“What was the project’s goal?” asked Phillips.
“There was an early Islamic sect, the Qadiri, that prophesized God’s tears would bring an end to all life on earth. Now, I’m not saying that’s what Safi is trying to do, but he clearly wanted to keep his work secret. We believe Safi had Mallory’s father and Max Creighton killed because they learned too much about this project. Given all these facts, we believe Safi is involved with some other activity, something less benign than the Razor project. Perhaps he’s still working on Tears of God from the Goldmine site.”
Phillips shook his head. “I would know if something else was going on up there.”
“Would you?” asked Alton, sensing the man’s growing skepticism. “When’s the last time you were there?”
“Months ago. My work is here in Alice Springs.”
“Who runs the Goldmine?
“That would be Director Tahir.”
Alton shot a look at Gilbert. Their search of DTI’s records hadn’t revealed that Tahir, Safi’s alias, held a senior management position. “What would happen if you called Tahir right now and told him you’ll be out tomorrow? Would he be cool with that?”
Phillips looked exasperated. “It’s not like he could say no. I’m the R&D Vice President. That makes me his boss.”
“Humor me. Send him a message letting him know.”
The DTI manager typed on his phone for a few minutes, exchanging several text messages. After receipt of the second message, he looked up at Alton with a troubled expression. “Tahir said tomorrow wouldn’t be a good time. They’re having some kind of safety drill.”
Alton had been busy pulling up some of the DTI invoices he and Mallory had uncovered earlier in the day. “Look at this shipment manifest,” he said, passing his phone to Phillips.
“How did you get our manifests?”
“I’ll explain later,” said Alton. “Look at the detail. Why would the Goldmine need seven crates of concertina wire?”
“The security there is pretty tight. After all, we have a lot of money on the line, and our competitors would love to get their hands on anything having to do with the Razor project.”
Alton brought up several invoices. “But a hundred A4 semi-automatic rifles and ammo? Frag grenades? Spotlights? Your competitors aren’t going to launch a full-scale assault, are they?”
Phillips studied the documents, flipping from one to the next with growing incredulity. “Do you have invoices for the Goldmine’s ongoing supplies?”
“Yes, they’re all there,” said Alton. “Just keep swiping.”
Over the space of a quarter hour, Phillips flipped through scores of documents, occasionally stopping and studying them in detail.
He returned Alton’s phone and leaned against the arm of his chair. “Half of this stuff isn’t needed for the Razor project or live-animal containment. What the hell is going on out there?”
“That’s exactly what I’d like to find out, for the sake of both our countries,” said Alton.
“I don’t understand. How could this even happen?” Phillips seemed bewildered.
“Safi is a rogue employee, running his own show. Your bosses aren’t going to question him too much. His work is too valuable to risk pissing him off. But he has a lot more in mind than perfecting Cerastetol.”
Phillips’ eyes knitted together, and his lips formed a grim line. “That bastard reports to me. First thing tomorrow, I’ll gather the Board of Directors and pay him a little visit.”
“And he’ll just slip away like he did in Afghanistan—or have his goons shoot you with his A4s, if he thought he could get away with it.”
“So what do I do?”
“You can help me find out what’s really going on out there. I’ve already taken a look at the Goldmine’s physical perimeter,” said Alton. “The place has a site security wall that’d warm a prison-guard’s heart. That’s a physical barrier, but I need your help cracking the site’s overall security systems.”
“How can I do that?”
“I already have aerial photos of the Goldmine, but I have no idea what’s inside the buildings. See if you can get me a site schematic. Also, anything you can learn about the design of the electronic security system would be helpful. And the best of all would be the codes to deactivate the system.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Phillips. He stopped to think. “If you want the deactivation codes, you must be planning on paying a visit to the Goldmine.”
“That’s right,” said Alton. “I’ve cracked your company’s IT systems, but they don’t contain any meaningful information about Goldmine activity. If I’m going to learn anything, I’ll have to go see for myself exactly what’s happening in Safi’s secret lab.”
CHAPTER 47
Late that night, Alton’s phone began to vibrate.
He sat up in his hotel-room bed. “Hello?”
“It’s Phillips. I have the schematics of the buildings at the Goldmine site. I’ll text you a compressed file as soon as we hang up. I have everything: blueprints, plumbing, electrical systems.”
“Great,” said Alton. “Were you able to track down any of the other information we discussed?”
“Yeah. I talked with a friend of mine in the corporate security office. I mentioned how important the Razor project is and asked what we use to protect it.”
“You don’t sound happy,” observed Alton, rising from bed and walking over to the room’s desk to avoid waking his wife.
“I’m not. Turns out the Goldmine site uses an Everlock security system.”
“Crap,” said Alton. “That’s the best on the market. Motion and light sensors, infrared beams, noise detectors. And if I recall, it also uses an RSA cryptosystem to create its deactivation passwords. Those RSA passcodes are almost impossible to crack.”
“It gets worse,” said Phillips. “My corporate-security friend said the paired keys are updated every fifteen minutes. You need a passcode generator to know what it is at any given time.”
“And were you able to get one?” asked Alton. “It’ll be damn near impossible to penetrate the Goldmine without it.”
“No.” Phillips blew out his breath. “He said they’re only issued to security—no one else. I asked him if I could be issued one. He said no, that I wouldn’t need one since security would let me through.”
Alton ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “You tried.” He thought for a moment. “Any chance you could get your hands on some employee badges? If we dress the part, maybe the Goldmine security would let me and my team through.”
“That won’t work. All the badges are microchipped. When they’re scanned, the employee’s photo pops up on a monitor at the security checkpoint. If you don’t match the photo, they’ll take you into custody.”
“This is going to be more fun than I realized.”
“Hang on,” said Phillips. “I just thought of something. I’ll tell my mate in security I need a safe place to meet up with my mistress. Somewhere my wife won’t find me. If I beg for a passcode generator, he might give me one. I know for a fact the guy’s fooling around on his wife.”
Alton couldn’t help himself. “And are you?”
Phillips chuckled. “No, but he doesn’t know that.”
“It’s worth a shot. When will you know?”
“I’ll try first thing in the morning,” said Phillips. “Funny…I never thought doing the right thing would mean I’d have to pretend to be a cheater.”
CHAPTER 48
Alton and Mallory awoke early the next morning. While his wife went to a café next door for some breakfast and coffee, Alton began reviewing the Goldmine files Phillips had sent the night before.
Mallory returned and placed a cup of steaming java and a cheese omelet in a plastic container on the table. “Here’s your ‘brekkie’.” She laughed when Alton looked up in surprise. “Hey, that’s what they called it.”
“Thanks. I’m actually pretty hungry.” He opened the container
’s clear lid and began to eat while continuing to review the Goldmine files. “Phillips wasn’t kidding. He really did collect everything a person would want to know about the site. Too bad he didn’t have any more intel on Safi’s true activities there.”
“It figures Safi would keep a tight lid on it,” said Mallory. “If he’s using his DTI job to fund ongoing work on the Tears of God project, he isn’t going to advertise it to others, especially company management.” She glanced over Alton’s shoulder to peer at the dense blueprint of a one-story building. “What’s that?”
“Looks like it’s an electrical plant. I guess it’s not surprising they’d need more power than what’s available out there in the desert.”
“Have you found anything that’s useful to us?”
“Maybe,” said Alton. “The two buildings at the back of the site are the biggest and have interior refrigerated sections. That’s probably where he keeps biological samples. The northern building—the one to the right if you’re looking into the compound from the main entrance—also has a climate-controlled room.”
“Why would he need that?”
“I’ll confirm with Gilbert, but I suspect it’s for keeping the live animals they use to extract venom. Outback animals are used to a desert climate. In captivity, they’d need to be kept in something comparable.”
“So you think whatever’s going on is probably centered in that building?” asked Mallory.
“That’s my guess, but I don’t have a way to prove it.” He sat back and took the last bite of brekkie. “The rest of the team should be here soon. I’ll share what I’ve learned, and we’ll plan our next steps.”
An hour later, the full NSA team assembled in the Blackwell’s hotel room, some in chairs and others on the beds.
Alton started by sharing the information about the northern building, including his hypothesis that it contained live, venomous animals.
“Wait,” said Silva. “I went through Vega’s satellite images of the individual buildings. That one you’re talking about had ‘Menagerie’ written next to a helipad on the roof. It must be a dropping-off point for animals brought back by air.”
“This explains something I saw in the Pasha Tech files back in Kabul,” said Mastana.
“What’s that?” asked Alton.
“One of the folders had a paper that spoke of taking scorpions from ‘the Menagerie.’ This folder had another paper that mentioned the storage of snakes of the Kandahar region. If they used living animals back then, they must be using them now.”
“Okay, so we’ve established that our primary target is the northern building, which for clarity’s sake we’ll refer to as ‘the Menagerie’ from now on.”
“Just to play Devil’s advocate,” said David, “how do we know something shady is going on there? Couldn’t they be using that building for the Razor project you told us about?”
“Absolutely,” said Alton, “but that doesn’t mean they’re not also using it for Tears of God. In fact, the Razor project would provide a perfect cover if any of the company bigwigs made an unexpected appearance. Plus, none of the other buildings seem to be equipped to hold desert animals. From what we’ve read, live animals have always been necessary for the Tears of God project.”
David nodded. “Point taken.”
“Okay, so we know where we need to go,” said Mallory. “The next question is how are we going to get in there? That whole site is guarded to the hilt.”
“Phillips was working on getting us a passcode generator,” replied Alton. “Let me text him and see if he’s made any progress.” He typed a brief message, sent it away, and slipped his phone back into his pocket. “In the meantime, let’s keep reviewing the files he sent us. Assuming the passcode generator gets us inside the perimeter, we need to be as familiar with the site as possible.”
They spent the next two hours poring over the information Phillips had sent. At times, they would compare his data to Vega’s satellite imagery.
“We can’t use the Menagerie’s ventilation shafts as an alternate route in or out,” said Alton, pointing to an HVAC schematic. “There are clean-room filtering machines placed on both ends. They’re too big to move without making a ton of noise.”
“Look here,” said Mallory, gesturing to a map of the entire site. “There’s some kind of drainage canal coming out of the Menagerie. Maybe it’s for wastewater.”
“And maybe it’s a way in for us,” said David, peering over her shoulder.
“Yeah, but I have to admit,” said Alton, “I don’t like the idea of jumping into water coming out of a plant that makes poisons. Who knows what’s in it?”
“Good point,” said Gilbert. “They could very well be dumping contaminants into it. I wouldn’t recommend using it as a way in.”
Alton nodded. “What do you all think of this approach? The blueprints of the Menagerie show three entrances: a main one facing south and a couple of smaller ones on the eastern and western sides. If we enter the perimeter wall here,” he said, pointing to the access point closest to their target building, “we could stick close to the wall and head north. We’d have to travel only a hundred yards or so until we’d be directly across from the Menagerie’s eastern side entrance. We wait until there’s no one around, move to the side door, and let ourselves in—again courtesy of the passcode generator.”
“Since DTI uses the Everlock system,” said Mallory, “wouldn’t they have set up infrared optical scanners in open areas like that?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Alton. “They’re sure to set them up on top of the fence. That’s SOP. If that’s the case, they may have felt putting scanners on the ground would be redundant. To be safe, though, we’d need to take a few bottles of aerosol computer cleaner with us to check. The cleaner will reveal the beams without tripping the alarm.”
“We still need to get into the compound in the first place,” said Silva. “What about the guard at the perimeter’s access point?”
“If we have the passcode generator, we dress as employees, take out the guard with a stun gun when we get close, and let ourselves in.”
“Speaking of the passcode generator,” said Mallory, “have you heard back from Phillips yet?”
“No,” said Alton, “and I’ve texted him twice. Let me call him.” He walked to the window and listened to a series of rings that led to a voicemail greeting. He left a brief message and returned to the group. “He’s not answering.” He thought for a moment. “I should check and see if he’s had any outgoing e-mail messages today.”
“Are you thinking Safi may have gotten to him?” asked Mallory.
“I hope not, but it’s a possibility. Phillips said he’d let me know first thing, and it’s past noon. If Safi found out about Creighton half a world away, it stands to reason he could discover an adversary within his own company.”
Alton logged into DTI’s servers and scanned their communications network. “He hasn’t sent anything out today at all. And he received an e-mail from a colleague asking why he missed a ten o’clock meeting.”
“This isn’t feeling good,” said Mallory. “What do we do now?”
“We need to do what we can for Phillips. Let’s send an anonymous message to the Alice Springs PD, letting them know he may be missing. Next, we need to come up with a plan B for getting inside the Goldmine.”
Silva turned to Mallory. “You’ve been studying the Goldmine’s accounting records, right? Deliveries and stuff like that?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a way to find out about their next delivery?”
“Why? What did you have in mind?”
She produced a wicked grin. “Me and you don’t have trouble attracting guys. What if one of those delivery trucks came along and saw us next to a broken-down vehicle on the side of the road? Think they’d give us a lift?”
Mallory grinned herself. “Instead of sneaking in, we ride in plain sight, a couple of helpless tourists rescued by the heroic driver.”
“Exactly. Like your husband said back in Washington, the more chauvinistic our enemies are, the less likely they are to suspect a couple of cute women.”
Mastana spoke up. “And Safi is Afghani. The ways of the Taliban have not disappeared from my country. Most of the men there think they are better than the women. I can tell you Safi will probably not suspect you.”
“I’m not crazy about you all going in there unarmed,” said Alton.
“Oh, we’ll be armed,” said Mallory. “We won’t make it obvious, though.”
“Yeah, but they could still overpower you.”
“What other alternatives do we have? Sneaking over the wall with A4s isn’t exactly safe, either. With Silva’s approach, at least we won’t be seen as adversaries.”
“And once you’re inside, what then?” asked Alton.
“We’ll get friendly enough with one of the guards to find out the location of a passcode generator. They’re pretty small, right?”
“Yeah, about the size of a TV remote control. But do you think they’ll show you one? Just like that?”
Silva snorted. “I’ve seen guys do stuff a lot stupider than that trying to impress me. If I act all innocent and ask how their security thingy works, one of them will talk. We get one and hide it in our clothes. Then we call you to arrange a time to sneak you in. I don’t think they’d find it suspicious that we’re carrying cellphones. They’d probably be more suspicious if we didn’t.”
Alton sighed. “It’s a good idea. I’m not crazy about sending you all in there, but anything else I can think of carries more risk.”
“I agree,” said Mallory. “Let me look up the scheduled deliveries in DTI’s procurement department. That should give us a good idea of when to expect the next shipment to the Goldmine.” She sat down to her laptop and tapped away for a few minutes. “Here’s a good one: a two-day delivery that’s supposed to arrive there before noon tomorrow. That means it’ll probably be on the road to the Goldmine in the morning. State Route two is the only major road in that direction, so we’ll wait there.”
Tears of God (The Blackwell Files Book 7) Page 17
