DARC Ops: The Complete Series

by Jamie Garrett

  Every floor of the hospital had a small room full of highly sensitive computers and routers and communications equipment which acted like satellites, eyes and ears to central command. And Dr. Wahl just so happened to be found stabbed to death in front of one of them. On a surgery level. In front of a door that had been pried open.

  “We might never solve this,” said Jasper. “But it’s not really our job.”

  “Wrong,” said Jackson. “While we’re here it is. So we’ve got to start from somewhere. Right now it’s about eliminating the Saudis.”

  “Eliminate?” asked Jasper.

  “As suspects.”

  “Oh . . . Of course.”

  Jackson rolled his eyes as he rechecked both ends of the hallway. “There’s always that organ-harvesting angle. Rumors that he’s been involved in a few early deaths. Maybe his trade partners thought we were the FBI.”

  “Right,” said Jasper. “He told a coworker that I might be an undercover agent.”

  “So maybe someone panicked and wanted to cover their tracks.”

  “So then . . .” Jasper looked at Sam. “Are you going to have Sam go have a visit with Clarence?”

  Jackson chuckled, his face fighting a smile. He seemed to find it funny, or disturbing.

  “Well?” said Jasper.

  Jackson regained his composure. “Let’s just try the Saudis first.” He patted Sam on the shoulder and said, “Right?”

  “We should probably tell them something to make them nervous,” said Sam. “Make them squirm a bit. Maybe say the police have already identified the murderer, or they’re tracking him down. I’ll study their reaction to that.”

  “I like this man’s imagination,” Jackson said, smiling at his new secret weapon.

  “Yeah, but how does he know what they’re saying,” said Jasper, “if they start muttering amongst themselves? They do a lot of muttering.”

  Sam waved his hand, nodding. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “He doesn’t need to know what they’re saying,” said Jackson.

  “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone in there who can speak Arabic.”

  Sam was still nodding. And then he said, “Aiwa,” his voice sounding not nasally at all but deep and guttural. And Arabic. Perfect local slang for Yes.

  “Alright,” said Jasper, feeling not very useful anymore. “I guess I’ll join Eric and check on the cable room.”

  MPD detectives were already on the scene. They had a large section of the floor cordoned off with yellow tape, as well as a few large officers turning away any unwanted attention. Without stopping by the hospital’s administration floors to grab Eric, Jasper would’ve probably been turned away. Instead, he hung back and waited quietly as Eric was referred to three or four officers, passed along to one after another and each time him showing his name badge and documentation, each time his shoulders heaving as he pleaded his case. And when they were finally allowed in the communications room, he had some more pleading to do.

  “Are you forensics or computer forensics?” he asked one of plainclothes officers.

  “Both,” one of them said. “So don’t go touching anything yet.”

  “Who are you?” the other asked Eric.

  “Cybersecurity,” said Eric.

  “You work for the hospital?”

  Eric nodded. “Yeah. In-house.”

  The officer snapped a photo and said, “We already had one of your guys in here. You might want to go talk with him.”

  “Who?” Eric asked. “I’m the only one authorized to do this.”

  “Not according to that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “Whoever was just in here,” said the officer, snapping another photo. “You might want to check with your boss.”

  Eric looked over to Jasper with a frown. “That can’t be right. Something sounds a little fucked.”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” said the detective. “Guy got stabbed to death.”

  The detectives only gave Jasper fifteen minutes to check over the equipment and their systems. But that was all he needed. Nothing had been tampered with. At least, nothing seemed tampered with. He would have to access the system on his own to check more thoroughly. But even if nothing had been hacked or compromised or stolen, the mission was definitely not going as planned.

  Jasper weighed the possibilities, but he had trouble identifying which was worse. They either had their first physical, real-world attack from the still-unknown hacker group, or the Saudis were picking people off at will.

  Or it was just a random, pointless killing.

  Either way, the clusterfuck that was Lambert Memorial Hospital just got a lot messier.

  He wondered what Clarence would make of all this, the person most hesitant and anxious about the idea from the start. He had a lot to lose.

  But maybe not as much as Prince Saif.

  He found her alone, in a chair against the wall at the far end of the hallway, Fiona, the crumpled mess that used to be his sexy and capable nurse. A shell of the person she had been just mere hours ago.

  When he crouched down next to her, even with the sound of his knee popping from an old cartilage problem, she did nothing. No response. Just head down, hand to her head. He placed his hand on her shoulder, rubbing it as gently as he could. And with his other hand he offered her a cup of hot jasmine tea, which she finally moved for and accepted.

  He knew what to do, but not what to say. A common conundrum.

  He still tried anyhow, as usual, slowly and carefully. “Did you see what happened?” Had she witnessed the man getting stabbed?

  She kept silent.

  It was a dumb question, really. Jasper imagined that she’d be encircled by detectives, or whisked off somewhere for further questioning. Not left alone and waiting for a brave rescuer to bring her a cup of tea.

  He tried again.

  “I’m here. If you want to talk or anything. Or if you just want some space.”

  She took a sip of tea. And then thanked him for it.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  She shrugged. “Can you make this day end somehow? I’m really ready for it to end.”

  “It’s probably a good idea for you to go home,” Jasper said. “If you can. I know you probably have lot of responsibilities here.”

  “Nothing like yours. You’re stuck here no matter how bad it gets.”

  “Well, let’s hope the storm has passed.”

  “Yeah . . .” She was nodding, a dazed look on her face, her eyes looking past Jasper and down the hall. As bad as it was to lose a colleague, she seemed like she’d been through something much worse.

  “Were you . . .” Jasper trailed off and then restarted. “Were you very . . . close . . . with him?” He immediately felt bad about asking, him watching the tears well up in Fiona’s eyes, her hand quickly wiping them. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  She shook her head. “We weren’t close at all.” Her voice came out weakly and coated with tears and sniffles. “I didn’t even like him.”

  “I know,” Jasper said. “I know it’s hard.”

  “No. It’s my sister.”

  Jasper reached for her hand, holding it while she told him about a different tragedy, his heart breaking as he listened to what she’d been through. And then she pulled it away to wipe another wave of tears.

  “I’m fine,” she said, clearing her throat. “I just need to get out of here.” She sniffed again and raised her head, looking around.

  “Do you need any help?” Jasper asked.

  “You’re busy.”

  “Never too busy for you. Where do you need to go?”

  “Hey,” came a loud, strong voice. A cop, walking up to them with a puffed chest. “Youse two need to go. We’re closing the whole floor down.”

  Jasper turned to absorb the cop’s spewing, standing between him and Fiona.

  “Who are you?” asked the cop with a kind of twisted smirk.

  “We’ll get going in a minute,” s
aid Jasper.

  “I asked who you were.”

  “I don’t care. I’m talking to my friend here.” He tried his best to pronounce the words as evenly and calmly as possible. But mouthy cops made that a difficult task.

  “I don’t care about your friend, Pal.” He was standing inches away from Jasper now.

  “Who are you?” Jasper spat back at him. It wasn’t the wittiest of comebacks. But anything was better than what he really wanted to do, which was to respond with something other than words.

  “I know who he is,” said Fiona. “Officer Elgin. Right?”

  He looked a little confused. “Yeah, you read my badge.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “And last year I helped the doctor extract a broken cucumber out of your rectum.”

  There was a distinct and audible sound of the wind getting knocked out of naughty Officer Elgin. And a look, a priceless expression that had gone from feigned confusion to legitimate devastation. Like he’d been kicked in the balls. Or kicked somewhere else and with half a boot sticking out like that most unfortunate cucumber.

  It was all the man could take, just that one simple line, that kill shot delivered so deftly by Fiona. It was damned impressive. And Jasper had seen some great snipers in action.

  “Wow,” was all Jasper could say. What else could anyone say after that? Especially the cop, who had made his escape, walking away from them with a slight waddle like it was the after-effect of an even greater humiliation than what Fiona had doled out.

  Meanwhile, she had stood up from the chair without saying anything, her face looking a little proud, but her legs still standing with a slight unsteadiness.

  Jasper took her arm. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.” Her legs and even her arms appeared weak and almost twitchy. “Are you okay?” He wrapped his arm around her and held her up against his side. “I can help you walk to—”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay.” She started walking with him. “Thank you. I just need to snap out of it.”

  “Snap out of what?”

  “This,” she said, pointing to her teary red face. “My God. I’m usually pretty good in, you know, crisis situations.”

  “Well, you’re getting hit on both fronts here,” said Jasper. “It’s okay to need time.”

  “Thanks again for the tea.” She smiled weakly and then took a sip. “Are you still doing that surgery today?”

  “Not me personally,” he laughed and immediately felt like an idiot. “But . . . you mean the prince?”

  She nodded, snuffling.

  “We don’t have a choice. And, with the way his heart is, he doesn’t have a choice.” Jasper watched as another wave of detectives entered the crime scene, bending the police tape over their heads as they ducked in. “This is totally . . . Aside from this, from a cybersecurity standpoint, we’re just about totally secure. And we’ll have guards watching the room, of course.” He turned back to Fiona, who, despite the tears and the running eyeliner, looked as beautiful as ever. “Again, I’m just . . . I’m so sorry about your sister.”

  “Well, it was expected, so . . . I guess that’s why I’m so surprised it hit me like this.”

  “You can expect something like that. But you can never really prepare for it.”

  “I thought I had.”

  He watched the way she bit her bottom lip, how she put on her brace face. A life in the medical field can add emotional calluses, but she was still fragile. “I’ll be in town for at least a week after all this.”

  Fiona nodded, her lip still sucked in. She might have been grieving, and there might have just been a murder, but she looked sexy as hell. He felt immensely guilty for even thinking that. But it was the truth.

  “I want to see you,” she said, her eyes looking up into his.

  “Can I call you tonight? See how you are?”

  She reached her arms out for him, like a little girl needing a hug. And he answered, sliding his body against hers and holding it warmly. She sighed, long and loud, as Jasper felt the top of her head come to a rest against his chest. He bowed his head to hers, and kissed her just once, very gently and politely, just below her hairline.

  They’d come a long ways, through a number of years, from zero to sixty with his bed bath rub-n-tug, and now, back to a sweet politeness. But there was something extra. Something deeper. And the way she breathed into him, and melted into him, he knew she could feel it too.

  He held her longer than he’d expected, until a voice from outside the embrace said, “Jasper?”

  Jasper felt Fiona unclasp. He turned to greet the great spoiler.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Jackson, whose expression did not match the words. “Can I get you to take a look at the body, in the morgue?”

  Jasper agreed to the grim task with a simple nod. And then he turned to check on Fiona, who looked disturbed and deep in thought. “I’m sorry,” he said. Sorry on behalf of Jackson, and having to hear about “business.” Sorry for the whole damn thing, really.

  She shrugged like it hardly mattered. She kept up that brave, pretty face, for Jasper’s sake or probably even her own. “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  24

  Fiona

  It was after her talk with Wendy, and an awkward elevator ride where she’d tried avoiding all the inquisitive glances and small talk of her concerned coworkers, and after the shivers that came on when she was alone in the parking garage, after she crossed through its cool darkness and wafting chemicals, after her footsteps faded at her parking space, when she finally thought of it: Vic. Their awkwardness in the stairwell. His guilty and exhilarated expression. And of how stupid she was to have not mentioned any of it to Jasper when she’d had the chance.

  While she might have had the chance, having the ability was another thing. The incident with Vic seemed to have vacated from her mind, blasting away with the same speed as their crash course in the stairwell. It began and ended inexplicably, and faded away with equal mystery. A floating, fleeting thought that was forced away to make room for other, more important thoughts. More immediate thoughts. A new death to worry about. Dr. Wahl. And then Jasper. A new life to hope for.

  She thought of that life on her way back to the elevator. The moment had called for it, a need for at least some type of optimism. Whether it would be a reborn friendship, or perhaps something more substantial. She kept thinking, unsure about the details, but happy to be distracted even just temporarily. But then came another distraction. In the parking garage. Behind her. Footsteps.

  It sounded like the stride of a man, a quick and heavy clunking.

  Fiona sped up her stride, hoping to stay ahead of whomever had just been gaining on her. In the back of her mind she could see him, Vic, Victor, the mad Russian, knife in his hand, its blade gleaming through the darkness of the garage. Maybe there was still a bit of Dr. Wahl’s blood dried onto it.

  Maybe she’d better stop thinking so hard.

  But keep walking . . . Just keep walking.

  She started moving even faster when the garage filled with the sound of a happily whistled melody. A morbidly sappy tune. Some Italian overture that was way too bright and cheery for the dank, dark garage. Of course it had to be the clichéd whistling madman who was following her.

  In the elevator, with her finger mashing the “close” button, she waited impatiently for the doors to slide shut, waiting for what felt like an eternity. Unlike her last trip, the elevator was empty. It was just her . . . and potentially the whistler if the doors had shut any later than they did.

  “Hey, wait!”

  Click.

  She was alone, safely alone, finally. She needed the time to play it through in her head, to find the wording, find how she could do it without accusing a coworker of murder. There was just something unsettling about Vic—beyond the whistling, if that had been him. When he stormed into the stairwell, it looked like he was fleeing some unpleasant situation. A prank, he said. But there seemed to be nothing funny about the way he was acting.
/>   She wanted Jasper to know about it. Just a heads-up. That’s all. Maybe he could observe Vic, or assign someone to tail him. Or was such stalking, and her need to go track down Jasper, completely unnecessary?

  She took a public elevator to the fifth floor, trying to avoid running into anyone she worked with. And then a service elevator down to Basement 4, the morgue, a place she hadn’t been to in years. Or maybe even longer, because she would have remembered how dark it was.

  And quiet. How utterly, creepily quiet.

  Stepping off the elevator, she might not have expected to see Jasper right away, but at least someone. Or at least hear them. Instead, after she walked down a narrow corridor and past a row of receiving and exam rooms, the area seemed completely dead. And why was it so dark? It seemed to run so counter to what she’d expect for a morgue, the harsh lighting, ultra-clean surfaces, maybe even a morgue technician or two actually present and working.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice surprised her, how little and scared it had become.

  She had always been a little hesitant to take part in any task associated with the morgue. It usually wasn’t her business and she was glad for it. She’d seen her share of dead bodies, certainly— including today’s—and she was no stranger to death. It wasn’t a fear of death or corpses, but of how they were systematically sorted and stored. It was the whole institution that that creeped her out, the architecture and design of the rooms, the way one led to another, the theme getting darker and more horrifying with each turn, from the receiving room to the operating tables, to the incinerator, and finally, to the meat coolers. Refrigerated storage, and then the freezers—slabs of frozen coffins for those unidentified or needing long-term preservation. The truly dead end of the process.

  Fiona didn’t dare get that far.

  Something was seriously wrong.

  The place seemed vacant, as if any activity—including maintenance and cleaning—had ended months ago.

  “Hello?” she called again. But it was unanswered. Futile.

  She should probably get the hell out of there.