David frowned. “I’ve never heard of a program that does that.”
“Got to admire the genius behind it, eh? The encryption was made for this stream, and its black secure. I can’t go at it much more. The firewall is like fabric weaving tighter. Eventually it won’t allow me to bump its wall.”
“Jeez, I need to take lessons from this guy.”
“Do we know who created it?”
“Not yet, but it was sent from NRI to Asia.”
Nolan’s featured pulled tight. “Then we’re running out of time.”
David frowned.
“It doesn’t matter were it landed right now, but who has the codes to open it,” Nolan said. “Someone went through a lot of trouble to hide this—in every direction. From the Sat Send to all this coding. It makes it that much harder to retrieve the transmission. I wouldn’t want to advise you on your job . . .” David looked eager for the advice. “But in your trace, look for a server that’s on, but inactive. If they’re hiding it with encryption, you can bet the final resting place of this thing isn’t in friendly hands,” Nolan said. “And they have access to it.”
“Yeah, and we don’t.”
Singapore
Safia groped for the ringing phone and rolled on her side, then switched on the light. She checked the number, frowning, then answered. “Beckham, do you have any idea what time it is here?” Thirteen hours difference, she thought.
“You weren’t asleep.”
“But I was very busy.” As she spoke, Riley nibbled a path over her bare hip, then up the curve of her spine. She shivered and tried to listen to Beckham when she wanted the entire OP to just go away for a little longer.
“This line is not secure,” he warned.
“Then why are you calling me on it?” How did he get this number anyway? Then she realized Ellie gave it up.
“We need to know what you do,” he said cryptically. “Nang Qi Road is significant.”
“I’ll say.” She glanced at Riley and knew he’d heard. That was the station address and she felt a familiar rush chase up her spine. They knew what caused that destruction and if the Joint Chiefs were calling, it meant military grade explosives.
“Call back on secure lines through my Base.”
Beckham confirmed the time, but before he hung up he asked, “Why didn’t anyone alert HQ that you were unharmed?”
She frowned, glanced at Riley. “Ask them. Base followed SOP before the cut off.”
“Someone dropped the ball then.”
“It was a little crazy,” she said and ended the call, then contacted Ellie. “The reason you let Beckham have contact was what?” Riley touched her shoulder, but Safia pulled away, angry with Ellie for breaking her orders.
“The DDO ordered it.”
“No excuse. He’s not in the field. His car didn’t explode and kill a dozen people!” She shouldn’t have to say a word. Ellie knew her job, and it made Safia wonder who was pushing her buttons from the other end. Besides Beckham. “Someone knew our moves. We were tracked!”
“Negative. No trace on you or anyone in the area then.”
That brought her up short. Then they were tailed, she thought and the bomb placed while they were close.
“And I scrambled Beckham’s signal, or I wouldn’t have allowed the call.”
“I want to believe I can trust you to have my back, Ell.”
“You can!”
Safia ignored the sting in her tone. Ellie was good at her job, but a little intimidated by authority. “Then keep them away till I give the order. I want isolated lines before any further contact and that includes the JCS or the Company.”
“They can cut me off,” she warned.
“They aren’t that stupid,” she said, then ended the call and looked at Riley. “Why would the Thailand office not confirm to the Company?”
“You work alone, Safia. How often do you hand over information?”
“Good point,” she said. “I don’t. Base does. I rarely speak with Washington or Langley.” She let out a breath, shaking off her annoyance. “They get in the middle of it and muck it up, like they’re doing now. They have a bird’s view, not the rats’. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been chasing weapons for ten years.”
He frowned softly. “Killian’s wife did too.”
She smiled slightly. “We started with drug smuggling rings. Alexa used her assets, I use mine.” She shrugged. “She had more patience to get under deep cover.” Alexa was a beauty and she used it to distract, to slip into the very homes and lives of arms dealers. A pair of tits and ass for the good ol’ U.S.A. she used to say. Safia masqueraded to get close to follow the dealers to the transporters. But Alexa had built a cover reputation on moving weapons through her antique business and took them out of circulation. They would have made a great team if not for Lania Price and her compulsion to manipulate everyone.
“She’s pregnant. Due anytime.”
Safia stilled, then laughed to herself. “That I want to see. Kids terrified her.”
“Not you?”
She eyed him, and knew where this was leading. “Not at all. Children are always the innocent. They do as they’re taught and shown.” She’d been showered in love as a child, her mother her best friend even when she was a teen and rebellious. Then she looked down at her hands. An old ache, one she hadn’t visited in years, churned to life. “No, kids don’t scare me.” She met his gaze, and swallowed. “And since we’re being so honest, I can’t have any either.” She flipped back the sheet and marked the scar from hip to navel. “Terrorists made sure of it.”
His features tightened with sympathy, yet when he started to speak, she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Don’t. Please. I’ve heard it all.”
He caught her fingers and said, “I’m sure you have. I’m a guy, I can’t judge and don’t want to, but thanks for telling me.”
She lifted a brow. She didn’t know what to make of that, but with Riley, she had to think differently. Visiting old pains was useless, especially when nothing would change.
“Are you always this prickly when you wake?”
“Yes. Intolerably moody.” She didn’t think that would discourage any ideas of continuing this interlude, but couldn’t entertain any either. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Get that tight behind moving, Donovan. The JCS will want to have a chat with you and Dragon One.”
He grabbed her back, wrestling her to the bed, and then hovered over her, naked and strong. “Let them wait a wee bit longer.”
She was all for that, but . . . ”They are the boss of me, you know.”
He held her gaze as he nudged her thighs apart, settling between, and Safia arched, tingling heat skating up her body. “Bad guys wait for no one.” Yet she slid her hand down his chest, fingers wrapping him, guiding him.
“I have my priorities for the moment.” He filled her in one smooth push. “Tactical assault on a sour mood.”
She smiled. He’d already succeeded, but of course, she didn’t tell him that and let him keep trying—delicious mood achieved.
Jason stirred, feeling as if he were climbing out of a dark, narrow tunnel. He didn’t want to come out. His skin felt on fire and he stopped moving, his breathing too fast. The last thing he remembered was that Rahjan guy injecting him with some drug. Everything else was a blank. He couldn’t name the day but he listened to his surroundings. On a jet, he thought. Yet the murmur of a news reporter drifted and he smelled the aroma of food. His stomach recoiled and cramped. He kept his eyes closed, the seat vibrating beneath him. He licked his lips, his tongue swollen and fuzzy. He felt a presence lingering near, but his lids were heavy and he didn’t give a damn about talking to anyone. He wanted to stay right where he was until the pasty taste in his mouth went away.
“Wake up,” a deep voice said. He recognized Rahjan and he mentally flinched, expecting the sting of his curved knife again.
Rahjan nudged him hard and he forced his eyes open, sud
denly shivering uncontrollably. Was this detox? “What the hell did you give me?” God, it hurt to talk.
“Morphine, a little cocaine.” He shrugged big shoulders and Jason noticed the fresh cuts on his face. Good. “Anything to shut your ass up. You scream like a woman.” He handed him a bottle of water and Jason broke it open and drank. He snatched it back. “Slowly, asshole,” he said. “I don’t want to clean up your puke.”
Jason grabbed for it and the guy held it out of his reach, smiling, then tossed it to him.
“Prick,” he muttered, yet felt his stomach churn, his mouth watering. Christ. It took several minutes before he could move without his stomach coiling, and he leaned out to look down the aisle between the seats. There were about a dozen regular airplane seats in the rear behind him, but the front looked like a living room with sofas and tables. Barasa was stretched out on a section, watching a flat screen TV. The news reports on the explosion were on every channel. The number of dead changed with each broadcast, but Jason didn’t want to see it and turned away. They were unearthing bodies now.
The remnants of the drugs lingered, his mind still foggy, and he inspected his wounds, surprised to find them covered in fresh bandages and a soft stretchy covering. He could feel the tug of stitches in his thigh and thought of Donovan. He’d made his life miserable and he hoped the bastard was blown to smithereens. Though he never cared for the saying, it satisfied. This deal was planned to the minute until Donovan.
He grabbed the blanket someone had tossed on him and pulled it over his head, then reached from beneath enough to close the shield on the window. He drifted back to sleep, wondering how he was going to get out of this with his life— and his money.
Marina Bay, Singapore
Safia was impressed. Even short team members, Max and Riley were formidable. They’d had several hours until the satellite link up and Max had gone to the team jet, Dragon 6, and retrieved gear. It filled her condo. She stood back as Riley connected wires under the dining table, now in the living room as a command post, of sorts. He rigged her obscenely large-screen TV for the satellite connection to Deep Six. More equipment, scanners, listening devices and ammunition lined the coffee table along with some Thai take out. Max, she’d learned, was a bottomless pit. The guy loved his food.
She glanced at the clock and the countdown to link with Deep Six. Ellie had followed orders and blocked against any breeching. After the car bomb, Safia wasn’t trusting her own network.
Riley backed out from under the table, and stood. “That should do it.” He turned it all on and he said, “We have tone.” Safia watched the flat screen and smiled when the feed blinked to life.
“Wicked cool,” she murmured.
Riley smiled. “And for your enjoyment . . .” He tapped keys and she watched the flat screen divide, satellite feed on the left, already searching for Red Shoes’ phone, the right waiting for video connection from Deep Six and the brass. Holding its place was a white screen with a red and gold dragon curled around D-1. The team covered all the bases and her coffee table was spread with a few gadgets she didn’t recognize. Max promised her a lesson, and she smiled when he showed her a hand control for the computers. He smiled for the first time since returning from the jet. He’d stopped near the station blast sight, she thought. Uncovering the dead was a slow, gory process and she thought of the 9-11 victims. No loss is easy to take, but Max couldn’t accept that Sebastian didn’t exist anymore. He hadn’t witnessed it and without a body to bury, it was tough on him.
“We’re all set,” Max said.
Safia glanced around. The stools from the kitchen counter were at the dining table, a line of computers and screens. She hoped Max could control it all because she wasn’t planning on hanging around here. Barasa’s plane was in the air. Despite all this technology, they hadn’t advanced the Op enough to stop thousands of deaths.
Impatient for progress, she picked up a lidless box, frowning at the tiny button-like devices secured in foam, then frowned at Riley, holding it up.
“GPS markers,” he said, gathering electrical lines and binding them. “Max builds them into just about anything. He’s logistics and very protective of the equipment. D-1 doesn’t have endless government funds.”
“I can get us what we need.”
“I knew you had pull.”
She smiled. “Not really, but I can throw a good tantrum when necessary.”
“I want to see that.”
“You’ve seen enough,” she flipped back in a low tone and he chuckled to himself. She turned, reading through the recent reports from the field while Riley tried for the umpteenth time to open the hard drive.
Less than eighteen hours alone with Safia just wasn’t enough. But Riley knew better. She was afraid of him now. Scared of what she was feeling, he supposed, but he didn’t try to ease it either. She was tied so tightly to her job, she dismissed any relationship out of hand. Too quickly. But if she thought what was going on between them was a one-time thing, he was ready to change her mind. He’d never had a woman touch his soul like the pretty Egyptian. But then, she did that years ago in Serbia too.
When she’d come out of her bedroom, the one room he’d yet to see, she was back to being cast-iron CIA. Putting a chink in her armor was second to opening the hard drive. Ellie, separated the cell phone streams just before the explosion and learned that one line wasn’t used at that particular time. But Barasa, Red Shoes, and Vaghn’s were all active.
Right now, the computer firewall was just pissing him off. He rubbed his face, then pushed his fingers into his hair. “The sequence is useless. Ellie’s run a program that would try any combination. It failed a half hour ago.” Logan wasn’t having any success, but he was also preparing to join Tessa with a National Geographic expedition.
Riley rested his rear on the edge of the tall stool, smiling his thanks when Safia handed him a fresh cup of coffee. She was guzzling back a pot and still yawning. The reasons made him smile, and she blushed and turned away, but he caught her sexy glance. The last time he saw it they were tumbling across the sheets and falling on the floor.
Focus. He stood as if it would clear his head, then crossed to the empty dining room, grabbing the bag of trash from Vaghn’s hideout. He started to toss it, then decided to have one more look. He dumped it on fresh newspaper and examined it again.
“We’ve gone through that. It’s rubbish,” Safia said, leaning against the counter. “And it’s starting to stink.”
He agreed. Finding nothing new he shoved it back in the bag, then hesitated, staring at the paperback novel, then flipped through it. “Vaghn didn’t read this book. There’s something in it.” He looked up. “He didn’t read fiction, said he never learned anything new and that he made fiction real with his weapons.” Riley ran his finger down the spine of the book, then looked at Max. “When have you known Sebastian to not abuse a paperback?”
Sitting in front of a computer, Max spun on the stool. “Never.”
“Look at this. The spine isn’t even cracked.” He tossed the book to Max and Safia stepped closer.
“Sebastian got his money’s worth and never exchanged books,” Max told Safia. “If he didn’t—hadn’t—owned the Craw Daddy, he’d have a bookstore.” Max turned the book over in his hands, then gave it back to Riley. “Other than the stains, it looks new.”
“Then why throw it away?” Safia asked.
“Exactly.”
Riley flipped through it again, spotting a graphic, then read the paragraph before it, realizing there was some sort of code in a grid of symbols.
But the hard drive files were locked up, the only access they could get was Vaghn’s email and a War Craft gaming program. It was like bashing his head against a wall, anything he tried got bumped back and it was harder the next time. He picked up a slip of paper Max found, and at the computer, he compared the scrambled doodling sequence to the novel. “Two symbols make a close match. The trash sequence he doodled is simil
ar to the graph.”
“Clever boy,” Safia said and grabbed a pad and pen, then sat beside him.
Riley punched in a search. He’d done it once before but didn’t try it with only the symbols. He found an email that nearly matched and opened it.
“Max was right. It was a spam address and sent to millions, but it’s just garbled trash. The average person would delete it. Vaghn deleted the email, but he replied. It was empty.”
“How many replies?” Safia said. “If he sent that out, we’re so screwed.”
Max nudged her. “Don’t ask for trouble, but good conspiracy. What I don’t get is what that does.” He flicked at the screen that was a multitude of swirling colors.
Riley used the hand held scanner and uploaded the novel’s symbols, then Safia took the paperback with her to the table and copied the grid containing it.
“Only one symbol matches,” she said, “And there isn’t anything like it on a keyboard.”
“Ellie says it’s not a keystroke, it’s a graphic,” Max said, the comm-link itching in his ear. He highlighted it, dropped it into a new file, then opened the graphic. “It’s wider than the other numbers and letters. Different font too.” He enlarged it. “It’s the letter I.”
“More to it,” Safia said from his right and Riley stood to look. “See the curls on the edge?” Max enlarged it again and she pointed to the scrolly ends of the letter. “The lines don’t match up.”
“It’s got something under it,” Riley said. “Another layer.”
“I think it’s three dimensional,” Safia said. “We don’t have its program, so it’ll view differently. Try reversing it.”
Max did and the image on the screen flipped. “Ooh-rahh,” he said, leaning in closer. “Greek letter, Iota. The back of the graphic is different from the front. Looks like glyphs or cave drawings.”
“Man, this guy is just scary smart,” Safia said, peering.
“I don’t get the purpose,” Max said, pushing back from the computer, frustrated. “Because it doesn’t unlock Vaghn’s hard drive programs.”
Riley frowned. “Then we’re still missing a piece.”
Fight Fire With Fire. Page 23