by David Capps
Honi’s phone rang. “Badger.” She listened. “Thank you, sir.” She disconnected. “The NRO has identified a large tent in an industrial complex southwest of Fort Worth that wasn’t there yesterday. Here are the GPS coordinates.”
“Thank you,” Stafford said. He grabbed the radio mic and gave the location to the closest search team.
Jake could see the sweat forming on Stafford’s forehead and the increased breathing rate as he watched the seconds on the clock sweep by. Eight minutes and twenty-three seconds later the radio crackled to life.
“UH-60 Black Hawk located. Area secured.”
“Any sign of the device?”
“No sir, no device present. Weapons tech checking for signature now, sir.”
“Come on,” Stafford said quietly. “What are the odds?”
“Confirmation, sir. The device was on board. Small amount of residual radiation. Expanding search area now, sir.”
“So what now?” Honi asked. “How many trucks left Fort Worth in the last six hours?”
“Can’t be more than a thousand, or two,” Stafford said. “Dallas/Fort Worth is a major trucking hub.”
“No,” Jake said. “That’s exactly what Teague wants us to think. He wanted us to believe the bomb was in a truck headed northwest out of the bunker area. He flew the bomb out to the east instead. Now he lands the Black Hawk in an industrial area. No way for a plane to take off. Got to be a truck this time, right?”
“Yeah,” Stafford replied.
Honi smiled. “I get it. Time is critical, so is distance.”
“Exactly. Teague would fly the bomb out. It takes less time and he covers more distance. Small airport, close to the industrial complex, no night crew. What fits that profile?”
Honi typed on the keyboard. “This one,” she said as the sheet slid out of the printer. She handed it to him.
Jake grabbed his phone and called Briggs. “New priority. I want everyone located and interviewed who has a plane or any kind of a connection to this airport.” He gave his boss the details. Jake knew the drill. In a matter of minutes, twenty FBI teams would swarm the small airport, identify everyone associated with the location, prioritize the people, and fan out from there. He had done it so many times himself, he could feel it happening.
“I checked for any connection between Teague and Cooper,” Stafford said. “There’s no direct connection.”
“Then Cooper’s exposing his part in the conspiracy wasn’t because of friendship. He was ordered to do it.”
Jake’s phone chirped. “Hunter.”
He listened and hung up.
“What?” Honi asked.
“Nothing at any of the airports. It had to leave by truck.”
“So where does that leave us?” Honi asked.
“Tell everybody in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to continue the search,” Stafford said. “But I think the bomb is gone, along with Teague and Secretary Cooper.”
CHAPTER 11
Peter Steinmetz hugged his wife, Ileana. “You’ll be safe in the family shelter in Chicago. Our foundation jet will fly you back there.”
“But will you be safe?” she asked.
“Perfectly. I’ll be in the deep underground shelter at work.”
“The children?”
“I’ve arranged everything. They’ll both be safe. They know exactly what to do and when.”
“What about after?”
“I think it’s best if you stay in Chicago. I’ll be there, along with Robert and Gwen before the final event, so don’t worry.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’m going to be needed at work for long hours after the demonstration, so I’m not going to be home much, anyway. Stay with the family and I’ll be there in seventeen days.”
* * *
Meanwhile, in Basement level 6, area 4 of the NSA building Jake and Honi looked at the large screen showing the phone plot for the new project.
“How far back?” Honi asked.
“Just over six months,” Brett said. “Eighty-seven million phone connections and counting.”
“Okay,” Jake said. “I assume this program will continue to run and collect phone connections in the background while we sort the data.”
“Of course.”
“So let’s see who is the most active. Limit the display to connections that repeat six times or more.”
Brett typed on the keyboard. “Whoa, we’re just under twelve thousand connections.”
“Six times a week,” Honi said. “The people who control this thing are probably talking more often than that.”
“Of course they are,” Jake said as he moved closer to the large screen. “Something’s wrong. You said purple connections were for academic institutions?”
“Military to academic, yes,” Brett replied.
“Can you go back to the whole plot?”
Brett clicked away on the keyboard.
“Do you have a color for academic to corporate connections, specifically academic institutions that also are doing work with the military?”
“No. What color would you like?”
“Something related to purple.”
“How about lavender?”
“Sure, but make it for only military/academic/corporate connections.”
Brett typed away. “Kind of a DARPA thing?”
“Yes. Let’s see if there are any Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency type of connections in this phone plot.”
“Done. DARPA type connections are now lavender.”
“Now limit to six or more connections again.” Jake stepped closer to the screen. “They’re almost gone, too. Go back and show us two connections or more.”
“Two or more connections over a week.”
“I expected the majority of those connections to get dropped,” Jake said.
“What are you seeing?” Honi asked.
“We started this phone plot based on criminal activity. Money laundering, gun running, terrorists and drug cartels. I can understand some military connection to gun running, but why are we getting persistent military/academic/corporate connections? This doesn’t make any sense.”
Honi walked away for a moment and returned with Tracy. “We need to correlate the money flow with the phone connection plot.”
“Yes, we do. That’s where we started. With phone calls and money transfers.”
“Okay, guys,” Brett said. “This is going to take some time for me to write the code to combine everything.” He checked his watch. “It’s dinner time. Why don’t you two go and get something to eat from the cafeteria, while Tracy and I put these two databases together.”
* * *
Jake and Honi chose their food and selected a table near the wall. Jake pulled his phone and called Stafford.
“I’m not buying the whole truck thing with Teague. He would move the bomb by airplane. Check with the different Area Control Centers. See if something unusual or out of the ordinary happened.”
He took a sip of coffee. “Yeah. Get back to us. Thanks.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“Teague put the bomb on a truck, right?”
“Right.”
“But a truck is too slow. Army generals like Teague know time is an important commodity—you waste it at your own peril. Somewhere, the bomb went back on an airplane. We just need to figure out where it went from there.”
“Where do you think that will be?”
“I don’t know. I just keep feeling like something huge is standing right in front of us and we can’t see it,” Jake said.
“Like an invisible elephant?” Honi replied. “And all we can see is a little straw?”
“Yeah.”
“I feel it, too. I just can’t figure out what it is.”
“So far, we have the criminal Phoenix Organization, which has infiltrated the military with General Teague and the two missing nuclear weapons. Senator Thornton is involved on the political side. We know s
everal international central banks are involved in massive money transfers using gold bearer bonds that have been around for the last seventy-five years without being honored, but now, finally, they are. It feels like something huge is taking place, but we’re only seeing bits and pieces of it. The problem is, I don’t know where to look for additional pieces.”
“So we’re back to rule number one—follow the money,” Honi said.
They finished their dinner and returned to B6, area 4.
“Good timing,” Brett said. “Combined display coming up now. I changed the military/corporate color to pink and made all of the money connections in shades of green.”
“Green for money,” Jake said.
“Exactly. Dark green for central banks, like the Federal Reserve, medium green for major international banks, and light green for smaller banks and private accounts. All accounts with known criminal or terrorist connections are now circled in bright green.”
Jake studied the display. “The money flow follows the phone connections. Not exactly, though, because like here, and here, there are extra phone connections. But look, the phone connections and the money come back together.”
“This is huge,” Honi said. “It runs all over the world.”
“Yeah. Maybe we’re getting our first look at part of the elephant.”
“What elephant?” Brett asked.
“A figure of speech,” Jake replied.
“I assumed that. If you can give me more of an idea of exactly what you’re looking for, I can find it faster.”
“I wish I could. We’re looking for the Phoenix Organization. It spans the major governments, militaries, financial institutions and universities around the planet.”
“What do all the governments, militaries, financial institutions and universities have in common?” Brett asked.
“Well, they all have substantial amounts of money flowing to them. Beyond that, I have no idea.”
“Okay, what don’t they have in common? When you put a circle around a group of objects, whatever is inside the circle is what they have in common. Whatever is outside the circle is what they don’t have in common. Either method will define the circle.”
“It will, won’t it,” Jake replied. “Honi, do you have a list of all the companies and universities that are working with DARPA?”
“No, but I know where I can get it.” She pulled her phone and called Major Stafford. After a thirty second conversation, she disconnected. “List will be here in a few minutes.”
“What about defense contractors?” Jake asked.
“That list I have.”
“I can compare the defense contractor list to our new database and see what pops,” Brett said.
“Do that,” Honi said.
“Huh. Only two percent overlap.”
Honi’s phone buzzed. “Text from Stafford. I’m forwarding it to you, Brett.”
“Okay, companies and universities working with DARPA. Amount of overlap is… three percent.”
“So the official military industrial complex is outside the circle,” Jake said. “Universities have different departments. Can we determine which departments are being funded from the money flow?”
Tracy typed. “University funding from our criminal Phoenix Organization is going to… that’s odd.”
“What?”
“I was expecting chemistry, or medical, you know, with a drug connection.”
“So where is it going?”
“Thirty-two percent is going to physics, primarily theoretical quantum physics, twenty-one percent to electrical engineering, three percent to chemical engineering, and get this…fifty percent to materials engineering.”
“What does that come to? Sixty eight percent is going to engineering? What is a world-wide criminal organization doing putting all that money into engineering? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It may,” Honi said. “Look at the screen. The money going into engineering is coming through these corporations, not the government or the military.”
“And what are these corporations? I don’t recognize any of them,” Jake said.
“I’m running them through the database,” Tracy said. “They’re all shell corporations. Five, six, here are some that are seven layers deep. Corporations that own corporations that only own other corporations.”
“Who’s behind it?” Jake asked.
“Six international mega-corporations and eight of the world’s largest banks.”
“Does that list include the Vatican bank?”
“It does.”
“Okay, how much money has gone into these universities?”
“Over what period of time?”
“Can you go back ten years?”
“Sure,” Tracy said. “Over the last ten years…two point eight trillion dollars.”
“Two point eight trillion?” Jake almost shouted. “On engineering?”
“Yes.”
“This money comes through essentially criminal enterprises.” He turned to Honi. “Can you get Ken Bartholomew in here on this? We need what he knows.”
Honi called Pettigrew and made the request. “We’ll know in half an hour.”
“I’m just curious,” Jake said. “Anybody know how much it cost us to put a man on the moon?”
“Twenty-five point four billion dollars,” Tracy said. “But those are 1973 dollars. Today you’d be looking at 200 billion.”
“I just wanted a sense of scale. If we could do the engineering, the building and the testing to put a man on the moon for, in today’s dollars, 200 billion, what are they building for 14 times that amount of money just for the engineering?”
“They’re building something?” Honi said.
“Yes. The man-on-the-moon project was the biggest and most advanced project on the planet at that time. Whatever they’re building is not only huge by comparison, it’s also incredibly advanced.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s what you get for that kind of money in engineering. The next question is who is doing the building and testing, and where? Plus, what are they doing with two nuclear weapons?”
Honi’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen. “We have to go. Stafford just found the plane used to move the hydrogen bomb.”
“Where?”
“Los Angeles.”
CHAPTER 12
The FBI jet landed at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base in Long Beach, California in the late afternoon. A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was waiting for them. The twenty-minute helicopter flight took them just to the north of due east over Anaheim and through the mountain pass to the Corona Municipal Airport. Army soldiers swarmed the small airfield and Jake spotted one of the NEST equipped helicopters working the surrounding neighborhoods.
“This is the plane. The airport reported it abandoned and unregistered this morning,” Stafford said as Jake and Honi walked over to him. “Residual radiation from the B83 is present in the cargo area.”
“How long has it been here?” Jake asked.
“Arrived sometime between midnight and dawn. Maintenance supervisor left at twelve and it wasn’t here then. There’s no control tower, so nobody actually saw the plane land. Landing lights are turned on by accessing a radio frequency from the plane.”
“You think Los Angeles is the target?”
“Three point eight million people inside the blast radius. Second largest city in the country. It would be a logical choice.”
“Doesn’t Los Angeles have a nuclear sensor system in place?” Honi asked.
“It does,” Stafford replied. “All main highways in and out of LA have radiation sensors. The problem is that this airport is inside the sensor ring.”
“So we would know if it left. But not if it stayed.”
“That’s the working theory. Until we can prove it’s not here, we have to assume it is.”
“Are there sensors downtown?”
“Yes. But only on the main streets where heavy
truck traffic would run. The guts to the B83 could be moved in the bed of a heavy pickup truck. If you knew where the sensors were, you could simply drive around them.”
“Do you think General Teague would know where the sensors were placed?” Jake asked.
“Every damned one.”
“How much time do you think we have to find the bomb?”
“No clue. It’s a matter of people and technology. By tonight, we will have three thousand people with radiation sensors sweeping through the city, starting at the center and working their way out. The sensor has to be within one hundred feet of the device in order to pick up the radiation. Given enough time, if it’s here, we will find it. Teague must know that. If he’s going to use the weapon, it’s going to be sooner rather than later.”
“So we could all be vaporized at any time?” Honi asked.
“Not here. The mountain will protect us from the blast, but on the other side? Nothing will remain.”
“Who does the search and who stays here?”
“My orders and your orders are to run the operation from here. Only volunteers will man the sensors and do the search in the blast radius.”
“And how many volunteers do we have?”
Stafford looked at her. “Between the military and all the federal, state and local agencies and law enforcement involved, we have thirty thousand volunteers nationwide. We’ve got enough people. I just don’t know if we have enough time.”
“What about the media. They have to be all over this.”
“They are, but at least they’re cooperating with us. This is being portrayed as another massive inter-agency exercise, an extension of what we did in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”
Stafford took his hat off and wiped the sweat off his bald head with the palm of his right hand. The expression on his face was barely restrained fury. “Nobody does this in our own back yard and gets away with it. Nobody!”
An army officer approached. “Sensor teams have cleared the city center offices. All clean, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Jake looked over at the plane. “Do we know where it came from?”
