Agent Hill: Powerless by James Hunt

popped his head between two of the machines and then back over to Mack. “Which polymer was it? Wait! No, let me guess.” Bryce put his finger to his mouth, marching back and forth, muttering to himself. Sarah picked up a computer mouse and flung it at his shoulder.
    “Hey! The sooner we get the satellite link up, the sooner we can get out of this icebox.” Sarah said. “It’s so cold, my nipples are poking through my Kevlar.”
    Bryce sulked back over to cases of equipment but then pointed to Mack. “I want to finish that polymer cell conversation.” He popped the latches and hooked up the servers to the computers he had brought.
    Aside from the servers themselves and the front door, there wasn’t anything else in the building. No windows. No paint. Just computers and concrete. Sarah stood next to Mack, looking around at the dull surroundings. “Now, I know I’m not the most fashion-savvy person who’s ever walked the earth, but I think a few splashes of color could really lighten the place up.”
    “We have a mole,” Mack said.
    Sarah had been in the espionage world as a field agent for more than six years. During those six years, she’d heard a lot of different tones from her boss. He’d yelled at her, screamed at her, threatened her, even tried to kill her once—although, to be fair, she had deserved it. But in all of those conversations—which were more him just yelling at her until she managed to sneak away—Mack had never had the tone in his voice that she’d heard him use just now. It wasn’t one of anger, or fear, but one of defeat. The wind had been knocked out of him, and he looked like a man who already had one foot in the grave. “What are you talking about?”
    “The radio tubes,” Mack answered. “Only someone who had inside information could have known that. I bet if we checked the other bodies that tried taking you out at the apartment, we’d find radio tubes in them too. It was a setup. They knew we’d take one of them back to question him.”
    “Mack,” Sarah said, forcing him to look at her, “that can’t be possible.”
    “It is possible,” Mack said, gesturing around to their current location. “Look at what I was able to do without anyone knowing. And Demps seemed to be able to break into HQ a little too easily.”
    “Yeah, but what you did was a good thing,” Sarah said. “What you’re suggesting is evil and wrong and... and... why are you telling me this? What if I’m the mole?”
    “You’re not the mole.”
    Sarah looked at him indignantly. “And why the hell couldn’t I be the mole? If there was anyone who had the profile of a mole, it would be me. Insubordinate, risk taker, struggles with emotional attachment—”
    “It’s not you, Sarah. You don’t have it in you to betray the GSF. You love it too much.” Mack took a breath, and the chilled air still held enough vapor to produce another misty puff. He turned to Sarah and grabbed hold of her shoulders, looking her square in the eye. “I told you because I trust you. And because I know you won’t show any bias toward me in suspecting that I could be the mole.”
    “Well, this is a bitch,” Sarah said. “For the record, I don’t like this.”
    “I know.”
    “Uh, guys?” Bryce asked. “Did you happen to bring the small, red box I left at the post when we first arrived?”
    “What’d you go and lose now, Milks?” Sarah asked. Bryce was surrounded by his pieces of technology and wires and computer chips with lights blinking and sounds pinging. It was enough noise to make Sarah want to kick everything down to let out all the frustration coursing through her veins.
    “It was only about yay big,” he said, measuring his hand about a foot off the ground. “I can’t get the satellite link mobile until I have it.”
    Sarah zipped up her jacket, made her way to the door, and opened it, sending a chill through the room. “If my nipples freeze and fall off from the cold while I’m out there I’m