Enemy Exposure

by Meghan Rogers

  I nodded. “It’s more than the rest of us have.”

  “I’ll send the safe details to Echo so you know what you’re dealing with,” Sam said. He disconnected as Nikki grabbed her tablet and headed for the printer. I turned back to the others.

  “Venom, you’re the quickest and quietest,” I said. “You’re going to get us in. Then we move to the office together. When we get there, I’ll take the computer to get digital copies of the blueprints or anything else that’s relevant. Venom, Centipede, you guys are going to search for the hard copies in case anything’s written on them that hasn’t been backed up electronically. Misty, you’ve got the safe. Who knows what we’ll find in there. KATO will have done their best to get rid of a paper trail, but you can only build a building so quietly.” I looked to each of them, but their expressions were too neutral for me to get a read on. “I know this is a little different from what you’re used to, but it’s the same job you’ve always been doing. Only this time, we all have the same mission.”

  “We got it,” Centipede said.

  Misty nodded. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

  My dad handed out comms to each of us.

  “What are these for?” Venom asked. She pinched the device between her thumb and forefinger, holding it close to her face, scrutinizing.

  “They’re so we can keep in touch with each other, and with Command and Echo, while we’re on the assignment,” I said.

  “You also can’t use your KATO code names in the field,” Nikki said. “If someone from KATO were to overhear, your cover would be blown.”

  “Then what do we call ourselves?” Venom asked.

  “I have new code names for each of you.” Nikki smiled. “Centipede, you’ll be Condor. Venom, you’re Vulture, and Misty, you’re Magpie.”

  I smirked at her. “Really? All birds?”

  “It seemed fitting,” she said with a shrug. “Here’s what you need to know about the safe.” She passed the papers off to Misty.

  “What’s your code name?” Centipede asked me.

  “Raven.”

  My dad cleared his throat. “We leave here tonight at nine fifty. Be ready to go.”

  They all nodded and dispersed quickly again, separating between the upstairs and the kitchen. I found myself feeling uneasy. They had never worked like this before. It was a simple assignment, yet it felt like there were so many things that could go wrong.

  Nikki came up next to me, meeting my eyes one more time. “You can do this,” she said. I nodded, but there was a gnawing feeling in my gut that told me this wasn’t going to be as easy as she made it out to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  IN SWITZERLAND

  Everyone was ready on time, and the ride into Switzerland was a quiet one. My dad had been accurate in his time estimation. We rolled up to the side entrance of the building an hour and twelve minutes after we had left. “I’ll be on the back road when you’re finished. If you need me, I’m on comms,” he said, popping the earbud in. “Keep your heads down and stay together.” Then he looked me dead in the eyes, silently telling me to be careful. I nodded once and led them out of the car.

  “Command,” I said into my comm. “We’re right outside.” Sam had told me once my tablet was within range of the security system, he should be able to get access.

  “Copy,” he said. “I have a live feed of the cameras. Security sees a loop from the past ten minutes. You guys are hidden.”

  Venom dropped down in front of the lock to pick it.

  “Anything on the first floor?” I asked.

  “There are security guards at the front desk,” Sam said. “Otherwise the floor is clear.”

  “We’re in,” Centipede said as Venom cracked the lock.

  Centipede took a step forward and I grabbed the back of her shirt, pulling her behind me. I needed to be the one to lead them in. She shot me a mildly irritated look, but she fell in line in front of Misty, with Venom bringing up the rear. We crept down a hallway on the left side of the building, headed for the emergency staircase in the back. It would drop us off a little farther away from the CEO’s office than I would have liked, but it was also the farthest from the front desk security.

  “You’re coming up on the fourth floor,” Sam said as we snaked up the steps. “The office is at the end of the hallway and you’ll have a clear shot to it.”

  I led them down the hall, stepping aside when we got to the office so Venom could get us in. She had us inside in under ten seconds.

  It was a sizable office, with a large glass desk on one side and a white slatted door that ran along the back wall. I pulled the door open to reveal a shallow closet with filing cabinets that went from one side to the other. “You guys know what to do.” The three of them pulled out flashlights and got to work, while I took a seat at the desk. “Okay, Command, talk me through this.”

  Misty came up behind me. “I can do it,” she said. She held her flashlight between her teeth and started typing. A few seconds later I had access.

  I pushed my comm in. “Never mind. I’m in.”

  “Wow,” Sam said. “I’m impressed.”

  Misty stepped away like it was nothing. “Yeah,” I said, “me too.”

  “All right,” Sam said, “you’re looking for a contract under the name Park from three years ago.” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Misty had found a safe hidden in a wall panel and was already working to crack it.

  I focused on my own task. “I found him.” There wasn’t an address of the location anywhere in the file, but I wasn’t expecting there to be. KATO wouldn’t take that kind of risk. I had the prints up on the screen. Behind me, Venom and Centipede were riffling through the filing cabinet, while Misty had gotten the safe open and started combing through the documents. She found a large envelope and paged through it.

  “I have emails from Park dated two days ago. It looks like there’s some kind of security issue with the KATO building he wants fixed,” Misty said. “I also have pictures. It seems that KATO threatened the CEO’s family.” She flipped through the photos and froze.

  “What is it?” I asked. She turned the picture around. There was a house in the background, which I imagined was the Burrys’. In the foreground there was a hand holding a gun. A hand with a very distinctive scar on the webbing.

  “Park Bo Yeon is an alias for Jin Su,” Misty said. That got Centipede and Venom’s attention. They both whipped around to stare at the picture. I saw a flash of fear in their eyes.

  I breathed through my nose, trying to figure out how to handle this, but Sam interrupted before I got the chance. “Raven, I’ve got some kind of alarm going off in that office.”

  I tensed and saw the others had done the same. The room was quiet, so it had to be a silent alarm. “Can you shut it down?”

  “I already did, but you’ve got two security guards headed your way,” he said. “You won’t make it out unseen. Find a place to hide.”

  I closed out of the blueprints and powered off the monitor. Misty closed the safe, taking the envelope with her, while Venom and Centipede shut the filing cabinets. I did a quick assessment of the room. There was a ventilation shaft coming out of the wall we could use. I got to work loosening the grate. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Venom jump up to grab the lip of the shelf that ran along the top of the closet.

  “You have about thirty seconds,” Sam said.

  Venom hoisted herself up and rolled to the back of the shelf. It was deep. The only way she’d be spotted is if the guard stood on the desk. Centipede eyed the jump, looking less than thrilled at the prospect, but followed Venom’s lead. I pulled the vent out of the wall.

  “Get in there and get as far back as you can,” I said to Misty. She didn’t ask questions. While she climbed in, I shut Venom and Centipede in the closet then jumped in the vent myself.

  “Are you
out of sight?” my dad asked.

  “We are,” I said. Even if we were found, we’d have the element of surprise. Though I’d have to imagine no one in this building could handle four KATO-trained spies even if they were prepared.

  We weren’t hidden for more than five seconds when I heard the key in the lock.

  “This is probably a false alarm, but let’s do a search,” a man said in French. I sent a silent thanks to Sam for disabling the alarm so quickly—it had to be part of why the man believed this to be false. Misty and I were still as the flashlight splashed into the edge of the vent. We were far enough back not to be seen, but that did little to relax either of us.

  I heard the closet door open and held my breath.

  “It’s clear,” the second guard said.

  Their flashlights ran around the room one final time before they left the office. None of us moved a muscle until Sam gave us the word.

  I popped out of the air duct and opened the closet door for Centipede and Venom, who landed as Misty rolled out of the ventilation shaft.

  “We need to get what we came for and get out of here,” I said, sitting back down at the computer to finish copying the intel.

  “She cannot come with us,” Venom said. I looked back at her and found her staring at Misty.

  “She’s right,” Centipede said. “Misty tripped the alarm. And we were nearly found because of her.”

  Misty shook her head. “I told you I wasn’t an expert. None of you could do any better.”

  “Hey!” I snapped at them. This was their KATO training showing. We were taught to eliminate any weaknesses and at the moment that meant Misty. “We need to complete the mission right now.”

  “I think I have a copy of the blueprints in here,” Misty said, shooting me a grateful look.

  “Okay,” I said, looking to Centipede and Venom. “Then you two do one last check for any files under the name Park or dated April of three years ago.” Neither looked convinced, but they got back to work anyway. Their need to complete the mission overrode everything else.

  We finished our tasks in silence. Centipede came up with a contract just as the digitals finished copying.

  “You guys need to get out of there,” Sam said in our ears. “The guards are still sweeping the building. It’s only a matter of time before you’re caught.”

  “We stick together,” I said, eyeing each of them. They agreed, though Centipede and Venom were more reluctant. “Command, the back is still clear, right?”

  “Yes. Go!”

  We crept swiftly down the back staircase, down the hall, and out the side door. We moved for the back of the building, hurrying around the corner until I saw the van idling ahead of us. I jumped in the front seat, leaving the back for the others.

  Centipede started on me the second the door closed. “How can you let her stay after her weakness?”

  “I think we need to talk about who’s involved in this,” Misty argued. “That’s more important.”

  “Not more important than being caught,” Venom said.

  “We are a team!” I spun in my seat to face all of them. “We don’t kick someone out simply because they made a mistake. This isn’t KATO!”

  Centipede wasn’t interested. “This is my life—”

  “Whoa,” my dad said. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “The alarm went off because Misty opened the safe,” I said. “Now these two want to kick her out.”

  “But I also found out Jin Su is involved,” Misty said. “I found a picture.”

  My dad glanced at me uneasily, but didn’t say anything. It turned out he didn’t have to.

  “Wait,” Centipede said, leaning forward. “You don’t seem as surprised as we are to find out he’s a part of this.” She looked between the two of us. “Has he been connected before now?”

  I pursed my lips and my dad looked straight ahead.

  “You knew the director of KATO was involved in this and you didn’t tell us!” Centipede said, her voice raised.

  “I—it didn’t come up.” I had made sure it didn’t come up.

  Each of their faces were hard with anger, even Misty’s.

  “You know how hard I worked to stay unknown—to make it this long,” she said. “He’s who I’ve been hiding from!” She stared at me, and it was clear that while she may have appreciated my support inside, it would only get me so much as far as this issue was concerned.

  “With everything we’re risking, you don’t think we need to know that the person in charge of us could show up out of nowhere?” Centipede asked.

  “I wasn’t sure if we could trust you!” I argued back. “I didn’t want you to know how close we were to the director until I was sure.” Of course, there was more to it than that, but I was afraid of the damage the truth could do.

  “You ask us to trust you and you can’t trust us?” Venom asked. She didn’t yell. She never yelled. But her voice chilled my soul. It looked like this approach wouldn’t earn me any favors. “And you also want to keep weak people?”

  “I’m not weak!” Misty snapped. “You needed someone to crack the safe and I did!”

  I started to talk as Centipede initiated another attack. Then Venom jumped in, her voice raised loud enough to be heard, and Misty refused to go down quietly.

  “All right,” my dad said, attempting to cut through all four of us. It had little impact. “That’s enough!” He shouted this time and the car finally got quiet. “Now, I don’t want to hear another word out of any of you until we can get back to the house and figure this out.”

  “But we need—” Centipede started, but my father silenced her with a hard glare in the rearview mirror. The five of us stewed the entire ride home.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  DEEPER ISSUES

  Misty had dropped the envelope of papers on my lap shortly after my dad silenced us. It was what she pulled out of the safe. I flipped through it. It was the hard copy of KATO’s blueprints along with the original and more recent correspondence between the agency and the architect. It looked like KATO found a history of corruption in the CEO and used it to blackmail him into the job three years ago. It also seemed that Burry was led to believe that this building was for a Korean corporation, though Jin Su had still made sure that Burry knew he was someone to be feared. The threats had started almost immediately after the two had entered into the agreement. It was a combination of both pictures and messages. It also looked like he had done something to rattle Burry’s family, but the emails didn’t discuss the details. The more current emails addressed the security problem Misty had mentioned.

  I was almost positive KATO would never find out we had the intel. There’s no way Burry was supposed to have held on to this information, and mentioning the theft would mean letting Jin Su know that he had it in the first place. Aside from the blueprints, I didn’t think it would be too relevant to our operation, but I’d turn it over to Sam anyway.

  Nikki was waiting in the living room when we got back. “Well, that looked like an eventful assignment.”

  I shook my head. “That’s one word for it.” I heard the girls talking and moving upstairs behind me, but I didn’t so much as glance at them.

  “You did a good job getting everybody out,” Nikki said. She gestured to the monitor. “Command wants to talk to you.”

  I stepped past her to face Sam. “What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry I missed that alarm,” he said. “I just went over the schematics again, and there’s nothing there. It must have been added with the safe upgrade.”

  I waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. You’re on your own, and you didn’t have much time to prep. You got us in and out, which is all that matters.”

  He smiled. “I actually did a little more than that.” His eyes had a mischievous glint. “I was able to hold on to the building’s n
etwork. That means I can monitor Burry’s emails and find out if he’s sending a crew anywhere.”

  “You’re a genius.” I pulled out the flashdrive with the blueprints. “I’m going to have Echo send you the blueprints and copies of some other documents we pulled so you can get that search started. There’s supposedly a security issue. We’ll make finding that our priority if you can work on getting a location for us.”

  “I’m on it,” Sam said. “I’ll check back when I have something.”

  I turned away from him and saw the others had resettled in the living room. They were all watching me, with varying degrees of hurt and anger on their faces.

  “You know what,” Nikki said as she grabbed a laptop. “I’m going to send this from the kitchen.”

  I glanced at her as she left, wishing I could follow. But hiding wouldn’t fix this problem.

  “You kept the director from us,” Misty said, as if I needed the reminder.

  “I had a good reason to—”

  “You put us at risk!” Centipede talked over me. “Twice in one mission.”

  “Our first mission,” Venom said. “And still, you keep the weak one.”

  Misty rounded on Venom. “I. Am not. Weak.”

  They were all shouting again, but not one of them was listening to anyone else. I tried to weigh in, but every time I talked they all got louder. It took a sharp whistle from my dad to silence them.

  “Okay,” he said, once everyone had shut up. “Everyone needs to take a breath.” He looked at each of us. “We need to talk about what went wrong back there. Not yell. Talk.”

  “Where have you been?” Centipede asked him. “First Viper won’t cut dead weight, and then we find out she’s been lying to us.”

  I rounded on her. I had finally reached my limit. “In case you forgot, it was just yesterday that you were withholding information that would have gotten me recaptured and destroyed the agency that’s trying to help you. So you don’t have much room to talk.” It was a low blow, especially given what I knew about her situation, but right then I didn’t care.