Rogue Ghost (CIA Ghost Series Book 1) (3 page)

“Not really. We handle personal security for a lot of athletes, musicians, actors, celebrities.”

“I guess you meet a lot of cool people then.”

“Not really. I do most of the detail work. I very rarely meet any of our clients. I get moved around a lot.”

“So how long will you be here for?” Turner wondered.

“I’m not sure yet. Probably not too long.”

“Excuse me, I’m gonna check on those burgers I got cooking.”

As Turner was in the kitchen, the flash drive finished copying the files. Parker removed it, turned the laptop off and closed it.

“All finished?” Turner asked as he came back in the room.

“Yep. I can’t thank you enough. Maybe I can return the favor one day.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

“Well, I really should get going.”

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Turner asked. As soon as he asked he thought it might’ve sounded like he was coming on too strong. “What I mean is…I made a couple and I know you just moved in so I wasn’t sure if you had a chance to eat or anything yet.”

“That’s very sweet,” Parker smiled. “I grabbed some fast food earlier so I’m good. Thank you for the offer though.”

“Anytime. If you have any more computer problems, feel free to come over.”

“Thanks so much. You’re such a sweetheart.”

The smile on Turner’s face was so big someone probably would’ve thought he’d just won the lottery. Of course, if he had his way from their initial encounter, and he was ever able to sweep her off her feet, he’d feel like he had.

Parker then left and walked over to her apartment. Once she got in she immediately went to her laptop and put the flash drive in to check the contents. She really hoped there was nothing incriminating on there as she thought Turner seemed like a nice guy. Her initial impression was that he didn’t seem like he was involved in anything but she was well aware that people were not always what they seemed. It wouldn’t be the first time she met a nice guy who turned out to have some secrets but she still hoped for the best. She sent Cole a text to let him know she was checking the drive and she’d let him know her findings. She sipped on her water as she opened every document on there, deleting it once she was finished. Three hours later, she finished looking at every document that was on Turner’s laptop. Nothing that indicated he was remotely involved with Davis in anything. She called Cole to let him know.

“I just looked at everything on his laptop. There was nothing there,” Parker told him.

“So that’s it then.”

“Not quite. I only got the info off his laptop. He also has a desktop in his bedroom.”

“Well, I guess you know what you need to do then,” Cole hinted.

“I was thinking I’ll ask him to go out tomorrow and while we’re out you can get into his apartment and check the computer.”

“I guess that’ll work too. Not as much fun for you though.”

“Funny.”

“Why don’t we just get in there while he’s at work and skip the foreplay?” Cole wondered.

“Cause we need to find Heath,” Parker said.

“I’ll be in and out in twenty minutes. Plus if I find anything then you can be prepared for your date.”

“Fine.”

As soon as Parker hung up she was about to go visit Turner again but then thought it might’ve been too late since it was almost ten. She decided to go to bed and she’d try to catch him in the morning before he left for work.

The following morning Parker woke up early and kept an eye out the window, waiting for Turner to step outside. About eight o’clock she noticed Turner leaving his apartment and she quickly stepped outside in short shorts and bare feet. She pretended to need something in her car, which was parked two spots away from Turner’s. She walked over to his car as he was putting a coffee mug in cup holder.

“Ryan. Hi,” she said.

“Hey Alex. How are you?” he asked, glancing down at her legs, but trying not to look too often or stare and creep her out.

“Good. I just wanted to thank you again for last night.”

“No need. You’re welcome. That’s what neighbors are for, right?”

“Well, to show my appreciation I was wondering if maybe you were interested in going out tonight and get a pizza or something. My treat,” Parker smiled. “That is, if you don’t have a girlfriend or anything. I wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”

“Uhh, no, no, I don’t have a girlfriend,” he eagerly told her.

“Great. So tonight?”

“It’s a date,” Turner happily answered.

“Six?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“I’ll pick you up at your place,” he joked.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Turner tried to keep cool but as soon as Alex turned and started walking back to her apartment he excitedly waved his arms in the air.

“OK, don’t get freaked out Ryan,” he said to himself. “She’s just a girl. You’ve been on dates before.” He kept watching her until she disappeared into her apartment. “But certainly not on any with someone who looked like that.”

As soon as he pulled away, Cole burst out of his apartment and picked the lock of Turner’s apartment. He immediately went into the bedroom and found the desktop computer, putting in the flash drive to see if anything was on the computer. As the files were transferring, Cole started to look in the other rooms. Careful as to not make a mess, Cole went through every drawer, closet, cabinet, folder, and article that he found, but nothing that indicated he had any knowledge of Davis or the files he took. After searching the apartment for twenty minutes, Cole was satisfied that he’d looked everywhere and that nothing was there. He went back to the bedroom and grabbed the flash drive. He made sure everything was in its proper place and nothing looked like it’d been disturbed as he left. Cole then knocked on Parker’s door to let her know his findings.

“Looks like it’s clean,” he told her as she opened the door.

“All right. You have the flash drive?”

“Yep,” Cole answered, holding it up.

“Come in so we can run it.”

As they started pouring through the documents, Turner had arrived at work. He was a marketing analyst at GameTech. They were a company that developed games for video systems, mobile devices, and computers. He’d been there for seven years. It was his first job since graduating from USC. He enjoyed it mostly, but occasionally found it to be a little boring. He sat down at his desk in the GameTech corporate headquarters, which employed over two hundred people, and unpacked his briefcase.

“Hey Ryan, this just came in for you,” a co-worker said, walking by.

He handed Turner a small padded envelope that had no return address on it. It must’ve been hand delivered as it had no postage on it. The only thing written on it was Turner’s name. Turner wondered what could’ve been inside as he wasn’t expecting anything. He opened it took out the contents, which was only an unmarked flash drive. He held it up and looked at it, curious as to what was on it. He plugged it into his computer as he sipped on his coffee. It appeared to be nothing but documents. Turner started clicking on the folders, which were named “Missions”, “Handlers”, “Officers”, “Classified”, “Doubles”.

Turner initially thought maybe it was the files for a game the company was working on. Once he started opening the files he realized it was definitely not for a game. He quickly understood that what he was looking at was top secret government material. He looked around the office to see if maybe someone was pranking him or something. He started reading some of the files and couldn’t believe some of the information he was seeing. The details of some of the missions were unbelievable. He spent the next hour clicking through each folder, not reading everything on there, but just seeing enough to know exactly what was on there. He was eventually able to pull himself away, as addicting as it was, to start doing some of his work. Even as he tried to work though, his mind kept going back to some of the files he had looked it. He wondered why this had been sent to him and if it was a mistake. He couldn’t think of any reason why someone would deliberately send this stuff to him. He was a nobody. Certainly not someone worthy of seeing this type of material.

About one o’clock, as Turner was getting ready to go to lunch, his office phone rang.

“Ryan Turner here,” he greeted.

“Hey Ryan, how you doing? It’s been a long time.”

“Who is this?”

“Don’t recognize the voice?”

“Not off hand,” he replied.

“Can’t believe you don’t remember your old college buddy.”

“Heath?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow. It’s been a long time. I think the last time we talked was a week after we graduated,” Turner remembered.

“Yeah. So how you been?”

“Not bad.”

“When I emailed you the other day I told you I’d talk to you soon,” Davis said.

“You did. I didn’t realize you meant literally. I thought you meant talk, like in email or something.”

“Hey, I’m in town, how would you like to meet for lunch or something?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Great. How bout at the Paseo Colorado? There’s a burger place here.”

“I know it well. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

When Turner got there, he wondered if Davis would still look the same. At USC, they were pretty good friends and roommates. Though they’d always gotten along really well, they were kind of opposites with their personalities. Davis was very good looking, played sports, and was kind of cocky at times. Turner was more focused about school work, a little shy and reserved at times, and generally not that confident when it came to the ladies, even though he wasn’t too bad looking himself. Once Turner walked into the restaurant he immediately noticed Davis sitting to the side. Davis didn’t look any different than the last day Turner had seen him. They shook hands as Turner sat down.

“I took the liberty of ordering for you,” Davis said. “Medium-well, cheese, extra pickles, no onions.”

“Wow. You still remembered.”

“We ate them often enough.”

“True.”

“So you’re working at a game company now, huh?” Davis asked.

“Yeah.”

“How’s that pay?”

“Not too bad. Not gonna get rich from it but it pays the bills,” Turner replied. “So what about you? What’ve you been doing all these years. When we graduated USC, you said you had something lined up on the east coast or something.”

“Yeah.”

“So what brings you out here? On vacation?” Turner wondered.

“Not quite. I’m here on business.”

“What kind of business are you in?”

“Information.”

“Sounds kind of vague.”

“I’m just gonna cut to the chase and not beat around the bush,” Davis stated.

“OK?” Turner replied, a little nervous about what was gonna come out of his friend’s mouth.

“I work for the CIA.”

“The CIA?”

“That’s where I went after we graduated. Been working for them ever since.”

“You sent me the flash drive,” Turner stated.

“I did,” Davis nodded.

“Why? What do you want with me?”

“This might be hard for you to understand but I need you to trust me.”

“OK?”

“I need your help.”

“Need my help? Why? Why would you need my help?”

“Because I’m on a deep undercover assignment and I need someone I can trust.”

“Don’t you have other CIA people for that?” Turner asked.

“Not for this. I need someone that’s not on the inside.”

“Why?”

“Because we think there are some agents who have gone rogue and working with people who don’t have the United State’s best interests at heart,” Davis told him.

“What would you want me to do? Is it dangerous?”

“I’ll be straight with you, it could be. But you’ll be extremely well compensated.”

“What would I have to do?” Turner wondered, intrigued by his guest.

“First I’ll tell you why this is important. My mission is to sell the information on that drive. It’s highly classified material. The idea is to sell the information on there to find out which agents have gone rogue.”

“Why would you sell government secrets?”

“We’ve altered some of the information. Once we sell the information on there, the person who buys it will go over it with the rogue agents they have in the CIA. We’ve embedded tracking and listening devices within the drive so when they talk to their contact, we’ll know who’s gone bad. Once we know who they‘re talking to, we can grab them and the rogue agent and get the drive back like nothing ever happened.

“Sounds…I don’t even know what it sounds like.”

“That’s where you come in. I’ll make the contacts to sell the drive, but I need you to make the actual exchange,” Davis informed him.

“Why? Why wouldn’t you just do it?”

“Because some of these people know my face from previous assignments and wouldn’t trust anything I tell them if they knew it was me. We need a fresh face, someone who’s not known, someone not on the inside, someone I can trust. Someone…like you.”

“Seems like you could get someone a little more…I dunno, predisposed to this type of thing,” Turner objected.

“Ryan, all I know are agents, and spies, and terrorists, and arms dealers. They came to me and said to get someone who’s not involved in any of that. You’re the only person I know that I can trust.”

“What would I have to do exactly?”

“You meet the contact at a specific place. They give you the money. You give them the drive. Then you go your separate ways.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“You’re in?” Davis excitedly asked.

“Uhh…yeah. Yeah. I guess so. Why not? How many times do you get asked to do something for your country?”

“I knew I could count on you,” Davis said, slapping Turner on the arm.

The two of them ate their burgers and continued talking about the assignment.

“So why’d you send me the drive?” Turner asked. “Shouldn’t that be kept secret?”

“I wanted you to look at it, remember what’s on it. In case you’re on a drop and someone asks you a question, you can speak on it. Know some of the terms and lingo that regular agents use. If they get suspicious and think you’re not who you say you are then it may complicate things.”