The Code Within: A Thriller (Trent Turner Series) (53 page)

He surrendered to the pain.

“I got him,” he heard Moynihan say as the world swam around him and slowly faded to black.

THE RATCHETING SOUND of a roller coaster being towed uphill was overpowering, and then he had the sensation that he was falling. Suddenly the brakes came on, and Trent Turner’s eyes abruptly opened as he gasped for air.

“Goddamn it, wake up. Wake up, kiddo,” he heard echoing over and over. He could see the blurry outline of Jack Turner kneeling over him, but his voice was still muffled and distant, like a radio station that he couldn’t quite tune in. Trent closed his eyes again, and his thoughts turned to Melody Millar, and he felt an overwhelming sense of regret.

“Open your fuckin’ eyes, Trent.” His voice boomed like a drill sergeant’s. “We fuckin’ need you, so don’t go dying on me, you little shit!”

Jack Turner’s words worked like a primal call to wake a beast from hibernation. Trent’s survival instincts overrode his pain, and he tried to sit up. He opened his eyes. Maria Soller and Etzy Millar were in tears, looking down on him. The last few minutes played back in his head all at once. His eyes fell to the floor next to him. Someone had covered Melody Millar up the best they could, but he felt his spirits deflate the moment he saw the pool of blood surrounding her body.

“That’s what I’m talking about, kiddo,” Jack said. “We need you, buddy. There might be a chance to stop this thing from going down after all.”

“What?” Trent said, still confused. “It’s too late, Uncle Jack. They’ve already sent the commands.”

“I know, buddy, but we’ve gotta try. Etzy’s a mess. We’ve gotta get you to the laptop in the other room. The shit on the screen’s some kinda Russian-commie-Chinese or some shit, and nobody can read what the fuck it says but you.”

Russian was one of the languages the operative was fluent in. He tried to stand, but he immediately dropped back down to the ground. He felt weak, like he was going to lose consciousness again.

“Easy, kiddo, easy. You’re a tough bastard, but you’re not Superman. Etzy did good. He remembered something about the piece of paper the Russian handed Brendan that saved your lives. It told you a bomb was about to go off.”

Trent remained silent and still didn’t understand why that mattered.

“Etzy remembered that there was something else written on the paper. The Shop pulled the video feed from Brendan’s helmet cam, and he was right. There was a sixteen-digit code they think might be the missing encryption key. They want to see if there’s some way to send a command that will stop this, but nobody can read the screen on the computers.”

He felt himself fading again, and then he saw Victoria Eden. Their eyes met for a brief moment. The concern in her eyes helped to melt away some of his pain. She was what his mom would call a keeper. He thought about the impossibility of a relationship, and with that thought he closed his eyes and sunk back to the ground.

“Your brother would be proud of you, Trent,” Jack said. His eyes opened, and his uncle’s tone had changed. There was a combination of tenderness and regret. “He wanted to let you know that he’d figured out who you were. That you were Finger.”

Trent perked up, not quite comprehending what his uncle was saying. “What?” he said.

“You two had become best friends again and didn’t even know it.” Jack Turner smiled warmly. “Ryan was Tak, your handler.”

The words swirled around in his head like a merry-go-round. It was like the animals had come to life and were sprinting around the platform.

“Tak?” he said, still trying to process what was said.

“Yeah, Tak,” Jack said, his eyes now betraying his smile.

Trent sat up on his own at the revelation. Conversations the two had had over the years started to flash through his mind. He connected the dots, and now it was all painfully obvious. He smiled at the thought of his brother as Tak and the times they had shared.

“When did he find out?”

“Recently. Addy didn’t even know yet. Only me.”

THE WORLD WAS still spinning around him. Trent Turner looked up at Etzy Millar and shared a silent moment of sadness.

“I’m sorry, Etzy,” he said.

The hacker gave him a solemn nod.

Trent looked to his uncle. “Help me up,” he said. “Let’s get this shit done quick. I need a fucking doctor.”

“The ambulance is on its way,” Jack said as he and Brendan picked Trent up. “Cyn, are you online?”

They had been working to patch her through their comms.

“Yes, Jack, I’m here. Can you hear me?”

“Roger that,” he confirmed. “Finger won’t say much, but he’s listening.”

“Okay,” she said. “Finger, we think we have the encryption code. There were some files sent earlier, we know that, but we don’t think we can monitor the entire botnet yet, so we’re not in a position to know whether they’re sending the attack in waves or not. It could be that they haven’t sent files and commands to all of the banks.”

Trent could hear the hopeful desperation in her voice.

“We need to see if there’s any way to send a command to abort the process,” she continued. “They have a C&C server there, and we think they’ve dug out a small bunker near the property line by the highway and somehow tapped into one of the fiber lines leading to the area data centers. Jack said it’s too risky to try to get in there. It might be rigged to blow like the other place.”

“So that’s it?” Trent asked in disbelief. “We’re just going in there on blind luck, hoping you actually have the encryption key and there’s a way to stop this from the console?”

The two men had carefully guided him to the room with the laptops.

“That about sums it up,” she said flatly.

“Fuck,” Trent said.

“Fuck is right,” Cyndi Grayson said uncharacteristically.

They all shared a quick laugh. This was the first time she’d ever cursed, and it underscored the dire situation they were in.

“The entire US economy is riding on one of us having a golden horseshoe up our ass,” she added.

“Well it could be our lucky day, because it sure as hell feels like I’ve had something stuffed inside me,” Turner joked as he sat down tenderly in front of one of the laptops.

He could feel himself fading, but thoughts of his brother and Melody Millar kept him motivated. He needed to pull this off for them.

“Jack, I sent you the image,” Grayson said.

Jack Turner pulled out his device and held it so his nephew could see what they hoped was the encryption key.

Trent Turner moved back and forth through several screens trying to find somewhere that would let him send a command to the bots. After a minute he found what he was looking for and said, “Here goes nothing.”

He typed in the encryption key and pressed Enter.

“Damn, I must have typed it in wrong,” he said.

His vision was getting blurry. He deliberately worked the keyboard and punched in the encryption key again.

“Uncle Jack, do they match up?” he asked.

His uncle went back and forth from the image to the screen. “Yeah, it looks good to me.”

Trent hit Enter again, and a message popped up in Russian.

“Shit. It says we have one more chance. If we don’t get it right, the program will kick us out.” He could feel the stress building as he struggled to punch the code into the keyboard one final time. “Unc, make sure that’s right,” he said. His voice was weaker but still managed to convey the importance.

Jack Turner wiped the sweat from his brow and checked it twice. “Brendan, you have a look too, will ya?” he said, concern evident in his voice.

“Sure thing,” Manion said.

He went over each character one by one and said, “Winner winner,” and he and Trent blurted out, “Chicken dinner,” before Trent pressed the Enter key.

“Fuck!” Trent shoved the laptop and closed his eyes as the medics entered the room.

“No luck?” Grayson asked.

“No, Cyn, we’re screwed,” Jack Turner said.

There was a long moment of silence as the medics worked to cut off Trent Turner’s gear.

“Talk to Hector about the operation in Europe,” Trent told his uncle.

That was the call sign for a contact they had made in Switzerland. He handed Jack Turner his XHD3.

“He’s in my contacts. Hopefully he’s had better luck than us.”

“Okay, we’ve got to move you, buddy,” one of the medics said as he motioned to a stretcher by the door.

Trent could feel his body shutting down. The deflation from failure had sucked away all of his adrenaline. He placed his hands on the desk to help the men lift his weight and listened as they counted to three. They heaved him upright, and he felt his head drop forward before he peeled his eyes open one final time.

“Whoa. Hold on,” he snapped.

“Sorry, pal,” the medic said as he helped him toward the stretcher. “This is going to be painful. There’s nothing we can do about that.”

“No, no. Get me back to that other laptop.”

“Can’t do that, buddy. You’ve lost a lot of blood. We need to get you to the hospital.”

“Take me to that fucking laptop!” he yelled and attempted to break free.

Jack Turner could see the intensity on his nephew’s face and said, “Boys, it’s okay. Take him over there.” He knew Trent wouldn’t bet on his life without a good reason.

“But sir, he might—”

“Do it,” Manion demanded as he helped the men turn Trent around.

They nursed Trent back over to the second laptop, and he started laughing.

“Fuck, he’s delusional,” Manion said. “Sorry about that, fellas.”

Trent kept laughing and said, “Hold on a second.”

The text on the screen was in Russian, so nobody else would understand. It said, “Press Enter to distribute the commands to the botnet; press Escape to cancel.” It took just about everything he had left to reach his hand out and press the Escape key. He struggled to stay conscious and looked over to his uncle and said, “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”

Jack and Brendan shared a confused look.

Trent struggled to speak again, and instead of using his last moment of consciousness to let them in on what had happened, he said, “Look after Etzy. You’ll need him now that Ryan’s gone.”

His eyes slid shut.

“What the fuck was that about?” Manion asked.

“I have no idea,” Jack said. “No fucking idea.”

“I hope he makes it,” Manion said, shaking his head.

“Me too, Brendan. Me too.”

White House Situation Room, Washington, DC

THE THREE MEN sat around the long table and listened intently to the anger seething from the voice coming through the phone’s speaker. President Vincent Cross was growing impatient with the caller. It had been a long weekend for everyone involved, and Addy Simpson had filled him in on the details about Trent Turner’s contact, who went by the name Hector.

Federal Reserve Chairman Bart Stapleton barked into the phone again and said, “Are you incapable of understanding the magnitude of what’s happened here? The entire country is at risk. It’s not about saving my ass.”

Cross blinked slowly as he composed his answer. “Let’s run through this again, Mr. Chairman, just to make sure I’m following you correctly. I seem to recall speaking with you on the phone, asking for your help with an investigation into something I referred to as a matter of national security, did I not?”

They could hear Stapleton take a deep breath before he spoke. “Listen—”

“No, you listen!” the president demanded. “You had your chance to do something about this, and you let politics, personality, ego—whatever the hell it was—burn the olive branch I extended to you. Then for good measure you returned my goodwill with a pointed threat.” He pounded his fist on the table. “Now you’re telling me you want my help? No, wait. You demand my help, and you shouldn’t be held accountable for what’s happened?” He laughed, but it was crystal clear that he wasn’t the least bit amused. “You’re too much,” he said dismissively.

“I’m not resigning my post,” Stapleton spat defiantly.

The president knew more than Stapleton would have liked. The Shop had been listening to the chairman’s conversations all day. The team of analysts had been able to determine that the Russians had hacked into the Federal Reserve’s phone system and redirected calls intended for the individuals who were responsible for approving a series of large wire transfers. From what they could tell, over a period of several months the communists had figured out the central bank’s approval processes. The Russian’s had been able to stand in for Federal Reserve employees with advanced voice-emulation software that leveraged voice samples from previously recorded conversations.

The cherry on top was having a legitimate transfer in the amount of more than seventy billion dollars to Iraq to piggyback the fraudulent transfers onto. It was a failsafe in case a call was made outside their phone system hack. Using the amount of a legitimate transfer for the fraudulent ones was a ruse they hoped would buy them at least a day before the transactions were noticed.

Cross had Bart Stapleton right where he wanted him.

“You actually think you have a choice in the matter? You don’t have a leg to stand on after the colossal fuckup you have just presided over. Even if we can recover some of the money, you’ve put your personal ambitions ahead of your responsibilities as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the economy of the United States of America is now at grave risk.”

“I won’t do it,” Stapleton said, his tone lacking confidence. “And a recovery fee? In the billions of dollars?”

The president glanced up at the two men sitting at the table with him and smiled. They were all having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“There is one other option, Mr. Chairman,” he said, baiting him.

Stapleton didn’t respond for a moment, and finally asked, “And what’s that?”

“You can stay in the Fed with my full support, but I’ll want you to work very closely with me.” He paused for effect. “Especially when it comes to those meetings that we’re not supposed to know about.”

With Senator Soller dead, the only person with enough power to help him navigate his way through this was gone and the president knew that. After an uncomfortable pause, Stapleton cleared his throat.