part0106

W ell, Jessica was a professional anyway. Even in his first mission when he’d dragged her into his shadowy world of corporate backstabbing, she had quickly adjusted to the situation. After a short time spent freaking out about professional assassins trying to kill her—as anyone would—she had adapted quickly and even helped him when he needed extra bodies on the job.

Savage for his part, had bad memories about how professional he really was when she was involved. Their last encounter had been at a meeting he felt he had stuttered his way through and looked like a complete dumbass. He was sure it wasn't as bad as he felt it was, but it felt seriously damn bad. There were a few social situations he was good at and others where he wasn't quite so good.

In a less preoccupied moment, he might have stopped to consider the thought that there was probably something telling about the fact that the social situations he was comfortable with involved mostly people whom he didn't know very well, if at all.

But now was not the time for introspection. He needed to get his game face on and see if it held through this meeting with Jessica, who was already waiting for him in town when his plane touched down in a small private Portland airport. Anja had told him that they would meet for coffee at a shop inside the city. The situation being what it was—around Jessica this time, not him—there apparently did need to be some anonymity regarding where they met.

A car was waiting for him at the airstrip too. Monroe really wanted this mission done, no matter the cost. He could understand why she needed it. People constantly looked to her for guidance. Stock sales were coming up, and they needed to present a show of strength to power through the repairs to all the damage Carlson’s arrest and imprisonment—and inevitably, his death throes—had caused to Pegasus. Strong leadership would increase both the prices and the trust her shareholders had in her.

Which meant she would give him any resources she could get her hands on as long as he accomplished the mission as quickly as possible.

He slid into the electric BMW that waited for him and drove the annoyingly quiet vehicle into the city past what he supposed counted as a beautiful forest on the way in. Oregon was usually annoyingly cloudy at this time of year, but they apparently had a few rather sunny days ahead of them.

He wasn't a stranger to the city, yet he still needed the help from the GPS Anja had already programmed to find his way to the coffee shop where Jessica was supposed to wait. Savage wasn’t sure if she had chosen it for any particular reason, but he still paused and waited in his car for a few minutes to make sure there weren't any signs that she was being surveilled. Gone were the times when someone in a van with binoculars and a parabolic mic would hang around, but he had to make sure.

Not only that, but he also needed to trust that Anja would make sure no one was watching them in the ways more traditional to the age of information.

"Do you have anything on your radar, Anja?" he asked. "And before you say it, yes, I know that you're not actually using a radar. It's merely an expression."

"I wasn't going to bitch about that," she lied and chuckled sheepishly. "But I don’t see any taps on any of the nearby cameras that you should worry about. Well, none more than the usual. NSA, FBI, and their other alphabet friends have a couple of taps in the area, but I don’t see anything directed at you or Jessica."

"Fantastic." He stepped out of the vehicle and locked it before he strode into the coffee shop.

There were enough people inside that made two people meeting for something to drink in the early afternoon inconspicuous. He scanned the room quickly while he ordered something to drink—something that would last them a while since he wanted to be around for as long as was necessary without attracting attention.

Jessica sat in the rear of the shop as if she tried to not be seen by anyone who walked in. He scowled and collected his drink. She looked around when she heard his name called. There obviously weren’t too many people called Jeremiah walking around Portland these days, he assumed.

He smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder for a moment before he took his place across from her in the booth she'd chosen.

"For future reference, you might find it's better to position yourself in a position that has a better view of the whole shop and easy access to a couple of available exits," Savage said and kept his voice low and pleasant.

"I'm sorry," she replied and toyed nervously with her long brown locks. "I'm not used to being in this kind of situation. Anja told me there are bugs in my hotel room, so I'm trying to be as paranoid as possible."

"I get that," he replied and sipped his overly sweet coffee. "And your instincts are right. But the chances are that if they come into the coffee shop, they already know you're here anyway so the priority becomes identifying threats and escaping them as quickly as possible. It’s merely some constructive criticism is all."

She nodded and now tapped nervous fingers on her mug of tea. "I appreciate it. And it's nice to see you again, Jer."

"You too, Jes," he replied with a small smile. "It's not actually been that long since we last saw each other, though."

"So," she said after a slow sip of her beverage. "In the effort to avoid any awkwardness, shall we get into the meat of what you're here for?"

"I don't know what awkwardness you're talking about, but I'm ready to move on if you are," he said with a grin.

Jessica chuckled and rolled her eyes playfully. "Well, I'm glad there's no awkwardness. Anyway, shall we talk about the lab?"

He nodded, and she withdrew a laptop from her bag and showed him what she had worked on since she had left Philadelphia. He assumed, anyway, as he honestly had no idea how much work she had done in the weeks it had taken him to recover from his little song and dance with Banks.

Savage studied the pictures first. The facility was smaller than the labs he was usually involved in raiding, and he noted that there were actually buildings surrounding the lab.

"It doesn't look like they put any effort into isolating it," he said and narrowed his eyes. "Is that safe? Legal, even? Aren't there codes in place to keep precisely that from happening?"

"Well, they're pushing new codes through the regional lawmakers' offices that will make sure any labs handling stuff from the Zoo need to maintain certain standards," she replied. "Believe me, I asked the same question. Either way, until they come through sometime in the next decade, it's perfectly legal as long as they stick to the codes already in place. It's not in the city proper, where the codes are stricter, so they're barely straddling the line of legality to keep themselves in business, which is why there are inspectors going in and out of there every other week. And they were happy to show that they complied with the local regulations until the pictures of the stolen items came out. Since the inspections are actually voluntary on the part of the lab, they closed the place off."

"Who thought of that?" It seemed to defeat the purpose of having inspectors in the first place.

"Probably lawmakers talking to lobbyists who work for the companies that don't want to be inspected regularly," she said. "But that's neither here nor there. The point is that as soon as they heard that we had identified them and the items, they sealed their facility to unannounced visitors and began to quietly upgrade their security to keep anyone from trying to do precisely what you want to do."

"Fun times," Savage said and glowered suspiciously at his coffee. He'd ordered something off the overhead menu and now regretted it. It honestly was way too sweet for his tastes. He would need to talk to the barista.

Either that or simply sit and sip it gingerly like most people did and never come back here again.

"Anyway, Courtney thinks that since they’ve gone through that much effort to keep their stolen items, they are probably leftovers from what Carlson tried to do when he was still in charge of the resistance against the new leadership. Either way, she wants you to get in, get a few pictures—the kind you would only get if you were working there—and get out before anyone notices you're in there."

"I understand what I need to do," he responded and recalled his chat with Monroe on the plane. "I have a hard time deciding how I'll get in, though, if they're upgrading their security."

"Oh, that's actually easier than anticipated." She pulled up schematics that could not have been acquired legally. "It seems like all the money they invested recently has gone into electronic security measures, working from the inside out. They're still hiring from an outside security company to get the people who are actually there in person."

"And that's where I come in," Anja interjected over their earpieces. "I've worked on getting you hired by the company in question to let you step into the lab as a security guard. It's a little more complicated than I thought it would be. I'll keep you guys updated on my progress."

"I appreciate it, Anja," Jessica said, her head tilted although she did manage to resist the urge to press her finger to her ear to hear the Russian a little better. "Anyway the outside security company does seem to be a weak point in their defenses. It's only a matter of time until they have money to upgrade that too, so we need to act on it now."

"Well, that explains the time constraint," he noted.

"Yes." She chuckled. "But anyway, that is our way in."

"It looks like they've used smaller and smaller facilities to keep us off their scent," the hacker added and sounded unhappy about the development. "These people are really determined to maintain their research. We no sooner close one place and another one appears in a couple of days. It's like they want something in particular and won't let anyone else stop them before they have whatever it is."

"How do you know about that?" he asked.

"It’s mostly only assumptions based on available evidence," she said. "There's plenty of evidence, though."

"Don't worry, Anja," he said softly, finished his coffee, and winced. "Your assumptions have brought us through enough hard times to earn our trust."

"I appreciate that, Jer," she said but sounded a little uncomfortable with the positive reinforcement. "Anyway, again, I'll let you know when I make any progress on the job front."

"You know how badly I need this job," he said with a chuckle. "I'm done with my coffee, and your tea is cold. Do you want to take a walk outside?"

"We're a couple of weeks away from winter starting in earnest," Jessica pointed out. "It's forty degrees out."

"A nice, brisk walk will be good for us," he said with a nod. "Besides, it's always good to stay on the move when people are trying to keep tabs on you. If you simply stay in one location, they can easily zero in on you. Change what you do and keep them guessing."

"You merely want to get out of here, don't you?" she asked.

Savage shrugged. "Honestly? I can't say I'm a fan of the environment. But I do like staying on the move. And taking brisk walks."

"Fine," she agreed reluctantly. "But I'll warn you right now that I'm as cold-blooded as fuck and we'll duck into another coffee shop before too long."

"I'm okay with that," he said. "But no more...caramel lattes. I’ll go with black and maybe a little Irish. That stuff is still coating the inside of mouth."

"You obviously don't have a sweet tooth," Anja said as they shrugged into their coats. "Unlike me, of course. I kind of need the sugar to keep me going, as well as the caffeine. Nothing is better than combining the two."

"I'll bet your heart disagrees," he grumbled and stepped out into the chilly afternoon.

"My heart is what wants all the sugar," she retorted.

"No, I mean your literal heart. Research indicates that sugar-filled beverages cause high blood pressure, among other things."

"Psh, don't sully my love with facts." She laughed.

Jessica shook her head. "I’ve missed listening in on you two bantering."

He smiled. "I guess we have missed having you around too. I still remember when it was only the three of us, running around the city and trying to make it work."

"It feels like a long time ago," she said. "But yes, I do miss it, I guess. Maybe not the shooting and the ducking and trying not to die but being in the middle of it with the two of you? Definitely."

"Well, yeah, I guess no one misses being target practice," he concurred. "Even if you do shoot back. But then you look back at the whole thing a couple of days later and all you remember is the adrenaline and you kind of want it again."

"Well, I guess that is why you wanted to keep doing this job of yours," she pointed out with a slight edge to her voice. "At the expense of being with your family. At the expense of being with someone who you care about."

Savage looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "It sounds like you have something you want to say."

She shrugged. "Nothing that hasn't already been said. We wanted to be together and then we didn't. Something drew us apart long before I decided to start working for Courtney full time. You would never stop being this...savage you so desperately need to be."

"It's not that I want to be this," he protested. "It's more along the lines of...not really knowing what else I can be. It's been a part of my identity for so long that I don't know what else I can be. I can’t even remember what I might have wanted before I was Savage or before I was even in the army and the government decided to invest a couple of million dollars to turn me into the kind of killer they needed me to be."

Jessica turned to face him and place her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I never realized."

He shook his head. "There’s no need to apologize. It's only...like, even when they decided I needed to die to, I spent weeks in physical therapy thinking about what I could do with my life. I had a fresh start and a healthy bank balance. What would I choose to be? An investment banker? Would I buy my own bar? Paint?"

"In fairness, I'm reasonably sure you would have been an awful painter, anyway," Anja pointed out.

"I'm a killer," he said and decided to simply state his point. "There is no way to change that and no way to avoid it. Doing something else would simply deny my true nature. I could join a security company, but that would only be a tamer version of what I did before. This way, I at least know I'm working with someone who cares about the folks in the field. I trust Anderson. I trust Monroe—to an extent, anyway. They seem like they have good intentions. If it means I have to be a killer to save lives...well, it's a sacrifice I told myself that I would make anyway. I might as well stick to it."

Jessica nodded and squeezed his shoulder. "Well, as explanations go, I guess that's a damn good one. I'm sorry I pushed you into it, though."

He smiled and rested his hand over hers. "It's okay. I guess I needed to say it loud and get it out there."

"Well, now that all the mushy stuff is over with," Anja interjected as the silence threatened to draw on, “I guess we can get started on breaking into the lab, right?"