TurboHacker’s real name was Marshall Erickson. Because of his status as a security consultant for some of the top corporations and government facilities in America, he had been selected by Zhin—one of Lin’s triplet sisters—as a primary target. But it was Erickson’s connection to “the Brainman,” aka Jake Bronson, that had stirred the demons in Jiaolong’s gut, making Erickson a key player in an entirely different game, one that was about to unfold.
As the game play intensified, Jiaolong allowed his mind to drift, considering the lifelong string of events that had brought him to this point.
His Christian name was Daniel de Vries but he preferred Jiaolong, the nickname his mother had given him. It was derived from a mythological creature called the chiao that was capable of changing into many forms. It was usually regarded as a kind of lung, or dragon. Sometimes it was manlike, and sometimes it was a reptile or fish, and all of its manifestations were interchangeable.
It suited him.
Children at school used to spit the nickname as an insult because of his mixed heritage. They’d called him other names as well, like chonky and rice cracker. He had memories of tearful nights despairing over that which could not be changed.
That’s when his love for video games had become an obsession, not only because they provided him with a world without criticism, but because he’d discovered he was an exceptional player. His mind seemed to be wired differently than other people’s and game play came naturally to him. It wasn’t long before he rose to the top of the standings on some of the most popular games on the market. That had gotten him noticed by game designers, and before his seventh birthday he’d become a paid consultant to the largest game maker in the world, providing them with valuable input on how to improve the next generation of games. By the time he turned twelve he was programming his own game applications. His online persona found “friends” he could never find in the real world, and it gave him purpose. But he’d still kept the two worlds separated, never using his real name online, and refusing to share his notoriety with his schoolmates for fear they would find a way to ruin it for him.
Then the triplets had arrived at school—Lin, Min, and Zhin. Even as teens their beauty had been historic. Boys got tongue-tied and girls seemed unable to peel their eyes away. Though the triplets had been a year older than Jiaolong, they’d been drawn to him like groupies to a rock star, marveling at the same mix of features others had teased him about. After that, everyone had wanted to be his friend, and his eyes finally opened to life’s possibilities.
Encouraged by the examples set by his Chinese mother and Dutch father, he’d learned to embrace the fact that he’d inherited far more than mixed blood and a lavish lifestyle from his parents. From his father, he’d come to understand the nature of international politics and business, the soft lines between right and wrong when pursuing a goal, the importance of surrounding yourself with people whose skill sets were beyond your own, and risking whatever resources necessary to stay ahead of the competition. From his mother he’d learned patience, calculation, and the ancient Chinese game of Go. Her father had been a champion, like his father and grandfather before him—and the rich strategies learned from its mastery had guided Jiaolong’s mother’s family for generations.
Pursuing seemingly opposing objectives simultaneously is the key to victory.
Lin placed a hand on his arm, interrupting his reverie. “It is time,” she whispered.
He nodded. The game he played now had begun long ago when Jake Bronson and his allies killed his parents. Though he would have preferred to wait until the entire Passcode network was fully in place before making the move that would hint at his true purpose, his grandfather’s declining health dictated otherwise. He pulled out his smartphone, tapped an icon that dialed the control room on the secure floor above, and issued the order.
Chapter 5
Veterans Administration Medical Center
1:00 p.m.
FRANCESCA DIDN’T ANSWER so Jake left a quick voice mail telling her to call him ASAP. He and Doc had just exited the main entrance of the hospital. The summer sun brightened the day but not his mood. A group of wheelchair-bound vets smoked cigarettes beneath a sprawling shade tree.
“Slow down, my boy,” Doc pleaded as they hurried down the walkway. “There’s no immediate danger.”
“Yeah, that’s what you said about the pyramids, Doc,” he said, referring to the government’s assessment that Earth’s ancient alien visitors couldn’t return for at least forty years. “Remember how that had turned out?” He picked up his pace, opening a text window on his phone as he made his way toward the parking lot. He was about to thumb in a message for Francesca when someone called out from the other side of the street.
“Doctor Finnegan!” The stout woman waved frantically. She looked fiftyish, her hair in a bun, and she was wearing a khaki hunting vest over slacks and sneakers. The silver-haired man beside her was dressed like a college professor. Jake recognized the couple as he and Doc hurried toward them.
Professor Thompson was a physicist and the woman, Eloise, was a brilliant biologist. Jake had met them on the island sanctuary that was meant to become the birthplace of a new world, the one location on the planet that was supposed to have been spared from an alien-induced Armageddon. The path to humanity’s extinction had been triggered by a group known as the Order. Eloise and the professor had been unwitting but devout followers—until Jake had infiltrated their midst and revealed the horrendous truth beneath their leader’s plan. With their help, Jake and his allies had rescued scores of children from the volcanic eruption that destroyed their underground enclave. Afterward, the couple had been instrumental in helping Doc’s team manage the relocation and rehabilitation of the children, most of whom had been orphaned by the cataclysm. Eloise and her husband had also provided a wealth of information about the Order, which had been critically helpful in weeding out many of the leftover factions. Add to that their unique scientific skill sets and it hadn’t taken long for Doc to bring them into the fold at Area 52.
“What are you doing here?” Doc asked. “How did you even know I was here?”
“No time for that now,” Eloise said breathlessly. Her cherub cheeks were flushed, beads of sweat had formed on her brow. “Timmy’s been taken.” She turned to Jake. “And you’re next.”
“This way,” the professor said. He took Doc’s arm and urged the group down the line of cars. “We don’t have much time.”
This was it—the threat Jake and his family and friends had been preparing for ever since their narrow escape from the island. Instead of following the others, he stopped to compose the group text that would change their lives forever.
A shot rang out.
The bullet split the air beside his cheek. It impacted the professor between the shoulder blades, launching the man forward with the force of a charging bull. The professor crashed to the ground between rows of cars and Doc toppled beside him. Eloise screamed, both hands to her mouth, her eyes wide. Jake raced toward her and pulled her roughly down with the others.
More shots rang out, hitting the opposite side of the car like hammer blows. The professor lay motionless, the underside of his clothing soggy from an expanding pool of blood. Doc placed his finger on the man’s neck and grimaced. “My God, he’s dead!”
“Nooo!” cried Eloise, draping herself on her husband’s limp form, her body hitching with sobs.
“There’s no time for that,” Jake said, grabbing her arm. He pulled her to her knees, gripped her shoulders, and trapped her gaze. “Your death will not honor him, Eloise,” he growled. “Find your strength and trust me.” Two more slugs slammed into the car, her eyes widening further with each blow. She trembled but nodded rapidly and rose to a crouch.
“Attagirl,” Jake said, focusing his thoughts and wrapping her in a mantle of determination.
He pulled out the keys to his Jeep. “Stay low but move fast. My car is three rows over.” He took off in a crouched run, zigzag
ging between the first row of cars. Doc and Eloise were close behind. More shots sounded, but the impacts were behind them. For the moment, they were hidden from their pursuers.
Then a man’s voice shouted from dead ahead, “Fan out!”
Jake skidded to a stop.
They’d never make it to his Jeep before this new group reached that same row. “Where’s your car?” he asked Doc.
“Two rows over. Follow me!” Doc hurried to their left, moving quickly despite his age. Eloise was right behind him.
Jake hesitated, holding his key fob just above the tops of the cars as he pressed the lock button. His Jeep’s horn chirped.
“There!” a voice shouted.
The ruse would buy Jake and his friends a few seconds while the assassins converged on the wrong car.
He caught up to Doc and Eloise as Doc was cracking open the door on his Ford Mustang GT rental car. “I’ll drive,” Jake whispered, taking the keys. “You two get in the back. Heads down. Don’t slam your doors.”
Once inside, he spotted four armed Asian men moving toward his Jeep, one with a rifle, the others with pistols. They slowed, glancing around, apparently unsure whether or not their prey was in the vehicle. Jake held his Jeep key out the window and pushed the remote-start button. Even from two rows away, he heard the deep-throated rumble of the Hemi V8 come to life. All four men turned in unison toward the Jeep, moving quickly.
“Hang on!” Jake cranked the engine on the Mustang, backed out of the space, and floored it, thankful for the GT model’s extra horsepower. The tires squealed, the car leaped forward, and Eloise whimpered from the rear seat.
He avoided the single paved exit of the large lot, veering instead toward a short rise and stand of trees dead ahead. The car lurched hard over the curb, fishtailing as it climbed the soft dirt. In the rearview mirror he saw three of the men racing toward a black SUV. The fourth stood his ground and raised the rifle to his shoulder. The muzzle flashed and two slugs hit the trunk with heavy thunks. Jake jinked the Mustang from side to side, sliding through a narrow gap in the trees, bounding down the opposite side of the embankment, and bouncing onto the road that bisected the VA campus.
As he sped toward the freeway, he dug his phone from his pocket and handed it over the seat to Doc. “Take this,” he shouted. “I need you to send a group text.”
Chapter 6
Redondo Beach, California
FRANCESCA SAGGED INTO the stiff chair beside the pharmacy window. She missed her father. It had been four months since she and Jake and the children had last visited him in Venice. He’d been thrilled to see them, his gondolier spirit hearty and strong as ever. It had been a tearful good-bye when they’d left a week later.
It was difficult for her and her father to be apart after thirty years of living together. He’d raised her as a single parent for most of her life; she’d been nine when her mother died. But her father never regretted his daughter building a new life in California. To the contrary, he’d encouraged it, insisting she followed her heart. It was her childhood dream come true—loving someone with the same depth her mama had loved her papa. Francesca had found her man in Jake, one like no other—in so many ways.
This morning’s news from the doctors had changed everything. The moment she told her husband the truth, the dream would end.
She choked back her sadness, recalling Jake’s guarded behavior with Doc. Was trouble brewing on that front as well? The nagging concern wormed its way around her belly and reminded her he’d left a voice mail. As she reached into her purse for her phone, the pharmacist poked his head over the counter and said, “All set.”
Rising, her eyes went to the slanted mirror running along the top of the back wall. It allowed an unobstructed view of the store’s interior, discouraging shoplifters. Three smartly dressed Asian men wearing tinted glasses had just walked in. That in itself wasn’t odd, but when two of the men remained stationed at the front entrance while the third walked a quick track across the front of the store, systematically glancing down one aisle after the next, it put her senses on alert. She turned her back on the hunter, keeping an eye on his movements with the mirror.
“Restroom?” she asked the waiting pharmacist. Her grimace and hand on her abdomen sent the silent message that she needed a quick reply.
He pointed down the small hallway to his right. “Through there, ma’am,” he said. He held up her prescription bag. “Whenever you’re ready.”
She nodded appreciatively, hesitating a moment as if waiting for a cramp to pass, all the while tracking the movements in the mirror. She knew she was in trouble when her pursuer stopped abruptly as he reached the aisle that provided a view of her position. He stared in her direction for only a brief moment before nodding to the two men at the door. One of them ambled toward the checkout counter to stand behind the only other customer in the store, while the other placed a phone to his ear and exited toward the parking lot. The hunter assumed a casual stance, scanning items on the shelf as he maintained his sight line to her. Whatever they wanted from her, it appeared as if the trap would be sprung when she left through the front door. She doubled over slightly and moved toward the bathroom.
The moment she turned the corner down the hallway she heard quick footsteps behind her. The hunter wasn’t taking any chances. It had finally arrived—the moment she’d prayed would never happen. Fear for her children and Jake sent her muscles into overdrive. She kicked off her heels and ran, moving past the restroom and pushing through a swinging door labeled Employees Only. The small warehouse space consisted of two short rows of partially filled pallet racks. The roll-up door at the opposite end was closed. The pedestrian door beside it had a push bar labeled Emergency Exit. She sprinted to it and shoved it open.
Any doubt she’d had about the validity of the threat was washed away when the third man stepped into view to block her path. His mocking expression dared her to try to get past him, but she yanked the door closed and pulled out the only weapon she had—her cell phone. She ignored the first man as he burst into the space from the hallway, her focus on the group text message she composed.
She hit Send just before he grabbed her arm and ripped the phone from her grasp.
Santa Monica Hills
Jake ignored the yellow light, swerving around the two cars that slowed in front of him, and spinning into a hard turn up the intersecting street. A quick check in his rearview mirror confirmed no one was tailing them.
Yet.
Traffic on the four-lane street was heavy, but he refused to slow. He weaved the Mustang between cars as he sped forward. “Quickly!” he said to Doc, who was struggling to steady himself as he fumbled with Jake’s phone.
“I’m try—ing,” Doc said, his voice breaking as Jake spun into another turn.
“Look in my Favorites list. The group’s called Doomsday,” Jake said. He floored the gas pedal on a straightaway, his mind flashing on Marshall’s insistence on the dire name when they’d hatched their evac plan a year and a half earlier.
“Got it. Wait, a text just came in from Francesca. All it says is now.”
Jake slammed the brakes, a vague part of him registering the startled grunts from Doc and Eloise as they were thrown forward against their seat restraints. Tires squealed as the car behind him swerved to avoid rear-ending him. Cars stopped. Horns blared.
Doc’s voice was tremulous. “Dammit, man. What does it mean?”
It means I’m not the only target, Jake thought.
Francesca, the children…
“Jake,” Doc shouted, shaking his shoulder.
Doc’s touch snapped Jake out of it—just in time for him to see the black SUV roaring toward them from a side street. A gun appeared from the passenger-side window and its muzzle flashes were accompanied by several thunks near the bottom rear of the Mustang.
Jake stomped on the gas as another car unwittingly steered to block the SUV’s path. His mind raced as he realized their pursuer’s intent had been to shoot the ti
res, not the occupants. They’d killed the professor but it appeared they wanted Jake alive. That gave him an advantage—and the hope that his family wasn’t being targeted for murder.
“Toss the phone!” he shouted.
“What?” Doc asked.
“Throw my phone out the window. They’re probably tracking—” Jake hesitated as they passed a sign indicating they’d just entered Brentwood.
Doc rolled down his window and cocked his arm.
“Wait,” Jake said, taking the next corner so fast that the rear end veered violently onto the curb. He pointed the Mustang north, toward the tree-studded hills of luxury homes and winding streets that overlooked Santa Monica. Discounting the risks of the plan that was gelling in his mind, he said, “Don’t get rid of it yet. Call Tony.”
Traffic was lighter but he still had to swerve to pass a stubborn driver. He glanced in the rearview to see Eloise with her face buried in her hands, her body still hitching with sobs as the car’s momentum threw her from side to side. “Jerry…Jerry,” she moaned.
Jake felt her pain as if it were his own, not because he knew the professor very well, but because he feared her feelings of loss might assault him many times over in the hours to come. Beyond her he saw the SUV about four blocks back.
“I got Tony’s voice mail,” Doc said. “Should I leave a message?”
“No,” Jake said, knowing he was breaking every rule by keeping his phone on. “Hang up and call Marshall. Then Lacey.”
He pushed the Mustang to its limits around each bend and turn, hoping to increase their lead as the road steepened.
“Voice mail again.”
It’s happening.
His mind reeled as the tires squealed through a switchback. The fact that no one answered was either good news—everyone had followed protocol and ditched their phones—or bad news, meaning they had all been taken, or worse. He was tempted to call the kids next, but if his phone was being tracked as he suspected then their location would be identified as well. “What the hell’s going on, Eloise?” he growled.
Brainrush 04 - Everlast 01: Everlast Page 3
