The Trigger (15 page)

His hands paused on the keyboard. Once he set things in motion, he had no way to stop them. This mission was ten steps beyond the denial-of-service hacking he’d done. Or even his occasional selling of corporate information. This was serious shit. But what the hell—Spencer was about to unleash havoc on the world, so he might as well do his part to ensure that the future was more peaceful. That meant putting an end to the sectarian bullshit.

Shaking a little, he accessed the main fund held by the Syrian government. Seventeen seconds. Next he set up a hundred-million-dollar transfer to the account held by the Israeli company whose computer he was using as a proxy. Eventually, he would transfer it from there, but it might not even matter.

Raff clicked submit, and the cyber wheels started to churn. It had taken another count of seventeen. Thirty-four seconds in all. Could it really be that easy to start a war?

The next week would tell. The Syrian government might not even know the money was gone for a few days. Once Assad’s officials discovered it, they would easily track the transfer to the Israeli proxy computer. Raff planned to keep moving the money until it ended up in a fund held by Israel’s conservative government. The key issue was blame. Syria would quickly blame the Israeli government—which had been bombing missile shipments along their border—and wouldn’t even try for a diplomatic solution. Assad would reach out to Iran instead, and the two countries would probably wage war on their centuries-old enemy.

Adrenaline surging, Raff stood and paced the apartment until his heartbeat quieted. He downed his beer, took a seat, and launched phase two. This time, he was looking for a proxy computer in Iran he could take over. Messing with Israeli money would be much more challenging, but he had to try. If successful, he would move funds into a global charity that aided Palestinian camps all over the Middle East. Maybe his grandmother would get some relief. Or maybe an Israeli missile would kill her first. Either way, it would be better than the life she lived now.

Jews, Arabs, Sunni, and Shia. They were all the same people, but couldn’t stop bombing each other. They might as well wage all-out war and get it over with. He kind of hoped it would go nuclear. If no one in the region was left standing—including his grandmother—the world would be a better place. If Spencer was right and humans were doomed in the next couple of decades, there wasn’t much to lose by trying.

A social networking site set up by Iranian college students proved to be vulnerable. Raff soon had full access to a computer in Tehran.

A knock on the door startled him. “Who is it?” Raff darkened his monitor and pushed to his feet.

“It’s Sonja. Is it too late for a drink?”

Yes! Please let this be a booty call.
His sexual encounters could be counted on one hand, but some chicks got off on geeks. Unfortunately, they never came back for more.
Remember to look her in the eyes,
he thought, closing his browser. Raff jumped up and hurried to the door.

“It’s never too late.” He held open the door, noting she’d changed from the clothes she’d been wearing earlier when she’d gone out stargazing.
Too bad.
The baggy shirt she wore now probably wasn’t meant to entice him.

On her way in, Sonja held out a microbrew with a weird label, and he took it. Cheap beer was fine with him, but he’d drink the good stuff if someone else bought it.

“How was the stargazing session?”

“Terrific. It’s great being out here with no city lights. I saw Orion more clearly than ever.”

He knew nothing about astronomy, so he smiled and moved on. “I was just thinking about how I miss the city and being able to run out for pizza late at night.”

“Where are you from?”

“New York, originally, but I live in Vegas now.” He was proud of both. “And you?”

“Phoenix. It’s not Vegas, but you can find just about anything in the middle of the night, including a dentist.”

Raff laughed. “So what the hell are you doing here?”

“Cooling off.” She smiled and sat in the armchair.

Damn
. He’d wanted to get close to her on the couch. He plopped down across from her. “Seriously. This is the middle of nowhere. Why Destiny?”

“My fiancé died.”

“You told me that, but I mean, why here? Why not Maui or Vegas or someplace fun?” Wrong thing to say, he realized. Sonja was feeling lost and lonely, and he didn’t want to blow his chance with her. “Are you really into the prepper thing?”

“Of course. I think the shit could hit the fan at any moment. North Korea is especially scary right now, and the jihadists never give up. Every major city is vulnerable to an attack of some kind.”

“I know what you mean. I was ten when the towers were hit. My dad was a stockbroker who died that day.” Sometimes that line made girls soften toward him.

“I’m sorry. That was a crappy day for all of us.” She pulled a fifth of vodka from her oversized bag. “Let’s get drunk.”

“Now you’re talking.” Raff stood. “I’ll get some shot glasses.”

After the first round, Sonja asked, “Why are you here, Raff? A young tech guy from the city in an isolated rural community?”

“I’m just doing a job for Spencer. I’ll be gone in a week.”

“What kind of job?” Sonja poured two more shots and gave him a sexy smile.

She was so pretty! “Just a tech job and not something I can talk about. Client confidentiality.”

“Huh.” She picked up her shot of vodka and gestured for him to do the same. “To the future, whatever it holds.”

They belted down another round, and Raff felt it go directly to his head. The two slices of pizza he’d had for dinner were long gone from his belly.

* * *

Dallas was curious as hell. Destiny seemed to be preparing for a step back in time, so why had they hired a hacker for a short-term job? Some kind of cyber theft?

“What do you do for fun, Raff?” She grinned. “Besides vodka shots, I mean.”

“I play chess and go to strip bars.”

Chess? Excellent.
“Do you have a board? Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“It’s back home. But you’re on. We’ll play on screen.” His eyes lit up for the first time, and he grabbed his laptop from the desk.

Damn.
She’d have to sit next to him on the couch. She preferred an old-fashioned board game, but she also played online. Her favorite competitor was a fourteen-year-old boy in Taiwan, but he hadn’t been around lately. “Let’s make this interesting. Every time someone loses a piece, they have to take a shot. In the end, the loser has to tell a secret.”

“Any secret?”

“Just the one I want to know.” She playfully punched his arm. “You’re going down.”

Dallas didn’t know if she could beat him, but if he got buzzed enough he might tell her what she wanted to know anyway. “Excuse me for a minute.”

She scooted to the bathroom, turned on the water, and vomited up the last two shots. She had to stay relatively sober to make this work, and she couldn’t afford a hangover in the morning. Puking on cue had been her specialty as a child, and she’d used it to distract her bickering parents sometimes… and to get out of stupid school assignments.

She looked around for mouthwash and found a prescription bottle of Zoloft instead. Raff didn’t seem like someone who took antidepressants—but then, who did? A dab of toothpaste would have to suffice. She didn’t plan to kiss him anyway. He was
so
not her type.

Back in the living room, Raff had a chessboard displayed on screen. “Black or white?”

“Black. You can move first.”
Let’s get this over with.

His first few moves were classic, but Dallas was setting up for a blockade. She soon captured his knight, and he groaned but cheerfully took a shot of vodka. After twenty minutes, he’d taken four more shots, and she’d had three. Raff stared at the board longer and longer between moves and finally said, “I’m too drunk to do this.”

“You concede?” Dallas had a good buzz, but she hadn’t lost track of her mission. She never did.

“Yes. You win, but let’s play again when we’re sober.” His words were so slurred she could barely understand him.

“You have to tell me a secret now.” She squeezed his hand for effect. “I want to know what your job is. I’m fascinated by it.”

“All I can say is I’m a hacker.” He closed his eyes and leaned back on the couch.

Shit.
He was going to pass out. “I knew that, so it’s not a secret. Tell me more. It’s only fair.”

He mumbled something, but Dallas didn’t understand. She leaned in. “What did you say?”

He mumbled again, then fell over on the couch, like a sleeping cow. She thought she heard “financial test.” When she realized what that might mean, a shiver went up her spine.

“I’ll let myself out.” Dallas headed to the bathroom again and upchucked more vodka. It didn’t change how buzzed she felt, but it would keep her functioning and make the morning more pleasant. Her taste and tolerance for alcohol was a genetic given, but her parents’ overall worthlessness made her treat the stuff with some caution. It would be easy to fall into daily excessive drinking.

Dallas waited in the bathroom for ten minutes, entertaining herself with her cell phone. She wanted to contact her team, but her work phone was hidden back in her apartment, and there was no point in risking the use of her Sonja phone. She had to keep it clean in case creepy Randall kept snooping around. The report could wait. With any luck, she’d have real intel in a few minutes.

She moved quietly into the living room where Raff was still unconscious on the couch. His laptop was on the coffee table. Keeping an eye on Raff, she grabbed the computer and took a seat in the chair. She downsized the browser, leaving it open in case Raff woke up. She would say she was finishing their chess game.

Not a single folder showed on the desktop. No surprise. People with things to hide didn’t leave their data on display. She opened the browser history tab and nothing displayed. He had either cleared it before he let her in or he had his computer programmed to keep it clear. She glanced over at Raff. Still out of it.

Determined to learn something, she tried to access his hard drive, but a dialog box came up, asking for a password. Knowing she was wasting her time, Dallas tried ten guesses—all geeky references to digital technology. No luck. Tech people used random letters and symbols for passwords, and they changed them often.

Raff started to snore. Instead of being reassuring, the sound unnerved her. Dallas quickly began opening programs, hoping their file histories might give her a clue. Nothing. The hacker was careful and paranoid. Even if she’d been sober and thinking at full capacity, this computer was beyond her skills. She thought about the computers in the data center in Spencer’s house. Would they be as well-guarded? Those were the ones she really wanted to access.

Dallas reminded herself that her mission was to find Emma Clayton and her baby. The
financial test
was secondary. She couldn’t blow her chance to save a woman’s life by letting curiosity or ambition override her primary goal. She would report the information to Gibson and let him decide what to do with it. McCullen would get a copy of the report.

Dallas opened the browser again and left the chess game displaying. As she slipped out, she wondered if Raff had his computer programmed to record her snooping. If he did, would he tell Spencer—or worse, Randall—that she couldn’t be trusted?

Thursday, May 9, 5:45 p.m.

Luke Caldwell took the last pull from his thermos, grabbed his overnight bag, and walked into the motel. He planned to stay in this rundown little town until someone found his daughter, even if he had to do it himself. Emma and Tate had been missing for a week! As much as he loved his baby girl, a quiet anger kept bubbling to the surface. If only she’d followed his advice and had taken that job in Sacramento instead. If only she’d listened to him and not married Randall Clayton. The guy was such a smug, smooth manipulator. He’d been a politician, for chrissake, and seemed as slick and phony as a used-car salesman.

Luke also wanted to slap his hypochondriac ex-wife for asking Emma to stay with her and not telling him. He could have warned his little girl that leaving a control freak like Randall could be dangerous. Now his sweet baby grandson was gone, and he might never see him again.

“Did you want a room, sir?”

The clerk’s impatience jerked Luke out of his thoughts. “Of course.” He reached for his wallet. “I’d like to be on the end, if possible.” He hated listening to other people’s chit chat, noisy sex, and stupid TV shows.

“Sorry, those are taken.” The guy didn’t look concerned.

“I’ll be here for a while. As soon as one opens up, I want to change rooms.”

“Do you want to pay for a week in advance? It’s a better rate.”

“No. If I stay a week, you can give me the rate then.”

The clerk started to object, then closed his mouth.

“Where’s a decent place to get a drink around here? Friendly but not too gay.”

The girly-looking clerk rolled his eyes. “The Highland is three blocks down, and it’s popular with hunters and outdoor sportsmen.”

Luke was familiar with the place. Emma had been working there when the Claytons bought it. He didn’t want to give the bastards any of his money.

A few minutes later, he dropped his bag on a ratty chair and turned on the TV. While he watched the news, he ate the second meatloaf sandwich he’d packed that morning. He could afford to eat out and stay in a nicer place, but why should he? This wasn’t a vacation.

Around eight, he got thirsty and headed out, walking in the direction the clerk had pointed. The sun was low in the sky, and the noisy traffic had eased. For a moment, Luke enjoyed the fresh air with its perfect temperature and slight breeze. Then a sports car passed with loud thumping music and spoiled it.
Punk!

He’d planned to find somewhere else to get a drink, but changed his mind and headed into The Highland. The tavern was his kind of place. Dark paneling, long accessible bar, big-screen TVs, and sports-themed pictures and signs. He moved past the half-empty tables. A good-looking blonde with plenty of cleavage was behind the counter. Luke eased onto a barstool and felt instantly better. The bartender came over and gave him a professional smile. “What are you drinking, sir?”