by Rob Sinclair
The door was opened by a short and plump woman with scruffy brown hair and baggy unflattering clothes. Judging by the condition of her skin, she looked to be a similar age to Ryker, early forties at most, but her bedraggled appearance made her look older. She glowered at Ryker, no warmth in her eyes.
‘Habla Inglés?’ Ryker asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I need to speak to Miguel. Is he home?’
‘No,’ the woman said. But the fearful look in her eyes gave away the lie.
‘I’m not here to hurt him,’ Ryker said, placing his foot in the doorway to stop her from shutting the door. He knew the gesture was at odds with his words and that to this woman he was a threatening presence. But there was little he could do about that. He wanted to get inside.
The lady looked down at Ryker’s foot.
‘I’m not here to hurt him,’ Ryker said again, trying to sound comforting. ‘But Miguel is in a lot of trouble.’
‘Policia?’
‘No. I’m not.’
‘I’m sorry. He’s not here,’ she said, her accent so thick it took Ryker a moment to decipher the simple words.
She tried to close the door, banging it against Ryker’s foot. Ryker didn’t budge. He heard a noise in the back of the apartment and stared into the lady’s eyes. She gave him a pleading look. She needn’t have bothered.
Ryker shoved open the door, knocking the shocked woman back. He moved into the apartment and closed then locked the door behind him. He saw the look of fear on the woman’s face and knew what was coming. He reached out, grabbed her, and placed his hand over her mouth just as she screamed.
A door inched open at the far end of the apartment. Ryker already had a hand on his Colt before the face appeared.
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All Ryker could see in the dim light of the open doorway was the shadowed outline of a face and the bright whites of two eyes. Ryker assumed it was Miguel. But it wasn’t until the door opened further and the boy stepped out that Ryker took his hand away from his gun.
‘Miguel?’ Ryker asked.
The boy nodded. Fifteen? If Ryker hadn’t been told that he’d have said the kid was no more than twelve. He was five feet nothing, wore a pair of football shorts and a white vest that hung off his bony frame. His floppy black hair made his soft face look feminine.
‘I’m here to help you,’ Ryker said. ‘You’re in trouble. I think you know why. But please, you need to get your mother to calm down.’
Miguel shouted to his mother, rattling off words that Ryker didn’t understand with speed and purpose. Eventually his mother’s cries died down.
Ryker removed his hand from her mouth and stepped back. ‘Okay?’ he asked, giving her a conciliatory look. She nodded. ‘Good. Right, Miguel, we need to talk.’
‘In here,’ the boy said.
Ryker looked at Miguel’s mother again. She gave the slightest of nods. Ryker moved past her and followed Miguel into his bedroom. The room was small and dark. The black curtains were drawn, and the low glow of the overhead light struggled to illuminate the meagre space. The room was spotless, though – not an item of clothing out of place, not a dirty cup or a plate in sight. Not quite what Ryker expected for a teenage boy.
The walls were adorned with various pictures of footballers and movie stars. Ryker glanced at them then looked to Miguel who was hovering over a desk that was crammed with computer equipment and wires that seemed to snake in and out of hundreds of ports.
‘You know why I’m here?’ Ryker asked.
Miguel looked down at his feet. ‘Yes. You’re with the English police. You want to arrest me.’
His English was good, not perfect, the foreign accent was certainly clear, but for a teenager it was impressive. A lot better than Ryker’s Spanish, that was for sure.
‘No, Miguel,’ Ryker said. The boy looked up again, frowning. ‘I’m not going to arrest you. I’m not with the police. But that is why I’m here.’
‘Then what do you want? How do you know?’
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘It was just a game.’
‘A game?’
‘We hack. We dare each other.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘My group. Los Bandidos.’
‘And?’
‘I know it’s wrong. But... I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.’
The boy hung his head again and Ryker thought he could hear him sobbing.
‘You already know she’s dead?’
‘Yes. I saw it in the paper.’
‘Who asked you to do to the hack?’
‘I don't know who – another user. I never met anyone. We live online. It was just a dare.’
‘Name? Of the user?’
‘I don't know his real name, or if it’s really a he. We called him Anton.’
‘Anton? That’s it? No surname? Nothing else?’
‘That’s it. He came online a few weeks ago, then he disappeared again. We don’t ask questions. We get on with it.’
‘Did he pay you?’
‘Pay me?’ Miguel asked, sounding surprised. ‘No. I don’t get paid to do this. I told you, it’s just a game. A hobby.’ He shrugged.
Ryker couldn’t help but think back to Winter’s early report of the hack attack. One of the most sophisticated he’d ever seen, he’d said. But it was just a fifteen-year-old boy sitting in his bedroom hacking for a dare. He wasn’t even getting paid.
‘Okay. Let’s step back again. What exactly were you asked to do?’
‘Anton had a set of fingerprints. He said they belonged to a woman named Kim Walker. The game was to find her real name.’
‘That isn’t a game, Miguel.’
‘I know that now! But this wasn’t just me. We were all trying.’
‘How many of you?’
‘I don’t know. Five. Ten. Some started but didn’t get anywhere. Others broke into systems but didn't find matches.’
‘But you did?’
‘I got lucky. We weren’t told where to look. But she sounded English. I thought to look in England. Why would I ever expect someone to kill her?’
The more Miguel talked, the more Ryker felt out of his depth. This wasn’t a world he was used to. The hackers he’d dealt with before were highly trained agents working in the shadows, in bunkers in secret locations off the grid with cutting edge equipment. Here was a fifteen-year-old kid who’d managed to hack into MI5 from his bedroom in Malaga.
And to Miguel it was a bit of fun. One friend egging on another to see who was the best.
Except this time it wasn’t a game. This time a person had lost their life. Someone had found out about Kim Walker, found that she wasn’t who she said she was, and when Miguel connected the dots back to the profile of Anna Abayev – the Red Cobra – Kim Walker had been killed.
‘I need you to do something for me,’ Ryker said.
‘What?’ Miguel said, looking confused.
‘Sit down,’ Ryker said. Miguel did so. Ryker indicated over to the computer terminals. Miguel got the idea. He reached out and pushed a button, and there was a clunk and whir then a whooshing sound as the system booted up.
‘You want me to show you?’ Miguel asked. ‘How I found her?’
‘No. I wouldn’t understand it anyway. I need you to do some digging for me. A company.’
‘What sort of digging?’
‘Anything you can. The company is called Empire Holdings.’
‘Which country?’
‘I don’t know. Spain. Russia. England. Try all three. Georgia too. I need names of people. Addresses. I don’t know where it’s located but it’s operating here. In Andalusia.’
‘Okay,’ Miguel said, looking and sounding confident all of a sudden. ‘Shouldn’t be hard.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘Minutes. Hours. Depends what I find.’
The system came online and Miguel’s fingers moved at a speed that Ryker had never seen before. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what was goin
g through the boy’s head or how a teenager could learn such skills. But one thing was clear, even to Ryker’s uninitiated eye, this kid wasn’t just talented, he was a master of his trade.
‘You’ll keep your trail clean?’ Ryker asked.
‘Of course. As best I can. But then...’
‘Yeah. We found you. But it’s taken nine days of looking and the efforts of one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world.’
Ryker thought he saw the glimpse of a proud smile on Miguel’s young face but it was gone again.
After a few minutes, Miguel’s mother poked her head around the door and spoke to her son in Spanish. Ryker caught a few of the quickly spoken words. She was checking he was okay. He said he was, told her not to worry, asked her to bring some drinks.
Not long later, she brought in two cups of coffee. Ryker took them and thanked her. Miguel didn’t once take his eyes off his screens or his fingers off the keyboard.
After nearly half an hour, Miguel suddenly sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. Ryker moved over to him.
‘You found something?’
‘Something?’ Miguel said. ‘I’ve found lots. This is a real minefield. It depends how far you want me to go. I’ll show you.’ Ryker fixed his eyes on the left hand screen. It was showing scans of corporate records of Empire Holdings from the company registry in the Cayman Islands. ‘The actual company seems to be empty, no real operations.’
‘A shell.’
‘Yes. The names of the people behind it aren’t available in open records, but through accessing the system of the Registry, I managed to find the name of the sole shareholder.’
‘Who?’
‘Andrei Kozlov.’
Ryker shook his head. ‘You said the company is empty, but it does operate. I’ve seen correspondence here in Spain.’
‘I don’t know much about companies. There’s not much there, though, just a name, no tax returns in Spain, no official financial records, no website or anything like that. But the name does appear in Spain, yes, in planning documents with various ayuntamientos–’
‘Town halls? Councils?’
‘Yes. And in construction contracts, things like that.’
‘Any other people associated with Empire, other than Kozlov?’
‘Lots. Mostly look like Russian names. Dzaria. Papava. Kazaishvili.’
‘Addresses?’
‘This one,’ Miguel said, pointing to the second screen. ‘Seems to be the main one for Empire.’
It was Kozlov’s home in Marbella, a good link, but Ryker wanted more. He already knew Kozlov was involved in Empire, but Ryker needed to find who was at the top of the food chain. Kozlov certainly wasn’t the ringleader of the Georgian mafia.
‘Others?’ Ryker asked.
‘Not for Empire. But I cross-referenced those other people’s names in the databases of the Government of Andalusia and I found lots of different company names associated with them, lots of addresses too. But these two come up a lot.’
Ryker looked. One of the addresses was labelled as Cadiz, which Ryker knew was the name of both a city and the province in which the city was located. The other was in Algeciras, a major port city in the Cadiz province that was just a few miles from the northern tip of Africa. A well-known crossing point connecting all manners of trade – both legal and illegal – between Europe and Africa.
Ryker made a mental note of the addresses. They had to be worth checking out. ‘Good work, kid.’
‘That’s it?’ Miguel asked, spinning around in his chair.
‘For now, yeah. That’s it. I’ve got work to do.’
‘What will happen to me?’ In an instant, the enthusiasm Miguel had been showing moments earlier as he hacked his way through cyberspace vanished. Back was the fear, the awkwardness, and uncertainty. The reality of the situation.
Ryker couldn’t help but think that this child simply wasn’t cut out for the real world. Everything happy and comfortable in his life was inside a computer terminal. Online he must have felt invincible. In the real world, he was puny and geeky, and insignificant and lost.
Ryker thought about the question, but he didn’t answer it. It wasn't his place to answer. Even if it had been, he simply didn’t get a chance, because before he could open his mouth to speak a noise caught his attention. A loud knock on the apartment’s front door.
Ryker stared over at Miguel. The boy looked panicked. Ryker turned and moved over to the bedroom door. He inched it open, much like Miguel had done minutes before, and peeked out.
Across the other side of the hallway, Miguel’s mother was tentatively opening the front door. She’d moved it only a few inches when it burst into her face, knocking her backwards against the wall. Blood poured from her nose and she clutched at it with her hand.
Stood on the other side of the door were two men. One was big, almost as tall and wide as the doorframe he was standing in. Ryker recognised him as one of the men who’d followed him from the bullring in Ronda.
The other man was smaller, more unassuming, but with a sinister look in his beady eyes.
Sergei. The Vor.
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Ryker’s eyes darted across the two men as he pulled his Colt from his jeans. Neither man had a weapon in his hands, though both were wearing jackets so could be concealing. With Miguel’s mother already dazed, the giant stepped forward and threw a punch into her face. Her eyes went wide in shock, then she slowly crumpled to the ground. Ryker shot his head back into the bedroom.
The boy wasn’t there.
Ryker looked over to the window. The curtains were now pulled apart a few inches and flapped in the gentle breeze. Ryker darted over and looked out. He saw Miguel below, sprinting barefooted down the street. The boy glanced behind him, up at Ryker. The panic in his eyes was unmistakable even at distance. Ryker lifted the window further and stuck his head out to peer down.
Three floors below was a set of industrial waste bins, lids closed. No drain pipes or any other means to climb down. Miguel had jumped. Probably not a problem on fifteen-year-old knees when you weighed as little as a feather pillow. But the mere thought of Ryker’s two-hundred-pound frame smashing down on his joints made him wince.
Too late. With Ryker stuck in a moment of hesitation, the bedroom door crashed open. Ryker spun round, raised his gun, and fired a single shot as he ducked down into a defensive crouch. The Colt boomed, the sound echoing through the small apartment. The speeding bullet caught the giant under his chin. At such close proximity, there was little to stop the projectile’s momentum as it pushed through bone and brain. It burst out the top of the guy’s head leaving an orange-sized hole. His body collapsed, remnants of his skull and the inside of his head spread over the floor and wall behind him.
Ryker still had his gun held out, pointing toward the doorway. He’d expected an immediate onslaught from the Vor. The big guy was certainly armed – his lifeless hand was wrapped around the butt of a Glock handgun. Ryker could only assume Sergei was armed too.
So where was he?
Ryker remained still for a few seconds. He heard nothing. Then after a few beats, Miguel’s mother – out of sight – groaned. Ryker slunk to the door and pulled up against the adjacent wall. He stole a glance out into the hallway.
Miguel’s mother was stirring. Still sprawled on the floor, she was making slow, awkward movements. But there was no sign of Sergei.
Ryker didn’t hesitate another second. He turned and grabbed the Glock from the dead guy’s grip, then headed for the window. If he went out the door, he’d only be tracking down Sergei, and Ryker couldn’t be sure whether the Vor was hiding, waiting to pounce. In any case, taking out Sergei wasn’t the immediate aim. Saving a fifteen-year-old boy from the mob was.
Ryker clambered to the window and moved himself over the edge. He hung his body down, his legs reaching below, and cutting the distance to fall considerably. Then he let go.
As soon as his feet touched down on the lid of the bin below
, Ryker bent his knees and moved his heavy body into a roll. The move saved his joints from a jarring contact, but the momentum of the roll took him over the edge of the bin. Ryker dropped to the pavement and landed painfully on his left shoulder.
Despite the thudding impact, Ryker was up and on his feet within a second, running on adrenaline. He sprinted down the road, heading in the same direction Miguel had gone in. Ryker’s Colt was back in his waistband. He quickly checked over the Glock as he ran. The magazine was full.
Every few steps, Ryker glanced behind. There was no sign of Sergei or anyone else in that direction, and no sign of Miguel ahead.
Ryker came to a junction and looked in each direction. Still no sign of where Miguel had run to. Ryker thought about shouting out, was about to, then screeching tyres off to his left caught his attention. He turned and looked down the road.
Fifty yards ahead, where the road intersected another, a panel van came into view. Smoke flew up from the tyres as it came to a crunching halt. As the side door of the van opened, Ryker spotted Miguel. He’d been hiding on the other side of a parked car. When the van stopped, Miguel sprang out into the open, running back down the road toward Ryker.
Without thinking, Ryker sprinted toward the boy. He shouted for Miguel to move out of the way. To get down. But Miguel kept on running. Running for his life.
The side door of the van slid open. Sergei was there, an automatic rifle in his hand. Without hesitation, he lifted the weapon and fired.
Ryker raised the Glock and screamed out as the rifle blasted. A succession of bullets tore through Miguel’s torso and he plummeted. Momentum sent his skinny body skidding along the road to a stop.
As he ran to the fallen boy, Ryker opened fire with the Glock. The first bullet hit the tarmac. The second hit the side of the van. Sergei was turning his rifle on Ryker before a bullet clanked into the weapon’s barrel. The Vor reeled back and shouted as Ryker pulled on the trigger of the Glock again and again. The van sped forward, Sergei hanging out of the open door with an evil smile on his face.