Angel Candidate, page 13
part #3 of Lucas Johnson Series
“Remember I can get through the access card terminals? We could search his apartment when he’s in the gym.”
Yes, I did remember, but I also didn’t want to do his room search with her. Her proposition offered little wiggling space though. “Yeah, we can do that.”
Surprisingly enough, Amaranta’s ointment worked. My back numbed and stopped hurting. I did my morning run, washed, ate, and went to the roof to get my stuff from the hidden sports bag. I took the USB from Matt, three GPS trackers, and messaged Matt to be ready. Afterward, I met with Amaranta at the time she told me Robert usually went to the gym.
With a glance out the window, I confirmed Robert was indeed leaving the VI barracks with a sports bag thrown over his shoulder. Amaranta stood beside me with her arms crossed but was much better arranged than yesterday with her black hair washed, skin clean, and t-shirt and jeans fresh. “Told you,” she said.
I stepped into the hallway and we soon reached the door to Robert’s room. Amaranta touched the access card terminal and electricity buzzed through the air. The door clicked open.
The room was organized to perfection with not a single item out of place. Amaranta closed the door and leaned against it, observing me. Yeah, she had no idea how to search a room and was about to learn how.
I stepped to his laptop, hit enter and the display lit up to a lock screen. As I moved past the laptop, I removed Matt’s USB stick from my pocket and stuck it in the laptop in a way that Amaranta wouldn’t see me doing it. She said nothing, so it probably worked. I ducked past the table and went through the drawers.
The first one contained small jars of paint and a set of brushes. The second one had sprays and a mold of green, plasticine-like material that didn’t look like it was made for kids. Small, carton boxes filled the third one and the last one had a only pad of paper and pens. I went for the wardrobes.
Robert’s order in clothes was spectacular. He had everything arranged. Jackets were ordered dark to light, jeans were stacked in a perfect pile, all socks were arranged, dark to light, and so were his shoes. As I went through the clothes, gentle enough not to cause any mess, I slipped a small GPS tracker into the tiny pocket of his topmost jeans. With this much order, he would use those next, most likely tomorrow. I would get a recording of where he moved and maybe pick up something from that. I mean, he was the only one going to some other gym than the one in the barracks, so that was a start.
The next wardrobe contained a massive collection of miniatures. Spaceships, tanks, soldiers in futuristic armor, all painted in a green-black pattern and arranged on modeled terrain. There was no dust on the miniatures. By the side lay a pile of books, the biggest one was titled Warhammer 40,000.
The bathroom had nothing out of the ordinary aside from an ungodly amount of cologne. I went through the cabinets and found a super-sized package of condoms. Well, that explained the cologne. In the bedroom, I found another pack of condoms under the bed and a shelf full of books from the Warhammer universe. I returned to the table with his laptop and took back my USB stick, carefully so Amaranta wouldn’t notice. “Okay, let’s go,” I said with a faint smile.
She raised an eyebrow. “So, did you find anything?”
Sort of. The most interesting object were the carton boxes in his table, which didn’t have any obvious use. “Nothing directly useful.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
I shrugged. “You tell me.”
She sighed. “Okay, you were clearly looking for something specific. When I searched your room, I didn’t know what I was looking for and I feel like I’ve found your phone mostly by coincidence and that it wasn’t the main thing I could find. How about you share some of the know-how?”
“Well…” I should have told her nothing. But I was proud of my work and skills, way too proud to keep my mouth shut. “What you missed in my room was the absolute lack of personal items. Those are always the biggest hint if something is wrong. Here, Robert has his Warhammer miniatures, which don’t have dust, so he uses them; related books, and a supply of condoms and cologne so large it suggests he smashes someone daily. That’s enough hobbies for one person, which leaves no time for being a traitor since that always takes a large time requirement.”
She turned dark red and opened the door.
Yes, I was still going to try to find what the carton boxes were for, but Robert was easily at the bottom of my suspect list. I would still check his computer though.
After I parted with Amaranta, I went to my room, took out my work phone and was pleased to see Matt confirmed he gained access to Robert’s laptop.
I navigated to the remote desktop and searched around. He had a lot more Warhammer stuff on it, including a bunch of games, a kind-of-standard collection of pirated movies and music, the usual set of bookmarked social media websites, mostly communication applications. He also had saved the scans of his documents from his service in the army. His record was spotless… mostly. During his deployment in Iraq, he had an outstandingly large number of confirmed kills, which garnered him two separate investigations. No misconduct was found though.
Nothing useful.
I disconnected, and left my apartment, heading to the Twins’ place. With Robert being an unlikely suspect, the remaining suspects were the Twins and the Sergeant. I would interrogate him the next time we went out to drink, so the Twins were my choice of the moment.
I knocked on their door, from behind which loud death metal was playing. “Hi. It’s Paul.”
The music dropped lower and the door opened slightly. One of the Twins was looking at me. She scanned me. No cupcakes this time. “Hey… did something happen?”
“Sort of. I need to talk to both of you for five minutes. It’s important.”
Reluctantly, she opened the door and motioned me inside. Scented candles filled their room with a thick, sweet smell. The piles of weird stuff were more numerous than before, now also including what looked like torn-out, human nails, dried fish, and black feathers.
I sat down and they stood near each other, touching hands. I gave them a sour smile. “Here’s the thing. We might have a traitor in the team who’s letting the enemy know when we come for them. I’ve been looking for that traitor, and I need to know what that pile of SIM cards is for.”
They blushed and looked at each other. After a moment, they both looked at me. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Try me.”
“Errr…” they looked at each other again. “Okay.” And then one went to a laptop while the other one took an old phone out of her pocket. She opened the phone’s back and picked up a SIM card from the pile. The first one went on Facebook and searched through random people’s profiles.
The second one booted the phone while the first one told her a number of a person named Mrs. Feens, and that she had a daughter named Alice.
I observed with narrowed eyes, wondering what the hell this was about.
They both went to the phone and dialed the number. As they did, one of the Twins traced a symbol in the air, a spell I didn’t
recognize.
A woman picked up after three beeps. “Janice Feens.”
“This is Director Garton. I need to discuss a… sensitive matter with you regarding your daughter,” the Twins spoke but their voice sounded like that of a fifty-year-old man.
“What happened?” The woman’s voice heated up.
“You see…” the Twins grabbed the phone’s microphone and giggled. When they stopped, they continued. “A… specific object fell out of your daughter’s backpack. And earlier today, one of her classmates reported a similar object as stolen.”
“My daughter would never steal anything. She’s such a good girl, so this must be some kind of a mistake!” Janice nearly shouted into the phone. “And what object is it, anyway?”
“Well, the object in question is a rather large, blue dildo.”
I spat out and had to cover my mouth to not laugh.
The Twins laughed too, blocking the phone’s microphone with their hands. The woman at the other side was too stunned to speak. The Twins stopped giggling and said, “And I would like to ask you if you have given her such an object or know if she possesses one, so we don’t have to call the police.”
Now, Mrs. Feens faced a choice between telling a super-embarrassing lie to cover up for her daughter or have her investigated by the police. I didn’t envy her that decision.
“Yes,” Mrs. Feens said, voice perfectly controlled. “I gave her one like that. Can I come pick her up?”
“Of course, that would be the best,” the Twins said and hung up. They burst out laughing.
I shook my head, not knowing what to think.
The Twins fished a notepad from one of the piles, flipped through pages covered with text and checkmarks, and then made a checkmark on the last page next to Cover ups.
I arched an eyebrow. “So, you make prank calls?”
They shrugged. “We want to see what parents would do to cover up for their children.”
Because their own parents died in a fire when they were young. They never really had parents, so behind the prank calls was the desire to know how a parent would react. “Fair enough. Thanks.” I rose and left their apartment. They were not the traitor I was looking for. Sure, they could have still used some of the SIM cards to contact Reid, but I couldn’t imagine them doing so.
Later in the evening, we were called into the armory. This time, I took both my work phone, the USB stick from Matt and GPS trackers. Since Lucielle officially tasked me with solving this, I had no reason not to use my main job’s equipment.
Thanks to Amaranta’s ointment, my back was in useable shape. It still hurt, as did my fingertips, but I could move unhampered.
The Sergeant entered the armory last. He looked over us. “Tonight’s rules of engagement are unrestricted. From the laptop Robert took from their headquarters, IT found the location of their laboratory. We raid it tonight.”
Chapter 12
KATHERINE joined us at the last minute, slipping into the van before we moved out. Her left arm hung by her side, fixed in bandages. She tried to mask it, but that arm was clearly unusable. That wasn’t great. She sat down the furthest away from me possible and demonstratively ignored me, looking anywhere else.
I closed my eyes and focused. Katherine was wounded, the last mission was a disaster and I blew my cover with Amaranta already. Tonight, we had to win.
We stopped in a patch of trees near the city and filed out of the van. Once we left the vehicle, the van drove away. Katherine motioned us to follow her and we did. Amaranta and Robert walked side by side while the Twins joined the Sergeant. I caught up to Katherine, walking next to her.
She gave me a glare. “What?” she asked, not using the comms.
“Are you all right?”
“That’s none of your business.” She turned away from me and sped up.
What the hell was wrong with her? She was angry, probably half-drunk, and thus bound to lead another stupid charge. We reached the forest’s edge and looked down into a small valley at an abandoned factory. The complex was roughly rectangular with a low wall that had gaping holes. No light other than the moon blessed the valley. The wind was tame, the grass slightly damp and no birds announced their presence.
“We split into two teams. Amaranta, Robert, with me, the rest with Sergeant King,” Katherine commanded. “We descend the valley from East and West and make our way in.”
The others started moving. But Amaranta didn’t, looking at me. I sighed. “Wrong. We need to send an advance infiltration squad to disable their self-destruction mechanism.”
“You’re not in charge, Simmons,” Katherine snapped. “We go with my plan.”
I glanced at the Twins, Amaranta, Robert, and Sergeant King. They were all looking at me. As the sergeant said, I was terrible at being undercover. But I was still an agent and I actually cared about the people around me. “Katherine, listen. I don’t know what happened to you, but you are too angry to lead this. The last mission almost got everyone killed and if we go with your plan, this one will end worse.”
Katherine didn’t even look at me. “This is not a democracy.”
I shrugged theatrically. “Is she really in charge, Sergeant?”
“Technically speaking,” Sergeant King said. “But I’m still the leader of this team and I say we listen to Simmons.”
Katherine glowered at me. “I can override any decision anyone here makes at my leisure.”
“That doesn’t matter, Katherine,” Amaranta whispered into the comms. “Simmons is right.”
For a second, pain flashed over Katherine’s face. “Fine… what do you propose?”
All eyes were on me now. Good. From what I had seen, Reid and Cadena lacked any long-range spells. We, on the other hand, had an overabundance of that and thus we had to smoke them out. That would also make it irrelevant that they knew we were coming. “Katherine, can you fight at least with eighty percent of your power?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
“I meant eighty percent of the real thing, not the part that you show in public.”
Katherine paused, glowering at me so intensely I wondered if my head wouldn’t explode. “I’m at somewhere around half of my strength.”
All right, that would suffice. “We split into four groups: me and the Twins, Katherine, Amaranta, Robert and Sergeant King. The Twins and I infiltrate the factory, climbing over the Northeastern section of the wall. Once we give the signal over the comms, Katherine and Amaranta start the diversions. Katherine goes from the front, making a mess with her fire. Amaranta stays atop the valley and provides artillery support with her lightning. Robert and Sergeant King move in using the opening Katherine will create and then join my team inside the building.”
Robert eyed me suspiciously. As he opened his mouth, Amaranta hit his shoulder and he closed it, not uttering a word.
“From a military standpoint, this wouldn’t work. We would be too isolated. But I suppose you have a rather extensive experience fighting mage battles, right Simmons?” Sergeant King asked. “Is there something you aren’t telling us that makes your plan functional?”
Heat flushed into my cheeks. “I do.”
“Elaborate,” Sergeant King commanded.
Did he really have to call out my cover like this? Yes, he kind of did to make sure I prioritized the team’s success over whatever mission I had as an agent. Katherine’s glowering was replaced with a vicious smirk. Okay, so I either chose my cover, in which case my plan would be shot down, or I would officially end the undercover part of my mission. I looked up at the moon.
Technically speaking, my deal with Jack required finding the traitor, solving him, and then catching Reid. I could let the team get wiped out, implicitly fulfilling the first two parts of this mission, and then I could float into my real body and show Reid how terrifying the supernatural world was. But I didn’t want the people around me to die. Not Katherine, not Amaranta, not the Twins, not anyone from them. “I’m Lucas Johnson, LCorp US Head of Interventions. Since the VI ranks are thin, I was hired by Father Jack to bolster this team, using my ability to travel between bodies to take over the corpse of Specialist Simmons. The plan’s untold part is that I will leave this body and possess enemy soldiers to sweep our path.”
To my surprise, Katherine said nothing. I liked the little lie I just told since it hid the whole search for the traitor part. Yes, Katherine and Amaranta knew since I wasn’t smart enough to make up this lie when Amaranta caught me, but such was life.
Robert wheezed. “I heard only fallen angels can move between bodies.”
“Precisely.” I put on a sour smile. “Also, change of plan. Robert, Sergeant, and the Twins move as one team to infiltrate, Katherine and Amaranta move as I said before, but Amaranta will also watch over my body when I’m out of it.”
No one said anything for a long moment.
“Sounds better,” Sergeant King cleaved the silence. “Let’s move. And we should crawl since they likely have camera surveillance.”
We dropped to the ground and left the forest. Katherine didn’t look at me but moved toward her position. As I crawled, I reached into the back of my mind where Paul’s consciousness resided. He was still there, oozing fear. Why so afraid?
He felt surprised. ‘Aren’t you going to kill me?’
No, of course not. But I also couldn’t afford him sabotaging me again. I don’t kill needlessly. Though I need to knock you out.
‘That’s fair.’ He emitted relief.
I focused on his unconsciousness and pushed, squeezing him into the furthest corner of his mind, which knocked him out.
“So, Lucas, what is it like to be a fallen angel?” Amaranta asked, not using the comms as she crawled next to me.
The ground wasn’t too muddy but was wet enough to paint me brown. “Just like being a regular human.”
“And what was it like to be an angel?”
“I don’t know. I became like this by merging with a fallen angel’s soul.”
“So… you never actually had a chance to prove you were worthy of being an angel.”
My gut clenched. Yeah, I didn’t like this part of my life. We reached our position and announced so over the comms.
Amaranta sat up, looking at me with a strange expression, a mixture of fear and curiosity. “If you could take back becoming like this, would you?”
“No. My father is a fallen angel who’s still working for VI. Yeah, I’m working for the Devil right now, but I still believe that one day, I might do something good with the power I wield. That perhaps, one day, I could become a better man.”
She smiled. “Everyone can be redeemed, provided he has the will to change.”
I kind of missed telling the truth. To be honest, the worst part of working undercover was the inability to talk to people about my real thoughts. Now that the whole cover thing was off, I needed to talk to someone and Amaranta happened to be present and willing to listen. Plus, I liked her. “I’m far beyond redemption.”
