Hostile Takeover by David Bruns & Chris Pourteau

Author:David Bruns & Chris Pourteau [Bruns, David & Pourteau, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hip Phoenix Publishing, LLC
Published: 2018-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

William Graves • New York City

The Neo hacker den was in the Bronx. Not the nice part of the Bronx, the other part. And not in one of the high-rises in the not-nice part, but in a below-ground hovel positioned such that the best way to make a tactical approach was from below, via the old sewer system.

Graves breathed through his mouth to avoid the stench that threatened to make him gag. Although the atmosphere was technically breathable, the FBI prep team at the top of the manhole entrance six blocks away had offered him a gas mask. He’d refused out of some tough-guy machismo and now he was beginning to regret it.

He resisted the urge to touch the brick walls that glistened in the glow of his headlamp. No telling what kind of bacterial scourge lived down here. A sharp movement at floor level a few meters ahead caught his attention, made him startle.

“Just a rat, general,” Special Agent Craft said over his shoulder.

“Biggest goddamn rat I’ve ever seen.”

Craft snickered. “Yeah, they grow pretty big down here.”

They both wore knee-high rubber boots as protection against the puddles of fetid water that slopped at their ankles. They would probably protect him from a rat bite, too. A normal-sized rat, that is.

“I never knew these tunnels were down here,” Graves said, more to change the subject than because he cared. All this closeness was starting to get to him.

“Yeah, pretty cool, huh?” Craft reached out and stroked the wall with his gloved hand. “Some these tunnels date from the early 1900s. You can still see the original brick. They’ve all been bypassed now by newer pipes and drainage systems, but some of these old tunnels are still around.”

Craft, who had struck Graves at their first meeting as a no-nonsense, just-the-facts-ma’am kind of guy, had a wistful tone to his old-school Brooklyn accent. In fact, Graves had attributed their quick success in finding the bomber at Anthony Taulke’s UN announcement to Craft’s bulldog attitude.

“We have positive confirmation they’re in the house?” he asked.

Craft paused for a breath. The smell was denser here and Graves wished again for a gas mask. The FBI agent nodded. “They’re in there. As soon as we send the street team after them from above, they’ll skedaddle down here. And then we’ve got ’em. No muss, no fuss.” He made a dusting motion with his hands.

Graves still wasn’t convinced. It just felt too easy. Why go to the trouble of hacking the UN security system and turning a security drone into a weapon—neither action a small feat of technical prowess—and then hang around New York? If it had been him, he’d be in Vancouver by now, maybe somewhere in Asia that wasn’t flooded or being threatened by a massive storm or an earthquake … maybe he was answering his own question. The United States was one of the better places to be, but it was a big country. He’d at least have gone to Kansas or Missouri.

Craft paused next to a ladder that disappeared up into darkness.

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