Bound Together (3 page)

“Karin Ashley, Security, entering authorization code now,” I recited aloud. The system was locked with a voice-print as an added layer of security. A green indicator flashed on the screen and I started typing quickly, entering the root password into the keyboard as carefully as I could. If I didn't do this exactly right the system would send a pulse through the drives with enough voltage to fry them and probably set me on fire, too.

Considering that I had no desire to be on fire, I made sure I followed procedure exactly. Data scrolled across the terminal window, informing me that the system was open and I could retract the storage media safely.

Each drive was individually connected and I had to remove them individually. Well, “remove” is overstating it a bit; I wasn't actually going to take them
out
of the racks. One by one I slid the drives away from the backplane, disconnecting them from their power source as well as their connection to the data server.

The whole process took almost five minutes. As I pulled the last drive out of seventy, the lights in the room flickered. I froze in place, a chill running down my spine. That should
never
happen. This building had its own generator, but beside that, the data vault had several redundant power supplies, including a fusion battery that could keep the entire system up for two weeks without any external power whatsoever.

Flickering lights were
not
normal.

I stepped away from the hidden alcove. There were no external controls to close the wall panel, but the biometric scanners would realize I'd moved and the door should have closed on its own within ten seconds.

The lights went out. The door did not close.

Fuck
.

I drew my pistol from the holster at the small of my back and tapped a button on the side. An integrated LED flashlight underneath the barrel and slide powered on and cast a bright beam, illuminating the room. The power was not completely out; indicator lights glowed on the storage racks all around me.

I strained to listen, trying to overhear anything—voices I didn't recognize, the sounds of a struggle, anything that would let me know if the intrusion was more than just a hacking attempt. But I couldn't hear anything except the humming of hundreds of small fans, keeping the drives cool.

“It makes sense, though,” I murmured to myself. My heart was thudding wildly in my chest. I kept my pistol in a ready grip, forward, my finger against the guard, fighting hard to maintain good trigger discipline. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a firefight with one of my own coworkers.

The near silence was unnerving, but the total lack of activity was worse. Reynolds should have been on the phone with all sorts of other agencies. My own security people and Secret Service suits should have been swarming all over the place, but the corridors were empty and dark.

I passed by my office, noting the auto-lock was still active. I hesitated by the door for a moment and pulled out my phone. The sane thing to do would be to go inside my office, seal the door and call for backup. Unfortunately, circumstances didn't want me to do the sane thing because I had absolutely no signal.

It couldn't possibly have been a coincidence. The electronic break-in was a prelude to an actual, physical break-in, one performed by professionals. I recalled the warning I gave my boss about the doors—

Shit! The fucking
doors
! That's what they
wanted
in the first place!

Acutely aware that my chances of being shot to death had exponentially increased, I lifted my pistol and flipped off the safety. The click sounded deafening in the dark, silent corridor. I was trembling, my heart beating like a crazy runaway freight train, but I was damn well determined not to go out without a fight. I sidled up against the level four security door leading back into the nexus near the lobby and peered through the plate-glass window.

The lobby was dark, but the parking lot floodlights were bright enough to illuminate the interior well enough. My eyes widened and I felt my body go so cold and slack I almost dropped my gun.

Blood was
everywhere
. Dark slashes of blood glistened wetly on the walls. Pooled on the floor, mingled with crushed and broken glass. The sliding double-doors that led into the building were made of high-impact bullet-resistant glass, but someone or some
thing
had shattered it. Near the entrance was a deep pile of whitish-gray ash, but I couldn't see any indication that there was a fire anywhere. More of it was scattered in smaller piles near the larger one.

My hands shook and I felt my mind start to spin out of control as panic threatened to take control, but I stubbornly shoved it back down into its box. There were three bodies along with the blood and the strange ash. The exterior lighting was harsh and gave the scene a surreal blue cast, but I saw their uniforms well enough to know they were all my security officers, people who I worked with day in and day out.

The light wasn't good enough for me to recognize them by face and I counted that as a fucking blessing.

Something had gone terribly wrong. My boss would have called our own people plus the Secret Service, but he was nowhere in sight. I saw no one in cheap black suits, only the three dead guards. Whoever broke into the building had killed our people so quickly and suddenly that they hadn't had a chance to even draw their weapons.

I stepped back away from the door leading back to the lobby and crept through the darkened corridor, toward my office. With shaky hands I tapped my ID against the auto-lock, wincing as the loud acceptance chime went off. As quietly as I could I slipped inside my office and slapped my hand against the light panel so that the motion detectors wouldn't turn the ambient lighting up. Best for anyone outside to think nobody was inside.

With my phone getting no signal whatsoever I had no other options except try to use my computer to get the word out. A feeling of uneasiness clung to me as I sat down and brought my machine out of standby, greeted by the familiar desktop workspace. The network connection was still active.

Thank all the stars in the universe for that. I let out a relieved sigh and tapped the icon that would open up my message interface. I'd get an alert out to the local Secret Service branch and hope that the FBI wouldn't need to be involved. Fat chance of that, really, what with three murder victims in the lobby of a federal building.

I tapped on the keys as quietly as I could, trying to maintain the appearance that nobody was in the office. Fortunately the office had been arranged in such a way that any observers looking in wouldn't be able to see my computer displays. My fingers trembling, I pressed the “send” icon and watched as the little indicator wheel began to spin. It wouldn't take long before the emergency alert was received and the cavalry were on their way.

The indicator didn't stop spinning.

My hands started to shake even more. Okay, so the network connection was up, but that didn't mean the facility's internet connection was necessarily still active. I could check easily enough. I opened up a terminal window and entered a command that would try to contact an external IP address. There was a short delay before “connection timed out” printed across the terminal window along with a few bits of information about the test packets sent.

Okay. The attackers had their shit together. My hands felt like if they shook any more violently they'd start generating light and heat. I tried to slow my heart rate by taking deep, slow breaths, but it didn't seem to be working.

A wavy strand of my hair dangled in front of my eyes; I angrily brushed it aside and behind my ear. There was literally
nothing
I could do at this point. The facility's security had been successfully neutralized and communications were completely down. The smartest and sanest choice I could make would be to make a break for it, cut through the lobby and the parking lot to my car.

Running and abandoning the data to the intruders really was the only option left if I wanted to keep breathing. My bosses would undoubtedly be furious with me, that I had failed to stop this, but at least I'd be alive. I'd lose my job, might even lose my pension, but I would still be breathing. That was good enough for me; if I could just make it out of this alive, I'd be happy.

Unfortunately circumstances yet again conspired against me. For the first time since the physical break-in began, I heard the sounds of a struggle. A loud
thump
reverberated through the facility walls. From the intensity and direction of the sound I concluded it was coming from the data vault. I could just faintly hear the sound of voices, some of them deep and masculine and intimidating, but I also caught the indistinct, indecipherable lilt of a clear and high feminine voice.

What the
fuck
was going on here tonight? I pulled a cigarette from my jacket pocket and lit it inside my office, something that I would risk getting fired for on a good day. Today was not a good day and I was probably fired anyway.

If the intruders were fighting, arguing, there was a chance I could exploit their disharmony to prevent the theft of the drives. I knew that's what they were here for; it was the only real option, after all. If the intruders just wanted their hands on the data alone they would have simply tried for a much more blitzkrieg electronic intrusion, obtaining the files before anyone had the time to pull the drives.

No. The attackers wanted to
steal
the drives. They didn't just want the data, they wanted to deprive everyone else of the data. The very nature of this sort of information was such that we didn't maintain redundant backups at separate locations. The more we propagated it the more likely a leak became, so we were always inherently at risk.

My hands weren't shaking quite so bad anymore after the smoke. I kept my gun held in a ready position with my right hand as I unsealed the office door and stepped back into the corridor. I could still hear the voices, arguing, shouting at each other, punctuated by the occasional loud percussion. It didn't sound like gunshots, though.

The door to the data vault was still deactivated. I pushed it open and let my sidearm do the leading. The rack-filled room was a little better lit than the empty corridors, but it was still dark enough that I couldn't see well. I couldn't risk using my flashlight without being detected, so I just kept my back against the storage racks. The indistinct voices became louder and more coherent.

“... I know you were summoned to steal the agency's data on our House. I will not allow you to escape with those drives intact.”

The reply came moments later, in a sepulchral tone that seemed to echo and resonate within itself, but I couldn't make out the words. That voice was weird and
close
. Maybe less than a few meters from where I stood, hiding behind a collection of storage racks.

Trying to keep as quiet as I could, I prepared myself mentally for the possibility that I might have to shoot someone tonight. My index finger brushed against the ridges machined into the metal of the trigger.

I leaned out from behind the racks and snapped my gun arm up. There was a tall, gangly figure holding a black nylon duffel. I couldn't really make out many details, but I could tell, even in the poor lighting, that the satchel was carefully packed with the data drives from the hidden storage racks.

I shouted as loudly as I could, trying to intimidate with my voice as much as my weapon. “Security! Drop those drives immediately and put your hands on your head!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man. Tall, athletic, obviously Asian and mostly bald with an archaic-looking topknot on his head that seemed at odds with the expensive tailored suit he wore. In his hands he held... well, that was fucking weird.

The man was poised in a fighting crouch, a very old Japanese longsword gripped in his hands, the polished steel blade reflecting trails of blue and green colored light from the storage rack indicator LEDs. Next to him stood what looked like a girl in her late teens, maybe early twenties, but it was hard to tell in the gloom.

The sword-wielding man's eyes widened in horror. “No! Do not interfere with—”

There was a dark flash of
something
and I felt a tremendous impact slam into me, almost knocking me off my feet. I stumbled against the nearby rack and managed to keep my balance. My training took over.

The gun came up and fired twice in rapid succession, taking the intruder directly in the center of mass. I expected to see the figure stumble, perhaps fall to his knees or at least drop the duffel, but this didn't happen. I fired again, and again, the deafening report of the pistol echoing throughout the confines of the data vault. My ears rang painfully, but I kept firing until the slide locked open on an empty magazine.

The muzzle flash left spots dancing in my vision; as my eyes re-adjusted to the darkness, I felt as if my bones had turned to water.

The dark man stood as he had before, taking twelve high-velocity nine-millimeter slugs to the torso with absolutely no effect. My hands started to shake again and I was dimly aware that I'd dropped my gun. I had a spare mag, my training kept trying to tell my body to move, to reload and keep firing, but it was useless. I felt dizzy, weak, barely able to keep my feet underneath me.