Page 20 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)
CHARLOTTE
I didn’t get much sleep that night.
Thoughts rattled around in my mind. The Vault mission failure. General Percy’s appearance. My demotion. Our lack of progress in identifying the dangerous mystery component in the Redburn formula. Bryce Finkley’s cruelty. Desmond’s pain over the hostage’s death.
I tossed and turned for hours before I finally drifted off, and I woke early the next morning feeling tired and cranky. Even spending some time on my yoga mat breathing, stretching, and flowing through cat, cow, tree, gate, and other poses didn’t soothe me.
I took a hot shower, then donned a sweater, cargo pants, and sneakers, all in varying shades of blue. I shrugged into my winter gear, grabbed my purse and tote bag, and left my apartment.
This morning was even colder than last night, and a few flakes of snow drifted down from the gunmetal-gray sky and stung my cheeks. Normally, I loved snow, but today it only made me harrumph in annoyance.
A few minutes later, I reached Section headquarters and veered into the cafeteria. I emerged with two cups, one of which I placed on the counter above Evelyn’s desk.
Evelyn scooped up the cup, removed the lid, and drew in a deep, appreciative breath. “Ahhh. Peppermint hot chocolate. Thank you, Charlotte.”
I toasted her with my own cup, and we both sipped our drinks, which were the perfect mix of rich, dark chocolate and sharp, sweet peppermint.
Evelyn peered at me through her glasses. “What’s the bribe for?”
I clutched a hand to my chest in mock outrage. “ Me? Try to bribe you ? Never. ”
Evelyn’s eyebrows rose in a chiding look.
“Okay, fine. I was wondering if you’d heard what Bryce Finkley accessed in the Section servers.”
She shook her head. “Nothing yet. Diego and some other techs worked on it most of the night, so we should have an answer soon.”
“And General Percy? Why do you think he really came to the D.C. station?”
Evelyn’s lips puckered in thought. “I’m not sure, but that is one of many things I intend to discover.”
I waited, but she didn’t say anything else. Evelyn and I might be friends, but she was still my boss, and she would keep information to herself until she thought I needed to know it.
“And before you ask, Percy hasn’t sussed out my real identity as Maestro yet.”
I grinned and drew an X over my heart. “I’ll never tell.”
Evelyn grinned. “I know you won’t. Now, get to work, Charlotte. That’s an order.”
I saluted her with my hot chocolate. “Yes, ma’am.”
I waved my keycard over the reader, pushed through the metal turnstile, and stepped into an elevator. I rode down to the third level and headed into the bullpen.
It wasn’t even eight o’clock, so no analysts and charmers were in their cubicles yet. I went to my own cubicle in the very back, sat down, plugged in my laptop, and got to work.
I did my usual checks on my assigned rogue paramortals, reviewing their online posts, travel histories, bank records, and more, seeing if anything important had changed overnight.
But there was no unusual activity, so I turned my attention to Henrika, reached out with my synesthesia, and studied every scrap of recent information relating to her, along with Bryce Finkley.
Despite being on the run from Section 47, Henrika maintained an active online presence, although her posts and photos were all carefully worded and cropped to show harmless things, like a meal she was eating or the outfit she was wearing, instead of giving any specific, tangible hints to her current location.
Bryce Finkley had zero online presence, other than a bare-bones website for his contracting firm, which was owned by a string of shell companies that ultimately led nowhere.
I also couldn’t find any credit cards, utilities, properties, or bank accounts in his name.
The former Section cleaner was a ghost, and he wouldn’t be found until he wanted to be found.
Thirty minutes later, I rocked back in my chair, frustrated by my lack of progress.
I released my grip on my synesthesia and massaged my throbbing temples.
Using and focusing my magic for such an extended amount of time almost always gave me a headache.
Right now, I felt like someone was jangling a tambourine in my skull, and the words failure-failure-failure jingled through my brain in a steady, depressing chorus.
I plucked the crystal mockingbird off my desk and turned it around and around, watching the facets sparkle and gleam.
An idea occurred to me, and I set the figurine down, exited the Section system, and pulled up a fresh login screen.
Instead of my name, I typed in the word Mockingbird , along with the appropriate password.
Every time I logged in to the Section system, a record was made of everything I accessed, but Mockingbird was Grandma Jane’s back door to access highly classified files.
Mockingbird was how she had kept track of the negotiations about my father’s ransom after General Percy and the other Section higher-ups had frozen her out of the briefings about the Mexico mission.
A few months ago, I’d used Mockingbird to dig up info on Desmond when he’d come to D.C., since I didn’t know who he was or what he wanted. The program had also helped me track down—and empty—Miriam Lancaster’s and Trevor Donnelly’s secret bank accounts.
My finger hovered over the Enter key. Then I let out an annoyed huff, deleted the Mockingbird password and login, and accessed the system under my usual CLocke credentials.
Grandma Jane had told me to use the Mockingbird program only in emergencies, and getting booted off the hunt for Henrika Hyde wasn’t an emergency so much as it was a blow to my pride.
Besides, Gia and Evelyn had given me access to every file on Henrika, so the Mockingbird login wouldn’t tell me anything new.
And I didn’t want the program to become a crutch I always relied on, instead of doing the work myself.
My pride as an analyst wouldn’t allow that either, so I returned to my regular methods of sleuthing.
I worked for another thirty minutes, but I still came up with nothing. I took a break to stand up and stretch and check my phone, but I didn’t have any messages from either Desmond or Gabriel. They were probably hitting the same dead ends I was.
The steady squeak-squeak-squeak of wheels sounded, and a mailroom clerk pulled an envelope out of his cart and set it on my desk. I murmured my thanks, and he nodded and pushed his cart onward.
Like many agents, I got my mail delivered to Section headquarters.
Intercepting mail was an excellent way to gather all sorts of intelligence, from how many credit cards someone used to how many sports channels they watched to how many treats they ordered for their pets.
Spoiler alert: some criminals spent more on dog treats and cat toys than I made in a month.
Plus, the fewer people who knew my home address, the safer I was. I had no desire for someone to break into my apartment and rifle through my things—or worse, try to murder me in my own kitchen.
I plopped back down into my chair and picked up the brown manila envelope.
My name was printed in a standard black font, as was the sender, a company called Seashell Imports, with a logo of a pretty scalloped clamshell with a pearl inside.
I snorted. I might be a spy, but even I couldn’t hide from junk-mailers who wanted to sell me overpriced life insurance or buy my apartment for pennies on the dollar.
But distracting myself with the junk mail would give my brain a break, so I opened the manila envelope and upended it. A thicker, smaller cream-colored envelope slipped out and landed on my desk. Weird. I frowned and picked it up.
Charlotte Locke . My name was written in beautiful black calligraphy on the cream envelope, which was made of expensive paper that was as smooth as velvet between my fingertips. The junk-mail folks were really upping their game with the fancy trappings—
I froze. My gaze locked onto my name, and I traced my right index finger along the elegant flowing script. My dread rose. I’d know those cursive loops anywhere, along with the extra, distinctive flourishes in the C and the L .
This was Henrika Hyde’s handwriting.
All the air whooshed out of my lungs, and I stared at the envelope with wide eyes.
Then my mind kicked back into gear, and I carefully laid the cream envelope on the desk.
My heart throbbed as worry flooded my body.
Had Henrika coated the envelope with some undetectable toxin the mailroom scanners had missed?
Was the poison already circulating through my system? Was I going to die sitting at my desk?
What a shitty way to go, especially for a spy.
Ten seconds passed. Twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . .
The other analysts and charmers kept typing on their keyboards and murmuring into their phones, completely oblivious to my fear and paralysis.
Even Mika in the cubicle next door was focused on her work, bobbing her head and waving her index finger in time to the classical music drifting out of her headphones as though she was conducting the orchestra herself.
Sixty seconds . . . seventy-five . . . ninety . . .
At the three-minute mark, I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead with a shaking hand. The envelope wasn’t poisoned. Otherwise, I would be dead by now.
I exhaled, steadying my nerves, then fished a box of plastic blue gloves out of a desk drawer. I yanked the gloves onto my hands so I wouldn’t further contaminate anything, then picked up the cream envelope again.
Charlotte Locke .
I tilted the envelope back and forth and let the light play across the surface, just in case a microdot or some other message was hidden in the calligraphy.
But no secrets were embedded in the black ink, so I opened the envelope and plucked out the cream-colored card inside, which also had fancy calligraphy in black ink. I read the message: