The Gryphon Heist

by James R. Hannibal

  The workstation shook with a thump and a muted “Ow!” Eddie appeared beside her right knee, a rainbow of data cords resting on his shoulders. Brennan had him upgrading Other’s data systems. “Transistor-what?”

  “Not transistor. Transnistria, a disputed territory in Moldova.”

  “Oh. Don’t know. Don’t care.” Eddie crawled out from under the desk and stood, brushing the dust off his chinos. “Need a break? There’s someone I want you to meet, one of my peeps.”

  At the Directorate, paramilitary officers were the jocks, specialized skills officers were the geeks, and ops officers were the cool kids—except Talia, of course. Cool kids did not spill coffee all over themselves on day one. In any case, at the Directorate, as in high school, Talia had observed the geeks forming faster and tighter bonds than the other groups. She and Eddie had been CIA officers for barely four days and a wake-up, and Eddie already had peeps.

  “You’ll love this guy,” he said once they were in the elevator, watching the numbers count down to Sublevel 6. “He’s brilliant. And he’s got the coolest office in the building.”

  The doors opened onto a hallway made of some black-and-blue crosshatched material. Talia let her fingers graze the wall. It was warm to the touch. “Is this—?”

  “Carbon fiber, fused with a polymer matrix for hardcore EM shielding. There are a lot of signals running around down here. We wouldn’t want them running into each other.” Eddie turned, walking backward and spreading his arms. “Welcome to Tech Ops, also known as the Caves.”

  The angle of the intersecting hallways gave Talia the sense that the sublevel was laid out like a spiderweb. She couldn’t decide whether to be awed or creeped out, particularly since they were heading for the center.

  “All roads lead to Franklin,” Eddie said.

  “Franklin?”

  “Franklin Perez, the chief of the Caves—the head goblin.”

  The goblin’s den leaned far more toward a mad scientist’s lab than an office, as Eddie had put it. Partitions of semitranslucent glass created a small labyrinth of stark white equipment, bubbling chemicals, and the occasional homey touch like a tank shell etched with the motto SEMPER FI or a legion of orc figurines surrounding a dashboard hula girl.

  “Franklin?” Eddie called, leading the way into the maze.

  “Over here, mano. What’d you bring me?”

  Out from behind a big robotic arm rolled a Latino man in a gray electric wheelchair. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and khakis tied off where his thighs should have been. He saw Talia and his eyes lit up. “Oh.” Franklin rolled right past Eddie, the seat of his chair rising to put him closer to Talia’s eye level. He took her hand with the grace of a Don Juan. “Franklin Perez. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Talia Inger. I . . . Uh . . .” She tried and failed to avoid looking down at his stumps.

  Franklin tapped a control pad on his armrest and sank down again, laughing. “That’s all right, chica. You go ahead and look. I spent a few years in the Marines before science caught my eye. Left a piece of myself behind with the Corps.” He winked. “Two pieces.”

  She coughed, resolving to regain an equal footing in the conversation. “Actually I was going to ask about your shirt. Not exactly regulation.”

  His eyes flashed, as if recognizing a sparring match had begun, and he pulled the faded flower shirt away from his chest. “You like it? We’re a little loosey-goosey with the dress code down here.” Franklin turned his attention to Eddie. “Hey, kid. You do the homework I gave you?”

  “Most of it. I binge-watched two of the three original seasons. I’ll concede they have a certain conceptual purity. And they have Captain Kirk, of course, but neither makes up for the qualitative failures.”

  “Qualitative failures? Are you out of your mind?” The chair spun, and Franklin motored toward the other side of his lab with Eddie right behind. “Don’t insult the artistry, kid. We’re talking real visual effects and modeling versus what? CGI?”

  “CGI is artistry, old man.”

  Talia followed, marveling at the unifying power of geekery. Here was a millennial, the child of Indian immigrants, arguing with a Hispanic double amputee–slash–war veteran two decades his senior. And the two were speaking precisely the same cultural language.

  Her awe must have shown on her face, because as the two reached a bank of keyboards and looked back at her, they stopped. Each pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Franklin began working one of his keyboards. A digital chart appeared in the glass wall above the desk. Smart glass. Talia had read about the tech, but never experienced it in person. She glanced around the lab, noting a similar translucent look in all the partitions. In effect, Franklin’s entire lab was a computer.

  “Inger. Inger.” A magenta line rolled down the chart until it highlighted Talia’s name. “There you are. I have you scheduled for equipment checks tomorrow, but since you’re here . . .” He spun the chair around and held out a palm, snapping his fingers. “Phone, please.”

  “Why?”

  “Security protocols.”

  “My phone was checked, logged, and modified at the Farm, just like everyone else’s.”

  “Your phone is obsolete, chica.” Franklin glanced at Eddie with a look that said Talia was trying his patience, possibly. “Phone, please.”

  Talia slapped the device into his hand. He laid it down on a black rubber pad and set another phone beside it. Both screens came to life.

  “Wait. What are you—?” She watched all her apps appear on the other device, one by one. Franklin had cloned her phone in a matter of seconds.

  He dropped her original phone in a drawer on top of a pile of others and handed her the new one. “Sorry about the color. We only do slate gray. Government contracts. Bulk orders.” He slid the drawer closed.

  Talia watched her phone disappear. “My whole life was on that thing.”

  “And now it’s on your new one. Along with a few bonuses. Everything the modern spy needs—camera, maps, voice recorder, sat phone, translator—”

  “Can I shoot someone with it?” Talia’s patience with his quirkiness had run out, double-amputee or not. Eddie should have warned her that Franklin would confiscate her phone.

  “No, but you can blind an attacker. The flashlight produces over ten thousand lumens. Here, let me show you.” Franklin made a grab for the device.

  Eddie caught his arm. “Maybe . . . show her something less weaponish.”

  “Sure. Let’s start with encrypted mode.” Franklin guided Talia through a few security steps, and black icons appeared on the screen—a compass, a drone, and others. At the bottom was a hideous face and the words BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE GOBLIN KING.

  “Seriously?” Talia pointed to the text.

  “Hey, folks give you a weird name, your best defense is to own it like you love it.”

  Once Talia had gotten her primer on the phone’s features, the two returned to Sublevel 3. On the way, Eddie revised his previous assessment of the Tech Ops chief. “Franklin is . . . an acquired taste.”

  “He stole my phone.”

  “And gave you a new and better one.” Eddie hesitated on the elevator. “I need some of Luanne’s coffee. Want one?”

  “No.” She waved him away.

  Even after their little break, Talia could not look at the Transnistria binder for one more second. Her gaze drifted over to Brennan’s desk, as it had on several occasions since her first day. Nothing stood between her and the file he had so savagely protected but a 1980s drawer lock—child’s play for a Farm-trained ops officer. The file called to her like Poe’s telltale heart.

  “I can’t,” she said to the empty room. Need-to-know was need-to-know, and Talia always strove to do the right thing, ever since the night her father was taken. It had become a compulsion as much as an ethical code.

  The curse of an eidetic memory had left Talia with an image of every word and deed in her life—every
thing except that night. Crammed like a tumor between perfectly recalled pictures of homework pages and soggy fishing trips, the accident that had killed her father left her with nothing more than scant images. The memory was gone. And no therapy session, no breathing exercise—no midnight scream at a bewildered foster mother—could ever bring it back.

  Yet some piece of seven-year-old Talia had scrawled an idea on the brick wall her mind had built around the memory—the idea that she had done something wrong. Little Talia had committed some sin, and God’s uncompromising punishment had been to take away her dad. So Talia had become uncompromising as well. She lived a moral life and stayed out of God’s way, hoping he would stay out of hers.

  She rolled her chair back. Brennan had promised she could work on something real once she read the branch’s literature, but he had violated his promise. What was it he didn’t want her to see?

  She let her eyes linger on the drawer’s pointless lock for a few seconds longer, then shook her head. Talia couldn’t bring herself to cross that line. But perhaps there was another path.

  Chapter

  ten

  CIA HEADQUARTERS

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  TALIA LEFT THE CALL of the mystery file behind and wandered out into the acrylic jungle of REED. At the far end of Russian Ops, the largest of the branches, stood a two-story wall of black marble, veined with rivers of white and silver. Beside its carved wooden door hung a silver plaque.

  MARY JORDAN

  SENIOR CHIEF

  RUSSIAN EASTERN EUROPEAN DIVISION

  Talia raised a hand to knock.

  “Looking for me?” Jordan called to her from a dark oak conference table. Talia had been so intent on her task she hadn’t noticed her mentor standing there. Jordan held up a finger for her to wait and returned to a conversation with a young man. “Get the new intel to me by tomorrow afternoon. If a high-tech weapon is entering the black market, I want to know the who, what, and where.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The young man shot a glance at Talia, and she recognized him as the guy who had tried to join her in the elevator on day one. Talia lowered her eyes as he walked off.

  Jordan seemed to catch the exchange. “You know Terrance?” she asked, sweeping up a pair of files as she left the table.

  “Uh . . . We kind of met earlier.”

  “I see. Come on in.” Jordan pushed open the door and nodded for Talia to go first. “In the future, look for me on the floor. I don’t spend much time in here.”

  “You like to be in the action. I get it.” Talia’s eyes passed over the molded oak walls and leather chairs of the office—so masculine and old school—she half expected to see a box of Cuban cigars on the desk.

  The division chief motioned her over to a couch, and the two sat down together. “So, what brings you to my humble office?”

  “A hunch.” Talia relayed the whole story of Savage Brennan and the Mystery File. “I don’t have any proof, but . . . it feels like he’s hiding something.”

  “Have you confronted him?”

  “No.”

  “Instead, you want me to do some digging behind his back.”

  She nodded.

  Jordan held her poker face, one Talia had never learned to read. “Okay. I’ll look into it.”

  “Really?”

  “You have good instincts. But I don’t expect to find anything.” Jordan stood, leading Talia to the door. “To tell you the truth, this is fairly common. A good many ops officers spend their first year paranoid—a side effect of Farm training, where everything is a test. Chances are this is all in your head.”

  It didn’t feel like this was all in her head. But Jordan had agreed to look into Brennan’s actions, so Talia didn’t press her any further. “Thank you,” she said, and opened the door.

  Frank Brennan was standing on the other side.

  “Inger? What are you two conspiring about?”

  Talia was too stunned to answer.

  Jordan covered for her. “Can’t I take a few minutes to catch up with one of my recruits?”

  “You can.” The gap between Brennan’s bushy eyebrows closed. “But you usually don’t.”

  Rather than let the moment go on, Talia inched past him. “I’ll get back to work.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Um . . . I’m sorry?”

  “I saw you checked out those binders on Sunday, despite my orders to take the day off. I don’t want you burning yourself out in the first two weeks.” Brennan thrust a thumb toward the back hallway. “Go find your nerd friend and get out of here, both of you. Knock off early.”

  Talia glanced at Jordan, who gave her a single nod. “You heard the man. Get out of here.”

  “Right. Sure.” Talia could do nothing else but turn and walk away. She made it to the other side of Russian Ops before Brennan called after her.

  “And, Inger . . .”

  She cringed. “Yes?”

  “Stay safe out there.”

  STAY SAFE OUT THERE. In four days, Brennan had never advised Talia to stay safe, keep safe, drive safe, or be safe in any form or fashion. The phrase ground at her so much as she drove home that she nearly ran a red light. A guy in a crossing Range Rover laid on his horn as she skidded to a stop. She gave him an apologetic wave. He yelled something she couldn’t hear and steered around her.

  When the light finally changed, Talia’s phone rang. She gave the caller ID a cursory glance, unwilling to take her eyes off the road for more than an instant. It was a number, not a name. She raised it to her ear. “Yes?”

  “Talia? Hey, I finally caught you.”

  She winced. “Jenni?” Why hadn’t the caller ID caught the number? The answer came to her before her mind had finished the question. Franklin. This wasn’t her real phone. Had the Goblin King inadvertently deleted her contacts during the cloning process? She would kill him.

  “Are you still there?”

  She could pretend to lose the signal, but that was probably going too far. “Yeah. I’m still here.”

  “Good. Good. Listen . . .” There was a long silence, as if Jenni had not expected to catch her and so did not know what to say.

  “I’m not dodging you. I swear.”

  “Yes. You are. I don’t know if you’ve seen a calendar lately, but it’s been, like, a year.”

  She could hear the hurt. Talia bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I get it.” Another pause. A sigh. “This isn’t working over the phone. Can we meet? Say . . . dinner . . . tonight?”

  Talia could not survive the awkwardness of a full meal. There was so much of the last year of her life she couldn’t talk about. “Tonight’s no good. I probably won’t even eat. I’m hitting the water for a workout, and then it’s straight to bed.”

  “Perfect. I haven’t rowed in forever. I’ll go with you.”

  Chapter

  eleven

  POTOMAC RIVER

  GEORGETOWN BOATHOUSE

  TALIA ARRIVED AT THE BOATHOUSE early and tugged at the strap of a single-person shell, not so much hatching a plan as posing a what-if.

  What if Talia was out on the water when Jenni arrived? Jenni might give up and leave. Oops. I assumed we’d use two singles. You mean after five years of no rowing, you couldn’t drag a shell out of the boathouse on your own? It could work. She unfastened the strap and moved on to the next.

  “Hey.”

  Talia’s hurrying fingers froze. She turned to find her former foster sister, Jenni Lewis, standing there. “Hey. You came.”

  “Don’t sound so excited.” Jenni, taller than Talia and blonde with the infuriating Michigan-slash-Scandinavian heritage of her family, eyed the boat. “You’re taking out a single? Why can’t we row together?”

  “We could.” Talia turned back to the shell, re-threading the first strap. “I mean, we will.”

  “I’m not late, am I?”

  “Nope. You’re not late. Not one second late.” Talia laid her hands on the fibergl
ass hull, took a breath, and moved to the two-person boat on the rack above. “Come on. Help me with this one.”

  “But that’s a pair.”

  As if Talia didn’t know that. The pair was arguably the most difficult boat in the sport—two rowers, one behind the other, each with one big oar, naturally unbalanced. It never left much room for conversation. “The double has a broken oarlock.” Talia took a step back and crossed her arms. “It’s the pair or nothing. What’s wrong? Can’t handle it?”

  “Oh, I can handle it. I wasn’t sure if you could.” Jenni stepped up beside her and began working the buckle of a strap.

  She might not have rowed in college, but Jenni had rowed all seven years of middle school and high school, starting two years earlier than Talia. Jenni’s father, Bill, had goaded Talia into joining the team when she came to live with them, and she had excelled. Both girls went to Georgetown. Talia rowed. Jenni didn’t. But by the way Jenni moved around the boathouse, it looked like she hadn’t forgotten much.

  Evening sunlight danced on the ridges of the river’s chop—more chop than Talia had seen in a while. The spring current was running stronger than usual. On the water, she kept Jenni busy with instructions, receiving a series of I knows and I’ve got its in response.

  The boat dipped left. “Watch it. You’re digging in again.”

  “I know. I’ve got it.”

  On the next stroke the shell ran true again, and Talia had no instruction to give. Jenni didn’t waste the opportunity. “I . . . I miss you. You know that, right? Mom and Dad too.”

  Talia didn’t answer.

  “I haven’t seen you since you left school.”

  Two strokes went by. “I’m busy, Jenni.”

  “I get that. Working at Foggy Bottom is no joke.” She used the DC slang for the State Department. “I’m there too, now. I’ve told you in about a dozen texts.”

  Jenni was at State? “Right. Sure. Which department was that?”

  “Public Affairs. But I stop by the Foreign Service wing all the time. I never see you there.”