Thunder Down Under

by Don Pendleton

  “I’m telling you, Matt—” Martin had taken to calling Bolan “Matt,” as if they were close friends “—these AFN bastards have gone too far this time.” He stomped to the window and stared down this morning’s group of protestors, slamming his fists against the window. “Your time is coming, mark my words!”

  Bolan found his sense of injustice to be a bit skewed. So, nearly killing three people was acceptable, but kidnapping his PA wasn’t? “Are you sure they were behind it?”

  Martin whirled around to glare at him and Bolan changed tactics. “I mean—do you have any concrete evidence that these people are part of the AFN, or were hired by them to carry out this plot?”

  “Oh, we’ll find it soon enough, but I already know this is their work—it stinks of them.” He strode back to his desk and punched a button on his phone. “Where the hell is Travis?...All right then.” He let the button go and looked back up at Bolan. “As soon as Travis gets here, you’ll head out in the chopper to the Amadeus field. He can fill you in on any other details about last night, as well as what you might expect at the facility—”

  The chime of the elevator interrupted him and both he and Bolan looked over to see Officer Travis walk in. He looked a bit haggard, but his gaze was still alert and piercing as he nodded at both men. “Chopper’s warming up on the roof helipad right now, but we’ve got a few minutes if there’s anything we should go over down here.”

  Martin waved him toward the elevator. “There’s nothing I don’t already know. I’m convening my legal team to map out a strategy to take down those bloody AFN bastards once and for all. By the time we’re done with them, they’ll be living in caves and hunting with spears, counting themselves lucky they’ve got that!”

  His face had turned a dusky shade of red during his rant, and as if realizing he was on the edge, Martin took a breath and blew it out. “You’re not gonna believe what we’ve done out there, Matt—it’s a technological oasis in the middle of ten thousand acres of shit desert. I look forward to a full report upon your return. Plus, we’re doing dinner here again. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried my chef’s rack of lamb. It’s to die for. All right, boyos, off you go.”

  Bolan and Travis exchanged looks before he got up from his chair and joined the rangy head of security at the elevator door. It opened and they got in, with Travis pressing the button for the roof.

  “I have to be honest. You look a lot like I feel,” Bolan said, the corner of his mouth curving up in a wry smile to take any perceived sting out of the comment.

  Travis looked at him sideways for a moment then broke out a big grin. “Strewth, mate, I got maybe forty winks before I had to get up and be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the boss man.” He pulled a small, stainless-steel case from his pocket. “Care for one? It’ll do what ails you, all right.”

  Bolan shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.” He didn’t know what type of pills the metal case contained, but he wasn’t one for taking drugs, even ones that would help him stay alert. He’d gotten enough rest overnight.

  “Least you got a couple hours, right?” Travis continued as the doors opened onto the rooftop helipad and the strong breeze blowing sixty-five stories above the ground.

  “A couple’s about right.” Bolan grinned back as they walked to the helicopter, a trim blue-and-white Airbus H130 that would hold up to seven people comfortably. Three other men were standing near the chopper, as well.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who runs around killing terrorists by night and spends the rest of it screwing some sheila you picked up at a bar.”

  “I only shoot if I’m shot at.” The ghost of a grin appeared on Bolan’s face as the picture of Mrs. Martin standing in the hallway in her lingerie formed in his mind’s eye. She had been conspicuously absent from his morning meeting with Martin. “As for the women...well, a gentleman never tells.”

  “Is that so? Wasn’t sure there were any of you left in the States,” Travis shouted over the roar of the helicopter’s engine. They all got inside, Bolan, Travis and the three other men, and closed the doors, which cut out a lot of the noise. They put on their headphones, which reduced the noise to a comfortable hum.

  “That’s better,” Travis said as they lifted into the air. “Matt Cooper, this is Davey Pomfrey, Michael Tennant and Carl Goread.” He pointed from left to right as he made the introductions.

  “Pleased to meet all of you. Hey, we’re not taking this all the way out there, are we?” Bolan asked, even though he was pretty sure of the answer already.

  As he’d hoped, the four men chuckled at his question. “Not unless you want to spend half the day in the air,” Travis replied. “We’re heading to Melbourne International, where we’ll take Mr. Martin’s private jet to Alice Springs. From there it’s about a ninety-minute drive to the Amadeus site.”

  Bolan nodded then glanced at the three other men who were dressed similarly to him in rip-stop bush trousers and multi-pocketed, long-sleeved safari shirts with their sleeves rolled up. The main difference was that they were each wearing tac vests and yellow shooter’s glasses.

  The other difference was that Bolan had his shirt untucked to conceal the .40-caliber P-239 SIG Sauer pistol riding inside his waistband in a DeSantis Invisible Agent clip holster at the small of his back. He’d brought the pistol just to be ready for another attack, which he figured would go down during this trip to the Amadeus site. “Think we need the extra protection?”

  “I’m a big fan of being safer instead of sorrier,” Travis said. “It’s doubtful they’re out there again, but you never know.”

  “Right. Hey, I never got the chance to thank you for taking care of that business last night—it was really helpful having you there.”

  “I dunno—seems like you had things well in hand by the time we arrived,” Travis said, eliciting chuckles from the other security men. “I’m just glad you came out of that in one piece. It would have been a shame if you’d gotten shot while saving Ms. Tate.”

  “That’s never high on my list of priorities, either,” Bolan replied. “Still, I appreciated you running interference with the police. That could have gotten...complicated.”

  “You know it. I’m just glad we could help straighten things out.” Travis leaned back in his seat. “Mr. Martin seems to have taken a shine to you, so we want to do everything in our power to help you out.”

  “Appreciate it,” Bolan replied.

  The flight to the airport was quick and they touched down less than ten minutes later on a small airstrip near the main ones. Bolan followed the men, who all took hard-sided cases out of a cargo compartment in the back before walking to an unusual-looking small jet with each of its two engines mounted on separate short columns away from the main body.

  “Is that a HondaJet?” he asked.

  “You got it,” Travis answered. “Mr. Martin has the only one in the country at the moment. It’ll get us to Alice Springs in less than three hours.”

  “Great.”

  They boarded the pleasantly roomy plane and sat in the two-by-two seating compartment. Travis spoke to the pilot and within a few minutes they were taking off. With the engines separate from the passenger compartment, it was also surprisingly quiet inside, which Bolan commented on.

  “Yup, nothing but the best for Angus Martin. By the way, since we’ve still got a few hours till we reach the site, is there anything else you need to know before we get there?”

  “I’m up to speed on the LNG facility at the Amadeus site, but what I’m really more interested in is this AFN group Martin’s so sure is behind these attacks,” Bolan replied. “You’ve obviously been around, so what’s your take on them?”

  Travis shifted in his seat, trying to get more comfortable. “Well, we haven’t connected them with what’s been going on so far, but that’s not for lack of trying. I’m sure we’ll get a solid link on them soon
enough, and then that’ll be bang, and we’ll wrap them up.”

  “Wrap them up how?” Bolan asked.

  “Well, as I understand it, once we get the proof of all of these actions on the AFN, we can sue to remove their standing as a protected group. You know, since people designated as terrorists tend to not be granted a lot of basic human rights and all that.”

  “Okay...but I don’t see what that gets your company in the end,” Bolan said.

  “It’s not that complicated,” Travis replied. “Several members are part of an indigenous tribe—I forget which one—that the courts gave a whole bunch of land to up in northern Australia. We move them out, get the courts to nullify the agreement and then develop the land however we like. Hell, the mineral rights alone are worth billions.”

  “Couldn’t you work with the owners to mine it as a joint effort?” Bolan asked.

  Travis shrugged one shoulder. “We could’ve, if the courts hadn’t specifically blocked any sort of industrial development over there.” He chuckled. “I swear, it’s like they’re trying to keep them poor and disenfranchised.”

  Bolan nodded. “Sounds like it.” He shifted in his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some documents that Mr. Martin wanted me to review, so I’m going to tackle those.”

  “Knock yourself out—just give me a holler if there’s anything I can help you with,” Travis said.

  Bolan got out his tablet and signed in to the secure network—not the plane’s WiFi, but Stony Man’s private, encrypted system. He bent over the screen, making sure the other men were in the device’s field of view. They were chatting quietly among themselves, and he didn’t try to eavesdrop. Instead he opened a screen to keep an eye on them using the tablet, and then texted Kurtzman.

  Any update on AFN or WN terror connections?

  Not exactly.

  Bear filled him in on what they had learned from the fingerprints he’d sent over last night, ending with, But still no connection with either WN or the AFN.

  The deeper I get into this, the less sense it makes, except for one part.

  Bolan quickly sketched in the conversation he’d just had with Travis.

  That certainly sounds like a motive for more aggressive action on AFN’s part.

  Bear paused, then added,

  So, are they hiring off the books to bring pressure on WN to keep them from starting something more dangerous?

  It’s possible, but I can’t believe we haven’t found any evidence of that yet.

  Well, it’s not for lack of trying. The maze of shell corps and outright dummy operations surrounding WN is staggering. It makes the POTUS’s operation look like a perfectly clean company.

  Okay. No luck with any other avenues, I take it?

  Geez, are you and Barbara communicating telepathically now? Short answer, not yet. Long answer, when we get something, you’ll be the...second to know.

  Good enough. I’ll let you get back to it. I’m flying into the Outback to check out this LNG site.

  Be careful. It’s one of the most isolated places on the planet and it’s possible that you’re not entirely among friends there, too.

  I hear you. Believe me, I’m not taking anything for granted here.

  Keep your phone handy, we’ll watch over you—for whatever that’s worth from all the way over here.

  More than you realize. Striker out.

  Bolan cleared his conversation with Kurtzman and checked the viewing window to see if anyone was taking particular interest in him. Travis had fallen asleep in his chair and was snoring softly. The three other security men were silent, as well, one flipping through a magazine, one on his smartphone and the third also seemingly asleep.

  As if feeling himself being watched, the man on the smartphone lifted his head to regard Bolan for a moment and then glanced around the cabin before shifting to a more comfortable position.

  For his part, Bolan kept an eye on the separate view screen as he brought up the schematics of the LNG facility and started going over them one more time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  If pressed, Akira Tokaido wouldn’t have necessarily called his behavior over the last day obsessive. However, even he had to admit that the video wormhole he’d fallen way, way down into last night, and that had kept him navigating its frustrating twists and turns for the following several hours, had been one of the most challenging he’d ever faced.

  As part of the data gathering/hacking team at Stony Man, he made a point to always keep up on the latest technology to create, alter, copy or overwrite video data, as that often played into his daily job. It was, in fact, one of the things he enjoyed most about his work—besides cracking enemy systems, of course.

  So when he’d stumbled on what at first looked to be a minor visual discrepancy in the drone footage, he figured it would be easy enough to locate the original footage, analyze the source data, locate the discrepancy and reconstruct the original file based on the unmodified data. Even better, he’d hoped he’d find the original file during his hack of the WN servers and just grab it off there. But a raw-feed version didn’t seem to exist—all of the copies he found were of the same file. Tokaido had grabbed it and gotten to work reconstructing the original footage.

  That was the task he had started eight hours ago. However, despite deep-diving into the video stream, he wasn’t all that much closer to figuring out who had modified the video, much less figuring out how to reconstructing the original.

  Whoever had done this had masterfully overwritten the data they’d wanted to conceal with the new material. Normally there was an entry point between the old stuff and the new—a seam, so to speak—sometimes just a thousandth of a second long, but usually it was in there somewhere.

  This video, however, looked seamless. It didn’t bear the hallmarks of CGI, even high-end computer graphics creation was fairly obvious if you knew what to look for. It also didn’t bear any marks of AI-influenced footage, like what the researchers at the University of Washington had done when they had used recorded speech of a former president and recreated him saying those words in a completely different environment.

  None of that was evident here. The young hacker had run through the entire section from the moment the drone had been activated to the time it had been turned off, forward and backward, three times, looking for that entry point—which he hadn’t located yet. For all intents and purposes, this was the real, original footage he was looking at. He knew that wasn’t the case, but he still had to prove it.

  A small part of his mind occasionally surfaced to let him know that it would be okay to ask for help, that his dogged insistence on cracking this mystery might be putting Striker’s life in danger. But Tokaido stuffed that nagging voice of doubt back down every time it sounded. He was so close to unraveling the whole thing, he knew it. He just had to find that starting point.

  Taking a deep breath, he cleared his mind of all the dead ends and failed attempts and started at the beginning, focusing on the anomaly he’d noticed that had started him on this long, strange trip—the odd shadow that appeared for the briefest of moments before the attacker outside the Range Rover started talking.

  Rubbing his eyes, Tokaido brought up that bit of video again and just stared at it. While he wasn’t a lighting expert, he definitely had more than a journeyman’s knowledge of the subject, and there was something about this angle that just didn’t look right.

  Grimacing, he brought up a computer model of the drone itself, then created the truck’s interior. Then he set the drone at the angle it was supposed to be resting at inside the cargo area, then reset the light that would be shining down from the Australian sun through the window. His simulation could create the exact conditions with 99.9 percent accuracy, which should have been more than enough.

  He looked at it again, staring until his eyes blurred, then used a video wheel to slowly move
back and forth between the seconds around that bit of footage. There...

  Again, such an infinitesimally small difference that a normal viewer wouldn’t notice it, but Tokaido did. The incoming light changed at that second, going from one golden hue to a slightly different one. He ran a modeling program based off the different light shade, and found it was actually a color from fifty-three seconds later in the video. Whoever had modified this had copied that picture and pasted it in to lead into what they’d wanted to modify.

  The good news was that he’d finally found his seam. Using that as his starting point, he could now bring all of Stony Man’s immense computer processing power to bear and get to the original footage. It was going to take a bit of time, even for what was less than thirty seconds of film, because the replacement footage was so incredibly accurate.

  Akira launched the program and let it start chewing on reformulating the video, then he brought up a screen and began dictating his notes about the process—including both the potential advantages and problems they could have with it in the future. While he was doing that, he looked up when the next SIGGRAPH conference, a yearly convention on cutting-edge computer graphics, would take place. It always paid to keep up with the newest technology.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The flight to Alice Springs went without incident and two hours and twelve minutes later, they touched down at the admittedly rural airport. Despite serving both Quantas and Virgin Australia flights twice a day, there was only one runway for population of 24,000.

  The HondaJet had barely pulled to a stop outside a private hangar when Travis and the others were already up and getting off. They pulled the hard-sided cases out of a storage compartment under the fuselage and carried them to a brand-new black Range Rover.