Hunting the Hunters Read online

  ***

  Malcolm’s eyes were glued to his laptop monitor. “There’s a very active effort to block any info on these folks. Even the minor ones.”

  Jasmine nodded, sitting next to him. “I’m finding the same thing.”

  “Money buys good security,” Frank quipped, “but there’s always a way in. I might have to use bots again, like I did when I got the names file from the Mertins Electronics system.”

  “Think there’s anything on these folks in there?” Malcolm asked.

  “It’s possible,” Frank said, “but the information might be old, now that Daan is taking a dirt nap.”

  Jane looked at him, rolling her eyes. “Dirt nap?”

  “It’s a technical term,” Frank said.

  “I think it’s worth looking into,” Malcolm said.

  “I’ll go in and check around, but I need to get back to what I’m doing pretty quick.”

  “What are you working?” Jane asked.

  “I’m trying to break into Livingston’s corporate system.”

  “Did you ever get anything back from the FBI facial recognition system?”

  “I turned it over to Agent Williams, since he has legitimate access,” Frank said.

  “Hopefully his access isn’t more visible,” Jasmine said.

  Frank nodded. “He assured me that it wasn’t, when I asked him about it.”

  Malcolm’s brow furrowed. “Maybe I’ll go chat with him. Know where he is?”

  Jasmine chuckled. “He’s with Yuri and some of the others, checking out those security robots on the ground floor.”

  Frank grinned. “Oh, really now? Nobody told me.”

  General Hogan glanced at him. “Sorry, that was my fault. I wanted you to continue to work the hacking. You’ll get a special demonstration later.”

  Frank shot him a smirk. “We need a union.”

  General Hogan laughed. “Don’t start.”

  “I’m kidding,” Frank said, “although I am intrigued by the Samson Corporation.”

  “Oh, somebody told you which company made them?” General Hogan asked.

  “Yeah, I chatted with Ivan and Yuri about them over dinner last night. Jared Carlson is brilliant. I knew of his launch vehicle operations, from my former job. We used their rockets more than once. They’re the most reliable by far. We were paying a big insurance premium for using anybody else to launch our satellites.”

  “You’ll get to meet him in person,” General Hogan said. “He’s coming here next week.”

  “What for?” Frank asked.

  “Probably the robot technology,” General Hogan said. “Ivan’s a close friend of his, but he won’t say much about him.”

  Frank’s computer beeped at him. He looked at the screen, getting a wide grin on his face. “Well, I can still get into the Mertins Corporation system. Can’t believe they haven’t shut that down.”

  “I’m guessing they don’t know you can get in,” Malcolm said, “although the company has been in disarray after Daan’s death, and they’re facing all kinds of legal and civil court action due to their RFID program.”

  “The EU won’t do jack,” General Hogan said. “That’s the third-largest firm over there. It’s a cash cow and a huge employer. Brussels will fix it, not destroy it.”

  “I’m going to turn bots loose with the names of the lower-level enemy leaders,” Frank said. “We won’t get the information quickly, though, because I’m programming them to be as stealthy as possible. If they see what I’m trying to do, they’ll shut down everything.”

  Malcolm smiled. “Yep, that’s what I’d do.”

  ***

  Lance Evans awoke in a dark room. His upper right arm ached, his hand reaching for it, feeling the tightly-wrapped bandage. “Hey!” he yelled.

  A moment later a light came on, bleeding through the bottom of a door. The door opened, light flooding the room, Lance squinting.

  “Hey, cousin, I’ll turn on the lights.” The overhead light came on, showing a rough basement. He was lying in a cell against the wall, bars looking like what you’d see in an old-west jail.

  “Victor. Figures. Where’s Torrey?”

  “Elsewhere.” Victor came into the light, a man in his fifties, average build and height, crazy eyes under scraggly black hair, wearing workout clothes of dark blue.

  “Where are we?” Lance asked, sitting up.

  “The folk’s house in Long Island.”

  “You moron, the Feds know about this place.”

  “The Feds don’t care,” Victor said. “You did a good job of hiding your connection to us, although Torrey blew it. I told him to wear a mask. He got published on YouTube.”

  “That means the cops are gonna be here looking for him.”

  “They’ve already been here,” Victor said. “They searched everything they could find. I told them that Torrey went back to his house in Detroit.”

  Lance shook his head. “They believed you?”

  “They did after they finished searching.”

  “We’re not in the basement of the house?”

  “Your Uncle Cain never showed you this place,” Victor said. “When he bought this house it had one of those 1950s bomb shelters. He used it to hold victims back in the day. Nobody knows about it. We’re in the backyard, under something that hides access well.”

  “That’s why you’ve got this jail cell in here,” Lance said. “This cell isn’t locked, is it?”

  Victor chuckled. “It is, but I’m gonna open it now. You were a little delirious after Doctor Weiss took the bullet out. Didn’t want you getting up and wandering around with a police search going on.” He came over and unlocked the door, swinging it open. “You were lucky, by the way. Very little damage to your arm. You’ll recover quickly.”

  “Aren’t the authorities wondering where I am?”

  Victor chuckled. “They’re as dense as the day is long. None of them have made the connection between Torrey and you yet. They’re searching for your body now, thinking the hitmen have finished the job.”

  “They know you and I are related,” Lance said.

  “Yes, but don’t worry about it.”

  Lance got up, groaning as his arm shifted, the pain raging. “I get it. Charles doesn’t know where I am, at least for now. He knows about Sadie, you know. He hit me with that when we had an argument, the day before he tried to have me killed.”

  “Oh, that is a pity,” Victor said.

  Lance nodded. “You got any pain meds?”

  Victor pulled a white bottle out of his pocket and handed it to him. “Watch it with these, they’re strong. Follow what it says on the label. There’s a bottle of water next to your bed.”

  “Shit, you aren’t letting me out of here, are you?”

  Victor chuckled. “Not yet, but that’s only to protect the two of us. I expect the police to be back here a few times. They consider you to be a victim, although they’d like to know why your bodyguard had an un-licensed machine gun on him.”

  “If Charles releases the info he has on me, they’ll change their minds in a hurry.”

  “What does he have?”

  Lance sat back down on the bed and took a couple pain pills, washing them down with the water. Then he looked up at Victor. “Charles says he has some of the old videos. I believe him. He had a picture of Sadie.”

  “There are lots of pictures of Sadie out there,” Victor said.

  “This was a picture of Sadie’s body, lying in Sailor Boy’s ranch house.”

  “Oh. Shit. How the hell did he get that?”

  Lance sighed. “He said he got it from Sailor Boy’s safety deposit box. He also let slip that he’d been part of the funding for the white slavery outfit, but claims he’s destroyed every bit of the evidence.”

  Victor smiled. “I’d bet money that he hasn’t gotten everything. Perhaps we need to work that.”

  “My priority at the moment is staying alive,” Lance said. “Frankly, if I do anything, it’ll probably be
a data dump to the folks we were targeting.”

  Victor laughed. “Interesting idea. On the one hand, you’d be making it difficult for Charles and the others to target you. On the other hand, you’d be giving info to Malcolm Davis, who’d kill you, me, Torrey, and the rest of the family just for fun.”

  “Davis is a blowhard.”

  “He is a blowhard, and he gets people to write him off because of that behavior,” Victor said. “I investigated him, thinking I’d go after him for what he did to Dagger, Beckler and the others. He’s ruthless and wicked smart. I’d say with him and his spook buddy working with Hogan’s guys, they’ll eventually hang Livingston out to dry.”

  “What do you know about Livingston?” Lance asked. “Talk about somebody who is always underestimated. You don’t want to tangle with that guy. I’m surprised he hasn’t already been here to hit you.”

  “If he plans that, he’d better send better people than that stupid limey who tried to take you out,” Victor said. “Don’t worry, we know there’s a chance he’ll send somebody here, although I expect him to disappear.”

  Lance stood up, walking towards Victor. “How do you know so much about all of this?”

  “I’ve known for a while that you have stuff on Livingston. I’m looking for a payday, plain and simple. Now I’ve got you on my side.”

  “You do?” Lance asked.

  “I just saved your life, cousin. I can still reverse that decision if you don’t play ball.”

  Lance chuckled. “It’s not any smarter to underestimate me than it is to underestimate Davis or Livingston.”

  “C’mon, Lance, you’re in a bad spot and you know it. We can do well if we work together. If we play our cards right, we’ll come out of this better than either of us were before the war started.”

  “Maybe,” Lance said. “We shouldn’t do anything until we know what Livingston’s next move is. Any news about Margaret Hines?”

  “Still in the hospital according to the news reports. I suspect it’s a load.”

  “You think she’s dead?” Lance asked.

  “No. I don’t think she’s in that hospital.”

  { 2 }

  Tree Climbing

  F rank watched his screen as the bots searched the Mertins systems. Malcolm and Jane were the only others in the room, the rest having gone to look at the robots. Jane turned towards Frank from her laptop screen.

  “Any luck?” she asked.

  “No, not yet,” Frank replied. “Don’t expect anything until tomorrow morning. Guess I’ll minimize this window and work something else.”

  “I’ve been looking at Livingston’s company. He’s got his fingers in all kinds of stuff beyond banking.”

  “I expected that.”

  “So why does he care about us?” Jane asked. “Why not just go on with his life and not worry about us?”

  “He knows we’re after him.”

  “How can you be sure of that, Frank?”

  Frank was getting ready to answer when his laptop beeped at him. “Whoa, one of the bots has found something already.”

  “Which name?”

  Frank opened the bot program window wide again, squinting as he read the small text. “I need a bigger monitor. Wish we still had Kurt’s PC. Looks like it’s the bot for Dane Smith.”

  “What do you have so far?”

  “It’s still compiling info. Can’t view the file until it runs out of connections. This could take hours.”

  “Well at least it found something. That’s good.”

  “Dane Smith,” Malcolm said. “Brit with heavy connections to the EU leadership. Ought to be interesting. He’s half Belgian. Mother.”

  Robbie and Morgan came back into the intel room.

  “Those robots are amazing,” Robbie said. “Can’t believe that Jared Carlson is coming here.”

  “Robotics,” Malcolm quipped. “A potential good and a potential danger, rolled into one.”

  “You think the robots are gonna take over?” Morgan asked, a grin on her face. “One of my old boyfriends was all worried about AI taking control of the world from humans. He also thought fluoride in the water was killing everybody.”

  Frank chuckled. “AI is only very sophisticated programming. I’m using it for these bots I’ve turned loose on the Mertins Corp systems. Their ability to come up with alternative solutions to problems is so vast that it makes them appear to be conscious, but they’re not, nor can they ever be. If you generate a million alternative solutions and none of them work, that’s the end. Often the problem they can’t solve would be obvious to a thinking human.”

  Robbie laughed. “I used to get into discussions about this with Justin and Gil. We’d always talk ourselves into a corner.”

  “So tell us about these robots,” Jane said.

  “I think they’re a little creepy when they’re looking at you,” Morgan said.

  Jane smiled. “What do they look like?”

  “They look like smooth, metallic headless primates,” Robbie said. “They’re bipedal, but they have retractable wheels in their feet too, so if they’re on a smooth surface they can zip around with those.”

  “Are they as tall as a man?” Malcolm asked.

  Robbie shook his head. “No, they’re about four-feet tall and armored. The eyes are in the top part of the upper torso between the shoulders. They have arms that can extend a considerable distance, with hands that can grasp objects or fire weapons. Their main guns are on either side of their eyes, on the torso, though. They can pack a real punch. They’re loaded up with 12-gauge shotgun slugs at the moment, but they can also be loaded with other types of normal 12-gauge shotgun shells. Semi-auto fire.”

  “They talk and simulate personalities,” Morgan said. “That’s creepy too.”

  “Why would they add that capability, I wonder?” Jane asked.

  “Yuri said it was to be a comfort to humans they are supporting,” Robbie said. “I can see it. They all have names, which are short, three to five letters long. The one we saw is named Zed.”

  “Zed, huh,” Malcolm asked, laughing. “Wonder if you can mount an M105 on one and use it for sniper operations?”

  “George asked that. Yuri said no, these are only good for close-in work, where the friend-or-foe functionality can work. The are good at designating targets, though, and the Samson Corp has a prototype weapon that can work in conjunction. It fires small programable bullets. George said it sounded similar to his OICW rifle, but the bullets are closer to little guided missiles than to exploding bullets.”

  “I’ll bet those are expensive,” Malcolm quipped.

  “That functionality isn’t even on the market yet,” Robbie said, “and they expect a lot of pushback. It might never see the light of day.”

  “Yes, imagine if the police had to go up against these things,” Malcolm said.

  Frank’s PC beeped again. “Hey, I’ve got a file from the Dane Smith bot.” He waited for it to download, and then opened it.

  “PDF file, huh?” Malcolm said, looking over his shoulder.

  “Who’s Rayan Mertins?” Frank asked. “Related to Daan, I assume.”

  “He wasn’t on the list of participants we had,” Malcolm said. “Looks like I have somebody new to research.” He went to his laptop and took it out of sleep mode.

  ***

  Creighton Lee walked down the hallway at the hospital, Scotland Yard agents spaced up and down the walls on either side, nodding to him as he went. The leader of the team, an MI6 agent, was sitting just outside of ICU with several heavily armed agents. He was an ex-RAF fighter pilot, handsome and well-built but only about five-foot seven, with a shaved head and hawkish eyes.

  “Anything suspicious, Langston?” Creighton asked him.

  “No. She’s still recovering.”

  “Something’s bothering you, mate,” Creighton whispered.

  Langston’s brow furrowed, and he nodded down the hallway. They walked.

  “The surgeon told me he doe
sn’t think it’s her. They’re doing a DNA test right now.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Creighton said. “They switched her out during the ambulance ride.”

  Langston shrugged. “The surgeon might be wrong, you know. Anything on those Asian men?”

  “All of them were part of Saladin’s operation,” Creighton said, “not that we expected it to be otherwise. Wonder if they’re working with the target group?”

  “If it turns out that the woman in that room isn’t Margret Hines, we’ll leak this location and see what happens,” Langston said.

  “You’ll get people here killed,” Creighton said.

  “We understand the risks. We need to know if the alliance between these subversives and the Islamists is still in place. That will tell us right away.”

  Creighton chuckled. “If they are in league together, they might send some Islamists here to attack, just to keep us from knowing.”

  “Always look for the solution that is the simplest,” Langston said. “When are you blokes at Scotland Yard gonna realize that?”

  “Bugger off,” Creighton said, smirking at him. “How long till the DNA results are ready?”

  “Couple hours.”

  “Think I’ll hang around, then.”

  “All right, let’s get back. Mum’s the word in front of the men. We’ve had enough leaks already.”

  They walked back to the entrance to ICU and sat down.

  ***

  Dooley carried another box full of broken plastic parts out of the rubble that was once the casino, setting it down next to the others.

  “Surprising how much survived,” Jamie said.

  Dooley laughed. “I wouldn’t say this stuff survived, exactly.”

  “You know what I mean,” Jamie said. “If there was fire, or if these were right next to the explosives, we wouldn’t be able to recognize this stuff as being part of the bomb.”

  “Anything from the K-9 team?”

  Jamie shrugged. “Not yet, but I know they’ve found at least some remains.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Dooley said, nodding to the K-9 lead who was approaching.