SAVE THE QUEEN: AN ALEX HALEE AND JAMIE AUSTEN SPY THRILLER (THE SPY STORIES Book 4)
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“It’s more complicated than that,” Jamie said, before I could defend myself.
“Where’s the bomb?” he insisted, leaning forward in his chair almost standing.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Give me time, and I’ll know when and where.”
He let out a big sigh.
“How much time do you need?”
“A few more hours. I’ll know by morning.”
“You have until morning. If you don’t tell me by then, I’m taking you in. If you resist again, I’ll kill you.”
I believed him. No doubt in mind he would try.
29
Day Five
London Safehouse
9:00 a.m.
Two hours before the Royal Wedding
The computer screen on my laptop had been dark for six hours. My eyes hurt from staring at it all that time. There’d been no movement at all in Pok’s cyber lab. I wondered if perhaps they’d closed it down.
The feed was still live. I could see Pok’s office and the whiteboard in the background. All the lights were off, and not one person was in the office or the cyber lab. When I talked to Brad a few minutes before, he said the soonest the cruise missile could launch on the target was one o’clock London time. Two hours after the start of the royal wedding. I hoped we hadn’t missed an opportunity to kill Pok. If the building were abandoned, the $1.5 million-dollar missile would be wasted. The lab would be destroyed, but Pok would live to continue to wreak havoc in the cyberwar.
If the lab had been closed, I would’ve thought Pok would’ve terminated the feed. That left me optimistic they were going to show up at any time. Maybe that was wishful thinking. If they didn’t, I had no idea what I was going to tell Bond.
He had slept in the guest room. Now, he and Jamie were in the living room talking about AJAX and catching up on old times. I’d asked Jamie to keep him occupied so I could work on my computer in private. I wasn’t prepared to tell him about Pok or the hack into the London security camera system. Although Bond was a smart man who played his cards close to his vest. I’m sure he had all kinds of theories floating around in his head about what I was up to.
My relationship with Bond was still tense. The prospect of giving him actionable intelligence was what kept him from arresting me. Without that information, I wasn’t sure what would happen. Since he deduced I was the source for the intelligence on the car bombing, that’s why he was giving me time to get him information on the dirty bomb.
That time was running out. The wedding would start in two hours. I’d asked him about cancelling the wedding. That wasn’t an option. The Brits didn’t shrivel up in fear from terrorists, he’d said emphatically. Besides, millions of people were in town. The economic impact of a royal wedding was incalculable.
The computer screen was still dark. No movement at all in the lab. Bond wouldn’t let this go on much longer. I had no plan B, other than an agreement with Jamie that I would go peacefully if he tried to arrest me.
Jamie and I talked about it before she went to bed the night before. In the event that happened, I needed to give myself up without a fight. Explain my actions in detail to the authorities. Brad would have my back considering I’d prevented the car bombing and confirmed Pok’s location. Not to mention a knife attack and a vest bombing that I had thwarted. At that point, I had nothing to lose. I’d tell them about Pok and the hacks and hope for the best.
The night had been excruciatingly long. Jamie slept in our bedroom. The urge to go in there had been hard to resist. I’d give anything to be with her. But I couldn’t risk it. What if Pok came into the lab and I missed something? Once again, our plans for intimacy had been circumvented. I blamed Bond for that.
I was beginning to think we’d have to wait until we got back home. That’s assuming I was even allowed to go home and wasn’t rotting away in a prison cell somewhere. In that case, it could be years before we were together again. I wondered if they allowed conjugal visits. That thought almost made me laugh out loud.
Let’s hope it didn’t come to that. Regardless, no matter what happened, today would be an eventful day. For a lot of people. Not just for Jamie and me. The royal couple. The Queen. Several million people were lining the streets of London for the wedding. Innocent men, women, and children might have their lives turned upside down today if I didn’t come through.
An incredible weight to carry on my shoulders, but one I was prepared to lift. To whom much has been given, much is required. That Bible verse had always been my motto. My fallback when I needed motivation to do the seemingly impossible.
Curly often said, “There’ll be good days and bad days, and this is one of them.” In other words, suck it up. Take whatever life throws at you like a man. I’d barely slept in five days. I’d been accused of treason. I’d witnessed two knife attacks, an acid attack, two vest bombings, and a car bombing. Considering all that, I think I should be allowed to wallow in a little introspection for a few hours. The eerie quiet in the safehouse and the dark night, only made the introspection seem more ominous.
When the screen on my computer suddenly lit up shortly after nine in the morning, so did my spirits. I went immediately into mission mode and pushed those negative thoughts from the past night to the deep recesses of my soul.
Time to go to work.
The cyber lab was suddenly buzzing. Workers filled the lab, and the television screens and computers roared to life. Pok entered his office and erased the whiteboard which still contained day four’s information on it. The same man I saw yesterday was also in the office. That sent adrenaline through me like an energy drink which I could’ve used a few moments before but now didn’t need. The scene was similar to yesterday when Pok and the man had gone over their day four plan. One which played out exactly as they had outlined it. I could only hope they were about to repeat the same process.
Pok began writing on the board and talking with animated gestures. He was standing behind his desk and in front of the board so I couldn’t see what he wrote. I leaned into my computer as if it would give me a better look.
“Come on, you piece of garbage,” I said to the image of Pok on the computer screen. “Move over so I can see what you’re planning.”
He wrote some more. When he was done, he sat down in the chair. I could see the board perfectly.
Day Five
Sunday
Dirty Bomb
St. Margaret’s Church.
Organ Loft.
When the Queen arrives.
I closed the laptop and went to talk to Bond.
***
Iran
Pok finished writing on the whiteboard and then moved out of the way so Halee could see it. He sat down and pretended to have a conversation with Heo, his trusted assistant. After a few minutes of the charade, he got up and left the room to find Niazi. Pok found him in his office.
“Are we all set?” Niazi asked Pok.
Niazi knew nothing of what had just transpired in Pok’s office. Not that he needed to know. That display was a private chess match between Pok and Halee. One in which today, Pok would take Halee’s Queen. Figuratively and literally. After that, checkmate was inevitable.
The Queen had been the target all along. The disinformation was designed to throw the British authorities off the path. If Pok’s intuition was right, Halee had walked right into the trap and was feeding the information to MI6 as they spoke.
“We’re all set on my end,” Pok said. “Is the bomb in place?”
“My man put it on the helicopter last night. I already have confirmation. He’s good to go. Inshallah.”
“Inshallah,” Pok responded, even though he wasn’t even sure what it meant or if he was supposed to say it as a non-Muslim.
Niazi didn’t seem to mind, and Pok felt like the conversation was over. Niazi was a man of few words. All the better.
Pok had work to do and didn’t have time for idle chit chat. He was a man
of few words himself. He was most comfortable sitting in front of a computer, which he could do for hours and days on end with little to no sleep.
Pok went back into his office feeling refreshed and confident. He slept well the night before. Considering the complexity of his plan, things were going well. Now he was in the final stages. Time to put the finishing touches on it.
The first thing he did was kill Halee’s connection so he could no longer see into Pok’s lab. Then he went into the deep recesses of the London Security camera system code that he wrote to hack into the system. He left the code in place so they would know it was hacked but changed where it was pointed. A hacker left a footprint. A signature pattern. A location map really. The best hackers in the world were able to disguise their IP addresses and SSL certificates to make them look identical to a known IP address. For misdirection. Pok could hack into a system and make it look like it had come from a country or person of his choosing.
Many times, Russia or South Korea, and even Iran had gotten the blame for something he did. In this instance, he made it look like Halee was the only one who hacked into their system. He erased any evidence that he’d ever been there. Nothing could be traced back to his lab in Iran.
Satisfied, he activated an alarm in the software, alerting British authorities that their system had been hacked. Then he left them bread crumbs along the way so they could find the malicious code. Pok tried not to make it too obvious. It’d take some sophistication to find the breach. Twenty minutes was his estimation. That’s how long it would take them to trace it back to Halee’s computer.
He could hardly contain his laughter.
Today was a defining moment in his career. The dirty bomb would explode in downtown London which would appease the Iranians. The Queen and scores of others would be dead. The bomb was retaliation for the sanctions put on the Iranian government by England and the United States. Not his battle, but one he was willing to lend his considerable skills to. Since they couldn’t carry out an attack on U.S. soil, Britain was the next best thing. They couldn’t have done it without Pok’s help which he was more than willing to give. Pok didn’t care about sanctions, and political maneuvering or even terrorist attacks. He cared about one thing. Bringing down Halee.
The British authorities would piece together the facts. Halee gave them the bad information. When they found out he was the one who hacked into their security cameras, they’d be furious. When the bomb exploded, and they couldn’t stop it because of Halee’s disinformation, Pok wasn’t sure what they’d do, but it wouldn’t be good for Halee’s reputation and career, whatever it was.
The Queen would be dead, and the Brits would need someone to blame.
Pok provided them someone. Halee was their scapegoat.
Of course, Halee would be dead as well.
Pok was certain Halee wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to go into downtown London to help stop the attack. Pok wished he could still see the security camera feed. He’d give almost anything to see that split second look on Halee’s face the moment the dirty bomb exploded, and he realized his mistake.
30
Safehouse
9:15 a.m.
I walked into the living room where Jamie and Bond were talking. Two chairs were against the far wall with a table between them. The conversation stopped abruptly as soon as they saw me.
“According to my source,” I said hesitantly, “the bomb was placed in St. Margaret’s Church. In the organ loft. It’s set to explode right after the arrival of the Queen.”
I didn’t believe it when I read it on the screen, and I believed it less now after hearing the words come out of my mouth.
“That’s impossible,” Bond said.
“That’s what my source is telling me. But I don’t believe it either.”
“That area has been searched a dozen times,” Bond said what I had already presumed. “That church is right next to Westminster Abbey where the wedding is taking place. There’s no way a bomb was planted there. We would’ve found it. The dogs would’ve picked up the scent.”
I started to sit down on the sofa but had too much nervous energy. Instead, I just shifted back and forth between my two feet to keep from pacing.
“I don’t disagree,” I said. “But this is what I don’t understand. If there’s a dirty bomb in London, wouldn’t the sensors pick up the increased level of radiation.”
A dirty bomb was radioactive material wrapped around a conventional explosive. London had sensors throughout the city to detect any type of radiation. Most major cities had them. Terrorists weren’t sophisticated enough to have the right materials to avoid detection. That’s why a successful dirty bomb had never been exploded in a major city.
Bond hesitated. Like he was about to tell us something but wasn’t sure if he should.
“We did pick up radiation,” he finally said. “Two days ago. Just outside London. Then it disappeared, and we haven’t seen a trace since.”
“Could it have been a false positive?” Jamie asked. “Those sensors are extremely sensitive.”
“That’s what we thought, but then Brad called and said he had intelligence that a dirty bomb attack was likely in London. We didn’t believe him but took precautions. When he gave us the intelligence on the car bomb, and it turned out to be accurate, that’s when we put the possibility of a dirty bomb back on the table. That’s why I’m here. I assume that intelligence came from you.”
This time I hesitated. Not sure how much I could tell him. I decided that if he were going to lay some of his cards on the table and be honest then so would I. Not all my cards, but what he needed to know, considering we were in this together with one common goal. To stop the dirty bomb. This wasn’t the time to be coy or let my ego get in the way. Sometimes on a mission, you didn’t have all the pieces to solve the puzzle. Looking back, if a bomb exploded, and we each had pieces that would’ve solved it but were too stubborn to share it, then we’d have regrets for the rest of our lives.
I nodded.
“The intelligence did come from me. I was also the source for the car bombing yesterday. According to my information, a dirty bomb is going to be exploded at the royal wedding shortly after the Queen arrives. I think the threat is real.”
Bond stood up. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, as he abruptly walked outside. Presumably to call his bosses.
I waited until he was out of earshot. “What do you think?” I asked Jamie.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Do you remember what you said to me yesterday?”
“I said a lot of things. Can you be more specific?”
I walked over and sat down in the chair Bond had been sitting in. Then I leaned in so we would be closer together.
“When I found out about the car bombing, I said to you, ‘it was almost too easy.’ Do you remember what you said?”
“I said, ‘what if it was.’”
“Exactly! It didn’t register at the time, but what if Pok wanted me to find the information? What if it was too easy on purpose?”
“That’s sort of what I meant. I’ve wondered all along if you were walking into a trap. All of this has been confusing. Like the knife attack. And the acid attacks. Why didn’t they attack us? Why the people around us? Why didn’t the vest bomber just walk into a crowd and blow himself up? Why did it have to be with you around?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt Pok wanted me to know he was the one behind the attacks. I think he knew I’d figure it out and hack into the camera system.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if he was behind all the crazy stuff that was happening with our wedding. The flowers and limo. And Curly. Maybe Pok sabotaged all of that for his own demented game he’s playing.”
“I’ve thought about that as well. I always assumed I was one step ahead of him. What if it’s the other way around? What if he wanted me to find the lab and know the plans? He might be feeding me the information for some bigger purpose.”
“It seemed strange when I was watching it. It’s almost like he was doing it for my benefit. But why tip me off about the car bomb?”
Jamie’s eyes suddenly widened, and her mouth flew open. “So you’d believe the information about the dirty bomb!”
“That makes sense.”
“But if the dirty bomb doesn’t exist why go to all this trouble?”
“Because the dirty bomb does exist.”
***
9:34 a.m.
Bond was gone for twenty minutes. When he returned, he had his gun drawn. Out of instinct, I reached for mine, but I didn’t have it on me. It was in the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I asked, raising my hands into the air.
“Bond!” Jamie said. “Put the gun down and let’s talk about this.”
“You’re under arrest, Alex.”
“Why? On what charge.”
“There is no bomb in St. Margaret’s church. We’ve searched that area. We also discovered something else.”
“What’s that?”
“That you hacked into the London security camera system. Our investigators traced the hack back to this location. Your laptop.”
My heart sunk what felt like a couple of inches in my chest.
“There’s been some mistake,” I said.
I started to stand but Bond tensed up. His finger was on the trigger, so I sat back down, to make myself seem less threatening.
“Are you denying that you hacked into the camera system?” he said accusingly.
I didn’t answer right away.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I can explain.”
“You can explain down at headquarters. I’ve wasted enough time on you.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” Jamie said. “There’s a dirty bomb somewhere, and we can help you find it.”