Hell Dawn

“IS OUR PACKAGE BACK THERE?”

“Unknown,” Jack Grimaldi replied. “But these guys put down a cop.”

Lyons cursed under his breath. An instant later Blancanales fell in step with him. At the same time the Able Team leader caught the sound of sirens closing in from the distance, the wails eliciting another oath.

The ex-LAPD cop keyed his throat mike and spoke. “Get the bird into the air. And call the Farm for a cleanup crew on this. Tell Hal or Barb to start greasing the wheels. Otherwise we’ll be stuck here.”

“Roger that, Ironman,” Grimaldi said.

Blancanales had stepped in close to a nearby building, raising his weapon to cover Lyons while the man edged along the line of the store until he reached the mouth of an alley. Halting, he craned his neck to peer around the corner. Another shot rang out, followed by a strangled cry.

Gabe Fox was nowhere in sight.

Other titles in this series:

#19 NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

#20 TERMS OF SURVIVAL

#21 SATAN’S THRUST

#22 SUNFLASH

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

#79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

#80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

#81 SKY HAMMER

#82 VANISHING POINT

#83 DOOM PROPHECY

#84 SENSOR SWEEP

This book is dedicated with sincere respect and appreciation to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, Ohio Marine Reserve, for its service in Iraq. You’re heroes all. “Thank you” seems woefully inadequate recompense, particularly for those who made the ultimate sacrifice. We owe you so much.

Also dedicated to the loving memory of Carol—wife, mother and my favorite reader. Charlie misses you and so do I.

And, last but not least, to Bill C., my other favorite reader. Keep fighting the good fight, my man.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Frisco, Colorado

Rolling his chair back from the desk, Gabriel Fox stared once more at his latest creation, shivered, then cursed himself under his breath. He’d created a monster, one he damn sure intended to slay. But first, he’d have a cigarette and maybe another drink.

Getting to his feet, he crossed the luxuriously appointed bedroom, moved to a window and, turning a small hand crank, opened it. He was supposed to leave them shut. That’d been the first thing the craggy-faced CIA agent had warned him against.

We have the whole place wired, every entrance, every door, the guy had said. You want to open a window, you come find me and we’ll bypass the alarm for you. I’ll have a couple of guys sit in here and baby-sit you. Otherwise, leave the windows alone. Don’t fuck with me on this, Gabe.

Which, of course, had been all the challenge Fox needed. It had taken him all of five minutes to bypass the alarm system, allowing him to open the window—a heavy pane of bulletproof glass—undetected and at will. With the grounds outside the mountain chalet crawling with armed guards, he assumed it’d only be a matter of time before he got busted by the dour security chief, a tight ass named Oliver Stephens, and suffered a severe tongue-lashing for it.

But hell, getting caught was half the fun.

Grinding out his cigarette, he tossed the butt out the window and watched as it fell three stories before hitting the sidewalk, joining two others he’d dropped earlier that night. He figured the guards would eventually see them there, put two and two together, and figure out that he was opening his window and having a smoke. Let them, he decided. He already was a dead man. Why delay the inevitable?

Leaving the window open, he walked to the bed, perched himself on the edge of the mattress and considered whether to light another cigarette. Or maybe dive into that glass of whiskey he’d promised himself. Dive in and drown.

That seemed to sum up how he felt. His life to this point had been anything but seamless. But, within the last couple of weeks, it had turned into a damned horror show. The cold mountain wind blew through the window, raising gooseflesh on his tattooed arms. He rubbed them, trying to generate some heat. At six feet, six inches, head shaved bald, body covered in tattoos—a multicolored montage of eagles, Sanskrit symbols, big-busted women and alcohol logos—Fox usually turned heads. Not admiring glances, but the surreptitious kind people cast after you’ve already passed, a sort of morbid fascination, like watching paramedics drag a bloodied corpse from a mangled car. He didn’t care. His rule in life had been that negative attention was better than no attention, so he took what he could get.

And lately he’d been getting plenty of attention, all of it negative.

He headed for the dresser, stopping only long enough to close the window, and poured himself three fingers of whiskey. He downed it in a loud gulp, poured another and returned to his desk. Seating himself, he enjoyed the whiskey’s warmth as it enveloped the inside of his stomach. A glance at the laptop’s screen doused the pleasant burn and brought him back to reality.

Lord help him, what had he done? Fox stared at the lines of code he had written and felt an avalanche of guilt fall over him, smothering him. When the lines had sprung from his fingertips, he hadn’t fully considered their implications. He’d been in the zone, unaware of reality. He’d felt more like a pianist, like Ray Charles or Ahmad Jamal, a maestro unleashing his creative juices, making something beautiful, an extension of himself.

Only after he’d completed the worm, the product of three days’ straight work, his weary body fueled by caffeine and alcohol, had he realized just what he’d created. And it was horrible.

His handlers at the CIA had dubbed his latest work Project: Cold Earth. It was a benign name for a malignant computer worm capable of shutting down the cooling systems for nuclear reactors. It was, for all intents and purposes, a digital gateway into hell. It was his, and he couldn’t wait to be free of it.

Unfortunately he wasn’t sure when that moment might come. Once he created one of these little beauties, he then had the unenviable task of reverse engineering them, tearing them apart and creating defenses for them. He had created the disease and it was up to him to find the cure. And until then, he’d stay locked away in this mountain chalet with Agent Tight Ass and his posse of paramilitary robots, having them try to control his every move and him having to score little victories, like figuring out how to bypass the alarm and open a window.

It was just like reform school, where he’d first shown an aptitude for computers, not only as a programmer and repairman, but also as a practitioner of the dark arts, particularly hacking and authoring malignant code. Except now the government gave him a security clearance, a paycheck and at least feigned respect for him.

Scanning his surroundings again, taking in the stone fireplace, the mahogany furniture and fully stocked bar, he grinned tightly. At least now when they jailed him, they did it in style.

He set to work at the computer once again, his thoughts and fingers greased by the whiskey, and began to analyze the code for Cold Earth. In theory, anyway, it should have been easy for him to backtrack and write security patches capable of stopping the malignant program from harming anything. In theory. The reality was that without Maria, who’d helped him write the program, he was having to learn its every nuance before he could create a good defense.

An image of her—strawberry-blond hair, golden eyes, cheeks colored by a perpetual blush—flitted across his mind. Grief squeezed his heart followed by a dull ache in his throat. He doused both with another swallow of whiskey, replacing the sensations first with rage, followed by the gray numbness he’d blanketed himself with for the past few days, ever since his world had been turned upside down back in Langley, Virginia.

Forget about it, he told himself. So, after a third drink, he did. Enjoying the light-headedness, he immersed himself into his work, his fingers gliding over the keyboard as he worked on the code. The technicians back at Langley had yanked the modem card from the computer, which also lacked wireless capability. They wanted to keep him incommunicado, in part to protect his location but also to make sure he didn’t ship Cold Earth—either accidentally or on purpose—out into the world over the Internet.

Rage seared his insides as he considered the notion. His creation had already cost him the only thing in life that he’d ever valued. Selling it for a few bucks or to save his own miserable skin was unfathomable to him. Given a choice, he’d just as soon walk away from all of it. Forget about the Company, about Cold Earth, about Maria. Say to hell with it and drink himself into an early grave.

In spite of the whiskey, a chill passed through him, causing him to shudder. He stood and moved to the fireplace. With the flip of a switch, gas burners ignited to life and the warmth began to cut through the chill. He returned to his desk and resumed his work, another twenty minutes racing by before something from below caught his attention.

Quiet. Or, more precisely, less noise. Just a few moments ago the chatter of sportscasters, the occasional cheer of excited fans, wafted through the floor, accompanied by talking or laughter from the off-duty guards. Two more guards had stood at the bottom of the stairwell, discussing how they’d rather be hunting or trout fishing than be stuck inside, as one of them put it, “playing Babysit the Geek.” He’d smiled at that one. The feeling’s mutual, buddy.

All that had changed. The television continued to pump out what amounted to little more than white noise. But all human noises had ceased. The realization caused a chill to race down his spine even as he rocketed out of his chair and headed for the door.

Grasping the knob, he twisted it, pulled open the door. Glancing through the space between the door and the jamb, he saw one of the guards, a blond woman in a black, pin-striped pantsuit, climbing the stairs. She clutched a submachine gun, a sound suppressor threaded into the muzzle in her right hand. He opened his mouth to speak.

Placing a finger to her lips, she motioned for him to be quiet. When he noticed the shiny smears on her blouse and jacket, her pretty features flecked with crimson, the words died in his throat. His heart began to slam in his chest as he recognized the small splotches for what they were—blood. Putting a hand to his chest, she shoved him back through the doorway. The alcohol coursing through his system had left him unsteady and her strong shove sent him hurtling backward. Shooting him a disgusted look, she closed the door behind her and locked it.

Even as he tried to right himself, she glided past him and took up a position next to the window.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Someone bypassed the alarms, cut through the exterior fence,” she said without looking at him. “We’re getting hit from all sides.”

When he spoke, it came out louder than he’d expected. “Hit? By whom? Tell me what’s going on.”

She glared at him over her shoulder. “Shut up.”

“The hell I will.”

She whipped around and centered the SMG’s muzzle on his torso.

“Look, I’m taking you and that computer out of here. Now shut the hell up. Or else.”

He ground his teeth as he stared at the woman’s back and tried to determine his next move. A fireball of anger engulfed his insides as he realized he had been set up again. He was once again a pawn, a prize to be grabbed and handed over to the highest bidder. It was that sort of mind-set, that single-minded greed that had cost his wife her life. And now it was happening all over again.

With speed that belied his bulk, Fox grabbed the laptop and crossed the distance between himself and the woman. When he got to within a few feet of her, she sensed his approach, turned to him. He grabbed her shooting hand, squeezed so hard he swore he could feel bones grinding together. Breath exploded from between the woman’s clenched teeth. Her other hand darted out in a knife-hand strike that caught Fox in his soft middle. He gasped, and she pulled her hand back for another blow.

Raising the laptop, he swung it around in a punishing arc. A corner of the machine caught her in the chin, knocking her head violently to one side. Her fingers went limp and her weapon fell to the floor. She turned to him, wild-eyed, blood streaming from her mouth. She tried to kick him, but was too off balance to put any steam behind it. Fox reached down and struck her in the head with his own forehead. The woman groaned and fell unconscious.

Moving quickly, he packed his laptop into its carrying case, grabbed the woman’s weapon and moved to the window. Forcing his big frame through the opening, he shoved himself away from the window. He hit the ground, bent at the knees and rolled onto his back.

He rose and trotted around the side of the house, heading for the driveway. He saw a pair of black SUVs parked there, a man standing between them, watching the road. Overloaded with terror and adrenaline, Fox found himself struggling for breath. He held the gun in close to his leg, keeping it out of sight. The guy, hearing him approach, spun to meet him.

“I’m going with you guys,” Fox said.

“Damn straight you are. Hands up.”

Fox extended his arm carrying the laptop. “Here. Quit fucking around and take this. It’s what you guys are here for. Right?”

“What the hell?” the guy asked. “What’s going on here?”

Autofire continued to rage within the house at their back.

“Damn it, I’m getting cut in. Take this thing.”

Still eyeing Fox suspiciously, the guy reached out for the bag’s shoulder strap. The instant he took it, Fox raised the pistol and fired several rounds point-blank into the guy’s gut, wincing with each shot. The gunner staggered back a few steps, dropped the case and his gun. Bloody wounds glistened in the light cast by outdoor halogen lamps. The gunner’s legs gave out from underneath him and he fell to the earth.

Fox grabbed his laptop and darted for the nearest SUV. He opened the door, tossed the case inside. From the house, he heard yelling and saw several men disgorging through the front door. Aiming the handgun at the tire of the second vehicle, he fired off several rounds, flattening its front tire.

Climbing inside the Jeep Cherokee, he found the keys inside. The engine turned over smoothly and he gunned it, heading for the road. A couple of the raiders ran up behind him, trying to grab hold of the vehicle before he got away.

Moments later he was heading down the curvy mountain roads. The images of the thug, his midsection rent by bullets, and the CIA agent, her face bloodied and battered by him, continued to play in his mind. After another mile, he pulled the car off to the side of the road, got out and threw up. When he was back on the road, his mind raced through the details of his situation. He needed help. He needed it fast.

He needed to contact Aaron Kurtzman.

CHAPTER ONE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Sitting in front of his computer, Aaron Kurtzman’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he monitored a half dozen or so secure communication channels, searching for news of his friend. Gabriel Fox’s disappearance had set off alarm bells throughout the nation’s intelligence networks—the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security and at least half a dozen other federal agencies were looking for the young hacker. When his search yielded no new information, Kurtzman’s brow puckered. Worried but undaunted, he used a series of lightning-fast keystrokes to prompt two other programs. One scanned the various news Web sites for stories referring to Fox by name; a second gathered four-paragraph synopses with any story detailing the discovery of John Does. Neither program yielded results.

Leaning back in his wheelchair, he raked his fingers through his hair, scowled at the screen. Fox had disappeared seventy-two hours earlier. Kurtzman had been seated at his computer for nearly fifty-four of those hours, leaving only long enough for an occasional shower or to grab a cup of coffee. His eyes ached and he noticed his thoughts had slowed, his mind occasionally becoming a blank slate exactly when he needed to be sharp.

“C’mon, Aaron,” he muttered. “Keep going.”

“You need sleep,” said Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller. A moment later a hand settled gently on his shoulder and he smelled traces of the woman’s perfume. Glancing over a shoulder, he flashed her a tight smile before returning his attention to his work.

“I’ll sleep in a couple of hours,” he said.

“I don’t think you have a couple of hours left in you,” she replied. “I understand that you’re concerned. But right now we’re in a lull. It’s a good time for you to grab a couple hours’ sleep. I want you fresh if they find him.”

“When they find him,” Kurtzman corrected.

“When,” she said, patting gently on the shoulder.

Kurtzman placed his hands on his chair’s wheels. Price moved back, giving him room to maneuver. He backed the chair away from his computer and turned it in a tight 180-degree turn until they faced each other.

“You look bad,” she said without a trace of derision. “Tired and worried. You want to talk about it?”

“You know everything,” he said, shrugging.

“I know that you have some sort of relationship with Gabriel Fox, and that somehow you’ve convinced yourself that going without sleep, food or exercise is the best way to make him reappear. Otherwise, I’m a little sparse on the details. You’ve hardly said three words during the past two days, other than to bark out an order to one of your crew. I’m worried about you.”

Price, her honey-blond hair held back in a ponytail, her arms crossed over her chest, leaned against a nearby cabinet and stared at him. “So talk.”

For what seemed like the millionth time, Kurtzman noticed that even without makeup and clad in blue jeans and an oversize flannel shirt, his old friend was a beautiful woman. The concern in her eyes only made her doubly so. The two had a close but purely platonic relationship, one in which they shared the emotional burdens that came with working for the country’s ultrasecret counterterrorism operation.

“It’s the kid,” he said. “When I was in the think-tank business, before coming to work at this little Taj Mahal, Gabe was just a screwed-up kid from the Bronx. Not a drug-addicted, street-gang kind of kid, mind you. But he was definitely headed down the wrong path.”

“How so?”

“He was hacking into everything—Justice Department, Pentagon, Fortune 500 companies and banks. You name it and he was busting into it, making the security gurus in the business look like a bunch of damned monkeys. Occasionally he stole money when he could get it. But mostly he just seemed to enjoy the challenge. He’d break in, leave his signature and disappear.”

“Signature?”

“Called himself, X. Razor,” Kurtzman said, gesturing quote marks around the name. “The moniker was stupid as hell, in retrospect, just what you’d expect from a kid. But damned if he didn’t have everyone in the IT community scrambling.”

“And you met him how?”

“The Pentagon asked me to join a task force tracking him and I agreed. Frankly, I was intrigued. At least at first. After a while, I just got obsessed. You know, missing meals, sleep, all so I could work on finding this bastard.”

“Imagine that.”

“Funny, lady. Very funny. Anyway, the more I looked into it, the more I followed his patterns, studied his language, the more I realized he was just a kid. A talented hacker, hell, yeah. But just a kid nonetheless.”

“And you found him?”

Kurtzman nodded, smiled. “Yeah, our great hacker was a kid in a reform school in Cleveland. And he was breaking into all these systems using the principal’s computer. After hours, of course.”

Price grinned. “You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “I kid you not. Little bastard had brass clangers. Anyway, once I’d located him, I decided to wait before turning him over to the Feds. The last thing I wanted was a couple of G-men busting into the place, flashing guns and badges. I hopped a plane for Cleveland, went to the school and caught him in the act. This big gangly kid with a green Mohawk haircut, earrings and tattoos turning all of us adults on our ears. And you know what the hell of it was?”

Price shook her head.

“He said, ‘I wondered when you dumb bastards would find me.’ Most kids would have been soiling their drawers and professing innocence. Or being quiet and defiant. But he seemed more disgusted than anything else. That it had taken us so long to track him down, I mean.”