The Siren Project
Authors: Stephen Renneberg
THE
SIREN PROJECT
Stephen Renneberg
Copyright
©
Stephen Renneberg 2012
ISBN:
978-0-9874347-0-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means,
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prior written permission of the copyright owner.
License
Notes
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product
of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, is coincidental.
Cover design by
Damonza
http://www.stephenrenneberg.com/
ALSO BY STEPHEN RENNEBERG
The Kremlin Phoenix
The Mothership
To my wife Elenor,
for her enduring love and support.
“Twenty minutes until security do
their next check,” John Mitchell said as he glanced at his watch in the cramped
confines of the van. It was two AM and the Silicon Valley technology estate was
locked down for the night. “Ready?”
Gunter, the blonde heavy set German beside
him, lowered his directional mike as he finished his sonic sweep of the
building across the street. “Sounds clear.”
Mitch nodded to the wiry younger man with a
sallow complexion at the back of the van. “Go.”
Mouse gathered up his customized laptop and
climbed out, followed by Mitch, who took a moment to confirm the street was
deserted before heading towards the research facility.
Gunter locked himself inside the van, then
switched to a radio headset and turned to watch Mouse's second computer
monitoring the building's external communications. None of them liked tackling
a target when they didn't control security remotely, but this building had
resisted their attempts to penetrate its defenses. Gunter watched uncomfortably
as the security system sent status updates to an external company every thirty
seconds. If the system stopped talking without the proper key, it would trigger
a silent alarm that would automatically lock down the building and summon a
swarm of guards.
Gunter thumbed his mike. “Tracking comms.
The system is armed.”
“Understood,” Mitch radioed back as he and
Mouse hurried into the shadows of the loading dock. They worked their way
toward a poorly placed security camera, carefully avoiding its field of view,
then edged through the camera's blind spot to a side door adjacent to the
warehouse's loading dock.
“We're in position,” Mitch radioed.
Gunter waited until the building's security
system sent its regular update, then replied. “Now.”
Mouse slipped a metal filament into the
lock, tweaked the tumblers, then with Mitch tracking the time, eased the door
open and stepped into the warehouse manager’s office. They knew the security
system would not activate for thirty seconds, giving an authorized person time
to enter the access code. If they couldn't get the system disarmed in that
time, it would trigger a lockdown, but by a quirk Mouse had discovered in the
program code, the alarm activation and half minute updates were on different
timers. It meant they'd have about twenty five additional seconds to get out
after the silent alarm went off before the external security firm got the alert,
then another two minutes before guards arrived.
Mouse pried off the internal keypad's cover
and crocodile clipped his notebook directly to its communications circuit.
Holding the notebook in one hand, he launched a program that emulated the
security system's own self diagnostics and camouflaged a second nastier program
hiding within the first.
“Searching,” Mouse said at last.
“Sixteen seconds,” Mitch reported, reading
out elapsed time from the stopwatch on his wrist.
Numbers flashed across Mouse's computer
screen making seconds seem like minutes, then suddenly a string of numbers
appeared and a green light illuminated on the alarm keypad.
“Told you I could do it!” Mouse said.
Mitch glanced at his watch. “Yeah, with
three seconds left!”
“You're never satisfied,” Mouse said
shaking his head with mock disappointment.
He unclipped his computer from the keypad,
then removed the network cable from the warehouse manager's desktop computer
and waited, ready to run if necessary. Across the room, Mitch held the door
ajar, preventing them from being locked in should the deception be discovered.
The seconds ticked down until the security
system sent its update, then Gunter's voice sounded in their ears, “Perimeter
system disarmed.”
Mitch relaxed, releasing the door as Mouse
plugged the ethernet cable into his laptop. Hacking the company that had
installed the building's computer network had been a simple matter, stealing
the backdoor access key even simpler. Soon one of Mouse's more elegant
creations was attacking the internal security system from inside its own
defenses, a much easier task than trying to break down the front door.
“Got it! Internal cameras, internal door
locks, thermal and motion detectors and under floor pressure sensors. Nice.”
He gave Mitch a confident look. “What I don’t have, we don’t need.”
“What about surveillance?”
“They’ve got five video screens on
automatic rotation from camera to camera. I control the sequence. They’ll only
see what I give them.”
“So, we're good to go?”
“Is Spock a Vulcan?” Mouse replied, holding
up three fingers, then counting down. “Three, two, one, mark.”
Mitch set his stopwatch as Mouse launched
the override program. They left the laptop on the desk, then hurried out to the
loading dock, where they waited until the stopwatch had counted twenty seconds.
“Now!” Mitch whispered as the loading
dock’s camera was temporarily locked out of the surveillance center’s display
sequence.
They ran across to a set of heavy double
doors, arriving just as the override program remotely unlocked them.
“What’d I tell you?” Mouse demanded with a
triumphant grin.
“Congratulate yourself when we’re out of
here,” Mitch said as he opened the door and slipped inside.
He watched the stopwatch click around to
forty seconds then exactly on schedule, they walked the next leg past another
blind camera. At the stairs, they paused, then on cue climbed two flights
quickly, Mitch bounding easily ahead while Mouse struggled to catch up. At the
landing, the door there unlocked just as Mitch arrived. He pushed the door open
and waited for Mouse.
“You got to work out more,” Mitch said as
Mouse arrived.
Mouse made a sour face. “You know exercise
and me don’t mix!”
They hurried down a hall, with widely
spaced white doors either side of an antiseptically clean polished floor. As
they arrived at the third door on the left, the electronic lock clicked open,
letting them slip inside. A few seconds later the hall’s security camera came
back online, merging back into the endless loop of images flashing on the
security screens below.
The microprocessor lab was laid out in
several rows of graphics workstations, connected to a super computer at one end
of the room. The super computer, one of the world’s most powerful, was shielded
in a temperature controlled environment behind a wall of glass.
“Five minutes,” Mitch whispered, then into
the radio, “G, how’s it look?”
Gunter’s voice came through clearly, “All
quiet out here, Mitch.”
Mouse seated himself at the first terminal
with the look of an art lover admiring a Da Vinci. “Do you know how much one of
these babies cost?”
“Do you know how many years in the Pen we
get, if we’re caught?”
“No. Want me to find out? I can hack into
the FBI central computer in no time flat with this baby.”
“Just get the stuff.”
Mouse looked disappointed, then produced a
folded piece of paper with handwritten words and numbers on it. “This password
better be the real deal, or we’ve gone to a lot of trouble for nothing.”
“And our client is out a million bucks,”
Mitch said, as Mouse entered the password. “I don’t give refunds.”
The wide screen in front of Mouse flashed
to a multilayered three dimensional diagram. He peered at it, amused and
relieved. “Thank you, mama!” Mouse slid the first disk into the drive. “Engage
warp drive,” he muttered as data started being copied.
Mitch kept his eye on the stopwatch as
Mouse fed in two more disks. When he retrieved the last disk, they hurried back
out to the fire stairs and waited for the last ten seconds to countdown. Mitch
placed his hand expectantly on the stairway door, as the stopwatch’s second
hand ticked up to the twelve, then passed it, with no sound of the lock
unbolting. He tried the door uncertainly.
“Am I missing something here?”
Mouse glanced at the stopwatch and swallowed.
“Uh-ho.”
“What do you mean, uh-ho?” Mitch tried
pushing the door but it wouldn’t budge. He held his right hand to his ear
piece. “G, you reading me?”
Silence.
“Gunter? Acknowledge.” Mitch hardly gave
him time to respond, he already knew he was gone. He smashed the door with his
shoulder, but it held firm. “Any chance your computer program is late?”
“Are you serious?”
“Guess we’ll have to do this the old
fashioned way.” Mitch produced his gun, complete with silencer, and fired three
shots into the lock. He slammed the door with his shoulder again, but it
wouldn’t budge.
“We’re screwed.”
“Totally.” Mitch agreed, then he tested
several other doors. All were locked, even the lab they had just left. From the
far end, the sound of a door unlocking broke the silence. “Here it comes.”
The door burst open and ten black clad
security men ran into the hall, each holding a light weight automatic weapon at
eye height for precision aiming.
Mouse raised his hands, “I surrender, don’t
shoot. I give up!”
“Mitchell, put the gun down! Now!” The lead
security man yelled.
Oh crap, he knows my name!
Mitch knew what that meant. He made a show of placing his weapon on
the floor and raising his hands in the air.
The security men surrounded them, then the
leader ordered, “On your knees! Hands on your heads! Face the wall!”
Mouse fell to his knees instantly. Mitch
obeyed more slowly, nodding with bored acceptance. One of the security men
snatched the disks from Mouse’s raised hand.