Origins (Remote) by Eric Drouant Read Free Book Online

solid clunk somewhere outside. He got up and looked out the kitchen window, seeing nothing but the darkness of the backyard broken by a porch light mounted on the rear of his neighbor’s house. He moved into the front room, past the ticking clock, and tipped open the curtains covering the front window. A dog barked somewhere down the block. The sound sent a tingle down his back. For some reason he thought of Cassie, felt a sudden apprehension. He returned to the kitchen, opened the back door, listening. The dog barked again.
    He felt a strong urge to go back inside and get in bed. Something was telling him that he didn’t want to go outside. Fighting the instinct to flee Ronnie stepped into the night. The pavement felt cool under his feet. His father had built a patio on the rear of the house. Ronnie remembered helping, manhandling half full wheelbarrows of cement while his father walked alongside. He stepped to the edge of the house where the carport was in even deeper blackness. His eyes adjusted somewhat to the light and he walked along the wall by his mother’s car till he reached the driveway. Stopped and listened again. The night was quiet. He turned to go back inside.
    As he turned he caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, somewhere down the street. A car was parked two houses down. Someone in it was lighting a cigarette. For the brief moment the match flared he saw two figures. Inside the house his mother’s clock chimed the half hour. Eleven thirty at night and a car with two men was sitting on his street, two houses down. Two men sitting, waiting for what? His mind flashed on Cassie again. He slipped to his knees and low crawled to the end of the porch. His mother had planted a low line of bushes across the front of the porch, providing a deep shadow. He stayed in it, settled himself in and waited. Half an hour later his mother’s clock chimed midnight and the car was still there. By the time it chimed the half hour again he was getting tired, fighting to keep his eyes open, when the headlights flared up. The car moved slowly past his house. He couldn’t see inside but he knew they were watching as the purring sound of the engine slipped away. He went back inside but it was a long time before sleep found him.
     
    “I’m not sure what you think I can do for you, Colonel Breed,” Archer said.
    “You have assets in theater, correct?” said the Colonel. He was sitting in front of Archer’s desk. His posture was ramrod straight. An Air Force officer, one of a cadre of military personnel that sometimes came to Archer for help. Most of the time Archer was unable to assist, and told them so politely. The myth that he had a finger in every pie, even the low level ones, was pervasive in this crowd. The truth was Archer rarely involved himself in anything but high level intelligence gathering. The mundane aspects of war he had left behind when he retired from the military. Still, old friends were old friends and this man had been sent here on behalf of one Archer’s oldest. The least he could do was listen.
    “Well of course, but we don’t have eyes and ears everywhere,” Archer said. “Our resources tend to run a little higher than ground level and from what I understand this is a ground level problem.”
    “Yes, on the face of it. But it’s a little more complex than that.” Breed leaned across the table. “You see, this pilot was involved in some very important war gaming . A couple of times a year we do exercises, mostly on paper, that involve strategic planning against Soviet air systems. We bring in some of the men who will be doing the actual operations, the pilots themselves. They’re kind of randomly chosen. This particular pilot was one of those randomly chosen men.”
    “And?” Archer said.
    “In order for them to give us feedback they have to know some things. Our strategy for one thing, our assessment of the enemy, our understanding of their tactics, those kinds of things.