Viper Nine Read online

  ‘“Do about it”, sir?’ Schneider asked.

  ‘How do we get these guys?’ grunted Budge.

  Schneider looked around the room as though the answer was obvious. Hill knew and feared what he was about to say.

  ‘We don’t,’ Schneider replied. ‘Not unless we can trace the source of the attacks. And the only people we have capable of responding—’

  ‘The CIA have had their asses handed to them,’ Budge said, only too happy to stick the knife into an organisation Hill knew he wanted folded into US Army intelligence.

  Yet the General’s own cybersecurity measures had been proved just as vulnerable.

  ‘There’s got to be a military solution,’ said Admiral John Benson of the US Navy, a white-haired old man who seemed to shrink every time Hill saw him.

  ‘You can’t torpedo the internet, Admiral,’ Hill replied.

  ‘Well what does the Ambassador suggest?’ Benson grumbled. ‘And what’s she doing here, anyway?’ he continued, as if the Ambassador didn’t exist.

  Williams returned to his seat. ‘Because I asked her to be, Admiral… For one, Violetta’s one of the few people I know who talks sense. For another, she’s our backchannel in with the other permanent members.’

  Danbridge turned in her chair to face Hill. ‘What are you hearing?’

  ‘The same conversation we’re having now,’ the Ambassador replied, motioning to the CNN footage of global power cuts, transport chaos and blazing oilfields on the big screen at the end of the room.

  As Hill and the others in the room stared helplessly at the bad news, the footage broke up with static. Suddenly, another image filled the screen – a man, judging by his wide shoulders, behind a black snake mask with demonic yellow eyes and the red outlines of features, tongue and teeth.

  The man stared at them on the other side of a camera. Hill shifted uncomfortably in her chair and exchanged a nervous glance with Danbridge.

  President Williams was the first to break the silence. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We are Viper Nine,’ the man replied, his voice masked by a deep vocal distorter.

  ‘What do you want?’ Williams asked, meeting with silence. ‘How did you access our communications?’ the President continued.

  Still the man didn’t speak. He merely laughed behind the mask. It was sinister and gave Ambassador Hill the chills.

  ‘Answer me,’ Williams bellowed, banging a fist on the polished oak. ‘I’m the President of the United—’

  ‘I don’t care,’ the man in the mask said, with apparent glee.

  Hill wondered if it was a juvenile they were dealing with. Behind the mask and with the figure on the screen dressed in black in a dimly-lit room, it was hard to tell much of anything.

  ‘You must want something,’ Williams said. ‘Otherwise, why hijack our communications?’

  ‘That’s a nice tie,’ replied the masked man.

  Damn, thought Hill, he could see into the room – they were on a two-way video call and didn’t even know it. The rest of the room shifted in their seats, as if uncomfortable at the thought of being watched.

  If they had access to the White House internet, what else were they tapped into? Hill’s phone? Her laptop?

  ‘I am here with a message, for you and the other so-called superpowers,’ the man continued. ‘Pay one trillion US dollars and this stops. Don’t pay, and it gets worse.’

  A trillion? Did they even have that kind of money? Even shared between nations, it was a staggering sum.

  President Williams leaned forward in his chair. ‘And when do you want this money by?’

  ‘We’re reasonable people,’ the hacker replied. ‘You have seventy-two hours.’

  Williams confirmed the shaking heads around the table. ‘We haven’t got that kind of money. Especially in that kind of time.’

  ‘A trillion US in three days’ time,’ the Viper Nine leader repeated. ‘And throw in the tie.’

  Before Williams could speak, the transmission was cut and the screen returned to CNN. The Joint Chiefs dropped their heads in their hands and grumbled about the ransom – the amount, the deadline, each ridiculous and impossible.

  ‘Especially without global buy-in,’ Danbridge said. ‘What does “Viper Nine” mean anyway?’

  ‘Who knows?’ replied Schneider. ‘These hacking groups usually go for mysterious or menacing.’

  ‘It’s certainly menacing,’ Ambassador Hill added, checking her watch. ‘I think we should take this to the UN. There’s an emergency session already scheduled.’

  ‘I thought we didn’t negotiate with terrorists,’ said Benson.

  ‘We don’t,’ replied Williams. ‘But we have to appear to be. Who knows what they’re monitoring.’

  Ross re-entered the room. He was such a stealth presence in the corridors of the White House, Hill hadn’t even noticed him leave.

  The Chief of Staff approached the President with a gaggle of secret service agents at his heel.

  ‘Has the White House been compromised?’ Williams asked.

  ‘We don’t think so, sir,’ Ross replied. ‘But we can’t take any chances. We’re moving you to a more secure location.’

  Everyone knew what that meant, including Hill. President Williams rose from his chair. ‘We’ll continue this discussion in the basement.’ He looked towards Hill. ‘Violetta, take this to the Security Council, but don’t wait for the meeting. Backchannel it through the other Permanent Members.’

  ‘I’ll start making calls,’ Hill said, pulling her phone from her handbag.

  ‘Keep me informed,’ Williams said, as his security detail ushered him out of the door with the Joint Chiefs in tow.

  ‘Likewise, Mr President,’ Hill replied, heading the opposite way along the corridor. She dialled the Russian Ambassador’s number as her work heels clapped over marble tiles, the pinch all but forgotten. ‘Anton?’ she said as he picked up. ‘The five of us need to talk, right now.’

  UN Headquarters, New York

  In a quiet corner of the building, Ambassador Hill met with her fellow delegates from Russia, China, France and the UK.

  They huddled around a circular, shin-high table in a breakout area far from the Security Council Chambers. The kind of place they could talk without their voices echoing along the corridors of shared power. Yet each leaned forward conspiratorially on an oversized grey armchair as Hill laid out the ransom demands made by Viper Nine.

  Anton Popov, the wiry Russian delegate looked tired from his flight. He scratched his bald head, shaved down to a sheen. ‘He demanded the same of our President.’

  ‘The guy in the snake mask?’ Hill asked.

  ‘Sounds like we all made his acquaintance,’ replied the stocky Zhao Chunian, the Chinese Ambassador.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Dominique Blanc asked, as pristine as ever with her demure charcoal dress and platinum-blonde bob.

  ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists,’ Trevor Longstaff grunted, a hand to his side where he’d recently had a hip replacement. ‘The Prime Minister has made it quite clear.’

  ‘They’ve got control of our intelligence systems and command of some of our communications,’ Hill said. ‘We’re not in a position to negotiate.’

  ‘So is this conversation about what I think it’s about?’ Zhao asked.

  Popov was as wary as ever. ‘There were complications with the last mission.’

  ‘Still, they got the job done,’ Longstaff remarked.

  ‘Not that it did us any good,’ Zhao replied. ‘We finally get the oil agreement back on track and this happens… When the markets reopen, it will be chaos.’

  ‘At the fuel pumps before long, too,’ added Blanc. ‘As if hospitals running off emergency generators isn’t enough.’

  ‘FEMA’s already in full swing and we’re a couple of hacks away from the dark ages,’ Hill said.

  ‘Not to mention the political fallout,’ added Zhao. ‘My government cannot appear weak for too long.’


  Hill massaged a finger against her temple. ‘If this situation continues south, we’re all going to be for the chop. Presidents. Ministers. Ambassadors…’

  Blanc sat back in her seat and shook her head. ‘If this gets any worse, your career will be the least of your worries.’

  ‘Then what do we say?’ Hill asked the group. ‘Shall I activate Wildcard?’

  ‘Seems like we’ve got little option,’ Longstaff sighed.

  ‘Not long until that deadline,’ Zhao said. ‘If we do pay up, it’ll crash the markets for sure.’

  ‘And if we don’t, who knows what will happen,’ Blanc remarked.

  Popov tugged at his shirt collar like it was choking him. ‘What about the voting process?’

  Hill checked her watch. ‘We’re in session in five minutes.’

  Popov sagged in the shoulders and nodded. ‘Make the call.’

  Chapter 5

  Geneva, Switzerland

  With her face buried in a pillow, Driver reached out a hand and felt around on the bedside table. Even in the midst of her deepest sleep, she was easily woken by the smallest sudden noise. So the buzz of her phone had dragged her kicking and screaming out of slumber.

  Driver felt the cool, flat glass of the screen of her phone under her palm. She pulled it into bed with her and rolled onto her side. The screen lit up bright under the duvet. It was five-ten am. and she’d enjoyed a whole four hours of sleep since the long drive home to Geneva.

  With sticky, squinting eyes, Driver read the text message on her phone. It was from a contact listed as Work. The text read: Can you come into the office?

  It meant one thing. She had to get up. Then and there. Driver dropped the phone and planted her face back in the pillow. She groaned and contemplated drifting off for another ten minutes. There was a chill in the room, her apartment hidden from the sun behind thick wooden blinds for the previous three days. And when Driver did climb out of bed, who knew if she’d make it back into it again? Ever?

  Hell, Driver didn’t even know if she wanted in on the team any more. She cursed herself for signing the contract and closed her eyes, mind and body starting to drift.

  But the world couldn’t wait another ten minutes.

  Driver rolled onto her side again, flung the covers aside and hauled herself out of bed. The dark laminate flooring was chilly under her soles. She got to her feet and left the phone on the bedside table.

  Padding across the room, the matte-white walls were bare of any sign of life and seemed to glow in the dark. Driver sleepwalked her way through her tiny one-bedroom home into the living area. She opened the fridge and peered into the harsh light, grabbed a carton of orange juice and a cup off the blender, setting both down on the worktop. Next came a jar of coffee off a shelf. A spoon dug in and a heap of ground beans tipped into the blender. Working in the light of the almost-bare fridge, Driver took the last couple of eggs from the inside of the door. She cracked them in the blender and reached inside again to a lonely jar of peanut butter. A large spoonful completed the mound of ingredients in the blender, to which Driver added a dash of water.

  The high-speed churn of the blender was offensively loud. Driver pulled the cup from the machine. ‘Down the hatch,’ she said to herself before necking the whole lot in one. She slammed the cup down on the worktop and grimaced.

  Driver shuddered at the foul taste as a loud belch took her by surprise. Flinging the cup in the sink and rubbing an eye with the base of her palm, she looked around her apartment.

  It was a rental, furnished, serviced and paid for. But there was little sign anyone lived there other than dishes in the sink, a sparse wardrobe of clothing and her own zombified moans as she trudged her way to the shower.

  Twenty minutes later, Driver was out of the door, exiting onto a quiet city street, the birds singing and a bin truck beeping as it backed out of a side alley.

  With Geneva being a small, historical city in the shadow of the snow-capped Mont Blanc, it was only a five-minute stride on foot to the office. Access was gained through an unassuming steel door without a window with the number twenty-four.

  Driver held her fob to a panel and the door clicked open. She pushed through and let it swing shut behind her. At the end of a narrow, dim hallway with a hard grey floor waited another doorway. This one came with a metal key-code panel. Driver punched in her code and moved through the door into a musty foyer where a service elevator waited with a blue concertina door.

  She rolled the heavy door to her right and stepped inside the elevator. With the door closed, Driver inserted a key in a lock on a control panel, turned it and pushed a button for minus two.

  The elevator juddered into life. It descended slowly, exposed brickwork charting its descent.

  The elevator came to a stop and she pulled the door open. Next came an empty foyer with a nondescript white door and a small black panel to the right.

  Driver wrapped a hand around the grab handle on the door and lined her face up with the panel. A horizontal beam of green light scanned up and down. There was a beep. A click. She pulled on the door and strode through into the office.

  Except it was no ordinary office. It was a hi-tech command and control centre for Wildcard. Not only did the team have its own base now, they finally had a vending machine too.

  Okay, so the place was small, sparse and industrial. The ceilings were low with steel fans spinning slow and no natural light – a claustrophobe’s nightmare. Yet there were dedicated desks for tech genius Mo and team liaison Anna, their go-to woman for everything.

  Both were busy at their stations, not bothering to look up as she entered.

  Gilmore, meanwhile, had his own office at the far end. To the right sat the situation room behind a soundproof glass wall. And against the left wall, a small breakout area with a pair of brown leather sofas, a TV on the wall, a water cooler, single-counter kitchenette and that vending machine, as pestered for by Pope.

  The rest of the team waited in the situation room, gathered round a conference table with a giant touchscreen in the centre. There were further screens fixed to the outer brick wall, each playing news reports from around the world.

  It was cold in the office. Driver entered the situation room with Mo and Anna following close behind. She nodded at the team, all still half-asleep.

  Heading for a seat next to Wells, Driver thought better of it. There was a permafrost between them still – unexplained, unaddressed. Perhaps that was the source of the sub-zero temperature.

  Driver was in no mood for that conversation anyway. Sure as hell not in front of the others. So she slumped into a chair towards the head of the table.

  Bryan Gilmore, in his trademark white shirt and loose black tie, entered the room. The spotlights above accentuated the deep grooves in his face and danced on his short silver hair. He stood at the head of the table as Anna and Mo took their places – Anna rubbing her thick-rimmed glasses with the sleeve of a green wool sweater and Mo zipping up a black hoodie and hugging himself tight.

  ‘Why’s it always so cold in here?’ he complained.

  ‘To keep you awake,’ Gilmore replied to a bleary-eyed room dressed discreetly casual as any clandestine operative was in the habit of doing.

  Even Pope was quiet, sipping on a takeout coffee and threatening to swallow the room with a silent yawn.

  ‘Okay, I’m not gonna stand here and go back over the situation,’ Gilmore said, resting his weight on the desk. ‘Only to say that things have got worse since the opening attacks.’

  ‘What kind of worse?’ Wells asked, reclining in his chair.

  ‘Intelligence agencies being hacked kind of worse,’ Anna replied, returning her glasses to her eyes.

  ‘It’s happened across the board,’ Gilmore continued.

  ‘Anyone take credit yet?’ Wells asked.

  Gilmore dug his hands in his pockets. ‘They’re calling themselves Viper Nine. And they’re demanding a trillion US dollars in three days from now.’

  B
aptiste, wearing his version of casual – a tweed blazer and a white Armani shirt – whistled through his teeth.

  ‘Has anyone got that kind of money?’ Driver asked, shivering and hugging herself with her arms.

  ‘The money’s not an issue,’ Gilmore replied. ‘Wanting to part with it is.’

  ‘So what are we saying?’ Rios asked, the sole of a Converse trainer on the edge of the table, ‘the CIA, MI6, they’re all lame ducks?’

  ‘Hence the rude awakening,’ Gilmore continued.

  ‘What can we do that our governments can’t?’ Lim asked from the far end of the table.

  ‘Well for one, no one knows about us,’ Gilmore replied in his gravelled Virginian tone. ‘And we can’t be hacked, tracked or tapped by these cyberterrorists if they don’t know we exist.’

  Pope stretched and yawned some more. ‘That’s all bloody good in theory. But where do we start?’

  ‘Pope’s right, this super-geek shit isn’t our thing,’ Rios added.

  ‘We need a way in,’ Driver said, turning to Mo.

  The young techie’s head lolled forward, snoring gently in his chair.

  Anna elbowed him awake. ‘Tell them about the recruiter.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Mo said, snapping awake. ‘I’ve been hitting the deep, dark web. Trying to find out more.’

  ‘You not heard of these guys?’ Wells asked.

  ‘Viper Nine? No, but what they’ve done is incredible. I mean, the sheer audacity of the hacks. It’s technically brilliant—’ Mo caught Gilmore’s glare and stopped himself in the act of fan worship. ‘I mean, it’s terrible, obviously…’

  Gilmore sighed. ‘The point, Mo, get to the point.’

  ‘The point, okay, so I made some enquiries under my old Black Hat tag, Super-Fly.’

  Pope burst out laughing.

  In spite of the hour and the situation, Driver couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t the only one.

  Mo shook off the ridicule. ‘I got in touch with a contact called Necromancer. I’m pretty sure they’re a recruiter for these Viper Nine guys.’