Dark Secret (DARC Ops Book 1) (7 page)

S
he closed
her eyes and saw the blue waves of Ipanema, how they'd reach shore and billow smoothly over the white sand, its frothiness lapping at the athletic, well-bronzed ankles of shirtless Brazilian footballers. From a beach chair she’d watched them and their scantly-bikini’d girlfriends running away from the tide to scatter around on towels like strewn playing cards. She saw tourists reaching for cameras and pointing them idly at the large frigate bird hanging in place in the wind, while other birds, like gulls, flopped unnoticed around the surf. There was a warm breeze of sea salt and sunscreen and different languages all talking about the same thing. Cans of beer were passed around liberally, spliffs of marijuana not so liberally. As evening approached, she watched the thinning of crowds, the wrangling of children, the ending of games. She'd count the distant lights, one by one, as they appeared along a steep mountain village perched over the far end of the beach. And above that, she counted the first hints of stars while the Rio sunset reddened into darkness.

She had wanted that. To revisit the tranquility of her Ipanema paradise. And she tried so hard to picture it perfectly, the clear blue perfection of her first day on the beach. But just as she was on the verge of the most blissful, empty calm, just as her foot dropped from the chair and was about to sink toe-deep in the sand, everything fell apart. Her moonlit beach and the busy neon of Rio de Janeiro faded to black. For a few seconds she could hear the ghostly remnants of ocean wash and samba music before it slowly and cruelly transformed into the dull murmur of office work, the whispering and coughing and typing, the forlorn sighs of a chorus of clock-watchers. And then came the death knell, Chuck's nasally voice.

“Hey, you.” The voice came closer. “I heard the good news. Congratulations.” It was perilously close. She opened her eyes to find Senator Langhorne's personal assistant leaning against her cubicle doorway like a bored jockey.

“Doing some meditating?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah.” Her mouth didn’t seem to work correctly. She was thick-tongued and tired. “I think I was sleeping, actually.”

“Bad girl. Not the first time I caught you napping.” He smiled and looked across her bare desk, carefully examining her lack of work. “But you better look alive. Abram just walked in.” Abram was another office manager she'd been trying to avoid.

“It's okay,” she said with a shrug. “I'm on my way out.”

“What? Why?”

“I'm sick. On sick leave, actually.”

He gave her a sad little puppy face.

“Yeah, I just came in to grab some files for homework.”

“Well that's too bad,” he said with an emphatic frown. “I'd never guess it by looking at you. I was just about to compliment you, actually, on how you're--”

“No!” she cried, unwilling to bear even the slightest greasy compliment from Chuck. It was her day off for God's sake.

“Oh,” he said, confused and startled. He had instinctively drawn his hands from his pockets.

“I mean... don't. Please. ” She laughed under her breath but it felt rushed and manic. She could almost see Chuck recoiling, his back foot slinking out of her cubicle. A wounded male preparing for flight. “Thanks,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

“I was just gonna say I like your blazer.” He sounded defeated.

Sure, it was a nice blazer. But what does that have to do with her health? She could have freaking Ebola and the thing would still look fine.

“Anyway, uh...” Chuck was looking at his shoes, maybe pretending to inspect some stray scuff mark. “So yeah, the senator and I were about to head out for that Peace Corps thing, but he wanted me to swing by to set something up with you.” It was a typical Chuck move, to present a little excuse for his "swing by" when things weren’t going so well. “You know, for his big donation?”

Oh, right, that thing Mira was trying so hard to push out of her mind.

“He wants to us to rig up a PR event,” said Chuck, finally ending his shoe investigation. “A little media event for Swanson's Hope.”

Before Mira could say anything, she yawned like a nervous dog. It was better that way. Better to suck in some much needed air than to say something stupid.

“You know how the senator is,” said Chuck, rolling his eyes.

“Yes... Yes, I certainly do.”

“Will that be okay?”

No. Fuck no.

“Yes, yes, of course. It's a big donation.” Or so she's heard. She hadn’t even asked how much blood money the old man would be to coughing up for her mother's cause.

“Great,” said Chuck. “And even if you're not feeling better by then, you won't have to do much. It's really just a little show for the news cameras. You know?”

Mira nodded.

“Mainly for him. But it'll be good publicity for Swanson's Hope. Might even get a little slice of prime-time. And he'll also have his own film crew there.”

“Film crew?”

“They're making a documentary about his work, his foreign aid and philanthropy and all that. It's on his own dime, of course.”

Mira thought of a specific book she'd left at her apartment, how it laid opened and turned over on her kitchen table. She thought of the fresh crease she'd put into its spine...

“So we're thinking about staging it in the press room downstairs. And, again, it won't be a big deal. He'll just make a quick speech. You can talk too, if you want. And then he might hand you one of those giant checks. You know, like those cardboard checks?” He smiled. “Pretty cheesy, huh?”

She thought of the
real
beast of the safari, the coldest-blooded killer. The White Devil. How many more "triumphant gambles" would he get away with?

“Mira? What's up?” Chuck was sometimes terrifyingly empathic. “Are you worried about it or something?”

“No, no, I'm just trying to think of my schedule...”

“You don't have to pick a date right this second. I just wanted to give you heads up.”

Mira stared at her empty desk as if she'd been translating some invisible document, a strategy guide for escaping the shittiest of situations. She had to make a play. “Okay. Well, thanks, Chuck. I'll definitely work on a time slot.” Mira finally looked up at him. “And, could you please thank the senator again? He's been very good to Swanson's Hope. And this latest donation...” She smiled and shook her head in mock disbelief.

“Yeah, I know. It's incredible.”

“That's just it. It's just incredible... And I'm so excited to tell the rest of the team about it.” Sensing that it was time to throw the puppy a chew-toy, Mira worked to achieve an adequate smile, and then asked, “Will you be there?”

He immediately pounced on the toy, pawing and sniffing at it like some neglected shelter-dog. “
Yeah
. Yeah, if you want.” He sunk his teeth into it, ravaging her little gift while his tail wagged in pure glee. “Yeah, yeah, of course. Sure.”

“I'd like that,” she said softly.

“You want me to
do
anything? Can I, uh... Can I do anything?”

“No, I just want you to be there. If it's convenient.” The way Chuck smiled told her how convenient it was to spend any and all time with her. “Maybe you could write my speech? I dunno...”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you need.” Her sentry suddenly sprang to life, triumphantly pushing off from her cubicle wall on which he'd been leaning the whole time.

But his moment of glory was short-lived. A booming voice shot across the office floor. “Hey, Chuckie.”

Mira watched Chuck's hard jolt of a reaction, his head bobbing out from her cubicle like a freshly-sprung Jack-in-the-box.

“The hell you doin'?”

“You told me to schedule out the PR thing,” said Chuck, sounding a little too excited. “So I'm scheduling out the PR thing.”

“For a half hour?” The Senator walked up to Mira's cubicle and knocked on the glass partition. He smiled in at her. “How you doin', darling? Okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah, just grabbing some things.”

“Good.” He turned back to Chuck. “Ready for Peace Corps?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good man. Now let's get out of this young lady's hair.” He plopped his heavy arm around Chuck's shoulders. “She needs her rest. By the way, you didn't get too close to her did you? She's quite sick.”

Chuck looked confused, as if it wasn’t a completely legitimate question.

The senator quickly withdrew his arm.

Chuck laughed. “No. I didn’t.”

“No? You're not getting infected over here?”

“Nah, I
wish
.” Chuck winked at Mira, thoroughly curdling the strawberry yogurt she'd had for lunch.

It was only when they finally left her alone, Chuck and Langhorne departing the office for another media event, that Mira felt real queasiness take hold at the pit of her stomach. The kind that comes just before an employee roots around their boss' personal files.

Her first look behind the curtain was an accident, an innocent stumble into Langhorne's dirty laundry which facilitated her playing dumb to Chuck, an easy and guilt-free endeavor. But now, armed as she was with a USB stick and the flimsiest of alibis, the cold calculation of what she was prepared to do filled her with fear and exhilaration. And a suspended angst, too, as Mira would have to wait after the act to know if it had been one of treason or valor. Given the ramifications of each, Mira wasn't sure which outcome she preferred.

She almost preferred neither, by doing nothing. And for a moment she was content. Maybe content enough to get up and leave without putting her job, life, or liberty on the line. But when she thought about Jackson, and the rest of the world that would doubt her abilities—but mostly Jackson and that gorgeous, patronizing smile which followed her reading of the decrypted text—she suddenly warmed with indignation. It was a familiar irrationality. One which gave way to impulses such as powering up the senator’s laptop and opening a browser window.

With the appearance of the Hart Senate System login screen, Mira had a moment of quasi-clarity. Was it vindication? Or self-sabotage? She was quickly approaching an invisible line. She knew it. It was a line that could only be straddled once.

Just as Mira prepared to cross over, logging on as the senator to wade through the murky depths of his Africa files, her pocket vibrated.

It was a shock. And then a relief.

She was further relieved when reading the name of the caller, someone she hadn't spoken with in months.

“Dad?” she answered, pulling her other hand away from her laptop.

“Hey, little gremlin. How are you?”

Dad had a way of making her feel anywhere from six to sixteen on any given call. Today she was six, and she didn't mind it one bit. “Ah, you know, just a little tired,” she said, slouching back in her chair. “Maybe a little sick. I'm good, though. Everything's good.”

“Can you talk right now? You're on your break, right?”

“Uhh...” Personal calls in the office were mostly prohibited. Then again, so was stealing secret files from a U.S. Senator. “Yeah, it's fine.”

“Mira? You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. Don't worry.”

“Hmm.” He sounded unconvinced. “I better be brief, then.”

“
Daaad
,” she groaned. “It's fine, come on. How are you?”

“I'm very good, thanks. Contract ends in two weeks, so I'll be even better then.”

“I bet.”

“So that's why I called. I wanted to see if you'd be around when I fly in. I'd love to get together.”

“Me too.”

“I mean it. And sooner rather than later. As soon as possible. ”

“Dad, I mean it too.” Over the years she'd grow more and more unsettled with how she sounded when talking to her father. It probably wasn’t so much her tone regressing as it was the frequency of her noticing.

She heard him sigh, and then say quietly, “Sorry I haven't called sooner.”

“Dad, stop.”

“You sure everything's good back there?”

Whenever her father was away on business, especially in the seven years since her mom’s passing, Mira had become accustomed to glossing over the troubles of her life lest Dad catch the next red-eye. But today she was tempted to buck the trend.

“Yeah...” And then she followed a lie with a truth. “I'm excited to see you.”

“Me too. But how about work? Work's going okay?”

Mira thought for a moment of retreating into her inner six-year-old, her inner Daddy's-little-gremlin throwing a wild tantrum about how unfair it all was. The stupid job and the stupid computers and stupid, stupid, poopy-head Langhorne. She'd cry hysterically until a lack of oxygen, and then wake up feeling refreshed and ready for more ice-cream.

“It’s fine.”

“Well, alright,” he said. “But don't you hesitate to call your Dad anytime you need to. Got it? We should probably talk about things when you're not at work anyway.”

Mira laughed innocently. “Yeah, probably.” When she swiveled her chair, she noticed someone standing at her cubicle entrance. “Alright, well sounds good,” she said, watching Abram make the international hand signal for
hang up, you fucking idiot
.

“Yep, sounds good,” said Dad.

“They're coming back,” Abram whisper-shouted.

But Mira's father kept talking. “You be good out there. Stay out of trouble.”

Mira promised him, said goodbye and ended the call.

“Sorry,” said Abram. “Didn’t want Langhorne to see you on your phone like that. He should be here a few minutes.”

“Thanks, but it's okay,” she said with a polite smile.

“Huh? Excuse me?”

“I'm not on the clock. Just here to grab some things.”

He looked almost disappointed.

A second after Abram walked off, Mira logged on to her boss's account and began the scavenger hunt, searching through directories like she'd just been looking for some misplaced translation work. That's all she was doing, looking for work. She didn’t feel nervous, not even while inserting the USB stick. Just looking for some work to bring to her apartment. She was on sick leave. Didn’t you know that?

His folders were as messy as his desktop, but she was able to weed most of it out by searching for a few decrypted key-terms. What interested her most was a file titled “mos_dan_gam,” where she found several documents that seemed to contain the infamous encryption.