Rogue Faction Part 2: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book Three Page 15
It had been Wagner’s experience and resourcefulness that had truly saved the lives of the crash victims. In the few minutes prior to the assault on the Voss compound, Wagner had taken initiative and contacted Saul Grae, the head of King August Borden’s personal security detail. With only moments to spare, he’d sounded the alarm. Grae lost contact with Wagner immediately after, but by that point he had the last known coordinates of the downed aircraft and had scrambled two rescue helicopters and a naval cutter to the scene. It turned out that the jet had been less than two hundred miles from Kapros when it went down. It was one of several odd circumstances to which Dargo knew they owed their lives.
Conversation around the table rattled on, even though Dargo had been lost in his own thoughts for a time. But when Cyrus walked into the room, every voice at the table suddenly fell silent. With a suspicious eye, Dargo evaluated the young man as if seeing him for the first time. After everything that had happened following their last encounter, Dargo knew that some of his suspicions about him had proven true. Cyrus wasn’t who he claimed and his reason for being here wasn’t what he said. At the same time, there was no denying that they all owed him a considerable debt. Whatever his goals or motivations, he’d done them all a great service.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Cyrus said with an uncomfortable smile. He looked around the room, clearly not sure what to make of the sudden silence.
Voss rose instantly from his seat and greeted Cyrus, first with a handshake and then with a fatherly hug. “Not at all, my boy!” the man laughed. “Join us, please.”
What the hell? Dargo’s hands dropped into his lap as he watched the events unfold with renewed suspicion. Voss was a functioning introvert. Dargo couldn’t understand how he could welcome the relative newcomer with actual open arms…even after all that had happened.
Prior to sitting down at the table, Voss had only enough time for a few words with Dargo. They’d been interrupted by the appearance of Gretchen, Anna, and Natasha. Voss only explained, rather succinctly, that Cyrus was to be treated as one of their own from now on. And though Dargo urged Voss to reconsider his unwavering acceptance of the virtual stranger, Voss insisted that much had changed and that Cyrus was no longer a stranger to him.
The juxtaposition flummoxed Dargo. It was true that the young man had saved their lives, but even as he watched Voss exchange words with Cyrus, he could see that some sort of deeper connection had formed between them.
The grating scrape of a chair across the tile floor broke the low murmur of voices, and Dargo saw Natasha smiling. “I saved you a spot,” she said to Cyrus in a soft, warm voice.
When Cyrus dropped into the chair beside her, Dargo saw the couple’s eyes meet. There was a shared smile, an unmistakable spark of a connection. Dargo felt his teeth grinding as he sat silently and stared. It was another unexpected turn of events. When he’d left, Natasha was hard pressed to remain in the same room with the boy. She’d been reluctant even to treat his injuries while Gretchen was away.
Still, as he watched, Dargo saw that Natasha’s view of Cyrus—like her father’s—had shifted dramatically in his absence. It made him wonder even more about all that had happened in the short time he’d been away.
Natasha looked more healthy and alive than she had in years, Dargo decided. There was a color in her cheeks and a light in her eyes that he hadn’t seen since…
Dargo’s eyes narrowed and his pulse quickened. It wasn’t possible, he reasoned. But once the thought formed in his mind, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seized on it sooner. His fists clenched so tightly in his lap that his knuckles popped audibly in response. Slowly, he released his breath and struggled for another explanation. There was none.
Three years prior, Natasha had been attending school in the United States. She was dating an American who Dargo hadn’t cared for much at the time. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do about it and, for the first time, he realized that he actually suffered from fatherly instincts after all. After decades of watching over Natasha and pretending for himself and the rest of world that he was nothing more than her protector, he realized that he truly had a daughter.
Fighting his baser instincts, Dargo had willed himself not to interfere with Natasha’s budding romance. Yet, all the while, he had two young guards attending the university and keeping a surreptitious eye on his daughter. He hoped that Natasha’s silly teenage romance would go up in flames as was typical of so many. But as he learned through daily reports, not only was that not the case, but Natasha was spending more and more time with her new boyfriend.
In hindsight, Dargo realized he should’ve followed his instincts. But just when he thought he would have to make the hard choice and intervene, events at the school had exploded. Reports from his undercover security agents were confusing and contradictory, but things had quickly come to a head. The next thing Dargo knew, Natasha’s boyfriend was in the custody of the American FBI.
At that point Dargo took a personal interest in the situation. At Voss’s request, he flew to the United States to manage the matter. But by that point Natasha’s boyfriend had been placed into protective custody. Even though Dargo leveraged all of his professional resources, he hadn’t been able to learn anything more about the situation.
The boyfriend’s name had been Jonny Webb, Dargo now recalled. He had considered it strange, even at the time, how all information relating to Webb suddenly led to a dead end. It was as if the boy had been swallowed by a black hole, ceasing to exist entirely. But he wasn’t the only one shocked by the disappearance. Webb had disappeared from Natasha’s life just as abruptly; there one day and gone the next, seemingly never to return.
But as Dargo watched Natasha and Cyrus from across the table, he realized that Jon Webb had returned after all. He had a new name and he was now part of an entirely new set of problems that, this time around, involved the entire family. The realization explained Natasha’s utter vitriol toward Cyrus upon his arrival. Unfortunately, it also accounted for her paradoxical and sudden acceptance of his return.
One resounding question kept fighting its way to the forefront of Dargo’s mind. What had Cyrus done to ingratiate himself so fully into the hearts and minds of both Voss and Natasha? In the case of Natasha, apparently he’d saved her twice in the past forty-eight hours—though Dargo still didn’t know the full details of those events. But even with all the heroics, the acceptance Cyrus was being shown was in excess of anything Dargo had ever seen from the brilliant, introverted Doc. Certainly not since his wife’s passing. The only thing that could explain Voss’s unyielding acceptance would be—
For the second time, Dargo felt his breath catch in his throat and his teeth gnash. This time his focus narrowed on his friend at the opposite end of the long table.
Voss had used the ‘device’ on Cyrus Cooper. It was the only explanation.
Chapter 19
The streets of Rivven Rock
10:22 am
Wearing the coat of a dead man, Cyrus walked through the city park. Though he looked like any one of the other two dozen denizen enjoying the area’s carefully manicured grounds on the autumn morning, his eyes were in constant motion. He’d taken precautions in the unlikely event of a tail, but vigilance was second nature. He’d even left the compound via Natasha and Anna’s secret backdoor. After all that had happened, he couldn’t be too careful.
Satisfied, he found a quiet area that he had mostly to himself. Unslinging the pack from his shoulder, Cyrus took a seat on a park bench and placed the bag at his feet. After a quick scan of his surroundings, he fished a mobile phone from the pocket of his dark, fleece lined jacket and placed it on the bench at his side. The jacket was a posthumous gift from one of the rogue guards on Voss’s security detail. It had occurred to Cyrus, with some amusement while preparing to leave the compound, that he wasn’t at all prepared for the cold fall weather of the region. Having arrived at the stronghold without his luggage, and after spending the better part of th
e last two weeks stuck in the infirmary, he wasn’t equipped with outdoor gear appropriate for the callous weather.
Ever the pragmatist, the solution quickly resolved itself. Following the group’s breakfast that morning, Dargo’s first order of business had been to scour the living quarters belonging to the traitorous members of his team. Cyrus wished he’d had the opportunity to do as much before Dargo returned to the facility, but time had not been on his side. Just the same, Cyrus took the opportunity to find the apparel he required amidst the off duty gear belonging to Dargo’s dead agents. Once Dargo had searched the articles in question, he was content to turn them over to Cyrus.
Cyrus recalled the bitter scowl in Dargo’s stare before he left the compound via the previously unknown exit. He was clearly not satisfied with Voss’s decision to allow Cyrus autonomy. The frustration was no doubt compounded by the realization that the facility Dargo worked so hard to secure not only had a hidden access point, but a hidden stairwell that allowed access to every level of the building.
While he could understand the man’s frustration, it wasn’t his concern. Cyrus’s goal was to divine who was after Voss’s technology and find a way to stop them. In order to properly investigate, it was necessary to consider everyone a suspect. And the head of Voss’s security team had, until recently, been at the top of his list of potential perpetrators. Dargo had the training and experience required for such an undertaking, which also meant he likely had the contacts needed for such an operation. But the sabotage of Dargo’s jet went a long way toward removing him from the list. Unless he had compatriots who were using the plane crash to eliminate Dargo as a loose end. Cyrus didn’t believe in ruling anything out.
But that line of thinking really didn’t track anymore. First, there was the way Dargo looked at the Voss family. It was lost on everyone around him, but Cyrus had noticed. The man looked at the Voss’s as if they were part of his own clan—family. And, secondly, to some degree they were. Voss had confided as much to Cyrus and eliminated his need to confirm his nagging suspicion for himself. Dargo was in fact Natasha’s biological father, not Voss. A fact that both men appeared to have made peace with many years ago, since Dargo had begun in Voss’s employ when Voss separated from Onyx Gander and began working for himself.
Though he couldn’t begin to guess at the dynamic at play between Dargo and the Voss family, it was clear that Dargo harbored deep feelings for them. It was a solid dedication. He’d worked for two decades as head of security for the family and turned their home into a literal fortress.
All of this moved Dargo to the bottom of the suspect list, but it didn’t remove him from it. No one was ever removed from the suspect list, as far as Cyrus was concerned. To do so would require an absolute faith in the available intelligence. Cyrus didn’t believe in anything absolute. He’d learned early on that the key to solving any mystery, often the key to his very survival, was never to put absolute faith in anyone or anything. It was necessary to question every piece of intelligence accumulated, and question everyone’s motives at every turn.
It was no wonder there was such a high mortality rate in his line of work. If the job didn’t get you killed, emotional and psychological burnout stood a good chance of doing it in the end. For the first time in his three years with the Coalition, Cyrus knew that he wouldn’t be able to do this job indefinitely.
He didn’t see how anyone could. But, then again, Boone had. He’d survived decades doing this kind of work and was still alive and kicking. Boone was considered an anomaly, believed among many to be the very best in the game. But recent events had proven that even Boone was not infallible. Cyrus knew he’d saved his mentor’s ass on their last operation. The way he saw it, it was the least he could do. Boone taught him everything he knew. Some operations went south. Some fell apart in unique and spectacular ways. But the disappointing truth was that Boone’s ops had been a mess as of late, and Cyrus was covering for him. It was something he did without reservation, but now he did so with a heavy heart. He knew Boone’s last operation to detain Professor Richard Ragsdale had suffered heavy casualties. Most of Boone’s team had been lost. If that had happened because Cyrus wasn’t there to cover for him, then those deaths were on his hands. Boone was his friend and mentor, but once this mission was over they needed to talk about all that had happened.
Unzipping the backpack at his feet, Cyrus removed a small, thin laptop and a USB thumb drive. He plugged the drive into the computer and started the machine. The laptop booted from a special, read-only operating system that was burned into the tamperproof thumb drive. When the prompt appeared on screen, he swiped his thumb across the invisible sensor hidden at the end of the USB drive and the machine continued to boot. The thumb drive was coded to work with only his biometrics. It was also designed to boot any computer while keeping the computer’s memory independent of all other attached devices or operating systems. The process essentially turned any computer into a secure terminal that was accessible only by Cyrus. Since the thumb drive was read-only, it could not be altered or compromised. It also meant he couldn’t save data directly to the device. He would need to either download to a separate USB device, or save any data to an encrypted cloud storage location.
With a few keystrokes, Cyrus tethered the laptop’s Wi-Fi card to the cellphone and used it as an uplink to the internet. From there he launched a script that tunneled his connection through a series of random high-speed proxy servers housed at locations across the globe. The last step in the process called for a VPN connection that would link him to the Coalition network via a secure, encrypted tunnel and allow access to the central database. But something was wrong. The VPN connection failed.
With a few more keystrokes, he brought up the debug log and searched for the stage of the complicated process where things had broken down. He expected the failure to occur where his connection was relayed randomly through waypoints across the planet. It was the logical point of failure, though it didn’t happen often. Unfortunately, he found that his request for a secure connection to the Coalition network had simply been denied.
Dammit.
He grabbed the phone off the bench and tapped out a phone number from memory. It was the Red Queen’s private number; a hotline of sorts that connected her office to those of several high-ranking government officials. It would be nearly 4:40 am, eastern time in the United States, which meant the call would likely be routed to her mobile. When the phone was answer by a gravelly voice after only two rings, Cyrus knew he’d awakened his boss.
“Monica Fichtner,” her voice cracked.
“Monica, it’s Cyrus,” he said simply. “I need—”
“Mister Cooper?” she mumbled. “How did you get this number?”
“It’s the sort of thing you pay me to do,” he reminded her.
“Actually,” she snarled. “You’re paid to follow orders. Since your orders were to return to Command, you’d better have a damn good reason for calling my emergency line at…” her voice disappeared for a moment. “Jesus, Cyrus. It’s not even 5 am!”
“I wouldn’t be bothering you at all, but someone’s disabled my remote access. Since that sort of thing only happens with orders from on high, I’m talking to you.”
Cyrus kept his tone firm and calm, even if the Red Queen sounded as if she were on the verge of blowing her stack. He knew that ranting and making demands would accomplish nothing. But she was management, and it was a common misconception among all levels of management that threats and demands were what got things done.
With a deep and exasperated sigh, it was a moment before Monica continued. Apparently she was trying to take the high road. “Your mission has been scrubbed, Cyrus. Come home.”
Cyrus didn’t respond. He was unprepared for a fair and measured response from his superior. He’d expected her to either restore his network access or assert her authority and demand his immediate return to base. Once her voice took on a more reasonable cadence, he wasn’t sure how to respond.
Leaning back on the bench, the implications of the Red Queen’s statement struck Cyrus like a lightning bolt. The Coalition didn’t know Boone was alive. He’d gone to a great deal of trouble to fake his death. Either that, or someone had done a terrible job of identifying the bodies. That didn’t seem likely, even under rushed conditions.
“Cyrus? Are you there?” Monica asked.
“You said you can’t do a DNA match on the bodies?” he asked in a quiet, dry voice.
“I’m told it’s unlikely. Whatever accelerant or incendiary was used on the vehicle’s interior didn’t leave much to test. There are skeletal remains, but it’s likely that the fire burned too hot for too long. The chances of uncovering usable biological matter are slim.”
That’s how Boone would operate; no doubt about it.
“So what was found in the vehicle that made it possible to identify the victims?”
“Well, as you know, neither man was caring his real identification. But a portion of Hobbs’s cover ID was found in the vehicle. And—,” she hesitated, which was unusual coming from a woman of such robotic countenance. “Two pins were clearly visible in the remains of one of the victims. They were part of a past reconstructive operation on the victim’s knee and ankle. In one case, the serial number was plainly visible and identified the deceased as Agent Hobbs.”