Encrypted: An Action-Packed Techno-Thriller Read online

  Ronnie’s eyes flickered to the thermometer on the cold room’s wall, showing a stable fifty-two degrees. That was for the computer hubs. Air-conditioning blew down from four evenly distributed vents, keeping the CPU towers running smoothly. Ronnie readjusted the webcam’s angle to see what in the hell was keeping Quirk so distracted. Her assistant was looking at the far wall, with its dozens of computer monitors.

  The two center screens showed the activity on Ronnie’s computer, but the others were wildly divergent—radar views, real-time satellite images, and websites upon websites. But the screen that held her assistant’s attention was a television report.

  “Is the plague making a comeback?” The subject was not all that surprising, given her assistant’s inclination toward mild-to-moderate hypochondria.

  “Quirk,” she threatened.

  Ronnie watched the über-hacker shrug as he answered, still staring at the news report. “Give or take a couple of hours of overtime.”

  Symbols suddenly blocked her entire screen.

  Ronnie was done.

  “Then why in the fu—” She was so busy trying to extinguish the screen overlay that she couldn’t even curse properly. These were the never-ending symbols. “How in the hell is someone hacking me?”

  Her tone must have clued Quirk in to the fact that a pay cut was on the horizon. He turned off the plague report and typed a few commands into his network of twenty-odd computers.

  “They’re not hacking you. They’re riding a carrier signal from an ISPN that you’ve given direct, mainline access to.”

  “No way! I haven’t—”

  Quirk swung around to stare straight into the webcam. His color contacts-assisted glacial blue eyes sparked with annoyance. “Maybe you shouldn’t be banging Napster while going up against a Fortune Ten company.”

  Ronnie was glad that she didn’t have a camera on her. Otherwise, Quirk would have seen her cheeks flush red as she found the offending window. Sure enough, she was trying to download Panic! At The Disco’s live bootleg. A track she had been hunting down for over a week. Downloading at 325 bytes/sec, better than CD quality.

  “But I’m so close,” she whined as she continued to hack into the insurance company’s multilayered firewall.

  “You’ve got to cut the flow,” he directed. Quirk could sound straight and even forceful when he wanted to.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find this quality bootleg—?”

  Quirk cut her rant short by announcing, “You’ve just tripped an embedded alarm.”

  Okay, that wasn’t supposed to happen. She held her breath as Quirk ran the cross-checks to see how bad it was. By the furrow of his brow and the bulging vein in his ever-so-pale forehead, she had tripped a doozy of an alarm.

  “The FBI has been alerted to your extracurricular activities.”

  “All right, all right,” Ronnie conceded as she aborted the music download. Still, the symbols trickled down the left side of her screen, and then finally stopped. A single, gilded letter hovered in the corner. She was about to swipe it away as well, but she found that her fingers hesitated. Something about the symbol stopped her. It was too pretty to just throw in the virtual trash can. With fingers flying, Ronnie took a screenshot of the symbol, and then terminated the IM.

  With any hope, permanently.

  She had some serious wealth to redistribute.

  * * *

  Special Agent Zachary Hunt grabbed his coat and holstered his weapon in the same motion. “Come on!” he shouted to the other agents.

  This was it. The Robin Hood hacker was online. This was his chance to catch her.

  Running through the maze of desks comprising the bull pen of the El Paso FBI field office, Hunt didn’t even bother to enter the glassed-in tech support room. He just pointed a finger at their resident geek, Warp.

  “You know what to do!”

  “We’re on it!” the tech replied, even though he was the only person in the room. But Zach didn’t have time to worry about Warp’s multiple personality disorder. Zach had one thing, and one thing only, on his mind.

  Her.

  Still on the run, Zach hit the back of his partner’s head. “Grant. Now!”

  He hit him hard enough to spin Special Agent Fifer around in his chair. The twenty-nine year-old stood up smoothly, his weapon holstered and his coat already on. Within two steps, Grant was at his shoulder. Too close to Zach’s shoulder.

  Six months ago, when Zach first met him, the guy was five feet, nine inches. Maybe on a good day, he stood five feet. But now? Fifer was somehow almost six feet tall? Grant might be young enough to still use the “I trained at Quantico” line to pick up women, but old enough that his growth plates had closed. Clearly, Fifer had to be putting lifts in his shoes. What level of hidden insecurity did that reveal about his partner?

  Across the room, two agents laughed, causing Zach to crack the verbal whip.

  “Move, people!” he shouted as he made his way to the door.

  Ten steps out, and he’d be in the car. In thirteen minutes, he would be in the vicinity of the world’s most-wanted hacker. Within the hour, he’d have her bagged.

  “Wait!” Special Agent Markum called out.

  Zach didn’t even break his stride as the salt-and-pepper agent hustled over, handing him a “High Priority Fax.” Okay, anything faxed couldn’t be all that high priority. As Zach fixed his jacket collar, he scanned the page.

  “Outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Europe. Report ASAP any cases in the United States.”

  “No kidding,” Zach said as he tossed the paper onto his desk and exited into the warm evening air. If he saw anyone with black, blotchy blisters in his travels, he’d let them know. Otherwise, his focus was absolute.

  Tonight, this yearlong chase would end.

  He would arrest the Robin Hood hacker.

  * * *

  Ronnie cursed under her breath, which meant that Quirk heard every expletive, given the subvocal microphones implanted on either side of her voice box.

  “Now, now,” her assistant chided. Like he didn’t cuss a blue streak if a single line of his own code got corrupted.

  But even with the colorful language, the bright, gold symbols were back, covering her screen. Covering the back door to the company’s financial accounts. Obviously, her assessment of permanently shutting down the IMs had been a bit overoptimistic. But she had to admit that something else distracted her almost as much as the glowing text.

  The FBI had been alerted. Which meant that he was alerted that she was up to no good. Was he on the job when he heard? Was he at home? Was he on his way?

  So many questions. So few answers. How could she concentrate on a bunch of stupid numbers when her instinct was to pace until she knew for sure?

  “You planning on breaking into this account sometime tonight?”

  Ronnie put on her game face. “I’m getting to it. Patience, goth-boy.”

  This was crunch time. She had a large fortune to acquire, and no FBI agent, no matter how hot, was going to get in her way.

  * * *

  “You’re going too fast,” Grant whined.

  Zach’s eyes flickered over to him. Special Agent Grant Fifer was holding onto the “granny” handle for dear life. Once his partner realized that he was under scrutiny, he removed his hand, but his left hand remained plastered against the dashboard.

  “We’ve got to slow down to make a right up ahead.”

  Like Zach hadn’t already memorized the route they had to take. It was etched in his mind even deeper than the Miranda rights he recited to anyone he arrested.

  “Seriously, it’s not that far ahead,” Grant persisted.

  Overhead, the night sky lit up with silver as fireworks exploded brilliantly. Zach should have known that she was going to strike tonight. She would use the crowds to limit mobility and the loud explosions to cover any noise she might make while accessing electrical panels. The Robin Hood hacker did not make the FBI’s Most Wanted List for
lack of brains.

  Zach prepared for the right turn that Grant was so worried about when red lights flashed and bells went off. A train crossing. A train-barreling-down-the-tracks kind of crossing.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  Zach slammed on the brakes. Out of the corner of his eye, Zach saw Grant’s body fly forward against his seat belt. Even with braking that hard, they still weren’t going to make it. Jerking the wheel to the right, Zach pulled the emergency brake until he couldn’t pull it up anymore. The smell of rubber filled the car as the tires skidded into a nearly perfect ninety-degree turn. Sure, Grant’s door bumped the red and white crossing bar and they sprayed gravel everywhere, but they were on their way.

  Fishtailing through the loose rocks lining the tracks, the tires finally found pavement and accelerated once more. The train laid on its horn as they passed. Given that it was going in the opposite direction, it seemed like they were traveling hundreds of miles an hour. The windows were just a blur, and before they could count the number of cars, they were clear of the train.

  “Oh, Gawd…” Grant moaned. He must have realized that the next left turn they needed to take was just up ahead.

  The bars rose over the train tracks as Zach repeated his earlier maneuver. Hard braking, wheels spun to the left, emergency brake for a crisp turn, release all of the above, and step on the gas. After nearly flying out of their seats over the tracks, they were zeroing in on their prey again.

  “You know,” his partner began, and then licked his lips again before finishing, “you really need to get laid.”

  No, Zach needed to catch her.

  Warp’s excited voice came over their earpieces. “We just ramped up our new twenty-two gig RAM processor and—”

  The geek was answering a question from, like, five minutes ago, and not even the right one.

  “That’s great, Warp,” Zach said, trying to remain patient. “But are you integrating with the insurance company’s computer?”

  “We will be in the loop in…Three. Two. One!”

  * * *

  A Star Trek-like Klaxon sounded from Ronnie’s four-way speakers. Red lights flashed from her illuminated keyboard, warning her that the FBI had docked with the company’s mainframe.

  “Honestly, Quirk, could you be any more of a nerd?”

  “I just keep raising the bar,” her assistant said with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Warp’s begun his countermeasures. Plus, they’ve got six cars en route.” With a playful tone, Quirk finished up. “Check your watch.”

  She had almost forgotten. Pulling back her tightly knit sleeve, Ronnie found a highly collectible, yet normal-looking, Batgirl watch. The time flashed benignly, but when she hit the Date button, the entire surface of the watch transformed into a mini street map. Her location blinked in green as four red dots sped toward her.

  “Is he with them?”

  “What do you think?”

  Ronnie’s heart raced at the thought. Zach not only knew that she was on the job, but he was racing to her location. She imagined his strong hands gripping the steering wheel, and his jaw clenching with tension.

  “Which car?”

  “Guess,” was Quirk’s only clue.

  Sure enough, the fastest blinking car was a good measure ahead of the other five. As much as Ronnie thrilled at Special Agent Hunt’s arrival, she didn’t want to actually get caught. So with renewed haste, she packed up her laptop and stowed it in her Hello Kitty backpack. Okay, maybe a pink and white sack with a large silver reflector strip wasn’t exactly ninja, but a girl had to be true to herself.

  Lastly, Ronnie pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, careful not to disturb the rows of white beads dotting the palms. “Switching to keyless-keyboard mode.”

  “We have seriously got to think of a better name for those gloves.”

  Glancing at her watch, she found that Zach had already covered half the distance. Damn, he was a good driver.

  “Yeah, I’ll work on a cool acronym in my spare time,” Ronnie countered as she put on a pair of wraparound sunglasses, waiting until the metal in the frames attached to a thin cable running up through her turtleneck. The liquid LCD lens was now in communication with her laptop and, therefore, Quirk.

  “Reroute visuals,” she ordered. Instantly, an image of her laptop’s screen bloomed onto her lens. Wireless at its coolest. “Infrared ready?”

  “Please…”

  “Computer buffered image enhancement online?”

  Quirk had possibly even less patience than Ronnie herself. “Just get your butt in gear, and let me worry about the hardware.”

  More fireworks exploding reminded Ronnie that she only had a narrow window of time before the crowd dispersed. “I’m heading over.”

  “Just do me a favor and actually lose them before you make the rendezvous.”

  Ronnie grinned. Quirk hated this part—the moment of truth. Pitting one’s skills against another’s. His favorite part of any mission was building all these toys.

  Hers, though?

  Using all these toys.

  * * *

  Damn it, Zach cursed as the car idled noisily. A knot of drunk and stumbling Cinco de Mayo revelers stood between them and her. He could see the goddamn building she was in. He just couldn’t get to it.

  He gunned the engine, but no one seemed to notice. All eyes were on the glittering blue and orange sky. Zach didn’t give a crap about the fireworks. He honked the horn. At first, people just booed him. Then they noticed the flashing blue and red lights. Finally, it must have penetrated their thick skulls that they were hindering a pursuit, for they cleared a path. Zach roared through it, covering the two blocks in seconds.

  Skidding the car to a halt, Zach leapt out. He didn’t bother to check to see whether Grant had even survived the journey.

  “I think we’ve got her stumped!” Warp’s high-pitched voice was a little too much for Zach’s earpiece.

  “Whatever. I asked, like three minutes ago, which entrance is closest to her position?”

  The techno-geek was a child prodigy, or, given his penchant to argue with himself, prodigies. Unfortunately, Warp had the attention span of a gnat.

  “Oh, yeah. North by northwest.”

  Zach turned back to Grant, who was only now extracting himself from the car. “I’ll take the front.”

  “Who named you Agent in Charge?” Grant huffed.

  Zach was in no mood to pull rank. “Establish the perimeter, and then take the back.”

  Without hesitation, Zach charged toward the building. He was so close that he could smell her.

  * * *

  Ronnie took the stairs two at a time. She had no doubt what the commotion was outside. She was being pursued. And a little too close for her comfort. While she climbed, Ronnie continued typing into what appeared to be thin air, watching the results of her actions unfold on her lens. This time, the money would be hers for sure.

  Then her least favorite command flashed before her eyes. “Access Denied.”

  “No!”

  “I told you,” Quirk chirped.

  “Stay out of it,” she mumbled as she continued the hard climb, both up the stairs and through the myriad of cyber defenses.

  “You’re going to have to stop running, Ronnie.” Before she could interrupt, Quirk continued, “The beads are registering each impact of your feet as a keystroke.”

  “Okay,” Ronnie responded, “That’s clearly a design flaw.”

  “Hey! Those are state-of-the-art, pressure- and directionally sensitive ceramic fusion—”

  Ronnie shook her head vigorously, even though Quirk couldn’t see her. Of course, she kept going right on up the steps. “Whatever. They’re not working now.”

  “Because they are supposed to be used in a dust-free, static-controlled room cooled to fifty-two degrees.”

  “Like I said. Design flaw.”

  Before Quirk could retort, another “Access Denied” flashed across her screen.

&
nbsp; “Bitch all you want,” Quirk added. “But you ain’t hacking any deeper until you stop clod-hopping.”

  As much as it pissed her off, her assistant was right. She stopped, turned to the wall, and used it as if it were a keyboard, making sure each stroke was accurate and precise.

  “That’s better,” Quirk stated.

  This time, “Access Granted” bloomed on her screen. Quickly, the two billion dollars began to transfer into her little ol’ account.

  “No, that’s better,” Ronnie stated as she resumed her ascent.

  CHAPTER 2

  Second Undisclosed Location

  9:21 p.m., MST

  Quirk pulled on a cashmere sweater, making sure he didn’t muss his hair gel as he watched Warp once again try to thwart his boss’ attempts to drain the insurance company’s account.

  “Sorry, Ronnie, but you’re going to have to keep up the pressure until the account is drained.”

  She must be heeding his advice, because suddenly her proficiency rose steeply. Why did she put herself through this? Why wasn’t Ronnie content sitting in a cozy room like this? Quirk surveyed the snow-white walls punctuated by plasma screens. Why risk exposure—or worse, capture—when you could snuggle up with Project Runway, or…

  Quirk sat up straighter and watched the telecast. Sure enough, another plague bulletin. Like he already didn’t have enough to worry about with Ebola and the West Nile virus? The plague, too? Did his suffering never cease?