Puppet Master

by Dale Brown

  “Because we don’t work on Sunday?”

  “They got in. So they weren’t that wrong,” said Jenkins. “Right now, they’re laying low, worried about what Stratowich is telling us. But they’ll be back. They don’t give up when they want something.”

  “I don’t expect them to.” Massina got up from his seat and began pacing around the office. The glass window still hadn’t been repaired. “We’ve had attempts before. All by computer, nothing like this.”

  “You’re going to have to start taking precautions. Personal precautions. A bodyguard. Do you carry a gun?”

  “Rarely. Not at work, certainly.”

  “You might think about it.”

  Massina walked to the window and looked out. The memory of the other night was going to remain with him for a long time. “This Tolevi—you’re sure he had nothing to do with the break-in?”

  “I’d love to pin it on him,” admitted Jenkins, “but honestly, no. He skirts the line. He’s a criminal, if you ask me. But he knows what he can get away with, especially with the CIA backing him.”

  “He got his ear cut off.”

  “Maybe it will make him retire.”

  “I would think it would make him angry,” said Massina. “And want revenge.”

  Yes, thought Jenkins. Massina was right. Revenge.

  He knew the emotion well. Though for him, it was more a question of justice.

  Justice and revenge.

  “So, we’ll keep in touch on this, right?” he asked Massina. “Share information? Your help on the ATMs was invaluable. I’m sorry I wasn’t as frank as I could have been. My hands were tied. I’ll try and keep them untied in the future.”

  “So will I.”

  85

  Boston—a few hours later

  As tired as he was, Tolevi couldn’t sleep. He paced around the apartment, prowling the rooms, pawing the small mementos and household items that reminded him of his daughter and his wife.

  He had to be quiet. Borya was down the hall, sleeping in her room. Martyak was in the guest room; he could hear her snore.

  He needed a permanent babysitter. That was one mistake. Even though Borya was a teenager now, she still needed someone to watch out for her full-time, if only to tell Tolevi when she was getting into trouble. He’d been far too lax.

  She loved him, and he loved her. But that wasn’t the issue. She needed more discipline.

  You would have thought the damn school would have given more morals. That’s what they’re there for. You can’t find a stricter school in Boston for girls.

  Borya was the least of his problems, in the near term, at least.

  He owed Medved a lot of money.

  Maybe that would go away if the FBI rolled Stratowich.

  Couldn’t count on that. If anything, that would amp the pressure to get the loan paid quickly.

  So. Money . . .

  The option for a quick payoff was getting the butcher out. And bribery wasn’t going to work, not while the bearded colonel was in Donetsk.

  What they needed was someone who could break in and yank him out. If they had their own army.

  Smart Metal’s robot? The thing Stratowich had videoed going into the building.

  Tolevi sat down at the kitchen table and checked the e-mail account where the video had been sent. He recovered the video file (discarded but not erased when the e-mail was checked as “read”) and watched it several times, then went to Google Earth, finding a satellite view of the prison where the butcher was.

  He worked the idea around in his mind. After an hour, he decided he had nothing to lose.

  He got one of his sterile phones from his study. Then he sat down with a bottle of vodka and a large glass, called Johansen’s contact number, and waited for his return call.

  86

  CIA Headquarters, Tysons Corner, Virginia

  Two days later

  It was the most extraordinary meeting Louis Massina had ever attended, and it took place in a room that had only four simple wooden folding chairs, each padded at their feet. The floor and ceiling were cement, as were the walls. These were isolated from the rest of the building by different layers of material, including a copper envelope that made it impossible to either transmit or receive electronic signals inside. To get here, Massina had submitted to two different searches and been escorted, even inside the men’s room.

  When he walked in, three men were already waiting. He knew none of them, and they didn’t introduce themselves. All wore business suits but no ties. He sat in the open chair, a man on each side, and one across.

  “We’re very familiar with your work on robots,” said the man across from him. “It’s quite amazing.”

  “We try. I have a good team.”

  “We’d like to enlist your help,” continued the man. “We have a situation overseas where we think one or more of your robots would be very useful. We’re trying to save the life of someone who might be helpful to the West. He’d be grateful, and so would we.”

  “Who?” asked Massina.

  “We need a commitment from you before we give you any more information,” said the man. “As I’m sure you can understand, this is a matter of very high national security. And frankly, if it were known that we wanted to rescue this man, he would most likely be put to death immediately.”

  “I see.”

  “You would not be at risk, neither you nor your people. We would take over one of your robots and—”

  “Excuse me, but let me understand what we’re talking about. If you’re looking to buy one of the robots that we sell commercially, that’s not a problem. But if you’re talking about something else . . .”

  The man who had been talking looked at the man on his left. The man reached into his suit jacket and took out a piece of paper.

  “This robot. Or something similar.”

  It was Peter.

  “That’s an experimental bot. I’m afraid only my people can operate it.”

  “That might be possible,” said the man on Massina’s right. “Given the time constraints, it might be the best solution. But there would be a certain danger involved. And I have to emphasize the amount of secrecy involved. We wouldn’t want your device falling into the wrong hands.”

  “I agree.”

  “If you decided to work with us,” said the man across from him, “the government would compensate you fairly. We would have to work out a lot of details, but if there’s no interest, or if you think this is not the sort of area you’d prefer to get involved in, then let’s all walk out of this room as we came. Friends.”

  I’m not sure we came as friends, Massina thought.

  “Anyone on your staff who was involved would need to pass extensive background checks,” said the man on the right. “Of course, we would do everything we could to keep you safe, and your device safe. But there would be no guarantees. We would destroy it if things didn’t work right.”

  Massina decided the seats had been arranged to make him think the man opposite him was in charge, but it seemed more likely it was this man on his right. They were all self-assured, all confident, and they certainly spoke like leaders used to having people agree with them. But the others glanced at this man a certain way.

  Do my managers look at me that way?

  “Explosives could be rigged in the device,” said Massina, “timed to go off unless a command was given. And the programming is already set to erase itself within a certain period of time, as a security precaution; we download it with each use.”

  A recent innovation, given the Russian interest.

  “But my company would have to be adequately compensated for our risk,” added Massina.

  “We would absolutely agree,” said the man across from him. “If you need time to decide, we can give you twelve hours.”

  Massina looked at the man on his right, the one he thought was really in charge. “Answer one question: Does this involve the Russian intelligence service in any way?”

  �
�It does. Not directly. But if we can rescue the man we’re talking about, then they will be harmed severely.”

  “I’m in,” said Massina. “What are the details?”

  87

  Boston—Monday afternoon, two weeks later

  Two weeks after his meeting at CIA headquarters, Louis Massina stood in front of a console in the sub-basement of the Smart Metal building, staring at a hastily erected array of 5K video screens mounted on a partition in front of him. A small, shielded building had been constructed inside Underground Arena One as part of the most important project of Massina’s life.

  Or his biggest folly.

  The miniature building within a building—“the box,” they called it—connected Smart Metal and a small, very select group of engineers and scientists, along with a half dozen CIA analysts and specialists, with a covert six-member task force on its way to the Donetsk People’s Republic. Besides feeds from Smart Metal’s own sensors on the ground, the building within a building was able to receive feeds from the CIA’s own covert networks and tie into a limited subset of the spy agency’s network. The building and much of its infrastructure were so secret that only a few of Massina’s own employees had been involved in its construction; security was provided by the Agency, much to the consternation of Bozzone, who’d had to argue strenuously to even be permitted inside as Massina’s personal bodyguard.

  Massina had not only learned the identity of the three men he’d met with—Yuri Johansen, a senior officer in charge of the extraction project, Agency Deputy Director Michael Blitz, Johansen’s superior and the head of all covert activities at the CIA, and CIA Director James Colby—but he had also had extensive conversations with all three.

  If this mission went well, Colby had promised, there would be room for many others in the future.

  Massina wasn’t sure he wanted that. The next few days might decide.

  Johansen stood next to him at the consoles, reviewing recent satellite images of the “target” with someone at Langley. The Russians were still in charge at the prison and apparently at town hall, if the presence of their vehicles was any indication. Dan—the Agency operative who’d worked with Tolevi—had been ordered to stay away as they prepared the mission. That was for his safety as well as security for the mission, but it deprived them of what the spooks called “humanint”—human intelligence, the sort of critical yet often seemingly casual information that only a human being on the spot could gather. It was heresy to the techies, but there were many times when gossip in a bar was far more valuable than the finest-grained image a satellite could provide.

  Massina walked back and forth behind the control console, waiting for a connection to the team traveling to the Ukraine. While they could talk at any time over an ultra-secure network, the very fact that there were electronic transmissions could tip off Russian intelligence to the team’s presence. Even if this was only a very general threat, Johansen had insisted it be minimized, and until the actual launch of the mission, communications would be strictly limited to times and places that minimized detection.

  A clock in the corner of the right-hand screen counted down the time to coms: 00:04:42. Four minutes, forty-two seconds.

  Massina began pacing behind the console. Having his bots on the scene meant he needed to have at least one of his people there.

  Chelsea had been the logical person, by far. And if it had been anywhere else, doing anything else, he wouldn’t have hesitated.

  But . . .

  Johansen, of course, had claimed there would be no danger, no exposure—she would be miles away from the prison. If someone was needed for last-minute programming and checks—something he, frankly, wasn’t entirely convinced was necessary—then so be it; this would be accomplished in Donetsk. She would be covered there, and with security. She could leave at any point, and nothing would implicate her in the “project.”

  Completely safe.

  Massina wondered if he had said that to Tolevi before he’d had part of his ear cut off.

  Reservations aside, Chelsea had been the logical choice. Not only was she the most knowledgeable about Peter, the main bot being used, but she was also extremely familiar with the two other types of robots they were going to employ: Nighthawk, an aerial drone similar to (though larger than) the Hum they had used with the FBI, and Groucho, an off-the-shelf model that was considered disposable, chosen to provide diversion because its technology was not considered that advanced.

  More advanced than what the Russians had, probably, but something the Chinese were already busy knocking off.

  Chelsea had worked on all of those projects. She was young and athletic. She had already worked with the FBI. His reservations were strictly paternal—he felt very protective. Sexist maybe, because she was a young woman, but most likely he would have felt the same if one of his male engineers had been involved.

  In the end, he’d decided to sound her out about it, expecting, knowing, that as soon as she heard of the project, she’d be all for it, regardless of the risks. That was the way she was. That was the way they all were.

  Chelsea had all but asked when she could pack her bag.

  The CIA had scooped her off for a three-day training session that was basically a mini-version of its SERE programs—the acronym for survival, evasion, resistance, escape, or what a person trapped behind enemy lines was supposed to do to survive.

  It was a great course for combat pilots. Did it work for twenty-something computer geniuses? Hopefully they’d never find out.

  Massina had had some of Peter’s components dumbed down, just in case something went wrong with the fail-safe circuits that would autokill it. Still, the modifications only lessened its value; what was left would spare its captor at least three years of heavy R&D, assuming they were smart enough to use it.

  Massina had also insisted on sending one more employee on the team to help Chelsea: Bozzone. His sole responsibility was getting Chelsea back alive.

  Period.

  And now they were on their way.

  You must fight evil. You must do what you can do. Whatever the costs.

  Massina walked around to the side of the room. The communications screen announced that “Puppet Master” was ready to receive communications.

  Puppet Master—the code name for Smart Metal’s “box.”

  It was Johansen’s term. Running robots was a little like running puppets to someone outside the profession.

  To Massina, the idea was to create robots that acted on their own. The opposite of a puppet master. But you could only explain so much.

  Massina paced, trying to turn his thoughts upbeat.

  What are the interesting aspects of this project?

  An autonomous bot placed in situation where it knows the solution but not the proper steps to arrive at that solution.

  Interconnectivity between different bots on a scale and in circumstances never attempted.

  The role of sheer chance—unknown unknowns as a major component of the situation.

  The last wasn’t exactly a plus: not knowing what you didn’t know was always a poor starting condition in the field.

  “They’re on the water, beyond Turkey,” declared Johansen. The team had just sent a signal indicating they were en route to Donetsk. “We’re under way.”

  Three minutes early, thought Massina. I hope that’s a good sign.

  88

  The Black Sea—roughly the same time

  Chelsea Goodman leaned over the gunwale and let loose. Even though she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and it was now well past nightfall, an amazing amount of half-digested food shot from her mouth over the side of the speedboat. Out of all the dangers she’d been warned of, by both her boss and the CIA people, seasickness had never once been mentioned. And in fact, she’d never been seasick before.

  Chelsea liked new adventures. Vomiting, unfortunately, wasn’t on the list.

  Clinging to the side of the boat, she slipped down off her knees, settling onto the deck.
She made her breathing more deliberate, trying to relax her stomach. But the hard chop of the boat made that almost impossible, no matter what yoga slogan she repeated to herself. In less than a minute, she was back over the side, spitting and puking some more.

  “It’ll pass,” said Beefy, laying his hand gently on her back.

  “Uh-huh,” was all Chelsea could manage, leaning her face into the sea’s spray.

  Tolevi, standing in the cockpit of the speedboat, fixed his eyes on the light at starboard. It shone from the stern of a small fishing boat anchored off the Crimea Peninsula, maybe a half mile from shore. The boat was owned by one of their contacts; if there were any Russian patrol craft in the area, the light would be joined by another at the bow.

  So far, so good. They’d gone nearly one hundred miles in the past three hours, setting off from Sinop, Turkey, a little village on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Tolevi ordinarily didn’t ship from there—his wares were too bulky and his shipments too large—but the CIA liked the village for a number of reasons, including its proximity to an airfield. Tolevi suspected the Russians were well aware of this and kept the village and its varied ports under constant surveillance, but he was unable to persuade Johansen. And as in all things, when the Agency decided on something, it simply refused to change its mind.

  Agency. It was an immovable entity beyond anyone’s ability to control. Pigheaded and obtuse, and full of automatons with far less reasoning power, in Tolevi’s opinion, than those packed away in Chelsea’s boxes.

  He had four of its agents with him, not counting the speedboat “driver,” whom Tolevi recognized as a contract worker from an earlier encounter. The man in charge of the CIA contingent—he insisted on being called Paul White, though that wasn’t even the name on his phony Turkish passport—was supposed to be taking orders from Tolevi, or at least consulting with him; that was the arrangement, as Johansen had made clear. But from the moment they’d met in Turkey, it was clear that White thought he was in charge.