“Janine?” Penn lowered his weapon slightly as Graf tentatively rose. “Holy shit! What are you doing here?”
Kane kept his weapon trained on the man. “Drop your gun, and she’ll be happy to tell you.”
Somebody groaned to the left, one of their targets rolling to his knees.
Three weapons put two rounds each into the man, the standoff resuming.
“Drop it now. There are two of us, and only one of you.”
Penn raised his hands. “Okay, okay.” He slowly crouched, placing the weapon on the porch.
“Kick it onto your lawn.”
Penn gave it a boot, the weapon scraping along the concrete of the porch then thudding onto the grass. Kane surged forward as sirens in the distance grew, the locals on their way. Graf joined him, and moments later, she had her former partner in cuffs, much to his annoyance.
“What the hell is going on? Why am I under arrest?”
“You know damned well, why. You stole the data!”
Penn shook his head vehemently. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. The data had already been wiped.”
He’s going to stick to his story, and there’s no time for a proper interrogation.
Kane left the porch, pulling out his phone, quickly snapping photos of the eight dead answers lying on the street and Penn’s front lawn. He sent them to Leroux as he headed for his SUV.
“Where are you going?”
He glanced over his shoulder at Graf. “It’s best if I’m not here when the locals arrive.”
As if on cue, the first squad car tore around the corner, rapidly approaching before brakes were applied. Kane hopped into his vehicle, starting it up and gently pulling away from the curb, executing a U-turn before accelerating slowly away. There was no hope of the police unit following him—there were too many bodies in the road, but it didn’t matter. They were already distracted by Graf approaching them, her hands in the air, one holding her ID.
He turned the corner and accelerated quickly to the speed limit before executing several more turns, in case a description of his vehicle had been put out over the radio. He spotted a Home Depot, and pulled into the parking lot, wedging between two pickup trucks.
He dialed Leroux, his friend answering immediately.
“Control Actual here.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“We’re running them now. You’ll be happy to know they weren’t the NSA team. They’re still en route.”
Kane smiled at Leroux’s tone. “That’s a stroke of luck.”
“Uh-huh. You got lucky. We watched most of it on the neighbor’s security camera. If Penn hadn’t come out when he had, you’d be dead. Kind of makes you wonder whose side he’s on, doesn’t it?”
Kane grunted. “Never mistake self-preservation for loyalty.”
A whistle erupted through the phone. “Now that’s interesting.”
Kane pressed it tighter against his ear. “What?”
“You’ll never guess who one of your guys is.”
“Who?”
“The son of the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations.”
29
Clayton Hummel Residence
Annapolis, Maryland
Clayton Hummel scrolled through his ridiculously long list of movies on his Apple TV. Whoever had designed the interface should have been flogged with a rubber hose years ago, the piss poor categorizations, search functionality, and complete lack of customizable organization capabilities suggesting it had only ever been tested with catalogs of a few dozen movies.
He had over one thousand, and it made finding anything ridiculously time-consuming.
But at least there were only seven buttons on the remote, four of which were arrow keys.
Elegant, and useless.
“I’d suggest The Ghost and the Darkness. Great movie.”
Hummel spun in his chair to see four men, all in black, standing behind him.
Heavily armed.
His bladder loosened and he kegeled down, saving the day. “Who-who are you?” he cried as he struggled out of his chair. The men spread out casually, Hummel noticing all exits from the room now blocked.
One of the men, his face covered by a ski mask, nodded toward the screen. “I agree with my partner. The Ghost and the Darkness would make a great choice. Val Kilmer in his prime before he chunked out, Michael Douglas before he wrinkled out. Lots of action, great acting. My favorite was lion number two.”
A large man to the right grunted. “I always thought number one was more committed to the role.”
Hummel stared, dumbfounded at the conversation. “Who are you people?”
The man apparently in charge held up a hand, silencing the others. “Concerned citizens. Any minute now, dozens of reporters are going to be descending on this place, and if you’re really unlucky, which I have a feeling you are, at least one vigilante will come here to collect some justice on behalf of a grieving billionaire.”
Hummel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not government?”
“As I said, we’re concerned citizens.”
Hummel’s chest tightened and his heart raced as his mouth went dry. “If you’re not government, then get the hell out of here before I call the police.”
The leader tapped his machine gun. “I think we’ll leave them out of this for now.” He took another step closer. “Cooperate, and nobody needs to be inconvenienced at all. You won’t even have lost any time, since we saved you so much by recommending a movie for you to watch.”
Hummel still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was so odd, it was almost comical.
If it weren’t for the guns and body armor.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know who you sold the data to.”
Hummel sighed, shaking his head. “This again? Like I told the other guy, it wasn’t me. I never sold the data. The NSA lied when they said the memory stick was wiped.”
“That’s quite the accusation. Do you have any proof to back it up?”
Hummel gave a toothy grin, his eyes widening slightly. “Umm, my word?”
Chuckles erupted from the men gathered, and Hummel relaxed slightly.
“Forgive me if that’s not enough.”
“Listen, like I told that Agent Kane or Crane or something, I think it was the NSA agent who came here to retrieve the data while I was at the restaurant. I think he stole—”
He was cut off by a raised hand.
“Who did you say was here?”
“Some Homeland Security guy, but I don’t think he was actually Homeland. Maybe he was like you, you know, private contractor or something. I don’t really remember his name. I was too busy trying not to shit my pants.” He clenched.
Like now!
“And you think it was the NSA agent who stole the data?”
“Yes. It had to be, right? My lawyers said that he was watching my house, waiting for me to leave for the restaurant to meet his partner. As soon as I was clear, he entered the house, and was there until I was arrested. That means nobody had time to copy it and wipe it. So, it was either blank when I left, or he wiped it, and I know it wasn’t blank.”
“So you say.”
“Why the hell would I stick to a story that makes me a traitor in some people’s eyes? I could just—”
The man held up his hand. “Forget it, I’ve read your file.”
“All of it?”
“All but the sealed portion.” The man stepped forward. “Care to share?”
“I-I’m not allowed.”
The machine gun was tapped once again. “I think they’ll forgive you.”
Hummel sighed as a stream of urine ran down his leg, his battle lost. His eyes burned and he closed them as his shoulders and chin sank with shame. “They forced me to resign, then paid me a lump-sum pension to keep silent about the breach.”
He heard footsteps then the back door. He looked up, opening his eyes, finding himself alone in a puddle of his own
urine and shame.
30
Temple Technologies Corporate Head Office
Mountain View, California
Franklin Temple attacked his stair climber, his body glistening, his tank top dripping. If every square inch of his workout wear wasn’t a different shade by the time he finished, he hadn’t worked hard enough.
But tonight he wasn’t challenging himself physically, he was beating down his inner demons.
He had crossed the line.
And it was stupid.
Though he didn’t really feel any regret for calling on people to murder hackers around the world, he did feel bad that he had put those who worked for him in an uncomfortable position. Outside the building, there was already a cordon of police and private security holding back the reporters and a growing group of protesters, mostly millennials and professional agitators, organized on social media to picket any building around the world associated with his company.
And that would be dozens. Hundreds if the subcontractors were included.
He found it almost comical how the mainstream media characterized these as spontaneous protests, where people were so incensed by something that they simply showed up, and lo and behold, there just happened to be dozens if not hundreds of others equally incensed.
It was bullshit.
These protests were usually organized by professional agitation groups, funded by the Soros of the world, who had agendas to suit their needs. Why was the great wizard against Keystone? It wasn’t because of the environment, it was because he had bought into the railways currently used to move the oil. Where did the money come from to fly the same people around the world for G7 and G20 protests, to bus them in from around the country, to make sure they had places to stay?
That took logistics, and logistics took money.
Something millennials supposedly didn’t have.
There was no way you were against globalization and in favor of the Occupy movement, if you could afford to fly to the protest.
Yet somehow they did.
And he knew how, and the MSM did as well, but it wouldn’t make for good TV to expose the truth.
In a preemptive move, he had sent all his non-essential employees home, with instructions to monitor their email to see if they should come in tomorrow. Tomorrow was a Friday, so he was already leaning toward just giving them all a paid long weekend. By Monday, things would have calmed down, and at the rate things were moving, he might already have the justice he wanted.
For the outrage of the public was building.
And it was in his favor.
Millions had been impacted directly and indirectly by the ransomware attack, and millions more had been hit with viruses and malware over the years, with no recourse. He had become a rallying point for the common man, pissed at having to put up with increasing attacks, increasing levels of inconvenient security, of inboxes overflowing with spam.
The common man was behind him, despite the fact he was a rich one percenter.
He was speaking their language.
“Kill them all!” had become the rallying cry on the news broadcasts with the courage to cover what the common people were thinking, and his company’s social media accounts were flooded with messages of support, funding campaigns already raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, pledged to pay rewards to those who brought hackers to justice.
He fully expected those to be shut down shortly, but it was encouraging.
He had allowed Tanya Davis to deal with the fallout, the lawyers already issuing a press release that these were the words of a grieving father, overwhelmed by the loss of his daughter, and not the words of the CEO of Temple Technologies, nor should anyone actually act on the words.
His only condition on the backpedaling, was that there be no apology. For he wasn’t sorry he had called for the deaths of those who held the world hostage through viruses and malware, through cyberattacks and ransomware. They deserved to die. Every last one of them.
Davis entered his private gym, hidden behind another discrete panel from his main office. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but Simmons is on the line.”
Temple killed the machine and stepped down, grabbing a towel. “Put it on speaker.”
Davis complied as he toweled off. “You’re on with Mr. Temple.”
“Sir, I have an update. We’ve just interviewed Mr. Hummel. I’m confident he didn’t sell the data.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I tapped my weapon and he pissed himself. This is not a brave man, sir.”
“I guess not.” Temple exchanged a glance with Davis. If Simmons had done the same to him, he wasn’t so sure his reaction wouldn’t have been unlike Hummel’s.
“Mr. Hummel did have an interesting theory, however, as to where to look next.”
Temple’s eyebrows rose as he sat on a nearby bench, Davis handing him a bottle of ice-cold water from the mini-fridge. “What?”
“He believes that the NSA agent who came to his house stole the data then wiped the memory stick. I believe the news reports have him as one Donald Penn.”
Davis nodded. “Yes, that’s the name. You think he’s right?”
“He certainly believes it, and it makes sense. If he did indeed steal the data—which if he didn’t, why would he stick to the story—then someone had to have, and Penn is the only one who had the opportunity.”
“Pick him up.”
“We’re already on the way, sir. ETA twenty minutes.”
“Good work. Keep me posted.”
Davis ended the call and Temple drained the bottle, tossing it into a recycling bin twenty feet away.
“Nothing but net, sir.”
He grunted. “I’m not just a pretty face.” He stood, grabbing a Gatorade from the fridge, holding it up for his assistant. She shook her head and he cracked the seal, taking a swig for himself. He slowly paced the room, cooling down from his workout, his mind racing.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
He glanced at Davis. “Sure you want to know? If you have to testify in court, you might have to perjure yourself.”
She smiled. “Sir, all the orders have been issued in my name, all the invoices paid with my signature. You’re completely insulated from this, as long as you don’t give any more press conferences.”
He stopped, turning toward her. “Why did you do that?”
She turned away slightly. “I’d do anything for you, sir.”
He smiled slightly. He knew it was nothing romantic, no infatuation, nothing tawdry.
It was loyalty.
Pure, unadulterated loyalty.
And that kind of loyalty was extremely hard to find today, especially in the civilian world. He walked toward her and stopped in front of her. “I’d give you a hug, but you’d have to change your clothes.”
She looked up at him, her eyes slightly red, and smiled. “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”
“So what do we do now? Has our team made any progress?”
She nodded as he headed toward the shower. “Yes, actually, they have. They’ve identified the group that tried to sell the ToolKit a few months ago.”
Temple stepped behind a screen, stripping to his birthday suit. “I thought we already knew that.”
“We knew what they called themselves, but not who they actually were.”
Temple’s eyebrows rose, and he poked his head out from behind the screen. “You know who they are? Like actual names, not Cyberbob?”
“Oh, we only know handles at the moment, but we now know where they’re located.”
“How?”
“Our guys are good. I didn’t bother asking.”
Temple stepped into the shower, turning on the water. “Where are they?”
“The Ukraine.”
“Not much of a surprise there. Get the location to Simmons. I want his team over there ASAP.”
“And if he finds them?”
“Tell him to follow his own rules.”
If
they’re not kids, or American, then kill them.
31
Operations Center 2, CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
Chris Leroux stared at his display, reading the dispatches pouring in after Temple’s call to action against hackers. He could understand the man’s pain, despite not having children of his own. He just had to imagine how his own parents would react if something happened to him, and nothing was being done about it.
But that was the problem. Something was being done about it, though perhaps not what Temple wanted. Temple wanted his interpretation of justice, and that wasn’t necessarily the right thing. Everyone had teams of specialists that hacked their enemies. It was the new way to fight a war. And like the Cold War, where people died, it was the measured response that was key. If America or the Soviet Union had overreacted every time one of their agents was killed, the planet would be a smoking mess right now.
And the same was true with cyberwarfare.
If bombs and rockets were the response to hack attacks, the world would be in far worse shape than it currently was.
But that wasn’t what had happened here, at least that’s what was generally believed in the cyber community.
This was not a rogue state launching an attack.
This was black hat hackers.
Criminals, pure and simple.
And for those people, he sort of agreed with Temple. Killing them wouldn’t start a war, though it might just curb the enthusiasm of others not yet on a grieving father’s radar.
Though it would appear he was on theirs. Reports were now coming in that all of Temple’s web assets were under attack, more and more of those he had called for the death of, piling onto various types of assaults, mostly Denial of Service attacks where they overwhelmed the company’s servers.
But what was interesting was the response.
None.
At least none that was evident. Normally a company would take action to thwart the attack, yet it appeared nothing was being done at all. Instead, Temple websites were down around the globe, the company doing nothing about the attack. The press was reporting that the night shift staff had been sent home early, and it left Leroux to wonder if that might be the reason nothing was going on.
Retribution - A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller Book #7 Page 10