Lethal Echo

by Cara Carnes

  “This isn’t the delivery we want this shit to happen on. That group gives me the heebie-jeebies. They’d kill their momma if it made them a cent.” The passenger visibly shuddered. “Get this shit sorted. If we’re late, they’ll be up in our face.”

  The conversation confirmed what Operations had said—these men were bystanders. Civilians indirectly involved but in the dark. Securing them needed to go off without incident to prevent injuries.

  Ram knew the rest of the teams were likely listening in. Their steps wouldn’t begin until Gage’s had breached headquarters.

  “Move in,” Edge ordered. “We’re keeping them in play for entry.”

  “Understood,” Gage said. Another chime sounded in the com.

  Go time.

  Ram and Spade made their way toward the men from their rear, while Gage and Doug closed in from farther up the highway. The two unsuspecting civilians would be surrounded within seconds.

  “Hands in the air,” Gage ordered.

  “What the—” The passenger’s shouted words died off when he spotted Ram and Spade, both weapons aimed in his direction.

  “Fuck,” the driver spat. He raised his hands. “You’re wasting your time. We ain’t got nothing worth stealing.”

  “This isn’t a robbery,” Doug said. “Do what we say, and you’ll be compensated for your time. And your silence. You’re about to make a delivery. We need in that facility.”

  “No way.” The passenger shook his head. “They’ll kill us.”

  “They won’t be doing anything once we’ve handled them,” Spade replied. “What’s the plan, boss?”

  “Switch clothes with the passenger. He’ll ride in the back with us,” Gage said. “Do they check the back upon entry?”

  “Not anymore,” the passenger said. “But you’ll need me where I always am. They’re twitchy. A new guy in the seat will make them unhappy.”

  “What supplies do you run to them?” Ram asked.

  “Whatever they need picked up. Lots of ammo. Sometimes guns. Mostly food and liquor. Lots of the latter.” The passenger shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want any trouble with you or them. They aren’t good people. I wouldn’t have gotten into business with them if I’d known, but I’m stuck.”

  “Then we’re about to unstick you,” Doug said. “Help us out and you’ll be clean.”

  “Clean and broke,” the driver quipped.

  “We’ll help sort that out after this is over,” Gage replied. “Get back in the vehicle. Edge, take the drones offline. What’s the timeline looking like?”

  “How the fuck would we know?” the driver asked.

  “He’s not talking to you,” Doug said. “In the truck. Nice and slow.”

  It took a couple minutes for everyone to load up into the truck and get it started once the EMF drones were disabled. The two little monsters hovered within the interior, along with Spade’s experimental one, as the driver made his way down the road.

  “Spade, Ram has some green grenades in his pack. You should get a couple of those mounted onto regular drones,” Bree said. “We can probably fly those in first and eliminate some of the fight, assuming they work.”

  “What do the green ones do?” Ram asked.

  “They’re loaded with the sleeping gas,” Bree said. “A stronger version to disperse in large, open areas.”

  “Sweet.” Spade unzipped his pack and pulled out more Velcro. “You want to help me, man?”

  “Sure.” Ram chuckled as he undid his pack and spotted the new addition. “When did you sneak those in, sweetheart?”

  “Yesterday. I was going to tell you.”

  “Thanks for giving us the toys,” Doug said. “Let’s get ready to play.”

  Bree hovered in the back of the operational theater and wondered for the millionth time why they hadn’t made this a nighttime operation. Four sets of screens along the wall followed the progression of each team. Though her attention remained on Ram’s team the most, she kept track of the others. Please don’t let anyone get hurt.

  Her mind raced through potential scenarios, but strategy wasn’t her jam. She’d have to trust that Jesse and Mary had all the possible problems thought through. If not…

  That’s when Mary became The Edge. She’d never failed to get everyone out safe.

  “Green grenades, huh?” Rhea asked, amusement in her voice. “I was wondering where all that gas compound went to.”

  “Sorry, you were kind of busy being a commando back then when the idea struck.” Bree looked over at her friend as they sat on the sofa against the back wall. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not, but you need to start sharing those ideas with Nikki and me. We’re a team.” Rhea looked over at her. “I tried to do some stuff in your lab. When did you start coding your notes?”

  “I never really stopped,” she admitted. “When we practiced after MIT, I kept going.”

  “I had no idea.”

  No one did. “Shelly told me it was important to protect everything, especially notes. Those are the things people forget about. Encrypting online is good, but if we have paper copies of everything lying about unprotected, then we’re exposed.”

  “She’s right. Then again, I didn’t consider our underground labs on a compound as unsecured,” Rhea said. “Will you reteach me?”

  “Yeah, but you’ll have to come up with your own encryption. I can help with that.” Bree swallowed. “And I’ll show you and Nikki where the key to cracking mine is, just in case something happens to me.”

  “We won’t need it.” As if sensing Bree’s unease at the idea of sharing her private encryption, Rhea squeezed her hand. “Later, when you’re ready. There’s no rush.”

  Right. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Rhea, because she did. But sharing the encryption with anyone felt…wrong. It’d been her personal vault for so long. All her crazy ideas were safely tucked away in a cypher no one could accidentally read. Judge.

  While she wanted to watch Ram’s team do their thing, she felt as though there was something more she could do. But what? She opened her laptop and accessed HERA’s file on the mission. Bob’s kids were the biggest unknown. Were they hostages? Probably.

  But where? Bree hoped they were at one of the sites currently being hit. If not…

  Don’t. They’ll find the kids.

  Who had taken them?

  It wasn’t like the secretary of defense’s brats would be easy to access, right? Hmm…

  Bree read through the notes about both of the children. They were both heavily engaged in assorted social medias, offering more than a glimpse into their daily routines. Fools. If only the younger generation understood how exposed they truly were.

  “What are you doing?” Rhea asked.

  “Looking through what we know about Bob’s kids,” Bree responded. She motioned toward the screen. “They’re both on social media heavily. HERA pulled all the images and posts, but I’m thinking we need to go deeper.”

  “I know they intended to, but it’d take a while and Zoey got pulled off on something else for the mission,” Rhea said. “Let’s do it.”

  Bree nodded. It was simple enough for HERA to enter their accounts again. This time, she focused the program on their friends and followers instead of the posts and images. Typing in what she wanted to do rather than strings of codes or commands was so much simpler. She was definitely loving the new commando-based access portal for HERA.

  It took less than two minutes to load all the friends and followers into HERA and get it mining for data, cross referencing with the system’s databases. Zoey had a lot of automated search parameters entered into the system for mining like this, which meant Bree was off the hook on figuring out what she was looking for.

  Although it seemed like a simple enough process for Zoey to have already done, Bree had watched her friend do it enough to know better. HERA spat data out quickly, which then needed to be threaded back into the needle for the next step. And there were a ton of
steps.

  Bree picked through the results and dumped them back into the search parameters. The more she threaded, the less her friends had to work with later. It might not be needed at all. If the teams were at the right place, they’d have Bob’s kids. If not…

  Bree gulped.

  Don’t think about what’ll happen to them if they aren’t there. Mary knows what she’s doing.

  “You’ve done this before,” Rhea commented.

  “No. I’ve watched Zoey do it, though. She does this a lot for the underground cases, trying to identify where victims met their attackers if it was via social media. Too many are stalked there.” Bree chewed her lower lip and glanced up when a loud boom sounded through the room’s speakers.

  “Well, that worked better than expected,” Spade commented over the com. “I’d say that was a success.”

  “No shit,” Zoey said. “Great flying, Jacob. You hit their weapons cache.”

  Jacob grinned wide but focused on the smaller screen where he was navigating the experimental drone. Bree stood.

  “What should we hit next?” She glanced over at Jesse.

  “Northwest corner. There’s a second cache from what the drones in that area are showing.” Right. She pointed at the color coded “bombs” Spade had laid out. “Same color as last time.”

  “Right. I need to write down what each color does.”

  “I’ll get you a list,” Bree said. She turned her attention to the other two drones Spade had weaponized as they hovered over the compound. Gunfire sounded as the enemy targets shot at the drones. More baddies exited the building.

  “Standby,” Mary ordered.

  “I’m ready,” Cord said.

  Heat signatures from inside the building showed only a few people remaining. Most had taken the bait of the explosion and exited. Perfect.

  What if the greens didn’t work? What if the compound wasn’t strong enough to knock them out? Bree held her breath.

  “Go,” Mary said, her voice firm. “All teams, standby to engage.” Both drones dropped their payloads. Gas permeated the area. Bodies dropped. Bree stifled the cheer rising in her throat as her friend’s voice sounded once again. “All teams are green lit.”

  Bree’s mind reeled as activity unfolded on the screens. She knew everyone in Operations had divided up who would handle each team, but how did they remain focused? Her heartbeat quickened as she watched her friends enter the dangerous situations without hesitation. Damn, commandos were seriously not afraid of anything.

  “Hey.” Rhea touched her shoulder. “Let’s focus on HERA. They’ve got that part under control. Okay? You’re here if they need you.”

  Bree nodded. Rhea was right. Sitting on the sofa and digging with HERA would help more than her freaking out and worrying. She’d be a better asset focusing on the social media angle, just in case. She kept feeding HERA’s data results back in, drilling deeper into the aliases now identified. It was a huge surprise there were more than a dozen bogus accounts found by the third data mine.

  “That’s more than I expected,” Rhea whispered.

  “Not really. Think about it. Their dad is the secretary of defense. Of course media vultures would be all over them. Not to mention other international assholes,” Bree muttered as she fed the data in for one last time. “This should be enough to find out who everyone is.”

  Bree was able to toss seven of the thirteen potentials out immediately as media. The others? Hmm…she fed their names into HERA one last time. The computer squawked. The sound echoed via a speaker to the left. A red banner flashed under two names and pictures now displayed on an unused screen on that side of the room.

  Oops.

  She winced and glanced over at Mary, Vi, and Jesse—all of whom had turned to glance at the screen and the obnoxious noise.

  “Cord,” Mary said.

  “On it.” The man stood and headed to the small desk in that area. “What were you looking at?”

  “The social media accounts,” Bree said. Her pulse quickened. “Sorry, I didn’t know it’d do that.”

  “It only does that if they’re flagged on at least one of the databases we’re hooked up to.” He paused his typing. “This is good. Jacob and I were going to do this next. Clearly we should’ve made time to get it done before now.”

  “It’s not like there wasn’t a million things happening,” Bree said.

  “Fuck. Edge, potential problem here,” Cord said. “The girl’s got a former Mossad agent on her social media. Israeli intelligence has him flagged as a threat. High level.”

  Bree noted that Mary never turned around. The woman’s voice was calm, terrifyingly so. “All teams, we’ve got a potential link to a former Mossad agent. Threat level has increased on all targets.”

  Clicks sounded through the room as the different teams acknowledged. Even though Bree had heard those, what she didn’t hear scared her more. Images on the screens indicated the commandos were engaged in either hand-to-hand or gunfire. None of the sounds filled the room. Her gaze swept her friends, who’d all donned headsets.

  “How did she hear you?”

  Cord pointed at the microphone on his set. “We can hear one another in the headphones. This keeps us focused on our part of the mission. It’s easy to get distracted otherwise.”

  That was new. She bet Jesse had suggested it. The man was really good at the strategy thing. “How can I help?”

  “I’ve got HERA chewing through the former Mossad and the other guy. Did you finish the dig?”

  “I think so.” Bree glanced at her laptop. “Did you want me to do it again?”

  “Yeah, but Jacob said something right before the mission started that got me to thinking. He said lots of his friends at school had more than one account. They’d create secret ones their friends didn’t know about.”

  “Which means Bob’s kids might have, too.” Damn. Bree nodded. “Okay. How do I find those?”

  “IP addresses. Start with any accessed from the accounts you know about. Feed those into HERA. Have it identify any social media accounts accessed by those. They’ll either belong to the kids or someone who hacked their accounts. Either way, it’s something we’ll need to know.”

  “On it.” Bree went back to the sofa and took a deep breath. Thank God her friends were here. They knew what to do.

  “You okay?” Rhea asked.

  “Yeah.” And she was. A rightness settled in her. “Glad I’m here to help.”

  “Me, too. Those new drones Spade is using made the headquarters takedown really fast. I think they’re almost done,” Rhea said, motioning toward the monitor in the middle.

  Her gaze swept that direction. The tight sensation in her gut eased as she counted off each of Gage’s team. They were all okay. Doug and Pierce were cuffing the people passed out in the open area outside the building. Spade and Ram were handling those inside while Gage worked on gathering data inside the office area.

  “Who’s handling all of the targets?” Bree asked.

  “Now that you’ve spotted a potential threat to national security, probably Homeland,” Cord said. “We hadn’t fully made a decision on that yet. This helps. A lot. Without Bob, we’re kind of twisting in the wind on who to trust in the alphabet soup right now.”

  Right, because there were puppet masters in play courtesy of that shadow organization—the one Ram had escaped from. She swallowed. God, she didn’t want them to become a problem. Please, please no.

  “She’s out,” Mary said. Sound filled the speakers within the room. “Mia’s extracting her now. All others, keep our guest busy. Medina, be ready. Target is en route.”

  “Understood.” Medina’s image flashed across the screen as he spoke. “We have a confirmed ID yet?”

  No one believed the woman was simply a maid in the wrong place at the wrong time. HERA had still been running her image the last time Bree had heard.

  “Working on it,” Mary said. She clicked a few buttons on her laptop. “Mia, get her talking. Gently.
”

  No response sounded on the speakers. Bree held her breath as a computerized feed appeared on a screen in front of Mary, who leaned forward. Her entire focus remained on the screen.

  Bree watched for several minutes. A ping sounded from Mary’s laptop. She read whatever it said a moment, then stood fully. Her voice was firmer than it’d been before, which meant she was fully in Edge mode. Whatever she’d found out wasn’t good.

  At all.

  “We have identity confirmed. Secure her,” Edge ordered.

  “Are you going to share?” Medina asked.

  “HERA finally identified her.” The whispered statement struck the room. “Her first name is Melanie. The rest is classified for now.”

  “Mary?” Vi asked.

  “Later.” The woman put both hands on her hips and cursed. She clicked a button in front of her. “Levi, we have a situation. Do not let our guest out of your sight. He is not to be left alone.”

  Fuck. Gavin was involved somehow. Anger rolled through Bree. That rotten son of a bitch. She clenched her fists and willed the emotion away. Rage wouldn’t help. Not now.

  “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out,” Rhea whispered. “We always do.”

  Yeah, but who would be hurt in the process? There was always a price, a sacrifice. Someone always paid.

  “Cord, take over for me,” Mary ordered. “Jacob, take over for him. I’ve got to make a few calls.”

  She marched toward the door, which slammed on her departure. Damn. Bree pulled out her cell and typed out a message.

  Bree: Not sure what just happened, but Mary’s in full Edge mode. She just slammed out of Operations to make some calls. She might need you.

  The response came immediately.

  Dylan: Thanks. On it.

  She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been here. From what Bree had seen in the past, he usually was.

  “Thanks. Destiny had a doctor’s appointment they didn’t want to reschedule today,” Jesse said. “Marshall and Nolan had a video conference they couldn’t miss.”

  Life wasn’t ever slow-paced at The Arsenal. Bree nodded and pocketed her phone. Hopefully whatever Mary had discovered was navigable. If not, she knew the commandos would blast a way through, because that’s what they did.