Lee looked equally horror-stricken. “The code was A-grade. The parameters were hidden. It’s a good thing we got in first. If they had, they would’ve ignited it right away. We stopped that from happening. It could’ve taken down the shuttle or, at the very least, harmed the soldiers when they were getting it out of the sand. We’re currently stopping them from activating it. We can’t leave until there is a stable connection to transfer to.”
“What do you need from me?” Mina asked. “Tell me what has to happen next.”
Vince boarded the shuttle. “Why aren’t they getting off?”
“They need a secure connection set up to make a clean transfer,” Mina said.
Lee nodded. “We need an amplifier. The signal needs to be boosted out here, so we can latch on to it and move our compucases securely. Sergeant Collins is not going to like it. This base is cloaked for a reason. The amplifier will bounce to a satellite connection, instead of using a cable link.”
“We’ll make it happen,” Mina said as she turned to Vince. “Let’s go talk to Sergeant Collins.”
They walked around to the back of the shuttle. The soldiers had made a large perimeter. Kaylee, Norm, and McAllister stood behind them.
Mina strode up to the man in charge. “We need a signal amp boosted from the op room.” She gestured to the bunker they’d occupied. “It has to reach my crew in the shuttle so they can safely transfer signals without a break.”
Sergeant Collins shook his head. “I can’t—”
“If you don’t, the bomb blows,” Vince told him. “A signal break for ten to twenty seconds is better than having an unidentified bomb explode. We don’t know what the makeup of the explosive is yet. It could affect the whole base. It could be nuclear.” He let that sink in. “We can’t take that risk.”
“As it is right now,” Mina added, “according to my specialists inside the shuttle, hackers are actively trying to set off the bomb. They don’t want anyone to access the data inside. Which is precisely why we want that data.”
Harmony called, “Amp up that signal. Do it now! We’re putting blockers in place to keep your base cloaked. If anybody tries to infiltrate, we’ll know it. My partner and I are personally guaranteeing that. Anyone who’s on a snooping mission is going to get a screenful of white noise until we get inside. Trust us! But we need to get out of here. If our blocks break, that thing is going off.”
Sergeant Collins made his decision. He stepped away to speak into his cuff.
Mina and Vince made their way to McAllister and the rest of the group.
“What’s up?” Kaylee asked. “We heard some of it, but not all.”
“Harmony and Agent Adams need to change signals, from the one in the shuttle to one that’s cloaked in the op room. But the cables don’t stretch that far, so they’re going to need to air-boost it out. It will only take ten to twenty seconds to establish a new connection, but Sergeant Collins has to break protocol to do it. He’s ordering it now. Until then, we wait.”
“Can those two kids come out of there a little way and still stay connected?” Norm asked. “Keeping them that close seems unnecessary.”
“They want to get out of there as bad as we want them out of there,” Mina said. “If that was an option, I’m sure they would’ve indicated that. They can’t risk a break. If that shuttle powers down, it’ll be a problem. I’m going to go back on board to stay with them until the new connection is established.”
McAllister nodded. “I won’t order you to stay out here, Agent Kane. Agent Adams could use your support. I’m going to make a few calls to headquarters and see what we can do from here.”
“I’m coming with you,” Kaylee said to Mina.
“No, you stay out here with Norm and Kramer,” Mina ordered. “You’ll be the liaison when Sergeant Collins comes back. Kramer will back you up. I’m not sure what needs to happen, but I want you to make sure they do whatever it is quickly. Nobody else needs to be inside the shuttle.”
“But—”
Mina cut Kaylee off. “I’m lead, and that’s my order. You’re out here, I’m in there. I trust my partner and Harmony. Everything is going to be fine.” She turned and walked toward the shuttle without another word. Once on board, she assessed the situation. Both Harmony and Lee seemed stable, not overly nervous. “How’s it going?”
She took a seat across the aisle from Lee.
“Man, they’re tenacious,” Lee said, not taking his eyes off his compucase. “They’re making us dance.”
“Yeah, but it’s an easy dance,” Harmony said. “Like those old-timey waltzes and stuff. We’re familiar with the steps. We’ve got this.”
Mina stayed quiet. She didn’t want to interrupt. She imagined the Syndicate hackers working frantically on their end, knowing they had to report to somebody who could harm them or a family member. She didn’t envy them.
“Did you see that?” Lee said. “They’re trying to pull a Hannon Maneuver. I blocked with a three Q subratio code.”
“Good one, Seeker,” Harmony hooted. “Let’s throw in some old code. The ones with capital letters with a quotient B. It’ll take them a second to figure out what’s happening, then just when they think that will continue, let’s go into Zenith-level encryptions.”
They were speaking a foreign language.
Mina was elated they understood each other so well. They were a symbiotic hacking team. She felt grateful to be working with both of them.
There was movement as Vince boarded the shuttle.
Before Mina could order him off, he held up his hand. “I just came on board to let you know that the amp has been ordered. They’ve deployed their own computer tech to the op room. It should only be about a minute more.” Instead of turning and exiting like he should, Vince took a seat next to Mina. She was about to tell him to leave when he reached out and grabbed her hand. “If you think I’m going to let you stay here without me, think again. Even though you’re lead, you’re family first.”
“Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?” She had no idea where that had come from. It hadn’t even been a coherent thought before it had tumbled out of her mouth. “I’m sorry. That came out of nowhere. I mean, I’m supposed to have dinner with my family tonight. That is, if this mission is a success and finishes in time. My brother really wants me to come. He’s bringing his new partner.” Mina realized she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. “They would love to see you. Quinn said as much. You bringing up family made me think of it. You’re family to them, too. And to me.” She cleared her throat, extremely aware that Harmony and Lee were listening to this very personal conversation. “I apologize. It was silly to ask you right here, right now. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do.” Vince smiled. “When people are placed in dire situations, emotions run high. It’s happened to me many times. I would love nothing more than to have dinner with you and your family tonight. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Just hooked on to the new signal,” Harmony called. “Let’s get the frack out of this thing!”
Chapter 20
The team reassembled in the op room. The bomb squad had encapsulated the stable heart. It remained in the back of the shuttle until they could figure out more about what was inside.
“We’re almost through the code,” Lee said. “Then we’ll know what kind of bomb it is. They actually made it look like a flower, if you can believe it. The entire code is written like a cascading flower.”
“I see why. Look!” Harmony gestured excitedly at her screen. “It’s a stem! That can only mean one thing. It’s a stem bomb. The chemis are stored in separate areas called leaves. When activated, they flow down and mix at the bottom of the stem. Then ca-blooey!” She exploded her hands outward. “At least that’s my guess anyway.”
Lee squinted at the screen. “I think you’re right.”
That parti
cular kind of bomb wouldn’t do as much damage as a hydro, but the size would decide how big the explosion would be.
“Do we have mass or volume?” Norm asked, moving toward Lee. “I’ve come up on a few stem bombs in my career. The package tends to be pretty small. We need to know how big this blow will be.”
“I’m familiar with them, too,” McAllister said. “And I concur. Most stems I’ve encountered have been fairly small, as it’s difficult to pack the large quantities of chemis in the leaf areas.”
Lee seemed confused at what was showing on his screen. “I’m seeing a 2cc notation. That can’t be right. That’s too tiny. It’s less than half an ounce.”
“I think it might be right,” Harmony said. “I see it as well. It can certainly be that small. The space inside the stable heart is less than half a meter. I think their plan is to only take out the data inside. That’s probably another fail-safe, in case when they recover it and open it, it goes off. Then it wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“That size would produce a blast equal to a hydro-cracker for kids,” Lee said, scratching his head.
“But honestly, that’s great news, isn’t it?” Kaylee said. “That means none of us are in jeopardy of dying anytime soon. I’ll take a kid-sized hydro-cracker any day.”
“It’s great news,” Mina said. “Now you need to stabilize it. How do we do that?”
“We do that by making it null,” Harmony said. “Give me a second. Now that we understand the code, I’m getting to the ignition part. I can erect a blockade around all the stem code.” She bit her lip and focused for a few seconds. “That should do it. Now we can safely delete it.”
“I’m not sure if we should,” Lee murmured. “If we do, they may be able to rewrite that code in a different part of the program. As of right now, they can’t duplicate it. It’s firm-set on purpose.”
“Good point,” Harmony said. “My mistake. Thanks for pulling me back, Karmaseeker. You’re the bomb. Well, not this bomb, but a total hacker bomb.” She glanced at Mina. “Just give us a second so we can make sure it’s hack-proof.”
Mina nodded. She walked over and addressed Sergeant Collins, who was standing by the door. His distress was apparent.
“We’re all clear. You can gather your men again,” she told him. “The strength of this bomb is equal to a small hydro-cracker, something a child would play with.”
After a moment, he bowed his head. “Order received. I will recall the men and tell the bomb squad to retreat. I have to make a report to my superior. We’ll be ready to resume work on cracking it open once you exit the building.” He turned and left the room.
Vince walked up, grinning. “You’ve gained his trust. Nice job.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mina said. “He was listening to Harmony and Lee, so he probably had his mind made up already.”
Vince shook his head. “If you’d been unsure of their result, he would be unsure. It’s your faith in your team that rings true. He picked up on that.”
McAllister joined them. “I have another rocket shuttle standing by. We will physically transport the data core to Judge Mackey after we view it here.” He checked his cuff. “If all goes well, we should make it back to the city by five p.m.”
“Excellent,” Mina said. “I hope what we need is in the core. If not, we miscalculated the need to bring the satellite down.”
“You didn’t miscalculate,” McAllister replied. “Your competent investigative work led us here. As did your intuition and intelligence. We will find what we need on that data core. I’m certain of it.”
Since they had a moment or two to spare before Harmony and Lee isolated the hydro-cracker, Mina decided to ask her boss about the faux audit. “Have you discovered any more about the audit? And where those two investigators came from?”
Mina and Lee had participated in an audit aimed at some of their high-level cases, or so they’d thought. It’d been uncovered that the request for the audit hadn’t come from the committee that oversaw the CIU, but from somewhere else. So it hadn’t been officially sanctioned. All four “official” interviewers had turned out to be civilian lawyers, who had been recruited by an unknown source and brought in to question Mina and Lee on their conduct during past cases. It had become clear that these lawyers had been searching for a way to invalidate Mina and Lee’s investigations, which had led Mina to believe that whoever had hired them was worried that the CIU was getting too close, or too good, or too powerful, at combating top-level crime inside the government.
Basically, whoever was behind the audit was likely a criminal themselves.
“I’ve assigned two agents to the case, as the trail of information has run dry,” McAllister said, his voice tense. “But make no mistake, we will find out where this all originated from and who ordered it. Since we last spoke, I’ve tried to contact all the participating litigators. Their cuffs have been disabled, and their former companies have informed me that they’ve each taken a last-minute vacation. Nothing about this adds up, but it will.”
“I’d love a chance to solve it once this case is over,” Mina said. “I’m sure Agent Adams would, too.”
Over was a loose term. This case would go on and on, as the Syndicate lawyers would hang up and delay everything they could in court. But the CIU specialized in the legwork. Its agents uncovered the details and evidence needed to make convictions. Once that portion was done, the case would be handed to the appropriate department. In this case, that would be High Crimes.
Mina preferred it that way. It freed her up to do more of what she loved, which was solving the mystery.
“After your debriefing with Colonel Kramer tomorrow, we’ll discuss it,” McAllister said. “There’s a very high probability I will put you and Agent Adams on the case.”
“It’s done!” Harmony said. “We harnessed the teensy-weensy hydro-cracker. No chance it can go off. Well, unless a laser shoots it or something. Tell those soldiers to be careful. No loose laser play.”
“It’s completely stable,” Lee confirmed. “We aborted the code that would disintegrate the barriers on the leaves. That includes a metal latch attached to a tiny transmitter. As of right now, nothing can ping that transmitter, so the metal latch can’t give way to release the chemis. It’s safe. But let the soldiers know that the data core will be connected by nanocables, which are connected to powerful transmitters outside the stable heart. Those need to be unhooked carefully. Just make sure they don’t yank the data core out before that happens.”
“My advice is to do it right now,” Harmony encouraged. “Making it bomb-proof doesn’t mean these hackers aren’t still trying to get in. Go, go! We’ll hold down the fort here.”
Everyone but the superhackers rushed out of the room. Mina was relieved to find Sergeant Collins back and his team amassed, many of them holding the tools they would need to open the stable heart. The bomb squad had removed the protective container, and a few of them were standing by with what looked to be another smaller box to put the hydro-cracker inside once they opened the heart.
“Don’t get any lasers or sparks close to it,” Mina warned. “We have to do this as quickly as we can. My team says the data core is connected by nanocables that must be unplugged before extraction.”
“None of that will be a problem,” Sergeant Collins replied. “We’re going to use a shorter saw blade and make a clean line halfway around the sphere. Then we’re going to crack it open like an egg very slowly with a specialized separation lever. The bomb squad tells me that a stem bomb will be encapsulated in a silicone sac. It shouldn’t rip open, but we’re going in slow. Then, when it’s open a centimeter, we’re threading a robocam in to get a look inside before we crack it all the way.”
Mina nodded. “All sounds good.”
Sergeant Collins circled his arm high in the air. “Let’s go! Get this done. Slow and steady. Henderson and Matthews, you’re
on the saw. The moment we get a centimeter gap, Marlin feeds the robocam. Patten, I want this on a large screen.”
The soldier Mina assumed was Patten gave his superior a short salute and jogged away to find an adequate screen.
Henderson and Matthews started immediately, wearing full face shields enhanced with honeycombed crystalline. Not even a minute and a half later, one of them called, “Centimeter crack, sir!”
Marlin already had the robocam in hand. His face shield looked to be titanium, with a slot for crystalline eye shields. Patten jogged up a second later with a large superboard. They touched the tech together. A low beep sounded. Marlin then threaded the cam into the gap very slowly.
Mina and her team stood back, letting the soldiers do their work.
“Stem bomb sighted,” Patten said. “Encapsulated in what looks to be a clear sac. Data core roughly six centimeters long. No cables visible yet. Nothing else inside.”
“Matthews, get the hydraulic pressure pump in that crack. A centimeter is skinny, but it should fit,” Sergeant Collins ordered.
Matthews exchanged the saw for what looked to be a metal expander folded up like an accordion. He reached down into the crack and set it inside. It was connected to a long tube, which was connected to a solar-powered air compressor.
“Go slow,” Sergeant Collins said. “Three pounds of pressure per square centimeter. We’ll go up from there. Instead of cracking it wide, we’re going to crane it open to eight centimeters, then reach in and pluck the data core out using the robocam and pliers to unhook the cables.”
Everyone waited while Matthews began to exact pressure against the two opposite sides of the stable heart. The noise was like metal tearing. Lots of cracking and groaning.
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