The Saint Jude Rules (Cal Winter Book 3)

by Dominic Adler

  “I said it’s a deal,” I replied, “and when I give the word, get off that roof. This place is rigged to blow.”

  “I hate this job,” Emile laughed. With that, the two Serbs doubled away.

  “Come on Oz,” said Juliet, helping him along the corridor. He clutched his belly, eyes glazed.

  I wheeled Paradis up to the server room. He looked into the glassy panel set next to the door. With a bleep, it hissed open. Even here, wall-mounted screens showed news channels. I saw a food riot somewhere in England, a supermarket stripped bare. A military jet tumbled into the Mediterranean, shot down by antiaircraft fire.

  This wasn’t the end of a curve. It was chaos with a fancy name. Fifth Generation warfare. The work of madmen.

  I picked up my satellite phone. “Blind Angel? I’m in the server room. Talk to me.”

  “You took your time,” the hacker replied. “I’ve identified the hidden network and EMP trigger. I can penetrate the server. Actually, I can even extract all the data you need. But that’ll release the viral shutdown code, which frankly is some sort of genius shit I’ve never seen before. I’m going to set off that trigger. There’s no way ‘round it.”

  “How long?”

  Blind Angel hummed tunelessly. “Maybe three minutes? Or it could be thirty seconds. I dunno.”

  My fingers gripped the handset. “There’s a fucking bomb. Be more precise.”

  Blind Angel sighed. “It’s impossible. Hugh’s here, he agrees.”

  Hugh Jansen’s broad Yorkshire accent came online. “Cal, the lad’s right. You need to activate the executable we’re sending through. But whatever happens, that EMP will activate.”

  “We can’t do it remotely?” said Juliet.

  “No, they’ve thought of that,” Hugh replied. “The secure network we need to piggyback will only work in the server room. You’ll have to run the program from inside.”

  Juliet looked at Paradis. “Work with what you’ve got, Cal.”

  I typed a message to Blind Angel, then rested the computer on Paradis’ lap. “Read these instructions carefully,” I said in French, “you need to click on this icon.”

  The old man scanned the screen. He shot me a venomous look, a trail of spittle hanging from his chin. I pointed at the laptop, “this will upload the vaccine code to my technician, but it’s gonna trigger the EMP device.”

  The old man said nothing, just fixed his eyes on the screen. He pulled out the syringe I’d prepared with trembling hands and set it in his lap. Enough to kill quickly and painlessly.

  “How do we know he’ll do it?” said Juliet, gripping my arm.

  “We know where his daughter lives,” I replied, loud enough for Paradis to hear. “If he doesn’t do as he’s told, she dies.”

  Juliet shook her head, “Cal…”

  “It’s done,” I shrugged. I tapped the laptop’s touch screen. “Paradis, watch this.”

  A webcam flickered, showing a luxuriously furnished sitting room. It overlooked mountains, lit by a sun-and-cobalt sky. A woman looked at us quizzically. Dark-haired, she had a strong nose and dark, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a silk robe, hair bed-messy. A child giggled in the background.

  “Marie, is that you?” said Paradis, eyes suddenly wide. The deadness, for a moment, banished.

  The woman spoke in French. “Papa? Are you okay? I got an email from your old EU account.”

  “I’m not good. It’s near the end...”

  The woman’s voice was clear and strong. “I will come to Nördhaus and bring the children to see you.”

  “There’s no time, Marie. Besides there is an emergency situation. The airports will be closed.”

  “The world is going crazy.” Marie touched her cheek, rubbed away a tear, “but I can try, Papa. I will speak with…”

  “Listen to me! You are going to hear things about me after I die. They are… complicated. They will be exaggerations of the truth. Believe me when I say everything I did was for a reason. A higher purpose.”

  “Papa, what on earth are you talking about? Where’s Mama?”

  Juliet whispered in my ear, breath hot. “She doesn’t have to die. Hope beats threats,” she said, pulling a black flash mask over her face. She stood next to Paradis, inside the webcam’s arc.

  “Who are you?” said Drexler’s daughter, eyes saucer-wide.

  “Kathryn Paradis died earlier this morning,” Juliet replied. “She was murdered by a man called Erik Drexler. He worked for your father.”

  Marie gasped. “Who are you? A kidnapper? A terrorist?”

  Juliet replied in fluent French. “Neither. The things you’ll hear about your father, after his death, are true. But as long as you never mention this conversation, you’ll be safe. In fact, you’ll be beyond safe. You and your family will be protected from all threats. Fail to follow my instructions and you will die, along with your family.”

  Paradis looked at me pleadingly. “She’s telling the truth?”

  I nodded, following Juliet’s lead. “Yes. You have my solemn word. Your daughter and her family will fall under our protection.”

  “Do as they say, Marie,” said Paradis. “I beg you.” He coughed bloody gore, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

  “You heard your father,” said Juliet coldly.

  Marie looked at the webcam, face ashen. She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to. Keep quiet. Live your life, and consider yourself lucky.” Juliet killed the webcam connection. “There’s no more time for bargaining, Paradis. Every second is another network crashed or another currency screwed. Take it or leave it.”

  “You expect me to believe you would protect my daughter?” Paradis whispered.

  “Yes.” Juliet pulled off her mask and pointed at me. Her russet hair tumbled free. “Even Winter’s trying to be the better man. It must be rubbing off.”

  I knelt next to the old man and moved his hand onto the keyboard. “Paradis, are you ready?”

  “Yes,” he replied quietly. “You need three minutes.”

  “Take the diamorphine as soon as you open the file,” I said.

  Paradis fingered the syringe and nodded.

  Grabbing Oz, I keyed my satellite phone. “Blind Angel, get the senior army technician there.”

  “OK, Cal,” the hacker replied. “The executable is ready, as soon as you activate it we’ll grab the virus code.”

  “We’ll do that in zero-three minutes,” I replied. “Get yourself ready to send it to everyone who needs it. Then tell your Gundam people to go seriously bloody dark.”

  “Okay,” he replied. “I’m handing you over to the chief meathead.”

  A gruff voice came online, “Sarn’t Major Dickinson, Yeoman of Signals.”

  “Good morning, Sarn’t Major. My name is Cal. I’m the SIS increment team leader on Nördhaus.”

  “Roger that, Cal. What d’you need?”

  “Exfil, ASAP, from this location. I’d be grateful if you could speak with US liaison and make it happen, the codename is CARNIVORE.”

  “Roger that,” Dickinson replied. “There’s an American with us now. They’ve plenty of questions.”

  “I’m sure. Tell ‘em if they send a heli and get us out of here, I’ll provide answers.”

  “By the way this lot are flapping, I reckon they’ll send Air Force One,” the Sergeant Major replied.

  “I’ll have no comms in zero-three minutes.”

  “Your man briefed us on the EMP,” the Sergeant Major replied. “For a gobby civvy he seems to know what he’s doing.”

  “Keep an eye on him, Sarn’t Major.”

  “I will, but the Germans are considering dropping a JDAM on the island. They aren’t convinced we’ve got a handle on this.”

  “If they could hold off carpet bombing I’d be grateful,” I replied. Presumably shit had hit the fan in Brussels.

  Juliet led the way down the stairs, past corpses and battle-damage. I followed, Oz’s arm wrapped aro
und my neck. I keyed my PRR. “Emile, Janko? It’s Winter. You’ve got three minutes to get out of the house.”

  “Copy,” said Emile coolly. “You’ve still got four of Drexler’s guys out there.”

  “They’re outta my vision,” Alex added, joining the net. “Over to you.”

  “Roger that, Alex. Make your way to us soon as you can.”

  We hurried through the front door and onto the lawn. We made it to the trees in time to avoid the remaining operators from Drexler’s exfil team. They wore combat gear, helmets and were heavily-armed. They crept up to the service buildings outside the mansion. One tapped at a satellite phone, the rest pointing weapons in all-round defence. Then, cautiously, they went inside…

  Two minutes and ten seconds…

  “We’re out,” said Emile’s voice in my ear.

  “Roger that,” I whispered into my mic. I looked through the trees and checked my watch. Two minutes.

  I covered Oz with my body. The grass smelt good, took away the stink of blood and cordite from my nose. Juliet gripped my hand. The explosion, when it came, was a muffled crump. Like a firework going off in a box. The mansion’s roof began to collapse in on itself, the smell of burning on the wind. I checked my sat phone. It was dead, of course, circuitry killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

  “D’you think it worked?” said Juliet.

  “Dunno,” I replied, cradling Oz’s head in my lap. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “Jesus, Cal, we threatened to murder someone’s family,” she said. “Civilians. How do you come back from that?”

  I shrugged. Oz lost consciousness. His pulse was weak, but he was alive. Still, he needed a hospital as soon as possible.

  Juliet looked at the plume of dirty smoke. Burning debris drifting skywards. “What happens now?”

  “We hope Blind Angel got the virus code.”

  “No, I mean what happens to you?”

  “I dunno.” I nodded, towards the burning house, “but this thing is done.”

  “No,” Juliet whispered, “it isn’t.” She handed me a leather-bound journal.

  “What is it?”

  “It was in Paradis’ flat. In London,” Juliet replied. “The names of his co-conspirators, the bastards who helped set this thing up. I doubt they’re done yet.”

  I tossed it into the sand. “I’m not in the mood for reading. Not now.” I pulled Juliet to me. We held each other on the wind-strafed dunes, ‘til we heard the chop of rotor blades.

  Chapter thirty

  Multinational inquiries into the Paradis Affair were dogged by a lack of physical evidence. The official account held that mysterious but benevolent hackers discovered a viral cure, restoring critical networks. Blind Angel was sanguine about the lack of fame, settling for a bundle of cash instead. After the virus’s source code was secured, Hugh chose not to download the Hoffman Algorithm. It perished on the EMP-blasted Nördhaus server. It was a wise decision.

  The British Government opened its doors in the interests of transparency, and to embarrass the EU. Inquisitors scoured the country for evidence, with a remit to poke their noses into Whitehall’s murkiest corners. Even a special rapporteur from the UN was invited to take a look. She returned, empty-handed, to New York on her private jet. Yes, HMG concluded, there was a niche private security company established in the 1950s. It was called Strega Enterprises.

  You know the sort of thing, claret-cheeked ex-army officers in tweeds, schmoozing Saudis and Kuwaitis. Yes, MI6 once sent someone to keep and eye on them, just to be on the safe side. The officer was called DIADEM, but you know how these intelligence types like funny codenames. Really nothing to worry about, old boy. Best to focus on the real issue, don’t you think? The American chap…

  …Colonel Erik Drexler, US Army (Retired).

  Drexler, a blame-stuffed piñata. The guilt-laden gift that kept on giving, even after his death. Especially after his death. Drexler, it was decided, exaggerated the role of STREGA Enterprises, acquired as a front for his activities. Most of the employees disappeared during the initial phases of Drexler’s reign, including a former MI5 officer called Owen Montague. I like to think Monty ended up in a CIA Black Site, or dumped over the Atlantic without a parachute.

  The Whitehouse line-to-take was straightforward: Erik Drexler was one of those crazies who takes a Kalashnikov into a cinema or university campus, just on a grander scale. The Director of the CIA stood down, as did a brace of senior Department of Defence officials. The US President declared This Must Never Happen Again, shifting a boatload of former business partners into newly vacant positions.

  And Paradis? The EU issued a denunciation that would’ve made Stalin blush. He was a non-person. A maverick. In fact, the sort of lunacy he espoused was one of the reasons he’d been side-lined in Brussels in the first place.

  Simultaneously, a burgeoning online movement tried to blame the poor treatment of Veterans for Drexler’s madness, a symptom of the betrayal of those who fought America’s ‘Forever Wars.’ For a while, Erik Drexler internet memes and tee-shirts became A Thing. There was even a campaign to give him a funeral with full military honours. It was a three-ring circus, and it gave us breathing space.

  Juliet managed to hide Paradis’ journal when a US Special Warfare team plucked us from Nördhaus. They lay charges and destroyed whatever was left of the Paradis mansion for good measure. We were helicoptered to London. Juliet passed the journal to Hugh, before someone in charge realised our toxicity. Tuck and his CARNIVORE team escorted Juliet, Alex and I to RAF Topford May. Oz was taken to an American military hospital in Germany. I didn’t see him for months, but they patched him up like one of their own. The rest of us were flown directly to Diego Garcia and held incommunicado.

  An atoll in the Indian Ocean should have been romantic, but Juliet and I were only permitted to meet under the supervision of a beefy US Marine. Alex, a US national, was kept elsewhere. Of Janko and Emile, the last of the Trieste Cell, there was no trace. Every evening we’d stroll along the perimeter wire to watch the sun boil into the sea. We spoke in stilted code, assuming we were under constant surveillance. I was allowed two cans of piss-weak Yank beer a day, enough to make me forsake booze for the duration.

  Debriefing was run by a sunburnt CIA officer called Maggie. Her SIS counterpart was a Wiltshire-army-wife-type called Babs. They reminded me of kindly aunts, lumpily dressed in ill-fitting khakis and floral blouses. I told the truth to ninety per cent of their questions. They were pleased, as it corroborated what they thought they already knew. They blew plenty of smoke up my arse, telling me the viral source code uploaded from Nördhaus was central in stabilizing the emergency. The way they described it, the World was like an unfit middle-aged man, convinced he was having a heart attack. Thanks to us, he’d only experienced severe global indigestion.

  “Maggie, if we helped fix things,” I said during interview, “why are we under arrest?”

  “Cal, you’re not under arrest, honey,” Maggie replied, all sweetness and apple-pie. “We’ve been through this before.”

  “Can I leave?”

  “It’s complicated,” she replied.

  “Then I’m under arrest.”

  Maggie chuckled. “You always this stubborn?”

  “Yes.”

  Maggie said she’d see me on the other side. Wherever that was. Babs said I jolly well deserved a medal. Juliet demanded a lawyer and kept schtum. Her brother, Guy, made it. Duncan Bannerman got him to hospital in time, stealing an ambulance in the process. He’s a results-focussed person.

  Eventually, when the Securocrats decided they’d plugged all the loose ends they could, they released us. I later found out this was down to Marcus Nairn. He marched into the head of MI6’s office and swore if Juliet and I were screwed over, he’d go straight to the newspapers. They shredded the citation for his MBE before he retired.

  A deal was done.

  Juliet and I spent a week in London, playing hide-and-seek with an MI5 surveillance te
am. They lost interest when they realised our plan was to book into a hotel, hit the mini-bar and have noisy sex. We were never arrested or even interviewed. It was strange, but then again the Government had some heavy shit going on. In the great scheme of things, we weren’t pinging their radar.

  Eventually, we got back to work.

  Today, work was a French General of Gendarmerie, Francois Rasquin. According to the notes in Paradis’ journal, Rasquin had been instrumental in helping The Dutchman smuggle weapons into Britain.

  “He’s on his way, ETA three minutes,” said Oz, eyes glued to his binoculars. The ex-SBS man wore green and white-streaked camouflage, blending into the snow-covered foliage. “Bannerman spotted him driving through Cercier. Three car protection package.”

  “Roger that,” I replied, tracking the road through the optics of my SIG 552. Low winter sun glinted off the icy landscape. Rasquin, our SIGINT indicated, was on his way to Geneva. “Alex, you hearing this?”

  “Copy,” the American replied over the tactical net.

  The ambush was on a tight loop of road, sun facing the convoy. Oz and I were the forward cutaway team. Bannerman would take up the rear in a Land Rover. Alex, with his usual M-14 SOPMOD, was triggerman. Dug into a hill overlooking the road, the site was a lethal killing zone for his rifle.

  I heard a shot: a BMW swerved crazily as Alex’s bullet hit the driver. The other vehicles went into counter-ambush deployment, fast-reversing to protect their principal. I lined up the lead car, a VW 4x4, in my sights. My finger slid inside the trigger guard and squeezed, a row of holes stitching across the radiator and bonnet.

  Oz, manning a Minimi light support weapon, raked the vehicle with bullets. The dying driver lost control and smashed into a tree. Oz kept firing, blobs of red tracer frosting the windscreen. “Better than hacking the ABS,” he said.

  More shooting. That would be Duncan, mopping up the remaining bodyguards. From his firing position, Alex Bytchakov kept firing, big 7.62 rounds punching through the armoured limousine’s windows.

  “Go!” I scrambled free of the treeline, weapon shouldered. The smell of gun-smoke and exhaust fumes filled my nose. The countdown timer on my Suunto digital showed the engagement twelve seconds old. The bodyguards in the lead vehicle were dead. The back-up car stood still, engine idling. A body sprawled by a rear door, one hand on a shoulder holster. The bullet-riddled BMW in the centre of the convoy was still, steam hissing from the bonnet.