Free American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) by Wesley Robert Lowe

another.”
    “Not.”
    Five minutes later, Rayna watched Julio try to open the door. It wouldn’t open.
    “Your turn,” he said.
    Taking the doorknob, she turned it easily. She pushed the door open and gasped when she stepped inside—there was a magnificent lakeside view. In a room three times the size of the average cramped hotel room, she was greeted with fresh flowers from the Resort garden, a selection of California organic fruit and an iced bottle of her favorite sparkling water. The king-sized bed was made with white Egyptian cotton sheets with a thousand-thread count. Rayna fell back and laid flat on the high-end Swedish-made bed, spreading her arms out like an eagle on the elegant mattress, finely crafted of horsehair, pure cotton and mohair.  
    She spotted several hidden cameras in the room. “Are you planning a Kim Kardashian film?”
    “Good eye. We could, and we could make more money blackmailing our guests than we ever could from renting our five-thousand-dollar-a-night rooms to them. But it’s security. Our guest list includes the most powerful people in the world. Privacy, yes. Protection, even more so... we even know the color of your pee.”
    “Barry said you know this place better than anyone. Who exactly are you, Julio?”

    ***

    Twelve Years Ago

    A prison van carried nineteen-year-old Julio Ibanez, “the most dangerous man in the world,” for a pre-trial hearing in Dallas. Julio, an illegal Mexican immigrant, had managed to hack into the National Command Authority’s computers and given himself POTUS’s   authority to launch nuclear bombs on Mexico City, Tokyo and Paris. The only reason this disaster was averted was that Julio didn’t know that execution of a launch order required secondary confirmation from the Secretary of Defense. When Secretary Henderson did not confirm, a full-scale investigation from the FBI and Homeland Security was launched instead of the bombs, and Julio was caught within hours at a multi-million dollar mansion in Dallas. He had purchased his home and several others like it by hacking into Ameribank’s credit card system and having one ten thousandth of one percent of each transaction transferred to his personal account.  
    En route for pre-trial sentencing, he was heavily guarded and secured. Suddenly, the road in front of them exploded and a dense thick cloud enveloped the van. Sledgehammers banged at the windows with bulletproof glass-shattering force. The prison security men fired, but the smoke was so thick that they were shooting blindly. Unseen assailants crashed the back door down while gunfire stormed against them. The security guards screamed in pain as the attackers fired back, inflicting serious injuries.
    Then silence. The mission had taken all of forty-five seconds.
    Moments later, inside an inauspicious panel van marked “Plumbing Masters,” Julio shivered in front of a masked commando who pointed a gun at his face.
    “What do you want? I can give you money, girls, drugs, anything,” pleaded Julio.
    “If I can afford to spring you like this, do you think I need your money?”
    “What do you want then?” asked the trembling Julio.
    “I want you to work for me. I want you to build me the most sophisticated intelligence and information-gathering system in the world. I want to know what every satellite sees, I want access to every real estate transaction, every bank deposit or withdrawal, the lovers of every person in the world, the antidotes for every known poison in the world... I want to know what the world thinks in every situation before they’ve thought of it. Saying ‘no’ will cost you your life.”
    “I... I... I can’t do that! I’m not good enough. I don’t know if anybody can do that.”
    The hostage-taker put his gun down. “Good. You’re hired.”
    “What? You said you would kill me if I said no.”
    “It was a test,” the gunman said. “I wanted to see how honest you are. You passed. What I just asked for is what I