Page 76 of Havoc

The drive beeped. Storm intoned, “Hacker says the packets of information are coming in. It’s a lot of documents and a few audio dumps.”

“Any good intel, like names and incriminating information?” I asked.

“I seriously doubt it,” Storm mumbled. “Hacker will need time to decrypt it at the very least.”

After fifteen minutes, several servers started overheating. We heard the fans kick into high gear. The three of us glanced nervously at each other. The tension in the room was palpable. All three of us knew that stealing intel from their organization would be seen as an act of war. This could cause our club a lot of trouble, especially if we weren’t able to get our hands on the IT guy today. We were relying upon the element of surprise to give us the advantage.

Storm started pacing back and forth in front of the servers. Celt was always calm until his Irish temper got the better of him. He wasn’t worked up to that point yet, not by a longshot. I took another peek outside each door.

Trying to pass the time, I asked out loud, “What kind of criminal activity do you think they’re into that requires this level of server capacity?”

Celt spoke first. “I been thinking about that. Bet they’re into some feckin’ manky shit. Probably running drugs fer sure. Maybe illegal arms. Jesus, I’m hoping they’re not trafficking women.”

Storm growled, “If they are then heaven help them, ‘cause I sure as fuck won’t.”

We heard and saw one of the servers go offline. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I grumbled under my breath. It was too soon for a server to go down. It meant the IT guy might arrive before we finished the intel grab. I wondered how far away he was.

Lifting his phone, Storm passed along Hacker’s message. “Hacker says twelve minutes before the last of the downloads are finished.”

“How much have we got?” I asked nervously as I stared at the upload.

“Seventy-five percent so far,” Storm answered.

Storm kept announcing the percentage. I was standing at the back door when he announced we were at ninety-five percent. That’s when I saw a skinny guy with horn-rimmed glasses coming closer.

“Heads up brothers, we’ve got company,” I announced. “Looks like a nerd with a briefcase.”

Storm told us, “Hacker says the download is hanging. He’s afraid it might time out.”

Celt whispered, “We need two more minutes to finish.”

Storm stated quietly, “I’m going to alert our backup to be on alert, in case their IT guy isn’t alone.”

Just as the nerd got close to the back door, I swung it open and pulled the surprised man inside.

“What the hell are you doing here? This is private property of Griffin Electric.”

I gave him a little shake because I still had a good grip on his shirt collar. “Shut it, nerd. We know you’re not with the fucking electric company because we just stole a metric ton of fucking data that you had stored on your servers.”

He looked from one to the other of us. “You really don’t know what you’re getting yourself into here.”

“Yeah, we do,” Storm told him. “We know what small-town corruption looks like when we see it.”

“Look, my bosses don’t play around. If you stick your nose in their business, you’re gonna wind up dead.”

Celt yanked him by the arm into the center of the room. “Yer the one who doesn’t know who the feck yer dealing with.”

“You guys are with the Irish mafia? I didn’t know the Irish was interested in this territory.”

Celt opened his mouth to object, but Storm jumped in before his cousin lost it. “We’re with the Dark Slayers MC and you’re coming with us to our clubhouse. You’re either gonna tell us everything we need to know about your boss’s operation or we’re gonna beat the information outta you. How does that fuckin’ sound?”

Answering Storm’s question literally, he responded, “It sounds painful. That’s how it sounds.” I could tell the young man was stressed because he had a little freak out involving lots of panicked words. “Look, I don’t know anything useful. I’m just their tech guy. I set up their computers and keep their servers running. I swear, that’s all I do.”

I snatched him back from Celt and pushed him back against the wall. “My club president doesn’t like liars, dickhead. You either play ball or get a dirt nap.”

Just then, the screen finally went black. Celt rushed to gather up our equipment and shoved it carefully into its case.

Storm announced, “We have a van coming to pick you up. It’ll be here in a couple of minutes. You’re gonna get into the back and shut the fuck up. Our club doesn’t kill people indiscriminately. We’re after intel, nothing else. If you cooperate, you get to walk out of our clubhouse on two good legs. If you’re anything less than cooperative, I ain’t making no promises. You got that?”

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