Shadows (Black Raven Book 1) (12 page)

Trask raised a brow when Dunbar remained mute. “Well?”

Dunbar glanced away before answering.

The quick action was almost imperceptible, but he knew that the hesitation and eye shift signified fear. His subordinates had good reason to be afraid to deliver bad news. It was a task that sometimes came with lethal results, and in his world, death wasn’t easy, clean, or fast. The logical part of his brain, the gray matter that fueled the public face at the pinnacle of the world he created, did not become a demon with bad news. There were times, however, when something else thrived. The demonic part of his brain had nothing to do with logic. His demonic side was as drawn to bad news as a hungry infant was drawn to suckle at its mother’s breast. Once internal fires stoked the dark side of his mind, his only release came through domination over human weakness. Torture was a game in which he excelled. He loved to touch flesh as he killed his prey.

Several carefully-selected executive assistants were well compensated to assist him in those moments where he allowed his dark side to rule. The end goal was to make sure that the mess he created could never be traced to him or anything having to do with him. Dunbar, one of those assistants, had stood, side-by-side with him, in some of his most depraved moments. Dunbar was wise to be afraid. The negative energy that Trask so carefully channeled as he navigated through an imperfect world had to be released, and when he gave himself license to release the molten, anger-driven energy, he amazed even himself at how much of a thrill he received. He readied himself for the news that made Dunbar hesitate.

“Barrows’ daughters escaped,” Dunbar said, “and, in our effort to secure them, two of our men were killed.”

Trask savored the rocket-fueled surge of fury that came with the bad news. He channeled the energy to a place where it could be released later. He turned his back on Dunbar to face the wall of windows that gave him a panoramic view of Norfolk Naval Station. Preferring dimness to the stark brightness of the clear morning, he pressed a button and lowered the sun-filtering, see-through shades on the windows. Other than the red, green, and blue lights on the wall of monitors, there was no light in his office.

His gaze slid over the aircraft carriers, cruisers, and guided missile destroyers that were in port. Such physical displays of old-school power only made him feel more superior, because he understood something that others did not. Cyber-power was more important than military power. His gaze slid to the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier that was home-ported in Norfolk. He would have a hell of a time stealing an aircraft carrier and getting away with it, but the U.S. government was assembling a treasure-trove of information in PRISM and other databases, and now that he had Richard Barrows, the treasure would be his. With access to the information, the possibilities of what he could do were infinite. He’d be able to hold the U.S. economy hostage.

If he chose.

His people obviously weren’t grasping how important the daughters were to Project LID. He swallowed back his fury and forced himself to reflect only calm on the outside, as he gripped the binoculars and scanned the naval station. “There is no risk that this will get back to us, correct?”

“No. Fingerprints aren’t in databases. There’s no association on the corpses with our operations. Our other two men returned, did a site assessment, and disappeared before law enforcement arrived.”

He focused on the navy’s missile destroyers, methodically training his gaze from bow to stern, shifting his attention from ship to ship. It was his method of counting to ten for calmness. Sometimes it worked. He had known that Project LID would be an extraordinary challenge. He would succeed; it was just going to take time.

“How is it that you sent four men, trained in extraction techniques and military tactics, to secure two women, one of whom is mentally deficient and barely lives in the real world, and they failed?”

“We’re gathering information,” Dunbar said, trying to sound calm, but his voice had undertones of indecision and worry. With the sound of Dunbar’s weakness, delicious fury grew. Trask focused on the gun turret of the USS Cole as he listened. “We believe Black Raven arrived on the scene and ambushed our men. Sebastian Connelly was on the premises, and we believe he secured the daughters.”

His heartbeat quickened at Connelly’s name, his senses as sharp as a great white shark detecting the first drop of fresh blood off an island of fat seals. He’d been working on extracting Barrows from prison for months. He’d known that Black Raven had secured the federal contracts for providing prison security systems; he just hadn’t expected them to start at the prison where Barrows was being held. Once Black Raven focused on the facility where Barrows was imprisoned, he knew they needed to secure Barrows before the Black Raven security system was fully operational. His top advisers had admitted that breaking into a Black Raven security system would present challenges they might not be capable of overcoming.

Now that Trask had Barrows, he doubted that the marshals alone would have put the pieces together and presented a significant stumbling block to Project LID. Black Raven, though, was capable of being more than a stumbling block. Thankfully, he was smarter than Black Raven and the marshals combined.

Black Raven had, in the past, been a thorn in the side of some of his more sensitive operations. Connelly was the founder of the company, which had been in its infancy in 2001. It had grown exponentially after the September 11
th
attacks, and Connelly had expanded Black Raven by taking on partners who had private security contracting companies of their own, with varying specialties. The partners called themselves Ravens, and they recruited their agents from top talent in the military, local police forces, technology schools, and even, if rumors were true, street gangs. In overseas operations in particular, Black Raven was a formidable force.

His company regularly attempted to cherry-pick Black Raven agents for his internal security force, as did others with complex global security needs. In the last year, cherry-picking operations had been more successful than in years past. “The former Black Raven agents who now work for me?”

Dunbar nodded. “Yes?”

“Assemble them here. ASAP.” He drew a deep breath. “Where are the daughters now?”

From behind him, as he focused his binoculars for a closer view of the gun turret on the USS Winston S. Churchill, Dunbar said, “With Connelly.”

Jesus. When had the man become a moron? “You just said that. What is their location?”

“We’re not sure.”

As Dunbar’s news fast-tracked from bad to worse, Trask channeled the negative energy to his dark side, while keeping his features calm, and willing his pulse to remain steady. He put the binoculars down on his desk and faced Dunbar in time to catch him pulling out a handkerchief and wiping his brow. The need to wipe sweat from the brow was a gesture that reminded him that no matter how good his people were, they were human, with weaknesses. He hated weakness of any kind. He looked Dunbar in the eye, gave him a reassuring nod, while debating whether to slice through the man’s carotid or make it slow and painful, and said, “Okay, so we’re having a few issues. We’re smarter than these people, and that includes Connelly. We’ll work through it.”

Dunbar drew a deep breath and exhaled, his relief with the reassuring words palpable.
Fool.
As soon as he figured out what the hell was going on, and what the next step should be, Dunbar was going to die.

“Do we have access to Black Raven’s communications?”

Dunbar shook his head. “Their system is impenetrable.”

“Nothing is impenetrable.”

“Black Raven’s system is as good as ours. It might be better.” The man’s face was sweaty and flushed. “That’s why we spend so much money and time trying to recruit their personnel.”

“I’ve hired his agents and we still can’t penetrate their system?”

“That’s correct,” Dunbar said, “the Black Raven agents we’ve managed to hire haven’t been hacking or techno experts. For the most part, they’re field agents.”

He paused. Well, maybe Black Raven’s system was impenetrable. He and his men had attempted to breach Black Raven’s communications a year earlier. They had failed then and would fail again, unless they could recruit key technological players from Connelly and his Ravens. He made a mental note to make a more concerted effort on hiring a broader spectrum of Black Raven agents, as he shifted his focus to the task at hand.

“What do you propose?” He let Dunbar give himself his next assignment. By allowing his people to think for themselves, or letting them think that they were thinking for themselves, he empowered them. Empowered people tried harder.

“The marshals’ communications systems and databases have operations that we can infiltrate. That is how we knew Connelly was involved and how we knew the location of Barrows’ daughters. We’re monitoring all of the marshals’ communications that we can access,” Dunbar informed him, stuffing his handkerchief in his pocket, looking relieved that he could deliver details. Like a puppy wagging its tail, some of his hangdog moroseness disappeared with his explanation.

Imbecile.
As though monitoring the communications of the marshals was an achievement worthy of pride, when the average sixth grade nerd with an iPad should now be able to accomplish that. Yet he gave a nod of encouragement and a benign, calm smile, while hoping Dunbar’s incompetence hadn’t infected the other people who were working on Project LID.

Dunbar continued, “Unfortunately for Connelly, in this operation Black Raven has to communicate with the marshals. We’ll learn from the marshals where Connelly and the daughters are. Once we know where they are, we’ll have them.”

“I want to be there for the intercept.”

Dunbar frowned. “I’m not sure that is advisable.”

“My project. My world.” Even though Trask questioned Dunbar’s capacity to provide advice, logic told him that his on-scene presence was not advisable. He didn’t always follow logic, though. His most logic-defying moments had gotten him where he was today. “I’m not seeking advice. I’m telling you to make it happen.”

“As you wish. That was just one piece of the bad news.”

His spine tingled with Dunbar’s momentary hesitation. “There’s more?”

“Barrows knows we’re lying.”

With that bit of bad news, Trask’s world stood still. “How do you know that?”

Blake handed him a piece of paper.

“131441413923117208152620.”
He read the numbers twice. He glanced up with a frown. “What is this?”

“Our code cracking system indicates it is three words.
Cataclysm. Now. Run.
Barrows texted it at exactly five twenty five a.m. this morning. We learned the location of the phone at the same time we confirmed through our intercept of the marshals’ communications where the daughters were. Barrows wouldn’t have sent his daughter such a message unless he saw through our G-scenario.”

Like molten lava, anger billowed through his veins. He breathed deeply and managed to keep his facial features calm, but barely. “Barrows had the capability of sending a text? From our system? Who allowed that to happen?”

Dunbar gave him a slow headshake. “No one.”

“Bullshit. Who are you protecting? And know that they’re going to die in the next ten minutes. It has to be someone’s fault.”

“No. It isn’t. I told you from the beginning that providing Barrows access to computers was dangerous. He created the capability. Also, it appears that for the last two days, while he pretended to cooperate with us, all he was doing was attempting to destroy our data.”

Now his heart was racing, but he merely said, “Time for Plan B.”

Blake nodded. “I anticipated the switch. I implemented it before I came up here.”

“In the meantime, let’s give Connelly and the marshals something new to worry about.”

“Is it time for the media to break the news of the prison break?”

“Soon. But first, let’s give them one hell of a story. You have secured the information that we needed on Biondo, correct?”

“Absolutely.”

“Kill the primary witness against him in his trial. Now. Alert officials. Let the media know that there’s been a cover-up, the prison break happened four days ago, a killer is on the loose from the prison break, Barrows escaped, and no one in authority has any idea where he might be. Paint the marshals as incompetent, but lay all the blame on Black Raven. Turn up the heat with every piece of bad news you can find on Black Raven. Let Americans know that Black Raven is an unregulated army of vigilante, assault-weapon toting extremists who are operating in their backyards. Create what you can’t find. You remember those crazy people with foil hats on their head, who kept vigil when Barrows was first imprisoned?”

Dunbar nodded.

“Use them. The media will pounce on that image.”

Skye’s request that Sebastian name his price gave him an answer to the question of how desperate she was
. Off-the-charts desperate.
Now he just had to figure out why, and soon. The intense fire that burned in her eyes revealed a resilience that told him that he was nowhere close to an answer.

He peeled his eyes from hers and glanced at her body, counting at least five places, including body cavities, where she might have more cash, diamonds, and gold stashed. He contemplated a strip search after they stepped out of the SUV, a task he’d done more times than he cared to count. Thinking about doing one on her, though, prompted an instant throb between his legs and his mind flashed to how he’d explore one particular body cavity of hers. Invasive strip search? Unlike any he’d done before? Hell yes. Long, slow, and hard. It would be pure pleasure.

Son of a bitch.

Now that his libido was awake, he needed sex, and that was just another problem to throw upon the shit-pile that he was shoveling through. He shifted in the front seat and dragged his eyes up, to her face, and away from her killer body. Her narrow-eyed, dagger-filled glance suggested to him that she knew exactly where his mind had wandered.

Fuck me to hell and back.

He could only hope. He wasn’t touching her to search her. She could have billions on her. He didn’t care. She wasn’t getting away from him. No matter how hard she tried. “You’re smart enough to understand the serious criminal penalties associated with an attempt to bribe a federal official, right?”

“You’re not a federal official.”

“No. That’s why you’re damn-”

“Nice,” Skye interrupted, as Spring broke into a fresh batch of sobs. “Speak nicely, underst-”

“Damn lucky right now. I can pretend that this never happened. Try it on the marshals, though, and see how many years that gets you.” Instead of arguing further, he faced the front of the SUV and returned his attention to Spring’s backpack, where there was order and tidiness. Thankfully, there were no weapons and nothing that could be used for bribes. He pulled out a plastic case with about a hundred pointy silver things, a few white things, and metal discs with a silver handle. He’d seen similar tools in the icing room. They couldn’t be considered a weapon, at least not much of one. She had a pack of wet wipes. He helped himself to one and wiped his hands before passing the pack into the back seat to Skye.

“There’s blood on your hands,” he said, “And it could be theirs.”

The color faded from her face. As she gasped, Spring’s sobs ramped up in volume.
Dammit.
Skye ripped open the pack of wipes and scrubbed her hands, before attending gently to her sister. He returned his attention to Spring’s backpack. Until Spring quieted down, there was no point in trying to call Minero, because now that the sound was in his head, he could barely hear himself think. He saw an iPad and pink headphones, a zippered pouch with colored pencils, and a sketchpad.

He opened the sketchpad. Spring drew the cakes that she decorated with an architect’s precision. He thumbed through the pages where the bank’s cake, the one that was now smeared all over the sisters and Candy and even on him, had been painstakingly laid out. He could understand the design, because he’d seen the cake, but the words she used, in neat, block letters, made no sense. Columns of numbers were next to the words. He shut the pad, glanced into the back seat, and waved it in the air, wondering if her sketchpad would shut her up. She glanced at it and sobbed louder. Nestled into the bottom of her backpack, beneath a bag containing rawhides for the dog, he saw a large bag that contained what he guessed were two pounds of assorted jellybeans. Ah. Maybe candy would work. He doubted it, but maybe. He lifted the bag of candy, recognized the popular name brand, turned to look at Spring, and showed her what was in his hand. “May I?”

She sniffed as she lifted her face from the dog’s neck. Her nose wasn’t bent or crooked. It had stopped bleeding. There was dry blood caked around her upper lip, but when she rubbed her sleeve against her mouth, most of it disappeared. He hoped that her nose wasn’t broken, and he took the fact that her eyes weren’t black and there was only minimal bruising as good signs.

“May I?” he asked again, holding the bag of candy higher.

She shook her head. Between loud sobs she said, “No.”

“Please? Jellybeans are my favorite.” Not exactly true, but he certainly didn’t mind them. His sweet tooth wasn’t very discriminating. He loved sugar, in most forms. Her denim-blue eyes held his as she gave a loud sniff. They had about forty-five minutes to drive to New Orleans, and he had way more important things than jellybeans to worry about. However, getting Spring to stop crying so loudly that windows could break seemed as important as anything else. If nothing else, the quiet might alleviate his headache.

Between deep gulps of air, Spring asked, “Do you have a favorite flavor?”

“Cherry.”

She frowned. “You can’t have those.”

“What about cinnamon?”

“No,” she shook her head, and for the first time since the debacle in the driveway, he saw something less than misery in her eyes. “You can’t have any of the rosy ones.”

He chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’re only going to give me the black.”

“Squid’s usually for Candy, unless I’m mixing it with another flavor.”

“What about popcorn?”

“No. No movies for you, and don’t even ask for the sun.”

“What can I have?”

“Daydreams. You can only have the daydreams.”

What the hell? “
What color is that?”

Spring gave him an intense stare, as though she couldn’t understand what he was saying. “Chloe. Help him.”

He glanced at Skye, whose irritated glance told him that helping him do anything wasn’t high on her list of priorities. “Coconut. They’re opaque white. Pure white. Not whitish yellow. And don’t make a mistake, because she won’t be happy,” she said, in a nice voice, but with unamused eyes. “Now hand me her iPad and headphones.”

“Three,” Spring said. “Only take three. You see, I started with exactly forty-five of each color. I haven’t eaten any of those yet, because I don’t like them. So you’ll really be helping me, because the numbers are off.”

He didn’t press for details on why that made sense. He reached into the bag and fished out three opaque white jellybeans before handing the bag to Spring. He popped one in his mouth, chewed slowly, and savored the coconut explosion. “You know,” he said to Spring, “this could make me daydream. I think your name’s right on target.”

Spring rewarded him with a beautiful smile before focusing her attention on the bag. “It isn’t my name, it’s my father’s-”

“Her iPad,” Skye interrupted, with a snap of exasperation, “and earphones. Now.”

“Use your nice voice,” he said, glancing into her gorgeous, pissed-off eyes while he popped a second jellybean in his mouth. “And say please.”

Skye’s cheeks turned pinkish-red, matching some of the jellybeans of that hue. Spring was digging in the bag of candy, for the moment oblivious to her sister’s tension. Skye gave him a smile that dripped with sarcastic sweetness. “Please.”

Sebastian glanced at the iPad, went to the data settings, and coded it so that data streaming and communication was off. He installed a new security code, so that Skye couldn’t undo his settings.

Ragno said, “It’s been five minutes.”

“Get Minero on the line,” he answered.

Sebastian brushed Skye’s hand with his fingertips as he handed her the tablet. Their eyes locked with the touch, and for a second, all he saw was fear. He didn’t know the source of it, but he needed to figure out a way to make sure that she wasn’t afraid of him. Irritation with him was fine. Fear was bad. With fear, she’d never tell him a goddamn thing that could be helpful in the search for her father. He glanced out of the SUV’s rear windows as Pete changed lanes, accelerated, and passed a slower car. They weren’t being tailed. “When I get on the phone with Minero, the marshal who is in charge of the jailbreak, I’m going to have a conversation that’s going to be disturbing.” He gave a quick, pointed glance to Spring. “Understand?”

Skye gave him a small nod as she put the earphones on Spring’s ears and fooled with the iPad. She sighed in relief as Spring looked up, gave her a thumbs up, and returned her head to Skye’s shoulder.

With Spring’s attention focused elsewhere, he said, “It would be damn helpful if you’d tell me why you were living under an assumed name.”

Her cheeks flushed pink as she held his gaze. “It was easier to be someone else than to be Richard Barrows’ daughters.”

“That’s it?”

She gave him a blank expression and a nod. “Yes.”

“I’m not buying it. Your alias was too good. Too elaborate.”

She shrugged. “I’m Richard Barrows’ daughter. I don’t do halfway.” She paused, her eyes bright. “Just an FYI. My father never would have escaped. Not voluntarily. Someone kidnapped him.”

Doubtful, but possible. Anything was possible. “Who would go through that trouble?

“Isn’t that your job to figure out?”

Fuck.

Yes, it was, and he wasn’t going to be getting help from her anytime soon. Sebastian turned to face forward. No matter how fucked-up the situation had become, this was progress. At least he’d gotten there in time to thwart the kidnapping.

“Minero’s on a conference call,” Ragno said. “His office said he’ll be available in a few minutes.”

“Find Brandon,” he said. Brandon was from New Orleans, and part of his legal practice involved crisis management for Black Raven. “While you’re doing that, talk to me about Barrows and any of his work that could be relevant to his escape.”

“As you know, Barrows has an enormous body of work involving computing innovations,” Ragno said. “The backup for his theories, the data that he produced, has to be somewhere. There’s just no way of knowing what could be relevant to his escape.”

Her voice was low and controlled, but there was an undertone of excitement. Innovative ideas in computer and spyware technologies were a hobby of hers, so she loved the Barrows project. “Plus, there are interviews, some with credible tech magazines, but there’s also hundreds of transcripts of late-night conspiracy theory-type radio shows. And there are the debriefing transcripts. Thousands of pages, where it seems he took the time to tell the government everything that he thought was wrong with every governmental program, every agency. We’re only at the beginning of dissecting the transcripts, but check out the excerpt that I’m sending you now. With your fascination with the Fourth Amendment, you’re going to love it.”

He popped the last jellybean in his mouth, savoring the candy shell before chewing through to the soft inside. Save for the feel of Skye’s eyes boring into the back of his head, the quiet that now filled the SUV made the ride relatively pleasant. He reached into his own backpack for his iPad. He switched it on and read through the text that Ragno sent.

FBI Interrogator:
Mr. Barrows, I’m trying to focus on the tax evasion offense for which you’re being prosecuted. I don’t want speeches on civil liberties.

Barrows:
But it’s the same theme. The government is taking good ideas and implementing them the wrong way
.

FBI Interrogator:
And you have answers?

Barrows:
The government is collecting every e-mail, phone call, internet search, book download, and social media post. They’re not only collecting, they’re assimilating. I know, because I created the assimilation technology. They’re shadowing people. These are shadows from which the average American cannot separate. The bottom line is that such action is a search that is contrary to the Fourth Amendment. I can’t force the government to abide by the Fourth Amendment, but the data that’s being collected needs to be protected
.

FBI Interrogator
:
And you have a proposal to do that?

Barrows
: [Pause].
What is your clearance level?

Sebastian chuckled. “Did he explain his proposal to the interrogator?

“If he did, we don’t see it. Yet,” Ragno said, as her fingers ticked away on her keyboard. “We’re only at the beginning. Fascinating, right? Check out this passage.”

FBI Agent:
After September 11, 2001, you were an advocate for mass data collection by the U.S. government as a method of preventing future terrorist attacks, am I correct?

Barrows:
Yes, but never to the extent the government is collecting information from U.S. citizens without their knowledge and without anything resembling probable cause. Any legitimate reading of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits such action. I designed Shadow Technology as a tool for use after probable cause is established. Instead, the government is using it without probable cause, on law-abiding citizens. All day, every day, without probable cause.

“Some of what Barrows is saying here makes sense,” Sebastian said, scanning the road as Pete stopped at a red light. They’d come to an area that was congested with strip malls. Drive-thru windows at fast food outlets were busy. Schools were already in session. Most cars had just one person, and that was the driver. Using the visor’s mirror, he glanced at Skye, who used the mirror as well. Their eyes met and their gazes locked on each other. Her expression was blank, as though she had no interest in what he was saying to Ragno, yet her intense look told him otherwise. “We now know that the government’s data collection efforts through PRISM are pervasive, and this debriefing occurred in 2012, right?”