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  The bastard lay dead in the middle of his living room. He barely had the chance to react before I made my way into his apartment, and took my shot. The two deadbolts on his door were a joke; it took me all of five seconds to pick each lock. For a world class hacker he was pretty lax on his personal security. Single cylinder deadbolts were child’s play.

  “Ya’ll are a bunch of pansy asses complaining about the smell. If I didn’t know any better I’d swear you were all trained by the girl scouts.” I loved to tease the guys when I could. It was a rare occasion they acted like a bunch of sissies complaining about smell and filth.

  “Fuck me, Jas thinks she has jokes. Who do you think contracted the douche to hack into the spooks database?” Eric asked with a look of distain on his face. The CIA had burned him on his last assignment. They fucked him over so badly that even years later he still refused to even be in the same room with an agent. “My guess is the Russians.”

  “Eric your guess is always the Russians,” Colin threw in as he latched another container and placed it on a dolly.

  Deepweb336 had been on radar for years. He was a low-level hacker when we first caught up with him. He slowly made a name for himself stealing corporate secrets and selling them to any competitor that was willing to add a bunch of zeros to whatever number he threw out.

  Z Corps, and the government agencies that ran contracts through us, never gave two shits what Deepweb336 did, only that he was quickly making a name for himself as one of the most sought after hackers in the world. That is, until he tried to hack into the CIA database that held information on where undercover agents were on assignment. Stealing that would have led to an outrageous number of casualties, pissed off most foreign governments, and made the people in power have to answer some very uncomfortable questions.

  Deepweb336 needed to be eliminated before those questions were asked. Z Corps took the contract to do just that. That and to recover any information he might have already stolen. Red Team was the best recovery team the company had ever trained; the team that got sent out on the highest priority ops. And this op was high priority. It was top secret shit that was so far above my paygrade I didn’t know all the players involved and never would unless Zane, my boss, felt that information was required for me to do my job. Z Corps recruited and contracted some of the world’s best hackers and deep web information brokers; it would be their job to sift through all the machines we brought back. It would also be their job to find out who had hired Deepweb336. It’s a shame he turned out to be such a douche and played for the wrong team his skills could have been an asset to Z Corps.

  “We need to be out in six minutes. Cargo will be out front.” Colin, the team leader, yelled, reminding us of our deadline.

  “Aye aye Cap.” The team echoed in unison.

  We were six minutes until, out the door, all electronics needed to be packed up and ready for transport. The last of the hacker’s equipment was dismantled and placed into plastic containers. The rest of the team speedily donned mover’s coveralls created for today’s transport. Today they were “Movers on the Go”. MoGo. A cargo van would be waiting for them at the entrance with a MoGo logo on the side.

  Colin and I stayed in the everyday clothes we wore in, nothing too flashy that would make us stand out. This was a shit neighborhood after all; we needed to blend in like we belonged in this rat-infested apartment complex. We would not be going out with the “movers” today we would act as their back up.

  “We’re out. See ya back at HQ,” Drew said as he pulled his hat lower on his head in an effort to shield his face, a habit we all had. The team had already done a sweep of the apartment complex checking for any video surveillance inside of the building. It was no surprise that the old, shithole complex had no such devices. That only left the traffic cameras to be disabled en route. The guys back at HQ would handle that. Eric, Jaxon, and Leo followed Drew out the door. Each had a dolly stacked high with black plastic hard cases.

  Colin grabbed my hand once we were in the hallway, and walked us hand in hand out of the building. Once we were on the street we could watch the team as they loaded the cargo van. With a quick sweep of the street Colin kissed my forehead and walked us across the intersection like an everyday couple.

  Pulling my secure, encrypted cellphone out of my pocket, careful not to advertise the pistol strapped underneath my jacket, I punched in my ten-digit security code.

  “Cleanup is a go.” I ended the call and slid my phone back into my pocket. I looked up at Colin and smiled brightly. Another successful mission. The cleaners would be there soon and it would look like Louis Clark never lived there at all.

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  XOXO - Riley

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