Chasing Fire Read online

  The assassination attempt at the Denver airport demonstrated the danger Chase faced. He should have been sent to a safe-house, but it wasn’t Flint's call. Chase, being the boss, had even refused shadowing from Flint. Flint didn’t even know Chase’s current location—he hadn’t been willing to share that information either. Fortunately, Tess had CISS resources keeping tabs on the tech billionaire.

  Why would a man with so much to lose, risk his life unnecessarily?

  Tess had also been feeding Flint a steady stream of data about the bombings, including the most recent of AutoSun, an advanced-stage start-up that made “brains” for vehicles—a system that monitored and computed everything from fuel usage, mileage, tire wear, battery life, and virtually every engine part to increase efficiency and avoid breakdowns.

  Why would anyone want to destroy this company? Flint wondered. How are these lunatics choosing their targets? Flint knew they weren’t really crazy, that the people blowing up these buildings were more dangerous than he wanted to think about, but he did anyway. What if they turn their attention onto government buildings? What about universities, shopping malls, elementary schools? What if they decide they want to start killing people? He knew why Tess was concerned—the Fire Bomber could turn order into chaos in a matter of days. And the government didn’t have a clue as to who they were.

  The media, with few concrete facts, had, in recent days, begun to speculate that perhaps the Chinese were behind the attacks—the motive being to take out all competition, particularly in military technology. Tense relations between the world’s two biggest economies were already straining further. The Aadyah Action & Air bombing in India only fueled the theory more.

  If this doesn’t stop soon, he thought as he stepped out of the cab and approached the police line with credentials courtesy of Tess, we’re going to find out why they’re doing this, and by then it’ll be too late—either the economy will have collapsed, we’ll be at war with China, or they will have manipulated us into some other unimaginable, apocalyptic scenario.

  The AutoSun building, like the others before it, could no longer be called anything other than a disaster area, a blasted-out urban war zone. In all his years with the CIA, working just about every third world coup and trouble spot, he’d never seen anything like the damage that the Fire Bomber inflicted—precise, total, and fast. As Flint surveyed the scene, a foreboding sense of disbelief overtook him as he tried to come to grips with the incredible destructive force of whatever super-weapon the Fire Bomber had unleashed. He talked to police officials, the fire chief, and representatives from the mayor’s office.

  “All people present and accounted for, no injuries or deaths.” Astonishing.

  While Flint stared at the cratered, burning wreckage of a once thriving business, he wondered the same thing everyone else had been asking since the 4th of July.

  How do they choose their targets? What are they trying to accomplish? Why are they so careful not to kill anyone? Who’s next? And, most desperately important, who the hell are they?

  Flint’s phone rang. Caller ID showed “unavailable.” It could have been any number of people, but based on the fact that he was standing in the smoldering wreckage of the Fire Bomber’s latest attack, he guessed Tess. As Flint accepted the call, an app on the phone immediately lit green, indicating the conversation would be encrypted.

  “Hello?”

  “Chase went and saw the Astronaut last night,” Tess said without returning his greeting.

  “Are you happy now that you’ve picked up the Astronaut?”

  “No,” Tess said. “I’m not happy at all. We didn’t get the Astronaut, and we’ve temporarily lost Chase.”

  “How long ago did you lose him?” Normally, Flint might have been amused by an Astronaut yet again thwarting an intelligence agency, but he’d been counting on them to keep Chase safe while he tried to find out who was trying to kill him.

  “Chase and Wen disappeared late yesterday. That’s how we know he found the Astronaut. Without help, he never could have given us the slip.”

  “Where?”

  “Southern Oregon, but they probably escaped miles before that.”

  “Escaped?” Flint echoed, questioning her word choice.

  “Don’t worry,” Travis said, his voice startling Flint. “We’ll find them.”

  Flint had no doubt that they would. CISS’s resources exceeded even those of the NSA. If there was a more important government agency or a more powerful intelligence division, he didn’t know about it.

  Twenty

  Tess turned to Travis after the call with Flint Jones, a worried look on her face. “What are they doing?” she asked as they left Mission Control and headed from the basement up to the helipad.

  “Which they?”

  “The Fire Bombers,” she replied impatiently. “AutoSun isn’t on the list. That company has nothing to do with horUS.”

  “Unless the Bomber knows something we don’t,” Travis said, checking notes on his computer tablet.

  “Hell, they know a hundred things we don’t—how they acquired the tech to bring a building down with a single bomb, where they got the information to choose the targets, what order they’re going in—I could go on and on, but the most important thing they know is how they got the list. Nine people know about the list. Nine people understand horUS. How did the Bomber get the damned list?”

  “Are you suggesting one of the nine leaked or sold the list?” Travis asked, trying to keep up with her as she nearly sprinted down the corridor toward the waiting chopper. He couldn’t believe she was questioning that one of the nine high-level officials, who’d conceived and were overseeing horUS, could have been compromised.

  “Of course not,” Tess said as she juggled two tablets in her hands and touched commands on the screen of one of them. “The caliber of the horUS inner circle is unequaled—the President, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, the CIA Director, the NSA Director, You, me . . . ”

  “Then someone got into the system—hacked?”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be impossible?” She looked at their tablets as if they might suddenly give them a contagious disease.

  “No system is completely safe.”

  “Of course not, but we’ve been searching for a breach since the third bomb and nothing.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What if someone was really smart? Someone inside one of the companies, a person working on horUS without actually knowing they were—it’s completely compartmentalized.” She stormed around a corner, almost plowing into a startled group of analysts on their way to a meeting. “But this mystery employee . . . saw something. A pattern that told them that a section, or grouping, wasn’t quite right, so he put some more pieces together, and then went searching, and boom, finds what he was looking for at every other company he checked. And just like that, by accident, he figured the whole damned thing out.”

  “These firms do have some of the smartest people working for them,” Travis said, exploring her theory. “But then you’ve got a mighty big coincidence.”

  She stopped and turned to Travis. “What’s that?”

  “This mystery employee who stumbles into the most classified secret since the Manhattan Project puts together all the complex aspects of horUS in such a way—the precise and only possible way—to have it make sense, to be able to understand what it is, and then—and this is the really big leap—they are so troubled by what they discovered that they decide to stop it. They take it upon themselves to blow up every company linked to horUS.”

  “I’ll admit that it’s a little far-fetched, but so was nineteen Muslims bringing down the twin towers,” she said, walking again.

  Travis nodded. The thirty-seven-year-old rubbed his short goatee. The son of Nigerian immigrants, Travis, who spoke four languages fluently, a few more with passing form, had the experience to lead CISS alone, but the sub-agency had been given so much power that the President and Director of
National Intelligence wanted it as a joint assignment. As a vet going from the army to CIA dark ops, Travis had navigated missions in dozens of hot spots earlier in his career, and had been given oversight of CISS’s massive field operations, including the IT-Squad program, while Tess handled the admin side and case strategy. Travis, accomplished and tough, and having worked with Tess for years, thought she might be winging it. As good as she was, the Bombers were proving better. They were beating everyone.

  Up until the Fire Bomber case, Tess and Travis had operated in perfect balance with each other, sharing duties and decisions as co-equals. They were often amused knowing that subordinates referred them as Yin and Yang. However, they were both feeling the strain on this one.

  “Then we have a similar issue,” Travis said, returning to his theory. “This mystery employee also just happens to not only be an expert in bombs, but is able to create and deploy what is possibly the most advanced explosive device ever conceived. One even we still don’t understand, and by “we” I mean every weapons engineer and the complete intelligence apparatus of the most powerful military in the history of the world.”

  “Yes,” Tess said, a look of sudden recognition on her face that quickly changed to one of horror. “It is possible that employee was, or is, working at the behest of a foreign power?” she whispered.

  Travis’s expression also contoured into a grimace. “Oh no . . . That would explain a lot. We need to profile every employee at every company on the list.”

  Tess nodded. “We need to do it today.”

  “It could take weeks to be thorough.”

  “We don’t have weeks. Bring in NSA teams. Start with the companies that haven’t been hit yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the employee wouldn’t want to decimate his source of information until near the end. If his building gets destroyed, so does his ability to siphon more data.” She climbed into the waiting helicopter. “The Bomber is in one of those remaining tech corporations. Let’s find the bastard!”

  Twenty-One

  While Flint combed through the debris for clues he would never find, Powder drove past a building in Austin, Texas that would not be standing in eighteen hours. He’d slept some on the flight, but not enough. Fortunately, his time in the military and a troubled childhood had taught him to rest when not fighting and sleep whenever a moment could be found.

  All the details of the job had been sent via the normal encrypted method—a self-erasing site on the darknet which required three alphanumeric passwords to access and a double code key to read. He wondered how long it would take for the authorities, or someone else, to anticipate where he’d be next.

  Surely the tech titans or intel kings can devise a way to use prior bomb sites to predict future ones. Surely those lying, manipulating snakes at the Pentagon and CIA have a list—the same list that my superiors possess. Surely they know why this is happening, and surely they could have people waiting at each remaining location, waiting to stop me and our righteous revolution, waiting to kill me. He bit down on an herbal cough drop. So why don’t they?

  Staring over a line of men shooting at targets, Gunner contemplated the success of the bombings thus far. The sound of gunfire, like a lullaby to him, fostered deep thinking. He needed to strategize. Their stealth operations had been flawless—other than India, though, losing a man was an acceptable loss. AAA was a critical piece in the path to victory.

  He absently traced the scar on his cheek, something nagging at him. The government had been slower than he’d anticipated. He wondered if one of the secret alphabet agencies might be setting up to use the bombings as a false flag.

  Another excuse to take more of our freedoms, a reason to arrest and clamp down on innocent and legitimate opposition groups and outspoken individuals. The idiots on social media don’t realize that Uncle Sam keeps tabs on everything they say on their clumsy newsfeed, reads all their emails, records their calls, tracks them through their cell phones . . . He kicked the dirt with steel-toed combat boots. His double layer canvas pants and drab-green tee-shirt, hugging his muscled frame, were splattered with mud.

  Another man dressed in fatigues jogged over to Gunner, interrupting his thoughts.

  “We’ve just received word that Chase Malone is involved.”

  The news came as no surprise to Gunner. However, the militia leader did not welcome it. He knew Chase as the inventor of RAI, a super enhanced artificial intelligence program that accelerated the dangerous race that could only end in humanity losing out to the supremacy of machines.

  “Malone's off grid,” Gunner said, recalling an intelligence report he’d seen. The militia had people tracking thirty-seven tech titans that Gunner considered the most dangerous. Chase Malone might be the top of that list because of RAI, the rumors of a secret project even more advanced, and the fact that he had apparently decided to disappear. People only do that for two reasons—they want to do something bad, or bad people are after them. He didn’t know which one it was with Malone, but even if it was the latter, that was yet another sign of trouble.

  “Apparently not anymore.”

  Gunner turned to his subordinate. “If Malone has come out of hiding and is looking for me, I’ve got no choice but to issue a K-order on him.”

  The man looked at him, concerned. “Should we wait for the next report?”

  Gunner encouraged debate among his people, so the question didn’t bother him, but he didn’t want to waste time. “He’s already on the track list. Do you know what that means?”

  “That he’s the enemy,” the man responded without hesitation.

  “Exactly,” Gunner said, pulling a ball cap over his thick, sandy-blond hair after realizing his forehead and nose were getting sunburned. “He is dangerous. A threat to us and to the way of life we are trying to save. Chase Malone is not just an enemy to you and me, he is an enemy to all humanity.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His dark eyes raged. “So I’m certainly not going to wait until he learns the truth.”

  “But with the bombings at a critical point, it doesn’t seem to be the best time to take such drastic action.”

  “Because of the bombings, it’s precisely the right time.” He looked toward the east horizon.

  “Yes, sir,” the man said, still looking concerned. “I’ll get the order out right away. Is this something we should make Powder aware of?”

  “No. He needs no distractions,” Gunner said, reaching for the binoculars hanging at his belt. “If Malone is working with the CIA, they’ll soon be able to identify the targets before we get there. That means Powder’s job is getting more difficult every minute.”

  Lenny, ripped from a fitful sleep, heard the Russian accent just before a hand slapped his face and another clutched his upper arm so tightly he cried out in pain.

  “Get up stupid!” a man barked as he lifted Lenny from the mattress and shoved him against the wall.

  “What, who?” Lenny managed to say before getting slapped again.

  “You owe me money, you stolen dog!”

  “Who?” Lenny repeated. He heard Bull screaming and tried to get past the large Russian who smelled like wet cement and over-used restaurant grease.

  “Your pretty girlfriend owes us money, too,” the brute said, laughing. “She can pay in another way. Spread your legs baby!”

  Lenny swung at the man, kicking at the same time. His fist connected, but the retaliation came hard, and the excruciating pounding against his head felt for a split second as if his skull had opened. Then everything went black.

  Twenty-Two

  Westfield relayed the report to Ryker. “We’ve located them.”

  “How far from us?” Ryker asked. His black knit clothes didn’t hide his beer gut, yet everything else was sculpted.

  Westfield checked the large screen across from his desk. “You’re about sixty-five minutes out. We should have them by then. Cox and his team are ready to strike.”

  “They have a vis
ual?”

  “Eyes on.” Westfield pressed a series of keys. “I just sent you their coordinates.”

  “Got ‘em. We’re on our way,” Ryker said, signing off.

  Damon checked the new GPS coordinates, then turned to his partner. “We’ve got to turn around. Get off at the next exit.”

  “So, are you happy?” Ryker asked. “We don’t have to visit Malone's parents after all.”

  Damon continued scanning reports. “I’ll be happy when we actually get Chase.”

  “Cox could still screw this up,” Ryker said, steering the car onto the exit. “But how hard is it to put a bullet in a man’s head?”

  As Chase drove the old pickup south down Interstate 5, he and Wen had another debate about WOLF.

  “They may be able to help us,” Wen said. “They’re plugged into just about every alternative group around—subversives, resistance, militias, rebels, misfits, whatever.”

  “Hey, if you think The Cause might have a lead, by all means call them. But that doesn’t mean I’m joining.”

  Wen nodded and let it rest. Her silence brought Chase’s hand to hers.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I was recruited into MSS as a child because my dad served with them. They like kids of parents who were incredibly good and clever. My dad always said one thing: ‘Never betray yourself.’ I think it was his way of saying don’t let the State control you.” She looked into the distance. “I don’t like war. I don’t like fighting.” She turned and stared at him, hard. “But I like to win, and it’s all I really know.”

  “I know,” Chase said, squeezing her hand. “I thought I was going to disappear into the Tibetan mountains and meditate to find my path, but it really wasn’t in my cards. What about your mother? You don’t mention her much.”