The Shadow's Code

by Miles Goodson

  “The autopsy is happening as we speak. I’m thinking there may have been foul play,” Roger said quietly, almost whispering.

  “Why are you so suspicious? I mean Julie was a good lady but she was no spring chicken. You know what these jobs are like, stress is high, our bodies take a beating.” James was now standing and becoming impatient.

  “Listen James, I worked with Julie for years. I can’t even remember how long I’ve known her. She didn’t drink or smoke and only drank coffee at breakfast. Never worked longer than a twelve hour day. Had a happy home life and kept herself active and lectured all of us at any and every opportunity about our lifestyle. Julie even gave talks to the White House staff about managing stress. She urged us to go for a run a few times a week or visit the gym. Of all people that were likely to have a heart attack she would be bottom of the list here.”

  James looked over at the clock just above his bookshelf. “So you suspect foul play, any proof, anything that we could get investigated?” James asked.

  “I don’t have anything yet but after hearing about the way the SEAL was killed I’m sure someone is on to us. Have you found the other guy yet, I think someone is hunting the team that created this project?” Roger sounded like a detective who already had a suspect, but James knew better than to take Roger seriously. He was good at politics but knew nothing about crime.

  “Hmmm, she died at home?” James said, then cursed himself for dragging out this conversation any further.

  “This morning. Her husband said she went for her usual run as she does three times a week, she came back after thirty minutes, showered, they ate rice crackers together and then two minutes later she was gasping for air after collapsing on the floor. She was dead before the ambulance arrived, they tried resuscitation, but she was gone.”

  “It does happen, Roger. People appear fit and healthy with the spirit of life rushing through their veins and then in a heartbeat they’re gone.” James spoke from experience. He had lost some good friends on operation when he first joined the CIA.

  “Not Julie, I agree that these things happen, but not to her, not Julie,” Roger said.

  “OK Roger, well let’s say there was foul play, what do you want me to do? I’m sure the Secret Service will investigate anything they find suspicious happening there,” James said. “What if someone is on to us, what about if they know about the project? I heard it holds codes for something. Maybe this person or people think we all know the truth and are going to kill us if we don’t talk. They would never accept us saying we don’t know…” Roger’s voice whimpered. “Right now we know nothing. It’s just a friend that has sadly passed away. Let’s leave it at that until the autopsy comes back,” James said.

  Although he was unsure about what next step to take, he was much tougher than Roger, who had lived the comfortable sheltered life of a government official working in the White House. James had been to war, he had seen people shot and killed and had lost people he considered brothers; a story of some unknown assassin wasn’t likely to worry him. However he had never faced such a challenge before.

  “The professor is gone, the SEAL is gone, Julie is now gone. Do you think it could be the other guy?” Roger asked.

  “Lindon?” James said.

  “Who’s Lindon?” Roger said.

  “That’s what Ben calls himself these days. I’m sure it’s not him. He’s a ghost hiding in the shadows. Most likely a mercenary from what we can tell. Why would he start taking people out? He’s on our side. At least the last time I checked he was,” James said as he looked at his watch and decided that they really shouldn’t be talking about such sensitive details over the phone, even if it was over his secure office line.

  “The last time you checked? How do you know the program hasn’t failed and he knows everything and is out for some revenge for whatever happened, do you know what the program covers up?” Roger asked.

  “Roger, we shouldn’t talk further over the phone about this, next time we see each other we can talk about this…and no, I don’t know what the program covers up either.” James now had his briefcase in hand and slumped his shoulders forwards ready to walk out.

  “OK, well will you let me know if you find out anything new?” Roger said.

  “I will let the president know, I’m sure that will feed down to you, Roger.”

  James removed the receiver from his ear and hung up. It felt as though Roger had been fishing for details. He always was trying to intrude in the biggest cases the CIA worked. It gave him something to talk about when he spoke to other staff. Roger would begin talking about a top-secret project and then stop and tell the person he couldn’t tell them any more. It reinforced his sense of seniority. James hoped that would be the last he would hear from Roger for a while. Unfortunately he would not be so lucky.

  A taxi pulled up outside the Sagaris building in downtown Toronto.

  Jim was slumped on the back seat. After some gentle rousing from the driver he eased himself out of the cab door. Slowly he managed to get both feet supporting his weight. He reached for his back pocket, his wallet wasn’t there. It was still on the rear seat of the cab. He felt nauseous and dizzy and it took all his mental focus to lean back down and in through the cab door to grab his wallet. He pulled out a twenty and returned the brown leather wallet back to his rear pocket, where it lived a busy life. Jim handed the money to the driver. The fare was $17.40 so Jim began to walk off; with a weak gruff voice he called out “Keep the change.”

  The cab driver watched Jim for a moment as he staggered away. Jim was not a heavy drinker, at least not usually, but the night before was a blur. A few old friends from college were in the city on business and with so few chances to enjoy a social life Jim took advantage when he could. The fifth club had kicked him and his buddies out at two in the morning. Jim knew a strip club who were more accommodating to drunken patrons. ‘Mather’s Girls’ was as subtle as its name. Neon strip lights everywhere and more poles than a metropolitan fire station. As long as you still had cash to throw around, you stayed. Jim got a cab home at six, showered, slept for an hour and refueled with strong coffee and bacon before snoozing on the sofa for another hour or so.

  It was now 11.15am. After he finally managed to press the correct button on the elevator and hobble towards the secure door of floor 62 he managed to compose himself. The retina scan took a few seconds longer than usual; his bloodshot eye struggled to stare forward. He was greeted as usual by reception and nodded at the security guard. He then walked as quickly as he could to his office. He managed some semblance of a straight line but was fooling no one. Jim reached the door, yanked it open and then quickly shut it behind him. He headed straight for the couch and closed his eyes. He had found his sanctuary to hide away; hopefully he wouldn’t be disturbed until mid afternoon.

  Jim’s mind turned to Lindon and whether he would take this big contract. The thought came and passed in his mind as he drifted off. A minute later the door flew open without a knock. Kirt stood in the doorway with a distressed look on his face.

  “Where have you been I’ve been waiting for you all morning?” Kirt said.

  “Fuck off Kirt,” Jim said flippantly with his eyes closed.

  “Did you get the freelance on that new mission for Gold 714?” Kirt said, waving his left arm in the air and pointing at Jim.

  Jim managed to open one bloodshot eye, his voice croaked “Not yet, why’s it so important right this minute, can’t we talk about it later?” Jim knew that Kirt wasn’t going anywhere.

  “The brief has been changed, so has the money, this has just turned into the highest paying job we’ve ever tendered but we’ve gotta have the freelance,” Kirt said, now standing over Jim.

  “Why? Why him?” Jim asked with both his eyes closed again.

  “Tell you what, I’ll come back in an hour. Casper and William wanna discuss this.” Kirt’s voice had broken into one of excitement.

  “What? William is here?” Jim’s voice was full of tre
pidation.

  “Yeah, I’ll be back in an hour when you’ve had time to shake off whatever you inflicted upon yourself last night.” Kirt walked out and slammed the office door which didn’t help Jim’s headache. He could hear the seconds tick on his desk clock. The gentle ticks sent him back to sleep.

  Jim woke up forty minutes later. He couldn’t believe the one of only a handful of nights of the whole year he goes out and can barely stand the next morning is followed by a visit from William Kapp; the head honcho, Mr CEO. He rarely came into the office; instead Casper and his colleagues reported to him once a month at a golf club or roof top pool. William was an easy-going guy who was only slightly older than Casper. The two acted more like friends than co-workers and their cavalier attitude towards each other was the same in meetings. Even so Jim couldn’t let on that he had turned up to work half drunk after spending the night with strippers. He needed coffee, and food and pills. One of the floor’s secretaries was dispatched, a sharply dressed young man who used to be a top track runner. Jim gave him four minutes to be back in the office with coffee and painkillers. A feat that even Usain Bolt would struggle with.

  Just before 1pm Kirt knocked on Jim’s office door. He waited a few seconds before hearing a response.

  “Come in,” Jim crackled, and quickly repeated himself in a much more awake tone. Kirt walked in on Jim trying to press his hair down flat on one side, constantly licking his fingers and then forcing the hair down. Kirt took a few steps into the office holding a copy of the brief he needed Jim to look at. Jim continued to stare at the blank screen of his laptop, which he was holding in one hand at head height as he stood. He used the blank screen as a mirror. It reflected the outline of his head.

  “OK, when we go in you need to have some idea of the brief, so here it is.” Kirt handed over a file that was at least 20 pages thick. Jim put the laptop down and with the same hand picked up the file from the desk. Not every page needed to be read but a skim to see what was on them would help Jim have some idea of what was going on.

  “OK, how long do I have?” Jim asked.

  “We’re meeting in ten minutes, there will be at least seven of us,” Kirt said.

  “SEVEN?” Jim slumped onto the sofa.

  “Yes, me, you –“

  “I will see everyone when I walk in, can you give me a short description of what this all says while I glance over it,” Jim said.

  “Sure,” Kirt replied. Jim flicked through the first five pages without any interest, then he turned to page nine. His eyebrows rose and his heart skipped a beat as he read. His focus centered on a few lines in front of him. Jim’s mouth began to feel dry and he struggled to read past the first four lines. He read and re-read the same lines but couldn’t process it. Kirt began to speak.

  “So you will see the first few pages are just an outline of what we’ve known up to now and that’s followed by information on the client, Gold 714, then-“

  Jim cut Kirt off mid flow. “Wait...wait, is this serious?” Jim looked up at Kirt.

  “How far have you got?” he asked.

  “I’m on page nine. You can’t be serious. You’ve got crossed wires or something. This isn’t correct,” Jim protested.

  “It’s correct, Jim. The job will be a set up, we-“

  Jim cut Kirt off again and raised his hand in the air. “Wait!” Jim was fixed to the spot. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, or what he was reading. He reached for a bottle of water that sat on the edge of his desk and accidently knocked it to the floor. Fortunately the lid was on tight. Kirt retrieved the bottle and unscrewed the lid. He handed it to Jim’s open hand.

  “Kirt, I...I have to speak to these men…this, this job is-“ Jim stuttered.

  “I know, Jim. That’s the reason for the meeting. If we are going to take on a mission that means we are capturing one of our own men then we need to have a serious think about ourselves as an organization. If this ever got out, no one would trust us, we would be finished,” Kirt said.

  Jim began to process what he was reading. The job would proceed as previously instructed. A security detail in Washington D.C. Then once the mission was halfway through the three men that worked for Dino Logging would turn on the freelance tradesman they were working with. They would disarm him, sedate him without knocking him unconscious, as demanded by the mission statement. Then they would take him to an extraction point, job done. Dino Logging would be paid more than they had ever earned for a single job in their history.

  Jim was conflicted. This would likely mean a raise. The company would be further boosted; there may even be promotions if they pulled it off, but he would have to lie to a man that trusted him with his life. Jim was the one that made contact with all the tradesmen. They trusted his words. When he said they would be extracted at a certain location at a set time or that a person was in a certain location, they took him at his word. Jim was the bridge between the company and operatives. He didn’t form relationships with the tradesmen but they were still his men and women. He had to trust them and they had to trust him. This job would mean breaking that sacred trust. Jim would need to do some soul searching in order to do this job.

  Chapter 8

  In the bowels of a CIA ghost location a senior cyber security analyst worked his twenty-seventh straight hour.

  His solid plastic seat induced a backache every thirty minutes. To stretch out he stood and retrieved more coffee. He had been a hacker since the age of fifteen. Since the age of nineteen the CIA had given him an official title and set him to work on ‘dark files’, files that only a handful of people at the agency knew about. James had instructed the team to work on nothing but one single project until they cracked it. The room was dull, with bare concrete walls and no natural light. It could hold around twenty people, a couple of dim lights lit a path to the stairs. There were no clocks on the walls; no one really knew whether it was night or day.

  Returning to his desk he immediately began asking himself the same question: why couldn’t he see any way past ‘Parasite’? Three weeks of working non-stop and all he had was a name, Ben Svenonsson. The three analysts working on this file now knew that this was the name of an ex-serviceman who was now calling himself Lindon Scott. They had to run extensive checks on both names, but it didn’t make sense. It was as if the program ended with the name, like the code they were uncovering ended with a name. He looked around; the only other person there had a large pair of over-ear headphones on and was currently resting his head on folded arms. Everyone that entered the room was working on the same thing, meaning he also had no clue what to do next. The analyst decided to trace the system backwards from the name, like hacking a system in reverse or following the breadcrumbs left on a trail. Still no luck. The stale air of the building starved his brain and he couldn’t work out what to do next. Whatever the code was, whatever it was hiding, it was the best encryption he had ever seen. A colleague walked in, smiled and waved as he wandered over to his work station and flicked on another light. He carried as little enthusiasm as everyone else working on the project.

  Warren woke up at 5.40am. The sky was still dark but was becoming more of an inky blue colour as the minutes ticked by. Warren wanted to be on the road before sunrise.

  Jumping in the shower, he quickly washed and four minutes later he was shaving as he drip-dried with a towel wrapped around his waist. Alicia, his on/off girlfriend, had spent the night there after he spun her a wild tale about why he hadn’t called for weeks. He could have told the truth but she wouldn’t have believed him and a story of running away didn’t sound very attractive. His story made him a brave rescuer, brazenly fighting flames and facing a raging gunfight to save women and children from a Mexican cartel that had overrun a village. He, and he alone, had heroically saved all of them. Twenty minutes later he walked through his bedroom door. She was now sleeping quietly whilst he prepared for another big day. He knotted his tie and looked at himself in the mirror for a few seconds. Warren woke up Alicia and explained
that yet again he was needed and had to leave. Alicia smiled before curling back up into a ball and checking her phone.

  The toast popped out of the toaster and Warren scraped a knife of butter across it before he went to leave. He stopped on the way out and smiled at Alicia, who was busy staring at social media on her phone. She had one bare leg on show. For a moment Warren was distracted and wanted to climb back into bed. He fought off the temptation and headed out the front door. Outside his old silver Nissan Altima was parked across his driveway. He kept telling himself to change the car, it was dented, dirty and three thousand miles overdue its service. Alicia liked Mercedes. Warren liked BMWs. Bill had told him that a bonus was heading his way for a job well done; he was now serious about going to the showroom when he got a chance. He turned the key and the engine lurched into life. He moved the gearlever into drive and set off for the Army barracks.

  He decided to spend the day digging through all the old records that might help for project Parasite and he also wanted to speak to James Conran. Maybe he could give him some more details. After a forty-minute drive he arrived at the barracks, cleared the first and second security gates quickly and parked in his corner spot. He soon set to work digging through records, he had an hour or so before too many people would be around to ask what he was up to. By then he hoped to have something to speak to Bill about. Throughout Warren’s morning he was being watched; two CIA agents were making sure that he was safe and more importantly, making sure Warren hadn’t been compromised whilst in South America.

  Bill Stanfield pulled up to the first security gate in his Chevrolet Colorado. The black pick-up truck rolled through one gate, then another. Bill parked in his reserved space near the entrance and walked towards the office building within the army barracks.

  The building was modern but some of the cheaper materials used in its renovation were starting to look worn. The halls were dull but easy to navigate. He arrived at his office door and found it slightly ajar. Bill was always armed, a privilege around the sensitive army offices. He carried a 9mm service pistol on his hip. Seeing the door slightly open didn’t cause too much alarm but his hand hovered over his hip. James Conran was standing behind Bill’s desk, looking at Bill as if he had just walked in on James’s office and not his own. There was a man sat facing James on the other side of his desk. The man turned towards Bill who recognized him but he was unsure from where.