by Chad Zunker
As expected, each of the cubes held hefty computer stations with three large screens. The first three cubes were not being used at the moment. The screens were dark. I chose the fourth cube, the one that felt the furthest away from the conversation that was going on between two men on the opposite side of the cubicles.
I quickly pulled the tiny flash drive out of my pocket.
“Tommy, are your boys ready?” I whispered, barely audible.
“More than ready. They’ve been waiting. Let’s do it.”
Tommy had a team of hackers on call. The “best of the best” he called them, about six guys living all around the world, but connected through cyberspace. Tommy had recruited them to help with what he called Project Indiana Jones. Once I plugged the flash drive into a port on the computer, it would open up a cyber doorway for them to go to work. Like Harrison Ford’s character in Raiders of the Lost Ark, they would each send their own Indiana Jones cyber character into this very dangerous system to go hunting for the priceless treasure, which was, of course, the video. They all knew that they had maybe sixty seconds tops to get in and get out before the cannibal natives killed them with spears.
Or killed me.
My life was in the hands of six brilliant hackers.
I said a quick prayer and plugged the flash drive into a port on the computer. Immediately, something began to happen that I couldn’t fully understand. A dozen password boxes popped up on the largest computer screen. They weren’t simple username and password prompts. Numbers and letters started flashing and rotating like crazy inside each of the boxes. The computer geeks were going to town, hacking the system with blazing speed, when suddenly the screen went live! They’d done it.
“We’re in the system, Sam!” Tommy whispered. “We’re on the hunt.”
“Go, Indy, go,” I whispered back.
“Keep your eye on the light, Duke.”
A small stoplight appeared in the right corner of the main screen. At the moment, the yellow light was blinking. Tommy said if the light went to red, it was bad news, that I should grab the nearest machine gun and start blasting my way out. He thought that was funny. I did not. If the light went to green, I was good to go. Unplug and get out. As long as it was blinking yellow, Indiana was still alive and on the hunt. The light was still blinking yellow.
“Hey, Lewis, you running a test or something?”
It was a male voice, from the opposite side of the cubes. Looking for someone named Lewis. My eyes surveyed the cube. Then I spotted a certificate on the wall. Lewis Tasker. I was inside his cube, on his computer. I stayed silent. I bet they could they tell that I was logged into Lewis’ computer system, so they assumed I was Lewis. My eyes were locked in on the yellow blinking light. Come on, Tommy. Make this fast.
“Yo, Lewis, you asleep already?” said the man again, even louder.
“Maybe he’s passed out on that vegan drink he loves so much,” I heard from another male voice over by the other man. “That stuff was disgusting.”
“Just getting a report for Mr. Waters,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the walls. I, of course, didn’t know if Lewis Tasker had a deep voice or high-pitched voice, so I tried to stay neutral. Anything to buy a few extra seconds. Reginald Waters was listed on the corporate website as VP of Strategy. I’d memorized that website.
“Waters?” the voice replied.
“That guy has never said two words to me,” the other guy added.
“What kind of report, Lewis? And why did you change your passwords? You know we’re not authorized to do that until Friday. Markson’s going to be pissed.”
I didn’t reply. What could I say? I stared down at that blinking yellow light. We were nearing sixty seconds.
“Lewis?”
“Buy time, Sam,” Tommy said into my ear. “My boy in London is close.”
“Markson authorized it, guys,” I replied over the walls.
The squeak of a chair made my mouth go dry. Was I about to have to take a swing? If the guy came around that corner and that yellow light was still blinking, I was breaking noses or whatever I had to do to secure that video. I heard footsteps on the carpet. He was on his way around. I stood and flexed my fist. A bearded man turned the corner and stopped in his tracks. Ten feet from me. As we connected eyes, I did my best to block the computer screen with my body.
“Who are you?” the man asked, surprised.
“I’m Carson. Greg Carson.” I said it casual, like he should know.
“Wait, how did you…why are you on Lewis’ computer?”
I took a peek down. Still blinking yellow. “Didn’t they tell you I was coming tonight?”
The man’s eyebrows bunched. “Didn’t who tell me? Coming for what?”
“Peterson. He sent me over.”
Nick Peterson was VP of Development. I had all kinds of names and faces flashing through my mind. I was throwing it all out there.
“Almost there,” I heard Tommy say. “Ten seconds.”
“No, no one told me anything,” the guy exclaimed.
“Sorry, I thought they cleared it with you.”
The man was suspicious. “But how did you get in here?”
I shrugged. “Came through the door. Just like you. Relax, man.”
A look down at the blinking yellow light. London boy needed to step it up or I was toast.
“This isn’t right,” the man suggested. “I’m calling Markson.”
I tried to look nonchalant. “Alright man, but I already talked to Markson tonight. He said he was calling you.”
“You did? He didn’t call up here.” The man tried to peer around me, at the computer screen. “What are you…what is it you’re doing?”
I turned. Green light!
“We got it!” Tommy whispered. “Get out of there.”
I casually reached down, pulled the flash drive out and shoved it in my pocket. I held my hands up to show surrender. “Look, I don’t want to cause any problems, okay? I’ll clear it up with Peterson and Markson and come back tomorrow. No big deal.”
I pivoted, moved quickly to the door. I could see from the corner of my eye the bearded man step into Lewis’ computer station behind me, eyes intently on the screen. I heard an audible curse. This was not going to end well. I was only three steps into the hall, when the ear piercing sound of an alarm and flashing strobe lights announced there was an intruder.
“Go, Sam, now! We’ll cover you!” Tommy yelled. “They found us!”
FORTY-TWO
Monday, 7:47 p.m.
Chesapeake, Virginia
4 hours, 13 minutes to Election Day
The sprinkler system erupted above me. Water started spewing out of spigots, flooding the hallway. Tommy and his boys were working their magic. A few people stepped frantically out of offices, looking around curiously. They were covering their heads with jackets, binders, paperwork, even sofa cushions, anything to keep from getting soaking wet. My legs kept moving toward the corner of the hallway. My head hurt from the siren of the alarm. I made a beeline back to the stairs. Then I heard yelling behind me.
“Someone stop that guy!”
I turned. It was the bearded man from the computer center. He was pointing at me. There were three men standing in the hallway in front of me, near the elevator corridor, looking at each other, getting wet. They looked like accountants, not soldiers. So they probably weren’t comfortable accosting a stranger just because a guy was yelling and pointing. Where was the soldier? Macho Man? And the other guard? And how many trained snipers would be in the building within minutes? One of those questions was answered a second later, as the guard with the wrestling tattoos stepped out from a corner beyond the elevators. His eyes focused on me while he grabbed the gun off his waist.
“I got trouble, Tommy,” I said, backpedaling.
“The other way,” Tommy instructed. “Go! There are more stairs at the back. Opposite end of the building.”
I turned, sprinted back toward the bearded guy,
ready to put an angry shoulder into him. He cowered as I neared, ducked back into the computer center. The hallway carpet was slick from the dousing of sprinkler water overhead. More employees were scrambling out of their offices, all bewildered at the sudden commotion, clearly not sure what to do to escape it. Tommy was in my ear, giving precise instructions as he tracked me on his GPS, left, right, straight. I was darting through a maze of office hallways, water squishing up in the carpet beneath my shoes. Finally, I came to a door with an exit sign above it. I put my hand on the knob.
“It’s locked, Maverick!”
“One second.”
I turned. Macho Man was barreling down the wet hallway. Thirty feet behind me. He raised a fist, gun in it.
“Go, go, go!” yelled Tommy.
I pushed through a newly unlocked door into a stairwell. Gunfire rang out. Two shots. The bullets hit the edge of the thick metal door as I shut it. I saw the military guard lift a walkie-talkie to his mouth. I felt the electronic door lock re-engage. There was a bang on the outside as the guard tried to open it. Tommy or one of his boys had shut it down. I spun around, bolted. There were no sprinklers inside the stairwell. I found the ground floor, pushed through another door. Tommy was again in my ear, giving me instructions on how to get back to the front of the building. Back to my car. The sprinkler system suddenly shut off above me. A series of metal security gates began descending from the ceiling. Redrock was locking down the entire building. This was no ordinary corporate facility after all. I was about to be trapped in the middle of a hallway.
“Tommy?” I yelled.
“We’re on it!”
The metal gates paused with about three feet of clearance. I sprinted forward, rolled on wet carpet under three consecutive gates. Another shot rang out behind me and ricocheted off a gate. The other military guard had found me. I rolled one last time. When I’d cleared the last gate in the hallway, I heard the gate re-engage and seal all the way to the carpet, locking the military guard inside. I stumbled into the main lobby. There were a half dozen people standing around, soaking wet. I burst straight through that small crowd toward the front glass doors. There were no guards currently at the booth. The glass suddenly exploded right in front of me. I dived again, rolled through the glass and onto the concrete outside the front doors. I felt tiny shards stick in my hands. I took a peek back. My buddy, Macho Man, was racing forward, again in hot pursuit, gun in hand, aiming at me.
I heard Natalie screaming in my ear. “Sam, are you okay? Sam?”
I picked myself up, bolted toward the parking lot.
Another shot rang out. The headlight of a car in front of me shattered.
I jumped, slid across the hood, cleared, landed, kept running. The Accord was up ahead. I opened the driver’s door, jumped in, shoved the keys into the ignition. The Accord revved to a start. I pushed the gear into drive, pressed my foot to the floor. The tires squealed as I whipped the wheel to the left. The security gate to the main parking lot was shut. It was a big heavy metal number. I couldn’t burst through it. The Accord would be totaled.
“Tommy, the security gate!”
I heard Tommy yell, “Come on, fellas! Stop jacking around!”
The gate suddenly parted. I punched the gas. The guard at the gate stepped out, his gun aimed at me. I ducked and heard my windshield take four consecutive bullets. I had just enough space to clear the gate past the guard, who took two more shots and hit the back window, which shattered. But I was clear from the parking lot and back on the main property road.
Natalie was still screaming in my ear.
“I’m here, I’m here,” I replied, short of breath, my eyes straight ahead. “But how am I going to get out of here?”
“There is a back road, Sam,” Tommy said. “Right past the bunkhouses. Turn right on it and hightail it all the way to the very end.”
The Accord was up to eighty miles per hour already, as I flew past the chopper hangar. I saw a group of men who were already scrambling toward two parked military Jeeps. No doubt coming after me. The bunkhouses were ahead of me.
“Turn right!” Tommy yelled.
I slowed enough to not flip the Accord, ripped the steering wheel to the right. The Honda kept two tires on the pavement, made the turn. I pushed the gas pedal down again. I cleared a half mile in a flash. Headlights were now shining behind me.
“Where am I going, Tommy?”
“There’s a dirt road, right outside a back gate. About a hundred yards from the property line. You can’t drive to it. You’re going to have to run for it on foot.”
I saw it up ahead. The massive chain-link fence with barbed wire. The road just stopped suddenly. I slammed on the brakes, put the car fully into a ditch, behind some trees. Jumped out of the car. The headlights were getting closer. It looked like multiple sets of headlights. I sprinted through the trees toward the chain-link fence.
“Fifty feet to your left,” Tommy instructed.
I kept running, through the tall grass. “I see it.”
I ran up to the fence, found a heavy metal gate, but it was securely locked with an electronic system. There was no card swiper or keyholes for picking.
“Tommy, unlock this already.”
“We need twenty more seconds.”
“Twenty seconds! I could be dead in twenty seconds!”
I looked back again. The headlights were close now. Men with machine guns were about to be swarming me. I looked up at the top of the barbed wire. The fence was probably twelve feet tall with huge rolls of sharp barb wire on top of it. It was impossible to climb.
“Tommy? Now or never.”
“Now!” Tommy replied.
I saw a light on the gate lock blink green. I turned a handle. It opened. I was outside the property. Not that it would stop them from hunting me, but I still had a chance. I was running through the thick woods, nearly blind, only the light of a clouded moon above guiding me forward through rain-soaked Virginia hills. And Tommy was in my ear, yelling about a dirt road somewhere up ahead.
I ascended the side of a hill. My hands dug into the moist ground to help pull me up. I took a look back. Men with guns were at the gate. I counted at least six of them. They spilled out onto my side of the fence, searching frantically for me. I pushed ahead, through more trees, deeper into the woods. Then I heard another sound in the distance. A loud rumble with a repeated thump, thump, thump.
Helicopters.
FORTY-THREE
Monday, 7:56 p.m.
Chesapeake, Virginia
4 hours, 4 minutes to Election Day
I turned around again, searched through the trees. I spotted them. Two Redrock choppers were headed my way with powerful spotlights already penetrating the ground, creating massive circles of exposure. Bright as daylight. They would be on me quickly.
“I’m so dead,” I said to no one in particular.
“Not if you keep running,” Tommy suggested. “The dirt road is right over the next hill.”
“But what am I going to do when I get there?”
“Jump in the car with Natalie. She’s en route. She should be there any second.”
This pumped more adrenaline into my veins. Natalie. I pushed off, cleared the hill, stumbled through a ditch and found the dirt road. The choppers were gaining quickly. Then I spotted headlights. I could only hope it was Natalie. The car swerved around a corner, the tires spewing out gravel dirt. It was her Jeep Cherokee. She skidded to a stop. I opened the back door, dived into the backseat. Natalie punched the gas, the Jeep propelling forward.
“Helicopters are coming,” I said.
“I know. I see them. But if we can get to the highway, I think we can make it.”
“How far is the highway?”
“A quarter mile.”
“Punch that gas, babe.”
The Jeep Cherokee lifted off the ground several times as we raced straight ahead along the bumpy dirt road. I stared through the back window. I could see the flood lights pouring down from ab
ove. They were still looking for me in the wooded hills. We had a chance. We reached the highway. Natalie skidded right. There were other cars and trucks out on the main highway. We were positioned in between an eighteen-wheeler and an old Ford Truck. Natalie slowed to a normal speed, tried to blend with traffic. Light from above suddenly swept over us. The choppers. They were wreaking havoc on the highway, blinding drivers, flying really low and reckless. Clearly desperate. Clearly willing to do whatever was necessary to stop us. Cars were already slowing and pulling over in both directions. It was chaos.
“Stay down!” Natalie yelled at me.
I ducked behind the seats. One chopper was hovering overhead, shining its floodlights into other vehicles ahead of us. They blinded the guy driving the eighteen-wheeler directly in front of us, who swerved severely and honked his horn, obviously irritated at the intrusion from above, until he couldn’t take it anymore and started to slow and pull over onto the shoulder. Most cars were now pulling over as the choppers made their intimidating presence felt. But not Natalie. She whipped around the eighteen-wheeler and kept going, picking up speed. There was no way we could stop. But as we raced out ahead of everyone else, we exposed ourselves. Both choppers were coming after us now, since we were the only ones traveling at full speed and accelerating. The powerful spotlights were on us. Would they shoot us from the sky?
I was up again, hanging in between the seats. Now there was no reason to hide.
“The tunnel?” I asked.
Her fierce eyes were straight ahead, both hands strangling the steering wheel. She nodded. “We can make it. It’s our only chance.”
I peered ahead through the windshield. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. It was a twenty-something mile long bridge system that crossed the expansive Chesapeake Bay, from Virginia Beach to Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The road went completely underwater for long periods of time at two different points. Completely hidden from sky view. We had a chance to get lost. The Redrock choppers could not hunt us forever. There had to be police already en route. We were almost there.
