The Red Queen perked at the statement. “Dargo?”
With a grin, Boone nodded. “Dargoslav? Ian Dargoslav is more commonly known simply as, Dargo.
“Before he signed on to work for Voss, he made a name for himself in freelance—built quite a reputation, actually. Prior to being hired away by Voss, Dargo actually worked with Voss and his wife at Onyx Gander, in their security division. Anyway, since we know he’s responsible for Voss’s security, even planting bugs in that lab isn’t going to fly.”
“You really think Dargo could find them?” Clayton asked. He sounded skeptical, but it didn’t sound like he was going to push the point.
“I guarantee it,” Boone confirmed. “And that wouldn’t be the worst of it. Say we’re able to gain access and plant bugs. When Dargo finds them, he’ll know something’s up. He’ll circle the wagons and increase his defenses. After that, any shot we have at even getting close to Voss’s work goes right out the window.”
Boone’s statement brought an unconventional idea to Cyrus’s mind. He kicked it around for a few moments, weighing the merits of voicing it—in front of this group in particular.
Why not?
“Would that be the worst thing?” Cyrus asked, making eye contact with Boone.
Boone met his gaze, but it was obvious he didn’t grasp the idea. When Cyrus scanned the rest of the faces in the room, he realized that no one understood his thinking.
“What if we get Dargo’s hackles raised? Get him to circle the wagons, or raise his shields—call it whatever you want. But if you think that getting Dargo to go on high alert is enough to keep us out, then maybe that’s the simplest solution to the problem. If he’s good enough to keep us out, then he’s good enough to keep everyone out. Problem solved.”
The silence in the room was consuming. At first Cyrus thought everyone was considering his idea. From the look on Charlie’s face, she seemed to appreciate the simple efficiency of the plan. But when he moved on to see what Reid’s response might be, he found the man staring blankly at the surface of the table.
That was odd.
Boone, for his part, appeared strangely uncomfortable with the suggestion. Still, Cyrus couldn’t read anything specific from his physical response. Clayton, not surprisingly, simply looked to the Red Queen in deference.
The Red Queen closed her eyes and exhaled. She shook her head slowly. “Securing the technology isn’t the primary goal. Our objective is acquisition of that technology.”
Leaning back in his seat, Cyrus considered her words. He took a few long seconds to let the implications of the statement sink in fully. Like his most recent job involving the sale of the new thermobaric technology, if it had made it onto the open market, the technology could have been utilized by anyone, anywhere, provided they were willing to pay the right price. The objective had been obvious and straightforward. Acquire the technology before it hits the market, thereby keeping it out of “the wrong hands.”
That had been how the mission was explained to him upfront. Hell…that was how every mission was explained to him. But factoring in what the Red Queen was admitting now, he realized he’d been fed a line each time he was sent undercover. The last time around, the primary objective hadn’t been to keep the explosive formula off the market; it was to acquire it for the United States—or maybe just the Coalition.
Not only did the idea rankle him, it forced him to re-evaluate everything he’d done since joining the agency. No wonder the Red Queen had been upset that he’d killed Eartzie. It was likely that she wanted to acquire him, as well—use him as an asset for his expertise.
The idea struck him as demented.
Cyrus took a deep breath and tried to temper the irritation at being manipulated by considering a positive counter argument. Maybe those things didn’t matter because all of the positive mission objectives, as he knew them, had still taken place. He’d still taken dangerous people out of play. He’d still kept powerful and deadly weapons out of the wrong hands.
But it made him reconsider what actually constituted who those ‘wrong hands’ were.
Plus, being exploited in such a way was patently wrong. He wasn’t a drone. He was owed the truth.
Containing his reaction, Cyrus looked to Boone. He found verification of his suspicions in his friend’s eyes. Boone looked uncomfortable and guilty. As if he knew all of the things Cyrus now realized and felt ill-at-ease for his part in misleading him.
As much as the indignation threatened to tear him apart from the inside, Cyrus kept it bottled up. He set the frustration aside and compartmentalized it. Looking at the open file folder before him, several dozen sheets of paper were splayed across the narrow section of table for easy access. This was what mattered right now. He needed to keep his eye on the prize—to focus on this specific mission. It was critical that he make this operation his own. He needed to find a way inside Voss’s high security compound, and he needed the Coalition to want him to be the one inside.
“Acquisition is the primary objective,” Cyrus repeated. He let the rest of it go. It was an issue he would deal with at another time.
“And bugging the compound is out,” he continued. “If Dargo is as good as we think, he’s going to be sweeping for bugs on a regular basis.” He looked to Boone. “And we can’t piggyback surveillance on existing hardwired connections because that’s all filtered or free standing?”
“Exactly,” Boone confirmed. “You can bet he’ll be scanning for any outgoing transmissions, as well.”
“Then we need someone on the inside,” Cyrus said matter-of-factly.
Reid burst out laughing. “Just like that?” he virtually giggled. “If it were that easy, do you really think we would all be sitting here right now?”
Cyrus saw Boone make eye contact with him and then smile. The man leaned forward in his chair and rested an elbow on the table.
“Try to contain yourself, Reid,” Boone said, as though he were talking to a small child. “I think what Cyrus is trying to say is that he has something in mind.”
Not wasting a moment, Cyrus leafed through the stack of paper, pulling a single document free and sliding it beside the color 8x10 of Dargo from earlier.
“This is my ticket in the door,” he said, with some satisfaction.
“Your ticket?” the Red Queen snapped, a degree of venom touching her voice. “May I remind you that I am solely responsible for making mission assignments? I assess the objectives, examine the resource expenditures, and decide who is allocated to each operation?”
Oh? Perfect.
In light of what Cyrus had just learned about the way he’d been manipulated on his past missions, he had real concerns. Foremost was Boone. The man had been his recruiter, then his training officer, and then his mentor—ultimately teaching him everything he knew about tradecraft. After putting such unflinching faith in the man, Cyrus needed to know if it had been Boone’s choice to mislead him at such a pervasive level.
Now it was clear who to hold accountable. It seemed the Red Queen deserved the moniker more fully than Cyrus had ever realized.
“The hard part will be finding someone qualified on such short notice,” Cyrus said. Though a proud smile threatened to cross his face, he held it back. He had her right where he wanted her—this mission had to be her idea. He didn’t trust anyone else with the operation, so he had to turn the tables and manipulate her, with the most delicate precision possible.
Chapter 17
Memorial Tower
10:53 am
For the love of all that was holy, Boone was glad the meeting was finally over. The Red Queen had disappeared from the room with an efficiency that was impressive, even for her. Even her sycophant lapdog, Clayton, had been hard pressed to ride her wake as she passed through the door.
With some degree of pride, Boone enjoyed the way Cyrus had left the woman with no choice but to put him in charge of the infiltration of Voss’s compound. Still, he couldn’t understand why the kid was so anxious to g
et back out in the field. Undercover operations were hard work, mentally and physically draining. He’d literally just returned home from a long job, and he was vying for another operation already?
Something’s up.
Charlie Greene gave Cyrus a pert smile, as she stepped past him on her way out of the conference room. “I’m sure I’ll be talking with you,” she said in an amused voice as she went.
Cyrus grinned. “Count on it,” he said to her back as she left.
Incredible. The kid was already making time with the cute new head of Logistics? Oh, to be young again.
That left only Boone, Cyrus and Reid, still seated at the table. All three men sat looking at each other as if they had unfinished business to discuss.
Cyrus was the first to break the silence. He sat back in his chair and dropped his hands in his lap. Looking across the table at Reid, he shook his head. “Seriously, what’s your problem with me?”
“My problem?” Reid sputtered defensively.
“It’s okay, Cyrus,” Boone said, attempting to intervene.
“No, I mean it!” Cyrus clearly had enough. “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder. It’s no secret that you don’t want me here, but you’ve got to get past it. Neither one of us is going anywhere, so get it off your chest. What’s the deal?”
It was the direct approach, Boone realized. Surprisingly few people in their profession went directly at a problem. He couldn’t help wondering how this might shake out.
Reid stared blankly at the surface of the table. His hands were balled into tight fists atop the armrests of his chair, and the muscles of his jaw were corded and visible. Boone could tell that he was on the verge of simply laying it all out for them. The question was, would it make things better or worse?
When the long, uncomfortable silence stretched into an even longer and grating silence, Boone realized Reid was going to back down. He could see signs that he was withdrawing further into himself rather than letting whatever was eating at him finally bubble to the surface.
Cyrus must’ve sensed the same thing because he slammed his fist on the table.
Both Reid and Boone jumped. “Dammit, Reid! Spill it!” Cyrus bellowed.
Flames of anger returned to Reid’s eyes as they once again settled on Cyrus. “Fine!” he declared. “I know about you and Jessica!”
The finality of the statement didn’t do anything to explain things for Boone. He had no idea what Reid was referring to. Looking at the expression on Cyrus’s face, it seemed that the declaration didn’t clear things up for him either.
After a long moment of silence, in which Reid only glared at Cyrus as if daring him to deny the accusation, Cyrus’s eyes finally narrowed slightly.
“Wait a second,” Cyrus said, with a degree of suspicion. “What exactly do you know?”
Boone’s eyes moved back and forth between the two men as if he was watching a slowly paced tennis match. Reid’s stare accusing Cyrus of some unknown wrong, and Cyrus’s silent response, was an oddly inconclusive non-denial, denial.
“I know about the time you’ve spent together, and I know about the phone calls,” Reid elaborated.
The name finally clicked for Boone. Oh, crap! Jessica was Reid’s daughter.
“Okay,” Cyrus said slowly, as if waiting for Reid to continue. “But what do you think you know?”
Reid took the simple question like a slap to the face. “What do I know? What don’t I know!” He sputtered unintelligibly for a moment. “You were just flirting with our new head of Logistics, for God’s sake. What do you think I know, you sonofabitch!”
Cyrus bowed his head slightly, massaging the base of his nose at the corner of his eyes. Boone knew that look. He had exactly the same headache, though he was pretty sure it was for an entirely different reason.
“Reid, your daughter is seventeen years old,” Cyrus said, with the same reassuring calm a parent uses when trying to pacify a disaffected child.
Reid’s eyebrows rose, as if the statement only proved his point.
“Have you talked with your daughter about this?” Cyrus asked.
“You’re the one who should know better,” he accused.
Oh, hell. Here we go.
“This is something you should be discussing with Jessica,” Cyrus warned.
“I’m talking with you, now. I want you to stay away from her. I don’t want you to talk with her—I don’t want you anywhere near her!”
Cyrus took a breath and looked the man right in the eye. “Look, Reid,” he started. “Jessica wanted to talk about her girlfriend.”
Reid just shrugged his shoulders; the ‘so what’ question was clearly implied.
“No. You don’t understand,” Cyrus continued. “Your seventeen year old daughter needed to talk with someone about her girlfriend.”
Girlfriend…
The implication of Cyrus’s statement caught Boone off-guard. But as surprised as he was, the look on Reid’s face made it clear that he’d been caught even more unprepared.
“Girlfriend,” Reid said, as if tasting the word for the first time. The phrase was forcing him to alter earlier perceptions and re-evaluate many assumptions. “Really?” he asked in the ghost of a voice.
Cyrus nodded. “She only talked to me about it because she was worried how you would react.” Cyrus thought for a moment. “I really thought she’d told you by now. She’s been worried about this for a long time.”
Reid’s posture deflated as he hung his head. He’d shrunken in on himself. Not only did he no longer look angry, he no longer looked like he had any emotion at all.
Finally, he looked up at Boone. “I feel like an ass,” he said in a near whisper.
Then he looked at Cyrus. “All this time I had this bottled up, thinking you were messing around with my kid? She really turned to you because she didn’t know how to talk to me?”
That brought a resigned shrug from Cyrus. “She knows we work together. People talk to me. She’s your kid…I wanted to help.”
Boone found it amusing. As far as Cyrus was concerned, it really was that simple.
“I don’t know what to say.” Reid cleared his throat to steady his voice. “I’m sorry. I’ve been shitty. You didn’t deserve any of that.”
Cyrus chuckled. “Just go home and talk with your daughter. Getting this off her chest will do her a world of good. I assume you’re alright with her choices?”
The embarrassed smile disappeared suddenly from Reid’s face. He cocked his head slightly as if considering something for the first time. “Huh,” he said quietly. “Did she find herself a nice girl?”
The simple sincerity of the man’s question made Boone smile. That was when he realized, not only would things be all right between Cyrus and Reid from now on, but they would also work out between Reid and his daughter.
“Yeah,” Cyrus said with a grin. “She did good.”
Chapter 18
Memorial Tower
10:59 am
Pushing his chair back from the table, Cyrus rose and collected the small stack of folders. Boone and Reid quickly followed suit. Now that the awkwardness was behind them, no one wanted to be there.
“Oh,” Cyrus said, looking at Reid. “Boone needs his lighter back.” It had almost slipped his mind with all that had happened. He pointed to the zippered pocket on the lower right side of Reid’s tactical vest. The vest had at least a dozen pockets scattered across the front. “It’s that one,” he said, as he pointed.
The statement caught Reid off-guard. He’d clearly forgotten about the lighter as well.
A grin spread across the man’s face. “Sorry, Cyrus,” he said. “It was a good guess, but you’re not even close!”
Cyrus shot him a grin of his own. “Are you sure?” was all he asked.
Reid patted his left breast pocket with confidence, the one where he’d secured Boone’s treasured lighter hours earlier. Suddenly his countenance shifted. He began to feel the surface of the pocket. Confused, he finally slip
ped open the zipper and reached inside…only to find it empty.
He looked at Cyrus, not entirely sure he understood. “How’d you do that?”
Cyrus shrugged. “I still think you should check that pocket.” Again, he pointed at the lower right corner of his vest.
Curious, Reid did as requested. Pulling back the pocket’s Velcro flap with an audible ‘rip’ of the fabric as it separated, he reached inside and retrieved the Zippo. His mouth fell open. “How in the hell did you do that?” he stammered.
Cyrus grinned and headed for the door.
Chapter 19
Memorial Tower
11:03 am
Watching Cyrus leave the room, Boone considered the unnerved look on Reid’s face. Only the two of them were left in the conference room, and Boone was about to make his exit when he realized Reid still had something on his mind. Rather than question the man, he sat back on his chair and folded his hands in his lap, knowing that Reid would make his point when he was ready.
“It isn’t an act, is it?” Reid finally asked. “He’s just what he seems on the surface, sincere and uncomplicated.”
“You mean Cyrus?” The thought made Boone chuckle aloud. “Hardly. He’s anything but what he seems on the surface. There are layers upon layers to that kid. But I get your meaning. His good nature isn’t just an act.”
Reid shook his head, but it wasn’t so much for Boone’s benefit. It was more like he was in the process of rethinking everything he had believed to be true about Cyrus. “To be honest, the thought never even occurred to me,” he admitted. “You fast tracked him through the system and pushed him right into the field. That kind of rapid advancement normally results in an exceptional ego. I thought he was downplaying it this whole time. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he has no idea he skipped several years of mandatory training by going into the field when he did.”
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