Page 83 of Agency

“What else could it be?”

“Locations for some dead drops, maybe?” I asked, eyes going to Ambyr. “You’d need GPS within a meter or so to locate a buried cache in the wilds. If he bailed after our shootout, he probably lost ninety percent of his equipment.”

“That was my guess,” Ambyr said. “But I never used anything like this on my Agency contracts before. Besides, I’m not really seeing any locations anywhere. This is a newer model than I’ve ever used, though.”

“Here,” I said, beckoning with an open hand. “Let me take a look. Jericho’s all thumbs with technology.”

“What about me?” Andrew asked as she handed over the GPS device.

“You have thumbs?” Jericho asked, voice deadpan. “Look, if we need you to smash a coconut with your forehead, we’ll let you know.”

The nav device was definitely higher end than a civilian model, and was complete with a rugged display and elongated antenna–even using the same L2 band as the US military. This was definitely the kind of thing you’d drop with an operator on the Afghani side of the Duran Line, before slapping them on the ass and telling them to have a good trip into Pakistan. Seriously high quality, and more advanced than what we’d used while serving.

But still not so much more advanced that I couldn’t muddle my way through.

I brought up some menus and scrolled through them, quickly found settings that displayed what looked like pre-loaded waypoints and destinations. I popped the filter on, and about two dozen dots appeared around the continental United States. One of them was even located close by, and in the general vicinity. Within a few hundred meters, at least. Clicking on the blue dot to see what the exact coordinates were, a little caption tag popped up.

“X-2418,” I mumbled, zooming in.

“What was that?” Ambyr asked, the slightest of trembles to her voice.

“Name of the cache. X-2418.”

Ambyr sucked in a sharp breath.

I glanced from the screen to Ambyr. Her face was white. Not pale, like normal. But sheet white, like she’d been shot right alongside Joergensen and was currently bleeding out right in front of us. She took the device from me.

“No,” she said, looking over the screen for a moment. “No, it’s not.” She scrolled and panned, before lowering the screen and looking around the area like a prairie dog popping out from a hole. Not the sexiest comparison, I know. But, still adorable, even if she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“What’re you talking about? Says it right there.”

“I mean, that’s not the name of a cache.” Something like dread had begun to fill her voice.

Andrew got my attention away from her, though, and I went back to work on Joergensen, looping the rope around his tarped ankles.

“What is it then?” Jericho asked.

“It’s my agent designation,” she said, voice flat. “How far away is the cabin from here?”

“Two-twenty-five meters, as the crow flies,” I said with zero hesitation as I looked back to her.

Ambyr glanced to Jericho and Andrew for confirmation.

“Dude graduated sniper school,” Andrew said, not glancing up from helping me with Joergensen. “He might be bullshitting a little, but he’s probably really close.”

“I’ll defer to Morgan’s authority,” Jericho said as I returned to my work. “He’s uncanny.”

“Why?” I asked, between grunts of exertion as, now that Joergensen was wrapped tight, we lifted his feet and began to direct him towards the burial pit.

“Because, that dot you saw, my dot, is back at the cabin.”

“Okay,” Jericho said. “So, they used your designation as a target mark. Joergensen seemed to have an idea of where you were. So what?”

Furrowing my brow, I looked to Ambyr. Her own brow furrowed, she was now manipulating the screen.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?” Jericho asked, leaning in closer to the device. “Chicago?”

“Checking something.” The color drained from her face. “Chicago is where Joergensen was supposed to be before all this.”