22. Three Letter Agency Nerd
Three Letter Agency Nerd
Istare at the blinking light in the corner of my screen.
“Uh…” I glance around the room, but I’m the only one here. I’ll be the only one here until morning.
The red light keeps flashing.
On. Off. On. Off.
“Gods dammit.” I drag a hand down my face.
These alerts are always bullshit. Always annoying. Never worth the paperwork. But automatically documented, so there’s no pretending I don’t see it.
I drop my hands to the keyboard and type a series of commands to open the alert.
My brows furrow.
This… isn’t enough information.
Usually an alert comes with an arrest warrant, a case number, attachments… Something.
I stare at a phone number, a code name, and a series of words that can’t mean anything good.
A bad feeling gathers in my gut.
And before I can think too long on it, I pick up my phone and dial the number on the screen.
It rings three times.
“What?” I don’t recognize the man’s voice. And I don’t ask for a name.
“Hello. This is…” I hesitate, wondering if I’m supposed to tell him my name. “I have an alert, sir.”
The man sighs. “What for?”
“It’s for Haystack Protocol.”
The line is silent for a long second before he speaks again. “What were the keywords?”
I look back up at the screen. “Vampire, cave, hibernate, and warrior. That’s all I—”
“Fuck!” The shout makes me pull the phone away from my ear. “Fucking shit!” Even with the speaker a foot away, I can still hear him cursing. “As if we’re not in enough fucking trouble. Fucking fuck!”
When the yelling trails off, I put the phone back to my ear.
He exhales loudly, then speaks at his previous volume. “Who?”
“Um…” I open the tracking program that started running the moment the alert went off. “It was searched using library Wi-Fi in New York state…” I search for the secondary hit. “But the computer belongs to a Rune Destin.”
“Who the fuck is that?”
I click over to a different program and quickly scan the data.
“Turned thirty… yesterday. Rents a place in Upstate New York, been there less than a year. Not much debt, no car, no student loans, not much income either. Parents live in… Costa Rica.” My eyes run over the rest of the information on the screen.
“She’s a nobody, sir. A nomad with no career by the looks of it. ”
“Don’t underestimate the target,” he snaps.
“Target?” My brows furrow.
“Send everything you have on her to this number,” the man demands. Then he hangs up.