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Back The Asset Save as PDF
Chapters (86)
  1. Foreword
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. 35
  37. 36
  38. 37
  39. 38
  40. 39
  41. 40
  42. 41
  43. 42
  44. 43
  45. 44
  46. 45
  47. 46
  48. 47
  49. 48
  50. 49
  51. 50
  52. 51
  53. 52
  54. 53
  55. 54
  56. 55
  57. 56
  58. 57
  59. 58
  60. 59
  61. 60
  62. 61
  63. 62
  64. 63
  65. 64
  66. 65
  67. 66
  68. 67
  69. 68
  70. 69
  71. 70
  72. 71
  73. 72
  74. 73
  75. 74
  76. 75
  77. 76
  78. 77
  79. 78
  80. 79
  81. 80
  82. 81
  83. 82
  84. 83
  85. 84
  86. Afterword

If they’d been at it, she wouldn’t be seeing Roth any time tonight.

The first time Laurel met Mansfield, it was at a meeting at the White House, and right in front of the president, Roth threw a cup of water in Mansfield’s face.

She looked at her watch. If she left the office now, she’d be home by eight. She gathered her things and then noticed something was up. She could see commotion through the conference room window.

A specialist stood to get people’s attention. Then another.

Laurel got up and opened the door.

A third specialist rose from his computer. “Comms are down,” he said.

Laurel went to her office and opened the global satellite relay on her computer. Usually she could zoom in on any spot on the globe and get a live view. She could direct the orbiting cameras directly from her desk. It was the most complex communications system she had access to and if it was glitchy it was a good barometer of wider issues across the network.

The relay was completely offline.

She’d never seen that before.

She opened her camera monitors.

Part of her job was to prepare resources likely to be of use when she was assigned an asset. To that end, she’d placed cameras in the offices and homes of some of her informants and targets. The cameras were on a completely separate network from the satellite relay.

They were down too.

And then the fluorescent light above her head flickered. Across the office, the lights went out, one by one.

Everyone went silent. The government had invested billions of dollars in the group’s resources. They had backup upon backup, servers, generators, ventilation systems, you name it. They should have been completely immune to the vagaries of telecoms and utilities outages.

On the the sixth floor of the CIA building, the comms were never down.

The power was never out.

She could have heard a pin drop.

And then, as suddenly as they’d stopped, the hum of the air conditioners coming back to life filled the room. There was an audible sigh of relief from the office. The computers began to reboot. The lights came back on.

The looks on the faces were puzzled, bemused even.

“What was that?” one of the specialists said.

“The raptors just slipped out of their pen,” another said.

Laurel checked the satellite relay. It was back up.

9

Laurel had trouble sleeping that night. She groaned when her five AM alarm went off. She stumbled into the bathroom and popped three extra-strength Tylenol before getting in the shower and letting the warm water coax her to full consciousness.

Something had been off about the night before. The glitch. It was unnerving. She should have been able to put it from her mind, Roth had ordered a full security audit which she supposed would be the end of the matter, but it niggled at her.