Origin - Season One by Nathaniel Dean James Read Free Book Online Page B

pier. His boat was moored at the end. She was a 48-foot Sunseeker Superhawk with a navy blue and white hull.
    The boat had been his retirement present to himself and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Her name was Felicity Gail and she was sound to a fault. He had put in the hours, learning everything from navigation to engine maintenance. Eventually, even Cynthia had come to accept the boat, no small feat considering she had threatened to scuttle it herself when he first brought it home and showed her the stub in their checkbook. He had paid $115,000 for her.
    He ran an absentminded hand over the sleek fiberglass hull and thought that perhaps, when he got old enough, and his head no longer dictated to his body, he would take her out and head into the sunset. It would be a hell of a way to go.
    His daydreaming was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone, which he had thoughtlessly left on the helmsman’s seat. He climbed up the short rope ladder, walked around to the cockpit and picked it up.
    When he saw the number, he dropped the phone and jumped down the short flight of steps into the cabin. He pulled the cushion off one of the seats, opened the hatch and pulled out a laptop. When the operating system had loaded, he found the pier’s wireless network, opened the internet browser and typed motherandbabystuff.com . The web page had a pink and baby blue motif and contained a variety of prams, cots and other baby paraphernalia for sale. He clicked on one of the cribs and the screen displayed an error page to say the link had an invalid URL. Ignoring the message, he typed a sixteen-digit number on the keyboard that didn’t appear on the screen. When he pushed enter , it turned blank for several seconds, then showed a simple command interface of green alphanumeric characters against a black background. He typed another password followed by the words seek identify , hit enter again and sat back. A moment later, text began to fill up the screen.
    pass-code accepted.........
    finding proxy 1............
    connected..................
    finding proxy 2............
    connected..................
    finding proxy 3............
    connected..................
    finding proxy 4............
    connected..................
    finding proxy 5............
    connected..................
    satellite up-link..........
    starting scrambler.........
    line secure................
    dialing....................
    The voice at the other end sounded worried. “Ross?”
    “I’m here,” Gerald said. “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t use this line anymore.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Cape Cod. On the Pier. Why?”
    “I don’t have time to explain, but you need to get out of there.”
    “Why?” Ross said.
    “Because someone’s looking for you, Gerald. And I’m not talking about the cops. Three of the engineers who worked on Nova have been contacted in the last twenty-four hours.”
    “Why the fuck are they looking for me, Walter? What happened to ‘they’ll never risk it because it would be suicide’?”
    The line went silent for a moment.
    “All I can tell you is that I don’t think the hard drive I gave you has anything to do with what I was looking for. I don’t think it even belongs to the CIA.”
    Gerald’s face became a study in disbelief. “You told me no one would come looking. You promised me that!”
    “I know. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Did you get a chance to see what was on the drive?”
    “No!” Gerald said, his voice rising to a shout. “It’s ten years old! I told you, I don’t have the hardware. And it’s in my house. Cynthia’s at home, for Christ’s sake.”
    “Listen to me. I’m going to help you, but first I need you to do something. Call Cynthia. Tell her whatever you need to, just get her out of the house and as far away as possible. She needs to take the hard drive with her.”
    “You’re insane,” Gerald said. “They can have the damn thing.”
    “It might not make any difference.”
    “It