He echoed Mage-Captain Daalman’s tones perfectly.
“The message’s header was simply: to the idiot that nearly blew up Nueva Portugal.”
Roslyn winced.
“While I hesitate to remotely support their description of today’s events,” Frost continued primly, “you are the only RMN officer in Nueva Portugal and, well, a bomb was teleported into the air.”
“Your point, Commander Frost?” Roslyn asked.
“I’m presuming the message is for you,” he told her. “Like I said, I kept it under wraps. Only myself and one of my Chiefs know about it, though I’ll have to brief the Captain.”
He grinned.
“Coms officers are used to seeing mail we’re not supposed to read, Chambers,” he said. “I haven’t decrypted the message, but I have identified the cipher. It’s an MISS code, our systems say, for covert operations.
“I’ll send the decryption protocol along with the message.” He shrugged. “If it isn’t for you, let me know and I’ll pass it on to the Captain. Seems the best compromise, yes?”
“It does,” Roslyn agreed, shaking her head at the man’s amusedly sardonic—but competent and sensible—approach to the odd message. “Thank you, Frost. I appreciate the care you’re taking.”
“You’re welcome, Chambers. Forwarding now. Good luck.”
The channel cut out, and her wrist-comp confirmed it had received an additional data transfer.
Opening the message and running it through the decryption that Frost had sent was the work of moments. The pure text message that followed was straightforward enough.
Please stop flailing around in the dark. Meet me.
That was followed by an address—a coffee shop twelve blocks from the apartment they’d visited—and a time. Eight AM local time the next day.
Roslyn shook her head. There was nothing to go on to make this sound legit or not—except that the code the message had been sent in was exactly what Ignác Frost had labeled it: an MISS deep-cover operative’s encryption.
The encryption was both the only proof that the message was from an ally—and all the proof Roslyn Chambers needed.
Plus, well, even if it was a trap, that was still a lead.
15
“We have eyes on the café,” Mooren’s voice said in Roslyn’s earpiece. “Two hundred, three hundred and five hundred meters.
“Backup team is just around the corner with Corporal Knight. Exo-team is in the shuttle with Lieutenant Herbert. Current response time estimate is eleven minutes.”
The Sergeant sounded disapproving to Roslyn.
“It takes five to warm the engines, Sergeant,” Roslyn reminded her. “And if we do that, we attract more attention from the locals than we want.”
She was walking down the street toward the café on her own. She was hardly defenseless, of course, and she knew that all three of Mooren’s surveillance/sniper teams had her in sight as well.
“Any sign of our contact?” she murmured, speaking almost subvocally to make sure none of the other people on the busy sidewalk heard her.
“The café is pretty busy,” the Marine told her. “I don’t see anyone who sticks out as a spy, though that’s what I’d expect. Any idea how you’re going to flag them?”
“None at all,” Roslyn admitted. “But they threw the invite my way, so I’m expecting them to have a plan.”
She and Mooren were both feeling the limitations of their manpower. The three sniper teams took up half of the Marines available to them—including the Staff Sergeant herself. Knight’s backup team was a single three-Marine fire team, including the Corporal. The team of Marines in exosuit combat armor aboard the shuttle was the last fire team they had.
Roslyn had seriously considered calling for more Marines, but that also felt like it would be overkill. Twelve Marines should be able to handle anything the secret lab’s protectors could throw at her—especially if Herbert dropped an exosuited fire team in.
“It’ll be fine, Sergeant,” she subvocalized, smiling at the young woman standing at the hostess’s lectern.
“Hi,” she greeted the youth. “I’m looking to meet someone here? Eight AM reservation.”
“Of course, ma’am,” the hostess said, taking a quick look back through her patrons. “Table six, I think—that gentleman?”
Roslyn didn’t recognize the slim dark-haired man in the blue suit, but she didn’t have much else to go on.
“I believe so. Thank you.”
She nodded to the hostess and headed into the open-air patio. The blue-suited man looked up at her approach and smiled. He looked gaunt compared to the imagery she had of him, as if he hadn’t eaten properly in weeks, but he was definitely the man she was looking for.
“I wondered,” he admitted. “Mage-Commander Chambers, I believe?”
“Mage-Lieutenant Commander,” she corrected. “And you are?”
“Michael Hammond,” he told her. “Or, to certain people not on Sorprendidas, Angus Killough.”
“Ah,” Roslyn breathed as she took her seat. She looked around. “This is rather…open for serious discussion, isn’t it?”
“It is, I suppose,” Killough agreed. “But I figured you’d want to have snipers on those rooftops in case I wasn’t what you hoped.” He waved airily at the buildings down the street—the buildings, Roslyn knew, where Mooren had placed snipers.
“And are you what I hoped?” Roslyn murmured.
“Well, you were in my apartment yesterday, looking for something,” he told her. “I haven’t been back there in a bit, as you clearly saw. Things got…hot. Communication channels were compromised.”
She raised an eyebrow at that, and he shrugged.
“A bit too public for details,” he conceded, “but there were some back doors we missed. Once I have secure coms, we’ll need to address that.”
“I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to meet you,” Roslyn murmured. “Your message was promising, but…we had every reason to believe you’d joined your predecessors.”
She wasn’t even sure what the best way to talk around the situation was—but she was sure that the people at the table next to them could overhear them without difficulty.
Roslyn also hadn’t ordered anything, so she was surprised when a robot trundled up with two sets of coffee and waffles.
“I took the liberty of ordering for us both,” Killough told her. “Feel free to decline, Commander, but I have no more control of this restaurant than you
