Stars & Stripes, page 19
part #1 of Watch Dogs Series
Teeth grinding, Aiden focused on their immediate problem. Shit like this made finishing the virus in time an uphill challenge.
Jordi pulled up another box with a grunt of effort and, slicing through the tape sealing it shut, pulled out a plastic wrapped package, which he threw at Aiden. Catching it awkwardly, Aiden saw it was an armored vest.
“Got anything for my legs?” he asked as Jordi stuck an earpiece into his ear and tapped it. At least they’d be able to communicate that way.
“Best I could do in the time. People are fleeing like rats from a ship. At least, that’s the chatter. Getting this was a victory I didn’t expect to have to fight for.”
“They think Blake’s going to succeed?”
Jordi’s expression darkened, but before he could answer, the large window facing the highway splintered as a canister flew through, bouncing into the room and spinning to a halt under one of the desks.
“Down,” shouted Aiden, closing his eyes and putting the armored vest over his head.
The air whumped like the world’s biggest drum had been sounded, then washed over his body in a wave of heat. Aiden crouched, pushing all his weight down into the floor, and rocked with the power of the blast. Squinting, he yanked the armor down and over his head fully, tightening the straps.
He grabbed the machine gun and aimed for the door while tapping his phone to pinpoint all the electronic signatures in the vicinity. On the other side of the room Scotty groaned and twitched on the floor, his arms jerking unsteadily.
Aiden hoped he hadn’t loaded them – he wasn’t ready to be shot in the back by his own side. He hoped Scotty wasn’t simply being brave when he said his arms were fine to use.
Jordi was slowly climbing to his feet, slipping his own vest on, and aiming the SCAR assault rifle at the door.
A fraction later, gunfire ripped through the room at waist height, shattered the monitors and electrical equipment, and tore up the walls.
It was a weekday, early evening, so most of the other businesses would be shut, but Aiden worried someone would be caught in the crossfire. He willed the fuckers on the other side of the broken windows to come into the building so they could finish them off.
He signaled to Jordi to wait. If they counter-attacked too soon, whoever remained outside would be able to target them with impunity and wouldn’t be lured instead. Aiden didn’t want this to be a siege – his goal was to get out as fast as they could.
Jordi flattened himself against the inside wall, rifle raised, eyes on the entrance and body tensed for movement. Aiden, still behind a desk, crouched, hoping the fixers would enter the building en masse. They’d want to clear the place quickly per standard operating procedure.
Unable to see the front door because of the smoke canister, he heard glass and metal grind over one another as the door burst open. He pinged the people around him, accounted for Jordi and Scotty, which left the others as foes. He tracked them across his VR as they approached. Footsteps, no voices, and then absolute quiet as the fixers entered fast but stopped when no one shot at them.
They’d move quickly to clear the office now.
Aiden’s heart pounded, urging him to shoot before someone spotted him. Instead, he hunkered down, breathing slow through his mouth, and gripped his machine gun while he watched the dot that was the nearest of them slowly creep forward.
In times like these his discipline was to remember how to hold his weapon, to ensure it wasn’t too tight. Hard grips led to wild swings of the weapon, to forgetting the nature of the tool in his hands and instead, in a blaze of fear and desperation, to treating it like it was some kind of wildfire. He scrolled down his phone, frantically wondering if he could hack into any systems they were currently using and take them down, but again, time wasn’t on his side.
Glass crinkled underfoot. He counted one, then two sets of footsteps and mapped them to his GPS. He tagged another two of them hanging around by the entrance, possibly even on the outside looking in but close enough he’d be able to see them if he stood up.
He assumed the final two would be coming for them through the back of the building.
Whoever was out there would be able to see Scotty lying prone. That they hadn’t shot him suggested they had images of specific targets they were there to kill, and Scotty wasn’t on that list.
Just me and Jordi then, thought Aiden. That, at least, was good news. It meant that whoever had hired them – be it Blake or the Stripes or Leech – still didn’t know of Scotty’s identity or that he’d gotten away.
Aiden wanted to find the command and control pair, but that would have to wait until they’d survived the six who had them surrounded.
Given Jordi’s position, once the fixers started firing the two of them would set up a field of fire that would hopefully disorient their attackers long enough to take three, if not all four of them down.
Problem was Scotty was down and they had guns to their backs.
We have to wait for them to come further in, but if we wait too long the bastards will surge through the back door and we’ll be toast, he thought.
The footsteps crept closer. He could hear each shard of glass crunch as they advanced. Across from him, in the shadows, Jordi signaled. One man, the other side of the desk. The man’s ping was so close to him they merged into one on his GPS.
Aiden held his breath, staying still, feeling like the world would collapse down into speed and fire, instinct and action.
A breath let out slowly, and then Aiden spun around the edge of the desk, gun up, and opened fire. The first barrage of rounds powered into the legs of the man on the other side. With a shout, the enemy stumbled back, gun firing at the ceiling as he fell.
Aiden heard the distinctive sound of the FN SCAR as it spat rounds out of the office and into bodies.
Coming up into a standing crouch, Aiden sighted the second of his targets, and as the man looked back at him with shock, Aiden fired, his finger held down as the UMP sprayed the man down.
Two down.
Risking a swift glance around the room, he saw Jordi had taken down one of the two beyond the building. With a swift pointing of fingers, he turned to the back door and left Jordi to finish off the remaining fixer out front. Scotty was coming to, rolling onto his front and trying to climb to his knees.
As if planned, the lock was shot out on the back door by the blast of a shotgun and a figure came charging through only to have Aiden pepper them with a dozen rounds. Aiden moved quickly, knowing they were still alive, but they were also in no state to threaten him while he focused on the second of the two, who he expected to come through the door.
A shotgun blast made a soccer ball-sized hole in the rear wall. Aiden threw himself to the floor to avoid scatter and aimed at the door.
Another blast, then a shadow at the door. Aiden fired but missed. The figure ducked back.
Shots flew over his head from behind, toward the front of the office, and he heard Jordi cursing. “There’s more of them!”
Aiden risked a look over his shoulder but couldn’t see who Jordi was shooting at. He had to deal with the shotgun wielder now then back Jordi up, try to even the odds.
Scotty had crawled toward the back door with determination. Everything would be for nothing if Scotty died.
Aiden reached the door as a flash bang came through and bounced off his chest. Eyes wide, he watched it drop, and then without thinking kicked it back out and leapt to one side before the explosion came.
A shout from outside, then a huge bang. The walls of the office sheltered them from the worst of it, and before his head had stopped spinning, Aiden launched out through the door, machine gun raised.
His eyes met those of the fixer holding a gun. Aiden shot her center mass and as she fell, followed up with a shot to the head. The back now covered, he ran around to the front, desperate to locate any other forces waiting in the wings.
There were three units before he got to the public parking lot. His GPS led him to a single woman using an SUV as cover trading fire with Jordi. Aiden came around the side and splattered her with gunfire, taking her in the leg and arm. The fixer screamed and went down.
“The other two,” said Jordi.
Aiden was already on it. Pinging the area, he had half a dozen return handshakes. Two were new ctOS hubs, and two others were in a car driving a block over at the edge of range.
The last two were together about a hundred yards away. Which meant the other end of the shopping strip. Aiden checked the surroundings and, seeing nothing, stepped out from the car cover to run to the other end. The last two fixers weren’t going to get away.
As he did so, a sound cracked right next to him. The windshield of the car he’d used to hide behind shattered.
Aiden threw himself to the ground, grunting with pain from his already bruised ribs. Frantically, he tried to work out where the shot had come from.
“They’ve got a sharpshooter,” said Jordi.
Helpful, thought Aiden.
He broke into a camera security system across the road and pulled the view up. From the camera’s angle, he could see the sharpshooter wasn’t perched that high up. As if to confirm, another shot struck the car above the wheel arch, telling Aiden whoever it was didn’t have the height to strike at him while he was hugging concrete.
“They’re in the parking lot, other end of the mall,” he replied.
“Circling around,” said Jordi. “Tell Scotty to stay with you.”
Aiden frowned. “He isn’t with me.”
“Ah shit,” said Jordi.
Aiden crawled away from the car. With each movement, he expected a bullet to take him out, but no shots came from the sharpshooter. Finally, he crawled to the wall of the office and risked standing up.
“Any sign?” he asked Jordi, but the bastard didn’t bother answering.
Aiden tried pinging Scotty through his arms, as if he could communicate with the Wetware, since he knew Scotty didn’t have a phone.
I need to fix that, thought Aiden, unwilling to contemplate the possibility Scotty was already dead.
A shot and then another in quick succession. “I’m pinned down,” said Jordi.
“I’m coming,” said Aiden. “On my mark, give me a distraction and we’ll see what we can do.” He checked his load out and saw he had half a dozen rounds left in the magazine. He wasn’t going to get much of a chance.
“Oh shit,” came Jordi. Shotgun blasts.
“Jordi? Jordi!” Aiden sprang out from behind the wall and burst from the corner of the mall, the overhanging roof offering no cover, to find Scotty standing over the ruined carnage of the sharpshooter.
He turned to face Aiden. “Didn’t see me coming,” he said, his face triumphant and shaky at the same time.
Seeing the body at Scotty’s feet, Aiden turned to scope out alternate hiding places for the last of the coordinators. They had to be close – the ping put them at this end of the parking lot. Jordi was climbing to his feet when Aiden caught his eye.
Aiden signaled there was one left, and Jordi’s eyes went wide. He checked the security camera again and spotted them – a small figure hiding two cars over and armed with what looked like a high-powered rifle. The kind that would happily shoot through a car one side to the other.
He needed a diversion. Aiden profiled them and to his surprise found they weren’t as secure as they’d hoped. He found a bank account with a decent wedge of cash, overrode the authentication requirements, and sent it direct to a children’s cancer charity. He couldn’t help but smile as he sent a message telling them what he’d done.
There was a shout of outrage from the car where they were hidden, but he was already moving, Jordi coming along the other side.
The fixer made it easy for him, standing up to take a shot and leaving his back open. Aiden swept forward and planted two shots between his shoulder blades.
He scanned the area one more time, but the fixers were done.
“Get as much as you can carry,” he shouted across to Scotty. “We’ve got to go.”
“What about you?” asked Scotty, and Aiden could see he was shaking, the aftermath of what he’d done starting to hit.
“I’ve got answers to get.”
He left Scotty, knowing the man wouldn’t freeze, and made for where he’d left the female fixer he’d surprised against the car.
She’d crawled about fifteen feet, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. Aiden walked up and put a boot on the back of her mangled thigh.
“You know how this ends.” He pushed his boot in further as a warning.
To her credit she didn’t struggle, waiting for him to put two in the back of her head.
“I’ve got questions,” he said.
She laughed. Fair enough, he thought. He’d have done the same were the situations reversed.
“I’ll make you an offer. I’m no fixer. Not like you. I’m not doing this for money.”
She was silent but he could tell she was listening. He refused to get his hopes up – she’d lost a lot of blood, and it might be too late to make good on his offer even if she accepted.
“I’ll get you somewhere safe, get you medical attention, if you tell me who hired you.”
She coughed, and it sounded like her lungs were full of liquid.
“It’s your only option,” he said.
“You know who hired us,” she said.
“Humor me,” he replied. “Imagine I’ve upset a lot of people over the years.”
“They won’t let you kill the president,” she replied.
Aiden turned her words over. “Blake sent you,” he said eventually. “He indicated we were going to take out the president?”
“You think the police could handle this?” she asked. “This is what fixers do.”
Aiden didn’t need to look around at the wreckage to answer her question. Except, he believed the security services would fuck him up before breakfast if they truly thought him a threat. Having said that, how many times had they missed the most obvious red flags only to blame it on data overload or poor protocols?
He didn’t know. Regardless, he did know that Blake wouldn’t risk bringing in people who might stumble upon the bigger picture, who might ask awkward questions. Way too dangerous given what he was planning.
“Right,” he said and grabbed her under the arms. She was heavier than expected and, when he rolled her over, she was dead. So much for medical help.
“Stop molesting the helpless,” said Jordi’s voice over his shoulder.
“You all packed up?”
“Always ready to leave town,” confirmed Jordi. “Got a place on the north side of DC. Far from here.”
“How long till we can go?”
“Ten minutes,” said Jordi. “Eight if you stop harassing the dead and help.”
They found Scotty packing things into the few boxes that hadn’t been shredded by gunfire. He wasn’t going about it with any sense of order, just mechanically throwing things into boxes until they were full. Aiden could see his face was blank.
It was all he could do not to shake his head and tell Scotty it wouldn’t get any better. Kid deserved better than his condescension.
Jordi triumphantly showed them how he’d used the reinforced gun boxes to shield some of the electronics. It meant that despite the mess, most of what they had in the building was in one piece.
The work they’d been doing on Scotty’s arm was intact – saved as it was in a secure online space Aiden had created many years before. Within minutes, they were packed and loaded into a swanky German estate car Jordi had stashed. No other fixers showed to interrupt their evacuation.
As they were doing a final check, a woman emerged from the building at the far end of the mall. She looked terrified, her tight curly hair swept back behind her head, but there was fire in her eyes when she approached Aiden. She had the tiniest pistol in her hand.
Just typical to get a gut shot when the danger is supposedly passed, he thought.
“You going?” she said, looking past him at the car where the other two were looking back at her. The pistol shook as she raised it. “I called the police.”
“We are.”
“Good,” she said.
“You should too. This mall isn’t safe.”
“This is my place,” she said.
“I get it,” he replied, although he had no idea how it felt to belong to somewhere enough to fight for it like she was promising to do.
“Don’t y’all come back though,” she said, keeping the pistol aimed at them. “Enough trouble in this world as it is.”
“You got it,” Aiden said, knowing this was one civilian who had only been living her life before he walked in and destroyed it.
Chapter Seventeen
Jordi’s place was nothing more than a storage unit at a rusty, rundown facility on the north side of the city opposite the Rock Creek Golf Park in the shadow of multi-story apartment blocks.
Aiden was surprised at how the phrase “the wrong side of the tracks” applied to the bright green fields to the west of a long wide road and what appeared to be once prosperous homes slowly decaying to the east.
They unloaded their scavenged supplies from the car, and Jordi drove off to get rid of it on the basis that if fixers had tracked them to the office, then as long as they ditched everything they’d had at that point, anyone else trying to find them would have to start again from scratch.
“The city’s small,” said Aiden to Scotty while Jordi was gone. “They know we’re tied here. If they don’t find us again before we hit Blake, then it’s possible they’ll be waiting for us when we try for him.” He wasn’t entirely sure Blake would risk having fixers interfere with his plan – but he knew he didn’t want the Stripes to draw any attention before Sunday.
“Does that mean we can’t do it?” asked Scotty, looking concerned. “Take Blake out?”
Aiden shook his head. “Just makes it more interesting.” He thought their encounter with the fixers might have changed Scotty’s mind, but he was as resolute as ever.
