The Mystery Box

Julian Cable heard the motors buzzing outside his cabin, listened for a second as they got closer, then dove to the floor. He rolled twice until he was pressed up against the living room bookcase. He heard something drop on his doorstep, then what he now understood to be a drone flew away. He waited and heard nothing else. Staying low, he crawled to the long storage chest by the foot of his bed. Without raising his head, he lifted the chest a few inches— just enough to pull his rifle out from the hollowed recess in the floor. He crawled to the back window and, still without raising his head, looked around the room. A clear line-of-sight showed the back window from the front door. Not ideal, but better than opening the door directly. Gathering himself, he reached up, slid the window open, and slipped over the sill, landing as quietly as he could on the dirt outside. Looking in all directions, he walked slowly around the back and side of the cabin.

Turning the last corner, he saw the brown cardboard box. He looked around again, as far into the distance as he could see, then approached the box. There was no label on the top or sides. No handwritten address or name.

But of course, no one knew his name or address.

Almost no one.

He didn’t touch the box. Might the label or some other markings be on the bottom? Possible, but statistically unlikely; he could see five of the six surfaces. He went back inside, again using the window rather than the door. Returning to his bedroom, he moved the storage chest and picked up the phone stored there. He turned it on. The battery was nearly full.

He knew the number by heart, but not the male voice that answered after the ring.

“Evergreen,” it said.

“Is this Cardigan Books?” Julian asked.

There was a pause, a click, and then another click. The voice said, “No, but perhaps we can help you. What are you looking for?”

“You are somebody that I don’t know. I hope I never lose you.”

“We’re a bookstore, sir. Are you looking for a book?”

“I see it all now that you’re gone.”

“Hold please.”

Cable hung up. Eight seconds later, his phone rang. The number was blocked, and Cable knew it was a secure line.

He recognized the voice when his controller spoke. “Julian, what’s happened?”

“A box was left on my doorstep, Paul.”

“Your doorstep where?”

“Where I’m living. A place that no one knows.”

“Who left it?”

“I don’t know. It was dropped by a drone.”

“How do you know it’s for you?”

“Who else would it be for?”

“It could be for anyone. Someone who used to live there. A mistake. What does the box say?”

“Nothing. No name, no label. And no one lives here but me. No one has for a long time.”

No immediate reply, so Julian continued. “Paul, this shouldn’t be happening.”

Paul paused for several more seconds. “I can’t tell if you’re overreacting, or if we should mobilize, get a contact team out your way.”

“I’m not overreacting, Paul. I don’t panic, you know that. I’ve lived this long by being careful. Something’s not right.”

“What’s in the box?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not, Julian?”

“Same answer. I’m always careful.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“Okay, Julian, we’ll get a team out to you.”

“No. I’ll come to you.”

“Julian, that’s not wise. You could be followed. You could lead them here.”

“I won’t be followed. Whoever’s looking for me has been looking for you a lot longer. They’re more likely to know your place than mine. If they found me, they’re probably already watching you and your people.”

“I don’t think that’s likely, Julian. We’re secure. We’ve always been secure. Let us come to you.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know where I am?”

“No.”

“And I’m not going to tell you, or your recovery team. Not right now, anyway.”

“But if you’re right about the box, you’ve already been compromised, and we need to get there right away.”

“Nope. Not happening. I’m on my own, and that works for me.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I told you. I’m going to bring the box to you. Not to your front door, and I won’t be followed. I’ll leave it in the garage. Is the emergency sandbox still there, by the exit?”

“It is, but you can’t get into the garage. You know that.”

“I’ll get in, Paul. You know I can. Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you after I’ve left the box. Then your people can look at it and get back to me. Don’t bring it upstairs. You don’t know what’s in it.”

“I still think you’re making too much of a fuss about this, Julian.”

Cable didn’t reply.

“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” said Paul. “When will you be here?”

Cable held his phone out and looked at it. He tapped his foot and pursed his lips. He brought the phone back to his ear. “I’ll let you know. It will be soon. Two or three days. I’ll call when I’m close.”

He hung up.

He went back outside, this time with his Heckler & Koch pistol rather than the rifle, and with his spotting scope. He spent an hour searching a circle almost seven hundred yards wide around his cabin. He examined the immediate space around him and, every minute or two, scanned the wider area with the scope. He didn’t let himself think about the call, because he needed to stay focused on the search. He didn’t expect to find anything, but a simple mistake could be deadly. After an hour, he went back to the cabin.

Sitting in his handmade Adirondack chair, Cable finally thought about the call. Overreacting? That wasn’t his way; Paul knew that. Paul wanted to come to him; that wasn’t normal either. And then Paul didn’t take the threat seriously, didn’t consider that he and his team could also have been compromised. Alarms should have been going off everywhere.

The mystery box seemed to look at him. A threat? An invitation?

He thought about shaking it, but knew that was a bad idea. If it was an explosive, it could go boom. If it wasn’t an explosive, a shake wouldn’t tell him what he needed to know; even gauging its weight wouldn’t tell him anything useful. He should just take it down to Paul’s secure office, avoid the guards, get into the garage, and leave unseen. Take off. Disappear. This was all so out of the ordinary, so unlike their normal, infrequent communications. Paul usually contacted him through a coded website message, two or three times a year, and never questioned him.

Cable realized that he wasn’t willing to call Paul in advance, to tell him when he was coming. He would have to sneak in and out. That insight crystallized his fears. Would Paul tell him what the recovery team found in the box? Would the team let him go if they caught him? Who was involved?

He picked up the box and sat back down in his chair. Then he stood up again and looked at his cabin. The cabin had always been his. He’d built it with his father many years before, just two rooms initially, and then expanded it himself once his father was gone. No one was supposed to know where it was. The property was not in his name; his father had left it to him but he immediately transferred it to a long-dead great aunt with a different last name. And now someone knew where it was, and that he was there.

No attachments. That was the rule. Leave before it’s too late, not after. Never look back.

But if things went south when he opened the box, he didn’t want the cabin to go down as well.

He walked a little distance into the woods, then sat down to open the box. It wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t empty, either.

A white envelope and a larger brown padded shipping envelope were inside. Neither was addressed. He opened the letter first.

“J. You’ve been compromised. I don’t know who, or how, or why, but your information was just shared with the Red team, including this address. I can’t tell you how I found out. You know what will happen. Get out now. I think I am finally clean. Your integrity makes me seem small. Please don’t waste this warning.”

Cable sat and thought, while his body was already reacting: muscle memory considering what to pack, where to go. He could feel his body telling him to blow up the cabin, to destroy all traces. He’d already decided not to do that. It was his dad’s cabin; his cabin now.

He opened the padded envelope. A thick wad of cash in hundred dollar bills. He smiled. No passport or gun, because she knew he had those covered. The letter was from Betty. It had to be. She knew his code phrases, so she was on Paul’s team. But she didn’t use any of those codes because it could lead back to her. Instead, she reached a step deeper, to the singer where the codes had come from, and referenced other songs that she knew he liked. No one else on the team knew those details about him. It was a risk, including those words, but not much more than the risk she took by sending him the anonymous box.

Cable went back to his cabin and packed up the few things he needed: his passport and license, two other passports with different names, more money, the rifle and the pistol, a shoulder pack with a few clothes, and his key to a secure storage area several hours away where his Jeep was stored. He would have to drive his current car there, then find a way to drop it off so it couldn’t be traced back to the storage unit. The storage units had cameras outside; he didn’t want his car, or his appearance, to be caught on those cameras, but he couldn’t be sure. No one from Paul’s team was likely to know about the storage unit, and leaving his car there could lead them to the storage records and cameras.

Paul’s team. He wondered briefly what went wrong, why he had been targeted. Had he been targeted? Could his information have been shared accidentally, and Betty was overreacting? No. Betty was not one to panic, any more than Cable was, and Paul had pretended not to know where Julian lived. Something was wrong; something secret, and therefore dangerous.

The best move was to destroy the cabin, to remove all traces of his presence.

He couldn’t do it. So he went through the cabin once more, making sure nothing could lead his pursuers to him, or to Betty. They’d know he’d been there. They’d find plenty of evidence about how he’d been living, and nothing to show where he was going. If he left the car, they might even think he was coming back. But no; when he didn’t reappear or make contact, finding his car here would tell them to start looking for a different one. Distract, decoy; keep them looking for this one.

He’d been there too long already; he’d called Paul more than two hours before. Even though he’d told Paul he was bringing the box in, the correct move was to dispatch a team immediately just in case. They were probably on the way. They couldn’t get there in two hours, even if Paul had called out a helicopter, which was an unlikely risk for him to take; but if he had sent his team by chopper, time was getting short.

He stepped onto the doorstep one last time, kissed his fingertips, then patted the door.

“Thank you, Dad.” He paused, then tapped the door twice with his knuckles.

“And thank you, Betty.”

He took the mystery box with him. He couldn’t leave it behind in case it might lead to Betty. He’d destroy it on the road.

Cable drove along an unmarked back road for thirty minutes. When he reached the highway, he turned away from the city, and away from his storage unit. He’d decided to trash his car where his pursuers were less likely to be looking, in a town without an airport, hoping it would never be identified or even found. Then he’d steal a car, drive to his Jeep, and move on from there.

Should he confront Paul, check in on Betty, dig deeper to find out what this was all about? Or leave the state, maybe the country, using one of his other identities. He didn’t think Paul’s team knew about the other passports. Sure, they would assume he’d made contingency arrangements, but there was no way for them to trace those names. It had all been done in cash, no records, years ago. Even Betty didn’t know what names or other details were on those records.

He had time to think about this later. He knew he probably shouldn’t do anything. He didn’t like leaving this mystery unresolved, but no attachments was the rule. It was the safest move.

Cable sighed and shook his head