Viper Nine Read online

An exchange of gunfire echoed close by. Rios prepped her M4 assault rifle on the move, catching up to the back of Lim, Pope and Baptiste.

  The Australian was leading the charge with Baptiste reloading. And they were making rapid headway through the on-site security.

  By the time Rios brought up the rear, the team were turning into a large open space where jail cells formed an oval across the first and second floors.

  The room was full of computers, wires, hackers taking cover behind their desks.

  And Wells, too, dragged backwards at machete-point by Kovac, with Graf, a girl and an armed guard by his side.

  They were bugging out through a side entrance. Wells used as a human shield.

  ‘You’re too late!’ Kovac yelled, the edge of the weapon held to Wells’ throat. ‘The blonde is dead and this one’s next if you don’t back off.’

  Rios darted to the front of the pack, trying to get a clean shot. But Kovac and his crew disappeared through the door as she put down a stray guard.

  They ran after them as a team, through another narrow web of corridors before bursting out into the outside air.

  Graf laid down a burst of suppressing fire as he joined Kovac and the others at his waiting military truck. It was built to blend in with the desert, with a sand-coloured canopy over the rear and fat tyres dusted with sand. But Wells didn’t seem to be along for the ride. Kovac pushed Wells to the ground, the Brit collapsing face-first to the dirt.

  Dumb move. Kovac was giving up the only thing stopping Rios and the others from turning him into a human sieve.

  Except it wasn’t dumb. His rapid response unit pulled into the base as Kovac’s driver revved the engine of the truck.

  ‘Fall back,’ yelled Pope at the sight of the arriving unit.

  But it was too late. The Humvee came to a stop, its turret gun swung in their direction.

  Rios watched Kovac’s wheels rumble clear of the compound, with Graf and the girl sat in the back, a tablet in her hands. The German threw a mock salute.

  ‘Son of a motherfucker,’ the Mexican cursed, the rapid response unit jumping off the back of their own transport.

  Four versus twenty-four, plus the gunner on the back of the Humvee. It was a simple equation. If they opened fire on Kovac’s backup unit, they’d be vulture meat in seconds. If they ran, they’d be shredded like taco lettuce. And if they surrendered, she gave them ten seconds of breath.

  Baptiste made the decision for them, letting his rifle hang loose and raising his hands. Lim followed close behind. Then Pope.

  With the heavily-armed combat unit approaching, Rios glanced over her shoulder and saw Wells, picking himself up out of the dirt. Kovac’s military support yelled at her to drop her M4 from behind their own carbon-powered rifles.

  She turned to face the firing squad, let go of her weapon and reached for the sky.

  ‘Okay if I shit my undies now?’ Pope asked her, joking to the last.

  ‘Don’t drop the bomb just yet,’ Rios said, eyes and ears drawn to objects on the horizon.

  Chapter 46

  Master Sergeant Cole Montgomery rode on the outside seat in the rear of the Huey. A boot-tip from the open doorway, he looked out to his right and saw two more military helicopters flying fast alongside in the dim morning light. Out to the left and the same, a golden halo forming over the Saudi desert.

  Time was critical. The plan had been to strike before dawn, but they’d been held on standby with word of CIA operatives on the ground.

  Well, someone in Washington must have ran out of patience, because here they were. They had few details other than satellite photography of the compound, and further imagery of Radovan Kovac and his key players.

  Their orders were to secure the compound and wait for agents to arrive to deal with the remaining hacking cell itself. That was fine with Montgomery. Computers were definitely not his thing. Maisy, his four-year-old, was better on a laptop than he was.

  The Master Sergeant looked around the cabin at his men, dressed in unmarked desert fatigues, eyes alive and game faces welded to their jaws. Montgomery felt the familiar pump of adrenaline as they neared the target. This is what they lived for. And the world was watching.

  In fact, Task Force Green was one of five units dispatched to the Saudi desert for a direct action strike on Kovac’s compound. Either side of his Delta Force unit flew the British SAS, Russia’s Alpha Group, Chinese Special Operations Forces, the German KSK and the French GIGN.

  Whether for revenge or for headlines, it looked like everyone wanted in on the raiding party.

  In fact, in all his years in the field of battle, Montgomery had never seen anything like it. But then again, he’d never seen anything like the hacks Kovac’s group was responsible for. And he was relieved to finally get the green light, and do a damn thing about it.

  As the five-strong line of helicopters approached over a vast expanse of desert, they dropped low to the deck, skimming sand off the top of a line of dunes.

  The Huey dipped even lower as they approached Kovac’s compound, with the pilot talking in Montgomery’s ear over the radio.

  ‘Hostiles up ahead, I’m counting twelve or more.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Montgomery replied, peering out of the doorway. He held his microphone close to his mouth and repeated the information to the other four teams. ‘Contact dead ahead. Twenty or more hostiles,’ he said. ‘Green Unit will take the lead.’

  To the Master Sergeant’s relief, the other four teams were English speakers. Yet no sooner had they all confirmed than the Huey took a rattle of flak down the right side, missing him by inches. Montgomery leaned out and saw a turret-mounted Humvee sparking orange and sending a twisting stream of red-hot flak into the air.

  An RPG soon followed, the helicopter carrying the French to the left taking a glancing blow on the tail. It was enough to send it into a spin across the Huey’s path.

  Montgomery held tight to the roof and tighter to his breath as the pilot banked up and left. The French chopper missed with only feet to spare, but the pilot was good. He regained control and brought the chopper back into line with a smoking tail.

  ‘Early Bird One, return fire, return fire,’ Montgomery said as they got within range of the compound. The pilot of the Huey deployed a one-two counter-punch of M3 rockets. They accelerated away and lit up the Humvee, trapping the gunner in the burning vehicle.

  The enemy force split and scrambled into position, ready to repel the allied attack.

  A second rocket strike from the Russian chopper rocked one of two transport trucks. The blast neutralised two of the enemy, flushing the rest across the open ground.

  It gave the Hueys the time they needed to touch down a safe sprint away from the base.

  Montgomery jumped out of the helicopter before the landing skids even hit the ground. He led his team towards the compound, with the other special forces units flanking left and right. The Deltas opened fire first, the enemy taking cover behind walls and burning vehicles.

  As the allied force advanced, Kovac’s private army retreated around the rear of the compound.

  Montgomery’s main concern was a man with an over-the-shoulder rocket launcher. He reloaded another grenade taking cover behind the untouched transporter truck. The Delta leader stopped, took aim and double-tapped him in the face. The guy dropped. The allied units swarmed the compound. They had them now.

  * * *

  Kovac turned and watched out of the passenger window of the truck, a warm wind teasing his face. His second unit had been quick to the scene following his emergency call. Yet no sooner had they been deployed to counter the infiltrators than a second invading force had arrived over the dunes by air.

  His enemies had not only tracked the location of the remaining cell, they’d finally called his bluff and given the green light for an all-out assault.

  The chop of the helicopters was faint at a distance. The roar of the truck much louder as they beat a path towards the airstrip. Kovac had already calle
d ahead. A jet would be ready to whisk him and his remaining foot soldiers to their next destination. A place no government would find them, least of all extradite them to enemy soil.

  Some army, the Serbian thought, running the rule over Graf, Jana and the driver of the truck. A man whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn. Kovac would have to rebuild. But no matter. There was an endless supply of mercenaries and paramilitaries only too happy to serve, for the right ideology or price.

  In the meantime, there was the main event. It was close. And all being well, he could watch it from a safe distance as his chartered Gulfstream jet took to the air.

  Kovac leaned into the back of the truck, where Graf and Jana sat facing each other, his hacker-in-chief studying the screen of a tablet.

  ‘Do we still have control of the payload?’ the Serb asked, holding his breath for good news.

  Jana hesitated, glancing from Graf to Kovac. ‘Are you sure you want to—?’

  Kovac hit her with a dead-eyed stare. One more peep out of her and he’d take control of the tablet himself. It wouldn’t hurt to drop some weight off the back of the truck.

  ‘I switched control to the tablet,’ Jana confirmed, as if reading his mind. ‘We’re on schedule.’

  * * *

  ‘Fall the fuck back,’ Pope yelled as Wells was hit by a wave of heat from the exploding Humvee.

  ‘We can take them,’ Lim insisted, ready to engage Kovac’s men, their attention torn by the approaching Huey’s.

  ‘SF don’t know who we are,’ Wells replied. ‘They’ll cut us down the same as Kovac’s men.’

  A second M3 rocket assault agreed with him, lighting up one of the two transport trucks Kovac’s response team arrived in.

  The enemy force scattered in an attempt to repel the onrushing attack from the air. It fast turned into a full ground assault – choppers landing and a swathe of elite units pouring out over the sand.

  On the run, Wells spied the presence of the US military, the SAS, Chinese, French and the Russians. He bolted back into the compound, the rest of the Wildcard team close behind, engaging Kovac’s men as they backed up through the door.

  Pope was the last through. He slammed the door shut and they hurried back into the main body of the jail, where Viper Nine’s remaining hackers cowered behind their desks.

  He had little sympathy for them. But one of them might know what happened to Driver. ‘Put down your rifles,’ he instructed the team, ‘in case SF think we’re hostiles.’

  ‘Anyone got a white handkerchief?’ Baptiste asked.

  ‘No, but I’ll happily wave my undies,’ Pope replied to the rat-a-tat of an intense gun battle outside the walls of the jail. ‘Though I can’t guarantee they’re white anymore.’

  Typical Pope. Always masking his fear with a tasteless joke. Wells had other things on his mind, like getting out of his wrist ties.

  Lim was the first to oblige, drawing a knife and cutting them in two.

  The British agent shook his arms out and focused on the next task at hand. ‘Sidearm,’ he said to Lim.

  She drew a pistol from her side holster and slapped it in his hand. Wells turned it on a nearby hacker. A spotty, geeky American kid in a red T-shirt pleading his innocence. ‘What happened to the blonde woman?’ Wells asked him.

  The guy dithered. ‘Uh—’

  Wells dragged him to his feet and held the gun to his head. ‘The blonde woman. What did Kovac do with her?’

  The young hacker seemed afraid to speak, but behind his Coke bottle glasses, his eyes wandered to a nearby laptop.

  ‘Is this your machine?’ Wells asked.

  ‘No, it’s Jana’s,’ the kid replied.

  Wells moved around the desk and fixed his eyes on the screen. ‘Is this live footage I’m watching?’

  The kid nodded.

  There was good news. And terrible news.

  Chapter 47

  Was it a dream? At first there was no sense of time or place. Driver felt only her consciousness drifting weightless, without a body to anchor it down. She sensed a low rumble, like the sound of an aircraft at altitude. Was she on a flight?

  Driver tried to remember what had happened in the preceding hours. The last thing she remembered was being in a jail cell with Wells on the other side of the bars. Being dragged from the cell, yes. And spirited outdoors into the night air. But the memories were evasive, like slippery fish. She fought her way through a mental fog as the rumble grew louder. Driver felt the sting of a needle prick in her arm, that too a memory.

  Of course – she wasn’t lost in sleep. She’d been drugged. And this was a gradual return to reality, feeling the weight of her head on her neck and shoulders.

  Driver blinked as she came around, her body upright. Her butt on a seat and her arms out in front of her, a nagging pinch at the wrists, but otherwise numb.

  Raising her head was like rolling a boulder uphill, but she forced her chin upwards against the pull of gravity and the deep malaise in her muscles.

  It was clear she wasn’t on an airplane. No seat-back in front of her. No in-flight magazine or entertainment. But a steering wheel instead. And over the wheel, a windscreen full of blue. It was too bright. She snapped her eyes closed and saw spots, only to force herself to re-engage with the view.

  Driver suspected she was hallucinating. How could she be unconscious at the wheel of a moving vehicle and still be alive? But if it was an illusion, it was a mighty convincing one, including the furnace-like heat of the cab.

  No, this was no daydream. After an inestimable amount of time, the permanent blur on her vision disappeared. She felt her arms, her legs, her abdomen return to her. All were bound tight with silver duct tape – layers of the stuff locking her in place. Her hands to the rim of the wheel. Her back to the driver’s seat and her feet held together at the ankle bones, hovering over the pedals.

  Yet if she wasn’t working the accelerator or the brake, who was? Was the cab being towed?

  A check in the wing mirror told her the truck was part of a fixed white trailer with a long wheelbase. Peering over the large wheel of the truck, she saw only open road ahead. Yet a glance to her right and she noticed a steel strut bolted to the central console. It had a camera mounted on the front and a GPS screen on the rear. The screen indicated steady progress towards an unspecified destination.

  That explained the lack of air con, noticing a second camera positioned on the far end of the dash, angled straight at her.

  As both her mental and physical strength returned, Driver tried her damnedest to wriggle her body free of the chair. Stuck fast, she tried pulling her hands from the wheel. They wouldn’t budge an inch. And in the meantime, the wheel turned of its own volition, the accelerator depressing beneath her bound feet.

  Still working at half-speed, her mind took a while to catch up with the truth. But as she put the pieces together, it dawned on her faster than the desert sun.

  The cab belonged to a self-drive truck, remote operated. Driver guessed the person responsible was watching her through the camera on the far end of the dash. And a hundred bucks said it was Kovac.

  Yet there was another surprise in store. With her senses restored, Driver found a further modification to the cab. One where the passenger seat had been removed to make way for…

  ‘Shit,’ Driver found herself wheezing through a hoarse throat burned dry by lack of water.

  In the gap left by the removed seat was a square metal frame with the stolen warhead screwed in place. Strapped around the device was a thin metallic panel with a letterbox-shaped LED screen. It had two yellow wires plugged into the warhead, fed through a small hole drilled in the white casing.

  Driver leaned as far to the right as her restraints would allow to get a better view. The panel strapped to the warhead was a timer. And it was counting down.

  * * *

  ‘Holy shit, what the fuck is that?’ Rios asked, looking over Wells’ shoulder at the live footage.

  ‘It’s Driver,’ he rep
lied, relieved to see her alive, but mortified by what he saw on-screen. ‘Some kind of automated vehicle.’

  ‘Is that a bomb?’ Pope asked, joining Rios, straining to get a look.

  ‘It’s a B83, the stolen warhead,’ Wells replied, watching split screen footage from the cab of what appeared to be a self-drive truck. The screen was divided into three windows. In one, Driver struggled against her restraint, with the device in view. In the other, a camera showed a clear view of the road ahead – a long, straight highway through the Saudi desert.

  ‘Can you shut the truck down?’ Rios asked. ‘Take control?’

  ‘I’m trying,’ Wells replied, hearing the gunfire close in on the central compound. He clicked again on a button indicating the option to disable self-drive. But it was dead and grey. ‘It’s not responding.’

  ‘Must be Kovac,’ Lim said. ‘They have remote control, on the move.’

  Wells looked on in vain. He could make out a countdown timer, but not how long it had left to go. Nor did the GPS map in the top right of the screen help.

  ‘Come on, we’ve gotta move,’ Pope said, motioning to the corridor.

  Wells grabbed the bespectacled hacker by the collar. ‘You, can you stop this?’

  He shook his head. ‘Jana’s got control on her tablet. Access is heavily encrypted. It would take—’

  ‘Too fucking long,’ Rios said. ‘We’ve gotta get to that tablet.’

  Wells let go of the hacker. ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘Me too,’ Rios said, following him across the room.

  On his way out, Wells picked up the tracker, discarded by Kovac on the end of a desk in his rush to escape.

  ‘Give me that,’ Lim said.

  The British agent got the drift and tossed it her way. She caught it and hurried the opposite way, leaving Pope and Baptiste behind.

  ‘I’ll see what intel I can gather before the allies take over the base,’ the Russian said. ‘Anything we can use in case Kovac escapes.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t,’ Wells replied, gripped by a grim determination.