Текст книги "Independence Day "

Автор книги: Ben Coes

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

81

CAPE ANN MARINE COMPANY

GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

“There’s a guy out on the dock.”

Saxby looked up.

“Should we call the cops?” he asked.

If Scranton understood the sarcasm in Saxby’s voice, he didn’t let on.

“Or should we perhaps ask him if we can help him?” continued Saxby. “You are aware that we sell boats, aren’t you, Jack?”

“This guy ain’t buying a boat. He looks suspicious. That’s all I’m saying.”

Saxby shook his head. He went out the side door of the marina building and walked to the long pier in back, on the harbor. It was crowded with a variety of boats moored along the teak pier.

When he got to the middle of the pier, he saw the individual. He was on one of the boats, a dark green forty-four-foot Hinckley Talaria. As much as he doubted Scranton, he had to admit the man did look suspect. His hair was long and dark, stubble covered his face. He was Arab. He looked ill, like he was going to get sick right there on the boat.

“Can I help you?” asked Saxby.

“Good morning. I would like to buy this boat.”

“You are aware of the cost?” asked Saxby. “That’s a four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar boat right there. Now we do offer financing, but the approval process can take a while.”

“I’ll pay cash,” he said.

“Cash like a check? I can call Mr. Gardiner and ask—”

“Cash like cash,” the stranger interrupted. “And I would like it right now.”

82

LE DIPLOMATE

I4TH STREET NW

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The cell made an incessant high-pitched beeping noise, startling Gant as he ate.

He was alone. Le Diplomate was his favorite restaurant. It brought back memories of different postings in his career. Paris was the most obvious, but for some reason the cozy, eclectic European ambience reminded him of Prague, where he met his first wife.

Gant was feeling sentimental, even sad. He’d been sidelined from the Agency’s most important operation in years. When he’d attempted to access status files earlier, he had not been allowed in. He was shut off.

But if he thought Le Diplomate would help, he was wrong. If anything, it only made him realize what he was about to lose.

Or maybe it was guilt finally catching up to him.

His phone started to ring. He looked down at the phone number. It was him, the man who started it all, the one who killed a kindly Soviet scientist as his only child watched.

He picked up the phone.

“Hi, Sage.”

“That’s not my name anymore.”

“Maybe not on that fantasy island where you live, but you’ll always be Sage Roberts to me.”

“What do you want?”

“Something’s happening.”

“What’s that, Josh? Did you finally worm your way to the director’s job?”

“I called to warn you.”

“You’ve never done a fucking thing your whole entire life for anyone other than Josh Gant, so let’s cut the bullshit. What is it?”

“Vargarin.”

The word shut Roberts up. He was quiet for several moments. Then he let out a loud sigh.

“Oh, boy.”

“Boy is right,” said Gant. “The son you had me stick in the orphanage.”

“Pyotr. Smart kid.”

“He’s a terrorist now.”

“I knew I should’ve put a bullet in his head,” said Roberts. “Why are you calling? To ‘warn me’? Because you’re such a nice fucking guy?”

“Why did you do it?” asked Gant.

“Do what?”

“Why couldn’t you just let the family stay? They wanted to stay in their country, you sick fuck.”

“The answer to that question was wired into your bank account fifteen years ago, Josh. Grow up. That’s the way the world works.”

“All I can say is, you better hope he fails at what he’s trying to do. Because if this thing unwinds, they’ll be sending the Killer Kanes after you.”

83

SHENNAMERE ROAD

DARIEN, CONNECTICUT

Igor knew something was happening. In a tight geographic area east of Moscow, the level of defensive activity was spiking. It meant that his target’s automated countermeasures were fighting back.

Igor’s server farm was pounding against Cloud’s 128-bit encryption key, hitting it with attempt after attempt as they enumerated every possible combination of characters. Cloud had embedded logic bombs within the encryption algorithm, so that as someone trying to break the key came closer, countermeasures were instigated. Like a wounded animal, Cloud’s defenses were doing what they could to kill, delay, and misdirect the onslaught that was coming from Iceland. A normal attempt at breaking Cloud’s key would have long since been stopped. But a warehouse full of single-purpose attackers was not normal in any sense. They smelled blood. They could not be stopped.

Igor had two of his three screens focused on the hunt. One screen showed packet activity in real time—the granular communications between his servers and the servers running Cloud’s defenses. At the beginning of the process, those servers running Cloud’s protections were distributed all over the world, striking back at the earliest attempts at finding the root line in. But as Igor’s overwhelming wall of computing power discovered shortcuts and ways around those first defenses, Cloud’s power retreated and focused in a concentric circle. Igor watched the punch-counterpunch in real time, like watching a tennis match in digital form.

The second screen mirrored the locations of the individual battles and displayed them in red dots on a digital map.

As if sensing the end, he leaned forward over the keyboard. A minute passed, then two. Then it hit. The first screen locked on to a 128-bit line of characters. Igor started typing furiously now, reprovisioning the key into his own, then instructing the remaining servers to metastasize. Like a fast-moving cancer, they pounced and started eating into Cloud’s network, spidering themselves across every packet, byte, and line of code in Cloud’s possession, locking down and freezing a lifetime’s worth of cybercrime.

The map zoomed in to a single address:

17 Vostochnyy

Elektrostal

Igor reached for his cell and speed-dialed Calibrisi.

84

SITUATION ROOM

THE WHITE HOUSE

Calibrisi remained quiet as Dellenbaugh spoke. He knew he shouldn’t have ripped Lindsay in front of the group, but he didn’t regret doing it. Calibrisi had a deep distrust of politicians, and that included former ones like the secretary of state. They weren’t all that way. He thought Dellenbaugh was growing into being a great president, and he practically worshipped Dellenbaugh’s predecessor, the man who appointed him to his post at Langley, Rob Allaire. But they were exceptions. Most politicians cared only about whether people liked them. Most ran for office out of some deep-seated need to prove—to themselves, to their parents, who knows—that people liked them. If they happened to do good things once they were elected, that was a bonus.

Calibrisi was tired. Except for a nap on the chopper ride down to D.C., he’d barely slept in days. Had he been rested, he would’ve ignored Lindsay during the meeting. Silence was always the best fuck you.

As he rubbed his eyes, he felt his cell vibrating. He read the caller ID:

:: JAGGER MICK::

He put the cell to his ear.

“Hi, Igor,” he whispered. “What do you have?”

“I found him.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as shit.”

Calibrisi looked at the president.

“What is it?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“I need to take a call, sir,” said Calibrisi, standing up.

“Anything you care to update us with?” asked Lindsay.

Calibrisi ignored the question.

“Come with me,” said Brubaker.

Calibrisi put the phone to his ear.

“Okay, I’m hanging up and calling you back from a tactical line. Stay by the phone.”

Calibrisi nodded across the table to Polk, telling him to come with him, then picked up his briefcase and followed Brubaker to the door.

85

BOSTON HARBOR

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Boston harbor was crowded with boats on a calm, sunny July afternoon, the day before Independence Day.

In addition to hundreds of sailboats, power boats, and fishing boats, there were dozens of police boats and Coast Guard patrol boats crisscrossing the water.

Faqir putted into harbor in the middle of the afternoon.

He noticed the many law enforcement vessels. They were looking, he knew, for the trawler, unless they had somehow discovered the theft of the second boat, though he doubted it.

Besides, at this point, Faqir didn’t care. He wanted to execute the plan, and then die.

As it was, he was vomiting every half hour or so. It had turned into dry heaves. He didn’t want them to catch him, but if they did, whatever pain or disappointment he might’ve felt at the beginning of the journey wasn’t there anymore. He was physically and emotionally numb with radiation poisoning.

Faqir steered the Talaria the way he imagined a wealthy American might during the summer, at the beginning of a holiday weekend. He cut straight across the water, pushing the boat in a measured way across the crowded harbor.

With the GPS on his phone, he navigated toward Revere. Past a marina filled with sailboats, he came upon an old chain-link fence that ran along the rocky, garbage-strewn waterfront. Behind the fence was an aggregates business. Piles of road salt and gravel dotted a dusty lot. Farther on, lashed to the pier, were several long, flat barges, used for hauling road salt to customers.

Faqir scanned the water for anyone who might see them, but there was no one within a quarter mile. He navigated alongside one of the barges, put the boat in neutral, and then moved to the stern and lifted a storage bin near the transom.

Inside were two nuclear devices, wrapped in a green tarp.

Faqir and the other man lifted one out of the boat, walked to the port gunnel, and lowered it to the deck of the barge.

A minute later, the Talaria was slicing smoothly through the calm water heading south.

86

THE WHITE NIGHT

AVENUE SVERCHKOV

MOSCOW

Malnikov exited the highway, then took side streets through a shabby-looking neighborhood. He parked in front of a bar.

“What are we doing?” asked Dewey.

Malnikov looked at him.

“Finding Cloud. Stay here.”

“No,” said Dewey. “Fuck that. What are we doing?”

“Seeing an old friend.”

“Why?”

“Something I realized this morning.”

“And what’s that?”

“That people are fuckheads.”

Malnikov reached for the door and climbed out.

“Let me do the talking,” he said as they approached the front door.

The White Night was nearly empty. Behind the bar was a mirror that stretched the entire length of the room, crowded with hundreds of bottles of liquor, beer, and wine. On the walls were framed photos of famous Soviet athletes: hockey players, soccer players, great sprinters, skiers, and swimmers from past Olympics, including a large black-and-white photo of the gymnast Olga Korbut, heroine of the 1972 Munich Olympics.

There was a lone person there. He was a short bald man with a beard and mustache. He stood at the bar, leaning down, counting out stacks of bundled one-hundred-ruble banknotes. Almost the entire surface of the bar was covered in bricks of the money, like a child’s table covered in blocks.

As Malnikov and Dewey entered, the man’s head jerked around, along with his right arm, which held a gun, reflexively training it on them. Seeing who it was, he quickly moved the muzzle away.

“Don’t shoot, Leo,” said Malnikov.

“Alexei,” said Tolstoy, putting the pistol back on the bar. “I’m sorry. Instincts. Who’s this?”

“Nobody,” said Malnikov.

He walked through the empty bar and stopped to Tolstoy’s left. Dewey followed behind him and took a seat at the bar.

“Have a seat,” said Tolstoy. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you,” said Malnikov. “We won’t be long.”

“You’re up early.”

Malnikov nodded.

“What is it?” asked Tolstoy, who went back to counting out money.

“I realized something this morning,” said Malnikov.

“Yes, Alexei?” said Tolstoy.

“After my father was arrested, you said something to me.”

Tolstoy turned. He reached his hand out and placed it on Malnikov’s shoulder.

“I said I am sorry he was arrested,” said Tolstoy. “You know I love your father.”

“You said I could be next. You said I need ‘leverage.’ Remember?”

Tolstoy nodded, smiling nervously. He removed his hand and reached for a cup of coffee. As he did so, his eyes shot to the gun on the bar.

“I still believe that,” said Tolstoy. “If something were to happen to you, we would all be affected. You know this.”

Malnikov stared at Tolstoy for several moments, studying him.

“Actually, I will take that drink,” said Malnikov. “Vodka.”

“Yes, of course,” said Tolstoy. “How about you?”

Dewey nodded.

“Whiskey.”

Tolstoy stood from the barstool. With his back turned to Malnikov, he picked up the gun from the bar. He took a step, then swiveled, gun out, toward Malnikov. But Malnikov was already standing, anticipating, and his left hand grabbed Tolstoy’s gun arm before it could complete its sweep.

Tolstoy yanked his arm back, trying to get free of Malnikov’s clutch.

With his other hand, Malnikov reached down and grabbed his gun from the concealed holster.

Tolstoy, unable to get his gun arm free of Malnikov, thrust his leg forward, kicking Malnikov squarely in the crotch, and in the same instant Malnikov fired the Desert Eagle. The slug ripped into Tolstoy’s knee, dropping him to the ground. Tolstoy howled in agony.

“Motherfucker!”

Malnikov stepped forward and drop-kicked Tolstoy beneath the chin, sending him tumbling against a barstool. He kicked him again, this time in the gut. Then he stepped calmly above him, keeping the long-barreled Desert Eagle trained on Tolstoy’s head.

“Who told you to say it?” asked Malnikov.

“Why should I tell you?” groaned Tolstoy, clutching his blood-soaked knee.

Malnikov fired another round. The bullet struck Tolstoy’s stomach. As Tolstoy groaned, both of his hands reached for his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding.

“I’ll call an ambulance if you tell me right now,” said Malnikov, the gun trained on Tolstoy’s head.

“Sascha,” whispered Tolstoy. “The man’s name is Sascha.”

Malnikov’s face grew red with anger.

“Is he the one who gave you Bokolov’s number?”

Tolstoy nodded.

Malnikov paused, looking down at Tolstoy, disappointment, betrayal, and hatred crossing his face.

“Where is he from?”

“Elektrostal.”

Malnikov kept the gun aimed at Tolstoy. He pulled a phone from his pocket and hit a speed-dial number, calling a man named Goran, who ran operations in Elektrostal for Malnikov. As it rang, he hit the Speaker button.

“Alexei,” came a groggy voice. “What time is it?”

“There’s a man named Sascha,” said Malnikov, staring at Tolstoy, the gun still trained on his skull. “According to Leo, he’s in your city.”

“There are many Saschas,” said Goran, half asleep.

“He’s a computer hacker.”

“Yes,” said Goran. “I believe I know this man. What does he look like?”

Malnikov looked at Tolstoy.

“Black hair,” coughed Tolstoy. “Long. He has a ponytail.”

“Yes, that’s him,” said Goran on speakerphone. “He likes fat girls. What do you want me to do with him?”

“Get me his address.”

Malnikov hung up the cell. He kept the muzzle on Tolstoy.

“Please, Alexei,” begged Tolstoy. “The ambulance.”

“I to, chto ty, predatel’?” seethed Malnikov. And what did you get, traitor? “Some of the money? Some of my money!?”

Blood topped Tolstoy’s lips and started dripping down his chin as he looked up at Malnikov from the floor.

“He knew everything.” Tolstoy coughed through his clotted throat. “He said I would end up in the same prison as your father. I had no choice.”

Malnikov fired. The slug ripped a jagged hole between Tolstoy’s eyes, kicking his head back, raining blood, skull, and brains on the floor, killing him instantly.

“You always have a choice, Leo.”

87

ELEKTROSTAL

Cloud had two screens on Moscow network news. One screen showed continuing coverage of the plane crash. The other had live coverage of the explosion near Pobedy Park.

He heard the door open behind him, and turned. It was Sascha. He trudged inside, his clothing and hair soaking wet. His face was red and sweaty.

“It’s all over the news,” said Cloud.

“He was there.”

“Who?”

“Andreas.”

Cloud stood, mouth agape.

“He was across the street, like he was watching the building. He chased me.”

“What did you do?”

“I detonated the bomb. He was thrown in the air. I think I might have killed him.”

Sascha stepped behind Cloud to look at the news. The screen was frozen.

Cloud hit the keyboard.

“We’re iced,” he said.

Cloud pounded the keyboard several times.

“It must be in our directories,” said Cloud.

He walked to the next workstation and ran a series of diagnostic scans of their own servers, then rebooted the system.

The scan of the servers pinpointed a buffer overflow—a massive amount of traffic that clogged the system. In looking at the sequence of its arrival, he was quickly able to find the perpetrator. It was coming from someplace in North America. The perpetrator had no purpose other than to disrupt the streaming of the television station.

Cloud cleaned it out, then rebooted the servers. Within twenty seconds, the screen quickly froze again.

Cloud went back to the log and found the malicious code behind the buffer overflow. He cut out the piece of malicious code, saved it, then ran it through a program that contextualized the code against existing hacker code, looking for similarities, so that he could understand where the code had come from and if it represented a danger. He pasted the code, then watched as it was smashed against hundreds of millions of cataloged malicious code from hackers all over the world, including his own.

After less than a minute, a red flashing block of code appeared:

hwpsraid:/7sxl:0.01

He stared at the screen for several seconds, in shock.

“My God,” he whispered.

“What?”

Cloud shut his eyes, deep in thought.

“Cloud, what is it?”

“They found us.”

*   *   *

Down the hall from the Situation Room, Brubaker led Calibrisi and Polk to a small, windowless office. The room had photos on the walls of past presidents presiding over meetings in the Situation Room. A desk was against one wall. On top of it sat two large unusual-looking rectangular black phones.

Brubaker stepped to one of the phones and hit the speaker.

A female voice came on: “White House Signal.”

“This is Josh Brubaker. I need a dedicated preaction uplink via NSA channel two two.”

“Hold, please.”

The phone made two distinct beeps, then a male voice came on the line.

“NSC code link, you’re live. Agent O’Brien here, go, sir.”

“O’Brien, you have a live Emergency Priority action,” said Brubaker. “I’m handing it over to Hector.”

“Yes, sir. It’s an honor, Mr. Calibrisi.”

Brubaker patted Calibrisi on the shoulder, then left, shutting the door behind him.

“What kind of encryption is on the link?” asked Polk.

“KEY-5 TLS encryption,” said O’Brien. “What’s the first number?”

“212-772-1001,” said Calibrisi.

“One minute, sir.”

*   *   *

Malnikov pushed the red Ferrari F12 Berlinetta recklessly fast—tearing east along the M7 at 150 mph despite the heavy rain.

Dewey, strapped tight in the passenger seat, stared ahead with a hint of unease.

“Alexei?”

“Yeah?”

“You realize if we die on the way there it sort of makes it hard to capture him.”

Malnikov glanced at Dewey. He slowed ever so slightly, shaking his head.

“I thought you were tough.”

“I never said that,” said Dewey. “Besides, I don’t care how tough you are, hitting a hunk of concrete at two hundred miles an hour hurts.”

“Victory requires speed,” said Malnikov. “Americans want to go too slow. Speed limits and whatnot. You’re too cautious. Perhaps this is why you lose all these wars? Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq…”

Dewey’s eyes bulged as they came up behind a semitruck, then swerved right, barely missing it.

“The Cold War,” added Dewey.

Malnikov braked sharply, then exited the highway. A few minutes later, they came to the edge of Elektrostal. He took a left on Mayakovskogo. The road was rutted with potholes. Trees and shrubs had taken over the sidewalks. Old warehouses stained with rust sat between decrepit structures that had once been office buildings but now appeared abandoned.

“I didn’t realize Russia was so nice,” said Dewey.

Malnikov laughed.

“We have better-looking women,” he responded.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Dewey.

“No, it’s a fact.”

“Katya’s pretty, I’ll give you that. But I’ll take an Iowa farm girl any day.”

“‘Farm girl’?” asked Malnikov, shaking his head in disgust as he steered past potholes. “Who the hell wants to fuck a farm girl? You come out with me sometime. I’ll show you what a beautiful woman looks like.”

Malnikov slashed right, then slowed and came to a stop.

“There it is,” said Malnikov, shutting off the Ferrari’s lights.

Two blocks away, an ugly office building sat midblock. Four stories tall, it looked like the countless other structures on the street, concrete, shaped like a rectangular block, with small windows. Lights were visible in the building’s top floor.

Malnikov’s cell suddenly started ringing. He looked at the caller ID, muted it.

He turned to Dewey.

“In the glove compartment. Get a weapon.”

*   *   *

As Igor waited for Calibrisi to call him back, he set the phone down on the desk and began typing, pulling the noose even tighter around Cloud’s neck.

First, he built redundant pathways into Cloud’s network, in case Cloud somehow shut off the system or was able to contain him. Next, he looked for Cloud’s alternative egress points, quickly cataloging the various digital pathways out from the network to the Internet. In all, he found sixteen different arteries out of the single building at 17 Vostochnyy. He infiltrated them all, inserting trapdoors.

Suddenly, his third computer screen lit up. Words appeared:

X:UsersCX7-44>              who is this

Igor thought for a split second, then started typing:

C:Users02>                     where is it

As he waited for Cloud’s response, the screen came alive again:

X:UsersCX7-44>              where is what

Igor paused. He knew that right now, every second mattered. He needed to try to delay Cloud long enough for Calibrisi to get people there.

Igor’s phone started to ring.

“Igor?” asked Calibrisi.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“What do you have?” asked Calibrisi.

“He’s in a city called Elektrostal,” said Igor.

*   *   *

Polk opened his laptop, quickly bringing up a digital map of Russia. He narrowed in on Elektrostal.

Igor spoke: “Hector, you need to know something. He initiated conversation with me.”

“How?”

“Text.”

“What did he say?”

“‘Who is this?’”

“How’d you respond?”

“I asked, ‘Where is it?’ He just responded, ‘Where is what?’”

Calibrisi looked at Polk, who was deep in thought.

“We need time,” said Polk. “We need to get Dewey there. Let’s ask him where the money is. He might think Malnikov has found him.”

“Got it,” said Igor.

“Control,” said Calibrisi. “I need you to add another number.”

*   *   *

On one screen, Cloud studied the hack, trying to assess where it had come from.

A second screen showed his opponent’s words in white text on black:

C:Users02>              the money

Cloud found the point of intrusion. First, his opponent had discovered an error in one of the networks Cloud had used to send one of his attacks.

Once his opponent discovered the error, he went directly after the jugular, seeking to break the encryption algorithm that safeguarded all of Cloud’s network. The attacker had employed a so-called brute-force attack. Armed with a vast amount of computing power, the person or institution had eventually broken his encryption key by systematically enumerating all possible variants of the encryption key until finding the right one.

Now that he was in, there was no way to get him out. His attacker had already commandeered the network and architected a new layer of encryption, which he, not Cloud, controlled.

“How did he get in?” asked Sascha.

“A fucking fencepost error,” said Cloud, shaking his head in disgust.

“I’ll do a registry scan,” said Sascha, beginning to type. “Send me the bad code.”

“It’s no use. He broke the key.”

Cloud watched a separate screen, which displayed security flags. One by one, so fast he barely had time to read the individual lines of code, his DNS addresses were taken over. Whoever was out there was now commandeering every computer and every program Cloud possessed.

“Mother of God,” said Sascha. “It’s like a tidal wave.”

Whoever it was wanted him to believe they worked for Alexei Malnikov. Perhaps they did work for Malnikov. But Cloud doubted the Russian mobster cared about the money, certainly not enough to invest in the sort of sophisticated attack that just broke through his defenses and brought down his network. Even the response, “the money,” gave him pause; he knew Alexei Malnikov would rather kill him than get his money back.

It had to be the United States. Langley.

Cloud turned on his cell, making sure he could use it to continue the dialogue with the attacker. He typed into the phone:

I want to cut a deal

He looked at his computer to see if the phone was still working. On the screen, his words were displayed exactly as they had been written:

X:UsersCX7-44>              I want to cut a deal

Cloud stood up.

“Leave everything,” he said to Sascha. “Leave it all, exactly as it is.”

*   *   *

Dewey opened the Ferrari’s glove compartment. There were four handguns inside. All were the same: Desert Eagle .50 AE. He grabbed one of the guns, then popped the mag, making sure it was full. He grabbed an extra mag and stuffed it in his pocket.

“We need to loop in Hector,” said Dewey.

“The time is now, Dewey,” said Malnikov. “We call Hector and all of a sudden it’s five minutes from now.”

Dewey stared at the windshield as rain pelted the glass. He knew they needed to tie in Hector, yet he knew Malnikov was right. It would take time they didn’t have. There wasn’t anything Hector could tell them that would alter the plan right now, anyway.

“One of us stays here,” said Dewey.

“We both go in.”

“No,” said Dewey. “One of us needs to watch the exits. That’s you. Remember, we need him alive.”

Though angry, Malnikov nodded. He reached for the door pocket and pulled out another cell.

“Here,” he said. “Speed dial one is me.”

Dewey opened the door and charged toward the building.

*   *   *

Cloud picked up his gun. He walked to the window. On the street, a block away, he saw the bright cherry red of a Ferrari. They were here already.

“But Cloud,” said Sascha, “if we don’t at least wipe it—”

“Leave it,” snapped Cloud. “Don’t even sign off. They’re inside. They know precisely where we are. We couldn’t wipe it if we wanted to.”

Sascha picked up his backpack and started running to the door. Cloud followed. Sascha held the door open for Cloud. As Cloud approached, he raised his arm and aimed the gun at Sascha.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” said Cloud. “You will only slow me down.”

He fired. The slug struck Sascha in the chest, dropping him. Blood rapidly spread out in a dark pancake through his shirt. Sascha appeared neither surprised nor angry.

From the ground, he looked up at Cloud, staring for a final moment, then shut his eyes.

Cloud heard his phone chime.

C:Users02>              I don’t negotiate

Cloud stepped into the stairwell, clutching the gun, staring at the screen. He descended to the next landing, then stopped and typed:

I’ll tell you where the bomb is going but I want something in return

C:Users02>              what do you want?

Cloud didn’t answer. He pocketed the phone, then ran down the stairs toward the basement.

*   *   *

Dewey sprinted toward the building’s entrance. He pulled open the door and was standing in a dim stairwell, lit by a single lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling of the top floor, four flights up.

Dewey scanned the landing, gun out, water dripping from his hair and face. The entrance was quiet and deserted, and yet he’d heard something. Or had he?

The only lights in the building had come from the top-floor windows. Yet Dewey stared down the stairs toward the basement.

*   *   *

Cloud entered the basement seconds before he heard the door to the building open. He was panting. His heart was beating fast. He lurched behind the wall, raising the gun, then peeked out. It was Andreas.

The American had an angry look on his face as he entered the building. His gun was raised, trained out in front of him, the muzzle moving in time with his eyes, which scanned the entrance area.

Cloud studied him as he looked around the first-floor landing. Cloud’s hands were trembling. He heard Andreas’s footsteps just above his head as he opened the door to the first floor, searching for him.

Should I kill him?

Cloud remained still, in the basement, hiding against the concrete wall, waiting for Andreas to come back. Then, from above, he heard more footsteps, then the sound of the door shutting. He peered out. He saw one of Andreas’s legs, then the rest of his body came into view. Suddenly, his eyes shot down toward him, as if he’d sensed him there. Cloud remained still, holding his breath.

No. He would win that battle. Before you have time to aim and fire, a bullet will rip through you. He won’t kill you, not yet anyway. Not until he tortures the information out of you.

Cloud remembered the cell phone in his pocket. He’d forgotten to turn off the ringer. The conversation with the hacker. If he received a message now, the chime would be loud enough for Andreas to hear. Yet if he moved his arm to shut it off, even the faintest scratch of friction might be caught by the American …

Cloud held the gun tight, wanting nothing more than to not drop it or make a noise.

Gently, he slipped his left hand into his pocket and turned off the phone’s ringer, keeping his eyes on the landing one flight above.

Andreas’s eyes stared into the dark stairwell for another two or three seconds. It felt like an eternity. Then he turned and moved out of view.

*   *   *

Dewey opened the door to the first floor.

The room was empty and dark. He glanced down toward the basement, seeing nothing but darkness. He climbed the stairs, moving floor by floor. At the second floor, he opened the door. It too was empty. When he opened the door to the third floor, heat escaped from the darkness. As his eyes adjusted, he saw hundreds of computer servers, stacked together in rows, with large coils of black cable interspersed between them. Their pulsing lights casting a red and green hue.