Off the Grid Christmas Page 16

  She wanted to tell him she’d be fine.

  She wanted to explain facts and figures and statistics that proved it, but her mind was blank, her mouth dry with fear. She tried to smile and failed miserably, so she turned back to the vent.

  “Take this.” Silas handed her a multipurpose tool. “You’ll need it to exit the vent.”

  “Right.” She tucked it into the pocket of her pants, accepted a flashlight he held out to her and crawled into the ventilation shaft.

  The floor and walls were coated with a grimy layer of dust. Not something that Arden was expecting. Then again, her only frame of reference came from watching movies where the heroine escaped through shiny, clean and very roomy ventilation shafts.

  She was shimmying through what felt like a toddler-sized hole, elbows and legs kicking up a layer of dust that swirled in the beam of her flashlight. Although claustrophobia wasn’t currently among the list of her idiosyncrasies, Arden could see how this situation could send her in that direction.

  Stay focused.

  Stay calm.

  Think about the blueprint.

  Two left turns. A right turn. Straight ahead until she reached the end of the shaft. The server room should be there.

  Please, Lord. Let it be there.

  If it wasn’t, she’d be dropping down into an unknown room in an unknown part of the building. She’d have to find her way to the server room without being seen.

  She took a deep, calming breath—as deep as she dared in the dusty shaft—and pressed on.

  After a couple of difficult turns in the vent shaft, Arden’s flashlight beam reflected on the vent cover at the other end. She flicked off her light and peered through the vent slats. The hum of the server fans were an audible and very blessed relief.

  She was in the right place.

  Now she just needed to get into the room without alerting security to her presence. Slipping the multipurpose tool from her pocket, she shoved it between the vent cover and the drywall and began to pry the cover away. It gave easily, and she barely managed to keep it from falling.

  She slid it to the side, letting it rest against the wall as she half crawled, half fell into the room. Snapping on her flashlight, she scanned the server room for the local administrator terminals.

  The computer was on, two screens flashing a screen saver with the lock-screen prompts. The last user had forgotten to log off.

  Perfect. Now she wouldn’t have to come up with a user name, just the password.

  She committed the user name to memory and rebooted the system, placing her drive in one of the USB ports and the wireless internet connection in the other. The system came up, detecting both the wireless interface and the external drive.

  Bingo.

  Her custom password program was now tied in to the computer’s start-up sequence. She needed to degrade the system but keep the evidence of GeoArray’s crimes for the FBI. Not a complicated process, but it would take time.

  Arden watched the progress bar scroll across the screen. Just like the watched pot that never boils, it seemed to take forever to upload the worm.

  Once it was in, she ran the program and removed her external drive and network card. The worm would immediately affect every computer currently logged on the network without leaving any forensic traces behind. The beauty of it was that the shutdown would occur one system at a time, as users logged on, making it difficult to recognize the full scale of the problem until it was too late.

  She smiled as the terminal went black.

  Done. She glanced at her watch. With a little time to spare.

  She pushed out of the chair and started back to the ventilation shaft. The sound of approaching voices stopped her in her tracks. No way was she going to make it into the shaft in time to shimmy out of reach of anyone who happened to walk in.

  She moved the vent cover over the opening, then crawled between two server racks at the back of the room. She was hidden well enough if whoever it was just walked by.

  The door opened. The light went on.

  She held her breath, afraid even the slightest movement would give her away.

  “I’m sure we can just reboot the server and the system will come right back online,” a man said.

  She knew the voice, and the breath she’d been holding threatened to spill out in a great gasping rush. She let it out slowly, her pulse racing.

  Randy. Of course.

  He must have been working in another area of the building. Once he tried the admin workstation, he’d know they weren’t dealing with an isolated computer.

  A few frantic moments of fingers tapping on a keyboard, a soft hiss of frustration and she knew Randy had figured it out.

  “What?” another man said.

  “I think we’ve been hacked. The system’s been compromised with a worm of some sort.”

  “What do you mean, hacked? I paid you to make sure this system was impenetrable. If we can’t make the file transfer—”

  “We’ll make it. I uploaded a backup copy of the application to the stand-alone system on your yacht yesterday morning.”

  “The application wasn’t complete yesterday. There’ve been dozens of man-hours of work on it since then, and it’s all lost! If we don’t meet that deadline—”

  “We have bigger things to worry about. We were hacked. It had to be an inside job. I took the entire system off the web after we were hacked the first time. There’s no way someone could have accessed it externally.”

  “Call security in here,” the second man growled. “I want everyone in this building rounded up and brought to this room.”

  That was her cue to get out.

  She was inches from the vent and out of view of the men. They were distracted, and she could either wait to be discovered, or she could try to make a run for it.

  The fact that Randy had uploaded a backup copy of the application to an off-site, stand-alone system made the decision for her. She had to find the yacht and infect the system there. Otherwise, the rest of the work she’d done would be fruitless.

  Randy was calling for security, his voice ringing through an intercom system. She used the noise to mask her movements as she shifted the vent cover and crawled into the hole.

  Her feet scraped against the metal floor of the shaft as she tried to shimmy farther in, the noise echoing loudly.

  Someone grabbed her ankle and tugged her backward with enough force to send her flying. She tumbled out of the vent, landing on the floor with a thud that stole her breath.

  She bounded up, swinging wildly, connecting with a jaw, a nose, a soft abdomen.

  She could have won the fight.

  Would have won if it had just been her against Randy.

  But the door flew open and two security guards rushed in. Four against her, but she still couldn’t quit. She grabbed a chair, would have tossed it at the two guards, but a man stepped between her and them. Marcus Emory. She recognized him from photos posted on GeoArray’s website.

  “Enough!” he growled, yanking the chair from her hands. “You’re done, Arden. It’s over. You lost. Take her to the harbor and throw her in,” he said, striding to the door.

  “If they do that—” her brain clicked along at hyperspeed, making connections so swiftly, her mouth could barely keep up “—you can kiss goodbye any chance you have of meeting your deadline.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emory swung back around, his gaze going from her to Randy. “What’s she talking about?”

  “Don’t ask me. She’s always talking. Mostly about nothing.”

  “Randy just told you that nearly two days’ work has been lost. Currently destroyed by the worm I uploaded to the system here.”

  “Get rid of her,” Emory spat.

  “It will take more than
a day to rebuild what I’ve destroyed. That means you’ll miss tomorrow’s scheduled transfer time,” she continued as one of the security guards grabbed her arm. “I can restore the data in an hour.”

  Emory turned again. “How?”

  “This.” She took the drive from her pocket. “I copied everything here. It’s encrypted. It would take the best expert in the world months, if not years, to break my encryption.” If it could be done at all.

  “Take it,” he said to Randy. “We’ll go to the yacht, and you figure this mess out.”

  “I can’t,” Randy grumbled, his cheeks red with anger. “If she encrypted it with a custom program, there’s no way I’m going to be able to get the information off of it before the deadline.”

  “Then I guess she comes with us. Cooperate and you might survive, Arden,” Emory said. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm in a vicelike grip and dragged her into the hall.

  She didn’t bother fighting. She was getting exactly what she wanted. A trip to the yacht and to the server. Once she plugged the drive into the system, the worm would do what it was supposed to.

  Randy and Emory weren’t going to be happy when they realized it.

  Hopefully, Kane would figure out that she was in trouble long before that happened. She had a really cool Christmas sweater to wear this year—a Christmas tree with real lights that flashed on and off with the push of a button. She’d hate for him to miss out on that. She’d hate to miss out on it herself.

  But what she’d hate more than anything was dying knowing that she hadn’t done what she’d intended.

  People like Randy and Emory?

  They should never ever win. And if she had it within her power to stop them, she had every intention of doing it.

  * * *

  They had her.

  Kane knew it before his cell phone buzzed, knew it before he glanced at the text message that had come through.

  There’s a black car pulling up in front of the building. Looks like someone’s going for a ride. Get the SUV.

  Silas’s message was brief and to the point.

  Kane knew Silas, hidden in the shadows near the building’s main entrance, had a clear view of the front door, but there was no way he’d heard what Kane had—the tinny voice echoing through the ventilation system, calling for security in the server room—but he knew trouble when he saw it. Silas had impeccable instincts.

  So did Kane.

  Yeah. They had her, and he wanted to run into the building to get her back. If he hadn’t thought that would get them all killed, he would have.

  A car meant they were taking her somewhere. A car meant there was still time. He hadn’t heard a gunshot, and he didn’t think Emory would be foolish enough to have someone killed in his building.

  No. He’d want the dirty work done somewhere else.

  Kane sprinted to the parking garage and jumped into the front seat of the SUV. He grabbed the keys and started the engine. He didn’t turn on the lights, just sped down the ramp that led to the garage exit.

  A dark Mercedes was pulling away from GeoArray, its taillights glowing in the night as it headed east.

  Seconds later, Silas emerged from the shadows and yanked open the passenger door. “They’re heading to the harbor,” he said as he climbed in.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Arden was talking nonstop and loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear. She mentioned the harbor and a server and something about fixing what she’d broken.”

  “If there’s a computer system on the yacht, that would make sense.”

  “Do you know where Emory is docked?”

  “Yes.” Kane had done a little research, talked to some people at the marina’s fishing supply shop and gotten a pretty good idea. He hadn’t been able to access the dock, though. It was guarded during the day, and he hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself by climbing the fence that surrounded it. “How many men were with Arden?”

  “Four, including the driver,” Silas answered. “At least one is a security guard.”

  Kane drove them toward the marina, keeping the taillights from the Mercedes at a safe distance to avoid drawing attention.

  The thought of Arden being in the hands of Marcus Emory made his blood run cold and he had to push back the worry. He’d flown critical extraction missions in the Middle East for the last seven years, a number of them under enemy fire. But none of those compared to this.

  He’d promised Jace that he’d bring Arden home, but there was so much more to it now. There was something special about Arden, something that the world really needed—uninhibited joy and curiosity and intelligence.

  She was uniquely beautiful inside and out, and he thought that maybe that was something he really needed. He was no longer that dumb kid. He’d spent years atoning for his mistakes. Perhaps it was time to embrace the possibility that God wanted more for him than a life of regret.

  Up ahead, a set of modest iron gates were swinging closed, the Mercedes’s taillights glowing from the other side of it.

  The gate, which was open and guarded during business hours, was unmanned and closed at night, requiring an access code Kane didn’t have. Instead, he found a meter on the street and parked. He was out of the vehicle and over the fence in seconds. Keeping to the shadows, he made his way across a sparsely treed patch of snow-covered lawn.

  Whispered movement drew his attention. A glance over his shoulder registered the shadow of a dog in motion. Dutch scaled the fence in an impressive leap, his chain collar jingling as his paws touched the ground. Silas followed suit, landing almost silently. Joining Kane in the shadows, he motioned to the dog, who immediately heeled at his side.

  “You said you know where the yacht is docked?” Silas asked. His voice was barely a whisper on the cold night air.

  “This way.” Kane jogged through the silent marina, passing several piers. He’d struck up a conversation earlier with a couple of retirees he’d met in the bait shop and discovered that the Relentless Journey was docked at Pier Six, the farthest from the gate. Ostentatiously extravagant, it had its fair share of detractors. Kane had spoken to more than one person who was less than impressed by both the yacht and its owner.

  The guy might have friends. They apparently didn’t hang around the harbor.

  That had worked to Kane’s advantage. The yacht was exactly where he’d expected it to be, the Mercedes parked on the street near the pier. Doors closed, lights off, it looked empty. The yacht was well lit, though. Shadowy figures moved along the foredeck.

  Kane motioned for Silas to stay near the Mercedes and headed to the yacht, the soft lap of water against the hull drowning out his footsteps. A ladder to the aft of the vessel led to the foredeck. He climbed it quickly, taking out a guard who’d been smoking a cigarette near the life raft.

  He dragged the guy to a dark corner, using tether lines to tie him up and a signal flag to gag him.

  This was what he’d spent his military career doing: going in silently, taking out the enemy, making a way for the team to get in and take out weapons caches. Kane dragged the guy to the railing, used his own handcuffs to imprison him there. He grabbed a small Maglite from his cargo pocket and pointed it at the pier, clicking it on and off twice.

  He didn’t wait for an answering signal. Silas would board the vessel, search out the rest of the security team and take it out.

  Kane was going to find Arden. He was going to get her off the yacht. He was going to stop Emory and Randy, and then he was going to make Arden’s ex very, very sorry for underestimating the woman he’d supposedly loved.

  FIFTEEN

  Arden’s nerves were taut, her composure held together by a thread. She had to believe that Kane and Silas knew where she was. She had to believe they were on the way to help. She had to trust that God was in this, that
His way was perfect, that she’d get out of the situation and get back to her life. Otherwise, she might just give into temptation and start singing or talking or spouting useless facts.

  That would do absolutely nothing except irritate Randy. She wouldn’t mind that so much, except that she had to focus. What she needed to do—what she would do—was stay calm.

  She was where she wanted to be, sitting in front of the stand-alone computer system, watching as Randy logged in as the administrator.

  He was nervous. His face was ruddy and glossy with perspiration, his hands shaking as he typed. He looked like an understuffed scarecrow, his suit bagging around his skinny frame, his cheeks gaunt.

  She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. If he hadn’t stolen government secrets and wasn’t trying to pass them into enemy hands, maybe she’d have a little more sympathy for his plight.

  As it was, she hoped he got every single thing that he deserved.

  “How long is this going to take?” Emory asked. He picked up the portable drive that a security guard had taken from Arden’s pocket when he’d frisked her. The rest of what she’d been carrying was spread out on a marble counter nearby—wireless connector, flashlight, screwdriver and prepaid cell phone.

  The security team had disappeared. She thought one of the guards was standing on the other side of the closed door. She might be able to get past him, but she’d have to get past Randy and Emory first.

  After she infected the system, she was going to be running for her life. Literally. There was no doubt in her mind Emory would kill her once he realized what she’d done.

  “Be careful with that,” Arden warned, her heart in her throat as she watched him flip the drive in the palm of his hand.

  He met her eyes, his expression cold. “Do I look stupid?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  He slapped her—a quick vicious hit that left the taste of blood in her mouth.