by Randal Sloan
#
Jorge Abernathy, who was calling himself the Weasel nowadays, had rather quickly received a response back from the Organization. They had, of course, agreed to pay him handsomely for any information on Doctor Randolph's work on nanites. First, he attempted to access the doctor's compu-pad, without success. The doctor had locked it using the fingerprint scanner, and put all the latest security updates in, so with the limited access he had to it in the lab, there was no way he would get into it. He suspected that there was also location encryption included, so he couldn't simply steal it and take it to a tech decryption shop. Plus he would be high on the suspect list for such an activity. He didn't really believe that the data he was looking for was stored there anyway.
Jorge also had been unable to get any information from the lab's VR system. Doctor Randolph had really locked it down, and he knew that the doctor had an AI in control of it. All the data was triple protected, with passwords, biometric and voice print protection. The doctor had gotten paranoid in his old days, hadn't he? Because the doctor had become so reclusive with his work, Jorge was not involved in the details. He was just a gopher and he resented that. If the stupid doctor had shared more with him, this would've been easy. Of course, in his twisted logic, he never saw the irony of the fact that the doctor not involving him in his work was the reason he was having such difficulty stealing it.
To make it even more difficult, he was unable to keep up with the doctor's schedule. In fact, he would sometimes disappear for hours at a time, and sometimes for days at a time. If he had been able to know his true schedule, he would then have been able to get additional resources to attempt to break into the lab's computer system. A couple of times he tried to follow the doctor, but he always lost him. Sometimes, he thought that the doctor had caught one of the Space Tech shuttles up to the space station, but he could not figure out his schedule with any certainty. Other times Jorge didn't have a clue where he had gone. He would somehow disappear and then reappear sometime later. The man was downright nuts, Jorge decided. He finally realized that he would have to change tactics if he was going to accomplish his objective.
The man who had been communicating with him from the Organization called himself Agent X. That was all the information that he had on him. He sent him another note on the forum suggesting that he might need additional resources to complete his task. He thought they were desperate enough to do it, but knew he would have to be careful with what he asked for. He knew he couldn't trust them, but he would always have a backup plan and get the money up front. He decided he'd better beef up his escape plan in case it went sideways.
Agent X had in fact been discussing with his superiors how they might cultivate this resource. They had first been contacted by him a couple of years ago, and had immediately realized that he potentially could be very valuable, but they also had quickly found out that he was unreliable. So they had used him in the past in a limited fashion. Even the attack two years previous on Doctor Randolph had failed primarily because of this unreliability. He had been told to provide the false information regarding the attack on the launch facility the day before the attack, but he had failed to do that until they had forced him to do it the day of the attack instead. That was the primary reason Doctor Randolph had been missed completely in the attack.
However, the Organization really wanted the information on the nanites, believing that they could do many things with them. They had no morals about any of it, so they envisioned super soldiers who could be used to accomplish their goals with a sleep switch where they could be put in storage, and then re-awakened when needed. And a kill switch if they tried to rebel or escape.
When the assistant was unable to steal the information, the decision had been made to attempt to kidnap the doctor. That appeared to be the only step they could take to get the information. They were trying to figure out how they might attempt that by using the assistant.
Most of the Organization's current resources were dedicated to other problems. They were trying to find out what had happened to the ships sent in the last attempted capture of a Space Tech mining vessel. The two pirate ships had not returned and they could not contact them. They suspected that somehow Space Tech had taken them out. It didn't look good. The odds were just too high that they had both individually suffered a fatal accident. They were also planning to refurbish one of the old space stations in earth orbit to use it for a new base in space, and it had to be done in complete secrecy. All of that meant that they really didn't have the resources to do the snatch and grab right now.
The result was that Agent X posted back to the Weasel that they would have to get back to him. He also instructed him to keep trying to steal the information, and especially to get them working samples. Lastly, he stuck a line in there reminding him that they didn't like people who failed them. Maybe that would scare the old fool enough that he would get something done without their help.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Organization Strikes Again
The Organization has been active in recent months in a number of countries, but not in the United States. Homeland is warning everyone not to become complacent, but be on the lookout for any possible threats from them or any other terrorist group.
#
The weekend wasn't that different than weekdays for Miranda. Some of the students left for the weekend, especially those that had family nearby. An hour's commute, and they could take their laundry home to their mother. Miranda was stuck doing her own laundry, but she laughed when she saw the sign someone had posted in their laundry room. "You're on your own here, but it isn't rocket science!"
Sunday, she went to the service in the little chapel they had on campus, the sermon being presented by the chaplain for the school. After grabbing food and coffee, Miranda found herself back at the library. She had tried to go in the day before, but physical access to the Special Research area had been blocked by a contract crew pulling fiber optic cable, so she had not been able to get in there.
The crew was not working this time, so Miranda hurried to the room with the full-size VR. She had immediately noticed before that her access level exceeded what she should have been given, just like with Doctor Ted at the hospital. She figured she must look trustworthy or something. She had been so distracted when she saw the full sized VR screens that she hadn't noticed that she had access to system level messages. The last time the queue had been empty, but today it was not, bringing it to her attention. When she read the message, she stared in shock. "This is an urgent warning! Your school has been targeted by the Organization for an attack. This is not a drill. You must warn the school management. The Organization is planning to target the next soccer game, and it is imperative that the school beef up security to prevent the attack."
Miranda was even more frightened when she saw the timestamp on the message was only a few minutes earlier, and the location header told her that whoever had sent it had been in the server room there in the library. The person who sent that message was probably still here in the building with her! Not sure what to do, she forwarded the message to her personal account, leaving the message in the unread queue, so if anyone else that was admin logged in, they would see it. Shutting down the VR system, Miranda knew that she needed to get help, but she was afraid to try it there. She thought maybe she could sneak out without being seen. Unfortunately, she had barely stepped out of the room, when she ran into two men.
The first man was very large and had a snarl on his face, causing Miranda to be even more frightened. Before he could say anything, the younger of the two stepped in front of the other man. He appeared much more friendly. Speaking in a reassuring tone, he told Miranda, "Sorry to bother you. We were here working yesterday pulling fiber optic cable, and we had to leave some of our equipment here. We are here now to get it and will be leaving in just a minute." He turned to the other guy. "George, why don't you go get the van, and pull it around the back. I will carry all the equipment to the service bay door."
Miranda nodded. "I was just leaving to contact my uncle. I'm sure he will be able to do something." Miranda didn't try to explain that her "uncle" was really Doctor Ted Randolph who was her doctor and not her real uncle, but she didn't have time to explain all that.
Jon looked relieved. "Ok, that should work. You need to get out of here before he gets back. I think I have him under control, but I don't want to take any chances. He's not a very nice person, as I guess you can tell."
Miranda didn't argue, breathing a quick, "Thank you, I'm leaving now." She hurried out the door, looking back to see Jon pushing the button for the service door. She was afraid to linger, lest George might return, so she quickly let the door close. Afraid to run, nevertheless, she hurried as fast as she could toward her dorm room. She was glad her limp was gone so it didn't slow her down. Shaken, she locked the door to the dorm room and dropped down on her bed. She was definitely stressed enough to feel a headache trying to come on, but by resting a few minutes she got it under control. Finally able to continue, she sent an urgent request for a secure VR connection to Doctor Ted.
A moment later, he did as she requested, quickly asking, "Are you ok? Has something happened with your nanites?" He rightly took the urgency and the request for a secure connection as important, but he was jumping to the wrong conclusion about the reason.
Miranda assured him. "Nothing like that. I'm fine, but we have an issue here at the school and you are the only one I know that I could call." She forwarded him the message from the library system. She saw his eyes widen when he read it, but she went on nervously, "Two men were at the library. One of them was very large and really scared me, but the other man talked him into going out for their van. When the big man was gone, the second man told me that he was working undercover, and he warned me that the threat was real. He said he would try to send more information if he found out more. He had me leave before the other man returned."
She could tell Doctor Ted was worried by what she had said, but he was trying to hide it. He took a breath, obviously thinking it through, because he asked her, "Did he tell you his name? What did he look like? If he's for real then I have met him and I know his name."
"Yes. He said it was Jon. He didn't give me a last name. He was a few years older than me I think, with dark brown hair. Looked a little like that man from the Organization that was in the news a few weeks ago."
"That sounds like the man I know, Jon Rupert. The man in the news is his uncle. Ok, if it's him, we must assume the threat is real. Are you ok or do I need to come get you?"
Miranda knew if she didn't convince him she was ok, he would have her out of there in an instant. She had barely been there a couple of weeks. She laid it on pretty thick. "I'm fine, Uncle Ted. Really. Jon seemed to think that if you put the extra security in, they will abort the mission. Besides, I'm not even going to the soccer game."
"For now, I will leave you there. If you hear anything else, call me right that instant. I know the Chief there at the school police department, and I'm going to have them keep an eye on you."
"Ok, I'm sure that's not necessary, but I'll feel safer. And I promise I will call." Miranda quickly disconnected the call, mentally sighing in exasperation. As far as she was concerned, the man might as well be her real uncle.
#
Jon breathed a sigh of relief when the girl made it out the door. That had been close. Ralph, the real name of his companion, had been about to go off the deep end with her. He suspected only his own quick thinking had saved the day. Plus, he had almost freaked out himself when he saw the girl up close. Something was eerily familiar about her, but he just couldn't place it.
When Ralph got into the van after they had finished loading it, Jon knew the best defense was a strong offense, and jumped him before he could get a word in. "You idiot. What were you about to do? We are supposed to be covertly undercover here, and you were going to attack a student? The last thing we need would be a bunch of policemen combing the school looking for her and probably us. Lucky for you, I was here to keep you in line. All it took was a little polite explanation. If you tell them you are supposed to be here and act like it, they will believe you. As far as everyone else knows, we are supposed to be here, working on the contract job."
Ralph gave him a hate-filled glare, but said nothing. Jon had sometimes felt bad when he had to set someone else up to be the fall guy for him to keep his cover on the team. But he had to do his part to fight the Organization, and they had to have an apparent reason if a mission failed. That usually involved setting someone else up to look either stupid or as a downright traitor. However, in this case, he was looking forward to seeing Ralph blamed for the warning to school security. He had queued up a follow-up message telling the school that he wanted money for providing them information, the second message also pointing back to Ralph. He wouldn't actually send that message, making it look like Ralph had lost his nerve.
Jon had a bad feeling about this mission, a strong feeling that something still wasn't right, and he was worried that the warning might not be successful in stopping the attack. This time didn't seem like the others he had been involved with. For starters, he couldn't find anything out about how the attack was supposed to happen. The actual attack was being carried out by the specialized team that had been loaned them by their supporters, and Jon could not find anything out about their plans. Very worrisome. He had to keep digging and hope that he would find something.
As Ralph drove them back to the warehouse they were using as a temporary staging point, Jon kept thinking about that girl. There was just something about her...
#
As soon as he got off the VR call with Miranda, Doctor Ted made several additional calls. He first called Doctor Sam Randolph since he knew he would need Space Tech's resources. The reaction was pretty well what he expected, so that his first task was to talk him out of immediately pulling Miranda out of school. He knew he felt the same way, but that would have been overreacting. He managed to get him to back down by promising him they would have a team in place to get her out of there.
With Space Tech on board, Ted set up a VR conference call with Campus Security, Space Tech Security, and Homeland. He quickly explained to them that they had received information on a threat to the school with a high confidence of validity. When he gave them the information he had, and explained about his source, it didn't take long to convince everyone the threat was legitimate. Homeland then took over and began to discuss plans and resources. By the time the call was over, it looked like a tremendous force would be descending on the school. There was no way the Organization would be able to get something past all of them. He left the VR conference feeling much better about the situation.
Nevertheless, Doctor Ted called the school administrator and convinced him to cancel all classes the next day. Maybe that would keep Miranda inside and safe. Finally, he called a special team at Space Tech and put them on call for the next 24 hours. Their sole task was to protect Miranda and extract her if necessary. He almost sent them to get her out immediately, but he knew she would be furious. He still almost did it. Sometimes you had to do what you had to do. Since the threat was a day away, he held off for the moment. If they didn't have anything by an hour before the start time of the game, he would send them, no matter wh
at.
#
Miranda was still a little shaky when Emily and Zeke arrived back at the dorm from their visit to their parents. Emily took one look at her and demanded to know what was wrong. When she told her, Emily immediately dragged her down to her brother's room, and made Miranda repeat the whole thing. When Miranda finished, Zeke looked at her intently. "And do you think security has this all handled, or do we need to do something about it ourselves? A lot of our friends will be at that soccer game, and I don't want them hurt."
Miranda looked at him and sighed. "No, I don't think it's all going to be alright. I sort of led Doctor Ted into thinking I was going to stay safely away from it all, but I have a really bad feeling about it. I think they are up to something a lot worse than normal and normal security won't catch it. Not even bomb sniffing dogs will find it. I have read a lot about this group. They have someone funding them and providing them with resources that are beyond what they should have. And they have been very quiet in the US for some time now. I think this is big and it is going to be bad if we don't stop it."
Zeke looked at the two of them. "Ok, let's say it's up to us. If you're right, and it's something that has never been seen before, we need to think outside the box to figure it out. To get past the security, I'm sure we will have now, it has to be some kind of bomb or other explosive device, and it has to be already here. How do you think they have gotten it on campus? It has to be disguised as something else, and with a valid purpose to be here. Have they done any construction at the soccer field over the break? We know the two men you saw were disguised as part of a construction subcontract."
