Ultimatum Read online

  ULTIMATUM

  Code Raven 3

  By LYNDA FILLER

  © 2018 LYNDA FILLER AUTHOR

  Quotes from this book are permitted with attribution to Lynda Filler Author

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are always many people in your life that believe in you and encourage you to follow your dreams. One for me would be Jeanne Proteau. Without her constant support, I wouldn’t have pursued my art and started publishing in 2009.

  And more recently in this journey, whenever I need a dose of “you can do this!” I go to the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon and remember why I’m compelled to share my stories.

  There are far too many people to list who’ve been along for this crazy adventure. I have to give thanks to my first readers, the Myspace gang, the Facebook followers, and my very closest partners-in-crime who shall remain anonymous.

  As an Action/Mystery/Contemporary Romance/Memoir author I’m asked all the time if my stories are based on real events and actual people. I claim the fifth.

  We live in a fast-paced demanding world. I honor the time you have taken to read my stories.

  I thank you in advance for telling your friends about my work and for taking leaving reviews.

  I would love to hear from you. You can find me on FB and more of my writing on Amazon.

  Cast of Main Characters

  Luke Raven

  -Billionaire scientist, high-tech genius, history of working on US top secret projects, philanthropist, somewhat reclusive. He is a Patriot. He formed the Raven Group after his wife and seven-year-old daughter were murdered in the Bahamas. He will do whatever it takes to keep America safe.

  Samaar (code-name Luci)

  -Ex-Mossad, once on loan to MI6, assassin, in hiding from her ex-employers and a South American cartel after exposing their drugs/money/guns/CIA scam. She’s the sometime romantic interest of Luke Raven and sometime agent in the Raven Group. She currently resides in Paris with her young daughter, Alice and a team of security provided by Raven to keep them safe.

  Alice

  -The daughter of Samaar, never knew her father and Arab journalist murdered in the Middle East. Currently lives with her mother in Paris, learning to speak French and Arabic, already knows English and Spanish from her life in hiding with her mother in South America.

  RB

  -Genius techie, security expert, inside crucial member of the Raven Group, and close friend of Luke Raven. They met at Caltech. Luke taught, and RB was his protégé. Luke and RB have an unbreakable bond. RB was there for Luke when his wife and daughter were murdered. When Luke formed the Raven Group, RB was the first person he recruited.

  David

  -Family to Zach, part of his Navy SEAL team, recently retired, pilots Raven’s prototypes and corporate jets, joins the Raven Group and is very active in Silk Road.

  Zach

  -Retired Navy SEAL, was involved in the takedown of Osama bin Laden. He was born in Israel, his parents were professors (undercover CIA) in Beirut, killed there when Zach was a child. Zach is now a full-time international operative for the Raven Group.

  Maggs

  -Ex-US Special Forces, Michelin trained chef, the only full-time woman in the Raven Group. Currently stationed in Paris with Samaar and Alice.

  Himanish

  -An ex-military Pilot for India. Joined RAW-Research and Analysis, the Indian secret service department. He covertly helped Samaar/Luci disappear by hacking into a South American Cartel’s Swiss bank account. He took 250 million US dollars and gave it to Luci and Alice to support their new life on the run. Himanish currently works for the UN Human Right’s Commission in Geneva Switzerland, in a covert role he has created for himself. His main focus is Human Rights and cyber-crimes.

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  Coming soon: DISPLACED Code Raven 4

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  PROLOGUE

  Washington, D. C.

  PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA announced on Friday that he had reached a “common understanding” with Chinese President Xi Jinping on curbing cyber economic espionage but threatened to impose US sanctions on Chinese hackers who persist with cybercrimes.

  “It has to stop,” Obama told reporters at a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden, with Xi standing beside him. Obama said he and Xi made “significant progress” on cybersecurity.

  REUTERS

  One month later:

  BEJING—Despite devoting countless resources toward rectifying the issue, Chinese government officials announced Monday that the country has struggled to recruit hackers fast enough to keep pace with the vulnerabilities in US security systems.

  “With new weaknesses in the US networks popping up every day, we simply don’t have the manpower to effectively exploit every single loophole in their security protocols,” said security minister Liu Xiang, who confirmed that thousands of Chinese computer experts employed to expose flaws in American data systems are no match for the United States’ increasingly ineffective digital safeguards.

  “We can’t keep track of all of the glaring deficiencies in their firewall protections, let alone hire and train enough hackers to attack each one. And now, they’re failing to address them at a rate that shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. The gaps in the State Department alone take up almost half my workforce.”

  At press time, Liu confirmed that an inadequate labor pool had forced China to outsource some of its hacker work to Russia.

  1

  Las Vegas Desert 02:00

  THE HI-TECH dune buggy powered over the hills and creek beds of the dark black night Nevada desert. Luci gripped her Heckler Koch sub-machine gun with one hand, holding on to the rusted metal frame with the other. She shivered in her sweat-soaked body-hugging jumpsuit; her loaded backpack digging into her compact Israeli body with each sharp rise and return to earth.

  Zach steered with the fierce concentration of a man obsessed by devils he would never reveal. L
uke Raven co-piloted the off-road prototype he’d designed making jokes to ease the palpable tension in the group.

  Luci was visibly strained as the off-road vehicle took on air, vaulting over a gully and landing with a jarring jolt between two giant cacti. A pack of scrawny coyotes, blood dripping from their jaws, screeched their displeasure at being disturbed while eating.

  “Look, relax. No one has any idea we are here. Nellis AFB is a quiet family-oriented base. We get in, grab our target and get out fast.”

  It seemed like only yesterday her arch-enemy Sying had landed a private plane in Le Bourget Paris Airport with Luci’s four-year-old daughter Alice. Sying now sat in a Paris prison with a life sentence. Luci, on the other hand, had her daughter back and was in control of millions of dollars in diamonds. When the time was right, she would find a way to make a night-time visit to Mme Sying and finish her off for good. But right now, she was indebted to Raven for saving her and sweet Alice, and they had a job to do.

  Luci sighed. Why was her life always so complicated and dangerous?

  She thought back over the last couple of months. She’d helped the Raven Group eliminate problems with the Chinese who had hacked into the US Government personnel files. Her baby Alice was safe after being abducted in anticipation of selling her for millions of dollars to Tariq, the leader of ISIS. And she found herself side-by-side with the charismatic billionaire genius Luke Raven which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just distracting.

  She had sworn she was out of the business! No longer a spy, ex-agent of both Mossad and MI6, out of private contracting, and definitely not part of Luke Raven’s ultra-secret Group. Only something as terrorizing as the attack by ISIS in Paris and Brussels—led by the same man that tried to buy her daughter—and a US Military cyber-attack, could change her mind.

  Nowhere in the world seemed safe anymore.

  Luke Raven needed her help.

  Luci couldn’t say no.

  2

  Las Vegas HQ, Raven Group

  MAGGIE UNDERSTOOD VAMPIRES. She could sleep until noon and play all night long.

  Raven tried to change her ways but eventually decided he might as well go with her flow. Her five-star-Michelin chef status, mastery of hand-to-hand combat, and her wicked computer skills made her a key player in hearth, home, and combat. She could keep her quirky nocturnal habits. Luke considered her a key operative in the ultra-discreet Raven Group.

  At 03:00 she put away the ingredients for Kahlua chocolate almond brownies and wiped down the counters in her chef’s kitchen at the Raven HQ in Las Vegas.

  “RB, I know you can smell my baking so get your scrawny butt up here and help me eat them!” She keyed her headset intercom.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there!” RB had a crush on Maggie’s six-foot-tall redheaded lean mean fighting machine body. Maggie smiled at the memory of the look on his face when she told him she was gay.

  “Any news from the AFB yet?”

  “No, I heard a few clicks, the odd curse from Zach, but that’s it.”

  “I hope Luci’s okay. I know she didn’t want to be away from Alice for a minute, but Alice’s safe here with us. Sleeping with her dolly. I’ve got her on sight and sound.”

  “If she’s anything like her mother, she’ll smell your brownies and wake up!”

  RB made coffee for the both of them while Maggie powered up her tablet to check on the rest of the team.

  RB was a geek with lethal skills. Being the inside man was not RB’s first choice. Luke had insisted. They’d known each other since Caltech days when Professor Raven singled out RB for his ability to figure out intricate puzzles—not all of which were of a legal nature. After Raven disappeared when his wife and daughter died, he finally surfaced and contacted RB. Luke Raven went after RB for his newly formed Raven Group and also bought the cutting-edge security company RB helped design.

  Luke always knew precisely what he wanted.

  He sent RB to Coronado, to train with the SEALs. That’s where Luke had met Zach a few years before. The three of them formed the core of what was to become the world’s most cutting-edge, dangerous, and clandestine technology and security organization in the world.

  No one knew what went on in the Raven Group. They often operated above or below the law. For Raven his mission was simple. He would protect the country he loved from corruption both outside and inside the Government. He hired the best he could steal from their current careers. Million-dollar incomes to key employees bought a lot of loyalty and silence.

  “Are you up for some computer war games Maggs? I might let you win this time!”

  “Watch it farm boy. I’ve got moves you won’t see coming!”

  “Or we could hit the mats, and I could kick your butt at Krav Maga!”

  “I’ve been keeping score RB. I’m still on top!”

  “You wish Maggie!”

  “Hah! I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s stick to the brownies. We can play some chess and listen for news from Luke.”

  3

  The Vegas Desert, NV

  “HERE’S THE BEAUTY of it. On the other side of the runway, there’s a small storage hangar. One section of it is off-limits completely. An entrance is built into the far wall, away from prying eyes. It looks like a well-worn, unused metal back door. But up close it’s got the latest technology security,” Raven explained through secure comms to Luci and Zach. “That building is our target.”

  “This buggy is cloaked. The shield prevents detection from satellites at night. I always assume the Chinese or Americans have a satellite monitoring the area.”

  “Luke, what exactly are we looking for?” Zach and Luci had been recruited hours before with no explanation of the Op. Raven had advised they suit up with hi-tech gear for a nighttime incursion. They brought weapons, silencers and some specialized computer equipment. Luci and Raven were the experts in computer science although both had combat techniques learned in both SEAL and Mossad training camps. Zach had a reputation for intense guerrilla warfare he’d used on many occasions in Afghanistan.

  “Our subject is an Asian man, twenty-two years old, small in stature. He usually dresses in camo gear, but he’s a civilian, a private tech contractor. Check your headset, left visor for his photo. That’s the latest Homeland shot when he arrived on Air France at McCarran International three days ago. The first leg of his flight originated in Hong Kong.”

  “I don’t understand,” Zach questioned. “How did he get into Nellis AFB? What’s his connection?”

  “The US government hired a group of kids from MIT to work on summer projects the last three years; Interns. This one slipped through the security crack. Our subject grew up in Toronto, got a scholarship to MIT, graduated last year and returned to Hong Kong to visit family. What didn’t show up in the initial security check was his family connections. His grandfather was a member of the Wo Shing Wo triad originally in Toronto, now based in Hong Kong. And his brother is the main player in one of the most ruthless triads operating in the world today.”

  “And?”

  “I was informed a few hours ago that they’ve captured a probe to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, from these coordinates. That’s why they called us. It’s not only the probe; the question is, how far have they gotten, and exactly what do they know? We suspect the Chinese are behind everything. The idea of the Chinese government teaming up with the triads is extremely worrisome. We already know the triads are in bed with ISIS.” Luke stopped to give Luci and Zach time to absorb the photos streaming across their visors.

  “The US Government’s cybersecurity is weaker than the public realizes. With our expertise, we will know what questions to ask and how to ask them. We’re not part of any government agency, so no worries of a leak. With the influx of Chinese cyber spies in all aspects of American life, we have to be super vigilant.”

  “So why three of us for such a simple Op?” Luci questioned.

  “Well, last intel showed thr
ee heavily armed men on the premises as well as our target. Expect no friendlies at this hour. According to the download from my source, they’re still inside the facility.”

  “We go in hot. Subdue the kid. Immobilize the balance of his security team. Bring him out and over to HQ Las Vegas for questioning. There will be no witnesses. I will signal for the clean-up when we move out.”

  The team tapped their acknowledgment.

  “And if we have interference from base security?”

  “We won’t.”

  “But if we do?”

  “That will be taken care of as we hit the perimeter. My signal will be sent, and our subjects comms will be down for enough time for us to strike. Our mission is to get the kid, bring him out and get answers. This is an in-and-out assignment, a matter of National Security of the highest level. As to the kid’s security, there can be no witnesses of our capture.”

  4

  Hong Kong, China

  IT WAS 2:15 in the afternoon and Billy was bored. He’d been up since the fiery Asian dawn. He’d taken meetings with his triad associates, concluded some nasty business, schemed, and called Shanghai. It was time to take a break.

  Billy Yee Lam waited for his security man to open the Rolls Royce door. He adjusted his Armani leather jacket. His lean destructive hands tapped the revolver in the waistband of his Polo jeans.

  He took a look at the ending of the video on his secure iPad and listened to his own commands through earbuds. He watched as his top enforcer took a chef’s knife and sliced through the pulsing artery in Mara’s neck. Her betrayal with rival Chinese mafia gangs was unforgivable. She was once a favorite of his. It wasn’t even about setting an example for the other whores Billy ran. No, this was a personal attack against his power base in the triads.