by J. D. Glass
Taking into account what he could piece together from Ben’s commentary and the pictures he himself had taken, the situation as he saw it was now unacceptably volatile. An agent wouldn’t normally give up their cover, but an agent with a vested personal interest such as the one he was certain the so-called Pendleton had, that could very well be another story. And someone who thought or felt like they were in love… More than one agent had been ruined and even outright killed because of it. It made Ben transparent and manipulable, it made “Agent Pendleton”—who could probably not even put a name to what it seemed she felt if John remembered the training right, and he knew he did—a dangerous unknown. That he simply could not allow.
It took him nanoseconds to change course to his already designed plan B. This, he reminded himself, was why there was always a plan B, and why it always paid to be doubly secure, belt and suspenders, as it were.
Reviewed from a different angle, the situation could play out to his ultimate advantage, and the slight modification would allow him to exploit both Ben and Pendleton’s feelings, not only for Charli, but also for one another or, at the very least, Ben’s toward the agent. And it would also allow him to leave another unmistakable message to the Company he had once been loyal to.
He was no rearguard officer, he was a front-line leader. And if Ben Cooper needed to see what that actually meant, John mused as he checked first one gun then another, tonight he would.
This one—he hefted it, enjoying the solid feel of it—was the one he’d give Ben. Ben had once said he’d wanted to be a cowboy; tonight he’d get his chance. It was a traditional Colt .357 bored out to .45, and the rounds—John smiled at the blue tips and brass casings as he loaded the chamber—he’d made them himself. They’d hold velocity and accuracy for about twenty feet, which was more than necessary, he was certain.
He carefully packed the spares into a case and, satisfied that the rest of his equipment was in order, he checked himself once more before he put on his coat. The forecast that had predicted a storm now called for snow. It would not do well, he thought with a small chuckle and pulled on his gloves, if the man who was leading the charge to create a new world let himself get frostbite. He hummed a tuneless song deep in his throat.
Everything he needed was within easy reach, and he didn’t bother to lock the door behind him after he hefted his case and let himself out.
*
“You did well, son,” John told him with a friendly pat as they settled into the car for the long drive to their originally planned meeting point. “Get some rest, you’ll need it. Not every day you start a revolution,” he said and grinned as he turned the key in the ignition.
As warm as the regard in John’s tone and expression made him feel, his heart pleased in the same way it had been when he was a young boy, when he’d done something that earned a compliment from his father, try as he might, Ben couldn’t return the grin. He stopped trying as he felt the painful rictus that stretched his face, while the crunch of the engaged ignition rang loud in his ears. Charli was—at least he hoped she was—comfortably stretched across the backseat. “She’ll be fine, a little nauseous later maybe, perhaps a bit off balance here and there at worst, but fine,” John assured him, correctly guessing his concern when he craned his head to peer back over the rear bench seat.
Ben felt rather nauseous himself, and it wasn’t just the sight of Charli’s seemingly asleep form—though knowing how it happened was enough on its own. It was adrenaline, it was fear, it was shock, he admitted to himself, shock over what they’d done, over what he’d done.
He’d been surprised when John had shown up in the slightly weathered Chevy Caprice as opposed to on foot as was usual, and even more so when he’d been handed the gun. “You know how to use it, right?” John asked.
Ben forced himself to raise a casual-seeming brow at the man he so admired. “Single action Colt revolver? Of course,” he answered as he felt the grip, then quickly examined its construction, a flare of childhood excitement thrilling through him. “.357, looks like it’s been bored out to .45 and…” He briefly spun the barrel. “Loaded.”
The enjoyment quelled almost instantly when the reality of when and where he was, they were, returned. He tried to act as naturally as if he’d been handed a cup of coffee when he took off his coat to don the holster, then safely nestled the gun within it. But this was something much hotter—a gun he had no license to carry in this state, the model he’d talked about with John, the one he’d shot as a young man, out with his father. They’d shot small game, deer. But the one in his hands now…he hoped he was meant to use it as a deterrent. “When you’ve got a gun, son, you better be prepared to mean it,” his father used to tell him repeatedly, “or it’ll mean it for you.”
Ben thought he’d heard, that he’d understood, every part of the plan as they parked around the corner and he paged Charli with the urgent request that she speak with him, now, privately, away from work, because he had an idea about the breach and failure.
It had taken three pages to her emergency contact number before she’d answered.
“Charli—go.”
“Charli, it’s Coop.” He took a breath, knowing everything depended on what he said next. “I’ve been doing some work—I think I know exactly what happened to the network. It’s got to be bits of code at the different gates, buried lines that each do a step, then concatenate at the main gate,” he said, forgoing apologies for the hour or any of the other social niceties. It would have wasted time and besides, it wasn’t something he did naturally, not unless he was achingly hyperaware that a situation required it and forced himself to go through the motions. That was too much work. Besides, that sort of behavior had gotten him into trouble once upon a time and he’d learned his lesson well.
Ben added the conclusion he knew Charli had probably already come to herself. “It’s…it can only be an inside job.” That was it. That was the bait he had—a partial confession. He didn’t know he held his breath while he waited for her answer.
“Can you prove it?” He heard the sharp interest in her voice through the phone.
“I’ve got a copy of the server codes burned to a disc—I can get it and be at your place in ten. We’ll hit the servers from your home system, print it out before we put in the corrections. You can go with that to Lundenman before you even run the audits.”
Charli was a leader who gave full credit to the coders when things went well, and took full responsibility for the failures when it didn’t; she wouldn’t rest, couldn’t rest, until the problem was solved—and he knew that, had worked with her, then under her, for too long not to know that.
“All right. Give me twenty. You remember the address?”
Ben chuckled with relief. It had been that simple, it had worked. “Yeah, from the party before the takeover.”
“Good,” Charli answered crisply. “Twenty, then.”
Ben folded his phone and put it in the front pocket of his pants. “We’re set,” he said to John. “She said to give her twenty minutes.”
“Good man, good job,” John had answered him with obvious approval and a warm clap on the shoulder. It made Ben feel very good.
All set up, with him and John on their way, Ben couldn’t help but think of this in his mind as an actual, honest-to-goodness rescue, a mission like the ones his father had gone on in his jungle. It made him feel useful, directed and purposeful, powerful and just plain good. He felt better than fine, filled with an almost surreal calm as he and John rode the elevator to the sixth floor, even more so when they knocked on the door. Fact was, he could never remember ever feeling quite so clear.
That had all shattered to pieces when he’d seen Anna, not more than five feet behind Charli, and before he’d even fully registered that she was wearing the Hunter College sweatshirt he’d seen Charli wear what seemed like a hundred years ago on a hundred different days, back when they worked at the Puck building, before he found the chat group, before he’d met John, before—
they’d slept together. He knew it, could see it, could actually feel it even as he felt the heat tear through him when he realized it was probably not the first time. The fury of the confirming knowledge was a ravening blaze that took away reason, blinded him. He peripherally saw Charli sway when John entered the apartment, heard him say “Take the agent,” before he reached into his coat and…
Their eyes met, hers wide cool jade on him as he burned.
The cool peace, the logical calm he’d felt, shattered by the dizzy flushing rage from reading the block letters that spelled “Hunter” emblazoned across Anna’s chest, returned as he drew.
He realized neither that he mouthed a quick apology nor that he’d closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger.
Starting program: /hacking/$ ./get SHELLCODE
The Few That Remain
She couldn’t decide which annoyed her more, the tickle against her temple or the incessant electronic chirping that sounded in the near distance, but both brought her out of the comfortable sleep state she’d been snug within—Anna could ignore one, but not both. She finally gave up and as she sat up to scratch the incessant itch, memory flooded back with a strength that made her retch.
Cooper, she remembered vividly as she took stock of herself and wiped at what she realized was a nice gash along her temple. It was bruise-sensitive and stung under her fingertips. Ben Cooper had drawn, leveled, and shot her. There had been a single moment where she had thought maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t, and she’d known the way everyone knows there would be no way to dodge a bullet, but she couldn’t overcome the human reaction to try anyway. The movement that had saved her from receiving the blast in her eye, and at the very least permanently blinding her, had tripped her over the low table instead and—she waited for the next wave of nausea to pass—she’d apparently knocked herself out on the table.
Well, at least the worst of the concussion has passed, she decided as the queasiness abated. She examined the detritus between her fingers: blood, her own, and something not quite granular, though small, translucent. It felt, of all things, waxy. She combed her fingers through the rug in an attempt to find what she’d been hit with. He’d drawn what looked like a .357, and at under fifteen feet, she was surprised she was still able to breathe, never mind sit up and look for anything at all.
She reached for the phone she’d reattached to her waist when she and Charli had made themselves presentable for Ben’s unexpected and urgent visit. It still chimed repeatedly, and there was only one person who had that number; she’d sent him an encrypted message what was now certainly hours ago. As she flipped it open to read with one hand, she found what she’d wanted with the other. She checked the screen. She had asked about next orders, it seemed she’d received them.
* * *
EXTRICATE NOW. COVER ID HAS BEEN COMPROMISED.
RENDEZVOUS SMITH’S POINT 0300.
ACKNOWLEDGE
ACKNOWLEDGE
ACKNOWLEDGE
ACKNOWLEDGE
ACKNOWLEDGE
ACKNOWLEDGE
* * *
Smith’s Point. That was the Long Island safe house location, the place, she realized with a feeling that sank what had earlier risen in her throat, she had wanted to take Charli, where she’d also hoped she, they… She cursed herself fluently. Everything had changed; Romello had gone for and drawn first blood, and she knew she needed more information before she could plan next steps.
Another ping asking for acknowledgment came in, interrupting her musings as her fingers raised what they’d found. She held her prize up for inspection. It looked, she thought, a bit like a chewed wad of gum, a light translucent blue. Paraffin. Cooper had shot her with a wax bullet, but he hadn’t acted like a man who’d known it wouldn’t be a killing shot. She’d seen the fire that had lit his face for a moment before his expression froze, had seen his lips move, his eyes close, in the half instant before he’d fired and she’d dove. It was the quick observation, she concluded, that had probably convinced the lizard part of her brain that cares for nothing but survival to try.
And she’d seen John Romello. Fucking brilliant, he’s fucking brilliant, she thought. He must have known what sort of load the weapon held, had to have been the one to give it to Cooper, and Cooper now believed he’d killed a federal agent. What amazing leverage. That he hadn’t killed an agent, that Romello had left her alive after seeing him? That was his way of saying “fuck you” to the CIA. The same hubris that led him to rob his own country now had him thumbing his nose at one of its most elite investigative services and he—
Charli. A strange numbness scratched and crawled across her belly. Where was Charli?
She gave herself a quick evaluating shake before she stood. Too fast, she’d stood too fast and the accompanying wave of dizziness nearly dumped her back down. Okay, all right, a little slower, then, she told herself and she was a bit more careful this time, making sure she was steady before she surveyed her surroundings. The front door was closed, and other than the uninterrupted chirp from her phone, there was only the tone that invaded a place when it was empty, a specific ringing silence that told her she was definitely alone. A glimpse of white against the coffee-colored carpet caught her eye, replaying a memory of a flutter she’d seen when Cooper had drawn.
She glanced down at herself as she walked to the door—blood. A few drops of blood had already dried on the faded red sweatshirt Charli had lent her.
This was completely surreal, the lines she’d concerned herself about intersecting were now completely inextricably meshed, she admitted to herself as she picked up the scrap of paper and examined it.
She took stock as she stood in Charli’s apartment, surrounded by the scent of her. She still felt the visceral reality of her, of Charli, warm and soft and glowing, suffusing her body with a throb of aching satisfaction that wanted more, deep in her groin and in the hardness of her nipples, while the rest of her was still so sensitive, so attuned, that she didn’t even have to close her eyes to once more feel Charli, beautiful, vibrant, alive against her own skin, skin that now felt empty and cold without her.
She’d just been shot at and was alive only because the shooter didn’t know he’d had wax bullets, and her own agency, while able to warn her that her cover ID had been implicated, would not extract her directly.
In being alive, she was now a direct witness, able to link Cooper to Romello, able to prove that it was in fact Romello at the helm, and not some new player, some unnamed and unknown foreign operative, as those in the Company sympathetic to Romello had theorized in their water cooler talks.
But now there was more than her testimony, not just for the Company, but also eventually for the Treas—she could completely clear Charli—she realized with a growing excitement and satisfaction as she read the torn scrap. Now she had hard evidence:
18:12:13 DsrtFx: 41°102593N, 72°112253W
18:12:14 DsrtFx: 13:00 Sunday. Get to Greenpoint
18:13:15 DsrtFx: I’ll escort the rest of way
Cooper had obviously taken a screen shot, then printed the information out. It was her good luck that he’d kept it in a pocket and even better luck that it had fallen just as he’d drawn. Sometimes, a little luck is all it takes, she told herself as she took hurried steps back over to the very same table she’d tripped over and knocked herself silly on earlier in the evening. She intended to boot up and use Charli’s laptop—she had Charli’s passwords, but access wouldn’t have been a problem regardless. This is one of those instances, Anna thought, that passwords simply don’t matter. It would do no good to use her system, the Treas used it to locate her and would know what she’d been looking for when they found it and tore it down in an attempt to learn what they could from it.
If the CIA was maintaining her cover, she wouldn’t blow it, and she could in no way leave a hint to the Treas agents that would eventually show up as to where she—or her targets—might be headed.
There might be only one John Romello, but there were th
ousands of opportunists, threats, agents willing to do harm to the government and to the country it ran; Romello might be the one currently in their crosshairs, and quite possibly the only one with his specific ideations, but she knew there was no way he’d be the last to threaten the civilian citizenry—and she respected the methods the Company employed. Their sole concern was the security of the nation, a security she was charged with safeguarding. She wouldn’t be the one to threaten American safety, not if she could help it.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGED. STAND BY FOR INTEL.
* * *
She typed that quickly into her cell and sent it off as she waited impatiently for the screen she wanted to come up on the booted system.
* * *
LOLA SURF SPOT FORECAST
Time Zone XXX Period XXX
Chart Center: Lat XXX Long XXX
Forecast Center: Lat XXX Long XXX
* * *
She’d surfed for too long and in too many different places not to recognize the numbers on that slip of paper for what they were—coordinates—and quickly plugged them into LOLA, knowing the results wouldn’t just display the weather, but also name the precise location.
The results tabulated in tenths of a second, and for the first time in the entire night, she felt something new. A night that began in frustration combined with concern, then became a focused fix on thousands of lines of code had evolved into a definite arousal coupled with a growing sense of something she wasn’t certain she had the right word for yet but wanted to find out. The something that had suffused her and Charli both as they’d touched had been followed by tenderness joined to an onslaught of emotions when Charli had finally let go, let her in just the littlest bit, confided in her something so very… Anna didn’t yet have an accurate description for it, but Charli had said it so matter-of-factly. She also knew she couldn’t think about it right now, though at the moment she welcomed the same rush of pure rage with its protective, warming strength that had raced through her earlier, the same feeling that had led her to want to be very physically present when Charli answered the door for Cooper. That, finally, had led to a frustrated resignation that took over when she’d looked straight into his eyes, read their emotion and intent, and known she’d hit an end.