Read Online Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) by Tom Abrahams - Free Book Online

need to know.” He was beginning to lecture again. “You have been with this agency long enough to understand how we work. You are to do as you are told: gather, analyze, and pass along. This job is no different. Should I rescind my offer and find someone else?”
    “No, sir,” Matti said. “I understand.”
    “Now go back to your office, process the HUMINT gained from the asset’s phone call. Forward the information to me and then await your next contact.” He shooed her away with his right hand and turned his attention to his computer again.
    Matti got up and left the office, knowing that something was not right but that she’d pressed her luck far enough. Given the paramilitary nature of the NSA, she decided to follow orders.
    Matti surprised even herself with her doubt. Since joining the agency, she’d only occasionally asked questions beyond the scope of her work. When met without answers to those questions, she generally shrugged and went about her work unfazed. Matti needed to believe in people and things and ideas long after most had given up.
    She could define and describe the differences between frankincense and myrrh at age five, but was thirteen when she accepted the nonexistence of a living, breathing Santa Claus. An anatomical whiz in elementary school, she could name all 206 bones in the human body, but she left bedtime notes for the tooth fairy until the last of her baby teeth fell out.
    Before her mother’s death, Matti’s parents always appreciated the “little girl” in their daughter. They did everything they could to facilitate her youth as long as possible. When the principal of her elementary school suggested that Matti skip second grade, her parents refused. They also discouraged her participation in organized activities intended for older children, choosing instead to stimulate her intellect with extracurricular learning. She took part in museum youth programs and studied piano.
    Matti’s mother traveled a lot as a regional makeup sales representative. Her father worked at the high school and was often not home until after dark. She was a twelve-year-old latchkey child who learned how to pick the lock on the back door on the days she forgot the key. She learned how many holes to poke in the cellophane covering boxed macaroni and cheese after burning it too many times. Though she was sometimes lonely, Matti was happy.
    And then her mother died.
    Matti remembered her mom wearing a floral print top with a cream-colored skirt when she left for the trip. She’d smelled like peaches.
    “I’ll be back in three days,” Matti remembered her mother telling her. “Just a quick trip to Virginia and back. I’ll call tonight and we’ll say prayers.” She never called.
    The next day, the phone rang and her father had wailed. The vision of him sinking to the kitchen floor, the phone spinning as it dangled from the wall, was embedded in Matti’s flash drive of a mind.
    Hit and run. Killed instantly. Closed casket. No suspects. Toxicology. None of it made sense to either Matti or her father, and nothing was ever the same after that.
    The two coexisted. Though Matti’s father was home a lot more after her mother’s death, she was more alone than she had ever been.
    At night, as she lay awake, she would hear her father calling out for her mother in his dreams. He was at the other end of the house, but she could clearly hear his subconscious cry for answers. She was resolved to try to find them. Maybe they would help her father sleep. Maybe they would make the two of them a family again.
    “I don’t want to know,” he’d told her one night over a take-out pizza. “It doesn’t matter.”
    “It does matter,” she’d reasoned. “If I can figure out what happened, it will help. If I can get us answers, maybe you can sleep.”
    “I sleep just fine.” He’d shaken his head and torn a piece of pepperoni from a slice. “And you’re no Dick Tracy. Let it rest. Let her rest.” He’d rubbed