What Lies Hidden Read online

  What Lies Hidden

  C. G. Cooper

  Buck Adams

  “WHAT LIES HIDDEN”

  Book 1 of the Spy In Residence Novels

  Copyright © 2017 C. G. Cooper Entertainment, LLC.

  All Rights Reserved

  Author: C. G. Cooper

  Co-Author: Buck Adams

  GET A FREE COPY OF THE CORPS JUSTICE PREQUEL SHORT STORY, GOD-SPEED, JUST FOR SUBSCRIBING AT CG-COOPER.COM

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations and events are all products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual events or real persons are completely coincidental.

  Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is strictly prohibited.

  Warning: This story is intended for mature audiences and contains profanity and violence.

  To my wife: without you none of this could have happened.

  To my beta readers: thank you for reading too many manuscripts to count. You rock.

  - C. G. Cooper

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Also by C. G. Cooper

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Cold. Such biting cold.

  In stark contrast, the cobblestones around the winterized fountain looked clean and warm in the shimmering moonlight, inviting even.

  No time to marvel.

  As Tiffany Garrett stepped around a pile of dirt-flecked snow, and then over one point of the compass rose patterned in the cobbles, electricity shivered up her spine. Her cheeks flushed, and she took an involuntary breath in.

  Hugging herself, she shook off the momentary disconnect from reality. It was hard to believe that life had led her to this moment.

  If tonight went well, it would begin the payoff of every dull moment in her life. Glamour, excitement, and adventure awaited her on the other side of Fountain Tunnel, the subsurface passage between the area known as the Crossing - where she now stood - and Morris Green.

  The Crossing was empty tonight because most of the student body was on Christmas break. Even her boyfriend, a local named Jordan, was in Pennsylvania visiting his grandmother. He’d asked her to come home with him to meet his family for the first time. She’d put him off. His folks were bound to ask how they knew each other.

  Why should she and Jordan have to lie? Wasn’t it the secrets they’d shared over the past four months that made their relationship special? She’d undressed as she made this argument. Naturally, Jordan had agreed it was better for her to stay behind.

  Her mentor, Velvet, was currently on the other end of the Bluetooth-enabled earpiece Tiffany was wearing. Velvet had taught Tiffany that men were like dogs; both could easily be manipulated by stroking their soft pink underbelly (dogs) or their egos (men).

  She entered Fountain Tunnel, each and every footfall echoing in her ears. To reassure herself that she was really here, that this was really happening, she palmed the plastic compact in her jacket pocket. She had never understood the point of carrying such an object when she had a perfectly good camera on her phone. But when Velvet had shown her the sleek piece of technology coiled so perfectly behind the compact’s glass, Tiffany agreed to take it with her.

  The walls of the tunnel seemed to radiate cold, magnifying the wintry effect. Tiffany hugged her insulated jacket closer, tugged her knitted cap low. She was now halfway to the Green.

  Passing the door that led into the basement of Morris Hall, she wondered, not for the first time, who had thought to paint it a bright, cheery yellow.

  After she had taken a few more steps, a soft whoosh of air from behind caught her attention. She turned to see the door standing open. It swung shut, after a pneumatic delay, to reveal a woman’s retreating back.

  Tiffany froze. Velvet’s smooth voice said in her earpiece, “Move along, Jade.”

  Tiffany responded to the call sign as readily as she would have to her given name. Ignoring the woman who had spooked her, she resumed walking, being careful to step softly and not to rush.

  “Good,” said Velvet, then, “Careful! There’s someone— Abort, Jade. Abort.”

  A dark shape took form at the end of the tunnel. From the suddenness of his appearance and Velvet’s frantic tone, Tiffany figured he must have charted a course through the blind spots of the campus security cameras. Otherwise, her spotter would have seen him in time to steer her clear. She heard Velvet curse softly, adding weight to the theory.

  The man was dressed in a black leather jacket, gloves and dark blue jeans. His face was hidden in a black balaclava with a single red ring stitched around the right eyehole. Tiffany knew the mask but nothing of the man who wore it.

  “Good evening, Sister Ariadne,” said the man. His voice had a metallic quality that masked his true tone.

  “Sorry,” said Tiffany, ignoring the reference to her undercover name. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Don’t be coy, sis. We know… so much about you.”

  Suddenly, Tiffany’s jacket was doing nothing to keep the chill from her bones.

  “What do you want, Niko?” she said. “I’m… I’m busy.”

  “Sister Ariadne,” said Niko, “you’re asking the wrong question.”

  “What question should I ask?” She thought she knew the answer and regretted asking for it. The response had been automatic.

  “You should ask, ‘What can I do for science?’”

  His words told her all she needed to know. She turned to run, realizing as she did that bolting out of the tunnel wasn’t an option.

  The woman who had exited the yellow door now blocked Tiffany’s escape. She stood with arms crossed, her feet planted wide. Her face, too, was concealed under a balaclava, though Tiffany knew that she must be Sister Cora, another member of their cell. Tiffany wanted to kick herself for not recognizing her immediately. Her mind raced ahead to what would happen next. She couldn’t fight. She knew she was no match for Niko, or at least, that’s what she told herself. The truth was that she feared him.

  There was no fighting Cora. Tiffany-as-Ariadne had trained with her, sparred with her. She’d never once managed to throw her off her feet. If Brother Niko was a snake, Sister Cora was a brick wall strewn with broken glass. Even after all Velvet had done to boost her confidence, Tiffany knew her limitations.

  “In the wind,” she said. Not to Niko and Cora, but to Velvet, speaking loud enough for the mic in her earpiece to pick it up.

  “Hang in there,” said Velvet. “Help is coming.”

  Tiffany ran for
the yellow door. Cora took a single step in her direction. Niko, who had a greater distance to make up, felt so self-assured that he planted his boot against the sloped wall of the tunnel, bending into a runner’s stretch.

  Lacking a better choice, Tiffany threw open the door and dashed into Morris Hall.

  Chapter Two

  — Day One: Mac —

  A dark blue sedan swept along the wooded road. As the car came to a curve, its driver relaxed his grip on the steering wheel just long enough to pass one hand over the other. Once on the straight and narrow again, his muscles re-tightened. Wrists flexed and shoulders straining, he went back to strangling the wheel.

  Intellectually, he knew that he couldn’t squeeze the car to death. Besides, if the car did die, he’d be late for the appointment that he’d been trying to set up for the past five years.

  His rational mind wanted nothing more than to reach his destination, carry out the assignment it had taken so long to get the muckety-mucks at the Company to approve, and get out while the getting was good. But his rational mind wasn’t driving the car.

  The approach to the main entrance of Schuyler University led over a two-lane bridge. Beneath the bridge, fractured panes of ice partially obscured a trickling river. There was no traffic to or from the school at this hour, so Mac was able to park unobserved on the side of the road.

  As he looked over his straining knuckles at the stanchions of the bridge ends, his breathing grew ragged. He couldn’t help but picture the old memories. It was ridiculous, but there was no helping it.

  He was a big man, too tall to sit up straight in the low-ceilinged sedan, and too broad to wear its seatbelt comfortably. He considered removing the belt, but he knew that the car would complain with an incessant bing bing bing unless he shut off the engine.

  In his fear-heightened state, sensations that normally seemed inconvenient felt like an attack on his nerves with a chainsaw. The bone deep chill crept in through the windows, making him unwilling to kill the heater. He took several unsteady breaths.

  A ringtone sounded in his hearing aids. These were a memento of the eternity he’d spent baking to death in an overturned armored vehicle. “We were on mine sweeping duty,” was the way he told the story. “Missed one.”

  Loosening his grip on the wheel, he turned his attention to the car’s display panel, which showed the number of the incoming call. Though the number wasn’t programmed into his contacts, he knew it could only be Kreisburg.

  He was glad the car was a rental instead of one issued by the Company. He wouldn’t have wanted a hidden camera to pick up the face he pulled as he jabbed the answer button on the steering console.

  “Boxer?” Kreisburg said, in his pack-a-day grumble.

  “I’m here,” Mac replied.

  “What’s your sitrep?”

  “I’m sitting,” said Mac. “What more do you want?”

  Kreisburg slid a snide note into his tone. “I just want your situation report. What’s with the attitude, Boxer? Ya know, if you pushed the gas pedal with your whole foot instead of that oversized big toe of yours, you coulda been there fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I grew up on an island, Kreisburg. If you drove too fast, you ran out of road.”

  The old man’s measured pause was worse than a bawling out. “Call signs only, Boxer,” he said.

  A lump formed in Mac’s throat. He swallowed it reflexively, tried to laugh off his mistake. “Hey, it’s a domestic. Who do you figure’s listening in?”

  The line went dead. Mac squeezed his temples, trying to shift the ice pick that he’d just stabbed through his head. Talking to Kreisburg was like walking a stack of plates across a tightrope. They’d had a strained relationship for five years, ever since Khartoum. It didn’t help that Kreisburg had been the one to break the news of Mac’s bizarre, non-cover cover to him three days before.

  No sense ending this mission chained back to a desk due to a lapse in protocol.

  Mac fumbled off the back of his phone and removed the SIM card. With a twist of his fingers, he snapped it in half. One half he tossed out the passenger window, shivering at the icy breeze. The other he tucked into his pocket. He’d burn it later.

  From behind the passenger seat, he produced a gun case. After spinning in the combination, he opened it to reveal his Sig P229R 9mm and a cache of extra magazines.

  Duct-taped to the lid was a slim metal container with a hinged top. He dumped out the contents: four SIM cards identical to the one he’d destroyed. Mac picked a replacement at random.

  With nothing left to do but wait, he fired off a scattershot prayer, happy to hit any god that might be listening, and stared at his phone for four minutes.

  It rang, at last. The number had changed, of course, but seeing as only four people on earth knew any of the five he’d been assigned, it was a fair guess the old man had deigned to call him back. Bracing like a cliff diver, Mac answered.

  “Boxer?” said a voice that was unmistakably Kreisburg’s.

  Mac said, “That you, Diamond?”

  “In the flesh,” said Kreisburg. His voice held no trace of the cold iron that had been in it when he killed the previous call. “Enjoy your Sunday drive?”

  Mac exhaled. “Sure,” he said. “Except it’s Friday.”

  “That it is,” said Kreisburg. “Just think, Boxer. All over the world, ordinary Joes with ordinary jobs are getting set for the weekend. Don’t you miss that life?”

  “Not me,” said Mac. “Those Joes punch a clock for the privilege.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Not anymore, Kaimana.”

  “What’d you call me?”

  “Kaimana. It’s Hawaiian for ‘diamond.’” Mac squeezed his eyes shut, hoping Kreisburg wouldn’t object to him easing the tension.

  “Just stick to the call signs, Boxer.”

  “Sure, boss,” said Mac. “Like my friend upstairs told you, I was born for field work. This job’s perfect for knocking the rust off. Then you can send me someplace warm.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” said Kreisburg.

  The endorsement of Kreisburg’s boss, Deputy Director Harold “Bogey” Billings, had been enough to overcome objections to Mac taking the assignment, but it had clearly done nothing to change the old man’s mind. He wanted as little to do with Mac as Mac wanted to do with him. Less, even. There was nothing Mac could do but play along.

  Opening the glove compartment, he said, “I hear you loud and clear, Diamond. We both wanna get to the same place.” From out of the glove box, he fished out a folded piece of paper. “We won’t get there if we pull different directions.”

  As he waited for Kreisburg’s answer, he unfolded the paper. It had been printed, per the running head, off a Facebook page. Designed to resemble a movie poster, it showed the silhouette of a man in a tuxedo pointing a tiny pistol into the sky. Curving against his back was text that read:

  By Special Arrangement

  w/ CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

  **Exclusive to Schuyler University**

  OFFICER KAMAUI MAKA MAHOE

  -presenting-

  “Cold Blood after the Cold War:

  The Role of Criminology

  In Modern Clandestine Operations”

  A Four-Part Lecture Series

  Tuesdays, January 10th, 17th & 31st

  Thursday, February 9th

  6:00 p.m., St. Alban’s Auditorium

  >>Limited Seating<<<br />
  “Is this a joke?” Mac had said when Kreisburg first slapped it on the conference table back at Langley.

  “Why?” Kreisburg had answered. “Something funny?”

  Thinking back, Mac nearly crumpled the paper in his big hands.

  In the present, Kreisburg said, “I’ll say this for you, Boxer. You know how to grease the wheel. But you’ve got to face facts. Not everybody’s cut out to be an Operations Officer. For non-OOs, there’s a six-foot cubicle down the hall with your name on it.”

  “Better borrow
the label printer, Diamond. I was born for this.”

  “We’ll see,” said Kreisburg. He sounded appeased. Mac considered this a victory. “We’ll see. Now, sitrep?”

  “Everything’s squared away. Contact’s due at ten thirty-five.”

  “Good, good. You decided not to stop in town?”

  Mac answered, “I told President Velankar ten forty-five, eleven. The BCI man won’t be in ‘til late.”

  “Fine,” said Kreisburg. There was another of his pregnant pauses. Then he said, “Listen, Boxer. You were a good officer. Maybe you could be again. But I’ve dealt with OOs who’ve lost their nerve. Most burn out. Worst case, they screw up, get people killed. You don’t want that on your conscience. Say the word and I’ll pull you in. No harm, no foul.”

  Mac stuffed the printout away. Almost to himself, he said softly, “I need this.”

  He waited for Kreisburg to try a new tactic but was surprised when the old man let him off the hook. “Have it your way. You’re right. Director Billings wants to see you pull it off. Fine. Run the mission. Finish strong, and I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “Thanks,” Mac said. He glanced at his watch, which he wore military style, face on the inside of his wrist. It wasn’t showing the time. Instead, a countdown he had set last night at precisely six o’clock now read 101:26:18. For certain important tasks, Mac enacted a self-imposed deadline to keep himself on track.