A Hazy Shade of Winter – Prologue

Prologue

“Baruti Okeke.”

“Is this line secure?”

“Yes…and no.”

“I understand.”

“I am sure that you do. Aweh, my bru! Somehow I did not think to hear from you again; at least, not like this.”

“And I never thought I’d be making this call, General.”

The two shared a chuckle.

“What can I do for my esteemed friend?”

“I need to call in a favor.”

“I knew this might one day come yet still I am surprised. What do you need? You know I will do it.”

“Your friendship will not be forgotten, Baruti.”

“Then why is it you hesitate, my bru?”

“Would you believe me if I said I was embarrassed?”

Okeke laughed. “No.”

“I thought not. Let’s just say that… what I need from you is what you once needed from me.”

“There are a good many things I once needed from you, my friend. Can you be more specific?”

“Two hundred W92-Alpha FPs, their formulas and schematics.”

“Two hundred?” Okeke gasped in surprise. “Has it come to that?”

“I’m afraid so.” There was a brief pause. “Is it possible?”

“Oh, my bru, anything is possible for the right price.”

“Now we’re putting a price on friendship? You owe me, Okeke.”

“That is not what I mean, my friend. But it will be necessary to be oiling the hands, yes?”

“Careful, Baruti. Sometimes when you grease the palm, it makes the finger slippery.”

Okeke chuckled. “Wise words, my friend. Wise words indeed. I will take precautions. When do you need the package?”

“By the end of the month. Can you manage it?”

“It will be done. You have my word.”

“Excellent. I’ll be in touch.”

——————————————————————

The silence was beginning to make the little man sweat.

“Sir?”

“Very well,” was the impassive reply, “Proceed with stage two and keep me informed.” There was faint rustling in the background. “Oh, and Russell?”

Russell’s voice began to tremble. “Y-yes, sir?”

“Don’t disappoint me.”

Click.

“I hate that man,” Russell muttered, replacing the phone in its cradle. He swiveled his chair and scooted quickly across the floor and back to his workstation. “The suits always think we can produce results on demand; idiots,” he continued to huff, tabbing through his notes and scanning the results documented therein.

“Talking to yourself again, Walt?”

Walter Russell spun to meet the source of the inquiry, startled to have been caught by his pretty colleague.

“Jeanette,” he acknowledged, slipping the sheaf of papers he had been perusing into a folder and placing it on a stack of files at the edge of his desk. “Back so soon?”

“You know, Walt, if I didn’t know you so well I’d say you were hiding something from me,” the redhead gently teased, gliding past Russell’s chair and easing into her own.

The vein above his left eye twitched. “Me? Don’t be silly.”

She grinned and winked at the perpetually nervous man with whom she shared a laboratory “Lighten up, Walt, I was just kidding. You really need to get out more.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, turning quickly from his colleague to hide his flushed cheeks. Something about the woman always made him feel inferior and caused him to stutter and stumble like a lovesick schoolboy. It was rather tiresome.

He also knew that he had to be more careful. The Boss wouldn’t stand for another failure and Walter couldn’t afford a stint in jail – if his employers would even allow it to go to trial. He doubted it.

With a sigh, Walter Russell turned his attention back to his work, dreaming of the day when his more…private research would be his ticket out of this drab little office block in downtown D.C.

——————————————————————

“Hello.”

“It’s Lydecker.”

“Who?”

“I understand your hesitation, son, but it’s really not necessary.”

“I’m sorry; you must have the wrong-,”

“Damn it, Cale, Just give me five minutes.”

Uncertain and wary, Logan wavered between hanging up the phone and granting a ghost five minutes of his time.

“It’s my life on the line, you know. I wouldn’t risk exposure unless it was important. Surely you know that.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s about Max,” Lydecker let that sink in before continuing, “And the others.”

“What about them?” Logan asked sharply, fingers furiously tapping at the keyboard in hopes of pinpointing Lydecker’s location. There was little he could do to verify whether or not this was an elaborate trap to lure Max out into the open, but he could track down the source of the call at the very least.

“You realize that you’re leading them directly to me, don’t you?” There was a resigned air to the older man’s words and Logan felt a stab of guilt for his distrust.

But this was Lydecker, the man who, while he had proven his desire to take down Manticore, (even if it was to save his own hide at that point) had also forced Logan to leave Max behind on the battlefield. Perhaps his anger towards the man was misplaced; after all, Manticore did revive Max from the dead, but he wasn’t quite ready to forgive him.

“Just tell me,” he demanded, staring at the locator on the screen as it narrowed in on a section of the harbor down by the abandoned fish canning plant.

“Too late for that. I’ve been compromised. I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait! No!”

But the line was dead and as Logan pulled up a second screen with aerial surveillance and watched as two armoured vehicles and foot soldiers closed in on the plant, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.