Halon-Seven (12 page)

With a sour grimace, he pushed his harsh concerns aside. A surreptitious glance at each face confirmed that they were both sharp and still on task. Each man wore a headset, and both had their attention focused on the computer screens before them. There was no need to make them uncomfortable, so long as they remained sharp. Scratching absently at the two days worth of steely gray stubble on his jaw, Dargo swallowed the last dregs of his cold coffee.

“Sir,” called one of the men over Dargo’s shoulder. “We have movement. Someone is in the office!” The man spoke in Russian.

“Put it on screen,” Dargo responded quietly and with little concern. It was the middle of the night and likely only the cleaning crew.

The fifty-inch LCD panel mounted on the forward bulkhead came to life, showing a video feed from a camera at the top of the yacht’s communications array. The view was monochrome, but the image was remarkably crisp and detailed, considering its focal point was nearly a mile distant. Advanced optics and software in the camera corrected for the pitch and yaw of the rocking boat. The camera’s cutting edge processor made the high-speed adjustments essential for keeping the night-vision lens in perfect focus.

“Is cleaning crew?” Dargo asked in his broken Russian-accented English.

“Negative,” one of his men answered. “They clean twice a week, and they cleaned the facility last night.”

“What happened?” Dargo continued. “I did not see a car enter the lot. Did someone arrive via the underground structure?”

“Negative,” the second operative confirmed. “There have been no unaccounted for arrivals.”

“Audio?” asked Dargo.

“Audio is up,” responded the first operative. “We’re getting the feed. Whoever is there, they are not making noise. I heard a door open right before I put the video on the main screen. Nothing since.”

Dargo didn’t care for this surprise. If he hadn’t been here to witness this first hand, he would’ve assumed his men had missed something. But that didn’t seem to be the case. He glanced at his wristwatch. He made a note of the time in his log and confirmed what he already knew: the last one to leave the office was Chad Brewster, at 18:22 hours.
So from where had this mystery guest come?

“I’ve got a face,” the second operative reported.

Dargo returned his attention to the wall-mounted screen. A man stepped from the gloomy darkness of the deserted office and approached the windows at the front of the building. He looked out over the parking lot and possibly at the bay beyond. A puzzled expression filled his face. He pulled what appeared to be a mobile phone from his pocket and held it up as if trying to get reception. Judging by the furrow of his brow, the man was not happy with the results. Dargo glanced at his own phone, sitting on the counter beside the computer keyboard. He had a full signal.

So what is the problem?

“Capture still photographs,” Dargo ordered. “Run facial recognition.”

Dargo leaned forward in his seat and studied the frozen frame of footage that was up on his computer’s display. His forehead wrinkled as he studied the monochrome image. It didn’t seem possible. He didn’t need the database to identify this man after all. What were the chances of Cyrus Cooper showing up here, after all this time?

Leaning back, Dargo scratched absently at the stubble on his jaw. His employer wanted Meridian. But nowhere in the mission brief had Cyrus Cooper been mentioned. Could his appearance be a coincidence? Dargo knew better. In intelligence circles, there was no such thing as coincidence. This would complicate things.

The second operative waved a hand in the air and set about flipping a series of switches on the control panel beside his computer screen. “I’ve got another noise,” he said as he flipped the last switch and routed the audio to the room’s surround-sound speakers. “There may be another target in the office.”

The three men listened intently, waiting for the slightest sound to come through the speakers. “Cyrus? Cyrus Cooper?” Dargo recognized the voice instantly. It was Reese Knoland. He’d been surveilling her and the rest of her team for some time.

“Over here,” a male voice sounded from the distant office. “I’m Cyrus.”

The first operative looked at Dargo and chuckled. “So much for facial recognition, sir.”

Dargo just shot the man a cold glare. Under normal circumstances, he might’ve appreciated the irony of the target literally identifying himself in such a way. But just then he was more troubled by the unexpected presence of Cyrus Cooper and what it would mean for this operation. Unfortunately, it meant he would need to contact Bayer.

Santa Barbara, California

Wednesday, 1:38 am (2:38 am Colorado Time)

It was an awkward start, but Reese had let him off the hook. Cyrus thought that said a great deal about her. The fact that Walter Meade had orchestrated the uneasy meeting said a great deal as well. He could’ve simply asked Cyrus to drop by the Santa Barbara office and meet with Reese and discuss her team. Instead he had chosen a more dramatic path. A midnight signal had drawn him to the basement of the house on his first night there. He had been led, step by step into finding the secret vault, its archive, and the message from Meade. But it was the shocking teleportation from the basement vault in Colorado to the tenth floor offices in California that had been the old man’s true intention. That was the hook. The rest would be bait, intended to galvanize his interest. He was being toyed with, like a fish on a line. Meade had coaxed him onto the teleportation platform, and he had been sent to a midnight meeting with Reese Knoland with a dramatic flourish.

He realized the old man knew him far too well. If asked, he would’ve been reluctant to accept a part in the project. Hell, based on what little he knew of the project, he could already anticipate any number of political, economic, maybe even theological challenges to the technology. But the dramatic reveal was well played. The hook so neatly set that Cyrus couldn’t turn back without knowing more.

“So,” Reese said, pulling him from his revelry. “I’d like to sit you down with the team and make introductions. Walter told me to expect you. We can get you up to speed and explain the project.”

“That sounds like a good plan.” He looked at his watch. It was going on 3:00 am—well, 2:00 am in California. The timing was awful. They couldn’t gather the research team until a more respectable hour. He could go back home, but he didn’t have a chance in hell of sleeping again before morning. Not after all that had happened. He was wired, and he had endless questions. Getting up to speed was the only way to satisfy his need to understand his circumstances. But right then, with everything swirling in his mind, thanks to Meade’s shock and awe campaign, he didn’t even know where to begin.

“I don’t suppose you’re interested in grabbing a drink, maybe a bite to eat?” Again the thought shot from his brain to his mouth before his mental filter had engaged. The comment sounded like a threadbare pickup line. He looked down at the floor, rubbed the corners of his eyes at the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. What was it about this woman?

Rather than be held back by his own embarrassment, he shook his head at his own foolishness and looked her squarely in the eye. “I’ve got a million questions. I don’t even know where to start. If I go home now, there’s zero chance I’ll get any sleep before morning.”

Her demure smile made it seem she had never considered the ambiguity of his suggestion. Maybe he was getting the wrong vibe from her. If she hadn’t considered the possibility that he found her attractive, she would never consider the potential impropriety of the statement. But that didn’t match the glint he was seeing in her eyes. The thought had occurred to her. She was just classy enough not to embarrass him.

Nice!

—————

Reese struggled not
to laugh at his latest gaffe. At least she wasn’t the only one feeling off balance at their awkward meeting. She concentrated on selecting a place where they could find dinner at the late hour. “I’m in. I know just the place. But we need to make a stop first.” She glanced down at his shoeless feet and up again, giving him a shy smile.

Cyrus followed her eye and shrugged. “What can I say? One minute I’m walking around the house in the mountains, and the next—poof! I’m lucky I have pants on!”

Now she couldn’t help but laugh. And she was pretty sure she was blushing again. The mental image was both comical…and interesting.

Dammit.
She was almost certain he knew she was blushing this time.

“Alright,” Reese said struggling with her composure. “First step, back to your place. We have to get you presentable!”

She led him back into the teleportation room. The lights once again engaged as they entered. She pulled a smartphone from her pocket and tapped a few times on the screen before stepping onto the platform.

Cyrus waited at the base of the platform.

“Well?” she asked. “Are you coming with, or are you waiting for the next car?” She always found the allusion to elevators amusing when referring to the transport platforms, given the disparity in technology.

“Ah, you mean we can go together?” he looked a little unsettled. “We won’t end up as conjoined twins or something? I remember what happened in that movie,
The Fly
. It didn’t work out too well for Jeff Goldblum!”

Her eyebrows arched at the thought. She’d worked on the project for years and had never made that connection. “Very funny. That was an entirely different technology—
and it was fiction!
” She stepped back only a few inches and waved a hand, directing him onto the platform. It would be tight, but she was good with that.

God!
she thought. This wasn’t like her. She was acting like a schoolgirl. Fine, as long as she could keep from blushing again, she would count it as a win.

Cyrus ascended the steps of the platform and stepped close in front of her. They were virtually toe-to-toe. The platform was four feet wide. They could have stood comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder. She supposed he wasn’t familiar with how the platform functioned and was reluctant to be near the edge when they teleported. He wouldn’t know that there were safeguards to prevent transport, should something on the platform break the plane of the transport barrier. She bit gently at the corner of her lip and looked up into his face. She could tell him.

Nahh!

Without looking down at the phone in her hand, she tapped the button to initiate transport. The ten-second delay started counting down.

Wait a minute.
The perimeter safety mechanism that prevented transport was one of the ideas that Walter had come back with after one of his trips to visit Cyrus. Walter said he got the idea from Cyrus. But that would mean—

She looked up into his eyes. He smiled and gave her a wink just as the lights flashed and the trip was over.

—————

Cyrus gave Reese
a coy wink, which was followed immediately by a mild flash of light. His ears popped. The trip was over. He looked around, expecting to be back in the basement vault of the house in Colorado. He was still having trouble thinking of it as his house. But he wasn’t in the basement. They were standing in an empty walk-in closet. The teleportation platform was an identical match to the one in California. Had she taken them somewhere different? No, he recognized the carpet on the floor. They were standing in the closet of one of the spare bedrooms. The closet’s light turned on when they teleported in. He saw the motion sensor over the light switch beside the door.

Stepping back to the edge of the platform, he motioned for Reese to exit first. She still looked up at him with a suspicious pinch to her eyes. He smiled, confident he was finally past his embarrassingly awkward stage with her. It seemed they had moved on to flirting. She suspected he knew of the platform’s safety protocols. It was true, he had unconfirmed suspicions. Meade had once started a discussion about strange safety procedures involving laser-based sensors. The teleportation platform seemed like a practical application for everything they had discussed. He suspected those sensors and protocols were now used to prevent a transport from initiating, while part of the payload was not entirely within the confines of the pad. Still, he wasn’t willing to bet his life—or an appendage—on those assumptions. So he had played it safe. Better for Reese to think him flirting than to have an accident. Besides, he could flirt and play it safe at the same time.

Out in the bedroom, Reese had turned on the overhead light. Cyrus walked out and smiled. “Make yourself at home. I’ll find my shoes and throw on a fresh shirt. I wasn’t expecting company.” He headed for the master bedroom across the hall, while she turned left toward the living room.

Cyrus walked through the doorway of the master bedroom and pulled his t-shirt off over his head. He tossed it on the floor beside his duffle bag. He would need to get the rest of his clothes moved over. It might be time to make a list. He would need groceries, too. Arriving with no idea what to expect from the property, it could’ve been a shack or a rustic cabin. He certainly hadn’t expected a spread like this. He could see this being home, settling in here and being comfortable, even happy. At least he had solved the mystery of Meade’s uninhibited travel. The old man must’ve been using the teleportation platforms to move between Colorado and Chicago. And between Colorado and Santa Barbara. Likely between D.C. and London as well, he reasoned.

How many of these platforms are out there?

Pulling the gun from the back of his jeans, he was going to leave it on the nightstand. After a moment, he thought better of it. He still didn’t know what he was getting into here. It wouldn’t hurt to be carrying. But he would do it right this time. Digging into the outer pocket of his duffle, he found the holster for the Springfield. He slipped the weapon into the holster and the holster into the back of his jeans. The holster had a clip that snapped over his belt and kept the rig in place. Pulling a dark, button-down shirt from his bag, he slipped it over his shoulders. Buttoning it up, he left it untucked. It would work well in hiding the handgun. After grabbing a battered pair of hiking boots, he switched off the light and headed for the living room.