Death Minus Zero

by Don Pendleton

  “We have a big problem here,” Corrigan said. “Zero is losing part control of the weapons. Someone is interfering with the systems. Buchanan is unable to shut down and we’re blocked out, as well.”

  “We heard.”

  “If we can’t get back in, we could be facing the chance of a strike from the Zero missile banks.”

  “We’re close to the target area,” McCarter said. “Bloody weather has turned hellish. We’ve encountered some of the perimeter guards and spotted others. Couple of my team are on an intercept with some of the opposition. They left base to pick up supplies, so I’m fingers crossed my guys will stop them coming back.”

  “Do you have an estimate of how many are in the house?”

  “Our asset managed to get a message out. Says it’s hard to gauge. Some are inside, others exterior guards. But since the text we haven’t heard any more from her. I just hope she hasn’t been caught out.”

  “We’ll do what we can at this end, Coyle.”

  “Corrigan, I hate to ask...but if everything else fails could you take out Zero?”

  “Don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind. But we designed Zero to defend itself. It’s tied in to the Slingshot system. It can detect a hostile missile coming its way and blow it out of the sky before it becomes a danger. You can be sure that whoever succeeds in taking over the weapons system will make sure that facility is still online.”

  “I thought I’d ask,” McCarter said.

  “If we make any headway, Coyle, I’ll let you know.”

  Corrigan disconnected, which pushed the call back to Valens.

  “I got your end,” she said to McCarter. “Comes down to you getting inside that house and closing down whatever our Chinese friends are playing at.”

  “Said like that, it doesn’t sound too bloody hard,” McCarter said.

  “I didn’t mean to downplay it. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re having to face out there.”

  “If I get the chance I’ll take a picture on my phone and send it to you, love. Just update me when you get the chance.”

  McCarter ended the call before Valens had the chance to say any more. She was grateful for that because she had no idea what to say to him at that moment.

  * * *

  DOUG BUCHANAN PASSED his hand over the touch pad, bringing up a display on one of the large view screens, and watched as the image came into focus. What he was seeing did little to alleviate his feelings of unease. He spoke quietly, knowing the permanently activated sound sensors would relay his words to his unseen partner.

  “Number three launch silo is ignoring my commands,” he said. “Again.”

  “Confirmed.”

  Buchanan smiled. The Zero response, as usual, was brief and to the point.

  “Nice to know you’re on the ball.”

  This time there was a slight pause before Zero responded.

  “Ball?”

  “It means you are aware of the situation.”

  “Of course, Douglas. My collective sensors keep me alerted to any deviations of the safeguards.”

  “The problem is number three will not retract. And that’s my worry,” Buchanan continued.

  “A complete diagnostic has determined an outside influence.”

  Buchanan activated his com station and came face-to-face with the duty man at Zero Command.

  “Any update on Kaplan?” he asked.

  The Air Force man, Paul Shelley, shook his head. “Ongoing situation, Major.”

  “Let’s talk about this malfunction,” Buchanan said. “We still have number three online as activated. Nothing we’ve tried will bring that damn thing back inside its pod.”

  “We have the same situation here, sir. The thing just won’t respond.”

  “All circuit checks give us the same feedback,” Zero confirmed. “It appears we have no input to that section of the platform.”

  Colonel Rance Corrigan’s face came on screen. For once he didn’t appear as smart as usual. His uniform was slightly rumpled and his regulation tie hung off center.

  “I just came from Diagnostics. There is an unknown signal that has wormed its way into the system,” he said. “Damn thing has overwritten our code and has made its way through every safeguard we have. I can confirm it has intruded into the activation commands and frozen us out of pod three.”

  “I believe what we have here is a highly sophisticated update based on the Remote Access Trojan,” Shelley said.

  “I agree,” Zero said. “But, as you state, Officer Shelley, this is a much more powerful version. Far more invasive than the basic RAT virus.”

  “Tell me about that,” Buchanan said.

  “RAT allows someone other than the owner of a computer to take control of the machine,” Shelley said. “Operate the mouse function. Add data or delete. Tell the system what to do. Basically it becomes the controlling hand.”

  “The only good thing is pod three is one of the short-range defensive missiles. Fired from here, it doesn’t have the range to get to any earth target,” Buchanan noted.

  “What if next time the intrusion gets into one of the long-range missile pods? That’s my worry,” Corrigan grumbled. “Somebody triggering one of the big ones.”

  “Saul is the only man I know who could sort this,” Buchanan conceded.

  “And the only one who might have given away the system override.”

  Buchanan didn’t have an answer for that. Mainly because he had the feeling Corrigan was right.

  “There may be an interim solution,” Zero said. “What you would term as drastic.”

  “Right now drastic sounds good,” Buchanan said. He ran some more online checks, confirming the intrusion thread. “This is awkward. We built this platform. We installed the programs and hardware, and now someone is hacking our system to work against us.”

  “We won’t give up without a fight,” Corrigan said.

  Zero spoke again; the same modulated tone that never altered. “Douglas, did you not understand what I said?”

  “Yes. I heard but I’m not sure I want to hear your definition of drastic, pal.”

  “You should have faith.”

  “I have faith. Plenty of faith in you. The only thing is my life is finite so I’m not too curious about your version of drastic.”

  “At least we should hear what’s being proposed,” Corrigan said.

  “That’s easy coming from someone based on Earth,” Buchanan said. “Begging the colonel’s pardon.”

  “The colonel is correct,” Zero said.

  “Tell us.”

  “A total shutdown of the entire system,” Zero said. “Power down everything. Turn the platform off, in simple terms.”

  Buchanan took a breath. Stared at his reflection in the view window behind the monitor banks.

  “Wouldn’t that close you down, as well?” he asked.

  “I did say a complete shutdown, Douglas.”

  “We would be dead in the water. No air. No light. No computer connection.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You don’t need air to breathe,” Buchanan pointed out.

  “Have you forgotten the emergency breathing apparatus? Flashlights? And you can survive in your biocouch for a number of hours without power. It contains extended-life power cells.”

  “Are you convinced that procedure would work?”

  “We purge everything. Set the computer system to reboot after a period of time.”

  “And that will break this intrusive link?”

  Zero paused before replying. “That is the theory.”

  “Only drawback is theories don’t always work out.”

  “I can understand your reluctance, Douglas.”

  “Comforting you can
see that.”

  “I could quote you the percentage of it being successful.”

  “Rather not go there,” Buchanan said. “What do you think, Colonel?”

  “It’s not me sitting up there figuring the odds,” Corrigan said. “I can understand the logic behind the reasoning but not what you would be risking, Doug.”

  “If we had Saul here he would tell me to take that risk, because he’d have worked out the survival rate to the minute.”

  “Your decision,” Corrigan said. He focused on the operator who had been sitting listening to the conversation. “What’s your feeling on this, Paul?”

  Paul Shelley cleared his throat. “Based on probabilities, shutting down and rebooting offers the best chance of clearing the intrusion. But...”

  “I hope you weren’t going to say ‘I wouldn’t bet my life on it.’”

  Shelley managed a quick smile. “I was going to say there isn’t much else we can do. The weird thing is Saul and I were positing this very same concern only last week and it was our next project. A system firewall that would preclude anyone hacking in from another site. Sitting down and creating the program. Sorry, Doug.”

  “Saul getting kidnapped wouldn’t have been on the cards, so we have to get around that,” Buchanan said. “Let’s do what we have to do before something really heavy goes down.”

  “Shall I initiate the sequence, Douglas?” Zero asked.

  “Is my couch ready for standby?”

  “Of course. Your sustainable backup will come into play once the power goes off.”

  Buchanan reached to the rear of his biocouch and checked that the emergency air tank was in place.

  “The readout shows your air supply is fully ready,” Zero said. “A conservative estimate gives you at least eight hours’ breathable oxygen.”

  “Doug, are you sure about this?” Corrigan interrupted.

  “I live on borrowed time on my best day. What the hell, Colonel? Let’s kick these bastards off the field.”

  “Initiating platform shutdown in thirty seconds,” Zero said.

  “Just make sure you keep your eye on the clock,” Buchanan said.

  Buchanan watched the vid screen. Colonel Corrigan and Shelley were doing the same.

  The readout clock in the corner of one plasma screen counted down the seconds.

  Eighteen seconds...seventeen...

  Buchanan decided this was a hell of a way to make a living.

  Ten...nine...eight...

  Somewhere in the platform a warning buzzer sounded.

  Four...three...two...one.

  The Zero Platform went dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Switzerland

  The increasingly heavy snowfall added to their journey time. The four-wheel-drive SUV handled the thickening fall well due to Encizo driving with care as he negotiated the steepening road. He would have been the first to admit that without the direction aids of GPS and the Zero feed, the trip would have been harder. By the time they reached the cutoff and moved east to bring them in behind and above the target location, the snowfall had increased even more. The wind sloughing down from the high slopes buffeted the slow-moving SUV.

  They were driving through an all-white world. The snow dominated everything, layered it in smooth folds that grew with every passing minute. The deep drifts that were formed by the wind changed the landscape utterly. The wind added its own mark to the snow, creating shapes and concealing the outline of the terrain. The line of the narrow road and the verges on either side began to vanish so that there was simply a smooth run of snow without any defining limits.

  Encizo finally pulled the vehicle to the side of the road and under the cover of a stand of trees that were heavy with clinging snow. He came to a stop and cut the engine. The moment he shut off the wipers, the windshield became quickly covered, almost shutting out daylight.

  “Close as we can get,” he said. “Now we walk.”

  “When it snows in this piece of real estate, it really snows,” Hawkins said. “It’s just like a blizzard back home in Texas.”

  “I suppose you’re about to tell us Texas has the biggest snowfalls around,” Encizo said.

  “Not a word of a lie.”

  They geared up, checking hardware, even though they had done it back at the hotel. They never let anything go by chance. Especially the weapons they might have to depend on. The Tanto knives in their sheaths were looped onto their belts under their coats.

  “Now,” McCarter said, “I feel properly dressed.”

  They ran checks on the com sets, inserting ear buds.

  “Okay, ladies, shall we dance?” McCarter said.

  The trio of Phoenix Force commandos went EVA. They set their position and began the trek for the house, shoulders hunched against the persistent and heavy fall of snow spinning down out of the leaden sky, shoulders hunched against the unending slap of the wind.

  Their progress was slow, hampered by the deepening layer of snow underfoot. Talk was kept to the minimum. There was little to say now.

  Soon enough they would be facing the enemy; there was no doubt that the people behind this affair were enemies of America. Chan and his group as a whole had already showed their intentions: out-and-out theft of the Zero technology by kidnapping Saul Kaplan and attempting to put Zero Command out of action with hostile intent. It was not a wild stretch of the imagination to class it as an act of war. The way China coveted Zero had led them to pursue a deliberate intent to carry through their scheme. Once Phoenix Force came into contact with Chan’s group, there would be no negotiation. No stalling while sides deliberated what to do.

  David McCarter. Rafael Encizo. T. J. Hawkins.

  Three of Hal Brognola’s covert warriors, ready to carry out their mission with little concern for their own lives. This was what they did. Wherever they were sent. To face their nation’s enemies and go against the odds.

  Gary Manning and Calvin James would undertake their own part of the mission by confronting more of Chan’s force.

  Each man was thinking about what lay ahead. The mission they were undertaking had the possibility of working against them. Phoenix Force had enough experience to be aware of the way things might go. They were not being pessimistic, simply accepting that life was finite and any one of them might fall to an enemy bullet. As good as they were, the Stony Man combatants were just as likely to be injured as the next man. It was that realization that kept them on high alert, ready to face down whatever was thrown at them. Once that had been assimilated, they trudged on through the storm, staying close and concentrating on their destination.

  Almost before they knew it they were crouching in the shelter of close-spaced trees, with the house in front of them, almost obscured by the snowstorm.

  The wind-driven snow swirled and eddied around them. They had been forced to pull their goggles in place to protect their eyes.

  With the house in sight McCarter had made a final call to Valens, informing her of their arrival and advising her they would be going dark for the foreseeable future. Sat phones were switched off and stowed away. The last thing they needed was an unexpected call to come through at a difficult moment.

  Valens, understanding what they were about to do, offered a last few words of encouragement before signing off.

  McCarter switched on his com set and ran a quick check before he parted company with Encizo and Hawkins. Each man moved out in a different direction as they began their final approach to the objective.

  McCarter, Hawkins and Encizo had scoped out the layout of the house while at the hotel. The image projected via Zero had showed them the overhead outline of the building, which had allowed them to assign sections to each of them when they were in place. It would stand them in good stead now. They could not depend on Zero to offer the
m further help at the moment. The inclement weather had effectively sealed off their contact with the platform.

  “Don’t lose contact,” McCarter said to his teammates through his com set. “Hit a snag, call for assistance. We help each other. Don’t bloody forget that. And keep your eyes open for outside patrols. Chan will definitely have someone on the lookout. I guarantee that.”

  They used the tree line to cover their individual approaches to the house. The snowfall covered their movements, but also hindered their field of vision. Layered snow had to be wiped away when it began to coat the goggles. It lay on their clothing and even though they wore insulating layers, a degree of the chill temperature got through. It became necessary to keep their fingers flexed under the gloves, the movements helping to hold back any stiffness. And the deeper the snow became the slower their movements, each footstep requiring an effort.

  No time limit had been set. Moving in on the house decreed they move with a degree of caution, watching out for any roving sentries.

  * * *

  THEIR FIRST OBSTACLE was the stone-built structure that housed the generator supplying power to the house. It was a solid building, squat, with a heavily secured door. Some electrical cables were showing, which suggested they were below ground. There was a fleeting moment when the thought of trying to disable the electricity supply crossed Phoenix Force’s minds; common sense told them it was out of the question. They had no explosive devices with them, and any strike against the building would raise every alarm in the house. Cutting power might put Kaplan in danger because they had no idea what he was being subjected to and they were going to need light for their attack once they reached the house. It was a frustrating choice but one they had to accept.

  McCarter was on his own as he closed in on the stone building, pushing his way through the deepening snow and finding his vision reduced by the wind-driven flurries. He almost missed the dark-clad armed Chinese who appeared from around the side of the building.

  It became a shock moment for both men.

  McCarter recovered quickly and lunged for the Chinese sentry. He was reluctant to fire his Browning; even with the wind, the sound of a shot might carry and alert the other sentries.