An Armageddon Duology (28 page)

T
he haphazard positioning
of the participants ensured that the firefight would be quick. The SWAT team was exposed and took the brunt of the initial offensive, unable to find cover. They responded by advancing into the fray and opening fire. Despite their protective gear and powerful weapons, they were outnumbered, and the attackers cut them down mercilessly.

But not without cost. Savas had kept the van between him and the assailants. He swung his gun arm into the line of fire just as the last SWAT man fell in front of them. Multiple bodies of their attackers lay on the asphalt as well, shell casings littering the ground beside him and in front of the vans. Gunshots exploded above his head as Miller fired, and Savas saw a shape fall as it ran, a body striking the concrete only feet from the shelter of parked cars.

His peripheral vision caught other forms dashing for cover on his left and right. A magazine dropped to the ground beside him as Miller reloaded, sliding down the side of the van.

“How many?” Savas asked.

“Four or five more,” Miller panted. “They’re spread across.”

Savas spotted movement behind a blue pickup. He blasted its windshield for effect more than any hope to strike a target.

“Right idea,” Miller said. “But it won’t stop them for long. They’ve got the firepower on us. And still the numbers. How the hell did they know?”

Savas shook his head. “No time for that. Take point.”

Miller swung into position and fired several shots. He ducked back and a barrage of gunfire chased him, blowing out the tires on the far side of the van, the windows exploding. Glass rained down on them.

“So much for an escape,” Savas muttered.

He had turned back toward Cohen. She was propped on one knee and the car, poised with a pistol, head barely over the hood. Poison crawled behind the Crown Vic, terrified. Savas wondered if she could be the target. Was Fawkes there to terminate her?

Harsh words disabused him of the notion.

“Send the girl!” a man’s voice cried. “All we want is the girl!”

Savas saw Cohen shake her head vigorously in the negative. Miller sighed.

“We
might
bring them down, John,” he said, “but not before we’re bloodied up good.”

“Any ideas?”

“If I had a few minutes, maybe.”

Their assailants wouldn’t give them thirty seconds.

“We’ve got one of your men!” came the voice. “He’s wounded but not dead. Send the girl or we waste him!”

There was a scream and Savas thought he heard the word “name”. A rattled voice could barely be heard.

“Agent Longwell. Special Weapons and Tactics.”

The voice was gasped, in pain, heavy breaths between the words.

Savas dropped to the ground and slightly forward. For a moment he was able to see ahead, the presence of an armed intruder pointing a gun at the slumping body of a SWAT officer, a trail of blood across the floor from where he’d been dragged. He rolled back behind the van just as shots ripped open the asphalt where he’d been. “Hurt bad but still alive,” he said to Miller. “
Damn!
”

“You got ten seconds!”

“John, whatever you do, don’t negotiate with these killers!” Miller looked furious.

Savas looked back. Cohen had dropped her head, defeated. He had a second to make a decision weighing a man’s life and a possible stop to a world terrorist event. He closed his eyes.

“Frank, take my gun and—”

“I’m coming!”

He opened his eyes and saw Poison standing up behind Cohen. The hacker moved her hands upward and danced around Cohen’s clumsy attempt to grab her, trotting forward awkwardly with arms raised.

“Anyone else move and this pig is dead!” cried the voice.

Savas cursed. The girl had taken things into her own hands. They hadn’t killed her, which ruled her out as a target. It looked like Fawkes had sent a retrieval team to get her out of FBI custody, that he wanted her alive and was willing to invest significant resources into saving her.
Dammit!
The plan would have worked!

Poison was now just in front of the van, walking slowly, eyes wide and face frozen. She was beyond the team’s reach now, any actions they might take could be countered devastatingly.

“They’ve got her,” Savas said to Miller, hand clenched into a fist.

Miller nodded. “She made the call. Damage control, John. We need to create a distraction.”

“A distraction?” he asked, the truth dawning on him.

“To get Rebecca out,” said Miller grimly. “No way we all walk. Not after those videos. Not after this bloodbath. We need to draw fire and get her the hell out of here. Somebody has to walk away and try to get assets on that van.”

Savas nodded, the implications hitting him like a sledgehammer. “Maybe we can take enough of them down, damage the van. Trap them, slow them down.”

“Good a plan as any,” shrugged Miller.

“But she can barely walk.”

Savas looked back toward Cohen. Her attention was focused on him. He motioned with his eyes to the stairwell, a bright EXIT sign over the door. She followed his gaze and nodded, grabbing the crutches beside her.

They heard a scream and thump. Savas assumed it was Poison being thrown into the van. They had only seconds now.

“Go!” he hissed to Miller, and the two spun toward the attackers, weapons drawn.

They opened fire.

W
eapons discharge filled
the reverberant chamber. It was several seconds before Savas could fully process what was happening. He’d locked on the shapes in front of the white van, the form of Poison glimpsed momentarily within as he took aim. From both sides figures were rushing toward the van in a blur of motion.

But something was wrong. The mass of figures was too large, and the flow of bodies counter to what would be expected of their attackers. Shapes were moving down from the access ramp, black fabric fluttering as they dashed.

They were firing on Fawkes’ team.

“Friendlies!” screamed Miller beside him, his combat vision parsing the chaos more quickly than anyone.

Lopez and Houston
. Savas didn’t have time to consider how they had arrived and found their way to the conflict. That would come later.

“Sideways, John,” Miller yelled. “Watch the cross-fire!”

They darted away from the center. The team sent to snatch Poison was caught between hailstorms of bullets. Lopez and Houston had drawn their attention, wounding several, just as Savas and Miller opened fire. In less than a minute, the firearms were silent. Shell casings tinkled to a stop on the hard surface below. The charred reek of gunpowder burned in their nostrils.

A mass of bodies was scattered around the white vans. Two of the forms jerked helplessly, one screaming in agony. The rest were silent and still. It was over.

“Poison!” cried Cohen. She hobbled on her crutches straight to the van.

Miller and Savas moved cautiously, training their weapons on the bodies below them while Cohen disappeared inside the transport. Lopez and Houston rounded the right side of the vehicle, the former priest’s left arm in a sling, his right clutching a submachine gun. Houston holstered a large Browning.

“Fuck, Savas!” she said, out of breath. “This was supposed to be where we recuperated!”

He frowned at them. “Thanks for saving our asses. Now get topside and check that we aren’t going to get another surprise. Call Angel when you get back and let’s try to figure this out.”

“Francisco can wait it out here,” she said. “Doc isn’t going to be happy with his recent exertions.” She sprinted away and up the ramp, weapon drawn again.

Lopez looked toward the fallen men around them. “I’ll see what’s left here. Go check on our bait.”

Savas nodded and ducked into the vehicle. Inside, Poison cowered at the far end, shaking, wedged into a corner by the back doors with her legs pulled up and her arms around them. Cohen crouched next to her, one hand resting on the hacker’s arm.

“Poison,” Cohen said. There was no response, just a wide-eyed and distant look on her face. “Tabitha.” She turned to Cohen, still not speaking, and Cohen continued gently. “It’s over. We need to get you out of here, now, in case more are on the way.”

“He knew,” Poison whispered, clutching her necklace. She grabbed Cohen’s vest. “How did he know?”

Cohen shook her head. “I don’t know, but we need to move.”

“We aren’t safe anywhere! He’ll know. He’ll follow.” Her eyes were wild. “How could he know?”

Savas’ baritone rumbled from the front of the van. “Maybe I can shed some light on it.” He spun from the front seat to the pair in the back, holding up a smartphone. “Look. GPS app.”

He held the device toward them. On the screen a bright sphere blinked on their position.

“You’re bugged, Poison,” Savas said grimly.

“Bugged?” Poison looked perplexed. Then a light flared in her eyes. She jerked her necklace hard enough to break the clasp, leaving two ribbons dangling from her hand. Inside her palm was the USB stick.

“The drive?” asked Savas.

She laughed bitterly. “My first hack. Backed up. Like a trophy for luck. He knew. The prick! He knew. He must have switched it with a tracking device.
Jesus!
”

With a wild motion, she flung herself through the van, forcing her way past Savas and outside. The two agents followed her out and watched her fling the device to the ground. She picked up one of the assault rifles beside a dead man and aimed the butt of the gun toward the USB stick.

Cohen extended one of her crutches and stopped her. “We want him to know where we are, remember?”

“You want another bloodbath?” Poison said, indicating the bodies at their feet. “He’ll come again. Can’t you see that?”

“No,” Cohen said. “We’ll shield it, jam it until we arrive at the warehouse.”

Poison nodded. “Yeah. All right.” Her breathing slowed. Her eyes flashed downward. “I still want to smash the damn thing.”

The edges of Cohen’s mouth twitched upward. “I’m sure you do.”

Cohen reached down awkwardly and scooped the stick from the ground, her face momentarily lost in a cascade of brown hair. Houston came jogging around the two vans.

“All clear,” she panted. “The guards at the front are dead and the gate mechanism’s smashed to hell and back. I used the phone there to call for some backup. This building must be ghosted. There hasn’t been any response!”

Savas nodded. “We’re spread so thin across the city that we’re losing function.”

“I also got Angel on the phone. She says she’s got some interesting news.”

Savas turned his head. “What news?”

Houston shrugged. “Something about immune code or something for the virus? I have no idea. I turned the conversation to our little problem down here. She’ll get some reinforcements to us soon. ”

“No need for a medkit, though,” said Lopez, stepping back into their circle. There was blood on his hands. “Too much iron, too many holes. They’re all dead. Your men and those from Fawkes. The last just bled out.”

They all turned to look out over the bodies scattered around them. Savas grimaced at the sight of the downed FBI agents, and the pools of blood clotting underneath them.

“This bastard is building one hell of a body count.”

Cohen held up the USB stick. “Yeah, and he still thinks he holds all the cards. But not this one. Not anymore. We make it go dark, move to the location, and set up. Then we switch it back on. After all this, is there any doubt?”

Houston smiled. “Moth to the flame.”

M
R. SAVAS
: Everything was happening at once. We worked to clear the parking level. There wasn’t much point in turning it into a crime scene. The whole planet already was one. The bodies were moved, some of the mess fire-hosed away. Found another van, but that was it for a SWAT presence. We were on our own.

C
BD
: Who then headed to the warehouse?

MR. SAVAS: Me, agents Cohen and Miller. Lopez and Houston. Finally, the woman. Poison.

C
BD
: The convicted hacker?

MR. SAVAS: That’s the one. Agents Rideout and Lightfoote stayed behind to handle the digital angle of this.

C
BD
: How did you prevent Fawkes from tracking you?

MR. SAVAS: Simple. We bagged the stick in a shielding case—no signal in or out. For good measure we brought onboard a jammer. We checked it carefully. It was gagged. We sent out three vans in different directions in case any of his drones were watching. Janitors drove them around the city for a while. Not sure what was the key element, but it worked. We weren’t followed.

C
BD
: And you know that because?

MR. SAVAS: We’re still alive.

C
BD
: So it was during this time that agent Lightfoote designed the prototype code that infected the entire internet?

MR. SAVAS: Her immune cells. Yes.

C
BD
: What does that mean?

MR. SAVAS: Go ask a biologist. I don’t know. [INAUDIBLE] All right, look, the idea is simple, at least. Our bodies have immune cells that recognize different bugs and kill them, right? These cells float around inside us waiting for an infection then do their business. The way Angel explained it, she couldn’t attack the worm directly. It was too distributed or something. All over the place. A hundred million computers. If you don’t get all of them, all the parts, it reinfects and spreads like wildfire again. So, her idea was to mimic the immune system. Design programs that would spread themselves like the worm, copying themselves, hacking into computers. But their purpose wasn’t going to be to fuck things up like Fawkes. Her worms were single-minded in going after his worm. She called them immune cells.

[
R
EDACTED
]: Then let me get this straight. Your agent created viral, self-replicating code that would break into computers all around the world, including classified networks, including governmental systems?

MR. SAVAS: It was the only way. Like an infection where you only kill 99% of the bugs with an antibiotic, it can come roaring back. We had to get close to sterilization.

[
R
EDACTED
]: And you gave her permission to release this code?

MR. SAVAS: You bet your ass, I did. I had no idea if it would work. I’m not sure she was confident it could work. But it was sure worth a shot. What was the downside? It fails? Back where we were. We accidentally blow up the internet with her code? Well, that’s
where
we were
already
!

C
BD
: Why did she think it could work?

MR. SAVAS: You know, I’m not a programmer or a biologist. She used the worm she had trapped in-house and some other bits of it she had captured across the net, used that code as some sort of matching-recognition system. All of her immune cells, her worms, were randomized with different bits of the code. They would search for matching elements, worm signatures, on any computer her code infected. Match meant two things. Her code would copy itself like crazy and spread the recognition element, amplifying it. It would also erase the worm on that computer, but not before copying the code of
that
worm for identification elements to spread. The idea was to find new bits of all the different, variable worms around. Over time it should recognize them all and erase them all. Fawkes’ worms had to sit around and wait for his signal. It wasn’t designed to fight off something like Angel was making. If she did it right, and if we had enough time—if it spread fast enough—we might sterilize enough computers so that whatever final action he was planning would fail.

C
BD
: Sterilize. How can the computers be sterilized if they are infected with her code?

MR. SAVAS: Okay, sterile as far as the Anonymous signal was concerned.

C
BD
: The Anonymous signal?

MR. SAVAS: Yeah, what we were calling it, the activation Fawkes was going to send to take down civilization.

[
R
EDACTED
]: Sounds very far-fetched.

MR. SAVAS: Does it? You saw what was happening. All the attacks on online systems from finance to manufacturing—did all that not happen? And those were test runs! Used to assess and refine the hammer stroke. It was just a matter of time.

[
R
EDACTED
]: Yet now all that remains is a wrecked computer infrastructure the world is trying to patch together again. And your agent’s code is the only thing on every computer! No other malware. Nothing from some imaginary mask-wearing global vigilante named Fawkes. No Anonymous Signal.

MR. SAVAS: So now you’re going to condemn her because she made the damned thing work?

[
R
EDACTED
]: She isn’t here, Mr. Savas. Which is damning enough. Last seen in the company of the two most wanted fugitives in this nation, murderous terrorists the likes of which we have never seen before. You are the one who has orchestrated every element of this. It is not Angel Lightfoote who is on trial now. But you.

M
R. SAVAS
: Unless I tell you where she is, right? If I hand her and her damn file from Fawkes over to you, then you’ll cut me some deal and I walk.

[
R
EDACTED
]: You won’t be walking, Mr. Savas. Not from this. But there are sentences and there are sentences.

MR. SAVAS: You idiots. If she took the file, it could be copied a million times by now and in a million hands. The horse is out of the barn. Closing the door won’t matter now.

[
R
EDACTED
]: One fire at a time, Mr. Savas. One fire at a time.