“
No matter what you see or hear, stay in the car.”
“What if you don’t come back?”
Jake smiled then turned toward the driveway entrance in time to see a TV news truck arriving.
“Your friend is punctual
. See you in fifteen minutes.”
Before Alan could say another word, Jake was out of the car and striding toward the building’s front entrance
. He arrived seconds before the news crew pulled up in front of the door and the truck’s passengers spilled onto the drive. They worked with military precision; the cameraman pulling the camera from its padded box, a sound technician mounting his boom microphone onto its pole and a producer holding a clipboard in front of him, directing operations as Marissa Wilson stepped in front of the door. The driver, who doubled as a live link technician, sat inside and electronically extended then turned the directional transmission dish on top of the truck to adjust for the best signal. The cameraman framed on Marissa’s face as the producer cued her and as she began to speak, the two Blue Sky lobby guards were already out the door demanding to know what was going on.
Their attention fully focused on Marissa,
the guards didn’t notice Jake slip behind them and enter the lobby to make his way quickly to the staff access door. As the staff and visitors noisily gathered to watch the spectacle outside, Jake swiped his counterfeit ID card and said a silent ‘thank you’ to his electronics expert as the door slid open. Without looking back, he followed Alan’s route toward Gelling’s SSCH lab, making certain his face was hidden from the ceiling mounted cameras as he went. He was soon outside the lab door where he pulled a smoke grenade from his jacket and pulled the pin. White smoke billowed from four vent holes at the top of the device and Jake directed the flow toward the nearest smoke detector until a loud squealing alarm pierced the air. He threw the device down the hall in the direction from which he came so that anyone leaving the lab would be directed to the emergency exit at the end of the hall. Once through that door, they would only be able to reenter the building through the main entrance so Jake would be alone with his task.
A small high tech face mask covering his nose
and mouth, Jake then moved into the smoke and waited a few seconds until Gelling, Sanders, and McDonald emerged from the lab. Rothstein wasn’t with them but there was no time to waste so Jake pushed the mask back into his pocket, held a handkerchief to his face and quickly moved toward the men.
“The smoke is too thick this way, take the emergency exit!” he shouted over the alarm.
The three panicked scientists quickly followed his instruction as Jake slipped into the lab before the door could close. He stood for a second, worried that Rothstein was still somewhere in the lab but couldn’t afford to waste any time so he strode toward the programmer’s room, pulled out the specially designed electronic circumvention device and swiped its card across Rothstein’s reader. He waited two seconds then swiped it again and the magnetic lock clunked open. Jake pushed the door open and walked past banks of servers, memory and processors to Rothstein’s work station. He ducked under the bench, found an empty USB port well hidden behind the terminal’s cooling box and plugged Equilibrium’s device into it then got up to leave.
Just as he was about to open t
he door and leave, Jake heard the clunk of the magnetic lock and realized that Rothstein hadn’t left the lab and was ignoring the alarm to return to his room. He assumed the famous programmer was more concerned about the possibility of his illicit work being discovered by his coworkers than he was about fire. Jake’s lightning reflexes propelled him stealthily behind the door where he made himself as flat as possible in the hope that the door didn’t swing widely enough to be stopped by his body and give him away. Rothstein pushed the door and rushed past quickly so Jake was able to catch it with his hand then swing himself around and out in one swift movement unnoticed by the obsessed programmer.
Jake strode toward the outer laboratory door
checking behind him for Rothstein as he went. He pulled out the device again and swiped the card across the reader once then twice and nothing happened. Years of experience and training prevented any panic as he held the black box up to examine it. His maneuver in Rothstein’s room had dislodged the multi-cable connection from the machine so he pushed it back in and held it with one hand as he swiped the card again. Waiting the prescribed two seconds, he swiped it one more time and the door emitted a welcome sound. Jake pulled it open then disappeared down the hall toward the lobby, picking up his smoke canister as he went.
A
woman was slightly hunched over and coughing in the hall so he took her by the arm and led her to the staff door then into Blue Sky’s lobby. People were still crowding their way out and the cacophony of voices combined with the high pitched alarm were easily enough cover for Jake to slip out and get back to the car undetected. He removed his blazer and threw it into the back as he jumped into the driver’s seat.
Alan looked at him with a relieved grin, “You said fifteen minutes.”
“Well it went quicker than expected. I hope your friend won’t be too angry with you about your false news tip.”
“She’ll get o
ver it once I give her the full exclusive story but I hope we don’t need any more favors from her before then.”
“We’re heading straight
to the airport and back to Jersey so I don’t think it should be a problem. But first, a quick text to tell Equilibrium the device is in place.”
Eric Rothstein was just about to shut down his system
and leave the lab when the fire alarm stopped. He looked around nervously before running to the outer lab door and swiping his card to check the hallway. The smoke had mostly subsided so he turned and went back his room. A suspicious man, he opened his latest project for Rygaard and checked to ensure it hadn’t been disturbed while he was in the bathroom. Satisfied the unfinished hallucination was still secure; he felt it was safe to get back to work and finish the project in time to meet the deadline and collect his reward.
His fingers darted over the keyboard writing the complex code required to make th
e scenario as realistic as possible when he suddenly stopped, his face frozen, as he watched the sophisticated CPU meter on the bottom of his screen. Rothstein had built the entire state of the art system with his own hands and his intimate knowledge of its inner workings exposed a very subtle increase in background CPU usage. He quickly shut down all user processes and sat watching the needle on his custom made meter like a hawk watching a field mouse. The needle betrayed a minuscule amount of power usage that would be completely undetectable by any commercially available CPU meter so Rothstein got up to check that all background systems were turned off before returning to observe the tiny fluctuations again. His face contorted in anger as he realized the only possible explanation was that someone had infiltrated his system with a very sophisticated and well hidden invader.
He began a frantic electronic search of all ports and processes but could find nothing.
Exasperated, he jumped up from his chair and began physically searching the memory banks, processors and servers but still nothing. Scratching his head, he looked at his terminal and it dawned on him. While he was building the system, he had added several utility ports to his local cooling tower in case he ever wanted to transfer samples directly to a hard drive via USB and they had remained unused. He got on his hands and knees to crawl behind the tower and tilted his head around the corner until he saw it. Years of experience and knowledge came to play and he calmly crawled back out leaving the device untouched. He knew that there was only one way to find out who was behind the attack and that was to carry on as though nothing was wrong and set up a trace program to follow the device’s pathway back to its owner. In order to draw as little power as it did, the device was obviously extremely advanced and he didn’t know if Rygaard was monitoring his progress or something more dangerous was being perpetrated but he knew how to find out and that’s exactly what he would do.
Chapter 1
6
The trip back to Jersey City was uneventful and the pair arrived back at Jake’s base to the smell of Tik’s cooking. They hadn’t eaten since their Khao Tom Moo that morning and Alan’s nostrils twitched with the exotic fragrances emanating from the kitchen.
“
That smells great Tik! What is it?”
“Laab Gai with Khao Neeow and
Khao Poon.” Tik said proudly as she lifted the bowls of food onto the bench.
“Should I ask?” Alan
grinned at Jake.
“Spicy minced chicken
and herb salad with sticky rice and Lao style Laksa soup. These are some of her best dishes.”
“You’re spoiling me Tik – I’m not used to eating this well at home.”
“You not have wife make you good food?”
“I lost my wife years ago.”
“Tik understand – velly solly for Mr. Alan.”
As she spoke,
Alan noticed that his statement hadn’t evoked quite the same depth of sadness it used to. He wondered at the change and realized that Holly was beginning to displace some of his long held sorrow. He had thought he would never be free of the haunting feelings of his beloved wife’s loss and experience again, the blooming sensation of new love but there it was after so many years of loneliness. An irresistible desire to call Holly and tell her how he felt suddenly surged through him but he knew it wasn’t possible now and struggled to push the feeling down.
Jake watched his mental battle and said, “Be patient Alan.
Keep your priorities in order.”
“
I know, I know but a guy can wish; can’t he?”
“I’m sure Tik’s cooking will take your mind off it for a while – let’s eat.”
The men sat and savored the sumptuous, exotic dishes as Tik went on with her cleaning and housekeeping. The place was spotless but it seemed she was able to find fault with enough to keep her busy.
“I wonder how Equilibrium is doing with Rothstein’s code.”
Alan said before shoveling another spoonful of the Laab into his mouth.
“If there was a
nything to know, we would know. Be patient; that kind of code will be extremely complex and even for Equilibrium, this will take time. When we’ve finished eating, we’ll go and review your Chin Na techniques and if we don’t hear anything in an hour, I’ll initiate contact.”
Alan nodded agreement as he relished the
culinary delights in front of him. “I’m really not used to such spicy food. My mouth is burning but I just can’t stop eating.”
“It is very addictive.
Tik buys fresh herbs and spices every day at the Asian market and the combination of freshness, complexity, and skill make her food irresistible. If you and Holly don’t work out, you could get very fat very quickly as Mr. Tik.” he said chuckling.
Alan shot
him a glare and Jake, still snickering said, “Save it for the gym Alan.”
The men finished their meals and went to the gym to review the lessons
. Alan complained that it was too soon after eating but Jake insisted they would not be exerting enough energy to cause any problems. The techniques, when performed correctly, required very little physical effort; it was simply a matter of repetition to ensure the movements were branded into his brain so he wouldn’t need to think when using them. They continued for an hour until Jake was satisfied his student was well on his way to developing reflexive expertise in the four techniques.
“OK, that’s good Alan – you’re getting them down very well.
Let’s go and check on Equilibrium’s progress.”
They went to the armory room and Jake sent an encrypted text.
A moment later, the reply came back, “Two minutes; orange protocol.”
Jake looked up the orange protoc
ol and stood ready to connect with the enigmatic computer genius. Precisely two minutes after the reply, he clicked the mouse and the familiar flickering digits appeared at the top of the screen.
Jake typed, “Sorry to push but is there any progress?”
Characters appeared on the screen in real time, “Data transfer very slow to avoid detection. Only transferred his current project since it is largely on RAM instead of hard disc memory. Other files downloading but will take time.”
“Anything relevant in the current project?”
“Hold onto your hats. The scenario is patchy because it’s incomplete and my systems are still rendering the code into visuals but it looks very much like this hallucination scenario is designed for the Commander in Chief.”
“The President of the United States?!” Alan
asked incredulously.
Jake typed the question and the hacker’s reply was, “The one and only.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m not but the visuals are showing parts of the White House
that very few people have access to.”
“Could be a Secret Service agent?”
“I thought the same until I came across visuals of a hand signing specific documents with the seal of the Office of the President on them.”
“My God – Devlin’s going after the President
!” Alan gasped.
“More to the point, it sounds like he’s going to manipulate the President into signing documents.
The question is: what is on those documents?”
Jake quickly typed, “Can you make out document content?”
“It hasn’t rendered yet – just the seal and the hand signing.”
Jake rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Devlin is already close to the President through his façade of philanthropic ventures and heavy campaign contributions. His industries are big lobbyists so I don’t understand what else he could hope to achieve with this.”
“Maybe he’s trying to overcome more
barriers to his expansion plans?” Alan suggested.
“Maybe but based on how Devlin has been hiding the full extent of his market dominance and corporate structures, why would he need to over
come barriers when he’s simply been circumventing them?”
“I guess we have to wait until Rothstein programs the code for the document content
s?”
Jake typed again, “Focus on the
written content. Any updates at all – even a few words, let us know immediately.”
“W
ay ahead of you.”
Jake turned to Alan and spoke, “
We need to reexamine all of Matt Lewis’ research and try to find possible reasons for this. Devlin must have an overall plan that’s driving him to this course.”
He ordered his voice activated system to bring up the
files and the two men went through them page by page, taking notes as they went and mapping the tendrils that linked different ventures on a whiteboard. Hours passed as they continued examining every detail of the documents until Jake received a text from Equilibrium, “Two minutes – protocol grey.”
They connected and watched as characters appeared on the screen, “
Still very patchy but some very disturbing renderings now clear – they have to do with executive authority during military conflict. It looks to me like they’re going to manipulate the president to allow for tactical nuclear strikes in the Middle East and North Korea.”
Alan’s jaw dropped as he turned to Jake in horror.
“How is that even possible?!”
Jake’s jaw muscles flexed rhythmically as he processed the information. “
He can’t be certain this will work – unless he’s got other plans in motion simultaneously – he knows that such a thing would require Congressional approval among other official processes.”
“Exactly – so how does he think this is going to get him anywhere?”
“I don’t know but I do know that this guy is very devious and capable, and there is nothing he won’t do. We don’t need to know any more than this – we have to stop him. Legitimate options are closing to us at every turn; we need to do this my way.”
Alan’s gut
churned at the revelations before them and his morality struggled with the ramifications of Jake’s statement. He desperately wanted to follow the rules but could see that Jake was right about one thing. They needed to fight fire with fire and the rules were hamstringing them but he still couldn’t bring himself to agree to Jake’s methods.
“If you kill Devlin, we are just as bad as him and that defeats the purpose of
justice.”
“I disagree.
If there are no legitimate means to destroy our enemy and stop this madness, then we must do whatever it takes. I know this is difficult for you but it’s a simple decision for me. What’s more important: your morality or the security of this nation?”
Alan looked thoughtfully into Jake’s eyes.
“I know the decision is black and white for you but there may be a better way.”
Jake studied Alan’s face.
The detective formed a knowing half smile and Jake listened intently as he began to lay out his idea until suddenly the communication page with Equilibrium began to display more characters, “Jake – I think I have a problem.”
“What is it?”
They waited for a reply but nothing came. Jake typed again, “What’s wrong?”
Almost a minute passed
before a reply came, “Remember all those years ago when you tried to find me? It looks like you’re going to get your wish.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone is breaching my perimeter. My security system shows multiple intrusion points. I have measures in place but they won’t last forever and it’s not like I can call 911. You’re my only chance Jake.”
Jake’s
face drained of blood. He had been unable to locate Equilibrium with all the CIA’s resources behind him, yet he was now being told that someone had done the seemingly impossible.
“
How can that be? Do you know who they are?”
“I don’t know who they are
. I can only assume Rothstein’s system was designed to detect the minutest of CPU usage and he found my device then traced the feed back to me. It would take someone of his caliber to follow the path as it’s covered by a fluctuating source code - but I was overconfident that my invention would go unnoticed so to save time; I only used a standard trace prevention technique. I should have coded it through the trace-proof system we use for communication. A foolish mistake and now it looks like I’m going to pay for it.”
“
Can’t you get out? Escape plan? Weapons?”
“
My facility is so well secured that there is only one emergency exit but as you know, any escape route offers vulnerabilities. They have already discovered my one way out and neutralized it – now I’m trapped and I don’t know how long it will take them to get to me. I have one handgun – not enough to fend off multiple intruders. I need you – here’s the address.”
Jake stood in silence continu
ing to watch the screen until the very location that he’d so fervently sought years before, was now voluntarily given by his former quarry. He felt a degree of disillusionment as the legendarily elusive hacker typed an address near the Apple Warehouse District of New York on the screen. It was almost as though a respected mentor had failed him. His mind drew a comparison to the emotions evoked by his brother’s death and how it was caused by the poor judgment of his superiors. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind and he had to be certain it wasn’t a trap.
“How do I know this is really you?”
“Is Beach with you?
“Yes – why?”
“Don’t let him see the screen.”
Alan looked at
Jake and nodded. He walked around to stand behind the terminal and watched Jake’s brow furrow into a deep frown as he read what Equilibrium typed. The message obviously convinced Jake because he looked up from the screen and said tersely, “It’s not a trap. I have to go – now!”
“What about my plan?” Alan asked.
“I heard enough to agree to it and I haven’t got time to argue anyway. You go ahead and set it up. I have to try to save Equilibrium – I owe him that much.”
Alan watched as Jake
quickly pulled on a thin gold tinged vest and covered it with a black turtle neck shirt then donned a double-sided harness, checked and loaded his two Heckler & Koch MP7A1 submachine guns and slid them into the holsters. He grabbed six spare clips and pushed them into the nylon webbing pockets of his harness then clamped a Special Forces dagger onto his belt and shoved a Microtech Automatic knife into his pants pocket. Finally, he mounted an ankle holster on his left leg and slid a Ruger LCP Coyote compact semiautomatic into it. Jake looked up to see Alan staring at him in amazement. He gave the detective a quick nod and started for the door.
“How do I get out of here while you’re gone?”
Alan stopped him.
“You don’t.
Use this disposable phone to make your call.” He tossed the phone to Alan then continued, “If I’m not back tonight, the mission is a bust and the only hope you’ll have is Walker. But don’t call him unless you’re sure I’m not coming back.”
The finality in Jake’s voice concerned the detective.
He knew that if Jake didn’t return it was because the odds were too overwhelmingly against him and if they could defeat Jake, he would have no chance against them whatsoever. He decided it was best not to think of the alternative and said, “I’ll see you tonight.”