Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

“Nothing for Spain?”

“Nada.”

“I saw what you just did there, hombre .”

“Had to try.”

“So, what’s he working on that he needs these uber-top-secret security clearances?”

“No idea. He was self-employed as a consultant—and you know how I feel about those guys. Mercenaries, as far as I’m concerned. Pick up some government expertise at a decent wage, then turn around and sell your contacts to the highest bidder.”

“Sounds like he used to work for our Rich Uncle.”

“Before becoming a consultant, he was with a project code-named RAPTURE.”

“What happened?”

“He resigned about a year ago. The Feds are keeping track of him, sort of.”

“He must be something special if he’s still on their radar. What’s RAPTURE all about?”

“No idea. I started tiptoeing around it and set off a few alarms. If I hadn’t VPN’d all over the place, I would have been the one who got the two a.m. visit from an NSA Q Group team instead of the dumb bastards at a fuzzy-fetish porn hub in Bucharest.”

“I don’t even want to know what that means. Just tell me you know another way to get in.”

“A project with this level of security is waiting for a guy like me to come snooping around. It’s gonna take some time if I don’t wanna get caught. They don’t serve Slim Jim Bacon Jerky in the supermax in Colorado, and you know how I love me some Slim Jims.”

“Find out what you can about RAPTURE, but don’t take any unnecessary risks. I wish I could tell you that this is all about a national security issue but I’d be lying. I’m just trying to do what’s right for a friend, and the thread just happens to be pulling on this RAPTURE thing. There’s no point in you getting into trouble over it.”

“Don’t worry about me. I love a challenge even more than I hate solitary confinement. I’ll get back to you when I find out more. Besides, if she was your friend, she was my friend, too.”

“I appreciate it. Hey, one more thing. Maybe we should pass along Runtso’s name and his death to someone over at the State Department. It’s only fair to his family.”

“I was thinking the same thing. But I’ll do it anonymously so I don’t have to face down a bunch of questions neither of us want to answer.”

“As always, you’re ahead of the curve, Mr. Biery.”

“That’s exactly what my mom always says.”

“Smart lady.”

“But a terrible cook.”

Gavin rang off and Jack pocketed his phone, the good news picking up his gait.

32

Jack finally reached his apartment building after a long and circuitous walk through the winding, narrow streets of the old city. He turned the skeleton key in the lock and pushed through the heavy wooden door.

He closed it behind him, his eyes automatically scanning the room for any signs of entry, as he was trained to do. He’d kept his head on a swivel the whole way down from Plaça de Catalunya, and despite the crowds, was fairly certain that no one had been following him.

Nothing seemed out of order as he tossed his keys onto the small kitchen table. He reached into the fridge and grabbed a clara, popping the frosty can open as he sat down at the table.

He took a long pull of the lemon beer to slake his thirst after the walk home, trying to clear his mind. Maybe Brossa was right. What good was he actually doing here? He did believe she would do everything in her power to solve the case, and besides, he had a life to get back to, and duties with The Campus to fulfill.

He flipped open the laptop, waking up the screen, and tapped in his security code to access the machine. By force of habit, he double-clicked an innocuous file folder titled “Travel Tips,” and inside that file folder tapped on another subfolder titled “Vaccinations.”

The Vaccinations folder opened up a surveillance program linked to the four miniature, motion-activated, wide-angle video cameras he had hidden around the apartment.

Jack nearly spit clara through his nose when he saw the flashing green dot in the corner of the menu bar.

According to the display, someone had been in his apartment just thirty-five minutes ago.

The split-screen window displayed all four camera images, each with its own player controls. Activating the first camera automatically activated the other three, and all four were programmed to run for sixty minutes and then shut off unless activated again.

Jack watched his front door open and a man in a white paper mask and a black Nike hat enter his place. One of the cameras on the first level was placed in a fern on the top of the kitchen cabinets for down-angle view. The other was wedged between the cushions on the couch in the living room for the up angle.

Something about the man seemed familiar. The build, certainly. A white guy, big and fit, like an operator. His movements were economical and deliberate.

But his features were mostly hidden by the mask and the ball cap. He waited for his face to turn fully toward either camera. When he did, Jack froze the image and zoomed in.

The man clearly had short hair because none was spilling out beneath his hat, but the mid-ear sideburns were blond, for sure. There were a lot of blond people in the world, so that didn’t exactly narrow things down, though not so many here in Barcelona.

Jack zoomed in farther on the eyes, just peeking over the mask.

Hazel eyes. Deep set in a square face.

Not so common.

He had a hard time remembering anyone that had them back home. The only pair of hazel eyes he’d seen in Spain that he could remember was from the other night, in the window reflection outside of L’avi, and they were also deep set in a square face.

Could this be Crooked Nose?

Had to be. There was no way to know for sure with that paper mask covering his nose and mouth but it was a fair bet, given his body type.

He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t a hostile. Why steal information when you can ask for it? And why come here unless he was connected to the bombing?

That made him BC or, if Brossa was right, some other terror organization.

What does he want from me?

Only one way to find out.

Jack let the video run to see what his old friend was up to. It only took a few moments to see that the man wasn’t paying a social call. Within minutes he had gathered up enough genetic material and fingerprint fragments to satisfy a dozen crime labs. But all of the collected biological data was only as good as the database he had access to, and the records in it, specifically, Jack’s.

Chances were, Crooked Nose would come up way short. With all of the effort exerted by others to scrub Jack’s identity from public and private records, his anonymity was virtually guaranteed.

Reassuring himself of this, Jack was suddenly cold-slapped back into reality as Crooked Nose turned from DNA collection to planting listening devices in his apartment.

Holy shit.

—

DNA and wireless listening devices?

This dude was pretty serious about getting intel on him. Even small, wireless civilian LDs were easy enough to come by—Alibaba and Amazon had plenty to choose from. These were smaller. Probably mil-spec.

What was this guy hoping to hear? Conversations with Brossa, most likely, but also any information about his identity or any organization he might be working with.

The DNA snatch was an interesting twist. On the one hand, it meant Brigada Catalan either had their own serious hacking skills, a government agency plant, or a relationship with an organization that had either of those assets.

But then again, personal information was digital gold, especially of government personnel, and millions of hackers were mining for it every day.