Zero Hour Read online

  “How do you know it’s Lassiter?”

  “I was there when they made the deal! Lassiter is working on a commission! He’s broke! Whatever the U.S. loses, he gets ten percent.”

  “That could be a huge pile of money.”

  “Yes! Help me!”

  “Not yet. Who is Lassiter working with?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “He can’t be doing this alone. If he faked his death, somebody has to be moving around in public on his behalf.”

  Greshnev made another squeal. Sweating profusely now. Tatiana didn’t blink as she watched him.

  “Somebody. . .” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Somebody in San Francisco! A tech CEO! I don’t know his name!”

  Tatiana pressed her lips together. You could throw a rock in San Francisco and hit a tech CEO. It wasn’t enough to go on, but if that’s all Greshnev had it was a good start.

  And then she realized who the CEO might be. Lassiter had once worked for the U.S. government, but at the time of his “death” there was another man he was working for. There was no reason to believe they’d severed their connection.

  “If I give you the antidote, what are you going to do?”

  “Go home!”

  “And?”

  “Never tell anybody about this!”

  “Good boy.”

  Tatiana moved her hand away from her privates, licked her fingers, and reached behind her neck where the vial of antidote was taped to her neck. She broke the cap and leaned over Greshnev, forcing his mouth open. She poured the liquid onto his tongue and pushed his mouth closed. Greshnev swallowed.

  Tatiana sat on the table again. “There. Was that so hard?”

  Greshnev was still shaking.

  Chapter Five

  Devlin Stone blinked in surprise when he finally realized he’d been staring at his drink for an inordinate amount of time. He felt surprised to be sitting in the plush leather chair. He frowned at the glass of scotch. Yes, he’d poured it in the galley after take-off, but then disappeared inside his mind during the beginning of the flight. Coming back was like waking up from a deep sleep even though his eyes had been wide open the whole time.

  The cabin of the private jet was insulated very well from the roar of the outside engines, but he still heard a low drone as the jet rocketed across the ocean heading for San Diego.

  He wasn’t feeling right for a couple of reasons. The first was from being pulled out of a major operation where he’d expected to spend more time. The second was being pulled out because his friend and mentor Monty Stuart had leaped to his death.

  Stone’s life from age 16 on had been one roller coaster after another.

  It began when drug cartel thugs waited for his family to visit their vacation cabin in Northern California before setting the place on fire, leaving all but Devlin dead. Brad Preston, now the Director of the Eagle Alliance, arrived on-scene as Devlin made his way out, and grabbed the teenager for a fast getaway since the cartel would be coming back to check for survivors. Stone would never forget the regret in the man’s voice when he said, “I’m sorry I was too late.”

  Preston and his wife adopted Devlin and helped him recover and finish his education, where upon graduating high school Stone signed a six-year hitch with the Marine Corps and saw the world and killed a few people in the continuing “War on Terror” which seemed more and more to Stone as a way for war profiteers to fill their coffers.

  When he mustered out, he contacted Preston for a job with Eagle Alliance. Preston not only brought him aboard, but gave him his father’s old job. Apparently, the elder Stone had been an operative for Eagle’s Z Section, the department that handled the kind of covert mission the U.S. government’s alphabet agencies didn’t want to handle.

  He also gave Stone his father’s eagle’s head ring, the sterling silver piece around the ring finger of his right hand.

  Preston teamed Stone with a man named Monty Stuart, a Z Section legend, for field training and learning the overall ropes of the organization.

  For Stone, Preston had become his second father; Stuart was the brother he’d lost.

  Neither had forged a bond by saving the others’ life, as so often happened in Stone’s experience, but they enjoyed many of the same things (fine cigars, cars, women), and their rather dark senses-of-humor complimented each other. They completed their assignments with little mess, and eventually Stuart put in his retirement papers and moved to New York City with his wife. They’d both been born there, and Stuart wanted to get away from the sunshine and smell a real city once again.

  And now, Stuart was dead.

  Stone knew Monty had lost his wife a year or two previously; he’d missed the funeral, but sent a card.

  Stone knew Monty suffered from depression, and used medication, and he wondered if the weight finally became too much for him to carry.

  Either way, it was a tragic ending to a great man who quietly served his country and expected nothing in return except to live out his remaining years in the city he loved.

  Stone finally took a drink of the scotch. The ice had watered it down. He downed the glass.

  He had a feeling the scotch would be the first of many over the next few days.

  His phone beeped.

  Stone set his refilled glass down on the table beside him and read the text message.

  From Preston, advising him that his chief-of-staff, Allen Huff, would meet Stone at the airport. Preston ordered him to come directly to headquarters.

  When the plane landed at San Diego International, Stone and the plane’s crew cleared customs, then the jet taxied over to the Eagle Alliance hanger where Allen Huff was indeed waiting with a car. They climbed into the quiet Lincoln and Huff drove away from the airport.

  “What the hell’s going on, Allen?” Stone said.

  Allen Huff looked young enough to be fresh out of college, but before joining the Eagle Alliance he’d been a career F.B.I. man working white collar crimes. A bullet in the hip forced him from the Bureau, but he found a similar home with the Alliance.

  “I don’t know any more than you,” Allen said. “We know he jumped from the roof of his apartment, and I know there was a note. Preston has a copy.”

  Stone shut his mouth. Maybe that’s why he wanted Stone to report directly from the airport. Stone, of course, would have preferred a stop at his apartment first, but if the “suicide” required the attention of Z Section, maybe there was more going on than Stone realized.

  But he didn’t want to follow that rabbit hole too far. There was certain solace to the idea that Stuart had been murdered rather than take his own life, because such a scenario provided a beginning and ending, a narrative Stone could follow. A suicide left too many questions, the opposite of a neat narrative where everything was explained. If somebody had killed Stuart, Stone could find out why, and take revenge. The act wouldn’t bring Stuart back, but it might make Stone feel better, and at least make sure the enemy didn’t get away with their crime.

  But no. Stuart’s suicide was a reality they had to face, and if there was anything in the note for Stone specifically, he’d find out soon enough.

  “Have you seen the note, Allen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what’s in it.”

  “I’m not sure I’m the best person to relay that information, Devlin.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The note is giving everybody from Langley to Capitol Hill a case of the shits.”

  “They’re freaking out? Why?”

  “The note refers to somebody Stuart killed on a mission, but who is actually still alive.”

  Stone blinked. What the hell had Stuart written?

  “If it’s true,” Huff said, “we need to find the man and make sure we kill him for good this time before he sabotages the power grid or hacks a nuclear bomb and makes it tap dance.”

  “I’m not following, Allen.”

  “Preston will tell you. Simon Lassit
er is the man’s name, and you’ll get familiar with him very quickly because he’s your target.”

  Stone had more questions, but they would have to wait. The tall gray high rise housing the offices of the Eagle Alliance rose in the distance.

  Brad Preston was waiting for Stone on the roof of the high rise, sitting among the planted hedgerows that required constant attention from a gardening team, who also handled the other flowers and plant life spread around the roof. Preston designed the area as a quiet place of contemplation for employees, but nobody except him ever took advantage. As high as they were, the only real noise came from the wind. The cars on the street were too far away to pollute the air with engine noises.

  Stone sat at the wrought-iron table across from Preston.

  Brad Preston was pushing 70 with a jowly face and full head of white hair. He fiddled with a tablet computer. He stopped fiddling and looked sadly at Stone.

  “Awful news.”

  “The worst.”

  “How are you taking it?”

  “I’m very confused right now, Brad.”

  Preston nodded. “Of course. Let’s see if we can help make you the opposite.”

  Preston used the covering flap on the tablet case to shield the monitor from the bright sun above. He tapped the screen and opened a folder of pictures.

  “Does the name Simon Lassiter mean anything to you?”

  “Not now, and not a few minutes ago when Allen mentioned it. Who is this clown? Did he kill Monty?”

  “Indirectly.”

  “I’m getting tired of indirect answers, Brad.”

  Preston showed the tablet to Stone. The picture displayed showed a man in his 20s in a wrinkled shirt and what might have been three-day-old Levis. His eyes had bags under them.

  “Simon Lassiter, when he worked for the U.S. government.”

  “Doing what?”

  “He was a cyber security expert who helped the government shore up our networks. Then he went rogue and became the world’s most wanted cyber terrorist. He knew everything. We had to revamp all of our security protocols but even that didn’t stop him from raiding a few databases for secrets, which he later sold on the black market.”

  Stone said, “Where does Monty fit in?”

  “Monty’s job was to kill Lassiter. We had him pinpointed in Paris, dead to rights. Monty went in and made the kill.”

  “Except he didn’t.”

  “That’s what his note said, Devlin.”

  “He deliberately didn’t kill Lassiter?”

  “Monty and the rest of us were convinced he did.” Preston pulled the tablet back to him and tapped the screen. “You might as well read the note for yourself. There’s a second note attached. Lassiter wrote Monty just before Monty jumped.”

  “Taunting him?”

  “Read for yourself.”

  Stone wanted context so he read the second note first.

  The one from Simon Lassiter.

  The cyber expert indeed taunted Monty, starting with the opening line of “coming back from the dead”.

  The note went on to explain how Monty had killed the wrong man, a lookalike, having been lured into a situation to make him believe it was indeed Lassiter but Lassiter played him like a fiddle and it was all staged. At the end of the letter, Lassiter bragged about doing something that would make Monty wish he really had killed him, because the “big thing” would hurt a “crap ton” of people.

  Lassiter did not get specific with his threat.

  The cyber expert’s note made Monty’s explanation a little easier to understand. Stuart, who mentioned straight off that this was the last straw, he’d been at the end of his rope ever since Suzi passed, claimed that he’d really and truly believed he’d killed Lassiter and this taunting letter turned his greatest accomplishment into his greatest failure.

  Stone returned the tablet to Preston.

  “Remarks?” Preston said.

  “Why taunt him?”

  “Lassiter thinks he’s invincible,” Preston said. “Huge ego. Always had one.”

  “What is he up to that he wants to announce his presence? He knows we’ll be after him.”

  “Lassiter is now associated with Earl Bryant, who runs a human resources / financial management company that sells cloud-based software resources to companies for payroll and benefits and stuff like that. A lot of government clients, but mostly private clients.”

  “Is he aware of Lassiter’s background?”

  “Of course. They’re old friends. We think now that Bryant has been hiding Lassiter for the last several years, using his expertise to develop his software applications, and bringing him out now for whatever big show they have planned.”

  “It’s not hard to think of what they might plan,” Stone said. “Cloud-based software means they have reverse-access to client computers, mainframes, you name it. If you’re connected to the cloud, they have a way into your system. Malware, viruses, anything. They can sabotage networks nation-wide.”

  “Private sector and government,” Preston said. “What we need to find out is what they’re planning, how they want to implement the plan, and stop them.”

  “How?”

  “Bryant’s company is based in San Francisco. Every year they shut down several city blocks, fill up hotels, and generally make a huge mess during his Future Dreams Conference. You have one week.”

  “Why a time limit? If we know where Bryant is--”

  “Lassiter is making a keynote speech. He’ll be there. He’s being billed as the designer behind Bryant’s latest updates, and the tech crowd is hotly anticipating his remarks.”

  “So, he isn’t dead, he’s out in the open, he’s probably still wanted for whatever material he stole back in the day, and the F.B.I. isn’t rounding him up? This doesn’t make sense, Brad.”

  “Yes, it does. I had to go to the top. To The Man himself.”

  Stone frowned. The Man = The President.

  “I asked if we could have the case, because of Monty.”

  Stone nodded.

  “We have one week. If we fail, then the F.B.I. and whoever else the president calls steps in to handle Lassiter.”

  “We won’t fail. I won’t fail.”

  “I know you won’t. But remember our recent conversations. Don’t let your emotions get in the way of good judgement.”

  “How am I supposed to do that? My friend is dead.”

  “You’ll find a way. In the meantime, see Victoria in the lab. She has some goodies for you that will help. You’re going in alone. No back-up unless you need it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Stone said, rising from the chair. The legs scraped on the concrete slab under his feet. “Lassiter and Bryant and anybody else associated with this scheme are about to get annihilated.”

  Stone left the table.

  Chapter Six

  The Lab. Otherwise known as the Magic Factory.

  The crew that worked in the lab worked on the special equipment used by Z Section operatives and regular Eagle Alliance mercs in the field.

  Victoria Hood was in charge of the Lab; she was also Stone’s on-again-off-again main squeeze. He wasn’t exactly sure how to define their relationship, and she didn’t offer any assistance in the area. They seemed to provide what the other needed from time to time, either companionship or a quick screw, and while it seemed to work for her, he wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the arrangement.

  But he wasn’t trying to stop it, either.

  Technicians hunched over pieces of gear at open work stations filled the Lab as Stone walked through, nobody noticing he was there despite the huge difference in attire. His street clothes clashed with their white lab coats.

  He found Victoria behind her desk in a small back corner office. He knocked on the doorframe. She looked up from what she’d been reading. She smiled.

  “Back already?”

  “Premature return,” he said. “Monty Stuart and all that.”

  Her smile faded. “I heard. I’m v
ery sorry.”

  Stone frowned. He supposed one of the reasons they were on-again-off-again was that sometimes Victoria could be a cold fish, as emotional as a brick, and her response to Stuart seemed pre-recorded.

  They had a few things in common. They both liked to surf. They both liked beer.

  Other than that, Stone couldn’t think of anything else.

  Surely there were better women he could spend time with. And not women like Lady Maria, either.

  It was almost as if his line of work only brought him in contact with women he wouldn’t want to bring home to Mom.

  Her being dead didn’t change that.

  He said, “The boss says you have gear for me?”

  She rose from the desk. Her lab coat flew open as she walked, revealing a short black skirt, stockings, and a white blouse.

  She reached into the left pocket of the coat.

  “Just a few things to help you out,” she said. She showed him what she’d taken from the pocket. “This is a USB drive. Installed on the drive is a virus. You can plug this into a server, and infect an entire network.”

  The USB was typical size, maybe the length of a thumb, the outer case red in color.

  She put that down and removed a second USB from her other pocket. This was colored blue.

  “This USB doesn’t have a virus on it, but you can plug it into any computer and copy the hard drive, up to a point, of course.”

  “Sure.”

  “The program will break passwords and stuff like that but it usually takes a few minutes to complete, so make sure you have the time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Quick screw on the desk?” She grinned.

  “In the middle of the Lab?”

  She moved around him to shut her door.

  “There. Nobody will hear.”

  “It’s totally the wrong time, Tori.”

  “Perfect time.” She reached for his belt.

  “Not now.”

  “Why not?”

  She unzipped his fly.

  “At least take off the damn lab coat,” he said.

  She stepped back long enough to shrug off the coat, and then she dropped into a squat in front of him. She had a very athletic body, trim but round in all the right places, and the way her bubble butt stretched against the fabric of the mini-skirt made him grow half hard. She got his pants and pockets down and helped make him all-the-way hard by wrapping slender fingers around his cock and putting her lips on the tip.