Dark Winter
Page 10
Never one for subtlety, Savage asked, “Are you working for the RINK?”
Spartak looked away, seemed to study the far corner of the command pod. “Enough questions for now. I am with you. I work with you. I am a survivor. These satellites are the real problem.”
“Who’s controlling the satellites?” Mahegan asked. “What you’re saying is that this isn’t three separate actions, but one coordinated simultaneous attack.”
“I never met the controller. Always very careful. But you are right. One big attack. All at once. That was the plan I saw,” Spartak said.
“You saw the plan?” Cassie asked, incredulous.
“You look at a computer screen in the Deep Web and you see ones and zeroes. Gibberish. I see a plan. I see instructions on what code to write and for what purposes.”
Mahegan listened, knew Spartak was an intelligence gem, and was glad they had captured her. They locked eyes and she blew him an air kiss that wasn’t lost on Cassie.
“What’s the second thing you have, Sean?” Mahegan asked.
O’Malley zoomed in on a portion of Iran and switched to the weather effects aspect of their software.
“Shamal headed toward the meeting location. No way you can jump into that,” O’Malley said. A shamal was a giant sandstorm that looked like something out of a science fiction movie, an orange wall of sand picked up by winds moving at about forty miles per hour.
Cassie looked at Mahegan, no doubt remembering when they had cliff jumped using flying squirrel suits, as Mahegan had called them.
“That’s good news and bad news,” Mahegan said. “Makes the jump a little crazy, but buys us some time because their airplanes can’t fly through that. The engines will gum up. But we can probably time it so that we come in behind it.”
“So we time it to go in on the back side before the planes take off,” Savage said.
“Right. What kind of intel do we have about who’s on the ground?” Mahegan asked, knowing it was he and Cassie that were going in, not Savage.
Intelligence was Cassie’s expertise. She pivoted away from Mahegan and faced the group, then turned toward the computers. “Sean, can you zoom in on the airfield?”
As O’Malley maneuvered the images of the Russian, Iranian, and North Korean leaders, Cassie spoke. “Well, it’s either doppelgangers or the real deal. All three of the RINK political leaders. Ostensibly the decision makers. There’s a fourth individual. We know this because four up-armored luxury jets landed on that runway.”
“So let me ask a stupid question,” Savage said. “Why don’t we just drop a smart bomb down the pipe of wherever this meeting is taking place?”
O’Malley had four images on the screen. They were expanded satellite shots of four different airplanes, all sanitized with no country markings or tail numbers. Cassie played the video and showed each one landing, pulling into a hangar, and moments later a hardened black Mercedes Benz leaving the hangar and driving across the airfield about two miles to the evident compound in the side of a mountain. Only three cars had made the transit so far.
“There is no pipe,” Spartak said, answering the general’s question. “And the satellites will cyber bomb any aircraft that get close enough to drop a bomb. Just how I attacked the two MiGs, they can attack your bombers and fighters. Same with cruise missiles. The microsatellites are monitoring naval activities. Once a cruise missile is launched, if RINK hasn’t already put a RAT in the guidance system, they will. And the satellites enable rapid machine learning.”
“Rat?” Savage asked. “Like the Trojans?”
“Yes. Remote Access Trojan. RINK has been planning this war for at least two years. They’ve had time to infiltrate defense industry weapons makers and plant passive RATs in every system. They are programmed to sit there until the weapon is launched or until the microsatellite system activates it.”
Mahegan studied Spartak. He tried to catch her eyes, but she looked away. She was withholding something.
“What? This is the way? They have something that can stop this?”
Spartak looked at Mahegan and nodded.
“There is a person for each country. They can stop everything. Or they can make everything happen. It is more than a simple flash drive, though. You must capture the person. Biometrics, voice recognition, fingerprints, and so on are required to access the system.”
“You know this how?” Mahegan asked.
“I know. That’s all that matters.”
“And what do you mean when you say, ‘make everything happen?’ ”
“Global nuclear war with the United States destroyed.”
“Buy why?” Savage interjected.
“Why not?” Spartak shrugged, her lean shoulders angling up toward her neck.
Mahegan took control. “Who is the person?”
“I’m not sure about that. I imagine it is the man in charge and so have operated on that assumption.”
Mahegan sighed, frustrated, but continued to question her.
“But why? Why are you operating on any assumptions? Why are you even here?”
“Because I’m someone who cares about the world and if I find information to nefarious plans I’ll try to stop them. Maybe I wanted to be in that restaurant. Maybe I wanted to see them. Did you ever think of that?”
Mahegan had thought about the possibility that she had been hiding in plain sight, hoping to draw out someone connected to the plot she had discovered. But, to what end? Satisfy her curiosity? Or was she more than a waif of a female hacker hiding behind a shaved head? Her large brown eyes would make her recognizable to anyone with whom she’d ever met for more than a minute. Sans make up, and if you could get past the stubbled scalp, Spartak carried a girl next door appearance, crooked smile and all.
“How much time do we have?” Mahegan asked her.
“Like I said, less than seventy-two hours. That’s what the plan I saw indicated.”
“If we capture the right guys, how do they shut down whatever is planned?”
“It’s a series of voice commands, verified by fingerprint recognition, facial recognition, DNA, and eye scan.”
“We need to capture someone, but we don’t know who it is?” O’Malley chimed in.
The entire team had circled Spartak as she sat at O’Malley’s work station with her back to the computer.
“That’s not entirely true. I can tell you that those people are most likely at the meeting in Iran. What I saw was that someone had hacked the RINK nuclear arsenals and the RINK nations had countered that, blocked it, but they never regained full access. They couldn’t shoot their missiles.”
“Including Russia?” Mahegan asked. The implications for Russia to be without any retaliatory capability were huge. Especially with the Russian army plowing through northern Europe.
“Yes, including Russia. But that meeting,” Spartak said, pointing at the monitor. “That is a trade of some sort. Russia will get its capabilities back as will North Korea and Iran.”
“What about the fourth guy? Is he some kind of master key? Does he have universal access?”
“I don’t know.” Again, Spartak looked away.
Mahegan wondered why she was being obtuse about something that seemed obvious. She had deliberately led them to this conclusion.
“Okay,” he said. “Sean, can we see through those windows or get any kind of facial recognition on this guy?”
O’Malley leaned over Spartak, used his thumb to manipulate the trackpad on the MacBook, and pulled up a grainy image of a face outlined behind a tinted vehicle window. “I’ve enhanced this shot as much as possible. The light from the hangar was bright enough to offset the tint. This isn’t good enough for facial recognition, and it’s the left rear of the vehicle, so possibly not the principal we’re looking for. It’s a start, though. We get him, maybe we get the real guy, whoever is in the seat next to him.”
“Any idea how long they’ll be in there?” Mahegan asked.
“What I saw in their pla
ns was that this meeting was to divide up the world after nuclear war. Russia gets Europe. Iran gets the Middle East. North Korea gets Asia, to include China, somehow.” Spartak said.
“What happens to North America?” Cassie asked.
“Just a nuclear wasteland for one to five years, but the fourth man will control that hemisphere, according to the plan,” Spartak said.
Mahegan said, “You sound skeptical.”
“I think the fourth man wants to control the world,” Spartak said.
As the airplane cruised along through the thin air at 35,000 feet above ground level, Mahegan thought about options. They could drop a nuke on the meeting place, but the ‘RINK plus one’ could be a half mile underground with all the command and control necessary to do everything Spartak had said. Mahegan’s team could conduct a special operations raid into the middle of Iran. The last time the United States tried that, Jimmy Carter was president and a refuel operation had ended in catastrophe for the fledgling Delta Force and special operations commandos on the mission. Mahegan did the math. It was simply too far for a helicopter raid of any substantial force.
But, he thought, a small team could jump into the compound, snatch the fourth man, and fly out on a few helicopters.
“So, nothing’s getting through? How the hell are we going to jump?” Cassie asked.
“Offset. By the time we get there and fly our parachutes into the drop zone, the storm should be gone,” Mahegan said. “HAHO. High altitude, high opening. Fly in. What’s the range of these satellites?”
Spartak frowned, looked uncomfortable either because she didn’t know the information or didn’t want to share.
“We can figure it out, Jake,” Savage said. “Why don’t you and Cassie get some rest. You’ll be running hard once on the ground. We’ll get this little genius to talk if we have to pull her fingernails.”
“I’ve got it figured out, I think,” O’Malley said. “Just some simple math when you look at each of the satellite systems and where the forces are on the ground.” On the display, he had superimposed perfect circles around each of the geo-stationary satellite systems that hung in geo-synchronous positions above the three attacking armies.
“See here? The Iranians are spread from their border with Iraq to Israel’s border with Jordan. They’ve taken heavy casualties in Israel and are stopped along the Golan Heights, but in the time we’ve been flying, the satellites have adjusted westward, to remain center mass over the bulk of the attacking forces. Same here on the Belarus and Polish border. The satellites over the Russians keep moving west. They are moving fast, already to Warsaw. And here on the Korean Peninsula the satellites have readjusted southeast to keep up with the Korean advances.”
“Holy shit,” Owens said. “World War Three is a fucking computer game.”
“No game, son,” Savage said.
“So back to my original point,” O’Malley said. “It looks like the satellites are focused on the attacking forces and not defense of the meeting site. My math shows that the satellites over the Iranian combat forces barely, if at all, range back to the meeting location.”
“So just a little windstorm to worry about?” Mahegan quipped.
“Maybe.” O’Malley looked over his shoulder and looked at Mahegan. “I could always be wrong.”
“Nah. That never happens.”
Owens coughed, “Bullshit,” into his hand.
“Okay. Compute a release point and time for the jump. We’ll get some rack. And don’t let her near any computers. If she can disarm Russian MiGs, she can communicate to the ground.”
“Would never do that to you, soldier boy,” Spartak said.
Mahegan chinned Cassie his way and they walked out of the command pod. Each went to their separate bunks, nothing more than taut canvas racks used to transport wounded out of combat zones.
“Get some rest, Ranger. Big mission ahead.”
Cassie winked at him. “You too, big guy.”
Frustrated, Mahgean turned around, leaned againt a stanchion that supported the bunks. The ache in his heart was overpowering his typically one hundered percent operational focus. To recenter himself, Mahegan first checked his weapons. He jacked the charging handle of his trusty Tribal Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol. Ran his thumb across the razor edge of his Blackhawk combat knife, and broke down and reassembled his M4 carbine with suppressor and Picatinny rail filled with infrared devices and flashlights.
He stood, saw Cassie was already asleep, and watched as General Savage walked his way.
Savage motioned him away from the bunks.
Mahegan walked toward the general, who then put his hand on the mission leader’s shoulder. The general’s face looked haggard, full of crags. Years of worry and tough missions were etched into his features. His black and gray buzz looked like cut steel.
His dark eyes bored into Mahegan’s. “Intel says Russia goes nuclear in less than three days. We’ve got to stop this now. Find those four people, but most importantly, find the Russian. They’ve got the most nukes. Hell, bring me back one person from this meeting and we can break this thing.” Savage abruptly turned and walked away.
Mahegan said nothing. He watched the general, processed the information, and then crawled onto the canvas and pulled a lightweight blanket over his body.
Nuclear war with Russia? No, the world? To what end? Why?
The thoughts spiraled through his mind like race cars lapping the track at 200 miles per hour. If one person was in charge, what would his or her purpose be? Like a hawk soaring above a field, his mind saw the prey, but it was quickly gone, a rabbit into the bush. The answer was there, though, hiding.
Sleep soon captured him, his mind as dark as the night, the illuminated eyes of the prey winking up at the black firmament. But, no, not prey, not a rabbit. This was a predator. For the first time Mahegan wondered if he was the prey.
The elliptical eyes followed him into his sleep.
CHAPTER 10
THE YOUNG MEDIA MOGUL LOOKED OUT FROM BENEATH HIS CURLY light brown locks, wondering about this move. The cavernous airplane hangar swallowed his jet. A black Mercedes waited for him down below, but Gorham had told the pilots to not yet open the door.
So far everything had gone relatively according to plan. Stepping foot onto Iranian soil to meet with the leaders of the RINK alliance was distinctly different from dwelling and brooding within the safety of his bunkered command and control center with its holograms, monitors, and communications uplinks. He needed Dr. Draganova, though. His confidence needed that final booster shot before entering the lion’s den here in Iran.
He opened his tablet and retrieved another video file of a conversation with Dr. Draganova. There she was. The black hair cut just a bit differently, angled over her left shoulder. Dark eyebrows. Full lips. Sensuous mouth. Teeth slightly askew. Tight fitting dress, as if she had a date afterward. They were in a conference room in a private club in Chicago. He eyed the sofa upon which he sat, wishing she had joined him there as opposed to sitting in the adjacent leather chair.
“Do you prefer meeting people in person or the separation that your device gives you?” she asked him.
“I like seeing you in person.”
“Just me? Others?”
“For others, I guess I prefer the separation.”
“You guess? Unpack the box, Ian. You’re a brilliant man. Open that uncertainty and let’s look at it. Why are you not sure? You’re a master negotiator. You’ve built this massive company. You employ thousands of people worldwide. You’ve stared down giants of the tech industry and stolen their market share. You guess?” Her voice. The East European lilt.
“That’s true. I’ve done all that.”
“Then what’s in that box of uncertainty? Remove it from the shelf and look in it. Tell me what you see in there.”
He watched himself sitting on the sofa. His hand stroked the armrest as if he were stroking her . . . or perhaps himself. For him, the meetings were foreplay.
“What are you about to do?”
“Change the world.”
“You’ve done that. Change it how?”
“Help everyone. Change governments so that they help people instead of oppress them.”
“You’ve helped tens of thousands.”
“I want to help billions.”
“Like McDonalds? Billions served?”
“Technically its trillions and don’t make fun of me, Doctor.”
“Now there’s a box I’d like to open.” Playful, teasing.
Flirting? he wondered.
“I want to empower the world,” he said. His voice was a whisper.
“Then you need to come face-to-face with the world.” Serious. Deadpan. Dramatic shift from the previous sentence. “Face your demons and they will respect you. Turn away from them and they will conquer you.”
In Iran he was facing three demons: the RINK leaders.
Shayne had moved forward to the command center in the plane as it sat idle in the dim hangar. The black Mercedes was idling at the base of the portable steps that two Iranian airmen had rolled to the airplane door. Gorham wasn’t yet ready to deplane, though.
“Here we are, boss,” Shayne said.
“Facing demons,” Gorham said.
Shayne nodded. “That, too.”
“Three human biometric keys. They walk through the biometric chamber, we get their data, and then we leave.”
“I’m ready when you are,” Shayne said.
During construction of Iran’s Manaslu Facility, Gorham had ensured that each of the twenty-meter-long biometric walkways was wired and connected to the antennae on top of the mountain via cables bored through the rock and earth. In addition to the hundreds of other Manaslu buildings he had constructed globally, he had obtained exceptions to the trade embargoes and UN sanctions with Iran and North Korea by working closely with the previous president, who had granted permission for Manaslu to construct buildings under the Partnership for Peace rubric. When muddled into a grouping of over two hundred international construction permits, the exceptions did not seem like a big deal to the administration policy wonks at the time. In fact, creating jobs, their theory went, would decrease unemployment in nations that sponsored terrorism and therefore provide fledgling terrorists jobs that would dissuade them from conducting terror attacks against the West.