After a few moments, Darius replied, “What would you do if you had practically unlimited money and influence?”
With a sarcastic tone she replied, “Why, Mr. Zarindast, I would change the world.”
Darius stood up, laid an envelope on the table, and said, “If you want that opportunity someday, I will give it to you.”
One week later she was standing in this very conference room with a look of incredulity on her face as he finished explaining what he had invented and a modified version of his plan to change the order of the world. He said nothing of the Order and his plans for revenge—that was not necessary for her to know. After a couple of minutes of searching his face for some trace of obfuscation, she simply said, “Prove it.” He took her to the complex on the outskirts of Dubai and showed her the prototype. One million gallons of pure water an hour from the sea at ninety-five-percent efficiency. A world-changing invention, and Alexandra was intelligent enough to see the implications. She had been the last addition to his little group.
Next to Alexandra sat Gavin Matthews. He was the son of one of Darius’s old classmates at MIT. Darius had shared a dorm room with Jake Matthews during his first year at MIT and he was one of the few people Darius still talked to from his old college days. In passing, Darius had mentioned to Jake that he was looking for a good software programmer for his company. Jake told Darius his son worked at Google and suggested he give him a call. Gavin, like his father was a computer genius. He had made several innovations in chip architecture while at MIT. His software programming and encryption skills were also first-rate. Google paid him well into the six figures to write software code. Darius called him up and asked if he could have a few minutes of his time. When they met, Darius told him, “Your father says you are a computer genius. I would like you to work for me, and I will pay you fifty thousand dollars the first year. After that I believe you will be so convinced of what we are about to do that you will be willing to waive your salary.”
Gavin laughed out loud, but at the same time he searched Darius’s face to see if he was serious. Darius just sat there and stared back. Finally he said, “Gavin, I am completely serious. All I ask is that you come and see how serious I am. Here is a round-trip plane ticket if you care to find out.”
As Darius picked up his briefcase to go, he said, “Gavin, if what I hear is true, you are a maverick. You dance to your own tune and have a problem with authority. What I am offering you is an unlimited budget with very limited oversight. You will be in charge of computer programming and security for our project. What have you got to lose? A long weekend? I know you may find it hard to believe, but I am offering you a once-in-a-generation . . . no,” Darius corrected himself, “a unique opportunity in the history of mankind.”
Two weeks later Gavin Matthews arrived in Dubai, and Darius showed him the technology and gave him an overview of what he needed. That was five years ago, and Gavin Matthews had worked without compensation for the last four years.
Ralph Scholz had been a facilities design engineer for Intel, instrumental in automating their factories with robotics. He had the prototypical German attention to detail and precision but with an ability to think outside the box to come up with new and innovative solutions. He was in his midforties and loved his work. He had designed and built, at an unheard-of low cost, an almost totally automated production facility for Darius’s invention. He and Gavin had also worked together on the design and construction of the commercial version. Once he had seen and understood the idea, he too had joined the venture with absolute commitment.
Dylan Gallos was the next member of the team. He was at the top of his field in theoretical and analytical mathematics. As with many of the modern-day mathematical geniuses, he was approached by most of the big names in the financial world. In today’s high-tech financial realm, it was mathematicians who ruled the world. They created black-box algorithms that were used in everything from financial modeling to high-frequency trading, the real wild west of the financial world. Fiber-optic data networks were created to accommodate this shift in electronic trading. In 2007, the London Stock Exchange launched TradElect, able to process three thousand orders per second for an average turnaround time of ten milliseconds. Latency had continued to be reduced since then and was now in the low single-digit milliseconds. Each time a company or hedge fund was able to reduce its latency and gain an edge over the competition, it skimmed millions of dollars off the difference in price between the bid and the ask. As of 2009, over seventy-three percent of all US trading volume was a result of HFT.
But Darius’s invention would change everything. Dylan’s expertise was needed to model the effect it would have on the economies of the world and find the best way to take advantage of the results. For the past three years, Dylan had also been “helping” erode the stock price of Aquarius Element Solutions. Darius had set up a clandestine hedge fund from which Dylan used a custom algo to manage the stock price to their desired target price. Six months ago they had reach their price objective and were just waiting for the final pieces of the plan to be completed.
Arash Jafari was the head of security. No one knew much about him except Darius, and Darius had not felt it necessary to provide the rest with any background. When he was present he sat quietly like a specter, cold and without a hint of what was going on behind his ever-vigilant eyes. What Darius knew that no one else did was that Arash was a senior officer in the MISIRI (Vezarat-e Ettela-at Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran), the Iranian intelligence service. He was one of Iran’s most decorated, and feared, field operation directors, overseeing American, European, and Israeli agents and their respective intelligence-gathering networks.
Before Darius’s mother died, she told him his stepbrother Arash was alive and well in Iran. Arash was ten years older. He had lived with them up until their father’s death, and then his own mother had come for him. Then one day, Arash was sitting in Darius’s Dubai office when he arrived for work. He looked like an older version of the boy he remembered. Arash knew more than Darius thought possible about what he and his team were doing in Dubai. He had offered his help in maintaining operational security, and ever since then, he’d been the eyes and ears of their operations. With his position in the Iranian intelligence service, he had latitude to go and come as he needed. His contacts, including several terrorist organizations, gave Darius a wealth of firsthand information from around the world.
“Gavin and Ralph,” Darius began, “it was at your request we postponed the introduction of our invention to the world by one more year. As everyone at this table knows, it is imperative for the success of this endeavor that the secrets of our technology be secured against theft by those to whom we sell our devices. Have you satisfied yourselves that our secrets will be safe from discovery?”
Both men looked intently at Darius, and Ralph replied, “We have made every possible attempt to compromise these devices and have been unable to do so. For the past six months each attempt has resulted in a catastrophic destruction of the device. We are as sure as we can be that they will be safe from discovery for at least one year. Eventually someone will figure out a way, but our estimate is conservative—likely it will take at least two years for anyone to figure out a way to steal the technology. That’s more time than we need to reach our goals.”
Darius looked for any hedging in their expressions or words and was satisfied with what he saw. “Are there any other objections or concerns before I give the final go-ahead?” Turning to his right, he said, “Alexandra?”
“I’m ready,” she replied.
Darius worked his way around the table receiving the same response from each. “Then let’s proceed according to plan.”
They all got up from the table and started for the door. Only Arash remained behind. He paused at the door and quietly asked, “Do you wish me to give the go-ahead to our contact in New York?”
“Yes,” Darius replied. “Let’s proceed.”
Arash held eye contact. “And the su
rprise?”
“Yes, proceed with that as well.”
“Do we tell the others?”
Darius gave no indication of nervousness or second thoughts. “There is no need to tell the others,” he said.
Arash walked silently out the door. He kept his thoughts to himself. If any of the group ever found out that he and Darius were responsible for what was about to happen in New York City, it could develop into a serious security risk. He had carefully studied each of the other four members of the team, and it was likely that two of them would object based solely on the harm their plan would cause the people of New York. They would all object at not being included in the decision-making process.
Well, he would just have to be vigilant. There was much more at stake than any of them knew.
Chapter 6
Brooklyn, New York
Joe exited Interstate 278 at the Brooklyn Bridge, then crossed over into lower Manhattan. He exited on Park Row, and then turned onto Broadway, after a few blocks and several turns he slowed as he pushed the remote on the visor of his truck. He turned into the subterranean entrance of a parking garage underneath a modern-looking six-story condo. He was just north of the financial district. Wall Street was just around the corner.
As he entered the parking garage he again pushed the remote, and the large commercial garage door closed behind his truck. The garage was a concrete affair that would house twenty-eight cars. When Joe had gotten out of prison, he looked up Charlie, an old drinking buddy who was a sleazy real-estate agent and developer. In the days back before prison, Charlie was always looking for handymen to help fix up his properties. He hated to pay the union wages of licensed contractors, so he looked for any scabs he could find. Charlie took him to the condo, which was in the middle of an extensive remodel, practically foaming at the mouth as he described union contractors milking the project for all it was worth. When the remodel was a third finished, the contractor demanded more money. Charlie ran him off, and the condo sat vacant for eleven months. Joe agreed to work for room and board plus expenses. Charlie checked on Joe’s progress every couple of weeks and seemed pleased at the work he was doing. He sure could not complain about the cost.
One of the first things Joe did was build a temporary wall across the back section of the parking garage. It was alongside this partition that he now pulled his truck. He opened a plywood panel in the wall and pulled out a length of one-inch black fuel hose, connecting it to the pump on his auxiliary fuel tank.
Joe turned on the pump, and the fuel began to transfer from the truck. He ducked down through the panel hole and entered the back section of the garage. In two neat rows were eight six-thousand-gallon collapsible fuel-bladder tanks he had purchased from a military surplus store in Virginia. He had been making two or three trips a day from service stations all over the New York area for over a month, amassing over forty-seven-thousand gallons of diesel fuel, and he only needed about one thousand more to completely fill the fuel bladders. He never went to the same station twice in the same week. Two more days, and he would be ready to exact his revenge. All he needed was the final go-ahead.
The eight bladder tanks each had a valve and were connected to one another with PVC pipe. Not the best arrangement, but it would last as long as he needed. In the far corner Joe had installed a three-phase twenty-HP fuel pump, one of those commercial jobs that could pump two hundred gallons a minute at a hundred psi or a hundred-and-fifty gallons a minute at one-fifty psi. The maximum pump pressure was two hundred psi. The pump suction end was connected to the bladder tank piping, and the outlet end was connected to the condo’s four-inch main water line, which was conveniently located about thirty feet away.
Most municipalities required a backflow prevention device on the main water inlet line to the buildings. These devices prevented any customer’s contaminated water from flowing back into the water distribution system of the city. In this case, the backflow preventer was contained in a small enclosure on the outside of the building just past the water meter. Municipalities required building owners to have a certified technician test the devices and certify they were working properly. In the case of Charlie’s condo, the backflow test had been done four months ago and was not due for another eight months. After the technician left, Joe had returned later that night, removed the backflow device, and installed a new section of piping.
Before filling the bladders with diesel fuel, Joe had tested his plan out by filling the bladder tanks with water from the condos’ main water line. Water pressure from the city main fluctuated between one-twenty-five and one-thirty psi. It had taken about five hours and twenty minutes to empty the water from all eight bladder tanks back into the city water system—a success. Since diesel fuel was a little lighter than water, Joe figured it would take another hour or so to pump that much fuel into the city water system.
The potable water consumption of downtown Manhattan dropped off by about seventy percent after eleven p.m., so he planned to start pumping at eleven-thirty. All the fuel should be in the main system by six a.m., when demand would spike. Joe remembered installing the upgraded water main to this condo about ten years ago. It was only one-hundred-and-ninety feet from the main trunk line, which ran straight down into the financial district. He estimated that ninety-five percent of the diesel fuel would make it into lower Manhattan’s water main before the spike. By the time anyone figured out what was going on, the entire freshwater distribution system of lower Manhattan would be contaminated with diesel fuel for some time to come. The financial district would be shut down until they figured out how to decontaminate the water lines all over the lower part of the city. That sure would be a nightmare for his former boss and coworkers. He laughed out loud. Well, too bad. He would teach those heathen infidels.
The knowledge of what he could do—no, what he would do—was a powerful feeling. One man could bring the financial center of the world to its knees. Likely they would recover, but it was still an amazing amount of power for one man to wield. And so easy—he had wondered many times over the past months why someone had not already done this to other cities. Even after the world saw what he was about to do, they still would not be able to stop others from doing the same thing elsewhere. There was just no way to prevent it.
* * *
The Baker opened the door to the basement under his bakery. It was midnight, and the streets of Tel Aviv were quieting down. His day was just beginning. For the past ten years, his ritual had been the same—until about twelve months ago.
He walked down the old wooden stairs and passed several doors on his way to the far wall of the basement. He unlocked a closet door and passed through, closing the door behind him. Reaching under the third shelf, which was full of cleaning supplies, he pushed a small latch, and the shelving pushed away. He entered a small room with a bare floor and dirt walls.
Twelve months ago, he had begun excavation of this small room. It had taken six months of digging and hauling dirt to finish. Against the far wall, the city’s main sewer line ran just under the edge of his building. He had exposed about six feet of it, up to the point where his building drain line connected to the sewer main. He had removed the old sewer connection for his building and installed a new sewer tap. His new connection had a couple of removable rubber couplings which allowed him to remove a section of his drain piping.
In a small alcove dug into the dirt wall was a heavy-duty battery charger. The Baker turned it on, energizing the homemade electromagnets he had wrapped around the sewer main. Each night, he would turn on the magnets. Any metallic material which flowed through the sewer main got caught in the magnetic field and remained there until he turn off the battery charger. At four a.m., when he finished most of his baking, he would come back down to turn the charger off and see if he had caught any “little fish” in his magnetic net—each one a small part of the war against the Zionist occupiers.
With a final baleful survey of the dark, dirty room, the Baker turned off the light and retu
rned to his normal nightly duties.
Chapter 7
Manara Cliffs, Israel
Zane turned off the engine of the little truck he had borrowed. In the distance he could see the snow-covered peak of Mount Hermon. Before him were the Manara Cliffs. He pulled his gear out of the back of the truck, and slinging his backpack over one shoulder, set out to explore. Since he didn’t have a climbing partner, he didn’t really plan on climbing, but he’d brought his gear anyway. Sometimes you found another climber looking for a partner. If nothing else, he would document possible routes with the Climbing-Quest app his friend Sam had made for him.
It was a quiet morning, and he did not see anyone right off. There were several cars in the parking area, so he knew there were others out hiking or climbing.
About half a mile down the trail, Zane turned off and walked toward a less-explored area of the cliffs. The cliff face seemed a little rough, with loose rock in places. A little further on, he saw someone climbing one of the rough faces of the cliff. As he drew closer, he noticed the climber didn’t have a belaying partner—he was free soloing the rock face. Zane shook his head. Free soloing had become more popular the past few years, and it was considered the ultimate test of a climber’s skill. A free solo climber used no safety device at all. Only a pair of climbing shoes and a chalk bag, and even those were optional in some cases. It was foolish. No one was perfect, and free soloing required perfection. One mistake and you ended up with a quick trip to the ground. As they said, “It isn’t the fall that kills you; it’s the abrupt stop at the bottom.”
Pretty gutsy, he thought as he looked up at the climber. Or stupid. One false move and all anyone would find was a corpse—and in this out-of-the-way area, even that might take a while.
His curiosity drew him up to the face of the cliff. The climber was probably eighty feet up on a narrow ledge and working his way along it.
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