Shadows (Black Raven Book 1)

by Barcelona, Stella

  “Though I don’t have intel that confirms this, I’m guessing that you saw what your father’s brilliance has done to him and you didn’t want to be like him, did you?”

  She shrugged, not wanting to acknowledge the reason why she didn’t follow her father’s footsteps quite so starkly. “I wouldn’t put it that way. I’d say I decided to be productive in a different way.”

  “Well, I’d say you excel. Creative Confections was beautiful, and you created it out of thin air. It was perfect for Spring, until all of this happened. Last night I pushed you to the breaking point on purpose, because I was trying to get information from you, but I gave in to this…thing…that I obviously can’t control when I’m with you. I never lose control. But there’s something about you that pushes my body into sexual overdrive, and I did it, even when I knew your words were bullshit.”

  The only thing she paid attention to was the very first sentence. He’d pushed her to the breaking point on purpose. “So you were fucking me…” she cringed with the harshness of the words, becoming even angrier when he didn’t flinch. “…you fucked me on the outside chance I’d talk to you in some post-coital, confidence sharing? Was it all an attempt to manipulate me into giving you information, one that you might have screwed up by falling asleep the minute you came?”

  “You weren’t exactly complaining,” he said, jaw clenched in frustration. “Hell. I’m not trying to argue with you. I wasn’t manipulating you by having sex with you. I did it because I wanted it.” He paused. “I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I’ve tried to tell myself it’s because I’ve gone a few months without sex, but it’s not just that. Hell, I’ve gone without sex for longer stretches before, and haven’t lost control. There’s something about you. Something about your eyes,” he paused, “your voice, your body. The way you’re so wonderful with your sister. The way you’re cocky, the way you try like hell to be a tough girl, the way you jump into action without a plan. Even the way you lie like shit, with a straight-faced, big-eyed broadcast that a doozie is coming. Dammit.” He drew a deep breath, shook his head, and said, “Forget it. I don’t know why the hell I want you. Maybe I just do. If we had the chance, I’d do it again right now. Chalk it up to proximity and sudden horniness. Hell. I knew better last night, and I certainly know better now. I crossed a line that I never cross. I’m sorry.”

  Please shut up.

  She didn’t want to like him. Instead of focusing on the nice words that he said, instead of acknowledging the sincerity with which he delivered the apology, the way he was complimenting her and telling her how attracted he was to her, she focused on his earlier words. He’d pushed her to the breaking point on purpose. “Is this apology just another psychological game?”

  His cheeks flushed. He frowned, then started walking again. The agent who was in the lead had moved a wayward tree limb out of their way and was holding it as they passed. “No games. No manipulation. Maybe yesterday that was an option, but not now.” He drew a deep breath, touched his fingers to his temple, shook his head, mumbled “hell,” and dropped his hand. The gesture was quick, but it was enough to tell her that his headache was back.

  “I stand by the rule that if you’re apologizing to someone, they need to know exactly what you’re apologizing for. I can’t say much more than that. I’m sorry,” he said. “Because my people are busy looking at every record that’s ever been written and recorded about you, your family, and you’re father’s work, I knew better. Take it or leave it. The apology stands on its own. Regardless of the shit-pile of problems that I have, or the ones you have, I’m not playing a psychological game.”

  No answer required, she told herself. She stepped over another branch, glanced to her right, out over the lake, and tried to tell herself that he was still the asshole she’d originally thought him to be. The clouds had drifted and faded. There was more blue sky, and the edge of the sun was visible.

  “If you’re not already thinking that you should be talking to me,” he said, “I’m not going to try to change your mind. Before I leave, though, you need to know that we’ve learned your next identity. You don’t even have that security. Your cover’s blown out of this universe. When this is over for your father, when he’s safely back in jail, your only option for the moment will be to be Skye Barrows, because if we’ve found it, you have to assume someone else has it, too.”

  Her heart started pounding. “You’re bullshitting.” Stupid comment, she knew, because she’d already figured out he wasn’t a bullshitter.

  He shook his head. “Bridgette and Brandy Tillman.”

  She stopped walking. With his words, yet another door slammed shut. Oh, dear God. Trapped. Now, and forever. Because her father’s revolutionary technological innovations were always going to be in demand. There would always be someone to run from. Always. She drew a deep breath, shaking off the panic.

  Figure it out.

  She’d have to come up with a new identity. It would mean transferring funds in an untraceable manner, securing documentation, and creating yet another cyber-footprint.

  Doing that without her father’s help was daunting, but she’d figure out how to create new identities. She could afford good help. Acting on her father’s instructions, fulfilling her obligation under the cataclysm scenario, and keeping Spring safe while she did it, was something entirely different. All she could figure out was that she needed help, and she needed it now.

  “Frankly,” he continued, “I’ve figured out the problem with you, and we’re at the end of a dead end street.”

  She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

  “You believe your father’s claims, while my people have spent the last few days disproving the bulk of what he’s said. Even if you started talking right now, even if you started spinning theories as to why those men are after you, I’m not sure I’d listen. I don’t have time for it. I’ll find him, one way or another. When I do, he’ll go back to jail. I’m just no longer looking to you for any kind of an answer.”

  She stood still, her back to the lake, her attention focused on him.

  Trust no one who knows you’re my daughter.

  No one, and that meant not to trust this man who carried wayward puppies across a street, who played jellybean games with Spring, who apologized after having sex that he felt he shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t trust him, even though he took a hard slap on the face without flinching, nodded, and said that he deserved it. He desired her, due to things no one else had ever even noticed about her, yet that wasn’t a reason to trust him, because she was to trust no one.

  Figure it out.

  She heard it before she saw it. There was a distant whirr of an airborne engine, which became louder. Undulating air, chopped by blades, circulated around her as a black helicopter skimmed the treetops overhead, in the direction of the house.

  He glanced at the helicopter as he handed her Candy’s leash. “Continue on the path. My agents will walk closer to you. I’ll be gone when you return to the house. You and Spring will have Black Raven protection until we find your father, but unless you ask to see me, or talk to me, you won’t.”

  He turned and walked back towards the house that really wasn’t a house at all, retracing his steps. When he was five steps away from her she wondered whether she was making a mistake. When he was ten steps away, she had the same feeling that she’d had the night before, when he had stepped out of the SUV and walked into the safe house. His absence was immediately noticeable, and knowing he was walking away and leaving Last Resort made the void created by his absence worse. As he moved even further from where she stood, as he passed the two agents who had been walking behind them, she suddenly felt alone. Alone had always been bad, but she had coped.

  Now, with the weight of the cataclysm scenario crashing around her, with both Jen and her father missing, without the safety net that Daniel and Sarah had provided, and with someone chasing after her and Spring, being alone was intolerable. Without Sebastian next to
her, without his serious eyes on her, she felt less safe.

  The night before, when he had stepped out of the SUV to go to the safe house, she’d had the premonition that whatever was going to happen without him in the SUV was going to be bad. She felt the same thing now. Shivering, she rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling colder, even though the sun was now fully visible.

  “Wait.” The word was lost in the sound of the helicopter engine. Before he disappeared from the clearing, she hurried towards him. “Sebastian. Wait.”

  He stopped walking away, turning as she caught up to him. Candy bounced around their feet. His eyes were hard, his stance only momentarily on pause. The man who had just apologized to her for what had happened between them was physically there, but his apologetic demeanor was gone. It was back to business for him, and he didn’t have time to waste. If her needs were only about herself, if she wasn’t so desperate, she’d have said never mind, because he was giving her a hard glance that suggested, what now?

  He pointed to his ear, mouthed, the words, ‘I’m wired,’ then, ‘Ragno’s listening.’

  “I’ll tell you what I know if you promise that no matter what happens, if anything happens to me, Spring will be safe. I have a will. There are detailed instructions. All of it is in Jen’s office. Jen is—was—her legal guardian, in the event that something happened to me.”

  He frowned. “I thought Root didn’t know where you were.”

  “She didn’t, but I had a plan in place so that Jen would be contacted if necessary.”

  “Lying time is over Skye. Everything you say from here on out needs to make sense. Understand?”

  Irritation flared, but given her steadfast refusal to talk for the last twenty-four plus hours, he had the right to feel the need to lay different ground rules. “Yes.”

  “What was the plan? You unexpectedly drop dead,” he said, his eyes as hard as his blunt words and his tone. “There’s no link between Chloe and Colbie Stewart and your father or Root. How was Root going to know?”

  “Daniel and Sarah. They didn’t know who we really were, but they both knew there were instructions to follow in the event of an emergency, and those instructions spelled everything out.”

  He nodded. “Go on.”

  She drew a deep breath, relieved. “Without Daniel and Sarah, and now that Jen is missing, I need a backup. With things so uncertain, I need to make sure that Spring will be safe, that those instructions are followed, that someone will take care of her. She needs a legal guardian, and more. She needs someone as caring as Doctor Schilling. Does your company do that kind of protection?”

  He gave her a curt nod. “Yes. We adapt services to client’s needs. But before I agree to let you hire my company, you have to tell me everything you know.”

  “I will, but I need to make sure Spring is protected.”

  His lips lifted in a slight smile, which faded as quickly as it started. “Always bargaining, aren’t you?”

  She held his gaze. “Well?”

  He frowned. “We’re expensive.”

  “I have the financial wherewithal to pay for this, and trusts are established in the event of my death.”

  “We’ll need a roadmap to find them.”

  “They’re in different names.” She tried to keep some of the desperation out of her voice, but when she talked about Spring, it was difficult. “I need to make sure someone other than me knows what to do. That someone else is responsible for her if I can’t act, that someone looks out for her while my father is imprisoned, or,” she drew a deep breath, “or worse. I need to know Spring will be safe and cared for. My back-up systems have fallen apart since yesterday morning. I can’t function without knowing there’s a safety net for Spring, if something happens to me.”

  He nodded. “Done. Ragno, you heard that?”

  He paused.

  “Good. You can tell her.” He lifted the earpiece from his ear, stepped closer to Skye, and held it against her right ear. He was just inches from her. She longed for the comfort of his arms around her. He wasn’t offering that kind of comfort, though, so she took what he gave her. She lifted her fingers to cup his hand that held the earpiece. He inhaled at her touch. For a fleeting second, the moment became more about her fingers on his, her smaller hand on his larger one, and how she almost couldn’t fight the urge to throw herself against him, than it was about the phone call. The look in his eyes, tense and serious, told her he felt the same way.

  “Skye, I’ll memorialize that as a verbal request for hiring Black Raven. We’ll memorialize it in writing later.”

  Skye drew a deep breath, as she realized that the person on the other end of the line, Sebastian’s partner on the job, was a woman. Ragno’s tone was that of a confident female—clear, crisp, efficient, intelligent, and full of authority. That he had so much trust in a female was yet another reason to like him. Hell.

  “You can establish the parameters as we proceed. Spring’s needs may be a little different than the usual type of services we provide,” Ragno said. “But we adapt. Black Raven can handle this, no matter what happens to your father, or to you. You have Sebastian’s word, and you now have mine. Sebastian isn’t always adept at knowing what someone needs to hear.”

  Skye almost chuckled. Ragno hadn’t been privy to the heartfelt apology that Sebastian had just delivered. She wasn’t giving the man enough credit. Ragno continued, “What Sebastian meant when he said ‘done,’ was that hiring Black Raven means you and Spring never need to be alone again. We’re the best safety net money can buy, and you have the assets to cover it. We can work out details later. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said, her knees almost buckling with relief, as Sebastian reclaimed the earpiece. “Thank you,” she whispered, intending it both for Sebastian and Ragno.

  He nodded, still standing close to her. “Now, tell me more.”

  She drew a deep, courage-gathering breath, and said, “I don’t know who is after us, but I know why.”

  “Ragno, can you hear this?” He nodded. To Skye, he said, “Go on.”

  She glanced around the clearing. The three agents were on the perimeter, spaced equally apart, backs to them. The sun was shining in full now. Sebastian’s eyes were on her. Waiting. She had no choice. With one more deep breath of the fragrant, pine-laden air, she said, “It has to do with Shadow Technology.”

  He frowned. He gave her a slight headshake. “It doesn’t exist.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It does.”

  “Look. It’s damn hard to make sense of anything your father’s said in the last five years or so. There are thousands upon thousands of pages of his writings and even more thousands of pages of debriefings, that were conducted in connection with his offense. Your father consistently talked about Shadow Technology, as though it was something that he created, but in reality, Shadow Technology doesn’t exist. Plus, it’s hard to believe anything that he said, because he also consistently talked about UFO’s, brain-wave scanners, and things that are total bullshit. You heard the disdain in this morning’s news report, you heard it from me yesterday, and you heard it from Minero. I’m trying hard to find a thread of logic, but my people are telling me that Shadow Technology doesn’t exist, and my people would know if it did.”

  “It exists,” she said, emphatically. “The government’s denying it, but my father developed the technology for the National Security Agency. They’re using it now.”

  His frown deepened.

  I’m finally talking to him, and he doesn’t believe me.

  “The government admits that PRISM exists,” she grasped for something that he would agree with. “There are other data collection programs that they’re now admitting to using, and even some programs that aren’t public knowledge. It’s public knowledge that they’re building warehouses in Utah to store and process the volumes of cyber data they’re collecting, but what isn’t so well known is how the government is processing the information that’s being stored in the Utah Data Center. Offici
ally, the mission of the Utah Data Center is unclassified.” Skye drew a deep breath. “But unofficially, my father’s Shadow Technology is an integration and assimilation program that the government is using there and elsewhere to tie together data collection efforts of various agencies.”

  “Skye. There’s no evidence that Shadow Technology exists.” She watched him clench his jaw, and shut his eyes for a second as he pressed his index finger and his middle finger on his forehead. He gave his temple a slow, hard-pressured swipe.

  Not twenty-four hours earlier, when she had first learned of his head injury, she had wished that he’d drop dead. Now, she thought, please, God, let him be all right, and said, “How bad is that headache?”

  He opened his eyes, stared at her for a second, with an expression that she couldn’t read, and said, “Not as bad as it’s going to get.” He gave her a slight smile. “But I can handle it. The only guarantee I have today is that the headache will not be my biggest problem.” His expression turned serious again. “Ragno, don’t worry about it.” Eyes on Skye, he said, “Please tell me you have more than this.”

  “When the September eleventh attacks happened, my father became obsessed with the fact that our security agencies had the raw intel that could have warned us of the attacks. The government had clues. We also-”

  He held up a finger, and stepped closer to her. “Ragno, are you hearing this?” To Skye, he nodded. “Speak up.”

  “My father believed that the government had an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden and the government would have done so, if it had accurately read the clues in advance of the attacks. It drove my father, to distraction. He believed that such important intelligence gathering and assessment didn’t need to be subject to human error, so he designed the integration and assimilation program that he called Shadow Technology. Before he was charged with tax evasion, he’d spent five years working with the NSA, adapting it to their various data collection efforts, which, as you know, grew exponentially in that time frame.”