Volcano

by Gabby Grant

And, if Albert’s instincts were dead on, Joe McFadden had never really been in danger. For all the things he’d done, Albert didn’t truly believe Tom would go that far.

  Albert crossed back to his desk and snapped up the phone. Fuck wasting time trying to rescue McFadden; the DOS had bigger fish to fry.

  ***

  Joe McFadden hadn’t been able to piece it together exactly, but he’d known from the moment he’d seen the Y2K memorabilia littering Al Fahd’s office a few weeks ago that Al Fahd was plotting something sinister involving the coming turn of the year. Just what and how it fit in with Y2K and all of the Arab’s sinister souvenirs, Joe wasn’t altogether sure. But with all the resources Mark had at his disposal- not the least of which was Ana, Joe was hoping Mark would be able to figure that out.

  There was a definite connection between Al Fahd’s gas tank collection and the global party the Arab was planning to throw. Then, there’d been that mass exodus: the never-ending convoy of military trucks loading up at the warehouse and streaming from the compound like so many hell-bent ants with a mission across the sands. If Joe were a betting man, he’d lay money on what was in those trucks- and no longer in the warehouse room he’d stumbled upon.

  But what puzzled Joe still was the involvement of Al Fahd’s new Chinese friend, sitting in the corner tilting a Y2K snow globe back and forth in delicate amusement. The Chinese and the Arabs? Unprecedented, yet verifiable. During the earlier hostage exchange, Joe had relieved a young Chinese man of Ana, under Al Fahd’s instruction to kill her. Though Joe now knew that man to have been Hay Long, Joe’d never seen the older Oriental Ana had called Sun-tzu, whom had remained in the car.

  Until now, Joe thought, steadily eyeing the enigmatic man in the corner.

  And the men who’d taken him from the cabin in Virginia, then delivered him here, were Chinese, as well. Mandarin, Joe’d guessed from his limited knowledge of the various dialects. Without question, the Arabs and the Chinese were working together on something very big. But if it concerned a terrorist strike waged on US soil, it only made sense there’d been some form of cooperation from a fringe element in America. This was a three-pronged plan, Joe was certain. But who, in his homeland, could be responsible for spearheading US participation in such a reprehensible scheme?

  “Shall we begin?” Al Fahd asked the Oriental with deference.

  Joe curled the fingers of his right hand into a ball.

  The silver-haired, olive-skinned gentleman replaced the snow globe on Al Fahd’s desk with a smile. “Yes, let’s do begin with the first cut.”

  Al Fahd leaned toward the floor and pulled a switchblade from his boot. “Fine,” he said, popping the short blade open.

  Joe’s eyes shot to the far end of the room where two men with semiautomatics guarded the door. “Surely you’re not going to dirty your immaculate office.”

  Al Fahd took two angry strides in his direction. “Watch your tongue, Mr. McFadden, or I might just cut that out for you as well!”

  The Oriental raised a patient hand. “Perhaps our sharp-witted American is right. There may, in fact, be another- more tidy- way.”

  Al Fahd stopped, lowering his knife toward McFadden, then looked up at the trilling from his desk.

  Joe exhaled slowly as Al Fahd went to answer the phone.

  Sun-tzu nodded respectfully. “Saved by the bell, Mr. McFadden.”

  Joe slightly lowered his eyes then raised them again to meet the Oriental’s. “Perhaps you can get Al Fahd to listen-”

  Sun-tzu smiled in uncharacteristic surprise. “Listen, Mr. McFadden? Why that’s precisely what he has in mind.”

  Back at his desk, Al Fahd cursed in rapid dialect into the receiver. It didn’t take a linguist to see he was incensed.

  “You cooperate with us, Mr. McFadden,” Sun-tzu said with an oily smile. “And, in deference to your uncle, I’ll see that you come out of it alive.”

  His uncle? What did Tom Mooney have to do with any of this? His Uncle? No stinking way. But then, what was the connection? What on earth was Sun-tzu getting at? And how and why would he owe any sort of deference to Joe’s Uncle Tom in the first place?

  Al Fahd slammed down the receiver and stormed back across the room. “Very slippery, McFadden,” he said, lunging at Joe and grabbing him by his shirt collar. “Very slippery, indeed!”

  “We’ve finally located Hay Long,” he said, turning to Sun-tzu, “in the morgue.”

  Joe held up his palms and shook his head as Al Fahd tightened his grip. “I had nothing to do with that one.”

  “That one, no? But Ana Kane, yes?” the Arab spewed in his face.

  “Ana’s dead,” Joe assured him, devoid of emotion.

  The Arab gave him a ravenous shake. “So dead, you failed to retrieve the body? Decided to flee from us instead?”

  “Back to the warehouse!” Al Fahd commanded the guards at the door, who lowered their weapons and strode toward McFadden.

  “Wait!” Sun-tzu said, holding up a patient hand. “I have a better way.”

  Al Fahd released his grip on Joe’s collar with a decisive shove and looked at the Oriental.

  “A more tidy way,” Sun-tzu continued. “Besides, if you cut out his tongue...” Joe tightened his lips in horror and strove for a blank expression. “...there’ll be nothing left to say. McFadden won’t be able to tell us what really became of the Kane girl- and how much she knows.”

  Al Fahd straightened and appeared to consider Sun-tzu’s proposal. “Very well,” he said, waving off the guards and returning to his desk. “We’ll give McFadden one neater chance to come clean... But, after that,” he said, glaring at the Oriental, “I’d ask you to remember just who is in charge of this operation while we’re on desert soil!”

  ***

  Carolyn settled Isabel in the baby crib and tucked her under the covers. Pink and yellow. This safe house, complete with baby girl nursery, couldn’t have been better suited to her and Isabel’s hide-away if it had been hand-picked. Carolyn drew back a curtain and spied the unmarked car at the base of the drive, realizing it had been hand-picked. Hand-picked, indeed, by DOS Assistant Director Albert Kane with his granddaughter’s safety in mind.

  Carolyn returned to the crib side and ran a tender finger over the sleeping baby’s jet black curls. At thirty-four, Carolyn was getting a bit old to entertain the notion of becoming a mother. Not that thirty-four was unheard of for a woman in today’s society bearing a first child. But that generally assumed the woman was married and that she and her husband were actively working on it.

  Carolyn studied the baby’s intricate features, seeing suggestions of both Mark and Ana in their outline. She found herself briefly wondering if a baby of Joe’s would have reddish hair. Then stopped herself, quickly withdrawing her hand from the crib.

  Entertaining notions of a baby with Joe. Really Carolyn, she thought, striding to the refrigerator and gratefully finding it stocked with beer. Carolyn felt for the coldest of the lot and popped its top, walking back into the living area. One of these days she was going to get herself a real house, just like this one. One with a big comfy couch, a wide-screen T.V., and a fully loaded kitchen- toaster oven and all.

  Carolyn took a swig of beer, casting an eye toward the nursery. And, if she was really lucky, she wouldn’t be living there alone. She’d have someone to come home to. And, maybe even, God willing, a baby to hold.

  Carolyn set down her beer can, laughing at the absurdity of her fantasy. Someday, right. As if there were a man in sight who’d even fit into that picture. Of course, once she’d filled that illusion with a Marine named Joe. But that was so long ago she’d almost forgotten why... Almost, but not quite, dammit, Carolyn thought, picking back up her can.

  ***

  “I agree,” Ana said. “The Y2K thing is linked to the systems invasion.”

  Mark’s juices rumbled and electricity spiked to his limbs. Although they hadn’t officially reconciled, ever since they’d come together to see Isa and Carolyn off, th
ings had gone better between them. And- analytically- they were onto something. Mark just knew it.

  “Anything else he told you?” Mark asked. “Anything at all?”

  “Y2K. Something about Al Fahd’s office being littered with paraphernalia.”

  Mark scratched his chin. “Souvenirs?”

  “Yes, but from what?” Ana asked.

  From something that went down Mark suspected. Something with a far-reaching consequence.

  “Wait a minute,” Ana said, as if reading his thoughts. “You don’t think it’s possible... No,” she said, stopping herself. “Guess not.”

  Mark reached across Albert’s desk and touched her arm. “Go on. Say what you were thinking.”

  “Y2K is what I was thinking. Remember the anticipation, the rabid paranoia-”

  Mark nodded. “And then the assertion we’d all escaped unscathed.”

  Ana frowned. “But, did we?”

  She paused and let the question sink in as Mark turned the idea over in his mind. She was right about the rabid paranoia. Every federal agency, independent business, and even private individuals practically stood on their heads trying to anticipate and thwart Y2K disaster. More than anything, people had worried about automated systems going haywire, their dating and tracking systems not keeping up with the quadruple digit change necessitated by going from year 1999 to year 2000.

  “What are you getting at?” Mark asked, thinking he knew.

  Ana dropped her pen to the desk and leaned forward. “What if someone had found a way, Mark. A way to infiltrate one of the most secure computer systems in the world. And, what if- after they did- their intent wasn’t immediate action, but rather a delayed surprise?”

  “Aftershock,” Mark said, knowing when he spoke the word aloud it resonated with truth.

  “Aftershock,” Ana parroted, leaning back in her chair. “And one hell of an explosive one, wouldn’t you say?”

  Even more than Ana knew, Mark thought, wondering when exactly her father was planning to tell her.

  Mark stood and began to pace the room. “So, you’re saying this bug has been with us for almost two years.”

  “That’s my guess, yes. But what I don’t know is if it’s plausible, if such a thing could have even been technologically accomplished.”

  Mark shook his head but kept on walking. It was plausible alright. Plausible but not probable that someone could have found a way to get into the DOS system during that fraction of a minute when all systems went down while the change over was taking place. It would have taken somebody very close to the inside. Someone who would have known that, as a precaution, the DOS had planned to make the switch two hours early at twenty-two-hundred to avoid unnecessary trouble.

  Very few people knew about the timing specification first hand. The switch-over operation had been so highly classified, in fact, Mark could probably count the people who knew about it on two hands. There was the Director, of course, and his second in command, Albert Kane. Each of the directorate chiefs and only Mark, as a division chief, because Albert, in confidence had let him know. But, if someone as normally tight-lipped as Albert had revealed the secret to Mark, then it was conceivable one of the other nine...

  “Mark?” Ana asked from the desk.

  Mark looked down and saw that he’d been following a well-worn path in the carpet, unconsciously retracing his father-in-law’s steps. “It’s plausible,” he said, meeting Ana’s eyes. “If somebody was very, very good and someone knew when to do it.”

  Ana got to her feet. “So, let’s assume they were good. Very, very good, as you say, and they got into the system, planted a virus-”

  Mark shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think they were putting anything in.”

  “What?” Ana asked.

  “I think they were taking something out.”

  “Out?”

  “Taking a blueprint, Ana,” Mark said, starting to pace again. “Making a little carbon copy, if you will, of our internal code- for future reference.”

  “You’re saying somebody took a snapshot of how the DOS system operates, then replicated that for their own seedy purposes? But how would that be accomplished?”

  “Remove one supposedly benign bite or chip and replace it with another.”

  “Remove part of the DOS operating system? Don’t you think someone would have noticed? Things would have gone haywire!”

  “A benign part, Ana, something that didn’t do much but filter information.” Mark raised his brow. “Any glitches after Y2K would have been attributed to the change over. And then, once they had a part of our system...”

  It was too simple, too simple to believe. They’d done it with biogenetics, why not artificial intelligence?

  “And, what pray tell,” Ana asked, “would they have done with this stolen part? Cloned it?”

  But when Mark didn’t answer, Ana’s jaw dropped open. “A secure computer system?”

  “It would have taken time and some pretty sophisticated engineering. Somebody with big-time computer know-how, for sure.”

  “Like the Chinese...” Ana said, walking to the window. “Mark,” Ana said, bringing a hand to her chin. “Can you tell me about Sun-tzu?”

  “What?” Mark asked, walking over to join her.

  “Sun-tzu. It’s what I heard the younger Oriental call the other.”

  Yes, Ana had mentioned that during her earlier debriefing and Mark had suspected its significance even then. Sun-tzu had been a great Chinese chronicler of war. In fact, his well-known treatise, The Art of War, was revered by scholars still, and was required reading in most military intelligence classes.

  “The use of spies,” Mark told her, “that’s the part of Sun-tzu’s original treatise that was-” Mark caught himself, realizing how much Ana still didn’t know. Her father had not yet taken time to fill her in on Volcano, or about his own involvement in the now- convoluted plot.

  And, given the precarious state of things between him and his wife, Mark didn’t exactly feel like being the one to spill those beans now.

  “Part of the original treatise, that what?” Ana pressed.

  “That somehow seems to be in use now.”

  “You mean,” Ana asked, turning to him, “the perpetrators of this scare have somehow incorporated the use of this old Chinese prototype for waging war?”

  “Yes,” Mark answered flatly, hating to hide half the truth. In his line of work, he’d done it so regularly, Mark knew he shouldn’t be bothered by keeping something from Ana now. But he was.

  “So, why then would the old man tell me not to call him Sun-tzu? Because he didn’t want me to guess at that all too-obvious connection?” Ana paused, as her eyes narrowed in thought. “But he must have known I’d guess. That’s what his question about my being a student meant!”

  “What question?” Mark asked. She hadn’t said anything about that conversation. Dammit, when was Ana going to learn that every single word was important. Sometimes, critical.

  “So what does it mean?” she asked, countering his question with a question, but not answering his. “The fact that he looked at me and shouted ‘don’t ever address me by that name!’”

  “Maybe because he wasn’t,” Mark answered going back to the old operative rule that sometimes the most obvious was the answer.

  “Wasn’t Sun-tzu?” Ana asked, puzzled. “But, of course he wasn’t. From what you’ve said, Sun-tzu must have been dead for more than--”

  “Wasn’t who he wanted you to think he was,” Mark answered, instantly accepting the twisted logic.

  Ana was less convinced. “He tells me don’t call me this because he wants to assure me he’s not?”

  Mark smiled. “Exactly.”

  Ana huffed a breath. “What about Al Fahd?” she asked, patently unable to admit she couldn’t see the Sun-tzu picture as clearly as Mark could. But Mark knew he was right. Sun-tzu’s involvement was deeper somehow than it seemed. And for his own reasons, Sun-tzu had wanted Ana to know th
at.

  “He has the money and the manpower,” Mark answered, in reference to Ana’s question about Al Fahd. “People trained to do just the sorts of grisly things that have been done.”

  “But who at the DOS could have tipped off the Chinese and the Arabs?”

  Mark met her penetrating black stare. “I think we’d better go and ask your father.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Al Fahd pressed Joe’s index finger back toward his wrist until the bone snapped. “Now that-” the Arab said, as Joe grimaced and swallowed his pain, “was the clean part.”

  Sun-tzu gave a noncommittal shrug. “The blood would have been messy.”

  “Ah,” Al Fahd said, gripping onto Joe’s middle finger with a vengeance, “but so much easier on my poor calloused hands.”

  Al Fahd laughed as Joe struggled to remain fixed on the door. He’d picked one spot, one spot in particular where there was a slight difference in the varnish of the wood. All Joe’s focus and energy went into that spot and veered away from the pain as another bone cracked in his hand.

  “Ready, McFadden?” Al Fahd asked, releasing his grip and rudely tilting Joe’s chin.

  Joe bore a hole through the Arab’s skull with his eyes. “I’ve always been ready...”

  Al Fahd dropped Joe’s chin and shared a look with Sun-tzu before collecting his knife and wielding it close to McFadden’s jugular. “You playing smart with me, McFadden?”

  Joe lost his focus as renegade shards of pain splintered his right hand. “No, Al Hakeem,” he said, drawing air through his teeth. “Quite the contrary. I can see now what a fool I’ve been.”

  Al Fahd lowered the knife, then burst into raucous laughter. He held up a two-fingered salute to the guards at the door and burst into hilarity again. “Two fingers!” He chortled and shook his head at Sun-tzu, before turning back to Joe. “You Americans are so easy!”

  Sun-tzu cracked a slow, sinister grin. “This is going to be a piece of cake.” He looked at Al Fahd as Joe McFadden sat silently cradling his right hand in the other on his lap. “I think we can be assured of the American’s cooperation.”