Once Dead

by Richard Phillips

  Denise wasn’t sure when computing systems would become intelligent, but she was pretty sure we wouldn’t recognize it when it happened. Dr. Turing had created the test that most computer scientists thought of as defining artificial intelligence. It postulated that if a person in one room had a conversation with a computer in another room and couldn’t tell that he wasn’t conversing with a human, the computer met the definition for artificial intelligence. The problem with that scenario was that intelligent, self-aware computing systems would probably have no interest in emulating humans.

  Big John didn’t. And he didn’t mine data. He experienced it. To Denise it seemed that finding correlations among disparate data excited him. He didn’t care that the individual data points might seem to have nothing in common. Denise didn’t really believe Big John was artificially intelligent, but she wouldn’t bet her life on it. What Big John did was pure magic.

  When someone with the right authorization entered a Big John query, it initiated a new correlative data search with each available node contributing its weight. Queries often led Big John down unexpected paths. It was one of those dark paths that Denise now found herself traversing.

  Picking up the phone on her desk, she dialed a memorized extension.

  “Riles.” The NSA director’s voice carried the quiet confidence of its owner.

  “Sir, this is Dr. Jennings.”

  “Yes, Denise?”

  “I’ve got some Big John data you’ll want to see.”

  “The subject matter?”

  “We’ve picked up some anomalous activity in Germany.”

  Admiral Riles paused. “I’ll round up David and Levi. How soon can you have your briefing ready in my conference room?”

  Denise glanced at the clock on her computer screen: 9:43 a.m.

  “I can be ready by ten thirty.”

  “Ten thirty then.”

  Riles ended the call and Denise turned her attention to preparing for her upcoming presentation.

  The shimmering black glass structure nicknamed Crypto City housed many things. One of them was a small conference room currently owned by Vice Admiral Jonathan Riles. The NSA director was a stocky man with an open, friendly face that served as an unlikely platform for his icy-gray eyes. Number one in his class at the Naval Academy, Rhodes Scholar, all-American football player, he exuded an easy self-confidence that filled the small conference room.

  Dr. David Kurtz sat to his left, the NSA’s wild-haired chief computer scientist’s gaze fixed on Denise as if he expected her to pull a gun from her case. Opposite him, fingers interlaced beneath his narrow chin, sat Levi Elias, the finest analyst the NSA had.

  Admiral Riles nodded at Denise. Clearing her throat, she clicked a button that brought the flat-screen monitor opposite Riles to life.

  “Sir, as you know, along with the specific priority intelligence requests we issue to Big John, there are a set of long-standing correlative data searches that remain active at all times. Recent activity within Germany triggered a security alert of sufficient significance for me to request this briefing.”

  Jonathan Riles interrupted. “What’s the category?”

  “Counter-intelligence activity.”

  “Correlation coefficient?”

  “Point nine three seven.”

  Dr. Kurtz frowned. “That high?”

  “It’s Big John’s estimate, not mine.”

  Admiral Riles nodded. “Okay, Denise. Take us through it.”

  Denise brought up the first chart. “Two days ago, Big John noticed a change in intelligence activity in Germany that triggered one of his standing correlative searches.”

  She clicked a button and a graph replaced the data on the first image. “Throughout yesterday and continuing today, the level of that activity continued to increase. It started with remote access of official police reports and progressed to streaming camera data. The camera access was centered in a hundred-and-sixty-kilometer radius around Heidelberg.”

  “A hundred-mile radius?”

  Denise suppressed a smile. Riles was quick. “That’s right. Big John tagged it as a U.S. search pattern. It’s definitely CIA, but it’s odd.”

  Moving to the next chart, Denise used a red laser pointer to circle a sharp spike in communications data on an isolated portion of the graph. “Knowledge of this operation seems to be isolated to a very small group within CIA. Based upon what we’re seeing, it’s highly unlikely that this has come to Director Rheiner’s attention, most likely an off-the-grid action designed to maintain plausible deniability.”

  As she sequenced through a series of charts and graphs, Denise continued. “Then, this morning, Big John identified a new hot spot in Munich. As you can see, this shows a spike in interest in street camera data, culminating in extensive data access from the Munich Central Train Station.”

  Levi Elias shifted forward in his chair. “I assume Big John identified the target of the facial recognition search.”

  “That’s why I asked for this meeting.” Denise pressed a button on the remote and a photograph replaced the graphical display. “Meet Jack Gregory, formerly a CIA operative, special task unit.”

  “Formerly?” Admiral Riles voiced the obvious question.

  “Jack Gregory, credited with thirteen high-value target deactivations, was killed in Calcutta last year. His body was never recovered.”

  “And the CIA was hunting him in the Munich train station today?”

  “Yes. Quite vigorously.”

  “And?”

  Denise switched to a grainy image of a man walking along a crowded platform. “And it looks like they found him. Just after noon, Munich time, he boarded the 12:36 Intercity-Express to Berlin. It’s scheduled to arrive about a half-hour from now.”

  “Ideas, Levi?”

  The analyst turned to face Admiral Riles. “I won’t know for sure until we get more data, but it looks like someone at CIA is set on bending some rules. If an ex-agent posed a high-profile security threat in Germany, they are required to share that information with us and DIA. Unless Denise left something out from the Big John data, there’s no indication the DCI’s been briefed, much less the Director of National Intelligence.”

  “I left nothing out.”

  Levi cleared his throat. “No offense. I’m just making a point. Something big’s going down in Germany and it’s being kept very close.”

  Jonathan Riles’s gray eyes narrowed. “Denise. Are we monitoring that Berlin train station?”

  “I added several specific Big John search directives. If anything’s happening electronically, we own it.”

  Riles stood up and the other two at the table rose with him.

  “Okay, Levi.”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Get me everything there is to know about Jack Gregory.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The ICE train within the north–south Tiergarten Tunnel slowed to a crawl, halting at one of the five island platforms that occupied the lowest level inside the glass shell of Berlin’s central train station. Jack remained in his seat, watching the other passengers rise en masse to reach for belongings, then shoulder their way toward the doors that offered release onto the platform. John and Jane Doe mirrored the other passengers’ movements, their uncaring glances passing over him as if his seat was empty. Good, but just a touch too little interest to be natural. The sudden adrenaline rush told him the rest. Others waited outside the railcar to make sure Jack Gregory never left this station alive.

  A crowded train station was one of the better spots for an assassination, allowing the hunters to blend into the milling mob. But there were ways to illuminate those who lurked within a crowd.

  “Bomb!”

  Jack’s yell momentarily froze the people moving through the crowded railcar. The explosion that followed had nothing to do with C4. An eruption of humanity spewed onto the platform, a coronal mass ejection that grew as the mob picked up his yell, repeating it again and again. And as the milling throng became a st
ampede, the five that didn’t join that rush for the exits might as well have been limo drivers holding up boldly lettered “Jack Gregory” signs.

  Jack didn’t make the same mistake. He rushed along within the crowd, one more panicked traveler shoving toward the exit, except Jack’s path took him steadily toward the killer standing just to the right of the broad stairway that led up to ground level. The large man in the blue ball cap shoved aside the river of humanity that flowed around him, frustration painted on his face as he fought to find his target in the midst of the maelstrom.

  Jack’s side kick crushed the hunter’s kneecap, wiping the frustration from his face as it toppled him sideways into the knife edge of Jack’s inner palm. The blow crushed his windpipe, bringing his cry of pain to a gargling end.

  Ducking below the level of those shouldering past him, Jack dragged the dying man around the side of the stairs. Putting on the man’s cap and sun glasses, Jack shrugged into the loose fitting tan jacket, then lifted the Glock from the fellow’s shoulder holster and slid it into his waistband at the small of his back.

  These thugs weren’t CIA and they weren’t German BfV. That meant they were Roskov’s men. So why were they getting CIA intel?

  Blood thrumming through his temples, Jack’s attention was drawn toward the tunnel to his right. The danger down that passageway pulled him like a swordfish on a thousand-pound test line. Fighting the nearly irresistible, soulless call that sought to drag him in that direction, he stepped around the stairway and shrugged back into the panicked throng. Moving with the crowd, his eyes once again found his remaining hunters—three men and a hawkish blond woman wearing a navy blue pantsuit. As he let himself be pushed up the stairs and out onto the street, Jack committed their faces to memory.

  Then, amidst the blare of sirens and the flashing lights of arriving emergency vehicles, Berlin opened its mouth and swallowed him whole.

  CHAPTER 14

  Admiral Jonathan Riles looked across the small conference table at the slender, beak-nosed man, glad that the analyst worked for him instead of the competition.

  “Take me through it, Levi.”

  Levi nodded and brought the ninety-inch flat-panel monitor on the far wall to life. “This is the first of a sequence of images from cameras in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, captured just as the Intercity-Express train carrying Jack Gregory arrived at the platform, taken at 5:38 p.m. Berlin local time . . . rush hour.”

  The image showed a train platform crowded with passengers, many reading newspapers, listening to music on their smart phones, or lost in their eBooks while they waited for their train. As far as Jonny Riles could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Levi Elias clicked a button and the image changed. “Here is Gregory’s train just prior to opening its doors to let the arriving passengers off. Now, in this next image you can see the first passengers exiting onto the platform from the first class car carrying Gregory and the two CIA field agents that we have identified as Pamela Scherrer and Roger Macon. This is where things get dicey.”

  The next image sent an electric thrill through Admiral Riles. It was as if someone had waved a magic wand and transformed the bored crowd within the train station into a completely different entity, gripped by fear that froze a thousand faces. Another button press from Levi put the crowd in motion as the recorded video feed from another camera played out on screen.

  “Someone yelled ‘Bomb!’ and this is the result. Pure panic. Everyone racing for the exit, trampling those that got in their way.” Levi froze the video, the red dot of his laser pointer circling a large man not moving with the crowd, but facing back toward the train. “As you can see, not quite everyone was running.”

  Levi started the video again, then stopped it once more, this time circling a dark suited woman struggling through the crowd in the wrong direction.

  Admiral Riles leaned forward, his attention zeroed in on yet another man, this one of medium build and wearing khaki pants and a multi-colored linen shirt. “How many in the hit squad?”

  Levi shook his head. “From the available footage, I’ve only been able to identify these three, but there was at least one more.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Along with those injured in the stampede, one man was killed.” The image on the screen was replaced by a morgue photo. “This is from the coroner’s report. Crushed trachea produced by an open-hand blow. Definitely not accidental. The man’s real name is Renee Balkman, a thug in the employ of Stadich Transport, one of Vladimir Roskov’s companies.”

  “Gregory?”

  “Almost certainly his handiwork. Didn’t catch it on camera though.”

  “Why not?” Admiral Riles felt his anticipation rise.

  “It appears Jack Gregory used the panicked mob to mask his departure. We just got him in a couple of frames. As you can see in this one where he is exiting the train, he looks like any other frightened passenger, shoving his way toward the exit. Here’s another from a different camera that caught his approach to the stairs. There were two live video cameras with wide angle shots, but it seems Gregory knew where all the cameras were positioned. He just ducked a little and moved with the crowd. Invisible.”

  Riles glanced down at the open file in front of him, its contents spread across the table. As impressive as Jack Gregory’s dossier painted him, Riles had a feeling it didn’t do the ex-CIA operative justice.

  “What about the dead man? Do we have him on film?”

  “Not alive. He was by the stairs, but had positioned himself out of the field of view of any of the cameras. My guess is he was the primary shooter and didn’t want the kill recorded. The others were just there to make sure Gregory didn’t make a break for it.”

  “So Gregory spotted the shooter and took him down on his way out.”

  “He used the crowd to get in close. The way people were getting pushed around, the person right next to those two probably just thought someone else had gotten knocked down. Gregory probably looked like he was trying to help an injured man by dragging him out of the rush.”

  Riles looked back down at the documents, shuffling through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

  “Levi, I believe you know the CIA’s senior trainer of field agents, Garfield Kromly.”

  “We dated the same girl. Pam married him, but somehow, we all stayed friends through the years.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  Levi dropped his gaze, swallowed, then raised his dark eyes once again. “Pamela died almost a year ago. She’d fought cancer for a long time. Hell, we thought she’d beat it. But when it reemerged, it took her down so fast. I haven’t seen Garfield since the funeral.”

  “And if I asked you to pay him a visit?”

  “It would be awkward. Painful.”

  “It says here that Kromly trained Gregory. That Jack was his star pupil.”

  Riles watched as understanding dawned in Levi Elias’s dark eyes. “I could talk to him myself, but I have a feeling he’ll be more open with you.”

  Levi’s mouth narrowed into a tight line. “I’ll arrange it.”

  Admiral Riles rose to his feet and Levi Elias mirrored his action.

  “Thanks, Levi. I look forward to your report.”

  Levi nodded, then turned and strode out, leaving Admiral Riles watching his back as he walked stiffly out the conference room door.

  CHAPTER 15

  What used to be known as East Berlin had long been the subject of exploitation by its richer, western namesake, but Jack liked it. Despite the advent of the Schickimicki, the wealthy yuppies who drove up prices and displaced the former occupants, it was still easier to disappear here than anywhere else in Germany. It was also easier to find the sort of characters that could provide anything imaginable to someone with ready cash and know-how. And Jack’s imagination knew few limits.

  The flat he’d rented had thus far escaped the upgrades that had accompanied East Berlin’s absorption into a unifie
d Germany, as had the neighborhood that surrounded it. Its seven hundred and fifty square feet contained a combination kitchen and dining room, a water closet with shower, toilet, and sink, and a bedroom just large enough for a twin bed, nightstand, and freestanding pine wardrobe. The flower-patterned wallpaper had seen its best days and Jack doubted those days had been all that good to begin with. It didn’t really matter. He’d stayed in much worse and he wouldn’t be here long.

  Peter Weisen had served him well in the past, and today had been no exception. The portly German had a cheery disposition that endeared him to Rasthof Rhinesdorf’s patrons, whether they dined and drank in the gasthaus restaurant or partook of beer and a game of nine pins in the two-lane bowling alley in the basement beneath the bar. But only a select few customers had been privy to the specialty shopping available in the sub-basement that lay below that kegelbahn. Peter was a man with access to a network that, given a sufficient combination of time and money, could acquire anything available to the CIA or FSB.

  Jack had made a variety of off-the-shelf purchases and had left Peter with a list that would take a bit more effort to gather, along with specific instructions for where and how he wanted those items delivered . . . multiple deliveries to multiple locations. The agreed-upon price had widened Peter’s usual smile, a large figure indeed, payment made via transfer from one numbered Credit Suisse account to another. Money well spent.

  The new laptop was an upgrade from what Jack usually bought. In his line of work, laptops had a very limited shelf life. They certainly weren’t the kind of things on which he stored essential information. For that he relied solely on his memory. But they did have their uses. Right now, seated at the metal-legged kitchen table, Jack found himself appreciating the high-end graphics card in this one.

  Using readily available sketch artist facial composite software, he gradually brought the four faces in his mind’s eye to life on the screen, images he could use to identify the surviving members of the hit team that had tried to ambush him inside the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. Two pots of coffee and another Swiss banking transaction later, he had electronic dossiers to go with the four faces.