by Gabby Grant
VOLCANO
By
Gabby Grant
Published by
Misty Meadow Press
Copyright 2012
Gabby Grant
Kindle Edition
ISBN 978-0-9858225-9-0
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient, unless this book is a participant in a qualified lending program. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to export portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].
All characters and organizations described in this book are fiction and figments of the author's imagination.
Originally Published by
Jacobyte Books, Australia
Copyright 2001
Cover by Dar Albert
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
American writer Gabby Grant is the award-winning author of numerous books, published under different pen names and in various formats, including mass market paperback, trade paperback, print-on-demand and electronic download. Gabby loves hearing from readers and welcomes correspondence at [email protected].
Also by Gabby Grant
Force of Fire
(Book 1 in The Kane Legacy Series)
Six Short Tales: New Beginnings
PROLOGUE
Tuesday, 18 December 2001, 9:30 p.m. EST
(Central Virginia)
Ana Kane’s heart rose in her throat as the phantom door creaked open. She blinked twice and refocused her gaze on the computer screen. Someone had entered her virtual realm, and-according to his highly secure screen name-it was someone she knew. Only one person had access to that name and the encrypted program that enabled it top secret IntelNet access. But how was it possible that the Intelligence Community’s premier secure service provider had interfaced with her civilian computer? And who could have gotten hold of that moniker?
Impossible.
Ana shot a quick glance at her sleeping husband, less than twenty feet away. The baby lay dozing, cradled against his broad chest, her cherubic features bathed honey-orange in the nearby Christmas tree’s glow. Heavily-lidded eyes stirred silently as eight-month-old Isabel wriggled her way deeper into the cushion of her daddy’s gray and black Army sweatshirt.
Ana’s eyes returned to her monitor, her breathing picking up a notch.
Still there.
Hovering somewhere in the upper right corner of an E-mail she’d been typing sat a square box announcing someone cued to her instant message list was on line. But no such screen name existed on her personal contact list, only the Internet accessible ones- and each and every one of those belonged to a civilian friend.
Ana weighed her options then made a bold move. She hit the instant messaging icon and began typing with rapid fire strokes. “Hi, there.”
The volley was almost immediate. “hi”
Ana froze, as the silent chill whinnied down her spine. She shot another glance into the living room, before deciding. If she could engage him in dialogue, reveal something incriminating, then perhaps they’d have something to go on.
“Working late?” she asked.
Ana checked her watch against the monitor clock as two minutes ticked by.
Two going on three.
And then the response came, no punctuation, no capitals...
“always” Another thirty seconds. “and you”
Ana gripped the edges of her keyboard and studied the trail of messages.
“Still at the office?” she parried.
One minute passed to two, before elapsing slowly, slowly to five...
He was thinking.
The baby gurgled in the next room and turned her fat round face to the side. Mark raised a hand and dreamily stroked her coal black hair before spiraling back into a snore.
“Hello?” Ana typed.
A terrifying silence, his alias still hawking like a deafening lamb.
“Still there?” she persisted.
“always”
Ana jolted as Isabel’s stuffed dog crashed to the floor with a lilting call and the music box inside suddenly stirred to life.
Another minute passed.
“Who are you?”
He gave his screen name, the ultra secure Defense Department handle that belonged to Ana’s husband Mark Neal.
Ana’s pulse whipped into overdrive. Who was this imposter and how much did he know? Did she run the risk of pushing him further?
Ana decided to try one last dare.
“You are not who you say you are.”
One minute, going on two, three...
Ana checked her watch and resisted the urge to spring from her chair and race into the next room. Instead, she frantically grabbed for the mouse, scanned down the column of cross-communication and clicked “print selected text.” If nothing else, she would get a paper trail. With the way things had been going lately, if she didn’t, nobody- not even possibly Mark- would believe her.
Six minutes elapsed to seven as the printer hummed in response and began its paper feed.
Paper crunched and jammed in the feeder, halting mid-way in insertion. The printer let out a high pitch wail as Ana struggled with the bunched-up pages. Finally wringing them free, she looked up in a damp sweat to find that he had answered her accusation.
“neither are you, ana kane”
CHAPTER 1
DIPAC Division Chief Mark Neal dropped the stack of files onto the desk in front of him. “What I’m asking, Paul,” he said, inclining his long frame in at a tight angle toward the man seated on the opposite side of the desk, “is how in the hell this could have happened?!”
“I’m telling you, sir,” Paul Mastiff said, laying unsteady hands on top of the files and scooting the stack toward him so they formed an ineffective barrier between him and his contentious superior. “This couldn’t.”
Mastiff had just explained for the second time how the secure DIPAC computer system could not be accessed from the outside or vice versa due to the operations system firewall in place. There was no way the ultra secure Intelligence Community’s IntelNet, to which Mark’s top secret screen name belonged, could interface with the unclassified civilian service provider Ana had been using. IntelNet access was assigned to a secure loop of professional intelligence users. It was not accessible to or by civilian computers.
Mark felt his nostrils flair and the back of his neck tinge hot as he leaned in closer, setting one steel palm on either side of the files on Paul’s desk. “You’re calling my wife a liar?”
Mastiff blanched, then loosened his tie. “No, sir, wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”
Mark suddenly became aware of his alligator pose and backed off. “Alright, Mastiff,” he said straightening and lightly cuffing his shirt sleeves, first one and then the other. “It’s alright.” He gave Paul a cock-eyed smile, but somehow sensed it did little to put the other man at ease. “It’s not you I’m angry with.”
Mastiff nodded but his eyes seemed to say, you could have fooled me.
Mastiff made a show of flipping through a couple of files. “Have a seat, sir,” he said, his smile tightly congenial.
Mark straightened his tie clip and sat. He knew this wasn’t Mastiff’s fault, but goddamn it, as the Chief Civilian Computer Operations Specialist, he was supposed to have some inkling what the hell was going on. “You have everything right there. The whole conversation. It was on the screen and Ana was able to print it out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mastiff seemed to be thinking something he wasn’t saying. If there was anything Mark hated more than someone saying somethin
g he didn’t like, it was their being afraid to say it. Mark gave the other man a minute, but apparently nothing more was forthcoming.
“Paul,” Mark said, “we’ve known each other a long time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long, would you say?”
“Nearly two years, sir. Ever since I first came to the DIPAC.”
The Defense Information Processing and Analysis Center, or the DIPAC as it was known to those on the inside, had been established by the larger top-secret Defense Operations Service to monitor classified DOS computer operations under way throughout the country and around the globe. Sequestered in an obscure corner of the Central Virginia countryside, DIPAC, masquerading as an acquisitions processing center for the US Army, was in fact the lynch pin holding all DOS information operations in place. With both electronic and physical threats to technological infrastructure escalating, DOS headquarters had decided to remove this important function from the strategic military target area of Washington, DC two years ago. If, God forbid, the boys at the Pentagon and their DOS pals on the other side of the Potomac were to all go up in smoke, their silent twin in Virginia would already have the critical capabilities to keep the US Defense machine rolling. The move had been a slow, tortuous process, involving the transfer of more than seven hundred military and civilian personnel, and the ferreting out of much governmental red tape.
Mark Neal, who’d been drawn in at DIPAC’s inception as one of its four regional Division Chiefs, was now charged with ensuring the information gathering and dissemination process regarding operations in the Middle East remained at a fevered pitch. He’d met Paul Mastiff just under two years ago, when he’d sat on the selection committee for hiring operations systems personnel. Though he hadn’t thought much of Paul’s laissez faire personality, he’d been impressed with his background and skill. The fact that Paul’s job involved very little interpersonal interaction was probably a blessing for everyone at DIPAC, including Mark who rarely dealt with this weasel face to face, except when absolutely necessary.
“Exactly. And, in those two years Paul, have you ever known me to bring something to your attention that wasn’t worth investigating?”
“No sir, but-” Mastiff flushed as he caught himself, his fifty-something honey colored complexion going all purplish-red.
Mark studied the carpet a moment, before looking up and fixing intent eyes on Paul’s charcoal gaze. “But what, Mastiff?”
“If you’ll pardon my saying so, sir. That’s all been DOS business, DOD business at large. But this with your wife-”
“You know her name, Mastiff. Use it! Don’t treat her like some addle-brained housewife who-”
“No sir, never sir. It’s just that this past year she’s been home, she’s been-”
Mark sprung from his chair. “Don’t you even say it, Paul. Don’t you goddamn say it!” For it was too goddamned close to the truth that Mark sometimes felt. Ana was losing her edge, had been out of the loop. Before they’d had Isabel, she’d been one of the best up-and-comers the DIPAC had. But lately, she hadn’t even been able to put together an unclassified information paper in her home office without coming unglued.
And it wasn’t just professional either. Ana appeared to be losing her touch on the personal front as well. Mark had hoped it was only temporary. He’d heard these sorts of things sometimes happened to new mothers as they went through the adjustment. Too many sleepless nights, too much unaccustomed stress. Hell, in those first few months after Isa had been born, Mark was certain his work had suffered, too. But lately, he’d been finding slip-ups everywhere. Doors Ana’d sworn she’d bolted left ajar, car keys dangling from the ignition, things turned on that were supposed to be off, alarm clocks blaring at 3:00 a.m....
Mark shook his head hard against the thought and spun from his trajectory toward the door. “I will not take your pop psychological observations about my wife, Mastiff, do you hear?! I want fact, cold hard fact. Technological fact proving how in Hades somebody burst through that firewall. And I’d like your first assessment on my desk by this afternoon!”
Mastiff’s color reverted from peachy to stone-washed white, but he held his place in his chair without speaking.
“My wife is not crazy. She saw it and so did I. You’ve got the proof in your hands. Now do some goddamn thing with it!”
***
Mark slammed into his office and shut the door behind him. It wasn’t just Mastiff that bothered him, but the whole stinking scenario. Sure, Ana’s computer scare could just have been a fluke, a sick joke, as Mastiff maintained, played by some computer nut with too much time on his hands. But Mark didn’t think so. Something about the whole thing cut just a little too close for comfort. The fact that the pervert had known Ana’s name and hinted at her occupation-or at least her previous one-was a red flag too flagrant to ignore. In addition, the freak had personality problems. It didn’t take Sigmund Freud to recognize that no caps and no punctuation meant delusions of grandeur. This creep thought he was better than the rest of them, some self-appointed marquis who didn’t have to play by the rules. Anyone’s rules, except for his own. It was funny how Mark and Ana both had immediately come to think of their cyber-creep as a man. An easy assumption, perhaps, as “he’d” assumed Mark’s screen name. Mark supposed this wacko could just as easily be a woman and knew it was against analytical common sense to rule that out. But his gut told him that this bastard’s MO was way too predatory to reflect the more subtle feminine wiles of even the most heartless woman terrorist. At least that’s what he thought his gut was telling him...
Mark sat heavily in his chair and lifted the silver-framed photo from his desk. Ana, in all her exotic dark-haired splendor, lay sprawled, belly-down, on a picnic blanket at Washington, DC’s Haines Point. They’d gone to watch the airplanes gliding above the water in graceful descent toward Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and to discuss a thing or two about their futures. Mark was being reassigned to Virginia and he’d asked Ana to come along- as his wife. Her deep brown eyes, reflecting the shimmer of the diamond on her left hand, had immortalized the magic of the moment when she’d said yes. She’d leaned forward across the blanket, propping her porcelain chin in her hands and dared her new husband-to-be to make it a Kodak moment. Then, after he’d taken the picture, she’d dared him to kiss her and take her home.
From the minute he’d first laid eyes on the hypnotic woman in a passport photo when her missing person file had landed on his desk more than three years ago, Mark had never been able to refuse Ana anything. Without even having met her, he’d been immediately compelled to help her, to surmount all obstacles- at any cost- to ensure her safety. Once her horrific ordeal with the Basque terrorists who’d kidnapped her was over, Mark’s official role in her case had ended. But, in his heart, he’d known that whatever was to be between them had only begun.
Upon returning from her last assignment in the Latin American country of Costa Negra, Ana, then an international project manager for the US State Department, had admitted to Mark at the inception of their relationship that her professional ambitions were changing. She’d been dealt a double-blow, both in her kidnapping and the wrath of revelations accompanying her freedom. Plus, she’d learned first-hand what sort of scum existed in the world. And the lengths it would slither to in order to ensure destruction. Well, Ana had endured enough belly-scrapers to last a lifetime. Now she was ready to put such vermin out of its misery. Do something, take a proactive stance. It was too much a part of her, too much who she was to deny any further.
Intelligence was in her blood. And so it was with great force and determination that Ana had announced, shortly after she and Mark had begun dating, that she wanted in the family business. Nothing could have surprised her father more. Or, Mark knew, secretly pleased him.
Though her State Department experience was somewhat applicable, by and large Ana had to start from scratch. After a seven-month wait for her top-secret security clearance approval, she’d
been able to join Mark in Virginia as a junior analyst in the Latin America Division at DIPAC. The timing had coincided perfectly with the impending date of their wedding, which was scheduled for two weeks after her transfer.
She’d been doing great, was a real cracker-jack with big promise to move up the ladder. And, despite sniggers of nepotism within the tiny organization, Mark knew- and Ana was proud of the fact- she was doing it on her own. Her regional language skills had been a boon but her keen ability to rapidly dissect situations for what they were was what had caught the Commander’s eye. If it hadn’t been for her decision to take indefinite leave after Isa was born, she’d have made senior analyst by now. Yet, she’d been adamant about staying home with the baby and working out a consulting arrangement involving unclassified technical writing for DIPAC.
It had been her choice, her desire, to pursue the change and make raising Isa her priority. Even once the press of only part-time work revealed the need for a regular baby sitter, Ana’d maintained she was happy with her new-found compromise. So why then did Mark still have the feeling Ana resented him mightily for his supposedly pushing her into it?
***
Albert Kane removed his glasses and rose from his desk. “Ana!” he said, walking over to embrace his youngest daughter in a bear hug. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
Ana pulled him in, inhaling the scent of cologne mixed with cigar tobacco that flung her back over the years, and buried her head in her father’s frail shoulder. She couldn’t help but notice how thin he’d become, how worn and fragile like a pale reflection of the strong young Army officer she’d known as a child. It seemed only yesterday that they’d finally reconciled, that she in her own way had found heart to forgive him. It had been a murky time but, somewhere between her mother’s funeral and the birth of her child, Ana and her father had established an uneasy peace.
