Khilkov’s permanent frown lifted into a sneer. “Given your capabilities, I would assume you will know if he contacts us or not.”
The Russian president was correct. Manaslu’s capabilities were immense, all encompassing. But Gorham didn’t flinch. Shayne showed him something on the iPad. Gorham read and nodded.
“We have information this cook goes by the name, Spartak. That is Russian, no?”
“Spartak?” Khilkov laughed. “So this hacker is a football player? Hockey?”
Gorham furrowed his brow, thought through what Spartak might mean, and of course it was derived from Spartan, a gladiator-slave. He recalled there were Russian soccer and ice hockey teams that used the Spartan as a mascot. He felt foolish, but recovered. “Just passing along the information.”
“If anything, the hacker going by Spartak tells me he is not Russian.”
“Well, the digital forensics Shayne has done reveal a careless mistake by this hacker.”
“You are wasting my time, Gorham,” Khilkov said.
“Ultimately, we believe he is your responsibility. If I am mistaken, my apologies,” Gorham said. “But I don’t think so. Regardless, I wanted each of you to know that we have a potential loose cannon out there and while we are still in control of everything, there seems to be some indication that we’ve had a minor breach. Another reason why we needed to discuss the end state in person, as opposed to over the Deep Web.”
“If I may,” Khilkov said. He was looking at his bulky biometric key, Borlof, who was holding a tablet device not unlike Shayne’s iPad. “We just lost two of our best MiG 35 fighter pilots over the Pacific Ocean. They were shadowing an American cargo plane flying over the Aleutian Islands, given orders to shoot it down, and somehow our two MiGs disappeared from radar.”
“That’s got to be them,” Gorham said as much to himself as to the others.
“Given this and your loose cannon,” Khilkov said. “You should give us back our nuclear capabilities. We should accelerate our time line for attack.”
Gorham agreed. He lifted his head, turned to Shayne and said, “Give them control of their nuclear arsenals.”
Shayne entered a series of codes and three green check marks appeared on his tablet. Gorham looked up and at the three leaders who were all checking with their biometric keys. The Keys were carrying small handheld smartphone-like devices. Borlof, Kal, and Persi all showed the device to their respective leaders and nodded.
“Do you confirm access?” Gorham asked.
Each of them affirmed by verbally saying, “Yes.”
“Now the only way for you to to shut down your system is for your biometric key to be confirmed by a Manaslu Chamber and then for some hacker, like the rogue defector, to block you. As we’ve demonstrated, cyber security on nuclear command and control systems is weak. So, be careful. And though we no longer have control, we do seek cooperation.”
“We shall discuss this cooperation,” the Russian president said.
“Keep your Keys close to your side and you’ll be fine. Lose them and who knows what may happen?” Gorham posited. He looked at the beautiful Kal as he spoke. She smiled and nodded, as if to say, well done.
A pistol shot rang out.
To Gorham’s left he saw the Russian biometric key dead, slumped against the bulletproof glass that afforded him no protection from his boss, the president. Khilkov held a pistol in his hand. Gorham wasn’t an expert in handguns so he didn’t know what kind, but it was effective, apparently. Serena the wolfhound walked around the dead man, shook once as if she was shaking off water, and then perched again to her master’s side.
“As you said, we have access now. There’s no need to keep him around. He’s only a liability. I didn’t feel like keeping tabs on him.” Khilkov chuckled.
Gorham looked at Kal, who stared at the army general next to her. He was moving swiftly to do the same thing. His pistol was up, but Kal was too quick. She jabbed the general in the throat with her fist and then snapped the general’s forearm over her knee. She grabbed the pistol, opened the door, and bolted up the glassed-in walkway.
Two North Korean guards took aim at her from the top of the arena balcony. Gorham knew that each of the presidents had security details. She dashed through the walkway, glass shattering behind her.
To his right, Gorham saw the Iranian president holding a pistol and firing at point blank into Persi’s chest. Six bullets impacted the big man’s body, but didn’t faze him.
Must have been wearing body armor.
Persi reached up and took the president’s empty pistol and oddly, just stared at him. Gorham was stunned. He had thought through several calculations, but it hadn’t occurred to him that the countries would consider themselves immune from hacking again. Who was to say that between now and launch Manaslu or some other entity wouldn’t hack their nuclear systems.
To Gorham, these people were to be protected at all costs. Had the Russian president caused a chain reaction? But, regardless, he had the Keys’ biometric information, which was the ultimate motive.
“Stop!” Gorham shouted. But Kal was already in the tunnel. In the wind. The North Korean security detail split up, one after her and one to the general to check on his status. The standoff between the Iranian president and Persi continued. Persi wasn’t doing anything but holding the president by the shoulder, keeping him at bay. The security guards at the top of the stairwell were conflicted and accordingly did nothing. Persi was one of them. The big man was obviously being respectful of the president, while also protecting himself.
“Looks like we’ve got a shitstorm on our hands, Gorham,” Khilkov said.
“Not my problem.” Actually, it was his problem. Gorham needed all the nuclear weapons to hit their targets. The conventional war was really a sideshow for Gorham.
“Could be,” Khilkov said.
“Killing your Key was your call, naturally. Should something happen again to your system, though, you’re screwed.”
“Shall I kill you, also, Mr. Gorham? Simply to prevent you from stealing my nuclear arsenal again?”
That was the crux of the argument for Gorham. Every nation had weapons, resources, people, and so on. These were the world’s possessions, not arbitrary nation-states. Nationalism was a disease and the only cure was to destroy it through his chosen course of action. He needed Russia to launch the first strike against the U.S.
“Not necessary. But for your information, Mr. President, the American nuclear arsenal is as defenseless as yours was a few seconds ago. It will remain so for about the next forty-eight hours.”
“We shall use that time wisely,” Khilkov said. The Russian president looked at Borlof’s dead body, stood, and began walking up the ramp through the portal.
An alarm sounded, like an air horn blowing at full blast. The Iranian President broke away from Persi’s grip and turned toward Gorham and Khilkov, shouting, “Everyone stay inside. Shamal approaching. Winds exceeding seventy-five miles per hour.”
CHAPTER 11
GORHAM SELF-MEDICATED BY RUBBING HIS ROPEY MUSCLES WITH impatience. He needed Draganova. He was a junkie without a fix. With each day he couldn’t speak to the doctor, the more he lost control of his mind.
What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? That’s all he could think. Murder and mayhem. Isolated in Iran in the middle of a mountain.
They had waited seven hours in the “luxury” accommodations of the Iranians, which included a gang latrine and bunk beds with stained mattresses and ratty sheets. He sat in the metal chair staring at Shayne, who was busy trying to make his iPad connect to the ManaSat constellation.
“I think the ManaSat pod is moving too far west from here, boss.”
“Got to be a signal somewhere. Can we reach a Bap-Bird?”
Bap-Birds were satellites named after billionaire hedge fund manager Hector Baeppler, an Argentinian expat, who lived in Portland, Oregon. He had provided Gorham seed money for his company when the prospects of overtaking the
first mover advantages of Facebook, Amazon, and Google were slim and none. But with Baeppler’s financial assistance, Gorham had been able to overcome the primary obstacle—money—and retain the services of many of the best code writers and engineers in the world.
All of that came with a price, of course. Baeppler was a Manaslu board member and a 49% shareholder. He had significant influence over Manaslu, at least if he chose to exercise it. So far, he had remained distant from the business operations. But he did frequently conduct mentoring sessions with Gorham. They discussed politics, equality, human rights, and progressive values of ripping away the artificial borders of nations and creating a global enterprise where the poor and uneducated received direct assistance from the wealthy, privileged classes of every country. Baeppler’s Utopian notion was an equilibrium of wealth, where everyone migrated to the middle. Gorham knew that Baeppler donated millions every year to families and was proud of his mentor.
And right now, he was thankful that Baeppler had a geo-stationary satellite orbiting above Iran.
“Got it,” Shayne said. “Storm passes in about an hour. Should be able to fly out after that.”
“Call the pilots and tell them to get ready.”
“Okay.” Shayne stood from the creaky metal bed. They were deep inside the mountain in one of the tunnels the ManaBlades had been unable to access.
“Any intel on this chamber we’re in?” Gorham asked.
“I’ve got two ManaBlades out right now. They’re sniffing. They see Kal hiding in one of the vehicle cubbies. My signal’s okay. It’s pushing through the Iranian antennae on the top of the mountain that feeds into their command center. So, it’s wearing out the battery pulling off the conductive metal in the tunnel. But we’re definitely connected to Bap-Bird One.”
“At least we’ve got eyes,” Gorham said. “Okay. Let’s grab Kal on the way out. Put her in our car. Hook into the cameras and let’s make sure we’re not being detained. Seven-hour storm? You’re shitting me, right? How did we miss this?”
“These shamals just come out of nowhere.”
“Nothing comes out of nowhere. Don’t forget that,” Gorham said.
There was a disturbance in the hallway and Shayne pinched and pushed at the iPad screen until he had a full view.
Gorham smiled. “Told you.”
Dax Stasovich was barreling down the dimly lit hallway, an AK-47 in one hand, a bloody knife in the other.
CHAPTER 12
MAHEGAN AND CASSIE STOOD IN THE OPEN BOMB BAY OF A STEALTH B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber. The XC-17 had landed at Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan and they had quickly cross loaded to the waiting B-2.
The ground slid by unseen to the naked eye 35,000 feet beneath them. The black expanse appeared to be without relief, yet Mahegan knew the terrain into which they would be parachuting had 15,000 feet of differentiation from mountain peaks to river valleys.
The jump light was flickering red until it switched to green. The loadmaster leaned forward, his black face shield making him look like a storm trooper. He turned toward Mahegan as he pointed at the bay and said, “Go!”
Mahegan waddled forward as Cassie followed. He leapt into the black void and felt the wind rushing all around him. He spun onto his back, using his arms to stabilize his flight and watched as Cassie fell from the bomb bay and angled toward him. Both were wearing GPS trackers in case they were separated in the air or on the ground. Using oxygen tanks and masks, they could survive the thin air seven miles into the troposphere.
Once Mahegan had Cassie beside him, he extended his right arm and pointed at her. “Now,” he said through their wireless communication headphones.
Cassie pulled her rip cord and her military parachute opened with a snap. Once Mahegan could see she was stable, he pulled his rip cord and gained full canopy.
The night was eerily quiet at 30,000 feet above ground level. The whine of the B-2 jets vanished and left in their wake the calm silence interrupted only by the fluttering of ripstop nylon. Mahegan steered toward Cassie and they dipped their canopies to gather as much of the prevailing east wind as possible. They had dropped from inside Iran.
The B-2 had been necessary to get them close enough to the target using the stealth technology while also using the standoff necessary to avoid the microsatellite field they had detected. They needed to fly nearly thirty miles through the night sky, sail between two peaks of a mountain—like a football through goal posts—and then circle down into the valley where the Iranian compound was located. By their calculations the shamal was ending within the next thirty minutes. The weather phenomenon that originated in the mountainous regions of Turkey and Northeastern Iraq often reached into the high plains of Iran. If the winds did not diminish, Mahegan and Cassie would be in for a rough landing.
They communicated very little as they were dropping at roughly forty feet per second and flying at twenty-six miles per hour. From 35,000 feet they planned on about fifteen minutes in the air, which made their stand off for the drop at about seven miles from the target. It was close and right on the margins of the satellite coverage that they could discern. There had been no issues on the inbound flight and drop so far. Egress was a different matter.
Their purpose was to kill or capture the four leaders and / or their biometric keys who were meeting in the underground tunnel four up-armored Mercedes had entered, as reported by American satellite analysts. Four airplanes. Four up-armored Mercedes. Maybe not the heads of state, but something like that. Anyone captured would be an intelligence trove.
During the rapid exchange from XC-17 to XB-2 Bomber, Mahegan and his team had received an intelligence update from the general in charge of troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. military was overrun in South Korea, harkening back to the days of Task Force Smith, which preceded the Korean War. The North Korean Army was steamrolling toward Pusan, also a replay of the war nearly seventy years ago. The improved infrastructure—roads and airports, primarily—accelerated the North Korean advance from its predecessor that led to two years of intense combat on the peninsula.
Mahegan wondered how long it would take to restore order this time?
The Russian army had flowed like water into Poland and was churning through Berlin swallowing that beleaguered city. The Iranian forces were laying siege to Amman, Jordan while their special operations troops had infiltrated the Golan Heights and were preparing the attack lanes for Iranian main battle tanks.
Seventy-two hours, Mahegan thought. His guess was that this thing would be over in three days and his team was already about to put a close to the first day. Whatever the end game was, it was being decided at this meeting.
Savage was deploying Delta Force and SEAL teams to shore up Allied and U.S. positions in the three major attack regions. Given that and the time-sensitive nature of this mission, he had decided to send Mahegan and Cassie on the high risk mission of gathering intelligence and possibly capturing one of the attendees.
Task Force 160th helicopters and the pilots known as Night Stalkers were idling along the Iranian border at the firebase near Farah, Afghanistan, 375 miles away. Once Mahegan was on the ground, his first report would trigger the launch of the task force, which consisted of three MH-60 Blackhawks that carried a slimmed down Ranger Regiment platoon of one rifle squad, one heavy weapons squad, the platoon leader, platoon sergeant, radio operator, and two medics. Two Apache attack helicopters were escorting the three MH-60s. Each of the aircraft were up-fitted with four external store fuel tanks that provided a max range of 450 miles. The extra weight mitigated some of the armament they could carry at the altitudes at which they would be flying. Because the Apaches were the enhanced AH-64D Longbow model, the sensor package and target standoff capabilities were especially crucial. Instead of sixteen Hellfire missiles, each Apache was carrying just four, plus two air-to-air missiles. All good for any potential fight at the pickup zone.
Just after Mahegan and Cassie had released from the B-2 Bomber, an MC-130 was to take off from Farah a
irfield and fly about 175 miles, land on the Lut Desert floor, roll out wet wing refuel hoses and serve as a temporary gas station for the exfiltration force. Despite the external store fuel tanks, the helicopters would need to top off each way if they were to make it into the objective area and then back safely to Farah with the precious cargo of friendly forces and any captives.
The mission was priced to perfection in a known imperfect world. Mahegan knew there was a likelihood that the exfiltration may not succeed and he would ultimately have to improvise. He had asked Savage to send Owens in with them, but Savage said he needed a backup team, consisting of Owens and O’Malley, who were team leads for Mahegan when they were all active duty serving under General Savage’s leadership.
And so it was Mahegan and Cassie with the mission to capture one of the four leaders or keys that would then lead to actionable intelligence. The two person team concept made sense from a low signature perspective, coupled with the fact that a platoon of heavily armed U.S. Army Rangers were inbound an hour after their arrival.
“Hanging in there?” Mahegan asked Cassie.
As the wind whistled and nylon fluttered, Cassie answered, “I’m here, Jake. A little nervous, but here.” Cassie’s muffled voice crackled as the radio transmitted into Mahegan’s earpiece. The oxygen mask made Cassie sound as if she were speaking into a tin can.
“What’s there to worry about?” Mahegan replied. “We’ve got good canopy overhead and we’re descending nicely through twenty thousand feet. We’ll be able to remove these oxygen masks in a minute, but we should keep them on so that we’re 100 percent oxygenated when we land. Then we remove our gear and stash it in our kit bags. We’ll move together to the mouth of the tunnel along the ridge we studied.”
“I love it when you’re so romantic, Jake. Talking dirty and everything,” Cassie said.
Mahegan smirked, glad to hear a bit of pluck in her voice. He struggled to find that balance between personal and professional. He thought his voice might be calming to her and so it was worth a shot. She knew everything he was telling her, but from his place of leadership and out of love, Mahegan wanted her prepared for the mission. She was essential to the mission . . . and she was essential to him.
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