by K. J. Dahlen
While the faces were running through the program Michael went back to Matthias’s files and clicked on one that said video. What came up was a meeting between Alex, Drew and yet another unknown person. They were all speaking Arabic but the unknown man was signing something. He didn’t speak but he did using American Sign Language. Michael couldn’t see who he was signing to, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the video.
Michael watched as the man began giving orders. He felt Judson come up behind him but he didn’t take his eyes off the video. When it was finished, Michael hit repeat and when the video came on again, he focused on the man signing. He grabbed a pen and began writing down what he was saying. When the video ended, Michael was about to rewind it again when something caught his eye. From the bottom of the picture, he saw someone’s hand. It looked to be a man’s hand, an older man’s hand and on his hand was a large gold ring with a jade inlay. He too was signing. Michael looked down at the words he’d written. “Damn,” he swore softly as he looked up at Judson and handed the paper over to him.
When Judson read what Michael had written he paled and sat down next to him. “Is this for real?”
Michael tightened his lips and nodded. He stared hard at Judson. “We need to identify this man and then we need to warn the President.” He raised his hand to the screen of the computer and pointed at the man using sign language. A dark skinned man with a close cropped haircut. His eyes were dark, almost black and the stubble on his face wasn’t quite a beard but it was close. The one feature that made him different than most was the scar that ran down the left side on his face, from just below the eye area to wrap around his chin.
Michael reached for his phone and called Harper. When she answered, he asked, “I need you to ask Matthias something.”
Harper glanced out into the office. It was late enough in the day most people had gone home for the evening. “I don’t see him here. He must have gone home for the evening.”
“Damn, I don’t know if this can wait until morning. I suppose it can wait a little while.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“We need to identify someone. Tell Kenn we may need a huge favor later tonight.”
“What did you find?” Harper asked. “It sounds like something big.”
“Oh, this is big,” Michael promised. “I’ll let you know when we have all the pieces.”
When Harper hung up the phone, she glanced over at Kenn’s office. He was still there so she got up to talk to him. It was getting dark out and the office was almost empty when she went to his office. She closed the door behind her.
Kenn looked up from the paperwork on his desk. “What’s wrong?”
“Michael just called. He said they found something and may need a favor in a little while.” She glanced out into the office and saw Glen Portman and Sean Courtney staring back at her. She got up and closed the blinds in Kenn’s office, shutting out their inquisitive stares. “There is something wrong with those two. All of a sudden, they give me the creeps.”
“You aren’t the only one those two worry. Michael asked me about who in our office might be willing to sell out his country. The more I think about it the more those two come to mind.” He paused a minute then asked, “Did he say what he found?”
Harper shook her head. “He had to identify someone first.”
“Well, let’s hope he found something good. I hate this hurry up and wait crap. If something bad is coming, we need to know when and what it is. We can’t stop what we don’t know about.”
“I agree.” Harper nodded. She got up and went back to her office. She too, hated the waiting game but she played it all the same. She picked up a file on her desk and began reviewing it, but her mind wasn’t on the task at hand. She was waiting for her phone to ring. She tried placing a call to Matthias but he wasn’t answering his phone.
Harper stared at the phone briefly then picked up the file. She was becoming concerned about Matthias. If she was being followed earlier, whoever was following her might have seen Matthias hand over the flash drive. She glanced at the clock and noted the time. It was five at night. She decided to wait fifteen minutes and start calling again.
Michael stared at the faces of the men flashing on the computer monitor. These men were known terrorists. He had no idea if the program they were using would produce a match or not, but it was the only thing he knew to do. He stared at the man’s face in the corner of the screen as if to imprint his face in his brain.
He didn’t know what the man meant to the organization or his name, but Michael had a feeling this man was the one who called the shots. Judson came over and sat down beside him. Michael turned and asked, “Do you remember what brought this group to our notice five and a half years ago?”
“We busted down some chatter then stormed into a meeting with them. The meeting was a small one but they were tough. They attacked us with knives and broken bottles. We ended up killing one of them and arrested two more. Only one of them got away but he was badly wounded.”
Michael swung his gaze back to the screen. “Yeah, I remember. In fact, I was the one who wounded the one that got away. He came at me with a knife.” He pointed at the man on the screen. “In fact, I believe that’s the man I wounded that day.” He sat down again and opened a file from his bag, the beginning entries were what he was interested in.
Michael read the initial chatter that brought the Viper Crew to the attention of Homeland Security. Five and a half years ago, a chance overheard conversation brought Homeland Security’s attention to an address on Rhode Island Avenue. The address was a rental house, but what they found inside the house stunned the officers. On one wall was the painted triangle with a Viper inside. Arabic words under the bottom of the triangle said Death in America. There were automatic rifles on either side the triangle and a movie camera set up in the front of the wall.
A search of the house revealed four men holding a conversation in Arabic. When the police broke into the room, the four men scrambled. One man was shot outright; two were arrested and one man attacked Michael. When Michael defended himself, the man was wounded but got away. The police gathered pictures of the men and whatever evidence they found that day. Michael made an extra copy of everything for his own files and it was those extra prints he looked at now.
When he found the picture of the man that got away, he lifted it toward the photo of the man on the screen. They seemed to be the same man. The picture Michael held was a younger version and he didn’t have the scar. “Damn,” he whispered as he looked at Judson.
“Okay, we found our connection what we need now is what their new plan details,” Judson said. “Something just came up from the CDC.”
“What?”
“It’s an alert on a virus. When there is an unusual amount of something that’s harmful and being ordered, it sends out an alert.” Judson read the alert. “Damn.” He looked up at Michael. “Someone’s been ordering and getting small shipments of VRSA.”
“What the hell is VRSA?”
“It’s an antibiotic resistant flu strain that once you get it, it kills you. It can be injected by a needle or sprayed by aerosol into a crowd. Either way, it could be used in a dirty bomb and it could become an epidemic within days.” Judson stared at Michael. “This could kill a lot of people before we even knew what it was.”
“That’s why they call them dirty bombs.” Michael frowned.
Just then, Michael’s computer began beeping.
Michael turned to see what the alert was and found they had a match on the unknown man Michael gave the scar to. His name was Jordian Yourak, with an alias listed as Waylon Jeffries. Michael reached for his cell phone to call Harper. When she answered, he told her, “We may have a problem.”
“We may have more than one,” she told him.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t get a hold of Matthias. Everything was fine when he left but I can’t get a hold of him now.”
“Did anyo
ne see you together this morning?” Michael asked.
“I didn’t think so but I felt like someone was following me after he gave me the flash drive. I took precautions to get the drive to you and I’ve been in the office the rest of the day.”
“Send a team to check it out. Pull him back into the safety of the office,” Michael told her. “Who else is still there?”
“Only Glen Portman, Sean Courtney and Carla Winesap,” Harper mentioned. Her voice faded off.
This alerted Michael. “What? I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
Harper sighed. “Kenn and I are having doubts about Glen and Sean.”
Michael thought for a moment, then said, “Tell everyone in the office something’s come up and you need them to stay. Get your people back there and keep them there.”
“You never said what your problem was,” Harper reminded him.
“There is a significant amount of VRSA virus out there we can’t locate.”
“Does the CDC know about it?” Harper asked.
“They just issued an alert. If this group uses this in a dirty bomb, people are going to die, and I don’t mean a handful of people, I mean thousands of people.”
“God, if they let something like that lose in a city the size of New York or Los Angeles, the whole city could be infected.” She hesitated then added, “How is the timeline coming? Any idea yet, on when all this is supposed to happen?”
“I have a pretty good idea. I may have found the catalyst to start their reign of terror.”
“What might that be?”
“That’s the favor I was asking for. I need to speak to the President. Tonight, if possible.”
Harper groaned. “You don’t ask any small favors, do you? Do you know how hard it’s going to be to see her?”
“I do know but if what I’ve uncovered is true, she has to know about it.” Michael was beginning to get back into the mode he needed to be in in order to stop this event from happening. If what he uncovered were to happen, the United States would be destroyed from within its own government.
“How big is this group anyway?” Harper asked. “It would take a lot of manpower to overthrow a government.”
“That’s where you would be wrong,” Michael explained. “There’s only about a dozen people in this group. They’re using unsuspecting people to do their dirty work.”
“I’ll let Kenn know about this and inform him of your request to see the President,” she said.
“I only need to see her, not the Vice President. In fact, I don’t even want anyone else to know we’re going in to see her. If the group gets the heads up, we won’t get to the White House alive.”
Harper hesitated. “Now you’re scaring me.”
“Good, maybe you need to be a little scared. What this group is going to do is scary. That’s why we need to stop them. See if you can find out what’s on the President’s schedule for the fourteenth.”
“Valentine’s Day?” Harper asked. “I don’t have to ask about that, she’s speaking at the Assembly. She’s giving her State of the Union address. She’s invited a group of school kids to the Assembly to see how laws are made.”
“Damn,” Michael swore quietly. “Tell Kenn, I need to see her tonight.”
Harper pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it as if she didn’t know what to think. She got up and walked over to Kenn’s office.
When she told him what Michael wanted, he began making phone calls and within half an hour, the personnel of their office began filtering back in.
Within forty-five minutes, everyone was back, everyone except Matthias.
The team they had checking on him called in. Kenn paled as he listened to the report. When he hung up, the phone, he looked at Harper and shook his head. “The team found Matthias. He was at home. The bastards tied him to a chair and beat him to death.”
Harper gasped. “Oh, my God…”
“What did he have to do with any of this?” Kenn asked.
Harper slid down into a chair and gazed at her boss. “Do you remember my telling you Michael called me this morning to ask me to ask Matthias for his files?”
“Yes, but what do his personal files have to do with his death?”
“It seems Matthias has quietly been collecting information on the people in high ranking offices of our government. Michael knew about this from when he worked here before. Matthias was surprised when Michael asked about the files and he was concerned they would fall into the hands of someone other than Michael.”
“What type of information did he collect?” Kenn wanted to know.
Harper shook her head. “I have no idea. I didn’t look at the files. I got them to Michael as soon as I could.”
“Whoever is behind this must have wanted to know what was in those files,” Kenn surmised. He glanced out the window of his office into the main office space and saw Glen’s desk was empty. Looking toward the door, he saw both Glen and Sean headed for the exit. Kenn picked up his phone and called security to stop them and have them brought back.
A few minutes later, Glen and Sean were escorted back. They both looked upset and Glen had a bruise on his cheek.
Kenn got up and went out into the main office. He looked at everyone there and announced, “I know this is a great inconvenience to you all and I promise it won’t last too long, but I need you all to remain here for a while. I’ll need all your cell phones and computers and any handheld devices you have. You’ll get everything back, I promise.”
There was stunned silence in the room. Then everyone began placing their cell phones and other electronics on their desks. Only Glen and Sean made no attempt to do what Kenn asked.
Kenn had security escort them to his office. When they were standing in front of his desk, he stared at them. “I believe I asked for all your phones and other handheld devices.”
Glen shook his head. “I don’t think you have the right to ask for them.”
“What is all this about, if I may ask?” Sean spoke up.
Kenn looked over at Harper and nodded. When she left the room for her own office, he motioned for them to sit down. “Please have a seat while we discuss this.”
Glen and Sean sat down. Glen held the grip of his briefcase with a white knuckled grip. Sean set his case on the floor between them.
“Why are you keeping all of us here?” Glen asked.
“We have a situation that needs our attention, that’s all,” Kenn assured them. “I need my team here for now.”
Harper came back a few minutes later and handed him a piece of paper.
Kenn looked it over carefully and handed it to Sean.
Sean read it and paled as he passed it over to Glen.
Glen read it and grew angry. He threw the paper back on Kenn’s desk. He reached inside his jacket pocket and grabbed his cell phone. Holding it up, he dropped it on the floor and deliberately smashed it with his foot. The cell phone was broken into pieces when Glen leaned over to pick them up and deposit the pieces on Kenn’s desk.
Sean quietly placed his own phone intact, on the desk.
“Open your briefcases please,” Kenn requested.
Sean reached down and placed his briefcase on the desk. He looked over at Glen and nodded.
Glen snarled but placed his case on the desk as well.
Kenn nodded at the security guard and as Glen and Sean stood up the security guards escorted them to the interrogation rooms.
Kenn gazed at Harper. “See what you can find on the phones. I’ll check the cases. They seem to have something to hide.”
Harper picked up the phones and went to Carla’s office.
When she closed the doors behind her, Kenn reached for Glen’s briefcase. When he opened it, he was shocked at the contents.
Chapter Nine
Gage opened his eyes and smiled. Willow was snuggled up next to him. When they’d gotten back to the motel yesterday Willow could hardly move. Being at the place where her family died had been hard on her
. She tried to sleep but the nightmares wouldn’t let her rest.
He hadn’t wanted her to think too much about the past, so he distracted her the best way he knew how. He started by using his lips, his tongue and then his cock. Needless to say, she met his challenge and then some. When he first kissed her, there was a spark of electricity that shook them both. When his lips left hers to burn a trail down her neck Willow shivered and moaned as if in pain but when Gage lifted his mouth away, she grabbed the back of his head and pressed it back to her neck. She begged him not to stop.
He didn’t remember taking off their clothes just the feeling of gloving his cock deep inside her body. He would never forget that feeling. He was a bigger man and she fit him like a glove. He still couldn’t believe how wet she was when they first joined or how tight she was.
He glanced down and found her watching him. Leaning over, he kissed her softly. “Good morning.”
She smiled. “Morning.”
“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.
Willow grinned. “I’m a little sore but I feel wonderful.”
“Me too. Last night was wonderful, you were wonderful.”
“Can we do it again?” she whispered as she nuzzled his neck.
Gage groaned. “I could do it again and again for the rest of my life.” He could feel his cock get rock hard in an instant. He leaned over and kissed her hard. His mouth crushing hers and his hands went to the apex of her legs.
His fingers rubbed her mons and he could feel how wet she was already. He parted her outer lips and thrust deep inside. His lips dropped down to her neck and he nibbled his way to her chest. Her nipples were already hard and when his mouth suckled them into his mouth, she screamed softly.
“I need you inside me,” she whispered.
His cock rubbed her clit and she groaned loudly.
“Please...” she begged.
Gage couldn’t take it anymore and he let himself slip inside her. Moaning, he began to pump in and out. He could feel the coil inside him growing as she moved against him. The friction of her body moving against him quickened the pleasure of their coupling and before long, he felt her pussy tighten and explode around him. He felt the bolt of lightning as his seed shot out of him to paint her womb. He heard her cry out his name as he ground his crotch into hers.
