The Russians, it seemed, were ready for whatever might come their way this time.
Dabiri considered the implications. This was nothing short of a small-scale invasion by the Russians on American territory. There was no telling how much American resistance the Russian troops might encounter, but if it was heavy, many people would die. It would be interesting to see how both nations attempted to cover this up.
That thought amused him most of all. The two nations, not to mention China, were bitter rivals for the title of “superpower.” They spent all their time working against each other’s interests, indulging in small incursions like these, violating each other’s sovereignty and committing violent acts of war against each other. When they weren’t doing it outright, they were doing it deliberately, buzzing one another’s fighter planes, shadowing each other’s ships, piloting nuclear-weapon-equipped submarines too close to each other’s waters. Then they would all pretend that none of it had happened, so that all concerned had every excuse not to declare actual war on each other.
The hypocrisy of it disgusted him.
From the looks of things, the Russians would be moving out soon. He knew where they would be headed, and he knew how they would get there. They would follow the same signal—the one whose specifications had, mysteriously, been sent to several nations eager to see Octavios killed and his many purloined secrets revealed.
Dabiri wondered what machinations were at play. Who would have sent that information? What coward would have wanted Octavios killed so badly so as to set half the world’s intelligence agencies on him for capture...with the other half out for blood?
The Iranian’s money was on a member of Octavios’s own organization, someone hungry for power who sought to remove the old Greek and assume his position of authority. Viewed in that light, it was the perfect maneuver. Codex Freedom amassed secrets stolen from around the globe. The leader of the group, Javier Octavios, told the world one time too often of his deeds. He became a celebrity among criminals, the sort of man everyone wanted to capture or kill. He pitted himself against the most powerful nations in the world. With the pressure too great, he sought asylum through his nation from within one of the softest western nations on Earth—Canada. Had Octavios’s plan worked out, he might have lived out his days as some kind of feted state witness, using his many secrets as leverage to make his twilight years comfortable.
Instead, the Greeks had rejected him, the Canadians had held no stomach for him and the Americans had him extradited. It was only logical that some hungry subordinate within Codex Freedom would leak, to the world, a means of tracking the paranoid data terrorist. The world’s militaries and secret police forces would kill Octavios, the West would be damaged...and whomever had set it all in motion from within Codex Freedom would be sitting in the catbird seat.
He laughed at his own mental turn of phrase. American slang had infected him through his many trips to the West.
He could be wrong. There could be some other explanation. As has been made so abundantly clear, Octavios had powerful enemies worldwide. Any one of them might have seen to his eventual death by giving the world Javier Octavios on a string.
Dabiri didn’t need to know how the tracking of the Greek worked. He only needed to know that it did. His own devices were still operating, giving him constant real-time feeds as to the locations of several of the Russians. As long as just one of them survived and remained mobile, Dabiri would be able to follow the Russians. They were his odds-on favorite to capture Octavios, given how much military might they were bringing to bear.
When they did, Dabiri would find a way to slip in, kill whoever had Octavios and put a bullet between the Greek’s eyes. Then he could go back home, collect his accolades in Tehran, and move on to a paying job.
Somewhere that the women sunbathed nude, he thought. Yes, that would be acceptable. He was overdue for a vacation.
In the freight yard, the Russian war vehicles were moving out, headed toward the location of Javier Octavios. The man would live to see the dawn...but only just once.
Dabiri would make certain of that.
Chapter Fourteen
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
“This place has seen better days,” Hazan commented. She rode in the passenger seat. A subdued Octavios was slumped in the back, dozing on and off.
“Steel production is depressed,” Bolan told her. “We’re headed to an abandoned steel works on the Monongahela River. It has plenty of cover, there’s nobody else around to get hurt, and it will give me the room I need to deal with our pursuers once and for all.”
From the back seat, Octavios laughed. The laugh became a cough. Soon he was racked with terrible spasms. When he took his hand away, his palm was covered in blood.
“Are you okay back there?” Bolan asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Cooper,” Hazan said. “He is not.”
Bolan found a side street bordered on both sides by crumbling, boarded-up buildings. He pulled over and parked. Leaving the driver’s seat, he opened the back door on his side and climbed in. He put two fingers to Octavios’s neck.
“His pulse is weak and irregular,” he said.
“Do you have a first-aid kit?” Hazan said. “Perhaps there is something—”
“There is nothing,” Octavios announced. He did his best to sit up straight. “I thought...I had more time. It appears your valiant efforts will be for nothing, Cooper.”
“What is it?” Bolan asked. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I am dying,” Octavios stated. “I have an invasive pulmonary disease. Its name would mean nothing to you—” he waved his hand, weakly “—and it meant nothing to me. I was diagnosed two years ago. The disease is progressive and quite untreatable. Although I admit I tried many things, spent a great deal of money. Nothing worked.”
“So you’re just going to die with that thing plugged in?” Bolan said. He pointed to Octavios’s chest. “I thought that was your insurance policy. To stop the world’s governments from having you killed.”
“Quite the opposite,” Octavios told him. “My plan was to...die a martyr. My death, coupled with the dramatic release of the secret files Codex Freedom has hoarded for years now...it would gain the attention we need to change the world. And I...I would die a martyr. It is the best way. I knew my people were loyal and that they would try to free me. I regret that so many of them died trying. But I could not tell them. My capture, and my subsequent death, had to be real. It was the only way to achieve the impact I desire.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Bolan asked.
“The anonymous emails,” Octavios said. “I am the one who sent them. I needed to make sure I would be assassinated before I could be imprisoned. But I made a mistake.”
“You forgot you aren’t the only hacker in the world,” Hazan stated.
“Exactly. The messages were intercepted by powers that wanted to capture me, interrogate me and stop the release of the files. Countries such as yours—” he nodded to Hazan “—and yours, Cooper. The Russians, as well. Though I think I would find the custody of the Americans preferable to what the Russians will do to me. None of it matters now. The disease has spread faster than I calculated. I will die soon. There is no one who can stop it.”
“And the signal?” Bolan asked. “The method they’re using to keep finding you?”
“A radio locator in my blood,” the Greek stated. “Rare. Expensive. Relatively unknown. I injected it, waited to confirm that it worked, then presented myself to the Greek embassy in Toronto, stating that I wished asylum.
“It was calculated. I knew that the Canadians would fear the consequences...and that the Americans would come calling. The two nations have a close relationship and share a border. It was very likely I would be handed over to American custody. I knew the nations of the world, the ones I had given every means of finding me, would move mou
ntains to take my life. And even if I were imprisoned, well...my death is certain. The data bomb is quite uncrackable. Releasing the files, dying a martyr in or out of prison...it is all inevitable.”
“Nothing is uncrackable,” Bolan told him. “And you aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
“The radio locator ensures that I will be found no matter where you take me.”
“That’s the problem with you high-tech geniuses. You forget to think about the low-tech solution.” Bolan climbed out of the car, went to the trunk and searched through the Farm-provided supplies. When he returned, he was holding a simple foil packet in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other.
“What do you have there, Cooper?” Hazan asked.
“Space blanket. It reflects body heat...among other things.” He positioned Octavios, not ungently, and began binding the man’s arms to his sides with the duct tape. He taped together Octavios’s legs, too.
“Is that really necessary?” the data terrorist demanded. “I am feeling very weak, Cooper. I will not try to fight.”
“Not what I’m worried about,” Bolan stated. “Right now, we need to get you covered in this. It’s going to be warm. There’s not a lot I can do about that.”
“It is all right,” Octavios said. “I was feeling cold anyway.”
Bolan put his hand on the man’s forehead. He was clammy, and seemed to be getting weaker by the minute. The soldier wrapped him head to toe in the reflective space blanket, sealing it as best he could with the duct tape. He left room for Octavios’s eyes, nose and mouth.
“Do you think that will work?” Hazan queried.
“I figure it will help,” Bolan replied. “We’ll never be able to cover him completely, but this might impede the signal. My people tell me it’s very sporadic when he’s uncovered. Maybe this will be enough to foul it.”
“I feel ridiculous,” Octavios said quietly.
They resumed their journey to the abandoned steel plant. It wasn’t long before the Greek was snoring quietly in the back seat.
“Cooper, I don’t know how long he has.”
“You and me both,” Bolan told the Mossad agent.
“If he dies...”
“Then the whole world is going to learn a whole lot of things it was never supposed to know. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“You agree with that maniac?”
“No, I don’t,” the soldier said. “I’ve never had much use for secrets. Men in power use secrets to hide. The truth is a bullet that shatters every mystery. The trick is figuring out where to point the gun.”
“That’s very poetic,” Hazan stated. “And very idealistic. But it doesn’t help us if nations go to war over what Codex Freedom reveals.”
“And a lot of innocent people just working to protect their own nations might die. It’s happened before. Octavios is human garbage. He cloaks what he does in this veneer of helping humanity, but the reason he does it is that he likes it. He likes the feeling of power. He likes feeling better than everyone else. It’s why he fed his own people into a meat grinder. He could have warned them off. He could have told them not to follow him, not to try to rescue him. But he didn’t. Because he knew sooner or later one of them would spill the truth and spoil his perfect martyr moment. I have no use for men like that.”
“Yet you treat him with kindness,” Hazan pointed out.
“I treat him with mercy,” Bolan corrected her. “There’s a difference. Mercy is a quality we can all use. It doesn’t mean I condone who he is or what he’s done. It means I have to live with myself...and what I’ve done.”
“And what have you done, Cooper?”
“Lady,” Bolan said, “you have no idea.”
* * *
“Dobry, we have...we have lost the signal.”
“Impossible,” Mikhailov told him. “Give me the device!”
Smyrnoi handed over the tracker. The two men rode in one of the two remaining tour vehicles, with several of their original contingent as passengers. Behind them was a convoy of Vystrels and commercially purchased Toyota Land Cruisers. The Vystrels were flagged with bogus banners hailing them as a military reenactment group tied to some decades-old Fascist cartoon program of some kind. Nothing about American culture made sense to Smyrnoi. But so brazenly driving through the streets of an American city like this...it was unnerving. He was worried that Mikhailov was losing his grip on sanity, so desperate was he to regain his honor after their previous defeat.
The landscape here defied belief. This portion of the city was as decayed, as run down, as some Third World nations he had seen. Many buildings were abandoned. The streets were all but deserted. The Americans had such wealth, yet they allowed portions of their cities to fall into decay, into rot.
“Plot the trajectory of the last several data points,” Mikhailov ordered. “That will show us which way they were headed. We will increase our speed, and we will intercept them.”
“Perhaps the signal has stopped because Octavios is dead. Perhaps the data is even now being leaked worldwide.”
“Nonsense. We lost the first signal and no such thing was true. The loss of the second is a similar technical matter. Octavios is alive and, until we hear from headquarters that Codex Freedom has released its data, it has not happened. Do not quit on me now, Egor.”
“I am not quitting.”
“Are you not?” Mikhailov demanded. “Then show me the knife-wielding Egor Smyrnoi I know! Show me the killer I long ago learned I could trust! Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to bring down the full wrath of Mother Russia on this Warlock? Are you ready to take this man, Octavios, and make him suffer as no human being has suffered?”
Smyrnoi couldn’t help but feel roused. “Yes, Commander! Yes!”
“Then join me,” Mikhailov said, slamming the pedal to the floor. The truck accelerated, causing the vehicles in the convoy behind it to scramble to catch up. “We go to glory. We go to redemption. We go to prove to the world that Russia’s might must never be questioned!”
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
“You’re not going to believe the message I just got from Striker,” Barbara Price said as she strode into the Computer Room.
“He found a way to block the signal,” Kurtzman replied.
“How did you know?”
“Because I found the satellite,” he said. “And I was able to disable the piggyback program Codex Freedom was using. The satellite itself belongs to the Chinese. I’ve been debating whether we should tell them.”
“Tell Hal. That’s his call.”
“I know,” Kurtzman said. “I just like toying with the idea that I get to choose.”
As the cyberwizard sat in his chair, facing Price, the panel behind him suddenly came to life. Multiple flashing red lights all demanded his attention.
“Whoa!” Price exclaimed. “What are you getting?”
Kurtzman swiveled. His hands flew over the keys of his workstation. “I have multiple automated alerts tied to 9-1-1 calls and keywords,” he said. “I route them and adapt them whenever we’re tracking Striker. It makes it easier to keep tabs on him when he’s blowing up the landscape, and gives Hal a running log of everybody he’s going to have to talk down.”
“So what are those?”
“Pittsburgh,” Kurtzman replied. “Right where Striker said he was going to need help. You want me to SMS-flash his phone, let him know everything’s in place?”
“He knows,” Price said. “Although when he checks in here at the Farm, remind me to tell him just what a pain in the behind he’s been to me for the past few days. This wasn’t much easier to arrange on his timetable than all the construction work.”
“More like demolition work, am I right?” Kurtzman raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated gesture.
“Don’t quit your day job, Aaron,” Price said then turned and
walked out.
“This is my day job,” he shouted after her. “And my night job. I don’t sleep, is what I’m saying!”
“Noted,” Price called back.
* * *
Sheila Hargrave sat in the driver’s seat of the stolen minivan, her eyes on the road and her thoughts on the future. Cyril Jackson sat in the passenger seat. Behind their vehicle were several more just like it, all stolen, their plates switched out with other vehicles to confuse the authorities. If you stole a van, you had to find a similar vehicle and swap plates with it. Most owners didn’t notice that the plates had been changed until some time later. If the tags were run by police, there would be no alert on the vehicle because, as far as the owner of those license plates knew, his or her vehicle was safe and sound.
The vans were also loaded with Codex Freedom members—with weapons.
During its history as an organization, the various cells of Codex Freedom had been amassing weapons.
Its members weren’t well trained, so there was little cohesion to their efforts. They stockpiled whatever they could get their hands on—mostly civilian-legal guns and ammunition, much of it stolen rather than purchased through stores and dealers. Calling up every member of the organization through a seldom-used online chat channel had been a bold move, but Hargrave had done it to save her idol. She didn’t regret that fact. They were rolling with more people, more weapons, more bullets than they’d ever had at their disposal before.
Nobody could stop them now.
“Signal’s gone,” Jackson commented.
“It will strengthen,” she said.
“No, Sheila, you don’t understand. The signal didn’t fade. It isn’t down-cycling. It’s gone. As in, no longer available.”
“That can’t be. Javier told me that the radio locator in his blood is what makes the system work. As long as he exists, we should be able to pick it up. The whole point of taking that precaution was so that if he were ever taken prisoner, or even taken hostage, we would always be able to find him. It can’t be gone because it’s part of him.”
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