Free Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) by Brandt Legg Page B

shaking it off. “But I do know that there’s at least one other piece, and Ripley Gaines has it.”
    The assistants had become like family to Savina, and yet they did not know of the Judge’s mission. They believed the secrecy was to protect the Eysen from exploitation by nefarious people or governments until it could be fully dissected. They each took their charge of secrecy very seriously because they had seen things in the Eysen that made them understand the world was radically different than they, and all other scientists, had previously believed.

Chapter 15
    At NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, a high level videoconference, which included the Directors of the CIA and the NSA, concluded with a renewal of the Scorch and Burn, or “SAB,” order given seven years earlier. SABs were so rare that none had been issued since the first hunt for Gaines and Asher. In fact, only two others had ever been initiated. One concerned Edward Snowden’s leaks, and the other, no one left alive outside the secret committee which dictated NSA tasks could remember.
    The two lead agents, Claude Rathmore of the NSA, a gung-ho super-patriot who always appeared ready for a fight, and Quinn Murik of the CIA, a man who thought every event in life, no matter how tragic, could be turned into a joke, left the meeting together. Murik thought Rathmore looked like he had perpetual indigestion, but imagined Rathmore thought himself determined looking. The CIA officer believed one could tell a lot by personal appearances. He noted Rathmore’s slits for eyes, straight, narrow lips, and a small, but noticeable scar on his cheek. Add to that a close-cropped head of gray and brown hair he might have cut himself, and it all totaled lack of warmth and an uptight personality.
    Murik, however, still used mousse in his hair, ensuring that it was always perfect. He was handsome, with twinkling, aware brown eyes and a comical smirk, constantly looking for the next punch line. Rathmore didn’t appreciate Murik’s junk food habit, or his proclivity for using his INU to the point of distraction.
    The two polar opposite agents would answer to Tolis King, the head of the NSA’s Veiled Ops. The invisible division, a blind budget entry, enforced what other agencies could not. Although King technically ranked lower than the NSA Director in the government’s hierarchy, his authority actually exceeded that of his public boss.
    King could call on the power and authority of every civilian and military asset of the US government. Most agencies had a MONSTER, “Mission of National Security Transfer Every Resource,” point person, a secret post, even within top-secret clearances. The MONSTER could access all the resources of an agency, department, or any military branch instantly, and often invisibly, for the Veiled Ops unit, known to the MONSTERs simply as “the Unit.”
    The MONSTER structure was put into place as part of the Patriot Act following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. MONSTER, like so many other provisions, was hidden from public knowledge and withheld from Congress. Even within the government, the few who knew about it believed it to be a resource-sharing plan which could be used to cut through red tape in times of national emergencies and threats to national security. MONSTER was unique because the program had been created by the NSA without input or oversight. Not even the President was aware of its full extent. MONSTER really existed only for a single reason: to make the Unit the most powerful force in the world. With that, it would ensure the NSA agenda was implicitly followed.
    Rathmore, a take-no-prisoners patriot who had an odd habit of punctuating orders with rabble-rouser’s clichés, didn’t much like Murik, first because he didn’t think he was serious enough, and second because he was CIA. Rathmore had initially discovered the personality conflict when the pair had worked together once before on a case when a foreign