The Last Protector(Clayton White #1)(32)

Cops. That was the word that popped into Krantz’s head. That thought brought more questions. Had they followed him? Possible, but unlikely. He’d been careful. But now wasn’t the time to wonder how he’d found himself playing defense. Now was the time to figure a way out.

He glanced at his phone again. One of the men had a lock-pick gun in his hand, but none of them had a real weapon out.

Strange, Krantz thought. If they knew he was inside the office, they would surely come in with their guns drawn, right? Why hadn’t they done that?

Bloody hell. What’s going on here?

Krantz took a long, deep breath to steady his nerves and to oxygenate his brain. The door would open in a matter of seconds. He had to be ready. He took position behind the espresso bar, aiming his silenced pistol at the door. He heard the low humming of the pick gun. Krantz waited patiently in the darkness, steady in his firing position. He had the time to count to ten before there was a faint jingling of metal as the lock turned. The grinding hum stopped, and the door opened, letting the light from the hallway into the office space.

Krantz squinted at the light as the first man entered the office, but he didn’t move. He waited for the other two men to enter. Once they were all inside and the door closed, Krantz fired. His shot caught the first man in the head just as he was about to switch on the lights. He dropped instantly. Krantz’s next two shots hit the second man center mass, while his fourth shot, fired less than one second after his first, entered the last man’s right eye. Krantz was about to change magazines when the man he had shot in the torso slowly rolled to his side and reached for something behind his back. Krantz reengaged immediately and dispatched a final round into the side of the man’s head. Krantz ejected the magazine and inserted a fresh one, pocketing the other.

The first man he had shot was on the floor, facing down. Krantz rolled his body over.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

These men weren’t cops. They were military.

The dead man had two wallets in his pockets. One contained a North Carolina driver’s license, three credit cards, all of them matching the name on the driver’s license, and about two hundred dollars in cash. The second wallet contained a CID special agent badge and a military identification, once again matching the driver’s license. The CID—Criminal Investigation Division—was the United States Army command responsible for investigating felony crimes and serious violations of military laws within the army. In addition to the two wallets, Krantz found a smartphone, a set of keys, and a SIG Sauer P228 pistol.

Krantz swore under his breath. What in hell were those guys doing in Palo Alto? Before he could search the other two, he heard multiple sirens approaching from two different locations. He had to go.

Now.

He quickly picked up his five spent brass and took a picture of each man’s face with his phone. He then raced back to the server room and was relieved to see that the lights at the back of the thumb drive had turned green. That meant that the malware had done its job and had infected the servers, the cloud, and the entire backup system. Another hour or so and it would all be over for the young start-up. All SkyCU’s data would be expunged, as if the Drain app and whatever other projects they were working on had never existed. This was also true for whoever had downloaded Drain. The mobile app would be wiped out from their device the next time they tried to open it while connected to the internet.

Oxley would be pleased. Krantz didn’t know for sure how long Drain would be out of commission, but he was confident it would be enough to give Oxley the time he needed to fix the mess off the Arabian Peninsula.

Thirty seconds later, Krantz was out of the building and was walking toward his Jeep Cherokee. His heart almost stopped when two police cars sped past him. They had turned off their sirens, but their emergency lights pierced the night as harshly as their sirens had a minute ago. They continued down the main avenue, away from the SkyCU Technology building.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


San Francisco, California

White had his hands stuffed in his pants pockets as he swiftly crossed the street toward an all-night coffee shop. The skies were dark, and the air was chilly and heavy with the scent of oncoming rain. The weather fit his mood beautifully.

A chime dinged as he entered the coffee shop. He shut the door softly behind him. Beautifully finished bookshelves lined the back wall, and small round wooden tables with chairs were placed throughout the store, with the occasional comfortable-looking, worn armchair thrown in. A couple of uniformed police officers sat at one of the tables, each sipping from a white mug. One of them turned to look in his direction. White waved at him.

“You okay, pal?” the officer asked, looking at White with suspicious eyes.

“Long night, brother,” White said, approaching the lone employee standing behind the counter.

“It certainly looks like it,” the second officer chimed in. “You need medical attention?”

White chuckled, but his smile quickly turned into a grimace. His whole face still hurt like hell. “Not much they could do,” he replied.

The cops shrugged and continued working on their coffees. The young man behind the counter politely greeted him with a smile, but White could see he was happy that the two police officers were there. White wouldn’t be surprised to see him offer unlimited refills to the officers for as long as the man with the messed-up tuxedo and beat-up face was inside the coffee shop.