Page 1 of Talk to Me

Prologue

If you knew this was your last day on Earth, how would you wanna spend it?

That question came up in philosophy class. It was tossed around at a girl’s night while we were drinking. It was asked during a damn episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

The thing was, every single time I heard that question, my answer changed. Today, I couldn’t seem to shake the question or come up with a good answer. I used my keycard to access the elevator lobby, then again to send the elevator up twenty-two floors. Once there, I would need to pass through the business front to get inside one of the country’s most secure watchdog hubs.

Though watchdog was kind of a misnomer. We were an operational center. More for off the books, black ops, designed to protect the security of our country from all threats foreign and domestic.

I’d taken an oath the day I received my security clearance. Everything about my employment was classified, from the offices we worked in to the people we reported to. Most were simply names in emails or an avatar on the screen.

“Morning, Fallon,” Ralph Taylor greeted me from where he sat behind the semi-circle reception desk. He had video screens everywhere beneath the lip of the desk, as well as weapons. A retired former detective from the NYPD, he confessed to enjoying his babysitting job for the nerd squad.

I didn’t mind being lumped in with the rest.

“Morning, Ralph,” I said before I set the brown paper bag on the desk.

“You remembered!” He gave me a wide smile.

“I did. The pirozhkis were fresh too.” The smell would have made my stomach grumble if I hadn’t picked up two for myself to eat in the car.

“You’re the best,” he called as I carded my way through the last security door. It opened to an antechamber then closed and locked me in the room where I needed a retina scan and a code before it allowed me final access to the tank.

The light flashed from red to green, then a buzzer sounded as the door opened to let me inside.

“There’s my girl,” Marty Cartwright greeted me as I slipped inside. Cartwright was the senior supervisor here in the tank.

“Good morning,” I said as I released my card back to thump against my chest. It was secured by a retractable cord that clipped to my jacket. His presence set off alarm bells. Hadn’t he left to go on vacation two days earlier?

Not that we had nine to five, five day a week jobs. We came in when the work required it. He moved like a shadow, following me to my cubicle. In addition to Marty, there were five others already in and at their desks.

Headsets on, they had various assignments up on their monitors. I recognized some at a distance, but not others. I didn’t focus, just headed to my own control center. Marty continued to move in my wake, his unsettling presence leaving me on edge.

I set my bag down on the desk, opened the drawer where I always locked it in and then closed it before I pulled out the chair. Not sitting, I looked at Marty. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking…”

Waiting, I tilted my head as I met his gaze.

“You’ve been handling most of the watch over Turkey and the Baltics.”

I nodded.

“We need to bring in someone to train. Currently, you’re the only one who speaks the language of that area.”

I knew this. So why was he bringing it up?

“For the next couple of days, I need you to log off of those servers.”

My stomach dropped. Did he know that I’d found out?

“Okay,” I said slowly, as though I needed to rework my schedule. “I think today’s tapes and calls are all Poland and the new canal.”

“Excellent. If you get tagged into the Baltics, just forward it to me.” Then he winked. “Maybe we can get a drink later.”

Never going to happen. I smiled. “If I have brain cells left at the end of the day, I’ll think about it.”

That earned me a laugh. Then he motioned me to my chair. “I’ll leave you to it.” But his humor faded before he’d even turned away. Then he was striding across the office.

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