“Can you speed this up?” asked Kline.
“Facilities is worried that the server farm will overheat,” said Quinn.
“Then we shut them down until we can either reroute the rest of the building’s capacity to the server farm or rent temporary portable air-conditioning units to tie into the system. You think this is her endgame?” said Dalton.
“It doesn’t sound like much of an endgame,” said Donovan Mayhew. “I say we pursue the options Ezra just highlighted.”
“And shut down the servers? For how long?” asked Quinn. “We’re talking a global disruption to our operations, which might be exactly what Senator Steele wants. She’s been one step ahead of us the entire time.”
“More like two steps . . . ahead of you,” said Kline. “What do we have in progress internationally that could be more damaging than SKYSTORM?”
Vernon Franklin emerged from his shell long enough to lob a bomb at Quinn.
“Nothing we’ve undertaken since the founding of the Institute has carried this much risk,” he said. “SKYSTORM makes the rest of our ongoing operations look like back-of-the-trunk gun deals.”
“And the end user can’t be identified,” said Quinn. “The Texas site has been sterilized. Even if the cargo containers are somehow tracked back to APEX, there’s no way to link the planes to the Russians.”
“Unless the Russians decide to dribble the information into the public sphere themselves,” said Franklin.
“Why would they do that?” asked Quinn.
“To get ahead of the story while we’re still dusting ourselves off from a total ass-whooping,” said Franklin. “Spin the narrative against us to deliver a kill shot. Let’s be honest. The Institute hasn’t exactly been aligned with their interests in the past. Quite the opposite, actually. This was a one-time opportunity that fell apart rather spectacularly. We’ve basically teed ourselves up for them to take a swing.”
“The Russians can’t afford to burn bridges with us,” said Quinn. “Eventually, they’ll need us again. It’s not like their little proxy war strategy in Europe is going away anytime soon. We just need to come up with another proposal. They’ll be nibbling right out of—”
Abbott cut him off. “We can discuss this later, when our servers aren’t melting. Do we shut them down or not?”
“I’m of the opinion that shutting us down for a day or two isn’t Senator Steele’s endgame,” said Franklin. “She could have blown up the satellite array if that was her goal. I say we shut them down. There’s no way we’re playing into her hands by doing that. We’d be denying her the only thing left that she could use to hurt us.”
“What if there is no endgame, so to speak? Maybe her goal was to send us the same warning we tried to deliver in Los Angeles,” said Sloane Pruitt. “The drone attacks have stopped, and she never targeted one of us personally. I’m inclined to believe that the people she hired to massacre Guthrie’s operatives, cut our rapid response team in half, and launch a coordinated, explosive drone attack against a fortified building would have been entirely capable of killing at least half of us before we went into lockdown. We could be looking at an opportunity to negotiate a truce, like Donovan suggested.”
“Sloane. You’re more than welcome to test that theory by taking a stroll outside,” said Quinn. “We’ll watch from here.”
“Enough,” said Abbott. “Why would Steele have targeted the air-conditioning when she could hit the satellite dishes? We’re missing something directly related to the servers, which makes me extremely nervous.”
“The server farm is air gapped. The data isn’t going anywhere,” said Quinn. “But if it makes everyone feel better, we can shut the servers down.”
“Even if we shut them down,” said Mayhew, “we’re still left with the very distinct possibility that Steele isn’t finished.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Donovan. The data can’t be accessed without someone physically interacting with the system. That’s what air gapped means.”
“What if this is a diversion?” said Pruitt. “And someone’s down there right now stealing the SKYSTORM data. Among other things.”
“Have you ever been down in the server room?” said Quinn, not waiting for an answer. “It’s a bunch of servers. There’s no way to search for data. There’s no interface.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” said Mayhew. “With the right equipment and technical knowledge, you can access the database direct from the server room.”
“Yes. Technically, you could do that, but you’d need the end-user encryption from one of the operations hub computers. The only vulnerable interface point on the server level streams encrypted data, unless you somehow knew exactly which server contained the information you were after. And we spoof that by constantly data-hopping servers, like frequency-hopping radio encryption, but a thousand times more secure. Shall I continue?”
“You made your point,” said Mayhew.
Pruitt started to speak, but Quinn stopped her.
“And we restricted access to SKYSTORM to the directors after the Houston terminal attack,” said Quinn. “Unless someone is sitting in one of our hub offices with a pad and paper, or a camera, the project’s information is safe. Did I answer your question?”
“Yes,” said Pruitt. “And you can kill that smug tone. You’re in no position to lecture anyone.”
Despite having started the day in a hole over his head, he couldn’t stop digging. Something had glitched the normally unflappable Samuel Quinn, and Dalton was pretty sure she knew exactly what it had been—fear. And not the intangible kind, like fear of failure or embarrassment. The fear of immediate physical harm had transformed him into a condescending, thin-skinned bully. Quinn was nothing more than a coward at heart, and judging by the looks on a number of the directors’ faces, they had come to the same conclusion.
“Shit,” said Kline, in what seemed to be a random, unrelated outburst, until he repeated the word.
“Allan?” said Abbott.
Kline shook his head before starting. “What if she wants us to shut down the servers for a few days to buy time for her FBI and State Department friends to open up and dig through all of our cargo containers?”
“The containers don’t have APEX stenciled on the side,” said Quinn. “Neither do the aircraft parts.”
“Given everything that’s happened over the past twenty-four hours, are you really willing to bet against her?” said Kline. “The feds have a lot of bodies to work with—in Los Angeles, Houston, and Annapolis. You don’t think a few of those backgrounds are going to intersect with APEX? How about the three men captured at Steele’s house this morning in a blatant assassination attempt? Or the wounded men taken into custody at the Houston terminal? Not to mention the dozen or so that surrendered to the Texas Rangers at the SKYSTORM facility. All it takes is for someone who knows more than they should to talk.”
“We’ve never had a problem with that in the past,” said Quinn. “We’re insulated from Cerberus Corp. Just like Athena.”
“No amount of insulation is perfect,” said Kline. “Not with someone like Senator Steele out for blood. Of every scenario we’ve discussed tonight, this one makes the most sense to me. She took the HVAC systems out for a reason.”
“The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of keeping that data around until we know Steele’s endgame,” said Abbott. “And I’m not just talking about SKYSTORM. I’m talking about everything. The operations archives. Intelligence archives. Decades of irreplaceable information.”
“Are you suggesting we trigger SHELL GAME?” asked Quinn, not sounding entirely opposed to the idea.
“I am,” said Abbott.
“I second that motion,” said Kline.
“If we’re going to shut down the servers anyway for a day or two,” said Mayhew, “we may as well take the extra precaution until we know what we’re up against. And global operations will still be able to access the time-sensitive information they need. I can’t
see any downside.”
Dalton couldn’t argue with the logic. SHELL GAME protocols had been designed exactly for this purpose. When initiated, a copy of the APEX Institute’s basement server-farm database would be uploaded via satellite to their secure data complex in northern Nevada. Once the upload had been confirmed by the team stationed at the remote site, the IT security team here would scrub the basement server farm, deleting the data—and a similarly structured, sanitized copy would be sent back.
A version that matched their publicly advertised mission as a think tank, not their true role as a quasi–intelligence agency and paramilitary power broker. The treasure trove of information they had collected, legally and illegally, over the years—and continued to collect on a daily, if not hourly, basis—would remain safe at their entirely secure data center in the middle of nowhere. In the wrong hands, particularly the FBI’s, the vast extent and scandalous substance of the files would destroy APEX overnight. Nobody would trust or do business with them again.
“I concur with executing SHELL GAME,” said Dalton. “Better safe than sorry.”
“And the rest of us?” asked Quinn.
Vernon Franklin and Sloane Pruitt agreed, leaving Quinn to cast the final vote. Dalton really wanted him to dissent, to have it on record if Steele still had a trick up her sleeve. It wouldn’t alter the decision to safeguard the data, but it would definitely drive one more nail into his coffin. True to his newly unveiled nature, Quinn took the easy way out.
“For the record, I think we’re overreacting,” he said. “But I accept the suggestion to move forward with SHELL GAME.”
“How decisive of you,” said Pruitt.
Ezra Dalton sat down and leaned back in the chair, savoring her small victory over Quinn, which in the grand scheme of everything that had transpired over the past week was all that would truly matter when the dust settled. From what she could tell by watching the other directors’ reactions, they didn’t appear to appreciate Quinn’s new persona. Dalton may have avoided a career catastrophe by simply standing aside while Quinn self-destructed. Only time would tell, but she felt good about her continuing prospects at APEX.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Decker and Pierce lounged against a shed-size stairwell enclosure, hiding in a slim band of shade from the relentlessly hot midday sun. A laptop propped up on the equipment bag lay between them. Beyond Decker’s folded knees was a flat, football field–size roof, a quarter of it packed with arm-span-diameter satellite dishes. They’d landed on the roof close to an hour and a half ago, stowing their parachutes and immediately going to work on the daisy chain of explosive microcharges that would disable the entire rooftop satellite array.
With the charges ready, they unpacked and assembled the satellite snooping kit, setting up a portable satellite dish in the middle of the array. Joshua assured them the placement didn’t need to be precise, as long as the dish had an unobstructed view of the sky when set to the same azimuth and elevation as the array. Once they were satisfied that the dish would intercept an incoming signal, they ran a coaxial cable to the shade and connected the cable to Joshua’s laptop through a USB adapter.
As rehearsed a half dozen times on board the aircraft, Pierce successfully launched the software programs that would detect and roughly decipher the download signal. A basic diagnostic test created by Joshua verified that the laptop and satellite dish could talk to each other. Foolproof, he had called it—for good reason.
They’d been sitting here ever since, sipping water and watching the laptop screen for signs of activity. Decker inched his boot to the right, back into the shade. In about thirty minutes, the sun would creep all the way around the northwest corner of the enclosure and cook them alive. He checked his watch. Thirty-five minutes had passed since the annex attack.
“You’re gonna drive yourself crazy doing that,” said Pierce.
“I can’t help it,” said Decker. “The longer this drags out, the less likely it’ll happen.”
“Says who?” said Pierce. “This entire mission is one big scientific wild-ass guess. I don’t need to win both showcases to walk off this show feeling like a winner.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Decker.
“The Price Is Right? Final showcase?”
Decker shrugged.
“You really didn’t watch TV as a kid, did you?” said Pierce.
“I really didn’t,” said Decker. “I barely watch it now.”
“I always thought that was something you kind of made up,” said Pierce. “Maybe like partially true and you decided to turn that into your thing.”
“My thing?” said Decker.
“I don’t know,” said Pierce. “Everyone has a thing. It makes them more interesting.”
“What’s your thing?” asked Decker.
“I don’t think I have a thing,” said Pierce.
“I agree,” said Decker. “Which explains a lot.”
Pierce chuckled.
Several green lines spiked in the sniffing program’s diagnostic window, rapidly moving across the digital chart and disappearing. Decker sat up and edged closer to the screen to get a better look.
“Data spike,” said Pierce.
“Nothing big, though,” said Decker, relaxing a little.
A second sequence of spikes started across the screen, the chart quickly turning green. When the data transfer rate didn’t drop after a minute, he started to laugh.
“What?” asked Pierce.
“I can’t believe this worked,” he said, standing up and dusting off the thin layer of sand that had already accumulated during their short stay.
“We’ll never really know if Steele’s idea worked,” said Pierce. “Even after we destroy this place. It’s all based on a hunch.”
“Their hunch found this place,” said Decker. “And you have to admit that the timing of the data dump is spot-on.”
“My money is still on this being a data backup in response to the coordinated attacks,” said Pierce.
“Like you said, one showcase is enough,” said Decker.
“I thought you’d never watched The Price Is Right?”
“Your analogy wasn’t that complicated,” said Decker.
By the time the download started to show signs of slowing, the sun had been beating down on them for nearly forty minutes—the off-white, semireflective roof coating broiling them from below. They sat side by side now, their backs turned to the sun to keep the laptop from overheating. The green spikes on the screen dipped several times before disappearing entirely.
“I think that’s it,” said Pierce. “Let’s pop the array and get this show on the road.”
He closed the laptop and stuffed it into his rucksack, heaving the bag onto his back. Decker helped him to his feet, and they stretched their legs for a few seconds. Pierce connected the explosive chain’s firing wire to the electrical firing device and disengaged its safety bail.
“Ready?” asked Pierce.
“Do it,” said Decker, before covering his ears.
Pierce squeezed the firing-device handle, simultaneously detonating the thumb-size “popper” charges they’d attached to each satellite dish’s feed horn. Individually, the explosions were no louder than a gunshot, but twenty at once sounded like a small cannon. Decker grabbed the sniper rifle leaning against the wall and slung it over his shoulder.
They moved around the corner to the western side of the enclosure and positioned themselves just past the inset, windowless metal door. Since the door opened inward, they would be visible the moment anyone stepped outside. If the responding technician’s attention wasn’t fully focused on the satellite array in the other direction immediately upon emerging, Decker and Pierce would have to move fast.
Roughly five minutes after detonating the charges, the door opened without warning, and a man dressed in pressed khaki pants and a tucked Oxford shirt stepped onto the roof—his focus entirely on checking the array. As he walked toward the obviously damaged sate
llite dishes, Decker moved swiftly into place behind him and pressed his pistol against the man’s head.
“Arms out sideways. Like a T,” said Decker.
The man instantly complied.
“There’s two of us, so don’t get any crazy ideas,” he said, before patting the man down. He took the radio off the man’s belt and attached it to his own. “Anything I missed?”
The man shook his head.
“Hands behind your head. Fingers laced,” said Decker. “How many people are in the building, not including yourself?”
The man hesitated, and Decker returned the pistol to the back of his head.
“I’m trying to get a sense of what I’m up against here so I can adjust the level of force necessary to accomplish the mission,” said Decker. “My default when faced with zero information is to use the maximum amount. Basically, to kill my way through the problem. How many people are in the building?”
“Four.”
“Any security types?” asked Decker. “Or are they all IT types like yourself?”
“Two security guards. The other two work with me,” said the man.
“Are these rent-a-cop types, or Call of Duty operators?”
“Call of Duty operators.”
“Serious or laid-back?”
“Serious,” he said. “They killed and buried a couple that hiked too close to the facility four months ago.”
“Is there a larger detachment nearby?”
He nodded. “Five miles away at the support station. The team here monitors the sensor arrays guarding the approaches to the building. You must have parachuted in. There’s no other way.”
“Good assumption,” said Decker. “What’s your first name?”
“Ron.”
“Ron. Is it fair to assume you’re not willing to die for whoever owns this facility?”
“Yes.”
“What about your IT friends downstairs?”
“They would not want that, either,” said Ron.
Skystorm (Ryan Decker) Page 27
