Surveillance (Ghost Targets Book 1) (27 page)

He laid a gentle finger on her lips, and met her eyes with a deep sadness in his. "I know," he said. "I can. But I don't have faith enough that the system will cure itself. I have to do what I can, while I can. Besides, now I have a plan. For the first time, I have a definite purpose." He looked at his handheld for a moment, thinking, and finally said absently, "I have his code. Every line of it, on this. I had to tell them it was yours to get it smuggled out of there. I'm sorry about using you like that."

"Martin, don't go. You can help me, and we'll sort out Hathor together."

"We will," he said, clapping her on the shoulder with a smile. "Don't you worry about that. I won't try to do it all on my own. For now, though—"

She was distracted by the quiet audio in her headset, Reed suddenly shouting something, quick and loud, and immediately behind it the unmistakable, thunder sound of an explosion. Her eyes grew wide, and Martin must have recognized why because he started operating the handheld furiously, and a moment later his eyes grew wide, too. "Katie," he said, "I didn't do that—"

Most of her attention was on the audio, though, and a moment later her heart started again when she heard Reed talking, "I need help here. This is Agent Reed, and I'm trapped in suspect Velez's apartment." His voice was irritated, but he didn't sound panicked. He didn't sound injured. "Some of his computer equipment was rigged, and it exploded when we tried to remove it from the premises. If any friendlies copy, I could use some immediate rescue help here." He paused for a moment, then began to repeat the same message in Spanish. Katie opened her mouth to respond to him, reached up to turn her mic back on, but Martin stopped her with one hand on her wrist and the other laying lightly on her lips, just the fingertips.

"They'll be okay," Martin said. "I had no hand in that, but it's as good a time as any for me to make my exit." He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead, gently, and said, "You're an amazing woman, Katie. I'm glad to have met you."

She tried one last time. "Don't do this, Martin."

But he only shrugged and executed some script he had prepared on his handheld. A voice in her headset announced an emergency downstairs, something in Spanish about a suspect spotted somewhere unexpected, and she heard the officer outside her door respond, and then boots slapping on the floor as he fled his post in search of a phantasmal Martin.

Meanwhile, the real one smiled down at her in her bed. "Don't bother looking for me," he said. "I have work to do. I can see that now." He took two long steps away and pulled the door open, his eyes still locked on hers, and just before he disappeared into the hall he said, "But don't worry. I'll be in touch."

A moment later, he was gone.

~

THE END

Did you love
Surveillance
? Then you should read
Expectation
by Aaron Pogue!

Eric Barnes put an end to human aging. Now he's paying for it with his life.

FBI Special Agent Katie Pratt returns to the Ghost Targets team to find herself and the rest of the team under investigation for corruption by a government agency. Katie’s relationship with Martin Door, one of the creators of the Hathor system and its surveillance of everyone and everything, leaves her especially vulnerable.

The new boss assigns Katie to a case in Boulder, Colorado to save her from ongoing interrogation, but the case quickly steals the Ghost Targets team's full attention. A scientist, violently attacked in his own lab, is in a coma.

The victim leads the research for a drug that could end human aging, extending lifespans to thousands of years. The key to the drug is locked in his slumbering brain, but even in this world where every action is recorded in Hathor, the records of the attack on him are gone. Katie must uncover the truth to protect the miracle drug and regain her own reputation.

Katie's search for answers will force her to scale a mountain of secrets and lies whose summit is the overwhelming power of human expectation.

Expectation
is the second book in the Ghost Targets series. Approximately 60,000 words.

Read more at
Aaron Pogue’s site
.