“I’ve never been much of a cat person.” Kayci finished the last bit of soda.
“Me either. But cats have a way of getting to you. You become a fan of their bizarre ways.” Jordan stood up, stretching his arms over his head. “Do you want some food?” He walked into the kitchen.
“Please. And painkillers if you have any.”
“If you like Italian, I’ve got some leftover chicken and pasta.” He bent to look in the fridge.
“That’s fine. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
Jordan placed the plastic container of leftovers in the microwave and punched some numbers.
“Do you live alone?” Kayci asked.
“Just me and the cat”
“Girlfriend?”
Jordan furled his brow. “No, why? You interested?”
“No, just trying to gauge if anyone might be stopping over. This might be hard to explain to a girlfriend.”
“Don’t worry. We’re safe.”
The timer sounded, and Jordan turned to open the microwave. He took a fork from the drawer near the small double stainless steel sink and brought the container to her. “Hope you don’t mind eating it from the container.”
He handed her the container, and she dug right in. “This is fantastic,” she said with a half-full mouth.
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean this is really good. You made this?”
“I’m quite the cook.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I like to cook. I’ve learned that there are two things you need to know how to do in America if you want to survive. You need to know how to cook, and you need to know how to fix cars. I can do both. No matter where I move, I can find a job. They’re not always good jobs and they won’t make you rich. But I’ve never been homeless. People drive and people eat, even when the economy sucks.”
She nodded at him, thoughtfully, then dug back into the container. He watched her chew the last piece of chicken and mop up the remainder of the marinara with the last meaty noodle. “This is one of the best meals I’ve ever had. You are a genius in the kitchen.” She placed the container on the white coffee table.
Jordan handed her a bottle of water and a travel-sized bottle of aspirin. “Here, these should help.”
“Thanks.” She opened the pill bottle and tipped a few of the white pellets into her hand. “Where’d you learn to cook?”
“My grandfather was right off the boat from Sicily. He was the head chef at a place called Caprizzio’s in Parsippany, New Jersey. He taught me to cook. When he died, I got all of his recipe books.”
She popped three of the pills into her mouth and washed them down with a long drink of water. “Well, compliments to the chef.”
“So, Kayci, how did you get down my dead end?” He asked.
“I crawled.”
“Where from?”
“I don’t know. I jumped out of the trunk of a car somewhere on a dark country road. They slowed down to turn, and I threw myself out. But I twisted my ankle. I tried to get up and hop for a while, but I tired myself out. I just started dragging myself into a cornfield and I managed to find you. I saw the glow of the light. I was so exhausted when I got there, I could barely speak.”
“Who are these people who tried to kill you?”
Kayci let out a long sigh. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this with you, Jordan. The less you know the better.”
“They always say that in the movies. But, really, who am I going to tell?”
“It’s not about telling. It’s about plausible deniability, about hiding the truth, and that’s harder than you think. If someone wants to get answers out of you, there are ways.”
“I guess.” Jordan shrugged.
“Trust me. It’s better if you don’t know.”
He nodded. “Is there anything else you want to eat ordrink?”
“I want to sleep.”
Jordan helped her to the spare bedroom. It was just a single bed, but it had fresh bedding and a nightstand. Otherwise, the room only had empty space.
“If you need anything, I’m across the hallway.” Jordan watched her climb into the bed and turned away.
He went to his room and slumped into his own bed. A few seconds later, Stormy came in and took up his usual position on the other side. After the exhaustion of the day and the buzz from the alcohol, sleep came quickly.
He did not normally have dreams, but right away, he was in a strange dreamland of indescribably bizarre things. Odd shapes and colors revolved around him, throbbing and surging.
He dreamed of colored lines and strange, jagged angles in a black world. He got the feeling he was inside of a computer game or some sort of solid-state circuitry. It was a strange dream that eventually dragged him away into oblivion.
Chapter Five
“I need her to be dead this time tomorrow.” The thin man with the black-framed glasses puffed out a cloud of smoke from his cigar. His name was Roy Fletcher, and he was as dirty and sneaky as any politician in Washington.
“Relax, Fletcher, it’s being taken care of.”
“You said that two days ago. You’re not going to like my response, Mr. Boyd, if this goes south again. The money we agreed on, you can forget it. You won’t get a tenth, and I’ll make sure Majestic Security never gets another government dollar.” Fletcher spoke like a serpent, his words hissed and his tongue was too playful on his thin lips. He had a long nose, pointed features, and wide-set eyes. He was as close to a lizard as any human could be without having cold blood.
Calvin Boyd was just the opposite, short and sturdy, round face and thick brow. He was not afraid of Fletcher, or anyone. He killed people for a living. Working with assholes like Roy Fletcher was expected. He was in this for the money, nothing more. He could give two shits about Fletcher’s politics or his problems. Boyd only cared about two things: the members of his team and the money in his bank account.
Right now, both were dependent on the death of a young NSA agent named Kayci Dewitt. She’d managed to escape their grasp in Toronto. It cost Boyd and his team a pretty penny in commission to drag this out again.
Majestic Security often worked for the U.S. Government. They did the dirty work the FBI and other official government organizations could not. Now that the war was officially over, it was domestic work where he was making his money. He was not excited to kill an agent for the NSA, but Fletcher was paying a shit-load. All this nonsense to protect his own ass from the General Accounting Office.
Boyd was not supposed to know that much, but he never let on how much he knew about his clients. It was the number one rule in his business. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open.
Leaving Fletcher’s office, Boyd lit a cigarette and pulled the ringing phone from his pocket. “You got Dingo, go.” In communication with his team, they did not use real names, ever. The nicknames were battle tested and true. He listened. His face contorted and he crushed the cigarette in his hand before throwing it to the floor.
“Tell me you’re kidding. How did she get out of the trunk? Forget it…It has to be somewhere. I want you to rendezvous with Cyclops and Shredder and meet me at Hancock Field in six hours. She stashed the data somewhere between Syracuse and New York City.” Boyd closed his phone and shoved it into his pocket. Now he had to contact Von Strieder.
***
Avery Von Strieder checked his perfect hair in the mirror and fixed his perfectly knotted tie. He moved in close to make sure his piercing blue eyes were as bright as they should be. Sometimes too much dairy could cloud them slightly, so he tried to stay away from it.
He smoothed his gray Armani suit and exited the bathroom. As he swung open the door, the sloppily put together Tom Hamilton greeted him. Avery said, “Agent Hamilton.”
“Avery, do you have a moment?”
“Agent Hamilton, I’ve told you countless times, we are to use official call titles if we are outside of my office.”
“Sorry, Agent Von Strieder, do you have a
moment.”
“What is it?” Avery had a hard time hiding his contempt for Hamilton. The man was sloppy and out of shape. He always looked greasy and constantly had some sort of disgusting, discolored stain on his shirt.
“Agent Dewitt hasn’t checked in yet. Agent Pratt said she was supposed to be in New Jersey by now, but the extract team claims she never showed.” The stocky man wiped a trail of coffee from his lips but did not get the white lines of foam at each corner of his mouth.
Avery walked down the hall quickly and turned into his office. He waited for Hamilton to amble in before he closed the door.
“I know, Hamilton. I heard already from Agent Pratt.” Avery was the agent in charge of the SORC. He reported to no one except Roy Fletcher, or so Fletcher liked to think. The reality was something quite different. Avery let Fletcher believe he was in charge, but he routinely overrode his directives and reported only what he wanted. It was a constant battle to keep the bureaucrats out of the spy business.
“What should we do?” Agent Hamilton asked with urgency.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Sir, all due respect, but it is a big deal. An agent from this unit is missing or rogue. I’m responsible for personnel accounting.”
Avery hated the fact that Hamilton was second in command. He was never up to standards of the unit, but he had been here since inception, long before Avery.
“Have you heard anything new from the extract team?” Avery asked.
“Nothing” Hamilton pushed his slipping glasses up his nose. “You also should know that we’ve lost computer access to the internal NSA databases. What do you know about that?”
Avery tempered his reaction while looking away from Hamilton to the floor. “Okay, you track down Agent Pratt and see if he heard from her yet.” Avery walked around the desk in his office and took the thick book of operations and procedures off the shelf. “Don’t worry about the network access. They’re doing some unscheduled maintenance today.”
“Okay” Hamilton turned and left.
Avery went back to his desk and sat in the plush leather chair. He picked up his cell from the desk and used his pinky to select the contact list.
“Everything is going as planned,” he said into the phone. “Fletcher already panicked after Boyd’s visit. We have less than seventy-two hours before end game. If Majestic can’t find her by tomorrow, we need to take matters into our own hands.”
“What about Hamilton?” The man on the other end asked.
“He’s busy tracking you down. I imagine your phone will be ringing in a moment. We’ve already been locked out of the network. As of noon today, SORC is no longer operating inside the NSA.”
Avery ended the call and started cleaning out his desk.
***
Nathan Pratt hung up the phone. He didn’t expect things to happen like this. This was supposed to be a seamless operation. Majestic Security was highly professional. It was beyond comprehension that they could screw this up twice. He knew better than anyone that Kayci was a very formidable opponent to grapple with. She was cunning and strong of mind, but he was sure Majestic would handle her without a problem. He would not have suggested they use them otherwise.
He took out his phone and dialed Agent Kara Bush, who was currently keeping an eye on Majestic Security. “Any word?” Pratt asked.
“Nothing so far. She’s slippery. We may have to do what we didn’t want to do. I’m afraid there’s no other way to find her.”
“Keep your tail on Majestic. We’ll give them twenty-four hours, if they don’t find her the old-fashioned way, it will be up to us. We don’t want to alert her yet, but we can’t drag this out too long.”
“We may have no choice.”
There was a long hesitation. Nathan said, “Look, I didn’t want to do that because it puts us in the crosshairs. We lose the element of surprise and you know that. It makes us targets. But we may have no choice. If we stick together, she can’t beat us alone.”
“Okay, Nathan. I trust you. You know her better than anyone, but I can’t help thinking we need some sort of contingency plan in case this goes wrong.”
“You don’t have to tell me. Avery is about to close the doors at SORC for the last time. You know what that means.”
“I know.”
“We vetted this contingency.” Nathan waited on the phone for a response.
“Okay, it’s on.”
“Look, Kara, let’s be smart about this, maybe we can help Majestic without helping them. Keep looking into Kayci’s background more, find that brother of hers, and feed it to Majestic. There has to be a place she stashed that data and that’s a logical place to start. Make it look like it came from Fletcher.”
He ended the call.
Nathan had a long history with Kayci. He was her handler when she first came into the unit. She’d been a promising agent, and he had genuinely cared for her at one time. But he had to look out for himself. One thing you learn in the spy game is that you cannot have any friends. Especially when you work in a unit that is not supposed to exist.
Kayci was too good, too pure and righteous. She would never have agreed to do what they were trying to do.
Nathan put the phone in his jacket pocket, checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, and decided he couldn’t afford any more gray hairs. He hoped they could end this quickly. After putting the car in gear, he drove off.
The last thing he wanted was to have to face Kayci himself. She was one of the only people on the planet he feared. She was the only person who could find him when he didn’t want to be found. For that reason alone, she had to die.
Chapter Six
Jordan woke up to subtle noises coming from his kitchen. Obviously, it was the super sexy NSA agent. Of course it was. Duh. Surely not everyone had a hot, half-naked NSA agent crawl to his door last night. There was a good chance he was the only man in the world who could say it.
He wearily flipped off the blankets. The alcohol had taken a toll. Stormy had a lot to say this morning. “G’morning, Stormy”
The cat replied instantly with a series of growls, squeals, squeaks, and meows all strung together. Jordan was not sure all cats were this vocal, but Stormy talked a lot. This cat would damn near carry on a conversation. Too bad neither participant had any idea what the other was saying. “I know, Storm, the stranger is still here.”
Stormy replied with another volley of squeals. “Calm down, Stormy, I think she’s okay.” The cat followed and with each step had something to say.
Jordan showered and dressed in his usual jeans and random T-shirt. Clothes were something that never mattered to him. Spending money on them never made much sense to him. He felt the same way about haircuts, so his hair was always a bit too long to be considered clean-cut.
Sneakers, however, were a different story. He had about ten pairs, mostly Nike, and most were orange or had some orange in them. He loved orange. He loved everything orange colored, orange flavored, or orange named. There was no point in trying to understand why. It was a fact of his life. The whole reason he stayed in Syracuse was because of the Syracuse University Orange. He didn’t follow college sports, he just liked the color.
Heading into the kitchen, Jordan saw his guest getting around quite well. “Looks like the ankle feels better”
“It’s a lot better.” She poured a cup of coffee. “Want some?”
“Glad to see you helped yourself.” Jordan was half joking and half annoyed that she looked so at home.
“Sorry. I’ve been up since five and I had to move around and test my foot.” She eased onto one of the two wooden stools at the counter and slid one of the two cups over to Jordan.
He stood for a second, then pulled out the stool and took a seat. “So how do you feel?”
“Much better, I think by tomorrow I’ll be able to get out of your hair.” She paused to blow on the hot coffee before taking a sip. “I want to thank you again for helping me.”
“No prob
lem.” Jordan tilted the coffee mug to his mouth but stopped. A strange feeling came over him, sending butterflies into his gut, but he shook it off and sipped the coffee.
“I need a computer with a high-speed connection. Got one?” She asked.
“My laptop is under the coffee table.” He turned back to face her. “So, what are you going to do?”
She raised her brow. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
Jordan nodded and stood. “Okay, well, good luck with all that. I have to go to work.”
“On Saturday?”
“Half day, I’ll be back around noon. There’s food around, so help yourself, as usual.” He turned toward the front door.
“Do you have a gun in the house?”
Her words stopped him cold.
He looked back at her, studied her for a second. “No, I don’t have a gun. Do you plan on needing one?”
“Never know... I always have one with me.” She acted as if he were absurd for not having one.
“I have a large chef’s knife in the drawer, very nice. It will cut an aluminum can right in half and still cut a delicate tomato. And in the closet are two baseball bats. That’s the best I can do for you. If you have to bash someone’s face in, try to use the Louisville Slugger. It’s black and will hide the blood better.” Jordan reached up and pulled his light summer jacket off the freestanding rack near the door and threw it on.
As he was heading outside, he stopped and turned back. He reached into his wallet, took out a business card, walked over to her, and held it out. “This is my cell number if you need something. Only thing I ask, don’t let Stormy outside, even if he acts like he wants to go out.”
He turned and left.
He paused just before he got into his vehicle, hoping he was doing the right thing here. But something inside did not feel right about any of this. As odd as his life had been to this point, something told him it just gotten a lot weirder.
***
Kayci turned the card over in her hand. It just said his name, Jordan Callahan, and his cell number. On the bottom were the words De profundis clamo ad te domine. She had no idea what it meant.
Savior Frequency (Frequency Series Book 1) Page 2
