by Geof Johnson
Eric put on his headphones and listened for a few minutes while everyone watched silently, then he pulled them from his ears and draped them around his neck. “It’s working. Even though it’s still only about four o’clock in the morning there, I heard a door close and some men’s voices, probably the guards.”
“Are they acting like anything’s up?” Bryce said. “Like they know you were just there?”
“Not really. Sounds like they’re bitching about the cold.”
“So it looks like nobody knew you were coming,” Nova said. “Does that mean you have a mole at the agency?”
“Not necessarily,” Terry said. “If Cage has been getting his warnings from the witches, and they were asleep, then he wouldn’t know about our mission tonight.”
“The witches were definitely asleep,” Fred said. “Either that or they weren’t at the monastery. With Rollie and I both using Stupefyin’ pendants, we were generating a lot of magic that any witches in the area could feel.” She looked at Jamie and smirked. “A magical signature. That’s what you’d call it.”
Melanie furrowed her brow. “I have a question about the listening device. What’s to keep someone at the CIA from finding out it’s there? They’ll have access to the transmissions from it, too, won’t they?”
“There are over a thousand channels of data streaming to headquarters from the satellite that the device is transmitting to,” Eric said. “The only way somebody could find the channel we’re using is to stumble on it by accident, and it would be nearly impossible to tell where it’s coming from. It’s not broadcasting a locater signal.”
Jamie scratched his chin for a moment. “What if it were routed through a supercomputer, first?”
“It’s not. We still do it the hard way.” Eric tapped the headphones draped around his neck. “With these. I ought to know. I do it enough.”
“We both do,” Terry said and curled up one corner of her lip. “It’s the most boring thing imaginable.”
“Are you going to have to do that now with the bug you just placed?” Nova said. “Listening to guards yakking under a tree?”
“More than just that,” Eric said. “We’ll monitor their two-way radio conversations and cell phones, too.” Eric flashed a wicked grin. “We’re going to get a leg up on Cage, now. I feel it. This mission just gave us an ace in the hole.”
Chapter 19
Fred got a text from Terry on Monday morning and met her after class by the fountain, which was turned off due to the cold. They had it to themselves, with everyone else inside where it was warm.
They sat on the nearby steps that led down to the wide, red brick plaza, and Terry handed Fred a Styrofoam cup of coffee and yawned.
“Late night?” Fred asked and took a sip.
“Early morning, doing my shift monitoring the listening device.” She pressed her knees together and grimaced as a stiff breeze blew by. “It sounds like Cage is up to something. We think he’s going to do another hit, but we don’t know where. Maybe if we’d gotten the bug in place sooner, we would, but we’re hoping that we can be more proactive now that we have it there. We might pick up enough intel to anticipate his next attack, and if we can’t catch him or kill him, maybe we can at least stop him.”
“How are you going to do that if he’s using magic?”
“Well, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. If we know for certain who Cage’s next target is, would it be possible to give countercharms to the target’s guards?”
“Not without explaining what they’re for, and good luck with that. Plus, you’d have to know exactly what spell Cage is going to use before preparing the countercharm.”
“Isn’t there an all-purpose one? One that works on most spells?”
“Not according to Momma Sue.”
“Too bad.” Terry yawned again and rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of both hands. “I have a history test today. Hope I can stay awake.”
“How are you finding time to study?”
“I make time. Eric helps me out by taking the lion’s share of the work on the monitors. When it’s my turn, I study with the headphones on. It’s mostly just hours of sitting, listening to nothing.”
“Sounds boring.”
“You have no idea. If I had known that it was going to be this way, I wouldn’t have joined the agency. I thought it was going to be lots of action and excitement, but mostly it’s not.”
“I thought Saturday night was exciting, when we went to the monastery.”
“Well yeah, of course. But that kind of fun is rare, for me.”
“Fun? Risking your life is fun?”
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
“Um….” Fred had to consider it for a moment, but she realized that she had enjoyed it. Her first mission with secret agents was exhilarating. She had trouble sleeping that night, thinking about what happened. “Yeah, I suppose it was, a little.”
Terry laughed through her nose. “Liar. You loved it, didn’t you?”
“No,” Fred said firmly. “But I liked it. I wouldn’t want to make a living doing it, though.”
“What do you want to do for a living?”
Fred cradled her warm cup in her lap and waited before answering. “I’m not sure. I haven’t declared a major yet because I’m still trying to figure it out. I want to work in Rivershire, doing something to help Jamie with whatever he does, at the school or whatever. I’m sure there will be plenty to do.”
“Do you think there will be enough money to pay you? It sounds like some of his track teammates want to work for Jamie’s grandfather, or Jamie. I’m not sure what their business arrangement is.”
“It’s sort of a partnership, I guess, though it seems to change all the time. It gets more involved, mostly because Jamie keeps thinking up new things he wants to do over there. But there will be enough money, I think.”
Terry nodded and took a slow sip of coffee. “You know his grandfather talked to me and Eric about working for him, but I don’t know what I could do. I could be a guard at his warehouse, I guess, keeping snoopers out.”
“You could do more than that, with all your training.”
Terry lowered her chin and stared at her cup, which she held in her lap between her gloved hands. “Fred, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“Drink coffee in the freezing cold?”
Terry laughed again and gave her head a tight shake. “Work for the CIA. My heart’s not in it like it used to be.” She glanced at Fred and turned her gaze back to her lap. “I want to have a normal life.”
“I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
“I’m sure. You and your friends have a crazy situation.” She shook her head again. “I want to spend more time with my daughter. I want to tuck her in every night. I want to go to PTA meetings when she starts school, and take her to the park and the grocery store and everything. I want to change careers, but I’m stuck now. It’s almost impossible for me to get out of the agency. I can’t quit because we need the money. Stacey’s still got a stack of medical bills from her past treatments, and somebody’s got to pay them.”
“What would you like to do if you switched careers?”
Terry lifted her chin and smiled faintly toward the empty plaza. “I wouldn’t mind being a teacher. I like working with kids, and I could get my teacher’s certification in a little over a year if I could stay in school. But I doubt I’ll even get to finish this semester.” She sighed heavily. “It was only supposed to be a cover, anyway, being a student and all, but I like it. I don’t want to quit. Seems like a waste, though, leaving in the middle of the term.” Her smile faded and she turned to face Fred. “But I’m not the only one who feels that way. I think Eric’s getting disillusioned, too. It’s hard on his family, doing what we do.”
“Does it bother his wife that he works with a female partner?”
“No. She hates it that he’s gone all the time. But he’s in the same boat I am. He’s stuck, too. He needs the money to support his fami
ly because his wife can’t work. She can’t find a job in Langley that’ll fit her schedule because she has to look after their kids. Cost of living is kinda high there, too.”
“Did she have a career before?”
“She was an accountant. She does a little freelance stuff, like helping people with their taxes and stuff, but not much. So she stays at home, and she’s not happy. Now Eric and I both have screwed-up family lives.” She tightened her mouth and stared at the wide circle that was the fountain, inactive now, and dry. “I never imagined my life like this, especially when I first joined the agency. Back when Nathan was still with me.”
“Nathan? That was your husband?”
Terry nodded but didn’t elaborate.
“How did he die, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Parachute failure.”
“Oh.” Fred’s breath caught in her throat, and she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Do you miss him? she wanted to ask, but the sad look on Terry’s face answered the question before it could leave Fred’s lips.
Terry’s chin fell to her chest. Fred didn’t know what to say or think. She wanted to leave because she needed to study, and she was cold, her bottom freezing from the chilly concrete step she was sitting on, her nose numb and the tips of her ears beginning to hurt. Shivering to her bones. But Terry seemed like she needed help just then. The normally tough-acting young woman looked fragile and dejected.
Fred bit her lower lip. Then she patted Terry gently on the back. “Come on. Let’s go get another cup of coffee and find someplace warm to talk.”
* * *
Jamie closed his textbook, laid it on his desk, and then leaned back in his chair and called, “Bryce, I’m going to take a little break and check out some possible mining sites.”
He was pulling on his jacket when Bryce appeared in the doorway and said, “How many worlds are you going to? We have track practice in an hour.”
“As many as I can. I’ll start with a couple that Eddan used to go to, ’cause I know they have metal ores on them. Then I might check out a few more if I have time.”
Jamie picked up the gas analyzer that Dr. Tindall loaned him, held it in one hand and started to outline a portal with the other, but Bryce said, “Hey! Can you do that someplace else? I don’t want poisonous vapors leaking into our rooms.”
“Good point.” Jamie eyed the analyzer and nodded. “I was going to start with worlds that I know have breathable atmospheres, but some of the others might not.” He unclipped the short wand and waggled it at Bryce. “I can stick this through a mini-portal to check their atmospheres, but a little gas could still seep in.”
“So do it somewhere else.” Bryce gestured with a jerk of his thumb. “You should take your magic walking stick with you, too. You can use that to keep track of the worlds that you visit.”
“Another good point. What would I do without you, Bryce?” Then he made a small doorway in mid-air, put his hand through it, and retrieved his carved stick, the one Uncle Charlie had made for him. He admired it for a moment, the smooth feel of it his hand and the beautiful designs that circled its length. “This will be perfect. Now I’ll have a map to every planet I check out today so I can remember where all of them are.”
“Can you make mental notes with it?” Bryce said. “Like, ratings? This one has cool mountains, or this one smells bad?”
“Now, that would be useful. But no, I can’t do that. But I can color code the lines that I see when I use the stick. Those help.” He raised the carved wooden staff and nodded. “I’ll remember where the good ones are, with this.” Then he started to outline a full-sized doorway and said, “I’ll go to the three moon world first.”
“You’re not going to allow mining there, are you?”
“’Course not. It’s just a starting point. See you in an hour.”
* * *
Jamie stood with Dr. Tindall on a bleak, level wasteland. “Ugh,” she said with a distasteful frown at the landscape, nothing but gray rubble as far as the eye could see. “This is desolate, isn’t it?”
“But it has plenty of accessible ore, I think.” Jamie pointed to a wide hole in the ground several yards away. “Eddan used to get silver here. He blasted that shaft. I remember him doing that.” He extended his hand toward the opening and pantomimed shooting a gun.
She looked at him with her mouth turned curiously. “Is it strange, having two sets of memories mixed up in your brain? How do you keep them straight?”
“I’m used to it. It’s been that way my whole life, so I’ve gotten things sorted out now. It’s helpful, having the old man’s memories there. Not just for stuff like this—” He gestured at the mine shaft, “—but for when I need magic in a hurry, like if I drop something, I can call up the appropriate spell instantly. I don’t even have to think about it, if it’s one that Eddan used a lot, like levitation. Or if it’s one of my spells that I’m fond of, like my invisibility shield.”
“And it’s all mental?”
“I gesture sometimes, but it’s not necessary. I summon my will and run the sequence of commands though my head. If I do one spell a lot, I can do it fast.”
“Fascinating. Wouldn’t you love to have a brain scan while you’re doing a spell? It would be interesting to see what’s happening inside your head at that time.”
“I think about that a lot, using an MRI machine or a PET scan machine or whatever. Guess I’d have to buy one of my own, though, if I want to keep my magic a secret. How much do those cost?”
“A lot. Maybe you can get one for your research institute.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d have every kind of machine you could think of.” He shrugged. “I mean, if.”
“If you build a research institute?” She smiled reassuringly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. You’ve done an awful lot already, with the school and clinic and so forth.” She gazed about and took a deep breath through her nose. “The air smells okay here. There must be some major forests or oceans on this planet to produce the oxygen.”
Jamie pinched his lower lip with his thumb and finger while he thought about it, then he pointed south. “There’s an ocean that way, I think, about seventy miles or so. Want to go check it out?”
“Not today.” She kicked at some pebbles with the toe of one foot. “That means there are life forms on this world, even right here. There are probably fungi and bacteria and other things living among these rocks.”
“I’m not so worried about them,” Jamie said. “It’s any higher life forms you might find. If we allow mining right here, will it be too destructive for them?”
“That’s a subjective call. Some would argue that killing any life form is too destructive.”
He nodded and stared at the hard ground. “That’s a good argument, but you can take that too far. I mean, will the money we make from this mining site offset the damage we do, however small?”
“That depends on what you do with the money. Under normal circumstances, I’d be hesitant to say it was a fair trade, killing any kind of life for money. But you seem to have nothing but altruistic motives. If it comes down to killing a fungus in exchange for finding a cure for cancer or something else of that magnitude, I would be okay with it.”
Jamie studied the ground again and exhaled slowly with expanded cheeks. “It’s all about choices, isn’t it? Every choice has a consequence. We choose to build wind farms for the environmental benefits, but they kill a lot of birds. Is that a fair trade?”
“Not for the birds.”
“No. Same with hydroelectric dams. They can be hard on fish populations, especially salmon.”
“I know. I teach that stuff, remember?”
Jamie nodded with his lips pressed together. “Help me make the right choice with this. I don’t want to do more harm than good.”
“I’ll help you, but you can debate for eternity what the right choice is and never get one hundred percent agreement. All we can do is make the best choice based on our knowledge.”
“I don’t know which is more important.”
“I guess they go together.” He gazed off in the distance, at the unremitting flatness, broken only here and there by a few boulders. “So, when can you start?”
“Investigating this site? We can start this Saturday, if you’ll make the doorway for us. My grad students and Dr. Westbrook will be helping.”
“How long will it take? My granddaddy is getting antsy to make this deal happen.”
“Hard to say. On Saturday, we’ll lay out a grid and collect samples, and make a detailed search of the area. We’ll probably have to come back on Sunday to finish that task. Then we’ll take the samples to my lab and analyze them. That should only take a week or so.”
Jamie took one last look around and nodded. “Okay. Let me show you a couple more worlds before we go back, just for the heck of it. One of them has two moons.”
“Two? That must be beautiful.”
“I know of another one that has three. I’ll show you that one sometime, but not today. I’ll wait until they’re all full. Now, that’s beautiful.”
* * *
On Wednesday, Jamie and his friends met in the early evening with Eric and Terry at their house. Eric said, “We’ll try to keep this short because I know you’re all busy.”
“There’s good news and bad news,” Terry said. “I’ll start with the bad. We think Cage has struck again. Two Iranian oil officials were assassinated in Tehran on Monday, and the pattern is the same — confused guards, nobody remembers anything, so on and so forth. The officials were shot in the back of the head, execution-style, which Cage has been known to do.”
“The Iranians reacted by immediately trying to assassinate an Israeli cabinet minister in Tel Aviv,” Eric said. “They sent two agents posing as Jordanians, but they bungled the hit, and one of the agents was wounded. Both agents managed to escape.”
“How do you know it was the Iranians?” Bryce asked.
“We have sources that confirmed that. Unfortunately, the Israelis are taking this attack seriously and have called up their reserves. And it looks like the Iranians are sending several squadrons of warplanes to bases on their western border, closer to Israel.”
