Oracle's Diplomacy

by A. Claire Everward

  “Anyway, they think this will take time, so I wouldn’t count on any help there just yet, even if some engineer or whatever did leave a methodological fingerprint we can use to trace him. Or her. Or them. Hell.” He rubbed his face in frustration. “You got anything?”

  “Could be.” Donovan began by giving him a rundown of what he had so far on Berman, including the hidden bank account.

  “Interesting,” Emero said thoughtfully.

  “Isn’t it just?” The way Donovan said it made Emero look at him quizzically. “Did you ever meet the guy?” Donovan asked.

  “No,” Emero said. “I just read his file after the videoconference. Same one you have.”

  Donovan lifted an eyebrow.

  “You don’t think it’s him.”

  “Seeing how it looks, it’s just too neat.”

  “Right.” Emero knew to trust an investigator’s instincts. “What do you need?”

  “I want to look at Richard Bourne.”

  “As in ARPA’s director Richard Bourne?” Emero sat up.

  Donovan nodded.

  “He is completely outside our circle of suspects. He wasn’t involved with the project, hasn’t been anywhere near it since he signed off on it and it passed go. You’d be more likely to look at ARPA’s division head for the aviation projects, she would have kept a close eye on Sirion.”

  “And yet.”

  Emero assessed him. “It could be tricky.”

  “More than an ambassador going missing?”

  Emero let out a breath. “You have a point there. Well, he’s one of yours, a high-up one of yours, so I don’t need to tell you how it is. Problem is, you go after Bourne and he starts screaming bloody murder, this is going to bring whole new problems on our heads. He’s got friends, and ARPA is well protected. As things stand now everybody is letting you and me do our jobs quietly because of the importance of this to all of us, but if someone like Bourne stirs up trouble, as in political allies, and they—your end, my end or both—think they have no choice but to intervene, this could cause delays we can’t afford right now.”

  “He won’t know I’m looking into him,” Donovan said quietly.

  Emero scrutinized him. “Not sure I want to know how you’re going to do that.”

  Which was fine with Donovan. He changed the subject. “How’re things over there?”

  “Just grand. Our diplomacy situation room is putting out fires all over the place. The head of our High Council, Stevenssen, she’s a strong consensus leader and a smart one. She is doing all she can to keep things calm, but everybody in and around Joint Europe is moving forces around like in a game of chess gone mad. Basically, unless anything changes, everybody is simply holding their breath waiting for the bomb to fall.” He breathed out. “Literally.”

  “Did you find anything about how the Russian station got the news?”

  Emero shook his head. “Nothing solid. They cite an anonymous source. I put some of my best investigators and some damn good intelligence agents working with us on it, found nothing so far.”

  “Wouldn’t the news broadcast had to have been sanctioned by their government?”

  “Oh, it would have, all right. And just listen to the station’s reasoning for putting it out there, it says it was its duty to share the troubling news with the public, that the people have the right to know, for the sake of transparency and trust.” Emero didn’t even bother snickering.

  Donovan nodded, was silent for a beat. “So, you got any thoughts about who did it?” he finally asked, his tone conversational.

  Emero’s brow furrowed. That part of the investigation was out of Donovan’s jurisdiction. At least formally.

  “Someone obtained Sirion. Completed it. Used it. And then delivered what Russia needed to blame you and us for standing in the way of the treaty.”

  “You don’t think it’s Russia.”

  “I think Russia doesn’t know Sendor is dead. I think someone over there got someone else to do this.”

  Emero considered him. What the hell, he could trust this guy. He understood that Donovan needed a link to establish a trail to the killer, and to the seller—obviously the seasoned investigator didn’t think the latter was Berman. And IDSD needed him to find this link, it could prove material in finding what happened to the ambassador.

  He put what he knew out in the open. “We think Russia’s administration did it when they realized that we, the Internationals, were making too much of a headway toward peace in Bosnia and Srpska. These two countries were unstable and tired even before this happened, and right now they’re also in shock, at a loss as to what they should do next, and it wouldn’t be that difficult for Russia to step in and take them over. Such a move would take Russia to the edge of alliance territory, and it could try to escalate the war across the border, south to Montenegro or even into Croatia. They could very well try to tangle Joint Europe and us, and the entire alliance, in a regional conflict, a full-fledged war. And yes, we think they probably hired outsiders, someone who is out of their reach enough to risk taking the ambassador instead of killing him.”

  Donovan nodded. This fit in with Lara’s assessment. And that, he trusted. “Any thought on who?”

  “A couple. Depending on motive. If we assume it’s someone who didn’t mind causing this much of a mess in Europe, hurting us and betraying Russia—so obviously not someone loyal to it . . .”

  “And someone who can gather substantial technological expertise,” Donovan added, “not to mention funds, to complete the Sirion copy within a short time. Someone who can operate without easily being traced.”

  “An independent group,” Emero said. That was IDSD HQ’s working assumption, too.

  “With an agenda. It’s got nothing to do with, I don’t know, taking over the disputed region, because it’s obvious that Russia would go for it and not let anyone else stand in its way. So, someone who likes a bit of chaos? A weapons dealer maybe?” Even nowadays there were still many of these around, and they didn’t like the Internationals advancing their plans for world peace. “No, these guys are too smart, too refined even. Highly resourceful and careful. And not as traceable and exposed as a weapons dealer might be. They’re adept at hiding, act surgically, infiltrate subtly, here for the long term.”

  “Someone like Yahna maybe,” Emero said with a nod.

  “Yahna?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Emero looked to the side. “I’m being called away here. Listen, you’ve got access to IDSD Missions over there. Ask for the information about Yahna. Talk to me if you need to know anything else.” He was about to sign off, but then considered and laughed heartily. “And say hello to someone for me if you happen to see someone, will you?”

  Donovan smiled.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lara was leaning back on the side wall of Mission Command, watching. The Brunei mission was well on its way, and so far, it was going as planned.

  This was the only scheduled mission for which Mission Command would put aside its assigned task of watching the Srpska-Bosnia region via designated satellites, temporarily transferring this function to the war room outside. No other mission was scheduled for now, they had all been postponed in light of the tensions at the Srpska-Bosnia border.

  When Lara came in that morning, she was told that the night before, just hours after the news broadcast claiming that Ambassador Sendor was dead, the Russian forces had begun moving. It looked like they intended to deploy along the Russian Federation’s border with Srpska—and with Brčko District, where IDSD’s peacekeeping force still was together with the peace negotiation team Sendor had been working with at IDSD HQ and that had now gone to the disputed region itself, desperate to keep some sort of a grasp on what he had achieved. In light of the situation, the alliance’s military redeployment in the region was being accelerated.

  Her briefing had barely ended when the go was given for Brunei, and she had switched gears for that, so she hadn’t received any further updates othe
r than to be told by Scholes that IDSD was putting Oracle on priority standby for Europe. But she wasn’t thinking about that now, nor about the ambassador or the too likely implications of his disappearance. She would let nothing but what was happening on Mission Command’s wall-wide screen into her mind until it was over. That was how it had to be. Whatever else was going on, this mission was the most important thing right now. It had priority, and anything else would have to wait.

  She wasn’t the mission coordinator. She was on the outside, looking on, her role very specific in this one, a mission with known certainty gaps that could not be closed and that would potentially need to be dealt with. Which was why she was needed, and why this mission required her undivided attention. She was the one who dealt with the unexpected, and it was, after all, the unexpected that tended to be that which threatened lives.

  This mission was given a go despite the ambassador incident because there was no other choice, postponing it would mean loss of lives. It was a rather unusual situation. A group of locals believed to be a terrorist sleeper cell disappeared from Indonesia five months before. They had been on the Southern Territories’ watchlist but had still managed to hide any communiques that must have passed between them before their disappearance. And then, three and a half weeks before, an undercover counter-terrorism agent in Indonesia, working there as part of an operation under IDSD Southern Territories Intelligence and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and posing as a black-market racketeer, was approached by one of them. The guy was fishing for radioactive materials the procurement of which could be made without the risk of alerting authorities.

  In the time the agent took to obtain for him low-radioactivity materials modified to appear more potent in their contamination capacity than they actually were, he managed to use audio surveillance to discover, through the guy’s communications, that the cell was hiding in Brunei and was preparing an attack on five major Australian cities, one in each province. Its plan was to simultaneously detonate a dirty bomb in each of the cities, its main objective in the attack being the psychological effect on the public more than anything else. It would cause personal and environmental harm, it would cause panic, and it was only the first in a line of planned terrorist attacks.

  The man disappeared again, with his purchase this time, and with a nano tracker injected into his arm by what he had only thought was a mosquito. The agent’s work and the quick reaction and efficiency of the intelligence agencies he’d warned were commendable, but they were only part of the process. The cell needed to be eliminated. Experts judged that since the cell had already planned its attack and had apparently procured the necessary expertise, it would not be long before they could complete the bombs with the materials they now had. Worse, no one had any way of knowing if they had otherwise obtained other hazardous materials. And so a plan was immediately put together to stop them, and Australia’s Counterterrorism Tactical Assault Group was sent to do the job. But heavy rains delayed the mission, and the soldiers had had to stay put. Until now, until the rain let off enough for the mission to go through before the cell could act.

  The terrorists chose the perfect hiding place, Brunei’s remaining cloud forests. Which meant satellite coverage would be inefficient in the dynamic time and resolution required. The only support the soldiers had were specially fitted helmet cams that would send their data through a network of nano drones that would be dispersed in the forest all the way from the clearing the soldiers would land in up to the terrorists’ camp as the soldiers progressed toward it. That was all they had. That, and Oracle.

  This incursion was unexpected and unwelcome by Brunei. It had not been forewarned about it, and the mission was not sanctioned by Brunei’s sultan, nor would it be if he knew about it. And so it was also crucial that the soldiers get in and out unseen, certainly uncaught. Of course, the upside was that while the soldiers couldn’t use direct line of sight satellites or drones to facilitate their mission or warn them about unwanted interference, going in virtually blind, the terror cell couldn’t either. It was just as blind under the cover of thick foliage.

  On-screen, the stealth transports carrying the soldiers reached their destination, let them out and ascended again, cloaking as they did and remaining high above. Below them, the soldiers deployed, their helmet cams sending erratic images through the transmitter nano drones that followed them, dispersing according to their preprogrammed sequence and sending data to the designated receiver drones at the edge of the clearing, which in turn sent it to the tasked satellites far above.

  In Mission Command, all those present moved uneasily. This was a high-risk, serious-consequences mission with far less ground information being received than they would have liked to have before them, conditions in the cloud forest worsening as the Tactical Assault Group ventured deeper inside it. The mission coordinator was focused.

  So was Lara. The helmet cams footage transmitted via the nano drones was enough for her. She was already constructing it all in her mind, constantly updating the spatial reality the soldiers were operating in, with them in it. Even as she watched, she increased the activity level of her mind, putting herself among them. This enabled her to go deeper into that part of her that allowed her to do pretty much whatever she wanted. And what she wanted right now was to see—and anticipate.

  It took only a little nudge, and she saw enough, just enough, ahead, pushing the temporal envelope just that much. She didn’t need anymore. She stayed that way, just a bit ahead, through the minute, minutes, time stacking up, as the soldiers inched forward. Seeing on the screen, and in her mind. Hearing the rare chatter, a brief command here and there. Silence mostly.

  Silence on the comms. Silence, but . . .

  Her command, uttered quietly into the mic of her headset, had the forces on the ground halt and the mission coordinator standing on the operations platform before the screen turn to her. Him, and every rank present in this place Oracle reigned in, all with earpieces they could listen with, listen but never interfere. Her next words had all of them turn back to the screen, the mission coordinator wiping a drop of sweat from his brow. The soldiers had weight-rigged motion sensors waiting for them up ahead, and beyond these, she knew, could see them clearly in the mind, were remote-detonation land mines.

  She never moved, never approached the operations platform, there was nothing on the screen she could use. Her next commands had selected nano drones break from the communications network their peers were forming behind the soldiers all the way back to where their messages could be received by the satellites, and she had a single drone position itself before each of the advancing soldiers. She had already changed the chosen drones’ designation, taking over command of them from right there where she stood, linking them to the Mission Command mainframe and working them directly, ensuring they would now detect and warn of the booby traps set by those the soldiers were there to eliminate.

  From that moment, she never let her guard down, never left them. The nano drones saw the ground and the traps planted under it, the soldiers saw the drones’ guidance, and she saw it all, her mind going where she needed it to, not feeling the strain, not coming up against any boundaries.

  She had intended to let the mission coordinator run this mission, he would have relayed any guidance she might have had without question. She would have remained in the back throughout it all. Instead, the circumstances, the reduced visibility and unreliable communications, and the added risk from the cell that had, apparently, not trusted even its invisible hideout, had her taking over, allowing her to keep the mission within the margins needed to get the job done, while keeping those risking their lives to do it safe.

  The terrorists may not have trusted Brunei’s heavy forests, but they did trust their added measures, the sensors and land mines she had helped the approaching soldiers get through without harm, undetected. The soldiers were in the camp before the terrorists noticed them. It was over in minutes. They found five ready dirty bombs, all ready
for transport, for use, for unthinkable harm.

  When the soldiers were safely back in the transports, successful in their mission to ensure that those who had been in the camp they had left behind would never get a chance to hurt innocents, and the mission coordinator in Mission Command turned to acknowledge her, Oracle was already gone, already back in her office, already engrossed in the conundrum that had until now stayed in the back of her mind, awaiting its turn.

  Where was Ambassador Sendor?

  His fist came down so hard that the touchscreen embedded in the large, rectangular table cracked, colors mashing together as the map on it warped a split second before the mainframe shut it down in defense. The Russian Minister of Defense Dmitry Aleksandrovich Rostovtsev would have preferred to hit the messenger, but the man was smart enough to retreat to the door.

  Rostovtsev had been busy with the deployment of the forces along the Srpska and Brčko borders, assisted by his loyal advisers. The actual deployment, not the plan for it. The plan had been in place for many months now, waiting for the right moment, the perfect opportunity to present itself. Which it had. And it had all been so perfect, so effortless, Russia’s success assured. It would cross the border into Brčko and from there move into Bosnia, at the same time crossing directly into Srpska—his eyes hardened when he thought of that treacherous country, which Russia had cultivated for years, yet when the time came and it had been perfectly positioned for a takeover, it took a step back, choosing to remain independent, saying it did not want the fate of its former neighbor, Serbia, which had succumbed to Russia’s promises and ultimately ended up being absorbed into it when the dominating country had decided to assert a single rule across its lands.

  But now Russia would have Srpska and Bosnia, and that damn alliance would be too busy trying to understand what happened, trying to deal with allegations against two of its prominent members and to contend with suspicions from without—and within, he was certain. Human nature was like that, and could so easily be played against itself. No, no way for them to get out of this one, he had thought until just a short moment earlier when the message had arrived, delivered by the Russian envoy to the United States who was back in Russia for a hastily scheduled leave. The message wasn’t delivered directly to Rostovtsev, of course, but to the president. To him it was delivered by this man, one of his many spies in the country’s foreign intelligence service.