Whispers of Ash (The Nameless Book 1) Read online

  Sofia Ortiz!

  She was the sort of person you never forgot. Tall, athletic, with flowing black hair that reached her shoulders, kissing her light caramel skin. Sofia was dressed in blue jeans, a hiking raincoat, and sneakers. Ryan turned and smiled as she caught his gaze. He didn’t have to look behind her to know that Booth followed. He was wearing the same cologne he always wore.

  Sofia, Booth, and another man unknown to him, approached.

  “Sofia,” Ryan said, noting the pain in her eyes. She pulled her lips tight into a small smile.

  “Bored yet, Connors?” Booth said. His sandy blond hair was styled, immaculate as ever. Even in this weather, not a hair was out of place.

  “Not in the slightest,” Ryan said. He wanted to read his book, nothing else. He had left this life behind. “How are those Vikings doing?”

  “Bane of my existence and you know it. But hey, at least we have a team. Remind me, does Oregon?” Booth said.

  “You’re from Iowa.”

  “Minnesota.”

  “Out of curiosity, why do they call it football? It’s all hands, with barely a kick made.”

  “Twenty years I’ve known you, and we’re still having this discussion?”

  Ryan smiled. He and Booth liked to give each other a hard time over their preferred sports. It was always the same subject. In a way, it was like small talk. A way of breaking the ice, lightening the mood.

  Booth grinned back and waved his thumb to the other suited man, who was looking on, perplexed.

  “This is Holder. Bill Holder. Holder, this is Ryan Connors.”

  “G’day,” Holder said. His Australian twang sounded even more foreign in the sake bar than Booth’s Mid-western accent.

  “As nice as it is to see you guys, I know you didn’t come here to exchange pleasantries,” Ryan said.

  “You ready to do some real work again?” Booth said.

  “Whatever it is, I’m retired.” Ryan carefully placed a bookmark in his book and closed it and absentmindedly positioned it so that it was an equal distance from the table edges and his pot of tea.

  Sofia pulled out a stool next to him and sat down, blowing air through her teeth. She hesitated before touching his hand.

  “It’s Keiko. She’s missing.”

  Ryan grunted and raised his eyes. His mind whirled. Keiko was Sofia’s daughter. She had grown up with his twins, Liam and Zanzi. He had always treated Keiko as his own. One of the family.

  “Where? When?”

  “Koya, six days ago,” Sofia said, her voice tinged with worry and sadness.

  “Koya? What was she doing up there? I thought she went to university in Osaka.”

  “She is … does,” Sofia murmured. She glanced at Booth, who nodded.

  “What have you guys got her involved in? She’s just a damn kid.”

  Sofia choked down a sob, holding her fist to her mouth. Ryan poured her a glass of water and waited until she had regained her composure.

  “We’ve been working on a case. Something highly sensitive. It involves high-ranking officials and satellite codes. Two weeks ago, a friendly contacted us, asking for extraction from Japan to the USA. In return, they would provide us with intel on how and why the codes were being sold. The weird thing was, he was specific about where he wanted to be relocated.”

  “Las Vegas, I suppose?”

  “That’s what I thought too, but no. Whittier, Alaska.”

  “Weird, but okay. What has it got to do with Keiko disappearing?”

  “We asked him for a morsel as goodwill. He told us to look underneath the Koyasan University if we wanted to know who was responsible.”

  “So you sent Keiko.” Ryan gritted his teeth. “An untrained operative. Sloppy and dangerous.”

  Even though he was angry at Sofia and Booth for endangering her, they would have exhausted all other options first. Maybe it had been the only way. Keiko, with her Japanese appearance and student credentials, would have blended right in. Still, it wasn’t a move he would have made.

  “Yes.” Sofia looked away, dabbing her cheek with her sleeve. “I never would have agreed if I thought there was any danger.”

  He took Sofia’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “What went wrong?”

  “In her last phone call, she mentioned rumors of an old bunker from the war, which would explain the odd noises the nearby villagers sometimes hear. But whenever she asked anyone about it, they told her it was just stories. Myth. Keiko told me she was going to the library to research it some more, and we haven’t heard from her since.”

  “Police?”

  “The usual, doing all they can.”

  Ryan searched Sofia’s brown eyes. He saw in them the pain he knew too well. A child you had brought into the world was in danger. He gave her hand another squeeze.

  “We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’re family. I suppose you’ve hacked the police computers?”

  “Of course. Nothing useful in there.”

  Sofia was a computer expert. A valuable member of his former team. She was brilliant, beautiful, and smart as a whip. Born to Colombian and American parents, she looked like she belonged on a catwalk, not behind a screen. If she hadn’t found anything from the police systems, then they’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. Sneak in, look around, and sneak out.

  “Okay, then. We’ll head up there tomorrow. You guys staying close by?”

  “Yeah, not far.” Sofia nodded.

  Booth took a seat next to Ryan and Sofia, leaving Holder standing. Booth ordered a beer, his fingers tapping the wooden bar.

  “We need your help with something else.”

  “I’m retired, remember. I’ll help find Keiko, and once she’s safe, I’m out,” Ryan said, shaking his head. He looked over at Sofia. Her eyes pleaded with him. “What is it?”

  “I can’t say much here. Check out these files tonight. See if you can make any sense of them.” Booth handed him a red and silver USB stick.

  “What’s on here?”

  “Just take a look, tell me what you think.”

  Ryan ground his teeth together. For three years he’d been out of the game. The game was the best way to describe working for an agency. Full of half-truths and need-to-know-only statements. No one ever gave you the full information. Just enough to keep you on the path they had designed. It had irritated him then, and it angered him even more now.

  “I’m out, Booth. I promised Zanzi that I wouldn’t put myself in any danger. If you can’t tell me what’s on this precious stick, then I’m sure you have new agents who are more than capable.”

  “Are you just going to abandon everything we worked toward.” Booth sighed and softened his voice. “We all swore the same oaths.”

  “I know, Booth! But you know what I lost.”

  Some of the customers looked up from their meals and drinks before dismissing the raised voices.

  “No one could have survived that torrent, Booth,” Ryan said.

  “I know that. Just look at the files, will you? We need your help.”

  Ryan pulled out a greenstone pendant in the shape of an adze from under his shirt and ran his thumb over it. “I think I deserve my solitude and my retirement. God knows, I’ve sacrificed enough for it. I’ll help find Keiko and that’s it.”

  He rolled his shoulders and used the time to flick his eyes around the bar. As far as he could tell, it was filled with the usual assortment of workers, eating and drinking before shuffling off to their tiny apartments. But something didn’t feel right. He wasn’t sure if it was just his nerves after seeing his old friends, or paranoia from his ever-present PTSD. You may retire from the life, but the life never retires from you.

  Booth placed a phone next to his drink. “Look at the files on the thumb drive. We need your help, Connors. This is big. It’s as serious as the Romania incident. As the Congo, and Ust Akon,” Booth said. “You remember Ust?”

  “Of course. That sort o
f memory is carved into my mind. All those people dead. Burnt. But no sign of fire.”

  “Then you realize how important this is.”

  “I realize. It’s not that I don’t, but I’m retired, Booth. How many ways do you want me to say it?”

  “I think you know who’s behind it.”

  “Is ReinCorp involved?”

  “Yes,” Booth answered. “We suspect so.”

  ReinCorp. World leaders in microchips. In robotics. In pharmaceuticals. In biotechnology. They had developed technology that blended cybernetics with living tissue. Prosthetics that, with an implant, could be controlled via the brain just like a natural limb. NATO and the US had so far prevented most of the technology from being released to the general public.

  Like all powerful corporations, rumors dogged them. Ryan’s former team—The Nameless—had been sent to investigate. Every time they had got close, they’d hit brick walls of either political or military red tape and were ordered to stand down.

  Several missions had ended in disaster. Members had died. Members of The Nameless.

  “Connors?” Booth said.

  “If ReinCorp are involved, my advice is to walk away.”

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should just walk away. But that won’t help anyone.” Sorrow clouded Booth’s eyes. He reached inside his suit, pulled free a white envelope, and handed it to Ryan.

  It contained a single black and white photograph. The image was grainy. A woman, her face turned away slightly. Hair cut Marine-style, a scar ran from her forehead to just below her right ear. She was dressed in tight black clothing. From the background, it looked like an airport.

  “What’s this?”

  “Look closely. Tell me what you see.”

  “A woman.” He gazed at the photo, taking more notice of the details. Her height. Build. The way she stood. Ryan took a sharp intake of breath. Peeking out from the cuff of her jacket was a tattoo. All he could see was a centimeter or so, but it was enough. The end of two wavy lines. Cal? He tossed the photo back at Booth.

  “Impossible,” Ryan whispered. “You two come here asking for my help, and now you show me this?”

  He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight as his mind flashed back to the day he would rather forget.

  Two

  Sierra Nevada Mountains

  Three Years Earlier

  Ryan sprinted harder, urging his legs to make up the distance to the row of plastic barrels twenty meters away.

  Zip! Zip! Zip!

  Bullets flew passed his head, so close the sound waves rippled across his skin.

  He skidded behind the barrels and glanced around, desperate to locate the shooter—or was it shooters plural?

  “Stop daydreaming,” Cal said.

  “I’m not day…”

  Ping!

  “…dreaming,” Ryan said, ducking even lower, his eyes still searching for the source of the gunfire.

  He grinned at Cal—his wife and partner. She had shoulder-length black hair, and blue eyes that seemed to sparkle, even when she was angry. Like now.

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” she said.

  “I know. But you must admit, we couldn’t see diddly, watching from the trail.”

  “Yeah, I know. Why the hell does a satellite installation have trigger-happy guards anyway?”

  “What I really want to know is why are they only pinning us down. I mean, they can’t be that bad shots, can they?” Ryan said.

  Cal pulled the cuff of her fleece jacket down her arm, and he caught a glimpse of the small knife she had tucked away. That was one of the traits he loved about her: she was always prepared. They had to be, in their profession. Ready for anything.

  “Well, it confirms one thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The director’s intel was right. This isn’t just a satellite installation.”

  The week before, Director Lisa Omstead had asked his team—The Nameless—to investigate. She had received a tip off that the installation was more than it appeared. Hiding its true purpose. Being used for nefarious reasons. Bad enough for his agency, LK3 to become involved.

  Thunk!

  A round hit the containers, centimeters above their heads. Ryan and Cal pushed themselves flatter against the concrete.

  “I think they’re trying to kill us now,” Cal whispered.

  Ryan was annoyed at his carelessness. Normally he would have crept in at twilight, when it wasn’t quite dark or light. He had learned that was the ideal time for infiltration. Any guard posted had trouble seeing, and they were bored from the hours of inactivity, their minds wandering.

  Of course, with modern cameras and advances in technology, sneaking into guarded facilities was becoming increasingly difficult.

  Cal pulled her radio free and spoke into it. As she did, Ryan checked the perimeter. The installation had satellite dishes and radio telescopes of varying sizes. Not only that, but an array of radio and cellular masts, a helicopter pad, and one access road. The Pacific Crest Trail was close by. Close enough that they had disguised themselves as hikers.

  He asked Cal if she had any luck raising Booth or Sofia—the other members of The Nameless.

  Cal shook her head and pressed down the talk button on her long-range radio. An odd-sounding squelch rang out before she shut it off. “I suspect this installation is scrambling our signal.”

  He slipped his smartphone onto a selfie-stick. “Looks like we’re on our own again.”

  Using the phone’s high pixel camera, he inched it above the barrels and pivoted it. He spotted both of the gunmen a fraction of a second before there was a Crack! and a bullet shattered his phone, raining electronic debris over his legs.

  He wriggled around his wife. “One shooter at ten, the other at four.”

  Cal sprang into action, keeping the gunman at ten pinned down while Ryan fired at the other. He rose to one knee, trying to get a clearer shot.

  Six figures, dressed in black combat gear, burst onto the roof through the very door they’d attempted to enter minutes ago. The men came out, rifles raised.

  “Multiple hostiles,” he warned Cal.

  “I see them.”

  The black commandos peppered bullets around them, forcing them to take cover behind the blue containers once again. Ryan slammed his palm against the concrete. After escaping so many dicey situations, had his luck finally run out?

  Frantic, he ran his mind through the map of the installation, which he had memorized. There was still one option left.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the low wall that ran around the perimeter of the roof. Ten meters below it, a river raged. If they could swim downstream and escape, they had a chance. That was all the motivation he needed. A chance was better than nothing.

  The commandos continued to fire rounds, pinning them, but no bullets came closer than half a meter from them. Whoever these guys were, killing wasn’t the objective.

  Cal took his hand in hers and nodded. After seventeen years together, he should have guessed that she knew what he was thinking.

  “Are we too old for this?” Ryan said.

  “Never. The river?”

  “On three?”

  “On three.”

  She slipped her weapon back into her holster and pulled the straps of her rucksack tighter.

  As quick as the shooting had started, it stopped. The sound of silence was eerie. Suddenly Ryan could hear the mountain winds whistling through the radio telescopes, and even the churning of the water below. Echoing above these sounds was a clicking noise of metal hitting metal. The tone shifted to metal hitting concrete and stopped.

  “You can come out now. There is no escape. We have several guns trained on your position,” a voice called out. The speaker had a crisp, Germanic way of speaking. Ryan frowned. The inflection was familiar. It was the way the voice articulated the vowels. Old-fashioned.

  “What insurances do we have?” Ryan asked.

  “None. What is it you Americ
ans say? Better to die on your feet than on your knees?”

  Cal raised an eyebrow at Ryan. “Who is this asshole?” she mouthed. He shrugged and stood up, holding his hands out. He cursed to himself as he eyeballed the speaker.

  Victor Offenheim. Head of the largest tech company in the world—ReinCorp. They supplied over ninety percent of the world’s microchips and processors. From smartphones to driverless cars. They all had the ReinCorp stamp. What the hell was he doing here?

  At a glance, there didn’t seem anything remarkable about the man. He was average height. Dark hair and blue eyes. But when you looked closer, you noticed the flawless, marble-like skin.

  “Ah. There he is. Mr. Connors. And behind the containers must be Calwyn Connors. The inseparable twosome. If you would be so kind and show yourself too, Mrs. Connors,” Offenheim said. “That must mean Mr. Booth and Ms. Ortiz are nearby.” Victor beckoned to one of his men and murmured something before turning his attention back to Ryan and Cal.

  “You look surprised. You are asking yourself, why am I here?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.” Ryan said. Cal nodded in agreement.

  “Let’s put it down to coincidence and, yes, I know who you are. I make it my business to. Even those supposedly Nameless. Always sticking your noses where they shouldn’t be.” He turned and looked up at the sun setting over the snow-capped mountains. “I’ll remember this day for a long time. Goodbye Connors.”

  “Wait!” Ryan shouted.

  Victor pivoted. “Yes?”

  “Kill me if you must, but please. Just let her live.” Ryan took a couple of steps back, edging toward the river.

  “No deal.”

  “Then at least tell me what’s going on here.”

  Offenheim chortled. “I’m not going to grant you a dying wish and tell you all my plans.”

  “So there is a plan. Huh?”

  “D-don’t!” Offenheim stammered and banged his walking cane on the concrete roof. He flicked his eyes away before regaining his composure and glaring at the Connors. “Don’t twist my words. Look around you. There is no one to save you. This is my private installation, and you are armed and trespassing.”