by S L Shelton
Fighting off the temptation to go in, I closed the door as soundlessly as I had opened it before heading to the sofa in the living room. When I sat, I noticed the stack of clothing sitting on the floor. Two pairs of blue jeans, a pair of khakis, three or four T-shirts, two hooded sweatshirts, and a belt—all used, but clean and neatly folded. In addition, three brand-new pairs of thick woolen boot socks sat atop the pile.
You bought me clothes, I thought, suddenly feeling even more like an asshole for leaving her out of the loop and neglecting to call her. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have involved you in this.
I reached over and turned the light off before lying down on the comfortable sofa. My mind was doing mental gymnastics, rationalizing the desire to stay and fighting the building sense that I should say good-bye to Kathrin and move to a new location.
The internal argument ceased when the bedroom door opened and Kathrin padded softly over to me.
“You aren’t coming to bed?” she asked, softly and oh-so-painfully sweet.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” I whispered.
She smiled, her face lit only by the soft glow of streetlights through the blinds on the window behind the sofa. “Come,” she said, taking my hand and tugging gently. “Bed is better.”
I followed her into the bedroom, and she helped me strip out of my clothes before pulling her T-shirt off over her head. She gave me a playful shove toward the bed after peeling my shorts off.
I watched in the dim light of the streetlights as she climbed on the end of the bed and crawled toward me on her hands and knees before nestling herself next to me. There, she slid her hand up to my cheek, drawing my head close to hers and kissing me. She was soft, warm, and smelled like vanilla and spice.
“Kathrin, I’m so sorr—”
“Shhh,” she whispered and confidently climbed on top of me, straddling my hips with her soft, hot thighs.
“I just wanted to—”
“Hush,” she whispered before leaning forward, resting her elbows on my chest. “When I first laid eyes on you, you were hunting the Russian mob, looking for Serb terrorists and doing a very good job of avoiding the CIA…all because you felt guilt over breaking the heart of a girl.”
She kissed me softly again. “If I never knew anything else about you, that would have been enough to judge your character,” she continued after the lingering touch of our lips. “You have a job. A very hard one—”
She laughed as she wriggled her exposed flesh against my rising erection. “I don’t know what sort of women you have known before me—and I don’t want to,” she said, her words getting quieter as she pressed her mouth closer to my ear. “But I know you are good, so I will be good to you.”
She tugged at my earlobe with her lips.
“And if you want to share with me, I am here for you to do that,” she kissed my neck. “And if you can’t share with me, I am happy to have you here with me anyway.”
She pressed her mouth against mine and parted her lips, letting her tongue delicately touch mine before separating again.
“You are here, now, and that is more than I had hoped for,” she whispered, moving her hips forward and then slowly, sliding them backward, joining us seamlessly in one fluid motion.
Any resistance—any thought of departing—fled, evaporating in the sweat of our lovemaking.
When we had exhausted ourselves, she fell to the side, leaving her arm draped across my chest, delicately tracing the edges of my bullet wound and burn scars. After a moment, I felt her turn her head toward me. “Are you working tomorrow?” she asked softly.
“You mean today?” I whispered in reply.
“Yes,” she said after tapping my chest with her fingertips. “Are you working today?’
“I don’t know,” I said after a long exhale. “Probably.”
Just then a floorboard squeaked in the apartment above us. I bolted upright in bed, staring at the ceiling. Kathrin put her hand on my chest and urged me back down. “New tenant,” she whispered. “Some hermit my uncle is keeping… I think she may be his lover.”
There was a thud upstairs, timed as if in response to Kathrin’s accusation. A soft gasp of laughter burst from her lips against my shoulder.
I couldn’t help but chuckle as well. “I think she might know you’re talking about her.”
A worried look creased her face.
“I’m only kidding,” I whispered quickly. “The noise…”
“Oh,” she said and pecked my cheek. “Sleep. I know you’re exhausted.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. “If I wasn’t before, I am now.”
She paused her stroking of my chest long enough to tap me with her fingertips again.
**
Several hours later
I woke to voices. As I wiped the sleep from my eyes, it took me a second to realize the murmurs were in my head. I sat up and stretched, letting the mutters and whispers fade away, leaving me wondering when—or if—the problems with my head would heal.
Kathrin was gone, and the sun was beaming brightly through the slats in the blinds. I grabbed my phone and checked the time—almost ten o’clock.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I quickly got out of bed and discovered Kathrin had brought my new clothes in from the living room, setting them on top of my duffel bag. I dressed in one of the new pairs of jeans and a T-shirt she had purchased for me before pulling my Glock from its bundle in my messenger bag and strapping it on. The maroon zipper-front hoodie I had stolen the night before and the brown winter-weight hoodie that had belonged to my pickpocket, Merane, were hanging side by side in the closet when I opened it. I pulled my metal gun case from the floor inside and placed it on the dresser before opening it. I grabbed a full envelope of cash and stared at it.
I stood there, staring at the outline carved in the foam in the shape of my Glock when suddenly I had this overwhelming desire to close it all up, stuff it into the closet, and then go out and find a programmer’s job in Antwerp. I lingered over the open case for several seconds, longing, before I remembered Gaines’s sister, her partner, and their child, all murdered, Gaines himself badly wounded, John Temple crippled for life, Patricia Jones murdered—and those thoughts solidified my resolve. Before long, I felt the involuntary curl of a sneer pull at my lip.
I have to do this, I realized. I have to see this through. Then I can think about settling down on a quiet little farm and having babies with Kathrin.
I tossed the envelope of cash across the room onto my messenger bag and shut the case solidly, clicking the latches closed. As I placed it back on the floor of the closet, I heard voices again. This time they sounded like they were coming from the hallway outside the apartment.
I closed the closet after pulling the winter-weight hoodie from its hanger and pulling it on over my shoulder holster. By the time I got to the door, the voices had stopped. I listened at the door for a second before quickly opening it and looking both ways down the hall. Out of my peripheral vision, I caught a flash of dark hair at the rail on the floor above. When I turned to look, the figure was gone, but I heard the clack of a door closing followed by the sound of a bolt flicking closed.
The new neighbor, I thought as I closed the door.
I went into the kitchen and started the coffee pot brewing before returning to the bedroom to retrieve my iPad and phone. At the kitchen table, I sat listening to the stream of coffee flow into the pot as I checked my messages.
They were all from Storc, but most of them had been forwarded to me from others, judging by the “FW:” in the subject lines after I had decrypted them. The first was a simple spreadsheet. When I opened it, I found a listing of assets capable of producing falsified documentation—cobblers. The list was huge, and as I had requested, the CIA had blacklisted all the entries for one reason or another. In a column to the right was an additional field of data. After looking closely at it, I realized they were notes or recommendations from Nick. Some were simple Xs,
but some had descriptions: “B-listed due to son’s activities,” or “B-listed due to pissing off the wrong station chief (John still used him),” or “Presumed dead, but if not, a good option.”
The detailed assessment applied to a full quarter of the list, with hundreds of others had been left with an “X” a “?” or without any marking at all. Nick had gone to a great deal of effort for me—or perhaps it was just a running list of backup resources, but I gratefully accepted the gift. I was in desperate need of a new identity.
I quickly sorted the list by location and isolated a dozen cobblers that were within a hundred miles of Antwerp. I’d narrow that list down further later.
I looked up and saw that my coffee was ready, so I pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured a cup. When I returned to the kitchen table, I opened the next message. It was from Storc:
All three clients of Prose are bogus corporations. All created on the same day in June of last year. I’m digging through records to see who filed the incorporation papers, but so far have only found another long string of shell corporations. I’ll let you know as soon as I come up with anything solid.
Oh…FYI. The other ghost hunt on GBailey’s money. No funds were ever in the account (unless banks have started deleting their backups as well) but I don’t think the account was ever used. It was created last month. Just so you know.
Stay safe,
S.
I rocked my chair back on two legs and stared at the message as I took a sip of coffee.
Greg Bailey lied about the account, I thought. I could only assume Nick was on his way, even as I read this, to torture him for more information. Why did you lie about the money, Greg?
I wasn’t worried about the shell corporations. I knew that if there were information to be found, Storc would find it. Aside from me, I didn’t know another hacker more capable than he was. I had complete confidence in his ability to find a real person at the end of the paper chase.
I shook my head and leaned forward again to read the last message, Subject: Boxes. I decrypted it and read the text: Call ASAP.
Sounds serious, I thought as I picked up my phone and randomized my proxy connections. It rang twice after I started my VoIP call to extension 4235 at Langley.
“Data and Research,” answered Thomas.
“This is Alpha,” I said, sticking to the naming protocol Nick had insisted on last time.
The connection became muffled, and I heard Thomas call out for Nick.
“Just a second,” Thomas said and presumably, he clamped his hand over the phone again.
A few seconds went by before I heard movement at the other end again. “Where were those boxes?” Nick asked without a hello.
“In a garage, in a suburb of Frankfurt,” I replied quickly. “They were picked up from a small town in Belgium just across the border from Germany and then delivered. Harbinger and his guys picked them up within twenty minutes of them being dropped off.”
“Do you have the address in Belgium they were picked up from?” Nick asked urgency coloring each word.
“Yeah,” I replied and proceeded to give him the address in Eupen where the couriers had picked up the hardware they delivered to Harbinger.
“Describe the building,” he said and then abruptly, “Never mind. We’ll take care of it.”
“What’s going on, Nick?” I asked, suddenly tense.
“The big case you got is a field re-transmitter for a large radar array,” he said, “like what you might find at a large airport.”
“What’s the significance—?”
“The computer boards in the box are radio relay receivers for shoulder-fired missiles,” he said, cutting me off, an edge of anxiety in his tone.
“Shit,” I breathed as I realized the implications.
“Yeah,” he replied. “With that combination, someone could fire a missile right up any aircraft’s tailpipe without setting off any automated countermeasures. And given the range of that RETRANS unit, there are few places in the industrialized world that the owner wouldn’t be able to get a precise, pinpoint radar tag without ever having to paint a target.”
“Son of a—”
“Tell me about it,” Nick said.
“What kind of missiles?” I asked.
“What?”
“What kind of missiles are the component boards for?” I repeated. “They won’t fit into any old system. They’d have to be for a specific class of weapon.”
There was a pause for several seconds.
“Nick?”
“IGLA SA,” he replied finally, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
A cold wave of nausea hit my gut. The Strelets missile arrays I had seen—actually touched—in Syria. Acquired through a third party who, unknowingly, purchased them to bait the Serbs into showing themselves. Once we’d found the warheads we were looking for, Nick had ordered that we abandon surveillance on Ukil, the Turkish arms dealer who had acquired the missiles.
“Nick…I have to find those missiles,” I said quietly, knowing it stung him that an operation he’d arranged could cause the loss of lives. With that sort of firing configuration, Harbinger could take down just about any plane at any time, and the first warning anyone would get would be a fireball.
I was about to tell him about the phone data I had captured from the dude called Bellos when he interrupted me.
“No,” he said firmly. “You are where you are to find those account owners. Despite how critical this new information might seem, your job is more important.”
“Nick—”
“No. I’m handing it off to counter-terrorism.”
“Nick, you haven’t already passed it over have you?” I asked, my heart jumping at the new information.
“What difference does it make?”
“If the Agency has been compromised by the people we’re hunting, then handing that information over to another section could—probably would—reveal us to the bad guys,” I said desperately. “They’ll know we’re following their couriers.”
There was silence at the other end.
“Did you—?”
“No,” he said angrily. “Not yet.”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice in an unconscious effort to relay the seriousness of my concern.
“Let me do this,” I said. “The Ops are crossed now. There’s no way to untangle them.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Nick replied.
“What’s there to think about?!” I said, raising my voice. “You know I’m right.”
“This isn’t some startup company where the talent gets to call those shots,” Nick said.
I understood the urgency and the dilemma Nick faced. This was a real threat. But, the people we were tracking had already proven to be willing and capable of attacking a US military post and high-ranking (as well as low-ranking) CIA officers… We couldn’t chance handing it off.
“Then take it to Burgess,” I said.
No answer.
“Fine. I’ll take it to Burgess,” I added.
“The fuck you will!” he snapped. “You will do what the director has already told you to do. If it leads to something else, we’ll set up the parameters from here.”
“Fine,” I muttered though I did not intend to honor my agreement.
“And you will inform us of anything new regarding either Op…you got me?!”
“Yes, sir,” I replied indignantly. “Anything else, sir?”
“No,” he replied and ended the call.
I really liked being on my own. I had forgotten what an asshole Nick could be—no. No, I hadn’t. I had just started to like him too much before I left the States.
“Shit,” I said before standing abruptly to refill my coffee mug. I forgot to thank him for the cobbler list before he turned into a dick again.
“Oh well.”
As I drank my second cup of coffee, I took a long, proxy-filled path to Storc’s phone-tracking program at TravTech. I would have asked him to do i
t for me, but I had just been ordered to hand over all my information, and I didn’t want to include him in my mutiny unless I had to.
“Sorry, Nick,” I muttered as I worked. I’m going to find those missiles before you blow our leads on the upstream money.
Once all my collapsible connections had been made, I activated the algorithm and entered the MAC address and number for Bellos’s phone:
<
“Shit,” I muttered, and set up a scheduled ping to record any activity that might occur from that time forward. “Call your mom, Bellos,” I whispered to the screen. “She misses you.”
After staring at zero activity for several minutes, I closed my connections and then looked over the list of cobblers. Hopefully, I’d be able to make contact with one of them today about forging a new set of identity papers for me. I decided that the three in Brussels would be my best bet.
After filling my thermos with the remaining coffee and grabbing a couple of stale slices of pizza from the fridge, I set off for the train station. It was almost eleven thirty by the time I was on the train.
**
7:45 a.m. EST—New York City
HEINRICH BRAUN was in the backseat of his sedan, watching the bundled pedestrians make their way along Seventh Avenue when his phone rang. His driver, Patrick, turned the car onto the busy street just as Braun pulled the phone from his pocket.
“Braun,” he answered after checking to see it was an encrypted call.
“Sir, it’s Carl from forensics,” the man said and then paused a beat, perhaps to see if there was an acknowledgment—there wasn’t one. “I have some new information for you.”
“Go on,” Braun replied, his hopes rising.
“On the license plate information you sent last night; the car was a rental. The agreement records showed it was a short-term rental to a Scott North, who picked it up at the Charles de Gaulle Airport rental kiosk,” he said and then paused as if checking a detail, “on Thursday the 20th—two days after the CIA Gulfstream went dark.”
“North?” Braun confirmed. “Not Wolfe.”
