Huntress

by Amanda Radley

  “I’m going to use the towel and the water to cool the ankle and reduce the swelling. Then I’m going to tape it up, using the tape as sort of outer ligaments to keep things where they should be. Then, I thought we’d play a game of Scrabble to kill some time until you felt ready to sleep? But we don’t have access to a dictionary, so I’m relying on you to let me cheat when I make up words.”

  Amy bit her lip and nodded. “That sounds fun.”

  Amy jumped. She sat up and looked around, trying to figure out where she was and what was happening. A hundred thoughts raced through her mind in a split second.

  “It’s okay,” a familiar voice whispered.

  She looked down to her side to see Claudia laying in the sleeping bag and looking up at her with concern.

  “Sorry,” Amy said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I was awake. Nightmares?”

  Amy couldn’t remember. She couldn’t even remember falling asleep. The last thing she could remember was scowling at her Scrabble vowels. She’d wanted to show off a little. Display her intelligence to Claudia. But she’d been tired and dealt the worst letters. The only move available to her was to add two O’s to the P in ‘occupied’ that Claudia had put down.

  She looked down and realised that Claudia’s long trench coat had been placed over her like a blanket. No matter how she scanned her brain, she couldn’t remember the events leading up to her falling asleep. Nor the reason for her waking up.

  Her shoulders felt tense with stress. Her whole back ached from tensing her muscles throughout the last few days. With a sigh, she laid back down. The chill from the cold night permeated the tent. She pulled the coat back over herself.

  “Thanks for the loan.”

  Claudia chuckled. “You loaned me your sleeping bag, it was the least I could do.”

  They lay side by side. Amy’s mind was spinning so fast with questions that she was starting to feel dizzy. She needed to talk. Release the tension in her mind, as well as in the tent.

  “What do you think is on the USB?” Amy whispered.

  “I don’t know. Sensitive government information,” Claudia suggested.

  “Do you think Cara stole it?”

  “I think that’s very likely.”

  Amy sighed. She was usually an excellent judge of character, but apparently not when it came to Cara. She’d been blinded by a good-looking woman wearing a fancy suit and speaking in an exotic accent. In her mind was a fantasy world where Cara could do no wrong. She’d even imagined Cara doing charitable events at the weekend. How wrong she was.

  “And she was passing it on to... who?” Amy asked. She turned her head to look at Claudia.

  Claudia was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. It was only then that Amy realised the torch they had been using to play had been dimmed. It was just light enough to make out Claudia’s facial features, but dark enough to sleep.

  “A terrorist group?” Amy asked at Claudia’s prolonged silence.

  “Maybe.”

  Amy licked her lips. Part of her didn’t want to know, but the bigger part of her simply had to. “Do you think she was a terrorist?”

  Claudia turned her head and looked at her. She smiled softly. “I don’t know, there’s a chance. Or she might have just been caught up in something that got out of control. They might have been blackmailing her.”

  “I hope so,” Amy whispered. “I don’t think I could stand finding out that she was a terrorist all along. I trusted her.” She swallowed. “I liked her.”

  “If she was a terrorist, then she may well have been recruited for her personable nature. Being trustworthy is a key skill.”

  “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Don’t,” Claudia instructed. “You’re not.”

  “I am. I trusted her. I would have done anything she asked me. That’s probably why she chose me. To her, I was just a pathetic minion in a coffee shop. Maybe she was grooming me? Maybe I would have been a terrorist in the end. Following her blindly, like some lovesick puppy.”

  Claudia reached out her hand, taking Amy’s and gripping it firmly. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Amy.”

  Amy felt a blush rising on her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to blab about her feelings for Cara. It all just burst out. “I just serve coffee... I don’t know anything about the real world.”

  “Do you really feel that way?” Claudia asked.

  Amy slowly nodded.

  “Then maybe it is time to get back into the real world? If that’s truly how you feel? There’s nothing wrong with serving coffee, but if you feel that you aren’t valued because of it, then that’s a problem.”

  Amy opened her mouth to reply. She furrowed her brow and closed her mouth again. She turned her head and stared at the ceiling of the tent. In that moment, she had felt all her usual excuses building in her brain. Ready to explain that she loved the services, it may not be conventional, but it was the life for her. But she knew in her heart that it was all lies. Claudia had called her out, concisely and with kindness.

  She’d watched her university friends go on to bigger and better things. But she had just stopped. The fear of failing had stopped her from even trying. Tom’s Café was safe. Boring, predictable, and safe. She even convinced herself that she enjoyed the quirky nature of the job.

  Claudia squeezed her hand once more and then removed it. Amy keenly felt the loss.

  “Having chased you across the country for the last four days, I honestly believe that you can achieve anything you put your mind to,” Claudia said. “Now, get some sleep. We only have a few more hours until we meet Mark.”

  36

  Back Together

  The car passenger door was flung open, and Kerry raced towards Amy with a huge smile on her face. Amy dropped her bag and embraced Kerry in a hug.

  “Oh my God, you’re okay? You’re okay? Right?” Amy asked in panic.

  “Me? What about you? You’ve been missing for hours!” Kerry replied. “I’m just the idiot that got caught.”

  Amy relished the warm hug of her best friend. “I missed you so much.”

  “Missed you too, babe,” Kerry replied. She leaned in close. “Have you seen the totty in the car?” she asked in an excited whisper.

  Amy took a step back and glanced at Mark who was speaking with Claudia. He was tall and blonde, just the kind of thing Kerry drooled over.

  “Ooh la la,” Amy said and nudged Kerry in the ribs. “You like?”

  “I like,” Kerry sighed. “What do you know about him?”

  Amy shrugged her shoulders. “His name is Mark, and he works with Claudia.”

  Kerry looked at her and sighed. “Seriously? I know that. What else?”

  “I don’t know, we didn’t really talk about him,” Amy admitted.

  “Ladies, we have to go,” Claudia called out to them. “They’ll have tracked the call by now.”

  “Ladies.” Kerry snorted a small laugh. “Who’s she kidding?”

  Amy shrugged. “She’s just being professional, she’s nice...” Amy picked up her rucksack and started to drag it towards the car. She stopped when she realised that Kerry wasn’t following her. She stopped and turned around to see Kerry smiling at her.

  “What?” Amy asked.

  “I’ve seen that look before,” Kerry said as she walked up next to her and took her arm.

  “There’s no look,” Amy argued. Sometimes she hated how perceptive Kerry was.

  “There’s a look.”

  “Kerry, there’s no look,” Amy denied. She wondered how obvious her look was. Why did she even have a look? How did she get rid of the look?

  “Girls,” Mark called out to them.

  “Girls.” Amy chuckled. “We’ve been demoted.”

  “Hey, we were ladies a minute ago,” Kerry shouted back towards Mark.

  Mark looked at her and then turned to Claudia who just shrugged and got into the car.

  “You think they’re really going to help us?” Kerry aske
d.

  “Yeah, I do. They believe us now, which means they’ve finally worked out that someone on the inside is setting us up.”

  “How do we know it’s not them?”

  Amy shook her head. “Don’t start. I’m fragile enough as it is. I trust them, if they end up being murdering terrorists then... tough.”

  “If this doesn’t look weird, I don’t know what does,” Amy complained as she released her rucksack and sighed in satisfaction as it dropped to the floor. “Four people checking into one hotel room.”

  “We look like swingers,” Kerry pointed out.

  “I don’t have any car keys,” Amy complained.

  Claudia put a hand on Amy’s back and gently pushed her away from the door.

  “Mark booked the room for himself. I’m sure no one looked, or cared, who checked in,” Claudia assured them.

  “If anyone did see, they’d think that Mark looks like a very lucky boy,” Kerry added.

  Mark blushed as he edged around the three women with several messenger bags slung over his shoulder. He walked over to the desk and started to unload laptops and cables.

  Amy stood behind him to see what he was doing. “Why four laptops?”

  “Oh, um, to clean the signal through them and transfer data from a non-networked machine onto a patched—”

  Amy held up her hand. “Yeah, got it. Techie stuff, I shouldn’t have asked. Is this going to help us access the USB without half the government knocking on the door?”

  “Yes,” Mark disappeared under the desk with the end of a cable. “When you accessed the USB, the signal was picked up on the Wi-Fi network and broadcast out. Two of these machines are not on any network and have no broadcast ability whatsoever. We’ll be able to access the data without any chance of it being picked up.”

  A cable poked up from under the desk and Amy grabbed hold of it. “Are you sure? Because last time wasn’t really a blast for me.”

  “I’m sure, don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” Mark stood up and took the cable from her. “Thank you.” He plugged it into the back of his machine.

  Amy turned around to say something to Claudia but stopped dead when she saw Claudia getting changed. Her suit jacket and blouse were discarded on the back of a chair and she stood in a white tank top as she searched for the opening of the long-sleeved, roll neck top she was about to put on. Amy felt her mouth open and close before tearing her eyes away from the woman. As she snapped her head away, she made eye contact with Kerry who was smirking smugly at her, trying not to laugh.

  “Do you have the USB?” Mark asked.

  Amy reached into her pocket and briefly held the small rectangle. She’d gone to hell and back to keep it out of the wrong hands. She still wasn’t one hundred percent sure whose hands were the right ones. She glanced up at Claudia, now thankfully dressed. Claudia offered a comforting nod. She placed the USB into Mark’s waiting grasp.

  “If we all die, I’ll be really pissed off,” she joked lightly.

  “Me too, I’m halfway through a brilliant book,” Mark replied. He took the USB and sat at the desk. After a deep breath, he removed the cap and put it into the laptop. Kerry sat on the edge of the bed and watched. Amy stood behind him with her arms folded and waiting. Claudia stood beside him and looked at the screen.

  “It’s a standard widespread data grab,” Mark explained. “Some is encrypted. This may take a while.”

  “What’s a widespread whodymaflip?” Kerry asked.

  “Hackers who steal data rarely take just the data they need,” Claudia explained without looking away from the screen. “They take large chunks, either because they don’t know what it is they’re looking for, because they don’t have time to pick out the exact thing, or, often, because they are trying to throw people off the scent of what they are doing.”

  Mark turned to face a different laptop and started to type strings of commands that Amy couldn’t identify.

  “So, they steal a lot of stuff, and you have to figure out what it was they actually wanted?” Amy asked.

  “Exactly.” Claudia smiled at her.

  Amy smiled and felt like she had been praised by her favourite teacher.

  “So, what now?” Kerry asked.

  Claudia looked at her. “We crack the encrypted data. Have a look at what they took and see if we can figure out what their plans are. I would have to assume that there is a large-scale attack planned. A lot of time, effort, and money will have gone into whatever it is they are planning. They won’t want to throw it away, or make big logistical changes.”

  “Easier to kill the people who have the information.” Kerry looked at Amy. Amy nodded slowly in agreement.

  “Exactly. You both were very lucky,” Claudia said. “I’m in awe that you managed to keep ahead of them for so long.”

  “You said we bumbled around,” Amy argued, another grin forming on her lips.

  “You did, darling.” Claudia winked at her before turning her attention back to the laptop.

  Amy looked at Kerry, and Kerry smirked at her. Was Claudia flirting? Did she call everyone darling? Whatever was happening, Amy needed to get out of the confined space.

  “Does anyone want to use the bathroom? I’m in desperate need of a shower.”

  All three shook their head. Amy quickly grabbed her rucksack and disappeared into the hotel bathroom. She locked the door behind her and let out a big sigh.

  37

  Coming Together

  Mark had quickly removed the encryption. Now, Claudia mindlessly doodled a picture of a flower on the hotel room notepad as she stared at the freshly revealed data on her screen. There was no discernible pattern, and most of the data on the USB stick seemed to be pointless garbage that she couldn’t imagine a possible use for. She accessed a different folder and started to stare at a different batch of seemingly pointless data sets.

  She chanced a look over at Mark’s corner of the room. Claudia had grown tired of the casual glances that Kerry and Mark offered each other. Normally, the blossoming attraction would have made her agitated, but knowing that the object of her own affections was nearby caused her to indulge in a little matchmaking of her own.

  She had given the pair an important task and set them up in the corner of the room. It was a two-fold attack. Firstly, they would be able to get to know each other while working on something. But secondly, she would be alone to concentrate on the data sets and see if a meaning could rise from them.

  Sadly, her pattern-seeing ability was currently at sea as her mind kept flipping to thoughts of Amy. The girl had been showering for over an hour, and Claudia thought for sure that the water would have run cold by now. No matter how she tried to pull her thoughts away from Amy, she found her mind drifting back to her.

  She could no longer blame her concussion; the headache and subsequent fog had cleared. There was no use in denying it, she was smitten with Amy. To deny it would just clog up her brain. Acceptance allowed her to move on to more important things. Besides, Amy wasn’t interested in her. She was too old, too cold, too... her. Amy was young, vivacious, funny, and flighty. Claudia was none of those things.

  Knowing that nothing would happen between them made everything easier. Claudia was free to accept her own attraction and get on with her work. She stared at the data set in front of her again and shook her head. Nothing about this made any sense.

  “Figured it out yet?”

  Claudia jumped in her seat. Amy stood behind her, wrapped in a towel with damp hair clinging to her bare shoulders.

  “Um, no... no, it’s...” Claudia swallowed. She turned back to the laptop. “There are various sets of governmental information, but nothing that seems useful.”

  “Maybe another set of eyes will help?” Amy asked. Claudia looked at her in the reflection of the laptop, watching as her eyes drifted over to Mark and Kerry in the corner of the room. “Aw, that’s cute.”

  “I couldn’t stand it anymore. I set them a task and forced them together,” Cla
udia explained.

  “Good.” Amy pulled out the chair beside Claudia and sat down. Claudia couldn’t help but look at the bare thigh on show while Amy continued to look at Mark and Kerry.

  Claudia managed to tear her eyes away and refocused her attention on the laptop screen. She clicked the data set closed and looked at the root directory of folders.

  “What is all this then?” Amy asked.

  “A lot of it is old emails from various people, various departments with nothing in common. This is a common hacker plot. Take large amounts of data that mean nothing, throw us off the trail. Have us spend ages looking at every single file to see if there is anything of use in there.”

  “A million red herrings,” Amy mused.

  “Exactly.” Claudia clicked a button and previewed some files to explain her point. “These are old emails, these are flight times, these are in Russian, but it’s just recipes and weather reports.”

  “You speak Russian?”

  “Da.”

  “Cute.” Amy bumped her shoulder with her own naked one.

  Claudia hoped the blush that she felt on her cheeks wasn’t visible. She clicked to preview some more files. “These are old news stories with no connection, and then this is gibberish train information.”

  “Wait.” Amy put her hand over Claudia’s on the mouse to prevent her from moving on. She leaned forward and stared at the screen.

  “It’s just misleading data. It talks about stations that no longer exists and trains that don’t even run,” Claudia assured her. She looked at Amy’s hand on hers, wondering if she should shake her off. “See, this one, Croxley Green? According to my records, that was permanently closed in 2003. So, this is either old data or gibberish.”

  “These are the ghost lines.” Amy removed her hand and pointed to a line of data. Claudia felt cold at the loss of contact. “I’ve heard about this; John comes into the services sometimes and he told me about them.”