Viper Nine Read online

‘How do you know they’re legit?’ Rios asked.

  ‘Because hackers like to brag. And bringing me on board? Coup de grȃce, my friends, coup de grȃce.’

  Gilmore stood up from the table and scratched a wiry eyebrow. ‘Translate this into next steps for me. Can we trace this recruiter?’

  Mo shook his head. ‘Not a good idea. If they’re sophisticated enough to bring down the CIA and Pentagon, they’ll have Russian-dolled any attempts to mess with their shit.’

  Driver shared a shrug with Baptiste – no, her neither.

  ‘And even if I did get into their systems undetected,’ Mo continued, ‘they’ll have me chasing fake ISPs until Christmas.’

  ‘How can you know?’ Baptiste asked.

  Mo regarded the Russian as if he was stupid. ‘You don’t know much about computers, do you?’

  ‘Then that leaves us where?’ Driver asked.

  ‘They want to meet me,’ Mo replied.

  Wells raised an eyebrow. ‘A physical meeting? Is that normal?’

  ‘No,’ Mo continued. ‘It’s very not normal. But it’s the cost of entry.’

  ‘Where does this Necromancer want to meet?’ Gilmore asked.

  ‘Berlin,’ Mo replied. ‘Tonight.’

  Driver shook her head. ‘You can’t make it any sooner?’

  ‘I pushed for the afternoon,’ Mo replied. ‘How do you say it? No dice.’

  ‘Tonight will have to do,’ Gilmore muttered.

  Driver planted her elbows on the table. ‘You’re not sending him in?’

  ‘Why not?’ Wells countered with an irritated glare.

  ‘We’re up against a band of cyberterrorists,’ Driver replied, holding his stare. ‘Mo’s too important.’

  ‘Well that’s true,’ Mo said to himself.

  ‘Send me instead,’ Driver suggested, sensing resistance within the room. After Hyde Park, she didn’t need to ask why.

  ‘Actually, that could work out pretty well,’ Mo said. ‘How’s your Russian?’

  ‘I spent two years in Siberia, what do you think?’

  ‘And your German?’

  ‘My mother’s German,’ Driver replied.

  ‘That explains a lot,’ Wells muttered.

  She cooled her growing frustration with him and asked Mo why it mattered.

  ‘To throw the authorities off my scent, I pretended I was Eastern European.’

  ‘Then it’s better if Driver goes,’ agreed Lim. ‘She looks the part.’

  ‘Thanks, I think,’ Driver replied, checking her attire.

  ‘I could pass for a hacker,’ Baptiste remarked.

  Rios, chewing on gum, flashed him an incredulous grin. ‘No offence pops, but—’

  As Baptiste sulked in his chair, Wells leaned forward in his. ‘What about me?’

  ‘You’re more jock than geek,’ Anna replied.

  Mo agreed. ‘You don’t get muscles like those by punching keys.’

  ‘And you can rule me out,’ Pope said. ‘Computers make my brain hurt.’

  ‘What doesn’t?’ Lim said.

  Pope listed them out on fingers. ‘Beer, chips, cricket—’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Gilmore interrupted. ‘Driver meets with the recruiter tonight. The rest of you stay close. First chance we get, we grab Necromancer and get some answers.’

  ‘So long as you stick to the plan this time,’ Wells said.

  ‘So long as the plan is worth sticking to,’ Driver snapped back, sick of the flak she’d taken since London.

  Lack of sleep didn’t help, and Gilmore sensed it. ‘Kravchenko was necessary, this is an emergency. Go home, get some more rest before the flight out. We might only get one shot at this.’

  Chapter 6

  Berlin, Germany

  Under a clear night sky, an unseasonable cold chill permeated the air. Driver moved through the grungier end of the city, past graffiti-adorned walls and a strip of bars housed in a converted warehouse.

  The neon lights of Berlin drinking holes shimmered in a sheen of fresh-fallen rain. She heard a shriek of steel over tram lines in the distance as a yellow U-Bahn tram rumbled by in the distance. Metal, punk and hard-core dance spilled out of each bar in pockets as Driver checked her GPS location on her phone.

  In a thin black hoodie, ripped jeans and beaten black tennis shoes, she wore her blonde hair messy and her eyeliner thick.

  The lead Wildcard agent walked with a stoop, glancing over either shoulder, her hood pulled over and a black laptop bag over her shoulders. Always one for detail, Anna had slapped a small anarchy sticker on the side for extra effect.

  As Driver checked her phone again, the navigation app told her she was close.

  Driver stopped and glanced above. A train rattled overhead on a railway crossing. She looked across the street and saw Lim waiting in a parked Audi saloon on the far side of a four-way crossing. A check over her shoulder told her Wells and Baptiste were in attendance, following a hundred yards behind.

  Rios and Pope, meanwhile, waited nearby in a van. They were the grab team, waiting to sweep in when the time was right.

  With only a direct line into Mo at their Geneva base, Driver wasn’t in verbal communication with the rest of the team, so visual cues would have to do.

  Connecting with Mo via satellite ruled out the rest of the team. But the way Driver saw it, she’d have enough to do once the introductions were made. And the lack of contact would eliminate cross-talk and confusion when it came to infiltrating the cell.

  Besides, six agents versus one lone hacker meant verbal contact was far from necessary.

  Out on the Berlin streets, it was quiet, as were the bars – many staying home in a climate of fear and uncertainty.

  Partying wasn’t foremost on the world’s mind, and who knew where or how the hackers would strike next? Feeling a restlessness in her gut, Driver checked her watch and took a sharp right through an open archway.

  An immediate left followed, down a sloping path through a brick tunnel cast dim.

  Driver noticed a young woman leaning against a wall on the right. She was midway along, clothed in black skinnies and a denim jacket worn over a baggy, faded-black vest top. They could almost be twins, except for the chasm in age. And, on closer inspection, the girl was a redhead. Red as in blood-red, dyed into the locks peeping out from under her hood.

  Driver checked her six. Wells and Baptiste were close by, sure, but hanging back out of sight, so as not to spook the contact.

  She kept walking, the thin, flat soles of her tennis shoes slapping hard and loud over concrete.

  Driver felt the tension bite. It was healthy to have a little. It kept the mind sharp and the awareness tuned into the nuances of a situation. Not that she expected much trouble from a punk-ish young woman who knew how to code.

  The recruiter kept her head down as Driver stopped.

  ‘Got a cigarette?’ she asked the girl in German.

  The redhead looked up, her face pale and her neck sporting the top of a large chest tattoo. ‘I don’t smoke,’ she replied in Russian – a surly expression and a pierced tongue.

  ‘I was trying to quit anyway,’ Driver said, matching the girl’s language but sticking to the passphrases Necromancer had provided before the meet.

  The redhead straightened up and looked both ways along the tunnel.

  ‘You Necromancer?’ Driver asked, reverting back to German.

  The girl paused, sizing Driver up. ‘You’re not what I expected,’ switching to the local dialect as easy as breathing.

  ‘What were you expecting?’ Driver asked, keeping her cool.

  ‘Aren’t you a little… old?’

  ‘I prefer experienced,’ Driver replied. ‘But if age is a problem—’ She turned and walked on, hoping she hadn’t blown it. Grabbing the recruiter here would be messy.

  ‘Wait!’ her contact said, a break in her cool exterior.

  Driver stopped in her tracks.

  ‘What do I care?’ Necromancer continued, catchin
g up. ‘So long as you are who you say.’

  The recruiter beckoned Driver further down the sloping walkway. She followed on the girl’s shoulder, checking over her own and seeing Baptiste and Wells entering the tunnel.

  They strolled like friends, Baptiste chattering low in German on his phone to avoid suspicion.

  Necromancer walked fast towards the end of the tunnel. She grabbed Driver by the arm and directed her into a sharp right turn under railway arches. They led to a quiet side street on the other side – junkies slumped against walls on piles of loose cardboard.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Driver asked.

  ‘Relax, we’re almost there,’ Necromancer replied, her tone as cold as the bones of the homeless.

  Driver no longer saw Baptiste and Wells, yet she heard the echo of their footsteps.

  As they came out of the arches into the night air, the recruiter tugged on her sleeve and nodded towards a dingy rock bar.

  ‘Let’s talk in there,’ she said. ‘Away from prying eyes.’

  Driver nodded and they walked towards the bar, passing by a parked black van.

  She thought nothing of it. Yet the rear door rolled open. Two burly figures in black jumped out and grabbed her and forced a hood over her head.

  Driver struggled, but not too much. Breaking cover by employing her own self-defence skills wasn’t an option. Within seconds, she was in the van, face-down on a hardwood floor.

  Driver heard doors slamming shut and the engine starting, followed by the sound and motion of the van pulling away fast. Gears crunched and the engine revved as the van hopped over speed bumps and out onto the smoother main roads.

  Driver didn’t dare whisper into her comms – and even if she could, she had no information for Mo to pass onto the team. With a firm hand pressing her head to the floor of the van, she did her best to remain calm, to listen and remember everything she heard along the way.

  * * *

  Wells tapped Baptiste on the arm. Driver was a short distance ahead. She’d appeared to have made contact with Necromancer and the pair were within range for a snatch and grab.

  The British agent made eye contact with Driver as she turned. Things weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy between them, but regardless of what he’d seen in London, he couldn’t help but feel protective of her. It bothered Wells that he still felt that way. And it bothered him that the whole tattoo thing was bothering him in the first place. He wasn’t the angry or resentful type. He was the laid-back guy. A joker in the pack. Or at least he used to be. Had his time in prison changed him?

  Perhaps it was the fact that Lim had killed two of the people closest to him. Sure, they still weren’t what anyone would call friendly. But they’d moved on a little after events in Rome. Enough to work together, at least.

  Yet there was something eating away inside him. Wells didn’t trust people the same. He found himself making snide remarks and character assassinations on the spot.

  He was becoming far too emotional for his own liking. And there was no room for emotion in this game.

  But then again, that tattoo – there were some things you couldn’t let slide.

  As Baptiste ended his dummy call, Driver followed the girl down the walkway. They took a right turn. Wells nodded at the Russian and they quickened their step to close the gap.

  The tunnel was dim, with dark, pungent urine stains against the walls. Wells fought the urge to run to catch up as they strode towards the turn.

  ‘I don’t think the girl saw us,’ Baptiste said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Let’s follow them in,’ Wells whispered.

  The two men turned into a dark, dank archway with rainwater dripping slow from a leaky brick roof and vagrants scattered all around.

  Wells expected to see Driver ahead. But there was no sign. ‘You see her?’

  ‘Negative,’ Baptiste replied.

  They exchanged a glance and broke into a run through the arches, sidestepping hungry-eyed addicts and out into a dark side street.

  Driver was gone. Baptiste tapped Wells on the shoulder and nodded to a small bar with rock music creeping out of the door.

  They hurried towards it and stepped inside. The bar was tiny with stripped wooden floorboards and low-hanging beams.

  Bottles and taps all fought for space in the orange glow of the beer house. Wells looked around and found only a handful of tables and a smattering of patrons in metal T-shirts and leather. He scanned along the bar, but not a trace.

  ‘Toilets,’ Baptiste said, taking the lead and pushing through a chipped pale green door.

  There was only one cubicle, and it was empty.

  ‘Manor House, this is Fox Team,’ Wells said over comms, following Baptiste out onto the street. ‘Red Rabbit is gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’ Gilmore growled over comms.

  ‘We lost visual,’ Baptiste replied.

  Wells searched the streets in confusion. ‘We had her, then she just… Shit.’

  Minutes in and already the operation was up in smoke. He kicked himself for not sticking closer by.

  Baptiste appeared equally baffled. ‘Something tells me this isn’t kids in a bedroom.’

  * * *

  The bad news came through on the comms. Driver was gone. Wells and Baptiste left high and dry. Gilmore gave the order to pull out. To return to the safe house and await word from Driver.

  It sounded to Lim like a grab team had got her. With Wells and Baptiste heading back to the van intended to transport Necromancer to the safe house, her gut instinct told her to wait around awhile. Driver may have been snatched, but that didn’t mean the recruiter had joined her for the ride.

  She was only the recruiter, after all.

  So the Chinese operative waited, dressed in tight-fitting black in the quiet of the Audi, only a new-car smell and an earpiece for company.

  She kept a constant eye on her mirrors, thinking about Berlin. The city was one of her favourites. It was a shame the Chinese agent never got the chance to see the sights. Well, other than tailing a mark or dispatching a target.

  Lim tapped on the wheel. She really ought to find more time to live life. To actually enjoy it and experience it. But with all these missions, who had the time?

  If they didn’t take these hackers down, there might not be much of anything to enjoy. This latest operation seemed to be a dud from a start. Yet a glimmer of hope emerged across the street in the form of a slim, hooded figure. She popped out of an archway in Lim’s mirror.

  It was the way the girl moved that gave her away. The wad of euro notes in her hand strengthened Lim’s suspicions, the girl in the hoodie counting the cash in a dark corner.

  Folding the money inside a jeans pocket, the girl skulked away with a nervous glance every twenty yards.

  Lim had seen enough. Pushing the ignition, the Audi let out a low growl as the engine fired. She pulled away from the kerb, dipped the headlights and followed.

  Chapter 7

  Driver felt the sweat on her face as she breathed warm air into the black cotton bag. Her steps echoed in pace with her abductors’ over a solid concrete floor. The journey hadn’t taken long. No more than five minutes before they’d stopped and hauled her out of the van. Driver had heard the screech of a rising metal shutter, felt the motion of the van rolling downwards and the chill on her palms as they marched her along.

  Her captors added up to no more than two. They conversed in German, but couldn’t disguise their Russian accents. Whatever this was, the operation was international – spanning two European countries, at least.

  As for Mo’s deep web contact, her involvement seemed to stop with the initial introduction, sourcing would-be hackers off forums on the deep web.

  The two men who’d stolen her off the street held an arm each in a tight grip. They brought her to a stop and sat her down hard in an uncomfortable chair. One yanked the hood off, LED strip lights appearing a hundred times brighter.

  Driver blinked and focused. She
was in an underground space. An old war bunker? The arching ceilings and traditional brickwork suggested so.

  Across from her sat a young woman at a desk – a ghoulish brunette with short, spiky hair in a leather biker jacket. She dabbled with a wireless laptop open on a desk. Driver looked around the space. Nothing but a steel door at one end and the same at the other.

  Both were a five-second dash away. Her abductors stood close, the bulge of sidearms under their T-shirts. Worse still, her comms were next to useless, only a crackle in her ear.

  The woman turned to face Driver. ‘You’re not what I expected.’

  ‘So everyone keeps saying,’ Driver replied. ‘Is this how you treat all your new recruits?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman replied.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Driver asked.

  ‘Melissa.’

  No doubt a fake, but Driver could use it to build familiarity. ‘Well Melissa, I don’t appreciate it.’

  The pale-faced woman sighed and turned to her laptop. ‘I don’t care what you do or don’t appreciate. What I care about is have you got the required skills?’

  Driver laughed with incredulity. ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘I know who you claim to be,’ Melissa replied, typing on her laptop.

  ‘You know what?’ Driver said, rising from the chair. ‘I think I’ve changed my mind.’ She looked at the two men, for the first time, getting a good look at their faces. They were Slavic in appearance. Athletic and rangy. Experienced, by the lines on their faces and the mean in their stares. ‘Take me back,’ she continued.

  The men looked on, impassive.

  ‘Take me back, now,’ Driver demanded. ‘And none of this hood shit.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Melissa said with an icy calm. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  Driver rubbed her ear in attempt to get a signal.

  Melissa eyed her with suspicion.

  ‘I’ve got an ear infection,’ Driver said, sticking a finger in her ear. ‘Thing’s been bugging me for ages.’

  Still, she could get no signal from the comms. It must have been the room.

  Melissa looked towards the men. ‘You search her?’