Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (10 page)

Or why.

Although I found it hard to fathom that the NSA might be conducting surveillance missions against itself, I couldn’t rule it out. It didn’t make sense. And yet, someone had access to our policies and training procedures.

The Suburban left but neither of us moved. Lucas sacked out on the little cot underneath the bins.

“Want to join me?” he asked lazily, his eyes closed and a small smile on his face.

I tried not to remember the last time we’d shared a bed. But the image of him sprawled across the white hotel sheets, his tanned torso gleaming with the sheen of a bout of hot, sweaty sex, wouldn’t leave my mind.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No.”

I wondered if he used his van for rendezvous of a more personal nature. I couldn’t figure out the snap of jealousy zipping along my veins. “Quite the setup.”

“It serves its purpose.”

“All the comforts of home?” I crossed my arms underneath my breasts.

Lucas squinted up at me. “Mostly.”

He tossed a blanket to me. I spread it out on the floor and sat down on the hard corrugated metal. “Half an hour.”

“That’s what I figured.”

We needed to wait to leave. The two men had only been gone about fifteen minutes. Chances are they were lurking somewhere close in case we were still around.

“I’m not tired.” He set his watch for fifteen minutes. “I’ll take first watch. You take the first nap.”

I nodded.

“Use the bed.” He got up and moved to the peephole in the curtain at the front.

I lay on the soft mattress and let his body heat, still trapped in the plain cotton sheets, warm me. The thought was not soothing at all and yet, I still managed to sink into a gentle sleep.

I woke up to the steady thump of the tires on a road. I snapped awake, unlike the last time I regained consciousness in a moving vehicle.

Sitting up quickly, I shoved my hair out of my eyes. I burst through the black curtain and into the captain’s chair on the passenger side.

Just in time to see a sign for Reno.

The first hint of sun pinked the sky, spreading from the dark outline of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

He’d let me sleep. I stretched, finally feeling like myself again. As annoyed as I was, I must have really needed the rest. Perhaps I was still feeling the effects of the drug.

The drug.

I needed to touch base with Barb. She might want to check in with Lucas when I called, so I asked nicely instead of snarling, “Why are
we
in Nevada?”

“Don’t you have to get back to Washington?”

“Yeah.” I really, really didn’t want to spend three days driving across the country in a van with him.

“I propose we pool resources.” Lucas kept his gaze on the highway. “I’m just going to follow you back to D.C. whether we go alone or together.”

I blinked, still a little foggy from sleep.

What would it take to get rid of this guy? Of course, if I admitted to myself, I wasn’t trying super hard. And I had more pressing problems than one ‘hard to get rid of’ private investigator.

“I want to call Barb.”

“You two bond in the ladies room?”

I shot him a dirty look. “She thought she might have preliminary answers for me.”

Lucas gestured to the glove compartment. “My cell phone is in there.”

I pulled it out and started punching in numbers.

He glanced, eyebrows raised. “You know her number?”

“She told me in the bathroom.”

“And you remember?”

“Auditory memory retention. Sort of like an auditory photographic memory.” I shrugged. “It’s the way my brain works.”

I waited for the inevitable ‘huh’ or ‘wow’ which translates to:
freak.

“Cool.”

The only other person who thought it was cool had been my older brother. A wave of sadness crashed through me. My brother and I had fought with the fervor of two teenagers, each convinced we were in the right every single time. But I’d loved him.

I shoved away the tender memory. Once I had results from Barb, I could try to call Carson and give him an update. It concerned me that he hadn’t answered the phone last night when I’d called. That in itself was unusual.

There were far too many questions and no solid answers. And the itchy feeling at the base of my neck was getting worse. Because of the far reaching arms of whoever was after me, the urge to check on Bella again was growing.

When I’d gone to work for the NSA, they’d given me a new name and wiped my record clear of any next of kin. No one was supposed to know about Bella but me and Carson.

But whoever was after me had access to so much. What if they had found my sister?

I had to get a handle on the situation. I climbed in the back for some privacy and called Barb’s cell. She answered on the first ring.

“Hi.” She sounded breathless.

“It’s Betty.”

“I know. I recognized the number.” Barb paused. “How’s Fred?”

She was firm but not confrontational. “He says hello,” I answered mildly.

“I want to hear his voice,” she demanded.

Good thing I hadn’t dumped him.

“Tell your
friend
hello,” I called out to Lucas and held the phone up.

“Hey babe.” He sounded cheerful and far too confident.

I put the phone back to my ear just as she said, “Have you completed your favor?”

Jesus, I felt like I was back in Catholic school with the nuns. “I’m working on it. Any luck on your end?”

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Bad news.”

“There were actually three different chemical compounds in the liquid.” She paused.

“That’s bad?”

“The machine couldn’t identify one.”

“Oh. Okay.” I dropped down onto the cot.

“Not okay. This machine is state of the art. Brand new technology. Any registered drug, chemical compound, even illegal substance should be recognized or categorized. And this machine didn’t have an answer on the one.”

I thought about the implications.

An unknown drug.

“Can you analyze the chemical composition? Figure out a class of drug or similar compounds?”

”Already started on it.” Barb crunched something loudly in my ear.

“What were the other two?”

“Rophynol, which is a drug that renders your brain impaired and usually causes you to forget. Commonly known as a date--”

“Rape drug. Yeah. I know it.”

“And sodium pentothal.”

Truth serum. A fairly tame version, as with the right connections there were far more dangerous psycho-pharmaceutical, truth-inducing drugs available.

The findings were consistent with the information I already had. The likelihood I’d been abducted by the same people was high. The damage potential to the U.S., even the world, espionage community was astronomical.

I shuddered.

Barb said, “Not a great combination. No matter why they’re dispensing it, this is a bad cocktail. Not to mention I have no idea how it would work in conjunction with the unidentifiable compound.”

As I dug through a disguise bin and pulled out a knock-off Anne Klein watch, I considered the implications of an unknown drug.

“How long should I give you on this other drug?”

“At least a day.”

“Any ideas?”

“I have a few hypotheses. But honestly in science, it’s better to keep an open mind.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“Can I ask a few questions?” I could hear her curiosity, challenged by the lure of the puzzle.

“You can ask.” I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder and strapped on the fake pink snakeskin watch.

“Our government or someone else’s?”

I hesitated. I had no conclusive proof. Just my own suppositions. Then I decided in this case I needed to share. “My guess. Ours.”

She blew out a breath. “Okay. That gives me a starting point. I may want to consult on this.”

I thought about the people who were after me. “No.”

“But--”

“Not an option.”

“At all?”

“No.”

“Okay, Betty. Call me in about twenty-four hours.”

“Thanks,” I responded with sincere appreciation. “I owe you one.”

“No. You owe Lucas. And you’d better pay up before you call back.” Hardass Barb was back.

“Hey, what’s the good news?”

“I lied. There isn’t any.”

TWELVE

Lucas wanted to know about the contents of the syringe. The desire was there in the tension of his hands gripping the steering wheel, but I wasn’t going to play. He had a long wait.

He held out for a good ten minutes. “Could she help?”

I hesitated. Just because I wouldn’t tell him the contents didn’t mean I couldn’t dangle information. Just enough to satisfy without any real substance.

“She needs more time.”

He blew out a breath. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

“Like you couldn’t help abducting me?” I taunted.

Only his whitening fingers on the steering wheel gave away the depth of his anger. “Do you think you were raped?” he asked bluntly.

His question startled me, my voice rose, my gaze shot to him. “What?”

“Rophynol,” he responded tightly, staring out the window at the morning traffic.

Inexplicably touched by his worry, I answered softly, “No.”

He nodded and his fingers loosened. “What next?”

My next step had to be another look at the information from the flash key I’d obtained at the warehouse. And Bella. I wanted to check on her. As soon as possible. “I need to make a stop.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

I found what I wanted about twenty minutes later. God bless being connected twenty four seven. A McDonald’s with a computer bar with desktop setups and internet access. Impersonal. Anonymous. We pulled off I-80 and into the parking lot.

Lucas tapped his watch. “Ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

Lucas stayed in the van, ready in case we had company.

Inside the restaurant, I set up at one of the public computers and twisted my body so the security camera couldn’t capture my keystrokes or the screen information.

The online storage account was registered with a false name and a black credit card. There was absolutely no way to trace back to me. I opened the .zip file I’d uploaded from scientist’s flash key to find several file folders: Test data. Subject data. Empirical data. Sequencing.

Based on their document designation, they were all standard documents and charts. But when I tried to open a file, the password requirement stopped me. With a few keystrokes I was into the encryption program log. It would take hours to break into this, assuming I could. Something about the encryption program seemed familiar but I didn’t have time to analyze it right now.

This was supposed to be a quick stop only. Especially since they tracked me to the cafe after my last online attempt. Although I was pretty sure that was through my beacon, this job had me totally spooked. I was on edge about Bella for no real reason. They couldn’t find her. Everything that had happened to me could be explained by great surveillance work and logical conclusions based on evidence input.

But I needed to see for myself that Bella was okay.

The slot machines in the McDonald’s lobby clanged with someone’s victory. The irritating noise jangled my already tense nerves.

The ding-ding-ding beat in my head.
Quick, quick, quick.

I hacked into the Georgetown University system chat room Bella tended to frequent.

She wasn’t online now, but she had been, late last night. She’d instant-messaged with someone new, a boy, for about an hour before insisting she had to get to sleep. She had a big math test today.

For a moment, I let myself wonder what it would be like to see her in person. I’d seen photographs, once or twice when she’d emailed them to friends.

But I hadn’t seen her, touched her, hugged her, since I was fifteen years old.

I could imagine her calling me for help with her Advanced Calculus homework. Although perhaps not. Bella was as gifted in math as I was, maybe more.

Her conversation with this new boy, Donald, had lasted a long time. I made a mental note of his screen name, DonnyBoy. It wouldn’t take too much to find out his real name.

Then I’d check him out.

I’d done it before. I may not have been able to see or touch her in thirteen years, but I was still very much a part of her life and I was going to protect her. No matter what.

As I read through the archive of their messages, an ache spread through my chest.

DonnyBoy: How’d your parents die?

Bella: Car accident.

DonnyBoy: That must have been tough. How old were you?

Bella: Almost six.

DonnyBoy: Wow.

There was a break in the time stamps.

DonnyBoy: You there?

Bella: I saw them. I was watching from my bedroom window. I wasn’t allowed to go.

DonnyBoy: What happened?

Bella: One minute they were there. The next...they were gone.

DonnyBoy was different. She’d never spoken of this to any of her other friends online. She was talking about our family. What she remembered of our deaths. She glossed over the details. A car accident.

The horror of watching us die.

I didn’t know she’d seen us.

I thought back to that day. I’d been in a fine tantrum, annoyed because my parents didn’t approve of my first boyfriend. We’d always been isolated, a tight-knit family unit. I’d wanted to experience life beyond their restrictions and innate reserve. I’d wrenched open the car door and stomped back up the beautiful limestone steps.

Ironically that was what saved me.

The concussion from the blast threw me halfway underneath the shaded porch, so the shrapnel only hit the back of one leg and a little bit of my side.

I skimmed the messages until another caught my attention.

Bella: I thought that maybe my sister was okay. But she was gone too. I was pretty wrecked.

DonnyBoy: I’m sorry.

Bella: Hey, nothing years of therapy couldn’t fix.

But I could see the pain beneath her flip words.
Years
to get over our deaths.

I reached out as if to touch the screen.