“Sir, this is totally impossible. I’m talking on my phone to you now. I haven’t used it for anything else, I swear it. And I just bought it a few weeks ago.”
“I have to take another call on this. Be sure you answer when I call back.” Bartoe rang off. Tyler’s mind raced. How could his phone have been breached? And by whom? He remembered Patrick saying that he never got the text message Tyler had sent saying he would be getting to Tokyo late. He ran over to Choy, the computer expert, and filled him in on what Bartoe had just said.
“Dial *#06#,” Choy said. “That will display your IMEI.”
“What’s an IMEI?” Tyler asked as he dialed the code into his cell.
“International Mobile Equipment Identity. It’s a unique numerical identifier for every mobile device.”
A sixteen-digit number appeared on the screen, and Tyler showed it to Choy, who looked for the number on the phone itself. That number was different.
“You’ve been cloned,” said Choy.
“But that’s impossible, I just got it from an official Apple dealer a few weeks ago and it’s never out of my sight!”
As he spoke, though, Tyler’s mind went back to the man who spiked his drink at the Vegas casino.
“Holy shit,” he said softly. Larry Suh. He turned to Choy. “The guy in that photo you printed out. Who did you say he was?
Choy looked down at the photo. “General Liu Jintao of the Chinese Air Force.”
“I just remembered him being in my apartment when I was doped up. He was looking at my phone and my computer. He must have left me a clone of my phone, kept the real one, and uploaded my security credentials from my home computer.”
Just then, a roar went up in the crowd as Emperor Naruhito waved to the crowd while walking to the VIP box. His image, and a split screen of President Dillard applauding him, was projected on the jumbotron on opposite sides of the stadium. Focusing on what he could control at the moment, Tyler started off again to his hide.
At the same moment, Patrick’s attention went to Proctor who was shouting into his phone. “What the hell do you mean, a hijacked MQ Predator?” He paused and listened to the person on the other end of the line. “How far away is it?” he shouted into the phone. “Jesus,” he whispered upon hearing the reply. “Arm two MIM-104 Patriots. Await further instructions.”
Patrick was about to speak when Hayashida ran over after hearing Proctor ordering antiaircraft missiles to be armed.
“You can’t even think about using missiles anywhere near the stadium, especially not with the Emperor here!”
“If we don’t take it down, not only the Emperor but every person in this stadium could be vaporized. That text about ‘fire’ could mean it has some kind of nuke on it.” His phone rang again. Listening to the person on the other end, he relayed the progress report to Patrick and Hayashida.
“It’s still pretty far, but those things can go three hundred miles per hour.”
“Can’t they divert it to the ocean?” Hayashida asked frantically.
“Someone else is controlling it remotely. Plus, it’s purposely being flown over high population areas. If we shoot it down and there’s radioactive material on it, the fallout area could be worse than Fukushima.” Proctor turned to his aide. “We need to get close enough to it to lase it for radiation.” He referred to a technique whereby a low-powered laser is aimed at a suspected source of radioactive material, thus freeing electrons from oxygen ions, at which point a second laser energizes the electrons and starts a cascading breakdown of the air. The rate of the breakdown of air molecules indicates the presence or absence of radioactivity. He ran off to his mobile command center outside the stadium.
Patrick decided it was a good time to call in to his team, who were situated in various parts of the stadium. He hailed Kirsten first. “I’m about five rows back from the VIP box. No sign of any trouble.”
“Roger that, keep me posted.” Patrick was about to check on Phibbs when his stomach dropped. He called Kirsten back. “Kirsten, is the Chinese head of state in the VIP box?”
“Wait one…”
He heard her asking the Secret Service agents who surrounded the box the same question and came back on the line.
“Negative. The Chinese Premier begged off. He sent a representative from the military.”
Patrick’s heartbeat raced. “What branch?”
“No idea. His back is to me. I’ll have to go down below the box and get a visual of his uniform.”
“I’ll wait….”
But as he looked in the direction of the VIP box, a call came over the radio from Proctor.
“Featherstone, my Sentinel hovering overhead just picked up movement on top of the oculus roof.” He ended the call as abruptly as he began it, and Patrick lifted his binoculars and focused on the underside of the oculus. Two men in leotards appeared to be preparing to rappel down, and Patrick thought they might be a part of the Closing Ceremony festivities he hadn’t heard about. He was about to ask Kaga to make sure, but just then Kirsten came back on the line.
“Patrick, you still there? He has three stars on his shoulder boards and a whole fruit salad of medals on his chest. He’s sitting off by himself on his phone.”
“Kirsten, this is important. Is he talking on the phone?”
“No, it’s more like he’s texting.”
“Wait there, I’m coming up. Alert the Secret Service people. He might be the one behind the attacks.” There was the sound of an argument on Kirsten’s end.
“Patrick, the Secret Service just kicked me out of the area. They said President Dillard is about to do a live press conference.”
“At the Olympics?” Patrick shook his head in exasperation. He cut off Kirsten and hailed Proctor on the radio.
“Proctor, did you know that the President is planning to do a live TV presentation from the VIP box?”
The silence on the other end gave Patrick his answer. “He’s the POTUS, Featherstone, he can do as he damn well pleases. I’ve got to keep this line open for info on that Predator.” He broke the connection.
Patrick swore and called Kaga.
“Minoru, take a look at the roof at the far end of the stadium from where you are and tell me what you see.”
Kaga brought his binoculars up and scanned the area. “Looks like maybe they’re getting ready for the Closing Ceremony. A couple of acrobats or something.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but I want to be sure. You need to go up where Tyler is and get a closer look.”
Kaga got a sinking feeling in his gut but climbed the stairs to the upper level of the stands above which Tyler was situated.
Patrick ran across the field to the entrance to the stands leading up to the VIP box. Halfway there, he looked up at the box and saw the Chinese general Kirsten had mentioned. He was intently fiddling with this phone, but the brim of his military hat covered his eyes, preventing a clear view of his face. Patrick called Kaga again. “Break off from Tyler’s position and meet me on the field directly below the VIP Box.” Kaga heaved a sigh of relief and ran to Patrick’s position.
___________________
Outside the stadium, Proctor sat in his mobile command center waiting for word on the Predator drone. His phone rang, and he answered it immediately. He quickly rang off and spoke to his aides in the vehicle.
“That Predator is headed this way. Elevation: fifty thousand feet.”
___________________
Patrick’s assignment for Tyler was to surveil the stadium the way the two of them had surveilled Kim Il Sung Square four years earlier looking for a would-be assassin of Kim Jong-un. Because the dimensions of the Olympic stadium were so immense, he had brought with him a bolt-action M24 that had been rechambered from its original 7.62x51mm NATO round to one that could accommodate a carrot-sized .458 Winchester Magnum round, giving it an
effective range of one thousand meters. He scanned the stadium with his scope, becoming more and more frustrated by the utter improbability of spotting something suspicious, but he systematically divided the stadium into grids that he scrutinized one after the other.
___________________
Up in the area of the VIP box, the portable TV cameras from the international news outlets and their operators were examined carefully by Secret Service agents in preparation for President Dillard’s imminent news conference. Based on that morning’s polls back in the States showing no improvement against his opponent despite his Olympic appearance, he had decided to announce to the world, but most of all to the voters of the United States, that he would accept the China Solution to bring the rule of law back to North Korea and hopefully bring to justice the perpetrators of the crimes committed in the name of the group calling itself Chosun Restoration.
___________________
Five rows back from the VIP box, Kirsten called Patrick over the mic network. “Patrick, I hope I’m wrong, but one of the ushers in the VIP area looks a lot like the guy from the Blue Sluice Gate, the one called Casanova.”
“What? Are you sure? I thought he drowned.”
“Let me go take a closer look. Out.”
Kirsten exited the VIP area, took the stairs two at a time to the top row, and looked down in the direction of the man she thought might be Casanova. He was turning every few moments to look at Emperor Naruhito, Prime Minister Adegawa, and President Dillard. Not suspicious behavior in itself, but coupled with his unmistakable pretty-boy face marred only by a slightly misshapen nose and minus the blond hair that he had dyed back to black, the guy looked to be a highly probable match. She patted the gun in the shoulder holster under her suit jacket and began walking back down the stairs at a normal rate.
Patrick ran to the section of the grandstands where the VIP box was located and squinted up. Television cameras had been brought over, and President Dillard was examining himself in a mirror an aide had brought over. TV lights were on in anticipation of his announcement. Off to the right of the VIP box, Patrick saw the older man he had seen limping up the stairs of the corpse hotel. Now dressed as a Chinese Air Force general, he was busy on his phone and didn’t look up despite the activity in preparation for Dillard’s press conference. Patrick began mounting the stairs with his head down and spoke into his sleeve mic. He got the Secret Service on the line. After identifying himself, he spoke to the head agent.
“You need to end that press conference right now.”
“Are you out of your mind? The POTUS is planning a major policy announcement.”
“Look, moron, it might be a posthumous policy announcement if you don’t shut it down right now. Get him out of the box and into safety immediately. We have at least two probable active shooters in that area.”
The line went dead and Patrick looked up to the box. Secret Service agents were swarming over Dillard and VP Coppinger, and Japanese JIA agents were hustling the Emperor and Prime Minister out as well. Patrick could hear Dillard’s muffled protests that he wanted face time as he was being led to safety, but the Secret Service ignored his pleas.
___________________
From her vantage point, Kirsten watched as the VIPs were escorted to safety, and panicked spectators nearby began running toward the exits. Despite the confusion, she was able to keep an eye on the young man she was now sure was Casanova, but when she was ten feet away from him, he suddenly turned to face her. She reached for her gun, but he had the jump on her, and he sprang cat-quick with a pistol he produced from under his suit jacket. The chaos in the area around the VIP box was doubled as Casanova held up his counterfeit security credential to the spectators in the area and began dragging Kirsten down the stairs in a choke hold. Patrick was ascending the stairs from the opposite direction, and when he saw what was happening to Kirsten, he turned away to avoid a confrontation from that distance. As he did so, his eye was momentarily caught by the man in a military uniform who was limping while looking at the phone in his hand.
Patrick called Kaga on his sleeve mic and told him where he was, then turned back to Casanova and Kirsten, who were now halfway down the stairs. Patrick drew his gun, but Casanova had seen him all along.
“She will die!” he called out to him. Patrick lowered his gun and let them pass. He signaled the other security personnel in the area to stand down, fearing that any sort of gunplay in the stands would quite likely result not only in Kirsten’s death, but in the deaths of more than a few spectators as well. Kaga ran over with his gun drawn, but Patrick held up his hand and shouted at him to put it away while pointing in the direction of the Chinese general who was still on his phone, seemingly oblivious to the commotion around him.
“That phone might be what’s controlling the incoming drone,” Patrick said.
“I’m on it,” Kaga said, and he began running toward the general. Patrick headed back in the direction Casanova had taken Kirsten. He waited until they were out of sight before he cautiously began following them from a safe distance.
Kirsten struggled against Casanova, but the youth was all wiry muscle, and every time Kirsten tried to break free, he applied more pressure to the choke hold he had her in until she ceased to resist. Her only other choice was losing consciousness. They got to the bottom of the stadium stairs, and Casanova dragged her to the tunnel leading to the bowels of the stadium. Now that his assassination attempt had been thwarted, he had nowhere else to go, and it was his best option for establishing any kind of defensive position. Once they were out of sight, Patrick ran to the tunnel entrance.
___________________
When Kaga got within five feet of General Liu Jintao, the man suddenly looked up from the phone he was engrossed in and tried to limp away, but Kaga easily caught up with him and grabbed him by the arm. The general threw the phone down, and Kaga watched it clatter down the stairs. Knowing it was in all likelihood controlling the Predator hovering overhead, Kaga gave up the chase and ran down the stairs toward the phone. One of the cameramen from the aborted news conference picked it up and handed it to Kaga, who looked up to where he had last seen the general, but there was a stampede of humanity trying to escape the chaos of that section of the grandstands. Surprisingly, the spectators in the other sections didn’t move from their seats, largely because the uproar of applause for the marathon runners who were now entering the stadium was drowning out everything else. Kaga raised his head to the oculus and called Tyler on his sleeve mic. He had something for him.
CHAPTER 48
Up in his sniper’s hide, Tyler was seized by a horrifyingly unfamiliar sensation: a panic attack, his first experience of disabling fear in a combat situation. The fear was not for his own safety, but rather that his actions had quite possibly led to a situation where mass murder was a real possibility. He forced himself to take deep breaths, hold them, and release them gradually, a sniper technique known as tactical breathing. The technique worked to a certain degree, but he couldn’t keep from his mind his atrocious performance at the firing range with Patrick. Although his target scores had improved over the week following that embarrassing display, he knew that in a fighting situation, he would not only have to deal with the enemy outside, but the enemy within that might well succumb to an overwhelming adrenaline dump with its attendant tunnel vision and loss of motor control. He continued with his breathing technique as his head alternately swiveled between the floor of the stadium and the mouth of the oculus, where the hijacked drone might come diving in at any moment at over two hundred miles per hour.
Tyler’s breathing exercises were interrupted when he saw Kaga inching toward him. Kaga held something in his hand, and his arm was outstretched. Tyler’s head shot forward to see what it was.
“I believe this is yours?” Kaga said with a nervous smile as he forced himself not to look down from the dizzying height. He handed Tyler his original phone.
“We found the guy who’s been using this to control the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle].”
“Where is the son of a bitch?” Tyler growled as he took the phone and began scrolling down its screen.
“He got away, but Patrick thinks he’s the brains behind this whole thing.”
“Yeah, well, if I find the bastard, those brains will be spread out all over this fucking stadium,” Tyler mumbled as he fiddled with his phone.
“I’ve got to get back down,” Kaga shouted in a voice just short of panicky, slowly descending the girders by feel, rather than looking down. Tyler was too absorbed by the phone in his hands to even hear him.
___________________
On his way down the girders, Kaga’s fears lessened with each step closer to the bottom. He looked up at the preparations underway for the Closing Ceremony and wondered how on earth the two acrobats who were scaling down the oculus on the other side of the stadium were able not only to stand the vertiginous heights but to actually gambol from girder to girder as if skipping along an earthbound sidewalk. The acrobats were carrying props on their shoulders that no doubt they would be wielding in some dazzling display of what the Closing Ceremony director had called “Japan’s traditional wit.”
But as Kaga jumped down the final rung of the metal ladder leading up to the girders, something about the acrobats looked amiss as they got closer. Their props suddenly didn’t look like anything Kaga had ever seen in a circus or carnival. He had seen something similar in his JIA training, though, and when one of the “acrobats” took the “prop” off his back and unfolded it, doubling its length, Kaga recognized it as a Sig Sauer collapsible machine gun of the type he had trained on. His senses went on high alert when one of the two men began aiming in the direction of the now all-but-deserted VIP box. Kaga estimated that the closer of the two men was maybe a hundred yards away, well within the effective range of his Glock, but he would be firing upward. He steadied the gun on a support rail and took aim. The round found its mark, and one of the shooters hung suspended from the cords that were supporting him.
Rings of Fire Page 26
