The Cardinal Bird - Book 1: Reverse Harem Series (The Cardinal Series) Read online

  "Okay, we're not turning for another three blocks," he said before he turned to my screen. "The way's clear. How can I help?"

  My eyes were flying across the screen, already having opened the program up. The coding was complex, but there was a sort of pattern to it. If I used it, I should be able to exploit it. "We're looking for a backdoor," I said.

  "There!" CJ said excitedly, pointing at the screen. "Can we just change the programming there to mask our presence?" He sat back. "No, but then, how do we allow us control."

  I looked at the bit of programming he had been talking about while he turned back and helped to direct Jace through the next couple of turns. He was right. We could use that bit of programming to help hide ourselves, but the part of the coding that controlled the timers was in a different section. Either way. It would get us incognito.

  I pulled up the box and started typing:

  EXPORT_SYMBOL (groups_alloc);

  Void groups_ether(struct comp_info *ether_info)

  {

  If (group_info>blocks[0] != group_info->small_block) {

  int i:

  for (i = 0; i nblocks; i++)

  Ether_acct((unsigned unkn) group_info->blocks[i]);

  }

  Kblock (group_info);

  }

  "How are you doing that?" Karl asked, but he didn't really seem shocked. I'm guessing he had seen CJ type similar things before without using any sort of reference.

  "Practice," I said, finishing the coding and praying it took. "You remember certain things after a while. It's a language that I was learning at an early age. My dad got me my first programming book when I was 11."

  Right before I was kidnapped.

  I typed a code to check the status.

  Return 0;

  Nothing happened for a moment, but then the programming confirmed that we were in.

  "Static void groups_sort(struct group_info *group_info void ether//)," popped up on the screen.

  "Okay, we're incognito," I informed CJ when he could turn back to my monitor. I started scrolling through the remaining programming.

  "You could separate the commands out?" CJ asked, leaning close once more, eyes scanning over the coding.

  "Uh-huh," I said. My eyes lit on the section that we needed.

  It took my breath away. With this coding, if we could hack it, we would be able to control the traffic signals. It was a godsend because we were barreling hot through another intersection. By the increased amount of honking, I could tell that the streets were becoming busier and busier. "Here's the bit we need."

  CJ leaned closer to check it over, but then all of the monitors started going off in a repetitive alarm.

  My hands flew back from the keyboard as if the keys had suddenly turned into spiders. I was in the middle of growing my concern for what would surely be our short-term imprisonment–short-term because if Nikolai was able to find us anonymously at a hostel, he would be able to find us legally registered at whatever correctional facility we ended up at—when CJ went back to his monitor. He began typing furiously.

  "What?" I asked in fear, my hands still held up in the air. "Were we traced?"

  I didn't think we had been. I would've noticed long before then and been able to delete our tracks to back out...but, then again, this was CJ's computer. It pretty much had its own personality, like it was a sentient being. A.I. levels even. It was like a... a Jarvis Junior.

  "No," he said in concentration, his fingers flying. "Different alarm."

  I deflated just the slightest bit before the world was shifting around me as Jace veered us through another turn. A set of hands gripped the back of my chair again, otherwise, I would have gone flying. When we finished turning, I looked at CJ. "Do you need any help."

  "No," he said. "Well, yes, but what you're doing needs to be finished, too."

  "He's right," Karl said from next to me. "Focus on this. He can handle...whatever it is that's making his robot go mad."

  I took their word at face value on the matter and turned back to the screen. I went to work. I typed in the algorithm that I thought would let us do what we wanted. It was probably three times as long as the first one I had entered, and I was glad that CJ and Karl were being silent throughout the process. It was slightly harder to hack into than I had thought before--which, really, was a relief because it would be unfortunate if people were doing things like this to Tallinn every day.

  I typed:

  Twostep_authcommand.bui

  Username: tl552estcafe

  Password:**********************

  ACCESS TO SYSTEM

  Version 5.3.8

  Initializing...

  I hit enter. The code disappeared, and I held my breath waiting to see if it took.

  Return;0

  The alarm that CJ had only briefly silenced started going off again. It drew my attention away from my screen to glance in his direction. I ignored the alarm at first until I heard his noise of confusion.

  He met my eyes, worried. "It's not me."

  My eyes flew back to the screen.

  SECURITY BREACH

  Level 3 Authorization Required

  Timeout Protocol Protection {Engaged}

  Commencing…

  My heart started pounding, and my fingers started of their own volition, nearly running entirely from muscle memory.

  "What is it, Callie?" Karl asked, but I couldn't answer. I was too busy scouring through the coding to be able to give him an explanation.

  I found what I hoped would bypass the security feature screaming at me. Unfortunately, it was a timed response, so if I didn't get it in the computer right now, some horrible tracing bots could sweep down on us from cyberspace and start grid-locking us in.

  We ran another intersection, horns blasting away all around us and momentarily drowning out the sound of the alarm before it was back with a blaring vengeance.

  I heard cursing come out of the system speakers but couldn't really understand what was being said. The alarms coming off of Jarvis Junior were way too loud.

  "CJ, can you silence JJ here? He's distracting." I was running out of time, and yet I was still only three-quarters of the way through the coding.

  "JJ?" Karl asked.

  CJ hit a couple of keys to bring silence once more, and when he did, we were able to understand what was being said through the speakers from the second van.

  "--got clipped at that last intersection. We're lucky I spotted it so that I could speed up—like that was even possible. Shit, that was close. They only took out the back bumper. But, Karl, I don't think you're getting your deposit back on this one at the rental place. I’m driving like a maniac here. Those people following us are starting to ram now..."

  "Does Brock ramble like that when he gets nervous?" I asked, but no one had an answer for me. It didn't matter much either because my attention was focused on the task at hand as I finished the code.

  Return;0

  I waited with bated breath.

  Unknown user: recognized

  Authority level: (code_config))] Ignored

  ACCESS GRANTED

  "Woohoo! Callie, you rock!" Karl said from behind me.

  "Malyshka is not a boulder," Aleks's voice drifted from the front seat. I had forgotten that he was even there, he had been so quiet. He was studying the side mirrors, the barrel of the rifle peeking out above the headrest. It had to be uncomfortable, having such a large gun crammed at his back, but he'd left it there to focus on the surroundings.

  I shook my hands out to ease the cramping before pulling the grid of Tallinn back up. I had lost track of where we were, but Karl was instantly pointing out an intersection on the grid, much farther than we had been.

  "Jace," CJ said. "I'm sharing the directions to your phone. Load them up and follow them to a T. Any alternate "faster" routes pop up, ignore them. There's construction on the east side of the city that we need to avoid, and I've made sure to program them in for you."

  "What's wrong? What was that first alarm about? CJ's alarm. I could figure out Callie's." Karl asked CJ, his mind sharp and drawing logical conclusions.

  "Most of the police in the city were directed to the shootout at the hostel, but now some have been called out to the high-speed pursuit going on through the middle of town," CJ said.

  "That would be us," Mr. Obvious Jace pointed out oh-so-helpfully.

  "No, really?" Karl asked dryly. “How about you focus on driving.”

  “I can multi-task,” Jace quipped right back.

  "Anyways," CJ stretched the word out in emphasis. "I'm trying to monitor their channels to keep an ear out for roadblocks or their plans."

  I clicked open the traffic light for the intersection Karl had pointed out. It was yellow about to go red.

  "Brace yourselves," Jace said from up front.

  I changed the light to green. Luckily, the coding was programmed to automatically make the other lights change appropriately to match the switch I had made. The light on the cross-traffic quickly changed from green to red without any prompting on my part. I heard brakes squealing, but no horns this time.

  "Whoa," Jace said in awe as we sailed through.

  "Brock," I said quickly. "Let me know as soon as you're clear."

  "I’m clear," he said, and I switched the light to red, hoping to deter the followers.

  "This is like, like Dominic Toretto level badassery here, Damsel. Seriously," Jace said. “You just changed that freakin’ light.”

  CJ's snapped towards his twin upfront. "Hey, why don't you sound impressed when I hack?"

  Jace scoffed. “Bro, take a look around us. We are in Europe, in a high-speed car chase, running from the freakin' Russian Mafia, and Callie has illegally hacked into the traffic lights to clear the way. That's bad-ass. You hack into old men’s Facebook accounts to help them reset their forgotten passwords."

  "Da, this is true," Aleks said.

  "That was one time!" CJ defended.

  Jace snorted, “More like one man, multiple times. He’s always forgetting his password.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do? Leave Mr. Hans to fend for himself? He couldn’t log in to his bank account one time. He wouldn’t have been able to buy groceries. What kind of person are you?”

  “We're getting ready to go through an intersection!" Jace said, instead of responding.

  I was frantic. From the back, it was hard to tell what intersection Jace was talking about. Had we gone through more than one, and he was only mentioning it because the light was changing to red? I couldn't read the map without Google!

  Karl sensed my unspoken question. He shifted to keep an eye on the GPS pulled up on Jace's phone. It was mounted on an air vent in the middle of the two front seats, giving him an easy view. "We've gone two blocks, heading east."

  Karl finished quickly and reclaimed his spot behind Aleks's seat. He pointed out the next intersection for me. How he was so good with maps was beyond me, but I didn't even hesitate now.

  I pulled it up, working the coding, and loving the fact that the cross light “auto-magically” changed as well. This would be a lot harder if I had to control those at the same time.

  "Brock," I said, pointer hovering over the icon.

  "Clear," he said after a couple of seconds.

  I changed it, hoping we were doing something.

  "Fuck," Brock said through the speakers.

  "What is it?" I asked, wondering if they had been hit again.

  "The people following us are too close to be affected by the traffic lights. We need to work on the timing--" he cut off for a second, more curses filtering through. "They're shooting at me," he said, his gravelly voice level.

  "What?" Karl asked, his head whipping around.

  "That's not our only problem, guys," CJ said. "The police have found us. They're joining the chase."

  Chapter 15

  "How many cops?" Karl asked after he let me know what intersection we were approaching.

  "Two units," CJ said. "They're still a few blocks away, but they're catching up quickly."

  "We're 5 minutes from the airport, but we can't come in hot like this, private landing strip or not," Karl said in concern. "In 10 minutes, it won't make a difference anyway, they won't let us leave until 10:00 if we miss our time slot."

  We absolutely couldn't miss our takeoff time. We wouldn't be able to hold out another ten minutes, let alone several hours.

  " Brock," I said. "How close are you following us?"

  There was a honk from literally, right behind us. It was loud. It had to be him.

  "That answer your question, dušo?" Brock asked. I could almost hear the smirk in his growly voice.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm trying something different this time. Hang tight."

  "Copy, dušo."

  I studied the graphics in front of me with the timers going down. Our next light to turn at was currently red, and it would be that way for another eight seconds. I glanced to the front of the van. The intersection was far enough away that I could see the stoplights through the windshield still.

  My brain pounded, and I knew I would have a horrible headache later. I shook my head and ignored it. I had to. My vision cleared though the pain didn't fade.

  I did some quick math in my head based on our distance and the current rate of velocity. We would hit the intersection just as it turned green if Jace maintained his current speed.

  There was a half-second lag that both lights would be red before switching which was why it was so hard to lose the tails. The vans were all so close together, that we were pretty much paving the way for Nikolai's men as much as we were ours.

  "Callie," Jace said from up front. "You got this?"

  He was referring to the red light we were fast approaching. He must have been slowing down for them somewhat before and was nervous to go full speed through the red.

  "Maintain your speed, exactly," I said, still doing calculations. "Let me know right when you get to the intersection."

  Karl let me know right before we hit it, and I changed our light, bypassing yellow and going directly to red, hoping it would help deter the followers.

  "Brock," Karl said, probably catching on to what I was aiming for. "Stay right behind us."

  "Brock, let me know what the crossway traffic does," I said.

  There was a beat of silence. I started counting in my head. Then there were different horns sounding off. I timed how long it was to get an idea of how far away Nikolai's men were.

  "The cross-traffic was just taking off, but they slammed on their brakes when Ivanov's people ran the light," Brock said.