“I’m waiting on Shunt,” I told him. “What about the robbers?”
“Still in the building somewhere.”
I have to confess that part of me wanted to go downstairs and teach those knuckleheads a lesson. But sneaking downstairs and gift wrapping them for the police would expose me to the surveillance cameras at the base of the stairwell and on the main floor. I consoled myself with the hope that they might venture upstairs, whereupon I would greet them warmly.
“Shunt, what’s going on?” I demanded.
“I need sixty more seconds.”
“Bad guys are running out the front door,” cut in Shotgun over the radio. “They’re armed.”
Good, I thought to myself, that will keep the police busy for a few minutes.
A second later, the floor came up from beneath me, and what sounded like a freight train drove over my head.
The boys downstairs had blown the place up.
(III)
Having witnessed more explosions than I care to recall, the pop and crackle of a mere grenade going off behind a distant wall no longer excites me.
This blast was on a different order entirely. Seven on a ten scale: it blew a hole in the floor a few feet away from me. Flames shot up through the hole in an impressive display of color and heat.
I observed the flash from my back.
“Shunt!” I yelled as I struggled up from the floor. My voice must have been loud enough for him to hear all the way back in New York.
“We got it,” he answered. “Go, go, go!”
I reached into the computer. Flames had spread out from the hole. The ceiling seemed to be on fire. Something flared to the right of me.
Black smoke began pouring from a computing unit behind me. Something yellow poked out of the black grill of the one next to it.
I grabbed the doohickey and turned toward the door—which was not only on the other side of the hole, but blocked off by one of the computer units, which had fallen just beyond the hole.
Without thinking, I grabbed the computer unit I’d just been working on and climbed to the top, then scrambled over the large cases and moved toward the door. The air was thick with smoke and acrid fumes. My eyes felt as if they had been soaked in pepper spray, and my throat could have sanded down an oak tree.
The explosion had blown the door inward, where it rested on one of the fallen computer units. I was able to slide down headfirst, landing in the hall in a tumble.
I’m not sure what the temperature was, but it was certainly hot enough not to have to worry about the infrared motion detectors. I threw myself to the floor, then crawled toward the restroom.
The air near the floor was a bit clearer, and the damage out here wasn’t nearly as bad as in the data center. Still, I seemed to be moving in slow motion. Mongoose yelled in my ear, but it was impossible to make out with the symphony of alarms set off by the explosion. Besides those in the bank and the buildings on either side, it seemed like every car alarm in the city was sounding.
I was about six feet from the men’s room and escape when a dark shadow burst into the hall ahead. It moved so fast that my first thought was that it was a cloud of smoke.
The next thing I thought was that it was a fireman. But firemen, even in Berlin, don’t dress head to toe in black.
I’m guessing we stared at each other for a full second before either of us moved.
I ducked toward the restroom. He did, too—and kicked me in the face. I hadn’t seen it coming, and took practically the full force of his size 20E boot to the front of my skull.
I’m guessing at the size. The impact certainly seemed to warrant it.
I rolled back, then tried to grab him as he rushed past me toward the data center. The hook of my hand was just enough to throw him off-balance and he crashed down against the doorjamb and rolled onto the floor.
Twenty years before, I would have jumped to my feet and stomped his face a few times for good measure. But I’m older now, and either lazier or smarter, depending on your perspective: I took the easy way out, grabbing for my pistol.
My shot caught him in the back of the head. As he fell down, I realized he was wearing a breather.
I grabbed it, then took a quick look at him. Between the smoke and the confusion, I doubt I could ever identify him in a lineup, but I did note one thing—he was definitely a Caucasian.
“Dick?” said Shotgun over the radio. “What’s going on?”
“OK. I’m OK,” I managed. “I’m coming.”
I held the mask of the breather—it looked like a gas mask—then crawled into the restroom and over to the window. Shotgun pulled me out, and we made our way down to the back alley. I took a half step, then fell off-balance.
“We gotta move, boss,” yelled Shotgun. He spun around and hoisted me over his back as if I were a seabag filled with unwashed clothes. Then he hustled out to the street, where Mongoose had moved the car. Shotgun threw me into the back as the car sped off.
My head had cleared but my jaw and the side of my skull ached. I reached up gingerly to see if my ear was still there. It certainly was—at about three times its normal size, it wasn’t hard to find. My lungs made a wheezing sound that would have made an organ-grinder proud.
I slumped back, content to let Mongoose drive—which gives you some idea of how battered I felt. The streetlights blurred. I finally got my strength back to the point where I could lean forward and pull the ruck off my back. As I did, Mongoose took a hard turn and nearly sent me into the dashboard. I dropped the backpack and grabbed for my seat belt.
“Careful with your driving,” I told him. “Aren’t you going a little fast?”
“Tell that to the idiots on my bumper.”
I turned around. The idiots on his bumper had their bubblegum lights going full blast.
Fortunately for us, the police officers behind us were driving in one of the force’s relatively new Prius Toyotas. I’m sure they were getting fantastic gas mileage, but the 3.6 liter six-cylinder in the CC had them beat by a hundred horsepower. Veering through traffic, Mongoose managed to build up a decent lead, zigzagging his way around the Tiergarten into a tangle of Strasses and Sackgasses.
I don’t know how familiar you are with Berlin, but undoubtedly you know the streets better than Mongoose. We had rehearsed three different exit routes to get us out to Bundesautobahn 2, the major highway running west from the city, and another two apiece to Tegel and Schönefeld, the airports north and south of the city, respectively. But in his haste to duck the policemen, Mongoose had lost his way. The navigation unit in the car—programmed for Schönefeld—was no help. It kept telling him to turn right, then became frustrated as he missed the turn, announcing in a loud, English-accented voice that it was “recalculating.”
We had lost the policemen, but we were lost as well. Even I was confused—we had zigged and zagged so much that I had a hard time making out exactly where we were. The roar of a jet nearby revealed we were near Tegel airport.
“Should we go to the airport?” asked Mongoose.
“Negative,” I told him. While we had a set of reservations for a plane—a backup getaway plan—I figured we’d be easy prey there.
“There’s a paper map in the glove compartment,” I told Shotgun. “Get it and let’s figure out where the hell we are.”
“I got it,” said Shotgun. He took it and managed to direct Mongoose onto Stadring, one of the major roads that cuts south through the residential areas of the city. But we had hardly gone a half mile when a pair of flashing blue lights cut across the highway from the other direction. They slammed on their brakes, blocking our path. Mongoose took evasive action, cutting hard to the right, which took us across a lane of traffic, and out over the shoulder of the road.
Into thin air.
We hung there for a moment or two, the Volkswagen apparently trying to remember if its engineers had stowed wings somewhere in its trunk. But they hadn’t.
“Brace for impact,” yelled Shotgun, who obviously had been wat
ching too many reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation on our off days.
We slammed down a second or two later, airbags exploding on all sides. Though rough, our landing was much better cushioned than I had any right to expect.
Which made me suspicious.
“Water!” yelled Mongoose.
“Let it sink,” I told the boys. “Swim to the south. The cops will be on the north.”
There was no time to argue—the car’s hood sunk low, and water surged over our chests.
* * *
In case you’re keeping track, this would be the FUBAR stage of the operation—Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
* * *
The Volkswagen was a great car. It was a miserable boat. It filled with water quicker than a kid’s bucket at the seashore.
I took one last glimpse of my position in the car as the water filled and pulled it downward. The idea is simple: while you can see (if you can see), you spot an orientation point. Then once you’re in the darkness and under the water, you make for that spot.
In this case, it was the door handle, right next to me. I held my breath as the water rose, undid the seat belt, then pulled at the handle. Had I tried opening the door before we sank, the outside pressure would have made it extremely difficult. But now there was just as much water inside the car as outside, and the door opened relatively freely.
I pushed out, kicking my legs free. I couldn’t see where I was—the water was extremely murky, and it was night besides. Propelling myself topside, I took a quick gulp of air, then ducked back down, doing an improvised sidestroke toward the opposite bank.
Mongoose is a former SEAL, and reached shore well ahead of either of us. Shotgun took a little longer, reaching the rocks just about when I did.
The police car was directly across the channel, blue lights spinning in a panicked arc across the water’s surface. I pointed to our left, and we made our way, still in the water, along the shadows for nearly a hundred yards, until we reached a small construction barge. We clawed our way to the other side of the barge, then clambered up behind a large construction crane that was being used to add new bulkhead sections to the shoreline.
“Think they’re coming for us?” Shotgun asked.
“Not yet. Soon.” I looked around. There was a construction trailer on land, behind a four-foot fence. “Maybe there are clothes in there. Let’s find out.”
There were clothes, workmen’s overalls to be exact, though none of them came even close to fitting Shotgun. I’m sure he was a rather comical sight to the cabdriver who picked us up a few minutes later. The man never uttered a word, however—this was Berlin, and he was used to seeing very strange sights.
Then again, the frown on Mongoose’s face couldn’t have encouraged much interaction, let alone comments.
I had the cabbie drop us off about a quarter mile from the hotel where we had rented a pair of safe rooms the day before. We made our way to the building quickly, entering through a back door. Two showers and fifteen minutes later, we readjourned at a nearby biergarten for first aid and a debrief.
(IV)
Let’s start by stating the obvious:
The bank building had been blown up by people who knew, more or less, what they were doing.
The computer center was a target. Robbery was, at most, a secondary goal.
And German beer is very good.
The televisions at both ends of the bar were tuned to a German news station, and by the time we had finished our first round of drinks, they were showing live footage of the fire at the building. Apparently a neo-Nazi group had phoned in to take credit for the attack, supposedly because it allowed foreigners to work there.
Even in translation, that sounded to me like a rather pathetic attempt to divert attention from what had really happened.
“Gotta be related to our project,” said Mongoose as he waved to the bartender for refills. “Too much of a coincidence.”
I didn’t give my opinion. I wanted to hear from Shunt before making up my mind.
Though I, too, am not a big believer in coincidences.
Shotgun fell into a conversation with a nearby fräulein, trying to convince her to teach him some German. Mongoose, something of a connoisseur of explosions, began analyzing the way the building had been blown up. He deduced that it had been designed to look like the target was the safe, which was several stories below the computer center. It would look like they just used too much explosive—a common problem. Strong evidence to the contrary would be destroyed by the resulting fire.
“I’d be willing to bet they used accelerants, but by the time this is done, it’ll be hard to know for sure.” He gestured to the screen. “They must have had stuff preplanted, because they didn’t go in with enough explosives for this.”
“Hmmm.” I sipped my beer.
“Inside job,” he added.
My sat phone rang. I thought it was Shunt, but the number belonged to Dan Barrett, who handles a lot of my business in the States and acts as exec officer when I’m away.
“Veep just called to tell you about a problem the bank is having in Berlin,” said Danny.
“You don’t say.”
“Some sort of explosion in a building. Wanted to make sure you knew about it. He called from his cell phone—he’s on his way to his office. You can reach him there.”
Veep was Jason Redlands, one of about two hundred vice presidents of the American International Bank, though possibly one of the few with actual responsibilities: he was in charge of computer security.
He was the man who had hired Red Cell International—though not to look for embezzlement. He was also the reason we had come to Germany.
“I’ll call him,” I told Danny.
“He thinks you’re in Texas.”
“I’ll speak with a twang.”
I had been in Texas a week earlier, appearing as emcee of a mixed martial arts show there. It was a good show, raising money for disabled veterans, one of my favorite pastimes. Mongoose had been with me, hoping to take part in one of the early-round matches—but that’s another story.
After ordering another beer, I took myself to a corner of the bar and gave Veep a call. His secretary wasn’t there, but he picked up on the second ring.
“Commander Marcinko, thank you for calling,” said Veep. Though his office was in New York, he was a Midwesterner, and retained his native politeness.
“Danny tells me there’s been some sort of excitement?”
“That’s not the word I would use,” he said gravely. “Our bank in Germany has just been attacked, we think by terrorists.”
“In Germany?”
“Our European servers are there. The computer operations,” he added, as if I didn’t know what servers were. “Our whole system is down. It will be hours before we can go to backups.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I’d like to get your input on this,” he said. “The terror group.”
“Of course.”
“They say neo-Nazis.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’ll extend the terms of the existing contract, if that’s OK.”
It was, of course, completely OK. Veep didn’t want me to actually solve the case, let alone apprehend the bombers. All he needed, he claimed, was someone who understood the world of counterterrorism.
“Interface with Interpol, that sort of thing,” he said. “Of course, if there are things we can do to prevent a recurrence—”
“I’m sure there are. I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
Shunt called a few minutes later, by which time I’d gone from beer to Bombay Sapphire—the doctor’s elixir does wonders for aches and pains.
“We got nothing useful,” were the first words out of his mouth. “We weren’t in long enough to pull down all of the accounts, let alone start analyzing them. I’m afraid what we have isn’t going to give us much information.”
I made the mistake of asking Shunt why it had taken so long
for them to get the virus working in the first place. This was a strategic mistake on my part: Shunt began explaining that what I had inserted was a Trojan horse, not a virus, and that it was considerably more complicated than Zeus,2 whatever that was. I let him babble while the waitress brought me another drink, then asked him to tell me in actual English what the situation with the bank was.
“They’ve shut down their overseas accounts. If those computers are physically destroyed, they’ll go to a backup system. It should be a mirror—”
“Which means what?”
“Exact duplicate. Once I know where the backup operation is, I can figure out how to penetrate it. I know a little more about their system now,” he added. “And Junior gave me a couple of ideas—we might be able to get inside without having to get the machine itself.”
“And we won’t be detected?”
“Matt suggested a way we could make it look like we were Russian mobsters. I kind of like that.”
So did I. Junior and Matt, by the way, are the same person: Matthew Loring, my prodigal son.
Actually he wasn’t the prodigal; I was. I didn’t know I had a son until he showed up on the doorstep, fully grown and ready to rumble. We’ve been making up for lost time; he joined Red Cell International as a tech guy and has been working his way over to the field. It seems like he joined us just the other day, yet he continually surprises me with his grasp of reality.
He’s also a bit of a rogue in his own right, but we’ll get to that by and by.
“I talked to Veep a little while ago,” I told Shunt. “He wants me to consult with the police.”
“Wow—you think maybe he’s not stealing the money?”
“I remain agnostic.”
Veep had hired us two weeks before “at the behest of”—read, “under heavy pressure from”—the bank’s board of directors because of some European transactions that seemed suspicious. He had told the board that the transactions appeared to have been made to charity organizations that were known fronts for al Qaeda and other radical Muslims.
Veep seemed to feel that shutting down the accounts would end the matter. But apparently one of the board members was actually awake when Veep gave his presentation, and started asking questions. To get him off his back, Veep promised an outside investigation.
[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel Page 3
