Six o'clock arrived and Hunnigan rolled over to see the sun setting, through the blinds on her window. She found her throat was sore, she decided to get up and get herself a cup of tea and honey, anything to soothe the raw pain—then her left foot made contact with the ground and she audibly yelped. Impressed with her own stupidity, she used her nightstand to push her up, then she pushed off the nightstand and launched herself at the wall. She slid along the wall, down her hallway, then she reached for the couch. Some part of her expected to see Leon standing guard, but the house was horribly empty.
Finally in the kitchen, she found that Leon had cleaned up the kitchen. She put the kettle on the stove and began digging around in the cabinets for a mug and teabag. She found a single box of orange tea as the kettle screamed, then the jar of honey in the fridge. A dollop of honey went into the cup, next the hot water and finally the bag. She slid if over to the counter top that had played operation table earlier that morning. She reached around the edge and pulled the bar stool to her. Sitting down, she sipped at the tea. The hot liquid soothed a shaking in her that she hadn't even noticed. She ran a hand through her hair, the rested her head on it, when her eyes caught sight of her monitor. It was turned off. She had set it up to stay on. Her eyes went down to the tower—or rather where the tower usually was. Hunnigan's jaw dropped a bit.
Struggling to get to her computer desk, she slipped and fell. Landing flat on her stomach, she crawled the rest of the way to the computer. The wires were still there as was the keyboard, mouse, everything was there but the tower and a backup portable harddrive. Her nails dug into the carpet as she turned and crawled to the coffee table where her phone and laptop were, finding that she moved much quicker and with less pain on her hands and knees.
She sat against the couch and pulled her phone over to her and reached for her laptop. The moment she began pulling it, she could feel that it felt lighter. Hunnigan flopped it over and found both the battery and internal memory cards missing.
"Leon!"
Her finger swiped over the screen, unlocking it and she saw that there was already a voice message waiting for her. She ignored it and dial Kennedy immediately. The phone rang three times and just as the fourth rang began, he picked up.
"Where are they?"
"Good morning to you too, Hunnigan. How are you feeling?"
"Leon, I am not in the mood, where are they?"
"Well it would help if I knew what you were talking about."
"Dammit Leon, where is my tower, my laptop battery and my memory card—also my harddrive. I have irreplaceable files on there."
"I promise I didn't hurt your toys, I am just keeping them for now. Think of it like an insurance policy. I keep your tech which keeps you alive longer."
"Bring them back here in the next hour or I swear I'll—"
"Oh stop threatening me." He played her off, talking over her. "You will get them back once I have my guy look at it and turn over the information so that we can catch these guys the right way."
"Leon, don't you dare get someone else involved in this—this is my project. I have been working for months on this. You can't! Leon, I don't even know who we can and cannot trust here."
"We can trust this guy."
"You may think that but I won't risk it."
"Hunnigan just leave it to—" She hung up on him. She fumed as she got back to her hands and knees and crawled quickly over to her work bag. He had taken the extra battery from there as well.
"Damn you, Leon." She slapped the wall with her hand then headed back to the bedroom. Inside, there was a bunch of old tech in the top of her closet.
Hunnigan struggled to her feet and began pulling down boxes. The first box held nothing but shoes. The second and third boxes held paper copies of all her certificates: Birth, marriage, divorce, graduation, etc. She dropped them aside and pulled the next box down. This one was full of all the extra in's and out's to build the Frankenstein she had in mind. She drug the box along the floor with her and back into the living room.
At the coffee table again, she began pulling out the pieces she would need. Her mind worked faster than her eyes did. She jury-rigged an old battery to the newer laptop, then performed a loop back through a harddrive full of personal notes on cases to trick the computer into thinking it had an internal memory card. It was unstable but she wouldn't have to be on it long.
The harddrive was basically lost to her. It was locked, each folder was locked and the individual files with the locked folders were both locked and encrypted. Whoever this person was that Leon was giving it to would have to spend a few days working on it, but eventually they would get in. There was no way around it. They would be too smart to open it up online so she couldn't track it and remote fry it.
Her tower on the other hand, he would have to access online. It would be on a secure network but the fact that at most, Leon had gotten only ten hours away, she could safely assume he was still relatively near by. Besides, it was her tower, her programs. If anyone could pick up its trail, it was her.
Hunnigan had only the basic search program on her laptop, none of the results but using it, she could perform both the same search for her next targets and the search for her information. Her mind raced to get both searches going as quickly as possible.
A few hours later, she got her first hit. Devin Reece. He was flying into D.C. for a meeting in two days. He was to be in D.C for just those two days then he would be returning to the UK where he was living. The opportunity was too good, she could not set up the interception with Reece any other way. Her instincts told her to strike these men when they were on her turf and on top of that, she wanted to move quickly. She feared that if she took too long between strikes, the word would spread between members of The Family and they would go into hiding or put a bounty on her head before she got all of their names.
Her mind suddenly jumped.
"The codes, of course. What am I doing?!" She went to the cloud program that she had set up for her backup plan. It was an online storage space, a secure site. She entered the code that was set up for a mercenary in South America, accessing his list. It blocked her because she, of course, was not dead. Hunnigan smiled as she entered the bypass code. The cloud opened up for her. Whoever this hacker was, they moved slowly. They hadn't even found the data base online yet. Everything was there.
Digging through the box, she pulled out another harddrive and began downloading all the file copies that were set up for the mercs in her back up plan. The information was spotty, basic at best. They gave the names of the men she'd found so far, their countries of origins, their business practices and their personal information. Nothing denoting were each one currently was, but it was going to just her search up to as close to were it had been before Leon stole her research as possible.
While those files downloaded, she looked back to the Reece result. He had been linked to The Family through Simmons' father. Simmons senior and Reece's father had been in business together for years until they public split the company in the late eighty's. It was of course a scam, just a way to make double the money and cash in double the tax breaks. After Reece's father had a heart-attack in ninety-one, Reece had taken over. He was now running twice the empire his father had and recently, looked into taking over Simmons senior's side of the business.
She looked into his itinerary for the meetings. They were all in very public places. None of them made very good places for attack. But he would be relatively alone in his hotel room for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon between meetings. That was her in. He was booked in the penthouse, the floor above him was also booked to help with his privacy. Two floor above, however, was open.
"Greetings from the Three Leaf Hotel in D.C., my name is Janus Chaplin how can I help you?"
"Hello Ms. Chaplin. I would like to book a room for the twenty fifth through the thirtieth."
"Wonderful. What kind of room are you interested in?"
"I am on your site actually and I see that the penthouse on the twenty-fourth floor is open, is that correct?"
"Yes ma'am. It is available for the time you are requesting."
"Great, I'll take it."
"Fantastic. I will just need your name, your card number and your driver's license number."
Hunnigan pulled up a new window and a list of names popped up.
"Samantha Harris. My card number is 4938-3243-3428 and my driver's is D882985-5C"
"Hold just one moment while we authorize it." The woman put Hunnigan on hold and a notification popped up. It was one of about forty alias she had set aside. She keyed in the authorization code and the woman came back online.
"Well Ms. Harris, you are booked. Are their any requests that you'd life for your room?"
"Just that I'm not disturbed while I am there. I am going to be in town for a major business meeting and I don't want anyone bothering me."
"Of course, I will make sure that no staff upset you, Ms. Harris."
"See you in a few days."
"Absolutely. Have a good evening."
Hunnigan hung up and set the phone down on the table next to her laptop. The fan kicked on, the quiet whirring was the only noise in the place aside from her own breathing. Her calve was throbbing slightly from the use. She ran her finger along the stitches. The skin was swollen but not alarmingly so. Her mind was already working on how she was going to make this work. Her fingers got to work booking a flight and taxi rides under the same name.
Next she crawled into her bedroom and packed a small bag. In it, she put a work suit, her black pants, a long-sleeve black shirt, the tablets of Erinyes and her phone charger. Hunnigan next found the shell of an old laptop and built it up, creating a metal holder for her needles. The holster was tossed in the bag but the needles would have to be concealed to make it through security.
She climbed into bed and laid back. Her flight was at four in the morning, the next day. It was a tight squeeze but she decided to get in a few more hours of sleep then pick up the last few items she would need before catching her red-eye. Her eyes bore holes in the ceiling as her mind worked.