Read American Law (Law #2) for Free Online

smart plan—and he needed it now. He didn’t have the luxury of believing he would get out of this warehouse alive, even though he hoped. He knew too much.
    He added another set of commands. On a normal day, had his friend not just been murdered, and had he been doing this of his own free will, he would have enjoyed himself. Instead, he felt edgy and afraid, sensing the crosshairs of the gun. No matter what happened in the next hour, his life would be over. Even if he happened to get away, he would be forced to hide for the rest of his life. Every keystroke was another nail in his coffin.
    “How long is this going to take?” the American demanded.
    Had Rome been taken in a day? Have some fucking patience.
    “Even baking a cake takes forty minutes,” he replied, glancing at the hand holding the gun. “Also, I’m not used to working while I have a gun pointed at me.”
    The American lowered his weapon, but didn’t holster it. “Hurry up about it,” he snapped, then paced back and forth behind him.
    Dmitry turned his attention back to the black command box hovering in the top left hand corner of his screen, above the Department of Defense’s logo, and ignored his surroundings.
    He opened the file marked System Administrator and created a new persona. He named it GreyHat01, the general ID he had for adding users. It kept things simple. He always knew what to look for when he needed to go back to wipe out his tracks. While this was his trademark, he wasn’t stupid enough to leave it where it could be found and traced back to him. If he ever got caught, he’d rather not be linked to all of his jobs.
    Using his new status as an administrator, he uploaded a ghost—which if the DoD’s antivirus or system watcher detected the intrusion, would install a new ghost in milliseconds after the previous one had been deleted or flagged. The ghost’s job was to collect the information required in the quickest time possible. While he would normally upload his own brand of spyware, he didn’t have the timeframe needed. Spyware collected bits of information over a period of time, and due to the fact that the American stood agitated behind him, Dmitry didn’t think he had minutes let alone hours or even days, so he didn’t bother.
    He sat back in his chair and looked over his shoulder at the man. “I’m in. What is it you need?”
    The American smirked. “There’s a file imbedded somewhere deep in the system, marked by the name Sundown . I want you to retrieve the data. That’s it.”
    Dmitry nodded and began to locate the ominous file. After three minutes of searching through the congestion of files on the server, he came across the file hidden amongst the yearly budget and staff directory. He had no idea what it could be, and had no time to flick through it, but he knew if the man behind him would kill for it, it had to be something pretty damn important.
    He was sure he wouldn’t like the reason they wanted Sundown. An innocuous name, but the DoD liked giving their missions and contacts ridiculous code words. As if it would somehow make them feel better when Operation Wild Rider killed hundreds of innocent civilians so one bad guy would be taken out. He didn’t understand that type of logic, even as an extremely logical man.
    He was also far from stupid. The moment the file finished downloading, he would be dead, lying next to Ivan while the American absconded with the mysterious file. He would most likely be blamed for the theft of Sundown, his name forever associated with terrorism. He thought about Elena and how it would affect her. She would be heartbroken to lose him, and he wondered if she would survive such a blow. He knew she would never accept that he would do such a thing and she would risk death trying to prove his innocence, just as she had when she’d searched for the truth about Nikolai.
    He couldn’t allow that. His sister had been through enough. He couldn’t let her deal with his death on top of