The Traveler's Companion Read Online Free

streamed from her forehead, temples, and earlobes. The beeping of her life-support apparatus came through the speakers like a metronome.
    “Earlier tonight the security guard found this girl in the lobby. You might recognize her. Her name’s Melissa Fleming. She’s the heir of a condiment tycoon and she’s become the latest celebrity train wreck the press can’t get enough of.
    “The security guard said she was just standing there, a statue in a yellow miniskirt and white leather go-go boots. She was completely catatonic,” Gibbons said.
    “Does this mean the offices have been compromised?” Iverson asked.
    “What do you think?”
    Meekly, Iverson mumbled his retort, “I guess so.”
    “You want to tell me how a bleached-blonde socialite infiltrates CIA headquarters?” Gibbons asked.
    Caught off guard, Iverson stammered for an explanation. What did Gibbons expect him to say: “While shopping along Rodeo Drive she suddenly realized the CIA security system ran on a holographic optical algorithmic interface. She ditched the paparazzi, picked the front door lock with a common bobby pin, and, to foil the ankle-high laser grid alarm system, performed a high wire act reminiscent of Cirque du Soleil. Voila!” As Deputy Director of the DS&T, he was responsible for research, development, and deployment of the various technological aspects of intelligence gathering, not for building security.
    Iverson bit his lip and said, “I’d need to double check the security platform. Check the cameras. Could’ve been an internal breach. Maybe someone on the inside was trying to impress the girl. . . .”
    “She’s listed in the CIA database as an informant,” Angela said.
    “That’s right,” Gibbons said. “She was contacted by the CIA about six months ago when rumors were going around that she was dating C.C. Go. We asked Miss Fleming if she, in fact, knew Mister Go, and she said she did. When we requested she provide us with some information on Mister Go in a semi-official capacity, her official response was, ‘Oh my God! That would be so cool!’ But, when push came to shove, she was probably too afraid. She never gave us anything useful.”
    “The CIA database reports C.C. Go as having a ninety percent probability of being an urban legend,” Angela said.
    Iverson sighed at her stilted, automaton-like words. “We need to work on your syntax.”
    Gibbons said, “Various sources in and out of the intelligence community have suspected that, for more than a decade now, C.C. Go has been the author of a self-published travel book called The Traveler’s Companion . It’s not a book available to the average Joe. The cost for a single copy is in excess of a million dollars. The book contains information about and directions to illegal functions, such as the location of black markets, drug dens, and sex parlors to mention but a few. A couple of years ago, one of our men in the field reported that he had found one of Go’s destinations. It was a restaurant, for lack of a better term, that served Long Pig, which is human being. Sick stuff. Of course he’s evaded detection and has become sort of an urban legend because of it, and, much to our embarrassment, sort of a folk hero. Celebrities claim to have met him, some of them even assert to have been romantically involved with him. So far, we can’t confirm these reports.”
    “You think he’s behind this?” Iverson asked, now understanding Gibbons’s interest in Angela. It made sense. She was the perfect candidate to seduce and destroy an internationally wanted playboy. Other agents might recoil from the decadence rumored to take place in C.C. Go’s world, but not Angela. She’d be up for anything.
    “Miss Fleming has only uttered one phrase since she’s been here,” Gibbons said. He looked down at a file and read: “ ‘I am a glass of orange juice.’ ”
    “Orange juice? Freshly squeezed or from concentrate?” Angela asked, winking at Gibbons.
    Gibbons