by Brandt Legg
Chasing Fire
Brandt Legg
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
About the Author
Books by Brandt Legg
Acknowledgments
Chasing Fire (A Chase Wen Thriller)
Published in the United States of America by Laughing Rain
Copyright © 2019 by Brandt Legg
All rights reserved.
Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-1-935070-40-5
ISBN-10: 1-935070-40-1
Original cover photo by Skip Murphy ReallyRedding.com
Cover art and graphic design by Eleni Karoumpali
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. Published in the United States of America.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
BrandtLegg.com
One
Proud of the massive destruction he was about to unleash, Powder took a moment to honor the Founding Fathers as Fourth of July fireworks filled the air across the Potomac River in Washington, DC. The revelry, easily visible from his rooftop vantage point in Crystal City, Virginia, reminded him of the Star Spangled Banner.
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
As millions celebrated the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, few could have guessed that a second American revolution had just begun. A powerful militia group had taken upon themselves the role of nuevo “minute men,” with the goal not of starting a new country, but rather of saving the old one. Their odds of success seemed just as unlikely as those patriots who’d met in Philadelphia more than two centuries earlier.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
Powder, one of the rogue band who’d sworn to do whatever necessary to stop the unraveling of ‘the greatest nation on earth,’ wired fuses and set a detonator. He often told people, “I’ve been an American and a soldier since before I was born.” In fact, he was seventh generation military. Since childhood, he’d kept his coal-black hair high and tight—clipping it himself. Tradition had made him a patriot, the army had forged him into an explosives expert, but Gunner, his leader, the head of the militia, had transformed Powder into a would-be hero, one of the revolutionaries who would save the Republic.
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
Gunner had chosen the date for more than just symbolism. Although appreciating the irony of the first bomb exploding on July 4th, a tight timetable lay ahead. Each target gets more difficult than the one before, he reminded himself. But, if everything goes well, all my bombings will be complete in July. He took a deep breath. August is when the real action will happen—when the treasure is used—and by Labor day the country of today will be a thing of the past. Hell of a summer.
The national anthem continued in his head.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land,
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Hearing the rumbling of loud reports as the fireworks increased dramatically in successive builds, Powder paused again to watch the dazzling display of red, silver, and blue whirling showers cascade into thousands and thousands of shattering sparks, illuminating the silhouetted Washington Monument. I love this country! As the colored smoke trailed off and a skyward parade of shimmering purple waterfalls tumbled down into yellow and green bursting flowers, he turned back to his work, resuming the countdown.
Everything is on schedule. We’re about to put them on notice.
We’re taking it back.
Wen Sung, a slender yet lethal twenty-eight-year old former Chinese intelligence agent, looked at her boyfriend while walking down the beach. “Happy Fourth of July,” she said, smiling.
“Is it the fourth?” Chase Malone, a brilliant tech billionaire, only a year older, replied, returning her smile. “I guess it is, back in the States.”
“In the Philippines, too,” Wen said, dancing around him as he walked. “They also celebrate gaining their freedom and indolence on the fourth.”
“From what country?” Chase asked, curious, pulling her playfully into the surf.
“From the United States of America,” Wen replied gleefully, as she ran ahead.
The two of them had fled civilization a few months earlier, living as recluses on the remote south Pacific island of Nuku Hiva, a three-hour flight from Tahiti. Even in the thrill of being with Wen, as they made their way barefoot down the shore, Chase couldn’t help but steal a glance at the steep, verdant cliffs in search of an invasion, always listening for the sounds of an approaching helicopter.
�
�Miss it?” she asked, familiar with his behavior of checking. There were several reasons they’d given up on their old existence—the Chinese secret police could still be looking for Wen, a dangerous corporate security force, led by a man who’d sworn to kill Chase, remained active, and the couple’s status with the CIA remained unclear. However, they had decided to leave for an even more urgent reason: balance. They felt the world teetering and believed they could help.
Chase stopped, looked out at the turquoise water, felt the soft sand beneath his feet, and motioned to the palm trees moving in the warm breeze. He stared into Wen’s eyes. “Surrounded by this much beauty, how could I miss anything?”
His words, though true, sounded hollow because the dream felt shaky. No one could hide forever. They both felt the world was at a place where even a small stumble could create a disastrous chain reaction. Chase knew the power of technology, how it could be utilized to improve lives and, ultimately, the world—or the opposite. It being used to the advantage of only a few, resulting in the end of humanity’s fragile society.
“We’ll have to go back some day,” Wen said, walking again. Her first-hand knowledge of the toll government corruption had taken constantly waged an internal battle against bitterness. Before her defection from China, she’d been involved with a group known as “WOLF,” or simply “The Cause,” a scattering of like-minded people across the globe bent on reversing the startling and growing inequality between the wealthy elites and everyone else. Several had died so that she and Chase could live.
“I know.” Chase had already had one of his representatives use a shell company to discreetly purchase a three-million-dollar penthouse overlooking one of the one-hundred-sixty-three canals in Amsterdam, a city that served as the unofficial headquarters of WOLF. “But not for a few more months,” he added.
She nodded her agreement, acknowledging they both needed to recharge after everything they’d been through. They were damned lucky not to be in prison, luckier still to even be alive. Yet, as the salty breeze carried a fresh floral scent she’d come to love, Wen knew that the tranquility couldn’t last much longer. They could run to the edge of the earth, but the past would always be close behind.
Two
Powder finished the final wiring, synced the detonator, then checked his watch. The celebration on the National Mall still had almost thirty minutes before the fireworks’ grand finale. He planned on adding some big booms to that patriotic finish. Walking to the edge of the eleven-story building, as if heading to the bar to order another beer, he looked down at the entrance, spotting the expected fire engine as it approached from the west, right on time.
“Perfect,” he said to himself. “We are underway,” he texted to the man who’d declared this war that Powder stood ready to ignite.
He stowed the rest of his gear into a black duffel and slung it over his shoulder. As the fire engine rolled to a stop in front of the building, Powder crossed to the rear side of the roof and stepped backwards off the ledge. Extending his legs and leaning back, he repelled quickly, silently, with military-trained-expertise. Powder’s feet hit the ground in less than fifty seconds.
By the time he walked the block and a half to his car, the six phony firemen had the premises evacuated. Even on a regular night there would have been less than a dozen people inside, but on a holiday, just six essential personnel were present. As planned, those workers and the helpful “firemen” were already at a safe distance when Powder pressed the button.
A nanosecond later, the Tri-Knight Avionics building erupted.
The magical clouds of sparkling colors, filling the sky over the Washington Monument, were not enough to mask the fury of what Powder had unleashed across the river in Crystal City. A series of explosions boomed, shaking the structure as if an internal blitzkrieg had been initiated from the depths of hell. Glass showered the sidewalks as jets of smoke and flames burst from all directions. When fire engulfed the middle floors, the “firemen” were nowhere to be found, having already abandoned their truck and uniforms. The phony crew, now in an unmarked passenger van traveling on US-1, heading south to Reagan National Airport, would be on four different flights before the authorities could even begin to piece things together.
Meanwhile, Powder drove the speed limit on his way to Dulles International Airport. He’d be cutting it close to make his boarding time for a flight to Seattle, but that was part of the plan—be gone before they started checking the airports. This one had been easy, but each attack would grow progressively more difficult as the authorities threw resources at the crisis and investigators discovered the patterns. A speculating media and mounting public pressure were predictable. The world’s attention would be riveted on when the next attack would happen, but by Labor Day, they’d know the truth—that it was far worse.
A war had begun.
In a cheap Philadelphia basement rental under an unmaintained low-rise (leftover from more prosperous times in the early part of the last century), Bull alternated between voice commands and two different keyboards as her eyes blurred across six computer monitors arranged in an inverted pyramid. An ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts, a trail of smoke still climbing into the stale air from one she'd forgotten. Instead, she reached for a slender blue silver and red energy drink. Bull’s love of the caffeine infused beverage had earned her the nickname. Everybody in her line of work had one.
She was a hacker, one of the best in the west, a shadowy profession that had grown so dangerous it had unofficially surpassed logging for the highest job-related fatality rate.
Her hand knocked over eight or nine empties that she’d consumed in the last twenty-four hours. “Damn it,” the skinny twenty-year old muttered, her fingers shaking.
Lenny Nenganowski, her business partner who’d dropped out of law school the day he’d met Bull at a funeral, had only an average knowledge of computers, and was amazed by her ability to crack open the web. Lenny also worshiped Bull, never missing a chance to attempt to impress her or plead his case that they should be a thing, even though he was seven years older. “What’s wrong?” he asked, watching every move she made. Her blonde buzz cut, baggy fatigues, and combat boots gave her the impression of an army recruit recently AWOL from basic training. A very hot army recruit, Lenny thought.
“I’ve got something,” she said, sounding more worried than excited.
“Something to make us some money?” Lenny asked. Their regular routine had Bull extracting useful—meaning valuable—data from some distant server and Lenny then selling it to a shady customer. Occasionally they did contract work, but mostly their income came from freelance gigs where Bull went scavenging around until she came up with “gold”—consumer information, passwords, accounts, social security numbers, banking and credit card reports. Lately they’d mined dating sites and email accounts to blackmail cheating husbands. They didn’t really care what they got, as long as they could make some cash. Each had their own reasons for the scams, but both knew that Bull was world class and playing well beneath her skill set. She could have been employed at NSA, CIA, Google, Apple, or a hundred other places, making much more money and not worrying about getting busted or angering the wrong party, but Bull had no interest in going legit.
“What do you have?” Lenny asked again, watching her light a smoke like a movie star, wishing he could be the end of the cigarette. “Something good?”
“No.” Bull shook her head, inhaled a full drag, never taking her eyes from the screens, then exhaled. “Something that’s going to get us killed.”
Three
Three weeks after the July 4th bombing at Tri-Knight Avionics, outside Washington DC, the world had indeed figured out that an incredible string of attacks had begun—they just didn’t know why. No group had issued any demands or even claimed responsibility. Law enforcement could not yet confirm the—now seven—terror strikes were connected. There appeared to be only two common threads: each bombing had targeted a different tech company, and, in every case
, the terrorists had gone to great lengths to avoid any loss of human life. The bombs always hit at night after last-minute phoned warnings or fake police or firefighters evacuated just prior to the explosions. The media had dubbed the terrorist the “Fire Bomber,” or “Fire Bombers,” as no one knew if it was a single person or a group, which led to constant debating after each strike.
The FBI were the lead investigators on all the cases, but really in charge, even if no one knew, was Tess Federgreen, a dynamic woman, tougher than she looked, and head of the CIA’s most secret division. “The world isn’t run by governments anymore, and intelligence is our last advantage,” she often said.