Mockingbird had come in handy more than once over the years, especially when my father had been held hostage in Mexico. Back then, the Section higher-ups had frozen out Grandma Jane, but she’d still been able to see everything that was happening with the mission. Hence her knowing about the cartel’s three-million-dollar ransom demand.
My index finger hovered over the laptop keyboard. Grandma Jane had warned me that Mockingbird was to be used sparingly, and only if I couldn’t get the information I needed through some other legitimate channel. I had never used it before, so I was hoping it still worked. Only one way to know for sure, but learning more about Desmond, and potentially discovering who wanted me dead, was worth the risk.
I hit the Enter key.
My screen immediately went completely black. I winced and leaned back, expecting my laptop to burst into flames, red lights to start flashing overhead, or something else equally dramatic to happen. Instead, the screen abruptly turned white, and lines of black code flooded my monitor, forming a distinctive shape—a mockingbird.
The screen went black again, then a message appeared, along with the regular internal Section home page. Welcome, Mockingbird.
The tense breath stuck in my throat whooshed out in a sudden, relieved rush. I was in the system.
I pulled up the main search engine and typed in Desmond’s name. For security reasons, cleaners were only identified by their first names in the internal Section databases, but there was only one Desmond in the system, and his photo appeared on my screen. Blond hair, blond stubble, blue eyes, smug smile. That was definitely him. I started reading through his Section personnel file.
Desmond. Age thirty-six. Six feet tall. Born in Sydney, Australia, to an Australian mother and an American father…
Desmond had apparently been groomed to be a cleaner his whole life, given all the military schools he had attended growing up, and I got the impression that he was a Legacy like me, although there was no mention of his last name or his family. Still, it was all pretty standard stuff, except for one thing—Desmond had majored in art during college. Not what I would expect, especially given how largely useless drawing, painting, and the like would be in his line of work. Or perhaps he wanted to sketch the faces of the people he killed. It wouldn’t surprise me, given the psycho smiley face he’d put on that charming little note he’d left in my apartment.
Once I had absorbed his general background, I moved on to his official Section service record. Like me, Desmond had started working for Section right after college, at age twenty-five. Unlike me, he had quickly risen through the ranks and become a full-fledged cleaner by the time he was thirty. Since then, he had taken part in missions all over the world and had more than fifty confirmed kills, which was impressive, even by Section’s lofty, deadly standards.
Still, the more I read, the more I realized something was missing—his magic.
Other than a few notes talking about his above-average strength, speed, and pain tolerance, none of the files mentioned anything specific about his powers. Weird. Usually, cleaners’ abilities were the most well-documented. The Section higher-ups wanted to know exactly who and what they were dealing with in case a cleaner went rogue and had to be eliminated.
In addition to Desmond’s missing magic, I noticed one other discrepancy in his file—he was listed as being en route from Sydney, Australia, instead of being confirmed as currently in the D.C. area. Section agents were supposed to immediately check in upon arrival in their destination city, but it seemed as though Desmond didn’t want to advertise the fact that he was here. But if that was the case, then why had he come over to me in the cafeteria yesterday?
I clicked through a few more screens until I found Desmond’s last mission, code-named Blacksea, which had taken place about two months ago. Unlike everything else in his dossier, the mission file was locked and required top, level-seven clearance to access. My eyebrows shot up my forehead. Relatively speaking, very few people had level-seven clearance—the members of the Section board of directors; Maestro, the mysterious head of the D.C. office; the equally mysterious heads of the other major stations around the world; and the analyst, charmer, liaison, and cleaner supervisors here in D.C. and abroad.
I didn’t know if the Mockingbird log-in had enough juice to unlock the file, but Desmond hadn’t been on an operation since then. A note indicated he had been severely injured during the Blacksea mission and spent several weeks recovering. A few days ago, Desmond had finally been cleared to return to active duty and assigned to a new mission, although no details had been entered about what that mission was.
Still, despite his new assignment, I was willing to bet that Blacksea was the real reason why Desmond was here. Even the most callous, jaded, hardened cleaner would have a difficult time getting over an assignment that had almost killed him. Although I had no idea what connection I could possibly have to a two-month-old mission. Only one way to find out. I hit the Enter key.
My screen went black again…
And then…and then…
The file opened.
“Thank you, Grandma Jane,” I whispered and started reading through the information.
Desmond and another cleaner, an American named Graham, had been sent to kill Adrian Anatoly, a Russian-born paramortal who was responsible for dozens of bombings, political assassinations, and other horrible acts all over the world. Anatoly was a truly nasty piece of work, a terrorist-for-hire who killed and maimed people for money and amusement rather than carrying out some personal vendetta or ideological agenda. He was known to have exceptional paramortal strength and was rumored to not be able to feel pain, which was perhaps why he delighted so much in inflicting it on others.
Anatoly was also rumored to be part of the Syndicate, a shadowy group of paramortal bad guys. Some were terrorists, others were criminals, but supposedly they all worked together on occasion to exchange information, sell weapons to each other, and increase their own fortunes. Sort of like an evil twin to Section 47. Most people in the intelligence community thought the Syndicate was nothing more than an urban legend, but my father had staunchly believed in the group’s existence. He had tried to find out more about the Syndicate—especially who its members were—for years, although he’d never had much success.
I didn’t have time to speculate about hypothetical boogeymen, so I moved on. Three months ago, Section agents had discovered that Adrian Anatoly was holed up on a small island off the Australian coast, and the Blacksea mission had been green-lit.
The report gave me all the details: Desmond and Graham left their liaisons and other support staff on a boat and swam to the island under the cover of darkness. They hiked over to and infiltrated the target compound, only to find it empty. When they returned to the shoreline, several boats carrying Anatoly’s men appeared. Those vessels surrounded and fired upon the support staff’s boat, which exploded. All Section staff on board were killed in that initial contact.
Anatoly and his men then steered their boats toward the shore. Using a cell phone, Anatoly detonated more than a dozen IEDs that had been buried in the sand. Anatoly and his men escaped, and Desmond and Graham were left for dead…
I’d seen enough after-action reports to read between the lines—it had been a trap. Adrian Anatoly had known that Section was coming for him, and all those agents had died for nothing.
Still curious, I clicked on Graham’s name, and his photo popped up on the screen. Graham had been quite handsome, with short black hair, green eyes, bronze skin, and an easy smile. I scanned his service record, which was remarkably similar to Desmond’s, although not quite as impressive. The two of them had been partnered on multiple missions, and together, they had killed a lot of bad, bad people.
I returned to the Blacksea mission report and clicked through some more documents. It was all pretty standard stuff, although no one seemed to know exactly how Adrian Anatoly had realized that Section was targeting him. This time, I didn’t even have to read between the lines, s
ince an internal memo spelled it out—Section leak suspected. Further investigation requested.
In other words, there was a mole.
Given how many agents had died, a team of investigators had been charged with ferreting out who inside Section had tipped off Anatoly. The investigators had been brutally thorough, questioning everyone who worked in the Sydney station, including Desmond, even though he had been gravely wounded in the attack.
I studied Desmond’s after-action interview: Graham is dead. My best friend is dead. Blown up on a beach because Adrian Anatoly knew we were coming. So quit wasting time asking me the same stupid questions over and over again, get out there, and find the bastard who sold us out…
Even though I was just reading a transcript, I could still hear the pain in Desmond’s voice as clearly as if I’d been in the room during the interview. More of my magical synesthesia at work. Even more telling, every word he said was a flat, stark black. Whatever else he might be, Desmond wasn’t a mole, and he hadn’t betrayed his friend and fellow agents.
I read through all the other documents, but nothing jumped out, so I reviewed them a second time, using my synesthesia to carefully examine the interview transcripts. Lots of grays, indicating mistakes and errors, but no bright pinks and no glaring reds that would indicate half-truths and outright lies. No conclusive evidence had been found, and no one had been accused of being the mole. The hunt was still ongoing, although the files hadn’t been updated in more than a month, indicating that the investigators had hit a wall. If the mole had escaped such intense scrutiny for this long, then they most likely weren’t going to be caught.
The investigators had focused their mole hunt on the Sydney station’s personnel, but anyone in any Section station around the world could have leaked the information to Anatoly, including someone here in D.C.
Someone that I worked with.
I rocked back in my chair, turning that thought over in my mind. If Desmond was truly in D.C. because of the Blacksea mission, then he must think that the mole was here too, something the cleaner attack against me last night further supported. Although I still had no idea what I had done to threaten or piss off the mole enough for them to try to kill me.
Still thinking about the mole, I clicked through to another screen. Instead of more reports, a photo appeared on my monitor—Desmond cradling his friend’s body.
Desmond and Graham were both covered with gruesome burns that had turned their skin a bright, and strangely shiny, neon-red. In addition to the unnatural color, their skin also looked like raw meat that had been shoved through a grinder and then stitched back together with the remaining shreds of their black tactical clothes. My stomach roiled at the sickening sight, but I forced myself to study the disturbing image.
Desmond was clutching Graham’s body to his chest, as though he were trying to shield his partner from further danger, even though one of Graham’s legs had been blown off below the knee, his eyes were fixed, and it was obvious he was dead.
From the angle of the photo, it looked like a still image from a body camera, and Desmond was glaring up at whoever had been wearing the device. His eyes burned like silver-blue suns, his lips were drawn back into a feral snarl, and his red, blistered face was contorted in a mixture of rage, grief, guilt, and agonizing heartbreak.
For the first time, a bit of sympathy sparked in my chest, although I ruthlessly extinguished it. Desmond had lost his partner, his friend, but that was hardly unusual. Section dealt with all sorts of unsavory people, and death wasn’t so much a risk as it was an eventuality.
My father had taught me that.
I glanced around, but the bullpen was still deserted, so I grabbed my phone and took a photo of Desmond clutching Graham’s body. It was against Section protocols to copy an image like this, but I did it anyway. My conscience elbowed me in the gut, but I ignored the sharp stab of guilt. Information was power, especially at Section, and Desmond seemed to know far more about me than I did about him. Maybe this photo would help level the playing field between us.
I had dug as deeply into Desmond as I could, but he wasn’t the only cleaner I’d encountered last night, so I typed Rosalita’s name into the search engine. Her personnel file was exactly what I expected, with one large, glaring error—Rosalita was listed as being on a covert assignment in Colombia.
I frowned and clicked through a few more screens, but they all said the same thing. As far as the Section databases knew, Rosalita was shadowing a cartel leader in Bogotá in hopes of figuring out how to kill him without anyone being the wiser. But perhaps the most worrisome thing was that the information burned a bright, bloody red in my eyes, indicating that someone had deliberately typed in the blatant lies. And not just on one document but on multiple files.
I glanced at the names of the other people who had recently viewed the file, but they all had legitimate reasons for accessing it, and none of their notes or requests for more information struck me as being obviously wrong or overtly suspicious.
Frustrated, I rocked back in my chair again, making it creak in protest. Despite everything I’d learned, I still had no idea what Desmond, Adrian Anatoly, Rosalita, or the Blacksea mission and subsequent mole hunt had to do with me.
I tap-tap-tapped my fingers on the keyboard, my mind whirring. After a few seconds, I started typing again. This time, instead of searching for information on Desmond, I typed in my own name and title: Charlotte Locke, analyst…
I made a point of scanning my own file at least once a month, so I didn’t have to read through the information. Instead, I looked at all the other people who had accessed my file recently and all the reports and work requests associated with it.
Gregory Jensen, of course, overwriting my work and claiming several of my reports as his own, along with dismissing and saying that no further action needed to be taken on the reports he didn’t care about. Miriam, linking to her own charmer reports, whenever her targets mentioned something having to do with one of my bad guys. Anthony in accounting, denying my office supply requests as usual. Keila, also in accounting, transferring my biweekly paycheck into my meager bank account. And so on and so forth.
I worked backward, clicking through the screens, and scanning each log-in, along with the relevant information. It took me a few minutes, but I finally found something interesting.
Graham, Desmond’s partner, had accessed my file roughly two months ago, three days before the Blacksea mission.
I reared back in surprise. I’d never met Graham or gathered intel on any targets he’d been sent to eliminate. So why had he pulled up my file?
I kept searching. Graham had viewed my personnel file as well as several reports I’d written about various terrorists and criminals, but he hadn’t made any notes, so there was no way to know exactly what he’d been looking at or why—
“What are you doing?”
I managed to hold back my shriek of surprise, although I couldn’t stop from jumping in my chair. Some spy I was, letting someone sneak up on me. I thought about minimizing my screen but decided against it. That would only make me look guiltier than the jumping already had.
Miriam leaned down, hanging her arms over our shared cubicle wall and making the thin gold bangles on her wrists clink-clink-clink together like wind chimes. “You’re in early.”
“So are you.” I eyed her green silk blouse and dark jeans, the same outfit she’d had on at lunch yesterday. “Or is this just the end of your very late night?”
She grinned. “Something like that.”
“Another lovefest with your mystery man boy toy?”
Her grin widened, and she straightened up, raised her arms over her head, and stretched like a cat. I half expected her to start purring in obvious satisfaction.
“Something like that,” Miriam repeated, then dropped her arms and gestured at my laptop. “What are you doing?”
“Just checking on something.”
She frowned. “But I thought you already turned in the Hyde
report.”
Had I mentioned that at lunch yesterday? I was always working on some report, but I didn’t usually divulge the name to Miriam unless it dovetailed with something she was working on. Either way, I shrugged off her question.
“I just wanted to double-check something.”
Miriam rolled her eyes, but she grinned again. “And that’s the Charlotte I know—exceedingly thorough.”
“Something like that.” I parroted her earlier words.
Miriam’s phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket and frowned at the screen.
“Problems?”
“Oh, the diplomat’s wife is a bit clingier than I expected. She keeps texting me, whining about her scumbag husband,” Miriam murmured in a distracted voice, her thumbs flying over the screen. “Anyway, I need to get showered and changed. Later.”
She gave me a distracted wave and walked away, still focused on her phone.
I waited until she left the bullpen, then stared at my own screen again. It was almost nine now, which meant the other analysts would be coming in soon. Frustration filled me that I hadn’t learned more, especially about who might want me dead and why, but at least now I had a better understanding of who Desmond was.
I started to log out of the Mockingbird account, but I hesitated and returned to Desmond’s file—specifically the photo of him clutching Graham’s body.
The longer I looked at the image, the brighter the burn of blue became in Desmond’s eyes, like pinprick flames about to cause my whole screen to catch fire. I didn’t know if the color was my synesthesia at work or just my own vivid imagination.
A Sense of Danger Page 8
