Camouflage

by Aaron Pogue

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  CAMOUFLAGE

  First edition. February 28, 2012.

  Copyright © 2012 Aaron Pogue.

  ISBN: 978-1497715271

  Written by Aaron Pogue.

  Also by Aaron Pogue

  A Consortium of Worlds

  A Consortium of Worlds No. 1

  A Consortium of Worlds No. 2

  A Dragonswarm Short Story

  Remnant

  From Embers

  Auric's Valiants

  Notes from a Thief

  Auric and the Wolf

  Ghost Targets

  Surveillance

  Expectation

  Restraint

  Camouflage

  The Dragonprince's Arrows

  A Darkness in the East

  The Dragonprince's Legacy

  Taming Fire

  The Dragonswarm

  The Dragonprince's Heir

  The Original Dragonprince Trilogy

  Watch for more at Aaron Pogue’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Also By Aaron Pogue

  Prologue

  1. The New Guy

  2. Timothy Burke

  3. West Virginia

  4. In the Woods

  5. Broken Coverage

  6. Locals

  7. The Wolf Trap

  8. The Gun Club

  9. The Bunker

  10. An Old Friend

  11. Ghosts in the Woods

  12. On the Hunt

  13. Doppelgangers

  14. Rendez-vous

  15. Identity Cult

  Sign up for Aaron Pogue's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Taming Fire

  Also By Aaron Pogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Timmy raised his rifle, quiet as he could, and peeked through the scope. He breathed a satisfied sigh and chambered a round. It was the perfect end to a miserable week.

  Everything about the day was perfect. Thick gray clouds hung overhead with not a drop of rain. A cool September breeze was the only challenge to a peaceful quiet in the autumn chill. After a week of unseasonable heat and unreasonable chaos, it was a relief. Out here, right now, he was the one in control. After the week he'd had....

  He shook his head, just the barest motion, and tried to put that thought behind him—to leave it back in town, thirteen miles away, with all the prying eyes, all the whispered voices, all the conniving dirtbags. He'd have to go back to that, eventually, but right now he had just one purpose, pure and simple. Eighty yards away, ten yards downhill—twelve, maybe. He nodded and adjusted his shot. He didn't quite have a clean kill yet, but it would come. He was fifteen feet up a towering oak, in a precarious perch, and now he shifted carefully to find his balance, then rested his rifle on the limb in front of him. One thing Timmy knew how to do was wait for the time to strike.

  He'd been a cop...how long now? Seven years? He grimaced at that. Seven years, and he'd never yet taken a life. It had been good work, with good people—more or less—and he had served the town well. He sighed and let his head fall back against the trunk of the tree. Rough bark bit into his scalp, through his close-cropped hair, but he ignored the pain. He stared up at the gray sky.

  It hadn't always been easy, and the Lord knew he'd made his mistakes, but he had also done real good. He had saved lives. He sighed. He had put away some real bad guys. He had a record he could be proud of, no matter how this week's ordeal turned out. He clenched a fist, then made himself relax it.

  "Let the historians review your record," his wife always said, "and the accountants review your paycheck. You just do what you have to do."

  She was a wise woman. He smiled sadly at that thought. She was tangled up in it all, now. Because of him. That was a big part of what had finally sent him out here. He raised his rifle again, looked through the scope, and bit his cheek as he evaluated what he saw.

  Ninety yards away, now, fourteen downhill, his target stood among the tall grasses on the edge of a glen, and stared right at Timmy. It was a white-tail buck, maybe four years old and sporting a rack Timmy would have to hang on a wall. How many times had he been out like this, how many mornings lost in thought, and come home with nothing to show for it? He'd been a hunter almost as long as he'd been a cop, and still this would be his first kill.

  He could have it. He knew that. He had the shot now, and he was going to take it. Not for the meat—he still preferred cheap hamburger to fine venison—and not for the accomplishment, either. He'd long since come to terms with his poor proficiency as a hunter. No, here and now, he was going to kill that deer just because he needed to kill something. If it wasn't this animal, it was going to be one of the animals back in town, and Timmy wasn't quite ready to do that.

  He realized he was holding his breath. He put his finger on the trigger.

  The gunshot that shattered the still gray morning wasn't his, though. He felt the heat in his back, just below his shoulder blade, and the shrapnel bits of bark that flew up to scratch his face and arms as the bullet buried itself in the limb he was resting on. He heard the rattle of his gun slipping from his hand, falling all a-clatter through the branches below, and to the mossy ground. He heard the echo thunder of that shot, too, but it was quickly lost in the sudden pounding of his own pulse, deafening in his ears.

  Before he saw the blood, before he fully understood, there came a second shot that silenced everything. Timmy slipped from his spot, his lifeless weight ripping down the branches his rifle had bounced off of, until he finally came to rest three feet above the ground, dangling, his right ankle trapped in the split of a limb large enough to support him.

  In the meadow below, the buck took three long bounds and slipped from sight.

  1. The New Guy

  Katie sank down in one of the plush chairs opposite Reed's desk, her back to the window revealing the familiar office all full of friendly faces. A year of work with the Ghost Targets team had made this place as much a home to her as the three-bedroom apartment in Arlington. The man across the polished mahogany desk was the closest thing she had to a best friend. He was also her boss, at least until the director saw fit to appoint a permanent team lead in his place.

  For today, anyway, he was her boss, and clearly lost in his work. She watched the emerald gaze scanning his handheld, while his lean jaw clenched in concentration. He found something that made him frown, then glanced up and caught sight of Katie. He blinked in surprise. "How long have you been sitting there?"

  "Just a moment, sir," she said with a soft smile. "Craig said you wanted to see me."

  "I did." He nodded and set his handheld deliberately off to one side. He took a breath then put on a friendly smile in answer to hers. "Katie! Katie, Katie, Katie...." His smile slipped for just a second, and then he rapped the knuckles of both hands on his desk in a light tattoo. He met her eyes, humorously helpless. "How's things?"

  She leaned forward, encouraging, and said, "Out with it, sir."

  "I need your help." He nodded and sat up a little straighter. He cleared his throat. "That is to say, you've got a new partner."

  "A partner, sir?" She'd worked more than a dozen cases now, half of them with the assistance of one or another of her fellow agents. Mostly it had been Phillips, a time or two Reed himself. None of them had gone badly enough to merit Reed's hesitation now.

  She ran a hand through her long black hair, thinking, then caught his eyes and asked him point-blank, "Who is it, sir?"

  "New guy, name of Eddie." Reed frowned. "Eddie McSisters." Katie fought to stop the sudden flash of horror showing on her
face, but Reed pointed at her with a nod. "I know, right? He comes with pretty powerful references, though, and he has the skills—"

  "I know his skills!" Katie snapped. "It took me three weeks to pin an eighty-point-nothing confidence on him because of those skills! The man's supposed to be on his way to prison!"

  "As it happens," Reed said dryly, "he is not."

  "How did this happen? He was the only importer of those damn SpectreShield devices, and it was his hardware that—"

  "I know," Reed said, trying to soothe her now. "And when it came right down to it, eighty percent wasn't enough to seal the deal."

  "Then give me another week," Katie snapped. "I had to drop it for the Austin affair, but that's done now—"

  "No," Reed said, firmly enough to shut her up. "Maybe if we'd been able to spare you back then, it would be a different story, but right now things are what they are."

  "And we're bringing a criminal into Ghost Targets?"

  He silenced her with a glare this time, and it carried enough disapproval that she blushed. "Sorry, sir."

  "It's okay, Katie." He sighed. "Frankly, I feel the same way, but technically his record's clear—"

  "That's just because he keeps clearing it!" she burst out, but Reed went right on.

  "And more important men than me are weighing in."

  Katie rolled her eyes. "I thought that was done with."

  "It's only just begun, Katie. There are certain senators who see Eddie's success despite our best efforts as a bullet point on his resume."

  "This goes beyond meddling, Reed!" She pounded a fist on her hip. "This is reckless. Surely the president—"

  "The president isn't saying a word," Reed said. "Even the director won't speak up for us right now. Ghost Targets has become a whipping boy, and as long as they leave the Senate free to focus on us...."

  "Everyone else can get their work done," Katie growled. "That's how it's done around here?"

  Reed shrugged. "That's politics. Rick spent two years trying to drum up an investigation into the boys over in Decency just because he could sense this day coming." He shook his head sadly. "In the end, he was the one who triggered it all."

  "Still," Katie said, mystified, "why would they put him with us?"

  "He managed to convince a certain senator—"

  "Bruin," Katie said with weary certainty, and Reed just nodded.

  "—that his true intent had always been to trigger reform, and that his invaluable genius could best be used here."

  "He asked for it?"

  Reed smiled, lips tight. "And they agreed. CV wasn't even consulted." He snorted at the thought.

  "And why..." Katie started, watching him with eyes narrowed. "Why place him with me? Whose choice was that?"

  "Mine," Reed said, with no sign of his earlier hesitation. "Because he's dangerous, just like you said. And because you know his tricks. You know what he's capable of."

  She nodded, considering. "Yeah," she said, after a while. "I can't say I'm happy about it—"

  "I wouldn't ask you to be."

  "But you're right. Of course you're right." He nodded, and after a moment she said, "Do I have to be nice to him?"

  Reed's mouth twitched toward a smile. "Not even a little bit. Just don't kill him, and I'll be happy."

  Katie sighed. She nodded. "Okay. When?"

  "Now." Reed nodded past her shoulder, and she turned to find Eddie McSisters swaggering through the outer doors. Five-four, not yet thirty, and wearing jeans and a faded black hoodie. He looked severely out of place among all the suits and ties as he wove his way across the bullpen.

  He didn't seem to feel it, though. He walked like he owned the place. He threw open the door of Rick's office, tossed a measuring glance around the room, then stabbed a hand toward Katie. "Call me Eddie, baby."

  She held his gaze before she reached for his hand, just long enough to make him blink uncomfortably, and then she gave it a quick shake and let it drop. "I know who you are."

  "'Course you do. Everyone knows who I am. And I know who you are, too." He looked her up and down, then nodded to himself. "And y'know, I wouldn't have minded facing you in court."

  "I only wish you'd gotten the chance," Katie said, trying to make it a pleasantry but surrendering to the growl in her voice. Eddie raised an eyebrow and took an involuntary step back. Reed stepped up close behind Katie.

  "All right, all right, enough of that," he said. He directed it at Eddie, but she knew the words were for her. "You two have a past. Deal with it. We've got work to do."

  "Do we?" Eddie asked, brightening, and Katie nodded across at him.

  "Paperwork," she said. "We're reviewing court documents for a bank robbery down in El Paso—"

  Eddie cut her off. "You're kidding me." He stared for a moment, then shook his head. "Doc review? Us?"

  Katie shrugged one shoulder. "All part of the job, kid. Come on, I'll show you the ropes."

  She watched him shoot a frustrated glance at Reed, and suppressed her own smile. She could make this whole experience a lot less fun for him than he'd anticipated. It was twenty paces across the bullpen to the far corner of the office, and by the time she got there her desk was already glowing with the documents she wanted. She divided it in two, nodded Eddie to the empty chair at the next desk over, and gestured for him to get to work.

  "What are we looking for?" he said.

  Instead of answering, she rocked back in her chair and considered him for a moment. His eyes were sharp and steady on hers, coal black to match his hair, and the clench in his jaw told her he was taking this all a lot more seriously than he let on. She nodded once to herself, and brought up the casefile next to the endless scroll of court documents.

  "Mexican gang hit the First Bank of El Paso back in February. They took cash on hand amounting to maybe a couple thousand, and transferred something near a million out of digital reserves."

  Eddie frowned. "Everything digital should be on the record."

  "Sure should," she said. She flipped through the casefile to the still photos and looked for Ray's. "Ray McKnight here worked for the bank. Not sure how they got to him, but they got to him. He masked the transactions, worked them through the system, and made sure the local records got lost during the actual robbery."

  "So my question remains..." Eddie said, leaning forward to examine the image. "Why us?"

  "Because Ray here's squeaky clean." She sighed. "He wasn't in February. He wasn't even clean in March. Local police took too long to care, though—"

  "And that's why us," Eddie said with a sigh. He turned a couple pages, then looked up at her again. She was waiting for it. "So what are we supposed to do?"

  "Look through the records and find mismatches. Find rough edges that might indicate where the ghosting occurred. If we track down those discrepancies, we might be able to stitch the record back together and build up a decent confidence against him." She cocked her head at him. "Don't you know how ghosting works?"

  Eddie shook his head. "Not a clue."

  "But...I thought...."

  "You're thinking of Ghoster, aren't you?" His eyes shone as he said the name, and then he shook his head again, a touch of shame warring with the admiration in his eyes. "Nah, I'm no Ghoster. I'm more into the hardware side of things."

  Katie stopped herself with the question already on her lips. She didn't ask him about the difference. She had no desire to admit her ignorance, and she probably wouldn't have understood his answer anyway.

  Instead, she tapped the desktop monitor, dragging his eyes back to the casefile report. "Well right now, we're just focused on the database record. Look for inconsistencies or contradictions, okay? If we dig up something solid, I'll introduce you to one of our analysts and you can see how we reconstruct ghosted data and inject it into Jurisprudence."

  He frowned. "You can do that?"

  She bent her head over her desk, settling into her work in the hopes he'd follow suit. "Oh, yeah," she said absently. "It's most of what w
e do."

  "Then can't you just, like, make it up? Just inject some incriminating evidence against this guy and send him away forever?"

  Katie shook her head without looking up, the ends of her long black hair dancing on the monitor. "Nope. Not really. Everything we inject has to jive with the existing record. If it doesn't, higher confidence always wins out, and reality tends to hold the upper hand there."

  Eddie only considered that for a moment before he had another question. "Well then how do the ghosts—"

  Katie cut him off. "They take stuff out. The whole system is designed to construct complete pictures out of partial info, so it doesn't care if something goes missing—and that something is usually damning evidence. If we want to put it back in, though, it has to match up perfectly with the billions of bits of information that are on the record."

  "Impressive," Eddie said. Katie just nodded, eyes fixed on the desk, and at last he fell quiet.

  She realized she had no idea what was on the page she'd just read, so she started again at the top. She smiled to herself a moment later when she heard Eddie shuffle, lean forward over the desk, and then start flipping through the pages she'd handed to him.

  She made it halfway back through her page before he spoke again. "So...I guess I understand all that, but...." He dragged out every sentence, and Katie didn't try to hide her irritated grunt as she raised her head and fixed her eyes on his.

  He didn't notice her hostility. His eyes were on something far away. "How do Martin and Velez do what they do? I know for a fact that Martin Door can inject identities into Hathor. Otherwise how did he get you through the identity gates?" He glanced her direction, then quickly looked away.

  She chewed her lip, weighing her options. Reed had asked her not to kill him. "I get it, Eddie. You know a lot about my story. Just remember I know yours, too."

  He wrinkled his nose. "You know some of it."

  Katie pinned him with her eyes. "I know you brought incredibly sophisticated surveillance circumvention devices into the country and distributed them indiscriminately to some terribly disreputable people, several of whom have been caught using the devices in violent crimes."