Chapter 2

The elevator chimed, and the doors opened to reveal the FBI bullpen in all its glory. Cheap suits in chairs answered phone calls, while holo-machines buzzed and computers hummed.

I still didn't like the place.

With a purposeful stride I managed to skirt most of the agents loitering around the coffee machine and sneak past Jones' office without him seeing me.

I wasn't used to having to walk this far, but my old office door had a different name plate decorating it.

That name plate read Special Agent Karen Smith on it.

My new office was all the way across the room, on the very opposite side of the elevator. Apparently when you catch someone as nasty as Ronald Turner, the brass thinks that you might just be due a promotion. I was now something called a Supervisory Special Agent.

The long and short of that promotion means that I would now be doing next to no actual field work. It also meant I get an office the size of a cheap motel room rather than a broom closet.

I also got a secretary.

Rachel Lebrie was perhaps just a tad shy of being movie star pretty. She had blonde hair that curled into ringlets at the bottom, and blue eyes that were as clear as a spring sky, and almost as innocent.

Needless to say, I was incredibly skeptical when she introduced herself as my new secretary. I was sure she was a stripper, and that I was about to be embarrassed and aroused in an office filled with government employees.

But no, she was incredibly professional. I had only worked with her one day before my vaction began. However, from what I could tell she wore conservative clothing, and could even be considered good at her job.

It beat me what made a girl that pretty want to work for the government, but I didn't really consider it my business.

This morning she was sitting at her small desk outside my office in what could only be called a pants suit. Her hair was slightly frazzled. I noticed two empty paper cups in her trash. If they were any indication, she had had one more cup of coffee than usual.

As I got closer, she spotted me. The relief on her face was almost unbearably visible.

"Mr. Creed, I'm so glad you're here," Rachel said as she stood to great me. "I promised I wouldn't call you on your vacation if I didn't think it was important."

I brushed past her on my way into my office. "I understand, Ms. Lebrie," I said perhaps a tad colder than was warranted.

For some reason, I always felt odd around Rachel. It went beyond my mere attraction to her.

"Tell me exactly what happened, and exactly what you did," I said.

Rachel took a breath, and let it all out.

"Well, Mr. Creed, I just arrived in today when I heard your phone ring. I thought it was odd that the call didn't go through my extension but I thought maybe it was a personal call and I didn't think anything about it. But the calling didn't stop, and it went on for five minutes. Finally I thought it might be really important, and that it was something you'd want to know about. I didn't feel comfortable answering your phone, so I got Agent Scott to do it."

She stopped and looked up at me, trying to gauge my reaction.

I shrugged.

"Go on," I said.

Rachel nodded, "Well, Agent Scott got really nervous when he realized it was the private line for informants, but he tried to answer anyway. The man on the phone heard it wasn't you and hung up. When Agent Scott tried to redial the man told him to have you call him back and no one else."

Rachel suddenly looked up at me and studied me very closely, "He said something about you knowing 'the deal.'"

I nodded and sat down at my desk. It had to be Pietro. No one else had made such a 'deal' with me.

I picked up my phone, "That will be all Ms. Lebrie. You did the right thing."

Rachel nodded slightly, and with one last curious look at me, departed.

The phone only had time to ring once before it was answered.

A gravelly voice croaked, "Agent Creed?"

"Yes, it's me Pietro," I said, "I'm sorry I was so difficult to get a hold of."

"You sound like Creed, but still ... what's our password?"

I snorted into the phone, paranoia had its place, but Pietro had far too much of it.

"Fenway Park," I said tersely.

"Old or new?"

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

"Don't test me Mr. Moretti."

A long chuckle crackled its way into the earpiece. "Good, I was afraid I wasn't going to get to you in time. There is a very short window for this information."

I sat up straighter, "Wait, Pietro, is this the one?" I said slowly.

He gave a small humorless chuckle, "I'm pretty sure this will be the one Jon, the big one and the last one. Then it will be your turn to hold up your end of the deal."

I twirled a pen around my fingers.

Pietro Moretti and I made a deal five years ago.

Five years ago Pietro was in one of the biggest cocaine smuggling operations New York had ever seen. He would have spent time in a government hotel until he had grey in his hair had he been convicted. That is where I came in.

Pietro wasn't the one to blow the whistle on the smuggling. But he stayed out of jail all because of me. I brought him in for a little questioning, and I turned the cameras off. I told him that I had just gotten out of a room with his boss. I told him that his boss had shipped him and his little ring up the river for a lighter jail sentence, and that his name was implicated.

But I saw this as an opportunity. No one outside of the boss knew Pietro was involved. I told him that I would withhold his name from the bust list if he agreed to be my informant. I told him that he would be my informant until I believed I had been repaid.

I skimmed him off the top of a large smuggling conviction, an action that is similar to embezzling. I told him when I thought I was repaid I would use his information to get the FBI to treat him as a witness, and that then he could go into witness protection, where he could leave his life of crime free of charge, with all his ill-gotten gains.

"What is it Pietro, tell me what's got you so excited?" I said.

"Well," he said slowly, "It's got to do with those fancy human computer chips that you boys found out about a little while ago."

"Neural Processors? How do you know about those! We haven't released any specifics to the public. How can they have anything to do with ... with ... anything?"

I could almost hear Pietro's smile, "Well, apparently there were mob warehouses simply full of these things. At first, they were rounded up when the payments for the space stopped coming, and no one knew what they were. But now ... now the serious players know what they've gotten their hands on."

"Are they selling them?" I asked. My fingers were clenching my phone rather hard, and my knuckles had turned white.

"They sell some," he said, "But what concerns me more ... is that they've started to use them."

"Do they even know how to use them?" I asked, slightly terrified.

"Yeah," Pietro said, "Some of the boxes came with instruction manuals."

"Christ ... mafia with neural processors, sales to parties unknown." My thoughts were racing a million miles per second. This was not good, not good at all. Neural Processors were considered illegal technology. Any distribution would be treated as cyber terrorism by all law enforcement agencies.

"Yeah, I thought that might be your reaction," said Pietro.

"But ... but why would they use them? These things are used to control people, no one would willingly submit to having one put in," I said.

"Yeah," said Pietro, "the first few were forced, but after a while, one batch turned out to be some sort of super human thing. The guys that got those chips in their heads were all sorts of scary. They could move faster and shoot better and shit like that. Ever since they discovered that, well, let's just say some boys have warmed up to the idea of having superpowers."

My fingers tapped a nervous beat against my desk. "Anything else?" I asked, almost fearing the answer.

"No ... no that's it. The only other thing I've got for you is an address on the east side of the island were one of the warehouses is."

I wrote the address down.

"Pietro ... I think you've finally fulfilled our deal." I said softly.

"Yeah, I kinda figured this would be the one," he said grimly. "No way am I gonna be of use to you after this. The families are starting to pressure soldiers to get these things in their head ... so they can be 'spitted' is the term they use. Apparently they have to obey whoever puts a dollap of their spit on the back of their neck."

I was familiar with the concept.

"I'll put the paperwork in Pietro. You better come into the office. I'll have Special Agent Smith take care of your arrangements. It's best if I don't take too personal an interest in your witness protection."

I moved to hang up the phone.

"Hey, Creed," Pietro said.

"Yeah?"

"I owe you a thank you, for a Fed, you aren't all bad."

"Good bye Pietro."

I hung up the phone, and then picked it right back up again.

The wheels were all set in motion. The office was alerted, there was a new game afoot, and it reeked of the last game we had just played.

Balls were up in the air again. Pietro was being bundled away to a house in California, Agents were hitting the streets sniffing out leads, and a team was being brought in to barge into the warehouse.

Why do these things always start in warehouses?

I kicked my feet up on my desk and took out my cell phone and punched in my home number.

Carol picked up the phone, "Hello, Creed residence," she said curtly.

I cleared my throat, "Hi Carol, it's me."

"Oh, what do you want?" She said.

I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. "I'm coming back soon, but things have gotten a little hectic. Let Sarah out of her straps and tell her to make herself comfortable. She must need to go to the bathroom by now."

There was an awkward pause.

"Huh, anything else?" She asked.

"No," I said and dropped the phone like it was a snake.

I sunk my head into my waiting hands. It was another headache. I'd been getting them a lot recently. Maybe I needed to start taking REC even when I wasn't coming off a bender.

Or maybe Carol gave me headaches ... yeah ... that was probably it.

Before I could leave, I had to sit down with the men in charge, and organize a battle plan. Certain things had to be taken care of. People had to be alerted.

Washington would probably send over more Agents. The CIA in Langley would want to know, the White House would need to be alerted, and the military probably also would be dropped a line over down in Fort Meade.

Basically, the United States was about to reopen all its books on the Neural Processors.

I wasn't surprised then when I walked into Samuel Jones' office to find him on the phone. Leaning against a decorative bookcase, Jim Brown was sifting through emails on his cell.

Jim smiled at me from over the top of his phone.

Jones threw down the phone in disgust, "I really hate talking to Washington," he said. "Those guys don't think anyone who isn't part of the Washington Bureau can wipe their own ass without their help."

Jim and I both raised eyebrows.

Jones waved at us both to sit down.

As we sat, Jones said, "They're treating this like a national terrorist threat. A special squad of terrorist agents will be arriving from Washington tomorrow morning."

Jim cleared his throat, "So we're just to step aside? Let Washington do all the heavy lifting?"

Jones nodded, "they might draft people onto their task force, but essentially, yes. We are to render aid in anyway but not to interfere."

"That sounds a lot like stepping aside," I said. I couldn't tell if I was relieved to hear that, or frustrated.

Jones shrugged, "Look, I know that you were the one to bring us this information, and I'm glad you got a hold of that Moretti character when you did. They'll probably give you a commendation, and then tell you to go twiddle your thumbs."