Page 33 of Delta (Alpha #12)

I see the doubt on his face, hear the hesitancy in his voice.

"Rush, listen to me." I set my fork down and take his other hand in mine, pivoting on the bench to face him more directly.

"I forgive you. Okay? Maybe no one else on the planet will ever understand why, but I do.

What you did was not done maliciously. You're not a bad man.

You're a good man in a bad situation faced with no good choices.

You did a bad thing for a good reason. When I say I have a mercurial temperament, I mean I get angry fast, but I let it go just as fast. My anger burns hot and intense, but it cools off in equal proportion.

When I'm happy, I’m over the fucking moon.

When I'm sad, it's like the world is ending.

When I'm horny, I could fuck all day and all night and never get enough.

So yeah, I was shocked and hurt and angry when you told me the truth.

But Rush, the important thing is that you didn't follow through—you saved me.

You fought for me, as you have since the moment I met you, regardless of your original intentions. And you did tell me the truth."

His eyes drop, full of intense emotion he's visibly uncomfortable with. "Bryn, I…fuck me, mate. I've no clue what to say. I'm not good with emotions."

"I know, and that's okay." I see a figure enter the cafe and scan the patrons as if looking for someone.

"I think that's our guy, so we'll pick this up later.

But Rush, just keep being honest with me.

Good, bad, ugly, or weird, just be truthful with me.

I'm an open-minded and generally understanding sort of girl. "

The figure is a tall, whipcord Black man, built lean and of middle age, wearing fitted khakis and a red polo with impeccably clean vintage Jordan 1s, mid-height in red and black—Killy is a sneakerhead, and I've developed the bug myself.

His wary, restless gaze stops on me, and I see recognition flare in his eyes.

He beelines for us and settles in the booth opposite Rush and me.

"Bryn Harris?" He's American, his accent vaguely and broadly Midwestern.

I extend my hand to his and we shake. "Yes. This is Rush." I indicate him with a jerk of my head.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Alexander Ludwig. I'm a friend of Lear Winter." He withdraws his hand from mine, shakes Rush's, and then immediately squirts sanitizer on his hands from a spray bottle produced from his pocket. "So. I hear you have an unwelcome bug hitching a ride."

"I don't know for sure, as in I don't have any evidence other than the fact that the bad guys keep showing up wherever I go," I say, "and trust me when I say the two of us know how to lose pursuit."

Alexander nods. "I believe you. Finish your meal and come with me."

Rush and I hurriedly scarf down the rest of our food, Rush tosses a handful of euros on the table, and we accompany Alexander out of the cafe.

He leads us on foot away from Almirante Reis—our route is squirrelly and indirect, doubling back and circling the same block more than once, before he seems content that we're not being followed at this exact moment.

They're probably confident knowing my location and don't see a point in wasting resources following me in person.

Alexander finally leads us in a direct line to a narrow side street, where a small white van is parked in a line with other vehicles.

He unlocks the rear doors with a key, opens them, and ushers us in.

Within is a mobile computer lab Uncle Lear would be jealous of.

Taking a seat on a rolling stool, he indicates a small bench at the back near the doors.

"Sit, sit. Give me a few minutes to get things going.”

He boots up a myriad of computers, spends minutes typing on one and then another, and then rummages in a cabinet along the roofline and produces a handheld device that wouldn't be out of place on a Star Trek set.

He spends minutes more fiddling with that device, connecting it to a computer and doing more…

things. I don't know what—I'm great with a cell phone, okay with computers, and hopeless with anything more complex than an app. This is far beyond my meager skills.

Eventually things seem ready, and he unplugs the device and rolls over to me. "Arms out and hold still."

I hold my arms out at my sides while he waves the device around my head, over my shoulders, along my arms, and down one side and the other, over my lap, my legs, my feet—he even has me stand hunched so he can scan my butt and the backs of my thighs and my back and my crotch.

The first circuit produces nothing I can identify as a hit of any kind; he fiddles with the wand's settings and scans my body again. This time, it emits a quiet beep when it passes over my left side, up near my armpit and side-boob area.

"Ah, there we are.” Alexander adjusts the settings again and scans the area repeatedly, scans the rest of my body again, and then goes back to where it produced the beeping. "Gotcha, fuckers."

"So now you take it out?" I ask.

Alexander tips his head to one side. "I mean, I could. But that's a medical procedure and I'm a computer engineer. I could try to dig it out with a pocketknife and some isopropyl."

I blink at him. "Or?"

He grins. “Or, we leave it in place and fuck with them."

“That sounds less painful," I say. "Fuck with them how?"

"Like this," he says, and proceeds to spend the next thirty minutes typing at machine gun speed on one computer and another. After hitting the "Enter" key with a dramatic flourish, he grins at me. "There. Take that shit, motherfuckers."

I blink at him again. "Wow. Fascinating. You typed a lot."

He chuckles. "I did indeed type a lot. What it amounts to is I wrote code and uploaded it to the chip inside you.

So now, instead of sending your location, it cycles through locations at random.

" He indicates a screen that shows a flat Mercator projection of the Earth, with a blinking dot somewhere in Africa.

"Right now, it's showing you in Djibouti.

In about thirty seconds…" He stares at his vintage wristwatch, pointer finger extended; he points at the screen.

"Now you're in Moscow." The dot blinks in Russia.

"Every thirty seconds, it'll show you somewhere else.

But not static, oh no. It'll show you moving as if you're walking around or driving a car. "

"So it's not, like, bad for me to have that thing inside me?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Nah. It'd do more harm than good to take it out, in this setting at least. And now they're gonna be confused."

Rush pats my thigh. “I’ve got a couple rounds stuck in me, still. Never notice them except going through a metal detector."

I frown at him. "A couple rounds?"

He shrugs. "Sure." He reaches around and pats his back near his left lat muscle.

"Took one at an angle off a ricochet, went in and stuck near my spine.

Doesn't hurt me or cause any issues, and it's too risky to take out, being as close to my spine as it is.

A quarter of a millimeter and I'd be paraplegic." He taps his belly, next. "Got another one in me innards, close enough to major organs that it’s not worth the risk to remove since it’s not doing much but floatin’ about inside me. "

Alexander eyes Rush. "Sounds like you've had some luck, friend."

Rush nods. "Guess so, yeah. Never been one to play the lottery, but maybe I should, ey?"

Alexander shakes his head. “I wouldn't. You might use up all your luck, and the next one won't miss."

Rush snorts. "Not sure if you're jokin' or not, mate."

Alexander shrugs. "Why take the chance?" He shuts down the various machines. "Sit tight. We're moving."

"Moving?" I ask.

"Yeah, well, this is your last known location, right? Letting you get out and walk away from here is rank idiocy, and none of us are rookies. So yeah, sit tight and I'll drop you guys off somewhere else."

He squeezes through a narrow gap to the driver's seat and then we're moving. There are no windows back here, but we make roughly a hundred and twenty different turns, so I'm guessing we take another long, circuitous route across the city.

"Fancy bit of work, that," Rush says, indicating me with a jut of his chin.

"If he's a friend of Uncle Lear's, then that's probably child's play for him," I say.

Eventually, Alexander pulls over, parks the van, but leaves it idling. He wiggles back to us. "Either of you have a cell on you?"

Rush digs the burner we just bought out of his hip pocket. "Cheapo burner we just bought here in Lisbon."

Alexander takes it, shakes his head, and produces a Faraday bag from a drawer.

“Trackable." He rummages in a cabinet and comes back with a different Faraday bag, which has a newer model smartphone inside it.

"This is not. I wiped the software completely and programmed a totally bespoke operating system.

End-to-end messaging encryption for SMS and email.

And it doesn't use towers for cellular connection—I, um, sort of hijacked a telecom satellite and slaved it for my own purposes, namely, this.

Absolutely no one on the planet can intercept your calls with this, or learn your location from it.

I've programmed in Lear's direct number as he has a similar device.

You'll only contact him from here on out, okay?

Any communications to your parents or anyone else must go through him or you risk detection. "

"I understand," I say. "Thank you, Alexander. I, um, I hope my family has arranged payment for you."

Alexander snorts. "I'll pretend you didn't just ask me that. I owe Lear my life several times over. I'd do anything for him."

"Well, thank you, regardless."

He nods. "My pleasure." He gestures at the doors.

“I’ve brought you to the train station. Get away from Lisbon before making any plans with your family, or even contacting them.

I'm familiar with Pugli, and the worst thing you could do is underestimate both his vindictiveness and his resourcefulness. "

"That ain't a word of a lie," Rush says. “You stay off his radar, too, mate. I know the evil bastard all too well myself, and I know he ain't kind to those who help his enemies."

Alexander grins. "Oh, I’ll be halfway across Europe before he knows what happened to the two of you, but thanks for the word of warning. Be safe, you two. And tell Lear I said I still owe him."

A few hours later, we're on a train rocking back across Europe, cutting across Spain, again because it was the first train going anywhere.

I feel like I've crossed Europe several times over the last…well, you know, I don't even know how long it's been? Three days? Four? Feels like a lifetime ago that I was innocently skiing the Matterhorn with Killy and Cal.

Slowly, the rocking of the train lulls me to sleep, my head on Rush's solid shoulder, his hand on my thigh.