Chapter 96

 

 

Auction Technology Control Room

 

Alex observed the participants from a room above the auction cubicles. They were each dropping in three bids and a four billion one had come in.

Someone had interrupted her auction. She searched her control panel again. She’d lost communication to Talon. He would be expecting this bid.

She uncrossed her long legs and set them from the table. Her phone illuminated. She reached for it. It was him. The voice was always digitized and unrecognizable.

Why was Talon checking on her?

Her hand trembled. Talon was a phantom, a voice in her ear and a nightmare in her dreams. But she needed to find out who he was.

Talon had eyes. Digital eyes to be exact and could follow most of her conversations. How? She had no idea.

“Your down payment is now due,” the voice said.

“I’ll have your money.”

“Not good enough.”

“If I knew what was on the list then maybe I could—”

“The contents of the auction aren’t your concern. You need to get me my money from these billionaires and time is running out.”

“I’ll go faster with bidders if I knew what was on the list.”

“Tread carefully. Use that mathematical brain of yours to make this a success. And get rid of that Cress woman and the tag-alongs.”

“Calla Cress? Why? Was it about her and—”

“That’s my affair.”

“I’ve given you the best to work with you. He’s on his way.”

“Who?”

“You’ll know when you see him. Now, by midnight I expect the first payment.”

The line went dead.

Alex glanced at the auctioneers in darkness. Her eyes narrowed. She set her hand on the control panel and zoomed in her camera to cabin seven.

Her pulse raced.

Nash Shields!

The best the NSA had seen. The man who could clash bullets, train soldiers and agents and still work with remote languages and ciphers. No one could beat him in a fight. Yet he lay unconscious in the room, which only meant one thing. Whoever had tampered with the auction had gotten to him.

Nash’s goggles were still on which meant he’d been incapacitated in a virtual environment.

 

She remembered when they’d trained in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. Both recruits were special to the NSA and in the KJ-20 Ops, a division that was off the books and had cost the government millions. Nash beat all of them in every training level. It came naturally to him. Always there for the team.

She’d gotten a hold of Nash’s card and later was fired from the NSA special ops.

“Your services are no longer needed” was the phrase Senior Director Cook had used. The bastard needed to be taught a lesson.

Damn it, what did they know? So what if she’d failed to rescue those hostages. It had been more intriguing to see what the hostage-taker was up to. The exit out of the NSA hadn’t been hard, but she’d left with the one thing that wouldn’t easily win her back.

The card he’d come looking for was her entry and now he was on her territory.

She remembered the conversation well.

“You won’t work in the NSA again. These missions aren’t for sassies,” Cook had told her. “They’re for real hackers and field agents and not amateurs. You’ll need to be able to hack your way through any mess, both technological and in combat.”

Nash was the NSA’s golden child.

Not anymore.

Not now that he was on her floor, unconscious. Three days after being fired, her life and career took a new direction.

Talon.

The message had been brief and to the point. “Should you wish to take the mission, you’ll be met and trained for three months. If you pass, you’ll be on assigned to the highest cause.”

The training had been intense and to the point. Three gruesome months in the Kalahari, followed by six in the Himalayan mountains in sub-zero temperatures.

To this day, she didn’t know the people who had trained her. The voices came via an earpiece and the trainers were always masked. She’d been trained alone yet she knew she wasn’t alone.

When night came, she was fed well and given her essentials. Most nights, training continued in digital environments. The study of technologies, hacks and sciences more sophisticated than any she’d ever seen.

These were complicated ciphers and logarithms, yet her brain kept up. If she could just be the best hacker and mathematician around, the very government that had exploited her would beg desperately for her forgiveness.

When the time came for graduation, she’d been given one mission. Hack into Project Horizon.

Project Horizon was Nash’s NSA project. Classified to the max and a project so much more top secret than she’d ever been given.

Her instinct was to get Nash’s Ellipse files first. And, even though she’d succeeded at gaining his confidence in training, it was a mission that needed completing.

Nash had been in the Middle East. Syria perhaps. She’d broken into his Ellipse locker, a secret NSA vault near Langley. She’d failed to get the digital file and the card.

Three months later, fate met with luck. Nash handed the Ellipse card to her without any swaying.

But what if she kept the files for herself? That’s when it dawned on her. She could change her name and appearance. She didn’t make it to the airport before Talon’s assassins rounded her.

That’s when the shackles had begun.

From then on, she belonged to an unidentified voice in a black Internet portal going by the name Talon with a permanent earpiece branded to her ear.

She was Talon’s slave. The very bonds she’d clawed out of from the US government had entrapped her in the form of Talon’s greed. She’d signed her life to a lunatic she didn’t know.

 

Alex dissected the information on her screen. The man on the floor was gone.

A sound by the door alerted her.

“What the…?”

 

 

 

 

“Talon said you’d be expecting me. Couldn’t trust you to handle this yourself,” said a man with a wide grin growing on his face.

“Who are you?” Alex said “And how did you get in here?”

“Your new best friend. Here,” he said tossing her a cellphone. “Call your boss. “I’m certain he’ll tell you who’s in charge now.”

“Lascar?”

“Yes, we need to get to work. You’ve gotten careless. You drew in a big fish I see.”

“What do you mean?”

Lascar was every bit an agent type, with a strong face, athletic and quick with a trigger as well as a fist.

It came back to her slowly. He’d been the only face she’d seen in her six months training with Talon’s people. It had been on her graduation day. He’d been sent to give her her first assignment.

Find out about Project Horizon.

His eyes suddenly narrowed as a figure appeared by the door. “Shields!”

Lascar shot up and lunged at Nash with a punch aiming for the face. Hard knuckles retaliated and crashed him, knocking Lascar senseless.

The blow had been sharp and determined. Lascar shot to his feet, and circled Nash like a shark smelling blood. Two more masked individuals tore into the room and prepped their high-power firearms.

“Not so tough now, Shields.”

“Last warning,” Nash said.

Nash created a solid base on his feet. The first man on Lascar’s kneed him and he went down grunting. Pain screamed through Nash. A massive fist impacted against his temple. He wiped blood from his jaw and crawled to the wall for support, clawing for his firearm.

Damn it! Lascar had taken his gun and a sudden lick of flame came from the pistol.

The shot went wide as he dove round a table for cover.

Lascar’s eyes stared hot with hate and pulled Nash to his feet. Nash hooked his leg around Lascar and slammed him unconscious to the floor as the second slug went for him.

Nash sidled back and booted his remaining attackers one after the other. The impact slammed both into the far wall and Nash slowly pulled himself up. He retrieved his gun from where it had fallen out of Lascar’s hand.

His focus then turned to Alex. Her eyes grew wide with apprehension and she reached for a silver briefcase, which Nash believed was the auction control panel and the digital bank for the billions she’d made that evening. He approached, hot fury curling in his fist.

Alex registered his intent and scuttled to the back of the room escaping through a side entrance.

He set of at a run after her. When he got to the door, he caught a glimpse of her barging down the hallway toward an opening elevator. She swung round, clenched her right eye and fired. Nash threw himself clear of her fire and the bullet blasted past him smashing into a window overlooking the parking lot. Boots thudding behind him drew his attention.

Lascar had gained consciousness and three more of his agents were now hot on his heels Nash ducked round a wall. His eye caught the closing doors of the elevator. Alex leaned back into the metal of the confinement, a smirk growing on her face.

The men neared his position. This time, he showed little mercy as skilled hands chopped into the first man’s neck, then his colleague’s, and lastly, karate-fueled kicks collided into the last man.

Lascar’s dumfounded stared communicated fury and he knotted up fists and launched a pair of brutal punches. Nash brought down his boot on Lascar’s throat with force. “Damn operative, I told you never to come back.”