Edge of Honor: An EDGE Security Novel

by Loye, Trish

  “What are they doing?” she asked. “They’re blind.”

  “We need confirmation that this is the target,” Jack said. “We can’t let that auction take place. We’ll call in a drone strike if we have to.”

  They watched Marc and Cat move closer to the house.

  The bright green silhouettes of the guards appeared from the front and far side. She checked, and the man’s head had reappeared in the bunker facing the driveway.

  Marc and Cat kept moving to the house. Within moments, they’d be in sight of the guards. “They don’t have their NVGs. They don’t see the guards.”

  “No, not from the way they’re moving,” Jack said. “Fuck. We have no way to warn them, either.”

  Within moments, Marc and Cat would be seen by the guard walking toward the side of the house. Charlie could see NVGs on his head, so he had a distinct advantage over Marc and Cat who still moved slowly, their heads swinging back and forth, obviously listening as much as seeing their way to the dark house. He would pick them off easily with his rifle.

  Her heart pounded. The man strode with confidence to his post while Marc and Cat moved too slowly. She bit her lip. Unless they did something, her friends were going to get caught.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  A hand clamped on her shoulder. Jack growled in her ear. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t. They’re trained operators. You’re not.”

  “We have to help them,” she said.

  “Fuck,” he muttered again. “Stay here. I mean it. Do not move.”

  He took off running. About twenty meters from her, he leapt the wall and raced onto the road. Heading right for the gate. What the hell? Was he going to sacrifice himself?

  She wanted to scream at him to come back. He put his back to the stone wall beside the gate, waited a beat, and then ducked inside. A shot rang out. The guard who’d been headed toward Marc and Cat spun toward the gate and started running.

  Jack must have fired a warning shot, drawing the attention and the fire of all the guards.

  More shots rang out. Marc and Cat sprinted to the house and put their backs to it. They moved to the front, toward the shooting. Charlie wanted to help, to go closer. She was a good shot, but she didn’t have the field training the others did. She debated for half a second before deciding to creep just a bit closer.

  “Get down.” Jack’s rough voice came over her comms.

  She ducked. A shot pinged off the stone near her.

  “I said not to move,” Jack said. “If I can see you, so can the guards. Keep your ass down and get back to the car. Get backup for us.”

  She moved as fast as she could away from the gate, bear-crawling to keep speed but also to keep below the height of the wall. No more shots came her way.

  “What’s happening?” she asked Jack.

  “A fucking cluster fuck,” Jack said, his voice slightly ragged. It sounded like he was running. “The guards are withdrawing again.”

  “Get out of there,” she said. “They’re putting off another pulse. You’re equipment will be fried.”

  “Almost…at…wall.”

  “Do you see Spooky and Valkyrie?” she asked.

  Silence.

  “Jack?”

  Dammit. He must have been caught in the EMP zone. He’d be as blind as the others.

  She stopped and risked raising her head. She’d come far enough down the slope that she couldn’t see over the eight-foot wall anymore. No one was on the road. Everything was dark and still. There were no more shots.

  Were they all dead?

  No. Jack had said he was almost at the wall. She crossed the road and hopped up, slowly raising her head to peek over with the NVGs. She heard a scuffle and cursing on the far side of the house where she’d last seen Marc and Cat, but couldn’t see anything. Jack wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Had they shot him? Was he dead?

  Then she spotted a body not far from the front gate, near the trees. It’s green light fading.

  Oh God. Please let that not be Jack.

  She spent longer than she should scanning the grounds looking for her friends and staring at that cooling body. A guard shouted and raced out of the trees, heading straight for her.

  She dropped back down and sprinted across the road and back toward the car. She needed cover. They would see her with their NVGs unless she was behind rocks or trees.

  More shouts behind her. The one guard had cleared the wall and another joined him in the chase. She pumped her legs harder. But they were taller and faster. She reached into her bag and grabbed her shocker, palming it in one hand.

  They gained on her.

  She wouldn’t make the car before they caught her.

  23

  Charlie ran as fast as she could, but it wasn’t long before one of the men tackled her legs, taking her to the ground. Her NVGs flew off and the breath rushed out of her lungs. She gasped, but she’d been ready. She rolled, pulled her legs up, and kicked as hard as she could. The man grunted and grabbed her right leg. She kicked him again with her left.

  Something cold and hard touched her temple. A gun. The second guard had come up on her while she’d fought with the first.

  “Stop,” the man growled. “The boss wants you alive if possible, but it’s up to you if it’s possible.”

  She stilled.

  She didn’t want to use the shocker yet. Not with two of them, and one of them with a gun. She’d wait for a better opportunity.

  The first man grabbed her wrists in one hand, gripping tight enough to bruise, and hauled her up. He kept hold of her and then backhanded her. “Bitch,” he said. “That’s for kicking me.”

  She couldn’t avoid or lessen the blow by moving with it, since he had a hold of her wrists. Pain exploded in her cheek and she lost her balance, unwelcome tears welling in her eyes. She blinked fast to clear them. The man kept her upright with his hold on her wrists. He raised his hand again and she kicked out, just missing his groin but striking his inner thigh. He bent over and cursed, but didn’t release her hands.

  She kicked again.

  “Enough!” the man with the gun said. “Walk or I will shoot you.”

  She tore her wrists from the man and started walking back to the house. With her NVGs gone, it was hard to keep from stumbling.

  The yard was quiet and neither guard said anything as they took her up the driveway to the steps. She scanned the area, searching for the others, but she couldn’t see anything in the dark.

  “Looking for your friends?” the one man sneered. “They’re all dead.”

  She faltered. Dead? The guard laughed and pushed her hard. She stumbled forward, unseeing. They were dead? Marc and Cat had been fighting blind in the dark. It would only take a moment for a guard with NVGs to spot them and kill them.

  Sorrow clenched her ribs tight, making it hard to breathe.

  Jack. Had that body really been him? Pain worse than the blow to her face lanced her chest at the thought of him lying cold on the ground. She gasped for breath.

  No.

  The front door opened and light finally spilled out. A man stood in silhouette. “Charlotte,” Logan said. “It’s so nice of you to come back. We could use your skills.”

  She swallowed hard and slipped the shocker into her pocket for safekeeping. She had spent years yearning to do something real with her life. Now was her chance. She could grieve and regret later, but right now there was a mission to complete. This man had the technology to destroy thousands if not millions of lives. She had to find it before he could sell it.

  It was up to her now.

  * * *

  Charlie walked behind Logan through a lavish home of polished dark wood floors, landscape paintings hung in gilt frames on the white walls. An open doorway on one side revealed velvet wingback chairs in front of a fireplace. The windows had metal shutters on them. That’s what had been blocking the light.

  Another room had wall-to-wall bookshelves. Normally all those books would ha
ve called to her, but not tonight. Not when her friends lay dead or dying outside. Tonight, she focused on the man who led her through this opulent prison. She wanted to launch herself at him, to grip his throat and dig her nails in, to choke off his air.

  But the two guards flanked her, keeping her under their steady gaze. For now, she needed information if she wanted to stop the sale.

  “Has your auction started?”

  He gave her a coldly assessing glance. “Not yet.”

  “But the buyers are here?”

  “Just their representatives. Some of them have problems crossing borders. Something about being on watch lists.” He laughed. “Why? Are you trying to figure out if you have time to stop it?” He looked her up and down. “Not like you could. Your team is down. We’ve been monitoring all frequencies and no backup is coming. You’re on your own, Charlotte.”

  His words lashed her like a whip. Her team was down. No backup was coming. What did she think she could possibly do?

  She clenched her fists. She would do whatever she had to. Including ignoring his barbs.

  “The place looked empty from the outside,” she said. “How’d you do it?”

  “Very expensive shielding, including the garage.” He stopped outside a set of wooden double doors. “Enough questions. Everyone’s waiting for us.”

  Her stomach dropped. “Us?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve decided I’m going to throw you in as a bonus with the sale.”

  “I won’t build another bomb,” she said instantly. “No matter what you do to me.”

  “Oh, I think you will. Eventually. You see, it’s not me who will hurt you. It’s whoever buys the design, and needs you to build it. And if they have their own scientist…” He smiled the smile she’d once thought so charming. “They’re all quite ruthless. And unfortunate for you, most are terrible misogynists.”

  She was going to die. She knew that now. There wasn’t any way out of here alive for her. Jake and the others wouldn’t get here in time. The best she could hope for was to destroy the device before she went, though she wasn’t sure how she’d accomplish that. Her mind raced and her heart beat harder at the thought.

  Stay focused.

  Logan threw open the double doors. A high-ceilinged ballroom, complete with beautiful sparkling chandeliers, greeted them. The windows were all covered in metal shutters blocking out the night. Armed guards stood at intervals along the walls.

  Five tables dotted the floor sporadically, most holding devices of some kind. Six men and one woman stood apart from each other and browsed the different tables. Seven buyers, plus Logan and his guards.

  Too many.

  Logan’s shoes clipped across the floor and she hesitated, but the guard on her left, his dark beard trimmed close, shoved her forward. She was getting tired of being pushed around. She followed Logan, trying to stay alert to any chance she had.

  On the tables sat different pieces of technology. One was just an open laptop, with streams of code running across it—obviously showcasing a program of some kind. She paused by it. Her eyes widened. It was the computer virus that had been stolen from the Germans six months ago.

  On a larger table was the latest RPG. She’d heard of this version, with its sensitive targeting system. This rocket-propelled grenade had been stolen from the U.S. about three months ago. From what she could remember, it had been a shipment of fifty. Enough to do a lot of damage.

  Logan Frost really got around.

  She swallowed. Five different pieces of technology that could seriously affect economies, the outcome of wars, or, in the case of Peter’s EMP bomb, a technology that could disable an entire country.

  Wait. That was her metal briefcase open on a far table. Two men, their skin tone slightly darker than hers, stood by it, handling her micro-bugs. She wanted to tell them to back off before they crushed the delicate devices.

  But it would be better if they were destroyed along with everything and everyone else in the room. Sometimes technological advances weren’t really that. If she survived this, she wasn’t sure if she’d keep inventing things.

  Someone whimpered ahead of her. A man crouched on the floor behind one of the tables. She stepped to the side to see him better. His dress shirt was torn, and his khakis smeared with dirt and something darker. His bruised face looked at her and his mouth dropped open.

  “Charlie?” he said hoarsely.

  Shit. “Peter! What are you doing here?”

  Logan stopped next to him. His voice was calm, almost friendly. “Since you fucked up my first demonstration, Charlotte, I needed someone to help me with a second. Hence, we brought Dr. Anderson here to help explain his work.” He shook his head. “He hasn’t been very helpful. He somehow thinks that someone will come to save him. Did you come to save him?”

  Peter looked at her, one eye swollen shut and the other wide with hope. Her throat felt tight. How was she supposed to answer the question?

  No, we weren’t going to rescue you. We had no idea you were even missing.

  Or worse.

  Yes. I’m here to rescue you. But I’ve failed.

  As if Peter could read her thoughts, he dropped his head and a breath shuddered out of him. Hope seemed to leave him with that breath. She clenched her jaw. Even if she couldn’t save her team, she had to try to save Peter.

  “No matter what you do to me,” Peter said raggedly, “I told you, the encryption on that laptop is not what I installed. Even if I could break it, I wouldn’t build anything for you.”

  Her insides twisted. Peter was stronger than her. He’d refused to build anything for them, while she’d given in. He had a strength of character she hadn’t known about.

  She would do her best to get him out of this.

  Logan studied Charlie with a slight frown. “He’s telling the truth, isn’t he? You’re the only one who’s touched his laptop. Did you put an encryption on it so no one could get into it?”

  She had when she’d sat on the pool deck and pretended to hack into Peter’s files. If she admitted she’d done that, he wouldn’t kill her outright because he needed her to get the encryption off. If she lied and said it wasn’t her, then Peter would most likely get beaten again. And from the looks of it, they’d been pounding on him for a while.

  She swallowed. “Yes, it was me. Peter didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said. “I didn’t like leaving the laptop insecure.”

  Logan sighed, pulled a Browning 9mm from under his suit jacket, and aimed it at Peter’s head. Peter’s good eye widened.

  Logan pulled the trigger.

  The crack of the shot echoed off the high ceiling. Blood and brain exploded out of the back of Peter’s head and he fell back.

  Charlie uttered an involuntary cry. Blood darkened the floor and rapidly spread in a pool. Peter stared blankly at the ceiling above. A small dark hole edged in red sat in the middle of his forehead.

  It was hard to draw in air. Her chest felt squeezed by a metal vise. Peter had been innocent. He’d been a nice man, one with an inner strength few had seen. A simple scientist who hadn’t considered the implications of his creation. He hadn’t deserved to die.

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” she whispered.

  “I thought that was the man who would build the bomb?” a man with brown skin and a black beard asked in a harsh Middle Eastern accent. “My leader wants a bomb.” He glanced derisively at the laptop. “Not a computer.”

  “Don’t worry,” Logan said, and pointed at her. “She’s the new bomb maker.”

  “She’s a woman. How can we trust her to do it right?” the man said. “This wasn’t the deal.”

  She took a step back from the budding argument. Maybe she could escape while they were distracted. As soon as she moved, the gazes of Logan’s guards honed in on her, like predators watching prey.

  But she was done with being prey. Maybe she couldn’t escape, but she might still be able to do some damage.

  Most of the buyers had moved closer to hear
the argument.

  She took another step back before she got boxed in and glanced around the room. The RPG launcher lay on a table closest to her. The moment she touched it, the guards’ bullets would cut her down. Not that she knew how to use it anyway.

  She had no idea what the other laptop was for and had no time to find out. The only thing she could use with any certainty were her micro-bugs. But to do what? Send an image or signal somewhere?

  Sweat coated her palms. Her chance to do something was disappearing.

  Focus, Charlie. Think.

  What could her bugs do? They could survey, track, and fly. She sucked in a breath. They emitted radiation, like a sonar to stop them from running into things when flying. Could she somehow toggle that radiation into a concerted pulse?

  Wait. She bit her lip. When a bug was destroyed, it sent out a pulse. It wasn’t a huge pulse. Its range was a foot at most. She scrubbed her face with her hands.

  Think, Charlie!

  She purposely backed from the table with the RPG, catching the eye of the guard who watched her. She held up her hands.

  I’m innocent. See, I’m moving away from the weapon.

  The woman, who had an Eastern European accent, got into it with Logan and the first man.

  “I will accept her as the bomb maker,” she said. “But how do we know it’ll work at all? Your demonstration did not work.”

  Logan snapped an answer back and they continued to discuss the bomb. His complete attention was on them.

  Charlie didn’t look behind her, but kept discreetly backing toward the table with her equipment. If she had even one bug and she got close enough, she could cause it to destroy itself. In doing so, it would send out a limited EMP pulse. It might not destroy the hard drive, but it would destroy all the circuits around it. That might be enough to convince them the laptop was useless.

  As plans went it wasn’t great, but she didn’t have anything else at the moment.

  She took another step and bumped into something. She didn’t turn just yet. The one guard who’d been staring at her now moved closer to his boss, who had his hands up trying to calm the buyers. She hoped they’d kill him for her, but she doubted she’d be so lucky.