Freedom Code

by Elaine Levine

  So much for roughing it.

  “Your innocence hasn’t been established yet,” he said.

  “What about being innocent until found guilty?”

  “Nice sentiment…until you start hanging with terrorists.”

  “I’m not a terrorist. I wasn’t ‘hanging with terrorists.’”

  “Okay. Let’s get out of here so we can prove it.”

  “If you didn’t think I was innocent, why’d you give me your gun?”

  “Because no one gets to you on my watch. Let’s go.”

  Her door locked behind them. They took the elevator down to the resident parking level. A man stood outside the elevator when the door opened. Levi was already standing in front of Zaida, but he blocked her from leaving. The man met his eyes. His dark brows lifted. Levi laughed and stepped out of the cab, drawing Zaida with him.

  He held a hand out. “Kelan Shiozski. How the hell are you?”

  “Good, Levi. You?”

  “Not bad. Been better. What are you doing here?” He noticed Kelan was wearing wide leather cuffs on his wrists, couldn’t remember him doing that before. Maybe they were a peculiar fashion choice now that he was a civilian.

  “I have an apartment here. My girlfriend’s on-again-off-again at CSU. What about you? Heard you left the teams.”

  “Yeah. Retired this year. Starting a second career growing organic herbs and veggies for local businesses and a huge crop of sunflowers. You still in the service?”

  “No. Got out this year, but same shit, different boss.”

  Levi wondered what he meant by that. Maybe it was the same type of situation he was in. “Kelan, this is Zaida Hussan. Zaida, my friend Kelan. He was in the Army while I was in the Navy.” Kelan and Zaida shook hands. “You here because of your girlfriend?” Levi asked, remembering that Kelan had said he lived in South Dakota.

  “No, a few of us are working a case up in Wyoming.”

  “No shit. Who’s up there with you?”

  “You know Max Cameron. Not sure if you met the others. Maybe Kit Bolanger? Angel Cordova? There’s a bunch of us.”

  Levi nodded. “You gonna be there a while?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Curious. Zaida’s a client. Things are getting hot here. You and your girlfriend may want to avoid the building for a little while.” He grinned. “Least until they get the bodies out of Zaida’s apartment.”

  “Shit, Levi. Who are these guys?”

  “That’s unclear. Just know they aren’t good.”

  “Roger that. You working alone? Got a team?”

  “Alone. Feels a little odd,” Levi said.

  “Well, if you need something, we aren’t that far away.” He handed Levi a business card. “Zaida, nice meeting you.”

  Levi was glad he’d run into his friend. If he’d seen anything suspicious as he’d come through the parking garage, they wouldn’t have stopped to chat. Didn’t mean one of Zaida’s enemies wasn’t there, waiting for them. Just meant it was less likely.

  They went to Levi’s Jeep. He put her satchel in the backseat then opened her door for her.

  “How did you park in here?” she asked.

  “You mean how’d they let a lowlife like me in here?”

  She looked irritated. “This is residential parking only.”

  “I may be working alone, but I do have friends in high places.” He showed her his key pass.

  “Does that go to my apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been in there before?”

  “Not until tonight.”

  “How long have you been watching me?”

  “Long enough.” No need to tell her that her friend Mike had been watching her for a while. Her world was already taking on water as it was.

  They drove out of the parking garage, into the dark night and busy street of the downtown area. Zaida watched around them nervously, wondering about the threats that might be out there, lurking, waiting for them. Levi was on edge, too—he kept checking his mirrors. She watched the cars in the rearview mirror on her side, but none of them seemed to follow them and their crazy, zigzagging route through town.

  She tried to distract herself by thinking of the conversation Levi and his friend had had. There were bits of good information that she should tuck away.

  “So you were in the service?” she asked.

  “I was in the Navy, until earlier this year.”

  “And now you’re a farmer.”

  “An urban farmer.” He flashed her a grin, then returned his attention to the road. “I like the way that sounds.”

  “You don’t want to be a regular farmer?”

  He shrugged. “Either way. I dreamt of becoming one for years before I got out. I took some ag courses. I bought some land out east of here. It came with a little farmhouse that I spent my off time refurbishing.”

  “Why did you get out?”

  Levi’s face tightened. She watched him in the light coming off the dashboard. “I guess I aged-out. I could have shifted from an active team to a teaching or desk job. A lot of guys do. But I was done. You kind of become addicted to the adrenaline each mission demands. I didn’t like the thought of watching the young guys head out while I held the fort down.”

  “You’re not very old. You’re not much older than I am.”

  “I’m forty.”

  “Oh. You are old. I’m twenty-nine.”

  “I know.”

  “So now you’re back in the adrenaline game?”

  “I guess. I don’t mind getting called up now and then. The government has a lot invested in its spec ops guys. Looking at it from their perspective, we’re valuable commodities that should be used not wasted.”

  “But you wanted out.”

  “Yeah…but when the threat’s here in my own country, guess that’s when you know you bleed red, white, and blue.”

  “I’m not a threat, Levi.”

  He glanced at her. In the shadowy light, she thought he almost believed her. “I hope not. We’ll be safe where we’re headed. We can take some time to figure things out.”

  “Can I call my parents?”

  “Not yet. Don’t think I want you using my phone. I have one I can give you at my house. I can set it up with your cloned data.”

  “Have you gone on many of these missions since you’ve been home?”

  “One, before this. The pay’s good. My farm could use the infusion of cash.”

  “So the government’s funding this? You said you were too valuable a resource to waste.”

  “They are, but if shit hits the fan, I’m out cold. No one will ever acknowledge me, which is why I said I was a ghost.”

  “And yet they clean up the dead bodies you leave behind.”

  He grinned at her. “It’s easier to disavow me if there’s no evidence.”

  She turned and faced forward, watching the painted lines on the road zip past. “I thought the world was different. I thought things were what you see is what you get.”

  “It is. But the devil’s in the things you don’t see.”

  “Will you help me, Levi?”

  “I am, aren’t I? We’ll figure out what’s going on, then we’ll decide what to do about it.”

  “Will you help my parents?”

  “I already asked my contact to send someone out for them. We’ll call them when we get to the house.”

  “What does your family think of your moonlighting?”

  He shrugged. “Nobody to answer to. I already told you my parents are gone.”

  “No wife?”

  “No. I was married once. Very briefly. Came close a second time. But they weren’t the forever kind, I guess. I’m not exactly good at picking spouse material.”

  Zaida sighed. “Me, either. I write about love and couples finding each other, but I’ve never found it myself. Don’t tell anyone—because it would wreck my career—but I’m starting to believe happily-ever-after is a myth.”

  She peeked at him t
o see his reaction. His smile seemed a little sad.

  “So what does your perfect mate look like?” he asked. “How would you know him if you saw him?”

  “Beyond the physical stuff?”

  Levi waved a hand over the wheel. “No. All of it. Build your husband avatar.”

  “Well. I guess he’d be taller than me. Around my age.”

  “Is he a desk jockey or does he do something interesting? Does income matter?”

  “I never thought about that.”

  “What do your parents do?” he asked, though he already knew the answer from the dossier Lambert had sent over.

  “My dad’s a professor of political science. My mom’s an ob/gyn. I guess my perfect guy could be a doctor. He’d be well-educated and make a good income. Writing is a feast or famine kind of trade. His income could help level that out.”

  “Okay. What nationality is he?”

  Zaida thought about that for a bit. “I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it would be good if he were American. I don’t want to be an ex-pat. And I would like to set down roots.”

  “So there you go. A short American doctor.”

  “I didn’t say short.”

  “Well, you said taller than you. Same thing.” He laughed when Zaida gasped.

  She wanted to punch him, but caught herself before she did something so hands-on. They were strangers, she and Levi.

  “Maybe your mom could introduce you to a couple of young docs.”

  Zaida groaned. “No. She tried. Come to think of it, let’s not do a doctor.”

  “Okay. So we’re back to short, American, and able to provide a steady income.”

  “Right. No—”

  He laughed. “So put yourself in one of your books. Who would you pair a character like you up with?”

  “I’d never be in one of my books. I’m too boring.”

  Levi snorted. “You, an elegant, sexy, somewhat affluent modern young woman living in a highly desirable condo development—”

  “Well, it was desirable until people started getting killed there. Bad for property values.” She paused and flashed a look at him. “Wait…you think I’m elegant and sexy?”

  He hooked a brow as he looked at her. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” He waved that off and went back to her first comment. “Don’t worry about your apartment, it’ll be cleaned up in no time. No one will even know it happened.”

  “What about you? What would your perfect wife be like?”

  Levi looked at her and grinned. “I’m a simple man. Just give me a sex kitten.”

  “For real?” She glared at him. “You don’t want a wife. You want a consort.”

  “Okay.”

  Zaida stared at the road. Why was it so easy to talk to Levi? She never gave away so much of herself to a stranger…especially not a man. Talking to him made her feel less off-kilter, as if the night’s terrible events hadn’t happened.

  “Did you ever think about having kids?” she asked, wanting their conversation to go continue.

  “Sometimes. Never was a good time for it, not with me taking missions, being gone for irregular amounts of time.”

  “And you’re still doing that.”

  “Yeah, but at least the missions are local now.”

  Zaida sat up and looked at him in shock. “Are there that many terrorists here?”

  “It only takes one crazy-ass bastard to cause a lot of damage and spread terror.”

  “The cops can’t deal with this stuff?”

  “No. We keep what we can well away from them. They don’t have the intel we have. And they don’t have the surgical precision to get in, neutralize the threat, and get out without a big public production. They have a lot of higher-ups to answer to. Far too much visibility for the work at hand.”

  “What is the threat, Levi? What is it you have to neutralize? And why am I involved?”

  Levi sighed. “Mike was tracking a group of bad guys who were doing some heavy recruiting throughout the Middle East. Beyond the clichéd promises of virgins and honor, these recruits were being offered a chance to strike back at the vulgar and oppressive western influence being spread around the world by America. And then the Freedom Code worm stole info from them, which they blamed on you.”

  “Freedom code.” Zaida couldn’t hide her annoyance.

  He shot her a couple of quick glances. “You’ve heard of it?”

  Zaida felt her throat go dry; this all circled back to her, but she still didn’t get why she was involved. “I always felt writing romances was like giving women the code to their freedom. I’ve even called it freedom code in some of our circle chats.”

  “How do you figure romance fiction is freedom for women?”

  “Women writing fiction for women that’s about women is just about the most feminist thing I can do. People read to understand how to deal with life. Storytelling is something the human psyche is wired to do. Stories help take the edge off our worries by shortening learning curves. Readers know so much more about life and handling choices through the stories they read; they’re important stuff. In romances, women learn they are important, that they can stand up for themselves, that they can build a life they love, no matter who they are or where they live. Romance says a lot about the good side of life and surviving dark times and hard trials and winning. It talks about finding your way in a complex world…finding your way to love.”

  “Huh. Romances aren’t just about a lot of sex?”

  “Well, sex is an important part of life, isn’t it? For some reason that I will never understand, sex is this secret taboo thing.” She lifted her shoulders and held her hands palms up, giving a little shake of her head. “Why shouldn’t we talk about it, share stories about it, learn that it can be a fun and healthy thing in adult lives? Why are we constantly sex-shaming things? Shining a light on it brings it out of the dark, which is good because when things are kept in the dark, then dark and ugly deeds can be done there. I firmly believe that when women own their own sexuality—when they can say yes or no…and have no taken for an answer…then they can never be oppressed because no one has a say over their bodies but them. You see? In that way, romances are a freedom code for women.”

  “So you’re a rebel.”

  “Yes. I am a rebel. I want to empower women. I want to see them be joyful. The world needs a whole lot more love and kindness than it has right now.”

  “And sex.”

  “Healthy, consensual, adult sex, yes.”

  Levi fell silent. Zaida looked out her window. They really were driving way out to the east. The city lights were tiny sparkles behind them. Civilization was still scattered here and there, in little collections of farmhouses, outlier neighborhoods, and distant towns, but the longer they drove, the fewer there were of those.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To my farm.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Another half-hour east of here.” Levi shot her a quick look. “So tell me about these gatherings you have with your readers. Who comes to them? How often do you hold them? What do you talk about at them?”

  “I started them when I first published. I still had a lot of friends in the area that I knew from my CSU days. The group grew organically over the years. The ladies brought friends, sisters, mothers. We’re actually surprisingly diverse—people from different religions come, a few have no religion that they formally adhere to. We have women in their twenties and in their seventies. We have U.S. citizens and non-citizens. People in the group speak English, but also Arabic, Pashto, Spanish, and others.” She looked at Levi. “Of all the things I’ve done so far, my group makes me the happiest. Getting such a diverse people together to talk about life and their challenges and triumphs in a safe place is magical. A lot of what I write about revolves around ethnicities and love that crosses those boundaries, how families deal with those challenges. I am intensely curious about the human condition.”

  “I hate to ask this, but you understand I
have to…could any of your friends have infected your computer or your work with a virus? You said it was spreading among your network of Muslim readers. I’m trying to understand how that could happen.”

  She shook her head. “The people in my group—they’re my friends. They would never do something that would hurt others or me. Never. It’s the antithesis of what we are.”

  He nodded. “I’m not arguing with you…but someone you know did this to you. We need to figure out who.”

  Zaida fell silent. Tears distorted the world outside the Jeep. “I don’t want to. If I find out, I know I’ll be hurt. And I love every one of them.”

  Levi sent a glance her way. He frowned. “Well, being hurt’s a helluva lot better than being dead, so we’re gonna have to dig into it.”

  5

  Zaida was getting sleepy by the time they pulled off the country road. The dark was complete…or, rather, different from how it was in town. The moonlight was brilliant. It was almost as if they could have driven without headlights. Strange how streetlights seemed to make things darker than they were.

  They turned onto a dirt road, and then a few more dirt roads before Levi slowed as he approached a final turn. The drive was through a dense growth of sunflowers that rose at least seven feet from the ground.

  “I don’t like this place,” she whispered.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s eerie. And dark.”

  “It’s nighttime.”

  “You live on a sunflower farm?”

  “Yes, I do. Wait until you see it in the daylight.”

  “What if they come alive and kill me while I sleep?”

  Levi grinned. “So is that a guilty conscience speaking, or did you eat some magic mushrooms while I wasn’t looking?”

  She focused on him. “I have nothing to be guilty about.”

  “So it’s the mushrooms.”

  “Levi. Jones. I don’t partake of illegal substances.”

  He parked, and they got out of the car. No lights came on outside his house, leaving them to stand in the naked moonlight. So much nature made her nervous.

  He took her hand and led her up the stairs to his front porch. Their new height gave her a little perspective of how extensive his sunflower fields were…and they looked infinite. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”