by Brandt Legg
“That may not be enough. If he’s learned of our timetable, we must remove anyone else connected to him.”
“Of course. It is our highest priority. All other preparations are in place, and we are sure that neither our identities, nor the details, have been compromised.”
“Do not underestimate the Americans,” Yuri said, echoing what the diplomat had said to him earlier. “If they know what city we plan to attack, they will find a way to defend it.”
Tolstoy wanted to argue with Yuri, believing she knew more of the science than he did. Her mind filled with facts and figures to refute that claim. However, she simply said, “We are less than twenty-four hours away from the event reaching the tipping point. Once we are under twelve hours until ignition, the event will become unstoppable. Even now, it would be difficult, unless they knew the method.” She tensed at the thought of the information The Astronaut had obtained.
“Tolstoy, you are good. This is why you were chosen to lead the most important undertaking in our history. It is almost done, yet do not become overconfident.”
“Blackout is my life.”
Eighteen
George Town, Grand Cayman
Chase swerved onto Shedden Road, now going in the opposite direction of the airport, to avoid the SUV.
“Stay away from Mary Street, Main, and Cardinal,” Wen said while trying to get a shot lined up out the window. “That’s where all the police were.”
He swung a right on Harbour Street—the road was closed the other way.
“Why aren’t you shooting?”
“I’m not going to fire until I know I’ll kill someone. We don’t need more police attention.”
Now on North Church Street, Chase had an idea. As spray from the high surf hit the road, Chase veered to the right inland lane and slowed.
“What are you doing?” Wen yelled. “They’re going to catch us!”
Chase maintained enough speed so the shadow people would hopefully still believe he was trying to get away.
“Never question a professional race car driver while he’s driving,” Chase said.
“I’m serious. Here they come!”
Chase checked the road ahead and played with the accelerator to get just where he wanted to be. “Get ready to shoot!”
Wen dove into the backseat so she could fire from the driver’s side. As soon as they were halfway parallel with the car, Chase tapped the brakes, causing the shadow people to be directly beside them sooner than they expected. Chase wrenched the wheel left hard, making the car slam into the SUV, sending it across the oncoming lanes. The driver overcorrected, and the SUV careened off the road, rolling down the large breaker rocks and into the crashing waves.
“Wow,” Wen said, impressed. “You really are a good driver.”
“Good?”
“Really good.”
“Great,” Chase corrected.
“Maybe great.”
Chase laughed. He took a right on Eastern and headed back to the airport.
“Four unaccounted for,” Wen said as their private jet took off.
“The police probably got them,” Chase said, knowing how badly Wen wanted to question the shadow people.
She nodded. “I tried to contact The Astronaut to send him the data we got from the attack, but he still hasn’t responded.”
“Maybe he’s having a late lunch. You know he doesn’t like to be disturbed while he’s eating.”
“Does he eat?” she asked lightly. However, she was worried.
Chase saw the concern on her face. He was a little worried, too. “When did you last talk to him?”
“Two days ago. He was agitated. You know how he gets when he’s consumed by a project. He doesn’t like to talk to people.”
“Yeah, seems as though talking is difficult for him.”
“That’s how he is.”
“Then that’s why,” Chase said. “I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon.”
Washington DC
“What do we have here?” Popov asked the computer as she flipped through the windows, each showing a seemingly bigger revelation than the last. “It all seems to fit with the fallen Astronaut.”
The news of The Astronaut’s death was like a bittersweet conclusion of the first chapter of a very scary book. Popov had twice worked with him. Once a few years earlier when she gained his trust, and again, more recently, when she’d cashed in that trust.
He was a nice man, she thought. But the world is filled with nice people. Although she ultimately believed that didn’t matter. “The world is only one thing,” she once told one of her comrades. “It is a game. Good people and bad people are irrelevant. It comes down to only winners and losers.”
“You really believe that?” the cynical operative, who only hours before had executed a good man, asked.
“Yes.”
“God, you are a cold woman.”
“There is no God,” she said, smiling. “There is no do over. One life. That’s it. Precious few years to play the game. That is the point of living.”
“I thought the point of life was being loyal to the party?”
“My father believed in communism. Thought he was doing the right thing. He bought excuses of the leadership who told him the only reason Communism was not working in the Soviet Union was because the West, especially America, selfishly consumed more than their share.”
“That’s true,” he said. “Have you been to a Walmart?”
“It’s not true,” she snapped. “I know better.”
“Educate me,” he teased, used to her rants.
“There have to be two sides. Winners and losers. It is all a game. Those winners make people believe there are good guys and bad guys, but there really aren’t. It is circumstances that are made to appear good or bad. Circumstances make the man, dictate what he does. If you can manipulate the circumstances enough, you can bend the will of all the people in the world.”
“Is that the prize?” he asked, sipping black coffee. “To make other people do what you want?”
She shook her head. “It is only the means to the end.”
“What is the end?” he asked as she looked at the screen, scouring recent emails, dissecting the final needs in preparation for Blackout, hitting send on an encrypted message that would have key people evacuate the Russian embassy.
“The prize?” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Only the winner gets to find out what it is.”
Nineteen
San Francisco, California - April 2nd - 1:02 pm Pacific Time
Chris and Sanvay were colleagues at Stanford. They also had high-level clearances for their experimental work with lasers. Their research and patents had been utilized by several major defense contractors, as well as DARPA. They had taken a long lunch at their favorite Thai place because they planned on working into the evening.
Their discussions at lunch had been about the breakthrough they were close to cracking—a series of complex advancements with optics and photons. These scientific developments were at molecular levels, down to the most elemental points.
“We’re there,” Sanvay said, his Indian accent still heavy, as they walked out to the car. “The 3D photonic crystal lattice structure . . . ”
“The improvements allow containment to streamline the application,” Chris said, speaking of laser light the way a chef might talk about a new way to prepare steak.
Sanvay had driven. As the two colleagues approached their vehicle in the parking lot, a different pair of men approached. One of them smiled, asking, “Hey, that’s the new Tesla, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sanvay said proudly, used to people occasionally wanting to take a look at it.
“Wow, how’s the range?”
“Five hundred miles,” Sanvay replied.
“Amazing,” the man said excitedly. “Can I see the inside?”
Sanvay looked at Chris. “Sorry, man,” Chris responded. “I don’t think so. We’re in quite a bit of a hurry to get back t
o work.”
“Sure,” the man said, dejected. “But as luck would have it, we’re also on our way to Stanford, so we’d appreciate if maybe you’d give us a ride.”
Sanvay and Chris exchanged another nervous glance, clearly alarmed that the two men knew where they worked.
“I’m sorry,” Chris said. “Did we say where we were going?”
“No need,” the man said, no longer smiling. “Dr. Christopher Matthews, we know all about you and Dr. Sanvay Khatri.” He motioned to Sanvay. “We’re big fans.” He smiled again, flashing a gun. “Really, I insist that you give us a ride.”
The two scientists, so good at thinking about theoretical physics and molecular science, had no idea what to do in this situation. Before they realized what was happening, the doors opened and they were shoved inside. One man got in next to Sanvay in the front, the other sat beside Chris in the backseat.
“Sorry to be more of a hassle,” the one in front began. “I know you’re late for work, but we need to make one stop before we get back to Stanford. Take a right up here instead.”
“What’s this about?” Sanvay asked, suspecting this wasn’t a regular carjacking. It was almost certainly related to their breakthrough.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” the man replied. “We work for some very important and friendly people who simply wish to ask you some questions.”
“About what?”
“I don’t really know, I’m not that smart.”
He continued giving Sanvay directions. After a couple miles, Sanvay decided that this wasn’t going to end well, and began trying to figure the best way to jump out of the car at an intersection. However, his plans fell apart when he saw Chris in the rearview mirror. His co-worker was slumped over, apparently unconscious.
“What happened to him?” he asked, now even more scared.
“Don’t worry. Your friend was stressed out. We just gave him a sedative,” the man in the back replied.
“This way we can both concentrate on you,” the one in the front said. “We want to make sure you follow through. Don’t do anything that would spoil our upcoming meeting. Understand?’
“Yes.”
“Good. Almost there. Turn here.”
“The people you want me to talk to are here?”
“That’s right.”
As soon as Sanvay pulled into a parking space behind what appeared to be a small, abandoned warehouse, he realized this was the end.
“A strange place for meeting.”
“Not really,” the man said, injecting something into his arm.
“Why are . . . ” Sanvay started to say, but instead, everything went blurry. His words slurred and he quickly blacked out.
The two abductors poured fifths of whiskey down the throats of their victims, then moved Chris into the front passenger seat, and lowered all the windows.
One of them pulled out a special control box connected to a mobile device, while the other sprinkled the remaining alcohol over Sanvay’s clothes, just in case they didn’t make it to the water.
After adjusting the interior controls, the man used the special box they’d brought to hack into the vehicle’s Autopilot system. The advanced suite of features was fed by cameras, ultrasonic sensors, and radar. The program utilizes all the data and deep learning to provide a semi-autonomous driving mode, but the hack allowed full self-driving.
“It’s like a video game,” the man said as he maneuvered the Tesla remotely. “Watch this.” The car sped off the parking lot, across a narrow strip of grass, and then flew over a steep ravine, crashing nearly forty feet into the bay below.
The pair jogged to the edge and watched as the car floated for a few minutes. “Don’t worry, it will sink.”
Finally, the murky water closed around the sinking steel until nothing of the shiny red Tesla remained visible. They glanced around, satisfied that no one had witnessed the crash, knowing it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Sanvay and Chris would be drowned before any help could arrive.
Walking back to a second vehicle, which they had parked there a few hours earlier, one of them dialed a number on a burner phone that would be destroyed after the call.
“Yes?” Tolstoy answered.
“Stanford complete.”
“Both?”
“Correct.”
“Good,” Tolstoy said. “Return.”
“Yes, understood.”
Tolstoy ended the call, then checked two more names off the list.
Twenty
CISS Headquarters, Vienna, Virginia - April 2nd - 4:19 pm - Eastern Time
Tess rushed into CISS Mission Control like a woman late for a meeting, because she was.
The lowest below-ground level of the secret CISS headquarters in Vienna, Virginia, which fronted as an insurance company, was filled with wall-sized monitors and computer terminals, making it look like a futuristic version of NASA’s Mission Control—thus the name. After a quick check of the screens, populated with crisis points around the globe, which CISS was keeping track of and involved in, she dashed back out into the hall.
Tess’s deputy, Linda, walked up behind her. “You’re back?”
“Yes.”
Linda tapped the touchscreen of her tablet. She knew Tess was aware that she was late for the last-minute meeting, so she didn’t remind her. “They’re waiting for you in conference room three.”
“You should join us.”
“Okay,” Linda said. “While we’re walking, can you tell me what we’re going to do about Jie Shi, since you pulled almost everyone off the case.” Before the laser space weapons revelations, Jie Shi had been the top priority of CISS during the prior weeks. “We can’t just drop her?”
“We’re going to punt it over to the FBI with a CIA oversight,” Tess said. “That’s what this meeting is about.”
Waiting, seemingly patiently, was an FBI agent and a CIA official. “Everyone knows each other, and my attention is needed elsewhere,” Tess began, “so let’s get into this quickly. Linda, please bring them up to speed on Jie Shi.”
“Jie Shi, a Chinese national, went to college in California and then attended grad school in New York.”
“That in and of itself isn’t a crime,” the FBI man said.
Tess frowned.
“No,” Linda said. “However, along the way she’s made some interesting friends.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Hal Condit, Executive Vice President, Silverton Dynamics.”
“Never heard of him.”
“But you know of Silverton Dynamics?” Linda clarified.
“Yes, of course. Major US tech company. Communications, robotics.”
“Yes. Apparently Jie Shi is having an affair with the married Mr. Condit.”
“Not what I’d like,” the FBI man said, “but why is this a big problem?”
“Ever hear of PredCon Technologies?”
“No.”
Linda looked at the CIA man.
“Me neither,” he said, shrugging.
“Not many people outside of Silicon Valley have, but PredCon is a red hot start-up, a unicorn.”
They stared at her blankly.
“‘Unicorn’ is a term venture capitalist use to describe a privately held company with a valuation in excess of $1 billion,” Linda explained. “In this case, PredCon’s most recent fundraising round put its value at $12 billion.”
“And this connects to Jie Shi how?” the FBI man asked.
“She is also dating the CEO of PredCon.”
“At the same time she’s seeing the Silverton VP?” the CIA man said.
Linda nodded.
“Girl gets around,” the FBI man quipped.
“Turns out PredCon has an impressive portfolio of patents, and they’ve accumulated an equally exciting pool of talent.”
“And the FBI can’t handle this alone because?”
“There’s more.”
“I assumed so.”
“It seems Jie Shi is
also having an affair with the governor of a rather populous state.”
The FBI man groaned.
“Yes. The esteemed governor of New York is a member of the Jie Shi party.”
“Now it’s getting interesting,” the CIA man said.
“Particularly when the governor is a rumored presidential candidate,” Linda added.
“I believe you can remove the rumor. I don’t think there’s any question he’s running in the next cycle.”
“And there’s one last wrinkle. Jie Shi has also been linked with Congressman Caldwell.”
The CIA man raised his eyebrows. “Another presidential candidate.”
“You begin to see the problem,” Linda stated. “The fact that she’s seeing all four of these men at the same time?”
“Yes. Wow,” the FBI man said. “Why hasn’t she been picked up or deported yet?”
“That’s where it gets complicated,” Tess said.
“I bet it does!” the CIA man said. “Having known you for so long, Tess, I can only imagine your motives for not yet pulling in this little honey trap.”
Tess smiled. “We believe she’s also involved with as many as three other prominent men.”
“We have not yet ascertained their identities,” Linda added. “We’d prefer to find out who the others are.”
“Could be me,” the FBI man joked. “Or the president. She seems quite proficient.”
“Doubt it’s you,” the CIA man deadpanned. “She only seems to go for men with power.”
“Gentlemen, please,” Tess said, clearly annoyed by the continued banter from her colleagues. “We believe Jie Shi is one of potentially hundreds of young, highly educated, well-trained Chinese women working at the behest of the MSS to either compromise these men, blackmail and expose them, control, use, debrief, whatever. They’re utilizing their natural ‘assets’ and any means necessary to learn secrets and gain influence over them.”