Viper Nine Read online

  From data leaked by the hackers? Gilmore didn’t think so. Violetta Hill and the other UN delegates instructed him verbally. And the US Ambassador had assured him they didn’t keep records of Wildcard missions, or the UN cabal’s clandestine meetings. Yet there had to be some kind of trail back to their slush funding at the very least. From his days as an operations chief in the CIA, Gilmore knew all too well – in today’s world, it was impossible not to leave some form of trace.

  And then there was the possibility Hill had lied to him, or framed he and the team as rogue agents. Much as he tried to blank them out, theories and scenarios swamped Gilmore’s mind.

  Hastening towards an answer, the police bike led the SUV without delay to the gates of the White House.

  After a swift security check, the driver whisked him into an underground parking space. The driver’s colleague in the passenger seat got out and opened the rear door, ushering Gilmore out. They marched him through a discreet doorway into the West Wing of the building.

  It was his first time in the White House, and Gilmore had picked out his best suit for the occasion. It was the charcoal one with a dapper blue tie, a change from his usual black.

  He tugged at the collar, buttoned up for a change, as tight as a noose. If Gilmore was attending his own funeral, he was doing it in style.

  ‘This way, sir,’ said one of the stoic, identikit security men.

  They led him through a door built into the walls of a marble hallway and down stairwell. It was less fanciful down in the basement, with blast doors and a functional corridor stripped of all pomp and ceremony.

  Twenty metres on, they reached a set of grey double doors at the end of the corridor.

  Gilmore inhaled deep, a struggle, as if the President’s own weight sat on his chest.

  After getting the go-ahead, Gilmore stepped into the situation room. It was full to the brim with uniforms and agency heads.

  He spotted Violetta Hill to the left. The look in her eye hardly reassuring. But stood with shirtsleeves rolled up and the knot in his tie pulled loose, President Williams didn’t appear to even notice his presence.

  Gilmore was told to stand against the back wall by the secret service man. He did as instructed, glad of the low-key entry. For one thing, it gave him the opportunity to survey the faces in the room.

  Aside from Williams, Hill and a posse of analysts and aides, Gilmore spotted Secretary of Defense, Helen Danbridge. Then there were the Joint Chiefs and his old friend and colleague, Todd Schneider.

  Gilmore was glad Todd had got the top job. It was a position Gilmore had seemed a cert for, but if he couldn’t be Director, there was no one better than his old buddy.

  The room itself was a criss-cross of urgent conversations over telephone and table, with a giant screen broken into squares. Inside each square continued other emergency meetings in situation rooms around the world. They were easy to make out from the faces on camera – America’s fellow NATO powers, including Russia, China, France and the UK. It also appeared that Germany and Japan had dialled in on the world’s largest conference call.

  So it was strange. Even if Wildcard had been compromised, it didn’t seem to be the time or place for Gilmore to explain himself.

  The more he thought about it, any accusations of treason seemed more like the responsibility of the Oversight Committee.

  Had Ambassador Hill told President Williams about their clandestine operation, coming clean with what they knew?

  Whatever the case, in Gilmore’s mind, he was there for one thing and one thing only. To fall on his sword, take the rap and spare his team from arrest and trial. He’d cover for Hill too if he had to. Anything to keep the team operational. Their work was bigger than his future. And besides, he’d done plenty of things in his time that deserved a life sentence.

  As Gilmore worked through cover stories in his mind, the giant screen at the far end of the room broke into static.

  The static cut to a dark room and a man wearing that eerie Viper Nine mask – already selling like hot cakes the world over.

  The sight of the man brought instant order to the room. Bodies froze and a hush descended. Williams turned to face the screen, arms folded and legs rooted to the floor in stoic resistance.

  ‘Hello Mr President,’ said the Viper Nine spokesman. ‘And all the other Mr and Mrs Presidents.’

  ‘We’re still working on the ransom,’ President Williams replied with the air of a lie.

  ‘Then why are you trying to shut us down?’ the man behind the mask said, remaining composed.

  Williams put his hands on his hips in a show of strength. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Berlin?’ the masked terrorist replied. ‘Are we supposed to think that wasn’t you, or one of your NATO allies?’ The man turned his head from left to right, as if he was a god looking down on an assembled line of mortals.

  Gilmore thought it more likely he had a view of the various world leaders assembled for the call.

  The Russian President, Valeri Utkin was the first of them to respond. ‘President Williams is correct,’ the grey-bearded, beanpole leader interjected. ‘We have not launched any operations against your organisation. And as for your demands, we still have days until the deadline.’

  ‘I’m not here to make demands,’ Viper Nine’s spokesperson replied. ‘I’m here to give you a message.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ President Williams asked.

  ‘That disobedience will not be tolerated,’ the masked man replied. ‘Take our latest action as a reminder.’

  ‘What action?’ Williams asked.

  Viper Nine ended the video call without another word. The room burst into worried chatter as CNN broke a story on one of the panels on the walls.

  It showed footage from the trading floor in Wall Street. Share prices plummeting down all the way to zero. Every single one of them, as if all the data held on the stock market had been wiped. The headlines accompanying the report confirmed it – traders with their hands over mouths.

  ‘This could set us back decades,’ Hill mumbled, her eyes fixed in an unblinking stare.

  ‘A goddamn century,’ said General Joe Budge.

  Williams held out his hands to the room, appealing for quiet and calm. ‘Let’s focus on what we can do,’ he said, looking into the camera linking him to his fellow leaders. ‘I think we all need to take a break and discuss matters with our staff. Shall we reschedule a call, say, in thirty minutes?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Utkin replied.

  The rest of the leaders concurred and the video call ended.

  Williams flopping back into his large leather chair at the head of the table. He fixed Schneider with a glare. ‘Berlin?’

  The CIA Director shrugged, as clueless as the rest of the room. ‘It wasn’t us, Mr President. Even if we wanted to, Viper Nine have got us pinned down. Same goes for everyone else.’

  ‘Then what does he mean?’ Budge asked.

  ‘My thinking is it could have been a criminal enterprise affected by the hacks,’ Schneider said.

  Gilmore exchanged a nervous glance with Ambassador Hill as the conversation continued.

  Schneider paused as he noticed Gilmore’s presence in the room. ‘Bryan, you’re here… Any ideas?’

  ‘Me?’ Gilmore replied from the fringes of the room.

  The President turned his attention to Gilmore.

  ‘Sorry everyone,’ Schneider continued. ‘This is Bryan Gilmore. He remains our most experienced head when it comes to acts of terror. I called him in as a consultant.’

  ‘You did?’ Gilmore asked.

  Schneider nodded at Gilmore. Don’t let me down now, buddy, he was saying. And clearly, it was Schneider’s way of getting Gilmore in the room without giving him the opportunity to refuse.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ Gilmore said, stepping into the spotlight.

  ‘What’s your professional opinion on all this?’ Williams asked, everyone at the table turning to Gilmore for an answer.

/>   ‘Berlin?’ he replied, registering the panic in Hill’s eyes. ‘My guess would be a rival group of hackers who somehow infiltrated a Viper Nine cell, Mr President. It would seem consistent with the actions of Anonymous, or some other group of ideologically-driven hackers. Maybe they fought back with good intentions; did some damage to this Viper Nine organisation.’

  ‘But nowhere near enough,’ said Secretary of Defense Danbridge.

  ‘All they’ve done is yank on a lion’s tail,’ frowned Budge.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Gilmore,’ Williams said, turning to face his senior members of staff.

  ‘Todd, who do we have in Berlin?’

  ‘We have an off-book asset,’ Schneider replied. ‘I can get them to sniff around, under the radar. Try and find out what happened there.’

  ‘The Germans will already be on it, sir,’ Gilmore said, keen to avoid any attention on Driver and the team. ‘I’d suggest we let them do the work on this one, sir.’

  Williams straightened up in his chair. ‘You’re right, Mr Gilmore. We’ve got enough fires to fight.’ He waved towards the images on CNN. ‘I need to put a call into the treasury. Let’s take twenty and reconvene.’

  As the room took a collective break, Schneider took Gilmore by the arm and steered him into a corner. ‘Sorry to drop you in it, buddy, this thing’s been moving so fast—’

  ‘Happy to help,’ Gilmore replied, a hand on Schneider’s padded shoulder.

  ‘You really think it could be another group of cybercriminals?’

  Gilmore shrugged. ‘I had to say something… You got any intel on this Viper Nine group?’

  Schneider shook his head. ‘We’re flying completely blind. They could be anyone, anywhere.’

  Ardennes Region, Belgium

  Radovan Kovac lifted the snake mask from his head, his face moist with a mild sweat from breathing inside the thick rubber. Otto Graf, a man-mountain with impossibly blonde hair, turned off the camera. As his trusted lieutenant closed the viewfinder on the video camera, Kovac dumped the mask on a stack of three large, black munitions cases. He had a small white towel handy and dabbed his grizzled, Slavic features with soft, laundered cotton.

  Dumping the towel, he crossed the floor of the bland, rented storage depot.

  Jana Novak, stood over her laptop set up on the top of another stack of ammo cases. There was nothing outwardly remarkable about Jana. She was no Lisbeth Salander and, in her jeans and cream top, Kovac’s hacker-in-chief would resemble an ordinary girl fresh out of college.

  She did, however, stand out from the Kovac and the rest of the men on the depot floor – men dressed in jeans and matching black T-shirts.

  ‘You find out who attacked us in Berlin?’ Kovac asked.

  ‘I’ve got people working on it,’ Jana replied in Serbian.

  Kovac frowned. ‘Working on it?’

  ‘We haven’t got a name,’ Jana replied. ‘It takes time.’

  The Serbian stared at Jana, wondering if she had the guts and dedication for this line of work. She certainly had the lust for money.

  ‘We’ve got a face,’ Jana offered, spinning the laptop around. ‘Taken from the cameras of the Berlin cell.’

  Kovac looked at the screen. Moving footage of the woman responsible for taking down the European operation. He watched her at her terminal, pulling a USB from a hard drive and fleeing the scene across the office floor. Jana paused the screen as the mystery blonde passed by a camera.

  ‘We think she had outside help,’ Jana said. ‘Someone had remote access to her machine. They uploaded a malware virus and carried out a bot swarm on our files.’

  Kovac squeezed a fist to dampen his rage. ‘I thought you said we had the best security.’

  ‘We did,’ Jana replied, her voice faltering, as if seeing the thunderclouds in Kovac’s eyes. ‘But whoever she was working with, his programs were incredible. I mean—’

  Kovac glared at the young hacker. It was almost as if she was in awe of the attack.

  ‘He’d cloaked it somehow,’ Jana continued, curbing her obvious admiration for the assailant. ‘Our defence systems didn’t trigger until it was too late.’

  Kovac rubbed a hand over his shaved grey hair. ‘Are we saying they have access to our files?’

  ‘Just those from Berlin. And they’re encrypted. They should take a while to crack.’

  Kovac jabbed a thick, weathered finger at the woman on the screen. ‘Find out who this is. We can’t afford another breach.’

  Jana nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘In the meantime, get yourself ready.’

  Jana closed her laptop and slipped it into a black carry case. She followed Kovac to a table by a wall with arms laid out ready for the next mission.

  Kovac prepped a P12 assault rifle, his weapon of choice, and let out a shrill whistle. It pierced the din of the storage depot and got the men’s attention. Kovac spun a finger in the air. They knew what it meant. It was go-time.

  With Graf and Jana by his side, Kovac led the team out of the depot, all dressed in the same black T-shirts and combats. He strode across the yard as far as the first of two long-wheelbase Renault vans. Both with a dark-grey spray job and wrapped in matching JCA Systems branding. He climbed in the front with Graf behind the wheel and Jana taking her place in the rear.

  Kovac checked his watch as they pulled out of the depot, splashing through fresh-fallen puddles from a summer rainstorm. He took out a lighter and popped a cigarette out of a pack. Graf, the health freak, couldn’t disguise a disparaging sideways glance as he lit the cigarette.

  Kovac sighed and wound down the window. He hung the cigarette out over the door sill as the van picked up speed along the fast dual carriageways.

  He raised a happy-now? eyebrow and Graf settled down. ‘All those protein shakes you shovel down your face, tar should be the least of your worries.’

  Graf grunted in return. Kovac had seen the big German punch his way through a wall. Beat up a room full of men. And run straight into a gunfight without blinking. But put him in ten feet of a cigarette or a cream doughnut and he ran screaming like a little girl.

  Of course, Kovac didn’t need to ask Graf’s permission to do anything. But he required absolute loyalty, from his number two and the rest of his people. And while money and intimidation were great motivators, so was showing a little consideration every now and then.

  This was one of those times.

  Kovac let out a lungful of smoke and breathed in the August air, not only thick with humidity, but tension too.

  The entire operation – it all hung on this. The Serbian took another drag as the vans sped on their way.

  Chapter 14

  Berlin, Germany

  Driver caught what sleep she could, curled in a ball between layers of a folded-over brown blanket.

  It wasn’t the worst place she’d slept. Yet it didn’t stop the floor leaving a deep ache in her hip as she threw off the top blanket and got to her feet.

  Driver rolled the brown blanket into a ball and threw it on a two-seater sofa, along with a thin red cushion she’d stolen as a pillow.

  She’d awoken to a call from Mo, announcing between yawns, that he’d decrypted the Viper Nine files from Berlin. The others had stirred from their own improvised beds on the floor, waking at the ring of her phone.

  They joined Driver in shuffling into the main room of the safe house, where the open laptop rang out with a video call tune.

  It was daytime outside. White light pouring in, undeterred by the dirty warehouse windows.

  ‘We’ve got to start booking some hotel rooms,’ Driver said, walking off the pain in her hip.

  First to the laptop, she accepted the call request from Geneva.

  Anna and Mo awaited them on the other end of the call, the German tech genius sipping bleary-eyed on a can of energy drink.

  ‘What did you find?’ Wells asked, stretching and flexing a shoulder.

  ‘We’re still pulling data from the files,’ Anna replie
d, hugging a cup of takeaway coffee. ‘Most of it’s just code. We found a partial schedule of events… The denial of service on the power grids. The attacks on European control towers…’

  ‘And?’ Driver asked, perching herself on the edge of the table, impatient for the point.

  ‘There’s something new on the schedule – real soon,’ said Mo.

  ‘What and where?’ Baptiste asked, making dishevelment appear like a style statement.

  ‘We don’t know the “what”, but we’ve got a “when” and a “where”,’ Anna replied.

  Mo half-laughed at the name. ‘Something called Operation Gatecrasher.’

  ‘Sounds more like a military op than a group of cyberattackers,’ Rios replied, flopping into a chair, her hair wild and eyes sleepy.

  ‘What’s the intent of the operation,’ Driver asked. ‘Do we know?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I pulled up the location on the map. Nothing there but roads and forest.’

  ‘Maybe they’re going paint-balling,’ Pope yawned, an idle hand scratching inside the crotch of his jeans.

  Lim recoiled from the spectacle.

  ‘What?’ Pope shrugged. ‘It’s my morning routine.’

  ‘The whole thing seems strange,’ Baptiste muttered, getting back to the point. ‘You sure there’s not a power plant out there or something?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I double-checked… Nothing.’

  ‘Maybe they’re gonna hack down a few trees,’ Pope quipped, much to his own delight.

  Driver sighed as imaginary tumbleweed rolled across the room.

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Pope continued. ‘“Hack”, as in… You know, you lot need to grow a sense of humour.’

  ‘Can you give us the coordinates?’ Lim asked Anna, pulling her long, straight hair over a shoulder.

  ‘Sending over now,’ she replied, typing off-camera. ‘Fancy a trip to Belgium?’

  ‘How long have we got?’ Wells asked.

  ‘Not long,’ Anna replied. ‘I’m texting you the details.’

  Driver’s phone pinged. She checked her messages and read the details. ‘Shit, we’ve gotta move.’