She was alone, and Nemesis had total control. Or did he? The Army had taught her how to kill people and break things for tactical advantage, which was especially effective in asymmetrical warfare. Her current situation was about as asymmetrical as it got.
She glanced up at the pipes that ran along the walls and ceiling. Some must have supplied toxic gas to various rooms, but others probably housed electrical wiring. If she damaged the wires, she could prevent Nemesis from controlling certain aspects of the facility. On the other hand, she might inadvertently shut off all the power, including the lights, but it was a risk she was willing to take. She shifted her gaze to the cameras mounted to the ceiling throughout the space, their tiny red lights glowing at regular intervals. What if she blinded Nemesis?
She formed a plan of action and set out to locate the hatch leading to the next level. Minutes later, she climbed up another ladder and pulled at the hatch’s lever, which was unlocked.
Interesting. Nemesis wanted her to go up.
Alert for traps, she went through an open doorway leading to another corridor and continued along the narrow passage until she found what she was looking for.
The hatch leading her up to the second level where she could access the horizontal tube that led to what she assumed was the control center. Now was the time to implement what she had come to think of as Operation FU. She pulled out one of the three guns she had seized and calmly shot out the cameras in the ceiling.
Nemesis reacted immediately. “Stop what you’re doing.”
Unfortunately her ears were ringing, and she could barely make out the words. She used the situation to her advantage.
“What?” she called out. “I can’t hear you. Speak up.”
The voice boomed louder. “Stop shooting.”
The second transmission enabled her to locate the hidden speaker. She made a statement designed to elicit a particular response. “I’m going after the pipes next,” she called out. “You won’t be able to pump in gas anymore. Once I find the electrical cords, you’ll lose all control over this space.”
She raised her gun and put four rounds into the nearest pipe, tearing it loose from the bracket that held it bolted to the wall. A cluster of multicolored wires dangled from the broken tube. Now frayed and blackened, the wires sparked with ominous arcs of electricity. The lights flickered briefly but stayed on.
“If you do not stop right now—”
Dani shot out the intercom that had been well concealed amid the pipes in the open ceiling.
The speaker crackled, emitted a loud buzz, and died.
Now that Nemesis was blind, deaf, and mute, Dani turned her attention to the door. She expected her enemy to either deploy a lethal counterattack or send someone out to engage with her, which was what she wanted. As soon as the door opened, she would have a chance to get through.
To do that, she had to survive whatever countermeasure Nemesis threw at her, and she had no doubt his retaliation would be both swift and brutal. She braced herself.
Bring it on.
CHAPTER 53
Nemesis hit the master switch, sending the entire complex into utter darkness. The control room was the only place with light, and no one could get inside.
Until it was time.
Agent Vega’s movements would slow to a crawl. With no option other than to fumble around in the dark, she wouldn’t get far.
Fortunately night-vision cameras would allow the audience to see Athena’s progress once she entered a space with functioning equipment again. And Nemesis would be watching, too, between editing and uploading the big finale to the game.
There were thousands of viewers now, many placing side bets on the outcome. A quick review of the chat rooms around the game had revealed that the odds on Athena had been long. Some people were about to make a lot of money. This merited consideration going forward. When the game moved from beta testing on the dark web to a final version using computer-generated avatars, perhaps there could be a way to tap into the speculation.
The decommissioned silo had been a bargain five years ago, and several years of renovation had totally reformed it to create the perfect arena for virtual training. Newly designed software connected to a completely dedicated server guaranteed protection from corporate espionage and hacks. Everything was moving along smoothly. And then disaster had struck.
Proof that Colonel Treadway and his team of operatives had been the ones behind the kidnapping surfaced. The next challenge had been to determine who had hired them and—most importantly—why. The final pieces fell into place quickly. The FBI had nearly a decade and couldn’t figure it out. Turning the evidence over to them would guarantee another miscarriage of justice.
This game would correct all that. It had been easy to reconfigure the systems in the silo to render avatars that had nothing to do with the military, preventing any connection to a defense contract that could arouse suspicion.
But first, loose ends needed trimming.
Senator Sledge should have been indicted by now, or at least be the subject of a growing public scandal. Circling back to him would have to wait until the current situation was resolved, which should take only a few more hours. Enjoyable as the game was, it was good to end it before the FBI caught on. There was no way to tell what the Feds were up to without risking another Trojan horse virus or a cyber honeypot designed to trap and trace a hacker.
Everyone directly involved in the kidnapping and murder was now dead, but a federal agent was still alive. Colonel Treadway was supposed to be the last man standing. He had been the trigger man, and his punishment was to watch everything he had worked for implode, knowing he would die in disgrace, and that he would be reviled in death.
Agent Vega had ruined those plans, and now she would suffer the consequences. The FBI would finally pay for their incompetence ten years earlier. They would learn what it was like to lose someone you care about when it could have been prevented if they had done a better job.
CHAPTER 54
Six hours after his conversation with Assistant Director Hargrave, Wu sat in the back of the bus provided by the FBI’s Tucson Resident Agency, bumping along increasingly desolate desert roads. The team had landed thirty minutes earlier, and their fellow agents had been waiting for them with transportation.
With no direct flights available from New York to Tucson International Airport, Hargrave had arranged to borrow one of the FBI’s leased Gulfstream jets. A flight that would have eaten up most of the day with a layover and connections had been reduced to under five hours. In addition, they were able to continue their work, which would not have been possible on a crowded commercial flight.
The highlight of the trip came when Johnson called to advise them she’d heard back from the FAA, who had uncovered evidence that Brinkley’s private jet may have flown from New Jersey to Arizona the day Vega went missing. They also confirmed that his helicopter pilot filed a flight plan from his home in Santa Clara to the coordinates of the missile silo a week earlier, removing all doubt about Brinkley’s involvement.
“Can’t be much longer now,” Flint said, checking his watch.
Wu had considered ordering the detective to remain at the JTTF, but Flint had been determined to go, insisting he could write the affidavit just as well in the air as he could on the ground. He’d been correct, and the Assistant US Attorney had conferenced them in with a judge using a secure satellite video link. Half an hour before landing, he had used the onboard printer to make sure they had warrants in hand.
“We should be there in about fifteen minutes,” Wu told the team. “There’s no downtime in this op. We hit it as soon as we get to the scene.”
Other technology made their travel even more productive. Patel had provided regular updates during the flight as he and the other cybercrime specialists continued to try to hack into the game. They no longer needed to locate where it was occurring, but any evidence they could glean would help in court when they hauled Brinkley in front of a judge.
“Anything new show up with the drone pass?” Flint asked, interrupting his thoughts again.
Wu had requested aerial drone surveillance and satellite images of the area around the silo. He and the HRT had pored over dozens of digitized photos while on the flight to Tucson. They had originally been looking for a large building and nearly missed the entrance when scanning great swathes of scrub-covered desert foothills. Finally Wu had spotted a solitary concrete structure, just big enough to hold a reinforced metal door. With nothing else around, it looked like the door led to nowhere, but it clearly opened to a set of stairs descending straight into the earth.