12 Days of Christmas: A Christmas Collection

by Laura Greenwood

  It was standard operating procedure on a mission like this. Email, text messaging, and conference apps passed through too many hands to be secure. Even when encrypted, digital fingerprints and copies were always left behind. Plus, decryption technology always caught up. He sighed. Even with all their advanced tech, paper was still the safest way to go.

  Around 10:30, his team filed into his motel room one-by-one, all looking about as exhausted as he was, except for Delilah. Not even one hair out of place.

  How does she do it?

  Victor had her teaming up with David and Karen after making contact with Nevil her mark.

  Once everyone arrived, Victor closed the drapes. “Ok, I know we’re all beat, so let’s get this briefing over with. I made some fresh coffee. Help yourselves.”

  Victor proceeded to fill them in on what he had found at the lab, including his suspicions. No questions from any of them, but the energy in the air took a turn for the dark side.

  Once he finished, he turned to Delilah. “You’re up.”

  After getting some coffee, she took a seat on the right side of the bed, the side he always slept on, and crossed her legs. Victor shook his head.

  “Nevil was quite receptive and agreed to meet me at a local pub tomorrow afternoon. He’s going to bring a few of his friends from the animal rights group.”

  Victor folded his arms. “Well you’re to miss it because I don’t think these guys are involved. I’m changing your assignment to—”

  “I disagree, so I’m going!” she blurted out.

  Victor cocked his head. “Excuse me.” It wasn’t like her to be this blunt. A tease yes, but that was borderline insubordinate.

  “He mentioned specific details that lead me to believe they are involved.”

  “Like what?”

  “Disagreements with some new, more radical members, some missing equipment, and that something big was about to happen.”

  “That’s it?” Victor threw his hands in the air. “That could mean anything.”

  “He was hiding something. He kept staring at someone or something across the room.”

  “And you couldn’t get it out of him?” Victor winced. He didn’t mean it to come out that harsh, but he couldn’t afford to get caught up in some wild goose chase.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Relationships of trust take time. I can’t just get naked and expect him to talk. Not even Nevil is that gullible. Remember you’re the one who muzzled me. Now,” she laid back on her arms and her lips curled in to a wicked smile, “I could interrogate him, if you untie my hands.”

  Karen’s head snapped up on her shoulders. “If you’re going to let her do that, then count me in as well.”

  Victor glared at one and then the other. It was one of the few times Karen became excited about anything. Apparently, she was bored as well.

  He understood exactly what Delilah was planning. She wanted to lure him to a motel room and torture the details out of him. She was even better at it than he was. He suspected there was something psychological about a woman torturing a man. A maternal nature that made it even more frightening to them and broke their egos. It was a possibility he couldn’t ignore.

  Victor turned to Karen. “How did it go with you and David?”

  She smoothed the seams out of her jacket before responding. “We ran into two joggers who saw a white van speeding down a street adjacent to the lab. They gave us a partial plate number which we passed to Mitch. No signs of chickens or tracks in the fresh snow and none of the residents appear to be sick or know anything.”

  “Ok, how much of the area did you cover?”

  “We did spiral search pattern out from the lab, covering maybe a tenth of the area.”

  Victor nodded. They were making better progress than he expected. Unfortunately, not fast enough. Maybe this mystery van would turn up something special.

  He sighed. “Give me some good news, Mitch.”

  “Right.” He started thumping his foot like an over excited rabbit until Delilah placed a firm hand on his knee. “Well, um, so far, Bravo Team reports the bugs haven’t led to anything of significance. As for the drones, no chickens matching the description have been identified yet…”

  Victor rolled his eyes and glanced at the smooth skin of Delilah’s legs.

  “…All air traffic, trains, and buses have been suspended within the twenty mile zone. We’re blaming it on bad weather, broken vehicles, and any other excuse we can think of. I’ve had Zeta Team do some minor sabotage to make it look realistic. I’m also thinking—”

  Victor raised his hands to his temples and rubbed his annoyance out on them. “What about the van!”

  “Oh, of… course. I’ve identified six white vans matching the partial plate description within a fifty mile area. One belongs to a member of the animal rights group—”

  Victor’s eyebrows raised and Delilah gave him a gotcha smirk.

  ”Who?”

  “Alexis Molyneux,” Mitch said. “He appears to be a founding member of the group.”

  “Any arrest records?”

  “Yea.” Mitch handed him several sheets of paper. “His rap sheet is as long as your arm, but it’s just petty stuff: trespassing, vandalism, and theft. He’s racked up some recent debts. That’s on the last page.”

  Victor’s eyes flicked back to Delilah’s legs. She made eye contact and a slight grin formed on her face. He winced, he knew he’d been caught. His head snapped back to the report and his cheeks warmed. He flipped through the sheets and put a balled fist to his chin. The loans were from local banks and credit cards, but nothing major. “Maybe he decided to take the violence up a notch.”

  Given the van’s possible connection to the animal rights group, he couldn’t discount the likelihood they were somehow involved. He also had to consider the possibility the group took the hens and didn’t let them out with the other chickens, but why?

  “Anything on their website?”

  “I hacked into it this morning and found something interesting, embedded in one of the graphics.”

  He handed Victor a picture with tiny calligraphy like symbols.

  “I noticed these after I red shifted the images. It’s a technique some hacker groups use to communicate messages in plain sight.”

  Victor rotated the photograph. He recognized the symbols. They were similar to a Farsi script from Afghanistan, but he couldn’t understand the words. Maybe it was some kind of local dialect or code.

  Paul Weber?

  His lips pressed together with a slight frown. Paul was a former agent who might be able to translate it, but it wouldn’t be easy to get him to cooperate.

  Victor put the photo on his end table to investigate later. “No claim of responsibility on their site?”

  “None, it’s like they don’t even realize what’s happened.”

  “Ok. Delilah, I’m going to go with your instincts for now. David and Karen will serve as backup for this meeting you’re having.”

  She sat up in a flash and glared her piercing green eyes back at him. “I don’t need a chaperone.”

  “But you’ll do as you’re ordered.” She turned her head and pouted. “If you’re right, my instincts tell me that these guys have become a lot more dangerous than they appear.”

  “You two.” Victor motioned his head to Karen and David. “Keep canvasing the area before your rendezvous with Delilah, then meet her at the pub and stay hidden in the background. Don’t let her take any unnecessary risks. If things go sideways or aren’t moving fast enough, capture them and use whatever means necessary to interrogate them.”

  “Mitch, begin running our PRISM program on all phone calls, text, email, and social media. Get Zeta Team to help and keep looking for messages hidden within newly posted pictures.”

  “Just the animal rights group?”

  “No, everyone within the twenty mile zone.”

  Mitch’s mouth dropped open. “That’s over a hundred thousand people. This is going to sign
ificantly slow down internet speeds. They’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “I’m well aware of that, but I suspect whoever did this knows the area is being watched and may try to contact someone for help. We need to intercept that call. Everyone clear on what to do?”

  They each nodded.

  “Dismissed.”

  When Mitch opened the door, Victor looked over his shoulder. “Everyone try and get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  It was a fool’s advice. They were running out of time and each of them felt exactly like he did.

  Sleep? Ha! They’ll sleep when the missions over. Still, there wasn’t anything more they could do. If they pressed too hard, whoever did this may go dark and then it’d be up to JANX to solve the problem his way, like a sledgehammer in search of a nail.

  Victor did a little online research. The fertilizer plant JANX planned to blowup was on the Loiret river near the center of the older part of the city. The surrounding buildings were antiquated brick and wood apartments standing side by side. An explosion would rip through those structures like a heap of dried leaves. His gut clenched as he contemplated the carnage. The fires started by the explosion alone would kill thousands.

  The photo with the Farsi symbols beckoned, and he picked it up.

  Afghanistan…

  That piece of the puzzle stirred something deep within him. A familiar feeling about the shot pattern he had to check out.

  5

  It was 12:06 AM when Victor heard a soft knock at the door. He tossed his laptop aside and leapt out of his bed without even putting on his pants. His heart pounded, and he snatched his loaded submachine gun. Victor reacted instantaneously, a byproduct of training and several close calls. Whoever this was had managed to elude his external trip alarms. That alone made him nervous.

  He slid along the windowless wall, half crouched, and peered out the peep hole. His hands were clammy, and a finger curled around the trigger, ready to shoot through the door.

  A woman in an overcoat with raven hair and piercing green eyes stared back at him.

  Delilah?

  He shivered off the goosebumps and opened the door.

  “About time,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. “You look like hell.”

  Victor pulled her inside and shut the door. “What are you doing here? Were you followed?”

  She cocked her head. “Six months of us getting together and you still ask me that question?”

  “We agreed not to hook up when we were on assignment.”

  “I know.” She fidgeted with her hands, and her eyes fluttered to the floor. “I just couldn’t sleep.” She turned his laptop around and stared at the numerous reports on the screen. “Obviously you can’t either.”

  She was right. This assignment made no sense at all and that made him feel like he had a burr poking him in the ribs. He set the gun on the edge of the bed and flopped down.

  “I’ve been researching the shot pattern and the symbols.” He pulled a hand down his unshaven face. “Nothing in our archives, or on INTERPOL, yet I know I’ve seen this somewhere before. I’ve even double checked the terror watch lists.” He shook his head.

  She slipped out of her coat and threw it on a chair. “Are you out of options?”

  “No, I still have one card left to play.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can call in a favor.”

  “So do it.” She sat down next to him and stroked his bare leg with her fingertips, sending thrilling electric tingles up his spine. It felt exhilarating, like he could just forget everything, but right now he didn’t want to forget.

  He took her hand. “It’s not that simple. He isn’t going to give me the info I want that easily.”

  “Ok, have the CIA pick him up and squeeze him.”

  “You don’t understand. This guy despises me. He blames me for the death of his girlfriend.” Victor took a deep breath. “He’s been trying to expose me and that botched operation ever since. If he even gets a whiff that I need him, he’ll clam up and no amount of torture will crack him open.”

  Victor hung his head. Maybe he made a mistake that day. It was the typical blood calculus. Sacrifice her life to save the lives of hundreds of servicemen. Maybe he could have saved the girl and still accomplished his mission.

  No.

  If his trainer taught him anything, it’s that ‘what ifs’ are nothing but a distraction, and a deadly one at that. Do the job, accept the consequences. Leave the ‘what ifs’ to mission planners.

  She closed his laptop.

  “Hey!” He reached for it, but she snatched it away and put it on his nightstand.

  When he tried to stretch past her, she held out a firm hand and combed her fingers through his chest hair. “You need to sleep. We both do.”

  “I need to figure this out.”

  She put a hand on her hip and slid her body between him and his laptop. “Someone once told me that sleep on a mission is just as important as cleaning your gun. That both can save your life.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Come on.” She turned her back to him and set her phone on an end table. The soft rhythm of a saxophone pulsed from it; his favorite Jazz song. She held out her hands and swayed her hips.

  “Delilah—”

  “Dance with me.”

  “We’ve got—”

  “Dance… with me.”

  Her eyes were gentle, inviting, and almost innocent. They both needed to relax and what better way than within her silky soft arms. He gave a brief laugh before taking her into his.

  My one weakness.

  6

  Victor arrived back at the lab early the next morning. It was only four days ‘till Christmas, and he had less than fifteen hours to find those hens. Besides the meeting Delilah had, all their other leads had dried up.

  The answer had to be here at the French research facility. He exited his car and scanned the area. The snow had partially melted and on the gravel, between two tire tracks, lay some wet feathers. He cocked his head and his body tingled with excitement.

  He bent down to get a closer look. “Black tips…” This confirmed the hens were taken and not released into the wild. Not the usual motive for an animal rights group.

  What the hell would they want with a trio of chickens?

  A broken slat on the outer wood fence beckoned, and Victor ambled over to it. Some shoeprint sized depressions lay behind it in the melted snow. He followed them to a corner by an elm tree and knelt down. A clear line of sight emerged to the locations of both guards. In the mud, next to the fence, were two sets of depressions.

  The two guards were side by side when they were shot…

  Two snipers?

  He searched around the edges of the depressions, but found no signs of any shell casings.

  So they collected the brass here, but not by the bodies?

  Distinctive black dots flecked the wood slats in front of him. The fresh powder burns clearly indicated that shots were fired from this location.

  Why cover it up? What are they trying to hide?

  He walked back to his car. On a pyracantha hedge near the fence, a torn piece of plastic like material glinted in the morning sun. He jogged over, plucked it from a thorn, and smelled it.

  Latex?

  His eyebrows slanted.

  From a glove?

  So they knew the hens were a bio-hazard, but what good would they be to them? They couldn’t sell them because the hens were only used to test the disease’s virility. The French designed the virus that way. Without the original cultures, growing the virus required a human host and extracting the virus from people required sophisticated equipment. Equipment they left behind inside the lab.

  Why would they knowingly capture some highly infectious hens?

  Unless… Afghanistan… Luther? Shit! The bullet pattern.

  A chill crept up his spine. He ran back to his car and started looking for some old scans from one of his first operations. He was twenty-nine and had just lo
cated a terror cell in Afghanistan. They were trying to make bio-weapons from anthrax. One of the men, a former British SAS officer named Luther, had converted to Islam. He was known for his ability to silently kill with a precision shot to the neck. This bypassed any helmets and body armor.

  Victor ordered an air strike to eliminate them, despite exposing the young woman collaborator that provided him with their location. Her lover, Paul Weber who was a member of his team, disobeyed orders and moved her and her family out of harm’s way.

  The terror cell noticed and fled. So Victor set a trap by leaking her new location. When they tried to get revenge on the girl, he ordered a new strike. This killed the group along with the British man’s wife and children. They, however, got their revenge and killed the collaborator and her entire family. Blood calculus at its finest.

  When Paul found out, he turned their operation into a fiasco and ‘BF’ protected him by making sure the official reports on the incident went missing.

  Yet Victor knew he still had a copy, buried deep somewhere in his laptop. He perused dozens of files before finding what he was looking for.

  An image of a dead Afghan appeared on the screen with a neat bullet hole drilled through his throat.

  Just like the guards, except there were two shooters this time?

  An assassin’s technique was as unique as fingerprints. Goosebumps formed. He had to be sure it was him. If Luther survived, there was no telling what he might do with the hens.

  He started his car and sped to the DGSE office in Orleans. His knuckles were bare white against the steering wheel as he ran multiple red lights, causing several accidents. He burst through the doors and leapt over the barricades of the metal detectors. Two stunned guards with their weapons drawn ran after him. In a conference room, he spotted Galen. He smashed open the door with his shoulder.