Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13) (32 page)

“Lieutenant
Mitchell.” He held out his hand. “And I’m going to need to see that.”

“Why?
What’s going on here?”

“Special
Agent Willow, we have reason to believe you’re an imposter.” He stepped
forward, as did the two officers still in the hall. “Now I must insist. Your
badge.”

Katz
looked at him for a moment, her mind quickly playing out what would happen over
the next sixty seconds.

She
liked the outcome.

Her hand
darted out, her knuckles crushing the detective’s windpipe almost instantly. As
he dropped to the floor, grabbing for his throat, gasping for breath, she
pulled his weapon from his shoulder holster and flicked off the safety, burying
two bullets in each of the officers, then spun toward Acton.

“Let’s
go.”

Acton
stood, staring at the bodies for a moment until she reached out and grabbed him
by the front of his shirt, hauling him out of the room. She fished out her
cellphone as an alarm sounded.

“Get in
here!” she shouted as soon as the call was answered, then shoved it back into
her pocket as she hauled Acton toward the secure door. A door to her left
opened, a detective stepping out to see what was happening. She put a bullet in
his head then almost smiled when she saw who was sitting at a table inside.

Laura
Palmer.

“Professor.
On your feet, now!” She pressed her gun against Acton’s head and the woman’s
eyes widened. She leapt to her feet and rushed into the hallway as the heavy
thumping of MP5’s sounded from the other side of the secure door. “In front!”
She pushed the two professors ahead of her then reached down and grabbed a
second weapon, turning around, her back to the secure door, as she opened fire
on anything that dared look into the hallway.

A buzzer
sounded and she heard the heavy clicks of the secure door unlocking. She
glanced over her shoulder and saw two of her men enter the hallway, their MP5’s
raised as they aimed down the hall.

“Let’s
go!” She turned and grabbed the two professors by the back of their shirts and
pushed them through the doors, her men opening fire, covering their six. They
exited the building quickly, their SUV at the bottom of the steps, the doors
already open, her driver revving the engine. “In the back!”

She
shoved the married couple toward the open rear door, her men still firing at
anything that moved, then climbed into the passenger seat, slamming the door
shut. She pointed both guns at the entrance, emptying the magazines as her men dove
in the back, the tires chirping as the driver floored it.

Not
exactly as planned.

But it
didn’t matter. She dialed her phone, someone picking up immediately. “Jam them,
now!”

“Done.”

She
looked over at the driver. “Slow down. Their frequencies are jammed, they don’t
know who they’re looking for.”

He
nodded and eased off on the gas, expertly putting distance between them by avoiding
any red lights that could delay them, always taking the turn before if
necessary. Within minutes they were miles away. She turned to look at the two
professors.

“Now
let’s talk about a certain painting.”

Operations Center Four
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“I might have something here, boss.”

Leroux
looked over at Randy Child, one of his top computer guys, his mad skills at
tracing Internet communications unmatched. It had been a dream to get him on
the team, Morrison only giving him the news last week. He was young, which
Leroux liked, he still finding it difficult to not even be thirty and have some
staff that could be mistaken for his parents, though in this case Child fit
perfectly in with his insecure management skills.

“What
have you got?”

“A
possible jumping off point for that security alert.”

Leroux
smiled. “Awesome! Show me.”

His
enthusiasm seemed to rub off on Child, his underling beaming a smile. He
quickly began explaining, Leroux fortunate enough to be able to follow the tech
unlike Morrison, still in the room now that they had received word Sherrie had
been shot, probably to back him up in case he couldn’t continue.

But he
was determined to.

Sherrie
had called him and told him she was okay, then went into the details. He had lectured
her on this method in the past after a bad experience years ago when he had
been pulling onto the interstate. His phone had rung and the call display had
shown it was his parents. They never called in the morning, they fully aware he
would be on his way to the office, so he knew immediately it was an emergency.

“I had
to take your father to the hospital last night.”

“What!”

“Don’t
worry, he’s okay.”

“Mom!
That’s
how you start this type of conversation! Tell me he’s okay, then tell me what
happened!”

She had
learned her lesson.

“English,
please.”

Leroux
and Child looked over at their boss. “Sorry, sir. Essentially we’ve found the
piece of hardware that was used to leave the Internet.”

“So you
know where it is?”

Child cleared
his throat. “Not exactly, sir. We know the IP address—the unique identifier for
it. This was hardcoded into the security software almost twenty years ago by
the looks of it. There’s no evidence it’s been changed since then, and with
modern security practices when it comes to version control, any unauthorized
change to the code would be caught. I think we’re looking at something that was
put here when the system was originally developed.”

Morrison
crossed his arms and tapped his chin. “Okay, if I’m understanding you
correctly, you’ve found a number that identifies a machine that you don’t know
the location of or even if it still exists today.”

“Oh, it
exists.”

“How do
you know?”

“Because
if it didn’t then nobody would have known the security alert had been
triggered.”

Morrison
nodded. “Good point. Okay, so it exists. Do we have any way of finding out
where it actually is?”

“Given
time we might get a general idea,” said Leroux. He turned to Child. “Run that
address against our database, see if it’s ever been used before.”

Fingers
flew then the results appeared onscreen, Leroux gasping.

“Holy
shit!”

Assembly Covert Communications Facility, Moscow, Russia

“Our problem in New Orleans is growing.”

Ilya
Mashkov frowned. Things weren’t going well for The Assembly. In the past
twenty-four hours he had been called to more emergency meetings than the past
year, and the news never seemed to be good, or if it was, it wasn’t for long.
His last briefing on what had been the major crisis, the Titanic incident,
suggested things there might be soon wrapped up, most of the parties either in
custody or soon to be. Once the primaries were eliminated, a fake copy of the
painting, already being prepared, would be planted at Professor Acton’s
university to be found after his death. It would be tested by those already
contacted, declared a forgery, and then quickly forgotten.

The
records clerk was dead, which meant the infection had been stopped at the
military end, the Congressman was dead and all indications were he had been too
scared to tell anyone after the security protocols had ended his phone
conversation, and the taps in Wainwright’s house suggested the only people who
knew in his family were his wife and sister. They had kept things quiet after
their conversation at the university, it apparently shaking them enough to
decide to keep quiet.

Once
they and those at the university are dead, it’s over.

But now
there was a new problem.

New
Orleans.

And it
was his problem to deal with, the entire financial side of the Jones’
presidency bid his responsibility, Quaid his man.

“A New
Orleans Police Detective named Isabelle Laprise is holding our man Peter Quaid
along with a minor operative, Russell Saunders,” reported Number One.

“What do
they know?” asked Number Seven.

Mashkov
leaned forward, clearing his throat. “Saunders knows nothing except that Mr.
Quaid is his contact. Even if he talks, all he does is implicate Quaid. Quaid
on the other hand is of more concern. He has met with several of our senior
operatives, and should he talk, our chain of command could be compromised.” He
already knew how his colleagues would want this handled, but he wanted them to
ask it so he could prove to them his resolve.

“How do
you suggest we solve the problem?”

“We
eliminate both liabilities before the infection can spread, then send a new
representative to continue in Mr. Quaid’s place. Now that Mr. Jones knows who
is true masters are, there’s no need to replace Mr. Saunders.”

Once
again, kill them all.

Unknown Location within Arlington, Virginia

Acton blinked rapidly as the hood was yanked off his head. Someone
shoved him from behind and he stumbled toward a group of chairs in the middle
of a massive concrete expanse. As he gained his bearings he looked about. Steel
girders and large glass windows surrounded them, it clearly a warehouse of some
sort, a warehouse completely devoid of anything except two SUV’s and half a
dozen chairs. To his right there was what he assumed to be an office, perhaps
with a bathroom, he suddenly noticing that he had to piss like a racehorse, the
several beers he had partaken in earlier making their presence felt on his
bladder.

He
forgot all about that when he saw Mai and Tommy sitting in two of the chairs.
He rushed forward. “Are you two okay?”

Mai was
crying, fresh tears rushing over old stains as she leapt into his arms. Tommy
though was more of a concern. His face was caked in dried blood and he seemed
groggy.

“Professor,”
he mumbled.

Acton
let go of Mai and redirected her to the loving arms of Laura, then knelt in
front of Tommy, carefully examining his head wound. He turned to their captors.
“He needs a hospital. Now.”

“Not
yet,” replied the woman. “When we have the painting, then we will deal with
your friend’s wound.”

“He’s
just a kid. They both are. Let them go and I’ll cooperate fully with you.”

“We both
will,” said Laura, holding Mai in her arms. “We won’t resist. Just let them go,
please.”

Their
words and Mai’s sobs seemed to have no impact on the woman, her expression
cold, her eyes dead. He hadn’t seen any emotion from her beyond slight smiles
that were so exactly alike he’d swear she was a cyborg if he thought they
existed.

Could
she be a psychopath?

She’d
have to be a special bit of crazy to be doing what she’s doing. It was one
thing to kill for your country like Kane or the Delta guys did, but he could
tell from this woman’s eyes she intended to kill every last one of them, not
for any emotional reasons, but simply because she felt it was necessary for her
mission.