A Blued Steel Wolfe

by Erickston, Michael

  Once everyone else was inside, the driver hit the gas. The van moved leisurely down the street to avoid unwanted attention. Deck pulled out and followed the van out of the neighborhood.

  “How many injured?” Justin asked as he looked around the van.

  Four men raised their hands. Nunez, Hobart, Stanley, and Hawley all winced if they tried to move too much. They’d been the last four out of the house when it exploded. Justin mentally sighed in relief that Deck disobeyed his order and did what needed to be done.

  He went over the raid in his mind, down to the last detail. During the inspection of the bodies upstairs, he noted that Salvatore wasn’t among them. He knew of the Russians’ “scorched earth” policy going back centuries, and had to shake his head. They still practiced it, only on a smaller scale in this instance.

  Napoleon and Hitler learned that hard lesson when they tried to take Russia almost a century and a half apart. As the Russians fell back under each assault, they burned their farm fields so the invaders had nothing to eat but their own rations. Then the Russian winter set in, and the invading forces had to retreat or die.

  What these Bratva soldiers did wasn’t the same, but it was similar. They were willing to die rather than risk capture. They’d rigged the house ahead of time, though. That showed that they were expecting trouble. That meant that somehow, they knew of the raid ahead of time!

  ***** ***** *****

  Ray typed furiously at his keyboard, trying to figure out what went wrong. The satellite imagery showed no signs of explosives, and he knew that the NSA satellite should’ve picked them up. He scanned every line of code and found nothing wrong.

  How the hell did those bastards know that we were coming? He asked himself. Then he noticed something that shouldn’t be there. His eyes widened as he started shouting over the earbud.

  “Justin, you and your team need to get back here ASAP!” Ray yelled. “I need to shut everything down! We’re going to need everyone!”

  With that declaration, he said a silent prayer and hit the emergency shutdown button on his system. He grimaced as every screen went black and every node of his own supercomputer went silent.

  “What the hell did you do that for, Ray?” Trina asked, shock registering on her face.

  “Someone else was inside my system, and whoever it was, they locked the cameras into a feedback loop. I saw the same car appear in the middle of Camera 11 that went by five minutes ago. We need every enforcer we have on the perimeter now!” Ray exclaimed. He picked up his phone to make a call to Mr. Wolfe, but found that it had no signal. He then picked up the landline in the command center, but no dial tone sounded. He felt a cold pit open in his stomach. “Trina, we have to get to Mr. Wolfe now and warn him if we aren’t too late. If those assholes aren’t already in the building, we’re about to get invaded!”

  “Ok, let’s go!” Trina replied as she pulled her pistol and started for the exit. Ray grabbed and slung his laptop case over his shoulder, drew his gun and followed closely behind her.

  As soon as they entered the main hallway, they knew something was wrong. Trina saw them first, lifted her pistol and snapped off two rounds. The shots sounded deafening, but two thugs dressed in black died with one round through each of their foreheads.

  Ray glanced to his left and saw three more thugs coming down the hall. They took aim at Trina, but Ray body checked her as he fired. Ray’s first round missed slightly to the enemy shooter’s left, but his second bullet took the thug through the neck. His third and fourth shots hit the second shooter, and his fifth shot hit the third man in the head.

  Trina turned to see Ray fire the fifth shot and the third enemy crumpled over. Ray always insisted on using full metal jacket 9mm rounds. They required more precision shooting, since they didn’t do much damage when they went clean through a human body. She looked at him in disbelief, but Ray still held his smoking pistol as he gazed at the downed bodies.

  Then they heard more gunshots from the direction of the offices, and with a quick glance at each other, they sprinted in that direction. Why the hell did I insist on soundproofing the command center? Ray asked himself. He just shook his head as they kept running.

  Just before they rounded the corner, Trina held out and arm to stop him. He stopped, and she held a finger to her lips. Ray nodded his understanding and followed her hand signal to crouch. Then they advanced slowly, and she aimed her pistol around the corner.

  Three men stood over a fourth man’s body, laughing. One said something to the other two in Russian, and they laughed even harder. Trina aimed quickly and fired three more rounds in quick succession. The first bullet caught the enemy facing them in the forehead. The second caught the second Russian in the side of his head as he turned, and the third round penetrated the last gunman’s neck, severing the jugular.

  “We have to get to Mr. Wolfe,” Ray hissed.

  “We will. Let’s go!” Trina replied.

  Then two more Bratva thugs came out of Jared’s office with the attorney between them. He was barely alive, but he saw them and smiled.

  Trina and Ray brought their guns up simultaneously and fired one round apiece. Their bullets pierced the thugs’ chests, killing them instantly.

  “Jared!” Ray yelled as he ran towards the attorney. “Hang on. We’re here to help!”

  Jared Hartman looked bad. He’d lost some blood from the bullet wound in his right shoulder. He moved as he struggled to rise, and Ray knelt on one side of him while Trina knelt on the other side. They lifted him to his feet together, and went back into the office.

  “Jared, do you know where Mr. Wolfe is?” Ray asked once they were inside.

  “The last I saw of him, he was heading towards the safe room. He had Linda, Cammie and five of his security team with him,” Jared replied with a wince as they sat him in Cammie’s chair. “I… stayed behind with two others to cover them.

  Trina looked around the office and nodded in appreciation. The two Wolfe security men were dead, but so were twelve of the Russian Bratva thugs who invaded the mansion.

  “This is as good a place as any, then,” Ray shrugged as he sat down in another chair and opened his laptop case. He pulled a USB Wi-Fi internet hotspot out of his pocket and plugged it into the laptop as he booted it up.

  “Trina, get Jared patched up as best you can,” Ray said without looking up. Trina looked at Jared.

  “There‘s a first aid kit in my office. Bottom left drawer,” the attorney said and winced. Trina went into his office and pulled the kit from the desk. She then hurried back into Cammie’s office with the kit in hand.

  As she stopped Jared’s bleeding and bandaged his wound, she looked at Ray. The tech expert’s fingers flew over his keyboard, as he frowned in concentration.

  “Ray, what are you doing?” Trina asked urgently.

  In answer, Ray tossed her his gun. “Give that to Jared and watch the door. I’m trying to find the piece of motherfucking shit son of a motherfucking bitch that compromised my Goddamn command center!”

  ***** ***** *****

  Salvatore took a moment to bask in his own genius. He allowed a triumphant smile to play across his face. It was so easy! He hired a hacker known as a cyber-mercenary to hack the “un-hackable” system that protected the Wolfe estate. When he succeeded in that regard, he changed his plans. It took the hacker longer than expected to penetrate the firewall. Once he was in, the hacker then started gathering information, though.

  When the hacker found the street camera footage of Salvatore and his Maserati, the ex Mafia Capo started to formulate a plan. When he found the satellite surveillance footage of Salvatore’s Calabasas hideout, the hacker alerted his boss. Salvatore wasn’t frightened, though. He saw it as an opportunity. They procured some C-4 for “demolitions purposes” and wired the house.

  Salvatore felt a slight pang of remorse over not telling Johnny about the charges. Johnny was the only remaining holdover from the Lupo-O’Hara alliance that stayed with him through eve
rything. The rest of his former team refused to join him when he became a Brigadier in the Russian Bratva. He knew that Johnny wouldn’t sacrifice himself as the Russians would, though.

  He knew that as soon as the Wolfe enforcers breached the house, the two former Spetsnaz soldiers in the basement would start the timer on the bomb. If everything went as planned, Johnny and the Bratva soldiers would keep the Wolfe soldiers occupied for two minutes. Once every Wolfe enforcer entered the house, the bomb would explode.

  The news reports that the “8L00D5C0UR63” picked up on his phone confirmed the destruction of the house and the death of everyone inside. Salvatore smiled as he remembered the News Helicopter’s view of the burning house. Those brave Russians and his last Italian friend became acceptable losses in his personal war against Antonio Lupo, AKA Anthony Wolfe.

  Part of him wished that they’d been able to leave the house in time to hit the gentlemen’s clubs. However, once he took this mansion and staffed it with his own men, he would have a source of income too. The strip joints would bring in some huge revenue, once he found some dancers and bouncers to staff them. His men were loyal to a fault, and he already had a manager in mind. Los Angeles isn’t so bad, he thought to himself. The weather here is much better than it is, back in New York!

  Salvatore turned his attention back to the present. Blood Scourge, as he liked to be called, kept typing fiercely away at his keyboard. The hacker sat against the wall outside of the electronically locked safe room, trying to figure out a way to bypass the system.

  “Hey boss. I have to say that the guy who set up this system did a sweet job of it,” Scourge said with respect. Then he smiled at his boss. “He accounted for almost every contingency. Unfortunately for him, he never accounted for me!”

  As he said that, the Blood Scourge hit the Enter key on his laptop.

  ***** ***** *****

  Justin and his crew pulled up outside the gate of the compound. The sight that greeted them wasn’t good. Several bodies littered the ground, and most of them were Wolfe security personnel. His blood ran cold as he thought of only one thing. Cammie! If she’s hurt in any way, God help those assholes! He thought silently to himself.

  “Patch, take us in hot,” he snarled to the driver. He readied his MP-5 and turned to his men in the back of the van as it started to gain speed. “Get ready! We’re going in full assault. The Russians have breached the mansion.”

  “How are we going to play this, sir?” Gonzo asked. “Prisoners?”

  “No, Gonzo,” Justin replied grimly as he shook his head. “We’re going to kill them all.”

  The van screeched to a halt in front of the house. On Justin’s signal, the side and back doors opened simultaneously and his team emerged with weapons hot. Even the injured came out hot and stayed low, set to defend the van from any attackers outside the house.

  Several Russians stepped out of the broken front doors, only to meet a hail of gunfire. The Wolfe team moved in cautiously, scanning in every direction.

  “One o’clock!” Deck shouted, and Justin picked off a Bratva thug as the man brought up his AK-47. They continued towards the offices, where Justin hoped that Jared and Cammie would be. Just outside the door to Jared’s and Cammie’s office suite, he held up a fist to call a halt. He motioned down and peaked around the corner.

  He found himself looking down the barrel of Trina’s pistol and lowered his SMG.

  “Dammit sir!” Trina exclaimed as she raised the gun’s barrel towards the ceiling. “You almost got your brain ventilated!”

  Justin looked around the room quickly. He spotted Jared’s wounded form, and Ray with a determined expression on his face as he typed away at his keyboard. Justin then motioned back to his people to file into the office and close the door. As they secured the door from the inside, Justin turned to Trina.

  “Good to see you three. Where’s Cammie?” he asked.

  “The last I saw of her, she was heading to the safe room with your mother and father,” Jared supplied. In spite of his wound, he appeared determined to live through this.

  “Ok, I need a sit-rep. Does anyone know what all is going on?” Justin asked as he looked at the three survivors.

  “Someone hacked us sir,” Ray said, as he never broke stride on his keyboard. “I think I know who it is, and he fucked with the wrong motherfucker today!”

  “Who is it?” Justin asked urgently.

  “If I’m right, he calls himself Blood Scourge. I’ve seen his code twice before when I worked for the FBI,” Ray explained. “We could never catch the bastard, though. He’s outstanding at what he does, and he never leaves anything that we can back-trace to his IP addresses. He uses multiple proxy servers and calls himself a cyber-mercenary.”

  “So he’s a keyboard for hire?” Deck snorted a laugh.

  “Laugh all you want, Sergeant Shepard,” Ray replied, never breaking stride as he tapped away at his laptop. “Keyboards can be even deadlier than guns in the right, or wrong hands. In this case, definitely the wrong hands! GOT HIM!”

  ***** ***** *****

  The man known as Blood Scourge hit the Enter key, but nothing happened. “What the fuck?” he asked to no one in particular. He hit the key again, but again nothing happened. “This isn’t right. I know I got the right code for the door. It should be open!”

  Then his blood ran cold when he saw a new message appear onscreen. It read:

  U picked the wrong system to hack 8L00D5C0UR63

  Now u will die

  R4YGUNZ

  “Oh shit,” Blood Scourge muttered. “Oh fucking shit!”

  “What’s wrong?” Salvatore asked with a frown.

  “You didn’t say anything about going up against RAY GUNZ!” Blood Scourge shouted. “He’s an FBI Agent, who almost caught me twice!

  Then a new message appeared on the laptop screen.

  I am not going to catch you.

  I am going to kill you.

  R4YGUNZ

  “Shit!” Blood Scourge had time to scream, just before the lithium-ion battery in his laptop exploded.

  ***** ***** *****

  “BOOYAH!” Ray exclaimed to as he jumped to his feet. “If Scourge isn’t dead, I bet he will be soon! I regained control of the security cameras. Salvatore has some shaped C-4 charges, and he is going to blast his way into the safe room if we don’t stop him.”

  Justin nodded his comprehension and turned to his team. “Let’s go, but you two stay here to watch over Jared. Find Dr. Martinez, too!”

  “Not so fast boss,” Trina said with a shake of her head. “I’m going with you.”

  “So am I,” Ray said stoically.

  “Ray, you’re a good man, but you aren’t an enforcer,” Justin said with a shake of his head. “I need you here to watch over Jared.”

  “I’ll stay sir, along with our walking wounded,” Hondo, one of the wounded said. “We’d just be a liability right now. At least here, we can barricade ourselves in, just in case more of them are roaming around. We can defend this position and keep Jared alive.”

  “I’ll be fine once you find the Doc to get me back on my feet,” Jared said with a brave smile.

  “Besides, Ray is a damn good shooter,” Trina said with a smile at the tech expert. “He saved my life on the way here from the command center.”

  Justin looked at Ray with new respect. He knew that the former black hat hacker was a good man. However, he forgot sometimes that Ray was also an ex-FBI Agent with training and field experience under his belt.

  “Ok, let’s go,” Justin shrugged. “Stay behind us and let me take the lead. We don’t know how many of them are between us and the safe room.”

  “Yes we do… oh shit,” Ray said as he watched on his monitor, as one of the Russians took aim and shot a security camera. Then he watched as several others went down in rapid succession. “Scratch that. They’re shooting out the security cameras! Dammit to hell!”

  “We have to go now!” Justin emphasized as he led the way
out of the office suite and down the hall, through the mansion and towards the safe room.

  They moved quickly, keeping their weapons ready and their senses alert. They came under fire twice, but reacted quickly and decisively, ending the treats before they could take down any of the Wolfe security team.

  When they reached the hallway with the safe room, however, their luck changed for the worse. As they took up positions, four Russians stepped out of a room down the adjacent corridor. Justin shouted a warning, but it was too late for Strickland and Malloy. Even as they turned, the Russian AK-47s lit the former Rangers up. The rest of the team blasted the Russians, but two of their own died that night.

  Justin peered around the corner again, and barely made it back as several more Russians opened up with automatic gunfire. He swore quietly under his breath. Then he looked at Johns. “You still have the rest of those flash-bangs?”

  Johns nodded and pulled one from his LBE vest. Justin held out his hand and the ex-SEAL handed the device to his boss. Justin pulled the pin and popped the spoon, letting it cook for a full second before lobbing it down the hall.

  The loud bang felt deafening in the confined space, but Justin didn’t let that stop him. He went low around the corner, firing into each enemy he saw. The suppressed pops of his MP-5 went unnoticed by the reeling thugs as they tried in vain to regain their equilibrium. Justin and his team kept shooting, taking the villains down with precision fire.

  Then once more, their luck turned for the worse.

  “Grenade!” Justin shouted as he saw a grenade roll towards them. He barely managed to dive into another room to avoid the blast. The three men behind him weren’t so lucky, though. They tried to run, but the grenade’s five meter blast radius caught them when it exploded. Gonzo came up and sidestepped into the room to check on his friend and boss.