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  Reese took another drink and then shook her head. “Ok, I have to admit, I read that report three times, and I’m still not sure I understand what happened there.”

  Cyrus had a glint in his eye. He was jazzed over this part of the story. “Pellagrin must’ve been a genius. Certainly a genius for building the two test platforms with the technology of the day. But to pull off what he did, it was a masterful work of espionage.”

  Taking a small sip from his bottle, Cyrus considered how best to explain this part of the story. It fascinated him. It was a shame that history would never know what Rumsfeld Pellagrin had accomplished. “Pellagrin knew he couldn’t ask the Russians for help. At the time, Tsar Nicholas II was ruling Russia. By all accounts, not their best ruler. He was cutthroat and devious. So Pellagrin used that. He had word leaked to Russian intelligence that the U.S. had just completed work on a powerful new super weapon. The weapon was being packed up in preparation for field trials and a demonstration for the Washington brass. He disassembled one of the transport platforms and mixed in enough extraneous parts to thoroughly confuse any would-be Russian scientists. The genius of the plan was leaking the hardware’s transport schedule—which included an overnight stay in a warehouse—while it waited for a connecting train bound for Washington. Sure enough, the Russians put a plan together, infiltrated American soil, and stole the so-called super weapon hardware!

  “The point being, if Pellagrin couldn’t get the Russians to let him bring the power source to the U.S. for testing, he would trick them into stealing one of the platforms and taking it to the power source.”

  “That was the part that I didn’t understand. How could Pellagrin be assured the Russians would take the platform to the same facility they were using to develop the power source?”

  “I think that was deductive reasoning on his part. The Russians had set up a secret military research facility way out in the middle of nowhere. No one was even supposed to know the place existed. The area was largely uninhabited for hundreds of years. Even to this day, it’s mostly unexplored. Only the occasional trapper ventured that far into the wilderness. It was also the most logical place for the Russian military to take the stolen hardware. They wanted their best scientists to examine the new American weapon. And the best minds were already located at that facility.”

  “I guess,” she said, clearly unconvinced.

  “Believe me, to this day, American intelligence makes bigger gambles for much smaller rewards.” He knew from bitter, first-hand experience.

  “So Pellagrin tricked the Russians into stealing one of the platforms and taking it to the same base in the Russian wilderness,” she said coaxing him to continue.

  “Right! Pellagrin must’ve been a hell of a guy. Not just an egghead in a lab coat. He actually went into the field for that operation. He crossed the Russian border entirely on his own and actually infiltrated the secret military installation. And he must’ve had confidence in the mission because he was already working undercover at the base by the time the stolen American hardware arrived. For that to happen, he would’ve left for Russia even before the information was leaked about the location of the platform. In those days, travel was a very slow process.”

  She laughed. “You sound like you really admire the guy!”

  “Yeah, I guess I do. Pellagrin made one gutsy move after another and he pulled it off. Plus, keep in mind that Pellagrin was a life-long man of science. He did a tour in the Marine Corps, but he was first and foremost a scientist. He learned to speak Russian fluently, just for that mission. The man must’ve been brilliant on many levels. But to have the guts to breach a high security Russian base like that, all on his own? That’s astounding.”

  “There’s still one part of the plan that I don’t understand,” Reese admitted. “If Pellagrin’s test of the platform was successful, he’d be teleported to his lab in the states. That would effectively leave the Russian’s with a functional platform as well as the only fuel source that could power it. If the chain reaction hadn’t destroyed the Russian lab, wouldn’t he have left them with everything they needed to claim the technology for themselves?”

  Even as Cyrus shuffled through a series of the folders he’d brought up from the basement vault, a smile was spreading across his face. “There was never any real danger of that,” he said.

  Finding the photograph he was looking for, Cyrus slid it across the table. It showed a burned out heap of melted electronic hardware. With no reference to scale and no note on the old black and white photograph, there was no way to be sure what they were looking at. “This is what happened to Pellagrin’s alpha platform,” Cyrus explained. “This is the device his team constructed and tested prior to the pair of platforms used in the Russian experiment.

  “In that final alpha test, Pellagrin learned two things. The first was that the power required to drive the platform was beyond anything at his disposal. The second was that, if Fire Star could power the platform, the device would be destroyed in the process. Whether the Russian power source was powerful enough to fuel the platform or not, he knew he had one shot at it.”

  Reese looked distinctly uncomfortable at the idea. She stared at the photograph before finally looking back at Cyrus. “So, if the test worked, Pellagrin would be teleported to his lab in the U.S. But if it didn’t, he—”

  “If it didn’t work, he and his platform would’ve been toast,” Cyrus grinned. “See what I mean? The man was hardcore. He didn’t know how to lose!”

  —————

  Reese couldn’t help but laugh. Cyrus’s energy was contagious. Maybe now was the time to ask a question that had been on her mind since the gunfight at her apartment. She searched for a tactful way to bring it up. “You were a spy, weren’t you?”

  So much for tact. She had opened her mouth and the question just dumped right out. The humor in his eyes iced over between blinks.

  He looked her in the eye for several long seconds, finally nodding his head slightly. He was clearly reluctant to talk about it. Should she just let it go? She was tempted—no need to reopen old wounds. Something about the subject was clearly painful for him. But then, given their current circumstances, wasn’t it better for her to know who he really was?

  She squirmed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” It was a useless attempt to make herself more comfortable on the hard concrete floor. It wasn’t going to happen. “It’s just that so many of the things that happened today…” she struggled to find the words. “They should’ve thrown you for a loop. They would have caught most people unprepared. But you didn’t falter. Over and over today, you just reacted. God only knows where we’d be right now if you…if you weren’t…you.”

  Cyrus was silent for a while. He nodded again, seemingly to himself. “No, it’s a fair question. And you’ve got a right to know. To be honest, I don’t like thinking about it. Talking about it is just that much harder.”

  He climbed up off the concrete floor and stretched. Several pops from his back and neck sounded twice as loud in the concrete-lined room. He pulled over a stool from the nearby counter and sat down. Taking a long pull from his beer bottle and finishing it, he set it aside.

  “I was recruited by an intelligence agency while in college. That, actually isn’t terribly unusual. The CIA likes to scoop up recruits right after graduation. I was different. I’d taken my self-imposed role as an investigative journalist for the school paper a little too seriously, and it got me into some serious trouble. It also put me on the radar of a small national security group called the Coalition. I fell for that whole ‘serve your country’ song and dance, left school, and went to work for them. I was young and naïve. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

  “Anyway…the next thing I know, I’m working some fairly routine missions all over Europe. Nothing too special. But that changed pretty quickly. It turned out I had what they referred to as a ‘unique disposition.’ After that, I was moved into deep-cover infiltration operations and was dea
ling with some real cutthroat bastards. It was really treacherous shit. But when it came down to it, we were doing good work, and it was something I could be proud of. Plus, I was good at it.” He shook his head. “Really good at it.”

  “All of that changed on my last op. Things went sideways on a monumental scale—stuff I still find hard to believe. Anyway, the entire mission was compromised, and in the end people died… Natasha died.

  “Almost as bad as what happened in the field, the Coalition brass just wanted to sweep the entire situation under the rug and pretend it never happened.”

  Cyrus looked her in the eye. His pain was impossible to hide. She could see that this heartache was rooted to his very soul.

  “Some things can’t be swept under the rug... Some things shouldn’t be. Someone had to be held accountable.” The last part was mostly mumbled to himself.

  With what she’d just heard, Reese felt her skin go cold. She was completely shocked by this moment of candor. Vague, though it might have been, she could tell it was difficult for him to share this experience. Finally she found her voice. “Was anyone ever held accountable?”

  He nodded again, a faraway look in his eyes.

  “And?”

  “When I returned to Command, I turned in my report, along with my resignation. I walked out the door and never looked back. We can’t change who we were or what we’ve done. But we do have control over who we are and what we do next.”

  She was speechless, and slowly pacing the small room. Feeling horrible, she regretted asking the question that had started the discussion. It must’ve been terrible. And she had brought it to the surface with her questions. There was more to the story—that was clear by the pained look that had settled over him. The experience was haunting him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said meekly. She was on the verge of tears. “I would’ve understood if you said you didn’t want to talk about it. You don’t owe me anything. You certainly don’t owe me any explanations.”

  He smiled. The smile was on his lips, but it was having trouble reaching his eyes. At least he was trying. “Yeah, that’s the thing. I think you’re going to need to know some of that once you read this file.”

  He was holding up a folder she hadn’t seen yet. She could feel the nervous curiosity in the pit of her stomach as she hefted the lengthy report.

  “Oh, God. Do I even want to know?”

  “You know that Meade was abducted a few years back while on a business trip in Washington, D.C.?”

  “I know that there was an attempted abduction.”

  “Ah, I see,” Cyrus said, as if this filled in a blank in his own understanding. “Well, this report explains what really happened that day. It’s the day Meade and I met.”

  Reese took the folder and started flipping through the first few pages. It was a meticulous FBI report detailing the abduction and recovery of Professor Walter Meade. She flipped back to double-check the summary at the top of the first page. It clearly stated the abduction of Walter Meade, not the attempted abduction. Why had Walter lied to her? She looked more closely at the report. It was dated almost six years earlier and written by FBI Special Agent Shaw.

  Chapter 20

  Starbucks, the Corner of 7th and H Street

  Washington DC

  Approximately Five Years Ago

  The coffee shop was busy. Coffee shops in Washington, D.C. were always busy. It didn’t seem to matter what time of day. That was alright, Cyrus Cooper enjoyed people-watching. It was a welcome distraction from his latest article for ‘The Post.’ These days he preferred to watch people rather than interact with them. Most people were far more interesting from afar anyway. He could see a face and guess at their life story, supposing at their problems of the day. If he kept his distance, he didn’t have to deal with the real-world complications of others. He’d had enough complications to last a lifetime.

  Cyrus took another sip of coffee. It wasn’t the best he’d ever had, but it was certainly among the most expensive. Why were people willing to pay top dollar for a mediocre caffeine fix? He looked back to the screen of his laptop. He was there for the free Wi-Fi. That and to watch people. But he supposed that everyone had their own justification for their visit. He continued typing, entering notes from an interview the previous afternoon with FBI Special Mindy Agent Shaw. He had contacted the FBI looking for an official comment regarding a story he was writing.

  As expected, the FBI’s official version of events differed greatly from the other independent interviews he’d conducted. At the conclusion of his interview with Agent Shaw, he had walked away with two key insights. First, the FBI would have another black eye once his story went to press. The official FBI report was so watered down by ‘the company line’ that at the end of a two-hour interview he was hard pressed to find any facts relevant to the actual story. That meant his entire trip to D.C. had been a waste of time.

  The second insight was specific to Agent Shaw. Though she’d been hamstrung with the company line, Agent Shaw was a competent young agent whose talents were being wasted in the press department. She was sharp enough to know the official story was tripe, but professional enough to deliver it with a straight face, no matter how much it galled her. He couldn’t help wondering where she would be in a few years time. Still stuck in the same meaningless post? Or would she make her mark at the FBI and move up the ladder? If there was any justice, she would find a promotion. Whichever boss had sent her to feed him their bullshit version of events certainly didn’t deserve his position.

  An awkward exchange at the service counter caught Cyrus’s attention. One of the baristas was not as smooth and practiced as the others. While two of the three behind the counter moved with a efficient grace that was borne of experience, the third was literally tripping over the others every time he moved.

  Must be a new employee.

  But that didn’t seem right. Cyrus looked closer. The other two were much younger, a college guy of nineteen or twenty, and the girl was perhaps right out of high school. They had their routines down. But the third barista was older, maybe late twenties or early thirties. He had serious eyes and chiseled features.

  The third barista finished his order, carefully marking a cup with a black sharpie before placing it just short of the pickup counter. Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and ducked through the curtain in the back wall, behind the counter.

  From his position at the back of the sitting area, Cyrus could see part of the service area behind the wall blocking the back room. The third barista quickly pulled off his apron and handed it to a pimply-faced kid along with a small wad of cash. Without a word, the man rounded the wall, strode across the shop, and headed for the front door. Cyrus watched the kid pocket the money and don the apron. The kid quickly returned to the counter and went to work.

  What the hell is going on?

  Cyrus’s eyes went to the hard-looking man who was now moving quickly. Reaching the front door, he shot a look over his shoulder in time to see the pimply-faced kid place several drinks on the pickup counter. The hard-looking man slowed his pace and watched. Cyrus looked back and saw an old man take a tall, insulated cup from the counter. The hard looking man smiled as he pushed out through the door. Then he was gone.

  Cyrus now watched with fascination. He was sure he’d just witnessed something of consequence, but he wasn’t sure what it was. The entire maneuver was smooth. If the man behind the counter had looked more the part and was a bit more graceful, Cyrus would never have noticed the exchange. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what he’d just seen. He was tempted to stop the old man and have him get a fresh cup of coffee. Something about this situation wasn’t right. But they were sitting in a coffee shop only blocks from the White House and the nation’s capital. If some kind of operation was underway, odds were good that law enforcement was somehow involved.

  Still, he wasn’t seeing any hint of law enforecement. A sense deep inside of Cyrus encouraged him to take action. Som
ething was wrong. He should do something. But he took a deep breath. He’d been fighting that inner voice for the last year. The voice had served him well in a past life, but that was a life he was determined to keep in the rearview mirror. That life had cost him dearly, and he would keep it locked away. The problem was the voice. There was a part of his brain he couldn’t turn off. He was constantly seeing things others didn’t. Like the bartender last night who was pocketing the cash from every third beer he served. Or the night manager at his hotel. The man had a glassy look in his eyes and capillary damage around the corners of his nose; he clearly made a habit of drinking on the job. Hell, even the cab driver that drove him to Starbucks had caught his eye. Cyrus had taken a quick look at the driver before getting in the cab. The end of an old revolver’s handle was sticking from between the front seats. It had only been the very edge of the pistol grip; a professional hitter would never have been careless enough to leave the gun even partially visible…clearly the cabbie was skittish about being robbed.

  There was always something going on, no matter where he looked. It was why he’d taken to people watching. He was trying to tame the voice that shouted at tiny aberrations. For his own sake, he needed to mollify the sixth sense that showed him what normal people missed. And now it was an old man with coffee. He had to remind himself that it was broad daylight and he was only blocks from the White House. It was far more likely he’d witnessed some sort of law enforcement operation. But if that were the case, why was the voice telling him that an innocent old man was in danger?

  Goddamn voice!

  Cyrus watched as the old man found a seat just two tables away. The man sat with his back to Cyrus. He set his coffee aside and placed an old leather satchel at his feet. He pulled a laptop from the bag, placed it on the table, and flipped it open. As the machine booted, the old man took his first sip of coffee. Clearly it was hot. Even from behind, Cyrus could see the old man scowl before he set the drink aside.