Danger Close by James Sumner (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

his desk. He picked up one half of the bullet and began spinning it around idly between his finger and thumb.

“None,” he said. “And see, that’s the really strange thing about it.”

“That’s the strange thing?” said Collins. “Not the fact it’s a near-mythical bullet seemingly forged in Satan’s armory?”

Devon ignored him. “If I’d made that… if I had invented and created a bullet that was the single greatest step forward in munitions since the atomic bomb… I’d want everyone to know.”

Julie frowned. “Really?”

“Are you kidding? Not only would it make me rich beyond my wildest dreams, either legitimately or on the black market, but I’d be famous the world over. If I were the kind of person who would try to make something like that and actually succeed, I’d take out an ad on a billboard in Times Square.”

“So, what’s that have to do with the bullet?”

“Engineers sign their work. Even if it’s microscopic, they will leave a name or an ID number somewhere, so you know whose work you’re looking at. But that thing is so clean, it’s surgical.”

Collins stroked his chin, feeling the coarse, two-day growth scratch against his palm. “So, what ya saying is, why would ya design something that would make ya rich, then not admit it?”

“Exactly.”

Julie paced away, running a hand through her hair. “Okay, we’ve hit a dead end with the bullet. What about the gun? Whatever fired that thing had to have been custom too, right?”

Devon shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. Again, I can’t even begin to imagine the tech needed to fire that bullet. It’s certainly way beyond anything we have here.”

“What about anything ya got cookin’?” asked Collins. “Any top-secret R and D projects we don’t know about?”

Devon looked at him, measuring his response. “We probably have several things in development that you don’t know about, Mr. Collins. If you don’t know what they are, that’s an intentional decision made way above my pay grade. But without getting myself fired, I can confirm nothing we’re working on is remotely close to this.”

Collins nodded. “Fair enough, Dev.”

Julie looked at Collins and nodded. Then she looked at Devon. “Thanks for this. Sorry it kept you awake all night.”

He waved her comment away. “Been a long time since I had something this meaty to focus on. It’s fine.”

“Keep working on it. Reverse engineer it as best you can. Just remember, no one knows we have that, and it needs to stay that way.”

Devon nodded. “Of course.”

“Take it easy, Dev,” said Collins.

He and Julie turned and left, walking at a disillusioned amble across the testing range.

“Now what, Boss Lady?” he asked as they approached the stairs.

Julie sighed. “Now… I need a coffee.”

12

GlobaTech’s Santa Clarita compound was the size of a small town. As such, it had many of the same features—including accommodation, supermarkets, and coffee shops.

Julie and Collins stood in the shade of a tree outside the on-site apartment complex where they both resided. They sipped coffee as they looked out at their own, private world unfolding around them.

Collins looked at his plastic cup curiously before taking a sip. He wasn’t one for coffee, but Julie was buying, and he had never turned down a free drink in his life. It was strange, though. He knew it was supposed to be coffee, yet it tasted like ice cream.

Beside him, Julie watched as he processed the vanilla latte and smiled to herself momentarily. She sipped her own drink and allowed her mind to wander. It danced around the plethora of problems she currently faced, trying to make sense of them. It drifted to Jericho, who was trapped thousands of miles away in a hostile environment. It rested on a memory of her father, whom she hadn’t had time to mourn.

Collins sighed. A mixture of confusion and resignation. “Okay, Jules… what the hell am I drinking? Honestly.”

“It’s a vanilla latte, dumbass,” she replied playfully.

“Coffee shouldn’t taste like dessert. This is weird.”

“Just put it in your face and stop moaning, will you?”

He sighed again. “Fine.”

Julie took out her phone and called a number from her contacts. She placed the phone to her ear as she leaned against the tree trunk.

“Jerry?” asked Collins.

“Moses,” she replied. “Hopefully. If the council meeting has lasted this long, no way is it good news.”

“Aye…” muttered Collins. He paced away slowly, gazing around as he sipped more of his coffee.

The call was answered.

“Boss?” asked Julie.

There was a moment’s silence before she got a response.

“Fisher. Everything okay?” said Moses, his voice hushed and impatient.

“I mean… it’s no worse than it was twelve hours ago, I guess. How’s it going in New York? Are you still at the U.N.?”

“No, it finished about an hour ago. I’m heading back to the plane. I need to fly to D.C.”

Julie frowned. “How did it go?”

“Not great but as expected. Any luck with the bullet? What did Devon say?”

She noticed how quickly he dismissed her question and didn’t feel it prudent to push.

“For now, it’s a dead end,” she said. “He hasn’t seen anything like it, and the technology is beyond anything he’s ever seen.”

“So, no idea where it came from? Who made it?”

Julie shook her head. “Nothing. He said designers and engineers always leave a signature, even a microscopic one, like a calling card. Something to say, look what I did. But this has nothing. It’s clean. Too clean.”

Buchanan was silent for a moment.

“Wouldn’t whoever made something this revolutionary want to be known?” he asked.

“That’s what we thought too. Apparently not.”

“Thoughts?”

She sighed, measuring her response. “Devon said these things would cost upwards of six grand to make. And that’s per bullet. Clearly not designed for mass production. No ID from whoever made it, so they didn’t do this for the infamy or the cash. I think it was made-to-order. A limited edition, one-off design purpose-built for the job at hand. My gut says whoever manufactured that thing is the same person who fired it. Or, at the very least, the same person who hired the shooter. That means, for whatever