by D S Kane
Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, China
September 2, 10:16 a.m.
As the airplane lifted off the runway on its way to Washington, DC, William thought about his family. He’d remained in China for a week, rediscovering his father. The old man wasn’t the monster he’d imagined him to be. Just a lonely old man. They’d hugged before he left. He’d visited his mother. She was aging fast. She could barely recognize him.
Now he thought about the Bug-Lok mess. It had taken him hours to figure it all out.
Now he knew the Chinese Advanced Weapons Research lab had originally developed a model of the weapon and called it DeathByte. The Mossad stole a copy of the concept plans and renamed it Bug-Lok. The Ness Ziona in Israel was their developer. The Mossad sold DARPA on the concept, but somewhere along the way, the Mossad had decided Bug-Lok was too dangerous to make available. They tried to close the project down, lying to DARPA about its status.
Britain’s MI-6 also had a mole in the Ness Ziona. William still had no way to know if Sir Charles Crane was able to deliver plans to his management before the Israelis terminated him. By that time, Chinese CSIS moles in DARPA had sent home the Bug-Lok specifications, and they used the Ness Ziona enhancements in their version of the DeathByte nanobug.
William chuckled. He wondered how they’d come up with that name. DeathByte worked without any side-effects. None of the others did.
He frowned. Crane was a demon. He’d been nearly destroyed by Jon’s parents when they stopped Syria from completion of their nuclear weapons project. MI-6 had demoted Crane to a simple covert agent and it had taken him nearly a decade to rise again to the level he’d once had before Jon’s parents had hacked his computer. William wondered if Crane had sold Jon’s parents’ identities to the Syrians who’d terminated Jon’s parents? But of course he did.
Crane had been blamed by the British government for the moles in his MI-6 group, but he’d also been the one who turned Aviva Bushovsky. When the Mossad discovered her treason, Oscar Gilead had forced Yigdal Ben-Levy to terminate her. So it was Crane’s thirst for revenge that caused the deaths of Jon’s parent’s and Aviva Bushovsky.
What had become of Jon? William sensed he would hear from his friend again, but it might take years for Jon to recover. If, indeed, he ever did.
He would heed his father’s order. No work for any government again. Avram Shimmel’s army was a different matter. After all, Avram was a friend. But no government intelligence work.
What had become of Jon’s handler, Mother? He hoped the old man was dead.
From Washington, he’d take the first flight to Omaha and get a cab to Woodbine. He closed his eyes and leaned into the seat cushions, eager to return to Butterfly Brown. He imagined her expression when he appeared at her door. In seconds he fell asleep and dreamed about a peaceful life with her.
William’s cell buzzed and his eyes flipped open. The text message notification light blinked.
He swiped to the page and read it.
Cassandra Sashakovich.
He scanned the note, his jaw rigid with the rage, remembering how her theft of his apartment had destroyed his life. He read the note to see if she was safe or in danger. As he neared the end, his eyes lit and he smiled again. An answer to his prayers.
CryptoMonger—Need help. I’m familiar with your skills from Project Kahuna. Attached is an encrypted file using an algorithm I am not familiar with. Could you tell me anything to help make this file decipherable? I hacked it off a computer 8,000 miles away, and that computer is no longer available—
Swiftshadow.
He actually giggled. The file was easy to lay flat. He ran it through a program in his cell phone. While it processed, he composed a reply:
swiftshadow—may i call you cassandra? your real name is cassandra sashakovich. i got your call-sign and id’ed you from files I hacked at one of the u. s. intel agencies. i remember you from hong kong. you looked so fine in the black mask and clothing you wore when you broke into my apartment in the new territories. when am I getting back my hard drives? what a tool you are. too bad your agency outed you. shades of valerie plame! got movies of you from the one video cam you missed in my living room, and your fingerprint from my computer case cover. sloppy work, dear.
i’ll do this for you, but at a cost. you owe me a big, big, big favor and i’ll tell you what and when. you must agree to do whatever i demand if i do this for you. reply and that will be acceptance and confirmation of a deal.
i’m the best—CryptoMonger
He guessed she was online. If so, it would take seconds for her to accept his offer. He counted the seconds and got all the way to twenty-six.
CryptoMonger—Agreed, confirmed, and accepted.
It’s a pleasure doing business with you, William
—Swiftshadow.
William’s program grinded through the file in less than two minutes. His jaw slacked as he wondered if his solution would disappear in a puff of radioactive smoke. He frowned as he keyed his reply:
cassandra—looks like you have a real problem. the files were a snap for me to decrypt and what’s in them makes it easy for me to guess what’s happening where you are, so I might as well decrypt the rest of your files, if you have any more. it’ll cost you more but I can do them much faster than anyone else; i’m the best in the world.
i backtraced the source of your email and found where you are now located. might get very hot soon.
price for decrypting the rest: $2,000,000 USD, and you must wire this to me before I start, so i have the money before you roast.
what i’ve just done for you isn’t included in the price we already negotiated, and as we agreed, i’ll tell you what I want if you live through this. let me know ASAP.
if you want to attempt decrypting the rest yourself, i’ve also sent an email and attached the tools you’ll need, gratis. i can do this four times faster…now that I’ve already figured out the algorithms employed and it’s just a function of running them through my decryption programs. if they don’t work, i will find out why and try a different set of tools. a piece of cake for me.
i’m the best—CryptoMonger
He wondered if the plane would reroute to Chicago if Washington became a radioactive mess. But what if we land in Washington just before the explosion? He shivered. Too late to avoid that if it was his fate. Damn. Hope I can help her fix this before the big bang.
If she wanted his help, she had to act fast. There was a loose nuclear bomb somewhere in Washington, DC.
One of his best friends was in danger. Avram and Sashakovich were there, together, with his mercs, searching for the nuke. He was sure she’d want his help.
He set to work again.
Appendix A—Notes on Nanotechnology
“The concept of nanotechnology (also referred to now as molecular manufacturing) can be dated precisely – December 29, 1959. That was the date of a classic talk that famed physicist Richard Feynman gave at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). However, the actual term “Nanotechnology” didn’t come along until 1974.”
“The emergence of nanotechnology in the 1980s was caused by the convergence of experimental advances such as the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 and the discovery of fullerenes in 1985, with the elucidation and popularization of a conceptual framework for the goals of nanotechnology beginning with the 1986 publication of the book, Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology
Admiral David E. Jeremiah, Vice-Chairman (ret.), U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an address at the 1995 Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology said, “Military applications of molecular manufacturing have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power. Molecular manufacturing raises the possibility of horrifically effective weapons. As an example, the smallest insect is about 200 microns; this creates a p
lausible size estimate for a nanotech-built antipersonnel weapon capable of seeking and injecting toxin into unprotected humans. The human lethal dose of botulism toxin is about 100 nanograms, or about 1/100th the volume of the weapon. As many as 50 341 billion toxin-carrying devices – theoretically enough to kill every human on earth – could be packed into a single suitcase.”
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm#terrorists
Bonus: The first chapter of SwiftShadow, Book 3 of the Spies Lie Series!
September 13, 6:16 p.m.
Cassandra Sashakovich’s apartment, Number 408, 219 F Street NW, Washington, DC
Cassandra Sashakovich hummed “Candy Man,” a John Hurt delta blues tune, as she opened the door and pulled her spinner suitcase into her studio apartment. The trip home from Tel Aviv had taken an entire day. She prepared for another round of jet-lag. Travel was exciting but the aftermath was always a pain. She dragged her spinner suitcase inside and closed the door, and set the stack of mail she’d retrieved from the lobby mailbox on the table.
Despite their best efforts, two weeks performing an econometric study for startups in Herzliyya had left her exhausted. Such is the life of a management consultant. Two of the startups needed help setting up their venture capital relationships, and she coached them through their initial meetings. The other startup had encountered serious financial problems and run out of cash. She’d worked with the investors to obtain a third and final round of financing, then informed them that unless they could complete their prototype before the cash ran out, they’d be dead and gone.
She admired the tan Israel had put on her forearms. A good match for her brown eyes. But, as she passed the mirror, she saw how bedraggled she looked. Her long chestnut hair stuck to her ears and heart-shaped face.
In the fridge, she found the smell of science experiments gone bad. She slammed its door shut, opting for a glass of tap water instead. The stack of mail was thick. She sat and ripped open the first three envelopes, all bills.
The final letter in the stack came from her fiancé, serving a tour in Afghanistan. Evan! She smiled as she ripped the envelope. She dropped onto the couch and read the letter three times. It was over two weeks old. It probably arrived the day she’d left. Its final sentence glared at her: “Tomorrow we’ll be clearing a dangerous spot, but don’t worry. I’ll be okay. I always am.”
This was a lie. He’d recently experienced several near misses, dramatic escapes, and one of his fellow soldiers had died rescuing him in combat.
They’d been engaged since his second tour, soon after she met him. When he had told her he wanted to sign up for another tour, she’d lost her temper and told him she wanted to attend their wedding, not his funeral. They’d argued for hours, but in the end, he’d promised this would be his last tour. She said a prayer for Evan.
She undressed and went to bed, unable to sleep as she worried about him. She dreamed of an explosion with Evan at its center, and woke up drenched.
To take her mind off Evan’s letter and her fears, she thought of her next assignment. Tomorrow, she’d be expected at the Washington DC satellite office of Brewster Jennings, an econometric consulting firm headquartered in Boston. She thought of the report she was scheduled to deliver on the Israeli startups, and worried about how jet lag might affect her performance. It took hours before she drifted back into a dreamless sleep.
She saw the answering machine message light blinking the following morning as she was pouring herself a cup of coffee. Dressed and ready to leave the apartment, she pressed the machine’s buttons and heard the voice of Evan’s mother.
“Cassandra, it’s Linda. I don’t know what to tell you. I guess it’s best if I just say it. Evan died sometime last week. They won’t tell me how or where, but his body is on its way home. If you can, his funeral is the day after tomorrow.” The message had arrived yesterday just before she’d unlocked her apartment door. Her legs buckled and she fell to the floor. Evan! She reached for his letter and held it to her chest. She felt as if half her heart had been ripped away. How could this happen? What should I do now? I have to travel to his home, to see Linda, to be there with her. She rose, but before she could move, she fell to her knees again, bawling, a flood of tears washing the makeup from her face.
She bought a black dress and called her manager, saying she’d be away for two more days. She arrived in Lexington, Virginia, just in time to see Evan put under the ground.
Under a gray drizzle, she stood next to Linda as the casket scraped its way down. She listened as an Army major told Linda that Evan died when an IED blew apart the vehicle carrying him and three others. The image of his mother accepting the folded flag that had covered Evan’s coffin would remain seared forever in Cassie’s memory as the ultimate cost of war.
She was utterly devastated on the drive to Linda’s home for the wake. It was long after dark when she parked her car in her apartment’s garage. Once more home, anger and grief welled up irresistibly within her. The apartment seemed to close around her. She decided impulsively to visit a bar, intending to drown her sorrows. It was unlike her to drink. And she’d never let herself get drunk before.
But when she woke up the next morning, the light bursting through her eyes left her with the solid pain of a hangover.
Her hand was atop a stranger’s hairy thigh. Her eyes darted to the sight of a naked, snoring man she didn’t remember meeting. But there he was, an uninvited guest in her bed.
She’d gasped, then shuddered. With short brown hair and an athletic build, she guessed he’d looked like Evan in the dark bar. What had she done? She didn’t even know his name.
Her head felt like her brain was stuffed into a skull that was way too small. Her tongue felt like a bale of hay.
When the man rolled toward her, she was greeted by the smell of alcohol on his putrid morning breath. Then she saw the used condom on the bed between them. Cassie gagged, ran to the bathroom and threw up.
The naked stranger walked into the bathroom and smiled. “Was I that bad?”
She felt only revulsion at the sight of him. “Please go. Now.”
He did just that, out the door in less than two minutes, stuffing himself into his pants as she slammed the door on him.
A week after his burial, Evan’s last letter arrived, containing the photo of him in his uniform, smiling, leaning against a Humvee.
She decided she’d take the photo with her wherever she traveled.
I want my life back, my dreams back. But she knew this wasn’t possible. Instead, she’d have to find a way to move ahead. She needed new hopes and dreams, a new future.
Late! She’d have to hurry to work at Brewster Jennings. As she pulled the toothbrush from its holder, her cell buzzed, echoing the pounding from her hangover. The caller ID was blocked. She ignored the throbbing and answered. “Cassandra Sashakovich.”
“Ms. Sashakovich, how would you like to help your government?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Mark McDougal. You’ve been recommended for an opening in my department.”
She balked at his Midwestern twang. “I already have a job.”
“Yes, and we know you, from your econometric forecasts and your work with startups in China and Israel. Brewster Jennings was kind enough to send them on to us. We could use another bright PhD like you.”
Someone unnamed had recommended her for something unknown. But who, and for what? Maybe this would be the opportunity that gave her a fresh start. “Fed, huh? Which department?”
“National intelligence. One of the smaller services. If we hire you, you’d report to me. Interested?”
Acknowledgments
So many people were crucial in preparing this manuscript for you, the reader.
As always, my critiques were provided by the ActFour Writing,com group, including Dennis Phinney, Linda Rohrbough, Janet Simcic, Brenda Barrie, Aaron Ritchey, Caryn Scotto, Liz Picco, Julia Reynolds, Daniel Houston, Steve E
ggleston, Juliann Kauffman, Teri Gray, Carl Vondareu, Claudia Melendez, Megan Edwards, and Judy Whitmore. I also received valuable feedback, especially concerning military tactics and strategy, as well as inside information regarding sites where conflicts have occurred or are now occurring, from several folks from the Drink of the Month Club, a group consisting mostly of Naval Postgraduate School administration and faculty, including Ron Nelson, Martin Metzger, Fred Drake, Lee Scheffel, and Gary Ohls. Also, my friends and family contributed critiques, including Barry Groves, Michael Spicer, Frances and Elliot Spiselman, and Dana Gorman. And finally, Andrea Brown, my wife, and the CEO of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. is the best and final voice for judging what I create.
Several best-selling authors have contributed to my efforts, including James Rollins (for his discussions with me on Liquid Armor), Barry Eisler for his advice on self-publishing, Holly Lisle for her coursework on world building, and Greg Bear during our discussion on craft after the graduation ceremony at Northwest Institute of Literary Arts.
I want to thank my publication team, consisting of my editor, Sandra Beris; copyeditor Karl Yambert; graphic designer Jeroen Ten Berge; my website designer and host Maddee James of xuni.com; my publicist Brandi Andres; and Paul Marotta and Megan Jeanne of the Corporate Law Group, who incorporated The Swiftshadow Group for me.
I also want to thank my literary agent, Nancy Ellis, and my film agent, Brandy Rivers, for all their hard work on my behalf.
