Outside Washington, DC
USA
Jon Smith eased himself from the car and then reached back in to retrieve his duffel.
“I can get that, Jon,” the driver said, running around the front bumper.
Smith waved him off. “I’m good, Eric. Thanks.”
He hefted the strap onto his good shoulder and turned toward the house, breathing the pine-scented air as deeply as the shattered bones across his back would allow. It smelled like home. Something he was more grateful for than he’d ever thought possible.
The house was the way he remembered it. Casual Western modern with no expense spared to make it look deeply weathered and just a bit haphazard in design. The closest neighbor was a mile down a steep, winding road, providing a silence that at that moment he found extraordinarily appealing.
Smith started up the gravel driveway, concentrating on not hunching when he walked. Not because he didn’t need to, but because he knew Eric was watching. Pride could be a bitch.
The door was ajar and the elaborate security system was flashing green to indicate that it had been disarmed. Before stepping inside, Smith glanced back at the man who’d brought him there. “Hey, I forgot to say congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
He put his duffel on the kitchen counter and went to the refrigerator for a beer. Getting one off the bottom shelf required a difficult knee bend, but it was worth it. Snake River Lager tasted just as good as he remembered.
The house had been unoccupied for a while and he wiped away some dust before putting his beer down on the granite counter. It had originally been a pretty rustic place belonging to Randi’s college roommate. After it got burned down with the help of an Afghan assassin, Klein had made the mistake of giving Randi a blank check for its reconstruction.
Then came the attack by a special ops team and the maddeningly difficult-to-eradicate smell of knockout gas. Apparently that was the last straw for the former roommate, and Randi had bought the house through a maze of offshore corporations. While it still wasn’t impossible for a motivated party with substantial resources to track the place down, it would be difficult enough that he felt safe there. At least safer than he would have at his own house.
“Jon!” Karen Ivers called as she appeared in the hallway. “How are you doing?”
“I’ve seen better days. But you look great. Domestic bliss must agree with you.”
She and Eric had gotten married a month before. He knew it drove Klein nuts that two of his operatives had walked down the aisle, but even the old man wasn’t willing to stand in the way of true love.
“And you look…not dead.”
He laughed painfully and took another swig of his beer. “Hey, the smell of gas is gone.”
“New carpet, new paint, refinished woodwork, and we’ve had the windows open for a month. Seems to have worked. Look, I’ve checked the place out and everything’s fine. The cell tower is still unreliable for some reason, but Randi’s put in a satellite link. We’ve upgraded your phone so it will automatically connect. Just dial normally. The fridge is stocked with beer, as I see you’ve noticed, and the meds you asked for are in the bathroom. Is there anything else Eric and I can do for you?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Why don’t you guys get out of here. I’m good.”
“You’re sure?”
In truth, he wasn’t. He should have stayed in Korea a few more days, but this job needed to get done and Randi wasn’t going to be able to handle it on her own.
“Absolutely. I feel better than I look. Really.”
“Okay. You know that this place is pretty far off the radar but not a hundred percent, right?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t bear the thought of holing up in some fleabag safe house. It’s not my own bed, but it’s second best.”
She slid a thumb drive onto the counter next to his beer. “Fred wanted me to give you this.”
He nodded, scooping up the nondescript storage device. As the Internet became increasingly compromised by hackers and even America’s own National Security Agency, Covert-One’s communication was being done this way more and more. What did Marty call it? An air gap.
“Let us know if you need anything,” she said, heading for the door.
“I will.”
“I’m serious, Jon. None of that male stubbornness.”
He smiled. “Thanks, but you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
When she’d closed the door behind her, Smith sagged a bit. Too much standing in one stint.
He shuffled to the small office at the back of the house and turned on the desktop computer, holding a series of keys in order to boot to an alternate operating system.
It had been designed specifically for Covert-One—ultrasimple, ultrasecure, and completely incapable of connecting to the Internet or any other peripheral except for Covert-One–supplied USB sticks.
Despite its lack of complexity, the OS took five minutes to start up, scan for anomalies, and declare itself secure. He inserted the drive and entered his password, then went for another beer. It would take another few minutes for the processor to unravel the heavy encryption.
When he returned, he washed down a few ibuprofen and watched the progress bar crawl along. Not as effective as the OxyContin he’d been taking but a hell of a lot easier to think on.
The report finally opened and his stomach tightened when he saw that Randi was in China making contact with Kaito Yoshima. There was no question that she could hold her own against anyone on the planet, but Yoshima was particularly dangerous when he was in the mood to be. He’d been trained from infancy for this kind of work and, frankly, seemed a little mentally unbalanced.
Smith continued to scan the text on screen, discovering that the bag of radioactive debris he’d been sent to retrieve was once part of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. That explained Randi’s line of investigation. Not only was Yoshima an experienced saboteur who could pass for Japanese, but he also had a degree in physics.
The rest related mostly to the suspicious radiation levels at Reactor Four. Beyond that, there wasn’t a lot. Despite him getting shot with a crossbow, nearly drowned, and thrown in the back of a vehicle, they didn’t seem much further along than when Klein had first called.
He pulled the thumb drive and went back into the kitchen, putting it in the microwave and watching it spark on the rotisserie. A good night’s sleep. That’s what he needed. Then it would be time to get off his ass and help figure this thing out.