33. April 8th

APRIL 8TH

Kai

Temples pounding,Kai leaned back in her seat. She had been working in the War Room answering emails. At least Big Bird had brought her a brand-new computer with his unwanted arrival. This kind of work was murder on her eyes and painful mentally to do on a phone. Which also needed replacing from the day she pitched it across the room and caused the screen to crack and shatter. It still worked, but it was impossible to read through the spider webbing without suffering a severe migraine.

She had just checked on some more replacement supplies as additional items had gone missing over the last ten days. And, of course, since Big Bird was down here now, there was no way to hide it from him. It was almost like he knew they were gone and was just waiting for her to report it so he could pounce. She was beginning to suspect more and more that he was behind the sabotage going on.

In addition, a stuntman had gotten injured two days earlier, for real this time. He had personally checked his rig and placed his pitons for the cliff rappel scene, but somehow, the piton had come loose, and he'd fallen twenty feet. It could have been much worse. He suffered a broken ankle and collarbone, but Kai was spooked. Originally, Jumper was supposed to do his own stunt, but given all the weird occurrences going on, Waters thought it might be better for the stunt crew to take on a little more than first intended. She shuddered at what could have happened if it had been Jumper instead of the stuntman.

As she was about to sort her supply invoice from her most recent purchase into the appropriate folder, her eye caught an error. Or she thought it was an error until she remembered that her supplier used European dates since he was based out of Paris, and he used military time on orders to make sure it was clear when they came in. Her face scrunched up into a frown of concentration. Something was tickling the back of her brain.

Her eyes opened wide, and a hand went over her mouth.

Oh. Fuck. Me.

"Stupid, Kai. You're so fucking stupid." She scrambled out of her seat and ran into the bathroom where Waters was finishing his shower. "Waters!"

Ho.Ly. Fuck. I can die happy now.

He stood in the claw-footed tub, gloriously naked, toweling his almost non-existent hair as he looked at her. Every mouth-watering inch of him was open for viewing. She couldn't help staring. It was impossible not to. The man was fucking perfect, scars and all.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "See something you want, babe?" he teased.

"Umm…"

"Words, babe. I need words." He stepped out of the tub and walked nonchalantly over to her in the doorway, holding the towel in his hands but not covering himself up.

"Words. Right. Why the hell did I come in here?"

"Dunno. Not sad you did, though." He threw the towel on the pedestal sink and gathered her close to him, immediately swooping in to gently suck on her rapid pulse point. "I thought you were working on invoices."

"Shit! Right. Can your computer guy find old emails? Even deleted forever ones from another computer? One that's not here with me?"

Pulling back from her neck, he grinned at her. "Did you seriously just ask me that question? And why are you asking me that when I'm naked?"

She huffed. "Don't fuck around right now."

Waters reached for the towel he'd just abandoned, then wrapped it around his waist. "If he knows exactly where the computer in question is, and it's plugged in, he can access it remotely. If it's off or unplugged, not sure. Probably. What is it?" He grabbed her shoulders. "Kubrick. You're hyperventilating. What is it?"

"I think I had the key to Ka-Bar's ‘package' all along. The problem is that it's in my personal email, and I only ever access it on my personal laptop, which is at home on my desk. It's a Gmail address, but I deleted it almost immediately after I got it, and I delete forever old emails religiously the first of every month."

"So pulling it up on your work computer or your phone is a no-go. Okay. Let me get dressed, and we'll call Midas."

Two minutes later, Waters was in front of the telescreen in the War Room, tapping in his code. Midas appeared on the screen. "What's up, Boss?"

Waters ignored the stunned look on Kai's face as she saw the computer hacker's face on the television as well. "Midas, I need you to remote access Kubrick's laptop at her home."

"Two seconds." Keys clacked, then suddenly, he was also pictured in the upper left corner of her new laptop. "Hello, Kubrick." He grinned. "Nice to finally meet you."

She sat down in front of the screen. "Hi," was all she could muster.

"No worries, beautiful. I have that effect on a lot of women." He winked. "Hey, Waters." He acknowledged his boss, who had pulled up a chair behind the desk next to her. "Shall I patch everyone through?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Okay. Gimme a moment." More keys clacked, and within ten seconds, several faces popped on like the Brady Bunch grid. A blank square appeared as well. "Hail, hail, the gang's all here."

"Kubrick, this is my team. God and Demon, you already know. Midas, our computer guru, you just met. The others are Steel, he's the teammate your brother called his favor in to; TB, who's here on overwatch; Nemo, Midas' brother, who's also here on overwatch." Each of the men gave a wave of greeting or head nod as they were introduced, except for God, who was still invisible. "Guys, Kubrick has something."

"Well, I'm not s-sure," she stuttered.

How did I miss it? If he dies, it will be all my fault.

"Kubrick?" Midas was watching her with a look of concern over the computer screen.

"I had a sudden epiphany when going through some invoices, and it triggered a memory about the last email I got from Kent. I mean, Ka-Bar. Can you pull up my emails from Ka-Bar even though I completely deleted them over thirty days ago?"

"Does the Pope wear a funny hat? Nothing's ever truly deleted."

The emails were already appearing on the left-hand side of her screen. She scanned the top several communications, which were actually her trying to contact him after he had disappeared. She clicked open the sixth file, which was his second last email to her.

12-13-22 7:41 a.m.

Hey, Kai.

Sorry, but I'm gonna need to trade on some of my big brother cred here. I'm an idiot and left a package behind at the embassy in Cairo. I meant to send it home before I left, but then I got called out and didn't get to it. I assume you're heading home from Budapest in a day or two. I know it's a lot to ask, but I also know you won't mind visiting Amal, so I'll owe ya. When you get to the embassy, ask for Jonathan Carter. He'll make sure you get what you need. Thanks, sis. I always know I can count on you. Make sure you check the date on your calendar, and I'll owe you one bottle of sake and dinner at that place south of Hayato's. Sorry this is all so back asswards. Love you.

"You said the package wasn't there, though," Waters reminded her.

"No, I said no one knew anything about a package and that the official I spoke to said Carter wasn't at the embassy, and he didn't arrive before I left."

"So?" Midas asked.

Waters frowned. "What are you thinking, babe?"

"I think that package was way more important than Ka-Bar let on." She bowed her head in frustration. "Fuck, I'm so stupid. It wouldn't be difficult to hack into my emails, see that, then think I had that package at my trailer or even with me."

The black box's wavelength popped up and God's voice came over the speakers. "But Waters just said you didn't get a package."

"No, I didn't. But I missed a key piece of his message. That's where I really fucked up. Look at the date on the email."

They watched as Midas squinted at the screen. "December 13th, 2022, at 7:14 a.m."

"Now look at the email." He scanned the communication, his lips moving and no sound coming out of his mouth. "Why put a date on an email when the program automatically puts one on it in the inbox?"

The minute he saw it, she knew. "Your brother is fucking brilliant. Where, Kubrick?"

"Hayato's is on the 1300th block of 7th Street. Go one block south, there'll be a shipping store of some kind. You'll need to get to box 417. The combination will be 22-31-21."

"I know you just got back, but get your ass on it, Steel," God barked.

"On my way." His box closed.

"Waters," she started. "I fucked up."

He shook his head. "Steel's got it. You saw it now, that's what's important. It was clever, Kubrick. Maybe too clever. Whatever it is he needed you to collect must be really important for him to hide it that well. How did you figure it out?"

"I was filing invoices from my email. The rappelling company I purchased pitons from is French. They use a European date format. And military timing. All of a sudden, I realized there was something weird about the numbers in Ka-Bar's email. Then I thought about some of the other information he gave me. It just didn't make sense. At the end he apologized for everything being back asswards. He meant everything was backward from what he was really saying. I should have realized, in particular, because of the mention of Amal. He was the first… you know." She blushed as she looked at Waters. "He's married now, and I would never disrespect his wife that way by showing up to visit. But I was in such a hurry that it didn't register. Ka-Bar would have known I would feel that way, so he was saying DON'T go to Cairo. Ugh."

"What about the agent?" God asked.

"That's even dumber of me. I love science fiction, and I went through a huge comic book phase as a kid. There is no Jonathan Carter. He's a fictional character from a comic book by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A soldier who ended up traveling to Mars. I think my brother may have used it as one of his aliases when he needed an exit strategy several years ago. He probably used it as the name to rent the shipping box."

Plastic wrapping could be heard crinkling. "And when you went to the embassy and asked for this agent, either the flunky you talked to got tipped off that Ka-Bar was either in trouble or it was a red flag to someone in the know to hack into your correspondence." God hmphed and began crunching his sucker.

"Enter Jacques" surreptitious flight from the embassy," Waters interjected. "Also, could be a predetermined code of some kind. The flunky might have played dumb for Kubrick but then reported to Jacques about someone asking for an agent that didn't exist. The ambassador would then understand that Ka-Bar was in trouble."

"And whatever I was supposed to ‘bring home' was already out of the country and in that shipping box. Look. He tells me one bottle, or one block because of the letter ‘B' at that place south of Hayato's. Then he tells me to check my calendar. Not save a date, but to check the calendar."

"The date the email was sent doesn't match the date on the actual email," Midas affirmed.

"No, but the numbers are so close that even if someone looked at them both, they probably wouldn't see it right away. Our brains autocorrect a lot of errors for us. Plus, if all of his information is backward, that means the numbers will be as well."

"Box 417. The combination will be 22-31-21 to get inside."

"Yes. But what the hell could he send me that was so important that he's basically erased, and now I'm in danger?"

"I guess we'll find out soon enough." Waters redirected his attention to Midas on the computer screen. "Midas, can you use your voodoo to figure out where Ka-Bar was when he sent that email?"

"Does the Pope's funny hat have a cross on it? Why do people keep asking me if I can do things that a child could do?"

"Cheeky," warned Waters. "If nothing else, that could give us another point of origin to try and locate him."

"I already did it while you were talking. He didn't even try to hide the IP address. He was at a coffee bar in Cairo, just down the street from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. He actually used his credit card to pay for the internet time at the cafe. He wanted us to know where he was."

Midas acknowledged, "There was the first breadcrumb, which is why we had such trouble finding one initially."

Kai turned to Waters. "He knew he was in trouble, and we'd need to come find him," she whispered. "Oh my God, Waters, it"s been almost four months." Her face dropped into her hands. "I've killed him."

Waters slipped out of his chair and kneeled beside her. "Kubrick. Stop it right now. We don't know what kind of trouble he was in. He could be in hiding. All we know is that he walked out of that embassy to this cafe, sent you this message, and then disappeared. There are far too many options of what could have happened after that to assume anything."

His hands reached up to take hers away from her face. "Kubrick. Baby, look at me." Tears were running down her cheeks, and the devastation in her eyes was breaking his heart. "Your brother is one of the best at what he does. Men like us, we've got exit contacts all over the globe we can reach out to, and for him, Cairo would be a perfect choice since you lived there at one time, plus he was stationed there. He would have had money stashed where he could get to it. Weapons. Burner phones. Supplies. Possibly even passports under fake I.D.s that could at least pass muster to get him through border checkpoints and even smaller airports if he couldn't get to his initial contact. And even if he can't access those things, he would have additional contacts like Jacques who could help him. If he struck out there, he would have contingencies. He didn't get to be the best without those things. If we're really lucky, he's hiding out in a bolt-hole he's got somewhere."

"Logically, I know you're right, but it's still terrifying that somehow he got caught, or killed, or—"

"Kubrick! You cannot let panic take over. It won't help him or us. All it's going to do is raise your blood pressure. Breathe. We will find him. It might not be today, but I sincerely doubt he's dead. Whatever he sent you is too important to them to do that. They won't dare do that until they know they have it because he's the only person one hundred percent sure where he hid it. If they kill him, it's possible their only source of information disappears, and with it, the hope of recovering what they're looking for. Trust me, okay?"

"I've always trusted you."

"And that's the greatest thing in the world to me," he admitted with a smile. "Steel is going to collect whatever he sent you. He won't let anyone get to it. We will protect it so that no one can. Then we'll find Ka-Bar and bring him home."

Kai threw her arms around Waters' neck, clutching at him like a woman drowning. "I love you," she sobbed.