Cyborg Strike Read Online Free PDF Page A

weapons with me, which will make them worry all
the more, wondering why they cannot find what I surely must
have . He laughed aloud.
     
    ***
     
    The call came in to Brigadier Alkina’s office
a quarter world away, routed directly to her desk by a well-trained
COMINT collector.
    The fact that the heavily encrypted traffic
the man had been analyzing had suddenly become transparent, his
near-real-time supercomputer decryption easily breaking a simple
eight-bit scramble, surprised him, of course. That the message
itself had begun with a recorded loop that said, “Please patch this
secure voice feed to Ann Alkina,” had startled him, but he had
wisely decided that anyone that could feed into his intelligence
system at will should probably be listened to.
    And, if the boss did not like his decision,
he was sure his career would survive it. She’d never, to his
knowledge, been less than scrupulously fair with her subordinates.
On the other hand, if it turned out to be important and he
delayed…that might be less survivable.
    “Alkina,” she answered. For a moment all she
heard were crackles, pops and echoes, a sure sign of a call
originating off the continent. Then her phone switched of its own
accord into secure mode, indicating that the other end had
initiated a synchronized encryption that ensured no one between the
two devices could decipher their words.
    When the line cleared and the green light
came on, she heard a female voice, half-familiar. “Ann Alkina? My
name is Cassandra Johnsone. I work for Daniel Markis.”
    Alkina sat back in her chair and stared for a
moment at the inside of her office door, mind racing. She’d never
spoken to the woman on the other end, though she knew the name and
reputation quite well: Markis’ personal spymistress. Of course she
had seen videos and heard recordings of her counterpart – perhaps,
technically, her superior, as Johnstone putatively ran the entire
Free Community intelligence apparatus.
    However, the woman had never tried to assert
such authority over Australian affairs, beyond asking for and
receiving routine political-military intelligence such as many had
access to – the general classified items, not the close-held ones.
The fact that she could and did tap in to easily into Australian
networks, by the roundabout method of deliberately having her call
picked up through intelligence channels, was a clear subtext
intended for Alkina herself, she was sure. Translation: I can
get in if I want to.
    “I know who you are,” Alkina answered
politely. “How may I help you?”
    “I just wanted to know that our mutual friend
arrived safe and sound, and is even now meeting my boss in as much
privacy and security as I can provide him.”
    Alkina paused again to digest this
straightforward declaration. “But that’s not all you wish to say to
me.”
    “Of course not. There are two reasons for my
call. The first is that I have always wanted to talk to you, even
to meet you. As it happened, I was not involved in your preparation
for the Nebraska mission, so we narrowly missed each other.
Since then, we’ve both been a bit busy.”
    “Then it pleases me to speak with you
directly for the first time, Miss Johnstone.”
    “Please, call me Cassandra, or Cassie if you
prefer.”
    “I would like that. Likewise, you may call me
Ann.”
    “I wish we were closer together. Perhaps I
should come visit? I suspect we have a lot to talk about.”
    Alkina took a breath and sighed heavily, a
deliberate message. “I would enjoy such a visit, but I do not
believe that would be wise at this time. The situation for people
such as we are is rather…unsettled. Perhaps when our friend
returns, he can stabilize things enough for mutual exchanges to
become feasible.”
    “I understand.”
    “There was some other reason for your call?”
Alkina forced brightness into her voice, aware that most people
thought her cold and distant in her professional dealings.
    “Yes. I have some idea of what