Don't Cross This Line (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 14) Read online

  “My ass you are,” she retorted, “Remember Budapest?”

  “That was a miscalculation about the ability of the original owner of the server,” the E.I. answered.

  “Whatever floats your digital boat, you’ve been warned,” she told it.

  Tabitha leaned back in the large leather chair, turning her head this way and that and realized she could still smell the tiniest amount of Michael on the leather, “This chair needs to go back with us.” She looked up to Hirotoshi, “It’ll be a present.”

  He nodded his understanding.

  “Security is bypassed,” Achronyx interrupted at the same time the OS continued past the login screen to finish boot up.

  “Lord of the fantastically crappy GUI,” she muttered as she looked around at the old, large icons, “no wonder those old dudes can’t see shit.” Then, she whistled and pointed to the screen, “This has a Bethany Anne folder on it.”

  “I think the Queen needs to be made aware of this,” Hirotoshi suggested.

  “I…just…but…,” finally, her shoulders slumped, “Ok.”

  She leaned back in her chair and sought the connection she had with Bethany Anne.

  Bethany Anne?

  Yes?

  Busy?

  One second... Nope, good now Tabitha, what’s up?

  I’m at Michael’s house.

  Ok.

  We found something.

  OOoooookay.

  I’m pretty sure that we have Michael’s old laptop, and it has a folder about you on it.

  What’s it say?

  I’ve not opened it, she replied, who do you take me for?

  A hacker that doesn’t know when to stop looking. Is Hirotoshi or Ryu behind you?

  Yes, she admitted, Hirotoshi.

  Ok, that explains the failure of Tabitha to be Tabitha. So, he suggests I know that there is something about me, right?

  Got it in one.

  Do you need to go into that file? Other than itchy fingers that all hackers have, to know shit they shouldn’t know about? Bethany Anne asked, humor coloring her question.

  Dammit, you make it sound like a disease, Tabitha replied.

  It is, a mental disease to be sure. But, we all have mental conditions, and yours works for you. It’s why you make a good Ranger.

  Tabitha didn’t know how to respond to that statement, she hadn’t considered her insatiable curiosity an asset with her Ranger role.

  No, I don’t.

  Ok, then stay focused on your efforts. From what I remember, Carl and probably Michael had some hellacious backdoors all over the…

  YES! Tabitha’s mental mind link practically screamed back.

  Ouch Tabitha! Bethany Anne replied, what the hell?

  Tabitha leaned forward, her hand moving the little red nub on the keyboard to move the cursor around the screen.

  I bet those assholes don’t know all the backdoors Carl had!

  You think there are some Frank or ADAM can’t find?

  Those guys are fucking geniuses, but Michael and his hackers had decades to setup shit. There could be databases that don’t hit the web itself.

  Ok, not that you probably waited, but permission granted to review. Just be careful you don’t wipe the machine before you clone the hard drive, ok?

  Oh…fuck. Yeah, good point. Tabitha replied, a little more contritely as she realized her mistake.

  Yeah, good luck!

  Thanks and bye, boss.

  Barnabas is your boss.

  Yeah, but I don’t like calling him boss when so many other nicknames present themselves.

  Whatever, Tabitha. That’s between you two. Ciao’.

  Ciao’.

  “Achronyx, order me the following computer parts and get them delivered as quickly as possible. Pay whatever is necessary, I want them first thing in the morning.”

  Katsu whispered, “This is New York, there has to be a computer store open this time of the night, right?”

  “Probably,” Hirotoshi admitted, “take a list from Tabitha and find the required hardware.”

  Tabitha looked up at Hirotoshi, “Why not me?”

  “Because, Kimosabe,” he replied, “You can’t go get ice cream without running into someone that you find a need to beat up and toss into a dumpster. I don’t want the New York Police Department arriving on our front door ... again.”

  “Well,” she frowned and then crossed her arms and laid back in the chair. “Shit. Someone hurry and bring me the backup stuff,” she grumped.

  Molenbeeck area, Brussels - Belgium

  Paula kept her head covered in this area. While it might be difficult, perhaps, to kill her, a shot to the face was still a shot to the face. Her special clothing only protected so much.

  She entered a run down establishment, and proceeded to the back, unmolested. Rarely did anyone go to the back who didn’t know who they would find, there.

  There was a tall man, probably somewhat recently returned from fighting in Syria or Iraq. She provided the password, and he knocked three times on the door. A muttered word and the guard replied. The deadbolts were heard as they grated on the metal. The door opened enough for her to slide into the room.

  Inside, she pulled off her head covering and allowed her blond hair to cascade down her shoulders. She hated tying it up.

  She nodded to the three men in the room. No names mentioned. It was appropriate should any listening devices somehow be active near them.

  She slowly reached inside the multiple layers of her outfit and pulled out some rolled up papers, handing them to the man in the middle. He was wearing a Manchester United t-shirt.

  He slipped the rubber bands off the document and opened them up to review. He took the papers and folded them the other way to roll them up and then released, trying to get them to lay flat as he put the five papers on the table.

  Paper one was the job information. Including date, time and offer to help get twenty of his men into position to attack TQB if, in turn, they promised to hit the following location in Europe with eighty of their men. Her people would supply the money for the weapons and help them all arrive in the city from wherever in the world they needed to be picked up.

  The man pointed to the agreement to take twenty of their fighters to space, “You can do this?”

  She nodded agreement.

  “And the money?”

  Again, another nod.

  He looked up to both men who had been looking over his shoulder at the documents. “Do you both agree we do this?”

  The one over his right shoulder shrugged, “If the intelligence is correct with what they are saying here, she will be at the event. So, most of our people will be there.” He looked up to Paula, “You expect these twenty to be a feint?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you believe they will survive,”

  She shook her head, her mouth pressed in a line.

  “I wouldn’t either,” the main man agreed. “They will go to Allah knowing they have helped us pay back the devil herself and take her people down.”

  The man looked over the documents one last time before pushing them together, “Allah has decreed it.”

  Paula nodded her head and grabbed the headdress, pulling her hair back up to tuck it in. In a couple of minutes, she took a left out of the rundown building and twenty minutes later, outside of the Molenbeeck area, she pulled out her own special phone. Typing in the commands, she put it up to her ear, “Patrick? Paula. They have agreed. You still able to get the twenty up to the Base Station? No, they don’t expect them to survive. Yeah, I didn’t expect you to have one of your pilots stick around, either.”

  Paula took a right at the next intersection and then grabbed her head covering and took it off, stuffing it in the nearest trash can.

  “We only agreed to a one-way trip,” she grunted her response to a question from Patrick, hung up, then tucked the phone back in her clothing.

  Not since she had been following Bethany Anne’s protection detail had
Paula felt so insanely happy.

  It had taken years, but her quarry was within her grasp.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kaifeng, Henan Province

  Captain Zi Shun entered the restaurant, one that he and his three friends had used years ago before the time of the clan.

  The time of decimation.

  He and his group resupplied over and over again with new recruits who just became fresh meat in the ongoing war with the changers.

  The cats.

  Jian and Zhu were waiting for him. Based on the empty bottles in front of them, they had been here a while.

  Both men had been promoted, and now commanded their own squads. As the three ‘untouchables,' Shun, Zhu, and Jian had a mythic reputation with the men in the military. The three of them personally responsible for twelve changeling kills over the years. Always offering the dead as a sacrifice for Bai, their friend, who had died during that fateful trek out into the forests.

  All three men had been offered transfers to postings out of the forest patrols. All three respectfully declined.

  How would they get their revenge from within the city?

  Now, they were posted again in Kaifeng because all troops had been pulled back. No one could find the Clan Kings and the fighting, at least with their three groups, had become a stalemate. Captain Shun had brought in technology to register movements, and it became too expensive for the cats to attack, they would always lose at least one, sometimes up to three of their members.

  For the last three months before they were recalled, there had been no headway, and finally, the brass understood it was a hopeless cause. No one had found the technology hurriedly taken out of the mountain temple.

  They had found the empress, or priestess dead. Her arms and head cut off. Rumor had it that TQB was responsible for the death. There had been five bright meteors that entered Chinese airspace from the southeast, and no reported impacts.

  Whatever, Shun had come to the opinion over the years that maybe TQB had the right idea. Governments, even his own, weren’t the right people to have the technology, either.

  Shun waved to the waitress who nodded and went to retrieve a beer for him. He tossed his hat onto the seat and pushed it over as he slid into the half-circle booth. “You two still capable of thought?” He smiled as Zhu hid a rude gesture behind his beer bottle.

  Shun pulled out his wallet and raised an eyebrow. Jian shook his head, so Shun counted the six bottles on the table and placed a fifty-yuan bill on the table. That should pay for what they had plus what he intended to drink along with a tip. He would add more later if necessary.

  “Rumor, or real?” Jian asked. Both Shun and Zhu turned to their friend. Zhu turned to Shun, “Real?”

  Shun nodded his head.

  “This is not right,” Jian said. The two friends listened to their quiet and contemplative friend. “They want to use Chinese who work for TQB as assets to draw TQB into a fight?” Jian exhaled loudly, “That is wrong.”

  Shun shrugged, “Ok.”

  Zhu’s eyebrows raised, “That easy?”

  Shun took a swallow of his beer, “That much time in the forest gives one time to contemplate what is right for one’s country, and what is good for one’s leaders. They often have not matched.”

  Jian picked up his bottle and tapped Shun’s bottle before he took a swig and put it back down.

  “Do we have a target?” Zhu asked.

  “Yes, small manufacturing company about an hour south of Zhengzhou,” Shun admitted. “Just received the instructions before I left.” He turned his wrist over and looked at his watch, “Woo’s group is going to leave in about an hour and go down there by truck to capture the employees who are working the late shift.”

  “An hour?” Jian asked, and Shun nodded.

  “I’m not having it,” Jian said and reached into his back pocket and pulled his wallet out, “I’m driving, guys.” He dropped another fifty on the table and stood up, no sense of imbalance at all in his steps. Shun and Zhu watched their friend for a second as he walked towards the door and then to each other.

  “It’s prison,” Zhu said.

  “Or execution,” Shun admitted.

  “For Bai,” Zhu said and slid out of the booth past where Jian had sat and stood up and started after their friend.

  Shun grabbed his hat and slipped back out of the seat as he put his hat on and agreed, “One more time, for Bai,” he murmured and followed his two friends.

  Whatever Shun’s ancestors wanted, he might not be able to provide them. He would, however, protect his countryman from the enemy.

  The problem was ... this time the enemy was the government.

  New York City, NY - USA

  “Are you telling me,” Tabitha spoke into her tablet as she looked at the laptop screen, “we finally got the slimy bastards?”

  “Yes,” both Achronyx and ADAM answered her at the same time.

  She hated it when Achronyx ignored ADAM. For an E.I., Achronyx could be a turkey sometimes. She was surprised ADAM didn’t digitally slap Achronyx.

  She was with Hirotoshi, Ryu, and Katsu in Michael’s office. The treasure trove of backdoors Michael’s laptop accessed allowed them to finally follow the money trails her team’s work had uncovered.

  It all made sense.

  The assholes were in Boston. Not New York as she had thought, but they were close enough.

  She had Katsu buy a new laptop when he had gone out shopping earlier. She had virtualized Michael’s laptop OS. In the event something went wrong, they wouldn’t lose the vast amount of access it provided. Due to the new laptop, she could work at speeds that would have caused Michael’s laptop to seize up.

  She slid back in her chair, “ADAM, are you sure?” She chewed the inside of her lip.

  “Yes, Tabitha. The financial records show the money trail all the way through the four locations you searched previously.”

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered, “Location of these guys?”

  “Achronyx has the Boston address, and I can confirm, using satellite imagery in place, that the site is guarded.”

  “That makes me feel better, not worse,” Tabitha admitted. “When do those that sleep well at night need guards? ADAM, please notify Barnabas I need to speak to him.”

  “Done.”

  “Ok, let’s drop ADAM. I’ll speak to you later.”

  “Understood,” ADAM confirmed and dropped off the call.

  Seconds later, Barnabas called. When Tabitha accepted the call he got down to business, “I understand you have had a breakthrough?”

  “Yes, we got the bastards, Barnabas. But, there are guards and other issues, and I’m considering doing this a little different than normal.”

  “What, no three-story falls?” He asked.

  “I’m doing better with those. Just last week I accomplished falling from four stories successfully.”

  “Number two, that would be funny if I wasn’t sitting here, wondering if that story is true or not.”

  “I’ll leave you wondering,” Tabitha replied.

  “Yes, you do that while I hear your plan,” he agreed.

  “Ok, so here it is…” she started and then proceeded to lay out her idea.

  South of Zhengzhou, Henan Province - China

  Jian pulled the car around the back of the manufacturing plant. The three men had switched out of their uniforms and hoped the people inside would listen to them. If not, well then they had their weapons inside the car, and perhaps they could frighten them out of the plant.

  Shun had his Captain’s hat inside a bag which he grabbed as Jian shut off the car and the three men got out. It was a little past two o’clock in the morning here, and all men were wearing sweaters to deal with the cold.

  Shun walked up to the back door and knocked. When no one answered, he knocked louder.

  A muffled voice came from inside, it was unintelligible.

  “Open up,” Shun called out, “You people need to get lost!” He sp
oke to the person behind the door, trying to keep his voice down, but loud enough to pass through the door and be heard.

  There was a crack in the door, and someone inside asked him to repeat his comment.