Chapter 118
Smuggler’s Cave
Comino Island, Malta
Day 29
Sunday, August 4, 9:29 a.m.
Alex breathed in the tranquility and calm of the Maltese Mediterranean island as the super yacht cruised near the bay.
The captain turned to her. “We’re here.”
“Good, then please find a suitable place to dock the yacht for twenty-four hours. Once you’re done, get the crew to pack. You’ll take them off the island in the boat waiting at harbor two.”
“When would you like to leave?” he asked.
“You’ve been paid well so take off and enjoy the Mediterranean.”
She set her eyes on the large cavern boasting a swim through passage at the back. Hundreds of sea urchins, needle fish, green sea anemone, fire worms and sponges covered the Coral walls of the cavern. They would dock here and dismiss the crew for forty-eight hours.
The captain nodded. “Okay, as requested the whole island has been booked for you. I’ll wait for you call, ma’am.”
The captain returned to his station.
Alex’s phone rang. She stepped out of ear shot, strolled through the back door of the flight cabin and crossed into the main living space on the top deck where an exposed sun terrace allowed for sunbathing. As the cloudless sky permitted the morning’s rays to warm her skin, she pulled down a sun hat and removed her dark shades.
She checked the number.
Talon.
And not a minute too soon.
“The yacht’s main room will be used for the auction. The terminals have been set up for the bidders. When do you expect your guests?” Alex said, anticipating she may see her first Blackhorse knight.
“You ask too much, Sisley. Set up the terminals and the wire transfer station.”
“Does this mean, I’m free now?”
“Not until the twenty-five billion is in my account.”
The line went dead.
Alex set the phone in the pockets of her cotton slacks. The Blackhorse Knights had voted in their twelve permanent members here according to Vortigern. This last auction was for the Blackhorse Commanders, the leaders, known simply as “the twelve.” She’d yet to lay an eye on any but believed Talon had possibly met them all. Now she wasn’t sure if that moment would come.
She sank into the soft cushions of the ivory terrace bed and drew open the steel case from Utah and examined her loot. The data pod. Her eyes fell on the block.
The list.
A blasted pieced of a steel and wire whose information they couldn’t yet extract. This was what had robbed her of her freedom for years, but not anymore, as far as she was concerned it was her freedom now.
“Be careful how you handle that,” Haven said, stepping onto the shed part of the deck. “We’re getting paid one way or another.”
Alex glared at her sister. They’d never really been friends but they were connected by a weird twin psyche. The blood of revenge flowed in their veins. They heard footsteps by the door. The movement was subtle yet gave Vortigern the attention he always commanded.
“I take it that’ll be handed over securely to me as soon as Lascar and I make sure your auction runs smoothly. We’ll handle all the security,” Vortigern said. “Speaking of which, where did you leave Lascar?”
“He’ll be here before the auction begins,” Haven said.
“I hope you know how serious this is,” Vortigern said. “It means your freedom.”
Alex thought hard. The government had destroyed her life and caused her all hell. She’d yet to collect the last fifteen billion but, according to Haven, that last technology alone was going to fetch in excess of that.
“Let’s go through how this will work,” Vortigern said.
“We auction the data center. You give the Blackhorse winner a counterfeit of the list that my team has created. We bank the money, you get the real list and all are happy,” Haven said.
“It is a plan,” Vortigern said.
Haven interjected. “Then let’s make sure no one screws up.” She lit up a screen on her tablet. “The auction will commence in exactly forty-four hours. The control center’s on this boat so I imagine they’ll be linked in and bid in their pajamas if they want to.”
“There’s only one thing. We have the list but we actually don’t have the loot except for the data drive,” Alex said. “Once Talon has his money. He alone knows how to get the items to the bidders.”
“What is this thing that is worth fifteen billion?” Haven asked.
Alex pressed her lips together and shot them a knowing look. “Talon sent me a weapon to use when he sent me to Malta to kill Cress. I was so sure I aimed right. But what ever weapon he gave me didn’t kill her. His instructions were to return the weapon, which I did. I had it in my hands. I didn’t even get a chance to examine it. He sent a sniper who took it from me,” Alex said.
“What did it look like?”
“A tranquilizer gun. I assumed he wanted me to poison her then create a blast.”
“Surely you—” began Haven.
“Listen, he sent a sniper who took it from me in Berlin before I had a chance to know what it was. We’re good to go,” Alex said,
Vortigern pulled at his immaculate sun suit. There’s still one more issue.”
Haven understood. “Calla Cress.”
“Cress will be too late. She won’t penetrate this auction because she can’t get on the black net’s server,” Vortigern said.
“We’re forgetting one thing,” Alex said. “Talon. The NSA may have trained me but one thing I learned is to know your enemy. Know who you are surveying before you find any dirt on them, because they might have more dirt on you. We don’t know who Talon is.”
“What if Cress finds him first?” Haven said.
Vortigern scowled. “Cress can’t find Talon and once we make our sale it won’t matter any way.”
Alex turned to Vortigern. “What exactly do you plan to do with the list?”
“That’s my business. We either walk out of here with a deal or not. The call is yours,” he replied
Alex drew back.
Vortigern clasped his hands together as he took a seat next to her. She turned to Haven. “Right then. Let’s hope for all our sakes that Cress doesn’t crash our party by decrypting yet another of your little ciphers on the Vault.”
When Alex returned her bedroom she stared at the descending sun on the Maltese island. The blood of knights flew in her veins. The knights who had given her inspiration and strength. She pulled out a syringe from her pocket. It was the living DNA of Cress’s blood line. The NSA had also taught her well. Don’t just get one surveillance tape when you can get two.
She’d aimed once but drawn blood twice. She pulled out her travel case and threw it open.
“Still safe, my friend?” She stared at the gun. She had shot Cress twice and taken a sample of her own. “The government stole my life, but why would I let you have all the fun? Damn you, Talon, you want Cress’s DNA because it hails from the blood of the Blackhorse Knights. Any fool would know that that tattoo on her ankle is the emblem of the twelve.”
Three Hundred Thousand Miles Away
The burning stench wafted past his nostrils and he twitched. He raised his arm and felt the concrete above his head. His left leg was numb and his right hand had gone to sleep with stiffness, having being trapped for two days.
Nash rubbed his forehead. A huge bump was growing on his chin and his jaw throbbed. He’d been trapped within the holes of the concrete after the explosion.
As the boulder between him and Calla had landed, it had loosened the pole to which he’d been tied. He’d pulled the cuffs through the pole and only had seconds to vault past the boulder and down the shoot. The explosion sent him in a catapult of flying debris. He couldn’t remember the rest but knew he had his life back. He tried to move his left leg. Caked blood told him he’d been bleeding, but not lost much blood. He could bend his leg, but the pain was insurmountable. He took several moments to inventory his body and move what he could to get his blood circulating.
Nash knew the obvious. He was still in a very questionable structure that could give way at any minute. He tried to sit up and managed to see light seeping through the cracks of several slabs of concrete mangled with steel around him. That’s when he saw the cuffs were still on his left hand.
What kind of cuffs were they? No matter now. He crawled his fingers down the side of his leg to the gun in his combat pants. The electronic function on the cuffs had been incapacitated. He raised the gun slightly and set his hand against a piece of rubble. His aim had to be sure otherwise he’d blow his right hand off. Closing one eye for aim, he angled his wrist out of the way and released a bullet that blasted the cuffs off to one side.
They dropped to the ground and he wrung his left wrist in his right hand warming blood through his veins.
It was morning all right. Had Calla and Jack made it? He checked the tracking device he’d place on her. She was alive. With the list in the hands of Lascar, he had only one option.
How long would it take to get to Director Cook’s office in Maryland?
He needed his Ellipse card. Did he still have it? The only card that could now destroy the computer, three computers to be exact.
Room 717 had been conveniently split in three locations within hundreds of miles from each other.
One down, two to go.
Central London
Calla turned when Jack poked his head through the systems and research room at the London Cove. Her eyes squinted, questioning his confident approach.
He looked pleased with himself. “Probably nothing. Here’s something I found after the good part of four hours spent cross-referencing every system we know. The names Talon, Fay Jasso and, are you ready for this? Stan Cress. They cross-referenced several times.”
“My father?” she said.
“I used a sequencing software I created that pulls information from the databases and lets me track the same sequence of time, no matter where in the world. The names I was interested in where either online, or in activity at the same time on the same frequencies. I first ignored your father’s but then when he kept showing up I added him and then this.”
She glared at his tablet and then his face. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I even hijacked MI6’s system. Your father is one of the twelve Blackhorse Commanders. A group formed above the regular knights. Think of it as the round table of Camelot.”
“Well, it might explain how I’ve always had a bank trust behind me. But why did he lie to me. Do you know why?” she said.
“I can’t figure it out yet. Maybe he kept it secret so he could bid and keep you safe?”
Calla thought for a minute. They hadn’t been able to reach Stan in the Cotswolds. It was strange but, then again, her father had been absent most of her life. Calla surrendered, knowing she had to say what she’d also been thinking. “He’s been missing for about a week, according to Allegra, and Nicole too. My parents are the biggest mysteries in my life.”
This was a father who knew her history and potentially could help her future.
“But Jack. He would’ve told me. He would’ve told me if he knew anything. For crying out loud—”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I don’t know what to tell you. Your father seems to be connected. When we saw him at GCHQ, I’m not sure he told us the full story. I’m sure he has his reasons and my question is why has he disappeared? Why has your father gone away without telling you?”
“Both he and my mother Nicole know something and, you know what, we’re going to go back to the place where they started all the secrecy,” Calla said.
“Where?”
“Northern Paris,” Calla said. “That gallery of theirs has more to tell us. They used it to investigate stolen art.”
“Well, if anything, we need to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Jack, if this next auction goes ahead—”
“I promised you and Nash. We’ll stop that auction,” he said.
Paris
Four Hours Later
The morning sun seeped through clouds drying off the rain that had cast Paris under a blanket of darkness for several hours. The Parisian taxi navigated the streets of central Paris heading to the fifth district.
“Does it get easier?” Calla said. “I still feel him, Jack.”
Jack took her hand and squeezed it for comfort as the taxi accelerated toward Galleries Chevalier in the fifth arrondissement of Paris. The Galleries stood on the left bank of the River Seine, dominated by esteemed universities and institutes of higher education. Owned by her parents and of museum-quality, it specialized in French Art Nouveau, furniture and objects, lamps and French cameo glass.
The cab let them out outside the gallery and Jack paid the driver. They stepped onto the curb by the entrance of the gallery. Calla remembered everything. How they’d come here. How she’d found out about this place when they were searching for her mother. How the search had led them to this place owned by her father.
They rang the doorbell.
No answer.
The place displayed a closed sign in the window mirroring the lack of activity inside.
“We’re breaking in,” Calla said.
Jack gawked at her. “What?”
“Hey, it’s family. They’ll understand,”
“After you, Miss Cress.”
Calla checked the lock on the doubled-glazed entrance. Her eyes penetrated the interiors of the lock. She glanced behind them to inventory movement on the street. Jack used his phone to locate the security system in use.
He found Paris’s CCTV link by connecting to a shadow satellite and turned off the street cameras. “Right, all clear. We can go right in.”
Her hand balled into a fist and she smashed the glass forming a perfect circle in the middle of her father’s glass door. She reached in and pulled the door open from the inside.
“I guess only a Cress can rob a Cress. That was pretty state-of the art security. That glass is also bulletproof at two-and-a half inches thick,” Jack said amused.
“What can I say, I’m pissed off,” she replied.
They shifted the door slowly and soon were both on the inside. They secured the door behind them and made their way up a small flight of steps. Motion drew their attention to the upper level.
“Father?”
Stan stood watching them from the top of the stairs. “If you’d waited I would have opened the door. That glass will cost me thousands to replace.”
“You should have answered sooner.” Calla smirked looking at him. “I get it from you.”
He smirked back. “That you do indeed.”
Stan moved toward her and drew her into his arm. He moved back and studied her face, sensing a hint of anguish. His eyebrow arched. “You okay?”
She shot Jack a quick glance before turning her attention back to Stan. “Why haven’t you answered your phone? I’ve been trying to reach you for a week.”
He stroked his chin and a shadow fell on his face. “I don’t know how I can begin to say I’m so sorry about Nash.”
She held back a lump in her throat. “I—”
“Calla, it’s normal what you’re going through,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I lost you once too. Grieving the ones we love can knock the wind out of us.”
Silence engulfed the gallery.
“Father, what aren’t you telling me about the Blackhorse auctions? And for once I don’t need a cryptic answer. I need to know all of it. The digital auctions, the Internet black markets, technology trade secrets the MI6 secrecy and so on. Your worst fears have been realized. They didn’t come for me. They came after my family. But something tells me you knew it would happen.”
Stan took a seat on the edge of white a leather sofa. “I’m sorry.” He paused for all of fives seconds. “We watched these transactions for years. The Blackhorse Group. We knew they were trading secrets around the globe. MI6 knew they were trading anything of scientific and technological value. As the Internet and technology became more sophisticated, something needed to be done.”
“What exactly?” Jack asked.
“MI6 wasn’t willing to invest more in the Blackhorse Group files. Thinking it wasn’t worth their investigation. I disagreed. The more I understood from Nicole about what the operatives were up to, the more I knew something had to be done. We needed to act. That’s why we bought this art gallery.” He raised his head after what seemed like a monolog. “Come with me.”
He took them downstairs into the cellar. When they entered the room, much like the yacht, Calla saw yet another technology lab crafted by her able parents. It was even more sophisticated than Jack’s and a fraction above the one they had seen on the yacht.
“This is where your mum and I hid out and worked for several years. We were missing according to all known government files but we were here all the time using the art gallery as a front. Here we could monitor stolen art goods which have always been a weakness of the Blackhorse Group members. Something to do with preserving their heritage. Being involved in the art and culture allowed us to penetrate their world. Soon we found out what they were really trading was technology and government secrets. We realized that the black market for those secrets was far more sophisticated than we’d ever known and it matures by the day.”
“And the list?” Jack said.
“The list was the last threat I monitored and it came into being about three years ago. Even though I warned MI6, they ignored it. ISTF? Well, being a non-official organization of some sorts, they couldn’t agree so the whole thing was dropped until we started tracing a covert net auction a few months ago, and the list kept surfacing in a lot of the communication,” Stan said.
“Why us father? Why me and Nash? What do the group know?”
“Our blood line has always been coveted in operative circles. The Cresses were the family to fear, and the family to revere and, for some, the family to beat. I knew our bloodline and DNA was a trophy for many. It was only a matter of time before one of them would act. That’s why we had to monitor them by joining them. I paid a lot of money for that privilege. I wanted to buy the list.”
Calla sank into a seat.
Jack mused over a thought. “Her genes have always been a threat no matter what form they were in. So why not come after her.”
“I don’t think anybody knew who you really were until Mason Laskfell started hunting you two years ago. He knew what your genes could do. That’s exactly what we feared. The only other thing we know is that whomever or whatever can contain the technology and information on the list, has to be the most sophisticated quantum computer known to man and operative. That computer is Room 717.”
“Father, Nash created the list.” Calla waited for a reaction, but there was none. “He never thought that his own child would be added to it. He asked us to destroy it.”
“When I first joined the Blackhorse Group, Calla, it was to protect you. I lacked one thing: their resolve and, frankly, I didn’t agree with everything they do. But you were my priority. I know you’ve wondered about your tattoo.”
“Yes.”
“Your tattoo is in the shape of the Blackhorse Group crest, the Blackhorse Group’s emblem. We branded it on you so that they would protect you. The deal was I would give them as much as I knew when it came to new technologies and innovation and they would make sure that you were never harmed by their ways and members. Their net and underground armies wouldn’t touch you because you were branded with their brotherhood pride.”
Only the twelve members have that tattoo on their ankle.” Stan raised his own pant leg showing them a very similar tattoo on his ankle.
“I did everything to protect you when I left you.”
“If Nash created the list then he knew much more about Room 717, maybe eevn how to destroy it,” Stan said.
“Calla, you and I saw that thing explode,” Jack said.
“Jack’s right, but aren’t there three rooms behaving as one? Therefore three data pods?” Calla added.
“We can’t do both Calla,” Jack said. “If we hunt the room, the auction goes ahead and we’ve lost everything.”
“Jack is right,” Stan said. “If you find the most sophisticated computer the one place that can contain all this, you’ll find your answers, but if you do and its already been traded, then our efforts are in vain.”
Calla’s mind spun with indecision.
Utah
7:02 p.m.
Nash stood upright, his leg begging to get blood back but he felt he could move a little more and stretch the muscles. He glanced down the dark corridor and found the flashlight on his phone. It had some life, but barely. Nash flashed it round him and found an opening to his left. He vaulted over rubble until he was out in the open in the darkening desert. Much of the building damage had been cleared. Trust the NSA not to want to leave a single piece of evidence.
The half-moon shone some light on the dusty terrain path. He switched on the flashlight and checked for a signal, enough for one phone call. He began to walk north as he fired up an app. A distress software accessed only by one person. He set in motion the distress call for Reiner. It took several seconds before he answered.
“Reiner?”
“Shields, Nash? What—”
“Man. It’s good to hear your voice.”
“How did…You okay? Where are you?” Reiner said.
“Let me see, I’m about ten miles north of New Crest. Room 717–2 is gone up in smoke.”
“That blew up two days ago. The guards were accounted for. No other survivors were found,” Reiner said.
“I should thank my lucky stars then that I’m still here,” nash said.
“Don’t move. I’m sure some NSA noses are still crawling around.”
“And will find me on this phone. I don’t want that yet,” Nash said.
“Let me check something,” Reiner said.
Nash heard Reiner type on his side. “Nash, there’s a long tunnel that was built off the Southwest wing. It’s a tunnel that was never finished and goes for roughly forty miles north. Can you move?”
“Barely—”
“Okay. I have your signal on your phone, now.”
Nash was thankful for his military-grade phone. Though old by today’s smartphone standards, it never let him down and he never left without it.
“Find an entrance into the tunnel, roughly seven feet from where you are. Get to the end of that tunnel, if you can on foot. It will spit you out in the middle of Sevier Desert. I’ll meet you there in three hours. Can you hold on that long?”
“Yeah.”
Reiner arrived promptly two hours and fifty-five minutes later in a dark four-by-four Land Rover Defender. Reiner jumped out of the vehicle and set a grateful pat on Nash’s shoulder before handing him a large bottle of water, energy bars and food.
Ralph Reiner tossed him a genuine smile. A trusted friend, like Nash he was ex-military and ex-KJ-20 Ops, something very rare for him. Always a serious Einstein type, he was the friend Nash could call on for any mission. Nash trusted his instincts and confidence in the field.
He was also a damn good shot and master of modern weaponry. A man who traveled light, had no ties and was never in the same place often. It was Nash’s luck he happened to be in the country and like Nash, he’d abandoned the special ops for reasons very similar to his.
“You’ve only ever used that distress signal call once,” Reiner said, eyeing him. That was when we took the sheik out of Kuwait and I got trapped between two snipers in the open. You know I would respond to that call any day.”
Nash managed a tired smile, grateful for Reiner’s efficiency and speed as he bit into a large bagel. He hardly saw Reiner, but since their training days in KJ-20, he was possibly the closest man in combat he knew. He trusted only three men in his career: Masher, Jack and Reiner.
Nash took a large swig of water as they settled in the front seats of the Rover and accelerated toward the main road leading to Interstate 70.
“I need to destroy Project Horizon and Room 717.”
Reiner shot him a quick glance. “All three sections of Room 717?”
“All. One down, but that information remains in the other two pods.”
“Time to get your Ellipse card and cash out?” Reiner said with an inquiring eye.
“Damn right.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a long time,” Reiner said, accelerating ahead of the moderate traffic.
“So how do we get the old man Cook? How do we get the last two rooms without the president’s office hunting us down?”
Nash thought for a second. The Ellipse technology was created to spy on everybody—a technology so intrusive it held information on everyone. What Nash didn’t know was how much it knew about him and Calla. Ellipse knew little of the operatives. He had designed Project Horizon that way. He’d been so carefully staying one step ahead of the very NSA he worked for. Nash had concealed his whereabouts including his house in Baie Rouge on Saint Martin Island after his last place was torched by Lascar’s agents.
He smiled to himself. “We go after his Ellipse file. Cook works for some very important guys and has meddled with a group called the Blackhorse Group. From what I saw of the British prime minister, anything is possible. We get his file and destroy the room once and for all. That way no one can ever rebuild what I started.”
“The mother ship?”
Nash nodded.
“I’m in,” Reiner said.
“Room 717 dies today.”
“It was smart of you to section it in three, making sure no one place had full autonomy on the list. The three servers and quantum computers function together. Like the engines of a motor, if one dies, two reserves kick in. It’s time the whole engine was silence,” Reiner said.
They drove for an hour to Salt Lake International Airport and charted a flight to an undisclosed location in the middle of a large isolated field in Maryland.
The building was an exact replica of the one in Utah and heavily guarded, but once the men went past security, they faced the maze of the building and headed for the CPU room. When they got to the mezzanine that held the CPU, its lights flashed with activity. Nash reached for a Swiss Army knife in his back pack and got to work. Cutting through the wires was easy, but this would take hours.
He held back a smirk. “Reiner, I’m going to blow it up.”
Reiner reached into his backpack and found an explosive. “Say the word and we torch it.”
Several moments later, Nash joined Reiner on the lower level and glared at the flashing severs of the CPU.
“Torch it. And hand me one just to make sure.”
Reiner glared at him, a look of satisfaction on his face.
Ten minutes later they watched from several hundred feet away from the building, concealed within a cornfield. Nash set his hand on the detonator.
“Security leaves in five minutes after which they set the building to self-protection mode,” Nash said. “Ready?”
Reiner nodded.
When he was sure the security had left he dipped to the ground as Reiner joined him.
His thumb pressed down the button.
Reiner whistled in contentment. “Damn, Nash, you’ve just destroyed billions of dollars’ worth of technology.”
“And it feels damn good.”
Several Hours Later
Nash’s head ached from the pain that was surfacing from the last twenty-four hours. Could he get to section three of Room 717 in time? They’d left Maryland and headed straight for the airport and boarded another private flight that took the greater part of twelve hours.
It had been close to twenty-three hours since Reiner had found him. But getting medical attention was a luxury now. He would hold on.
They landed at Whitehorse Airport, Old Crow in the Yukon Territory and Arctic Village in Alaska’s Brooks Range.
Reiner set a hand on his shoulder as they stepped off the plane. “You okay, man?”
He nodded. “Can you get to the building without any weather hassles?”
“You’ll have to take a helicopter. I’ll stay at base in case anybody asks any questions. There’s a chopper in Section 678, two miles from the airport. I’ll distract them while you get to it. Is that all that’s bothering you?” Reiner said.
Nash didn’t respond.
“It’s her,” Reiner said.
“She thinks I’m dead,” Nash said.
“So did I. Something tells me this is your biggest mission yet.”
Anger welled in him. Anger at himself. Nash realized he had made a mistake by creating that list. They’d put it in Room 717, the most revered section in the whole organization. That’s why Cook had been on his case. He’d encrypted it. But even then, someone had gotten to it. And it wasn’t the NSA.
Project Horizon was getting out of hand. God knows this thing had come back to haunt him. Even then he’d not known that his discovery about the operatives’ operations and Calla particularly was the draw on that list. He’d known her history for months. For weeks he carried a flash drive around in London with his research on the operatives. He had Masher help him conceal it for some time until he knew that the he could keep it safe in Room 717.
He cursed under his breath aching to see Calla’s face and beg her forgiveness. She must be out of her mind thinking he was dead. And Jack, for that matter.
They sped the rented weather-ready Hummer, only stopping for food and fuel. Reiner wouldn’t let Nash drive wanting him to regain as much strength as possible for the next piece of the journey. They drove through the night to the upper branch of the Coleen River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge close to the Canadian border in Alaska. There, Section 678 held three helicopters in a hangar, within an undisclosed location. This was by far the most complex of the three sections, but the NSA had wanted a remote location, away from prying eyes.
He recalled the day when he’d encrypted the list and secured it a data pod in the building. Ironically, he’d done it before he’d taken Calla to their home in St Martin. It was the week he had found out she was pregnant. That night his last communication on Project Horizon was meant to shut it down. He’d told his superiors that there was nothing to be gained by searching for more information on the operatives. He had to conceal the list and give it a final resting place, even if that was the secretive, phantom-like Room 717.
More and more people seemed to know about the list now. No thanks to the Blackhorse Group and Alex’s broadcasting it on their gambling website. The room had been a rumor that NSA people speculated about. He had to keep it that way. He had been the one man assigned to create the safest place in all the NSA.
But why stop at one, his idea had been to split the list in three locations. Now he would terminate any digital link to it. It was too dangerous. He had to cut the problem at the source.
How would he ever keep Calla from the NSA? One look at Haven and Alex demonstrated the worst the government could do to anyone who was different. That quantum computer was so dangerous, Calla could never be within an inch of it. It was built to withstand operatives from the first one the NSA knew existed. The operatives’ power had always been in their brain sourcing capacity.
That was their true strength and weakness and he hadn’t had time to tell Calla. Her abilities came from the use of her brain.
At a hundred percent.
Had Stan not given Calla away, sooner or later, they would have done several studies on her, several studies on them and unspeakable things Nash wished he hadn’t known. How had he not known about Alex and Haven after all the years he’d been involved with the NSA and the operatives? It made sense now; the women came in his life the minute he was linked to Calla and only one person could have organized that.
Mason Laskfell.
Pain surfaced in his gut. He had let Calla down yet again. What was the blasted technology they’d used to extract Calla’s pregnancy genes? Whatever it was, it had killed his child and it was time for someone to pay. How could anything extract the genes of a young fetus and knock off someone’s memory for several days?
Allegra had once shared some information on the operatives’ tech scams. “The darts hit the person and put them in a sort of anesthetic condition and extract the sample it needs from a distance sucking the cells with a thin cord attached to the tranquilizer gun. The side effects can include loss of memory for a while.”
He had to be sure it would not happen again.
If they ever survived this, a raid into the operatives’ dark coves was next on his list. If the technology existed, it was a threat. The dart hits the person and that triggers the anesthetic state and then it draws what it needs. How much of this blasted stuff was already on the black market? Or was the Blackhorse Group buying anything they could get from the operatives?
Reiner stopped the car. “We’re here. The chopper is in the hangar. I’ll distract these idiots who always seem to sleep on the job. You sure you don’t want me to come?”
“Thanks, Reiner. I’ll need you here on the ground to watch my back.”
They stepped out of the Hummer. Reiner approached the guards in the main cabin by the hanger as Nash made his way quietly through to the back. Nash watched Reiner for the go ahead.
One look at the two guards unconscious on the floor alerted Nash that Reiner had no time to waste with formalities. He stepped into the hanger and found the flight protocols before sinking into the piloting seat of the chopper. He wheeled the chopper onto the runway.
Seven minutes later, he was airborne.
NSA Special Projects
Old Crow, Yukon Territory, Alaska
Nash’s head hurt as the helicopter made his way out into the open sky. The winds slapped the chopper and the weather wasn’t going to co-operate. His helicopter fought through the chaos and made it through the dark night to the base.
He set the chopper on top of the building; like the other two, a steel cube in the middle of the desert at seventeen stories, only five of which were underground. Nash stepped out of the chopper, set foot on top of the chopper pad. His boots pounded on the heavy concrete. It was now or never.
He tightened his leather jacket in the Alaskan wind.
They’d thought of everything, including secure locks. Without guards on the premises, the only way in was a blast, a code, or perhaps just a good old-fashioned break-in.
Nash grabbed a few ropes from the back of the helicopter and tightened a knot round his waist. The wind slapped his face as he headed to a latch a few meters from the helicopter pad. He tied one knot onto the latch. He would need a significant force to pull this open. Untying the knot round his waist he circled back and made a secure knot on the helicopter and the landing beams. He knotted the other end round his waist, sank back into the seat, and slammed the door. The engine roared to life and the chopper rose a few feet in the air.
He lifted the chopper higher and ascended until the latch tore from the floor. He eased the chopper back down and unwound the rope, making a knot again around his waist. The jump would be swift and hard.
If his global positioning system was accurate this was the right location to glide down the building. Project Horizon had paid a hefty few billions for the three facilities. Decades of analysis, spying and watching the skies; no one computer could hold it all. So, three giant ones were created.
He beamed a flashlight on a band around his forehead, giving enough light to see a few feet ahead, then carefully lowered himself down the dark steel shoot. A chill crawled down his back. It had to be subzero but the extreme cold weather marine clothing system Reiner had organized would hold if he moved fast.
Nash continued a descent that went down several floors until he was below ground level. He suddenly stopped as his feet touched down. Training in extreme weather conditions for the KJ-20 Ops would come in handy now. A light on his left drew his attention and he stopped all movement. He drew in a deep breath. Shadows moved in the high-tech room ahead, where faint light was camouflaged by several sliding glazed doors.
Someone had beaten him to it. Still, he was going to destroy the very mess he’d helped create. He drew back in the shadows of the dark corridor.
Then he saw him.
Nash untied the rope from his waist, and kicked it behind him. This time he’d come prepared and clipped his pistol in the holster. For what he had in mind, a gun was too kind.
The man raised his chin when Nash stepped in full view, a hint of surprise crossing his face.
The clot to his lip was delivered with the blow of an avenging father that knocked Lascar senseless. Lascar crashed in the metal barrier behind him that held the CPU.
Nash didn’t leave time for a response, but delivered a second strike to his gut. Lascar coughed blood, and hunched over with palms to his stomach before falling backward. Nash stood in a slight crouch above Lascar’s body, his leg behind the other and elbows at a slightly less-than-ninety-degree angle.
With his hands in front of his face Nash waited to see if the blasted operative would retaliate. He wasn’t so tough without his power suit, a shield to camouflage his mental weakness.
Lascar glared up holding his bleeding chin and bellowed into choking laughter. He set his hand on the CPU behind him. The unit with the third data box. The sound was patronizing, but still Lascar couldn’t move.
He suddenly met Nash’s eyes straight on. “I’ll make you a deal. I won’t sell her genes. All you have to do is transfer the money that is needed into the account that was sent to you.”
Nash took a step toward him, anger burning within him. “I didn’t take you as one who needed to beg for leftovers under a table. Money is surely not what you want.”
“Not me. But somebody always wants money. Talon is always on the lookout for spare change and selling her genes was a quick way to never work for a living.”
“You’ve never done a day’s work in your life,” Nash said.
“Prove it.”
Nash didn’t have time to argue with the moron. He needed him out of the way so he could destroy the machine behind him. But it sure felt damn good to see the operative in such a vulnerable position.
“You’ll never leave her alone,” Nash said. “She hypnotized you years ago and it kills you that she chose me, an ordinary guy.”
Lascar pulled himself up slowly his jaw bleeding between his fingers. “Tell me how does it feel? To know that you’re only a fraction of what she’s capable of. You sure she won’t get tired of you.”
Nash’s anger translated into a third punch where Lascar’s jaw met the fury of his fist. This time Lascar remained upright but his lips quavered with pain. He vaulted over the railing in one leap and tore the data pod from the central processing unit. He lunged toward the elevator. This time Nash pulled his gun and released a bullet that collided with the closing metal doors.