Spy Thriller: The Fourteenth Protocol: A Story of Espionage and Counter-terrorism (The Special Agent Jana Baker Book Series 1) (5 page)

8
 

“Three minutes!” came a booming voice from the speaker system overhead. The loud alarm switched to a higher frequency pulse, piercing Cade’s ears. It was like being on a nuclear submarine that had just pitched into darkness, alarm blaring, strobe lights pulsing.

Cade turned back to the monitors with his heart pounding to each pulse of light. The only thing notable in the log files was that whenever the server usage spiked, it wasn’t recovering. It was as if a new load was put on it, and it didn’t know how to relax itself. He scrambled across the logs, looking for anything. Then his eye caught a series of error codes. Finally, here was something, here was the real problem.

“Mr. Johnston!” yelled Cade, his voice cracking at first. “You need to see this.”

Johnston came running, followed by the suits. They all clamored around the cubicle.

“What cha got, boy?”

“Sir, look at this. Each cycle of excessive server usage is preceded by this block of code that’s getting executed on the server. I don’t know what that code block is, but that’s it. That’s what’s causing your problem. We just need to shut that code off.”

“Do it, boy, now.”

But no sooner had Cade reached for his mouse than a sharp hand crashed on his shoulder. It felt like cold-fingered steel, and it meant business. It was William Macy, the one he’d seen carrying a weapon.

“Don’t touch that code,” said the fingers. Johnston turned to the man and started to speak, but Macy’s hand rose to cut him off.

“Don’t touch that code.” The vise grip crunched harder into the shoulder.

Johnston stammered, “It’s gonna do an auto shutdown. It will cause a cascading failure . . .”

“Ten seconds!” the overhead speaker blurted.

But Cade saw the look on Macy’s face; it was resolute. Changing his mind would be like putting chunks of granite into a blender and expecting them to be pulverized into sand. Cade curled in pain under the vise grip. No expression.

“Mr. Johnston, I’m getting the impression he doesn’t want us to touch the code.” The attempt at levity in a very uncomfortable spot went nowhere.

“Seven seconds! Six, five, four . . .” screamed the overhead voice across the speakers. Cade didn’t know what to expect. Whatever it was, he just wanted it to end. A second or two passed, but the countdown went silent.

“Clear!” said the booming voice with the excitement of a ten-year-old on a roller coaster. “We’re clear. Job completed! The e-mail job finished! We’re clear.”

The vise grip, however, didn’t budge. Cade was still turned, staring at the man, his shoulder throbbing. Whatever it was, it was over now, and the piercing alarm and strobe lights stopped. The overhead lighting flickered back to life. The man stared at Johnston and Johnston stared back. It was an old-school matchup that Cade didn’t want to be in the middle of. Moments later, Johnston’s eyes darted down for a split second. He had conceded and knew he had to bite his tongue.

Cade winced from the pain.

“Ah, sir . . .”

Macy’s head snapped down, glaring at Cade; his eyes were angry. He released his hand and stepped into Johnston’s face. His stare was cold and unsympathetic. Johnston looked away. He was a man who had never lost at anything, and he didn’t know how to act. Macy walked away with a saunter. In his mind, he had reached into the mouth of death and had kicked its ass, again.

Cade looked at Johnston, but nothing was said. Cade stood up, slid his chair back, and walked toward the corridor and the elevators. When he turned and looked back, Johnston was already gone.

9
 

The smell of the previous night’s spilled ale wafted out of Porter Bar in Atlanta’s Little Five Points area and covered the sidewalk with its staleness. To say the closing crew hadn’t done the best job mopping up the previous night’s froth was an understatement. Porter Bar was famous for seriously dark beer. Their trademarked overfilled steins wreaked havoc on the floor’s aging wooden planks. Customers didn’t seem to mind though. In Little Five Points, the head on beer was considered a food group.

A bright reflection cascaded through the windows and onto the deep wooden tones of the bar. The bar was adorned with a smattering of half-empty beer mugs, steins, and porter glasses, the odd paper napkin, and a few plates left behind from the lunch crowd. Old-world woodwork dripped from the walls, heavy with ringed stains of cigarette smoke. The place was a virtual time capsule, as if someone in Ireland had long ago slid the narrow pub into a huge box, put it on a container ship, and floated it across the pond to Atlanta, leaving all the tables and chairs in place.

The bell over the door clinked as Waseem’s clean-shaven face leaned into the pub. New, cheap clothes draped his narrow shoulders, but it was hard to look into his coal-black eyes and make any assumptions. They betrayed nothing other than cold. Still, seeing the dark-skinned Middle Easterner walk into a place like this was reminiscent of a pigeon landing on second base at a major league baseball game—everyone stared. He was clearly out of place compared to the funky, pale-skinned, tattooed, and body-pierced crowd so at home in Little Five Points.

On weekends, Porter Bar was so filled with an array of tattoos and body piercings that token yuppies who strayed past the door would not stay for long. A clique of truly unique souls defined Little Five Points like no other place in Atlanta. It was like a tiny slice of San Francisco’s Castro district, somehow nestled in the south.

Bastian Mokolo sat at the bar wearing thick-rimmed shades. He peered at Waseem through the reflection of a large mirror emblazoned with the words “Lagunitas Maximus,” and studied Waseem’s body language. The skin on the beard area was pale in contrast to the rest of the dark features, apparently unfamiliar with the recently applied razor. To Bastian, it was a sign that Waseem was new. The new ones often wanted to keep their thick facial hair, but once they arrived in the United States, they stood out like a man in a four-buttoned suit in the middle of a livestock auction—shaving was just a matter of time.

At two p.m. on a Monday, the establishment was down to four patrons. The usual lunch crowd had left, having to return to their day jobs. Waseem paused near the entrance and leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. His emotionless face scanned the barstools and locked on Bastian who didn’t return the glance but instead studied the half inch of foam still left in his glass. Waseem walked over to him but Bastian didn’t acknowledge his presence. Instead, he held the glass up in the reflecting light, taking more notice of the translucence of the dark beer than Waseem.

Bastian said, “A damn food group, mon. Dey joke ’bout de head on beer being a food group. Like you cood slice eet and poot eet on bread,” his Jamaican accent as thick as the head on the beer.

Waseem pulled out the barstool, looking Bastian up and down. Bastian took another sip, paying no mind.

“Your ass ain’ gonna seet itself, mon. You got to guide eet down.”

As Waseem eased onto the stool, he gazed at Bastian out of the corner of his eye and then began the first scripted code phrase. “Mon looks in de abyss.”

Waseem drew a haggard breath. “There’s nothing staring back at him.”

“At dat mowment, mon finds his charactar.”

“And character is what keeps him out of the abyss.” The passcode exchange between the two confirmed their identities to one another.

The Jamaican peered over his left shoulder at two patrons seated across the long room, cigarette smoke rising from their ashtray. They paid him no attention.

“I am toold you wanna speak wit me,” said Bastian.

“You don’t look like the type of person I’d want to talk to,” said Waseem, turning his head toward the man.

Bastian’s head snapped, eye to eye with Waseem, dreadlocks bouncing.

“Don’ hand me dat double-talk crap!” he said.

Both glared at each other, sizing the other up. Suddenly, Bastian grabbed Waseem’s drab green military jacket by the lapel and dragged him down the hall, knocking over a chair at a nearby table. A man, whose back was to them, spun around, startled. Once in the men’s room, Bastian pushed the light-framed Waseem against the cold surface of the tile wall.

“YOU called me, mon,” barked Bastian. “I don’ wanna hear none of dat sheet bout you don’ truss me. In fact, why don’ you tell me who de hell YOU are.” His anger was visceral. “What de hell you got unda here, mon?” he asked, searching Waseem’s coat and clothes. “You de heet, mon! You got on a wire?”

Bastian’s hand vanished into his Rasta hippie-top shirt producing a switchblade, which flicked open with a metallic crack. He held it against Waseem’s already raw throat.

“Tell me who de hell you is, mon,” said Bastian, easing pressure off Waseem’s throat, allowing him to cough.

“You know who the hell I am,” said Waseem. “My brother Kasra knows you. He told you I was coming. He told you what I looked like. And he told you to relax, you fucking pig! Now take that damn blade off of my throat!” Waseem’s nostrils flared, eying Bastian hard. They stared at each other. Finally, Bastian backed off and slid the blade out of sight.

Waseem exhaled and said, “Let’s go for a walk, I don’t like talking inside a closed space like this.”

The two meandered back past the bar, and a few glances followed them outside. They crossed McLendon Avenue, cut down a side street, and walked behind a couple of theatre buildings. Having reached the baseball fields, Bastian headed through the dugout and onto the field towards the pitcher’s mound.

He looked in all directions. Just as he suspected, the area was deserted. The lone exception was a female seated in the far distance who shifted her wavy hair in the breeze. As Bastian looked away, she removed the bag from across her shoulder and placed it on the ground where she had spread out a small blanket. The thermos and Tupperware added to the appearance of just a woman on a short lunch break. She removed a particularly expensive laser microphone built for eavesdropping from the bag and extended the small, attached tripod. Her camera had a large lens, but at two hundred yards, she would draw no attention from the men.

10
             
 

Cal took his time as he made his way to Kennestone Hospital. There wasn’t much traffic, and he liked driving the back roads in Marietta where the town square was a throwback to another era. It had been burned to the ground during the Civil War, with the exception of the corner hotel. The hotel owner had acted as a spy for the Union. General Sherman spared the hotel from the fires. But, after he left, the townspeople burned that one down themselves. The Marietta Square boasted a large green space in the center, which made for a great little park. The surrounding buildings were mostly filled with small businesses, a sign of a good economy. Nothing on the square stood taller than two stories, and history was evident with mismatched brick adjoining one building to the next. The sides of buildings still evidenced old hand-painted advertisements for RC Cola, something of a sacrilege this close to Atlanta where Coca-Cola is consumed as if it were a life-sustaining sustenance.

Cal came to the square more often than he cared to admit. He hadn’t spent much time around the square until these doctor visits started becoming a thing of regularity. The Strand Theatre had stood proudly on the corner since the 1930s. Apparently, the first flicker show ever played here was a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical. Cal parked on the street in front of the theatre and sat with his hands on the steering wheel. He thought back thirty years to when he had taken a cute girl named Susan Felker on their first date. The theatre hadn’t changed a bit. It had been remodeled, perhaps, but in the true spirit of the history of the place, it looked the same.

Cal opened the car door and walked to the heavy glass doors. The door handles dripped with ornate brass. Cal knew without looking that they were the same door handles he had pulled open for Susan on that night. For just a moment, he smelled the perfume she wore. To his surprise, the door was unlocked. He walked inside, taking in the vivid red carpet, the heavy columns in the lobby, and the sight of that same glass concession counter being stocked with candy for tonight’s show.

“Help you?” came a voice from behind the counter.

The young man was dressed in candy-striper red and white, complete with bow tie and hat. It was all circa 1960. He paused a moment and blinked his eyes because standing behind the counter was actually a young man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Cal’s daydream of that night long ago had ended.

He snapped back into reality and said, “No. Sorry, mind if I take a look inside?”

The man glanced at him as if to find a reason to say no, but couldn’t. “Help yourself,” said the man, too busy to worry about it, and too polite to say no.

Cal pushed his way through the double doors into the theatre. A grand sight it was, and bigger than he remembered. The Strand had seating for at least a thousand if you included the grand balcony above. The seats were more modern now, but the charm of the place oozed from the velvet red walls. Down the center and to his right were the seats they sat in that night. That was when Cal had become intoxicated with feelings for Susan. He was a goner from then on.

His head drooped as he considered everything that had happened since that night so many years ago. His sobbing was low, quiet, personal. There were so many memories, so many joys, and so many mistakes. Not realizing he had been standing there several minutes, a soft hand touched his shoulder.

“Sir, is everything all right?” It was the young man.

“What, huh?” Cal’s embarrassment was not necessary as the young man’s voice was soft and carried an understanding that said “whatever is going on, this person needs to be here at this moment.”

“Ah, ahem, no, I’m fine. Really, I appreciate it. Just wanted to take a look at the place, you know, for old time’s sake.”

“Yes, sir, it’s fine. Sir, you don’t need to leave or anything. Just take your time.”

But the moment had broken. Cal knew what he had to do.

He looked at the young man through tear-filled eyes, “Thank you, son,” and then headed out to what he knew would be bad news.