take two of the three computer loci out of action.”
“Leaving the ship,” she said.
“General Howard is working on that,” he said.
“You’re serious?”
“As a triple bypass. If this nest of electronic snakes is about to strike, we need to stop them before they do. Both Jay and John think they might escalate things from pure software attacks to physical attacks on servers and phone companies. That would really screw things up royally.”
“Yes. So, I’m the fifth column agent?”
“No. You leave as scheduled. Finish up, catch the flight back to the Mainland, come home tomorrow.”
“Alex—”
“Not open for discussion,” he said. “If Net Force’s military arm has to flex its muscle, that’s who does the job, not the Assistant Deputy Commander.”
She knew he was right. She was a mother, she had a toddler at home. She didn’t have any business being on a military raid. Still, she felt the excitement at the idea.
“All right,” she said.
The signal started to cut in and out, so they finished their conversation and discommed. Toni shut off the shower and went to collect her flatscreen. She would make notes, draw maps, and add in the pictures she had taken, and fold them into a compressed and encoded packet to send to John Howard via the scrambled cell phone the next time the comsat overflew her. One more day on the ship, and she would head home. It felt good to have gotten back into the field. And while she would have liked to stay on board if Net Force mounted an assault, she had other responsibilities now. It was the right thing to do. Although she hated thinking like a grownup. It made her feel… old…
33
Keller’s jet was more than halfway to Miami when he got the frantic call from the train’s SysOp.
German authorities had stopped them for a “health inspection,” looking for, they said, a carrier of Lassa Valley Fever. Trash protocols had been instigated as soon as the police had arrived, the SysOp said. The onboard computers would be blank before anybody could download anything, all files burned and unrecoverable. There wouldn’t be any sign of anything particularly illegal. Certainly it would seem suspicious, to have that kind of state- of-the-art computer setup on a train, and more suspicious that the machines were all empty, but there would be nothing the German authorities could charge anybody with that would stick. They could haul everybody in, but no evidence, no case, and all the players knew all they had to do was sit tight and CyberNation’s lawyers would eventually spring them. Keller and his crew were safe, and they were what made the programs work.
It was scary, but not altogether unexpected when the scrambled call came in from the Japanese SysOp a few minutes later. The barge’s computers were history, too.
That left the ship, and if Gridley and his guys knew about the train and the barge, they had to know about the
Fortunately, the ship was in international waters. If the U.S. could get a Coast Guard cutter or Navy ship to go there — not politically likely, according to Jasmine — the gambling boat’s crew would see it coming fifteen miles away. Plenty of time to wipe those computers, too, though that would be a last resort. With Germany and Japan gone, all their work was on the ship. They would have to be damned certain it was endangered before they trashed it. Thousands and thousands of man-hours erased would hurt way too much.
He had better call Jasmine and let her know where he was and what was going on. Better she hear it from him first.
In her office alone, Chance was absolutely pissed off. First there had been Roberto’s little routine with that slut of a secretary — she could have strangled him when he looked at her all innocently and said they were just having a friendly drink. Now there were the goddamned hits on the train and barge, with a terrified Keller on his way back here practically peeing in his pants. She wasn’t worried that the U.S. Navy was going to come calling as much as she was frustrated over the losses. How had they figured it out? Keller had told her it was impossible.
She was going to have to speak harshly with him about this.
And the schedule was going to have to be moved up, just in case. They only had one arrow left in their quiver now, and it had to be strung and loosed before their target had a chance to move out of the line of fire. She paged Roberto, a priority-one call. If he was interrupted trying to get into the secretary’s pants, too bad. She sent half a dozen other pages, also P-1 calls. She didn’t like the way this felt. Not at all. She did not want it to come unraveled now, not when they were so close to winning. Better to move and win a partial victory than to stand still and lose it all. The clock was ticking, and if time ran out before they launched, it would be all over.
Howard looked at Julio. “So, what do you think?”
Fernandez shook his head. “It’s just simple enough it might work. Gridley can get the computer stuff done?”
“He says so.”
“So if we get approval, we’d go when?”
“Tomorrow. After dark.”
Julio shook his head. “Technology. Amazing stuff.”
“Put together three squads, mixed male and female. I want thirty troopers, two pilots and copilots, the usual bells and whistles, given the limitations. Air transport, briefings, maps, assignments, I need everything ready to roll by 0600 tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. I’m on the way. Guess we’ll see if the new top kick is as good as he thinks he is.”
“He can’t possibly think he’s as good as you thought
“Well, sir, that’s because he couldn’t possibly
Howard smiled.
After Julio had left, he looked at the computer images floating in the air above his conference table. The best plans were the simple ones, he knew, but maybe this one was too simple.
Only one way to find out.
Santos didn’t like being hurried. Once he set his mind to a plan, he liked to have it flow naturally. Sometimes, you had to adjust to the unexpected, but this new bug up Missy’s butt was too much, too quick. He’d tried to tell her, but she wasn’t having any of it. Still pissed at him for the secretary.
Too bad, that. This speeded-up schedule was going to put a crimp in his seduction. The secretary was as good as on her back when Missy came in, all Ice Bitch, and started trying to pull his chain. She was gonna pay. It was just one more coin it was gonna cost her.
Meanwhile, he had to get his teams ready to move. Missy wanted it fast. Tomorrow, if possible, the day after at the latest. Too soon — but what could you do? He didn’t want to miss the action.
Toni wandered around, taking more pictures, but feeling a sense of impending something. As the day wound down, nothing new happened she needed to think about. No sign of Santos, so maybe his boss had put the fear of God into him.
She briefly considered trying to get onto the private decks. Even went so far as to seem to get lost and wind up at one of the entrances to one such deck. But the electronic card reader would need a key, and as she started back the way she’d come, the door opened and revealed a couple of men standing on the other side, wearing photographer’s sleeveless vests over their shirts, which in this kind of climate meant they were using the vests to cover pistols tucked into their belts — they certainly weren’t cold.
One more small piece of circumstantial evidence, the armed guards. Of course, maybe they were there to
