The Ajax Protocol-7 by Alex Lukeman Page B
Authors: Alex Lukeman
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure
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pushed his disappointment away.
"I'll see you in the morning," he said.
Back at his apartment, Nick poured himself a whiskey. He thought about Selena. What was it between them, anyway? Sometimes it seemed like they were on the same wavelength, as close to each other as a person could get to someone else. Other times, it was as if they lived on two different planets.
The whiskey warmed his stomach. He poured another. What did he really want from her? He realized he had never thought it through. He loved her, but did he want to marry her? What did people usually want from a marriage? He knew what he didn't want, he didn't want all the complications that went with having children. As far as he knew, that wasn't an issue for Selena. She had never given any indication that she wanted kids. So what was it?
He knew that most men would envy a situation like his. He had his own place and she had hers. They could get away from each other when they needed to. The sex was great. They worked well together. She could hold her own in the unusual and dangerous world they shared and he could rely on her when the chips were down. What more could anyone want?
Nick thought about Megan, the fiancée he'd lost years ago, the only woman he'd ever loved before Selena walked into his life. It was getting hard to remember how she'd looked. He used to dream about her but there had been a dream where she said goodbye and she hadn't appeared since.
Megan had been so different from Selena. He'd wanted different things with her and he'd been a lot younger then. With Megan, Nick had looked forward to a life pretty much like other people had. A civilian life with a couple of kids, a house somewhere, a job doing something where nobody was shooting at him.
Then all that disappeared in a fireball of burning jet fuel and twisted metal. The image of her plane arcing into the ground as he watched was seared into his memory.
The hell with it, he thought.
Nick finished his whiskey and went to bed.
CHAPTER 26
The next morning they were gathered in Elizabeth's office. Lamont had the cat in his lap. Burps was drooling onto his leg and purring, a low rumble beneath the conversation. Ronnie sat next to Lamont on the couch. He wore one of his Hawaiian shirts, this one with a gaudy picture of a volcano erupting in a bed of exotic flowers.
"It feels like we're running out of time," Elizabeth said. "It's nothing I can put my finger on, just a feeling."
Stephanie said. "I was able to recover some files from that hard drive, but most of it was corrupted."
Elizabeth sipped from a cup of coffee. "Before you get into that, Vysotsky called me. The Russians found something at Ground Zero in Novosibirsk. It's a receiver and amplifier. The weapon sends a beam from a satellite, the device picks it up, amplifies it and broadcasts it out over a wide area."
"Any way to trace where it came from?" Nick asked.
Harker shook her head. "Not much was left."
"What about the explosion before everybody went nuts? What did Vysotsky say about that? Does he think it's related?"
"Yes, he does. The explosion was caused by a bomb. Vysotsky thinks it was a diversion to add to the confusion and pull rescue services away from the center of the riot. He has his forensic people working on what's left of the device but he's not hopeful. At least he's keeping me informed of what he discovers."
There was a sudden silence in the room, broken only by the erratic purring of the cat, one of those spontaneous moments when no one knew what to say. Stephanie broke it.
"What Vysotsky told you fits with what I picked up on the hard drive," she said. "I found a program that tells the computer to broadcast a specific frequency to a satellite and have it relay back to the surface. There's nothing particularly unique about it. It's common practice."
"So there isn't anything to indicate who sent it?" Elizabeth asked.
"No. Anyone with a reasonable amount of computer knowledge and
"I'll see you in the morning," he said.
Back at his apartment, Nick poured himself a whiskey. He thought about Selena. What was it between them, anyway? Sometimes it seemed like they were on the same wavelength, as close to each other as a person could get to someone else. Other times, it was as if they lived on two different planets.
The whiskey warmed his stomach. He poured another. What did he really want from her? He realized he had never thought it through. He loved her, but did he want to marry her? What did people usually want from a marriage? He knew what he didn't want, he didn't want all the complications that went with having children. As far as he knew, that wasn't an issue for Selena. She had never given any indication that she wanted kids. So what was it?
He knew that most men would envy a situation like his. He had his own place and she had hers. They could get away from each other when they needed to. The sex was great. They worked well together. She could hold her own in the unusual and dangerous world they shared and he could rely on her when the chips were down. What more could anyone want?
Nick thought about Megan, the fiancée he'd lost years ago, the only woman he'd ever loved before Selena walked into his life. It was getting hard to remember how she'd looked. He used to dream about her but there had been a dream where she said goodbye and she hadn't appeared since.
Megan had been so different from Selena. He'd wanted different things with her and he'd been a lot younger then. With Megan, Nick had looked forward to a life pretty much like other people had. A civilian life with a couple of kids, a house somewhere, a job doing something where nobody was shooting at him.
Then all that disappeared in a fireball of burning jet fuel and twisted metal. The image of her plane arcing into the ground as he watched was seared into his memory.
The hell with it, he thought.
Nick finished his whiskey and went to bed.
CHAPTER 26
The next morning they were gathered in Elizabeth's office. Lamont had the cat in his lap. Burps was drooling onto his leg and purring, a low rumble beneath the conversation. Ronnie sat next to Lamont on the couch. He wore one of his Hawaiian shirts, this one with a gaudy picture of a volcano erupting in a bed of exotic flowers.
"It feels like we're running out of time," Elizabeth said. "It's nothing I can put my finger on, just a feeling."
Stephanie said. "I was able to recover some files from that hard drive, but most of it was corrupted."
Elizabeth sipped from a cup of coffee. "Before you get into that, Vysotsky called me. The Russians found something at Ground Zero in Novosibirsk. It's a receiver and amplifier. The weapon sends a beam from a satellite, the device picks it up, amplifies it and broadcasts it out over a wide area."
"Any way to trace where it came from?" Nick asked.
Harker shook her head. "Not much was left."
"What about the explosion before everybody went nuts? What did Vysotsky say about that? Does he think it's related?"
"Yes, he does. The explosion was caused by a bomb. Vysotsky thinks it was a diversion to add to the confusion and pull rescue services away from the center of the riot. He has his forensic people working on what's left of the device but he's not hopeful. At least he's keeping me informed of what he discovers."
There was a sudden silence in the room, broken only by the erratic purring of the cat, one of those spontaneous moments when no one knew what to say. Stephanie broke it.
"What Vysotsky told you fits with what I picked up on the hard drive," she said. "I found a program that tells the computer to broadcast a specific frequency to a satellite and have it relay back to the surface. There's nothing particularly unique about it. It's common practice."
"So there isn't anything to indicate who sent it?" Elizabeth asked.
"No. Anyone with a reasonable amount of computer knowledge and
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