American Law (Law #2) (4 page)

“You are in a restricted area. Remove yourself at once
.
Your connection is being traced.”

“What the fuck,” the American shouted, watching the recently downloaded file dispersing, sending pieces of itself across the globe. “No.” He screamed, then shot to the keyboard and began typing as if he could stop it.

Dmitry spun around, landing a fist hard into the muscle man’s firm stomach. His hand stung as if he’d punched granite, and had he not known better, he would’ve sworn that every bone in his hand had shattered from the impact. He bit off a curse, his hand throbbing, and pushed away the pain the best he could.

The hired muscle grabbed him hard by the throat, lifting him several inches off the floor. The man’s dirty fingernails dug into his skin, Dmitry’s legs dangling in the air as he caught hold of the arm that suspended him in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure. His lungs burned, and his vision started to dim, the darkness calling to him.

He kicked as hard as he could, his assault inadequate against a man of his opponent’s bulk. He could feel the force against his trachea and struggled to breathe. Another minute or two and he’d be unconscious, and then he really would be fucked. He removed his hands from his attacker’s arms and moved them to the man’s face, ignoring the urge to shudder as he pressed his thumbs firmly down on the corneas, straining the moist eyeballs.

He sensed the beast trying to ignore the pain as he squeezed Dmitry’s neck harder in return. Darkness blurred the edges of his sight. He wouldn’t last much longer.

He dug his thumbs deeper into the sockets. He ignored the sensation of touching slippery eyeballs and concentrated on inflicting as much pain as possible. He bent his head back as far as he could before jerking it forward fast, head-butting the man hard enough to daze the both of them. Stars burst in his vision and a massive headache started pounding. The man dropped him to his feet, and Dmitry stumbled as he tried to regain his equilibrium. He sucked in deep breaths as the attacker turned his immediate attention to himself.

The beeping of the security alarm scared him just as much as the two men. He knew they would have company soon, and not the pleasant kind. There was no reason to stick around. He would retrieve the data at a later date. Right now, it was safe, away from the likes of the American. He headed for the exit, praying the man remained occupied and more worried about the flashing screen deleting the file and the piercing siren than he was about Dmitry.

***

Sean tried in vain to stop the file from sending. He had never been a wiz at the computer, hating them and the world’s reliance on them. They helped him with his business, and because of that he was thankful and semi-tolerant, but that’s all. He spun around to face the fucking Russian, ready to put a bullet into the useless bastard’s body. The man had such good references, but from the very first had been a royal pain in his ass. He thought it would have been easy to pay the man for the job, but as it turned out the commie prick had principals.

Such a useless trait in today’s world
.

He’d had high hopes for the Russian. He and his partner had been the perfect fall guys. With Ivanov’s history of hacking and Anisimov’s criminal record, no jury in the country would ever believe them innocent. Killing Ivan had been a means to an end—to force Ivanov’s hand. But again the Russian had defied him. Now he had to regroup, think of a new plan.

The boss wouldn’t be pleased he had failed, even more so now that Sundown had been handed to the public, dispersed all over the world. It would be even harder to retrieve from around the globe.

Truthfully, he preferred Anisimov dead. In his experience, dead men tell no tales and therefore cast no suspicion to him. Desire to shoot Ivanov filled him. He didn’t tolerate being made to feel inept and stupid and the Russian had done both. For now, the bastard would stay alive…at least until he’d gotten what he wanted. He needed him to retrieve Sundown. He would simply need to find a better bargaining piece, one the Russian valued more than own life. When he had the file in his possession once more, Ivanov would suffer painfully at his hands.

Narrowing his eyes, he turned and found the Russian running toward the exit. Rage overcame him, his vision reddening. He tried to bite back the searing anger but he’d gone way past that. Hatred for Ivanov fueled him, his blood boiling as he watched the one man who dared fuck with him headed for freedom.

Without thought beyond his rage, he raised the gun, barely feeling the weight of his weapon as he aimed it at the Russian. It was more like an extended part of him than an inanimate object. He had no issues killing anyone, least of all the smug bastard who’d ruined his entire operation. His hand, once calm and steady, now trembled with anger as he decompressed the trigger. He felt the powerful weapon discharge, recoiling, and only familiarity kept the barrel pointed at his prey and not at the ceiling.

Chapter 6

Dmitry felt something like a bee sting on his upper arm as the sound of a bullet exiting the chamber filled the room. He gritted his teeth against the sharp pain, each second causing increasing discomfort. He swore eloquently, knowing he’d been shot but he couldn’t afford to slow down. If he stopped or slowed now he was a dead man. Apparently, the American had finished working with him.

He applied pressure against the wound with his uninjured hand as he continued running. He detected the warm sticky liquid beneath his palm, needing to fix himself up as soon as possible. A hospital was out of the question. Every gunshot wound was reported to the police and he couldn’t risk that.

He would be extremely easy to trace once he got into the system or in police custody. As a Russian citizen, he didn’t have the appropriate medical insurance required for most American hospitals. Not that he couldn’t afford to pay any of the fees, it would just take time to internationally transfer the funds. Once again, he would be stuck here while waiting for the money to clear.

He caught hold of the door to the street and just managed to slip through the opening when he heard another booming
pop
sound and then the clang of metal hitting another source of metal. He barely glanced back. He didn’t need to know just how close he had been to copping another bullet. He took off at a fast speed for the rental car without another thought.

Holy shit, what the fuck have I gotten involved in?

The American had no compunctions about murder. If he caught him, he might torture him first, get him to recover Sundown before killing him. His death would tie up loose ends—just another tourist found dead. A poor unfortunate victim of a mugging.

He needed to think, regroup. To come back bigger and better, stronger and clear minded. He would make the bastards pay for what they’d done to Ivan and what they were trying to do to him, but first he needed to be anywhere but here. Especially when the Department of Defense arrived.

He knew he was in deep trouble, and he wouldn’t be able to get out on his own. He needed help and lots of it. He had just hacked the goddamn Pentagon—a criminal offense, a one way ticket to sunny Gitmo. The consulate was out. Once they learned who he was, he’d merely be trading one prison for another. He knew of only one person who could possibly do anything. If he had any chance of getting out of this alive, without doing jail time, he had to seek out the big guns. The one man who could understand his predicament. After all, he’d been through the exact same thing not that long ago. However, it would cause some major issues.

Oh, well
. He was up shit creek, and Lucas was the only one who could hand him a paddle.
Sorry, Elena. My ass comes before your heart.

***

Sean spun around, breathing heavily. The Russian fucker had gotten away, making his job all the more difficult. Now he’d have to hunt down the bastard and kill him. He didn’t have time for this, but he couldn’t risk sending anyone else to do the job. He needed to make sure it got done, that it couldn’t come back to bite him in the ass. There was no way the boss would accept any loose ends or failures on his part, and he sure as hell didn’t want to disappoint the boss. He couldn’t afford to lose the credibility he had worked so hard to make, for it to be washed down the drain with this one fuck-up.

He pulled out the acid bottle from a briefcase hidden beside the desk and squeezed the bottle hard, the liquid contents moving through the straw and entering through the DVD crevice. Acid flowed down towards the computer’s internal hardware. He heard the sizzling as it ate away at the memory and hard drive, and he watched as the steam escaped through the air holes of the computer box. His clean up here was done, ensuring the Feds wouldn’t find any trace of him in the warehouse, which had been leased under a dummy corporation that would lead nowhere.

He smiled. Something had finally gone in his favor. There was no way to recover the data now, the acid having done its job. The information was gone, without a trace. Not even the tech guys within the alphabet agencies were that good.

Now he had some explaining to do to his boss, and he wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. The boss wouldn’t be impressed, and would once again look at him like an incompetent idiot. He took a deep breath before the anger at the Russian could overrule his better judgment. He admitted he’d lost his cool earlier and he’d made a mistake shooting at the bastard, but luckily he hadn’t killed him. He had a moment of pleasure as he thought how he would enjoy the task once he got his hands on the commie. Yes, he’d make sure Ivanov felt every ounce of frustration he’d gone through right before he put a bullet in the man’s head.

Chapter 7

Secretary of Defense Walter Mann glanced about his office on the west side of the Pentagon as the alarm shrilled. He stood and moved to the doorway. His office overlooked the open area workspace, which was full of activity. Men and women in navy blue pressed uniforms and formal suits moved quickly about the room. Each having their own job to do in such an event. The tech teams were each manning their stations. The sound of dexterous fingertips gliding almost sensuously over individual keyboards echoed throughout the room. The numerous techs’ faces were masks of concentration and concern as they worked hard.

Movement in his peripheral vision had him turning to his second in command. Captain Moore moved speedily towards him, a look of apprehension on his usually composed face. They had worked together for over five years, and had served together for another ten. They each knew the other’s temperaments and moods well. Moore, for one, was as straitlaced as they came. Nothing ever seemed to faze him or ruffle his feathers—until now. Moore stopped before him and took a deep breath, obviously preparing himself to report the news.

Apprehension grew and cool sweat broke out on his skin as he waited. The gruff looking captain met his eyes. “Sir, I regret to inform you we just had a security breach of our internal systems.”

While he had prepared himself for the news, perhaps another war outbreak, he was floored. Never once in his tenure, or to his knowledge, his predecessor’s time, had there ever been a successful breach of the Pentagon. Who would be stupid enough—or desperate enough—to hack into the DoD? This was a fuck-up of epic proportions. How had they gotten in?

The Department of Defense had state of the art protection against this type of infiltration. It was embarrassing to say the least and he had to admit he wasn’t looking forward to explaining this to the White House. He only prayed the perpetrator kept quiet about the hack otherwise they’ll have every Tom, Dick, and Harry taking shots at them.

“How far did they get in and what did they do?” he asked, holding his breath. His mind ran through several scenarios, each one worse than the last.
1

Captain Moore swallowed nervously, the action catching his sharp eye, worrying him even more. If the intrusion had been enough to make the captain nervous—someone who’d seen action amidst raining bullets, flying missiles and injured serviceman—he wondered just how bad things were.
What the hell did they get? Launch codes? The exact co-ordinates of the Nevada test site?

“The intruder made it into the mainframe, sir. Deep inside. We managed to trace his movements, although it was quite difficult. We’re certainly dealing with a professional, no doubt about that. He went directly to an obscure file named Sundown. There were no signs of anything else being compromised, sir. The man knew what he was looking for.”

He felt the blood drain from his face, immediately light headed. He grabbed hold of the doorframe to keep himself up, his legs no longer able to hold up his weight.

Sundown.
Of all the files it could have been. Holy fuck
.

The only thing worse was being unaware of what the bastard who hacked the file intended to do with it. They would be walking around blind until they knew whether a ransom demand would be made, or whether the file would be placed on the black market. He would have to make sure he had several men monitoring all communications searching for any reference of the file. He would also need to liaise with the NSA to make use of their super computer. If there was ever a time for inter-agency support, it had to be now.

“Do we have anything on the hacker?”

Moore nodded. “Yes, sir. We traced his IP and came up with an address in Langdon. He was one hell of a cocky son-of-a-bitch. He didn’t attempt anything at all to cover his tracks.”

He gave the orders to prepare, had his men pack for the occasion, decked out in Kevlar with rifles and handguns at the ready. He wasn’t about to let this fucker go. He wanted to have a one on one with the bastard. He had no patience when it came to those who endangered the country he loved so dearly.

Twenty minutes later, he was standing in the almost empty warehouse looking down at a recently deceased man. He had already called for the city medical examiner and was now waiting on the older man to make his way across town to join him. His men were surrounding him, collecting evidence and securing the area. The warehouse had been abandoned except for one lone table, a computer placed upon it. He could smell the faint scent of acid and burned electronics in the air, knowing they were too late. Whatever secrets the computer could’ve revealed were now destroyed. Even he knew they would be hard pressed to retrieve any data from the hard drive.

Acid worked quickly and it worked well, destroying everything in its path. The perpetrator was long gone and wouldn’t be back, by the looks of the computer and the body on the floor. He was still in the process of getting the name on the warehouse’s lease, but it proved difficult. The last report he’d received from the tech guys back at the Pentagon was that the name of the company was a fake, nothing more than a front.

He watched as Captain Moore went down on one knee, his back straight as a board, years of military training ingrained into every fiber of his being so that every movement he made was unconscious. Both he and Moore had signed up during the same month, went on to complete their training together, and learned to trust the other completely with their lives. When he had been promoted to Secretary of Defense, Moore had been his first and only choice as second in command. The man knew his job and did it well, always keeping up with his fitness regime—even after leaving the military life—running three miles in the morning before doing one hundred push-ups and another hundred sit-ups.

Moore methodically searched the dead man’s pockets, allowing for no mistakes or missing any key piece of evidence. He brought out a wallet and maroon passport and handed them to him. Walter immediately flipped the passport open to the particulars page and looked down at the photo and name.

This just keeps getting better and better.

“Ivan Mikhailovich Anisimov,” he read out loud. He shook his head. A fucking Russian citizen—the last thing he needed. There was nothing worse than having an international crisis on their hands. Things were precarious between the States and the Russian Federation, and this situation wouldn’t improve matters. He turned around and waved his hand in the air, signaling to his men to wrap up. He had calls to make, the first being to the White House to report the incident. The second would be to the Russian Consulate. They all needed to agree to a course of action now before the situation had a chance to escalate. A lot of lives hung in the balance of their decisions.

He exited the warehouse, happy to be away from the scent of death. He watched as the medical examiner stepped out of his van and started over. Walter had no idea how the man could be around dead bodies all the time. He’d seen his fair share during his tours overseas. He just never liked being reminded that life was precious and death lurked around every corner.