Cyberthreat

“You’d be surprised,” Bolan said.

“I suppose I would, at that. Tell me, Cooper. What manner of government bureaucrat, even a law-enforcement officer, is prepared to wage war on a city street?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Of course you do,” the Greek admonished. “We both know you are not some functionary. You’re not a policeman, looking forward to his pension, trying to stay out of trouble and remain unscathed at the end of his shift. Are you an assassin?”

“Not on your life.”

“I did not think so. I have known assassins, Cooper. One encounters all types in the data business. You do not strike me as a wanton murderer. But your eyes, Cooper. You have a killer’s eyes.”

“I’ve seen death,” Bolan conceded.

“You trade in death,” Octavios observed. “Tell me I am wrong. I saw the results of your handiwork today. Most men would be gibbering wrecks after something like that. You were not even out of breath.”

“Then maybe you should be careful about who you poke with a stick,” Bolan said.

“I am doing nothing of the sort. I am merely trying to explain to you—a man who holds me prisoner, a man who holds my fate in his hands—that I am not a monster. I am accustomed to being portrayed as one.”

“Codex Freedom. Tell me how well adjusted its members are. Explain to me all about how they’re not monsters. I’ve seen the files, Octavios. I know who we’re dealing with.”

“One works with the tools at hand,” the Greek said. “You, of all people, understand this. Tell me I am wrong.”

“Go to sleep,” Bolan told him. “We’ll be leaving before dawn.”

“Not in that wrecked Mercedes, I hope.”

“Heated seats,” Bolan quipped. “Power everything. What’s not to like?”

“Now you are trying to be funny. It doesn’t suit you. How am I to sleep handcuffed to the radiator?”

“Try.”

“You could at least move me to the bed.”

“Nothing to cuff you to,” Bolan said. The bed in the room was a simple mattress on top of a folding spring-lattice platform, the kind of thing a person could buy online and have delivered. The Farm had access to a network of safehouses throughout the world. The locations were short on extras. “Besides,” Bolan added, “I’m sleeping there. Now shut up. I have a roll of duct tape with your name on it if you can’t be quiet.”

Octavios, to his credit, said nothing more.

Bolan switched off the lights and remained standing for several minutes, waiting for his eyes to adjust. In the darkness, Octavios looked up at him.

“Do you...sleep standing up, like some sort of farm animal?”

“I told you to go to sleep.”

“What are you doing, Cooper?”

“Proving a theory,” Bolan said. He went to the twin-size bed and eased onto it, sitting up. His Beretta was in its shoulder holster; his Desert Eagle on his hip. He still wore his war bag across his chest. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable way to grab a night’s sleep, sitting up and fully dressed, still wearing his combat boots.

“Your clothes give you away, incidentally,” Octavios said in the darkness. “Black cargo pants that might be BDUs. A jacket and black turtlenecked shirt tailored for utility. Boots that might as well be military-issue. You are wearing a uniform without the uniform, Cooper. You are some sort of soldier. Special Forces? National Security Agency? I will find out eventually. And when I do, the world will know the truth.”

“If you don’t stop talking,” Bolan said, “I’m going to knock you out with the butt of my gun. Then duct tape your mouth.”

Octavios made a scoffing noise but said nothing else.

Bolan, of course, had no intention of sleeping. He was indeed proving a point to himself. He theorized that this safehouse was anything but safe. There was something very shady about the fact that the North Koreans had acquired them immediately after they’d left the Canadian facility.

The simplest explanation was that the SSD operatives had staked out the location and then waited for Bolan to exit. But how would they have known which car to attack? The soldier had made sure to put Octavios in the trunk for that very reason. He would have been just one of several people coming and going from that location.

There was the possibility of leaks, yes. The SSD might have a connection on the inside who’d told them what day the Greek was scheduled to leave. But even the Canadians hadn’t known when, precisely, to expect Bolan. And unless the North Koreans had intended to attack every single car leaving the facility until they got one that happened to contain Octavios, that theory didn’t hold up.

Not only had they known which car to attack, but they’d known Octavios was concealed in the trunk. They’d deliberately targeted him for assassination. Had they merely been trying to take down Bolan, they wouldn’t have wasted bullets on the trunk of the car. Yes, they could have assumed Octavios was in the trunk, since the man wasn’t visible in the Chevy’s passenger compartment...but again, how could they have known which car to attack at all?

Just how good was North Korean intelligence? Matthew Cooper, and various men with Bolan’s face, going by different names, were probably in dossiers around the world. The soldier got around, and he had upset more than a few apple carts internationally. But it was still far too convenient a coincidence.

No, somebody had intel on Octavios’s whereabouts. They’d tracked him in some way. And if they’d been tracking him on the way out of the detention facility, they were still tracking him now.

Which was why Bolan was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He’d never expect Octavios to get a good night’s sleep handcuffed to a radiator. He was many things, but he wasn’t cruel. He simply needed the man out of the way for whatever was about to happen, so he’d secured him.

Now he was waiting for the hammer to fall.

What would be truly interesting, not to mention informative on this mission, would be to identify who it was that came for Octavios. There were multiple state actors interested in what happened to the hacker. North Korea might be content to watch the world burn, trusting that whatever came out would be worse for the United States and its allies than for its supreme leader. The big American wasn’t sure where some of the other individuals in his dossier came down. The Russians could break either way.

Over the years, Bolan had contended with the Russians countless times. Theirs was a particularly no-nonsense attitude. He’d faced Russian operatives ranging from sadistic to sympathetic, but one thing characterized them all: practicality. He imagined that they’d capture Octavios if it was reasonably convenient to do so, but they’d be content to force the issue by killing him. It would at least prevent him from any future attacks on their nation.

Then again, there was nothing to say that Codex Freedom would cease operations without Octavios. He might be the leader and the founder of the group, but according to Bolan’s dossier, it had a typical terrorist cell structure. That meant that components would operate independently of one another. Taking down one cell, even the leader, wouldn’t necessarily prevent the others from carrying out more data attacks and releases of sensitive information.

It was a wonder that Octavios hadn’t been assassinated before. The man had obviously known to take steps against that eventuality. You couldn’t go around making enemies of the most powerful nations in the world without expecting repercussions. But it wasn’t the huge nations like the United States that were the primary threat. Even the Russians, the Israelis, and other major powers were constrained by at least the veneer of law and regulation. All nations might eliminate certain threats, might engage in “black ops” and “wetwork”...but it was the smaller nations, nations like North Korea, that posed the most direct threat of action. They weren’t held back by the same considerations. They also didn’t care how they looked on the world stage.

North Korean operatives armed with automatic weapons on the streets of Toronto was another issue entirely. Bolan would detail the entire matter to Hal Brognola at the Farm when he was debriefed. Then the big Fed would take up the matter with State and with the Canadians. There would be fallout, for sure. The West might even levy more sanctions on the North Koreans. But the average person would never hear of it. All of these things happened behind the scenes.

Bolan was glad he didn’t have Brognola’s job. The Justice man handled the swamp that was Wonderland. Mack Bolan, meanwhile, dealt with the real world, with the direct action of bullets and their trajectories. He much preferred that sort of combat to the tooth-and-nail struggle in Washington. It was a wonder Brognola had managed in that mess for as long as he had.

Bolan allowed his breathing to slow. Enough time had passed. He wanted Octavios to believe “Matthew Cooper” was asleep. He breathed deeply for five minutes, by his count. His sense of time had always been accurate.

The jingle of the handcuffs alerted him to the fact that Octavios was up to something. The tall man was trying to wriggle free. He might have hidden a tool or key on him; it didn’t take much to pop a handcuff loose. Or he might have the flexibility needed to squeeze his hand through the cuff. Bolan hadn’t locked them as tightly as possible because he’d wanted to see what Octavios would do.

The sound of the cuff snapping open was unmistakable.

So was the sound of the front door of the safehouse being kicked in.

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