“Do you know how uncomfortable it is to jump from this high up?” Shields asked, nodding toward her prosthetic right leg. “Carbon fiber and titanium might help you walk, but they don’t exactly soften your landing.”
Shields sat on the platform and then hung her legs off the side before easing to the ground. Her feet sank into the gravel.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said. “I didn’t—”
Shields waved her off. “I’m just messing around. Do I look fragile to you? And you better think about that answer very carefully.”
Mia chuckled. “You look like you can hold your own to me.”
“That a girl,” Shields said as they both broke into a light jog.
“It’s just up ahead,” Mia said. “But we need to move quickly. The next train is due to be in the station within the next two minutes.”
“How far do we have to go?” Shields asked.
“Just hustle.”
Mia led several hundred meters along the track until they reached a service door. She muscled it open and motioned for Shields to join. After traveling a ways down a dark, damp corridor, Mia stopped in front of a large iron door that looked more like something out of a castle from medieval times. She pounded on the center of it with her fist.
“What was this place?” Shields whispered.
“It used to be a castle until a fire in 1380 reduced most of the structure to shambles. So, they built over it.”
“That’s what they did in Atlanta, too,” Shields said.
“Beats the heck out of removing all the debris, I guess,” Mia said with a shrug. “And some of my friends found a way to siphon off electricity and create one of the best hacker hideouts in the world.”
“They’re not going to shoot me, are they?”
“Hope not. But we’re about to find out.”
A slot at eye-level slid open, and a pair of eyes peered into the outside. “Passphrase?”
“Password one,” Mia said with a hint of a smile.
The slot closed, and a series of locks along the door could be heard clicking open.
“Are you serious?” Shields asked. “Password one?”
“It’s a black hat hacker joke. You’d be surprised how many people use that.”
The door creaked as it opened. A stocky man with a red unkempt beard appeared in the entryway before stepping into the hallway and looking in both directions before tugging on Mia and Shields’s shirts.
“Get in here,” he said.
“Gimli,” Mia said. “It’s been far too long.”
“Helenos-9,” Gimli said. “It’s been far too long. You look as beautiful as always.”
She smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Gimli.”
“My condolences on the loss of your brother,” he said before turning a sharp eye toward Shields. “And who’s this?”
“This is Muskrat, one of the best new hackers on the planet,” Mia said, patting Shields on the back.
“Muskrat?” Gimli said as he stroked his scraggly beard. “How come I’ve never heard of you?”
Mia shrugged. “Probably because she’s a humble hacker. Remember that breach to SecureLock.com?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
Mia gestured toward Shields.
Gimli’s mouth fell open before he covered it with both hands. “You are the one who did that?”
“What can I say?” Shields said. “Guilty as charged.”
Gimli took ahold of Shields’s fingers and stared at them. “Incredible. I almost feel the magic flowing through them.”
“Oh, cut it out, Gimli,” Mia said, slapping him on his shoulder. “Your flattery won’t work on her.”
He shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
“How’s the crew?” Mia asked.
“We’re ready to rock,” he said. “Just give us your marching orders, your highness.”
“Show me the way.”
Gimli led them through a common area and down a corridor.
“How do you know these people again?” Shields whispered.
“They hired me once for a big job, but only on the condition that I meet them in person,” Mia said. “So, I agreed. And these were the only hackers who’d ever seen my face and knew my true identity before Hawk and Alex convinced me to work with them.”
“What made you work with them?”
“They wanted to drain some billionaire’s account who was trafficking teenage girls all over the globe,” Mia said. “That was worth showing my face for.”
“Amen to that,” Shields said.
Gimli stopped and knocked on the door. “Here we are.”
Someone unlocked the door, allowing them to enter. Mia scanned the room, which contained about a dozen hackers, all wearing headphones and typing furiously on their keyboards as they stared at their monitors.
Gimli ushered her to the front of the room and waved both his hands back and forth to get everyone’s attention. The hackers stopped what they were doing and gave him their attention.
“The infamous Helenos-9 is with us again today,” Gimli said. “But this time she has a different target. In ten minutes, she’ll brief us on our target and instruct us on how to proceed.”
The hackers’ eyes lit up as they stared at her in reverence. Mia smiled and waved at her admirers, who quickly returned to their work.
Gimli held up all his fingers. “Ten minutes and they’re all yours.”
Mia sat down at a terminal near the front of the room, while Shields settled into a nearby desk.
“Are you ready?” Mia asked.
Shields smiled and nodded. “Let’s expose the bastard.”
When Gimli got everyone’s attention, he let Mia explain the operation. When she was finished, the hacking group known as Lord of Firewalls sprang into action. And it didn’t take long before the information was flowing. As the hackers completed their assignments, they pushed the newly discovered information to Mia’s terminal.
Mia’s eyes widened as she studied the files. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Shields pushed off in her chair, rolling toward Mia’s terminal. “What is it?”
“Look at this list of payoffs of politicians and world leaders from Falcon Sinclair and his subsidiary banking accounts,” Mia said.
Shield let out a low whistle as she scanned the list. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I was, but this is legit.”
The list read like a who’s who among the world leaders.
“We’re in serious trouble.”
Mia shook her head. “Not after we post all these transactions. It’ll expose them all.”
“This will get suppressed.”
“Probably.
