Karen entered the room, coffee cup in one hand and a tablet computer in the other. She took a seat near the display on the front wall and fiddled with her tablet.
“Karen?” Eric prompted. “What have you found?”
“We’re decrypting the drives,” she said, looking up. “The notebooks have already given some information. This group has access to something they consider a game-changer.”
Her fingers swiped around the tablet and the scanned photos of the notebook appeared on the wall display. “See this section?” She highlighted the Arabic words. “This references a large financial transaction. Serious money. And this? It’s planning. The drives should contain the operational details. Guys, for this kind of money, it has to be something big. Biological or nuclear, that’s what I think.”
John was suddenly aware of the chill in the air. “I thought Al-Qaeda in Iraq was bush-league? Kinda like the JV team?”
“Not anymore,” Nancy said, her usually calm exterior visibly shaken. “They think the only way to win Iraq is to carry out an attack in the United States.”
John waited for someone to speak, but the room was deathly quiet. “What’s next?” he finally asked.
“Go see the Docs for your after-action checkup,” Eric said, before turning to Karen. “How much longer before you’ve decrypted the drives?”
“A day or two,” Karen said. “I’m exploiting a flaw in the math behind the encryption scheme. It’s a weakness that’s never been addressed since the RFC. Plus, I have a ton of computational power to throw at it.”
Eric smiled shaking his head. “I don’t think any of us really understand what you’re saying, but a day or two is acceptable.”
John almost missed the look Karen gave Eric. He had sensed something between them, and Nancy’s body language spoke volumes.
It was no secret in the OTM that Nancy was interested in Eric, and even though she tried hard to conceal it, he saw it in her face. She wanted Eric, and didn’t like it that Eric had… something… with Karen.
Then again, who was he to throw stones? He had finally summoned the courage to ask Kara Tulli for coffee, and they had been on the equivalent of three dates. She was the first woman he had expressed interest in since before his deployment to Iraq.
They stood to leave and Eric clapped him on the back. “Good job, John. I mean that. Take some time after you’ve completed your after-action report. You’ve earned it.”
He gave Eric his best fake smile. “Will do.”
John stripped to his briefs as Doctor Elliot placed lead wires on his chest and legs.
“Anything out of the ordinary?” Elliot asked, his massive black hands moving quickly and delicately placing the adhesive pads.
“No,” he said. “The mission went off without a hitch.”
Kara Tulli gave him a reassuring nod as she took a blood sample from his left arm, then placed the sample in a steel refrigerator in the corner. “Cold?”
He grinned. “It’s a little cool.”
She draped a thin white sheet over his chest as Doctor Elliot finished with the last of the leads. “Might as well cover up,” she said. “You’re going to be here awhile.”
He sighed. He was used to the after-action physicals, but it didn’t mean he liked them. He wrapped the sheet around his body and reclined against the lumpy hospital bed as Elliot ran the diagnostics. “Doc, with all the high-tech gadgets around here, can’t you come up with a bed that’s more comfortable?”
Elliot laughed. “Sorry, John, we have our priorities.”
He wanted to call them on their priorities, like experimenting on him, wiping his memories, injecting him with billions of nanobots that crawled through his skin like an electric fire.
He gritted his teeth. There was no point in it. He could never express his true thoughts, to Doctor Elliot or to Kara.
Sure, she had agreed to have coffee with him, but that was only after she helped patch him up while he practically killed himself trying to atone for his actions.
She used to stare at him out of the corner of her eye, the hostility evident. The look had finally softened when he was recovering from losing his foot. He reached down and absently scratched at it with his fingertips.
Elliot noticed and raised an eyebrow. “The prosthetic bothering you?”
“Yeah. Even when I’m not wearing it.”
“In a couple of years, this artificial prosthetic osseointegrated to your leg will be outdated technology. We’ve developed a way to print a foot out of bone using CNC, and next year we hope to print the arteries and blood vessels. As soon as we can figure out how to print and graft the nerves, we’ll be in business. Think of what we will be able to do with the next generation of StrikeForce technology!”
John shivered, and it wasn’t from the chill in the room. He could almost forget at times that he was the first generation of StrikeForce, but he also knew what happened to first generation technology.
Old tech is routinely dismantled and destroyed.
Eric tried to hold Karen Kryzowski’s arms, but she grabbed his wrists and pinned them tightly against the soft blanket on his cot. His eyes slid up her body, pausing at her naked breasts, and then he gasped as she ground herself on him, riding him as she orgasmed.
They were both panting from exertion, slick with sweat, and she laughed as he shuddered, his own orgasm bursting forth.
For a moment, he lost himself in her. His problems faded away and he felt he could finally breathe. He closed his eyes and when he opened them, she was watching him with a smile on her face.
“What?”
“You really need to do this more often. The stress is eating you alive.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Half way through, I could tell you were still worried about the mission. About John. About Nancy.” She rolled off and snuggled next to him, her sticky skin pressed against his flesh.
“Maybe I’m worried about sleeping with a married woman.”
She snuggled against him. “You know Brad doesn’t mind. We have our arrangement. He takes care of his needs, and so do I.”
He stared in disbelief. “I don’t get it. You don’t feel any jealousy?”
She laughed, her muscular belly shaking. “Nope. Never have, never will.”
He shook his head in amazement. “It goes against everything I know of women. I mean, sex should mean something, shouldn’t it?”
She smiled lazily. “You’re sweet. This isn’t about love. I like you. You’re smart and focused. Driven. But, I love my husband. What we just did wasn’t love. It was sex. You’re wound tight, and it’s seeping into your work. You don’t have to feel guilty. You don’t have to feel conflicted. That’s why Barnwell set up the program. It lets people blow off steam.”
Hearing her say it didn’t make him feel better. “With sex.”
She smirked. “It’s good for you. He’s got the data to back it up. Don’t knock it.”
He carefully extricated his arms and legs from her embrace, then stood and walked to his bathroom. He leaned over the steel sink and looked in the mirror, inspecting the bags under his eyes.
He thought back to what Karen said and realized she was right.
I am wound tight.
He poured a glass of water and took two ibuprofen. His knees were acting up. The pain was distracting. As an Operator, he had jumped from his share of helicopters, ran through brutal deserts, marched up rugged hillsides.