They were all on edge, their nerves frayed to the breaking point. From their conversations I gathered that this was the first time they were seriously being hunted by the police. Sure, they knew the dangers of messing with terrorists and gangsters, but this was the first time they were cognizant that they were in physical danger.
Amateurs.
When the hackers turned in, I checked my holophone again. Two new mails. The first was from Pete.
The airship’s finally cleared for flight. Will told me you’re in Dusseldorf. We’re headed there unless otherwise directed. ETA: 36 hours. Call me if anything changes.
At the bottom of the mail he had given me his latest phone number. I committed it to memory and checked the other mail. This one was from O’Connor.
Your plan re: HH is tentatively approved. We still have to screen them before we can bring them onboard. Given the circumstances, the best we can do now is shelter them, though I don’t foresee any difficulties clearing them. Based on their record, they might even be fast tracked.
For the first time since I’d arrived in Pantopia, I allowed myself to relax.
Eve and I were on night watch, taking turns monitoring the camera on two-hour shifts. It was currently her turn on the slate. As she watched, I told her about the mails.
“I was wondering about the airship we captured,” she said. “She’s ready for flight?”
“Sort of.”
I told her, briefly, about how we had to abort the planned upgrades.
“If she can fly, it’s good enough for me,” Eve said. Licking her lips, she added, “Do you think you can save Hexenhammer?”
“No objections from management.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
It’s never a good idea to make a promise you can’t keep. Or a promise you can’t be sure of keeping.
“I’ll do my best to help you save Hexenhammer and find out what really happened at Hellas,” I said.
She placed her hand on mine. It was soft and warm. The hand of an ordinary woman. Not a killer’s.
“Thank you.”
***
The hackers might be an eclectic group, but they all had one thing in common: they were geeks. After settling in, they filled the safe house with esoteric discussions about programming, hardware and specialist software. I couldn’t hope to keep up with them. They dumped their devices all over the living room, running all kinds of strange apps.
“We might be on the run, but we can still work,” Frank explained.
“So long as your activities can’t be traced here,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it.”
Eve prepared lunch for all of us. There were roast beef and steamed fish, a veritable mountain of carrots and peppers and lettuce and mushrooms, and tomato soup. There was just barely enough room for everyone at the table.
As we tucked in, I said, “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here. Now that everybody has come in, I can make my offer.”
“Is this where you make an offer we cannot refuse?” Frank asked as he slurped at a bowl of soup.
“You can always refuse,” I said. “But I think it’s in your best interest to accept the deal.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I represent a branch of the Hesperian intelligence community. We have been working with Eve for the past year, and we believe Hexenhammer wasn’t behind the attack on Chios. You’re just not that kind of people.
“However, our influence in Pantopia is limited. Until we get evidence to clear your names, we don’t have the power to tell Interpol to call off the hunt. What we can do is offer you protection.
“I have an airship arriving in Dusseldorf the day after tomorrow. Eve and I will leave on that airship to continue hunting the terrorists responsible for the attack. You are free to join us. Once you’re aboard the airship, we can keep you safe indefinitely. There’s no need to worry about the police coming to arrest you.”
“What’s the price?” Frank asked.
“Nothing you aren’t already doing,” I said. “I see you’re still busy chasing down leads and trying to figure out who committed the attack. So are we. Together, we can find and finish the terrorists.”
The use of “we” was deliberate. I wanted to make them feel like I was a part of them, making it easier to accept my offer.
“What if the Pantopians shoot us down?” a hacker asked.
I smiled. “And risk a diplomatic incident? That’s not likely.”
“They could board us,” he insisted. “Then what?”
“Our airship can stay airborne indefinitely. We only need to land to resupply, and you don’t have to get out if you don’t want to. And if Customs wants to inspect us, we can prepare cover identities for all of you.”
“I don’t buy it,” Frank said. “It sounds like you won’t let us leave.”
“The entire continent is hunting you,” Eve said. “Hunting us. If you’re aboard the airship, they can’t touch you.”
“So long as we don’t leave.” He crossed his arms. “What’s the difference between your offer and staying in the safe house?”
“No matter what happens, Eve and I will be leaving when the airship arrives,” I said. “We’re going to take the fight to the enemy. You can help us. Or you can stay. But if you stay… Well, what’s your long-term plan? You can’t hide forever.”
“We can continue operations on our computers,” Frank insisted.
“You’re also consuming vast amounts of electricity, food and water. The police will notice eventually. And what happens when the Schumachers return to collect their keys? You’ll be on the run again.” I shook my head. “If you stay with us, you’ll be free to continue the hunt without worrying about being arrested.”
The other hackers remained silent, looking at Frank. Frank sighed and looked morosely at Eve.
“You can’t stay with us?” he asked.
“The only way we can win this is to hunt our hunters,” Eve said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t protect you forever.”
“There are other Krakens.”
“I don’t know where they are.” She bit her lip. “I… None of them have contacted me. I don’t know what happened to them.”
“All the more reason to lie low.”
She shook her head. “We formed Hexenhammer to make a difference. You, me, everyone at this table. It’s easy to pretend everything is fine and do nothing. But we’re not that kind of people. We’re better than that. We must act. The West needs us to act. If that means we place ourselves at risk, so be it.
“I’m going with Luke. Are you?”
Frank looked down into his soup. Rubbed his temples. Looked back up.
“Let’s put it to a vote,” he said. “Who wants to go on the airship?”
The decision was unanimous.
10. A Thousand Times Before
As the hackers cleaned up, I composed a mail for O’Connor and Pete.
The hackers took the deal. I need extract for 10 pax including me. We need expedited passage through Customs at Dusseldorf Airport or the closest friendly airport. Contingency is an extract in the countryside. Let me know ASAP. Pete, is Kalypso certified for a rough-field landing?
The hackers need special hardware to continue operations aboard the airship. The list is attached. Let me know if we have any of them or if we can get them.
As I waited for a response, Eve and I replaced the microcams with fresh ones and went shopping for more food. As we raided a nearby supermarket, it struck me how… domestic this was. It was as though we were ordinary civilians hosting our friends for a stay.
But ordinary civilians didn’t have to make security sweeps around the block to check for surveillance while pretending to do something else. They didn’t have to hide from the police, uniformed or plainclothes. And they sure didn’t have to walk around armed.
By the time I returned, I had received a response.
O’Connor:
We have an inside man in Dusseldor
f. He can get you through Customs, no questions asked. But he needs at least 2 hours’ notice. Good luck.
Brick:
The Captain says we’re good for all kinds of landing operations, be it at an airport or in the field. For rough fields we need a minimum clearance of 150 x 100 meters. We should arrive at Dusseldorf by noon tomorrow. If you need pickup elsewhere, the sooner you contact us, the better.
We only have Internet access aboard the ship. None of the fancy computer stuff the geeks are asking for. At this time we’re still trying to get the active surfaces in the war room up and running. The hackers will just have to do without. At least until we can order resupply.
When I broke the news to the hackers, they looked like children who’d just been told they weren’t getting birthday presents. Too bad.
“How are we supposed to work?” a hacker whined. “Without the computers we can’t do our work.”
“You’ve got your slate,” I pointed out.
“The slate is just my mobile workstation. I need my rig. We need to go back and pick up my rig.”
“And risk being arrested?” I shook my head. “Not on my watch.”
He continued moaning about his rig, complaining to everyone about how much he had spent on the hardware and how advanced the tech was. Even the other hackers didn’t bother hiding their contempt.
“Once we’re safe, you can build a new rig,” Eve said. “For now, we have to focus on survival. On our work.”
He continued grumbling, but at least he kept it down. Eve insisted on sorting out the groceries herself, leaving me to watch the slate. And the hackers.
Nothing was happening outside. I needed to keep my brain engaged, so I said, “Frank, what are you guys doing now?”
“We’re penetrating Interpol and other Pantopian police and intelligence agencies,” he said. “The ones we haven’t penetrated yet, that is. We need to get inside the Hexenhammer task force.”
“Any luck?”
“No. It’s… weird.”
“Weird?”
“We’re inside Interpol’s operational databases. The Hexenhammer task force is not in them. No mentions of it anywhere else either, except for some internal memos assigning personnel to the task force. It’s like it doesn’t even exist.”
I blinked and reminded myself to keep looking at the screen.
“That is weird,” I allowed.
“Ja. Maybe it’s somewhere else, but…” his voice trailed off.
“How likely is that?” I asked.
“Only if their admin staff keyed in the data somewhere else. We’re probing the remaining databases, but we need to be careful. They have a top-notch IT security team.”
“What about other police agencies? Any mentions of the Hexenhammer task force there?”
“Barely. The task force is only mentioned in passing, and we don’t have any connections we can piggyback to access it. We’re targeting other police and intelligence agencies, but no luck yet.”
“This is why we need my rig,” a familiar voice complained. “If we had my rig–”
“We’d be inside. Yes, yes, we heard you a thousand times before,” Frank said.
The Program had its share of personalities, but at least none of them were whiners. Frank had his work cut out for him.
And I thought monitoring the cameras was bad enough.
***
This wasn’t Hell. But listening to the hacker gripe all day about his precious rig was a close approximation. Soon, everybody, even Eve, got fed up.
Part of the problem was that we had to minimize electricity expenditure. The hackers’ computers were all plugged in, drawing huge amounts of power. Authorities the world over routinely investigated such spikes under the not-unreasonable assumption that it was a sign of nefarious activity. We had to compensate for the electricity draw in other ways.
There was no air conditioning. No hot water. No holovision. No unnecessary electronics use. I rationed my device use, drawing out the batteries as long as they would last. We cracked the windows open ever so slightly for ventilation and fanned ourselves with scrap paper and cardboard. Frank had vetoed using electric fans. Ten minutes after returning to the safe house, I was sweating again. At least there was plenty of bottled water.
The hackers continued working straight through dinner and late into the night. Finally, at midnight, they unanimously decided to take a break.
“Any luck?” I asked, still monitoring my slate.
Frank sighed. “No. We’ll have to try again in the morning.”
“Can we at least switch on the air conditioning?” Eve asked.
“We can’t. We’re letting the computers run overnight in case our botnets or malware breaks through.”
Eve licked her dry lips. “Why’s it taking so long?”
“All our targets use quantum-based encryption. Our slates cannot touch them. In fact, if we even tried to examine the encrypted data from the outside, it would disturb the quantum and alert security.
“Our strategy is to attack the targets indirectly. We’re targeting employees with access to the agencies’ inner workings but with poor security, so we can piggyback off their access. We got lucky with Interpol and the Hellenic Police. The others… not so much.”
“Ah. Well, keep up the hard work,” she said. “We’ll be keeping watch through the night.”
He yawned. “Thanks. Guten nacht.”
He trudged off to his bedroom. Now it was just Eve, me, and a living room full of computers.
“You look tired,” she said.
“Better believe it. I’ve been listening to whatshisname sing love songs about his precious, precious rig all day.”
She giggled. “It’s time to change shifts. Take a nap. I’ll wake you in two hours.”
I checked the clock. It was a little early, but whatever. I handed the slate to her.
“All right. See you later.”
She wrinkled her nose. “And take a bath or something. You smell.”
I sniffed exaggeratedly. “And you don’t?”
She pouted, her eyes twinkling. “Hey! At least I use deodorant!”
Now this was the side of Eve I preferred talking to. The one who still had a genuine sense of humor.
Returning to my bedroom, I cleaned myself with wet wipes, doused myself in deodorant and changed into a fresh set of clothes. I packed the old ones away and flopped onto the bed and closed my eyes.
In the darkness I saw a pale red light. The light grew larger, brighter, resolving into a scarlet eye. A perfectly circular iris with a pupil of infinite darkness at its heart.
Below the eye, teeth. Sharp and shiny, dripping with ichor.
“What the hell?”
Fairy lights danced in the dark. The eye closed. The teeth faded. In the distance, I heard a steady, regular pounding, like a beating heart.
The lights grew closer, brighter, merging into a man. He was the epitome of Hellenic masculinity, hard, taut musculature chiseled from not-quite flesh, wearing exactly nothing at all. Six bat wings sprouted from his back, each as long as my arm. His face was sharp points and angles: a V-shaped brow, a V-shaped smile, a V-shaped chin.
“Found you,” the Unmaker said.
I lashed out. Tried. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The drumbeat grew louder, more frantic. Red spots danced in and out of sight.
The fallen angel smiled broadly.
“See you soon, Luke Landon.”
He laughed.
I forced my eyes open.
“Luke!”
Eve stood at the doorway, the light behind her hiding her face.
“What happened?” she asked.
My heart rammed against my chest, as though intent on self-destruction. Cold sweat soaked through my clothes. I was sitting upright on the bed. I could move again. Breathe again.
“Just… a nightmare,” I said.
“You? Mister Rational? A nightmare?” She crossed her arms. “Is something wrong?”
“I
don’t know…” I swung my legs off the bed.
“You can tell me. I promise I won’t laugh.”
“It was the Unmaker.”
She stiffened.
“That’s not a nightmare, is it?” she asked.
“Don’t think so.”
“What did he want?”
“Just to taunt me. But every time he taunts me…”
“Something bad happens,” she finished.
“Or will happen.”
“What’s the point?” she asked. “What does he get out of it?”
“Who knows?” I licked my cracked lips. “I don’t think he’s the type to just laugh at his prey for fun.”
“We’ll have to be careful. Are you going back to sleep?”
“Can’t. I’ll take over.”
“Need me to stay up with you?”
“You should rest. If something’s coming, you’ll need the energy.”
She handed me the slate and lay down on her bed. Every movement was unconsciously graceful, like a queen retiring for the night. I forced myself to look away and headed out into the living room, patting down my pockets. My aethertool was clipped to my waistband, the hip flask of ambrosia snug in my front pocket. If anything happened, I’d be ready for it.
It was all quiet outside. Keeping an eye on the slate, I walked around and stretched, keeping myself loose and limber.
The adrenaline faded. I yawned mightily. My eyelids drooped. Standing, I took several huge breaths, completely filling my lungs with oxygen and purging them of carbon dioxide. I uncapped the flask and took a tiny sip of ambrosia. A marble of liquid heat, sweet and spicy, rolled down my throat and melted in my belly.
The world snapped into sharp focus. I felt blood pulsing in my temples, my eardrums, my chest. The scent of plastic and dust hung in the stale air.
I couldn’t wait to leave.
There was little motor traffic this time of the night. Well, technically, morning. Just the odd car or bike passing through to destinations unknown. But there were a surprising number of young people out on the street, perhaps late-night revelers returning home from Dusseldorf’s nightlife scene. The feed was so grainy I couldn’t see their faces; instead I noted their gaits and their clothes in case they showed up again.
Hammer of the Witches (The Covenant Chronicles Book 2) Page 13