A Covert Conquest Read online

  Evernight Publishing ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2016 Ravenna Tate

  ISBN: 978-1-77233-655-9

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  Thank you to my editor on this series, Karyn White, who helps keep me on track with all the tiny details, and makes each book shine. And thank you to Jay Aheer, whose covers are absolutely stunning.

  A COVERT CONQUEST

  The Weathermen, 7

  Ravenna Tate

  Copyright © 2016

  Prologue

  In the year 2112, weather researchers around the globe made history with a computer program nicknamed The Madeline Project. The program used a complicated series of electrical pulses to induce changes in clouds. The intention was to prevent or lessen catastrophic weather events such as major floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. The first real-time test, in 2116, proved moderately successful, and the researchers continued to tweak the program, hoping for complete weather modification one day.

  But something went terribly wrong in 2117, when a group of hackers gained access to The Madeline Project and tried unsuccessfully to take it down it with a virus they called Tommy Twister. The program took on a life of its own, and instead of lessening the effects of weather events, it increased them to catastrophic proportions. By 2118, over eighty-five percent of the Earth above ground had been rendered uninhabitable due to the effects of near-constant and powerful storms. And to date, no one has been able to stop The Madeline Project, or find the hackers responsible for this devastation.

  Now, in the year 2125, Earth’s population lives underground in sprawling cities, built during the nuclear war scare of 2072. Communication between cities and across continents is only possible via the Internet. And the only people who go above ground routinely are an international group of weather researchers and storm chasers dubbed Storm Troopers. Their mission is to collect data during the barrage of catastrophic weather events, in the hopes this data will assist researchers in taking down The Madeline Project.

  The financial backing for these cities, the network of interconnected computers, and the Storm Troopers is provided by a group of friends who met in college, and who each built multi-million dollar communications and IT companies before The Madeline Project went awry. They’re a powerful, wealthy, ruthless group of men who take what they want, when they want it. They call themselves the Weathermen…

  Chapter One

  Rissa Kerry sighed in frustration as the bustle on her damn bridesmaid dress got caught again in the scrollwork of her chair when she shifted in her seat. Who the hell wore bustles anymore, and how had she ended up in this bridal party?

  She’d known Sallie, the bride, from before everyone was forced underground seven years ago, and they were acquaintances still, but hardly BFFs. Sallie had begged her to be in the wedding, whining that she barely knew anyone she could ask. Rissa only knew two other bridesmaids, so she had no clue where Sallie had found the rest of them. She guessed they might be part of Cason’s family or group of friends. The man Sallie had married seemed to know everyone who lived in SouthCentral.

  Rissa nearly tore the dress disengaging the bustle from the chair, and then went into the bathroom with the intention of finding a way to remove the damned appendage for good. Her ears perked up when she heard voices coming from the long row of stalls, because Olivia Marin’s voice was one of them. She’d know that annoying tone anywhere. The rant about a laptop didn’t stop as Rissa entered, and she wondered if Olivia even knew or cared that someone else was in the bathroom.

  Who was she talking to? Rissa peered into the room with the stalls, but didn’t see anyone. Was she on the phone? Olivia was Sallie’s cousin, and Rissa had the unfortunate luck to be having lunch with Sallie the last two times Olivia had visited from NorthCentral, where she and her husband, Rob, lived.

  Travel between cities wasn’t quick, but Olivia made the trip several times a year to visit her favorite cousin. She had not, however, been asked to be in this wedding. Rissa hadn’t bothered asking Sallie the reason why. She didn’t care.

  Sallie had brought Olivia along to lunch without letting Rissa know she was going to do it, and it had been all Rissa was able to do both times to hold down her food. The next time Sallie wanted to go out to lunch, Rissa first intended to make sure her cousin wasn’t visiting.

  Rissa turned so she could look into the mirror, and began trying to detach the bustle. She stopped at the sound of a male voice.

  “For fuck’s sake, Olivia. I don’t know what else to say. All I know is the alarm company called and someone broke into the fucking house. I told you I should have brought along the damn laptop. They took it!”

  That was Rob. She’d met him for the first time today, but he had a distinctive voice she now recognized, which meant he was in a stall with Olivia. Why were they arguing in the bathroom? They were both so odd.

  “I didn’t know you left one of your laptops home,” said Olivia. “What’s the big deal? The same info is backed up on both, isn’t it?”

  “God, you’re a stupid bitch. Yes, the same info is on both, but now they have one. With names and dates.”

  Names and dates of what? Holy crap. What were these two into? Rissa flattened herself against the wall, standing as quietly as possible but ready to bolt if they emerged from the stall.

  “They don’t know what they have,” said Olivia. “It was a common theft. They’ll wipe the hard drive clean and sell it, or take it apart to use for rebuilds.”

  “Unless one of those fucking Weathermen took it.”

  Rissa nearly gasped out loud. She worked for one of the men who called themselves the Weathermen. Did Barclay Hampton know what this was about?

  “You’re jumping to some mighty big conclusions here, Rob. You told me the police said it was a routine break-in and they only took high-tech gadgets. That doesn’t sound like a planned robbery by one of the Weathermen to me.”

  “Are you calling me paranoid now?”

  Olivia was a piece of work herself, but how could she stand being married to this asshole?

  “Yes, I am! You have been ever since Ace fired you. If you’re so damn convinced they’re onto you, why don’t you stay offline for a while until they back off?”

  Oh fuck. Onto him for what? Rissa glanced around, wishing she had something to write with. Barclay needed to know about this, and she couldn’t even record it since she’d left her phone on the table.

  “Because people need to know the truth about them,” said Rob. “If your stupid friend hadn’t got herself fired, we’d have everything they know by now.”

  “Isabelle tried to hack into systems that you should have known would never let her get inside. She got fired because you forced me to blackmail her with that damn video.”

  Blackmail? Hacking into systems? What the hell had these two done? Who was Isabelle? Had she worked for one of the Weathermen? Is that whose systems she had tried to get into?

  “And now we have two less inside people,” said Rob, “because Rafael or whatever the fuck he calls himself these days has left the country, and he won’t be allowed back in.”

  Inside people. This was bad. She needed to get out of here and call her boss.
/>
  “He was careless,” said Olivia. “He shouldn’t have set the strip mall on fire. That was stupid. If he’d just kept his head down he’d still be a foreman on that job, and he’d have an inside track to Damien’s company.”

  If Olivia meant Damien Rivera, Rissa knew that name. He lived in SouthWest and ran a construction company. He was one of the Weathermen, too.

  “No, he wouldn’t. They found out about the lumber pricing scheme. They were going to fire him anyway.”

  Rissa realized she’d have to memorize all this. She had no idea how much of this Barclay already knew, but she had to tell him what these two had said.

  “You still have an inside person at Hampton Data. Maybe she knows if one of the Weathermen has your laptop?”

  Fuck! Rissa held her breath, waiting for one of them to say a name, but three women walked in, talking loudly and laughing. Rissa glared at them. When she heard one of the stall doors open, she slipped out of the bathroom. She didn’t want Rob or Olivia to know she’d been listening.

  The bustle would have to wait. She retrieved her phone and went outside, walking away from the building and ducking around a corner to make the call so no one would see her. She had worked at Hampton Data Recovery Services for almost a year, but if she’d exchanged words with Barclay ten times, that was being generous. However, this could not wait until Monday morning. She had to find someone who had his personal phone number.

  He might be at the office. The man worked all the time. When he’s not out with his woman of the month, that is. That much was true. He was in the tabloids more than anyone she knew. It was Saturday night. He was likely on a date, but she took a chance anyway and called his office phone. It might go to voice mail, but it was worth a shot.

  “Hampton here.”

  Rissa nearly dropped her phone. “Um, hi. This is Rissa Kerry. I work for you. That is to say, I work on one of the data recovery teams under—”

  “I know who you are, Rissa.”

  He did? That was news to her. Sure, she’d spoken to him, but wasn’t aware he’d connected any of their brief exchanges with an actual person.

  “Oh, okay.” Could she sound any more idiotic if she tried? “Um, I’m at a wedding, and I just overheard a conversation that you need to know about.”

  “Oh? You’re not drunk, are you?”

  That voice! So full of sexy humor. Did he always sound that way on the phone?

  “Not even close.” Rissa glanced over her shoulder, but she was alone. “May I assume you know who Rob and Olivia Marin are?”

  His hesitation answered the question in her mind before he spoke. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  Gone was the sexy humor, replaced with suspicion and possibly fear. What the hell had she stumbled upon?

  “The wedding I’m at is Sallie Davis’s. Well, Sallie Davis Pease, now. She’s Olivia’s cousin, and this is what I just overheard Olivia and Rob talking about.” Rissa outlined what she’d heard, making sure to include the key points about blackmail and having inside people, including one at Hampton Data Recovery Services.

  He didn’t speak for so long after she finished that Rissa thought she’d lost the call.

  “And you didn’t overhear a name?”

  “No. Other women came into the bathroom and Rob and Olivia stopped talking. But Olivia definitely referred to the inside person as female.”

  “Did they see you?” His voice was too sharp, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled.

  “No. I stepped out before they emerged from their stall.”

  “Thank you, Rissa. It shows real dedication to track me down on a Saturday night and tell me about this.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be at work.” I thought you’d be out, or in bed with a woman.

  “My plans tonight changed.”

  Was that a hint of sarcasm? None of your business, Rissa. Let it go.

  “Well, okay.” She felt awkward now. “Is there anything you want me to try to find out?”

  “How close are you and the Marins?” His voice was still sharp, and again she wondered what the hell was really going on here.

  “Not close at all.”

  “Then it might be best if you pretend you never heard what they said. I don’t want anyone on the fringes involved in this mess.”

  “Why is it a mess?” Had Rob’s laptop been stolen by one of them? Had Barclay had a hand in this?

  He cleared his throat. “I need to make a few calls. Thanks again, Rissa. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  Before she could respond, he disconnected the call. Who the hell was she actually working for? What was going on here, and why was a laptop from someone who lived in another city so damn important to her boss and his friends?

  Chapter Two

  Barclay stared at the far wall in his office for a long time, not even seeing the Van Gogh print on it. Dominic Greco had long believed at least one of the hackers worked for them, likely dating back to before they had all moved their companies underground. What Rissa heard, if it was accurate, proved Dominic’s theory as far as Barclay was concerned.

  They didn’t yet have definitive evidence that Rob Marin was one of the original hackers, but he was most assuredly connected to them in some way. The reason they’d stolen his laptop to begin with was because he’d told Rafael Torres, AKA Ernest Hamilton, that he knew all the original hackers of The Madeline Project.

  Rob and Rafael had an online relationship that the Weathermen couldn’t quite figure out, but that they needed to decipher. Based on the conversation they’d intercepted where they learned that Rob knew the hackers, it also suggested that Rafael did as well, or at least had heard Rob talk about them before the date of that chat.

  It wasn’t only the snippet of conversation that Santino Chavez, Damien’s lead IT specialist, had hacked into. It was the way the two men talked about the hackers, and had then gone on to talk about details only the hackers would know.

  The decision to break into the Marin house and take the laptop hadn’t been easily reached, but they hadn’t wanted to take a chance on merely hacking into it. Rob had made some impulsive, careless decisions, despite his having worked on Ace’s hacker team. He certainly understood coding and backdoor ways into websites, and for that reason he likely had fail-safes in place that would tell him if one of them tried to look at his hard drive.

  The laptop was on its way to SouthCentral now. Barclay had received word from one of the operatives who’d staged the burglary. He was traveling by train and would come straight to the office as soon as he disembarked. That was the reason Barclay had decided to barricade himself inside the building this weekend. He would rest easier once he had the laptop in his hands.

  Then he’d do what he did best. Pick it apart, bit by bit, until he found the answers they needed. If Rob was one of the hackers, Barclay and the others would wait until they found them all before turning the names over to his contacts at Homeland Cyber Security. This was their jurisdiction because the crime had crossed cities, but the Weathermen wanted first crack at them.

  There was no point in going to this much trouble to find all the hackers if they couldn’t get them to tell anyone how to stop The Madeline Project. If HCS got to them first, they’d all get attorneys. Prosecution might take years, and they needed answers now.

  If Rafael, or whatever name he called himself these days, was also involved, they might not be able to do anything to him because he’d left the country. He’d likely gone back to his dummy companies that were fronting lumber pricing schemes in Mexico and Central America. Damien had already alerted his contacts in Immigration, but had been told they’d need to wade through a load of red tape to get their hands on Rafael, if they got him at all.

  Barclay rose from his desk and looked out over the fake night sky and city skyline. Seven years. For seven years they’d endured this quasi-existence where no one felt rain or wind on their face unless they went up to the surface. The moon was gone, and the sun appeared to move only because a mac
hine rotated the fake sky above their heads. Even the stars were fake.

  The daytime temperature was a constant seventy-two degrees, and at night the bio systems dropped it to fifty-eight, no matter which city you were in. Everything was fake, from the lakes and rivers in some cities, to the sound of crickets at night. The only animals left were the ones they slaughtered and ate, plus horses, housed mostly outside the cities. Food was grown in carefully controlled hothouses, and a complicated system of pipes and machinery ensured they had plenty of breathable air.

  His good friend, Oliver Fairchild, who lived in the same city, owned Fairchild BioSystems. They were responsible for maintaining and updating every single eco-system in the cities underneath the USA. Above ground, Oliver had been at the helm of a company that manufactured bunkers and the systems needed to live in them. He’d transferred his company underground when it was apparent The Madeline Project was lost to a virus called Tommy Twister.

  The idea that maggots like Rob Marin or Rafael Torres could be the reason for all this made Barclay’s blood boil. He would work day and night for as long as it took to find these bastards. They’d been searching for seven years, and it wasn’t until the past nine months that any real progress had been made. He didn’t want to lose the momentum. Everyone he knew was tired of living this way.

  It wasn’t only the cities underneath what used to be their homes that now comprised their day-to-day existence. The Storm Troopers lived on the surface, risking their lives every single day to chase violent, unpredictable storms in the hopes of gathering data that might help weather researchers shut down The Madeline Project. Each of the Weathermen now financed those teams. Damien’s company was in the process of building them new and improved shelters, as well as providing them with additional ones.