by Tim Tigner
Achilles didn’t need another mystery at the moment. He was supposed to be clearing his mind, not adding to the clutter. Surely there was a simple explanation? One that temporarily escaped his frazzled neurons. One that would be revealed once he reached the top.
After more than an hour of false starts and double backs on half a dozen routes, he gave up on the seaside approach, and attacked Nuikaohao from the island side. The Big Goat Horn didn’t present a technical challenge when attacked from behind, but a deep, vegetation-covered crevasse almost ruined his day. Even without further mishap, Achilles had a mild sweat going by the time he reached the glorious summit.
The view atop his vacation island did not disappoint, but the experience was a flop. He was hoping the awe-inspiring scene, previously rendered in moments of free solo triumph, would spark his synapses and bridge his memory gap in the fashion Jas had described. But the scene before him didn’t feel familiar.
From atop its bald head, Nuikaohao looked like a green teardrop on a turquoise sea. A private paradise.
Centered on what looked like about half an acre of flat land, the house was a sprawling single-story structure with a flat roof, a wraparound deck, and an elaborate swimming pool. The walkway to the water was paved with intermittent flagstones, reminding Achilles of his damaged neural pathways. The dock itself was mangled in the middle and clearly missing the docking section where their speedboat had been ripped away.
Other islands were discernible as shadows at or near the horizon. The only visible boat was miles away, and not headed in their direction. He and Jas were all alone.
With those preliminaries out of the way, Achilles set about trying to explain the mystery that had led to his landside climb. Once he found the anchor used to tether the rope in his preparatory climbs, he’d know what route he’d taken and the explanation would unfold from there.
Climbing anchors looked like big sewing needles, steel eyelets screwed into holes drilled deep into solid rock. Their coloring blended with the gray rock, but their preferred placement on smooth protruding surfaces tended to make them easy to spot.
He quickly found an obvious potential installation point, a flat-faced monolith jutting above the top plane. Plenty of birds had left their mark upon the protuberance, but not a single drill or hammer. He concluded that it was too far from his chosen route, and began looking elsewhere.
None of the other obvious installation points yielded fruit either. All the rock atop Nuikaohao was virgin. He dropped to his hands and knees and studied the edge for signs of prior climbs. Again, nothing.
Achilles switched to a crosslegged position and angled himself to sit with his face toward the rising sun. With open palms atop naked knees, he began to ponder this latest chilling discovery. One-by-one, the implications crashed against his consciousness like the waves upon the cliff face below.
He’d never climbed Nuikaohao before today.
Therefore he had not vacationed on this island.
Therefore either Jas had lied to him, or he was missing something big. What could that be? Like an astrophysicist, he needed a grand unifying theory.
As the sun baked his face, and the wind blew his hair, Achilles recollected the relevant conversations with his wife. Everything she’d said made sense at the time. All had fit together and felt right. But clearly all wasn’t accurate. Were her words confusion or deception?
If deception, then why? By whom? And which side of the script was Jas on? Were they both victims of some psychological experiment? Or was she part of the deception? Jas bore no resemblance to any agent he’d ever known.
Spies develop the espionage equivalent of gaydar. They can detect their own. A few minutes with Jas was enough to know that she hadn’t joined the club. She was neither acutely aware of her physical environment nor constantly contingency planning. She wasn’t thinking about escape routes or counterattacks or defensive positions — habits that quickly became second nature to undercover agents. At least the ones who managed to keep a step ahead of the reaper’s scythe.
So who was she? Had she knowingly lied? Toward what end?
Achilles knew at least one way to find out.
Chapter 34
The Incursion
Seattle, Washington
MAX FIGURED President Korovin had to be leaning hard on Ignaty, given the barrage of questions coming over the phone. “How are you going to breach security? What size of team are you taking in? How long will the system modifications take?”
Max hated supplying management with detail. Espionage assignments weren’t like military maneuvers. Covert operations were best left fluid, leaving operatives free to adapt to opportunities, rather than feeling funneled into preconceived plans based on outdated intel.
Ignaty wasn’t having it.
Max tried to keep it broad. “For tomorrow’s reconnaissance, we’re using stolen IDs. How we’ll get in for the final installation operation is still TBD. Wang estimates that he needs five hours for that — assuming we can infiltrate with a ten-man team.”
Max only got the four-second encryption reprieve before Ignaty redirected his assault. “What’s the sweet spot in the manufacturing process? I assume it’s got to be pretty late to avoid detection of the additional circuit board?”
Sounded like Ignaty had been consulting the engineers. Fortunately, Max had a knack for technical detail. “Ideally, we’ll install Sunset after both manufacturing and quality control are completed. We’re targeting the gap between QC and packaging for our midnight screw-and-solder party. We’ll aim to grab the autopilot systems off either quality control’s outgoing rack or packaging’s incoming one.”
“What if they’re not left at either location overnight?”
“Then we’ll be stuck working in either packaging or shipping.”
“It has to happen this month.”
Max was well aware of that. Boeing’s entire next delivery was going to Southwest Airlines, which only flew domestic. Keeping the terror confined to U.S. territory was paramount to the plan. Korovin insisted on it being a wholly American tragedy. This was both to limit the investigation, and to ensure that it would create a new day, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11.
Max had no doubt that it would.
Sunset would replace 9/11 at the forefront of the American mind, just as World War II had World War I. It would shut down virtually all air travel for months if not years to come. By the time the investigations were completed, the congressional committees had debated, the preventative measures had been devised, the funding approved, the implementation contracts awarded, and the work actually ordered, it would be years. By the time the airports were rebuilt and the public trust was regained, decades were likely to pass. Meanwhile, the loss of air travel would devastate the American economy.
“It will happen this month,” Max said, putting a certainty he didn’t feel into his voice. “I’ve learned that product routinely sits for days between departments, due to bottlenecks here and there. We’ll have time.”
“How are you going to know when the autopilot systems reach the target racks?”
“That’s part of tomorrow’s reconnaissance mission.”
“Details. I need details.”
Of course you do, Max thought, rolling his eyes. “I’ll be installing fake emergency lighting systems outside QC and packaging. They’ll have cameras and wireless transmitters hidden inside.”
“Clever,” Ignaty said, surprising and delighting Max. “Last question: How are you going to get the free reign to walk around Vulcan Fisher while you do all that work?”
It was Ignaty’s best question.
Twelve hours after he’d asked it, Max was about to verify his answer.
He’d brought Wang with him to Vulcan Fisher, both to double the reconnaissance coverage and for camouflage. Two men walking around together would be virtually invisible and appear far less suspicious than one man alone, particularly if the two didn’t look like a team. The sight of a tall, elegant Brit with a tool
box and a short, disheveled Asian with a white lab coat and clipboard hardly screamed of collusion.
But first they had to get inside.
“It must be sunny somewhere,” Wang said, extending two copied Vulcan Fisher ID cards out the car window.
The guard grunted but didn’t reply as he scanned each of them.
His scanner resembled those used by checkout clerks, but with an LCD screen stuck on top. The guard spent about as much time examining the headshots that popped up with each click as clerks did when processing tomatoes. Hardly a surprise, given the rush hour lineup and pouring rain. Max figured he probably could have skipped the itchy blonde wig.
The requisite Vulcan Fisher parking sticker also proved to be no obstacle at all. Max wondered why they even bothered. All he’d had to do to get one was photograph someone else’s and run to a copy shop. But he wasn’t complaining. Anything that gave VF a false sense of security sounded good to him.
“This way,” Wang said, the moment they hit the lobby.
“I thought we’d agreed to start at QC, and it’s straight ahead.”
“The direct path goes through one of the gait monitors. We can get around it by cutting through the break room.”
They’d only just entered, but Max was already tiring of lugging his toolbox around. With two battery-stuffed surveillance systems stashed beneath its tool tray, the toolbox weighed forty pounds. But avoiding detection was job one, so he followed Wang without protest. If they blew it today, he was totally screwed.
Max found the break room detour reassuring, in that nobody gave them a second glance. Granted, everyone was busy stashing lunch boxes in cubbies and exchanging morning pleasantries, but then that only highlighted the beauty of slipping in with the morning rush. He hoped to be back out the front gate before boredom struck and eyes began to wander.
Wang stopped short as they exited the break room. “They moved it.”
“Moved what?”
“The gait monitor. They moved it further down the hall. We can’t circumvent it.”
“So what do we do?”
Wang drummed his fingers on his clipboard. “Nothing. We’re screwed.”
Chapter 35
Rogue
Bangkok, Thailand
PRESIDENT SILVER exited Bangkok’s Leboa State Tower straight into The Beast, which roared out of the underground parking structure amidst a circus of red and blue lights. He’d enjoyed his second spectacular rooftop dinner in as many nights as part of a whirlwind Asian tour. The trip had been productive, but he was looking forward to waking up in Washington.
Reggie was waiting on the limo’s backward facing seat with an encouraging smile, a growing to-do list, and a dreamy look in his eyes. Silver himself had been inspired by the open-air dinner venue, some 820 feet above the expansive beehive that was the Thai capital. He could only imagine what his young valet was feeling. “You look impressed.”
“Very, Mr. President. I didn’t think anything could beat last night’s dinner atop Singapore’s Supertree, but Sirocco just did.”
“I find such visits to be a healthy reminder that Washington isn’t the center of everyone’s world. Helps me to ignore the silliness that so often pervades The Beltway.” Silver nodded toward Reggie’s notebook. “What have you got for me?”
“Sparkman’s top of the list, Mr. President. He indicated that it was urgent, and asked that Senator Collins be patched in from California for the call.”
“How long do we have?”
“The airport is twenty minutes away.”
Silver pulled off his necktie and hit the speaker button as Bangkok’s vibrant amalgam of ancient-and-modern, rich-and-poor, rushed by beyond the 5-inch thick bulletproof glass. “Give me Sparkman and Collins.”
The secure call connected some seconds later, without audible ring or fanfare. Sparkman spoke first. “Good evening, Mr. President. We have news.”
“Go ahead.”
“Vasily Lukin has been assassinated. He was taken out by an RPG in the doorway to his Moscow residence.”
Silver felt gut punched. “Oh goodness.” He began thinking out loud. “That leaves two hardliners as Korovin’s likely successors.”
“That’s right, Mr. President. Grachev and Sobko. If Korovin leaves office, they’ll be tripping over each other as they scramble to the right, vying for the nationalist vote. Russia could become even more expansionist.”
“The timing is quite a coincidence,” Silver said, his frown digging deeper.
“Yes, sir. And that’s not the only development. Ibex has gone dark.”
Ibex was the code name that Sparkman had assigned Achilles. Silver had asked and learned that it referenced the alpine goats with no fear of heights. “What do you mean, gone dark?”
“He’s unresponsive. Incommunicado. We’ve heard nothing from him, and we can’t reach him. It’s been 72 hours.”
“You think there’s a connection with Lukin’s death, that Ibex has been captured and interrogated?”
Sparkman shocked Silver with his answer. “No, Mr. President. I think he sold out.”
“I don’t agree with that assessment,” Collins interjected, speaking for the first time. “I’m sure there’s another explanation.”
“What, exactly, are we explaining?” Silver said, looking over at Reggie. At moments like these he’d gladly switch jobs with his body man, if only for an hour. Just long enough to work the cramps out of his shoulders before the weight of the world came crashing back down.
Sparkman rushed to clarify. “As a precautionary measure, Sylvester put a tracking pellet on Ibex.” Sylvester was the codename for Foxley, Sparkman’s sly go-to man for black ops.
“And?”
“And it shows Ibex on a private Hawaiian island.”
“That’s hardly incriminating,” Collins pushed back. “Alcatraz is also an island.”
Silver closed his eyes and took a calming breath as Sparkman continued. “The satellite imagery we have shows the island’s only other occupant to be a woman. The only activity we’ve been able to observe indicates a relationship far more amicable than hostile, but it’s inconclusive. Without re-tasking the satellite, we only get coverage one hour in twenty-four. Given the sensitivity, and the paperwork trail, I didn’t order the re-tasking.”
“Good. Don’t. We can’t draw any attention to this. What’s the move?”
“I sent Sylvester in. We should have answers shortly.”
“I’m sure those answers will be exonerating, Mr. President,” Collins said.
“I would like to agree with you, Colleen, and if it weren’t for Lukin I’d be certain that you’re right. But Lukin is too big a coincidence when you remember who we’re dealing with. Korovin can be incredibly compelling, and he has unlimited resources. If he somehow wrangled word of our op, or even if he just anticipated it, he could apply virtually limitless leverage. Remember what Archimedes said about that?”
Sparkman supplied the answer without delay. “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
Silver decided to leave it there. No sense speculating further. “I’ll expect Sylvester’s report by the time I awake in Washington.”
Chapter 36
Honey, I’m Home
Hawaii
INSIGHT HIT ACHILLES when he was midway down the Big Goat Horn. He was leaping between rocks when the conclusion illuminated his brain like a beam of blinding light piercing a bat cave, a sudden revelation that gave definition to the landscape and set his thoughts aflutter.
It had to be Korovin.
With that one leap, that single assumption of Who, everything else made sense. The What, the When, the Where, and most importantly, the Why.
The What was a grand scheme. So grand, so all-encompassing, that there were no visible edges to pull back. The fact that anyone would go to so much trouble just to trick him, a relative nobody, was incomprehensible. Some tactical genius must have constructed an elaborate s
cript. That mastermind then acquired — rented, leased, borrowed, purchased, or stolen — an entire island. He simulated the damage wrought by a hurricane, presumably using tractors and water cannons. He populated his “stage” with a French woman selected to be just Achilles’ type and he trained her to act just right. Then he taught her enough that she could play her role, for days, without detection.
The arrogance required by Achilles to even consider such an elaborate and expensive scenario was astounding.
Until you considered the source.
Until you factored in Korovin and his fortune.
Forbes estimated Korovin’s net worth at $200 billion. Other financial institutions pegged his ill-gotten gains at twice that amount. Achilles had once calculated that with just one billion dollars, you could spend $10,000 an hour for a decade and not run out of money. In that context, the Korovin context, the grand scheme was literally no trouble at all.
The When was key to understanding it all. Why make Achilles believe that two years have passed? His spy brain leapt to a couple of sound strategic reasons. One was to fabricate historical events. His marriage and two presidential deaths, for starters. Another strategic reason was to make current events less sensitive for discussion by framing them as historical events. Prior to an attack, it’s crucial to keep an enemy unaware of what’s coming, but after the fact, the enemy already knows.
The Where made perfect sense in this context. It had to be someplace isolated from all communication. Not an easy feat in the satellite age. A cabin in the woods might work. Or perhaps a mental asylum. But a fancy private island offered additional advantages. More control for one. The kicker, though, was acceptability. Who wouldn’t want to believe that their future didn’t hold a beautiful wife and vacations on a private Hawaiian island?
