The Recruit: A Taskforce Story Read Online Free PDF

can do it from a technical perspective. But I have no backup. This cover you’ve given me is so shallow that all it will take is a cursory Google search to expose us. We get caught and we’ve got nothing to fall back on.”
    Decoy came out and closed the door loud enough for Knuckles to hear. He looked up and said, “Okay, sir. I got it. I’ll get it done.”
    “What’s that all about?”
    Knuckles rubbed his forehead and said, “Your best intentions have put us in a world of shit.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “The Oversight Council wants us to go in. They want to implant stay-behind listening devices. Get some intel for future operations. Thanks to your little booty call.”
    Carly had called back less than two hours after lunch. Knuckles had answered the phone. A little exasperated, she’d said, “Linda Devoire is an alias for a German national who’s been tied up in revolutions all over the damn southern hemisphere. She’s not American.”
    Surprised, his mind spinning over the news, both because of what it represented and because the girl on the other end knew it, he kept to his cover. “Whoa. Good thing we talked to you first. So I guess we won’t be using her backyard.”
    “No, you won’t. And I want to know how you found her. People have been looking for her for ten years.”
    “Ten years, huh? How do you know that? Working in the Consular Section?”
    He heard a little steel come through the phone. “Don’t fuck with me. I don’t dance. You are not a cellular infrastructure company.”
    “And you don’t work for the Consular Section, do you?”
    He heard nothing for a few seconds, then, in a much calmer voice, “Yes, I do. And I made a huge mistake running this name. I did it unofficially, tainting the computers. The search criteria are all logged, and now I can’t bring it higher without getting fired. I’m praying it gets buried in a ton of other searches while I figure out a way to get it in the system. You guys have screwed me. Who are you?”
    “I’m sorry. We had no idea who she was. We’re exactly who we say we are. We’re down here at the behest of the ambassador. Doing cellular infrastructure research for disaster preparedness. I appreciate the help. We’ll look elsewhere for a suitable site. I want no part of some fight with a German revolutionary.”
    She’d hung up, and Knuckles had fed the information into his own proprietary Taskforce system, which had spiked. The combination of a bunch of guys associated with the Shining Path entering the house, an envelope of greenbacks, and a German revolutionary—all within spitting distance of the US embassy—had caused their mission to go from orientation to operational.
    He put the phone on the nightstand and looked at Decoy. “We’ve been given a B&E mission. Tonight.”
    Trying for nonchalance, but feeling the pressure, Decoy said, “How hard can that be? Sounds like fun.”
    “No way will it be fun. It would be a cakewalk with just the female, but we know there’s a bunch of indig there. It’s mission impossible now.”
    “So we don’t go. You keep talking about the cover; surely the Oversight Council sees that.”
    “Yeah, they do. I told Kurt I’d give it a go, then pull back if it was looking bad. Apparently, this is dovetailing with some OGA reporting. Something’s up, and the confluence of reporting has got their panties in a knot.”
    “OGA?”
    “Other Government Agency. Meaning CIA. Jesus, do I have to spell it out like you’re a civilian?”
    Decoy bristled and slapped the wall, saying, “Enough of that shit. I don’t get your secret acronyms and I’m now an idiot? Fuck that. Give me the damn tech kit and I’ll get in. What matters is skill, not your knowledge of the black-arts secret language.”
    Knuckles saw he was genuinely aggravated and backed off, a little ashamed at his superior attitude, knowing Decoy was right.
    He said, “Okay, okay. I’m with you. But we’re going to need