Page 6 of Yankee in the Wind

“Yeah, Echo is dead,” Jack said with regret.

Fox nodded. “Yeah, you said he went bad? I filled Ace in on what you told me last week. And that he gave you the credentials for Sheppard’s ghost login, which enabled me to steal this list.”

“Unfortunately that’s all I’ve got on him. How did Zulu die?” Jack asked.

“Zulu’s alive,” Ace said. “He volunteered to go to the West Coast to find some of the men on this list. We’re in contact, and he sends us regular updates on what he finds. He has leads on three agents that may be hiding somewhere in California and Oregon: Delta, Polo, and Whiskey.”

Jack looked at the large screen. Each name had a colored dot next to it. “Red for dead? Green for the ones whose location you have?”

Fox nodded. “Yep. Blue for the ones Zulu has leads on.”

“Assuming Zulu finds the three he’s got leads on, that leaves twenty-four to find,” Jack said. “Let’s go through them. Perhaps I recognize some of them.”

Ace cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m afraid that my father made a mistake when he decided that the Stargate agents shouldn’t know each other. But that doesn’t mean that all of them are strangers to us. We all had to undergo regular CIA training.” He pointed to Jack. “Just like you and I were at Camp Peary at the same time, others were too.”

Fox nodded eagerly and scrolled through the list. “Ace and I already went through the list several times. The guys we recognized from either The Farm or other places, are marked in yellow. They will be easier to find, because we know them, we know their habits, and in some cases bits about their background and families.”

“That still leaves a whole bunch of them,” Jack said. He pointed to the top of the list. “Show them to me individually, photos and names.”

Slowly, Fox scrolled through the list. Next to each photo was the real name and code name of the agent, as well as any special skills. Jack looked at each photo, let each name sink in, trying to recall any memories of the person.

“Next,” he said, and every minute or two, he repeated the word.

“Not many left,” Ace said, disappointment evident in his voice.

He couldn’t blame the guy. Looking for somebody you knew nothing about, and who didn’t want to be found, was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. It was looking for a straw in a haystack.

Jack looked at the next photo and the name next to it.

Code Name: River

Name: Thomas Reed

He jumped up and pointed at the screen. “That’s Thomas Reed. We were in the military together, before I joined the CIA. I had no idea Sheppard recruited him too.”

“You knew him but didn’t know he had the same gift as you?” Ace asked.

“I always felt the telltale tingling sensation at my nape when we were in the military together, but back then I didn’t know what it meant. And Thomas and I never talked about our premonitions. I guess neither of us wanted to come across as weird or batshit crazy. But it does explain why he was able to get out of the line of fire so many times when we were fighting insurgents abroad. He always called it a sixth sense.” He took a breath. “I know how to find him.”

4

Wearing a white lab coat, Lilly sat behind her desk in her tiny office separated from the laboratory she ran at Delta Labs. She had four research assistants working for her, assisting with her current project to synthesize an anti-viral component for a new strain of a Kunjin virus that caused encephalitis. She was poring over the data on her computer, trying to figure out why the protein in the component wasn’t stable enough to last longer than twenty-four hours, when her cell phone rang.

She glanced at the display. Unknown caller, it said. She answered it. “Hello?”

“Miss Davis? Miss Lilly Davis?” the man on the other end of the line asked.

“Yes, this is she.”

If this was a sales call, she was ready to disconnect the call in an instant.

“This is Henry Sheppard. You left a voicemail for me.”

Instantly, Lilly was fully focused on the call, her lab work forgotten. “Mr. Sheppard, thank you for calling me back. I wanted to talk to you about my cousin, Thomas Reed. I understand he worked for you?” At least that was her best guess. She lowered her voice, and added with a whisper, “For the CIA.”

She glanced into the lab, but none of her assistants was close enough to the open office door to overhear her conversation.

“I can neither confirm nor deny your statement,” Sheppard said evasively.