The Sword of Cyrus: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 4)

by JC Ryan

  “Don’t’ beat yourself up too badly. It probably would have taken a trained psychologist to discern that these people were hiding something. And in truth, most of them didn’t know the extent of the project. They are remarkably dispersed. They didn’t even know that others in their same unit were doing the same things they were. Someone very clever, very experienced and very sophisticated put this together. We need to find that person.”

  “Agreed,” said Daniel. “Will you have time to meet with Luke this week? He should be home from Washington soon.”

  “I’ll make time,” she said.

  ~~~

  June 23, 2020; D-Day minus 35, Boulder and Denver

  As soon as Raj understood what they were up against, he made an executive decision to let his network in on the secret. Whether anyone else realized it or not, he believed that they were the best shot at finding the physical nexus of the conspiracy leadership. It didn’t take long for them to bump into other hackers on the trail; government IT specialists who were tasked with the same goal. Naturally, the two groups were aware of each other. A spokesman for Raj’s group approached him with a complaint.

  “You didn’t tell us that the Feds were doing the same thing,” he said, a plaintive note in his voice. Raj wasn’t sure whether it was his friend’s paranoia or a matter of pride that was at stake.

  “I wasn’t sure, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to assume it,” Raj said. “What is the problem?”

  “They’ll trace us back, dude.” Now Raj was certain the man was whining.

  “Aren’t you using your usual methods?” Raj asked, impatient with the conversation.

  “Well, yes. But still. They’ll get too close to us.”

  Raj thought for a minute. “Listen, they asked for me. They know all about me and they haven’t made a move to pick me up. Are you sure you are as hidden as you think? What if I ask to have the whole group included in this project? They may even pay you. And we could make it a condition of your cooperation that you have immunity for anything you’ve ever done before.”

  Raj was carefully not mentioning hacking or any other keywords that would endanger his friend. Both were well aware that the metadata mining the government indulged in would pick up this conversation between them, and that keywords such as hacking would bring down federal scrutiny.

  “I’ll poll the others. That may be an incentive. I’ll get back to you.”

  Raj went back to work on his own personal project; locating more pictures, hopefully this time with a later timestamp and intact cities. His theory was that if there were two timelines, as Roy had suggested, the 10th Cyclers may have recorded both of them, assuming that the effort to stop the original outcome would be successful. If he found them, that would have to mean it was, wouldn’t it?

  ~~~

  The FBI, who had physical custody of the detainees, weren’t happy that Salome had pulled rank and demanded that they keep both Alica and Karsten where she could question them further. Anyone who’d been involved in the questioning knew that Alica was the key to the whole mess, though they doubted she was the mastermind. The others were being flown to a classified location, outside the borders of the US, for questioning. They would be subjected first to psychological torture; for example, their questioners would threaten to wrap them in pigskins and kill them in that condition, which would deny them their place in Paradise. Salome was convinced that none of them knew any more than they had already given up, and argued in vain that it was unnecessarily cruel to put them through such things, much less even more painful physical torture. Since she couldn’t prevent it, she put it out of her mind and concentrated on discovering what they needed in time to stop the worst of it.

  Karsten was her first target on this day. After talking with Daniel, Sarah and a couple of others who’d been instrumental in bringing him in as head of the nanotechnology program, she was curious about the evident ease with which Alica turned him. She instructed the agents who’d been assigned to protect her as she questioned Karsten to stay outside the room. Based on everything she knew about Karsten, he posed no danger to her.

  “Karsten, my name is Salome Lane. I’m with the FBI. Do you know why you’ve been arrested?” Salome laid a plain white lined pad and a pen on the table before taking a seat across from Karsten.

  “Yes. I turned over sensitive information to my program administrator, information that I understand has been used to develop dangerous weapons by someone who intends harm to the US and other Western countries.” Karsten’s affect was robotic; he didn’t make eye contact with Salome, nor was his speech inflected. It was as if he’d been hypnotized and was speaking against his will.

  Her first task was to break him out of his shock and make him reveal some emotion. It didn’t really matter what - if she could make him angry or regretful, sad or even frustrated, it would give her clues to his motivations. That in turn would tell her something about Alica, perhaps enough to break through her refusal to speak.

  “Do your children know that you’ve been unfaithful to their mother and will likely not return home?” Salome couldn’t afford to regret her bluntness. Making him react was her immediate goal. Pushing that button didn’t do it.

  “My wife has already taken them home with her, to her parents in Switzerland. Our divorce has been coming for some time. They will not miss me.” Salome heard these words as his resignation to the situation. No doubt he was not close to his children, a fact that was inconvenient, but not necessarily unexpected. Not all men were.

  “Do you blame your wife for driving you into the arms of another woman?” Again, a provocative question, and again, it didn’t have the intended affect.

  “No. She is a good mother, but a loveless wife. I was simply tired of my life with her, but I wasn’t looking for an affair.” Salome congratulated herself for asking a question that at least got him to open up a bit. So, he was an accessible target when Alica was aimed at him. Salome began to realize that perhaps Alica’s talent wasn’t so expert after all. Then, surprisingly, Karsten spoke again.

  “You wouldn’t be able to understand. A woman. You can’t know how boring the marriage bed becomes when your wife is more interested in the children than in keeping your love fresh. Before I met Alica, I often wished I’d married a whore, so that at least she would know some tricks to keep me interested.”

  Salome kept a neutral face. Karsten was both more and less than he seemed on the surface. He had a fantasy life that his bland, unblemished work record wouldn’t have revealed. Perhaps he’d just never had the chance to indulge his baser nature. Given that chance, he’d revealed himself to have a weak character. And what he said revealed something about Alica, as well. Salome wondered just how much she enjoyed her work, and whether she’d had assignments like this before.

  “So, you weren’t angry when Alica threatened to reveal your affair to your wife?” By now, Salome realized she had most of what she needed from Karsten.

  “I was upset at first. Then I realized that I didn’t care. As long as Alica was willing to grant me sexual favors, I was happy to pay for them with information. The more interesting the information, the more interesting her techniques. I’d have given her anything, as long as that didn’t stop.”

  Salome had just one more question for Karsten, and then her FBI colleagues could have him and welcome. As far as she was concerned, he deserved what was coming to him. “Karsten, did Alica ever reveal to you where the information was going, mention a name, or even a group? Did you know that she was connected to a terrorist group?”

  “No,” he said. “I never knew what she was doing with the information, but yes, I assumed she was a terrorist. I didn’t care, as long as I could hold her and make love to her.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said.

  If Karsten wondered why Salome said that, he wouldn’t have long to wonder, she reflected.

  ~~~

  June 24, 2020; D-day minus 35, Denver and Boulder

  Salome’s next t
arget was Alica. She rather looked forward to matching wits with the woman again. It would be a welcome change from Karsten, who held about as much interest for her as a dead fish. She despised weak men. With a father and an older brother in military service, she knew strong, honorable men. If she had one failing as a profiler, it was that once she determined that her quarry was a coward or morally weak, the quest lost interest for her. Even a bad man could be strong, and those she hunted with a will. The others were too much like the game that was driven in front of the hunter’s blind to be shot down with no chase. It wasn’t sporting and it wasn’t fun.

  The Rosslerite men she’d met so far were of the strong variety. Daniel and his brother JR were so much like her brother that she’d felt instantly comfortable with them. Even Roy was a strong man. Shy, yes, but she knew how to handle that. Her younger brother was like him. So focused on the science that interested him that he hadn’t learned to relate to other people without discomfort. But, he could be counted on to do the right thing, no matter what. She was certain Roy was the same. Kind of cute, too, she recalled with an inner smile.

  After only a few minutes, her musings were interrupted by the arrival of Alica in the interrogation room. Salome had elected to remain there, ensconced in the seat facing the door, when Alica was brought in. That made it her turf, a slight psychological edge that Alica wouldn’t notice at first, unless she, too, had training in how people reacted under various types of stress.

  Alica looked as if she’d had a bad night, but perhaps it was only that she’d been denied her makeup. Dressed in a plain orange jumpsuit, her hair lank and with no makeup, she hardly looked the part of the Mata Hari that Karsten had described. Nevertheless, she had a defiant air that Salome could almost admire. That took some spirit, certainly. Salome decided to give her the surface respect that men would, if she looked her best. Perhaps it would disarm her enough to cause her to slip and reveal more than she otherwise would.

  “Karsten Adler is still very much under your spell,” she opened, an admiring note in her voice.

  “Adler is a fool. He was too easy,” Alica answered. She tossed her head, and gave what would have been a stunning smile, if her lips hadn’t been cracked and dry from several days without lipstick.

  “You must be used to more challenging prey,” Salome offered. It wasn’t subtle enough.

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” answered Alica, looking away.

  “Oh, I think you do. Adler described your sexual expertise. You don’t get that from a book, you know,” Salome said. “I almost envy you. It must be a feeling of power, to be able to wrap men around your little finger like that.”

  Alica started to speak, thought better of it and examined her fingernails, still bearing traces of the red she usually painted them.

  “Alica, we know you aren’t the mastermind of this plot. As good as you are at what you do, the mind that put this network together is clearly a masculine one, and expert at his craft. Do you know him? Did he train you himself? Did you practice your wiles on him? How was that? I imagine he’s older, and maybe not in the best of shape. Did you enjoy it?”

  The rapid-fire questions had Alica blinking, and the last one offended her. “No, of course not! He is…” She stopped, just before blurting out something that might have been useful. She pressed her lips together and stared defiantly at Salome.

  “Alica, I don’t know how long I can protect you. You’re safe from harsh questioning here, but if you give me nothing, I won’t be able to prevent them from taking you where they’ve taken the others.” Salome looked pointedly at Alica’s long, elegant fingers. “You may not be so beautiful, after they get through with you.”

  Alica paled, but refused to speak. Salome pressed a button that summoned the guard and had Alica returned to her cell to think about it for a little while longer. What she’d said was true, she couldn’t stall much longer.

  While Salome was making only a little progress, Raj’s crew was making the most of what little the rest of the detainees had given them unwittingly. Armed with the addresses and passwords for the most hidden of the email accounts, those that hadn’t been discovered in the original investigation, they’d managed to track down a few IP addresses and locate the handlers who had passed on the information from the translators. After the people were arrested, their computers were searched as thoroughly as if Raj’s network of hackers had been forensic IT specialists.

  It was the work of only a day to pinpoint the location of the lab in Iran. They now had their definitive answer; it was definitely Iranian terrorists behind the spy network. And what a network it was! With the hackers assured of their safety, they and the government IT specialists were able to tell the joint investigative task force that it was an extremely sophisticated operation.

  Many of the handlers were everyday people with no idea of what they were passing on. In fact, many were women or teens, non-Muslims, innocents being used in a sophisticated plot to destroy the very cities they lived in. As they were questioned, it became clear that they wouldn’t know their contacts on either side by sight, didn’t know what the information pertained to, and didn’t know what they were doing was illegal. Vast numbers of FBI and Homeland Security agents were tied up, interviewing the suspects with no progress in locating the person who’d put the network together. He may as well have been a phantom. The database in Washington was filling up with extensive bios and contact maps of people who were nothing but cogs in the machine.

  ~~~

  June 25; D-day minus 35, Washington, DC

  Lewis was having a drink with Luke at the end of the day, expressing his frustration with the situation.

  “Sam, you know what this reminds me of?” Luke said, after Lewis had vented. “This has all the earmarks of an old KGB operation from the Cold War era. They don’t make spooks like that anymore.” Luke’s tone was almost nostalgic, remembering his heyday so many years ago.

  “I hear that! And thank goodness. Those guys led us a merry chase. You know, you’re right, Luke. I can think of only one person that could have put this together in any kind of hurry. Oleg Zlatovski, remember him? The one that we never got ahead of.”

  “I do. But, if I’m not mistaken, he died a few years ago.”

  “Boating accident,” Lewis supplied. “Five years ago. His yacht blew up. No survivors.”

  “I don’t suppose you believe in reincarnation,” Luke joked, savoring another sip of his Scotch.

  “No, but I do believe in faking your own death,” Sam said, thinking as he spoke. “You know, it was the only way to retire from the KGB, back then. Do you think?”

  “I think we’d better find out. We can’t leave any rocks unturned.” responded Luke, who’d just realized they could be onto something. He was already planning to speak to that profiler, Salome Lane, the following day.

  ~~~

  Raj’s search was complete. He had manipulated the data by slicing, dicing and tying it in knots, and then he created a query of the index with the names of every country in Europe and Asia as the 10th Cyclers had known them. It was when he came to the areas now occupied by countries of the old Eastern bloc that he found a cache of pictures he’d previously overlooked. To his surprise, there were over fifty targets in Russia alone. This was so unusual that he took the information to Daniel even before he finished the rest of that query.

  Daniel immediately bumped it up to Luke and Director Sam Lewis, who informed Harper. The ball was now in the president’s court, but he elected not to inform his Russian counterpart for the moment. If Raj found anything else to be alarmed about, he’d do a videoconference with everyone involved. If not, he would inform the Prime Minister of Russia individually.

  Harper had a beef with Russia, stemming from the aggression of Russia that had taken place under Putin’s watch, when they tried to annex the Ukraine a few years back. But, he was also a realist. It was six years later now, a different time and a different leader. Besides, sometimes your ene
my’s enemy is your friend.

  Now it was personal

  June 26, 2020; D-day minus 34, various locations

  By eight a.m. Boulder time, Salome knew a name to spring on Alica. If the name Oleg Zlatovski didn’t shake her, Alica would be on a plane to join the rest of the Rossler Foundation detainees. The hackers had turned up new IP addresses by tracing the lab communications back, and the people at the locations these addresses revealed were a different group from the spy network handlers. They were completely baffled, most of them, by the agents who pounded on their doors and arrested them. What had they done? Someone in their former country had asked a favor of them, perhaps delivering a shirt or jacket to a college student, perhaps buying some electrical supplies for the local mosque. Why would that be illegal? Some had family that contacted lawyers, who argued the same thing. These people had done nothing illegal. The authorities must release them, or what was this freedom that they’d come to America to obtain?

  With the threat of having the crisis revealed prematurely, Lewis directed his teams to release anyone who had done nothing more than deliver something, as soon as they gave up the information of what and where they’d delivered it. Chances were they knew no more than the others that had been questioned to no avail. There was no use tying up the courts with false arrest complaints and having to explain to judges that some science fiction device had predicted the end of the world in about a month and these people were part of it. Harper would have his head if that happened. A few, however, answered questions with a furtive look or body language suggesting they were hiding something. Those were detained without benefit of legal counsel and questioned more closely.

  It was slow and tedious work, even as the investigators felt the stress of time passing too quickly. Someone had delivered a shirt to someone else? What did it look like? Why wasn’t it sent directly to the recipient? What was special about it? Where did the recipient live? Next task, track down the recipient. Question him, or her. What did you do with the shirt that so-and-so gave you? We know that they gave you a shirt, don’t ask what shirt. Where is it? Why are there no buttons on it now? The more questions they asked, the more questions arose. What was all this? There was no reason for these deliveries, and yet they were uncovering hundreds of them. Literal armies of agents, combing the streets of every major city in America and Europe, finding actions that made no sense and people who couldn’t explain why they’d been asked to do them. And all the time, the clock was ticking.