Retribution - A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller Book #7

by J. Robert Kennedy

  His family was already obviously highly respected and trusted, plum assignments outside the country rare and only going to those most loyal to the ruling family. But those assignments could also be very dangerous. Any suggestion of impropriety, of disloyalty, of wavering from the Stalinist state’s beliefs, could mean recall and death.

  Something told him heads would literally roll after tonight’s failure, though if the secondary team succeeded, perhaps fewer might.

  But since he had no skin in their family feud, he was content to disrupt their plans once again, though this time he feared they would be shooting first, and not sticking around to answer questions.

  Leroux finally answered his call. “Leroux. What’s your status?”

  “Returning to the scene. Do you have a twenty on the NSA convoy with Penn?”

  “Just a sec.” There was a pause. “Six miles from your position. Route guidance being sent to your phone now.”

  Kane glanced at the display, the phone mounted on the dash. “Got it. Get backup to the area. I think they’re about to be hit again.”

  “Copy that. North Koreans again?”

  “That would be my guess. Why? Do you have any other suspects?”

  “Any number. With Temple putting out a call for hackers’ heads on the chopping block, I’d say pretty much any whack-job in the world is out looking for people who own a computer.”

  “Any reports yet?” Kane took a sharp right, leaning on his horn as he blasted through a red light.

  “Some things showing up on the secondary press sites. Mostly in the Ukraine. I guess people are pissed their Internet is down, so they’re beating up their neighbors.”

  Kane frowned, pulsing his horn several times then swerving into the opposing lane, headlights in front of him scattering. “Sounds like it’s going to get ugly.”

  “Randy says you’ve got a rig coming from your right at the next intersection.”

  Kane checked right and spotted the truck going full steam and smiled. Obviously, someone under Leroux’s command was on the ball, monitoring his progress. “Hold on.” He said it more to himself than Leroux, hammering on the gas, taking advantage of a break in the traffic, still on the wrong side of the road. “It’s gonna be close!” He gripped the steering wheel, blasting through the intersection and jerking to the right as the cabin was filled with the blinding lights of the rig, its horn blaring as the sound of air brakes locking up were barely heard over the din.

  He cleared the bumper of the massive beast, clipping the curb, sending him into a slide, his backend kicking out to the right. He cranked his wheel, steering into the skid, letting the laws of physics trim some speed rather than hammering on his brakes. Suddenly traction kicked back in, and he found himself heading in the right direction again for a brief moment. He let the wheel spin, aligning the tires with the backend then hammered on the gas, surging him toward where he wanted to go. He checked his rearview mirror and saw the rig was just coming to a stop, unscathed, though he had to think the driver’s undies needed a swapping or swabbing if no spare was available.

  “You’re insane.”

  Kane grinned. “You saw that?”

  “Yeah, we did. You’re three minutes out. Still no sign of—wait a minute. We’ve got something.” Leroux cursed. “You better hurry.”

  Graf readied her weapon, stuffing her useless phone back in her pocket. She glared at Penn. “You better hope they kill me first, because I’m going to put a bullet in your damned skull the moment you step out of this vehicle.”

  Penn stared at her, wide-eyed. “You don’t really think I have anything to do with this, do you?”

  “Well, somebody does, and citizens on patrol don’t send two hit teams to take out one guy they heard about on the news. You’re working for the North Koreans, and they’ve decided they want you dead.”

  “I’m not. I swear it!”

  “Nobody believes you anymore, Don.” She glanced around the vehicle. “He doesn’t leave this vehicle alive, understood?”

  Heads bobbed, the other agents prepared for whatever was about to come. She had no intention of killing Penn, she’d probably go to prison if she did. But if she planted the seed, he might not be so quick to run should the opportunity present itself. And it just might. She couldn’t be sure these people were here to kill him. It might be a retrieval—the North Koreans could simply be extracting their spy.

  She stared at Penn for a moment, thinking about the day she had first met him. She had been surprised by the Asian man stepping into the briefing room, his name suggesting he was anything but. Sean Penn had popped in her mind the first time she read his name, the only Penn she knew, and he was as white as milk.

  “Adopted when I was a baby. I think my birth parents were Korean, but I’m not sure.” That had been the answer to the unasked politically incorrect question.

  And it had been a lie.

  It was clever. Use a traditional sounding name, and on any paperwork, nobody would ever think he might have ties to a foreign power hostile to all things American.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Graf spun in her seat to see the lead vehicle’s brake lights blaring at them, her own driver killing their speed as she spotted someone on the side of the road, a spike strip deployed. She held the radio up to her mouth. “Keep going! Keep going! We’ve got run flats!”

  The brake lights dimmed, but it was too late. The man deploying the strip raised what appeared to be an MP5 and shredded both tires on the driver side, bringing the vehicle to a halt as the man sprinted up the side of the road, firing at the team behind them.

  Why isn’t he shooting at us?

  Her driver hammered on the gas, pulling around the now dead lead vehicle. She twisted around and peered out the rear window to see the trailing vehicle now disabled, the assailant diving into the back of one of the vehicles following them.

  They were alone.

  And there was no doubt who they were after.

  Brake lights lit the night ahead, the entire roadway slowing to a crawl. Kane cursed, searching for a way out of the mess he was about to find himself in. The last intersection before the gridlock was just ahead.

  “Two of the NSA convoy vehicles have been taken out ahead of you. You’re not going to be—” Leroux cursed as he figured out what Kane was about to do. “Please don’t, Dylan.”

  “Sorry, didn’t catch that.” He cranked the wheel, skidding over into oncoming traffic once again, laying on his horn with the hazards flashing. He picked a trajectory straight down the middle of the two lanes, giving any traffic an easy choice as to what to do. In a perfect world, everyone would just move a little to the side, and he’d barrel on through unscathed. But experience told him that was never the case.

  Too many people panicked when they saw a set of headlights coming at them.

  And that meant he’d be the one who would have to swerve, putting him into the direct path of whoever was behind the panicked driver.

  Like the jackhole flashing their lights at him.

  He pressed harder on the accelerator, putting more of his vehicle in their lane, causing them to finally veer to the right and slam into the guardrail. He didn’t bother looking to see if they were all right—they would be, definitely more so than anyone who might suffer a head-on collision should he take his eyes off the road.

  “Don’t look, but you’re passing the two disabled NSA vehicles now. Traffic is clear beyond them.”

  “Any casualties?”

  “None reported. The cellphone jamming seems to be localized to the vehicle containing the prisoner. In two hundred yards, you’ve got an intersection. Please, for the love of God, get back on the right side of the road.”

  Kane grinned at Leroux’s pleading tone, his friend clearly as frightened as Kane should be. But this wasn’t the first time he had done this, and it wouldn’t be the last. He spotted the intersection, the lights just turning green. He floored it again, jerking to the right as a crescendo of horns g
reeted him.

  “Thank you.”

  Kane laughed. “You’re welcome. How far?”

  “You should be able to see them ahead. Three vehicles. The one in the middle is the NSA vehicle. Looks like they’re boxing them in.”

  “Backup?”

  “En route, ten minutes.”

  Kane cursed. “This is gonna get messy.”

  “Don’t let them box us in!” cried Graf as one of their pursuers overtook them, darting in front and locking up his brakes. They caught his rear bumper as their driver cranked the wheel to avoid the trap, but the vehicle in front was just as quick, and with their speed almost killed, their fate was sealed.

  “Is this thing bulletproof?” asked Penn from the back seat.

  “It better be.” Graf checked her watch. “We’ve got ten minutes before backup arrives.”

  They shuddered to a halt, the vehicle behind them hitting their bumper, their SUV now wedged between the two hostiles. Eight men appeared almost immediately, four from each vehicle, MP5s aimed at them, nothing said. One man on either side rushed forward, slapping something on each of their windows. She stared at the tiny round device six inches from her face then gasped.

  “Everybody down!”

  There were half a dozen small pops, their glass shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, but holding. Something slammed into the window beside her, poking through. It appeared to be a small dart, then the end suddenly expanded, three prongs spreading out. There was a yank, and the bulletproof window was pulled clear.

  A weapon was jammed in her face as the process was repeated all around her.

  “Drop your weapon.”

  She nodded, lowering it, then tossing it on the floor. She wasn’t going to die, not today, not for Penn. “Do what he says.”

  Three more thuds were heard, and something was said by one of the hostiles in a language she didn’t recognize, but if she had to hazard a guess, was Korean. She spun in her seat, glaring at Penn. “Traitor.”

  Someone reached in and opened the rear door, more Korean spoken.

  Penn shrugged at her. “Sorry, it’s been a slice.”

  It took everything she had to control the urge to grab her weapon and empty it into the bastard, but that would simply mean her own death, and that of the others.

  Penn was led toward the lead vehicle as another arrived from behind, screeching to a halt. Someone stepped out, using the door as cover, his weapon aimed at the hostiles.

  “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask all of you to lower your weapons?”

  Kane aimed his weapon at Penn. He was why everyone was here, and was apparently valuable enough to the North Koreans to risk two international incidents in one day. Shoot him, or at least threaten to, and it might delay things enough for that backup to arrive.

  Four weapons swung toward him, the other two still trained on the SUV full of NSA agents.

  “I guess so.” He made a show of aiming at Penn. “Shoot me, and I guarantee you he dies.”

  One of the men, all in black, his face covered, stepped toward him, an MP5 aimed casually at Kane. “I think you should mind your own business. You might get yourself hurt.”

  Kane’s eyes narrowed, his jaw dropping, when he heard something behind him.

  Graf cried out as Kane was taken down from behind, two of their attackers having disappeared as soon as he arrived, unnoticed by her, and him, until it was too late. Penn was loaded into the lead vehicle, and inexplicably, they took Kane with them as well, tossing him into the back seat of the second vehicle. Within moments they were gone, though not before several dozen rounds were put into their engine block.

  She picked up her weapon, uselessly, as the driver called in descriptions of the vehicles. But there would be no catching them. Their backup was five minutes out, and these guys were long gone, probably already on their way to switch vehicles and casually leave the area.

  But at least one thing was now certain.

  Penn, or whatever his name was, was working for the North Koreans.

  And they wanted him alive.

  Footfalls startled her, and she calmed once she realized it was their agents from the other two SUVs arriving on foot, spreading out to secure the area in case there was evidence that might provide proof of who was behind this. Though she wasn’t sure it really mattered. If the North Koreans had done this, they weren’t the kind of country that would care if they were accused of something they had actually done. They would vehemently deny any wrongdoing and proclaim their innocence, threatening war and Armageddon against anyone who would dare make such accusations.

  She needed Penn. It was the only way to prove what was going on.

  Though the body of the North Korean ambassador’s son might be enough proof, at least in covert circles. She had a feeling that bit of information might never see the light of day. By withholding his identity from the press, they might use the body as leverage against the North Koreans.

  To what end, she wasn’t sure.

  What was left to do?

  The ToolKit had already been stolen, and was obviously in North Korean hands. They now knew how it had been done, and the North Koreans had Penn. He would be either executed or whisked out of the country before the sun rose the next morning, never to be seen again, or paraded in front of the cameras when safely back in Pyongyang, hailed as a hero of the North Korean people.

  So what was left to do?

  Penn was gone, the data stolen, the security breach identified and no longer a threat.

  Her phone vibrated, her supervisor’s name appearing.

  Shit.

  There was one thing left to do.

  Salvage her career.

  35

  Temple Technologies Corporate Head Office

  Mountain View, California

  “We got him!”

  Temple glanced up from his tablet as Davis entered, waving her phone in the air, triumph on her face. He loved seeing her this way, her smile always brightening his day. Neither of them had smiled much this week, and it was a welcome sight.

  If not a fully explained one.

  “Who?”

  “Simmons just called,” she said, dropping into her regular perch. “They had to take out an NSA team to get him, but they got the former NSA agent, Donald Penn.”

  Temple’s chest tightened slightly. “By take out…”

  She waved her hand, dismissing his concerns. “Don’t worry, nobody was hurt. But they have him and will begin interrogation shortly. We should know who’s behind this any minute now.”

  Temple smiled. “Excellent. I just hope it’s someone we can get to.”

  Davis’ smile faded. “What if it’s a foreign government?”

  Temple stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we’ve been assuming he stole the data and sold it to some hackers. What if that wasn’t what happened?”

  “I thought we already had proof that the ToolKit was in hackers’ hands?”

  “We do. But we don’t really know for sure if he put it there, or if someone else he gave it to, did.”

  Temple leaned back, rapidly drumming his fingers on the arms of the chair as he contemplated Davis’ last statement. She was right. The news reports indicated that the code used for the ransomware attack that had murdered his little angel was from the ToolKit. Of that, there was no doubt. They were almost certain this former NSA agent was the one who had actually stolen it—he believed Clayton Hummel’s story.

  What they didn’t know, what they couldn’t know, was whether Penn stole the data as a crime of opportunity, selling it on the black market, or as part of his job as a mole within the agency, stealing it on behalf of a foreign government.

  But Simmons would find out the truth.

  Yet the question still remained. What do they do if they’re actually up against a foreign government?

  He pursed his lips, returning his attention to the only person in the world he trusted right now. “Let’s cross that bridge when w
e come to it.”

  36

  Albany, New York

  Kane moaned, rubbing the back of his head. “Why the hell did you hit me so hard?”

  “I had to make it look real.”

  Kane frowned at Sergeant Carl “Niner” Sung, driving the SUV he now found himself in. “A little too real.”

  “Well, I was the lead in my school play.”

  Kane frowned. “I think you and Cuba Gooding Jr. went to the same acting school.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “You overacted.”

  Niner grinned. “Yet still an Oscar winner. That’s pretty good company.”

  Kane grunted. “You’re lucky I recognized BD’s voice and dreamy eyes, or I’d have dropped you the moment I heard you coming behind my vehicle.”

  “Who you kiddin’. I was silent as a, umm, as a—”

  “Ballerina?” rumbled a deep voice that Kane felt through the seats. He laughed at Sergeant Leon “Atlas” James’ insult, and Niner’s indignant reaction.

  Kane held up a finger, cutting off the verbal portion. “What the hell are you guys doing here?”

  Atlas shrugged. “Kicking your ass, apparently.”

  Command Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson turned from the passenger seat to face him. “Rather easily, too. You’ve gone soft at the CIA.”

  Sergeant Jerry “Jimmy Olsen” Hudson grinned beside him. “Dylan, buddy, are you gonna take that?”

  Kane grunted. “It’s four against one. I’ll wait until there’s at least five of you so I can make it fair.” He rested his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes for a moment. These were his former brothers in arms from his days in America’s elite fighting unit, the Delta Force, officially known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta. He had spent a brief stint with these men, known as Bravo Team, before recruitment into the CIA.