by Alex Archer
The woman chuckled. The humor was artificial, part of her act, but that didn’t matter. She was here, and she could be his with little effort on his part.
“Blame my parents for that name. I do.” She laughed again. “Would you mind some company? I’m new to LA.”
“Of course.” SEEKER4318 stood and graciously pulled out a chair for her to sit in.
She thanked him and sat, smiling amiably. Only a short time later, she mentioned that seeing the sights wasn’t all she planned to do while in town and mentioned that she knew of a nearby hotel where they could have a more intimate conversation—if he was willing to pay.
He agreed that he was so inclined, and he followed her with sharp anticipation. Soon the secrets of the future would once more be laid bare.
17
“It’s gonna take me a couple minutes to break the pass codes on these phones, Annja, and while they’re live, there’s a possibility that someone can track them to you.”
Seated in front of the rented computer at the internet café, Annja smiled at Daquain Stevens’s image on the monitor. He was young, in his early twenties, with a shaved head and thin beard. His dark skin was unblemished except for the small blue tattoo on his right cheek.
“I’m ready for that.” Annja glanced around the building. She wore her sat phone’s earpiece so at least half of their conversation was private. Not that she thought anyone else was paying any particular attention to her.
The computers had a lot of clients, most of them gaming internationally with local friends or other gamers online around the world. Nearly all of the screens were filled with various explosions, military operations or giant robots.
“I hope you’re ready.” Daquain frowned. “Because those two guys you had me research for you are seriously hard-core people.”
He was talking about Ligier de Cerceau and Sabre Race. Annja had forwarded their names to Daquain when she’d called him to ask him the favor. It hadn’t taken him long to gather information from the databases he had access to.
“I know.”
“That guy de Cerceau has got a dozen arrest warrants out on him in Europe and Asia. And Sabre Race has been sued a dozen times for assault. He was even photographed hanging a guy out of a tenth-story window.”
“How are either of them still free?”
“De Cerceau is clean in the United States. At least, he was. Looks like LAPD is filing charges on him now. And the bodyguard guy has expensive lawyers and settles stuff out of court sometimes.”
“Sometimes? What happens the rest of the time?”
“Guys he’s beat on are guilty of stalking, robbery, blackmailing and the like. He’s mostly good.”
“Mostly.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“My advice is don’t tangle with either one of them. It’d probably be best if you got out of California.”
“De Cerceau is chasing me. I don’t think that’s going to change.”
“Why is he chasing you? The crystal thing?”
“That’s my best guess.”
Daquain sighed and frowned. His eyes stayed locked on the screen in front of him, but he wasn’t seeing her. He was watching websites he was sorting through. “I’m still checking into that, too.”
Annja felt guilty for involving Daquain. He was one of the outside social media gurus Doug Morrell had hired to promote Chasing History’s Monsters. She had met Daquain and immediately found a bond with him over Marvel superhero films and other interests.
“You sure I can’t talk you out of this?” Daquain looked hopeful.
“These people are chasing me. I need to figure out how to stay ahead of them, and the only way to do that is to figure out where this trail leads. In the meantime, I need to know everything about them I can.”
Daquain sighed. “You could go to the police. They’re already involved.”
Annja smiled at him. “Would you go to the police?”
Daquain frowned. “No, but the police and I have a history. Okay, let’s do this. Hook up that first phone and turn it on. You turn it off when I say so.”
“Deal.” Annja picked up the first of the captured phones she’d taken from the men at the hospital and plugged it into the wires Daquain had told her to purchase from a local computer store. “I’m connected.”
“Turn it on.”
Annja switched on the phone, watched it power up and studied the screen as it lit with the instrument’s manufacturer’s advertisement. Then the image scrambled into indecipherable numbers and letters and symbols. For a moment, she watched because part of her field of study included symbology, but this was beyond anything she was familiar with.
And it was fast.
She glanced outside but saw only what looked like normal traffic on the street and passersby out for a walk or a shopping excursion. Turning her attention back to the phone, she looked at the monitor, then shifted a little in her seat to make sure the reflection there showed the front of the café and the entrance. Over the top of the monitor, she could clearly see the emergency exit at the back of the room.
Nothing showed on Daquain’s face. It was as though he’d been sucked into the internet and only his body was left behind. But his upper arms moved slightly, letting her know he was coding, pushing past the security on the phone.
“Done.” Daquain glanced at Annja. “Hook up the next phone. Power that one down first.”
Instead of powering the phone down, Annja opened the back and removed the battery. She reached for the second phone, connected it and powered it up.
Long minutes passed.
“This one has more info.” On the screen, Daquain grinned in delight. “Guy who used this was more active. I’m getting phone numbers.”
“Any names?”
“Looks like code names. Gimme a minute and I’ll see if there’s anything deeper. Even these prepaid cells can be jumped up by someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Lines of code flashed on the computer screen, matching what was coming up on the cell. Annja couldn’t make any sense of the display. It was all gibberish.
“They’re still tracking, Daquain.” Annja hadn’t wanted to interrupt, but she knew how she sometimes got lost in a process and forgot about time passing. The thought that someone could be tracking the cell phone’s signal and the possibility that it would be the men from the previous night left her anxious.
“I know. I know. I almost got everything.”
Then the phone’s screen went ballistic, going dark, then exploding with light. The symbols, numbers and letters flashed even faster on the computer monitor.
“Shut the phone down, Annja!”
She reached for the phone and ripped the battery out of it. The screen went dark again.
* * *
SABRE BRACED HIS FOOT against the SUV’s floorboard and reminded himself that Meszoly was one of the best drivers he’d ever worked with. Meszoly had driven jeeps along narrow mountain trails along the Hindu Kush with rockets tearing craters in the landscape around them. The man had driven through a minefield outside Bogotá while Eric Magloire had performed CPR on a rescued kidnapping victim with cartel gunners on their tail.
He could handle Los Angeles traffic.
Meszoly cursed and lay on his horn, blasting the Audi sports car ahead of them. The Audi driver hung an arm out the window and gave him the finger.
“Sabre.” Saadiya’s voice sounded agitated over the cell phone mounted on the SUV’s dashboard.
“What?” Sabre braced himself with one hand in the window as Meszoly cut a corner sharply and zipped past the Audi.
“I just lost signal on the phone,” Saadiya said.
“Why?”
“The Creed woman has someone connected to the phone. Whoever
it was put up firewalls and the phone dropped off the cell towers.”
“They found you?” Sabre couldn’t believe that. Saadiya’s middle name might as well have been Stealth.
“Not me. Someone else was tracking the phone connection, too. They got in ahead of me and alerted Creed.”
Sabre breathed out a curse.
“Who is it?”
“I’m backtracking them now. They’re still on the line.”
“It’s de Cerceau.” Meszoly took a fresh grip on the steering wheel and whipped the vehicle hard to the left. Rubber screamed as the big SUV roared through the next intersection. “That guy’s not letting any grass grow, either.”
“Meszoly’s probably right.” Saadiya sounded cold, distant, the way she did when she was working in the zone. “If it is de Cerceau—”
“They’re on their way to Santa Monica, too.”
“Copy that.” Sabre thought quickly, glancing at the GPS on the dash and figuring they were only minutes out from their destination. “Do de Cerceau’s people know you’re in there?”
“Not yet. Whoever their computer guy is, he’s concentrating on breaking into the phone. He doesn’t see me.”
“Good. Keep it that way as long as you can.”
“Will do.”
Sabre glanced at the GPS map again and saw that they were almost on top of the destination. “Where are they?”
“Almost to you. Coming hot on your heels.”
“Understood.” Sabre pulled his pistol and set it in his lap, holding it with one hand across his thigh.
* * *
“WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM on this one.” Daquain leaned forward, more intent on the keyboard now. “They had people waiting on this one to go live again. They tracked that phone and they know where you are. Whoever it is, they’re good. They got into my hack. Almost managed to track me back.”
“But they didn’t find you?” Unease threaded through Annja, making her feel as if dozens of strings were attached to her, pulling her in various directions. But she didn’t want Daquain involved in her current situation.
“Not as far as I know, but you’ve got to get out of there quick.”
Already standing, Annja slung her backpack over her shoulder. “I’m leaving the computer at this end up and running.”
“Good.” Daquain furrowed his brow as his fingers clicked across the keyboard. “That can buy you a little more time to get out of there. They won’t know you’re not online, and I can keep their computer guy busy chasing his tail until they get someone on the premises.”
“Thanks, Daquain. I owe you another one.”
The hacker shook his head. “You don’t owe me. Get moving. And let me know you’re safe when you can. Otherwise I’m gonna tell that cop you hang out with that you’re in trouble.”
Annja smiled, but Bart McGilley was another person she didn’t want mixed up in this. “Give me a little time to get back to you.”
“Thirty minutes. Then I hit the panic button.”
“Deal. Thanks. I’ll square things with you when I get back to the city.”
“You don’t owe me anything. We’re friends.”
“Something for your little sister.”
“Okay. Hit me up when you can after you’re out of there.”
Annja headed for the front door and halted just as a black SUV braked to a sudden stop in front of the building. Her heart rate kicked up to a higher level. She waited long enough to see four armed men get out of the vehicle, then streaked for the back door.
18
“I’ve hacked into the traffic cameras around the internet café,” Saadiya said.
Sabre picked up his tablet PC as Meszoly took another hard right. “Can you push the feeds to my tablet?” He eyed the SUV’s GPS and saw that they were still four minutes out from the destination.
“Of course I can. Coming to you now.”
As the image formed on the screen, Sabre took in the strip-mall layout. In addition to the internet café, a Caribbean diner, a shoe outlet, an electronics store and a recycled-sports-equipment business occupied spaces there. There wouldn’t be a lot of civilians on-site, but there would be some. As he watched, people wandered past the businesses.
“Is Creed still inside?” Sabre wished he could see inside the internet café, but brightly colored gaming posters filled the windows.
“The computer she was using is still up, but the phone signal is still dead.”
“You can’t ping the phone?” Usually, even though a phone was turned off, the GPS could still be pinged. Law enforcement investigators had to get a court order to ping phones, but Sabre wasn’t constrained by the same privacy laws. And Saadiya was good at her job.
“Negative.” A trace of frustration sounded in the cyber specialist’s response. “She must have deactivated the phone.”
“She knows we’re onto her.”
“She knows someone hacked into her phone. I don’t think she knows it was me. She’d have to be really good with computers to trace me. I’m a ghost.”
“Or she’d have to know someone who is good with computers.” Sabre blinked and watched the screen, feeling the seconds tick down. He had a distinct feeling Annja Creed was on the move. Despite his own annoyance at the situation, he couldn’t help feeling a growing admiration for the woman.
“She knows someone, and she was connected to that person through the internet.”
“Track that.”
“I tried. Whoever it is, they have some mad skills.”
On the screen, a woman walked to the front door of the internet café and stopped. She peered out for a moment and Sabre recognized Annja Creed. Even with the distance and the street camera’s sketchy resolution, he could see that she was beautiful.
“Is she waiting for someone?” Sabre glanced at the cell phone and saw less than a minute had passed. They were still too far away.
“I don’t know. But Dyson and his team are a minute five seconds out from site.” A second green dot flared to life on the SUV’s navigation system. “I’ve marked him for you.”
“Thanks.” Relief unthreaded some of the knots in Sabre’s stomach as he matched the ETA against the countdown on the vehicle’s GPS. Dyson was good, and Saadiya had the woman on the street cams. Annja Creed could run, but she couldn’t hide.
“We’ve got trouble.” Saadiya cursed.
“What?”
“Looks like someone is going to beat us to the prize.”
The scene on Sabre’s tablet PC shifted and focused on a black SUV hurtling off the street and roaring across the parking lot toward the strip mall. The view shifted again, including the internet café as the SUV slid to a stop in front of the building.
“Who is it?”
Four armed men got out of the vehicle. Annja Creed disappeared from the glass door and the men broke into a run.
“They’re de Cerceau’s people.” Saadiya’s words were clipped with urgency. “One of their phones was connected to Matisse’s phone.”
Sabre glanced at Meszoly and the big man nodded. Switching his gaze back to the navigation system, he watched Dyson’s vehicle closing on the target. “Connect me to Dyson and let him know he’s rolling in hot.”
“Copy that.”
Reaching to the rear seat, Sabre grabbed his Kevlar helmet and Meszoly’s. He pulled his own on and kept the driver’s ready.
* * *
THE FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT REACTION hardwired into Annja’s body shot into overdrive, but she kept it under control and used the extra adrenaline. A few of the gamers noticed her sprint through the lines of computers and watched with interest, but most of them remained buried in their virtual worlds.
She hit the panic bar across the door, opening the exit and setting off the alarm, which sq
ualled in her wake just as the first armed man came through the door with an assault rifle to his shoulder. Evidently, the idea of keeping everything low-key had been jettisoned.
Outside, her options were limited. A long parking lot stretched to the left and right and was four lines deep. Beyond the parked cars, a six-foot-high wooden privacy fence fronted what looked like a residential area. There were a lot more trees than roofs, so Annja hoped the population in the neighborhood was sparse.
She reached the first line of cars before the alarm suddenly shrilled louder from inside the internet café to let her know the door had opened. She didn’t know if some of the gamers had followed her out or the first of the armed men had reached her.
The back windshield glass of a car parked to her right suddenly exploded.
Annja resisted the impulse to go to ground. If she stopped running, they’d have her. Instead, she kept her pace, lifted a foot to catch the bumper of the sedan ahead of her and threw herself forward in a headfirst dive. She skidded across the top of the car as gunfire erupted again.
Bullets chewed into the back of the car with metallic shrieks and hammer-like impacts.
Sliding slightly sideways from her momentum, Annja gave in to her forward impetus and rolled down onto the car’s hood. She dropped below the front of the vehicle just ahead of the onslaught of bullets that ripped through the front glass. If she’d hesitated, they would have hit her.
Breathing rapidly, thinking even faster, she regained her feet and stayed low as she plunged forward to the next row of cars. She didn’t think the men could see her as she sprinted between the parked vehicles. At the end of the next car, she turned left and continued running, passing three large vehicles that offered more cover, before turning right again and heading for the fence.
Getting across the fence was going to be the problem. Thankfully, the final row of cars was parked next to it, providing her cover until she reached it. Staying low, she kept moving forward.
* * *
MAKING HIMSELF STAY RELAXED, knowing there was nothing he could do from where he was, Sabre watched the action play out over his tablet PC. Saadiya managed to pick up a camera that provided a view of the parking lot behind the internet café.
