Stone also found a note in the case the gun arrived in with Preston’s name on it. “Please don’t lose this one. Guns are expensive.” The note gave Stone a chuckle. There’d be hell to pay for losing the SIG once the police traced the serial number, and Preston would have to call in a few favors, and then owe favors in return, to solve the problem.
Even Stone had to admit, after 24 hours, that breaking into Bryant’s penthouse had been a dumb idea, and executed with as much finesse as an elephant cradling a baby.
But now he had help, and he was thinking a little clearer, and he wouldn’t make that mistake again.
After breakfast in the room, he put on some sunglasses and went outside to join the fray. Conference attendees were everywhere, like so many cockroaches, each with their name tags and security passes dangling from lanyards around their necks. They look, quite frankly, like identical automatons.
At the Metreon, he visited Café X a second time to watch a robot make a cup of coffee, then wandered through Yerba Buena Gardens once again. Despite the conference traffic, there were still plenty of free spirits on the grass, some playing guitar, meditating, or talking quietly with others. Stone found a bench under a tree and watched the crowd. A TV crew caught his attention. Cameraman, reporter, interview subject--Earl Bryant.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the reporter kept up a string of questions that Bryant appeared happy to answer, and Stone’s attention wandered to a young Indian woman standing nearby who kept checking her watch as if the reporter only had a small allotment of time and she wasn’t going to let the reporter go over that allotment.
Stone didn’t know her. He snapped a picture with his cell phone and forwarded the photo to headquarters. Then he dialed Victoria Hood’s number.
“How’s San Francisco?” she said after they greeted one another.
“I’m drinking coffee made by a robot.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“No, there’s a café here staffed entirely by robots. Wave of the future.”
“There goes the 15-dollars-an-hour crowd,” she said.
“If they’re smart they’ll learn how to fix the robots, but I’m not sure they’re that smart.”
“You didn’t call me to pontificate on the work ethic of the new generation, did you?”
“No,” Stone said. “I sent you a pic. Young woman.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Of course,” Stone said. “She’s with Earl Bryant, but I’m sure I can steal her. I need an ID.”
“I have your photo now, hang on.”
Victoria placed him on hold and the line went silent. Stone continued to act as if he were listening, sipping his coffee quietly, his eyes constantly scanning the area round him. The Beretta Brigadier felt heavy under his right arm in a way the SIG never had, but probably only because he’d become too used to the German pistol and the Italian iron was a little bigger. He’d adjust soon enough, and if he ended up liking the gun, he thought he might stick with it rather than going back to another SIG 225.
“Still there?”
“Always here for you, Tori.”
“Except when you’re chasing Indian women named Zahra Tajik.”
“What do we have on her?”
“She actually might be of some help,” Victoria said. “She blew the whistle on some corruption at the last company she worked for, so she’s a bit ‘justice minded’, probably more than average. That can work for you or against you, depending on how she feels about Bryant.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But checking her out brought up something else, another Bryant associate. I’ll send you his picture. Fellow named Louis Mueller. He’s a bit shadier.”
“Do tell.”
“Mafia connections. He’s been in the Bay Area for about ten years.”
“Bryant has an alliance with the Outfit?”
“Yes. We’ll need to dig some more but expect him to be in charge of the muscle and those guys probably know how to shoot. They won’t be like the rent-a-cops you met at the penthouse.”
“Is the whole office talking about it?”
Victoria laughed. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. How do you like the new gun?”
“It’s bigger than my old gun.”
“Well, it’s not the size, it’s how you handle it.”
“You would know.”
She called him a bastard; he laughed and ended the call.
But the laugh was short-lived.
Only one word kept bouncing around in his head.
Mafia.
And that meant this mission had just become much more complicated.
Zahra Tajik didn’t keep checking her watch because the local reporter had a time limit.
She had an appointment of her own to keep.
Once the reporter finished, she advised Bryant on his planned activities for the rest of the day, and excused herself for her lunch hour. He told her to have a nice lunch. As he walked away, she knew she was totally out of his mind and the only thing was thinking of was the next phase of the conference.
She walked through the gardens, up a flight of stairs, making a left turn to follow the pavement to a tea room.
Inside the quiet restaurant, Zahra asked for a table in the back and the hostess placed her near a window, where Zahra sat with her back to the wall. She checked her watch. She felt a little distracted when she placed an order for a pot of green tea and some sweet biscuits, but she, of course, was distracted. Her appointment was vital to her mission, and if Bryant found out what she was doing, he might kill her.
Her tea had cooled enough to drink by the time her handler showed up.
John Mitchell wore a crew cut, tan leather jacket, and his jeans fit him quite well, as far as Zahra was concerned. He looked like he’d stepped out of Central Casting for a ‘50s cowboy picture.
“You’re looking well,” Mitchell said. He was a Special Agent with the local F.B.I. office, attached to her as a handler for the assignment to dig up dirt on Earl Bryant.
Zahra wasn’t an agent, officially, but rather a confidential informant, hired by Bryant out of respect for her father, but encouraged to apply by the Feds because they knew Bryant was dirty and they needed somebody on the inside who hadn’t come out of Quantico.
“Do you have somebody else here?” she said.
Mitchell poured some tea. “The penthouse?”
“Yes, the penthouse. Do you have another agent here?”
“Nope.” Mitchell bit part of a biscuit, then stirred some sugar into his tea.
“Then who was he?”
“An outsider we’re still running down,” he said. “Local cops recovered a gun from the security team and we’re still tracing it, but it looks like it came from an outfit called the Eagle Alliance.”
“Who are they?”
“A PMC group with government contracts. They run mercenary operations all over the world.”
“Sounds like you don’t approve.”
“I don’t. I’m as eager as you to find out who this outsider is and stop him.”
“Or should we ask for his help?”
“Why? Are you close?”
“Something is going to happen before the conference ends,” Zahra said. “Lassiter is staying in the skyscraper, in the guest suite. He’s going to give a presentation on the updates to Bryant’s H.R. applications, and after that, I think they’re going to release the virus.”
“How can this other fellow help?”
“Avoid a lengthy trial.”
“You know I can’t support that, Zahra.”
“People like Bryant and Lassiter shouldn’t be allowed to breathe good air.”
“Everybody deserves a fair trial,” Mitchell said. “We don’t need any cowboys jeopardizing that.”
Zahra drank some tea and picked up a biscuit, only to set it down again.
“If you find out who this man is, I expect you to call me,” Mitchell said. “Of course with the gun trace, we
’ll know soon enough and the police can pick him up. Do not approach him, Zahra, understand me?”
She locked eyes with him. “I understand.”
“Okay, good.” Mitchell drank down his tea and grabbed another biscuit as he scooted back his chair. “Don’t be out of touch too long. If you’re right, we need to move fast.”
She nodded. She watched him walk away, but he didn’t look as attractive as he had when he’d arrived.
With her jaw set, Zahra looked out the window, but she really didn’t see what was there. Her mind was working on how best to contact the “cowboy” and get him on her side.
Chapter Eleven
The sidewalk was more crowded as Stone made his way back toward the hotel, the automatons taking their lunch break. He was trying to think of his next move while not dwelling on the fact that Bryant was mobbed up. How many gunners was he now facing? How deep did Bryant’s corruption actually reach?
His cell phone rang. Victoria. He ducked into the arched entryway of an apartment building and sat on the steps.
“Hi.”
“Got more on the Tajik woman.”
“Go.”
“Her father helped Bryant finance one of his first software companies, so he must have hired her out of a sense of loyalty despite her whistleblower background.”
“He might be hiding a lot from her. She may not be as much help as we think.”
“You’re going to have to make contact and ask.”
“Right. Okay. Thanks, Tori.”
“Try not to have sex with her.”
“I promise to preserve her virginity by only putting it in her butt,” Stone said, cutting off the connection before Victoria could respond. He pocketed the phone.
Stone started walking again, weaving through the mass, when he felt a shiver up his spine. He looked back to see if anybody was following him, only to catch a flash of white within the sidewalk crowd. He turned and kept walking. When he reached the next corner, he turned, only to stop and put his back to the building wall.
Zahra Tajik turned the corner but didn’t see him right away. He grabbed her arm. She snapped her head around, startled, but she relaxed when she saw his face.
“Perhaps we should talk,” Stone said.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Very much so.”
“Let’s go somewhere away from this noise.”
She followed him without further comment.
“Do you know who I am?” she said.
Getting away from the noise proved tougher than either thought, so they went back to Stone’s hotel and found a sitting area in the lower level where the conference rooms were located, oddly unoccupied despite the activity at the Moscone center, to talk.
“Zahra Tajik,” Stone said. “Whistleblower.”
“Another few hours and I’ll know who you are,” she said, “unless you’d like to fill me in?”
She smiled sweetly.
“Devlin Stone. I’m with the Eagle Alliance. Bryant is associated with--”
“Simon Lassiter.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve seen him several times, yes.”
“What’s your connection?”
“Confidential informant with the F.B.I., but they don’t want me talking to you.”
“Why?”
“You’re a cowboy. You’re going to ruin everything. Or something.”
“Yet you followed me.”
“I’m ignoring my handler.”
And the Feds had apparently ignored the arrangement Preston made with the president, though Stone couldn’t fault them for already having somebody in place.
“How did you get on board with Bryant?”
“My father helped him once, and the F.B.I. knows he’s dirty, but they thought I could do a better job than an official agent.”
“Fair enough.”
“Do you have any idea what they’re planning?”
“Computer super-virus,” Stone said. “Attack networks across the country, especially Wall Street.”
“Basically.”
“I have good sources.”
“My opinion is that Lassiter will release the virus at the end of the conference, when he gives his speech about updating Bryant’s company software.”
“Do you know where the virus is stored right now?”
“Lassiter is still working on it. Bryant has a server lab in San Mateo. Lassiter works from the penthouse guest suite but all the information is stored at the lab.”
“You mean he was there when I paid my visit?”
She nodded.
Stone shook his head. His misadventure there kept getting better.
Hardly.
But he still had the red USB given to him by Victoria Hood, the one that contained its own virus, one powerful enough to infect Bryant’s server lab and wipe out whatever Lassiter was building there.
“I need to pay a visit to the lab.”
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“I have help.”
“But you’ll need me to get inside. I’m not much good in a fight but I can get you inside.”
“Too risky,” Stone said. “If we fail and Bryant ties you to us, you’re in danger.”
She dropped her eyes.
“But you have to know that security has been increased,” she said. “More guards than usual.”
“Mafia?”
She blinked. “Yes. You know Louis Mueller?”
“Of him.”
“He’s in charge. They take his orders.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Stone said, “and get ready for some fireworks.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you?”
“More than you know.”
Stone returned to his room called Tatiana Ivanov.
“Ready for some action?”
“I’m still sore from the other night.”
“No, the shooting kind.”
“I’m always ready for some shooting, darling Devlin.”
“Pack your gear. We leave at ten tonight.”
She said okay and he ended the call. He went to the window and moved the curtain aside to look out at the busy street. He still couldn’t believe how close he’d been to Lassiter without knowing it. He could have had Lassiter’s neck in his hands. But there would be another chance.
Soon.
“Slow down,” Stone told Tatiana. “I’d hate to get pulled over with all the automatic weapons on the back seat.”
She grinned in the dark BMW sedan, streetlamps flashing in the cabin and highlighting her face and the bright red lipstick across her mouth. She looked a little bulky in her black combat suit, and Stone assumed she had some kind of body armor beneath the sweater.
He was dressed in black as well, slacks, combat boots, turtleneck with shoulder holster containing the Beretta 92 Brigadier, covered by a dark leather jacket. In the back he had his usual Colt M933 full-auto carbine with six 30-round magazines loaded with 5.56x45mm tumblers. He had some other goodies in the tote bag as well.
He’d seen some of Tatiana’s equipment as she packed the gear, her choice of weapons being an H&K MP-7 submachine gun and Glock-19 pistol. She had a few more goodies than Stone, and combined they had everything they needed to break through the resistance at the Bryant lab and plug the USB into the servers to unleash the counter virus created by Victoria Hood and her crew and destroy the super-virus Simon Lassiter planned to unleash on the country.
It sounded simple. But going up against hardened mafia gunners wasn’t simple at all.
Stone knew they wouldn’t be trained as well as the average special forces operator, but they’d know their business, and any gunner who knew his business was a challenge. They wouldn’t stay in one place and wait to be picked off.
Tatiana exited the freeway. They passed a variety of hotels and restaurants; San Francisco International Airport wasn’t far away, and the hotels and eateries cat
ered to out-of-town visitors. Presently they left the well-lit area and turned onto a darker side street parallel or the bay, which was also dark, and the bright lights on the opposite side of the water appeared to be floating on an abyss of total darkness.
Tatiana killed the headlamps and relied on street lights as she navigated through a string of warehouses and eventually pulled the car into an alley about a block away from the Bryant lab.
The lab building was brightly lighted, not just inside, but outside as well, with the open field and large parking lot nearly bright as day. The side of the building facing the water, though, was dark. Stone and Tatiana grabbed their gear, left the car, and moved fast between the warehouse buildings, heading for the water, the gentle lapping of water on shore like a beacon guiding them forward. They ran across an open dirt field, no light to keep them from stumbling here and there, until they reached a single-lane paved road with the water mere feet away. Dropping to their knees, they opened their tote bags and loaded up with gear and weapons. Neither spoke as they started forward again, on the dark side of the lab building, Stone fishing wire cutters from a side pocket as they finally gained the perimeter fence separating the lab from the one-lane road.
Tatiana applied her own cutters to the fence, and together they snipped enough of the chain-link to slip through.
They kneeled on the other side of the fence, weapons at their shoulders, scanning the dark. Stone lowered his M933 long enough to screw a suppressor onto the barrel, and took up the scan again while Tatiana attached her own suppressor to the HK.
“Goal is the server farm in the basement,” Stone said. “I plug in the USB and set off the counter-virus to destroy every file they have.”
“Are you sure it’s there?”
“That’s what Zahra says.”
“If she’s telling you the truth.”
“If I thought she was leading us into a trap, I wouldn’t have suggested we pay a visit.”
“You never know, Stone.”
Stone stifled as response. She had a point.
“This is the only chance we’re going to have,” he said, “so let’s make the most of it and keep sharp.”
Zero Hour Page 7