Free Free Fall by MJ Eason Page B

decoding the piece. I was hoping a little background on the document might help.”
    “Rainie, you know that’s not normal procedure.” Mark wasn’t buying my story, but at the moment, I didn’t care. “What makes this one so different? Why do you need to know?”
    “I know what normal procedure is, but there are exceptions to the rule, and I’m telling you this is one of them. Understanding where the document originated will help me with the exact interpretation.” This was an out-and-out lie. I’d already started translating the piece, but for personal reasons, I had to know.
    “You know I’ll have to check with Roc first. I mean, he has the final say in changes to procedure. Unless you’ve already spoken to him about it?”
    I stood with the receiver in my hand, trying to decide just how far I was willing to take this crusade. Just how desperate was I to prove my brother’s innocence?
    “Roc’s not here and besides, I did talk to him about it last night. But if you still want to bother him with this, then…”
    My answer met with another uncomfortable pause in which I fully expected Mark to challenge me. Mark was waiting for me to say something else to reassure him Roc knew what I was doing. When I didn’t, he asked me to hang on while he brought the information up on his computer.
    He suspected I was lying. I heard it in his voice, but he wasn’t ready to confront me with my lie just yet.
    I listened to him mumble to himself as he scrolled through the endless pages of information he kept on his computer. In my mind, I always pictured him hunched over his computer day and night, squinting and typing away.
    “Okay, here it is. You want me to send you the file?” This surprised the heck out of me since Mark never offered to share his files with anyone, including Roc. But then I think he believed in some strange way I might be the key to figuring out what Jeremiah Silvers was really up to in D.C.
    “Sure, that’d be great,” I told him, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice.
    “Okay, but you have to promise you’ll let Roc and me know as soon as you find out anything. You know how critical this is, Rainie.”
    I promised Mark I’d pass along any information I found as quickly as possible. As soon as the file downloaded, I began to read Mark’s notes. Surprisingly, he had very little real information to go on in them.
    What it boiled down to was the CD had simply arrived at The Agency’s doorstep anonymously. Most of the information on the CD had been garbage with the exception of the document I was translating. Mark still wasn’t convinced the document wasn’t a hoax meant to throw us off what was really in the works, or if maybe, one of his snitches was doing a little counterintelligence of his own.
    After searching through the information for several hours, little in the file proved useful. I wondered if this might be the real reason Mark was so willing to share it.
    I stopped reading and wondered if this was just a hoax, as Mark initially believed. After all, it would take someone so charismatic that they could convince the other groups’ leaders to put aside their differences and work together under one command to pull off what the document suggested. I didn’t believe that person was Jeremiah Silvers, or my brother.
    All of the reports I’d read about those guys told me just how impossible that would be, because to them it was as much about the power as it was the cause. It just wasn’t conceivable—was it?
    Certainly, any attack by the joined, organized terrorist forces listed in the note would be all but impossible to prevent. If someone were able to unite these groups under one common cause and leadership then how were we going to stop what we didn’t know was planned?
    That afternoon I picked up the phone a dozen times to call Roc. He needed to know about what I’d found out and what I suspected, but each time, I couldn’t make that call.
    I needed to make one more attempt