Encrypted: An Action-Packed Techno-Thriller

by Carolyn McCray

  Well, the world would end. No, it was worse than that. The world would descend into the medieval hellish vision of the Hidden Hand. It was never good when you seriously considered that the dead could turn out to be the lucky ones.

  So intent on her next course of action, Ronnie didn’t hear the shift in the fighting.

  “Pendre!” Francois called out.

  Ronnie turned to find Lino leaping toward her. The rain and wind blew his linen jacket open. And she would have considered his graceful movements beautiful if he had not been leaping at her.

  Ronnie tried to get out of the way, but slipped on the wet rock. It all felt like slow motion. Lino’s look of pure hatred. Her frozen muscles. Even if she green-lit her plan right this second, it couldn’t save her—or the world.

  Then Francois was there, tackling the younger man. The two men hit the stone right in front of her. Ronnie scampered out of the way as Lino sprang up with Francois, rising more slowly.

  “Run!” Ronnie yelled. Francois’ part was over. Now it was up to her.

  Either the older man did not hear, or chose to ignore her. He lunged at Lino, who easily avoided the strike, then brought his arm down, breaking the spear in half. Catching the blade in, Lino lashed out.

  “No!” Ronnie yelled as the blade drove deep into Francois’ stomach.

  The old man clutched at the spear, almost seeming to want to keep it in his abdomen, but Lino jerked the blade out. The older man teetered, and then fell, landing facedown. The rocks around Francois pooled with bright red blood.

  Lino did not even try to hide the savage pleasure he took from killing an old man. He stood in the downpour, spear tip pointed toward her.

  “How does it feel to know that you are defeated?” Lino asked.

  Ronnie tore her eyes away from Francois. She could do nothing for him but finish their shared goal. Get the vaccine. Save the world.

  “Defeated?” Ronnie asked, typing again. “Um, awkward. We are on the cusp of victory.”

  Lino stepped toward her as she stepped away. “You will never get to the vaccine repository.”

  “Me? No. Zach? No,” Ronnie said as she hit her earpiece. “Quirk?”

  “Yes?” a rather annoyed voice said into her ear.

  She’d never been so glad to hear her prickly assistant before.

  * * *

  Quirk shoved on the metal case, trying to get it through the hole he’d cut in the limestone. The damn thing was an inch wider than the stupid opening.

  “Um, did you actually want something, Ronnie? Because I am a little busy here.”

  Leave it Ronnie to want to chat just when he was about to get the hell out of Dodge with the vaccines and antiserum. He looked back at the rows upon rows of refrigeration units that lay in the subterranean chamber. The Hidden Hand was ready to inoculate a whole bunch of new followers—that was for sure.

  He was supposed to grab as many cases as he could, but the one thing they couldn’t predict was how large the special carrying cases would be. They had assumed standard briefcase size. Instead, the Hidden Hand had, as always, gone jumbo. How the hell was he going to get the vials out?

  Quirk peered through the opening he’d blasted. Not bad, although he probably shouldn’t give up his day job. And he didn’t have time to set more charges.

  Stepping to the side, his wet suit squeaked as he tried once again to get the entire case through. It was futile, though. Sighing, and glad that Ronnie could hear his distress, Quirk opened the case and removed the smaller plastic cases.

  “I expected a slightly warmer response to the fact that I was, in fact, still alive.”

  * * *

  Ronnie was ecstatic Quirk wasn’t just alive but as whiny as ever. The only problem with showing her assistant her full relief was the minor detail that Lino stalked her. She needed to keep him distracted for just a few moments longer.

  Lino tossed the spearhead from hand to hand. “You think with your degrees and your science to be above God’s will.”

  She kept pace with Lino, moving in a clockwise fashion. A slow dance that would have been sure to end in her rather quick death, if, you know, she wasn’t her. Ronnie just needed to keep that blade away from her neck for a bit longer.

  Data flowed down her glasses on the left and angelic script flowed down the right. Somehow science and the divine were going to have to get along for at least a few seconds.

  “You realize your problem with this whole medieval part two thing, right?” she baited him. Hopefully, she was keeping him more interested in her words than in her jugular. “Each castle, like each firewall, has its back door. Its fatal flaw.”

  Lino’s smile only grew. “And you think you’ve found mine?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ronnie smiled right back. “We are walking off with your vaccine as we speak.”

  His eyes flickered across her features as a frown settled. “Never.”

  “The cavern?” Ronnie prompted. “The airtight, surrounded by rock, theoretically impenetrable, cavern?”

  Lino gripped the spear shaft, his boastful twirling meeting its end. Rain beat down upon both of them. The wind threatened to blow them both off the side, yet each stood rooted in place.

  “How,” he hissed.

  Ronnie shrugged, even though she impressed herself with the plan. “The sea caves.” She looked out over the castle’s wall to the raging sea beyond. The base of that sheer cliff was pocked with small alcoves created by millennia of battering waves. “It was only a matter of some properly positioned C4 to break through into the vault.”

  “All this was a ruse, then?” Lino asked, picking up the pace again. “You pretended to assault the upper layers of the castle to throw us off the scent of your man down below?”

  Not wanting to look like she was gloating, she only nodded rather than rub his nose in it.

  “So clever,” Lino stated. “Yet ever so predictable.”

  It was Ronnie’s turn to study Lino’s features. What in the hell did he mean?

  “Uh-oh,” Quirk said into her ear.

  “Uh-oh, what-o?” Ronnie asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  * * *

  Quirk gulped as three gunmen entered the room. This was not part of Ronnie’s plan. The men were dressed up all snazzy in their medieval attire. Kind of like being assaulted by people in a very mean Renaissance Fair… in a mad scientist’s lair. Clearly, they had orders not to attack so close to the precious vaccine vaults, but how long would that last?

  “I guess we must have triggered some kind of alarm,” Quirk said into his mic.

  Ronnie didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. He knew her too well.

  Either she pulled something out of the hat, like right now, or they were all dead.

  At the least I got to meet the pilot, Quirk thought.

  With a sigh, he waited for Ronnie’s response. That woman had better live up to all the Robin Hood hacker hype. Otherwise, he was seriously going to haunt her in the next life and beyond. Way beyond.

  * * *

  Zach held the man in a chokehold, waiting until he fell unconscious. Taking advantage of the chaos in the courtyard, Zach backed another step into the stoop. Even with the disarray as the men roused from their Tasing, looking about as sure of themselves as Zach, it wouldn’t take them long to spot the guy in the fatigues. Spot him, and then kill him.

  Hence, the guy in a chokehold. Finally the man slumped, unconscious. Rapidly Zach stripped the man of his medieval-style uniform and donned it himself. Although from the plain tan color to lack of insignia, Zach had nabbed himself a page or squire. Not great.

  How was he going to break into the security room as a lowly page?

  Lowly or not, he needed to head across the courtyard and make his way into the upper turret. Zach wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to do in the security room. That part of the plan was still a little vague. Actually, a lot was vague. The only thing that stood out in sharp relief in Zach’s mind was the look of relief on
Ronnie’s face. That was going to just have to get him through everything else.

  Stepping out from the stoop, Zach was met with a lot more activity than a few seconds ago. Men were regrouping into their squads or whatever knights called themselves. He’d better hightail it.

  “You!” a shout called from behind.

  Zach was loath to see who called him, but with dozens of armed men between him and the tower, he couldn’t exactly make a run for it. Turning on the heel of his leather boot, Zach faced the man who had flagged him down. This one was dressed in full silver armor with a bright red cape flowing behind him. Okay, so that’s what a knight was supposed to look like.

  The guy didn’t even give Zach the once-over. He handed him a thick parchment with a wax seal. Zach recognized the symbol as one of the angelic script. “Take this immediately to the war room.”

  Zach accepted the scroll.

  “Make haste!” the knight barked.

  “Yes, sir,” Zach said, and then thought better of it. “My lord. I mean, my liege.”

  The guy must have thought Zach’s awkwardness was still from the Tasing, for the knight grabbed him by both shoulders and gave them an urgent squeeze. “Godspeed to you.”

  As Zach set off, unnoticed by the growing throng of guards, he realized that maybe being a page wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

  * * *

  Lino slowed his pace, savoring the startled-doe look in the whore’s eyes. Her soaked garments hung from her frame like ratty doll’s clothing. Truly, she seemed just another cog in the wheel now. No arrogance or bravado.

  He took a step closer, but she did not take one back. The distance they’d kept was melting beneath the downpour. Lino stepped forward again. Now he could see the details of her anguish. The lines that crept out from under the lenses, the deep furrow of her brow.

  The spearhead felt good in his hand. The blade was stained with Brother Loubom’s blood. Soon, another’s blood would anoint the sharp edge. This average, broken spear would find a place in the Hidden Hand’s new shrine. A legacy to Lino’s contribution to a world ruled by God’s mighty fist.

  Was that a twitch of her lip? He glanced down to her hands. Those fingers, even though down at her side in apparent defeat, still flexed.

  What was the heretic up to? Or did it matter? He would finish her before she could cast her digital magic.

  “You will feel the heavens’ wrath,” Lino sneered as he took another step.

  “Actually?” Ronnie said, not sounding cowed at all. “You’d best be the one to maybe watch your back.”

  Lino followed her gaze up the black tumbling clouds over them. From the bruised sky, a beam shot through, hitting the castle’s edge, and then sweeping toward them. He retreated from the laser that cut the stone like butter.

  “Guess Reagan got some things right.”

  * * *

  Ronnie watched the blank expression on Lino’s face. Guess the Hidden Hand wasn’t big on U.S. history. Lino truly looked at her as though she’d actually performed magic.

  But she couldn’t pay too much attention to the guy, since keeping that “Star Wars” laser turned on and on-track took some doing. No wonder they couldn’t get the damned thing to work. It was like trying to herd a thousand feral cats, all burning at a thousand degrees Celsius.

  Sending an X-ray laser generated from a satellite had been a brilliant, bold, and completely unrealistic endeavor in the seventies. Now, though? With her lines upon lines of containment code and algorithms upon algorithms to compensate for the variation in energy output? That strategic defense system was cranking out some serious joules.

  And wasn’t it fitting to use the laser-defense system against the world’s greatest threat, the Hidden Hand?

  * * *

  Quirk clutched the vials to his chest as the chamber began to shake. Great. Now an earthquake. His luck just couldn’t get much worse, could it?

  But wait. They were in Maine, of all places—not Los Angeles.

  His guards looked at one another, and then at the huge glass cases that flanked them. Yeah, Quirk wouldn’t want to be them if they came tumbling down. Then the ceiling began to smoke as dust flew off the rock from a single pinpoint above the guards’ heads.

  Then the limestone turned a bright yellow, then orange, before a stark red beam punched through the ceiling. Once through the stone, it burned through the refrigeration units, vaporizing huge swaths of vaccine. Men scattered for cover as glass cracked and shattered.

  If that wasn’t an X-ray laser, Quirk had never seen one. Well, of course he had never actually seen one, since they weren’t supposed to exist, but damn if it wasn’t an X-ray laser.

  If this wasn’t a true miracle, what was? The Reagan Strategic Defense System worked. Quirk actually owed Ronnie an apology.

  Then the laser arced to the back wall, cutting a perfect passage to the sea. The roar of the ocean filled the chamber as an unnatural lightning swept across the sky, angling back to the castle. Unfortunately, the guards noticed the escape route and raised their weapons. Hopping over to the exit, Quirk put his flippers back on. Someone really needed to put Velcro on those things.

  Shots rang out as Quirk dove out of the hole. Sea spray filled his nostrils right before he hit the water. Bullets streaked all around him as he swam deeper and deeper, like a mermaid. They were all just very lucky that Quirk had a swimmer’s body.

  * * *

  The laser swung back around, slicing through the stone, cutting a swatch between Ronnie and Lino. The man stumbled back as the crevice opened, loose rock crumbling underfoot.

  The haughtiness returned to Lino’s eyes. He clutched the spearhead in his hand, backing away several steps. Ronnie knew that he was not retreating. He was regrouping for a jump. Ronnie had no weapon. She couldn’t swing the laser back around so quickly if she tried. And it had a far greater task at hand—making sure that no one followed Quirk and the vaccine.

  Ronnie looked down at Francois, blinking away tears mixed with raindrops. He had been so brave at the end. Would she be that brave when that knife was buried in her belly?

  Ready or not, she was about to find out.

  Lino crouched, preparing to make his dash, when a deafening crack resounded. The corner of the castle tilted as if it were nothing more than a foam toy. The section that Lino stood upon wavered, swaying back and forth. Lino delayed long enough that the laser made its way back in his direction.

  No matter. The man gritted his teeth, snarling at Ronnie. But the gap became wider and wider. The laser got closer and closer. Lino’s muscles bunched as he sprinted toward her.

  Perhaps he thought that he could beat the laser. But Lino didn’t realize that the colored core of the laser was only one quarter the diameter of the actual energy beam. The rest was invisible to the naked eye. Hence, the “X-ray” part of the laser’s name.

  Mid-leap, Lino was caught in the intense energy field of the beam, screaming as the skin was burnt from the entire right side of his body. As the corner of the building fell away, Lino tumbled with it.

  Ronnie stood in the rain, trembling at the sudden silence.

  CHAPTER 33

  Plum Island, New York

  4:07 p.m., EST

  Amanda ran straight into a tray as she crashed into the infirmary. She had to choke back the smell. There were at least three dead and bloating corpses. No one to help her, and no help she could offer them.

  She checked both cell phones again. Not only did they not have any bars, they didn’t even have service. Amanda picked up the nearest landline. It, too, was dead. Henderson must have sabotaged all the communication channels.

  Maybe she should have just stayed in the conference room and taken a bullet along with Devlin. Perhaps she would have been there when Jennifer was put out of her misery. Amanda squeezed her eyes shut against the guilt. She had fled for one singular purpose. Someone had to survive to explain the truth. Amanda couldn’t let Henderson get away with it. Not if she could help it.


  To think—the entire time he had been watching her like a snake might a mouse. Slithering in the background—waiting until the right moment to strike. Amanda pushed aside the thought and dug through the medicine cabinet. The thing was in disarray. How many Code Blues had the medical staff gone through until they realized it was a moot point?

  Which didn’t leave many supplies. Amanda checked one label, and then tossed the vial aside. She checked another, and another, until she found the one she was looking for. Stilling her trembling hands, she drew up the full vial into a syringe.

  “I thought you’d come here,” Henderson said as he walked through the swinging door of the infirmary. “Always the victim, aren’t you, Amanda? Always taking on the weight of the world.”

  Yep. That was she. Except that she was done with the whole victim thing. Or at least, that’s what she hoped.

  “They got the vaccine,” Amanda said, taking a step closer. “You know that, right?”

  Henderson glared at her. “I cut off the cell phone tower.”

  “Before that,” Amanda tried to sound confident as she took another step forward. “They texted me that they are on their way.”

  She held out Jennifer’s phone with the old texts on it, hoping that Henderson’s eyesight matched his age.

  “You are lying.”

  “Why would I?” Amanda said as she inched closer. “I just want to die seeing the look on your face that you lost.”

  Henderson snatched for the phone, which she gladly gave him. It kept him distracted while she jammed the hypodermic needle into his gun arm. The phone clattered to the floor as Henderson tried to bring the gun up, but his arm wouldn’t obey. As a matter of fact, his hand contracted down.