by S L Shelton
“Congressman Sperling had been the biggest critic of a new communications surveillance bill,” the newswoman continued. “The coalition of committee members he had assembled against what he called ‘an unprecedented infringement on citizen privacy’, seemed to be loosening their positions this morning after the news of the congressman’s death.”
“BRE wrote that bill she’s talking about,” John said, referring to BRE Cryptography and Security—a Spryte Industries company that subcontracted to various government agencies including the NSA.
Wolf looked up and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. “Well, they got their biggest roadblock out of the way. They’ll probably vote on it by the end of the week now.”
“Who do you think they’ll pick to replace him as speaker?”
Wolf smiled and turned his computer around to face John, showing him the House profile of Robert Trembly.
John cocked his head sideways and stared at the page a moment. “You think?”
Wolf nodded.
John clearly wasn’t convinced. “He’s the bill sponsor, isn’t he? Why wouldn’t they move someone up from leadership. This seems like a house vote longshot.”
“True. But he’s been pushing for privatized security replacing federal employees in all agencies.” Wolf leaned forward and tapped his finger on the computer. “This guy is a Combine team player if I ever saw one.”
“Probably has a lot of campaign contributions from private security firms too, huh?”
Wolf nodded again. “Including our favorite… Baynebridge.”
Wolf nodded toward the TV, turning John’s attention back to the news.
“An employee of a company with close ties to the intelligence community flipped his vehicle only several blocks away from where Congressman Sperling’s car crashed into the Willard,” she said, adding a conspiratorial edge to her inflection. “CEO Richard Garfield of the private security firm, Red Vector Solutions, had this to say about the death of Franklin Grover and his fiancée who also died in the fiery crash.”
The view changed to the police line surrounding an accident scene. The time stamp for the video said it had been recorded only an hour earlier.
“We are all saddened by the death of Franklin and his fiancée, Jennifer,” Garfield said. “We may be a large company, but each employee is a family member. Franklin was a decorated veteran of two wars and a valuable member of our team. He will be greatly missed.”
A reporter on the scene stuck his microphone forward. “Can you comment on the ties your company has with the authors of the communications surveillance bill?”
Garfield remained cool, though Wolf noted a series of microexpressions suggesting deception. “Now is a time for us to mourn our lost friend. Any talk about matters of business are inappropriate. And given the nature of our work, it’s unlikely we could discuss it anyway”.
The reporter shoved his microphone closer. “What about the timing of the twin accidents?”
Garfield smiled as one would at a small child asking why he couldn’t have cake for dinner. “DC is a small town, with many people connected professionally and socially, confined to a few blocks of city...it’s just a tragic coincidence.”
John shook his head. “Well, shit. They aren’t wasting any time. An open hit with loose ends.”
“A lot of new encrypted internal traffic on Homeland Security channels too,” Wolf replied, dragging his computer back in front of him and opening his programming interface. “They’re planning something big…soon.”
Cooper placed a mug of steaming coffee in front of John then went back and filled his thermos.
“Thanks, Deadeye,” John said, garnering a nod from Cooper.
As John sipped, Wolf compiled his program and uploaded it to a cloud server along with the hundreds of others he had programmed in the past few weeks. He watched the progress bar but also kept an eye on the transmission-stream graphs that showed the signal bouncing along more than three-dozen relay proxy servers to hide its origins.
John set his cup down and cleared his throat gently. “So, Nick tells me we’re splitting up into smaller teams.”
Wolf closed the lid on his laptop and looked over his shoulder at Cooper. Cooper nodded knowingly and grabbed his thermos before leaving through the back screen door.
As soon as he moved out of earshot, Wolf turned back to John. “The hacks are more important than anything else in our bag of tricks, and there are three of us who can do them.”
“I wasn’t questioning the logic,” John said. “I agree with you.”
Though it was exactly the response Wolf had expected, he lifted his eyebrows as if genuinely surprised, feeding Temple’s ego.
“Don’t look so surprised. You’re smart,” John said, then took another sip of coffee. When he sat the cup down, he turned it slowly, absently, between his fingers. “I am curious though, why you want me with you.”
Wolf smiled. “I need you, John.”
“Pfft.” The look of incredulity on John’s face was almost comic. “That’s a load of shit and you know it. You just want me where you can keep an eye on me.” Despite the grin on John’s face, Wolf knew John felt off-balance by the shift in power.
Wolf shook his head. “Storc and Jo know what they need to do. The SEALs, Nick, and Mark are there for security until we get into all the systems we need access to.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, preparing his lie. “But I’m going back to Europe.”
Confusion rippled across John’s face. “Europe?”
“I might be operationally independent, but you were a de facto station chief in Europe for years. I need your brain close to me.”
John tried to maintain a stone face, but genuine surprise played across his microexpressions. “I wasn’t station chief.”
“I know your history… You might as well have been the Berlin station chief.”
John set his jaw to the side and stared at Wolf for a moment through slits. “Why Europe?” He asked finally.
Wolf reopened his computer and clicked a folder on the desktop. He turned it around to face John. “I found out how BeauLac was communicating with the rest of Combine. I need to access his system again.”
John squinted at the dossier for a moment then his head snapped up. “How long have you had this?”
“A week or two.”
“Who else knows about it?” John asked, his tone carrying an edge of anger.
“Just me, Jo and Storc… and now you.”
John returned his attention to the screen and scrolled through the list of IP addresses and shell companies. “How?”
“The virus I put on BeauLac’s computer yielded a lot of data, but it took a while to decrypt it,” Wolf said, spinning the computer back around to face him. “And this isn’t even most of it. We have three superclusters working around the clock on brute-forcing just this… It’s taking too long. We need to know who the other board members are.”
John knew about Scott and Kathrin’s break-in at the Combine board member’s estate in France, but Wolf (and Scott) had intentionally held back information—it’s hard to trust a career spy no matter how friendly they are.
“How long until the rest is decrypted?”
Wolf shrugged. “Could be a day, could be a year. We won’t know ‘til it happens. But we can’t wait. We have a living Combine board member sitting in his house with names we need.” That was a partial truth—Wolf need a name, but he didn’t care about the board members; not in the short term anyway.
“That’s weak. What’s your real play here?” John asked, rubbing his hand across his mouth as he stared blankly at the floor. When his face registered something akin to understanding, he looked at Wolf. “You’re going to cripple their leadership and take the heat off the other two teams.”
That’s as good as any excuse for now. Wolf nodded.
John smiled. “The old man would have loved seeing you work,” he said, obviously referring to Director Burgess. “This
is something that could’ve come right out of his devious mind.”
“Or yours.”
John smiled more broadly. “No need to flatter…You’ve convinced me.”
“So, no more undermining the operation?”
John downed the last of his coffee and wheeled his chair around, rolling out of the kitchen. “For now.”
Wolf nodded and muttered, “I’ll take it.”
**
7:35 a.m. — Defense Intelligence Agency Special Projects Section, research and training compound, Fort Detrick, Maryland
TRIS pushed through the doors at the research center and stormed down the hallway. When she reached the clinic, she burst through the glass door so aggressively, the hydraulic arm snapped and the handle smashed into the wall, cracking the tile.
“Where is she?!” she yelled at Braun.
He recoiled from her rage but then regained his composure when she stopped in the middle of the room. “I’ve given her the LOT injection. She’s in isolation.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me?!” She took a step closer forcing Braun to flinch backward.
“I’m informing you now. This has been the plan all along…why are you upset?”
His German accent got thicker when nervous or angry. It only made her more furious.
“I needed to prep her emotionally. It’s key to the process,” she said, though in truth, she only wanted to spend time with her while Kathrin was still “Jagger-tied” to her—it was as close to balance as she had felt since Scott Wolfe had killed Gannon.
“Her isolation isn’t required for another twenty-four hours,” Braun said defensively. “Go to her now.”
He seemed to be experiencing mild amusement at Tris’s emotional response. It was true, she wasn’t usually emotional. Kathrin had changed something in her.
She turned to leave but abruptly spun back and rushed Braun, grabbing him by the shirt. “If you find my emotional outburst to be amusing, you might want to consider what the catalyst is.”
Braun smiled thinly. “What I find amusing is not your emotional tirade, but the notion that you feel personally incensed by the use of a pawn…Combine sanctioned at that.”
She released him. “There are three of us,” she said, her voice low but tense. “Three Lances out of almost a hundred attempts. And you are about to attempt another with someone who is Jagger-tied to me…the first.”
“She isn’t the first. You were.”
“No,” she snapped, a flush rising to her cheeks. “My paired Jagger was already dead when I underwent LOT and Lance. I went in under emotional trauma and I took both LOT and Lance at the same time.”
Braun shook his head as he flicked invisible remnants of Tris’s grab from his shirt with his fingertips. “What difference does it make? She’s disposable.”
“Is she?” Tris asked. “Because from my point of view, if she survives, she will be one of only two Jagger to Lance recipients…the most powerful killing machines ever created.”
“Not just killing machines. Your ability to subtly control with voice and motion, your ability to detect even the slightest deception in tone or facial fl—”
“Killing machines,” Tris said. “And you need to consider the fact that if Lance makes her independent, there is only one other asset who would ever have any chance of taking her down if she were to decide it’s not in her best interest to follow the ‘Combine sanctioned’ plan.”
She saw realization spread in his eyes despite his sincerest efforts to hide it.
“That’s right,” she said. “I’ll be the one to fight her if she turns on us…and you’ve just let her begin the most physically painful event of her life without her Jagger pair bond.”
Braun nodded, real concern on his face. “Go. You have twenty-four hours. Maybe more… and you can camp outside of her containment cell through the remainder of her isolation if you think it will help.”
She turned and walked to the door.
“And Tris,” Braun called to her back. “I won’t make that mistake again. You will be involved in every aspect of her treatment and handling from this point forward.”
She heard the deception in his tone but didn’t bother to turn and confront him about it. Trying to get Braun to keep his word would be as pointless as screaming at the night for being dark—it is what it is.
She walked down the hall to the containment room, the same room in which she had spent fifteen days only a few months earlier. The thick Lexan glass was sealed but the reflective screen was not active—her heightened eyesight still ached from the glare, assaulted by the strong light from inside the twenty-by-twenty cell.
On the floor of the sealed isolation room, clothing lay strewn, cast off with no regard for their fall. Kathrin lay crumpled on the small mat that served as a bed near the combination, shower-toilet.
She pressed the intercom button. “Hey… lazybones.”
Kathrin flinched but otherwise showed no sign of turning over.
“Kat…wake up you drunk bitch,” Tris said, trying to produce as much endearing humor in her tone as possible.
Kathrin let her shoulder fall to the mat and turned her head slowly, grimacing through the movement. “What?!”
“Come on. Get up.”
“Tired…sick.” As if on cue, she pulled herself over the edge of the tile rim and vomited.
“Cut it out. We’re going on a field trip.”
Kathrin coughed and spat bile from her mouth before flipping to her back. After a moment, she craned her neck up so she could see Tris. “I’m in isolation.”
Tris hit the release button on the containment wall and it swept up into the ceiling. “Premature. You have work to do.”
Kathrin shook her head and moaned. “Tomorrow.”
Tris shook her head and walked over to Kathrin. “Nope. Now.” She grabbed Kathrin by the foot and pulled her off the mat.
Rather than fight it, Kathrin went limp. The skin on her back squeaked against the seamless tile. “Stop,” she moaned.
“Get up,” Tris said as she went back into the main part of the isolation room and took a stack of clean clothes from the table by the wall. She tossed them at Kathrin, covering her face. “Get dressed. We have target practice this morning.”
Kathrin made a half enthusiastic attempt to rise but then fell flat again. “Tris, damn it. I’m sick.”
“It’s just the treatment. You’re fine. Get up and get dressed or I’ll dress you.”
Kathrin didn’t move.
Tris looked up at the camera. “Someone bring me a B12 shot.”
Kathrin moaned again as Tris walked over to her and lifted her leg, sliding a pair of olive drab fatigues over her feet.
“Stop,” Kathrin groaned.
Tris persisted, sliding Kathrin’s other leg through and lifting her pantied bottom from the floor to slide the trousers the rest of the way up.
“Stop!” she yelled. “I’ll get up.”
Tris dropped her legs and took a step back as Kathrin wrestled with the buttons at the waist and fly. A moment later, a tech entered the room with a syringe. Tris took it and watched the tech as he stood there, staring at Kathrin.
Tris leaned over, glaring into the man’s eyes, breaking his gaze. “Go.”
The tech flinched backward and turned, leaving the room as if suddenly remembering important matters elsewhere requiring his immediate attention.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Kathrin asked as she slid a red flannel shirt over her shoulders and tried to stand.
Tris walked over and jabbed the needle into her arm. Kathrin didn’t even flinch.
“I’m doing it for your own good. At this point in treatment, keeping your focus is important.”
Kathrin looked at her suspiciously. “How do you know? Have you done this yet?”
Tris just smiled. She was suddenly worried that if she produced a literal falsehood, Kathrin would know it. It unsettled her.
“Look. If you want me to go away. I’
ll go away.”
Kathrin reached out and touched her cheek. “No. Don’t go.”
“Then we have target practice.”
Kathrin nodded tiredly and stepped on the plain white tennis shoes on the floor, flipping each in turn with her toes then sliding her foot in. Her heels crushed the backs of the shoes, making them look like slippers.
Tris looked at the camera again. “We’ll be on range five if you want measurements.”
Tris could tell the B12 shot had already started kicking in. Kathrin moved more confidently by the time they reached the back exit of the lab building. Waiting in the rear of a red Jeep was a rifle case and a black shooter’s bag.
Kathrin squinted into the blinding light of day as she stepped out and raised her hand to block the sun. Tris pulled the sunglasses hooked in the cleavage of her shirt and handed them to Kathrin. She walked with Kathrin to the passenger side and was about to open the door, but Kathrin reached out and grabbed the handle first. “I’m perfectly capable.”
Tris grinned as she rounded the front of the Jeep and watched to make sure Kathrin got in okay. It was slow work, pulling her sore legs in, but Kathrin managed to get in and buckled her belt by the time Tris started the engine.
At too fast a pace for the parking lot, Tris raced the Jeep out the back and onto a narrow trail. They bounced along the wooded dirt road for several minutes, sliding through turns and kicking up a cloud of dust in their wake.
When they got to a clearing, Tris turned right and followed the road along the wood line to a fenced area. The chain-link gate stood ajar, and fresh dust still lingered in the air from a recent arrival at the range.
Tris guided the Jeep through the gate and to the range, sliding to a halt in the gravel parking area.
Kathrin lingered in the Jeep after Tris got out and shouldered the rifle and pack. “Come on, sweet one. We’ve got holes to punch in paper.”
Kathrin rocked her head back in an exaggerated eye roll. “Coming, mom.” She stopped abruptly and stared into space as if her words had shaken some memory loose from her fog.
“What’s wrong?” Tris asked as she walked to the front of the Jeep.
Kathrin shook her head. “Nothing. Let’s go.”