Hacker Beloved, page 11
“I don’t want to chance what the killer might do,” I shot back.
“You will not go to the basement. Get your ass out of this bank…or I will come over there, throw your ass over my shoulder, and carry you out myself,” Asher threatened.
“Let’s take emotions out of this for a second,” Antonio said.
Asher's voice cut through the comm, drowning out Antonio, “On this one, you don’t have a say.”
The two brothers argued back and forth. After flipping the deadbolt, I was startled to find Mr. Kline so close to the door.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
My gaze surveyed the room and landed on Antonio. He had a brow up, almost like a challenge.
“Yes,” I replied.
I turned to follow the bank manager. When I moved, I caught sight of the front doors being pushed open, and a truly angry Asher strode into the bank. Mr. Kline opened the door to the back area, and I slipped through before Asher could make it to my side.
“Get your ass back out here,” Asher ordered.
I ignored him and continued down the long white hall filled with employees walking between offices. When we reached the end of the walkway, Mr. Kline hit the elevator button. A pair of silver doors slid open, and we walked inside. He swiped his keycard against a reader above the elevator keypad. The buttons lit up, and he hit the one with the letter, B.
“Zayla’s in the elev—” the comm cut out as I descended. The reality that I had nobody watching me struck like a punch in the gut. But I was too close to what we needed to turn back now. The doors opened, and we proceeded into a marble room.
To the left sat a man dressed as a security guard watching footage of the building.
“It’s not much farther, Miss. Solace,” The deeper we went into the basement, the more the air became stale. We turned right, and before us was the large circular door to the vault, open.
“This door is tied to the security system. If the alarm is triggered, it will close automatically and lock for forty-eight hours. When we are inside if at any time it does start to close, get out quickly. The vault is air tight and you wouldn’t have enough oxygen for more than five hours.”
I ducked as I crossed through the passageway. Inside, each wall was lined with at least forty safes. The bank manager led me over to the right wall and pointed to my father’s safe.
“Could I have some privacy?”
Mr. Kline nodded. “If you need me, I’ll be with the guard.”
I waited a while to make sure he wasn’t near. “Can you hear me?” My plea was met with silence. My fear was confirmed, the comm didn’t work.
There was nothing I could do to fix it. I turned my attention to the safe and typed in the eight-digit number, but the pin pad flashed red. My fingers wrapped around the scratched piece of paper, and I glanced at the letters again. The word on the paper referenced my sixth birthday, so I typed in the date again, and a loud beep echoed in the vault.
Dad had tried to put hidden tricks in his codes every so often. I stared at the letters and wheeled them to jump off the paper. That’s when I read it backward, and the code referenced the war movie we’d watched, and I had one more idea. It was a long shot, but I pushed the first seven numbers. Dad had told me never to forget that date, because it was the day we created a new language. I’d need to remember when someone wrote about it in history. I took a deep breath before I hit the eighth digit.
The safe made a grinding noise. When it stopped I grabbed the handle and twisted it to the right. A tape recorder and a stack of folders were lying inside. I pulled the recorder and slipped it into my back pocket. Next, I pulled out what everyone wanted, but there wasn’t a place I could set up to review the documents. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so my finger curled around the edge of the folder. When I was about to flip it open, an ear-piercing siren blared. The sound startled me, and the files in my hand scattered to the floor. I dropped to my knees to start picking them up. Out of the corner of my eye, the vault door started to close. My hands shook as I reached for the folders. One slid to the back of the room. I rushed to grab it. When I turned, the door was half closed. I jogged to make it out of the room. When I made it to the midsection, my heel slid, and I latched on to a safe near me to keep my balance.
I straightened myself and sprinted the last couple of feet only to barely fit through the closing gap. Mr. Kline ran down the hall. “We have to get back upstairs. One of the employees accidentally hit the alarm. I’m the only one who can turn it off.”
We both jogged down the hall, he jabbed the elevator button, and the doors opened. The alarm echoed even louder in the small metal enclosure. He was out the door before they even fully opened. In the halls, people screamed to talk over the constant alarm.
“Fuck you scared us, Zayla. Get your ass out of there!” CJ’s voice crackled through my earpiece.
“Can you hear me?”
“Where are you?” Asher yelled.
“In the hall about to come out. Is it safe?”
“Yes,” CJ said. “A teller bumped into another teller. When the woman fell forward, she hit a cart that flew into the panic button.”
I cradled the documents close as I stepped back into the lobby. Asher was next to me immediately with his hand resting on my lower back. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Okay,” I said. A sharp pain went through my pelvic area. For a moment, I thought it was the cramps I experienced during ovulation. I couldn’t hold back a scream as a second and more powerful jolt shot through my lower abdomen. My vision blurred and my legs felt like Jell-O. Asher's face came in and out of focus while his mouth opened and closed. I couldn’t hear him. No matter how hard I tried to keep the folders against my chest, I couldn’t. My arms went numb, and my legs gave out. Asher turned into a mash of colors before everything went dark.
14
CJ
Paolo’s shoulder bumped into my side as he moved closer to the screen. His muscular body wasn’t made for the tight, cramped space of this surveillance van. I’d become accustomed to small spaces and didn’t mind working from the van until this moment. My eyes were locked on the monitor in front of me. Zayla had walked into an elevator. The middle-aged bank manager followed her and a sense of dread washed over me as the doors closed.
“Zaya’s in the elevator,” I informed the rest of the crew.
The comms went silent as I waited for Zayla to say anything. Time ticked by, and nothing came across the channel, not even a word from the bank manager.
“I’m going to spank her ass the second we get her to safety,” Asher growled.
“What’s your position Kat?” Antonio asked.
Kat was supposed to work her way into the room with Zayla. Once they retrieved the documents from the box, Kat planned to climb back up into the ventilation system and bring them out to the van. If Kat couldn't make it to the basement, Zayla would have to walk out with everything.
“I had a perfect entrance into the safety deposit room. When he mentioned the basement, I crawled back to where the ducts split, but nothing goes down to the basement. You're going to need extra hands on the bank floor. I’ll work my way out of here,” Kat said. The entire day I’d monitored the main area of the bank and the back rooms. Every employee that clocked in, I ran through our background check software. What worried me was I hadn’t seen anyone use this elevator. I clicked the mouse and pulled up the floor plans of the bank. For this mission we’d worked off a later set of plans from when the building went through restoration.
What I needed were the original plans, which wouldn’t be hard to find since the building was considered a historical landmark. The New York City Information Services department had a hand-drawn copy. The pencil lines were hard to see against the blue paper. I just clicked on the basement drawing when an ear-piercing alarm blared into my comm link.
I glanced back at the security cameras. Customers and employees weren’t frazzled, but a few held hands over their ears. “What happened? I had the basement drawings up?”
“Check the tape from behind the cashier at the first counter,” Asher yelled.
My finger’s shook as I rewound the video and watched the incident play out. Paolo leaned in closer, the scent of his cigarette filled my nostrils.
“Seems like nothing, boss. Gotta admit, that was one wild sequence of events that triggered it,” Paolo stated.
The alarm button was behind glass protection. I wasn’t sure how it was possible for a cart to break that enclosure.
Asher placed it next to the door that led into the back area of the bank. His deep voice came over the comm. “CJ find a way to unlock this door. We can’t wait any longer.”
If I unlocked the door with the bank’s software, the security team would know someone was in their system, and I would lose my connection. “If I do it, I can’t watch your six.”
My heart ached as I lost sight of the man I loved.
“Nobody has Zayla’s six, and I don’t have time to climb through all the red tape to get to the other side.”
I glanced at the camera pointed toward the elevator. My finger hovered over the unlock button when the doors to the elevator opened and Zayla stepped out.
“Fuck, you scared us, Zayla. Get your ass out of there!”
She had her arms wrapped around a stack of papers as she strode down the hall. When she asked what happened, I summarized what we had seen, but the event still didn’t sit well with me. I wouldn’t feel good until she got her ass out of the building.
The shrill of the bank alarm still pierced through my ear, but I could deal with the annoyance as long as I was able to hear Asher and Zayla’s voices. Asher had a protective arm wrapped around Zayla as they headed for the exit. Antonio and Kat were at the doors, waiting to flank Zayla. As they walked out of the building, the plan started to fall into place. Except Zayla let out a low groan and her feet stumbled.
“What’s going on?” I asked, feeling hopeless in the van.
“No,” I whispered, a real-life scene from a horror film unfolding before my eyes. Zayla’s body went limp and Asher caught her, cradling her in his arms. Kat and Antonio had sprinted over and knelt down next to Asher. I shot up from the chair, knocking over a box of surveillance equipment. I didn’t care, the only thing I needed was to be next to Zayla and Asher.
Paolo grabbed my arm pulling me back. “You need to watch the cameras. I’ll go in since everyone is distracted.”
I glanced back to the screen and knew there was no way I’d not go. “Fuck that. You stay and watch the cameras. If something is off, report it through the comms.”
“He’s right, CJ. Stay in the van,” Antonio’s voice echoed in my ear, but I didn’t listen as I bolted out of the van. Paolo’s curses floated through the comms. I weaved in and out of pedestrians on the busy sidewalk. A few people cursed at me as I pushed my way to the bank.
A security guard stepped in front of me. “You can’t come in, sir.”
“My girlfriend just collapsed inside.” I didn’t wait for his response as I pushed by and jogged the last few feet. Asher had Zayla cradled in his arms.
Kat’s fingers were pressed against her wrist. “It’s like she was injected with Propofol.”
“Impossible. Nobody was near her besides me. That shit hits fast. She also didn’t say anything when she was coming toward us.”
“Let’s get her to the hospital. Paolo bring the van to the front.” Antonio paused; his gaze locked on the floor.
My eyes followed. “How is that possible?”
Kat pinched the brow of her nose. “We were distracted. Between this damn alarm and Zayla going down, we didn’t keep our eyes on the files.”
We rushed toward the exit. Before we stepped outside, I glanced over my shoulder and scanned the room. The bank manager had his back on me. His larger body was covering up the person he spoke with, but I couldn’t help noticing the stack of files the unknown subject held. I planned to check the cameras to see who that was.
Paolo drove the van partially up on the curb. Kat had the doors swung open. We all crawled into the small area, and I sat next to Asher. Antonio took the seat across from us and pulled Kat onto his lap since there were no more open seats.
“Get us to Luxe Medical Hospital,” Antonio barked.
I grabbed Zayla’s limp hand and held it. Mine and Asher’s eyes met. His eyes filled with tears, and he blinked rapidly. “This is my fault,” Asher whispered over the blaring of a car horn.
“The fuck it is. Hell, we don’t even know what is wrong,” I pointed out. My thoughts went to Zayla’s neighbor and how the implant in her arm had poisoned her. The killer kept making threats to Zayla’s life. Asher had asked the Raleigh police to exhume a couple of other bodies to see if any of the victims had a device in their bodies. “After they check her vitals and take a blood sample. We need to have her body scanned for any devices. What happened? Asher and I missed the device in her body.”
Asher’s head snapped up. “We checked every inch of her body.”
I nodded. “But we looked for something like the neighbor had. It could be smaller.”
“The hospital knows we are on the way,” Antonio said. “Dr. Paxton Renolds, along with his brothers, are taking Dad’s plane and will be here in about three hours. This hospital has a private helicopter landing pad so they can get from the airport to the hospital without issue.”
“Hold on,” Paolo yelled from the front of the van.
With one hand, I grabbed a bar attached to the side. With my other hand, I reached across Zayla and Asher and helped brace them. The tires screeched as Paolo took the corner. A horn blared as the van tilted a second time, but in the other direction.
The vehicle came to a screeching halt, and the back doors flew open. We were greeted by a team of doctors and nurses. Asher crawled out of the van still holding Zayla. and I was a step behind him, but a nurse cut off my path as Asher placed Zayla in the center of a gurney.
“I’m Dr. Lynn. Can you tell us anything about her collapse?” The tall woman asked.
Asher scrubbed a hand over his face. “She was fine one second and out the next. There is a possibility someone implanted a device in her and could have poisoned her.”
The doctor’s green eyes blinked a couple of times. “Okay. Let’s get her into the hospital and start running tests.”
I reached out and twined my fingers with Asher’s as we followed the team of medical professionals. Two large glass doors slid open, and the faint scent of disinfectant filled the air. Another set of doors opened near the check-in counter. Asher and I were only a few steps behind, but a nurse stopped our progress. “Let us check her over. As soon as Dr. Lynn has information, she’ll come to see you.”
“Is she going into surgery?” I asked.
“No,” the woman’s eyes softened. “Let us do our job. I promise she is in good hands.”
Kat strode over and placed her hand on my forearm. “You will only be in the way. They have a sitting area right over there.”
I glared down at Kat. “Are you fucking serious? I watched you fight four security guards to get to Antonio when he was in surgery, and you couldn’t even enter the room. I’ve never known you to be a hypocrite, Kat.”
“We will give you an update soon,” the nurse stated. I turned to tell her I would be going with her, but she’d already slipped through the door, and it closed. My fingers were wrapped around the handle, but it didn’t budge.
“CJ,” Kat said softly. “You’re right. I’ve done that on not one, but three occasions. And I can stand here and say I won’t do it again, but the words would be a lie. What I can tell you though, is one of my incidents caused complications in Antonio’s surgery. Hospitals are my kryptonite. Each time I step through the doors of any medical center, that faint scent of bleach mixed with a hint of latex sends my mind hurtling years in the past. I relive the day I woke up, and Juan told me Antonio had died. I hate thinking about the years I spent as a shell of a person, because I didn’t have the man I loved anymore. Only to find out he was alive, and Juan had deceived me.”
Damn it. I dropped Asher’s hand and wrapped my arms around Kat. Not very often did I see her cry, and if you called her on it, she would deny it even as tears dripped down her face. “I feel hopeless.”
Asher placed his hand on my back. “Let’s all have a seat and regroup. Zayla’s going to need us when she wakes up.”
Paolo leaned against the wall in the waiting room. He had my backpack in his hand. Asher was right. We needed to figure out who took the documents. I yanked my laptop out of the bag and tapped the power button. Asher sat right next to me and his shoulder brushed against mine. The simple touch eased a tiny bit of my anxiety.
When my computer finished powering up, I clicked on the icon that gave me access to my virtual server. The system still had the bank video feed. It didn’t take long to get back to the exact location. Zayla had walked out the back area’s door. Asher wrapped his arm around her waist, and the scene played out as Zayla dropped the folders and fell to the ground. Asher’s attention was on Zayla. The front door opened, and a person walked in, but a blur covered their image making it impossible to see who it was.
“Can you fix that?” Asher asked.
At the DEFCON Hacker convention this year, I’d sat on a panel that listened to startups pitch ideas for funding. I recalled that one of them was a woman who’d developed a reflective material that caused a person to look like a reflective star. I had thought it was interesting, but the cost of the clothing was out of control. Plus, I didn’t think the market for it would be that big. In the end nobody invested in that company.
“No, the material is causing that reflection, and the camera didn’t pick up the image.”
Antonio dropped into the chair on my other side. “Can you do anything to the video to try to get a better image? Because she took the documents.”
