close enough to see the flames from the stern section in the distance. “We’re ready to alert the authorities,” added Jed. “The ambassador is en route to the airport to meet with the Taiwan president.”
“Why the airport?” asked Dog.
“The president pushed up his flight to Beijing,” Jed said. “They’re getting out early in case there are any protestors at the airport.”
Dog’s attention was diverted by the feed from
“They don’t look like they’re carrying out rescue operations,” Zen said. “They took in a few commandos, that’s it. Other sub is still on the surface, but looks like they’re bugging out too. Nothing big came aboard either one.”
“Roger that. We’re alerting the civil authorities,” said Dog.
With the clone down, Jennifer went back to helping the team studying the data on the Taiwanese computer. She scrolled through the decrypted emails, trying to see if anything there might be useful.
The information had been translated by a computer program into English. It was not exactly perfect, but it saved considerable time and could highlight key words; anything of special interest could be reviewed by a language specialist, either at Dreamland or back East at the NSA.
Three emails spoke of packages, which an NSA analyst guessed meant bombs, though of course that was just speculation. The “meat” of the emails was simple:
Package checked
Package sent
Package 3468?499986767?69696969
The last string of numbers appeared to be part of the encryption that the computer couldn’t unlock, though it was impossible to tell.
Jennifer began looking at more of the data on the computer. Apparently the men in the plant had initiated a scrubber program, and much of the drive had been erased. Danny’s team had located other computers, but they seemed to have been hit by the E-bomb. Data on all of them might be recoverable, but they would have to be analyzed back at Dreamland.
Package checked and sent. Probably the bomb.
Or the UAV.
Or lettuce.
She got up and went to look at the station where they were analyzing the video from Zen’s encounter with the UAV, checking pictures of the fuselage to see if a bomb had been carriaged below the fuselage. One of the technical experts had enhanced the image of the Taiwanese plane being launched from the ship; the image had been generated completely from radar, in some ways a more interesting technical feat than the creation of the UAV itself. Jennifer watched in fascination as the techie put the display into freeze-frame, then dialed in a program that analyzed the structure of the aircraft.
“Are those vertical tabs?” Jennifer asked, pointing at two bars that protruded from the area near the top of the wing root.
“Probably just weird radar echoes,” said the engineer. The frame advanced; the pieces remained on the aircraft.
“If they weren’t echoes, what would they be?” Jennifer asked.
“Hooks to recover the aircraft or hoist it onto the catapult.”
“Or launch it from a plane,” said Jennifer. “Like the U/MF-3 Flighthawk.”
“Sure.”
Jennifer went back to her station. An NSA analyst looking at the data had just sent an instant message suggesting the number stream after “package” in the third email might be a key for a code to activate the bomb. Jennifer called it back.
The repetition at the end of the number stream looked familiar, though by itself it seemed to mean nothing. She pulled over her laptop and brought up the code they had prepared for taking over the UAV.
There were similar sequences in the tail of the communications streams, though she had no idea what they stood for.
?69696969
A coincidence?
If the NSA analyst’s guess was correct, then the intercepted communications might mean that the ghost clone had been carrying a nuke when they first encountered it.
But that was impossible — Jennifer turned to the screen on her right, clicking into the stored data to bring up the analysis prepared from the early intercepts. The performance seemed to rule out any bomb.
Unless the code unlocked something in the com stream. Maybe it was part of an encryption key.
What if the package was another UAV? Because maybe you’d want to know the key it used for communications.
Maybe. She needed to look through the rest of the data.
No time for that if there was another plane.
“Ray — I think there’s another clone, another plane,” she said aloud. “Look at this.”
Danny watched the Marine teams checking in with their captain, listening as they reviewed their findings. The men worked smoothly, running through the different piles of recycled material as if they’d done this sort of thing a million times before.
“We’re getting some hits on one of the Geiger counters,” the Marine captain told Danny. “In the battery section.”
“Let me check it out,” said Stoner.
“You have to get the protective gear on,” said the Marine.
“Yeah,” said the CIA officer, walking toward the shed anyway.
Danny shook his head, then went over to check with Liu and Boston in Shed One.
“Never been in a nuke factory before,” said Liu as Danny poked his head through the hole at the back that the two troopers had cut for access.
“Looks more like a machine shop,” said Danny.
“I thought it’d at least look like a science lab or something,” said Boston. “We gonna glow when we get out of here?”
Danny laughed. They hadn’t detected any serious radiation levels; a visit to the dentist posed a greater health threat.
A pair of Marines had begun carting out computer equipment. Boston, helping them, picked up a large memory unit and brought it out to the Osprey.
“The guys back at Dreamland say they assembled them right in this area here,” said Liu. “Didn’t even use a clean room.”
Danny looked around the building. It
