Duardo grinned and got to his feet and threw on the robe hanging on the back of the door. “There are ten hours yet,” he reminded her and opened the door an inch or two.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Calli said from the other side of the door. “Nick isn’t back yet and you’re the most senior army officer I can find. This is directly related to you, anyway. Could you come to my office? Minnie, too, please.”
Minnie rolled off the bed and reached for her jeans. “Five minutes!” she called to Calli.
“Ten, if I must put my uniform back on,” Duardo amended.
“Civilian clothes would be better,” Calli said.
* * * * *
An armed non-com stood outside Calli’s door.
Minnie glanced at Duardo. He frowned and shook his head. He couldn’t guess either. He nodded at the private and rapped on the door. “Señora Escobedo?”.
“Please come in,” Calli called back. She hadn’t used Duardo’s rank.
Duardo held the door open for her and Minnie stepped into the office, her curiosity roused.
Callie was behind her big desk. Another woman sat on one of the chairs in front of it.
Duardo pulled out the second chair for her and Minnie sank into it gratefully. She always felt tired these days. The drain of energy would only be worse before the end.
Duardo took up his post at the corner of the desk, to Minnie’s left.
The woman turned to look at them. She was a young black woman and the way she studied them made Minnie think she was absorbing every little detail, that nothing escaped her notice. Her hair was long and straight, hanging past the back of her shoulder blades. Her eyes were large, almond-shaped and beautiful. Her skin was light, almost coffee-colored.
“This is Chloe Masters,” Calli said. “She arrived in Acapulco this morning. From San Francisco. Chloe, this is Minerva Benning Peña and Eduardo Peña y Santos.”
Duardo nodded his head and Minnie smiled at her.
Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Cristián’s brother?”
Duardo glanced at Calli for explanation.
“You don’t have to worry,” Chloe told him. “Your security isn’t breached. I know my way around the Internet. Cristián stopped talking to me three days ago. I had to come down here and make sure he’s okay. Is he?”
Minnie held up her hand. “You might need to back up and explain a few things. Who is Cristián?”
“You have to make sure about me,” Chloe said. “I get it. Really, I’m not interested in the Insurrectos or your war. I just want to check on Cristián. I can’t go to Vistaria myself. I figure that as he’s a Loyalist, then the Loyalists camping in Acapulco—you guys—would tell me if he’s okay.”
Duardo cleared his throat. “This Cristián…he told you he was a Loyalist?”
Chloe smiled. Even her smile was stunning. She was a gorgeous woman. “Of course, he didn’t tell me that. I didn’t know who he was until around eight last night. We never gave any details about ourselves. Cristián insisted on it and I had already figured out the open code on the IWU Facebook group, so I guessed why he was insisting. When he stopped talking three days ago, I went digging for facts. That’s when I found out who he was.” She hesitated, her full lips pressing together. “I know where he is, too. Pascuallita is crawling with Insurrectos. If you’re his brother, I don’t have to tell you how risky his position is.”
Duardo and Calli exchanged glances. “How did you dig up the real information?” Calli asked, making it sound like a casual question.
Chloe unzipped a leather briefcase sitting on the chair next to her hip and reached inside.
Minnie saw Duardo stiffen to full alert from the corner of her eye. He wasn’t armed. He was wearing jeans as Calli had suggested. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do anything if Chloe pulled a weapon out of the briefcase.
What emerged was a memory stick on a black lanyard. Chloe held it up so it swung like a pendulum. “I’m a hacker, like Cristián,” she said. “I’ve been working on this for a year and when Cristián disappeared, I spent twelve hours finishing it, so I could look for him.”
“What is it?” Calli said.
“It’s a….” Chloe shrugged. “I could give you the technical specifications, only I don’t think they’d mean anything to you. No offense.”
Calli gave her a stiff smile. “Try describing it generally.”
Chloe shrugged. “Okay. The Internet is one giant open network. Anyone can get on it and anyone who knows a little bit about hacking can find all sorts of information about people. There’s not much security on the Internet, although the Facebook group was a good idea. Open code is unbreakable unless you have reference points that let you figure out the rest.”
“You had those reference points?” Minnie asked.
“Not until last night.” She lifted the memory stick again. “This is an application I built. It lets you move around the net and leave no footprints. When you use it, no one knows you’re there unless you’re silly enough to say you’re there. That means you can hack into anything you want. It makes you invisible.” She grinned. “I call it Harry’s Cloak.”
Calli smiled.
Minnie held up her hand. “I’ve been learning a lot about computers in the last few weeks. I work with a would-be hacker. Let me ask a dumb question. If you have Harry’s Cloak and someone else had Harry’s Cloak, could you communicate with each other privately?”
“More than privately,” Chloe said. “You’d both be invisible to anyone else, including the best hackers out there. Harry’s Cloak doesn’t only mask your signature. It stops your signature from even forming. It’s as perfect a disguise as the real cloak was.”
She leaned forward and placed the jump drive in front of Calli. “You can have it, gratis,” she said. “It’s my way of proving I’m not an Insurrecto spy.”
“If the program does what you say it does,” Calli began, “you could sell it for a small fortune. Why give it to us?”
“As I said,” Chloe replied, “It’s good will, so you can figure out I’m not here to undermine your war. Besides, if you install it, you can talk to Cristián. Then I’ll know he’s okay.”
“If we knew who this Cristián was, what makes you think we wouldn’t pick up a phone and call him instead?” Duardo asked.
Chloe grinned. “Calls can be traced.” She pointed to the jump drive. “Nothing can track that.”
“You would give up the potential earnings you’d make from your program, to make sure that Cristián is okay?”
Chloe’s amusement faded. “I would,” she said firmly. She smiled again. “Besides, I can write another app anytime. I’m not hurting for cash, you know.”
Duardo held up his hand. “Excuse me for a moment.” He stepped to the door and opened it, then spoke to the guard outside. He pushed the door open. “Ms. Masters, would you mind stepping out and keeping Private Juarez company? I would like to speak to the Chief of Staff for a moment.”
“Sure.” Chloe got to her feet and Minnie saw she was tall, like Calli, and lithe, with a dancer’s body. If Cristián hadn’t shared any personal details with her, he would be overjoyed when he met her in person.
Chloe stepped out into the corridor and turned to face the guard. She spoke a slow, passable Spanish.
Duardo shut the door and came back to the desk. “If this application does what she says it does, do you realize what it means?” he asked Calli.
“A completely secure way of communicating with anyone else who has the program,” Calli said. “Perhaps we should keep Ms. Masters around for a while. She might be useful, given the upcoming operations.”
“Exactly,” Duardo said.
“Employ her,” Minnie told them. “Give her a job deploying the application and maintaining it. She’ll want to hang around, anyway, to ensure Cristián is all right. If we hire her, she is accountable to us and we can control her movements. I don’t like the idea of her going back to the States and telling anyone what sh
e gave us.”
“A high security position?” Calli raised her brow. “I’ll want to do some background checks first. We have no idea who she is.”
“Ask Cristián,” Minnie said. “He might not know her first name, but if they’ve been talking via email or something, I guarantee he’s got a good read on her personality. They’ve obviously got a strong enough relationship that she rushed down to Acapulco because he stopped emailing.”
Duardo picked up her hand and kissed it. “You are as clever as you are beautiful.”
Calli smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Colonel Peña, do you agree we proceed with this? Employ Chloe and use the application?” She had switched back to Spanish, making it formal and official.
“I agree,” Duardo said. “I would like to install this application, this cloak, as soon as possible. It would be of enormous benefit to us.” He straightened to attention. “With your permission, I will share this news with General Flores. He will find it interesting.”
“Thank you, yes, Colonel Peña. Please go ahead. Send Chloe back in on your way out.”
Duardo nodded and turned to leave and Minnie realized with a jolt that just like that, Duardo’s twelve hour leave was over.
Only now, there was a chance she could still talk to him, no matter where he was.
Chapter Ten
Nemesis slid into the camp at dawn the next day and only the close proximity guards were alerted. He had slipped right through the outer ring of sentries.
Garrett swore and muttered when he realized there were holes in his defense line. Nemesis shrugged it off. “I’ve been climbing Vistarian mountains and hiking through the bush since I was small and I’ve got sneakier with each passing decade. The Insurrectos have no bushcraft at all. You’ll hear them coming a mile off. Don’t worry about it. Your inner guards were alert enough.” He shrugged off the heavy backpack and put it on the ground at his feet. “I’ve brought another present for you.”
“Another radio?” Carmen asked dryly. She had spent the last twenty-four hours learning Morse Code and swearing mightily over it. “Typing is faster,” she had pointed out to Garrett while sweating over long and short taps. “Can’t we rig up a keyboard to send the stuff? It’s crazy-making.”
Garrett had tapped out his answer in Morse, his finger on the desk, proving that he had picked it up with lightning speed. Get back to work, he’d told her.
She had scowled and poked her tongue at him.
He’d just smiled and gone back to studying the code book.
Now, with Nemesis in front of them, Garrett crossed his arms. “A week’s supply of groceries would be better than another radio,” he said, “only I don’t think you could fit them all into that backpack. Even though it’s a monster.”
Nemesis grinned, his blue eyes twinkling. He pushed the toe of his boot up against the pack. “This has everything I need to survive. It lets me stay one hundred percent mobile.” He bent and unzipped a side pocket and delved into it. Then he held out toward them a small plastic model car, shaped like a Ferrari.
“Huh?” Carmen said, flummoxed. Nemesis had gone out of his way to find them to give them a toy?
“What is it?” Garrett asked. He didn’t sound puzzled at all.
Nemesis tugged the car between both hands and the hood and front wheels separated from the back end, revealing a USB connector. “It’s a memory stick. There’s a program on this that will self-install. Once you’ve installed it, you can use any network, including the Internet, with complete impunity. You’ll be invisible. No one can trace you or see what you’re doing on-line.”
“We can talk directly to the big house?” Carmen asked.
“You can. You can use the camera in the laptop and video chat, too.” Nemesis grinned. “It means the radio and the code books are redundant, but that’s war for you. New technologies every thirty seconds.”
“Thank heavens,” Carmen said heartily. “Morse is a complete bitch.” She took the USB drive. “I’ll do it now.”
Garrett held out his arm in welcome, toward Nemesis. “There’s fresh coffee just made. Come and sit for a while.”
“Just a moment or two,” Nemesis said in agreement. “I have three other units to reach today.”
“We’ll feed you before you go,” Garrett told him.
Carmen hurried away as the two men settled on the cinder blocks circling the fire place, their heads together, talking. She retrieved the laptop from Garrett’s office and went back to the fire. Everyone sat around the fire if they had idle time, not for the heat, but because it was the social center of the camp.
Garrett and Nemesis were still talking. Carmen settled on the brick next to Garrett and fired up the laptop. She inserted the USB drive, which flashed at her, then a dialog box popped up, asking her if she wanted Harry’s Cloak installed.
She smiled at the name and told it YES.
The program installed quickly and down on the bottom right of the screen a little icon glowed green. It was a magic wand.
Confident that the program was running as it should, Carmen brought up an Internet browser. Hernandez had his home page set to MNTV, the Mexican national media network, with news streamers running across the top banner.
—Olympic Games competitor…Vistarian Loyalist leader completes successful US visit…Three people killed in head-on collision on—
Carmen clicked on the streamer about Nick, curious.
Video immediately streamed, showing Nick leaving the Acapulco airport, a beautiful blonde woman by his side. He was brought to a halt by the reporter. “I can’t answer questions that might undermine our efforts,” Nick said.
“Did you speak to the President of the United States?” the reporter asked. “Did he recognize your authority as President Pro tem for the loyal Vistarians?”
The blonde woman stepped forward, drawing the attention of both the reporter and the camera man. “We spoke to several businessmen and concluded several business deals. Naturally, the political side of our visit must remain undisclosed at this time.”
The video cut back to the studio where a woman with upswept hair and a white smile said, “And that was the new Vistarian Ambassador to the United States, Señora Olivia Davenport de Castellano.”
Carmen looked up as Nemesis made a soft sound. He was smiling.
“Do you know her?” Carmen asked, for there was a quality about his smile that made her think he did.
“She’s my wife,” Nemesis said.
Garrett turned to look at him and even though his expression was neutral, Carmen knew he was surprised.
“I thought Olivia Davenport was the daughter of the President’s Chief of Staff,” Carmen said. She had met Colonel Davenport years before, when Richard Menzies had taken her on one of his political forays to Washington. Davenport kept a photo of his daughter on his desk.
“She is the daughter of the Chief of Staff,” Nemesis said, the same smile on his face.
Garrett frowned. “Why on earth weren’t you in Washington with her?” he asked. “A cadre of Navy SEALs would achieve far more in Vistaria than all the radio transmitters in the world.”
Nemesis shrugged and got to his feet. “I’m better at the sneaky stuff. Olivia is better at the diplomacy…so I supposed we’re both good at the sneaky stuff, although she is easier on the eyes.” He picked up his pack and shrugged into it.
Carmen thought Nemesis was easy on the eyes. He was broad across the shoulders and his eyes weren’t the typical Vistarian black. In fact, she would have said he was exactly her type…except she didn’t feel any draw toward him at all.
She looked back down at the laptop, hiding her confusion, as Garrett got to his feet and walked Nemesis to the perimeter. She pulled up her email account and wasn’t surprised to find hundreds of emails had accumulated. She scrolled through, looking for anything important. After being away from email for weeks, none of it would be urgent anymore.
Then she set up a new email account, one the Insurrectos woul
dn’t be watching, and started an email to Nick.
Garrett came striding back from the perimeter and settled on the block next to her. “Nice guy, that Nemesis.”
She shrugged and kept typing.
“You were studying him pretty closely,” Garrett added.
She stopped typing, but kept her eyes on the screen. “So?”
“He’s married.”
“I figured that out when he said Olivia Davenport was his wife.”
“You do like your men unavailable,” Garrett pointed out.
Carmen looked at him, startled. “I do not,” she said hotly, because the observation didn’t sit well with her. It made her sound shallow and selfish. “Besides, you’re not my type in any way at all.”
Garrett smiled. “Carmen, I was the most unavailable man you’ve ever met. You hated me into the bargain.”
Carmen looked around for listeners, for privacy around the fire pit was non-existent. No one was within hearing distance. She looked at Garrett again, at his scars and his eyes, which had become more familiar to her in the last week than she had ever thought would be possible.
Familiar…and dear.
“You were unavailable,” she agreed, keeping her voice low. “You’re not anymore, are you?”
Garrett studied her. “Does that scare you, Escobedo?”
She wanted to say ‘yes’, only it wouldn’t be the truth. “You’ve gotta understand, Garrett,” she said. “I grew up as the President’s daughter. Every man with political aspirations saw me as a handy stepping stone. I learned fast how to spot a fake coming at me.”
Garrett nodded. “So…you picked the ones with zero long term prospects.”
“It wasn’t that calculated. It wasn’t even a conscious choice until you said it just then. But yes, men I knew would never commit, who were married or married to their job, or so self-absorbed it would never occur to them to fall in love…I learned to like that sort of man. I suppose because that meant I could control the relationship.”
“And walk away when you wanted to,” Garrett finished.
She let out her breath. “Yes.”
Freedom Fighters Page 13
