“How far do we have to go?” Shields asked.
“Just hustle.”
Mia led several hundred meters along the track until they reached a service door. She muscled it open and motioned for Shields to join. After traveling a ways down a dark, damp corridor, Mia stopped in front of a large iron door that looked more like something out of a castle from medieval times. She pounded on the center of it with her fist.
“What was this place?” Shields whispered.
“It used to be a castle until a fire in 1380 reduced most of the structure to shambles. So, they built over it.”
“That’s what they did in Atlanta, too,” Shields said.
“Beats the heck out of removing all the debris, I guess,” Mia said with a shrug. “And some of my friends found a way to siphon off electricity and create one of the best hacker hideouts in the world.”
“They’re not going to shoot me, are they?”
“Hope not. But we’re about to find out.”
A slot at eye-level slid open, and a pair of eyes peered into the outside. “Passphrase?”
“Password one,” Mia said with a hint of a smile.
The slot closed, and a series of locks along the door could be heard clicking open.
“Are you serious?” Shields asked. “Password one?”
“It’s a black hat hacker joke. You’d be surprised how many people use that.”
The door creaked as it opened. A stocky man with a red unkempt beard appeared in the entryway before stepping into the hallway and looking in both directions before tugging on Mia and Shields’s shirts.
“Get in here,” he said.
“Gimli,” Mia said. “It’s been far too long.”
“Helenos-9,” Gimli said. “It’s been far too long. You look as beautiful as always.”
She smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Gimli.”
“My condolences on the loss of your brother,” he said before turning a sharp eye toward Shields. “And who’s this?”
“This is Muskrat, one of the best new hackers on the planet,” Mia said, patting Shields on the back.
“Muskrat?” Gimli said as he stroked his scraggly beard. “How come I’ve never heard of you?”
Mia shrugged. “Probably because she’s a humble hacker. Remember that breach to SecureLock.com?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
Mia gestured toward Shields.
Gimli’s mouth fell open before he covered it with both hands. “You are the one who did that?”
“What can I say?” Shields said. “Guilty as charged.”
Gimli took ahold of Shields’s fingers and stared at them. “Incredible. I almost feel the magic flowing through them.”
“Oh, cut it out, Gimli,” Mia said, slapping him on his shoulder. “Your flattery won’t work on her.”
He shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
“How’s the crew?” Mia asked.
“We’re ready to rock,” he said. “Just give us your marching orders, your highness.”
“Show me the way.”
Gimli led them through a common area and down a corridor.
“How do you know these people again?” Shields whispered.
“They hired me once for a big job, but only on the condition that I meet them in person,” Mia said. “So, I agreed. And these were the only hackers who’d ever seen my face and knew my true identity before Hawk and Alex convinced me to work with them.”
“What made you work with them?”
“They wanted to drain some billionaire’s account who was trafficking teenage girls all over the globe,” Mia said. “That was worth showing my face for.”
“Amen to that,” Shields said.
Gimli stopped and knocked on the door. “Here we are.”
Someone unlocked the door, allowing them to enter. Mia scanned the room, which contained about a dozen hackers, all wearing headphones and typing furiously on their keyboards as they stared at their monitors.
Gimli ushered her to the front of the room and waved both his hands back and forth to get everyone’s attention. The hackers stopped what they were doing and gave him their attention.
“The infamous Helenos-9 is with us again today,” Gimli said. “But this time she has a different target. In ten minutes, she’ll brief us on our target and instruct us on how to proceed.”
The hackers’ eyes lit up as they stared at her in reverence. Mia smiled and waved at her admirers, who quickly returned to their work.
Gimli held up all his fingers. “Ten minutes and they’re all yours.”
Mia sat down at a terminal near the front of the room, while Shields settled into a nearby desk.
“Are you ready?” Mia asked.
Shields smiled and nodded. “Let’s expose the bastard.”
When Gimli got everyone’s attention, he let Mia explain the operation. When she was finished, the hacking group known as Lord of Firewalls sprang into action. And it didn’t take long before the information was flowing. As the hackers completed their assignments, they pushed the newly discovered information to Mia’s terminal.
Mia’s eyes widened as she studied the files. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Shields pushed off in her chair, rolling toward Mia’s terminal. “What is it?”
“Look at this list of payoffs of politicians and world leaders from Falcon Sinclair and his subsidiary banking accounts,” Mia said.
Shield let out a low whistle as she scanned the list. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I was, but this is legit.”
The list read like a who’s who among the world leaders.
“We’re in serious trouble.”
Mia shook her head. “Not after we post all these transactions. It’ll expose them all.”
“This will get suppressed.”
“Probably. Eventually. But not until we’ve pushed the truth out there.”
Mia scanned the names. Business leaders and politicians from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, France, Spain, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico among many others were listed in the transactions.
“This is unreal,” Shield said.
“I wish I could agree with you, but I’m not surprised,” Mia said. “But I’ve been seeing this for over a decade. It’s par for the course, in my opinion.”
“It’s still appalling.”
“Well, let’s make sure that the world learns about this,” Mia said before uploading the screen shots and files to a cloud server.
As they continued to work, the sound of gunfire echoed down the hall.
“What’s that?” Mia asked as Gimli rushed toward the door.
“They’ve found us,” Gimli said. “Emergency protocol, everyone.”
Mia watched as the hackers got up and rushed away from the gunshots and down a long hallway. She and Shields followed after them.
“Where are we going?” Shields asked.
“Hell if I know,” Mia said. “I’m assuming somewhere safe under the circumstances.”
One by one, each hacker entered a hatch in the middle of the floor and climbed down it. Gimli stood atop the hole and helped each person down.
Mia looked up and watched Gimli as he secured the door. He then pushed a button, releasing a wave of heat that rushed over Mia.
“What was that?” Mia asked.
“I hope you backed up what you found,” he said.
She nodded. “I sent it to the cloud.”
“Good,” Gimli said. “Because it’s all gone now.”
Mia winced as she felt a wave of heat rush by the door followed by screams of agony. “What did you do?”
“It’s the unsavory side of hacking,” Gimli said. “Probably the side your brother protected you from.”
“Did you set them on fire?” Mia asked.
“Those people are murderers.”
Mia sighed, letting out a long breath as she followed the group. Nobody seemed bothered by the carnage occurring overhead.
/> She tried not to think about that and tried to dwell on the positive things that had just happened, namely the information she just discovered that could destroy Falcon Sinclair and all those associated with him.
CHAPTER 27
Blueridge mountains
HAWK CHECKED HIS GEAR after he parked about a mile from the entrance to Blunt’s new safe house. Expecting a protracted fight, Black and Alex took stock of all their munitions and weapons. Once they concealed their vehicle with branches and limbs, Hawk made a call on his satellite phone.
“I was hoping I’d hear from you soon,” Blunt said as he answered the phone.
“We’re all looking forward to seeing you,” Hawk said. “I even brought you some Cubans.”
“Now that gives me something else to look forward to.”
“Well, it won’t be long. We’re about an hour out, and as far as I can tell, we aren’t being followed.”
“Excellent. Be safe.”
Hawk ended the call and tucked the phone back into his rucksack.
“What do you think?” Alex asked. “Is this still a rescue operation?”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s only one thing I know for sure, and that’s this: We’re about to walk into a trap.”
Black shrugged. “Is it a trap if we know it’s there?”
“Fair point,” Hawk said. “I’m inclined to think Blunt isn’t really at the safe house. They’re using him as bait to lure us in. And if I were in charge of the operation and it went wrong, I’d certainly want to have a backup plan.”
“But do they still think they’ve laid a trap for us?” Alex asked. “That’s what we need to think through before we lay eyes on the house.”
Hawk stopped. “Look, I wouldn’t risk sending any of us in there. Let’s just stick with the plan, okay? Nothing’s really gonna change whether it’s a trap or not.”
“Except how we approach the door,” Alex said.
“It’s just tear gas,” Hawk said. “If Blunt’s inside, he’ll get over it.”
The team worked their way along a creek that ran parallel to a road winding above them. Alex had obtained the infrastructure blueprints and mapped out the best route to Blunt’s new safe house.
“If those documents I got from the county were correct, the line that feeds electricity to this place is straight up the hill near the road,” she said.
“I’ll make the cut,” Black said before hustling off.
Hawk and Alex sat down and drank some water while they waited for Black to return.
“You think you’ll ever get tired of this life?” Alex asked.
Hawk wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and resealed his water bottle. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No, it’s just that—” she paused, and her gaze dropped to the ground. “I don’t know. I’m just not sure if I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life.”
“If you don’t like it out in the field, I’m sure Blunt won’t mind if you stay in the office more.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about all of it,” she said. “The hacking. The sneaking. The looking over your shoulder. The shooting. Just everything. I’m not sure how much I can do all that for much longer.”
Hawk nodded subtly. “I see.”
When he fell in love with Alex, he never imagined anything but them working together for the rest of their lives in this capacity. Maybe a bit naive and foolish, he thought, but she seemed to love the work as much as he did. The adventure was his drug of choice, and he wanted nothing more than to share it with the woman he loved. He hadn’t pondered how he might feel about going it alone … or not continuing at all.
“Please, say something, honey,” Alex said. “No matter how you feel, we can always talk about it together and be truthful with one another.”
Hawk unscrewed the cap to his water bottle and gulped down some more of the cold liquid. He sighed once he finished drinking and replaced the bottle back in his rucksack. In his mind, ideas of how to respond clashed. But it shouldn’t have surprised him since he didn’t really know how he felt about the mere suggestion of stepping away from his work with the Phoenix Foundation.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Hawk replied. “There are so many things I love about this job, but there are other elements I’d prefer to leave behind. It’s a lot to process right now. Let’s just get Blunt back, and then we’ll talk about it.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
Neither of them heard Black as he crept up on them. “You both look like you’ve been to a funeral.”
Alex and Hawk both jumped at the sound of Black’s voice.
“Geez, Black,” Hawk said. “You don’t have to scare us like that.”
Black chuckled. “It’s way more fun than the boring alternative, not to mention I like to practice my stealth skills.”
“You still possess a strong command of them,” Alex said, managing a quick smile.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Black said. “Now, let’s go teach these fools a lesson.”
As they approached the house, the team spread out. Black took up a position near the left side, while Hawk found a blind in the front to shoot from. Alex covered the back.
While the house had been finished for a few weeks, construction remnants strewn about the property made it still look like a work in progress. Two rolls of insulation were neatly stacked in the open shed. A sawhorse was left tipped over halfway up the driveway, and a stack of two-by-fours were piled haphazardly near the front porch.
“Everybody ready?” Hawk asked over the coms.
“Affirmative,” Black said.
“Let’s roll,” Alex said. “Can we confirm that the power is out?”
“There’s still plenty of sunlight flooding into the room,” Hawk said. “But I don’t detect any lights on.”
“Good,” Black said. “That means the power is still out.”
“What about heat signatures?” Alex asked.
Black peered through his binoculars, searching for human activity. “I’m not picking any up.”
Alex cursed. “That means this place might be rigged to blow.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Black said. “Nobody is charging in there until we’re invited in.”
“You ready to do your thing, Black?” Hawk asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. It’s go time.”
Hawk watched through his binoculars as Black crept up the front steps and then rang the doorbell. He eased back off the porch and waited for someone to answer. As soon as the door cracked open, a man poked his head outside, wrinkling his forehead as he scanned the woods.
“I don’t see anybody,” he said, shouting back over his shoulder to someone else inside. “Maybe it was just a limb or something. They’re not supposed to be here for another half-hour.”
With the man’s head turned, Black pulled the pin from one of his tear gas canisters and hurled it into the house through the opening created by the guard. A string of expletives followed from the men, who started shouting. When they opened the door to get rid of the first one, Black pounded them with two more.
The second time he opened the door, Hawk opened fire. Black joined him, strafing the door. Hawk used his scope to study the fallout from the first wave of attack. He noticed a pair of dead bodies, one lying on the porch and the other in the entryway.
“We got two hostiles down,” Hawk said, updating the team. “I just saw a shadow flash down the main hallway, so there’s at least one—”
A quick burst of gunfire interrupted Hawk. When it was over, he heard Alex’s voice.
“There were two more,” she said. “Think this is it?”
“There’s only one way to be certain,” Hawk said.
“I’m going in,” Black replied.
“We’re going in,” Hawk corrected. “Just wait for me. Alex, you remain in your position in case there is anyone else inside who might try to get away.”
“Roger that,” s
he said.
Black took the lead, while Hawk followed right behind his partner. In a matter of minutes, they searched the house, even searching the new exit route in the basement.
“Clear,” Hawk said.
“Clear,” Black chimed in.
“How are you looking up there, Alex?” Hawk asked.
He didn’t receive a reply but heard gunfire.
“Dammit,” he said before darting toward the back of the house. “Alex, talk to me.”
There was no reply on the coms.
He eased outside with his weapon drawn. “Alex, are you out here?”
Hawk glanced down at two more dead agents sprawled out on the steps of the back porch.
“Well, what do you think of my shooting?” Alex said as she looked up at Hawk.
He glared at her. “I called you on the coms. Did you not hear me?”
She shook her head. “Maybe they aren’t working properly. But I think we’ve eradicated the bunch now.”
“Still don’t like this job?” he asked.
She looked at the two dead men at her feet. “This is the part I don’t like. I hate killing people, though I don’t mind doing it for Blunt.”
“Well, Blunt’s not here,” Black said as he joined them.
“Yeah, but maybe we can figure out where he is,” Alex said as she knelt and fished a cell phone out of the man’s pocket. “They may not have brought him, but this guy’s phone might tell us where he’s been.”
Alex used the dead man’s finger to gain access to the device before going back into the house and pulling out the laptop from her backpack. She connected the phone to the computer and went to work. Hawk paced while she worked, suppressing the mounting questions he had. After a couple of minutes, she cursed and slapped the table.
“What is it?” Hawk asked.
“This phone deletes GPS data every fifteen minutes,” she said. “It’s no good to us.”
Hawk took a deep breath. “Not entirely.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Follow me.”
The trio went outside. Hawk dipped his finger in one of the guard’s blood and then laid down on the ground.
“Would you mind?” Hawk looked at Alex and held up his finger. “Make it look as realistic as possible.”
Over the next ten minutes, they all staged photos to appear as if they were dead. Then Hawk located the lead agent’s phone and fired back a simple text message to the person who’d been sending the guards’ instructions.
Final Strike (A Brady Hawk Novel Book 21) Page 13
