Before anyone else could speak, Josh appeared, pushing his way through the group and standing in front of them. He was out of breath, and looked a little disheveled.
“Don’t do this, please,” he said to Jericho. “You’ve got us all wrong. We’re the good guys.”
Jericho shook his head. “Illegal human experimentation isn’t what good people do,” he replied. “I’m leaving, and I’ll fucking shoot the first person who tries to stop me.”
He stared at Josh, who held his gaze longer than most men would’ve done. The group of men shuffled restlessly, gesturing with their weapons and preparing for any slight movement.
The sound of an engine gunning off to Jericho’s left distracted everyone. He turned to see a Jeep speeding toward them across the compound. It braked hard, skidding to a stop with a loud screech of tires, separating him from Josh and the group of operatives. The passenger door opened from within, and he quickly looked inside at the driver.
“Get in!” shouted Julie Fisher.
Jericho didn’t need telling twice. He didn’t trust anyone, but he figured not trusting them on the way out was better than not trusting them trapped inside.
He quickly climbed in, and they sped off toward the security hub, and the barrier that guarded the exit, a few hundred feet away from them. Joining the network of roads at speed, Julie navigated her way past a large truck and took a right, sliding and kicking up dust. She floored it toward the gate. Two men appeared from inside the security hut, but couldn’t do anything. Jericho braced himself as she blasted through the barrier, turned left, and put her foot to the floor, speeding west, away from the compound.
GRENADA, NICARAGUA
April 19th, 2017
Rick Santiago sat in front of the bank of computers in the communications room, across the hall from where Black had held the meeting a few hours prior. He was alone in the D.E.A.D. unit’s operations center — Black and LaSharde were off-base together, and Baker was still in the armory, checking their equipment.
Santiago had a rough childhood, growing up in a small, underprivileged neighborhood in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Military service in his early twenties saved him from what would probably have been an early death — a result of a misspent youth, running with gangs and committing increasingly serious crimes. He carried the scars and the tattoos on his body as a constant reminder of what might have been.
He was slightly below average height, but his courage and his natural aggression more than made up for it. He’d proven himself a capable soldier early on, but had also discovered a previously unknown affinity for computers and technology. Nowadays, he typically ran support when the unit was on a mission, providing intel while they were on the ground. Only occasionally would he join them out in the field, though he was always a welcome and notable addition when he did.
He also had an instinctively suspicious mind, and something over the last week or so had been bothering him. Seizing a rare opportunity while alone, he used the unit’s systems to hack into the CIA mainframe and pull the audio recordings from the Colombia mission. He scanned through the files, clicking an encrypted transmission with a time stamp that didn’t fit in with their official mission log. He lowered the volume and leaned forward on the desk, listening intently.
“Chris Black, this is the Director of the CIA. Do not acknowledge this communication, just listen. We’re monitoring your mission in real time at Langley, and we believe your commanding officer, Jericho Stone, is jeopardizing the integrity of an ongoing investigation. The laptop you’ve been sent to retrieve belongs to an undercover asset named Yalafi Hussein, who Adrian Hell believes is a terrorist. Find out what he knows and silence him. I am officially executing Alpha Protocol. You know what that means, soldier. Do your duty.”
Santiago frowned, and replayed the message.
Black didn’t even hesitate carrying out that order… he thought. How could he go against Jericho like that?
There was a noise behind him, and he quickly closed down the file and spun round on his chair.
“What are you doing?” asked Black, standing in the doorway.
Santiago shrugged casually. “Nothing important. Just doing some research while I had the spare time.” He turned back around and pressed a few more keys, quickly deleting any trace that he’d accessed the file, while trying to remain as nonchalant as possible. “There — I’ve finished up now. Do you want me running comms when we know the location of the stolen intel, or am I on the ground with the rest of you?”
Black stared at him, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “I want you monitoring the satellite feeds,” he replied after a moment. “I doubt we’ll be the only ones looking for him, and I want to know if we have company down there.”
Santiago nodded and stepped to the side as Black moved forward, looking at the console. “Makes sense,” he said. “I’ll make sure I give the local authorities a heads-up, too, so there’s no resistance should things not go according to plan.”
Black slowly looked away from the bank of computers, meeting Santiago’s gaze. “Good. We need to get this information as quietly as possible.”
“And we definitely don’t know what it is that Vincent’s taken?”
Black took a short, impatient breath. “No, we don’t. And I don’t see why it would matter…”
Santiago shrugged. “I’m just thinking out loud,” he said, innocently. “If we knew what it was, we might have a better idea about who, if anyone, would be coming after the target, beside us. Will make things easier…”
“Don’t you worry about that — just concentrate on keeping us safe while we’re out there.”
Santiago sighed. “You’re the boss.”
Black squared up to him, taking a step forward. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “And you’d do well to remember that.”
They held each other’s gaze for a few tense, silent seconds, and then Santiago rolled his eyes and let slip a small smile, before turning and leaving the room.
Black watched him leave, and then quickly moved over to the console, desperately searching for evidence of what Santiago had been doing before he arrived. He checked the logs, to see what files and systems had recently been accessed, but there was nothing that looked suspicious.
He slammed his fist down on the desk with frustration as he leaned forward, resting his hands flat on the surface, staring at nothing in particular and breathing heavily. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, dialing a number from memory. The call was answered on the third ring.
“Jones…”
“Julius, it’s Black. I think we might have a problem.”
“What is it?”
Black took a deep breath before speaking. “I’ve got a bad feeling about Rick Santiago — the way he’s been acting since Colombia… are you able to arrange a search against his profile to see what systems and information he’s accessed in the last six hours?”
“You can do that yourself…”
“I know, and I have, but there’s nothing there.”
“So what’s the problem, Chris?”
“I think he might have deleted his usage history in some way. The only person I know skilled enough to work around that is him. Can you get one of your analysts to do it?”
“What’s this really about?” Jones asked, lowering his voice. “You’ve been on edge all week. Did we choose the wrong man for this job?”
Black closed his eyes for a second, cursing himself for prompting that line of questioning from Langley. “No, of course not. It’s just that he’s been vocally opposing both myself, and the orders you’re sending me. Discipline isn’t the issue… I think he’s up to something. It’s not like him to question things.”