Holly
She woke to the full sun shining on her face, her hands moving against strange bed sheets. A strange bed in a strange room. It was funny how the light of day had changed things, burning the images into reality. Burning this reality into fact, into her head. It had really happened . . .
She also wondered what the light would do to Logan’s face. Holly turned over and craned her neck for a view of her slumbering ex-lover. Or, current lover. She wasn’t too sure of the exact classification, but he was at least last night’s lover. Most definitely last night’s lover. And an amazing one at that.
“Logan?” she called it out again after seeing his empty side of the bed, projecting her voice into the hall beyond his half-opened bedroom door. Holly slid her hand across the cool empty space where there once was so much heat.
Immediately, the feeling of abandonment rushed in. A familiar rush of emotion that had come on at the start of Logan’s army deployment. Back when she had a reason to feel that way. Back when they’d had a relationship. The pain worsened until even he had enough of the guilt. It wasn’t just his physical departure; it was the emotional retreat that lingered even after his return.
He was hardly ever there, even when he was sitting a few feet from her across the dinner table.
Holly had her own guilt to deal with, the absurdity of feeling rejected by a soldier just because he couldn’t reject his own country. It was so absurd and infantile. And it was temporary, just like his deployments. But still she couldn’t march, despite his willingness to trudge both home and away.
But it shouldn’t have ever been trudging at all.
He must have felt it, too. He must have felt the guilt. Until finally the day when he had set her “free.”
The sad reality would soon rush in: Logan was the only guy she ever loved. He’d left her because he thought she deserved more, someone who loved her back. A man who could be there for her when he couldn’t.
Work, of course, was a useful distraction. It was also educational, a mile of it in someone else’s shoes. Now she knew the responsibility of defending her nation against a daily onslaught of threats. She also knew now how great it felt to have such a higher purpose.
But now, work, especially with the change in boss, had left her feeling alone and directionless. Even more alone now that she was without Beth.
She was without Logan, too. But, it turned out, for only that moment. He appeared twenty minutes later with a paper bag of breakfast croissants. Ham and Swiss. And a smile that somehow took her back seven years.
He watched her take the first bite then said, “I got some news from Jackson.”
The news of news interrupted her chewing. Full-mouthed, she said, “What?”
“Actually, from Tansy.”
“Tansy?” Coffee to help her swallow and then: “What did he say?”
“He found something he doesn’t like. In the files they gave you. Bits of extra code. It looks harmless, but it shouldn’t be there. So, given the context, he thinks it’s a major red flag.”
“A possible Trojan Horse? Yeah, I’d say it’s a pretty major flag.”
“He didn’t say that, if it’s a Trojan or not.”
“But it’s something extra,” Holly said. “I don’t like that, either.”
“He said it’s engineered to only work on your system.”
“See?”
Logan said, “See what?”
“Well, I want to see it. If I can see, then I can break the code and then we’ll know what it is.”
Logan took a sip of coffee.
Holly continued. “No disrespect to Tansy, of course. But I should work on it. It’s sort of my case, after all. Right? Isn’t that how it works?”
“You did come to us for help.”
“Did I? I came to you.”
Logan was almost frowning. “Either way, it might be complicated, you wanting to jump in and look at Tansy’s—”
“I’m not jumping in,” she said, jumping in to cut him off.
“What I’m trying to say is that we might not have time. It’s timing that’s the issue.”
“Of course it is,” Holly said, trying to keep her voice level. “I know what the issue is.”
Logan nodded at her and then looked down at his to-go coffee cup. He played with the lid.
“I know what’s at stake here . . .” Suddenly without an appetite, Holly put down the croissant. She reached for the coffee, preparing her mind to go back to work. Her body, too. A different kind of work than the fun of last night. She would have to slap on a brave face and make a surprise visit to her office.
It would be a work weekend, after all.
“We should head in to the DARC office,” Logan said, “Are you ready?”
“Yeah,” she said, sliding off the bed and beginning the search for her clothes, piecing back together the memories of the night before. It felt oddly comfortable being with him, half dressed. Almost as comfortable as she felt with him undressed. “Yeah,” she said again, “I’m so ready.”
Playtime was over. Perhaps forever.
18
Logan
He watched her strut around the DARC Ops boardroom with a confidence he’d never seen before.
“Want I want to do,” Holly said, pausing at the briefing table and holding her hands at the edge, “is get back to my headquarters, ASAP. Get to my workstation and open the program without running the virus.”
Tansy cut in with a very intelligent-sounding, “Umm . . .”
She continued, still looking at Jackson. “I know what I’m doing. Instead of running it, I’ll funnel the results back to DARC.”
“I’m skeptical,” Jackson said.
“I know.”
Tansy said, “So am I.”
“I know.”
“We don’t exactly have the best relationship with the CIA,” Jackson said. “Especially with what happened to one of our associates.”
Holly nodded. “You’re talking about Macy Chandler.”
“I’m talking about her, yes, and the rest of us who had to go to war with the deep state.”
“I’m not the deep state,” Holly said, “neither is anyone else I know at the CIA.”
“That’s very intentional,” Jackson said.
“I’m sure. I don’t deny that it exists, but—”
“So what you’re saying,” Jackson said, smiling, “is that you would help the CIA to cooperate with us, without them actually cooperating with us?”
Her smile reminded Logan of the many occasions where the true Holly was aching to come out. The college rebel. The hacker. It lived inside her right along with her lust for life, an infectious vivacity that he’d missed out on. Without her, and without that smile, his life had coasted into a big morass of military orders and red tape.
Together, maybe, they could bust through the tape and finally live the kind of life they’d been destined for.
“Tansy, what have you got?” Jackson asked.
“Apprehension,” he said. “And a lot of it. The CIA will track down the activity, see it leading back to the same source. They might even know your background with Logan.”
“I can do this from my boss’ office,” Holly said. “They’re setting it up this weekend, lots of people and machines coming and going out of there. I won’t be detected. I’ll go in late, when most of the staff have cleared the building.”
“They’ll detect you,” Tansy said, “not by what machines are moved around, but by your activity in the system. I’m sure they’re looking at that stuff more carefully.”
“Not my new boss. Trust me, he’s low-tech enough that I’ll be able to do this right under his nose.”
“And there’s no other nose looking down on him? A fail-safe?” Jackson said.
“No,” she said. “As long as I do a relatively good job of this, no one will know what happened.”
Tansy’s eyebrows shot up. “A relatively good job?”
“I can open the files without
activating the virus.”
“With my help,” he said.
Logan had expected Holly to clam up and hold her ground, insist that it was her project, her baby. Her cousin. But instead she nodded. “Yes, your help.”
“I’ve been working on something in my spare time,” Tansy said.
“In your what?” Jackson said, staring at him. “You’re not supposed to have spare time.”
Tansy flipped him off and continued. “A backdoor program. Even if someone who knows what they’re doing actually looks, they won’t be able to find anything. That, plus you working on it in your boss’ office, should make this basically bombproof.”
Despite being relatively new with DARC Ops, Logan had heard that term thrown around before. Bombproof . . . Two out of the three times, it had ended in a blast so large that it couldn’t be contained. The proof in the tasting of the pudding had been suddenly muddled mission objectives, lives at risk, things spiraling out of control faster than Jackson could talk them back in.
After their meeting, the first thing he did was tell Jackson that he would be riding along with Holly, sticking as closely as possible to her. For once, Jackson offered no objection.
Logan parked the car a block away from her headquarters, turned off the engine, and looked over to Holly with the hope that it wouldn’t be the last time. When she finally smiled, he said, “I don’t know, Kiddo. I don’t like it.”
“No one’s supposed to like it,” she said. “But I won’t get caught. I promise.”
Logan couldn’t help but laugh about her promise. She had promised a lot of things over the years, most of them coming true. But this latest promise sounded a little too shaky.
He couldn’t let her go like that. He couldn’t let so many lives, and perhaps a relationship, depend on a flimsy parked-car promise.
Holly knew him well. She reached over, poking him in the stomach. “Hey,” she said, “I’m still here. You can get all gloomy after I leave.”
“It’s not gloomy. It’s fear for your life.”
She jabbed him harder. “Way to talk me up and make me feel good.”
“Sorry.” He pulled her hand away, still holding it, lifting it up by her wrist and kissing the tops of her knuckles. “I hope these don’t have to do any damage in there.”
“The only reason I’d have to use those,” she said, “is trashing his office, punching cracks into LCD screens. Holes in the drywall . . .”
“You mean if your hacking doesn’t work?”
“No, I want to fuck up his office. Just in general.”
“You could bring me in for that,” Logan said. “I’ve got a lot of pent-up rage, too.”
“I know,” she said. “But I thought you got rid of some of that last night.”
He smiled, fighting the urge to say the first nasty little thing that popped into his head.
“Wasn’t that the point?” she asked.
Now he had to stop himself from saying the opposite, from allowing himself to sound cheesy and love-struck. Of the two revelations, that would’ve been the worst. She couldn’t know . . .
Logan reached over and squeezed her knee, producing a hushed squeal.
“But maybe that’s a good idea, though?” she said.
“Of course it is.”
“I mean damaging his office. I could make it look like a break-in.”
“That sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. Let’s stick to the plan.”
“That’s funny,” she said, “you telling me to stick to the plan.”
It was a little funny. Funny how there could be no win, how he felt as nervous about Holly following the plan as not following it. It was so much easier to ride that thin gray line by himself, like an athlete calm on adrenaline in the thick of the game. But now, watching from the sidelines, he felt all his nerves jumping in all the wrong ways.
She was looking seriously at him. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “Johnson won’t be here. He’s never in on the weekends, especially the weekend before his first day. He’s probably out drinking somewhere right now. He’s probably out catching some disease from a prostitute. Did I mention that I think I hate him?”
“Well,” Logan said, “His ineptness as your boss is what’s making this whole thing easier. Is it not?”
“You’re right. It is.”
“And you hate Andrei Godev more. Do you not?”
“I do,” she said.
“Okay,” Logan said. “So are you ready to roll?”
“I am.”
19
Holly
Coming back to her office. Late. On the weekend. Still, the guards showed her through the security checkpoints without a second glance. The fresh pizza didn’t hurt, either. Neither did attention to detail, knowing how that night’s boys preferred pepperoni and hot peppers. Such were the perks of being a slave to one’s job and having absolutely no social life.
Holly surprised herself with how easily she allowed herself to take the biggest risk of her professional career, picking the lock on Gary’s door. Logan had given her some training, and some tools, but not the guts for it. She supplied that herself, gaining access in record time—for her—and marching into the empty office feeling nothing but the thrill of success. At least, success for now.
She woke up Johnson’s computer, entered the code she’d sourced in the afternoon, and then opened one of its internet ports. This would allow Tansy to tune in remotely, to see where she was in the system.
Holly expected to cruise through the process, opening the file, getting to work on it with her usual hardboiled efficiency. But an odd file sitting on the system kept niggling at her. She didn’t like the extension, the file size, and the name, Holly. She definitely didn’t like the fucking name. Neither did she like how her attention kept raking back to it every 30 seconds. She didn’t like not knowing what it was. She was supposed to know what everything was. This was her turf, and there weren’t supposed to be any surprises, at least from the CIA’s end.
Tansy’s voice came buzzing in her ear. “Come on,” he said. “Hurry up and get in there.”
How could she explain it to him? A file with her name on it?
“Did you already attach the USB?” he said, his voice sounding ragged and dry. “I don’t see it from my end.”
Holly shrugged him off and opened the file, her file, opening up a folder filled with pictures of her kidnapped cousin, Beth. Bile rose in her throat. She wanted to crack the screen with her knuckles as she’d fantasized about. But soon after, that rage turned to nausea. Then fear.
The images were horrible. Beth tied up to a chair, a dirty white cloth tied around her head, through her mouth. Her eyes, glistening and red. Her eyes . . . her eyes so fucking dead and hopeless.
And then the rage came back, a hot, smoldering fury, a desire to damage more than just the office. She wanted to bloody the man himself. She wanted to destroy him as swiftly as a piece of computer screen. She wanted him now, in front of her, to finally accept the blows.
“Come on,” Tansy said in her ear, “What are you doing?”
“That fucker . . .” she’d gritted her teeth.
“What? What’s wrong? Do you need backup?”
She’d had backup for days. She had Logan just a few minutes away. But she also had her fists and her fury. She wanted to do it alone, by herself. She wanted to kill Gary Johnson even more so than the Russians who had supposedly kidnapped her cousin.
All at the same time, it made sense, and then no sense at all. The only constant was her rage, and her need for revenge.
“I’m working on it,” she barked into Tansy’s tiny receiver. He didn’t say anything back.
Just as she started to compose herself enough to actually carry out her mission, a high-frequency whine invaded her ear, growing, blocking out Tansy’s voice and then finally almost deafening her. She couldn’t concentrate with that shit screaming through her brain. She yanked out the earpiece, her vital lifeline to DARC command, and tossed
it onto Johnson’s desk. She could almost still hear its terrible whine, shrieking at her angrily as if some alarm had gone off. As if they’d known what she was about to do.
She was no longer just worried about the CIA . . .
She was also no longer in contact with her DARC handlers. Tansy and Jackson were severed, gone dark. She was also without Logan. And now behind the clock, Holly having wasted several precious minutes by finding and reacting to the nightmare that existed within Johnson’s folder.
And her damn hands were so shaky. Fumbling. Scrambling. Running out of time.
20
Logan
Acidic stress churned through his veins as he tried again to radio to her, failing to make contact with his lover in deep cover. He resorted to contacting Jackson, cursing under his breath several times before saying, “He’s in, he’s in. I repeat, Johnson has entered the goddamn building.”
He saw him from his observation post, Gary Johnson strolling in like he was attending to some usual weekend business. Dressed casually. Looking completely harmless. It was unnerving, and Logan wanted nothing more than to run up and pop him in the mouth for no other reason than Holly didn’t like him.
But maybe that wouldn’t be useful. Instead, he had to think of how to get Holly out of there while she was out of contact.
The radio was still dead silent while Logan prepared himself to hear a flurry of voices and activity, plans set in motion to intervene and rescue Holly from Johnson’s certain discovery. Johnson finding her, and thus the rest of the CIA finding her, would not only end Holly’s career but ruin whatever chance they had at finding the whereabouts of her cousin.
“Hold on,” Jackson’s voice said, “We’re obtaining some new information.”
“What? What are we doing? Are we going in? Am I?”
“Johnson’s in on it,” Jackson said. “He’s got photos of Beth on his computer. It’s the last thing Tansy saw before his connection closed. Prepare to arm up and—”
DARC Ops: The Complete Series Page 159