Operation Zulu

by Ernest Dempsey

  There was no one else around to hear him. Phoenix worked in his own office. Actually, it was barely an office. They’d jammed him down in the basement, turning an old custodial closet into his office. There were no windows and barely enough ventilation. In the winter it was cold, and in the summer it was stuffy and hot. He was surrounded by circuits, wires, tool kits, and all manner of devices. A soldering iron sat to his left on a little workbench where he’d been building some micro transmitters for some nano-cameras. While he didn’t hate his job, he certainly didn’t enjoy being stuck in the basement. And he absolutely loathed guys like Scott Brohm. What was that guy doing down here anyway? Doesn’t he have better things to do, like, stopping a nuclear attack or taking out a terrorist cell on the other side of the world?

  Phoenix had followed his friend, Zeke Marshall, into working for the GIC. The brainwork part of the testing and selection phase hadn’t been difficult. Phoenix was brilliant, a 4.0 student in high school and college. He’d earned a masters degree while Zeke was still “figuring out his path.” Phoenix knew what that meant. During college, Zeke had spent more time chasing girls than studying. Phoenix didn’t judge, but he was glad he’d put in the time and effort. Now he had a solid government paycheck, a decent 1200-square-foot home, and his trusty Honda. And that didn’t even factor in the benefits.

  It wasn’t a horrible gig. That’s what he told himself, anyway. All he had to do was sit back, put in his thirty years, and then enjoy retirement. Perhaps on a tropical beach somewhere.

  He stuck his Bluetooth earplugs back into his ears and restarted the music on his phone. He’d designed the headphones himself, designing them from spare parts lying around the shop. They had a far greater range than commercial headphones, and greater audio clarity, along with a little more bass. He loved hip-hop, probably because he was from Atlanta, a city that produced more hip-hop music and artists than anywhere else in the world.

  His head started to bob involuntarily as he stared at the code on the screens. The sounds of Ludacris spinning words filled his ears.

  It was a running conflict between him and his friend Zeke, who was a huge fan of old-school country music and bluegrass. Zeke was from Nashville, so that made sense, but neither understood each other’s musical tastes.

  Phoenix’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he took notes of what he was seeing on the screens. He was running an analysis of some encoded messages he’d intercepted from Serbia. He knew the source of the messages was a shell; the true source was what he was trying to find. A lot of cash had been moved around in Western Europe as of late, but it seemed like the money trail kept pointing back to one particular place: Russia.

  Relations with the Russians had been tenuous at best lately. Their president was more like a dictator or a monarch. He had a reputation for taking out people who disagreed with him, although that stuff never made the news headlines. People just seemed to disappear if they disagreed with him. His name was Vladimir Polskin, and no one dared go against him, in public or in private.

  The Russian people seemed ambivalent toward him, though some believed that he would lead them back to their former greatness.

  Phoenix had a bad feeling that Polskin was up to something. Whatever it was, Phoenix knew it could lead to serious problems if it was left unchecked.

  The money flowing through Serbia was just one such example. Cash was being filtered through multiple banks in numerous countries, all coming out of Russia. It would’ve been easy to miss for most people. Whoever was moving the money was very good at it. They were cleaning it, scrubbing it, and hiding it in so many places that the trail was almost invisible.

  Not to Phoenix, though. He’d seen the unusual activity and started putting together a case to make a presentation to the GIC director, Maxwell Madic. Madic, however, had been uninterested. He claimed that there was no real evidence of wrongdoing or anything suspicious. Phoenix had made a strong case, or so he believed, but it wasn’t enough, and Madic had swept it under the rug.

  Phoenix was told to drop it and move on, find something real, but the issue kept niggling at him.

  There was something fishy going on there. He knew it. He just had to connect the dots.

  He was so locked in on the screens in front of him and the music in his ears that he didn’t hear someone enter his workspace.

  “Is that YouTube?” A familiar voice spoke over the music and startled Phoenix so much that he nearly jumped out of his chair.

  He spun around and looked up to see his friend Zeke standing over him with that stupid, crap-eating grin he’d seen so many times throughout their lives. Zeke had his hands in his pockets, his tie was a little loose around his neck, and his light brown hair swept to one side.

  Phoenix shook his head and took out his headphones.

  “Seriously, is that a funny cat video? It’s hard to tell.”

  Phoenix rolled his eyes and twisted his chair around to face the monitors again. “I’m following a money trail.”

  “Oooo, a money trail?” Zeke shook his head. That was all he did all day long, pretty much. Actually what he did was far less interesting. He wasn’t going to tell Phoenix that, though.

  “Ha ha,” Phoenix said. “How’s the accounting department going?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual, sweeping money under rocks so the taxpayers never find out where we really spend it, funding wars in small countries while we tell the public we have nothing to do with it, that sort of thing.”

  Phoenix laughed for real this time. “That really is what you do, isn’t it?”

  Zeke shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes I guess. I don’t really handle that stuff, but I’m sure it’s going on. They haven’t given me any of those assignments yet.”

  “You mean federally endorsed money laundering?”

  “Exactly.” Zeke leaned closer and looked at the monitors. “That doesn’t look like money, though, man. What is that?”

  “Code. I’m following the code.” He pointed at the screen as if about to give a lecture on what he was looking at.

  “Great, let’s get something to eat.” Zeke cut him off before he could start droning on.

  “Eat?” Phoenix looked at his watch. “Seriously? It’s only ten o’clock.”

  “Yeah, I know but I’m just bored. Let’s get a cup of coffee.”

  “I can’t right now, man. I’m really busy.”

  “Hit the pause button. I need to get some air.”

  “I…there’s no pause button for something like this.”

  “All that stuff is being saved on your drive, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yeah, so you just save it there and you have twenty-four hours to analyze it before it gets wiped and reset. Or you just save a permanent backup.”

  “I have to get authorization for that.”

  “Fine. I authorize you to do that.”

  Phoenix shook his head. “You don’t have the authority to do that, but nice try.”

  “Come on, man. Just come get a cup of coffee with me in the break room.”

  “Fine,” Phoenix relented. “But you know the coffee sucks, right?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  The two friends left the tiny office and made their way over to the stairs. The elevator was out of order, seemingly in perpetuity. It was strange—for a high-level government agency with almost unlimited funding, fixing an elevator should’ve been no big deal.

  They climbed the stairs and stepped onto the main floor. Hundreds of desks and cubicles filled the room just beyond a wall of windows straight ahead. The GIC’s headquarters was in an old warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Washington. The facility was only three stories high, not counting the basement. It looked like it was a logistics business in its previous life. The drab, brown brick exterior walls and dark-tinted windows did nothing to convey its true purpose now, which was just how the higher-ups liked it.

  Anonymity, in their line of work, was an absolute necessity.

&n
bsp; The two turned right and headed down the hall. They passed an attractive blonde woman in a white skirt and a black blouse. It was all Zeke could do to keep his eyes focused straight ahead. He knew he wasn’t supposed to check out his coworkers; interoffice dating was highly discouraged, though there were a few people who managed to pull it off. Most of the time, however, that stuff turned sour and then the workplace was affected.

  Still, there were no denying thousand-year-old instincts when a beautiful woman walked by. Seconds after she had passed, her perfume lingered, wafting into their nostrils as they continued down the corridor.

  Phoenix didn’t even make eye contact, but Zeke’s eyes had drifted up and met hers, if only for a second. He flashed a stupid smile and then returned his gaze to the path ahead, not wanting to risk coming off as inappropriate.

  Things sure were different these days, since the time when his dad worked there. The GIC is where Zeke’s parents met. Only, in that case, it was his mother who had pursued his father. She’d been a strong woman, willing to take what she wanted. As they’d relayed the story, it was Zeke’s mom who asked out his father. One thing led to another and the rest was history.

  When his father passed, Zeke’s mother was inconsolable. It was the first time in his life he’d ever seen his mother so vulnerable. She’d always been strong, always tough in the face of adversity. After his father died, she was never the same.

  She put on a façade whenever Zeke came to visit, but she never remarried, and never wanted to date. She played golf with some girlfriends, and poker now and then on Tuesdays, but there was a distant pain in her eyes that never seemed to truly go away. A piece of her heart had been ripped out and that scar would always remain.

  Zeke turned right into the break room; the smell of cheap coffee wafted through the air and replaced the sweet scent from the blonde woman they’d passed in the hall.

  Gary, a guy from IT, was sitting at a table in the break room. He was alone, staring at his laptop. He had on a pair of wireframe glasses like those that Zeke had seen in Germany on his visit there a few years ago. Gary was a scrawny guy, probably 155 pounds dripping wet. He had on a white, button-up with criss-crossed stripes sewn into it. His black tie was undone and hung loosely around his collar. If he didn’t know any better, Zeke would’ve thought Gary belonged to the geek squad or one of its knock-0ffs.

  Gary looked up as the two walked in. “Hey, guys,” he said in his Midwestern accent. “How are ya?”

  Zeke and Phoenix looked at each other with the same look they always shared whenever they heard Gary speak. Being from the South, they always thought his accent was funny. Of course, people from other parts of the world probably thought theirs was funny, too.

  Zeke’s mom always joked about that, saying that everyone was going to be in for a big surprise when they got to heaven and heard God speaking in a Southern accent.

  The thought always brought a smile to his face.

  “I’m good, Gary,” Zeke said. “Looks like you’re doing something important.” He knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. He was probably trying to fix the director’s email again, or something equally as ridiculous. If there was one person who had a less important job than Zeke and Phoenix, it was Gary. Seriously, a robot could’ve done his job. That was a shame, too, because he was a really smart guy. Probably deserved to be doing something more important. Zeke had always thought that, in spite of Gary’s social ineptitude, he was being underutilized in his day-to-day routine.

  “Not really. The director was having trouble with his email again. Forgot his password. Honestly, I don’t know how the guy even functions in life. I wonder if he forgets how to tie his shoes on a daily basis.”

  Zeke snorted a laugh, both at the comment about the shoes, and the fact he’d been right about the email thing.

  “What are you guys up to?” Gary asked as Zeke sauntered over to the coffee pot.

  “Oh, you know. The usual,” Zeke said. He looked at the black sludge in the coffee pot. It smelled burned as if it had been there for four hours. “Saving the world. Stopping terrorists and evil masterminds. Getting the girl. That sort of thing.”

  “Yeah,” Phoenix agreed sarcastically. He reached for a paper cup and filled it with the dark coffee. Steam rose from the cup and swirled around the lip before sailing into the air and evaporating. “Except none of that.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. I thought going to work for a secret government agency was going to be pretty cool. Honestly, I’d probably have more fun working at Best Buy.”

  Zeke bit his lip to hold back another laugh. Again, he was spot on with his assessment.

  Zeke picked up a cup and filled it about halfway with the coffee. He watched Phoenix take a sip. The scowl and grimace that crossed his friend’s face told him everything he needed to know about the quality of the java in his cup. He was disgusted at the choice of coffee provided by the office. Maybe a quick trip to the nearest coffee shop was a better idea, although they weren’t supposed to leave the building once they were there for the day.

  It felt more like a prison sometimes. Zeke was never one to play by the rules. He liked to do his own thing, marching to his own drum. Authority was something he never appreciated. More often than not, that mindset got him in trouble. He’d had his fair share of difficulties since joining GIC, but was doing his best to acclimate and settle in. Still, there was a nagging in the back of his mind that told him he wasn’t doing what he was meant to do.

  He ached to travel the world, to have adventures, see places and people that he’d never seen before. That would be as a field agent, though, and he wasn’t built for that.

  Zeke stared down into his cup as if still contemplating whether to dump it or drink it. He raised the cup to his lips and felt the heat of the liquid wash over his face. His eyes narrowed as he tilted of the cup. The coffee touched his lips with scalding heat, causing him to grimace. Then the flavor hit his tongue, and for a second, he kept it in his mouth. Against his better judgment, he swallowed.

  Two seconds later, he gagged on the brew, doubling over at his hips. His shoulders shot forward. His hand was jarred and the contents of the cup sailed through the air and splashed onto Phoenix’s pants, just inches from the groin. The hot liquid soaked the upper thigh of his khakis. His reaction was instant. He screamed as the coffee scalded the skin under his clothes. Luckily for him, Phoenix was a boxer guy. The extra layer of cotton provided just enough clothing to mitigate the temperatures to an almost tolerable level. That didn’t keep him from jumping instinctively, an act that caused the cup in his hand to go sailing through the air, straight toward the laptop on the table where Gary was sitting.

  Gary’s eyes widened. Everything slowed down as the cup tumbled through the air, the brown brew within escaping its container and sloshing freely toward the computer and Gary.

  He reacted fast, jumping to the side and out of the splash zone. The laptop, however, wasn’t so lucky.

  The contents of the cup doused the keyboard and monitor. Within seconds, the liquid had soaked down into the keyboard and the computer abruptly shut off.

  Gary stepped back to the laptop and looked at it. Forlorn, he glanced over at the other two.

  “Are you serious? What the…I mean…this is the Director’s laptop, guys. He’s going to kill me.”

  There was genuine panic in his voice as if his entire career up to that point had just been a waste because it was about to be over.

  Phoenix was still concerned about the coffee on his leg. He could feel the heat searing through his clothes and did his best to cool it off by waving his hand in front of his thigh.

  Zeke instinctively grabbed several napkins from the nearby sink and began apologizing to his friends while he hurried to wipe the stain on Phoenix’s leg.

  “I’m so sorry, guys. Really.” He sounded disgusted with himself. The stain wasn’t coming off fast enough.

  “Here, let me do that. Seriously, it’s just weird with you rubbing my leg l
ike that.”

  Zeke didn’t listen. “Here, turn toward the sink. We need water to get the stain out.”

  He turned on the faucet and wet the napkin thoroughly, then began wiping his friend’s leg again in an up-and-down motion with their backs turned to the door. Gary was still staring at the laptop, horrified. “What am I going to tell the Director? He’s going to kill me. Or worse, he’s going to put me in an office down there next to you, Phoenix.”

  Just then, smoke started trickling out of the computer. “Aw, man,” he said, seeing the death knell for the device. “Great.”

  Zeke was still vigorously rubbing his friend’s leg, much to Phoenix’s protest.

  “Dude, seriously. Cut it out. I can do it. I don’t like you touching my leg.”

  “What is going on in here?” The female voice cut through the awkward moment, making it even more awkward.

  Gary looked up from his laptop. Zeke turned around and looked toward the doorway. Phoenix spun around as well, with Zeke’s hand still just below his belt.

  It was the ultimate picture of office chaos.

  The woman at the door was the blonde they’d seen a few minutes before. She looked mortified and shook her head.

  “Oh, hello there,” Zeke said. “So, this isn’t what it looks like.”

  She stared for another ten seconds and then turned and walked out of the room.

  “Great,” Zeke said, “now she thinks we’re freaks.”

  “Don’t lump me in with the likes of you two,” Gary defended.

  “Well, maybe she won’t think anything of it,” Phoenix said, hopeful. “Easy to explain. We had a coffee accident. No big deal.”

  Zeke sighed. He hoped his friend was right. Otherwise, it could be the last straw for him. He’d already used up his two strikes and then some. One more and he’d be out.

  3

  Director Maxwell Madic watched the video footage of the men in the break room. There were surveillance cameras everywhere in the building, always watching, always listening. If you came to work for the GIC, you were going to do a good job. That was the case for 99 percent of the people who worked there.