The Gryphon Heist

by James R. Hannibal

  Halfway through the encryption-decryption pause, Talia added, “And so help me, if the phrase ‘need-to-know’ comes out of your mouth, I’ll fly home right now and choke you with your own donuts.”

  When Brennan spoke again, Talia could hear the resigned sigh in his tinny, overprocessed voice. “Tyler.”

  Talia exchanged a look with Eddie, then frowned at the tablet’s blank screen. “Tyler is not a weapon, Frank.”

  “No, but Tyler has the answers you’re looking for. Go talk to him.” The secure line went dead.

  Chapter

  twenty-

  six

  AVANTEC COMPOUND

  TRANSNISTRIA UNRECOGNIZED TERRITORY

  TYLER DIDN’T ANSWER TALIA’S CALLS until the following morning, and added a little too much shock and dismay to his voice when she finally reached him. “Oh no! Is Pavel all right?”

  “Save it.” Talia had no time for his games. “Warm up the G-Wagon and get out here. We need to talk.”

  As she hung up, a porter appeared at the door with breakfast and three boxes of clothes and shoes.

  “I sent into town for them,” Ivanov said when he dropped by a short time later. “To my favorite tailor’s.” He gestured up and down Talia’s form, smiling at the outfit she had chosen. “The man deserves a commendation.”

  Talia blushed. She had on a set of gray slacks, a black blouse, and a pair of flats. Nothing fancy, but Ivanov was right. They fit her remarkably well. “Thank you,” she said, setting down the remainder of her coffee. “This was kind. But I’m afraid I have to get them dirty.”

  “THE GROUND IS STILL WARM,” Eddie said as he and Talia picked their way through the tangle of aluminum beams at the edge of Ivanov’s ruined residence. One skeletal corner of the second floor remained, but the rest of it had collapsed into the first.

  Talia steadied her partner and then moved on, careful not to touch any standing beams, lest they collapse as well. “Step carefully. Some of it will still be oven hot. Punch through the wrong bit of crust and you’ll melt your shoes.”

  “So you’re saying I should watch out for hot pockets?”

  Talia glanced over her shoulder with a frown.

  He shrugged. “What? We can’t laugh in the face of tragedy? Don’t be such a curmudgeon.”

  “Don’t be such a clown.”

  They stared each other down for a long moment and then both said at once, “Snowflake.”

  Ivanov had not come with them, and she understood. He had a great deal of work to do in the wake of the attack, but mostly he wasn’t ready to stand in the ashes of his former home.

  For the most part, the building was a loss, but portions of the lab, with all its concrete, had survived. Talia focused her efforts there.

  “What are we looking for?” Eddie asked.

  “Slugs. Jacket fragments. Brass.” Talia used a pen to stir the ashes near the counter where Bazin and Pavel had taken cover. “Anything that tells us about the composition of Lukon’s bullets. Our shooter, maybe Lukon himself, fired a lot of rounds. If we can determine their makeup, Franklin can trace them to a dealer.”

  It sounded good. Except Talia could find no slugs or fragments.

  “Maybe they melted.” Eddie crouched beside her.

  “Yeah, but we should still see something.”

  Talia used the high-powered light on her phone to wash away the morning shadows masking the counter’s front. No slugs were embedded in the concrete. There were, however, several gray-brown marks, roundish, almost like paint-gun splatter. “Are you carrying your pocketknife?”

  “Always.” Eddie slapped a Smith & Wesson pocketknife into her open palm, and Talia scraped at the markings. She held the blade up to her nose, scrunched up her brow, and handed the knife back to Eddie. He gave it a sniff and frowned. “Smells like clay.”

  “I know. Weird, right?”

  A glint of brass caught Talia’s eye, and she used the tip of her pen to lift it out of the ashes. Finally, something made sense. “This is one of Bazin’s .50-caliber shell casings,” she said, rising and showing it to Eddie. “And if Bazin’s brass survived, then . . .” She let the statement hang and picked her way through the wreckage to the charred lump of plastic and aluminum that had once been Pavel’s oversize 3D printing machine—the one the intruder had used for cover.

  Again, Talia dug around in the ashes. No brass. She stood, looking out toward the trees where the shooter had fled. “I hate this guy.”

  Tyler never showed. And once the local constabulary appeared, Talia and Eddie vacated the crime scene. She didn’t feel like answering questions—only asking them.

  Eddie could barely keep up as she headed down the brick path to the Opel. “Where are we going?”

  “Tiraspol. If Tyler won’t come to us, we’ll go to him.”

  NEARLY AN HOUR LATER, with Talia in a mood—as Eddie liked to call it—the Mandarin’s express elevator bumped to a stop at the top-floor penthouse, announcing its arrival with a light ding. The clerk at the front desk had not been cooperative. Mr. Tyler was not to be disturbed.

  Talia had called in the manager, who regarded the ash marks on her blouse and slacks with open disdain, and the two had argued in both English and Russian. Muttering to himself in Romanian, the man had called up to Tyler’s room. After listening for several seconds, and with a sullen I can’t believe I lost this argument look at Talia, he had finally handed over the express elevator’s key.

  The elevator doors opened onto an opulent suite. White marble steps, peppered with gold flake, led down to a sunken living room with silk furniture right out of Victorian Hong Kong.

  “About time you got here.” The voice came from behind a chrome-plated espresso machine in the kitchen. Tyler leaned out so they could see him. He had traded his business suit for a loose white shirt and cotton pajama pants. “Want some coffee? We have lots to discuss.”

  Of course Talia wanted coffee. In her state, she needed coffee. “No thanks. I’m good.”

  “Does that thing do mocha?” Eddie abandoned her at a pace just short of a jog.

  So much for loyalty.

  After showing Eddie the controls, Tyler met Talia in the living room with the cappuccino she hadn’t asked him for. “Two sugars, right?”

  He had nailed it. That wasn’t creepy at all. “It’ll have to do.” She took the cup, glancing down at his bare feet, man-toes drowning in gold shag carpet. “So you ignore my summons and force me to come to you, and my visit doesn’t even merit footwear?”

  “Apologies. I was . . . otherwise engaged all morning. Do I detect hostility?”

  “Disgust. There’s a reason five-star hotels give you free slippers.”

  Tyler let the insult hang there over the shag and walked up the steps to the open balcony. “Hypersonics.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re here because you want to know what this is all about, and the answer is hypersonics. A new weapon of mass destruction. That’s what Ivanov is hiding.”

  The word hiding didn’t sit well with Talia. “Pavel isn’t hiding anything. He’s protecting trade secrets.”

  Tyler turned, leaning the small of his back against the balcony rail and raising an eyebrow. “Pavel?”

  “Dr. Ivanov.”

  He smiled. “Call him whatever you want. Either way, Brennan and I think he’s cracked the Holy Grail of weapons technology—combining a plasma-breathing scramjet with flight controls that can handle speeds north of Mach 80.”

  “Mach 80?” Eddie came down into the sunken living room carrying a cup that looked more like a soup bowl with a handle. “The best hypersonic weapons so far are tungsten glide bombs that reach Mach 20, enough kinetic energy to create the blast equivalent of a small tactical nuke. A Mach 80 impact would be like—”

  “Hiroshima.” Tyler let the name sink in as he picked a strawberry from a fruit plate on the balcony table. He dipped it in some cream and took a bite. “Plus, a scramjet gives off no launch signature, and anyth
ing traveling through the atmosphere above Mach 10 creates a sheath of burning plasma that can’t be penetrated by radar.”

  Talia sat down in a claw-foot chair with her cappuccino. “Stealth missiles.”

  “Devastating stealth missiles. Any entity with this technology can launch untraceable, nuke-level attacks, shaping the world from the shadows.” Tyler picked up the plate of fruit and cream and returned to the sitting area. “That’s the power Lukon is after. And it gets worse.”

  “Worse?” Eddie lowered his bowl of mocha halfway through a sip, leaving a wet mustache on his upper lip. “How can it get worse?”

  “We think Ivanov built a prototype.”

  “Oh.” Eddie wiped his lips with his sleeve. “Yeah. That’s worse.”

  “I’ve been watching him for weeks. He hasn’t led me to it. But someone, either Ivanov or Lukon, is planning to use it.”

  Talia set her cappuccino on the coffee table next to Tyler’s fruit plate. “Explain.”

  Tyler sat down across from her on the room’s orange corduroy couch, showing unusual strain on his face as he did. Was he injured? Talia didn’t get the chance to ask. He picked up a remote and pressed a button. “Read this.”

  A marble wall panel moved inward and motored down to reveal a television. As the display warmed up, an image appeared—a screenshot from some corner of the Dark Web, evidenced by the unsavory artwork in the margins. White Cyrillic text filled a black field. Ukrainian. Close enough to Russian for Talia to translate. An unnamed party was advertising an auction of hypersonic technology, obliquely referring interested buyers to a contact listed only as the Englishman.

  “This has to be Lukon,” Talia said, reading further. “He showed his hand by coming after the designs, and he—” She stopped arguing as her eyes reached the last line. The party advertising the auction had promised a demonstration of the weapon.

  Watch the news, the post said. Watch Washington, DC, and you will know the power of this technology. And then it listed a time and date less than a week away.

  Chapter

  twenty-

  seven

  THE MANDARIN OF TIRASPOL

  TRANSNISTRIA UNRECOGNIZED TERRITORY

  TALIA POINTED AT THE TEXT, glaring at Tyler. “This mission now has a deadline. I assume you know what that says.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll agree we have to talk to Ivanov immediately.”

  “No.”

  She fell back in her chair. “Aaaggh!” Then she pulled out her phone. “I don’t need your permission. This is my op. I’m in charge. I’m calling him.”

  “Eddie”—Tyler held up a hand for Talia to wait—“check for a recent communiqué from your boss.”

  Eddie set down his bowl of coffee and opened the secure communications software on his tablet. He fiddled with it for several seconds, then made an apologetic face at Talia and turned the screen so she could see. There was a message from Brennan, way too pointed and simple to be coincidental.

  DON’T TALK TO IVANOV.

  “You went over my head,” Talia said.

  “I had a conversation with an old friend. That’s all.”

  “You’re insane.” Talia shoved her phone back in her pocket and folded her arms. “You think Ivanov would blow up his own house?”

  Tyler picked up a wedge of pineapple from his fruit plate and dipped it in cream. “No.” He put the whole thing in his mouth, licking his fingers. “I think Ivanov hid his new tech from his DoD contacts, put it out there for a black-market auction, and inadvertently drew Lukon’s attention. So now we have two problems to solve.”

  Talia didn’t buy it. She had looked into Ivanov’s eyes after the attack. Tyler hadn’t. Tyler hadn’t even bothered to come out to the compound. Ivanov was a genius, not a criminal. Lukon must have discovered Ivanov’s secret some other way.

  “Look.” Tyler wiped his hands on a napkin and softened his expression. “I know you’re fond of the guy, but the date of the demonstration promised in that Dark Web post is also the day Ivanov plans to unveil the Gryphon concept in Milan next week.”

  “Coincidence,” Talia said.

  “Manufactured alibi,” Tyler countered.

  Eddie clapped his hands. “This is all about Gryphon.”

  The other two stopped arguing and looked at the geek. “What?”

  Eddie pointed both index fingers at Talia. “Ivanov has a secret off-site data vault, right? Only he and Bazin know its current location.”

  She nodded. “That’s what he told me. So?”

  “So data vaults are pretty common in big business.” Eddie sat forward, resetting his glasses. “Major corporations dodge corporate espionage with software that automatically deletes working files, maintaining the originals through an encrypted link at an off-site, high-security vault.” He spread his hands. “They get so serious about it that some of these vault companies rent space on military bases.”

  Tyler seemed to regard the geek with more interest than before. “The files Lukon missed. You think Ivanov sent them to a military base?”

  “No.” Eddie picked up his tablet again. “Ivanov said he and Bazin know the current location. That implies mobility. He also said the Gryphon concept has uses beyond replacing expensive satellites.”

  “Ivanov built Gryphon,” Talia said, nodding. “He created his own roving data vault.”

  “Not just roving.” Eddie’s fingers worked his tablet screen. “The most high-security data vault ever conceived. It’s brilliant.” He glanced at Tyler and gestured at the television. “Do you mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  Eddie didn’t answer. A moment later, the television blinked, showing static at first and then the looped CGI of Gryphon they had seen at Avantec. Colorful clouds of light rushed past its angular black hull.

  Tyler looked to Talia with surprise. “How did he—”

  “I don’t know. It’s what he does.”

  “I might have borrowed a few files on Gryphon from Avantec’s servers.” Eddie put down the tablet and recovered his giant mug. “Lightweight rigid composites, and a reaction control system with monopropellant jets for positioning. All hovering in the netherworld of the mesosphere.” He paused to draw a slice of melon from the fruit plate.

  “So it’s a blimp.” Tyler put his bare man-feet up on the coffee table, within inches of Talia’s cappuccino.

  “Airship,” Eddie countered.

  Talia made a show of sliding her cup to the other end of the table, next to a leather-bound book, a Bible—worn and weathered, certainly no hotel copy. The sight of it gave her pause. What was a scoundrel like Tyler doing with a Bible? She sat back again. “Blimp. Airship. Neither sounds too secure. Couldn’t Lukon just fly up there and download the files?”

  “Just fly up there?” Eddie held up the melon slice in a one does not simply walk into Mordor gesture. “We’re talking about the mesosphere, Talia—one of the most hostile environments known to science. Freezing temperatures. Blood-boiling pressure.”

  “Toxic clouds left by vaporized meteors.” Tyler pumped his eyebrows at Talia. He seemed to know a little on the topic. “Random electrical fireworks with fantastic names.”

  This kicked off an animated back-and-forth between geek and scoundrel.

  “Blue sprites.”

  “Golden halos.”

  “Green pixies.”

  “And purple horseshoes, I suppose,” Talia said, stopping them.

  Eddie scrunched up his nose. “No. None of those.” He popped the melon wedge into his mouth and continued as he chewed. “But what you really have to watch out for are the red elves—disc-shaped lightning a hundred miles wide. It’s like Ivanov is storing his data at the center of a giant three-dimensional minefield.” In his excitement over the idea, he let his giant mocha tilt to a precarious degree.

  Tyler leaned over and gently brought it to level. “Eddie’s right. Ivanov’s mystery vault has to be Gryphon.”

  “Which means the hypersonic
designs are safe from Lukon.” Talia added a strong note of finality. She retrieved her cappuccino. “Good job, Eddie. Report our findings to the home office.”

  “Ooh.” Tyler puckered his lips. “Risky. Do you really want to sit on your hands and hope Ivanov is the good guy in all this? And what about Lukon? If we know about Gryphon, chances are, so does he. I understand Lukon is a master at building one-off specialized teams. Mesosphere or not, he’ll go after the hypersonic designs.”

  She pursed her lips at him over her cup. “So what’s the play?”

  Tyler only shrugged. “That’s your call. It’s your op. Remember? But from where I’m sitting, there’s only one option.”

  At the other end of the couch, Eddie slapped the cushion. “I’ve got it. We build our own team. We steal the designs first.”

  Chapter

  twenty-

  eight

  THE MANDARIN OF TIRASPOL

  TRANSNISTRIA UNRECOGNIZED TERRITORY

  “WE’RE TALKING THE MOTHER of all heists.” Eddie was up from the couch and pacing the marble floor above the sitting room. The fidget spinner had come out, so Talia knew there was no stopping him.

  Tyler egged him on. “With a highly specialized team, right? Elite.”

  “Elite.” Eddie repeated the word as if hypnotized. His pacing led him into the kitchen. He pulled open the refrigerator and disappeared behind the door. “I saw Avantec’s security programs. They’re state of the art. Only a few hackers in the world can handle that kind of architecture.”

  “And even fewer cat burglars would even consider hitting a target in the mesosphere,” Tyler added. “One, maybe two.”

  Eddie popped into view again with half a lobster roll in his formerly free hand. He gave Tyler a questioning look and received a knock yourself out wave. “So we’re not just stealing the hypersonic designs. If we move fast, we’ll be hijacking Lukon’s team before he can hire them.” He closed the refrigerator with a hip check and waggled the lobster roll in the air. “This is good. This is good. We jump ahead in the race and hamstring Lukon on our way past.”