Page 1 of A Rhapsody of Ravens and Revenge

Chapter One

Russia

Ten Years Ago…

He decoded numbers and patterns like most people breathed, and computers had been an extension of his body since before puberty. Even stuck in an elevator shaft, with sweat dripping down his spine, his fingers flew across the keyboard of his laptop, closing in on one of the most dangerous hackers in the world. They called her the Black Lily. But to Cypher, she was as close to his equal as he’d ever found. And this game excited him like no other.

The elevator jerked to a stop and the doors slid open with a clatter, but his fingers stayed steady. The smell of dust, something dead in one of the ventilator shafts, and rusted metal burned the inside of his nostrils. The temperature was almost unbearable—his skin slicked with sweat and amplified by the heavy gray coveralls he wore.

The heating system in the old building seemed to shoot directly into the elevator shaft instead of the cavernous space where the heart-thumping techno music shook the rafters and writhing bodies danced with abandon. But he knew how to separate pain and discomfort from the job. The job came first. Always.

His adrenaline spiked and his blood pumped faster as the death trap below him picked up speed and took him to the fifth floor. The spinning turbine above and the jagged edges of metal gave him some concern, but he’d programmed the elevator he was on top of to go no higher than the fifth floor. The sixth floor was shut down for construction. But still…there was the sharp edge of worry that something might go wrong. But a little bit of fear was a healthy thing. It kept the mind alert and the body ready for anything.

“You okay, Cyph?” Ghost asked through the comm unit in his ear. “Your heart rate is through the roof.”

Gabe Brennan was team leader for this mission. He was the oldest of all of them and had been in the game the longest. And his call sign couldn’t have been more appropriate. He was a ghost. Because Gabe Brennan didn’t exist, and no one could find him if he didn’t want to be found. Not even Cypher. And that was an ability that deserved enormous respect.

“I’m fine, Mom. Just enjoying the ride to the top. And praying to God you don’t have to scrape my guts out of that turbine.”

“I’ll pass on that job,” Warlock said from his position across the street as lookout. “You had that leftover Thai for breakfast and an entire pizza for lunch. If you didn’t work out like a machine you’d be seven hundred pounds.”

“Jealousy doesn’t become you, War,” he said without heat. “It must be nice sitting across the street eating Russian donuts while we’re doing real work over here.”

Warlock—also known as Nathan Locke—huffed out a laugh. “It’s not so bad, now that you mention it. There’s a hot little brunette that just paid off the bouncer. Lord have mercy.”

“If you ladies are done, we’re supposed to be on a mission here,” Reaper interrupted.

Cypher grinned even as sweat dripped into his eyes. Atticus Cameron’s voice got softer the more irritated he became. And by the sound of it, he was very irritated.

“Any change in Yukov’s status, Ghost?” Atticus asked.

“We’re about ten minutes away from the club,” Gabe answered. “He’s not in any hurry. Stopped to get cigarettes. You’d never know by looking at him that he’s about to buy nuclear launch codes and try to start World War III.”

“A wily kind of guy, that Yukov,” Atticus said. “I wish I could say the same about our ever so outgoing financial wizard. Kraus hasn’t moved from the VIP lounge for the last hour and a half. His nervous tics are so obvious they’re making me nervous. And he’s about halfway through his third whiskey.”

“Yukov only needs him to make sure the money is deposited in their account and then rerouted to a safer location before the Black Lily double-crosses him,” Gabe said. “I’d be nervous too if I was Kraus and knew I had to go up against the Black Lily’s computer skills. If Kraus fails, Yukov will put a bullet in his head right in the middle of that VIP lounge and he won’t care who sees him. Yukov is invincible in this country.”

“Well, that’ll be fun,” Atticus said. “How’s it going, Cyph? Any closer to pinning her down?”

“In the last half hour she’s bounced me from Paducah, Kentucky, to Amsterdam to Antarctica to Greenland. If she’s half as attractive as her computer skills then I can’t wait to meet her in person.”

“That’s assuming she’d give you the time of day to begin with,” Warlock said with a snort. “Women have a tendency to run the other direction whenever they see you. You’re a scary-looking dude. Your reputation precedes you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Focus, Cyph,” Gabe interrupted. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before this whole mission goes to hell. Find her.”

“On it, boss. I’ve narrowed her down to a three-mile radius. She’s in the city, just like you suspected.”

“She’s too greedy.” Cypher could hear Gabe’s smile over the comm unit—like a shark right before it bit into its prey. “She could’ve made this entire transaction go through from halfway across the world. But she likes to watch.”

“My kind of woman,” Cypher said, smirking as he closed in on the Black Lily’s location. She was practically right under their nose. Now they just had to find her in the crowd.

The Black Lily had been the bane of his existence for the past four years. He’d had no idea where she’d come from. Hackers—or at least the good hackers—could recognize the work of others, and there was a hierarchy. Once certain tasks were accomplished then the hacker would move up the chain to establish his or her reputation.

He’d been ten the first time he’d hacked into the Pentagon and CIA databases. If only the world really knew what happened to John F. Kennedy, boy would the stuff hit the fan.

At twelve he’d managed to bring Vegas to a screeching halt. It was hard for casinos to operate when all their money had vanished. And hey, he’d given it back. Eventually.

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