Dark Secret (DARC Ops Book 1) Page 4

  4

  Mira

  The city had changed overnight, as did the roads which lead to it, Mira crossing a different bridge on a different and distinctly Joan Didion-less commute that morning. The street names were foreign, the skyline unrecognizable. The green lawns of the National Mall and the red stripes of its ubiquitous flags were dulled beyond distinction. Joyless, muted colors lurked everywhere. Even the District's noise, the busy ambiance, sounded distorted and tinny through the open windows of Mira's car.

  She no longer found any pleasure in the Capitol's illustrious architecture, nor its iconic landmarks, nor the swampy history of L'Enfant's grand avenues. But she was especially apathetic about a certain starkly modernist-designed Hart Senate building, which now seemed to take on an air of institutionalization. It was a stale, suffocating air. And she had the brain fog to prove it, a lack of oxygen which stifled translations of even the most everyday Siamese. That made for another change, her work rate, which was becoming increasingly slow and arduous throughout the morning. She'd been pulling teeth, yanking out any semblance of meaning from the squiggly lines of Thai abugida, and then Romanizing it to gam-rai, which means 'to gain'.

  Baht... THB... one of those being 0.030 of a U.S. dollar... 625.60 Dong when converted to Vietnamese...

  Mira sat hunched over her laptop in a cubicle that felt increasingly small and jail-like. She'd been mired in the same sentence for ten minutes.

  ...chứng...từ xuất......khẩu.........nhờ...

  The translator cogs in Mira's head had been turning slower since her discovery on Langhorne’s computer. But this time she could feel them come to a dead halt, as if the cement they'd been turning through had finally hardened. And then there were no more words.

  Her head certainly felt as though it was full of cement. Heavy, slouched forward, almost grazing against the laptop screen. She could probably chalk it up to a lack of sleep, if she didn’t know better. Her haggard appearance, too. Harboring a moral dilemma could sprout any number of wrinkles and broken capillaries. Even after one day, Mira already saw the ravages of stress and fatigue. She assessed the damage through an over-caffeinated amount of bathroom breaks, staring at a mirror full of acne breakouts and yellow-green tinted eye bags. A face only Chuck could love. But it wasn’t the worry lines on her face that mattered so much as the ones she'd read on the Senator's computer, the worrisome lines of coded text keeping her up all night. And when she'd finally fallen asleep, Mira dreamed she was crouched in the tall grass of a blistering-hot savanna, listening to the soft footsteps of Kenyan children armed with machine guns.

  By morning’s light, she had already convinced herself of the worst. Not only had she been working for a rogue, double agent arms dealer, but she herself might have been involved by unknowingly translating coded messages to overseas warlords. How many of her seemingly normal trade agreements had actually been encrypted instructions for some underground agent? And what kind of clandestine activities did Senator Langhorne have planned for Mr. Voong Xuan, the intended recipient of her current translation?

  After her latest bathroom break, Mira returned to her laptop and maximized the window of the document she was currently procrastinating over. It was a humdrum summary of U.S. soybean export statistics. No odd-looking symbols. No Vietnamese slang. No need for an emergency visit to a Vietnamese restaurant. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to translate another word of it. Maybe it was time for a "sick day."

  It wasn't a lie, after all. She really did feel sick. And after one of the managers had finally nodded toward the exit as he walked by her cubicle, she got up and left like she'd just quit.

  * * *

  A few hours later, the face looking back at Mira in her rear-view mirror looked even worse. Apparently, it was possible for her eyes to sink deeper and darker. It was only a matter of time before they'd start pushing into her frontal lobes.

  After leaving the office, she’d given in and called Lashay’s friend. What other option did she have, short of going to the cops and accusing a U.S. Senator with powerful connections of treason? Alone in her car, Mira had to refrain from rolling her eyes. It was this or nothing, she had no other plan. She was slightly early for her DARC Ops appointment and Mira considered brushing on some makeup for damage control. But hey, fuck it. She was a mess. And there wasn’t enough makeup in the world to cover it up. Even if there was, the fact still remained that her contact at DARC, a guy named Jackson, would inevitably be some asthmatic computer nerd who rarely saw the light of day. No need to add any flames to that fire. Chuck’s attentions were enough to deal with.

  DARC's command center took up the top three floors of a downtown D.C. office tower. And so far, it looked the part completely. Perched along the length of the roof's cell tower was a massive array of communications antennas, then far below at street level was an array of domed security cameras. And in the lobby, a tuxedo-clad security guard who needed to see some ID. And another who had to call upstairs on his headset, who then had to ask, and confirm, and then ask for more ID before saying, “Thank you, Ms. Swanson. You may proceed to the elevators. Someone will be waiting for you on the eighteenth floor.”

  Waiting for Mira on the eighteenth floor was the receptionist, a saccharine-voiced girl who looked no older than twenty-two, who abruptly showed her to their “statement room."

  Why '"statement?" Were they expecting her to make some sort of official statement?

  The statement room turned out to be a harshly fluorescent closet which slightly resembled a police interrogation cell. Its decor was minimal, a table surrounded by three well-worn chairs to facilitate her confession. She sat there, alone, wondering if she was about to be charged already for her part in Langhorne's conspiracy. She imagined two plainclothes federal agents slipping through the door and handcuffing her to the table. While they searched her pockets, someone would offer a Coke and a smoke and then it would begin. “There's more, Mira,” they'd say. “There's more. We know you're not telling us everything.”

  Just as Mira was planning her confession, the statement room door creaked open. But the man smiling from the doorway looked too handsome to be a federal agent. He wore a sharply tailored black suit with the faintest of thin gray pinstripes. Unbuttoned over a close-fitting dress shirt, the ensemble offered tasty little hints of the muscular body that lay underneath.

  Was this supposed to be her computer nerd?

  “Hello, Mira. I'm Jackson.” He pressed one hand against his solid blue tie as the other shook her hand. To Mira's surprise, the computer nerd had the rough and calloused palm of a well-seasoned landscaper. “I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. But it's a nice surprise.”

  She fumbled out some words like, “Yeah, me too,” as Jackson filled the other chair with his large frame, his long legs navigating past the table legs.

  “I’m really curious about it,” he said. “Your story. It's incredible.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Mira struggled to think of anything better to say. “Maybe it's too incredible?” There she went. Typical self-deprecation. Self-sabotage.

  “Uh, well...” He laughed uncomfortably.

  “Don't worry, it sounds crazy to me too.”

  “But that's okay, though,” Jackson said. “If I ignored everything that initially sounded crazy, I would've missed out on a lot important discoveries.”

  Mira smiled and nodded. “Yeah, totally.”

  Totally? Last Mira checked, she’d graduated high school. What the hell was it about this man that made her lose her words? Usually she had plenty at her disposal, in multiple languages.

  “But then again, there's been a lot of crazy stuff that I've had to skip over. Pure crazy. You know, like a guy in the subway just shouting things or what-have-you... Not that I'm saying that's you.”

  She tried to smile.

  “Matthias vetted you, and I trust Matthias.” He cleared his throat. “So, Mira, let's get started.”

  Weren’t they getting started already? Mira strai
ghtened up against the chair-back, awaiting whatever he meant by "get started."

  Jackson began with a quick flip of the name badge that hung around his neck, so that his gleaming white smile faced Mira. And then a question: “Can you tell me how much you already know about DARC Ops?”

  “Not very much,” Mira said as she looked around the sparsely lit room. “Which, I'm sure is intentional?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I understand you deal with covert, black ops, uh... stuff. So I'm guessing you'd prefer to stay under the radar.”

  He smiled. “To a certain extent, yes. But we also have to advertise somehow.”

  “Well, Matthias used to date a good friend of mine. So there's your viral marketing.”

  “That's right,” he chuckled. “Matthias can certainly be clingy like a virus.”

  Mira couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. But why? It wasn’t even that funny. She quieted herself and then got back on topic: “But, yeah, I guess I'm here because you can handle tech and foreign policy.”

  “Not just handle...”

  “Exactly. You're the best, apparently.” She waited for his reaction, which turned out to be a casual little shrug. It seemed like an oft-used show of modesty, an instinctual reaction to his company receiving yet another superlative. But Mira could feel how certain he was. It was evident just by the way he sat in a chair. “And you wouldn’t be scared to take on people in high places,” she continued. “Maybe even people in government?”

  “Hmm...” Jackson leaned back and crossed his legs. “That's where it gets complicated. If the person is just in the government, then it's not really a problem. But on the other hand, if they're acting on the government's behalf...”

  She thought for a moment. “I can't see that being the case.”

  “I can. And I have.”

  Mira felt his eyes studying her face, reading her frown and worry lines like decrypted messages. She fought the urge to look away, to shift her body from his strong, discerning gaze.

  “So Matthias tells me you're a translator for Senator Langhorne...”

  She gave in to the urge, shifting uncomfortably in her seat at the mere mention of that name, the Senator who'd gone from boss to bogeyman overnight.

  “And you came across this... document?” Jackson made a little apologetic frown. “I'm sorry. I should let you take it from here.”

  Mira had been staring past his broad shoulders to the doorway, the room's only exit. It was closed. She took a deep breath, and then remained silent.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked in a softer, more comforting voice. “Water? A soda?”

  Her gaze finally found its way to Jackson's lightly stubbled face. “Could we talk somewhere else? I don't want to be bugged.”

  He laughed. “No one's bugging you. Unless you mean, annoying. In which case you might be right. Am I annoying you?”

  “No, I mean bugging. Recording.”

  “No one's recording you.” His face was relaxed and honest-looking. He was either telling the truth, or hiding his sociopathy. “Mira, this conversation is private. Trust me.”

  Trust him? She'd already done enough of that in her life. Mira had enough experiences in her past to know the value of skepticism when dealing with good-looking men. No more free passes. Right?

  “And if you don't trust me, then you can certainly trust U.S. code section 2511 of title eighteen.”

  Her laughter started up before he could finish. “Really? DARC Ops is scared of a little wiretapping law?”

  With a growing smile, Jackson leaned his head back so that he could talk to the ceiling. “That is correct, Mira,” he said loudly and clearly. “Our company has done and will do everything in its power to rigorously observe the constitutional rights of our past, current, and potential clients, as well as comply with all local and federal laws and statutes, including U.S. code section 2511 of title eighteen.” He lowered his gaze back to Mira. He seemed proud of himself.

  “That's all well and good,” Mira said calmly. “But D.C. has a one-party consent law, which means that you can record even if I'm unaware of it.”

  “I'll put it this way,” Jackson said, playing again with his name badge. “If we're recording you in here, then we're recording you in every other room in the building too. Does that make you feel better?”

  “Sort of?”

  “Do you still want to change rooms?”

  Mira looked around the statement room again. “Well, what is this, the office bomb shelter? Slide in a Culligan water treatment system and some canned food and you're good to go.”

  Jackson smirked politely.

  “I mean, look at it.”

  He kept his eyes on her. “I'm pretty familiar with how it looks. I actually come in here to do my crosswords. It's nice and quiet.” He paused a moment, shifting in his chair. “Also, we don’t usually take in people off the street like this. No offense. But when we do, we like to have our first meeting in here. I forgot why we ever called it the statement room. But it is what it is.”

  “You like crosswords?”

  Jackson nodded. He seemed reluctant to discuss his hobby, like it had been some office secret. Maybe that was why he needed a secret hideaway.

  “Really?” Mira pressed on. He looked about ready to crack. “Crosswords?”

  “I've got one cooking in my office right now,” Jackson finally said.

  “The Sunday crossword or New York Times?”

  “Sunday.” He was referring to the Washington Post's weekly puzzle, which was also Mira's favorite.

  “Do you have thirty-six across?” she asked.

  Jackson suddenly had a sheepish grin on his face.“I don't know... What is it?” For a micro-second he almost looked... vulnerable?

  “I don't know it, either,” Mira said. “That's why I asked.”

  “I meant the clue. What's the clue?”

  “Enigma vanquisher. Six letters.”

  “Turing,” he said promptly.

  She'd been smiling since his first mention of their shared hobby. Maybe he was a nerd, after all. Mira delighted to imagine this sexy military bad-boy billionaire hunched over the same lame crossword that she brought into bed with her every night.

  “Alan Turing. World War Two cryptanalyst.” Jackson cleared his throat as if it would camouflage his lightning-quick glance to the shiny Rolex peaking out past his shirt-cuff. “Anyway, back to your document.”

  “Oh sorry. Yes, the document.”

  “Yes, you were just about to tell me your story,” said Jackson. “And could you tell it loud enough so our mics can pick it up?” He flashed her a quick grin. There was that urge to roll her eyes again.

  There wasn’t much of a story, really. She’d found a document. Live-decrypted it. And now she was in the statement room of a company with an ominous-sounding acronym, sitting with the owner, a covert crossworder , who was also a total hottie.

  She left out that last part, and the next part about her wanting to feel up his chest a little bit, her reaching behind his tie to undo a few buttons, her hand sliding through... It was superfluous information that would hinder the case.

  “It's what I'm best at,” Mira said, sensing that she'd somehow lost his confidence in her. “That's all I do, decrypting text, languages. I don't even have to think about it.”

  Jackson remained quiet, his eyes seemingly observing the tiniest micro-twitch and mannerism of Mira's face. After a while he looked down to his lap where he causally brushed away some stray lint or strand of hair. “But what did it say? I mean, specifically.”

  Mira drew a green leather notebook from her purse. “I wrote down a few fragments, whatever I could remember after I rushed out of there.” She flipped through a few pages before looking up at Jackson. “I was pretty nervous. I'm not, um... I've never really, uh...”

  “That's completely understandable, Mira. But you're handling it better than most people would. You're here aren’t you?”

  She nod
ded and looked down at her page of notes. The penmanship was scraggly, the work of a nervous hand. She remembered the exact feeling, the hollow shakiness. And she remembered sitting that day at her cubicle, waiting for someone to come by and finally let her in on the joke and it would all be a hilarious relief. Just a little office joke. No need to worry. No need to seek out someone like Jackson.

  “Can you read some of it?” he asked.

  “DGH, thank you for assurances... Mr. K. is very close to agreeing and moving into action regarding the new toys. Kilaguni airport is preferred.”

  Jackson took a deep breath before exhaling with an, “Okayyy... Well, it's interesting, certainly. I wouldn’t say it's a smoking gun just yet. But, there really is no good reason for a senator to have such material on his computer. And the way it was encrypted... That in itself is very suspicious. You don't think he's a cryptogram hobbyist or anything, right?”

  Mira thought of the stuffed big game animals that hung like garish war prizes in Langhorne's office, and the muscle car YouTube videos, and then she answered Jackson with an emphatic, “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “There was nothing hobbyist or amateur about the encryption.”

  “Then how could you crack it?”

  She felt mildly insulted. Although it was true. She was an amateur.

  “You even cracked it on the spot,” Jackson added. “And to be perfectly honest with you, Mira, I'm still not sure what to make of that.”

  Mira sighed and looked back to her scribbled transcript. “Me neither, I guess,” she said quietly. “But, like you said, it is what it is.”

  “I said that about the name of this room. What you're bringing up here are some very serious allegations. Maybe deathly serious. Do you understand that?”

  “I'm here, aren’t I?”

  Jackson nodded as if to say “Yes, there certainly is a crazy woman in my office.”