Traitor Games

by Sidney Bristol

  “Yeah, I’d say you did.”

  Berlin and Warsaw were in the same damn time zone. They’d covered that when everyone synched their watches.

  Lillian was likely looking at the same sun rising on a similarly clear day.

  He hoped that when this was done, she could find some place in this world. If he was being honest, he selfishly wanted it to be with him. Noah had never minded his routine, the life he lived or what he had to do until she was thrust into his path. She’d been a road bump at first, curious and out of place. But now she belonged to him and he didn’t want to give her up.

  Not being able to see her or talk to her made his insides knot up. Anything could happen, and he was hours away.

  He couldn’t keep thinking about that or else he’d abandon Brandon and his men in favor of going after Lillian. Who did not need his help.

  Brandon took out his phone and swiped at the screen.

  “What are you doing?” Noah asked.

  “None of your business.”

  Brandon’s tone sent off warning bells.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Noah asked slowly. He’d kill Brandon right now without blinking if he was doing something stupid.

  “Nothing.” He shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  “Are you calling the baby? The grandma? Because I thought the whole point was for them to disappear.” Noah shifted. He could pull his weapon, but would he be faster than Brandon?

  Brandon stared out the window. “No.”

  “Who?”

  “Her voicemail.”

  Noah didn’t have to ask who her was.

  “Are you fucking serious?” He couldn’t believe the stupidity of that statement.

  “My phone is encrypted.”

  “A good hacker can break it with the right tools. These people are going to have those tools. What the hell are you thinking?” He looked up and down the street.

  If Noah were the CIA, he’d sure as hell have someone like Mol’s phone tapped to try to find her missing baby daddy. It stood to reason SICA would as well, and if they’d broken the encryption on Brandon’s, he could be telegraphing exactly where they were.

  “We need to back off.” Noah started the van. “Tell the others to move back a couple blocks, one vehicle every fifteen to twenty minutes, rotating.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “And you’re not taking this seriously. They could get Lillian next. Or maybe they’d figure out where Brandon Jr. is and kill him. Did you think about that? They break the encryption on your phone and we’re all fucked.”

  Noah glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard.

  In the next hour, Rand would check in from Taipei. Andy’s team in Tel Aviv was already on the ground, but they were not yet in place. Jesse and Kevin were staking out the house with the children inside. Noah could reach out to Andy first, let him feel this hiccup out. With any luck, they weren’t in danger, but Noah couldn’t risk it. Not with the news article about to drop and Lillian so far from him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thursday. London, United Kingdom.

  “Wake up.”

  That voice brought Hector out of a deep, sound sleep. A churning dread in his stomach had him thinking about the gun holstered on his hip. He stared at the dark figure standing over him.

  “What?” Hector sat up and took a quick inventory of his person. He hadn’t even bothered to take his shoes or weapon off before passing out.

  “They found her,” Demetrius said.

  “Her? Which one?”

  “The brunette.”

  Hector pushed to his feet.

  They needed a break. They’d been one step behind these people since he’d tasked his best asset with the hit.

  “Where is she? Is the man with her?”

  “Germany. No idea.”

  They entered the main room. With their now limited resources, they’d condensed everything to one space and focus. The tech team on loan from Warsaw sat in a line, hardly even glancing from their screens.

  Demetrius picked up a sheet of paper from a printer.

  “They got this at a train station last night in Hamburg.” He handed it to Hector. “Only thing leaving in that window was to Berlin.”

  “Is this the only frame we have of her?” Hector squinted at the image. It wasn’t great.

  A woman wearing a knit cap and glasses had her head turned to her left. The camera had captured her perfectly. And still, he wasn’t entirely certain it was Lillian. With the poor quality of the image, it could be her, and it could be another woman. Facial recognition wouldn’t be reliable at this image resolution.

  “You’re going to want to see this,” the tech at the end of the line said. The man’s voice vibrated with a note Hector didn’t like.

  “What?” Hector crossed the room and leaned over the man’s shoulder.

  “A German newspaper just published this in their digital edition.”

  The headline was a bold smack in the face.

  Secret Intel Agency Could Bring World to Knees

  Fuck.

  That wasn’t good, but it told them one thing.

  “Pack up. We’re going to Berlin,” Hector said.

  …

  Thursday. Berlin, Germany.

  Hector strolled between the desks following the receptionist. The open room full of journalists was abuzz with activity. Probably from their sky-high ratings. The story one Jonas Weber had run this morning was bringing in all kinds of attention.

  Jonas Weber was a name Hector had heard before, prior to being recruited by SICA. Jonas had a way of breaking a story he should have no way of knowing. Which meant he had a source. Someone who did a lot of talking. And Hector was going to find out who.

  “Here he is,” the woman said in heavily-accented English. She gestured at a young, skinny man with curly hair.

  Jonas paused in buttoning up his tweed coat. He dressed like a man thirty years older than he was.

  “I’m sorry, I’m on my way out,” he said.

  “Do you have five minutes?” Hector pulled his hands out of his pockets, the tracking device on the pad of his index finger. “Mason Clark, The Sun.”

  Jonas placed his hand in Hector’s and gave it a brief squeeze.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Clark, I can’t stay.” Jonas slung his bag over his head.

  “When will you be in?”

  “Next week?”

  The boy was going to run. He knew the heat was on.

  “I’ll be in touch.” Hector reached out and gave Jonas’s shoulder a squeeze. He slid his index finger up under the collar of his coat. The adhesive on the tracker stuck, and it slid off his finger.

  “Very sorry, Mr. Clark.”

  Jonas nodded at Hector as he slid by, making a hasty exit.

  With any luck, Jonas Weber would lead Hector to Lillian Matthews and the rest.

  They’d fucked up, and Hector would benefit from it.

  …

  The sun dipped toward the horizon.

  Lillian gulped down her hundredth coffee of the day. She placed the empty cup in the stack of the car’s cup holder and settled in to wait a while longer.

  “He’s not going to show.” Mitch tapped his knee.

  “He’s going to show,” Lillian said. She had to believe something would go right.

  “What reason does he have to trust us?” Mitch looked her way. It was just the two of them. Irene and Carol had found a coffee shop to set up at for a few hours so they could keep tabs on their other teams.

  “It’s not about trust. Why did you join the CIA?” Lillian asked.

  “To get away from my dad.” He didn’t even hesitate.

  She blinked at him. “Oh.”

  “I know most people join for altruistic reasons, and those are nice, but I figured this job was the best way for my dad to forget I was alive.”

  “You don’t like him?” Lillian had always gotten the impression that President Fowler was the one politician everyo
ne could like.

  Mitch scratched at his beard. “He’s not always the guy on TV.”

  “What do you think about…how he’s handled this?”

  “I expected it.” He glanced at her. “Dad does what’s best for himself. He’s not on anyone’s side in this, and that’s what people don’t see about him. When he does burn people, they don’t say anything about it because, like you said, everyone likes him. That doesn’t answer my question about Jonas.”

  “Jonas is motivated by what he feels is a higher calling. It’s why he’s a journalist. It’s why he hacks. We couldn’t lose him if we tried.”

  Mitch pulled out his phone again.

  “The Times is running a piece discussing Jonas’s story,” he said.

  Lillian gulped.

  They’d spoon-fed Jonas partial truths, laying out the big, scary group that was SICA and giving him enough details to make the story believable. With any luck, Hector and his friends were buzzing about the news and not paying as much attention to what was going on in the immediate vicinity of their operational sites.

  She sat up. “There.”

  Jonas stepped out of the glass doors leading into his work office. He looked up and down the street.

  This was the moment of truth.

  He knew where they’d be waiting.

  Jonas peered away from them once more.

  “He’s going to run.” Mitch reached for his gun.

  “Wait.”

  Jonas strode toward them.

  She blew out a breath and grabbed Mitch’s cell phone from him.

  Jonas slid into the back seat of their car, peering back the way he’d come.

  “We need to leave now,” he said.

  “On it.” Mitch hit the accelerator, shifted, and they shot forward into traffic.

  “What’s wrong?” Lillian twisted to look at him.

  “Too many people asking too many questions. Doesn’t feel right.” He twisted to stare over his shoulder.

  “You’re okay.” She said that statement as much for his benefit as hers.

  “One problem,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Dubster wants to run a hack tonight.”

  “And that’s a bad thing? On who?”

  “We identified a location in Canada we believe belongs to them. The others, they want to hit it. Tonight. In person. Soon.”

  Lillian glanced at Mitch.

  “Dubster is here?” she asked.

  “No, but this hack…they want people to be there I-R-L. We’ve been watching this group, keeping tabs on them. Every time we think someone’s about to take them down…”

  “They die.” Lillian stared at a spot on the floor. “I have a question.”

  “What?”

  “What do you think SICA means?” It was the one thing Lillian hadn’t been able to make headway on.

  “Oh, well.” Jonas pushed his glasses up his nose. “We all have our theories. I think they’re initials—”

  Mitch spoke over them. “Can we compare notes later?”

  “Sorry,” Lillian muttered.

  “Jonas, any chance your guys would accept some assistance with the hack?” Mitch asked. “The more shit we throw at them, the better.”

  Meaning, the more they could distract SICA the safer Noah and the others would be.

  “I thought you’d say that.” Jonas sighed and opened his bulging bag. “I can’t just walk the four of you in. Not everyone believes that you two aren’t involved with the Paris and London attacks,” Jonas said.

  “Convince them,” Mitch replied in a tone of steel.

  Lillian clamped her lips shut and shot off a text to warn Carol and Irene their plans had changed. Lillian didn’t have good feelings about this, but if it kept Noah safe and helped the others, she’d do whatever it took.

  “Most people who come wear masks.” Jonas pulled five plastic masks out of his bag.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Mitch groaned. “Halloween masks?”

  “They want to protect their identities. Everyone will be wearing these.” Jonas patted the masks. “I can pass you off as a few people who I know are off-grid for a while. I could say you’re them.”

  “I’m not going to be the bunny,” Mitch said.

  “You can’t be the white rabbit. I’m the white rabbit.” Jonas scowled at the back of Mitch’s head.

  “You?” Lillian whirled, glaring at the man.

  Jonas held his hands up. “I told you that we—”

  “We? You mean you. It was one member who took responsibility for outing my client. The White Rabbit.”

  “Lillian,” Mitch said, a warning in his voice.

  She’d been angry before, but this was far worse. She held up her hand. “I need a minute. Just give me a minute.”

  The professional side of her brain said she needed to compartmentalize. She couldn’t do the job and be angry. She worked with people she despised often enough. The difference was that she’d taken that one job personally. When it came to the truly good people, it was hard to not want to bleed for them. But if she let her anger get the best of her, a lot more people could die.

  Including Noah. Carol. Andy. All the people Lillian had come to care about. She couldn’t save the dead, but she could do something for the living.

  She drew in a deep breath and imagined her sister’s silly routine about blowing out the anger.

  Deep down, under it all, Lillian could appreciate most of what hacktivist groups did. There were glaring, dark holes of humanity that should be taken to task, exposed, gotten rid of. But there had to be lines. Checks. Balances. Otherwise they were no different from the bad guys they went after.

  It was like what they were doing now. Yes, Lillian and the others were operating outside the law much of the time, but it was for a good cause. What separated them from a group like Dubster was that Lillian had limits. Lines she wouldn’t cross. She believed in the inherent good of the system, while Dubster couldn’t be bothered to do a simple background check to ensure they had the right guy.

  “I feel horrible about it,” Jonas said.

  “At least you still get to feel.” Lillian turned her back on the man. This wasn’t about her client. This was about right, wrong, and justice.

  Jonas would never pay for what he’d done.

  He leaned forward, his fingers brushing her arm. “I—”

  “I don’t want to hear whatever you’ve done to make yourself feel better about this. Dubster isn’t the good guy here. Let’s focus on tonight. Is there some sort of hacker test? Club shake?” she asked.

  “They’ll expect you to help. There’s always people who miss out on the hack because they took a piss at the wrong time. Unless you’re all hackers?”

  “One of us qualifies,” Mitch said.

  Carol.

  Andy must have trained her. Carol had always been rather brilliant at everything. If Lillian wasn’t used to her perfect sister she might have found Carol’s abilities annoying. Instead, they were endearing and might just save their skin.

  “We shouldn’t all go inside. Two of us will go in, Irene and I will be outside as security,” Mitch said.

  Lillian’s eyes went wide. Did Mitch think she could magically learn what the hell she was doing in a matter of hours?

  “Hold the rest of the chitchat. I’d like to repeat as little as possible.” Mitch pulled over at the curb outside of a café. Two women exited and headed straight for their car.

  The knowledge that she had to beg help from the same hacker who’d ruined a good man’s life made her sick. Up until now, she’d dealt with good people. The safe house in London was the closest to the other side as she’d gotten. If this went on, she had a sinking feeling it would become routine. What would that do to her? At some point, Jonas must have had firmer morals. His journalism would demand it. So where had he ventured off the path? When had he gone from reporting events to creating them?

  Lillian slouched down in her seat as the others pile
d in. Mitch, with Jonas’s help, updated the other two. No one mentioned the others. They were going to have to be very careful what they said around him from here on out.

  “I can help,” Carol said, confirming Lillian’s suspicions. “We’ll work out the rest as we go. Plus, I might be able to bypass their security faster. I know their systems and how they’re set up because I’ve been in their stuff before.”

  Jonas gaped at her. “You have?”

  “How much time do we have until this hack?” Mitch asked.

  “None. We need to go now,” Jonas said.

  Lillian looked at Mitch.

  That wasn’t good.

  “Where are we going?” Mitch asked.

  Jonas gave Mitch the address and in moments they were whizzing through the city.

  This was not the plan. It could be a better plan, but deviating made her nervous.

  Lillian wanted to reach out to Noah, see how he was doing, if their plans were holding up. She couldn’t ask Carol or Irene for news without alerting Jonas to the fact that they had more going on than an exposé on a secret organization. They’d agreed in the beginning to keep Jonas in the dark and only tell him what was necessary to sell their story. So far he hadn’t asked deeper questions, but that was likely out of fear. Before much longer he’d begin thinking of questions. When that started, she wasn’t sure what they’d do.

  Dubster was a sizeable hacktivist group. They could do a lot of damage if they decided Lillian, Mitch, or the others were appropriate targets. With any luck, today’s news story would put them off their group of patriots for a while. She had no illusions about the future.

  “That’s it. Up there.” Jonas pointed at a building that looked like every other brick facade on the street.

  Mitch took the next right, then another.

  “Where are you going?” Jonas demanded.

  “My friends and I need to have a chat,” Mitch said.

  He pulled the car into a sheltered parking spot partially hidden by an overflowing dumpster. Irene and Carol got out while Mitch cranked up the radio.

  “Enjoy the music,” he yelled over the blaring pop tune.

  Lillian pushed her door open and got out, following the other’s lead.

  Jonas sat in the back, a frown etched deeply onto his face.