Page 27 of Fox in Plain Sight

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Nick pulled his laptop from its compartment and placed it on his desk, before he tossed the backpack in the corner, angry at himself.

He was used to lying to cover his ass, but by God, he’d hated lying to Michelle, telling her he was an Iraq vet suffering from post traumatic stress. What a cheap shot that had been. There were lots of real Iraq vets out there dealing with PTSD and worse. And there he was, using them to cover up his real issues.

He’d never served in the military, though he’d served his country as a CIA agent for many years. He’d sacrificed his life to keep the people of this country safe, and how had they repaid him? By chasing him down like a dog. It was time to fight back.

But first things first.

Nick navigated to the folder where he’d saved the information from Michelle’s flash drive and looked at the files. One was a picture file. He clicked it open. It was a portrait of Michelle. He recognized immediately what it was for, the lack of a smile and the way her head was turned, giving away its purpose. It was a passport picture. Only, why would she have a digital version of it? Passport pictures were normally submitted in printed form when applying through the post office.

Curious, Nick perused the other files.

One was a resume. He scanned it quickly. There wasn’t much. A few jobs as a software consultant and a degree from an online university, as well as a list of computer programs Michelle was proficient in: C, Fortran, JavaScript, Lisp, Python. She clearly knew her stuff.

Nick closed the document and continued. A small text file drew his attention. He opened it and read the two lines of information: Jennifer Miller, birth date: May 5, 1991, hair: dark blond, eyes: blue, height: 5’7”. All information needed for a passport, though the name didn’t match. Was Michelle Andrews trying to become Jennifer Miller? To what purpose? He opened the next text file. It only contained one item: an email address.

Nick logged into one of his bogus email accounts and drafted a message, leaving the text blank and only putting one word into the subject line: Inquiry. He pressed Send and waited. Sixty seconds later, his email account pinged. The message landing in his inbox was from System Administrator, and the subject line said Undeliverable. The text stated that the email address didn’t exist. Just as he’d suspected. Whoever had used this email address had already deactivated it.

“What are you up to, Michelle?” he murmured.

He opened document after document. Job applications and documents with hyperlinks. He followed the links and reviewed them in his browser: research on different countries, one leading directly to a PDF document. He flew over the text, wondering what she was looking for, when one word stuck out: Extradition. He read the sentence. There is no extradition treaty in place with the U.S.

It was clear now: Michelle was running from the law.

He tried to piece together what he knew about her so far: a past with Anonymous that could have gotten her into trouble with the authorities; electronic files that could be used to get a fake passport; a bogus email address that most likely put her in touch with a person who could procure such a passport; research on countries that didn’t extradite criminals back to the US; and Michelle being the prime suspect for trying to keep him out of the CIA’s servers. It all fit. Somebody who knew about her past had to have hired her. Had that person offered her a large sum of money, maybe even provided the contact to get a fake passport so she could start a life far away from here?

Or was somebody using her past against her, forcing her to flush him out, and she was doing this against her will? Either scenario was possible. In any case, it meant he couldn’t trust Michelle, though he’d already known that from the start. The information he’d uncovered from her flash drive only cemented what he’d already suspected: that she was trying to get the drop on him. But he was smarter.

Just as he was opening the next document from Michelle’s drive, an alert pinged in his inbox. He switched screens and read it.

Finally.

The notification was from an advertisement he’d placed on the Dark Web. He logged off his current internet connection. From his desk drawer he retrieved a pre-paid jetpack and jammed it into one of the slots in his laptop, then connected to the web from there. He would dispose of the jetpack to ensure his IP address remained secret after he was done so nobody would be able to trace him to his current location.

It took only moments until he was in the right place on the Dark Web to retrieve the message that had been sent to him. There was no sender’s name. But the message itself was compelling. Somebody had seen his meeting request and wanted to set up a time and place. All keywords the person used were the right ones. Keywords the members of Stargate used. While some of them could of course be used by anybody, the fact that all of them were in the message pointed to the conclusion that the person who was contacting him was a fellow Stargate agent.

Still, Nick knew to be careful. There was always a chance that an enemy was coercing a Stargate agent to reveal his secrets by whatever means necessary. Not even a Stargate agent was immune to torture. Therefore, he’d take all necessary precautions before he set the meet. He wouldn’t go in unarmed.

But he had to go. He couldn’t let this opportunity go by. For too long he’d been searching for his fellow agents so he could finally unravel the mystery in his darkest premonition. He needed to stop whatever was going to happen. It was big. He knew that instinctively, bigger than what he could handle himself.

He needed help.

Help only another trusted Stargate agent could provide. It was worth the risk.