Hell Dawn

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Someone bypassed the alarms, cut through the exterior fence,” she said without looking at him. “We’re getting hit from all sides.”

When he spoke, it came out louder than he’d expected. “Hit? By whom? Tell me what’s going on.”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “Shut up.”

“The hell I will.”

She whipped around and centered the SMG’s muzzle on his torso.

“Look, I’m taking you and that computer out of here. Now shut the hell up. Or else.”

He ground his teeth as he stared at the woman’s back and tried to determine his next move. A fireball of anger engulfed his insides as he realized he had been set up again. He was once again a pawn, a prize to be grabbed and handed over to the highest bidder. It was that sort of mind-set, that single-minded greed that had cost his wife her life. And now it was happening all over again.

With speed that belied his bulk, Fox grabbed the laptop and crossed the distance between himself and the woman. When he got to within a few feet of her, she sensed his approach, turned to him. He grabbed her shooting hand, squeezed so hard he swore he could feel bones grinding together. Breath exploded from between the woman’s clenched teeth. Her other hand darted out in a knife-hand strike that caught Fox in his soft middle. He gasped, and she pulled her hand back for another blow.

Raising the laptop, he swung it around in a punishing arc. A corner of the machine caught her in the chin, knocking her head violently to one side. Her fingers went limp and her weapon fell to the floor. She turned to him, wild-eyed, blood streaming from her mouth. She tried to kick him, but was too off balance to put any steam behind it. Fox reached down and struck her in the head with his own forehead. The woman groaned and fell unconscious.

Moving quickly, he packed his laptop into its carrying case, grabbed the woman’s weapon and moved to the window. Forcing his big frame through the opening, he shoved himself away from the window. He hit the ground, bent at the knees and rolled onto his back.

He rose and trotted around the side of the house, heading for the driveway. He saw a pair of black SUVs parked there, a man standing between them, watching the road. Overloaded with terror and adrenaline, Fox found himself struggling for breath. He held the gun in close to his leg, keeping it out of sight. The guy, hearing him approach, spun to meet him.

“I’m going with you guys,” Fox said.

“Damn straight you are. Hands up.”

Fox extended his arm carrying the laptop. “Here. Quit fucking around and take this. It’s what you guys are here for. Right?”

“What the hell?” the guy asked. “What’s going on here?”

Autofire continued to rage within the house at their back.

“Damn it, I’m getting cut in. Take this thing.”

Still eyeing Fox suspiciously, the guy reached out for the bag’s shoulder strap. The instant he took it, Fox raised the pistol and fired several rounds point-blank into the guy’s gut, wincing with each shot. The gunner staggered back a few steps, dropped the case and his gun. Bloody wounds glistened in the light cast by outdoor halogen lamps. The gunner’s legs gave out from underneath him and he fell to the earth.

Fox grabbed his laptop and darted for the nearest SUV. He opened the door, tossed the case inside. From the house, he heard yelling and saw several men disgorging through the front door. Aiming the handgun at the tire of the second vehicle, he fired off several rounds, flattening its front tire.

Climbing inside the Jeep Cherokee, he found the keys inside. The engine turned over smoothly and he gunned it, heading for the road. A couple of the raiders ran up behind him, trying to grab hold of the vehicle before he got away.

Moments later he was heading down the curvy mountain roads. The images of the thug, his midsection rent by bullets, and the CIA agent, her face bloodied and battered by him, continued to play in his mind. After another mile, he pulled the car off to the side of the road, got out and threw up. When he was back on the road, his mind raced through the details of his situation. He needed help. He needed it fast.

He needed to contact Aaron Kurtzman.

CHAPTER ONE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Sitting in front of his computer, Aaron Kurtzman’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he monitored a half dozen or so secure communication channels, searching for news of his friend. Gabriel Fox’s disappearance had set off alarm bells throughout the nation’s intelligence networks—the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security and at least half a dozen other federal agencies were looking for the young hacker. When his search yielded no new information, Kurtzman’s brow puckered. Worried but undaunted, he used a series of lightning-fast keystrokes to prompt two other programs. One scanned the various news Web sites for stories referring to Fox by name; a second gathered four-paragraph synopses with any story detailing the discovery of John Does. Neither program yielded results.

Leaning back in his wheelchair, he raked his fingers through his hair, scowled at the screen. Fox had disappeared seventy-two hours earlier. Kurtzman had been seated at his computer for nearly fifty-four of those hours, leaving only long enough for an occasional shower or to grab a cup of coffee. His eyes ached and he noticed his thoughts had slowed, his mind occasionally becoming a blank slate exactly when he needed to be sharp.

“C’mon, Aaron,” he muttered. “Keep going.”

“You need sleep,” said Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller. A moment later a hand settled gently on his shoulder and he smelled traces of the woman’s perfume. Glancing over a shoulder, he flashed her a tight smile before returning his attention to his work.

“I’ll sleep in a couple of hours,” he said.

“I don’t think you have a couple of hours left in you,” she replied. “I understand that you’re concerned. But right now we’re in a lull. It’s a good time for you to grab a couple hours’ sleep. I want you fresh if they find him.”

“When they find him,” Kurtzman corrected.

“When,” she said, patting gently on the shoulder.

Kurtzman placed his hands on his chair’s wheels. Price moved back, giving him room to maneuver. He backed the chair away from his computer and turned it in a tight 180-degree turn until they faced each other.

“You look bad,” she said without a trace of derision. “Tired and worried. You want to talk about it?”

“You know everything,” he said, shrugging.

“I know that you have some sort of relationship with Gabriel Fox, and that somehow you’ve convinced yourself that going without sleep, food or exercise is the best way to make him reappear. Otherwise, I’m a little sparse on the details. You’ve hardly said three words during the past two days, other than to bark out an order to one of your crew. I’m worried about you.”

Price, her honey-blond hair held back in a ponytail, her arms crossed over her chest, leaned against a nearby cabinet and stared at him. “So talk.”

For what seemed like the millionth time, Kurtzman noticed that even without makeup and clad in blue jeans and an oversize flannel shirt, his old friend was a beautiful woman. The concern in her eyes only made her doubly so. The two had a close but purely platonic relationship, one in which they shared the emotional burdens that came with working for the country’s ultrasecret counterterrorism operation.

“It’s the kid,” he said. “When I was in the think-tank business, before coming to work at this little Taj Mahal, Gabe was just a screwed-up kid from the Bronx. Not a drug-addicted, street-gang kind of kid, mind you. But he was definitely headed down the wrong path.”

“How so?”

“He was hacking into everything—Justice Department, Pentagon, Fortune 500 companies and banks. You name it and he was busting into it, making the security gurus in the business look like a bunch of damned monkeys. Occasionally he stole money when he could get it. But mostly he just seemed to enjoy the challenge. He’d break in, leave his signature and disappear.”

“Signature?”

“Called himself, X. Razor,” Kurtzman said, gesturing quote marks around the name. “The moniker was stupid as hell, in retrospect, just what you’d expect from a kid. But damned if he didn’t have everyone in the IT community scrambling.”

“And you met him how?”

“The Pentagon asked me to join a task force tracking him and I agreed. Frankly, I was intrigued. At least at first. After a while, I just got obsessed. You know, missing meals, sleep, all so I could work on finding this bastard.”

“Imagine that.”

“Funny, lady. Very funny. Anyway, the more I looked into it, the more I followed his patterns, studied his language, the more I realized he was just a kid. A talented hacker, hell, yeah. But just a kid nonetheless.”

“And you found him?”

Kurtzman nodded, smiled. “Yeah, our great hacker was a kid in a reform school in Cleveland. And he was breaking into all these systems using the principal’s computer. After hours, of course.”