PRIMAL Reckoning (Book 1 in the Redemption Trilogy, the PRIMAL Series Book 5) (13 page)

“I’m
envious. New York is my favorite city. How cool is the High Line?”

“Fantastic,
I’m glad you recommended it.”

“One of
the best places to just hang out on a nice day. I like it more than Central Park.”

“That’s
also on my list.”

“Well, take
the time to see it all now while you’ve got the chance. Flash has started
getting email feeds from the hack you installed on Wesley Chambers' phone. MVI,
GE, and RED are all linked together in this Mexican project. We’re pulling the
intel apart piece by piece, but first glance tells me the whole thing’s dodgy.”

“The Manhattan
Ventures chairman, Pollard, didn’t give anything up, but he certainly implied
they had experience in dealing with non-compliant locals. Have you read
Christina’s article yet?”

“Yes, and
I spoke to Bishop. He was attacked by cartel thugs as soon as he arrived in
Mexico.”

Mirza’s
jaw tensed. “Is he OK? Do I need to get down there?”

“He’s
fine. He and the girl have met with a local resistance element. They’re going
to recon the mine and get some imagery. My team’s collating everything we have
to present at the targeting board tomorrow. Until we get approval this remains
a prelim op. If we get approval, Mitch will fly in and you’ll both support
Bishop.”

An
elderly couple walked toward Mirza and he rose, offering them the seat. “I
really do think this is worth pursuing, but we need to tread carefully.” He
started walking. “These people are powerful and they have a lot at stake. If
they got a look at Bishop in Mexico they’re going to be suspicious.”

“I agree.
There’s also a good chance your Indian cover was burned.”

“I’ve
already dropped it. Both Kestrel and Pollard mentioned their people were ex-government.
Kestrel actually mentioned the CIA. I’m worried they might have active links,
or worse.”

“You
think this could be a front for CIA operations?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll
look into it. See what Vance says. Shouldn’t scare us off though. If these guys
have done half the things that Christina has written in her article, then they
need to be held accountable. We know they’ve tried to kidnap her on two
separate occasions. CIA or not, I’m happy to expose corruption no matter who’s
the perpetrator.”

“I don’t
think anyone’s going to disagree with that.” Mirza stopped at the railing and
looked out over Hudson. A container ship was plowing its way through the brown
water. “We just need to be careful.”

“You pass
that on to Bishop. He never likes to hear it from me. Oh, and if you’re looking
for a spot for lunch, there are some great places about a hundred yards from
where you are. Take the next set of stairs down.”

“Thanks
for the tip.”

“I’ll
check in with you once the targeting board is done. In the meantime, enjoy your
vacation. Later.” Chua ended the call.

He
descended the stairs and contemplated ringing Bishop. No, Chua, would have
already updated him. He’d wait to see what came out of his recon with Christina
and the targeting board. In the meantime he’d enjoy some of the fine cuisine
that New York had to offer. He had come a long way from the streets of New
Delhi.

CHAPTER
14

CHIHUAHUA

Pershing’s
office at the mine was a bare-walled portable building that had been trucked in
on the back of a sixteen-wheeler. He hated it. It was hot during the day, cold
at night, and isolated him from what was happening on the ground. It was a
necessary evil though, and he was forced to spend a good portion of his time in
it working at his computer.

He fumed
as he checked his email for the fourth time that day. Howard, that fat useless prick,
had found nothing more on the man who’d escaped with the reporter and almost
shot Burro through the face. All he had was the grainy photo from the Ukraine
and the Chihuahua City C4I4 images. It wasn’t much.

The CIA
analyst hadn’t even been able to come good with the
Predator drone
. He’d only managed to secure a one-off flight
that spent a single hour over the mine before flying back to the border with
nothing to report. Pershing sent a terse email to Howard, then used a secure
communicator application to dial through to his boss, Charles King.

The call
connected and King’s shaved head appeared on screen. “George, did you get
anything useful out of the kid?”

“Yes, I
just flicked you an email. Seems our man goes by the name Aden. What’s more he’s
currently in the planning stages to disrupt the mine.”

King’s
face turned serious. “What do you mean? More protests?”

“No. I
believe he intends to sabotage our operations directly. Sir, this guy is a
serious threat. I’ve attached the images provided by our Company man. Check out
the one from the Ukraine. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

There was
a pause as King brought up the picture from his email. “This is all the CIA
have?”

“That and
the C4I4 images from Mexico. They’re the same guy. My concern is that he’s not
acting alone. If he’s linked to a protest action group he’ll have support. And
I’m not talking about dirt farmers with shotguns.”

“No,
they’re tooled up all right. Do we know anything else? When was the photo
taken?”

“2012.
It’s allegedly from a terrorist attack Aden was involved with. A big-time arms
dealer in Kiev had his entire enterprise taken down.”

“Alright,
I’m going to initiate security protocols.”

“I’ll
tighten things up here and push Langley for additional support. I’m still trying
to get a drone.”

“Right. Keep
me posted.” King terminated the call.

Pershing
stared at the high-resolution C4I4 image of Aden for a moment. With the Yankees
baseball cap and sunglasses the picture wasn’t ideal. He printed off a copy, grabbed
his Stetson from where it hung on the wall, and stepped out into the midday
sun. He stood looking out over the mine site as he folded the photo and stuck it
in his suit jacket.

His
office was one of thirty portable buildings clustered together into a micro-city.
They housed the accommodation, cookhouse, and recreation facilities of the mining
crew and security personnel. Across the road were the vehicle maintenance
sheds, secure gold storage vaults, the ore processing facility, and beyond that
the tailings dams. A track wider than a dual-lane highway ran from the crushers
and the refinery back into the mountains. That was the way to the pit.

The snarl
of a high performance engine caught Pershing’s ear and he walked to one of the
maintenance hangars.

Burro and
half a dozen of his men were watching mechanics put the final touches on four
DeJong Special Ops Vehicles
. Painted in flat desert tan, with off-road
rally-spec suspension, 6.2-liter V8 engines, and 35-inch sand tires, the dune
buggies were serious hardware.

One of
the diesel mechanics wiped his hands on a dirty rag. “This one’s good to go,
boss.”

Pershing
dropped his hat on the workbench and walked around the vehicle. He pointed at
the fluorescent orange flag affixed to a ten-foot whip antenna. “What’s with
the damn flag?”

“Stops
the trucks running you over.”

Pershing snorted.
“They ain’t gonna catch this thing. Get rid of ‘em.” He grabbed the heavy steel
roll cage with one arm and slid in through the open side. “Burro, get in.”

As he
waited for the lieutenant to climb in he gave the controls a once over,
checking the GPS and a digital screen bolted to the dash. “This working?” he
asked, pointing to the screen. It was the latest generation Remotely Operated
Video Enhanced Receiver, or
ROVER
.
The tablet-sized device could stream full motion video from a drone.

“It did
last night, Mr. Pershing. I was able to see everything.”

He nodded
and thumbed the starter. The V8 roared to life. He let it idle for while then dropped
the buggy into gear and eased on the accelerator.

The
engine rumbled as they rolled out of the shed and turned out onto the wide
stretch of unsealed road leading to the mine’s pit. Once clear of the
maintenance areas he stomped on the accelerator. The engine snarled and the
buggy shot forward snapping their necks backward. It fish-tailed wildly as
Pershing swung the steering-wheel back and forth.

He
glanced across at Burro. The Mexican was clutching the side of the cockpit with
white knuckles. He laughed and followed the track as it curved, cutting into
the rock on both sides.

A massive
dump truck appeared directly in front. He accelerated around it sending the
buggy into a wild slide. “Wooo hooo!” he bellowed over the roar of the engine.

He spun
the wheel and slammed on the brakes, bringing the buggy to a skidding halt. “Hell,
yeah, that’s fun.”

Burro inhaled
suddenly as if he had forgotten to breathe. The dust from the wheels swept over
them and he coughed as it cleared.

They were
at the entrance to the pit. From here the track led down to a wide basin. It
had once been a jagged mountain range but now was a gaping crater. Below them gigantic
front-end loaders hacked chunks off the hillside and fed them into dump trucks.
The trucks then made their way up the winding ramp, out of the pit, to the ore crushers.

Pershing
cut the engine. “As soon as we get all the buggies running I want the men out
patrolling.”

“Day and
night?” asked Burro.

“The mine
perimeter by night and I want them pushing out into the desert by day. If they
see anyone, they shoot them.”

Burro nodded.
“Can we get some night vision?”

“Negative,
these buggies have blown the budget. You’ve got what you got.” Pershing pulled
the printed photo from his jacket and handed it over. “Make photocopies of this.
I want everyone to see it.”

Burro gently
touched the bandage on his cheek. “I’m going to kill that bastard.”

“No, I
want him alive.” He hit the starter button on the buggy, floored it, and sent
it into a sliding U-turn. Dust rooster-tailed off the rear wheels and they sped
down the track to the camp.

***

NEW YORK CITY

Casey Millwood had been working for Ground Effects Services
for a little over six months. The CEO had poached him from his previous role, Head
of Information Security, at a technology firm in Silicon Valley. He considered
himself at the top of his game, one of the best in the business. However, in
the last hour he’d come to realize there was someone out there more capable
than he was.

On King’s
orders he’d run a complete security sweep over their entire phone fleet. The
intensive search had taken five hours and uncovered nothing. All phones were accessing
known databases, running their standard IP settings, and performing exactly as
they should. None of the encryption systems had been manipulated and there were
no external devices trying to access their network. When he’d reported this to
King, the CEO ordered him to conduct an even more detailed search on the firm’s
five black phones. He had no idea who used them and had zero access to their
email databases.

Casey ran
the search again and found nothing other than a slightly high data usage from
one of the handsets. Spurred on, he found a weather app installed on the device
was using twenty percent more bandwidth than usual.

He opened
the application and knew immediately he had hit pay dirt. He studied the code
and realized the device was slowly replicating the entire encrypted email
database, minus images and attachments, to an IP address outside their network.

He
remotely shut down the phone. It took him another five minutes to track the IP
address. It led him directly to a weather database. This guy was good. Whoever
it was had hacked into the service provider and embedded the code directly into
the weather provider’s system. If he wanted to check where it was sending the
data packets to he was going to have to do the same thing.

He picked
up his phone. “Mr. King, I’ve found a compromise.”

“Which
phone?”

“Number five,
sir. It was transmitting data but I’ve shut it down.”

“Very
good. Number five, huh? I’ll deal with that clown personally. Now, can you
trace the hack?”

“I might
be able to but it’s going to take time.”

“Do you
need more manpower? You can pick your own team.”

Casey
considered requesting additional support but his pride stopped him. “No sir, I
can beat this guy.”

“Guy? Do
you already know who it is?”

“No, but he’s
good. Whoever did this has resources, and skill.”

“That’s
interesting. I want a damage assessment on how much information was
compromised. However, your highest priority is to find out who did this and
where they are. You got that?”

“Yes,
sir.” Casey shivered involuntarily as the call hung up. He almost felt sorry
for whoever did this because when King found out who they were they were screwed.

***

FORT
BLISS, TEXAS

Howard stood in front of the candy
machine contemplating which of the delicacies his taste buds most craved. He
was about to punch in the code that would release a Hershey bar when Everest
startled him.

“Don’t
eat that crap, Howard. It’ll mess up your energy levels. You need something low
GI. Slow releasing to keep you going all day. Then you wouldn’t need to drink
that sugary energy drink.”

Howard
turned and found his superior holding an apple. Everest offered it to his analyst
by holding it on the palm of his hand, like he was feeding a horse.

He took
it. “Thanks, boss.”

Everest
smiled. “No problems. Look, I really appreciate the effort you’ve put into
turning things around the last few days.”

Howard
caught him glancing at the freshly polished brogues that had been giving him
blisters. The shoes were the most uncomfortable he’d ever owned.

Everest
led him out the kitchen and down the corridor. “I wanted you to know that I’ve
noticed. The report you submitted last night on the environmental terrorist
threat to US interests in Chihuahua was first rate.” He gave him a pat on the
shoulder. “Keep it up.”

Howard
pulled a face as his boss strode back to his office. The man was clueless, he
thought. The report he had submitted was completely fabricated. That was why it
was good. It was almost one hundred percent fiction.

He walked
over to the little boxes that housed their cell phones when they were in the
secure area. On his phone was an email and missed call from Pershing. He walked
out to the smoking area and returned the call.

“Why do
you never answer your damn phone?” asked Pershing.

“I’ve
told you before, I can’t have it in my workspace. It’s like you don’t listen to
anything I say. I’ve told you this at least three times.”

“How
about you holster that attitude, cowboy.”

Howard
bit his lip.

“What’s
going on with our surveillance? One hour is hardly worth getting out of bed
for.”

Howard
clenched his fist. Fucking field agents. They had no idea how hard it was to
get assets and good intel. They just snapped their fingers and expected
everything served up on a platter.
 
“We were lucky to get that. I had to do some creative work.”

“Well you
better get more creative because we’re not just dealing with dirt farmers
anymore.” Pershing filled him in on the security breach and the hacking of the
phones.

“You
fucking kidding me, dude? Is your phone compromised?”

“Relax, this
phone’s fine. I wouldn’t be about to raise my offer if it wasn’t secure.”

“Your
offer?”

“I want
dedicated assets looking at this; persistent surveillance and analysts. There’s
a hundred-K bonus in it once the threat is neutralized. That’s on top of the
extra ten grand retainer for the surveillance.”