Harbinger

by S L Shelton

  “So what’s your plan?” I asked.

  He turned back to me. “I’m making them discharge me in a few days,” he said before leaning toward me and lowering his voice. “I promised I’d take it easy at home for a few weeks before returning to work.”

  “I take it you plan on breaking that promise as soon as you have pants on.”

  He winked at me.

  A light knock at the door was followed by it swinging open without acknowledgment, pulling our attention away. A lovely, very curvy, dark-skinned woman came in, wearing pastel purple scrubs. “Are you ready for your lunch?” she asked as she rolled his tray table out of the corner and pushed it toward him. “Meatloaf today.”

  “Yum,” he replied sarcastically.

  “Oh come on,” she replied with a disapproving grin. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But can it wait until my friend leaves?”

  “Sure,” she said, chipper, and then she handed him a small paper cup filled with pills. “I was just making sure you wanted it when we came by.”

  He nodded before she checked off an item on a paper by the door and left. She left the door open as she disappeared down the hallway. John nodded toward the door, directing me to close it again before we continued. When I returned to his side, he looked up with a pained expression.

  “Nick said you were tortured,” he whispered.

  I smiled. “Nick exaggerates,” I replied. “A little electricity is good for the digestion.”

  An unconvincing grin pulled at one side of his mouth before he shook his head. “If you are going to be the lone operator, you’re going to have to put some safeties in place,” he said.

  Yeah…like not trusting the traitors you have in your section.

  I nodded as a tug of guilt tweaked my chest. My precautions had gotten Storc involved. They had also resulted in him being beaten fairly severely and having his house trashed.

  “I’m finding that out,” I replied with sincere regret in my voice. “Storc’s back home though. He’s tougher than you’d guess.”

  John continued. “On the plus side, Baynebridge was so desperate to offset the damage done by their ‘rogue tactical team’ that they’ve paid him a very substantial settlement to keep his mouth shut.”

  “I heard,” I replied. “I also heard the news leaked anyway…congressional hearings and all.”

  A mock expression of concern swept John’s features. “Yeah…funny thing about that. I wonder who in the know could have dumped all that information without revealing themselves.”

  “I wonder,” I echoed not even trying to hide my guilt.

  He shook his head and turned back to the window, a sad, or at least melancholy, look on his face. “So you have information you want to share with me?” he asked.

  “No,” I lied. “Why do you ask?”

  “It seems Harbinger’s laptop went missing in all the confusion during the assault,” he said without looking at me, but his words were dripping with accusation…and with good cause.

  I want to tell you John, but you’ve made yourself unworthy of the information, I thought. Unless… “I wanted to show you something,” I said, putting a pin in his accusation.

  “What?” he asked.

  I pulled a folded envelope from under my jacket and dropped it on his lap. He looked up at me and then back to the package before opening it, carefully extracting its contents as if it were some sort of trap. It was.

  After a few seconds of scanning the material, flipping more and more angrily through the pages, he snapped his attention back to me.

  “Who cleared you to data mine Penny’s communications?” he asked, not even trying to mask his anger.

  “I took the initiative,” I replied, calm.

  “You’ve got some balls, mister,” he snapped.

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” I replied mildly. “Balls seem to be in short supply these days. Someone should teach a class or something.”

  John’s face turned red. “What would possess you—?”

  “Look at the interagency queries,” I said.

  He turned the pages until he got to the one I mentioned.

  “So?” he asked.

  “So? She’s been querying all of Gaines’s stats and IDs,” I replied incredulously. “Going back ten years!”

  “It’s not what you think,” John said.

  “Really? Because it sure as shit looks just like what I think it is.”

  John shook his head, real sadness on his face. However, after several long seconds it was clear he wasn’t going to reply.

  “It was pretty crazy up there,” I said, breaking the long silence. “I’m certain it’ll turn up.”

  “What?”

  “The laptop. I’m sure it will turn up…eventually.”

  He looked up at me. “How certain?”

  Without letting a single microexpression flit a single nerve on my face, I looked him in the eye. “Nearly a hundred percent.”

  “Nearly.”

  I nodded.

  “That’ll have to do, I guess,” he said. He turned back to the window. “Do me a favor on your way out and tell the nurse I changed my mind about lunch… I’ve lost my appetite.”

  I nodded as I stood, taking the hint that he wasn’t happy with my response. “You look good, John,” I said as I opened the door. “It’ll be nice to have you back.”

  He grunted with a nod, but he kept his attention out the window rather than looking my way. I left the door open, walking past the guys standing guard without glancing at them. At the nurse’s station, while waiting for John’s nurse to finish speaking with a doctor, I looked up at the TV.

  Congressional house hearings were playing on CSPAN. It seemed as though the tide was shifting in favor of Baynebridge retaining its security contracts, thanks primarily to the efforts and support of Congresswoman Laura Blackman and a few others. She had nearly single-handedly convinced the committee members—enough to win a closed vote anyway—that the actions of the Baynebridge personnel had been the sole responsibility of a rogue executive officer of the corporation acting in conjunction with elements within the government.

  The lone “rogue” executive had subsequently committed suicide rather than face arrest and prosecution.

  I shook my head. Quinn Black had been killed months ago by Harbinger’s bosses, and it was made to look like suicide. How could these idiots possibly hope to convince their voters that a man who had been dead for months was responsible for an attack on a civilian a little more than a week ago? You have some real balls, lady.

  “However…” Blackman said pointedly from the floor of the House. “We have yet to penetrate the veil of our own agencies to find the source of the treasonous collusion.”

  This raised murmurs throughout the gallery. “And since this deception could have originated from anywhere, and since we have yet to find any actionable evidence, suggesting it has been expertly concealed, I would suggest we start looking for the cancerous infection within our own intelligence community.”

  Ahhh…now I see. Well played, asshole.

  John’s nurse walked up to the counter, and I leaned forward over the edge. “John said, if it’s not too much trouble, he’d like a double portion of that meatloaf…extra cayenne pepper,” I said in lowered voice.

  “I thought he didn’t like spicy food,” she said.

  I creased my forehead incredulously. “John? Oh hell, he loves it!” I replied. “But it has to be the red pepper stuff. He doesn’t go for black pepper.”

  “I don’t think we have any cayenne,” she replied.

  “You got Tabasco?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Then just douse it with that. He’ll love it.”

  She squinted at me, her head tipped sideways slightly.

  “I know,” I added. “It’s about as weird as him putting salt in his coffee.”

  “Yeah!” she exclaimed. “What’s up with that?”

  “It’s a Nav
y thing.”

  She raised her eyebrows and nodded. As I walked out the way I had come, through the service entrance, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for John—and not about the hot sauce. That I did for his benefit. Nothing snaps someone out of self-pity faster than a little anger over the ridiculous. I felt bad that he’d gone into the hospital, wounded, thinking he’d come out to an asset that could do everything he couldn’t anymore. Instead what he got was an asset that could do all that and more, but didn’t trust him enough to share.

  “He brought it on himself,” I muttered as I got in behind the wheel of my brand-new black Mustang Shelby GT500.

  “Who brought what on?” Kathrin asked from the passenger seat.

  “John, trust, blah, blah, blah. Let’s go get something to eat before we drive to Charlotte,” I replied. “My treat.”

  “May favorite—free food,” she replied.

  I pulled out of the spot between the dumpsters and dialed Storc. “Fortress of Storcitude,” he answered, referring to his under-construction residential improvements.

  “Hey pal. We’re on our way to North Carolina,” I said. “Can you transfer thirty or forty thousand into my Noble identity checking account?”

  “Do you want thirty or forty?” he asked.

  “You’re right,” I replied, looking at Kathrin and winking. “Better make it fifty.”

  “No problem… It’s not like the giant’s gonna miss it.”

  “That’s what I was thinking as well,” I replied. “Thanks, man. I’ll chat with you when we hit Baynebridge HQ.”

  When I ended the call, Kathrin looked over at me. “You know, if we live long enough to take these guys down, you’ll never get used to having to follow the rules again.”

  “Screw that,” I replied, sliding my sunglasses on. “If that day ever comes, I’m taking my slush fund, buying a farm, and having little blond computer-nerd babies with a certain German goddess.”

  “Goddess?” Kathrin said, leaning forward. “I like the sound of that. Gretel the Goddess.”

  “As you should, oh holy one,” I said, smiling broadly before grabbing a quick kiss from her. “Now—let’s go shake the Baynebridge tree and see if anything labeled ‘Combine’ falls out.”