by Cara Carnes
Bree tightened. “She found out?”
“Rene was good at her spy craft. She played her part of dutiful daughter well, so I didn’t realize she suspected I was up to something at first.” Ram looked away, staring at the wall near the door a moment. “She confronted me at the hotel, right before we were to depart for the event. I was nothing more than a steppingstone and she wasn’t about to let whatever I had planned ruined her opportunity to climb the ranks.”
What a bitch. Bree tightened her arm around Ram’s middle. He’d gotten out. That’s what mattered. She kissed his stomach.
“She threatened to tell my parents. When that didn’t bring me to heel like she expected, she threatened to inform the personnel manager. He was the highest up she had access to and reported to the King Maker. I warned her that wasn’t a good idea, that she had no idea what was going on.” Ram caressed Bree’s cheek when she looked up at him. “She made her call. I made mine.”
“The King Maker,” she whispered.
Ram nodded. “I hadn’t seen him in a couple years, but he still considered me the brother of his heart. He was mine as well.” He cleared his throat. “I’d intended to get his attention at the party but knew Rene’s contacting someone changed the timetable. I called. He came.”
Bree’s gut tightened. “Whatever happened wasn’t your fault. She should’ve stayed out of it.”
“She was obedient, doing what her parents trained her to do. Observe. Report. Protect.” Ram shook his head. “She was a sheep. She never doubted her parents or mine. They were power hungry and no longer serving the organization’s best interests. My parents were higher up within the ranks, which afforded them more protection.”
“But hers weren’t.” Bree moved up in the bed and rested her head on his shoulder. “What happened?”
“The man she’d called arrived with the King Maker. I said nothing and offered no excuses or explanations as she spewed her accusations. She had nothing but suspicions and a personal account of my movements for the past few days. I knew it wasn’t going well and finally asked her to be quiet. She slapped me, spat in my face, and called me a traitor to our families.” The chuckle rumbling from Ram was pained. “She didn’t say the organization. She said our families. She’d put them above everyone.”
Bree held her breath.
“When she was done with her accusations, the King Maker looked at me. I saw death in his eyes, but not mine.” His voice lowered. “I didn’t offer an explanation or defense. I simply turned over the file and thumb drive I had. It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life as I stood there watching the most powerful man I knew reading through what I hoped was sufficient evidence against my family, Rene’s, and two other key families. Only Rene’s was expendable in the grand scheme. They were killed that night as a warning—an example of what would happen if anyone betrayed the organization’s moral code. She died at my hand. I earned my freedom that night with her death.”
“You earned it by having your friend’s back,” Bree argued. “We do whatever it takes to survive. You got out.”
“I did.” He caressed her cheek. “She was not a good woman. I wish I could tell you I regretted what happened that night, but I don’t. The only regret I have is that my family didn’t earn the same fate as hers.”
God, Bree couldn’t imagine living that life, being raised in a viper’s nest. “They weren’t punished?”
“They were too high up in the ranks. They lost their seat at the King Maker’s table, so their reputation suffered. He assured me I’d never have problems with anyone, and I haven’t.”
“Thank you for telling me.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you got out.”
“I wish he could have as well. He’s not a nice man, but he’s an honorable one who was born into a life he won’t ever be able to leave.” He deepened the kiss. “He’s surrounded by an army yet has no one he can truly call a friend.”
“You were his friend, though,” she argued. “His brother.”
“At one time yes, but I abandoned him.”
“I can’t imagine he wanted you to remain. You are a great man, Ram. He helped you escape when he couldn’t.” Bree would always admire the King Maker for that. She didn’t understand his world, but she appreciated what he’d done for Ram. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. More than you’ll ever know.”
She rested her head on his chest and let the feel if his fingers caressing her skin lull her to sleep.
20
Bree sipped on her coffee as everyone entered the whiteboard room. An unease pricked the air, but she ignored the what-if scenarios in her brain and the coiling tension. Nothing could bring her off the high that was Ram. They’d napped, then woken and made love in the shower.
He’d fixed them a dinner, then they’d snuggled up on the sofa and Netflix and chilled. They’d had the cottage to themselves all night and this morning, a fact she’d have to thank Mia for later.
Mary entered with three tall men who exuded lethal vibes. Jesse greeted them briefly, but everyone settled into an uncomfortable silence a few moments later.
“Everyone, this is Knight, Shadow, and Grim. They’ll be assisting us on the Facility Six mission,” Mary said. “Before we start brainstorming, we have a few items to discuss. First, Ryan and Ned Carew are both in Homeland custody. HERA found their hidden electronic files late last night. Zoey and Cord worked most of the night culling the data and forwarding it to Liam, so they will not be in today’s meeting.”
“Do we have enough evidence?” Dallas asked.
“More than enough,” Vi said. “Not only do we have proof of their involvement with Carlisle and the Russian terrorist cell, but we also found evidence that they orchestrated corporate espionage against their competitor.”
“Jud and I will be interrogating them the day after tomorrow,” Jesse said. “They’ve already started talking, though.”
“They’re hoping for a plea agreement but won’t get it,” Mary said.
“And the general?” Marshall asked.
“General Kroeger was arrested for high treason and a slew of other charges, including several related to ongoing investigations we were conducting on behalf of the Scythe MC operatives,” Mary said. “He won’t be seeing the light of day anytime soon. HERA is still sifting through data, so we expect more charges to be added soon. For now, he’s being detained by Homeland.”
“I’m surprised the military turned him over,” Nolan said.
“They weren’t given a choice,” Vi said. “There’ll be a committee formed to investigate all his crimes. We expect a lot of arrests once everything is exposed. The higher ups either cooperate or they’ll be in a cell next to him.”
“Liam is working with General Thorne and a few other trusted individuals to handle General Kroeger and anyone else who might be arrested,” Jesse said. “He won’t slither out of this one.”
“Fuck, you all do not mess around,” Grim muttered.
Bree grinned. No, her friends rarely did. Corrupt assholes never stood a chance against The Arsenal. Images flashed up on the screen. Facility Six. Her pulse quickened.
“This is Facility Six, one of the most impenetrable black sites in existence. It’s currently under control of Knightwind, or a part of the organization that has been divided by an internal war started by outside parties,” Vi said.
Bree knew they were debriefing the three new operatives but was thankful for another summary. There was a lot to remember.
“It’s only been breached once,” Mary said. Amusement glimmered in her voice. “By Mia.” She motioned to the woman sitting at the other end of the table. “Shortly after that breech, they hired Bree to overhaul their security measures. The majority of the work she did there was done under duress. What she installed will be our largest hurdle.”
“One of the targets we’re securing is a cryptologist who’s being held against her will,” Vi said. “She’s been forced to hack HERA. We’ve given her enough access
to a cloned environment to keep her safe until extraction. In return, she’s provided us with current schematics of the facility and a log of her personal accounts. What she’s seen and discovered will hopefully give us what we need to form a solid strike plan.”
Schematics appeared on the screens.
“The facility is in the middle of the ocean with the closest land mass being China,” Jesse said. “The president has assured us there are resources within the region we can utilize. Facility Six has radar capability, which we can hack to prevent them seeing our approach.”
“They’d hear it, though,” Nolan said.
“Which is why we’ll be doing a HALO jump ten klicks from the target site,” Mary said. “I’m not gonna lie. This won’t be a fun experience. Waters are choppy and you’ll be doing a blind jump to coordinates where crafts will be waiting, along with a SEAL team. We’re primary, but they will assist if we wish.”
“Initial plans are for Gage and Ram to lead two teams. Gage’s will be Levi, Marshall, Nolan, Spade, Mia, and Fallon. We can replace him with Brooklyn, but we need ordnance.”
“Fallon,” Levi said quickly.
“Agreed,” Marshall said.
Levi seriously shot down Brooklyn at every discussion. Interesting. She couldn’t help but wonder what was going on there.
“Ram’s team will consist of Doug, Pierce, Knight, Shadow, Grim, and up to two other operatives of his choice,” Mary said. “Suggestions?”
Bree swallowed. It was now or never. “Me. I need to be there, Mary. There’s too much tech involved to do this remotely. I’d be ten times faster handling an issue if I was there.”
“Bree,” Jesse said softly. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Talk us through the tech we’re dealing with,” Marshall ordered.
“It’s multi-layered. The entire compound is one giant faraday cage. The only tech that works is what’s tied to the power source I created for the island,” Bree said. “Each block within the prison is another faraday cage, with each cell being individual faradays run on separate grids. It was designed to mitigate escape attempts. A prisoner could possibly be good enough to escape their cell, but…”
“But they’ve got two more faradays to break,” Knight said. “That’s smart.”
“Then they’d have to combat the manmade island in the middle if the ocean factor,” Grim said.
“How do we take down the faradays?” Nolan asked. “Is it tied to the computer system?”
“Yes, but there are overrides,” Bree said. “If someone were to note a hack, they could activate a backup security system I designed. It’d lock each cell down to prevent computerized access. Only someone with the access code could open them.”
“Fuck,” Dallas muttered. “And they determined the access codes.”
“Yes, but I created an override code, something I learned from Vi and Mary,” Bree said. “And Shelly. She should be able to help us, but I’m not sure if we should use her. We don’t know what kind of security she has on her or what frame of mind she’s in.”
“How would you being there help?” Marshall asked.
“HERA should be able to mimic the system’s power grid easily enough,” Bree said, “but if that override is hit, we’re looking at a much higher challenge. Assuming the entire system is still operating as it should, that’d mean either breaching each cell we need to individually or destroying the entire power grid.”
“And I assume a bomb isn’t going to do the trick.” Fallon chuckled. “This is when I love and hate you in equal measure, Bree. You never make it simple.”
“It’s my superpower,” she whispered. Everyone laughed.
“So how would we take down the grid?” Mary asked.
“I’d need to access the primary power source, which is on the second sub-level, beneath the southern control tower. Destabilizing it would give us roughly twenty minutes before it came on, so we should probably blow it up completely. If I hook the power bomb up correctly, we can take the entire grid down in all the areas we aren’t hitting. The target area should remain powered, but under our control if I reroute the power source to HERA instead.”
“I didn’t understand a single word of that,” Grim muttered.
“Welcome to our world,” Gage said with a grin. “In English?”
“She’d hack the power grid at its source,” Vi explained. “She’d have to manually take it down, removing it from the computer system running it.”
Bree nodded. “Right. Instead of putting the entire thing online through HERA, I’d only put the area we want. The rest would remain locked, trapping everyone where they are.”
“And this can’t be done remotely?” Jesse asked.
“No.” Bree shook her head. “I could probably train someone, but it’s been a while since I’ve worked with that power source.”
“Isn’t it the same as HERA?” Knight asked.
“No. It’s much more simplistic. It’s like a line of generators versus a nuclear power plant,” Bree said. “But it can’t be destroyed by bombs or bullets, unfortunately.”
“What’s the power grid like?” Fallon asked. “Are we talking about a bunch of wires or something else?”
“Lots of wires, along with even more chips which need to be replaced if we’re rerouting to HERA. Those contain the coding we’d need to take computerized control. It needs the chips to think of HERA as its new remote. The two sides have to sync.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when everyone nodded. Good, she made sense.
“How long would that take?” Ram asked.
“At least ten minutes, closer to fifteen,” she said. “Assuming we don’t have any problems accessing it or securing the area for me to work.”
“Which means we’d need a separate smaller team for that part, then one team for clearing, and another for extraction of the targets,” Shadow said.
“Assuming we go that route,” Marshall replied.
“Not sure there’s a choice,” Nolan argued. “We can’t risk them hitting that kill switch.”
“Fuck.” Ram shook his head. “This is not a good mission for anyone not used to being in the field. I’m all for bringing her along because it’s the smart thing. I have zero doubt she’ll get the job done, but we’re HALOing into treacherous waters and hoping the boats are there. We could have a mile or more hard swim in rough currents to reach them. Then we have the penetration of the facility itself.”
Damn. That didn’t sound good at all. Dread filled her as she listened to everyone talk back and forth.
A loud whistle sounded atop everyone’s raised voices. Lexi shoved off the wall. “Okay, here’s option two. Bree isn’t with the HALO teams. Both teams breach the facility. I helo her in to an established drop zone the smaller team secures. That eliminates the higher risk facets for her.”
“And if they have RPGs?” Knight asked.
“Then you’d best make sure they don’t get the chance to use them,” Lexi quipped. “We have our teams and a rough idea what we need to do. I have two damned good pilots secured to assist me in raining hell down on the compound once you’re inside.”
Wait. Bree slammed her hand against her forehead.
“Our girl just had an aha moment,” Doug said.
“We have access to their system, right? Or partial access. Could we code in a kill switch? If we kill the computers, they’ll assume something went wrong with the power source. The computers run the faraday cages. We don’t have to worry about the actual power source at first. If we kill things one layer up, that’d get us in without them using any missile systems against the helos. Right?”
Vi nodded. “That could work, assuming we can get the kill switch activated in their system without them knowing.”
“That’s where we’d need Shelly,” Bree whispered.
“I thought using her wasn’t an option,” Marshall said.
“We may not have a choice,” Mary said. “Bree’s right. If we can override the computers, th
en penetrate the facility, Bree could reroute the power grid to HERA and bring it back online. Then we could use HERA to open the faradays we need and leave everyone else locked in.”
“Has Shelly responded?” Bree asked.
“She has,” Vi said. “She’s assured us she’ll help however she can. Once we have a plan firmed up, we can give her the details. I’d prefer not to do that until the last minute in case someone is watching and she doesn’t know.”
That was smart.
“Who’s on the small team with Bree if we go that route?” Nolan asked.
“Replace Mia on Gage’s team,” Ram said. “Add Addy. They cover Bree while Gage’s team does the extraction and mine handles clearing.”
“I assumed yours would be extraction,” Dallas said.
“The Triple Threat with Scythe’s ghosts is a kill squad,” Mary said. “It’d be easier for the enemy to take on an entire army. They’re clearing.”
Wow.
“Damn. I want to be on the kill team,” Mia muttered.
Bree couldn’t help but laugh. The woman was bloodthirsty. She thought through the plan a moment. “That still leaves a lot of potential issues once the teams arrive at the facility. Is that where my bombs come in?”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “How many do we have?”
“Rhea, Nikki, and I made another fifty this morning,” Bree said. “We loaded them with a more potent gas compound, so everyone hit should stay out for four hours.”
“And do we have a reversal if we need to wake someone up?” Vi asked.
“Yes, but it hasn’t been tested,” Rhea said. “Any volunteers?”
Everyone laughed. Jesse grinned. “We’ll find someone to do that today. Will we be able to fly them in on drones?”
“Yes,” Bree said. “We worked on installing clamps on six sets of full-sized drones. We’ll want to test those as well. They’ll likely fly a bit different with the added weight.”
“Good. We’ll grab Cord, Jacob, and Zoey and all practice with them this afternoon,” Mary said. “We might be able to use those for the interior as well, but we have to assume the guards will have masks.”
