripped open the envelope Jack had given him. His instructions were to open a private browser and follow an IP address to an encrypted portal, where he was then to upload a DNA sequence through a surreptitious backdoor entry point.
Alan carefully followed the directions, grateful that his mission did not require him to leave campus. He opened the portal, which led to an external drive that had been manually installed in the mainframe of a place called Gentech Labcorp. He searched for the target of his mission, a deceased agent by the name of Milo Riazotti, then painstakingly entered the provided data. Next, in accordance with the written op-specs, he erased his browsing history, opened the hard drive, and manually deleted the last hour’s worth of activities.
Lastly, Alan opened the cipher program, entered the coded message included in his documentation, transcribed the message, and powered down. The last step of his assignment was to destroy all paperwork, including the transcribed message. Apparently, he had only entered a code in case the librarian got curious. If she checked the history, she would see that Alan’s assignment involved cracking a difficult cipher.
On his way out of the library, Alan stopped at the men’s room. After pressing a damp wad of paper towels against the back of his neck, he locked himself in a stall and dug the flash paper from his pocket. He dropped the pages into the toilet and watched as the genetic sequence—the entirety of a human being—dissolved into nothingness.
If only it were so easy to disappear.
* * *
—
Less than twenty-four hours after Alan betrayed his grandfather, at a few minutes past 0300 on Monday morning, his roommate’s computer stirred to life. With his eye mask firmly in place, Alan did not notice the soft blue light, but the quiet beeping was enough to pull him from slumber. He sat up and slid the mask onto his forehead, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
The laptop screen flashed a message: Video Available for Download.
“Hey,” Alan said. “Wake up.” He lay back down as Simon sat up.
“Oi, what do you want?” Simon’s voice was cross, which Alan found somewhat ironic, as it was his project rousting them in the middle of the night.
“Your drone. It is on its way back to Israel.”
“What?” The bedcovers rustled and Simon’s feet hit the floor. “No, I said noon!”
Alan opened his eyes. Uh-oh. He had not thought to change the time zone. Feeling his face flush, he sat up, grateful for the dark. “I did exactly as you instructed. According to the Israeli drone, it is noon.”
“It’s three o’clock in the bloody morning!”
Alan was not about to admit to Simon that he had made such an elementary mistake. “There is a nine-hour time difference between here and Tel Aviv.”
“I’m aware of that,” Simon declared. “Why would I want a bloody drone in the middle of the bloody night?”
“I cannot begin to imagine why you want the things you do.”
“Of course I meant Phoenix time—I specifically told you I wanted Shepard to see it when she left for lunch!”
Alan lay back down and pulled the covers around his neck. He slid the satin mask over his eyes. “You really should have confirmed these details in advance.”
At 2:20 a.m. Nadia watched the moon as Damon drove toward campus. She rested her head against the cool glass of the passenger-side window. It had taken several hours for the nausea to pass, for her heart to stop racing. Now her adrenaline had temporarily dipped, leaving her exhausted and depleted.
She needed to see the rest of that file. She’d scrutinized the photo, examined the shadows, the pixels. It was either real, or a flawless forgery. But knowing Marcus Sloan didn’t necessarily make her father CIA, did it?
Of course it did. And to think otherwise was foolish and naive.
She turned toward Damon. “Why did you send me that file?”
“I thought you deserved to know the truth.”
“I don’t believe for a second it was an act of altruism, so I’ll ask again, why did you send me his file?”
Damon’s hands tightened around the wheel. “You and I are both pawns in someone else’s game. How are you not outraged by this?” His nostrils flared as he clenched his jaw. “You deserve the truth. You deserve the chance to make your own decisions, and not be forced—or tricked—into espionage. I’m sick of being used. I want out. And if I can’t delete my DNA, I don’t stand a chance.”
She narrowed her eyes. There was something else. “Tell me the rest.”
“That’s all you get right now.” He glanced at her.
Nadia scowled. A moment later she asked, “So how do I disable the database?”
Damon unzipped the breast pocket of his jacket, reached inside, then handed her a thumb drive. “Insert this into the USB port, then double-click the icon. The worm will do the rest. It’s completely foolproof. Just turn on the mainframe and start the program.”
“Cyberespionage for dummies.” Nadia tapped the thumb drive against the back of her hand. “So I’m erasing the entire history of everyone who’s ever attended Desert Mountain?”
“As I said, you’ll thank me later.”
She looked out the window and frowned. “Listen, we may have a problem. The weapons room has a biometric security lock, and I can’t get in without Sensei’s thumbprint.”
“So kill him and cut off his thumb.”
“I don’t really see that happening.”
“You’re fairly resourceful. You’ll think of something.” Damon adjusted the rearview mirror. “What are you gonna say if you get caught?”
“I won’t get caught.”
“If you do, I’m coming after you. And that will not end well for the other guy.”
She closed her eyes. Why would her father send her to the Academy if he knew the truth? Would she have picked this life for her child?
After a few minutes, Damon said, “You’re distracted, aren’t you? That’s why I didn’t want to show you the file.”
“I’m not distracted,” she lied.
“What were you thinking about?”
A beat. “Puppies.”
Damon smiled and they continued in silence.
Fifteen minutes later he pulled off the road. “We’re about a half klick out. We’ll go on foot from here.” He popped the trunk.
Nadia stepped from the car into the chilled night air. A million stars punctured the blanket of black that stretched overhead.
“You know what to do?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You have the thumb drive?”
“Yes.” She looked away.
“Look at me.”
Nadia narrowed her eyes and slowly turned her head. “What?”
“I’m scanning you for tracking devices when we get out. You don’t want me to find one. And don’t get some idea that you’re gonna alert Sensei that we’re on campus so the CIA can catch their traitor. Do you understand?” He waited for her to nod, then pulled a rifle from the back of the trunk.
She shook her head. “What do you need that for?”
“Just in case you don’t understand.” He attached a silencer and secured a laser scope to the side rail.
“Leave it. You won’t need it.”
“Ain’t your mission. Move.”
“If you kill anyone, I’m done.”
“If you’re done, my mom is dead. And you will never learn the truth. We haven’t even scratched the surface of your father’s lies.” Nadia crossed her arms and scowled. Damon rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t kill for sport. This is a last resort. Let’s go.”
She followed him through the brush. As the back wall of campus came into view, Damon grabbed her arm. “Put this in your ear.” He handed her the tiny comms device. “Now you can hear me, and I can hear you. You get in any trouble, I’ll come get you. From the time you hit the dojo, we’ve got maybe ten minutes to get out.” Damon held his hands together to boost her up the wall.
Nadia pulled herself to the top and crouched down. Her eyes scanned campus for movement. All was still, so she stretched onto her stomach and offered Damon a hand. He grabbed her wrist and, a second later, was beside her on the wall. Silently, he jumped the ten feet to the campus side, where he held out his arms. She eased down onto him.
Damon held her against him for a split second as their eyes met. Nadia looked away.
“Good luck,” he said.
“I don’t need you to wish me luck.”
“I admire your confidence.”
Nadia moved swiftly along the back of the buildings, hidden in the shadows. When she opened the door to the covert-ops room, a silent alarm would sound in Sensei’s sleeping quarters. After triggering the alarm, she’d still have to make it into the weapons room and back to the wall before Sensei found her.
She reached the dojo and slid open the shoji screens. She raced down the hall, across the mats, up the north wing. At the door to the covert-ops room, she typed in the code: abunai. A soft clang of metal, and the lock opened.
Nadia slipped inside and tapped her comms. “I’m in.”
Damon’s voice crackled in her ear. “Roger that. All’s quiet out here.”
Nadia opened the cabinet closest to the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Sensei’s thumbprint on a thin sheet of latex, right where she’d left it.
She carefully lifted the print and laid it over her thumb. Next to the latex print were a selection of lock-picking kits; she shoved one into her pocket.
Back in the hall, she moved two doors down to the shooting range. She entered the code, pressed her latex-covered thumb onto the keypad, and held her breath.
Clang. The lock released.
Nadia sprinted the width of the shooting range toward the locked door at the back of the room. She repeated the entry procedure and stepped into the weapons room, then clicked on her penlight.
Pegboards lined all four walls. Fixed to the walls were the weapons: groups of swords, knives, and daggers; long-range and assault rifles; handguns in every caliber, both revolver and semiautomatic. She shone her light along the lower part of the room until she reached the filing cabinet, nestled between a column of Japanese
katana swords and Swiss hunting knives.
The chest was locked. Nadia held the penlight in her mouth and used the lock-picking kit to open the top drawer. The built-in CPU hummed quietly as she flipped up the screen. The cursor blinked a bright blue light in the darkened room. She ran her fingers along the edge until she felt the USB port, then inserted Damon’s thumb drive and double-clicked.
While she waited for the worm to load, she searched the shelves for a tranquilizer gun. She loaded the magazine and tucked the weapon into her waistband. Damon might have information she needed, but she didn’t have to trust him. He still wasn’t telling her the whole truth. It probably wouldn’t come to it, but this way, she could leave when she wanted.
Back at the computer, Nadia checked the status. A single box had appeared onscreen: Press to Run. She clicked the button. Within ninety seconds the pixels on the screen had bled together into a sheet of black. She ripped the drive from the port and rushed from the room, closing the door behind her.
Nadia secured the shooting gallery and ran toward the dojo entrance. Outside she sprinted along the back wall, around her dorm, and past the dining hall, until she reached her starting point. Damon wasn’t there.
They didn’t have much time before Sensei would reach the weapons room and investigate the break-in. He knew there was only one person who could get in. He would realize she wasn’t on her solo, alert the guards, and then—
“Where are you?” she whispered frantically. The hands of her watch glowed through the darkness. Nine minutes. They’d been on campus for nine minutes. How long since she’d opened the covert-ops room door? What would she say if she got caught?
“Nadia?”
She froze. Oh no.
“What are you doing here?”
Jack.
Slowly, she turned away from the wall. “Hey, what’s up?”
He let out a short laugh and raised his eyebrows. “ ‘What’s up?’ What are you doing back so soon?”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but I’m still on my solo.” Nadia shifted her gaze away from his face and scanned the area behind him. “I had a special assignment.” No sign of Damon.