Viper Nine Read online

  Winn nodded and rolled his chair forward. His hand still shaking, he moved the cursor over the necessary button and clicked. He confirmed the act, re-entering his password.

  The sound of huge machinery winding down filled the room. Winn never even noticed the persistent electrical hum until it was gone. The control room felt eerie in its absence.

  Picking up a clipboard and pen, Winn ran through his procedural checks. All gauges and readings fell into the green, and then to zero. The disco dance of lights on the control panel turned grey and the monitors confirmed shutdown of the reactor.

  Winn leaned back in his chair and released the tension from his lungs. He looked across the room at his supervisor and junior colleague. ‘What the hell just happened?’

  Thornbury shook his head. ‘Fuck knows. But I need a bloody pint.’

  Berlin, Germany

  Driver was in the guard’s sights, yet another of the hackers’ private security appeared with his weapon drawn, the source of the crackling radio.

  Driver grabbed his wrists as he emerged around the corner and stepped behind him. As the man took two bullets from the bleach-haired guard, Driver wrapped a finger around his and fired in return.

  Melissa jumped out of her skin as the guard next to her hit the floor from a headshot.

  Driver pushed her human shield aside and raised the commandeered weapon to take another shot.

  As Melissa froze in the crosshairs, Driver lowered the gun, turned and ran, the echoes of gunfire dying a slow death along the next passageway. She heard Melissa calling for backup. Not shouting – but instructing, over a radio or phone.

  Driver cursed herself for not killing Melissa while she had the chance. Another choking on the trigger. And who knew how many guards they had roaming the tunnels, or even if there was a way out.

  All she could do was keep moving, her weapon at the ready, following a deep pulsing thud. Was it machinery? A ventilation system? She pursued the sound around the next corner, right into the path of two more security in plain clothes. They shot on sight. Yet not before Driver ducked back around the corner.

  She traded fire with the guards. The wall spitting brick an inch from her face.

  Instinct saw her slide down the wall and roll out low. The guards weren’t ready for it. She caught one in the centre of his chest, but clicked empty. The second guard was reloading, a medium-build guy with a sharp face and stubble.

  Driver pushed to her feet and sprinted towards him. He dropped the gun and engaged. A swing and a miss. She threw him over a shoulder and kicked him out cold. The remaining guard was a thickset man down to one knee, blood pouring out of his white shirt. But he still had some life left in him, picking up his dropped pistol in an attempt to fire.

  Driver zig-zagged as the man fired. She propelled herself with a foot off the wall and drove a knee mid-flight into the man’s nose.

  Whatever fight he had left was gone. But there was no time to re-arm herself as the cavalry made up ground behind her.

  Driver counted three at a glance. More shots fired as she darted around the next corner and along a dark passageway.

  Bullets chased her down one tunnel and another in a breathless sprint where an exit eluded her.

  Yet the thud was growing, turning to a beat, and into electronic music. The hard, driving, eardrum splintering kind she hated. But today, it was her only friend.

  As the light in the passageway dropped into near-darkness, Driver stumbled up an unseen incline. She regained her balance and found a door ahead, a violet glow breaking out around the edges.

  She sprinted for it and threw herself against the red-painted wood. It was locked, but thin. She took a step back and drove a shoulder through the door. It swung open with a crack of splintering wood. Driver ran straight into a seething mass of dancing, sweating bodies. A hard-core industrial rave packed with drugged-up Berliners.

  Driver pushed through the bouncing wall, strobe lighting turning every face demonic. Every movement jagged.

  She caught flashes of security following her in, scanning the room and shoving club-goers out of their way.

  Searching for an exit, Driver pushed deeper into the pogoing, shape-throwing mass, the guards, greater in number, closing the net.

  And something told her they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot given the chance, civilian casualties the least of their concern.

  They were the least of hers, too. But at this rate, Driver would be shot in the back, with more than a few club-goers caught in the crossfire. She glanced over a shoulder. Saw a guard lining up a shot, only for a flailing, bare-chested dancer to obscure his view.

  Driver dodged left and cut a line through a circle of spaced-out girls. She spied a way out up ahead – the entrance to the rave.

  But the guards had split up. One of them appeared across her path. Another to the right, fighting to reach her.

  Driver engaged the man in her path – a hard kick with her heel to his shin. He staggered, raised his weapon. Driver directed the shot into the man’s own foot.

  The flash and bang was lost in the din of the club and no one seemed to notice as she reversed the gun into the man’s midriff. She fired twice, the man collapsing to the dance floor.

  Coming away with the gun, a surge in the crowd almost floored Driver from behind. A flailing elbow from a nearby speed-freak sent the pistol spinning from her hand.

  With the pistol lost between a hundred stomping feet, the guard to her right broke through the crowd ready to take her down.

  Driver looked for an alternative exit, only to be hemmed in by two more of Viper Nine’s private security.

  They closed the net, weapons held discreet by their sides. They’d gun her down on the spot, the execution hidden by the dazzling strobe.

  Driver could only watch as the first of the men took aim.

  But in a blur, Wells appeared in staggered motion between flashes of light. He forearmed the shooter and took him down, gun and all. A second guard stepped forward to shoot, yet he took a knife in the neck from an unseen assailant. Lim appeared behind him as he fell.

  Seconds later, Wells had disarmed the remaining guard – a snap of the arm and a sledgehammer left to the man’s jaw.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Driver shouted as they came together in the middle of the dance floor.

  How they’d found her, she didn’t know, but she was glad to see them – even Wells. With a stern expression still welded to his face, he took the lead, clearing them a path to the entrance of the venue.

  As they pushed through two sets of double doors, the music dropped enough to hold a conversation. Yet they weren’t clear yet. Another of Viper Nine’s security team waited by the door to the club, a radio in hand and an assault rifle strapped over his shoulder. His eyes widened as he caught sight of Driver. He dropped his radio and pulled his rifle around front, only for a glass tankard of beer to smash over the man’s head.

  As the last of the guards took a nap on the floor, Pope stepped into view, gripping the handle of the broken tankard. ‘Bloody typical, I was enjoying that.’

  Driver laughed in relief as they hurried out of the entrance to the club.

  ‘Well that was rather complicated,’ she sighed as a trio of sleek, black German saloons sped onto the scene.

  They slammed to a stop, blocking the road. Out jumped a half-dozen men. No, make that eight, all armed to the teeth. A rapid response unit with only one intention, signalled by the cocking of their P12 rifles.

  Driver froze alongside Pope, Wells and Lim. One of the men spoke into a radio. He nodded at his colleagues. Driver knew the look. They had their orders. Pull the trigger and execute the infiltrators.

  ‘Please tell me you brought Rios,’ Driver said.

  The reply was emphatic – exploding skull emphatic. The group leader down first, his head in pieces as he bounced off one of the cars. The rest happened in seconds. The zip of a .45 round flooring one security operative after another. They scrambled to take cover, but all to
o late.

  One man did succeed, crouching low behind the bonnet of the lead car. Yet returning fire was futile. Rios was a phantom presence on the rooftops above.

  ‘You know we could take him out,’ Pope said.

  ‘Why spoil the fun?’ Lim replied, enjoying the moment a little too much.

  ‘And I thought you’d turned over a new leaf,’ Wells said to the former most-wanted.

  Lim shrugged in return as the guard traded fire with Rios. He yammered into his radio for help. None was forthcoming, the tap of criminal muscle running dry.

  Rios hid a sharp tactical brain behind her impulsive demeanour. She shot out the front tyre of the BMW first, lowering the car on its suspension by an inch.

  An inch was all she needed. A single bullet punched through the remaining man’s skull and landed with a ping in a road sign only feet to Driver’s left.

  The last of the hackers’ security fell sideways to the road, a see-through hole in his head. Almost on cue, police sirens howled in the distance. Also on cue was their ride home in the shape of the black Mercedes van driven by Baptiste.

  It skidded into view around the corner and drove at pace before braking to a stop. Wells was the first to the rear passenger door, rolling it open for Driver and Lim to hop in.

  Pope climbed in the front seat and Wells hopped on-board as Baptiste pulled away.

  The Russian checked over a shoulder. ‘We missing one?’

  ‘There,’ Pope said, pointing to a small, dark figure scaling a steel gate across the street. It was Rios, dropping to the deck, scooping up her rifle bag and sprinting to the MPV.

  Wells slid the rear door open and she jumped inside. Baptiste wasted no time in stepping on the gas.

  ‘Go left,’ Lim said, and moments later, ‘Left again… Stop here.’

  ‘What are we doing?’ Driver asked. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  Lim blanked her and exited the van. The locks on the Audi she’d arrived in flashed and the boot popped open.

  The Chinese agent lifted the boot to reveal the contact known as Necromancer, bound and gagged with silver duct tape.

  Pope was out fast behind her. He scooped the wriggling, screaming girl out of the boot and threw her into the van onto the back seat of the van.

  ‘See you at the safe house,’ Lim said, slamming the boot on the Audi.

  As Driver subdued the girl. Pope shut the door and hopped inside.

  She looked across at Wells. ‘Thanks for earlier.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Wells muttered, as if words were acid in his mouth.

  Rios leaned forward on the seat to the rear of the van. ‘What’s the matter? Lover’s tiff?’ A mischievous smile played on her lips as she looked from face to face.

  Driver raised an eyebrow in warning. Rios backed off and slouched into her seat.

  ‘Whew, that was fun,’ the Mexican said, blowing the fringe off her forehead.

  ‘Was it a success?’ Baptiste asked as he steered the van at speed from the scene. ‘The operation?’

  ‘Just about,’ Driver replied, steadying herself as the van careered around a sharp bend. ‘Mo’s malware worked. The whole cell’s down. And we’ve got all their files.’

  ‘Then it should be on the radio soon,’ Baptiste said, making the next turn.

  ‘Let’s tune into the bonza news,’ Pope said, reaching for the dial.

  Chapter 12

  UN Safe House, Berlin

  The safe house occupied the third floor of abandoned factory space. The floors, walls and ceilings stripped to their concrete and steel essentials. The entire place was a minimalist’s dream, with giant latticed windows, hanging fluorescent lights and an echo for every word spoken.

  Like the others, Driver sat at the table facing the screen of an open laptop. She ran a finger over a deep, smooth groove in the wood, while Necromancer sat to the side, bound to a chair by ties instead of tape.

  Not that she was going anywhere. The only thing that dared to move being her eyeballs.

  On the other end of a video call, Gilmore sat with a fist wrapped around a mug of coffee with Mo and Anna by his side.

  ‘I thought that would be it,’ Driver mumbled, refreshing the breaking news feed on her phone.

  Yes, the reactor at the Sellafield nuclear power plant was under control, a radioactive leak averted. A backlog of flights were now taking off out of Charles De Gaulle. And the power was back on in Paris and London. Yet at least two thirds of the terrorists’ hacks stayed in place, starting with oil fields in the US, Canada, China and Siberia. They remained in what Mo called ‘denial of service’.

  And as for the world’s major intelligence agencies and militaries, they were still prey to Viper Nine’s every whim.

  ‘It all points to one thing,’ Gilmore said, setting down his mug. ‘There’s more than one cyberterrorist cell.’

  ‘This is way bigger than we thought,’ Baptiste replied, rubbing his forehead.

  ‘Any luck with the downloaded data?’ Driver asked.

  Mo shook his head. ‘I’m closer, but still working on it.’

  ‘It’s heavily encrypted, like we expected,’ said Anna.

  ‘Well, in the meantime,’ Driver continued, rising from her chair. She strolled around the back of the Viper Nine recruiter, tipped her chair back and dragged it around in a circle across the floor, legs scraping over the solid floor.

  ‘Jeez, give it a rest,’ Pope complained, flinching at the sound.

  Driver set Necromancer down in front of the team and in view of Gilmore. She ripped the tape from the young recruiter’s mouth. The girl cried out, a red stripe across her lips.

  ‘Time to ’fess up,’ Driver said.

  ‘I told her already,’ the young woman said in English, pointing to Lim.

  ‘You told me enough to survive,’ Lim replied. ‘Now tell us the rest.’

  ‘Starting with your name,’ Driver continued, perching herself on the table’s edge.

  The girl hesitated to answer.

  Lim rose from her chair and drew a flick-knife from an inside jacket pocket. ‘I can cut your face, or your ties.’

  The girl squirmed in her restraints, eyes locked onto the blade. ‘Okay, okay. My name is Katya Dobrovnik. I’m a student. I owed a local dealer. The money was to get them off my back, that’s all. I’m not a terrorist.’

  ‘That’s what all terrorists say,’ Wells muttered.

  ‘It’s true,’ Katya replied. ‘I know as much as you. Maybe less.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Rios said between chews of her gum. ‘She’s lying her ass off.’

  Lim stepped in close with the blade.

  Katya bucked in the presence of the knife. ‘They’ll kill me if I talk.’

  Driver leaned in close. ‘Who will?’

  ‘I don’t know, but Marvin, my contact, he made it clear.’

  ‘What do you know about the other cells?’ Gilmore asked onscreen.

  ‘I don’t – I don’t know,’ Katya replied.

  Lim hovered with menace behind the girl. ‘You must have heard something about them.’

  ‘I’ve heard talk on the forums, sure,’ Katya continued. ‘Other bases of operation. Not in Europe. But that’s all.’

  Driver held Katya’s gaze a moment. The recruiter had nothing left to gain by hiding the truth – and everything to lose. She could only conclude the girl was telling the truth. Lim appeared to agree, folding her knife away.

  ‘So what next?’ Driver asked Gilmore.

  ‘What next is, I’ve gotta take a call,’ he replied, disappearing off-screen, distracted by his phone.

  ‘Keep working on the encrypted data,’ Driver said to Mo. She turned to Pope and Baptiste. ‘Fancy running Katya here back to her apartment?’

  The Australian got to his feet and stretched. ‘Beats sitting around here waiting for wonder-geek.’

  ‘I’ll go with you instead,’ Wells said, catching the keys to the van from Baptiste. ‘I need the air.’

 
As he and Pope cut Katya free and marched her out of the room, Driver wondered if Wells’ offer was an attempt to avoid her. She rolled her neck out and yawned.

  ‘You guys should get some sleep,’ Anna said over the video call. ‘I’ll work with Mo on the data.’

  ‘Anna’s right, best to stand down for now,’ Gilmore added, returning to the screen. ‘I’ve been summoned to D.C.’

  ‘Washington?’

  ‘By the President, no less.’

  The look on her old Langley boss’s face said it all. Had the team been outed? Gilmore was officially retired, after all. Why would the White House summon him to Washington if they didn’t know about Wildcard?

  Ending the video call, Driver and the team sat in silence.

  ‘You think we’ve been exposed?’ Baptiste asked, worry lines deepening on his late-forties face. ‘Maybe there was a leak.’

  ‘Or a mole,’ Lim added.

  ‘What would any of us have to gain?’ Driver replied. ‘Same for our friends in the UN.’

  Rios took out her gum and stuck it under the table. ‘They come for me, they’d better bring an army.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions,’ Driver replied, having already leapt to her own. ‘It could be nothing… Let’s get some sleep.’

  Yet between Viper Nine, the threat of arrest and the permafrost between her and Wells, sleep was easier suggested than done.

  Chapter 13

  Washington D.C.

  Having flown in on a government jet, Gilmore was now the recipient of his own personal motorcade. A black, bulletproof SUV travelled fast behind a police bike, its lights flashing silent as they sped along empty four a.m. highways.

  The sun was already on the rise, casting the city in a hazy grey. And as the SUV rolled downhill, Gilmore had a clear view of Capitol Hill in the distance. The five-hundred-foot Washington Monument pierced the sky ahead of the iconic White House.

  At least this president was known for being more lenient than his predecessor, Gilmore thought, adjusting the knot of his tie.

  In the smooth, soundproof confines of the SUV, he wondered how the administration had found out about Wildcard.