Special Forces 01 (31 page)

“I’m working with what I have available, sir.”

That did not, in any way, shape, or form, answer the question. Especially when Gremlin wrapped up the bubble wrap into what could only be described as a “knife” form. He would have asked a follow up question, only Gremlin reached for a spray bottle next and started dumping ammonia and some other cleaner (he couldn’t see the label because of the camera’s angle) into it.
And the ammonia bottle?

“With all due respect, sir, shut up.”

Amused at the disgruntled tone, Rys tried to clamp down on his curiosity and just watch Gremlin at work. As Gremlin headed for the stairs, he switched his attention to the construction site to double check that no one else had entered while his mind was elsewhere. Aside from his team and the guards next door, the area still had no life to it. But then, this industrial area wouldn’t have anyone around after hours.

He went back to watching through the camera lurking in Gremlin’s pocket. His lieutenant now had gained the second floor and had started taking more precautions at this point. Judging from the perspective, and what Rys could see of his legs, Gremlin had slowed down to a bear crawl and was moving cautiously forward. His ammonia spray bottle was extended with one arm, the rolled up bubble wrap held in the other arm and in a guard position under the ammonia bottle. Granted, the stance would be the correct one to use if armed with a flashlight and a gun, but…an ammonia bottle and bubble wrap?

Rys choked on an aborted laugh before he could swallow the reaction. The scene in front of his eyes was too surreal.

“Sir, I can’t believe you’re making me break into a building with just bubble wrap and an ammonia spray bottle,”
Gremlin grumbled.

“Me neither, sir,”
Snails added with open amusement in his tone. “
But it sure is funny to watch.”

“You’ll pay for that later, Dave.”

I wouldn’t push it, Snails,
Rys advised although he too found the whole situation hilarious.
I still haven’t managed to put my computer to rights.

Gremlin hissed in a breath and abruptly broke to the left, ducking under a desk in a cubicle. Everyone went still, not even daring to mentally speak for fear of distracting Gremlin at a critical moment. From the camera, Rys could just see a pair of shoes pass by. Ah, the night guard must be making his rounds at this point.

“Oww!”
Gremlin abruptly flinched hard to the right.

Alarmed, Rys abruptly screeched to a stop and prepared to stand.
What?! What happened?

“Who puts rat traps under their desks?”
Gremlin fumed.

“Well, Bran, we’ve suspected for years that you’re a rat,”
Erksome chimed in with sing-song cheerfulness.
“Nice to have that confirmed.”

“ALL of your computers are going to be a snarled mess after this,”
Gremlin promised darkly.

Rys made a mental note to hide his computer and not use it for at least a week after this. Just in case Gremlin wasn’t kidding.

After the near brush with the guard, Gremlin avoided the hallways even more than before. He dodged from cubicle to cubicle, ready at any point to dive underneath them. When he reached the main floor, he was forced to go under two other desks. Rys ignored the commentary of sharing desk space with high heeled shoes and abandoned lunch boxes in favor of keeping track of Gremlin’s progress through the building.

“Ah-ha,”
Gremlin intoned in a tone of victory.
“There it is. The only door with a high security clearance reader on it. Alright, time to implement my evil plan.”

And Rys couldn’t wait to see what that would be. How could anyone, even Gremlin, break into a high security room with an ammonia spray bottle and bubble wrap?

Gremlin unrolled the bubble wrap, sprayed it liberally with his bottle, and then shoved it underneath the door. The half-inch clearance proved to be just tall enough to make this feasible. Then he spun on his heels and ducked back under a cubicle desk.

It took a few seconds, but another guard passed on his rounds. As he passed the door, Rys could hear the faints sounds of popping. Frowning, he focused more on the sound before he realized what it had to be—Gremlin’s bubble wrap. That mixture, whatever it was, had enough acidic properties to it that it could eat through the thin plastic.

Genius, Gremlin.

“I do have my moments, sir.”

The guard, also hearing the sounds, turned and came back to the door. “What in the heavens is that sound?” The door handle rattled as he checked to make sure the door was still secure. Finding it was, the guard hesitated for a moment, no doubt deliberating whether he should open it or not. But then more popping sounds came from the inside, so he pulled the card clipped to his belt up and swiped it into the system.

Before he could do more than take a step inside, Gremlin exploded from his hiding place and rammed a fist into the man’s face. The guard landed heavily on his back, out cold, and sprawled out in the middle of the room. Unconcerned, Gremlin stepped over him and headed for the nearest chair.

Rys’s view was limited because of the camera, so he didn’t get to see the entire room, but he did catch a glimpse of several hard drives stacked on top of each other and dozens of monitors arrayed on a long, L-shaped desk. Then Gremlin sat down, pulled his ‘pad out, and started hacking at lightning speed. Rys could only see the bottom third of the monitor and Gremlin’s hands flying over the keyboard. He knew better than to ask questions while Gremlin hacked, though, and kept his mental mouth shut as the computer genius worked.

For several long minutes Rys focused on looking busy outside, waiting for Gremlin to finish. He did a spot check on Snails and Erksome and found (to his relief) that they hadn’t managed to destroy anything. Yet. As neither of them had much experience with heavy machinery, he didn’t expect this miracle to last long.

“Got it, sir. It’s confirmed. They really are analyzing everything here before condensing it and forwarding it onto Nova.”

Rys let his eyes close in a moment of relief. That just made their lives much easier.
Alright, let’s do a cover up and get you out of there. Gremlin, I want you to make it look like you hacked into the system but failed.

“Sir, I don’t fail at hacking!”
Gremlin protested indignantly.

I said LOOK like it, Lieutenant.

“But I wouldn’t even know where to begin, sir. Hacking is easy.”

On behalf of all of the non-computer geeks in the universe, Rys took umbrage at that statement.

“Tell you what, sir. Why don’t you walk me through how’d you hack into something.”

Thereby implying that of course I’d fail?

“I never said that, sir,”
Gremlin responded primly. He sounded pleased to get some of his own back.

You’ll pay for that later, Gremlin.

“Already am, sir. Now, walk me through it step by step.”

Not blind to either Snails or Erksome’s amusement at this by play, Rys blew out a breath before complying. It took several humiliating minutes for the failed hack to play out. Rys felt nothing but relief when Gremlin finally said,
“That should do it, sir. Alright, what next?”

Go to Accounting and hack in there. Transfer one million dollars to whichever shareholder you want to.

Gremlin paused, half out of his chair.
“Thereby making it look like a robbery and turning it into an internal dispute?”

You got it.

“You have your moments of genius too, sir.”

Why thank you, Gremlin.

Over the camera’s feed, Rys saw a guard step inside.
“Hey, what’s—”

With lightning speed, Gremlin rolled free of the chair and raised his ammonia ‘gun’, firing it directly into the guard’s eyes. With a yelp of pain, the guard instinctively raised both hands to his eyes and started rubbing. Gremlin gave him no chance to recover, but grabbed him and put him into a sleeper hold.

“That’s two down, sir,”
Gremlin reported as he let the guard thump to the carpet.

I know,
Rys responded grimly. Two guards meant someone would notice something wrong that much sooner.
Move.

Gremlin snagged the radio on the man’s belt and his security card before he turned and bolted from the room, going back down the hallway and to the accounting offices.

As Gremlin hacked into this new system, Rys used his optical implant to scan the outside of the building. He saw two guards walking their perimeter patrols, which meant that one of them was unaccounted for. That, to his mind, could be good and bad news.
There’s one still inside.

“Good to know, sir. Alright, one million creds just got transferred to a shareholder’s account.”

Good, now—
Out of the corner of the camera’s view, Rys saw a shadow of movement and snapped out a warning.
Six o’clock!

Gremlin threw himself out of the computer chair and toward the doorway, his impromptu gun snapping up as he moved. The guard this time reacted faster than his companions had, and his gun was half out of its holster by the time that Gremlin’s ammonia hit his eyes. The guard’s aim went wild as he stumbled, instinctively grabbed at his eyes.

Without slowing, Gremlin hit him hard in the temple, knocking the man out cold.
“Alright, sir, that’s really done it. I need to get out of here.”

Go,
Rys ordered.

From the radio, there was a slightly static crackle of sound and then,
“Jim, where are you?”

Gremlin froze for a moment before lifting the radio in front of him and responding with deliberate unconcern,
“I took a pit stop.”

“Well, get out here. Time to switch up. Stevie, what about you?”

Trying to deepen his voice, Gremlin responded again.
“Uhh…I’m with Jim.”

“Oookay. Well, I’m not judging. Bill, you were supposed to be out front, right?”

This time, Gremlin tried a slightly higher tone.
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a second.”

A long pause and then the voice said suspiciously,
“Wait, is this all the same person? Who’s inside?!”

Swearing, Gremlin dropped the radio and jumped over the prone man in front of the door. The world spun in a dizzying pattern as the camera was jostled.
“I need a distraction, sir.”

I know.
Rys turned his head this way and that, frantically planning out something that would catch the remaining two guards’ attention.

Gremlin, clearly not waiting for whatever his captain would come up with, continued almost immediately as he ran down the hallway.
“Hey Jace, you know those monster truck programs you watch? The ones you fantasize about?”

“Yeah…”
Erksome responded slowly, with a slightly hopeful note in his voice.

“Live the dream, buddy.”

Something that suspiciously sounded like a giggle of delight leaked from Erksome as he pleaded, “
Captain, permission to live the dream?”

Rys didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t entirely sure what his two lieutenants were scheming.
What are monster trucks?

“Thank you, sir!”
Erksome responded happily. The bulldozer’s engine made an odd rumbling sound as it was fired up.

Rys’s head snapped around as he watched in something like frozen horror. Erksome had spun the big machine around and was now charging for the chain link fence separating the construction site from the office building.
Wait, that wasn’t permission—!

Too late. Erksome crashed over the fence and without even pausing ran over the three slightly dilapidated cars parked along the back parking lot. Rys winced as he studied the carnage left in Erksome’s wake. Now how was he supposed to explain all of this to the Admiral later…?

Granted, if his cover-up plan worked out right, no one would know that Bijordan was involved in any of this. No one from Fourth would even make the suspect list. Still….

The guards, hearing the tortured sounds of metal being bent out of proportion, sprinted around the building to see what was happening. Gremlin waited for their backs to be turned before he in turn sprinted for the construction site. The guards didn’t even twitch around, so no one saw his escape.

Now all Rys had to do was stop them from capturing Erksome.

Throwing himself out of the forklift, he started running at top speed along his lieutenant’s destructive wake.
Erksome, you got any water handy?

“A half-downed water bottle, sir.”

Pour it over you and then act comatose.

Erksome, thankfully, didn’t bother with a reply but instead instantly responded.

Rys arrived on the scene just as the guards reached inside the now stopped bulldozer, both of them angrily yanking the ‘comatose’ lieutenant down.

“Wait!” Rys called to them, skidding to a stop next to them. “He’s a type one diabetic. He’s in a comatose state. Do either of you have any food?” he asked this in as worried a tone as he could muster, eyebrows pinched in an expression of distress as he grabbed Erksome around the shoulders and waist. “Anything? He needs some sugar in his system.”

They were still angry, that could be easily seen in their bearing and their eyes as they glared down at Erksome. But they also wanted the man awake when they tore into him, so they paused before reacting.

“I’ve got some jerky,” one of them slowly admitted.

“That’ll do,” Rys assured him eagerly. “Oh, and something to drink. Something sugary would be great.”

Both of them nodded reluctantly and headed back inside the building.

Without waiting for them to fully enter inside, Rys started hauling Erksome away at high speed. Snails easily kept up with them.
Okay, let’s move. I want to be well gone by the time they’re back out.