Chapter Fourteen

Keiji’s thoughts slowly swam to the surface of his consciousness. He didn’t want to open his eyes because he was having the greatest dream. He and Rick floating in a warm ocean, holding hands as the sun baked their bodies and the gentle swells lulled them into an award-winning laziness. He could almost hear the cries of gulls and the distant crash of the surf as it collided with the bright, white sand. The sweet scent of bougainvillea that used to grow in his family’s garden on Okinawa tickled his nose.

“What time is it?” he grumbled.

Keiji tried to nestle back against Rick’s large body, seeking his warmth. His man was a furnace even in sleep and Keiji found he didn’t need the layers of blankets that he normally cocooned himself in. But instead of the octopus he’d become accustomed to sleeping with he found space and cool sheets. Where was he?

When they’d gotten back to his place the night before the two of them had done little more than secure the house, use the facilities for general wash up, and collapse into bed. Keiji didn’t even remember his head hitting the pillow.

He dared to actually raise his eyelids and found the room was still muted with the early colors of dawn. He squinted around the bedroom, but there was no Rick. Keiji sighed and rolled out of bed. He made his way over to the enclosed water closet that was closed off from the open-concept bathroom that shared the floor with his bedroom. He flicked on his gas fireplace, there was just enough chill in the morning air. Also, just because he could. Morning necessities taken care of, he slid into his kimono and slippers then shuffled toward the shoji screen that separated his bedroom from the loft area where he’d set up a little home office. He briefly eyed his ofuro and thought for a moment about the potential pleasure of sharing a soak with Rick. Maybe tonight. It’d be a nice way to wind down from whatever trouble they found in the next twelve or so hours.

He slid the screen away and poked his head out, “Rick?” His lover was ensconced at the desk typing away on his laptop. Clearly, he’d found the docking station and tied into Keiji’s monitors and ethernet service. “Hey. What are you doing?”

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about the results of the nexus search. I decided to dig.”

Keiji sat on the tufted chaise against the wall. This was his thinking spot. He could sit here and watch nature when the job became too much. And on days when deadlines loomed and he could work from home, a soft breeze moving through the air from his sliding window always made his brain a little happier.

“And what juicy details did you unearth?”

“How do you know I found good stuff?”

Keiji grinned as he met Rick’s gaze. The brightness of Rick’s blue eyes and the slight flush to his cheeks gave away a level of excitement that had been missing since those first nights they worked together in what was now officially coined his Batcave. He stood and crossed the gap between them. He bent down and slid his hand around Rick’s muscular neck. With his other hand, he tilted his lover’s chin up and tasted his kiss. Rick whispered Keiji’s name. Rick tasted like mint and promises. The world faded away and Keiji had tunnel vision that put a spotlight on the two of them in this single moment. Rick’s lips moved over his, his breath coming in tiny shudders against Keiji’s. Keiji teased Rick’s lips with his tongue, letting the desire build layer by layer. Rick slid his hands up Keiji’s arms and gripped his triceps. Rick pushed up from the chair, but Keiji retreated and disengaged from their kiss.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. We’ll pick this up a little later, but first tell me what you found.”

“So, instinct says that the next step is to question Rouch, right?”

He tilted his head in agreement while he rubbed Rick’s back. His gaze traveled over to the monitors, but Keiji wanted to make sure Rick knew he was invested in what he was saying.

“But there was this little needling thought in the back of my brain that something was just off about that call with the traced numbers. So I found out a bit more about our crime scene cleanup friend. Basic internet searching resulted in a webpage that a middle school intro to coding class could have designed. Also, online reviews that are excessively positive or filled with a diatribe that their ratings are calculated to bump them to the top ten searches. So then I took it to the next level and dusted off my hacking skills to get information on Mr. Menendez himself. This is where it gets good.”

Rick stood and took Keiji’s hand. He led him to the steps. “Where are we going?”

“I’ve been up since 0400. I need caffeine and fresh air. Then I can share.”

“Tease.” Keiji guided Rick down the stairs to the main floor and introduced him to the kitchen. Fortunately, Keiji kept some coffee on hand for the occasional visitor. The home had come with one of those single cup beverage makers and Rick made himself at home. Keiji preferred the traditional green tea that his family served growing up. He retrieved his loose-leaf tea and kyusu. Shortly he had his water heating. While that was in process his stomach decided it wanted some breakfast. His choice of beverage may be from the East but Keiji had fully embraced Western food habits.

“Do you want an omelet?”

Rick wrapped his arms around Keiji’s waist and nibbled on his neck. “Can I have you?”

“Hmm, yes. Later. Until then….”

“An omelet sounds delicious.” He slid his hand between the folds of Keiji’s kimono. “I like this. You look fucking hot, and it provides easy access to skin.”

All he had on beneath the silky fabric was a pair of boxer briefs. Briefs that were becoming constricted the more Rick ran his callused hands over Keiji’s stomach. “No nookie until you’ve shared all your information.”

“Oh, so it’s to be torture then? I can cope with torture.”

Keiji chuckled. He certainly had no intention of dragging Rick into the pit of despair, but a little anticipation was good for the soul. His water boiled and he took it off the stove. One of the crucial steps in excellent tea, as his O bāchan had taught him, was to let the water cool slightly before adding it to his leaves. Rick handed him the carton of eggs from the fridge along with some hot sauce. Within a few minutes, he’d added the water to his leaves for steeping in his traditional Japanese teapot and they had omelets sizzling on the stove.

Working together brought back memories of living with his parents and extended family in Okinawa as a young child. Having sounds and energy belonging to others in the house made it feel like a home. This was his sanctuary. He’d never brought a casual date into his place and even though he hadn’t expressed this to Rick, Keiji got the sense the other man understood the significance of them being here together.

They took their breakfast over to the dining table. Keiji opened the slider to the screened sunroom for the fresh air Rick requested. It was a little too cool to sit out there in just a robe otherwise he would have offered it as an option. Instead, he chose a seat at the other end of the table closer to the double-sided fireplace and activated the flames for some ambiance and warmth.

“This is some house you have here.”

“Thank you. I got very lucky. The owners of this property run a bed-and-breakfast on the far side of the meadow. They treated this part of the property as a vacation rental of sorts. That’s how I found it when I was looking for a place to stay when I was first moving to the area. After an exhaustive and depressing search of apartments, condos, and whatnot I asked them if they would consider doing a long-term rental. They were amenable because it offered them consistent income and I found a little slice of heaven. Now enough stalling. What did you find out about the crime scene guy?”

“He doesn’t exist.”

Keiji froze with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Explain, please?”

“Damion Menendez does not exist in any government database, he doesn’t hold a passport from the U.S. or any other country and has never paid a dollar in taxes his entire life.”

“It’s a shell corporation. With a fake answering service or something? Because we clearly spoke with a live person. And Linder indicated that the person on the other end of the line was not Rouch.”

“Definitely a smoke screen. The question is what, and still who, is hiding behind it. I made a list of potential suspects, or at least the potential players that we know of. Maybe we can set up a project plan of some sort to help organize our thoughts.”

“To the Batcave?”

Rick set his coffee cup on the table and spun the mug a few times while he stared into the dregs. He started to say something but then stopped several times until he finally sighed, picked up his dishes, and walked back into the kitchen.

Keiji followed. Rick stood at the sink washing their dishes from breakfast, his shoulders stiff and scrubbing aggressively. He placed a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“What if we… don’t include the others?”

“Reason?”

Rick turned and placed his hands on Keiji’s hips. “I can’t give you a good one. It’s a gut feeling.”

“About someone in particular?”

Rick was clenching his jaw so tight Keiji feared he may crack a tooth. His fingers flexed against Keiji’s hips, which under other circumstances would be sexy as hell.

“No, yes, fuck. I don’t want to color your impressions of the team if my paranoia is way off base. They’ve been critical to getting us where we are in this mess, and individually I’ve made connections with each of them. I can’t stomach the idea that one of them could work to counteract our progress, but all these roadblocks we keep running into are driving me crazy. Maybe it’s all normal? I’m not an investigator by profession. But….”

“It feels like someone, somewhere, is playing puppet master?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, let’s compromise. We keep working with the team as we have been, but you and I can have a little side project. I will admit that we haven’t done full profiles on our team members. We took King’s word that they were all exactly who we needed to succeed. And if we clear them all then we’ll figure out next steps.”

Rick nodded and let out a long breath. “Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy.”

“Oh, I think you’re crazy. Crazy sexy. And now I’m going to take you upstairs and fuck you through the mattress until you release all this tension poisoning your soul.”

Rick groaned and slammed his mouth against Keiji’s. He backpedaled until he hit the wall beside the stairwell. Rick hefted him up into his arms and Keiji climbed his soldier like a tree. He locked his legs around Rick’s trim waist while Rick ran his hands under the hem of his kimono to squeeze his ass. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back while Rick nipped at the side of his throat, making Keiji shiver at the suction on his skin.

Figuring out how they made it up the stairs without killing themselves required more brain power than he was willing to designate. Rick shed the T-shirt and joggers he’d pilfered from Keiji’s drawer. Keiji slid his palms up Rick’s deltoids and over his shoulders. The thick muscles were so different from his own ropy build. All Keiji’s strength came from years of studying martial arts. Strikes and kicks time after time, year after year, against freestanding bags and sparring partners. Keiji whipped off his kimono and shed his underwear. He wrapped Rick in his arms and thrust his hips against Rick’s gigantic erection. That cock had stretched his ass fulfilling every unspoken fantasy Keiji had ever indulged in. He spun Rick around and ground against his luscious ass cheeks. Rick rocked back into him while Keiji sucked a hickey below where his collar would lie. Ricks legs trembled and before they ended up a heap on the floor Keiji lowered them onto his bed. He lifted Rick’s hands above his head and pressed the lower half of their bodies together. Hard cock to hard cock. Keiji’s heavy and throbbing. Rick’s tip leaking and easing the friction as they thrust their bodies together.

Keiji forced his knees between Rick’s and spread his legs. He cradled Rick’s head, Rick grabbed Keiji’s hair, tugging and pleading for his kiss. Keiji wanted him more than the next breath he could draw into his lungs. He sucked Rick’s nipple into his mouth, whipped his tongue back and forth against the hard nub. Trails of fire arced down his back where Rick’s nails tattooed his skin with their passion.

He nuzzled his way down to Rick’s groin, so close to his prize but holding off inches away from tasting a delicacy. “Can I have a second breakfast?”

“Are you kidding me? Don’t you dare stop.”

Rick softened his order with a tender smile and warm sparkling eyes. Time phased into meaningless spaces between touches. He took Rick’s cock into his mouth. One slow descent to the base. Rick’s incoherent babbles and groans echoed through his bedroom. God, he loved that sound. When he’d first come to the States, he thought so many Americans sounded harsh compared to the other countries he’d lived in. But Rick’s voice had this languid quality to it and played smoothly across Keiji’s nerves.

His pleas and praises gained in fervor until Keiji hauled Rick tighter against him, grabbed his ass, and swallowed. Rick fucked his throat, shouting his name. He kept going, sliding his lips up and down the shaft, flicking the tip of his tongue into the slit on the crown of Rick’s cock. He wrapped his lips over his teeth and increased the pressure on the way down till he held Rick deep in his throat, cutting off his air supply until Keiji sensed his eyes rolling back into his head.

Rick erupted and Keiji swallowed every drop until his lover had no more to give. He released his prize and rested his forehead against Rick’s abdomen.

“Come up here, baby.”

He crawled up till they lay side by side. While his cock still hungered for release, he stared into Rick’s eyes and fed on the love emanating from their azure depths. Their hands found each other, and Keiji gasped as Rick grasped his cock. He looped one leg over Rick’s hip and arched into each stroke. Keiji begged for Rick’s kiss. Instead of capturing his lips, Rick tasted the skin of his neck and shoulders. Their bodies and souls merged as if they invented the art of making love. And when he spilled into his lover’s grip, Keiji found such peace that Rick kissed tears away from his cheeks.

Rick clicked the button on his pen over and over as he stared at the spread of monitors across Keiji’s desk back at the Batcave. In front of him was a digital map of the interactions Saber had logged between him and his still unknown handler. He would give Saber credit because the man had been meticulous about logging every conversation he’d had with his contact. They did not explicitly describe the orders themselves. There was a code here, Rick was sure of it. The conversations read like a generic conversation. Almost to the letter.

“It’s a cipher.”

Heads of each team member popped up over the array of monitors like gophers. “He must have kept audio recordings of their meetings, then had those conversations transcribed with an online transcription service like Rev or something similar. I doubt he sat there and did it himself, although I guess he could have. I wouldn’t. Anyway, the conversations alone seem like idle chitchat. Topics range from sports to vacation spots to the ever-reliable weather.”

“So if they are as mundane as they seem, why have them recorded and then invest either the money and/or time in having them transcribed?” King asked.

BB stood and started pacing the room. “Unless there was a hidden message.”

“So how do we read it?” Linder asked.

“Every cipher has a key, but to use the key we have to know where to look for it,” Keiji said from the doorway with a round of coffees in hand.

Rick stood and watched the monitors shut down when he removed his weight from the chair. That still gave him a trip. He retrieved his caffeine and took the first sip. “Oh, God that’s good.”

“That’s what they said.” Tate smiled as he looked out the window.

“Focus people, what is the key?”

“He wouldn’t have written it down. Saber was too good at what he did. What if he already gave it to us? The password. What if the password is the key?”

Rick shook his head, “That’s too many letters for a Playfair.”

“So break it down.”

Rick couldn’t find fault with the logic. They had to start somewhere. He went back over to the desk and unlocked the system. Rick loaded the oldest piece of correspondence into a Playfair decoder tool. He needed five letters. He tried different combinations of the password Saber had given them to unlock the image source file. Each and every time it turned a meaningless but readable transcript into a bunch of gibberish. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. He was tired of these games. “Could it really be that simple?” The phrase ‘ollie, ollie, oxen free’ was a catchphrase for children’s games. He typed in the word ‘games’ and held his breath as the software thought about it. The room was silent, anticipation like a fog encompassing a city filled with residents too afraid to move for fear of crashing into each other.

“Well?”

Rick sat back in the chair and smiled. The room erupted with cheers. This was their first break since he and Keiji had identified Saber as the malware designer for Oracle. It was a minor victory, but he’d take it.

“Way to go, Davis. I’m going to meet up with Rouch and see if we can sort out the mystery of his phone number. I want you and Keiji to keep working on Saber’s files. See what you can unearth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going with you,” Linder stated. She looked at BB and Tate. “What are the two of you going to do?”

“Eat bonbons and stream HBO. I just started watching Game of Thrones.”

BB slapped Tate upside the back of his head. “I think we would be best utilized to take a deeper look at surveillance footage from Montenegro. Maybe we can identify something about who attacked Saber’s place. See if that can lead us to who is behind all this?”

“Sounds good. Meet back here at 1500.”

Everyone acknowledged the order and Rick went back to studying the monitors. He had four of the transcripts decoded and up on each of the screens. Some patterns jumped out immediately. Rick was not a certified document authenticator, but he was good at recognizing patterns. Here he looked at the speech patterns of the two individuals in the conversation. One presumably Saber. The other, his supposed NSA handler with the phony name. Judging by the language the person was American. The conversations were in English and while Saber had showed a powerful use of English, there were always little phrases or words that would trip up non-native speakers.

“Hey love, can you come here and read these?”

“What do they say? Did we find answers or just another red herring?”

“Red herring?” He asked as he pulled Keiji down for a kiss.

“I watched a lot of Scooby-Doo as a child.”

“In Okinawa?”

“No, that was when they transferred my dad to Ramstein for a few years. I was probably ten, maybe eleven years old. So it was that or Lustige Taschenbücher, and my German was still pretty rudimentary. What am I looking at?”

“Transcripts of conversations. After I decoded them a few things jumped out at me, but I wanted to get a second opinion. Tell me what you see.”

Keiji read through each letter. He started jotting down words and phrases in a notebook they used to organize their thoughts. He stared down at the sheet of paper and started circling certain words and connecting them with lines. It was fascinating to get a glimpse of how Keiji’s brain worked. In the time they’d been together, he’d become obsessively fascinated with learning all the parts that made up this unique man. It honored him to the core of his soul that Keiji picked him to love. Their love may have developed fast and furious, but it was more real than anything Rick had experienced in his life. Even compared to what he’d shared with Nic when at one point Rick was sure he and Nic would spend the rest of their lives together. It wasn’t until he saw his ex with his now husband that he got a glimpse of what had been missing from their relationship. Now having experienced a similar connection with Keiji, Rick was absolutely certain when the time was right he would take vows to love and honor the man sitting next to him for eternity.

“One native English speaker and one not. I would assume the non-native speaker is Saber, and the other is our mystery handler.”

“I agree, but I wanted to see if you picked up on it too since English isn’t your first language.”

Keiji shrugged. “Not exactly correct. Even though I lived in Okinawa for most of my early years, my father spoke to me in English just as my mother and extended family spoke to me in Japanese. So I learned the two languages simultaneously. I suppose the exposure was less on a social level but I have memories as a child at bedtime of my mother reading me a story in Japanese and then, when he was home, my father would come and read me one in English.” Keiji smiled. “I just thought it was cool that I got to stay up a few minutes later.”

Keiji leaned in to get a closer look at the monitors. Rick captured his hips and pulled him down onto his lap. The screens all shut off and a loud tone when off. “What the hell?”

Keiji stood while laughing, “Security. We calibrated the chair to authorized users’ weights, remember.” He bent over and kissed Rick. “Although I appreciate the intent.”

“Damn, I forgot. What were you trying to figure out?”

“If I’m reading these right, it seems Saber was telling the truth. He really contracted his services. This individual ordered the malware used in Oracle.” He pointed to one monitor. “Look right here, he even uses the word. Out of context, nobody would guess what they are talking about, but when you read between the lines, it’s there.”

“The other person never says they are NSA, but it seems like Saber believes they are. Maybe that part isn’t in this group of transcripts.” Rick pointed to the last screen on the desk. “See, here he talks about… holy shit… maybe it’s just a coincidence?”

“And maybe not. What do you see?”

Rick pointed to the screen on the far left. “In this one, before decoding the transcript they are talking about the weather during a sailing trip on the Severn. Then on this one they are talking about their favorite foods and the second speaker mentions Oktoberfest is coming up and they love kielbasa and sauerkraut.” He opened the last three transcripts that he’d just finished decoding. His heart raced and a cold sweat popped up on his forehead. The transcripts were the most recent conversations and once decoded, the picture couldn’t be more clear. He swallowed against the ball of saliva that formed in his mouth and made him slightly nauseous. “It was him all along.”

“Who?”

“Colonel Riggs. He’s the one who hired Saber to write the malware to compromise Oracle.”

“Are you sure?”

Rick stood and paced around the room. He had to move, to think. Why would a man like Riggs, who’d devoted his life and career to the Army and nation, hire a Russian hacker? Rick only saw bad things. He had to call King, warn him. He spun around looking for one of the burner phones King had them using to communicate with each other. The moment he picked it up though, it rang.

“Hello?”

“Davis, is Keiji with you?”

“Yes, look King I need to tell you something. We’ve been working with the transcripts to identify the second person. I think it’s—”

“I only have a few seconds. Rouch was never involved. I was wrong. The number he had me call was a digit off from the one that appeared on the nexus search. I’m about to brief Colonel—

“No! That’s what I was trying to tell you. The second person in the conversations with Saber is Riggs. He’s involved.”

“Fuck! I’m about to walk into his office. Do you think he’s the one behind the whole thing?”

“I… I don’t know. We need more time.” Rick jumped when Keiji squeezed his shoulder. He felt sick at the idea of another military man playing so casually with soldier and civilian lives. Risk was part of the job, anyone who served their country accepted that, but it was one thing to know that another serviceman manipulated the opportunity for your death. Sure Oracle was a logistics platform, but if troops around the world couldn’t get access to materials, tools, munitions, and even weapons to perform their jobs, then the enemy could easily overwhelm positions, and faith in the country they served would dissolve to where only resentment remained. “What are you going to tell him?”

“I’ll figure it out. I have to give him and Carpenter an update. But maybe only up to a certain point. Linder and Rouch are digging deeper into the phone thing. Keep in touch with them and share what you and Keiji dig out of Saber’s documents.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rick hung up and closed his eyes. Was it only this morning that he’d soared through the air, high on his and Keiji’s lovemaking, only to sink like a cannonball? His trust felt as if they had torn it to pieces. He was having trouble breathing; he kept seeing Riggs’s face in that office as Rick had tried to share how he’d found the code for the virus embedded in Oracle.

Keiji pulled Rick into his arms and he gripped his love tight. Desperate to hold on to something pure and true. The movies and books that made military and government corruption a matter of fact in everyday lives had always seemed so implausible to him. He loved to watch them because they were so ridiculous. The stunts were so unrealistic because he’d seen combat. He knew how fragile life truly was. Just ask Gutierez’s and all the other families who suffered loss since the beginning of time. But here he faced evidence that the commander of the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade had made the choice to compromise a classified program.

“Why? Why would he do it? Didn’t we clear him when we did our initial background checks?”

“Yes, we did. You were very thorough. I can’t imagine you missed something like this. Let’s go back to the transcripts. I really wish Saber hadn’t died. It would be nice to have him tell this tale instead of being forced to put the pieces of the puzzle together based on only partial information.”

“Yeah, maybe BB and Tate will have some luck getting intel on who took him out. I don’t have proof but seeing as how nobody’s come after us since we got back, I’m thinking we picked a very unlucky day to visit our Russian friend.”

“Or a very lucky one. Had we not gotten those few moments with him we never would have gotten this far.”

Rick cupped Keiji’s face and brought their lips together. His love’s ability to see the world through a different lens just confirmed that they balanced each other perfectly. Rick knew he had a tendency to react rather than consider all angles before responding. It was something he’d worked hard on since taking on a management role. Jaded he could be, and that’s why he and Masterson had always been a pair because his best friend brought positive energy to their friendship. God, he was going to miss him, but he was moving to California not Cameroon. They would figure it out, like they always had when posted to different bases.

“We can do this. I’m going to take this opportunity to work on our little side investigation. The team returns at sunset so that gives us another five hours to find answers.”