The Ajax Protocol (The Project)

by Lukeman, Alex

  They stopped on the way and retrieved Burps from the cat boarding house. They parked in front of Project HQ. When they went into the building, they both stopped short. Stephanie set the cat down. He seemed nervous and uncertain. It was easy to see why.

  Elizabeth looked at the mess left behind by the Homeland Security agents sent by Edmonds and swore under her breath. She tried to tell herself that they were under orders, doing their job. She wondered if that's what people said in Germany in the 30s, when they saw thugs destroying shops and breaking into homes.

  "Those bastards," Stephanie said. "They didn't have to do this."

  Elizabeth's office looked like it had been looted. The desk drawers had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. The desk itself had been tipped on its side. The locked drawers had been smashed open. Her computer monitor was trashed. Her chair was slashed, the guts of the cushion spilling out where someone had cut it open, searching for God knew what. Half a dozen plants in pots had been ripped out and strewn around the room.

  The rest of the floor wasn't much better. Stephanie's office had been searched, but her monitor still functioned. Downstairs, the room where Lamont had been staying was torn apart.

  The armory was still locked. It took serious electronic savvy to breach the security for that room. The computers were untouched. They were big, taking up an entire room, not the kind of thing you could throw in the back of a truck.

  "Do you think they got into them?" Elizabeth asked. She stood with Stephanie looking at the Crays.

  "I doubt it," Stephanie said. "My firewalls are better than NSA's or the Pentagon's. There aren't more than two or three people in the world who might be able to get past them. None of them work for the government."

  "Edmonds really makes me angry," Elizabeth said. "I knew he was an ass, but I didn't think he'd do something like this."

  "Do you think he's part of the plot?"

  "I don't know, but somehow I don't think so. Would you trust a man like that to keep a secret?"

  "Not a chance," Stephanie said.

  "I think it will turn out that Westlake manipulated him, had him thinking we were a threat to national security, something like that."

  "I don't think Edmonds will be a problem in the future. The President will force him to resign."

  "At least Rice is all right. I'm worried about Lamont."

  "So am I," Stephanie said.

  "I talked to his doctor earlier, while you were asleep on the plane. He has a staph infection. They haven't got it under control. He's weak, barely hanging on."

  Stephanie sighed. "When do Nick and the others get back?"

  "Later today," Elizabeth said.

  They went back upstairs to Elizabeth's office.

  "Ajax was developed by DARPA under Westlake's oversight," Elizabeth said. "I want you to look at everything else he did with them. See if you can find anything besides Ajax with a Greek name."

  "That's a long shot."

  "I know, but we have to figure out what Westlake has in mind. It could be something DARPA developed. Whatever it is, it can't be good. While you're doing that, I'm going to call Vysotsky. He needs to know about Korov."

  "Better you than me," Stephanie said.

  "Let's get this desk up," Elizabeth said.

  They set the desk back on its feet.

  "I'll get started," Stephanie said. She went to her office while Elizabeth called Vysotsky.

  Rice had talked with Harker and given her access to the Pentagon's computers. If only they knew, Stephanie thought as she entered the access codes. She couldn't remember how many times she'd hacked into the Pentagon servers to find out something the Pentagon or DARPA didn't want anyone to know about. It felt strange to go in with official blessings.

  She gained entry to the DARPA servers. She began looking at weapons recently developed or under development, anything with a Greek code name. She'd found Ajax. If there was anything there, she'd find it.

  The heart of DARPA was a hundred of the most brilliant technological minds in America. Originally conceived by Eisenhower as a brain tank and technological development group for both civilian and military projects, DARPA's mission had been subverted in the 70s. Now it focused only on the military applications.

  Stephanie worked her way through a list of current and past projects that read like scenes from a Terminator movie or pages from an H.G. Wells novel. An hour later, she still hadn't found anything with a Greek name or the suggestion of one. Something nagged at her about the list. She couldn't pin it down. What was it?

  Stephanie got up and made a fresh pot of coffee. She pored a cup and sat back down at her computer. Then she realized what was bothering her. Ajax wasn't on the list. Where was it? Why not there with the others?

  Ajax was a hero in Homer's poem about the siege of Troy, she thought. Maybe Westlake used another name like that. She tried to remember what she'd learned about Homer's Iliad in school. It wasn't much.

  The Greek hero was Achilles.

  She entered a new command path combining Westlake's name and Achilles. The screen gave her a familiar message:

  ACCESS DENIED

  Yes! So much for official access codes and Pentagon co-operation, she thought.

  As she'd done with Ajax, she called up the program she'd written to get through encrypted firewalls. While she waited for the computer to sort through possibilities, she thought about Lamont. He'd survived enemy fire and years of combat, only to finally be brought down by a lousy bug. Sometimes Stephanie wondered how anyone could think they knew what the day would bring.

  It made her think of Lucas. She was looking forward to seeing him later. If she could get away. If there wasn't another damn crisis.

  The screen cleared. She'd expected to find a single file. Instead, she'd accessed a list.

  ACHILLES

  AJAX

  CYCLOPS

  PROMETHEUS

  SIREN

  ZEUS

  Plenty of Greek names, each from Homer's Iliad. She clicked on Achilles and began reading. It was the code name for an EMP weapon that wiped out the grid in an entire country without the need for a messy nuclear explosion. Stephanie made a note. Maybe Westlake was planning on taking down the American grid. That would create chaos, as Ajax would have. But how would that help him now? The Ajax plot was blown. She'd bring it to Elizabeth and the others.

  The Ajax file told her what she already knew, that there was a satellite with a weapon capable of disrupting human brainwaves and sending people into frenzied rage. There were technical drawings and specifications. She moved to Cyclops.

  Cyclops was an extensive upgrade to the satellite surveillance programs already in place. It didn't seem like Westlake would be concerned about that as a backup. She went to the next name on the list.

  Prometheus was a satellite, like Ajax. As she read, she shivered. Prometheus was armed with six 20 megaton hydrogen bombs on the tips of missiles packed with experimental evasion technology that made them all but impossible to intercept. Without thinking, Steph glanced up at the ceiling. Somewhere high overhead, Prometheus circled the globe. If this was Westlake's backup...she left the thought unfinished.

  What else is on this damn list? she thought.

  Siren was a sonic weapon that vibrated solids at a high frequency, causing the molecular bonding to break down. Structures like bridges and buildings would literally disintegrate. Siren could be used on people, with unpleasant effects.

  Last on the list was Zeus. Zeus was an ongoing development of the SATWEP program, with the goal of creating super storms at will over an enemy's homeland.

  Her coffee was cold. Stephanie got up and headed for Elizabeth's office.

  CHAPTER 57

  Alexei Vysotsky set the phone down and sat for a moment, thinking of Korov, dead in America. He cursed and slammed his fist down on his desk. The door to his office opened and his aide looked in.

  "Sir? Is everything all right?"

  Vysotsky picked up an ashtray and hurle
d it at the startled man. It shattered against the wall.

  "Out! Get out, now!"

  The aide closed the door. Quickly.

  Korov! Damn the day he had listened to Harker. Damn the Americans.

  Vysotsky took a deep breath, another. He reached into his desk drawer and took out a bottle of vodka and a glass. He poured four fingers of the clear liquid into the glass and downed it. He poured another. The vodka ignited inside him. The warmth spread through his body, calmed him. He took out a papirosa, a long tube of paper and harsh, Russian tobacco. It was a peasant's cigarette, a habit left over from the old days when luxuries like American cigarettes were impossible to obtain. He pinched the end together and lit up, exhaled a stream of blue smoke toward the ceiling.

  He thought about the Americans. Everything to do with America had always been a problem. He'd thought that he could work with Harker, even though she was the enemy.

  Now my best officer is dead. That's what I get for trusting Americans. Lie down with dogs, get fleas.

  He thought about Harker and her Project team. It was a good thing she didn't know about California.

  In 1988 he'd been an ambitious young officer in the KGB, back in the days when the Russian security apparatus was far flung and almost invincible. Before Glasnost and the shame that followed. He had been adept at wet work, targeted assassinations carried out for the glory of the Motherland. A traitor had been discovered, an American recruited years before, supposedly a disgruntled CIA agent. The man had fooled them. He was a double, taking his orders from Langley and feeding Moscow false information. Who knew how many Russian lives had been lost, what damage had been done because of his betrayal? Alexei hadn't needed to think much about killing him.

  It hadn't been hard to arrange the car accident. It was simple bad luck that the target had his family with him when the car went over a cliff. All except his daughter Selena, who now worked for Harker.

  Vysotsky scuffed out his cigarette on the edge of Beria's desk. The irony did not escape him. The daughter of one of his assignments, now a key part of Harker's elite team. A dangerous woman. If she ever found out that he was responsible for her family's deaths, she'd come after him. But she never would. There was no way she would ever find out.

  No way.

  Vysotsky poured another vodka.

  CHAPTER 58

  Stephanie told the team about the DARPA weapons in Westlake's encrypted files.

  "He could go after the grid" Ronnie said. "You take it down, out come the lowlifes looking for a free TV and you get troops on the corner. Martial law, like he wanted."

  "That's what I thought at first," Stephanie said. "But things have changed. Before, Westlake had Homeland Security lined up and support from some key generals and politicians. That's gone. Taking the grid down would cause a lot of disruption, but it wouldn't have the same result."

  "What's left for him to do?" Ronnie asked. "Like you say, his support is gone. He can't pull off his plan. I was him, I'd disappear. Get a new identity and go underground. Someplace like Brazil."

  "Yeah, but you're not him," Nick said, "and Miller said he heard Westlake mention a backup plan to Martinez."

  "We need to look at this differently," Selena said.

  "What do you mean?" Elizabeth picked up her pen and began tapping it on her desk.

  Tap. Tap. Taptaptap.

  "We've been trying to figure out what he might do but we haven't thought about why he would do it."

  "Go on."

  "We need to get inside his mind if we want to predict his actions, or try to. He's finished as far as starting a government takeover. So what's left?"

  Elizabeth set her pen down. "I guess that depends on who he is. What makes him tick."

  "There ought to be a psych profile in his jacket," Nick said.

  "It probably wouldn't tell us much," Stephanie said. "This man reached the highest rank possible in a world of psych testing and rigid structure. He fooled everyone. I don't think we're going to learn anything from it."

  "We haven't been asking the right questions," Selena said. "So far we've been asking ourselves what he's going to do and where he might have gone. A better question might be why did he want to take over the government in the first place?"

  "Why would anyone?" Nick said. "He wanted power."

  "More than that," Selena said. "He thought he was going to make America strong."

  "We're already strong," Stephanie said.

  "But Westlake saw attempts to gain peaceful solutions on the world stage as a sign of weakness."

  "Some would say he had a point," Ronnie said. "I wouldn't trust any of the so-called world leaders out there, no matter what treaties they signed. Treaties are only pieces of paper. My people know all about treaties."

  Elizabeth said, "Let's stick to his motivation. Nick, you said he wanted power. That seems obvious, but it doesn't tell us anything we didn't know."

  "It's not so much that he wanted it," Nick said, "it's what he was prepared to do to get it. That puts him in the company of the psychopaths. People like Caligula and Pol Pot."

  "You think he's a psychopath?" Selena said.

  "What else would you call someone who's ready to kill thousands of people so he can get what he wants?"

  "Westlake believed in what he was doing," Stephanie said. "That tells us something."

  "People like that always have a good reason for murdering everyone."

  "I can guess what he might do," Selena said.

  "What?" Ronnie said.

  "He's finished, right? I mean, there isn't any way he can gain what he wanted."

  "Of course not. What are you thinking, Selena?" Elizabeth asked.

  "Westlake is a megalomaniac. A narcissist. He thinks the world revolves around him. He wants to be remembered. When people like him have nothing left to lose, the only thing left is revenge."

  "Oh, my God," Stephanie said.

  "Steph?" Harker looked at her.

  "He's going to use Prometheus," Stephanie said. She began twisting bracelets on her arm. "It's armed with heavy nukes. If he can control it, he could start a world war.."

  "There have to be safeguards on it," Selena said. "Fail safes."

  "He'd have to know the codes," Nick said.

  "He was in charge of the weaponized satellites," Elizabeth said. "He must know the codes." Elizabeth set her pen down. "You could be right, Steph. Westlake has nothing to lose and sooner or later he's going down. He could try and take everyone with him."

  "He could use Prometheus as a negotiating point," Nick said.

  "It wouldn't work. The Pentagon would just change the firing codes. They should change them anyway. I'd better call the President," Elizabeth said.

  CHAPTER 59

  A half hour later, Elizabeth's worst fears were confirmed.

  "The President didn't know about Prometheus."

  "That figures," Nick said. "Someone thought it was need to know and Rice wasn't on the list."

  "That's not all. He got the Joint Chiefs on the line and told them what we thought. After they got over their surprise that anyone knew about Prometheus except them, they assured him it couldn't happen. Ten minutes later they called back. They can't access the satellite. Normal control procedures have been locked out. No one knows when that happened, or how. The satellite sends regular status reports and nothing indicated any change."

  "Westlake," Nick said.

  "It certainly looks like it."

  "Now what, Director?" Ronnie said.

  "We might be in better shape than we think," Elizabeth said. "I don't see how Westlake can access the satellite. He'd need to get on one of the bases where they have the right equipment. Everyone is looking for him. He'll never get close. You can't call that satellite up on a CB."

  "Maybe not a CB, but he doesn't have to be on a military base," Selena said.

  "What do you mean?" Elizabeth looked at her.

  "All he needs is a powerful enough radio and the right frequency. If he's got a
transmitter and an antenna hidden somewhere, he can reach the satellite when it's in the right position."

  "If that's the case, we're screwed," Nick said. "We'll never find a hidden location in time."

  Elizabeth's phone rang.

  "Harker. Yes, Clarence."

  She looked at them. Hood, she mouthed. She listened. "Thank you, Clarence. I'll keep you updated."

  She set the phone down. "The FBI found Senator Martinez."

  "He knows where Westlake is," Nick said. "Let's ask him."

  "We can't. Martinez went home and shot himself."

  "Uh, oh," Ronnie said.

  "It gets worse. Martinez left a note. He said he didn't want to be part of what was coming."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "That doesn't sound good," Ronnie said.

  "We have to assume Westlake has gone over the edge," Elizabeth said, "and that he intends to launch those missiles."

  "What are the targets?" Nick asked.

  "Programmable. They could go anywhere."

  "Can we knock down the satellite?" Selena asked. "Missiles? Some secret plane that can get up there? Anything?"

  "No. Only a missile could reach it and Prometheus is programmed to defend itself against missile attack. The Pentagon says the missiles wouldn't get through."

  "The Pentagon could be wrong, or maybe they don't want to blow up their billion dollar toy on our say so."

  "Even if we could blow it up, those are hydrogen bombs up there," Elizabeth said. "They'll go off and they're loaded with plutonium. The explosion would poison the atmosphere for generations. It would create an EMP burst that would blanket half the globe and take out electrical power everywhere. The results would be catastrophic."

  "Didn't anyone think about stuff like that before they put it up there?" Ronnie said.

  "Apparently not."

  Ronnie shook his head.

  "Westlake would need a place to keep a transmitter," Nick said, "someplace no one would think of. Has anyone checked to see if he owns property somewhere, like a vacation home? Somewhere he could put up an antenna without attracting attention?"