Cyberthreat Read online

  “I can hear you,” Octavios shouted from the trunk.

  “I can hear him,” Price said.

  “Don’t care.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Him, not you, Base,” Bolan replied. “Keep an eye out for me, will you?” He would normally have used her name—he usually didn’t refer to Stony Man’s mission controller as “Base”—but Octavios didn’t need any information about the Farm or it’s personnel. There was no telling what he might be able to dig up.

  “Good luck, Striker. I know I say it a lot, but...good hunting.”

  “Roger,” he said. “Don’t worry. The enemy won’t get him. Or me. Striker out.”

  * * *

  Sheila Hargrave swore and almost jerked free.

  Cyril Jackson’s strong hands held her fast.

  “Damn it, it hurts,” she said, shifting on the end of the motel bed.

  “It’s going to,” Jackson told her, sitting on the luggage table at the foot of the bed. “You’re lucky the bullet only creased your shoulder. If your shoulder blade was broken, you wouldn’t be able to keep fighting at all. Now hold still while I get this bandaged and taped.”

  He had seen how much pain she was in after being shot in the vest. That had prompted him to insist on treating her. She suspected he had ulterior motives as far as that went—such as being close to her, seeing her with her shirt off. That sort of thing. He knew of her feelings for Javier, but he desired her for himself. Still, he would not force himself on her. He had hope for their future together, and that was enough for him, for now.

  Despite his mooning over her, Cyril was a good man. He was skillful with computers, coming close to Javier’s abilities after years of training with the man. He was also an able fighter, although his penchant for bizarre, unconventional weapons had almost gotten him killed.

  Cyril was an enormous black man, a former college football player who had become disillusioned with living the typical “mundane” life after a knee injury sidelined him in his freshman year.

  He was also obsessed with chain saws, having spent the summer before that freshman year working as a logger. Cyril was one of those types who was forever looking for meaning. He would find something he liked and then obsess over it. That was what had brought him into Codex Freedom, after he’d fallen down the rabbit hole of computer clubs, then hacking chat rooms, then the dark web and other extralegal pursuits.

  Hargrave, for her part, had found Javier a dashing figure when he’d first starting making the news. To her, Codex Freedom seemed like a very noble effort. She had been a very idealistic woman not so long ago. She had sought out Javier by making very public posts online. That alone would not have been enough, but Hargrave was skilled with puzzles. She had offered several mathematically based puzzles that she thought a mind like Javier’s could not resist. He had eventually found them, solved them easily and then tracked her down.

  Now, some years later, she was a highly placed leader in the primary cell of Codex Freedom—who had just been shot by a mysterious government agent for her trouble. Fortunately, her bulletproof vest had stopped the round. It was a precaution few other members of Codex Freedom took, but she did it because Javier had insisted. He worried about her, and wearing the vest helped calm him so that she could do her job.

  Cyril was sporting a heavy bandage wrapped around his shaved head. A bullet from the government man’s gun had grazed his scalp. That could easily have been fatal, for Cyril had jerked his head to the side—purely by coincidence, checking to see if their fellow cell members were fleeing the scene rather than continuing the fight—at the exact moment the government man had fired on him.

  They still had members left, members who were ready to fight. They’d managed to rent a pair of SUVs with Cyril’s credit cards, which was enough to ferry the people they had remaining back across the border. Then they’d set up in this motel outside Buffalo. Securing their Wi-Fi connection had been the next order of business. Then she and Cyril had sent out the call to all available Codex Freedom cells. She’d given them the information they would need to home in on Javier’s location. The time for action was now. She told them to come armed, and to bring any extra weapons they had, as Hargrave’s people had had to jettison theirs.

  Soon, they would have all the “soldiers” they needed to fight this dirty war. They would rescue Javier from the vicious man who held him. They would kill the government agent. And then they would distribute photographs of his body—no, video, even better—to the world. They would show the world what it means to threaten Codex Freedom.

  “You have that look again,” Jackson said, still wrapping tape around her bandage.

  “Just thinking about how good it will be to have Javier back.”

  “You know that can’t happen,” Jackson said. “He sought asylum and risked being taken prisoner because the only other alternative was to die. Codex Freedom has made too many enemies. It was only a matter of time before the Americans, or the Israelis, or some other power, choose to kill him. He took the measured risk of asking for political asylum, was denied and taken into custody. If we free him, what changes? He is in the same position he was in before.”

  “No,” Hargrave said. “If we free him, I’ll convince him to release the data bomb files. We’ll show them what happens when they betray us. We’ll hurt them. They don’t really believe we’ll do it, Cyril. They don’t believe we’ll expose their secrets to the whole world. Once we’ve done it, once they’ve seen that we mean it, we can amass another. We can hold that over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. We’ll force them to leave Javier, and us, alone by the power of what we can do to them.”

  “I would like to think it could work that way.”

  “It can. It will.” She stood, closed her shirt and slowly buttoned it. He frowned. “What?” she said to him. “You liked me better without it?”

  “Your words,” he said. “Not mine.”

  “Spoken like a man who thinks a chain saw strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies. I’m surprised you did not bring a hockey mask, too.”

  He laughed then quickly sobered. She met his gaze. “Are you certain we are doing the right thing?” he asked. “We will, all of us, be wanted for the highest of crimes. Firearms charges. Attempted murder. Murder, if we are successful.”

  “Murder when we are successful,” she corrected him.

  “I’m serious, Sheila,” he said. “There is no turning away. If we leave Javier to his fate, if we return to our work, we might yet stay under the authorities’ radar.”

  “Is that how you want to live your life?” she said. “Slinking and skulking in the shadows? Or do you want to free Javier and bring the world to its knees—teach the most powerful nations on Earth that we can make them fear us with the power of their own buried lies?”

  “I want your vision of the future,” Jackson told her. “I just want to make sure we all know what that means for us.”

  “Every member of Codex Freedom is aware of the risks.”

  “Did you take a head count when we checked in?” he said. “We’ve lost some along the way. Deserters.”

  “Yes, I’ve made notes of those we could not count on,” she said. “Won’t they be surprised when their identities are stolen and their credit histories are ruined? No one abandons Codex Freedom like that. They made commitments to us. To Javier.”

  She went to her laptop on the motel desk, typed in her access code and brought up the tracking program. “We’re going to have to move soon,” she said. “We don’t know what sort of pace the government man will set, and we don’t know how far they are from their ultimate destination. Once they have Javier locked in some secret CIA prison, we’ll never get him out again. We’ve got to intercept them before that happens.”

  “What if they kill him?” Jackson asked. “Javier is a hunted man. Even with all our members to help, even if they a
ll respond to your coded messages...it might not be enough. He could die before we save him.”

  “Then he becomes a symbol of our cause,” Hargrave told him. “His name will have more power than ever. In his name, we will continue his work.”

  “I hope you’re right. I saw that government man’s face. I can’t describe what it was like to look into those eyes.”

  “I saw them, too,” Hargrave said.

  “Then you know what I’m talking about. His eyes weren’t evil. They weren’t not evil. They were... Determined. Hard. It was all business to him. Righteous business, even.”

  “That’s what working for the government does to your soul. It robs you.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “That man is a killer,” Hargrave stated. “A soulless killer.”

  “Is he, though?” Jackson asked. “If he is, why aren’t we both dead?”

  * * *

  Farhad Dabiri looked at his eyes in the vanity mirror of his rented Dodge Charger. He had been told by many men—and the occasional woman—that there was nothing behind those eyes. He was a soulless killer, they’d informed him.

  The thought made him laugh.

  On his lap sat the notepad computer he was using to track his prey. It was connected to a commercial internet hotspot. The thought made him laugh. He was using the precious online infrastructure the Americans prized so highly to destroy them. That same internet would be used to distribute the many government documents Codex Freedom was sure to have amassed.

  There had been much speculation in Tehran as to the nature of the secrets Javier Octavios was using to blackmail the world. There had even been discussion of whether he might be able to embarrass Iran with those secrets. Ultimately, the men to whom Dabiri answered had decided that, whatever Allah willed, so be it. Far better to deal the West a cutting blow. Using their own technology against them, technology of which they were so proud, made victory sweeter.

  Dabiri considered his options.

  He’d had tracking devices planted on the Russians and on the North Koreans, both having been forced to fly their men in, covertly, on commercial flights. Thankfully, Tehran had highly placed spies in many American and Canadian airports. It had been a complex matter, yes, but they had managed to plant the devices. By tracking key personnel for both the North Korean SSD and the Russian OMON, they had managed to sprinkle certain microdot transmitters in the footpaths where the men would disembark. Every transmitter had a unique frequency and, with the help of specialists from Tehran, the targeted individuals had been discreetly irradiated with covert, handheld emitters. This activated their microdots, and only theirs, to prevent Dabiri from tracking countless other travelers who had nothing to do with his mission.

  It was new technology, gleaned from a very unusual source. The same anonymous electronic mails that had included plans and resources for these tracking devices had also contained attachments. The attachments bore certain data that enabled the Ministry of Intelligence to provide Dabiri with his notebook computer. On that computer was an app. It used the internet, and triangulation technologies that were a mystery to Dabiri, to provide him with the location of Javier Octavios. Better still, while the signal fluctuated, it was very nearly in real time.

  So, Dabiri had his pick of targets. He could reacquire the Russians, for example. That left a sour taste in his mouth; he did not like how easily they had spotted him. Dabiri carried out assassinations for Tehran, but he did that for love of country. More specifically, he did that so that his country’s leaders would not have him murdered. As long as he was useful to them, he remained alive and free to ply his trade.

  The bulk of his income came from freelance contracts. Should his identity become too well known, should he become instantly and infamously recognizable, he would find it much harder to obtain international assignments. The money would dry up. He did not like the thought of that.

  He checked his silenced .22 semiautomatic, a Beretta pocket pistol he had purchased locally on the American black market. The sound suppressor was improvised, bound to the barrel with electrical tape. It would do, although it lacked the precision he preferred. He also had a locally purchased folding knife. The Americans were nothing if not good at selling weapons.

  He considered his notebook. Decisions, decisions. There were many variables.

  Who would lead him to his prey the fastest?

  Chapter Nine

  Buffalo, New York

  “You ready to get out now?” Bolan asked, looking down at Octavios. He checked over his shoulder. A Ford pickup truck with a garish two-tone paint job rumbled past.

  “You know, Cooper, I think I hate you,” Octavios said.

  Bolan offered his hand and the Greek took it, climbing out of the trunk with some difficulty. He had been in there long enough to become stiff and sore.

  Bolan waited as the tall man walked around, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his shoulders. “My arms are asleep. I cannot feel them.” He looked around. “Where on earth are we?”

  “You’re in the parking lot of what we call a big-box store,” Bolan said. “It’s an American tradition.”

  “And why are we here?”

  “To get some supplies we’ll need for the road. Food. Bottled water. And an item that I didn’t want to request blind from my...friends.”

  “Your friends,” the Greek repeated. “Do you mean the government agency that funds your private war on the landscape?”

  Bolan looked at Octavios and decided to let that go. “Come on. Stick close to me. You try to run, you try anything funny, or I find you trying to call anyone in on our position, and you’re going to ride the rest of the way in the trunk.”

  “The rest of the way to where?”

  “Let’s just say it’s more miles than you want to spend curled up like a pretzel,” Bolan told him.

  Shopping in the big chain, which was both a grocery store and retail goods store, was surreal, as if they’d stepped out of the life-and-death battle that was Bolan’s journey to the American black site...and into some kind of vacation. They quickly amassed the supplies they needed for their journey. Octavios kept staring around them with a look that took Bolan a while to identify. It was a mixture of contempt and wonder.

  “Come on,” he said. “We have one more stop and then we need to make tracks. However they’re tracking you, I don’t want things hitting the fan while we’re in here.”

  “And what will you do if it does?” Octavios asked. “Aren’t you endangering everyone in this store? All these fat, ignorant Americans, who have no idea what their government is doing behind their backs?”

  “First, no more editorials,” Bolan warned. “I don’t need to hear what you think about my country. Second, no, we’re not endangering anyone. I know where all the exits are, and at the first sign of trouble, we’re out of here. That’s why we’re parked at the side, near the garden department. We leave straight through there, jump in the car and we’re gone. Third, there’s the fact that the bloody nose I gave your people should keep them out of action for a while.”

  “You don’t need to be so proud of it,” Octavios grunted.

  Bolan paused. “Are you feeling all right? You look a little green around the gills. You’ve been taking the antibiotics, haven’t you?”

  “I’m fine,” the Greek said. “The fluorescent lights in here make everyone look sallow. What is it you’re looking for, exactly?”

  “These,” Bolan said. They were standing in the sporting goods section. Before them was a rack of various camping tools, including several machetes. Bolan examined first one, then another, finally selecting an eighteen-inch model with a MOLLE-compatible sheath whose heft and balance suited him. He put it in the cart. “Come on,” he said. “We’re set.”

  “You could not have had such a thing delivered?” Octavios said. “Your ‘friends’ brought you
every weapon of war imaginable, both on the Canadian side and here once we crossed onto American soil. Frankly, Cooper, I don’t know how you wake up every day and look at yourself in the mirror. You are a tool of the very powers my organization seeks to expose. You are the deadly instrument of the corrupt.”

  “Try again,” Bolan said, pushing the cart. They went through the self-checkout. Octavios could barely contain his mirth when a teenage clerk verified Bolan’s Justice Department identification.

  Bolan led his prisoner back to the Malibu.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Octavios said. “Why stop for a shopping trip?”

  “The machete was as good an excuse as any,” Bolan replied. He threw their items in the Malibu—Octavios cringing slightly when Bolan used the fob to open the trunk. “I needed to see if we were being tailed.”

  “According to you, they are tracking me.”

  “Not the same thing. What I told you about making sure we didn’t endanger anyone was true. And I like to handle a big blade like this before I trust my life to it. But shopping was an excuse to see who followed us through the store. The North Koreans just shot at us in the middle of a city street. Your goofballs weren’t much more subtle. Attacks like that, I can see coming. What I need to know is whether someone sneaky is on our tail.”

  “And are they?”

  “You tell me,” Bolan suggested. “The three men walking to the Ford pickup truck with the two-tone paint. They exited when we did and followed us from the parking lot and through the store, then back out again. They hung back while we were checking out. That’s why I bought merchandise. Nobody does that. Nobody who isn’t tailing someone.”

  Octavios hooded his eyes and made a show of staring across the parking lot. The three men by the pickup looked at each other and whispered among themselves. “They are burly specimens. Corn-fed middle Americans, to be sure.”

  “We’re in New York, not Iowa,” Bolan stated. “So, what are their names?”