Alien Agenda: Why They Came, Why They Stayed by Steve Peek

Author:Steve Peek [Steve Peek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA

“Yes sir,” the middle-aged woman in the perfectly pressed, gray pantsuit said into the phone. Her face flushed. She hated anything that smelled of failure, and right now it was being inferred she reeked of it. The guy doing the inferring was Lance Swaggert, a thirty-something regional campaign manager whose only expertise since graduating from Princeton was helping reelect politicians. He had parlayed this into an undersecretary post at Homeland Security. Kate called Lance Swaggert ‘TLS’: the little shit. “Sir,” she emphasized the word a little too much, “we are sharing everything we know or think we know with your office, the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA.”

There was a pause while she listened, the expression on her face annoyed as her skin darkened a shade. “No sir, we have not sent anyone anything in the last half hour because we don’t have anything new.” Only those who had worked with her for years could detect the taste of anger in her voice.

The voice on the phone grew louder, and she held the receiver from her ear, rolling her eyes, wanting this to be over. The others in the room heard the voice coming out of the phone almost as a WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA-BLAH-BLAH, then very distinctly, “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Clearly, sir. Good-bye.” She placed the receiver down before TLS could add any other unnecessary threats or urgings.

She said to the others in the room, “I’m going out for a smoke. Come get me if you get anything.” What she really wanted was to go out for a drink, but there would be none of that until the girl was found and safely back in the care of Uncle Sam.

Tom Cray looked up from his array of computer screens and watched his boss walk out of the room. She doesn’t deserve this, he thought, and decided to take a break himself. They had been on their version of DEFCON 1 for more than fifteen hours, and he had not been to the bathroom in the last six or seven. The coffee in his bladder demanded attention.

Tom had been with this unit longer than anyone currently working. He was transferred from another covert government computer unit after September 11, 2001. He’d been here nearly ten years, and still missed the camaraderie of the old team. They had dubbed themselves the Original Geeks, and they were proud of their uncanny programming prowess.

When he was transferred to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security’s Interception Department, he felt it was the patriotic thing to do. Sure he would miss his old team, but he would help build a new team.

Wrong.

He was twenty years senior to everyone else at Team Intercept. His first boss, a twenty-something, political appointee who didn’t know shit from shinola about anything other than running political campaigns, didn’t like him from the start. Tom was worried the asshole might start appreciating his skill and keep him. If the boss wanted him transferred, he would most likely go back to his beloved Geeks.

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