William Tyree - The Fellowship

Holding his SIG out before him, he slipped his shoes off to be as quiet as possible, and opened the French doors. He quickly cleared the living room and kitchen. He went to the main bathroom. Wet towels were on the floor, just as they had left them. The closet was empty except for an unused ironing board and the room safe.

He moved on. The bed where Seven had slept was unmade and still held the faint smell of perspiration and Chanel No. 5.

The first signs of danger materialized on the carpet in front of the bedroom where Nico had worked and slept. Two small reddish-brown splotches. Carver dropped to a knee and grazed the spots with his fingertips. It was dried and hardened, scab-like.

Bad sign.

He entered the bedroom. Nico’s bed was made. Neatly. Impeccably. No sign of his computer or the phones they had taken from the dead men in the deconsecrated church. He silently dropped to his knees and checked under the bed. Nothing but dust.

The blood trail — scant as it was — led to the bathroom, which was also fully lit. As Carver rounded the final corner, he braced himself for what he might find — Nico’s body in the bathtub, or worse. He imagined the struggle. A whack to the head. Gloved hands holding his head below hot water.

He stepped sideways slowly, silently, until the bathroom was in full view. The shower curtain was pulled back. Save for some black body hair on the side of the tub, it was empty. The bathroom floor was also clear. There was no body. He was alone in the suite.

Carver let his shooting hand fall to his side. He stepped closer, noting a few more small splotches on the white rug.

“Not much blood,” he said aloud, taking comfort in the notion. More blood than he would expect from a paper cut, but certainly less than from an execution.

The fire alarm ceased its ear-shattering clamor as he entered the bathroom. He was suddenly conscious of the sound of his own heart, his own breathing. He inhaled deeply once, then again, to calm his system.

The vanity was less tidy. Nobody had been killed here, but there was definitely enough dried blood in and around the sink to freak out the maids.

In the wastebasket, he spotted an emptied package of Band-Aids with a red travel sewing kit, no doubt delivered from room service. The handle and blade of the miniature scissors held bloody fingerprints. A tiny needle, with approximately two feet of attached thread, was coated with organic matter.

Then he saw it. Situated behind the 10-inch makeup mirror on the corner of the vanity, so that it was magnetized to several times its actual size. It had been placed there on purpose, he realized. So that he wouldn’t miss it.

A tiny, clear capsule. No larger than a grain of rice. Smooth, except for four tiny extensions jutting out of either end. Like antennae.

The RFID chip. It looked a lot like the one he had injected into Nico’s arm.

Carver holstered his gun and called Arunus Roth.

“I need a bio update on Nico Gold,” Carver said.

Roth’s tone was curt. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the extraction point?”

“Just tell me what you see.” All Carver could glean from the mission cloud was the chip’s location. Roth would be able to see Nico’s blood pressure and heart rate.

He waited a moment for Roth to return to the phone. “Judging by his pulse, I’d say he’s sleeping. What’s going on? Shouldn’t he be with you?”

Carver laughed, but not joyously. He was at once devastated and perplexed and concerned and hurt and amazed. The crazy little bastard had actually dug the chip out of his arm and sewed it back up.

How had he managed to deactivate the tentacles? How had he managed to keep up the illusion that it was still in his body? The reading back in McLean was consistent with a still-embedded chip. In a sleeping man, no less.

“Agent Carver?” Roth brought him back to reality. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine.”

“The pilot has left the extraction point. What are you going to do?”

Then Carver saw the note. It had been taped to the vanity mirror. It was handwritten. There was no salutation, and no signature. Just a few lines scrawled on hotel notepaper:

This was fun, but I couldn’t chance a trip back to the federal pen. I’m sure you’ll understand. PS — tell yer geeks to fix the java in the admin panel. That’s where I found the vulnerability.

Carver couldn’t help but smile. Nico had freed himself the only way he knew how. He had hacked his way out of this. He had located a weakness in the mission cloud code, gotten in, and somehow deactivated the chip’s tentacles. And at the same time, he had created a ghost chip signature that fooled them all.

Maybe that part shouldn’t have surprised him. Nico was the best hacker he had ever seen. But digging it out of his arm? Even though it was tiny, and had been just below the skin, it wasn't exactly a splinter.

A voice crackled in his ear. “Agent Carver?”

“Yeah, Roth. I’m still here.”

“Agent Carver, I’ve got a fix on your location. There’s a helipad on the roof of the hotel. Should I see if the pilot can circle back and pick you guys up?”

His thoughts turned back to Nico. Carver couldn’t blame him. Even if they could count on Speers’ support, going back to the U.S. still had its risks.

He had no idea how Nico was planning on getting out of Rome. But he would find a way. That much was for sure. He was nothing if not resourceful. And a head start was the least Carver could give him. He owed him that much.

But the idea of heading home alone darkened his mood. Days of debriefings awaited him, to say nothing of the domestic intelligence committee. He shuddered at the thought of how pissed the committee chair would be if he knew that Nico had been here in Rome with him.

Roth was back in his ear. “Agent Carver? The helicopter — ”

“Cut the pilot loose,” Carver finally replied.

“What? Seriously?”

“Tell Julian I’ll be in touch.”

He hung up and popped the battery out of the phone. Then he entered the living room and sat on the white leather couch. His feet were blistered and his throat was scratchy. No telling how much dust he had inhaled in the tunnels. But he would have to ignore that. He had to stay focused. He had to save his strength.

If he could get down to the street without being spotted, he would be fine. The city was full of hideouts. Its underground was as porous as Swiss cheese. He could lay low until things cooled down. Then he would go to Geneva. He had a safe deposit box there with a fake passport and a little emergency money. He figured he had earned a little time, and he was going to spend it. Not much. Ten days, maybe. Just enough time to get off the grid and recharge. He went out to the balcony, relishing the thought as he began his descent.

Epilogue

Maternity Ward

Olympia, Washington

9 Months Later

Carver stood at the front desk, waiting for the station nurse to get off the phone. He caught sight of himself in the reflection of a glass cabinet. He was in need of a shave. His suit stank of Chinese food, and the shower he had taken this morning hadn’t helped.

He had been on the road for 17 days straight without a break. All the leads had been weak, but he was in no position to ignore them. They were all he had now. He had rarely seen anyone disappear so completely.

Somewhere down the hall, some guy was yelling. “ Go hard, honey, go hard !” The woman’s rhythmic grunting reminded him of all the female tennis players on TV.

The station nurse hung up and looked up at him. The weariness in her eyes told him she’d been working a long shift. “I’ll need to see ID first.”