There was a space in the R&D area that Boris had set aside for his own personal projects. He was ex-technical support, after all. He was good at tinkering, a skill that carried over to the position of munitions specialist. Boris sat at the desk working on a prototype EMP detonator, the desk-lamp gently lighting the room. City lights twinkled from the evening sky through the window. Rebecca had come down to work on some of her own stuff. The friendly-fire tactical safety was coming along nicely even though it hadn’t been properly field-tested yet. A sort of quiet anticipation had filled her mind that night before she had flown to Russia. That same jittery feeling had returned to her now, and it would not make sleep easy. She wondered if Boris felt it too. He was like a different person, with his glasses on and a screwdriver in his hand.
‘Hey,’ she said, quietly approaching.
‘What do you want?’ He looked up, his expression bland.
‘Can I join you?’
No response.
Rebecca grabbed a chair from the main R&D table and dragged it over, sitting on the opposite side of his desk. She saw weapon parts, a line of bullets standing upright, pieces of the EMP devices.
‘So, you’re still a tinkerer, huh?’
‘It’s what I’m good at,’ he said. He stopped her from picking up one of the EMPs. ‘Don’t touch.’
‘Hey, I can tinker too.’ She looked him in the eyes, not releasing the device, waiting for him to let it go.
‘Be careful,’ he cautioned her. ‘That one is unstable.’
‘Can I borrow that screwdriver?’
She pointed to the one he had on his side of the desk. He handed it to her and she started taking the EMP device apart, hoping to discover what was wrong with it.
‘You know, the captain said I should just let it go, but I know you don’t like me… well, I mean, what I do.’
Boris looked up. ‘You’re right, I don’t like you, but the captain has put you on the team so we are going to get along.’ He continued working. ‘In my experience hackers are liars and cowards, they hide behind codes and screens, most of the time they never see the damage they do to peoples’ lives.’
Rebecca thought on that for a moment.
‘You’re right,’ she said, nodding. ‘That is who we are. I mean, I’ve done some things that I’m not particularly proud of, but then, learning to code was never one of them. Hacking gives us power over a computerised world, you of all people should know that’s important.’
Boris put his device down. ‘I do know that. I just choose not to be a part of it. It is an evil business.’
‘We’re soldiers, aren’t we?’ She finished repairing the EMP and screwed the casing back on. ‘Pretty sure I’ve fixed it.’ She went to power it up – if the repair job worked then she should be able to run an electric current to the device without it going off. She grinned at Boris. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘No.’
‘Aw, come on. You’re no fun.’
‘That thing will explode the second you run a current through it.’ He tried to take it from her.
‘I’m willing to make a bet that it won’t.’
She activated the power. The EMP emitted a distinct electric charging sound. She put it down. ‘See, I told you to trust me—’
The EMP went off. Sparks shot out, nearly frying Rebecca’s hand, and all the other devices on the table started to smoke and malfunction, including the lamp, which flickered a moment before the light-bulb shattered, spraying glass onto the table. Boris stood up, his chair falling over behind him, and he yelled something in Russian.
Rebecca put her hands over her mouth and said, ‘Oh my god I’m so sorry.’
Kelly stepped out of the elevator, pistol in hand.
‘What the hell was that?’ she demanded, waving the smoke away.
Boris stormed up to the captain and jammed his finger at Rebecca.
‘This woman is unprofessional and inexperienced.’ He continued to the elevator and the doors slid shut.
Rebecca sucked on her sore, slightly electrocuted, finger. In the heat of the blast her scars had begun to sear, and she softly touched her cheek.
‘I made a mistake,’ she admitted to Kelly. ‘You were right, I probably should have left it alone.’
‘You’re damn right you should have left it alone.’ The captain observed the damaged desk and sighed. ‘It’s okay. Just don’t blow anything else up tonight. Actually, you need to get some sleep. That’s an order. I’ll have someone tidy this up. C’mon, we fly out tomorrow.’
Rebecca followed the captain to the elevator.
Despite her orders, Bed had trouble sleeping that night. She tossed and turned for hours, and when the hot streaks of crimson light that burned through her bedroom window only seemed to grow brighter she made a mental note to install curtains, a note she’d forget about in the morning. The room was either too hot or too cold. One moment she’d be lying down, or sitting at her computer, and the next she’d be hungry and in the kitchen hunting for a late night snack. The few precious moments of sleep that she did obtain were disturbed by nightmares of speeding trains and the deafening clatter of machinegun fire. Bec awoke with the vague memory of Kelly Jade imprinted in her mind.
The desert stretched on for miles in all directions as the helicopter sailed over bone-dry rocky terrain. Rebecca wiped her palms on the front of her shirt as the chopper descended over the landing zone and kicked up a cloud of dust. Bec covered her mouth and nose as she followed the captain and jumped to the ground. She kept her laptop in a special heat-resistant case.
It was up to Akira to scout ahead. She checked her suppressed sub-machine. All their weapons were loaded with rubber-bullets, their orders being non-lethal takedowns only to ensure they’d extract as much information as possible from captured enemy personnel. Rebecca also handed Akira a miniature scanning device and said, ‘Get this onto one of the guards before they enter the cave. It’ll give us a map of the facility including the location of anyone inside, as well as the location of their server room.’
The group split up into three units. Alpha team was Bec and Yuri; they set off for a ridge overlooking the outer command post and the entrance to the cave. Bravo team was Boris, Connor and Kelly; their mission was to breach the NR facility, capture all enemy personnel and extract the data from their servers. Charlie team was Akira; her mission already underway.
Rebecca and Yuri settled in on the ridge, setting up a camouflage shade so they wouldn’t overheat while laying out in the sun. Rebecca could really feel her scar now, like it was stretched tight across her skin. Any bare flesh that touched the rock would soon begin to burn.
Yuri set up his sniper rifle and Bec opened her laptop. Each team member’s tactical visor was equipped with a camera linked to Rebecca’s computer.
The outer command post consisted of a large army-green pavilion with tables and crates underneath it. Through her binoculars Bec witness three men armed with assault rifles, as well as the entrance to the cave, sealed by a metal door.
‘That door might be a problem,’ she told the team. ‘Let me see what I can do.’ She began hacking the controls.
Akira radioed in. ‘Bravo team, do not approach above the main gate. I repeat, do not approach above the main gate. They got two sentry turrets at the top of the cliff, about one hundred meters apart.’
Kelly’s voice. ‘Roger that Akira. Bec?’
Rebecca was already working on it.
‘If the sentries work on a DNA recognition system like mine I might be able to delete the names from the “friendly” database.’
‘Negative,’ said Kelly. ‘No casualties.’
‘Understood, captain. I’ll try and shut them down.’
Meanwhile Bec saw on the camera feed that Akira was approaching the outer command post. Rebecca had no idea how Akira could get so close to the three guards without being seen or heard but she managed to sneak up to one of them and clip the scanning device to his belt with the precision of a master pickpocket. She crept away just as stealthily.
‘Device is on the guard,’ she whispered. ‘He’s heading inside the base now.’
The guard walked up to the metal door and punched a code into the keypad. It slid open and he went inside. The device on his belt began mapping.
‘Receiving the scan now,’ Kelly reported.
Rebecca had hoped that a keylogger would get her the access code to the base, but the control panel on the door resisted her attack. This place was clearly designed to prevent white-hats like her
‘Rebecca, how’s it looking?’ said Kelly.
‘Sentries are down, captain. No luck with the door though.’
‘Understood. Yuri, Akira, prepare to take down the two outer guards.’
Yuri loaded his rifle with a tranquilizer round and aimed down sights.
On the screen, Akira pulled out a small taser, hid behind a crate and said, ‘On my count. Three… Two… One.’ She jumped out and hit the guard in the small of his back with the taser. He jolted and collapsed.
Yuri hit the other guard in the chest with the tranquilizer round that instantly knocked him out.
With the sentries down, Bravo team hooked themselves up above the cave entrance and roped down two thirds of the way, where they waited for the third man to begin his watch. The instant the metal door opened Kelly hit him from above with a taser and Boris dropped down to hold the door open. Akira gagged and cuffed the first two guards. Boris handled the third.
‘Door’s open,’ Kelly reported. ‘Preparing to breach.’
Bravo team proceeded inside while Akira remained on watch. On her computer Rebecca had a first person shot of three different weapons: a SCAR-17, an AA-12, and an FN-P90. Assault, shotgun, SMG. The next section of the cave was walled off, a wooden door being the only entrance into the room. It wasn’t locked. Scanners showed four hostiles inside. The captain signalled the others to stack up. Kelly opened the door and Boris tossed a concussion grenade inside, and she shut the door. A deafening flash. Then they breached.
Smoke was still clearing. The grenade had three of the men incapacitated. One blindly raised a machine pistol but Boris shot him with a rubber bullet from his AA-12. Rebecca winced – the shot looked like it killed him. Definitely broke a few ribs. They removed the enemy’s weapons and bound them.
‘Clear,’ the captain announced.
They swept into the hallway, heading further into the facility. The scanner showed that all places other than the main server room were clear but the team still checked as they moved in on the remaining three hostiles. They stacked up, tossed another concussion, breached. Boris shot another hostile with his AA-12 and Kelly shot a man in the back as he tried to flee to another room. Both hostiles fell coughing and groaning to the ground.
‘Clear.’
The captain took out a thumb-drive and connected it to the servers.
‘I’m uploading the data.’
Rebecca checked her computer. ‘Connection established. Receiving it now.’
But the connection to Bravo team’s visors was suddenly cut off and replaced by a blur of static. Rebecca looked up from the screen to see smoke creeping from the entrance of the cave.
‘Bravo team, I’ve lost your feed, what happened? Bravo team, do you read me?’
Akira still manned the door. ‘I heard an explosion,’ she said.
‘Captain? Captain do you read me? Kelly? Fuck!’
In an instant Rebecca slammed her laptop shut and threw it into her bag, then she was rushing down to the base, with Yuri right behind her.
‘Akira, what’s going on?’ Yuri shouted as he and Bec scurried down the jagged escarpment, kicking up dust as they sprinted towards the base. Rebecca remembered the fiery shock of the explosion in Pegasus, how it knocked her to the floor, shrapnel lacerations, that horrible ringing in her ears. She remembered having the clean air shot from her lungs and nearly choking to death on smoke and dust.
‘Kelly, can you hear me?’
Yuri contacted the helicopter pilot and requested an immediate emergency extraction. Transport for the prisoners was also on route.
They met up with Akira outside the base. A box kept the metal door from closing. The three outpost guards who had been tied up glared at them angrily. Akira singled one out and drove her boot into his ribs.
‘What did you do?’ she yelled.
Then, static and crackling on their radios. Finally, the captain’s voice, ‘Alpha-Charlie, do you read me?’
‘Oh my god, yes!’ Rebecca replied. ‘Are you okay? What the hell happened in there?’
‘God damn servers self-destructed. Whole room nearly exploded. One of the captives is dead. Connor is wounded—' A violent spurt of coughing interrupted her report. ‘Rest of us are more or less fine.’
Yuri stepped inside the cave and Rebecca followed.
‘Transport is on route,’ Yuri announced. ‘We’ll get these bastards ready for pick up.’
Rebecca ran straight to the server room. The walls and ceiling there were either charred or blown down and all the computers were fried. The captain limped forwards, her face coated with dried blood and soot. There were burns on her hands. She tried to help Connor walk. Blood oozed from a gash in Connor’s thigh and Boris had to carry the medic out on his back. Rebecca began treating the burns on Kelly’s hands as best she could, and then the shrapnel wound on her cheek.
Once she’d treated Kelly, Rebecca took one of the captives by the arm and dragged him outside. He struggled but his hands remained zip-tied, of course that didn’t stop him from shoving Rebecca and pulling her gun from her hip. He paced back, frantically yelling at them in Arabic.
Kelly, despite all her injuries, spoke back, her use of the language perfectly fluent.
The captive shook his head, and pulled the trigger. Click.
Rebecca’s heart pounded in her chest. For a split second she had forgotten, but the tactical safety was a success, and now, officially field-tested. Boris snatched the gun from the captive and punched him in the nose. There was a grisly crunch. The captive yelped, blood dripping down his face as Boris hauled him outside.
An armoured transport bus awaited the prisoners, who would be taken to the nearest airport and then flown to a maximum-security facility in Tokyo. Once processed, they would be interrogated. A few minutes after the bus departed, with its nine captives on board, the helicopter arrived. Rebecca shielded her face from the sand as it descended. She helped the captain board first, then climbed in after.
ns 172.70.178.6da2