Chapter two
Luther returned the surveillance systems back to their standard operating mode in record time. He shoved his gear back into the tool bag without care for order and hurried outside, taking the stairs two steps at a time. The background noise on the radio was making him uneasy but before he entered the lobby he forced himself to slow down.
"We got a man down."
Brandt's voice sounded breathless over the radio yet eerily detached. That cool tone made Luther more apprehensive than the words themselves, but years of experience helped him project an outside calm. Inwardly he sighed with relief when the guard at the front desk simply waved him through.
Out on the street, Benji was waiting with the van. He stepped on the gas as soon as Luther was in, before he had even time to close the door.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Brandt carefully turned over the limp body and found that Ethan was unconscious but breathing, which was more than he had expected. Hunts shirt was soaked, glistening darkly, which made it hard to make out details, but the analyst thought he could see three small circular rips clustered around the center of his thorax.
Taking off his jacket, Brandt misused the garment to apply pressure. "Ethan!" he called and shook him lightly by the shoulders, but there was no reaction. He looked up when he heard a car approaching. Up until now, it hadn't even occurred to him to move to the sidewalk.
Benji parked the van right next to them and anxiously watched through the rear-view mirror while the other two agents carried the motionless form inside. He swallowed at the sight. "We have to get him to a hospital."
Luther exchanged a knowing glance with Brandt, then wordlessly shook his head. The small gesture sent shivers down Benji's spine, but he understood and headed to their safe-house instead. Going to the hospital was a certain risk. It meant involving local authorities which would lead to a lot of hassle for the IMF and probably disavowal for them.
Benji knew that risk, and he knew that each of them was willing to take it. If there was a chance that it would help.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
They put Ethan on the floor because there they had the most space. While Luther went to check on their medical supplies, Benji positioned himself by Ethan's head to keep an eye on his vitals. His breathing was slow, but astonishingly deep, as if he was just sleeping. To Benji every breath he counted was like a new stab of guilt. He couldn't help feeling that if they got him to a doctor, maybe something could be done, although rationally he knew it wouldn't make a difference.
Meanwhile, Brandt cut open the front of the shirt, or at least tried to. His pocket knife sliced easily through the first inch of fabric, but then bounced off as if it had suddenly gone dull. Brandt narrowly avoided cutting his own fingers. He stared at the blade for a moment, then felt the edge of the shirt.
There was a second layer underneath the actual shirt material that was invisible from the outside. It was a tougher and denser material, feeling slick to his touch. When he ran his hand over it, he realized it was also continuous, untouched by the bullets that had ripped through the outer layer.
While Brandt's brain still processed what he had found, Benji started when a pair of green-tinged blue eyes suddenly stared up at him. "Ethan?!" he called with a mix of shocked surprise and disbelief.
Hunt blinked at him slowly a couple of times before he responded with a tight smile. "Hey," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"You got to be kidding me," Luther muttered in the background.
Brandt still stared at the red liquid dripping from his hands, then wiped them on his equally dripping jacket. "Theater blood," he muttered with a resigned sigh before his anger won out. "Ethan, what the fuck is this?"
"A prototype," Ethan replied curtly and propped himself up on his elbows.
"Bulletproof shirt," Benji stated with a childlike awe. "I thought they weren't out of testing yet."
Hunt smiled wryly. "Just had its first field trial," he said and tried to sit up. He came dangerously close to falling over before Benji and Brandt managed to catch him. They propped him up between them and he took a couple of deliberate deep breaths.
"Looks like this still needs some refinement," Brandt replied dryly, but his gaze was clearly concerned now.
"It did work," Ethan replied, but his pained grimace told a different story. Luther wordlessly offered him some painkillers and he swallowed them dry.
"Let's get this thing off," Luther decided.
It took all four of them to accomplish that task. The prototype fabric was tight and slick with fake blood and Ethan himself wasn't much help.
Even before the last of the fake blood was cleaned off, thick black bruises were clearly visible on his chest where the bullets had hit. Just from looking at it Luther suspected that he had not just cracked but severely fractured several ribs and probably his sternum.
"That looks bad," Benji summed up his own thoughts. "You should have a doctor look at that."
"I can't if I want to stay officially dead," Ethan replied.
Brandt noted that none of them seemed overly surprised by that. "And why do you want to be dead? Officially."
"I need to fall off the map for a while," Hunt answered curtly.
The analyst couldn't contain an unsatisfied sigh.
"Cut the crap, Ethan," Luther demanded. He had found some elastic bandages and started applying them for support. "After tonight you owe us some very good explanation."
Ethan flinched when the bandage was pulled tight. "There's a mole in the IMF. We've suspected there is someone selling information to the outside since our encounter with the Horsemen, but considering what happened in Oslo and London and more recently after the conference, we were sure that there was some kind of leak," he explained. "So we did some digging and discovered inconsistency connected to those and several other missions. They are only minor details each, but put together there is definitely a pattern."
"Hold on," Benji interrupted. "Who's 'we'?"
"Hunley, Elaine and me," Ethan answered.
"And you didn't think to tell me, why?" Brandt asked sounding hurt, but the answer already occurred to him as he posed the question. "Don't say plausible deniability."
Ethan nodded. "We thought it best to have as few people informed as possible, for your safety, too," he answered. "If I had known about tonight I would have told you, but I thought I still had a few days."
"So you knew this would happen?"
"I suspected they were onto me and wanted me out of the way," Ethan admitted. "I didn't think they'd come after me tonight. But I had a close call in Geneva last week, so I thought it better to play it safe."
"So we have one or more rogue agents leaking information who want you dead," Brandt summed up with a sigh, "and now they have -"
"The MARV!" Benji exclaimed and suddenly had all eyes on him.
"Wait," Luther interjected, looking angrily from Ethan to Benji and back. "You said it was a ledger!"
Everyone turned questioningly to Benji. "Well, that's what I thought, too," he replied. "But I saw the metadata, and I'm sure that's what it was. There just wasn't any time to tell you."
"Fuck," Luther said quietly.
"And what exactly is this MARV?" Brandt asked.
"MARV stands for Aggressive Multiplicative Rabbit Virus. Although technically that would be AMRV, but no one could pronounce that, so..." Benji said, then noticed he was going off on a tangent and stopped.
"You know it as Black Rabbit," Luther put in and when he mentioned the project codename realization struck with the other two agents.
"The Oslo hard-drive."
Luther nodded. "Exactly," he confirmed. "What it does once it is executed is mirroring random processes that take up more and more space."
"The problem is that these mirror processes are exact copies of valid requests that in turn trigger other functions, so it's not just virtually undetectable by anti-virus software, it also keeps using up more and more space at an exponential rate until the system is slowed down to the point where for all intents and purposes it can't function anymore," Benji elaborated. "And when it is on a networked computer that includes data sent to other devices, so it creates a ripple effect that ultimately shuts down the whole network. Which is what happened to our tech department back in January. Now imagine what would happen if that got into some company network or even the internet. With the kind of interconnectedness we have nowadays, everyone would be screwed. And I'm not just saying private people and companies, traffic lights, public transport, they all rely on the internet. It would be havoc."
"And how did that virus get here?" Brandt asked.
"Well, I'd think that this was the original," Benji answered as if that was obvious. "The coding had some very advanced protection, to the point where it's virtually impossible to copy because it was originally built to test security measures on company servers, so the original creators didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. We do know that the version we had was only a knockoff itself, sort of a working version to use for tests and that there has to be at least one more copy. The original master-file, which I think was on that server, that can be copied, although it would take a lot of skill and knowledge and time."
"In the end, the virus was never used for a real test because it was deemed too dangerous after it shut down several closed networks. We know that Schäfer and Thomas were involved in the original creation and we think that they kept a copy for themselves to use against their enemies or sell on the black market," Luther added. "That means there probably aren't that many more copies out there because they would be careful not to harm their own business, but we can only know how many if we have the master copy."
There was a pause while everyone let that information settle in. Then Brandt spoke up. "And what do we do now?"
"You're going to follow protocol," Ethan decided. The bandaging was finished and he got up, still a little shaky but without help. He picked a button-down shirt out of the well-stocked closet and stiffly put it on while he continued: "You're going to call in as scheduled and report me dead. And as soon as there's new intel you'll probably be tasked with tracking down and retrieving the virus."
"And you?" Luther asked.
"I'm going to disappear," Ethan replied, already at the door.
"Ethan, wait," Benji called, a cold anger burning in his voice as he quickly crossed the room. "Because you kept us in the dark, you endangered us and this mission. You knew that and you did it anyway. You got us all scared and now you're just going away."
Ethan was suddenly very aware that he was a head shorter than the other agent. He had to think of Kings Cross when he had literally walked out on them and now he felt just as guilty as he had once he had learned what had happened next. He braced himself for the punch in the face he certainly deserved, but instead was caught in a warm hug. After a short moment of surprise, Ethan returned the embrace.
"Take care," Benji said. Then, remembering something, dug in his pocket and handed him a bracelet. "Actually, take this."
Ethan took it and examined it carefully. It was made of what looked like sleek black stones cut in an identical cylindrical shape. He glanced back up at Benji quizzically.
"It's a prototype," the techie explained. "Each of those is a miniature smoke bomb. They're activated by the magnetic clasp when you slide them off and triggered on impact. The guys in R&D asked me to have a look but I think maybe you need it more."
"Thanks," Ethan smiled and slipped it on.
Benji returned the smile, although it looked a bit forced, and stepped back.
"Don't fuck this up," Luther reminded him when he gave him a quick hug.
"I won't," Ethan promised, his eyes asking 'when have I ever?', but not daring to actually pose the question. Then he looked at Brandt.
The analyst stepped forward hesitantly, but then hugged him, too. "You know I really liked that jacket?" he said when they let go again.
"I'll buy you a new one when this is over," Ethan replied apologetically but there was the hint of a grin flashing over his face. Then he was gone.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Night was slowly turning into morning as Brandt wandered the streets of Brussels that were almost deserted at this time of day. What he was about to do felt weird on a lot of levels. Although he technically was Hunt's superior in the IMF hierarchy there had never been any question about Ethan taking the lead on missions.
But now that Ethan had disappeared Brandt was in charge, which not only felt very strange but also made him irrationally nervous. Probably, he thought, because the last time he had actually headed a mission had been Croatia.
He pushed the thought away and concentrated on finding the pay-phone that was supposedly hanging inside the train station. He had wondered before how something so archaic still existed in most major cities, but then IMF likely wouldn't just let them be taken down.
Making sure he was alone in the passage, he stepped up to the phone and dialed up the number every IMF agent knew by heart. "Consolidated Insurance," the sweet voice of the operator came back out of the phone. "How may I help you?"
Brandt stated his name and ID code.
"Agent confirmed." the operator replied. "I'll put you through. Just a moment."
Through to whom? Brandt wondered. He was mildly surprised when a moment later the secretary of the IMF was on the other end.
"Brandt," Hunley greeted him curtly. "Where is Agent Hunt?"
"Dead," Brandt replied and although it wasn't true he could hear his voice catch. He took a deep breath. "There was a team of armed hostiles. We lost the objective."
There was a short pause and in front of his mind's eye, he could see Hunley nodding thoughtfully.
"Body?" the secretary asked.
"We had to dump it," Brandt replied. "Securely."
He was horribly aware of the subtext. No sweepers required. Ethan disavowed, whereabouts unknown, presumed dead.
Considering Hunley was in on everything, Brandt hoped he wouldn't lock him out of the system completely, but immediately realized that to keep up appearances the secretary wouldn't have any other choice.
"I understand," Hunley replied. "Anything else?"
"No, sir," Brandt answered.
"Alright," the secretary said. "Wait for further instructions."
"Yes, sir," Brandt replied, suppressing a sigh. The phone beeped quietly and he hung up.