by Wylder Stone
“Shit. They’re waiting for us,” he said, “Someone is watching us. The minute we run, we’ll have a car on our ass.”
Genevieve placed her hands on James’s chest as she stepped forward. “How are we going to get out of here then? What do we do?”
Taken aback by the obvious terror resting in her expression, James couldn’t help but comfort her. He stroked her arms instinctively without a second thought. It wasn’t like Genevieve to be so alarmed and lose her calm, but she had. The level of fear she exuded was a clear sign of just how bad the situation was, how much danger she was in. The desire to protect her grew like a roaring flame, something he didn’t entirely understand but had no time to reconcile at the moment. A threat on her was a threat to all of them.
“You’re safe, Genevieve. With me, you’re always safe,” he assured her. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay?” As quickly as the soft side of James came, it went. Now, he had to get them out of there.
James looked around, taking in their surroundings with a different set of eyes. The only cameras he could spot were the city security cams attached to the traffic signals and the streetlights.
“We need to shut down the cameras,” he said. “It’s the only way they can see us over here.”
James paused and looked at Genevieve, offering her yet another chance to tell him who was behind this. For her to offer who could be behind the cameras. When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I don’t even know if those cameras are online. But I have to assume they are. If I were hunting someone, I’d start there too.”
“Makes sense, but how do you do that from here?” she asked.
“I don’t. I do it from the Elite Building.”
James pulled out his phone and called Jackson. Out of the twins, James was the brains, and Jackson was the braun of the duo. Quickly giving him a rundown about what he and Genevieve were facing and that they were trapped, James told his brother what he needed him to do – get on the computer in the conference room and hack.
“You want me to what?” Jackson chided, “I don’t have a get out of jail for free hacker pass, brother. I can’t even set the clock on my microwave, man.”
“You’re not going in blind. I will walk you through every step. It’s really easy,” James replied.
“Right, easy. I can get to the rooftop and shoot them down. We really have better odds with that, James.”
“Jackson, we need to shut the cameras down. The city of Santa Marina needs to go black for a few minutes, or we don’t get out of here. I really need your help on this.”
Jackson took the helm at James’s wall of screens in the conference room while Troy and Derek sat back and watched. James’s instructions fired through the speakerphone, one step at a time, to which he received grunts and choice words in response from each of his brothers on the other end as they tried to follow along.
“Got it!” Jackson proudly hollered through the phone.
“No. No, you didn’t,” James said in frustration as he watched the streetlights flicker on and off a handful of times. “We can try it again.”
“Why are we doing this? I can just come and pick you up in my car,” Derek offered as the most obvious solution.
“The cars’ computers are hacked, and I’m not sure how quickly whoever this is can get in or how they’re getting in. The last thing we need is someone gaining control of your car with you in it – not safe,” James fired back.
“I meant in Roxy. She doesn’t have a computer.” Derek grinned, referring to his shiny black Ford Mustang Fastback. “She’s a ’69 - good year.”
A loud hum surrounded them, growing into a distinct buzzing sound before it finally came into view. A drone. As it hovered in front of James and Genevieve, the sounds of a camera zooming in and out could be heard.
“James? What’s going on?” Jackson questioned. “What’s that sound?”
Standing right in front of the drone, James unholstered his weapon and fired on the drone, taking it to the ground.
“Fuck you, asshole,” he said, leaning over the debris to analyze as much as he could from where they stood.
His brothers all shouted over the speakerphone at the sound of his weapon.
“We’re fine,” James said, turning to Genevieve. “I think I just shot down the camera they’ve been using. I just stared down the barrel of a weaponized drone.”
“Shit! Whoever we’re playing with here has some pretty big resources,” Jackson said.
“What have you done, Genevieve? Who the hell is behind this?” James yelled. “This is serious shit. An armed drone?”
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Genevieve couldn’t look James in the eye. She was so damn scared that James felt sorry for her, despite nearly getting his head blown off trying to save them.
“You realize if there is one of these, there are probably several, and we won’t know they’re there unless they want us to know?” James was out of patience and done asking nicely. Scaring the shit out of her was all that was left. “They can follow us, shoot at us…kill one of us.”
Panic overwhelmed Genevieve, tears streaked her face, and sobs escaped her, despite her attempt to keep it together.
“I can’t protect you if I don’t know what I am protecting you from,” he said.
“James. Mustang?” Derek interrupted from the other end of the call.
“I don’t see any other way out,” James said, eyes still fixed on Genevieve. “If you guys can’t shut down the city cameras, you definitely can’t get into these drones.” Tossing Genevieve a sharp guilt-inducing look, he finished with, “We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“We’re headed down to the garage. ETA three minutes,” Derek responded.
“Your car may not come out clean, Derek. I count five cars lining the street that weren’t there before,” James admitted.
“I’m not afraid of a little Prius and its AA battery, man.” Derek chuckled.
Derek planted an idea, and James knew how they would get out unscathed. Batteries. While he quickly pulled a plan together, he heard the elevator ding in the background. They had reached the garage at The Elite Building.
“Derek? Bring the Jeep. Lose the top.” James swiped from screen to screen on his phone and began to tap it in rapid motion, hunting for the schematics of each make and model of car sitting on the street. “I’m sending you guys some files. Study them on your way.”
“Uh, on the way? We’ll barely have our seat belts buckled before we get to you,” Troy interrupted.
“Bring Jackson. He’s shooting,” James said with a smile.
8
They all made it back to the Elite Building uninjured and in one piece. James’s plan had worked. It was a short chase. Once the first car tailed them, Jackson shot out the battery, immobilizing the vehicle. It didn’t matter if anyone had control of the vehicle’s computer at that point. No battery meant no chase.
Once they reached the end of the construction zone and were headed back into the oceanfront area where the Elite Building resided, the cars just stopped. It was odd. What did it mean? Whoever was behind the activity had been ruthless leading up to that point, so why stop there? Pedestrian traffic? Afraid of getting caught? It didn’t stop him or her the day before with the grocery store fiasco.
Maybe they could no longer see their intended target past that point, unable to hop easily from one circuit of cameras to the next. Or they were just toying with Genevieve and the Forces and got bored. None of this made sense, and without Genevieve’s help, it probably wouldn’t.
When they parked safely behind the security gate of the underground parking at the Elite Building, each took a deep cleansing breath and sat in the Jeep, collecting their thoughts, trying to rationalize it all. Genevieve was the first out and charged to the elevator, anger replacing the fear she carried only moments before.
“I’ll call Aaron,” Derek said, referring to Aaron Markus. “He has a couple of good contacts to cover up an
y mess we made and keep the media quiet. He’s good at dealing with unwanted attention. They can say it was a film crew or some shit. Not real.”
Troy jumped over the side of the Jeep after Derek. “Yeah, this will require more than what our guys over at the local PD can handle. We need to hide it until we know what it is.”
Jackson draped his weapon over one shoulder and hoisted the drone James shot down out of the Jeep. “I’ll take this into the boom shack and disarm it so you can play with it upstairs in the conference room. Maybe there’s some kind of clue or something.” The boom shack was a safe room for artillery and explosives. If anything detonated in there, everyone was safely protected by the layers of concrete and rebar.
James didn’t hear a word his brother said. His attention was on Genevieve as he came up behind her, latching onto her arm and spinning her on her heels.
“Jesus, James. What!?” she said, full of fury.
“What? Are you serious?” Disbelief overwhelmed him to the point of a high-pitched, awkward laugh. “What the hell is going on? What aren’t you telling us?” As she stepped backward, he stepped forward until he had her back pinned against the wall. “We can’t protect you if you don’t tell us who to protect you from. What don’t you get about that?”
“I don’t want protection. Don’t you get it?” she fired back. “This is my mess, and I’m not dragging you into this. None of you get hurt that way.”
“News flash, Genevieve, in the past two days, my daughter and my brothers were involved. How is that not letting anyone get hurt? Any one of them could have been killed. Whoever this is, they know. They know we mean something to you. They know where we are. They’ll keep coming harder and harder until they get what they want. I don’t think they care about a body count after today’s bullshit.” She shook at his choice of words, body count. He was finally getting through to her. This was bigger than anything she could handle. She was a hacker, not some sort of secret-ops expert. “Tell me, Genevieve. Now. You owe it to all of us.”
“Watson. Okay? It’s Watson!” she yelled, grabbing the attention of the brothers who were holding the elevator. “It’s… It’s got to be Watson.”
James pushed himself off the wall where he had been propped, caging her between his arms. His stare was empty, his expression blank.
Silence.
“How do you know it’s Watson?” James asked.
Genevieve looked around the conference room at each of the men seated at the table, taking in the stern expressions landing on her. The Forces had always been good to her, and she had been loyal. But they were questioning her loyalty right now. She could feel it.
“I just do,” she said with a wavering voice. “It has to be him. They knew things. They knew everything.”
“What’s everything, Vivi? What does he know?” Jackson was skeptical. “How does a dead man come calling all these years later?”
Genevieve made eye contact with each brother. If she told them any more than she had, she’d be putting them in even more jeopardy. “The money. He thinks I have all of it. He said I owe him millions, and he’s back to collect.”
Watson was a well-known criminal. A professional hacker. A dead hacker. He was one of the best, a white hat, meaning he hacked for good, or so the world believed. Genevieve worked for him, contributing to a team of the most highly skilled in their trade. They would hack big systems belonging to would-be clients without warning, testing their security to see if it could be breached. When they got in, they would take whatever financial assets were available. Sometimes those assets were confidential business details worth millions, and sometimes, it was actual millions.
It was a legitimate business to test cybersecurity, find flaws, present solutions, and make money doing it. Large corporate conglomerates use this type of service, as do financial institutions and even government agencies. Anyone with money, assets, or even secrets worth a lot of money are always at risk for theft and extortion. These services help protect vulnerable targets. Elite Force Security offered similar protection.
Watson and his team were being paid to break in and steal with permission because it was always presented as a faux robbery, and they never really took anything. They just showed how easy it could happen, then put whatever they took back where they found it. They’d reveal the path in and how to close all of the virtual holes so the new client, and ongoing clients, could strengthen their cybersecurity.
Watson had hackers everywhere. No two were in the same city or even state. Not unusual since working from a home office was common in this field. It made the job appealing.
Genevieve was cleaning up, and Watson was singing her praises. She could hack into anything, so her client list continued to grow. But when everything happened almost too fast, that sent up a red flag for her. Things just weren’t lining up. Her client list had a large turnover rate. She was too good to have turnover like that.
She started looking further into Watson and backing into all his accounts set up for the faux robberies. The only problem was they weren’t faux robberies like Genevieve had been led to believe. The clients were actually vulnerable targets, and she was robbing them blind. The assets she was taking weren’t being put back into the rightful accounts – they were funneling into Watson’s accounts and staying there. She’d only worked on the front end of breaking and taking. Someone else closed the deals, upgraded the software, and returned assets. Or so she believed.
The deeper she looked into things, the longer the list of punishable crimes became. She had worked hard, only to become a felon – an easily convictable felon. There was no hiding what she had done if she was caught before she could cover her tracks. Watson made her an unknowing black hacker and a wanted woman. It became a race against time. Genevieve versus whoever was looking to bust Watson and his crew.
When she asked one too many questions, Watson secured collateral that would leave Genevieve on the hook. He held her mother and sister against their will, exploiting Genevieve’s one and only weakness. If she didn’t work, she didn’t see them again. He held all the power. Not only did she have to collect damning evidence to protect herself and indicate Watson but she also had to save her family while doing so.
Genevieve was smart, though, and he’d underestimated her. She realized the danger and kept the ruse going. She tackled her client list, working ahead, but rather than steal from them, she would tighten up their system and close any back door that left them vulnerable so Watson couldn’t get to them. She was better than Watson. After every few hits, she’d funnel money to an offshore account to satisfy Watson.
What he didn’t know was that with each deposit to each account, she was leaving herself a safety net. A Trojan horse. When she finally found where Watson was held up and had the evidence she needed to obtain blanket immunity, she would take him down. That Trojan horse would save her ass and drain every account she could find belonging to him and put it somewhere he would never find it. She’d bury it deep in shell accounts he’d never be able to track or trace.
Watson already had a bounty on his head, and Cade and Connor Force were zeroing in on him with the help of Elite Force Security. Though he kept his hands mostly clean and had his employees commit the robberies, he was still implicated as the mastermind, so he was wanted too. They were silently shutting down the ring, using bots and agents to fool Watson into thinking he still had a team in place. It was their way of implicating him as an accessory at the very least, and time would reveal heavier charges. When James caught on to Genevieve’s trail, however, he was stumped.
They raided her small San Diego loft and confirmed what James had suspected. She wasn’t stealing for Watson. She was stealing from Watson, and all of those safety nets she tossed out saved her ass. She was one of the good ones. James thought it odd that fear never seemed to define her. It was like she was relieved they were there and had been expecting them. She’d admitted to leaving bread crumbs showing them what she wanted them to see prior to leading them to h
er front door.
She immediately went to work, showing them everything she had on Watson, and shared what she still needed to take him down. When they shared that they had enough to bust him, she stopped them. She didn’t know where he was, and he had something that belonged to her.
James worked alongside her, even posing as her at times while they narrowed down Watsons’ location. It was easier to hide than one would think. Despite having a traceable IP address, his was bouncing from location to location using a private server. Every hit showed him in a different city, different state, or even a different country altogether. Using a brute force algorithm, James extracted passwords that allowed him to do one of the simplest remedial hacks. They’d gone back to the very basics. He tapped into Watsons’ cell phone camera to see where he was.
They couldn’t locate him with an IP or GPS, but his cell phone camera showed them his surroundings. James and Genevieve used a simple program they coded together to put in all they could see. They let the program narrow down his location by comparing the images and video they collected to satellite images. An old abandoned warehouse near an old port in Long Beach. That was where he’d been. Right under their noses and only minutes away from the Elite Building.
It didn’t take long before Watson noticed inconsistencies in Genevieve’s language and became suspicious himself. He recognized her work. It was like a fingerprint, and it wasn’t matching up. When he backtracked and checked some of the targets she had hit, he noticed the varying behaviors, so he watched her. He used San Diego’s closed-circuit surveillance cameras scattered around her busy neighborhood. That was when he saw the consistent, albeit unusual, presence of bulky men. Dark clothing, unmarked vehicles, and weapons. Everyone had seen this movie before, and it was unfolding in real life right before his eyes. He was caught.
