Chapter 83

 

 

7:27 p.m.

 

“What is it?” Winter said.

Haven peered out the window toward the pool as Calla made her way past the waters in a fire-engine red, lace appliqué dress, accentuating her figure-flattering silhouette. The dress featured a keyhole opening at the back with zip fastening.

She was slim with a linear body, very attractive and mysterious. Haven now understood Nash’s fascination. The olive-skinned brunette had only been introduced as Calla Cress by Nash’s mother, but nothing more. She gave Calla a faintly eager look and picked up her smartphone, searching the NSA databases.

“Who is she really?” Haven asked Nash’s mother.

Winter had stayed in the kitchen after Nash left. She drew in a sharp breath. “British. They work together and have for, I think, the last two to three years.”

“I’ve never seen Nash so focused on anything but an overseas mission. He can’t stop looking at her.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Oh, it is something, believe me. Nash’s never looked at a woman like that.”

“I’ve not spoken to her much, but she is something. He never talks much about her. But then again, he’s always been guarded about his personal life. Even more so after he joined the NSA. I had to force him to come home this weekend. This gala was a perfect excuse.” Her shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “What’re you going to do about it?”

“Everything. I’ll start by exposing her. How is it that we know very little about Calla Cress? She doesn’t have a reliable government record I could find.”

“Even with your connections in the CIA? The NSA?”

“No. No Calla Cress. The CIA only lists her as a British Museum curator who has occasionally helped retrieve stolen art, decrypted ancient manuscripts and the like.”

“So, she’s as good to him as Indiana Jones.”

She jerked her head round and stared at Winter. “There’s more to it and I intend to find out what.”

“Please do, because my son stopped coming home and calling when he met her and that’s why I insisted he bring her.

“I think he’s in trouble, but I’m not sure how. And I need to know. Nash and I were close once in high school.”

“I don’t think he’s in trouble. I think it’s something else. You can still have your chance with Nash. Come on, join me after I greet my guests. I’ll make sure you two connect again. If you packed next season’s collection, it’ll be enough to distract him for a few seconds.”

“Not Nash. It doesn’t seem to work.”

“Well he spent a few years in the military. I always worried about him. He has a discipline even I don’t understand.”

Haven’s disapproval tightened her jaw. Her eyes glared from the last rays of sunlight that flooded into the kitchen.

Winter stepped to her side. “I must say, Haven, you’ve not lost it. How you manage to look like a duchess with perfection I’ll always wonder.”

At twenty-nine, Haven was only three years younger than Nash. Her heart fluttered. “Thank you, Winter.”

“Play your cards right and it might just work out for you two.”

“So, you don’t like Cress?”

Winter’s long fingers fidgeted with her diamond necklace. “It’s not that. She’s a hard one to read. Very British. Perfect in so many ways. It’s scary?”

“What sort of curator is she? Nash used to have a keen interest in art and history.”

“Nash says she curates Roman and Byzantine antiquities.”

Haven clutched tightly at the sides of her gown. “Works all day with dirty artifacts?”

“That’s all I know,” Winter said. “I first saw her when I was in London. Nash had been injured on a mission. He was in hospital and she politely let me in the room. She was the only person he wanted there. Though she looks like an innocent dove, something tells me there is fire in her belly. Fire for something very deep and mysterious.”

Haven’s body twitched as she faced Winter with wide-open eyes. “Nash loves the fast life. It fuels him.”

“He doesn’t discuss much with me ever since he met Calla. He’s still with the NSA, but I don’t know what he does for them. He still works for the government and doesn’t disclose much, but to be honest I doubt that’s all he does.”

“Is he based in London? Fort Meade?”

“Not sure. He’s always out of the country.”

“Does he go on missions alone?”

“Wish I knew. Just glad to have my son back. By the way why didn’t you tell me you’d left the military intelligence arm of the NSA. You liked that job.”

Haven didn’t. Being an intelligence adviser was dry as dirt. She wanted a job closer to the field and real action.

Winter’s shoulders drooped in defeat. “Find out for me. You guys once had a connection. Make him settle down. Maybe that way he will stay here, close to home. Right, I have to go and attend to my friends.”

Winter stepped into the interior room that faced the pool terrace and where most of her guests were being entertained.

 

Twenty minutes later, Haven stepped down to the pool area, where the outdoor gala party had begun. Streams of dignitaries from politicians to celebrities and business heads were entertained by a twenty-piece orchestra. Not at all the small get together Nash had hoped for. His mother was well-connected and intended to make at least three million dollars tonight.

Haven regretted never keeping in touch with Nash. The click of shoes over the pristine marble floors droned with the sway of the orchestra’s piece. She turned her head at the pop of a cork as servers poured an endless flow of champagne into glass shoots and served canapés.

A soft breeze whispered through the green pines at the edge of the extensive garden. Nash stood at the pool bar in deep conversation with a strapping tall individual with dreadlocks who’d been introduced to her earlier as Jack Kleve. The waft of freshly cut flowers greeted her nostrils.

Nash hadn’t changed. In all the years, he could grab her attention so easily. He was the best-looking man she’d ever seen. He had to keep up a rigorous military style training schedule. His stance, upper arms and posture spoke of nothing else.

She loved how he moved his shoulders allowing her to savor a glimpse of perfect muscle definition.

He wore denims and a loose shirt, looking quite out of place among his mother’s socialite guests. Strength was evident in his toned upper body. A natural athlete and a man who’d found the military and the life of a government agent his best friends. She only had one move to grab his attention.

She’d known him in high school. It was only for a semester when his diplomat parents had returned to the States after a brief stay in Berlin. After high school, Haven registered as a technical translator with the marines hoping to see more of Nash. Her science degrees afforded her that privilege.

She would get his attention even after he’d ignored her remarks from the afternoon.

Haven glanced in the mirror by the door and was satisfied with her reflection. Her satin navy gown with a delicately beaded and embroidered neckline would rival anything Cress wore tonight.

A steady melody, Beethoven’s violin concerto serenaded the atmosphere filling her insides with its rhythm. How was she going to get Cress from Nash? She had to speak to him about something very important. Something that could come back to haunt him.

Haven’s gaze swept the room for Calla. Winter was right. She had fire in her eyes. No wonder Nash was hypnotized.

Jack edged to where Calla was and took her to the bar. This was it. Haven seized her opportunity and crossed to where Nash stood speaking into his cellphone.

She leaned on the edge of the bar and faced him. By the time she caught his eye he was closing the conversation. Her fingers itched to test the texture of his clean-shaved jaw.

“Nash?”

“I’d thought you’d gone by now.”

“I need to talk to you about your father. He’s in trouble.”

Nash concentrated. “What’re you talking about?”

“Your father.”

Nash’s arms crossed in front of his firm chest.

Haven observed the lines crease on his forehead. “I—”

“That’s it. We’re done here,” he said and made a move to leave.

She set a cool hand on his and moved closer. “You need to listen to me.”

He focused on her face, his eyes narrowing into her. “I haven’t seen you since you sent my car over a cliff in high school. A BMW I was very fond of. You know what? I think I forgave you and moved on.”

“Nice to see you too after all these years. Your mother invited me to her little gathering. Said she wanted to throw a party for a son she rarely sees.”

“Well then I suggest you spend time with her not me.”

He wheeled around to find Jack and Calla with a quick snap of his shoulders. “You shouldn’t have come. This is a private party.”

She plucked at her dress trying to avoid his scrutiny. “I used to be one of them, Nash.”

“That was fifteen years ago.”

Nash left the pool area and made his way past the chandeliers in the adjacent hallway and into the kitchen. He observed Haven carefully as she followed him quietly. He walked to the fridge, grabbed a beer then gulped down half its contents before setting the bottle on the table.

“You want to talk. I’m listening.”

“Let’s go for a drive. What I have to say is something you don’t want anyone to know.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Fine,” she said and hoisted herself onto the high stool at the kitchen island before clasping together her manicured nails. “I saw your father two weeks ago, and he asked me to do something.”

Nash backtracked. He hadn’t spoken to his father in eighteen months. He ran a hand through his sandy locks, his expensive cologne wafting past her nose. “And?”

“I was in Washington and bumped into him one day after work. He asked me to check out something for him with my job at the Defense Information Systems Agency. He said his private files had been attacked by a hack and an encryption was left in his email inbox. He couldn’t read it and wanted my help.”

“I don’t know what lies you’ve told my mother but let’s not pretend that you joined the NSA without any credentials and the obligatory background checks. I still don’t know what convinced them. And frankly I don’t know why they gave you a job there.”

“Maybe I’m good.”

“You have little interest in what they do.”

He observed her, his shoulders curling forward. “I’m sure if my father’s files were hacked into you can find someone else in the DISA to help you.” He managed a smirk. “Just out of interest, how did you fake your qualifications as an analyst?”

“Nash, this is about your father. Don’t you care?”

“He should have come to me.”

“He can’t. He realizes he did something that pissed you off, so he thought he could ask me. Come on, Nash, you and I were once inseparable. When we were fifteen at summer camp.”

“We were never close. I wanted you to fit into a very tough high school. You must have misunderstood my gestures for something else. Your NSA file says you went to China for further education. Looks like they skipped a few lessons in etiquette and social behavior.”

“How do you know about my file?”

“There are very few NSA files I don’t see.”

Shadows danced across the kitchen wall in eerie silence as bile stung the back of Haven’s throat. “Your father needs your expertise as an NSA intelligence analyst.”

“Why were his files hacked into? He works for the National Reserves. His files are protected by the government.”

“It wasn’t his work emails. It was his private ones they were after. He thinks the hacker wants to sell him a technology that the US would be interested in.”

“What technology?”

“He didn’t tell me. All he said was it had something to do with a classified file within the NSA.”

 

 

Grandmaster’s Palace of Knights of St. John, Malta

Valletta Armory Room

 

Twenty-four Hours Later

Sunday, June 9, 1:20 a.m.

 

Calla smirked as Jack gawked at the Gobelin tapestries depicting hunting scenes from different continents. They crossed a long imperial hall on the first floor of the Valletta Palace lined with portraits of European monarchs and Grand Masters of the Order.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” he said, as he fingered a wireless protocol using radio waves to transmit messages wirelessly. The device was connected to a central hub on his smartphone and linked to the security systems in the palace.

“I have a feeling about this place,” Calla said.

Jack stroked his chin. “Why are we here?”

“Don’t like culture?”

“Scavenging a historical palace is never about culture with you. It only took me ten phone calls to British Intelligence to get you the electronic blueprints to one of Europe’s most enigmatic palaces.”

“The Grand Master’s Palace has been the administrative center of Malta for almost three-and-a-half centuries,” she said.

Jack tapped her shoulder fondly. “Yet again you avoid my question.”

She faced him and gazed at him with a keenly observant eye. “This is the original palace, built in 1571 and was the seat of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalliers of St. John. You’ve always had a fascination with knights.”

“Only those I can hack.”

Nash’s gray eyes narrowed speculatively. “Hard to convince non-believers.”

“Come on. The Vault uses a digital signature that has the same seal as the Malta Palace. The hacker must be here. We traced his signal. They are using the palace as a place of inspiration or … something else,” Calla said.

Her eyes darted round the room in frustration then focused on the portraits of the President of Malta and the Queen of England. She tried to piece together what exactly had inspired the hacker.

“If there was anything, the authorities here would have told us. They’re willing to co-operate.”

“Not necessarily,” Calla said.

“I’m particularly interested in how you decrypted Byrne’s email in thirty seconds, faster than any ISTF computer,” Jack said.

“Calla’s very special,” Nash said circling his arm around Calla’s waist.

“Fair enough.”

Jack twitched his lips. “Pass me what you have.”

Calla sent him her notes via Bluetooth.

“Aha,” Jack said. “Let me see.” He stopped. “What’s this circle cross thing and these symbols?”

“Look around you Jack. That piece of digital art takes inspiration from these very rooms. I’m hoping to translate it, including the watermark that keeps thickening in the corner of the website.”

“Let me see that,” Nash said. “Jack’s right, that’s not your style. Why didn’t you finish the full decryption?”

“Remember the old saying, be careful what you wish for. Or in this case be careful what you uncover. If we can find the link of this place to the digital encryption, it may help explain the auctioneer’s motives or indeed their plan. We have a hacker on the lose about to lure millions from a group called the Blackhorse Group and the only clue is they are using imagery, symbols and even the mysteries of the Knights of St. John.”

Jack gave her a narrowed glinting glance.

“Believe me guys, you don’t want me to decrypt this until we know what we are dealing with,” Calla said.

She knew she was being cryptic, but finding the hacker’s digital hideout was the number one priority. Getting into the electronic brain nerve of the auctioneer’s intent would give them a back door into the auction and, better, the processing units of the auction.

They stepped into the next room, the Armory Room. In the dim light faint images of rifles used in the defense of Malta against Napoleon’s armies hung with majesty on the bright walls.

Nash handed Calla a pistol from his holster. “Take this. I always carry this for you. I can’t tell you enough how much safer I’d feel if you carried one of these.”

Her eyes fell on the weapon and then at him. In the dim light, she adored his chiseled face. “You know I don’t do guns. Never could.”

Calla ran a hand along his arm. It was caution behind his concern and he had every right to be. She’d been shot at several times since joining ISTF and had had many narrow escapes.

Her attention turned back to the weaponry in the Armory Room. They paced through the displays of the age of chivalry as it awakened in one of the most pronounced arms collections she’d ever seen. The cannons, gun collections, spears, and artifacts awakened the Great Siege of Malta drawing to mind the military prominence of the Knights of St. John.

Knight armory shells stood displaying the splendor of courtly bravery. Something here felt wrong and right at the same time.

Silence numbed them. At midnight, the guards had let them in. Calla had organized ISTF access to all areas of the Maltese Palace. She grazed her hand against a canon and studied the far wall, her eyes penetrating it.

Intelligence from the prime minister’s office, courtesy of GCHQ, was that the Maltese Palace security palace used automated electronic signals. The protocols used short range versions of Wi-Fi. Jack could connect to them via his smart phone and onto the wireless network to a central hub in the control room. He could then dictate action to the systems if needed. Should they need a quick getaway, Jack could control the exits and entrances for one.

Nausea rose to Calla’s gut. The cleaning agents churned her insides, something that had been brought on by pregnancy. She wouldn’t tell Nash. He would only worry about her health and that of their child’s.

Nash observed her stare. “See anything interesting?”

Her penetrative vision was a gift of science and a result of nature many couldn’t understand. Yet with the density of the thick walls and the looming silence, it was the one sense she could rely on in the morbid space.

Jack stuck his head down a canon head.

“Hardly a place a cybercriminal hides,” Calla said.

“The only time you can do this and it won’t explode,” Jack replied.

“Calla, tell me more about this extortion hack.” Jack said.

“The malware encrypted itself and locked down the prime minister’s private computer while we loaded the website.”

Nash rotated his head in a slow arc away from the gun display. “My guess is we are now looking at a ransomware. The prime minister’s files will stay that way until he pays a ransom to the hacker. Either way he’s screwed.”

Jack whistled. “What was he thinking? His sensitive government data will be released if he doesn’t pay up or meet some other demand.”

“Believe me, we don’t want him doing this. We need to rule this place out as a virtual headquarters and lock it down,” Calla said. “As we stand the hacker has locked the prime minister out of his system and public release of the data could ruin him and the country. We can’t tell GCHQ that until we know what we’re dealing with. Since ISTF is governed by no law per se, he called us first. GCHQ is only on a need to know basis.”

“Have we ruled out the possibility of an operative?” Nash said. “Jack when was the last time you got a parallel signal here? They can’t know we are onto them and if the prime minister caves and does pay, the data and threat is still out there.”

“Two seconds ago,” Jack said.

Nash raised a hand. A strange, faintly eager looked flashed in his eyes. “Down!”

A swift bullet pitted itself into the stone structure behind them. The trio crashed to the floor tiles as a second sniper bullet flew overhead.

Then silence.

Nash’s hand landed gently on Calla’s back as they cowered behind a cannon. In silence, they rose slightly. Her eyes concentrated on the far end of the room toward the main entrance of the armory hall.

Her voice was low. “In there,” Calla said hunching for protection behind the long cannon. “Let’s go!”

Without a second to think they scuttled toward the main entrance in a swift dash. Suited in dark ISTF clothing, they took off behind Europe’s most notorious cybercriminal. The criminal without a face.

They stalked at a safe distance past a line of knight amour shells along the main hallway of the palace. With bulletproof vests in order Nash took the lead, his frame strategically in front of Calla.

Calla knew she could protect her child in her body. Her hypersensitive operative gene took on a heightened awareness of danger as her senses guided her. Fear was evident in the sniper’s escape from the way she kept a keen eye over her shoulder.

But why?

Whomever they were after was scared. Scared of being discovered. Reading their fear gave her the confidence to pursue. The last cybercriminal they’d stopped had put all government systems at a standstill only months ago.

Calla had considered using ISTF agents and an army of operatives from the Cove, yet she’d chosen to bring only Jack and Nash the best company a girl could want in any situation. She put on a burst of speed behind Nash and Jack.

An excellent sniper himself, Nash tore his gun from its holster. He pumped the pistol once as a warning. Their footsteps thundered back down the main hall as a third bullet echoed toward them, exploding into the iron of a breastplate suit. The crashing sound of steel reverberated as the full statue shattered into neighboring cavalry. The domino effect continued until the full display of knights collapsed into a massive heap at their feet.

With a fourth sniper bullet, the lights extinguished. Suited for night combat, Calla, Jack and Nash turned on their night vision goggles and hurdled over steel and concrete until they reached the exit to the main upper Barracca Gardens.

A moonlit sky lit the dark. They charged out onto the Romanesque arches lining the outer wall of the palace balustrades that looked out to the grand harbor. The runaway stepped out of sight behind a column.

Overhead, an earsplitting ambush of snipers showered their position. With an unobstructed sea view of the other side of the harbor, they plastered their backs along the garden columns for cover.

“We’re surrounded,” Calla said, glaring intently at the harbor past the knight’s galleys and the restored saluting area.

Jack checked his satellite watch. “There’s a sniper on each part of the palace wall. We’re easy targets.”

Bullets chipped the sidewalk around them. Calla felt herself beginning to tremble as Nash edged back into the column on impulse. “They were waiting for us and know we have no backup. Jack, what’s the nearest backup position?”

“There’s none on this part of the island. Nearest one is Gibraltar to be exact.”

Calla tilted her head up as a helicopter spun its blades overhead. “We have to jump.”

“No, Calla!”

Nash’s voice was firm and she knew what he was thinking. Their eyes locked as hostile rounds came closer.

I’ll protect the baby, Nash, her heart communicated. Did he hear her? She read subtleties from him. ‘Calla, you and the baby are all I have,’ he seemed to say.

The hail of gunshots emptied at their position and stopped briefly. Calla gripped Nash’s hand. “They’re reloading. If we are lucky, we’ve a fifteen-second window. Our jet skis are at the base of the wall.”

“Why is the jump always the way with you?” Jack said.

“I can do this.”

The trio locked eyes and they knew they only had ten seconds to cross to the edge of the wall and take a plunge for their jet skis docked in the shipping harbor.

“Okay, Cal,” Nash said. He gripped her hand and kissed it briefly.

Their feet set off at a run and within seconds they catapulted over the railing and into the Mediterranean.

The frigid waters swallowed her. As gravity pulled her beneath, a sharp sting bit her leg.

Blackness overwhelmed her and she thrashed desperately toward the surface. Her efforts were futile as the current claimed her.