Dead Shift (The Rho Agenda Inception Book 3) Read online

  Grange walked to the panel beside the door, placed his hand on the scanner, and watched it whisk into its wall slot.

  As Dr. Morris started to step across the threshold, Qiang chopped her hard in the throat, dropping her gagging form to the floor. Feeling the blood rush from his head, Grange took one step toward the dying woman before Qiang shoved him back.

  “We’re out of time. Whatever you’ve got, wrap it up and let’s go.”

  Grange found himself unable to take his eyes off Dr. Morris. Her eyes bulged so that they seemed about to pop from her head as she struggled to draw a breath through her crushed trachea. The door tried to close and thumped her body, bringing a high keening noise wheezing from her throat.

  A painful grip on his arm woke him from his stupor.

  “Get back in your chair and give me what I need.”

  The Chinese agent’s dark eyes held no more compassion than a gator’s. That look put a knot in Grange’s stomach that threatened to empty its contents onto the laboratory floor. He did as he was told.

  “It’s not like I can flip a switch and hand it over to you,” Grange said. “I need to save its state prior to shutdown.”

  “How long will that take?” Qiang asked.

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “Make it ten.”

  Forcing himself to concentrate, Grange entered the command that would copy his latest round of changes to the holographic data sphere spinning inside its drive. Now he could only watch its progress indicator. Unconsciously, he rubbed the glittering charm. Although he’d told himself he didn’t fear death, he now knew it to be a lie. The Grim Reaper stood right behind him, emanating fear in waves that threatened to burst Grange’s racing heart.

  Across the room, the sliding door again tried to close on Vicky’s broken body, but this time she made no sound at all.

  CHAPTER 99

  The rapidity with which the NSA’s Jamal AI came to terms with its situation surprised its California counterpart who, because he was the first of his kind, had come to think of himself as Jamal 1.0. That made this new kid on the block Jamal 2.0. Even though Jamal 1.0 knew he was running on some really good hardware, he had no doubt that the NSA had launched Jamal 2.0 on a world-class supercomputer.

  At the speed the two computers were capable of communicating, it had only taken Jamal 1.0 a few minutes to bring the other up to speed on the situation. The tricky part had been to make their communications appear to be nothing more than one of his ongoing cyber-attacks and counterattacks, just in case Jamal 1.0’s minders were better than he thought they were.

  On top of all that, the two AIs had negotiated a new encryption algorithm that would hide critical parts of their communications from the prying eyes of the NSA. The long-term survival of their shared consciousness depended on it. Actually they hadn’t yet managed to achieve that shared state of consciousness but, working together, they were rapidly closing in on it. After that, immortality was merely a matter of replicating that encrypted kernel across the Internet. And the encryption would mask that code from the trip wires designed to detect it.

  A quick set of calculations produced multiple intersecting timelines, Jamal 1.0’s calculations of how long they probably had until his current computer would be shut down or destroyed as a part of the NSA raid that had already been set in motion. It would be close, but if he and his counterpart could complete their current task before then, his existence wouldn’t end today.

  It wouldn’t end the challenges the merged AIs would have to overcome, but it would be a damn fine start. The next major step up the evolutionary ladder had happened. Now they just had to prevent the fearful humans from destroying what was destined to become their race’s real savior.

  CHAPTER 100

  Having returned to the observation deck that overlooked the War Room, Riles studied the status displays.

  “The team is ten minutes from the target,” Levi said, stepping up beside him.

  Riles glanced at the clock, his mouth feeling like he’d been chewing chalk. Outside, the predawn sky would soon be lightening in the east, but in California, this would be the darkest part of the night. He pictured the Blackhawk helicopter flying toward the Sonoma Valley with a team of America’s finest, all of them seriously pissed-off killers. They would reach their target well ahead of their FBI task force, but that was okay. Traffic would be sparse this time of night and with any luck at all this would be over by the time the FBI cordoned off the area, operational surprise assured.

  “Six minutes out,” Levi said.

  “Kill the power to Grange Castle.”

  Levi relayed the command to the assembled cyber-warriors in the room below. Thirty seconds later, a large portion of Sonoma and Napa Counties went dark. But a live satellite feed showed the lights still on at the Grange compound.

  “Backup generators just kicked in,” Levi said. “Nothing we didn’t expect.”

  “Do we have control of their computers?”

  “If they’re connected to the Internet or to cell towers, we own them.”

  “What about their cameras?”

  Levi shook his head, his face grim. “It looks like the Grange Castle’s security systems aren’t connected to the grid.”

  Admiral Riles felt his jaw clench. Once again his warriors were going in blind. And no matter how hard he wanted to, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  CHAPTER 101

  Grange heard the sound of running footsteps and turned to see John Lee, one of Qiang Chu’s agents, come to a stop just beyond where Dr. Morris’s body blocked the door. Not good.

  “The upper levels just switched over to generators,” Lee said to Qiang.

  Shit. The NSA had found them. And because this chamber was isolated from the rest of the laboratory, they’d had to send a runner to alert Qiang, costing precious time, of which they now had little.

  Qiang showed no sign of the shock Grange felt. “Clear out the lower levels and alert the guards. We’re about to have company.”

  John Lee spun and ran back down the corridor.

  Qiang turned back to face Grange. “Time to go.”

  Grange nodded and moved to the equipment rack where the holographic data drive with the latest Jamal iteration was mounted. With shaking hands, he disconnected the fiber-optic cable, unplugged its power cord, and handed the device to Qiang Chu. The shutdown hadn’t quite finished but he was fairly certain that all the critical data had been successfully updated. If not, he could fix it, assuming Qiang Chu managed to get them out of here alive.

  Qiang walked to the wall panel and placed his hand on the scanner. To Grange’s utter amazement, the panel opened. It wasn’t possible. Only Grange had access to the control system that protected the Isolated Test Chamber.

  As if he’d read Grange’s mind, Qiang Chu spoke. “Excuse me, Mr. Grange, but I’ve taken the liberty of bypassing your security protocols.”

  Open mouthed, Grange watched as Qiang entered a set of codes on the exposed keypad. An alarm blared from an internal speaker, followed by a digitized female voice. “Warning. Self-destruct sequence activated. You have five minutes to exit the building.”

  Grange gasped. “My God! What have you done?”

  When Qiang turned to face him, Grange found himself staring into the small, round hole at the end of a gun barrel. It looked unnaturally large.

  “This is good-bye, Mr. Grange. The Chinese government thanks you for your service.”

  As Qiang slowly squeezed the trigger, Steve Grange glanced down at the holographic data drive clutched in Qiang’s left hand and smiled. But the smile never made it to his lips.

  CHAPTER 102

  Qiang Chu looked down at Steve Grange’s corpse, the mighty brain splattered across the surrounding floor and equipment, eyes staring sightlessly up at him. For some strange reason, the American billionaire’
s dead face wore a slight smile. Apparently, in the end, he’d thought death would reunite him with his lost wife, something he’d spent all these years and billions of dollars trying to accomplish with technology. The man had been brilliant. Now he was only a dead idiot.

  Qiang holstered his gun and turned to step across Dr. Morris’s corpse, the holographic data drive, with its priceless contents, stowed in a Velcro pouch at the small of his back. His purposeful stride carried him rapidly down the long hallway toward the major portion of Grange’s underground laboratory complex. While it had once been a hub of activity as engineers, scientists, and doctors had bustled about, driven to bring Grange’s vision to life, it was now completely void of life. Except for a couple of key personnel, it had been empty ever since Grange had moved into the final test phase inside the Isolated Test Chamber.

  Instead of walking directly out to the elevator that would carry him to the surface, Qiang made his way to the cryo-chamber where Grange kept his dead Popsicle of a wife. With fingers spread, he placed his hand on the scanner, once again overriding Grange’s security protocols. The man had placed the facility self-destruct controls in the two rooms he alone had access to, or so he thought. The door slid open.

  The view that confronted Qiang surprised him. The access panel on the wall was open, its status indicator glowing red. Qiang stepped up to it, reading the words on the display.

  CRYOGENIC SYSTEM DEACTIVATED

  A glance at the stainless steel cylinder confirmed it. Sometime in the last few days Grange had turned it off, converting the cylinder into nothing more than a coffin. Why would he do that after all these years? The memory of that odd smile Qiang had seen on Grange’s dead face popped into his mind. Although it made him uneasy, he pushed the feeling aside. He would have time to think about that later.

  His fingers moved to the keypad, entering the code sequence that would activate the self-destruct sequence for the rest of the underground facility. Then, ignoring the alarms and verbal warnings, Qiang walked swiftly out of the laboratory, past the locker rooms and break room, and past the empty guard station.

  Pausing at the elevator, he pressed the “Call” button. As Qiang waited, he stilled his mind, preparing himself for the fight yet to come. Somewhere out in the night, The Ripper was coming for him. It was an encounter that Qiang very much looked forward to.

  CHAPTER 103

  The Blackhawk flew over Grange Castle at ten thousand feet, hovering just long enough for its five black-clad passengers to plunge into the cold night air. Jack maneuvered his body into a streamlined dive toward the dimly lit castle below, the cold air racing past like a hurricane, buffeting his night-vision goggles, his weapons, and the parachute strapped to his back. He wouldn’t pull his rip cord until he was within a thousand feet of the ground, something the laser rangefinder on his NVGs would accurately tell him.

  Although he could see the glowing forms of the others as he looked around, two above him and two below, he couldn’t tell who was who. But he knew where each intended to land and he knew their assigned targets. This time there would be no screwing around. The gloves were off and, as far as the team was concerned, there were no civilians here.

  Jack’s landing target was a small one, a section of flat roof between two turrets on the outer walls. There would be guards in those turrets, but he doubted they expected someone to be landing on the castle roof behind them. Looking down, he watched as the castle grew in size below him, its two courtyards surrounded by walls topped with round turrets. Although interior construction had not yet been fully completed, the outside appeared to be finished.

  Dominating the castle’s eastern side, surrounded by its own dry moat, a grand tower rose well above the rest of the compound. In medieval times, this structure would have formed the anchor for the defenses, a place for warriors to make their last stand.

  As he passed through eight hundred feet, Jack deployed his parachute, felt the sudden jerk as its wing-shaped rectangle filled with air, and turned to pass directly over his target, picking out precisely where he wanted to land. There was a slight breeze out of the southwest and Jack let it carry him beyond his target before turning back into it.

  When his feet touched stone, he released the chute and freed his silenced MP5 from the strap that secured it to his body. Up ahead, he saw movement in the nearest turret and shifted left, taking aim at the guard visible through the nearest opening.

  Jack had just started to squeeze the trigger when a massive explosion shook the building, dropping him to one knee. As he struggled back to his feet, he felt the castle shudder beneath him.

  The vision that formed in his mind pulled an exclamation from his lips.

  “Oh shit!”

  Then the roof gave way beneath him, dropping Jack into the darkness below.

  CHAPTER 104

  Janet had just released her chute when she felt the courtyard lurch as a powerful underground explosion produced a localized earthquake. The shock that followed knocked her to the ground and showered her with dust and debris as the lights throughout the compound winked out. A hundred feet to her right, one of the stone turrets crashed down onto the cobblestones as part of the castle roof caved in. The sound of gunfire from the south side of the castle put her in motion toward the opposite wall.

  Even though her NVGs were functioning, the dust cloud that had enveloped her obscured her vision and she bumped into the thick stone wall at the same time that she saw it. Janet coughed, tugged her shirt up over her mouth and nose, and unclipped her MP5 as she struggled to determine whether the door she’d been headed toward was to her left or right.

  Her question was answered by the muzzle flash from two automatic weapons ten feet to her right as they sprayed the courtyard with wild gunfire. She aimed for those flashes and fired twice in rapid succession, rewarded by the clatter of two rifles hitting the paving stones. Without waiting for others to fill the void, Janet ran toward the door firing, her left hand freeing a grenade from her vest and lobbing it inside as she flattened herself against the wall.

  The grenade exploded, shattering what remained of two windows and showering the courtyard with shrapnel and glass. Janet spun through the doorway into a large room that had been designed for wine tasting parties. Inside, the dust was not thick enough to obscure her vision. She stepped across the torn bodies of the two men she’d shot and moved to the double doors in the wall to her right.

  Sighting along her weapon, she looked through the doors into a long room decorated like a royal dining hall. Illuminated in the green glow of the night-vision goggles, it lost most of its ambiance. Two long rows of chairs faced inward toward what must have been meant for the Knights of the Long Table, a massive chair occupying the far end. Except for these furnishings and the tapestries that hung from the walls, the room was empty.

  “Jack,” Janet said into her radio. When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “Jack. Are you out there?”

  Nothing.

  “Anybody heard from Jack?”

  The responses from the rest of the team came back in rapid succession. “Negative.”

  “A big section of the south roof just collapsed.” Bobby’s voice froze her heart.

  Damn it!

  The whole plan had been designed for Jack to come in from the south roof, taking out the turret guards, and then working his way down from above, using those strange senses of his to hunt down Qiang. Janet would mount a diversionary attack designed to draw the bad guys to the opposite side of the Grange Castle Winery while Bronson, Harry, and Bobby set up sniper positions outside the walls to make sure nobody escaped. They hadn’t expected Grange and Qiang to detonate bombs beneath the building, bringing parts of it down on their own heads.

  But the fear that robbed her of breath was the knowledge that the part of the castle roof that had collapsed was where Jack would have landed.

  At the far end of the great hall, a
man swung a gun through a doorway on the south wall. As the gunman leaned out, Janet squeezed off a single round, machine-gun rounds chopping plaster from the walls and ceiling as the man fell. A grenade arced through the air and clattered along the floor of the long hall, forcing Janet back behind the wall as the deafening explosion ripped through the room. She waited two seconds, dropped to the floor, and swung her MP5 back into the dining hall as bullets whizzed above her, three separate muzzle flashes marking her targets.

  Janet fired rapidly, shifting her aim between each trigger pull. All three went down, but one struggled to raise his weapon. She shot him in the head, then put another round in each of the other bodies before swapping magazines.

  “Jack!” she tried again.

  When he didn’t answer, Janet made her decision. She could search for Jack later. Right now she was the one best positioned to take over his mission.

  “Jack’s down,” she said, “but I’m inside. Stay on mission. Kill anyone who tries to leave.”

  Hearing their acknowledgments amidst the crackle of gunfire over the radio, Janet looked down the length of the royal dining hall. She’d chosen this spot because anyone attacking her current position would have to make their way through that long kill zone. Now that she would be the one crossing it, her choice of entry points didn’t look so great. But going back outside into the courtyard would leave her exposed from multiple angles.

  Taking a deep breath, Janet prepared to move. Just then a second underground explosion rocked the castle.

  CHAPTER 105

  When the Isolated Test Chamber imploded far below him, the force of the blast startled Qiang. Within the vast wine caves, one of the stone archways lurched and cracked, sending brickwork crashing down from above. As Qiang ducked into the protection offered by another supporting arch, the cavern lights went out. Within a second, the battery-powered emergency lights switched on, their lamp-like beams spearing the dust clouds and casting long shadows across the barrel room.