The Phoenix Agenda: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 6)

by JC Ryan

“It will be fantastic to get that link established and get Sam to talk to the President and his wife. It would be the biggest present we can give them until we can get them out of there!” Peter replied.

  They discussed the agenda for the next few days. First on Owen's list was to get in touch with Rube and Sombra to give them the nano flashdrive from Raj, which contained the request for assistance. Owen didn't look forward to the prospect of having to walk and taxi to six or more different locations all over the city to meet with two paranoid people who couldn’t or wouldn’t talk. Fortunately, Rube and Sombra were a bit less suspicious this time and met with Owen after two relocations. He handed them the flash drive and agreed to meet the next day at lunchtime again to decide how they would proceed - that is, if they were prepared to assist with the mission.

  The next day, when they sat down in the darkest corner of the restaurant for lunch, Owen took his pen of silence out to switch it on. Rube just smiled and opened his jacket to show Owen that he already had his switched on. Over lunch, Owen discovered that they were actually nice guys and much more loquacious than he’d been led to believe by their behavior in the past.

  Raj had full instructions for them about meeting with Peter and about the gadgets that he sent with Owen. They told Owen they were happy to help with whatever they could and to meet with Peter. They agreed to meet at a safe house in Brooklyn the next night, when he would also give them Raj’s presents.

  At seven o’clock the next evening, Owen and Peter were at the safe house where they met with the two hackers and two girls. At Rube’s insistence, they were introduced but no names were exchanged. Peter smiled at one of the girls and said, “I’ve seen you before. Didn’t you give me a card at my birthday party a while ago?”

  She just smiled and nodded her head in acknowledgment.

  First on the agenda was the spy tools, the gift from Raj. Owen unpacked the bundle and gave the contents to them; Raj had included the operating instructions for each of the devices on a nano flashdrive. But then, typical Raj, he always kept something as a surprise. In this case he did not tell them anything about the cellphones in advance. When Owen took the cell phones out, Rube and Sombra were on their feet immediately.

  “What the fuck! Have you lost your mind man? How the hell could you bring that in here? We’ll be tracked and arrested! Are you crazy?” Sombra shouted while he and Rube were heading for the door.

  Owen was befuddled; he didn’t expect reactions like that. He was at a loss for words. Luckily, Peter immediately grasped what just happened. He’d had almost the same reaction a few days ago when Owen handed him his cell phone. He came to the rescue.

  “Hang on guys, hang on. Just listen to me. I’ll explain.” Peter managed to stop them just short of the door.

  Peter explained in detail how the Rosslerites had discovered the mirrors and developed the communications system, and that it was totally secure. They were still standing close to the door, not convinced that what they’d heard could be true. They'd worked with Roy and Raj before, though. It could perhaps be true, but they were skeptical.

  Peter said, “Ok, I don’t know what else I can do to calm you guys down and convince you that I’m not lying. How about we call Raj now, and you can talk to him?”

  Rube and Sombra looked at each other. It was obvious they were worried; they wanted to believe what they'd heard, but scared out of their minds at the same time.

  Rube spoke first, “Okay, let’s do that, but let me be very clear – if I so much as get a sniff that there’s a problem, we’re gone. You won’t see or hear from us ever again. Is that understood?”

  Owen and Peter nodded their head in agreement.

  Peter picked the phone up and pressed a few buttons. He had it on speaker. A few seconds later Raj’s voice came over the speaker, “Sombra, I see you got my present. How do you like it?”

  By now, Sombra and Rube were standing next to Peter. “Raj, where did we meet the last time I saw you?”

  Raj realized his friends were in paranoid overdrive. “We met at the safe house in the Bronx. It was a Wednesday night, shortly after nine.”

  “What color shirt did I wear and what color shirt did Rube wear?” Sombra asked.

  “You wore a dark red shirt and Rube a black t-shirt,” Raj replied.

  “Who of us was sitting at the head of the table that night? Sombra fired his last question.

  “No one was sitting at the head. I was sitting opposite Rube and you were sitting to his right.” Raj replied again.

  Sombra and Rube both smiled from ear to ear. “Raj, you old fox! You could have warned us, man! We almost disappeared!” Rube exclaimed.

  “Sorry, it must have slipped my mind,” Raj said, with the smile in his voice clearly noticeable.

  A short conversation followed, during which Raj gave them the assurance that Peter was telling them the truth and that they could trust him and Owen. Rube and Sombra were on cloud nine – this was the best present they could ever hope for. They were like little boys who got their first bicycles. When the call ended the two of them were calm, relaxed, and euphoric.

  They settled down to continue their meeting with the discussion of Peter’s requirements. He started with the chip boxes and packing materials as well as the activator and explained why they would need that. One of the girls said she had a contact that worked at one of the hospitals in the Bronx where implants were performed. She thought her contact would help with the boxes. As for better images of the chips and the activators, Peter wanted them to deploy the spy flies and link them up with Raj, who would then collect the required information. They agreed to take care of that and let him know when it was done.

  Next, he asked if they could try to get the names and details of the people working at the warehouses and implant facilities. He wondered if they might be able to get the details of the electricity supply for the warehouse in Wappinger. They figured that would be fairly easy to do and would let him know when it was ready.

  Finally, Peter wanted to know if they had Tectus members in Tennessee. Rube replied that they had three members in Nashville. Peter requested that they deploy six spy flies into the former president’s house, and another two in the oak tree. Then set up two relays within less than a mile from the house in such a place that it would not be noticeable, yet had enough exposure to the sun during the day to charge the devices. Once they had completed that task, they just had to activate the devices and Raj would take care of it from then on.

  Rube and Sombra were happy to help with that and would let Peter know when they had contact with their members in Nashville. They didn't expect any issues with the request. One of them would take the equipment to Nashville personally.

  Owen asked them if they would again deliver messages to the Rosslerite family members as they did before. They were more than happy to do that.

  The last request was from Owen, passed on by Raj. That was for Rube to arrange for the delivery of another nano flashdrive to the same person as before, at Luigi’s Coffee Shop this coming Friday. Neither Peter nor Owen knew who the person was and didn't ask. If they were supposed to know, Raj or Sam would have told them

  They were happy that they had a fruitful meeting and were excited about the breakthroughs coming from the Rosslerites on the technology front. With the mirror phones, they had direct contact with each other now and could in the future do most of their business over the phones. That meant they wouldn’t have the hassle of having to run the risk of detection or to take elaborate evasive measures to meet with each other in person.

  The flight of owls

  Peter had everything in place now to start collecting the rest of the information required by the team at the Rabbit Hole, other than the information about the warehouse. To collect that, he had to make another trip to Wappington to plant the new generation spyflies that would collect the information about the robots and the Wi-Fi frequencies. The day after Owen and Alison left, he made the trip, deployed the spyflies and relays, and ac
tivated them. He called Raj to confirm that the link was working and everything was setup correctly.

  Raj congratulated him on a job well-done.

  Within four days after the meeting, Rube called to confirm that they had deployed the spyflies at the hospitals and linked them up with Raj. They reported they'd done some surveillance of the hospital in the Bronx. They were ready to make the move to get their hands on the chip boxes, which they thought would take about a week. They also had contact with one of the Nashville members of their group who was eager to help. Sombra would take the spyflies to Nashville over the weekend and help with the deployment.

  Just a week later, Peter received a call from Rube, who asked that he get himself a briefcase, a picture of which was sent to him. After getting it, he had to go to a certain restaurant. Rube told him that when he left the restaurant, a taxi would be waiting for him. Inside he would meet a woman with blonde hair, dark glasses and a cameo necklace. He should call her Emily and act as if he knew her. She would have a briefcase the same as his. They were to swap the briefcases and both get off a few blocks further on.

  That afternoon, Peter followed Rube’s instructions, met with Emily, and swapped the briefcases. He returned to his apartment and found five boxes neatly folded with wrapping materials and, to his big surprise, a chip activator. Seeing the activator had him on high alert straightaway. How did they manage to get hold of that?

  Peter called Rube to get an explanation. Rube just laughed and told him not to worry about it. While they were doing surveillance at the Bronx hospital, they scanned the activators to find out what technology they were using and found it was Bluetooth, one of the easiest signals to hijack. Therefore, they hijacked the signal and jammed the device. To their surprise, the nurse threw it in the rubbish bin with the boxes and just picked up a new one. They just couldn't let that opportunity pass. Peter was relieved and happy with that explanation.

  Rube also told him that the implant center at that hospital was totally drowned in work. They didn’t have enough staff, because the unemployed and welfare people were lining up in queues stretching up to two miles. Rube asked if he would like to get a few chips as well, because he thought it would be very easy to do. The staff at that hospital was very careless. Peter stopped him right away and explained how strictly those chips were monitored and controlled. Stealing chips like Rube suggested would definitely be detected very soon and would raise the alarm, without any doubt.

  Peter reported the contents of the package to the Rabbit Hole, to Roy and Raj's enjoyment. Having their hands on the boxes was excellent, and getting an activator with so little effort was a huge bonus. They would contact Rube to find out if he could get a few more of the activators. They wanted to be sure that they'd have enough to be able to take them apart and study them for purposes of reverse engineering.

  There was big excitement the day Sombra called Raj from Tennessee to hand him control of the spyflies deployed for the Harpers. Sam was standing next to Raj the next morning at the time when the couple took their usual morning walk and saw them arriving at the bench under their beloved oak tree.

  Raj launched one of the flies out of the tree and maneuvered it to land on Nigel’s left hand and then shortly after that on his right hand. They could see him looking at it and heard him whispering to Esther, “I am surprised, but it seems to me Peter is back here. I didn’t expect him back so soon.”

  Esther replied, “Let’s hope its good news that brought him back so soon.”

  “Yes let’s hope so. We will find out this afternoon.” Nigel replied. Neither of them would have guessed how good the news would be.

  That afternoon they almost yelled out loud when they recognized Sam’s voice. “Mr. President and Mrs. Harper, its Sam Lewis. How are you doing?”

  They had a hard time keeping their excitement undetected, “Sam Lewis! I cannot believe it! How have you managed to pull this off?” Nigel stage-whispered. Esther placed her hand on his knee to quiet him.

  “Sam, thank God! We thought we’d never talk to you again.” Esther said warmly.

  “Mr. President, I will tell you later, it’s a long story. I have Daniel and Sarah here with me. They can hear you.”

  The next forty minutes and in the days that followed, they had regular contact and a lot to share with each other. Those conversations became the Harper’s lifeline, and strangely enough, it in turn became a significant motivating factor for the people at the Rabbit Hole. Knowing their favorite president and his wife were alive and well and couldn’t wait to come and help them take back their country, was a big boost to their morale.

  As the links from the spyflies were established back to the Rabbit Hole, Sam and the operations team got busy with recording and analyzing the information as it streamed in. Soon they had enough information about the warehouse, the chips and activators to start fine-tuning their plans. They also carefully studied and collected information about the Harpers’ residence on the inside and outside, including the routine of the special agents guarding them.

  ***

  They decided that their first option would be to lift the chips from the warehouse with drones, as suggested by Roy and Raj. Roy studied the property very carefully and started building a drone that would be big enough to lift a box of chips and fly out of the warehouse. One of his challenges was to design and build that large a drone in such a way that it would create as little noise as possible during flight.

  In their quest to develop a noise free drone, they had a lot of existing research and actual designs by aeronautical engineers who had been successful at constructing drones that were near silent. It was fascinating to find out that most of that research started off with the study of the flight of owls. Aero acoustics specialists found that owls fly silently due to the shape of their wings and the comb-like structure of their feathers. The airflow and their angle of approach, along with the feathers on their legs, made them silent and therefore deadly hunters. Over the years scientists had modeled owls in flight on computers and refined their developments in wind tunnels.

  With this information and some of the designs, which they ordered through the Tectus network, along with material that Owen got for them, Roy and his team went to work in the lab. They constructed a drone with an undercarriage, which copied some of the strange features of owls’ legs. The wings were built in such a way that the noise from air turbulence over them was almost entirely eliminated. The final result was a drone so quiet it was impossible to hear it from more than eight yards away in a quiet room. Outside the caves, the noise of nature blocked out all sound from the drone and it was completely noiseless.

  While Roy and his team were busy with the owl-drone project, Rube and Sombra reported to Raj that they'd got hold of three more chip activators and would deliver them to Peter. With the delivery of the chip boxes and activators, nothing more was required from the implant centers, and the co-conspirators could focus all their attention on the warehouse. By now Sam and his team knew the warehouse and the routine inside better than the managers of the compound did.

  They knew exactly who was working there, which shifts they were working on, the lunch and coffee breaks, the precise tasks each employee were assigned to, and how well they were doing it. They knew everything about the warehouse’s power supply and backup generator as well as the Wi-Fi frequency of the robots inside and, they'd captured the passwords to the computers and the router. With the help of some of the more artistic people in their midst, they fashioned a scale model of the compound and surrounding areas to use during their final planning and preparations.

  It was time to get Peter back to the Rabbit Hole so they could finalize their planning and equip him with the owl-drones and anything else he might need during the execution of the plan. Sam called him and made the necessary arrangements. Peter had to make his way to the Rabbit Hole in two weeks. He was looking forward to getting out of New York and back to the place he'd fallen in love with a few weeks ago.

  When he
started making his plans for the trip to Billings, he realized he had a bit of a problem. How was he going to get those activators smuggled through the airport scanners? He thought about it for a while and decided to give Raj a call to find out if he might have any ideas. He explained what his problem was, Raj just laughed and told him to get hold of Rube and Sombra – they would solve that little problem in no time at all.

  The activators went back to Raj’s friends the same way Peter received them, via the swapping of briefcases in the back of a taxi. Four days later Peter did another swapping of briefcases and found he just got a nice new laptop. Rube explained to him over the phone that they had disassembled the activators and soldered the pieces onto the motherboard of the laptop. Airport security would not be able to detect which was part of the laptop circuitry and which was part of the activators’ circuitry. Raj already had the reassembly instructions.

  Another interview

  When Sam finished his call with Peter, he asked Raj to get in touch with Rube to request that another message be delivered to the woman at the coffee shop. That Friday afternoon Owen got the call from Kelly Edwards he'd been expecting for a while. He'd never met her, but knew all about her because she was a celebrity

  “Mr. Bell, it's Kelly Edwards of WONN TV. Is it possible for you to talk now?” Kelly asked.

  “Miss Edwards, what a surprise. Yes, it is convenient, and please call me Owen. To what do I owe the honor?” he replied.

  “Thank you, Owen, the honor is all mine. And please call me Kelly. I was hoping I could persuade you to agree to an interview for my talk show. I did a bit of study on your rise to fame, and it will be a big honor for us if you would agree,” Kelly added.

  “Well Kelly, you don’t have to persuade me at all. I'm hardly going to refuse the opportunity to be on the same TV screen as the famous Kelly Edwards!” Owen laughed.

  “I have to be honest, I was actually thinking the same as I was looking forward to being seen on the same screen as the famous writer, Owen Bell.” Kelly laughed as she returned the compliment.