Page 27 of Dying to Meet You

Charming kid. I nod at her speechless. Her cult programming is so ingrained, she doesn’t know how to separate reality from make believe.

She leaves my car without a look back once we park in the driveway. The pills are removed from my pocket, locking them in the center console. I know I don’t want any children coming across them, but I also don’t want to part with them yet.

What the fuck am I doing?

Chapter Fifteen

Unpopular opinion

Hutton

Homeforoneday,and my cell phone never stops. I turn it off, tossing it onto the desk. With my laptop open to the program I wrote for the FBI, I scroll through layers of the dark web, typing in the buzz words “Realists”, “Lassiter”, and “Time is Now”. Nothing new comes up…one message is a “call to arms” by a remaining cult member located in Pennsylvania who works as a grocery store stocker, another message asking for information on the Lassiters, and the cryptic “I’m dying to meet you. Signed “the last of the true Realists”. That is the only message I’m concerned with.

Why? Because the same encryption methods I’ve perfected, the same code I use that is not duplicated anywhere in the world, is used with that message.

It can only mean one thing: The FBI is involved on some level. My code was leaked by the people I’ve worked with. We thought those involved had been prosecuted. Others were met with mysterious ends as they cleaned their own house.

And they want me to know.

I put nothing past an organization built on secrets and lies; that undergoes covert operations and uses people like a commodity. Matt and Keir may try to be “good guys”, but they are at the disposal of crooked politicians and evil masterminds. The day they both realize that the better off we’ll all be.

Duplicating the code, I scramble it, working on an unbreakable encryption. Now that I know the enemy thinks they have one up on us, I’m going to blow that code up. Think again.

When I turn my phone back on to seven messages waiting, the phone starts to ring again. It’s coming from one of the untraceable phones a client has. “Mr. Cross?” a tentative man’s voice asks.

“It’s the only number programmed on the phone, Imad.”

“Oh yes, yes. How are you? Our weat-”

“No. I despise small talk. It’s either posturing or pretense. I can’t stand either one. It’s a waste of time. Do you have the intel I need? If not, I'm disconnecting.”

Sounding properly cowed, the brigadier general of the Syrian Army gives me what I need. “Toss the phone in a fire.” With that I hang up.

Turning to another laptop, I locate the file marked “the fund”, selecting the next person on the list and pulling up their bank account to transfer four hundred thousand dollars into it. A message left for the bank…deposit by Anonymous. There is a four-year-old boy lying in the hospital after surgery, his parents working two jobs with a baby on the way. I pay the medical expenses, then drop the cash in. Joan Lassiter’s money will be used to right some wrongs. The old bird won’t ever know, unless she’s seeing the action from Hell. The sense of balance has me deciding to keep this up after her inheritance is gone. With millions banked up, approaching seven figures, it’s more than we can spend in our lifetimes. There is no shortage of people who need help but won’t ask.

That’s where “Anonymous” comes in.

I half smile, thinking about Weston’s and Zach’s fascination withRobin Hoodlately. The only difference is I don't need to steal to do the right thing.

Agent David Bristow appears in my office doorway. “Hutton, Steve and I want to show you something out on the property.”

The middle-aged, moon-faced agent purses his lips before adding, “Do you have some night vision goggles? If not, I can grab a pair from my gear.” I routinely survey our camera feed from my phone when I’m away or on my screen in the office. Whatever they want me to see shouldn’t be a surprise to me.

The revulsion I feel at the mention of night vision goggles is maddening. My earliest memories are stained with the terror of being hunted in dark woods by men wearing them. “I’ll pass. I have a flashlight, thanks.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “Follow me. It’s a few yards from the treehouse.”

I’m a good foot and half taller than Agent Bristow at six feet seven inches tall. Neither that, the muscle I’ve packed on, nor the nasty scar across my neck have ever made the man look or shrink away. I still don’t trust him, but I can respect the ice water that must run through his veins. “Lead the way.”

It’s pitch black in the tree line once we veer away from the house. I switch the flashlight on, the ping of a memory echoing in my mind. Could’ve been the mention of night vision, or maybe it’s all the talk of the Realists, but a cold sweat breaks out all over my body.

We approach one of the cameras I had placed, the light on it indicating it’s operational. Bristow taps my arm. “Right over here.” Several feet up on the trunk of an elm tree is another camera, one I’ve never seen. It’s the size of a deck of cards, black and sleek, the green light solid on the bottom of it. I yank it off the tree before shoving it in my pocket. I want to disable it, but not before I take a closer look in my office.

“Not yours then?”

“No. Any others found on the property yet?”

We talk about getting a couple local officers to help them sweep the woods and check over the buildings. He calls Steve to update him. “I’ll be in my office taking this apart,” I tell him patting my pocket.

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