The Ajax Protocol (The Project)

by Lukeman, Alex

  The nature of Vysotsky's job meant that he dealt with rumors, stories, false leads, disinformation and lies. He had assigned Korov to sort out what was useful and what was not in the mass of conflicting data accumulating in the aftermath of the riots in Novosibirsk.

  "Colonel. Tell me you have good news inside that folder."

  Vysotsky leaned over and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out a bottle of vodka and two glasses, fairly clean. He poured the drinks and pushed a glass across to Korov.

  "Sit down, Arkady." He raised his glass. "Na zdrovnya."

  "Na zdrovnya."

  They downed the drinks. Vysotsky refilled the glasses. Five days had passed since the riots and he'd slept little during that time. Russia's domestic security agency, the FSB, had failed to produce anything except reams of useless paperwork that led nowhere. The Kremlin suspected that foreign sabotage had somehow caused the events in Siberia. The problem had been given to Vysotsky to solve, with the unspoken certainty that failure would terminate his chances of promotion.

  "Tell me what you have learned," Vysotsky said.

  "The riots have stopped and order has been imposed on the city," Korov said. "The sequence of events is clear but confusing."

  "What do you mean? How can it be both?"

  "Not long before the trouble started, a bomb exploded in the factory district on the edge of the city. It drew all available police and fire units. They were engaged when the riots started. The epicenter of the riot was near the city center. By the time police got to the scene, everything was out of control. The riot had already spread over a wide area."

  "How could it spread so fast? What triggered it?" Vysotsky asked.

  "At first glance there seems to be no specific cause for what happened. However, questioning of survivors reveals a consistent pattern."

  "Go on."

  Korov twirled his empty glass between his fingers.

  "People report that before the trouble started they heard a high pitched sound, more like a vibration than an actual sound, and felt a sensation of heat. Immediately after that, most said they felt angry, enraged. In many cases they attacked anyone nearby."

  "Most? What about the others?"

  "Some became nauseous and vomited, followed by a blinding headache. They were incapacitated. All the survivors report headaches, to a greater or lesser degree."

  "Continue."

  "It appears that everyone within a radius of about eight square kilometers was severely affected, with lesser degrees of affect farther away from city center. The riots spread out from the center and people got caught up in them."

  "Casualties?"

  "Still unknown," Korov said. "Estimates are over 4000 dead and injured. People were murdering each other for no apparent reason. There are countless injuries, many severe. Property and infrastructure damage is extensive."

  "What is your assessment?"

  "Of the cause?"

  Vysotsky nodded and downed his drink.

  "I can't say. We don't know enough."

  "Speculate."

  Korov chose his words with care. "I think it's an attack. At first I thought perhaps the water supply had been poisoned or drugged. Analysis shows nothing. Besides, if the water was the problem there wouldn't be a sudden, simultaneous explosion of rage like that. Everyone would have to drink at the same time."

  "Some kind of electronic weapon, then? We have beams that can make people sick or kill them with microwaves."

  "Those weapons are narrow in their focus and limited in range," Korov said. "They couldn't affect a large area. We don't have anything that can produce an effect like this."

  "I agree," Vysotsky said. "We should assume it was an attack. Why Novosibirsk? It doesn't make sense. Who would risk war for such an insignificant result?"

  Vysotsky refilled the glasses. Korov didn't drink like his boss, but it would be insulting to refuse. The men drank.

  Vysotsky continued. "There aren't many who would have the kind of technological resources to do something like this. The Americans, perhaps. Or Beijing."

  "It doesn't make sense," Korov said. "Why would either the Chinese or the Americans do this? Why risk war for no strategic gain? The Chinese are preoccupied with their economy. They can't afford a war. The American President would never sanction such an attack. And how was it done?"

  "If it is a beam weapon of some kind, it had to come from a satellite."

  Korov nodded. "We can look for anything that was in range."

  "Find out what was up there."

  "Yes, sir."

  CHAPTER 5

  Phil Abingdon was bored. He reached into a large jar of jelly beans he kept on his desk and chose a green one, popped it in his mouth and chewed. Abingdon was the chief programmer at the underground command center that controlled Ajax. Part of his job was maintaining computer security. The system of firewalls and hacker traps he'd created on the Ajax computers was as good as it got, better than Langley's. Phil knew that was true because he was able to hack into the CIA servers with relative ease.

  Hackers across the world formed a loosely knit internet community, the members known only by their screen names. Abingdon was one of the elite, a recognized master of the art.

  He'd discovered his gift for programming as a teenager. He loved the challenge of hacking into places he wasn't supposed to go. One of those places had been the Pentagon and when the military cops showed up at his door seven years ago, he'd thought he was headed for Guantanamo. Instead, General Westlake had offered him a job.

  Abingdon's screen handle was Apocalypse. He thought it had a nice ring to it. It conveyed his message: You have no future. I bring the end of your world.

  When the computers signaled an intruder on the system, his first thought was that it was a false alarm. Someone would have to get through the outer rings of his defenses for the alert to go off. It had never happened. Routine probes were dismissed and answered with a malicious worm that corrupted the hacker's files. No one ever tried more than once.

  The hacker had gotten past the automatic blocking programs, past the anti-virus and spyware programs, past the secondary defenses.

  Phil smiled to himself in silent admiration of the skill of the attacker. You're good, whoever you are. Of course, it couldn't be tolerated. He activated a program that diverted the incoming code to a meaningless file that appeared important but contained nothing. He entered another command and the screen filled with lines of code the intruder was using to gain access. There was something familiar about it. He'd seen this style before, he was sure of it.

  There were very few hackers at Phil's level. Each had a distinctive touch, what the old radio code operators had called a "fist", an identifying pattern as unique as a fingerprint. Then it clicked.

  Butterfly.

  It had been at least two years since he'd seen that signature style. He thought it was probably a woman, but he didn't know for sure. It was only a hunch, a feeling. He thought of Butterfly as her, not him.

  Well, hello, Butterfly. I'm about to ruin your day.

  Phil entered a new string of commands. The incoming code flickered, paused, then resumed.

  Son of a bitch. She must be on something with a lot of horsepower. Maybe a Cray. She picked it up and countered.

  He sent a vicious virus that would wipe out everything in her files. She went offline. Phil stared at the empty screen. That ought to do it, he thought. I'd like to meet her someday.

  Where had the attack come from? He pulled up another program designed to trace unauthorized attempts to access the Ajax files. The screen showed that the attack had come from the Ukraine, after bouncing around the globe to various IP servers. Phil didn't believe that for a moment. Butterfly had been clever, but Phil had written a program that reverse engineered attempts to conceal the source by diverting the servers. In less than a minute, he had it. The server was in Virginia, outside of Washington.

  This isn't good, he thought. The General isn't going to like this.<
br />
  He picked up the secured line and called Westlake.

  In his home outside Washington, Westlake had just poured himself a large measure of single malt whiskey. The blinking light on his secured phone told him the call was coming from the command center.

  He picked up the phone.

  "Yes."

  "General, this is Phil Abingdon. We have a problem."

  "What kind of problem?"

  "We've been probed. I've identified the source and was able to trace it."

  "Yes?"

  "I wouldn't bother you with this but the attack came from a computer assigned to one of the intelligence agencies."

  "Which one?"

  "I've never heard of it. Something called the Presidential Official Joint Exercise in Counter Terrorism."

  The Project, Westlake thought..

  "I know who they are," he said. "Were they successful?"

  "No, sir. I blocked them from getting anything important."

  "How did they find us?"

  "I don't know. They might have tracked us by the satellite transmission over Russia."

  "You're sure they didn't get into the database?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good work, Abingdon. I'll take care of it. Keep me informed."

  "Yes, sir." Abingdon put down the phone.

  Westlake sipped from his drink and considered his options. He knew about the Project and he knew about Elizabeth Harker. She had a reputation for being relentless. Once she fastened onto something, she was like a dog that wouldn't let go. She'd probed his command server, it was possible she could discover the location of the bunker. He couldn't let that happen.

  He'd have to do something about her and her group. Action against her was necessary.

  How much did she know? Who had she told? The only way to find out was to ask her. He'd have to get her someplace where she could be questioned and if that wasn't possible, eliminate her. If he went after Harker, he'd have to take out her team as well.

  Somehow his glass was empty. He got up and filled it again. Tomorrow evening, the next phase of the plan was set to unfold. It would provide a perfect opportunity to catch Harker off her guard.

  Westlake picked up his phone and made the arrangements.

  CHAPTER 6

  It was almost 8 o'clock on the evening of the next day. President James Rice sipped from a glass of water as he waited for his cue to go on stage. He was about to make an important speech on national television about the struggling economy.

  Rice was worried about more than the economy. A potential crisis was shaping up in Russia and no one knew for sure what had happened over there. The signs weren't good. Recent relations between the White House and the Kremlin were slipping toward cold war status. Earlier, a cable had come from his ambassador in Moscow warning that the Federation suspected the US could be involved with what had happened in Siberia.

  Rice didn't know what had happened in Siberia. He was afraid it would turn into one of those terrorist incidents that threatened America. If the public knew how many times the country had come within a hair's breadth of total destruction because of the insane acts of suicidal terrorists, Rice was sure they would run screaming through the streets. He wanted to be back in the White House, working on a way to defuse the building tensions. Instead, he was about to make a speech aimed at convincing the American public that everything was fine while the world economy tottered on the brink of collapse.

  At moments like this, he would think about his family and how fragile the illusion of security and safety that surrounded them and every other American family really was. Sometimes it wasn't much fun playing the role of leader of the free world.

  He felt unwell, a little feverish. He took another sip of water. It had an odd taste, but at least it was wet and cold.

  The Secret Service agent standing next to him said, "There's your cue, Mister President."

  "Thank you, Sam. Everyone in place?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Rice straightened his tie. It was his favorite necktie, given to him by his daughter. That had been years ago, but he still liked to wear it. For some reason it felt unusually tight.

  "Showtime," he said.

  He strode onto stage to the strains of Hail to the Chief, flashing his traditional wide smile and waving to the expectant crowd. He reached the podium and looked out at the teleprompter. Sudden pain ran down his left arm like a bolt of fire. Then it was as if a giant hand reached out and grabbed his chest and squeezed. He couldn't breathe.

  Rice staggered, clutched at the podium and pitched forward onto the stage. Shouts came from the crowd. The Secret Service detail ran forward and surrounded him.

  At home in Virginia, General Westlake watched the confusion and chaos on his television and smiled. The cameras cut away to the network studio. He poured himself another drink.

  That's one problem solved. One to go.

  He eyed the amber liquid in his glass and decided it was the last of the evening. Alcohol helped him think, but lately he'd caught himself drinking more than usual. He'd come too far to make a mistake at this stage of the game. The last pieces were being moved into place.

  Westlake came from a strong military tradition. His grandfather had been wounded in France during World War I. His father had won the Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star in World War II. When Westlake graduated from West Point he'd been a naïve young man who believed his country was led by those who wanted to make the world a better place.

  Instead, he'd watched America become a country run by people who thought profit and compromise was a successful national strategy. He'd watched the military hamstrung by incompetent leaders and misguided policies, even as superior technology and a giant budget turned it into the most fearsome fighting force the world had ever seen.

  He'd risen almost to the top of the military pyramid, but high rank was political in nature. He'd been passed over for the Joint Chiefs and high command in the field. His outspoken and public views that mistakes had been made and changes were needed had earned him enemies in Congress.

  Westlake was not alone in his views. He had the support of powerful men in Congress and at the Pentagon. Men who made a difference, who believed as he did in the nation's destiny. Patriots and realists like himself, ready to do something about it.

  Four years ago, he'd gotten an invitation to a quiet meeting that had altered his life. That meeting had led to more meetings, with men who had a plan to take control of the government, men of influence and wealth. They wanted him to lead a new America, an America that would claim its place as the one supreme power in the world.

  Still, he'd hesitated. Then his son had been killed in Afghanistan. It had been the final argument that convinced him to join them.

  Westlake looked over at the picture he kept on his desk and felt the pull of grief that never seemed to leave him. The photo had been taken on the day his boy graduated from West Point. Alan Westlake was smiling, proud and tall in his gray uniform. He had died for no good reason in a badly managed war that was bleeding America dry.

  When the transition was over and he was in control, there would be no more wars fought without the political will to win.

  Westlake raised his drink to the picture of his son.

  CHAPTER 7

  Elizabeth was working late. Everyone else had gone home.

  She was debating with herself about working for a few more hours and spending the night downstairs. She leaned back in her chair and looked at the picture of her father she kept on her desk. She missed her father, his stable presence, his ability to see to the heart of any situation. More importantly, his ability to see to the heart of whatever situation was troubling her.

  Her father had been a judge in western Colorado, in an era when judges still had wide discretion over their decisions. That had changed during his last years on the bench, as more and more political interference crept into the court system. The growing rigidity of the sentencing structure and the turnstile approach to
sentencing and release was one of the few things she'd ever heard him complain about.

  When her direct phone line signaled a call, she knew it was bad news. No one called at this time of night unless the news was bad.

  "Harker," she answered.

  "Director, this is Agent Price of the President's Secret Service detail. I'm calling you from Walter Reed. President Rice has had a heart attack. He's asking for you."

  Her heart skipped a beat. She knew he'd been giving a major speech that night but she decided to watch it at home later. The voice on the other end of the line continued. "A helicopter is on the way. It will be there in 10 minutes. Please be ready."

  "How is he?"

  "Not good. Ten minutes, Director."

  Elizabeth stood and put her phone in her purse. If they were sending a helicopter, it meant Rice was probably dying. She prayed it wouldn't happen. Rice was one of the very few people Elizabeth had ever admired. If he died, the world would become a more dangerous place.

  She turned out the lights in her office, went outside and walked over by the helipad to wait. After a few moments she heard the distinctive whop, whop of rotors beating against the humid air. She watched the helicopter descend in a wide, sweeping turn. The pilot brought it in over the landing area and hovered before setting the craft down. The rotors continued to turn. The chopper was all black and unmarked.

  Funny, she thought, I don't think I've ever seen a model quite like that before. Usually they send a Marine unit.

  A man in a dark suit descended from the craft. He was about six feet tall, with a dark complexion and longish hair. He needed a shave. For some reason Elizabeth felt uneasy, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why.

  "Director Harker? I'm Agent Williams. Let me help you in."

  He started toward her. Elizabeth noticed an earpiece with a cord trailing behind it, something every Secret Service agent seemed to have. He wore the traditional garb of the service, a dark suit and tie. If it'd been daylight, he probably would've had sunglasses. All that was standard issue. She noticed his shoes. He was wearing brown loafers.