Strike Force by Robert Stanek Read Free Book Online

jaw clenched and her face got the pinched look of sadness. She sometimes felt pity for the sorrows she caused but remorse was something she felt rarely.
       Angry with herself for feeling anything, she let herself cry. Red eyes and puffy cheeks might help her make look more like the dead woman anyway.
       She cried for the life she should have had.
       She cried for everything that had happened to her during the long dark nights in the desert.
       She cried for the empty places in her heart.
       But, above all, she cried to get past the pain, to get past feeling anything.
       If she was going to survive, she needed to be numb. Numb like her they told her to be during those dark nights in the desert.
       She touched a tissue to her eyes, let the tissue soak up her tears and her pain. Seeing her puffy red eyes in the mirror, she smiled.
       Done sobbing, she put the tissue in her pocket. She picked up the dead woman's phone and put that in her pocket too. She'd almost forgotten the phone in her haste to do what she needed to do next.
       She looked at her watch, almost willing time to hurry toward zero hour.
       Calmly, she removed a magnetic sign from a utility cabinet that'd she'd unlocked previously. As she entered the hall, she put the sign on the door to the bathroom. "Closed for Cleaning," it read.
     

 
     
     
    Chapter 15
    Mediterranean Sea Late Afternoon, Tuesday, 19 June
     
     
     
    Scott caught the satellite phone, decided right then the Operations Commander was going to be his new best friend even if he had to part the Mediterranean to make it happen. As he stepped into the hall, he dialed into the Switchboard system--NSA's automated global operations board--and then said, "Authentication: Kilo Whiskey Bravo Tango Five Nine Seven Sierra."
       KWBT-597S was a cover code, a sort of dual-purpose self-identification and rapid auto-dial from the field to his handlers at home base. Home base being whatever station he was operating out of. He'd be connected to his handlers as soon as Switchboard authenticated him using the code and voiceprint biometrics.
       He waited, holding the heavy satellite phone to his ear, thinking either the system was running slow or no one was home on the other end. But after a long delay, he heard a male voice on the other end saying, "Authentication: Juliet Romeo Eight Five. Encrypted. Unsecure."
       JR-85 was his primary handler at the NSA, but Scott didn't need the code to recognize the voice on the other end. He pulled the phone away from his ear just long enough to note there wasn't a row of lit indicator lights on the phone. Three green lights would have indicated a fully secure, encrypted and untraceable connection. The one green light he saw meant that at best the connection was encrypted. He replied with, "Bravo Whiskey Seven Nine. Encrypted. Unsecure."
       "Scott?" the voice on the other end asked.
       "Keneke," Scott said, as he breathed a sigh of relief. If Keneke was on shift, he'd get real answers instead of "official" answers. "I hope you're settled in to your new position now because I'm calling in every favor. Every last one."
       "I've been settled in for over a year," Keneke said. "You're still in the Med, aren't you?"
       Scott frowned. "So you've heard?"
       "And then some," Keneke replied. "I'm at the Hawaii field station. You know, the aging underground facility you loathe."
       "Ah, Christmas in hell," Scott shot back. "Take down these coordinates." He read off the latitude and longitude displayed on the e-wall for the Bardot , the Shepherd and the strike group. "Reach out to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Get the satellite photography within a 100-mile radius of those coordinates for the past 24 hours and keep looking forward for unusual activity."
       "Whoa. Slow down," Keneke said. "Scott, I don't know what's happened."
       "I thought--wait. What do you mean you don't know what's happened?