Hayden nodded. “And we’ll need to be HALO’d in. Dropped from four thousand meters right on the edge of their camp,” she said. “It’s gonna be tough.”
Luther eyeballed her. “Tough?” he repeated. “Spec ops eat this shit for breakfast. Sure hope you can keep up, Team SPEAR.”
“We’ll do our best,” Drake replied without emotion.
“Are you kidding?” Dahl said, grinning. “It’s party time. Not only are we gonna HALO together, but we get to stick it to IS too. That’s bucket-list stuff right there, folks.”
Not entirely certain Dahl knew what bucket-list ideals really stood for, Drake looked at the assemblage. Mai, with all the demons of her past laid to rest and now probably unsure of her next step. Her proximity to Luther showed it might be right there. The big warrior himself, unable to curtail his glee at the prospect of a new battle, a warrior at heart and probably incapable of settling down. Kenzie, teetering on the edge of everything—fight or flight, good and bad, struggle forward or fall back. Drake was sure she would leave. Meters away and unmistakably apart, sat Dahl, a man on hold, kept in suspense until he could return to reclaim the family he loved. Then there was Hayden and Mano, skirting around the edge of a new relationship but neither wanting to spoil it by trying too hard.
Smyth . . . waiting for Lauren. Waiting for a miracle, it seemed.
Molokai was a mystery. An anomaly to the group. Drake couldn’t read him at all, and wondered if it might be better not to look at the man’s past.
And that left Alicia and himself. Honestly, where were they? Their relationship was stronger than mountains, their bond tighter than a death grip. But where were they going? From one skirmish to another, one mission to the next.
Alicia was right. Some R&R was long overdue.
“I guess we should get on with it then.” Alicia brought him back to the present by whispering in his ear.
“Eh?”
“Hay just told us to meet outside the hotel in thirty. That corresponds to twenty minutes shagging time. C’mon, better bring your A-game, Drakey.”
“Shouldn’t we conserve energy for the . . . you know . . . humongous battle we have coming?”
“Nah.”
“Shouldn’t we be gathering our weapons?”
“I’m only interested in one weapon right now.”
“And later? If we save the world?”
“I might let you go on top.”
“Aw, thanks.”
As they climbed the stairs to their room, Drake thought about their relationship and how they needed some real time together. Do people find getting time off together this hard in the real world? He wondered.
But then they were walking down their corridor and Alicia was already disrobing.
“Whoa, your panties say ‘come and get it’ on the ass.”
“I know. I bought them for your sake when I remembered you’re so fucking slow on the uptake.”
“Awesome.” Drake threw her onto the bed. “How about leaving ’em right where they are, love?”
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Karin Blake endured another night and day with the FrameHub geeks, learning what they knew, stealing their secrets and their code with her eidetic memory, trolling their open jobs, their assignments and personal projects, suffering their corner-of-the-eye stares every time she got up to walk to the water cooler or the refrigerator, tolerating their terrible and often deplorable jokes.
It wouldn’t be bad if they were ultimately harmless. Then she could bear their smutty remarks, their smaller, low-key hacks, their relatively undamaging social media shamings. She could even overlook all eight of them peeking at her—and using the internal cameras—when she dressed for bed. In part, she understood all these things—they were males under thirty that had never lived with a woman before and sure as hell never touched one. At first, she wondered if organizing a wild party with beer and hookers might cure them of their afflictions, but then she began to look deeper.
FrameHub were evil, perfectly defined by malice. The softer machinations worked atop deeper intrigues, each one more distressing, each one hiding a further layer of depravity. They did not care who they hurt—and they trolled the dark web for the worst immoral sins.
She gave up all hope in them as their supreme moment ticked inexorably closer. The prison break was on schedule, ready to green-light. Karin had never seen such a wicked glow in men’s faces, not even in the expressions of the worst mercenaries, warlords and crime bosses she’d come up against. In short, they wanted every single human being to suffer—man, woman and child—and intended to create countless, unending scenarios to make sure that happened.
Karin used a dead drop account to message Dino and Wu. It was part of her routine to check the account every hour for incoming messages relating to her hacks, and FrameHub accepted it after the first day and stopped checking.
Now, they had twelve minutes left.
Karin looked over Piranha’s shoulder, getting deliberately close. The kid couldn’t concentrate and kept breaking off to smile at her. Time ticked by. In an ideal world she could probably take all eight of these assholes out herself, but army training had taught her to rely on trustworthy backup. To wait for it if possible.
Having tracked and then followed her on the way down here, Dino and Wu would arrive at this very spot in . . . six minutes.
She clamped a hand on Piranha’s bicep. “Wait, is that San Quentin?” She nodded at the quickly scrolling list.
“Yeah, why?”
“My old boyfriend’s in there.” She laughed. “Wow, I could tell you a few stories about us two.”
Sixteen eyes locked on. “Like what?”
Three minutes.
Karin wandered across the room to pour a coffee, deliberately taking it slow. She knew they’d be watching. “What’s left to do, Piranha?”
“Upload the virus. Launch the code. A few seconds after that—” he made a whooshing sound “—doors opening all across the homeland. Special doors.”
“Drink?” she asked. “How about a beer? Let’s toast and then we can get down to party.”
Several expressions of interest crossed the gathered faces, but Goonch wasn’t about to be delayed.
“Cool, cool,” he cried. “But let’s press the button right now! I can’t wait to see what happens to the guards, and when they reach the first few towns!”
Karin strode over to his workstation, planted her hands on his shoulders and then used his seat to swivel him around. Her eyes were two inches from his.
“You can’t wait to see who they maim or murder first?”
Goonch nodded, breathing the stench of garlic mixed with candy into her face. “We are FrameHub,” he said.
“From now on,” she whispered, “you should consider all your systems crashed.” She had hopefully uttered the last geek-line of her life.
An explosion ripped the door off its hinges; the metal rectangle spinning like a dice into the room. Goonch stared with wide eyes whilst the other geeks all threw themselves onto the floor. Karin had been expecting it, but shielded her face for a moment before throwing the contents of her cup at Goonch’s face. The boiling hot liquid scalded. Goonch screamed, tipping over and hitting the floor with a crash. Dino and Wu darted into the room, semi-autos raised. Karin paused for a moment as Dino threw her a weapon.
Piranha jumped up, reaching toward a desk drawer. Barracuda and Manta did the same. Moray stayed with his head between his hands, ass in the air. Another geek made a break toward the open door.
Karin turned the barrel of her gun onto Goonch. “You wanna know who’s the first to murder?” she asked. “I am.”
She squeezed her trigger twice. Goonch’s face exploded and he lived no more.
Karin ran over to Piranha’s computer just as Dino and Wu yelled out for the geeks to stand down. Karin shouted without looking up.
“Kill ’em,” she said. “They’re only ever going to be trouble in the real world.”
“W
ouldn’t it be worse for them in prison?” Dino grinned.
“No,” Karin said. “I’ve seen what they can do and what they are doing. The best they deserve is a bullet to the brain, Dino. Just do it.”
Karin focused on closing Piranha’s program down. It took several minutes, careful keystroke after keystroke. She was aware of Piranha pulling a handgun to her right and Dino sweeping in to disarm him. Closer still, Wu smashed Manta across the brow, sending him reeling into the banks of machines, and then lifted Barracuda by the collar, preventing him from reaching his own small gun.
“You weigh nothing, boy,” Wu said. “How you like flying?”
He hurled Barracuda overhead, throwing him at the floor. The geek hit hard and then skidded further, face scraping across rough concrete. Karin still hadn’t heard a gunshot. To her left, three other geeks stood bolt upright, unsure what to do. When one yanked out the drawer of his desk, Karin stopped what she was doing and shot him in the chest. The feel of his blood spattering across their faces made the others retch violently. Karin took a little while longer to finish what she was doing.
Piranha, with no weapon, ran at Dino. The soldier should have shot him then and there, but elected to bash him across the head with the butt of his rifle gun instead. Piranha went down. Karin stepped away from his computer.
She lined up her weapon and opened fire, destroying the monitor, the hard drive and everything attached to it. She glanced over at Wu.
“The storage cabinets are back there,” she said. “Go fry ’em all. And I mean comprehensively. Bullets and fire, Wu.”
“We’re not handing all this in to the authorities then?”
Karin regarded him as if he were mad. “Don’t be ridiculous. Not counting all the private shit these assholes have hacked into and stored, there are dozens of active enterprises happening here. I wouldn’t bet on any authority not sifting carefully through them, would you?”
“No,” Wu admitted. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Karin turned back to the main room. The geeks to the left were still retching, white faced and terrified. Dino had Piranha by the hair, holding him upright, and pointed his gun at the rest.
Karin strode over to them. “I thought about this,” she said. “I honestly did. I tried to see the good in you. I tried to imagine you didn’t know better. I even tried to see if some of you were being coerced, which is why I checked all your jobs. But it just isn’t there. You’re all like-minded. All the same. Nobody can help you.”
She raised her semi-auto, training it on Moray and Manta, with Barracuda cowering behind them.
“You are FrameHub,” she said. “Think on all the civilians those missiles murdered. All the families you destroyed. Think on the irony of this—how many will be saved by killing you?”
Karin had no compassion left. In her life, she’d already witnessed the worst, seen loved ones die, murdered at the hands of a madman. Whatever dregs of kindness she had left would be saved for those that deserved it.
The gun bucked in her grip. She held tight. Bullets riddled three bodies, made them collapse bleeding to the floor. Behind them, computers shattered; wires, plastic boxes and broken glass dancing across the wilting desks. The wall billowed plaster dust where the lead finally came to rest.
Piranha screamed. Beside him, only two others remained—Stingray and Bull—and their blood-stained faces ran with tears.
“So,” Karin said. “How do you like me now?”
“Wait,” Dino said. “This is cold blooded murder.”
“What did you think you signed up for? Our original agenda was to kill Matt Drake.”
“He’s a soldier. They all are.”
Karin shook her head sadly. “So are these wankers,” she said. “But you don’t see it. Why? Because they’re young and inexperienced? Because they’re not firing bullets? Their fingers, Dino . . . their sticky fingers can do more damage across the world in sixty minutes than your trigger finger can do in a month. Do you understand?”
Dino frowned. “But—”
“Shit.” Karin shot Stingray through the head. “They were loving every second of the damage they did. Right here, right now.” She shot Bull through the head.
Only Piranha remained.
“Cowardly, emotionally deficient psychopaths with no morals,” she said. “Delighting in the slaughter that they wrought.”
She pressed the cold barrel right up against Piranha’s head.
“Excited to their core. Emotionally. Sexually. Physically.” She started to squeeze the trigger. “By the misery and the pain of others.”
The last bullet echoed sharply through the suddenly silent room. Piranha’s body made a sickening wet flopping sound as it struck the floor.
She stared Dino in the eyes. “Thanks for helping.”
Carefully, he inclined his head, clearly not completely on the same page. Karin checked on Wu. “Let’s go. Now that FrameHub are out of the way, and their evil nullified, we can complete our agenda.”
“That hasn’t changed?” Wu asked.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“We’ve been there. You had a chance. I thought . . . maybe you’d had a change of heart.”
“Everything I did since joining the Army has been with this goal in mind. I explained that and you still came. If you don’t like it you can walk away, but now we go to finish this.”
“And nobody else knows?” Wu asked.
“Nobody. Don’t worry, we’re safe.”
Dino was staring at Wu. “You know that, man. You’ve been with us at every step.”
“I like reassurance.”
“What you need is a mother.”
“My mother died when I was six.”
Karin didn’t want to get into it. FrameHub were officially shut down and she didn’t feel an ounce of regret. The world was a hard place. If you faced it head on, messed with it, you deserved whatever harsh fate came your way.
The world is better off without them.
“Let’s leave these bastards to rot.”
Dino and Wu made ready. Karin grabbed anything she owned and a few items she could see that were of value. They relieved the dead of their cash simply because they needed it no more. Karin did have access to funds, but was always aware that, in the game she was playing, the need might arise for even more. Most of FrameHub’s valuable information was stored away in her memory.
Dino headed for the door. “C’mon. We can make contact with SPEAR up top.”
Karin followed, but then her phone rang. When she fished it out the screen read: Unknown Caller, which wasn’t surprising in their line of work.
“Hello?”
“Is this Karin Blake?”
“Who wants to know?” The voice held a heavy, thick accent she recognized as Russian.
“You don’t know me, Miss Blake, but you will. We should meet, because we have the same goals.”
“Who is this?”
“Someone planning something very big. Worldwide. Devastating. They destroyed my legacy and I will have my revenge.”
“They?”
“SPEAR. Drake and the rest. Even that sniveling weasel you call President. Plans are in place, but they don’t know I am coming.”
Karin couldn’t help the hollow fear that started to churn around the pit of her stomach. “Who are you?”
“Meet me.” He reeled off an address. “Meet me there and let me show you. Bring your companions. You will be safe, for now.”
“I’m not meeting you. I couldn’t possibly trust you.”
“Of course you can, Miss Blake. My machinations will not begin until SPEAR have finished with Tempest. I want their full attention.”
“So you’re saying Tempest are a hindrance to you too?”
“Let’s just say I want them out of the way. Then . . . the day of death begins.”
“That’s a bit corny, bro,” Karin tried to bait the man.
“Corny? I do not know. I do know that your only chance of survival during the
coming weeks is to meet me.”
Karin sighed. “You’re fucking up my timetable here.”
The man gave her a date and time. “If you don’t turn up you will be the first to die.”
The phone went dead. Karin stared at it for a minute before including Dino and Wu in her thoughts. “You hear all that?”
“Sure. Just another psycho.” Wu shrugged.
“Really? Then how did he get my number? How did he know we’d just finished here? How did he know our agenda? And, if there’s a threat to SPEAR, there’s a threat to the world at large.”
“SPEAR won’t go down easy,” Dino said.
“Not just that. He mentioned the President too. This could be huge.”
“So, you wanna meet the psycho?” Wu said it as if resigned. “Of course you do.”
“I think we have to, guys.”
Dino shouldered his weapon. “Best get moving then.”
Karin didn’t look back.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
The HALO jump should have been exhilarating, a heady rush from beginning to end, but Drake barely felt it. Risk lay everywhere, from the size of the team jumping to the chances of being spotted from below.
And then there was the landing area.
Close to an IS stronghold and a mountainous ridge, they were trying to come down as close as was reasonably possible. Drake had never seen a team so tooled up; they were literally burdened with weapons. Enough to win a war.
It might come to that. Luther had been grinning from ear to ear.
Drake landed and rolled, catching his hip on a rock but coming away with nothing more than a nasty bruise. The others came down one by one, pitch black their ally, stiff chutes guided by GPRS. Despite more bruises and scrapes the team came together in a reasonable mood.
“All quiet?” Mai whispered.
“We’re a few miles from the town,” Drake said. “You see that ridge over there?” He pointed at the horizon where an uneven line was outlined against a silvery sky. “That’s our target. We need to be there before first light.”
They moved out. The air was cold, biting even, chilling Drake’s blackened face. They couldn’t help but make a small amount of noise, weighed down by all their gear, so they took it easier than normal and stayed low. Underfoot, the ground was hard-packed and uneven. Drake heard no sounds drifting along on the slight breeze that scoured the desert. They could easily have been alone.
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