“On being Secret Service agents,” replied Michelle.
“I’m Special Forces. If it comes to it, we’re used to close-quarter combat a lot more than you guys.”
Michelle looked at him. “But you liked all the guys you fought with?”
“Of course. You go in willing to die for the guy next to you.”
“Did you ever have to eat a bullet for someone you didn’t like?” asked Sean.
“No,” said Wingo.
“It kind of sucks,” added Michelle. “But it’s in the job description for the Secret Service.”
“And it gives you perspective,” amended Sean.
“Such as?” asked Wingo.
“Such as never let the other guys see what you’re looking at. It’s why we all wore reflective shades. Now let’s get to work.”
Grant was at the radio station.
The construction work was done. Those workers were now gone and had been replaced with another set. These were not muscular young men. They didn’t carry guns. They did not act macho. Their weapon was their brain. Their bullet was their keyboard. They were cyber warriors.
He made his way around the interior of the old building with the new guts that had transformed it into a state-of-the-art tech center with only one goal.
Focused mayhem.
That meant one act that would bring cataclysmic events across the globe. Grant didn’t really care about that part of the equation. Others could reap the benefits from that. He was just righting a wrong. It was that simple. He was not going to let his focus waver from that.
A reader outside the vault scanned his retina and he entered the space, the only one with access here. He sat in front of a bank of computers and studied each of them. Progress was being made. His bird in the sky was searching for what it needed. It was like a private detective looking for a thread that would provide him a solid lead, which would coalesce into a suspect that could end in an arrest and a conviction.
Only the elements were bunches of ones and zeros instead of flesh and blood, and his sleuthing was confined to wireless data zipping across the ether. The system they were trying to crack had more than thirty million lines of code. There were many ways inside, but once inside the malware to be planted had to remain hidden. And that limited the possible ports of entry.
Grant continued to watch the unique confrontation taking place on the computer screen. It was a delicate ballet of choreographed movements, feints, probes, counterattacks, and more sparring. It was actually far more intriguing than any clash on the ground involving guns and bombs. They were brutally efficient killing devices. But they lacked the intellectual purity, the high level of sophistication needed to carry off something like this.
With any other target Grant would have been successful by now. But his target wasn’t just any target. It was heavily protected. It was known to have threats against it. It was one of the most famous targets in the world, in fact. And it had never been seriously threatened. But that didn’t make it invulnerable. That just made it challenging, and Grant loved a challenge. Even the best security sometimes grew lax as year after year passed and no successful attack was ever launched against it. That was why he had a chance to do what no one else had ever done before.
And he noted, with a degree of confidence, that the barriers to entry depicted on the screen were falling one by one. In fact, given this burn rate, he would be through in a shorter period of time than he thought.
He drew out the itinerary for which he had killed Milo Pratt. He ran his eye down the column and finally settled on one that appeared to be in the window of possibilities. He sat back in his chair and dreamed what had for so long seemed the impossible dream.
Revenge. And justice. Two of the most potent desires in the world. They were not mutually exclusive. In fact, thought Grant, they went hand in hand extremely well. His father had killed himself over a scandal not of his making. Now the current president was attempting a similar and equally misguided maneuver on the world’s geopolitical stage. Well, this time the administration would pay the price. Grant’s learning of the plan had been the prime reason behind the timing of his operation. It had come none too soon. The grief over his parents’ deaths was becoming unbearable.
Well, it was finally about to end.
CHAPTER
67
“WHERE DO WE DO THE exchange?” said Wingo.
The call h
ad come at last, the next night when the rain was howling outside and the temperature had plummeted as the storm system struck the region.
The filtered voice was mechanical, but the words it spoke were stunning. “There will be no exchange.”
Sean and Michelle, who were listening in because Wingo was using the speakerphone feature on his cell, exchanged a sharp glance.