Code conspiracy, p.18
Code Conspiracy, page 18
Her phone buzzed in the purse strapped across her body, and she checked the text message from Gray. She ignored his question and tapped the record button on her phone.
She scooped in a deep breath and rounded the corner of the guard shack. The branches on the bushes at the head of a trail that snaked into the woods bobbed and swayed, but nobody stepped forward.
Two seconds later, Olaf materialized on the path, his white-blond hair creating a bright spot in the foliage. How’d he get out here so quickly when she’d left him with an adoring fan?
Folding her arms, she dug her nails into her biceps. “What’s this proposal?”
“So abrupt, after all we’ve been through together.” He flicked his fingers at a bug flying in front of his face.
“I could say the same about you. Your attack on Dreadworm was so abrupt after all we’ve been through together. Or was it? How long have you been a part of this plan?”
“You know I don’t reveal much of anything, Jerrica, even to you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s easy, really. I don’t want you to do something. I want you to do nothing. Do nothing with the information you hacked, so skillfully, I might add. I had assured my...companions that nobody would be able to break into that database I helped them create.” He lifted his shoulders. “But I guess I created a monster, didn’t I?”
“You helped them devise a means of communicating via computer and helped them with those emails implicating Major Denver.”
He raised his hand. “That was I. Who else?”
“Why Major Denver?”
“Wasn’t that a nice touch? Although in retrospect it was a mistake. We had to get rid of Denver somehow because he was onto the plan, but his setup was my idea. I thought I would be giving the finger to that Delta Force lieutenant who’d broken your heart. I had no idea he’d come crawling back to you. But then again...”
“What?” Jerrica barked the word so loudly, a startled bird took flight from a tree next to Olaf.
“Did Prescott really come groveling back to your bed because of your...charms? Or did he worm his way back into your affections to help his commanding officer?” Olaf brushed his hands together. “I guess we’ll never know, but that doesn’t concern me now.”
“It’s too late.”
“What’s too late?” Olaf’s eyes glittered like chips of glass.
“I already told Senator Prescott about the database. He’s going to make arrangements to have someone decode what I couldn’t. It’s over, Olaf.”
“Oh, it’s never over, Jerrica. You of all people should know that.”
“How about me?” Gray materialized beside her. “I’m saying it’s over for you. It’s only a matter of time before those secret communications are decoded, and your plans to take over the government are finished.”
“A matter of time. Yes, time can be our enemy or time can be our very good friend.” Olaf placed his hands together and gazed into the distance over his fingertips. “At this moment, we have a drone loaded with a canister of sarin gas. Its destination? This lovely garden party.”
“No!” Terror clawed through Jerrica’s insides, as Gray reached for her hand. “And you’re controlling it?”
“I do have control of it, but it’s not operational...yet. We get what we want, that drone stays grounded.”
“You people are insane.” Gray lunged toward Olaf, but Jerrica grabbed his arm.
“Maybe, but we hold the cards.” Olaf crooked his finger at Jerrica. “Come with me, Jerrica, and I’ll tell you my proposal.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you.” Gray put his arm around her and drew her close.
This time, she didn’t melt into his body. She kept her frame stiff, her mind alert. “Anything you tell me, Gray can hear, too. Besides, you already told me to destroy the database I uncovered and the program I used to uncover it. That’s not going to happen—I don’t care how many drones you have coming. It’s proof, and I’m not going to destroy the proof of who’s behind this attack and why.”
“Are you sure about that, Jerrica? All of it? I’m not done with my proposal, and I don’t think you want your bodyguard, or whatever he is to you, to hear all your dirty little secrets.”
A tremble ran through Jerrica’s body, but she dug in her heels. “He can hear anything. Spit it out, Olaf. What’s your proposal?”
“Destroy your work—it’s not too late. You can disable anything you handed over to Senator Prescott, and I will deactivate the drone.”
“What else? I know there’s more.”
Olaf spread his hands. “Or I’ll turn in your father.”
* * *
GRAY JERKED AND took a step back from the words that hung in the air between them. His arm seemed pinned across Jerrica’s shoulders, but he shifted to the side to study her profile. “What’s he talking about? Your father is dead, killed in the FBI raid on his compound.”
“No, he isn’t.” Jerrica ducked away from his arm, taking a step closer to Olaf. “My father is not dead, Gray. He escaped and made his way to Guatemala. He’s been hiding out there for years...most recently with Olaf.”
Gray curled his hands into fists, not knowing whether to punch Olaf’s grinning face or the wall of the guard shack behind him. “And you’ve known this how long? From the beginning?”
“I found out a few years after the raid.”
“So, you knew when we were together...the first time.”
“I did. I also planned to tell you this time.”
Olaf snapped his fingers. “While I’d love to stand here and listen to you two work out your relationship issues, time is of the essence. That’s the deal, Jerrica. You destroy your program, I’ll call off the drone and nobody has to know about Jimmy James living in hiding—well, except the lieutenant here, but that’s on you now.”
Gray held his breath. No way would Jerrica put the country at risk for a father who’d put his own family in danger. No way would she put her relationship with her father over her relationship with him.
Jerrica puffed out a breath. “Deal.”
Olaf crowed as Jerrica’s response kicked Gray in the midsection. He almost doubled over, but he held himself erect. “You’ll pay for this—both of you.”
“Sorry, Gray, but this is my father we’re talking about. I have to protect him against the government who harmed him, harmed us, my family.” As she spoke to him, she turned toward him, a stranger to him now. Or maybe she always had been.
She blinked her eyes at him rapidly. “I’m going to leave with Olaf now. He’ll help me stop the program, and he’ll stop the drone. Once he and his forces take over the government, Major Denver will be exonerated. People will know he was used.”
Was she signaling him? Olaf may have gotten the same idea as he moved forward to watch her.
“But we’ll be living in a country held hostage by lunatics who want to do who knows what? Is that the country you want?”
She shrugged. “I don’t care. This never was my country after I lost my mother and my brother.”
Dragging her phone from her pocket, Jerrica said, “Olaf, I need assurances from you that my father is okay. He sent me an email the other night, so I know he was fine then, but I need to know that now.”
Gray swallowed. She must’ve heard from her father the night her mood changed and she returned to her secretiveness.
“Text away. No harm has come to Jimmy. I’ve taken good care of him all these years...and you. Gave you a job you could’ve only dreamed of.” He flicked one end of his scarf over his shoulder. “And then we get to work on your computer.”
Jerrica looked up from her phone, her fingers still moving. “Your computer. I turned mine over already, but I can work on the program from yours. You do have your computer with you, right? You never go anywhere without your computer.”
“Come on, then.” Olaf waved a hand at Gray. “You’d better make sure your protector here knows that if anything happens to me, orders are in place to release the drone, and if he goes running back to his parents’ party and tries to evacuate the place, the drone will be activated and if the gas doesn’t kill these people, it will be released elsewhere. Do you want that on your conscience, lieutenant?”
“Go! Take her. You two deserve each other but if you think you and the other terrorists are going to stage a coup and run this country through threats, you haven’t reckoned on the force of the US military.”
“Hollow words, lieutenant, but good luck with that.”
As Olaf led Jerrica into the woods and presumably to his computer, she twisted her head over her shoulder one last time and...winked and tipped her head down.
What the hell did that mean? His heart held onto the hope that Jerrica was playing Olaf, but his brain reasoned that she’d lied about her father. She’d lied about Dreadworm when he’d first met her. How many other lies had she told him? Had her body lied to him, too?
And how would she be playing Olaf? She couldn’t overpower him physically. Perhaps she’d make a show of dismantling her program when she really had it backed up somewhere, but Olaf and his cronies still had a drone weaponized with sarin. The database implicating all the players wouldn’t do them any good with that threat hanging over them.
As he turned to go back to the doomed party, the blood pounding in his eardrums, his eye caught a glinting object in the mulch on the ground. He took two long steps and scooped up Jerrica’s phone, the one she’d been using to text her father. Had she received a response from him? She seemed to have forgotten she was waiting for one.
He turned the phone over in his hand and his eyes widened at the sight of a long, unsent text message. Had she forgotten to send it? Was her loyalty so strong for Olaf in the end that not even her father mattered?
Cupping the phone in his palm, he skimmed the message and then tripped to a stop. The message wasn’t meant for her father; it was meant for him.
Chapter Seventeen
Gray rubbed his eyes and brought the phone close to his face.
Give me ten minutes to get onto Olaf’s computer. Then evacuate the party. Watch who leaves first. My program holds the key to disabling the drone. Trust me.
He peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth and ran it across his teeth. Trust me. Could he do it after all the lies?
If Jerrica were really playing for Olaf’s team now, why would she want him to evacuate the party? Maybe she and Olaf wanted to take the plan to its fruition and stage the coup right now.
Telling everyone to leave the party would be a signal to make the drone operational. Maybe they had it planned so that nobody would be able to get out in time. His parents. Major Denver.
He worked his tense jaw back and forth. Jerrica had lied about Dreadworm, and she’d lied about her father—but nothing else. She’d been working as hard as he had to get to the bottom of this. She wouldn’t throw it all away now.
He thought she’d been a stranger when she talked of joining forces with Olaf and protecting her father, but when she’d turned and winked at him—she was the Jerrica he knew...and loved.
Trust her? Hell, yeah.
Checking Jerrica’s phone for the time, Gray strode back to the house, the music floating into the driveway a strange accompaniment to the terror about to be unleashed—sort of like the orchestra playing on the deck of the Titanic.
As he charged into the great room, his jaw dropped. Five clean-cut men surrounded Major Denver, bearded and scruffy and smiling. “There he is. Prescott kept Jerrica safe, and she’s ready to give us the goods.”
His Delta Force teammates started forward and then stopped, the laughter falling from their faces.
Cam Sutton ate up the rest of the space between them and thumped him on the shoulder. “What’s wrong, Prescott? We should be celebrating about now.”
“Am I glad to see all of you.” He glanced at the clock on the phone.
“You don’t look it, bro.” Hunter Mancini’s dark eyes narrowed. “We were under the impression there was a nuclear attack planned, and your girl unearthed the real plan. I’d say that’s a lot to be thankful for.”
“Yeah, the real plan—sarin, a canister of it attached to a drone.”
“My God.” Asher Knight, still looking thin after his captivity, clasped the back of his neck with one hand. “These people are diabolical. Once Jerrica’s intel is decoded, we’ll know who’s behind this?”
“I think we’ll know a lot sooner than that.” Gray tapped the phone where ten minutes had ticked away since Olaf left with Jerrica. “We have to evacuate this party—now. Keep an eye on the guests who are moving the quickest and most suspiciously.”
“Wait.” Joe McVie raised his hand. “Is this some kind of ploy to smoke ’em out?”
Logan Hess, his jaw set in a determined line, was already on the move. “Who cares? If Prescott says it’s time to move, let’s go.”
Denver stepped into the fray, ready to lead, as always. “It’s not a ploy, is it, Gray? Is that drone headed this way?”
“Not if Jerrica can help it, but maybe she can’t. She’s all alone with a maniac, and I let her go with him. I didn’t trust her enough.”
“Sounds like you trust her now and that’s all that matters.” Denver charged toward the patio and the pleasant scene about to be radically altered. “Let’s get these people out of here, and watch out for suspicious behavior.”
Major Denver took control of the situation, ordering his team to fan out among the guests to let them know a credible threat against the party had been received.
Gray took his parents aside and told them the truth. His mother handled the situation with aplomb and grace, making light of the news with her guests but ensuring that they gathered their things and left.
Gray eased out a breath as he noticed the majority of the guests on their way out without trampling each other. He scanned the skies for an incoming drone. The security detail had been notified of the plan, but ordered not to shoot down anything or try to intercept.
Then McVie signaled him, jerking his thumb toward the house. Gray made a stop to talk to his parents. “You two need to get out of here.”
His mother dug in her heels. “I’m not being driven from my home. If Jerrica thinks she can stop this thing, my money’s on her.”
“Dad? Talk some sense into her.” Gray lifted his arms before joining McVie in the house.
What greeted his arrival in the great room caused him to trip over the track of the French doors. McVie and the others had lined up a handful of men and one woman on the large crescent-shaped sofa, a pile of cell phones and gas masks on the floor in front of them.
Sutton whistled through his teeth. “Talk about your suspicious behavior. We caught this bunch heading to the guard shack and a stash of gas masks. Convenient, huh?”
Patrick Collins, the assistant director of the CIA, aimed a polished loafer at one of the gas masks. “You’d better hold onto one of those yourself. We informed Olaf that the guests were being evacuated. He could send that drone anywhere now—a school, a hospital, a baseball game—and it’s all on you.”
“I could and I most certainly will.”
All heads turned toward Olaf’s voice, as he stepped down into the great room, Jerrica by his side.
She shot Gray a quick look from wide eyes, and then dropped her gaze to the floor.
Olaf patted the tablet he held aloft balanced on his palm. “I’ll give you one more chance, lieutenant. You and your Delta Force men release my team here and nobody has to get hurt, nobody has to get gassed. But with the threat of our weapon still very much alive, we’ll take control of the presidency, the government, and run things our way.”
Gray shifted his gaze to Jerrica, who lifted her head and nodded once, a smile playing about her lips.
“Knock yourself out, Olaf. We have the FBI and members of the Secret Service on their way now to conduct the arrests of these individuals...and you.” Gray pulled out his gun and leveled it at Olaf’s head.
The man didn’t even flinch. A slow smile spread across his pale face. “I don’t think you want to do that, lieutenant. I already have the drone set up. Once my associate hears of these arrests, he’ll know what to do.”
“Let him try.” Jerrica slipped the tablet from Olaf’s hands.
Olaf choked. “What are you talking about, Jerrica? Y-you mean, you’d do it yourself? I can assure you, Prescott isn’t going to allow that, either. He’ll turn his gun on you just as easily as he did me.”
“Nobody’s going to do it, Olaf—not you, not me, not some shadowy associate—because it can’t be done.”
Olaf’s face reddened, and his fellow traitors on the sofa began to murmur and shift uncomfortably.
“What have you done?” Olaf’s icy blue eyes bugged out of their sockets as he turned them on Jerrica.
“You trained me well, Olaf. Now your servant is your master.” Jerrica waved her hand in the air. “Did you really think I’d believe that database was so important to you if it contained just the names of the traitors? We’d learn all that information, anyway, when it wouldn’t do us any good because you always had that secret weapon—the drone.”
“Always had? Have. I have it.” The veins stood out on Olaf’s forehead and he wagged a shaking finger at the tablet in Jerrica’s hands.
“While I was corrupting the database Amit and I uncovered, I was also using your tablet to figure out how to disable the drone.” She smacked the tablet against Olaf’s chest. “And I did.”
Of course, Sutton was the first to hoot and holler, but the others followed suit.
Olaf sank to his knees, frantically tapping his tablet, his face getting redder and redder until it looked like that scarf was strangling him. Finally, he threw the tablet across the room and sputtered, “B-but your father. I’ll rat him out. I’ll turn him in. He’ll spend the rest of his life in federal prison. L-look, I’ll tell the FBI right now.”
