The Code Within: A Thriller (Trent Turner Series) (2 page)

He had felt the impact from September 11, 2001.

Nancy had worked for the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald at its headquarters in One World Trade Center. He met her halfway around the world on the Spanish island of Mallorca, just months before the terrorist attack on the buildings would take her life.

He replayed the sunny afternoon in his head as he continued south. It was something he did often. It helped him to rationalize his decision to live this way, to sacrifice a normal life in order to perform a crucial service for his country. They were visiting the city of Palma de Mallorca, and it was a day full of memorable conversations that shined a light onto her kindness and potential. He and his brother were just teenagers looking forward to college at the time, and he had hoped to one day see her again. Even at his age, he knew the world needed more people like Nancy.

Fate would soon see her promise extinguished by a dark reality. Her loss, and the deaths of thousands more, opened his eyes to a world that many refused to see or chose to ignore. The tragedy served as motivation for his chosen career path. A lot of people hated his country. Whether ideologues or religious fundamentalists, they sought to take advantage of the freedom America provided and what its constitution stood for. He considered himself part of the last line of defense, and, unlike that fateful day in September, he was the hunter and would make them suffer.

Brake lights snapped him to the present, and he reached to turn off the groaning windshield wipers.

Turner had felt it. He didn’t know what it was at the time, but something had happened. It woke him up on Wednesday night, his first night at home in over a month. A sick feeling deep inside left the hair standing up on the back of his neck. He couldn’t fall back to sleep. He was always keenly aware of what was happening around him, especially when it came to his brother. Having a sixth sense was essential in his line of work if you wanted to stay alive.

He was trying to put the pieces together, attempting to make sense out of the situation from what little he knew. The conversation with his mother was as short as it was brutal. His brother was in intensive care, likely brain-dead, with a gunshot wound to his head. Every possible scenario he ran through pointed right back at him, a case of mistaken identity. They were, after all, identical twins.

Inova Fairfax Hospital, Fairfax, Virginia

RYAN TURNER’S MOTHER had been sitting in the chair next to his bed for nearly two days. Rest became secondary as she tried to extract what information she could from the steady stream of doctors that shuffled in and out of the room. She had taken notes diligently and used her iPad to scour the Internet with the hope of uncovering some morsel of information that could help save her son. She knew it was a long shot with the severity of his brain injuries, but the research, and classical music she played for him, helped to occupy her mind.

Cathy Turner was a fighter. Harvard educated and a competitive long-distance runner in her youth, she was forced away from her partnership at one of Washington, DC’s premier law firms to battle cancer. The disease had been in remission for more than three years now, and rather than step back into the world of criminal justice, she decided to focus on what was most important to her: spending time with her grandchildren, son, and loving husband, Joe.

Just as exhaustion wrestled her to sleep, she was jolted to consciousness by a man entering the private hospital room. He pushed aside the book still locked in her hand so he could gain access to Ryan’s IV.

“Someone was just here to give him medication a few minutes ago,” she said in a scratchy, fading voice. She was a bit disoriented from exhaustion, but concern for her children was ingrained like a reflex.

“Just one more shot of vitamins to help build up his immune system, ma’am,” the male nurse explained.

She rubbed her eyes and noticed his slicked-back hair and ill-fitting hospital scrubs.

“I suppose they don’t have many nurses your size, now do they?” she joked.

The striations of muscle in his arms tested the limits of the seams. It was a moment of self-amusement for the concerned mother and brought the first hint of a smile to her face since she had arrived at the hospital.

“Not too many, ma’am,” the nurse replied as he pushed the syringe into Ryan’s IV and jammed down the plunger.

He nodded a half-smile and walked purposefully out of the room.

She tried to place his accent. It had a touch of a British wrapped around a gruff Eastern Bloc twang. The effort helped her fall back to sleep.

Friendship Heights Metro, Washington, DC

THE GUNMAN FOLLOWED his target across the street toward the Metro station. He moved as fast as he could without drawing attention from the police gathering en masse fifty meters to his right. He knew it would take the cops a few minutes to piece everything together, so he still had some time. He was still in the game.

He angled his head away from the cameras as he scanned the area and headed down the escalator. Despite the nondescript clothing, his physical presence betrayed him. It was impossible for a man of his size to blend in. His assignments normally took that into consideration, but this was a fuckup. The two hackers had gotten lucky. He knew pursuing his mark in public was an enormous risk, but the personal risk of being identified was outweighed by the damage the hacker would cause should he survive long enough to reach a computer. He looked to the digital signs hanging above the platforms and judged he would have enough time to get a fare card and make it to the platform before the next train arrived.

The plan had been successful thus far. They had been recruiting members of The Collective to systematically infect computers with their malware. Using experienced hackers was a way to reduce the possibility of exposure for his employer. A talented cyberpunk would easily stay under the radar of the commercial antivirus companies.

There could be no connection between the hackers, the malware, and their organization, so phase two of the plan was carried out by an assassin to sever the final tie. If word got out that they eliminated the hackers they contracted, The Collective would turn its ire on them and retaliate, and if they were successful, everything would be lost.

The assassin peeled a fifty-dollar bill off the top of his money clip and fed it into the fare card machine. He watched the bill disappear into the horizontal slit before he noticed the graphic that indicated the highest denomination the machine would accept was a ten. The precious seconds it would take for his money to spit back out were too expensive to waste, so he quickly sidestepped to the next machine and fumbled for a smaller bill. He inserted the money and printed out his fare card. Within seconds he was headed through the turnstile toward the platform for the next incoming train. Its destination was Shady Grove. A slight smile formed on his face when he saw the platforms were almost empty. He had eleven seconds to spare.

Two women were on the platform when the train screeched to a halt. Both boarded through the sliding doors, and nobody stepped off. The gunman surveyed the area and waited for any sudden movements. He kept a door within range as he continued to stalk his prey.

The rank smell of hot trash invaded his nose with each controlled breath. The minimalist design of the Metro station made it easy for him to clear the space. It was a skill that had been deeply ingrained in the assassin after his years of military service. He cut his teeth in special operations but was dishonorably discharged after killing a man in a bar fight. His temper had gotten the best of him then, and it was the same anger that boiled within him now. He hated “the system” in America for what it had done to him, and took great pleasure in doing his part to help unravel it.

A chime sounded as he walked toward the far end of the platform. The doors to the train slid shut as he zeroed in on the concrete trash can. It was the only hiding place that remained. The train pulled away, its sound fading into the background.

The station appeared to be empty, but the assassin knew there was at least one more person present. A rush of hot air passed through the station’s massive expanse and signaled an arrival on the opposite platform. He moved his gun closer to the opening in his jacket and approached his objective. He looked forward to another deadly encounter.

Inova Fairfax Hospital, Fairfax, Virginia

SHE AWOKE SUDDENLY to commotion.

“Get Dr. Marks!” someone yelled.

The once-steady beeps of the heart monitor had been replaced by a pandemonium of noise. Ryan Turner’s mother was overwhelmed with dread as she watched helplessly. Time seemed to stand still. Seconds felt like minutes and minutes hours.

Cathy Turner secretly hoped Ryan’s tragic injury would somehow bring her broken family back together. She had played it over and over in her head, willing it to happen. Trent could transfer from his government job in New York and move back down to the Washington, DC area. The emptiness she had felt for so long would become a distant memory.

“We’ve lost him,” the doctor said, his voice trailing off.

Turner was stunned. Nobody was supposed to bury their child, she thought bitterly.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Turner. Would you like me to have one of my staff stay here with you until your husband arrives?” the doctor asked in a somber tone.

The silence was excruciating. Her mouth moved as she tried to answer, but no words came out. She collapsed in tears, her head coming to rest on Ryan.

“This is something we weren’t expecting,” the doctor said of her son’s sudden death. He shook his head. “His condition had stabilized.”

Cathy Turner was a realist. Deep inside she knew that, barring a miracle, even if he had woken up, he would have never been able to care for himself. These last moments had been a gift. Most people don’t survive a gunshot wound to the head. She found herself alone, hollow inside, without the strength to call her husband to deliver the painful news. Seeing her son Trent would be even more difficult now. Ryan’s death would taint any joy it may have brought her.

Raw emotion was punctuated by the gentle motion Dr. Marks used to close her son’s eyes. Tears streaked down her face as she wished there was some way she could have taken his place. He had so much life left to live.

It had been almost two weeks since Ryan had won the Boston Marathon. After a long period of uncertainty, her son was finally motivated again. For a while it looked like the death of Ryan’s second son would destroy him. He had let himself go, losing the competitive drive that had kept him and his brother so popular during their youth.

With his pedigree, he was expected to be successful in sports. Being in the headlines again had felt good. He told her it reminded him of the old days when he and his brother performed head and shoulders above the rest without much effort. It gave her son something he desperately needed: a sense of pride.

Sports had been a healthy distraction, something to help fill the void left by the loss of his son. He donated the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in prize money to charity. Specifically, to the pediatric hospital that tried so desperately to solve his young son’s heart problem. His generosity was championed by all of the major newspapers and sports magazines. Ryan Turner was branded the amateur sensation whose heart was even bigger than his lungs. His race-winning image had been heralded by the press.

She saw how Ryan’s wife, April, was so proud of her husband. The young mother admitted to reporters that the biggest source of his motivation had come from a friend at work. The turn of events was something that brought Cathy Turner a great sense of relief. The couple had their challenges, one of them being the scarce details when it came to what Ryan did for his father’s multibillion-dollar technology company. April knew his work was highly classified, but the late nights and inability to explain wore on the couple. It seemed they had finally developed a mutual understanding, and the feelings of animosity about his job had begun to evaporate.

She knew this because April had told her that even though it wasn’t possible for her to meet the person who had changed Ryan’s life, she was thankful that someone was able to make such a positive impact on their family.

Friendship Heights Metro, Washington, DC

ETZY MILLAR WAITED anxiously behind the trash can for the right moment. He needed to time his break for the train’s doors perfectly. The Metro station’s cavernous tunnels with their futuristic patterns were surreal to him. The artificial light and the shadows it cast throughout the massive space brought on a childlike fear and a sense of vulnerability.

He was at the farthest end of the platform, so he had a clear view of the train headed in the opposite direction across the tracks. The blinking lights on the floor in front of him signaled an arrival. His heart pounded as noise from the approaching train continued to build. He could see the killer was cautiously nearing the last section of the platform. He knew it was a gamble to take the train to Silver Spring, but with less than a minute separating the arrival times of his two choices, he liked the odds with making the unconventional choice.

He was just a few steps away from freedom. Once he heard the chime that signaled the train’s departure, he bolted from behind his cover and through the closing doors. He made eye contact with the assassin on the platform across from him as the train pulled away. The assassin shot him an icy stare that was paralyzing.

Pain came to him in waves as he sat back and contemplated what had just happened. He replayed the events leading up to this night in his head and was certain he had covered his tracks. Even the payments would have been untraceable.

He made twenty-five bucks for each successful installation of the bot malware from his mystery employer. The college scholarship he had been awarded only went so far, so the new gig had provided Etzy Millar with some financial hope for a change. His friend Max had made the initial contact about the job, so he figured that’s where something must have gone wrong. He knew it only took one slipup for a good hacker to trace the way back to you.