Danger On the Run

by Wylder Stone

  Battling between heart and mind, he negotiated the reasons moving on was damaging as much as fruitful. Loving meant losing. That possibility was always going to be there, and he’d lost enough in his life and had plenty of people to worry about already. It was a gamble and not one he was sure he could make. Or could he?

  It was time to move forward, whatever that meant, and he had to do it honestly. He wasn’t his best self, and that brought him back to the case they were working. Maybe Watson had the upper hand more times than James liked to admit because he was too emotional. Distracted by it. It made him weaker in every way, even in his work.

  James leaned against the oversized pillows and headboard of his bed, toying with a choice. He chose to let go. To live. To get back on track, if he could find the way. Though painful to think about, he felt lighter, and that confused him. The pain was different from what he had been carrying around for so many years.

  Letting his wife go wasn’t something he could do entirely, not now and maybe not ever. Genevieve was right. Hannah would be disappointed in how he’d behaved and who he’d become. His grief was for himself, out of fear and guilt because he didn’t stop to relish the memories, only the pain. He’d been skating by in every way. And with this case he was on, he couldn’t afford to be less than his best.

  The more he considered Genevieve’s words and pondered the meanings behind them, the less he felt like a hostage of grief. No matter how much he wanted to solve the case he was on and bring Watson to justice, it wasn’t going to happen until he got out of his own way. Since losing his wife, there had been countless cases, but none were this close to home for him. It took a criminal threatening his personal world to actually wake up from the fog he’d been in. How had he missed all of that? How could he have been so numb – selfish – wasted so much time?

  If he had learned anything in the past few moments, it was that time was precious. It wasn’t about how much you had, but how you spent it – how you lived it. He was ready to live again. It wouldn’t be easy to break what were now old habits, but he owed it to everyone around him. He even owed it to Watson, Benson, and whoever else was coming for them.

  It wasn’t lost on him that he all but lost his shit on the rooftop, asking her for help, and Genevieve showed up not a minute later. Her words bit, and they stung, but they were what he needed to hear. And now he was ready to take on this case and bring it to justice. No more running. For any of them.

  15

  James stood leaning against the wall in the back of the living room, watching Ruby and Genevieve together. They were watching a home movie – a beach trip from so long ago. They giggled about how small Ruby was and her silly faces. Genevieve tossed popcorn in her mouth, missing on purpose and hitting Ruby with it just to earn another laugh.

  They were at such ease with each other. They loved each other. Genevieve noticed him standing there when she helped Ruby get the popcorn out of her hair. At first, she paused with surprise, then a soft smile. She had been a gift to them at a time when they needed something special. Watson wasn’t going to get to her. They needed her.

  James wandered to the couch, picked up the pillow next to Ruby, and took its place. She gasped with a startle, not expecting him, but eased into a similar soft smile like Vivi had. Ruby stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time, and if James were honest, she probably was. His presence was lighter, his wounds less gaping, and his heart mending.

  James patted Ruby’s knee when she leaned into him, and a soft sigh of what sounded like relief escaped her. With his arm resting over her shoulders, he pulled her in for a tight hug and held her. This was why he worked hard and what he fought for, and what he’d continue to fight for. Watson was just one of many to come, and James was more than ready to face them all. Justice for all, enemy be damned.

  James had carried Ruby to bed after she’d fallen asleep on his chest. Sure, he’d checked on her every night after she went to bed, but he hadn’t tucked her in, in ages. She was probably getting too old for that, but he’d figure those things out as they went.

  He stood at the balcony window off the living room, looking over the twinkling cityscape to the east while the sounds of crashing waves came from the west. Genevieve joined him there when she was done cleaning up their movie snacks. They stood there, side by side, for a measure of time – quiet, relaxed, renewed.

  “Are we good?” she asked, referring to the heated rooftop talk.

  He smiled for a moment, his gaze still on the city. “You’re not her mother.”

  Genevieve gasped subtly, stunned by his words, until she noticed the lightness about him. “I know I’m not her mom. She already has one of those.”

  Approving of her answer, he turned to face her, meeting her eyes with his. “I’m not trying to replace my wife.”

  “I’m not trying to replace your wife, either.” She nodded matter-of-factly.

  James opened his mouth to speak but hesitated and looked down for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “I don’t know if I could ever love again like the way I loved her.”

  “None of us could,” she replied.

  “But I meant it when I said I can’t lose you too, Vivi.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said with a shrug. “Is that what you needed to hear me say?”

  He nodded. “We’re going to catch him. Or them. Whoever is behind all of this. We’re getting them. I need your help to do it.”

  With a smile and tilt of her head, she stepped closer, narrowing the space between them. “Okay, then I guess we’re good.”

  It was a new beginning for James and for Genevieve. The life he was supposed to be living found him. She had waited for him to catch up. It wasn’t perfect, and he was far from mended, but it was a start. He was letting go of what had plagued him, and he was ready to do the real work.

  “Your office or mine?” She laughed. “Let’s go tear apart that souped-up LoJack.”

  16

  “Team two in position.” Derek’s muffled voice came over the shared comm system. “Breach on your ready, team one.”

  Jackson and Troy stood at the door of an old abandoned warehouse in the Mission District as team one acting on one of the many leads they had generated. In full tactical gear, they each turned away as a micro explosive, Jackson’s specialty, detonated, disengaging the old rusted lock that prevented their entry. Team one quickly deployed upon access, clearing the space until they met Derek and their cousin Connor, who had come in from different angles in a similar fashion.

  Owen and Cade took point on opposing rooftops, watching for moving targets – snipers. The tactical maneuvers of the Force’s reflected just how extensive their training was. It was also why they rarely missed the mark in any situation. They were paid well for what they did because they were recognized as the best.

  This wasn’t a paid job. They were protecting their own this time. In cases such as these, the stakes were always higher because it was personal.

  Unfortunately, it was the fifth empty threat that week. Watson wasn’t there – or Benson – or Tasha. They were no closer to capturing the menace terrorizing their family. They were also no closer to determining if Benson was indeed Watson. Sure, it made the most sense, but they were too smart to buy into the theory without concrete proof. For now, they were looking for two, maybe three threats.

  They were chasing sightings picked up by the facial recognition software James continued to upgrade with each passing day. Several sightings of Benson and Tasha had been picked up by his program all over the city, mostly around abandoned buildings and warehouses.

  This particular building was thought to be the one due to the increased use of utilities, based on city resources that James hacked. They were even picking up a strong radio frequency in the area, narrowed to that building. When James tried to tap into whatever was coming out of that building, he ran into a few roadblocks. He found a pattern of frequency hopping, which meant someone was trying to hide what they were doing
and their location.

  Who would go to such lengths but someone with something to hide? Whoever was in there didn’t want to be detected. Frequency hopping is used to avoid interference of any kind. They were also using multiple antennae to cover a large geographical area, bouncing around the entire Los Angeles area. Watson and possibly Benson and Tasha were wreaking nonstop havoc from there. Too large of a coincidence not to be them.

  James engaged aerial recon by way of satellite and drones, using infrared, and detected movement from multiple people within the building. It was likely that Watson, whoever he really was, had a full team of hackers housed in there, helping him do his dirty work.

  There were moving bodies inside, all right. Once they breached the building, they came across a group of squatters. They had just moved in, or were let in rather, accessing the space through the city’s underground tunnel system. A man who was no longer among them had led them there, promising they’d be left alone because nobody had been in that building for years. It was a part of the ruse. That man had to have been Watson.

  “Another false lead,” Jackson said. “This guy is fucking playing us.”

  “At least we know he’s using the tunnels to get around,” Derek said. “I’ll get a team down there and seal them off.”

  “This isn’t a false lead,” James said over the comm system from the Elite Building, where he was watching it all go down, supporting from a tech position. “It’s a clue. He may be manipulating my software with his own feeds so we see what he wants us to see. That means I have a break somewhere.”

  “And that’s a good thing?” Owen asked. “I see that as he’s just one-upped us.”

  “Not really. He hasn’t one-upped us because he’s gained nothing from this. He has shown us his hand, though,” James offered, the sound of his clicking keyboard easily heard in the background. “If he’s getting in somewhere, it’s a good thing. He isn’t getting far, or he’d hit us hard, and he hasn’t.”

  “So he’s just distracting us. Still…” Troy asked.

  “Yes. He wants us out there looking where we won’t find him so we aren’t in here to see him sneak in.” James was nearly giddy with the idea that Watson tried to get in and couldn’t. “I can follow him out of the system even if he isn’t in there anymore.”

  “You set one of those traps, didn’t you?” Jackson shook his head at his brother’s enthusiasm. Tech talk to him was like dirty words to others.

  “Bingo! It’s like a footprint or a…”

  “Fingerprint…” Jackson laughed.

  “You’ve been paying attention, brother. We may teach you to set the clock on your microwave yet,” James praised. “He won’t see me coming. Let’s make him uncomfortable and screw with his shit.”

  “You’ll be able to find him?” Owen asked.

  “Not necessarily. Best-case scenario, I find him. Worst case, I fuck with him enough to piss him off, and he makes a stupid move. In the meantime, you guys need to keep clearing whatever locations I find. The one you don’t check is the one he’ll be in,” James explained.

  “He hasn’t been hitting any of us. It’s been too quiet,” Derek pointed out. “But the city outages – power, cell towers, cable – it has to be him.”

  “What’s the endgame here? Why would he do that?” Troy was impatient and beginning to pace.”

  “He’s flexing his muscles, showing me what he can do. Why do assholes usually do that?”

  James chuckled. “He is trying to intimidate us. He wants me to think he’s a big deal, but it’s just a distraction. If he was a big deal, he’d be able to get into my system and let himself take what he wanted. He wants to wear us out.”

  “Let me guess…you’re better than he is.” Jackson rolled his eyes.

  “Of course, I am. I mean, if this guy wants to turn this into a pissing match, I’ll beat him there too.” James was on fire. The thrill of the chase and new excitement poured into this case gave him something he couldn’t get from any other part of his life. It was the thrill of it. Some liked jumping out of planes, and he liked cyber games. This was what he loved, what he was good at, and what he was made for.

  The guys laughed at James’s confidence, not because it was funny but because it was true. James was an animal, probably the brother who should be feared the most.

  Cade laughed. “Way to be humble, man.”

  “We’re at war, boys, and I’m the nuke. He wants us to think he’s untouchable and in control,” James said. “But for every grenade he tosses, I’ll toss three. I’ll build a wall around the city infrastructure if I have to. Battle after battle, I’ll win. This is my city, my family, my case.”

  “Booya!” James shouted in their ears. “I just delivered a payload and fucked up his day. Be ready for return fire, guys.”

  James had been in the conference room scouring intel, looking for leads and blocking anything he came across that could get in the way. Every opportunity he had, he tossed another cyber grenade at his opponent. He was determined to flush him out and win, even if the current attacks were on the city and nobody at the Elite Building.

  It had already been a long day, and it was only early afternoon. James pulled away from his computer, ready for a break while he let all of his fancy programming magic work for a while. The software was adapting and learning from that which came its way and regenerated itself, becoming stronger to combat all that it detected – it was almost human. Like artificial intelligence at its finest. Frightening to some, fascinating to James.

  Ruby was having a birthday party at the Elite Building the next day, and he had promised Genevieve he would help her prepare. Watson had already interrupted their lives enough, and they were all finally getting to a good place. James wasn’t letting his daughter’s birthday pass without a celebration. The Elite Building was the safest building in town, and their rooftop provided the perfect location.

  Watson was still laying low. It had been quiet. He was likely trying to recover from all of James’s direct cyber hits. James imagined that Watson was spending all of his time protecting his location because every hit from James brought them that much closer to finding him.

  James was finally finding himself, deciding who he was supposed to be as a father, a brother, a friend... This jackass didn’t get to take any more than he already had from any of them, especially his daughter.

  As James was about to walk out the door, Genevieve entered, running right into him. In one quick motion, James had her pinned against the wall, trapping her between his arms, holding her there. He laid his body against hers and kissed her hard, leaving her breathless.

  “I was just thinking of you,” he said.

  In a breathy tone, she asked, “Good thoughts or dirty thoughts?”

  “Both,” he admitted with a waggling brow.

  With a quick kiss, she turned to leave but not before they gained an audience of Force men clearing their throats.

  “I’ll grab Ruby off the bus and get her packed for tonight. She’s sleeping over at Owen and Trista’s with Mason. Cousin time,” she said over her shoulder before disappearing down the long hall to the elevator.

  “So you two are a thing now?” Owen asked.

  “It’s always been a thing,” Jackson answered for his brother. “Resident genius was just too stupid to see it.”

  “I wasn’t…stupid,” James defended. “I just didn’t know how.”

  “Aw, I could’ve shown you how, buddy,” Derek taunted, patting James on the shoulder. “I didn’t realize a guy could forget how to use his—”

  “Not that,” James cut him off, not finding his poke of fun the least bit funny. “I didn’t know how to move on. Okay? I didn’t know.”

  Troy walked over to James and wrapped his arms around his brother. Troy, the biggest and most sensitive Force of all, completely engulfed him, his sentiment sincere. “Welcome back, brother. We’ve missed you.”

  “Can we not do this?” James squirmed from his oversized brother’s embrac
e. “It’s fucking strange.”

  “Says the guy who forgot how to use his—” Derek was cut off by an alarm sounding.

  The screens on the wall automatically populated with various information as James’s system went to work, identifying the threat that triggered the alarm.

  “Shit,” James said, tapping away at his keyboard, trying to gather the information lagging. “Security breach.”

  “Building or tech?” Owen fired back, the brothers already grabbing weapons from the cage.

  “Motherf…” James said. “Both.”

  Suddenly, the alarms stopped, and James pulled his hands away from his keyboard. “I didn’t do that.”

  “Lobby,” Derek called out as the dormant screen finally came to life. “What the hell? How’d he get in?”

  The security footage revealed a man standing in the middle of the Elite Building’s lobby, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and holding a knife.

  “Vivi! Get Vivi off the elevator!” James shouted. “I’m trying to stop it here, but there’s a lag.”

  Troy ran down the long hall and hit the emergency button on the elevator, but it kept running. The emergency button failed.

  “It’s not stopping,” he yelled back to the conference room.

  “Almost got it,” James said, his fingers flying over the keys, determined to win this round.

  All at once, the power in the building went offline, and the security lights from a backup generator kicked on. They watched security gates come down around the doors and windows in the lobby so no one could get in or out.

  “Elevator’s dead. She’s stuck on the third floor,” Troy said, re-entering the room.

  “Is this him or you?” Jackson asked, waving his hands around to indicate the lack of power in the building.

  “Me. I just locked down the Elite Building. The whole city block is down,” James said. “Protocol – better safe than sorry.”