Strike Matrix

by Aiden L Bailey

  Conner knew none of this was real although this story was being broadcast to billions of people worldwide. But it would become a reality soon enough, because so many people would believe what they were seeing in the media, and the government legislation to enact it would already be in place, thanks to the covert meddling of the NSA.

  What would happen next? Would America adopt the decimal system? Would a black Muslim woman become President? Would lesbian priests soon run the Catholic Church?

  Conner had witnessed this media manipulation first hand, watched himself in interviews he had never given. Somehow the NSA had developed state-of-the-art operational intelligence systems which could impersonate anyone and report any story the NSA wanted to get out there, by hacking into all the global media networks to tell it. Nobody was stopping them because nobody knew it was happening. Or if they did, were these people rendered powerless to do anything, just as he had been?

  Which brought Conner to the question that had been plaguing his mind since leaving Dublin. A question that terrified him yet propelled him to continue with his investigation and travel to the Middle East where he was in far greater danger than if he’d stayed home in Ireland. To know that several nuclear weapons would soon detonate in several major Middle Eastern cities and do nothing — that would be a far worse horror to endure.

  But which cities were the targets? Who had possession of the weapons? And how would they be detonated? He had none of these answers. Most perplexing, he did not understand how these violent acts would support the NSA’s media manipulation, for he was sure the secretive government organization had brought the WMDs into the region.

  Exposing the NSA was a secondary concern. Stopping them was the primary aim.

  Orange clouds formed by airborne particles of sand hung on the horizon. Watching as sunset transformed into starlight, Conner reflected on what he knew.

  He had three names.

  The first was Thomas McIntyre, a CIA case officer reputedly operating out of the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi. That was all Conner knew about him. McIntyre might hold information on the nukes, or he might act on the information if Conner passed it on. Finding McIntyre should be straightforward, a message left at the embassy should suffice.

  The second name was a little more elusive, and much scarier. Stephen Ashpool, an Australian information technology specialist who, for reasons Conner didn’t understand, was impersonating an American to construct several NSA quantum computing data centers in various strategic cities across the globe, including here in Abu Dhabi. Those centers were now complete, presumably to provide the NSA with the brute computing power they required to manipulate the world media everywhere. The problem was Conner had no clue how to find Ashpool. The Internet was a possibility, but if Conner hunted for Ashpool through digital mediums, he would likely find only false information while alerting the man that Conner was onto him. There was no telling then what Ashpool might do. For all Conner knew, Ashpool was the key player behind the NSA manipulations.

  The third on Conner’s list was the most mysterious of the three, an NSA Director called Alan Irvine. Mysterious because his motivations seemed out of kilter with his history and former loyalties. The man had gone rogue, had attempted to shut down Ashpool’s data center in Mumbai with no clear motivation why he would do this. Unless he was trying to slow the NSA’s media manipulations like Conner was, which made Irvine an ideal contact to track down. But Conner suspected the man was likely dead by now, murdered by his own people like so many before him. If Irvine still lived, he did so only by adopting a deep cover, one Conner was unlikely to crack.

  So, Thomas McIntyre was Conner’s best and only realistic lead. He would start there — in the morning.

  What he needed this evening was a drink, a strong one. The hotel bar seemed the best option.

  Five minutes later he was in the lobby, smiling at the concierge and asking how he could buy a license to consume alcohol when he heard a woman call out to him.

  “Conner?”

  He turned, afraid who it might be.

  “Conner Rafferty. Well look who’s here.”

  The woman approached. She wore loose modern western attire and a hijab; her face uncovered. No motion was made to shake his hand as that would have been inappropriate, but she smiled. While slim and fit she was a tiny woman, two head lengths shorter than Conner. Her complexion was olive, her eyebrows full and her eyes almond-shaped like most Arabs.

  “Nahla Asem,” Conner grinned, glad at last to see a friendly face. “What has it been, three, four years, since Dar es Salaam?”

  “Two, Conner. Are you wishing your life away?”

  He laughed. “You know me, I can rattle off dates and addresses of any significant political event for the last few decades, but can’t remember where I was a week ago.”

  Nahla smiled and nodded, laughed with him like the old friends they were. Nahla was a Jordanian journalist. Two years ago, Conner and she were Tanzanian correspondents for different news services but reporting the same stories. They followed each other through East Africa as the big newsworthy stories broke. A similar sense of sarcastic humor meant they gravitated to each other. Reunited again, he realized he had missed her. He wondered how familiar he could be with her now that he was in an Islamic country where the rules of male-female interactions were complex and confusing.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, acknowledging the bruising and cuts on his face.

  “Wrong place at the wrong time.” He lifted his bandaged fingers for her to see. “Mugged by a gang of youths.”

  “You okay?”

  He grinned. “I’m on the mend. It looks worse than it is. What are you doing here in the Emirates? Not Tehran? Muscat? Kabul? I thought Abu Dhabi would be too tame for you?”

  She laughed. “I could say the same of you.”

  “True,” he said with a casual shrug.

  “Same network, different beat. I’m the senior female correspondent for the same Jordanian paper I was with in East Africa. Besides, after finding myself trapped near a Russian airstrike in Syria last year, it shook me up. I needed to quieten things down for a time.”

  He smiled. “Sorry to hear that. But also, well done.”

  “Thank you. But I’m not sure I made the right choice.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You know,” she grinned. “My male counterparts get all the good stories. I get all the ‘women’s issues’ stories.”

  He scoffed. “I bet you do. Men, hey! You’ve got to love them and hate them. You want to grab a drink?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  They headed to the bar. Nahla ordered a mint tea. Conner itched for a double shot whiskey on ice but ordered ginger beer instead. Neither of them, it seemed, were touching the liquor despite every brand of alcoholic beverage on the planet, including spirits priced at a thousand dollars per shot seemingly on display. Being Muslim, she could not get a drinking license. He now reconsidered the risk after this morning’s interrogation and decided against it.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Conner, you know, being…” she mouthed the word so no one would overhear them, ‘gay.’

  “Say it out loud why don’t you.”

  It was a frightening fact that it was illegal to perform homosexual acts in the Emirates, for both men and women, and the penalties were extreme. It had surprised Conner the subject hadn’t come up in his interrogation at the airport because the secret police could have arrested him for his sexual orientation. Maybe the recent global reforms and acceptances of gays and lesbians the world over were having an influence, even in the Middle East, maybe they were more than just NSA-generated spin.

  “Look at us, hey, two second-class citizens.”

  “No wonder we get on famously.”

  Although they had never spoken on the subject, he knew Nahla had always felt safe around Conner, during all those years together in Africa. He felt no attraction to her like other foreign correspondents who propositioned her. Ther
e were no hidden motives for their friendship and no chance of a casual encounter ruining everything, and thus no risk he would compromise her single status. At least he presumed she had not married. It had been a long time since they had last conversed, even by email, and he had no clue what she had been up to since Africa. He’d been unaware she had been in Syria with the civil war and the Islamic State uprising there, even though they had been in the country at the same time during his brief stint in Damascus.

  “You haven’t told me what you are doing in Abu Dhabi, Conner?”

  He smiled as he took a sip of his ginger beer rather than answering her.

  “You’re onto a hot story, aren’t you?”

  Conner shook his head. “I’ve retired Nahla. Made a lot of money. I will settle down in beautiful New Zealand. Maybe I’ll become a blogger. Or a snowboarder. Or a Hobbit.”

  “No way.” She shook her head. “That’s not possible. You wouldn’t be Conner if that were true.” She looked him in the eye, held his stare. “You’re lying. I can see it.”

  Conner finished his drink, placed it on the bar while the barman made him another.

  “You’re onto something big, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  “It’s not about the rumored reemergence of Islamic State and their attacks in Saudi Arabia?”

  That caused a raised eyebrow, for this was news to him. “Sounds like you have a big story of your own?”

  “Maybe I have. I’m surprised you haven’t heard. According to chatter, Islamic State is spreading fast through the Middle East, but most affected governments aren’t reporting it. But not just Islamic State, Al Qaeda splinter groups, Al Nusra and other insurgents. Fundamentalists are everywhere, rising across the Arabian Peninsula in large numbers. I’ve heard Islamic State is active and growing here, in the Emirates.”

  Conner chuckled. “Ah, now I understand. You want to break that story?”

  She nodded.

  He considered his immediate needs. His problem was a lack of reliable transport. If he hired a car, he knew the Emirates’ secret police would bug and track it, regardless of what make and model he asked for. “Do you want to pool resources? I’d like to. I’m certain your story connects to my story.”

  “How?”

  He lent in and spoke softly. “What if I said to you WMDs are being smuggled into the Middle East?”

  Her eyes grew wide with surprise. “You have a source?”

  “I can’t say, not here.”

  “Now you’ve got me interested.”

  “Could our stories be connected?”

  She nodded. “Based on what I already know, possibly…”

  “Well, do you want to work together on this?”

  “Of course.” She grinned. “I know you. When you are onto something, it normally bears fruit. Anyone else, and I’d think they were deluding themselves.”

  “Good. It’s a date then. But I can’t tell you about it here. Do you have a car?”

  She nodded. Her expression grew suspicious. “And suddenly I understand your real reason for teaming up.”

  “You know me Nahla, why drive when someone else can chauffeur me around?”

  “I wouldn’t let you drive my car under any circumstances, but you’re paying for petrol.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal. Meet in the lobby at eight tomorrow? I’ll explain while you drive. Then you can decide if you still want to team up.”

  She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Oh, when I tell you, you might run for your life.”

  Her laughter was light, “You’re joking.” When he said nothing she stared at him, confused. “You really believe that?”

  He nodded.

  “You can’t say something like that and keep it to yourself.”

  Conner finished his second ginger beer. He felt satisfied even though it wasn’t an alcoholic beverage. “Oh yes, I can. Discretion, all the way. Tomorrow, Nahla, I promise.”

  He left her at the bar to ponder his words. As much as Conner wanted to talk, catch up with an old friend and understand her leads and sources regarding insurgent movements in the region, he was afraid they were under surveillance, and by several interested parties. Certain that their stories were connected, he knew he must be patient.

  It was a dangerous game he was playing, one he was addicted to. That was okay when it was just him, but now he had involved someone else that he cared about. He wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do, but like all addicts, he was giving in to temptation.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

  From the outskirts through to the heart of the megacity, Mumbai was an unrelenting assault on all the senses.

  Simon Ashcroft pushed his stolen motorcycle through the dense traffic as the sun disappeared behind the hazy horizon. He both loved and hated the city that was, for him, a microcosm that best reflected the state of the modern world.

  Roads everywhere were clogged with cars and motorcycles. Men and women darted through the traffic, risking their lives at random moments for a quick path home and Simon had to use all his evasive maneuvering skills not to further increase their already high chances of injury. Horns tooted despite a multitude of signs saying not to. Mules pulled carts along the same thoroughfares as cars. Wandering cattle provided further, unpredictable, obstacles.

  Men in Western attire and woman in saris walked the pavements in groups or alone. Many spoke on cell phones. Shop fronts opening straight onto the streets sold multitudes of colorful vegetables, postcards of famous Bollywood stars, and baskets filled with rich textured seeds and spices. Soccer balls hung from shelter roofs, grouped inside large, transparent plastic bags. Strings of flowers in layers of purple and white petals adorned the many florists.

  Wires crisscrossed above the roads. Arches with intricate Sanskrit etchings appeared at random street corners. Plaques of Hindu gods lined building walls so men wouldn’t pee on them. Families slept huddled on mats on the streets. Bright green, red and yellow buses ferried passengers in every direction. Dogs sniffed and licked at fallen scraps of food. Bicycles buzzed around each other like pollen-seeking bees. Filth filled every gutter. Garbage collected in large festering piles.

  Everything moved at a frantic pace. Everything lived for the moment.

  The only sights that were not familiar to Simon were the significant number of corpses of elderly, maimed or deformed people lining the street edges.

  Simon grimaced when he saw them but drove on into the night, regardless. He wondered if a plague had gripped the city, but wasn’t being reported. Had Shatterhand controlled all related news? Simon ignored it, for now, and focused on reacquainting himself with this demanding metropolis.

  Mumbai had been his home for several years and he had forgotten how claustrophobic, noisy, dense, vibrant and exciting it was. Mumbai, economic capital of India, crime capital, fashion capital, movie capital, innovation capital and home to twenty million people, most of whom barely eked out a living every day. This was one of the densest populations of humans anywhere on the planet, a mixing pot of many cultures, economic statuses and diverse religions.

  He was both glad and tentative about returning to a familiar territory.

  After he abandoned the motorcycle, Simon walked several blocks until he found a hotel at random, situated towards the southern end of the Mumbai peninsula. Not the Pankot Palace Hotel, that would have to wait until the morning, after he had assessed it from afar to ensure it was safe and free of unwanted surveillance. He wished he had suggested to Casey a hotel he had never stayed at, like this one, but in the tense moment on the train he had no time to think of a more discrete hotel. He’d used the Pankot Palace once or twice for meetings with Roger Gridley-Brooks back in Simon’s ASIS days. That had been the first instance the two men had met, during a business transaction to arrange private sector security and surveillance detail for a covert ASIS operation in Mumbai. During the mission the two men had become friends,
and years later, when Simon had left the service, Gridley-Brooks offered Simon a job.

  The likelihood of the human version of his former employer being in India was slim, but it was not the living man that concerned Simon. A more likely and dangerous scenario was that Shatterhand would watch the hotel amongst the thousands of other locations Simon had visited during his life, waiting for him to return to one or both of them. The AI would already know this location, with its capacity to scrutinize Simon’s banking records from his many ASIS cover identities over the years. With the entire world’s resources at Shatterhand’s command, Simon had to assume anyone could wait for Casey and him in past locations he had frequented. He could feel his paranoia levels were off the chart.

  Simon considered approaching the Pankot Palace Hotel later tonight, but he was unprepared. He also figured that if Casey had survived her fall, she was unlikely to have reached the city before him. Plus, they had agreed to meet at midday, still thirteen hours away. A probable scenario was for her to turn up sometime tomorrow, or failing that, the next day. He had the night to plan and many other tasks to complete before then.

  Once inside, Simon selected a room at random and booked it under a false name. After checking for surveillance bugs, potential exit routes should he need them, and anything else out of the ordinary, he showered and changed into the clothes he had purchased on the drive north. He locked his two handguns, two radios and most of his money into the room’s safe. Setting a PIN at random and memorizing it, he headed downstairs. He asked the concierge for the time — a little after midnight.

  He caught a taxi north to the suburb of Lower Parel, renowned for its luxury skyscraper apartments, fancy restaurants, designer pubs and upmarket office space. Once out of the taxi he passed police collecting another corpse, an elderly lady. He didn’t stop to ask questions, but it piqued his curiosity. This was a mystery he would need to explore at a later date.