Exacerbyte (Ellie Conway Book 3)

by Cat Connor

  I wanted to yell back, ‘Takes one to know one.’

  “Do you have any good memories of her at all?”

  I fought a tide of bruises and pain in search of a happy memory. With half a smile on my face I said, “She made good scrambled eggs.”

  With her fuc’n scrambled brain.

  The last breakfast with Mom emerged in a frightening, clear memory.

  “Ellie, you okay?”

  I took a moment to figure out where I was. The wallpaper was familiar but the voice threw me. I looked at him, surprised.

  “Yeah.”

  Ding-dong the bitch is dead.

  “There’s something wrong, what gives?” His hand touched mine sending a sharp shock that made us both flinch.

  “Nothing at all.” Nothing I can explain to someone who hasn’t lived my life. I have a daughter now. I cannot be my mother. I have to be better than that. It’s now or never.

  He didn’t look as though he believed me but he was smart enough to know he wasn’t getting another answer.

  I looked at Rowan. He yawned behind his hand.

  Then I noticed the legal pad resting on his knee and the pen in his hand.

  “Were you writing?”

  “Yes,” he replied, with a lingerie melting smile.

  Good to know.

  Somewhere inside my mind things whirred, cogs clicked to the next position and the penny dropped.

  “Holy fuck!” I read over his shoulder and the words sang right off the page. It was amazing.

  “Beg your pardon?” Rowan looked a little surprised.

  “You wrote a song about my life!”

  He corrected me, “Your life so far. I have a feeling there is much more to come.”

  A noise outside distracted me before I could ask more about the song.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  Rowan nodded.

  I looked at my watch. It was five in the morning – another night without sleep was over. I couldn’t explain why I was hearing car doors closing, out on my driveway.

  Forty-Two

  Mister Big Time

  Two dark-suited figures approached the house. They weren’t easy to see against the backdrop of pre-dawn. The security lights flicked on when they got within five feet of the door but they were out of my line of sight by then.

  I clipped my holster to my belt, shoved my cell phone and wallet in one pocket and badge in another, then pulled a zip-fronted hoodie over my long-sleeved tee shirt. Someone knocked. I stamped my socked feet into my boots. At the doorway I turned to Rowan, he was sitting on the couch in my room with the legal pad on his knee.

  “This isn’t looking that good, dark suits at zero five hundred. I’ll call you when I know what’s going on.” This was not how I expected Thursday to start. Thursday. I wondered if my visitors had anything to do with the end of the world.

  “I’m waiting right here with Carla,” he replied. “Be safe.”

  “The numbers for Doc, Sam, Lee and my dad are on the night stand, just in case. Tell Carla I’ll be back as soon as I can. Can you drop her at school? Call my dad, tell him something’s come up.”

  The knocking became more insistent. Rowan leaped off the couch and grabbed me. His kiss nearly stopped my heart. “I’ll take Carla to school and call your dad.”

  “I’ll call you,” I said and bounded down the stairs as another loud knock resonated through the house.

  Carla stumbled out of her room. “Someone’s at the door,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

  “It’s okay baby, go back to bed. I’m going out for a bit. Can you handle Rowan dropping you at school?”

  “No way!” Suddenly she was awake. “Everyone will freak!”

  “Yes way. I’m sure they will. Go back to bed.” With a kiss on her on the head, I sent her back into her room. “Grandpa will pick you up if I’m caught up in work.”

  Another loud knock.

  I flung the door open taking both suits by surprise. The less shaken one spoke. “SSA Conway, we were asked to pick you up.”

  “And you are?”

  A badge flashed in front of my face.

  “Since when does the CIA run errands?”

  “Please come with us, ma’am, there will be an explanation when we arrive at the location.”

  “And when will that be?” I asked as they escorted me to the black Ford Explorer at the end of my driveway.

  “In approximately half an hour, ma’am.”

  One opened the backdoor for me. The Pentagon was just under half an hour away at five thirty in the morning. Langley wouldn’t take much longer. Guess it’d all become apparent by the direction we went. I sifted through the Hawk case trying to determine if I’d overstepped the mark, if I hadn’t pulled back quickly enough when instructed to back off the military aspect. Had that been the case I was sure Director O’Hare would’ve had a few words earlier. I’d filed the case ‘Open but Inactive’ and marked it ‘Pending Forensic Examinations’, which still weren’t completed. The backlog in the forensic division was legendary. I had no hope of pushing anything through now the case was inactive. I had a body in the morgue and had to satisfy myself with that.

  At the Pentagon, they took me to a tactics communications room. There I found Director O’Hare, along with the Director of NCIS, several of the top brass from Navy, Army and Air Force. It was a joint-force smorgasbord.

  “SSA Conway, welcome to the party,” said a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman wearing more medals than I’d ever seen in my life. He stepped forward and shook my hand. “You can call me Ted; they call me General Platt.” He smiled. I liked him right away.

  “Pleased to meet you. Can I ask?”

  He seemed to ignore my question. The room was close; it seemed overly full of people in uniform.

  “Sit down; we have something to show you.”

  Pressed into a seat in front of a large screen, I sat blinking in the dim light. There were rows of tiered seats; mine was right in front of the screen. To my left, across a small walkway, sat Director O’Hare, she smiled. I determined her smile meant I wasn’t about to face hell.

  “Sit back and relax, Ellie,” she said.

  At the sound of a familiar voice beside me, I turned my head to the right. “Agent Conway.”

  “Special Agent Gerrard,” I replied. “Has this anything to do with not returning my calls and not discussing business when you did?”

  “Yes,” he replied quietly. “Watch.”

  The only light now emanated from the huge screen in front of us. It looked to be a desert somewhere. I made out a road and a ramshackle building or two and very little else.

  I expected a bowl of popcorn to appear at any second. The popcorn didn’t come but coffee did. The lights dimmed as the screen in front of the room split suddenly into two different images. The desert road was on my left. On the right the screen was blank.

  A man crouched in the aisle on my left, he leaned close and said, “I have a headset for you; a friend of yours will join us to say hello in about two minutes.”

  I took the wireless headset and put it on. The man continued talking in hushed whisper. “Your investigation turned up the same men we were also investigating. They took the money made from the sale of children and purchased nuclear weapons from North Korea.”

  Misha told me that much.

  “You caught one by the name of Hudson Hawk and now we’ve found his partner in Syria. He’s going by the name …”

  “Harry S Stamper,” I said. I hated knowing that they used the characters from Bruce Willis movies to fuck with me.

  “Precisely,” he said. “Harry Stamper passed through a checkpoint about an hour ago, heading out into the Syrian desert. We are tracking him now.” He pointed. “That truck you see, is him.”

  “They’re not just partners. They’re identical twins. Born of a Russian mother and Arab father, in Hoboken, New Jersey.”

  “You identified them.” He seemed pleased.

  “Ye
s. Boris and Viktor Abbasi. Fingerprints from the dead twin matched Boris Abbasi. So the truck contains Viktor.” I was surprised they hadn’t ID’d them but had to consider they had and hadn’t seen fit to share the information.

  A crackle erupted in the room from the speakers and into my ear via the headset. I knew the voice and answered without waiting for an invitation. “Misha?”

  The right-hand screen filled. A cockpit camera showed someone wearing full flight gear giving the thumbs up.

  “We never said goodbye, Ellie.”

  “Where are you?”

  Was that him I could see?

  He gave a thumbs up signal with one hand. “I’m in an air force jet; I just left an aircraft carrier in the Black sea.”

  It was him but I was no closer to understanding what was happening.

  “Why?”

  “Watch and you will see, my friend.”

  The image of the cockpit faded out. The entire screen became desert and a lone truck.

  The room fell into silence, five minutes later an American voice filled the room, ten minutes after that an Israeli voice.

  I watched in silence as the satellite images on the screen panned out to show nine planes flying in groups of three from three different directions, so low radar couldn’t detect them. I’m sure they had some fancy term for flying that low. But I didn’t know what it was and furthermore, I didn’t care.

  I watched as the planes converged on a single target on a road. Six planes dropped back. Three continued. It was like being at the movies and hard to believe what I was seeing was live.

  Lyrics filled my head and I didn’t know where they came from.

  I knew the song but couldn’t think of the name. I sat on my hands to fight the temptation to call Rowan and ask him what it was.

  A command was issued in three languages and then Misha said, “For you, Mac.”

  We all watched in silence as missiles launched from the planes wound their way across the desert toward the target. The planes peeled off and disappeared from the screen.

  Nothing seemed to happen then a huge explosion erupted, the screen flickered and there was nothing.

  Misha’s voice came back, “Target destroyed. Over.”

  A lump in my throat made it hard to speak. Several false starts happened before I managed, “Copy. Dosvidanija. I owe you a bottle of vodka. Over.” I handed the headset to the man on my left. “Thank you.”

  Director O’Hare stood when I did. “That’s it, Ellie. The irony is inescapable; the threat from the man who changed his name to Harry Stamper has been nullified.”

  I gulped. “That much I figured.”

  “He planned to set off three nuclear devices, purchased with his ill-gotten gains. One in Tel Aviv, one in Moscow and one in Washington DC.”

  “How close did he get?”

  “The weapons were on site and armed everywhere except Washington; he had the codes with him.”

  “Except Washington?”

  “His partner,” she said, then smiled and corrected herself. “His brother was to arm the weapon but you shot him before he could.”

  “Where is it now?” A horrible feeling crawled inside me as I considered the existence of a nuclear device stashed somewhere in the DC area.

  “We have it, it’s been disarmed.”

  “Where was it?”

  “The amphitheater at Rock Creek Park.”

  “We were over that way looking for a …” The words almost choked me. “Missing teenager, but located her in a nearby cemetery.” Finding Carla where we did was not a coincidence. I wanted to go home and hug her.

  I had an idea it would be a long while before all the information sank in. Something triggered a distant memory: Fort Belvoir and its importance. I looked at the General, and couldn’t think of his name. “Sir, TEC are situated at Fort Belvoir?”

  “Correct.”

  “That’s why the connection to the base.” I gave myself a mental head slap. It was all to do with nuclear weapons. More exactly the placement of nuclear weapons. The US Army Topographical Engineering Center was his prime objective inside the base.

  “They’d been trying to access classified information, some of which was high-tech computer-satellite programs. That would’ve made the cell a vast amount of money … and jeopardized not only our security but the security of our allies.”

  And suddenly hitting him with a missile, or three, didn’t feel like overkill.

  Cogs whirred and things slid into place. “It was never about child trafficking, not really. That was a very clever ruse to stop everyone looking at the cell for anything else and uncovering their real objective: the nuclear devices and simultaneous worldwide attacks.” As it all began to make sense it was even more frightening than when I thought he was a child trafficker. “The orphanages in Russia? That’s where they hid the plutonium and everything else they needed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Taking the kids – kept us busy globally,” I said.

  “There is no doubt they did take children from across the world and sell them … but the prime objective was a coordinated terror attack.”

  “Turned out they weren’t as clever as they thought.”

  He nodded. “We’re grateful for your work and diligence on this case.” General What’s-his-name held out his hand. “Without putting too fine a point on it, you helped save millions of lives.” We shook. His name came to me.

  “Ted, do I know any of this?”

  He smiled slightly. “I’m afraid not, SSA.”

  I figured this was beyond almost everyone’s pay grade. It would’ve been good to slap a ‘Case Closed’ stamp on the file but barring that, it was excellent to know we’d got him. It warmed me to know he was nothing but mist and his brother lay in the morgue awaiting burial.

  “Can I go home?”

  Two men stepped forward. I recognized them immediately.

  Director O’Hare said, “Talley and Cole will see you get home.” She touched my arm and whispered, “Congratulations on your custody petition, I hear Judge Hartwell is fast tracking the adoption. You’ll officially be a mother by Carla’s birthday. Also heard a rumor about a certain rock star …”

  “Thank you, being a parent is exciting and being a first-time parent of a teenager looks set to be quite the amusement-park ride!” I replied with a grin. “And the other thing, it’s not quite a rumor, but I’m taking it slow. Dunno if he’ll measure up.”

  “Best you boys get her home,” she said to my dark-suited escorts. “Life is waiting.”

  I looked around hoping to catch Noel. He was talking on his cell phone. I watched as he disappeared through the door without looking back. I shrugged internally. He probably had another case.

  Something made me stop as Cole ushered me toward an exit sign. “What are your full names?”

  “I’m Jeffrey Talley, and this is Jamison Cole.”

  Their names seemed very familiar. An internal screen fired up, showing me the Wikipedia page devoted to Bruce Willis’s filmography. It scrolled, pausing long enough for me to see 1995 Twelve Monkeys, James Cole and 2005 Hostage, Jeff Talley.

  “You know what? I need to catch Agent Gerrard. Thanks for the offer but I’ll grab a ride with him.”

  I hurried away without looking back. With a hearty shove the door swung wide, light flooded over me. I spotted Gerrard stepping into the elevator. “Hey wait up!”

  He looked back, grinned and held the elevator.

  Survivor

  Everyday

  I think about dying.

  About disease, starvation,

  violence, terrorism, war,

  the end of the world.

  It helps

  keep my mind off things.

  Roger McGough

  Holiday on Death Row. 1979

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the following people:

  Rosanne, Megan, and Dionne – for weekend dinners and laughter. (Breathe deeply!)

 
Lorenza Ponce – musician/songwriter, amazing woman. Heartfelt thanks for your time and energy, in helping me round out a new character and giving me a window into the world of rock stars. (You too are a Soul Shifter.)

  Eric – for using his medical expertise to help me create some really fun scenes.

  Jayne Southern – whose humor is vital to the editing process. Thank you!

  With heartfelt thanks to my very supportive publisher, Caroline Addenbrooke.

  And last but by no means least – my family for putting up with me.

  About the Author

  Cat divides her time between her family, writing, and a retired racing greyhound, Romeo, who is her constant companion. Despite this, she has found the time to write twelve novels, including seven so far in The byte Series. She lives in New Zealand.

  Also by Cat Connor

  Killerbyte, Terrorbyte, Exacerbyte, Flashbyte, Soundbyte, Databyte, Eraserbyte

  And for more from Cat Connor …

  Please turn the page for a preview of the next exciting book in the byte series,Flashbyte

  One

  Gotta Get Away

  “You’re a smarmy piece of shit,” I murmured under my breath. My mouth was dry. I could barely swallow. Every nerve in my body was on edge.

  I took a swig of water from my canteen. The cool liquid fought my tight dry throat until it won and forced its way down my esophagus.

  “Demelza, my dear, you spoke?” Ameer’s voice oozed artificial sweetness as his head turned toward me.

  I shook my head and bit my tongue.

  What was keeping Dion? It was supposed to be as a short recon trip. He was late and it was driving me to distraction. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I was stuck with Ameer, and the greasy sonofabitch turned my gut. He expressed his views on female operatives working inside Iraq with open derision, with no regard for my position or training. It was not possible to like him less.

  My eyes refocused taking my brain with them.