Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected

by Vikki Kestell

  Jubaila asked, “What kind of numbers?”

  “Um, morbidity numbers. Like, with a viral or other biological weapon attack, the epidemiologists look at replication rate as a factor in projecting the number of casualties. Replication rate means how fast the bug doubles and, thus, how fast it overwhelms a body’s system—how fast an infected person dies.”

  “This ain’t no bio weapon, my boy. Replication rates don’t apply.” Brian’s drawled reply dripped with his usual sarcasm.

  “Didn’t say it did—I was drawing a contrast when you interrupted me.”

  Laughter and the welcome release of it went around the room. The laughing and banter increased when Rusty pointed at Brian. “He got you, man.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

  Vincent picked up where he’d left off. “With an infectious biological, we’d be calculating replication rates and infection vectors. A model built on those factors would show a slow but exponentially increasing number of infected individuals—a line gradually sloping upward, the slope increasing as the number of infected doubles.

  “Then they’d take the number of casualties and divide it by number of infected to produce a mortality rate. The mortality rate would further aid in projecting the disease’s path. Ebola, for example, depending upon which strain it is, can yield a mortality rate of fifty percent to nearly ninety percent. Think of it—out of 1,000 infected, 500 to 900 dead. A lot of deaths.

  “In contrast, the use of a nonbiological such as poison gases, mass shootings, and bombings are large-scale attacks where the greatest numbers of casualties occur immediately. I am, of course, excluding nuclear attack in this comparison where radiation sickness adds another layer of casualties, usually at the end of the model.

  “But back to a nonbiological mass attack? A graph of those casualties would show a sharp, horrendous uptick followed by a short plateau and an equally sharp decline.”

  Jaz squinted her tired eyes. “You’ve lost me. What in the world are you getting at, Vincent?”

  “Just this. We knew AGFA would attack ten cities simultaneously. Given the lethality of fentanyl and the terrorists’ certainty of their success, we projected very high casualties from each city within the first two hours, even thousands—that’s thousands multiplied by ten.”

  “The last report said the body count was at 753.”

  “Right.”

  “You’re saying it should have been much higher.”

  “Exactly. What I’m getting at is that the first numbers of a nonbiological attack are indicative of how high the casualty totals will go. All things considered, the overall number should right now be in the thousands.”

  Gwyneth squeezed her eyes closed. Hard. “The terrorists’ plan didn’t work as they intended. We’re not going to see thousands of casualties, because something went wrong.”

  Vincent, a sheen of tears glistening in his eyes, nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I think it means. We’ve already seen the ‘sharp, horrendous uptick’ and it was not as advertised. Yes, we’ll likely see more deaths over the next six hours, either at the same level or below, but we’re not going to see a rate increase. If we graphed the number of deaths from midnight through tomorrow noon? We’d see that we’ve already passed the apex of the curve. It’s downhill from here.”

  Vincent tried to contain his relief, but it overflowed and ran down his face. “Consider this for a minute—AGFA’s big attack? The one that was supposed to make 9/11 look like Tinkertoys? The attack they were going to pin on the Russians so the US government would blame them—putting further strain on America’s already strained relationship with the Russkies? It fizzled. Bottom line? As awful as this night is, it was supposed to be a hundred times worse.”

  Across the room, Jaz and Rusty exchanged small, knowing smiles. Their smiles grew into grins. They got up, threw their arms around each other, and hugged. Hugged madly—in front of everyone.

  “It worked, Rusty!” Jaz shouted.

  “AGFA laid a goose egg!” Rusty shouted back.

  Then they were laughing so hard that they couldn’t stop. They laughed with such hilarity that soon the others were laughing with them. Little by little, as Rusty and Jaz were able to explain, and as the task force realized the implications, the morale of the team soared.

  Tobin summed it up. “You and your hacker network saved thousands of lives today, Jaz. In addition, because AGFA’s attack did not accomplish its goal, you’ve set back their ‘grand plan.’ The US and Russia won’t be going to war any time soon—especially after Wolfe presents the evidence of what AGFA was attempting to do.”

  “Evidence? Yikes!” Jaz shouted. “We need to call Wolfe. He needs to have every bit of the debris in Time Square collected and analyzed. Bet you a donut, something in the debris was supposed to pin the attack on Russia—and we need that evidence.”

  The team gathered around as Vincent put a conference call through to Wolfe’s home. Not surprisingly, Wolfe was not asleep. He, too, had been monitoring the news.

  Jaz nodded to Rusty, asked him to tell Wolfe about the hacker network. Then Vincent explained why the mortality rate from AGFA’s attack had not and would not rise to the level of AGFA’s expectations.

  The explanation had to be repeated, and Vincent had to walk Wolfe through his reasoning as to why the attack, bad as it was, had actually failed. Wolfe was an astute listener. Even with half the team chiming in, he caught the gist of the call inside a few minutes.

  “Got it, thank you. I need to get off the phone with you and call the Director of the FBI. Explain it to him and have that evidence collected.”

  Wolfe paused a beat too long. Despite his best efforts, the team heard him trying to get a grip on his emotions.

  “You people. I am . . . very proud—” His voice cracked. What he could manage after that was only a simple, “Well done,” before he hung up.

  With the dial tone humming on speakerphone, the task force members stared at each other.

  “I know we averted a bloodbath,” Brian commented soberly, “But still . . .”

  “Hard to celebrate what didn’t happen when a lot of parents will be burying their children in the next few days,” Soraya finished.

  Tobin stood up. “Right. This is not the time to celebrate, and we can’t afford to lose our focus. We have a job to finish. Stop AGFA’s third attack.”

  “And find Bella,” Jaz said softly. “No days off for us.”

  “Find Bella,” the others echoed.

  THE NEXT MORNING, THE task force members returned to their desks and settled back into their work. Only minutes later, Brian pushed his chair away from his computer. Slammed a notebook onto his work surface. Screamed in disbelief and rage.

  “No! Oh, no! Make it stop!” Brian’s protests dissolved into tears.

  The team rushed to his workstation and crowded behind him. He was logged into a jihadist recruitment website. Watching a video.

  A monstrous creation.

  A woman kneeling, bound hand and foot. Another woman in a blue kaftan wielding a pair of scissors, hacking away at the kneeling woman’s hair.

  The kneeling woman licking blood from her lips, staring with defiance into the camera. Shouting, “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God—”

  Bella’s voice.

  Bella’s face . . . marred by blood and bruises.

  Bella’s hair falling in chunks to the floor.

  The woman in blue hefting a stone ashtray. Making certain the camera would capture her actions. Slamming the ashtray into Bella’s mouth.

  Tobin sank to his knees. “Lord God! Oh, Lord God! Please! Please have mercy . . .”

  Chapter 29

  COSSACK WAS OBLIGED to attend Sayed’s high-spirited festivities. The first party, a day-long celebration on the thirty-first, included Sayed’s top officers and the generals and lieutenants from five militias—prongs of
the Chechen freedom movement as radical as Sayed.

  During the second party, while the actual attack was happening, close to thirty men gathered in Sayed’s salon to await word of the success of their operation in the US. Since Chechnya was eight hours ahead of US eastern standard time, the second party convened at the unusual time of eight in the morning—midnight on the east coast, the exact time Sayed’s people would launch their operation.

  Four hours later, at noon Chechen time, Sayed’s top man in the US would report in with the first accounting of casualty numbers. Until then? Sayed would entertain his guests and bask in their congratulations and honor.

  The morning began with a splendid breakfast. Sayed’s servants plied his guests with fresh fruits and vegetables, a whole sheep roasted over an open fire, broiled fish, fresh breads, and a number of tantalizing side dishes. Breakfast was followed by platters of sweets along with two kegs of beer and a case of a vodka hauled to Sayed’s stronghold especially for the celebration. Then Sayed himself revealed a liquor cabinet stocked with mixers and tonic water.

  Cossack had not noticed the cabinet before. How could he have? The cabinet was cleverly hidden, built into Sayed’s bookcase.

  Cossack watched Sayed’s guests flock to the alcohol while he nursed the single glass of beer Usama had pressed into his hand. The visitors toasted each other, toasted Sayed’s visionary planning, and toasted the Islamic caliphate so close at hand. Relaxed and jovial, each salute grew more verbose and boisterous than the previous.

  How interesting that Sayed and his “holy” jihadis have dedicated their lives to proclaim Allah’s rule over all nations and yet, with such ease, indulge in what is haram. The Quran clearly labels intoxication and drunkenness as abominations of Satan's handiwork.

  Cossack snorted into his glass. Sayed also kept a stable of kidnapped women to satisfy his men’s sexual needs—and that wasn’t sanctioned by the Quran either. He frowned a little as he thought of Wolfe’s operative languishing in captivity, much the same as Sayed’s sex slaves.

  He shook himself and got up. Time to mingle, my boy.

  Cossack was well known to the visiting generals. He chatted casually with Sayed’s guests, keeping his interactions pleasant, moving around the room, never staying too long in any conversation. As the men relaxed into the party atmosphere, so did their conversation.

  The alcohol loosened men’s tongues and relaxed their vigilance. By careful listening, Cossack picked up bits of useful information, storing them away in his mind for later reference. The most interesting information concerned the next attack, the so-called “Hammer of Allah” as Sayed had named it. Everyone agreed—the New Year’s Eve attack would destabilize the already tenuous US and Russian relations, and Sayed promised that his “Hammer of Allah” would shatter any hope of peace between the two superpowers.

  I could have thwarted Sayed’s New Year’s Eve attack if I’d had the means to convey what I knew of the attack to Wolfe. It is too late for that, but not too late to foil the next one, this ludicrously titled “Hammer of Allah.” No matter the consequences, I must uncover the plans and convey them to Wolfe.

  Something final and resolute shifted in Cossack’s belly. No matter the consequences. It is why I am here.

  At eleven o’clock, Sayed’s servants delivered fresh platters of food and carafes of thick Turkish coffee. Cossack watched as the servants tidied up and discreetly removed the last of the beer and vodka.

  He smiled to himself. Ah. I see. Sayed wishes his guests to enjoy themselves, but he doesn’t want them insensible when his US commander reports the success of the New Year’s Eve attacks. The generals’ congratulations for his great victory must be lucid if they are to stroke Sayed’s ego with the proper weight of respect and honor due him. Hardly possible if his sycophantic guests are falling-down drunk.

  Forty-five minutes later, the food and coffee had done its work. Sayed’s guests had sobered enough to turn their anticipation toward the upcoming report. As for Cossack, he continued his passing conversations while keeping his attention focused on Sayed himself and watching for the means by which this great, vaunted report would arrive.

  At five minutes to noon, Sayed assumed the seat of honor in his salon and waved his hand to an owlish young man hovering in a corner. The bespectacled twenty-something acknowledged Sayed with a smart salute—and stepped away from the small table he’d been guarding. He and another man picked up the table, carried it to Sayed, and placed it before him.

  The guests immediately sought the best seats or places to stand around Sayed. They quieted, and Sayed smiled an indulgent acknowledgement of their fawning submission.

  Cossack was more interested in stationing himself where he could best observe the object on the table—a brick-like satellite phone.

  A satphone? Here?

  Curiosity warmed him and ignited a spark of hope. No mobile phone had yet been invented—cellular or satellite—whose signal was strong enough to penetrate the rock between Sayed’s salon and the sky far above. Sayed had not even bothered to remove Cossack’s own mobile phone from his person because it was nothing but useless bits of plastic and electronics within the mountain—or without the mountain, for that matter. Their location was miles from any functioning cell tower.

  What Sayed did not know is that Cossack’s mobile phone had been heavily modified to disguise a different type of electronics, one that had not come standard with any phone. A personal locator beacon. In fact, one could make the argument that his actual phone had been grafted onto a PLB transmitter, his phone being the lesser of the two technologies.

  Switched on in the open air, the distress alert would be received and processed by the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme. COSPAS was the acronym of a Russian phrase meaning Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress. SARSAT was the acronym for Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking. Together, they formed the international satellite system for search and rescue.

  It was Cossack’s means of signaling his handlers that he needed immediate extraction, and it was a foolproof one. Once his personal signal was identified, his GPS coordinates would be forwarded with all speed directly to his agency and handlers.

  Not that it does me any good inside these impenetrable rock walls. But if I were ever able to get the beacon to the surface and switch it on?

  The immediate question was, how did Sayed expect to receive his commander’s report mere minutes from now? Even with a satphone, how could an orbiting satellite pick up his phone’s signal from inside this mountain?

  Cossack sidled up to a certain affable lieutenant and murmured something in passing to him, solely for the sake of his ever-present “companion,” Usama, who was watching him and keeping tabs on his interactions. Cossack pretended to sip from his tiny cup of coffee. His attention to the coffee, however, was a diversion. His objective was to discover how Sayed’s technicians would connect the phone’s signal to an orbiting satellite.

  He thought of his own stronghold and its simple radio room, the brave soldier who had scaled the face of the ravine above the stronghold’s main entrance in order to bolt an antenna to the rock face and attach a cable to the antenna.

  Ah! A cable. Sayed must have a cable leading up to the surface. A cable attached to an antenna. But to string cable from the antenna to a phone this far underground? How did they manage it? The cable must be hundreds of feet long, as must be the shaft to accommodate the cable—a shaft bored through solid rock.

  He shook his head. An impossible engineering feat.

  Impossible? If Sayed had accomplished such an undertaking, then it was not impossible.

  He had his answer when Sayed’s young technician attached a coaxial cable to the phone and, with a nod, placed the phone in front of Sayed. Alongside the phone was a conference call hub. Another line ran from the phone to the hub.

  A murmur of anticipation rippled through the room as Sayed switched on the hub, then the phone. He waited until the screen on his phone indicated a
network connection, then dialed a long string of numbers. Through the hub’s speaker, everyone heard the phone’s warbling ringtone, the uplink to the satellite, and the subsequent transfer to the phone on the other end. The crowd of guests leaned forward, anxious for Sayed’s American commander to pick up.

  Cossack leaned forward, too, but his eyes were not fixed on the phone but on the coaxial cable. Without moving his head, he shifted his peripheral vision and traced the cable down the table and onto the floor—where it disappeared between the legs of Sayed’s tech man and then under the ornate robes of Sayed’s top two lieutenants.

  They are blocking my view. I need another vantage point.

  But now was not the time. Shifting to another standing place at this juncture, while Sayed’s guests were holding their collective breath waiting for the phone to be answered, would only draw undesirable attention to himself.

  After. During the celebration after the call.

  The call picked up. A voice answered with appropriate respect.

  “As-Salamu Alaykum, General Sayed.”

  “Wa alaykumu s-salam, Commander Khasurt,” Sayed replied. “My lieutenants and many important guests are assembled in my salon. We have been celebrating our victory over the Americans, this important milestone in our quest to enmesh the Americans and Russians in war, a war that will open the door to our Islamic Republic.”

  “Sir? General Sayed—”

  Sayed rolled over his commander. “I have you on speakerphone, Commander Khasurt. We are all anxious to hear your report. Tell us the good news. Include as many details as you like, please.”

  But Cossack had heard the reticence in Khasurt’s voice, and he stopped breathing for a moment. Something was wrong. Others around him stilled also, sensing something amiss in Khasurt’s voice.

  “General Sayed. Sir, perhaps . . . perhaps you would allow me to report to you in private, first?”

  Sayed’s temper flared. “You will report to me now.”