by James Hunt
“We know he has already made contact with France, the UK, China, and Russia. Each communication is the same. He collects the classified documents from each intelligence agency, then uses the threat of nuclear holocaust to have those same agencies send assets into enemy territory to stir up trouble. I have my agents doing what they can to prevent any destabilizing efforts, but if things continue to escalate, we’ll have a very big problem on our hands.” Mack removed his phone, opened an app, and projected a digital display on the empty white wall to his left, setting the phone on Mallory’s desk. “Despite what you may think, my agency does have a finite amount of resources.”
“Could have fooled me,” Mallory said.
The projection was a map of the world, and it was littered with blinking red dots, all of them clustered among the nations of Russia, China, France, the UK, Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and the United States. Their commonality: a nuclear arsenal.
“The nuclear weaponry you see here is what has been activated into a RTD status, or ready to detonate.” Mack zoomed in on the clustered Russian dots in the country’s south. “From what we can gather, each of the countries has been able to keep this under wraps from their media outlets. And we don’t have any data to suggest that any of the mentioned governments are looking to push the button.”
“At least not yet.” Mallory sighed and rubbed his forehead with both hands, his voice exasperated. “This is just what we need right now.” He sprang from his chair, his mobility the only sign of his youth, which Mack found himself envying, and paced the small stretch of carpet behind his desk. “We already have three attempted military coups in the Middle East, two of them in Afghanistan and Iraq. The whole world is leaning against a fucking trip wire that could blow at any minute!” He slammed his palm into the wall, the dull thud diminishing the force behind the powerful strike. “Not to mention Runehart breathing down my neck along with his constituents who are convinced that any and all clandestine activities should be completely transparent.”
Mack had heard of the senator. His platform had riled up public interest in what their tax dollars were really doing. One more reason Mack preferred the private sector. “Transparent-clandestine operations. Bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it?”
“Tell that to the intelligence appropriations committee where Senator Runehart has suddenly found himself as the head chairman.” Mallory collapsed back into his chair, slouching.
Mack reached for his phone, and the projection disappeared as he slid the device back into his pocket. “China has already moved toward infiltration steps, which one of my agents stopped just a few minutes ago. North Korea has bolstered a few heated press conferences, but that isn’t anything new. South Korea seems content on gathering more intel on what’s happening, but that will change if we don’t find him soon. What have your people found?”
Mallory exhaled and reached into a desk drawer and removed a thin folder that he placed on the cherry oak of his desk and slid across to Mack. “We were able to track down a piece of property he had off the books. Old warehouse. The only reason we found it was because he blew the damn thing to smithereens and someone called the fire department.”
Mack examined the pictures inside. A few snapshots of the exterior had been taken, which didn’t interest him. What did were the many photos of what appeared to be a server bank, computers, and two charred corpses, all found in the building’s basement. “Who are the bodies?”
“Roman Lahftz and Mable Lahftz,” Mallory answered. “Or, as they’re more commonly referred to, the Ghost Twins.”
Mack raised an eyebrow. “I’m assuming no recoverable data?”
“No.” Mallory leaned forward then opened his arms in a pathetically helpless gesture. “And as of right now he hasn’t revealed who he is to any of the intelligence organizations he’s contacted. And I’d like to keep it that way. It wouldn’t bode well for our government if it was discovered that the deputy director of the CIA had gone off the deep end. We’re dead in the water, Mack.”
“I know.” Mack’s team could gather more information in twenty-four hours than Mallory’s entire organization could in six months. But the reason Mack had come, the only reason in fact, was the thousands of glowing red dots that had been projected on the empty white wall a few seconds ago. Never in his thirty years in intelligence or his time with the military had he seen something like this. Mallory was right to be nervous. The world was sitting on a powder keg that could blow at any minute, and one man had his finger hovering over the button. “I need everything you have on Taylor Grimes.”
***
The woods in the mountainous west side of Virginia were thick and hard to access. The nearest town was fifty miles east and the nearest accessible road was fifteen, and it looked more like a hiking trail than something a vehicle could traverse. But the location smack-dab in the middle of nowhere had been picked with a purpose. It was off grid. It was self-sustainable, at least for the timeframe he would be here. And most importantly, it was still in the United States.
The cabin was crude, erected by hand in the style of the old pioneers of the 1800s that had traveled west during the Gold Rush. The only modern advancements added to the building were the solar panels on the roof and the diesel generator that hummed low and soft on the south end of the building. Other than that, nothing could be heard except for the faint sound of birds chirping in the distance.
Inside, the cabin was one large room, sectioned off in different areas to separate the makeshift kitchen, which was nothing more than a wood-fire stove and a small fridge hooked up to the generator and fed through wires that ran from the floorboards.
While the cord feeding into the tiny fridge was small, the rest of the thick wiring to the second half of the room was connected into a long, rectangular desk stacked with a half dozen monitors, three keyboards, and three computer towers. And centered underneath the monitors was a device the size of a shoebox, with wires connecting to each computer.
It sat there unassuming, looking like nothing more than a modem that lacked antennas and blinking lights. But the thin plastic casing of the device hid a system that was more powerful than anything the world had ever seen. From this device, the world’s nuclear arsenal could be detonated by little more than a few strokes of the keyboard. This was Black Box.
And sitting in the chair, looking just as unassuming as the device on his desk, with a freshly buzzed haircut and clean-shaven face that accentuated the square jaw and Romanesque facial features, was Taylor Grimes. His fingers glided across the keyboard with the same mechanical efficiency that he’d mastered in his time with the CIA.
Betraying the agency that he poured nearly twenty years of his life into was hard at first, but Grimes had always possessed a talent for being able to compartmentalize. It was just like flipping on a light switch.
Most individuals had the ability to compartmentalize normal day-to-day things: a small lie, cheating on a test, running a red light because they were late to work. Others could even handle compartmentalizing bigger stuff like an affair, tax evasion, or dealing drugs. But compartmentalizing the deaths of millions—that was something else entirely. However, collateral damage was always a by-product in his line of work. And this time it couldn’t be helped.
Grimes rose from his chair and grabbed one of the room-temperature bottles of water stacked along the east side of the cabin. Thick rings of sweat circled his neck and underarms, darkening the blue cotton of his shirt. He drained half the bottle and wiped the sweat dripping from his face. It had been intolerably hot since he’d arrived, and he knew it was only going to get worse. But he took the pain and uncomfortable thoughts and stuffed them in a box. Just one more compartment to be locked away.
The computer monitors showcased a map of the world spread across the six screens. It was covered with red dots, just like the ones on the projection that Mack had used in Mallory’s office. He knew the two head honchos had to have met by now, and that was exactly what he wanted.
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br /> Grimes finished the rest of the bottled water, crushed it, and tossed it in the corner, where the growing pile had already reached a few inches off the floor. He returned to the chair and checked the time. It’d been nearly six hours since his last contact, and it was time to once again stir the international pot. He placed a headset on and converted the bottom center monitor to a messaging program he’d designed when he was still with the agency. He reached for a folder with the CIA department symbol emblazoned on the front, which was stamped with red “Classified” lettering. He found the needed code and entered it. The screen pulsated with audio sound waves, which flickered in time with the ringing in the headset.
“Hello?” The voice answered with a Middle Eastern accent.
“You’re probably wondering why all of your nuclear weapons are still showing as activated even though you’ve initiated the kill-switch program you installed a decade ago.” Grimes watched the audio line on his screen remain flat, with only the occasional light breath that fluttered the line to life.
“Who is this?”
“I’m the one in control of your nuclear arsenal. Right now I’m choosing not to blow you off the face of the earth. But I could grow tired of that at any moment.” A light tickle in the back of Grimes’s mind triggered a smile. He was in the driver seat now. For the first time in perhaps his entire life, he was in control of his own destiny. He was in control of everything.
“This is a secure line. If you don’t hang up now I’ll have you locked away before the day’s end.”
“Poor choice.” Grimes used the center top screen and zeroed in on the small patch of land that was the Jewish state. A few lines of code and the small red dot located five miles outside Jerusalem switched from red to green. “Thirty seconds, Director Frisch. That’s the time left until that nuke kills everything within ten square miles.” He paused, letting the seconds tick away. “If you think I’m bluffing. You can check with your team at the facility to confirm, though I’m not sure if you want to waste that much—”
“What do you want?”
Speak softly and carry a big stick, Grimes thought to himself. “I will email you a link to an online account. I want every classified document from the last twenty years of Israeli intelligence placed inside.”
“Are you insane?” The Mossad director’s tone turned vicious, the helplessness of the situation eroding whatever pride or power he had. The clock ticked below ten seconds now, and Grimes listened to the muffled shouting on the other end. “It’ll take time.”
“How long?”
“A few hours, at least.” The clock ticked below three seconds. “Please!”
With one second remaining, Grimes ended the program, and the green dot flashed back to red. “I expect you to deliver on your promise, Director Frisch. I’ll be in touch.” Grimes hung up, and the screen returned to displaying the section of the map spread across the rest of the monitors.
During the next few hours, the Israelis would be scrambling with their intelligence liaisons, most notably the CIA, trying to figure out who he was and how he had taken control of their precious nuclear program. When the CIA couldn’t provide any answers, the Israelis would give him what he wanted, divulging all of their secrets.
In the world of espionage, knowledge was the most valuable asset one could own. That was what made the GSF so powerful. But they wouldn’t retain their global title of best in show for much longer. He’d come too far to be stopped now, even by the GSF’s best, and he had more than one trick up his sleeve for their number one agent.
A crumpled piece of paper sat balled up next to Black Box, and Grimes reached for it. Slowly, he unfurled the edges, the past two years running through his mind. All of the secrets, all of the lies, all of the risks he had taken to save his country from itself because of a picture he’d found of some woman involved in the world’s largest agency of covert operations. The GSF operated under no supervision and adhered to no country’s laws or policies. It was a nation unto itself, and it had the ability to do whatever it wanted.
But Grimes could compartmentalize.
He smoothed out the picture on the desk. Hundreds of tiny fault lines ran over the paper, crinkling the image that was already permanently burned into his memory. Even before the image had been crushed by his fist, the photograph had blurred. He could barely make out her features, but he knew she always wore the same black uniform comprised of high-tech Kevlar fabric and sported those .45 Colt 1911s she loved so much. Agent Sarah Hill and the GSF were a threat to his nation’s security, and he’d spent two years trying to convince his boss to fall into his line of thinking, but the man just wouldn’t listen.
So Grimes compartmentalized.
He retreated to his earliest days of training with the CIA. It was his job to protect his nation’s interests from threats both domestic and abroad. Now armed with the most technically advanced military software in the world he was finally in a position to keep that oath.
Grimes drifted his eyes to the bottom left screen of his monitors and brought up a separate display. Dozens of bars covered the screen, each of them still green, but some of them already lowering to ninety percent. All he needed to do was make sure all of them dropped below twenty percent. But if he wanted to succeed, then he was going to have to press harder; cause more unrest, more distress in the global community. He opened the messaging system again to call Director Frisch. He had a new mission for the MOSSAD.
Chapter 3
The floor was busier than it had been all year. Every GSF field agent had been deployed to help stabilize volatile regions that had turned into unofficial war zones. And with every field agent on a mission, every support agent was busy scrambling data to make sure their missions were successful.
“Johnny, make sure you have Annie do a clean sweep of the apartment building before she leaves,” Bryce said. “And give her whatever thermal imaging she needs to do it quickly. The local militia will be rolling in there soon, and they won’t care about civilian casualties.”
“Got it. Should be less than ninety seconds until she’s out,” Johnny answered.
Bryce Milks had been all over the world this morning without leaving the comfort of his chair, and it wasn’t even noon yet. The six monitors hovering above his desk flashed images of conflicts in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the growing tensions on the India–Pakistan border. He couldn’t even remember the last time he blinked, and his eyes had grown dry and red from the nonstop surveillance. With Sarah still on her return trip from Tokyo, he had time to help out on the other missions—and pray she’d forgotten about their little bet. “Brooke, Tony has a pack of local police heading to his location in less than five. He needs to bail.”
“Shit, I got it. I got it.”
The controlled chaos of HQ was the environment Bryce thrived in. His fingers worked the keyboard like a master pianist behind the keys of a concert grand piano. The global catastrophe they were now dealing with had started when Taylor Grimes had decided to activate every nuclear weapon across the globe, putting every nuclear state on high alert. The fact that Grimes was able to do that drove Bryce insane. Because he had no idea how it was possible.
Using the GSF satellite, Bryce had the world at his fingertips. There wasn’t a computer he couldn’t hack or a terrorist he couldn’t locate hiding in his cave in the Afghan mountain ranges. But despite the technological marvel he’d created, every search and scan to locate Grimes turned into nothing but a dead end.
A call popped up in the top center screen, and Bryce quickly answered. “Hey, Boss.”
“How are we looking across the board?” Mack asked.
Bryce examined the scenes unfolding, and a light pain radiated from his left arm as his heart pounded like a jackhammer. “We’re barely able to plug the holes in the boat, and new ones keep popping up. We’re spreading ourselves incredibly thin.”
“We may have some help on that front soon.” But despite the good news, Mack’s tone didn’t suggest that
he was happy about it.
“Did Mallory give you anything?” Bryce had already sifted through every piece of digital data the CIA had on Grimes after hacking their servers. But even in the high-tech world that he thrived in, he recognized the need to keep certain documents offline, and he was sure the CIA knew that as well.
“They’re collecting what they have now. They discovered some old notes that Grimes must have left behind in his haste to exit the building. I’ve already given Grace a few things for analysis.” Mack paused. “Hill back yet?”
“She’ll be landing soon, sir.”
“The moment she does, I want both of you in my office for a conference call.”
The call ended, and Bryce leaned back in his chair to catch his breath. His eyes reflected the screens, where a set of parents with three small children sprinted away from an armored truck with a mounted machine gun in east Russia after it had been divulged that the president had embezzled billions from Russia’s citizens, and the military had been called in to handle any demonstrations in the capital. He saw a young woman in northern China trampled in a riot started by a news story that the Chinese government had performed illegal experiments on small sectors of the public without their knowledge. And on the far top right screen was a young boy, no older than four, awkwardly carrying an AK-47 as children only twice his age were drafted to overthrow the government regime in Iraq. Each news story littered with classified information. And each had been leaked by Grimes.
A folder was smacked onto the small patch of desk space between his keyboard and body. Bryce swiveled his chair to the left. Grace stood with her right hip cocked out to the side, pointing to the folder she’d just tossed in front of him. “A breakdown of the data I received from Mack.”