by S L Shelton
“Shit—please, God, don’t let Scott call me back,” he muttered as he switched his dead camera views to external surveillance.
The main entry camera showed the giant dragging two burning men down the front porch, tossing them into the yard as if they were rag dolls. Other men ran up and slapped them with jackets to extinguish the flames.
Inside the safe room, the temperature began to rise quickly. A pipe, which traveled underground to his workshop across the driveway, carried fresh air when the exhaust fans were on. They would last as long as his batteries did. John crawled to the pipe and then flipped the switch on the fans. The temperature began to stabilize a bit as fresh air pumped in and stale hot air flowed out. He estimated he had two hours of battery life on the fans before they died.
That estimate was off by fifteen minutes, though the last ten minutes produced very little air movement as the constant running had reduced the power. Outside, he no longer had cameras or electricity. The fire had taken them both, and judging by the sound of falling debris, he concluded that the house was still burning.
As the air became hot and stagnant again, he pulled the fan from the pipe and put his face into the opening, attempting to breathe the cooler air from underground. With his face looking down the pipe, he thought how simple it would have been to hook the ventilation power supply to the workshop panel, using the batteries only as a backup. He would have been safe for hours had he done that.
Hindsight. 20/20 and all that, he thought as he lost consciousness.
**
9:15 p.m.—The Farm, Camp Peary, Virginia
I finished a grueling workout with Kobe. Grueling mostly because I was distracted by the fact that my condo had been broken into. Nick was gone by the time I heard about it from Bonbon, and Kobe was anything but comforting. He ordered me to turn my phone off before we started our lesson, forcing me to deal while getting my ass handed to me—without the aid of my internal hitchhiker, Wolf.
He clearly still had not fixed the damage done to my brain on the night I was abducted by the CIA; a point driven home each time I tried to use my internal flowchart to connect data. I hadn’t realized how much I’d leaned on my abilities until they began to cause me pain each time I used them. Even now, months later, there had been no improvement.
As I lowered my tired body to the bleachers after our workout, I reached into my bag for my phone before dialing voicemail. John had left a message about next steps.
Next steps…I wonder if that means Mark is safely away?
“You’re testing my patience,” Kobe said, prompting me to look up as he walked toward me. The limp he had been trying to disguise for the past week was getting more pronounced. Though I was sincerely sorry I had hurt him, no guilt intruded during our sessions; I was still “all in”.
“How am I doing that?” I asked.
“You are letting yourself be distracted by outside issues,” he said as he lowered himself, grunting, next to me. “I can understand your trouble, but you’ve got to get past it if you are going to learn anything more from me.”
“I don’t know if you could handle any more of my focus,” I muttered with a grin.
He hit me in the back of my head with the palm of his hand. “Learning isn’t beating your teacher,” Kobe said as I rubbed my head. “Learning is paying attention to someone who knows more than you do.”
I nodded. “You’re right,” I replied contritely. “I’m sorry.”
“You could probably have beaten me in a fair fight the day I met you,” he continued after a moment. That statement was shocking to me. I looked at him with confusion. “I know you could beat me now…in a fair fight.”
“You keep saying ‘fair fight’ like that’s not what we’ve been working on,” I replied.
“It’s what you’ve been working on,” he said. “I haven’t been.”
I squinted my eyes at him. “I haven’t beaten you once.”
He shook his head and looked at me, pausing for a moment before speaking.
“You stop fighting when I stop you…as you should,” he said, raising his hand in demonstration. “I’ve been using tricks for the past three weeks to break you away from me, and then stopping you before you could reengage.”
I played the past few weeks back in my head. After a moment of recall, I realized he was right.
I’d had no idea. He always seemed to have control of the situation. He never seemed to be in a position of vulnerability.
He must have seen I was trying to wrap my head around this revelation.
“For thousands of years, teachers have had students who excelled beyond their own skills. To keep them growing, the pupil cannot be allowed to know that,” he said. “I knew after our first encounter that you could beat me, but I have so much I need to teach you.”
“Should I be doing something differently?” I asked.
He hit me in the back of the head again and then smiled.
“No,” he said quietly and then looked me in the eye. “I have never taught anyone who learned as fast as you have. I have never seen combat from someone so naturally gifted in technical style. And I have never so enjoyed watching a student exceed my capabilities.”
Gratitude washed over me. I nodded my respect to him. He returned the gesture before getting up and walking out. As soon as the door closed, I dialed John’s number. He answered after two rings but didn’t say anything.
“John?” I asked.
Nothing.
“John, are you there?” I asked again.
When I got no reply that time, I hung up and dialed again. It went right to voicemail.
“Hi, John. It’s Scott, returning your call,” I said and ended the connection as a feeling of unease began to creep into my chest.
I sat and stared at the phone for several seconds, wondering what that had been about. I decided to call Nick. Maybe he’d even tell me why he took off so quickly. My apartment certainly wasn’t important state business.
“Horiatis,” he answered curtly.
“Nick, it’s Scott,” I said, pulling my sweatshirt on over my sweat-soaked shoulders. “Where are you?”
“I’m almost to John’s house,” he replied.
“I just tried calling him,” I said. “He picked up but didn’t say anything. And when I called back, it went right to voicemail.”
There was silence from Nick.
“Nick?”
“Wow,” Nick said. “There’s something big on fire near John’s house.”
A cold chill ran down my spine, sending little pinpoints of raised flesh against my damp shirt.
“Nick. John is a target,” I said quietly.
“Don’t jump to—oh shit!”
“What?” I asked.
“I’ll call you back,” Nick said urgently. “John’s place is on fire.”
In the background, I could hear sirens before the call ended abruptly. I got up and ran to the door, slinging my gym bag across my shoulder as I went. Halfway to the headquarters building, I saw Marcus going in, lit by the security light on the corner of the old farmhouse.
“Marcus,” I yelled. “Hey!”
He paused and waited for me to arrive. “What’s up?” he asked as I jogged to a halt in front of him.
“John Temple’s house in Leesburg is on fire,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him through the door. “We need to pull up the town fire and rescue radio channel.
He picked up his pace once what I’d said sank in. He swiped his badge across the door on the communications room and pushed in.
“Bring up Leesburg, Virginia Fire and Rescue,” he said to the woman who was monitoring the equipment. She complied immediately. Within moments, we were listening to the broadcast.
The Fire Department Battalion Chief was busy on the radio coordinating the actions of the response force. Occasionally one of the firefighters would speak, his voice muffled by his oxygen mask.
“The east side of the house has collapsed,” one firefighter
said.
“Roger,” the Battalion Chief replied. “Focus on containment. Don’t let it jump into the next yard.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “They’ve given up on putting it out.”
Marcus was focused intently on the conversation when it dawned on me that if John were in the house when it caught fire, he might have made it to his bunker in the basement.
“Can you break into that channel?” I asked the radio operator.
“No. This is a stream feed,” she replied, shaking her head.
I pulled out my phone and looked up the dispatch number for Leesburg Fire and Rescue. When the number popped up, I dialed it.
“Leesburg Fire and Rescue, what is your emergency?” came the reply.
“This is Scott Wolfe with the Central Intelligence Agency,” I said, hoping to add urgency to the message. “The fire currently burning at the west end of town is the residence of a senior CIA official. He may still be in the house.”
“Sir. Fire and rescue are already on the scene—”
“Listen,” I snapped. “He has a safe room bunker in his basement. There’s a possibility the fire was the result of an assault. If he was in the house, he may still be alive in that bunker. It’s at the west end of the house, on the wall facing the long building across the driveway.”
In seconds, she was on the radio.
“Fox three. We have a notification from a government official indicating there may be survivors in a basement safe room bunker. West side of the structure facing the long building across the driveway.”
“Roger,” came the reply. “Pump Truck ten, focus on the west side of the building. There may be survivors in the basement. There’s some sort of bunker or something down there.”
“Ten-four,” came the reply, followed by a flurry of communication between firefighters directing hoses and rescue personnel.
After what seemed like an eternity—actually more like twenty minutes—there was finally a glimmer of hope.
“Fox three, we’ve found the bunker,” one of the firefighters announced. “Pull the heavy lines around and keep our backs wet, we’re going to try and open it.”
“Roger. Ladder five and pump-truck two, move around to the west. We have rescuers in the structure.”
“Roger.”
More minutes ticked by before my phone rang.
“Wolfe,” I answered.
“It’s Nick,” came the reply. “They found him. He’s still alive.”
We all breathed a collective sigh of relief. “How’s he look?” I asked.
“I haven’t gotten over to him yet, but I’m about to pull rank and go with him to the hospital,” Nick replied.
“Keep us posted,” I said.
“Will do.”
The connection ended, and we lingered around the radio for several minutes longer, hoping to hear more details. From the chatter over the radio, it was clear he wasn’t in good shape.
I patted Marcus on the back after a long period of silence. “Thanks,” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied distantly. “I’ll let you know if anything else pops up.”
I nodded and listened a few seconds longer before I turned and left. It was almost eleven o’clock by then. My mind started swimming with details. “Next steps,” John had said. I pulled out my phone again and dialed.
“Hey,” came the reply from Storc. “What’s up?”
“The upstream bridging on the accounts…how far have you gotten?” I asked.
“Not far, but I’m narrowing it down,” he replied.
“How many failed proxy assaults have you mounted?”
“About forty thousand,” he replied. “Maybe more.”
“I need the IP address on one of the early ones, and the specs for the firewall,” I said as I walked out into the cold, dark January night. The chill from the cooling sweat on my body became uncomfortable, but at least I knew I was alone and could hear anyone approach.
“No problem…why?” he asked.
“I need to set off some alarm bells, and I want to do it in a way that doesn’t make your job harder,” I replied.
There was silence at the other end for a few beats. “Why would you set yourself up?” he asked finally.
“You need to not say that sort of thing out loud,” I replied. “Don’t worry about me. Just keep digging on connecting the downstream accounts to an origin.”
“Okay,” Storc said quietly. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I hope so too,” I replied. “Let me know as soon as you come up with anything solid.”
“I will.”
“Later.”
I bowed my head for a moment, trying to breathe some calm into my chest. I was about to expose myself to something I didn’t fully understand, and despite my training and the newfound confidence in my abilities, I had to admit I was just as scared as I had been when I walked into that head shop in Amsterdam back in May, almost nine months earlier.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Nine months.”
**
4:25 p.m. on Thursday, January 13th—The Farm, Camp Peary, Virginia
“Scott!” Nick yelled at me from behind as I made my way to the dorms.
“When did you get back?” I asked, turning to walk toward him.
“A couple hours ago,” he said. “Look. We’re moving you.”
“Moving me where?” I asked, confused.
“Over to the instructors’ building,” he replied as we started walking back toward the dorms. “The draw down on Baynebridge is making it hard to increase security on the whole facility, so we’ve decided to just focus on keeping you in sight all the time.”
I shook my head. “Nick, that’s not what—”
“No arguments,” he said abruptly. “Those are orders directly from Burgess.”
I took a deep breath to shake off the rest of my complaint. I wasn’t about to disobey an order from Director Burgess without good cause. And at that moment, I was still working on my hack script, fine-tuning it to make sure the right people detected me while still leaving no trace to the CIA or TravTech. It had been a painstaking process, but it would be well worth the effort if it brought Mark and John’s attackers to me.
“Okay. But I’m still a couple of days away from launching the script,” I replied finally. “Storc isn’t far enough along on closing depositor gaps for me to risk his progress.”
“Orders are orders,” he said. “Let’s get your stuff moved over.”
We went into the dorm, and he helped me gather my personal belongings before transferring them to the instructors’ quarters. Nick put me up in the room he used when he was on post, dropping my items on the unused second bed in his room.
“No trips out of the compound,” he said before turning to leave.
“Nick?”
He turned and looked at me.
“How’s John?” I asked, genuinely concerned by the lack of an update.
“He’s in a medically induced coma,” Nick replied, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice and failing. “There’s been a lot of damage to his spine and legs. They don’t think he’ll walk again even if he comes back around.”
“Shit,” I muttered as anger started to blur my logic again.
“Stay focused,” he added. “Mark is safely away, and you have the ball. Don’t let John’s condition distract you.”
I nodded.
“Justice is officially raising a stink with the Agency about Mark Gaines being cut loose by John,” he said. “Only Cantor and the AG know what’s really going on. To everyone else, it looks like you, John, and Mark Gaines have information you are keeping from everyone else.”
“That’s good,” I said, trying to refocus on the plan.
“I wouldn’t call it good…it makes you the only viable remaining target,” he said with a crooked grin. “But it puts us on plan.”
I nodded.
“I’ll be here for the next few days,” he continued as he opened the door. “Let me k
now when you’re ready to launch your script so I can give Ray the heads up.”
“I will,” I replied, already turning my thoughts toward the string of programs and hijacked proxy servers. “The trick is making it look like I’m doing it on my own. Not easy to do with just an iPhone.”
“I can get you some hardware in here if it’ll help,” he said.
I shook my head. “It would take me a couple of days to make sure it was sanitized and then to set up the honey pot to make it look like it’s just me,” I replied, pulling my phone out. “I’m almost done. It’s not worth changing now.”
He nodded. “I’m going to hang with Kobe down the hall,” he said as he began to walk away. “Yell if you need me.”
“Will do. Thanks, Nick.”
As soon as he was gone, I sat on my new bed and leaned against the wall, drawing my knees up as I began working my script again. Without the distractions of the dorm, I could have it done fairly quickly. It had been difficult over the past week, staying on track with all my classes and my training with Kobe while writing a string of programs to visibly—though not too visibly—break security on the false corporations used to funnel the money. All of that, with the added emotional drain of John’s critical condition, was taking its toll on me.
Though putting me in a different location might raise flags, it would also allow me to finish my programming more quickly.
I hope it wasn’t a mistake putting me in with the instructors, I thought, worried it might be too obvious a change in a “candidate’s” normal routine.
Just then, Penny Rhodes walked past my still-open door, only to return a second later. There, she glanced around the room as she leaned against the frame.
“Hey,” I said, smiling, pretending I didn’t suspect her of trying to set me up on Christmas Eve.
“Hey,” she replied cautiously.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” I said, hoping to coax her back a little.
“I understand,” she said coarsely, but there was deep bitterness in her voice. Her microexpressions were telling another story though; she was pleased by my apology.
