The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  “You’re paying them?” Christa exploded.

  Knightly looked impassive. “Whatever it takes to complete this mission.”

  Christa fell silent, then nodded.

  “I don’t like having to assign Christa to your team, Mitchell,” Knightly added. “She’s extremely valuable to me here, but I have no choice. Your success is my top priority, and your chances are much greater with her by your side. End of discussion.”

  * * * *

  In the small cafeteria one floor below the conference room, they were served sandwiches and coffee. Knightly excused himself while the others sat at a table near a window with a view of scattered trees and distant hills. Mitch detected movement in the distance, an armed guard on foot patrol with an assault rifle slung from his shoulder and an Alsatian sniffing the ground. He guessed the facility was well outside Los Angeles, carefully hidden from prying eyes and closely guarded.

  Mitch’s attention switched slowly from the window to Christa, who made no attempt to initiate conversation. “How long have you worked for . . .” Mitch motioned to the surrounding building, “. . .whatever the hell this is?”

  Christa sipped her coffee. “A long time.”

  Gunter looked doubtful. “Not that long. You are young.”

  Christa smiled. “I’ve been here ten years.”

  Mitch’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t be more than twenty five. Ten years would mean you were fifteen? No agency recruits them that young.”

  Christa smiled. “No agency you’ve heard of. And I was fourteen thank you very much.”

  “Yeah right, Uncle Sam taps a fourteen year old school girl on the shoulder and says, your country needs you, sign here. And by the way, get a note from your mama so you can skip school this week.”

  “I thought I was taking part in a local university research project. I did well at the tests, so they sent me to Washington, where I did more tests. Eventually I ended up here.”

  “Which university?” Mouse asked.

  “It doesn’t matter, the university had no idea what the tests meant, or why they were being offered.”

  Mitch finished his sandwich. “Okay Princess, so you’re a genius, a former child prodigy. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you? Gunter handles detection and surveillance, Mouse is a walking micro chip, I handle security and field work. But what do you do? What job should I put you down for?”

  “I’m good at crossword puzzles, cards, backgammon, and I make great coffee.” She sighed, feigning sadness, “But I’m sorry to say I don’t have a genius level IQ, although, I am top one percent. Sorry to disappoint you, but it wasn’t that kind of experiment.”

  Mitch drained his cup, and handed it to her. “I better put you to work then. I take it white, no sugar and not too strong.”

  She went to the boiling silver urn and filled Mitch’s cup, then shoveled in five sugars and only a drop of milk. She placed the cup dutifully in front of him, then waited expectantly as he sipped it.

  He looked at the dark liquid dubiously. “It needs more milk.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she said, pretending to make a mental note.

  He took a sip, then made a sour face. Before he could comment, Knightly approached and handed him a fax. “This is confirmation that our down payment was deposited in your Cayman Islands bank account a few hours ago. Now unfortunately, we must evacuate this facility.”

  “Okay by me,” Mitch said. “The coffee’s lousy here anyway.”

  “I’ve just been advised,” Knightly hesitated, glancing at Christa, “That the Deputy Director of our organization is . . . dead.” Mitch noted how Christa tensed, as if physically struck by the words. “We must assume this facility’s security has been penetrated. There’s a vehicle waiting for the four of you downstairs. Once you relocate, Christa will know how to contact me. Mitchell, your mission starts now. Find Dr Steinus, and watch your back.”

  Knightly passed Christa a briefcase, then led them down to the underground car park. An attendant showed them to a four door sedan, handing Mitch the keys. He passed them on to Gunter, who had long been their wheel man.

  “Good luck,” Knightly called, as he climbed into another car, which sped off toward the main gate followed by two buses full of the facility’s staff. Several more cars followed the buses.

  “Hurry,” Christa urged. “They’re going to sanitize the base.”

  Mitch glanced at her curiously, then nodded to Gunter. “Step on it.”

  Gunter kicked the engine to life, then sped after the small convoy. Seconds before they reached the main gate, a massive explosion shattered the air behind them. Mitch spun around to see the five story glass and steel office building engulfed in flames.

  “The way I see it,” Mitch said, turning thoughtfully to Christa, “Is, in spite of all the brain power you people have, you’re cold sweat scared of something.”

  Christa said nothing.

  “So one of your top people ... dies? Whatever happened to him, you’re so frightened your security is breached, you blast your headquarters off the face of the earth. Extreme, but effective. Must be a nasty enemy.”

  “I hope,” she replied slowly, “For your sake, you never find out how nasty.”

  Gunter glanced at Mitch. “We need weapons.”

  “Yeah, and fast.” Silently Mitch cursed himself for not having Knightly return their guns. As they closed on the tail of the convoy of cars and buses heading south, Mitch suddenly felt very vulnerable. “We’re sitting ducks out here. Turn off onto the first road that looks like it goes some place. I want to put distance between us and that convoy.”

  “Ya, me too,” Gunter agreed.

  Mitch turned back to Christa. “Do you have some place we should go?”

  “No, you choose. There is nothing linking you to us, Gus was very careful about that. Any place I know is at risk.”

  “Hey guys, we’re riding in one of their cars,” Mouse said nervously. “That links us with them!”

  Christa’s face showed surprise.

  “He is right,” Gunter said.

  Mitch pointed to a side road that wound back toward the mountains. “There. That looks good.”

  Gunter turned onto the side road, quickly losing sight of the convoy. “Where to?”

  “Pasadena.”

  “What’s in Pasadena?” Christa asked.

  “Absolutely nothing. We’ll dump the car there, strip its plates, and burn it. I’m not leaving anything behind, not even DNA traces.”

  “Then what?”

  “We go surfing.”

  Chapter 2

  Christa watched the surf pounding on the beach from a cushioned deck chair, shortly after dawn. Mitch’s beach house in Malibu was built on pylons driven deep into the sand. The wood of the rear deck had faded from the sun, the stairs leading down to the sand were missing a railing, but the white walls behind her gleamed with fresh paint. She watched several joggers, tanned and relaxed, make the long haul along the beach, just above the surf line. It all left her with a sense of unreality, so different from the life she'd known.

  “You’re up early,” Mitch’s voice cut through her reverie.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” She glanced up to see him with a bowl of cereal, eating while standing. “Not used to the sound of the waves.”

  “Takes some getting used to. I slept like a log. Always do.”

  “You live well here,” she said, glancing up at the two story beach house behind them.

  “This place is my one indulgence. It’s the only thing I have here of any value, everything else is offshore.”

  Christa scowled. “In case you have to make a fast get away?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Could you walk away from it that easily?”

  “If I had to? In a heartbeat. No ties. Attached to nothing, that’s how I like it.”

  She watched a surfer ride a wave, then pull out just before he reached the shore. “We left so quickly, I didn’t have ti
me to pack. I’ll need money, for clothes and stuff.”

  He realized she was still wearing the same clothes she'd worn the previous day. “You need to go to the bank?”

  “No. Banks are off limits, too easy to trace. You must give me some money.”

  Mitch looked at her, not believing his ears. “I must what?”

  “The organization always provided me with everything I needed. Now I’m with you, you must do the same. I thought you understood that.”

  Mitch laughed. “Listen Princess, I’m not your rich uncle, your sugar daddy, or your butler. I don’t have to do any damn thing I don’t want to do. I certainly don’t have to give you a dime.”

  “I can’t wear these clothes all the time.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to go running back to Uncle Gus, so he can buy you whatever crap your heart desires.”

  “I’m not going back, I’m assigned to this mission. If you need confirmation, we’ll contact Gus and he’ll confirm your obligations.”

  “I’ll feed you, and let you sleep in the spare room, but don’t expect anything else.”

  “Then I’ll borrow your clothes.”

  “Not a chance!”

  She looked at what she was wearing. “Do you expect me to wear the same clothes, day after day?”

  “Princess, you can wear a gorilla suit for all I care.”

  “Would you stop calling me that. I have a name.”

  “Sure, Princess.” Mitch said, putting his empty bowl down on the table, and stretching.

  “Are you always this disagreeable?”

  “Always. It’s like this, I don’t need you, so any time you feel the need to get some new clothes, you can run back to Uncle Gus. I’ll even pay for the cab.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought, from the looks of this house, you’d be so cheap.”

  “You’d be surprised how cheap I am.”

  Before she could press him further, the door bell rang. He left her on the wooden deck and went to let in Mouse and Gunter. They carried cardboard boxes which they stacked in the living room, then hurried back out to Mouse’s van for more. Within a few minutes, there were a dozen boxes loaded in the living room, some full of diagrams, maps, magazines and books, some with electronic components, computer hardware and dozens of software disks, all hurriedly gathered from their homes overnight.

  Neither Gunter or Mouse lived quite as well as Mitch, not because they didn’t share equally in the profits, simply because they had different tastes. Gunter, more reserved, was a shrewd investor playing the stock market the way others played slot machines, while Mouse preferred the latest high tech gadgets, especially cutting edge classified technology that cost a fortune on the black market. Some of those pieces of equipment now appeared in Mitch’s living room, which was rapidly transformed into their command center. Mouse connected his micro computer network to cyberspace and Gunter swept the house with a sophisticated sensor, ensuring there were no listening devices. As he went, he placed ultra sonic noise makers at each window, blocking eavesdropping from outside.

  “I thought you said this place was safe?” Christa said.

  “We don’t take chances,” Mitch replied. “From now on, the shutters are up. No one is snooping us, without us knowing about it.”

  She looked unconvinced. “Don’t place too much faith in these technological toys, Mitch, we had as good or better, and it wasn’t enough.”

  “In that case, Princess, we’re screwed, because this is as good as it gets.”

  Mitch watched Gunter finish his sweep, wondering what else they could do.

  * * * *

  “Do you have any idea how many secure systems there are in the Pentagon?” Mouse leant back in his chair without taking his eyes off the computer screen. “Unless we track down the research program Steinus worked on, I have no hope of identifying which system to crack. There are just too many of them.”

  Mitch glanced at the computer screen. “Where are you?”

  “Inside one of the Defense Department’s IT sub contractors. I haven’t even tried sneaking into the Defense Department yet, that’ll take some planning. Since the Chinese started hacking US defense technology, it's gotten harder to break in.”

  Mitch rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ve done the payroll thing?”

  “Number two on the list, right after I ran a search for his social security number. No social security number, and no checks clearing through the Defense Department’s bank made out to Steinus, spelt ten different ways.” Mouse shrugged. “It was hardly worth the computer time. Finding him that way would have been a no brainer. These guys are smarter than that.”

  Mitch glanced over to Christa, “You got any ideas, Princess?”

  She was at the dining table watching Gunter assemble one of the tiny motion detectors he was placing around Mitch’s house. “Call Gus. Abandoning the center cut short the briefings he was planning for you. He might have something else we can go on.”

  “How do we contact him?”

  Christa opened the briefcase Knightly had given her and produced a small black box. “I have a telephone number memorized, and he has a scrambler keyed to this one.” She placed the scrambler on the table for them all to see.

  Mouse glanced at it and whistled appreciatively. “Oh my God! One gigabit encryption! Didn’t think anyone but the NSA had these babies. And they say they don’t exist!” Mouse picked it up and examined it lovingly. “Man, do you have any idea what two of these would be worth?”

  “No, I don't,” Christa said dryly, prying it out of his hands, and placing it back on the table.

  Mitch tapped Mouse on the shoulder. “Set up the call to Knightly.”

  “If we’re using that,” Mouse nodded to Christa’s scrambler, “It means a double scramble.”

  “Will it work?” Mitch asked uncertainly.

  “It should. I’ll chain her scrambler behind ours.”

  Mouse leaned forward, rerouted his computer’s telephone cable through Christa’s scrambler, into his own device.

  Christa furrowed her brow. “Why are you doing that?”

  “Being freelancers, we only got two fifty six bit encryption, but then we don’t have your connections.”

  “I know what it is. The question is, why are you scrambling the signal my scrambler is generating. That will make it unreadable to Gus.”

  “Trust me, I steal for a living,” he grinned, dialing out.

  “I haven’t given you the number yet,” Christa said. “Who are you calling?”

  “No one.”

  Christa walked around behind Mouse, reading the information off the screen as his computer dialed. “You’re remote buffering?” She leaned closer to read the country code prefixing the telephone number displayed on the screen. “Forty four? That’s England isn’t it?”

  Mouse glanced at her, with a hint of irritation, then issued a command that hid the phone number he was dialing. “Do you mind?”

  “What’s in England?”

  “The Royal Family,” Mouse snapped.

  The call connected, followed by several seconds of hissing and pinging as the electronic hand shaking was completed, then silence.

  “You’ve got a scrambler in England!” Christa guessed, from the sounds. “Computer controlled?”

  “You ask too many questions,” Mitch said.

  Christa watched thoughtfully from behind Mouse’s chair. “For that to work, the London computer must have two telephone lines feeding into it, with your other scrambler receiving and decoding the two fifty six bit transmission sent from this scrambler. It then passes on only the one gigabit encryption. Two separate phone lines means any simple trace stops at your English computer.” She considered the system for a moment, then slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t like it. It’s too crude.”

  “Crude!” Mouse said indignantly. “It’s foolproof.”

  “But we’re not dealing with fools. Your system works only as long as no one gets control
of the buffering computer in England. Once that happens, you’re dead.”

  “Yeah, well that’s not going to happen. That mother’s rigged for anything.”

  “It might appear ingenious to a high school dropout, but it’s an insecure system.”

  “I’m no high school drop out!” Mouse exclaimed. “I wasn’t kicked out of MIT until my sophomore year, and that’s only because the Dean didn’t have a sense of humor!”

  Her face showed her frustration as she turned to Mitch. “We can’t risk having this juvenile hacker control our communications.” She pointed to the three inch high action figure perched on top of Mouse’s computer screen. “You want to trust someone that has something like that sitting on their computer?”

  Mouse grinned. “That’s Worf, my rubber Klingon. Got him at the last convention.”

  “A rubber Klingon!” Christa shook her head, exasperated. “I demand you disengage from that computer in England immediately.”

  “Demand?” Mitch repeated in a tone indicating no-one demanded anything from him.

  “It’s vulnerable. Someone could get control of it, and track back to us.”

  “No chance,” Mouse replied confidently. “The London computer can sense any signal riding our comm line. It’ll terminate the call to us immediately, if it does. It then shoots a virus back down the line to the trace’s point of origin. A nanosecond later, the virus activates on the London computer, deletes the hard disk, then uses the hard drive's own read-write heads to destroy the disk itself. That makes it impossible to track back to us. When the virus finds the trace signal’s origin, it destroys everything at the other end. By the time anyone can physically get to the computer in London, they might as well be sniffing my old tennis shoes for all the good it’ll do them.”

  Mitch studied Christa’s response. “Satisfied, Princess?”

  “No, he treats this like a game. It’s anything but that.”

  “He’s a bit eccentric, but he’s never let me down. So we do it his way.”